increase will soon follow when you have begun happily God will teach you to proceed and to put your Talent into the way of increase The Lord loveth the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob says David that is he loveth the perfect Sacraments of the New Testament better than the types and shadows of the Old Now Baptism is called especially one of the gates of Sion for that it is but the first door to let us into the Church The Church it self is an upper Chamber as Christ is said to eat his Passeover with his Disciples in superiori caenaculo the highest in the world next to heaven it self there are many stairs and degrees of vertues upon which we must climb till we come to the top of the hill In Baptism we go down as it were into the River and sit in the lowest room of humility but as speedily as we can we must advance our soul and go up from grace to grace from vertue to vertue and you shall hear that voice of joy from Christ himself Friends sit up higher AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 16. And loe the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him AS Moses said unto himself when he saw the splendor of a bright fire in the bush so do I say unto you Let us now turn aside and see this great sight Great in the Object great in the Persons and great in the Mysteries Great in the Object to be seen for loe the heavens were opened And what mean trash was that which Satan did offer to the view of our Saviour in respect of this all the Kingdoms of the world made visible in the twinckling of an eye Great in the Persons to be understood in their several apparitions for these are the great Estates that rule the world God the Son manifested at the Baptism of water God the Holy Ghost to be discerned in the sensible shape of a Dove and God the Father whose glory was heard in the voice This is my well beloved Son This is no usual matter it must be some extraordinary solemnity which is graced by the full concourse of the Trinity I find it so once at the Creation Gen. i. and I find it at this time when Christ is baptized Man was created a brittle vessel for the Potters use without a Metaphor the servant of his Lord and to let him know to whom he owes his Creation every fountain of life is recited in the Story The Father the Word which was in the beginning and the Spirit which moved upon the face of the waters But in the New Testament we rise up higher from the state of Servants and become the Sons of our heavenly Father and that we may know to whom we owe our adoption and grace once again in this place Christ comes to Jordan the Holy Ghost descends in the bodily shape of a Dove and the Father utters himself in a voice from heaven Now for the mysteries I am bold to say the Church is capable of no greater than are here contained First Here are all the causes and instruments of our Salvation implied The Sacraments which are the Seals of righteousness the word taught which begets faith and the Spirit which moves upon them and puts life into them both The Father is in the Word the Son sanctifieth the Sacrament and the influence which blesseth them both unto us is the Dove which rested upon that sacred head unto whom all the members are fitly compacted And besides all these primary causes and instrumental helps of salvation here is an Epitomy of all those benefits which the Mediatorship of Christ will procure unto us The Heavens which were shut before set open to receive us the Spirit of Sanctification to be poured out upon us and that God will be pleased in us through his only beloved Son To recapitulate these things premised briefly the Mysteries are so great as none so superlative The Persons manifested infinitely glorious as none so excellent the Object so delightful to the eye of the soul as none so amiable And loe the heavens were opened unto him c. Of three immortal benefits which our Redeemer hath procured for us this Text contains a couple and both declared in no ordinary fashion but by the wonderful power of God First Here is a wonder wrought above Loe the heavens were opened unto him Secondly Here is another wonder come down below to the world beneath And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him These are the two members of the Text the first part whereof is opened already for how could we unlock that hidden Mystery unless the Key of David had unbarred it And loe the heavens c. Take notice in the first part of the Text that here is a word of invitement to draw our eyes upon it Loe the heavens were opened Nature hath made man with that erection of face to look upward that he must often view the heavens but the sight is never clear enough without abundance of grace to see them open Wherefore without the advantage of the second Miracle in the Text we should never be capable to conceive the first Christ procures the Dove to descend he makes the holy Spirit light among his Saints and then our eyes which were be-darkned before shall be ready to look up and perceive Loe the heavens were opened In this order I shall briefly discourse upon it 1. What is meant by the heavens standing open 2. What did procure and obtain it 3. How this Miracle fell out to glorifie Christ 4. What joy and comfort it implies to all those that are of the houshold of our Saviour The first inquiry is to this purpose what is meant and exprest by the heavens standing open We do but grope in the dark for such notions as this and mens opinions are divided into five several conjectures First When the true glory of the heavens is made visible to the eye of a man upon earth God imparting and revealing to the senses of his body a taste of that happiness which is laid up for them that fear him So Stephen was ravisht with such a sight and cried out I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God It is not needful to say that the parts of heaven were set open like a window to let him look in but as it is concluded in fairest probability Oculus ejus porrectus fuit usque ad coelum empyreum The glance of his eye was endowed with vertue to penetrate through the clouds and through the spheres unto the Throne of God This acception doth no way agree with my Text for the heavens are said to be opened in this Scripture that all the multitude might behold the miracle but you must not think it was given to them all good and
the Feast Go and sit down in the lowest room but litterally descension is infallibly the motion of a body And otherwise the wonder had herein consisted not that such a Dove was seen but that such a strange spectacle appeared to John and to all the multitude which was not to be seen John did see the object it did not phantastically in a shadow deceive him as if he saw it And it is a touch worthy to be observed by the way that my Text says he saw the Spirit which is a clear Metonimy of the sign for the thing signified for in truth he saw no more than the outward sign of the Spirit To call the holy Spirit by the attribute of the Dove is a Sacramental signification not an essential mutation just such a form of speech as when Christ brake bread at his Last Supper and said unto his Disciples This is my body I proceed to that which follows how aptly the Spirit came in one figure at this time upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at this day of Pentecost upon the Apostles If I would rake old Heresies out of their dead embers to refute them here I had occasion The Arians extorted from hence that Christ did receive the mighty gift of Sanctification at this Baptism and other admirable graces of the Spirit which he had not before If they were worth the refuting I could tell them Joh. i. 14. As soon as ever the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us he was full of grace and truth On the contrary the Macedonian Hereticks men of corrupt minds did make a difference of dignity between Christ and the Holy Ghost as the body of a man was more excellent which belonged to Christ than the body of a Dove wherin the Spirit sate upon him Then belike if an Angel should come in the shape of a man or of an Eagle which is more glorious than a Dove he should also have the preheminence But the blindness of the error came from hence that they did not distinguish how Christ took upon him the nature of a man but the Holy Ghost did not assume the nature of a Dove Let these blasphemies go let them rot and consume with the Authors which invented them the Father the Son and the Spirit are all one in Glory equal in Majesty coeternal Upon occasion of Baptism the Master sent forth his Disciples saying Go and baptize all Nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Can I pass by the surpassing wit of St. Austin upon that place Non in nominibus sed in nomine patris ubi unum nomen est ibi unus Deus Not in the names but in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Where there is but one name and no more there is but one God and no more As in like argument St. Paul Gal. iii. 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the Promises made he saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ Let me return into my own path which I am to beat that Christ had one sign of the Holy Ghost coming down upon him and the Apostles had another Upon which diversity thus I find the Fathers exercising their wits in several meditations First The Spirit sate upon our Saviours head in the shape of an whole entire creature in no other figure but a tongue upon the Apostles which is no more than a little part of the body for we receive the grace of God by scantlings and pittances and small measures the whole Spirit flowed into Christ in all abundance In like manner Gregory shews the odds between his fulness and ours in Analogy between the head and other members of the body A body hath the sense of touching only and no more the head is the continent of all the five senses Ita membra superni capitis in quibusdam virtutibus emicant ipsum caput in cunctis virtutibus flagret So the Saints have several gifts and ornaments divided among them some in one kind some in another but the head of the Church hath all flourisheth with all those vertues united in himself which are parted among his members Secondly The tongues of holy men and Prophets did often promise grace and reconciliation to the world and therefore a tongue did sit upon them as it were a Crest of Armory a Dove when time was did actually exhibit that God was pacified and appeased when he had been wroth I mean the Dove which returned to the Ark with a dry Olive branch in her mouth in token that the waters were dried up and that Noah and his Family might come forth with safety Therefore a Dove most properly did belong to Christ Most properly I say but more transcendently says St. Chrysostom now than ever The first Dove did comfort the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that punishment was taken away this Dove is a sacred pledge that grace and blessings shall be bestowed upon us Now it appeared not to bring one man and his family safe into the possession of the earth but to bring all Believers safe into the possession of heaven Thirdly The Spirit came not to Christ in fire for he was full of Zeal nor yet in the shape of a tongue for full of grace were his lips But discite quia mitis learn of me because I am meek and gentle therefore says Bernard the Dove came to testifie the placidness of the Lamb. Quod agnus in animalibus columba in avibus such as the Lamb is among the beasts of the field such is the Dove among the fouls of the air Fire is stern and formidable Christ would have none of that that which sorts with consolation to recreate a trembling conscience was his peculiar choice therefore the third Person descended like a Dove and sate upon him Fourthly The tongues wherein the Apostles received the grace of God were cloven and divided not to signifie a rent and a division Linguarum distantiae non sunt schismata but because there is a diversity and a dispreading about of the gifts of God Then comes down one single Dove to honour Unity Spiritus sanctus divisus in linguis unitus in columbâ says St. Austin it was pride which caused that diversity of tongues it was the Holy Ghost through the humility of Christ which sanctified that diversity Quod turris dissociaverat Ecclesia collegit Babel the Tower of pride scattered the world the Church which is the Tower of humility gathers the world together But the Dove was the Ensign of our Saviours Kingdom standing for the unity of the Spirit which is the bond of peace Fifthly The Holy Ghost was made manifest to the Chruch first in a Dove at the feast of Christs Baptism afterward in fire at the Feast of Whitsontide to betoken it is the same Spirit which requires innocency in the
in domo charitatis in a charitable Hospital family every man hastened to a good work as if he had flown like a Dove Was not Paul a brave wing'd Apostle that traversed much of Asia and preacht the Gospel in every place from Jerusalem to Illyricum Seventhly The Doves eyes are fixt upon the Rivers of waters Cant. v. 12. some say out of vigilancy to espy therein the gliding of the Kite that flies above and to save it self So the spiritual man looks backward to the first waters wherein he was dipt to the Vow which he made in Baptism There he remembers his Garment was made white and he must not stain it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not only to wash away filth but to give tincture or colour to that which is died So in Baptism the foul spots of iniquity are taken forth and by sanctification a clear gloss is set upon our soul It was the exhortation of old at Baptism Accipe vestem candidam immaculatam c. Take this white garment pure and undefiled it was their Ceremony to put on such and keep it undefiled against the day of the Lord. Et grege de niveo gaudia pastor habet says Lactantius The Shepherd rejoyceth to see the fleeces of his Lambs fair and unspotted These are pennae deargentatae as the Psalmist says the Doves wings are silver wings and if they be bright Silver here it will be changed into a better Metal hereafter a Crown of Gold whose wings are silver wings and the feathers of Gold Lastly As it was toucht before in the days of Noah the Dove was a presager of a better world to come and in this Text likewise it is Nuncia futuri seculi the happy annuntiate that there is a better world to come when these evil days of sin and misery are ended So we are sealed with the holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance the Spirit is a pledge of that possession which is purchased for us in the Kingdom of heaven whither he bring us c. THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 17. And loe a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased SPeak O Heaven and hearken O Earth unto the word of the Lord. The Earth must keep silence and give ear when God is his own Orator himself and utters his pleasure with his own voice As it is usual when some great Palace is raising fron the Foundation that the Master of the Possession will lay the first stone with his own hands So the Church being to be built up again in the New Testament not upon the foundation of Works but upon Faith not upon Moses but upon Jesus Christ Loe the mighty God publisheth the first tidings of reconciliation from his own mouth and himself in the Prophet Isaiahs Phrase doth lay in Sion a chief corner stone elect and precious for the Foundation which sustains the whole body of the Saints is no other but such as is contained in that brief Proclamation which I have read unto you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Some of the Fathers very aptly call the Text Gods ample testimonial given to his Son that the world might receive him gladly being about to preach the glad tidings of salvation Moses you know would not offer himself to the Children of Israel to be the means that should release them from Pharaohs bondage before he had a token of Credence who did send him to the People and the Lord said unto him Thou shalt say I am hath sent me unto you So our High Priest and anointed Saviour would keep that form to have a clear testificate to commend him to the World Now a Dove was but a dumb shew and might be interpreted many ways wherefore an articulate and a majestical voice was heard from heaven which would pierce the ears of all that were gathered together and could not be mistaken In that nature therefore as a Testimonial given to him that was now about to be the great Preacher of righteousness I will divide the Text 1. The Person that did bear witness it is the Father 2. The manner how he testified to the honour of his Son by a voice Loe a voice 3. The authority of that voice which was every way to be accepted because it was from heaven 4. The Person to whom the witness is born to a Son This is my Son 5. What is witnessed of him in respect of himself that he was beloved This is my beloved 6. What is witnessed of him in respect of our consolation that he is filius complacentiae in whom and through whom the Father is well pleased That is to say not only beloved in himself but procures us to be beloved likewise for his sake for all that by Baptism have put on Christ are unto God as Christ himself is Filii dilecti complacentes Sons beloved well pleasing So the Text is our Saviours Testimonial and our own Consolation And loe a voice c. The Father is become a witness to glorifie his Son that is the first consideration to be made upon my Text. The Spirit hath done his part before now the voice the Father is come to perfect this great solemnity and so the justice of God agrees with his own Law Ex ore duorum aut trium testium Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established was ever any truth so strongly confirmed so undeniably maintained that the Father which made all things should ratifie it sensibly in the audience of men Never was it heard of but only in this case which is the top of all truth that Jesus was the Son of God Other truths we are well perswaded of which come from the light of reason or from the testimony of man yet reason may be blind and man may err but it is impossible that God should lie Heb. vi And admit it to be good for who can controul it that the Prophets and Apostles were inspired from God so that the contents which they have written are certain and infallible then his divine wisdom which gave them that instinct whatsoever he utters immediately from himself it may well stand upon comparisons that it is much more infallible So St. Hierom distinguisheth between that truth which is increate and which is infused and participate that the truth of the Saints is called a lie in respect of that verity which abideth in the Father Yea let God be true and every man a liar in which words says he it is implied that God alone is true even as he alone is said to have immortality for although he hath communicated immortality to Angels and to the souls of men yet it is not their own immortality but his love and favour to give it to them So the Prophets and holy men were inspired with true knowledge yet it was not their own truth
So the Father is the Voice the Son is the Word the Spirit proceeding from them both is the Truth and these three are all one and undivided So you see why the Father is resembled in the signification of a voice I must adjoyn also how well this doth express the comforts of a Gospel The Law was a dead Letter litera occidit by the strength of sin it killed us all because we were not able to perform it The Gospel is viva vox a quickning living voice such a one as quickned Lazarus when he was four days in the Grave The Law was heard in Trumpet and Thunder upon Mount Sinai Now comes a still voice such a one as would not scare a Dove away now comes Musick from heaven now comes obsecro vos that fair spoken language of the Apostles I beseech ye brethren This is such a winning allicient voice that the words that proceed from it are rather kisses than words therefore the Church speaking to the praise of the Gospels sweetness begins the song on this wise Cant. i. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth The first time that ever we read of Gods voice in the Old Testament you shall hear what Adam says upon it Gen. iii. 10. I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid But at the first time that you read of Gods voice in the New Testament it is made smooth and soft to our ear with This is my beloved and here I am well pleased What else to be concluded from hence But that an evidence and manifestation of faith shall be discovered to all men As when one telleth his mind to his Friend not by messengers or by Script but face to face Thou spakest sometimes in dreams and visions to thy people But says the Lord I will speak with my Servant Moses mouth to mouth Num. xii 8. So by the revelation of the Gospel we are all become as precious to God as Moses was and the Lord talketh with us as one doth with his friend face to face And with all succinctness that is the sum of the second Point Neither must I insist long upon the third thing noted which is the great Authority that this voice doth carry because it came from heaven and Loe a voice from heaven The Oracles of the Gentiles were wont to come out of hollow Caves and Rocks The Law of the Hebrews was delivered from the top of a smoaking hill but as Judges and great Magistrates were wont to publish their Laws from their Throne of State so doth God deliver the Law of Faith from Heaven and that Firmament above it is the Throne of God When the Earth opens it is to swallow Chore Dathan and Abiron When the Heaven opens it is to pour out consolation The Gospel reckons up three times that the Lord spake from heaven above and at each time it had the same Theme to magnifie the Saviour of the World The first time at his Baptism the second time at his Transfiguration the third time anon before his Passion when the Son begg'd earnestly Father glorifie thy name the Father answers him I have glorified it and I will glorifie it again Joh. xii 28. And that you may be assured how that celestial voice continues to speak unto us in the accent of comfort John tells us he heard a voice from heaven saying Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord Rev. xiv 13. Bode no evil with your tongue to any since the Lord out of his habitation speaks nothing but love and benediction towards us The voice of God is an open heaven but as for the curser and reviler his throat is an open sepulchre Sursum corda The tidings of Salvation come not from beneath they hover above our head therefore lift up your heart lift up your understanding and you will easily perceive that every part of sacred Scripture is a voice from heaven I know unless the inward testimony of the Spirit prevail upon your soul and induce it to believe all external Arguments from the judgment of the Church in all Ages from harmony of truth from fulfilling of Prophesies and whatsoever else will be insufficient to perswade you Yet if any thing more than other will puzzle the refractory it is this that in every part and scope it sounds like a voice from heaven far otherwise than the books of humane learning That which drives our labours and studies only to the glory of God that which propounds no other reward but the fruition of God that which talks of no acts and monuments but such as belong to God this must be divine and from above Nec vox hominem sonat Surely it must be a voice from heaven But do the Heathen thus in any of those three parts of their Sciences either in their Moral Institutions or Natural Disquisitions or Historical Narrations In their Histories they write to honour men in their Philosophy to know the World in their Moral and Politick Axioms to make a just and a noble Patriot for his Country No Tract throughout all mans wit and learning but only in the sacred Scriptures like a voice from heaven Perhaps here and there a Sentence of theirs may soar aloft but as Kites flie high yet still look down to the Carion upon the Dunghil So the stile of the Heathen may rise up in some things as it were in the clouds but from thence they look down how they may be famous and popular And that is no better than a blast of vanity sure it is no voice from heaven Beloved this is a most illustrious opening of the Gospel that the heavens assumed a tongue and began to speak wherefore it is for good reason that our Saviour had that diction so often in his mouth He that hath ears to hear let him hear Let me be bold to add he that hath a tongue to confess let him praise the Lord. As we delight to have the Lord speak to us so it delighteth the Lord to have us speak to him And as the Father did vouchsafe to send his voice from heaven to earth so let our lips be full of Prayers that we may send our voice from earth to heaven God is not an Eccho nothing but empty voice we read of his face and his presence and his right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore And as Absalon though he were a disloyal Son yet he did wishly desire to stand before his Father Says he to Joab wherefore am I come from Gerar to Jerusalem if I may not see the Kings face So the rebounding of the voice from heaven is to enflame our affections that we may see his face in heaven So shall it be their fair lot and inheritance who are Fìlii dilecti complacentes Sons Beloved in whom he is well pleased These are the Testimonials due to Christ and flowing from Christ to us which now I come to handle The fourth annotation is the Person to whom
prompt him with this remembrance be not a blemish to the glory of thy Father in Heaven So much for that part of the Testimony Christ is the eternal Son of God and by him we are called to adoption of Sons Now the Spirit could not stay here but proceeds to glorifie him further This is my beloved Son This is my beloved and thou art my beloved we read it both ways in several Evangelists Ne uno modo dictum minùs intelligatur says St. Austin that the words expressed two manner of ways might be more clearly intelligible Thou art my beloved Son and this is my beloved Son do admonish us two things out of this diversity both that the Father is highly pleased in his Son and that in him he is well pleased with us for his Sons sake For he hath accepted us in the beloved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. i. 6. This title of beloved is three ways agreeable to Christ 1. Super omnes dilectus est à patre That above all things he is beloved of the Father an infinite love must needs result upon the begetting of an infinite wisdom Amor Deum gubernat amoris omne regnum est the heathen were wont to sing it and knew no reason for it but we know why that God himself was ruled by love love swayed all things in the world God himself is ruled by love that is the Father is intreated by the merits of his Son to break the yoak of his own justice from off our necks and hath put the dominion of life and death into his hands that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow as if he chiefly delighted in the honour of his Son The Schoolmen acutely assign him the preheminence of the Father above all things with this distinction that he was Dilectus quia filius not Filius quia dilectus Beloved because he was a Son and not made a Son because he was beloved which is the condition of them that are adopted Secondly Christ is Paterni amoris erga nos argumentum the proof of Gods exceeding love to us for so God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that who so believeth in him should not perish but have life everlasting so he loved it that there is no measure or similitude to compare it The gradations of Bernard by which he draws up our soul higher and higher to meditate upon the divine love are these 1. Prius nos dilexit it were fit the Lord should be sought unto by such underlings as we are yet he began in way of affection and prevented us well contented if we would correspond and answer his offer 2. Tantillos dilexit he loved us and ordained to make us a people when as yet we were not 3. Tales he loved us again in his best beloved when we had defiled our creation 4. Tantus O the immenseness of his love he that is greater than the Heavens said unto us poor dust and ashes let me be your Saviour 5. Tantum dilexit so constant was the passion of his love that it brought him to the Passion of the Cross 6. Tam gratis of his own free love without merits foreseen in us to deserve it he bequeathed unto us an immortal inheritance this is the purchase of that well-beloved in whom he cannot but be well pleased As in the brestplate of Aaron there was holiness written to the Lord that the people might be accepted when he offered incense for them so the love of God is written with the pen of a Diamond in his Son never to be blotted out that looking upon him we might find grace and favour to be received into glory Thirdly Christ is beloved because he was obedient in all things we are all children of wrath that have rebelled against our Father God looked down from heaven to see if any would seek after him and we are all gone out of the way they were all become abominable usque ad unum and that one was Christ This voice prevents that infidelity which some might imagine upon his Passion for they that lookt with fleshly eyes might think he was one rejected and forsaken of God they might think him under the frown and malediction of his Father for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree but howsoever in the representation of our sins the Sun may discolour him and make him look black yet he is fair O daughters of Jerusalem and though we be prodigals that have wasted our Fathers goods and mis-imployed the portion of his grace yet the voice from heaven shall never be proved a liar concerning Christ This is my beloved Son Behold my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased Mat. xii 18. God is love and if the Son take the name from the Father may he not rightly be called the Beloved If I be a Master says our God where is my fear If I be a Father where is my honour And may he not add If I be the love of the Church where is the love to requite it For without love we may keep all the rest to our selves If we fear him without love it is abject and servil if we honour him without love it is flattery Love made the world of visible creatures and it must make the new world of Saints and Angels Truly did one say that the Emblem of a pious heart was Carbo ignitus divini amoris flammâ absorptus A firy coal wasting away all the gross and earthy parts of it with the flame of divine love Were never any tears better bestowed than one I read of in ancient times whose eyes did shed drops to see Gods glory scandalously abused by those that lived about him and being asked What ailed him to grieve so much for other mens sins It was his wonted answer Quia amor non amatur because love it self was not beloved again For if you loved me says Christ yo wo ld keep my Commandments Intimate love thinks nothing too much and too tedious to be done for the beloved yea it thinks nothing too bitter to be suffered no more did Christ for his Church The Spouse doth interlace it among her love-delights that she should suffer for the Lord so it is figuratively couched Cant. i. 13. My love is a bundle of Myrrh to me Says Bernard Myrrha amara aspera c. Myrrh is rugged and bitter yet of sweet fragrancy So tribulation is harsh but sweet for Christs sake And again Fasciculus Myrrhae dilectus mihi My Beloved is fasciculus but a little bundle of Myrrh but a little corrasive of affliction whatsoever we suffer Quia leve prae amore ipsius ducat quicquid asperi immineat If our affection be strong and entire to God a great deal of sorrow is nothing it is but a little bundle for I reckon that the sorrows of this life are not worthy the glory that shall be revealed Give me a resolute will ready to
corruption that is in us and to be the Sons of God Because there is mention of a good Spirit immediately before my Text that descended from heaven upon him in the shape of a Dove and all the business after my Text concerns an evil Spirit that assaulted him with many tentations therefore the quaere ariseth which of these did lead him into the Wilderness The Syriack determines it plainly Ductus â spiritu sancto he was led by the Holy Ghost And it is of more moment that certainly the Syriack Paraphrase took it from St. Luke Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that understand Grammer and the original Text do easily discern that the same word in the same sentence implies one and the same thing the latter being an effect of the former for being full of the Holy Spirit he was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness And I will parallel it plainly anon with that of St. Paul Acts xx 22 Behold I go bound in spirit to Jerusalem Moreover the Devil approached not unto him till after he had fasted forty days he began to be an hungry for he had no motive to begin his tentations till he perceiv'd he was in the distress of hunger like a weak man Therfore it was not Satan that carried him into this place where he fasted for then the tentation had begun before he had set foot in the Wilderness The case is clear to say no more of the first Point that the Spirit which led him was the influence and impulsion of the Holy Ghost The second thing to be askt is how the Spirit did lead him This can be conceived but two ways Either by inward instigation or removing him suddenly from one place to another which is called outward translocation Each way may be admitted for both are according to Analogy of Faith and both are favoured out of the Greek Text of sundry Evangelists You shall read in St. Luke Chap. iv 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was led by the Spirit which doth imply that the Holy Ghost did inwardly inspire that resolution into him and did assist continually while he abode in the Wilderness You shall read in St. Mark Chap. i. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness as if he had been transported thither in some wonderful rapture And my Text is read thus in St. Mathew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was led up of the Spirit The Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sursum to lead up hath either regard to the situation of the Desart which was by far the higher ground in respect of Jordan where our Saviour was before Or else that he was exalted from the earth and carried away by the Spirit through the air untill he came unto that place where he spent forty days in Prayer Fasting and Meditation I dare not contend out of the Scriptures but that the Spirit wrought both ways upon Christ both carrying his body into the Wilderness and instigating his mind No unusual thing in the first sense for the Spirit to transport a body suddenly through the air without the motion of the feet to a place of far distance And although the whole Trinity God the Father the Son and Holy Ghost concur to that action and produce it or perhaps appoint an Angel to be the instrument yet it goes under the name of the Spirit because that Miracle impresseth a strange vertue into a material body as if it were spiritual How Enoch and Elias were translated on high in their bodies I have declared my mind not long since And surely before Elias his last translation into heaven this did befall him often times Obadiah was jealous of it 1 King xviii 13. It shall come to pass when I am gone from thee the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not What Ezekiel reports of himself I cannot say but it was rather an imaginary than a real rapture but thus he Ezek. viii 3. The hand of God took me by a lock of mine head and the Spirit lift me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem This could not be imprinted in his imagination but that it was possible to be done really And Gregory meditates well upon it Every regenerate person during the time of this mortal flesh is so lifted up between heaven and earth Adhuc ad superna plene non pervenit sed tamen ima dereliquit His conversation and his heart are not altogether in heaven but they are higher than the earth What a direct instance is that of the Prophet Habakkuk He was carrying food to the Reapers in the Land of Jury and the Angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head and through the vehemency of the Spirit set him in Babylon Neither need this be rejected for Apocryphal since there is an example to match it Acts viii 39. The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip who was then at Gaza and he was found at Azotus which two are forty miles distance after the best descriptions of the Holy Land A Faith that is but linum fumigans a dusky faith and shines not clearly may easily admit this for if the birds can cut the air with their gross wings naturally who will not be perswaded that God can make the body of man more nimble and fit for such a motion by his supernatural power But I marvel at those Expositors who are squemishly conceited against that opinion that they did not frame this objection God doth not use to work Miracles only to shew tricks as one would say no necessity requiring Then cui bono Why might not Christ have gone into the Wilderness step by step What occasion of moment should urge the Spirit to transport him Beloved it was thus far expedient that Christ should vanish and no man know which way he was departed that he might avoid the honour which the multitude would have done him upon that voice which came from heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased So in the sixth of St. John after the miracle of feeding some thousands with a little bread and a few fishes Christ perceived that they would take him by force and make him a King therefore he made a sudden departure none knew whither till his Disciples met him walking upon the Sea in a dark night and a great storm Mat. xiv 23. This is reason then sufficient to decline the people who were astonished at the testimony which was given him from heaven that the Spirit snatcht him away in a rapture into the Wilderness Why this interpretation of the word should not take with you I know not but I am sure the next must take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was led by the Spirit that is the Holy Ghost did inspire this heroical
