prepare the way to the coming of our Blessed Lord he preached Repentance and baptized all that professed they did repent He taught the Jews to live good lives and baptized with the Baptism of a Prophet such as was not unusually done by extraordinary and holy persons in the change or renewing of Discipline or Religion Whether 〈◊〉 's Baptism was from heaven or os men Christ asked the Pharisees That it was from heaven the people therefore believed because he was a Prophet and a holy person but it implies also that such Baptisms are sometimes from men that is used by 〈◊〉 of an eminent Religion or extraordinary fame for the gathering of Disciples and admitting Proselytes and the Disciples of Christ did so too even before Christ had instituted the Sacrament for the Christian Church the Disciples that came to Christ were baptized by his Apostles 10. And now we are come to the gates of Baptism All these till John were but Types and preparatory Baptisms and John's Baptism was but the prologue to the Baptism of Christ. The Jewish Baptisms admitted Proselytes to Moses and to the Law of Ceremonies John's Baptism called them to 〈◊〉 in the Messias now appearing and to repent of their sins to enter into the Kingdom which was now at 〈◊〉 and preached that Repentance which should be for the 〈◊〉 os 〈◊〉 His Baptism remitted no sins but preached and consigned Repentance which in the belief of the 〈◊〉 whom he pointed to should pardon sins But because he was taken from his Office before the work was completed the Disciples of Christ 〈◊〉 it They went forth preaching the same Sermon of Repentance and the approach of the Kingdom and baptized or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Disciples as John did only they as it is probable baptized in the Name of Jesus which it is not so likely John did And this very thing might be the cause of the different forms of Baptism recorded in the Acts of baptizing in the Name of 〈◊〉 and at other times In the 〈◊〉 of the Father Son and 〈◊〉 Ghost the sormer being the manner of doing it in pursuance of the design of John's Baptism and the latter the form of Institution by Christ for the whole Christian Church appointed after his Resurrection the Disciples at first using promiscuously what was used by the same Authority though with some difference of Mystery 11. The Holy Jesus having found his way ready prepared by the Preaching of 〈◊〉 and by his Baptism and the 〈◊〉 manner of adopting Proselytes and Disciples into the Religion a way chalked out for him to initiate Disciples into his Religion took what was so prepared and changed it into a perpetual Sacrament He kept the Ceremony that they who were led only by outward things might be the better called in and easier enticed into the Religion when they entred by a Ceremony which their Nation always used in the like cases and therefore without change of the outward act he put into it a new spirit and gave it a new grace and a proper efficacy he sublimed it to higher ends and adorned it with Stars of Heaven he made it to signific greater Mysteries to convey greater Blessings to consign the bigger Promises to cleanse deeper than the skin and to carry Proselytes farther than the gates of the Institution For so he was pleased to do in the other Sacrament he took the Ceremony which he found ready in the Custom of the Jews where the Major-domo after the Paschal Supper gave Bread and Wine to every person of his family he changed nothing of it without but transferred the Rite to greater Mysteries and put his own Spirit to their Sign and it became a Sacrament Evangelical It was so also in the matter of Excommunication where the Jewish practice was made to pass into Christian discipline without violence and noise old things became new while he fulfilled the Law making it up in full measures of the Spirit 12. By these steps Baptism passed on to a Divine Evangelical institution which we find to be consigned by three Evangelists Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost It was one of the last Commandments the Holy Jesus gave upon the earth when he taught his Apostles the things which concerned his Kingdom For he that believes and is baptized shall be saved but 〈◊〉 a man be born of Water and the Holy Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven agreeable to the decretory words of God by Abraham in the Circumcision to which Baptism does succeed in the consignation of the same Covenant and the same Spiritual Promises The uncircumcised child whose flesh is not circumcised that soul shall be cut off from his people he hath broken my Covenant The Manichees Selencas Hermias and their followers people of a day's abode and small interest but of malicious doctrine taught Baptism not to be necessary not to be used upon this ground because they supposed that it was proper to John to baptize with water and reserved for Christ as his peculiar to baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire Indeed Christ baptized none otherwise he sent his Spirit upon the Church in Pentecost and baptized them with fire the Spirit appearing like a flame but he appointed his Apostles to baptize with water and they did so and their successors after them every-where and for ever not expounding but obeying the preceptive words of their Lord which were almost the last that he spake upon earth And I cannot think it needful to prove this to be necessary by any more Arguments for the words are so plain that they need no exposition and yet if they had been obscure the universal practice of the Apostles and the Church for ever is a sufficient declaration of the Commandment No Tradition is more universal no not of Scripture it self no words are plainer no not the Ten Commandments and if any suspicion can be superinduced by any jealous or less discerning person it will need no other refutation but to turn his eyes to those lights by which himself fees Scripture to be the Word of God and the Commandments to be the declaration of his Will 13. But that which will be of greatest concernment in this affair is to consider the great benefits are conveyed to us in this Sacrament for this will highly conclude that the Precept was 〈◊〉 ever which God so seconds with his grace and mighty blessings and the susception of it necessary because we cannot be without those excellent things which are the Graces of the Sacrament 14. First The first fruit is That in Baptism we are admitted to the Kingdom of Christ presented unto him consigned with his Sacrament enter into his Militia give up our Understandings and our choice to the obedience of Christ and in all senses that we can become his Disciples witnessing a good
is indeed presumed so but it was instituted to be a Seal of a Covenant between God and Abraham and Abraham's posterity a seal of the righteousness of Faith and therefore was not improper for him to suffer who was the child of Abraham and who was the Prince of the Covenant and the author and finisher of that Faith which was consigned to 〈◊〉 in Circumcision But so mysterious were all the actions of Jesus that this one served many ends For 1. It gave demonstration of the verity of Humane nature 2. So he began to fulfil the Law 3. And took from himself the scandal of Uncircumcision which would eternally have prejudiced the Jews against his entertainment and communion 4. And then he took upon him that Name which declared him to be the Saviour of the World which as it was consummate in the bloud of the Cross so was it inaugurated in the bloud of Circumcision For when the eight days were accomplished for circumcising of the Child his name was called JESUS 3. But this holy Family who had laid up their joys in the eyes and heart of God longed till they might be permitted an address to the Temple that there they might present the Holy Babe unto his Father and indeed that he who had no other might be brought to his own house For although while he was a child he did differ nothing from a servant yet he was the Lord of the place It was his Father's house and he was the Lord of all and therefore when the days of the Purification were accomplished they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord to whom he was holy as being the first-born the first-born of his Mother the only-begotten son of his Father and the first-born of every creature And they did with him according to the Law of Moses offering a pair of Turtle-doves for his redemption 4. But there was no publick act about this Holy Child but it was attended by something miraculous and extraordinary And at this instant the Spirit of God directed a holy person into the Temple that he might feel the fulfilling of a Prophecy made to himself that he might before his death behold the Lord 's CHRIST and imbrace the glory and consolation of Israel and the light of the Gentiles in his arms for old Simeon came by the Spirit into the Temple and when the Parents brought in the Child Jesus then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and prophesied and spake glorious things of that Child and things sad and glorious concerning his Mother that the Child was set for the rising and falling of many in Israel for a sign that should be spoken against and the bitterness of that contradiction should pierce the heart of the holy Virgin-Mother like a Sword that her joy at the present accidents might be attempered with present revelation of her future trouble and the excellent favour of being the Mother of God might be crowned with the reward of Martyrdom and a Mother's love be raised up to an excellency great enough to make her suffer the bitterness of being transfixed with his love and sorrow as with a Sword 5. But old Anna the Prophetess came also in full of years and joy and found the reward of her long prayers and fasting in the Temple the long-looked-for redemption of Israel was now in the Temple and she saw with her eyes the Light of the World the Heir of Heaven the long-looked-for Messias whom the Nations had desired and expected till their hearts were faint and their eyes dim with looking farther and apprehending greater distances She also prophesied and gave thanks unto the Lord. But Joseph and his Mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him Ad SECT V. Considerations upon the Circumcision of the Holy Child JESVS 1. WHen eight days were come the Holy Jesus was circumcised and shed the first-fruits of his Bloud offering them to God like the prelibation of a Sacrifice and earnest of the great seas of effusion designed for his Passion not for the expiation of any stain himself had contracted for he was spotless as the face of the Sun and had contracted no wrinkle from the aged and polluted brow of Adam but it was an act of Obedience and yet of Choice and voluntary susception to which no obligation had passed upon him in the condition of his own person For as he was included in the vierge of Abraham's posterity and had put on the common outside of his Nation his Parents had intimation enough to pass upon him the Sacrament of the National Covenant and it became an act of excellent Obedience but because he was a person extraordinary and exempt from the reasons of Circumcision and himself in person was to give period to the Rite therefore it was an act of Choice in him and in both the capacities becomes a precedent of Duty to us in the first of Obedience in the second of Humility 2. But it is considerable that the Holy Jesus who might have pleaded his exemption especially in a matter of pain and dishonour yet chose that way which was more severe and regular so teaching us to be strict in our duties and sparing in the rights of priviledge and dispensation We pretend every indisposition of body to excuse us from penal duties from Fasting From going to Church and instantly we satisfie our selves with saying God will have mercy and not sacrifice so making our selves Judges of our own privileges in which commonly we are parties against God and therefore likely to pass unequal sentence It is not an easie argument that will bring us to the severities and rigours of Duty but we snatch at occasions of dispensation and therefore possibly may mistake the justice of the opportunities by the importunities of our desires However if this too much easiness be in any case excusable from sin yet in all cases it is an argument of infirmity and the regular observation of the Commandment is the surer way to Perfection For not every inconvenience of body is fit to be pleaded against the inconvenience of losing spiritual advantages but only such which upon prudent account does intrench upon the Laws of Charity or such whose consequent is likely to be impediment of a duty in a greater degree of loss than the present omission For the Spirit being in many perfections more eminent than the Body all spiritual improvements have the same proportions so that if we were just estimators of things it ought not to be less than a great incommodity to the Body which we mean to prevent by the loss of a spiritual benefit or the omission of a Duty he were very improvident who would lose a Finger for the good husbandry of saving a Ducat and it would be an unhandsome excuse from the duties of Repentance to pretend care of the Body The proportions and degrees of this are so nice and of so difficult determination that men are more apt to
destroys not the love of God for although it may lessen the habit yet it takes not away its natural being nor interrupts its acceptation lest all the world should in all instants of time be in a damnable condition yet when these smaller obliquities are repeated and no repentance intervenes this repetition combines and unites the lesser till they be concentred and by their accumulation make a crime and therefore a careless reiterating and an incurious walking in mis-becoming actions is deadly and damnable in the return though it was not so much at the setting forth Every idle word is to be accounted for but we hope in much mercy and yet he that gives himself over to immoderate talking will swell his account to a vast and mountainous proportion and call all the lesser escapes into a stricter judgment He that extends his Recreation an hour beyond the limits of Christian prudence and the analogie of its severity and imployment is accountable to God for that improvidence and waste of Time but he that shall mis-spend a day and because that sin is not scandalous like Adultery or clamorous like Oppression or unusual like Bestiality or crying for revenge like detaining the portion of Orphans shall therefore mis-spend another day without revocation of the first by an act of repentance and redemption of it and then shall throw away a week still adding to the former account upon the first stock will at last be answerable for a habit of Idleness and will have contracted a vain and impertinent spirit For since things which in their own kind are lawful become sinful by the degree if the degree be heightned by intention or become great like a heap of sand by a coacervation of the innumerable atoms of dust the actions are as damnable as any of the natural daughters and productions of Hell when they are entertained without scruple and renewed without repentance and continued without dereliction 14. Thirdly Although some inadvertencies of our life and lesser disobediences accidentally become less hurtful and because they are entailed upon the infirmities of a good man and the less wary customes and circumstances of society are also consistent with the state of Grace yet all affection to the smallest sins becomes deadly and damnable He that loves his danger shall perish in it saith the Wise man and every friendly entertainment of an undecency invites in a greater Crime for no man can love a small sin but there are in the greater crimes of its kind more desirable flatteries and more satisfactions of sensuality than in those suckers and sprigs of sin At first a little Disobedience is proportionable to a man's temper and his Conscience is not fitted to the bulk of a rude Crime but when a man hath accepted the first insinuation of delight and swallowed it that little sin is past and needs no more to dispute for entrance then the next design puts in and stands in the same probability to succeed the first and greater than the first had to make the entry However to love any thing that God hates is direct enmity with him and whatsoever the Instance be it is absolutely inconsistent with Charity and therefore incompetent with the state of Grace So that if the sin be small it is not a small thing that thou hast given thy love to it every such person perishes like a Fool cheaply and ingloriously 15. Fourthly But it also concerns the niceness and prudence of Obedience to God to stand at farther distance from a Vice than we usually attend to For many times Vertue and Vice differ but one degree and the neighbourhood is so dangerous that he who desires to secure his Obedience and Duty to God will remove farther from the danger For there is a rule of Justice to which if one degree more of severity be added it degenerates into Cruelty and a little more Mercy is Remissness and want of discipline introduces licentiousness and becomes unmercifulness as to the publick and unjust as to the particular Now this Consideration is heightned if we observe that Vertue and Vice consist not in an indivisible point but there is a latitude for either which is not to be judged by any certain rules drawn from the nature of the thing but to be estimated in proportion to the persons and other accidental Circumstances He that is burthened with a great charge for whom he is bound under a Curse and the crime of Infidelity to provide may go farther in the acquisition and be more provident in the use of his mony than those persons for whom God hath made more ample provisions and hath charged them with fewer burthens and engagements oeconomical And yet no man can say that just beyond such a degree of Care stands Covetousness and thus far on this side is Carelesness and a man may be in the confines of death before he be aware Now the only way to secure our Obedience and duty in such cases is to remove farther off and not to dwell upon the confines of the enemies Countrey My meaning is that it is not prudent nor safe for a man to do whatsoever he lawfully may do 16. For besides that we are often mistaken in our judgments concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of actions he that will do all that he thinks he may lawfully do if ever he does change his station and increase in giving himself liberty will quickly arrive at doing things unlawful It is good to keep a reserve of our liberty and to restrain our selves within bounds narrower than the largest sense of the Commandment that when our affections wander and enlarge themselves as sometime or other they will do then they may enlarge beyond the ordinary and yet be within the bounds of lawfulness That of which men make a scruple and a question at first after an habitual resolution of it stirs no more but then their question is of something beyond it When a man hath accustomed himself to pray seven times a day it will a little trouble his peace if he omits one or two of those times but if it be resolved then that he may please God with praying devoutly though but thrice every day after he hath digested the scruples of this first question possibly some accidents may happen that will put his Conscience and Reason to dispute whether three times be indispensably necessary and still if he be far within the bounds of lawfulness 't is well but if he be at the margent of it his next remove may be into dissolution and unlawfulness He that resolves to gain all that he may lawfully this year it is odds but next year he will be tempted to gain something unlawfully He that because a man may be innocently angry will never restrain his passion in a little time will be intemperate in his anger and mistake both his object and the degree Thus facetiousness and urbanity entertained with an open hand will turn into jestings
condition and the greatest instance of their infelicity whom the Church upon sufficient reason and with competent authority delivers over to Satan by the infliction of the greater Excommunication 8. As soon as it was permitted to the Devil to tempt our Lord he like fire had no power to suspend his act but was as entirely determined by the fulness of his malice as a natural agent by the appetites of nature that we may know to whom we owe the happinesses of all those hours and days of peace in which we sit under the trees of Paradise and see no serpent encircling the branches and presenting us with fair fruit to ruine us It is the mercy of God we have the quietness of a minute for if the Devil's chain were taken off he would make our very beds a torment our tables to be a snare our sleeps phantastick lustful and illusive and every sense should have an object of delight and danger an Hyaena to kiss and to perish in its embraces But the Holy Jesus having been assaulted by the Devil and felt his malice by the experiments of Humanity is become so merciful a high Priest and so sensible of our sufferings and danger by the apprehensions of compassion that he hath put a hook into the nostrils of Leviathan and although the reliques of seven Nations be in our borders and fringes of our Countrey yet we live as safe as did the Israelites upon whom sometimes an inroad and invasion was made and sometimes they had rest forty years and when the storm came some remedy was found out by his grace by whose permission the tempest was stirred up and we find many persons who in seven years meet not with a violent temptation to a crime but their battels are against impediments and retardations of improvement their own rights are not directly questioned but the Devil and Sin are wholly upon the defensive Our duty here is an act of affection to God making returns of thanks for the protection and of duty to secure and continue the favour 9. But the design of the Holy Ghost being to expose Jesus to the Temptation he arms himself with Fasting and Prayer and Baptism and the Holy Spirit against the day of battel he continues in the Wilderness forty days and sorty nights without meat or drink attending to the immediate addresses and colloquies with God not suffering the interruption of meals but representing his own and the necessities of all mankind with such affections and instances of spirit love and wisdom as might express the excellency of his person and promote the work of our Redemption his conversation being in this interval but a resemblance of Angelical perfection and his Fasts not an instrument of Mortification for he needed none he had contracted no stain from his own nor his Parents acts neither do we find that he was at all hungry or asslicted with his 〈◊〉 till after the expiration of forty days He was afterwards an hungry said the Evangelist and his abstinence from meat might be a defecation of his faculties and an opportunity of Prayer but we are not sure it intended any thing else but it may concern the prudence of Religion to snatch at this occasion of duty so far as the instance is imitable and in all violences of Temptation to fast and pray Prayer being a rare antidote against the poison and Fasting a convenient disposition to intense actual and undisturbed Prayer And we may remember also that we have been baptized and consign'd with the Spirit of God and have received the adoption of Sons and the graces of Sanctification in our Baptisms and had then the seed of God put into us and then we put on Christ and entring into battel put on the whole armour of Righteousness and therefore we may by observing our strength gather also our duty and greatest obligation to fight manfully that we may triumph gloriously 10. The Devil 's first Temptation of Christ was upon the instances and first necessities of Nature Christ was hungry and the Devil invited him to break his fast upon the expence of a Miracle by turning the stones into bread But the answer Jesus made was such as taught us since the ordinary Providence of God is sufficient for our provision or support extraordinary ways of satisfying necessities are not to be undertaken but God must be relied upon his time attended his manner entertained and his measure thankfully received Jesus refused to be relieved and denied to manifest the Divinity of his Person rather than he would do an act which had in it the intimation of a diffident spirit or might be expounded a disreputation to God's Providence And therefore it is an improvident care and impious security to take evil courses and use vile instruments to furnish our Table and provide for our necessities God will certainly give us bread and till he does we can live by the breath of his mouth by the Word of God by the light of his countenance by the refreshment of his Promises for if God gives not provisions into our granaries he can feed us out of his own that is 〈◊〉 of the repositories of Charity If the flesh-pots be removed he can also alter the appetite and when our stock is 〈◊〉 he can also lessen the necessity or if that continues he can drown the sense of it in a deluge of patience and resignation Every word of God's mouth can create a Grace and every Grace can supply two necessities both of the body and the spirit by the comforts of this to support that that they may bear each others burthen and alleviate the pressure 11. But the Devil is always prompting us to change our Stones into Bread our sadnesses into sensual comfort our drinesses into inundations of fancy and exteriour sweetnesses for he knows that the ascetick Tables of Mortification and the stones of the Desart are more healthful than the fulnesses of voluptuousness and the corn of the valleys He cannot endure we should live a life of Austerity or Self-denial if he can get us but to satisfie our Senses and a little more freely to please our natural desires he then hath a fair Field for the Battel but so long as we force him to fight in hedges and morasses encircling and crowding up his strengths into disadvantages by our stone-walls our hardnesses of Discipline and rudenesses of Mortification we can with more facilities repell his flatteries and receive fewer incommodities of spirit But thus the Devil will abuse us by the impotency of our natural desires and therefore let us go to God for satisfaction of our wishes God can and does when it is good for us change our stones into bread for he is a Father so merciful that if we ask him a Fish he will not give us a Scorpion if we ask him bread he will not offer us a stone but will satisfie all our desires by ministrations of the Spirit making stones to become our
a sesterce was the loss of a moral 〈◊〉 and every gaining of a talent was an action glorious and heroical But Poverty of spirit accounts Riches to be the servants of God first and then of our selves being sent by God and to return when he pleases and all the while they are with us to do his business It is a looking upon riches and things of the earth as they do who look upon it from Heaven to whom it appears little and unprofitable And because the residence of this blessed Poverty is in the mind it follows that it be here understood that all that exinanition and renunciation abjection and humility of mind which depauperates the spirit making it less worldly and more spiritual is the duty here enjoyned For if a man throws away his gold as did Crates the Theban or the proud Philosopher Diogenes and yet leaves a spirit high aiery phantastical and vain pleasing himself and with complacency reflecting upon his own act his Poverty is but a circumstance of Pride and the opportunity of an imaginary and a secular greatness Ananias and Sapphira renounced the world by selling their possessions but because they were not poor in spirit but still retained the affections to the world therefore they kept back part of the price and lost their hopes The Church of Laodicea was possessed with a spirit of Pride and flattered themselves in imaginary riches they were not poor in spirit but they were poor in possession and condition These wanted Humility the other wanted a generous contempt of worldly things and both were destitute of this Grace 5. The acts of this Grace are 1. To cast off all inordinate affection to Riches 2. In heart and spirit that is preparation of mind to quit the possession of all Riches and actually so to do when God requires it that is when the retaining Riches loses a Vertue 3. To be well pleased with the whole oeconomy of God his providence and dispensation of all things being contented in all estates 4. To imploy that wealth God hath given us in actions of Justice and Religion 5. To be thankful to God in all temporal losses 6. Not to distrust God or to be solicitous and fearful of want in the future 7. To put off the spirit of vanity pride and phantastick complacency in our selves thinking lowly or meanly of whatsoever we are or do 8. To prefer others before our selves doing honour and prelation to them and either contentedly receiving affronts done to us or modestly undervaluing our selves 9. Not to praise our selves but when God's glory and the edification of our neighbour is concerned in it nor willingly to hear others praise us 10. To despoil our selves of all interiour propriety denying our own will in all instances of subordination to our Superiours and our own judgment in matters of difficulty and question permitting our selves and our affairs to the advice of wiser men and the decision of those who are trusted with the cure of our Souls 11. Emptying our selves of our selves and throwing our selves wholly upon God relying upon his Providence trusting his Promises craving his Grace and depending upon his strength for all our actions and deliverances and duties 6. The reward promised is the Kingdome of Heaven Fear not little Flock it is your Father's pleasure to give you a Kingdom To be little in our own eyes is to be great in God's the Poverty of the spirit shall be rewarded with the Riches of the Kingdoms of both Kingdoms that of Heaven is expressed Poverty is the high-way of Eternity But therefore the Kingdom of Grace is taken in the way the way to our Countrey and it being the forerunner of glory and nothing else but an antedated Eternity is part of the reward as well as of our duty And therefore whatsoever is signified by Kingdome in the appropriate Evangelical sense is there intended as a recompence For the Kingdom of the Gospel is a congregation and society of Christ's poor of his little ones they are the Communion of Saints and their present entertainment is knowledge of the truth remission of sins the gift of the Holy Ghost and what else in Scripture is signified to be a part or grace or condition of the Kingdom For to the poor the Gospel is preached that is to the poor the Kingdome is promised and ministred 7. Secondly Blessed are they that Mourn for they shall be comforted This duty of Christian mourning is commanded not for it self but in order to many good ends It is in order to Patience Tribulation worketh Patience and therefore we glory in them saith S. Paul and S. James My brethren count it all joy when ye enter into divers temptations Knowing that the trial of your faith viz. by afflictions worketh Patience 2. It is in order to Repentance Godly sorrow worketh Repentance By consequence it is in order to Pardon for a contrite heart God will not reject And after all this it leads to Joy And therefore S. James preached a Homily of Sorrow Be afflicted and mourn and weep that is in penitential mourning for he adds Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up The acts of this duty are 1. To bewail our own sins 2. To lament our infirmities as they are principles of sin and recessions from our first state 3. To weep for our own evils and sad accidents as they are issues of the Divine anger 4. To be sad for the miseries and calamities of the Church or of any member of it and indeed to weep with every one that weeps that is not to rejoyce in his evil but to be compassionate and pitiful and apt to bear another's burthen 5. To avoid all loose and immoderate laughter all dissolution of spirit and manners uncomely jestings free revellings carnivals and balls which are the perdition of precious hours allowed us for Repentance and possibilities of Heaven which are the instruments of infinite vanity idle talking impertinency and lust and very much below the severity and retiredness of a Christian spirit Of this Christ became to us the great example for S. Basil reports a tradition of him that he never laughed but wept often And if we mourn with him we also shall rejoyce in the joys of eternity 8. Thirdly Blessed are the Meek for they shall possess the earth That is the gentle and softer spirits persons not turbulent or unquiet not clamorous or impatient not over-bold or impudent not querulous or discontented not brawlers or contentious not nice or curious but men who submit to God and know no choice of fortune or imployment or success but what God chuses for them having peace at home because nothing from without does discompose their spirit In summe Meekness is an indifferency to any exteriour accident a being reconciled to all conditions and instances of Providence a reducing our selves to such an evenness and interiour satisfaction
was a Law of Works that is especially and in its first intention But this being less perfect the Holy Jesus inverted the order 1. For very little of Christianity stands upon the outward action Christ having appointed but two Sacraments immediately and 2. a greater restraint is laid upon the passions desires and first motions of the spirit than under the severity of Moses and 3. they are threatned with the same curses of a sad eternity with the acts proceeding from them and 4. because the obedience of the spirit does in many things excuse the want of the outward act God always requiring at our hands what he hath put in our power and no more and 5. lastly because the spirit is the principle of all actions moral and spiritual and certainly productive of them when they are not impeded from without therefore the Holy Jesus hath secured the fountain as knowing that the current must needs be healthful and pure if it proceeds through pure chanels from a limpid and unpolluted principle 4. And certainly it is much for the glory of God to worship him with a Religion whose very design looks upon God as the searcher of our hearts and Lord of our spirits who judges the purposes as a God and does not only take his estimate from the outward action as a man And it is also a great reputation to the Institution it self that it purifies the Soul and secures the secret cogitations of the mind It punishes Covetouiness as it judges Rapine it condemns a Sacrilegious heart as soon as an Irreligious hand it detests hating of our Brother by the same aversation which it expresses against doing him 〈◊〉 He that curses in his heart shall die the death of an explicite and bold Blasphemer murmur and repining is against the Laws of Christianity but either by the remissness of Moses's Law or the gentler execution of it or the innovating or lessening glosses of the Pharisees he was esteemed innocent whose actions were according to the letter not whose spirit was conformed to the intention and more secret Sanctity of the Law So that our Righteousness must therefore exceed the Pharisaical standard because our spirits must be pure as our hands and the heart as regular as the action our purposes must be sanctified and our thoughts holy we must love our Neighbour as well as relieve him and chuse Justice with adhesion of the mind as well as carry her upon the palms of our hands And therefore the Prophets foretelling the Kingdom of the Gospel and the state of this Religion call it a writing the Laws of God in our hearts And S. Paul distinguishes the Gospel from the Law by this only measure We are all Israelites of the seed of Abraham heirs of the same inheritance only now we are not to be accounted Jews for the outward consormity to the Law but for the inward consent and obedience to those purities which were secretly signified by the types of Moses They of the Law were Jews outwardly their Circumcision was outward in the flesh their praise was of men We are Jews inwardly our Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter and our praise is of God that is we are not judged by the outward act but by the mind and the intention and though the acts must sollow in all instances where we can and where they are required yet it is the less principal and rather significative than by its own strength and energy operative and accepted 5. S. Clemens of Alexandria saith the Pharisees righteousness consisted in the not doing evil and that Christ superadded this also that we must do the contrary good and so exceed the Pharisaical measure They would not wrong a Jew nor many times relieve him they reckoned their innocence by not giving offence by walking blameless by not being accused before the Judges sitting in the gates of their Cities But the balance in which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Christians is not only the avoiding evil but doing good the following peace with all men and holiness the proceeding from faith to faith the adding vertue to vertue the persevering in all holy conversation and godliness And therefore S. Paul commending the grace of universal Charity says that Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law implying that the prime intention of the Law was that every man's right be secured that no man receive wrong And indeed all the Decalogue consisting of Prohibitions rather than Precepts saving that each Table hath one positive Commandment does not obscurely verifie the doctrine of S. Clement's interpretation Now because the Christian Charity abstains from doing all injury therefore it is the fulfilling of the Law but because it is also patient and liberal that it suffers long and is kind therefore the Charity commanded in Christ's Law exceeds that Charity which the Scribes and Pharisees reckoned as part of their Righteousness But Jesus himself does with great care in the particulars instance in what he would have the Disciples to be eminent above the most strict Sect of the Jewish Religion 1. in practising the moral Precepts of the Decalogue with a stricter interpretation 2. and in quitting the Permissions and licences which for the hardness of their heart Moses gave them as indulgences to their persons and securities against the contempt of too severe Laws 6. The severity of exposition was added but to three Commandments and in three indulgences the permission was taken away But because our great Law-giver repeated also other parts of the Decalogue in his after-Sermons I will represent in this one view all that he made to be Christian by adoption 7. The first Commandment Christ often repeated and enforced as being the basis of all Religion and the first endearment of all that relation whereby we are capable of being the sons of God as being the great Commandment of the Law and comprehensive of all that duty we owe to God in the relations of the vertue of Religion Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Lord and Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength This is the first Commandment that is this comprehends all that which is moral and eternal in the first Table of the 〈◊〉 8. The Duties of this Commandment are 1. To worship God alone with actions proper to him and 2. to love and 3. obey him with all our faculties 1. Concerning Worship The actions proper to the Honour of God are to offer Sacrifice Incense and Oblations making Vows to him Swearing by his Name as the instrument of secret testimony confessing his incommunicable Attributes and Praying to him for those Graces which are essentially annexed to his dispensation as Remission of sins Gifts of the Spirit and the grace of 〈◊〉 and Life
excused by our endeavours to cure it and by our after-after-acts either of sorrow or repetition of the Prayer and reinforcing the intention And certainly if we repeat our Prayer in which we have observed our spirits too much to wander and resolve still to repeat it as our opportunities permit it may in a good degree defeat the purpose of the Enemy when his own arts shall return upon his head and the wandring of our spirits be made the occasion of a Prayer and the parent of a new Devotion 6. Lastly according to the degrees of our actual attention so our Prayers are more or less perfect a present spirit being a great instrument and testimony of wisdome and apt to many great purposes and our continual abode with God being a great indearment of our persons by encreasing the affections 17. Secondly The second accessory is intension of spirit or fervency such as was that of our Blessed Saviour who prayed to his Father with strong cries and loud petitions not clamorous in language but strong in Spirit S. Paul also when he was pressed with a strong temptation prayed thrice that is earnestly and S. James affirms this to be of great value and efficacy to the obtaining blessings The effectual servent prayer of a just person avails much and 〈◊〉 though a man of like 〈◊〉 yet by earnest prayer he obtained rain or drought according as he desired Now this is properly produced by the greatness of our desire of heavenly things our true value and estimate of Religion our sense of present pressures our lears and it hath some accidental increases by the disposition of our body the strength of fancy and the tenderness of spirit and assiduity of the dropping of religious discourses and in all men is necessary to be so great as that we prefer Heaven and Religion before the world and desire them rather with the choice of our wills and understanding though there cannot always be that degree of sensual pungent or delectable affections towards Religion as towards the desires of nature and sense yet ever we must prefer celestial objects restraining the appetites of the world lest they be immoderate and heightning the desires of grace and glory lest they become indifferent and the fire upon the altar of incense be extinct But the greater zeal and servour of desire we have in our Prayers the sooner and the greater will the return of the Prayer be if the Prayer be for spiritual objects For other things our desires must be according to our needs not by a value derived from the nature of the thing but the usefulness it is of to us in order to our greater and better purposes 18. Thirdly Of the same consideration it is that we persevere and be importunate in our Prayers by repetition of our desires and not remitting either our affections or our offices till God overcome by our importunity give a gracious answer Jacob wrastled with the Angel all night and would not dismiss him till he had given him a blessing Let me alone saith God as if he felt a pressure and burthen lying upon him by our prayers or could not quit himself nor depart unless we give him leave And since God is detained by our Prayers and we may keep him as long as we please and that he will not go away till we leave speaking to him he that will dismiss him till he hath his blessing knows not the value of his benediction or understands not the energy and power of a persevering Prayer And to this purpose Christ spake a Parable that men ought always to pray and not to faint Praying without ceasing S. Paul calls it that is with continual addresses frequent interpellations never ceasing renewing the request till I obtain my desire For it is not enough to recommend our desires to God with one hearty Prayer and then forget to ask him any more but so long as our needs continue so long in all times and upon all occasions to renew and repeat our desires and this is praying continually Just as the Widow did to the unjust Judge she never left going to him she troubled him every day with her clamorous suit so must we pray always that is every day and many times every day according to our occasions and necessities or our devotion and zeal or as we are determined by the customs and laws of a Church never giving over through weariness or distrust often renewing our desires by a continual succession of Devotions returning at certain and determinate periods For God's blessings though they come infallibly yet not always speedily saving only that it is a blessing to be delayed that we may encrease our desire and renew our prayers and do acts of confidence and patience and ascertain and encrcase the blessing when it comes For we do not more desire to be blessed than God does to hear us importunate for blessing and he weighs every sigh and bottles up every tear and records every Prayer and looks through the cloud with delight to see us upon our knees and when he sees his time his light breaks through it and shines upon us Only we must not make our accounts for God according to the course of the Sun but the measures of Eternity He measures us by our needs and we must not measure him by our impatience God is not slack as some men count slackness saith the Apostle and we find it so when we have waited long All the elapsed time is no part of the tediousness the trouble of it is passed with it self and for the future we know not how little it may be for ought we know we are already entred into the cloud that brings the blessing However pray till it comes for we shall never miss to receive our desire if it be holy or innocent and safe or else we are sure of a great reward of our Prayers 19. And in this so determined there is no danger of blasphemy or vain repetitions For those repetitions are vain which repeat the words not the Devotion which renew the expression and not the desire and he that may pray the same Prayer to morrow which he said to day may pray the same at night which he said in the morning and the same at noon which he said at night and so in all the hours of Prayer and in all the opportunities of Devotion Christ in his agony went thrice and said the same words but he had intervals for repetition and his need and his Devotion pressed him forward and whenever our needs do so it is all one if we say the same words or others so we express our desire and tell our needs and beg the remedy In the same office and the same hour of Prayer to repeat the same things often hath but few excuses to make it reasonable and fewer to make it pious But to think that the Prayer is better for such repetition is the fault which the
the Holy Jesus that he framed all his Laws in compliance to that design He that returns good for evil a soft answer to the asperity of his enemy kindness to injuries lessons the contention always and sometimes gets a friend and when he does not he shames his enemy Every little accident in a family to peevish and angry persons is the matter of a quarrel and every quarrel discomposes the peace of the house and sets it on fire and no man can tell how far that may burn it may be to a dissolution of the whole fabrick But whosoever obeys the Laws of Jesus bears with the infirmities of his relatives and society seeks with sweetness to remedy what is ill and to prevent what it may produce and throws water upon a spark and lives sweetly with his wife affectionately with his children providently and discreetly with his servants and they all love the Major-domo and look upon him as their Parent their Guardian their Friend their Patron their Proveditore But look upon a person angry peaceless and disturbed when he enters upon his threshold it gives an alarm to his house and puts them to flight or upon their defence and the Wife reckons the joy of her day is done when he returns and the Children enquire into their Father's age and think his life tedious and the Servants curse privately and do their service as slaves do only when they dare not do otherwise and they serve him as they serve a Lion they obey his strength and fear his cruelty and despise his manners and hate his person No man enjoys content in his family but he that is peaceful and charitable just and loving forbearing and forgiving careful and provident He that is not so his house may be his Castle but it is manned by enemies his house is built not upon the sand but upon the waves and upon a tempest the foundation is uncertain but his ruine is not so 8. And if we extend the relations of the man beyond his own walls he that does his duty to his Neighbour that is all offices of kindness gentleness and humanity nothing of injury and affront is certain never to meet with a wrong so great as is the inconvenience of a Law-suit or the contention of neighbours and all the consequent dangers and inconvenience Kindness will create and invite kindness an injury provokes an injury And since the love of Neighbours is one of those beauties which Solomon did admire and that this beauty is within the combination of precious things which adorn and reward a peaceable charitable disposition he that is in love with spiritual excellencies with intellectual rectitudes with peace and with blessings of society knows they grow amongst rose bushes of Vertue and holy obedience to the Laws of Jesus And for a good man some will even dare to die and a sweet and charitable disposition is received with fondness and all the endearments of the Neighbourhood He that observes how many families are ruined by contention and how many spirits are broken by the care and contumely and fear and spite which are entertained as advocates to promote a Suit of Law will soon confess that a great loss and peaceable quitting of a considerable interest is a purchace and a gain in respect of a long Suit and a vexatious quarrel And still if the proportion rises higher the reason swells and grows more necessary and determinate For if we would live according to the Discipline of Christian Religion one of the great plagues which vex the world would be no more That there should be no wars was one of the designs of Christianity and the living according to that Institution which is able to prevent all wars and to establish an universal and eternal peace when it is obeyed is the using an infallible instrument toward that part of our political happiness which consists in Peace This world would be an image of Heaven if all men were charitable peaceable just and loving To this excellency all those precepts of Christ which consist in forbearance and forgiveness do cooperate 9. But the next instance of the reward of holy Obedience and conformity to Christ's Laws is it self a Duty and needs no more but a mere repetition of it We must be content in every state and because Christianity teaches us this lesson it teaches us to be happy for nothing from without can make us 〈◊〉 unless we joyn our own consents to it and apprehend it such and entertain it in our sad and melancholick retirements A Prison is but a retirement and opportunity of serious thoughts to a person whose spirit is confined and apt to sit still and desires no enlargement beyond the cancels of the body till the state of Separation calls it forth into a fair liberty But every retirement is a prison to a loose and wandring fancy for whose wildness no 〈◊〉 are restraint no band of duty is consinement who when he hath broken the first hedge of duty can never after endure any enclosure so much as in a Symbol But this Precept is so necessary that it is not more a duty than a rule of prudence and in many accidents of our lives it is the only cure of sadness for it is certain that no providence less than divine can prevent evil and cross accidents but that is an excellent remedy to the evil that receives the accident within its power and takes out the sting paring the nails and drawing the teeth of the wild beast that it may be tame or harmless and medicinal For all Content consists in the proportion of the object to the appetite and because external accidents are not in our power and it were nothing excellent that things happened to us according to our first desires God hath by his grace put it into our own power to make the happiness by making our desires descend to the event and comply with the chance and combine with all the issues of Divine Providence And then we are noble persons when we borrow not our content from things below us but make our satisfactions from within And it may be considered that every little care may disquiet us and may increase it self by reflexion upon its own acts and every discontent may discompose our spirits and put an edge and make afflictions poynant but cannot take off one from us but makes every one to be two But Content removes not the accident but complies with it it takes away the sharpness and displeasure of it and by stooping down makes the lowest equal proportionable and commensurate Impatience makes an Ague to be a Fever and every Fever to be a Calenture and that Calenture may expire in Madness But a quiet spirit is a great disposition to health and for the present does alleviate the sickness And this also is notorious in the instance of Covetousness The love of money is the root of all evil which while some
the Angel's coming because it was a great necessity which was incumbent upon our Lord for his sadness and his Agony was so great mingled and compounded of sorrow and zeal fear and desire innocent nature and perfect grace that he sweat drops as great as if the bloud had started through little undiscerned fontinels and outrun the streams and rivers of his Cross. Euthymius and Theophylact say that the Evangelists use this as a tragical expression of the greatest Agony and an unusual sweat it being usual to call the tears of the greatest sorrow tears of 〈◊〉 But from the beginning of the Church it hath been more generally apprehended literally and that some bloud mingled with the 〈◊〉 substance issued from his veins in so great abundance that they moistened the ground and bedecked his garment which stood like a new firmament studded with stars portending an approaching storm Now he came from Bozrah with his garments red and bloudy And this Agony verified concerning the Holy Jesus those words of David I am poured out like water my bones are dispersed my heart in the midst of my body is like melting wax saith Justin Martyr Venerable Bede saith that the descending of these drops of bloud upon the earth besides the general purpose had also a particular relation to the present infirmities of the Apostles that our Blessed Lord obtained of his Father by the merits of those holy drops mercies and special support for them and that effusion redeemed them from the present participation of death And S. Austin meditates that the Body of our Lord all overspread with drops of bloudy sweat did prefigure the future state of Martyrs and that his Body mystical should be clad in a red garment variegated with the symbols of labour and passion sweat and bloud by which himself was pleased to purifie his Church and present her to God holy and spotless What collateral designs and tacite significations might be designed by this mysterious sweat I know not certainly it was a sad beginning of a most dolorous Passion and such griefs which have so violent permanent and sudden effects upon the body which is not of a nature symbolical to interiour and immaterial causes are proclaimed by such marks to be high and violent We have read of some persons that the grief and fear of one night hath put a cover of snow upon their heads as if the labours of thirty years had been extracted and the quintessence drank off in the passion of that night but if Nature had been capable of a greater or more prodigious impress of passion than a bloudy sweat it must needs have happened in this Agony of the Holy Jesus in which he undertook a grief great enough to make up the imperfect Contrition of all the Saints and to satisfie for the impenitencies of all the world 7. By this time the Traitor Judas was arrived at Gethsemani and being in the vicinage of the Garden Jesus rises from his prayers and first calls his Disciples from their sleep and by an Irony seems to give them leave to sleep on but reproves their drousiness when danger is so near and bids them henceforth take their rest meaning if they could for danger which now was indeed come to the Garden-doors But the Holy Jesus that it might appear he undertook the Passion with choice and a free election not only refused to flie but called his Apostles to rise that they might meet his Murtherers who came to him with swords and staves as if they were to surprise a Prince of armed Out-laws whom without force they could not reduce So also might Butchers do well to go armed when they are pleased to be afraid of Lambs by calling them Lions Judas only discovered his Master's retirements and betrayed him to the opportunities of an armed band for he could not accuse his Master of any word or private action that might render him obnoxious to suspicion or the Law For such are the rewards of innocence and prudence that the one secures against sin the other against suspicion and appearances 8. The Holy Jesus had accustomed to receive every of his Disciples after absence with entertainment of a Kiss which was the endearment of persons and the expression of the oriental civility and Judas was confident that his Lord would not reject him whose feet he had washed at the time when he foretold this event and therefore had agreed to signifie him by this sign and did so beginning war with a Kiss and breaking the peace of his Lord by the symbol of kindness which because Jesus entertained with much evenness and charitable expressions calling him Friend he gave evidence that if he retained civilities to his greatest enemies in the very acts of hostility he hath banquets and crowns and scepters for his friends that adore him with the kisses of Charity and love him with the sincerity of an affectionate spirit But our Blessed Lord besides his essential sweetness and serenity of spirit understood well how great benefits himself and all the World were to receive by occasion of that act of Judas and our greatest enemy does by accident to holy persons the offices of their dearest friends telling us our faults without a cloak to cover their deformities but out of malice laying open the circumstances of aggravation doing us affronts from whence we have an instrument of our Patience and restraining us from scandalous crimes lest we become a scorn and reproof to them that 〈◊〉 us And it is none of God's least mercies that he permits enmities amongst men that animosities and peevishness may reprove more sharply and correct with more severity and simplicity than the gentle hand of friends who are apter to bind our wounds up than to discover them and make them smart but they are to us an excellent probation how friends may best do the offices of friends if they would take the plainness of enemies in accusing and still mingle it with the tenderness and good affections of friends But our Blessed Lord called Judas Friend as being the instrument of bringing him to glory and all the World to pardon if they would 9. Jesus himself begins the enquiry and leads them into their errand and tells them he was JESUS of Nazareth whom they sought But this also which was an answer so gentle had in it a strength greater than the Eastern wind or the voice of thunder for God was in that still voice and it struck them down to the ground And yet they and so do we still persist to persecute our Lord and to provoke the eternal God who can with the breath of his mouth with a word or a sign or a thought reduce us into nothing or into a worse condition even an eternal duration of torments and cohabitation with a never-ending misery And if we cannot bear a soft answer of the merciful God how shall we dare to provoke the wrath of the Almighty Judge But in
of the West now use being indicative and declaratory of a present Pardon is for the very form sake not to be used to Death bed Penitents after a vicious life because if any thing more be intended in the form than a Prayer the truth of the affirmation may be questioned and an Ecclesiastical person hath no authority to say to such a man I absolve thee but if no more be intended but a Prayer it is better to use a mere Prayer and common form of address than such words which may countenance unsecure confidences evil purposes and worse lives 14. Thirdly If the Devil tempts a sick person who hath lived well to Presumption and that he seems full of Confidence and without trouble the care that is then to be taken is to consider the Disease and to state the Question right For at some instants and periods God visits the spirit of a man and sends the immission of a bright ray into him and some good men have been so used to apprehensions of the Divine mercy that they have an habitual chearfulness of spirit and hopes of Salvation Saint Hierome reports that Hilarion in a Death-bed agony felt some tremblings of heart till reflecting upon his course of life he found comforts springing from thence by a proper emanation and departed chearfully and Hezekiah represented to God in Prayer the integrity of his life and made it the instrument of his hope And nothing of this is to be calied Presumption provided it be in persons of eminent Sanctity and great experience old Disciples and the more perfect Christians But because such persons are but seldome and rare if the same Confidence be observed in persons of common imperfection and an ordinary life it is to be corrected and allayed with consideration of the Divine Severity and Justice and with the strict requisites of a holy life with the deceit of a man 's own heart with consideration and general remembrances of secret sins and that the most perfect state of life hath very great needs of mercy and if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear And the spirit of the man is to be promoted and helped in the encrease of Contrition as being the proper deletery to cure the extravagancies of a forward and intemperate spirit 15. But there is a Presumption commenced upon opinion relying either upon a perswasion of single Predestination or else which is worse upon imaginary securities that Heaven is to be purchased upon conditions easier than a Day 's labour and that an evil life may be reconciled to Heaven by the intervening of little or single acts of Piety or Repentance If either of them both have actually produced ill life to which they are apt or apt to be abused the persons are miserable in their condition and cannot be absolutely remedied by going about to cure the Presumption that was the cause of all but now it is the least thing to be considered his whole state is corrupted and men will not by any discourses or spiritual arts used on their Death-beds be put into a state of Grace because then is no time to change the state and there is no mutation then but by single actions from good to better a dying man may proceed but not from the state of Reprobation to the life of Grace And yet it is good charity to unloose the bonds of Satan whereby the man is bound and led captive at his will to take off the Presumption by destroying the cause and then let the work of Grace be set as forward as it can and leave the event to God for nothing else is left possible to be done But if the sick man be of a good life and yet have a degree of Confidence beyond his Vertue upon the phancie of Predestination it is not then a time to rescind his opinion by a direct opposition but let him be drawn off from the consideration of it by such discourses as are apt to make him humble and penitent for they are the most apt instruments to secure the condition of the man and attemper his spirit These are the great Temptations incident to the last scene of our lives and are therefore more particularly suggested by the Tempter because they have in them something contrary to the universal effect of a holy life and are designs to interpose between the end of the journey and the reception of the crown and therefore it concerns every man who is in a capacity of receiving the end of his Faith the Salvation of his Soul to lay up in the course of his life something against this great day of expence that he may be better fortified with the armour of the Spirit against these last assaults of the Devil that he may not shipwreck in the haven 16. Eschewing evil is but the one half of our work we must also do good And now in the few remanent days or hours of our life there are certain exercises of Religion which have a special relation to this state and are therefore of great concernment to be done that we may make our condition as certain as we can and our portion of Glory greater and our Pardon surer and our Love to increase and that our former omissions and breaches be repaired with a condition in some measure proportionable to those great hopes which we then are going to possess And first Let the sick person in the beginning of his sickness and in every change and great accident of it make acts of Resignation to God and intirely submit himself to the Divine will remembring that Sickness may to men properly disposed do the work of God and produce the effect of the Spirit and promote the interest of his Soul as well as Health and oftentimes better as being in it self and by the grace of God apt to make us confess our own impotency and dependencies and to understand our needs of mercy and the continual influences and supports of Heaven to withdraw our appetites from things below to correct the vanities and insolencies of an impertinent spirit to abate the extravagancies of the flesh to put our carnal lusts into fetters and disability to remember us of our state of pilgrimage that this is our way and our stage of trouble and banishment and that Heaven is our Countrey for so Sickness is the trial of our Patience a fire to purge us an instructer to teach us a bridle to restrain us and a state inferring great necessities of union and adhesions unto God And as upon these grounds we have the same reason to accept sickness at the hands of God as to receive Physick from a Physician so it is argument of excellent Grace to give God hearty thanks in our Disease and to accept it chearfully and with spiritual joy 17. Some persons create to themselves excuses of discontent and quarrel not with the pain but the ill consequents of Sickness It makes them troublesome to
acted herein by a Divine warrant and authority That therefore it might plainly appear to the World that they did not falsify in what they said or deliver any more than God had given them in commission he enabled them to do strange and miraculous operations bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost This was a power put into the first draught of their commission when confined only to the Cities of Israel As ye go preach saying The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out Devils freely you have received freely give but more fully confirmed upon them when our Lord went to Heaven then he told them that these signs should follow them that believe that in his Name they should cast out Devils and speak with new tongues that they should take up serpents and if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt them that they should lay hands on the sick and they should recover And the event was accordingly for they went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following When Paul and Barnabas came up to the Council at Jerusalem this was one of the first things they gave an account of all the multitude keeping silence while they declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them Thus the very shadow of Peter as he passed by cured the sick thus God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them So that besides the innate characters of Divinity which the Christian religion brought along with it containing nothing but what was highly reasonable and very becoming God to reveal it had the highest external evidence that any Religion was capable of the attestation of great and unquestionable Miracles done not once or twice not privately and in corners not before a few simple and credulous persons but frequently and at every turn publickly and in places of the most solemn concourse before the wisest and most judicious enquirers and this power of miracles continued not only during the Apostles time but for some Ages after X. But because besides Miracles in general the Scripture takes particular notice of many gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost conferred upon the Apostles and first Preachers of the Gospel it may not be amiss to consider some of the chiefest and most material of them as we find them enumerated by the Apostle only premising this observation that though these gifts were distinctly distributed to persons of an inferiour order so that one had this and another that yet were they all conferr'd upon the Apostles and doubtless in larger proportions than upon the rest First we take notice of the gift of Prophecy a clear evidence of divine inspiration and an extraordinary mission the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy It had been for many Ages the signal and honourable priviledge of the Jewish Church and that the Christian Oeconomy might challenge as sacred regards from men and that it might appear that God had not withdrawn his Spirit from his Church in this new state of things it was revived under the dispensation of the Gospel according to that famous prophecy of Joel exactly accomplished as Peter told the Jews upon the day of 〈◊〉 when the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were so plentifully shed upon the Apostles and Primitive Christians This is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel It shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall 〈◊〉 and your young Men shall see 〈◊〉 and your old Men shall dream Dreams and on my servants and on my Hand-maidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesie It lay in general in revealing and making known to others the mind of God but discovered it self in particular instances partly in forctelling things to come and what should certainly happen in after-times a thing set beyond the reach of any finite understanding for though such effects as depend upon natural agents or moral and political causes may be foreseen by studious and considering persons yet the knowledge of futurities things purely contingent that meerly depend upon mens choice and their mutable and uncertain wills can only fall under his view who at once beholds things past present and to come Now this was conferred upon the Apostles and some of the first Christians as appears from many instances in the History of the Apostolick Acts and we find the Apostles writings frequently interspersed with prophetical predictions concerning the great apostasie from the 〈◊〉 the universal corruption and degeneracy of manners the rise of particular heresies the coming of Antichrist and several other things which the spirit said 〈◊〉 should come to pass in the latter times besides that S. John's whole Book of Revelation is almost intirely made up of prophecies concerning the future state and condition of the Church Sometimes by this spirit of prophecy God declared things that were of present concernment to the exigences of the Church as when he signified to them that they should set apart Paul and Barnabas for the conversion of the Gentiles and many times immediately designed particular persons to be Pastors and Governours of the Church Thus we read of the gift that was given to Timothy by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery that is his Ordination to which he was particularly pointed out by some prophetick designation But the main use of this prophetick gift in those times was to explain some of the more difficult and particular parts of the Christian doctrine especially to expound and apply the ancient prophecies concerning the 〈◊〉 and his Kingdom in their publick Assemblies whence the gift of prophecy is explained by understanding all mysteries and all knowledge that is the most dark and difficult places of Scripture the types and figures the ceremonies and prophecies of the Old Testament And thus we are commonly to understand those words Prophets and prophecying that so familiarly occur in the New Testament Having 〈◊〉 differing according to the grace that is given to us whether prophesie let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith that is expound Scripture according to the generally-received principles of Faith and Life So the Apostle elsewhere prescribing Rules for the decent and orderly managing of Divine worship in their publick Assemblies let the Prophets says he speak two or three that is at the same Assembly and let the other judge and if while any is thus expounding another has a Divine 〈◊〉 whereby he is more particularly enabled to explain some difficult and emergent
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his School or place of institution was at Tiberias and nothing more commonly shewed to Travellers than Job's well in the way between Ramah and Jerusalem others place it in Syria near Damascus so called from 〈◊〉 the supposed Founder of that City others a little more Northward at Apamea now called Hama where his house is said to be shewed at this day Most make it to be part of Idumaea near mount 〈◊〉 or else Arabia the Desart probably it was in the confines of both this part of Arabia being nearest to the Sabaeans and Chaldaeans who invaded him and most applicable to his dwelling among the Sons of the East to the situation of his friends who came to visit him and best corresponding with those frequent Arabisms discernable both in the Language and Discourses of Job and his Friends not to say that this Country produced persons exceedingly addicted to Learning and Contemplation and the studies of natural Philosophy whence the wise men who came out of the East to worship Christ are thought by many to have been Arabians For his kindred and his friends we find four taken notice of who came to visit him in his distress Eliphaz the Temanite the son probably of Teman and grandchild of Esau by his eldest son Eliphaz the Country deriving its name Teman from his Father and was situate in Idumaea in the borders of the Desart Arabia Bildad the Shuhite a descendant in all likelihood of Shuah one of the sons of Abraham by his wife Keturah whose seat was in this part of Arabia Zophar the Naamathite a Country lying near those parts And Elihu the Buzite of the off-spring of Buz the son of Nahor and so nearly related to Job himself He was the son of Barachel of the kindred of Ram who was the head of the Family and his habitation was in the parts of Arabia the Desart near Euphrates or at least in the Southern part of 〈◊〉 bordering upon it As for Job himself he is made by some a Canaanite of the posterity of Cham by others to descend from Sem by his son Amram whose eldest sons name was 〈◊〉 by most from Esau the Father of the Idumaean Nations but most probably either from Nahor Abraham's brother whose sons were Huz Buz Chesed c. or from Abraham himself by some of the sons which he had by his wife Keturah whereby an account is most probably given how Job came to be imbued with those seeds of Piety and true Religion for which he was so eminently remarkable as deriving them from those Religious principles and instructions which Abraham and Nahor had bequeathed to their posterity His quality and the circumstances of his External state were very considerable a man rich and honourable His substance was seven thousand Sheep and three thousand Camels and five hundred yoke of Oxen and five hundred she-Asses and a very great houshold so that he was the greatest of all the men of the East himself largely describes the great honour and prosperity of his fortunes that he washed his steps in Butter and the rock poured out rivers of Oil when he went out to the gate through the City and prepared his seat in the street the young men saw him and hid themselves the aged arose and stood up the Princes refrained talking and laid their hand on their mouth c. He delivered the poor that cried and the fatherless and him that had none to help him the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him c. He brake the jaws of the wicked and pluckt the spoil out of their teeth c. Indeed so great his state and dignity that it has led many into a perswasion that he was King of Idumaea a powerful and mighty Prince a fancy that has received no small encouragement from the common but groundless confounding of Job with Jobab King of Edom of the race of Esau. For the story gives no intimation of any such royal dignity to which Job was advanced but always speaks of him as a private person though exceeding wealthy and prosperous and thereby probably of extraordinary power and estimation in his Country Nay that he might not want fit Companions in his Regal capacity three of his friends are made Kings as well as he the LXX Translators themselves stiling Eliphaz King of the Temanites Bildad of the Suchites and Zophar King of the Minaeans though with as little probably less reason than the former 21. BUT whatever his condition was we are sure he was no less eminent for Piety and Religion he was a man perfect and upright one that feared God and eschewed evil Though living among the Idolatrous Gentiles he kept up the true and sincere worship of God daily offered up Sacrifices and Prayers to Heaven piously instructed his Children and Family lived in an intire dependence upon the Divine Providence in all his discourses expressed the highest and most honourable sentiments and thoughts of God and such as best became the Majesty of an Infinite Being in all transactions he was just and righteous compassionate and charitable modest and humble indeed by the character of God himself who knew him best There was none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright man fearing God and eschewing evil his mind was submissive and compliant his patience generous and unshaken great even to a Proverb You have heard of the Patience of Job And enough he had to try it to the utmost if we consider what sufferings he underwent those evils which are wont but singly to seise upon other men all centred and met in him Plundered in his Estate by the Sabaean and Chaldaean Free-booters whose standing livelihood were spoils and robberies and not an Oxe or Asse left of all the Herd not a Sheep or a Lamb either for Food or Sacrifice Undone in his Posterity his Seven Sons and Three Daughters being all slain at once by the fall of one House blasted in his credit and good name and that by his nearest friends who traduced and challenged him for a dissembler and an hypocrite Ruined in his health being smitten with sore boiles from the crown of the Head to the sole of the Foot till his Body became a very Hospital of Diseases tormented in his mind with sad and uncomfortable reflections The arrows of the Almighty being shot within him the poyson whereof drank up his spirit the terrours of God setting themselves in array against him All which were aggravated and set home by Satan the grand Engineer of all those torments and all this continuing for at least Twelve Months say the Jews probably for a much longer time and yet endured with great courage and fortitude of mind till God put a period to this tedious Trial and crowned his sufferings with an ample restitution We have seen who this excellent Person was we are next to enquire when he lived And here we meet with almost an infinite variety of
Their Oral and unwritten Law It s original and succession according to the mind of the Jews Their unreasonable and blasphemous preferring it above the written Law Their religious observing the Traditions of the Elders The Vow of Corban what The superseding Moral Duties by it The Sects in the Jewish Church The Pharisees their denomination rise temper and principles Sadducees their impious Principles and evil lives The Essenes their original opinions and way of life The Herodians who The Samaritans Karraeans The Sect of the Zealots The Roman Tyranny over the Jewes 1. THE Church which had hitherto lyen dispersed in private Families and had often been reduced to an inconsiderable number being now multiplied into a great and a populous Nation God was pleased to enter into Covenant not any longer with particular Persons but with the Body of the People and to govern the Church by more certain and regular ways and methods than it had hitherto been This Dispensation began with the delivery of the Law and continued till the final period of the Jewish state consisting only of meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal Ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation In the survey whereof we shall chiefly consider what Laws were given for the Government of the Church by what Methods of revelation God communicated his mind and will to them and what was the state of the Church especially towards the conclusion of this Oeconomy 2. THE great Minister of this Dispensation was Moses the Son of Amram of the House of Levi a Person whose signal preservation when but an Infant presaged him to be born for great and generous undertakings Pharaoh King of Egypt desirous to suppress the growing numbers of the Jewish Nation had afflicted and kept them under with all the rigorous severities of tyranny and oppression But this not taking its effect he made a Law that all Hebrew Male-children should be drowned as soon as born knowing well enough how to kill the root if he could keep any more Branches from springing up But the wisdom of Heaven defeated his crafty and barbarous 〈◊〉 Among others that were born at that time was Moses a goodly Child and whom his Mother was infinitely desirous to preserve but having concealed him till the saving of his might endanger the losing her own life her affection suggested to her this little stratagem she prepared an Ark made of Paper-reeds and pitched within and so putting him a-board this little Vessel threw him into the River Nilus committing him to the mercy of the waves and the conduct of the Divine Providence God who wisely orders all events had so disposed things that Pharaohs daughter whose name say the Jews was Bithia Thermuth says Josephus say the Arabians Sihhoun being troubled with a distemper that would not endure the hot Bathes was come down at this time to wash in the Nile where the cries of the tender Babe soon reached her ears She commanded the Ark to be brought a-shore which was no sooner opened but the silent oratory of the weeping Infant sensibly struck her with compassionate resentments And the Jews add that she no sooner touched the Babe but she was immediately healed and cried out that he was a holy Child and that she would save his life for which say they she obtained the favour to be brought under the wings of the Divine Majesty and to be called the daughter of God His Sister Miriam who had all this while beheld the scene afar off officiously proffered her service to the Princess to call an Hebrew Nurse and accordingly went and brought his Mother To her care he was committed with a charge to look tenderly to him and the promise of a reward But the hopes of that could add but little where nature was so much concerned Home goes the Mother joyful and proud of her own pledge and the royal charge carefully providing for his tender years His infant state being pass'd he was restored to the Princess who adopted him for her own son bred him up at Court where he was polished with all the arts of a noble and ingenuous education instructed in the modes of civility and behaviour in the methods of policy and government Learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians whose renown for wisdom is not only once and again taken notice of in holy Writ but their admirable skill in all liberal Sciences Natural Moral and Divine beyond the rate and proportion of other Nations is sufficiently celebrated by foreign Writers To these accomplishments God was pleased to add a Divine temper of mind a great zeal for God not able to endure any thing that seemed to clash with the interests of the Divine honour and glory a mighty courage and resolution in God's service whose edge was not to be taken off either by threats or charms He was not afraid of the Kings commandment nor feared the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible His contempt of the World was great and admirable sleighting the honours of Pharoah's Court and the fair probabilities of the Crown the treasures and pleasures of that rich soft and luxurious Country out of a firm belief of the invisible rewards of another World He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter chusing rather to suffer 〈◊〉 with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt for he had respect unto the recompence of reward Josephus relates that when but a child he was presented by the Princess to her Father as one whom she had adopted for her son and designed for his successor in the Kingdom the King taking him up into his arms put his Crown upon his head which the child immediately pull'd off again and throwing it upon the ground trampled it under his feet An action which however looked upon by some Courtiers then present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 portending a fatal Omen to the Kingdom did however evidently presage his generous contempt of the grandeur and honours of the Court and those plausible advantages of Soveraignty that were offered to him His patience was insuperable not tired out with the abuses and disappointments of the King of Egypt with the hardships and troubles of the Wilderness and which was beyond all with the cross and vexatious humors of a stubborn and unquiet generation He was of a most calm and treatable disposition his spirit not easily ruffled with passion he who in the cause of God and Religion could be bold and fierce as a Lion was in his own patient as a Lamb God himself having given this character of him That he was the meekest man upon the Earth 3. THIS great personage thus excellently qualified God made choice of him to be the Commander and conducter of the Jewish Nation and his Embassador to the King of Egypt to demand the enfranchisement of
Lord and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually Thus Eleazar the Priest is commanded to ask counsel after the Judgment of Urim before the Lord. What this Urim and Thummim was and what the manner of receiving answers by it is difficult if not impossible to tell there being scarce any one difficulty that I know of in the Bible that hath more exercised the thoughts either of Jewish or Christian Writers Whether it was some addition to the High Priests breast-plate made by the hand of some curious Artist or whether only those two words engraven upon it or the great name Jehovah carved and put within the foldings of the breast-plate or whether the twelve stones resplendent with light and completed to perfection with the Tribes names therein or whether some other mysterious piece of artifice immediately framed by the hand of Heaven and given to Moses when he delivered him the two Tables of the Law is vain and endless to enquire because impossible to determine Nor is the manner of its giving answers less uncertain Whether at such times the fresh and orient lustre of the stones signified the answer in the Affirmative while their dull and dead colour spake the Negative or whether it was by some extraordinary protuberancy and thrusting forth of the letters engraven upon the stones from the conjunction whereof the Divine Oracle was gathered or whether probably it might be that when the High Priest enquired of God with this breast-plate upon him God did either by a lively voice or by immediate suggestions to his mind give him a distinct and perspicuous answer illuminating his mind with the Urim or the light of the knowledge of his will in those cases and satisfying his doubts and scruples with the Thummim of a perfect and complete determination of those difficulties that were propounded to him thereby enabling him to give a satisfactory and infallible answer in all the particulars that lay before him And this several of the Jews seem to intend when they make this way of revelation one of the degrees of the Holy Ghost and say that no sooner did the High Priest put on the Pectoral and had the case propounded to him but that he was immediately clothed with the Holy Spirit But it 's to little purpose to hunt after that where fancy and conjecture must decide the case Indeed among the various conjectures about this matter none appears with greater probability than the opinion of those who conceive the Urim and Thummim to have been a couple of Teraphim or little Images probably formed in humane shape put within the hollow foldings of the Pontifical breast-plate from whence God by the ministry of an Angel vocally answered those interrogatories which the High Priest made Nothing being more common even in the early Ages of the World than such Teraphim in those Eastern Countries usually placed in their Temples and whence the Daemon was wont oracularly to determine the cases brought before him And as God permitted the Jews the use of Sacrifices which had been notoriously abused to Superstition and Idolatry in the Heathen World so he might indulge them these Teraphim though now converted to a sacred use that so he might by degrees wean them from the Rites of the Gentile World to which they had so fond an inclination And this probably was the reason why when Moses is so particular in describing the other parts of the Sacerdotal Ornaments nothing at all is said of this because a thing of common use among the Nations with whom they had conversed and notoriously known among themselves And such we may suppose the Prophet intended when he threatned the Jews that they should abide without a Sacrifice without an Image or Altar without an Ephod and without a Teraphim A notion very happily improved by an ingenious Pen whose acute conjectures and elaborate dissertations about this matter justly deserve commendation even from those who differ from it It seems to have been a kind of political Oracle and to be consulted only in great and weighty cases as the Election of Supreme Magistrates making War c. and only by Persons of the highest rank none being permitted say the Jews to enquire of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless in a case wherein the King or the Sanhedrim or the whole Congregation was concerned 12. A SECOND way of Divine Revelation was by an audible voice accompanied many times with Thunder descending as it were from Heaven and directing them in any emergency of affairs This the Jewish Writers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the daughter or Eccho of a 〈◊〉 oice which they confess to have been the lowest kind of revelation and to have been in use only in the times of the second Temple when all other ways of Prophecy were ceased But notwithstanding their common and confident assertions whether ever there was any such standing way of revelation as this is justly questionable nay it is peremptorily denied by one incomparably versed in the Talmudick Writings who adds that if there was any such thing at any time it was done by Magick Arts and diabolical delusions partly because it is only delivered by Jewish Writers whose faith and honesty is too well known to the World to be trusted in stories that make so much for the honour of their Nation not to mention their extravagant propension to lies and fabulous reports partly because by their own confession God had withdrawn all his standing Oracles and ordinary ways of Revelation their notorious impieties having caused Heaven to retire and therefore much less would it correspond with them by such immediate converses partly because this seemed to be a way more accommodate to the Evangelical dispensation at the appearance of the Son of God in the World A voice from Heaven is the most immediate testimony and therefore sittest to do honour to him who came down from Heaven and was sure to meet with an obdurate and incredulous Generation and to give evidence to that Doctrin that he published to the World Thus by a Bath-Col or a Voice from Heaven God bare witness to our Saviour at his Baptism and a second time at his Transfiguration and again at the Passover at Jerusalem when there came a Voice from Heaven which the People took for Thunder or the Communication of an Angel and most of S. John's intelligences from above recorded in his Book of Revelation are ushered in with an I heard a 〈◊〉 from Heaven 13. BUT the most frequent and standing method of Divine communications was that whereby God was wont to transact with the Prophets and in extraordinary cases with other Men which was either by Dreams Visions or immediate Inspirations The way by Dreams was when the Person being overtaken with a deep sleep and all the exteriour senses locked up God presented the Species and Images of things to their understandings and that in such a
were of considerable standing and great account in the time of our Saviour To be sure strangely wide of the mark are those Jewish Chronologists who say that the Sect of the Pharisees arose in the times of Tiberius Caesar and 〈◊〉 the AEgyptian under whom the Septuagint translation was accomplished as if Ptolomy Philadelphus and Tiberius Caesar had been Contemporaries between whom there is the distance of no less than CCLX years But when ever it began a bold and daring Sect it was not fearing to affront Princes and persons of the greatest quality crafty and insinuative and who by a shew of great zeal and infinite strictness in Religion beyond the rate of other men had procured themselves a mighty reverence from the people so strict that as a Learned man observes Pharisee is used in the 〈◊〉 writings to denote a pious and holy man and Benjamin the Jew speaking of R. Ascher says he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a truly devout man separate from the affairs of this world And yet under all this seeming severity they were but Religious villains spiteful and malicious griping and covetous great oppressors merciless dealers heady and seditious proud and scornful indeed guilty of most kinds of immorality of whose temper and manners I say the less in this place having elsewhere given an account of them They held that the Oral Law was of infinitely greater moment and value than the written Word that the Traditions of their fore Fathers were above all things to be embraced and followed the strict observance whereof would entitle a man to Eternal Life that the Souls of men are Immortal and had their dooms awarded in the Subterraneous Regions that there is a Metempsuchosis or Transmigration of pious Souls out of one Body into another that things come to pass by fate and an inevitable necessity and yet that Man's will is free that by this means men might be rewarded and punished according to their works I add no more concerning them than that some great men of the Church of Rome say with some kind of boasting that such as were the Pharisees among the Jews such are the Religious they mean the Monastical Orders of their Church among Christians Much good may it do them with the comparison I confess my self so far of their mind that there is too great a conformity between them 23. NEXT the Pharisees come the Sadducees as opposite to them in their temper as their principles so called as Epiphanius and some others will have it from 〈◊〉 justice as pretending themselves to be very just and righteous men but this agrees not with the account given of their lives They are generally thought to have been denominated from Sadock the Scholar of Antigonus Sochaeus who flourished about the year of the World MMMDCCXX CCLXXXIV years before the Nativity of our Saviour They pass under a very ill character even among the writers of their own Nation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impious men and of very loose and debauched manners which is no more than what might be expected as the natural consequence of their principles this being one of their main dogmata or opinions that the Soul is not Immortal and that there is no future state after this life The occasion of which desperate principle is said to have been a mistake of the doctrine of their Master Antigonus who was wont to press his Scholars not to be like 〈◊〉 Servants who serve their Masters merely for what they can get by them but to serve God for himself without expectation of rewards This Sadock and Baithos two of his disciples misunderstanding thought their Master had peremptorily denied any state of future rewards and having laid this dangerous foundation these unhappy superstructures were built upon it that there is no Resurrection for if there be no reward what need that the Body should rise again that the Soul is not Immortal nor exists in the separate state for if it did it must be either rewarded or punished and if not the Soul then by the same proportion of reason no spiritual substance neither Angel nor Spirit that there is no Divine Providence but that God is perfectly placed as beyond the commission so beyond the inspection and regard of what sins or evils are done or happen in the World as indeed what great reason to believe a wise and righteous Providence if there be no reward or punishment for vertue and vice in another life These pernicious and Atheistical opinions justly exposed them to the reproach and hatred of the people who were wont eminently to stile them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hereticks 〈◊〉 Epicureans no words being thought bad enough to bestow upon them They rejected the Traditions so vehemently asserted by the Pharisees and taught that men were to keep to the Letter of the Law and that nothing was to be imposed either upon their belief or practice but what was expresly owned and contained in it Josephus observes that they were the fewest of all the Sects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but usually men of the better rank and quality as what wonder if rich and great men who tumble in the pleasures and advantages of a prosperous fortune be willing to take sanctuary at those opinions that afford the greatest patronage to looseness and debauchery and care not to hear of being called to account in another World for what they have done in this For this reason the Sadducees ever appeared the greatest sticklers to preserve the peace and were the most severe and implacable Justicers against the Authors or fomenters of tumults and seditions lest they should disturb and interrupt their soft and easie course of life the only happiness their principles allowed them to expect 24. THE Essenes succeed a Sect probably distinct from either of the former Passing by the various conjectures concerning the derivation of their name which when dressed up with all advantages are still but bare conjectures they began about the times of the 〈◊〉 when the violent persecutions of Antiochus forced the Jews for their own safety to retire to the Woods and Mountains And though in time the storm blew over yet many of them were too well pleased with these undisturbed solitudes to return and therefore combined themselves into Religious societies leading a solitary and contemplative course of life and that in very great numbers there being usually above four thousand of them as both Philo and Josephus tell us Pliny takes notice of them and describes them to be a solitary generation remarkable above all others in this that they live without Women without any embraces without money conversing with nothing but Woods and Palm-trees that their number encreased every day as fast as any died persons flocking to them from all quarters to seek repose here after they had been wearied with the inquietudes of an improsperous fortune They paid a due reverence to the Temple by sending gifts and presents
Birth His austere Education and way of Life His Preaching what His initiating proselytes by Baptism Baptism in use in the Jewish Church It s Original whence His resolution and impartiality His Martyrdom The character given him by Josephus and the Jews The Evangelical Dispensation wherein it exceeds that of Moses It s 〈◊〉 and perfection It s agreeableness to humane nature The Evangelical promises better than those of the Law and in what respects The aids of the Spirit plentifully assorded under the Gospel The admirable confirmation of this Occonomy The great extent and latitude of it Judaism not capable of being communicated to all mankind The comprehensiveness of the Gospel The Duration of the Evangelical Covenant The Mosaical Statutes in what sence said to be for ever The Typical and transient nature of that State The great happiness of Christians under the Occonomy of the Gospel 1. GOD having from the very infancy of the World promised the Messiah as the great Redeemer of Mankind was accordingly pleased in all Ages to make gradual discoveries and manifestations of him the revelations concerning him in every Dispensation of the Church still shining with a bigger and more particular light the nearer this Sun of Righteousness was to his rising The first Gospel and glad tidings of him commenced with the fall of Adam God out of infinite tenderness and commiseration promising to send a person who should triumphantly vindicate and rescue mankind from the power and tyranny of their Enemies and that he should do this by taking the humane nature upon him and being born of the seed of the Woman No further account is given of him till the times of Abraham to whom it was revealed that he should proceed out of his loins and arise out of the Jewish Nation though both Jew and Gentile should be made happy by him To his Grandchild Jacob God made known out of what Tribe of that Nation he should rise the Tribe of Judah and what would be the time of his appearing viz. the departure of the Scepter from Judah the abrogation of the Civil and Legislative power of that Tribe and People accomplished in Herod the Idumaean set over them by the Roman power And this is all we find concerning him under that Oeconomy Under the Legal Dispensation we find Moses foretelling one main 〈◊〉 of his coming which was to be the great Prophet of the Church to whom all were to hearken as an extraordinary person sent from God to acquaint the World with the Councils and the Laws of Heaven The next news we hear of him is from David who was told that he should spring out of his house and family and who frequently speaks of his sufferings and the particular manner of his death by piercing his hands and his feet of his powerful Resurrection that God would not leave his Soul in Hell nor suffer his holy one to see corruption of his triumphant Ascension into Heaven and glorious session at God's right hand From the Prophet Isaiah we have an account of the extraordinary and miraculous manner of his Birth that he should be born of a Virgin and his name be Immanuel of his incomparable furniture of gifts and graces for the execution of his office of the entertainment he was to meet with in the World and of the nature and design of those sufferings which he was to undergo The place of his Birth was foretold by Micah which was to be 〈◊〉 the least of the Cities of Judah but honoured above all the rest with the nativity of a Prince who was to be Ruler in Israel whose goings forth had been from everlasting Lastly the Prophet Daniel 〈◊〉 the particular period of his coming expresly affirming that the Messiah should appear in the World and be cut off as a Victim and Expiation for the sins of the people at the expiration of LXX prophetical weeks or CCCCXC years which accordingly punctually came to pass 2. FOR the date of the prophetick Scriptures concerning the time of the 〈◊〉 's coming being now run out In the fulness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to 〈◊〉 them that were under the Law This being the truth of which God spake by the mouth of all his holy Prophets which have been since the World began But because it was not sit that so great a Person should come into the World without an eminent Harbinger to introduce and usher in his Arrival God had promised that he would send his Messenger who should prepare his way before him even 〈◊〉 the Prophet whom he would send before the coming of that great day of the Lord who should turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children c. This was particularly accomplished in John the Baptist who came in the power and spirit of Elias He was the Morning-star to the Son of Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Cyril says of him the great and eminent Fore-runner a Person remarkable upon several accounts First for the extraordinary circumstances of his Nativity his Birth foretold by an Angel sent on purpose to deliver this joyful Message a sign God intended him for great undertakings this being never done but where God designed the Person for some uncommon services his Parents aged and though both righteous before God yet hitherto Childless Heaven does not dispence all its bounty to the same Person Children though great and desirable blessings are yet often denied to those for whom God has otherwise very dear regards Elizabeth was barren and they were both well stricken in years But is any thing too hard for the Lord said God to Abraham in the same case God has the Key of the Womb in his own keeping it is one of the Divine Prerogatives that he makes the barren Woman to keep house and to be a joyful Mother of Children A Son is promised and mighty things said of him a promise which old Zachary had scarce faith enough to digest and therefore had the assurance of it sealed to him by a miraculous dumbness imposed upon him till it was made good the same Miracle at once confirming his faith and punishing his infidelity Accordingly his Mother conceived with Child and as if he would do part of his errand before he was born he leaped in her Womb at her salutation of the Virgin Mary then newly conceived with Child of our Blessed Saviour a piece of homage paid by one to one yet unborn 3. THESE presages were not vain and fallible but produced a Person no less memorable for the admirable strictness and austerity of his 〈◊〉 For having escaped Herod's butcherly and merciless Executioners the Divine providence being a shelter and a covert to him and been educated among the rudenesses and solitudes of the Wilderness his manners and way of life were very 〈◊〉 to his Education His Garments borrowed from no other Wardrobe than the backs
