performance meets him one half of the way and he that believed somewhat ere he came and more when he went grew to more Faith in the way and when he came home inlarged his Faith to all the skirts of his Family A weak Faith may be true but a true Faith is growing He that boasts of a full stature in the first moment of his assent may presume but doth not believe Great men cannot want clients their example sways some their authority more they cannot go to either of the other worlds alone In vain do they pretend power over others who labour not to draw their families unto God XV. The Dumb Devil ejected THat the Prince of our Peace might approve his victories perfect wheresoever he met with the Prince of darkness he foiled him he ejected him He found him in Heaven thence did he throw him headlong and verified his Prophet I have cast thee out of mine holy mountain And if the Devils left their first habitation it was because being Devils they could not keep it Their estate indeed they might have kept and did not their habitation they would have kept and might not How art thou faln from heaven O Lucifer He found him in the Heart of man for in that closet of God did the evill Spirit after his exile from Heaven shrowd himself Sin gave him possession which he kept with a willing violence thence he casts him by his Word and Spirit He found him tyrannizing in the Bodies of some possessed men and with power commands the unclean Spirits to depart This act is for no hand but his When a strong man keeps possession none but a stronger can remove it In voluntary things the strongest may yield to the weakest Sampson to a Dalilah but in violent ever the mightiest carries it A spirituall nature must needs be in rank above a bodily neither can any power be above a Spirit but the God of Spirits No otherwise is it in the mentall possession Where ever Sin is there Satan is As on the contrary whosoever is born of God the seed of God remains in him That Evill one not onely is but rules in the sons of disobedience in vain shall we try to eject him but by the Divine power of the Redeemer For this cause the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devill Do we find our selves haunted with the familiar Devills of Pride Self-love Sensuall desires Unbelief None but thou O Son of the ever-living God can free our bosoms of these hellish guests O cleanse thou me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me O Saviour it is no Paradox to say that thou castest out more Devils now then thou didst whilst thou wert upon earth It was thy word When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me Satan weighs down at the feet thou pullest at the head yea at the heart In every conversion which thou workest there is a dispossession Convert me O Lord and I shall be converted I know thy means are now no other then ordinary If we expect to be dispossessed by miracle it would be a miracle if ever we were dispossessed O let thy Gospell have the perfect work in me so onely shall I be delivered from the powers of darkness Nothing can be said to be dumb but what naturally speaks nothing can speak naturally but what hath the instruments of speech which because spirits want they can no otherwise speak vocally then as they take voices to themselves in taking bodies This Devill was not therefore dumb in his nature but in his effect The man was dumb by the operation of that Devill which possessed him and now the action is attributed to the spirit which was subjectively in the man It is not you that speak saith our Saviour but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you As it is in bodily diseases that they do not infect us alike some seize upon the humours others upon the spirits some assault the brain others the heart or lungs so in bodily and spirituall possessions in some the evill spirit takes away their senses in some their lims in some their inward faculties like as spiritually they affect to move us unto severall sins one to Lust another to Covetousness or Ambition another to Cruelty and their names have distinguished them according to these various effects This was a dumb Devill which yet had possessed not the tongue onely of this man but his ear nor that onely but as it seems his eyes too O subtle and tyrannous spirit that obstructs all ways to the Soul that keeps out all means of grace both from the door and windows of the Heart yea that stops up all passages whether of ingress or egress of ingress at the Eye or Ear of egress at the Mouth that there might be no capacity of redress What holy use is there of our Tongue but to praise our Maker to confess our sins to inform our brethren How rise is this dumb Devill every-where whilst he stops the mouths of Christians from these usefull and necessary duties For what end hath man those two privileges above his fellow-creatures Reason and Speech but that as by the one he may conceive of the great works of his Maker which the rest cannot so by the other he may express what he conceives to the honour of the Creatour both of them and himself And why are all other creatures said to praise God and bidden to praise him but because they doe it by the apprehension by the expression of man If the heavens declare the glory of God how doe they it but to the eyes and by the tongue of that man for whom they were made It is no small honour whereof the envious Spirit shall rob his Maker if he can close up the mouth of his onely rationall and vocall creature and turn the best of his workmanship into a dumb Idol that hath a mouth and speaks not Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Praise is not more necessary then complaint praise of God then complaint of our selves whether to God or men The onely amends we can make to God when we have not had the grace to avoid sin is to confess the sin we have not avoided This is the sponge that wipes out all the blots and blurs of our lives If we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness That cunning Man-slayer knows there is no way to purge the sick soul but upward by casting out the vicious humour wherewith it is clogged and therefore holds the lips close that the heart may not dis-burthen it self by so wholsome evacuation When I kept silence my bones consumed For day and night thy hand O Lord was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer O let me confess against my self my wickedness unto
hope was not vain to work in these Gergesens a discontentment at Christ an unwillingness to entertain him a desire of his absence he meant to turn them into Swine by the loss of their Swine It was not the rafters or stones of the house of Job's children that he bore the grudge to but to the owners nor to the lives of the Children so much as the Soul of their Father There is no affliction wherein he doth not strike at the Heart which whilst it holds free all other dammages are light but a wounded spirit whether with sin or sorrow who can bear Whatever becomes of goods or lims happy are we if like wise souldiers we guard the vital parts Whilst the Soul is kept sound from impatience from distrust our Enemy may afflict us he cannot hurt us They sue for a sufferance not daring other then to grant that without the permission of Christ they could not hurt a very Swine If it be fearfull to think how great things evil Spirits can doe with permission it is comfortable to think how nothing they can doe without permission We know they want not malice to destroy the whole frame of God's work but of all Man of all men Christians But if without leave they cannot set upon an Hog what can they doe to the living Images of their Creatour They cannot offer us so much as a suggestion without the permission of our Saviour And can he that would give his own most precious bloud for us to save us from evil wilfully give us over to evil It is no news that wicked spirits wish to doe mischief it is news that they are allowed it If the Owner of all things should stand upon his absolute command who can challenge him for what he thinks fit to doe with his creature The first Fole of the Ass is commanded under the Law to have his neck broken what is that to us The creatures doe that they were made for if they may serve any way to the glory of their Maker But seldome ever doth God leave his actions unfurnished with such reasons as our weakness may reach unto There were Sects amongst these Jews that denied Spirits they could not be more evidently more powerfully convinced then by this event Now shall the Gadarens see from what a multitude of Devils they were delivered and how easie it had been for the same power to have allowed these Spirits to seize upon their Persons as well as on their Swine Neither did God this without a just purpose of their castigation His Judgments are righteous where they are most secret Though we cannot accuse these inhabitants of ought yet he could and thought good thus to mulct them And if they had not wanted grace to acknowledge it it was no small favour of God that he would punish them in their Swine for that which he might have avenged upon their Bodies and Souls Our Goods are farthest off us If but in these we smart we must confess we find mercy Sometimes it pleaseth God to grant the suits of wicked men and spirits in no favour to the suitours He grants an ill suit and withholds a good He grants an ill suit in judgment and holds back a good one in mercy The Israelites ask meat he gives Quails to their mouths and leanness to their souls The chosen Vessel wishes Satan taken off and hears onely My grace is sufficient for thee We may not evermore measure favours by condescent These Devils doubtless receive more punishment for that harmfull act wherein they are heard If we ask what is either unfit to receive or unlawfull to beg it is a great favour of our God to be denied Those Spirits which would go into the Swine by permission go out of the Man by command they had stayed long and are ejected suddenly The immediate works of God are perfect in an instant and do not require the aid of time for their maturation No sooner are they cast out of the Man then they are in the Swine They will lose no time but pass without intermission from one mischief to another If they hold it a pain not to be doing evil why is it not our delight to be ever doing good The impetuousness was no less then the speed The Herd was carried with violence from a steep-down place into the lake and was choaked It is no small force that could doe this but if the Swine had been so many mountains these Spirits upon God's permission had thus transported them How easily can they carry those Souls which are under their power to destruction Unclean beasts that wallow in the mire of sensuality brutish drunkards transforming themselves by excess even they are the Swine whom the Legion carries headlong to the pit of perdition The wicked Spirits have their wish the Swine are choaked in the waves What ease is this to them Good God that there should be any creature that seeks contentment in destroying in tormenting the good creatures of his Maker This is the diet of Hell Those Fiends feed upon spight towards Man so much more as he doth more resemble his Creatour towards all other living substances so much more as they may be more usefull to man The Swine ran down violently what marvell is it if their Keepers fled That miraculous work which should have drawn them to Christ drives them from him They run with the news the country comes in with clamour The whole multitude of the country about besought him to depart The multitude is a beast of many heads every head hath a several mouth and every mouth a several tongue and every tongue a several accent every head hath a several brain and every brain thoughts of their own So as it is hard to find a multitude without some division at least Seldome ever hath a good motion found a perfect accordance it is not so infrequent for a multitude to conspire in evil Generality of assent is no warrant for any act Common errour carries away many who inquire not into the reason of ought but the practice The way to Hell is a beaten road through the many feet that tread it When Vice grows into fashion Singularity is a Vertue There was not a Gadaren found that either dehorted their fellows or opposed the motion It is a sign of people given up to judgment when no man makes head against projects of evil Alas what can one strong man doe against a whole throng of wickedness Yet this good comes of an unprevailing resistence that God forbears to plague where he finds but a sprinkling of Faith Happy are they who like unto the celestial bodies which being carried about with the sway of the highest sphere yet creep on their own ways keep on the courses of their own holiness against the swindge of common corruptions They shall both deliver their own souls and help to withhold judgment from others The Gadarens sue to Christ for his departure It is too much favour to
mourning thy chief pleasure is the comfort of the afflicted What a confusion there is in worldly sorrow The mother shreeks the servants cry out the people make lamentation the minstrells howl and strike dolefully so as the ear might question whether the Ditty or the Instrument were more heavy If ever expressions of sorrow sound well it is when Death leads the quire Soon doth our Saviour charm this noise and turns these unseasonable mourners whether formal or serious out of doors Not that he dislikes Musick whether to condole or comfort but that he had life in his eye and would have them know that he held these Funeral ceremonies to be too early and long before their time Give place for the maid is not dead but sleepeth Had she been dead she had but slept now she was not dead but asleep because he meant this nap of death should be so short and her awakening so speedy Death and Sleep are alike to him who can cast whom he will into the sleep of Death and awake when and whom he pleaseth out of that deadly sleep Before the people and domesticks of Jairus held Jesus for a Prophet now they took him for a Dreamer Not dead but asleep They that came to mourn cannot now forbear to laugh Have we piped at so many Funerals and seen and lamented so many Corpses and cannot we distinguish betwixt Sleep and Death The eyes are set the breath is gone the lims are stiff and cold Who ever died if she do but sleep How easily may our Reason or Sense befool us in Divine matters Those that are competent Judges in natural things are ready to laugh God to scorn when he speaks beyond their compass and are by him justly laughed to scorn for their unbelief Vain and faithless men as if that unlimited power of the Almighty could not make good his own word and turn either Sleep into Death or Death into Sleep at pleasure Ere many minutes they shall be ashamed of their errour and incredulity There were witnesses enough of her death there shall not be many of her restoring Three choice Disciples and the two Parents are onely admitted to the view and testimony of this miraculous work The eyes of those incredulous scoffers were not worthy of this honour Our infidelity makes us incapable of the secret favours and the highest counsels of the Almighty What did these scorners think and say when they saw him putting the minstrels and people out of doors Doubtless the maid is but asleep the man fears lest the noise shall awake her we must speak and tread softly that we disquiet her not What will he and his Disciples doe the while Is it not to be feared they will startle her out of her rest Those that are shut out from the participation of God's counsells think all his words and projects no better then foolishness But art thou O Saviour ever the more discouraged by the derision and censure of these scornfull unbelievers Because fools jear thee dost thou forbear thy work Surely I do not perceive that thou heedest them save