of muck but beaten down and burned with the fire of Gods Word the walls of Wood Hay Stubble which the Babylonian builders had raised upon the old Foundation which is Christ Jesus and edified upon it a fair Palace of Silver Gold precious Stones This same is the Opinion also of my Collegues of the French Church of this City of London If any self-conceited Christian thinketh this an advantage rather then a disparagement and disgrace to that punk the Roman Church and taketh thereby occasion to persevere to be her Bawd or Stallion and to run a whoring with her I say with the Psalmist The wicked hath left off to be wise and to doe good and with the Angel He that is unjust let him be unjust still and he which is filthy let him be filthy still For neither must an honest heart speak a lie for the good that may come of it nor conceal in time and place a necessary Truth for any evil that may insue of it If it harden more and more the flinty hearts of some unto death it will soften and melt the iron hearts of others unto life that seeing among us the mud and dirt of humane Traditions wherewith the Pope and his Clergy had furred and soiled the bright-shining glasse of the Gospel wiped away from this heavenly mirror of God's favour they may come unto us and beholding with open face as in a glasse the glory of the Lord may be changed with us into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Which last effect I pray with my heart your Reconciler may have with those that are children of Peace And so recommending your Lordship with all your learned eloquent sound and usefull Labours to Gods most powerfull blessing and my self to the continuance of your godly Prayers and old Friendship I remain for ever Your Lordships most humble and affectionate Servant GILBERT PRIMROSE From London the 26. of February 1629. To my Worthy and much respected Friend Mr. H. CHOLMLEY MAster Cholmley I have perused your Learned and full Reply to Master Burton's Answer wherein you have in a judicious eye abundantly righted your self and cleared a just Cause so as the Reader would wonder where an Adversary might finde ground to raise an opposition But let me tell you were iâ— a Book written by the Pen of an Angel from Heaven in this Subject I should doubt whether to wish it publick How true how just soever the plea be I finde such is the self-love and partiality of our corrupt nature the quarrell is inlarged by multiplying of words When I see a Fire quenched with Oyle I will expect to see a Controversie of this nature stinted by publick altercation New matter still rises in the agitation gives hint to a fore-resolved Opposite of a fresh disquisition So as we may sooner see an end of the common Peace then of an unkindly jarre in the Church especially such a one as is fomented with a mistaken Zeal on the one side and with a confidence of Knowledge on the other Silence hath sometimes quieted such like mis-raised brabbles never interchange of words This very Question was on foot some forty years agoe in the hote chace of great Authors but whether through the ingenuity of the parties or some over-ruling act of Divine Providence it soon died without noise so I wish it may now doe Rather let the weaker Title goe away with the last word then the Church shall be distracted For that Position of mine which occasioned your Vindication you see it sufficiently abetted and determined by so Reverend Authority as admits no exception I dare say no Learned Divine of our own Church or the forain can but subscribe in this our sense to the Judgement of these Worthies To draw forth therefore this cord of contention to any further length were no lesse needlesse then prejudiciall to the publick peace He is not worthy to be satisfied that will yet wrangle As for those Personall aspersions that are cast upon you by Malice be perswaded to despise them These Western parts where your reputation is deservedly pretious know your zeal for Gods Truth no lesse fervent though better governed then the most fiery of your Censurers No man more hateth Popish Superstition onely your fault is that you do not more hate Errour then Injustice and cannot abide wrong measure offered to the worst enemy Neither be you troubled with that idle exprobration of a Prebendary retribution who would care for a contumely so void of truth God knows that worthlesse gift was conferred upon you ere this task came into either of our thoughts and whoso knows the entire respects betwixt us from our very Cradles till this day may well think that a Prebend of three pounds by the year need not goe for a Fee where there is so much and so ancient cause of dearness I am sorry to see such rancour under the coat of Zeal Surely nothing but mere Malice can be guilty of this charge no lesse then of that other envious challenge of your decay of Graces of falling from your first Love from industry to ease from a weekly to a monethly preaching when those that know the state of your Tiverton the four-parted division of that charge and your forced confinement to your own day by publick authority both Spirituall and Temporall must needs acquit you and cry down the wrong of an accuser As for the vigour of Gods good Graces in you both common and sanctifying all the Country are your ample witnesses I that have interknown you from our childhood cannot but professe to finde the entrance of your age no lesse above the best of your youth in abilities then in time and still no lesse fruitfull in promises of increase then in eminent performances What need I urge this your Adversaries do enough feel your worth So as to speak seriously I cannot sufficiently wonder at the liberty of those men who professing a strict conscience of their wayes dare let their Pens or Tongues loose to so injurious and uncharitable a detraction whereof they know the just avenger is in Heaven It should not be thus betwixt Brethren no not with Enemies For the main business there wants not confidence on either side I am appealed to by both an unmeet Judge considering my so deep ingagements But if my umpierage may stand I award an eternall silence to both parts Sit down in peace then you and your worthy Second whose young ripeness and modest and learned discourse is worthy of better entertainment then contempt and let your zealous Opponents say that you have overcome your selves in a resolved cessation of Pens and them in a love of Peace Farewell from Your loving Friend and ancient Collegue JOS. EXON OCCASIONALL MEDITATIONS BY JOS. EXON Set forth by R. H. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE My very good Lord JAMES Lord Viscount Doncaster Right Honourable FInding these Papers amongst others lying aside
is no novelty but their apparition they are alwaies with us but rarely seen that we may awfully respect their messages when they are seen In the mean time our faith may see them though our senses doe not their assumed shapes doe not make them more present but visible There is an order in that heavenly Hierarchie though we know it not This Angel that appeared to Zacharie was not with him in the ordinary course of his attendances but was purposely sent from God with this message Why was an Angel sent and why this Angel It had been easie for him to have raised up the prophetical spirit of some Simeon to this prediction The same Holy Ghost which revealed to that just man that he should not see death ere he had seen the Messias might have as easily revealed unto him the birth of the forerunner of Christ and by him to Zacharie but God would have this voice which should goe before his Son come with a noise He would have it appear to the world that the harbinger of the Messiah should be conceived by the marvellous power of that God whose coming he proclaimed It was fit the first Herald of the Gospel should begin in wonder The same Angel that came to the Blessed Virgin with the news of Christs conception came to Zacharie with the news of John's for the honour of him that was the greatest of them which were born of women and for his better resemblance to him which was the seed of the woman Both had the Gospel for their errand one as the messenger of it the other as the Author both are foretold by the same mouth When could it be more fit for the Angel to appear unto Zacharie then when prayers and incense were offered by him Where could he more fitly appear then in the Temple In what part of the Temple more fitly then at the Altar of Incense and whereabout rather then on the right side of the Altar Those glorious spirits as they are alwaies with us so most in our devotions and as in all places so most of all in Gods house They rejoice to be with us whiles we are with God as contrarily they turn their faces from us when we goe about our sins He that had wont to live and serve in the presence of the master was now astonished at the presence of the servant So much difference there is betwixt our faith and our senses that the apprehension of the presence of the God of spirits by faith goes down sweetly with us whereas the sensible apprehension of an Angel dismayes us Holy Zacharie that had wont to live by faith thought he should dye when his sense began to be set on work It was the weaknesse of him that served at the Altar without horror to be daunted with the face of his fellow-servant In vain doe we look for such Ministers of God as are without infirmities when just Zacharie was troubled in his devotions with that wherewith he should have been comforted It was partly the suddenness and partly the glory of the apparition that affrighted him The good Angel was both apprehensive and compassionate of Zacharie's weakness and presently incourages him with a cheerful excitation Fear not Zacharias The blessed spirits though they doe not often vocally expresse it doe pity our humane frailties and secretly suggest comfort unto us when we perceive it not Good and evil Angels as they are contrary in estate so also in disposition The good desire to take away fear the evil to bring it It is a fruit of that deadly enmity which is betwixt Satan and us that he would if he might kill us with terror whereas the good spirits affecting our relief and happinesse take no pleasure in terrifying us but labour altogether for our tranquillity and chearfulnesse There was not more fear in the face then comfort in the speech Thy prayer is heard No Angel could have told him better newes Our desires are uttered in our praiers What can we wish but to have what we would Many good suits had Zachary made and amongst the rest for a Son Doubtlesse it was now some space of years since he made that request For he was now stricken in age and had ceased to hope yet had God laid it up all the while and when he thinks not of it brings it forth to effect Thus doth the mercy of our God deale with his patient and faithfull suppliants In the fervour of their expectation he many times holds them off and when they least think of it and have forgotten their own suits he graciously condescends Delay of effect may not discourage our faith It may be God hath long granted ere we shall know of his grant Many a father repents him of his fruitfulnesse and hath such sons as he wishes unborn but to have so gracious and happy a son as the Angel foretold could not be lesse comfort then honor to the age of Zacharie The proof of children makes them either the blessings or crosses of their parents To heare what his son should be before he was to heare that he should have such a son a son whose birth should concern the joy of many a son that should be great in the sight of the Lord a son that should be sacred to God filled with God beneficial to man an harbinger to him that was God and man was news enough to prevent the Angel and to take away that tongue with amazement which was after lost with incredulity The speech was so good that it found not a sudden belief This good news surprised Zachary If the intelligence had taken leisure that his thoughts might have had time to debate the matter he had easily apprehended the infinite power of him that had promised the pattern of Abraham and Sara and would soon have concluded the appearance of the Angel more miraculous then his prediction Whereas now like a man masked with the strangenesse of that he saw and heard he misdoubts the message and asks How shall I know Nature was on his side and alledged the impossibility of the event both from age and barrennesse Supernaturall tidings at the first hearing astonish the heart and are entertained with doubts by those which upon further acquaintance give them the best welcome The weak apprehensions of our imperfect faith are not so much to be censured as pittied It is a sure way for the heart to be prevented with the assurance of the omnipotent power of God to whom nothing is impossible so shall the hardest point of faith goe down easily with us If the eye of our minde look upward it shall meet with nothing to avert or interrupt it but if right forward or downward or round about every thing is a block in our way There is a difference betwixt desire of assurance and unbelief We cannot be too carefull to raise up our selves arguments to settle our faith although it should be no faith if it had no feet to stand
by contemning worldly glories thou mightest teach us to contemn them that thou mightest sanctifie poverty to them whom thou calledst unto want that since thou which hadst the choice of all earthly conditions wouldst be born poor and despised those which must want out of necessity might not think their poverty grievous Here was neither friend to entertain nor servant to attend nor place wherein to be attended onely the poor beasts gave way to the God of all the world It is the great mysterie of Godlinesse that God was manifested in the flesh and seen of Angels but here which was the top of all wonders the very beasts might see their Maker For those spirits to see God in the flesh it was not so strange as for the brute creatures to see him which was the God of spirits He that would be led into the wildernesse amongst wilde beasts to be tempted would come into the house of beasts to be born that from the height of his divine glory his humiliation might be the greater How can we be abased low enough for thee O Saviour that hast thus neglected thy self for us That the visitation might be answerable to the homelinesse of the place attendants provision who shall come to congratulate his birth but poor shepherds The 〈◊〉 of the earth rest at home and have no summons to attend him by whom they reign God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty In an obscure time the night unto obscure men shepherds doth God manifest the light of his Son by glorious Angels It is not our meannesse O God that can exclude us from the best of thy mercies yea thus far dost thou respect persons that thou hast put down the mighty and exalted them of low degree If these shepherds had been snorting in their beds they had no more seen Angels nor heard news of their Saviour then their neighbours their vigilancy is honoured with this heavenly vision Those which are industrious in any calling are capable of further blessings whereas the idle are fit for nothing but temptation No lesse then a whole Chore of Angels are worthy to sing the hymn of Glory to God for the incarnation of his Son What joy is enough for us whose nature he took and whom he came to restore by his incarnation If we had the tongues of Angels we could not raise this note high enough to the praise of our glorious Redeemer No sooner doe the Shepherds hear the news of a Saviour then they run to Bethleem to seeke him Those that left their beds to tend their flocks leave their flocks to enquire after their Saviour No earthly thing is too dear to be forsaken for Christ If we suffer any worldly occasion to stay us from Bethleem we care more for our sheep then our souls It is not possible that a faithfull heart should heare where Christ is and not labour to the sight to the fruition of him Where art thou O Saviour but at home in thine own house in the assembly of thy Saints where art thou to be found but in thy Word and Sacraments yea there thou seekest for us if there we hast not to seek for thee we are worthy to want thee worthy that our want of thee here should make us want the presence of thy face for ever The Sages and the Star THE Shepherds and the Cratch accorded well yet even they saw nothing which they might not contemn neither was there any of those shepherds that seemed not more like a King then that King whom they came to see But oh the Divine Majesty that shined in this baseness There lies the Babe in the stable crying in the manger whom the Angels came down from heaven to proclaim whom the Sages come from the East to adore whom an heavenly Star notifies to the world that now men might see that Heaven and earth serves him that neglected himself Those lights that hang low are not far seen but those which are high placed are equally seen in the remotest distances Thy light O Saviour was no lesse then heavenly The East saw that which Bethleem might have seen oft-times those which are neerest in place are farthest off in affection Large objects when they are too close to the eye doe so overfill the sense that they are not discerned What a shame is this to Bethleem the Sages came out of the East to worship him whom that village refused The Bethleemites were Jews the wise-men Gentiles This first entertainment of Christ was a presage of the sequel The Gentiles shall come from far to adore Christ whiles the Jews reject him Those Easterlings were great searchers of the depths of Nature professed Philosophers them hath God singled out to the honour of the manifestation of Christ Humane Learning well improved makes us capable of Divine There is no Knowledge whereof God is not the Authour he would never have bestowed any gift that should lead us away from himself It is an ignorant conceit that inquiry into Nature should make men Atheous No man is so apt to see the Star of Christ as a diligent disciple of Philosophy Doubtless this light was visible 〈…〉 onely they followed it which knew it had more then Nature he 〈…〉 that is wise for his own soul If these wise men had been acquainted with all the other stars of heaven and had not seen the Star of Christ they had had but light enough to lead them into utter darkness Philosophy without this Star is but the wisp of Errour These Sages were in a mean between the Angels and the Shepherds God would in all the ranks of intelligent Creatures have some to be witnesses of his Son The Angels direct the Shepherds the Star guides the Sages The duller capacity hath the more clear and powerful helps the wisdome of our good God proportions the means unto the disposition of the persons Their Astronomy had taught them this Star was not ordinary whether in sight or in brightness or in motion The eyes of Nature might well see that some strange news was portended to the world by it but that this Star designed the birth of the Messias there needed yet another light If the Star had not besides had the commentary of a revelation from God it could have led the wise-men onely into a fruitless wonder Give them to be the offspring of Balaam yet the true prediction of that false Prophet was not enough warrant If he told them the Messias should arise as a Star out of Jacob he did not tell them that a Star should arise far from the posterity of Jacob at the birth of the Messias He that did put that Prophesie into the mouth of Balaam did also put this illumination into the heart of the Sages The Spirit of God is free to breathe where he listeth Many shall come from the East and the West to seek Christ when the Children of the Kingdome shall be shut out Even then God did not
thee from Jury to Egypt As thou wouldst be born mean and miserable so thou wouldst live subject to humane vexations that thou which hast taught us how good it is to bear the yoak even in our youth mightst sanctifie to us early afflictions Or whether O Father since it was the purpose of thy wisdom to manifest thy Son by degrees unto the world was it thy will thus to hide him for a time under our infirmity And what other is our condition we are no sooner born thine then we are persecuted If the Church travel and bring forth a male she is in danger of the Dragons streams What do the Members complain of the same measure which was offered to the Head Both our births are accompanied with tears Even of those whose mature age is full of trouble yet the infancie is commonly quiet but here life and toile began together O Blessed Virgin even already did the sword begin to pierce thy soul thou which wert forced to bear thy Son in thy womb from Nazareth to Bethleem must now bear him in thy arms from Jury into Egypt yet couldst thou not complain of the way whilest thy Saviour was with thee His presence alone was able to make the stable a Temple Egypt a Paradise the way more pleasing then rest But whither then O whither dost thou carry that blessed burthen by which thy self and the world are upholden To Egypt the slaughter-house of God's people the fornace of Israel's ancient affliction the sink of the world Out of Egypt have I called my Son saith God That thou calledst thy Son out of Egypt O God is no marvel It is a marvel that thou calledst him into Egypt but that we know all earths are thine and all places and men are like figures upon a table such as thy disposition makes them What a change is here Israel the first-born of God flies out of Egypt into the promised Land of Judaea Christ the first-born of all creatures flies from Judaea into Egypt Egypt is become the Sanctuary Judaea the Inquisition-house of the Son of God He that is everywhere the same makes all places alike to his He makes the fiery fornace a gallery of pleasure the Lions den an house of defence the Whales belly a lodging chamber Egypt an harbour He flees that was able to preserve himself from danger to teach us how lawfully we may flee from those dangers we cannot avoid otherwise It is a thanklesse fortitude to offer our throat unto the knife He that came to die for us fled for his own preservation and hath bid us follow him When they persecute you in one City flee into another We have but the use of our lives and we are bound to husband them to the best advantage of God and his Church God hath made us not as Butts to be perpetually shot at but as the marks of Rovers moveable as the wind and Sun may best serve It was warrant enough for Joseph and Mary that God commands them to flee yet so familiar is God grown with his approved servants that he gives them the reason of his commanded flight For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him What wicked men will do what they would do is known unto God before-hand He that is so infinitely wise to know the designs of his enemies before they are could as easily prevent them that they might not be but he lets them run on in their own courses that he may fetch glory to himself out of their wickednesse Good Joseph having this charge in the night staies not till the morning no sooner had God said Arise then he starts up and sets forward It was not diffidence but obedience that did so hasten his departure The charge was direct the business important He dares not linger for the light but breaks his rest for the journey and taking vantage of the dark departs towards Egypt How knew he this occasion would abide any delay We cannot be too speedy in the execution of God's commands we may be too late Here was no treasure to hide no hangings to take down no lands to secure the poor Carpenter needs doe no more but lock the doors and away He goes lightly that wants a load If there be more pleasure in abundance there is more security in a mean estate The Bustard or the Ostridge when he is pursued can hardly get upon his wings whereas the Lark mounts with ease The rich hath not so much advantage of the poor in injoying as the poor hath of the rich in leaving Now is Joseph come down into Egypt Egypt was beholden to the name as that whereto it did owe no lesse then their universal preservation Well might it repay this act of Hospitality to that name and blood The going down into Egypt had not so much difficulty as the staying there their absence from their Country was little better then a banishment But what was this other then to serve a prentiship in the house of bondage To be any where save at home was irksome but to be in Egypt so many years amongst idolatrous Pagans must needs be painful to religious hearts The Command of their God and the Presence of Christ makes amends for all How long should they have thought it to see the Temple of God if they had not had the God of the Temple with them How long to present their Sacrifices at the Altar of God if they had not had him with them which made all Sacrifices accepted and which did accept the Sacrifice of their hearts Herod was subtle in mocking the wise-men whiles he promised to worship him whom he meant to kill now God makes the wise-men to mock him in disappointing his expectation It is just with God to punish those which would beguile others with illusion Great spirits are so much more impatient of disgrace How did Herod now rage and fret and vainely wish to have met with those false spies and tell with what torments he would revenge their treachery and curse himself for trusting Strangers in so important a businesse The Tyrants suspition would not let him rest long Ere many daies he sends to inquire of them whom he sent to inquire of Christ The notice of their secret departure increaseth his jealousie and now his anger runs mad and his feare proves desperate All the Infants of Bethleem shall bleed for this one and that he may make sure work he cuts out to himself large measures both of time and place It was but very lately that the Starre appeared that the wise-men re-appeared not They asked for him that was born they did not name when he was born Herod for more securitie over-reaches their time and setches into the slaughter all the Children of two years age The Priests and Scribes had told him the town of Bethleem must be the place of the Messia's nativity He fetches in all the Children of the coasts adjoyning yea his own shall for the time be a Bethleemite