is a false humility which makes us doubt of the faithfulness of Gods Promises So to be humbled is a fearful sin and perhaps a greater sin than any for which a man is humbled If we stay more upon our selves than upon God we shall distrust if more upon God than upon our selves we shall believe If you say you cannot believe because of your own unaptness and unworthiness I instance with St. Paul So did not Abraham Rom. iv 19. Being not weak in faith he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundreed years old nor the deadness of Sarahs womb Therefore keep your humility you speak of and lose it not yet rule it by this oppose not any difficulty in your self as if it could make frustrate the power and goodness of God The fifth Conclusion is a true and I suppose a very comfortable farewel to this Point no mortified humble Christian must despair or afflict his heart though he cannot attain to a strong confidence or assurance in Christs mercies he that can proceed but to a conjectural hope or some beginnings of gracious comfort shall receive the reward for Christ will not break a bruised reed or quench the smoaking flax Every may is bound to assent to the Promise of the Gospel upon pain of damnation for that is it which is called justifying Faith but it is no where threatned be thou certified of thy Salvation in particular or thou shalt perish everlastingly Whosoever doth truly believe shall not perish but have everlasting life Joh. iii. 6. It is not said Whosoever hath not examined himself in the reflexed act and knows not that he believes shall endure the wrath of God Let every man pray for it labour for it not shut his ears against good comfort let a weak Christian at the weakest estate believe his sins may be remitted let him desire remission and he shall receive forgiveness though he have a conjectural hope only and no infallible assurance It is not necessary in a true justifying Faith that all dubitation should be quite excluded it is well if at last it be overcome especially in the last enlightning before death Let such as have the drawings-back of infirmity chear up their spirit that many are undoubtedly received into glory who can say no more but I suppose the fruits of my faith though they were imperfect are without hypocrisie I suppose I believe therefore I suppose I shall be saved When we talk of Certitude and Assurance of Salvation in this life I am afraid the Ignorant extend the word so far as if they must be as secure and perswaded as that we see one another with our eyes Whereas indeed the word may well import no more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spei as a learned Prelate of this Church did stile it a full comprehension by hope And mark how in two several Points much must be abated from that which we call a plain sensible evidence For first The Key which opens to all is to believe the Evangelical Promise made in Christ to all that believe And this we are certain of But how As we speak by the certainty of adherence not by the certainty of evidence Now that doth argue an imperfection in our faith Secondly A good Christian applies the general Promise to himself by a reflexed act and examining how he hath served the Lord with zeal and sincerity Now the circumstances of particular actions have much uncertainty in them howsoever this application being not pure Scripture is no way so certain and indubitable as the Articles of the Creed Therefore such sauciness is to be controuled if any say I know I shall be saved as certainly as I know Christ died for the sins of the World That Article of faith is immediately and totally revealed in Scripture this other Collection riseth out of the observation of a mans own qualities and actions Catharinus says That the Tridentine Council doth not gainsay but a man may know by faith that he is in the state of grace but it denieth only that this can be known by the certainty of faith And he that depends upon Christ for his mercies towards him by a lively comfortable hope may undoubtedly be said to depend upon his mercies by faith for all good graces grow from faith and Faith is called the substance of hope that is of things hoped for Heb. xi 1. Now I will take up and conclude Assurance or Affiance that we are born of the Spirit and are the Sons of God is that which we must labour which we must pray for which we must hope which we must believe Distrust and despair is the Devils engine to subvert this true Consolation and Rock of our Salvation therefore he did insinuate this mistruct or scruple to our Saviour If thou be the Son of God But From all evil and mischief from sin from the crafts and assaults of the Devil good Lord deliver us AMEN THE EIGHTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 3. If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread A Roman Orator in the days of Tiberius the Emperour Afer by name had so often taken in hand the worst part of every Plea to defend it that at last his credit was prejudicated and it was enough to say Afer pleads on this side therefore the justice of the cause is on the other side So all that Satan can propound or alledge I damn it every syllable all that he exhorts unto is impiety all that he counsels is treachery if he say the Son of God should command that stones be made bread I say the contradictory is true and he should not And this I have proved before by discovering that this motion contained two great sins in it Gluttonny and Infidelity Gluttony obliquely Infidelity manifestly And already I have replied against this distrustful voice If thou be the Son of God and have proved that we must all labour for a fiducial assurance that God is our Father and we are his Children by adoption and grace that we must apply Christ unto our selves without suspicions and hesitations without the Devils I F If thou be the Son of God But as the later the night grows the darker it is so the further I go on to reveal the sinful mystery of this saying the blacker is the tentation and the more deformed It is either known unto you already or will appear manifestly unto you when this hour comes about that there are two opinions of which carnal men do especially surfeit Epidemical diseases which slay as many souls as any two vices you can name you may smell them in my Text out of the strong breath of the Devil First that every Son of God is always provided of bread and hath sufficiency if not satiety of all worldly necessaries and therefore if any man be in distress and want let him take it to heart that God hath cast him off he is none of
his Sons for he provides not for him Secondly Whosoever wants bread let him never aske God for it but fetch it out of the hard stones get it by any stratagem or device let him remember to furnish himself with the slight of his own wits since God hath forgot him These are the upper and the nether Milstone by which Beelzebub grounds despair and worldly sorrow out of one principle and all manner of injustice and wrong dealing out of the other I called them lately the two Tables of the Devils Law unto which it is easie to reduce the most common sins that reign these two I make the parts of my Text which being throughly traversed will be sufficient to take up my discourse and your attention The first of those false rules which the Tempter teacheth is this that we must measure our filiation that God is our Father and tenders us as his Children by this note namely by our portion in this life if we have a full supply of worldly blessings then call him Father if you be pincht with sharp necessity then never call your self his Son a rule fitter for a beast to know his Master by than for a Christian to know his God by A Dog will wait upon him that gives him Crums under his Table the Oxe by this sign knoweth his Owner the Ass though a stupid Creature knows his Masters Crib by the allowance of his Provender But Brethren will you depend upon such a carnal mark to know the Lord and make your selves fit to be compared with the beasts that perish Fides est rerum invisibilium Faith hath an eye upon invisible things it is the evidence of things not seen But the Devil in his Catechism contradicts the Scripture and says Fides est rerum visibilium If you have not a competency of these things which you see why will you believe you shall be partaker of those things which you do not see Thus the Flesh is so partial in its own behalf that unless it have provision it will not suffer the Spirit to say Thou God carest for me and wilt never forsake me There is a passage well wrought into a Fable that shews the true disposition of a natural man Chremes casts off his Son Clitipho for attempting a Marriage without the consent of his Parents the refractary young man knew not how to revenge himself but pretending suspicion before his mother that he was none of her true Child but some exposed Brat or Changeling whom they had fostered for a time Alienus sum subditus volo parentes meos ut commonstres mihi So the Devil would whisper into our ear if God cast us off and gives us not relief and nourishment it is fit we should disavow him for our Father and especially he thought this a good motive among the Jews who had all temporary blessings promised unto them in great abundance That Promise made them so touchy that they quarrelled yea and denied the Lord which had done so great things for them if their desire were not satisfied At Massa and Meribah when they wanted water Is the Lord among us or no Exod. xvii 7. Upon the pressure of their Enemies the Angel could not make Gideon believe at first that the Most High was the Watchman of Israel that overlook'd them If the Lord be with us why then is all this faln upon us Judg. vi 13. In the Psalms of David it were without end to instance how the Prophet expostulates Awake why sleepest thou Why dost thou turn away thy face Why dost thou not see our misery and trouble And at last seeing Gods enemies have the upper-hand of his Servants in these external blessings my feet were well-nigh moved when I saw the ungodly in such prosperity In this common Theme I take it as I light upon it you shall hear my reasons which flatly check Satans rule that there are and have been divers opprest with necessity and want of bread and yet God doth not cease to be their Father and they must retain the consolation that they are his Sons First and before any thing attend to this consideration If every good Christian were satisfied at all times with temporal blessings we should appear to serve God for our own profit that we might lack nothing which concerned this transitory life But Abraham flies his Country and hath not a foot of ground to dwell upon Jacob and the Patriarchs have no food in Canaan unless they go into Egypt for it Peter and John have not a mite of Silver and Gold no not for the use of Charity that the World may see there are some that serve the Lord for pure zeal and not for the wages of Fortune as we call it The Devil in whom it is proper to calumniate vertue he gasht at Job with his Tusk and slighted his integrity as if he were a mercenary friend of God Doth Job serve God for naught His substance is increased in the Land And therefore to confute Satan the Lord put him to the utmost trial and took away almost all he had It is good humility to say unto out Father with the Prodigal Make me as one of thy hired servants that is Put me into thy Family though I be in the lowest rank a door-keepr in thy house as David said Put me to any drudgery and labour but it is not the meaning he would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an hireling one that would do his Father just so much service as he was paid for Of such a one the Orator said Non est amicitia sed utilitatis mercatura So in our Dialect we may say It is not to glorifie God but to merchandise Religion Like that saying 1 Sam. ii 36. Put me into one of the Priests Offices that I may eat a piece of bread It is pity he should eat that would not be a Priest to serve at Gods Altar unless he might eat by his Office St. Thomas the Disciple had not yet taken out the true lesson of faith when he required to put his finger into the print of the nails and to thrust his hand into Christ else he would not believe but they are further off than he that will not believe unless they may finger their gains and thrust their hand into the commodity of the world I and perhaps look for honour to boot bare riches will not content them Many Sons of perdition even in the ancient and pure times of the Church started away to rank Atheism and renounced their Baptism upon discontent that some promotion did not fall upon them Ammianus Marcellinus could sâ—y in his time it would encourage a man to be a Christian if he might be chosen Bishop of Rome and so flow with wealth and dignity Gratis poenitet esse bonum O base earthly mind that would be an Infidel unless he might be a rich believer Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts says Solomon But he that loves God for his
upon them to make them loiter from their daily necessary labour but it was an high solemnity as fell out in all the year Dies celeberrimus sanctissimus as the Vulgar Latin reads it Lev. xxiii 21. where we read that then they should proclaime and call an holy Convocation So I have summed up the three occasions of this Feast in the Old Law first to give thanks for their deliverance from bondage Secondly to honour the day wherein first they received the Law at Mount Sinah and thirdly to offer up the first fruits of their Harvest will you see now how aptly the gift of the Holy Ghost was distributed at the same time When the day of Pentecost c. First Whereas the Jews did celebrate at the Feast of Pentecost their enfranchisement from the house of bondage so the benefit of liberty was augmented this day much more than ever it was before This Satan knew well enough and therefore the longest thing wherein he held the Church in ignorance was about the sending of the Holy Ghost long after the name of Christ and his power was received whole Cities and Societies confessed they had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost or not Ignorance in those Points which are necessary to salvation is the greatest thraldom and captivity in the world False Prophets says S. Paul do lead captive silly women laden with sins 2 Tim. iii. 6. I spake not only of such as sate in the darkness of death and were lost these were like Samson in fetters having their eies put out but the Disciples the flower of Christs train saw nothing in holy mysteries as they ought to see till the influence of this glorious day cleared there eye-sight their eyes were held their hearts were held they knew not which way their Redemption was brought about and how Israel was restored Our Saviour took out but one Text in all the New Testament it is out of Isaiah and it is to this very purpose that the Spirit of God redeemed us out of the captivity of ignorance the place is extant Luk. iv 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised This comes home to the matter I am sure Yet moreover this is a day of restitution unto liberty because it dissolved the Church from the tye and yoke of Levitical Ceremonies from those multitude of Statutes which overwhelmed the people with observation As Pharaoh was drowned in the red Sea so the tenure of Mosaical Ceremonies was drowned in the bloud of Christ which was shed upon the Cross and on this Feast we received the Seal of the Spirit that we were rid of them all So far I have demonstrated that at this time we shook off the bondage of Ignorance and Ceremonies which makes it a feast of Pentecost to us Christians as well as it was to the Jews Secondly You shall find the other correspondency marvelously kept between the Law and the Gospel Christ at his death was slain not only as the Paschal Lamb but even when the Lamb was slain on the Feast of Passeover Now from the Feast of Passeover or rather from the second day of sweet bread reckoning fifty days the Children of Israel came to Mount Sinah and there received the Law which was kept ever after with a most sacred memorial so fifty days after Christ rose from the dead the Apostles and the Church received the Spirit of Sanctification And I am sure we have much more cause to renown our Pentecost than the Jews had to honour theirs If the Law which was the ministration of death was so thankfully remembred how much more the dedication of the Gospel For this day as the Fathers say very well was the first dedication of Christs Catholick Church upon earth They were made the Sons of the bondwoman by the Law we are made the Sons of the free-woman by the Spirit We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the spirit of adoption Rom. viii 15. A sinner could have no comfort in the Pentecost of the Jews they had the Law and that condemned them this was miserable comfort We have gladsom tidings this day not from Sinah but out of Sion which bids us live by faith in Christ In no other Feast of the Jews might Leaven be eaten it was an hainous transgression but the two loaves of the first fruits were to be baked with Leaven which were dedicated to God at this Feast Lev. xxiii 17. Expositors say no more to it but thus Leaven was put into the dough of new corn Vt panes sapidiores essent to make it more savory certainly so vulgar an interpretation is much under the meaning of the Holy Ghost I would rather say it had a mystical construction that Leaven was allowed at this Feast to intimate that the Holy Spirit would bear with the leaven of our nature with our sins of frailty and infirmity And it is observable that this is the number of the Jubilee every fiftieth year was the Jubilee year which was a time with the Jews to restore all men to their Lands which were sold away by ill-husbandry and a general forgiving of all debts So this day was a true Jubilee for remission of Trespasses it was at this time that Peter preach'd remission of sins to all that did repent and believe to all without exception for says he the Promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even to as many as the Lord our God shall call So I have shewed that we received the divine Spirit of grace at Sion at the same time that they received the terrible Law at Sinah which makes it a greater Feast of Pentecost to us Christians than it was unto the Jews Thirdly We agree no less with them in the next similitude for keeping this day The Israelites according to the early maturity of corn in that climate began to put their Sickle at this time into Wheat Harvest so the Apostles from this day forward went forth to reap that which the Prophets had sown gathering much fruit unto eternal life and bringing the Wheat of God into his Garner unto the everlasting praise of the glory of his grace Their Barly Harvest such was the condition of their Soil and Husbandry begun at Easter their Wheat was begun to be cut down seven weeks after at Whitsuntide and the latter was called Tempus primitiarum the Time or Festival of First-fruits which were presented to the Lord. So God breathed his spirit into man at the creation of Adam that was the first Harvest which spirit being choked by him and coming to nothing this day there was a second emission of the spirit into man fully to restore and renew him again Now the two Loaves
for God will be mild as a Dove toward us if we will be hot as fire against our selves That he may spare us with his mercy let us be angry at our selves with godly revenge And so they that made no bones of lies and fictions have renowned St. Dunstan in his Legend that a Dove descended from heaven upon him Et remigia alarum scintillantis ignis splendorem prae se ferebant says Capgrave And the wings of it when they were stretcht out did sparkle like fire Their meaning is in this Fable as I call it to set him forth as most full of the Holy Ghost upon whom both the Dove and fire descended Fourthly says St. Austin where God causeth the Tongue to speak the truth fire that is sorrow and trouble will follow Ignis portendit tribulationem quam propter linguas erunt perpessuri The fire imports that tribulation which the Apostles must undergo by preaching the Gospel The Devil did rage against those that were the Pillars of the Church and of true Doctrine and blew the coals of many a fire to consume them Fifthly and to shut up that Point the Tongue being left to it self is full of much corruption as I have amplified already and it had need of a purging fire to cleanse it and refine it In all the old Sacrifices of the Grecians Homer says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they threw the tongue of the beast into the fire whereupon says Coelius Rhodoginus Comburendo linguas perperam dictorum labes expurgabant They made expiation thereby in the flames of fire for all words that had been spoken offensively St. James says the Tongue is a fire Chap. iii. 6. meaning a fire of discord and mischief and that fire had need to be corrected by another fire from heaven or else the torments of hell-fire would be the end of it And now we will rest at last in that Point which is the resting and setling of these Tongues There appeared unto them c. and it sate upon each of them It sate Why we spoke of Tongues in the Plural number before What Enallage is this Cajetan and the most Divines interpret it that the fire sate upon each of them Calvin by a Metonimy of signi pro re signatâ that the Spirit sate upon each of them The Syrian Paraphrast refers it directly to the Tongues and puts it in the Plural number sederunt they sate upon each of them Indeed to refer it to many Tongues and yet to make the Verb of the Singular number is the best exposition of all it sate to shew that it is one Holy Ghost in the administration of divers gifts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I said before one root and many stalks There are diversity of operations but it is the same Lord that worketh all in all 1 Cor. xii 6. But upon whom did they descend and sit For now I make haste Upon every one of the hundred and twenty that were gathered together Or upon the Apostles only Somewhat is in it that when all are named to whom this fire appeared all to be filled with the Holy Ghost yet the Tongues are said to sit upon each of them In two ancient Copies some of our Criticks say that the Text runs they sate upon each of the Apostles and I think that a very probable gloss The Reasons are First the Spirit in some particular manner was promised to them only Acts i. 7. Secondly when some Scoffers said they were full of new wine that had the gift of Tongues St. Peter makes his apology for himself and the Eleven only Thirdly it is said hereupon that they all spake or preacht the mighty things of God This befits the Apostles and not those one hundred and twenty among whom was the Blessed Virgin and other women whose office it was not to preach Fourthly the standers by said Are not all these of Galilee that speak with divers tongues which was true in the Apostles now Judas was taken away but very improbable to agree to all the rest Howsoever let there be no discord about this it is not worth the while no more is the next quere upon what part of them the Cloven Tongues did sit That is not exprest but in all likelihood it was their head for thereunto all Expositors do give their suffrage The Spirit must be in summo loco we must give it and the inspiration thereof the pre-eminence in all things These Tongues says Gregory did encircle about their head Vt novae coronae spirituales capiti eorum imponerentur as if the King of heaven had crowned them with spiritual Crowns from heaven They are ridiculous among the Pontifician Writers that would fetch it from hence that Christ did ordain the Apostles Bishops at this time and used this Ceremony to touch their head from heaven for Consecratio Episcoporum est in capite as they urge it out of Clemens Constitution For another while they confess that the Episcopal character and all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and authority was given them in those words As my Father sent me so do I send you These things being thus put out of the way the main Doctrine agreed on all hands is that the sitting of the Tongues did betoken the constant abiding of the Spirit he is no flitter he doth not come with a lick and away but his gifts are without repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so St. Chrysostome and his true follower Oecumenius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both agree that the Spirit was setled upon them not to depart away It is a fire like that on the Altar permanent and never going out according to our Saviours Promise Joh. xiv 16. I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that may abide with you for ever Some of the Schoolmen find a knot in this plain Doctrine whether the Apostles and all upon whom the Spirit did now abide were confirmed in grace Certain Ecclesiastical Historians trouble them in their conclusions who say that Nicholas the Deacon from whom the Nicolaitans were derived and many other ring-leaders of Hereticks were present at this time and although the Spirit descended upon them yet they forsook their first faith The answer is if these stories be Authentical these gifts were gratiae gratis datae not gratum facientes Gifts which God did graciously give not gifts which made them gracious to God that received them And the continuance and residency of these tongues is established in these words that the Comforter whom Christ would send should abide with them for ever that is it should abide in the Church that is in them and in their Successors unto the ends of the world till Christ should come again in glory as I will open upon the next verse AMEN THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them
And to be threatned to be little in Gods Kingdom is to loose it for ever whereas every one must be great who shall be rewarded with that immortality When the Heathen traduced the Christians that they debased their Emperour and made him less than the God of heaven Know you not says Tertullian that this is the eminency of your Emperour to be less than God Imperator ideo magnus est quia coelo minor est And as the Orator perswaded Caesar Dum Pompeii statuas ornat suas erigit While he took care to adorn Pompeys Statues he did advance his own so we build our selves a Throne by falling down low before the foor stool of the Lord and the hands which are lifted up to praise him shall one day stand at the right hand of his Majestly Somewhat was in it but the Heathen knew not what it was they called it abusively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that every thing which grew too tall was thunder-blasted and that great fortunes when they came to excess did end in some shameful ruine Wherefore the wise Historian said of Poppaeus Sabinus that when divers Senators were cut short he lived secure in the reign of three Tyrants Quòd par negotiis neque supra habebatur he was fit for the business he undertook and not too great for it St. Chrysostom observes it among St. Pauls Salutations to the Romans that no man was saluted by the name of honour as Lord and Master and the like but Andronicus his fellow-prisoner Amplias his beloved Epaenetus his well beloved these were Titles in which the Saints delighted expressing their glory to be the union of charity in the holy Spirit As Virgil says of his Bees that they are full of stomach and revenge and that one Hive will fight cruelly against another Atque haec certamina tanta pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt Cast a little dust into the air and the fray is parted So when the pride of man hath set up sails and swells with vain opinion Pulveris exigui jactu methinks the casting of a little dust should pluck down our stomach the base mould of which our flesh is made Tolle jactantiam quid sunt homines nisi homines says St. Austin Set aside this corrupt leaven of ostentation and all men are but men as naked in their pomp as when they were born or when they shall be buried It was pride that dethroned the bad Angels and it is that makes man stubborn against the Law and refractory against faith hence it passeth currently to be the root of evil Yet Covetousness also as if there were emulation among Vices is taxed by St. Paul for the root of all evil setting the soul to be a Vassal to the love of the world and deceitful riches This Controversie coming before the Schoolmen to be decided this is the judgment of Aquinas These two parts are in the nature of sin Aversio à bono incommutabili a departure from the love of the Creator and Conversio ad bonum commutabile an inclination to the love of the Creature In the inclination to the transitory good Covetousness is the root of all evil in the departure from the chief good Pride is the root and matter of all evil that as the Aegyptians at the burial of the dead were wont to tear out the dead mans belly and to cry over it Thou wert it that killedst this man so if we would dissect out Pride from the rest of our vices we might more justly make that invective over it Thou wert the fall of Man and the ruin of evil Angels The Devil would lead our Saviour into the Wilderness little manners to go before his Maker Sequitur superbos ulton says the Poet but it is with punishment The Adulterer is a sinner in secret the Covetous commits Idolatry iu his Cabinet the Slanderer is like Pestilence that flieth by night alia vitia fugiunt à Deo sola superbia se opponit other vices are afraid and keep out of the way only Pride spurs on like Balaam upon his Ass when God and his angry Angel stand before him Now there are four ways as the Schoolmen make the account whereby this daring vice of Pride doth diminish from that which should be given to Gods glory 1. Cum homo existimat à se habere bonum quod habet A sin no less ungrateful than presumptuous to enjoy wit and art and memory and the blessings of the best Portion but the founders name to he quite lost and God forgotten when the Romans began to insult over the world well says one if every Country had their own which they have seized upon by violence and robbery ad casas reducerentur they would have nothing left them but their Shepherds Cottages But should God have all his own restored unto him which we have received what should I fay Ad casas reduceremur our strength our honor wisdom and eloquence all must be returned nay we should not have so much left as the Cottage of our Body for we had it from the Lord every thing that renowns us that feeds us that preserves us is but mica sub mensa a crum that falls from our Masters Table Did not the Egyptians make themselves fools in their Phitosophy that thought their Country was not the clearer for the Sun and Stars but that the Sun and the Stars sucked up sweet vapours from their Rivers and were the clearer for their Country so abominable are they in the pride of their hearts who think they did not receive the spirit of Prayer and the gift of Faith and the peace of a good conscience from Heaven but that they do pay Prayers and Alms and Charity to Heaven which they never received Secondly Violence is done to Gods glory cum desuper datum credunt sed pro suis se accepisse meritis when conscience will acknowledg that God doth give all but arrogancy will infer that man deserves all The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the free Gift of God the Father the Unction of the Holy Spirit are turned quite aside like a river from his own true channel when it falls into such a Soil that thinks it deserves it As the Jews said unto our Saviour on the other side of Gehezareth Rabbi quà huc venisti Master how camest thou hither so let us say Sanctification quà huc venisti We did not shew the way with Palms neither did we lift up the Gates there was no entrance which our merits could prepare for sactification not by our ears which are profane not by our mouths which are blasphemous and as our Saviour said If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee so in another sense I may say if thy right eye do not offend thee if any part of thy body usurps that it is not sinful cut it off and cast it from
from thence he assists his Sacraments sanctifieth his Ministry gives grace unto his Word And if they did not escape who refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn from him that speaketh from Heaven Secondly Our Jerusalem is above not only in the Head but in the Members I do not say in all the Members for the Church is that great House in which are Vessels of honour and dishonour Terms of Excellency though indistinctly attributed to the whole are agreeing oftentimes only to the chiefer or more refined part Some there are in this Body whom though we salute not by the proud word of their Sublimity yet in true possession which shall never be taken from them they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are above Witness that the Angels make up one Church with us being the chief Citizens that are reckoned in the triumphant part fellow Servants with us under one Lord adopted Sons under one Father Elect under one Christ This is the language of the Scripture and surely Members of one Mystical Body for the same Jesus is the Head of all Principality and Power Colos ii 10. Of this Family also are the Saints departed even all those holy Spirits that obey God in heavenly places and do not imitate the Devil and his Angels This is that Church which hath neither spot nor wrinkle for when I speak of such a Church says St. Austin in his retractations I mean none but those in Heaven After these that make the front and first File of our March there are many among us I trust who have their part in this description Jerusalem which is above the Elect of God the Church invisible invisible I say not for their persons but for their qualites for who can see who hath an internal union with Christ the Head Who can tell whether this or that may be filled with his Grace and quickned with his Spirit Cusanus says very well that there is no certain judgment to be made by the outward fruits who are living Members of the Church but in Infants that are newly baptized With the mouth we confess the truth but with the heart man believes unto righteousness and only God can see the heart But these whose integrity their Master knows and loves no matter in what base condition they wander here they are greater by far than the ungodly that over-peer them in promotion they are above indeed for they are as high as the pinacle of blessedness and their names are written in the Book of Life for their sakes God hath dropt down the beautiful style of Jerusalem upon the Houshold of Christ but without these no name were so fit for it as Sodom or Samaria Such as will wrangle where no occasion is offered have carped at this as if we removed all from the Church but such as are Israel in occulto and have their sins forgiven in Christ It was never our meaning neither can we help it but that we must keep communion with all those that profess the common Faith But if the Church had known Hypocrites it had not admitted them into the Portion of the Lord or else it had excluded them Et quid prodest non ejici coetu piorum si mereris ejici says St. Cyprian What the better is it for an Hypocrite that he is not cast out of the Congregation since he deserves to be cast out he may abide with us in the outward Society of them that call upon Christ praesumptivè non veraciter as Spalatensis says because we presume he is faithful though indeed he is the Child of the Devil numero non merito he makes up one of the Multitude that go in the broad way he is none of the few that strive to enter in at the steight gate he keeps the formality of a Christian with others beneath he perteins not to Jerusalem which is above Thirdly We have obtained this dignity to be ranked as them that are above because our calling is very holy He hath saved us and called us with an holy calling 2 Tim. i. 9. called to Doctrin which is above which flesh and bloud did not reveal but the Father that giveth wisdom plentifully 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Theophilact upon my Text God did preach the Gospel from on high with his own voice for take a Breviary of it and it is no more but that which he said from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased We are called to obey the truth by illumination from above from thence is sent the spirit of them that are baptized the spirit of the Apostles and Martyrs the spirit of Bishops and Doctors the spirit of all those that have lived in the Truth and shed their bloud for the Truth 's sake We are called to that Religion which consists in celestial Functions in Faith and Hope in Prayer and Charity not in a Religion which presseth them down that observe it with an insupportable weight of Shadows and Ceremonies but the hour is come when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth Beware of those of the Concision says St. Paul and among bad marks which they carry this is the conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they mind earthly things that is they are pleased with carnal Ordinances with these low and beggerly Observations of the Levitical Priesthood but immediately turning himself to the Fundamentals of the Gospel and the practice thereof says he nostra politeia our way of serving God our manner of worship is in Heaven So Bernard says that the Synagogue moved in a low Orb. But Solomon speaking of the New Testament says Quae est ista quae ascendit Cant. iii. 3. Who is she that cometh up from the Wilderness perfumed with mirrh and frankincense with all the powders of the Merchant Above all we are called to holy actions which savour not of mans passions and purposes but are qualified from above Our fortitude is heavenly fortitude our temperance heavenly temperance our liberality to the poor heavenly liberality but the moral deeds of the Heathen living out of the Church that had the best gloss upon them were smutcht with some bad vapour below and every grane of vertue that grew out of their stalks did abound with the chaff of vanity And what exceeds all that I have said beside to make our calling heavenly and holy God is so gracious to those things which are done in the Church in the name of his Son that where an unfit instrument may seem to marr all by his extravagant profaneness by his impenitent conscience nay by his heretical pravity yet Christs presence and assistance are not wanting to his Word and Sacraments but their efficacy is free and current to the people though they be performed by a crooked and an adulterous Generation As the Posterity of Jacobs Handmaid had a Princedom among their Brethren in the Land of Canaan
life of Christ and so forth we go on with chearfulness to abandon fear The Fathers note it in the Cratch of the Manger where he was laid a place made unclean with the dung of beasts but ipsa stercora mundefecit As his presence did purifie the room albeit the filthiness of the dung so his Nativity hath cleansed as many as believed in him albeit the loathsomness of their iniquities I have but one thing to say more to this point noted as I remember by Gregory out of the Genealogy of his birth Mat. i. thrice fourteen Generations are reckoned up and but four women incidentarily put into the Catalogue Judah begat Pharez of Thamar Salmon begat Booz of Rahab and Booz begat Obed of Ruth and David begat Solomon of her that had been the Wife of Vriah No women cited in the Chapter but these four three of which had been unchast ones very Strumpets to chear up the penitent sinner that their sins and his and the sins of all that believe are done away by him by him that is above all names the Son of God who came into the world to purge us of our filthiness therefore the true mirth of Christmas is to say with David Psal xxiii 4. Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me to save me from destruction Thus far I have enlarged the Angels comfortable Preface to the Shepherds Fear not that they should not be dismayed either at the light of glory which shined about them or at their own unworthiness which was a darkness within them or at the malediction of the Law which pleaded condemnation against them for the Birth of Christ as I have shewed was a remedy to take all malignity from them Perchance if the Angel should come amongst us in these days of slumber and security he might spare that part of his Message For where 's the man that humbles himself as he ought as if there were any evil to come We are all confident and void enough from fear if that be good Therefore I come now to lay the second part of my Text to the former how we should not be afraid not with an immoderate fear not with a desperate damning fear which dogs a sullen unrepentant sinner up and down but there is a pious reverential fear which well becomes the Saints and now I proceed to speak of those particulars The Schoolmen very rightly consider fear two ways Quà donum quà passio gift of the good Spirit of God one way and another way as it is meerly a natural passion And first I will speak of it as it is a gift of the Holy Spirit Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor says Statius not so soundly that fear was the first thing in the world that made a God But I am sure that want of filial and awful fear is the first thing that will make an Atheist and perswade a man there is no God The Prophet Isaiah could say no worse of the Idols made of stocks and stones but that we should not be dismayed at their Godship they could neither do good nor hurt But if we will revereri we must vereri there can be no true worship of God without a sollicitous and most anxious care not to displease his Majesty He that is not conscientiously afraid to offend doth most of all offend When Zacharies mouth was opened and began to divine of this day Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited his people fear fell upon all that were round about him Luke i. 65. it fell upon them indeed even as the Holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles at Whitsontide Acts ii In like manner when the Widows Son of Naim was raised from the dead by the word which Christ spake Fear came upon all that were there and they glorified God Luke xvii 16. Surely they had not glorified God as they ought if that fear had not come upon them One instance more 1 Kings iii. 28. All Israel feared Solomon when they saw the judgment of God was in him And shall not all the World bow down with reverence and astonishment when they know that the power of all judgment is in God himself But as for this filial devout fear perhaps we love to hear of it for the Angels themselves cover their faces with their wings standing before the throne of the most high Isa vi as if the Majesty of God were awful and dreadful unto them And indeed a sollicitousness to do the will of God because he is good and gracious the study of the heart which is wary and circumspect not to decline from his Law if you will call this fillial fear it may become an Angel for David speaks of it as if it should endure in heaven Psal xix 9. The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever This is it to whose perfection we must aspire to live justly and soberly though there were no Hell at all but purely out of the principle of love and zeal to the honour of our heavenly Father and what a becoming thing it is unto Religion to approach to divine Prayers especially to the Table of the Lord with an awful duty as if we were afraid to speak to God or to touch the crums of his heavenly banquet Is not this better than to thrust our selves into such coelestial actions with a sawcy familiarity without fear or wit What is more comfortable than to taste of that Cup which betokens the precious bloud that was shed for our sins And yet the Greek Fathers term it usually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tremendum mysterium a mystery to be trembled at when we partake thereof Assuredly we may presuppose that when Mary took the clouts into her hand to wrap about her Infant when Joseph did assist as it were in the office of a Father when the Wisemen offered their gifts when the Shepherds came out of the fields into Bethlem and peept in where Christ was laid to see what was done every action of theirs was mixt with reverent fear and joy they stood amazed they prostrated themselves there was no more spirit left in them as it is said of the Queen of Sheba when she beheld the royalty of Solomon therefore the Angel forbids not but after this sort they should dread the Lord with a filial and reverential fear Nay I go further the Angel would not disapprove of that fear which trembles at the wrath to come and endeavours to live unblameable because God is an avenger of unrighteousness for to discredit this fear by calling it fervile and to dehort Christians from it against which stone some I know do stumble it shall not be my Doctrine I hold it not safe and warrantable If they take fervile fear in that notion in which the Sententiaries do take Attrition that is to be displeased at our sins only because judgment will follow but neither sorrowing that God is