for contempt or carest more for their words then their silence It is enough that thine act shall soon honour thee and convince them He took her by the hand and called saying Maid arise and her spirit came again and she arose straightway How could that touch that Call be other then effectual He who made that hand touched it and he who shall once say Arise ye dead said now Maid arise Death cannot but obey him who is the Lord of life The Soul is ever equally in his hand who is the God of Spirits it cannot but go and come at his command When he says Maid arise the now-dissolved spirit knows his office his place and instantly re-assumes that room which by his appointment it had left O Saviour if thou do but bid my Soul to arise from the death of Sin it cannot lie still if thou bid my Body to arise from the grave my Soul cannot but glance down from her Heaven and animate it In vain shall my sin or my grave offer to withhold me from thee The Maid revives not now to languish for a time upon her sick-bed and by some faint degrees to gather an insensible strength but at once she arises from her death and from her couch at once she puts off her fever with her dissolution she finds her life and her feet at once at once she finds her feet and her stomack He commanded to give her meat Omnipotency doth not use to go the pace of Nature All God's immediate works are like himself perfect He that raised her supernaturally could have so fed her It was never the purpose of his Power to put ordinary Means out of office XXVI The Motion of the two fiery Disciples repelled THE time drew now on wherein Jesus must be received up He must take death in his way Calvary is in his passage to mount Olivet He must be lift up to the Cross thence to climb into his Heaven Yet this comes not into mention as if all the thought of Death were swallowed up in this Victory over Death Neither O Saviour is it otherwise with us the weak members of thy mystical body We must die we shall be glorified What if Death stand before us we look beyond him at that transcendent Glory How should we be dismay'd with that pain which is attended with a blessed Immortality The strongest receit against Death is the happy estate that follows it next to that is the fore-expectation of it and resolution against it He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem Jerusalem the nest of his enemies the Amphitheater of his conflicts the fatall place of his death Well did he know the plots and ambushes that were there laid for him and the bloudy issue of those designs yet he will go and goes resolved for the worst It is a sure and wise way to send our thoughts before us to grapple with those evils which we know must be incountred The enemy is half overcome that is well prepared for The strongest mischief may be outfaced with a seasonable fore-resolution There can be no greater disadvantage then the suddenness of a surprisall O God what I have not the power to avoid let me have the wisedom to expect The way from Galilee to Judaea lay through the Region of Samaria if not through the City Christ now towards the end of his Preaching could not but be attended with a multitude of followers It was necessary there should be purveyours and harbingers to procure lodgings and provision for so large a troup Some of his own retinue are addressed to this service they seek not for palaces and delicates but for house-room and victuals It was He whose the earth was and the fulness thereof whos 's the Heavens are and the mansions therein yet He who could have commanded Angels sues to Samaritans He that filled and comprehended Heaven sendeth for shelter in a
Whilst we are in this warfare we must make account that the repulse of one Temptation doth but invite to another That Blessed Saviour of ours that was content to be led from Jordan into the Wilderness for the advantage of the first Temptation yields to be led from the Wilderness to Jerusalem for the advantage of the second The Place doth not a little avail to the Act. The Wilderness was fit for a Temptation arising from want it was not fit for a Temptation moving to vain-glory The populous City was the fittest for such a motion Jerusalem was the glory of the World the Temple was the glory of Jerusalem the Pinacle the highest piece of the Pinacle there is Christ content to be set for the opportunity of Temptation O Saviour of men how can we wonder enough at this humility of thine that thou wouldst so far abase thy self as to suffer thy pure and sacred Body to be transported by the presumptuous and malicious hand of that unclean Spirit It was not his power it was thy patience that deserves our admiration Neither can this seem over-strange to us when we consider that if Satan be the Head of wicked men wicked men are the Members of Satan What was Pilate or the Jews that persecuted thine innocence but lims of this Devil And why are we then amazed to see thee touched and locally transported by the Head when we see thee yielding thy self over to be crucified by the Members If Satan did the worse and greater mediately by their hands no marvel if he doe the less and easier immediately by his own yet neither of them without thy voluntary dispensation He could not have looked at thee without thee And if the Son of God did thus suffer his own holy and precious Body to be carried by Satan what wonder is it if that Enemy have sometimes power given him over the sinfull bodies of the adopted sons of God It is not the strength of Faith that can secure us from the outward violences of that Evil one This difference I find betwixt his spiritual and bodily assaults those are beaten back by the shield of Faith these admit not of such repulse As the best man may be lame blind diseased so through the permission of God he may be bodily vexed by the old Man-slayer Grace was never given us for a Target against external Afflictions Methinks I see Christ hoised upon the highest Battlements of the Temple whose very roof was an hundred and thirty cubits high and Satan standing by him with this speech in his mouth Well then since in the matter of nourishment thou wilt needs depend upon thy Father's Providence that he can without means sustain thee take now farther trial of that Providence in thy miraculous preservation Cast thy self down from this height Behold thou art here in Jerusalem the famous and holy City of the World here thou art on the top of the Pinacle of that Temple which is dedicated to thy Father and if thou be God to thy self the eyes of all men are now fixt upon thee there cannot be devised a more ready way to spread thy glory and to proclaim thy Deity then by casting thy self headlong to the Earth All the World will say there is more in thee then a Man and for danger there can be none What can hurt him that is the Son of God And wherefore serves that glorious Guard of Angels which have by Divine Commission taken upon them the charge of thine Humanity Since therefore in one act thou maist be both safe and celebrated trust thy Father and those thy serviceable Spirits with thine assured preservation Cast thy self down And why didst thou not O thou malignant Spirit endeavour to cast down my Saviour by those same presumptuous hands that brought him up since the descent is more easie then the raising up Was it because it had not been so great an advantage to thee that he should fall by thy means as by his own Falling into sin was more then to fall from the pinacle Still thy care and suit is to make us authours to our selves of evil Thou gainest nothing by our bodily hurt if the Soul be safe Or was it rather for that thou couldst not I doubt not but thy malice could as well have served to have offered this measure to himself as to his holy Apostle soon after but he that bounded thy power tethers thee shorter Thou couldst not thou canst not doe what thou wouldst He that would permit thee to carry him up binds thy hands from casting him down And woe were it for us if thou wert not ever stinted Why did Satan carry up Christ so high but on purpose that his fall might be the more deadly So deals he still with us he exalts us that we may be dangerously abased He puffs men up with swelling thoughts of their own worthiness that they may be vile in the eyes of God and fall into condemnation It is the manner of God to cast down that he may raise to abase that he may exalt contrarily Satan raises up that he may throw down and intends nothing but our dejection in our advancement Height of place gives opportunity of Temptation Thus busie is that Wicked one in working against the members of Christ If any of them be in eminence above others those he labours most to ruinate They had need to stand fast that stand high Both there is more danger of their falling and more hurt in their fall He that had presumed thus far to tempt the Lord of Life would fain now dare him also to presume upon his Deity If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down There is not a more tried shaft in all his quiver then this a perswasion to men to bear themselves too bold upon the favour of God Thou art the Elect and Redeemed of God sin because Grace hath abounded sin that it may abound Thou art safe enough though thou offend be not too much an adversary to thy own liberty False Spirit it is no liberty to sin but servitude rather there is no liberty but in the freedome from sin Every one of us that hath the hope of Sons must purge himself even as he is pure that hath redeemed us We are bought with a price therefore must we glorifie God in our body and spirits for they are God's Our Sonship teaches us awe and obedience and therefore because we are Sons we will not cast our selves down into sin How idlely do Satan and wicked men measure God by the crooked line of their own misconceit I wiss Christ cannot be the Son of God unless he cast himself down from the Pinacle unless he come down from the Cross God is not mercifull unless he humour them in all their desires not just unless he take speedy vengeance where they require it But when they have spent their folly upon these vain imaginations Christ is the Son of God though he stay on the top of
This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the Most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universal the latter words would impugn the former for whilst he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the Most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear in respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil Spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whilst thou vexest a Servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from Knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldness enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny Or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack For the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour Or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a farther degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are Tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by sense have easily granted the Body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a Spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire but as all matters of faith though they cannot be proved by reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a real For as in Blessedness the good Spirits find themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves settled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive meer and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the sky and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of God's justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that Supreme and Righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgment of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal spirits of living men may be held in a loathed or painfull body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name Who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil Spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they expect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed term of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgment should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say before the time Even the very evil spirits confess and fearfully attend a set day of universal Sessions They believe less then Devils that either doubt of or deny that Day of final retribution O the wonderfull mercy of our God that both to wicked men
and Spirits respites the utmost of their torment He might upon the first instant of the fall of Angels have inflicted on them the highest extremity of his vengeance he might upon the first sins of our youth yea of our nature have swept us away and given us our portion in that fiery lake He stays a time for both though with this difference of mercy to us men that here not onely is a delay but may be an utter prevention of punishment which to the evil Spirits is altogether impossible They do suffer they must suffer and though they have now deserved to suffer all they must yet they must once suffer more then they do Yet so doth this evil Spirit expostulate that he sues I beseech thee torment me not The world is well changed since Satan's first onset upon Christ Then he could say If thou be the Son of God now Jesus the Son of the Most high God then All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me now I beseech thee torment me not The same power when he lists can change the note of the Tempter to us How happy are we that have such a Redeemer as can command the Devils to their chains O consider this ye lawless sinners that have said Let us break his bands and cast his cords from us However the Almighty suffers you for a judgment to have free scope to evil and ye can now impotently resist the revealed will of your Creatour yet the time shall come when ye shall see the very masters whom ye have served the powers of darkness unable to avoid the revenges of God How much less shall man strive with his Maker Man whose breath is in his nostrils whose house is clay whose foundation is the dust Nature teaches every creature to wish a freedome from pain The foulest Spirits cannot but love themselves and this love must needs produce a deprecation of evil Yet what a thing is this to hear the Devil at his prayers I beseech thee torment me not Devotion is not guilty of this but fear There is no grace in the suit of Devils but nature no respect of glory to their Creatour but their own ease they cannot pray against sin but against torment for sin What news is it now to hear the profanest mouth in extremity imploring the Sacred Name of God when the Devils do so The worst of all creatures hates punishment and can say Lead me not into pain onely the good heart can say Lead me not into temptation If we can as heartily pray against sin for the avoiding of displeasure as against punishment when we have displeased there is true Grace in the soul Indeed if we could fervently pray against sin we should not need to pray against punishment which is no other then the inseparable shadow of that body but if we have not laboured against our sins in vain do we pray against punishment God must be just and the wages of sin is death It pleased our Holy Saviour not onely to let fall words of command upon this Spirit but to interchange some speeches with him All Christ's actions are not for example It was the errour of our Grandmother to hold chat with Satan That God who knows the craft of that old Serpent and our weak simplicity hath charged us not to enquire of an evil Spirit Surely if the Disciples returning to Jacob's Well wondred to see Christ talk with a woman well may we wonder to see him talking with an unclean Spirit Let it be no presumption O Saviour to ask upon what grounds thou didst this wherein we may not follow