Saviour was not without the intention of a tryal Had not the Ruler gone home satisfied with that intimation of his sons life and recovery neither of them had been blessed with success Now the news of performance meets him one half of the way and he that believed somewhat ere he came and more when he went grew to more faith in the way and when he came home inlarged his faith to all the skirts of his family A weak faith may be true but a true faith is growing He that boasts of a full stature in the first moment of his assent may presume but doth not believe Great men cannot want Clients their Example swaies some their Authority more they cannot goe to either of the other worlds alone In vain do they pretend power over others who labour not to draw their Families unto God The Dumb Devil ejected THat the Prince of our Peace might approve his victories perfect wheresoever he met with the Prince of Darkness he foiled him he ejected him He found him in Heaven thence did he throw him headlong and verified his Prophet I have cast thee out of mine holy mountain And if the Devils left their first habitation it was because being Devils they could not keep it Their estate indeed they might have kept and did not their habitation they would have kept and might not How art thou faln from Heaven O Lucifer He found him in the heart of man for in that closet of God did the evil spirit after his exile from Heaven shrowd himself Sin gave him possession which he kept with a willing violence thence he casts him by his Word and Spirit He found him tyrannizing in the bodies of some possessed men and with power commands the unclean spirits to depart This act is for no hand but his When a strong man keeps possession none but a stronger can remove him In voluntary things the strongest may yield to the weakest Sampson to a Dalilah but in violent ever the mightiest carries it A spiritual nature must needs be in rank above a bodily neither can any power be above a Spirit but the God of Spirits No otherwise is it in the mental possession Whereever sin is there Satan is as on the contrary whosoever is born of God the seed of God remains in him That Evil one not onely is but rules in the sons of disobedience in vain shall we try to eject him but by the Divine power of the Redeemer For this cause the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil Do we finde our selves haunted with the familiar Devils of Pride Self-love Sensual desires Unbelief None but thou O Son of the ever-living God can free our bosoms of these hellish guests Oh clense thou me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me O Saviour it is no Paradox to say that thou castest out more Devils now then thou didst whiles thou wert upon earth It was thy word When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me Satan weighs down at the feet thou pullest at the head yea at the heart In every conversion which thou workest there is a dispossession Convert me O Lord and I shall be converted I know thy means are now no other then ordinary If we exspect to be dispossessed by miracle it would be a miracle if ever we were dispossessed Oh let thy Gospel have the perfect work in me so onely shall I be delivered from the powers of darkness Nothing can be said to be dumb but what naturally speaks nothing can speak naturally but what hath the instruments of speech which because spirits want they can no otherwise speak vocally then as they take voices to themselves in taking bodies This Devil was not therefore dumb in his nature but in his effect The man was dumb by the operation of that Devil which possessed him and now the action is attributed to the spirit which was subjectively in the man It is not you that speak faith our Saviour but the spirit of your Father that speaketh in you As it is in bodily Diseases that they do not infect us alike some seize upon the humours others upon the spirits some assalt the brain others the heart or lungs so in bodily and spiritual possessions in some the evil spirit takes away their senses in some their lims in some their inward faculties like as spiritually they affect to move us unto several sins one to lust another to covetousness or ambition another to cruelty and their names have distinguished them according to these various effects This was a dumb Devil which yet had possessed not the tongue only of this man but his ear not that only but as it seems his eyes too O subtile and tyrannous spirit that obstructs all wayes to the Soul that keeps out all means of Grace both from the door and windows of the heart yea that stops up all passages whether of ingress or egress of ingress at the eye or eare of egress at the mouth that there might be no capacity of redress What holy use is there of our tongue but to praise our Maker to confess our sins to inform our brethren How rife is this Dumb Devil every where whiles he stops the mouths of Christians from these useful and necessary duties For what end hath man those two privileges above his fellow-creatures Reason and Speech but that as by the one he may conceive of the great works of his Maker which the rest cannot so by the other he may express what he conceives to the honour of the Creator both of them and himself And why are all other creatures said to praise God and bidden to praise him but because they do it by the apprehension by the expression of man If the Heavens declare the glory of God how doe they it but to the eyes and by the tongue of that man for whom they were made It is no small honour whereof the envious spirit shall rob his Maker if he can close up the mouth of his onely rational and vocal creature and turn the best of his workmanship into a dumb Idol that hath a mouth and speaks not Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Praise is not more necessary then complaint praise of God then complaint of our selves whether to God or men The onely amends we can make to God when we have not had the grace to avoid sinne is to confess the sinne we have not avoided This is the sponge that wipes out all the blots and blurs of our lives If we confess our sinnes he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness That cunning man-slayer knows there is no way to purge the sick soul but upward by casting out the vicious humour wherewith it is clogged and therefore holds the lips close that the heart may not disburden it self by so wholesome evacuation When
I kept silence my bones consumed For day and night thy hand O Lord was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer O let me confess against my self my wickedness unto thee that thou maist forgive the punishment of my sinne We have a tongue for God when we praise him for our selves when we pray and confess for our brethren when we speak the truth for their information which if we hold back in unrighteousness we yield unto that dumb Devil Where do we not see that accursed spirit He is on the Bench when the mute or partial Judge speaks not for truth and innocence He is in the Pulpit when the Prophets of God smother or halve or adulterate the message of their Master He is at the Barre when irreligious Jurours dare lend an oath to fear to hope to gain He is in the Market when godless chapmen for their peny sell the truth and their soul He is in the common conversation of men when the tongue belies the heart flatters the guilty balketh reproofs even in the foulest crimes O thou who onely art stronger then that strong one cast him out of the hearts and mouths of men It is time for thee Lord to work for they have destroyed thy Law That it might well appear this impediment was not natural so soon as the man is freed from the spirit his tongue is free to his speech The effects of spirits as they are wrought so they cease at once If the Son of God do but remove our spiritual possession we shall presently break forth into the praise of God into the confession of our vileness into the profession of truth But what strange variety do I see in the spectators of his Miracle some wondring others censuring a third sort tempting a fourth applauding There was never man or action but was subject to variety of constructions What man could be so holy as he that was God What act could be more worthy then the dispossessing of an evil spirit Yet this man this act passeth these differences of interpretation What can we doe to undergoe but one opinion If we give almes and fast some will magnifie our charity and devotion others will tax our hypocrisie If we give not some will condemn our hard-heartedness others will allow our care of justice If we preach plainly to some it will favour of a careless slubbering to others oft a mortified sincerity elaborately some will tax our affectation others will applaud our diligence in dressing the delicate viands of God What marvel is it if it be thus with our imperfection when it fared not otherwise with him that was Purity and Righteousness it self The austere forerunner of Christ came neither eating nor drinking they say He hath a Devil The Son of man came eating and drinking they say This man is a glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners and here one of his holy acts carries away at once wonder censure doubt celebration There is no way safe for a man but to square his actions by the right rule of justice of charity and then let the world have leave to spend their glosses at pleasure It was an heroical resolution of the chosen vessel I pass very little to be judged of you or of mans day I marvel not if the people marvelled for here were four wonders in one the blind saw the deaf heard the dumb spake the Demoniack is delivered Wonder was due to so rare and powerful a work and if not this nothing We can cast away admiration upon the poor devices or activities of men how much more upon the extraordinary works of Omnipotency Whoso knows the frame of Heaven and earth shall not much be affected with the imperfect effects of frail Humanity but shall with no less Ravishment of soul acknowledge the miraculous works of the same Almighty hand Neither is the spiritual ejection worthy of any meaner entertainment Rarity and difficulty are wont to cause wonder There are many things which have wonder in their worth and lose it in their frequence there are some which have it in their strangeness and lose it in their facilitie Both meet in this To see men haunted yea possessed with a dumb Devil is so frequent that it is a just wonder to finde a man free but to finde the dumb spirit cast out of a man and to hear him praising God confessing his sins teaching others the sweet experiments of mercy deserves just admiration If the Cynick sought in the market for a man amongst men well may we seek amongst men for a Convert Neither is the difficulty less then the rareness The strong man hath the possession all passages are block'd up all helps barred by the treachery of our nature If any soul be rescued from these spiritual wickednesses it is the praise of him that doth wonders alone But whom do I see wondring The multitude The unlearned beholders follow that act with wonder which the learned Scribes entertain with obloquy God hath revealed those things to babes which he hath hid from the wise and prudent With what scorn did those great Rabbins speak of these sons of the earth This people that knows not the Law is accursed Yet the Mercy of God makes an advantage of their simplicity in that they are therefore less subject to cavillation and incredulitie as contrarily his Justice causes the proud knowledge of others to lie as a block in their way to the ready assent unto the Divine power of the Messias Let the pride of glorious adversaries disdain the povertie of the clients of the Gospel it shall not repent us to go to Heaven with the vulgar whiles their great ones go in state to perdition The multitude wondered Who censured but Scribes great Doctors of the Law of the divinitie of the Jews What Scribes but those of Jerusalem the most eminent Academie of Judaea These were the men who out of their deep reputed judgement cast these foul aspersions upon Christ Great wits ofttimes mislead both the owners and followers How many shall once wish they had been born dullards yea idiots when they shall finde their wit to have barred them out of Heaven Where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made the wisdome of the world foolishness Say the world what it will a dram of holiness is worth a pound of wit Let others censure with the Scribes let me wonder with the multitude What could malice say worse He casteth out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils The Jewes well knew that the Gods of the heathen were no other then Devils amongst whom for that the Lord of Flies so called whether for the concourse of flies to the abundance of his sacrifices or for his aid implored against the infestation of those swarms was held the chief therefore they stile him The Prince of Devils There is a subordination of spirits some higher in degree some inferiour to others Our Saviour himself tells
us of the Devil and his Angels Messengers are inferiour to those that send them The seven Devils that entered into the swept and garnished house were worse then the former Neither can Principalities and Powers and Governours and Princes of the darkness of this World design others then several ranks of evil Angels There can be no being without some kind of order there can be no order in parity If we look up into Heaven there is The King of Gods The Lord of Lords higher then the highest If to the earth there are Monarchs Kings Princes Peeres people If we look down to Hell there is the Prince of Devils They labour for Confusion that call for Parity What should the Church doe with such a for me as is not exempliied in Heaven in Earth in Hell One Devil according to their supposition may be used to cast out another How far the command of one spirit over another may extend it is a secret of infernal state too deep for the inquiry of men The thing it self is apparent upon compact and precontracted composition one gives way to other for the common advantage As we see in the Common-wealth of Cheaters and Cut-purses one doth the fact another is feed to bring it out and to procure restitution both are of the trade both conspire to the fraud the actor falls not out with the revealer but divides with him that cunning spoil One malicious miscreant sets the Devil on work to the inflicting of disease or death another upon agreement for a further spiritual gain takes him off There is a Devil in both And if there seem more bodily favour there is no less spiritual danger in the latter In the one Satan wins the agent the suitor in the other It will be no cause of discord in Hell that one Devil gives ease to the body which another tormented that both may triumph in the gain of a Soul Oh God that any creature which bears thine Image should not abhorre to be beholding to the powers of Hell for aid for advice Is is not because there is not a God in Israel that men goe to inquire of the God of Ekron Can men be so sottish to think that the vowed enemie of their Souls can offer them a bait without an hook What evil is there in the City which the Lord hath not done what is there which he cannot as easily redress He wounds he heals again And if he will not It is the Lord let him doe what seems good in his eyes If he do not deliver us he will crown our faithfulness in a patient perseverance The wounds of God are better then the salves of Satan Was it possible that the wit of Envy could devise so high a slander Beelzebub was a God of the heathen therefore herein they accuse him for an Idolater Beelzebub was a Devil to the Jewes therefore they accuse him for a conjurer Beelzebub was the chief of Devils therefore they accuse him for on Arch-exorcist for the worst kinde of Magician Some professors of this black Art though their work be devilish yet they pretend to doe it in the name of Jesus and will presumptuously seem to doe that by command which is secretly transacted by agreement The Scribes accuse Christ of a direct compact with the Devil and suppose both a league and familiarity which by the Law of Moses in the very hand of a Saul was no other then deadly Yea so deep doth this wound reach that our Saviour searching it to the bottome findes no less in it then the sin against the Holy Ghost inferring hereupon that dreadful sentence of the irremissibleness of that sin unto death And if this horrible crimination were cast upon thee O Saviour in whom the Prince of this world found nothing what wonder is it if we thy sinful servants be branded on all sides with evil tongues Yea which is yet more how plain is it that these men forced their tongue to speak this slander against their own heart Else this Blasphemy had been onely against the Son of man not against the Holy Ghost but now that the searcher of hearts findes it to be no less then against the Blessed Spirit of God the spight must needs be obstinate their malice doth wilfully cross their conscience Envie never regards how true but how mischievous So it may gall or kill it cares little whether with truth or falshood For us Blessed are we when men revile us and say all manner of evil of us for the name of Chirst For them What reward shall be given to thee thou false tongue Even sharp arrows with hot burning coales yea those very coales of hell from which thou wert inkindled There was yet a third sort that went a mid-way betwixt wonder and censure These were not so malicious as to impute the miracle to a Satanical operation they confess it good but not enough and therefore urge Christ to a further proof Though thou hast cast out this dumb Devil yet this is no sufficient argument of thy Divine power We have yet seen nothing from thee like those antient Miracles of the times of our fore-fathers Joshuah caused the Sun to stand still Elias brought fire down from heaven Samuel astonish'd the people with thunder and rain in the midst of harvest If thou wouldst command our belief doe somewhat like to these The casting out of a Devil shews thee to have some power over Hell shew us now that thou hast no less power over Heaven There is a kinde of unreasonableness of desire and insatiableness in infidelity it never knows when it hath evidence enough This which the Jews overlooked was a more irrefragable demonstration of Divinity then that which they desired A Devil was more then a Meteor or a parcel of an element to cast out a Devil by command more then to command fire from Heaven Infidelity ever loves to be her own carver No son can be more like a father then these Jews to their progenitours in the desart that there might be no fear of degenerating into good they also of old tempted God in the Wilderness First they are weary of the Egyptian bondage and are ready to fall out with God and Moses for their stay in those fornaces By ten miraculous Plagues they are freed and going out of those confines the Egyptians follow them the Sea is before them now they are more afflicted with their liberty then their servitude The Sea yields way the Egyptians are drowned and now that they are safe on the other shore they tempt the Providence of God for water The Rock yields it them then no less for bread and meat God sends them Manna and Quailes they cry out of the food of Angels Their present enemies in the way are vanquished they whine at the men of measures in the heart of Canaan Nothing from God but Mercy nothing from them but Temptations Their true brood both in nature and in sin had abundant proofs of the
this Jesus a power to apply his merits and obedience we are no whit the safer no whit the better only we are so much the wiser to understand who shall condemn us This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universall the latter words would impugne the former for whiles he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear In respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whiles thou vexest a servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldnesse enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack for the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a further degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by Sense have easily granted the body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire But as all matters of Faith though they cannot be proved by Reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all Reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a reall For as in Blessedness the good Spirits finde themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves setled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive mere and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the Elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the skie and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to Spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of Gods justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that supreme and righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgement of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal Spirits of living men may be held in a lothed or painful body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my Soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite Mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they exspect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed terme of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgement should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of Heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say Before the time Even the very evil spirits confesse and fearfully attend a set