to say he that will afford honour unto Christ but even a bare enough affords him a great deal too little God did not appoint such Glory unto his Son as did just suffice but to teach us with what abundant magnificent reverence he should have been received He makes the whole train of Angels as some say the selected flower of them as others say attend him that his advent may be all in all illustrious Be it so yet I would it were not so that some do grudge and cavil at many points of ornament and decency which they find in our holy Service May not sundry Ceremonies be left out say they and yet our Religion be sound and entire Indeed our Ceremonies are not necessary in themselves we grant it why and what if such great Cathedral Churches had not been built nor such rich costly ornaments bestowed upon the Roof upon the Choire upon the Communion-Table might not Prayers be read and Sermons preacht with poorer habiliments and in meaner places well no man denies but God was faithfully serv'd in Dens and Rocks and Caves of the earth when the Apostles and Prophets were persecuted Besides there are that complain when one Minister may sufficiently and audibly read Service to the Congregation frustra fit per plura what a needless thing it is to have a Choire of Singers discharge that which ordinarily is no more than one mans labour They that make these objections let them consider what errors they fall into they may as well tax God himself for sending a multitude of Angels to congratulate the birth of his Son when two or three would have done the business for out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be justified Why should a reasonable man think it fit to glorifie God with bare scanty provision God hath given us full measure of all his blessings and running over therefore no decent Ceremony is superfluous no rich Ornament too gorgeous no strain of our Wit too eloquent no Musick too sweet no Multitude too great to advance his name who hath exalted us by the humiliation of his Son and made us capable to live with Angels in Heaven because Christ was content to lie among beasts in a manger Yet I am not out of this point concerning the multitude that came Angels came by one or by two at some other famous births in holy Scripture now they come not single or by pairs but they throng together at this Birth because this was no petty Saviour This was he that God gave in his great mercy to call all the ends of the world together from the East unto the West therefore all the dwellers in Heaven muster'd themselves together from one end to another and prophesied by their multitudes what increase the Evangelical Church should have A great multitude of all nations and kindred and people which none could number Rev. vii 9. A great draught of fish inclosed in the net so that the net was ready to break Some Feasts in the Old Law as that of the Passeover and that of Tabernacles had seven days annext to honour them Christmas-day hath twelve days joyn'd unto it to eche out the solemnity why should he not have most days to solemnize it of any Feast for through that holy Incarnation the company ot true Worshippers is infinitely larger than it was before As nothing is hidden from the heat of the Sun so every corner of the earth is disclosed to the light of the Gospel And remember that there is no variation or change in God as he appointed many Angels to sing out his Birth so to this time and for ever he loves to be glorified by multitudes Let two or three be gathered together in his name rather than one separatist alone but if you will multiply those two or three to hundreds to thousands of souls O then his desire is upon them that fear him and upon those thwackt congregations that call upon his name He that invited the guests in the Gospel did not think his Feast well bestowed till his room was full therefore he bid his servants scower the High-ways and bring them in that his number might be augmented I commend your private exercises of Prayer between God and your own heart that your Father that sees you devout in secret may reward you openly But those Prayers which you would have most prosperous and successful send them up in the thickest press of Prayers when a great assembly opens their lips together He that joyns his spirit with the spirit of the Church shall be heard as if he prayed with ten thousand voices Finally to bring this point to the end Angels flock by multitudes to disperse these tidings that Christ is born and who should take up this message after them but they that are called Angels in the Testaments New and Old The Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the Messenger or the Angel of the Lord of hosts Mal. ii 7. And then the Church is blessed when there is multitudo exercitus a multitude of this Ecclesiastical host a multitude of these Angels upon earth when there are many among you to break the bread of life I know after the old Proverb there may be Multi thyrsigeri pauci Bacchi many Priests and few Pulpit-men many of that office and few that officiate therefore our Saviour bad those that followed him to pray that since the harvest was plenteous and the labourers were few that the Lord of the harvest will send forth labourers into his harvest God will send forth many Reapers at the last to gather his Wheat into his Barn and to burn up the Chaff therefore if there be not many sowers and many labourers the sickle will light upon those to cut them down for weeds that being Angels in the Church and sufficient for multitude did not often tune their musick after their ditty in my Text c. The connexion of the next point will fit well with the former for thirdly they are an host of Angels and therefore many nay they must be very many and more than one rank or file that make an host-like multitude the number of fifty or an hundred would make a full train for messengers but they would be much too few to make an Army As Tigranes scoft at the Roman legions which Lucullus led says he if they come to me for Embassadors they are a fair company if they come against me for an Army they are but an handful A multitude though unarmed are a good safeguard in their populous numbers how much more when they appear in battel array and stand readily charg'd in warlike preparation But I will come in order to the reasons of this apparition There are no creatures so mean and weak but God is able to put strength into them and to raise an invincible host therefore the very Flies and Grashoppers are called his Army and an
and a tooth for a tooth but the Gospel exhibiteth patience for wrongs received and benediction for injuries And indeed the charity of the Law was but partial as I may say it admonisheth fairly Levit. xix 18. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self But this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forgetting of all evil done unto them extended only to Israelites which was not the full and large duty but an epitome of Charity If aliens from their own stock had provok'd them though many years before there 's another lesson for it Deut. xxv 17. Remember what Amaleck did unto thee by the way when ye were come forth out of Egypt Such fruit grows upon the bramble of the Law not upon the Olive tree of the Gospel God forbid that we should keep a Register what Moab or Amaleck or what any adversary hath done unto us the peace which the Angels proclaimed forbids that after the beginning of the new year we should remember the enmities or discords that were occasion'd in the old whosoever nourishes old grudges and contentions when the heavens sing peace gives the lye unto the Angels Let your ear receive this with it that all other practises of Religion having not peace and perfect amity among them are but forms of godliness which deny the power thereof This is not far off to be proved but within the verge of the Text for it will not be regarded that you give glory to God on high if there be not peace below you must leave your gift upon the Altar your glory to God and go home for peace go and be reconciled to your brother and then you are a fit instrument to give God his honour Some are always wrangling for the glory of God as they pretend and care not which way peace goes on earth Every theological conclusion I say not Articles of Faith but disputable deductions not near the foundation of Faith must be maintain'd precisely as they apprehend it or they cry out that truth is violated further than can be endured Every ceremonial observation must be either taken off or discharg'd punctually as they score a line or else they contend bitterly that Gods Worship is abused All this while two things are quite forgotten First that there is a compass and latitude for mens wits and judgments to be diverse one from another and yet no unity to be broken All points touch not to the quick and in such things because every mans reason hath not the same kind of reach and notion there may be much variety of opinions without all dissention Secondly few lay it to their thoughts that to meet in agreement as far as possibly the conservation of truth will permit is far more acceptable to God than an inflexible pertinacy which is rather rigorous than pacificous There was much ado to settle the pure Doctrine of the Church in the first four hundred years but nothing avail'd more than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers call it a condescending one to another making moderation the umpire of all strifes By these calm degrees God was more glorified among the Gentiles that were unconverted who perceived how the Christians kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace than if they had wrangled about every nicety and prosecuted every disagreement to an utter separation Peace on earth is a ready means that glory in the highest may not be scandalized And after all this that hath been said certainly the Angels meaning extends it self thus much further that the Child which was born in Bethlehem the Messias of the world would direct them in a way if men would be diligent to observe it that there should be no bloody Wars of seditious Princes in all the earth no Armies clattering together no rouling in blood it is his property to break the bow and knap the Spears in sunder and to burn the Chariots in the fire and it makes much that this is votum militare peace on earth comes from the mouth of Souldiers the Angels were arrayed like an host in battail when they preacht it as if military men could best tell the world what a blessed thing it is to have cessation from Wars and sweet agreement Our neighbour Kingdoms know the true rellish of this Doctrine who live in continual alarms losses destructions desolations alas their vintage is become not the blood of grapes but of men O 't is a most savage a very bruitish affection in them that are sick of the long continuance of peace and wish that Leagues and Truces were expired They are of another mind I warrant you that have felt the unutterable miseries of War for the space of fifteen years and more in their flourishing Empire without pause or respiration He that could certainly pronounce before them that they should enjoy the liberty of their conscience and no hostility should invade them they would receive him with as much gladness as the Shepherd heard the Angel say Glory he to God in the highest and on earth peace But the objection is ready to be cast in my way by every man I would it were not that all the divine inspirations of God have ensued plentifully upon Christs coming into the world but nothing less than peace Persecutions Massacres Contentions irreconcilable Wars these have entred in wheresoever the Gospel hath been taught and Jesus denied it not but said unto the twelve Think not that I come to send peace into the world I come not to send peace but a sword Mat. x. 34. Beloved opposition and war are not the right fruits of the Gospel no more than Ivy is the fruit of the Oak tree though it creep upon it But pre-supposing the malice and corruption of men the tidings of salvation though they exhort unto peace yet they will beget division for Satan reigns in the wicked and it makes him rage to hear celestial Doctrine preacht and that impiety which was asleep befere is roused up with the noise of the Gospel and grows tumultuous this is consequentiae necessitas non consequentis an accidental misfortune not a proper effect Yet very true that none is a greater adversary than our Saviour to some sorts of peace Pax Christi bellum indicit mundo voluptati carni demoni says Beda upon my Text The peace of Christ breaks the confederacy which sinners have in evil it defies the Devil and the vain pomp of the world it draws the sword against blasphemy and Idolatry it will not let a man be at quiet within himself when he is full of vicious concupiscence To make a Covenant with Hell as the Prophet speaks or to have any fellowship with the works of darkness as St. Paul speaks Illa mala pax est indigna hominibus bonae voluntatis that 's a pernicious peace and unworthy of those to whom that blessing belongs good will towards men
hands Defiled hands in the original are common hands for whatsoever was commonly touched by them and the Gentiles they called it defiled and in suspicion they might touch meat or vessels or apparel which was unclean by the Law they washed often to purge themselves from that defilement This is well illustrated Joh. ii where we read that at the marriage in Cana of Galilee there were ready standing six water-pots of stone after the manner of the purifying of the Jews containing two or three Firkins a piece these have reference to that Pharisaical tradition of washing often lest they should be defiled Now mark how God observes both the heathen and the Pharisees in their own weakness and out of that which they made a vain tradition he makes a gracious Sacrament A good Author cites out of the Rabbins that the Jews had added over and above Moses his institution of the Passeover first these words in eating the sower herbs with the Lamb Take and eat these in remembrance of our deliverance from bondage And likewise they gave a cup of Wine one to another with these words Take and drink this in remembrance of the same c. And from hence according to a Custom of their own our Saviour did break bread and give wine and use the same words in his holy Supper Thus both the Sacraments to please them the better had their original from some of their own Ordinances but cast in a new mold so the heathen Temples were changed to be houses of Prayer The Cross which was no better than their Gallows is made a significant and laudable Ceremony in Christian Baptism And lastly Their superstitious bathings were turn'd by John and confirm'd by Christ to be an immortal Laver. This I hope satisfies the first question how this Institution of Baptism began being never heard of untill the days of John The dignity of Johns Baptism is now to be examined It is grown like many things more to be full of difficulty because of mens contentions and without discussion of these three things it cannot be understood 1 What is the vertue of a Sacrament 2. That Johns Baptism had the same substantial vertue with the Baptism of Christ that it now hath 3. That in some respects both Baptisms being one and the same the Baptism of Christ doth exceed the Baptism of John Sacraments are thus distinguished into such as went before the fall of Adam and such as went after Before the Fall there was one Sacrament and no more that was the Tree of Life ordained to be a sign of the Covenant of Works After the Fall God did not make a Covenant of Works but of Grace with man and ever since the Sacraments are Covenants of Grace and seals of the same And they of the Old Testament betoken the Covenant promised to our Fore-fathers they of the New Testament do imply the Covenant performed Let me distinguish again that in the Old Testament all the Sacrifices and a great part of the shadows and Types are sometimes in the Fathers called Sacraments because they had a signification of Christ to come but Circumcision and the Paschal Lamb they only had the Promise of Grace and Reconciliation annexed unto them which is a great deal more than bare signification And as St. Paul speaks honourably of Circumcision that it was a Seal of the righteousness of Faith so our Church thinks it not fit to speak contemptibly of the faith of the righteous men under the Law nor of those visible signs which God appointed to establish his Promise unto them but we make them equal in efficacy with Baptism and the Lords Supper That according as their faith did apply the Promise unto them their Sacraments were as profitable for Salvation as ours Only these are Circumstantial differences 1. That our Sacraments are meerly spiritual which betoken nothing of this world The Jews Sacraments had somewhat in them both which belong'd to the body as well as to the soul for Abraham received the sign of Circumcision that he should be the Father of many Nations and the Paschal Lamb was a remembrance that they came out of Egypt out of the house of bondage 2. As the light of Faith is brighter with us the measure of the Spirit more abundant so our Sacraments are justly said to to be Virtute majora more efficacious because we are endued with better means of application 3. Our Sacraments are actu faciliora to wash and be clean and to eat bread and drink wine are performed with more facility than the cutting the foreskin of Infants or the slaying of a Lamb to eat it with sower herbs 4. Take all the Types and Sacrifices of the Jews together which were an heavy burden because of their multitude then our Sacraments are numero pauciora we have but twain and so their number is not troublesom These are accidental differences but otherwise as St. Austin said of Manna that it was to them as the Lords Supper is to us In signis diversis fides eadem the Elements were divers but such as begot the same faith and are tokens of the same Lord Jesus Christ and beget the same Salvation That which thwarts this Doctrine is the distinction of the Schoolmen that the Sacraments ordained in Moses Law were significancies of Grace but the Sacraments of Christ did exhibit and confer Grace What means that Surely he that did eat the Paschal Lamb by faith to him it was spiritual nourishment and he that eats the Lords Supper to him only it is spiritual nourishment I can see no odds The late Romish Writers disclaim their gross opinion maintained long ago that in men capable of reason and knowledge for we set Infants aside the taking of the Sacrament should add a benefit to the Receiver Ex opere operato externo sine motu interno says Biel by the meer outward act without an inward preparation This opinion their Cardinal Controverser disavows for he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks his own damnation Then if Faith be requisite in the Participant I cannot see how one Sacrament exhibits Grace more than another It is far from my meaning to diminish the excellency and vertue of our Sacraments No I had rather set all disputations aside and say with St. Austin Quorum vis inenarrabiliter valet plurimum that is their power prevails in such a sort as we cannot utter how it is Yet this may be safely taught that they are not helping and partial causes of Salvation to be joyned in office with the merit of Christ but only Instruments ordained to work Salvation by the Promise of God and the application of a lively faith Origens words express much if I could explain them Non sunt justitiae sed conditurae justitiarum The Sacraments are not our righteousness but as sauce makes meat fit to be eaten so they make righteousness fit to be put upon us The Word preacht is the power
of Adam the Sacrament of waters had not been ordained as if we were refined with Fullers Sope. There are but two Baptisms spoke of in the New Testament the one of Water the other of Fire and both are put together for the use of our impurities that all defilement may be driven out Molliora per aquam duriora metalla igne expurgantur If there be spots in Linnen or in any thing that is soft and supple we take them out in water if it be dross in stubborn Metals we decoct it and scum it off in a furnace of fire So our nature is most soft and supple to contract every kind of iniquity as easily as a cloath is stain'd And our heart is hard like iron stubborn and refractory to forsake iniquity therefore God applies Water and Fire to purge us to the bottom Water in the outward Laver Fire in the inward Spirit so by Christs humility who vouchsafed to dip himself in such water as we do he merited of his Father that we should be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire Non mundari voluit sed mundare Jordanem says St. Ambrose he came not to be cleansed but to cleanse the River Jordan and all other waters for the mystical washing away of sin Unus mersit sed lavit omnes unus descendit ut ascenderemus omnes One Jesus dived into the River that we might all rise up from the death of sin one man descended into the Pool in great humility that we might all ascend up into glory Therefore if any man ask why he that was whole in every part would step into Bethesda as if he were diseased why the immaculate Son of God would wash with sinners Let him take this answer That he was brought to Baptism even as the Spirit came down upon him anon after from heaven in the shape of a Dove It was not for want of the Spirit before or that any thing could be added to that plentiful grace which did inhabit in him but to call for the Holy Ghost that it might rest upon his Church So it was not for want of cleanness that he suffered such a Ceremony at Jordan to be done unto him as belongs to them that are impure but to make the Sacrament vertuous and powerful for them that should take it after him Pro nobis Christus lavit imò nos in corpore suo lavit all our defilements if we repent and believe are wash'd away upon his body There were certain legal cleansings with water in the Statutes of Moses Figures of things to come and ordained to satisfie for pollutions that hapned through chance and ignorance but Christ submitted himself to the Ordinance of the New Testament and avoided them For 1. They were Figures what should he do with such things that was the very truth 2. They appertained to the polluted What reference could they have to him that is immaculate 3. They were appointed for trespasses of ignorance What application could they have to him who knows all things in heaven and earth and under the earth And lest he should be mistaken for one in the rank of sinful men as if he came to be baptized for the same end that we do John pronounceth him holy after the strictest manner in another Gospel not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom behold him that is without sin but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behold him that taketh away the sin of the whole world his soul must needs consist of nothing but untainted righteousness He did communicate in his Last Supper with his Disciples and this was his difference from them he took the Bread when he had blessed it Ad spirituale solatium non ad augmentum gratiae not to augment grace and charity as we do but for the delight of his Spirit So it delighted him to sanctifie the waters of our new Birth to the washing away of our sins Vnde ista vertus aquae St. Austin speaks like one astonisht Whence comes it that the poor Element toucheth the skin and mundifieth the heart But even from him whose hem of his garment an impotent woman took in her hand and Christ perceived that vertue was gone out of him and as you must not conceive any Physical inherent vertue was in his cloaths to stop an issue of bloud as there is in some stones and herbs which in their substance are medicinal so you must not mistake as if Christ had sanctified all Rivers that a strange hidden vertue is infused into such water as is blessed to baptize whereby ex opere operato by the meer aspersion the soul should become unpolluted but by this act of our Saviours it was ordained and instituted to be the matter of that Sacrament which should sanctifie the Children of God Neither doth the Doctrine of this reason stretch so far as if God could not have caused Jordan and all other Fountains to take away pollution though Christ had never been washed in his own Person for that immortal Laver is the medicine of our souls because the vertue of the Holy Ghost is upon it Spiritus novit locum suum as many of the Fathers when the world was first made the Spirit moved upon the waters and he keeps the same place in our New Birth when we are made again children I mean by adoption and grace and so far of the second reason Thirdly It appears from hence what the Prophet Isaiah foretold Chap. liii 6. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all because he hath received our sins upon him and offered himself as bail for us to his Father to discharge us from malediction therefore he was baptized in the form of a sinner and was reckoned among those that had need to be wash'd for their sins In all things it behov'd him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and a faithful High Priest Heb. ii 17. Nazianzen makes all things consist in these three Points man may be said to be born thrice 1. A miserable Infant from his mothers womb 2. He is regenerate and born again by water and the holy Spirit 3. He is brought to life again at the last day when the Grave shall give up the dead in every one of these Christ was made like unto man by his Nativity by his Baptism by his Resurrection But to be made like unto us in Baptism was more against his dignity than both the rest in some comparisons His Mother brought him forth indeed in the form of a poor helpless Infant yet you will grant that to be an Infant is the order of nature and not a misery He did overcome death at his Resurrection nothing was ever done more triumphantly he did overcome such enemies which to that time had been unvanquishable but he came to Baptism in the person of many sinners that as he had honoured our nature in his Birth so he might purifie it in Baptism to be made sin
and fell to them again seven times and no less and never made an end till his Servant told him he saw a little cloud rising out of the sea He that will give over for seven times seven repulses and will not be importunate with the Lord it were pity his desires should be successful Such constant such contrite devotion how can it choose but pierce the clouds The High Priest went once a year into the Holy of Holies with the perfume of Incense What is Incense but Prayer What is the Holy of Holies but the Kingdom of heaven O that you would believe which I am sure you ought to do that no part of Piety is so beneficial to the soul as Prayer You will remember my saying perhaps when you are upon the bed of your last sickness that Prayer is the Key to open the gate of heaven that Prayer is that address of the soul with which God appointed we should draw near unto him Now I know the most of you had rather spend your pains another way but at that last hour of anxiety unless God forsake you for your sins your heart will be intent upon nothing but upon zealous Prayer It is but a circumstance drawn into my Text from another Evangelist therefore I will pass it by with Bedes observation that Prayer is an active and a passive Benediction it draws God to us and by the same motion draws us to God as if a ship lay at Anchor tost upon the waves you may pluck the Cable with your hands and think to hale the ship to you but the Cable being of stronger tack will pluck you to the Ship The Prophet Isaiah in his Prayers was confident he could not be denied therefore he cries out O that thou wouldst burst the heavens O Lord and come down Our High-Priest Jesus offered the sweet odours of his Prayers unto his Father and loe the heavens were opened unto him The second consideration of the first Point is ended but I would you would diligently begin to practise it Thirdly I shall recite it before you how this Miracle fell out to glorifie Christ Therefore the Text says Loe the heavens were opened to him opened manifestly for the view of all beholders that were present but opened unto him because it was meant for his inauguration to honour his Mediatorship who came to redeem mankind from the curse of endless death and captivity Therefore imagine not as if the whole heavens did seem unveiled to discover all their glory but only so much of the Firmament did spangle like a Canopy advanced in state over our Saviours head as might betoken his Celestial Dignity The Father at this Baptism proclaimed him from above to be his well beloved Son and to make us understand that his love where it lights consists not in sweet words of affection only he did attire the Air in most Princely beauty to honour his well-beloved in whom he was well pleased Contrariwise at the Passion of Christ the Sun denied his light to the earth and the Regions above did never look so terrible as then with black clouds and darkness for he carried the malediction of us all upon him and it was a day of wrath and vengeance when God took punishment upon all iniquity We read of no Angel that was near to behold him at that dolorous hour upon the Cross belike it was a sight so ingrate and pitiful to behold that they withdrew themselves but at the triumph of his Baptism it is not mine but St. Austins opinion that the heavens which reach as far as the habitation of all blessed spirits were opened Vt in coelestibus esset miraculum de his quae agebantur in terris that the Angels might take this amiable spectacle into their view of those things that were done upon earth for would it not ravish the Powers of Heaven to peep into this Mystery that the Son of God should stoop so low in the River Jordan That a mortal man should hold up his hand above his head to baptize him When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from the Babylonish bondage the deliverance was so gladsom to the Land of Canaan to receive her ancient Inhabitants again that the Mountains skipped like Rams and the little Hills like young Sheep When the Apostles prayed among them that were converted and had received the Holy Ghost the place was shaken where they were assembled as if the ground could have cleft for joy Acts iv 31. Then could the Heavens contain to burst themselves for joy when Christ was initiated into his Royal Office The Earth was obsequious to the honour of such as were earthly the Heavens did honour Christ at his Baptism for the second man was from the heaven heavenly Now I come to fill up the last thing considerable in this Miracle what joy and comfort the opening of the heavens affords to all them that believe in Jesus The heavens were opened the Dove descended a voice from above proclaimed the good will of the Father to rejoyce our hearts that the immortal Laver of Baptism is able to cast all those blessings upon us not that all those were not in Christ and due to him before the Sacrament For did he then begin to have the Spirit rest upon him who is of the same eternal substance with the Spirit Or was that the first time when the heavens were opened to him of whom it is said of old Heaven is my seat and Earth is my foot stool Nor did his Father then begin to call him Son for we read in the book of the Psalms Thou art my Son this day that is from all eternity I have begotten thee When God spake and answered our Saviours Prayer from Heaven Christ turns to the Jews saying This voice came not for me but for your sakes Joh. xii 30. Likewise he might expound upon the opening of the heaven this was not for me but for your sakes Restincta est aquis baptismi romphaea flammatilis quae claudit paradisum says Ratbertus A fiery flaming Sword debarr'd the way into Paradise by Gods appointment which flame is mystically quenched in the Baptism of our blessed Mediator and now as if the Angel had said I will stop the way into Paradise no more the Heavens were opened And if Marriage be called honourable inasmuch as he vouchsafed his Presence at a Marriage at Cana in Galilee then Baptism is most honourable and blessed because he was more than present at it He came in his own person from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized To what purpose should this Scripture say Loe or behold the heavens were opened Unless it were a continual opening from that time to this how could we behold it If open and immediately shut again it were not so proper to say unto us behold But if they always stand open by the meritorious Redemption of Christ then it is an apt Phrase to say Behold the Heavens were opened
unto the worlds end The Schoolmen collect a threefold opening of the heaven in holy Scripture and every way through the power and act of Christ Says Ales In baptismo aperta est coeli janua per figuram in passione per meritum in ascensione per effectum 1. The gates of heaven were opened at this Baptism as in a Type or Figure that they should be opened and God will certainly make good whatsoever he did but shadow in a Figure 2. They were opened at the shedding of his bloud upon the Cross as by those means which did meritoriously procure the opening Therefore we sing in the Te Deum When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers 3. They were opened effectually when his own glorious body entred in once into the most Holy of Holies when the heads of the everlasting doors were lifted up at the day of his Ascension And where the head doth sit at the right hand of God the Members of the body having their sins washed clean away shall reign also The Earth never opened in holy Scripture but upon some Curse for the destruction of man The Heavens never opened but that some mighty Blessing might distil down upon us the probatum whereof is in the second general part of my Text for the first Miracle which we have handled did but make way unto the second And after the heavens were opened he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him That John Baptist had this Miracle so clearly in his eye that he saw the Spirit of God I find it not so material to the business of the Text as to insist much upon it For although some observe upon it that the first Witness that preach'd of the Son of God is conceited to be the first Witness that saw the Holy Ghost yet the Miracle hapned not so much for Johns sake as to lead the whole multitude into a right apprehension that Jesus was that holy One which came into the world for the redemption of Israel John was born of a barren woman his Garments very strange and uncouth no better than the skins of Camels clapt about him as they were flay'd from the beast his austerity of life stupendious his Preaching powerful high in estimation so that all the Regions round about came to him to be baptized this drew them to conceit that none could come into the world to be compared with John But Columba columbam docuit the Dove taught the Dove the Spirit taught the Church who was the Christ the Saviour of mankind by the descending of the Dove That which I will speak to this Point briefly shall be brancht out into a threefold inquiry 1. Whether this were a living bird or no more than the figurative Apparition of a Dove 2. How aptly the Spirit came in one figure upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at the day of Pentecost upon the Apostles 3. That the figure of a Dove doth sweetly admonish us of the properties of the Holy Ghost What manner of Dove this was is not a question of such doubtful resolution as the former how the heavens were opened for treading in the path of the Scripture as I adjudge it we may find the truth For three Evangelists say that the Spirit did sit upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were a Dove then add St. Luke unto it that the Dove came in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a bodily shape and these put together me seems do strongly prove two things 1. That it was not viva columba a Pigeon out of the Dove-Coats with a living soul for to notifie that there was but the outward fashion and resemblance of such a bird in three Gospels we read it was but quasi columba like a Dove And yet that you may not take it to be mere Phenomenon a shadow to perswade the eye having no substance in truth St. Luke hath not omitted that it was a bodily shape Verae effigies columbae a body created for this service having the true lineaments of a Dove To make both these opinions good by several illustrations And first what need it to be of the true Species of Doves Was not miraculous Omnipotency as much seen to frame such a shape out of the Elements at an instant and to put motion in it to descend upon the head of Christ as if it had been a very foul It was a work which could not be effected but by the infinite and incomprehensible Trinity For the Dove was a representation of the Holy Ghost the voice which came from heaven did speak the Father only the humane nature was united only to the Person of the Son but the Dove the voice the humane nature were the works of the whole Trinity which coequally works all effects in the world You may fully conceive what natural composition this Dove had by those bodily shapes wherein the Angels or God appeared of old to the Patriarchs they were not actuated by a soul but moved about by God or his Angels for the present turn as a Ship is by the Pilot. When their Errand was dispatcht the body vanisht away into air So the use of this Miracle being accomplished at Jordan the Dove was no more seen but instantly resolved into Elements Besides that which came down upon the Disciples at Whitsontide was a cloven tongue like as of fire did ever any man say it was fire indeed So this Apparition upon the head of Christ was like a Dove But for what purpose or necessity should it be a Dove indeed For Christ was man indeed because he took upon him the nature of man to redeem it therefore the reason is forcible that the Holy Ghost should not come down in a Dove indeed because he took not upon him the nature of a Dove to redeem it Secondly I gathered from St. Luke though it had not the life of a Dove yet it had lineaments and compacture of true substance like a Dove Christ came among us bodily in the flesh wherefore says St. Austin to shew that the assumption of a corporeal nature did not make an inequality of persons in the Godhead a voice was heard from heaven in the Person of the Father as if it had proceeded from the instruments of the body and a bodily Dove did descend from heaven in the Person as it were of the Holy Ghost Likewise the coming down is the motion of a body The Spirit is every where and cannot descend to any place which was not filled with his presence from the beginning of the world but in hôc signo in this bodily shape and effigie he came down And mark Beloved the Devil is Spiritus cadens I saw Satan fall like lightning down he tumbles to the nethermost Pit and all that follow him but the Holy Ghost descends like an humble Spirit according as our Saviour bids us place our selves at