thee We know that sin was excepted in thy conformity of thy self to us we know there was no guile found in thy mouth no possibility of taint in thy nature in thine actions Neither is it hard to conceive how the same thing may be done by thee without sin which we cannot but sin in doing There is a vast difference in the Intention in the Agent For as on the one side thou didst not ask the name of the Spirit as one that knew not and would learn by enquiring but that by the confession of that mischief which thou pleasedst to suffer the grace of the cure might be the more conspicuous the more glorious so on the other God and Man might doe that safely which meer Man cannot doe without danger Thou mightest touch the leprosie and not be legally unclean because thou touchedst it to heal it didst not touch it with possibility of infection So mightest thou who by reason of the perfection of thy Divine nature wert uncapable of any stain by the interlocution with Satan safely confer with him whom corrupt Man predisposed to the danger of such a parly may not meddle with without sin because not without peril It is for none but God to hold discourse with Satan Our surest way is to have as little to doe with that Evil one as we may and if he shall offer to maintain conference with us by his secret temptations to turn our speech unto our God with the Archangel The Lord rebuke thee Satan It was the presupposition of him that knew it that not onely men but Spirits have names This then he asks not out of an ignorance or curiosity nothing could be hid from him who calleth the Stars and all the hoasts of Heaven by their names but out of a just respect to the glory of the Miracle he was working whereto the notice of the name would not a little avail For if without inquiry or confession our Saviour had ejected this evil Spirit it had passed for the single dispossession of one onely Devil whereas now it appears there was a combination and hellish champarty in these powers of darkness which were all forced to vail unto that almighty command Before the Devil had spoken singularly of himself What have I to doe with thee and I beseech thee torment me not yet our Saviour knowing that there was a multitude of Devils lurking in that breast who dissembled their presence wrests it out of the Spirit by this interrogation What is thy name Now can those wicked ones no longer hide themselves He that asked the question forced the answer My name is Legion The authour of discord hath borrowed a name of war from that military order of discipline by which the Jews were subdued doth the Devil fetch his denomination They were many yet they say My name not Our name though many they speak as one they act as one in this possession There is a marvellous accordance even betwixt evil Spirits That Kingdome is not divided for then it could not stand I wonder not that wicked men do so conspire in evil that there is such unanimity in the broachers and abetters of errours when I see those Devils which are many in substance are one in name action habitation Who can too much brag of unity when it is incident unto wicked Spirits All the
his right must not stand upon scrupulous fears Are we naturally timorous Why do we not fear the deniall the exclusion of the Almighty Without shall be the fearfull Her humble prostration is seconded by a lamentable complaint Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died The Sisters are both in one mind both in one speech and both of them in one speech bewray both strength and infirmity strength of Faith in ascribing so much power to Christ that his presence could preserve from death Infirmity in supposing the necessity of a presence for this purpose Why Mary could not thine Omnipotent Saviour as well in absence have commanded Lazarus to live Is his hand so short that he can doe nothing but by contaction If his Power were finite how could he have forbidden the seizure of death if infinite how could it be limited to place or hindred by distance It is a weakness of Faith to measure success by means and means by presence and to tie effects to both when we deal with an Almighty agent Finite causes work within their own sphere all places are equally near and all effects equally easy to the infinite O Saviour whilst thou now sittest gloriously in Heaven thou dost no less impart thy self unto us then if thou stoodest visibly by us then if we stood locally by thee no place can make difference of thy virtue and aid This was Mary's moan no motion no request sounded from her to her Saviour Her silent suit is returned with a mute answer no notice is taken of her errour Oh that marvellous mercy that connives at our faulty infirmities All the reply that I hear of is a compassionate groan within himself O Blessed Jesu thou that wert free from all sin wouldst not be free even from strong affections Wisedom and Holiness should want much work if even vehement passions might not be quitted from offence Mary wept her tears drew on tears from her friends all their tears united drew groans from thee Even in thine Heaven thou dost no less pity our sorrows thy Glory is free from groans but abounds with compassion and mercy if we be not sparing of our tears thou canst not be insensible of our sorrows How shall we imitate thee if like our looking-glass we do not answer tears and weep on them that weep upon us Lord thou knewest in absence that Lazarus was dead and dost thou not know where he was buried Surely thou wert farther off when thou sawest and reportedst his death then thou wert from the grave thou inquiredst of thou that knewest all things yet askest what thou knowest Where have ye laid him Not out of need but out of will that as in thy sorrow so in thy question thou mightst depress thy self in the opinion of the beholders for the time that the glory of thine instant Miracle might be the greater the less it was expected It had been all one to thy Omnipotence to have made a new Lazarus out of nothing or in that remoteness to have commanded Lazarus wheresoever he was to come forth but thou wert neither willing to work more miracle then was requisite nor yet unwilling to fix the minds of the people upon the expectation of some marvellous thing that thou meantest to work and therefore askest Where have you laid him They are not more glad of the question then ready for the answer Come and see It was the manner of the Jews as likewise of those Aegyptians among whom they had sojourned to lay up the dead bodies of their friends with great respect more cost was wont to be bestowed on some of their graves then on their houses as neither ashamed then nor unwilling to shew the decency of their sepulture they say Come and see More was hoped for from Christ then a mere view they meant and expected that his eye should draw him on to some farther action O Saviour whilst we desire our spirituall resuscitation how should we labour to bring thee to our grave how should we lay open our deadness before thee and bewray to thee our impotence and senselesness Come Lord and see what a miserable carkass I am and by the power of thy mercy raise me from the state of my corruption Never was our Saviour more submissly dejected then now immediately before he would approve and exalt the majesty of his Godhead To his groans and inward grief he adds his tears Anon they shall confess him a God these expressions of Passions shall onwards evince him to be a Man The Jews construe this well See how he loved him Never did any thing but love fetch tears from Christ But they do foully misconstrue Christ in the other Could not he that opened the eyes of him that was born blind have caused that even this man should not have died Yes know ye O vain and importune questionists that he could have done it with ease To open the eyes of a man born blind was more then to keep a sick man from dying this were but to uphold and maintain Nature from decaying that were to create a new sense and to restore a deficiency in Nature To make an eye was no whit less difficult then to make a man he that could doe the greater might well have done the less Ye shall soon see this was not for want of power Had ye said Why would he not Why did he not the question had been fairer and the answer no less easy For his own greater glory Little do ye know the drift whether of God's acts or delays and ye know as much as you are worthy Let it be sufficient for you to understand that he who can doe all things will doe that which shall be most for his own honour It is not improbable that Jesus who before groaned in himself for compassion of their tears now groaned for their incredulity Nothing could so much afflict the Saviour of men as the sins of men Could their externall wrongs to his body have been separated from offence against his Divine person their scornfull indignities had not so much affected him No injury goes so deep as our spirituall provocations of our God Wretched men why should we grieve the good Spirit of God in us why should we make him groan for us that died to redeem us With these groans O Saviour thou camest to the grave of Lazarus The door of that house of Death was strong and impenetrable Thy first word was Take away the stone O weak beginning of a mighty Miracle If thou meantest to raise the dead how much more easy had it been for thee to remove the grave-stone One grain of Faith in thy very Disciples was enough to remove mountains and dost thou say Take away the stone I wis there was a greater weight that lay upon the body of Lazarus then the stone of his Tomb the weight of Death and Corruption a thousand rocks and hills were not so heavy a load as this alone why then dost thou
less the Second It is not the presenting of Temptations that can hurt us but their entertainment Ill counsel is the fault of the Giver not of the Refuser We cannot forbid lewd eyes to look in at our windows we may shut our doors against their entrance It is no less our praise to have resisted then Satan's blame to suggest evil Yea O Blessed Saviour how glorious was it for thee how happy for us that thou wert tempted Had not Satan tempted thee how shouldst thou have overcome Without blows there can be no victory no triumph How had thy power been manifested if no adversary had tried thee The First Adam was tempted and vanquished the Second Adam to repay and repair that foil doth vanquish in being tempted Now have we not a Saviour and High Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but such an one as was in all things tempted in like sort yet without sin How boldly therefore may we go unto the Throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace of help in time of need Yea this Duel was for us Now we see by this conflict of our Almighty Champion what manner of Adversary we have how he fights how he is resisted how overcome Now our very Temptation affords us comfort in that we see the dearer we are unto God the more obnoxious we are to this trial Neither can we be discouraged by the hainousness of those evils whereto we are moved since we see the Son of God solicited to Infidelity Covetousness Idolatry How glorious therefore was it for thee O Saviour how happy for us that thou wert tempted Where then wast thou tempted O Blessed Jesu or whither wentest thou to meet with our great Adversary I do not see thee led into the market-place or any other part of the City or thy home-stead of Nazareth but into the vast wilderness the habitation of beasts a place that carrieth in it both horrour and opportunity Why wouldst thou thus retire thy self from men But as confident Champions are wont to give advantage of ground or weapon to their Antagonist that the glory of their victory may be the greater so wouldst thou O Saviour in this conflict with our common Enemy yield him his own terms for circumstances that thine honour and his foil may be the more Solitariness is no small help to the speed of a Temptation Woe to him that is alone for if he fall there is not a second to lift him up Those that out of an affectation of Holiness seek for solitude in rocks and caves of the desarts do no other then run into the mouth of the danger of Temptation whilst they think to avoid it It was enough for thee to whose Divine power the gates of hell were weakness thus to challenge the Prince of darkness Our care must be always to eschew all occasions of spiritual danger and what we may to get us out of the reach of Temptations But O the depth of the Wisedome of God! How camest thou O Saviour to be thus tempted That Spirit whereby thou wast conceived as Man and which was one with thee and the Father as God led thee into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan Whilst thou taughtest us to pray to thy Father Lead us not into temptation thou meantest to instruct us that if the same Spirit led us not into this perilous way we goe not into it We have still the same conduct Let the path be what it will how can we miscarry in the hand of a Father Now may we say to Satan as thou didst unto Pilate Thou couldst have no power over me except it were given thee from above The Spirit led thee it did not drive thee Here was a sweet invitation no compulsion of violence So absolutely conformable was thy will to thy Deity as if both thy Natures had but one Volition In this first draught of thy bitter potion thy soul said in a real subjection Not my will but thy will be done We imitate thee O Saviour though we cannot reach to thee All thine are led by thy Spirit O teach us to forget that we have wills of our own The Spirit led thee thine invincible strength did not animate thee into this combat uncalled What do we weaklings so far presume upon our abilities or success as that we dare thrust our selves upon Temptations unbidden unwarranted Who can pity the shipwrack of those Mariners who will needs put forth and hoise sails in a tempest Forty days did our Saviour spend in the wilderness fasting and solitary all which time was worn out in Temptation however the last brunt because it was most violent is onely expressed Now could not the Adversary complain or disadvantage whilst he had the full scope both of time and place to do his worst And why did it please thee O Saviour to fast forty days and forty nights unless as Moses fasted forty days at the delivery of the Law and Elias at the restitution of the Law so thou thoughtest fit at the accomplishment of the Law and the promulgation of the Gospel to fulfill the time of both these Types of thine wherein thou intendest our wonder not our imitation not our imitation of the time though of the act Here were no faulty desires of the flesh in thee to be tamed no possibility of a freer and more easie assent of the soul to God that could be affected of thee who wast perfectly united unto God but as for us thou wouldest suffer death so for us thou wouldest suffer hunger that we might learn by fasting to prepare our selves for Temptations In fasting so long thou intendedst the manifestation of thy Power in fasting no longer the truth of thy Manhood Moses and Elias through the miraculous sustentation of God fasted so long without any question made of the truth of their bodies So long therefore thou thoughtest good to fast as by the reason of these precedents might be without prejudice of thine Humanity which if it should have pleased thee to support as thou couldst without means thy very power might have opened the mouth of cavils against the verity of thine Humane nature That thou mightest therefore well approve that there was no difference betwixt thee and us but sin thou that couldst have fasted without hunger and lived without meat wouldst both feed and fast and hunger Who can be discouraged with the scantiness of friends or bodily provisions when he sees his Saviour thus long destitute of all earthly comforts both of society and sustenance Oh the policy and malice of that old Serpent When he sees Christ bewray some infirmity of nature in being hungry then he lays sorest at him by Temptations His eye was never off from our Saviour all the time of his sequestration and now that he thinks he espies any one part to lie open he drives at it with all his might We have to doe with an Adversary no less vigilant then malicious