day of universal Sessions They believe lesse then Devils that either doubt of or deny that day of finall retribution Oh the wonderfull mercy of our God that both to wicked men and spirits respites the utmost of their torment He might upon the first instant of the fall of Angels have inflicted on them the highest extremity of his vengeance He might upon the first sins of our youth yea of our nature have swept us away and given us our portion in that fierie lake He staies a time for both though with this difference of mercy to us men that here not onely is a delay but may be an utter prevention of punishment which to the evil spirits is altogether impossible They do suffer they must suffer and though they have now deserved to suffer all they must yet they must once suffer more then they do Yet so doth this evil spirit expostulate that he sues I beseech thee torment me not The world is well changed since Satan's first onset upon Christ Then he could say If thou be the Son of God now Jesu the Son of the most high God then All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me now I beseech thee torment me not The same power when he lists can change the note of the Tempter to us How happy are we that have such a Redeemer as can command the Devils to their chains Oh consider this ye lawlesse sinners that have said Let us break his bonds and cast his cords from us However the Almighty suffers you for a judgement to have free scope to evil and ye can now impotently resist the revealed will of your Creator yet the time shall come when ye shall see the very masters whom ye have served the powers of darkness unable to avoid the revenges of God How much lesse shall man strive with his Maker man whose breath is in his nostrils whose house is clay whose foundation is the dust Nature teaches every creature to wish a freedome from pain The foulest spirits cannot but love themselves and this love must needs produce a deprecation of evil Yet what a thing is this to hear the Devil at his prayers I beseech thee torment me not Devotion is not guilty of this but fear There is no grace in the suit of Devils but nature no respect of Glory to their Creator but their own ease They cannot pray against sin but against torment for sin What news is it now to hear the profanest mouth in extremity imploring the Sacred Name of God when the Devils do so The worst of all creatures hates punishment and can say Lead me not into pain onely the good heart can say Lead me not into temptation If we can as heartily pray against sin for the avoiding of displeasure as against punishment when we have displeased there is true Grace in the Soul Indeed if we could fervently pray against Sin we should not need to pray against Punishment which is no other then the inseparable shadow of that body but if we have not laboured against our Sins in vain do we pray against Punishment God must be just and the wages of sin is death It pleased our Holy Saviour not only to let fall words of command upon this spirit but to interchange some speeches with him All Christ's actions are not for example It was the errour of our Grandmother to hold chat with Satan That God who knows the craft of that old Serpent and our weak simplicity hath charged us not to enquire of an evil spirit Surely if the Disciples returning to Jacob's Well wondred to see Christ talk with a woman well may we wonder to see him talking with an unclean Spirit Let it be no presumption O Saviour to ask upon what grounds thou didst this wherein we may not follow thee We know that sin was excepted in thy conformity of thy self to us we know there was no guile found in thy mouth no possibility of taint in thy nature in thine actions neither is it hard to conceive how the same thing may be done by thee without sin which we cannot but sin in doing There is a vast difference in the intention in the Agent For on the one side thou didst not ask the name of the spirit as one that knew not and would learn by inquiring but that by the confession of that mischief which thou pleasedst to suffer the grace of the Cure might be the more conspicuous the more glorious So on the other God and man might doe that safely which mere man cannot doe without danger Thou mightest touch the Leprosie and not be legally unclean because thou touchedst it to heal it didst not touch it with possibility of infection So mightest thou who by reason of the perfection of thy Divine nature wert uncapable of any stain by the interlocution with Satan safely conferre with him whom corrupt man pre-disposed to the danger of such a parlee may not meddle with without sin because not without perill It is for none but God to hold discourse with Satan Our surest way is to have as little to doe with that Evil one as we may and if he shall offer to maintain conference with us by his secret Tentations to turn our speech unto our God with the Archangel The Lord rebuke thee Satan It was the presupposition of him that knew it that not onely men but spirits have names This then he asks not out of an ignorance or curiosity nothing could be hid from him who calleth the Stars and all the hoasts of Heaven by their names but out of a just respect to the glory of the Miracle he was working whereto the notice of the name would not a little avail For if without inquiry or confession our Saviour had ejected this evil spirit it had passed for the single dispossession of one onely Devil whereas now it appears there was a combination and hellish champertie in these powers of darknesse which were all forced to vaile unto that Almighty command Before the Devil had spoken singularly of himself What have I to doe with thee and I beseech thee torment me not Our Saviour yet knowing that there was a multitude of Devils lurking in that breast who dissembled their presence wrests it out of the Spirit by this interrogation What is thy name Now can those wicked ones no longer hide themselves He that asked the question forced the answer My name is Legion The author of discord hath borrowed a name of war from that military order of discipline by which the Jews were subdued doth the Devil fetch his denomination They were many yet they say My name not Our name though many they speak as one they act as one in this possession There is a marvellous accordance even betwixt evil spirits That Kingdome is not divided for then it could not stand I wonder not that wicked men do so conspire in evil that there is such unanimity in the broachers and abettors of errors
the leg when they intend it at the head so doth this Devil whiles he drives at the Swine he aimes at the Souls of these Gadarens by this means he hoped well and his hope was not vain to work in these Gergesens a discontentment at Christ an unwillingnesse to entertain him a desire of his absence he meant to turn them into Swine by the losse of their Swine It was not the rafters or stones of the house of Job's children that he bore the grudge to but to the owners nor to the lives of the children so much as the Soul of their Father There is no Affliction wherein he doth not strike at the heart which whiles it holds free all other damages are light but a wounded spirit whether with sin or sorrow who can bear Whatever becomes of goods or limmes happy are we if like wise souldiers we guard the vital parts Whiles the Soul is kept sound from impatience from distrust our Enemy may afflict us he cannot hurt us They sue for a sufferance not daring other then to grant that without the permission of Christ they could not hurt a very Swine If it be fearfull to think how great things evil spirits can doe with permission it is comfortable to think how nothing they can doe without permission We know they want not malice to destroy the whole frame of God's work but of all man of all men Christians but if without leave they cannot set upon an Hog what can they doe to the living Images of their Creator They cannot offer us so much as a suggestion without the permission of our Saviour And can he that would give his own most precious blood for us to save us from evil wilfully give us over to evil It is no news that wicked spirits wish to do mischief it is news that they are allowed it If the owner of all things should stand upon his absolute command who can challenge him for what he thinks fit to doe with his creature The first Fole of the Asse is commanded under the Law to have his neck broken What is that to us The creatures doe that they were made for if they may serve any way to the glory of their Maker But seldome ever doth God leave his actions unfurnished with such reasons as our weaknesse may reach unto There were Sects amongst these Jews that denied Spirits They could not be more evidently more powerfully convinced then by this event Now shall the Gadarens see from what a multitude of Devils they were delivered and how easie it had been for the same power to have allowed these Spirits to seize upon their Persons as well as their Swine Neither did God this without a just purpose of their castigation His Judgements are righteous where they are most secret Though we cannot accuse these inhabitants of ought yet he could and thought good thus to mulct them And if they had not wanted Grace to acknowledge it it was no small favour of God that he would punish them in their Swine for that which he might have avenged upon their Bodies and Souls Our Goods are furthest off us If but in these we smart we must confesse to finde mercy Sometimes it pleaseth God to grant the suits of wicked men and spirits in no favour to the suitors He grants an ill suit and withholds a good He grants an ill suit in Judgement and holds back a good one in Mercy The Israelites ask meat he gives Quailes to their mouths and leannesse to their Souls The chosen vessel wishes Satan taken off and hears only My grace is sufficient for thee We may not evermore measure favours by condescent These Devils doubtless receive more punishment for that harmfull act wherein they are heard If we ask what is either unfit to receive or unlawfull to beg it is a great favour of our God to be denied Those spirits which would go into the Swine by permission go out of the man by command they had staied long and are ejected suddenly The immediate works of God are perfect in an instant and do not require the aid of time for their maturation No sooner are they cast out of the man then they are in the Swine They will lose no time but passe without intermission from one mischief to another If they hold it a pain not to be doing evil why is it not our delight to be ever doing good The impetuousnesse was no lesse then the speed The Herd was carried with violence from a steep-down place into the lake and was choaked It is no small force that could doe this but if the Swine had been so many Mountains these spirits upon God's permission had thus transported them How easily can they carry those Souls which are under their power to destruction Unclean beasts that wallow in the mire of sensuality brutish Drunkards transforming themselves by excesse even they are the Swine whom the Legion carries headlong to the pit of perdition The wicked spirits have their wish the Swine are choked in the waves What ease is this to them Good God that there should be any creature that seeks contentment in destroying in tormenting the good creatures of his Maker This is the diet of Hell Those Fiends feed upon spight towards man so much more as he doth more resemble his Creator towards all other living substances so much more as they may be more usefull to man The Swine ran down violently what marvell is it if their Keepers fled That miraculous work which should have drawn them to Christ drives them from him They run with the news the Country comes in with clamour The whole multitude of the Country about besought him to depart The multitude is a beast of many heads every head hath a several mouth and every mouth a several tongue and every tongue a several accent every head hath a several brain and every brain thoughts of their own so as it is hard to find a multitude without some division At least seldome ever hath a good motion found a perfect accordance it is not so infrequent for a multitude to conspire in evil Generality of assent is no warrant for any act Cōmon Errour carries away many who inquire not into the reason of ought but the practice The way to Hell is a beaten road through the many feet that tread it When Vice grows into fashion Singularity is a Vertue There was not a Gadarene found that either dehorted his fellows or opposed the motion It is a sign of people given up to judgment when no man makes head against projects of evil Alas what can one strong man do against a whole throng of wickednesse Yet this good comes of an unprevailing resistance that God forbears to plague where he findes but a sprinkling of Faith Happy are they who like unto the celestial bodies which being carried about with the sway of the highest sphere yet creep on their own waies keep on the courses of their own Holiness against the
I have heard the fame of his wonderful works and held it happiness enough for me to have seen his face and doth he take notice of my person of my name Surely the more that Zacheus knew himself the more doth he wonder that Christ should know him It was slander enough for a man to be a friend to a Publican yet Christ gives this friendly compellation to the chief of Publicans and honours him with this argument of a sudden intireness The favour is great but not singular Every elect of God is thus graced The Father knows the childes name as he calls the stars of Heaven by their names so doth he his Saints the stars on earth and it is his own rule to his Israel I have called thee by thy name thou art mine As God's children do not content themselves with a confused knowledge of him but aspire to a particular apprehension and sensible application so doth God again to them it is not enough that he knows them as in the croud wherein we see many persons none distinctly but he takes single and several knowledge of their qualities conditions motions events What care we that our names are obscure or contemned amongst men whiles they are regarded by God that they are raked up in the dust of earth whiles they are recorded in Heaven Had our Saviour said no more but Zacheus come down the poor man would have thought himself taxed for his boldness and curiosity it were better to be unknown then noted for miscarriage But now the next words comfort him For I must this day abide at thine house What a sweet familiarity was here as if Christ had been many years acquainted with Zacheus whom he now first saw Besides our use the Host is invited by the Guest and called to an inexspected entertainment Well did our Saviour hear Zacheus his heart inviting him though his mouth did not Desires are the language of the Soul those are heard by him that is the God of spirits We dare not doe thus to each other save where we have eaten much salt we scarce go where we are invited though the face be friendly and the entertainment great yet the heart may be hollow But here he that saw the heart and foreknew his welcome can boldly say I must this day abide at thine house What a pleasant kinde of entire familiarity there is betwixt Christ and a good heart If any man open I will come in and sup with him It is much for the King of Glory to come into a cottage and sup there yet thus he may doe and take some state upon him in sitting alone No I will so sup with him that he shall sup with me Earthly state consists in strangeness and affects a stern kinde of majesty aloof Betwixt God and us though there be infinite more distance yet there is a gracious affability and familiar intireness of conversation O Saviour what dost thou else every day but invite thy self to us in thy Word in thy Sacraments who are we that we should entertain thee or thou us dwarfs in Grace great in nothing but unworthiness Thy praise is worthy to be so much the more as our worth is less Thou that biddest thy self to us bid us be fit to receive thee and in receiving thee happy How graciously doth Jesus still prevent the Publican as in his sight notice compellâ—tion so in his invitation too That other Publican Levi bad Christ to his house but it was after Christ had bidden him to his Discipleship Christ had never been called to his feast if Levi had not been called into his family He loved us first he must first call us for he calls us out of love As in the general calling of Christianity if he did not say Seek ye my face we could never say Thy face Lord will I seek so in the specialties of our main benefits or imployments Christ must begin to us If we invite our selves to him before he invite himself to us the undertaking is presumptuous the success unhappy If Nathanael when Christ named him and gave him the memorial token of his being under the fig-tree could say Thou art the Son of God how could Zacheus do less in hearing himself upon this wilde fig-tree named by the same lips How must he needs think If he knew not all things he could not know me and if he knew not the hearts of men he could not have known my secret desires to entertain him He is a God that knows me and a merciful God that invites himself to me No marvel therefore if upon this thought Zacheus come down in hast Our Saviour said not Take thy leisure Zacheus but I will abide at thine house to day Neither did Zacheus upon this intimation sit still and say When the prease is over when I have done some errands of my office but he hasts down to receive Jesus The notice of such a guest would have quickned his speed without a command God loves not slack and lazy executions The Angels of God are described with wings and we pray to doe his will with their forwardness Yea even to Judas Christ saith What thou doest doe quickly O Saviour there is no day wherein thou dost not call us by the voice of thy Gospel what do we still lingring in the Sycomore How unkindely must thou needs take the delaies of our Conversion Certainly had Zacheus staid still in the Tree thou hadst balked his house as unworthy of thee What construction canst thou make of our wilful dilations but as a stubborn contempt How canst thou but come to us in vengeance if we come not down to entertain thee in a thankful obedience Yet do I not hear thee say Zacheus cast thy self down for hast this was the counsel of the Tempter to thee but Come down in hast And he did accordingly There must be no more hast then good speed in our performances we may offend as well in our heady acceleration as in our delay Moses ran so fast down the hill that he stumbled spiritually and brake the Tables of God We may so fast follow after Justice that we out-run Charity It is an unsafe obedience that is not discreetly and leisurely speedful The speed of his descent was not more then the alacrity of his entertainment He made hast and came down and received him joyfully The life of hospitality is chearfulness Let our chear be never so great if we do not read our welcome in our friends face as well as in his dishes we take no pleasure in it Can we marvel that Zacheus received Christ joyfully Who would not have been glad to have his house yea himself made happy with such a guest Had we been in the stead of this Publican how would our hearts have leapt within us for joy of such a presence How many thousand miles are measured by some devout Christians onely to see the place where his feet stood How much happier must he needs think
inconstant is a carnal heart to good resolutions How little trust is to be given to the good motions of unregenerate persons We have known when even mad dogs have fawned upon their master yet he hath been too wise to trust them but in chains As a true friend loves alwaies so a gracious heart alwaies affects good neither can be altered with change of occurrences But the carnal man like an hollow Parasite or a fawning Spaniel flatters onely for his own turn if that be once either served or crossed like a churlish curre he is ready to snatch us by the fingers Is there a worldly-minded man that lives in some known sin yet makes much of the Preacher frequents the Church talks godly looks demurely carries fair trust him not he will prove after his pious fits like some resty horse which goes on some paces readily and eagerly but anon either stands still or falls to flinging and plunging and never leaves till he have cast his rider What then might be the cause of John's bonds and Herod's displeasure For Herodias sake his brother Philips wife That woman was the subject of Herod's lust and the exciter of his revenge This light huswife ran away with her Husbands brother and now doting upon her incestuous lover and finding John to be a rub in the way of her licentious adultery is impatient of his liberty and will not rest till his restraint Resolved sinners are mad upon their leud courses and run furiously upon their gainsayers A Bear robbed of her whelps is less impetuous Indeed those that have determined to love their sins more then their Soules whom can they care for Though Herod was wicked enough yet had it not been upon Herodias's instigation he had never imprisoned John Importunity of leud solicitors may be of dangerous consequence and many times draws greatness into those waies which it either would not have thought of or abhorred In the remotion of the wicked is the establishment of the throne Yet still is this Dame called the wife of Philip. She had utterly left his bed and was solemnly coupled to Herod but all the ritual ceremonies of her new Nuptials cannot make her other then Philip's wife It is a sure rule That which is originally faulty can never be rectified The ordination of Marriage is one for one They twain shall be one flesh There cannot be two heads to one body nor two bodies to one head Herod was her Adulterer he was not her Husband she was Herod's Harlot Philip's Wife Yet how doth Herod dote on her that for her sake he loads John with irons Whither will not the fury of inordinate Lust transport a man Certainly John was of late in Herod's favour That rough-hewn Preacher was for a Wilderness not for a Court Herod's invitation drew him thither his reverence and respects incouraged him there Now the love of his Lust hath carried him into an hate of Gods Messenger That man can have no hold of himself or care of others who hath given the rains to his unruly concupiscence He that hath once fixed his heart upon the face of an Harlot and hath beslaved himself to a bewitching Beauty casts off at once all fear of God respect to Laws shame of the World regard of his estate care of wife children friends reputation patrimony body Soul So violent is this beastly passion where it takes neither ever leaves till it have hurried him into the chambers of death Herodias her self had first plotted to kill the Baptist her murderers were suborned her ambushes laid The success failed and now she works with Herod for his durance Oh marvellous hand of the Almighty John was a mean man for estate solitary guardless unarmed impotent Herodias a Queen so great that she swayed Herod himself and not more great then subtile and not more great or subtile then malicious yet Herodias laid to kill John and could not What an invisible and yet sure guard there is about the poor servants of God that seem helpless and despicable in themselves There is over them an hand of Divine protection which can be no more opposed then seen Malice is not so strong in the hand as in the heart The Devil is stronger then a world of men a legion of Devils stronger then fewer spirits yet a legion of Devils cannot hurt one swine without a permission What can bands of enemies or gates of Hell doe against Gods secret ones It is better to trust in the Lord then to trust in Princes It is not more clear who was the Author then what was the motive of this imprisonment the free reproof of Herod's Incest It is not lawful c. Both the offenders were netled with this bold reprehension Herod knew the reputation that John carried his Conscience could not but suggest the foulness of his own fact neither could he but see how odious it would seem to persecute a Prophet for so just a reproof For the colour therefore of so tyrannical an act he brands John with Sedition these presumptuous taxations are a disgrace and disparagement to Authority It is no news with wicked Tyrants to cloak their Cruelty with pretences of Justice Never was it other then the lot of Gods faithful servants to be loaded with unjust reproaches in the conscionable performance of their duties They should speed too well in the opinion of men if they might but appear in their true shape The fact of Herod was horrible and prodigious to rob his own Brother of the partner of his bed to teare away part of his flesh yea his body from his head So as here was at once in one act Adultery Incest Violence Adultery that he took anothers wife Incest that he took his Brother's Violence that he thus took her in spight of her Husband Justly therefore might John say It is not lawful for thee He balked not one of Herod's sins but reproved him of all the evils that he had done though more eminently of this as that which more filled the eye of the world It was not the Crown or awful Scepter of Herod that could daunt the homely but faithful messenger of God as one that came in the spirit of Elias he feares no faces spares no wickedness There must meet in Gods ministers Courage and Impartiality Impartiality not to make difference of persons Courage not to make spare of the sins of the greatest It is an hard condition that the necessity of our Calling casts upon us in some cases to run upon the pikes of displeasure Prophecies were no Burdens if they did not expose us to these dangers We must connive at no evil Every sin unreproved becomes ours Hatred is the daughter of Truth Herod is inwardly vexed with so peremptory a reprehension and now he seeks to kill the author And why did he not 〈◊〉 He feared the people The time was when he feared John no less then now 〈◊〉 hates him he once reverenced him as a just and holy man whom