with the thing it self which they supposed would be a federal Rite under the dispensation of the Messiah but only quarrelled with him for taking upon him to administer it when yet he denied himself to be one of the prime Ministers of this new state They said unto him why baptizest thou then if thou be not that Christ nor 〈◊〉 neither that 〈◊〉 Either of which had he owned himself they had not questioned his right to enter Proselytes by this way of Baptism It is called the Baptism of Repentance this being the main qualification that he required of those who took it upon them as the fittest means to dispose them to receive the Doctrine and Discipline of the Messiah and to intitle them to that pardon of sin which the Gospel brought along with it whence he is said to baptize in the Wilderness and to preach the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And the success was answerable infinite Multitudes flocking to it and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins Nor is it the least part of his happiness that he had the honour to baptize his Saviour which though modestly declined our Lord put upon him and was accompanied with the most signal and miraculous attestations which Heaven could bestow upon it 5. AFTER his Preparatory Preachings in the Wilderness he was called to Court by Herod at least he was his frequent Auditor was much delighted with his plain and impartial Sermons and had a mighty reverence for him the gravity of his Person the strictness of his Manners the freedom of his Preaching commanding an awe and veneration from his Conscience and making him willing in many things to reform But the bluntness of the holy Man came nearer and touched the King in the tenderest part smartly reproving his adultery and incestuous embraces for that Prince kept Herodias his Brother Philip's Wife And now all corrupt interests were awakened to conspire his ruine Extravagant Lusts love not to be controll'd and check'd Herodias resents the asfront cannot brook disturbance in the pleasures of her Bed or the open challenging of her honour and therefore by all the arts of Feminine subtlety meditates revenge The issue was the Baptist is cast into Prison as the praeludium to a sadder fate For among other pleasures and scenes of mirth performed upon the King's Birth-day Herod being infinitely pleased with the Dancing of a young Lady Daughter of this Herodias promised to give her Her request and solemnly ratified his promise with an Oath She prompted by her Mother asks the Head of John the Baptist which the King partly out of a pretended reverence to his Oath partly out of a desire not to be interrupted in his unlawful pleasures presently granted and it was as quickly accomplished Thus died the Holy man a man strict in his conversation beyond the ordinary measures of an Anchoret bold and resolute faithful and impartial in his Office indued with the power and spirit of Elias a burning and a shining light under whose light the Jews rejoyced to sit exceedingly taken with his temper and principles He was the happy Messenger of the Evangelical tidings and in that respect more than a Prophet a greater not arising among them that were born of Women In short he was a Man loved of his Friends revered and honoured by his Enemies Josephus gives this character of him that he was a good man and pressed the Jews to the study of vertue to the practice of picty towards God and justice and righteousness towards men and to joyn themselves to his Baptism which he told them would then become effectual and acceptable to God when they did not only cleanse the body but purifie the mind by goodness and vertue And though he gives somewhat a different account of Herod's condemning him to dic from what is assigned in the Sacred History yet he confesses that the Jews universally looked upon the putting him to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod's Army and an evident effect of the Divine vengeance and displeasure The Jews in their Writings make honourable mention of his being put to death by Herod because reproving him for the company of his Brother Philip's Wife stiling him Rabbi Johanan the High-Priest and reckoning him one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the wise men of Israel Where he is called High-Priest probably with respect to his being the Son of Zachariah Head or Chief of one of the XXIV Families or courses of the Priests who are many times called Chief or High-Priests in Scripture 6. THE Evangelical state being thus proclaimed and ushered in by the Preaching and Ministry of the Baptist our Lord himself appeared next more fully to publish and confirm it concerning whose Birth Life Death and Resurrection the Doctrine he delivered the Persons he deputed to Preach and convey it to the World and its success by the Ministry of the Apostles large particular accounts are given in the following work That which may be proper and material to observe in this place is what the Scripture so frequently takes notice of the excellency of this above the preceding dispensations especially that brought in by Moses so much magnified in the Old Testament and so passionately admired and adhered to by the Jews at this day Jesus is the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls it of a better Covenant And better it is in several regards besides the infinite difference between the Persons who were imployed to introduce and settle them Moses and our Lord. The preheminence eminently appears in many instances whereof we shall remark the most considerable And first the Mosaick dispensation was almost wholly made up of types and shadows the Evangelical has brought in the truth and substance The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Their Ordinances were but shadows of good things to come sensible representations of what was to follow after the Body is Christ the perfection and accomplishment of their whole ritual Ministration Their Ceremonies were Figures of those things that are true the Land of Canaan typified Heaven Moses and Joshua were types of the Blessed Jesus and the Israelites after the flesh of the true Israel which is after the Spirit and all their Expiatory Sacrifices did but represent that Great Sacrifice whereby Christ offered up himself and by his own bloud purged away the sins of mankind indeed the most minute and inconsiderable circumstances of the Legal Oeconomy were intended as little lights that might gradually usher in the state of the Gospel A curious Artist that designs a famous and excellent piece is not wont to complete and finish it all at once but first with his Pencil draws some rude lines and rough draughts before he puts his last hand to it By such a method the wise God seems to have delivered the first draughts and Images of those things by Moses to the Church the substance
had bravely discoursed of the happy state of good men in the other Life plainly consessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and 〈◊〉 which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our 〈◊〉 state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it 〈◊〉 uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the insluences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and sloods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit 〈◊〉 enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to 〈◊〉 in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this 〈◊〉 is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods 〈◊〉 by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he 〈◊〉 down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when out Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so t were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious
Ascension of JESUS p. 419. Considerations upon the Accidents happening in the interval after the Death of the Holy JESUS until his Resurrection p. 423. THE PREFACE 1. CHRISTIAN Religion hath so many exterior advantages to its Reputation and Advancement from the Author and from the Ministers from the fountain of its Origination and the chanels of Conveyance GOD being the Author the Word incarnate being the great Doctor and Preacher of it his Life and Death being its Consignation the Holy Spirit being the great Argument and demonstration of it and the Apostles the Organs and Conduits of its dissemination that it were glorious beyond all opposition and disparagement though we should not consider the Excellency of its Matter and the Certainty of its Probation and the Efficacy of its Power and the Perfection and rare accomplishment of its Design But I consider that Christianity is therefore very little understood because it is reproached upon that pretence which its very being and design does infinitely confute It is esteemed to be a Religion contrary in its Principles or in its Precepts to that wisdom whereby the World is governed and Common-wealths increase and Greatness is acquired and Kings go to war and our ends of Interest are served and promoted and that it is an Institution so wholly in order to another World that it does not at all communicate with this neither in its End nor in its Discourses neither in the Policy nor in the Philosophy and therefore as the Doctrine of the Cross was entertained at first in scorn by the Greeks in offence and indignation by the Jews so is the whole Systeme and collective Body of Christian Philosophy esteemed imprudent by the Politicks of the world and flat and irrational by some men of excellent wit and submile discourse who because the permissions and dictates of natural true and essential Reason are at no hand to be contradicted by any superinduced Discipline think that whatsoever seems contrary to their Reason is also violent to our Nature and offers indeed a good to us but by ways unnatural and unreasonable And I think they are very great strangers to the present affairs and perswasions of the World who know not that Christianity is very much undervalued upon this principle men insensibly becoming unchristian because they are perswaded that much of the Greatness of the World is contradicted by the Religion But certainly no mistake can be greater For the Holy Jesus by his Doctrine did instruct the Understandings of men made their Appetites more obedient their Reason better principled and argumentative with less deception their Wills apter for noble choices their Governments more prudent their present Felicities greater their hopes more excellent and that duration which was intended to them by their Creator he made manifest to be a state of glory and all this was to be done and obtained respectively by the ways of Reason and Nature such as God gave to Man then when at first he designed him to a noble and an immortal condition the Christian Law being for the substance of it nothing but the restitution and perfection of the Law of Nature And this I shall represent in all the parts of its natural progression and I intend it not only as a Preface to the following Books but for an Introduction and Invitation to the whole Religion 2. For God when he made the first emanations of his eternal Being and created Man as the End of all his productions here below designed him to an End such as himself was pleased to chuse for him and gave him abilities proportionable to attain that End God gave Man a reasonable and an intelligent nature And to this noble Nature he designed as noble an End he intended Man should live well and happily in proportion to his appetites and in the reasonable doing and enjoying those good things which God made him naturally to desire For since God gave him proper and peculiar Appetites with proportion to their own objects and gave him Reason and abilities not only to perceive the sapidness and relish of those objects but also to make reflex acts upon such perceptions and to perceive that he did perceive which was a rare instrument of pleasure and pain respectively it is but reasonable to think that God who created him in mercy did not only proportion a Being to his nature but did also provide satisfaction for all those Appetites and desires which himself had created and put into him For if he had not then the Being of a man had been nothing but a state of perpetual Affliction and the creation of men had been the greatest Unmercifulness in the world disproportionate objects being mere instances of affliction and those unsatisfied appetites nothing else but instruments of torment 3. Therefore that this intendment of God and Nature should be effected that is that Man should become happy it is naturally necessary that all his regular appetites should have an object appointed them in the fruition of which Felicity must consist Because nothing is Felicity but when what was reasonably or orderly desired is possessed for the having what is not desired or the wanting of what we desired or the desiring what we should not are the several constituent parts of Infelicity and it can have no other constitution 4. Now the first Appetite Man had in order to his great End was to be as perfect as he could that is to be as like the best thing he knew as his nature and condition would permit And although by Adam's sancy and affection to his Wife and by God's appointing fruit for him we see the lower Appetites were first provided for yet the first Appetite which Man had as he distinguishes from lower creatures was to be like God for by that the Devil tempted him and in order to that he had naturally sufficient instruments and abilities For although by being abused with the Devil's sophistry he chose an incompetent instrument yet because it is naturally certain that Love is the greatest assimilation of the object and the faculty Adam by loving God might very well approach nearer him according as he could And it was natural to Adam to love God who was his Father his Creator the fountain of all good to him and of excellency in himself and whatsoever is understood to be such it is as natural for us to love and we do it for the same reasons for which we love any thing else and we cannot love for any other reason but for one or both these in their proportion apprehended 5. But because God is not only excellent and good but by being supreme Lord hath power to give us what Laws he pleases Obedience to his Laws therefore becomes naturally but consequently necessary when God decrees them because he does make himself an enemy to all Rebels and disobedient sons by affixing penalties to the transgressors And therefore Disobedience is naturally inconsistent not only with love to our selves
the same reasonable Propositions into other Nations and he therefore multiplied them to a great necessity of a dispersion that they might serve the ends of God and of the natural Law by their ambulatory life and their numerous disseminations And this was it which S. Paul 〈◊〉 The Law was added because of transgression meaning that because men did transgress the natural God brought Moses's Law into the world to be as a strand to the inundation of Impiety And thus the world stood till the fulness of time was come for so we are taught by the Apostle The Law was added because of transgression but the date of this was to expire at a certain period it was added to serve but till the seed should come to whom the Promise was made 23. For because Moses's Law was but an imperfect explication of the natural there being divers parts of the three Laws of Nature not at all explicated by that Covenant not the religion of Prayers not the reasonableness of Temperance and Sobriety in Opinion and Diet and in the more noble instances of Humanity and doing benefit it was so short that as S. Paul says The Law could not make the comers thereunto perfect and which was most of all considerable it was confined to a Nation and the other parts of mankind had made so little use of the Records of that Nation that all the world was placed in darkness and sate in the 〈◊〉 of death Therefore it was that in great mercy God sent his Son a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of the people Israel to instruct those and consummate these that the imperfection of the one and the mere darkness of the other might be illustrated by the Sun of Righteousness And this was by restoring the Light of Nature which they by evil Customs and 〈◊〉 Principles and evil Laws had obscured by restoring Man to the liberty of his spirit by freeing him from the slavery of Sin under which they were so lost and oppressed that all their discourses and conclusions some of their moral Philosophy and all their habitual practices were but servants of sin and made to cooperate to that end not which God intended as perfective of humane nature but which the Devil and vicious persons superinduced to serve little ends and irregular and to destroy the greater 24. For certain it is Christianity is nothing else but the most perfect design that ever was to make a man be happy in his whole capacity and as the Law was to the Jews so was Philosophy to the Gentiles a Schoolmaster to bring them to Christ to teach them the rudiments of Happiness and the first and lowest things of Reason that when Christ was come all mankind might become perfect that is be made regular in their Appetites wise in their Understandings assisted in their Duties directed to and instructed in their great Ends. And this is that which the Apostle calls being perfect men in Christ Jesus perfect in all the intendments of nature and in all the designs of God And this was brought to pass by discovering and restoring and improving the Law of Nature and by turning it all into Religion 25. For the natural Law being a sufficient and a proportionate instrument and means to bring a man to the End designed in his creation and this Law being eternal and unalterable for it ought to be as lasting and as unchangeable as the nature it self so long as it was capable of a Law it was not imaginable that the body of any Law should make a new Morality new rules and general proportions either of Justice or Religion or Temperance or Felicity the essential parts of all these consisting in natural proportions and means toward the consummation of man's last End which was first intended and is always the same It is as if there were a new truth in an essential and a necessary Proposition For although the instances may vary there can be no new Justice no new Temperance no new relations proper and natural relations and intercourses between God and us but what always were in Praises and Prayers in adoration and honour and in the symbolical expressions of God's glory and our needs 26. Hence it comes that that which is the most obvious and notorious appellative of the Law of Nature that it is a Law written in our hearts was also recounted as one of the glories and excellencies of Christianity Plutarch saying that Kings ought to be governed by Laws explains himself that this Law must be a word not written in Books and Tables but dwelling in the Mind a living rule the 〈◊〉 guide of their manners and monitors of their life And this was the same which S. Paul expresses to be the guide of the Gentiles that is of all men naturally The Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law which shews the work of the Law written in their hearts And that we may see it was the Law of Nature that returned in the Sanctions of Christianity God declares that in the constitution of this Law he would take no other course than at first that is he would write them in the hearts of men indeed with a new style with a quill taken from the wings of the holy Dove the Spirit of God was to be the great Engraver and the Scribe of the New Covenant but the Hearts of men should be the Tables For this is the Covenant that I will make with them after those days saith the Lord I will put my laws into their hearts and into their minds will I write them And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more That is I will provide a means to expiate all the iniquities of man and restore him to the condition of his first creation putting him into the same order towards Felicity which I first designed to him and that also by the same instruments Now I consider that the Spirit of God took very great care that all the Records of the Law of Jesus should be carefully kept and transmitted to posterity in Books and Sermons which being an act of providence and mercy was a provision lest they should be lost or mistaken as they were formerly when God writ some of them in Tables of stone for the use of the sons of Israel and all of them in the first Tables of Nature with the 〈◊〉 of Creation as now he did in the new creature by the singer of the Spirit But then writing them in the Tables of our minds besides the other can mean nothing but placing them there where they were before and from whence we blotted them by the mixtures of impure principles and discourses But I descend to particular and more minute considerations 27. The Laws of Nature either are bands of Religion Justice or Sobriety Now I consider concerning Religion that when-ever God hath made any particular Precepts to a Family as to Abraham's or
Holy Jesus perfected and restored the natural Law and drew it into a System of Propositions and made them to become of the family of Religion For God is so zealous to have Man attain to the End to which he first designed him that those things which he hath put in the natural order to attain that End he hath bound fast upon us not only by the order of things by which it was that he that prevaricated did naturally fall short of Felicity but also by bands of Religion he hath now made himself a party and an enemy to those that will be not-happy Of old Religion was but one of the natural Laws and the instances of Religion were distinct from the discourses of Philosophy Now all the Law of Nature is adopted into Religion and by our love and duty to God we are tied to do all that is reason and the parts of our Religion are but pursuances of the natural relation between God and us and beyond all this our natural condition is in all sences improved by the consequents and adherencies of this Religion For although Nature and Grace are opposite that is Nature depraved by evil habits by ignorance and ungodly customs is contrary to Grace that is to Nature restored by the Gospel engaged to regular living by new revelations and assisted by the Spirit yet it is observable that the Law of Nature and the Law of Grace are never opposed There is a Law of our members saith S. Paul that is an evil necessity introduced into our appetites by perpetual evil customs examples and traditions of vanity and there is a Law of sin that answers to this and they differ only as inclination and habit vicious desires and vicious practices But then contrary to these are 〈◊〉 a Law of my mind which is the Law of Nature and right Reason and then the Law of Grace that is of Jesus Christ who perfected and restored the first Law and by assistances reduced it into a Law of holy living and these two 〈◊〉 as the other the one is in order to the other as 〈◊〉 and growing degrees and capacities are to perfection and consummation The Law of the mind had been so rased and obliterate and we by some means or other so disabled from observing it exactly that until it was turned into the Law of Grace which is a Law of pardoning infirmities and assisting us in our choices and elections we were in a state of deficiency from the perfective state of Man to which God intended us 37. Now although God always designed Man to the same state which he hath now revealed by Jesus Christ yet he told him not of it and his permissions and licences were then greater and the Law it self lay closer 〈◊〉 up in the compact body of necessary Propositions in order to so much of his End as was known or could be supposed But now according to the extension of the revelation the Law it self is made wider that is more explicit and natural Reason is thrust forward into discourses of Charity and benefit and we tied to do very much good to others and tied to cooperate to each other's felicity 38. That the Law of Charity is a Law of Nature needs no other argument but the consideration of the first constitution of Man The first instances of Justice or entercourse of man with a second or third person were to such persons towards whom he had the greatest endearments of affection in the world a 〈◊〉 and Children and Justice and Charity at first was the same thing And it hath obtained in Ages far removed from the first that Charity is called Righteousness He hath dispersed and given to the poor his righteousness remaineth for ever And it is certain Adam could not in any instance be unjust but he must in the same also be uncharitable the band of his first Justice being the ties of love and all having commenced in love And our Blessed Lord restoring all to the intention of the first perfection expresses it to the same sence as I formerly observed Justice to our Neighbour is loving him as our selves For since Justice obliges us to do as we would be done to as the irascible faculty restrains us 〈◊〉 doing evil for fear of receiving evil so the concupiscible obliges us to Charity that our selves may receive good 39. I shall say nothing concerning the reasonableness of this Precept but that it concurs rarely with the first reasonable appetite of man of being like God Deus est mortali juvare mortalem 〈◊〉 haec est ad aeternitatem via said Pliny and It is more blessed to give than to receive said our Blessed Saviour And therefore the Commandment of Charity in all its parts is a design not only to reconcile the most miserable person to some participations and sense of felicity but to make the Charitable man happy and whether this be not very agreeable to the desires of an intelligent nature needs no farther enquiry And Aristotle asking the Question whether a man had more need of friends in prosperity or adversity makes the case equal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When they are in want they need assistance when they are prosperous they need partners of their felicity that by communicating their joy to them it may reflect and double upon their spirits And certain it is there is no greater felicity in the world than in the content that results from the emanations of Charity And this is that which S. John calls the old Commandment and the new Commandment It was of old for it was from the beginning even in Nature and to the offices of which our very bodies had an organ and a seat for therefore Nature gave to a man bowels and the passion of yerning but it grew up into Religion by parts and was made perfect and in that degree appropriate to the Law of Jesus Christ. For so the Holy Jesus became our Law-giver and added many new Precepts over and above what were in the Law of Moses but not more than was in the Law of Nature The reason of both is what I have all this while discoursed of Christ made a more perfect restitution of the Law of Nature than Moses did and so it became the second Adam to consummate that which began to be less perfect from the prevarication of the first Adam 40. A particular of the Precept of Charity is forgiving Injuries and besides that it hath many superinduced benefits by way of blessing and reward it relies also upon this natural reason That a pure and a simple revenge does no way restore man towards the felicity which the injury did interrupt For Revenge is a doing a simple evil and does not in its formality imply reparation For the mere repeating of our own right is permitted to them that will do it by charitable instruments and to secure my self or the publick against the future by positive inflictions upon
the injurious if I be not Judge my self is also within the moderation of an unblameable defence unless some accidents or circumstances vary the case but forgiving injuries is a separating the malice from the wrong the transient act from the permanent effect and it is certain the act which is passed cannot be rescinded the effect may and if it cannot it does no way alleviate the evil of the accident that I draw him that caused it into as great a misery since every evil happening in the world is the proper object of pity which is in some sense afflictive and therefore unless we become unnatural and without bowels it is most unreasonable that we should encrease our own afflictions by introducing a new misery and making a new object of pity All the ends of humane Felicity are secured without Revenge for without it we are permitted to restore our selves and therefore it is against natural Reason to do an evil that no way cooperates towards the proper and perfective End of humane nature And he is a miserable person whose good is the evil of his neighbour and he that revenges in many cases does worse than he that did the injury in all cases as bad For if the first injury was an injustice to serve an end of an advantage and real benefit then my revenge which is abstracted and of a consideration separate and distinct from the reparation is worse for I do him evil without doing my self any real good which he did not for he received advantage by it But if the first injury was matter of mere malice without advantage yet it is no worse than Revenge for that is just so and there is as much phantastick pleasure in doing a spight as in doing revenge They are both but like the pleasures of eating coals and toads and vipers And certain it is if a man upon his private stock could be permitted to revenge the evil would be immortal And it is rarely well discoursed by Tyndarus in Euripides If the angry Wife shall kill her Husband the Son shall revenge his Father's death and kill his Mother and then the Brother shall kill his Mother's murtherer and he also will meet with an avenger for killing his Brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What end shall there be to such inhumane and sad accidents If in this there be injustice it is against natural Reason and If it be evil and disorders the felicity and security of Society it is also against natural Reason But if it be just it is a strange Justice that is made up of so many inhumanities 41. And now if any man pretends specially to Reason to the ordinate desires and perfections of Nature and the sober discourses of Philosophy here is in Christianity and no-where else enough to satisfie and inform his Reason to perfect his Nature and to reduce to act all the Propositions of an intelligent and wise spirit And the Holy Ghost is promised and given in our Religion to be an eternal band to keep our Reason from returning to the darknesses of the old creation and to promote the ends of our natural and proper Felicity For it is not a vain thing that S. Paul reckons helps and governments and healings to be fruits of the Spirit For since the two greatest Blessings of the world personal and political consist that in Health this in Government and the ends of humane Felicity are served in nothing greater for the present interval than in these two Christ did not only enjoyn rare prescriptions of Health such as are Fasting Temperance Chastity and Sobriety and all the great endearments of Government and unless they be sacredly observed man is infinitely miserable but also hath given his Spirit that is extraordinary aids to the promoting these two and facilitating the work of Nature that as S. Paul says at the end of a discourse to this very purpose the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us 42. I shall add nothing but this single consideration God said to the children of Israel Ye are a royal Priesthood a Kingdom of Priests Which was therefore true because God reigned by the Priests and the Priests lips did then preserve knowledge and the people were to receive the Law from their mouths for God having by Laws of his own established Religion and the Republick did govern by the rule of the Law and the ministery of the Priests The Priests said Thus saith the LORD and the people obeyed And these very words are spoken to the Christian Church Ye are a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light That is God reigns over all Christendom just as he did over the Jews He hath now so given to them and restored respectively all those reasonable Laws which are in order to all good ends personal oeconomical and political that if men will suffer Christian Religion to do its last intention if men will live according to it there needs no other coercion of Laws or power of the Sword The Laws of God revealed by Christ are sufficient to make all societies of men happy and over all good men God reigns by his Ministers by the preaching of the Word And this was most evident in the three first Ages of the Church in which all Christian Societies were for all their proper entercourses perfectly guided not by the authority and compulsion but by the Sermons of their Spiritual Guides insomuch that S. Paul sharply reprehends the Corinthians that Brother goeth to law with Brother and that before the unbelievers as if he had said Ye will not suffer Christ to be your Judge and his Law to be your Rule which indeed was a great fault among them not only because they had so excellent a Law so clearly described or where they might doubt they had infallible Interpreters so reasonable and profitable so evidently concurring to their mutual felicity but also because God did design Jesus to be their King to reign over them by spiritual regiment as himself did over the Jews till they chose a King And when the Emperors became Christian the case was no otherwise altered but that the Princes themselves submitting to Christ's yoke were as all other Christians are for their proportion to be governed by the Royal Priesthood that is by the Word preached by Apostolical persons the political Interest remaining as before save that by being submitted to the Laws of Christ it received this advantage that all Justice was turned to be Religion and became necessary and bound upon the Conscience by Divinity And when it happens that a Kingdom is converted to Christianity the Common-wealth is made a Church and Gentile Priests are Christian Bishops and the Subjects of the Kingdom are Servants of Christ the Religion of the Nation is turned Christian and the Law of the Nation made a part
of the Religion there is no change of Government but that Christ is made King and the Temporal Power is his substitute and is to promote the interest of Obedience to him as before he did to Christ's enemy Christ having left his Ministers as Lieger Embassadors to signifie and publish the Laws of Jesus to pray all in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God so that over the obedient Christ wholly reigns by his Ministers publishing his Laws over the disobedient by the Prince also putting those Laws in execution And in this sense it is that S. Paul says Bonis Lex non est posita To such who live after the Spirit there is no Law that is there needs no coercion But now if we reject God from reigning over us and say like the people in the Gospel Nolumus hunc regnare We will not have him to reign over us by the ministery of his Word by the Empire of the Royal Priesthood then we return to the condition of Heathens and persons sitting in darkness then God hath armed the Temporal Power with a Sword to cut us off If we obey not God speaking by his Ministers that is if we live not according to the excellent Laws of Christianity that is holily soberly and justly in all our relations he hath placed three Swords against us the Sword of the Spirit against the unholy and irreligious the Sword of natural and supervening Infelicities upon the intemperate and unsober and the Sword of Kings against the unjust to remonstrate the excellency of Christianity and how certainly it leads to all the Felicity of man because every transgression of this Law according to its proportion makes men unhappy and unfortunate 43. What effect this Discourse may have I know not I intended it to do honour to Christianity and to represent it to be the best Religion in the World and the conjugation of all excellent things that were in any Religion or in any Philosophy or in any Discourses For whatsoever was honest whatsoever was noble whatsoever was wise whatsoever was of good report if there be any praise if there be any vertue it is in Christianity For even to follow all these instances of excellency is a Precept of Christianity And 〈◊〉 they that pretend to Reason cannot more reasonably endear themselves to the reputation of Reason than by endearing their Reason to Christianity the conclusions and belief of which is the most reasonable and perfect the most excellent design and complying with the noblest and most proper Ends of Man And if this Gate may suffice to invite such persons into the Recesses of the 〈◊〉 then I shall tell them that I have dressed it in the ensuing Books with some variety and as the nature of the Religion is some parts whereof are apt to satisfie our discourse some to move our affections and yet all of this to relate to practice so is the design of the following pages For some men are wholly made up of Passion and their very Religion is but Passion put into the family and society of holy purposes and sor those I have prepared Considerations upon the special Parts of the Life of the Holy Jesus and yet there also are some things mingled in the least severe and most affectionate parts which may help to answer a Question and appease a Scruple and may give Rule for Determination of many cases of Conscience For I have so ordered the Considerations that they spend not themselves in mere affections and ineffective passions but they are made Doctrinal and little repositories of Duty But because of the variety of mens spirits and of mens necessities it was necessary I should interpose some practical Discourses more severe For it is but a sad thought to consider that Piety and Books of Devotion are counted but entertainment for little understandings and softer spirits and although there is much sault in such imperious minds that they will not distinguish the weakness of the Writers from the reasonableness and wisdom of the Religion yet I cannot but think the Books themselves are in a large degree the occasion of so great indevotion because they are some few excepted represented naked in the conclusions of spiritual life without or art or learning and made apt for persons who can do nothing but believe and love not for them that can consider and love And it is not well that since nothing is more reasonable and excellent in all perfections spiritual than the Doctrines of the Spirit or holy life yet nothing is offered to us so unlearnedly as this is so miserable and empty of all its own intellectual perfections If I could I would have had it otherwise in the present Books for since the Understanding is not an idle Faculty in a spiritual life but hugely operative to all excellent and reasonable choices it were very fit that this Faculty were also entertained by such discourses which God intended as instruments of hallowing it as he intended it towards the sanctification of the whole man For want of it busie and active men entertain themselves with notions infinitely unsatisfying and unprofitable But in the mean time they are not so wise For concerning those that study unprofitable Notions and neglect not only that which is wisest but that also which is of most real advantage I cannot but think as Aristotle did of Thales and Anaxagoras that they may be learned but they are not wise or wise but not prudent when they are ignorant of such things as are profitable to them For suppose they know the wonders of Nature and the subtilties of Metaphysicks and operations Mathematical yet they cannot be prudent who spend themselves wholly upon unprofitable and ineffective contemplations He is truly wise that knows best to promote the best End that which he is bound to desire and is happy if he obtains and miserable if he misses and that is the End of a happy Eternity which is obtained by the only means of living according to the purposes of God and the prime intentions of Nature natural and prime Reason being now all one with the Christian Religion But then I shall only observe that this part of Wisdom and the excellency of its secret and deep Reason is not to be discerned but by Experience the Propositions of this Philosophy being as in many other Empirical and best found out by observation of real and material events So that I may say of Spiritual learning as Quintilian said of some of Plato's Books Nam Plato cum in aliis quibusdam tum praecipue in Timaeo ne intelligi quidem nisi abiis qui hanc quoque partem disciplinae Musicae diligenter perceperint potest The secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven are not understood truly and throughly but by the sons of the Kingdom and by them too in several degrees and to various purposes but to evil persons the whole systeme of this Wisdom is insipid and flat dull as the foot of a rock
all the Province of his Cure with great zeal for the gaining of Souls to the belief and obedience of his holy Laws those are the Feet that should walk upon seas and hills of water as upon firm pavement at which the Lepers and diseased persons should stoop and gather health up which Mary Magdalen should wash with tears and wipe with her hair and anoint with costly Nard as expressions of love and adoration and there find absolution and remedy for her sins and which finally should be rent by the nails of the Cross and afterwards ascend above the Heavens making the earth to be his foot-stool From hence take patterns of imitation that our Piety be symbolical that our Affections be passionate and Eucharistical full of love and wonder and adoration that our feet tread in the same steps and that we transfer the Symbol into Mystery and the Mystery to Devotion praying the Holy Jesus to actuate the same mercies in us which were finished at his holy feet forgiving our sins healing our sicknesses and then place our selves irremoveably becoming his Disciples and strictly observing the rules of his holy Institution sitting at the feet of this our greatest Master 8. In the same manner a pious person may with the Blessed Virgin pass to the consideration of his holy Hands which were so often lifted up to God in Prayer whose touch was miraculous and medicinal cleansing Lepers restoring perishing limbs opening blind eyes raising dead persons to life those Hands which fed many thousands by two Miracles of multiplication that purged the Temple from prophaneness that in a sacramental manner bare his own Body and gave it to be the food and refreshment of elect Souls and after were cloven and rent upon the Cross till the Wounds became after the Resurrection so many transparencies and glorious Instruments of solemn spiritual and efficacious benediction Transmit this meditation into affections and practices lifting up pure hands in prayer that our Devotions be united to the merits of his glorious Intercession and putting our selves into his hands and holy providence let us beg those effects upon our Souls and spiritual Cures which his precious hands did operate upon their bodies transferring those Similitudes to our ghostly and personal advantages 9. We may also behold his holy Breast and consider that there lay that sacred Heart like the Dove within the Ark speaking peace to us being the regiment of love and sorrows the fountain of both the Sacraments running out in the two holy streams of Bloud and Water when the Rock was smitten when his holy Side was pierced and there with St. John let us lay our head and place our heart and thence draw a treasure of holy revelations and affections that we may rest in him onely and upon him lay our burthens filling every corner of our heart with thoughts of the most amiable and beloved JESUS 10. In like manner we may unite the Day of his Nativity with the day of his Passion and consider all the parts of his Body as it was instrumental in all the work of our Redemption and so imitate and in some proportion partake of that great variety of sweetnesses and amorous reflexes and gracious intercourses which passed between the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Child according to his present capacities and the clarity of that light which was communicated to her by Divine Infusion And all the Members of this Blessed Child his Eyes his Face his Head all the Organs of his Senses afford variety of entertainment and motion to our Affections according as they served in their several imployments and cooperations in the mysteries of our Restitution 11. But his Body was but his Soul' s upper garment and the considerations of this are as immaterial and spiritual as the Soul it self and more immediate to the mystery of the Nativity This Soul is of the same nature and substance with ours in this inferiour to the Angels that of it self it is incompleat and discursive in a lower order of ratiocination but in this superiour 1. That it is personally united to the Divinity full of the Holy Ghost over-running with Grace which was dispensed to it without measure And by the mediation of this Union as it self is exalted far above all orders of Intelligences so we also have contracted alliance with God teaching us not to unravel our excellencies by infamous deportments 2. Here also we may meditate that his Memory is indeterminable and unalterable ever remembring to do us good and to present our needs to God by the means of his holy intercession 3. That his Understanding is without ignorance knowing the secrets of our hearts full of mysterious secrets of his Father's Kingdom in which all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God are hidden 4. That his Will is impeccable entertained with an uninterrupted act of Love to God greater than all Angels and beatified spirits present to God in the midst of the transportations and ravishments of Paradise That this Will is full of Love to us of Humility in it self of Conformity to God wholly resign'd by acts of Adoration and Obedience It was moved by six Wings Zeal of the honour of God and Compunction for our sins Pity to our miseries and Hatred of our impieties Desires of satisfying the wrath of God and great Joy at the consideration of all the fruits of his Nativity the appeasing of his Father the redemption of his brethren And upon these wings he mounted up into the throne of Glory carrying our nature with him above the seats of Angels These second considerations present themselves to all that with Piety and Devotion behold the Holy Babe lying in the obscure and humble place of his Nativity The PRAYER HOly and Immortal Jesus I adore and worship thee with the lowest prostrations and humility of Soul and body and give thee all thanks for that great Love to us whereof thy Nativity hath made demonstration for that Humility of thine expressed in the poor and ignoble circumstances which thou didst voluntarily chuse in the manner of thy Birth And I present to thy holy Humanity inchased in the adorable Divinity my Body and Soul humbly desiring that as thou didst clothe thy self with a Humane body thou mayest invest me with the robes of Righteousness covering my sins inabling my weaknesses and sustaining my mortality till I shall finally in conformity to thy Beauties and Perfections be clothed with the stole of Glory Amen 2. VOuchsafe to come to me by a more intimate and spiritual approximation that so thou mayest lead me to thy Father for of my self I cannot move one step towards thee Take me by the hand place me in thy heart that there I may live and there I may die that as thou hast united our Nature to thy Eternal Being thou mightest also unite my Person to thine by the interiour adunations of Love and Obedience and Conformity Let thy Ears be open to my prayers thy merciful Eyes
acceptance to all Graces But I shall reduce this to particular and more minute considerations 5. First We shall best know that our Will is in the obedience by our prompt undertaking by our chearful managing by our swift execution for all degrees of delay are degrees of immorigerousness and unwillingness And since time is extrinsecal to the act and alike to every part of it nothing determines an action but the Opportunity without and the desires and Willingress within And therefore he who deliberates beyond his first opportunity and exteriour determination and appointment of the act brings fire and wood but wants a Lamb for the sacrifice and unless he offer up his Isaac his beloved Will he hath no ministery prepared for God's acceptance He that does not repent to day puts it to the Question whether he will repent at all or no. He that defers Restitution when all the Circumstances are fitted is not yet resolved upon the duty And when he does it if he does it against his will he does but do honorary Penance with a Paper upon his hat a Taper in his hand it may satisfie the Law but not satisfie his Conscience it neither pleases himself and less pleases God A Sacrifice without a Heart was a sad and ominous presage in the superstition of the Roman Augurs and so it is in the service of God for what the exhibition of the work is to man that the presentation of the Will is to God It is but a cold Charity to a naked begger to say God help thee and do nothing give him clothes and he feels your Charity But God who is the searcher of the heart his apprehension of actions relative to him is of the inward motions and addresses of the Will and without this our exteriour services are like the paying of a piece of mony in which we have defaced the image it is not currant 6. Secondly But besides the Willingness to do the acts of express command the readiness to do the Intimations and tacite significations of God's pleasure is the best testimony in the world that our Will is in the obedience Thus did the Holy Jesus undertake a Nature of infirmity and suffer a Death of shame and sorrow and became obedient from the Circumcision even unto the death of the Cross not staying for a Command but because it was his Father's pleasure Mankind should be redeemed For before the susception of it he was not a person subjicible to a Command It was enough that he understood the inclinations and designs of his Father's Mercies And therefore God hath furnished us with instances of uncommanded Piety to be a touchstone of our Obedience He that does but his endeavour about the express commands hath a bridle in his mouth and is restrained by violence but a willing spirit is like a greedy eye devours all it sees and hopes to make some proportionable returns and compensations of duty for his infirmity by taking in the intimations of God's pleasure When God commands Chastity he that undertakes a holy Coelibate hath great obedience to the command of Chastity God bids us give Alms of our increase he obeys this with great facility that sells all his goods and gives them to the poor And provided our hastiness to snatch at too much does not make us let go our duty like the indiscreet loads of too forward persons too big or too inconvenient and uncombin'd there is not in the world a greater probation of our prompt Obedience than when we look farther than the precise Duty swallowing that and more with our ready and hopeful purposes nothing being so able to do miracles as Love and yet nothing being so certainly accepted as Love though it could do nothing in productions and exteriour ministeries 7. Thirdly but God requires that our Obedience should have another excellency to make it a becoming present to the Divine acceptance our Understanding must be sacrificed too and become an ingredient of our Obedience We must also believe that whatsoever God commands is most fitting to be commanded is most excellent in it self and the best for us to do The first gives our Affections and desires to God and this also gives our Reason and is a perfection of Obedience not communicable to the duties we owe to Man For God only is Lord of this faculty and being the fountain of all wisdom therefore commands our Understanding because he alone can satisfie it We are bound to obey humane Laws but not bound to think the Laws we live under are the most prudent Constitutions in the World But God's Commandments are not only a lantern to our feet and a light unto our paths but a rule to our Reason and satisfaction to our Understandings as being the instruments of our address to God and conveyances of his Grace and manuductions to Eternity And therefore St. John Climacus defines Obedience to be An unexamined and unquestioned motion a voluntary death and sepulture of the Will a life without curiosity a laying aside our own discretion in the midst of the riches of the most excellent understandings 8. And certainly there is not in the world a greater strength against temptations than is deposited in an obedient Understanding because that only can regulary produce the same affections it admits of fewer degrees and an infrequent alteration But the actions proceeding from the Appetite as it is determined by any other principle than a satisfied Understanding have their heightnings and their declensions and their changes and mutations according to a thousand accidents Reason is more lasting than Desire and with fewer means to be tempted but Affections and motions of appetite as they are procured by any thing so may they expire by as great variety of causes And therefore to serve God by way of Understanding is surer and in it self unless it be by the accidental increase of degrees greater than to serve him upon the motion and principle of passions and desires though this be fuller of comfort and pleasure than the other When Lot lived amongst the impure 〈◊〉 where his righteous Soul was in a continual agony he had few exteriour incentives to a pious life nothing to enkindle the sensible flame of burning desires toward Piety but in the midst of all the discouragements of the world nothing was left him but the way and precedency of a truly-informed Reason and Conscience Just so is the way of those wise souls who live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation where Piety is out of countenance where Austerity is ridiculous 〈◊〉 under persecution no Examples to lead us on there the Understanding is left to be the guide and it does the work the surest for this makes the duty of many to be certain regular and chosen constant integral and perpetual but this way is like the life of an unmarried or a retired person less of grief in it and less of joy But the way of serving God with the
favourable And it is considerable that nothing is worse than Death but Damnation or something that partakes of that in some of its worst ingredients such as is a lasting Torment or a daily great misery in some other kind And therefore since no humane Law can bind a man to a worse thing than Death if Obedience brings me to death I cannot be worse when I disobey it and I am not so bad if the penalty of death be not expressed And so for other penalties in their own proportions This Discourse is also to be understood concerning the Laws of Peace not of War not onely because every disobedience in War may be punished with death according as the reason may chance but also because little things may be of great and dangerous consequence But in Peace it is observable that there is no humane positive superinduced Law but by the practice of all the world which because the 〈◊〉 of the Prince is certainly included in it is the surest interpretation it is dispensed withall by ordinary necessities by reason of lesser inconveniences and common accidents thus the not saying of our Office daily is excused by the study of Divinity the publishing the banns of Matrimony by an ordinary incommodity the Fasting-days of the Church by a little sickness or a journey and therefore much rather if my Estate and most of all if my Life be in danger with it and to say that in these cases there is no interpretative permission to omit the particular action is to accuse the Laws and the Law-giver the one of unreasonableness the other of uncharitableness 22. Fourthly These Considerations are upon the execution of the duty but even towards Man our obedience must have a mixture of the Will and choice like as our injunction of obedience to the Divine Command With good will doing service saith the Apostle for it is impossible to secure the duty of inferiours but by conscience and good will unless provision could be made against all their secret arts and concealments and escapings which as no providence can foresee so no diligence can cure It is but an eye-service whatsoever is compelled and involuntary nothing rules a man in private but God and his own desires and they give Laws in a Wilderness and accuse in a Cloister and do execution in a Closet if there be any prevarication 23. Fifthly But obedience to humane Laws goes no farther we are not bound to obey with a direct and particular act of Understanding as in all Divine Sanctions for so long as our Superiours are fallible though it be highly necessary we conform our wills to their innocent Laws yet it is not a duty we should think the Laws most prudent or convenient because all Laws are not so but it may concern the interest of humility and self-denial to 〈◊〉 subject to an inconvenient so it be not a sinful Command for so we must chuse an affliction when God offers it and give God thanks for it and yet we may cry under the smart of it and call to God for ease and remedy And yet it were well if inferiours would not be too busie in disputing the prudence of their Governours and the convenience of their Constitutions Whether they be sins or no in the execution and to our particulars we are concern'd to look to I say as to our particulars for an action may be a sin in the Prince commanding it and yet innocent in the person executing as in the case of unjust Wars in which the Subject who cannot ought not to be a Judge yet must be a Minister and it is notorious in the case of executing an unjust sentence in which not the Executioner but the Judge is only the unjust person and he that serves his Prince in an unjust War is but the executioner of an unjust sentence But what-ever goes farther does but undervalue the person slight the Government and unloose the golden cords of Discipline For we are not intrusted in providing for degrees so we secure the kind and condition of our actions And since God having derived rays and beams of Majesty and transmitted it in parts upon several states of men hath fixed humane authority and dominion in the golden candlestick of Understanding he that shall question the prudence of his Governour or the wisdom of his Sanction does unclasp the golden rings that tie the purple upon the Prince's shoulder he tempts himself with a reason to disobey and extinguish the light of Majesty by overturning the candlestick and hiding the opinion of his wisdom and understanding And let me say this He that is confident of his own understanding and reasonable powers and who is more than he that thinks himself wiser than the Laws needs no other Devil in the neighbourhood no tempter but himself to pride and vanity which are the natural parents of Disobedience 24. But a man's Disobedience never seems so reasonable as when the Subject is forbidden to do an act of Piety commanded indeed in the general but uncommanded in certain circumstances And forward Piety and assiduous Devotion a great and undiscreet Mortifier is often tempted to think no Authority can restrain the fervours and distempers of zeal in such holy Exercises and yet it is very often as necessary to restrain the indiscretions of a forward person as to excite the remissness of the cold and frozen Such persons were the Sarabaites spoken of by 〈◊〉 who were greater labourers and stricter mortifiers than the Religious in Families and Colledges and yet they endured no Superiour nor Laws But such customs as these are Humiliation without Humility humbling the body and exalting the spirit or indeed Sacrifices and no Obedience It was an argument of the great wisdom of the Fathers of the 〈◊〉 when they heard of the prodigious Severities exercised by 〈◊〉 Stylites upon himself they sent one of the Religious to him with power to enquire what was his manner of living and what warrant he had for such a rigorous undertaking giving in charge to command him to give it over and to live in a community with them and according to the common institution of those Religious families The Messenger did so and immediately 〈◊〉 removed his foot from his Pillar with a purpose to descend but the other according to his Commission called to him to stay telling him his station and severity was from God And he that in so great a Piety was humble and obedient did not undertake that Strictness out of singularity nor did it transport him to vanity for that he had received from the Fathers to make judgment of the man and of his institution whereas if upon pretence of the great Holiness of that course he had refused the command the spirit of the person was to be declared caitive and imprudent and the man 〈◊〉 from his troublesom and ostentous vanity 25. Our Fasts our Prayers our Watchings our Intentions of duty our frequent Communions and
all exteriour acts of Religion are to be guided by our Superiour if he sees cause to restrain or asswage any 〈◊〉 For a wound may heal too fast and then the tumour of the flesh is proud not healthful and so may the indiscretions of Religion swell to vanity when we think they grow towards perfection but when we can indure the causticks and correctives of our Spiritual Guides in those things in which we are most apt to please our selves then our Obedience is regular and humble and in other things there is less of danger There is a story told of a very Religious person whose spirit in the ecstasie of Devotion was transported to the clarity of a Vision and he seemed to converse personally with the Holy Jesus feeling from such entercourse great spiritual delights and huge satisfactions in the midst of these joys the Bell call'd to Prayers and he used to the strictness and well instructed in the necessities of Obedience went to the Church and having finished his Devotions returned and found the Vision in the same posture of glories and entertainment which also said to him Because thou hast left me thou hast found me for if thou 〈◊〉 not left me I had presently left thee What-ever the story be I am sure it is a 〈◊〉 Parable for the way to increase spiritual comforts is to be strict in the offices of humble Obedience and we never lose any thing of our joy by laying it aside to attend a Duty and Plutarch reports more honour of Agesilaus's prudence and modesty than of his gallantry and military fortune for he was more honourable by obeying the Decree of the Spartan Senate recalling him from the midst of his Triumphs than he could have been by finishing the War with prosperous success and disobedience 26. Our Obedience being guided by these Rules is urged to us by the consignation of Divine Precepts and the loud voice of thunder even seal'd by a signet of God's right hand the signature of greatest Judgments For God did with greater severity punish the Rebellion of Korah and his company than the express Murmurs against himself nay than the high crime of Idolatry for this Crime God visited them with a sword but for Disobedience and Mutiny against their Superiours God made the Earth to swallow some of them and fire from Heaven to consume the rest to shew that Rebellion is to be punished by the conspiration of Heaven and Earth as it is hateful and contradictory both to God and Man And it is not amiss to observe that obedience to Man being it is for God's sake and yet to a person clothed with the circumstances and the same infirmities with our selves is a greater instance of Humility than to obey God immediately whose Authority is Divine whose Presence is terrible whose Power is infinite and not at all depressed by exterior disadvantages or lessening appearances just as it is both greater Faith and greater Charity to relieve a poor Saint for Jesus sake than to give any thing to Christ himself if he should appear in all the robes of Glory and immediate address For it is to God and to Christ and wholly for their sakes and to them that the Obedience is done or the Charity expressed but themselves are persons whose awfulness majesty and veneration would rather force than invite Obedience or Alms. But when God and his Holy Son stand behind the cloud and send their Servants to take the Homage or the Charity it is the same as if it were done to them but receives the advantage of acceptation by the accidental adherencies of Faith and Humility to the several actions respectively When a King comes to Rebels in person it strikes terrour and veneration into them who are too apt to neglect and despise the person of his Ministers whom they look upon as their fellow-subjects and consider not in the exaltation of a deputed Majesty Charles the Fifth found a happy experience of it at Gaunt in Flanders whose Rebellion he appeased by his presence which he could hardly have done by his Army But if the King's Authority be as much rever'd in his Deputy as it is sacred in his own Person it is the greater Humility and more confident Obedience And as it is certain that he is the most humble that submits to his inferiours so in the same proportion the lower and meaner the instrument upon which God's authority is born the higher is the Grace that teaches us to stoop so low I do not say that a sin against humane Laws is greater than a prevarication against a Divine Commandment as the instances may be the distance is next to infinite and to touch the earth with our foot within the Octaves of Easter or to tast flesh upon days of Abstinence even in those places and to those persons where they did or do oblige have no consideration if they be laid in balance against the crimes of Adultery or Blasphemy or Oppression because these Crimes cannot stand with the reputation and sacredness of Divine Authority but those others may in most instances very well consist with the ends of Government which are severally provided for in the diversity of Sanctions respectively But if we make our instances to other purposes we find that to mutiny in an Army or to keep private Assemblies in a Monarchy are worse than a single thought or morose delectation in a fancy of impurity because those others destroy Government more than these destroy Charity of God or Obedience But then though the instances may vary the Conclusion yet the formal reason is alike and Disobedience to Man is a disobedience against God for God's Authority and not Man's is imprinted upon the Superiour and it is like sacred fire in an earthen Censer as holy as if it were kindled with the fanning of a Cherub's wing or placed just under the Propitiatory upon a golden Altar and it is but a gross conceit which cannot distinguish Religion from its Porter 〈◊〉 from the Beast that carried it so that in all Disobedience to Men in proportion to the greatness of the matter or the malice of the person or his contradiction to the ends of Government and combinations of Society we may use the words by which the Prophet upbraided Israel 〈◊〉 it not enough that you are grievous unto men but will you grieve my God also It is a contempt of the Divinity and the affront is transmitted to God himself when we despise the Power which God hath ordained and all power of every lawful Superiour is such the Spirit of God being witness in the highest measure Rebellion is as the sin of 〈◊〉 and stubbornness as Idolatry It is spoken of Rebellion against God and all Rebellion is so for He that despiscth you despiseth me saith the Blessed Jesus that 's menace enough in the instance of Spiritual regiment And You are gathered together against the Lord saith Moses to the rebellious
which thou hast laid for the foundation of thy Church and the structures of a vertuous life Remember me with much mercy and compassion when the sword of Sorrows or Afflictions shall pierce my heart first transfix me with love and then all the Troubles of this world will be consignations to the joys of a better 〈◊〉 grant for the mercies and the name sake of thy Holy Child Jesus Amen DISCOURSE III. Of Meditation 1. IF in the Definition of Meditation I should call it an unaccustomed and unpractised Duty I should speak a truth though somewhat inartificially for not only the interior beauties and brighter excellencies are as unfelt as Idea's and Abstractions are but also the practice and common knowledge of the Duty it self are strangers to us like the retirements of the Deep or the undiscovered treasures of the Indian Hills And this is a very great cause of the driness and expiration of mens Devotion because our Souls are so little 〈◊〉 with the waters and holy dews of Meditation We go to our prayers by chance or order or by determination of accidental occurrences and we recite them as we read a book and sometimes we are sensible of the Duty and a flash of lightning makes the room bright and our prayers end and the lightning is gone and we as dark as ever We draw our water from standing pools which never are filled but with sudden showers and therefore we are dry so often Whereas if we would draw water from the Fountains of our Saviour and derive them through the chanel of diligent and prudent Meditations our Devotion would be a continual current and safe against the barrenness of frequent droughts 2. For Meditation is an attention and application of spirit to Divine things a searching out all instruments to a holy life a devout consideration of them and a production of those affections which are in a direct order to the love of God and a pious conversation Indeed Meditation is all that great instrument of Piety whereby it is made prudent and reasonable and orderly and perpetual For supposing our Memory instructed with the knowledge of such mysteries and revelations as are apt to entertain the Spirit the Understanding is first and best imployed in the consideration of them and then the Will in their reception when they are duly prepared and so transmitted and both these in such manner and to such purposes that they become the Magazine and great Repositories of Grace and instrumental to all designs of Vertue 3. For the Understanding is not to consider the matter of any meditation in itself or as it determines in natural excellencies or unworthiness respectively or with a purpose to furnish it self with notion and riches of knowledge for that is like the Winter-Sun it shines but warms not but in such order as themselves are put in the designations of Theology in the order of Divine Laws in their spiritual capacity and as they have influence upon Holiness for the Understanding here is something else besides the Intellectual power of the Soul it is the Spirit that is it is celestial in its application as it is spiritual in its nature and we may understand it well by considering the beatifical portions of Soul and body in their future glories For therefore even our Bodies in the Resurrection shall be spiritual because the operation of them shall be in order to spiritual glories and their natural actions such as are Seeing and Speaking shall have a spiritual object and supernatural end and here as we partake of such excellencies and cooperate to such purposes men are more or less spiritual And so is the Understanding taken from its first and lowest ends of resting in notion and ineffective contemplation and is made Spirit that is wholly ruled and guided by God's Spirit to supernatural ends and spiritual imployments so that it understands and considers the motions of the Heavens to declare the glory of God the prodigies and alterations in the Firmament to demonstrate his handy-work it considers the excellent order of creatures that we may not disturb the order of Creation or dissolve the golden chain of Subordination Aristotle and Porphyry and the other Greek Philosophers studied the Heavens to search out their natural causes and production of Bodies the wiser Chaldees and Assyrians studied the same things that they might learn their Influences upon us and make Predictions of contingencies the more moral AEgyptian described his Theorems in Hieroglyphicks and phantastick representments to teach principles of Policy Oeconomy and other prudences of Morality and secular negotiation But the same Philosophy when it is made Christian considers as they did but to greater purposes even that from the Book of the Creatures we may glorifie the Creator and hence derive arguments of Worship and Religion this is Christian Philosophy 4. I instance only in considerations natural to spiritual purposes but the same is the manner in all Meditation whether the matter of it be Nature or Revelation For if we think of Hell and consider the infinity of its duration and that its flames last as long as God lasts and thence conjecture upon the rules of proportion why a finite creature may have an infinite unnatural duration or think by what ways a material fire can torment an immaterial substance or why the Devils who are intelligent and wise creatures should be so foolish as to hate God from whom they know every rivulet of amability derives This is to study not to meditate for Meditation considers any thing that may best make us to avoid the place and to quit a vicious habit or master and 〈◊〉 an untoward inclination or purchase a vertue or exercise one so that Meditation is an act of the Understanding put to the right use 5. For the Holy Jesus coming to redeem us from the bottomless pit did it by lifting us up out of the puddles of impurity and the unwholsome waters of vanity He redeemed us from our vain conversation and our Understandings had so many vanities that they were made instruments of great impiety The unlearned and ruder Nations had fewer Vertues but they had also fewer Vices than the wise Empires that ruled the World with violence and wit together The softer Asians had Lust and Intemperance in a full Chalice but their Understandings were ruder than the finer Latines for these mens understandings distilled wickedness as through a Limbeck and the Romans drank spirits and the sublimed quintessences of Villany whereas the other made themselves drunk with the lees and cheaper instances of sin so that the Understanding is not an idle and useless faculty but naturally drives to practice and brings guests into the inward Cabinet of the Will and there they are entertained and feasted And those Understandings which did not serve the baser end of Vices yet were unprofitable for the most part and furnished their inward rooms with glasses and beads and trifles fit for an American Mart. From all
be like his your Duty in imitation of his Precept and Example and then sing praises as you list no heart is large enough no voice pleasant enough no life long enough nothing but an eternity of duration and a beatifical state can do it well and therefore holy David joyns them both Whoso offereth me thanks and praise he honoureth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright I will shew the salvation of God All thanks and praise without a right-ordered conversation are but the Echo of Religion a voice and no substance but if those praises be sung by a heart righteous and obedient that is singing with the spirit and singing with understanding that is the Musick God delights in 18. Sixthly But let me observe and press this caution It is a mistake and not a little dangerous when people religious and forward shall too promptly frequently and nearly spend their thoughts in consideration of Divine Excellencies God hath shewn thee merit enough to spend all thy stock of love upon him in the characters of his Power the book of the Creature the great tables of his Mercy and the lines of his Justice we have cause enough to praise his Excellencies in what we feel of him and are refreshed with his influence and see his beauties in reflexion though we do not put our eyes out with staring upon his face To behold the Glories and Perfections of God with a more direct intuition is the priviledge of Angels who yet cover their faces in the brightness of his presence it is only permitted to us to consider the back parts of God And therefore those Speculations are too bold and imprudent addresses and minister to danger more than to Religion when we pass away from the direct studies of Vertue and those thoughts of God which are the freer and safer communications of the Deity which are the means of entercourse and relation between him and us to those considerations concerning God which are Metaphysical and remote the formal objects of adoration and wonder rather than of vertue and temperate discourses for God in Scripture never revealed any of his abstracted Perfections and remoter and mysterious distances but with a purpose to produce fear in us and therefore to chide the temerity and boldness of too familiar and nearer entercourse 19. True it is that every thing we see or can consider represents some perfections of God but this I mean that no man should consider too much and meditate too frequently upon the immediate Perfections of God as it were by way of intuition but as they are manifested in the Creatures and in the ministeries of Vertue and also when-ever God's Perfections be the matter of Meditation we should not ascend upwards into him but descend upon our selves like fruitful vapours drawn up into a cloud descending speedily into a shower that the effect of the consideration be a design of good life and that our loves to God be not spent in abstractions but in good works and humble Obedience The other kind of love may deceive us and therefore so may such kind of considerations which are its instrument But this I am now more particularly to consider 20. For beyond this I have described there is a degree of Meditation so exalted that it changes the very name and is called Contemplation and it is in the unitive way of Religion that is it consists in unions and adherences to God it is a prayer of quietness and silence and a meditation extraordinary a discourse without variety a vision and intuition of 〈◊〉 Excellencies an immediate entry into an orb of light and a resolution of all our faculties into sweetnesses affections and starings upon the Divine beauty and is carried on to ecstasies raptures suspensions elevations abstractions and apprehensions beatifical In all the course of vertuous meditation the Soul is like a Virgin invited to make a matrimonial contract it inquires the condition of the person his estate and disposition and other circumstances of amability and desire But when she is satissied with these enquiries and hath chosen her Husband she no more considers particulars but is moved by his voice and his gesture and runs to his entertainment and sruition and spends her self wholly in affections not to obtain but enjoy his love Thus it is said 21. But this is a thing not to be discoursed of but felt And although in other Sciences the terms must first be known and then the Rules and Conclusions scientifical here it is otherwise for first the whole experience of this must be obtained before we can so much as know what it is and the end must be acquired first the Conclusion before the Premises They that pretend to these Heights call them the Secrets of the Kingdom but they are such which no man can describe such which God hath not revealed in the publication of the Gospel such for the acquiring of which there are no means prescribed and to which no man is obliged and which are not in any man's power to obtain nor such which it is lawful to pray for or desire nor concerning which we shall ever be called to an account 22. Indeed when persons have been long sostned with the continual droppings of Religion and their spirits made timorous and apt for impression by the assiduity of Prayer and perpetual alarms of death and the continual dyings of Mortification the Fancy which is a very great instrument of Devotion is kept continually warm and in a disposition and aptitude to take fire and to flame out in great ascents and when they suffer transportations beyond the burthens and support of Reason they suffer 〈◊〉 know not what and call it what they please and other pious people that hear 〈◊〉 of it admire that Devotion which is so eminent and beatified for so they esteem 〈◊〉 and so they come to be called Raptures and Ecstasies which even amongst the A 〈◊〉 were so seldom that they were never spoke of for those Visions Raptures and Intuitions of S. Stephen S. Paul S. Peter and S. John were not pretended to be of this kind not excesses of Religion but prophetical and intuitive Revelations to great and significant purposes such as may be and are described in story but these other cannot for so Cassian reports and commends a saying of Antony the Eremite That is not a perfect Prayer in which the Votary does either understand himself or the Prayer meaning that persons eminently Religious were Divina patientes as Dionysius Areopagita said of his Master Hierotheus Paticks in Devotion suffering ravishments of senses transported beyond the uses of humanity into the suburbs of beatifical apprehensions but whether or no this be any thing besides a too intense and indiscreet pressure of the faculties of the Soul to inconveniences of understanding or else a credulous busie and untamed fancy they that think best of it cannot give a certainty There are and have been some Religious
who have acted Madness and pretended Inspirations and when these are destitute of a Prophetick spirit if they resolve to serve themselves upon the pretences of it they are disposed to the imitation if not to the sufferings of Madness and it would be a great folly to call such Dei plenos full of God who are no better than phantastick and mad People 23. This we are sure of that many Illusions have come in the likeness of Visions and absurd fancies under the pretence of Raptures and what some have called the spirit of Prophecy hath been the spirit of Lying and Contemplation hath been nothing but Melancholy and unnatural lengths and stilness of Prayer hath been a mere Dream and hypochondriacal devotion and hath ended in pride or despair or some sottish and dangerous temptation It is reported of Heron the Monk that having lived a retired mortified and religious life for many years together at last he came to that habit of austerity or singularity that he refused the festival refection and freer meals of Easter and other Solemnities that he might do more eminently than the rest and spend his time in greater abstractions and contemplations but the Devil taking advantage of the weakness of his melancholick and unsettled spirit gave him a transportation and an ecstasie in which he fansied himself to have attained so great perfection that he was as dear to God as a crowned Martyr and Angels would be his security for indemnity though he threw himself to the bottome of a Well He obeyed his fancy and temptation did so bruised himself to death and died possessed with a persuasion of the verity of that Ecstasie and transportation 24. I will not say that all violences and extravagancies of a religious fancy are Illusions but I say that they are all unnatural not hallowed by the warrant of a Revelation nothing reasonable nothing secure I am not sure that they ever consist with Humility but it is confessed that they are often produced by Self-love Arrogancy and the great opinion others have of us I will not judge the condition of those persons who are said to have suffered these extraordinaries for I know not the circumstances or causes or attendants or the effects or whether the stories be true that make report of them but I shall onely advise that we follow the intimation of our Blessed Saviour that we sit down in the lowest place till the Master of the Feast comes and bids us sit up higher If we entertain the inward Man in the purgative and illuminative way that is in actions of Repentance Vertue and precise Duty that is the surest way of uniting us to God whilest it is done by Faith and Obedience and that also is Love and in these peace and safety dwell And after we have done our work it is not discretion in a servant to hasten to his meal and snatch at the refreshment of Visions Unions and Abstractions but first we must gird our selves and wait upon the Master and not sit down our selves till we all be called at the great Supper of the Lamb. 25. It was therefore an excellent desire of St. Bernard who was as likely as any to have such altitudes of Speculation if God had really dispensed them to persons holy phantastick and Religious I pray God grant to me peace of spirit joy in the 〈◊〉 Ghost to compassionate others in the midst of my mirth to be charitable in simplicity to rejoyce with them that rejoyce and to mourn with them that mourn and with these I shall be content other Exaltations of Devotion I leave to Apostles and Apostolick men the high Hills are for the Harts and the climbing Goats the stony Rocks and the recesses of the earth for the Conies It is more healthful and nutritive to dig the earth and to eat of her fruits than to stare upon the greatest glories of the Heavens and live upon the beams of the Sun so unsatisfying a thing is Rapture and transportation to the Soul it often distracts the Faculties but seldome does advantage 〈◊〉 and is full of danger in the greatest of its lustre If ever a man be more in love with God by such instruments or more indeared to Vertue or made more severe and watchful in his Repentance it is an excellent grace and gift of God but then this is nothing but the joys and comfort of ordinary Meditation those extraordinary as they have no sense in them so are not pretended to be instruments of Vertue but are like Jonathan's arrows shot beyond it to signifie the danger the man is in towards whom such arrows are shot but if the person be made unquiet unconstant proud pusillanimous of high opinion pertinacious and confident in uncertain judgments or desperate it is certain they are temptations and illusions so that as all our duty consists in the ways of Repentance and acquist of Vertue so there rests all our safety and by consequence all our solid joys and this is the effect of ordinary pious and regular Meditations 26. If I mistake not there is a temptation like this under another name amongst persons whose Religion hath less discourse and more fancy and that is a Familiarity with God which indeed if it were rightly understood is an affection consequent to the Illuminative way that is an act or an effect of the vertue of Religion and Devotion which consists in Prayers and addresses to God Lauds and Eucharists and Hymns and confidence of coming to the throne of Grace upon assurance of God's veracity and goodness infinite so that Familiarity with God which is an affection of Friendship is the entercourse of giving and receiving blessings and graces respectively and it is produced by a holy life or the being in the state of Grace and is part of every man's inheritance that is a friend of God But when familiarity with God shall be esteemed a privilege of singular and eminent persons not communicated to all the faithful and is thought to be an admission to a nearer entercourse of secrecy with God it is an effect of Pride and a mistake in judgment concerning the very same thing which the old Divines call the Unitive way if themselves that claim it understood the terms of art and the consequents of their own intentions 27. Onely I shall observe one Circumstance That Familiarity with God is nothing else but an admission to be of God's Family the admission of a servant or a son in minority and implies Obedience Duty and Fear on our parts Care and Providence and Love on God's part And it is not the familiarity of Sons but the impudence of proud Equals to express this pretended privilege in 〈◊〉 unmannerly and unreverent addresses and discourses and it is a sure rule that whatsoever heights of Piety union or familiarity any man pretends to it is of the Devil unless the greater the pretence be the greater also be the Humility of the man The highest flames are the most
tremulous and so are the most holy and eminent Religious persons more full of awfulness and fear and modesty and humility so that in true Divinity and right speaking there is no such thing as the Unitive way of Religion save onely in the effects of duty obedience and the expresses of the precise vertue of Religion Meditations in order to a good life let them be as exalted as the capacity of the person and subject will endure up to the height of Contemplation but if Contemplation comes to be a distinct thing and something besides or beyond a distinct degree of vertuous Meditation it is lost to all sense and Religion and prudence Let no man be hasty to eat of the fruits of Paradise before his time 28. And now I shall not need to enumerate the blessed fruits of holy Meditation for it is a Grace that is instrumental to all effects to the production of all Vertues and the extinction of all Vices and by consequence the inhabitation of the Holy Ghost within us is the natural or proper emanation from the frequent exercise of this Duty onely it hath something particularly excellent besides its general influence for Meditation is that part of Prayer which knits the Soul to its right object and confirms and makes actual our intention and Devotion Meditation is the Tongue of the Soul and the language of our spirit and our wandring thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of Meditation and recessions from that Duty and according as we neglect Meditation so are our Prayers imperfect Meditation being the Soul of Prayer and the intention of our spirit But in all other things Meditation is the instrument and conveyance it habituates our affections to Heaven it hath permanent content it produces constancy of purpose despising of things below inflamed desires of Vertue love of God self-denial humility of understanding and universal correction of our life and manners The PRAYER HOly and Eternal Jesus whose whole Life and Doctrine was a perpetual Sermon of Holy life a treasure of Wisedom and a repository of Divine materials for Meditation give me grace to understand diligence and attention to consider care to lay up and carefulness to reduce to practice all those actions discourses and pious lessons and intimations by which thou didst expresly teach or tacitly imply or mysteriously signifie our Duty Let my Understanding become as spiritual in its imployment and purposes as it is immaterial in its nature fill my Memory as a vessel of Election with remembrances and notions highly compunctive and greatly incentive of all the parts of 〈◊〉 Let thy holy Spirit dwell in my Soul instructing my Knowledge sanctifying my Thoughts guiding my Affections directing my Will in the choice of Vertue that it may be the great imployment of my life to meditate in thy Law to study thy preceptive will to understand even the niceties and circumstantials of my Duty that Ignorance may neither occasion a sin nor become a punishment Take from me all vanity of spirit lightness of fancy curiosity and impertinency of inquiry illusions of the Devil and phantastick deceptions Let my thoughts be as my Religion plain honest pious simple prudent and charitable of great imployment and force to the production of Vertues and extermination of Vice but suffering no transportations of sense and vanity nothing greater than the capacities of my Soul nothing that may minister to any intemperances of spirit but let me be wholly inebriated with Love and that love wholly spent in doing such actions as best please thee in the conditions of my infirmity and the securities of Humility till thou shalt please to draw the curtain and reveal thy interiour beauties in the Kingdom of thine eternal Glories which grant for thy mercie 's sake O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The goodly CEDAR of Apostolick Catholick EPISCOPACY compared with the moderne Shoots Slips of divided NOVELTIES in the Church before the Introduction of the Apostles Lives In Rama was there a voice heard lamentation and weeping and great mourning â—â—â—hel weeping for her Children and would not be Comforted because they are not SECT VI. Of the Death of the Holy Innocents or the Babes of Bethlehem and the Flight of JESVS into Egypt The killing the Infants S. MAT. 2. 18 In Rama was there a voice heard Lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and would not be conforted because they are not The flight into Egipt S. MAT. 2. 14. When he arose he took the young Child and his mother by night and departed into egipt 1. ALL this while Herod waited for the return of the Wise men that they might give directions where the Child did lie and his Sword might find him out with a certain and direct execution But when he saw that he was mocked of the Wise men he was exceeding wroth For it now began to deserve his trouble when his purposes which were most secret began to be contradicted and diverted with a prevention as if they were resisted by an all-seeing and almighty Providence He began to suspect the hand of Heaven was in it and saw there was nothing for his purposes to be acted unless he could dissolve the golden chain of Predestination Herod believed the divine Oracles foretelling that a King should be born in Bethlehem and yet his Ambition had made him so stupid that he attempted to cancel the Decree of Heaven For if he did not believe the Prophecies why was he troubled If he did believe them how could he possibly hinder that event which God had foretold himself would certainly bring to pass 2. And therefore since God already had hindered him from the executions of a distinguishing sword he resolved to send a sword of indiscrimination and confusion hoping that if he killed all the Babes of Bethlehem this young King's Reign also should soon determine He therefore sent forth and 〈◊〉 all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coasts thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the Wise men For this Execution was in the beginning of the second year after Christ's Nativity as in all probability we guess not at the two years end as some suppose because as his malice was subtile so he intended it should be secure and though he had been diligent in his inquiry and was near the time in his computation yet he that was never sparing of the lives of others would now to secure his Kingdom rather over-act his severity for some moneths than by doing execution but just to the tittle of his account hazard the escaping of the Messias 3. This Execution was sad cruel and universal no abatements made for the dire shriekings of the Mothers no tender-hearted souldier was imployed no hard-hearted person was softned by the weeping eyes and pity-begging looks of those Mothers that wondred how it was possible any person should hurt their pretty Sucklings no
for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy him Then he arose and took the young Child and his Mother by night and departed into Egypt And they made their first abode in Hermopolis in the Countrey of Thebais whither when they first arrived the Child Jesus being by design or providence carried into a Temple all the Statues of the Idol-gods fell down like Dagon at the presence of the Ark and suffered their timely and just dissolution and dishonour according to the Prophecy of Isaiah Behold the Lord shall come into Egypt and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence And in the Life of the Prophet Jeremy written by Epiphanius it is reported that he told the Egyptian Priests that then their Idols should be broken in pieces when a Holy Virgin with her Child should enter into their Countrey which Prophecy possibly might be the cause that the Egyptians did besides their vanities worship also an Infant in a manger and a Virgin in her bed 10. From Hermopolis to Maturea went these Holy Pilgrims in pursuance of their safety and provisions where it was reported they dwelt in a garden of balsam till Joseph being at the end of seven years as it is commonly believed ascertain'd by an Angel of the death of Herod and commanded to return to the land of Israel he was obedient to the heavenly Vision and returned But hearing that Archelaus did reign in the place of his Father and knowing that the Cruelty and Ambition of Herod was 〈◊〉 or intail'd upon Archelaus being also warned to turn aside into the parts of Galilee which was of a distinct jurisdiction governed indeed by one of Herod's sons but not by Archelaus thither he diverted and there that Holy Family remained in the City of Nazareth whence the Holy Child had the appellative of a Nazarene Ad SECT VI. Considerations upon the Death of the Innocents and the Flight of the Holy JESVS into Egypt 1. HErod having called the Wise men and received information of their design and the circumstances of the Child pretended Religion too and desired them to bring him word when they had found the Babe that he might come and worship him meaning to make a Sacrifice of him to whom he should pay his Adoration and in stead of investing the young Prince with a Royal purple he would have stained his swadling-bands with his bloud It is ever dangerous when a wicked Prince pretends Religion his design is then foulest by how much it needs to put on a fairer out-side but it was an early policy in the world and it concerned mens interests to seem Religious when they thought that to be so was an abatement of great designs When Jezabel designed the robbing and destroying Naboth she sent to the Elders to proclaim a Fast for the external and visible remonstrances of Religion leave in the spirits of men a great reputation of the seeming person and therefore they will not rush into a furious sentence against his actions at least not judge them with prejudice against the man towards whom they are so fairly prepared but do some violence to their own understanding and either disbelieve their own Reason or excuse the fact or think it but an errour or a less crime or the incidencies of humanity or however are so long in decreeing against him whom they think to be religious that the rumour is abated or the stream of indignation is diverted by other laborious arts intervening before our zeal is kindled and so the person is unjudged or at least the design secured 2. But in this humane Policy was exceedingly infatuated and though Herod had trusted his design to no keeper but himself and had pretended fair having Religion for the word and called the Wise men privately and intrusted them with no imployment but a civil request an account of the success of their journey which they had no reason or desire to conceal yet his heart was opened to the eye of Heaven and the Sun was not more visible than his dark purpose was to God and it succeeded accordingly the Child was sent away the Wise men warned not to return Herod was mocked and enraged and so his crast became foolish and vain and so are all counsels intended against God or any thing of which he himself hath undertaken the protection For although we understand not the reasons of security because we see not that admirable concentring of infinite things in the Divine Providence whereby God brings his purposes to act by ways unlook'd for and sometimes contradictory yet the publick and perpetual experience of the world hath given continual demonstrations that all evil counsels have come to nought that the succeeding of an impious design is no argument that the man is prosperous that the curse is then surest when his fortune spreads the largest that the contradiction and impossibilities of deliverance to pious persons are but an opportunity and engagement for God to do wonders and to glorifie his power and to exalt his mercy by the instances of miraculous or extraordinary events And as the Afflictions happening to good men are alleviated by the support of God's good Spirit and enduring them here are but consignations to an honourable amends hereafter so the succeeding Prosperities of fortunate impiety when they meet with punishment in the next or in the third Age or in the deletion of a people five Ages after are the greatest arguments of God's Providence who keeps wrath in store and forgets not to do judgment for all them that are oppressed with wrong It was laid up with God and was perpetually in his eye being the matter of a lasting durable and unremitted anger 3. But God had care of the Holy Child he sent his Angel to warn Joseph with the Babe and his Mother to fly into Egypt Joseph and Mary instantly arise and without inquiry how they shall live there or when they shall return or how be secured or what accommodations they shall have in their Journey at the same hour of the night begin the Pilgrimage with the chearfulness of Obedience and the securities of Faith and the confidence of Hope and the joys of Love knowing themselves to be recompensed for all the trouble they could endure that they were instruments of the safety of the Holy Jesus that they then were serving God that they were encircled with the securities of the Divine Providence and in these dispositions all places were alike for every region was a Paradise where they were in company with Jesus And indeed that man wants many degrees of faith and prudence who is solicitous for the support of his necessities when he is doing the commandment of God If he commands thee to offer a Sacrifice himself will provide a Lamb or enable thee to find one and he would remove thee into a state of separation where thy body needs no supplies of provision if he meant thou shouldest serve him without provisions He will
certainly take away thy need or satisfie it he will feed thee himself as he did the Israelites or take away thy hunger as he did to Moses or send ravens to feed thee as he did to Elias or make charitable people minister to thee as the Widow to Elisha or give thee his own portion as he maintained the Levites or make thine enemies to pity thee as the Assyrians did the captive Jews For whatsoever the World hath and whatsoever can be conveyed by wonder or by providence all that is thy security for provisions so long as thou doest the work of God And remember that the assurance of Blessing and Health and Salvation is not made by doing what we list or being where we desire but by doing God's will and being in the place of his appointment we may be safe in Egypt if we be there in obedience to God and we may perish among the Babes of Bethlehem if we be there by our own election 4. Joseph and Mary did not argue against the Angel's message because they had a confidence of their charge who with the breath of his mouth could have destroyed Herod though he had been abetted with all the Legions marching under the Roman Eagles but they like the two Cherubims about the Propitiatory took the Child between them and fled giving way to the fury of Persecution which possibly when the materials are withdrawn might expire and die like fire which else would rage for ever Jesus fled undertook a sad Journey in which the roughness of the ways his own tenderness the youth of his Mother the old age of his supposed Father the smalness of their viaticum and accommodation for their voyage the no-kindred they were to go to hopeless of comsorts and exteriour supplies were so many circumstances of Poverty and lesser strokes of the Persecution things that himself did chuse to remonstrate the verity of his Nature the infirmity of his Person the humility of his spirit the austerity of his undertaking the burthen of his charge and by which he did teach us the same vertues he then expressed and also consign'd this permission to all his Disciples in future Ages that they also may fly from their persecutors when the case is so that their work is not done that is they may glorifie God with their lives more than with their death And of this they are ascertained by the arguments of prudent account For sometimes we are called to glorisie God by dying and the interest of the Church and the Faith of many may be concerned in it then we must abide by it In other cases it is true that Demosthenes said in apology for his own escaping from a lost field A man that runs away may fight again And S. Paul made use of a guard of Souldiers to rescue him from the treachery of the Jewish Rulers and of a basket to escape from the Inquisition of the Governour of Damascus and the Primitive Christians of Grotts and subterraneous retirements and S. Athanasius of a fair Ladie 's House and others of desarts and graves as knowing it was no shame to fly when their Master himself had fled that his time and his work might be fulfilled and when it was he then laid his life down 5. It is hard to set down particular Rules that may indefinitely guide all persons in the stating of their own case because all things that depend upon circumstances are alterable unto infinite But as God's glory and the good of the Church are the great considerations to be carried before us all the way and in proportions to them we are to determine and judge our Questions so also our infirmities are allowable in the scrutiny for I doubt not but God intended it a mercy and a compliance with humane weakness when he gave us this permission as well as it was a design to secure the opportunities of his service and the consummation of his own work by us And since our fears and the incommodities of flight and the sadness of exile and the insecurities and inconveniences of a strange and new abode are part of the Persecution provided that God's glory be not certainly and apparently neglected nor the Church evidently scandalized by our 〈◊〉 all interpretations of the question in favour of our selves and the declension of that part which may tempt us to apostasie or hazard our confidence and the chusing the lesser part of the Persecution is not against the rule of Faith and always hath in it less glory but oftentimes more security 6. But thus far Herod's Ambition transported him even to resolutions of murther of the highest person the most glorious and the most innocent upon earth and it represents that Passion to be the most troublesome and vexatious thing that can afflict the sons of men Vertue hath not half so much trouble in it it sleeps quietly without startings and affrighting fancies it looks chearfully smiles with much 〈◊〉 and though it laughs not often yet it is ever delightful in the apprehensions of some faculty it fears no man nor no thing nor is it discomposed and hath no concernments in the great alterations of the World and entertains Death like a Friend and reckons the issues of it as the greatest of its hopes but Ambition is full of distractions it teems with stratagems as Rebecca with strugling twins and is swelled with expectation as with a tympany and sleeps sometimes as the wind in a storm still and quiet for a minute that it may burst out into an impetuous blast till the cordage of his heart-strings crack fears when none is 〈◊〉 and prevents things which never had intention and falls under the inevitability of such accidents which either could not be foreseen or not prevented It is an infinite labour to make a man's self miserable and the utmost acquist is so goodly a purchase that he makes his days full of sorrow to enjoy the troubles of a three years reign for Herod lived but three years or five at the most after the flight of Jesus into Egypt And therefore there is no greater unreasonableness in the world than in the designs of Ambition for it makes the present certainly miserable unsatisfied troublesome and discontent for the uncertain acquist of an honour which nothing can secure and besides a thousand possibilities of miscarrying it relies upon no greater certainty than our life and when we are dead all the world sees who was the fool But it is a strange caitiveness and baseness of disposition of men so furiously and unsatiably to run after perishing and uncertain interests in defiance of all the Reason and Religion of the world and yet to have no appetite to such excellencies which satisfie Reason and content the spirit and create great hopes and ennoble our expectation and are advantages to Communities of men and publick Societies and which all wise men teach and all Religion commands 7. And it is not amiss to observe how Herod vexed