Christ carried up so high but for prospect If the Kingdoms of the earth and their glory were onely to be presented to his Imagination the Valley would have served if to the outward Sense no Hill could suffice Circular bodies though small cannot be seen at once This show was made to both divers Kingdoms lying round about Judaea were represented to the Eye the glory of them to the Imagination Satan meant the Eye could tempt the Fancy no less then the Fancy could tempt the Will How many thousand souls have died of the wound of the Eye If we do not let in sin at the window of the Eye or the door of the Ear it cannot enter into our Hearts If there be any pomp majesty pleasure bravery in the world where should it be but in the Courts of Princes whom God hath made his Images his Deputies on earth There is soft raiment sumptuous feasts rich jewels honourable attendence glorious triumphs royal state These Satan lays out to the fairest show But oh the craft of that old Serpent Many a Care attends Greatness No Crown is without Thorns High seats are never but uneasie All those infinite discontentments which are the shadow of earthly Sovereignty he hides out of the way nothing may be seen but what may both please and allure Satan is still and ever like himself If Temptations might be but turn'd about and shewn on both sides the Kingdom of darkness would not be so populous Now whensoever the Tempter sets upon any poor Soul all sting of conscience wrath judgment torment is concealed as if they were not Nothing may appear to the eye but pleasure profit and a seeming happiness in the enjoying our desires Those other wofull objects are reserved for the farewell of sin that our misery may be seen and felt at once When we are once sure Satan is a Tyrant till then he is a Parasite There can be no safety if we do not view as well the back as the face of Temptations But oh presumption and impudence that Hell it self may be ashamed of The Devil dares say to Christ All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me That beggarly Spirit that hath not an inch of Earth can offer the whole World to the Maker to the Owner of it The Slave of God would be adored of his Creatour How can we hope he should be sparing of false boasts and of unreasonable promises unto us when he dares offer Kingdoms to him by whom Kings reign Temptations on the right hand are most dangerous How many that have been hardned with Fear have melted with Honour There is no doubt of that Soul that will not bite at the golden hook False Liars and vain-glorious Boasters see the top of their pedigree if I may not rather say that Satan doth borrow the use of their tongues for a time Whereas faithfull is he that hath promised who will also doe it Fidelity and Truth is the issue of Heaven If Idolatry were not a dear sin to Satan he would not be so importunate to compass it It is miserable to see how he draws the world insensibly into this sin which they profess to detest Those that would rather hazzard the furnace then worship Gold in a Statue yet do adore it in the stamp and find no fault with themselves If our hearts be drawn to stoop unto an over-high respect of any creature we are Idolaters O God it is no marvel if thy jealousie be kindled at the admission of any of thine own works into a competition of honour with their Creatour Never did our Saviour say Avoid Satan till now It is a just indignation that is conceived at the motion of a rivality with God Neither yet did Christ exercise his Divine power in this command but by the necessary force of Scripture drives away that impure Tempter It is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve The rest of our Saviour's answers were more full and direct then that they could admit of a reply but this was so flat and absolute that it utterly daunted the courage of Satan and put him to a shamefull flight and made him for the time weary of his trade The way to be rid of the troublesome solicitations of that Wicked one is continued resistence He that forcibly drove the Tempter from himself takes him off from us and will not abide his assaults perpetual It is our exercise and trial that he intends not our confusion X. Simon called AS the Sun in his first rising draws all eyes to it so did this Sun of righteousness when he first shone forth into the world His miraculous Cures drew Patients his Divine Doctrine drew Auditours both together drew the admiring multitude by troops after him And why do we not still follow thee O Saviour through desarts and mountains over land and seas that we may be both healed and taught It was thy word that when thou wert lift up thou wouldst draw all men unto thee Behold thou art lift up long since both to the Tree of shame and to the Throne of heavenly Glory Draw us and we shall run after thee Thy Word is still the same though proclaimed by men thy Virtue is still the same though exercised upon the spirits of men Oh give us to hunger after both that by both our souls may be satisfied I see the people not onely following Christ but pressing upon him Even very Unmannerliness finds here both excuse and acceptation They did not keep their distances in an awe to the Majesty of the Speaker whilst they were ravished with the power of the Speech yet did not our Saviour check their unreverent thronging but rather incourages their forwardness We cannot offend thee O God with the importunity of our desires It likes thee well that the Kingdom of heaven should suffer violence Our slackness doth ever displease thee never our vehemency The throng of Auditours forced Christ to leave the shore and to make Peter's Ship his Pulpit Never were there such nets cast out of that fisher-boat before Whilst he was upon the land he healed the sick bodies by his touch now that he was upon the Sea he cured the sick souls by his doctrine and is purposely severed from the multitude that he may unite them to him He that made both Sea and Land causeth both of them to conspire to the opportunities of doing good Simon was busie washing his nets Even those nets that caught nothing must be washed no less then if they had sped well The night's toil doth not excuse his day's work Little did Simon think of leaving those nets which he so carefully washed and now Christ interrupts him with the favour and blessing of his gracious presence Labour in our calling how homely soever makes us capable of Divine benediction The honest Fisher-man when he saw the people flock after Christ and heard him speak with such power could not
infinitely stronger then the strong one in possession Else where powers are matcht though with some inequality they tug for the victory and without a resistence yield nothing There are no fewer sorts of dealing with Satan then with men Some have dealt with him by suit as the old Satanian Hereticks and the present Indian Savages sacrificing to him that he hurt not others by covenant conditioning their service upon his assistence as Witches and Magicians others by insinuation of implicit compact as Charmers and Figure-casters others by adjuration as the sons of Scaeva and modern Exorcists unwarrantably charging him by an higher name then their own None ever offered to deal with Satan by a direct and primary command but the God of Spirits The great Archangel when the strife was about the body of Moses commanded not but imprecated rather The Lord rebuke thee Satan It is onely the God that made this Spirit an Angel of light that can command him now that he hath made himself the Prince of darkness If any created power dare to usurp a word of command he laughs at their presumption and knows them his Vassals whom he dissembles to fear as his Lords It is thou onely O Saviour at whose beck those stubborn Principalities of hell yield and tremble No wicked man can be so much a slave to Satan as Satan is to thee the interposition of thy grace may defeat that dominion of Satan thy rule is absolute and capable of no lett What need we to fear whilst we are under so omnipotent a Commander The waves of the deep rage horribly yet the Lord is stronger then they Let those Principalities and Powers doe their worst Those mighty adversaries are under the command of him who loved us so well as to bleed for us What can we now doubt of his power or his will How can we profess him a God and doubt of his power How can we profess him a Saviour and doubt of his will He both can and will command those infernall powers We are no less safe then they are malicious The Devill saw Jesus by the eyes of the Demoniack For the same saw that spake but it was the ill Spirit that said I beseech thee torment me not It was sore against his will that he saw so dreadfull an object The over-ruling power of Christ dragged the foul Spirit into his presence Guiltiness would fain keep out of sight The Lims of so wofull an Head shall once call on the Hills and Rocks to hide them from the face of the Lamb such Lion-like terrour is in that mild face when it looks upon wickedness Neither shall it be one day the least part of the torment of the damned to see the most lovely spectacle that Heaven can afford He from whom they fled in his offers of grace shall be so much more terrible as he was and is more gracious I marvel not therefore that the Devill when he saw Jesus cried out I could marvell that he fell down that he worshipped him That which the proud Spirit would have had Christ to have done to him in his great Duell the same he now doeth unto Christ fearfully servilely forcedly Who shall henceforth brag of the externall homage he performs to the Son of God when he sees Satan himself fall down and worship What comfort can there be in that which is common to us with Devils who as they believe and tremble so they tremble and worship The outward bowing is the body of the action the disposition of the Soul is the soul of it therein lies the difference from the counterfeit stoopings of wicked men and spirits The religious heart serves the Lord in fear and rejoyces in him with trembling What it doeth is in way of service in service to his Lord whose sovereignty is his comfort and protection in the fear of a son not of a slave in fear tempered with joy in a joy but allayed with trembling Whereas the prostration of wicked men and Devils is onely an act of form or of force as to their Judge as to their Tormentour not as to their Lord in meer servility not in reverence in an uncomfortable dulness without all delight in a perfect horrour without capacity of joy These worship without thanks because they fall down without the true affections of worship Whoso marvels to see the Devill upon his knees would much more marvel to hear what came from his mouth Jesus the Son of the Most high God A confession which if we should hear without the name of the Authour we should ask from what Saint it came Behold the same name given to Christ by the Devil which was formerly given him by the Angel Thou shalt call his name JESUS That awfull Name whereat every knee shall bow in heaven in earth and under the earth is called upon by this prostrate Devil And lest that should not import enough since others have been honoured by this name in Type he adds for full distinction the Son of the Most high God The good Syrophoenician and blind Bartimaeus could say the Son of David it was well to acknowledge the true descent of his pedigree according to the flesh But this infernal Spirit looks aloft and fetcheth his line out of the highest Heavens the Son of the Most high God The famous confession of the prime Apostle which honoured him with a new name to immortality was no other then Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God and what other do I hear from the lips of a Fiend No more Divine words could fall from the highest Saint Nothing hinders but that the veriest miscreant on earth yea the foulest Devil in Hell may speak holily It is no passing of judgment upon loose sentences So Peter should have been cast for a Satan in denying forswearing cursing and the Devil should have been set up for a Saint in confessing Jesus the Son of the Most high God Fond hypocrite that pleasest thy self in talking well hear this Devil and when thou canst speak better then he look to fare better but in the mean time know that a smooth tongue and a foul heart carrie away double judgments Let curious heads dispute whether the Devil knew Christ to be God In this I dare believe himself though in nothing else He knew what he believed what he believed that he confessed Jesus the Son of the Most high God To the confusion of those Semi-Christians that have either held doubtfully or ignorantly mis-known or blasphemously denied what the very Devils have professed How little can a bare speculation avail us in these cases of Divinity So far this Devil hath attained to no ease no comfort Knowledge alone doth but puffe up it is our Love that edifies If there be not a sense of our sure interest in this Jesus a power to apply his merits and obedience we are no whit the safer no whit the better onely we are so much the wiser to understand who shall condemn us
praise of concord is in the subject if that be holy the consent is Angelical if sinfull devillish What a fearfull advantage have our spiritual enemies against us If armed troups come against single stragglers what hope is there of life of victory How much doth it concern us to band our hearts together in a communion of Saints Our enemies come upon us like a torrent O let us not run asunder like drops in the dust All our united forces will be little enough to make head against this league of destruction Legion imports Order Number Conflict Order in that there is a distinction of regiment a subordination of Officers Though in Hell there be confusion of faces yet not confusion of degrees Number Those that have reckoned a Legion at the lowest have counted it six thousand others have more then doubled it though here it is not strict but figurative yet the letter of it implies multitude How fearfull is the consideration of the number of Apostate Angels And if a Legion can attend one man how many must we needs think are they who all the world over are at hand to the punishment of the wicked the exercise of the good the temptation of both It cannot be hoped there can be any place or time wherein we may be secure from the onsets of these enemies Be sure ye lewd men ye shall want no furtherance to evil no torment for evil Be sure ye godly ye shall not want combatants to try your strength and skill Awaken your courages to resist and stir up your hearts make sure the means of your safety There are more with us then against us The God of heaven is with us if we be with him and our Angels behold the face of God If every Devil were a Legion we are safe Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we shall fear no evil Thou O Lord shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of our enemies and thy right hand shall save us Conflict All this Number is not for sight for rest but for motion for action Neither was there ever hour since the first blow given to our first Parents wherein there was so much as a truce betwixt these adversaries As therefore strong Frontier-towns when there is a Peace concluded on both parts break up their garrison open their gates neglect their Bulwarks but when they hear of the enemy mustering his forces in great and unequal numbers then they double their guard keep sentinel repair their Sconces so must we upon the certain knowledge of our numerous and deadly enemies in