and fears comes deliverance At their entrance into the ship at the arising of the tempest at the shutting in of the evening there was no news of Christ but when they have been all the night long beaten not so much with storms and waves as with their own thoughts now in the fourth watch which was near to the morning Jesus came unto them and purposely not till then that he might exercise their patience that he might inure them to wait upon Divine Providence in cases of extremity that their Devotions might be more whetted by delay that they might give gladder welcome to their deliverance O God thus thou thinkest fit to doe still We are by turns in our sea the windes bluster the billows swell the night and thy absence heighten our discomfort thy time and ours is set as yet it is but midnight with us can we but hold out patiently till the fourth watch thou wilt surely come and rescue us Oh let us not faint under our sorrows but wear out our three watches of tribulation with undaunted patience and holy resolution O Saviour our extremities are the seasons of thine aide Thou camest at last but yet so as that there was more dread then joy in thy presence Thy coming was both miraculous and frightfull Thou God of Elements passedst through the aire walkedst upon the waters Whether thou meantest to terminate this Miracle in thy body or in the waves which thou trodest upon whether so lightning the one that it should make no impression in the liquid waters or whether so consolidating the other that the pavemented waves yielded a firm causey to thy sacred feet to walk on I neither determine nor inquire thy silence ruleth mine thy power was in either miraculous neither know I in whether to adore it more But withall give me leave to wonder more at thy passage then at thy coming Wherefore camest thou but to comfort them and wherefore then wouldest thou passe by them as if thou hadst intended nothing but their dismay Thine absence could not be so grievous as thy preterition that might seem justly occasioned this could not but seem willingly neglective Our last conflicts have wont ever to be the sorest as when after some dreeping rain it powrs down most vehemently we think the weather is changing to serenity O Saviour we may not alwaies measure thy meaning by thy semblance sometimes what thou most intendest thou shewest least In our Afflictions thou turnest thy back upon us and hidest thy face from us when thou most mindest our distresses So Jonathan shot the arrows beyond David when he meant them to him So Joseph calls for Benjamin into bonds when his heart was bound to him in the strongest affection So the tender mother makes as if she would give away her crying childe whom she hugs so much closer in her bosome If thou passe by us whiles we are strugling with the tempest we know it is not for want of mercy Thou canst not neglect us Oh let not us distrust thee What Object should have been so pleasing to the eyes of the Disciples as their Master and so much the more as he shewed his Divine power in this miraculous walk But lo contrarily they are troubled not with his presence but with this form of presence The supernatural works of God when we look upon them with our own eyes are subject to a dangerous misprision The very Sun-beams to whom we are beholden for our sight if we eye them directly blinde us Miserable men we are ready to suspect Truths to run away from our safety to be afraid of our comforts to mis-know our best friends And why are they thus troubled They had thought they had seen a Spirit That there have been such apparitions of Spirits both good and evil hath ever been a Truth undoubtedly received of Pagans Jews Christians although in the blinde times of Superstition there was much collusion mixed with some verities Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world But even where there was not Truth yet there was Horror The very Good Angels were not seen without much fear their sight was construed to bode Death how much more the Evil which in their very nature are harmfull and pernicious We see not a Snake or a Toad without some recoiling of blood sensible reluctation although those creatures run away from us how much more must our hairs stand upright and our senses boggle at the sight of a Spirit whose both nature will is contrary to ours and protessedly bent to our hurt But say it had been what they mistook it for a Spirit why should they fear Had they well considered they had soon found that evil spirits are neverthelesse present when they are not seen and neverthelesse harmfull or malicious when they are present unseen Visibility addes nothing to their spight or mischief And could their eyes have been opened they had with Elisha's servant seen more with them then against them a sure though invisible guard of more powerfull Spirits and themselves under the protection of the God of Spirits so as they might have bidden a bold defiance to all the powers of Darkness But partly their Faith was yet but in the bud and partly the presentation of this dreadfull Object was suddain and without the respite of a recollection and settlement of their thoughts Oh the weakness of our frail Nature who in the want of Faith are affrighted with the visible appearance of those adversaries whom we professe daily to resist and vanquish and with whom we know the Decree of God hath matched us in an everlasting conflict Are not these they that ejected Devils by their command Are not these of them that could say Master the evil spirits are subdued to us Yet now when they see but an imagined spirit they fear What power there is in the eye to betray the heart Whiles Goliah was mingled with the rest of the Philistin hoast Israel camped boldly against them but when that Giant stalks out single between the two armies and fills and amases their eyes with his hideous stature now they run away for fear Behold we are committed with Legions of Evil spirits and complain not Let but one of them give us some visible token of his presence we shreek and tremble and are not our selves Neither is our weakness more conspicuous then thy mercy O God in restraining these spiritual enemies from these dreadfull and ghastly representations of themselves to our eyes Might those infernal Spirits have liberty to appear how and when and to whom they would certainly not many would be left in their wits or in their lives It is thy power and goodness to frail mankinde that they are kept in their chains and reserved in the darkness of their own spiritual being that we may both oppugn and subdue them unseen But oh the deplorable condition of reprobate souls If but the imagined sight of one of these Spirits of darkness can
skin but in their cloths too those fringes and ribands upon the borders of their garments were for holy memorials of their duty and Gods Law But that hence she supposed to finde more virtue and sanctity in the touch of the hem then of the coat I neither dispute nor believe It was the site not the signification that she intimated not as of the best part but the utmost In all likelihood if there could have been virtue in the garment the nearer to the body the more Here was then the praise of this womans Faith that she promiseth her self cure by the touch of the utmost hem Whosoever would look to receive any benefit from Christ must come in Faith It is that only which makes us capable of any favour Satan the common ape of the Almighty imitates him also in this point All his charms and spells are ineffectual without the Faith of the user of the receiver Yea the endeavour and issue of all both humane and spiritual things depends upon our Faith Who would commit a plant or seed to the earth if he did not believe to have it nursed in that kindely bosome What Merchant would put himself upon the guard of an inch-board in a furious Sea if he did not trust to the faithfull custody of that planck Who would trade or travell or war or marry if he did not therein surely trust he should speed well What benefit can we look to carry from a Divine exhortation if we do not believe it will edifie us from a Sacramental banquet the food of Angels if we do not believe it will nourish our Souls from our best Devotions if we do not perswade our selves they will fetch down blessings Oh our vain and heartlesse services if we do not say May I drink but one drop of that heavenly Nectar may I taste but one crum of that bread of life may I hear but one word from the mouth of Christ may I send up but one hearty sigh or ejaculation of an holy desire to may God I shall be whole According to her resolution is her practice She touched but she came behind to touch whether for humility or her secrecy rather as desiring to steal a cure unseen unnoted She was a Jewesse and therefore well knew that her touch was in this case no better then a pollution as hers perhaps but not of him For on the one side Necessity is under no positive law on the other the Son of God was not capable of impurity Those may be defiled with a touch that cannot heal with a touch he that was above Law is not comprised in the Law Be we never so unclean he may heal us we cannot infect him O Saviour my Soul is sick and foul enough with the Spiritual impurities of sin let me by the hand of Faith lay hold but upon the hem of thy garment thy Righteousness is thy garment it shall be both-clean and whole Who would not think but a man might lade up a dish of water out of the Sea unmissed Yet that water though much is finite those drops are within number that Art which hath reckoned how many corns of sand would make up a World could more easily compute how many drops of water would make up an Ocean whereas the mercies of God are absolutely infinite and beyond all possibility of proportion And yet this bashfull soul cannot steal one drop of mercy from this endlesse boundlesse bottomlesse Sea of Divine bounty but it is felt and questioned And Jesus said Who touched me Who can now say that he is a poor man that reckons his store when that God who is rich in mercy doth so He knows all his own Blessings and keeps just tallies of our receits Delivered so much Honour to this man to that so much Wealth so much Knowledge to one to another so much Strength How carefully frugal should we be in the notice account usage of Gods several favours since his bounty sets all his gifts upon the file Even the worst servant in the Gospel confest his Talents though he imployed them not We are worse then the worst if either we mis-know or dissemble or forget them Who now can forbear the Disciples reply Who touched thee O Lord the multitude Dost thou ask of one when thou art preased by many In the midst of a throng dost thou ask Who touched me Yea but yet some one touched me All thronged me but one touched me How riddle-like soever it may seem to sound they that thronged me touch'd me not she onely touched me that thronged me not yea that touched me not Even so O Saviour others touch'd thy body with theirs she touched thy hem with her hand thy Divine power with her Soul Those two parts whereof we consist the bodily the spiritual do in a sort partake of each other The Soul is the man and hath those parts senses actions which are challenged as proper to the Body This spiritual part hath both an hand and a touch it is by the hand of Faith that the Soul toucheth yea this alone both is and acts all the spiritual senses of that immaterial and Divine part this sees hears tasteth toucheth God and without this the Soul doth none of these All the multitude then preased Christ he took not that for a touch since Faith was away onely she touched him that believed to receive virtue by his touch Outward fashionablenesse comes into no account with God that is onely done which the Soul doth It is no hoping that virtue should goe forth from Christ to us when no hearty desires go forth from us to him He that is a Spirit looks to the deportment of that part which resembleth himself as without it the body is dead so without the actions thereof bodily Devotions are but carcasses What reason had our Saviour to challenge this touch Some body touch'd me The multitude in one extreme denied any touch at all Peter in another extreme affirmed an over-touching of the multitude Betwixt both he who felt it can say Some body touched me Not all as Peter not none as the multitude but some body How then O Saviour how doth it appear that some body touched thee For I perceive virtue is gone out from me The effect proves the act virtue gone out evinces the touch These two are in thee convertible virtue cannot goe out of thee but by a touch and no touch can be of thee without virtue going out from thee That which is a Rule in Nature That every Agent works by a contact holds spiritually too Then dost thou O God work upon our Souls when thou touchest our hearts by thy Spirit then do we re-act upon thee when we touch thee by the hand of our Faith and confidence in thee and in both these virtue goes out from thee to us Yet goes not so out as that there is lesse in thee In all bodily emanations whose powers are but finite it must needs follow that the more
begin a worse this Heavenly flame should but kindle that of Hell Thus unconceivably heavy was the revenge but what was the offence We have learned not to think any indignity light that is offered to the Son of God but we know these spiritual affronts are capable of degrees Had these Samaritans reviled Christ and his train had they violently assaulted him had they followed him with stones in their hands and blasphemies in their mouths it had been a just provocation of so horrible a vengeance Now the wrong was onâ—ly negative they received him not And that not out of any particular quarrell or dislike of his Person but of his Nation onely the men had been welcome had not their Country distasted All the charge that I hear our Saviour give to his Disciples in case of their rejection is If they receive you not shake off the dust of your feet Yet this was amongst their own and when they went on that sacred errand of publishing the Gospel of Peace These were strangers from the commonwealth of Israel This measure was not to Preachers but to Travellers only a mere inhospitality to misliked guests Yet no lesse revenge will serve them then fire from Heaven I dare say for you ye holy sons of Zebedee it was not your spleen but your zeal that was guilty of so bloody a suggestion your indignation could not but be stirred to see the great Prophet and Saviour of the world so unkindly repelled yet all this will not excuse you from a rash Cruelty from an inordinate Rage Even the best heart may easily be miscarried with a well-meant Zeal No affection is either more necessary or better accepted Love to any Object cannot be severed from hatred of the contrary whence it is that all creatures which have the concupiscible part have also the irascible adjoined unto it Anger and displeasure is not so much an enemy as a guardian and champion of Love Whoever therefore is rightly affected to his Saviour cannot but finde much regret at his wrongs O gracious and divine Zeal the kindely warmth and vitall temper of Piety whither hast thou withdrawn thy self from the cold hearts of men Or is this according to the just constitution of the old and decrepit age of the world into which we are fallen How many are there that think there is no wisdome but in a dull indifferency and chuse rather to freeze then burn How quick and apprehensive are men in cases of their own indignities how insensible of their Saviour's But there is nothing so ill as the corruption of the best Rectified zeal is not more commendable and usefull then inordinate and misguided is hatefull and dangerous Fire is a necessary and beneficial element but if it be once misplaced and have caught upon the beams of our houses or stacks of our corn nothing can be more direfull Thus sometimes Zeal turns Murder They that kill you shall think they doe God service sometimes Phrensie sometimes rude Indiscretion Wholesome and blessed is that zeal that is well grounded and well governed grounded upon the word of Truth not upon unstable fancies governed by wisdome and charity Wisdome to avoid rashnesse and excesse Charity to avoid just offence No motion can want a pretence Elias did so why not we He was an holy Prophet the occasion the place abludes not much there wrong was offered to a servant here to his Master there to a man here to a God and man If Elias then did it why not we There is nothing more perillous then to draw all the actions of Holy men into examples For as the best men have their weaknesses so they are not priviledged from letting fall unjustifiable actions Besides that they may have had perhaps peculiar warrants signed from Heaven whether by instict or speciall command which we shall expect in vain There must be much caution used in our imitation of the best patterns whether in respect of the persons or things else we shall make our selves Apes and our acts sinfull absurdities It is a rare thing for our Saviour to finde fault with the errous of zeal even where have appeared sensible weaknesses If Moses in a sacred rage and indignation brake the Tables written with Gods own hand I finde him not checked Here our meek Saviour turns back and frowns upon his furious suitors and takes them up roundly Ye know not of what spirit ye are The faults of uncharitablenesse cannot be swallowed up in zeal If there were any colour to hide the blemishes of this misdisposition it should be this crimson die But he that needs not our Lie will let us know he needs not our Injury and hates to have a good cause supported by the violation of our Charity We have no reason to disclaim our Passions Even the Son of God chides sometimes yea where he loves It offends not that our Affections are moved but that they are inordinate It was a sharp word Ye know not of what spirit ye are Another man would not perhaps have felt it a Disciple doth Tender hearts are galled with that which the carnal minde slighteth The spirit of Elias was that which they meant to assume and imitate they shall now know their mark was mistaken How would they have hated to think that any other but God's Spirit had stirred them up to this passionate motion now they shall know it was wrought by that ill spirit whom they professed to hate It is far from the good Spirit of God to stir up any man to private revenge or thirst of blood Not an Eagle but a Dove was the shape wherein he chose to appear Neither wouldst thou O God be in the whirlwinde or in the fire but in the soft voice O Saviour what do we seek for any precedent but thine whose name we challenge Thou camest to thine own thine own received thee not Didst thou call for fire from Heaven upon them didst thou not rather send down water from thy compassionate eyes and weep for them by whom thou must bleed Better had it been for us never to have had any spirit then any but thine We can be no other then wicked if our mercies be cruelty But is it the name of Elias O ye Zelots which ye pretend for a colour of your impotent desire Ye do not consider the difference betwixt his Spirit and yours His was extraordinary and heroical besides the instinct or secret command of God for this act of his far otherwise is it with you who by a carnal distemper are moved to this furious suggestion Those that would imitate Gods Saints in singular actions must see they goe upon the same grounds Without the same Spirit and the same warrant it is either a mockery or a sin to make them our Copies Elias is no fit pattern for Disciples but their Master The Son of Man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Then are our actions and intentions warrantable and praise-worthy when they accord with
merry Ye delicatest Courtiers tell me if Pleasure it self have not an unpleasant tediousness hanging upon it and more sting then honey And whereas all happiness even here below is in the vision of God how is our spiritual eye hindered as the body is from his Object by darkness by false light by aversion Darkness he that doth sin is in darkness False light whilst we measure eternal things by temporary Aversion while as weak eyes hate the light we turn our eyes from the true and immutable good to the fickle and uncertain We are not on the hill but the valley where we have tabernacles not of our own making but of clay and such as wherein we are witnesses of Christ not transfigured in glory but blemished with dishonour dishonoured with oaths and blasphemies recrucified with our sins witnesses of God's Saints not shining in Tabor but mourning in darkness and in stead of that Heavenly brightness cloathed with sackcloth and ashes Then and there we shall have tabernacles not made with hands eternal in the heavens where we shall see how sweet the Lord is we shall see the triumphs of Christ we shall hear and sing the Hallelujahs of Saints Quae nunc nos angit vesania vitiorum sitire absinthium c. saith that devour Father Oh how hath our corruption bewitched us to thirst for this wormwood to affect the shipwracks of this world to dote upon the misery of this fading life and not rather to fly up to the felicity of Saints to the society of Angels to that blessed contemplation wherein we shall see God in himself God in us our selves in him There shall be no sorrow no pain no complaint no fear no death There is no malice to rise against us no misery to afflict us no hunger thirst weariness tentation to disquiet us There O there one day is better then a thousand There is rest from our labours peace from our enemies freedome from our sins How many clouds of discontentment darken the Sunshine of our joy while we are here below Vae nobis qui vivimus plangere quae pertulimus dolere quae sentimus timere quae exspectamus Complaint of evils past sense of present fear of future have shared our lives amongst them Then shall we be semper laeti semper satiati alwaies joyfull alwaies satisfied with the vision of that God in whose presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore Shall we see that heathen Cleombrotus abandoning his life and casting himself down from the rock upon an uncertain noise of immortality and shall not we Christians abandon the wicked superfluities of life the pleasures of sin for that life which we know more certainly then this What stick we at my beloved Is there a Heaven or is there none have we a Saviour there or have we none We know there is a Heaven as sure as that there is an earth below us we know we have a Saviour there as sure as there are men that we converse with upon earth we know there is happiness as sure as we know there is misery and mutability upon earth Oh our miserable sottishness and infidelity if we do not contemn the best offers of the world and lifting up our eyes and hearts to Heaven say Bonum est esse hîc Even so Lord Jesus come quickly To him that hath purchased and prepared this Glory for us together with the Father and Blessed Spirit one Incomprehensible God be all praise for ever Amen The Prosecution of the Transfiguration BEfore the Disciples eyes were dazled with Glory now the brightness of that glory is shaded with a Cloud Frail and feeble eyes of mortality cannot look upon an Heavenly lustre That Cloud imports both Majesty and Obscuration Majesty for it was the testimony of God's presence of old the Cloud covered the Mountain the Tabernacle the Oracle He that makes the clouds his Chariot was in a cloud carried up into Heaven Where have we mention of any Divine representation but a Cloud is one part of it What comes nearer to Heaven either in place or resemblance Obscuration for as it shew'd there was a Majesty and that Divine so it shew'd them that the view of that Majesty was not for bodily eyes Like as when some great Prince walks under a Canopy that veile shews there is a Great person under it but withall restrains the eye from a free sight of his person And if the cloud were clear yet it shaded them Why then was this cloud interposed betwixt that glorious Vision and them but for a check of their bold eyes Had they too long gazed upon this resplendent spectacle as their eyes had been blinded so their hearts had perhaps grown to an over-bold familiarity with that Heavenly Object How seasonably doth the cloud intercept it The wise God knows our need of these vicissitudes and allayes If we have a light we must have a cloud if a light to chear us we must have a cloud to humble us It was so in Sinai it was so in Sion it was so in Olivet it shall never be but so The natural day and night do not more duely interchange then this light and cloud Above we shall have the light without the cloud a clear vision and fruition of God without all dim and sad interpositions below we cannot be free from these mists and clouds of sorrow and misapprehension But this was a bright cloud There is difference betwixt the cloud in Tabor and that in Sinai This was clear that darksome There is darkness in the Law there is light in the Grace of the Gospel Moses was there spoken to in darkness here he was spoken with in light In that dark cloud there was terrour in this there was comfort Though it were a Cloud then yet it was bright and though it were bright yet it was a Cloud With much light there was some shade God would not speak to them concerning Christ out of darkness neither yet would he manifest himself to them in an absolute brightness All his appearances have this mixture What need I other instance then in these two Saints Moses spake oft to God mouth to mouth yet not so immediately but that there was ever somewhat drawn as a curtain betwixt God and him either fire in Horeb or smoak in Sinai so as his face was not more veiled from the people then God's from him Elias shall be spoken to by God but in the Rock and under a Mantle In vain shall we hope for any revelation from God but in a cloud Worldly hearts are in utter darkness they see not so much as the least glimpse of these Divine beams not a beam of that inaccessible light The best of his Saints see him here but in a cloud or in a glass Happy are we if God have honoured us with these Divine representations of himself Once in his light we shall see light I can easily think with what amazedness these three