with a private meal as Habakkuk came to Daniel yet he fills their hearts when the year of Jubilee returns and the people sing In convertendo the Song of joy for their redemption For as of all sorrows the deprivations and eclipses of Religion are the saddest and of the worst and most inconvenient consequence so in proportion are the joys of spiritual plenty and religious returns the Communion of Saints being like the Primitive Corban a 〈◊〉 to feed all the needs of the Church or like a Taper joyned to a Torch it self is kindled and increases the other's flames 2. They failed not to go to Jerusalem for all those holy prayers and ravishments of love those excellent meditations and entercourses with God their private readings and discourses were but entertainments and satisfaction of their necessities they lived with them during their retirements but it was a Feast when they went to Jerusalem and the freer and more indulgent resection of the Spirit for in publick Solemnities God opens his treasures and pours out his grace more abundantly Private Devotions and secret Offices of Religion are like refreshing of a Garden with the distilling and petty drops of a Water-pot but addresses to the Temple and serving God in the publick communion of Saints is like rain from Heaven where the Offices are described by a publick spirit heightned by the greater portions of assistance and receive advantages by the adunations and symbols of Charity and increment by their distinct title to Promises appropriate even to their assembling and mutual support by the piety of Example by the communication of Counsels by the awfulness of publick Observation and the engagements of holy Customs For Religion is a publick vertue it is the ligature of Souls and the great instrument of the conservation of Bodies politick and is united in a common object the God of all the World and is managed by publick ministeries by Sacrifice Adoration and Prayer in which with variety of circumstances indeed but with infinite consent and union of design all the sons of Adam are taught to worship God and it is a publication of God's honour its very purpose being to declare to all the World how great things God hath done for us whether in publick Donatives or private Missives so that the very design temper and constitution of Religion is to be a publick address to God and although God is present in Closets and there also distills his blessings in small rain yet to the Societies of Religion and publication of Worship as we are invited by the great blessings and advantages of Communion so also we are in some proportions more straitly limited by the analogy and exigence of the Duty It is a Persecution when we are forced from publick Worshippings no man can hinder our private addresses to God every man can build a Chappel in his breast and himself be the Priest and his heart the Sacrifice and every foot of glebe he treads on be the Altar and this no Tyrant can prevent If then there can be Persecution in the offices of Religion it is the prohibition of publick profession and Communions and therefore he that denies to himself the opportunities of publick rites and conventions is his own Persecutor 3. But when Jesus was twelve years old and his Parents had finished their Offices and returned filled with the pleasures of Religion they missed the Child and sought him amongst their kindred but there they found him not for whoever seeks Jesus must seek him in the Offices of Religion in the Temple not amongst the engagements and pursuit of worldly interests I forgat also mine own Father's house said 〈◊〉 the Father of this Holy Child and so must we when we run in an enquiry after the Son of David But our relinquishing must not be a dereliction of duty but of engagement our affections toward kindred must always be with charity and according to the endearments of our relation but without immersion and such adherencies as either contradict or lessen our duty towards God 4. It was a sad effect of their pious journey to lose the joy of their Family and the hopes of all the World but it often happens that after spiritual imployments God seems to absent himself and withdraw the sensible effects of his presence that we may seek him with the same diligence and care and holy fears with which the Holy Virgin-Mother sought the Blessed Jesus And it is a design of great mercy in God to take off the light from the eyes of a holy person that he may not be abused with complacencies and too confident opinions and reflexions upon his fair performances For we usually judge of the well or ill of our Devotions and services by what we feel and we think God rewards every thing in the present and by proportion to our own expectations and if we feel a present rejoycing of Spirit all is well with us the smoak of the Sacrifice ascended right in a holy Cloud but if we feel nothing of comfort then we count it a prodigy and ominous and we suspect our selves and most commonly we have reason Such irradiations of chearfulness are always welcom but it is not always anger that takes them away the Cloud removed from before the camp of Israel and stood before the host of Pharaoh but this was a design of ruine to the Egyptians and of security to Israel and if those bright Angels that go with us to direct our journeys remove out of our sight and stand behind us it is not always an argument that the anger of the Lord is gone out against us but such decays of sense and clouds of spirit are excellent conservators of Humility and restrain those intemperances and vainer thoughts which we are prompted to in the gayety of our spirits 5. But we often give God cause to remove and for a while to absent himself and his doing of it sometimes upon the just provocations of our demerits makes us at other times with good reason to suspect our selves even in our best actions But sometimes we are vain or remiss or pride invades us in the darkness and incuriousness of our spirits and we have a secret sin which God would have us to enquire after and when we suspect every thing and condemn our selves with strictest and most angry sentence then it may be God will with a ray of light break through the cloud if not it is nothing the worse for us for although the visible remonstrance and face of things in all the absences and withdrawings of Jesus be the same yet if a sin be the cause of it the withdrawing is a taking away his Favour and his love but if God does it to secure thy Piety and to enflame thy desires or to prevent a crime then he withdraws a Gift only nothing of his Love and yet the darkness of the spirit and sadness seem equal It is hard in these cases to discover the cause as
it is nice to judge the condition of the effect and therefore it is prudent to ascertain our condition by improving our care and our Religion and in all accidents to make no judgment concerning God's Favour by what we feel but by what we do 6. When the Holy Virgin with much Religion and sadness had sought her joy at last she found him disputing among the Doctors hearing them and asking them questions and besides that he now first opened a fontinel and there sprang out an excellent rivulet from his abyss of Wisdom he consigned this Truth to his Disciples That they who mean to be Doctors and teach others must in their first accesses and degrees of discipline learn of those whom God and publick Order hath set over us in the Mysteries of Religion The PRAYER BLessed and most Holy Jesus Fountain of Grace and comfort Treasure of Wisdom and spiritual emanations be pleased to abide with me for ever by the inhabitation of thy interiour assistances and refreshments and give me a corresponding love acceptable and unstained purity care and watchfulness over my ways that I may never by provoking thee to anger cause thee to remove thy dwelling or draw a cloud before thy holy face but if thou art pleased upon a design of charity or trial to cover my eyes that I may not behold the bright rays of thy Favour nor be refreshed with spiritual comforts let thy Love support my spirit by ways insensible and in all my needs give me such a portion as may be instrumental and incentive to performance of my duty and in all accidents let me continue to seek thee by Prayers and Humiliation and frequent desires and the strictness of a Holy life that I may follow thy example pursue thy foot-steps be supported by thy strength guided by thy hand enlightned by thy favour and may at last after a persevering holiness and an unwearied industry dwell with thee in the Regions of Light and eternal glory where there shall be no fears of parting from the habitations of Felicity and the union and fruition of thy Presence O Blessed and most Holy Jesus Amen SECT VIII Of the Preaching of John the Baptist preparative to the Manifestation of JESVS ELIAS Luke 1 17. And he shall goe before him in the spirit and power of Elias S t IOHN the Baptist Luk 1 15 And as the people were in expectation ve 16 Iohn answered saying unto them all I indeed baptize you with water but one mightier then I cometh y e latchet of whose shooes I am not worthy to unloose he shall baptize you with y e Holy Ghost and with fire WHen Herod had drunk so great a draught of bloud at Bethlehem and sought for more from the Hill-country Elizabeth carried her Son into the Wilderness there in the desert places and recesses to hide him from the fury of that Beast where she attended him with as much care and tenderness as the affections and fears of a Mother could express in the permission of those fruitless Solitudes The Child was about eighteen months old when he first sled to Sanctuary but after forty days his Mother died and his Father Zachary at the time of his ministration which happened about this time was killed in the Court of the Temple so that the Child was exposed to all the dangers and infelicities of an Orphan in a place of solitariness and discomfort in a time when a bloudy King endeavoured his destruction But when his Father and Mother were taken from him the Lord took him up For according to the tradition of the Greeks God deputed an Angel to be his nourisher and Guardian as he had formerly done to Ishmael who dwelt in the Wilderness and to Elias when he fled from the rage of Ahab so to this Child who came in the spirit of Elias to make demonstration that there can be no want where God undertakes the care and provision 2. The entertainment that S. John's Proveditóre the Angel gave him was such as the Wilderness did afford and such as might dispose him to a life of Austerity for there he continued spending his time in Meditations Contemplation Prayer Affections and Colloquies with God eating Flies and wild Honey not clothed in soft but a hairy garment and a leathern girdle till he was thirty years of age And then being the fifteenth year of Tiberius Pontius Pilate being Governour of Judaea the Word of God came unto John in the Wilderness And he came into all the countrey about Jordan preaching and baptizing 3. This John according to the Prophecies of him and designation of his person by the Holy Ghost was the fore-runner of Christ sent to dispose the people for his entertainment and prepare his ways and therefore it was necessary his person should be so extraordinary and full of Sanctity and so clarified by great concurrences and wonder in the circumstances of his life as might gain credit and reputation to the testimony he was to give concerning his LORD the Saviour of the World And so it happened 4. For as the Baptist while he was in the Wilderness became the pattern of solitary and contemplative life a School of Vertue and Example of Sanctity and singular Austerity so at his emigration from the places of his Retirement he seemed what indeed he was a rare and excellent Personage and the Wonders which were great at his Birth the prediction of his Conception by an Angel which never had before happened but in the persons of Isaac and Sampson the contempt of the world which he bore about him his mortified countenance and deportment his austere and eremitical life his vehement spirit and excellent zeal in Preaching created so great opinions of him among the people that all held him for a Prophet in his Office for a heavenly person in his own particular and a rare example of Sanctity and holy life to all others and all this being made solemn and ceremonious by his Baptism he prevailed so that he made excellent and apt preparations for the LORD 's appearing for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and all the regions round about Jordan and were baptized of him confessing their sins 5. The Baptist having by so heavenly means won upon the affections of all men his Sermons and his testimony concerning Christ were the more likely to be prevalent and accepted and the summ of them was Repentance and dereliction of sins and bringing forth the fruits of good life in the promoting of which Doctrine he was a severe reprehender of the Pharisees and Sadducees he exhorted the people to works of mercy the Publicans to do justice and to decline oppression the Souldiers to abstain from plundering and doing violence or rapine and publishing that he was not the CHRIST that he only baptized with water but the Messias should baptize with the holy Ghost and with fire he finally denounced judgment and great severities to all the World
of impenitents even abscission and fire unquenchable And from this time forward viz. From the days of John the Baptist the Kingdom of Heaven suffered violence and the violent take it by force For now the Gospel began to dawn and John was like the Morning-star or the blushings springing from the windows of the East foretelling the approach of the Sun of Righteousness and as S. John Baptist laid the first rough hard and unhewen stone of this building in Mortification Self denial and doing violence to our natural affections so it was continued by the Master-builder himself who propounded the glories of the Crown of the heavenly Kingdom to them only who should climb the Cross to reach it Now it was that Multitudes should throng and croud to enter in at the strait gate and press into the Kingdom and the younger brothers should snatch the inheritance from the elder the unlikely from the more likely the Gentiles from the Jews the strangers from the natives the Publicans and Harlots from the Scribes and Pharisees who like violent persons shall by their importunity obedience watchfulness and diligence snatch the Kingdom from them to whom it was first offered and Jacob shall be loved and Esau rejected Ad SECT VIII Considerations upon the Preaching of John the Baptist. 1. FRom the Disputation of Jesus with the Doctors to the time of his Manifestation to Israel which was eighteen years the Holy Child dwelt in Nazareth in great obedience to his Parents in exemplar Modesty singular Humility working with his hands in his supposed Father's trade for the support of his own and his Mother's necessities and that he might bear the Curse of Adam that in the sweat of his brows he should eat his bread all the while he increased in favour with God and man sending forth excellent testimonies of a rare Spirit and a wise Understanding in the temperate instances of such a conversation to which his Humility and great Obedience had engaged him But all this while the stream ran under ground and though little bublings were discerned in all the course and all the way men looked upon him as upon an excellent person diligent in his calling wise and humble temperate and just pious and rarely temper'd yet at the manifestation of John the Baptist he brake forth like the stream from the bowels of the earth or the Sun from a cloud and gave us a precedent that we should not shew our lights to minister to vanity but then only when God and publick order and just dispositions of men call for a manifestation and yet the Ages of men have been so forward in prophetical Ministeries and to undertake Ecclesiastical imployment that the viciousness and indiscretions and scandals the Church of God feels as great burthens upon the tenderness of her spirit are in great part owing to the neglect of this instance of the Prudence and Modesty of the Holy Jesus 2. But now the time appointed was come the Baptist comes forth upon the Theatre of Palestine a fore-runner of the Office and publication of Jesus and by the great reputation of his Sanctity prevailed upon the affections and judgment of the people who with much case believed his Doctrine when they had reason to approve his Life for the good Example of the Preacher is always the most prevailing Homily his Life is his best Sermon He that will raise affections in his Auditory must affect their eyes for we seldom see the people weep if the Orator laughs loud and loosely and there is no reason to think that his discourse should work more with me than himself If his arguments be fair and specious I shall think them fallacies while they have not faith with him and what necessity for me to be temperate when he that tells me so sees no such need but hopes to go to Heaven without it or if the duty be necessary I shall learn the definition of Temperance and the latitudes of my permission and the bounds of lawful and unlawful by the exposition of his practice if he binds a burthen upon my shoulders it is but reason I should look for him to bear his portion too Good works convince more than Miracles and the power of ejecting Devils is not so great probation that Christian Religion came from God as is the holiness of the Doctrine and its efficacy and productions upon the hearty Professors of the Institution S. Pachomius when he wore the military girdle under Constantine the Emperor came to a City of Christians who having heard that the Army in which he then marched was almost starved for want of necessary provisions of their own charity relieved them speedily and freely He wondring at their so free and chearful dispensation inquired what kind of people these were whom he saw so bountiful It was answered they were Christians whose Profession it is to hurt no man and to do good to every man The pleased Souldier was convinced of the excellency of that Religion which brought forth men so good and so pious and loved the Mother for the Children's sake threw away his girdle and became Christian and Religious and a Saint And it was Tertullian's great argument in behalf of Christians See how they love one another how every man is ready to die for his brother it was a living argument and a sensible demonstration of the purity of the Fountain from whence such lympid waters did derive But so John the Baptist made himself a fit instrument of preparation and so must all the Christian Clergy be fitted for the dissemination of the Gospel of Jesus 3. The Baptist had till this time that is about thirty years lived in the Wilderness under the Discipline of the Holy Ghost under the tuition of Angels in conversation with God in great mortification and disaffections to the World his garments rugged and uneasie his meat plain necessary and without variety his imployment prayers and devotion his company wilde beasts in ordinary in extraordinary messengers from Heaven and all this not undertaken of necessity to subdue a bold lust or to punish a loud crime but to become more holy and pure from the lesser stains and insinuations of too free infirmities and to prepare himself for the great ministery of serving the Holy Jesus in his Publication Thirty years he lived in great austerity and it was a rare Patience and exemplar Mortification we use not to be so pertinacious in any pious resolutions but our purposes disband upon the sense of the first violence we are free and confident of resolving to fast when our bellies are full but when we are called upon by the first necessities of nature our zeal is cool and dissoluble into air upon the first temptation and we are not upheld in the violences of a short Austerity without faintings and repentances to be repented of and enquirings after the vow is past and searching for excuses and desires to reconcile our nature and our Conscience unless
our necessity be great and our sin clamorous and our Conscience loaden and no peace to be had without it and it is well if upon any reasonable grounds we can be brought to suffer contradictions of nature for the advantages of Grace But it would be remembred that the Baptist did more upon a less necessity and possibly the greatness of the example may entice us on a little farther than the customs of the World or our own indevotions would engage us 4. But after the expiration of a definite time John came forth from his Solitude and served God in Societies He served God and the content of his own spirit by his conversing with Angels and Dialogues with God so long as he was in the Wilderness and it might be some trouble to him to mingle with the impurities of Men amongst whom he was sure to observe such recesses from perfection such violation of all things sacred so great despite done to all ministeries of Religion that to him who had no experience or neighbourhood of actions criminal it must needs be to his sublim'd and clarified spirit more punitive and affictive than his hairen shirt and his ascetick diet was to his body but now himself that tried both was best able to judge which state of life was of greatest advantage and perfection 5. In his Solitude he did breath more pure inspiration Heaven was more open God was more familiar and frequent in his visitations In the Wilderness his company was Angels his imployment Meditations and Prayer his Temptations simple and from within from the impotent and lesser rebellions of a mortified body his occasions of sin as few as his examples his condition such that if his Soul were at all busie his life could not easily be other than the life of Angels for his work and recreation and his visits and his retirements could be nothing but the variety and differing circumstances of his Piety his inclinations to Society made it necessary for him to repeat his addresses to God for his being a sociable Creature and yet in solitude made that his conversing with God and being partaker of Divine communications should be the satisfaction of his natural desires and the supply of his singularity and retirement the discomforts of which made it natural for him to seck out for some refreshment and therefore to go to Heaven for it he having rejected the solaces of the World already And all this besides the innocencies of his silence which is very great and to be judged of in proportion to the infinite extravagancies of our language there being no greater perfection here to be expected than not to offend in our tongue It was solitude and retirement in which Jesus kept his Vigils the Desart places heard him pray in a privacy he was born in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he fed his thousands upon a Mountain apart he was transfigured upon a Mountain he died and from a Mountain he 〈◊〉 to his Father in which Retirements his Devotion certainly did receive the advantage of convenient circumstances and himself in such dispositions twice had the opportunities of Glory 6. And yet after all these Excellencies the Spirit of God called the Baptist forth to a more excellent Ministery for in Solitude pious persons might go to Heaven by the way of Prayers and Devotion but in Society they might go to Heaven by the way of Mercy and Charity and dispensations to others In Solitude there are fewer occasions of Vices but there is also the exercise of fewer Vertues and the Temptations though they be not from many Objects yet are in some Circumstances more dangerous not only because the worst of evils spiritual Pride does seldom miss to creep upon those goodly Oaks like Ivy and suck their heart out and a great Mortifier without some complacencies in himself or affectations or opinions or something of singularity is almost as unusual as virgin-purity and unstained thoughts in the Bordelli S. Hierom had tried it and found it so by experience and he it was that said so but also because whatsoever temptation does invade such retired persons they have privacies enough to act it in and no eyes upon them but the eye of Heaven no shame to encounter withal no fears of being discovered and we know by experience that a Witness of our conversation is a great restraint to the inordination of our actions Men seek out darknesses and secrecies to commit a sin and The evil that no man sees no man reproves and that makes the Temptation bold and confident and the iniquity easie and ready So that as they have not so many tempters as they have abroad so neither have they so many restraints their vices are not so many but they are more dangerous in themselves and to the World safe and opportune And as they communicate less with the World so they do less Charity and fewer offices of Mercy no Sermons there but when solitude is made popular and the City removes into the Wilderness no comforts of a publick Religion or visible remonstrances of the Communion of Saints and of all the kinds of spiritual Mercy only one can there properly be exercised and of the corporal none at all And this is true in lives and institutions of less retirement in proportion to the degree of the Solitude and therefore Church story reports of divers very holy persons who left their Wildernesses and sweetnesses of Devotion in their retirement to serve God in publick by the ways of Charity and exteriour offices Thus S. Antony and Acepsamas came forth to encourage the fainting people to contend to death for the Crown of Martyrdom and Aphraates in the time of Valens the Arian Emperor came abroad to assist the Church in the suppressing the flames kindled by the Arian Faction And upon this ground they that are the greatest admirers of Eremitical life call the Episcopal Function the State of perfection and a degree of ministerial and honorary excellency beyond the pieties and contemplations of Solitude because of the advantages of gaining Souls and Religious conversation and going to God by doing good to others 7. John the Baptist united both these lives and our Blessed Saviour who is the great Precedent of Sanctity and Prudence hath determined this question in his own instance for he lived a life common sociable humane charitable and publick and yet for the opportunities of especial Devotion retir'd to prayer and contemplation but came forth speedily for the Devil never set upon him but in the Wilderness and by the advantage of retirement For as God hath many so the Devil hath some opportunities of doing his work in our solitariness But Jesus reconcil'd both and so did John the Baptist in several degrees and manners and from both we are taught that Solitude is a good School and the World is the best Theatre the Institution is best there but the Practice here the Wilderness hath the advantage
die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live This first Mortification is the way of life if it continues but its continuance is not fecured till we are advanced towards life by one degree more of this Death For this condition is a state of a daily and dangerous warfare and many inrodes are made by sin and many times hurt is done and booty carried off for he that is but thus far mortified although his dwelling be within the Kingdom of Grace yet it is in the borders of it and hath a dangerous neighbourhood If we mean to be safe we must remove into the heart of the Land or carry the war farther off 6. Secondly We must not only be strangers here but we must be dead too dead unto the World that is we must not only deny our Vices but our Passions not only contradict the direct immediate Perswasion to a sin but also cross the Inclination to it So long as our Appetites are high and full we shall never have peace or safety but the dangers and insecurities of a full War and a potent Enemy we are always disputing the Question ever strugling for life but when our Passions are killed when our desires are little and low then Grace reigns then our life is hid with Christ in God then we have fewer interruptions in the way of Righteousness then we are not so apt to be surprised by sudden eruptions and transportation of Passions and our Piety it self is more prudent and reasonable chosen with a freer election discerned with clearer understanding hath more in it of Judgment than of Fancy and is more spiritual and Angelical He that is apt to be angry though he be habitually careful and full of observation that he sin not may at some time or other be surprised when his guards are undiligent and without actual expectation of an enemy but if his Anger be dead in him and the inclination lessened to the indisferency and gentleness of a Child the man dwells safe because of the impotency of his Enemy or that he is reduced to Obedience or hath taken conditions of peace He that hath refused to consent to actions of Uncleanness to which he was strongly tempted hath won a victory by sine force God hath blessed him well but an opportunity may betray him instantly and the sin may be in upon him unawares unless also his desires be killed he is betrayed by a party within David was a holy person but he was surprised by the sight of Bathsheba for his freer use of permitted beds had kept the fire alive which was apt to be put into a flame when so fair a beauty reflected through his eyes But Joseph was a Virgin and kept under all his inclinations to looser thoughts opportunity and command and violence and beauty did make no breach upon his spirit 7. He that is in the first state of Pilgrimage does not mutiny against his Superiors nor publish their faults nor envy their dignities but he that is dead to the world sees no fault that they have and when he hears an objection he buries it in an excuse and rejoyces in the dignity of their persons Every degree of Mortification endures reproof without murmur but he that is quite dead to the world and to his own will feels no regret against it and hath no secret thoughts of trouble and unwillingness to the suffering save only that he is sorry he deserv'd it For so a dead body resists not your violence changes not its posture you plac'd it in strikes not his striker is not moved by your words nor provoked by your scorn nor is troubled when you shrink with horror at the sight of it only it will hold the head downward in all its situations unless it be hindred by violence And a mortified spirit is such without indignation against scorn without revenge against injuries without murmuring at low offices not impatient in troubles indifferent in all accidents neither transported with joy nor deprest with sorrow and is humble in all his thoughts And thus he that is dead saith the Apostle is justified from sins And this is properly a state of life in which by the grace of Jesus we are restored to a condition of order and interiour beauty in our Faculties our actions are made moderate and humane our spirits are even and our understandings undisturbed 8. For Passions of the sensitive Soul are like an Exnalation hot and dry born up from the earth upon the wings of a cloud and detained by violence out of its place causing thunders and making eruptions into lightning and sudden fires There is a Tempest in the Soul of a passionate man and though every wind does not shake the earth nor rend trees up by the roots yet we call it violent and ill weather if it only makes a 〈◊〉 and is harmless And it is an inordination in the spirit of a man when his Passions are tumultuous and mighty though they do not determine directly upon a sin they discompose his peace and disturb his spirit and make it like troubled waters in which no man can see his own figure and just 〈◊〉 portions and therefore by being less a man cannot be so much a Christian in the midst 〈◊〉 so great indispositions For although the Cause may hallow the Passion and if a man be very angry for God's cause it is Zeal not Fury yet the Cause cannot secure the Person from violence transportation and inconvenience When Elisha was consulted by three Kings concerning the success of their present Expedition he grew so angry against idolatrous soram and was carried on to so great degrees of disturbance that when for Jehosaphat's sake he was content to enquire of the Lord he called for a minstrel who by his harmony might re-compose his disunited and troubled spirit that so he might be apter sor divination And sometimes this zeal goes besides the intention of the man and beyond the degrees of prudent or lawful and ingages in a sin though at first it was Zeal for Religion For so it happened in Moses at the waters of Massah and Meribah he spake foolishly and yet it was when he was zealous for God and extremely careful of the people's interest For his Passion he was hindred from entring into the Land of Promise And we also if we be not moderate and well-tempered even in our 〈◊〉 for God may like Moses break the Tables of the Law and throw them out of our hands with zeal to have them preserved for Passion violently snatches at the Conclusion but is inconsiderate and incurious concerning the Premises The summ and purpose of this Discourse is that saying of our Blessed Saviour He that will be my Disciple must deny himself that is not only desires that are sinful but desires that are his own pursuances of his own affections and violent motions though to things not evil or in themselves
contagious 9. Thirdly And yet there is a degree of Mortification of spirit beyond this for the condition of our security may require that we not only deny to act our temptations or to please our natural desires but also to seek opportunities of doing displeasure to our affections and violence to our inclinations and not only to be indifferent but to chuse a contradiction and a denial to our strongest appetites to rejoyce in a trouble and this was the spirit of S. Paul I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulations and We glory in it Which joy consists not in any sensitive pleasure any man can take in asflictions and adverse accidents but in a despising the present inconveniences and looking through the cloud unto those great felicities and graces and consignations to glory which are the effects of the Cross Knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed that was the incentive of S. Paul's joy And therefore as it may consist with any degree of Mortification to pray for the taking away of the Cross upon condition it may consist with God's glory and our ghostly profit so it is properly an act of this vertue to pray for the Cross or to meet it if we understand it may be for the interest of the spirit And thus S. Basil prayed to God to remove his violent pains of Head-ach but when God heard him and took away his pain and Lust came in the place of it he prayed to God to restore him his Head-ach again that cross was gain and joy when the removal of it was so full of danger and temptation And this the Masters of spiritual life call being crucified with Christ because as Christ chose the death and desired it by the appetites of the spirit though his flesh smarted under it and groaned and died with the burthen so do all that are thus mortified they place misfortunes and sadnesses amongst things eligible and set them before the eyes of their desire although the flesh and the desires of sense are factious and bold against such sufferings 10. Of these three degrees of interiour or spiritual Mortification the first is Duty the second is Counsel and the third is Perfection We sin if we have not the first we are in danger without the second but without the third we cannot be perfect as our heavenly Father is but shall have more of humane infirmities to be ashamed of than can be excused by the accrescencies and condition of our nature The first is only of absolute necessity the second is prudent and of greatest convenience but the third is excellent and perfect And it was the consideration of a wise man that the Saints in Heaven who understand the excellent glories and vast differences of state and capacities amongst beatified persons although they have no envy nor sorrows yet if they were upon earth with the same notion and apprehensions they have in Heaven would not for all the world lose any degree of Glory but mortifie to the greatest 〈◊〉 that their Glory may be a derivation of the greatest ray of light every degree being of compensation glorious and disproportionably beyond the inconsiderable troubles of the greatest Self-denial God's purpose is that we abstain from sin there is no more in the Commandment and therefore we must deny our selves so as not to admit a sin under pain of a certain and eternal curse but the other degrees of Mortification are by accident so many degrees of Vertue not being enjoyned or counselled for themselves but for the preventing of crimes and for securities of good life and therefore are parts and offices of Christian prudence which whosoever shall positively reject is neither much in love with Vertue nor careful of his own safety 11. Secondly But Mortification hath also some designs upon the Body For the Body is the Shop and Forge of the Soul in which all her designs which are transient upon external objects are framed and it is a good servant as long as it is kept in obedience and under discipline but he that breeds his servant delicately will find him contumacious and troublesome bold and confident as his son and therefore S. Paul's practice as himself gives account of it was to keep his body under and bring it into subjection lest he should become a 〈◊〉 away for the desires of the Body are in the same things in which themselves are satisfied so many injuries to the Soul because upon every one of the appetites a restraint is made and a law placed sor Sentinel that if we transgress the bounds fixt by the divine 〈◊〉 it becomes a sin now it is hard for us to keep them within compass because they are little more than agents merely natural and therefore cannot interrupt their act but covet and desire as much as they can without suspension or coercion but what comes from without which is therefore the more troublesome because all such restraints are against nature and without sensual pleasure And therefore this is that that S. Paul said When we were in the flesh the 〈◊〉 of sin which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto Death For these pleasures of the body draw us as loadstones draw iron not for love but for prey and nutriment it feeds upon the iron as the bodily pleasures upon the life of the spirit which is lessened and impaired according as the gusts of the flesh grow high and sapid 12. He that seeds a Lion must obey him unless he make his den to be his prison Our Lusts are as wild and as cruel Beasts and unless they feel the load of fetters and of Laws will grow unruly and troublesome and increase upon us as we give them food and satisfaction He that is used to drink high Wines is sick if he hath not his proportion to what degree soever his custom hath brought his appetite and to some men Temperance becomes certain death because the inordination of their desires hath introduced a custom and custom hath increased those appetites and made them almost natural in their degree but he that hath been used to hard diet and the pure stream his 〈◊〉 are much within the limits of Temperance and his desires as moderate as his diet S. Jerom affirms that to be continent in the state of Widowhood is barder than to keep our Firgin pure and there is reason that then the Appetite should be harder to be restrained when it hath not been accustomed to be denied but satisfied in its freer solicitations When a fontinel is once opened all the symbolical humours run thither and issue out and it is not to be stopped without danger unless the humour be purged or diverted So is the satisfaction of an impure desire it opens the issue and makes way for the emanation of all impurity and unless the desire be mortified
will not be stopt by purposes and easie desires 13. Since therefore the Body is the instrument of sins the fewel and the incentive our Mortification must reach thither also at least in some degrees or it will be to small purpose to think of mortifying our spirit in some instances of Temptation In vain does that man think to keep his honour and Chastity that invites his Lust to an activeness by soft beds and high diet and idleness and opportunity Make the Soul's instrument unapt and half the work is done And this is true in all instances of Carnality or natural desires whose scene lies in the lower region of Passions and are acted by the Body but the operation of the cure must be in proportion to the design as the mortification of the Spirit is in several degrees so the mortification of the Body also hath its several parts of prudence injunction and necessity For the prescribing all sorts of Mortifications corporal indefinitely and indiseriminately to all persons without separation of their ends and distinct capacities is a snare to mens Consciences makes Religion impertinently troublesome occasions some men to glory in corporal Austerity as if of it self it were an act of Piety and a distinction of the man from the more imperfect persons of the world and is all the way unreasonable and inartificial 14. First Therefore such whose ingagements in the world or capacities of person confine them to the lowest and first step of Mortification those who fight only for life and liberty not for priviledges and honour that are in perpetual contestation and close fightings with sin it is necessary that their Body also be mortified in such a degree that their desires transport them not beyond the permissions of Divine and humane Laws let such men be strict in the rules of Temperance and Sobriety be chaste within the laws of Marriage cherish their body to preserve their health and their health to serve God and to do their offices To these persons the best instruments of Discipline are the strict laws of Temperance denying all transgressions of the appetite boiling over its margent and proper limit assiduous Prayer and observation of the publick laws of 〈◊〉 which are framed so moderate and even as to be proportionable to the common manner of living of persons secular and incumbred For though many persons of common imployments and even manner of living have in the midst of worldly avocations undertaken Austerities very rude and rigorous yet it was in order to a higher mortification of spirit and it is also necessary they should if either naturally or habitually or easily they suffer violent transportation of Passions for since the occasions of anger and disturbance in the world frequently occur if such Passions be not restrained by greater violence than is competent to the ordinary offices of a moderate Piety the cure is weaker than the humour and so leaves the work imperfect 15. Secondly But this is coincident to the second degree of Mortification for if either out of desire of a farther step towards perfection or out of the necessities of nature or evil customs it be necessary also to subdue our Passions as well as the direct invitations to sin in both these cases the Body must suffer more Austerities even such as directly are contrariant to every passionate disturbance though it be not ever sinful in the instance All Mortifiers must abstain from every thing that is unlawful but these that they may abstain from things unlawful must also deny to themselves satisfaction in things lawful and pleasant and this is in a just proportion to the End the subduing the Passions lest their liberty and boldness become licentious And we shall easier deny their importunity to sin when we will not please them in those things in which we may such in which the fear of God and the danger of our Souls and the convictions of Reason and Religion do not immediately cooperate And this was the practice of David when he had thirsted for the water of Bethlehem and some of his Worthies ventured their lives and brought it he refused to drink it but poured it upon the ground unto the Lord that is it became a Drink-offering unto the Lord an acceptable Oblation in which he 〈◊〉 his desires to God denying himself the satisfaction of such a desire which was natural and innocent save that it was something nice delicate and curious Like this was the act of the Fathers in the mountain Nitria to one of which a fair cluster of dried grapes being sent he refused to taste them lest he should be too sensual and much pleased but sent them to another and he to a third and the same consideration transmitted the Present through all their Cells till it came to the first man again all of them not daring to content their appetite in a thing too much desired lest the like importunity in the instance of a sin should prevail upon them To these persons the best instruments of Discipline are subtractions rather than imposition of Austerities let them be great haters of corporal pleasures eating for necessity diet 〈◊〉 and cheap abridging and making short the opportunities of natural and permitted solaces refusing exteriour comforts not chusing the most pleasant object nor suffering delight to be the end of eating and therefore separating delight from it as much as prudently they may not being too importunate with God to remove his gentler hand of paternal correction but inuring our selves to patient suffering and indifferent acceptation of the Cross that God lays upon us at no hand living delicately or curiously or impatiently And this was the condition of S. Paul suffering with excellent temper all those persecutions and inconveniences which the enemies of Religion loaded him withall which he called bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body and carrying about in his body the dying or mortification of the Lord Jesus it was in the matter of Persecution which because he bare patiently and was accustomed to and he accepted with indifference and renunciation they were the mortifications and the marks of Jesus that is a true 〈◊〉 to the Passion of Christ and of great effect and interest for the preventing sins by the mortification of his natural desires 16. Thirdly But in the pale of the Church there are and have been many tall Cedars 〈◊〉 tops have reached to Heaven some there are that chuse afflictions of the Body that by turning the bent and inclination of their affections into sensual 〈◊〉 they may not only cut off all pretensions of Temptation but grow in spiritual Graces and perfections intellectual and beatified To this purpose they served themselves with the instances of Sack-cloth Hard lodging long Fasts Pernoctation in prayers Renunciation of all secular possessions great and expensive Charity bodily Labours to great weariness and affiction and many other prodigies of voluntary suffering which Scripture and the
Ecclesiastical stories do frequently mention S. Lewis King of France wore Sack-cloth every day unless sickness hindred and S. Zenobius as long as he was a Bishop And when Severus Sulpitius sent a Sack-cloth to S. Panlinus Bishop of Nola he returned to him a letter of thanks and discoursed piously concerning the use of corporal Austerities And that I need not instance it was so general that this was by way of appropriation called the Garment of the Church because of the frequent use of such instruments of exteriour 〈◊〉 and so it was in other instances S. James neither are flesh nor drank wine S. Matthew lived upon acorns seeds and herbs and amongst the elder Christians some rolled themselves naked in snows some upon thorns some on burning coals some chewed bitter pills and masticated gumms and sipped frequently of horrid potions and wore iron upon their skin and bolts upon their legs and in witty torments excelled the cruelty of many of their persecutors whose rage determined quickly in death and had certainly less of torment than the tedious afflictions and rude penances of Simeon surnamed Stylites But as all great examples have excellencies above the ordinary Devotions of good people so have they some danger and much consideration 17. First therefore I consider that these Bodily and voluntary self 〈◊〉 can only be of use in carnal and natural Temptations of no use in spiritual for ascetick diet hard lodging and severe disciplines cannot be directly operative upon the spirit but only by mediation of the Body by abating its extravagancies by subtracting its maintenance by lessening its temptations these may help to preserve the Soul chaste or temperate because the scene of these sins lies in the Body and thence they have their maintenance and from thence also may receive their abatements But in actions which are less material such as Pride and Envy and Blasphemy and Impenitence and all the kinds and degrees of Malice external Mortifications do so little cooperate to their cure that oftentimes they are their greatest 〈◊〉 and incentives and are like Cordials given to cure a cold fit of an Ague they do their work but bring a hot fit in its place and besides that great Mortifiers have been soonest assaulted by the spirit of Pride we find that great Fasters are naturally angry and cholerick S. Hierom found it in himself and 〈◊〉 felt some of the effects of it And therefore this last part of corporal Mortification and the chusing such Afflictions by a voluntary imposition is at no hand to be applied in all cases but in cases of Lust only and Intemperance or natural Impatience or such crimes which dwell in the Senses and then it also would be considered whether or no rudeness to the Body applied for the obtaining Patience be not a direct temptation to Impatience a provoking the spirit and a running into that whither we pray that God would not suffer us to be led Possibly such Austerities if applied with great caution and wise circumstances may be an exercise of Patience when the Grace is by other means acquired and he that finds them so may use them if he dares trust himself but as they are dangerous before the Grace is obtained so when it is they are not necessary And still it may be enquired in the case of temptations to Lust whether any such Austerities which can consist with health will do the work So long as the Body is in health it will do its offices of nature if it is not in health it cannot do all offices of Grace nor many of our Calling And therefore although they may do some advantages to persons tempted with the lowest sins yet they will not do it all nor do it alone nor are they safe to all dispositions and where they are useful to these smaller and lower purposes yet we must be careful to observe that the Mortification of the spirit to the greatest and most perfect purposes is to be set upon by means spiritual and of immediate efficacy for they are the lowest operations of the Soul which are moved and produced by actions corporal the Soul may from those become lustful or chast chearful or sad timorous or confident but yet even in these the Soul receives but some dispositions thence and more forward inclinations but nothing from the Body can be operative in the begetting or increase of Charity or the Love of God or Devotion or in mortifying spiritual and 〈◊〉 Vices and therefore those greater perfections and heights of the Soul such as are designed in this highest degree of 〈◊〉 are not apt to be enkindled by corporal Austerities And Nigrinus in Lucian finds sault with those Philosophers who thought Vertue was to be purchased by cutting the skin with whips binding the nerves razing the 〈◊〉 with iron but he taught that 〈◊〉 is to be placed in the Mind by actions internal and immaterial and that from thence remedies are to be derived against perturbations and actions criminal And this is determined by the Apostle in fairest intimation Mortifie therefore your carthly members and he instances in carnal crimes fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which are things may be something abated by corporal Mortifications and that these are by distinct manner to be helped from other more spiritual Vices he adds But now therefore put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication and lying To both these sorts of sins Mortification being the general remedy particular applications are to be made and it must be only spiritual or also corporal in proportion to the nature of the sins he seems to distinguish the remedy by separation of the nature of the crimes and possibly also by the differing words of 〈◊〉 applied to carnal sins and put 〈◊〉 to crimes spiritual 18. Secondly But in the lesser degrees of Mortification in order to subduing of all Passions of the Sensitive appetite and the consequent and symbolical sins bodily Austerities are of good use if well understood and prudently undertaken To which purpose I also consider No acts of corporal Austerity or external Religion are of themselves to be esteemed holy or acceptable to God are no-where precisely commanded no instruments of union with Christ no immediate parts of Divine worship and therefore to suffer corporal Austerities with thoughts determining upon the external action or imaginations of Sanctity inherent in the action is against the purity the spirituality and simplicity of the Gospel And this is the meaning of S. Paul It is a good thing that the heart be established with Grace not with meats which have not profited them which have walked in them and The kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink but in righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost and Bodily exercise profiteth little but Godliness is profitable unto all things Now if external Mortifications are not for themselves then they
are to receive their estimate as they cooperate to the End Whatsoever is a prudent restraint of an extravagant Passion whatsoever is a direct denial of a sin whatsoever makes provision for the spirit or withdraws the fewel from the impure fires of carnality that is an act of Mortification but those Austerities which Baal's Priests did use or the 〈◊〉 an ignorant Faction that went up and down Villages whipping themselves or those which return periodically on a set day of Discipline and using rudenesses to the Body by way of ceremony and solemnity not directed against the actual incursion of a pungent Lust are not within the vierge of the grace of 〈◊〉 For unless the Temptation to a carnal sin be actually incumbent and pressing upon the Soul pains of 〈◊〉 and smart do no benefit to ward suppressing the habit or inclination for such sharp disciplines are but short and transient troubles and although they take away the present fancies of a Temptation yet unless it be rash and uncharitable there is no effect remanent upon the body but that the Temptation may speedily return As is the danger so must be the application of the remedy Actual Severities are not imprudently undertaken in case of imminent danger but to cure an habitual Lust such corporal Mortifications are most reasonable whose effect is permanent and which takes away whatsoever does minister more 〈◊〉 and puts a torch to the pile 19. But this is 〈◊〉 a discourse of Christian Prudence not of precise Duty and Religion for if we do by any means provide for our indemnity and secure our innocence all other exteriour Mortifications are not necessary and they are convenient but as they do facilitate or cooperate towards the 〈◊〉 And if that be well understood it will concern us that they be used with prudence and caution with purity of intention and without pride for since they are nothing in themselves but are hallowed and adopted into the family of Religious actions by participation of the End the doing them not for themselves takes off all complacency and fancy reflecting from an opinion of the external actions guides and purifies the intention and teaches us to be prudent in the managing of those Austerities which as they are in themselves afflictive so have in them nothing that is eligible if they be imprudent 20. And now supposing these premises as our guide to chuse and enter into the action Prudence must be called into the execution and discharge of it and the manner of its managing And for the prudential part I shall first give the advice of Nigrinus in the discipline of the old Philosophers He that will best institute and instruct men in the studies of Vertue and true Philosophy must have regard to the mind to the body to the age to the former education and capacities or incapacities of the person to which all such circumstances may be added as are to be accounted for in all prudent estimations such as are national customs dangers of scandal the presence of other remedies or disbanding of the inclination 21. Secondly It may also concern the prudence of this duty not to neglect the smallest inadvertencies and minutes of Lust or spiritual inconvenience but to contradict them in their weakness and first beginnings We see that great disturbances are wrought from the smallest occasions meeting with an impatient spirit like great flames kindled from a little spark fallen into an heap of prepared Nitre S. Austin tells a Story of a certain person much vexed with Flies in the region of his dwelling and himself heightned the trouble by too violent and busie reflexions upon the inconsiderableness of the instrument and the greatness of the vexation alighting upon a peevish spirit In this disposition he was visited by a Manichee an Heretick that denied God to be the Maker of things visible he being busie to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infection upon the next thing he met asked the impatient person whom he thought to be the Maker of Flies He 〈◊〉 I think the Devil was for they are instruments of great vexation and perpetual trouble What he rather sansied than believed or expressed by anger rather than at all had entertained within the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by such arguments to which his adversary was very apt to give consent by reason of his impatience and peevishness The Manichee having set his foot firm upon his first breach proceeded in his Question If the Devil made Flies why not Bees who are but a little bigger and have a sting too The consideration of the Sting made him fit to think that the little difference in bigness needed not a distinct and a greater Efficient especially since the same work-man can make a great as well as a little vessel The Manichee proceeded If a Bee why not a Locust if a Locust then a Lizzard if a Lizzard then a Bird if a Bird then a Lamb and thence he made bold to 〈◊〉 to a Cow to an Elephant to a Man His adversary by this time being insnared by granting so much and now ashamed not to grant more lest his first concessions should seem unreasonable and impious confessed the Devil to be the Maker of all Creatures visible The use which is made of this Story is this Caution that the Devil do not abuse us in Flies and provoke our spirits by trifles and impertinent accidents for if we be unmortified in our smallest motions it is not imaginable we should stand the blast of an impetuous accident and violent perturbation Let us not therefore give our Passions course in a small accident because the instance is inconsiderable for though it be the consequence may be dangerous and a wave may follow a wave till the inundation be general and desperate And therefore here it is intended for advice that we be observant of the accidents of our domestick affairs and curious that every trifling inadvertency of a servant or slight misbecoming action or imprudent words be not apprehended as instruments of vexation for so many small occasions if they be productive of many small disturbances will produce an habitual churlishness and immortification of spirit 22. Thirdly Let our greatest diligence and care be imployed in mortifying our predominant Passion for if our care be so great as not to entertain the smallest and our resolution so strong and holy as not to be subdued by the greatest and most passionate desires the Spirit hath done all its work secures the future and sanctifies the present and nothing is wanting but perseverance in the same prudence and Religion And this is typically commanded in the Precept of God to Moses and Aaron in the matter of Peor Vex the Midianites because they vexed you and made you sin by their daughters and Phinehas did so he killed a Prince of the house of Simeon and a Princess of Midian and God confirmed the Priesthood to him for ever meaning that we shall for ever be admitted to a nearer relation to God if we
sacrifice to God our dearest Lust. And this is not so properly an act as the end of Mortification Therefore it concerns the prudence of the Duty that all the efficacy and violence of it be imployed against the strongest and there where is the most dangerous hostility 23. Fourthly But if we mean to be Matters of the field and put our victory past dispute let us mortifie our morosity and natural aversations reducing them to an indifferency having in our wills no fondnesses in our spirits no faction of persons or nations being prepared to love all men and to endure all things and to undertake all employments which are duty or counsel in all circumstances and disadvantages For the excellency of Evangelical Sanctity does surmount all Antipathies as a vessel climbs up and rides upon a wave The Wolf and the Lamb shall cohabit and a Child shall play and put his fingers in the Cavern of an Aspick Nations whose interests are most contradictory must be knit by the confederations of a mortified and a Christian Spirit and single persons must triumph over the difficulties of an indisposed nature or else their own will is unmortified and Nature is stronger than can well consist with the dominion and absolute empire of Grace To this 〈◊〉 reduce such peevish and unhandsome nicenesses in matters of Religion that are unsatisfied unless they have all exteriour circumstances trimmed up and made pompous for their Religious offices such who cannot pray without a convenient room and their Devotion is made active only by a well-built Chappel and they cannot sing Lauds without Church-musick and too 〈◊〉 light dissolves their intention and too much dark promotes their melancholy and because these and the like exteriour Ministeries are good advantages therefore without them they can do nothing which certainly is a great intimation and likeness to Immortification Our Will should be like the Candle of the Eye without all colour in it self that it may entertain the species of all colours from without and when we lust after mandrakes and deliciousness of exteriour Ministeries we many times are brought to betray our own interest and prostitute our dearest affections to more ignoble and stranger desires Let us love all natures and serve all persons and pray in all places and fast without opportunities and do alms above our power and set our selves heartily on work to neglect and frustrate those lower temptations of the Devil who 〈◊〉 frequently enough make our Religion inopportune if we then will make it infrequent and will present us with objects enough and flies to disquiet our persons if our natures be petulant peevish curious and unmortified 24. It is a great mercy of God to have an affable sweet and well-disposed nature and it does half the work of Mortification for us we have the less trouble to 〈◊〉 our Passions and destroy our Lusts. But then as those whose natures are morose cholerick peevish and lustful have greater difficulty so is their vertue of greater excellence and returned with a more ample reward but it is in all mens natures as with them who gathered Manna They that gathered little had no lack and they that gathered much had nothing over they who are of ill natures shall want no assistance of God's grace to work their cure though their flesh be longer 〈◊〉 and they who are sweetly tempered being naturally meek and modest chaste or temperate will find work enough to contest against their temptations from without though from within possibly they may have fewer Yet there are greater degrees of Vertue and heroical excellencies and great rewards to which God hath designed them by so fair dispositions and it will concern all their industry to mortifie their spirit which though it be malleable and more ductile yet it is as bare and naked of imagery as the rudest and most iron nature so that Mortification will be every man's duty no nature nor piety nor wisdom nor 〈◊〉 but will need it either to subdue a Lust or a Passion to cut off an occasion or to resist a Temptation to persevere or to go on to secure our present estate or to proceed towards perfection But all men do not think so 25. For there are some who have great peace no fightings within no troubles without no disputes or contradictions in their spirit but these men have the peace of tributaries or a conquered people the gates of their city stand open day and night that all the carriages may enter without disputing the pass the flesh and the spirit dispute not because the spirit is there in pupillage or in bonds and the flesh rides in triumph with the tyranny and pride and impotency of a female tyrant For in the sence of Religion we all are Warriors or Slaves either our selves are stark dead in trespasses and sins or we need to stand perpetually upon our guards in continual observation and in contestation against our Lusts and our Passions so long denying and contradicting our own Wills till we will and chuse to do things against our Wills having an eye always to those infinite satisfactions which shall 〈◊〉 our Wills and all our Faculties when we arrive to that state in which there shall be no more contradiction but only that our mortal shall put on immortality 26. But as some have a vain and dangerous peace so others double their trouble by too nice and impertinent scruples thinking that every Temptation is a degree of Immortification As long as we live we shall have to do with Enemies but as this Life is ever a state of 〈◊〉 so the very design and purpose of Mortification is not to take away Temptations but to overcome them it endeavours to facilitate the work and secure our condition by removing all occasions it can but the opportunity of a crime and the solicitation to a sin is no fault of ours unless it be of our procuring or finds entertainment when it comes unsent for To suffer a Temptation is a misery but if we then set upon the 〈◊〉 of it it is an occasion of Vertue and never is criminal unless we give consent But then also it would be considered that it is not good offering our selves to fire ordeal to confirm our Innocence nor prudent to enter into Battel without need and to shew our valour nor safe to procure a Temptation that we may have the reward of Mortification of it For 〈◊〉 of the spirit is not commanded as a Duty finally resting in it self or immediately landing upon God's glory such as are acts of Charity and Devotion Chastity and Justice but it is the great instrument of Humility and all other Graces and therefore is to be undertaken to destroy a sin and to secure a vertuous habit And besides that to call on a danger is to tempt God and to invite the Devil and no man is sure of a victory it is also great imprudence to create a need that we may take it away again to drink
poison to make experiment of the antidote and at the best it is but a running back to come just to the same place again for he that is not tempted does not sin but he that invites a Temptation that he might overcome it or provokes a Passion that he may allay it is then but in the same condition after his pains and his 〈◊〉 He was not sure he should come so far The PRAYER O Dearest God who hast framed Man of Soul and Body and fitted him with Faculties and proportionable instruments to serve thee according to all our capacities let thy holy Spirit rule and sanctifie every power and member both of Soul and Body that they may keep that beautious order which in our creation thou didst intend and to which thou dost restore thy people in the renovations of Grace that our Affections may be guided by Reason our Understanding may be enlightned with thy Word and then may guide and perswade our Will that we suffer no violent transportation of Passions nor be overcome by a Temptation nor consent to the impure solicitations of Lust that Sin may not reign in our mortal bodies but that both Bodies and Souls may be conformable to the Sufferings of the Holy Jesus that in our Body we may bear the marks and dying of our Lord and in our spirits we may be humble and mortified and like him in all his imitable perfections that we may die to sin and live to righteousness and after our suffering together with him in this world we may reign together with him hereafter to whom in the unity of the most mysterious Trinity be all glory and dominion and praise for ever and ever Amen SECT IX Of JESVS being Baptized and going into the Wilderness to be Tempted The Baptisme of Iesus S. MAT. 3. 17. And lo a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Luc. 3 23. And Iesus himselfe began to be about thirty yeares of age The Temqtation of Iesus S. MAT. 4 10 Get thee behind me Satan For it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou sarue 1. NOW the full time was come Jesus took leave of his Mother and his Trade to begin his Father's work and the Office Prophetical in order to the Redemption of the World and when John was baptizing in Jordan Jesus came to John to be baptized of him The Baptist had never seen his face because they had been from their infancy driven to several places designed to several imployments and never met till now But immediately the Holy Ghost inspired S. John with a discerning and knowing spirit and at his first arrival he knew him and did him worship And when Jesus desired to be baptized John forbad him saying I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me For the Baptism of John although it was not a direct instrument of the Spirit for the collation of Grace neither find we it administred in any form of words not so much as in the name of Christ to come as many dream because even after John had baptized the Pharisees still doubted if he were the Messias which they would not if in his form of Ministration he had published Christ to come after him and also because it had not been proper for Christ himself to have received that Baptism whose form had specified himself to come hereafter neither could it consist with the Revelation which John had and the confession which he made to baptize in the name of Christ to come whom the Spirit marked out to him to be come already and himself pointed at him with his 〈◊〉 yet it was a ceremonious consignation of the Doctrine of Repentance which was one great part of the Covenant Evangelical and was a Divine Institution the susception of it was in order to the fulfilling all righteousness it was a sign of Humility the persons baptized confessed their sins it was a sacramental disposing to the Baptism and Faith of Christ but therefore John wondred why the Messias the Lamb of God pure and without spot who needed not the abstersions of Repentance or the washings of Baptism should demand it and of him a sinner and his servant And in the Hebrew Gospel of S. Matthew which the 〈◊〉 used at 〈◊〉 as S. Hierom reports these words are added The Mother of the Lord and his brethren said unto him John Baptist baptizeth to the Remission of sins let us go and be baptized of him He said to them 〈◊〉 have I sinned that I should go and be baptized of him And this part of the Story is also told by Justin Martyr But Jesus wanted not a proposition to consign by his Baptism proportionable enough to the analogy of its institution for as others professed their return towards Innocence so he avowed his perseverance in it and though he was never called in Scripture a Sinner yet he was made Sin for us that is he did undergo the shame and the punishment and therefore it was proper enough for him to perform the Sacrament of Sinners 2. But the Holy Jesus who came as himself in answer to the Baptist's question professed to sulfil all rightcousness would receive that Rite which his Father had instituted in order to the manifestation of his Son For although the Baptist had a glimpse of him by the first irradiations of the Spirit yet John professed That he therefore came baptizing with water that Jesus might be manifested to Israel and it was also a sign given to the Baptist himself that on whomsoever he saw the Spirit descending and remaining he is the person that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost And God chose to actuate the sign at the waters of Jordan in great and religious assemblies convened there at John's Baptism and therefore Jesus came to be baptized and by this Baptism became known to John who as before he gave to him an indiscriminate testimony so now he pointed out the person in his Sermons and Discourses and by calling him the Lamb of God prophesied of his Passion and preached him to be the World's Redeemer and the Sacrifice for mankind He was now manifest to Israel he confirmed the Baptism of John he 〈◊〉 the water to become sacramental and ministerial in the remission of sins he by a real event declared that to them who should rightly be baptized the Kingdom of Heaven should certainly be opened he inserted himself by that Ceremony into the society and participation of holy people of which communion himself was Head and Prince and he did in a symbol purifie Humane nature whose stains and guilt he had undertaken 3. As soon as John had performed his Ministery and Jesus was baptized he prayed and the heavens were opened and the air clarified by a new and glorious light and the holy Ghost in the manner of a Dove alighted upon his sacred head and God the Father gave
a voice from Heaven saying Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased This was the inauguration and proclamation of the Messias when he began to be the great Prophet of the new Covenant And this was the greatest meeting that ever was upon earth where the whole Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity was opened and shewn as much as the capacities of our present imperfections will permit the Second Person in the veil of Humanity the Third in the shape or with the motion of a Dove but the First kept his primitive state and as to the Israelites he gave notice by way of caution Ye saw no shape but ye heard a voice so now also God the Father gave testimony to his Holy Son and appeared only in a voice without any visible representment 4. When the Rite and the Solemnity was over Christ ascended up out of the waters and left so much vertue behind him that as Gregorius Turonensis reports that creek of the River where his holy body had been baptized was indued with a healing quality and a power of curing Lepers that bathed themselves in those waters in the faith and with invocation of the holy Name of Jesus But the manifestation of this power was not till afterwards for as yet Jesus did no Miracles 5. As soon as ever the Saviour of the World was baptized had opened the Heavens which yet never had been opened to Man and was declared the Son of God Jesus was by the Spirit driven into the Wilderness not by an unnatural violence but by the efficacies of Inspiration and a supernatural inclination and activity of resolution for it was the Holy Spirit that bare him thither he was led by the good Spirit to be tempted by the evil whither also he was pleased to retire to make demonstration that even in an active life such as he was designed to and intended some recesses and temporary dimissions of the world are most expedient for such persons especially whose office is Prophetical and for institution of others that by such vacancies in prayer and contemplation they may be better enabled to teach others when they have in such retirements conversed with God 6. In the Desart which was four miles 〈◊〉 the place of his Baptism and about twenty miles from Jerusalem as the common computations are he did abide forty days and forty nights where he was perpetually disturbed and assaulted with evil spirits in the midst of wild beasts in a continual fast without eating bread or drinking water And the Angels ministred to him being Messengers of comfort and sustentation sent from his Father for the support and service of his Humanity and imployed in resisting and discountenancing the assaults and temporal hostilities of the spirits of darkness 7. Whether the Devils 〈◊〉 in any horrid and affrighting shapes is not certain but it is more likely to a person of so great Sanctity and high designation they would appear more Angelical and immaterial in representments intellectual in words and Idea's temptations and inticements because Jesus was not a person of those low weaknesses to be affrighted or troubled with an ugly 〈◊〉 which can do nothing but abuse the weak and imperfect conceptions of persons nothing extraordinary And this was the way which Satan or the Prince of the Devils took whose Temptations were reserved for the last assault and the great day of trial for at the expiration of his forty days Jesus being hungry the Tempter invited him only to eat bread of his own providing which might refresh his Humanity and prove his Divinity hoping that his hunger and the desire of convincing the Devil might tempt him to eat before the time appointed But Jesus answered It is written Man shall not live by Bread alone but by every word that 〈◊〉 out of the mouth of God meaning that in every word of God whether the Commandment be general or special a promise is either expressed or implied of the supply of all provisions necessary for him that is doing the work of God and that was the present case of Jesus who was then doing his Father's work and promoting our interest and 〈◊〉 was sure to be provided for and therefore so are we 8. The Devil having failed in this assault tries him again requiring but a demonstration of his being the Son of God He sets him upon the battlement of the Temple and invites him to throw himself down upon a pretence that God would send his Angels to keep his Son and quotes Scripture for it But Jesus understood it well and though he was secured of God's protection yet he would not tempt God nor solicite his Providence to a dereliction by tempting him to an unnecessary conservation This assault was silly and weak But at last he unites all his power of stratagem and places the Holy Jesus upon an exceeding high mountain and by an Angelical power draws into one Centre Species and Idea's from all the Kingdoms and glories of the World and makes an admirable Map of beauties and represents it to the eyes of Jesus saying that all that was put into his power to give and he would give it him if he would fall down and worship him But then the Holy Lamb was angry as a provoked Lion and commanded him away when his temptations were violent and his demands impudent and blasphemous Then the Devil leaveth him and the Angels came and ministred unto him bringing such things as his necessities required after he had by a forty days Fast done penance for our sins and consigned to his Church the Doctrine and Discipline of Fasting in order to a Contemplative life and the resisting and overcoming all the Temptations and allurements of the Devil and all our ghostly enemies Ad SECT IX Considerations upon the Baptizing Fasting and Temptation of the Holy JESVS by the Devil 1. WHen the day did break and the Baptist was busie in his Offices the Sun of Righteousness soon entred upon our Hemisphere and after he had lived a life of darkness and silence for thirty years together yet now that he came to do the greatest work in the World and to minister in the most honourable Embassie he would do nothing of singularity but fulfil all righteousness and satisfie all Commands and joyn in the common Rites and Sacraments which all people innocent or penitent did undergo either as deleteries of 〈◊〉 or instruments of Grace For so he would needs be baptized by his servant and though he was of Purity sufficient to do it and did actually by his Baptism purifie the Purifier and sanctifie that and all other streams to a holy ministery and effect yet he went in bowing his head like a sinner uncloathing himself like an imperfect person and craving to be washed as if he had been crusted with an impure Leprosie thereby teaching us to submit our selves to all those Rites which he would institute and although 〈◊〉 of them be like the
meat and tears our drink which although they are unpleasant and harsh to natural appetites yet by the operation and influences of God's Holy Spirit they are made instruments of health and life and Salvation 12. The Devil perceiving Jesus to be a person of greater eminency and perfection than to be moved by sensual and low desires makes a second assault by a Temptation something more spiritual and tempts him to Presumption and indiscreet confidence to a throwing himself down from the pinnacles of the Temple upon the stock of Predestination that God might secure him by the ministery of Angels and so prove his being the Son of God And indeed it is usual with the Devil when severe persons have so much mortified their lower appetites that they are not easily overcome by an invitation of carnality or intemperance to stir them to opinions of their own Sanctity and make their first escaping prove their second and greater dangers But that the Devil should perswade Jesus to throw himself down because he was the Son of God was an invitation to no purpose save only that it gave occasion to this truth That God's Providence secures all his sons in the ways of Nature and while they are doing their duty but loves not to be tempted to acts unreasonable and unnecessary God will protect his servants in or from all evils happening without their knowledge or against their will but not from evils of their own procuring Heron an inhabitant of the Desart suffered the same Temptation and was overcome by it for he died with his fall sinfully and ingloriously For the caresses of God's love to his Saints and servants are security against all but themselves The Devil and all the World offer to do them mischief but then they shall be safe because they are innocent if they once offer to do the same to themselves they lose their Protection because they lost their Prudence and their Charity But here also it will concern all those who by their eminent imployment and greater ministeries in Ecclesiasticals are set upon the pinnacle of the Temple to take care that the Devil tempt not them to a precipice a fall from so great a height will break the bones in pieces and yet there also the station is less firm the posture most uneasie the prospect vertiginous and the Devil busie and desirous to thrust us headlong 13. S. Hierom here observes well the Devil intending mischief to our Blessed Saviour invited him to cast himself down He may perswade us to a fall but cannot precipitate us without our own act And it is an infinite mercy in God that the Devil who is of malice infinite is of so restrained and limited a power that he can do us no ghostly disadvantage but by perswading us to do it our selves And then it will be a strange imprudence to lay violent and unreasonable hands upon our selves and do that mischief which our strongest and most malicious Adversary cannot or to be invited by the only Rhetorick of a dog's barking to come near him to untie his chain to unloose his muzzle for no other end but that we may be bitten Just such a fool is every person that consents to the Temptations of the Devil 14. By this time the Devil began to perceive that this was the Son of God and designed to be the King of all the World and therefore resolved for the last assault to profer him the Kingdoms of the World thinking Ambition more likely to ruine him because he knew it was that which prevailed upon himself and all those fallen Stars the Angels of Darkness That the Devil told a lie it is most likely when he said he had power to dispose the Kingdoms of the World for originally and by proper inherent right God alone disposes all Governments but it is also certain that the Devil is a person capable of a delegate imployment in some great mutation of States and many probabilities have been observed by wise personages perswading that the Grandeur of the Roman Empire was in the degrees of increment and decrement permitted to the power and managing of the Devil that the greatness of that Government being in all appearance full of advantage to Satan's Kingdom and imployed for the dis-improvement of the weak beginnings and improbable increase of Christianity might give lustre and demonstration to it that it came from God since the great permissions of power made to the Devil and acted with all art and malice in defiance of the Religion could produce no other effect upon it but that it made it grow greater and the greatness was made more miraculous since the Devil when his chain was off fain would but could not suppress it 15. The Lamb of God that heard him with patience tempt him to do himself a mischief and to throw himself headlong could by no means endure it when he tempted to a direct dishonouring of God Our own injuries are opportunities of patience but when the glory of God and his immediate Honour is the question then is the occasion and precise minute for the 〈◊〉 of a clear-shining and unconsuming Zeal But the care of God's Glory had so filled and imployed all the Faculties of Jesus that he takes no notice of the offer and it were well also that we had fewer opinions of the lustre of worldly dignities or at least that we in imitation of our Blessed Master should resuse to accept all the World when it is to be bought of the Devil at the expence of a deadly sin For that Government cannot be very honourable that makes us slaves to the worst of Tyrants and all those Princes and great personages who by injury and usurpation possess and invade others rights would do well to consider that a Kingdom is too dearly paid for if the condition be first to worship the Devil 16. When the Devil could do no good he departed for a time If he could ever have spied a time of returning he wanted not will nor malice to observe and use it And although Jesus was a person without danger yet I doubt not but the Holy Ghost described that circumstance that we should not have the securities of a deep peace when we have had the success of conquerors for a surprise is most full of horror and of more certain ruine so that we have no security but a perpetual observation that together with the grace of God who takes care of all his servants and will drive away the Tempter when he pleases and help us always when we need is as great an argument for our confidence and encouragement to our prayers and address to God as it is safety to our person and honour to our victory And let us account it our honour that the trials of Temptation which is the greatest sadness of our condition are hallowed by the Temptation of Jesus and our condition assured by his assistances and the assistances procured by our Prayers most easily upon
the advantage of his sufferings and compassion And we may observe that Poverty Predestination and Ambition are the three quivers from which the Devil drew his arrows which as the most likely to prevail he shot against Christ but now he shot in vain and gave probation that he might be overcome our Captain hath conquered for himself and us By these instances we see our danger and how we are provided of a remedy The PRAYER O Holy Jesus who didst fulfil all Righteousness and didst live a life of evenness and obedience and community submitting thy self to all Rites and Sanctions of Divine ordinance give me grace to live in the fellowship of thy holy Church a life of Piety and without singularity receiving the sweet influence of thy Sacraments and Rites and living in the purities and innocencies of my first Sanctification I adore thy goodness infinite that thou hast been pleased to wash my Soul in the Laver of Regeneration that thou hast consigned me to the participation of thy favours by the holy 〈◊〉 Let me not return to the infirmities of the Old Man whom thou hast crucified on thy Cross and who was buried with thee in Baptism nor 〈◊〉 the crimes of my sinsul years which were so many recessions from 〈◊〉 purities but let me ever receive the emissions of thy Divine Spirit and be a Son of God a partner of thine immortal inheritance and when thou seest it needful I may receive testimony from Heaven that I am thy servant and thy child And grant that I may so walk that I neither disrepute the honour of the Christian Institution nor stain the whitenesses of that Innocence which thou didst invest my Soul withall when I put on the Baptismal Robe nor break my holy Vow nor lose my right of inheritance which thou hast given me by promise and grace but that thou mayest love me with the love of a Father and a Brother and a Husband and a Lord and I serve thee in the communion of Saints in the susception of Sacraments in the actions of a holy life and in a never-failing love or uninterrupted Devotion to the glory of thy Name and the promotion of all those Ends of Religion which thou hast designed in the excellent Oeconomy of Christianity Grant this Holy Jesus for thy mercie 's sake and for the honour of thy Name which is and shall be adored for ever and ever Amen DISCOURSE V. Of Temptation 1. GOD who is the Fountain of good did chuse rather to bring good out of evil than not to suffer any evil to be not only because variety of accidents and natures do better entertain our affections and move our spirits who are transported and suffer great impressions by a circumstance by the very opposition and accidental lustre and eminency of contraries but also that the glory of the Divine Providence in turning the nature of things into the designs of God might be illustrious and that we may in a mixt condition have more observation and after our danger and our labour may obtain a greater reward for Temptation is the opportunity of Vertue and a Crown God having disposed us in such a condition that our Vertues must be difficult our inclinations 〈◊〉 and corrigible our avocations many our hostilities bitter our dangers proportionable that our labour might be great our inclinations suppressed and corrected our intentions be made actual our enemies be resisted and our dangers pass into security and honour after a contestation and a victory and a perseverance It is every man's case Trouble is as certainly the lot of our nature and inheritance and we are so sure to be tempted that in the deepest peace and silence of spirit oftentimes is our greatest danger not to be tempted is sometimes our most subtle Temptation It is certain then we cannot be secure when our Security is our enemy but therefore we must do as God himself does make the best of it and not be sad at that which is the publick portion and the case of all men but order it according to the intention place it in the eye of vertue that all its actions and motions may tend thither there to be changed into felicities But certain it is unless we first be cut and hewen in the mountains we shall not be fixed in the Temple of God but by incision and contusions our roughnesses may become plain or our sparks kindled and we may be either for the Temple or the Altar spiritual building or holy fire something that God shall delight in and then the Temptation was not amiss 2. And therefore we must not wonder that oftentimes it so happens that nothing will remove a Temptation no diligence no advices no labour no prayers not because these are ineffectual but because it is most fit the Temptation should abide for ends of God's designing and although S. Paul was a person whose prayers were likely to be prevalent and his industry of much prudence and efficacy toward the drawing out of his thorn yet God would not do it but continued his war only promising to send him succour My grace is sufficient for thee meaning he should have an enemy to try his spirit and improve it and he should also have God's grace to comfort and support it but as without God's grace the Enemy would spoil him so without an Enemy God's grace would never swell up into glory and crown him For the caresses of a pleasant Fortune are apt to swell into extravagancies of spirit and burst into the dissolution of manners and unmixt Joy is dangerous but if in our fairest Flowers we spie a Locust or feel the uneasiness of a Sackcloth under our fine Linen or our Purple be tied with an uneven and a rude Cord any little trouble but to correct our wildnesses though it be but a Death's-head served up at our Feasts it will make our Tables fuller of health and freer from snare it will allay our spirits making them to retire from the weakness of dispersion to the union and strength of a sober recollection 3. Since therefore it is no part of our imployment or our care to be free from all the attempts of an enemy but to be safe in despite of his hostility it now will concern us to inform our selves of the state of the War in general and then to make provisions and to put on Armour accordingly 4. First S. 〈◊〉 often observes and makes much of the discourse that the Devil when he intends a Battery first views the Strengths and Situation of the place His sence drawn out of the cloud of an Allegory is this The Devil first considers the Constitution and temper of the person he is to tempt and where he observes his natural inclination apt for a Vice he presents him with objects and opportunity and arguments 〈◊〉 to his caitive disposition from which he is likely to receive the smaller opposition since there is a party within that desires his
Man if they pass through an even and an indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course they are little and within command but if they pass upon an end or aim of difficulty or ambition they duplicate and grow to a 〈◊〉 and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of Innocence but the Temptation of busie designs is too great even for the best of dispositions 7. But these Temptations are crasse and material and soon discernible it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial For he hath Apples to cousen Children and Gold for Men the Kingdoms of the World for the Ambition of Princes and the Vanities of the World for the Intemperate he hath Discourses and fair-spoken Principles to abuse the pretenders to Reason and he hath common Prejudices for the more vulgar understandings Amongst these I chuse to consider such as are by way of Principle or Proposition 8. The first great Principle of Temptation I shall note is a general mistake which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of Infirmity calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined though by carelesness and evil customs they are heightned to a habit by the name of Sins of infirmity to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend If when they have committed a crime their Conscience checks them and they are troubled and during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire resolve against it and commit it readily at the next opportunity then they cry out against the weakness of their Nature and think as long as this body of death is about them it must be thus and that this condition may stand with the state of Grace And then the Sins shall return periodically like the revolutions of a Quartan Ague well and ill for ever till Death surprizes the mistaker This is a Patron of sins and makes the Temptation prevalent by an authentick instrument and they pretend the words of S. Paul For the good that I would that I do not but the evil that I would not that I do For there is a law in my members 〈◊〉 against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin And thus the 〈◊〉 of Sin is mistaken for a state of Grace and the imperfections of the Law are miscalled the affections and necessities of Nature that they might seem to be incurable and the persons apt for an excuse therefore because for Nature there is no absolute cure But that these words of S. Paul may not become a 〈◊〉 of death and instruments of a temptation to us it is observable that the Apostle by a siction of person as is usual with him speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but under the 〈◊〉 obscurities insufficiencies and imperfections of the Law which indeed he there contends to have been a Rule good and holy apt to remonstrate our misery because by its prohibitions and limits given to natural desires it made actions before indifferent now to be sins it added many curses to the breakers of it and by an 〈◊〉 of contrariety it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful but it was a Covenant in which our Nature was restrained but not helped it was provoked but not sweetly assisted our Understandings were instructed but our Wills not sanctified and there were no suppletories of Repentance every greater sin was like the fall of an Angel irreparable by any mystery or express recorded or enjoyned Now of a man under this Govenant he describes the condition to be such that he understands his Duty but by the infirmities of Nature he is certain to fall and by the helps of the Law not strengthened against it nor restored after it and therefore he calls himself under that notion a miserable man sold under sin not doing according to the rules of the Law or the dictates of his Reason but by the unaltered misery of his Nature certain to prevaricate But the person described here is not S. Paul is not any justified person not so much as a Christian but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of Grace as will manifestly appear if we observe the antithesis from S. Paul's own characters For the Man here named is such as in whom sin wrought all concupiscence in whom sin lived and slew him so that he was dead in trespasses and sins and although he did delight in the Law after his inwardman that is his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions which afterwards he calls serving the Law of God with his mind that is in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit yet he could act nothing for the law in his members did inslave him and brought him into captivity to the law of sin so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts he was a slave to sin and dead in trespasses But the state of a regenerate person is such as to have 〈◊〉 the flesh with the affections and lusts in whom sin did not reign not only in the mind but even also not in the mortal body over whom sin had no dominion in whom the old man was crucified and the body of sin was destroyed and sin not at all served And to make the antithesis yet clearer in the very beginning of the next Chapter the Apostle saith that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death under which law he complained immediately before he was sold and killed to shew the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments No man in the state of Grace can say The evil that I would not that I do if by evil he means any evil that is habitual or in its own nature deadly 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation though but in a single act it is a condition of Carnality not of spiritual life and those are not the infirmities of Nature but the weaknesses of Grace that make us sin so frequently which the Apostle truly affirms to the same purpose The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot or that ye do not do the things that ye would This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh and weakness of the spirit For he adds But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law saying plainly that the state of such a combate and disability of doing good is a state of a man under the Law or in the flesh which he accounts all one but every man that is sanctified
Duty tempts to the breaking of the Vow or at least makes the man impatient when he cannot persist with content nor retire with 〈◊〉 21. It therefore concerns all Spiritual Guides to manage their new Converts with sober counsels and moderate permissions knowing that sublime speculations in the Metaphysicks are not fit entertainment for an infant-understanding There is milk for babes and strong meat for men of riper Piety and it will imploy all the regular strength of young beginners to contest against the reliques of those mischiefs which remain since the expulsion of the Old man and to master those difficulties which by the nature of the state are certainly consequent to so late mutation And if we by the furies of Zeal and the impatience of mistaken Piety are violent and indiscreet in the destroying of our Enemies we probably may tread the thistle down and trample upon all its appearances and yet leave the root in the ground with haste and imprudent forwardness Gentle and soft counsels are the surest Enemies to your Vice and the best conservators and 〈◊〉 of a vertuous state but a hasty charge and the conduct of a young Leader may engage an early spirit in dangers and dishonours And this Temptation is of so much greater danger because it 〈◊〉 a face of Zeal and meets with all encouragements from without every man being apt to cherish a Convert and to enflame his new 〈◊〉 but few consider 〈◊〉 inconveniences that are consequent to indiscreet beginnings and the worse events usually appendent to 〈◊〉 inconveniences 22. Indeed it is not usual that Prudence and a new-kindled Zeal meet in the 〈◊〉 person but it will therefore concern the safety of new Converts who cannot guide themselves to give themselves up to the conduct of an experienced Spiritual person who being disinterest in those heats of the 〈◊〉 apprehensions and being long taught by the observation of the accidents of a spiritual life upon what rocks Rashness and Zeal usually do engage us can best tell what degrees and what instances of Religion they may with most safety undertake but for the general it is best in the addresses of Grace to follow the course of Nature let there be an Infancy and a Childhood and a vigorous Youth and by the divers and distant degrees of increment let the persons be established in Wisdom and Grace But above all things let them be careful that they do not lay upon themselves Necessities of any lasting course no Vows of perpetuity in any instance of uncommanded action or degree of Religion for he may alter in his capacity and exteriour condition he may see by experience that the particular engagement is imprudent he may by the virtue of Obedience be engaged on a duty inconsistent with the conveniences and advantages of the other and his very loss of liberty in an uncommanded instance may tempt him to inconvenience But then for the single and transient actions of Piety although in them the danger is less even though the imprudence be great yet it were well if new beginners in Religion would attempt a moderate and an even Piety rather than actions of eminency lest they retire with shame and be 〈◊〉 with scruple when their first heats are spent and expire in weariness and temptation It is good to keep within the circuits of a man's affections not stretching out all the degrees of fancy and desire but leaving the appetites of Religion rather unsatisfied and still desiring more than by stretching out the whole faculty leave no desires but what are fulfilled and wearied 23. Thirdly I shall not need here to observe such Temptations which are direct invitations to sin upon occasion of the Piety of holy persons such as are Security too much Confidence Pride and Vanity these are part of every man's danger and are to be considered upon their several arguments Here I was only to note the general instruments of mischief It remains now that I speak of such Remedies and general Antidotes not which are proportioned to Sins in special but such as are preventions or remedies and good advices in general 24. First Let every man abstain from all Occasions of sin as much as his condition will permit And it were better to do some violence to our secular affairs than to procure apparent or probable danger to our Souls For if we see not a way open and ready prepared to our iniquity our desires oftentimes are not willing to be troubled but Opportunity gives life and activeness to our appetites If David had not from his towers beheld the private beauties of Bathsheba Uriah had lived and his Wife been unattempted but sin was brought to him by that chance and entring at the casements of his eyes set his heart on fire and despoiled him of his robes of honour and innocence The riches of the wedge of gold and the beauty of the Babylonish garment made Achan sacrilegious upon the place who was innocent enough in his preceding purposes and therefore that Soul that makes it self an object to sin and invites an Enemy to view its possessions and live in the vicinage loves the sin it self and he that is pleased with the danger would willingly be betrayed into the necessity and the pleasure of the sin for he can have no other ends to entertain the hazards but that he hath a farther purpose to serve upon them he loves the pleasure of the sin and therefore he would make the condition of sinning certain and unavoidable And therefore Holy Scripture which is admirable and curious in the cautions and securities of Vertue does not determine its Precepts in the precise commands of vertuous actions but also binds up our senses obstructs the passage of Temptation blocks up all the ways and avenues of Vice commanding us to make a covenant with our eyes not to look upon a Maid not to sit with a woman that is a singer not to consider the wine when it sparkles and gives its colour rightly in the cup but to set a watch before our mouths to keep the door of our lips and many more instances to this purpose that sin may not come so near as to be repulsed as knowing sin hath then prevailed too far when we give the denial to its solicitations 25. We read a Story of a vertuous Lady that desired of S. Athanasius to procure for her out of the number of the Widows fed from the Ecclesiastical Corban an old woman morose peevish and impatient that she might by the society of so ungentle a person have often occasion to exercise her Patience her Forgiveness and Charity I know not how well the counsel succeeded with her I am sure it was not very safe and to invite the trouble to triumph over it is to wage a war of an uncertain issue for no end but to get the pleasures of the victory which oftentimes do not pay for the trouble never for the danger An Egyptian who acknowledged Fire for his God