continual array against us address our selves always to a wary and strong resistence I do not observe the most to think of this ghostly hostility Either they do not find there are Temptations or those Temptations hurtfull they see no worse then themselves and if they feel motions of evil arising in them they impute it to fancy or unreasonable appetite to no power but Nature's and those motions they follow without sensible hurt neither see they what harm it is to sin Is it any marvel that carnal eyes cannot discern spiritual objects that the World who is the friend the vassal of Satan is in no war with him Elisha's servant when his eyes were opened saw troups of spiritual souldiers which before he discerned not If the eyes of our Souls be once enlightned by supernatural knowledge and the clear beams of Faith we shall as plainly descry the invisible powers of wickedness as now our bodily eyes see Heaven and Earth They are though we see them not we cannot be saâ—â— from them if we do not acknowledge not oppose them The Devils are now become great suitours to Christ that he would not command them into the deep that he would permit their entrance into the Swine What is this deep but Hell both for the utter separation from the face of God and for the impossibility of passage to the region of rest and glory The very evil Spirits then fear and expect a farther degree of torment they know themselves reserved in those chains of darkness for the judgment of the great day There is the same wages due to their sins and to ours neither are the wages paid till the work be done They tempting men to sin must needs sin grievously in tempting as with us men those that mislead into sin offend more then the actours not till the upshot therefore of their wickedness shall they receive the full measure of their condemnation This Day this Deep they tremble at what shall I say of those men that fear it not It is hard for men to believe their own Unbelief If they were perswaded of this fiery dungeon this bottomless deep wherein every sin shall receive an horrible portion with the damned durst they stretch forth their hands to wickedness No man will put his hand into a fiery crucible to fetch gold thence because he knows it will burn him Did we as truly believe the everlasting burning of that infernal fire we durst not offer to fetch pleasures or profits out of the midst of those flames This degree of torment they grant in Christ's power to command They knew his power unresistible had he therefore but said Back to Hell whence ye came they could no more have staid upon earth then they can now climb into heaven O the wonderfull dispensation of the Almighty who though he could command all the evil Spirits down to their dungeons in an instant so as they should have no more opportunity of temptation yet thinks fit to retain them upon earth It is not out of weakness or improvidence of that Divine hand that wicked Spirits tyrannize here upon earth but out of the most wise and most holy ordination of God who knows how to turn evil into good how to fetch good out of evil and by the worst instruments to bring about his most just decrees Oh that we could adore that awfull and infinite power and chearfully cast our selves upon that Providence which keeps the Keys even of Hell it self and either lets out or returns the Devils to their places Their other suit hath some marvel in moving it more in the grant that they might be suffered to enter into the Herd of swine It was their ambition of some mischief that brought forth this desire that since they might not vex the Body of man they might yet afflict men in their Goods The malice of these envious Spirits reacheth from us to ours It is sore against their wills if we be not every way miserable If the Swine were legally unclean for the use of the table yet they were naturally good Had not Satan known them usefull for man he had never desired their ruine But as Fencers will seem to fetch a blow at the leg when they intend it at the head so doeth this Devil whilst he drives at the Swine he aims at the Souls of these Gadarens By this means he hoped well and his
attribute this to their modesty as if they held themselves unworthy of so Divine a guest Why then did they fall upon this suit in a time of their loss Why did they not tax themselves and intimate a secret desire of that which they durst not beg It is too much rigour to attribute it to the love of their Hogs and an anger at their loss then they had not intreated but expelled him It was their fear that moved this harsh suit a servile fear of danger to their persons to their goods lest he that could so absolutely command the Devils should have set these tormentours upon them lest their other Demoniacks should be dispossessed with like loss I cannot blame these Gadarens that they feared this power was worthy of trembling at Their fear was unjust They should have argued This man hath power over men beasts devils it is good having him to our friend his presence is our safety and protection Now they contrarily mis-inferre Thus powerfull is he it is good he were farther off What miserable and pernicious misconstructions do men make of God of Divine attributes and actions God is omnipotent able to take infinite vengeance of sin Oh that he were not He is provident I may be careless He is mercifull I may sin He is holy let him depart from me for I am a sinfull man How witty sophisters are natural men to deceive their own souls to rob themselves of a God O Saviour how worthy are they to want thee that wish to be rid of thee Thou hast just cause to be weary of us even whilst we sue to hold thee but when once our wretched unthankfulness grows weary of thee who can pity us to be punished with thy departure Who can say it is other then righteous that thou shouldst retort one day upon us Depart from me ye wicked XVIII The faithfull Canaanite IT was our Saviour's trade to doe good therefore he came down from heaven to earth therefore he changed one station of earth for another Nothing more commends goodness then generality and diffusion whereas reservedness and close-handed restraint blemish the glory of it The Sun stands not still in one point of heaven but walks his daily round that all the inferiour world may share of his influences both in heat and light Thy bounty O Saviour did not affect the praise of fixedness but motion One while I find thee at Jerusalem then at Capernaum soon after in the utmost verge of Galilee never but doing good But as the Sun though he daily compass the world yet never walks from under his line never goes beyond the turning points of the longest and shortest day so neither didst thou O Saviour pass the bounds of thine own peculiar people thou wouldst move but not wildly not out of thine own sphear Wherein thy glorified estate exceeds thine humbled as far as Heaven is above Earth Now thou art lift up thou drawest all men unto thee there are now no lists no limits of thy gracious visitations but as the whole Earth is equidistant from Heaven so all the nations of the world lie equally open to thy bounty Neither yet didst thou want outward occasions of thy removall Perhaps the very importunity of the Scribes and Pharisees in obtruding their Traditions drave thee thence perhaps their unjust offence at thy Doctrine There is no readier way to lose Christ then to clog him with humane Ordinances then to spurn at his heavenly Instructions He doth not always subduce his Spirit with his visible presence but his very outward withdrawing is worthy of our sighs worthy of our tears Many a one may say Lord if thou hadst been here my Soul had not died Thou art now with us O Saviour thou art with us in a free and plentifull fashion how long thou knowest we know our deservings and fear O teach us how happy we are in such a Guest and give us grace to keep thee Hadst thou walked within the Phoenician borders we could have told how to have made glad constructions of thy mercy in turning to the Gentiles thou that couldst touch the Lepers without uncleanness couldst not be defiled with aliens but we know the partition-wall was not yet broken down and thou that didst charge thy Disciples not to walk into the way of the Gentiles wouldst not transgress thine own rule Once we are sure thou camest to the utmost point of the bounds of Galilee as not ever confined to the heart of Jewry thou wouldst sometimes bless the outer skirts with thy presence No angle is too obscure for the Gospel The land of Zabulon and the land of Napthali by the way of the Sea beyond Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles the people which sate in darkness saw great light The Sun is not scornfull but looks with the same face upon every plot of earth not onely the stately palaces and pleasant gardens are visited by his beams but mean cottages but neglected bogs and moors God's Word is like himself no accepter of persons the wild Kern the rude Scythian the savage Indian are alike to it The mercy of God will be sure to find out those that belong to his election in the most secret corners of the world like as his judgments will fetch his enemies from under the hills and rocks The good Shepherd walks the wilderness to seek one sheep strayed from many If there be but one Syrophoenician Soul to be gained to the Church Christ goes to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon to fetch her Why are we weary to doe good when our Saviour underwent this perpetual toil in healing Bodies and winning Souls There is no life happy but that which is spent in a continual drudging for edification It is long since we heard of the name or nation of Canaanites all the country was once so styled that people was now forgotten yet because this woman was of the bloud of those Phoenicians which were anciently ejected out of Canaan that title is revived to her God keeps account of pedigrees after our oblivion that he may magnifie his mercies by continuing them to thousands of the generations of the just and by renewing favours upon the unjust No nation carried such brands and scars of a Curse as Canaan To the shame of those careless Jews even a faithfull Canaanite is a suppliant to Christ whilst they neglect so great salvation She doth not speak but cry need and desire have raised her voice to an importunate clamour The God of mercy is light of hearing yet he loves a loud and vehement solicitation not to make himself inclinable to grant but to make us capable to receive blessings They are words and not prayers which fall from careless lips If we felt our want or wanted not desire we could speak to God in no tune but cries If we would prevail with God we must wrastle and if we would wrastle happily with God we must wrastle first with our own dulness Nothing but cries can
think the weather is changing to serenity O Saviour we may not always measure thy meaning by thy semblance sometimes what thou most intendest thou shewest least In our Afflictions thou turnest thy back upon us and hidest thy face from us when thou most mindest our distresses So Jonathan shot the arrows beyond David when he meant them to him So Joseph calls for Benjamin into bonds when his heart was bound to him in the strongest affection So the tender mother makes as if she would give away her crying child whom she hugs so much closer in her bosome If thou pass by us whilst we are struggling with the tempest we know it is not for want of mercy Thou canst not neglect us O let not us distrust thee What Object should have been so pleasing to the eyes of the Disciples as their Master and so much the more as he shewed his Divine power in this miraculous walk But lo contrarily they are troubled not with his presence but with this form of presence The supernatural works of God when we look upon them with our own eyes are subject to a dangerous misprision The very Sun-beams to whom we are beholden for our sight if we eye them directly blind us Miserable men we are ready to suspect Truths to run away from our safety to be afraid of our comforts to mis-know our best friends And why are they thus troubled They had thought they had seen a Spirit That there have been such apparitions of Spirits both good and evil hath ever been a Truth undoubtedly received of Pagans Jews Christians although in the blind times of Superstition there was much collusion mixed with some verities Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world But even where there was not Truth yet there was Horrour The very Good Angels were not seen without much fear their sight was construed to bode Death how much more the Evil which in their very nature are harmfull and pernicious We see not a Snake or a Toad without some recoiling of bloud and sensible reluctation although those creatures run away from us how much more must our hairs stand upright and our senses boggle at the sight of a Spirit whose both nature and will is contrary to ours and professedly bent to our hurt But say it had been what they mistook it for a Spirit why should they fear Had they well considered they had soon found that evil spirits are never the less present when they are not seen and never the less harmfull or malicious when they are present unseen Visibility adds nothing to their spite or mischief And could their eyes have been opened they had with Elisha's servant seen more with them then against them a sure though invisible guard of more powerfull Spirits and themselves under the protection of the God of Spirits so as they might have bidden a bold defiance to all the powers of darkness But partly their Faith was yet but in the bud and partly the presentation of this dreadfull Object was sudden and without the respite of a recollection and settlement of their thoughts Oh the weakness of our frail Nature who in the want of Faith are affrighted with the visible appearance of those adversaries whom we profess daily to resist and vanquish and with whom we know the Decree of God hath matched us in an everlasting conflict Are not these they that ejected Devils by their command Are not these of them that could say Master the evil spirits are subdued to us Yet now when they see but an imagined Spirit they fear What power there is in the eye to betray the heart Whilst Goliah was mingled with the rest of the Philistin hoast Israel camped boldly against them but when that Giant stalks out single between the two armies and fills and amazes their eyes with his hideous stature now they run away for fear Behold we are committed with Legions of Evil spirits and complain not Let but one of them give us some visible token of his presence we shreek and tremble and are not our selves Neither is our weakness more conspicuous then thy mercy O God in restraining these spiritual enemies from these dreadfull and ghastly representations of themselves to our eyes Might those infernal Spirits have liberty to appear how and when and to whom they would certainly not many would be left in their wits or in their lives It is thy power and goodness to frail mankind that they are kept in their chains and reserved in the darkness of their own spiritual being that we may both oppugn and subdue them unseen But oh the deplorable condition of reprobate souls If but the imagined sight of one of these spirits of darkness can so daunt the heart of those which are free from their power what a terrour shall it be to live perpetually in the sight yea under the torture of thousands of legions of millions of Devils Oh the madness of wilfull sinners that will needs run themselves headily into so dreadfull a damnation It was high time for our Saviour to speak What with the Tempest what with the Apparition the Disciples were almost lost with fear How seasonable are his gracious redresses Till they were thus affrighted he would not speak when they were thus affrighted he would not hold his peace If his presence were fearfull yet his word was comfortable Be of good chear it is I yea it is his word onely which must make his presence both known and comfortable He was present before they mistook him and feared there needs no other erection of their drooping hearts but It is I. It is cordial enough to us in the worst of our afflictions to be assured of Christ's presence with us Say but It is I O Saviour and let evils doe their worst thou needest not say any more Thy voice was evidence enough so well were the Disciples acquainted with the tongue of thee their Master that It is I was as much as an hundred names Thou art the good Shepherd we are not of thy Flock if we know thee not by thy voice from a thousand Even this one is a great word yea an ample style It is I. The same tongue that said to Moses I am hath sent thee saith now to the Disciples It is I I your Lord and Master I the Commander of winds and waters I the soveraign Lord of Heaven and earth I the God of Spirits Let Heaven be but as one scroll and let it be written all over with titles they cannot express more then It is I. Oh sweet and seasonable word of a gracious Saviour able to calm all tempests able to revive all hearts Say but so to my Soul and in spight of Hell I am safe No sooner hath Jesus said I then Peter answers Master He can instantly name him that did not name himself Every little hint is enough to Faith The Church sees her Beloved as well through the Lattice as through the open Window Which