victory Else it matters not what they were what I was O God thou whose title is I am regardest the present He befriends and honours us that saies Such ye were but ye are washed The place addes to the hainousness of the sin In the City The more publick the fact is the greater is the scandall Sin is sin though in a desart Others eyes do not make the act more vile in it self but the offence is multiplied by the number of beholders I hear no Name of either the City or the Woman she was too well known in her time How much better is it to be obscure then infamous Herein I doubt not God meant to spare the reputation of a penitent Convert He who hates not the person but the sin cares only to mention the sin not the person It is justice to prosecute the Vice it is mercy to spare the Offender How injurious a presumption is it for any man to name her whom God would have concealed and to cast this aspersion on those whom God hath noted for holiness The worst of this woman is past She was a sinner the best is to come She sought out Jesus where In the house of a Pharisee It was the most inconvenient place in the world for a noted sinner to seek Christ in No men stood so much upon the terms of their own Righteousness no men so scornfully disdained an infamous person The touch of an ordinary though honest Jew was their pollution how much more the presence of a Strumpet What a sight was a known sinner to him to whom his holiest neighbour was a sinner How doth he though a better Pharisee look awrie to see such a piece in his house whiles he dares think If this man were a Prophet he would surely know what manner of woman this is Neither could she fore-imagine lesse when she ventured to presse over the threshold of a Pharisee Yet not the known austerity of the man and her mis-welcome to the place could affright her from seeking her Saviour even there No disadvantage can defer the Penitent Soul from a speedy recourse to Christ She saies not If Jesus were in the street or in the field or in the house of some humble Publican or any where save with a Pharisee I would come to him now I will rather defer my accesse then seek him where I shall finde scorn and censure but as not fearing the frowns of that overlie Host she thrusts her self into Simon 's house to finde Jesus It is not for the distressed to be bashfull it is not for a believer to be timorous O Saviour if thy Spouse misse thee she will seek thee through the streets the blows of the watch shall not daunt her If thou be on the other side of the water a Peter will leap into the Sea and swim to thee if on the other side of the fire thy blessed Martyrs will run through those flames to thee We are not worthy of the comfort of thy presence if wheresoever we know thou art whether in prison or in exile or at the stake we do not hasten thither to injoy thee The Place was not more unfit then the Time a Pharisees house was not more unproper for a sinner then a Feast was for humiliation Tears at a Banquet are as Jigs at a Funeral There is a season for all things Musick had been more apt for a Feast then mourning The heart that hath once felt the sting of sin and the sweetness of remission hath no power to delay the expressions of what it feels and cannot be confined to terms of circumstance Whence then was this zeal of her accesse Doubtlesse she had heard from the mouth of Christ in those heavenly Sermons of his many gracious invitations of all troubled and labouring souls she had observed how he vouchsafed to come under the roofs of despised Publicans of professed enemies she had noted all the passages of his power and mercy and now deep remorse wrought upon her heart for her former viciousness The pool of her Conscience was troubled by the descending Angel and now she steps in for a cure The arrow stuck fast in her Soul which she could not shake out and now she comes to this soveraign Dittanie to expell it Had not the Spirit of God wrought upon her ere she came and wrought her to come she had never either sought or found Christ Now she comes in and findes that Saviour whom she sought she comes in but not empty-handed though debauched she was a Jewesse She could not but have heard that she ought not to appear before the Lord empty What then brings she It was not possible she could bring to Christ a better present then her own Penitent Soul yet to testifie that she brings another delicate both for the vessel and the contents A box of Alabaster a solid hard pure clear marble fit for the receit of so precious an ointment the ointment pleasant and costly a composition of many fragrant Odors not for medicine but delight The Soul that is truly touched with the sense of its own sin can think nothing too good too dear for Christ The remorsed sinner begins first with the tender of burnt-offerings and calves of a year old thence he ascends to Hecatombs thousands of rams and above that yet to ten thousand rivers of oyle and yet higher could be content to give the first-fruit of his body to expiate the sin of his Soul Any thing every thing is too small a price for peace O Saviour since we have tasted how sweet thou art lo we bring thee the daintiest and costliest perfumes of our humble Obediences yea if so much of our blood as this woman brought ointment may be usefull or pleasing to thy Name we do most chearfully consecrate it unto thee If we would not have thee think Heaven too good for us why should we stick at any earthly retribution to thee in lieu of thy great mercies Yet here I see more then the price This odoriferous persume was that wherewith she had wont to make her self pleasing to her wanton Lovers and now she comes purposely to offer it up to her Saviour As her love was turned another way from sensual to Divine so shall her Ointment also be altered in the use that which was abused to Luxury shall now be consecrated to Devotion There is no other effect in whatsoever true Conversion As we have given our members servants to iniquity to commit iniquity so shall we now give our members servants unto righteousnesse in holinesse If the dames of Israel that thought nothing more worth looking on then their own faces have spent too much time in their glasses now they shall cast in those metalls to make a Laver for the washing off their uncleannesses If I have spent the prime of my strength the strength of my wit upon my self and vanity I have bestowed my Alabaster-box amisse Oh now teach me my God and Saviour to
entertainment may deserve to lose our thanks Do we pray to thee do we hear thee preach to us now we make thee good chear in our house but if we perform not these things with the fit decency of our outward carriages we give thee not thy water thy kisses thy oyle Even meet rituall observances are requisite for thy full welcome Yet how little had these things been regarded if they had not argued the womans thankfull love to thee and the ground of that love sense of her remission and the Pharisees default in both Love and action do necessarily evince each other True love cannot lurk long unexpressed it will be looking out at the eyes creeping out of the mouth breaking out at the fingers ends in some actions of dearnesse especially those wherein there is pain and difficulty to the agent profit or pleasure to the affected O Lord in vain shall we professe to love thee if we doe nothing for thee Since our goodnesse cannot reach up unto thee who art our glorious head O let us bestow upon thy feet thy poor Members here below our teares our hands our oyntment and whatever our gifts or endevours may testifie our thankfulnesse and love to thee in them O happy word Her sins which are many are forgiven her Methinks I see how this poor Penitent revived with this breath how new life comes into her eyes new blood into her cheeks new spirits into her countenance like unto our Mother Earth when in that first confusion God said Let the earth bring forthgrasse the herb that beareth seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit all runs out into flowers and blossomes and leaves and fruit Her former teares said Who shall deliver me from this body of death Now her chearfull smiles say I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Seldomeever do we meet with so perfect a Penitent seldome do we finde so gracious a dismission What can be wished of any mortall creature but Remission Safety Faith Peace All these are here met to make a contrite Soul happy Remission the ground of her Safety Faith the ground of her Peace Safety and Salvation the issue of her Remission Peace the blessed fruit of her Faith O Woman the persume that thou broughtest is poor and base in comparison of those sweet savours of rest and happinesse that are returned to thee Well was that ointment bestowed wherewith thy Soul is sweetned to all Eternity Martha and Mary WE may read long enough ere we find Christ in an house of his own The foxes have holes and the birds have nests he that had all possessed nothing One while I see him in a publican's house then in a Pharisee's now I finde him at Martha's His last entertainment was with some neglect this with too much solicitude Our Saviour was now in his way the Sun might as soon stand stil as he The more we move the liker we are to Heaven and to this God that made it His progresse was to Hierusalem for some holy Feast He whose Devotion neglected not any of those sacred Solemnities will not neglect the due opportunities of his bodily refreshing as not thinking it meet to travell and preach harbourlesse he diverts where he knew his welcome to the village of Bethanie There dwelt the two devout Sisters with their Brother his Friend Lazarus their roof receives him O happy house into which the Son of God vouchsafed to set his foot O blessed women that had the grace to be the Hostesses to the God of Heaven How should I envy your felicity herein if I did not see the same favour if I be not wanting to my self lying open to me I have two waies to entertain my Saviour in his Members and in himself In his Members by Charity and Hospitablenesse what I doe to one of those his little ones I doe to him In himself by Faith If any man open he will come in and sup with him O Saviour thou standst at the door of our hearts and knockst by the solicitations of thy Messengers by the sense of thy Chastisements by the motions of thy Spirit if we open to thee by a willing admission and faithfull welcome thou wilt be sure to take up our Souls with thy gracious presence and not to sit with us for a momentany meal but to dwell with us for ever Lo thou didst but call in at Bethany but here shall be thy rest for everlasting Martha it seems as being the elder Sister bore the name of the House-keeper Mary was her assistant in the charge A Blessed pair Sisters not more in Nature then Grace in Spirit no lesse then in flesh How happy a thing is it when all the parties in a family are joyntly agreed to entertain Christ No sooner is Jesus entred into the house then he falls to preaching that no time may be lost he staies not so much as till his meat be made ready but whiles his bodily repast was in hand provides spiritual food for his Hosts It was his meat and drink to doe the will of his Father he fed more upon his own diet then he could possibly upon theirs his best chear was to see them spiritually fed How should we whom he hath called to this sacred Function be instant in season and out of season We are by his sacred ordination the Lights of the world No sooner is the candle lighted then it gives that light which it hath and never intermits till it be wasted to the snuff Both the Sisters for a time sate attentively listening to the words of Christ Houshold occasions call Martha away Mary sits still at his feet and hears Whether shall we more praise her Humility or her Docility I do not see her take a stool and sit by him or a chair and sit above him but as desiring to shew her heart was as low as her knees she sits at his feet She was lowly set richly warmed with those Heavenly beams The greater submission the more Grace If there be one hollow in the valley lower then another thither the waters gather Martha's house is become a Divinity-school Jesus as the Doctor sits in the chair Martha Mary and the rest sit as Disciples at his feet Standing implies a readinesse of motion Sitting a setled composednesse to this holy attendance Had these two Sisters provided our Saviour never such delicates and waited on his trencher never so officiously yet had they not listened to his instruction they had not bidden him welcome neither had he so well liked his Entertainment This was the way to feast him to feed their ears by his Heavenly Doctrine his best chear is our proficiency our best chear is his Word O Saviour let my Soul be thus feasted by thee do thou thus feast thy self by feeding me this mutual diet shall be thy praise and my happinesse Though Martha was for the time an attentive hearer yet now her care of Christ's entertainment carries her into the Kitchin Mary sits still Neither was
do they foam and gnash whom he hath drawn to an impatient repining at God's afflictive hand How do they pine away who hourly decay and languish in Grace Oh the lamentable condition of sinfull Souls so much more dangerous by how much lesse felt But all this while what part hath the Moon in this mans misery How comes the name of that goodly Planet in question Certainly these diseases of the brain follow much the course of this queen of moisture That power which she hath in humors is drawn to the advantage of the malicious spirit her predominancy is abused to his despight whether it were for the better opportunity of his vexation or whether for the drawing of envy and discredit upon so noble a creature It is no news with that subtle enemie to fasten his effects upon those secondary causes which he usurps to his own purposes Whatever be the means he is the tormentor Much wisdome needs to disstinguish betwixt the evil spirit abusing the good creature and the good creature abused by the evil spirit He that knew all things asks questions How long hath he been so Not to inform himself That Devil could have done nothing without the knowledge without the leave of the God of Spirits but that by the confession of the Parent he might lay forth the wofull condition of the childe that the thank and glory of the Cure might be so much greater as the complaint was more grievous He answered From a childe O God how I adore the depth of thy wise and just and powerfull dispensation Thou that couldst say I have loved Jacob and Esau have I hated ere the children had done good or evil thoughtest also good ere this Childe could be capable of good or evil to yield him over to the power of that Evil one What need I ask for any other reason then that which is the rule of all Justice thy Will Yet even these weak eyes can see the just grounds of thine actions That childe though an Israelite was conceived and born in that sin which both could and did give Satan an interest in him Besides the actual sins of the Parents deserved this revenge upon that piece of themselves Rather O God let me magnific this Mercy that we and our s escape this Judgment then question thy Justice that some escape not How just might it have been with thee that we who have given way to Satan in our sins should have way and scope given to Satan over us in our punishments It is thy praise that any of us are free it is no quarrell that some suffer Do I wonder to see Satans bodily possession of this yong man from a childe when I see his spiritual possession of every son of Adam from a longer date not from a childe but from the womb yea in it Why should not Satan possesse his own we are all by nature the sons of wrath It is time for us to renounce him in Baptism whose we are till we be regenerate He hath right to us in our first birth our new birth acquits us from him and cuts off all his claim How miserable are they that have nothing but Nature Better had it been to have been unborn then not to be born again And if this poor soul from an infant were thus miserably handled having done none actual evil how just cause have we to fear the like Judgments who by many foul offences have deserved to draw this executioner upon us O my Soul thou hast not room enough for thankfulnesse to that good God who hath not delivered thee up to that malignant Spirit The distressed Father sits not still neglects not means I brought him to thy Disciples Doubtlesse the man came first to seek for Christ himself finding him absent he makes suit to the Disciples To whom should we have recourse in all our spirituall complaints but to the agents and messengers of God The noise of the like cures had surely brought this man with much confidence to crave their succour and now how cold was he at the heart when he found that his hopes were frustrate They could not cast him out No doubt the Disciples tried their best they laid their wonted charge upon this dumb spirit but all in vain They that could come with joy and triumph to their Master and say The Devils are subject to us finde now themselves matched with a stubborn and refractory spirit Their way was hitherto smooth and fair they met with no rub till now And now surely the father of the Demoniack was not more troubled at this event then themselves How could they chuse but fear lest their Master had with himself withdrawn that spiritual power which they had formerly exercised Needs must their heart fail them with their successe The man complained not of their impotence it were fondly injurious to accuse them for that which they could not doe had the want been in their will they had well deserved a querulous language it was no fault to want power Only he complains of the stubbornnesse and laments the invinciblenesse of that evil spirit I should wrong you O ye blessed Followers of Christ if I should say that as Israel when Moses was gone up into the Mount lost their belief with their guide so that ye missing your Master who was now ascended up to his Tabor were to seek for your Faith Rather the Wisdome of God saw reason to check your over-assured forwardnesse and both to pull down your hearts by a just humiliation in the sense of your own weaknesse and to raise up your hearts to new acts of dependance upon that soveraign power from which your limited virtue was derived What was more familiar to the Disciples then ejecting of Devils In this only it is denied them Our good God sometimes findes it requisite to hold us short in those abilities whereof we make least doubt that we may feel whence we had them God will be no lesse glorified in what we cannot doe then in what we can doe If his Graces were alwaies at our command and ever alike they would seem natural and soon run into contempt now we are justly held in an awfull dependance upon that gracious hand which so gives as not to cloy us and so denies as not to discourage us Who could now but expect that our Saviour should have pitied and bemoned the condition of this sad father and miserable son and have let fall some words of comfort upon them In stead whereof I hear him chiding and complaining O faithlesse and perverse generation how long shall I be with you how long shall I suffer you Complaining not of that wofull father and more wofull son it was not his fashion to adde affliction to the distressed to break such bruised reeds but of those Scribes who upon the failing of the successe of this suit had insulted upon the disability of the Followers of Christ and depraved his power although perhaps this impatient father
seduced by their suggestion might slip into some thoughts of distrust There could not be a greater crimination then faithlesse and perverse faithlesse in not believing perverse in being obstinately set in their unbelief Doubtlesse these men were not free from other notorious crimes all were drowned in their Infidelity Morall uncleannesses or violences may seem more hainous to men none are so odious to God as these Intellectual wickednesses What an happy change is here in one breath of Christ How long shall I suffer you Bring him hither to me The one is a word of anger the other of favour His just indignation doth not exceed or impeach his Goodnesse What a sweet mixture there is in the perfect simplicity of the Divine Nature In the midst of judgement he remembers mercy yea he acts it His Sun shines in the midst of this storm Whether he frown or whether he smile it is all to one purpose that he may win the incredulous and disobedient Whither should the rigour of all our censures tend but to edification and not to destruction We are Physicians we are not executioners we give purges to cure and not poisons to kill It is for the just Judge to say one day to reprobate Souls Depart from me in the mean time it is for us to invite all that are spiritually possessed to the participation of mercy Bring him hither to me O Saviour distance was no hindrance to thy work why should the Demoniack be brought to thee Was it that this deliverance might be the better evicted and that the beholders might see it was not for nothing that the Disciples were opposed with so refractory a spirit or was it that the Scribes might be witnesses of that strong hostility that was betwixt thee and that foul spirit and be ashamed of their blasphemous slander or was it that the father of the Demoniack might be quickened in that Faith which now through the suggestion of the Scribes begun to droup when he should hear and see Christ so chearfully to undertake and perform that whereof they had bidden him despair The possessed is brought the Devil is rebuked and ejected That stiff spirit which stood out boldly against the commands of the Disciples cannot but stoop to the voice of the Master that power which did at first cast him out of Heaven easily dispossesses him of an house of clay The Lord rebuke thee Satan and then thou canst not but flee The Disciples who were not used to these affronts cannot but be troubled at their mis-successe Master why could not we cast him out Had they been conscious of any defect in themselves they had never ask'd the question Little did they think to hear of their Unbelief Had they not had great Faith they could not have cast out any Devils had they not had some want of Faith they had cast out this It is possible for us to be defective in some Graces and not to feel it Although not so much their weaknesse is guilty of this unprevailing as the strength of that evil spirit This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting Weaker spirits were wont to be ejected by a command this Devil was more sturdy and boisterous As there are degrees of statures in men so there are degrees of strength and rebellion in spirituall wickednesses Here bidding will not serve they must pray and praying will not serve without fasting They must pray to God that they may prevail they must fast to make their prayer more servent more effectuall We cannot now command we can fast and pray How good is our God to us that whiles he hath not thought fit to continue to us those means which are lesse powerfull for the dispossessing of the powers of darknesse yet hath he given us the greater Whiles we can fast and pray God will command for us Satan cannot prevail against us The Widow's mites THE sacred wealth of the Temple was either in stuffe or in coin For the one the Jews had an house for the other a chest At the concourse of all the males to the Temple thrice a year upon occasion of the solemn Feasts the oblations of both kinds were liberall Our Saviour as taking pleasure in the prospect sets himself to view those Offerings whether for holy uses or charitable Those things we delight in we love to behold The eye and the heart will go together And can we think O Saviour that thy Glory hath diminished ought of thy gracious respects to our beneficence or that thine acceptance of our Charity was confined to the earth Even now that thou â—ittest at the right hand of thy Fathers glory thou â—eest every hand that is stretched out to the relief of thy poor Saints here below And if vanity have power to stir up our Liberality out of a conceit to be seen of men how shall Faith incourage our Bounty in knowing that we are seen of thee and accepted by thee Alas what are we the better for the notice of those perishing and impotent eyes which can onely view the outside of our actions or for that wast winde of applause which vanisheth in the lips of the speaker Thine eye O Lord is piercing and retributive As to see thee is perfect Happinesse so to be seen of thee is true contentment and glory And dost thou O God see what we give thee and not see what we take away from thee Are our Offerings more noted then our Sacriledges Surely thy Mercy is not more quick-sighted then thy Justice In both kindes our actions are viewed our account is kept and we are sure to receive Rewards for what we have given and Vengeance for what we have defalked With thine eye of Knowledge thou seest all we doe but what we doe well thou seest with thine eye of Approbation So didst thou now behold these pious and charitable Oblations How well wert thou pleased with this variety Thou sawest many rich men give much and one poor Widow give more then they in lesser room The Jews were now under the Romane pressure they were all tributaries yet many of them rich and those rich men were liberal to the common chest Hadst thou seen those many rich give little we had heard of thy censure thou expectest a proportion betwixt the giver and the gift betwixt the gift and the receit where that fails the blame is just That Nation though otherwise faulty enough was in this commendable How bounteously open were their hands to the house of God Time was when their liberality was fain to be restrained by Proclamation and now it needed no incitement the rich gave much the poorest gave more He saw a poor widow casting in two mites It was misery enough that she was a Widow The married woman is under the carefull provision of an Husband if she spend he earns in that estate four hands work for her in her viduity but two Poverty added to the sorrow of her widowhood The losse of some Husbands is