resolution into his humane nature to fight with and to overthrow the tentations of the Devil I shall reach this doctrine unto you the better upon certain questions And first what needed this Preface of all other before this mighty work that he was guided by the Spirit What action throughout all his life did not deserve the same commendation A young Rhetorician dedicated an Oration to one Antalcidas What is the subject of your Oration quoth he Says the young Orator the praise of Hercules Fie man says Antalcidas what needless pains have you taken Who did ever dispraise Hercules So it may seem as redundant an expression to say that Christ was led by the Spirit at this time for through the grace of Union and the grace of Unction he was always conducted by the Spirit It is sufficient for answer to this that this was the first exploit of those that Christ did act to shew he was the Christ and the Mediator of God and man therefore this clause being prefixt to the formost of his actions is a title to all the rest he was led of the Spirit 2. It is not to be taken per modum inhaerentiae that he was now full of the Holy Ghost as if he had received a larger measure than he had before but by way of manifestation for the Spirit even now had visibly descended upon him in the shape of a Dove Semper fuit actus à spiritu sed jam maximè ejus vis apparuit the common gloss of the best Writers The Spirit did always lead him and dwel in him but now it did appear and put forth its strength I move another question be not offended that I move these hard things as it were by way of Catechism are the leadings of the Spirit of more sorts than one Yea these two are degrees one above another The first is general to all the Sons of God for they are all stirred up to faith and hope and good works by a divine illumination If ye be led by the Spirit then are ye not under the Law of the flesh Gal. v. 18. The second is special to the chiefest and principal Ministers of God as Kings Prophets and Apostles when Saul was anointed King over Israel the Lord gave him another heart his Spirit came upon him and he Prophesied So Christ our anointed Prophet prepared himself for a famous enterprize and he had the badge of Gods good liking The Spirit came upon him or he was led by the Spirit Suffer but one interrogatory more and it is this Did the Spirit thrust on Christ and as it were hale him with compulsion at this time So a man might hap to fall into that error by St. Marks words The Spirit driveth him into the Wilderness And the Vulgar Latine gives the same offence Luk. iv 1. Agebatur a spiritu he was pusht on by the Spirit For answer hard words are soon mollified by good construction The very Heathen could say Generosus est animus hominis magisque ducitur quà m trahitur Mans will is a free generous thing and had rather be led fairly than drawn forcibly Therefore the other Evangelists must be expounded by St. Matthew that the Spirit led him by illumination and propounding the will of his Father unto him not by violence and coaction So Cajetan Non vis significatur sed efficientia impulsus spiritus All was done by the efficacy and motion of the Spirit nothing by compulsion Some there are who care not what old Pillars of Divinity they pull down to set up their new devises that hold that Christ did obey his Father and the Divine Law with so much liberty and freedom that it were no offence to say Christ could not have obeyed his Father not have kept the Law and so by consequent have sinned and whereas it is certain he did not sin they will neither allow that the Hypostatical Union was the cause of it O strange Theologie nor yet the grace of Unction wherewith he was anointed above his fellows O strange impudency Neither of these was fundamentum impeccabilitatis And all this to maintain that because he did merit by his obedience his will was not determined to do good but left indifferent to good or evil Away with this over audatious disputing Christ could not but fulfil all righteousness I must do the works of him that sent me Joh. iv 9. All good things conducible to the work of a Mediator were necessary to be done And it was necessary Gods will being declared that it should be fulfilled of Christ although he was not necessitated by a violent determination but moved willingly and obediently unto it by a certain perswasion Non necessitatus erat sed propter illud quod necessarium erat sponte motus says Abulensis The object propounded was necessary to be done of him though he accepted it with much alacrity and desire and no way driven by constrainment Therefore this was not like Peters case Another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not Joh. xxi 18. But the hand of the Lord was with him and carried him whither he liked himself Non invitus aut captus sed sponte liberè venit says St. Hierom He was not drawn on as if his own will drew back but rejoyced as a Giant to run his course To say no more but this Oblatus est quia voluit It was his own good will that he was slain for the sins of the world it was his own pleasure not to dread death and it was as much his own pleasure to grapple with tentations And so much for that question how the Spirit did lead him into the Wilderness You shall now be partakers of the third thing why this passage is inserted into the story that he was led up of the Spirit Good reasons are rather to be esteemed by their weight than their multitude take these few to content you 1. The Spirit is said to lead him because de did not run on blindfold but knew the task which he undertook he foresaw the difficulties that he would meet and weighed them in the balance of judgment and discretion Non ignarus sed consilio ducebatur says St. Ambrose The counsel of the Spirit did enlighten him to see what he had in hand Saul thought that David was but a fool-hardy Stripling and knew not what a perilous thing it was to fight with such a Giant as Goliah Thou art but a youth and he a man of War from his youth thou art not able to go against this Philistine But David shewed the reason of his confidence the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the Lion and out of the paw of the Bear he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine He had considered Gods mercies and protection therefore he was led by the Spirit into that noble action Beware to plod on like Balaam with our eyes shut never discerning what is
to the Members of his body and it was laudible in him to wish some trial that he might encounter the Devil and spoil him of his Kingdom Tentationem exoptare in eo qui succumbere nequit est laudabile say the Schoolmen It was an heroical magnanimity in Christ to wish tentations so might fall upon him because he could not be vanquished And therefore some gather an observation contrary to St. Chrysostom that our Saviour went into the Wilderness and fasted forty days and after was an hungry destinating that the Devil should find him out Obviam procedit Diabolo quem scit non pug naturum nisi lacessitum He went out to dare the Tempter because he knew he would not come on and fight unless he were provok'd yet it is the sounder way to collect that for our instruction when we should examine this Story Christ did not go in a bravado or a challenge to offer himself to be tempted but the Spirit led him as who should say this was not Curtius in foveam a precipitated intrusion Let not man expose himself to temptation Dubia est victoria who knows that carries the badge of Adams frailty in his body whether he shall come off with victory or captivity Happy is that man and the Lord shall bless his integrity who will not come near the suburbs of sin for no man can keep the Commandments unless he be careful to avoid the first invitations of evil and to shun the farthest and remotest impediments of obedience Have you seen little children dare one another which should go deepest into the mire But he is more childish that ventures further and further even to the brim of transgression and bids the Devil catch him if he can I will but look and like says the wanton where the object pleaseth me I keep company with some licentious persons says an easie nature but for no hurt because I would not offend our friendship I will but bend my body in the house of Rimmon when my Master bends his says Naaman I will but peep in to see the fashion of the Mass holding fast the former profession of my faith Beloved I do not like it when a mans conscience takes in these small leaks it is odds you will fill faster and faster and sink to the bottom of iniquity I have read of a Bishop that was performing the Office of Baptism to many that were converted from Gentilism and when a Virgin came near the Font of an extraordinary beauty he desired a substitute to discharge the place for he would not please his eyes no not for a few minutes to look upon such an object as allured his fancy What a careful Christian this was that kept off occasions of sin and would not suffer them before him as David charged his treacherous Son Absalom to keep a distance and not to come near Jerusalem Hannibal that approved Souldier placed himself in a battel where many Darts of the enemy flew round about him and when some commended him that he ventured his person upon the mouth of danger you mistake says Hannibal I am more ashamed of my self this day than ever I was in my life that being the General of the Field I came in peril to be wounded This is well applied to every Souldier that fights under Christs Banner when we are run into tentations it is good and blessed to come off with the least impairment to our innocency But why did you come so near the flame that you were in peril to be scorched Job comforted himself that he had kept his eyes from wandring Jeremy was careful neither to lend upon Usury nor to borrow upon Usury In a word when Tentations fall upon you by Gods permission resist them manfully but if you mean to be led by the Spirit do not wittingly and daringly fall upon tentations This is the sum of the third observation I defer the fourtn to a larger tractate To God the Father c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the VVilderness to be tempted of the Devil THis Text you see will not let me go I have been parting from it twice and still it invites me to stay As the Levite took his farewel at Bethlem sundry times and could not get away Judg. xix And now I have good cause to tarry being led by the leading of the Spirit Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile with him go with him twain says Christ Mat. v. 21. And if the Spirit of God compel us to go with him one Sermon we will go with him twain it cannot be irksom or weary to follow such contemplations But it is fit I should satisfie you where I stick in this verse for the present that I do not proceed how Christ was tempted wherefore he was tempted by whom he was tempted when he was tempted I have rid my hand of these discourses Likewise I have passed thus far how Christ was marshalled into the field by the divine impulsion of the Holy Ghost Here I resume my task into my hands where I left it That which remains for me to survey and for you to exercise your attentions upon is this First Since Christ himself was led by the Spirit when he went forth to fast and pray and to fight against the Devil therefore I will make enquiry how the grace of God doth lead us to eschew evil and to do good And secondly I will bring you along to consider the place whereon our Saviour planted himself to encounter his enemy it was the Wilderness How all men whom God calls to the saving truth by the preaching of the Spirit are led by the Spirit that is governed and directed by his grace is the Doctrine with which I begin in which intricate subject I confess my self to be in a Wilderness before I come to the last part of my Text if ever there were a question which troubled the whole world it is this How the will of man is guided unto Salvation by the supernatural help of God It is run into a Proverb that there are three things almost impossible to be traced The one how a King doth govern his Kingdom the secret reasons of state make the course of his actions so obscure Cor regis inperscrutabile says Solomon The other how grace doth govern the soul And the third how God doth govern the world We are sure divine motions move within us and yet we know not how they move Our Saviour did admonish us it would be a hard matter to understand when he spake of the Holy Ghost who doth regenerate us The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou knowest not whence it comes nor whither it goes What impression a spiritual quality doth or can make upon a spiritual substance Philosophy cannot judge of it but so far as the Scripture opens the mysterie Divinity may examine it and faith must believe it In these labyrinths
called to hear the word of faith and of none other God might have left them in their bloud as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks and given them over to the reprobate sense of their own mind but because he requires a new Covenant from all those to whom Christ is preached therefore he gives them new abilities lest he should seem to invite them in vain but being supplied with these internal excitations of supernatural help they are unexcusable This is the way to give God the glory and to make all the hearers of the Word know what talent they have received But the force of exhortations and expostulations were taken away if a sinner were converted by Enthusiasms and sudden inspirations If God would immediately bring a man to himself without feeling of his sin without hating it without desiring pardon it were superfluous to say We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain I marvel you are so soon removed from him that called you to the grace of Christ Gal. i. 6. They that heard St. Peters Sermon Acts ii 37. at the beginning of it were unbelieving and rebellious Jews before he had ended they were terrified felt the guiltiness of innocent bloud upon themselves desired freedom submitted themselves to direction Men brethren what shall we do All these were good internal effects but as yet they were not converted and regenerate as yet unbelievers for had they believed they had never made that question What shall we do They come to that in the next verse says Peter Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins Well they followed this counsel and then at the soonest and not before they were justified in Christ for thereupon it is said There were added unto the Church above three thousand souls So I have made that conclusion undeniable I think that Christ doth produce some effects of initial grace before conversion The next conclusion is that since the natural man hath no powers in the freedom of his will to do good therefore the first effects of grace that are brought forth in us the Holy Ghost doth produce them solely and intirely the will of man conferring no strength at all As the ground receives the seed which is cast into it so a natural man takes the good seed from God which he casts into him passivè receptivè only passively and by way of reception Even they that will not be beaten off from their tenet but that the will of man hath some cooperancy with Gods grace in the act of conversion yet they give their suffrage to this doctrine that this preventing grace or grace of preparation is res infusa not comparata a thing infused from above not gotten by our diligence or acquired even as the air doth not dispose it self to admit the light of the Sun but is illuminated by the presence of the Sun They are best known by the name of Semi-pelagians who would not admit this truth for it was taught in their School that the beginning of faith was from man and the increase from the power of the Holy Ghost But why did they teach that the beginning of faith was from man Because they imagined that the talent of grace was promised to them that used the talent of nature well Habenti dabitur to him that hath it shall be given But I would have them find me any such Covenant in all the Scripture which God made with man that such as negotiated the talent of nature well should have an increase of grace for their reward It is a trespass and a foul one to bely a man and to father Covenants upon him which he never made the offence is greater to alledge Covenants from God and yet no tittle leaning that way in all his Testament The powers of nature are blindness of understanding obdurateness of will perverseness of affections what reward can be due to these but eternal death When thou wert in thy bloud Ezek. xvi that is when thou wert under the loathsom filthiness of sin and under the condemnation of death I said unto thee live that is I began to extend my mercy of vivification upon thee The beginning and introduction of all Christian vertue is to think of God From whence comes this From any good parts wherewith we were born Go to the fountain of wisdom and ask there We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. iii. 5. The next a b c and first rudiment of goodness is to pray to God Is nature a sufficient Mistris to teach you that Is it not the Spirit which the Lord sends into us crying Abba Father I will pour upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and supplications and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem Zach. xii 10. Thus St. Austin proves that the very firstlings and proems of all our Christian dispensations are from God because St. Paul said I obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful 1 Cor. vii 25. Misericordiam consecutus sum ut fidelis essem non ut fidelior essem That I was made faithful or had any faith it was the benefit of God and not only by way of increase or augmentation that I was made more faithful otherwise we should lead the Spirit to take his aim from us and not be led by the Spirit a Passive Verb and fit to express that we are merely passive in the first preparations of faith I shall speak anon touching that efficacy of the Spirit upon the heart of man But touching the work of preparatory grace in the first onset it brings illumination with it it dispels darkness from our understanding it makes us perceive we are gone astray in our sins like sheep that are lost it makes us know God is to be feared it makes us discern that we are in a wretched estate this illumination cannot be resisted Mens nostra ipsum scire effugere non potest Philosophy doth dictate that we cannot repel the knowledge of a thing palpably demonstrated before us though we would it pierceth as easily into the mind as a needle through a thin cloath Yet I do not say this grace which first possesseth the soul and makes it willing to good motions which was most averse before doth compel a man or force him compulsion is a word of hostility rather than of favour It comes with that sweetness and authority together that it will not be said nay Thus we are led by the Spirit in the first introduction of preparatory grace The third thing to be considered is how the Spirit doth lead us all the while we use this preparatory grace before conversion St. Austin comprehended all in this short rule Primùm gratia Dei operatur bonam voluntatem deinde per eam First Gods grace doth effect a good will in us and then by that will so illuminated and excited it produceth
give him the onset this is no God So Jesus grazing about like a poor sheep that could find nothing but stones for fodder the Wolf grins upon him but he proved to be the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Impar congressus Achilli and the wild beast of the Forest was repelled by him that led captivity captive the more infirmity pretended on Christs part the more glorious the victory Fames Domini pia fraus est ne caveat tentare Diabolus says Bonaventure This fast and hunger was a pious fraud or stratagem laid by God to draw on Satan to tempt his Lord and Maker and so prove him guilty of a most foul rebellion St. Austin doth so receive this opinion that he rejects all others it may be said says he that fasting came after Baptism even as a good diet is to be kept after health recovered for fear of a relapse but that is impertinent Illius causa jejunii non Jordanis tinctio sed Diaboli tentatio fuit This fast had no reference to the dipping in Jordan but to cozen Satan and make him rashly adventure upon the ensuing tentation So St. Ambrose likewise and almost all the best Authors of the best antiquity It is a fatal requital upon some busie wits that as they are sharp and sore deceivers so when their own turn comes about they are as sorrily deceived Marcus Crassus was one of the cunningst flatterers that ever was and yet no man so easily and so notoriously gull'd with flattery So Satan is the grand Impostor of mankind and yet this grand Imposture was thrust upon him to enter combate with Christ who is invincible and omnipotent And let cheaters and cunning practisers beware that their own shot rebound not upon themselves God hath a retorsion in store a fallere fallentem which will fall upon them in spight of subtilty and circumspection They think they work closely and no harm shall happen unto them I am sure that David prophesies how certainly they shall be stew'd in their own sawce they are taken in the crafty wiliness that they imagined for others in the same net that they hid privily is their foot taken The ways of a Serpent are slippery and treachery shall be tript up with treachery The Lord hath spoken it and the Lord hath done it I have set these three reasons why Christ fasted in the formost rank because they are warrantable Brentius I think mistook when he interserted this for a reason It is a great anxiety or a great sickness which keeps a man from his meat for a few days so as he thought the tentations of Christ were so violent and horrible that for forty days he eat nothing I suppose when I come to shew at what time the Devil began his work I shall make it appear that no tentation was offered to Christ until the fortieth day Howsoever the Author took his aim amiss for although we read that our Saviour endured a most violent conflict in the garden when he sweat drops of bloud in his Prayer the case is not the same in this conflict with the Devil In the Garden he stood before his Father representing himself not as the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased but under the imputation and malediction of all our sins and he struggled with his Fathers justice that he might bear our iniquities in his own body upon the cross This was a wrestling indeed to put all his strength and powers in a heat and all his spirits in an agony But to beat down the suggestions of the evil one it put him to no sollicitousness or anxiety never was victory got so easily None of those poysoned darts could stick in him this was the Lamb without spot that could commit no sin but came to take away the sins of the world This error is easily put off the next opinion is maintained more pertinaciously that this fasting was part of that obedience by which he merited exaltation of his Father and in like manner the pennance of fasting is meritorious to the obedient members of his Church Thus they I will examine this strictly by several pieces First to enter into a tedious disputation how or what Christ did merit by his obedience cannot consist with the time and it doth not piece well with my Text. But take a little knowledge of it by this similitude the Angels of heaven have a double operation one that they stand always before the face of our Father which is in heaven another that they are ministring Spirits and do good offices to the Church upon earth as they do always stand before God so they must needs be completely blessed having the substance of their reward but as they assist and help us so they have some kind of increase or as it is called accidental addition to their reward So Christ in the union of the two natures could not but ever behold the divine glory so that the fruition of that eternal happiness was ever conjoyned to him but inasmuch as the dispensation of our redemption was his continual exercise upon earth so that deserved him some additions to his glory in the glorification of the sensible part of mans nature the speedy resurrection of the body his speedy ascension or exaltation into heaven and as some do add that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow or if so be these things were so intrinsecal to the hypostatical union that they could not be parted from it yet thus it may be well agreed Mereri est de debito facere majus debitum These things accrued to Christ meritoriously because that which was due by the hypostatical union was made more due by his humiliation I add secondly that the great abstinence and sweet temperance of our Saviours life was part of his humiliation but for the forty days wherein he fasted I concur with them that maintain this was no part of his abstinence What abstinence could there be says one in this miraculous act when all that while he had no provocation in his appetite to long for meats no more than the Angels have who taste no corruptible things The faculties of nutrition call'd for no sustenance God repressed the appetite says Cajetan from feeling the provocations of hunger and thirst even as he suppressed the devouring quality of the fire that it should not burn the three constant Saints that were cast into it I make it my third reply though Christs obedience in his humiliation was meritorious yet there is so much disparity between his obedience and ours that men can take no measure of it I do not only mean in this difference which is so well known that he did exactly fulfil all the Law of God and for our part in many things we sin all There is another thing which puts as wide a difference between us Christ obeyed his Father because he would we because we must He obeyed without any terrour pronounced to compel
Receiver Also we apply general Promises to our selves by the word of absolution For although God only pardons sins yet he hath promised to his Priests if our hearts be well disposed to admit their work Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis What they loose upon earth shall be loosed in heaven but the special motive is the inward testimony of the Holy Ghost speaking in the conscience of true believers by the effects of grace This last is it which is opposed by some namely that there is no assurance ordinarily begot by the Testimony of the Spirit to a mans private spirit that he is the child of God But this I will prove This is not denied that this is the faith of the Gospel on which we lay hold for eternal life whosoever truly believeth on Christ he shall be saved and cannot a man infallibly infer but I do through Gods grace truly believe in Christ Cannot a man search into his own heart that he doth receive Christ not only in his judgment by a firm willing and unfained assent but also by an earnest desire to be made partaker of him and by a setled resolution to acknowledge him to be his Saviour Surely the mind is not ignorant of its own actions when it understandeth when it assenteth it knoweth it self to assent when it desireth it knoweth it self to desire when it resolveth it knoweth it self to resolve Much more is it able to examine it self being holpen by the Spirit of God I may boldly say the Letter of the Scripture is not more plain for any point of Divinity than for this Rom. viii 16. The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God Either we can feel this witness and make use of it or to what end is it given And why else are we bidden to feel and try that good work of the Spirit if it be in our selves Examine your selves whether you be in the faith 2 Cor. xiii 5. The true sorrowful penitent hath not less comfort now than if Christ were still upon the earth But to some of them while he lived in Jury it was graciously spoken Daughter be of good chear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be confident thy sins are forgiven thee And again I have prayed Peter that thy faith may not fail he let Peter know so much that he might enjoy that comfortable perswasion They that oppose frame this retorsion Some of the most excellent Saints as Peter and Paul knew that Christ did live in them and that they were living members of his body for whom God had received the Crown of life yet this they attained unto not by the ordinary strength of faith but by extraordinary revelation No such matter for says St. Peter Give deligence to make your Calling and Election sure This exhortation were frustrate to stir up our diligence for that work if certitude of salvation come only by extraordinary revelation and St. Paul protesting that neither life nor death could separate not himself only but us many more of the Elect from the love of God draws his perswasion from such reasons as were common to him with all the Saints Rom. viii 32. to the end of the Chapter Because God hath not spared his own Son for our sakes because with him he would freely give us all things because Christ is risen from the dead because he sits at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us And now I will draw up my meaning in this first conclusion 1. Nothing but true faith can breed this particular application that any regenerate person should have affiance for his own salvation 2. That true faith doth not attain it in all but is kept back in many by tentations afflictions weakness want of instruction 3. Every good Christian ought to endeavour to get this assurance 4. Many without presumption have that stedfast and infallible comfort of Christs mercies applied unto themselves 5. In all that are truly justified it hath a sure foundation to beget it if they would well examine it Let no man therefore cavil upon any of these Points single unless he remember them all together The second conclusion follows the Holy Ghost doth beget this certitude of salvation in some measure in the faithful by causing them to examine what good fruits they have produced already from a lively faith and do firmly resolve to produce hereafter Let a well-guided conscience search how contritely we have repented us of those sins which we have committed What good works we have brought forth I mean good in their kind according to the manifold imperfections of our frailty examine whether they were done to be praised of men for fear of the Magistrate for fear of infamy or for Gods glory Whether we would not willingly leave all we have life and all rather than lose our integrity Examine all these things after Gods Word and not after the fashion of the world and what strong and serious resolutions you have for the time to come and upon strict inquiry if you find a good account then conclude I feel the Lord dwell in me by his holy Spirit I feel by these good effects he will not forsake me If any look for Enthusiasms as if God should whisper this to them in their ear they are much deceived Mark by what Index St. Paul directs us by the marks of sanctification There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit And St. John clean throughout his first Epistle Hereby do we know that we know him if we keep his Commandments And by this we know we are translated from death to life if we love the brethren St. Austin thus upon it for an interpreter Let every man enter into his own heart and if he find there brotherly charity let him be secure for he is passed from death to life I confess it and I admonish you upon it it is no such easie thing as the most imagine to try and find out whether our charity be rooted in a lively faith And in examination of particular actions from whence it must be manifested there may be much deceit much mistaking this causeth doubtings and fears and suppositions and intermissions of confidence Yet this is a possibility to sound the depth of a mans own heart and so St. Austin pleads on my side again A man may know the charity wherewith he loveth his brother better then he knoweth his brother Some there are and not a few who would cloy the Doctrine of special faith with this absurdity That many are encouraged thereby to run on in all manner of iniquity as if it were no matter how many and how grievous sins they committed so long as they were assured by this special application of Christ that all their sins were remitted But mark this second conclusion and it is abundantly enough to put to silence this cavillation
bodie nor with our substance He shall have neither our goods nor our knee but likely we put it off He shall have our soul why this is only to give God his thirds as a reverend Father saies to compound like Bankrupts and give him two parts less than we owe him and yet we look for ten thousand times more than He owes us We have some that are to be suspected for a kind of Sadduces among us that believe no resurrection of the body else they would never palter with discipline but be more forward in the prostration and worship of the bodie than the Church could be to command them Some have given a great blow to this duty by harping upon the bare words of S. John and not digesting the true meaning of his Text Joh. iv 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Mark the occasion why this was spoken and the words precedent The woman of Samaria moved a doubt whether God was to be worshipped at Jerusalem as the Jews taught or at Mount Girizin as the Samaritans taught Now the Samaritans worshipt God falsely they worshipt they knew not what says Christ The Jews held strictly to Moses Law and observ'd figures and shadows of things to come which were all to give place and vanish upon the incarnation of our Lord. Now it is easie to discern the substance of our Saviours answer what it is to serve God in spirit and truth Truth is opposed to the false superstition of the Samaritans Spirit is opposed to the Jewish figures and sacrifices And Christ tells the woman God will neither be served any more after the Samaritan way or Jewish way but after the newness of the Gospel The hour cometh and now is when ye shall neither worship the Father in this Mountain nor at Jerusalem but they shall worship him in spirit and truth Do these words exempt the worship of the body nothing less The word spirit is not taken there for the soul divided from the body signifying only an internal act of the spirit but for all manner of virtuous actions as well external as internal which proceed from the grace of the Holy Spirit being acceptable to God because the Holy Spirit brings them forth not because they are figures of things to come I will sing with the spirit says St. Paul 1 Cor. xiv 15. and yet singing is a bodily action He did worship in spirit when he said For this cause bow I my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Ephes iii. to come to a point Remember therefore how we adore God in spirit when we adore him with those outward gestures of the body to which we are stirred up by the Spirit of truth And so much of the first member of my Text which I laid out to be handled by it self the Lord God is to be worshipped The next duty is the other Pillar of Religion which upholds the Church of the Elect the Lord God is to be served By worship you know already we understand all humble outward devotion and reverence Now by service you must conceive the inward conformity of the heart to all duty and obedience The will of the Lord is revealed to us two manner of ways Either as he doth promise us blessings and benefits and assures us great rewards in the Kingdom of heaven Or as he doth stipulate and covenant with us what we shall do to obtain his favour In the former respect as he hath given us the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth most liberally and as he doth promise greater fruits of his mercy most graciously we fall down and worship him for his benefits but as he doth condition with us to do somewhat for his sake that he may leave a blessing with us we serve him faithfully and bind our inward faculties our soul and our mind to be prompt and ready to execute all obedience That you may the better compose your hearts to attend Gods will in all things and to serve him I will supply your knowledge with these few motives following First There is no other Lord beside our God properly called 1 Cor. viii Though there be that are called Gods as there be Gods many and Lords many that is by opinion and nuncupation but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him And again Eph. v. 4. One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God who is above all and through all and in you all Super omnes dominio per omnes providentiâ in omnibus justificatione Above all by his Dominion through all by his Providence in all by sanctifying us with his grace and justifying us from sin He that is subject to none inferiour to none independent of himself in all his power He may well be called a Lord and such a Lord deserves to be served Petty Magistrates hold of Princes favours and Kings hold their tenure under God Therefore some of the Roman Emperours having the perceivance that they could command nothing absolutely if he that sate above the heavens did stop it they would not be called Domini because themselves were servants in relation to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords therefore their circumscribed power did not answer the title When the Scripture brings in the most High the saying is Haec dicit Dominus Thus saith the Lord. If we would examine this after the stile of man you would say Lord of what Why universal Lord without any particular designment Specifications to be Lords of this or that are earthly phrases are notes of minority Attalus the Martyr was askt what name that Lord had whom he served Says he Qui plures sunt nominibus discernuntur qui autem unus est non indiget nomine Where there are many Lords they must be distinguish'd by their properties but what need that Lord a name for distinction who is the only Ruler by himself without any equal or partner in his dominion now since we must serve for sin hath brought servitude into the world whom would a man choose to serve but that only Lord to whose sheave all other sheaves do bend and who only hath authority Secondly In all service you will consider in what state and place it puts you Do so in this and spare not But let St. Peter be the Judge 1 Epist ii 9. Ye are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people There is royalty in the very service Cui servire est regnare To do him service is a Kingly Ministry Nay there is more in one of our Church Collects in one Line of it than in the most Augustious title of a King God whose service is perfect freedom A King may be so much subject to naughty passions as he shall be in vile thraldom to his own sensualities and so
Elias fled into the Wilderness or took up a private Mansion in Sarepta and such secret places rather than abide in the face of Israel where the filthy worship of Baal was professed And though he had shewn himself to Obadiah yet he would not go down with Ahab to Jezreel till the whole Fry of the Priests of Baal was destroyed And which is more remarkable in Gods Judgements against that capitol sin for three years and a half no Rain had faln upon the earth in all that Land but as soon as ever those that sacrificed to Baal were slain in the very next verse says Elias to Ahab Get thee up eat and drink for there is a sound of abundance of rain You see that the Heavens did deny sustenance to the earth even untill the very hour that Idolatry was abandoned I ground my Doctrine but very seldom upon Prophesies which are not fulfilled or whose interpretation is not very evident yet for once I will be bold to cite another mans judicious conjecture that the Spirit of God in the Revelation Chap. vii doth so bury Idolatry in oblivion that he would not have it named in that Catalogue where the true servants of God are rehearsed For those holy ones who had the Seal of the living God are reckoned in the Apostolical number because they lived and died in the Faith of the Apostolical Doctrine twelve thousand out of each of twelve Tribes and the Tribes are named from the Kindreds of Israel even the Sons of Jacob yet none are said to be sealed of the Tribe of Dan and though Manasses be mentioned yet his brother Ephraim is not spoken of but Joseph the Father of them both in his place I approve that Interpreters way that says the names of Ephraim and Dan are not in this List because they were the first that let in Idolatry into the Church of God after Moses died The certainty of that is to be found in xvii and xviii Chap. of Judges Micah a man of Mount Ephraim was the first we read of that had an house of Gods and a molten and a graven Image he kept these in honour of the true God you may see that in the Chapter as clearly as your hand at noon-day that is no excuse in Chap. xviii The Daâ—tes rob this man of his Gods and the children of Dan set up Micahs graven Image which he made all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh for these Idolatries the names of Dan and Ephraim are not in the blessing of that book of life Then what agreement can be made with them or what unity in the outward profession of the faith who will worship God in Pictures and Statues and give religious honour to Creatures Moses incited Levi that such should not live Elias would not converse with men till the whole ging of those that served Baal was destroyed the Angel of God omits the names of Dan and Ephraim in the recitation of the Faithful our Saviour forbore to send the Devil packing for the two former Tentations but utterly casts him off and as one says upon my Text excommunicates him from his blessed company as soon as ever his mouth formed Idolatry Then the Devil leaveth him We use to send Spials after our enemies in battel to mark where they take up their lodging whether they march fairly from us or whether they are put to flight After the rule of this policy it may concern us you see to note whither the Adversary betook himself when he departed from Christ So that the next question is not unnecessary to be answered to what place he went upon the leaving our Saviour Some do so interpret it as if this mighty Fury before these temptations were cast out of heaven into the earth but from that time that Christ rebuked him and bad him avant further he went away from the earth to the lowest darkness And that Beelzebub was bound he should hurt the earth no more in his own person but only by his Instruments Binding is metaphorically taken to be bridled from doing mischief if not altogether yet at least in some restraint So our Lord speaks in a Parable Mat. xii 29. that in casting out Devils he entred into the strong mans house and bound that strong man and spoyled his house Bound him from tormenting those whom Christ would spare But as yet he was not bound in chains of eternal darkness No less than three of the Fathers Irenaeus Hilary and Hierom expound that in the xii of St. Matth. by this place of my Text that the strong man was bound when Christ retorted all his temptations As yet he is loose to do hurt and shall be loose for the trial of the Elect and for the punishment of ungodly doers till Christ have gathered all his Saints about him in the Kingdom of heaven The evil Angels are reserved unto judgment it is St. Peters phrase they shall find the worst at last and that they know well enough for when our Saviour dealt roughly with them and even afflicted them with some pain as it is supposed when he cast them out of men possessed they expostulate it as an injury Art thou come to torment us before the time As who should say What Tormented before the day of Judgment I like it not therefore to have it so expounded that the Tempter went from Christ to take up his lodging in Hell for ever Surely against the Passion of our Lord the Prince of darkness and all his Litter had their free exercise to stir up enemies against him more than ever Says he This is your hour and the power of darkness Luke xxii 53. And if that were done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry If they might use the Master so what exemption can the Servants expect They may rove about and hurt the world till the day of Judgment They thought they asked but their due when a Legion of them petitioned not to be sent in Abyssum into the bottomless pit of Hell at that time and not to be committed to that woe sooner than the last and dreadful day of the Lord. He had his license then when he went from Christ to go to and fro in any place of the earth and to walk up and down in it as he once answered God in the history of Job Quocunque eunt sua secum supplicia circum ferunt Wheresoever they go they carry torments about with them Envy Desperation the terrour of endless Wrath to come and unspeakable vexedness to be deprived of the vision of Gods glory These are the Plagues that cleave unto them who depart from Christ But how is it intelligible that this banished Spirit could leave our Saviour Adam when he was new faln was no wiser than a new-born babe that hid himself from God And as Adam had lost the spirit of Innocency so Jonas had lost the spirit of Prophesie when he fled away by shipping from