are excluded from all other society seek the company of each other Fellowship is that we all naturally affect though even in Leprosy Ever Lepers will flock to their fellows where shall we find one spiritual Leper alone Drunkards Profane persons Hereticks will be sure to consort with their matches Why should not God's Saints delight in an holy communion Why is it not our chief joy to assemble in good Jews and Samaritans could not abide one another yet here in Leprosy they accord here was one Samaritan Leper with the Jewish community of passion hath made them friends whom even Religion disjoyned What virtue there is in misery that can unite even the most estranged hearts I seek not mystery in the number These Ten are met together and all meet Christ not casually but upon due deliberation they purposely waited for this opportunity No marvel if they thought no attendence long to be delivered from so loathsome and miserable a disease Great Naaman could be glad to come from Syria to Judaea in hope of leaving that hatefull guest behind him We are all sensible enough of our bodily infirmities Oh that we could be equally weary of the sicknesses and deformities of our better part Surely our spiritual maladies are no less then mortal if they be not healed neither can they heal alone These men had died Lepers if they had not met with Christ O Saviour give us grace to seek thee and patience to wait for thee and then we know thou wilt find us and we remedy Where do these Lepers attend for Christ but in a village and that not in the street of it but in the entrance in the passage to it The Cities the Towns were not for them the Law of God had shut them out from all frequence from all conversation Care of safety and fear of infection was motive enough to make their neighbours observant of this piece of the Law It is not the body onely that is herein respected by the God of Spirits Those that are spiritually contagious must be still and ever avoided they must be separated from us we must be separated from them they from us by just censures or if that be neglected we from them by a voluntary declination of their familiar conversation Besides the benefit of our safety wickedness would soon be ashamed of it self if it were not for the incouragement of companions Solitariness is the fittest antidote for spiritual infection It were happy for the wicked man if he could be separated from himself These Lepers that came to seek Christ yet finding him they stand afar off whether for reverence or for security God had enacted this distance It was their charge if they were occasioned to pass through the streets to cry out I am unclean It was no less then their duty to proclaim their own infectiousness there was not danger onely but sin in their approach How happy were it if in those wherein there is more perill there were more remoteness less silence O God we are all Lepers to thee overspred with the loathsome scurf of our own corruptions It becomes us well in the conscience of our shame and vileness to stand afar off We cannot be too awfull of thee too much ashamed of our selves Yet these men though they be far off in the distance of place yet they are near in respect of the acceptance of their Prayer The Lord is near unto all that call upon him in truth O Saviour whilst we are far off from thee thou art near unto us Never dost thou come so close to us as when in an holy bashfulness we stand farthest off Justly dost thou expect we should be at once bold and bashfull How boldly should we come to the throne of Grace in respect of the grace of that throne how fearfully in respect of the awfulness of the Majesty of that throne and that unworthiness which we bring with us into that dreadfull presence He that stands near may whisper but he that stands afar off must cry aloud so did these Lepers Yet not so much distance as passion strained their throats That which can give voice to the Dumb can much more give loudness to the Vocall All cried together these ten voices were united in one sound that their conjoyned forces might expugn that Gracious ear Had every man spoken singly for himself this had made no noise neither yet any shew of a fervent importunity Now as they were all affected with one common disease so they all set out their throats together and though Jews and Samaritans agree in one joynt supplication Even where there are ten tongues the word is but one that the condescent may be universal When we would obtain common favours we may not content our selves with private and solitary Devotions but must joyn our spiritual forces together and set upon God by troups Two are better then one because they have a good reward for their labour No faithfull Prayer goes away unrecompensed but where many good hearts meet the retribution must be needs answerable to the number of the petitioners O holy and happy violence that is thus offered to Heaven How can we want Blessings when so many cords draw them down upon our heads It was not the sound but the matter that carried it with Christ if the sound were shrill the matter was faithfull Jesu Master have mercy upon us No word can better become the mouth of the miserable I see not where we can meet with fitter patterns Surely they were not verier Lepers then we why do we not imitate them in their actions who are too like them in our condition Whither should we seek but to our Jesus How should we stand aloof in regard of our own wretchedness how should we lift up our voice in the fervour of our supplications what should we rather sue for then mercy Jesu Master have mercy upon us O gracious prevention of mercy both had and given ere it can be asked Jesus when he saw them said Go shew your selves to the Priests Their disease is cured ere it can be complained of their shewing to the Priest presupposes them whole whole in his grant though not in their own apprehension That single Leper that came to Christ before Matt. 8. Luk. 5. was first cured in his own sense and then was bid to goe to the Priest for approbation of the Cure It was not so with these who are sent to the Judges of Leprosy with an intention they shall in the way find themselves healed There was a different purpose in both these In the one that the perfection of the Cure might be convinced and seconded with a due sacrifice in the other that the Faith of the Patients might be tried in the way which if it had not held as strong in the prosecution of their suit as in the beginning had I doubt failed of the effect How easily might these Lepers think Alas to what purpose is this Shew our selves to the
quandoque One the informer once of the people the other the reformer sometimes saith Tertull. in 4. advers Marcionem Alter initiator Veteris Testamenti alter consummator Novi One the first Register of the Old Testament the other the shutter up of the New I verily think with Hilary that these two are pointed at as the forerunners of the second coming of Christ as now they were the foretellers of his departure neither doubt I that these are the Two Witnesses which are alluded to in the Apocalyps howsoever divers of the Fathers have thrust Enoch into the place of Moses Look upon the place Apoc. 11.5 Who but Elias can be he of whom it is said If any man will hurt him fire proceedeth out of his mouth and devoureth his enemies alluding to 2 Kings 1 Who but Elias of whom it is said He hath power to shut the Heaven that it rain not in the days of his prophesying alluding to 1 Kings 18 Who but Moses of whom it is said He hath power to turn the waters into bloud and smite the earth with all manner of plagues alluding to Exod. 7. and 8 But take me aright let me not seem a friend to the Publicans of Rome an abettour of those Alcoran-like Fables of our Popish Doctours who not seeing the wood for trees do haerere in cortice stick in the bark taking all concerning that Antichrist according to the letter Odi arceo So shall Moses and Elias come again in those Witnesses as Elias is already come in John Baptist their Spirits shall be in these Witnesses whose Bodies and Spirits were witnesses both of the present Glory and future Passion of Christ Doubtless many thousand Angels saw this sight and were not seen these two both saw and were seen O how great an Happiness was it for these two great Prophets in their glorified flesh to see their glorified Saviour who before his Incarnation had spoken to them to speak to that Man God of whom they were glorified and to become Prophets not to men but to God And if Moses his face so shone before when he spoke to him without a body in mount Sinai in the midst of the flames and clouds how did it shine now when himself glorified speaks to him a man in Tabor in light and majesty Elias hid his face before with a mantle when he passed by him in the Rock now with open face he beholds him present and in his own glory adores his Let that impudent Marcion who ascribes the Law and Prophets to another God and devises an hostility betwixt Christ and them be ashamed to see Moses and Elias not onely in colloquio but in consortio claritatis not onely in conference but in a partnership of brightness as Tertull. speaks with Christ whom if he had misliked he had his choice of all the Quire of Heaven and now chusing them why were they not in sordibus tenebris in rags and darkness Sic inalienos demonstrat illos dum secum habet sic relinquendos docet quos sibi jungit sic destruit quos de radiis suis exstruit So doth he shew them far from strangeness to him whom he hath with him so doth he teach them to be forsaken whom he joyns with himself so doth he destroy those whom he graces with his beams of glory saith that Father His act verifies his word Think not that I come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfill them Matt. 5.17 Oh what consolation what confirmation was this to the Disciples to see such examples of their future Glory such witnesses and adorers of the eternal Deity of their Master They saw in Moses and Elias what they themselves should be How could they ever fear to be miserable that saw such precedents of their insuing glory how could they fear to die that saw in others the happiness of their own change The rich Glutton pleads with Abraham that if one came to them from the dead they will amend Abraham answers They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them Behold here is both Moses and the Prophets and these too come from the dead how can we now but be persuaded of the happy state of another world unless we will make our selves worse then the damned See and consider that the Saints of God are not lost but departed gone into a far country with their Master to return again richer and better then they went Lest we should think this the condition of Elias onely that was rapt into Heaven see here Moses matched with him that died and was buried And is this the state of these two Saints alone Shall none be seen with him in the Tabor of Heaven but those which have seen him in Horeb and Carmel O thou weak Christian was onely one or two lims of Christ's body glorious in the Transfiguration or the whole He is the Head we are the Members If Moses and Elias were more excellent parts Tongue or Hand let us be but Heels or Toes his body is not perfect in glory without ours When Christ which is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Colos 3.4 How truly may we say to death Rejoyce not mine enemy though I fall yet shall I rise yea I shall rise in falling We shall not all sleep we shall be changed saith S. Paul to his Thessalonians Elias was changed Moses slept both appeared to teach us that neither our sleep nor change can keep us from appearing with him When therefore thou shalt receive the sentence of death on mount Nebo or when the fiery chariot shall come and sweep thee from this vale of mortality remember thy glorious re-apparition with thy Saviour and thou canst not but be comforted and chearfully triumph over that last Enemy outfacing those terrours with the assurance of a blessed Resurrection to Glory To the which c. XXX The Transfiguration of CHRIST The Second Part. IT falls out with this Discourse as with Mount Tabor it self that it is more easily climbed with the eye then with the foot If we may not rather say of it as Josephus did of Sinai that it doth not onely ascensus hominum but aspectus fatigare weary not onely the steps but the very sight of men We had thought not to spend many breaths in the skirts of the hill the Circumstances and it hath cost us one hour's journey already and we were glad to rest us ere we can have left them below us One pause more I hope will overcome them and set us on the top No Circumstance remains undiscussed but this one What Moses and Elias did with Christ in their apparition For they were not as some sleepy attendents like the three Disciples in the beginning to be there and see nothing nor as some silent spectatours mute witnesses to see and say nothing but as if their Glory had no whit changed their profession they are Prophets still