forsaking Here thou wouldst knowingly delay whether for the greatning of the Miracle or for the strengthning of thy Disciples Faith Hadst thou gone sooner and prevented the death who had known whether strength of Nature and not thy miraculous power had done it Hadst thou overtaken his death by this quickning visitation who had known whether this had been only some â—ualm or extasy and not a perfect dissolution Now this large gap of time makes thy work both certain and glorious And what a clear proof was this beforehand to thy Disciples that thou wert able to accomplish thine own Resurrection on the third day who wert able to raise up Lazarus on the fourth The more difficult the work should be the more need it had of an omnipotent confirmation He that was Lord of our times and his own can now when he found it seasonable say Let us goe into Judaea again Why left he it before was it not upon the heady violence of his enemies Lo the stones of the Jews drove him thence the love of Lazarus and the care of his Divine glory drew him back thither We may we must be wise as serpents for our own preservation we must be careless of danger when God cals us to the hazard It is far from God's purpose to give us leave so farre to respect our selves as that we should neglect him Let Judaea be all snares all crosses O Saviour when thou callest us we must put our lives into our hands and follow thee thither This journey thou hast purposed and contrived but what needest thou to acquaint thy Disciples with thine intent Where didst thou ever besides here make them of counsel with thy voyages Neither didst thou say How think you if I goe but Let us goe Was it for that thou who knewest thine own strength knewest also their weakness Thou wert resolute they were timorous they were sensible enough of their late peril and fearful of more there was need to fore-arm them with an exspectation of the worst and preparation for it Surprisal with evils may indanger the best constancy The heart is apt to fail when it findes it self intrapped in a suddain mischief The Disciples were dearly affected to Lazarus they had learned to love where their Master loved yet now when our Saviour speaks of returning to that region of peril they pull him by the sleeve and put him in minde of the violence offered unto him Master the Jews of late sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again No less then thrice in the fore going Chapter did the Jews lift up their hands to murder him by a cruel lapidation Whence was this rage and bloody attempt of theirs Onely for that he taught them the truth concerning his Divine nature and gave himself the just style of the Son of God How subject carnal hearts are to be impatient of Heavenly verityes Nothing can so much fret that malignant spirit which rules in those breasts as that Christ should have his own If we be persecuted for his Truth we do but suffer with him with whom we shall once reign However the Disciples pleaded for their Masters safety yet they aimed at their own they well knew their danger was inwrapped in his It is but a cleanly colour that they put upon their own fear This is held but a weak and base Passion each one would be glad to put off the opinion of it from himself and to set the best face upon his own impotency Thus white-livered men that shrink and shift from the Cross will not want fair pretences to evade it One pleads the peril of many dependants another the disfurnishing the Church of succeeding abettors each will have some plausible excuse for his sound skin What errour did not our Saviour rectifie in his followers Even that fear which they would have dissembled is graciously dispelled by the just consideration of a sure and inevitable Providence Are there not twelve hours in the day which are duely set and proceed regularly for the direction of all the motions and actions of men So in this course of mine which I must run on earth there is a set and determined time wherein I must work and doe my Fathers will The Sun that guides these houres is the determinate counsel of my Father and his calling to the execution of my charge whiles I follow that I cannot miscarry no more then a man can miss his known way at high noon this while in vain are either your disswasions or the attempts of enemies they cannot hurt ye cannot divert me The journey then holds to Judaea his attendants shall be made acquainted with the occasion He that had formerly denied the deadliness of Lazarus his sickness would not suddenly confess his death neither yet would he altogether conceal it so will he therefore confess it as that he will shadow it out in a borrowed expression Lazarus our friend sleepeth What a sweet title is here both of death and of Lazarus Death is a sleep Lazarus is our friend Lo he saies not my friend but ours to draw them first into a gracious familiarity and communion of friendship with himself for what doth this import but Ye are my friends and Lazarus is both my friend and yours Our friend Oh meek and merciful Saviour that disdainest not to stoop so low as that whiles thou thoughtest it no robbery to be equall unto God thou thoughtest it no disparagement to match thy self with weak and wretched men Our friend Lazarus There is a kinde of parity in Friendship There may be Love where is the most inequality but friendship supposes pairs yet the Son of God saies of the sons of men Our friend Lazarus Oh what an high and happy condition is this for mortal men to aspire unto that the God of Heaven should not be ashamed to own them for friends Neither saith he now abruptly Lazarus our friend is dead but Lazarus our friend sleepeth O Saviour none can know the estate of life or death so well as thou that art the Lord of both It is enough that thou tellest us death is no other then sleep that which was wont to pass for the cozen of death is now it self All this while we have mistaken the case of our dissolution we took it for an enemy it proves a friend there is pleasure in that wherein we supposed horror Who is affraid after the weary toiles of the day to take his rest by night or what is more refreshing to the spent traveller then a sweet sleep It is our infidelity our impreparation that makes death any other then advantage Even so Lord when thou seest I have toiled enough let me sleep in peace and when thou seest I have slept enough awake me as thou didst thy Lazarus But I goe to awake him Thou saidst not Let us goe to awake him those whom thou wilt allow companions of thy way thou wilt not allow partners of thy work they may be witnesses they cannot
thee Now when John asks thee a question no lesse seemingly curious at Peter's instance Who is it that betraies thee however thou mightest have returned him the same answer since neither of their persons was any more concerned yet thou condescendest to a milde and full though secret satisfaction There was not so much difference in the men as in the matter of the demand No occasion was given to Peter of moving that question concerning John the indefinite assertion of treason amongst the Disciples was a most just occasion of moving John's question for Peter and himself That which therefore was timorously demanded is answered graciously He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it And he gave the sop to Judas How loath was our Saviour to name him whom he was not unwilling to design All is here expressed by dumb signs the hand speaks what the tongue would not In the same language wherein Peter asked the question of John doth our Saviour shape an answer to John what a beck demanded is answered by a sop O Saviour I do not hear thee say Look on whomsoever I frown or to whomsoever I doe a publick affront that is the man but To whomsoever I shall give a sop Surely a by-stander would have thought this man deep in thy books and would have construed this act as they did thy tears for Lazarus See how he loves him To carve a man out of thine own dish what could it seem to argue but a singularity of respect Yet lo there is but one whom thou hatest one onely Traitor at thy board and thou givest him a sop The outward Gifts of God are not alwaies the proofs of his Love yea sometimes are bestowed in displeasure Had not he been a wise Disciple that should have envied the great favour done to Judas and have stomached his own preterition So foolish are they who measuring God's affection by temporal benefits are ready to applaud prospering wickedness and to grudge outward blessings to them which are uncapable of any better After the sop Satan entred into Judas Better had it been for that treacherous Disciple to have wanted that morsell Not that there was any malignity in the bread or that the sop had any power to convey Satan into the receiver or that by a necessary concomitance that evil spirit was in or with it Favours ill used make the heart more capable of further evil That wicked spirit commonly takes occasion by any of God's gifts to assault us the more eagerly After our Sacramental morsell if we be not the better we are sure the worse I dare not say yet I dare think that Judas comparing his Master's words and John's whisperings with the tender of this sop and finding himself thus denoted was now so much the more irritated to perform what he had wickedly purposed Thus Satan took advantage by the sop of a further possession Twice before had that evil spirit made a palpable entry into that lewd heart First in his Covetousnesse and Theft those sinfull habits could not be without that author of ill then in his damnable resolution and plot of so hainous a conspiracy against Christ Yet now as if it were new to begin After the sop Satan entred As in every grosse sin which we entertain we give harbour to that evil spirit so in every degree of growth in wickednesse new hold is taken by him of the heart No sooner is the foot over the threshold then we enter into the house when we passe thence into the inner rooms we make still but a perfect entrance At first Satan entred to make the house of Judas's heart his own now he enters into it as his own The first purpose of sin opens the gates to Satan consent admits him into the entry full resolution of sin gives up the keys to his hands and puts him into absolute possession What a plain difference there is betwixt the regenerate and evil heart Satan laies siege to the best by his Tentations and sometimes upon battery and breach made enters the other admits him by willing composition When he is entred upon the Regenerate he is entertained with perpetual skirmishes and by an holy violence at last repulsed in the other he is plausibly received and freely commandeth Oh the admirable meekness of this Lamb of God! I see not a frown I hear not a check but What thou doest doe quickly Why do we startle at our petty wrongs and swell with anger and break into furious revenges upon every occasion when the pattern of our Patience lets not fall one harsh word upon so soul bloody a Traitor Yea so fairly is this carried that the Disciples as yet can apprehend no change they innocently think of commodities to be bought when Christ speaks of their Master sold and as one that longs to be out of pain hastens the pace of his irreclamable conspirator That thou doest doe quickly It is one thing to say Doe what thou intendest and another to say Doe quickly what thou doest There was villany in the deed the speed had no sin the time was harmlesse whiles the man and the act was wicked O Judas how happy had it been for thee if thou hadst never done what thou perfidiously intendedst but since thou wilt needs doe it delay is but a torment That steely heart yet relents not the obfirmed Traitor knows his way to the High Priest's hall and to the garden the watchword is already given Hail Master and a kisse Yet more Hypocrisie yet more presumption upon so overstrained a lenity How knewest thou O thou false Traitor whether that Sacred cheek would suffer it self to be defiled with thine impure touch Thou well foundst thy treachery was unmasked thine heart could not be so false to thee as not to tell thee how hatefull thou wert Goe kisse and adore those silverlings which thou art too sure of the Master whom thou hast sold is not thine But oh the impudence of a deplored sinner That tongue which hath agreed to sell his Master dares say Hail and those lips that have passed the compact of his death dare offer to kisse him whom they had covenanted to kill It was God's charge of old Kisse the Son lest he be angry O Saviour thou hadst reason to be angry with this kisse the scourges the thorns the nails the spear of thy Murderers were not so painfull so piercing as this touch of Judas all these were in this one alone The stabs of an Enemy cannot be so grievous as the skin-deep wounds of a Disciple The Agonie WHAT a Preface do I finde to my Saviour's Passion an Hymn and an Agonie a chearfull Hymn and an Agonie no lesse sorrowfull An Hymn begins both to raise and testifie the courageous resolutions of his Suffering an Agonie follows to shew that he was truly sensible of those extremities wherewith he was resolved to grapple All the Disciples bore their part in that Hymn it was fit they
interposed Hadst thou merely respected thine own Glory thou hadst instantly changed thy grave for thy Paradise for so much the sooner hadst thou been possessed of thy Fathers joy we would not continue in a Dungeon when we might be in a Palace but thou who for our sakes vouchsafedst to descend from Heaven to earth wouldst now in the upshot have a gracious regard to us in thy return Thy death had troubled the hearts of many Disciples who thought that condition too mean to be compatible with the glory of the Messiah and thoughts of diffidence were apt to seize upon the holiest breasts So long therefore wouldst thou hold footing upon earth till the world were fully convinced of the infallible evidences of thy Resurrection of all which time thou only canst give an account it was not for flesh and blood to trace the waies of Immortality neither was our frail corruptible sinful nature a meet companion for thy now-glorified Humanity the glorious angels of Heaven were now thy fittest attendants But yet how oft did it please thee graciously to impart thy self this while unto men and not only to appear unto thy Disciples but to renew unto them the familiar forms of thy wonted conversation in conferring walking eating with them and now when thou drewest near to thy last parting thou who hadst many times shew'd thy self before to thy several Disciples thoughtest meet to assemble them all together for an universal valediction Who can be too rigorous in censuring the ignorances of well-meaning Christians when he sees the domestick Followers of Christ even after his Resurrection mistake the main end of his coming in the flesh Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel They saw their Master now out of the reach of all Jewish envie they saw his power illimited and irresistible they saw him stay so long upon earth that they might imagine he meant to fix his abode there and what should he doe there but reign and wherefore should they be now assembled but for the choice and distribution of Offices and for the ordering of the affairs of that state which was now to be vindicated O weak thoughts of well-instructed Disciples What should an Heavenly body doe in an earthly throne How should a spiritual life be imployed in secular cares How poor a business is the temporal Kingdome of Israel for the King of Heaven And even yet O Blessed Saviour I do not hear thee sharply controll this erroneous conceit of thy mistaken Followers thy mild correction insists rather upon the time then the misconceived substance of that restauration It was thy gracious purpose that thy Spirit should by degrees rectifie their judgements and illuminate them with thy Divine truths in the mean time it was sufficient to raise up their hearts to an expectation of that Holy Ghost which should shortly lead them into all needful and requisite verities And now with a gracious promise of that Spirit of thine with a careful charge renewed unto thy Disciples for the promulgation of thy Gospel with an Heavenly Benediction of all thine acclaming attendance thou tak'st leave of earth When he had spoken these things whiles they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight Oh happy parting fit for the Saviour of mankind answerable to that Divine conversation to that succeeding Glory O blessed Jesu let me so farre imitate thee as to depart hence with a blessing in my mouth let my Soul when it is stepping over the threshold of Heaven leave behind it a legacy of Peace and Happiness It was from the mount of Olives that thou tookst thy rise into Heaven Thou mightest have ascended from the valley all the globe of earth was alike to thee but since thou wert to mount upward thou wouldst take so much advantage as that staire of ground would afford thee thou wouldst not use the help of a Miracle in that wherein Nature offered her ordinary service What difficulty had it been for thee to have styed up from the very center of earth But since thou hadst made hills so much nearer unto Heaven thou wouldst not neglect the benefit of thy own Creation Where we have common helps we may not depend upon Supernatural provisions we may not strain the Divine Providence to the supply of our negligence or the humoring of our presumption Thou that couldst alwaies have walked on the Sea wouldst walk so but once when thou wantedst shipping thou to whom the highest mountains were but valleys wouldst walk up to an hill to ascend thence into Heaven O God teach me to bless thee for means when I have them and to trust thee for means when I have them not yea to trust to thee without means when I have no hope of them What hill was this thou chosest but the mount of Olives Thy Pulpit shall I call it or thine Oratory The place from whence thou hadst wont to showre down thine Heavenly Doctrine upon the hearers the place whence thou hadst wont to sent up thy Prayers unto thy Heavenly Father the place that shared with the Temple for both In the day-time thou wert preaching in the Temple in the night praying in the mount of Olives On this very hill was the bloody sweat of thine Agonie now is it the mount of thy Triumph From this mount of Olives did flow that oyle of gladness wherewith thy Church is everlastingly refreshed That God that uses to punish us in the same kind wherein we have offended retributes also to us in the same kind and circumstances wherein we have been afflicted To us also O Saviour even to us thy unworthy members dost thou seasonably vouchsafe to give a proportionable joy to our heaviness laughter to our mourning glory to contempt and shame Our agonies shall be answered with exaltation Whither then O Blessed Jesu whither didst thou ascend whither but home into thine Heaven From the mountain wert thou taken up and what but Heaven is above the hills Lo these are those mountains of spices which thy Spouse the Church long since desired thee to climbe Thou hast now climbed up that infinite steepness and hast left all sublimity below thee Already hadst thou approved thy self the Lord and Commander of Earth of Sea of Hell The Earth confest thee her Lord when at thy voice she rendered thee thy Lazarus when she shook at thy Passion and gave up her dead Saints The Sea acknowledged thee in that it became a pavement to thy feet and at thy command to the feet of thy Disciple in that it became thy Treasury for thy Tribute-money Hell found and acknowledged thee in that thou conqueredst all the powers of darkness even him that had the power of death the Devil It now onely remained that as the Lord of the Aire thou shouldst pass through all the regions of that yielding element and as Lord of Heaven thou shouldst pass through all the glorious contignations thereof that so every knee might bow