is at an end we shall reign for evermore And because Christ did appear in Mount Tabor no otherwise than as he means to come to Judgment therefore he did qualify the light of his face to be no greater than the light of the Sun his body which is strange to consider shall have more resplendency than that mighty Lamp of Heaven but it is not for the Wicked to behold them they shall see him shine upon his Throne but with as little comfort as sore eyes gaze upon the Sun or with as little joy as we see flashes of lightning in a terrible thunder non dat lucem videntibus sed pavorem which is not sent to illuminate us in darkness but to agast us with the apparition Of this more at large hereafter But this is the second motive of this Miracle he transformed himself into that Majesty wherein He will judge the World Thirdly He did represent himself as the Argument and Idaea of that beautiful Reward which the bodies of the Just shall have in the General Resurrection The Pharisees required a Sign and Christ told them they should have no sign but the sign of the Prophet Jonas that a body being swallowed up in death should come to life again but these few Disciples over and above the Sign of the Prophet Jonas had the Sign of Transfiguration which is the dainty and delicate part of the Resurrection Say no more but that God will be the Redeemer of his Elect yet it would amuse a man to think what should become of this vile body every member whereof hath been a thousand times an instrument of iniquity well even this very naughty flesh shall have a beam of Divine mercy shine upon it it is impossible to make it ought in this life but a sink of corruption no Fuller upon earth can make it so white as God can In these days the Soul is full of bad concupiscence and the Body is made miserable Hereafter the Soul will be full of grace and the Body shall be made delectable And mark it that the Disciples had their item not to talk of these things till Christ were risen from the dead because the Transfiguration was intended to make up the complement of our joy touching the resurrection of the Body And to sink it deeper in our hearts that this brightsom alteration did not concern the Spirit but the Body his raiment was white and glistering which is no more than the shrowd of the Body In a word God did never reveal that He could take away the essential properties of a true Body and yet keep it a true Body they that believe so much believe beside the Book but in this Miracle appeared that God can add a celestial and beauteous form unto a Body so that the Sun in all his brightness shall not come near it This is the seed of that faith which St. Paul preacheth It is sown in dishonour it is raised in honour Praise the Lord therefore in Body and Soul since both shall be invested with a Royal Dignity to make them both fit for the society of Angels But herein we exceed the happiness of Angels they are glorious Spirits we shall be glorified both in body and spirit So the Prophet Isa lxi 7. They shall possess the double in their land everlasting joy shall be with them Duplicia possidebunt their Soul filled with the vision of God their Body transfigured in glory Fourthly this wants not a granes weight of a principal cause the Son of God in the dayes of his exinanition lookt like a person for this once of divine authority ut crucis scandalum tolleret that their minds might not be cast down with despair to see the misery of his Cross who had seen his glory upon Mount Tabor Now he lookt more Angelical than a Cherubin then he lookt more ruthful than the poorest Lazarus now the greatest in heaven did speak graciously unto him then the scum of the earth reviled him he than was glorified at one time could not be compelled to shame and ignominy but from his own patience and yielding would be crucified at another Sicut luctatores corpus inclinant sayes a Father Christ wrestled with Satan and though that old supplanter the Serpent did bruise his heel yet he could not get the Mastery Christ stooped low like a Lion couching for his prey and when he might seem to be cast down this was his feat to overturn his adversary Fifthly The fifth and last Reason hath a Moral Use There is an old man with his corruptions to be metamorphosed in us all sicut Pelias recoctus as the Fable goes that Medaea bathed the body of Pelias with certain magical drugs and from a decrepit old man transmuted him into a vigorous youth This is a figment for no man spent his young years so well to deserve at Gods hands in this world to be young again but there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a renovation in the spirit of our mind God will not know us in our own form and filthiness unless we put on the Image of Christ As Jacob obtained his Fathers blessing not in his own shape but in the Garments of Esau so we must sue our blessing having put on the righteousness of Christ then the Lord will receive his servant and say unto thee as Jacob did unto Esau I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God You have heard the final cause more wayes than one why this Miracle was wrought I may speak somewhat of the efficient cause how this splendor was derived and further than so I must not proceed now because of the time Many obscure points will come to light by asking this question Whether this lightsom beauty like the Sun did appear in our Saviour's face from the beatification of his humane Soul or from the union of his Divine nature First you must understand that the great School-man Aquinas took the best end of the cause into his hand when he answered to neither of those two members but rather to the purpose of the question in this wise fuit haec qualitas gloriae sed non corporis gloriosi quia nondum erat immortalis this Transfiguration was a quality of glory but not of a glorified body because He was not yet passed death and raised up to be immortal and impassible In this distinction is covertly included that it was not such a brightness as the Soul shall communicate to the Body when it is reunited in a joyful resurrection but was created at this time by the Divine power to foretel and shadow what would come to pass with much increase in the Kingdom of God Praelibatio regui Dei fuit haec transfiguration says Cajetan this was but the Landskip or Pattern of the true happiness which shall be in the Kingdom of Heaven It was a far more excellent splendour than that of Moses or Stephen upon earth but not so perfect or proper
fullonicant ingeniis suis says Origen Hereticks set a bright gloss upon their false opinions they in his construction are those Fullers upon earth that would make their doctrine if it were possible as white as truth but if you pattern it with the Scripture you shall see it colours not with that spiritual light which comes from Christ That Doctrine which hath the simplicity of the Spirit without the knotty entanglements of mans wit that which says let God have the glory but to us belongs shame and confusion of face That which impresseth humility into the thoughts zeal and devotion into the heart all manner of vertue into the practice This is that true light which comes from heaven no Fuller upon earth none that sit in the pestilent Chair of deceitful tongues can make a thing so white and every one that is of the truth loveth the light and hateth darkness And so far upon this admirable vision His countenance was altered and his rayment white and glistering These were res mirae strange and uncouth things the next general part of the Text doth handle personas miras strange persons whom a man would not expect in that place and at that time Behold there talked with him two men which were Moses and Elias If any of the people had been by that took him to be Elias or Jeremias or one of the old Prophets they should have seen a difference in this Vision between the head and the feet between the Lord and his Servants For surely some of the old Prophets two for all and those whom the Jews did most admire came upon this Theater to be seen that Christs glory might appear the more Let the eyes of Peter look upon them together and see if Christs glory be not far exalted above all the Saints Quantùm lenta solent inter viburna cupressi Among the Gods there is none like unto thee O Lord Psal lxxxvi 8. Non in Angelis coelestibus seu in altissimis says the Chaldee Paraphrase not among the Angels nor among any of the blessed souls that live in the highest places Was this such a business to be taught will some men say to bring the dead out of their graves Can any mistake that the honour of Christ is far exalted above all his Servants For to which of the Angels did the Father say at any time Sit thou on my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool Beloved are there none that keep the festival days of the Saints with more devotion and observance then the first day of the week for ever to be sanctified because Christ rose from the dead on that day Do they not make more Pilgrimages and Vows to some Patrons of their own invention who have been but men Are not there more Temples erected in their name More costly Ornaments bestowed upon their Images More Prayers poured out unto them than to Christ himself And had I not need to remember you that two men who were now glorified talked with Christ upon Mount Tabor that they might appear like little stars obscured before the greatest Planet Moses did but verifie in person what he had taught in a Song before Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods Who is like unto thee Exod. xv 11. I adjudge it for another reason that two men beatified came to talk with him because he would not seem to ingross the light of glory to himself without derivation to others It is not a treasure to be reserved unto himself but a communicable donative The glory which thou gavest me I have given them Joh. xvii 22. As a seed-corn is fruitless unless it die and bring forth stalks of Wheat so Christ compares himself to such a grain of Wheat which must die to bring forth much fruit or else it abideth alone as if all were marred unless we were accommodated by his fruitfulness The Kings honour is in the multitude of his people the joy of the Father is in the Olive branches round about his Table The glory of the woman is for the children to grow up and call the mother blessed The felicity of these consists herein to have some that are partners of their felicity But God is all-sufficient to contemplate his own glory though he had never made the world he did not make man to praise him as if he wanted voices to magnifie his name and make him God Yet he is pleased to express his love so far that his honour should be alone unless the goodly fellowship of Saints and Prophets were round about him Except a seed-corn fall into the ground and die it abideth alone Joh. xii 24. Lord why dost thou esteem thy self alone and heaven to be solitary without us But O man how canst thou be without him in thy heart on earth that would not be alone without thee in heaven Behold when he brought down heaven upon earth in his own body two of the Elect brought down their glory to the Mountain to assist him His own Disciples were yet but earth and corruption and therefore incapable of such illuminated brightness till the time should come to be translated out of the prison of mortality And Angels were not fit to be his Compeers at this bout because he manifested the glorification of the flesh which pertains not to Angels but to Men. None of the living would serve the turn to appear with him in Majesty they were not supernaturalized to undergo it nor any of the Angelical Order they were not of the right Predicament two men came down unto him who had been exalted into Heaven and now I will shew with what great congruity these two men who were Moses and Elias But to omit nothing which is fit to be observ'd I will make three general heads of this matter 1. Whether all Elias and all Moses did appear both body and soul 2. From whence they came to be Parties at the celebration of this great Miracle And 3. If I can reach so far Why they became the representative persons for the whole Body of the Saints in Heaven To the first that these two Witnesses presented themselves in bodily shapes there is no wit so scrupulous I think that can make a question of it for S. Matthew says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these men were seen of Peter James and John Then they were heard talking and by their talk discover'd to be those grand Prophets as I will shew hereafter They talked as men to men vocally not in an intellectual fashion as spirits do And the Apostles in their extasie mentioned the making of Tabernacles to shrowd them in but a Tabernacle is a Coverture for a Body and not for a Spirit The controversie doth not consist in this therefore I pass it over That which hath caused diversities of judgments to arise is herein what manner of Bodies these were wherewith Moses and Elias were cloathed to attend the Transfiguration of Christ I will make bold to remove
to heaven now yet it was the very same cloud which took him quite away from his Apostles upon the Ascension day Acts i. Non dubito quin ipsa est illa nubes quae suscepit eum ab oculis omnium Apostolorum The man is very confident of that opinion wheresoever he had it This he might say for certain Christ did ascend in a Cloud and we all shall ascend in the Clouds at the last day 1 Thes iv 17. We which are alive shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air Once St. Peter was so weak in faith that upon a Miracle of a great draught of Fish he cried out Depart from me Lord for I am a sinful man Now he was grown so strong in love that nothing was more bitter to him than departing In a while after this accident of the Transfiguration Christ prepared the Twelve with many reasons and consolations that he must go away for if he went not away the Comforter would not come but when he did go away he would send them the Comforter even the Spirit of truth Upon these terms it was fit they should be glad to have him ascend unto his Father but having not as yet bequeathed any such promise of the Comforter it made them agast to think he should enter into a Cloud and be no more seen Beloved if God take not away the influence of his Holy Spirit from us we know he is always at our right hand though in his humane body he sitteth at the right hand of God Live justly and chastely and soberly as if the Son of God were always before your face and though he be entred into the Clouds though he be entred into Heaven your Conscience shall be comforted I must make an end of the first general part of the Text because of the time and I have put my self into a narrow strait to speak of the second the succour which Christ did administer to his three Disciples to quit them out of fear which S. Matthew hath remembred he touched them and said Arise be not afraid Though he seemed before to be going far off and as it were quite forsake them yet now he draws so near as to touch them with his hand Perhaps no more was done by Christ than the bare Letter of my Text acknowledged he did but lay the ends of his fingers upon them and if he pleased there was as much vertue in his fingers ends to quicken the Spirit of these men that sunk down with fear as there was in all Elias when he stretch'd his whole body upon the Child to bring it to life again The Angel Gabriel did but touch Daniel when he was faln upon the ground and set him upon his feet again Dan. viii 18. But behold a greater than Gabriel whose touch is more comfortable and more significative Eâ manu recreantur ad fidem I think it is St. Hieroms saying quâ creati erant ad vitam Those hands which made them and fashioned them to receive natural life the same hand did work a supernatural effect upon them and did raise them up to a boldness and assurance of a good hope in Christ Yet I will not say but that which is here called a touch may import the giving of his whole hand to assist them Postquam altos tetigit fluctus says the Poet when he meant that the Ship did sail upon the Sea Therefore to touch here may be no less than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Manum supponere to stay with the hand and arm which we use to do to a man that is ready to sound and sink The Lord upholds all such as fall and lifteth up all those that be down Psal cxlv 14. But David explains himself in another place that all sorts of men promiscuously good and bad do not attain this favour he restrains that universal Proposition Psal xxxvi 24. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord Though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand It is said of the evil Angel I saw Satan fall like lightning Luke x. 18. The Lightning is darted out of the Clouds and never ascends again but is lost in vapour so are all those that imagine wickedly and whose heart is not stedfast in the Lord. Nescit stare superbia si ceciderit non novit resurgere says St. Ambrose Pride will catch a fall and God will leave it to shame and confusion never to recover again But a just man falleth seven times and riseth up again Pro. xxiv 16. As the young birds fall out of the Nest sometimes but the old one takes them up and carries them where they shall be safe So trust in the Lord and you shall not be cast down but his hand will be ready to catch you that you shall not be bruized All parts of mans body which are made for defence are attributed unto him for our preservation from the arm to the hand from the hand to the finger from the finger to the least touch Against great oppressions God opposeth that his arm is stretched out When he will fashion out deliverance with wonderful salvation as if a workman wrought it curiously with a Tool then the Prophets speak of the hand of God when he doth assist us suddenly and with great facility before we could think of help that is said to be done per contactum by a touch and away as in this case He touched them and said arise be not afraid These are his words who when the earth hath been fear'd with Winter makes all things to flourish again when he reneweth the year with his goodness so when the heart of man is frozen with fear by his word he makes it spring with joy His Countenance was fair and lightsome his tongue as comfortable as his face As St. Ambrose says of the Writings of St. Paul Quae Epistola Pauli non melle dulcior lacte candidior Every Epistle which he wrote was sweeter than honey whiter than milk So the beauty of Christ Transfigured was whiter than milk and his words were sweeter than the honey comb He can look frowningly and make his Foes fall down before him he can speak in Thunder and make the earth to quake the very voice which came from heaven in this next verse did confuse all that heard it This is my beloved Son hear him Vt conspectus vox Dei nos dejicit ita tactus vox Christi erigit says St. Hierom The Lord hath a voice to cast us down and a voice to raise us up again Especially Consolation shall succeed fear and that instantly when God did bring it upon us He never lead his Chosen into trouble for his sake but he brought them off again with comfort Christ had taken Peter and James and John into Mount Thabor whatsoever they suffered there it was by his conduct and for his sake it was the brightness of his
like an Angel of light One most perspicuous instance is Mar. i. 24. The unclean spirit exclaims against Christ Jesus of Nazareth what have we to do with thee No Not with God that created them that was a lie of malice Art thou come to torment us There was a touch of Prophesie I know thou art the holy one of God that was as true as Gospel You shall have just these three parts now in Pilates Apology Mendacium de seipso verum testimonium de Christo Prophetiam de populo 1. I am innocent of this bloud that was false 2. He confesseth Christ to be a just person that was true 3. He threatens the people that if that just person died the vengeance should light upon their head vos videbitis that was a Prophesie Every man is his own flatterer else Pilate had not thought himself an innocent God will be cleared by every mans conscience else Pilate had not preached for our Saviours righteousness But how easie a thing it is to discern and protest against other mens faults Else Pilate had not Prophesied We take account of our own imperfections as it were at midnight when there is no light to discover us then we run into error and plead that we are innocent We see God in his works as by a dim candle and confession of truth will be extorted from us that He is a just person But we behold the crimes of those men that walk about us as at noon day and in the clear Sun-shine and then we Prophesie vos videbitis you that are sinners shall be punished Here is as very a Riddle as the old Sphinx made of three divers forms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the fore-part a Lyar in the next a true one in the third a Prophet and all these three in my Text I am innocent of the bloud c. I begin with Pilate in the first member of his speech the untruth which he tells in his own behalf I am innocent A vice which had been fitter for the meanest of the people than for the Ruler of Jury the supreme Deputy for the Roman Empire For truth as Synesius doth define it it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as who should say that a word truly spoken is a Gentleman born falshood and lying are but beggarly begotten But this is the wisdom of the World whatsoever we can coin for our own reputation it is not falshood but the strein of an Orator And as the Optiques do determine that in the composition of all colours there is lucidum and opacum one part which shines and makes a lustre to the eye another part dark and gross which casts a shadow so there is such an ingredient of two qualities in the actions of men lucidum and opacum some black deformity which is concealed somewhat that glisters and shews fair to the outward appearance Alas that is it which puts us into a good opinion of our selves that is it which prompted Pilates tongue to say before the people I am innocent Every disease says Hippocrates is the more dangerous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when our face is so much changed that our friends cannot know us But who is in so bad a case as that man who is so desperately diseased that he doth not know himself St. Austin hath mark'd out two examples especially for this purpose First the young man in the Gospel that talk'd of keeping all the Commandments was bad to follow Christ and did not Matthaeus peccator sequutus est vocantem Matthew the Publican that sold and bought sin and could not deny that it was a trade of iniquity he left all to attend our Saviour when he was called Secondly He doth compare St. Peter with himself there was a Peter that thought his fellows might be faint hearted and run away but for his own part he knew his courage was stronger than all tentation but there is another Peter or the same Peter of another mind who was ashamed to shew his face and went out and wept bitterly and of the twain he was the true Apostle Salubrius sibi displicuit Petrus quando flevit quà m sibi placuit quando praesumsit Wretched was that Peter who did presume upon himself happy was that Peter who did dislike and bewail his own infirmities Are you well advised upon how many nice Points innocency doth stand that dare advouch your own integrity First I am guilty of all the sins which I do not hate in another The Church of Pergamos did not deny the faith but God took up this quarrel against them That they did not hate the Doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans Again I am guilty of all those sins which I do not rebuke in another Qui tacet consentire videtur the judgment hereof fell upon Eli and his house for ever Again I am guilty of every sin wherein I gave way to the lewdness of another and did not restrain it The Kings of Judah when they did not cut down the Groves and demolish the Images which they themselves did not worship yet their memory is Taxed that their heart was not perfect before the Lord because they were not zealous to cut off iniquity Now put all these together these nice observations of an upright heart and then let Pilate tell me who was innocent Leucatius a Roman well reputed of would needs stand in defence against the City that all his actions had been unblameable in every circumstance But I will never sit Judge in this cause says Fimbria whom he chose for the Umpire Quia justitia innumerabilibus officiis continetur For justice contains so many duties that it is hard to number them but to observe them all impossible Indeed the Heathen were so modest in this Point that in all the Language of Greece that rich and copious Tongue there is not one word which is proper for Innocency To say truth says Tertullian what should they do with the word in their mouth and want the matter in their heart which it signifies Quid si nos solum innocentes sumus Innocency such as the world can afford it is among Christians or no where Who is the man then that would put on the white Robe of a Saint and cast it over his crimson sins Let him first as it useth to be draw out his life with o Pencil in black colours and confess his iniquities What soul is that which like a chaste Virgin would become the Spouse of Christ Nec magis alba velit quà m det natura videri as the Poet speaks Let her lay no complement to that beauty or deformity which God hath afforded her And he that thinks himself less than the greatest sinner shall not be so great as the least Saint in the Kingdom of heaven But let no man deceive himself as if a confession of course would serve the turn such as we say by rote perchance at the beginning of our Morning and Evening Service There is not such an
in bloud and to sprinkle it seven times before the Lord septies sanguis no less would serve the turn and think you that Christ did fail in this perfect number no not once if you will count it 1. He was circumcised and there was bloud 2. He sweat in the Garden not without drops of bloud 3. He was buffetted upon the mouth that must needs draw bloud Then the scourgings upon his back the thorns platted upon his head the nails driven into his feet and hands those three likewise could not be without great effusion of bloud At the seventh and last time a Souldier thrust a Spear into his side and then came forth a stream of bloud The heart of man hath entangled it self with seven deadly sins like the Woman of Samaria seven had taken her to wife according to the number of the capital sins seven times did Christ lay down the price of a Ransom seven times the bloud was sprinkled before the Lord but when I say seven I do not exclude many more it is numerus finitus pro infinito The rich man in the Gospel besought Father Abraham that he would send Lazarus with his finger dipt in water to cool his tongue There was a foul mistake in the Petition to ask for water why not rather for bloud 't is bloud that quencheth the fire which without it is unquenchable And yet there is some use of water O the use of it is excellent and unvaluable therefore water also came from the side of Jesus It is a wonder that this dolorous Passion of our Lord did not call for fire to rain upon Jerusalem as it fell down upon Sodom and Gomorrah which lest it should be here was a pipe of water opened to quench the wrath of God Four great Rivers were little enough to water the Garden of Eden this little Spout is enough to water all the World for when all other Interpretations fail us the Stream that bubbled out of the side of Christ is the water above the Heavens all Israel drank of the Rock in the Wilderness every Soul which was a thirst drank What a copious deflux was that So all the Israel of God may drink of the spiritual Rock his Spring is no less abundant and that spiritual Rock is Christ A spiritual Rock did Paul say he was used no better than if he had been a very Rock of Stone As Moses struck the Rock with his Staff so was the Body of Christ with a Spear and water gushed out apace Now at several times there was a threefold passage of water in our Saviour sudoris lacrymarum lateris the one when he sweat in the Garden the second was the distillation of tears and the third was this Fountain which was opened in his side Put the seven Issues of bloud and the three Issues of water together and here are ten Drink-offerings according to the number of the Ten Commandments which we have broken Divinity is nothing else but a Tractate of admiration and lo a Miracle the last of Christ's Miracles before he was buried as the first Miracle which he wrought was by the Element of Water at Cana in Galilee so his last Miracle was in Water which came out of his side for that this was no natural Issue they know full well that have tried Dissections and Anatomies And where did you ever read that an Apostle urged the truth of that which he recited so far that he knew his record was true and that the thing was done that we might believe I say where did you ever meet with such a Protestation in the Bible if the thing entreated of were not a Miracle The sweat was miraculous in the Garden the bloud was miraculous which streamed afresh from the dead body so was this gush of water from his side most supernatural whether some inward part of Christ was resolved into this Element of a sudden or whether it was newly created for the purpose let them dispute it who love to seek that which they can never find But I am sure the water was miraculous and far be it from us to think that it was not water as some have doubted but a spumeous phlegmatick humour As Christ himself is truth and not appearance so this humour had not the name and appearance only but the essence of water There are three that bear record on earth says St. John the Spirit the Water and Blood the Spirit which he gave up when he groan'd his last and that was a true Spirit the Bloud that drill'd down from him and that was true Bloud the Water that leakt out of his side and that was very Water So much of the two Streams severally considered now I come to the Conjunction Bloud and Water For his love could bring forth no less than Twins sanguis aqua if he would undergo the Law was it not sufficient that he was circumcised and wounded in the flesh but he was baptized also in Jordan there was satisfaction both by Bloud and Water When he suffered the sharp Agony in the Garden water alone had been a sign of a terrible conflict with his Father but there trickled from him bloud and water When the whip did tear his flesh and the thorns enter into the quick many do modestly suppose that He mingled tears with bloud and then at every passion there was bloud and water John Baptist was the Forerunner of the Bridegroom he came only in water the Martyrs were the friends of the Bridegroom they came in bloud Christ is the Bridegroom himself and he came in bloud and water When the Spouse was asked what a one her Well-beloved was Cantic 4. she answered he was white and ruddy white in water and ruddy in bloud not by water alone says our Apostle Ep. 1. chap. 5. that had made but half a Mediator but by water and bloud Sanguis ejus super nos was the cry of the miscreant people they condemned him in bloud Pilate pronounced the Sentence but washed his hands at it he condemned him in water Let them behold whom they have pierced says Zachary let his Judg and Accusers behold their fact in one in bloud and water I told you of the Miracle before now I will tell you of the Mystery of this work or rather of the Mysteries for they are more than one aperuit ostium miles unde Sacramenta Ecclesiae manârunt that 's St. Austins observation the door was opened and the Sacraments of the Church issued out What all of them it seems he knew of no more the Sacraments of the Church came forth with Bloud and Water For as the Romanists make Bread serve the people by a Synechdoche for the whole Supper of the Lord so Bloud by a Synechdoche in this place stands for all that Sacrament There was Divinity even in the cold stream that flow'd from the side of Christ and it speaks like the bloud of Abel as if he had said away with
exhalation transpassant from man to man because the first sin was the biting of a Serpent Thirdly By the object of the Serpent we not only see the Author of all sin and the infectious venom of it but likewise a cunning craftiness which Satan hath entailed to the mystery of iniquity lying in wait whom he may deceive There is nothing that will lurk more subtilly to do an ill turn than some sort of Serpents or steal an opportunity more warily Then why should not all plots and mischievous arts of cunning be as hateful as an hissing Adder Nay why not as odious as Beelzebub himself the Prince of Devils Some such there are that have their sharpness of wit from no better founder than the old Dragon that have no measure in their dissimulation no trust in their word no fidelity in their oath no remorse no distinction in conscience whom they ruine and these are counted useful and fit for employment I do not altogether blame the Turks for reputing natural Ideots to be Saints I am sure they are Saints in comparison with such cunning Merchants But a true Christian is somewhat compounded out of the better part of them both as it is Rom. xvi 19. I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Nazianzen inoffensiveness tempered with much intelligence The simplicity of the Dove mitigating the subtilty of the Serpent To say all in a little Sin is supported by Stratagems but Justice by grave knowledge Therefore love wisdom because it comes from God Practise innocency because it comes from Christ Hate subtilty because it is the badge of the Serpent abhor mischief it is the work of the Devil This is for the general we all see what sin is in the Image of the Serpent More particularly the Israelites saw their own sin in that spectacle wherewith they provoked the Lord Num. xxi 4. The people were not turned aside from the promised Land but were wearied with a long journey and in their bitterness they spake against God and Moses They that serve God for temporal things will quickly murmur when they want rest and ease If the ground be not soft under their feet they think it tedious though it should bring them to heaven Beside they loathed Manna it was too light for their hot stomachs and it did not satisfie Somewhat else they would have yet they could not tell what themselves As they that are not contented with the bread that comes down from heaven shall be gnawn with the worm of superstition that will never give them quiet but these are the hints that provoked them to speak against God A little painfulness was repined at as a great deal of misery and a great benefit was repined at as but a little favour Now they that whet their tongues like Serpents was it not meet they should be stung with Serpents They that spat Poison against their Maker did they not deserve a poisonous castigation Or will they dare to murmur any more when they see their punishment cast in brass and abiding for a durable monument If we murmur against him whom we are bound to praise and love is not that disloyalty So did the Israelites If we murmur at small evils that may be tolerated is not that impatiency So did the Israelites If we murmur at good things for which we should rather give thanks if we murmur at Manna the precious nourishment of the soul is not that abominable ingratitude So did the Israelites And what should this sin be likened to but an Aspe or a Viper No Serpent is so much a Serpent as a grumbling spirit that is ever murmuring at God and Moses And this is the first use of the Brazen Serpent to turn unto it as a book wherein we read our sins Peccatum peccati cognitione curatur For the first cure to be applied unto sin is to make a recognition of it with an humble and a contrite spirit so did the truest Penitent and the greatest sinner King David I know my transgressions and my sin is always against me The next contemplation upon this brazen Image is not immediately to step from sin unto the remedy for the vengeance due unto sin is to be considered between them both Behold the bitter pain which Christ endured upon the Cross and it accuseth us that the disobedience was monstrous which must be expiated with so much sorrow Quà m gravis sit peccati conditio prodit remedii magnitudo says St. Austin How great the guiltiness of sin was appears in the magnitude of the remedy And no less it is apparent how insufferable that wrath was which we escaped because he sustained so much wrath that bore it in our stead Note the malediction which we had merited in the maledictive death which our Saviour did undergo and then it will be a pleasant thing to go to heaven as it were by the gates of hell But there is nothing more dangerous than deliverance out of danger if we forget the jeopardy I will bring this clearly out of the matter we have in hand The Creatures that annoyed the Israelites were Serpents For a serpentine sin deserved a serpentine punishment I will send the teeth of beasts upon them with the poison of the Serpents of the dust Deut. xxxiii 24. The teeth of other beasts might have procured a dismal slaughter but because a Serpent was accursed above every beast of the field the wounds that they made did superadd unto death the meditation of a curse and that their judgment was compounded with malediction And this was prosecuted in the figure that the brazen Serpent was lifted upon a pole to keep in mind that sting of the Law Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree Therefore you cannot deny that this is a looking-glass of Justice before we come to mercy As Christ crucified is a type of condemnation to unbelievers but a sacrifice of salvation to those that trust in his Redemption Oleaster says that the first Epithet that God gave to this Figure was to call it a Fiery Serpent Num. xxi 8. because a fire of Coals did continually burn within it that first it might strike dread and horror into all that saw it before it healed the impotent The fire of hell was annexed to that grace and blessing which came from heaven as if the sword of justice had been put up in the Scabbard of mercy but they were never asunder Lose not your self in applying mercy and nothing but mercy to your conscience lest it befall you as it doth with a Bee that is drowned in its own honey But correct presumption and confidence by converting to some remarkable objects of indignation When Achan that troubled the Land was executed They raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day says the Holy Ghost Josh vii 26. God doth not suffer grievous punishments to vanish as shadows but he makes them