Devotion neglected not any of those sacred Solemnities will not neglect the due opportunities of his bodily refreshing as not thinking it meet to travell and preach harbourless he diverts where he knew his welcome to the village of Bethany There dwelt the two devout Sisters with their Brother his Friend Lazarus their roof receives him O happy house into which the Son of God vouchsafed to set his foot O blessed women that had the grace to be the Hostesses to the God of Heaven How should I envy your felicity herein if I did not see the same favour if I be not wanting to my self lying open to me I have two ways to entertain my Saviour in his Members and in himself In his Members by Charity and Hospitableness what I doe to one of those his little ones I doe to him In himself by Faith If any man open he will come in and sup with him O Saviour thou standest at the door of our hearts and knockest by the solicitations of thy Messengers by the sense of thy Chastisements by the motions of thy Spirit if we open to thee by a willing admission and faithfull welcome thou wilt be sure to take up our Souls with thy gracious presence and not to sit with us for a momentany meal but to dwell with us for ever Lo thou didst but call in at Bethany but here shall be thy rest for everlasting Martha it seems as being the elder Sister bore the name of the House-keeper Mary was her assistent in the charge A Blessed pair Sisters not more in Nature then Grace in spirit no less then in flesh How happy a thing it is when all the parties in a family are joyntly agreed to entertain Christ No sooner is Jesus entred into the house then he falls to preaching that no time may be lost he stays not so much as till his meat be made ready but whilst his bodily repast was in hand provides spiritual food for his Hosts It was his meat and drink to doe the will of his Father he fed more upon his own diet then he could possibly upon theirs his best chear was to see them spiritually fed How should we whom he hath called to this sacred Function be instant in season and out of season We are by his sacred ordination the Lights of the world No sooner is the candle lighted then it gives that light which it hath and never intermits till it be wasted to the snuff Both the Sisters for a time sate attentively listening to the words of Christ Houshold occasions call Martha away Mary sits still at his feet and hears Whether shall we more praise her Humility or her Docility I do not see her take a stool and sit by him or a chair and sit above him but as desiring to shew her heart was as low as her knees she sits at his feet She was lowly set richly warmed with those Heavenly beams The greater submission the more Grace If there be one hollow in the valley lower then another thither the waters gather Martha's house is become a Divinity-school Jesus as the Doctour sits in the chair Martha Mary and the rest sit as Disciples at his feet Standing implies a readiness for motion Sitting a settled composedness to this holy attendence Had these two Sisters provided our Saviour never such delicates and waited on his trencher never so officiously yet had they not listened to his instruction they had not bidden him welcome neither had he so well liked his entertainment This was the way to feast him to feed their ears by his Heavenly Doctrine His best chear is our proficiency our best chear is his Word O Saviour let my Soul be thus feasted by thee do thou thus feast thy self by feeding me this mutual diet shall be thy praise and my happiness Though Martha was for the time an attentive hearer yet now her care of Christ's entertainment carries her into the Kitchin Mary sits still Neither was Mary more devout then Martha busie Martha cares to feast Jesus Mary to be feasted of him There was more solicitude in Martha's active part more piety in Mary's sedentary attendence I know not in whether more zeal Good Martha was desirous to express her joy and thankfulness for the presence of so blessed a Guest by the actions of her carefull and plentious entertainment I know not how to censure the Holy woman for her excess of care to welcome her Saviour Sure she her self thought she did well and out of that confidence fears not to complain to Christ of her Sister I do not see her come to her Sister and whisper in her ear the great need of her aid but she comes to Jesus and in a kind of unkind expostulation of her neglect makes her moan to him Lord dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone Why did she not rather make her first address to her Sister Was it for that she knew Mary was so tied by the ears with those adamantine chains that came from the mouth of Christ that untill his silence and dismission she had no power to stir Or was it out of an honour and respect to Christ that in his presence she would not presume to call off her Sister without his leave Howsoever I cannot excuse the Holy woman from some weaknesses It was a fault to measure her Sister by her self and apprehending her own act to be good to think her Sister could not doe well if she did not so too Whereas Goodness hath much latitude Ill is opposed to Good not Good to Good Neither in things lawfull or indifferent are others bound to our examples Mary might hear Martha might serve and both doe well Mary did not censure Martha for her rising from the feet of Christ to prepare his meal neither should Martha have censured Mary for sitting at Christ's feet to feed her Soul It was a fault that she thought an excessive care of a liberal outward entertainment of Christ was to be preferred to a diligent attention to Christ's spirituall entertainment of them It was a fault that she durst presume to question our Saviour of some kind of unrespect to her toil Lord dost thou not care What saiest thou Martha Dost thou challenge the Lord of Heaven and earth of incogitancy and neglect Dost thou take upon thee to prescribe unto that infinite Wisedom in stead of receiving directions from him It is well thou mettest with a Saviour whose gracious mildness knows how to pardon and pity the errours of our zeal Yet I must needs say here wanted not fair pretences for the ground of this thy expostulation Thou the elder Sister workest Mary the younger sits still And what work was thine but the hospitall receit of thy Saviour and his train Had it been for thine own paunch or for some carnal friends it had been less excusable now it was for Christ himself to whom thou couldst never be too obsequious But all this cannot deliver thee
more shall the King of Heaven give this immunity to his onely and natural Son so as in true reason I might challenge an exemption for me and my train Thou mightest O Saviour and no less challenge a tribute of all the Kings of the earth to thee by whom all powers are ordained Reason cannot mutter against this claim the creature owes it self and whatsoever it hath to the Maker he owes nothing to it Then are the children free He that hath right to all needs not pay any thing else there should be a subjection in Sovereignty and men should be debtours to themselves But this right was thine own peculiar and admits no partners why dost thou speak of children as of more and extending this privilege to Peter say Lest we scandalize them Was it for that thy Disciples being of thy robe might justly seem interessed in the liberties of their Master Surely no otherwise were they children no otherwise free Away with that fanatical conceit which challenges an immunity from secular commands and taxes to a spiritual and adoptative Sonship no earthly Saintship can exempt us from tribute to whom tribute belongeth There is a freedom O Saviour which our Christianity calls us to affect a freedom from the yoke of Sin and Satan from the servitude of our corrupt affections we cannot be Sons if we be not thus free Oh free thou us by thy free Spirit from the miserable bondage of our Nature so shall the children be free but as to these secular duties no man is less free then the children O Saviour thou wert free and wouldst not be so thou wert free by natural right wouldst not be free by voluntary dispensation Lest an offence might be taken Surely had there followed an offence it had been taken onely and not given Woe be to the man by whom the offence cometh It cometh by him that gives it it cometh by him that takes it when it is not given no part of this blame could have cleaved unto thee either way Yet such was thy goodness that thou wouldst not suffer an offence unjustly taken at that which thou mightest justly have denied How jealous should we be even of others perils how carefull so to moderate our power in the use of lawfull things that our Charity may prevent others scandalls to remit of our own right for another's safety Oh the deplorable condition of those wilfull men who care not what blocks they lay in the way to Heaven not forbearing by a known leudness to draw others into their own damnation To avoid the unjust offence even of very Publicans Jesus will work a Miracle Peter is sent to the sea and that not with a net but with an hook The Disciple was now in his own trade He knew a net might inclose many fishes an hook could take but one with that hook must he go angle for the Tribute-money A fish shall bring him a stater in her mouth and that fish that bites first What an unusual bearer is here what an unlikely element to yield a piece of ready coin Oh that Omnipotent power which could command the fish to be both his treasurer to keep his silver and his purveyour to bring it Now whether O Saviour thou causedst this fish to take up that shekel out of the bottom of the sea or whether by thine Almighty word thou mad'st it in an instant in the mouth of that fish it is neither possible to determine nor necessary to inquire I rather adore thine infinite Knowledge and Power that couldst make use of unlikeliest means that couldst serve thy self of the very fishes of the sea in a business of earthly and civil imployment It was not out of need that thou didst this though I do not find that thou ever affectedst a full purse What veins of Gold or mines of Silver did not lie open to thy command But out of a desire to teach Peter that whilst he would be tributary to Caesar the very fish of the sea was tributary to him How should this incourage our dependence upon that Omnipotent hand of thine which hath Heaven earth sea at thy disposing Still thou art the same for thy Members which thou wert for thy self the Head Rather then offence shall be given to the world by a seeming neglect of thy dear children thou wilt cause the very fowls of Heaven to bring them meat and the fish of the sea to bring them money O let us look up ever to thee by the eye of our Faith and not be wanting in our dependence upon thee who canst not be wanting in thy Providence over us XL. Lazarus Dead OH the Wisedom of God in penning his own story The Disciple whom Jesus loved comes after his fellow-Evangelists that he might glean up those rich ears of history which the rest had passed over That Eagle soars high and towrs up by degrees It was much to turn water into wine but it was more to feed five thousand with five loaves It was much to restore the Ruler's son it was more to cure him that had been 38 years a cripple It was much to cure him that was born blind it was more to raise up Lazarus that had been so song dead As a stream runs still the stronger and wider the nearer it comes to the Ocean whence it was derived so didst thou O Saviour work the more powerfully the nearer thou drewest to thy Glory This was as one of thy last so of thy greatest Miracles when thou wert ready to die thy self thou raisedst him to life who smelt strong of the grave None of all the sacred Histories is so full and punctuall as this in the report of all circumstances Other Miracles do not more transcend Nature then this transcends other Miracles This alone was a sufficient eviction of thy Godhead O Blessed Saviour none but an infinite power could so far goe beyond Nature as to recall a man four days dead from not a mere privation but a settled corruption Earth must needs be thine from which thou raisest his body Heaven must needs be thine from whence thou fetchest his Spirit None but he that created man could thus make him new Sickness is the common preface to death no mortall nature is exempted from this complaint even Lazarus whom Jesus loved is sick What can strength of Grace or dearness of respect prevail against disease against dissolution It was a stirring message that Mary sent to Jesus He whom thou lovest is sick as if she would imply that his part was no less deep in Lazarus then hers Neither doth she say He that loves thee is sick but He whom thou lovest not pleading the merit of Lazarus his affection to Christ but the mercy and favour of Christ to him Even that other reflexion of love had been no weak motive for O Lord thou hast said Because he hath set his love upon me therefore will I deliver him Thy goodness will not be behind us for love who professest to love
came and ministred unto him and now in the Garden whilst he is in an harder combat ye appear to strengthen him O the wise and marvellous dispensation of the Almighty Whom God will afflict an Angel shall relieve the Son shall suffer the Servant shall comfort him the God of Angels droopeth the Angel of God strengthens him Blessed Jesu if as Man thou wouldst be made a little lower then the Angels how can it disparage thee to be attended and cheared up by an Angel Thine Humiliation would not disdain comfort from meaner hands How free was it for thy Father to convey seasonable consolations to thine humbled Soul by whatsoever means Behold though thy Cup shall not pass yet it shall be sweetned What if thou see not for the time thy Father's face yet thou shalt feel his hand What could that Spirit have done without the God of Spirits O Father of Mercies thou maist bring thine into Agonies but thou wilt never leave them there In the midst of the sorrows of my heart thy comforts shall refresh my Soul Whatsoever be the means of my supportation I know and adore the Authour XLVI Peter and Malchus or CHRIST Apprehended WHerefore O Saviour didst thou take those three choice Disciples with thee from their fellows but that thou expectedst some comfort from their presence A seasonable word may sometimes fall from the meanest attendent and the very society of those we trust carries in it some kind of contentment Alas what broken reeds are men Whilst thou art sweating in thine Agony they are snorting securely Admonitions threats intreaties cannot keep their eyes open Thou tellest them of danger they will needs dream of ease and though twice rouzed as if they had purposed this neglect they carelesly sleep out thy sorrow and their own perill What help hast thou of such Followers In the mount of thy Transfiguration they slept and besides fell on their faces when they should behold thy glory and were not themselves for fear in the garden of thine Agony they fell upon the ground for drouziness when they should compassionate thy sorrow and lost themselves in a stupid sleepiness Doubtless even this disregard made thy prayers so much more fervent The less comfort we find on earth the more we seek above Neither soughtest thou more then thou foundest Lo thou wert heard in that which thou fearedst An Angel supplies men that Spirit was vigilant whilst thy Disciples were heavy The exchange was happy No sooner is this good Angel vanished then that domestick Devil appears Judas comes up and shews himself in the head of those miscreant troups He whose too much honour it had been to be a Follower of so Blessed a Master affects now to be the leader of this wicked rabble The Sheep's fleece is now cast off the Wolf appears in his own likeness He that would be false to his Master would be true to his Chapmen Even evil spirits keep touch with themselves The bold Traitour dares yet still mix Hypocrisy with Villany his very salutations and kisses murther O Saviour this is no news to thee All those who under a show of Godliness practise impiety do still betray thee thus Thou who hadst said One of you is a Devil didst not now say Avoid Satan but Friend wherefore art thou come As yet Judas it was not too late Had there been any the least spark of Grace yet remaining in that perfidious bosome this word had fetch'd thee upon thy knees All this Sunshine cannot thaw an obdurate heart The sign is given Jesus is taken Wretched Traitour why wouldst thou for this purpose be thus attended and ye foolish Priests and Elders why sent you such a band and so armed for this apprehension One messenger had been enough for a voluntary prisoner Had my Saviour been unwilling to be taken all your forces with all the Legions of Hell to help them had been too little since he was willing to be attached two were too many When he did but say I am he that easy breath alone routed all your troups and cast them to the earth whom it might as easily have cast down into Hell What if he had said I will not be taken where had ye been or what could your swords and staves have done against Omnipotence Those Disciples that failed of their vigilance failed not of their courage they had heard their Master speak of providing swords and now they thought