God In vain shall the vassals of appetite challenge to be the servants of God Were it that the Kingdome of God did consist in eating and drinking in pampering and surfeits in chambering and wantonnesse in pranking and vanity in talk and ostentation O God how rich shouldst thou be of subjects of Saints But if it require abstinence humiliation contrition of heart subjugation of our flesh renunciation of our wills serious impositions of laboursome devotions O Lord what is become of true Christianity where shall we seek for a crucified man Look to our Tables there ye shall finde excesse and riot look to our Backs there ye shall finde proud disguises look to our Conversations there ye shall finde scurril and obscene jollity This liberty yea this licentiousnesse is that which opens the mouths of our adversaries to the censure of our reall impiety That slander which Julian could cast upon Constantine that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 led him to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delicacie to intemperance the very same do they cast upon us They tell us of their strict Lents frequent Fastings Canonical hours sharp Penances their bashfull shrists their painfull scourgings their solitary Cells their woolward and barefoot walks their hard and tedious pilgrimages whiles we they say deny nothing to back or belly fare full lie soft sit warm and make a wanton of the flesh whiles we professe to tend the spirit Brethren hear a little the words of exhortation The brags of their penal will-worship shall no whit move us All this is blown away with a Baal's Priests did more then they yet were never the holier But for our selves in the fear of God see that we do not justifie their crimination Whiles they are in one extreme placing all Religion in the out-side in Touch not taste not handle not let us not be in the other not regarding the external acts of due Humiliation It is true that it is more ease to afflict the body then to humble the Soul a dram of remorse is more then an ounce of pain O God if whippings and hair-cloaths and watchings would satisfie thy displeasure who would not sacrifice the blood of this vassall his Body to expiate the sin of his Soul who would not scrub his skin to ease his Conscience who would not freez upon an hurdle that he might not frie in hell who would not hold his eyes open to avoid an eternall unrest and torment But such sacrifices and oblations O God thou desirest not The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Yet it is as true that it is more easie to counterfeit mortification of spirit then humiliation of body there is pain in the one none in the other He that cares not therefore to pull down his body will much lesse care to humble his Soul and he that spares not to act meet and due penalties upon the Flesh gives more colour of the Souls humiliation Dear Christians it is not for us to stand upon niggardly terms with our Maker he will have both he that made both will have us crucified in both The old man doth not lie in a lim or faculty but is diffused through the whole extent of Body and Soul and must be crucified in all that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the chosen vessel I beat down my body my body as well as my spirit Give me leave ye Courtiers and Citizens Lent is wont to be a penitential time If ye have soundly and effectually thriven your selves to your God let me enjoyn you an wholsome and saving Penance for the whole year for your whole life Ye must curb your appetites ye must fast ye must stint your selves to your painfull Devotions ye must give peremptory denials to your own wills ye must put your knife to your throat in Solomon's sense Think not that ye can climb up to Heaven with full panches reaking ever of Indian smoak and the surfeits of your gluttonous crammings and quaffings Oh easie and pleasant way to Glory from our bed to our glasse from our glasse to our boord from our dinner to our pipe from our pipe to a visit from a visit to a supper from a supper to a play from a play to a banquet from a banquet to our bed Oh remember the quarrel against damned Dives He fared sumptuously every day he made neither Lents nor Embers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he said every day was gaudie and festival in rich sutes in dainty morsels and full draughts Intus mulso foris oleo Wine within oyle without as he said now all the world for a drop and it is too little Vae saturis woc to the full saith our Saviour but even Nature it self could abominate bis de die saturum one that is full twice a day One of the sins of our Sodom is fulnesse of bread What is the remedy It is an old word that Hunger cures the diseases of Gluttony Oh that my words could prevail so far with you Honourable and beloved Christians as to bring austere abstinence and sober moderation into fashion The Court and City have led the way to excesse your example shall prescribe yea administer the remedy The Heathen man could say He is not worthy of the name of a man that would be a whole day in pleasure what and we alwaies In fasting often saith S. Paul what and we never I fast twice a week saith the Pharisee and we Christians when I speak not of Popish mock-fasts in change not in forbearance in change of courser cates of the land for the curious dainties of the water of the flesh of beasts for the flesh of fish of untoothsome morsels for sorbitiunculoe delicatoe as Hierome calls them Let me never feast if this be fasting I speak of a true and serious maceration of our bodies by an absolute and totall refraining from sustenance which howsoever in it self it be not an act pleasing unto God for well may I invert Saint Paul neither if we eat not are we the better neither if we eat are we the worse 1 Cor. 8. 8. yet in the effect it is singulare Sanctitatis aratrum as that Father terms it The plow bears no Corn but it makes way for it it opens the soil it tears up the briers and turns up the furrows Thus doth holy Abstinence it chastises the flesh it lightens the spirit it disheartens our vitious dispositions it quickens our Devotion Away with all factious Combinations Every man is master of his own maw Fast at home and spare not leave publick exercises of this kinde to the command of Soveraign powers Blow the trumpet in Zion sanctifie a Fast saith Joel 2. 15. Surely this trumpet is for none but Royal breath And now that what I meant for a suit may be turned to a just gratulation how do we blesse the God of Heaven that hath put it into the heart of his Anointed to set this
the rest to spend my hour upon Save your selves from this untoward generation But ere I pitch upon this most useful and seasonable particularity let me offer to your thoughts the speedy application of these gracious remedies The blessed Apostle doth not let his Patients languish under his hand in the heats and colds of hopes and feares but so soon as ever the word is out of their mouths Men and brethren what shall we doe he presently administreth these soveraign receipts Repent be baptized save your selves In acute diseases wise Physicians will lose no time onely delay makes some distempers deadly It is not for us to let good motions freeze under our fingers How many gleeds have died in their ashes which if they had been speedily blown had risen into comfortable flames The care of our zeal for God must be sure to take all opportunities of good This is the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serving the time that is observing it not for conformity to it when it is naught fie on that baseness no let the declining time come to us upon true and constant grounds let not us stoop to it in the terms of the servile yieldance of Optatus his Donatists Omnia pro tempore nihil pro veritate not I say for conformity to it but for advantage of it The Embleme teaches us to take occasion by the fore-lock else we catch too late The Israelites must goe forth and gather their Manna so soon as it is falne if they stay but till the Sun have raught his noon-point in vain shall they seek for that food of Angels Saint Peter had learnt this of his Master when the shoal was ready Christ sayes Laxate retia Luk. 5. 14. what should the net doe now in the ship When the fish was caught Christ sayes Draw up again what should the net doe now in the Sea What should I advise you Reverend Fathers and Brethren the Princes of our Israel as the Doctors are called Judges 5. 9. to speak a word in season what should I presume to put into your hands these apples of gold with pictures of silver What should I perswade you to these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to wing your words with speed when the necessity of endangered Souls cals for them Oh let us row hard whiles the tide of Grace serves when we see a large door and effectual opened unto us let us throng in with a peaceable and zealous importunity to be sure Oh let us preach the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in season out of season and carefully watch for the best advantages of prevailing and when the iron of mens hearts is softned by the fire of God's Spirit and made flexible by a meet humiliation delay not to strike and make a gracious impression as S. Peter did here Repent be baptized Save your selves from this untoward generation Now to the main and all-sufficient Recipe for these feeling distempers Save your selves This is the very extracted quintessence of Saint Peter's long Sermon in which alone is included and united the soveraign virtue of Repentance of Baptisme of whatsoever help to a converting Soul so as I shall not need to speak explicitely of them whiles I enlarge my self to the treating of this universal remedy Save your selves from this untoward generation Would you think that Saint Luke hath given me the division of this whether Text or Sermon of Saint Peter Ye shall not finde the like otherwhere here it is clearly so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he testifies he exhorts He testifies what he thinks of the times he exhorts or beseeches as the Syriack turns it to avoid their danger both of them as S. Austin well referre to this one Divine sentence The parts whereof then are in S. Luke's division Peter's reprehensory Attestation and his Obtestation His reprehensory Attestation to the common wickedness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His Obtestation of their freedome and indemnity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Save your selves To begin with the former What is a generation what is an untoward generation Either word hath some little mist about it The very word generation hath begot multiplicity of senses without all perplexedness of search we will single out the properly-intended for this place As times so we in them are in continual passage every thing is in motion the Heavens do not more move above our heads in a circular revolution then we here on earth do by a perpetual alteration Now all that are contained in one lift of time whether fixed or uncertain are a Generation of men Fixed so Suidas under-reckons it by seven years but the ordinary rate is an hundred It is a clear Text Gen. 15. 16. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again when is that to the shame of Galatinus who clouds it with the fancy of the four kinds or manners of mans existence Moses himself interprets it of four hundred years vers 13. Uncertain so Solomon One generation passeth another cometh The very term implies transitoriness It is with men as with Rasps one stalk is growing another grown up a third withered and all upon one root Or as with flowers and some kinds of flies they grow up and seed and die Ye see your condition O ye Great men of the earth it is no staying here Orimur morimur After the acting of a short part upon this stage ye must withdraw for ever Make no other account but with Abraham to serve your generation and away Ye can never more fitly hear of your Mortality then now that ye are under that roof which covers the monuments of your dead and forgotten Progenitors What is an untoward generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is promiscuously turned froward perverse crooked The opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All is as one what ever swerves from the right is crooked The Law is a right line and what crookedness is in Nature frowardness and untowardness is in Morality Shortly there is a double crookedness and untowardness one negative another positive The first is a failing of that right we should either have or be the second a contrary habit of vicious qualities and both these are either in credendis or agendis in matter of Faith or matter of Fact The first when we do not believe or doe what we ought the second when we misbelieve or mis-live The first is an untowardness of Omission the second of Commission The omissive untowardness shall lead the way and that first in matter of Belief This is it whereof our Saviour spake to the two Disciples in their warm walk to Emmaus O fools and slow of heart to believe whereof the Proto-martyr Stephen to his auditors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The stiff neck the uncircumcised ear the fat heart the blinded eye the obdurate soul quae nec movetur precibus nec cedit minis as Bernard are wont to be the expressions of this untowardness If these Jews then after
known or considered that of old a souldier was a sacred thing and it is worth your notice what in former times was the manner of our Ancestors in consecrating a Souldier or a Knight to the wars Some six hundred years agoe and upward as I find in the history of Ingulphus the manner was this Anglorum erat consuetudo quod qui militiae legitimae consecrandus esset c. He that should be devoted to the trade of war the evening before his consecration came to the Bishop or Priest of the place and in much contrition and compunction of heart made a confession of all his sins and after his absolution spent that night in the Church in watching in prayers in afflictive devotions on the morrow being to hear Divine Service he was to offer up his Sword upon the Altar and after the Gospel the Priest was with a solemn benediction to put it about his neck and then after his communicating of those sacred mysteries he was to remain miles legitimus Thus he who tels us how that valiant and successful Knight Heward came thus to his uncle one Brandus the devout Abbot of Peterborough for his consecration and that this Custome continued here in England till the irreligious Normans by their scorns put it out of countenance accounting such a one non legitimum militem sed equitem socordem Quiritem degenerem This was their ancient and laudable manner some shadow whereof we retain whiles we hold some Orders of Knighthood Religious And can we wonder to hear of noble victories atchieved by them of Giants and Monsters slain by those hands that had so pious an initiation These men professed to come to their combats as David did to Goliah in the name of the Lord no marvel if they prospered Alas now Nulla fides pietásque c. ye know the rest the name of a souldier is misconstrued by our Gallants as a sufficient warrant of debauchedness as if a Buff-Jerkin were a lawful cover for a profane heart Wo is me for this sinful degeneration How can we hope that bloody hands of lawless Ruffians should be blessed with palms of triumph that adulterous eyes should be shaded with garlands of victory that profane and atheous instruments if any such be imployed in our wars should return home loaded with success and honour How should they prosper whose sins fight against them more then all the swords of enemies whose main adversary is in their own bosome and in Heaven If the God of Heaven be the Lord of hosts do we think him so lavish that he will grace impiety Can we think him so in love with our persons that he will overlook or digest our crimes Be innocent O ye warriours if ye would be speedful be devout if ye would be victorious Even upon the Bridles of the horses in Zachary must be written Holiness to the Lord how much more upon the fore-heads of his Priests the Leaders of his spiritual war With what face with what heart can he fight against beasts that is a beast himself It is not Holiness yet that can secure us from blows Job's Behemoth as he is construed durst set upon the holy Son of God himself To our Holiness therefore must be added Skill skill to guard and skill to hit skill in choice of weapons places times ways of assault or defence else we cannot but be wounded and tossed at pleasure Hence the Psalmist Thou teachest my hands to war and my fingers to fight The title that is given to David's Champions was not dispositi ad clypeum as Montanus hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but disponentes such as could handle the shield and the buckler 1 Chron. 12. 8. Alas what is to be look'd for of raw untaught untrained men if such should be called forth of their shops on the sudden that know not so much as their files or motions or postures but either slight or filling of ditches He that will be a Petus in Jovius his history or a Servilius in Plutarch to come off an untouch'd victor from frequent challenges had need to pass many a guard and Veny in the fence-school So skilful must the man of God be that he must know as S. Paul even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very plots and devices of that great challenger of hell We live in a knowing age and yet how many teachers are very novices in the practick part of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore are either born down or tossed up with the vices of the Time whose miscarriages would God it were as easie to remedy as to lament Lastly what is Skill in our weapon without an heart and hand to use it Rabshakeh could say Counsel and strength are for the warre 2 Kings 18. 20. Strength without Counsel is like a blind Giant and Counsel without Strength is like a quick-sighted Criple If heart and eyes and lims meet not there can be no fight but tu pulsas ego vapulo What are men in this case but lepores galeati or as Sword-fishes that have a weapon but no heart Hear the spirit of a right Champion of Heaven I am ready not to be bound onely but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus Here was a man fit to grapple with beasts It is the word of the sluggish Coward There is a Lion or a Bear in the way What if there be If thou wilt be a Sampson a David incounter them There is no great glory to be look'd for but with hazard and difficulty When the Souldier said The enemy is strong it was bravely answered of the Captain The victory shall be so much more glorious I have shew'd you the man Qualified I should stay to shew you him Armed armed with Authority without with Resolution within but I long to shew you the Fight A Fight it must be which I beseech you observe in the first place Neither doth he say I plai'd with beasts except you would have it in Joab's phrase as neither did the beasts play with him except as Erasmus speaks Ludus exiit in rabiem He saies not I humor'd their bestiality I struck up a league or a truce with the vices of men No S. Paul was far from this he was at a perpetual defiance with the wickedness of the times and as that valiant Commander said would die fighting The world wanted not of old plausible spirits that if an Ahab had a mind to go up against Ramoth would say Go up and prosper and would have horns of iron to push him forward S. Paul was none of them neither may we He hath indeed bidden us if it be possible to have peace with all men not with beasts If wickedness shall go about to glaver with us Is it peace Jehu we must return a short answer and speak blows Far far be it from us to fawn upon vicious Greatness to favour even Court-sins If here we meet with bloody Oaths with scornful Profaneness with Pride with
one But since as Erasmus hath too truly observed there is nothing so happy in these humane things wherein there are not some intermixtures of distemper and Saint Paul hath told us there must be Heresies and the Spouse in Solomon's Song compares her blessed Husband to a yong Hart upon the Mountain of Bether that is Division yea rather as under Gensericus and his Vandals the Christian Temples flamed higher then the Towns so for the space of these last hundred years there hath been more combustion in the Church then in the Civil State my next wish is that if differences in Religion cannot be avoided yet that they might be rightly judged of and be but taken as they are Neither can I but mourn and bleed to see how miserably the World is abused on all hands with prejudice in this kind Whiles the adverse part brands us with unjust censures and with loud clamours cries us down for Hereticks on the other side some of ours do so slight the Errours of the Romane Church as if they were not worth our Contention as if our Martyrs had been rash and our quarrels trifling others again do so aggravate them as if we could never be at enough defiance with their Opinions nor at enough distance from their Communion All these three are dangerous extremities the two former whereof shall if my hopes fail me not in this whole Discourse be sufficiently convinced wherein as we shall fully clear our selves from that hateful slander of Heresie or Schisme so we shall leave upon the Church of Rome an unavoidable imputation of many no less foul and enormous then novel Errours to the stopping of the mouths of those Adiaphorists whereof Melanchthon seems to have long agoe prophesied Metuendum est c. It is to be feared saith he that in the last Age of the World this errour will reign amongst men that either Religions are nothing or differ onely in words The third comes now in our way That 〈◊〉 Laertius speaks of Menedemus that in disputing his very ears would sparkâ—â—â— is true of many of ours whose zeal transports them to such a detestation of the Romane Church as if it were all Errour no Church affecting nothing more then an utter opposition to their Doctrine and Ceremony because theirs like as Maldonat professeth to mislike and avoid many fair interpretations not as false but as Calvin's These men have not learned this in S. Augustine's School who tels us that it was the rule of the Fathers as well before Cyprian and Agrippinus as since that whatsoever they found in any Schism or Heresie warrantable and holy that they allowed for its own worth and did not refuse it for the abettors Neither for the chaff do we leave the floor of God neither for the bad Fishes do we break his nets Rather as the Priests of Mercurie had wont to say when they eat their Figs and Honey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. All truth is sweet it is indeed Gods not ours wheresoever it is found the Kings Coin is current though it be found in any impure Chanel For this particular they have not well heeded that charitable profession of zealous Luther Nos fatemur c. We profess saith he that under the Papacy there is much Christian good yea all c. I say moreover that under the Papacy is true Christianity yea the very kernel of Christianity c. No man I trust will fear that fervent spirits too much excess of indulgence under the Papacy may be as much good as it self is evil Neither do we censure that Church for what it hath not but for what it hath Fundamental truth is like that Maronaean wine which if it be mixed with twenty times so much water holds his strength The Sepulchre of Christ was overwhelmed by the Pagans with earth and rubbish and more then so over it they built a Temple to their impure Venus yet still in spight of malice there was the Sepulchre of Christ And it is a ruled case of Papinian that a Sacred place loseth not the Holiness with the demolished wals No more doth the Romane lose the claim of a true visible Church by her manifold and deplorable corruptions her unsoundness is not less apparent then her being If she were once the Spouse of Christ and her Adulteries are known yet the Divorce is not sued out CHAP. II. The Original of the Differences IT is too true that those two main Elements of evil as Timon called them Ambition and Covetousness which Bernard professes were the great Masters of that Clergie in his times having palpably corrupted the Christian World both in doctrine and manners gave just cause of scandal and complaint to godly mindes which though long smothered at last brake forth into publick contestation augmented by the fury of those guilty defendants which loved their reputation more then Peace But yet so as the Complainants ever professed a joynt allowance of those Fundamental Truths which descried themselves by their bright lustre in the worst of that confusion as not willing that God should lose any thing by the wrongs of men or that men should lose any thing by the envy of that evil spirit which had taken the advantage of the publick sleep for his Tares Shortly then according to the prayers and predictions of many Holy Christians God would have his Church reformed How shall it be done Licentious courses as Seneca wisely have sometimes been amended by correction and fear never of themselves As therefore their own President was stirred up in the Council of Trent to cry out of their corruption of Discipline so was the Spirit of Luther somewhat before that stirred up to tax their corruption of Doctrine But as all beginnings are timorous how calmly did he enter and with what submiss Supplications did he sue for redress I come to you saith he most holy Father and humbly prostrate before you beseech you that if it be possible you would be pleased to set your helping hand to the work Intreaties prevail nothing the whiles the importune insolence of Eckius and the undiscreet carriage of Cajetan as Luther there professes forced him to a publick opposition At last as sometimes even Poisons turn Medicinal the furious prosecution of abused Authority increased the Zeal of Truth like as the repercussion of the flame intends it more and as Zeal grew in the Plaintif so did Rage in the Defendant so as now that was verified of Tertullian A primordio c. From the beginning Righteousness suffers violence and no sooner did God begin to be worshipped but Religion was attended with Envie The masters of the Pythonisse are angry to part with a gainful though evil guest Am I become your enemy because I told you the truth saith Saint Paul yet that truth is not more unwelcome then successful For as the breath of