not pity them that may foresee this and yet will be other mens instruments to facilitate their damnable projects I do not pity these Souldiers that would attend the High Priests service against the Lord and against his Christ and now are weary of their service they shook for fear and became as dead men Lastly to end all the wicked have fair warnings these fears and quiverings are good Tutors and admonitions when the house gives a crack before it falls the Inhabitants may shift for their lives and he that will not mend by terror and minacy let his end be misery A standing water that is never troubled hath no commotion in it must needs corrupt so an even fortune that is not acquainted with frowns and afrightments is most incommodious for a Christian but he that will make good use of fear though he shake and cannot stand he shall fall into the arms of mercy But these impious Watchmen were no longer mortified than the Angel lookt upon them There was no serious affection of sorrow in them Sicut mente alienati expavescunt ad momentum simul tamen obliviscuntur se timuisse As a phrentique is awed for a while with his Keeper but flies out into wild fits as soon as he turns his back so this Roman Garrison who may represent the whole condition of Reprobates a little terrified but never amended they had a qualm of guiltiness came over them but they did not search into the true cause and original and as soon as ever they had communicated with the High-Priests and Elders their impudence was encouraged their hands bribed and their tongues bought at a price to publish abroad the most wrongful the most sinful the most senseless forgery that ever was invented therefore since they were no better for that terror which a good Angel struck into them it is to be much presum'd that the Lord did turn them over to evil Angels to be tormented for ever Dearly beloved that which stands before us this day is not an Angel of the ordinary Hierarchy but the Angel of the Covenant Christ our Lord in the Sacrament of his blessed Body not cloathed gorgeously but in the poor Elements of Bread and Wine And let us come to these with joy and not with terror not as dead men unless it be unto sin and living unto God and yet bring store of fear and reverence with you The Greek Fathers call this Table 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mysteries of dreadfulness lest we should not receive them in a clean vessel and with all due preparation O I beseech you remember you come to receive Christ who is risen and sitteth at the right hand of God wherefore come out of the Grave of your sins from your long accustomed crimes wherein you have been buried not four days with Lazarus but many years and then we shall encompass Christ in his glory with Troops of Angels for evermore AMEN THE SEVENTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION MARK xvi 9. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the Week he appeared first to Mary Magdalen out of whom he had cast seven Devils ALL that concerns this most Christian Festival may be referred to two words Christus resurrexit apparuit that Christ rose from the dead and that he appeared after he was risen That he rose from the dead on this day there were good tokens of it the earth trembled the Stone was rolled away the Monument was opened the Souldiers that kept watch upon the place were dismayed and fled away the body was not to be found in the Sepulcher and Angels of light heavenly Spirits that would consent to no fraud or sin ministred in the Grave where the body had lain Who were the Witnesses that could testifie to all this that it was very true A Catalogue of people some of one condition some of another The whole Corps du Guard of the Souldiers though they were corrupted to tell a lie the Women that brought sweet Odours and Spices to embalm him and lastly two of his own Disciples Peter and John who saw what God had done and returned from the Monument with some little faith but with great extasies of wonder and joy indeed with a concurrence of all these passions that no man can well tell what to call it See my Beloved here was the grand Article of Faith come now to the birth yet all this that was passed was not able to bring it forth It put Christ therefore I will not say to the trouble but to the exercise of five several Apparitions upon this day 1. He was seen of Mary Magdalen 2. Of Peter although we meet not with the manner how Peter saw him but the Apostle Paul says he was seen of Cephas then of the Twelve it was his happiness by himself alone to behold him alive again upon this day Luk. xxiv 34. The Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared unto Simon 3. He manifested himself to the cluster of those Women that came to anoint his body 4. He discovered himself to those two that were going to Emmaus 5. He came in the presence of all the Disciples at Evening when the doors were shut These were the Cinque Ports I may say of his sweet manifestation at this season And it falls out very well to my purpose that my Text says the first that saw him after his victory over death was Mary Magdalen For this will make even with Eve upon whose disobedience I have preach'd so often I have shewed unto you divers times how by a Woman came the first vengeance of death now I shall shew you if God please how by a woman came the first notice of the Resurrection from the dead and both hapned in a Garden In a Garden life was forfeited unto death And in a Garden life was recovered from death But death was threatned to Eve towards the darkness of the Evening he that conquered death made shew of his victory openly to this holy Woman early in the Morning And this is Davids Song accomplished Heaviness may endure for a night but joy cometh in the Morning The Text offers much to be spoken of I cannot reach at all but I will select so much only as will serve for the continuance of an hour First here are circumstances of time which shew a coherence between the Resurrection and Apparition of our Lord. The Apparition as well as the Resurrection was upon the same day On the first day of the Week and much about the same time of the day very early in the Morning Secondly The Apparition it self was made to Mary Magdalen who is described that she had the first fruits of Christs love for the present he appeared first c. And 2. she that was the object of his great mercy for the time past for it was she out of whom Christ had cast seven devils Unto these particulars are required your Attentiveness and my labour To begin then These great marvels hapned on
they prophesied and did not cease Num. xi 25. Elegantly St. Austin to favour this opinion Christ warned his Apostles not to stir from Jirusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father and that not many days thence that is 10 days after his Ascension they should receive the Holy Ghost But says the Father Christ gave this spirit not only to them but to ten times as many as the Twelve to sixscore in all Ea est fidelitas imo liberalitas Christi docens nos pauca promittere sed decuplo plura praestare this is the just dealing nay the liberality of Christ which bids us promise no more than we will perform but rather perform ten times more than you promise But whether the cloven tongues which lookt as if they had been of fire did descend upon the whole Congregation men and women may a little be doubted for they were Types and Figures that the Lord would send forth of his Servants to be bold and fervent Preachers in all Nations and women were interdicted from the public ministry of Preaching though in the beginning they were imployed in some private labours of the Word And if the women had the gift of tongues they did not utter them in this Chapter for when all were amazed to hear such diversity of languages from illiterate ones and such as never travelled some mocked and said these men are full of new wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the masculine gender And 't is not to be despised for an observation that ver 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all are said to be full of the Holy Ghost and ver 3. the firy tongues are said to sit not upon all but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon each of them meaning I conjecture upon each of the Apostles but I will not strive for it In the old Missals I am sure I have not perused the latter it reads the Epistle thus omnes discipuli all the Disciples were with one accord in one place and Beza says in two antient Greek Copies he had found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Apostles and none other mentioned Certainly they were primarily intended to reap the benefit of the day For it is well noted by the first Writers that there were four things proper and peculiar to the Apostles given them for the gathering together of the Saints which were not communicable to any other Servant of Christ The first was immediate vocation from Heaven St. Paul demonstrated he was not inferior to the best of the Apostles because of that property The second was infallibility of judgment in the necessary points of faith 3. A Generality of Commission to have the care of the whole world committed to every one of them to exercise their power in all places towards all persons 4. To speak in all the tongues and languages of the world to confirm their Doctrin by signs and miracles and by the imposition of their hands to give the like miraculous gifts of the spirit to others For although the having of miraculous gifts and the power to work miracles was not simply proper to the Apostles yet to have them in a sort as by the imposition of their hands to give the spirit unto others and to enable such as they thought fit to do signs and wonders through the finger of God this was a benediction upon the heads of the Apostles from the great day of Pentecost and only upon them Simon Magus that Mammonist you may remember would have bought it of them but had a curse instead of a blessing Nay when Philip the Deacon had baptized some at Samaria the Apostles went to confirm those whom he had baptized by imposition of hands that they might receive some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost And as these graces were reserved only for the Apostolical honor in their time so were they never since passed over to any by succession Instead of immediate calling God be praised we can shew our Vocation derived by succession from the Apostles Instead of infallibility of judgment we have the direction of the Scriptures to guide us in finding out the truth instead of general Commission over the whole World we have particular assignment of several Churches and parts of Christs Flock to feed instead of their miraculous gifts and power to confer them to others we have that faith which was confirmed by the Apostles miracles And so I have declared that many even all the Believers that met together shared in the blessings of this day but the Apostles had an excellency and preeminency above them all for the government of the Church not disputing what particular irradiations and sanctifications the Blessed Virgin had which we may suppose to be incomparable beyond all others such as were fit for her to receive but they are not here revealed But of the persons hitherto I can spare no more time for that for it is worth much observation how they were prepared to receive the Holy Ghost which I handle in this order howsoever the words ly first that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first unà then unanimes they were all in one place To be altogether in one City in Jerusalem and not to stir from thence till they had received the Comforter even the Spirit of Truth to that purpose Christ laid his command upon them but they were met together not only in one City but in one house not only in one Vineyard but like Grapes they hung together in one cluster Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity In publick they consorted together Luke v. ult they were continually in the Temple praising and blessing God together in private they held fast the same friendship and amity by this says our Saviour shall they know you to be my Disciples if you love one another Whether it were the time of praying or hearing the Word or breaking of bread mark it in several places of this Chapter they did it with chearfulness and mutual friendship they were never asunder Unity in matter of circumstance in matter of place carries blessing and edification with it that we are Brethren it is the Lords doing to make men to be of one mind to dwell in one house Psal lxviii 6. We read it in our last Translation he setteth the solitary in Families that is he reduceth the dispersed into unity and outward conformity I told you and pressed it earnestly about this time the last year what an acceptable thing it was to God that when Noah and his Sons and Daughters were all the living of men and women that were left in the World that these should all praise the Lord together in outward unity with one voice and with one Sacrifice this was called a sweet smelling savour so much it delighted God this day to see the Church met together those 120 names that after Ages might know how well compacted the Primitive
Church was that there were no divisions or distractions in their Body God be praised for the multiplication of his Saints now over all the world we cannot meet now under one Roof as these did nor sit down in rows in one Field together as those 5000 did whom our Saviour fed in the Desart the bounds of all the Land of Canaan are not able to hold us God be glorified for the increase Our unity of place is to meet in those publique Assemblies which are allotted to particular Churches at those appointed times which are enjoyned us In no wise to slack our presence here on the Lords day to flock together on other festival days at Morning Prayer on week days to be much more diligent than we have been fie upon our tardiness and excuses in that duty do we look that God shall bless us in our Persons and Calling to take a Benediction away with us to serve us the whole week and come no oftner is not he the God that makes men to be of one mind to come to the Temple together and there to receive the Holy Ghost Chiefly I wish heartily in Christ that they would consort together with us who take no offence at our Doctrine established but make a separation and strangeness both from us and among themselves for matter of Ceremonies and things indifferent They that are baptized into Christ and one Faith why should they not come together with one accord in one place I must not be prolix I will say no more to it but let us say with St. Paul Hebr. x. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are not of them who separate or draw back unto perdition Vnto perdition let that be noted The observation of this point gains thus much more out of St. Austin As all the Tribes of Israel were gathered together about Mount Sinah to hear in what manner the Law was proclaimed so here was an agreement of all persons to joyn together to receive the Holy Ghost but in that admirable similitude there is this dissimilitude that the people were prohibited with many terrors to come near the place where the Law was delivered but at this time the Holy Ghost was sent unto them who expecting the promise were all with one accord in one place And Calvin conjects much unto this note that the minds of the faithful were exceedingly encouraged and chang'd for the better the stoutest Champions of them all had no manlike fortitude in them before the Shepherd was smitten and instantly they were scattered and ran away for fear now the very women had hardned themselves against all danger they mix themselves together in one place with that holy company and fear no evil that can happen unto them A resolved constant mind an heroick heart to take up the Cross of Christ and to suffer unto the death for righteousness sake is a sign of much grace in the soul and an admirable preparation to receive the greatest measure of the Holy Ghost And that you may not think this Apostolical Society had crept into a dark corner where no espials could find them out Many Authors that have laboured to understand where it was say it was a spacious goodly Room of as much note as any private House in all Jerusalem and frequented so often by the Apostles that their haunt was known through all the City All that I have met withal conclude it was the same upper Chamber where our Saviour celebrated his last Supper and so consecrated the place Nicephorus and Cedrenus say it was the House of John the Evangelist for he took the Blessed Virgin to his own home and she was now among them a slender guess God wot and repugnant to many circumstances of Scripture Theophylact says it was the House of Simon the Leper how can that be when his House was in Bethany Matth. xxvi 6. Euthymius says it was the House of Joseph of Arimathea an honourable Counseller and had goodly Rooms to receive them Baronius goes with the most voices all are but conjectures that it was the House of Mary the Mother of John whose surname was Mark. To this Adrichomius consents and says this was the place where 3000 Jews were converted by Peter and baptized thither Peter betook himself when the Angel brought him out of prison there Stephen and others were made Deacons there James the Brother of our Lord so called was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem there the first Council of the Apostles was held Acts xv All ancient Authors conclude it was about where the Tower of Sion stood and this is certain that Helen the Mother of Constantine did build a goodly Temple upon the same place to honour that holy ground It was a Figure of the whole Church of Christ so much the more to be remembred and the Church is a Figure of the Kingdom of Heaven where all the Saints and I trust all we shall praise the Lord with one accord in one place for evermore It follows now as the outward Bond of Peace was with this Society so they were claspt together faster with the inward Bond of Agreement with the unity of the same spirit they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one accord There cannot be a more proper true and certain disposition to make us meet for the Holy Ghost than unanimity As the Halcyon so our Naturalists say never appears but against fair weather so the Spirit comes either not at all or not very plentifully unto us until he find concord among us without jars and tranquility without bitterness The unity of the Apostles is called by the Fathers parasceue spiritus the way-making to receive the grace of God and if the Patient be prepared aright the Agent will do his work the sooner and the better No gifts of benediction are given to strive and oppose to fight one against another but for charity and edification therefore it was the beginning of our Collect three Sundays past Almighty God which dost make the minds of all faithful men to be of one will and it is a principal part of our Gospel for this day Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you That peace which Christ left among the Apostles was as it were an earnest penny put into their hands that they should have the full donative of the Comforter from above Our Saviour was born in the days of Caesar Augustus when a still Peace was over all the world now He pours out his holy spirit upon them that were of one accord and of one heart the one was his first act upon earth the other is his last then he was cloathed with our flesh now we are invested with his spirit This remarkable amity and Saint-like brotherhood among the Members of the Church which had no ruptures was well prefigur'd in the old Feast of Pentecost which was kept by the Jews For Levit. xxiii 19. upon the day of Pentecost among other Burnt-offerings the Priests were appointed in
having such near relation I have found out most principal Texts for them both this year out of the same Chapter for Easter day Ver. 24. whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death For Whitsunday in that notable portion of the story which I have read unto you And I told you upon the last great solemnity that Whitsunday was principally ordained for this end to make Easter day famous over all the world But the principal fruits of this day are three if we may comprehend an Ocean of graces in so small a number In the zeal of our Prayers we passed them over in the Morning Collect and that Collect extracted them from the Epistle and Gospel appointed Thus you may perceive that the Service of the Church of England is the treasure of my observations The Collect runs upon these three Points Teaching Illumination Consolation God which upon this day hath taught the hearts of thy faithful people for heavenly Doctrine began to be made common to all the world from this day Yet many hear the Word but most unprofitably therefore it follows that God hath sent us the light of his holy Spirit to have a right judgment in all things And many have the benefit of true Doctrine and the help of Illumination but with much sorrow and persecution therefore the Holy Ghost came down also that we might rejoyce in his holy comfort Thus far the contents of that short Prayer have helpt me The Gospel for the day runs altogether upon the last branch upon Consolation I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter The Epistle falls upon the two former upon Doctrine and Illumination and that in two sensible miracles For Doctrine that a sound came from heaven as of a mighty wind to foreshew that the sound of the Word should go forth into all Lands for Illumination that cloven tongues appeared and sate upon them as it were of fire The noise was as a Trumpet to wake the World the firy Tongues as so many lights to let them see their visitation Thus the Holy Ghost is presented to both the senses to the Ear as to the sense of faith to the Eye as to the sense of love The Ear is the ground of the Word and Doctrine and that gives the first admittance to Faith and therefore the Holy Ghost began his operation there according to my Text and that in these particulars to be considered 1. That God caused a sound to be heard upon the descending of the Holy Spirit 2. The manner of the sound is resembled to a Wind. 3. To a sudden wind 4. To a rushing mighty wind 5. It was from heaven 6. It filled all the house where they were sitting All these particulars are worthy of my labour and your attention That there came a sound from heaven at the mission of the Holy Ghost is the first thing remarkable A sound first to call in them that were without Secondly To demonstrate the Office of them that were within As the chiming of Bells calls us together to Church so an audible sound from heaven was a warning to the Jews to flock to that place where the Apostles were gathered together The Master of the Feast in the Gospel sent forth his Servants and invited the Guests and bad them be told what preparation he had made for their coming so the men of Jerusalem had as sensible an invitation to draw them to the great Feast of the Gospel as if a Canon had been discharged in their Ear. Or if they were yet unprepared to taste of such Manna as fell from heaven into their lap yet the Lords doings were so palpable before them that their consciences must be extremely stupified with malice if they made an ill interpretation of others that were then filled from above with the great power of God And indeed Oecumenius says that the sound did pierce the ears of all that were in the City that such as were curious to know the reason might come and see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the open manifestation of the miracle might preserve it from calumny But you will say it did not gain the good opinion of the Jews for all the gift of Tongues had such a forerunner not vox clamantis but sonus intonantis not the voice of a Crier but a peal of thunder to bring it into the world yet the people did disgrace it with a vile imputation of drunkenness True it proved as ill as could be expected but says St. Chrysostome if they said the Apostles were full of new Wine when these signs concurred what would they have said without them The most graceful and melodious sounds in the world are lost to deaf men and though a clamour and a cry from heaven were come down as it is in my Text yet it moved not those that like the deaf Adder had stopped their ears The Serpent in that place is called in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Antiphrasis or the contrary because it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unperswaded Creature all Art and Charming is spent in vain it will not listen it will not mitigate its venomous wrath and so the Translator Apollinarius says upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when the Adder is mischievously angry for the time of his violent anger and while that lasts he is stark deaf though he can hear by nature So such as are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. i. 16. Disobedient and reprobate to every good work though they have the sense of hearing by nature yet when they are violently set upon infidelity and stubbornness they give no more attention to the sound that comes from heaven than do the stones of the Temple When Stephen preached so divinely to the Jews that the heavens opened in the time of his Sermon Acts vii 56. as if way had been made for the Angels and Saints to be his Auditors even then when the gates of heaven stood wide open at the grace of his words they that should have given him best attention stopped their ears and ran upon him But the sin of them that will not hear let it lie upon their own head they cannot say but there hath been a Trumpet among them to awake them from the sleep of sin The sound which God hath sent forth is shrill and loud to call in those that are without And he that hath ears c. But secondly the Spirit came in a very audible sound to declare what a door of utterance should be opened from thenceforth to the Messengers of Christ That their sound should go out into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the World Rom. x. 18. The Gospel preached to every creature under heaven Col. i. 23. How many were in that lamentable condition like the Disciples at Ephesus that had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost Angels themselves began to be Preachers when a door of entrance was
dead works were not quickned by grace better it might be for us that we had never been born therefore the life of Sanctification was begun in the Church as it were with a gentle gust of wind when Christ breathed on his own and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost So you see this outward sign of insufflation was constantly used at our Creation at our Resurrection at our Sanctification to shew how it is the same God that worketh all in all Yet St. Ambrose comes in with a third Meditation upon it Says he God did give man a living soul at first by breathing or inspiration to let him see he did not only give him a temporal or carnal vivification but grace and sanctity to live for ever But when man had lost this primitive grace and original righteousness it was fit to let us know that such losses could be repaired by none but Christ therefore Christ breathed again upon man to demonstrate that he was the restorer of those immortal blessings which exceed our merits and pass all understanding But when Christ was ascended up on high the Spirit could not be infused immediately from the breath of his mouth but in Analogy to it it came into the place where the Apostles were gathered together like the murmuring wind or the breath of heaven As Solomon fore-told it in his Poetical Ode Cant. iv 16. Awake O North wind and come thou South blow upon my Garden that the Spices thereof may flow out And here again I shall pass through some humane Comparisons to the illustration of most divine Mysteries First of all Elementary Creatures the Wind is the most active thing in the world nothing so quick and active as it Vsque adeo agit ut nisi agat non sit when it is not active it is not at all no stirring of the air no wind So it is with the Spirit of faith and love the very being of it consists in being operative What shall I do to inherit eternal life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostome it impels the heart to be never out of motion in some spiritual exercise Either the Tongue is praying or the Ear is hearing or the Heart is meditating or the Hand is giving or the Soul is thirsting for remission of sins When the Spirit beats not in the Pulses there is no spirit in the body it is a dead Carkass and in whomsoever there is a cessation from all good works you may say it justly that there the Holy Ghost is extinguished there is no difference between a standing Puddle and a dead Sea And cozen not your selves with a vain confidence that albeit you be altogether barren and unprofitable no fruit of Sanctification budding from you yet Semen Dei manet the sap may be in the root the vertue in the Seed-corn though it do not put out These may-bees are pitiful Anchors of hope and miserable comforters Will you say the wind is up when there is a still Serena no puff of air moving Then think as little that God dwells in that brest where there are no tokens of Sanctification Secondly I have it from St. Austin Flatus ille à carnali palea corda mundabit The Wind is the advantage of the Husbandman to winnow Chaff from Wheat and where the Spirit blows upon the conscience it will purge it from all dead works The cares of this world the thought of getting Riches anxieties for honours and advancements these overspread the life of a natural man left to the ways of carnal reason but as soon as ever we begin to sift and discuss these cogitations by the doctrine of the Spirit they vanish and disperse Tradam protervis in mare Creticum portare ventis they are light and empty of true goodness and so are blown away to the Father of errors and delusions to the Devil himself from whence they came Thirdly Says St. Chrysostome Suppose a Ship be well appointed with Pilot Mariners Sails Cables Anchors and all convenient appurtenances to what use will all this serve if the winds stir not So let there be profound Judgment quick Invention neat Eloquence and all the graces of Art in a man these will not bring a man one whit onward in his Voyage to the haven of happiness to the kingdom of glory unless the sweet gales of the Spirit carry him forward those are the wings of the Dove upon which the Soul shall fly away and be at rest Another Author taken for St. Chrysostome writing upon St. Matthew composeth it thus As the ground doth not fructifie by rain alone but there is a prolificous vertue in the winds which blows upon the fields and makes the Spring to sprout So it is not our Doctrine alone which converts your Souls though it distill like the soft drops of rain upon the earth but benediction of inward grace that goes with the word breaths salvation upon our heart The Letter may kill but the Spirit quickneth and in our Evangelical Priesthood we are Ministers not of the Letter alone but of the Spirit also Qui instat praecepto praecurrit auxilio the words of Leo which I take to be solid truth in this Point when God presseth us with the outward instruction of his Word He impresseth the secret operation of his Spirit to make it fructifie And now to come to another portion of the Text it agrees very accurately with the nature of that supernal gift which God infuseth into his Saints that the Spirit came with a sudden flaw of wind And I am very willing to make that collection of it which divers have done before me Datur haec gratia ex improviso sine meritis Grace is a blessing that comes unlook'd for unawares nay it is impossible for an unconverted man to say now I am prepared for it now I expect it now my heart is ready to receive it for there is no good preparation for grace in the soul of man till some portion of it have entred before Natural dispositions cannot attain to bring in supernatural grace Therefore the first influx and admission of it must needs be sudden and unawares As you can make no rules for the Wind why it should blow South to day and North to morrow why from this Point of heaven at such a season rather than from another So there is no aim to be taken how this or that man was first partaker of the heavenly light which is thus couched in our Saviours words The kingdom of God cometh not with observation neither shall they say loe here or loe there for the Kingdom of God is within you Luk. xvii 20. For what observation can we make or through what tokens can we collect that God will begin to draw a sinner unto him Will you say he lives justly and chastely If they were Christian justice and chastity the seed of the Spirit was in his heart before If they be but moral conformities he is still the
says St. Hierom that is if the Wolf come near the Sheepfold he must not only be threatned with the Staff but the Dogs must bark at him likewise and then he will leave his Prey and take him to his heels St. Austin presseth the same Doctrin out of St. Paul Ephes iv 11. He gave some Apostles and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Says he I collect from hence that every Pastor that is every Bishop must be a Teacher for it is not said he gave some Pastors and some Teachers as it went before some Apostles and some Prophets but Pastors and Teachers are put together without a distinctive member ut intelligerent Pastores ad officium suum pertinere doctrinam that Pastors may know how teaching is included in their duty and cannot be separated from it This then was the principal intent of giving the tongue at the Feast of Whitsuntide as it is Isa l. 4 The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season First then negligent silence in Pastors is a stifling the grace of God Quantùm vitae merito aedificat tantùm destruit silentio Secondly affected silence is affronting the grace of God as those Orders of Friars that bind themselves by vow and institution of life not to utter a word excepting one day or it may be one hour in the week sometimes not so often Agatho the Anchorite is commended in the lives of the Fathers that he never spake what is this but as it were to advow not to receive the benediction of the Holy Ghost Finally to be preproperous and over-hasty to teach the Gospel is to prevent the Spirit or rather not to wait for the grace of God For Christ had first rooted the knowledge of the Word and Scripture in the Apostles and then endued them with a tongue but they that start up Teachers before they be grounded in the Word speak with their own tongue before they have received the tongue of the Holy Ghost But the tongue supplies another office in nature and that 's to taste The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meats Job xxxiv 3. so the Spirit makes us feel and know the good things of God that are in us even as the tongue makes us relish that which is sweet upon the palat and will be delectable for nourishment Nay we do not only taste the things of heaven slightly and as we say upon the tip of the tongue but the same Spirit makes us to ruminate upon them and chew the cudd my heart is always musing of thy testimonies says David O 't is a comfortable thing to have a tast of Heaven in our Soul to have some persuasive Experiment that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in us especially to have it proceed to that most pleasing Sapor when the Spirit shall testifie to our Spirit that we are the Sons of God but in all that are meetly disposed to Eternal Life there is some perceivance in others more in others less there 's some Tast some Consolation that Christ is in them and works in them by Faith and Love and the more you tast it the more sweetness you shall find to breed an Appetite The Natural Man perceives not the things that are of God he counts the Doctrin of Christ and him crucified to be Madness and Foolishness he thinks they that kill his Apostles do God good service he puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Isa 5.20 there 's all the Tast that he hath he wants a Tongue to dijudicate of the Manna that comes from Heaven which no man knows but he that receiveth it Rev. ii 17. He to whom it is given to know what is the height bredth and depth of the Love of our Lord Jesus and his Redemption he accepts of all things in a diverse manner from him to whom the mind of the Lord is not revealed he interprets the Poverty of Christ to be the Riches of the World his Ignominy to be the Triumph of the Saints Tribulation for the truth is a Refreshing to his body Mortification and pious Sorrow a dainty Lenitive to his soul he receives the Doctrin of our Ministry not as the Word of Man but as it is indeed the Word of God he cannot but speak the Truth though his life ly at the stake for it negare Dei verbum non valeo quia spiritus sancti linguam habeo it is Gregories I cannot deny the word of God because the Holy Ghost hath given me a tongue to speak it To conclude this point no man can have a smack of the Kingdom of Heaven but through the rellish of this tongue no man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. xii 3. as we are born children of wrath in our unregenerate estate we have bitterness in our throat and the poison of Asps under our lips how can we savour the things that are of God but the Spirit makes us a new creature and takes away all this sourness and ill relished acrimony and then his fruit will be sweet unto our mouth Cantic ii 3. Having delivered unto you the substance of this Vision which is a tongue it follows to speak of the Figure and Form of it It was cloven that 's truly called the Figure and like as of fire that 's truly called the Form A Tongue was a Commission and an enabling of the Apostles to preach but a Cloven Tongue was their hability to preach unto many The Syrian language was all that they could speak before and in that they faultered too and mouthed it rudely and unelegantly a silly Damosel quipt even St. Peter with it Thou art a Galilaean and thy speech betrayeth yet such a tongue as it was they were unlettered men and could speak no more all the world beside were Barbarians to them and they Barbarians to all the world But the Lord knew that they had need of many tongues to pay that great debt which they owed his Church ite praedicate universae creaturae go and teach all Nations from Jerusalem and Samaria even unto the ends of the world I would a little satisfie my Auditors before I go any further that would know how the tongues did resemble a cloven figure that sat upon the Apostles If you look upon such types of it as Picture-drawers have framed remember that there is no heed to be given to their Pencil for they will extremely abuse your ignorance they usually represent the Apparition as if every Apostle and the Blessed Virgin sitting in the midst of them had a little lamp of fire like the flame of a small Torchet blazing upon their head and so would thrust this belief upon the rash gazer that God sent down a shew of many firy tongues into the place where this holy Society was gathered together and that there was singularis flammula a little flame proportioned somewhat like a Tongue sitting