It looked of a blew mould the bone of the nose laid bare the flesh of the neather lip quite fallen off his mouth full of worms and in his eye-pits two hungry Toads feasting upon the remanent portion of flesh and moisture and so he dwelt in his house of darkness And if every person tempted by an opportunity of Lust or intemperance would chuse such a room for his privacy that company for his witness that object to allay his appetite he would soon find his spirit more sober and his desires obedient I end this with the counsel of S. Bernard Let every man in the first address to his actions consider whether if he were now to die he might safely and prudently do such an act and whether he would not be infinitely troubled that death should surprise him in the present dispositions and then let him proceed accordingly For since our treasure is in earthen vessels which may be broken in pieces by the collision of ten thousand accidents it were not safe to treasure up wrath in them for if we do we shall certainly drink it in the day of recompence 37. Thirdly Before and in and 〈◊〉 all this the Blessed Jesus propounds Prayer as a remedy against Temptations Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation For besides that Prayer is the great instrument of obtaining victory by the grace of God as a fruit of our desires and of God's natural and essential goodness the very praying against a Temptation if it be hearty servent and devout is a denying of it and part of the victory for it is a 〈◊〉 the entertainment of it it is a positive rejection of the crime and every consent to it is a ceasing to pray and to desire remedy And we shall observe that whensoever we begin to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit our Prayers against it lessen as the consent increases there being nothing a more direct enemy to the Temptation than Prayer which as it is of it self a professed hostility against the crime so it is a calling in auxiliaries from above to make the victory more certain If Temptation sets upon thee do thou set upon God for he is as soon overcome as thou art as soon moved to good as thou art to evil he is as quickly invited to pity thee as thou to ask him provided thou dost not finally rest in the petition but pass into action and endeavour by all means humane and moral to quench the 〈◊〉 newly kindled in thy bowels before it come to devour the marrow of the bones For a strong Prayer and a lazy incurious unobservant walking are contradictions in the discourses of Religion 〈◊〉 tells us a story of a young man solicited by the spirit of Uncleanness who came to an old Religious person and begged his prayers It was in that Age when God used to answer Prayers of very holy persons by more clear and familiar significations of his pleasure than he knows now to be necessary But after many earnest prayers sent up to the throne of Grace and the young man not at all bettered upon consideration and enquiry of particulars he found the cause to be because the young man relied so upon the Prayers of the old Eremite that he did nothing at all to discountenance his Lust or contradict the Temptation But then he took another course enjoyned him Austerities and exercises of Devotion gave him rules of prudence and caution tied him to work and to stand upon his guard and then the Prayers returned in triumph and the young man trampled upon his Lust. And so shall I and you by God's grace if we pray earnestly and frequently if we watch carefully that we be not surprised if we be not idle in secret nor talkative in publick if we read Scriptures and consult with a spiritual Guide and make Religion to be our work that serving of God be the business of our life and our designs be to purchase Eternity then we shall walk safely or recover speedily and by doing advantages to 〈◊〉 secure a greatness of Religion and spirituality to our spirits and understanding But remember that when Israel fought against Amalek Moses's prayer and Moses's hand secured the victory his Prayer grew ineffectual when his Hands were slack to remonstrate to us that we must cooperate with the grace of God praying devoutly and watching carefully and observing prudently and labouring with diligence and assiduity The PRAYER ETernal God and most merciful Father I adore thy Wisdom Providence and admirable Dispensation of affairs in the spiritual Kingdom of our Lord Jesus that thou who art infinitely good dost permit so many sadnesses and dangers to discompose that order of things and spirits which thou didst create innocent and harmless and dost design to great and spiritual perfections that the emanation of good from evil by thy over-ruling power and excellencies may force glory to thee from our shame and honour to thy Wisdom by these contradictory accidents and events Lord have pity upon me in these sad disorders and with mercy know my infirmities Let me by suffering what thou pleasest cooperate to the glorification of thy Grace and magnifying thy Mercy but never let me consent to sin but with the power of thy Majesty and mightiness of thy prevailing Mercy rescue me from those 〈◊〉 of dangers and enemies which daily seck to 〈◊〉 that Innocence with which thou didst cloath my Soul in the New birth Behold O God how all the Spirits of Darkness endeavour the extinction of our hopes and the dispersion of all those Graces and the prevention of all those 〈◊〉 which the Holy Jesus hath purchased for every loving and obedient Soul Our very 〈◊〉 and drink are full of poison our Senses are snares our 〈◊〉 is various Temptatio our sins are inlets to more and our good actions made occasions of sins Lord deliver me from the Malice of the Devil from the Fallacies of the World from my own Folly that I be not devoured by the first nor cheated by the second nor betrayed by my self but let thy Grace which is sufficient for me be always present with me let thy Spirit 〈◊〉 me in the spiritual 〈◊〉 arming my Understanding and securing my Will and 〈◊〉 my Spirit with resolutions of Piety and incentives of Religion and deleteries of Sin that the dangers I am encompassed withall may become unto me an occasion of victory and trimph through the aids of the Holy Ghost and by the Cross of the Lord Jesus who hath for himself and all his servants triumphed over Sin and Hell and the Grave even all the powers of Darkness from which by the mercies of Jesus and the merits of his Passion now and ever deliver me and all thy 〈◊〉 people Amen DISCOURSE VI. Of Baptism Part I. 1. WHen the Holy Jesus was to begin his Prophetical Office and to lay the foundation of his Church on the Corner-stone he first temper'd the Cement
confession and undertaking a holy life and therefore in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are conjoyned in the significations as they are in the mystery it is a giving up our names to Christ and it is part of the foundation or the first Principles of the Religion as appears in S. Paul's Catechism it is so the first thing that it is for babes and Neophytes in which they are matriculated and adopted into the house of their Father and taken into the hands of their Mother Upon this account Baptism is called in antiquity 〈◊〉 janua porta Gratiae primus introitus Sanctorum adaeternam Dei Ecclesiae consuetudinem The gate of the Church the door of Grace the first entrance of the Saints to an eternal conversation with God and the Church Sacramentum initiationis intrantium Christianismum investituram S. Bernard calls it The Sacrament of initiation and the investiture of them that enter into the Religion And the person so entring is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the Religion or a Proselyte and Convert and one added to the number of the Church in imitation of that of S. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God added to the Church those that should be saved just as the Church does to this day and for ever baptizing Infants and Catechuments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are added to the Church that they may be added to the Lord and the number of the Inhabitants of Heaven 15. Secondly The next step beyond this is Adoption into the Convenant which is an immediate consequent of the first Presentation this being the first act of man that the first act of God And this is called by S. Paul a being baptized in one spirit into one body that is we are made capable of the Communion of Saints the blessings of the faithful the priviledges of the Church by this we are as S. Luke calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained or disposed put into the order of Eternal Life being made members of the mystical Body under Christ our Head 16. Thirdly And therefore Baptism is a new birth by which we enter into the new world the new Creation the blessings and spiritualities of the Kingdom and this is the expression which our Saviour himself used Nicodemus Unless a man be born of Water and the Spirit and it is by S. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laver of Regeneration for now we begin to be reckoned in new Census or account God is become our Father Christ our elder Brother the Spirit the earnest of our Inheritance the Church our Mother our food is the body and bloud of our Lord Faith is our learning Religion our employment and our whole life is spiritual and Heaven the object of our Hopes and the mighty price of our high Calling And from this time forward we have a new principle put into us the Spirit of Grace which besides our Soul and body is a principle of action of one nature and shall with them enter into the portion of our Inheritance And therefore the Primitive Christians who consigned all their affairs and goods and writings with some marks of their Lord usually writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour made it an abbreviature by writing only the Capitals thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Heathens in mockery and derision made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Fish and they used it for Christ as a name of reproach but the Christians owned the name and turned it into a pious Metaphor and were content that they should enjoy their pleasure in the Acrostich but upon that occasion Tertullian speaks pertinently to this Article Nos pisciculi sccundùm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur Christ whom you call a Fish we knowledge to be our Lord and Saviour and we if you please are the little fishes for we are born in water thence we derive our spiritual life And because from henceforward we are a new Creation the Church uses to assign new relations to the Catechumens Spiritual Fathers and Susceptors and at their entrance into Baptism the Christians and Jewish Proselytes did use to cancel all secular affections to their temporal relatives Nec quicquam priùs 〈◊〉 quà m contemnere Deos exuere patriam parentes liberos fratres vilia habere said Tacitus of the Christians which was true in the sence only that Christ said He that doth not hate father or mother for my sake is not worthy of me that is he that doth not hate them praeme rather than forsake me forsake them is unworthy of me 17. Fourthly In Baptism all our sins are pardoned according to the words of a Prophet I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness The Catechumen descends into the Font a Sinner he arises purified he goes down the son of Death he comes up the son of the Resurrection he enters in the son of Folly and prevarication he returns the son of Reconciliation he stoops down the child of Wrath and ascends the heir of Mercy he was the child of the Devil and now he is the servant and the son of God They are the words of Venerable Bede concerning this Mystery And this was ingeniously signified by that Greek inscription upon a Font which is so prettily contriv'd that the words may be read after the Greek or after the Hebrew manner and be exactly the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord wash my sin and not my face only And so it is intended and promised Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins and call on the Name of the Lord said Ananias to Saul for Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the washing of water in the word that is Baptism in the Christian Religion and therefore Tertullian calls Baptism lavacrum compendiatum a compendious Laver that is an intire cleansing the Soul in that one action justly and rightly performed In the rehearsal of which Doctrine it was not an unpleasant Etymology that 〈◊〉 Sinaita gave of Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which our sins are thrown off and they fall like leeches when they are full of bloud and water or like the chains from S. Peter's hands at the presence of the Angel Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an intire full forgiveness of sins so that they shall never be called again to scrutiny Omnia Daemonis armae His merguntur aquis quibus ille renascitur Infans Qui captivus erat The captivity of the Soul is taken away by the bloud of Redemption and the fiery darts of the Devil are quenched by these salutary waters and what the flames of Hell are expiating or punishing to eternal
God at first designed to us And therefore as our Baptism is a separation of us from unbelieving people so the descent of the Holy Spirit upon us in our Baptism is a consigning or marking us for God as the Sheep of his pasture as the Souldiers of his Army as the Servants of his houshold we are so separated from the world that we are appropriated to God so that God expects of us Duty and Obedience and all Sins are acts of Rebellion and Undutifulness Of this nature was the sanctification of Jeremy and John the Baptist from their mothers womb that is God took them to his own service by an early designation and his Spirit marked them to a holy Ministery To this also relates that of S. Paul whom God by a decree separated from his mother's womb to the Ministery of the Gospel the 〈◊〉 did antedate the act of the Spirit which did not descend upon him until the day of his Baptism What these persons were in order to exteriour Ministeries that all the faithful are in order to Faith and Obedience consigned in Baptism by the Spirit of God to a perpetual relation to God in a continual service and title to his Promises And in this sence the Spirit of God is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Seal In whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of Promise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Water washes the body and the Spirit seals the Soul viz. to a participation of those Promises which he hath made and to which we receive a title by our Baptism 22. Secondly The second effect of the Spirit is Light or Illumination that is the holy Spirit becomes unto us the Author of holy thoughts and firm perswasions and sets to his seal that the Word of God is true into the belief of which we are then baptized and makes Faith to be a Grace and the Understanding resigned and the Will confident and the Assent stronger than the premises and the Propositions to be believed because they are beloved and we are taught the ways of Godliness after a new manner that is we are made to perceive the Secrets of the Kingdom and to love Religion and to long for Heaven and heavenly things and to despise the World and to have new resolutions and new perceptions and new delicacies in order to the establishment of Faith and its increments and perseverance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God sits in the Soul when it is illuminated in 〈◊〉 as if he sate in his Throne that is he rules by a firm perswasion and intire principles of Obedience And therefore Baptism is called in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illuminated Call to mind the former days in which you were illuminated and the same phrase is in the 6. to the Hebrews where the parallel places expound each other For that which S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illuminated he calls after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a receiving the knowledge of the truth and that you may perceive this to be wholly meant of Baptism the 〈◊〉 expresses it still by Synonyma's Tasting of the heavenly gift and made partakers of the Holy Ghost sprinkled in our hearts from an evil conscience and washed in our bodies with pure water all which also are a syllabus or collection of the several effects of the graces bestowed in Baptism But we are now instancing in that which relates most properly to the Understanding in which respect the Holy Spirit also is called Anointing or Unction and the mystery is explicated by S. John The Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things 23. Thirdly The Holy Spirit descends upon us in Baptism to become the principle of a new life to become a holy seed springing up to Holiness and is called by S. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of God and the purpose of it we are taught by him Whosoever is 〈◊〉 of God that is he that is regenerated and entred into this New birth doth not 〈◊〉 sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God The Spirit of God is the Spirit of life and now that he by the Spirit is born anew he hath in him that principle which if it be cherished will grow up to life to life eternal And this is the Spirit of Sanctification the victory over the World the deletery of Concupiscence the life of the Soul and the perpetual principle of Grace sown in our spirits in the day of our Adoption to be the sons of God and members of Christ's body But take this Mystery in the words of S. Basil. There are two Ends proposed in Baptism to wit to abolish the body of Sin that we may no more bring forth fruit unto death and to live in the Spirit and to have our fruit to Sanctification The Water represents the image of death receiving the body in its bosom as in a Sepulchre but the quickning Spirit sends upon us a vigorous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power or 〈◊〉 even from the beginning renewing our Souls from the death of sin unto life For as our Mortification is 〈◊〉 in the water so the Spirit works life in us To this purpose is the discourse of S. Paul having largely discoursed of our being baptized into the death of 〈◊〉 he adds this as the Corollary of all He that is dead is freed from sin that is being mortified and buried in the waters of Baptism we have a new life of Righteousness put into us we are quitted from the dominion of Sin and are planted together in the likeness of Christ's Resurrection that henceforth we should not serve sin 24. Fourthly But all these intermedial Blessings tend to a glorious Conclusion for Baptism does also consign us to a holy Resurrection It takes the sting of death from us by burying us together with Christ and takes 〈◊〉 Sin which is the sting of death and then we shall be partakers of a blessed Resurrection This we are taught by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his Death For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection That declares the real event in its due season But because Baptism consigns it and admits us to a title to it we are said with S. Paul to be risen with Christ in Baptism Buried with him in Baptism wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God which hath raised him from the dead Which expression I desire to be remembred that by it we may better understand those other
parts concurring to his integral constitution Body and Soul and Spirit and all these have their proper activities and times but every one in his own order first that which is natural then that which is spiritual And what Aristotle said A man first lives the life of a Plant then of a Beast and lastly of a Man is true in this sence and the more spiritual the principle is the longer it is before it operates because more things concur to spiritual actions than to natural and these are necessary and therefore first the other are perfect and therefore last And who is he that so well understands the Philosophy of this third principle of a Christian's life the Spirit as to know how or when it is infused and how it operates in all its periods and what it is in its being and proper nature and whether it be like the Soul or like the faculty or like a habit or how or to what purposes God in all varieties does dispence it These are secrets which none but bold people use to decree and build propositions upon their own dreams That which is certain is * That the Spirit is the principle of a new life or a new birth * That Baptism is the Laver of this new birth * That it is the seed of God and may lie long in the furrows before it springs up * That from the faculty to the act the passage is not always sudden and quick * That the Spirit is the earnest of our Inheritance that is of Resurrection to eternal life which inheritance because Children we hope shall have they cannot be denied to have its Seal and earnest that is if they shall have all they are not to be denied a part * That Children have some effects of the Spirit and therefore do receive it and are baptized with the Spirit and therefore may with Water which thing is therefore true and evident because some Children are sanctified as Jeremy and the Baptist and therefore all may And because all Sanctification of persons is an effect of the Holy Ghost there is no peradventure but they that can be 〈◊〉 by God can in that capacity receive the Holy Ghost and all the ground of dissenting here is only upon a mistake because Infants do no act of Holiness they suppose them incapable of the grace of 〈◊〉 Now 〈◊〉 of Children is their Adoption to the Inheritance of sons their Presentation to Christ their Consignation to Christ's service and to Resurrection their being put into a possibility of being saved their restitution to God's favour which naturally that is as our Nature is depraved and punished they could not have And in short the case is this * Original righteousness was in Adam 〈◊〉 the manner of Nature but it was an act or effect of Grace and by it men were not made but born Righteous the inferiour Faculties obeyed the superiour the Mind was whole and right and conformable to the Divine Image the Reason and the Will always concurring the Will followed Reason and Reason followed the Laws of God and so long as a man had not lost this he was pleasing to God and should have passed to a more perfect state Now because this if Adam had stood should have been born with every child there was in Infants a principle which was the seed of holy life here and a blessed hereafter and yet the children should have gone in the road of Nature then as well as now and the Spirit should have operated at Nature's leisure God being the giver of both would have made them instrumental to and perfective of each other but not destructive Now what was lost by Adam is restored by Christ the same Righteousness only it is not born but superinduced not integral but interrupted but such as it is there is no difference but that the same or the like principle may be derived to us from Christ as there should have been from Adam that is a principle of Obedience a regularity of 〈◊〉 a beauty in the Soul and a state of acceptation with God And we see also in men of understanding and reason the Spirit of God 〈◊〉 in them which Tatianus describing uses these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soul is possessed with sparks or materials of the power of the Spirit and yet it is sometimes ineffective and unactive sometimes more sometimes less and does no more do its work at all times than the Soul does at all times understand Add to this that if there be in 〈◊〉 naturally an evil principle a proclivity to sin an ignorance and pravity of mind a disorder of affections as experience teacheth us there is and the perpetual Doctrine of the Church and the universal mischiefs issuing from mankind and the sin of every man does witness too much why cannot Infants have a good principle in them though it works not till its own season as well as an evil principle If there were not by nature some evil principle it is not possible that all the world should chuse sin In free Agents it was never heard that all individuals loved and chose the same thing to which they were not naturally inclined Neither do all men chuse to marry neither do all chuse to abstain and in this instance there is a natural inclination to one part But of all the men and women in the world there is no one that hath never sinned If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us said an Apostle If therefore Nature hath in Infants an evil principle which operates when the child can chuse but is all the while within the Soul either Infants have by Grace a principle put into them or else Sin abounds where Grace does not superabound expresly against the doctrine of the Apostle The event of this discourse is That if Infants be capable of the Spirit of Grace there is no reason but they may and ought to be baptized as well as men and women unless God had expresly forbidden them which cannot be pretended and that Infants are capable of the Spirit of Grace I think is made very credible Christus infantibus infans 〈◊〉 sanctificans 〈◊〉 said Irenaeus Christ became an Infant among the Infants and does sanctifie Infants and S. Cyprian affirms Esse apud omnes 〈◊〉 Infantes 〈◊〉 majores 〈◊〉 unam divini muneris aequitatem There is the same dispensation of the Divine grace to all alike to Infants as well as to men And in this Royal Priesthood as it is in the secular Kings may be anointed in their Cradles Dat Deus sui Spiritûs 〈◊〉 gratiam quam etiam latenter infundit in parvulis God gives the most secret Grace of his Spirit which he also secretly infuses into Infants And if a secret infusion be rejected because it cannot be proved at the place and at the instant many men that hope for Heaven will be very much to 〈◊〉 for a
which in a greater measure and upon more variety of rules the Governours of Churches are obliged But that which Christian Simplicity prohibits is the mixing arts and unhandsome means for the purchase of our ends witty counsels that are underminings of our neighbour destroying his just interest to serve our own stratagems to deceive infinite and insignificant answers with fraudulent design unjust and unlawful concealment of our purposes fallacious promises and false pretences flattery and unjust and unreasonable praise saying one thing and meaning the contrary pretending Religion to secular designs breaking faith taking false oaths and such other instruments of humane purposes framed by the Devil and sent into the world to be perfected by man Christian Simplicity speaks nothing but its thoughts and when it concerns Prudence that a thought or purpose should be concealed it concerns Simplicity that silence be its cover and not a false vizor it rather suffers inconvenience than a lie it destroys no man's right though it be inconsistent with my advantages it reproves freely palliates no man's wickedness it intends what it ought and does what is bidden and uses courses regular and just sneaks not in corners and walks always in the eye of God and the face of the world 7. Jesus told Nathanael that he knew him when he saw him under the Fig-tree and Nathanael took that to be probation sufficient that he was the 〈◊〉 and believed rightly upon an insufficient motive which because Jesus did accept it gives testimony to us that however Faith be produced by means regular or by arguments incompetent whether it be proved or not proved whether by chance or deliberation whether wisely or by occasion so that Faith be produced by the instrument and love by Faith God's work is done and so is ours For if S. Paul rejoyced that Christ was preached though by the 〈◊〉 of peevish persons certainly God will not reject an excellent product because it came from a weak and sickly parent and he that brings good out of evil and rejoyces in that good having first triumphed upon the evil will certainly take delight in the Faith of the most ignorant persons which his own grace hath produced out of innocent though insufficient beginnings It was folly in Naaman to refuse to be cured because he was to recover only by washing in Jordan The more incompetent the means is the greater is the glory of God who hath produced waters from a rock and fire from the collision of a sponge and wool and it is certain the end unless it be in products merely natural does not take its estimate and degrees from the external means Grace does miracles and the productions of the Spirit in respect of its instruments are equivocal extraordinary and supernatural and ignorant persons believe as strongly though they know not why and love God as 〈◊〉 as greater spirits and more excellent understandings and when God pleases or if he sees it expedient he will do to others as to Nathanael give them greater arguments and better instruments for the confirmation and heightning of their 〈◊〉 than they had for the first production 8. When Jesus had chosen these few Disciples to be witnesses of succeeding accidents every one of which was to be a probation of his mission and Divinity he entred into the theatre of the world at a Marriage-feast which he now first hallowed to a Sacramental signification and made to become mysterious he now began to chuse his Spouse out from the communities of the world and did mean to endear her by unions ineffable and glorious and consign the Sacrament by his bloud which he first gave in a secret 〈◊〉 and afterwards in 〈◊〉 and apparent effusion And although the Holy Jesus did in his own person consecrate Coelibate and Abstinence and Chastity in his Mother's yet by his 〈◊〉 he also hallowed Marriage and made it honourable not only in civil account and the rites of Heraldry but in a spiritual sence he having new sublim'd it by making it a Sacramental representment of the union of Christ and his 〈◊〉 the Church And all married persons should do 〈◊〉 to remember what the conjugal society does represent and not break the matrimonial bond which is a 〈◊〉 ligament of Christ and his Church for whoever dissolves the sacredness of the Mystery and unhallows the Vow by violence and impurity he dissolves his relation to Christ. To break faith with a Wife or Husband is a divorce from Jesus and that is a separation from all possibilities of Felicity In the time of the 〈◊〉 Statutes to violate Marriage was to do injustice and dishonour and a breach to the sanctions of Nature or the first constitutions But two bands more are added in the Gospel to make Marriage more sacred For now our Bodies are made Temples of the Holy Ghost and the Rite of Marriage is made significant and Sacramental and every act of Adultery is Profanation and Irreligion it 〈◊〉 a Temple and deflours a Mystery 9. The Married pair were holy but poor and they wanted wine and the Blessed Virgin-Mother pitying the 〈◊〉 of the young man complained to Jesus of the want and 〈◊〉 gave her an answer which promised no satisfaction to her purposes For now that Jesus had lived thirty years and done in person nothing answerable to 〈◊〉 glorious Birth and the miraculous accidents of his Person she longed till the time 〈◊〉 in which he was to manifest himself by actions as miraculous as the Star of his Birth She knew by the rejecting of his Trade and his going abroad and probably by his own 〈◊〉 to her that the time was near and the forwardness of her love and holy desires 〈◊〉 might go some minutes before his own precise limit However 〈◊〉 answered to this purpose to shew that the work he was to do was done not to satisfie her importunity which is not occasion enough for a Miracle but to prosecute the great work of Divine designation For in works spiritual and religious all exteriour relation ceases The world's order and the manner of our nature and the infirmities of our person have produced Societies and they have been the parents of Relation and God hath tied them fast by the knots of duty and made the duty the occasion and opportunities of reward But in actions spiritual in which we relate to God our relations are sounded upon the Spirit and therefore we must do our duties upon considerations separate and spiritual but never suffer temporal relations to impede our Religious duties Christian Charity is a higher thing than to be confined within the terms of dependence and correlation and those endearments which leagues or nature or society have made pass into spiritual and like Stars in the presence of the Sun appear not when the heights of the Spirit are in place Where duty hath prepared special instances there we must for Religion's sake promote them but even to our Parents or our Children the charities
Resurrection of his body after three days death but he expressed it in the metaphor of the Temple Destroy this Temple and I will build it again in three days He spake of the Temple of his Body and they understood him of the Temple at Jerusalem and it was never rightly construed till it was accomplished 2. At this publick Convention of the Jewish Nation Jesus did many Miracles published himself to be the Messias and perswaded many Disciples amongst whom was Nicodemus a Doctor of the Law and a Ruler of the Nation he came by night to Jesus and affirmed himself to be convinced by the Miracles which he had seen for no man could do those miracles except God be with him When Jesus perceived his understanding to be so far disposed he began to instruct him in the great secret and mysteriousness of Regeneration telling him that every production is of the same nature and condition with its parent from flesh comes flesh and corruption from the Spirit comes spirit and life and immortality and nothing from a principle of nature could arrive to a supernatural end and therefore the only door to enter into the Kingdom of God was Water by the manuduction of the Spirit and by this Regeneration we are put into a new capacity of living a spiritual life in order to a spiritual and supernatural end 3. This was strange Philosophy to Nicodemus but Jesus bad him not to wonder for this is not a work of humanity but a fruit of God's Spirit and an issue of Predestination For the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and is as the wind certain and notorious in the effects but secret in the principle and in the manner of production And therefore this Doctrine was not to be estimated by any proportions to natural principles or experiments of sense but to the secrets of a new Metaphysick and abstracted separate Speculations Then Christ proceeds in his Sermon telling him there are yet higher things for him to apprehend and believe for this in respect of some other mysteriousness of his Gospel was but as Earth in comparison of Heaven Then he tells of his own descent from Heaven foretells his Death and Ascension and the blessing of Redemption which he came to work for mankind he preaches of the Love of the Father the Mission of the Son the rewards of Faith and the glories of Eternity he upbraids the unbelieving and impenitent and declares the differences of a holy and a corrupt Conscience the shame and fears of the one the confidence and serenity of the other And this is the summ of his Sermon to Nicodemus which was the fullest of mystery and speculation and abstracted sences of any that he ever made except that which he made immediately before his Passion all his other Sermons being more practical 4. From Jerusalem Jesus goeth into the Country of Judaea attended by divers Disciples whose understandings were brought into subjection and obedience to Christ upon confidence of the divinity of his Miracles There his Disciples did receive all comers and baptized them as John at the same time did and by that Ceremony admitted them to the Discipline and Institution according to the custom of the Doctors and great Prophets among the Jews whose Baptizing their Scholars was the ceremony of their Admission As soon as John heard it he acquitted himself in publick by renewing his former testimony concerning Jesus affirming him to be the Messias and now the time was come that Christ must increase and the Baptist suffer diminution for Christ came from above was above all and the summ of his Doctrine was that which he had heard and seen from the Father whom God sent to that purpose to whom God had set his seal that he was true who spake the words of God whom the Father loved to whō he gave the Spirit without measure and into whose hands God had delivered all things this was he whose testimony the world received not And that they might know not only what person they sleighted but how great Salvation also they neglected he summs up all his Sermons and finishes his Mission with this saying He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him 5. For now that the Baptist had fulfilled his Office of bearing witness unto Jesus God was pleased to give him his writ of ease and bring him to his reward upon this occasion John who had so learned to despise the world and all its exteriour vanities and impertinent relations did his duty justly and so without respect of persons that as he reproved the people for their prevarications so he spared not Herod for his but abstaining from all expresses of the spirit of scorn and asperity mingling no discontents interests nor mutinous intimations with his Sermons he told Herod it was not lawful for him to have his Brother's wife For which Sermon he felt the furies and malice of a woman's spleen was cast into prison and about a year after was sacrificed to the scorn and pride of a lustful woman and her immodest daughter being at the end of the second year of Christ's Preaching beheaded by Herod's command who would not retract his promise because of his honour and a rash vow he made in the gayety of his Lust and complacencies of his riotous dancings His head was brought up in a dish and made a Festival-present to the young girl who gave it to her mother a Cruelty that was not known among the Barbarisms of the worst of people to mingle banquetings with bloud and sights of death an insolency and inhumanity for which the 〈◊〉 Orators accused Q. Flaminius of Treason because to satisfie the wanton cruelty of Placentia he caused a condemned slave to be killed at supper and which had no precedent but in the furies of Marius who caused the head of the Consul Antonius to be brought up to him in his Feasts which he handled with much pleasure and insolency 6. But God's Judgments which sleep not long found out Herod and marked him for a Curse For the Wise of Herod who was the Daughter of Aretas a King of Arabia Petraea being repudiated by paction with Herodias provoked her Father to commence a War with Herod who prevailed against Herod in a great Battel defeating his whole Army and forcing him to an inglorious flight which the Jews generally expounded to be a Judgment on him for the unworthy and barbarous execution and murther of John the Baptist God in his wisdom and severity making one sin to be the punishment of another and neither of them both to pass without the signature of a Curse And Nicephorus reports that the dancing daughter of Herodias passing over a frozen lake the ice brake and she fell up to the neck in water and her head was parted from her body by the violence of the fragments shaked by the water and
its own fall and so perished God having fitted a Judgment to the Analogy and representment of her Sin Herodias her self with her adulterous Paramour Herod were banished to Lions in France by decree of the Roman Senate where they lived ingloriously and died miserably so paying dearly for her triumphal scorn superadded to her crime of murther for when she saw the Head of the Baptist which her Daughter Salome had presented to her in a charger she thrust the tongue through with a needle as Fulvia had formerly done to Cicero But her self paid the charges of her triumph Ad SECT XI Considerations upon the first Journey of the Holy Jesus to Jerusalem when he whipt the Merchants out of the Temple 1. WHen the Feast came and Jesus was ascended up to Jerusalem the first place we find him in is the Temple where not only was the Area and Court of Religion but by occasion of publick Conventions the most opportune scene for transaction of his Commission and his Father's business And those Christians who have been religious and affectionate even in the circumstances of Piety have taken this for precedent and accounted it a good express of the regularity of their Devotion and order of Piety at their first arrival to a City to pay their first visits to God the next to his servant the President of Religious Rites first they went into the Church and worshipp'd then to the Angel of the Church to the Bishop and begg'd his blessing and having thus commenced with the auspiciousness of Religion they had better hopes their just affairs would succeed prosperously which after the rites of Christian Countries had thus been begun with Devotion and religious order 2. When the Holy Jesus entred the Temple and espied a Mart kept in the Holy Sept a Fair upon Holy ground he who suffered no transportations of Anger in matters and accidents temporal was born high with an ecstasie of Zeal and according to the custom of the Zelots of the Nation took upon him the office of a private insliction of punishment in the cause of God which ought to be dearer to every single person than their own interest and reputation What the exterminating Angel did to 〈◊〉 who came into the Temple upon design of Sacriledge that the meekest Jesus did to them who came with acts of Profanation he whipt them forth and as usually good Laws spring from ill Manners and excellent Sermons are occasioned by mens 〈◊〉 now also our great Master upon this accident asserted the Sacredness of Holy places in the words of a Prophet which now he made a Lesson Evangelical My House shall be called a house of Prayer to all Nations 3. The Beasts and Birds there sold were brought for Sacrifice and the Banks of money were for the advantage of the people that came from far that their returns might be safe and easie when they came to Jerusalem upon the employments of Religion But they were not yet fit for the Temple they who brought them thither purposed their own gain and meant to pass them through an unholy usage before they could be made Anathemata Vows to God and when Religion is but the purpose at the second hand it cannot hallow a Lay-design and make it fit to become a Religious ministery much less sanctifie an unlawful action When Rachel stole her Father's gods though possibly she might do it in zeal against her Father's Superstition yet it was occasion of a sad accident to her self For the Jews say that Rachel died in Child-birth of her second Son because of that imprecation of Jacob With whomsoever thou findest thy gods let him not live Saul pretended Sacrifice when he spared the fat cattel of Amalek and Micah was zealous when he made him an Ephod and a Teraphim and meant to make himself an Image for Religion when he stole his mother's money but these are colours of Religion in which not only the world but our selves also are deceived by a latent purpose which we are willing to cover with a remote design of Religion lest it should appear unhandsome in its own dressing Thus some believe a Covetousness allowable it they greedily heap treasure with a purpose to build Hospitals or Colledges and sinister acts of acquiring Church-livings are not so soon condemned if the design be to prefer an able person and actions of Revenge come near to Piety if it be to the ruine of an 〈◊〉 man and indirect proceedings are made sacred if they be for the good of the Holy Cause This is profaning the Temple with Beasts brought for Sacrifices and dishonours God by making himself accessary to his own dishonour as far as lies in them for it disserves him with a pretence of Religion and but that our hearts are deceitful we should easily perceive that the greatest business of the Letter is written in Postscript the great pretence is the least purpose and the latent Covetousness or Revenge or the secular appendix is the main engine to which the end of Religion is made but instrumental and pretended But men when they sell a Mule use to speak of the Horse that begat him not of the Ass that bore him 4. The Holy Jesus made a whip of cords to represent and to chastise the implications and enfoldings of sin and the cords of vanity 1. There are some sins that of themselves are a whip of cords those are the crying sins that by their degree and malignity speak loud for vengeance or such as have great disreputation and are accounted the basest issues of a caitive disposition or such which are unnatural and unusual or which by publick observation are marked with the signature of Divine Judgments Such are Murther Oppression of widows and orphans detaining the Labourer's hire Lusts against nature Parricide Treason Betraying a just trust in great instances and base manners Lying to a King Perjury in a Priest these carry Cain's mark upon them or Judas's sting or Manasses's sorrow unless they be made impudent by the spirit of Obduration 2. But there are some sins that bear shame upon them and are used as correctives of pride and vanity and if they do their cure they are converted into instruments of good by the great power of the Divine grace but if the spirit of the man grows impudent and hardned against the shame that which commonly follows is the worst string of the whip a direct consignation to a reprobate spirit 3. Other sins there are for the chastising of which Christ takes the whip into his own hand and there is much need when sins are the Customs of a Nation and marked with no exteriour disadvantage or have such circumstances of encouragement that they are unapt to disquiet a Conscience or make our beds uneasie till the pillows be softned with penitential showers In both these cases the condition of a sinner is sad and miserable For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God his
hand is heavy and his sword is sharp and pierces to the dividing the marrow and the bones and he that considers the infinite distance between God and us must tremble when he remembers that he is to feel the issues of that anger which he is not certain whether or no it will destroy him infinitely and eternally 4. But if the whip be given into our hands that we become executioners of the Divine wrath it is sometimes worse for we seldom strike our selves for emendation but add sin to sin till we perish miserably and inevitably God scourges us often into Repentance but when a Sin is the whip of another sin the rod is put into our hands who like blind men strike with a rude and undiscerning hand and because we love the punishment do it without intermission or choice and have no end but ruine 5. When the Holy Jesus had whipt the Merchants in the Temple they took away all the instruments of their sin For a Judgment is usually the commencement of Repentance Love is the last of Graces and 〈◊〉 at the beginning of a new life but is reserved to the perfections and ripeness of a Christian. We begin in Pear The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom 〈◊〉 hen he smote them then they turned and enquired early after God And afterwards the impresses of Fear continue like a hedge of thorns about us to restrain our dissolutions within the awfulness of the Divine Majesty that it may preserve what was from the same principle begun This principle of their emendation was from God and therefore innocent and holy and the very purpose of Divine Threatnings is that upon them as upon one of the great hindges the Piety of the greatest part of men should turn and the effect was answerable but so are not the actions of all those who follow this precedent in the tract of the letter For indeed there have been some reformations which have been so like this that the greatest alteration which hath been made was that they carried all things out of the Temple the Money and the Tables and the Sacrifice and the Temple it self went at last But these mens scourge is to follow after and Christ the Prince of the Catholick Church will provide one of his own contexture moresevere than the stripes which 〈◊〉 felt from the infliction of the exterminating Angel But the Holy Spirit of God by making provision against such a Reformation hath prophetically declared the aptnesses which are in pretences of religious alterations to degenerate into sacrilegious desires Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit sacriledge In this case there is no amendment only one sin resigns to another and the person still remains under its power and the same dominion The PRAYER OEternal Jesu thou bright Image of thy Father's glories whose light did shine to all the world when thy heart was inflamed with zeal and love of God and of Religion let a coal from thine Altar fanned with the wings of the Holy Dove kindle in my Soul such holy flames that I may be zealous of thy honour and glory forward in Religious duties earnest in their pursuit prudent in their managing ingenuous in my purposes making my Religion to serve no end but of thy glories and the obtaining of thy promises and so sanctific my Soul and my Body that I may be a holy Temple fit and prepared for the inhabitation of thy ever-blessed Spirit whom grant that I may never grieve by admitting any impure thing to desecrate the place and unhallow the Courts of his abode but give me a pure Soul in a chaste and healthful 〈◊〉 a spirit full of holy simplicity and designs of great ingenuity and perfect Religion that I may intend what thou commandest and may with proper instruments 〈◊〉 what I so intend and by thy aids may obtain the end of my labours the rewards of obedience and holy living even the society and inheritance of Jesus in the participation of the joys of thy Temple where thou dwellest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost O Eternal Jesus Amen DISCOURSE VIII Of the Religion of Holy Places 1. THE Holy Jesus brought a Divine warrant for his Zeal The selling Sacrifices and the exchange of Money and every Lay-employment did violence and dishonour to the Temple which was hallowed to Ecclesiastical ministeries and set apart for Offices of Religion for the use of holy things for it was God's House and so is every house by publick designation separate for Prayer or other uses of Religion it is God's House My house God had a propriety in it and had set his mark on it even his own Name And therefore it was in the Jews Idiome of speech called the Mountain of the Lord's House and the House of the Lord by David frequently God had put his Name into all places appointed for solemn Worship In all places where I record my Name I will come unto thee and bless thee For God who was never visible to mortal eye was pleased to make himself presential by substitution of his Name that is in certain places he hath appointed that his Name shall be called upon and by promising and imparting such Blessings which he hath made consequent to the invocation of his Name hath made such places to be a certain determination of some special manner of his Presence For God's Name is not a distinct thing from himself not an Idea and it cannot be put into a place in literal signification the expression is to be resolved into some other sence God's Name is that whereby he is known by which he is invocated that which is the most immediate publication of his Essence nearer than which we cannot go unto him and because God is essentially present in all places when he makes himself present in one place more than another it cannot be understood to any other purpose but that in such places he gives special Blessings and Graces or that in those places he appoints his Name that is himself specially to be invocated 2. So that when God puts his Name in any place by a special manner it signifies that there himself is in that manner But in separate and hallowed places God hath expressed that he puts his Name with a purpose it should be called upon therefore in plain signification it is thus In Consecrate places God himself is present to be invok'd that is there he is most delighted to hear the Prayers we make unto him For all the expressions of Scripture of God's 〈◊〉 the Tabernacle of God God's Dwellings putting his Name there his Sanctuary are resolved into that saying of God to Solomon who prayed that he would hear the Prayers of necessitous people in that place God granting the request expressed it thus I have sanctified the House which thou hast built that is the House which thou hast designed for my Worship I have designed for your Blessing what you have
God as holy Places of Religion must rise highest in this account I mean higher than any other places And this is besides the honour which God hath put upon them by his presence his title to them w ch in all Religions he hath signified to us 4. Indeed among the Jews as God had confined his Church and the rites of Religion to be used only in communion and participation with the Nation so also he had limited his Presence and was more sparing of it than in the time of the Gospel his Son declared he would be It was said of old that at Jerusalem men ought to worship that is by a solemn publick and great address in the capital expresses of Religion in the distinguishing rites of Liturgy for else it had been no new thing For in ordinary Prayers God was then and long before pleased to hear Jeremy in the dungeon Manasses in prison Daniel in the Lion's den Jonas in the belly of the deep and in the offices yet more solemn in the Proseuchae in the houses of prayer which the Jews had not only in their dispersion but even in Palestine for their diurnal and nocturnal offices But when the Holy Jesus had broken down the partition-wall then the most solemn Offices of Religion were as unlimited as their private Devotions were before for where-ever a Temple should be built thither God would come if he were worshipped spirituallly and in truth that is according to the rites of Christ who is Grace and Truth and the dictate of the Spirit and analogy of the Gospel All places were now alike to build Churches in or Memorials for God God's houses And that our Blessed Saviour discourses of places of publick Worship to the woman of Samaria is notorious because the whole question was concerning the great addresses of Moses's rites whether at Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim which were the places of the right and the 〈◊〉 Temple the 〈◊〉 of the whole Religion and in antithesis Jesus said Nor here nor there shall be the solemnities of address to God but in all places you may build a Temple and God will dwell in it 5. And this hath descended from the first beginnings of Religion down to the consummation of it in the perfections of the Gospel For the Apostles of our Lord carried the Offices of the Gospel into the Temple of Jerusalem there they preached and prayed and payed Vows but never that we read of offered Sacrifice which 〈◊〉 that the Offices purely Evangelical were proper to be done in any of God's proper places and that thither they went not in compliance with Moses's Rites but merely for Gospel-duties or for such Offices which were common to Moses and Christ such as were Prayers and Vows While the Temple was yet standing they had peculiar places for the Assemblies of the faithful where either by accident or observation or Religion or choice they met regularly And I instance in the house of John surnamed Mark which as Alexander reports in the life of S. Barnabas was consecrated by many actions of Religion by our Blessed Saviour's eating the 〈◊〉 his Institution of the holy Eucharist his Farewell-Sermon and the Apostles met there in the Octaves of Easter whither Christ came again and hallowed it with his presence and there to make up the relative Sanctification complete the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and this was erected into a fair 〈◊〉 and is mentioned as a famous Church by S. Jerome and V. Bede in which as 〈◊〉 adds S. Peter preached that 〈◊〉 which was miraculoasly prosperous in the Conversion of three thousand there S. James Brother of our Lord was 〈◊〉 first Bishop of Jerusalem S. Stephen and the other six were there ordained Deacons there the Apostles kept their first Council and 〈◊〉 their Creed by these actions and their frequent conventions shewing the same reason order and prudence of Religion in 〈◊〉 of special places of Divine service which were ever observed by all the Nations and Religions and wise men of the world And it were a strange imagination to 〈◊〉 that in Christian Religion there is any principle contrary to that wisdom or God and all the world which for order for necessity for convenience for the solemnity of Worship hath set apart Places for God and for Religion Private Prayer had always an unlimited residence and relation even under Moses's Law but the publick solemn Prayer of 〈◊〉 in the Law of Moses was restrained to one Temple In the Law of Nature it was not confined to one but yet determined to publick and solemn places and when the Holy Jesus disparked the inclosures of Moses we all returned to the permissions and liberty of the Natural Law in which although the publick and solemn Prayers were confined to a Temple yet the Temple was not consined to a place but they might be any-where so they were at all instruments of order conveniences of assembling residences of Religion and God who always loved order and was apt to hear all holy and prudent Prayers and therefore also the Prayers of Consecration hath often declared that he loves such Places that he will dwell in them not that they are advantages to him but that he is pleased to make them so to us And therefore all Nations of the world built publick Houses for Religion and since all Ages of the Church did so too it had need be a strong and a convincing argument that must shew they were deceived And if any man list to be 〈◊〉 he must be answered with S. Paul's reproof We have no such custom nor the Churches of God 6. Thus S. Paul reproved the Corinthians for despising the Church of God by such uses which were therefore unsit for God's because they were proper for their own that is for common houses And although they were at first and in the descending Ages so afflicted by the tyranny of enemies that they could not build many Churches yet some they did and the Churches themselves suffered part of the persecution For so 〈◊〉 reports that when under Severus and Gordianus 〈◊〉 and Galienus the Christian affairs were in a tolerable condition they built Churches in great number and expence But when the Persecution waxed hot under Diocletian down went the Churches upon a design to extinguish or disadvantage the Religion Maximinus gave leave to re-build them Upon which Rescript saith the story the Christians were overjoyed and raised them up to an incredible height and incomparable beauty This was Christian Religion then and so it hath continued-ever since and unless we should have new reason and new revelation it must continue so till our Churches are exchanged for Thrones and our Chappels for seats placed before the Lamb in the eternal Temple of celestial Jerusalem 7. And to this purpose it is observed that the Holy Jesus first ejected the Beasts of Sacrifice out of the Temple and then proclaimed the Place
holy and the scene of representing Prayers which in type intimates the same thing which is involved in the expression of the next words My House shall be called the House of Prayer to all Nations now and for ever to the Jews and to the Gentiles in all circumstances and variety of Time and Nation God's Houses are holy in order to holy uses the time as unlimited as the Nations were indefinite and universal Which is the more observable because it was of the outward Courts not whither Moses's Rites alone were admitted but the natural Devotion of Jews and Gentile-Proselytes that Christ affirmed it to be holy to be the House of God and the place of Prayer So that the Religion of publick places of Prayer is not a Rite of Levi but a natural and prudent circumstance and advantage of Religion in which all wise men agree who therefore must have some common principle with influence upon all the World which must be the univocal cause of the consent of all men which common principle must either be a dictate of natural or prime Reason or else some Tradition from the first Parents of mankind which because it had order in it beauty Religion and confirmation from Heaven and no reason to contest against it it hath surprised the understanding and practices of all Nations And indeed we find that even in Paradise God had that which is analogical to a Church a distinct place where he manifested himself present in proper manner For Adam and Eve when they had sinned hid themselves from the Presence of the Lord and this was the word in all descent of the Church for the being of God in holy places the Presence of the Lord was there And probably when Adam from this intimation or a greater direction had taught Cain and Abel to offer sacrifice to God in a certain place where they were observed of each in their several Offerings it became one of the rules of Religion which was derived to their posterity by tradition the only way they had to communicate the dictates of Divine commandment 8. There is no more necessary to be added in behalf of Holy Places and to assert them into the family and relatives of Religion our estimate and deportment towards them is matter of practice and therefore of proper consideration To which purpose I consider that Holy Places being the residence of God's Name upon earth there where he hath put it that by fiction of Law it may be the sanctuary and the last resort in all calamities and need God hath sent his Agents to possess them in person for him Churches and Oratories are regions and courts of Angels and they are there not only to minister to the Saints but also they possess them in the right of God There they are so the greatest and Prince of Spirits tells us the Holy Ghost I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne and his train filled the Temple Above it stood the Seraphim that was God's train and therefore holy David knew that his addresses to God were in the presence of Angels I will praise thee with my whole heart before the gods will i sing praise unto thee before the Angels so it is in the Septuagint And that we might know where or how the Kingly worshipper would pay this adoration he adds I will worship towards thy holy 〈◊〉 And this was so known by him that it became expressive of God's manner of presence in Heaven The Chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels and the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place God in the midst of Angels and the Angels in the midst of the 〈◊〉 place and God in Heaven in the midst of that holy circle as 〈◊〉 as he is amongst Angels in the recesses of his Sanctuary Were the rudiments of the Law worthy of an attendance of Angels and are the memorials of the Gospel destitute of so brave a retinue Did the beatisied Spirits wait upon the Types and do 〈◊〉 decline the office at the ministration of the Substance Is the nature of Man made worse since the Incarnation of the Son of God and have the Angels purchased an exemption from their ministery since Christ became our brother We have little reason to think so And therefore S. Paul still makes use of the argument to press women to modesty and humility in Churches because of the Angels And upon the same stock S. Chrysostome chides the people of his Diocese for walking and laughing and prating in Churches The Church is not a shop of manufactures or merchandise but the place of Angels and of Archangels the Court of God and the image or representment of Heaven it self 9. For if we consider that Christianity is something more than ordinary that there are Mysteries in our Religion and in none else that God's Angels are ministring spirits for 〈◊〉 good and especially about the conveyances of our Prayers either we must think very low of Christianity or that greater things are in it than the presence of Angels in our Churches and yet if there were no more we should do well to behave our selves there with the thoughts and apprehensions of Heaven about us always remembring that our business there is an errand of Religion and God is the object of our Worshippings and therefore although by our weakness we are fixt in the lowness of men yet because God's infinity is our object it were very happy if our actions did bear some few degrees of a proportionable and commensurate address 10. Now that the Angels are there in the right of God and are a manner and an exhibition of the Divine Presence is therefore certain because when-ever it is said in the Old Testament that God appeared it was by an Angel and the Law it self in the midst of all the glorious terrors of its manisestation was ordained by Angels and a word spoken by Angels and yet God is said to have descended upon the Mount and in the greatest glory that ever shall be revealed till the consummation of all things the instrument of the Divine splendour is the apparition of Angels for when the Holy Jesus shall come in the glory of his Father it is added by way of explication that is with an 〈◊〉 of Angels 11. The result is those words of God to his people Reverence my 〈◊〉 For what God loves in an especial manner it is most fit we should esteem accordingly God loves the gates of Sion more than all the 〈◊〉 of Jacob. The least turf of hallowed glebe is with God himself of more value than all the Champain of common possession it is better in all sences The Temple is better than gold said our Blessed Saviour and therefore it were well we should do that which is expressed in the command of giving reverence to it for we are too apt to pay undue devotions to gold Which precept the holiest of
he heavy to sleep rested on a pillow and slept soundly as weariness meekness and innocence could make him insomuch that a violent storm the chiding of the winds and waters which then happened could not awake him till the ship being almost covered with broken billows and the impetuous dashings of the waters the men already sunk in their spirits and the ship like enough to sink too the Disciples awaked him and called for help Master carest thou not that we perish Jesus arising reproved their infidelity commanded the wind to be still and the seas peaceable and immediately there was a great calm and they presently arrived in the land of the Gergesenes or Gerasenes 15. In the land of Gergesites or Gergesenes which was the remaining name of an extinct people being one of the Nations whom the sons of Jacob drave from their inheritance there were two Cities Gadara from the tribe of Gad to whom it fell by lot in the Division of the Land which having been destroyed by the Jews was rebuilt by Pompey at the request of Demetrius Gadarensis Pompey's freed man and near to it was Gerasa as Josephus reports which diversity of Towns and names is the cause of the various recitation of this story by the Evangelists Near the City of Gadara there were many sepulchres in the hollownesses of rocks where the dead were buried and where many superstitious persons used Memphitick and Thessalick rites invocating evil spirits insomuch that at the instant of our Saviour's arrival in the Countrey there met him two possessed with Devils from these tombs exceeding fierce and so had been long insomuch that no man durst pass that way 16. Jesus commanded the Devils out of the possessed persons but there were certain men feeding swine which though extremely abominated by the Jewish Religion yet for the use of the Roman armies and quarterings of souldiers they were permitted and divers priviledges granted to the Masters of such herds and because Gadara was a Greek City and the company mingled of Greeks Syrians and Jews these last in all likelihood not making the greatest number the Devils therefore besought Jesus he would not send them into the abysse but permit them to enter into the Swine He gave them leave and the swine ran violently down a steep place into the hot baths which were at the foot of the hill on which Gadara was built which smaller congregation of waters the Jews used to call Sea or else as others think into the Lake of Genesareth and perished in the waters But this accident so troubled the inhabitants that they came and intreated Jesus to depart out of their coasts And he did so leaving Galilee of the Gentiles he came to the lesser Galilee and so again to the City of Capernaum 17. But when he was come thither he was met by divers Scribes and Pharisees who came from Jerusalem and Doctors of the Law from Galilee and while they were sitting in a house which was encompassed with multitudes that no business or necessity could be admitted to the door a poor Paralytick was brought to be cured and they were fain to uncover the tiles of the house and let him down in his bed with cords in the midst before Jesus sitting in conference with the Doctors When Jesus saw their Faith he said Man thy sins be forgiven thee At which saying the Pharisees being troubled thinking it to be blasphemy and that none but God could forgive sins Jesus was put to 〈◊〉 his absolution which he did in a just satisfaction and proportion to their understandings For the Jews did believe that all afflictions were punishments 〈◊〉 sin Who sinned this man or his Father that he was born blind and that removing of the punishment was forgiving of the sin And therefore Jesus to prove that his sins were forgiven removed that which they supposed to be the effect of his sin and by curing the Palsie prevented their farther murmur about the Pardon That ye might know the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins he saith to the sick of the Palsie Arise take up thy bed and walk And the man arose was healed and glorified God 18. A while after Jesus went again toward the Sea and on his way seeing Matthew the Publican sitting at the receit of custom he bad him follow him Matthew first feasted Jesus and then became his Disciple But the Pharisees that were with him began to be troubled that he ate with Publicans and sinners For the office of Publican though amongst the Romans it was honest and of great account and the flower of the Roman Knights the ornament of the City the security of the Commonwealth was accounted to consist in the society of Publicans yet amongst both the Jews and Greeks the name was odious and the persons were accursed not only because they were strangers that were the chief of them who took in to them some of the Nation where they were imployed but because the Jews especially stood upon the Charter of their Nation and the priviledge of their Religion that none of them should pay tribute and also because they exercised great injustices and oppressions having a power unlimited and a covetousness wide as hell and greedy as the fire or the grave But Jesus gave so fair an account concerning his converse with these persons that the Objection turned to be his Apology for therefore he conversed with them because they were sinners and it was as if a Physician should be reproved for having so much to do with sick persons for therefore was he sent not to call the righteous but sinners to Repentance to advance the reputation of Mercy above the rites of Sacrifice 19. But as the little bubbling and gentle murmurs of the water are presages of a Storm and are more troublesome in their prediction than their violence so were the arguings of the Pharisees symptoms of a secret displeasure and an ensuing war though at first represented in the civilities of Question and scholastical 〈◊〉 yet they did but fore-run vigorous objections and bold calumnies which were the fruits of the next Summer But as yet they discoursed fairly asking him why John's Disciples fasted often but the Disciples of Jesus did not fast Jesus told them it was because these were the days in which the Bridëgroom was come in person to espouse the Church unto himself and therefore for the children of the bride-chamber to fast then was like the bringing of a dead corps to the joys of a Bride or the pomps of Coronation the days should come that the Bridegroom should retire into his chamber and draw the curtains and then they should fast in those days 20. While Jesus was discoursing with the Pharisees Jairus a Ruler of the Synagogue came to him desiring he would help his Daughter who lay in the confines of death ready to depart Whither as he was going a woman met him who had been diseased
For Faith being the gift of God and an illumination the Spirit of God will not give this light to them that prefer their darkness before it either the Will must open the windows or the light of Faith will not shine into the chamber of the Soul How can ye believe said our Blessed Saviour that receive honour one of another Ambition and Faith believing God and seeking of our selves are incompetent and totally incompossible And therefore Serapion Bishop of Thmuis spake like an Angel saith Socrates saying that the Mind which feedeth upon spiritual knowledge must throughly be cleansed The Irascible faculty must first be cured with brotherly Love and Charity and the Concupiscible must be suppressed with Continency and Mortification Then may the Understanding apprehend the mysteriousness of Christianity For since Christianity is a holy Doctrine if there be any remanent affections to a sin there is in the Soul a party disaffected to the entertainment of the Institution and we usually believe what we have a mind to Our Understandings if a crime be lodged in the Will being like icterical eyes transmitting the species to the Soul with prejudice disaffection and colours of their own framing If a Preacher should discourse that there ought to be a Parity amongst Christians and that their goods ought to be in common all men will apprehend that not Princes and rich persons but the poor and the servants would soonest become Disciples and believe the Doctrines because they are the only persons likely to get by them and it concerns the other not to believe him the Doctrine being destructive of their interests Just such a perswasion is every persevering love to a vicious habit it having possessed the Understanding with fair opinions of it and surprised the Will with Passion and desires whatsoever Doctrine is its enemy will with infinite difficulty be entertained And we know a great experience of it in the article of the Messias dying on the Cross which though infinitely true yet because to the Jews it was a scandal and to the Greeks 〈◊〉 it could not be believed they remaining in that indisposition that is unless the Will were first set right and they willing to believe any Truth though for it they must disclaim their interest Their Understanding was blind because the Heart was hardened and could not receive the impression of the greatest moral demonstration in the world 8. The Holy Jesus asked water of the Woman unsatisfying water but promised that himself to them that ask him would give waters of life and satisfaction infinite so distinguishing the pleasures and appetites of this world from the desires and complacencies spiritual Here we labour but receive no 〈◊〉 we sow many times and reap not or reap and do not gather in or gather in and do not 〈◊〉 or possess but do not enjoy or if we enjoy we are still 〈◊〉 it is with 〈◊〉 of spirit and circumstances of vexation A great heap of riches make 〈◊〉 our 〈◊〉 warm nor our meat more nutritive nor our beverage more 〈◊〉 and it seeds the eye but never fills it but like drink to an hydropick person increases the thirst and promotes the torment But the Grace of 〈◊〉 though but like a grain of 〈◊〉 dseed fills the furrows of the heart and as the capacity increases it self grows up in equal degrees and never suffers any emptiness or dissatisfaction but carries content and fulness all the way and the degrees of augmentation are not steps and near approaches to satisfaction but increasings of the capacity the 〈◊〉 is satished all the way and receives more not because it wanted any but that it can now hold more is more receptive of 〈◊〉 and in every minute of 〈◊〉 there is so excellent a condition of joy and high satisfaction that the very calamities the afflictions and persecutions of the world are turned into 〈◊〉 by the activity of the prevailing ingredient like a drop of water falling into a tun of wine it is ascribed into a new family losing its own nature by a conversion into the more noble For now that all passionate desires are dead and there is nothing remanent that is vexatious the peace the 〈◊〉 the quiet sleeps the evenness of spirit and contempt of things below remove the Soul from all neighbourhood of displeasure and place it at the foot of the throne whither when it is ascended it is possessed of Felicities eternal These were 〈◊〉 waters which were given to us to drink when with the rod of God the Rock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was smitten the Spirit of God moves for ever upon these waters and when the Angel of the Covenant hath stirred the pool who ever descends hither shall find health and peace joys spiritual and the satisfactions of Eternity The PRAYER O Holy Jesus Fountain of eternal life thou Spring of joy and spiritual satisfactions let the holy stream of bloud and water issuing from thy sacred side cool the thirst soften the hardness and refresh the barrenness of my desert Soul that I thirsting after thee as the wearied Hart after the cool stream may despise all the vainer complacencies of this world refuse all societies but such as are safe pious and charitable mortifie all 〈◊〉 appetites and may desire nothing but thee seek none but thee and rest in thee with intire 〈◊〉 of my own caitive inclinations that the desires of Nature may pass into desires of Grace and my thirst and my hunger may be spiritual and my hopes placed in thee and the expresses of my Charity upon thy relatives and all the parts of my life may speak thy love and obedience to thy Commandments that thou possessing my Soul and all its Faculties during my whole life I may possess thy glories in the fruition of a blessed Eternity by the light of thy Gospel here and the streams of thy Grace being guided to thee the fountain of life and glory there to be inebriated with the waters of Paradise with joy and love and contemplation adoring and admiring the beauties of the Lord for ever and ever Amen Considerations upon Christ's first Preaching and the Accidents happening about that time Jesus preaching to the people Mauh 4. 17. From that time Jesus began to preach saying Repent for the Kingodm of heaven is at hand V. 29. And he went about all Gallilee teaching preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness c. V. 25. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from Dâ—â—apolis and from Ierusalem etc. Christ sending forth his Apostles Mark 6. 7. And he called unto him y e twelve began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits And conunanded them that they should take nothing for their journey etc. V. 12 And they went out and preached that men should repent 1. WHen John was cast into Prison then began Jesus to preach not only because the Ministery of John
Souls let them have the diligence and the craft of Fishers the watchfulness and care of Shepherds the prudence of Politicks the tenderness of Parents the spirit of Government the wariness of Observation great knowledge of the dispositions of their people and experience of such advantages by means of which they may serve the ends of God and of Salvation upon their Souls 7. When Peter had received the fruits of a rich Miracle in the prodigious and prosperous draught of fishes he instantly falls down at the feet of Jesus and confesses himself a sinner and unworthy of the presence of Christ. In which confession I not only consider the conviction of his Understanding by the testimony of the Miracle but the modesty of his spirit who in his exaltation and the joy of a sudden and happy success retired into Humility and consideration of his own unworthiness lest as it happens in sudden joys the lavishness of his spirit should transport him to intemperance to looser affections to vanity and garishness less becoming the severity and government of a Disciple of so great a Master For in such great and sudden accidents men usually are dissolved and melted into joy and inconsideration and let fly all their severe principles and discipline of manners till as Peter here did though to another purpose they say to Christ Depart from me O Lord as if such excellencies of joys like the lesser Stars did disappear at the presence of him who is the fountain of all joys regular and just When the spirits of the Body have been bound up by the cold Winter air the warmth of the Spring makes so great an aperture of the passages and by consequence such dissolution of spirits in the presence of the Sun that it becomes the occasion of Fevers and violent diseases Just such a thing is a sudden Joy in which the spirits leap out from their cells of austerity and sobriety and are warmed into Fevers and wildnesses and forfeiture of all Judgment and vigorous understanding In these accidents the best advice is to temper and allay our joys with some instant consideration of the vilest of our sins the shamefulness of our disgraces the most dolorous accidents of our lives the worst of our fears with meditation of Death or the terrours of Dooms-day or the unimaginable miseries of damned and accursed spirits For such considerations as these are good instruments of Sobriety and are correctives to the malignity of excessive Joys or temporal prosperities which like Minerals unless allayed by art prey upon the spirits and become the union of a contradiction being turned into mortal medicines 8. At this time Jesus preached to the people from the Ship which in the fancies and tropical discoursings of the old Doctors signifies the Church and declares that the Homilies of order and authority must be delivered from the Oracle they that preach must be sent and God hath appointed Tutors and Instructors of our Consciences by special designation and peculiar appointment if they that preach do not make their Sermons from the Ship their discourses either are the false murmurs of Hereticks and false Shepherds or else of Thieves and invaders of Authority or corrupters of Discipline and Order For God that loves to hear us in special places will also be heard himself by special persons and since he sent his Angels Ministers to convey his purposes of old then when the Law was ordained by Angels as by the hands of a Mediatour now also he will send his servants the sons of men since the new Law was ordained by the Son of man who is the Mediatour between God and man in the New Covenant And therefore in the Ship Jesus preach'd but he had first caused it to put off from land to represent to us that the Ship in which we preach must be put off from the vulgar communities of men separate from the people by the designation of special appointment and of special Holiness that is they neither must be common men nor of common lives but consecrated by order and hallowed by holy living lest the person want authority in destitution of a Divine Character and his Doctrine lose its energy and power when the life is vulgar and hath nothing in it holy and extraordinary 9. The Holy Jesus in the choice of his Apostles was resolute and determined to make election of persons bold and confident for so the Galilaeans were observed naturally to be and Peter was the boldest of the Twelve and a good Sword-man till the spirit of his Master had fastened his sword within the scabbard and charmed his spirit into quietness but he never chose any of the Scribes and Pharisees none of the Doctors of the Law but persons ignorant and unlearned which in design and institutions whose divinity is not demonstrated from other Arguments would seem an art of concealment and distrust But in this which derives its raies from the fountain of wisdom most openly and infallibly it is a contestation against the powers of the world upon the interests of God that he who does all the work might have all the glory and in the productions in which he is fain to make the instruments themselves and give them capacity and activity every part of the operation and causality and effect may give to God the same honour he had from the Creation for his being the only workman with the addition of those degrees of excellency which in the work of Redemption of Man are beyond that of his Creation and first being The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu Lord of the Creatures and Prince of the Catholick Church to whom all Creatures obey in acknowledgment of thy supreme Dominion and all according to thy disposition cooperate to the advancement of thy Kingdom be pleased to order the affairs and accidents of the world that all things in their capacity may do the work of the Gospel and cooperate to the good of the Elect and retrench the growth of Vice and advance the interests of Vertue Make all the states and orders of men Disciples of thy holy Institution Let Princes worship thee and defend Religion let thy Clergy do thee honour by personal zeal and vigilancy over their Flocks let all the world submit to thy Scepter and praise thy Righteousness and adore thy Judgments and revere thy Laws and in the multitudes of thy people within the enclosure of thy Nets let me also communicate in the offices of a strict and religious duty that I may know thy voice and obey thy call and entertain thy Holy Spirit and improve my talents that I may also communicate in the blessings of the Church and when the Nets shall be drawn to the shore and the Angels shall make separation of the good Fishes from the bad I may not be rejected or thrown into those Seas of fire which shall afflict the enemies of thy Kingdom but be admitted into the societies of Saints and the everlasting communion of
avail but a new Creature nothing but Faith working by Charity nothing but a keeping the Commandments of God And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy they are the Israel of God 38. This consideration I intended to oppose against the carnal security of Death-bed penitents who have it is to be feared spent a vicious life who have therefore mocked themselves because they meant to mock God they would reap what they sowed not But be not deceived saith the Apostle he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he 〈◊〉 soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Only this let us not be weary of well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not meaning that by a persevering industry and a long work and a succession of religious times we must sow to the Spirit a work of such length that the greatest danger is of fainting and intercision but he that sows to the Spirit not being weary of well-doing not fainting in the long process he and he only shall reap life everlasting But a purpose is none of all this If it comes to act and be productive of a holy life then it is useful and it was like the Eve of a Holiday festival in the midst of its abstinence and vigils it was the beginnings of a Repentance But if it never come to act it was to no purpose a mocking of God an act of direct hypocrisie a provocation of God and a deceiving our own selves you are unhappy you began not early or that your earlier days return not together with your good purposes 39. And neither can this have any other sentence though the purpose be made upon our death-bed For God hath made no Covenant with us on our death-bed distinct from that he made with us in our life and health And since in our life and present abilities good purposes and resolutions and vows for they are but the same thing in differing degrees did signifie nothing till they came to act and no man was reconciled to God by good intentions but by doing the will of God can we imagine that such purposes can more prevail at the end of a wicked life than at the beginning that less piety will serve our turns after 50 or 60 years impiety than after but 5 or 10 that a wicked and sinful life should by less pains be expiated than an unhappy year For it is not in the state of Grace as in other exteriour actions of Religion or Charity where God will accept the will for the deed when the external act is inculpably out of our powers and may also be supplied by the internal as bendings of the body by the prostration of the Soul Alms by Charity Preaching by praying for conversion These things are necessary because they are precepts and obligatory only in certain circumstances which may fail and we be innocent and disobliged But it is otherwise in the essential parts of our duty which God hath made the immediate and next condition of our Salvation such which are never out of our power but by our own fault Such are Charity Forgiveness Repentance and Faith such to which we are assisted by God such which are always put by God's grace into our power therefore because God indispensably demands them In these cases as there is no revelation God will accept the will for the deed the purpose for the act so it is unreasonable to expect it because God did once put it into our powers and if we put it out we must not complain of want of fire which our selves have quench'd nor complain we cannot see when we have put our own lights out and hope God will accept the will for the deed since we had no will to it when God put it into our powers These are but fig leaves to cover our nakedness which our sin hath introduced 40. For either the reducing such vows and purposes to act is the duty without which the purpose is ineffectual or else that practice is but the sign and testimony of a sincere intention and that very sincere intention was of it self accepted by God in the first spring If it was nothing but a sign then the Covenant which God made with Man in Jesus Christ was Faith and Good meaning not Faith and Repentance and a man is justified as soon as ever he purposes well before any endeavours are commenced or any act produced or habit ratified and the duties of a holy life are but shadows and significations of a Grace no part of the Covenant not so much as smoak is of fire but a mere sign of a person justified as soon as he made his vow but then also a man may be justified five hundred times in a year as often as he makes a new vow and confident resolution which is then done most heartily when the Lust is newly satisfied and the pleasure disappears for the instant though the purpose disbands upon the next temptation Yea but unless it be a sincere purpose it will do no good and although we cannot discern it nor the man himself yet God knows the heart and if he sees it would have been reduced to act then he accepts it and this is the hopes of a dying man But faint they are and dying as the man himself 41. For it is impossible for us to know but that what a man intends as himself thinks heartily is sincerely meant and if that may be insincere and is to be judged only by a never-following event in case the man dies it cannot become to any man the ground of hope nay even to those persons who do mean sincerely it is still an instrument of distrust and fears infinite since his own sincere meaning hath nothing in the nature of the thing no distinct formality no principle no sign to distinguish it from the unsincere vows of sorrowful but not truly penitent persons 2. A purpose acted and not acted differ not in the principle but in the effect which is extrinsecal and accidental to the purpose and each might be without the other a man might live holily though he had not made that vow and when he hath made the vow he may fail of living holily And as we should think it hard measure to have a damnation encreased upon us for those sins which we would have committed if we had lived so it cannot be reasonable to build our hopes of Heaven upon an imaginary Piety which we never did and if we had lived God knows whether we would or not 3. God takes away the godly lest malice should corrupt their Understandings and for the Elects sake those days are shortned which if they should continue no flesh should escape but now shall all that be laid upon their score which if God had not so prevented by their death God knows they would have done And God deals with
spirit c. Blessed are they that mourn c. Blessed are the meek c. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst c. Blessed are the merciful c. Math. 5. 1 2 3 4 1. THe Holy Jesus being entred upon his Prophetical Office in the first solemn Sermon gave testimony that he was not only an Interpreter of Laws then in being but also a Law-giver and an Angel of the new and everlasting Covenant which because God meant to establish with mankind by the mediation of his Son by his Son also he now began to publish the conditions of it and that the publication of the Christian Law might retain some proportion at least and analogy of circumstance with the promulgation of the Law of Moses Christ went up into a Mountain and from thence gave the Oracle And here he taught all the Disciples for what he was now to speak was to become a Law a part of the condition on which he established the Covenant and founded our hopes of Heaven Our excellent and gracious Law-giver knowing that the great argument in all practical disciplines is the proposal of the end which is their crown and their reward begins his Sermon as David began his most divine collection of Hymns with Blessedness And having enumerated Eight Duties which are the rule of the spirits of Christians he begins every Duty with a Beatitude and concludes it with a Reward to manifest the reasonableness and to invite and determine our choice to such Graces which are circumscribed with Felicities which have blessedness in present possession and glory in the consequence which in the midst of the most passive and afflictive of them tells us that we are blessed which is indeed a felicity as a hope is good or as a rich heir is rich who in the midst of his Discipline and the severity of Tutors and Governours knows he is designed to and certain of a great inheritance 2. The Eight Beatitudes which are the duty of a Christian and the rule of our spirit and the special discipline of Christ seem like so many paradoxes and impossibilities reduced to Reason and are indeed Vertues made excellent by rewards by the sublimity of Grace and the mercies of God hallowing and crowning those habits which are despised by the world and are esteemed the conditions of lower and less considerable people But God sees not as man sees and his rules of estimate and judgment are not borrowed from the exteriour splendour which is apt to seduce children and cousen fools and please the appetites of sense and abused fancy but they are such as he makes himself excellencies which by abstractions and separations from things below land us upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they are states of suffering rather than states of life for the great imployment of a Christian being to bear the Cross Christ laid the Pedestal so low that the rewards were like rich mines interred in the deeps and inaccessible retirements and did chuse to build our 〈◊〉 upon the torrents and violences of affliction and sorrow Without these Graces we 〈◊〉 get Heaven and without sorrow and sad accidents we cannot exercise these Graces Such are 3. First Blessed are the Poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven Poverty of spirit is in respect of secular affluence and abundance or in respect of great opinion and high thoughts either of which have divers acts and offices That the first is one of the meanings of this Text is certain because S. Luke repeating this Beatitude delivers it plainly Blessed are the poor and to it he opposes riches And our Blessed Saviour speaks so suspiciously of riches and rich men that he represents the condition to be full of danger and temptation and S. James calls it full of sin describing rich men to be oppressors litigious proud spightful and contentious which sayings like all others of that nature are to be understood in common and most frequent accidents not regularly but very improbable to be otherwise For if we consider our Vocation S. Paul informs us That not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith And how hard it is for a rich man to enter into Heaven our great Master hath taught us by saying it is more easie for a Camel to pass through a needle's eye And the reason is because of the infinite temptation which Riches minister to our spirits it being such an opportunity of vices that nothing remains to countermand the act but a strong resolute unaltered and habitual purpose and pure love of 〈◊〉 Riches in the mean time offering to us occasions of Lust fuel for Revenge instruments of Pride entertainment of our desires engaging them in low worldly and sottish appetites inviting us to shew our power in oppression our greatness in vanities our wealth in prodigal expences and to answer the importunity of our Lusts not by a denial but by a correspondence and satisfaction till they become our mistresses imperious arrogant tyrannical and vain But Poverty is the sister of a good mind it ministers aid to wisdome industry to our spirit severity to our thoughts soberness to counsels modesty to our desires it restrains extravagancy and dissolution of appetites the next thing above our present condition which is commonly the object of our wishes being temperate and little proportionable enough to nature not wandring beyond the limits of necessity or a moderate conveniency or at 〈◊〉 but to a free 〈◊〉 and recreation And the 〈◊〉 of Poverty are single and mean rather a sit imploiment to correct our levities than a business to impede our better thoughts since a little thing supplies the needs of nature and the earth and the fountain with little trouble minister food to us and God's common providence and daily dispensation cases the cares and makes them portable But the cares and businesses of rich men are violences to our whole man they are loads of memory business for the understanding work for two or three arts and sciences imployment for many servants to assist in increase the appetite and heighten the thirst and by making their dropsie bigger and their capacities large they destroy all those opportunities and possibilities of Charity in which only Riches can be useful 4. But it is not a 〈◊〉 poverty of possession which intitles us to the blessing but a poverty of spirit that is a contentedness in every state an aptness to renounce all when we are obliged in duty a refusing to continue a possession when we for it must quit a vertue or a noble action a divorce of our affections from those gilded vanities a generous contempt of the world and at no hand heaping riches either with injustice or with avarice either with wrong or impotency of action or affection Not like Laberius described by the Poet who thought nothing so criminal as Poverty and every spending of
that there is the same conformity of spirit and fortune by complying with my fortune as if my fortune did comply with my spirit And therefore in the order of Beatitudes Meekness is set between Mourning and Desire that it might balance and attemper those actions by indifferency which by reason of their abode are apt to the transportation of passion The reward expressed is a possission of the earth that is a possession of all which is excellent here below to consign him to a future glory as Canaan was a type of Heaven For Meekness is the best cement and combining of friendships it is a great endearment of us to our company It is an ornament to have a meek and quiet spirit a prevention of quarrels and pacifier of wrath it purchaseth peace and is it self a quietness of spirit it is the greatest affront to all injuries in the world for it returns them upon the injurious and makes them useless ineffective and innocent and is an antidote against all the evil consequents of anger and adversity and tramples upon the usurping passions of the irascible faculty 9. But the greatest part of this Paisage and Landtschap is Sky and as a man in all countreys can see more of Heaven than of the earth he dwells on so also he may in this Promise For although the Christian hears the promise of the inheritance of the Earth yet he must place his eye and fix his heart upon Heaven which by looking downward also upon this Promise as in a vessel of limpid water he may see by reflexion without looking upwards by a direct intuition It is Heaven that is designed by this Promise as well as by any of the rest though this Grace takes in also the refreshments of the earth by equivalence and a suppletory 〈◊〉 But here we have no abiding city and therefore no inheritance this is not our Countrey and therefore here cannot be our portion unless we chuse as did the Prodigal to go into a strange Countrey and spend our portion with riotous and beastly living and forfeit our Father's blessing The Devil carrying our Blessed Saviour to a high mountain shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world but besides that they were offered upon ill conditions they were not eligible by him upon any And neither are they to be chosen by us for our inheritance and portion Evangelical for the Gospel is founded upon better promises and therefore the hopes of a Christian ought not to determine upon any thing less than Heaven Indeed our Blessed Saviour chose to describe this Beatitude in the words of the Psalmist so inviting his Disciples to an excellent precept by the insinuation of those Scriptures which themselves admitted But as the earth which was promised to the meek man in David's Psalm was no other earth but the terra 〈◊〉 the Land of Canaan if we shall remember that this Land of promise was but a transition and an allegory to a greater and more noble that it was but a type of Heaven we shall not see cause to wonder why the Holy Jesus intending Heaven for the reward of this Grace also together with the rest did call it the inheritance of the earth For now is revealed to us a new heaven and a new earth an habitation made without hands 〈◊〉 in the heavens And he understands nothing of the excellency of Christian Religion whose affections dwell below and are satisfied with a portion of dirt and corruption If we be risen with Christ let us seek those things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God But if a Christian desires to take possession of this earth in his way as his inheritance or portion he hath reason to fear it will be his All. We have but one inheritance one countrey and here we are strangers and Pilgrims Abraham told Dives that he had enjoyed his good things here he had the inheritance of the earth in the crass material sense and therefore he had no other portion but what the Devils have And when we remember that Persecution is the lot of the Church and that Poverty is her portion and her quantum is but food and raiment at the best and that Patience is her support and Hope her refreshment and Self-denial her security and Meekness is all her possession and title to a subsistence it will appear certain that as Christ's Kingdom was not of this world so neither shall his Saints have their portion in that which is not his Kingdom They are miserable if they do not reign with him and he never reigned here but if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him hereafter True it is Christ promised to him that should lose any interest for his sake the restitution of a hundred fold in this world But as the sense of that cannot be literal for he cannot receive a hundred Mothers or a hundred Wives so whatsoever that be it is to be enjoyed with persecution And then such a portion of the Earth as Christ hath expressed in figure and shall by way of recompence restore us and such a recompence as we can enjoy with Persecution and such an enjoyment as is consistent with our having lost all our temporals and such an acquist and purchace of it as is not destructive of the grace of Meekness all that we may enter into our accounts as part of our lot and the emanation from the holy Promise But in the foot of this account we shall not find any great affluence of temporal accruements However it be although when a meek man hath earthly possessions by this Grace he is taught how to use them and how to part with them yet if he hath them not by the vertue here commanded he is not suffered to use any thing violent towards the acquiring them not so much as a violent passion or a stormy imagination for then he loses his Meekness and what ever he gets can be none of the reward of this Grace He that sights for temporals unless by some other appendent duty he be obliged loses his title by striving incompetently for the reward he cuts off that hand by which alone he can receive it For unless he be indeed meek he hath no right to what he calls the inheritance of the earth and he that is not content to want the inheritance of the earth when God requires him is not meek So that if this Beatitude be understood in a temporal sense it is an offer of a reward upon a condition we shall be without it and be content too For in every sense of the word Meekness implies a just satisfaction of the spirit and acquiescence in every estate or contingency whatsoever though we have no possessions but of a good Conscience no bread but that of carefulness no support but from the Holy Spirit and a providence ministring to our natural necessities by an extemporary provision And certain it is the meekest