Penance and Absolution The antient course as Cassander and Lindanus truly witness was that Absolution and Reconciliation and right to the Communion of the Church was not given by imposition of hands unto the Penitent till he had given due satisfaction by performing of such penal acts as were enjoined by the discreet Penitentiarie yea those works of Penance saith he when they were done out of Faith and an heart truly sorrowfull and by the motion of the Holy Spirit preventing the minde of man with the help of his Divine Grace were thought not a little available to obtain remission of the sin and to pacifie the displeasure of God for sin Not that they could merit it by any dignity of theirs but that thereby the minde of man is in a sort fitted to the receit of God's Grace But now immediatly upon the Confession made the hand is laid upon the Penitent and he is received to his right of Communion and after his Absolution certain works of piety are enjoined him for the chastisement of the flesh and expurgation of the remainders of sin Thus Cassander In common apprehension this new order can be no other then preposterous and as our learned Bishop of Carlisle like Easter before Lent But for this Ipsi viderint it shall not trouble us how they nurture their own childe CHAP. XIV The Newness of the Romish Invocation of Saints OF all those Errours which we reject in the Church of Rome there is none that can plead so much shew of Antiquity as this of Invocation of Saints which yet as it hath been practised and defended in the later times should in vain seek either example or patronage amongst the Antient. However there might be some grounds of this Devotion secretly muttered and at last expressed in Panegyrick forms yet untill almost 500 years after Christ it was not in any sort admitted into the publick service It will be easily granted that the Blessed Virgin is the prime of all Saints neither could it be other then injurious that any other of that Heavenly Society should have the precedency of her Now the first that brought her name into the publick Devotions of the Greek Church is noted by Nicephorus to be Petrus Gnapheus or Fullo a Presbyter of Bithynia afterwards the Usurper of the See of Antioch much about 470 years after Christ who though a branded Heretick found out four things saith he very usefull and beneficial to the Catholick Church whereof the last was Ut in omni precatione c. That in every Prayer the Mother of God should be named and her Divine name called upon The phrase is very remarkable wherein this rising Superstition is expressed And as for the Latine Church we hear no news of this Invocation in the publick Letanies till Gregorie's time about some 130 years after the former And in the mean time some Fathers speak of it fearfully and doubtfully How could it be otherwise when the common opinion of the Antients even below Saint Austin's age did put up all the Souls of the Faithfull except Martyrs in some blinde receptacles whether in the Center of the earth or elsewhere where they might in candida exspectare diem Judicii as Tertullian hath it four severall times And Stapleton himself sticks not to name divers of them thus fouly mistaken Others of the Fathers have let fall speeches directly bent against this Invocation Non opus est patronis c. There is no need of any Advocates to God saith S. Chrysostome and most plainly elsewhere Homines si quando c. If we have any suit to men saith he we must fee the porters and treat with jesters and parasites and goe many times a long way about In God there is no such matter he is exorable without any of our Mediators without money without cost he grants our petitions It is enough for thee to crie with thine heart alone to powre out thy tears and presently thou hast won him to mercy Thus he And those of the Antients that seem to speak for it lay grounds that overthrow it Howsoever it be all holy Antiquity would have both blushed and spit at those forms of Invocation which the late Clients of Rome have broached to the world If perhaps they speak to the Saints tanquam deprecatores vel potius comprecatores as Spalatensis yields moving them to be competitioners with us to the throne of Grace not properly but improperly as Altissiodore construes it how would they have digested that blasphemous Psalter of our Lady imputed to Bonaventure and those styles of mere Deification which are given to her and the division of all offices of Piety to mankinde betwixt the Mother and the Son How had their eares glowed to hear Christus oravit Franciscus exoravit Christ prayed Francis prevailed How would they have brooked that which Ludovicus Vives freely confesses Multi Christiani c. Many Christians worship divâ—s divasque the Saints of both sexes no otherwise then God himself Or that which Spalatensis professes to have observed that the ignorant multitude are tarried with more entire religious affection to the Blessed Virgin or some other Saint then to Christ their Saviour These foul Superstitions are not more hainous then new and such as wherein we have justly abhorred to take part with the practicers of them Sect. 2. Invocation of Saints against Scripture AS for the better side of this mis-opinion even thus much colour of Antiquity were cause enough to suspend our censures according to that wise moderate resolution of learned Zanchius were it not that the Scriptures are so flatly opposite unto it as that we may justly wonder at that wisdome which hath provided Antidotes for a disease that of many hundred years after should have no being in the World The ground of this Invocation of Saints is their notice of our earthly condition and speciall Devotions And behold thou prevailest ever against man and he passeth thou changest his countenance and sendest him away His sons come to honour and he knows it not and they are brought low and he perceiveth it not saith Job The dead know nothing at all saith wise Solomon Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun No portion in any thing therefore not in our miseries nor in our allocutions If we have a portion in them for their love and Prayers in common for the Church they have no portion in our particularities whether of want or complaint Abraham our Father is ignorant of us saith Esay and Israel acknowledges us not Loe the Father of the Faithfull above knows not his own children till they come into his bosome and he that gives them their names is to them as a stranger Wherefore should good Josiah be gathered to his Fathers
in his own sense onely let our hearts and tongues and hands conspire together in peace with our selves in warre with our common enemies Thus far have I Right Honourable in a desire of peace poured out my self into a plain explication and easie accordance Those whom I strive to satisfie are onely mistakers whose censures if some man would have either laught out or despised yet I have condescended to take off by a serious deprecation and just defence It is an unreasonable motion to request minds prepossessed with Prejudice to hear Reason Whole Volumes are nothing to such as have contented themselves onely to take up Opinions upon trust and will hold them because they know where they had them In vain should I spend my self in beating upon such anviles but for those ingenuous Christians which will hold an eare open for Justice and Truth I have said enough if ought at all needed Alas my Lord I see and grieve to see it it is my Rochet that hath offended and not I in another habit I long since published this and more without dislike it is this colour of innocence that hath bleared some over-tender eyes Wherein I know not whether I should more pity their Errour or applaud my own Sufferings Although I may not say with the Psalmist What hath the righteous done let me I beseech your Lordship upon this occasion have leave to give a little vent to my just grief in this point The other day I fell upon a Latine Pamphlet homely for style tedious for length zealously uncharitable for stuff wherein the Author onely wise in this that he would be unknown in a grave fierceness flies in the face of our English Prelacie not so much inveighing against their Persons which he could be content to reverence as their very Places I blest my self to see the case so altered Heretofore the Person had wont to bear off many blows from the Function now the very Function wounds the Person In what case are we when that which should command respect brands us What black Art hath raised up this spirit of Aerius from his pit Wo is me that zeal should breed such monsters of conceit It is the Honour the Pomp the Wealth the Pleasure he saith of the Episcopal Chair that is guilty of the depravation of our Calling and if himself were so overlay'd with Greatness he should suspect his own Fidelity Alas poor man at what distance doth he see us Foggie Air useth to represent every Object far bigger then it is Our Saviour in his Temptation upon the Mount had only the Glory of those Kingdomes shewed to him by that subtile Spirit not the Cares and vexations Right so are our Dignities exhibited to these envious beholders little do these men see the Toiles and Anxieties that attend this supposedly-pleasing eminence All the revenge that I would wish to this uncharitable Censurer should be this that he might be but for a while adjudged to this so glorious seat of mine that so his experience might taste the bewitching Pleasures of this envied Greatness he should well finde more danger of being over-spent with work then of languishing with ease and delicacy For me I need not appeal to Heaven eyes enough can witness how few free hours I have enjoyed since I put on these Robes of Sacred Honour Insomuch as I could finde in my heart with holy Gregory to complain of my change were it not that I see these publick troubles are so many acceptable services to my God whose Glory is the end of my Being Certainly my Lord if none but earthly respects should sway me I should heartily wish to change this Palace which the Providence of God and the Bounty of my Gracious Soveraign hath put me into for my quiet Cell at Waltham where I had so sweet leisure to enjoy God your Lordship and my self But I have followed the calling of my God to whose service I am willingly sacrificed and must now in an holy obedience to his Divine Majesty with what chearfulness I may ride out all the storms of Envie which unavoidably will alight upon the least appearance of a conceived Greatness In the mean time whatever I may seem to others I was never less in my own apprehensions and were it not for this attendance of Envie could not yield my self any whit greater then I was Whatever I am that good God of mine make me faithfull to him and compose the unquiet spirits of men to a conscionable care of the publick peace with which Prayer together with the apprecation of all happiness to your Lordship and all yours I take leave and am Your Lordships truly devoted in all hearty Observance and Duty JOS. EXON TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD THOMAS LORD Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield MY Lord may your leisure serve you to read over this poor sheet of Paper and to censure it Your Name is left out in the Catalogue of some other famous Divines mentioned in the body of it that you might not be forestalled I suffer for that wherein your self amongst many renowned Orthodox Doctors of the Church are my partner As if you had not already said it enough I beseech your Lordship say once more what you think of the true Being and Visibility of the Roman Church Your excellent and zealous Writings have justly wone you a constant reputation of great Learning and no less Sincerity and have placed you out of the reach of suspicion No man can no man dare misdoubt your decision If you finde any one word amiss in this Explication spare me not I shall gladly kiss your Rod and hold your utmost severity a favour But if you here meet with no other then the words of a commonly-professed Truth acquit me so far as to say there is no reason I should suffer alone And let the wilfull or ignorant mistakers know that they wound Innocencie and through my sides strike their best friends I should not herein desire you to tender my Fame if the injury done to my name did not reflect upon my holy Station upon my well-meant Labours upon almost all the famous and well-deserving Authors that have stood for the Truth of God and lastly if I did not see this mistaken Quarrell to threaten much prejudice to the Church of God whose Peace is no less dear to us both then our Lives In earnest desire and hope of some few satisfactory lines from your Reverend hand in answer to this my bold yet just suit I take leave and am Your much devoted and loving Brother JOS. EXON TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD My very good Lord and Brother JOSEPH Lord Bishop of EXON these RIght Reverend and as dearly beloved Brother I have I confess been too long in your Lordships debt for these Letters which are now to Apologize for me that although I had my payment ready and in numeratis at the first reading of your Reconciler yet I reserved my Answer untill I had perused
Greatnesse without a self-Humiliation We shall have made an ill use of our advancement if by how much higher we are we do not appear lesse if our light be seen it matters not for our hiding XL. Upon the sight of Boyes playing EVery age hath some peculiar contentment Thus we did when we were of these years Methinks I still remember the old fervor of my yong pastimes With what eagernesse and passion do they pursue these Childish sports Now that there is a handfull of cherry-stones at the stake how near is that boys heart to his mouth for fear of his play-fellows next cast and how exalted with desire and hope of his own speed Those great Unthrifts who hazard whole Mannors upon the Dice cannot expect their chance with more earnestness or entertain it with more joy or grief We cannot but now smile to think of these poor and foolish pleasures of our Childhood there is no lesse disdain that the Regenerate man conceives of the dearest delights of his Naturall condition He was once jolly and jocund in the fruition of the world Feasts and Revels and Games and dalliance were his life and no man could be happy without these and scarce any man but himself but when once Grace hath made him both good and wise how scornfully doth he look back at these fond felicities of his Carnal estate now he findes more manly more Divine contentments and wonders he could be so transported with his former vanity Pleasures are much according as they are esteemed One mans delight is another mans pain only Spiritual and Heavenly things can settle and satiate the heart with a full and firm contentation O God thou art not capable either of bettering or of change let me injoy thee and I shall pity the miserable ficklenesse of those that want thee and shall be sure to be constantly happy XLI Upon the sight of a Spider and her Web. HOw justly do we admire the curious work of this Creature What a thred doth it spin forth what a web doth it weave Yet it is full of deadly poison There may be much venome where is much Art Just like to this is a learned and witty Heretick fine conceits and elegant expressions fall from him but his Opinions and secretly-couched Doctrines are dangerous and mortall Were not that man strangely foolish who because he likes the artificiall drawing out of that web would therefore desire to handle or eat the Spider that made it Such should be our madnesse if our wonder at the skill of a false Teacher should cast us into love with his Person or â—amiliarity with his Writings There can be no safety in our Judgment or Affection without a wise distinction in the want whereof we must needs wrong God or our selves God if we acknowledge not what excellent parts he gives to any Creature our selves if upon the allowance of those excellencies we swallow their most dangerous enormities XLII Upon the sight of a Naturall O God why am not I thus What hath this man done that thou hast denied Wit to him or what have I done that thou shouldest give a competency of it to me What difference is there betwixt us but thy Bounty which hath bestowed upon me what I could not merit and hath withheld from him what he could not challenge All is O God in thy good pleasure whether to give or deny Neither is it otherwise in matter of Grace The unregenerate man is a Spiritual fool no man is truly wise but the Renewed How is it that whiles I see another man besotted with the vanity and corruption of his Nature I have attained to know God and the great Mystery of Salvation to abhor those sins which are pleasing to a wicked appetite Who hath discerned me Nothing but thy free mercy O my God Why else was I a man not a brute beast why right shaped not a Monster why perfectly limmed not a cripple why well-sensed not a fool why well-affected not gracelesse why a vessell of honour not of wrath If ought be not ill in me O Lord it is thine Oh let thine be the Praise and mine the Thankfulnesse XLIII Upon the Loadstone and the Jett AS there is a civil commerce amongst men for the preservation of humane society so there is a naturall commerce which God hath set amongst the other Creatures for the maintenance of their common Being There is scarce any thing therefore in Nature which hath not a power of attracting some other The Fire draws Vapors to it the Sun drawes the Fire Plants draw moysture the Moon draws the Sea all Purgative things draw their proper Humors A Naturall instinct draws all Sensitive creatures to affect their own kinde and even in those things which are of imperfect mixtion we see this experimented So as the senselesse Stones and Metals are not void of this active virtue the Loadstone draws Iron and the Jett rather then nothing draws up straws and dust With what a force do both these Stones work upon their severall subjects Is there any thing more heavy and unapt for motion then Iron or Steel yet these do so run to their beloved Loadstone as if they had the sense of a desire and delight and do so cling to the point of it as if they had forgotten their weight for this adherence Is there any thing more apt for dispersion then small straws and dust yet these gather to the Jett and so sensibly leap up to it as if they had a kinde of ambition to be so preferred Methinks I see in these two a mere Embleme of the hearts of men and their Spirituall attractives The Grace of Gods Spirit like the true Loadstone or Adamant draws up the iron heart of man to it and holds it in a constant fixednesse of holy purposes and good actions The World like the Jett draws up the sensuall hearts of light and vain men and holds them fast in the pleasures of sin I am thine Iron O Lord be thou my Loadstone Draw thou me and I shall run after thee Knit my heart unto thee that I may fear thy Name XLIV Upon hearing of Musick by night How sweetly doth this Musick sound in this dead season In the day-time it would not it could not so much affect the eare All harmonious sounds are advanced by a silent darknesse Thus it is with the glad tidings of Salvation The Gospel never sounds so sweet as in the Night of Perâ—ecution or of our owne private Affliction It is ever the same the difference is in our disposition to receive it O God whose praise it is to give Songs in the night make my Prosperity conscionable and my Crosses chearfull XLV Upon the fanning of Corn. SEE how in the fanning of this Wheat the fullest and greatest grains lye ever the lowest and the lightest take up the highest place It is no otherwise in Morality those which are most humble are fullest of Grace and oft-times those have most conspicuity which have
For me methinks this Head speaks no other language then this Lose no time thou art dying Doe thy best thou maiest doe good but a while and shalt fare well for ever CIX Upon the sight of a Left-handed man IT is both an old and easie observation that however the Senses are alike strong and active on the right side and on the left yet that the lims on the right side are stronger then those of the left because they are more exercised then the other upon which self-same reason it must follow that a Left-handed man hath more strength in his left Arme then in his right Neither is it otherwise in the Soul our Intellectuall parts grow vigorous with imployment and languish with disuse I have known excellent Preachers and pregnant Disputants that have lost these Faculties with lack of action and others but meanly qualified with Naturall gifts that have attained to a laudable measure of abilities by improvement of their little I had rather lack good Parts then that good Parts should lack me Not to have great Gifts is no fault of mine it is my fault not to use them CX Upon the sight of an old unthatched Cottage THere cannot be a truer Embleme of crazie Old age Moldred and clay Walls a thin uncovered Roof bending Studds dark and broken Windows in short an House ready to fall on the head of the indweller The best Body is but a Cottage if newer and better timbered yet such as Age will equally impair and make thus ragged and ruinous or before that perhaps casualty of Fire or Tempest or violence of an Enemy One of the chief cares of men is to dwell well Some build for themselves fair but not strong others build for Posterity strong but not fair not high but happy is that man that builds for Eternity as strong as fair as high as the glorious contignations of Heaven CXI Upon the sight of a faire Pearl WHat a pure and precious creature is this which yet is taken out of the med of the sea Who can complain of a base Originall when he sees such Excellencies so descended These Shel-fishes that have no Sexes and therefore are made out of corruption what glorious things they yield to adorn and make proud the greatest Princesses Gods great works goe not by likelihoods how easily can he fetch glory out of obscurity who brought all out of nothing CXII Upon a Screen MEthinks this Screen that stands betwixt me the fire is like some good Friend at the Court which keeps from me the heat of the unjust Displeasure of the Great wherewith I might perhaps otherwise be causlesly scorched But how happy am I if the interposition of my Saviour my best Friend in Heaven may screen me from the deserved Wrath of that great God who is a consuming fire CXIII Upon a Burre-leaf NEither the Vine nor the Oak nor the Cedar nor any Tree that I know within our Climate yields so great a leaf as this Weed which yet after all expectation brings forth nothing but a Burre unprofitable troublesome So have I seen none make greater Profession of Religion then an Ignorant man whose indiscreet forwardnesse yields no fruit but a factious disturbance to the Church wherein he lives Too much Shew is not so much better then none at all as an ill Fruit is worse then none at all CXIV Upon the Singing of a Bird. IT is probable that none of those creatures that want Reason delight so much in pleasant Sounds as a Bird whence it is that both it spends so much time in singing and is more apt to imitate those modulations which it hears from men Frequent practice if it be voluntary argues a delight in that which we doe and delight makes us more apt to practise and more capable of perfection in that we practise O God if I take pleasure in thy Law I shall meditate of it with comfort speak of it with boldnesse and practise it with chearfulnesse CXV Upon the sight of a man Yawning IT is a marvellous thing to see the reall effects and strong operation of Consent or Sympathy even where there is no bodily touch so one sad man puts the whole company into dumps so one mans Yawning affects and stretches the jaws of many beholders so the looking upon blear eyes taints the eye with blearenesse From hence it is easie to see the ground of our Saviours expostulation with his persecutor Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The Church is persecuted below he feels it above and complains So much as the person is more apprehensive must he needs be more affected O Saviour thou canst not but be deeply sensible of all our miseries and necessities If we do not feel thy wrongs and the wants of our Brethren we have no part in thee CXVI Upon the sight of a Tree lopped IN the lopping of these Trees Experience and good Husbandry hath taught men to leave one bough still growing in the top the better to draw up the sap from the root The like wisdome is fit to be observed in Censures which are intended altogether for reformation not for destruction So must they be inflicted that the Patient be not utterly discouraged and stript of hope and comfort but that whiles he suffereth he may feel his good tendered and his amendment both aimed at and expected O God if thou shouldest deal with me as I deserve thou shouldest not only shred my boughs but cut down my stock and stock up my root and yet thou dost but prune my superfluous branches and cherishest the rest How unworthy am I of this mercy if whiles thou art thus indulgent unto me I be severe and cruell to others perhaps lesse ill-deserving then my self CXVII Upon a Scholar that offered Violence to himself HAD this man lyen long under some eminent discontentment it had been easie to finde out the motive of his miscarriage Weak Nature is easily over-laid with Impatience it must be only the power of Grace that can grapple with vehement evils and master them But here the world cannot say what could be guilty of occasioning this Violence this mans hand was full his Fame untainted his body no burden his disposition for ought we saw fair his Life guiltlesse yet something did the Tempter finde to aggravate unto his feeble thoughts and to represent worthy of a dispatch What a poor thing is Life whereof so slight occasions can make us weary What impotent wretches are we when we are not sustained One would think this the most impossible of all motions naturally every man loves himself and Life is sweet Death abhorred What is it that Satan can despair to perswade men unto if he can draw them to an unnaturall abandoning of life and pursuit of death Why should I doubt of prevailing with my own heart by the powerfull over-ruling of Gods Spirit to contemn life and to affect death for the sake of my Saviour in exchange of a few miserable moments for eternity