it was time to use them Shall we smite They were willing to fight for him with whom they were not carefull to watch but of all other Peter was most forward in stead of opening his lips he unsheaths his sword and in stead of Shall I smites He had noted Malchus a busie servant of the High priest too ready to second Judas and to lay his rude hands upon the Lord of Life against this man his heart rises and his hand is lift up That ear which had too-officiously listened to the unjust and cruell charge of his wicked Master is now severed from that worse head which it had mis-served I love and honour thy zeal O blessed Disciple Thou couldst not brook wrong done to thy Divine Master Had thy life been dearer to thee then his safety thou hadst not drawn thy sword upon a whole troup It was in earnest that thou saidst Though all men yet not I and Though I should die with thee yet I will not deny thee Lo thou art ready to die upon him that should touch that Sacred person what would thy life now have been in comparison of renouncing him Since thou wert so fervent why didst thou not rather fall upon that Treachour that betray'd him then that Sergeant that arrested him Surely the sin was so much greater as the plot of mischief is more then the execution as a Domestick is nearer then a Stranger as the treason of a Friend is worse then the forced enmity of an Hireling Was it that the guilty wretch upon the fact done subduced himself and shrouded his false head under the wings of darkness Was it that thou couldst not so suddenly apprehend the odious depth of that Villany and instantly hate him that had been thy old companion Was it that thy amazedness as yet conceived not the purposed issue of this seizure and astonishedly waited for the success Was it that though Judas were more faulty yet Malchus was more imperiously cruell Howsoever thy Courage was awaked with thy self and thy heart was no less sincere then thine hand was rash Put up again thy sword into his place for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword Good intentions are no warrant for our actions O Saviour thou canst at once accept of our meanings and censure our deeds Could there be an affection more worth incouragement then the love to such a Master Could there be a more just cause wherein to draw his sword then in thy quarrell Yet this love this quarrell cannot shield Peter from thy check thy
us O give me to thirst after those waters which thou promisest what-ever become of those waters which thou wouldst want The time was when craving water of the Samaritan thou gavest better then that thou askedst Oh give me to thirst after that more precious Water and so do thou give me of that water of life that I may never thirst again Blessed God! how marvellously dost thou contrive thine own affairs Thine enemies whilst they would despight thee shall unwittingly justifie thee and convince themselves As thou fore-saidst In thy thirst they gave thee vinegar to drink Had they given thee Wine thou hadst not taken it the night before thou hadst taken leave of that comfortable liquour resolving to drink no more of that sweet juice till thou shouldst drink it new with them in thy Father's Kingdom Had they given thee Water they had not fulfilled that prediction whereby they were self-condemned I know not now O dear Jesu whether this last draught of thine were more pleasing to thee or more distastfull Distastfull in it self for what liquour could be equally harsh pleasing that it made up those Sufferings thou wert to endure and those Prophecies thou wert to fulfill Now there is no more to doe thy full consummation of all predictions of all types and ceremonies of all sufferings of all satisfactions is happily both effected and proclaimed nothing now remains but a voluntary sweet and Heavenly resignation of thy Blessed Soul into the hands of thine eternall Father and a bowing of thine head for the change of a better Crown and a peaceable obdormition in thy bed of ease and honour and an instant entrance into rest triumph Glory And now O Blessed Jesu how easily have carnall eyes all this while mistaken the passages and intentions of this thy last and most glorious work Our weakness could hitherto see nothing here but pain and ignominy now my better-inlightned eyes see in this elevation of thine both honour and happiness Lo thou that art the Mediatour betwixt God and man the Reconciler of Heaven and earth art lift up betwixt earth and Heaven that thou mightest accord both Thou that art the great Captain of our Salvation the conquerour of all the adverse powers of Death and Hell art exalted upon this Triumphall Chariot of the Cross that thou mightest trample upon Death and drag all those Infernall Principalities manicled after thee Those Arms which thine enemies meant violently to extend are stretched forth for the imbracing of all mankind that shall come in for the benefit of thine all-sufficient redemption Even whilst thou sufferest thou reignest Oh the impotent madness of silly men They think to disgrace thee with wrie faces with tongues put out with bitter scoffs with poor wretched indignities when in the mean time the Heavens declare thy righteousness O Lord and the Earth shews forth thy power The Sun pulls in his light as not abiding to see the Sufferings of his Creatour the Earth trembles under the sense of the wrong done to her Maker the Rocks rend the veil of the Temple tears from the top to the bottom shortly all the frame of the world acknowledges the dominion of that Son of God whom Man despised Earth and Hell have done their worst O Saviour thou art in thy Paradise and triumphest over the malice of men and Devils The remainders of thy Sacred person are not yet free The Souldiers have parted thy garments and cast lots upon thy seamless coat Those poor spoils cannot so much inrich them as glorifie thee whose Scriptures are fulfilled by their barbarous sortitions The Jews sue to have thy bones divided but they sue in vain No more could thy garments be whole then thy body could be broken One inviolable Decree over-rules both Foolish executioners ye look up at that crucified Body as if it were altogether in your power and mercy nothing appears to you but impotence and death little do ye know what an irresistible guard there is upon that Sacred corps such as if all the powers of Darkness shall band against they shall find themselves confounded In spite of all the gates of Hell that word shall stand Not a bone of him shall be broken Still the infallible Decree of the Almighty leads you on to his own ends through your own ways Ye saw him already dead whom ye came to dispatch those bones therefore shall be whole which ye had had no power to break But yet that no piece either of your cruelty or of Divine prediction may remain unsatisfied he whose Bones may not be impaired shall be wounded in his flesh he whose Ghost was yielded up must yield his last bloud One of the souldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith there came out bloud and water Malice is wont to end with life here it over-lives it Cruell man what means this so late wound what commission hadst thou for this bloudy act Pilate had given leave to break the bones of the living he gave no leave to goar the side of the dead what wicked superrerogation is this what a superfluity of maliciousness To what purpose did thy spear pierce so many hearts in that one why wouldst thou kill a dead man Methinks the Blessed Virgin and those other passionate associates of hers and the Disciple whom Jesus loved together with the other of his fellows the friends and followers of Christ and especially he that was so ready to draw his sword upon the troup of his Master's apprehenders should have work enough to contain themselves within the bounds of patience at so savage a stroke their sorrow could not chuse but turn to indignation and their hearts could not but rise as even mine doth now at so impertinent a villany How easily could I rave at that rude hand But O God when I look up to thee and consider how thy holy and wise Providence so overrules the most barbarous actions of men that besides their will they turn beneficiall I can at once hate them and bless thee This very wound hath a mouth to speak the Messiah ship of my Saviour and the truth of thy Scripture They shall look at him whom they have pierced Behold now the Second Adam sleeping and out of his side formed the Mother of the living the Evangelicall Church Behold the Rock which was smitten and the waters of life gushed forth Behold the fountain that is set open to the house of David for sin and for uncleanness a fountain not of water onely but of bloud too O Saviour by thy water we are washed by thy bloud we are redeemed Those two Sacraments which thou didst institute alive flow also from thee dead as the last memorialls of thy Love to thy Church the Water of Baptism which is the laver of Regeneration the Bloud of the new Testament shed for remission of sins and these together with the Spirit that gives life to them both are the three Witnesses on earth whose attestation cannot fail us O precious
and sovereign wound by which our Souls are healed Into this cleft of the rock let my Dove fly and enter and there safely hide her self from the talons of all the Birds of prey It could not be but that the death of Christ contrived and acted at Jerusalem in so solemn a Festivall must needs draw a world of beholders The Romans the Centurion and his band were there as actours as supervisours of the Execution Those strangers were no otherwise engaged then as they that would hold fair correspondence with the Citizens where they were engarisoned their freedome from prejudice rendred them more capable of an ingenuous construction of all events Now when the Centurion and they that were with him that watched Jesus saw the Earthquake and the things that were done they feared greatly and glorified God and said Truly this was the Son of God What a marvellous concurrence is here of strong and irrefragable convictions Meekness in suffering Prayer for his murtherers a faithfull resignation of his Soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father the Sun eclipsed the Heavens darkned the earth trembling the graves open the rocks rent the veil of the Temple torn who could goe less then this Truly this was the Son of God He suffers patiently this is through the power of Grace many good men have done so through his enabling The frame of Nature suffers with him this is proper to the God of Nature the Son of God I wonder not that these men confessed thus I wonder that any Spectatour confessed it not these proofs were enough to fetch all the world upon their knees and to have made all mankind a Convert But all hearts are not alike no means can work upon the wilfully-obdured Even after this the Souldier pierced that Blessed Side and whilst Pagans relented Jews continued impenitent Yet even of that Nation those beholders whom envy and partiality had not interessed in this slaughter were stricken with just astonishment and smote their breasts and shook their heads and by passionate gesture spake what their tongues durst not How many must there needs be in this universall concourse of them whom he had healed of diseases or freed from Devils or miraculously fed or some way obliged in their persons or friends These as they were deeply affected with the mortall indignities which were offered to their acknowledged Messiah so they could not but be ravished with wonder at those powerfull demonstrations of the Deity of him in whom they believed and strangely distracted in their thoughts whilst they compared those Sufferings with that Omnipotence As yet their Faith and Knowledge was but in the bud or in the blade How could they chuse but think Were he not the Son of God how could these things be and if he were the Son of God how could he die His Resurrection his Ascension should soon after perfect their belief but in the mean time their hearts could not but be conflicted with thoughts hard to be reconciled Howsoever they glorify God and stand amazed at the expectation of the issue But above all other O thou Blessed Virgin the Holy Mother of our Lord how many swords pierced thy Soul whilst standing close by his Cross thou sawest thy dear Son and Saviour thus indignly used thus stripped thus stretched thus nailed thus bleeding thus dying thus pierced How did thy troubled heart now recount what the Angel Gabriel had reported to thee from God in the message of thy blessed Conception of that Son of God How didst thou think of the miraculous formation of that thy Divine burthen by the power of the Holy Ghost How didst thou recall those prophecies of Anna and Simeon concerning him and all those supernaturall works of his the irrefragable proofs of his Godhead and laying all these together with the miserable infirmities of his Passion how wert thou crucified with him The care that he took for thee in the extremity of his torments could not chuse but melt thy heart into sorrow But oh when in the height of his pain and misery thou heardst him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me what a cold horrour possessed thy Soul I cannot now wonder at thy qualms and swounings I could rather wonder that thou survivedst so sad an hour But when recollecting thy self thou sawest the Heavens to bear a part with thee in thy mourning and feltest the Earth to tremble no less then thy self and foundest that the dreadfull concussion of the whole frame of Nature proclaimed the Deity of him that would thus suffer and die and remembredst his frequent predictions of drinking this bitter cup and of being baptized thus in Bloud thou beganst to take heart and to comfort thy self with the assured expectation of the glorious issue More then once had he foretold thee his victorious Resurrection He who had openly professed Jonas for his type and had fore-promised in three days to raise up the ruined Temple of his Body had doubtless given more full intimation unto thee who hadst so great a share in that sacred Body of his The just shall live by Faith Lo that Faith of thine in his ensuing Resurrection and in his triumph over death gives thee life and chears up thy drouping Soul and bids it in an holy confidence to triumph over all thy fears and sorrows and him whom thou now seest dead and despised represents unto thee living immortall glorious L. The Resurrection GRace doth not ever make show where it is There is much secret riches both in the earth and sea which never eye saw I never heard any news till now of Joseph of Arimathaea yet was he eminently both rich and wise and good a worthy though close Disciple of our Saviour True Faith may be wisely reserved but will not be cowardly Now he puts forth himself and dares beg the Body of Jesus Dearth is wont to end all quarrells Pilate's heart tells him he hath done too much already in sentencing an innocent to death no doubt that Centurion had related unto him the miraculous symptoms of that Passion He that so unwillingly condemned Innocence could rather have wished that just man alive then have denied him dead The Body is yielded and taken down and now that which hung naked upon the Cross is wrapped in fine linen that which was soiled with sweat and bloud is curiously washed and embalmed Now even Nicodemus comes in for a part and fears not the envy of a good profession Death hath let that man loose whom the Law formerly over-awed with restraint He hates to be a night-bird any longer but boldly flies forth and looks upon the face of the Sun and will be now as liberall in his Odours as he was before niggardly in his Confession O Saviour the earth was thine and the fulness of it yet as thou hadst not an house of thine own whilst thou livedst so thou hadst not a grave when thou wert dead Joseph that rich Councillour lent thee his lent it