as all our happiness consists so God takes greatest complacency and delights in it above all his other Works He punishes to the third and fourth Generation but shews mercy unto thousands Therefore the Jews say that Michael 〈◊〉 with one wing and Gabriel with two meaning that the pacifying Angel the Minister of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the exterminating Angel the Messenger of wrath is slow And we are called to our approximation to God by the practice of this Grace we are made partakers of the Divine nature by being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful This mercy consists in the affections and in the effects and actions In both which the excellency of this Christian Precept is eminent above the goodness of the moral precept of the old Philosophers and the piety and charity of the Jews by virtue of the Mosaic Law The Stoick Philosophers affirm it to be the duty of a wise man to succour and help the necessities of indigent and miserable persons but at no hand to pity them or suffer any trouble or compassion in our affections for they intended that a wise person should be dispassionate unmoved and without disturbance in every accident and object and concernment But the Blessed Jesus who came to reconcile us to his Father and purchase us an intire possession did intend to redeem us from sin and make our passions obedient and apt to be commanded even and moderate in temporal affairs but high and active in some instances of spiritual concernment and in all instances that the affection go along with the Grace that we must be as merciful in our compassion as compassionate in our exteriour expressions and actions The Jews by the prescript of their Law were to be merciful to all their Nation and confederates in Religion and this their Mercy was called Justice He hath dispersed abroad and given to the poor his righteousness or Justice 〈◊〉 for ever But the mercies of a Christian are to extend to all Do good to all men especially to the houshold of Faith And this diffusion of a Mercy not only to Brethren but to Aliens and Enemies is that which S. Paul calls goodness still retaining the old appellative for Judaical mercy 〈◊〉 For scarcely for a 〈◊〉 man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some will even dare to die So that the Christian Mercy must be a mercy of the whole man the heart must be merciful and the hand operating in the labour of love and it must be extended to all persons of all capacities according as their necessity requires and our ability permits and our endearments and other obligations dispose of and determine the order 14. The acts of this Grace are 1. To pity the miseries of all persons and all calamities spiritual or temporal having a fellow-feeling in their afflictions 2. To be afflicted and sad in the publick Judgments imminent or incumbent upon a Church or State or Family 3. To pray to God for remedy for all afflicted persons 4. To do all acts of bodily assistence to all miserable and distressed people to relieve the Poor to redeem Captives to forgive Debts to disabled persons to pay Debts for them to lend them mony to feed the hungry and clothe the naked to rescue persons from dangers to defend and relieve the oppressed to comfort widows and fatherless children to help them to right that suffer wrong and in brief to do any thing of relief support succour and comfort 5. To do all acts of spiritual 〈◊〉 to counsel the doubtful to admonish the erring to strengthen the weak to resolve the scrupulous to teach the ignorant and any thing else which may be instrumental to his Conversion Perseverance Restitution and Salvation or may rescue him from spiritual dangers or supply him in any ghostly necessity The reward of this Vertue is symbolical to the Vertue it self the grace and glory differing in nothing but degrees and every vertue being a reward to it self The merciful shall receive mercy mercy to help them in time of need mercy from God who will not only give them the great mercies of Pardon and Eternity but also dispose the hearts of others to pity and supply their needs as they have done to others For the present there is nothing more noble than to be beneficial to others and to lift up the poor 〈◊〉 of the mire and rescue them from misery it is to do the work of God and for the future nothing is a greater title to a mercy at the Day of Judgment than to have shewed mercy to our necessitous Brother it being expressed to be the only rule and instance in which Christ means to judge the world in their Mercy and Charity or their Unmercifulness respectively I was hungry and ye fed me or ye fed me not and so we stand or fall in the great and eternal scrutiny And it was the prayer of Saint Paul Onesiphorus shewed kindness to the great Apostle The Lord shew him a mercy in that day For a cup of charity though but full of cold water shall not lose its reward 15. Sixthly Blessed are the Pure 〈◊〉 heart for they shall see God This purity of heart includes purity of hands Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle even he that is of clean hands and a pure heart that is he that hath not given his mind unto vanity nor sworn to deceive his Neighbour It signifies justice of action and candour of spirit innocence of manners and sincerity of purpose it is one of those great circumstances that consummates Charity For the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned that is a heart free from all carnal affections not only in the matter of natural impurity but also spiritual and immaterial such as are Heresies which are theresore impurities because they mingle secular interest or prejudice with perswasions in Religion Seditions hurtful and impious Stratagems and all those which S. Paul enumerates to be works or fruits of the flesh A good Conscience that 's a Conscience either innocent or penitent a state of Grace 〈◊〉 a not having prevaricated or a being restored to our Baptismal purity Faith unfeigned that also is the purity of Sincerity and excludes Hypocrisie timorous and half perswasions neutrality and indifferency in matters of Salvation And all these do integrate the whole duty of Charity But Purity as it is a special Grace signifies only honesty and uprightness of Soul without hypocrisie to God and dissimulation towards men and then a freedom from all carnal desires so as not to be governed or led by them Chastity is the purity of the body Simplicity is the purity of the spirit both are the Sanctification of the whole Man for the entertainment of the Spirit of Purity and the Spirit of Truth 16. The acts of this Vertue are 1. To quit all Lustful thoughts not to take delight in
Churches living under Persecution commenced many pretty opinions concerning the state and special dignity of Martyrs apportioning to them one of the three Coronets which themselves did knit and supposed as pendants to the great Crown of righteousness They made it suppletory of Baptism expiatory of sin satisfactory of publick 〈◊〉 they placed them in bliss immediately declared them to need no after-Prayer such as the Devotion of those times used to pour upon the graves of the faithful with great prudence they did endeavour to alleviate this burthen and sweeten the bitter chalice and they did it by such doctrines which did only remonstrate this great truth That since no love was greater than to lay down our lives nothing could be so great but God would indulge to them And indeed whatsoever they said in this had no inconvenience nor would it now unless men should think mere suffering to be sufficient to excuse a wicked life or that they be invited to dishonour an excellent patience with the mixture of an impure action There are many who would die for Christ if they were put to it and yet will not quit a Lust for him those are hardly to be esteemed Christ's Martyrs unless they be dead unto sin their dying for an Article or a good action will not pass the great scrutiny And it may be boldness of spirit or sullenness or an honourable gallantry of mind or something that is excellent in civil and political estimate moves the person and endears the suffering but that love only which keeps the Commandments will teach us to 〈◊〉 for love and from love to pass to blessedness through the red Sea of bloud And indeed it is more easie to die for Chastity than to live with it and many women have been found who suffered death under the violence of Tyrants for defence of their holy vows and purity who had they long continued amongst pleasures courtships curiosities and importunities of men might perchance have yielded that to a Lover which they denied to an Executioner S. Cyprian observes that our Blessed Lord in admitting the innocent Babes of Bethlehem first to die for him did to all generations of Christendom consign this Lesson That only persons holy and innocent were fit to be Christ's Martyrs And I remember that the Prince of the Latine Poets over against the region and seats of Infants places in the Shades below persons that suffered death wrongfully but adds that this their death was not enough to place them in such blessed mansions but the Judge first made inquiry into their lives and accordingly designed their station It is certain that such dyings or great sufferings are Heroical actions and of power to make great compensations and redemptions of time and of omissions and imperfections but if the Man be unholy so also are his Sufferings for Hereticks have died and vicious persons have suffered in a good cause and a dog's neck may be cut off in sacrifice and Swine's bloud may 〈◊〉 the trench about the Altar but God only accepts the Sacrifice which is pure and spotless first seasoned with salt then seasoned with fire The true Martyr must have all the preceding Graces and then he shall receive all the Beatitudes 19. The acts of this Duty are 1. Boldly to confess the Faith nobly to exercise publick vertues not to be ashamed of any thing that is honest and rather to quit our goods our liberty our health and life it self than to deny what we are bound to affirm or to omit what we are bound to do or to pretend contrary to our present perswasion 2. To rejoyce in Afflictions counting it honourable to be conformable to Christ and to wear the cognizance of Christianity whose certain lot it is to suffer the hostility and violence of enemies visible and invisible 3. Not to revile our Persecutors but to bear the Cross with evenness tranquillity patience and charity 4. To offer our sufferings to the glory of God and to joyn them with the Passions of Christ by doing it in love to God and obedience to his Sanctions and testimony of some part of his Religion and designing it as a part of duty The reward is the Kingdom of Heaven which can be no other but eternal Salvation in case the Martyrdom be consummate and they also shall be made perfect so the words of the reward were read in Clement's time If it be less it keeps its proportion all suffering persons are the combination of Saints they make the Church they are the people of the Kingdom and heirs of the Covenant For if they be but Confessors and confess Christ in prison though they never preach upon the rack or under the axe yet Christ will confess them before his heavenly Father and they shall have a portion where they shall never be persecuted any more The PRAYER O Blessed Jesus who art become to us the Fountain of Peace and Sanctity of Righteousness and Charity of Life and perpetual Benediction imprint in our spirits these glorious characterisms of Christianity that we by such excellent dispositions may be consigned to the infinity of Blessedness which thou camest to reveal and minister and exhibit to mankind Give us great Humility of spirit and deny us not when we beg Sorrow of thee the mourning and sadness of true Penitents that we may imitate thy excellencies and conform to thy sufferings Make us Meek patient indifferent and resigned in all accidents changes and issues of Divine Providence Mortifie all inordinate Anger in us all Wrath Strife Contention Murmurings Malice and Envy and interrupt and then blot out all peevish dispositions and morosities all disturbances and unevenness of spirit 〈◊〉 of habit that may hinder us in our duty Oh teach me so to hunger and thirst after the ways of Righteousness that it may be meat and drink to me to do thy Father's will Raise my affections to Heaven and heavenly things fix my heart there and prepare a treasure for me which I may receive in the great diffusions and communications of thy glory And in this sad interval of infirmity and temptations strengthen my hopes and 〈◊〉 my Faith by such emissions of light and grace from thy Spirit that I may relish those Blessings which thou preparest for thy Saints with so great appetite that I may despise the world and all its gilded vanities and may desire nothing but the crown of righteousness and the paths that lead thither 〈◊〉 graces of thy Kingdom and the glories of it that when I have served thee in holiness and strict obedience I may reign with thee in the glories of Eternity for thou O Holy Jesus art our hope and our life and glory our 〈◊〉 great reward Amen II. 〈◊〉 Jesu who art infinitely pleased in demonstrations of thy Mercy and didst descend into a state of misery suffering persecution and 〈◊〉 that thou mightest give us thy mercy and reconcile us to thy Father and make us
partakers of thy Purities give unto us tender bowels that we may suffer together with our calamitous and necessitous Brethren that we having a fellow-feeling of their miseries may use all our powers to help them and ease our selves of our common sufferings But do thou O Holy Jesu take from us also all our great calamities the Carnality of our affections our Sensualities and Impurities that we may first be pure then peaceable living in peace with all men and preserving the peace which thou hast made for us with our God that we may never commit a sin which may interrupt so blessed an atonement Let neither hope nor fear tribulation nor anguish pleasure nor pain make us to relinquish our interest in thee and our portion of the everlasting Covenant But give us hearts constant bold and valiant to confess thee before all the world in the midst of all disadvantages and contradictory circumstances chusing rather to beg or to be disgraced or 〈◊〉 or to die than quit a holy Conscience or renounce an Article of Christianity that we either in act when thou shalt call us or always in preparation of mind suffering with thee may also reign with thee in the Church Triumphant O Holy and most merciful Saviour Jesu Amen DISCOURSE X. A Discourse upon that part of the Decalogue which the Holy JESVS adopted into the Institution and obligation of Christianity 1. WHen the Holy Jesus had described the Characterisms of Christianity in these Eight Graces and Beatitudes he adds his Injunctions that in these Vertues they should be eminent and exemplar that they might adorn the Doctrine of God for he intended that the Gospel should be as Leven in a lump of dough to season the whole mass and that Christians should be the instruments of communicating the excellency and reputation of this holy Institution to all the world Therefore Christ calls them Salt and Light and the societies of Christians a City set upon a hill and a 〈◊〉 set in a candlestick whose office and energy is to illuminate all the vicinage which is also expressed in these preceptive words Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven which I consider not only as a Circumstance of other parts but as a precise Duty it self and one of the Sanctions of Christianity which hath so confederated the Souls of the Disciples of the Institution that it hath in some proportion obliged every man to take care of his Brother's Soul And since Reverence to God and Charity to our Brother are the two 〈◊〉 Ends which the best Laws can have this precept of exemplary living is enjoyned in order to them both We must shine as lights in the world that God may be glorified and our Brother edified that the excellency of the act may 〈◊〉 the reputation of the Religion and invite men to confess God according to the sanctions of so holy an Institution And if we be curious that vanity do not mingle in the intention and that the intention do not spoil the action and that we suffer not our lights to shine that men may magnifie us and not glorifie God this duty is soon performed by way of adherence to our other actions and hath no other difficulty in it but that it will require our prudence and care to preserve the simplicity of our purposes and humility of our spirit in the midst of that excellent reputation which will certainly be consequent to a holy and exemplary life 2. But since the Holy Jesus had set us up to be lights in the world he took care we should not be stars of the least magnitude but eminent and such as might by their great emissions of light give evidence of their being immediately derivative from the Sun of Righteousness He was now giving his Law and meant to retain so much of Moses as Moses had of natural and essential Justice and Charity and superadd many degrees of his own that as far as Moses was exceeded by Christ in the capacity of a Law-giver so far Christianity might be more excellent and holy than the Mosaical Sanctions And therefore as a Preface to the Christian Law the Holy Jesus declares that unless our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees that is of the stricter sects of the Mosaical Institution we shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven Which not only relates to the prevaricating Practices of the Pharisees but even to their Doctrines and Commentaries upon the Law of Moses as appears evidently in the following instances For if all the excellency of Christianity had consisted in the mere command of Sincerity and prohibition of Hypocrisie it had nothing in it proportionable to those excellent promises and clearest revelations of Eternity there expressed nor of a fit imployment for the designation of a special and a new Law-giver whose Laws were to last forever and were established upon foundations stronger than the pillars of Heaven and Earth 3. But S. Paul calling the Law of Moses a Law of Works did well insinuate what the Doctrine of the Jews was concerning the degrees and obligations of Justice for besides that it was a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of Faith and so the sence of it is formerly explicated it is also a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of the Spirit and it is understood to be such a Law which required the exteriour Obedience such a Law according to which S. Paul so lived that no man could reprove him that is the Judges could not tax him with prevarication such a Law which being in very many degrees carnal and material did not with much severity exact the intention and purposes spiritual But the Gospel is the Law of the spirit If they failed in the exteriour work it was accounted to them for sin but to Christians nothing becomes a sin but a failing and prevaricating spirit For the outward act is such an emanation of the interiour that it enters into the account for the relation sake and for its parent When God hath put a duty into our hands if our spirits be right the work will certainly follow but the following work receives its acceptation not from the value the Christian Law hath precisely put upon it but because the spirit from whence it came hath observed its rule the Law of Charity is acted and expressed in works but hath its estimate from the spirit Which discourse is to be understood in a limited and qualified signification For then also God required the Heart and interdicted the very concupiscences of our irregular passions at least in some instances but because much of their Law consisted in the exteriour and the Law appointed not nor yet intimated any penalty to evil thoughts and because the expiation of such interiour irregularities was easie implicite and involved in their daily Sacrifices without special trouble therefore the old Law
to divide it into portions one act of Charity in an heroical degree or an habitual Charity in the degree of Vertue This instance is probation enough that the opinion of such a necessity of doing the best action simply and indefinitely is impossible to be safely acted because it is impossible to be understood Two talents shall be rewarded and so shall five both in their proportions He that sows sparingly shall reap sparingly but he shall reap Every man as he purposes in his heart so let him give The best action shall have the best reward and though he is the happiest who rises highest yet he is not sasest that enters into the state of disproportion to his person I find in the Lives of the later reputed Saints that S. Teresa à Jesu made a vow to do every thing which she should judge to be the best I will not judge the person nor censure the action because possibly her intention and desires were of greatest Sanctity but whosoever considers the story of her Life and the strange repugnancies in the life of man to such undertakings must needs fear to imitate an action of such danger and singularity The advice which in this case is safest to be followed is That we employ our greatest industry that we fall not into sin and actions of forbidden nature and then strive by parts and steps and with much wariness in attempering our zeal to superadd degrees of eminency and observation of the more perfect instances of Sanctity that doing some excellencies which God hath not commanded he may be the rather moved to pardon our prevaricating so many parts of our necessary duty If Love transport us and carry us to actions sublime and heroical let us follow so good a guide and pass on with diligence and zeal and prudence as far as Love will carry us but let us not be carried to actions of great eminency and strictness and unequal severities by scruple and pretence of duty lest we charge our miscarriages upon God and call the yoak of the Gospel insupportable and Christ a hard Task-master But we shall pass from Vertue to Vertue with more fafety if a Spiritual guide take us by the hand only remembring that if the Angels themselves and the beatisied Souls do now and shall hereafter differ in degrees of love and glory it is impossible the state of imperfection should be confined to the highest Love and the greatest degree and such as admits no variety no increment or difference of parts and stations 13. Secondly Our Love to God consists not in any one determinate Degree but hath such a latitude as best agrees with the condition of men who are of variable natures different affectious and capacities changeable abilities and which receive their heightnings and declensions according to a thousand accidents of mortality For when a Law is regularly prescribed to perions whose varieties and different constitutions cannot be regular or uniform it is certain 〈◊〉 gives a great latitude of perfermance and binds not to just atomes and points The Laws of God are like universal objects received into the Faculty partly by choice partly by nature but the variety of perfection is by the variety of the instruments and disposition of the Recipient and are excelled by each other in several sences and by themselves at several times And so is the practice of our Obedience and the entertainments of the Divine Commandments For some are of malleable natures others are morese some are of healthful and temperate constitutions others are lustful full of fancy full of appetite some have excellent leisure and opportunities of retirement others are busie in an active life and cannot with advantages attend to the choice of the better part some are peaceable and timorous and some are in all instances serene others are of tumultuous and unquiet spirits and these become opportunities of Temptation on one side and on the other occasions of a Vertue But every change of faculty and variety of circumstance hath influence upon Morality and therefore their duties are personally altered and increase in obligation or are slackned by necessities according to the infinite alteration of exteriour accidents and interiour possibilities 14. Thirdly Our Love to God must be totally exclusive of any affection to sin and engage us upon a great assiduous and laborious care to resist all Temptations to subdue sin to acquire the habits of Vertues and live holily as it is already expressed in the Discourse of Repentance We must prefer God as the object of our hopes we must chuse to obey him rather than man to please him rather than satisfie our selves and we must do violence to our strongest Passions when they once contest against a Divine Commandment If our Passions are thus regulated let them be fixed upon any lawful object whatsoever if at the same time we prefer Heaven and heavenly things that is would rather chuse to lose our temporal love than our eternal hopes which we can best discern by our refusing to sin upon the solicitation or engagement of the temporal object then although we feel the transportation of a sensual love towards a Wife or Child or Friend actually more pungent and sensible than Passions of Religion are they are less perfect but they are not criminal Our love to God requires that we do his Commandments and that we do not sin but in other things we are permitted in the condition of our nature to be more sensitively moved by visible than by invisible and spiritual objects Only this we must ever have a disposition and a mind prepared to quit our sensitive and pleasant objects rather than quit a Grace or commit a sin Every act of sin is against the Love of God and every man does many single actions of hostility and provocation against him but the state of the Love of God is that which we actually call the state of Grace When Christ reigns in us and sin does not reign but the Spirit is quickned and the Lusts are mortified when we are habitually vertuous and do acts of Piety Temperance and Justice frequently easily chearfully and with a successive constant moral and humane industry according to the talent which God hath intrusted to us in the banks of Nature and Grace then we are in the love of God then we love him with all our heart But if Sin grows upon us and is committed more frequently or gets a victory with less difficulty or is obeyed more readily or entertained with a freer complacency then we love not God as he requires we divide between him and sin and God is not the Lord of all our faculties But the instances of Scripture are the best exposition of this Commandment For David followed God with all his heart to do that which was right in his eyes and Josiah turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might Both these Kings did it and
yet there was some imperfection in David and more violent recessions for so saith the Scripture of Josiah Like unto him was there no King before him David was not so exact as he and yet he followed God with all his heart From which these two Corollaries are certainly deducible That to love God with all our heart admits variety of degrees and the lower degree is yet a Love with all our heart and yet to love God requires a holy life a diligent walking in the Commandments either according to the sence of innocence or of penitence either by first or second counsels by the spirit of Regeneration or the spirit of Renovation and restitution The summ is this The sence of this Precept is such as may be reconciled with the Infirmities of our Nature but not with a Vice in our Manners with the recession of single acts seldom 〈◊〉 and always disputed against and long fought with but not with an habitual aversation or a ready obedience to sin or an easie victory 15. This Commandment being the summ of the First Table had in Moses's Law particular instances which Christ did not insert into his Institution and he added no other particular but that which we call the Third Commandment concerning Veneration and reverence to the Name of God The other two viz. concerning Images and the Sabbath have some special considerations 16. The Jews receive daily offence against the 〈◊〉 of some Churches who 〈◊〉 COM. in the recitation of the Decalogue omit the Second Commandment as supposing it to be a part of the first according as we account them and their offence rises higher because they observe that in the New Testament where the Decalogue is six times repeated in special recitation and in summaries there is no word prohibiting the making retaining or respect of Images Concerning which things Christians consider that God for bad to the Jews 〈◊〉 very having and making Images and Representments not only of the true God or of false and imaginary Deities but of visible creatures which because it was but of temporary reason and relative consideration of their aptness to Superstition and their conversing with idolatrous Nations was a command proper to the Nation part of their Govenant not of essential indispensable and eternal reason not of that which we usually call the Law of Nature Of which also God gave testimony because himself commanded the signs and representment of Seraphim to be set upon the Mercy 〈◊〉 toward which the Priest and the people made their addresses in their religious Adorations and of the Brazen Serpent to which they looked when they called to God for help against the sting of the venomous Snakes These instances tell us that to make Pictures or Statues of creatures is not against a natural reason and that they may have uses which are profitable as well as be abused to danger and Superstition Now although the nature of that people was apt to the abuse and their entercourse with the Nations in their confines was too great an invitation to entertain the danger yet Christianity hath so far removed that danger by the analogy and design of the Religion by clear Doctrines Revelations and infinite treasures of wisdom and demonstrations of the Spirit that our Blessed Law-giver thought it not necessary to remove us from Superstition by a prohibition of the use of Images and Pictures and therefore left us to the sence of the great Commandment and the dictates of right Reason to take care that we do not dishonour the invisible God with visible representations of what we never saw nor cannot understand 〈◊〉 yet convey any of God's incommunicable Worship in the forenamed instances to any thing but himself And for the matter of Images we have no other Rule left us in the New Testament the rules of Reason and Nature and the other parts of the Institution are abundantly sufficient for our security And possibly S. Paul might relate to this when he affirmed concerning the Fifth that it was the first Commandment with promise For in the Second Commandment to the Jews as there was a great threatning so also a greater promise of shewing mercy to a thousand generations But because the body of this Commandment was not transcribed into the Christian Law the first of the Decalogue which we retain and in which a promise is inserted is the Fifth Commandment And therefore the wisdom of the Church was remarkable in the variety of sentences concerning the permission of Images At first when they were blended in the danger and impure mixtures of Gentilism and men were newly recovered from the snare and had the reliques of a long custom to superstitious and false worshippings they endured no Images but merely civil but as the danger ceased and Christianity prevailed they found that Pictures had a natural use of good concernment to move less-knowing people by the representment and declaration of a Story and then they knowing themselves permitted to the liberties of Christianity and the restraints of nature and reason and not being still weak under prejudice and childish dangers but fortified by the excellency of a wise Religion took them into lawful uses doing honour to Saints as unto the absent Emperors according to the custom of the Empire they erected Statues to their honour and transcribed a history and sometimes a precept into a table by figures making more lasting impressions than by words and sentences While the Church stood within these limits she had natural reason for her warrant and the custom of the several Countreys and no precept of Christ to countermand it They who went farther were unreasonable and according to the degree of that excess were Superstitious 17. The Duties of this Commandment are learned by the intents of it For it was directed against the false Religion of the Nations who believed the Images of their Gods to be filled with the Deity and it was also a caution to prevent our low imaginations of God lest we should come to think God to be like Man And thus far there was indispensable and eternal reason in the Precept and this was never lessened in any thing by the Holy Jesus and obliges us Christians to make our addresses and worshippings to no God but the God of the Christians that is of all the world and not to do this in or before an Image of him because he cannot be represented For the Images of Christ and his Saints they come not into either of the two considerations and we are to understand our duty by the proportions of our reverence to God expressed in the great Commandment Our Fathers in Christianity as I observed now made no scruple of using the Images and Pictures of their Princes and Learned men which the Jews understood to be forbidden to them in the Commandment Then they admitted even in the Utensils of the Church some coelatures and engravings Such was that Tertullian speaks of The good
Shepherd in the 〈◊〉 Afterwards they admitted Pictures but not before the time of Constantine for in the Council of Eliberis they were forbidden And in succession of time the scruples lessened with the danger and all the way they signified their belief to be that this Commandment was only so far retained by Christ as it relied upon natural reason or was a particular instance of the great Commandment that is Images were forbidden where they did dishonour God or lessen his reputation or estrange our duties or became Idols or the direct matter of superstitious observances charms or senseless confidences but they were permitted to represent the Humanity of Christ to remember Saints and Martyrs to recount a story to imprint a memory to do honour and reputation to absent persons and to be the instruments of a relative civility and esteem But in this particular infinite care is to be taken of Scandal and danger of a forward and zealous ignorance or of a mistaking and peevish confidence and where a Society hath such persons in it the little good of Images must not be violently retained with the greater danger and certain offence of such persons of whom consideration is to be had in the cure of Souls I only add this that the first Christians made no scruple of saluting the Statues of their Princes and were confident it made no intrenchment upon the natural prohibition contained in this Commandment because they had observed that exteriour inclinations and addresses of the body though in the lowest manner were not proper to God but in Scripture found also to be communicated to Creatures to Kings to Prophets to Parents to Religious persons and because they found it to be death to do affront to the Pictures and Statues of their Emperors they concluded in reason which they also saw verified by the practice and opinion of all the world that the respect they did at the Emperor's Statue was accepted as a veneration to his person But these things are but sparingly to be drawn into Religion because the customs of this world are altered and their opinions new and many who have not weak understandings have weak Consciences and the necessity for the entertainment of them is not so great as the offence is or may be 18. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain This our Blessed Saviour repeating expresses it thus It hath been said to them of old time Thou shalt not for swear thy self to which Christ adds out of Num. 30. 2. But thou shalt perform thy Oaths unto the Lord. The meaning of the one we are taught by the other We must not invocate the Name of God in any promise in vain that is with a Lie which happens either out of levity that we change our purpose which at first we really intended or when our intention at that instant was fallacious and contradictory to the undertaking This is to take the Name of God that is to use it to take it into our mouths for vanity that is according to the perpetual style of Scripture for a Lie Every one hath spoken vanity to his neighbour that is he hath lied unto him for so it follows with flattering lips and with a double heart and swearing deceitfully is by the Psalmist called lifting up his soul unto vanity And Philo the Jew who well understood the Law and the language of his Nation renders the sence of this Commandment to be to call God to witness to a Lie And this is to be understood only in Promises for so Christ explains it by the appendix out of the Law Thou shalt perform thy Oaths For lying in Judgment which is also with an Oath or taking God's Name for witness is forbidden in the Ninth Commandment To this Christ added a farther restraint For whereas by the Natural Law it was not unlawful to swear by any Oath that implied not Idolatry 〈◊〉 the belief of a false God I say any grave and prudent Oath when they spake a grave truth and whereas it was lawful for the 〈◊〉 in ordinary entercourse to swear by God so they did not swear to a Lie to which also swearing to an impertinency might be reduced by a proportion of reason and was so accounted of in the practice of the Jews but else and in other cases they us'd to swear by God or by a Creature respectively for they that swear by him shall be commended saith the Psalmist and swearing to the Lord of Hosts is called speaking the language of Canaan Most of this was rescinded Christ forbad all swearing not only swearing to a Lie but also swearing to a truth in common affairs not only swearing commonly by the Name of God but swearing commonly by Heaven and by the Earth by our Head or by any other Oath only let our speech be yea or nay that is plainly affirming or denying In these I say Christ corrected the licence and vanities of the Jews and Gentiles For as the Jews accounted it Religion to name God and therefore would not swear by him but in the more solemn occasions of their life but in trifles they would swear by their Fathers or the Light of Heaven or the Ground they trode on so the Greeks were also careful not to swear by the Gods lightly much less fallaciously but they would swear by any thing about them or near them upon an occasion as vain as their Oath But because these Oaths are either indirectly to be referred to God and Christ instances in divers or else they are but a vain testimony or else they give a Divine honour to a Creature by making it a Judge of truth and discerner of spirits therefore Christ seems to forbid all forms of Swearing whatsoever In pursuance of which law Basilides being converted at the prayers of Potamiaena a Virgin-Martyr and required by his fellow-souldiers to swear upon some occasion then happening answered it was not lawful for him to swear for he was a Christian and many of the Fathers have followed the words of Christ in so severe a sence that their words seem to admit no exception 19. But here a grain of salt must be taken lest the letter destroy the spirit First it is certain the Holy Jesus forbad a custom of Swearing it being great irreligion to despise and lessen the Name of God which is the instrument and conveyance of our Adorations to him by making it common and applicable to trifles and ordinary accidents of our life He that swears often many times swears false and however lays by that reverence which being due to God the Scripture determines it to be due at his Name His Name is to be loved and feared And therefore Christ commands that our communication be yea yea or nay nay that is our ordinary discourses should be simply affirmative or negative In order to this Plutarch affirms out of Phavorinus that the
fall into hypocrisie or deceit or if a Christian Asseveration were not of value equal with an Oath And therefore Christ forbidding promissory Oaths and commanding so great simplicity of spirit and honesty did consonantly to the design and perfection of his Institution intending to make us so just and sincere that our Religion being infinite obligation to us our own Promises should pass for bond enough to others the Religion receive great honour by being esteemed a sufficient security and instrument of publick entercourse And this was intimated by our Lord himself in that reason he is pleased to give of the prohibition of swearing Let your communication be Yea yea Nay nay for whatsoever is more cometh of evil that is As good Laws come from ill manners the modesty of cloathing from the shame of sin Antidotes and Physick by occasion of poisons and diseases so is Swearing an effect of distrust and want of faith or honesty on one or both sides Men dare not trust the word of a Christian or a Christian is not just and punctual to his Promises and this calls for confirmation by an Oath So that Oaths suppose a fault though they are not faults always themselves whatsoever is more than Yea or Nay is not always evil but it always cometh of evil And therefore the Essenes esteemed every man that was put to his Oath no better than an infamous person a perjurer or at least suspected not esteemed a just man and the Heathens would not suffer the Priest of Jupiter to swear because all men had great opinion of his sanctity and authority and the Scythians derided Alexander's caution and timorous provision when he required an Oath of them Nos religionem in ipsa side novimus Our faith is our bond and they who are willing to deceive men will not stick to deceive God when they have called God to witness But I have a caution to insert for each which I propound as an humble advice to persons eminent and publickly interested 22. First That Princes and such as have power of decreeing the injunction of promissory Oaths be very curious and reserved not lightly enjoyning such Promises neither in respect of the matter trivial nor yet frequently nor without great reason enforcing The matter of such Promises must be only what is already matter of Duty or Religion for else the matter is not grave enough sor the calling of God to testimony but when it is a matter of Duty then the Oath is no other than a Vow or Promise made to God in the presence of men And because Christians are otherwise very much obliged to do all which is their duty in matters both civil and religious of Obedience and Piety therefore it must be an instant necessity and a great cause to superinduce such a confirmation as derives from the so sacredly invocating the Name of God it must be when there is great necessity that the duty be actually performed and when the Supreme power either hath not power sufficient to punish the delinquent or may miss to have notice of the delict For in these cases it is reasonable to bind the faith of the obliged persons by the fear of God after a more special manner but else there is no reason sufficient to demand of the subject any farther security than their own faith and contract The reason of this advice relies upon the strictness of the words of this Precept against promissory Oaths and the reverence we owe to the name of God Oaths of Allegiance are fit to be imposed in a troubled State or to a mutinous People But it is not so fit to tie the People by Oath to abstain from transportations of Metal or Grain or Leather from which by Penalties they are with as much security and less suspicion of iniquity restrained 23. Secondly Concerning assertory Oaths and Depositions in Judgment although a greater liberty may be taken in the subject matter of the Oath and we may being required to it swear in Judgment though the cause be a question of money or our interest or the rights of a Society and S. Athanasius purged himself by Oath before the Emperour Constantius yet it were a great pursuance and security of this part of Christian Religion if in no case contrary Oaths might be admitted in which it is certain one part is perjured to the ruine of their Souls to the intricating of the Judgment to the dishonour of Religion but that such rules of prudence and reasonable presumption be established that upon the Oath of that party which the Law shall chuse and upon probable grounds shall presume for the sentence may be established For by a small probability there may a surer Judgment be given than upon the confidence of contradictory Oaths and after the sin the Judge is left to the uncertainty of conjectures as much as if but one part had sworn and to much more because such an Oath is by the consent of all men accepted as a rule to determine in Judgment By these discourses we understand the intention of our Blessed Master in this Precept and I wish by this or any thing else men would be restrained 〈◊〉 that low cheap unreasonable and unexcusable vice of customary Swearing to which we have nothing to invite us that may lessen the iniquity for which we cannot pretend temptation nor alledge infirmity but it begins by wretchlesness and a malicious carelesness and is continued by the strength of habit and the greatest immensity of folly And I consider that Christian Religion being so holy an Institution to which we are invited by so great promises in which we are instructed by so clear revelations and to the performance of our duties compelled by the threatnings of a sad and insupportable eternity should more than sufficiently endear the performance of this Duty to us The name of a Christian is a high and potent antidote against all sin if we consider aright the honour of the name the undertaking of our Covenant and the reward of our duty The Jews eat no Swines flesh because they are of Moses and the Turks drink no Wine because they are Mahumetans and yet we swear for all we are Christians than which there is not in the world a greater conviction of our baseness and irreligion Is the authority of the Holy Jesus so despicable are his Laws so unreasonable his rewards so little his threatnings so small that we must needs in contempt of all this profane the great Name of God and trample under foot the Laws of Jesus and cast away the hopes of Heaven and enter into security to be possessed by Hell-torments for Swearing that is for speaking like a fool without reason without pleasure without reputation much to our disesteem much to the trouble of civil and wise persons with whom we joyn in society and entercourse Certainly Hell will be heat seven times hotter for a customary Swearer and every degree of
seventh by very many of their own Doctors of which I reckon this a sufficient probation because they permitted stranger Virgins and Captives to fornicate only they believed it sinful in the Hebrew Maidens And when two Harlots pleaded before Solomon for the Bastard-child he gave sentence of their question but nothing of their crime Strangers with the Hebrews signified many times Harlots because they were permitted to be such and were entertained to such purposes But these were the licences of a looser interpretation God having to all Nations given sufficient testimony of his detestation of all Concubinate not hallowed by Marriage of which among the Nations there was abundant testimony in that the Harlots were not permitted to abide in the Cities and wore veils in testimony of their shame and habitual undecencies which we observe in the story of Thamar and also in Chrysippus And although it passed without punishment yet never without shame and a note of turpitude And the abstinence from Fornication was one of the Precepts of Noah to which the Jews obliged the stranger-Proselytes who were only Proselytes of the House and the Apostles inforce it upon the Gentiles in their first Decree at Jerusalem as renewing an old stock of Precepts and obligations in which all the converted religious Gentiles did communicate with the Jews 38. To this Christ added that the Eyes must not be adulterous his Disciples must not only abstain from the act of unlawful Concubinate but from the impurer intuition of a wife of another man so according to the design of his whole Sermon opposing the Righteousness of the Spirit to that of the Law or of Works in which the Jews confided Christians must have chast desires not indulging to themselves a liberty of looser thoughts keeping the threshold of their Temples pure that the Holy Ghost may observe nothing unclean in the entry of his habitation For he that lusts after a woman wants nothingto the consummation of the act but some convenient circumstances which because they are not in our power the act is impeded but nothing of the malice abated But so severe in this was our Blessed Master that he commanded us rather to put our eyes out than to suffer them to become an offence to us that is an inlet of sin or an invitation or transmission of impurity by putting our eye out meaning the extinction of all incentives of Lust the rejection of all opportunities and occasions the quitting all conditions of advantage which ministers fuel to this Hell-fire And by this severity we must understand all beginnings temptations likenesses and insinuations and minutes 〈◊〉 Lust and impurity to be forbidden to Christians such as are all morose delectations in vanity wanton words gestures Balls revellings wanton diet garish and lascivious dressings and trimmings of the body looser Banquetings all making provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lusts of it all lust of Concupiscence and all lust of the eye and all lust of the hand unclean contracts are to be rescinded all lust of the tongue and palate all surfeiting and drunkenness for it is impossible to keep the spirit pure if it be exposed to all the entertainment of enemies And if Christ forbad the wanton eye and placed it under the prohibition of Adultery it is certain whatsoever ministers to that Vice and invites to it is within the same restraint it is the eye or the hand or the foot that is to be cut off To this Commandment Fastings and severe Abstinences are apt to be reduced as being the proper abscission of the instruments and temptations of Lust to which Christ invites by the mixt proposition of threatning and reward for better it is to go to Heaven with but one eye or one foot that is with a body half nourished than with full meals and an active Lust to enter into Hell And in this our Blessed Lord is a Physician rather than a Law-giver for abstinence from all impure Concubinate and morose delectations so much as in thought being the Commandment of God that Christ bids us retrench the occasions and insinuations of Lust it is a facilitating the duty not a new severity but a security and caution of prudence 39. Thou shalt not steal To this Precept Christ added nothing because God had already in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 this Precept with a restraint upon the desires For the Tenth Commandment sorbids all coveting of our Neighbour's goods for the Wife there reckoned and forbidden to be desired from another man is not a restraint of Libidinous appetite but of the Covetous it being accounted part of wealth to have a numerous family many wives and many servants and this also God by the Prophet Nathan upbraided to David as an instance of David's wealth and God's liberality But yet this Commandment Christ adopted into his Law it being prohibited by the natural Law or the Law of right Reason Commonwealths not being able to subsist without distinction of Dominion nor industry to be encouraged but by propriety nor Families to be maintained but by defence of just rights and truly-purchased Possessions And this Prohibition extends to all injustice whether done by force or fraud whether it be by ablation or prevention or detaining of rights any thing in which injury is done directly or obliquely to our Neighbour's fortune 40. Thou shalt not bear false witness That is Thou shalt not answer in judgment against thy Neighbour falsely which testimony in the Law was given solemnly and by Oath invoking the Name of God 〈◊〉 adjure thee by God that thou tell us whether thou be the CHRIST said the High Priest to the Blessed Jesus that is speak upon thy Oath and then he told them fully though they made it the pretence of murthering him and he knew they would do so Confessing and witnessing truth is giving glory to God but false witness is high injustice it is inhumanity and treason against the quietness or life or possession of a just person it is in it self irregular and unreasonable and therefore is so forbidden to Christians not only as it is unjust but as it is false For a Lie in communication and private converse is also forbidden as well as unjust testimony Let every man speak truth with his Neighbour that is in private society and whether a Lie be in jest or earnest when the purpose is to deceive and abuse though in the smallest instance it is in that degree criminal as it is injurious I find not the same affirmed in every deception of our Neighbours wherein no man is injured and some are benefited the errour of the affirmation being nothing but a natural irregularity nothing malicious but very charitable I find no severity superadded by Christ to this Commandment prohibiting such discourse which without injury to any man deceives a man into Piety or safety But this is to be extended no farther In all things else we
repairs not my estate the first makes it in me to be unjust the latter declares me malicious and revengeful If I demand an eye for an eye his eye extinguished will not enlighten mine and therefore to prosecute him to such purposes is to resist or render evil with evil directly against Christ's Sermon But if the postulation of sentence be in order only to restore my self we find it permitted by S. Paul who when for the 〈◊〉 sake he forbad going to Law before unbelievers and for the danger and temptation's sake and the latent irregularity which is certainly appendent to ordinary Litigations he is angry indefinitely with them that go to Law yet he adviseth that Christian Arbitrators be appointed for decision of emergent Questions And therefore when the Supreme Authority hath appointed and regularly established an Arbitrator the permission is the same S. Paul is angry that among Christians there should be Suits but it is therefore he is chiefly angry because Christians do wrong they who should rather suffer wrong yet that they should do it and defraud their brother which in some sence enforces Suits that 's it he highly blames But when injustice is done and a man is in a considerable degree defrauded then it is permitted to him to repeat his own before Christian Arbitrators whether chosen by private consent or publick authority for that circumstance makes no essential alteration in the Question but then this must be done with as much simplicity and unmingled design as is possible without any desire of rendring evil to the person of the offender without arts of heightning the charge without prolongation devices and arts of vexation without anger and animosities and then although accidentally there is some appendent charge to the offending person that is not accounted upon the stock of Revenge because it was not designed and is not desired and is cared for to prevent it as much as may be and therefore offer was made of private and unchargeable Arbitrators and this being refused the charge and accidental evil if it be less than the loss of my sufferance and injury must be reckoned to the necessities of affairs and put upon the stock of his injustice and will not affix a guilt upon the actor I say this is true when the actor hath used all means to accord it without charge and when he is refused manages it with as little as he can and when it is nothing of his desire but something of his trouble that he cannot have his own without the lesser accidental evil to the offender and that the question is great and weighty in his proportion then a Suit of Law is of it self lawful But then let it be remembred how many ways afterwards it may become unlawful and I have no more to add in this Article but the saying of the son of Sirach He that loves danger shall perish in it And certainly he had need be an Angel that manages a Suit innocently and he that hath so excellent a spirit as with innocence to run through the 〈◊〉 temptations of a Law-suit in all probability hath so much holiness as to suffer the injury and so much prudence as to avoid the danger and therefore nothing but a very great defalcation or ruine of a man's estate will from the beginning to the end justifie such a controversie When the man is put to it so that he cannot do some other duty without venturing in this then the grace of God is sufficient for him but he that enters lightly shall walk dangerously and a thousand to one but he will fall foully It is utterly a fault among you said S. Paul because ye go to Law one with another It is not always a crime but ever a fault and an irregularity a recession from Christian perfection and an entertaining of a danger which though we escape through yet it was a fault to have entred into it when we might have avoided it And even then when it is lawful for us it is not expedient For so the Apostle summs up his reprehension concerning Christians going to Law We must rather take wrong rather suffer our selves to be defrauded and when we cannot bear the burthen of the loss then indeed we are permitted to appeal to Christian Judges but then there are so many cautions to be observed that it may be the remedy is worse than the disease I only observe this one thing that S. Paul permits it only in the instance of defraudation or matter of interest such as are defending of Widows and Orphans and Churches which in estimation of Law are by way of fiction reckoned to be in pupillage and minority add also repeating our own interests when our necessities or the support of our family and relatives requires it for all these are cases of Charity or duty respectively But besides the matter of defraudation we find no instance expressed nor any equality and parallel of reason to permit Christians in any case to go to Law because in other things the sentence is but vindictive and cannot repair us and therefore demanding Justice is a rendring evil in the proper matter of Revenge Concerning which I know no 〈◊〉 but in an action of Scandal and ill report But because an innocent and an holy life will force light out of darkness and Humility and Patience and waiting upon God will bring glory out of shame I suppose he who goes to Law to regain his credit attempts the cure by incompetent remedies if the accusation be publick the Law will call him to an account and then he is upon his defence and must acquit himself with meekness and sincerity but this allows not him to be the actor for then it is rather a design of Revenge than a proper deletery of his disgrace and purgative of the 〈◊〉 For if the accusation can be proved it was no calumny if it be not proved the person is not always innocent and to have been accused leaves something foul in his reputation and therefore he that by Law makes it more publick propagates his own disgrace and sends his shame farther than his innocence and the crime will go whither his absolution shall not arrive 10. If it be yet farther questioned whether it be lawful to pray for a Revenge or a Punishment upon the offender I reckon them all one he that prays for punishment of him that did him personal injury cannot easily be supposed to separate the Punishment from his own Revenge I answer that although God be the avenger of all our wrongs yet it were fit for us to have the affections of brethren not the designs and purposes of a Judge but leave them to him to whom they are proper When in the bitterness of soul an oppressed person curses sadly and prays for vengeance the calamity of the man and the violence of his enemy hasten a curse and ascertain it But whatever excuses the greatness of the Oppression may
pro sua rererentâ—â— 1. THE Soul of a Christian is the house of God Ye are God's building saith S. Paul but the house of God is the house of Prayer and therefore Prayer is the work of the Soul whose organs are intended for instruments of the Divine praises and when every stop and pause of those instruments is but the conclusion of a Collect and every breathing is a Prayer then the Body becomes a Temple and the Soul is the Sanctuary and more private recess and place of entercourse Prayer is the great duty and the greatest priviledge of a Christian it is his entercourse with God his Sanctuary in troubles his remedy for sins his cure of griefs and as S. Gregory calls it it is the principal instrument whereby we minister to God in execution of the decrees of eternal Predestination and those things which God intends for us we bring to our selves by the mediation of holy Prayers Prayer is the ascent of the mind to God and a petitioning for such things as we need for our support and duty It is an abstract and summary of Christian Religion Prayer is an act of Religion and Dinine Worship confessing his power and his mercy it celebrates his Attributes and confesses his glories and reveres his person and implores his aid and gives thanks for his blessings it is an act of Humility condescension and dependence expressed in the prostration of our bodies and humiliation of our spirits it is an act of Charity when we pray for others it is an act of Repentance when it confesses and begs pardon for our sins and exercises every Grace according to the design of the man and the matter of the Prayer So that there will be less need to amass arguments to invite us to this Duty every part is an excellence and every end of it is a blessing and every design is a motive and every need is an impulsive to this holy office Let us but remember how many needs we have at how cheap a rate we may obtain their remedies and yet how honourable the imployment is to go to God with confidence and to fetch our supplies with easiness and joy and then without farther preface we may address our selves to the understanding of that Duty by which we imitate the imployment of Angels and beatified spirits by which we ascènd to God in spirit while we remain on earth and God descends on earth while he yet resides in Heaven sitting there on the Throne of his Kingdom 2. Our first enquiry must be concerning the Matter of our Prayers for our Desires are not to be the rule of our Prayers unless Reason and Religion be the rule of our Desires The old Heathens prayed to their Gods for such things which they were ashamed to name publickly before men and these were their private prayers which they durst not for their undecency or iniquity make publick And indeed sometimes the best men ask of God Things not unlawful in themselves yet very hurtful to them and therefore as by the Spirit of God and right Reason we are taught in general what is lawful to be asked so it is still to be submitted to God when we have asked lawful things to grant to us in kindness or to deny us in mercy after all the rules that can be given us we not being able in many instances to judge for our selves unless also we could certainly pronounce concerning future contingencies But the Holy Ghost being now sent upon the Church and the rule of Christ being left to his Church together with his form of Prayer taught and prescribed to his Disciples we have sufficient instruction for the matter of our Prayers so far as concerns the lawfulness or unlawfulness And the rule is easie and of no variety 1. For we are bound to pray for all things that concern our duty all that we are bound to labour for such as are Glory and Grace necessary assistances of the Spirit and rewards spiritual Heaven and Heavenly things 2. Concerning those things which we may with safety hope for but are not matter of duty to us we may lawfully testifie our hope and express our desires by petition but if in their particulars they are under no express promise but only conveniencies of our life and person it is only lawful to pray for them under condition that they may conform to God's will and our duty as they are good and placed in the best order of eternity Therefore 1 for spiritual blessings let our Prayers be particularly importunate perpetual and persevering 2 For temporal blessings let them be generally short conditional and modest 3 And whatsoever things are of mixt nature more spiritual than Riches and less necessary than Graces such as are gifts and exteriour aids we may for them as we may desire them and as we may expect them that is with more confidence and less restraint than in the matter of temporal requests but with more reservedness and less boldness of petition than when we pray for the graces of Sanctification In the first case we are bound to pray in the second it is only lawful under certain conditions in the third it becomes to us an act of zeal nobleness and Christian prudence But the matter of our Prayers is best taught us in the form our Lord taught his Disciples which because it is short mysterious and like the treasures of the Spirit full of wisdom and latent sences it is not improper to draw forth those excellencies which are intended and signified by every Petition that by so excellent an authority we may know what it is lawful to beg of God 3. Our Father which art in Heaven The address reminds us of many parts of our duty If God be our Father where is his fear and reverence and obedience If ye were Abraham's children ye would do the works of Abraham and Ye are of your father the Devil for his works ye do Let us not dare to call him Father if we be rebels and enemies but if we be obedient then we know he is our Father and will give us a Child's portion and the inheritance of Sons But it is observable that Christ here speaking concerning private Prayer does describe it in a form of plural signification to tell us that we are to draw into the communication of our prayers all those who are confederated in the common relation of Sons to the same Father Which art in Heaven tells us where our hopes and our hearts must be fixed whither our desires and our prayers must tend Sursum corda Where our treasure is there must our hearts be also 4. Hallowed be thy Name That is Let thy Name thy Essence and glorious Attributes be honoured and adored in all the world believed by Faith loved by Charity celebrated with praises thanked with Eucharist and let thy Name be hallowed in us as it is in it self
unmingled duty we must send up our Prayers but humility mortification and conformity to the Divine will must attend for an answer and bring back not what the publick Embassy pretends but what they have in private instructions to desire accounting that for the best satisfaction which God pleases not what I have either unnecessarily or vainly or sinfully desired 15. Thirdly When our persons are disposed by Sanctity and the matter of our Prayers is hallowed by prudence and religious intendments then we are bound to entertain a full Perswasion and 〈◊〉 Hope that God will hear us What things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall obtain them said our Blessed Saviour and S. James taught from that Oracle If any of you lack wisdome let him ask it of God But let him ask in faith nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like a wave of the Sea driven with the wind and tossed to and fro Meaning that when there is no fault in the matter of our Prayers but that we ask things pleasing to God and there is no indisposition and hostility in our persons and manners between God and us then to doubt were to distrust God for all being right on our parts if we doubt the issue the defailance must be on that part which to suspect were infinite impiety But after we have done all we can if out of humility and fear that we are not truly disposed we doubt of the issue it is a modesty which will not at all discommend our persons nor impede the event provided we at no hand suspect either God's power or veracity Putting trust in God is an excellent advantage to our Prayers I will deliver him saith God because he hath put his trust in me And yet distrusting our selves and suspecting our own dispositions as it pulls us back in our actual confidence of the event so because it abates nothing of our confidence in God it prepares us to receive the reward of humility and not to lose the praise of a holy trusting in the Almighty 16. These conditions are essential some other there are which are incidents and accessories but at no hand to be neglected And the first is actual or habitual attention to our Prayers which we are to procure with moral and severe endeavours that we desire not God to hear us when we do not hear our selves To which purpose we must avoid as much as our duty will permit us multiplicity of cares and exteriour imployments for a River cut into many rivulets divides also its strength and grows contemptible and apt to be forded by a lamb and drunk up by a Summer-Sun so is the spirit of man busied in variety and divided in it self it abates its fervour cools into indifferency and becomes trifling by its dispersion and inadvertency Aquinas was once asked with what compendium a man might best become learned he answered By reading of one Book meaning that an understanding entertained with several objects is intent upon neither and profits not And so it is when we pray to God if the cares of the world intervene they choak our desire into an indifferency and suppress the flame into a smoak and strangle the spirit But this being an habitual carelesness and intemperance of spirit is an enemy to an habitual attention and therefore is highly criminal and makes our Prayers to be but the labour of the lips because our desires are lessened by the remanent affections of the world But besides an habitual attention in our Prayers that is a desire in general of all that our Prayers pretend to in particular there is also for the accommodation and to facilitate the access of our Prayers required that we attend actually to the words or sense of every Collect or Petition To this we must contend with Prayer with actual dereliction and seposition of all our other affaires though innocent and good in other kinds by a present spirit And the use of it is that such attention is an actual conversing with God it occasions the exercise of many acts of vertue it increases zeal and fervency and by reflexion enkindles love and holy desires And although there is no rule to determine the degree of our actual attention and it is ordinarily impossible never to wander with a thought or to be interrupted with a sudden immission into our spirit in the midst of prayers yet our duty is by mortification of our secular desires by suppression of all our irregular passions by reducing them to indifferency by severity of spirit by enkindling our holy appetites and desires of holy things by silence and meditation and repose to get as forward in this excellency as we can to which also we may be very much helped by ejaculatory prayers and short breathings in which as by reason of their short abode upon the spirit there is less fear of diversion so also they may so often be renewed that nothing of the Devotion may be unspent or expire for want of oil to feed and entertain the flame But the determination of the case of Conscience is this Habitual attention is absolutely necessary in our Prayers that is it is altogether our duty to desire of God all that we pray for though our mind be not actually attending to the form of words and therefore all worldly desires that are inordinate must be rescinded that we more earnestly attend on God than on the world He that prays to God to give him the gift of Chastity and yet secretly wishes rather for an opportunity of Lust and desires God would not hear him as S. Austin confesses of himself in his youth that man sins for want of holy and habitual desires he prays only with his lips what he in no sense attests in his heart 2. Actual attention to our Prayers is also necessary not ever to avoid a sin but that the present Prayer become effectual He that means to feast and to get thanks of God must invite the poor and yet he that invites the rich in that he sins not though he hath no reward of God for that So that Prayer perishes to which the man gives no degree of actual attention for the Prayer is as if it were not it is no more than a dream or an act of custom and order nothing of Devotion and so accidentally becomes a sin I mean there where and in what degrees it is avoidable by taking God's Name in vain 3. It is not necessary to the prevalency of the Prayer that the spirit actually accompany every clause or word if it says a hearty Amen or in any part of it attests the whole it is such an attention which the present condition of most men will sometimes permit 4. A wandering of the spirit through carelesness or any vice or inordinate passion is in that degree criminal as is the cause and it is heightened by the greatness of the interruption 5. It is only
or mental Prayer is all one to God but in order to us they have their several advantages The sacrifice of the heart and the calves of the lips make up a holocaust to God but words are the arrest of the desires and keep the spirit fixt and in less permissions to wander from fancy to fancy and mental Prayer is apt to make the greater fervour if it wander not our office is more determined by words but we then actually think of God when our spirits only speak Mental Prayer when our spirits wander is like a Watch standing still because the spring is down wind it up again and it goes on regularly but in Vocal Prayer if the words run on and the spirit wanders the Clock strikes false the Hand points not to the right hour because something is in disorder and the striking is nothing but noise In mental Prayer we confess God's omniscience in vocal Prayer we call the Angels to witness In the first our spirits rejoyce in God in the second the Angels rejoyce in us Mental Prayer is the best remedy against lightness and indifferency of affections but vocal Prayer is the aptest instrument of communion That is more Angelical but yet fittest for the state of separation and glory this is but humane but it is apter for our present constitution They have their distinct proprieties and may be used according to several accidents occasions or dispositions The PRAYER O Holy and eternal God who hast commanded us to pray unto thee in all our necessities and to give thanks unto thee for all our instances of joy and blessing and to adore thee in all thy Attributes and communications thy own glories and thy eternal mercies give unto me thy servant the spirit of Prayer and Supplication that I may understand what is good for me that I may desire regularly and chuse the best things that I may conform to thy will and submit to thy disposing relinquishing my own affections and imperfect choice Sanctifie my heart and spirit that I may sanctifie thy Name and that I may be gracious and accepted in thine eyes Give me the humility and obedience of a Servant that I may also have the hope and confidence of a Son making humble and confident addresses to the Throne of grace that in all my necessities I may come to thee for aids and may trust in thee for a gracious answer and may receive satisfaction and supply II. GIve me a sober diligent and recollected spirit in my Prayers neither choaked with cares nor scattered by levity nor discomposed by passion nor estranged from thee by inadvertency but fixed fast to thee by the indissolvible bands of a great love and a pregnant Devotion And let the beams of thy holy Spirit descending from above enlighten and enkindle it with great servours and holy importunity and unwearied industry that I may serve thee and obtain thy blessing by the assiduity and Zeal of perpetual religious offices Let my Prayers come before thy presence and the lifting up of my hands be a daily sacrifice and let the fires of zeal not go out by night or day but unite my Prayers to the intercession of thy Holy Jesus and to a communion of those offices which Angels and beatified Souls do pay before the throne of the Lamb and at the celestial Altar that my Prayers being hallowed by the Merits of Christ and being presented in the phial of the Saints may ascend thither where thy glory dwells and from whence mercy and eternal benediction descends upon the Church III. LOrd change my sins into penitential sorrow my sorrow to petition my petition to 〈◊〉 that my Prayers may be consummate in the adorations of eternity and the glorious participation of the end of our hopes and prayers the fulness of never-failing Charity and fruition of thee O Holy and Eternal God Blessed Trinity and mysterious Unity to whom all honour and worship and thanks and confession and glory be ascribed for ever and ever Amen DISCOURSE XIII Of the Third additional Precept of Christ viz. Of the manner of FASTING 1. FAsting being directed in order to other ends as for mortifying the body taking away that fuel which ministers to the flame of Lust or else relating to what is past when it becomes an instrument of Repentance and a part of that revenge which S. Paul affirms to be the effect of godly sorrow is to take its estimate for value and its rules for practice by analogy and proportion to those ends to which it does cooperate Fasting before the holy Sacrament is a custom of the Christian Church and derived to us from great antiquity and the use of it is that we might express honour to the mystery by suffering nothing to enter into our mouths before the symbols Fasting to this purpose is not an act of Mortification but of Reverence and venerable esteem of the instruments of Religion and so is to be understood And thus also not to eat or drink before we have said our morning Devotions is esteemed to be a religious decency and preference of Prayer and God's honour before our temporal satisfaction a symbolical attestation that we esteem the words of God's mouth more than our necessary food It is like the zeal of Abraham's servant who would not eat nor drink till he had done his errand And in pursuance of this act of Religion by the tradition of their Fathers it grew to be a custom of the Jewish Nation that they should not eat bread upon their solemn Festivals before the sixth hour that they might first celebrate the rites of their Religious solemnities before they gave satisfaction to the lesser desires of nature And therefore it was a reasonable satisfaction of the objection made by the assembly against the inspired Apostles in Pentecost These are not drunk as ye suppose seeing it is but the third hour of the day meaning that the day being festival they knew it was not lawful for any of the Nation to break their fast before the sixth hour for else they might easily have been drunk by the third hour if they had taken their morning's drink in a freer proportion And true it is that Religion snatches even at little things and as it teaches us to observe all the great Commandments and significations of duty so it is not willing to pretermit any thing which although by its greatness it cannot of it self be considerable yet by its smallness it may become a testimony of the greatness of the affection which would not omit the least minutes of love and duty And therefore when the Jews were scandalized at the Disciples of our Lord for rubbing the ears of corn on the Sabbath-day as they walked through the fields early in the morning they intended their reproof not for breaking the Rest of the day but the Solemnity for eating before the publick Devotions were finished Christ excused it by the necessity and charity of the act they were
hungry and therefore having so great need they might lawfully do it meaning that such particles and circumstances of Religion are not to be neglected unless where greater cause of charity or necessity does supervene 2. But when Fasting is in order to greater and more concerning purposes it puts on more Religion and becomes a duty according as it is necessary or highly conducing to such ends to the promoting of which we are bound to contribute all our skill and faculties Fasting is principally operative to mortification of carnal appetites to which Feasting and full tables do minister aptness and power and inclinations When I fed them to the full then they committed adultery and assembled by troups in the Harlots houses And if we observe all our own vanities we shall find that upon every sudden joy or a prosperous accident or an opulent fortune or a pampered body and highly spirited and inflamed we are apt to rashness levities inconsiderate expressions scorn and pride idleness wantonness curiosity niceness and impatience But Fasting is one of those afflictions which reduces our body to want our spirits to soberness our condition to sufferance our desires to abstinence and customes of denial and so by taking off the inundations of sensuality leaves the enemies within in a condition of being easier subdued Fasting directly advances towards Chastity and by consequence and indirect powers to Patience and Humility and Indifferency But then it is not the Fast of a day that can do this it is not an act but a state of Fasting that operates to Mortification A perpetual Temperance and frequent abstinence may abate such proportions of strength and nutriment as to procure a body mortified and 〈◊〉 in desires And thus S. Paul kept his body under using severities to it for the taming its rebellions and distemperatures And S. Jerom reports of S. Hilarion that when he had fasted much and used course diet and found his Lust too strong for such austerities he resolv'd to encrease it to the degree of Mastery lessening his diet and encreasing his hardship till he should rather think of food than wantonness And many times the Fastings of some men are ineffectual because they promise themselves cure too soon or make too gentle applications or put less proportions into their antidotes I have read of a Maiden that seeing a young man much transported with her love and that he ceased not to importune her with all the violent pursuits that passion could suggest told him she had made a Vow to fast forty days with bread and water of which she must discharge her self before she could think of corresponding to any other desire and desired of him as a testimony of his love that he also would be a party in the same Vow The young man undertook it that he might give probation of his love but because he had been used to a delicate and nice kind of life in twenty days he was so weakned that he thought more of death than love and so got a cure for his intemperance and was wittily cousened into remedy But S. Hierom's counsel in this Question is most reasonable not allowing violent and long fasts and then returns to an ordinary course for these are too great changes of diet to consist with health and too sudden and transient to obtain a permanent and natural effect but a belly always hungry a table never full a meal little and necessary no extravagancies no freer repast this is a state of Fasting which will be found to be of best avail to suppress pungent Lusts and rebellious desires And it were well to help this exercise with the assistences of such austerities which teach Patience and ingenerate a passive fortitude and accustome us to a despight of pleasures and which are consistent with our health For if Fasting be left to do the work alone it may chance either to spoil the body or not to spoil the Lust. Hard lodging 〈◊〉 garments laborious postures of prayer journies on foot sufferance of cold paring away the use of ordinary solaces denying every pleasant appetite rejecting the most pleasant morsels these are in the rank of bodily exercises which though as S. Paul says of themselves they profit little yet they accustome us to acts of self-denial in exteriour instances and are not useless to the designs of mortifying carnal and sensual lusts They have a proportion of wisdome with these cautions viz. in will-worship that is in voluntary susception when they are not imposed as necessary Religion in humility that is without contempt of others that use them not in neglecting of the body that is when they are done for discipline and mortification that the flesh by such handlings and rough usages become less satisfied and more despised 3. As Fasting hath respect to the future so also to the present and so it operates in giving assistence to Prayer There is a kind of Devil that is not to be ejected but by prayer and fasting that is Prayer elevated and made intense by a defecate and pure spirit not loaden with the burthen of meat and vapours S. Basil affirms that there are certain Angels deputed by God to minister and to describe all such in every Church who mortifie themselves by Fasting as if paleness and a meagre visage were that mark in the forehead which the Angel observed when he signed the Saints in Jerusalem to escape the Judgment Prayer is the wings of the Soul and Fasting is the wings of Prayer Tertullian calls it the nourishment of Prayer But this is a Discourse of Christian Philosophy and he that chuses to do any act of spirit or understanding or attention after a full meal will then perceive that Abstinence had been the better disposition to any intellectual and spiritual action And therefore the Church of God ever joyned Fasting to their more solemn offices of Prayer The Apostles fasted and prayed when they laid hands and invocated the Holy Ghost upon Saul and Barnabas And these also when they had prayed with fasting ordained Elders in the Churches of Lystra and Iconium And the Vigils of every Holy-day tell us that the Devotion of the Festival is promoted by the Fast of the Vigils 4. But when Fasting relates to what is past it becomes an instrument of Repentance it is a punitive and an 〈◊〉 action an effect of godly sorrow a testimony of contrition a judging of our selves and chastening our bodies that we be not judged of the Lord. The Fast of the Ninevites and the Fast the Prophet Joel calls for and the Discipline of the Jews in the rites of Expiation proclaim this usefulness of Fasting in order to Repentance And indeed it were a strange Repentance that had no sorrow in it and a stranger sorrow that had no affliction but it were the strangest scene of affliction in the world when the sad and afflicted person shall eat
and therefore less likely to deceive for which reason it is said that he shall deceive if it were possible the very elect that is therefore not possible because that by which he insinuates himself to others is by the elect the Church and chosen of God understood to be his sign and mark of discovery and a warning And therefore as the Prophecies of Jesus were an infinite verification of his Miracles so also this Prophecy of Christ concerning Antichrist disgraces the reputation and faith of the Miracles he shall act The old Prophets foretold of the Messias and of his Miracles of power and mercy to prepare for his reception and entertainment Christ alone and his Apostles from him foretold of Antichrist and that he should come in all Miracles of deception and lying that is with true or false Miracles to perswade a lie and this was to prejudice his being accepted according to the Law of Moses So that as all that spake of Christ bade us believe him for the Miracles so all that foretold of Antichrist bade us disbelieve him the rather for his and the reason of both is the same because the mighty and surer word of Prophecy as S. Peter calls it being the greatest testimony in the world of a Divine principle gives authority or reprobates with the same power They who are the predestinate of God and they that are the praesciti the foreknown and marked people must needs stand or fall to the Divine sentence and such must this be acknowledged for no enemy of the Cross not the Devil himself ever foretold such a contingency or so rare so personal so voluntary so unnatural an event as this of the great Antichrist 12. And thus the Holy Jesus having shewed forth the treasures of his Father's Wisdom in Revelations and holy Precepts and upon the stock of his Father's greatness having dispended and demonstrated great power in Miracles and these being instanced in acts of Mercy he mingled the glories of Heaven to transmit them to earth to raise us up to the participations of Heaven he was pleased by healing the bodies of infirm persons to invite their spirits to his Discipline and by his power to convey healing and by that mercy to lead us into the treasures of revelation that both Bodies and Souls our Wills and Understandings by Divine instruments might be brought to Divine perfections in the participations of a Divine nature It was a miraculous mercy that God should look upon us in our bloud and a miraculous condescension that his Son should take our nature and even this favour we could not believe without many Miracles and so contrary was our condition to all possibilities of happiness that if Salvation had not marched to us all the way in Miracle we had perished in the ruines of a sad eternity And now it would be but reasonable that since God for our sakes hath rescinded so many laws of natural establishment we also for his and for our own would be content to do violence to those natural inclinations which are also criminal when they derive into action Every man living in the state of Grace is a perpetual Miracle and his Passions are made reasonable as his Reason is turned to Faith and his Soul to Spirit and his Body to a Temple and Earth to Heaven and less than this will not dispose us to such glories which being the portion of Saints and Angels and the nearest communications with God are infinitely above what we see or hear or understand The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu who didst receive great power that by it thou mightest convey thy Father's mercies to us impotent and wretched people give me grace to believe that heavenly Doctrine which thou didst ratifie with arguments from above that I may fully assent to all those mysterious Truths which integrate that Doctrine and Discipline in which the obligations of my duty and the hopes of my felicity are deposited And to all those glorious verifications of thy Goodness and thy Power add also this Miracle that I who am stained with Leprosie of sin may be cleansed and my eyes may be opened that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law and raise thou me up from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that I may for ever walk in the land of the living abhorring the works of death and darkness that as I am by thy miraculous mercy partaker of the first so also I may be accounted worthy of the second Resurrection and as by Faith Hope Charity and Obedience I receive the fruit of thy Miracles in this life so in the other I may partake of thy Glories which is a mercy above all Miracles Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean Lord I believe help mine unbelief and grant that no 〈◊〉 or incapacity of mine may hinder the wonderful operations of thy Grace but let it be thy first Miracle to turn my water into wine my barrenness into fruitfulness my aversations from thee into unions and intimate adhesions to thy infinity which is the fountain of mercy and power Grant this for thy mercie 's sake and for the honour of those glorious Attributes in which thou hast revealed thy self and thy Father's excellencies to the world O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The End of the Second Part. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Second Year of his PREACHING until his ASCENSION WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE THIRD PART Seneca apud Lactant. lib. 6. c. 17. Hic est ille homo qui sive toto corpore tormenta patienda sunt sive flamma ore recipienda est sive extendenda per patibulum manus non quaerit quid patiatur sed quà m bene LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675 TO The Right Honourable and Vertuous Lady The LADY FRANCES Countess of CARBERY MADAM SInce the Divine Providence hath been pleased to bind up the great breaches of my little fortune by your Charity and Nobleness of a religious tenderness I account it an excellent circumstance and handsomeness of condition that I have the fortune of S. Athanasius to have my Persecution relieved and comforted by an Honourable and Excellent Lady and I have nothing to return for this honour done to me but to do as the poor Paralyticks and infirm people in the Gospel did when our Blessed Saviour cured them they went and told it to all the Countrey and made the Vicinage full of the report as themselves were of health and joy And although I know the modesty of your person and Religion had rather do favours than own them yet give me leave to draw aside the curtain and retirement of your Charity for I had rather your vertue should blush than my unthankfulness make me ashamed Madam I intended by this Address not onely to return you spirituals for
weekly Sabbath the Disciples of Jesus pull ripe 〈◊〉 of corn rub them in their hands and eat them to satisfie their hunger For which he offered satisfaction to their scruples convincing them that works of necessity are to be permitted even to the breach of a positive temporary constitution and that works of Mercy are the best serving of God upon any day whatsoever or any part of the day that is vacant to other offices and proper for a religious Festival 3. But when neither Reason nor Religion would give them satisfaction but that they went about to kill him he withdrew himself from Jerusalem and returned to Galilee whither the Scribes and Pharisees followed him observing his actions and whether or no he would prosecute that which they called profanation of their Sabbath by doing acts of Mercy upon that day He still did so For entring into one of the Synagogues of Galilee upon the Sabbath Jesus saw a man whom S. Hierom reports to have been a Mason coming to Tyre and complaining that his hand was withered and desiring help of him that he might again be restored to the use of his hands lest he should be compelled with misery and shame to beg his bread Jesus restored his hand as whole as the other in the midst of all those spies and enemies Upon which act being confirmed in their malice the Pharisees went forth and joyned with the Herodians a Sect of people who said Herod was the Messias because by the decree of the Roman Senate when the Sceptre departed from Judah he was declared King and both together took counsel how they might kill him 4. Jesus therefore departed again to the sea-coast and his companies encreased as his fame for he was now followed by new multitudes from Galilee from Judaea from Jerusalem from Idumaea 〈◊〉 beyond Jordan from about Tyre and Sidon who hearing the report of his miraculous power to cure all diseases by the word of his mouth or the touch of his hand or the handling his garment came with their ambulatory hospital of sick and their possessed and they pressed on him but to touch him and were all immediately cured The Devils confessing publickly that he was the Son of God till they were upon all such occasions restrained and compelled to silence 5. But now Jesus having commanded a ship to be in readiness against any inconvenience or troublesome pressures of the multitude went up into a mountain to pray and continued in prayer all night intending to make the first ordination of Apostles which the next day he did chusing out of the number of his Disciples these twelve to be Apostles Simon Peter and Andrew James and John the sons of thunder Philip and Bartholomew Matthew and Thomas James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zelot Judas the brother of James and Judas 〈◊〉 With these descending from the mountain to the plain he repeated the same Sermon or much of it which he had before preached in the first beginning of his Prophesyings that he might publish his Gospel to these new Auditors and also more particularly inform his Apostles in the Doctrine of the Kingdom for now because he saw Israel scattered like sheep having no Shepherd he did purpose to send these twelve abroad to preach Repentance and the approximation of the Kingdom and therefore first instructed them in the mysterious parts of his holy Doctrine and gave them also particular instructions together with their temporary commission for that journey 6. For Jesus sent them out by two and two giving them power over unclean spirits and to heal all manner of sickness and diseases telling them they were the light and the eyes and the salt of the world so intimating their duties of diligence holiness and incorruption giving them in charge to preach the Gospel to dispense their power and Miracles freely as they had received it to anoint sick persons with oil not to enter into any Samaritan Town but to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to provide no viaticum for their journeys but to put themselves upon the Religion and Piety of their Proselytes he arms them against persecutions gives them leave to slye the storm from City to City promises them the assistances of his Spirit encourages them by his own example of long-sufferance and by instances of Divine providence expressed even to creatures of smallest value and by promise of great rewards to the confident confession of his Name and furnishes them with some propositions which are like so many bills of exchange upon the trust of which they might take up necessaries promising great retributions not only to them who quit any thing of value for the sake of Jesus but to them that offer a cup of water to a thirsty Disciple And with these instructions they departed to preach in the Cities 7. And Jesus returning to Capernaum received the address of a faithful Centurion of the Legion called the Iron Legion which usually quartered in Judaea in behalf of his servant whom he loved and who was grievously afflicted with the Palsie and healed him as a reward and honour to his Faith And from thence going to the City Naim he raised to life the only son of a widow whom the mourners followed in the street bearing the corps sadly to his funeral Upon the fame of these and divers other Miracles John the Baptist who was still in prison for he was not put to death till the latter end of this year sent two of his Disciples to him by divine providence or else by John's designation to minister occasion of his greater publication enquiring if he was the Messias To whom Jesus returned no answer but a Demonstration taken from the nature of the thing and the glory of the Miracles saying Return to John and tell him what ye see for the deaf hear the blind see the lame walk the dead are raised and the lepers are cleansed and to the poor the Gospel is preached which were the Characteristick notes of the Messias according to the predictions of the holy Prophets 6. When John's Disciples were gone with this answer Jesus began to speak concerning John of the austerity and holiness of his person the greatness of his function the Divinity of his commission saying that he was greater than a Prophet a burning and shining light the Elias that was to come and the consummation or ending of the old Prophets Adding withall that the perverseness of that Age was most notorious in the entertainment of himself and the Baptist for neither could the Baptist who came neither eating nor drinking that by his austerity and mortified deportment he might invade the judgment and affections of the people nor Jesus who came both eating and drinking that by a moderate and an affable life framed to the compliance and common use of men he might sweetly insinuate into the affections of the multitude obtain belief amongst them They could object
in the same mystical Head is an adunation nearer to identity than those distances between Parents and Children which are only cemented by the actions of Nature as it is of distinct consideration from the spirit For Jesus pointing to his Disciples said Behold my Mother and my Brethren for whosoever doth the will of my Father which is in heaven he is my Brother and Sister and Mother 14. But the Pharisees upon the occasion of the Miracles renewed the old quarrel He casteth out Devils by Beelzebub Which senseless and illiterate objection Christ having confuted charged them highly upon the guilt of an unpardonable crime telling them that the so charging those actions of his done in the virtue of the Divine Spirit is a sin against the Holy Ghost and however they might be bold with the Son of Man and prevarications against his words or injuries to his person might upon Repentance and Baptism find a pardon yet it was a matter of greater consideration to sin against the Holy Ghost that would find no pardon here nor hereafter But taking occasion upon this discourse he by an ingenious and mysterious Parable gives the world great caution of recidivation and backsliding after Repentance For if the Devil returns into a house once swept and garnished he bringeth seven spirits more impure than himself and the last estate of that man is worse than the first 15. After this Jesus went from the house of the Pharisee and coming to the Sea of Tiberias or Genezareth for it was called the Sea of Tiberias from a Town on the banks of the Lake taught the people upon the shore himself sitting in the ship but he taught them by Parables under which were hid mysterious senses which shined through their veil like a bright Sun through an eye closed with a thin eye-lid it being light enough to shew their infidelity but not to dispell those thick Egyptian darknesses which they had contracted by their habitual indispositions and pertinacious aversations By the Parable of the Sower scattering his seed by the way side and some on stony some on thorny some on good ground he intimated the several capacities or indispositions of mens hearts the carelesness of some the frowardness and levity of others the easiness and softness of a third and how they are spoiled with worldliness and cares and how many ways there are to miscarry and that but one sort of men receive the word and bring forth the fruits of a holy life By the Parable of Tares permitted to grow amongst the Wheat he intimated the toleration of dissenting Opinions not destructive of Piety or civil societies By the three Parables of the Seed growing insensibly of the grain of Mustard-seed swelling up to a tree of a little Leven qualifying the whole lump he signified the increment of the Gospel and the blessings upon the Apostolical Sermons 16. Which Parables when he had privately to his Apostles rendred into their proper senses he added to them two Parables concerning the dignity of the Gospel comparing it to Treasure hid in a field and a Jewel of great price for the purchace of which every good Merchant must quit all that he hath rather than miss it telling them withall that however purity and spiritual perfections were intended by the Gospel yet it would not be acquired by every person but the publick Professors of Christianity should be a mixt multitude like a net inclosing fishes good and bad After which discourses he retired from the Sea side and went to his own City of Nazareth where he preached so excellently upon certain words of the Prophet 〈◊〉 that all the people wondred at the wisdom which he expressed in his Divine discourses But the men of Nazareth did not do honour to the Prophet that was their Countryman because they knew him in all the disadvantages of youth and kindred and trade and poverty still retaining in their minds the infirmities and humilities of his first years and keeping the same apprehensions of him a man and a glorious Prophet which they had to him a child in the shop of a Carpenter But when Jesus in his Sermon had reproved their infidelity at which he wondred and therefore did but few Miracles there in respect of what he had done at Capernaum and intimated the prelation of that City before 〈◊〉 they thrust him out of the City and led him to the brow of the hill on which the City was built intending to throw him down headlong But his work was not yet finished therefore he passing through the midst of them went his way 17. Jesus therefore departing from Nazareth went up and down to all the Towns and Castles of Galilce attended by his Disciples and certain women out of whom he had cast unclean spirits such as were Mary Magdalen Johanna wife to Chuza Herod's Steward Susanna and some others who did for him offices of provision and ministred to him out of their own substance and became parts of that holy Colledge which about this time began to be 〈◊〉 because now the Apostles were returned from their Preaching full of joy that the Devils were made subject to the word of their mouth and the Empire of their Prayers and invocation of the holy Name of Jesus But their Master gave them a lenitive to asswage the tumour and excrescency intimating that such priviledges are not solid foundations of a holy joy but so far as they cooperate toward the great end of God's glory and their own Salvation to which when they are consigned and their names written in Heaven in the book of Election and Registers of Predestination then their joy is reasonable holy true and perpetual 18. But when Herod had heard these things of Jesus presently his apprehensions were such as derived from his guilt he thought it was John the Baptist who was risen from the dead and that these mighty works were demonstrations of his power increased by the superadditions of immortality and diviner influences made proportionable to the honour of a Martyr and the state of separation For a little before this time Herod had sent to the Castle of Macheruns where John was prisoner and caused him to be beheaded His head Herodias buried in her own Palace thinking to secure it against a re-union lest it should again disturb her unlawful Lusts and disquiet Herod's conscience But the body the Disciples of John gathered up and carried it with honour and sorrow and buried it in Sebaste in the confines of Samaria making his grave between the bodies of 〈◊〉 and Abdias the Prophets And about this time was the Passeover of the Jews DISCOURSE XV. Of the Excellency Ease Reasonableness and Advantages of bearing Christ ' s Yoke and living according to his Institution Ecce agnus Dei gui toâ—lit peccata Mundi Iohn 1. 29. Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the World The Christian's Work and Reward Matth. 11. 29 30. Take my yoke upon
you learn of me For my yoke is easie my burthen is light Revel 2 10. Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life 1 Cor. 9. 24 25. So run that ye may obtain Every man that striueth for y e mastery is temperate in all things now they do it to obtain a corrupible crown but we an incorruptible THE Holy Jesus came to break from off our necks two great yokes the one of Sin by which we were fettered and imprisoned in the condition of slaves and miserable persons the other of Moses's Law by which we were kept in pupillage and minority and a state of Imperfection and asserted us into the glorious liberty of the sons of God The first was a Despotick Empire and the Government of a Tyrant the second was of a School-master severe absolute and imperious but it was in order to a farther good yet nothing pleasant in the sufferance and load And now Christ having taken off these two hath put on a third He quits us of our Burthen but not of our Duty and hath changed the former Tyranny and the less-perfect Discipline into the sweetness of paternal regiment and the excellency of such an Institution whose every Precept carries part of its reward in hand and assurances of after-glories Moses's Law was like sharp and unpleasant Physick certainly painful but uncertainly healthful For it was not then communicated to them by promise and universal revelations that the end of their Obedience should be Life eternal but they were full of hopes it might be so as we are of health when we have a learned and wise Physician But as yet the Reward was in a cloud and the hopes in fetters and confinement But the Law of Christ is like Christ's healing of diseases he does it easily and he does it infallibly The event is certainly consequent and the manner of cure is by a touch of his hand or a word of his mouth or an approximation to the hem of his garment without pain and vexatious instruments My meaning is that Christianity is by the assistance of Christ's spirit which he promised us and gave us in the Gospel made very easie to us And yet a reward so great is promised as were enough to make a lame man to walk and a broken arm endure the burthen a reward great enough to make us willing to do violence to all our inclinations passions and desires A hundred weight to a giant is a light burthen because his strength is disproportionably great and makes it as easie to him as an ounce is to a child And yet if we had not the strength of giants if the hundred weight were of Gold or Jewels a weaker person would think it no trouble to bear that burthen if it were the reward of his portage and the hire of his labours The Spirit is given to us to enable us and Heaven is promised to encourage us the first makes us able and the second makes us willing and when we have power and affections we cannot complain of pressure And this is the meaning of our Blessed Saviour's invitation Come to me for my burthen is light my 〈◊〉 is easie which S. John also observed For this is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not grievous For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh even our Faith that is our belief of God's promises the promise of the Spirit for present aid and of Heaven for the future reward is strength enough to overcome all the world 2. But besides that God hath made his yoke easie by exteriour supports more than ever was in any other Religion Christianity is of it self according to humane estimate a Religion more easie and desirable by our natural and reasonable appetites than Sin in the midst of all its pleasures and imaginary felicities Vertue hath more pleasure in it than Sin and hath all satisfactions to every desire of man in order to humane and prudent ends which I shall represent in the consideration of these particulars 〈◊〉 To live according to the Laws of Jesus is in some things most natural and proportionable to the desires and first intentions of Nature 2. There is in it less trouble than in Sin 3. It conduces infinitely to the content of our lives and natural and political satisfactions 4. It is a means to preserve our temporal lives long and healthy 5. It is most reasonable and he only is prudent that does so and he a fool that does not And all this besides the considerations of a glorious and happy Eternity 3. Concerning the First I consider that we do very ill when in stead of making our Natural infirmity an instrument of Humility and of recourse to the grace of God we pretend the sin of Adam to countenance our actual sins natural infirmity to excuse our malice either laying Adam in fault for deriving the disability upon us or God for putting us into the necessity But the 〈◊〉 that we feel in this are from the rebellion of the inferiour Appetite against Reason or against any Religion that puts restraint upon our first desires And therefore in carnal and sensual instances accidentally we 〈◊〉 the more natural averseness because God's Laws have put our irascible and concupiscible faculties in fetters and restraints yet in matters of duty which are of immaterial and spiritual concernment all our natural reason is a perfect enemy and contradiction to and a Law against Vice It is natural for us to love our Parents and they who do not are unnatural they do violence to those dispositions which God gave us to the constitution of our Nature and for the designs of Vertue and all those tendernesses of affection those bowels and relenting dispositions which are the endearments of Parents and Children are also the bands of duty Every degree of love makes duty delectable and therefore either by nature we are inclined to hate our Parents which is against all reason and experience or else we are by nature enclined to do to them all that which is the effect of love to such Superiours and principles of being and dependency and every prevarication from the rule effects and expresses of love is a contradiction to Nature and a mortification to which we cannot be invited by any thing from within but by something from without that is violent and preternatural There are also many other vertues even in the matter of sensual appetite which none can lose but by altering in some degree the natural disposition And I instance in the matter of Carnality and Uncleanness to which possibly some natures may think themselves apt and disposed but yet God hath put into our mouths a bridle to curb the licentiousness of our speedy appetite putting into our very natures a principle as strong to restrain it as there is in us a disposition apt to invite us and this is