be our Intercessor with his Father and to prepare a place for us Whitsunday or the Coming of the Holy Ghost is like a fair Land-mark to instruct the most unlearned that though our nature is most corrupt and averse from all good motions yet the spirit is poured into us whereby in some weak measure we become obedient Children and cry Abba Father These are the Days which the Lord hath made and when we devote our selves to magnifie him upon these occasions they prove the best means to teach us the Catechetical and fundamental points of faith And as Christ was great in himself and in those works of grace so He is great in the Angels of Heaven great in the Apostles in the Evangelists in all Saints and Martyrs and the choice is made by our Church of the Flower of all occasions in this kind publickly to praise the Lord and it is very fit I say that there should be a sensible difference between these and common days both for our thanksgiving and for the profitableness of our piety Gods works are all worthy of observation but not at all times alike to be remembred for as the Lord by being every where doth not give unto all places one and the same degree of holiness but the Church is more sacred than the High-ways of the Field though Gods Immensity and Omnipotency is alike in both so neither is one and the same dignity competent to all times although the Omnipotency of God doth work in all times but as his extraordinary presence hath hallowed and sanctified certain places so they are his extraordinary works which have worthily advanced certain times for which cause they ought with all men that honour God to be in more honour than other dayes I should add two things more that are very ponderous to confirm this truth one from the practice of some holy persons in the Old Testament whose constitutions God approved the other from the practice of our Fore-fathers in all Ages and 't is fit to tread in their steps in things that are laudable honest and indifferent but this shall not be hudled up I will dilate it hereafter To dispatch all beside our holy due of the Lords Day we are now to celebrate the Kings Day and for good reason in all equity we ought to do some Religious Service on His Day who is the Defendor of our Religion Next under the Providence of God who but the King doth maintain the Truth among us therefore on what day of the week soever this Day lights it becoms us to set open the Door of the Church and to praise the Lord because we have freedom to come to Church all the year by his grace and protection We have no Romish Superstition no Anabaptistical or Presbyterian Anarchy to make this holy place irksom unto us God be praised that has given his Anointed a faithful heart to serve him and to uphold his People in the right way that they may hold up clean hands to Heaven I do read that Constantine celebrated an yearly Feast for his Victory against Licinius I read that the Church of Alexandria celebrated a Day yearly wherein the waters asswaged after a great Inundation I read that Alexius Comnenus appointed a perpetual Holiday for the memory of the famous Emperor and Lawgiver Justinian nay St. Ambrose calls to mind that Felix Bishop of Cuma kept that day every year in a magnificent manner to God wherein he was consecrated Bishop Thus former Ages have given us light that we keep in the Circle of that which is lawful when we adorn the Anniversary Day of the Inauguration of our most noble King with joy and festivity in the sight of God and first let us confess the Lords benefit towards us and say as the People did of Solomon Because thy God loved Israel to stablish them for ever therefore made he thee King over them to do judgment and justice 1 Chron. ix viii Secondly let as put up Prayers and Intercessions to the Divine Majesty to give great prosperity to our Anointed Sovereign to his Royal Consort and to their Posterity for ever AMEN A SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it IF you have ever seen a piece of Coin stamp'd with one face upon the fore-side and with another upon the reverse then set that fancy before you to understand the double sense of this Text. First If you ask according to the Letter whose Image and Superscription is this I tell you and I have told it you once before it is Davids And this is the triumphant Hymn of the devout men of Israel exulting that God had given them such a King to go in and out before them If you ask according to the Spirit to whom this Verse belongs most certainly it aims at Christ and that two ways either calculating this Day for the whole Age of the Gospel that is the day which God hath made to put gladness into his chosen through the remission of our sins because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Or else in a more eminent sort it is the joyful acclamation of the Church upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus that being the most honourable and most welcome of days because the Resurrection hath ever been esteemed the most glorious of all the works of the Gospel I have spun out the first of these concerning David to the last thread now my Web which is upon the Loom is concerning Christ that is I have given unto Caesar that which is Caesars and it is very expedient as the more principal duty to give unto God that which is Gods Indeed I cannot say that I am come to the heart and to the vitals of the Text till now till now that I apply it not as formerly to the Lords Anointed but to Christ himself our Lord anointed And I have clear way made me for this interpretation as clear as I can wish for never any that have received the Book of the Psalms for spiritual and divine melody but do reckon this Psalm and especially this part of the Psalm to belong to Jesus the Author and finisher of our Salvation The Doctors of the Jews says St. Hierom did use to sing it in praise of the Messias And the Doctors of the Christians must be all of one Chorus to chant it merrily to the Son of God because four places of the New Testament that is witness enough have made a challenge unto it that this Psalm is an Allelujah or Hosannah to the Son of God And because the words of my Text are obvious to be recited upon any memorable and plausible occasion sometimes they have been drawn to congratulate humane affairs yet with this reservation that none under heaven hath a true interest in them I read that in the second Constant Council held under Justinian the Emperour Johannes Presbyter as he was
glory The former Promise honorantes honorabo was fit I told you for the day this latter minacy of Gods anger is rather fit for our Age and for the lamentable profanation of our times They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed Which words as it seems to me will best bear this division of two parts 1. Here is ignominia indigna a disdain much undeserved that God should be despised in the opinion of man 2. Here is ignominia dignissima a scorn and disdain justly deserved such a man set at nought in the eyes of God First I note that here is a disdain much undeserved that God should be despised in the eyes of man As one said that there were no Adulterers in Lacaedemon and as Solon thought that there could be no Parricides in Athens so I ask are there any in the world guilty of this blemish to despise God There have been some men so compleatly furnisht with Heroical virtues that they were esteemed to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men above the reach of obtrectation and envy surely then the mighty God whose glory is incomprehensible whose power is infinite his Majesty is far above contempt and disdain Beloved the enormity of this evil act to despise is not grosly against the Essence of God as if that could be contemned but by reducement it is a sin of so great extension and compass that it will be most necessary for your use and my orderly proceeding to confine our selves to a rule that hath certainty in it The properties of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or contempt are most distinctly set down in the 2. of the Philosophers Rhetor. as Artists know and them I will lay down before you by which when you examine your own practice you will know whether you be among those that despise God The first sign of despising is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we contemn that which we neglect to understand as when a prudent man will not beat his brains to study curious and unlawful Arts it is manifest he doth despise them so whomsoever thou art that art not painful to understand the Sum of thy faith and the mystery of thy salvation it must be granted that thou setst it at no price and estimation I do not say that every mans capacity will serve him to be a skilful Divine labour for so much knowledg as is referrâ—d to Gods Worship whatsoever the best enquire after beyond that Solomon calls it sorrow Eccl. i. I call it curiosity Brethren I beseech you be perswaded that ignorance is a fault for there is a Sacrifice appointed to make an attonement for it in the Old Law besides David had been uncharitable to pray to God to pour out his indignation upon the Heathen that do not know him unless their slothfulness not to know him did deserve it For your better satisfaction there is a threefold ignorance the first is called invincible ignorance that could not be helpt I call it the ignorance of the Woman of Samaria how could she tell that Christ was the Messias until he revealed it unto her this was not to be blamed The second is called affectata ignorance that is wilful and affected I call it the ignorance of Pharaoh Who is the Lord that I should let the people go He could not away with it to hear of the name of the Lord and therefore his opinion was that Religion was an idle mans exercise You are idle says he to Moses and therefore you say Let us go worship in the Wilderness A practised liar will not understand that every word of dissimulation in buying and selling is cosenage and hypocrisie A man that loves increase of wealth will not conceive that any usury is a gross sin and the bane of charity He that thinks a little is too much for the Church will not be informed that Sacrilege authorized by custom can be Sacrilege these proceed from stubborn and affected ignorance The third is called supina ignorance growing upon us by sloth and carelessness this I call the ignorance of Nicodemus he knew not the mystery of regeneration and what it was to be born again of the spirit simple education God knows for a Master in Israel I fear to speak it but it is most true there are many that know as little now adays with their Bibles open as our Forefathers knew in the time of Popery with their Bibles shut How many are there that pass for Believers like the men of Ephesus Act. xix and yet know not whether there be an Holy Ghost or no how many Anthropomorphites God help them that know not that God is an infinite Essence comprehended in no place but think he hath eyes and hands and feet according to the bare letter of the Scripture as whole Covents of Monks fell into that illiterate opinion says Socrates Your own regardlesness that you do not search into the ordinary discourses of Divinity it is the cause that most Sermons are obscure and fruitless to the hearers and that which we think is as easie as milk unto your Palats it is strong meat which cannot be digested because of your ignorance Thus when you set it so light whether you know the mystery of godliness or no is it not to despise the Lord Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those things which we despise we put out of mind and easily forget forgetfulness is a sign of contempt How many preservations how many strange deliverances have befaln us so apparently miraculous that our enemies were compell'd to say this was the finger of God and yet I am afraid most of us would seldom remember them if they were not printed in the Rubrick of our Almanack how much sooner is a sensless Winter tale remembred than a sacred story how new is that unto your ears this day in many things which perhaps you have heard from the Pulpit twenty times before that which we hear once a week concerning faith and good works is sooner out of our head than that which we hear but once in an age from a Proclamation as Tully said of old mens memories Nunquam quemquam audivi oblitum quo loco Thesaurum obruisset he never read of one that forgot where he had laid his treasure So those things only fix themselves in our head which are set in our heart and that only slides away like water which we regard not The first thing which the Devil stole from Eve was her memory God said in the day you eat you shall surely die she said she must not eat lest peradventure she should die Thus we forget instantly what God says like Eve nay we forget what our selves said like Peter he would not forsake his Master but hold out when all fail'd and alas he was the first that denied him how often is the next thing that follows our repentance fresh iniquity how often is the next thing after our prayers profaneness and then do we not forget what we said our selves Orlandine in
our charity though above the definition of our judgment And thus I would rise up into pious credulity of their salvation for our Church hath a pious credulity at their burial As the longer proportion of afflictions usually falls upon them that can more patiently suffer them and God lays his burden upon them that can best bear it so let our charity infer that he makes the bed of their sickness be long and tedious that had need of large repentance and takes them away suddenly that are best prepared St. Austin fills up this very doctrine with the instance of Lots Wife Magis est hoc exemplum eruditio nobis quà m condemnatio ipsius this Pillar of salt stood there rather for our instruction than for our condemnation And God doth often chastise his own in the flesh as well with sudden as with lingring correction to save the soul from the wrath to come Filii Aaronis castigati sunt non damnati says Gregory Nadab and Abihu were chastised and suddenly slain for offering strange fire but not damned So the old Prophet that was rent by the Lion for his disobedience lived and died an holy man in all the reputation of Israel Luther pleads thus for Lots Wife that in the general course of her life she was faithful and holy left Vr of the Chaldaeans to come away with Abraham from that sink of Idolatry and with Lot her Husband Gen. xii 5. and she stuck close to her Husband in this Exile out of Sodom Therefore it is to be credited that her former faith did not leave her though her soul had but a short moment to call for mercy I wonder the Jesuits should extenuate her sin to be but venial and yet make her a castaway For Lorinus says he would grant she was saved but that all their Authors were against him Lenior placet sententia quamvis Patronum non reperiam Nay I think the best of her in charity not by lessening her sin but by extolling Gods mercy Some of the Rabbies make a toy of it that she became a Pillar of Salt because she would not set Salt before the Angels whom she had received the night before in hospitality The Hebrews will write sometimes as if they were wiser than men sometimes scribble as if they were foolisher than children The fault was a vast one she cast away that which the Lord would have saved in regard of her self desperately of the Angel contumeliously of her Husband and Daughters scandalously of God and his favours unthankfully yet her last gasp might be illuminated by the Spirit to commend her soul into the hands of her gracious Father To which Father and the Holy Spirit together with Jesus Christ be all glory and honour AMEN A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL NUMB. xxi 7. Pray unto the Lord that he take away the Serpents from us I Preach of a People that travelled fourty years in a Wilderness wherein there was neither pleasure nor plenty that came in the end to the Land of rest I preach to a People that are willing according to the boundaries of our Church to number fourty days of Abstinence to be spent without plenty or pleasure to keep them in breath for true repentance that they may find rest for their Souls The People of whom I preach when they were in one of their last journeys at Salmonah I am sure in the last year of their travail were stopt by firy Serpents before they got into the Land of Promise And you to whom I preach are brought into the Land of the Living by the conduct of Joshuah the Servant of the Lord. And though we are come out of a Wilderness and are within the borders of our Canaan God be praised yet we cannot be quiet for Serpents Which puts this word into my mouth to day to avert the malice of the ungodly Pray c. The way wherein I mean to handle the Text is in two parts a Punishment for sin and a Repentance for sin The sin of the Nation must be considered in both and before both And that was murmuring as you may read it in two verses before Indeed it hath that name and another 1 Cor. x. 9 1◠Let us not tempt Christ as some of them tempted and were destroyed of Serpents neither murmur as some of them murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer Yet the stubbornness and the very back-bone of their sin is murmuring That was their guilt and the same is ours and the worse in us because we offend under the grace of a better Covenant The punishment of the sin of the murmuring Israelites was annoyance by true and real Serpents strictly and in the letter they were no other On our part nothing toucheth us of that nature but we are plagued with Serpents that are far worse as will appear in their ranks and conditions hereafter to be unfolded The repentance for their sin is seen two ways First that they fly to the remedy of Prayer For the Soul which God did breath into Man cannot shake off this principle that all succour comes from above for which it must breath out it self to God Secondly that they fly to that Prayer which comes out of the mouth of Moses That Moses with whom their whole Host was just before offended he is so generally in their good opinion thank the Serpents for it that he must now be their rescue and Advocate and none but he make their peace with God Thou Moses pray unto the Lord that he take away the Serpents from us Now you see what you are to look for out of the Text and in what order and that before I come to the Punishment I must look out a sin for affliction riseth not out of the dust neither doth trouble come out of the ground Job vi 5. Gods hand sends them and Mans sin brings them And this was brought on by repining at Gods mercy and quarreling at Moses his Minister Their tongues run as if they had drunk deep of Viper wine so the Lord sent Serpents among them They that serve God for temporal things and are too eager to get them cannot choose but fall into the tentation of murmuring Such was this People not one Tribe better than another that grumbled upon the lightest thing that crossed them that it was not God that brought them out of Egypt but a trick of Moses to be a King over them But being now more impatient than ever they insist upon two things as ver 4. that the soul of the People was much discouraged because of the way And why so they were not turned aside from the Land of Promise the Journey had been long but the fourtieth year was even spent the worst was past and six moneths would give them possession They could not complain of weariness their feet never swelled Deut. viii 4. Only they were foundred in their patience and would not stay a little while till the time was come which God had
moral just man may be carnal A moral chaste man may be covetous But if it be spiritual temperance or spiritual chastity coming from the grace of God it will be justice and peace and mercy and all the whole swarm of vertues that can be recited There is a difficult point in one of the Parables about a man that had not on a Wedding Garment What is this Wedding Garment One will have it to be Faith another to be Good Works a third to be spiritual Joy a fourth to be repentance Why Origen prevented all these controversies before they were moved if he had been mark'd Says he Vestis nuptialis est textura omnium virtutum The Wedding Garment is all these and more than these for it signifies that all vertue in the several threds should be woven into our heart Faith Hope and Charity are fruits that hang all upon a stalk three several divine graces yet they have but one soul Faith says there is a Kingdom prepared for the righteous Hope catcheth hold and says it is prepared for me Then Charity comes in for her part and says I will run to obtain it They are like the three principal vital parts in mans body the Heart the Brain and Liver One is as necessary as all three together for the decay of either is death without redemption No stragling single solitary vertue which hath no fellows comes from this coelestial watering The spiritual service of God says a learned Author may be measured three ways 1. Whether it come ex toto corde from all the heart from all the strength and from all the soul 2. Whether it be Cum totâ plenitudine with all the confluence of good works as it were in one fortunate conjunction 3. Whether it be in toto tempore continually and at all times alike Spiritus vivificat Joh. vi It is the Spirit that quickneth which makes a good man live and fructifie at one time as much as another It is no dead moisture which can do no good upon a Plant unless the Sun likewise be in a fit ascension to cherish it and make it spring This is living water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostome It impels the Conscience to be never out of motion in some spiritual exercise The Son of God is called a living stone and the Spirit living water and man a living Sacrifice Righteousness is the savour of life unto life dead works are the savour of death unto death A tree that always bears is a Plant of Paradise Not a little Repentance or a little Charity once or twice a year at a Communion and then shake hands with Mortification till the next Christmass or Easter Among other reasons why the Holy Ghost assumed the shape of a Dove this is reckoned for one that it is a bird of a most teeming fecundity whether any bird that flies lay oftner I am not certain I believe not many such fecundity there is in a lively Faith it is never without some good Work either the Tongue is Praying or the Ear is Hearing or the Heart is Meditating or the Eye is Weeping or the Hand is Giving or the Soul is Thirsting for Remission of sins And this is enough to shew what fruitfulness is brought to pass by this heavenly moisture and for the first part of the Text. Yet it were an undervaluing and a diminution to so great a blessing to be called water unless the second part of my text did hold up the dignity let us come therefore to consider the rare vertue which is in it for it takes away the molestation of thirst for ever But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst Yet I will take in no more than the Text doth directly prove and leave that which some would draw in ex abundanti by the strength of their conjectures There are those that make this verse a convincing argument how a man that hath tasted the grace of God is never empty more but assuredly full and satisfied to the end of his life Which way soever the truth of that Controversie stands I wave it off but I think this Text is not to be charged with that meaning as if it proved it 'T is true he that drinks of this water shall never thirst but quousque bibendum how long must he drink let him drink all his days while his breath lasts and then he shall be satisfied with the goodness of the Lord as out of a River Again call to remembrance what is meant by this water every good and perfect gift which enricheth the Soul descending from the Father of lights but among all that heavenly Offspring perseverance is the fairest Nymphas supereminet omnes Perseverance must not be excluded from the Text. Then I have done with this rubb in a word he that drinks of this water and puts perseverance into the Cup he shall never thirst He shall never thirst Why then says the Son of Syrach concerning the wisdom which sanctifieth all things They that eat me shall yet be hungry and they that drink me shall yet be thirsty Ecclus xxiv 21. and very certain none so greedy to have more grace as he that hath some already none so instant to get ten Talents as he that hath received five Let Elisha be inspired with a competent measure for one of the Children of the Prophets and he will presume to ask that a double portion of Elias his spirit may rest upon him if it be possible Concerning all the fruits of the Spirit this judgment of Gregorie's is undoubted cum non habentur in falstidio sunt cum habentur in desiderio they that have them not think vilely of them they that have them do insatiably desire them Please you for the true explanation of the words to mark the Proposition must not be taken alone by it self but respectively to the Comparison that went before The water which the Woman of Samaria came for it consumes after you have tasted it and it is missed as if it never had been Therefore we call for Elementary drink every day for as much as drought is a torment to nature now when we are once made partakers of living waters we call for more and more not because want and driness doth afflict us but because desire doth please us So that distinction used by many will be clear to be understood sitis ariditati non desiderio opponitur he that drinks these waters of the Holy Spirit shall never after have a dry and a parched Soul but he shall ever have a thirsty affection to drink his fill The vertue therefore of the Spirit may be well drawn to these three heads First it moistens the Soul that it feels no driness like a barren Land which hath no natural humour in it there is no such thirst in him that hath a lively faith but it cannot choose but beget a thirsty affection and a longing to add more and more unto
it had been dried before the fire now that and bread made of Barley had need to be washed down But what said the Roman Captain to his Army Nilum habetis vinum quaeritis they that had the whole River of Nile before them need not complain of thirst so they that were near to the Sea of Tiberias took no thought for any other Beverage it was a Lake of wholsom and fresh water which after the custom of the Jews is called a Sea if it be large and spacious and with that they were contented to quench their thirst Our Saviour furnished them once with wine at the joyful Solemnity of Marriage they lookt not for the like at every occasion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a pleasant liquor says the Poet but it is the Milk of Venus They declined all incentives of lust and lived almost after Daniels rate with pulse and water When Christians lived among the Heathen they were detected by their parsimony and moderation of diet though it were to save their lives they could not gurmandize like Epicures Nos oleris comas nos siliqua faeta legumine paverit innocuis epulis says Prudentius by temperance and fasting they got the mastery of the concupiscence of the flesh But above all Christians especially sobriety descended from the Apostles upon Ecclesiasticks it deserved a censure in them to exceed in delicious fare the Canons are extant and the proofs are authentique that the great and solemn Fasts of the Church well known to us were observed by them a good while before they were admitted by the People None know better than we says St. Austin that when temperance directs us to deny our selves those things that are lawful we are the better instructed to shun the sinful works of the Devil which are altogether unlawful The Apostles are our Forerunners in this frugality or rather austerity of food and yet to see that for all this they were scandalized for riotous libertines The imputation against them according to St. Matthew is this that they did not fast when the Disciples of John did In St. Luke more palpably spiteful they tell our Saviour that his Disciples did eat and drink why not would they have them macerate themselves with wilful famishment but could envy it self lay excess or intemperance to their charge I would we were as clear from the fault as they we that abuse the fertilness of our Land to rankness of gluttony we that pay more to the belly than we owe to the whole body who almost is not an Apicius that can maintain it what sin did ever grow up in any State to a more prodigious extremity but if the droughts of three years successively threatening dearth and scarcity will not affrighten this sin from our Table it is not a piece of a Sermon that will beat it down Yet I pray you remember that sharp Epiphonema of the Parable These three years have I come and found no fruit cut it down Nay God defend Why then expiate your surfeitings with Apostolical abstinence and forget not what a thrifty pittance they had in store even five barley loaves and two fishes And was this all and were they pleased that Christ should take that little from them and give it away to strangers yes it appears by Andrews answer they did not grudg it We have no more it is as good as nothing to feed such a multitude This implies as if he spoke the rest they shall have it all and much good do them if that will content them And was he so willing to part with that which was necessary for his own sustenance he had no more And will not we bestow our superfluities upon them that want Every luxuriant Vine must be largely pruned and he that hath much must scatter bountifully The Vine doth not miss the redundant branch and a rich mans Purse is like a River that doth not fall for a spoonful of contribution But when a poor man conjects heartily to any pious use his faith is proved as well as his charity is exercised for it is a sign that he believes that God will sustein him though he have emptied himself of all his substance in a small Oblation There are three things says Gregory that are most holy Sacrifices castitas in juventute sobrietas in ubertate liberalitas in paupertate liberality in poverty chastity in youth moderation in plenty And St. Chrysostom infers it from the readiness of the Disciples to part with all their homely Viands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maunder not that you are scanted and have but little he that hath any thing hath somewhat to spare to lend to the needy When the poor Widow had conferr'd two Mites no less than all her living unto the godly uses of the Temple Christ avouched it in her praise it was more than all the rich ones had bestowed That is not by absolute but by proportionable quantity as Aquinas states it not measuring the magnitude of the Gift but the sincereness of the Charity Non perpendit quantum sed ex quanto proferatur says Bede God doth not estimate how much was given but out of how much it was taken It was more for her to give two mites than for Zacheus to give a talent So it was more for these Disciples to surrender up their five loaves and two fishes than for another to keep open house for all the poor in Jerusalem And these shall be the limits of the first point our Saviours bodily preparation to the ensuing Miracle accepit he took the loaves And what more beside accepit For the Miracle came not off without another preparation and that is Ghostly Postquam gratias egisset after he had given thanks Best take it with the full allowance as the other Evangelists have enlarged it that beside giving thanks he looked up to heaven and blessed So then before he brought the sign to pass he glorified his Father three ways with his Eye he looked up to heaven with his Tongue he gave thanks and with his Spirit he blessed If you will scan the value of an action by the rarity of it in holy Scripture and by the incidency upon none but great occasions then both these do concur in this that Christ looked up to heaven I call it to mind that it hapned three times that is not often now at this instant when he was about the miracle of the Loaves Once again when he raised Lazarus to life Joh. xi 41. And once more when he began his Prayer to his Father but a few minutes before he was apprehended to be crucified Joh. xvii 1. And the Tradition is of long continuance that he lifted up his eyes to heaven the fourth time when he consecrated the Elements at his Last Supper The Liturgies ascribed to St. James and St. Mark do remember it and upon the credulity of the example the Canon of the Mass in the Church of Rome commands it At all times you
glory Thirdly He distributed to the Disciples and assumed them into the same works which himself did save only in the work of our Redemption but when he was acting that part either they fell asleep or run away as when he was laid hold upon to be crucified it was an exploit above a mortal man to assist it and would admit of no associate I have trodden the Wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me Isa lxiii 3. But the power of doing Miracles was communicated unto them for the edifying of the body of the Saints and that before a great Congregation where there were many witnesses that there was such virtue given to men as if Christ had said before them all these are they that shall work signs and wonders in my Name when I am gone to Heaven These are they indeed but to do such mighty things was an Heritage which they could bequeath again to their Sons and to their Sons Sons in all descending Generations As a Conqueror enters it may be in triumph into a City which he hath taken but when the Solemnity of the triumph is over a plain working-day fashion serves for after so the Gospel entred with triumph into the World by the power and pomp of Miracles overtopping all false Religions and captivating all imaginations but would you have Christianity to hold on its triumph when it hath vanquished both Judaism and Idolatry 1600 years ago Not so but as there is a time to every purpose under Heaven so there was a time to glorify God by Signs and Wonders and a time to believe though Signs are ceased But now was the season to communicate some share of that mighty vertue to the Apostles as well to prepare them to know their office as to prepare the People to know that those were the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God Lastly the Disciples received the Blessing immediately from Christ and they went between Him and the People to feed them with bread to teach us that it is for his Saints sake that the earth hath plenty of all things It was not unto them which murmured that God gave water of the rock but unto Moses that cried unto him It was to Elias that God gave rain after three years drought and not unto Ahab Forget not therefore which way all temporal Blessings come about There are holy and mortified men among us that spend the greatest part of their life in penance and devotion these make intercession for you that your Table may be furnished and though they do not give it you with their hand as the Disciples did in our present business they give it you with their Prayers when others revel it and waste their stock in vanity these grovel upon the earth with their bended knees that the Lord would not be angry As St. Austin said to such a purpose Quando ipsi laetantur nos pro illis gemimus when others pamper their genius with marrow and fatness these do macerate themselves with abstinence to avert famine from the Land A devout man whose zeal is free from faction and his heart clear from malice that drives not his private prosperity but every day spends some Canonical hours most strictly for publick blessings it may be hath nothing himself and yet procures all as the Apostles took bread from Christ not for themselves but to give away to the multitude or if some little came to their share they enjoyed it not without the envy of those that were the better for their benefit For when they had distributed their Masters Maundy once and again to so many folk yet they grudged them that which a Nest of Sparrows would make bold with when they pluckt a few ears of corn and rub'd them in their hands Well the World will never reform this ingratitude and yet the Lord doth not repent him that his Saints are so precious in his sight that they obtein riches health and peace for those that hate them and persecute them Such a poor Widow as Anna that continued in Prayers and Fastings day and night in the Temple in part Cesar did owe the prosperity of his Crown unto her the People were beholding to her that they had their Traffick the Priests that they had the exercise of their Religion they of the City that they had their health they of the Country that they had their Harvest May be there were Blasphemers Extortioners Adulterers that were filled with this Feast which Christ made so it shall be while good and bad are intermingled every where But do you mark it Christ committed the bread at the first breaking to the hands of the Disciples for faithful and good men are the Conduit-pipes of all the Blessings which the earth receiveth from the Father of mercies to whom be glory for evermore AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON JOHN vi 11. He distributed to the Disciples and the Disciples to them that were set down and likewise of the Fishes as much as they would IT will not be denied but if I share this Miracle between those that had their finger in it two parts to speak with the least must be given to Christ If therefore there be double as much in Christs act that be distributed to the Disciples as there is in their act who distributed to them that were set down it was as due required to put the Bucket twice into the Well to draw waters from the former and with half that labour uno pede stans that is at this once and no more to dispatch the latter And now I shall put it unto you that this Miracle is come down as low as it could descend The divine incomprehensible nature was the Origen of it and therefore Christ used that Ceremony when he took the Loaves into his hand to look up to heaven Our Saviours Humane Nature was the next Vessel into which the grace of the Almighty was poured for the Father had given all things into his hand Joh. xiii 3. The next and underneath his feet were the Apostles they had their Power and Commission from him As the Father sent me so send I you Joh. xx The last of all to whom the Apostles communicate their gift are the People and there the gift abides The Dove that is the Holy Spirit doth use to fetch this compass about before he lights O glorious Hierarchy O most beautiful degrees of strength and Majesty O golden Chain whose uppermost Link is fastned to the highest heaven and the nethermost part toucheth the lowest earth Thus doth our blessedness descend step by step from the Father to the Son from the Son to the Disciples and from the Disciples to all those that are nourished with the words of Truth and of good Doctrine 1 Tim. iv 6. So then we hold of God as the Author of all Grace of Christ as the head of the Body which is his Church of the Apostles and their Successors as his subordinate Ministers And
with all Christian Churches throughout the World We write our selves Christians and nothing else The name of Protestant as it was ever harmless so properly it concerned but the pleading of some grievances upon one day when a Diet of the Princes was held at Spire and when Sects were sprung up among Christians to be a Protestant was no more than to be a good Christian If our ill-willers call us by any other by-word the sin is theirs we have not the tongues of wicked men in a string that they shall give us no attributes but such as are worthy of us Non sumus Pauliani non sumus Petriani sumus Christiani Pastors must beget Children to Christ and not unto themselves therefore we are neither of Paul or Cephas but the Off-spring of Christ say the Divines of Doway and I would their deeds were suitable to their Annotation More smartly St. Hierom if you take the name of Marcionite or Valentinian you cease to be a Christian Not so will some say I can take the name of some excellent man upon me as a subordinate Servant to Christ But Ignatius goes on if you do take the name of man upon you you do lose the name of the Lord. A whole hour is not enough for all that can be said upon this point but this is enough for them that will learn how the faithful of the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision were in danger to be divided therefore they were both enclosed in the identity of one blessed name And c. So I have shewn what my Text speaks of fell out in a ripe season and a profitable opportunity now all times are capable of that which follows what this name imports and what it imposeth Our dear Redeemer having wedded the Church unto himself and having given it an interest in his precious bloud here and a lively hope to possess his glory hereafter it was meet that his Spouse should be called by his name and then either from Jesus or from Christ Jesus He was called for his Divinity for He that is Man could not save us from our sins unless He were the offended Party as well as the Ransom God and Man Christ he was called from being Man for he was anointed to execute the Offices of his Mediatorship in his humane nature Now judg in your selves whether we that are partakers of flesh and blood should have our nomination from his Godhead or from his Manhood rather only the Jesuit some Divine creature I warrant you is not contented with the common name of Christian but after much opposition of Courts of Parliament in France or Consistories in Rome he calls himself by the dear remembrance of the Epithet in which our salvation is sealed unto us But save us good Lord from such Saviours What will suffice them whom the Roialty to be called a Christian will not suffice In quo omnium sublimium nominum communionem adipiscimur says Nyssen whereby we have our share in all Titles that have sublimity in them as he that holds the fastning links of a Chain in his finger draws on all the rest to use the same Fathers Similitude The Heathen that looked for the signification of the word in their own learning and not in the Scriptures surnamed us Chrestiani à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you would say benign and gentle So Tertullian Cum perperam Chrestianus a vobis pronunciatur de suavitate vel benignitate compositum est when you miss our right name and pronounce us Chrestians it imports sweetness and benignity It seems there was a placidness and facility of nature in the Disciples which was far from giving just offence and won it self the affections of others And is not much better than a jarring harshness which is prone to discords and contentions The spirit of wisdom it courteous and humane Wisd vii 23. Yet this fell short of the true notation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who knows it not is unctus The Anointed not every Anointed but The Anointed as if it were written in capital letters whom the old Testament in the same sense calls the Messiah and the Hellenists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Caninius says that the wrathful Jews who will not own him for their Messias call him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not unctum but delibutum as you would say not anointed but stained and besmeared To whom I rejoyn videbunt quem transfixerunt they shall see him whom they have pierced with their blasphemies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Anointed of the Lord He is our Chief from whom we derive our nomination He was a King as the Psalms stile him Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion and so anointed He was a Priest a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech and so anointed He was a Prophet that Prophet whom God promised to raise up to Israel among their Brethren Deutr. xviii and so anointed Ter Christus a triple anointed a triple Christ that sacred one to whom God giveth not the Spirit by measure but he is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows and so is an infinite Christ from his superabundant unction we are replenished of his fulness we have all received some drops have trickled down from the head to the skirts nay to the feet and ancles to the lowest parts of the body and by the power of his Christhood we are transformed to be Christian Aptly hath St. Bernard ratified all this from that of Solomon Cant. ii 3. Oleum effusum nomen tuum Thy name is as ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love thee Christianus then to put good Greek into bad Latin is all one with Vunctianus anointed with the sprinkling of water in Baptism for the remission of sins and therefore Crism or Oil hath been applied as a significant Ceremony to the Infant baptized not only abroad but in our own Church I mean since it was reformed After this of Baptism follows the Unction of true Doctrin Ye have an unction from the holy one and ye know all things 1 Joh. ii 20. To these is added the Unction of Grace that we may be a sweet savour of life unto life and above all these the bloud of Christ is anointed upon the posts of our doors that the Destroyer may pass by and spare us and all these Lines meet in this one Center to call us Christian Is it not a grievous case that this Name so musical to the ear so melodious to the heart should be almost obscur'd to bring in another Catholick a word to be very well approved of it finds more acceptance with some than Christian These words of St. Luke in my Text are not more authentick with them hardly so much as those of Pacianus Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen illud me nuncupat istud ostendit Christian is my name Catholick my surname the indignity is