that is to come That is plain And although Christ revealed his Father's mercies to us in new expresses and great abundance yet he took nothing from the world which ever did in any sense invite Piety or indear Obedience or cooperate towards Felicity And 〈◊〉 the Promises which were made of old are also presupposed in the new and mentioned by intimation and implication within the greater When our Blessed Saviour in seven of the Eight Beatitudes had instanced in new Promises and Rewards as Heaven Seeing of God Life eternal in one of them to which Heaven is as certainly consequent as to any of the rest he did chuse to instance in a temporal blessing and in the very words of the Old Testament to shew that that part of the old Covenant which concerns Morality and the rewards of Obedience remains firm and included within the conditions of the Gospel 16. To this purpose is that saying of our Blessed Saviour Man liveth not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God meaning that besides natural means ordained for the preservation of our lives there are means supernatural and divine God's Blessing does as much as bread nay it is Every word proceeding out of the 〈◊〉 of God that is every Precept and Commandment of God is so for our good that it is intended as food and Physick to us a means to make us live long And therefore God hath done in this as in other graces and issues Evangelical which he purposed to continue in his Church for ever He first gave it in miraculous and extraordinary manner and then gave it by way of perpetual ministery The Holy Ghost appeared at first like a prodigy and with Miracle he descended in visible representments expressing himself in revelations and powers extraordinary but it being a Promise intended to descend upon all Ages of the Church there was appointed a perpetual ministery for its conveyance and still though without a sign or miraculous representment it is ministred in Confirmation by imposition of the Bishop's hands And thus also health and long life which by way of ordinary benediction is consequent to Piety Faith and Obedience Evangelical was at first given in a miraculous manner that so the ordinary effects being at first confirmed by miraculous and extraordinary instances and manners of operation might for ever after be confidently expected without any dubitation since it was in the same manner consigned by which all the whole Religion was by a voice from Heaven and a verification of Miracles and extraordinary supernatural effects That the gift of healing and preservation and restitution of life was at first miraculous needs no particular probation All the story of the Gospel is one entire argument to prove it and amongst the fruits of the Spirit S. Paul reckons gifts of healing and government and helps or exteriour assistences and advantages to represent that it was intended the life of Christian people should be happy and healthful for ever Now that this grace also descended afterwards in an ordinary ministery is recorded by S. James Is any man sick amongst you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with oyl in the name of the Lord that was then the ceremony and the blessing and effect is still for the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up For it is observable that the blessing of healing and recovery is not appendent to the Anealing but to the Prayer of the Church to manifest that the ceremony went with the first miraculous and extraordinary manner yet that there was an ordinary ministery appointed for the daily conveyance of the blessing the faithful prayers offices of holy Priests shall obtain life and health to such persons who are receptive of it and in spiritual and apt dispositions And when we see by a continual flux of extraordinary benediction that even some Christian Princes are instruments of the Spirit not only in the government but in the gifts of healing too as a reward for their promoting the just interests of Christianity we may acknowledge our selves convinced that a holy life in the faith and obedience of Jesus Christ may be of great advantage for our health and life by that instance to entertain our present desires and to establish our hopes of life eternal 17. For I consider that the fear of God is therefore the best antidote in the World against sickness and death because it is the direct enemy to sin which brought in sickness and death and besides this that God by spiritual means should produce alterations natural is not hard to be understood by a Christian Philosopher take him in either of the two capacities 2. For there is a rule of proportion and analogy of effects that if sin destroys not only the Soul but the Body also then may Piety preserve both and that much rather for if sin that is the effects and consequents of sin hath abounded then shall grace superabound that is Christ hath done us more benefit than the Fall of Adam hath done us injury and therefore the effects of sin are not greater upon the body than either are to be restored or prevented by a pious life 3. There is so near a conjunction between Soul and Body that it is no wonder if God meaning to glorifie both by the means of a spiritual life suffers spirit and matter to communicate in effects and mutual impresses Thus the waters of Baptism purifie the Soul and the Holy Eucharist not the symbolical but the mysterious and spiritual part of it makes the Body also partaker of the death 〈◊〉 Christ and a holy union The flames of Hell whatsoever they are torment accursed Souls and the stings of Conscience vex and disquiet the Body 4. And if we consider that in the glories of Heaven when we shall live a life purely spiritual our Bodies also are so clarified and made spiritual that they also become immortal that state of Glory being nothing else but a perfection of the state of Grace it is not unimaginable but that the Soul may have some proportion of the same operation upon the Body as to conduce to its prolongation as to an antepast of immortality 5. For since the Body hath all its life from its conjunction with the Soul why not also the perfection of life according to its present capacity that is health and duration from the perfection of the Soul I mean from the ornaments of Grace And as the blessedness of the Soul saith the Philosopher consists in the speculation of honest and just things so the perfection of the Body and of the whole Man consists in the practick the exercise and operations of Vertue 18. But this Problem in Christian Philosophy is yet more intelligible and will be reduced to certain experience if we consider good life in union and concretion with particular
then such persons are infinitely distant from wisdome whose understanding neither Reason nor Revelation hath carried farther than the present adherencies not only because they are narrow souls who cannot look forward and have nothing to distinguish them from beasts who enjoy the present being careless of what is to come but also because whatsoever is present is not fit satisfaction to the spirit nothing but gluttings of the sense and sottish appetites Moses was a wise person and so esteemed and reported by the Spirit of God because he despised the pleasures of Pharaoh's Court having an eye to the recompence of reward that is because he despised all 〈◊〉 present arguments of delight and preferred those excellencies which he knew should 〈◊〉 infinitely greater as well as he knew they should be at all He that would have rather chosen to stay in the Theatre and see the sports out then quit the present Spectacle upon assurance to be adopted into Caesar's family had an offer made him too great for a fool and yet his misfortune was not big enough for pity because he understood nothing of his felicity and rejected what he understood not But he that prefers moments before eternity and despises the infinite successions of eternal Ages that he may enjoy the present not daring to trust God for what he sees not and having no objects of his affections but those which are the objects of his eyes hath the impatience of a child and the indiscretion of a fool and the faithlesness of an unbeliever The Faith and Hope of a Christian are the graces and portions of spiritual wisdome which Christ designed as an antidote against this folly 29. Secondly Children and fools chuse to please their Senses rather than their Reason because they still dwell within the regions of Sense and have but little residence amongst intellectual essences And because the needs of Nature first imploy our sensual appetites these being first in possession would also fain retain it and therefore for ever continue their title and perpetually fight for it but because the inferiour faculty fighting against the superiour is no better than a Rebel and that it takes Reason for its enemy it shews such actions which please the Sense and do not please the Reason to be unnatural monstrous and unreasonable And it is a great disreputation to the understanding of a man to be so cozened and deceived as to chuse Money before a moral Vertue to please that which is common to him and beasts rather than that part which is a communication of the Divine nature to see him run after a bubble which himself hath made and the Sun hath particoloured and to despise a treasure which is offered to him to call him off from pursuing that emptiness and nothing But so does every vicious person feeds upon husks and loaths Manna worships Cats and Onions the beggarly and basest of Egyptian Deities and neglects to adore and honour the eternal God he prefers the society of Drunkards before the communion of Saints or the fellowship of Harlots before a quire of pure chast and immaterial Angels the sickness and filth of Luxury before the health and purities of Chastity and Temperance a dish of red lentil pottage before a Benison Drink before Immortality Money before Mercy Wantonness before the severe Precepts of Christian Philosophy Earth before Heaven Folly before the crowns and 〈◊〉 and glories of a Kingdom Against this folly Christian Religion opposes 〈◊〉 of things below and setting our affections on things above 30. Thirdly Children and fools propound to themselves Ends silly low and cheap the getting of a nut-shel or a bag of cherry-stones a gaud to entertain the fancy of a few minutes and in order to such ends direct their counsels and designs And indeed in this they are innocent But persons not living according to the Discipline of Christianity are as foolish in the designation of their Ends chusing things as unprofitable and vain to themselves and yet with many mixtures of malice and injuriousness both to themselves and others His end is to cozen his Brother of a piece of Land or to disgrace him by telling of a lie to supplant his fortune to make him miserable Ends which wise men and good men look upon as miseries and persecutions instruments of affliction and regret because every man is a member of a society and hath some common terms of union and conjuncture which make all the body susceptive of all accidents to any part And it is a great folly for pleasing of the eye to snatch a knife which cuts our fingers to bring affliction upon my brother or relative which either must affect me or else I am an useless a base or dead person The ends of Vice are ignoble and dishonourable to discompose the quiet of a family or to create jealousies or to raise wars or to make a man less happy or apparently miserable or to fish for the Devil and gain Souls to our Enemy or to please a passion that undoes us or to get something that cannot satisfie us this is the chain of counsels and the great aims of unchristian livers they are all of them extreme great miseries And it is a great undecency for a man to propound an end less and more imperfect than our present condition as if we went about to unravel our present composure and to unite every degree of essence and capacity and to retire back to our first matter and unshapen state hoping to get to our journey's end by going backwards Against this folly the Holy Jesus opposed the Fourth Beatitude or Precept of hungring and thirsting after Righteousness 31. Fourthly But children and fools what-ever their ends be they pursue them with as much weakness and folly as they first chose them with indiscretion running to broken cisterns or to puddles to quench their thirst When they are hungry they make phantastick banquets or put Coloquintida into their pottage that they may be furnished with pot-herbs or are like the Asse that desired to flatter his Master and therefore fawned upon him like a Spaniel and bruised his shoulders Such undecencies of means and prosecutions of interests we find in unchristian courses It may be-they propound to themselves Riches for their end and they use Covetousness for their means and that brings nought home or else they steal to get it and they are apprehended and made to restore fourfold Like moths gnawing a garment they devour their own house and by greediness of desire they destroy their content making impatience the parent and instrument of all their 〈◊〉 Or they are so greedy and imaginative and have raised their expectation by an over-valuing esteem of temporary felicities that when they come they fall short of their promises and are indeed less than they 〈◊〉 have been by being before-hand apprehended greater than they could be If their design be to represent themselves innocent and guiltless of a suspicion or a fault
they deny the fact and double it When they would repair their losses they fall to Gaming and besides that they are infinitely full of fears passions wrath and violent disturbances in the various chances of their game that which they use to restore their 〈◊〉 ruines even the little remnant and condemns them to beggery or what is worse Thus evil men 〈◊〉 for content out of things that cannot satisfie and take care to get that content that is they raise War to enjoy present Peace and renounce all Content to get it They strive to depress their Neighbours that they may be their equals to disgrace them to get reputation to themselves which arts being ignoble do them the most disparagement and resolve never to enter into the felicities of God by content taken in the prosperities of man which is a making our selves wretched by being wicked Malice and Envy is indeed a mighty curse and the Devil can shew us nothing more foolish and unreasonable than Envy which is in its very formality a curse an eating of coals and vipers because my neighbour's table is full and his cup is crowned with health and plenty The Christian Religion as it chuseth excellent ends so it useth proportionate and apt means The most contradictory accident in the world when it becomes hallowed by a pious and Christian design becomes a certain means of felicity and content To quit our lands for Christ's sake will certainly make us rich to depart from our friends will encrease our relations and beneficiaries but the striving to secure our temporal interests by any other means than obedient actions or obedient sufferings is declared by the Holy Jesus to be the greatest improvidence and ill husbandry in the world Even in this world Christ will repay us an hundred fold for all our losses which we suffer for the interests of Christianity In the same proportion we find that all Graces do the work of humane felicities with a more certain power and 〈◊〉 effect than their contraries Gratitude endears Benefits and procures more Friendships Confession gets a Pardon Impudence and lying doubles the fault and exasperates the offended person Innocence is bold and rocks a man asleep but an evil Conscience is a continual alarm Against this folly of using disproportionate means in order to their ends the Holy Jesus hath opposed the Eight Beatitudes which by contradictions of nature and improbable causes according to humane and erring estimate bring our best and wisest ends to pass infallibly and divinely 32. But this is too large a field to walk in for it represents all the flatteries of sin to be a mere cozenage and deception of the Understanding and we find by this scrutiny that evil and unchristian persons are infinitely unwise because they neglect the counsel of their superiours and their guides They dote passionately upon trifles they rely upon false foundations and deceiving principles they are most confident when they are most abused they are like shelled fish singing loudest when their house is on fire about their ears and being merriest when they are most miserable and perishing when they have the option of two things they ever chuse the worst they are not masters of their own actions but break all purposes at the first temptation they take more pains to do themselves a mischief than would 〈◊〉 Heaven that is they are rude ignorant foolish unwary and undiscerning people in all senses and to all purposes and are incurable but by their Obedience and conformity to the Holy Jesus the eternal Wisdome of the Father 33. Upon the strength of these premisses the yoke of Christianity must needs be apprehended light though it had in it more pressure than it hath because lightness or heaviness being relative terms are to be esteemed by comparison to others Christianity is far easier than the yoke of Moses's Law not only because it consists of fewer Rites but also because those perfecting and excellent Graces which integrate the body of our Religion are made easie by God's assisting and the gifts of the Holy Ghost and we may yet make it easier by Love and by Fear which are the proper products of the Evangelical Promises and Threatnings For I have seen persons in affrightment have carried burthens and leaped ditches and climbed walls which their natural power could never have done And if we understood the sadnesses of a cursed Eternity from which we are commanded to fly and yet knew how near we are to it and how likely to fall into it it would create fears greater than a sudden fire or a mid-night alarm And those unhappy souls who come to feel this truth when their condition is without remedy are made the more miserable by the apprehension of their stupid folly For certainly the accursed Spirits feel the smart of Hell once doubled upon them by considering by what vain unsatisfying trifles they lost their happiness with what pains they perished and with how great ease they might have been beatified And certain it is Christian Religion hath so furnished us with assistences both exteriour and interiour both of perswasion and advantages that whatsoever Christ hath doubled upon us in perfection he hath alleviated in aids 34. And then if we compare the state of Christianity with Sin all the preceding discourses were intended to represent how much easier it is to be a Christian than a vile and wicked person And he that remembers that whatever fair allurements may be pretended as invitations to a sin are such false and unsatisfying pretences that they drive a man to repent him of his folly and like a great laughter end in a sigh and expire in weariness and indignation must needs confess himself a fool for doing that which he knows will make him repent that he ever did it A sin makes a man afraid when it thunders and in all dangers the sin detracts the visour and affrights him and visits him when he comes to die upbraiding him with guilt and threatning misery So that Christianity is the easiest Law and the easiest state it is more perfect and less troublesome it brings us to Felicity by ways proportionable landing us in rest by easie and unperplexed journeys This Discourse I therefore thought necessary because it reconciles our Religion with those passions and desires which are commonly made the instruments and arguments of sin For we rarely meet with such spirits which love Vertue so metaphysically as to abstract her from all sensible and delicious compositions and love the purity of the Idea S. Lewis the King sent Ivo Bishop of Chartres on an Embassy and he told that he met a grave Matron on the way with fire in one hand and water in the other and observing her to have a melancholick religious and phantastick deportment and look asked her what those symbols meant and what she meant to do with her fire and water She answered My purpose is with the fire to burn Paradise and with my water to quench
the flames of Hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear and purely for the love of God Whether the Woman were onely imaginative and sad or also zealous I know not But God knows he would have few Disciples if the arguments of invitation were not of greater promise than the labours of Vertue are of trouble And therefore the Spirit of God knowing to what we are inflexible and by what we are made most ductile and malleable hath propounded Vertue clothed and dressed with such advantages as may entertain even our Sensitive part and first desires that those also may be invited to Vertue who understand not what is just and reasonable but what is profitable who are more moved with advantage than justice And because emolument is more felt than innocence and a man may be poor for all his gift of 〈◊〉 the Holy Jesus to endear the practices of Religion hath represented Godliness unto us under the notion of gain and sin as unfruitful and yet besides all the natural and reasonable advantages every Vertue hath a supernatural reward a gracious promise attending and every Vice is not only naturally deformed but is made more ugly by a threatning and horrid by an appendent curse Henceforth therefore let no man complain that the Commandments of God are impossible for they are not onely possible but easie and they that say otherwise and do accordingly take more pains to carry the instruments of their own death than would serve to ascertain them of life And if we would do as much for Christ as we have done for Sin we should find the pains less and the pleasure more And therefore such complainers are without excuse for certain it is they that can go in foul ways must not say they cannot walk in fair they that march over rocks in despight of so many impediments can travel the even ways of Religion and Peace when the Holy Jesus is their Guide and the Spirit is their Guardian and infinite felicities are at their journey's end and all the reason of the world political oeconomical and personal do entertain and support them in the travel of the passage The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus who gavest Laws unto the world that man-kind being united to thee by the bands of Obedience might partake of all thy glories and felicities open our understanding give us the spirit of discerning and just apprehension of all the beauties with which thou hast enamelled Vertue to represent it beauteous and amiable in our eyes that by the allurements of exteriour decencies and appendent blessings our present desires may be entertained our hopes promoted our affections satisfied and Love entring in by these doors may dwell in the interiour regions of the Will O make us to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and all the instruments of Religion in order to thy glory and our own felicities Pull off the visors of Sin and discover its deformities by the lantern of thy Word and the light of the Spirit that I may never be bewitched with sottish appetites Be pleased to build up all the contents I expect in this world upon the interests of a vertuous life and the support of Religion that I may be rich in Good works content in the issues of thy Providence my Health may be the result of Temperance and severity my Mirth in spiritual emanations my Rest in Hope my Peace in a good Conscience my Satisfaction and acquiescence in thee that from Content I may pass to an eternal Fulness from Health to Immortality from Grace to Glory walking in the paths of Righteousness by the waters of Comfort to the land of everlasting Rest to feast in the glorious communications of Eternity eternally adoring loving and enjoying the infinity of the ever-Blessed and mysterious Trinity to whom be glory and 〈◊〉 and dominion now and for ever Amen DISCOURSE XVI Of Certainty of Salvation 1. WHen the Holy Jesus took an account of the first Legation and voyage of his Apostles he found them rejoycing in priviledges and exteriour powers in their authority over unclean spirits but weighing it in his balance he found the cause too light and therefore diverted it upon the right object Rejoyce that your names are written in Heaven The revelation was confirmed and more personally applied in answer to S. Peter's Question We have for saken all and followed thee what shall we have therefore Their LORD answered Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel Amongst these persons to whom Christ spake Judas was he was one of the Twelve and he had a throne allotted for him his name was described in the book of life and a Scepter and a Crown was deposited for him too For we must not judge of Christ's meaning by the event since he spake these words to produce in them Faith comfort and joy in the best objects it was a Sermon of duty as well as a Homily of comfort and therefore was equally intended to all the Colledge and since the number of Thrones is proportioned to the number of men it is certain there was no exception of any man there included and yet it is as certain Judas never came to sit upon the throne and his name was blotted out of the book of life Now if we put these ends together that in Scripture it was not revealed to any man concerning his final condition but to the dying penitent Thief and to the twelve Apostles that twelve thrones were designed for them and a promise made of their inthronization and yet that no man's final estate is so clearly declared miserable and lost as that of Judas one of the Twelve to whom a throne was promised the result will be that the election of holy persons is a condition allied to duty absolute and infallible in the general and supposing all the dispositions and requisites concurring but fallible in the particular if we fall off from the mercies of the Covenant and prevaricate the conditions But the thing which is most observable is that if in persons so eminent and priviledged and to whom a revelation of their Election was made as a particular grace their condition had one weak leg upon which because it did rely for one half of the interest it could be no stronger than its supporters the condition of lower persons to whom no revelation is made no priviledges are indulged no greatness of spiritual eminency is appendent as they have no greater certainty in the thing so they have less in person and are therefore to work out their salvation with great fears and tremblings of spirit 2. The purpose of this consideration is that we do not judge of our final condition by any discourses of our own relying upon God's secret Counsels and Predestination of Eternity This is a mountain upon which whosoever climbs like Moses to behold the land of Canaan at great distances may please his eyes or
else Faith and Hope are not two distinct Graces God's 〈◊〉 and vocation are without repentance meaning on God's part but the very people concerning whom S. Paul used the expression were reprobate and cut off and in good time shall be called again in the mean time many single persons perish There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus God will look to that and it will never fail but then they must secure the following period and not walk after the Flesh but after the Spirit Behold the goodness of God towards thee saith S. Paul if thou continue in his goodness otherwise thou also shalt be cut off And if this be true concerning the whole Church of the Gentiles to whom the Apostle then made the address and concerning whose election the decree was publick and manifest that they might be cut off and their abode in God's favour was upon condition of their perseverance in the Faith much more is it true in single persons 〈◊〉 election in particular is shut up in the abyss and permitted to the condition of our Faith and Obedience and the revelations of Dooms-day 7. Certain it is that God hath given to holy persons the Spirit of adoption enabling them to cry Abba Father and to account themselves for sons and by this Spirit we know we dwell in him and therefore it is called in Scripture the earnest of the Spirit though at its first mission and when the Apostle wrote and used this appellative the Holy Ghost was of greater signification and a more visible earnest and endearment of their hopes than it is to most of us since For the visible sending of the Holy Ghost upon many Believers in gifts signs and prodigies was infinite argument to make them expect events as great beyond that as that was beyond the common gifts of men just as Miracles and Prophecy which are gifts of the Holy Ghost were arguments of probation for the whole Doctrine of Christianity And this being a mighty verification of the great Promise the promise of the Father was an apt instrument to raise their hopes and confidences concerning those other Promises which Jesus made the promises of Immortality and eternal life of which the present miraculous Graces of the Holy Spirit were an earnest and in the nature of a contracting peny and still also the Holy Ghost though in another manner is an earnest of the great price of the heavenly calling the rewards of Heaven though not so visible and apparent as at first yet as certain and demonstrative where it is discerned or where it is believed as it is and ought to be in every person who does any part of his duty because by the Spirit we do it and without him we cannot And since we either feel or believe the presence and gifts of the Holy Ghost to holy purposes for whom we receive voluntarily we cannot casily receive without a knowledge of his reception we cannot but entertain him as an argument of greater good hereafter and an earnest-peny of the perfection of the present Grace that is of the rewards of Glory Glory and Grace differing no otherwise than as an earnest in part of payment does from the whole price the price of our high calling So that the Spirit is an earnest not because he always signifies to us that we are actually in the state of Grace but by way of argument or reflexion we know we do belong to God when we receive his Spirit and all Christian people have received him if they were rightly baptized and confirmed I say we know by that testimony that we belong to God that is we are the people with whom God hath made a Covenant to whom he hath promised and intends greater blessings to which the present gifts of the Spirit are in order But all this is conditional and is not an immediate testimony of the certainty and future event but of the event as it is possibly future and may without our fault be reduced to act as certainly as it is promised or as the earnest is given in hand And this the Spirit of God oftentimes tells us in secret visitations and publick testimonies and this is that which S. Paul calls tasting of the heavenly gift and partaking of the Holy Ghost and tasting of the good word of God and the powers of the world to come But yet some that have done so have fallen away and have quenched the Spirit and have given back the earnest of the Spirit and contracted new relations and God hath been their Father no longer for they have done the works of the Devil So that if new Converts be uncertain of their present state old Christians are not absolutely certain they shall persevere They are as sure of it as they can be of future acts of theirs which God hath permitted to their own power But this certainty cannot exclude all fear till their Charity be perfect only according to the strength of their habits so is the confidence of their abodes in Grace 8. Beyond this some holy persons have degrees of perswasion superadded as Largesses and acts of grace God loving to bless one degree of Grace with another till it comes to a Confirmation in Grace which is a state of Salvation directly opposite to Obduration and as this is irremediable and irrecoverable so is the other inamissible as God never saves a person obdurate and obstinately impenitent so he never loses a man whom he hath confirmed in grace whom he so loves he loves unto the end and to others indeed he offers his persevering love but they will not entertain it with a persevering duty they will not be beloved unto the end But I insert this caution that every man that is in this condition of a confirmed Grace does not always know it but sometimes God draws aside the curtains of peace and shews him his throne and visits him with irradiations of glory and sends him a little star to stand over his dwelling and then again covers it with a cloud It is certain concerning some persons that they shall never fall and that God will not permit them to the danger or probability of it to such it is morally impossible but these are but few and themselves know it not as they know a demonstrative proposition but as they see the Sun sometimes breaking from a cloud very brightly but all day long giving necessary and sufficient light 9. Concerning the multitude of Believers this discourse is not pertinent for they only take their own accounts by the imperfections of their own duty blended with the mercies of God the cloud gives light on one side and is dark upon the other and sometimes a bright ray peeps through the fringes of a shower and immediately hides it self that we might be humble and diligent striving forwards and looking upwards endeavouring our duty and longing after Heaven working out our Salvation with fear and trembling and
in good time our calling and 〈◊〉 may be assured when we first according to the precept of the Apostle use all diligence S. Paul when he writ his first Epistle to the Corinthians was more fearful of being reprobate and therefore he used exteriour arts of mortification But when he writ to the Romans which was a good while after we find him more confident of his final condition perswaded that neither height nor depth Angel nor principality nor power could separate him from the love of God in Jesus Christ and when he grew to his latter end when he wrote to S. Timothy he was more confident yet and declared that now a crown of rightcousness was certainly laid up for him for now he had sought the fight and finished his course the time of his departure was at hand Henceforth he knew no more fear his love was perfect as this state would permit and that cast out all fear According to this precedent if we reckon our securities we are not likely to be reproved by any words of Scripture or by the condition of humane infirmity But when the confidence out-runs our growth in Grace it is it self a sin though when the confidence is equal with the Grace it is of it self no regular and universal duty but a blessing and a reward indulged by special dispensation and in order to personal necessities or accidental purposes For only so much hope is simply necessary as excludes despair and encourages our duty and glorifies God and entertains his mercy but that the hope should be without fear is not given but to the highest Faith and the most excellent Charity and to habitual ratified and confirmed Christians and to them also with some variety The summ is this All that are in the state of beginners and imperfection have a conditional Certainty changeable and fallible in respect of us for we meddle not with what it is in God's secret purposes changeable I say as their wills and resolutions They that are grown towards perfection have more reason to be confident and many times are so but still although the strength of the habits of Grace adds degrees of moral certainty to their expectation yet it is but as their condition is hopeful and promising and of a moral determination But to those few to whom God hath given confirmation in Grace he hath also given a certainty of condition and therefore if that be revealed to them their perswasions are certain and infallible If it be not revealed to them their condition is in it self certain but their perswasion is not so but in the highest kind of Hope an anchor of the Soul sure and stedfast The PRAYER O Eternal God whose counsels are in the great deep and thy ways past finding out thou hast built our Faith upon thy Promises our Hopes upon thy Goodness and hast described our paths between the waters of comfort and the dry barren land of our own duties and affections we acknowledge that all our comforts derive from thee and to our selves we owe all our shame and confusions and degrees of desperation Give us the assistances of the Holy Ghost to help us in performing our duty and give us those comforts and visitations of the Holy Ghost which thou in thy 〈◊〉 and eternal wisdom knowest most apt and expedient to encourage our duties to entertain our hopes to alleviate our sadnesses to refresh our spirits and to endure our abode and constant endeavours in the strictnesses of Religion and Sanctity Lead us dearest God from Grace to Grace from imperfection to strength from acts to habits from habits to confirmation in Grace that we may also pass into the regions of comfort receiving the earnest of the Spirit and the adoption of Sons till by such a signature we be consigned to glory and enter into the possession of the inheritance which we expect in the Kingdom of thy Son and in the fruition of the felicities of thee O gracious Father God Eternal Amen SECT XIV Of the Third Year of the Preaching of JESUS Five loaves satisfy so many Thousands Mat 14. 19. And he took the five loaves and the two fishes and looking up to Heaven he blessed and brake and gave the loaves to his Disciples and the Disciples to the Multitude 20. And they did all eat and were filled and they took up the fragments that remayned twelve baskets 21. And they that had eaten were about five Thousand men beside women and Children Lazarus at the rich glutton's gate Luk 16. 19. There was a certain rich man which was Clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously everey day 20. And there was a certain Begger named Lazarus which was layd at his gate full of sores 25. And in Hell he lift up his eyes being in Torments and seeth Abraham a far off and Lazarus in his Bosome 1. BUT Jesus knowing of the death of the Baptist Herod's jealousie and the envy of the Pharisees retired into a desert place beyond the Lake together with his Apostles For the people pressed so upon them they had not leisure to eat But neither there could he be hid but great multitudes flocked thither also to whom he preached many things And afterwards because there were no villages in the neighbourhood lest they should faint in their return to their houses he caused them to sit down upon the grass and with five loaves of barley and two small fishes he satisfied five thousand men besides women and children and caused the Disciples to gather up the fragments which being amassed together filled twelve baskets Which Miracles had so much proportion to the understanding and met so happily with the affections of the people that they were convinced that this was the 〈◊〉 who was to come into the world and had a purpose to have taken him by force and made him a King 2. But he that left his Father's Kingdom to take upon him the miseries and infelicities of the world fled from the offers of a Kingdom and their tumultuary election as from an enemy and therefore sending his Disciples to the ship before towards Bethsaida he ran into the mountains to hide himself till the multitude should scatter to their several habitations he in the mean time taking the opportunity of that retirement for the advantage of his Prayers But when the Apostles were far engaged in the Deep a great tempest arose with which they were pressed to the extremity of danger and the last refuges labouring in sadness and hopelesness till the fourth watch of the night when in the midst of their fears and labours Jesus comes walking on the sea and appeared to them which turned their fears into affrightments for they supposed it had been a spirit but he appeased their fears with his presence and manifestation who he was which yet they desired to have proved to them by a sign For Simon Peter said unto him Master if it be thou command me to come to thee
on the waters The Lord did so and Peter throwing himself upon the confidence of his Master's power and providence came out of the ship and his fear began to weigh him down and he cried saying Lord save me Jesus took him by the hand reproved the timorousness of his Faith and went with him into the ship where when they had worshipped him and admired the Divinity of his Power and Person they presently came into the land of Genesareth the ship arriving at the Port immediately and all that were sick or possessed with unclean spirits were brought to him and as many as touched the border of his garment were made whole 3. By this time they whom Jesus had left on the other side of the Lake had come as far as Capernaum to seek him wondring that he was there before them but upon the occasion of their so diligent inquisition Jesus observes to them That it was not the Divinity of the Miracle that provoked their zeal but the satisfaction they had in the loaves a carnal complacency in their meal and upon that intimation speaks of celestial bread the divine nutriment of souls and then discourses of the mysterious and symbolical manducation of Christ himself affirming that he himself was the bread of life that came down from Heaven that he would give his Disciples his flesh to eat and his bloud to drink and all this should be for the life of the World to nourish unto life eternal so that without it a happy eternity could not be obtained Upon this discourse divers of his Disciples amongst whom S. Mark the Evangelist is said to be one though he was afterwards recalled by Simon Peter for sook him being scandalized by their literal and carnal understanding of those words of Jesus which he intended in a spiritual sence For the words that he spake were not profitable in the sence of flesh and bloud but they are spirit and they are life himself being the Expounder who best knew his own meaning 4. When Jesus saw this great defection of his Disciples from him he turned him to the twelve Apostles and asked if they also would go away Simon Peter answered Lord whither shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life And we believe and are sure thou art that CHRIST the Son of the living God Although this publick confession was made by Peter in the name and confidence of the other Apostles yet Jesus told them that even amongst the twelve there was one Devil meaning Judas Iscariot who afterwards betrayed him This he told them Prophetically that they might perceive the sad accidents which afterwards happened did not invade and surprize him in the disadvantages of ignorance or improvision but came by his own knowledge and providence 5. Then came to him the Pharisees and some Scribes which came from Jerusalem and Galilee for Jesus would not go to Judaea because the Jews laid wait to kill him and quarrelled with him about certain impertinent unnecessary Rites derived to them not by Divine sanction but ordinances of man such as were washing their hands oft when they eat baptizing cups and platters and washing tables and beds which ceremonies the Apostles of Jesus did not observe but attended diligently to the simplicity and spiritual Holiness of their Master's Doctrine But in return to their vain demands Jesus gave them a sharp reproof for prosecuting these and many other traditions to the discountenance of Divine Precepts and in particular they taught men to give to the Corban and refused to supply the necessity of their parents thinking it to be Religion though they neglected Piety and Charity And again he thunders out woes and sadnesses against their impieties for being curious of minutes and punctual in rites and ceremonials but most negligent and incurious of Judgment and the love of God for their Pride for their Hypocrisie for their imposing burthens upon others which themselves helped not to support for taking away the key of knowledge from the people obstructing the passages to Heaven for approving the acts of their Fathers in persecuting the Prophets But for the Question it self concerning Washings Jesus taught the people that no outward impurity did stain the Soul in the sight of God but all pollution is from within from the corruption of the heart and impure thoughts unchast desires and unholy purposes and that Charity is the best purifier in the world 6. And thence Jesus departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon and entred into a house that he might not be known The diligence of a Mother's love and sorrow and necessity found him out in his retirement for a Syrophoenician woman came and be sought him that he would cast the Devil out of her daughter But Jesus discoursed to her by way of discomfort and rejection of her for her Nation 's sake But the seeming denial did but enkindle her desires and made her importunity more bold and undeniable she begged but some crums that fell from the childrens table but one instance of favour to her daughter which he poured forth without measure upon the sons and daughters of Israel Jesus was pleased with her zeal and discretion and pitied her daughter's infelicity and dismissed her with saying The Devil was gone out of her Daughter 7. But Jesus stayed not long here but returning to the Sea of Galilee through the midst of 〈◊〉 they brought unto him a man deaf and dumb whom Jesus cured by touching his tongue and putting his fingers in his ears which caused the people to give a large testimony in approbation of all his actions And they followed him unto a mountain bringing to him multitudes of diseased people and he healed them all But because the people had followed him three days and had nothing to eat Jesus in pity to their need resolved to 〈◊〉 them once more at the charge of a Miracle therefore taking seven 〈◊〉 and a few small fishes he blessed them and satisfied four thousand men besides women and children And there remained seven baskets full of broken bread and fish From whence Jesus departed by ship to the coasts of Mageddon and Dalmanutha whither the Pharisees and Sadduces came seeking of him a sign But Jesus rejected their impertinent and captious demand knowing they did it to ill purposes and with disaffection reproving them that they discerned the face of the sky and the prognosticks of fair or foul weather but not the signs of the times of the Son of man However since they had neglected so great demonstrations of Miracles gracious Discourses holy Laws and Prophecies they must expect no other sign but the 〈◊〉 of the Prophet Jonas meaning the Resurrection of his Body after three days burial and so he dismissed the impertinent inquisitors 8. And passing again over the Lake as his Disciples were solicitous because they had forgot to take bread he gave them caution to beware of the leven of the Pharisees and Sadduces and the leven of Herod meaning the
no more provoke him to discourse lest he should take occasion to interweave something of that unpleasant argument with it For sad and disconsolate persons use to create comsorts to themselves by fiction of fancy and use arts of avocation to remove displeasure from them and stratagems to remove it from their presence by removing it from their apprehensions thinking the incommodity of it is then taken away when they have lost the sense 13. When Jesus was now come to Capernaum the exactors of rates came to Simon Peter asking him if his Master paid the accustomed imposition viz. a sicle or didrachm the fourth part of an ounce of silver which was the tribute which the Lord imposed upon all the sons of Israel from twenty years old and above to pay for redemption and propitiation and for the use of the Tabernacle When Peter came into the house Jesus knowing the message that he was big with prevented him by asking him Of whom do the Kings of the Nations take tribute of their own children or of strangers Peter answered Of strangers Then said Jesus then are the children free meaning that since the Gentile Kings do not exact tribute of their sons neither will God of his And therefore this Pension to be paid for the use of the Tabernacle for the service of God for the redemption of their Souls was not to be paid by him who was the Son of God but by strangers Yet to avoid offence he sent Peter a-fishing and provided a fish with two didrachms of silver in it which he commanded Peter to pay for them two 14. But when the Disciples were together with Jesus in the house he asked them what they discoursed of upon the way for they had fallen upon an ambitious and mistaken quarrel which of them should be greatest in their Master's Kingdom which they still did dream should be an external and secular Royalty full of fancy and honour But the Master was diligent to check their forwardness establishing a rule for Clerical deportment He that will be greatest among you let him be your Minister so supposing a greater and a lesser a Minister and a person to be ministred unto but dividing the grandeur of the Person from the greatness of Office that the higher the imployment is the more humble should be the man because in Spiritual prelation it is not as in Secular pomps where the Dominion is despotick the Coercion bloudy the Dictates 〈◊〉 the Laws externally compulsory and the Titles arrogant and vain and all the advantages are so passed upon the Person that making that first to be splendid it passes from the Person to the subjects who in abstracted essences do not easily apprehend Regalities in veneration but as they are subjected in persons made excellent by such superstructures of Majesty But in Dignities Ecelesiastical the Dominion is paternal the 〈◊〉 perswasive and argumentative the Coercion by censures immaterial by cession and consent by denial of benefits by the interest of vertues and the efficacy of hopes and impresses upon the spirit the Laws are full of admonition and Sermon the Titles of honour monitors of duty and memorials of labour and offices and all the advantages which from the Office usually pass upon the Person are to be devested by the humility of the man and when they are of greatest veneration they are abstracted excellencies and immaterial not passing through the Person to the people and reslected to his lustre but transmitted by his labour and ministery and give him honour for his labour's sake which is his personal excellency not for his honour and title which is either a derivative from Christ or from the constitution of pious persons estimating and valuing the relatives of Religion 15. Then Jesus taketh a little child and setteth him in the midst propounding him by way of Emblem a pattern of Humility and Simplicity without the mixtures of Ambition or caitive distempers such infant candour and low liness of spirit being the necessary port through which we must pass if we will enter into the Courts of Heaven But as a current of wholsome waters breaking from its restraint runs out in a succession of waters and every preceding draught draws out the next so were the Discourses of Jesus excellent and opportune creating occasions for others that the whole doctrine of the Gospel and the entire will of the Father might be communicated upon design even the chances of words and actions being made regular and orderly by Divine Providence For from the instance of Humility in the symbol and Hieroglyphick of the child Jesus discourses of the care God takes of little children whether naturally or spiritually such the danger of doing them scandal and offences the care and power of their Angels guardian of the necessity in the event that Scandals should arise and of the great woe and infelicity of those persons who were the active ministers of such offences 16. But if in the traverses of our life discontents and injuries be done Jesus teaches how the injured person should demean himself First reprove the offending party privately if he repent forgive him for ever with a mercy as unwearied and as multiplied as his repentance For the servant to whom his Lord had forgiven 10000 talents because he refused to forgive his fellow-servant 100 pence was delivered to the tormentors till he should pay that debt which his Lord once forgave till the servant's impiety forced him to repent his donative and remission But if he refuses the charity of private correction let him be reproved before a few witnesses and in case he be still incorrigible let him be brought to the tribunal of the Church against whose advices if he shall kick let him feel her power and be cut off from the communion of Saints becoming a Pagan or a Publican And to make that the Church shall not have a dead and ineffectual hand in her animadversions Jesus promises to all the Apostles what before he promised to Peter a power of binding and loosing on earth and that it should be ratified in Heaven what they shall so dispose on earth with an unerring key 17. But John interrupted him telling him of a stranger that cast out Devils in the name of Jesus but because he was not of the family he had forbidden him To this Jesus replied that he should in no wise have forbidden him for in all reason he would do veneration to that person whose Name he saw to be energetical and triumphant over Devils and in whose name it is almost necessary that man should believe who used it as an instrument of ejection of impure spirits Then Jesus proceeded in his excellent Sermon and union of discourses adding holy Precepts concerning offences which a man might do to himself in which case he is to be severe though most gentle to others For in his own case he must shew no mercy but abscission for it it better to cut off the offending
die and then gather his sheep together into one fold intimating the calling of the Gentiles to which purpose he was enabled by his Father to lay down his life and to take it up and had also endeared them to his Father that they should be preserved unto eternal life and no power should be able to take them out of his hand or the hand of his Father for because Jesus was united to the Father the Father's care preserved the Son's flocks 23. But the Jews to requite him for his so divine Sermons betook themselves to their old argument they took up stones again to cast at him pretending he had blasphemed but Jesus proved it to be no blasphemy to call himself the son of God because they to whom the Word of God came are in Scripture called Gods But nothing could satisfie them whose temporal interest was concerned not to consent to such Doctrine which would save their souls by ruining their temporal concernments But when they sought again to take him Jesus escaped out of their hands and went away beyond Jordan where John at first baptized which gave the people occasion to remember that John did no Miracle but this man does many and John whom all men did revere and highly account of for his Office and Sanctity gave testimony to Jesus And many believed on him there 24. After this Jesus knowing that the harvest was great and as yet the labourers had been few sent out seventy two of his Disciples with the like commission as formerly the 12. Apostles that they might go before to those places whither himself meant to come Of which number were the Seven whom afterwards the Apostles set over the Widows and Matthias Mark and some say Luke Justus Barnabas Apelles Rufus Niger Cephas not Peter Thaddaeus Aristion and John The rest of the names could not be recovered by the best diligence of Eusebius and Epiphanius But when they returned from their journey they rejoyced greatly in the legation and power and Jesus also rejoyced in spirit giving glory to God that he had made his revelations to babes and the more imperfect 〈◊〉 like the lowest Valleys which receive from Heaven the greatest flouds of rain and blessings and stand thick with corn and flowers when the Mountains are unfruitful in their height and greatness 25. And now a Doctor of the Law came to Jesus asking him a Question of the greatest consideration that a wise man could ask or a Prophet answer Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life Jesus referred him to the Scriptures and declared the way to Heaven to be this only to love the Lord with all our powers and faculties and our neighbour as our self But when the Lawyer being captious made a scruple in a smooth rush asking what is meant by Neighbour Jesus told him by a Parable of a Traveller fallen into the hands of robbers and neglected by a Priest and by a Levite but relieved by a Samaritan that no distance of Countrey or Religion destroys the relation of Neighbourhood but every person with whom we converse in peace and charity is that Neighbour whom we are to love as our selves 26. Jesus having departed from Jerusalem upon the forementioned danger came to a village called Bethany where Martha making great and busie preparation for his entertainment to express her joy and her affections to his person desired Jesus to dismiss her Sister Mary from his feet who sate there feasting her self with the viands and sweetnesses of his Doctrine incurious of the provisions for entertainment But Jesus commended her choice and though he did not expresly disrepute Martha's Civility yet he preferred Mary's Religion and Sanctity of affections In this time because the night drew on in which no man could work Jesus hastened to do his Father's business and to pour out whole cataracts of holy Lessons like the fruitful Nilus swelling over the banks and filling all the trenches to make a plenty of corn and fruits great as the inundation Jesus therefore teaches his Disciples that Form of Prayer the second time which we call the Lord's Prayer teaches them assiduity and indefatigable importunity in Prayer by a Parable of an importunate Neighbour borrowing loaves at midnight and a troublesome Widow who forced an unjust Judge to do her right by her clamorous and hourly addresses encourages them to pray by consideration of the Divine goodness and fatherly affection far more indulgent to his Sons than natural Fathers are to their dearest issue and adds a gracious promise of success to them that pray He reproves Pharisaical ostentation arms his Disciples against the fear of men and the terrors of Persecution which can arrive but to the incommodities of the Body teaches the fear of God who is Lord of the whole Man and can accurse the Soul as well as punish the Body He refuses to divide the inheritance between two Brethren as not having competent power to become Lord in temporal jurisdictions He preaches against Covetousness and the placing felicities in worldly possessions by a Parable of a rich man whose riches were too big for his barns and big enough for his Soul and he ran over into voluptuousness and stupid complacencies in his perishing goods he was snatched from their possession and his Soul taken from him in the violence of a rapid and hasty sickness in the space of one night Discourses of divine Providence and care over us all and descending even as low as grass He exhorts to Alms-deeds to Watchfulness and preparation against the sudden and unexpected coming of our Lord to Judgment or the arrest of death tells the offices and sedulity of the Clergy under the Apologue of Stewards and Governours of their Lords houses teaches them gentleness and sobriety and not to do evil upon confidence of their Lord's absence and delay and teaches the people even of themselves to judge what is right concerning the signs of the coming of the Son of Man And the end of all these discourses was that all men should repent and live good lives and be saved 27. At this Sermon there were present some that told him of the Galileans whose bloud Pilate mingled with their sacrifices For the Galileans were a sort of people that taught it to be unlawful to pay tribute to strangers or to pray for the Romans and because the Jews did both they refused to communicate in their sacred Rites and would sacrifice apart at which Solemnity when Pilate the Roman Deputy had apprehended many of them he caused them all to be slain making them to die upon the same Altars These were of the Province of Judaea but of the same Opinion with those who taught in Galilee from whence the Sect had its appellative But to the story Jesus made reply that these external accidents though they be sad and calamitous yet they are no arguments of condemnation against the persons of the men to convince them of a greater guilt than others
Master gave the same reward though the times of their working were different as their calling and employment had determined the opportunity of their labours DISCOURSE XVII Of Scandal or Giving and taking Offence 1. A Sad curse being threatned in the Gospel to them who offend any of Christ's little ones that is such as are novices and babes in Christianity it concerns us to learn our duty and perform it that we may avoid the curse for Woe to all them by whom offences come And although the duty is so plainly explicated and represented in gloss and case by the several Commentaries of S. Paul upon this menace of our Blessed Saviour yet because our English word Offence which is commonly used in this Question of Scandal is so large and equivocal that it hath made many pretences and intricated this article to some inconvenience it is not without good purpose to draw into one body those Propositions which the Masters of Spiritual life have described in the managing of this Question 2. First By whatsoever we do our duty to God we cannot directly do offence or give scandal to our Brother because in such cases where God hath obliged us he hath also obliged himself to reconcile our duty to the designs of God to the utility of Souls and the ends of Charity And this Proposition is to be extended to our Obedience to the lawful Constitutions of our competent Superiours in which cases we are to look upon the Commandment and leave the accidental events to the disposition of that Providence who reconciles dissonancies in nature and concentres all the variety of accidents into his own glory And whosoever is offended at me for obeying God or God's Vicegerent is offended at me for doing my duty and in this there is no more dispute but whether I shall displease God or my peevish neighbour These are such whom the Spirit of God complains of under other representments They think it strange we run not into the same excess of riot Their eye is evil because their Master's eye is good and the abounding of God's grace also may become to them an occasion of falling and the long-suffering of God the encouragement to sin In this there is no difficulty for in what case soever we are bound to obey God or Man in that case and in that conjunction of circumstances we have nothing permitted to our choice and have no authority to remit of the right of God or our Superiour And to comply with our neighbour in such Questions besides that it cannot serve any purposes of Piety if it declines from Duty in any instance it is like giving Alms out of the portion of Orphans or building Hospitals with the money and spoils of Sacriledge It is pusillanimity or hypocrisie or a denying to confess Christ before men to comply with any man and to offend God or omit a Duty Whatsoever is necessary to be done and is made so by God no weakness or peevishness of man can make necessary not to be done For the matter of Scandal is a duty beneath the prime obligations of Religion 3. Secondly But every thing which is used in Religion is not matter of precise Duty but there are some things which indeed are pious and religious but dispensable voluntary and commutable such as are voluntary Fasts exteriour acts of Discipline and Mortification not enjoyned great degrees of exteriour Worship Prostration long Prayers Vigils and in these things although there is not directly a matter of Scandal yet there may be some prudential considerations in order to Charity and Edification By pious actions I mean either particular pursuances of a general Duty which are uncommanded in the instance such as are the minutes and expresses of Alms or else they are commended but in the whole kind of them unenjoyned such as Divines call the Counsels of perfection In both these cases a man cannot be scandalous For the man doing in charity and the love of God such actions which are aptly expressive of love the man I say is not uncharitable in his purposes and the actions themselves being either attempts or proceedings toward Perfection or else actions of direct Duty are as innocent in their productions as in themselves and therefore without the malice of the recipient cannot induce him into sin and nothing else is Scandal To do any pious act proceeds from the Spirit of God and to give Scandal from the Spirit of Malice or Indiscretion and therefore a pious action whose fountain is love and 〈◊〉 cannot end in Uncharitableness or Imprudence But because when any man is offended at what I esteem Piety there is a question whether the action be pious or no therefore it concerns him that works to take care that his action be either an act of Duty though not determined to a certain particular or else be something 〈◊〉 in Scripture or practised by a holy person there recorded and no-where reproved or a practice warranted by such precedents which modest prudent and religious persons account a sufficient inducement of such particulars for he that proceeds upon such principles derives the warrant of his actions from beginnings which secure the particular and quits the Scandal 4. This I say is a security against the Uncharitableness and the Sin of Scandal because a zeal of doing pious actions is a zeal according to God but it is not always a security against the Indiscretion of the Scandal He that reproves a foolish person in such circumstances that provoke him or make him impudent or blasphemous does not give Scandal and brings no sin upon himself though he occasioned it in the other But if it was probable such effects would be consequent to the reprehension his zeal was imprudent and rash but so long as it was zeal for God and in its own matter lawful it could not be an active or guilty Scandal but if it be no zeal and be a design to entrap a man's unwariness or passion or shame and to disgrace the man by that means or any other to make him sin then it is directly the offending of our Brother They that preach'd Christ out of envy intended to do offence to the Apostles but because they were impregnable the sin rested in their own bosom and God wrought his own ends by it And in this sence they are Scandalous persons who fast for Strife who pray for Rebellion who intice simple persons into the snare by colours of Religion Those very exteriour acts of Piety become an Offence because they are done to evil purposes to abuse Proselytes and to draw away Disciples after them and make them love the sin and march under so splendid and fair colours They who out of strictness and severity of perswasion represent the conditions of the Gospel alike to every person that is nicer than Christ described them in all circumstances and deny such liberties of exteriour desires and complacency which may be reasonably permitted to some
a great calamity within a little while after the Spirit of God had sent them two Epistles by the ministery of S. Paul their Cities were buried in an Earthquake and yet we have reason to think they were Churches beloved of God and Congregations of holy People The PRAYER OEternal and powerful God thou just and righteous Governour of the world who callest all orders of men by Precepts Promises and Threatnings by Mercies and by Judgments teach us to admire and adore all the Wisdome the effects and infinite varieties of thy Providence and make us to dispose our selves so by Obedience by Repentance by all the manners of Holy living that we may never provoke thee to jealousie much less to wrath and indignation against us Keep far from us the Sword of the destroying Angel and let us never perish in the publick expresses of thy wrath in diseases Epidemical with the furies of War with calamitous sudden and horrid Accidents with unusual Diseases unless that our so strange fall be more for thy glory and our eternal benefit and then thy will be done We beg thy grace that we may chearfully conform to thy holy will and pleasure Lord open our understandings that we may know the meaning of thy voice and the signification of thy language when thou speakest 〈◊〉 Heaven in signs and Judgments and let a holy fear so soften our spirits and an intense love so 〈◊〉 and sanctifie our desires that we may apprehend every intimation of thy pleasure at its first and remotest and most obscure representment that so we may with Repentance go out to meet thee and prevent the expresses of thine anger Let thy restraining grace and the observation of the issues of thy Justice so allay our spirits that we be not severe and forward in condemning others nor backward in passing sentence upon our selves Make us to obey thy voice described in holy Scripture to tremble at thy voice expressed in wonders and great effects of Providence to condemn none but our selves nor to enter into the recesses of thy Sanctuary and search the forbidden records of Predestination but that we may read our duty in the pages of Revelation not in the labels of accidental effects that thy Judgments may confirm thy Word and thy Word teach us our Duty and we by such excellent instruments may enter in and grow up in the ways of Godliness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus untill the Death and Burial of JESVS Bartimeus healed of blindnesse Mark 10. 46. And as he went out of Iericho with his Disciples and a great number of people blind Bartimeus sate by the high way begging 47. And when he heard that it was Iesus of Nazareth he began to cry out and say Iesus thou son of David have mercy on me Lazarus raysed from death Ioh. 11. 44. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with gravecloths and his face was bound about with a napkin Iesus saith unto them Loose him and let him go 45. Then Many of the Iewes which came to Mary and had seen the things which Iesus did believed on him 1. VVHile Jesus was in Galilee messengers came to him from Martha and her Sister Mary that he would hasten into Judaea to Bethany to relieve the sickness and imminent dangers of their Brother Lazarus But he deferred his going till Lazarus was dead purposing to give a great probation of his Divinity Power and Mission by a glorious Miracle and to give God glory and to receive reflexions of the glory upon himself For after he had stayed two days he called his Disciples to go with him into Judaea telling them that Lazarus was dead but he would raise him out of that sleep of death But by that time Jesus was arrived at Bethany he found that Lazarus had been dead four days and now near to putrefaction But when Martha and Mary met him weeping their pious tears for their dead Brother Jesus suffered the passions of piety and humanity and wept distilling that precious liquor into the grave of Lazarus watering the dead plant that it might spring into a new life and raise his head above the ground 2. When Jesus had by his words of comfort and institution strengthened the Faith of the two mourning Sisters and commanded the stone to be removed from the grave he made an address of Adoration and Eucharist to his Father confessing his perpetual propensity to hear him and then cried out Lazarus come forth And he that was dead came forth from his bed of darkness with his night-cloaths on him whom when the Apostles had unloosed at the command of Jesus he went to Bethany and many that were present believed on him but others wondring and malicious went and told the Pharisees the story of the Miracle who upon that advice called their great Council whose great and solemn cognisance was of the greater causes of Prophets of Kings and of the holy Law At this great Assembly it was that Caiaphas the High Priest prophesied that it was expedient one should die for the people And thence they determined the death of Jesus But he knowing they had passed a decretory sentence against him retired to the City 〈◊〉 in the Tribe of Judah near the desart where he stayed a few days till the approximation of the Feast of Easter 3. Against which Feast when Jesus with his Disciples was going to Jerusalem he told them the event of the journey would be that the Jews should deliver him to the Gentiles that they should scourge him and mock him and crucifie him and the third day he should rise again After which discourse the Mother of 〈◊〉 's Children begg'd of Jesus for her two Sons that one of them might sit at his right hand the other at the left in his Kingdom For no discourses of his Passion or intimations of the mysteriousness of his Kingdom could yet put them into right understandings of their condition But Jesus whose heart and thoughts were full of phancy and apprehensions of the neighbour Passion gave them answer in proportion to his present conceptions and their future condition For if they desired the honours of his Kingdom such as they were they should have them unless themselves did decline them they should drink of his Cup and dip in his Lavatory and be washed with his baptism and sit in his Kingdom if the heavenly Father had prepared it for them but the donation of that immediately was an issue of Divine election and predestination and was only competent to them who by holy living and patient suffering put themselves into a disposition of becoming vessels of Election 4. But as Jesus in this journey came near Jericho he cures a blind man who sate begging by the way-side and espying Zaccheus the chief of the Publicans upon a tree that he being low of stature might upon that advantage of station see Jesus passing by he invited
Institution 14. Two days before the 〈◊〉 the Scribes and Pharisees called a council to contrive crafty ways of 〈◊〉 Jesus they not daring to do it by open violence Of which meeting when Judas 〈◊〉 had notice for those assemblies were publick and notorious he ran from 〈◊〉 and offered himself to betray his Master to them if they would give him a considerable reward They agreed for thirty pieces of silver Of what value each piece was is uncertain but their own Nation hath given a rule that when a piece of silver is named in the Pentateuch it signifies a sicle if it be named in the Prophets it signifies a pound if in the other writings of the Old Testament it signifies a talent This therefore being alledged out of the Prophet Jeremy by one of the Evangelists it is probable the price at which Judas sold his Lord was thirty pound weight of silver a 〈◊〉 price for the Saviour of the world to be prized at by his undiscerning and unworthy Countreymen 15. The next day was the first day of 〈◊〉 bread on which it was necessary they should kill the Passeover therefore Jesus sent Peter and John to the City to a certain man whom they should 〈◊〉 carrying a pitcher of water to his house him they should follow and there prepare the Passeover They went and found the man in the same circumstances and prepared for Jesus and his Family who at the even came to celebrate the Passeover It was the house of John surnamed Mark which had always been open to this blessed Family where he was pleased to finish his last Supper and the mysteriousness of the Vespers of his Passion 16. When evening was come Jesus stood with his Disciples and 〈◊〉 the Paschal Lamb after which he girt himself with 〈◊〉 and taking a bason washed the feet of his Disciples not only by the ceremony but in his discourses instructing them in the doctrine of Humility which the Master by his so great 〈◊〉 to his Disciples had made sacred and imprinted the lesson in lasting characters by making it symbolical But Peter was unwilling to be washed by his Lord until he was told he must renounce his part in him unless he were washed which option being given to Peter he cried out Not my feet only but my hands and my head But Jesus said the ablution of the feet was sufficient for the purification of the whole man relating to the custom of those Countreys who used to go to supper immediately from the baths who therefore were sufficiently clean save only on their feet by reason of the dust contracted in their passage from the baths to the dining-rooms from which when by the hospitable master of the house they were caused to be cleansed they needed no more ablution and by it Jesus passing from the letter to the spirit meant that the body of sin was washed in the baths of Baptism and afterwards if we remained in the same state of purity it was only necessary to purge away the filth contracted in our passage from the Font to the Altar and then we are clean all over when the 〈◊〉 state is unaltered and the little adherencies of imperfection and passions are also washed off 17. But after the 〈◊〉 of the Paschal Lamb it was the custom of the Nation to sit down to a second Supper in which they ate herbs and unlevened bread the Major-domo first dipping his morsel and then the family after which the Father brake bread into pieces and distributed a part to every of the Guests and first drinking himself gave to the rest the chalice filled with wine according to the age and dignity of the person adding to each distribution a form of benediction proper to the mystery which was Eucharistical and commemorative of their Deliverance from Egypt This Supper Jesus being to celebrate changed the forms of benediction turned the Ceremony into Mystery and gave his body and bloud in Sacrament and religious configuration so instituting the venerable Sacrament which from the time of its institution is called the Lord's Supper which rite Jesus commanded the Apostles to perpetuate in commemoration of him their Lord until his second coming And this was the first delegation of a perpetual Ministery which Jesus made to his Apostles in which they were to be succeeded to in all generations of the Church 18. But Jesus being troubled in spirit told his Apostles that one of them should betray him which Prediction he made that they might not be scandalized at the sadness of objection of the Passion but be confirmed in their belief seeing so great demonstration of his wisdom and spirit of Prophecy The Disciples were all troubled at this 〈◊〉 arrest looking one on another and doubting of whom he spake but they beckned to the beloved Disciple 〈◊〉 on Jesus's breast that he might ask for they who knew their own innocency and infirmity were desirous to satisfie their curiosity and to be rid of their indetermination and their fear But Jesus being asked gave them a sign and a 〈◊〉 to Judas commanding him to do what he list speedily for Jesus was extremely 〈◊〉 till he had drunk the chalice off and accomplished his mysterious and 〈◊〉 Baptism After Judas received the sop the Devil entred into him and Judas went forth immediately it being now night 19. When he was gone out Jesus began his Farewel-Sermon rarely mixt of sadness and joys and studded with mysteries as with Emeralds discoursing of the glorification of God in his Son and of those glories which the Father had prepared for him of his sudden departure and his migration to a place whither they could not come yet but afterwards they should meaning first to death and then to glory commanding them to love one another and foretelling to Peter who made consident protests that he would die with his Master that before the cock should crow twice he should deny him thrice But lest he should afflict them with too sad representments of his present condition he comforts them with the comforts of Faith with the intendments of his departure to prepare places in Heaven for them whither they might come by him who is the way the truth and the life adding a promise in order to their present support and future felicities that if they should ask of God any thing in his name they should receive it and upon condition they would love him and keep his Commandments he would pray for the Holy Ghost to come upon them to supply his room to furnish them with proportionable comforts to enable them with great Gifts to lead them into all truth and to abide with them for ever Then arming them against future Persecutions giving them divers holy Precepts discoursing of his emanation from the Father and of the necessity of his departure he gave them his blessing and prayed for them and then having sung a Hymn which was part of the great Allelujah beginning at the 114 Psalm
thee at an estimate beyond all the wealth of nature to buy wisdome and not to sell it to part with all that we may enjoy thee and let no temptation abuse our understandings no loss vex us into impatience no frustration of hope fill us with indignation no pressure of calamitous accidents make us angry at thee the fountain of love and blessing no Covetousness transport us into the suburbs of Hell and the regions of sin but make us to love thee as well as ever any creature loved thee that we may never burn in any fires but of a holy love nor sink in any inundation but what proceeds from penitential showrs and suffer no violence but of implacable desires to live with thee and when thou callest us to suffer with thee and for thee 3. LOrd let me never be betrayed by my self or any violent accident and 〈◊〉 temptation let me never be sold for the vile price of temporal gain or transient pleasure or a pleasant dream but since thou hast bought me with a price even then when thou wert sold thy self let me never be separated from thy possession I am thine bought with a price Lord save me and in the day when thou bindest up thy Jewels remember Lord that I cost thee as dear as any and therefore cast me not into the portion of Judas but let me walk and dwell and bathe in the field of thy bloud and pass from hence pure and sanctified into the society of the elect Apostles receiving my part with them and my lot in the communications of thy inheritance O gracious Lord and dearest Saviour Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples Feet by JESUS and his Sermon of Humility He washeth his Disciples feet Iohn 13. 5. After that he powreth water into a baso◠and began to wash the Disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded 6. Then cometh he to Simon Peter Peter saith unto him Lord doest thou wash my feet The Institution of his last Supper Mark 14. 22. And as they did eat Lesus took bread blessed brake it gaue to them said Take eat this is my body And he took y e Cup when he had given thanks he gave it to them they all dranke of it In the 〈◊〉 of the Communion 1. THE Holy JESUS went now to eat his last Paschal Supper and to finish the work of his Legation and to fulfill that part of the Law of Moses in every of its smallest and most minute particularities in which also the actions were significant of spiritual duties which we may transfer from the letter to the spirit in our own instances That as JESUS ate the Paschal Lamb with a staff in his Hand with his Loins girt with sandals on his Feet in great haste with unlevened Bread and with bitter Herbs so we also should do all our services according to the signification of these symbols leaning upon the Cross of JESUS for a staff and bearing the rod of his Government with Loins girt with Angelical Chastity with shoes on our Feet that so we may guard and have custody over our affections and be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace eating in haste as becomes persons hungring and thirsting after Righteousness doing the work of the Lord zealously and fervently without the leven of Malice and secular interest with bitter herbs of Self-denial and Mortification of our sensual and inordinate desires The sence and mystery of the whole act with all its circumstances is That we obey all the Sanctions of the Divine Law and that every part of our Religion be pure and peaceable chaste and obedient confident in God and diffident in our selves frequent and zealous humble and resigned just and charitable and there will not easily be wanting any just circumstance to hallow and consecrate the action 2. When the Holy Jesus had finished his last Mosaic Rite he descends to give example of the first fruit of Evangelical Graces he rises from Supper lays aside his garment like a servant and with all the circumstances of an humble ministery washes the feet of his Disciples beginning at the first S. Peter until he came to Judas the Traitor that we might in one scheme see a rare conjunction of Charity and Humility of Self-denial and indifferency represented by a person glorious and great their Lord and Master sad and troubled And he chose to wash their feet rather than their head that he might have the opportunity of a more humble posture and a more apt signification of his Charity Thus God lays every thing aside that he may serve his servants Heaven stoops to earth and one abyss calls upon another and the Miseries of man which were next to infinite are excelled by a Mercy equal to the immensity of God And this washing of their feet which was an accustomed civility and entertainment of honoured strangers at the beginning of their meal Christ deferred to the end of the Paschal Supper that it might be the preparatory to the second which he intended should be festival to all the world S. Peter was troubled that the hands of his Lord should wash his servants feet those hands which had opened the eyes of the blind and cured lepers and healed all diseases and when lift up to Heaven were omnipotent and could restore life to dead and buried persons he counted it a great indecency for him to suffer it but it was no more than was necessary for they had but lately been earnest in dispute for Precedency and it was of it self so apt to swell into tumour and inconvenience that it was not to be cured but by some Prodigy of Example and Miracle of Humility which the Holy Jesus offered to them in this express calling them to learn some great Lesson a Lesson which God descended from Heaven to earth from riches to poverty from essential innocence to the disreputation of a sinner from a Master to a Servant to learn us that is that we should esteem our selves but just as we are low sinful miserable needy and unworthy It seems it is a great thing that man should come to have just and equal thoughts of himself that God used such powerful arts to transmit this Lesson and engrave it in the spirits of men and if the Receipt fails we are eternally lost in the mists of vanity and enter into the condition of those Angels whom Pride transformed and spoiled into the condition of Devils and upon consideration of this great example Guericus a good man cried out Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome my Pride this Example hath mastered me I deliver my self up into thy hands never to receive liberty or exaltation but in the condition of thy humblest servant 3. And to this purpose S. Bernard hath an affectionate and devout consideration saying That some of the Angels as soon as they were created had an ambition to
become like God and to aspire into the Throne which God had appointed to the Holy Jesus in eternal ages When God created Man presently the Devil rubbed his Leprosie upon him and he would needs be like God too and Satan promised him that he should As the evil Angels would have been like to God in Power and Majesty so Man would have been like him in Knowledge and have imitated the Wisdome of the Eternal Father But Man had the fate of Gehezi he would needs have the talent and garments of Lucifer and he had also his plague he lost Paradise for his Pride And now what might befit the Son of God to do seeing Man so lost and God so zealous of his honour I see saith he that by occasion of me the Father loses his Creatures for they have all aspired to be like me and are fallen into the greatest infelicities Behold I will go towards man in such a form that whosoever from henceforth would become like me shall be so and be a gainer by it And for this cause the Son of God came from Heaven and made himself a poor humble person and by all the actions of his life commented upon the present discourse Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart Blessed be that mercy and bounty which moved Almighty God to condescend to that so great appetite we had of being like him for now 〈◊〉 may be like unto God but it must be by Humility of which he hath given us an example powerful as Miracles and great as our own Pride and Misery 4. And indeed our Blessed Lord knowing that Examples are like Maps and perfect Schemes in which the whole Continent may at once be represented to the eye to all the purposes of art and benefit did in the latter end of his life draw up the dispersions and larger harvest of his Precepts binding them in the bundle of great Examples and casting them into actions as into summs total for so this act of Washing the feet of his own Ministers and then dying for them and for all his enemies did preach the three great 〈◊〉 of Evangelical Perfection with an admirable energy and abbreviature Humility and Charity and Sufferings being to Christianity as the Body and the Soul and the Spirit are to the whole man For no man brings a sad Funeral into the theatre to make his spectators merry nor can well preach Chastity in the impurity of the Bordelli or perswade Temperance when himself is full of wine and luxury and enters into the baths to boil his undigested meat that he may return to his second supper and breaths forth impure belchings together with his Homily a poor Eremite or a severely-living Philosopher into whose life his own Precepts have descended his Doctrin is mingled with his Soul mingles also effect and virtue with Homilies and incorporates his Doctrine in the hearts of his Disciples And this the Holy Jesus did in his own person bearing the burthen first upon his own shoulders that we may with better alacrity undergo what our Blessed Lord bears with us and for us But that we may the better understand what our Blessed Lord designed to us in this Lecture let us consider the proper acts of Humility which integrate the Vertue 5. The first is Christ's Humble man thinks meanly of himself and there is great reason every man should For his Body is but rottenness and infirmity covered with a fair mantle a dunghil overcast with snow and if we consider sadly that from Trees and Plants come oile balsam wine spices and aromatick odors and that from the sinks of our Body no such sweet or salutary emanations are observed we may at least think it unreasonable to boast our Beauty which is nothing but a clear and well-coloured skin which every thing in the world can spoil nor our Strength which an Ague tames into the infirmities of a child and in which we are excelled by a Bull nor any thing of our Body which is nothing but an unruly servant of the Soul marked with characters of want and dependence and begging help from all the elements and upon a little disturbance growing troublesome to it self by its own impurities And yet there is no reason in respect of the Soul for any man to exalt himself above his Brother because all reasonable Souls are equal and that one is wise and another is foolish or less learned is by accident and extrinsick causes God at first makes all alike but an indisposed Body or an mopportune Education or evil Customs superinduce variety and difference And if God discerns a man from his Brother by distinction of Gifts it alters not the case still the man hath nothing of himself that can call him excellent it is as if a Wall upon which the Sun reflects should boast it self against another that stands in the shadow Greater glory is to be paid to God for the discerning Gifts but to take any of it to our selves and rise higher than our Brother or advance our own opinion is as if a man should be proud of being in debt and think it the greater excellency that he is charged with heavier and more severe accounts 6. This act consists not in declamations and forms of Satyre against our selves saying I am a miserable sinful creature I am proud or covetous or ignorant For many men say so that are not willing to be thought so Neither is Humility a vertue made up of wearing old cloaths or doing servile and mean imployments by voluntary undertaking or of sullen gestures or demiss behaviour and artifice of lowly expressions for these may become snares to invite and catch at Honour and then they are collateral designs of Pride and direct actions of Hypocrisie But it consists in a true understanding of our own condition and a separating our own Nothing from the good we have received and giving to God all the glory and taking to our selves all the shame and dishonour due to our sinful condition He that thinks himself truly miserable and vilified by sin hates it perfectly and he that knows himself to be nothing cannot be exalted in himself and whatsoever is besides these two extremes of a natural Nothing and a superadded Sin must be those good things we have received which because they derive from God must make all their returns thither But this act is of greater difficulty in persons pious full of Gifts and eminent in Graces who being fellow-workers together with God sometimes grow tacitely and without notice given to 〈◊〉 in themselves and with some freer phancy ascribe too much of the good action to their own choice and diligence and take up their crowns which lie at the foot of the throne and set them upon their own heads For a Sinner to desire to be esteemed a sinner is no more Humility than it is for the son of a Plow-man to confess his Father but indeed it is hard for a
praise so when it is presented to him he takes no contentment in it and if it be easie to want Praise when it is denied yet it is harder not to be delighted with it when it is offered But there is much reason that we should put restraints upon our selves lest if we be praised without desert we find a greater Judgment of God or if we have done well and received praise for it we 〈◊〉 all our reward which God hath deposited for them that receive not their good things in this life For as silver is tried in the melter and gold in the Crucible so is a man tried by the mouth of him that praises him that is he is either clarified from his dross by looking upon the praise as a homily to teach and an instrument to invite his duty or else if he be already pure he is consolidated strengthned in the sobriety of his spirit and retires himself closer into the strengths and securities of Humility Nay this step of Humility uses in very holy persons to be enlarged to a delight in affronts and disreputation in the world Now I begin to be Christ ' s Disciple said 〈◊〉 the Martyr when in his journey to Rome he suffered perpetual revilings and abuse S. Paul rejoyced in his infirmities and reproach and all the Apostles at Jerusalem went from the tribunal rejoycing that they were esteemed worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus This is an excellent condition and degree of Humility But I chuse to add one that is less but in all persons necessary 9. Fourthly Christ's Humble man is careful never to speak any thing that may redound to his own praise unless it be with a design of Charity or Duty that either God's glory or the profit of his neighbour be concerned in it but never speaking with a design to be esteemed learned or honourable S. Arsenius had been Tutor to three Caesars Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius but afterwards when he became Religious no word escaped him that might represent and tell of his former greatness and it is observable concerning S. Jerome that although he was of noble extraction yet in all his own Writings there is not the smallest intimation of it This I desire to be understood only to the sence and purposes of Humility and that we have no designs of vanity and phancy in speaking learnedly or recounting our exteriour advantages but if either the 〈◊〉 of our brother or the glory of God if either there be Piety or Charity in the design it is lawful to publish all those excellencies with which God hath distinguished us from others The young Marquess of Castilion being to do publick exercise in his course of Philosophy made it a case of Conscience whether he were bound to dispute his best fearing lest vanity might transport him in the midst of those praises which his Collegiates might give him It was an excellent consideration in the young Gentleman but in actions civil and humane since the danger is not so immediate and a little complacency becoming the instrument of vertue and encouragement of studies may with like care be referred to God as the giver and 〈◊〉 his praises he might with more safety have done his utmost it being in some sense a duty to encourage others to give account of our Graces and our labours and all the appendent vanity may quickly be suppressed A good name may give us opportunity of perswading others to their duty especially in an Age in which men chuse their Doctrines by the men that preach them and S. Paul used his liberty when he was zealous for his Corinthian Disciples but restrained himself when it began to make reflexions upon his own spirit But although a good name be necessary and in order to such good ends whither it may serve it is lawful to desire it yet a great name and a pompous honour and secular greatness hath more danger in it to our selves than ordinarily it can have of benefit to others and although a man may use the greatest honours to the greatest purposes yet ordinary persons may not safely desire them because it will be found very hard to have such mysterious and abstracted considerations as to separate all our proper interest from the publick end To which I add this consideration That the contempt of Honour and the instant pursuit of Humility is more effective of the ghostly benefit of others than Honours and great Dignities can be unless it be rarely and very accidentally 10. If we need any new incentives to the practice of this Grace I can say no more but that Humility is Truth and Pride is a Lie that the one glorifies God the other dishonours him Humility makes men like Angels Pride makes Angels to become Devils that Pride is Folly Humility is the temper of a holy spirit and excellent Wisdom that Humility is the way to glory Pride to ruine and confusion Humility makes Saints on Earth Pride undoes them Humility beatifies the Saints in Heaven and the Elders throw their Crowns at the foot of the Throne Pride disgraces a man among all the Societies of Earth God loves one and Satan solicits the cause of the other and promotes his own interest in it most of all And there is no one Grace in which Christ propounded himself imitable so signally as in this of Meekness and Humility for the enforcing of which he undertook the condition of a Servant and a life of Poverty and a death of Disgrace and washed the feet of his Disciples and even of Judas himself that his action might be turned into a Sermon to preach this Duty and to make it as eternal as his own Story The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who wert pleased to lay aside the Glories and incomprehensible Majesty which clothed thy Infinity from before the beginning of Creatures and didst put on a cloud upon thy Brightness and wert invested with the impure and imperfect broken robe of Humane nature and didst abate those Splendors which broke through the veil commanding Devils not to publish thee and men not to proclaim thy Excellencies and the Apostles not to reveal those Glories of thine which they discovered incircling thee upon mount Tabor in thy transfiguration and didst by perpetual Homilies and symbolical mysterious actions as with deep characters engrave Humility into the spirits of thy Disciples and the Discipline of Christianity teach us to approach near to these thy Glories which thou hast so covered with a cloud that we might without amazement behold thy Excellencies make us to imitate thy gracious Condescensions take from us all vanity and phantastick complacencies in our own persons or actions and when there arises a reputation consequent to the performance of any part of our Duty make us to 〈◊〉 the glory upon thee suffering nothing to adhere to our own spirits but shame at our own imperfection and thankfulness to thee for all thy assistences let us never seek the
and pleasure 2. Love desires to do all good to its beloved object and that is the greatest love which gives us the greatest blessings And the Sacrament therefore is the argument of his greatest love for in it we receive the honey and the honey-comb the Paschal Lamb with his bitter herbs Christ with all his griefs and his Passion with all the salutary effects of it 3. Love desires to be remembred and to have his object in perpetual representment And this Sacrament Christ designed to that purpose that he who is not present to our eyes might always be present to our spirits 4. Love demands love again and to desire to be beloved is of it self a great argument of love And as God cannot give us a greater blessing than his Love which is himself with an excellency of relation to us superadded so what greater demonstration of it can he make to us than to desire us to love him with as much earnestness and vehemency of desire as if we were that to him which he is essentially to us the author of our being and our blessing 5. And yet to consummate this Love and represent it to be the greatest and most excellent the Holy Jesus hath in this Sacrament designed that we should be united in our spirits with him incorporated to his body partake of his Divine nature and communicate in all his Graces and Love hath no expression beyond this that it desires to be united unto its object So that what Moses said to the men of Israel What nation is so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things for which we call upon him we can enlarge in the meditation of this Holy Sacrament for now the Lord our God calls upon us not only to be nigh unto him but to be all one with him not only as he was in the Incarnation flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone but also to communicate in spirit in grace in nature in Divinity it self 7. Upon the strength of the premisses we may sooner take an estimate of the Graces which are conveyed to us in the reception and celebration of this Holy Sacrament and Sacrifice For as it is a Commemoration and representment of Christ's Death so it is a commemorative Sacrifice as we receive the symbols and the mystery so it is a Sacrament In both capacities the benefit is next to infinite First For whatsoever Christ did at the Institution the same he commanded the Church to do in remembrance and repeated rites and himself also does the same thing in Heaven for us making perpetual Intercession for his Church the body of his redeemed ones by representing to his Father his death and sacrifice there he sits a high Priest continually and offers still the same one perfect sacrifice that is still represents it as having been once finished and consummate in order to perpetual and never-failing events And this also his Ministers do on earth they offer up the same Sacrifice to God the sacrifice of the Cross by prayers and a commemorating rite and representment according to his holy Institution And as all the effects of Grace and the titles of glory were purchased for us on the Cross and the actual mysteries of Redemption perfected on earth but are applied to us and made effectual to single persons and communities of men by Christ's Intercession in Heaven so also they are promoted by acts of Duty and Religion here on earth that we may be workers together with God as S. Paul expresses it and in virtue of the eternal and all-sufficient Sacrifice may offer up our prayers and our duty and by representing that sacrifice may send up together with our prayers an instrument of their graciousness and acceptation The Funerals of a deceased friend are not only performed at his first interring but in the monthly minds and anniversary commemorations and our grief returns upon the fight of a picture or upon any instance which our dead friend desired us to preserve as his memorial we celebrate and exhibite the Lora's death in sacrament and symbol and this is that great express which when the Church offers to God the Father it obtains all those blessings which that sacrifice purchased Themistocles snatch'd up the son of King Admetus and held him between himself and death to mitigate the rage of the King and prevailed accordingly Our very holding up the Son of God and representing him to his Father is the doing an act of mediation 〈◊〉 advantage to our selves in the virtue and efficacy of the Mediatour As Christ is a Priest in Heaven for ever and yet does not sacrifice himself afresh nor yet without a sacrifice could he be a Priest but by a daily ministration and intercession represents his sacrifice to God and offers himself as sacrificed so he does upon earth by the ministery of his servants he is offered to God that is he is by Prayers and the Sacrament represented or offered up to God as sacrificed which in effect is a celebration of his death and the applying it to the present and future necessities of the Church as we are capable by a ministery like to his in Heaven It follows then that the celebration of this Sacrifice be in its proportion an instrument of applying the proper Sacrifice to all the purposes which it first designed It is ministerially and by application an instrument propitiatory it is Eucharistical it is an homage and an act of adoration and it is impetratory and obtains for us and for the whole Church all the benefits of the sacrifice which is now celebrated and applied that is As this Rite is the remembrance and ministerial celebration of Christ's sacrifice so it is destined to do honour to God to express the homage and duty of his servants to acknowledge his supreme dominion to give him thanks and worship to beg pardon blessings and supply of all our needs And its profit is enlarged not only to the persons celebrating but to all to whom they design it according to the nature of Sacrifices and Prayers and all such solemn actions of Religion 8. Secondly If we consider this not as the act and ministery of Ecclesiastical persons but as the duty of the whole Church communicating that is as it is a 〈◊〉 so it is like the Springs of Eden from whence issue many Rivers or the Trees of celestial Jerusalem bearing various kinds of Fruit. For whatsoever was offered in the Sacrifice is given in the Sacrament and whatsoever the Testament bequeaths the holy Mysteries dispense 1. He that 〈◊〉 my 〈◊〉 and drinketh my bloud abideth in me and 〈◊〉 in him Christ in his Temple and his resting-place and the worthy Communicant is in Sanctuary and a place of protection and every holy Soul having feasted at his Table may say as S. Paul 〈◊〉 live yet not I but Christ liveth in me So that to live is Christ Christ is