honour of God did infect the air and provoke this immediate putrefaction in Herods bowels Beloved We do all hold up our hands and bless our selves from such a vengeance as fell upon him that the very flesh should putrefie in his body and breed stink and loathsomness yet our lustful Gallants will take no warning but incur a more odious disease a more putrefying corruption of the body by their uncleanness and fornication than ever Herod had It is very strange to see how one Country will shift off the name of that disease to another which for reverence to your ears I will not mention The Indian will not own it The Naopolitan shuns the disgrace to have it pinn'd upon him the French translates it upon another People whole Kingdoms were ever ashamed of the infamy and yet this man and that man and the other that haunts Stews incurs it knows of it professeth it Beloved is such a putrefied Carkass fit to make a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in or rather fit to make a Hog for Satan to enter in and run him headlong to his ruine O you are sure all shall be cured by Baths and Chirurgeons when the Angel of the Lord may strike you immediately that you give up the Ghost So indeed our Saviour himself is said to give up the Ghost but with much difference from Herod in the very original phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Luke and St. Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Matthew still there is mention of the Spirit in all the four Evangelists because Christ was full of the Holy Ghost But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says my Text of Herod he breathed out his soul no mention of the Spirit for he was homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul says Efflavit animam he disgusted out his soul which no doubt did loath the body To conclude all If you ask me what became of Herod after these words He gave up the Ghost I have no Commission from the Scripture to search into it he had much cause to give God thanks if he were saved who gave him five days repentance after he was struck to be sorry for his sin If he were condemned we have cause to give God thanks who hath made Herod an example unto us and might have made us had we been created sooner an example unto Herod Like Davids Arrows about Jonathan so are Gods Judgments about us on this side and beyond round about our eyes his name be blessed for evermore that we are not the mark of his indignation Which mercy that he may continue towards us we beg for the merits of Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit c. THE FIRST SERMON UPON GAL. iv 26. But Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all AN odd conceit that came into the head of the Cosmographer who said that if two Eagles equally strong in flight should be chosen out the one being set at the furthest part of the East in Asia the other at the furthest part of the West in Europe if these two should take the wing just in the same moment and not rest till they came together they would meet both at Jerusalem as if it were the Navel of the habitable World I rehearse it as a Dream and I give it this Interpretation The Synagogue under the Law of Moses was the Occidental Eagle the Gospel of Grace the Oriental Eagle which did rise with Salvation in its wings why these two holy Professions which soared aloft when all other Religions crept upon the ground I say these two when St. Paul wrote this Epistle to the Churches of Galatia did conspicuously meet in Jerusalem as in that Theater whereon they did act their most principal part There was the Chair of the Scribes and Pharisees advanced that taught the exactest way of the Law there was the Temple wherein the Rites and Ceremonies were performed daily which Moses commanded And likewise from thence began the Gospel to go forth into all the Earth and had gained more ground there than in any other place You have filled Jerusalem with your Doctrin say the High Priests Lo this is the Rendezvouz of the Cosmographers two Eagles and this is the Explication of his Fable You know they continued there a short while for about the space of forty years like Twins strugling in one Womb. And though at first the Propugners of the Law would in no wise consent that the College of the Apostles the Preachers of the new Covenant of Grace should have any room in their Principality yet in a short time the Devil saw it best for his purpose to let them share together Nec meum nec tuum sed dividatur let it neither be Moses alone nor Christ alone but let them mix together This was the bane of sincere truth for every Metal that is mixed with gold embaseth it And yet it was entertain'd as a motion sent from Heaven to make peace and amity in all the Churches of Galatia till the Lord stirred up the spirit of St. Paul to dissolve this Combination which he performs with most approved success in this Chapter And because Similitudes and Figures will hold faster in the memory of the unlearned who are the greater number than powerful Arguments after weighty Reasons premised the Apostle concludes with an Allegory at the end of his Disputation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Banquet after a Meal of solid meat And thus it runs that they who sought righteousness by the Law were no better than Ismael the Son of Hagar they that sought righteousness by Faith were as Isaac the Heir of his Father That the Law came from Sinah which was seated in Arabia a Mountain quite out of the Confines of the Land of Promise the Gospel began at Sion or Jerusalem which was the heart of the Holy Land Or let Jerusalem be compared with it self and it was under servitude and malection by the Profession of the Law but it gained honour and a beautiful Portion by the Profession of the Gospel Jerusalem which now is in bondage with her Children but Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all Out of this contention between St. Paul and the Galatians those suspensive men those neutrals that would be half Jew half Christian and so were rightly neither Jews nor Christians I say from hence the legitimate Church which is the undefiled Spouse of Christ hath purchased this description which I have read unto you wherein divers of her Privileges are collected together I do not say all for under the Title of the Kings Daughter she is described circumamicta varietate Psal xlv clothed with as much embroidering and varieties as could be rehearsed in a long Psalm In this little Abstract of the excellency thereof six Portions of its glory are conteined in six words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
is the portion which comes unto us and for which our Covenant is called the Gospel of glory For tribulations which did not accord with the Jewish Oeconomy if they be not above our strength we must not only expect them but rather invite them then avoid them Vre seca hic ne parcas Domine ut in aeternum parcas Prove me chastise me bruize me like sweet Gum till thou beest pleased with my savour pitty me not in these momentary afflictions that thou mayest spare me for ever As the soul is free from the prison of the body when it is dissolved in death so it is most free from the faeces and earthiness of the body when it is not wedded to the desire of transitory things Mushrooms that have no savour when we have enjoyed them but a day Briefly Jewish servility is an unbeliever like St. Thomas Nisi mittam digitum Let me touch let me feel let me grasp my handful or it is in vain to obey the Lord Christian liberty is ingenuous and heroical it hath swum out of this dead Sea in whose mud the unregenerate do stick and if the Lord will give us himself let Ziba take all The greater is our freedom because we know we need not the aids of fortune I have heard that a Cardinal being elected to be Pope his former State is rifled because his new dignity will supply him in abundance Just so when the Spirit comforts us that we are called to a Crown of glory pardon the similitude it is no worse than as Christ hath compared himself to a Thief that comes in the night but our confidence of our new Election to that Inheritance makes us easie to part with that which others keep for a while and leave it in a moment And thus when freedom hath struck inward to our affections pardon us if we speak despicably of the Jews for our Jerusalem alone is free The whole Charter of Jerusalems freedom is dispatcht Though the hour were to begin again I would not stick at the next question how we came by it We all know the procurer and what he did to gain it for us it is a flower that grew out of the bloud of Christ We were not protected as Joshuahs Spies were by a common woman nor set at large as Samaria was by the tidings of Lepers our Deliverer is more honourable to us than our freedom the Son of God was made a Servant that we Servants might become Sons As God made nothing in nature but by his Son by him he made the Worlds so he did nothing for the restauration of the World without him He is all in all He hath freed us from the bondage of shadows by taking a body From the Covenant of Works by satisfying his Fathers Justice From the dread of fear by the sweetness of his Mercy From the sordid desire of earthly things by the operation of his holy Spirit The purchase of our Freedom was carried in this sort so that the Jesuit à Lapide borrowed a fit name to call it by you know from whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gift of a King of David our King Imagine by a Prosopopaea that you saw the Devil and Sin and death defying us in the same words that Goliah did the Camp of Israel If you be able to fight with us and to kill us we will be your Servants but if we prevail against you then you shall be our servants and serve us Then David our Champion slew these Giants of Gath in our quarrel and from thenceforth we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his purchased people as St. Peter says St. Austin says that by nature we were Pharaohs bondmen that is Satans and when we forsook him and fled away to serve God in the Wilderness he followed after us but no further than the Red Sea Quid est mare rubrum Vsque ad fontem Christi cruce sanguine consecratum What is the Red Sea that divided us from him The Fountain of Baptism consecrated to save us by the Cross and Bloud of Christ Bernard alludes to the words of Jacob and says that the Church is that portion which Christ won from the Amorite with his Sword and with his Bow Gladio praedicationis arcu incarnationis With the Sword of his Doctrine with the Bow of his incarnation where the shaft and the string make but one Instrument as his Godhead and Manhood make but one Person Thus he hath snatcht us from our Enemies that were made Lords over us and from the hard bondage wherein we were made to serve Isa xiv 3. Having seen the Copy of our Freedom and knowing how we got it it is a Lesson fit to conclude with that every mans memory may carry that away at the least how we should use it No blessing hath been more abused than this Under colour hereof the Galileans would be free from Tribute the Nicolaitans from the bond of Marriage the Gnosticks from all Justice and Temperance the Clerks of the Roman Church from the Courts of the Civil Magistrate and the Anabaptists from all Moral Duties No says St. Peter to all these As free but not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness but as the servants of God It was St. Austins by-word Dilige Deum fac quod vis You are free therefore love God and do what you will If ye love him keep his Commandments We are not so soon loosed but we are tied again both freed and bound at once Liberando servos nos facit says the same Father in Joh. viii We must recompence his goodness with our imperfect obedience it is the Law of Gratitude it is the Bond of Nature As we commonly say that nothing is more dearly bought than that which comes by gift so we owe the greater service to him of whom we got our freedom Nay we are bound to endure all for his sake Neque hoc facit stupor sed amor nec deest dolor sed contemnitur says Bernard We feel the pain as much as they that curse and rage in their sufferings but our love unto Christ doth overcome it A Free-man that will thrive follows his Trade as close as any Apprentice though not by austere compulsion So our Freedom will not make our hands slack from working if we mean to lay up a treasure in heaven Every piece of Land they say holds of some Lord so every man retains to some Lord either we serve God or sin and Satan If we count it Freedom to take our swing in all voluptuousness pity their frensie that can stir no where but as their intemperate appetite commands them and yet mistake themselves to live without controul who are the Vassals of the Devil While they promise them liberty they themselves are the servants of corruption 2 Pet. i. 19. Tully objects to Clodius that he set up the Picture of Liberty in his house in the habit of a Strumpet Says that approved Senator
Visions that he could take no notice for the present that he lived or had a body but his Spirit was quite abstracted from the senses and lifted up to converse with supernatural speculations Now to sum up this Point touching the modus how John saw the souls of the blessed you shall hear how St. Austin made no scruple of the like case The Angel appeared to Joseph in a dream How did Joseph see an Angel when his eyes were shut Nay rather says the Father how could he have seen an Angel if his eyes had been open So the more the senses of this Prophet were bound up the less communication he had with his mortal nature the more capable he was to see the secrets of God It were no digression at all to tell you at large in this place that St. John was not every body when he saw the Mysteries of the Ages to come in an holy trance Examine him from the time that he was the beloved Disciple while his Master Jesus Christ was upon the earth behold him in his other cognizances that he was an unspotted Virgin a patient Confessor An Evangelist that sored higher than his fellows an Eagle in his Gospel but a Dove in his Epistles where every line is enchased with Jewels of love the aged Patriarch who had long survived all the Apostles the Oracle that resolved all the Churches in their Controversies Finally that supereminent man that left not his like behind him and since his days his equal did never rise up after him Put all this together and mark what a sanctified Vessel this was to see the souls under the Altar and all those things which the Angel told him should come to pass in the days to come What wretch can think himself so prepared as he was to receive these Prophetical graces of God With how many favours of God is a Vision qualified to make it a perfect illumination Let it deter any one that is not possessed with the spirit of Arrogance to think that he is possessed with the spirit of Divination Quia videre non possumus audiamus says St. Austin There is no hope that we vile sinners should see such Visions it is our blessedness that we hear of them What laughter doth it give our Adversaries that this caution is not observed among us we had proof of it lately and almost year by year every hair-brain'd Schismatick that out of pride thinks himself more holy than others fancies that he is a Prophet These filthy dreamers presume they have learnt all that the Scriptures can teach them and therefore like apt Scholars they must be promoted to an higher Form to learn supernal Revelations As the Romanists are excessive in forging lies for their Saints sakes so these are excessive in forging lies for their own sakes both are liars both are Legendaries It was a gift which St. Austin says his Mother Monica had that she could distinguish inter Deum revelantem animam somniantem she knew when God gave her a supernatural inspiration in her sleep and when it was but a common dream By what mark or token could she do this Nay none at all Nescio quo sapore quem verbis explicare non poterat she could not express by what relish of the soul she made a difference between them Of whom have our modern Wizzards it is too good a name if I do not put frentique to it I say of whom have these phrentique persons learnt the trick of Divination Since they that were Prophets upon earth could not teach another how to be a Prophet If St. John knew how he saw this Theory in heaven it was his priviledge alone or with some very few more But God doth not carve a Prophet out of every Christian And so much de modo videndi which is the first Point Take the object now to your attention which he saw an object too subtil to be discerned by a bodily creature but disclosed to this Apostle in his Rapture in the excellency of Revelation he saw the souls of the blessed in heaven It could not out of Tertullians mind as I told you before but that he thought the soul when it was separated from the body had some bodily figure and dimension in it Those polite heathen men indeed whom he had perused did speak grosly in the point as if the Soul after it left this world did flit about the Elysian fields in the form of a thin cloud witness that fancy of the best Poets Infelix simulacrum atque ipsius umbra Creüsae And it is no injustice to excuse such Authors for though the substance of the Soul be incorporeal yet it is impossible for one of us to conceive a Spirit or an Angel but by the help of some corporeal Idea it is a true Metaphysical rule Nihil intelligimus in hôc statu sine verbo materiali in intellectu we understand every thing in this life by some material expression within our selves yet we are able by the undeniable proofs of Art to transcend the narrowness of our own fancy and to affirm that the soul cannot choose but be immaterial that it is not circumscriptive in any place though it have a determined and defined subsistence But this is no time to Philosophize and our Saviours words will carry it clear without the help of Humane Arguments Handle me and see a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have Luk. xxiv 39 which is thus in effect there is no corporeity in a Spirit And the Sixth general Council held against the Monothelites hath these weighty words Nascitur Deus humano corpore animam rationalem incorpoream habens The Son of God had an humane body with a reasonable and incorporeal soul I dismiss that Point it shall not hold you longer There are those that doubt it in their heart or at least they live as if they doubted it whether their soul hath a second state in reversion after this life Can there be any exception against such a Witness as St. John that was taken up into heaven to relate the truth to all Generations upon earth Why he saw the souls of the Saints in a triumphant and immortal condition after they were uncloathed of the body There cannot be an Apparition of that which had ceased to be that were a delusion Not one natural Writer that had a sound brain but maintained that the soul did survive the body and that it was at best liberty when it was released from the prison of the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristotle that the Mind or Spirit can subsist by it self not mixt with any composition not affected with passions They could not search far enough why it should be so they never discovered that the dissolution of the soul from the body was brought into the world after Adam was created for the punishment of sin but their dim Candle gave them light to see that the soul was
apt to be separated I suppose an Epicure may lose his conscience in a mist for a little while and dispute it like a Galenist that the soul is nothing else but the temperature of the first qualities and so in death extinguished but can you imagine that the Spirit it self doth not often give him the lie and say within his breast you do me wrong I am immortal Verily I believe that they that put it off doubtingly and would be uncontrouled in their voluptuousness it may be it is not so are often tormented with the other part of the opinion it may be it is so If you will hear this truth upheld out of holy Scripture there is no resistance or cavillation against it Because I will not tie my self to every Text which chimes that way I will choose compendiously where others have made choice before me The Sadduces being stiff opposers against the separated existence of the Spirit and yet commending themselves in the Holy Patriarchs from whose Loyns they descended our Saviour selected that Scripture above all other to convict them which would catch them in their own net I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living How was God the God of Abraham unless he lived And in what did Abraham live but in his soul which was divorced from the body Irenaeus admires that any one should doubt of the souls perseverance after death since the enarration is so â—lear that the rich man saw Lazarus in joys when himself was tormented St. Hierom sets his rest upon those words Mat. x. 22. Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul St. Austin recommends the words of Stephen to nick the Point without all contradiction Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Si animus moriturus esset causae nihil foret cur animum potiùs quà m corpus commendaret Aquinas against the Gentiles lays his strength upon that place of St. Paul 2 Cor. v. 8. We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with God One quotation were enough then how forcible are all these together He must be a beast in understanding that knows not that the souls of good men are Angels in reversion There are others that profess so much faith that the soul hath a state of happiness in reversion to those that die in the favour of God But that it comes not to any gust of this happiness till the end of the World For the soul say they falls asleep when the body perisheth that is it dies together with the body and when the flesh shall be quickned again and gathered out of the dust then the soul shall live again when both it and the body shall be exalted in the Resurrection I do not create Monsters to fight with all St. Austin found such Hereticks in his days he calls them Arabians who taught it every where that the Soul had no being after death till in the consummation of the World they both obtained together a joyful Resurrection Nay these Tares were sown long before St. Austin lived Irenaeus took the pains to root them up in his Age and he confutes them out of my Text says he how did St. John see the souls of the Martyrs who had been slain for the Testimony of Christ if the Soul should cease to be till the final Resurrection And if a Caviller shall say it doth not cease to be but it lies quiet and senseless in a trance Irenaeus blunts the point of that objection because in the next verse they desire vengeance for their bloud that was shed but principally because in the eleventh verse they are clad in white garments which are cognizances of their joy and glory and doubtless they wear them not sleeping but waking And do not think that I rake in the ashes of ancient Heresies that are quite forgotten For the Anabaptists in their Theses Printed at Cracovia Anno 1568 have this position We deny that any Soul hath a separated being after death that was a devise invented by the Papists to maintain Invocation of Saints and Purgatory this is Popery trimly reformed and according to that Proverb of the Jews they cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils And even at this day a new Generation of Vipers risen up at Racovia in Polonia do pledge the Anabaptists in the same cup namely that there is a futurition of glory for the soul when the whole Fabrick of man shall be redintegrated again in the Resurrection but they profess they cannot tell whether in the mean time there be any such thing extant as a separated soul yet St. Paul says he desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ And yet Christ told the good Thief that day he should be with him in Paradise And yet the Souls of just men departed do follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Rev. xiv 4. These instances are more perswasive I am sure than that which they pretend that the Just do rest from their labours What rest in Gods name do they dream of They are not in a profound trance without motion or action as Adam was cast into a deep sleep when Eve was taken out of his side but it is a rest when the Spirit doth acquiesce in the Vision of God as David said Turn again unto thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath rewarded thee There are some that I must afford a little Patronage who are accused to lean to the Anabaptists in their opinion that do nothing less It was allowed for 1400 years as a Problem wherein Christians without breach of charity might have Latitude to dissent granting that the soul after the dissolution from the body was received into the joys of heaven whether it be not sequestred in some distance from the highest heaven where the invisible God doth chiefly reign in Power and Majesty till the whole Body of the Saints be accomplished It is well known what way St. Bernard took Nec sancti sine plebe nec spiritus sine carne That such as die before us shall not see the Beatifical Vision of the holy Trinity without us nor without their own body and that an integral Beatitude is not given but to an integral person And Calvin hath taken his freedom to be of the same mind says he Christ himself only is entred into the supreme Sanctuary of Heaven Et solus populi eminus in atrio residentis vota ad Deum defert and he alone commends the Petitions of the Saints to his Father whose Spirits attend in the outward Courts Those over-awing Fathers of the Florentine and Tridentine Councils have defined it indeed as an irrefragable Article of Faith that the Saints enjoy the most perfect Vision of God immediately after death What is that to us who will not lose our moderation in indifferent points for their
sakes But Cornelius à Lapide the Jesuit puts the infamy of an Anabaptist upon Calvin as if he had taught that the soul departed had no sense or taste at all of the glory of God Why did he not censure Ambrose and Bernard Why did he not spit his venom upon Pope John the XXII There was good reason for that if we may believe Gerson a most grave Author of their own part But Calvin was the first that ever I met withall who writ a voluminous Treatise to prove that the souls of good men after this life have their quartering and Mansion in Heaven that they are not insensible of their state or benummed in sleep or fettered with darkness but that they praise the Lord continually and Christ that redeemed them which is consonant to this Point of my Text that John saw the souls under the Altar Yet I like not their way who are so careful to teach the people that the souls deceased do not sleep that they keep themselves waking with a thousand Fictions and Impostures there is scarce one leaf written of any Saint in the Church of Rome especially of the modern ones but you shall meet with two or three sprinklings in it how his soul appeared in this or that manner to his friends upon earth their posthumous miracles after their death exceed the number of those which they did when they were living And if any thing be out of order it is straitway rectified with an apparition And from whence think you the Elf or Goblin comes that appears From a place where I am sure this good Apostle saw no souls from the correction house of Purgatory Their Larvae or night-walking souls are their best Doctors for the confirmation of that opinion Ask Gregory the Great else who could urge little beside to gain credit to his opinion for the temporary chastisements of the faithful after this life but as the dead came and made relation to their surviving acquaintance Some silly men were first affrighted out of their wits with a gastly Vision and then guess you who it was that taught them points of Religion But four ages ran out after Gregories time before this cousenage grew trivial and common Gregory the Fourth in the year 835. decreed that a Solemn Feast should be held over all the Church to the memory of all the Saints in heaven that whatsoever was not fully performed in the Feasts and Vigils of particular Saints might be consummated on that day this was nothing to the puling souls detained in the prison of temporary castigation But almost two hundred years after Odilo the Abot of Cluni in commiseration to them that were departed in his own Monastery dedicated a day for the relief of their souls not yet admitted into heaven And Pope Jo. XVIII anno 1007 taking light from Odilo commanded the Feast of all Souls to be general in all places The Devil wanted nothing but the opening of this door to beat down all opposites with apparitions And let the Readers mark it that from that Age not a Book was written not a Chapter of a Book but it relates what Nocturnal Mercuries appeared to bring tidings from Purgatory Some Jangler will catch at this and say Belike you reject all Apparitions of the dead for lies or Demoniacal Impostures If I should I had Tertullian to abet me Omnem mortuorum exhibitionem incorporalem praestigias judices All incorporeal Phantosms of the dead are juglings and delusions And if any point of doctrine depend upon the sleeveless Errands that the souls departed bring I do renounce them for delusions We have Moses and the Prophets and we are certain their Spirits are ever to be preferred before any Spirit that comes from the dead For the living to go to the dead says the Prophet Isaiah none of that but to the Law and to the Testimony Isa viii 19. Rabbi Maimon says that some superstitious Jews would burn Incense among the graves that the dead might come and talk with them And therefore God said that man should be cut off from among the people that sought the truth among the dead Deut. xviii 11. Yet I deny it not but that the divine power hath sometimes presented the Saints departed to communicate with the living as they that appeared in the holy City to testifie our Saviours Resurrection Mat. xxvii Likewise in the 2. of Mach. Chap. ult Onius who once had been High Priest he was exhibited being dead to Judas Machabaeus that is another instance if you have any stomack to that Historian But the upshot is that Souls have been seen in heaven that was the Vision of St. John so Souls may be sent from Heaven but not from Purgatory Through fire I confess these souls had passed which the Apostle saw yet not through that subterraneous fire which they imagine but through the fire of Martyrdom and persecution He saw the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the Testimony which they held And if it be true as none of the worst Expositors conjecture that the computation of the fifth Seal opened immediately before the words of my Text is rightly calculated at what time Dioclesian did cease to make havock in the Church it was a very fit time to see souls in heaven slain for the Word of God it was thwackt with Martyrs like an hive with Bees For burning of Churches for massacring of Christians for Proscription of Innocents no Persecution was ever like it It lasted ten whole years without ceasing and in the first year of his Reign in Egypt only an hundred forty and four thousand Christians were put to death beside seventy thousand that were banisht insomuch says Scaliger that the Epocha of Dioclesian is called the Epocha of the Martyrs in Chronology Who would have thought that the Posterity of Cham a Generation branded with dark and unlovely visages should have afforded so many sacrifices to be offered up unto the glory of Jesus Christ Well might the Church of Aethiopia sing the Canticle of Solomon I am black but comely O ye Daughters of Jerusalem And not only these but exceeding great numbers of Bishops Priests and People in all quarters of the habitable world a long bedroll of faithful men and women in this Island did taste of the bitter Cup under the same Tyrant Fathers lost their Children Children lack'd their Parents the Wife missed her Husband and one friend another whom St. John hath found altogether making up one Chorus of blessed Spirits and while Rachel the Church below mourneth for her Children Jerusalem which is above the Mother of us all rejoyceth for them Martyrdom is the way to sublimate death into a Cordial which was a poyson the means to make that a blessing which was a curse upon our nature A Traffick proper to none but to the Citizens of the supernal City to secure our whole adventure not by assuring but by losing their life It is not only the
denial but that they have brought the Point to the true Touchstone I quoated somewhat out of St. Ambrose before that the bodies of some who gave up their life for the Faith were interred in the Church under the Lords Table which with reference to the representation of the Sacrifice of Christ Crucified is figuratively called an Altar St. Austin confirms it There let their dead corpses be interred where the death of our Lord is continually celebrated And in later years when they studied for increase of Ceremonies every principal Church under the Pontifician command hath a Vault under the Altar where the supposed Reliques of the Martyrs or the Reliques of supposed Martyrs are reserved Out of these Ritual Forms the Jesuits interpret St. John that he saw the Souls of them that were slain for the word whose bodies lay encombed under the Altar and whose Reliques were kept there in custody They had need of a long Figure to bring these ends together Neither shall they ever perswade me that St. John bends his aim at a Custom of Sepulture which began above two hundred years after he wrote his Prophesie No toleration can be found for the burial of the Martyrs in those holy places till the Pacificous Reign of Constantine the Great And how did the Church understand this Scripture in the mean time A Modern Writer of our own handles it much more learnedly to the same relation He notes it very acutely that the Theater wherein St. John saw all his Visions hath a resemblance in every part to the Camp of Israel and to the Tabernacle of Moses in the Wilderness it is enough to have named it Now the Apostle being acquainted by the Spirit what innumerous Troops of Martyrs should be slaughtered he saw as it were the Altar of burnt-offerings belonging to the Tabernacle and the Saints that were sacrificed to God were under it not as ashes are underneath that fall through a grate but they lay like beasts newly slain at the foot of the Altar that is sprauling upon the ground before the Altar The Soul then is taken by Synechdoche here for the whole man or according to the usual style of Scripture for the body of the man The conjecture I think may pass for probable and judicious There is but one thing to disparage it it is but one mans conjecture But if you will hear that which hath judgment to commend it and multitude of Authors it is likely to be found among them that in the third place refer this figuratively to the condition of their Spirits Yet I mean not him that says the Ark and the Covering thereof did represent Gods Mercy Seat but the Altar did represent his Justice for it was the place of fire and bloudshed and that these souls were under the Altar that is under the Justice of God to be avenged of their Adversaries It is nothing so for as it appears by them that fled unto it for refuge the Altar was a place of Propitiation The Altar here by the greatest number of votes is He that mitigates the stern Justice of his Father Jesus Christus Agnus propter mactationem Altare propter propitiationem He is all by whatsoever we are reconciled to God the Altar the Priest and the Sacrifice St. Gregory proves it that the Altars of the Levitical Service were express Types of him for either they were to be made of rude earth Temeraria de sespite altaria in Tertullians words or of rough and unpolisht stones Exod. xx Wherefore of earth but to betoken the Incarnation of our Lord Quicquid offerimus Deo in altari terreo i. e. in fide Dominicae incarnationis solidamus Whatsoever we bring unto God lay it upon the earthen Altar upon this faith that Christ was incarnate to save his people from their sins When the Altar was made of stone it was rough and unpolisht and in those materials likewise we shall meet with Christ For he was the Living Stone in Daniel cut out of the Mountain without hands neither was he polisht by Art by Education or by any thing that man can put into him as he came from the Quarry from the Womb of his Mother he was full of Grace and Truth This standing is firm that the term of Altar agrees well with our Saviour many reasons may be easily rendred why the souls of the Blessed were under the Altar 1. Says Estius a little too slightly They have not yet attained to be like the glorious body of Christ they have not resumed their Carkasses as He is risen from the dead they are yet below His dignity and so under the Altar 2. The Just that died in the Lord in the Old Law are said to be in Abrahams bosom because they professed the Faith of Abraham so they that died in the Faith of the Gospel that Christ is the Altar upon whom all our works that please God are to be offered up their Souls are under that Altar 3. As Lazarus the poor man full of Piety is said to be in Abrahams bosom as if he were placed in heaven next to Abraham so the godly Martyrs are next to the Altar for dignity of glorification next to Christ himself and wheresoever the Carkass is thither will the Eagles be gathered together Luk. xvii Lastly Which takes me most the persecuted Saints had no shelter on earth to defend them now their souls are at rest disquieted with no fear under the protection and custody of Christ Under him we are in safety upon earth and no man can take his sheep out of his hand and under his Wings we shall be safe in Heaven for ever yea and though we have the faith of Martyrs to spend our life for the love of God yet our hope is not in ourselves but to be covered with the Altar to run to Christ as to our Shield and Buckler without his Merits to assoil us from our sins Martyrs cannot appear before the face of God O prepare your selves to come unto this holy Sanctuary He that comes with an hypocritical Conscience to partake of the Altar of the Lords Table he shall find no place for his Soul under that Altar which is above And take heed of high imaginations and exalted thoughts Our state in Heaven is subter and not super And all subters in this World are not worth a good mans thought to reflect upon them Let me be an underling let me be abased let me go down to the lowest Room let my Spirit aim at nothing but to be Templum sub altari the Temple of God here that hereafter I may rest under the Altar in life everlasting AMEN A SERMON UPON REVEL vi 10. And they cried with a loud voice saying How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our bloud on them that dwell on the Earth NOthing may seem more out of order than these words are at the first reading but their true scope is to put that in