our life and he dwells in the body and the spirit of every one that eats Christ's flesh and drinks his bloud Happy is that man that sits at the Table of Angels that puts his hand into the dish with the King of all the Creatures and feeds upon the eternal Son of God joyning things below with things above Heaven with Earth Life with Death that mortality might be swallowed up of life and Sin be destroyed by the inhabitation of its greatest Conqueror And now I need not enumerate any particulars since the Spirit of God hath ascertained us that Christ enters into our hearts and takes possession and abides there that we are made Temples and celestial mansions that we are all one with our Judge and with our Redeemer that our Creator is bound unto his Creature with bonds of charity which nothing can dissolve unless our own hands break them that Man is united with God and our weakness is fortified by his strength and our miseries wrapped up in the golden leaves of glory 2. Hence it follows that the Sacrament is an instrument of reconciling us to God and taking off the remanent guilt and stain and obligations of our sins This is the 〈◊〉 that was shed for you for the remission of sins For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus And such are all they who worthily eat the flesh of Christ by receiving him they more and more receive remission of sins redemption sanctification wisdom and certain hopes of glory 〈◊〉 as the Soul touching and united to the flesh of Adam contracts the stain of original misery and imperfection so much the 〈◊〉 shall the Soul united to the flesh of Christ receive pardon and purity and all those blessed emanations from our union with the Second Adam But this is not to be understood as if the first beginnings of our pardon were in the holy Communion for then a man might come with his impurities along with him and lay them on the holy Table to stain and pollute so bright a presence No first Repentance must 〈◊〉 the ways of the Lord and in this holy Rite those words of our Lord are verified He that is justified let him be justified 〈◊〉 that is here he may receive the increase of Grace and as it grows so sin dies and we are reconciled by nearer unions and approximations to God 9. Thirdly The holy Sacrament is the pledge of Glory and the earnest of Immortality for when we have received him who hath overcome Death and henceforth dies no more he becomes to us like the Tree of life in Paradise and the consecrated Symbols are like the seeds of an eternal duration springing up in us to eternal life nourishing our spirits with Grace which is but the prologue and the infancy of Glory and differs from it only as a Child from a Man But God first raised up his Son to life and by giving him to us hath also consigned us to the same state for our life is hid with Christ in God When we lay down and cast aside the impurer robes of flesh they are then but preparing for glory and if by the only touch of Christ bodies were redintegrate and restored to natural perfections how shall not we live for ever who eat his flesh and drink his bloud It is the discourse of S. Cyril Whatsoever the Spirit can convey to the body of the Church we may expect 〈◊〉 this Sacrament for as the Spirit is the instrument of life and action so the bloud of Christ is the conveyance of his Spirit And let all the mysterious places of holy Scripture concerning the effects of Christ communicated in the blessed Sacrament be drawn together in one Scheme we cannot but observe that although they are so expressed as 〈◊〉 their meaning may seem intricate and involved yet they cannot be drawn to any meaning at all but it is as glorious in its sense as it is mysterious in the expression and the more intricate they are the greater is their purpose no words being apt and proportionate to signifie this spiritual secret and excellent effects of the Spirit A veil is drawn before all these testimonies because the people were not able to behold the glory which they cover with their curtain and Christ dwelling in us and giving us his flesh to 〈◊〉 and his bloud to drink and the hiding of our life with God and the communication of the body of Christ and Christ being our life are such secret glories that as the fruition of them is the portion of the other world so also is the full perception and understanding of them for therefore God appears to us in a cloud and his glories in a veil that we understanding more of it by its concealment than we can by its open face which is too bright 〈◊〉 our weak eyes may with more piety also entertain the greatness by these indefinite and mysterious significations than we can by plain and direct intuitions which like the Sun in a direct ray enlightens the object but confounds the organ 10. I should but in other words describe the same glories if I should add That this holy Sacrament does enlighten the spirit of Man and clarifie it with spiritual discernings and as he was to the two Disciples at 〈◊〉 so also to other faithful people Christ is known in the breaking of bread That it is a great defence against the hostilities of our ghostly enemies this Holy Bread being like the Cake in 〈◊〉 's Camp overturning the tents of 〈◊〉 That it is the relief of our sorrows the antidote and preservative of Souls the viand of our journey the guard and passe-port of our death the wine of Angels That it is more healthful than Rhubarb more pleasant than Cassia That the Betele and 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 the Moly or Nepenthe of Pliny the Lirinon of the 〈◊〉 the Balsam of 〈◊〉 the Manna of Israel the Honey of Jonathan are but weak expressions to tell us that this is excellent above Art and Nature and that nothing is good enough in Philosophy to become its 〈◊〉 All these must needs fall very short of those plain words of Christ This is my Body The other may become the ecstasies of Piety the transportation of joy and wonder and are like the discourse of S. 〈◊〉 upon mount Tabor he was resolved to say some great thing but he knew not what but when we remember that the Body of our Lord and his Bloud is communicated to us in the Bread and the Chalice of blessing we must sit down and rest our selves for this is the mountain of the Lord and we can go no farther 11. In the next place it will 〈◊〉 our enquiry to consider how we are to prepare our selves For at the gate of life a man may meet with death and although this holy Sacrament be like Manna in which the obedient find the relishes of Obedience the chaste of
think the infelicities of our nature and the calamities of our temporal condition to become criminal so long as they make us not omit a duty or dispose us to the election of a crime or force us to swallow a temptation nor yet to exceed the value of their impulsive cause He that grieves for the loss of friends and yet had rather lose all the friends he hath than lose the love of God hath the sorrow of our Lord for his precedent And he that fears death and trembles at its approximation and yet had rather die again than sin once hath not sinned in his fear Christ hath hallowed it and the necessitous condition of his nature is his excuse But it were highly to be wished that in the midst of our caresses and levities of society in our festivities and triumphal merriments when we laugh at folly and rejoyce in sin we would remember that for those very merriments our Blessed Lord felt a bitter sorrow and not one vain and sinful laughter but cost the Holy Jesus a sharp pang and throe of Passion 4. Now that the Holy Jesus began to taste the bitter Cup he betook him to his great Antidote which himself the great Physician of our Souls prescribed to all the world to cure their calamities and to make them pass from miseries into vertue that so they may arrive at glory he prays to his heavenly Father he kneels down and not only so but falls flat upon the earth and would in humility and fervent adoration have descended low as the centre he prays with an intension great as his sorrow and yet with a dereliction so great and a conformity to the Divine will so ready as if it had been the most indifferent thing in the world for him to be delivered to death or from it for though his nature did decline death as that which hath a natural horrour and contradiction to the present interest of its preservation yet when he looked upon it as his heavenly Father had put it into the order of Redemption of the World it was that Baptism which he was straitned till he had accomplished And now there is not in the world any condition of prayer which is essential to the duty or any circumstances of advantage to its performance but were concentred in this one instance Humility of spirit lowliness of deportment importunity of desire a fervent spirit a lawful matter resignation to the will of God great love the love of a Son to his Father which appellative was the form of his address perseverance he went thrice and prayed the same prayer It was not long and it was so retired as to have the advantages of a sufficient solitude and opportune recollection for he was withdrawn from the most of his Disciples and yet not so alone as to lose the benefit of communion for Peter and the two Boanerges were near him Christ in this prayer which was the most fervent that he ever made on earth intending to transmit to all the world a precedent of Devotion to be transcribed and imitated that we should cast all our cares and empty them in the bosom of God being content to receive such a portion of our trouble back again which he assigns us for our spiritual emolument 5. The Holy Jesus having in a few words poured out torrents of innocent desires was pleased still to interrupt his Prayer that he might visit his charge that little flock which was presently after to be scattered he was careful of them in the midst of his Agonies they in his sufferings were fast asleep He awakens them gives them command to watch and pray that is to be vigilant in the custody of their senses and obervant of all accidents and to pray that they may be strengthened against all incursions of enemies and temptations and then returns to prayer and so a third time his Devotion still encreasing with his sorrow And when his Prayer was full and his sorrow come to a great measure after the third God sent his Angel to comfort him and by that act of grace then only expressed hath taught us to continue our Devotions so long as our needs last It may be God will not send a Comsorter till the third time that is after a long expectation and a patient 〈◊〉 and a lasting hope in the interim God supports us with a secret hand and in his own time will refresh the spirit with the visitations of his Angels with the emissions of comfort from the Spirit the Comforter And know this also that the holy Angel and the Lord of all the Angels stands by every holy person when he prays and although he draws before his glories the curtain of a cloud yet in every instant he takes care we shall not perish and in a just season dissolves the cloud and makes it to distill in holy dew and drops sweet as Manna pleasant as Nard and wholsome as the breath of Heaven And such was the consolation which the Holy Jesus received by the ministery of the Angel representing to Christ the Lord of the Angels how necessary it was that he should die for the glory of God that in his Passion his Justice Wisdom Goodness Power and Mercy should shine that unless he died all the World should perish but his bloud should obtain their pardon and that it should open the gates of Heaven repair the ruine of Angels establish a holy Church be 〈◊〉 of innumerable adoptive children to his Father whom himself should make heirs of glory and that his Passion should soon pass away his Father hearing and granting his Prayer that the Cup should pass speedily though indeed it should pass through him that it should be attended and followed with a glorious Resurrection with eternal rest and glory of his Humanity with the exaltation of his Name with a supreme dominion over all the world and that his Father should make him King of Kings and Prince of the Catholick Church These or whatsoever other comforts the Angel ministred were such considerations which the Holy Jesus knew and the Angel knew not but by communication from that God to whose assumed Humanity the Angel spake yet he was pleased to receive comfort from his servant just as God receives glory from his creatures and as he rejoyces in his own works even because he is good and gracious and is pleased so to do and because himself had caused a voluntary sadness to be interposed between the habitual knowledge and the actual consideration of these discourses and we feel a pleasure when a friendly hand lays upon our wound the plaister which our selves have made and applies such instruments and considerations of comfort which we have in notion and an ineffective habit but cannot reduce them to act because no man is so apt to be his own comforter which God hath therefore permitted that our needs should be the occasion of a mutual Charity 6. It was a great season for
this instance there was a rare mixture of effects as there was in Christ of Natures the voice of a Man and the power of God For it is observed by the Doctors of the Primitive Ages that from the Nativity of our Lord to the day of his Death the Divinity and Humanity did so communicate in effects that no great action passed but it was like the Sun shining through a cloud or a beauty with a thin veil drawn over it they gave illustration and testimony to each other The Holy Jesus was born a tender and a crying Infant but is adored by the Magi as a King by the Angels as their GOD. He is circumcised as a Man but a name is given him to signifie him to be the SAVIOUR of the World He flies into Egypt like a distressed Child under the conduct of his helpless Parents but as soon as he enters the Country the Idols fall down and confess his true Divinity He is presented in the Temple as the Son of man but by Simeon and Anna he is celebrated with divine praises for the MESSIAS the SON OF GOD. He is baptized in Jordan as a Sinner but the Holy Ghost descending upon him proclaimed him to be the well-beloved of God He is hungry in the Desart as a Man but sustained his body without meat and drink for forty days together by the power of his Divinity There he is tempted of Satan as a weak Man and the Angels of light minister unto him as their supreme Lord. And now a little before his death when he was to take upon him all the affronts miseries and exinanitions of the most miserable he receives testimonies from above which are most wonderful For he was tranfigured upon Mount Tabor entred triumphantly into Jerusalem had the acclamations of the people when he was dying he darkned the Sun when he was dead he opened the sepulchres when he was fast nailed to the Cross he made the earth to tremble now when he suffers himself to be apprehended by a guard of Souldiers he strikes them all to the ground only by replying to their answer that the words of the Prophet might be verified Therefore my people shall know my Name therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak behold it is I. 10. The Souldiers and servants of the Jews having recovered from their fall and risen by the permission of Jesus still persisted in their enquiry after him who was present ready and desirous to be sacrificed He therefore permitted himself to be taken but not his Disciples for he it was that set them their bounds and he secured his Apostles to be witnesses of his suffering and his glories and this work was the Redemption of the world in which no man could have an active share he alone was to tread the wine-press and time enough they should be called to a fellowship of sufferings But Jesus went to them and they bound him with cords and so began our liberty and redemption from slavery and sin and cursings and death But he was bound faster by bands of his own his Father's Will and Mercy Pity of the world Prophecies and Mysteries and Love held him fast and these cords were as strong as death and the cords which the Souldiers malice put upon his holy hands were but symbols and figures his own compassion and affection were the morals But yet he undertook this short restraint and condition of a prisoner that all sorts of persecution and exteriour calamities might be hallowed by his susception and these pungent sorrows should like bees sting him and leave their sting behind that all the sweetness should remain for us Some melancholick Devotions have from uncertain stories added sad circumstances of the first violence done to our Lord That they bound him with three cords and that with so much violence that they caused bloud to start from his tender hands That they 〈◊〉 then also upon him with a violence and incivility like that which their Fathers had used towards Hur the brother of Aaron whom they choaked with impure spittings into his throat because he refused to consent to the making a golden Calf These particulars are not transmitted by certain Records Certain it is they wanted no malice and now no power for the Lord had given himself into their hands 11. S. Peter seeing his Master thus ill used asked Master shall we strike with the sword and before he had his answer cut off the ear of Malchus Two swords there were in Christ's family and S. Peter bore one either because he was to kill the Paschal Lamb or according to the custom of the Country to secure them against beasts of prey which in that region were frequent and dangerous in the night But now he used it in an unlawful war he had no competent authority it was against the Ministers of his lawful Prince and against our Prince we must not draw a sword for Christ himself himself having forbidden us as his kingdom is not of this world so neither were his defences secular he could have called for many legions of Angels for his guard if he had so pleased and we read that one Angel slew 185000 armed men in one night and therefore it was a vast power which was at the command of our Lord and he needs not such low auxiliaries as an army of Rebels or a navy of Pirates to 〈◊〉 his cause he first lays the foundation of our happiness in his sufferings and hath ever since supported Religion by patience and suffering and in poverty and all the circumstances and conjunctures of improbable causes Fighting for Religion is certain to destroy Charity but not certain to support Faith S. Peter therefore may use his keys but he is commanded to put up his sword and he did so and presently he and all his fellows fairly ran away and yet that course was much the more Christian for though it had in it much infirmity yet it had no malice In the mean time the Lord was pleased to touch the ear of Malchus and he cured it adding to the first instance of power in throwing them to the ground an act of miraculous mercy curing the wounds of an enemy made by a friend But neither did this pierce their callous and obdurate spirits but they led him in uncouth ways and through the brook Cedron in which it is said the ruder souldiers plunged him and passed upon him all the affronts and rudenesses which an insolent and cruel multitude could think of to signifie their contempt and their rage And such is the nature of evil men who when they are not softned by the instruments and arguments of Grace are much hardned by them such being the purpose of God that either Grace shall cure sin or accidentally increase it that it shall either pardon it or bring it to greater punishment for so I have seen healthful medicines abused by the incapacities of a
he bearing them upon his tender body with an even and excellent and dispassionate spirit offered up these beginnings of sufferings to his Father to obtain pardon even for them that injured him and for all the World 6. Judas now seeing that this matter went farther than he intended it repented of his fact For although evil persons are in the progress of their iniquity invited on by new arguments and supported by confidence and a careless spirit yet when iniquity is come to the height or so great a proportion that it is apt to produce Despair or an intolerable condition then the Devil suffers the Conscience to thaw and grow tender but it is the tenderness of a Bile it is soreness rather and a new disease and either it comes when the time of Repentance is past or leads to some act which shall make the pardon to be impossible and so it happened here For Judas either impatient of the shame or of the sting was thrust on to despair of pardon with a violence as hasty and as great as were his needs And Despair is very often used like the bolts and bars of Hell-gates it 〈◊〉 upon them that had entred into the suburbs of eternal death by an habitual sin and it secures them against all retreat And the Devil is forward enough to bring a man to Repentance provided it be too late and Esau wept bitterly and repented him and the five foolish Virgins lift up their voice aloud when the gates were shut and in Hell men shall repent to all eternity But I consider the very great folly and infelicity of Judas it was at midnight he received his money in the house of Annas betimes in that morning he repented his bargain he threw the money back again but his sin stuck close and it is thought to a 〈◊〉 eternity Such is the purchace of Treason and the reward of Covetousness it is cheap in its offers momentany in its possession unsatisfying in the fruition uncertain in the stay sudden in its 〈◊〉 horrid in the remembrance and a ruine a certain and miserable ruine is in the event When Judas came in that sad condition and told his miserable story to them that set him on work they 〈◊〉 him go away unpitied he had served their ends in betraying his Lord and those that hire such servants use to leave them in the disaster to shame and to sorrow and so did the Priests but took the money and 〈◊〉 to put it into the treasury because it was the price of bloud but they made no scruple to take it from the treasury to buy that bloud Any thing seems lawful that serves the ends of ambitious and bloudy persons and then they are scrupulous in their cases of Conscience when nothing of Interest does intervene for evil men make Religion the servant of Interest and sometimes weak men think that it is the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 Religion and suspect that all of it is a design because many great Politicks make it so The end of the Tragedy was that Judas died with an ignoble death marked with the circumstances of a horrid Judgment and perished by the most infamous hands in the world that is by his own Which if it be confronted against the excellent spirit of S. Peter who did an act as contradictory to his honour and the grace of God as could be easily imagined yet taking sanctuary in the arms of his Lord he lodged in his heart for ever and became an example to all the world of the excellency of the Divine Mercy and the efficacy of a holy Hope and a hearty timely and an operative Repentance 7. 〈◊〉 now all things were ready for the purpose the High Priest and all his Council go along with the Holy Jesus to the house of Pilate hoping he would verifie their Sentence and bring it to execution that they might 〈◊〉 be rid of their fears and enjoy their sin and their reputation quietly S. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the High Priest caused the Holy Jesus to be led with a cord about his neck and in memory of that the Priests for many Ages 〈◊〉 a stole about theirs But the Jews did it according to the custom of the Nation to signifie he was condemned to death they desired Pilate that he would crucifie him they having 〈◊〉 him worthy And when Pilate enquired into the particulars they gave him a general and an indefinite answer If he were not guilty we would not have brought him 〈◊〉 thee they intended not to make Pilate Judge of the cause but 〈◊〉 of their cruelty But Pilate had not learned to be guided by an implicite faith of such persons which he knew to be malicious and violent and therefore still called for instances and arguments of their Accusation And that all the world might see with how great unworthiness they prosecuted the 〈◊〉 they chiefly there accused him of such crimes upon which themselves condemned him not and which they knew to be false but yet likely to move Pilate if he had been passionate or inconsiderate in his sentences He offered to make himself a King This 〈◊〉 happened at the entry of the Praetorium for the 〈◊〉 who made no conscience of killing the King of Heaven made a conscience of the external customs and ceremonies of their Law which had in them no interiour sanctity which were apt to separate them 〈◊〉 the Nations and remark them with characters of Religion and abstraction it would defile them to go to a Roman Forum 〈◊〉 a capital action was to be judged and yet the effusion of the best bloud in the world was not esteemed against their 〈◊〉 so violent and blind is the spirit of malice which turns humanity into 〈◊〉 wisdom into craft diligence into subornation and Religion into Superstition 8. Two other articles they alledged against him but the first concerned not Pilate and the second was involved in the third and therefore he chose to examine him upon this only of his being a King To which the Holy Jesus answered that it is true he was 〈◊〉 King indeed but not of this world his Throne is Heaven the Angels are his Courtiers and the 〈◊〉 Creation are his Subjects His Regiment is spiritual his 〈◊〉 are the Courts of Conscience and Church-tribunals and at Dooms-day the Clouds The Tribute which he demands are conformity to his Laws Faith 〈◊〉 and Charity no other Gabels but the duties of a holy Spirit and the expresses of a religious Worship and obedient Will and a consenting Understanding And in all this Pilate thought the interest of 〈◊〉 was not invaded For certain it is the Discipline of Jesus confirmed it much and supported it by the strongest pillars And here Pilate saw how impertinent and malicious their Accusation was And we who declaim against the unjust proceedings of the Jews against our dearest Lord should do well to take care that we in accusing any of our Brethren either with malicious purpose or with
an uncharitable circumstance do not commit the same fault which in them we so hate and accuse Let no man speak any thing of his neighbourhood but what is true and yet if a truth be heightned by the biting Rhetorick of a satyrical spirit extended and drawn forth in circumstances and arts of aggravation the truth becomes a load to the guilty person is a prejudice to the sentence of the Judge and hath not so much as the excuse of Zeal much less the Charity of Christianity Sufficient to every man is the plain story of his crime and to excuse as much of it as we can would better become us who perish unless we be excused for infinite irregularities But if we add this also that we accuse our Brethren 〈◊〉 them that may amend them and reform their error if we pity their persons and do not hate them if we seek nothing of their disgrace and make not their shame publick but when the publick is necessarily concerned or the state of the man's sin requires it then our accusations are charitable but if they be not all such accusations are accepted by Christ with as much displeasure in proportion to the degree of the malice and the proper effect as was this Acculation of his own person 9. But Pilate having pronounced Jesus innocent and perceiving he was a Galilean sent him to 〈◊〉 as being a more competent person to determine 〈◊〉 one of his own jurisdiction Herod was glad at the honour done to him and the person brought him being now desirous to see some Miracle 〈◊〉 before him But the Holy Jesus spake not one word there nor did any sign so to reprove the sottish carelesness of Herod who living in the place of Jesus's abode never had seen his person or heard his Sermons And if we neglect the opportunities of Grace and refuse to hear the 〈◊〉 of Christ in the time of mercy and Divine appointment we may arrive at that state of 〈◊〉 in which Christ will refuse to speak one word of comfort to us and the Homilies of the Gospel shall be dead letters and the spirit not at all refreshed nor the Understanding instructed nor the Affections moved nor the Will determined but because we have during all our time stopt our ears in his time God will stop his mouth and shut up the springs of Grace that we shall receive no refreshment or instruction or pardon or felicity Jesus suffered not himself to be moved at the pertinacious accusations of the 〈◊〉 nor the desires of the Tyrant but persevered in silence till Herod and his servants despised him and dismissed him For so it became our High Priest who was to sanctifie all our sufferings to consecrate affronts and scorn that we may learn to endure contempt and to suffer our selves in a religious cause to be despised and when it happens in any other to remember that we have our dearest Lord for a precedent of bearing it with admirable simplicity and equanimity of deportment and it is a mighty stock of Self-love that dwells in our spirits which makes us of all afflictions most impatient of this But Jesus endured this despite and suffered this to be added that he was exposed in scorn to the boys of 〈◊〉 streets For 〈◊〉 caused him to be arrayed in white sent him out to be scorned by the people and hooted at by idle persons and so remitted him to Pilate And since that Accident to our Lord the Church hath not undecently chose to cloath her Priests with Albs or white garments and it is a symbolical intimation and representment of that part of the Passion and 〈◊〉 which Herod passed upon the Holy Jesus and this is so far from deserving a reproof that it were to be wished all the children of the Church would imitate all those Graces which Christ exercised when he wore that garment which she hath taken up in ceremony and thankful memory that is in all their actions and sufferings be so estranged from secular arts and mixtures of the world so intent upon Religion and active in all its interests so indifferent to all acts of Providence so equal in all chances so patient of every accident so charitable to enemies and so undetermined by exteriour events that nothing may draw us forth from 〈◊〉 severities of our Religion or entice us from the retirements of a 〈◊〉 and sober and patient spirit or make us to depart from the courtesies of Piety though for such adhesion and pursuit we be esteemed fools or ignorant or contemptible Iesus is scourged by the Souldiers Mar 15 14. Then Pilate said unto them why what evill hath he done and they cried the more exceedingly Crucify him 15 And so Pilate willing to content the People released Barabbas unto them and delivered Iesus when he had scourged him to be Crucified They Crown him with Thornes Mat 27. 28. And they stripped him and put on him a Scarlet robe 29 And when they had platted a crown of Thornes they put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand and they bowed the knee before him mocked him saying Hayle King of the Iews 10. When Pilate had received the Holy Jesus and found that Herod had sent him back uncondemned he attempted to rescue him from their malice by making him a donative and a freed man at the petition of the people But they preferred a Murtherer and a Rebel Barabbas before him for themselves being Rebels against the King of Heaven loved to acquit persons criminal in the same kind of sin rather than their Lord against whom they took up all the arms which they could receive from violence and perfect malice desiring to have him crucified who raised the dead and to have the other 〈◊〉 who destroyed the living And when Pilate saw they were set upon it he consented and delivered him first to be scourged which the souldiers executed with violence and unrelenting hands opening his virginal body to nakedness and tearing his tender flesh till the pavement was purpled with a shower of holy bloud Itis reported in the Ecclesiastical story that when S. Agnes and S. Barbara holy Virgins and Martyrs were stripp'd naked to execution God pitying their great shame and trouble to have their nakedness discovered made for them a veil of light and sent them to a modest and desired death But the Holy Jesus who chose all sorts of shame and confusion that by a fulness of suffering he might expiate his Father's anger and that he might consecrate to our sufferance all kind of affront and passion endured even the shame of nakedness at the time of his scourging suffering himself to be devested of his robes that we might be clothed with that stole he put off for 〈◊〉 he 〈◊〉 on him the state of sinning Adam and became naked that we might 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 with Righteousness and then with Immortality 11. After they had scourged him without remorse they clothed him
him honours the Emperour Conrade the Second when he triumphed after the conquest of Italy had a joy bigger than their heart and their phancy swelled it till they burst and died Death can enter in at any door 〈◊〉 of Nice died with excessive laughter so did the Poet Philemon being provoked to it only by seeing an Asse eat sigs And the number of persons who have been found suddenly dead in their beds is so great that as it ingages many to a more certain and regular devotion for their Compline so it were well it were pursued to the utmost intention of God that is that all the parts of Religion should with zeal and assiduity be entertained and finished that as it becomes wise men we never be surprised with that we are sure will sometime or other happen A great General in Italy at the sudden death of Alsonsus of Ferrara and Lodovico 〈◊〉 at the sight of the sad accident upon Henry II. of France now mentioned turned religious and they did what God intended in those deaths It concerns us to be curious of single actions because even in those shorter periods we may expire and 〈◊〉 our Graves But if the state of life be contradictory to our hopes of Heaven it is like affronting of a Cannon 〈◊〉 a beleaguer'd Town a month together it is a contempt of safety and a rendring all Reason useless and unprofitable but he only is wise who having made Death familiar to him by expectation and daily apprehension does at all instants go forth to meet it The wise Virgins went forth to meet the Bridegroom for they were ready Excellent therefore is the counsel of the Son of Sirach Use Physick or ever thou be sick 〈◊〉 Judgment examine thy self and in the day of visitation thou shalt finde mercy Humble thy self before then be sick and in the time of sins shew Repentance Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy 〈◊〉 in due time and defer not until death to be justified 5. Secondly I consider that it osten happens that in those few days of our last visitation which many Men design for their Preparation and Repentance God hath expressed by an exteriour accident that those persons have deceived themselves and neglected their own Salvation S. Gregory reports of Chrysaurius a Gentleman in the Province of 〈◊〉 rich vicious and witty lascivious covetous and proud that being cast upon his Death-bed he phansied he saw evil spirits coming to arrest him and drag him to Hell He fell into great agony and trouble shrieked out called for his son who was a very religious person flattered him as willing to have been rescued by any thing but perceiving his danger increase and grown desperate he called loud with repeated clamours Give me respite but till the morrow and with those words he died there being no place left 〈◊〉 his Repentance though he sought it carefully with tears and groans The same was the case of a drunken Monk whom Venerable Bede mentions Upon his Death bed he seemed to see Hell opened and a place assigned him near to Caiaphas and those who crucified our dearest Lord. The religious persons that stood about his Bed called on him to repent of his sins to implore the mercies of God and to trust in Christ But he answered with reason enough This is no time to change my life the sentence is passed upon me and it is too late And it is very considerable and sad which Petrus Damianus tells of Gunizo a sactious and ambitious person to whom it is said the Tempter gave notice of his approaching death but when any Man preached Repentance to him out of a strange incuriousness or the spirit of reprobation he seemed like a dead and unconcerned person in all other discourses he was awake and apt to answer For God had shut up the gates of Mercy that no streams should issue forth to quench the flames of Hell or else had shut up the gates of reception and entertainment that it should not enter either God denies to give them pardon when they call or denies to them a power to call they either cannot pray or God will not answer Now since these stories are related by Men learned pious and eminent in their generations and because they served no design but the ends of Piety and have in them nothing dissonant from revelation or the frequent events of Providence we may upon their stock consider that God's Judgements and visible marks being set upon a state of Life although they happen but seldom in the instances yet they are of universal purpose and signfication Upon all Murtherers God hath not thrown a thunder-bolt nor broke all sacrilegious persons upon the wheel of an inconstant and ebbing estate nor spoken to every Oppressor from Heaven in a voice of thunder nor cut off all Rebels in the first attempts of insurrection But because he hath done so to some we are to look upon those Judgments as Divine accents and voices of God threatning all the same crimes with the like events and with the ruines of eternity For though God does not always make the same prologues to death yet by these few accidents happening to single persons we are to understand his purposes concerning all in the same condition it was not the person so much as the estate which God then remarked with so visible characters of his displeasure 6. And it seems to me a wonder that since from all the records of Scripture urging the uncertainty of the day of death the horrour of the day of Judgment the severity of God the dissolution of the world the certainty of our account still from all these premisses the Spirit of God makes no other inference but that we watch and stand in a readiness that we live in all holy conversation and godliness and that there is no one word concerning any other manner of an essentially-necessary Preparation none but this yet that there are Doctrines commenced and Rules prescribed and Offices set down and Suppletories invented by Curates of Souls how to prepare a vicious person and upon his Death-bed to reconcile him to the hopes and promises of Heaven Concerning which I desire that every person would but enquire where any one promise is recorded in Scripture concerning such addresses and what Articles CHRIST hath drawn up between his Father and us concerning a Preparation begun upon our Death-bed and if he shall find none as most certainly from Genesis to the Revelation there is not a word concerning it but very much against it let him first build his hopes upon this proposition that A holy life is the onely Preparation to a happy death and then we can without danger proceed to some other Considerations 7. When a good man or a person concerning whom it is not certain he hath lived in habitual Vices comes to die there are but two general ways of entercourse with him the one to keep him from
new sins the other to make some emendations of the old the one to fortifie him against special weaknesses and proper temptations of that estate and the other to trim his lamp that by excellent actions he may adorn his spirit making up the omissions of his life and supplying the imperfections of his estate that his Soul may return into the hands of its Creator as pure as it can every degree of perfection being an advantage so great as that the loss of every the least portion of it cannot be recompensed with all the good of this World Concerning the first The Temptations proper to this estate are either Weakness in Faith Despair or Presumption for whatsoever is besides these as it is the common infelicity of all the several states of life so they are oftentimes arguments of an ill condition of immortification of vicious habits and that he comes not to this combate well prepared such as are Covetousness unwillingness to make Restitution remanent affections to his former Vices an unresigned spirit and the like 8. In the Ecclesiastical story we finde many dying persons mentioned who have been very much afflicted with some doubts concerning an Article of Faith S. Gregory in an Epistle he writ to S. Austin instances in the temptation which Fusebius suffered upon his Death-bed And although sometimes the Devil chuses an Article that is not proper to that state knowing that every such doubt is well enough for his purpose because of the incapacity of the person to suffer long disputes and of the jealousie and suspicion of a dying and weak man fearing lest every thing should cozen him yet it is commonly instanced in the Article of the Resurrection or the state of Separation or re-union And it seems to some persons incredible that from a bed of sickness a state of misery a cloud of ignorance a load of passions a man should enter into the condition of a perfect understanding great joy and an intellectual life a conversation with Angels a fruition of God the change is greater than his Reason and his Faith being in conclusion tottering like the Ark and ready to fall seems a Pillar as unsafe and unable to rely on as a bank of turf in an Earth-quake Against this a general remedy is prescribed by Spiritual persons That the sick man should apprehend all changes of perswasion which happened to him in his sickness contradictory to those assents which in his clearest use of Reason he had to be temptations and arts of the Devil And he hath reason so to think when he remembers how many comforts of the Spirit of God what joys of Religion what support what assistences what strengths he had in the whole course of his former life upon the stock of Faith interest of the Doctrin of Christianity And since the disbelieving the Promises Evangelical at that time can have no end of advantage and that all wise men tell him it may have an end to make him lose the title to them and do him infinite disadvantage upon the stock of interest and prudence he must reject such fears which cannot help him but may ruine him For all the works of Grace which he did upon the hopes of God and the stock of the Divine revelations if he fails in his hold upon them are all rendred unprofitable And it is certain if there be no such thing as Immortality and Resurrection he shall lose nothing for believing there is but if there be they are lost to him for not believing it 9. But this is also to be cured by proper arguments And there is no Christian man but hath within him and carries about him demonstrations of the possibility and great instances of the credibility of those great changes which these tempted persons have no reason to distrust but because they think them too great and too good to be true And here not only the consideration of the Divine Power and his eternal Goodness is a proper Antidote but also the observation of what we have already received from God To be raised from nothing to something is a mutation not less than insinite and from that which we were in our first conception to pass into so perfect and curious bodies and to become discursive sensible passionate and reasonable and next to Angels is a greater change than from this state to pass into that excellency and perfection of it which we expect as the melioration and improvement of the present for this is but a mutation of degrees that of substance this is more sensible because we have perception in both states that is of greater distance because in the first term we were so far distant from what we are that we could not perceive what then we were much less desire to be what we now perceive and yet God did that for us unasked without any obligation on his part or merit on ours much rather then may we be confident of this alteration of accidents and degrees because God hath obliged himself by promise he hath disposed us to it by qualities actions and habits which are to the state of Glory as infancy is to manhood as 〈◊〉 are to excellent discourses as blossoms are to ripe fruits And he that hath wrought miracles for us preserved us in dangers done strange acts of Providence sent his Son to take our Nature made a Virgin to bear a Son and GOD to become Man and two Natures to be one individual Person and all in order to this End of which we doubt hath given us so many arguments of credibility that if he had done any more it would not have been lest in our choice to believe or not believe and then much of the excellency of our Faith would have been lost Add to this that we are not tempted to disbelieve the Roman story or that Virgil's AEneids were writ by him or that we our selves are descended of such Parents because these things are not only transmitted to us by such testimony which we have no reason to distrust but 〈◊〉 the Tempter cannot serve any end upon us by producing such doubts in us and therefore since we have greater testimony for every Article of Faith and to believe it is of so much concernment to us we may well suspect it to be an artifice of the Devil to rob us of our reward this proceeding of his being of the same nature with all his other Temptations which in our life-time like fiery darts he threw into our face to despoil us of our glory and blot out the Image of God imprinted on us 10. Secondly If the Devil tempts the sick person to Despair he who is by God appointed to minister a word of comfort must fortifie his spirit with consideration and representment of the Divine Goodness manifest in all the expresses of Nature and Grace of Providence and Revelation that God never extinguishes the smoaking slax nor breaks the bruised reed that a constant and a hearty
their friends and consider not that their friends are bound to accept the trouble as themselves to accept the sickness that to tend the sick is at that time allotted for the portion of their work and that Charity receives it as a duty and makes that duty to be a pleasure And however if our friends account us a burthen let us also accept that circumstance of affliction to our selves with the same resignation and indifferency as we entertain its occasion the Sickness it self and pray to God to enkindle a flame of Charity in their breasts and to make them compensation for the charge and trouble we put them to and then the care is at an end But others excuse their discontent with a more religious colour and call the disease their trouble and affliction because it impedes their other parts of Duty they cannot preach or study or do exteriour assistences of Charity and Alms or acts of Repentance and Mortification But it were well if we could let God proportion out our work and set our task let him chuse what vertues we shall specially exercise and when the will of God determines us it is more excellent to endure afflictions with patience equanimity and thankfulness than to do actions of the most pompous Religion and laborious or expensive Charity not only because there is a deliciousness in actions of Religion and choice which is more agreeable to our spirit than the toleration of sickness can be which hath great reward but no present pleasure but also because our suffering and our imployment is consecrated to us when God chuses it and there is then no mixture of imperfection or secular interest as there may be in other actions even of an excellent Religion when our selves are the chusers And let us also remember that God hath not so much need of thy works as thou hast of Patience Humility and Resignation S. Paul was far a more considerable person than thou canst be and yet it pleased God to shut him in prison for two years and in that intervall God secured and promoted the work of the Gospel and although 〈◊〉 was an excellent Minister yet God laid a sickness upon him and even in his disease gave him work enough to do though not of his own chusing And therefore fear it not but the ends of Religion or Duty will well enough proceed without thy health and thy own eternal interest when God so pleases shall better be served by Sickness and the Vertues which it occasions than by the opportunities of Health and an ambulatory active Charity 18. When thou art resigned to God use fair and appointed means for thy Recovery trust not in thy spirit upon any instrument of health as thou art willing to be disposed by God so look 〈◊〉 for any event upon the stock of any other cause or principle be ruled by the Physician and the people appointed to tend thee that thou neither become troublesome to them nor give any sign of impatience or a peevish spirit But this advice only means that thou do not disobey them out of any evil principle and yet if Reason be thy guide to chuse any other aid or sollow any other counsel use it temperately prudently and charitably It is not intended for a Duty that thou shouldst drink Oil in stead of Wine if thy Minister reach it to thee as did Saint Bernard nor that thou shouldst accept a Cake tempered with Linseed-oil in stead of Oil of Olives as did F. Stephen mentioned by 〈◊〉 but that thou tolerate the defects of thy servants and accept the evil accidents of thy disease or the unsuccessfulness of thy Physician 's care as descending on thee from the hands of God Asa was noted in Scripture that in his sickness he sought not to the Lord but to the Physicians Lewis the XI of France was then the miserablest person in his Kingdom when he made himself their servant courting them with great pensions and rewards attending to their Rules as Oracles and from their mouths waited for the sentence of life or death We are in these great accidents especially to look upon God as the disposer of the events which he very often disposes contrary to the expectation we may have of probable causes and sometimes without Physick we recover and with Physick and excellent applications we grow worse and worse and God it is that makes the remedies unprosperous In all these and all other accidents if we take care that the sickness of the Body derive not it self into the Soul nor the pains of one procure impatience of the other we shall alleviate the burthen and make it supportable and profitable And certain it is if men knew well to bear their sicknesses humbly towards God charitably towards our Ministers and chearfully in themselves there were no greater advantage in the world to be received than upon a sick bed and that alone hath in it the benefits of a Church of a religious Assembly of the works of Charity and labour And since our Soul 's eternal well-being depends upon the Charities and Providence and Veracity of God and we have nothing to show for it but his word and Goodness and that is infinitely enough it is but reason we be not more nice and scrupulous about the usage and accommodation of our Body if we accept at God's hand sadness and driness of affection and spiritual desertion patiently and with indifferency it is unhandsome to express our selves less satisfied in the accidents about our body 19. But if the Sickness proceed to Death it is a new charge upon our spirits and God calls for a final and intire Resignation into his hands And to a person who was of humble affections and in his life-time of a mortified spirit accustomed to bear the yoke of the Lord this is easie because he looks upon Death not only as the certain condition of Nature but as a necessary transition to a state of Blessedness as the determination of his sickness the period of humane inselicities the last change of condition the beginning of a new strange and excellent life a security against sin a freedom from the importunities of a Tempter from the tyranny of an imperious Lust from the rebellion of Concupiscence from the disturbances and tempests of the Irascible faculty and from the fondness and childishness of the Concupiscible and S. Ambrose says well the trouble of this life and the dangers are so many that in respect of them Death is a remedy and a fair proper object of desires And we finde that many Saints have prayed for death that they might not see the Persecutions and great miseries incumbent upon the Church and if the desire be not out of Impatience but of Charity and with resignation there is no reason to reprove it Elias prayed that God would take his life that he might not see the evils of Ahab and Jezebel and their vexatious intendments against the
to God and even holy purposes are good actions of the Spirit and Principles of Religion and though alone they cannot do the work of Grace or change the state when they are ineffectual that is when either we will not bring them into act or that God will not let us yet to a Man already in the state of Grace they are the additions of something good and are like blowing of coals which although it can put no life into a dead coal yet it makes a live coal shine brighter and burn clearer and adds to it some accidental degrees of heat 23. Having thus disposed himself to the peace of God let him make peace with all those in whom he knows or suspects any minutes of anger or malice or displeasure towards him submitting himself to them with humility whom he unworthily hath displeased asking pardon of them who say they are displeased and offering pardon to them that have displeased him and then let him crave the peace of Holy Church For it is all this while to be supposed that he hath used the assistence and prayers the counsel and the advices of a spiritual man and that to this purpose he hath opened to him the state of his whole life and made him to understand what emendations of his faults he hath made what acts of Repentance he hath done how lived after his fall and reparation and that he hath submitted all that he did or undid to the discerning of a holy man whose office it is to guide his Soul in this agony and last offices All men cannot have the blessing of a wise and learned Minister and some die where they can have none at all yet it were a safer course to do as much of this as we can and to a competent person if we can if we cannot then to the best we have according as we judge it to be of spiritual advantage to us for in this conjuncture of accidents it concerns us to be sure if we may and not to be deceived where we can avoid it because we shall never return to life to do this work again And if after this entercourse with a Spiritual guide we be reconciled by the solemn prayer of the Church the prayer of Absolution it will be of great advantage to us we depart with our Father's blessing we die in the actual Communion of the Church we hear the sentence of God applied after the manner of men and the promise of Pardon made circumstantiate material present and operative upon our spirits and have our portion of the promise which is recorded by S. James that if the Elders of the Church pray over a sick person fervently and effectually add solemnly his sins shall be forgiven him that is supposing him to be in a capacity to receive it because such prayers of such a man are very prevalent 24. All this is in a spiritual sense washing the hands in innocency and then let him go to the altar let him not for any excuse less than impossibility omit to receive the holy Sacrament which the Father 's assembled in the great Nicene Council have taught all the Christian world to call the most necessary provisions for our last journey which is the memory of that Death by which we hope for life which is the seed of Immortality and Resurrection of our bodies which unites our spirit to Christ which is a great defensative against the hostilities of the Devil which is the most solemn Prayer of the Church united and made acceptable by the Sacrifice of Christ which is then represented and exhibited to God which is the great instrument of spiritual increase and the growth of Grace which is duty and reward food and Physick health and pleasure deletery and cordial prayer and thanksgiving an union of mysteries the marriage of the Soul and the perfection of all the Rites of Christianity dying with the holy Sacrament in us is a going to God with Christ in our arms and interposing him between us and his angry sentence But then we must be sure that we have done all the duty without which we cannot communicate worthily For else Satan comes in the place of Christ and it is a horrour not less than infinite to appear before God's Tribunal possessed in our Souls with the spirit of darkness True it is that by many Laws of the Church the Bishop and the Minister are bound to give the holy Eucharist to every person who in the article or apparent danger of death desires it provided that he hath submitted himself to the imposition and counsels of the Bishop or Guide of his Soul that in case he recovers he may be brought to the peace of God and his Church by such steps and degrees of Repentance by which other publick sinners are reconciled But to this gentleness of Discipline and easiness of Administration those excellent persons who made the Canons thought themselves compelled by the rigour of the 〈◊〉 and because they admitted not lapsed persons to the peace of the Church upon any terms though never so great so publick or so penal a Repentance therefore these not onely remitted them to the exercise and station of Penitents but also to the Communion But the Fathers of the Council of Eliberis denied this favour to persons who after Baptism were Idolaters either intending this as a great argument to affright persons from so great a crime or else believing that it was unpardonable after Baptism a contradiction to that state which we entred into by Baptism and the Covenant Evangelical However I desire all learned persons to observe it and the less learned also to make use of it that those more ancient Councils of the Church which commanded the holy Communion to be given to dying persons meant only such which according to the custome of the Church were under the conditions of Repentance that is such to whom punishment and Discipline of divers years were injoyned and if it happened they died in the intervall before the expiration of their time of reconciliation then they admitted them to the Communion Which describes to us the doctrine of those Ages when Religion was purer and Discipline more severe and holy life secured by rules of excellent Government that those only were fit to come to that Feast who before their last sickness had finished the Repentance of many years or at least had undertaken it I cannot say it was so always and in all Churches for as the Disciples grew slack or mens perswasions had variety so they were more ready to grant Repentance as well as Absolution to dying persons but it was otherwise in the best times and with severer Prelates And certainly it were great charity to deny the Communion to persons who have lived viciously till their death provided it be by competent authority and done sincerely prudently and without temporal interest to other persons who have lived good lives or repented of their bad
death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every name Thus his present life was a state of merit and work and as a reward of it he was crowned with glory and immortality his Name was exalted his Kingdom glorified he was made the Lord of all the Creatures the first-fruits of the Resurrection the exemplar of glory and the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church and because this was his recompence and the fruits of his Humility and Obedience it is certain it was not a necessary consequence and a natural efflux of the personal union of the Godhead with the Humanity This I discourse to this purpose that we may not in our esteem lessen the suffering of our dearest Lord by thinking he had the supports of actual Glory in the midst of all his Sufferings For there is no one minute or ray of Glory but its fruition does outweigh and make us insensible of the greatest calamities and the spirit of pain which can be extracted from all the infelicities of this world True it is that the greatest beauties in this world are receptive of an allay of sorrow and nothing can have pleasure in all capacities The most beautious feathers of the birds of Paradise the Estrich or the Peacock if put into our throat are not there so pleasant as to the eye But the beatifick joys of the least glory of Heaven take away all pain wipe away all tears from our eyes and it is not possible that at the same instant the Soul of Jesus should be ravished with Glory and yet abated with pains grievous and 〈◊〉 On the other side some say that the Soul of Jesus upon the Cross suffered the pains of Hell and all the torments of the damned and that without such sufferings it is not imaginable he should pay the price which God's wrath should demand of us But the same that reproves the one does also reprehend the other for the Hope that was the support of the Soul of Jesus as it confesses an imperfection that is not consistent with the state of Glory so it excludes the Despair that is the torment proper to accursed souls Our dearest Lord suffered the whole condition of Humanity Sin only excepted and freed us from Hell with suffering those sad pains and merited Heaven for his own Humanity as the Head and all faithful people as the Members of his mystical Body And therefore his life here was only a state of pilgrimage not at all trimmed with beatifick glories Much less was he ever in the state of Hell or upon the Cross felt the formal misery and spirit of torment which is the 〈◊〉 of damned spirits because it was impossible Christ should despair and without Despair it is impossible there should be a Hell But this is highly probable that in the intension of degrees and present anguish the Soul of our Lord might feel a greater load of wrath than is incumbent in every instant upon perishing souls For all the sadness which may be imagined to be in Hell consists in acts produced from principles that cannot surpass the force of humane or Angelical nature but the pain which our Blessed Lord endured for the expiation of our sins was an issue of an united and concentred anger was received into the heart of God and Man and was commensurate to the whole latitude of the Grace Patience and Charity of the Word incarnate The Crucisixion Mark 15 25. Erat autem Hora tertia crucifixerunt eum Mark 15 25. And is was the third houre they crucified him The takeing down from the Cross. Luk. 23 50 And there was a man named Ioseph a Counsellour he was a good man a lust y e same had not consented to y e counsell deed of them 52. This man went unto Pilate begged y e Body of Iesus 53 And he took it down wrapped it in linen layd it in a Sepulehre that was hewn in stone wherein never man before was layd 6. And now behold the Priest and the Sacrifice of all the world laid upon the Altar of the Cross bleeding and tortured and dying to reconcile his Father to us and he was arrayed with ornaments more glorious than the robes of Aaron The Crown of Thorns was his Mitre the Cross his Pastoral staffe the Nails piercing his hands were in stead of Rings the ancient ornament of Priests and his flesh rased and checker'd with blew and bloud in stead of the parti-coloured Robe But as this object calls for our Devotion our Love and Eucharist to our dearest Lord so it must needs irreconcile us to Sin which in the eye of all the world brought so great shame and pain and amazement upon the Son of God when he only became engaged by a charitable substitution of himself in our place and therefore we are assured by the demonstration of sense and experience it will bring death and all imaginable miseries as the just expresses of God's indignation and hatred for to this we may apply the words of our Lord in the prediction of miseries to Jerusalem If this be done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry For it is certain Christ infinitely pleased his Father even by becoming the person made 〈◊〉 in estimate of Law and yet so great Charity of our Lord and the so great love and pleasure of his Father exempted him not from suffering pains intolerable and much less shall those escape who provoke and displease God and despise so great Salvation which the Holy Jesus hath wrought with the expence of bloud and so precious a life 7. But here we see a great representation and testimony of the Divine Justice who was so angry with sin who had so severely threatned it who does so essentially hate it that he would not spare his only Son when he became a conjunct person relative to the guilt by undertaking the charges of our Nature For although God hath set down in holy Scripture the order of his Justice and the manner of its manifestation that one Soul shall not perish for the sins of another yet this is meant for Justice and for Mercy too that is he will not curse the Son for the Father's fault or in any relation whatsoever substitute one person for another to make him involuntarily guilty But when this shall be desired by a person that cannot finally perish and does a mercy to the exempt persons and is a voluntary act of the suscipient and shall in the event also redound to an infinite good it is no deflection from the Divine Justice to excuse many by the affliction of one who also for that very suffering shall have infinite compensation We see that for the sin of Cham all his posterity were accursed the Subjects of David died with the Plague because their Prince numbred the people Idolatry is punished in the children of the fourth generation
Saul's seven sons were hanged for breaking the League of Gibeon and Ahab's sin was punished in his posterity he escaping and the evil was brought upon his house in his son's days In all these cases the evil descended upon persons in near relation to the sinner and was a punishment to him and a misery to these and were either chastisements also of their own sins or if they were not they served other ends of Providence and led the afflicted innocent to a condition of recompence accidentally procured by that infliction But if for such relation's sake and oeconomical and political conjunction as between Prince and People the evil may be transmitted from one to another much rather is it just when by contract a competent and conjunct person undertakes to quit his relative Thus when the Hand steals the Back is whipt and an evil Eye is punished with a hungry Belly Treason causes the whole Family to be miserable and a Sacrilegious Grandfather hath sent a Locust to devour the increase of the Nephews 8. But in our case it is a voluntary contract and therefore no Injustice all parties are voluntary God is the supreme Lord and his actions are the measure of Justice we who had deserved the punishment had great reason to desire a Redeemer and yet Christ who was to pay the ransome was more desirous of it than we were for we asked it not before it was promised and undertaken But thus we see that Sureties pay the obligation of the principal Debtor and the Pledges of Contracts have been by the best and wisest Nations slain when the Articles have been broken The Thessalians slew 250 Pledges the Romans 300 of the Volsci and threw the Tarentines from the Tarpeian rock And that it may appear Christ was a person in all sences competent to do this for us himself testifies that he had power over his own life to take it up or lay it down And therefore as there can be nothing against the most exact justice and reason of Laws and punishments so it magnifies the Divine Mercy who removes the punishment from us who of necessity must have sunk under it and yet makes us to adore his Severity who would not forgive us without punishing his Son for us to consign unto us his perfect hatred against Sin to conserve the sacredness of his Laws and to imprint upon us great characters of fear and love The famous Locrian Zaleucus made a Law that all Adulterers should lose both their eyes his son was first unhappily surprised in the crime and his Father to keep a temper between the piety and soft spirit of a Parent and the justice and severity of a Judge put out one of his own eyes and one of his Sons So God did with us he made some abatement that is as to the person with whom he was angry but inflicted his anger upon our Redeemer whom he essentially loved to secure the dignity of his Sanctions and the sacredness of Obedience so marrying Justice and Mercy by the intervening of a commutation Thus David escaped by the death of his Son God chusing that penalty for the expiation and Cimon offered himself to prison to purchase the liberty of his Father Miltiades It was a filial duty in Cimon and yet the Law was satisfied And both these concurred in our great Redeemer For God who was the sole Arbitrator so disposed it and the eternal Son of God submitted to this way of expiating our crimes and became an argument of faith and belief of the great Article of Remission of sins and other its appendent causes and effects and adjuncts it being wrought by a visible and notorious Passion It was made an encouragement of Hope for he that spared not his own Son to reconcile us will with him give all things else to us so reconciled and a great endearment of our Duty and Love as it was a demonstration of his And in all the changes and traverses of our life he is made to us a great example of all excellent actions and all patient sufferings 9. In the midst of two Thieves three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain agony and dishonour all of them so eminent and vast that he who could not but hope whose Soul was enchased with Divinity and dwelt in the bosom of God and in the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity yet had a cloud of misery so thick and black drawn before him that he complained as if God had forsaken him but this was the pillar of cloud which conducted Israel into Canaan And as God behind the Cloud supported the Holy Jesus and stood ready to receive him into the union of his Glories so his Soul in that great desertion had internal comforts proceeding from consideration of all those excellent persons which should be adopted into the fellowship of his Sufferings which should imitate his Graces which should communicate his Glories And we follow this Cloud to our Country having Christ for our Guide and though he trode the way leaning upon the Cross which like the staffe of Egypt pierced his hands yet it is to us a comfort and support pleasant to our spirits as the sweetest Canes strong as the pillars of the earth and made apt for our use by having been born and made smooth by the hands of our Elder Brother 10. In the midst of all his torments Jesus only made one Prayer of sorrow to represent his sad condition to his Father but no accent of murmur no syllable of anger against his enemies In stead of that he sent up a holy charitable and effective Prayer for their forgiveness and by that Prayer obtained of God that within 55 days 8000 of his enemies were converted So potent is the prayer of Charity that it prevails above the malice of men turning the arts of Satan into the designs of God and when malice occasions the Prayer the Prayer becomes an antidote to malice And by this instance our Blessed Lord consigned that Duty to us which in his Sermons he had preached That we should forgive our enemies and pray for them and by so doing our selves are freed from the stings of anger and the storms of a revengeful spirit and we oftentimes procure servants to God friends to our selves and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven 11. Of the two Thieves that were crucified together with our Lord the one blasphemed the other had at that time the greatest Piety in the world except that of the Blessed Virgin and particularly had such a Faith that all the Ages of the Church could never shew the like For when he saw Christ in the same condemnation with himself crucisied by the Romans accused and scorned by the Jews forsaken by his own Apostles a dying distressed Man doing at that time no Miracles to attest his Divinity or Innocence yet then he confesses him to be a Lord and a King and his Saviour He confessed his own
to be contracted into the span of Humanity and dwell forty days in his body upon earth But that he should return from Paradise that is from the common receptacle of departed Spirits who died in the love of God to earth again had in it no lessening of his condition since himself in mercy called back Lazarus from thence and some others also returned to live a life of grace which in all senses is less than the least of glories Sufficient it is to us that all holy Souls departing go into the hands that is into the custody of our Lord that they rest from their labours that their works shall follow them and overtake them too at the day of Judgment that they are happy presently that they are visited by Angels that God sends as he pleases excellent irradiations and types of glory to entertain them in their mansions that their condition is secured but the crown of 〈◊〉 is laid up against the great day of Judgment and then to be produced and given to S. Paul and to all that love the coming of our Lord that is to all who either here in duty or in their receptacles with joy and certain hope long for the revelation of that day At the day of Judgment Christ will send the Angels and they shall gather together the elect from the four winds and all the refuse of men evil persons they shall throw into everlasting burning Then our Blessed Lord shall call to the elect to enter into the Kingdom and reject the cursed into the portion of Devils for whom the fire is but now prepared in the intervall For we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ saith S. Paul that every man may receive in his body according as he hath done whether it be good or evil Out of the body the reception of the reward is not And therefore S. Peter affirms that God hath delivered the evil Angels into chains of darkness to be reserved unto Judgment And S. Jude saith that the Angels which kept not their first faith but left their first habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the Judgment of the great day And therefore the Devils expostulated with our Blessed Saviour Art thou come to torment us before the time And the same also he does to evil men reserving the unjust unto the day of Judgment to be punished For since the actions which are to be judg'd are the actions of the whole man so also must be the Judicature And our Blessed Saviour intimated this to his Apostles In my Father's house are many mansions but I go to prepare a place for you And if I go away I will come again and take you unto me that where I am there ye may be also At Christ's Second coming this is to be performed Many Outer courts many different places or different states there may be and yet there is a place whither holy Souls shall arrive at last which was not then ready for us and was not to be entred into until the entrance of our Lord had made the preparation and that is certainly the highest Heaven called by S. Paul the third Heaven because the other receptacles were ready and full of holy Souls Patriarchs and Prophets and holy men of God concerning whom S. Paul affirms expresly that the Fathers received not the Promises God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect Therefore certain it is that their condition was a state of imperfection and yet they were placed in Paradise in Abraham's bosom and thither Christ went and the blessed Thief attended him And then it was that Christ made their condition better for though still it be a place of relation in order to something beyond it yet the term and object of their hope is changed they sate in the regions of darkness expecting that great Promise made to Adam and the Patriarchs the Promise of the Messias but when he that was promised came he preached to the spirits in Prison he communicated to them the Mysteries of the Gospel the Secrets of the Kingdom the things hidden from eternal Ages and taught them to look up to the glories purchased by his Passion and made the term of their expectation be his Second coming and the objects of their hope the glories of the beatifick vision And although the state of Separation is sometimes in Scripture called 〈◊〉 and sometimes 〈◊〉 for these words in Scripture are of large significations yet it is never called the third 〈◊〉 nor the Hell of the damned for although concerning it nothing is clearly revealed or what is their portion till the day of Judgment yet it is intimated in a Parable that between good and evil spirits even in the state of Separation there is distance of place certain it is there is great distance of condition and as the holy Souls in their regions of light are full of love joy hope and longing for the coming of the great Day so the accursed do expect it with an insupportable amazement and are presently tormented with apprehensions of the future Happy are they that through Paradise pass into the Kingdom who from their highest hope pass to the 〈◊〉 Charity from the state of a blessed Separation to the Mercies and gentle Sentence of the day of Judgment which S. Paul prayed to God to grant 〈◊〉 and more explicitely for the Thessalonians that their whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus And I pray God to grant the same to me and all faithful people whatsoever 2. As soon as the Lord had given up his spirit into the hands of God the veil of the Temple was rent the Angels Guardians of the place deserted it the Rites of Moses were laid open and the inclosures of the Tabernacle were dispark'd the earth trembled the graves were opened and all the old world and the old Religion were so shaken towards their first Chaos that if God had not supported the one and reserved the other for an honourable burial the earth had left to support her children and the Synagogue had been thrown out to an inglorious exposition and contempt But yet in these symbols these were changed from their first condition and passed into a new dominion all old things passed away and all things became new the Earth and the Heavens were reckoned as a new creation they passed into another kingdom under Christ their Lord and as before the creatures were servants of humane necessities they now become servants of election and in order to the ends of Grace as before of Nature Christ having now the power to dispose of them in order to his Kingdom and by the administration of his own Wisdom And at the instant of these accidents God so determined the perswasions of men that they referred these Prodigies of the honour to
parent of as great Religion as the good women make their fancy their softness and their passion 12. Our Blessed Lord appeared next to Simon and though he and John ran forthtogether and S. John outran Simon although Simon Peter had denied and forsworn his Lord and S. John never did and followed him to his Passion and his death yet Peter had the savour of seeing Jesus first Which some Spiritual persons understand as a testimony that penitent 〈◊〉 have accidental eminences and priviledges sometimes 〈◊〉 to them beyond the temporal graces of the just and innocent as being such who not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the remanent and inherent evils even of repented sins and their aptnesses to relapse but also because those who are true Penitents who understand the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and that for a sinner to pass from death to 〈◊〉 from the state of sin into pardon and the state of Grace is a greater gift and a more excellent and improbable mutation than for a just man to be taken into glory out of gratitude to God and indearment 〈◊〉 so great a change added to a fear of returning to such danger and misery will re-enforce all their industry and double their study and 〈◊〉 more diligently and watch more carefully and redeem the 〈◊〉 and make amends for their omissions and oppose a good to the former evils beside the duties of the 〈◊〉 imployment and then commonly the life of a holy Penitent is more holy active zealous and impatient of Vice and more rapacious of Vertue and holy actions and arises to greater 〈◊〉 of Sanctity than the even and moderate affections of just persons who as our Blessed Saviour's expression is 〈◊〉 no Repentance that is no change of state nothing but a perseverance and an improvement of degrees There is more joy in heaven before the Angels of God over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 ninety nine just persons that need it not for where sin hath abounded there doth grace super abound and that makes joy in Heaven 13. The Holy Jesus having received the affections of his most passionate Disciples the women and S. 〈◊〉 puts himself upon the way into the company of two good men going to Emmaus with troubled spirits and a reeling faith shaking all its upper building but leaving some of its foundation firm To them the Lord discourses of the necessity of the Death and Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 and taught them not to take estimate of the counsels of God by the designs and proportions of man for God by ways contrary to humane judgment brings to pass the purposes of his eternal Providence The glories of Christ were not made pompous by humane circumstances his Kingdom was spiritual he was to enter into Felicities through the gates of Death he refused to do Miracles before 〈◊〉 and yet did them before the people he confuted his accusers by silence and did not descend from the Cross when they offered to believe in him if he would but 〈◊〉 them to be perswaded by greater arguments of his power the miraculous circumstances of his Death and the glories of his Resurrection and by walking in the secret paths of Divine election hath commanded us to adore his footsteps to admire and revere his Wisdom to be satisfied with all the events of Providence and to rejoyce in him if by Afflictions he makes us holy if by Persecutions he supports and enlarges his Church if by Death he brings us to life so we arrive at the communion of his Felicities we must let him chuse the way it being sufficient that he is our guide and our support and our exceeding great reward For therefore Christ preached to the two Disciples going to 〈◊〉 the way of the Cross and the necessity of that passage that the wisdom of God might be glorified and the conjectures of man ashamed But whilest his discourse lasted they knew him not but in the breaking of bread he discovered himself For he turned their meal into a Sacrament and their darkness to light and having to his Sermon added the Sacrament opened all their discerning faculties the eyes of their body and their understanding too to represent to us that when we are blessed with the opportunities of both those instruments we want no exteriour assistence to guide us in the way to the knowing and enjoying of our Lord. 14. But the Apparitions which Jesus made were all upon the design of laying the foundation of all Christian Graces for the begetting and establishing Faith and an active Confidence in their persons and building them up on the great fundamentals of the Religion And therefore he appointed a general meeting upon a mountain in Galilee that the number of witnesses might not only disseminate the same but establish the Article of the Resurrection for upon that are built all the hopes of a Christian and if the dead rise not then are we of all men most miserable in quitting the present possessions and entertaining injuries and affronts without hopes of reparation But we lay two gages in several repositories the Body in the bosome of the earth the Soul in the 〈◊〉 of God and as we here live by Faith and lay them down with hope so the 〈◊〉 is a restitution of them both and a state of re-union And therefore although the glory of our spirits without the body were joy great enough to make compensation for mere than the troubles of all the world yet because one shall not be glorified without the other they being of themselves incomplete substances and God having revealed nothing clearly concerning actual and complete felicities till the day of Judgment when it is promised our bodies shall rise therefore it is that the Resurrection is the great Article upon which we rely and which Christ took so much care to prove and ascertain to so many persons because if that should be disbelieved with which all our felicities are to be received we have nothing to establish our Faith or entertain our Hope or satisfie our desires or make retribution for that state of secular inconveniences in which by the necessities of our nature and the humility and patience of our Religion we are engaged 15. But I consider that holy Scripture onely instructs us concerning the life of this world and the life of the Resurrection the life of Grace and the life of Glory both in the body that is a life of the whole man and whatsoever is spoken of the Soul considers it as an essential part of man relating to his whole constitution not as it is of it self an intellectual and separate substance for all its actions which are separate and removed from the body are relative and incomplete Now because the Soul is an incomplete substance and created in relation to the Body and is but a part of the whole man if the Body were as eternal and incorruptible as the Soul yet the separation of the one from the other would be
as now it is that which we call natural death and supposing that God should preserve the Body for ever or restore it at the day of Judgment to its full substance and perfect organs yet the man would be dead for ever if the Soul for ever should continue separate from the Body So that the other life that is the state of Resurrection is a re-uniting Soul and Body And although in a Philosophical sence the Resurrection is of the Body that is a restitution of our flesh and bloud and bones and is called Resurrection as the entrance into the state of Resurrection may have the denomination of the whole yet in the sence of Scripture the Resurrection is the restitution of our life the renovation of the whole man the state of Re-union and untill that be the man is not but he is dead and onely his essential parts are deposited and laid up in trust and therefore whatsoever the Soul does or perceives in its incomplete condition is but to it as embalming and honourable funerals to the Body and a safe monument to preserve it in order to a living again and the felicities of the intervall are wholly in order to the next life And therefore if there were to be no Resurrection as these intermedial joys should not be at all so as they are they are but relative and incomplete and therefore all our hopes all our felicities depend upon the Resurrection without it we should never be persons men or women and then the state of Separation could be nothing but a phantasm trees ever in blossome never bearing fruit corn for ever in the blade eggs always in the shell a hope eternal never to pass into fruition that is for ever to be deluded for ever to be miserable And therefore it was an elegant expression of S. Paul Our life is hid with Christ in God that is our life is passed into custody the dust of our body is numbred and the Spirit is refreshed visited and preserved in celestial mansions but it is not properly called a Life for all this while the man is dead and shall then live when Christ produces this hidden life at the great day of restitution But our faith of all this Article is well wrapt up in the words of S. John Beloved now we are the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is The middle state is not it which Scripture hath propounded to our Faith or to our Hope the reward is then when Christ shall appear but in the mean time the Soul can converse with God and with Angels just as the holy Prophets did in their Dreams in which they received great degrees of favour and revelation But this is not to be reckoned any more than an entrance or a waiting for the state of our Felicity And since the glories of Heaven is the great fruit of Election we may consider that the Body is not predestinate nor the Soul alone but the whole Man and until the parts embrace again in an essential complexion it cannot be expected either of them should receive the portion of the predestinate But the article and the event of future things is rarely set in order by Saint Paul But ye are come into the mount Sion and to the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels To the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and then follows after this general assembly after the Judge of all appears to the spirits of just men made perfect that is re-united to their bodies and entring into glory The beginning of the contrary Opinion brought some new practices and appendent perswasions into the Church or at least promoted them much For those Doctors who receding from the Primitive belief of this Article taught that the glories of Heaven are fully communicated to the Souls before the day of Judgment did also upon that stock teach the Invocation of Saints whom they believed to be received into glory and insensibly also brought in the opinion of Purgatory that the less perfect Souls might be glorified in the time that they assigned them But the safer opinion and more agreeable to Piety is that which I have now described from Scripture and the purest Ages of the Church 16. When Jesus appeared to the Apostles he gave them his Peace for a Benediction and when he departed he left them Peace for a Legacy and gave them according to two former promises the power of making Peace and reconciling Souls to God by a ministerial act so conveying his Father's mercy which himself procured by his Passion and actuates by his Intercession and the giving of his Grace that he might comply with our infirmities and minister to our needs by instruments even and proportionate to our selves making our brethren the conduits of his Grace that the excellent effect of the Spirit might not descend upon us as the Law upon Mount Sinai in expresses of greatness and terrour but in earthen vessels and images of infirmity so God manifesting his power in the smalness of the instrument and descending to our needs not only in giving the grace of Pardon but also in the manner of its ministration And I meditate upon the greatness of this Mercy by comparing this Grace of God and the blessing of the Judgment and Sentence we receive at the hand of the Church with the Judgment which God makes at the hour of death upon them who have despised this mercy and neglected all the other parts of their duty The one is a Judgment of mercy the other of vengeance In the one the Devil is the Accuser and Heaven and earth bear witness in the other the penitent sinner accuses himself In that the sinner gets a pardon in the other he finds no remedy In that all his good deeds are remembred and returned and his sins are blotted out in the other all his evil deeds are represented with horrour and a sting and remain for ever In the first the sinner changes his state for a state of Grace and only smarts in some temporal austerities and acts of exteriour mortification in the second his temporal estate is changed to an eternity of pain In the first the sinner suffers the shame of one man or one society which is sweetned by consolation and homilies of mercy and health in the latter all his sins are laid open before all the world and himself confounded in eternal amazement and confusions In the judgment of the Church the sinner is honoured by all for returning to the bosome of his Mother and the embraces of his heavenly Father in the judgment of vengeance he is laughed at by God and mocked by accursed spirits and perishes without pity In this he is prayed for by none
helped by none comforted by none and he makes himself a companion of Devils to everlasting ages but in the judgment of Repentance and Tribunal of the Church the penitent sinner is prayed for by a whole army of militant Saints and causes joy to all the Church triumphant And to establish this Tribunal in the Church and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime and to appoint Physicians and Guardians of the Soul was one of the designs and mercies of the Resurrection of Jesus And let not any Christian man either by false opinion or an unbelieving spirit or an incurious apprehension undervalue or neglect this ministery which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the Church is built that the Church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck and the shivers of the broken heart may re-unite them pouring Oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin and restoring with meekness gentleness care counsel and authority persons overtaken in a fault For that act of Ministery is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in Heaven and that Authority is not contemptible which the Holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his Church the Holy Ghost But Christ intended that those whom he had made Guides of our Souls and Judges of our Consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon should also be used by us in all cases of our Souls and that we go to Heaven the way he hath appointed that is by offices and ministeries Ecclesiastical 17. When our Blessed Lord had so confirmed the Faith of the Church and appointed an Ecclesiastical Ministery he had but one work more to do upon earth and that was the Institution of the holy Sacrament of Baptism which he ordained as a solemn Initiation and mysterious Profession of the Faith upon which the Church is built making it a solemn Publication of our Profession the rite of Stipulation or entring Covenant with our Lord the solemnity of the Paction Evangelical in which we undertake to be Disciples to the Holy Jesus that is to believe his Doctrine to fear his Threatnings to rely upon his Promises and to obey his Commandments all the days of our life and he for his part actually performs much and promises more he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days purging our Souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence promising withall that if we perform our undertaking and remain in the state in which he now puts us he will continually assist us with his Spirit prevent and attend us with his Grace he will deliver us from the power of the Devil he will keep our Souls in merciful joyful and safe custody till the great Day of the Lord he will then raise our Bodies from the Grave he will make them to be spiritual and immortal he will re-unite them to our Souls and beatifie both Bodies and Souls in his own Kingdom admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories All which that he might verifie and prepare respectively in the presence of his Disciples he ascended into the bosome of God and the eternal comprehensions of celestial Glory The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast overcome Death and triumphed over all the powers of Hell Darkness Sin and the Grave manifesting the truth of thy Promises the power of thy Divinity the majesty of thy Person the rewards of thy Glory and the mercies and excellent designs of thy Evangelical Kingdom by thy glorious and powerful Resurrection preserve my Soul from eternal death and make me to rise from the death of Sin and to live the life of Grace loving thy Perfections adoring thy Mercy pursuing the interest of thy Kingdom being united to the Church under thee our Head conforming to thy holy Laws established in Faith entertained and confirmed with a modest humble and certain Hope and sanctified by Charity that I engraving thee in my heart and submitting to thee in my spirit and imitating thee in thy glorious example may be partaker of thy Resurrection which is my hope and my desire the support of my Faith the object of my Joy and the strength of my Confidence In thee Holy Jesus do I trust I confess thy Faith I believe all that thou hast taught I desire to perform all thy injunctions and my own undertaking my Soul is in thy hand do thou support and guide it and pity my infirmities and when thou shalt reveal thy great Day shew to me the mercies and effects of thy Advocation and Intercession and Redemption Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God for in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Thou art just thou 〈◊〉 merciful thou art gracious and compassionate thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective but make me capable and receptive of thy Mercies and then I am certain to receive them I am thine O save me thou art mine O Holy Jesus O dwell with me for ever and let me dwell with thee adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THE END 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE TABLE OF The Life of CHRIST Where are more Numbers than one the first Number denotes the Page the latter the Number of the Section A. ABsolution of dying Persons of what benefit 407. 23. Whether to be given to all that desire it 408. 24. Acceptable Year of the Lord what it means 186. 22. Actions of Jesus confuted his Accusers 390. 2. Acts of Vertue to be done by sick and dying Persons 405 406. 19 20. Accusation of Criminals not to be aggravated odiously 393. 8. It ought to be onely for purposes of Charity ibid. Accusation of innocent persons ought to be born patiently by the innocent 393. 9. Accusation of Jesus 352. 24. Adam buried in Golgotha 354. 31. Adoption of Sons 316. 7. Advent of our Lord must be entertained with joy 156. 3. Adultery made more criminal under the Gospel than under the Law 249. 37 c. Adultery of the eyes 250. 36. Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in the place of Christ's Birth 14. 6. Agony of Jesus in the Garden 350. 20. Agesilaus was more commended for his modesty and obedience than for his prosperous good Conduct 50. 25. Albes or white garments wore by the Church and why 393. 9 10. Alms intended for a defensative against Covetousness 258. 1. Ordinarily to be according to our ability ibid. Sometimes beyond in what cases ibid. Necessities of all indigent people are the object of our Alms 259. 3. Manner of Alms an office of Christian prudence ibid. The two Altars in Solomon's Temple what they did represent 83. 4. Ambitious seeking Ecclesiastical Dignities very criminal 96. 2. Ambition is
of Visions 61. 23. Sins of Infirmity explicated 105. 10. seq Intentions though good excuse not evil Actions 107. 13. Incontinence destroys the Spirit of Government 189. 5. Instruments weak and unlikely used by GOD to great purposes 197. Incarnation of Jesus instrumental to God's Glory and our Peace 31. Inevitable Infirmities consistent with a state of Grace 207. Injuries great and little to be forgiven 252. Intention of Spirit how necessary in our Prayers 267. 17. Images their Lawfulness or unlawfulness considered 237. 16. Admitted into the Church with difficulty and by degrees 237. 16. Images of Jupiter and Diana Cyndias did ridiculous and weak Miracles 279. 7. Imprisonment sanctified by the binding of Jesus 387. Ingratitude of Judas 360. 9. John the Baptist his Life and Death 66. 5. 77. 78. and 79. 93. 292. 18. His Baptism 93. Whether the form of it were in the Name of Christ to come ibid. Joyes spiritual increase by communication 156. 3. Joyes of Eternity recompense all our Sorrowes in every instant of their fruition 426. Joyes sudden and violent are to be allayed by reflexion on the vilest of our Sins 196. 7. John Patriarch of Alexandria appeased the anger of Patricius 245. 30. Innocence is security against evil Actions 10. Justice of GOD in punishing Jesus cleared 415. 7 8. Several degrees of Justification answerable to several degrees of Faith 162. 7. Judgment of Life and Death is to be only by the supreme Power or his Deputy 253. A Jew condemned of Idolatry for throwing stones though in detestation at the Idol of Mercury 354. 32. Judging our Brother how far prohibited 260. 5. Judas's name written in Heaven and blotted 〈◊〉 again 313. 1. His manner of death 352. 25. Ingrateful 360. 8. He valued the Ointment at the same rate he sold his Lord 361. 11. He enjoyed his Money not Ten Hours 386. 7. Julian desired but could not be a Magician 361. 10. Judgment of GOD upon Sinners their causes and manner 336. 1. seq Judgments National 340. 8. Not easily understood by Men 339. 5. Joseph of Arimath embalmed the Body of Jesus 356. 38. Whether Judas received the Holy Sacrament 375. 13. K. KIng and Church have the same Friends and Enemies 336. Kingdom of Christ not of this World 352. What it is 392. 8. Kingdom of God what 263. 5. Kingdom of Grace and Glory ibid. A King came to Jesus in behalf of his Son 182. 6. Kings specially to be prayed for 365. 13. King's Enemies how to be prayed against ibid. To Kill the assaulting Person in what cases lawful 253. 3. L. LAws evil make a National Sin 341. 10. Law of Nature Vide Pref. per tot 20. 7. Laws of Man to be obeyed but not always to be thought most reasonable 42. 7. 48. 21. Laws of God and Man in respect of the greatness of the subject matter compared 46. 49. Laws of Men bind not to Death or an insufferable Calamity rather than not to break them 48. 21. Laws of Superiours not to be too freely disputed by Subjects 49. 23. Laws of order to be observed even when the first reason ceases 52. 1. It is not safe to do all that is lawful 45. 15 16. Law and Gospel how differ 194. 3. 232. 3. 295. S. Paul often by a Fiction of Person speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but as under the imperfections of the Law 104. 8. Law of Nature perfected by Christianity Pref. Law of Moses a Law of Works how 232. Law of Jesus a Law of the Spirit and not of Works in what sence ibid. Law-Suits to be managed charitably 256. When lawful to be undertaken ibid. Lazarus restored to Life 345. 2. Leonigildus kill'd his Daughter for not communicating with the Arians 188. 2. Leven of Herod what 321. 8. Lepers cured 324. 18. Sent to the Priest ibid. Unthankful ibid. The Levantine Churches afflicted the cause uncertain 338. 4. S. Laurence his Gridiron less hot than his Love 358. 2. 7. 〈◊〉 17. Life of Man cut off for Sin 303. 305. It hath several periods ibid. 274. Good life necessary to make our Prayers acceptable 266. 13. A comparison between a Life in Solitude and in Society 80. 5. Lord's Supper the greatest of Christian Rites 369. It manifests God's Power 371. 4. His Wisdome and his Charity 371. 5 6. It is a Sacrament of Union 371. 5 6. A Sacrament and a Sacrifice in what sence 372. 7. As it is an act of the Ecclesiastical Officer of what efficacy 373. 8. It is expressed in mysterious words when the value is recited 373. Not to be administred to vicious persons 374. 12. Whether persons vicious under suspicion only are to be deprived of it 376. 13. How to be received 377. 15. What deportment to be used after it 378. 17. To be received by dying Persons 407. 23. Of what benefit it is to them ibid. Love and Obedience Duties of the first Commandment 234. 8. Love and Obedience reconciled 427. 9. Love of God its extension 234. 9. It s intension ibid. n. 11. Love the fulfilling of the Law explicated 233. 5. It consists in latitude 236. 13. It must exclude all affection to sin ibid. 14. Signs of true love to God 236. 14. Love to God with all our hearts possible and in what sence ibid. Love of God and love of money compared 361. 11. Lord's Day by what authority to be observed 244. 24. And how ibid. Lucian's Cynick an Hypocrite 366. 7. Likeness to God being desired at first ruined us now restores us 364. 3. Lying in that degree is criminal as it is injurious 250. 40. M. MArriage honoured by Christ's presence and the first Miracle 154. Hallowed to a Mystery 158. 8. Marriage-breakers are more criminal now than under Moses's Law 158. The smaller undecencies must be prevented or deprecated Of Martyrdom 229. 18. Magi at the sight of Christ's Poverty renounce the World and retire into Philosophy 28. 13. Mary a Virgin alwayes 14. 2. An excellent Personage 2 3. 8. She conceived Jesus without Sin and brought him forth without Pain 13. Her joy at the Prophecies concerning her Son attempered with Predictions of his Passion 30. 4. Full of Fears when she lost Jesus 73. 1. She went to the Temple to pray and there found him ibid. Full of Piety in Her countenance and deportment 113. 32. She converted many to thoughts of Chastity by her countenance and aspect ibid. Mary Magdalen's Story 377. 9. 360. 5. 391. 9. 346. 5. 349. 13. Mary's Choice preferred 326. 26. Mark for sook Jesus upon a Scandal taken but was reduced by S. Peter 320. 3. Malchus an Idumaean Slave smote Jesus on the Face 389. 1. Meditation described 54. It turns the understanding into spirit 55. Its Parts Actions manner of Exercise Fruits and Effects Disc. 3. per tot 54. Men ought not to run into the Ministery till they are called 99. 3.
Communication 94. 3. Triumphant riding of Jesus 359. 4. Thief upon the Cross pardoned and in what sence 200. 8. An excellent Penitent 354. 32. Themistocles appeased King Admetus by 〈◊〉 his Son to his sight 372. 7. Thomas's Infidelity 420. 3. Tongue-murther 247. V. VAin Repetitions in Prayer to be avoided 270. Value of the Silver pieces Judas had 349. 14. Value of Jesus in this World was always at a low rate 57. 4. Vespasian upon the Prophecies concerning the Messias 〈◊〉 himself into hopes of the Empire 25. 2. Vinegar and Gall offered to Jesus 355. 35. Virginity preserred before Marriage 327. Vertue is honourable 301. 11. Productive of 〈◊〉 299. 7. More pleasant than Vice 69. 6. The holy Virgin incouraged Joseph of Arimathea to a publick Confession of Jesus 356. 38. She caused Ministers to take her Son's Body from the Cross 356. Full of sorrow at the Passion 356. 37. She was saluted Blessed by a Capernaite 292. 12. Vice a great Spender 301. 9. It 〈◊〉 from Vertue sometimes but in one nice degree 45. 15. Why we are more prone to Vice than Vertue 37. 4. A Virgin shut her self up twelve Years in a Sepulchre to cure her Temptation 114. 34. Vicious persons not to be admitted to the Sacrament 374. 12. Unitive way of Religion to be practised with caution 60. 20. Vows are a good instance of Importunity in Prayer 270. 20. To be made with much caution and prudence ibid. Uncleanness of Body and Spirit forbidden to Christians 249 W. WAter-pots among the Jews at Feasts and why 152. 7. Way to Heaven narrow in what sence 297. Washing the Feet an hospitable civility to Strangers 350. 16. Washing the Disciples Feet ib. Wandring thoughts in Prayer to be prayed against 268. Watchfulness designed in the Parable of the ten Virgins 348. Want cannot be where God undertakes the Provision 77. Wenceslaus King of Bohemia led his Servant by a vigorous example 4. Exh. 10. Widows two Mites accepted 348. Widowhood harder to preserve Continence than Virginity 86. Wise-mens expectation lessened at the sight of the Babe lying in a Stable 28. But not 〈◊〉 ibid. They publickly consess him 33. Wilderness chosen by Christ he was not involuntarily driven by the evil Spirit 95. Works of Religion upon our Death-bed after a pious Life are of great concernment 403. Women must be lovers of Privacy 9. Instrumental to Conversion of Men 182. 3. To Heresie 189. 5. Not to be conversed withall too freely by Spiritual persons ibid. They 〈◊〉 Religious Friendships with Apostles and Bishops ibid. 6. Cautions concerning Conversation with Women ibid. They ministred to Christ 293. 17. Go early to the Sepulchre 419. Will for the Deed accepted how to be understood 213. 41. Will of God is to be chosen before our own 247. 267. World to be refused when the Devil offers it 100. Wine mixed with Myrrhe offered to Jesus 353. Y. YOak of Christianity easie 295. Yoak of Moses and Yoak of Sin broken by Christ 295. 1. Z. ZEal of Elias not imitable by us 324. 18. Zeal of Prayer of great efficacy 269. 18. It discomposed Moses and Elisha 85. 8. Zacchaeus his Repentance 346. 4. Zebedee's Sons Petition ibid. Zechary slain by Herod and why 66. 5. His Bloud left a Tincture in the Pavement for a long while after ibid. The End of the TABLE ERRATA PAge 85. Line 13. for Consulted by three things read Consulted by three Kings Antiquitates Apostolicae OR THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES OF OUR SAVIOUR To which are added The Lives of the two EVANGELISTS SS MARK and LVKE By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his MAJESTY 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. Praesat in Epist. ad Philem. pag. 1733. LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1675. TO THE READER IT will not I suppose seem improbable to the Reader when I tell him with how much reluctancy and unwillingness I set upon this undertaking Besides the disadvantage of having this piece annexed to the Elaborate Book of that excellent Prelate so great a Master both of Learning and Language I was intimately conscious to mine own unfitness for such a Work at any time much more when clogg'd with many habitual Infirmities and Distempers I considered the difficulty of the thing it self perhaps not capable of being well managed by a much better Ten than mine few of the Ancient Monuments of the Church being extant and little of this nature in those few that are Indeed I could not but think it reasonable that all possible honour should be done to those that first Preached the Gospel of peace and brought glad tidings of good things that it was fit men should be taught how much they were obliged to those excellent Persons who were willing at so dear a rate to plant Christianity in the World who they were and what was that Piety and that Patience that Charity and that Zeal which made them to be reverenc'd while they liv'd and their Memories ever since to be honourably celebrated through the World infinitely beyond the glories of Alexander and the triumphs of a Pompey or a Caesar. But then how this should be done out of those few imperfect Memoires that have escaped the general shipwrack of Church-Antiquities and much more by so rude and unskilful a hand as mine appear'd I confess a very difficult task and next door to impossible These with some other considerations made me a long time obstinately resolve against it till being overcome by importunity I yielded to do it as I was able and as the nature of the thing would bear THAT which I primarily designed to my self was to draw down the History of the New Testament especially from our Lord's death to enquire into the first Originals and Plantations of the Christian Church by the Ministery of the Apostles the success of their Doctrine the power and conviction of their Miracles their infinite Labours and hardships and the dreadful Sufferings which they underwent to consider in what instances of Piety and Vertue they ministred to our imitation and served the purposes of Religion and an Holy Life Indeed the accounts that are left us of these things are very short and inconsiderable sufficient possibly to excite the appetite not to allay the hunger of an importunate Enquirer into these matters A consideration that might give us just occasion to lament the irreparable loss of those Primitive Records which the injury of time hath deprived us of the substance being gone and little left us but the shell and carcass Had we the Writings of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis and Scholar says Irenaeus to S. John wherein as himself tells us he set down what he had learnt from those who had familiarly conversed with the Apostles the sayings and discourses of Andrew and Peter of Philip and Thomas c.
Thomas P. 137. The Life of S. James the Less P. 143. The Life of S. Simon the Zealot P. 149. The Life of S. Jude P. 153. The Life of S. Matthias P. 157. The Life of S. Mark the Evangelist P. 161. The Life of S. Luke the Evangelist P. 167. Diptycha Apostolica Or an Enumeration of the Apostles and their Successors for the first three hundred years in the five great Churches said to have been founded by them pag. 171. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex AEd. Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. THE INTRODUCTION Christs faithfulness in appointing Officers in his Church The dignity of the Apostles above the rest The importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The nature of the Apostolick Office considered Respect had in founding it to the custom among the Jews Their Apostoli who The number of the Apostles limited Why twelve the several conjectures of the Ancients Their immediate election Their work wherein it consisted The Universality of their Commission Apostolical Churches what How soon the Apostles propagated Christianity through the World An argument for the Divinity of the Christian Religion inferr'd thence The power conveyed to the Apostles equally given to all Peter's superiority over the rest disprov'd both from Scripture and Antiquity The Apostles how qualified for their Mission Immediately taught the Doctrine they delivered Infallibly secur'd from Error in delivering it Their constant and familiar converse with their Master Furnished with a power of working Miracles The great evidence of it to prove a Divine Doctrine Miraculous powers conferr'd upon the Apostles particularly considered Prophecy what and when it ceas'd The gift of discerning Spirits The gift of Tongues The gift of Interpretation The unreasonable practice of the Church of Rome in keeping the Scripture and Divine Worship in an Unknown Tongue The gift of Healing Greatly advantageous to Christianity How long it lasted Power of Immediately inflicting corporal punishments and the great benefit of it in those times The Apostles enabled to confer miraculous powers upon others The Duration of the Apostolical Office What in it extraordinary what ordinary Bishops in what sence styled Apostles I. JESUS CHRIST the great Apostle and High Priest of our Profession being appointed by God to be the Supreme Ruler and Governour of his Church was like Moses faithful in all his house but with this honourable advantage that Moses was faithful as a Servant Christ as a Son over his own house which he erected established and governed with all possible care and diligence Nor could he give a greater instance either of his fidelity towards God or his love and kindness to the Souls of men than that after he had purchas'd a Family to himself and could now no longer upon earth manage its interests in his own person he would not return back to Heaven till he had constituted several Orders of Officers in his Church who might superintend and conduct its affairs and according to the various circumstances of its state administer to the needs and exigencies of his Family Accordingly therefore he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The first and prime Class of Officers is that of Apostles God hath set some in the Church first Apostles then secondarily Prophets c. First Apostles as far in office as honour before the rest their election more immediate their commission more large and comprehensive the powers and priviledges where with they were furnished greater and more honourable Prophecy the gift of Miracles and expelling Daemons the order of Pastors and Teachers were all spiritual powers and ensigns of great authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Chrysostom but the Apostolick eminency is far greater than all these which therefore he calls a spiritual Consulship an Apostle having as great preheminence above all other officers in the Church as the Consul had above all other Magistrates in Rome These Apostles were a few select persons whom our Lord chose out of the rest to devolve part of the Government upon their shoulders and to depute for the first planting and setling Christianity in the World He chose twelve whom he named Apostles of whose Lives and Acts being to give an Historical account in the following work it may not possibly be unuseful to premise some general remarks concerning them not respecting this or that particular person but of a general relation to the whole wherein we shall especially take notice of the importance of the word the nature of the imployment the fitness and qualification of the persons and the duration and continuance of the Office II. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sent is among ancient Writers applied either to things actions or persons To things thus those Dimissory letters that were granted to such who appeal'd from an Inferiour to a Superiour Judicature were in the language of the Roman Laws usually called Apostoli thus a Packet-boat was styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because sent up and down for advice and dispatch of business thus though in somewhat a different sence the lesson taken out of the Epistles is in the Ancient Greek Liturgies called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because usually taken out of the Apostles Writings Sometimes it is applied to actions and so imports no more than mission or the very act of sending thus the setting out a Fleet or a Naval expedition was wont to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Suidas tells us that as the persons designed for the care and management of the Fleet were called ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the very sending sorth of the Ships themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly what principally falls under our present consideration it is applied to persons and so imports no more than a messenger a person sent upon some special errand for the discharge of some peculiar affair in his name that sent him Thus Epaphroditus is called the Apostle or Messenger of the Philippians when sent by them to S. Paul at Rome thus Titus and his companions are styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messengers of the Churches So our Lord he that is sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Apostle or Messenger is not greater than him that sent him This then being the common notion of the word our Lord fixes it to a particular use applying it to those select persons whom he had made choice of to act by that peculiar authority and commission which he had deriv'd upon them Twelve whom he also named Apostles that is Commissioners those who were to be Embassadors for Christ to be sent up and down the World
Iron and that for three years and an half together as in the case of 〈◊〉 's prayer if he say to the Sea Divide 't will run upon heaps and become on both sides as firm as a wall of Marble Nothing can be more natural than for the fire to burn and yet at God's command it will forget its nature and become a screen and a fence to the three Children in the Babylonian Furnace What heavier than Iron or more natural than for gravity to tend downwards and yet when God will have it Iron shall float like Cork on the top of the water The proud and raging Sea that naturally refuses to bear the bodies of men while alive became here as firm as Brass when commanded to wait upon and do homage to the God of Nature Our Lord walking towards the Ship as if he had an intention to pass by it he was espied by them who presently thought it to be the Apparition of a Spirit Hereupon they were seiz'd with great terror and consternation and their fears in all likelihood heightned by the vulgar opinion that they are evil Spirits that chuse rather to appear in the night than by day While they were in this agony our Lord taking compassion on them calls to them and bids them not be afraid for that it was no other than he himself Peter the eagerness of whose temper carried him forward to all bold and resolute undertakings intreated our Lord that if it was he he might have leave to come upon the water to him Having received his orders he went out of the Ship and walked upon the Sea to meet his Master But when he found the wind to bear hard against him and the waves to rise round about him whereby probably the sight of Christ was intercepted he began to be afraid and the higher his fears arose the lower his Faith began to sink and together with that his body to sink under water whereupon in a passionate fright he cried out to our Lord to help him who reaching out his arm took him by the hand and set him again upon the top of the water with this gentle reproof O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt It being the weakness of our Faith that makes the influences of the Divine power and goodness to have no better effect upon us Being come to the Ship they took them in where our Lord no sooner arrived but the winds and waves observing their duty to their Sovereign Lord and having done the errand which they came upon mannerly departed and vanished away and the Ship in an instant was at the shore All that were in the Ship being strangely astonished at this Miracle and fully convinced of the Divinity of his person came and did homage to him with this confession Of a truth thou art the Son of God After which they went ashore and landed in the Country of Genezareth and there more fully acknowledged him before all the people 6. THE next day great multitudes flocking after him he entred into a Synagogue at Capernaum and taking occasion from the late Miracle of the loaves which he had wrought amongst them he began to discourse concerning himself as the true Manna and the Bread that came down from Heaven largely opening to them many of the more sublime and Spiritual mysteries and the necessary and important duties of the Gospel Hereupon a great part of his Auditory who had hitherto followed him finding their understandings gravelled with these difficult and uncommon Notions and that the duties he required were likely to grate hard upon them and perceiving now that he was not the Messiah they took him for whose Kingdom should consist in an external Grandeur and plenty but was to be managed and transacted in a more inward and Spiritual way hereupon fairly left him in open field and henceforth quite turned their backs upon him Whereupon our Lord turning about to his Apostles asked them whether they also would go away from him Peter spokes-man generally for all the rest answered whither should they go to mend and better their condition should they return back to Moses Alas he laid a yoke upon them which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Should they go to the Scribes and Pharisees they would feed them with Stones instead of Bread obtrude humane Traditions upon them for Divine dictates and Commands Should they betake themselves to the Philosophers amongst the Gentiles they were miserably blind and short-sighted in their Notions of things and their sentiments and opinions not only different from but contrary to one another No 't was he only had the words of Eternal life whose doctrine could instruct them in the plain way to Heaven that they had fully assented to what both John and he had said concerning himself that they were fully perswaded both from the efficacy of his Sermons which they heard and the powerful conviction of his Miracles which they had seen that he was the Son of the living God the true Messiah and Saviour of the World But notwithstanding this fair and plausible testimony he tells them that they were not all of this mind that there was a Satan amongst them one that was moved by the spirit and impulse and that acted according to the rules and interest of the Devil intimating Judas who should betray him So hard is it to meet with a body of so just and pure a constitution wherein some rotten member or distempered part is not to be found SECT IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passover Our Saviour's Journy with his Apostles to Caesarea The Opinions of the People concerning Him Peter's eminent Confession of Christ and our Lord 's great commendation of it Thou art Peter and upon this Rock c. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven how given The advantage the Church of Rome makes of these passages This confession made by Peter in the name of the rest and by others before him No personal priviledge intended to S. Peter the same things elsewhere promised to the other Apostles Our 〈◊〉 discourse concerning his 〈◊〉 Peter's unseasonable zeal in disswading him from it and our Lord 's severe rebuking him Christ's Transfiguration and the glory of it Peter how affected with it Peter's paying Tribute for Christ and himself This Tribute what Our Saviour's discourse upon it Offending brethren how oft to be forgiven The young man commanded to sell all What compensation made to the followers of Christ. Our Lord 's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem Preparation made to keep the Passover 1. IT was some time since our Saviour had kept his third Passover at Jerusalem when he directed his Journy towards Caesarea Philippi where by the way having like a lawful Master of his Family first prayed with his Aposlles he began to ask them having been more than two Years publickly conversant amongst them what the world thought concerning him They answered that
of the Paschal Supper he arose from the Table and laying aside his upper garment which according to the fashion of those Eastern Countries being long was unfit for action and himself taking a Towel and pouring water into a Bason he began to wash all the Apostles feet not disdaining those of Judas himself Coming to Peter he would by no means admit an instance of so much condescension What the Master do this to the Servant the Son of God to so vile a sinner This made him a second time refuse it Thou shalt never wash my feet But our Lord soon corrects his imprudent modesty by telling him That if he wash'd him not he could have no part with him Insinuating the mystery of this action which was to denote Remission of sin and the purifying vertue of the Spirit of Christ to be poured upon all true Christians Peter satisfied with this answer soon altered his resolution Lord not my feet only but also my hands and my head If the case be so let me be wash'd all over rather than come short of my portion in thee This being done he returned again to the Table and acquainted them with the meaning and tendency of this mystical action and what force it ought to have upon them towards one another The washing it self denoted their inward and Spiritual cleansing by the Bloud and Spirit of Christ symbolically typified and 〈◊〉 by all the washings and Baptisms of the Mosaick Institution The washing of the feet respected our intire sanctification in our whole Spirit Soul and Body no part being to be left impure And then that all this should be done by so great a person their Lord and Master preached to their very senses a Sermon of the greatest humility and condescension and taught them how little reason they had to boggle at the meanest offices of kindness and charity towards others when he himself had stoop'd to solow an abasure towards them And now he began more immediately to reflect upon his sufferings and upon him who was to be the occasion of them telling them that one of them would be the Traitor to betray him Whereat they were strangely troubled and every one began to suspect himself till Peter whose love and care for his Master commonly made him start sooner than the rest made signs to S. John who lay in our Saviour's bosom to ask him particularly who it was which our Saviour presently did by making them understand that it was Judas Iscariot who not long after left the company 2. AND now our Lord began the Institution of his Supper that great solemn Institution which he was resolved to leave behind him to be constantly celebrated in all Ages of the Church as the standing monument of his love in dying for mankind For now he told them that he himself must leave them and that whither he went they could not come Peter not well understanding what he meant asked him whither it was that he was going Our Lord replied It was to that place whither he could not now follow him but that he should do it afterwards intimating the Martyrdom he was to undergo for the sake of Christ. To which Peter answered that he knew no reason why he might not follow him seeing that if it was even to the laying down of his life for his sake he was most ready and resolved to do it Our Lord liked not this over-confident presumption and therefore told him they were great things which he promised but that he took not the true measures of his own strength nor espied the snares and designs of Satan who desired no better an occasion than this to sift and winnow them But that he had prayed to Heaven for him That his faith might not fail by which means being strengthened himself he should be obliged to strengthen and confirm his brethren And whereas he so confidently assured him that he was ready to go along with him not only into prison but even to death it self our Lord plainly told him That not withstanding all his confident and generous resolutions before the Cock crowed twice that is before three of the Clock in the morning he would that very night three several times deny his Master With which answer our Lord wisely rebuked his confidence and taught him had he understood the lesson not to trust to his own strength but intirely to depend upon him who is able to keep us from salling Withall insinuating that though by his sin he would justly forseit the Divine grace and favour yet upon his repentance he should be restored to the honour of the Apostolate as a certain evidence of the Divine goodness and indulgence to him 3. HAVING sung an Hymn and concluded the whole affair he left the house where all these things had been transacted and went with his Apostles unto the Mount of Olives where he again put them in mind how much they would be offended at those things which he was now to suffer and Peter again renewed his resolute and undaunted promise of suffering and dying with him yea out of an excessive confidence told him That though all the rest should for sake and deny him yet would not 〈◊〉 deny him How far will zeal and an 〈◊〉 affection transport even a good man into vanity and presumption Peter questions others but never doubts himself So natural is self-love so apt are we to take the fairest measures of our selves Nay though our Lord had but a little before once and again reproved this vain humour yet does he still not only persist but grow up in it So hardly are we brought to espy our own faults or to be so throughly convinced of them as to correct and reform them This confidence of his inspired all the rest with a mighty courage all the Apostles likewise assuring him of their constant and unshaken adhering to him Our Lord returning the same answer to Peter which he had done before From hence they went down into the Village of Gethsemane where leaving the rest of the Apostles he accompanied with none but Peter James and John retired into a neighbouring Garden whither 〈◊〉 tells us Christians even in his time were wont to come solemnly to offer up their Prayers to Heaven and where as the Arabian Geographer informs us a fair and stately Church was built to the honour of the Virgin Mary to enter upon the Ante-scene of the fatal Tragedy that was now approaching it bearing a very fit proportion as some of the Fathers have observed that as the first Adam fell and ruin'd mankind in a Garden so a Garden should be the place where the second Adam should begin his Passion in order to the Redemption of the World Gardens which to us are places of repose and pleasure and scenes of divertisement and delight were to our Lord a school of Temptation a Theatre of great horrors and sufferings and the first approaches of the hour of
was given him in Heaven and in Earth by vertue whereof they should go teach and baptize all Nations and preach the Gospel to every Creature That they should feed God's slock Rule well inspect and watch ever those over whom they had the Authority and the Rule Words of as large and more express signification than those which were here spoken to S. Peter 5. OUR Lord having thus engaged Peter to a chearful compliance with the dangers that might attend the discharge and execution of his Office now particularly intimates to him what that fate was that should attend him telling him that though when he was young he girt himself lived at his own pleasure and went whither he pleased yet when he was old he should stretch forth his hands and another should gird and bind him and lead him whither he had no mind to go intimating as the Evangelist tells us by what death he should glorifie God that is by Crucifixion the Martyrdom which he afterward underwent And then rising up commanded him to follow him by this bodily attendance mystically implying his conformity to the death of Christ that he should follow him in dying for the truth and testimony of the Gospel It was not long after that our Lord appeared to them to take his last farewell of them when leading them out unto Bethany a little Village upon the Mount of Olives he briefly told them That they were the persons whom he had chosen to be the witnesses both of his Death and Resurrection a testimony which they should bear to him in all parts of the World In order to which he would after his Ascension pour out his Spirit upon them in larger measures than they had hitherto received that they might be the better fortified to grapple with that violent rage and sury wherewith both Men and Devils would endeavour to oppose them and that in the mean time they should return to Jerusalem and stay till these miraculous powers were from on high conferred upon them His discourse being ended laying his hands upon them he gave them his solemn blessing which done he was immediately taken from them and being attended with a glorious guard and train of Angels was received up into Heaven Antiquity tells us that in the place where he last trod upon the rock the impression of his feet did remain which could never afterwards be fill'd up or impaired over which Helena mother of the Great Constantine afterwards built a little Chappel called the Chappel of the Ascension in the floor whereof upon a whitish kind of stone modern Travellers tell us that the impression of his Foot is shewed at this day but 't is that of his right foot only the other being taken away by the Turks and as 't is said kept in the Temple at Jerusalem Our Lord being thus taken from them the Apostles were filled with a greater sense of his glory and majesty than while he was wont familiarly to converse with them and having performed their solemn adorations to him returned back to Jerusalem waiting for the promise of the Holy Ghost which was shortly after conferred upon them They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy They who lately were overwhelmed with sorrow at the very mention of their Lord's departure from them entertained it now with joy and triumph being fully satisfied of his glorious advancement at God's right hand and of that particular care and providence which they were sure he would exercise towards them in pursuance of those great trusts he had committed to them SECT VII S. Peter's Acts from our Lord's Ascension till the Dispersion of the Church The Apostles return to Jerusalem The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-room where they assembled what Peter declares the necessity of a new Apostles being chosen in the room of Judas The promise of the Holy Ghost made good upon the day of Pentecost The Spirit descended in the likeness of siery cloven tongues and why The greatness of the Miracle Peter's vindication of the Apostles from the standers of the Jews and proving Christ to be the promised Messiah Great numbers converted by his Sermon His going up to the Temple What their stated hours of Prayer His curing the impotent Cripple there and discourse to the Jews upon it What numbers converted by him Peter and John seised and cast into Prison Brought before the Sanhedrim and their resolute carriage there Their refusing to obey when commanded not to preach Christ. The great security the Christian Religion provides sor subjection to Magistrates in all lawful instances of Obedience The great severity used by Peter towards Ananias and Saphira The great Miracles wrought by him Again cast into Prison and delivered by an Angel Their appearing before the Sanhedrim and deliverance by the prudent counsels of Gamaliel 1. THE Holy Jesus being gone to Heaven the Apostles began to act according to the Power and Commission he had left with them In order whereunto the first thing they did after his Ascension was to fill up the vacancy in their Colledge lately made by the unhappy fall and Apostasie of Judas To which end no sooner were they returned to Jerusalem but they went 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into an upper-room Where this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was whether in the house of S. John or of Mary John-Mark's mother or in some of the out-rooms belonging to the Temple for the Temple had over the Cloisters several Chambers for the service of the Priests and Levites and as Repositories where the consecrated Vessels and Utensils of the Temple were laid up though it be not probable that the Jews and especially the Priests would suffer the Apostles and their company to be so near the Temple I stand not to enquire 'T is certain that the Jews usually had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 private Oratories in the upper parts of their houses called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the more private exercises of their devotions Thus Daniel had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his upper-Chamber 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LXX render it whither he was wont to retire to pray to his God and Benjamin the Jew tells us that in his time Ann. Chr. 1172. the Jews at Babylon were wont to pray both in their Synagogues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in that ancient upper-room of Daniel which the Prophet himself built Such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-Chamber was that wherein S. Paul preached at Troas and such probably this where the Apostles were now met together and in all likelihood the same where our Lord had lately kept the Passeover where the Apostles and the Church were assembled on the day of Pentecost and which was then the usual place of their Religious Assemblies as we have elsewhere observed more at large Here the Church being met to the number of about CXX Peter as President of the Assembly put them in mind that Judas one of
hitherto tossed with gentle storms but now a more violent tempest overtook it which began in the Proto-Martyr Stephen and was more vigorously carried on afterwards by occasion whereof the Disciples were dispersed And God who always brings good out of evil hereby provided that the Gospel should not be confin'd only to Jerusalem Hitherto the Church had been crowded up within the City-walls and the Religion had crept up and down in private corners but the professors of it being now dispersed abroad by the malice and cruelty of their enemies carried Christianity along with them and propagated it into the neighbour-Countries accomplishing hereby an ancient prophecy That out of Sion should go forth the Law and the 〈◊〉 of the Lord from Jerusalem Thus God over-rules the malice of men and makes intended poison to become food or physick That Divine Providence that governs the World more particularly superintends the affairs and interests of his Church so that no weapon 〈◊〉 against Israel shall prosper curses shall be turned into blessings and that become an eminent means to enlarge and propagate the Gospel which they designed as the only way to suppress and stifle it Amongst those that were scattered Philip the Deacon was driven down unto Samaria where he preached the Gospel and confirmed his preaching by many miraculous cures and dispossessing Devils In this City there was one Simon who by Magick Arts and Diabolical Sorceries sought to advance himself into a great fame and reputation with the people insomuch that they generally beheld him as the great power of God for so the Ancients tell us he used to style himself giving out himself to be the first and chiefest Deity the Father who is God over all that is that he was that which in every Nation was accounted the supreme Deity This man hearing the Sermons and beholding the Miracles that were done by Philip gave up himself amongst the number of believers and was baptized with them The Apostles who yet remained at Jerusalem having heard of the great success of Philip's ministery at Samaria thought good to send some of their number to his assistance And accordingly deputed Peter and John who came thither Where having prayed for and laid their hands upon these new converts they presently received the Holy Ghost Simon the Magician observing that by laying on of the Apostle's hands miraculous gifts were conferred upon men offered them a considerable summ of money to invest him with this power that on whom he laid his hands they might receive the Holy Ghost Peter perceiving his rotten and insincere intentions rejected his impious motion with scorn and detestation Thy money perish with thee He told him that his heart was naught and hypocritical that he could have no share nor portion in so great a priviledge that it more concerned him to repent of so great a wickedness and sincerely seek to God that so the thought of his heart might be forgiven him for that he perceived that he had a very vicious and corrupt temper and constitution of mind and was as yet bound up under a very wretched and miserable state displeasing to God and dangerous to himself The Conscience of the man was a little startled with this and he prayed the Apostles to intercede with Heaven that God would pardon his sin and that none of these things might fall upon him But how little cure this wrought upon him we shall find elsewhere when we shall again meet with him afterwards The Apostles having thus confirmed the Church at Samaria and preached up and down in the Villages thereabouts returned back to Jerusalem to joyn their counsel and assistance to the rest of the Apostles 2. THE storm though violent being at length blown over the Church injoyed a time of great calmness and serenity during which Peter went out to visit the Churches lately planted in those parts by those Disciples who had been dispersed by the persecution at Jerusalem Coming down to Lydda the first thing he did was to work a cure upon one AEneas who being crippl'd with the Palsie had layn bed-rid for eight years together Peter coming to him bad him in the name of Christ to arise and the man was immediately restored to perfect health A miracle that was not confined only to his person for being known abroad generally brought over the inhabitants of that place The fame of this miracle having flown to Joppa a Sea-port Town some six miles thence the Christians there presently sent for Peter upon this occasion Tabitha whose Greek name was Dorcas a woman venerable for her piety and diffusive charity was newly dead to the great lamentation of all good men and much more to the loss of the poor that had been relieved by her Peter coming to the house found her dressed up for her Funeral solemnity and compassed about with the sorrowful Widows who shewed the Coats and Garments wherewith she had clothed them the badges of her charitable liberality Peter shutting all out kneeled down and prayed and then turning him to the body commanded her to arise and lifting her up by the hand presented her in 〈◊〉 health to her friends and those that were about her by which he confirmed many and converted more to the Faith After which he staid some considerable time at Joppa lodging in the house of Simon a Tanner 3. WHILE he abode in this City retiring one morning to the house-top to pray as the Jews frequently did having thence a free and open prospect towards Jerusalem and the Temple it being now near Noon which was the conclusion of one of their stated times of Prayer he found himself hungry and called for meat but while it was preparing he himself fell into a Trance wherein were presented to him a large sheet let down from Heaven containing all sorts of Creatures clean and unclean a voice at the same time calling to him that he should rise kill freely and indifferently 〈◊〉 upon them Peter tenacious as yet of the Rites and Institutions of the Mosaick Law rejoyn'd That he could not do it having never eaten any thing that was common or unclean To which the voice replied That what God had cleansed he should not account or call common Which being done thrice the vessel was again taken up into Heaven and the Vision presently disappeared By this symbolick representment though Peter at present knew not what to make of it God was teaching him a new lesson and preparing him to go upon an Errand and Embassy which the Spirit at the same time expresly commanded him to undertake While he was in this doubtful posture of mind three messengers knock'd at the door enquiring for him from whom he received this account That Cornelius a Roman Captain of a Band of Italian Souldiers at Caesarea a person of great Piety and Religion being a Proselyte of the Gate who though not observing an exact conformity to the Rites of the Mosaick Law did yet maintain some
exceedingly troubled publickly rebuked him for it and that as the case required with great sharpness and severity It was not long after that S. Paul and 〈◊〉 resolved upon visiting the Churches which they had lately planted among the Gentiles To which end Barnabas determined to take his cousin Mark along with them This Paul would by no means agree to he having deserted them in their former journey A little spark which yet kindled a great feud and dissention between these two good men and arose to that height that in some discontent they parted from each other So natural is it for the best of men sometimes to indulge an unwarrantable passion and so far to espouse the interest of a private and particular humour as rather to hazard the great Law of Charity and violate the bands of friendship than to recede from it The effect was Barnabas taking his Nephew went for Cyprus his native Country S. Paul made choice of Silas and the success of his undertaking being first recommended to the Divine care and goodness they set forwards on their journey 2. THEIR first passage was into Syria and Cilicia confirming the Churches as they went along And to that end 〈◊〉 with them Copies of the Synodical Decrees lately ordained in the Council at Jerusalem Hence we may suppose it was that he set 〈◊〉 for Crete where he preached and propagated Christianity and constituted Titus to be the first Bishop and Pastor of that Island whom he left there to settle and dispose those affairs which the shortness of his own stay in those parts would not suffer him to do Hence he returned back unto Cilicia and came to Lystra where he found Timothy whose Father was a Greek his Mother a Jewish convert by whom he had been brought up under all the advantages of a pious and religious education and especially an incomparable skill and dexterity in the holy Scriptures S. Paul designing him for the companion of his travels and a special instrument in the Ministery of the Gospel and knowing that his being uncircumcised would be a mighty prejudice in the opinion and estimation of the Jews caused him to be circumcised being willing in lawful and indifferent matters such was Circumcision now become to accommodate himself to mens humors and apprehensions for the saving of their Souls 3. FROM hence with his company he passed through Phrygia and the Country of Galatia where he was entertained by them with as mighty a kindness and veneration as if he had been an Angel immediately sent from Heaven And being by Revelation forbidden to go into Asia by a second Vision he was commanded to direct his journey for Macedonia And here it was that S. Luke joyned himself to his company and became ever after his inseparable companion Sailing from Troas they arrived at the Island Samothracia and thence to 〈◊〉 from whence they went to Philippi the chief City of that part of Macedonia and a Roman Colony where he staid some considerable time to plant the Christian Faith and where his Ministery had more particular success on Lydia a Purple-seller born at 〈◊〉 baptized together with her whole Family and with her the Apostle sojourned during his residence in that place A little without this City there was a Proseucha 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Syriac renders it an Oratory or house of Prayer whereto the Apostle and his company used frequently to retire for the exercise of their Religion and for preaching the Gospel to 〈◊〉 that resorted thither The Jews had 〈◊〉 sorts of places for their publick worship The Temple at Jerusalem which was like the Cathedral or Mother-Church where all Sacrifices and Oblations were 〈◊〉 and where all Males were bound three times a-year personally to pay their devotions Their Synagogues many whereof they had almost in every place not unlike our Parochial Churches where the Scriptures were read and expounded and the people taught their duty Moses of old time hath in every City them that preach him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day And then they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo sometimes calls them or 〈◊〉 which were like Chappels of Ease to the Temple and the 〈◊〉 whither the people were wont to come solemnly to offer up their Prayers to Heaven They were built as 〈◊〉 informs us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the City in the open Air and uncovered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being large spacious places after the manner of Fora or Market-places and these they called 〈◊〉 And that the Jews and Samaritans had such places of Devotion he proves from this very place at Philippi where S. Paul preached For they had them not in Judaea only but even at Rome it self where Tiberius as Philo tells 〈◊〉 the Emperor suffered the Jews to inhabit the Transtiberin Region and undisturbedly to 〈◊〉 according to the Rites of their Institutions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 to have their Proseucha's and to meet in them especially upon their holy Sabbaths that they might be familiarly instructed in the Laws and Religion of their Country Such they had also in other places especially where they had not or were not suffered to have Synagogues for their publick worship But to return 4. AS they were going to this Oratory they were often followed by a Pythonesse a Maid-servant acted by a spirit of Divination who openly cried out That these men were the servants of the most high God who came to shew the way of Salvation to the World So easily can Heaven extort a Testimony from the mouth of Hell But S. Paul to shew how little he needed Satan to be his witness commanded the Daemon to come out which immediately left her The evil Spirit thus thrown out of possession presently raised a storm against the Apostles for the Masters of the Damsel who used by her Diabolical arts to raise great advantages to themselves being sensible that now their gainful Trade was spoil'd resolved to be revenged on them that had spoiled it Accordingly they laid hold upon them and drag'd them before the Seat of Judicature insinuating to the Governours that these men were Jews and sought to introduce different customs and ways of worship contrary to the Laws of the Roman Empire The Magistrates and People were soon agreed the one to give Sentence the other to set upon the Execution In fine they were stript beaten and then commanded to be thrown into Prison and the Jaylor charged to keep them with all possible care and strictness Who to make sure of his charge thrust them into the Inner-Dungeon and made their feet fast in the Stocks But a good man can turn a Prison into a Chappel and make a den of Thieves to be an house of Prayer Our feet cannot be bound so fast to the Earth but that still our hearts may mount up to Heaven At midnight the Apostles were over-heard by their fellow-prisoners praying and singing
Four Thousand debauched and profligate wretches The Apostle replied that he was a Jew of Tarsus a Free-man of a rich and honourable City and therefore begg'd of him that he might have leave to speak to the People Which the Captain readily granted and standing near the Door of the Castle and making signs that they would hold their peace he began to address himself to them in the Hebrew Language which when they heard they became a little more calm and quiet while he discoursed to them to this effect 7. HE gave them an account of himself from his Birth of his education in his youth of the mighty zeal which he had for the Rites and Customes of their Religion and with what a passionate earnestness he persecuted and put to death all the Christians that he met with whereof the High Priest and the Sanhedrim could be sufficient witnesses He next gave them an intire and punctual relation of the way and manner of his conversion and how that he had received an immediate command from God himself to depart Jerusalem and preach unto the Gentiles At this word the patience of the Jews could hold no longer but they unanimously cried out to have him put to death it not being fit that such a Villain should live upon the Earth And the more to express their fury they threw off their Clothes and cast dust into the Air as if they immediately designed to stone him To avoid which the Captain of the Guard commanded him to be brought within the Castle and that he should be examined by whipping till he confessed the reason of so much rage against him While the Lictor was binding him in order to it he asked the Centurion that stood by whether they could justifie the scourging a Citizen of Rome and that before any sentence legally passed upon him This the Centurion presently intimated to the Governor of the Castle bidding him have a care what he did for the Prisoner was a Roman Whereat the Governor himself came and asked him whether he was a free Denizon of Rome and being told that he was he replied that it was a great priviledge a priviledge which he himself had purchased at a considerable rate To whom S. Paul answered that it was his Birth right and the priviledge of the place where he was born and bred Hereupon they gave over their design of whipping him the Commander himself being a little startled that he had bound and chained a Denizon of Rome 8. THE next Day the Governor commanded his Chains to be knock'd off and that he might throughly satisfie himself in the matter commanded the Sanhedrim to meet and brought down Paul before them where being set before the Council he told them that in all passages of his life he had been careful to act according to the severest rules and conscience of his duty Men and Brethren I have lived in all good conscience before God untill this day Behold here the great security of a good man and what invisible supports innocency affords under the greatest danger With how generous a confidence does vertue and honesty guard the breast of a good man as indeed nothing else can lay a firm basis and foundation for satisfaction and tranquillity when any misery or calamity does overtake us Religion and a good conscience beget peace and a Heaven in the Man's bosome beyond the power of the little accidents of this World to ruffle and discompose Whence Seneca compares the mind of a wise and a good man to the state of the upper Region which is always serene and calm The High-Priest Ananias being offended at the holy and ingenuous freedom of our Apostle as if by asserting his own innocency he had reproached the justice of their Tribunal commanded those that stood next him to strike him in the Face whereto the Apostle tartly replied That GOD would smite him Hypocrite as he was who under a pretence of doing Justice had illegally commanded him to be punished before the Law condemned him for a Malefactor Whereupon they that stood by asked him how he durst thus affront so sacred and venerable a Person as Gods High Priest He calmly returned That he did not know or own Ananias to be an High Priest of God's appointment However being a Person in Authority it was not lawful to revile him God himself having commanded that no man should speak evil of the Ruler of the People The Apostle who as he never laid aside the innocency of the Dove so knew how when occasion was to make use of the wisdom of the Serpent perceiving the Council to consist partly of Sadduces and partly of Pharisees openly told them that he was a Pharisee and the Son of a Pharisee and that the main thing he was questioned for was his belief of a future Resurrection This quickly divided the Council the Pharisees being zealous Patrons of that Article and the Sadducees as stifly denying that there is either Angel that is of a spiritual and immortal nature really subsisting of it self for otherwise they cannot be supposed to have utterly denied all sorts of Angels seeing they own'd the Pentateuch wherein there is frequent mention of them or Spirit or that humane Souls do exist in a separate state and consequently that there is no Resurrection Presently the Doctors of the Law who were Pharisees stood up to acquit him affirming he had done nothing amiss that it was possible he had received some intimation from Heaven by an Angel or the revelation of the H. Spirit and if so then in opposing his Doctrine they might fight against God himself 9. GREAT were the dissentions in the Council about this matter in so much that the Governor fearing S. Paul would be torn in pieces commanded the Souldiers to take him from the Bar and return him back into the Castle That night to comfort him after all his frights and fears God was pleased to appear to him in a vision incouraging him to constancy and resolution assuring him that as he had born witness to his cause at Jerusalem so in despite of all his enemies he should live to bear his testimony even at Rome it self The next Morning the Jews who could as well cease to be as to be mischievous and malicious finding that these dilatory proceedings were not like to do the work resolved upon a quicker dispatch To which end above Forty of them entred into a wicked confederacy which they ratified by Oath and Execration never to eat or drink till they had killed him and having acquainted the Sanhedrim with their design they intreated them to importune the Governor that he might again the next day be brought down before them under pretence of a more strict trial of his case and that they themselves would lye in ambush by the way and not fail to dispatch him But that Divine providence that peculiarly superintends the safety of good men disappoints the devices of the crafty
〈◊〉 compares him to a Bird in the Air that in a few years flew round the World Isidore the Pelusiot to a winged husbandman that flew from place to place to cultivate the World with the most excellent rules and institutions of life And while the other Apostles did as 't were chuse this or that particular Province as the main sphere of their ministry S. Paul over-ran the whole World to its utmost bounds and corners planting all places where he came with the Divine doctrines of the Gospel Nor in this course was he tired out with the dangers and difficulties that he met with the troubles and oppositions that were raised against him All which did but reflect the greater lustre upon his patience whereof indeed as Clement observes he became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most eminent pattern and exemplar enduring the biggest troubles and persecutions with a patience triumphant and unconquerable As will easily appear if we take but a survey of what trials and sufferings he underwent some part whereof are briefly summed up by himself In labours abundant in stripes above measure in prisons frequent in deaths oft thrice beaten with rods once stoned thrice suffered shipwrack a night and a day in the deep In journeyings often in perils of waters in perils of robbers in perils by his own Country-men in perils by the Heathen in perils in the City in perils in the Wilderness in perils in the Sea in perils among false Brethren in weariness in painfulness in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakedness And besides these things that were without that which daily came upon him the care of all the Churches An account though very great yet far short of what he endured and wherein as 〈◊〉 observes he does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 modestly keep himself within his measures for had he taken the liberty fully to have enlarged himself he might have filled hundreds of Martyrologies with his sufferings A thousand times was his life at stake in every suffering he was a Martyr and what fell but in parcels upon others came all upon him while they skirmished only with single parties he had the whole Army of sufferings to contend with All which he generously underwent with a Soul as calm and serene as the morning-Sun no spite or rage no fury or storms could ruffle and discompose his spirit Nay those sufferings which would have broken the back of an ordinary patience did but make him rise up with the greater eagerness and resolution for the doing of his duty 7. HIS patience will yet further appear from the consideration of another the last of those vertues we shall take notice of in him his constancy and fidelity in the discharge of his place and in the profession of Religion Could the powers and policies of Men and Devils spite and oppositions torments and threatnings have been able to baffle him out of that Religion wherein he had engaged himself he must have sunk under them and left his station But his Soul was steel'd with a courage and resolution that was impenetrable and which no temptation either from hopes or fears could make any more impression upon than an arrow can that 's shot against a wall of marble He wanted not solicitation on either hand both from Jews and Gentiles and questionless might in some degree have made his own terms would he have been false to his trust and have quitted that way that was then every-where spoken against But alas these things weighed little with our Apostle who counted not 〈◊〉 life to be dear unto him so that he might finish his course with joy and the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus And therefore when under the sentence of death in his own apprehension could triumphingly say I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith and so indeed he did kept it inviolably undauntedly to the last minute of his life The summ is He was a man in whom the Divine life did eminently manifest and display it self he lived piously and devoutly soberly and temperately justly and righteously carefull alway to keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and Men. This he tells us was his support under suffering this the foundation of his confidence towards God and his firm hopes of happiness in another World This is our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the World 8. IT is not the least instance of his care and fidelity in his office that he did not only preach and plant Christianity in all places whither he came but what he could not personally do he supplied by writing XIV Epistles he 〈◊〉 upon record by which he was not only instrumental in propagating Christian Religion at first but has been useful to the World ever since in all Ages of the Church We have all along in the History of his life taken particular notice of them in their due place and order We shall here only make some general observations and remarks upon them and that as to the stile and way wherein they are written their Order and the Subscriptions that are added to them For the Apostle's stile and manner of writing it is plain and simple and though not set off with the elaborate artifices and affected additionals of humane eloquence yet grave and majestical and that by the confession of his very enemies his Letters say they are weighty and powerful Nor are there wanting in them some strains of Rhetorick which sufficiently testifie his ability that way had he made it any part of his study and design Indeed S. Hierom is sometimes too rude and bold in his censures of S. Paul's stile and character He tells us that being an Hebrew of the Hebrews and admirably skill'd in the Language of his Nation he was greatly defective in the Greek Tongue though a late great Critick is of another mind affirming him to have been as well or better skill'd in Greek than in Hebrew or in Syriac wherein he could not sufficiently express his conceptions in a way becoming the majesty of his sence and the matter he delivered nor transmit the elegancy of his Native Tongue into another Language that hence he became obscure and intricate in his expressions guilty many times of solecisms and scarce tolerable syntax and that therefore 't was not his humility but the truth of the thing that made him say that he came not with the excellency of speech but in the power of God A censure from any other than S. Hierom that would have been justly wondred at but we know the liberty that he takes to censure any though the reverence due to so great an Apostle might one would think have challenged a more modest censure at his hands However elsewhere he cries him up as a great Master of composition
engaged in the solemn celebration of Divine worship and binding his Feet with Cords dragged him through the streets and the most craggy places to the Bucelus a Precipice near the Sea and for that Night thrust him into Prison where his Soul was by a Divine Vision erected and encouraged under the ruines of his shattered Body Early the next Morning the Tragedy began again dragging him about in the same manner till his Flesh being raked off and his Blood run out his spirits failed and he expired But their malice died not with him Metaphrastes adds that they burnt his Body whose Bones and Ashes the Christians there decently intombed near the place where he was wont to Preach His Body at least the remains of it were afterwards with great pomp removed from Alexandria to Venice where they are religiously honoured and he adopted as the Tutelar Saint and Patron of that State and one of the richest and stateliest Churches erected to his Memory that the World can boast of at this Day He suffered in the Month Pharmuthi on the XXV of April though the certain Year of his Martyrdom is not precisely determined by the Ancients Kirstenius out of the Arabick Memoires of his Life says it was in the Fourteenth or the last Year of Claudius S. Hierom places it in the Eighth of Nero. But extravagantly wide is Dorotheus his computation who makes him to suffer in the time of Trajan with as much truth as Nicephorus on the other hand affirms him to have come into Egypt in the Reign of Tiberius If in so great variety of Opinions I may interpose my conjecture I should reckon him to have suffered about the end of Nero's Reign For supposing him to have come with S. Peter to Rome about the Fifth or Sixth Year of Nero he might thence be dispatched to Alexandria and spend the residue of his Life and of that Emperor's Reign in planting Christianity in those parts of the World Sure I am that Irenaeus reports S. Mark to have out-lived Peter and Paul and that after their decease he composed his Gospel out of those things which he had heard Peter preach But whatever becomes of that it is evident that Irenaeus supposed whose supposition certainly was not founded upon meer fancy and conjecture that S. Mark for some considerable time survived the Martyrdom of those two great Apostles A passage that so troubled Christophorson one of those who in these later Ages first translated Eusebius into Latin because crossing the accounts of their Writers in this matter that he chose rather to expunge the word decease and substitute another of a quite different sence expresly contrary to the faith of all ancient Copies and to the most ancient Version of Irenaeus it self But to return S. Mark as to his Person was of a middle size and stature his Nose long his Eye brows turning back his Eyes graceful and amiable his Head bald his Beard prolix and gray his Gate quick the constitution of his Body strong and healthful 5. HIS Gospel the only Book he left behind him was as before we observed written at the intreaty of the Converts at Rome who not content to have heard Peter preach pressed S. Mark his Disciple that he would commit to Writing an Historical account of what he had delivered to them which he performed with no less faithfulness than brevity all which S. Peter perused ratified with his Authority and commanded to be publickly read in their Religious Assemblies And though as we noted but now Irenaeus seems to intimate that it was written after Peter's death yet all that can be inferred hence will be what in it self is a matter of no great moment and importance that the Ancients were not agreed in assigning the exact time when the several Gospels were published to the World It was frequently stiled S. Peter's Gospel not so much because dictated by him to S. Mark as because he principally composed it out of that account which S. Peter usually delivered in his Discourses to the People Which probably is the reason of what Chrysostome observes that in his stile and manner of expression he delights to imitate S. Peter representing much in a few words Though he commonly reduces the story of our Saviour's Acts into a narrower compass than S. Matthew yet want there not passages which he relates more largely than he The last Chapter of his Gospel at least part of it was as Hierom informs us wanting in all ancient Greek Copies rejected upon pretence of some disagreement with the other Gospels though as he there shews they are fairly consistent with each other His great impartiality in his Relations appears from hence that he is so far from concealing the shameful lapse and denial of Peter his dear Tutor and Master that he sets it down with some particular circumstances and aggravations which the other Evangelists take no notice of Some dispute has been made in what Language it was written whether in Greek or Latin That which seems to give most countenance to the Latin Original is the note that we find at the end of the Syriac Version of this Gospel where it is said that Mark preached and declared his Holy Gospel at Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Roman or the Latin Tongue An evidence that with me would almost carry the force of a demonstration were I assured that this note is of equal value and authority with that Ancient Version generally supposed to come very few Centuries short of the Apostolick Age. But we know how usual it is for such additions to be made by some later hand And what credit is to be given to the subscriptions at the end of S. Paul's Epistles we have shewed elsewhere Besides that it is not here said that he wrote but that he Preached his Gospel at Rome in that Language The Advocates of the Romish Church plead that it 's very congruous and suitable that it should at first be consigned to Writing in that Language being principally designed for the use of the Christians at Rome An objection that will easily vanish when we consider that as the Convert Jewes there understood very little Latin so there were very few Romans that understood not Greek it being as appears from the Writers of that Age the gentile and fashionable Language of those Times Nor can any good reason be assigned why it should be more inconvenient for S. Mark to write his Gospel in Greek for the use of the Romans than that S. Paul should in the same Language write his Epistle to that Church The Original Greek Copy written with S. Mark' s own hand is said to be extant at Venice at this Day Written they tell us by him at Aquileia and thence after many Hundreds of Years translated to Venice where it is still preserved though the Letters so worn out with length of time that they are not capable of
imitation of the whole action and the rite of Institution And the purpose of it is that we might secure the excellency and holiness of such predispositions and concomitant Graces which are necessary to the worthy and effectual susception of the external Rites of Christianity 4. After the Holy Jesus was baptized and had prayed the Heavens opened the holy Ghost descended and a voice from Heaven proclaimed him to be the Son of God and one in whom the Father was well pleased and the same 〈◊〉 that was cast upon the head of our High Priest went unto his 〈◊〉 and thence sell to the borders of his garment for as Christ our Head felt these effects in manifestation so the Church believes God does to her and to her meanest children in the susception of the holy Rite of Baptism in right apt and holy dispositions For the Heavens open too upon us and the Holy Ghost descends to 〈◊〉 the waters and to hallow the Catechumen and to pardon the passed and repented sins and to consign him to the inheritance of 〈◊〉 and to put on his military girdle and give him the Sacrament and oath of fidelity for all this is understood to be meant by those frequent expressions of Scripture calling Baptism the Laver of Regeneration Illumination a washing away the filth of the flesh and the Answer of a good conscience a being buried with Christ and many others of the like purpose and signification But we may also learn hence sacredly to esteem the Rites of Religion which he first sanctified by his own personal susception and then made necessary by his own institution and command and God hath made to be conveyances of blessing and ministeries of the Holy Spirit 5. The Holy Ghost descended upon Jesus in the manner or visible representment of a Dove either in similitude of figure which he was pleased to assume as the Church more generally hath believed or at least he did descend like a Dove and in his robe of fire hovered over the Baptist's head and then sate upon him as the Dove uses to sit upon the house of her dwelling whose proprieties of nature are pretty and modest Hieroglyphicks of the duty of spiritual persons which are thus observed in both Philosophies The Dove sings not but mourns it hath no gall strikes not with its bill hath no crooked talons and forgets its young ones soonest of any the inhabitants of the air And the effects of the Holy Spirit are symbolical in all the sons of Sanctification For the voice of the Church is sad in those accents which express her own condition but as the Dove is not so sad in her breast as in her note so neither is the interiour condition of the Church wretched and miserable but indeed her Song is most of it Elegy within her own walls and her condition looks sad and her joys are not pleasures in the publick estimate but they that afflict her think her miserable because they know not the sweetnesses of a holy peace and serenity which supports her spirit and plains the heart under a rugged brow making the Soul festival under the noise of a Threne and sadder groanings But the Sons of consolation are also taught their Duty by this Apparition for upon whomsoever the Spirit descends he teaches him to be meek and charitable neither offending by the violence of hands or looser language For the Dove is inoffensive in beak and foot and feels no disturbance and violence of passions when its dearest interests are destroyed that we also may be of an even spirit in the saddest accidents which usually discompose our peace and however such symbolical intimations receive their efficacy from the fancy of the contriver yet here whether this Apparition did intend any such moral representment or no it is certain that where-ever the holy Spirit does dwell there also Peace and Sanctity Meekness and Charity a mortisied will and an active dereliction of our desires do inhabit But besides this hieroglyphical representment this Dove like that which Noah sent out from the Ark did aptly signifie the World to be renewed and all to be turned to a new creation and God hath made a new Covenant with us that unless we provoke him he will never destroy us any more 6. No sooner had the voice of God pronounced Jesus to be the well-beloved Son of God but the Devil thought it of great concernment to attempt him with all his malice and his art and that is the condition of all those whom God's grace hath separated from the common expectations and societies of the world and therefore the Son of Sirach gave good advice My son if thou come to serve the Lord prepare thy Soul for temptation for not only the Spirits of darkness are exasperated at the declension of their own Kingdom but also the nature and constitution of vertues and eminent graces which holy persons exercise in their lives is such as to be easily assailable by their contraries apt to be lessened by time to be interrupted by weariness to grow flat and insipid by tediousness of labour to be omitted and grow infrequent by the impertinent diversions of society and secular occasions so that to rescind the 〈◊〉 of Vice made firm by nature and evil habits to acquire every new degree 〈◊〉 Vertue to continue the holy fires of zeal in their just proportion to 〈◊〉 the Devil and to reject the invitations of the World and the 〈◊〉 embraces of the Flesh which are the proper employment of the sons of God is a perpetual difficulty and every possibility of 〈◊〉 the strictness of a Duty is a Temptation and an insecurity to them who have begun to serve God in hard battels 7. The Holy Spirit did drive Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil And 〈◊〉 we are bound to pray instantly that we fall into no Temptation yet if by Divine permission or by an inspiration of the Holy Spirit we be engaged in an action or course of life that is full of Temptation and empty of comfort let us apprehend it as an issue of Divine Providence as an occasion of the rewards of Diligence and Patience as an instrument of Vertue as a designation of that way in which we must glorifie God but no argument of disfavour since our dearest Lord the most Holy Jesus who could have driven the Devil away by the Breath of his mouth yet was by the Spirit of his Father permitted to a trial and molestation by the spirits of Darkness And this is S. James's counsel My brethren count it all joy when ye enter into divers temptations knowing that the trial of your Faith worketh Patience So far is a Blessing when the Spirit is the instrument of our motion and brings us to the trial of our Faith but if the Spirit leaves us and delivers us over to the Devil not to be tempted but to be abused and ruined it is a sad
of Religion ought to be greater than the affections of Society And though we are bound in all offices exteriour to prefer our Relatives before others because that is made a Duty yet to purposes spiritual all persons eminently holy put on the efficacy of the same relations and pass a duty upon us of religious affections 10. At the command of Jesus the Water-pots were filled with water and the water was by his Divine power turned into wine where the different oeconomy of God and the world is highly observable Every man sets forth good wine at first and then the worse But God not only turns the water into wine but into such wine that the last draught is most pleasant The world presents us with fair language promising 〈◊〉 convenient fortunes pompous honours and these are the outsides of the bole but when it is swallowed these dissolve in the instant and there remains 〈◊〉 and the malignity of Coloquintida Every sin 〈◊〉 in the first address and carries light in the face and hony in the lip but when we have well drunk then comes that which is worse a whip with six strings fears and terrors of Conscience and shame and displeasure and a caitive disposition and diffidence in the day of death But when after the manner of the purifying of the Christians we fill our Water-pots with water watering our couch with our tears and moistening our cheeks with the perpetual distillations of Repentance then Christ turns our water into wine first Penitents and then Communicants first waters of sorrow and then the wine of the Chalice first the justifications of Correction and then the sanctifications of the Sacrament and the effects of the Divine power joy and peace and serenity hopes full of confidence and confidence without shame and boldness without presumption for Jesus keeps the best wine till the last not only because of the direct reservations of the highest joys till the nearer approaches of glory but also because our relishes are higher after a long 〈◊〉 than at the first Essays such being the nature of Grace that it increases in relish as it does in fruition every part of Grace being new Duty and new Reward The PRAYER O Eternal and ever-Blessed Jesu who didst chuse Disciples to be witnesses of thy Life and Miracles so adopting man into a participation of thy great imployment of bringing us to Heaven by the means of a holy Doctrine be pleased to give me thy grace that I may 〈◊〉 and revere their Persons whom thou hast set over me and follow their Faith and imitate their Lives while they imitate thee and that I also in my capacity and proportion may do some of the meaner offices of spiritual building by Prayers and by holy Discourses and 〈◊〉 Correption and friendly Exhortations doing advantages to such Souls with whom I shall converse And since thou wert pleased to enter upon the stage of the World with the commencement of Mercy and a Miracle be pleased to visit my Soul with thy miraculous grace turn my water into wine my natural desires into supernatural perfections and let my sorrows be turned into joys my sins into vertuous habits the weaknesses of humanity into communications of the 〈◊〉 nature that since thou keepest the best unto the last I may by thy assistance grow from Grace to Grace till thy Gifts be turned to Reward and thy Graces to participation of thy Glory O Eternal and ever-Blessed Jesu Amen DISCOURSE VII Of Faith 1. NAthanael's Faith was produced by an argument not demonstrative not certainly concluding Christ knew him when he saw him first and he believed him to be the Messias His Faith was excellent what-ever the argument was And I believe a GOD because the Sun is a glorious body or because of the variety of Plants or the fabrick and rare contexture of a man's Eye I may as fully assent to the Conclusion as if my belief dwelt upon the Demonstrations made by the Prince of Philosophers in the 8. of his Physicks and 12. of his Metaphysicks This I premise as an inlet into the consideration concerning the Faith of ignorant persons For if we consider upon what 〈◊〉 terms most of us now are Christians we may possibly suspect that either Faith hath but little excellence in it or we but little Faith or that we are mistaken generally in its definition For we are born of Christian parents made Christians at ten days old interrogated concerning the Articles of our Faith by way of anticipation even then when we understand not the difference between the Sun and a Tallow-candle from thence we are taught to say our Catechism as we are taught to speak when we have no reason to judge no discourse to dilcern no arguments to contest against a Proposition in case we be catechised into False doctrine and all that is put to us we believe infinitely and without choice as children use not to chuse their language And as our children are made Christians just so are thousand others made Mahumetans with the same necessity the same facility So that thus sar there is little thanks due to us for believing the Christian Creed it was indifferent to us at first and at last our Education had so possest us and our interest and our no temptation to the contrary that as we were disposed into this condition by Providence so we remain in it without praise or excellency For as our beginnings are inevitable so our progress is imperfect and insufficient and what we begun by Education we retain only by Custom and if we be instructed in some slighter Arguments to maintain the Sect or Faction of our Country Religion as it disturbs the unity of Christendom yet if we examine and consider the account upon what slight arguments we have taken up Christianity it self as that it is the Religion of our Country or that our Fathers before us were of the same Faith or because the Priest bids us and he is a good man or for something else but we know not what we must needs conclude it the good providence of God not our choice that made us Christians 2. But if the question be Whether such a Faith be in it self good and acceptable that relies upon insufficient and unconvincing grounds I suppose this case of Nathanael will determine us and when we consider that Faith is an 〈◊〉 Grace if God pleases to behold his own glory in our weakness of understanding it is but the same thing he does in the instances of his other Graces For as God enkindles Charity upon variety of means and instruments by a thought by a chance by a text of Scripture by a natural tenderness by the sight of a dying or a tormented beast so also he may produce Faith by arguments of a differing quality and by issues of his Providence he may engage us in such conditions in which as our Understanding is not great enough to chuse the best so neither is it furnished with
the wicked in a proportionable manner to the contrary purpose he shortens their days and takes a way their possibilities and opportunities when the time of Repentance is past because he will not do violence to their Wills and this lest they should return and be converted and I should heal them so that it is evident some persons are by some acts of God after a vicious life and the frequent rejection of the Divine grace at last prevented from mercy who without such courses and in contrary circumstances might possibly do acts of Repentance and return and then God would healthem 4. Let their purposes and vows be never so sincere in the principle yet since a man who is in the state of Grace may again fail of it and forget he was purged from his old sins and every dying sinner did so if ever he was washed in the laver of Regeneration and sanctified in his spirit then much more may such a sincere purpose fail and then it would be known to what distance of time or state from his purpose will God give his final sentence Whether will he quit him because in the first stage he will correspond with his intention and act his purposes or condemn him because in his second stage he would prevaricate And when a man does fail it is not because his first principle was not good for the Holy Spirit which is certainly the best principle of spiritual actions may be extinguished in a man and a sincere or hearty purpose may be lost or it may again be recovered and be lost again so that it is as unreasonable as it is unrevealed that a sincere purpose on a death-bed shall obtain pardon or pass for a new state of life Few men are at those instants and in such pressures hypocritical and vain and yet to perform such purposes is a new work and a new labour it comes in upon a new stock differing from that principle and will meet with temptations difficulties and impediments and an honest heart is not sure to remain so but may split upon a rock of a violent invitation A promise is made to be faithful or unfaithful ex post 〈◊〉 by the event but it was sincere or insincere in the principle only if the person promising did or did not respectively at that time mean what he said A sincere promise many times is not truly performed 42. Concerning all the other acts which it is to be supposed a dying person can do I have only this consideration If they can make up a new Creature become a new state be in any sence a holy life a keeping the Commandments of God a following of peace and holiness a becoming holy in all conversation if they can arrive to the lowest sence of that excellent condition Christ intended to all his Disciples when he made keeping the Commandments to be the condition of entring into life and not crying Lord Lord but doing the will of God if he that hath served the Lusts of the flesh and taken pay under all God's enemies during a long and malicious life can for any thing a dying person can do be said in any sence to have lived holily then his hopes are fairly built if not they rely upon a sand and the 〈◊〉 of Death and the Divine displeasure will beat 〈◊〉 violently upon them There are no suppletories of the Evangelical Covenant If we walk according to the Rule then shall peace and righteousness kiss each other if we have sinned and prevaricated the Rule Repentance must bring us into the ways of Righteousness and then we must go on upon the old stock but the deeds of the 〈◊〉 must be mortified and Christ must dwell in us and the Spirit must reign in us and Vertue must be habitual and the habits must be confirmed and this as we do by the Spirit of Christ so it is hallowed and accepted by the grace of God and we put into a condition of favour and redeemed from sin and reconciled to God But this will not be put off with single acts nor divided parts nor newly-commenced purposes nor fruitless sorrow it is a great folly to venture Eternity upon dreams so that now let me represent the condition of a dying person after a vicious life 43. First He that considers the srailty of humane bodies their incidences and aptness to sickness casualties death sudden or expected the condition of several diseases that some are of too quick a sense and are intolerable some are dull stupid and Lethargical then adds the prodigious Judgments which fall upon many sinners in the act of sin and are marks of our dangers and God's essential justice and severity and that security which possesses such persons whose lives are vicious and that habitual carelesness and groundless confidence or an absolute inconsideration which is generally the condition and constitution of such minds every one whereof is likely enough to confound a persevering sinner in miseries eternal will soon apprehend the danger of a delayed Repentance to be infinite and unmeasurable 44. Secondly But suppose such a person having escaped the antecedent circumstances of the danger is set fairly upon his Death-bed with the just apprehension of his sins about him and his addresses to Repentance consider then the strength of his Lusts that the sins he is to mortifie are inveterate habitual and confirmed having had the growth and stability of a whole life that the liberty of his Will is impaired the Scripture saying of such persons whose eyes are full of lust and that cannot cease from sin and that his servants they are whom they obey that they are slaves to sin and so not sui juris not at their own dispose that his Understanding is blinded his Appetite is mutinous and of a long time used to rebell and prevail that all the inferiour Faculties are in disorder that he wants the helps of Grace proportionable to his necessities for the longer he hath continued in sin the weaker the Grace of God is in him so that in effect at that time the more need he hath the less he shall receive it being God's rule to give to him that hath and from him that hath not to take even what he hath then add the innumerable parts and great burthens of Repentance that it is not a Sorrow nor a Purpose because both these suppose that to be undone which is the only necessary support of all our hopes in Christ when it is done the innumerable difficult cases of Conscience that may then occur particularly in the point of Restitution which among many other necessary parts of Repentance is indispensably required of all persons that are able and in every degree in which they are able the many Temptations of the Devil the strength of Passions the impotency of the Flesh the illusions of the spirits of darkness the tremblings of the heart the incogitancy of the mind the implication and
intanglings of ten thousand thoughts and the impertinences of a disturbed fancy and the great hindrances of a sick body and a sad and weary spirit All these represent a Death-bed to be but an ill station for a Penitent If the person be suddenly snatched away he is not left so much as to dispute if he be permitted to languish in his sickness he is either stupid and apprehends nothing or else miserable and hath reason to apprehend too much However all these difficulties are to be passed and overcome before the man be put into a saveable condition From this consideration though perhaps it may infer more yet we cannot but conclude this difficulty to be as great as the former danger that is vast and ponderous and insupportable 45. Thirdly Suppose the Clinick or death-bed Penitent to be as forward in these employments and as successfull in the mastering many of the Objections as reasonably can be thought yet it is considerable that there is a Repentance which is to be repented of and that is a Repentance which is not productive of fruits of amendment of life that there is a period set down by God in his Judgment and that many who have been profane as Esau was are reduced into the condition of Esau and there is no place left for their Repentance though they seek it carefully with tears that they who have long refused to hear God calling them to Repentance God will refuse to hear them calling for grace and mercy that he will laugh at some men when their calamity comes that the five foolish Virgins addressed themselves at the noise of the Bridegroom 's coming and begg'd oil and went out to buy oil and yet for want of some more time and an early diligence came too late and were shut out for ever that it is no-where revealed that such late endeavours and imperfect practices shall be accepted that God hath made but one Covenant with us in Jesus Christ which is Faith and Repentance consigned in 〈◊〉 and the signification of them and the purpose of Christ is that we should henceforth no more serve sin but mortifie and kill him perpetually and destroy his kingdom and extinguish as much as in us lies his very title that we should live holily justly and soberly in this present world in all holy conversation and godliness and that either we must be continued or reduced to this state of holy living and habitual sanctity or we have no title to the Promises that every degree of recession from the state Christ first put us in is a recession from our hopes and an insecuring our condition and we add to our 〈◊〉 only as our Obedience is restored All this is but a sad story to a dying person who sold himself to work wickedness in an habitual iniquity and aversation from the conditions of the holy Covenant in which he was sanctified 46. And certainly it is unreasonable to plant all our hopes of Heaven upon a Doctrine that is destructive of all Piety which supposes us in such a condition that God hath been offended at us all our life long and yet that we can never return our duties to him unless he will unravel the purposes of his Predestination or call back time again and begin a new computation of years for us and if he did it would be still as uncertain For what hope is there to that man who hath fulfilled all iniquity and hath not fulfilled righteousness Can a man live to the Devil and die to God sow to the flesh and reap to the Spirit hope God will in mercy reward him who hath served his enemy Sure it is the Doctrine of the avail of a death-bed Repentance cannot easily be reconciled with God's purposes and intentions to have us live a good life for it would reconcile us to the hopes of Heaven for a few thoughts or words or single actions when our life is done it takes away the benefit of many Graces and the use of more and the necessity of all 47. For let it be seriously weighed To what purpose is the variety of God's Grace what use is there of preventing restraining concomitant subsequent and persevering Grace unless it be in order to a religious conversation And by deferring Repentance to the last we despoil our Souls and rob the Holy Ghost of the glory of many rays and holy influences with which the Church is watered and refreshed that it may grow from grace to grace till it be consummate in glory It takes away the very being of Chastity and Temperance no such Vertues according to this Doctrine need to be named among Christians For the dying person is not in capacity to exercise these and then either they are troublesome without which we may do well enough or else the condition of the unchaste and intemperate Clinick is sad and deplorable For how can he eject those Devils of Lust and Drunkenness and Gluttony from whom the disease hath taken all powers of election and variety of choice unless it be possible to root out long-contracted habits in a moment or acquire the habits of Chastity Sobriety and Temperance those self-denying and laborious Graces without doing a single act of the respective vertues in order to obtaining of habits unless it be so that God will infuse habits into us more immediately than he creates our reasonable Souls in an instant and without the cooperation of the suscipient without the working out our Salvation with fear and without giving all diligence and running with patience and resisting unto bloud and striving to the last and enduring unto the end in a long fight and a long race If God infuses such habits why have we laws given us and are commanded to work and to do our duty with such a succession and lasting diligence as if the habits were to be acquired to which indeed God promises and ministers his aids still leaving us the persons obliged to the law and the labour as we are capable of the reward I need not instance any more But this doctrine of a death-bed Repentance is inconsistent with the duties of Mortification with all the vindictive and punitive parts of Repentance in exteriour instances with the precepts of waiting and watchfulness and preparation and standing in a readiness against the coming of the Bridegroom with the patience of well-doing with exemplary living with the imitation of the Life of Christ and conformities to his Passion with the kingdom and dominion and growth of Grace And lastly it goes about to defeat one of God's great purposes for Cod therefore concealed the time of our death that we might always stand upon our guard the Holy Jesus told us so Watch for ye know not what hour the Lord will come but this makes men seem more crafty in their late-begun Piety than God was provident and mysterious in concealing the time of our dissolution 48. And now if
which we shall no more be at war with Reason nor so much with Sense and not at all with Faith And for persons of the contradictory perswasion who to avoid the natural sence affirm it only to be figurative since their design is only to make this Sacrament to be Christ's Body in the sence of Faith and not of Philosophy they may remember that its being really present does not hinder but that all that reality may be spiritual and if it be Christ's Body so it be not affirmed such in a natural sence and manner it is still only the object of Faith and spirit and if it be affirmed only to be spiritual there is then no danger to Faith in admitting the words of Christ's institution This is my Body I suppose it to be a mistake to think what soever is real must be natural and it is no less to think spiritual to be only figurative that 's too much and this is too little Philosophy and Faith may well be reconciled and whatsoever objection can invade this union may be cured by modesty And if we profess we understand not the manner of this Mystery we say no more but that it is a Mystery and if it had been necessary we should have construed it into the most latent sence Christ himself would have given a Clavis and taught the Church to unlock so great a Secret Christ said This is my Body this is my 〈◊〉 S. Paul said The bread of blessing that we break is the communication of the body of Christ and the Chalice which we bless is the communication of the bloud of Christ and We are all one body because we eat of one bread One proposition as well as the other is the matter of Faith and the latter of them is also of Sense one is as literal as the other and he that distinguishes in his belief as he may place the impropriety upon which part he please and either say it is improperly called Bread or improperly called Christ's Body so he can have nothing to secure his proposition from errour or himself from boldness in decreeing concerning Mysteries against the testimonies of Sense or beyond the modesty and simplicity of Christian Faith Let us love and adore the abyss of Divine Wisdom and Goodness and entertain the Sacrament with just and holy receptions and then we shall receive all those fruits of it which an earnest disputer or a peremptory dogmatizer whether he happen right or wrong hath no warrant to expect upon the interest of his Opinion 4. In the Institution of this Sacrament Christ manifested first his Almighty Power secondly his infinite Wisdome and thirdly his unspeakable Charity First his Power is manifest in making the Symbols to be the instruments of conveying himself to the spirit of the Receiver He nourishes the Soul with Bread and feeds the Body with a Sacrament he makes the Body spiritual by his Graces there ministred and makes the Spirit to be united to his Body by a participation of the Divine nature In the Sacrament that Body which is reigning in Heaven is exposed upon the Table of blessing and his Body which was broken for us is now broken again and yet remains impassible Every consecrated portion of bread and wine does exhibit Christ intirely to the faithful Receiver and yet Christ remains one while he is wholly ministred in 10000 portions So long as we call these mysterious and make them intricate to exercise our Faith and to represent the wonder of the Mystery and to encrease our Charity our being inquisitive into the abyss can have no evil purposes God hath instituted the Rite in visible Symbols to make the secret Grace as presential and discernible as it might that by an instrument of Sense our spirits might be accommodated as with an exteriour object to produce an internal act But it is the prodigy of a miraculous power by instruments so easie to produce effects so glorious This then is the object of Wonder and Adoration 5. Secondly And this effect of Power does also remark the Divine Wisdome who hath ordained such Symbols which not only like spittle and clay toward the curing blind eyes proclaim an Almighty Power but they are apposite and proper to signifie a Duty and become to us like the Word of Life and from Bread they turn into a Homily For therefore our wisest Master hath appointed Bread and Wine that we may be corporally united to him that as the Symbols becoming nutriment are turned into the substance of our bodies so Christ being the food of our Souls should assimilate us making us partakers of the Divine Nature It also tells us that from hence we derive life and holy motion for in him we live and move and have our being He is the staff of our life and the light of our eyes and the strength of our spirit He is the Viand for our journey and the antepast of Heaven And because this holy Mystery was intended to be a Sacrament of Union that Lesson is morally represented in the Symbols That as the salutary juice is expressed from many clusters running into one 〈◊〉 and the Bread is a mass made of many grains of Wheat so we also as the Apostie infers from hence himself observing the analogy should be one bread and one bodr because we partake of that one bread And it were to be wished that from hence also all Christians would understand a signification of another Duty and that they would 〈◊〉 communicate as remembring that the Soul may need a frequent ministration as well as the Body its daily proportion This consideration of the Divine Wisdome is apt to produce Reverence Humility and Submission of our understanding to the immensity of God's unsearchable abysses 6. Thirdly But the story of the Love of our dearest Lord is written in largest characters who not only was at that instant busie in doing Man the greatest good even then when man was contriving his death and his dishonour but contrived to represent his bitter Passion to us without any circumstances of horror in symbols of pleasure and delight that we may taste and see how gracious our LORD is who would not transmit the record of his Passion to us in any thing that might trouble us No Love can be greater than that which is so beatifical as to bestow the greatest good and no Love can be better expressed than that which although it is productive of the greatest blessings yet is curious also to observe the smallest circumstances And not only both these but many other circumstances and arguments of Love concur in the Holy Sacrament 1. It is a tenderness of affection that ministers wholsome Physick with arts and instruments of pleasure And such was the Charity of our Lord who brings health to us in a golden Chalice life not in the bitter drugs of Egypt but in spirits and quintessences giving us apples of Paradise at the same time yielding food and health
his Disciples to verifie his Promise to make demonstration of his Divinity to lay some superstructures of his Church upon the foundation of his former Sermons to instruct them in the mysteries of his Kingdom to prepare them for the reception of the Holy Ghost and as he had in his state of Separation triumphed over Hell so in his Resurrection he set his foot upon Death and brought it under his dominion so that although it was not yet destroyed yet it is made his subject it hath as yet the condition of the Gibeonites who were not banished out of the land but they were made drawers of water and bewers of wood so is Death made instrumental to Christ's Kingdom but it abides still and shall till the day of Judgment but shall serve the ends of our Lord and promote the interests of Eternity and do benefit to the Church 8. And it is considerable that our Blessed Lord having told them that after three days he would rise again yet he shortened the time as much as was possible that he might verifie his own prediction and yet make his absence the less troublesome he rises early in the morning the first day of the week for so our dearest Lord abbreviates the days of our sorrow and lengthens the years of our consolation for he knows that a day of sorrow seems a year and a year of joy passes like a day and therefore God lessens the one and 〈◊〉 the other to make this perceived and that supportable Now the Temple which the Jews destroyed God raised up in six and thirty hours but this second Temple was more glorious than the first for now it was clothed with robes of glory with clarity agility and immortality and though like Moses descending from the mount he wore a veil that the greatness of his splendor might not render him unapt for conversation with his servants yet the holy Scripture affirms that he was now no more to see corruption meaning that now he was separate from the passibility and affections of humane bodies and could suffer S. Thomas to thrust his hand into the wound of his side and his singer into the holes of his hands without any grief or smart 9. But although the graciousness and care of the Lord had prevented all diligence and satisfied all desires returning to life before the most forward faith could expect him yet there were three Maries went to the grave so early that they prevented the rising of the Sun and though with great obedience they stayed till the end of the Sabbath yet as soon as that was done they had other parts of duty and affection which called with greatest importunity to be speedily satisfied And if Obedience had not bound the feet of Love they had gone the day before but they became to us admirable patterns of Obedience to the Divine Commandments For though Love were stronger than death yet Obedience was stronger than Love and made a rare dispute in the spirits of those holy Women in which the flesh and the spirit were not the litigants but the spirit and the spirit and they resisted each other as the Angel-guardian of the Jews resisted the tutelar Angel of Persia each striving who should with most love and zeal perform their charge and God determined And so he did here too For the Law of the Sabbath was then a Divine Commandment and although piety to the dead and to such a dead was ready to force their choice to do violence to their will bearing them up on wings of desire to the grave of the LORD yet at last they reconciled Love with Obedience For they had been taught that Love is best expressed in keeping of the Divine Commandments But now they were at liberty and sure enough they made use of its first minute and going so early to seek Christ they were sure they should find him 10. The Angels descended Guardians of the Sepulchre for God sent his guards too and they affrighted the Watch appointed by Pilate and the Priests but when the women came they spake like comforters full of sweetness and consolation laying aside their affrighting glories as knowing it is the will of their Lord that they should minister good to them that love him But a conversation with Angels could not satisfie them who came to look for the Lord of the Angels and found him not and when the Lord was pleased to appear to Mary Magdalen she was so swallowed up with love and sorrow that she entred into her joy and perceived it not she saw the Lord and knew him not For so from the closets of darkness they that immediately stare upon the Sun perceive not the beauties of the light and feel nothing but amazement But the voice of the Lord opened her eyes and she knew him and worshipped him but was denied to touch him and commanded to tell the Apostles for therefore God ministers to us comforts and revelations not that we may dwell in the sensible fruition of them our selves alone but that we communicate the grace to others But when the other women were returned and saw the Lord then they were all together admitted to the embracement and to kiss the feet of Jesus For God hath his opportunities and periods which at another time he denies and we must then rejoyce in it when he vouchsafes it and submit to his Divine will when he denies it 11. These good women had the first fruits of the apparition for their forward love and the passion of their Religion made greater haste to entertain a Grace and was a greater endearment of their persons to our Lord than a more sober reserved and less active spirit This is more safe but that is religious this goes to God by the way of understanding that by the will this is supported by discourse that by passions this is the sobriety of the Apostles the other was the zeal of the holy women and because a strong fancy and an earnest passion sixed upon holy objects are the most active and forward instruments of Devotion as Devotion is of Love therefore we find God hath made great expressions of his acceptance of such dispositions And women and less knowing persons and tender dispositions and pliant natures will make up a greater number in Heaven than the severe and wary and enquiring people who sometimes love because they believe and believe because they can demonstrate but never believe because they love When a great Understanding and a great Affection meet together it makes a Saint great like an Apostle but they do not well who make abatement of their religious passions by the severity of their Understanding It is no matter by which we are brought to Christ so we love him and obey him but if the production admit of 〈◊〉 that instrument is the most excellent which produces the greatest love and 〈◊〉 discourse and a sober spirit be in it self the best yet we do not always suffer that to be a