Blind zeal which wants knowledge 3. Turbulent zeal which wants love and moderation 1. The First of these Hypocritical zeal is a meer blaze and shew of fervency without any true and solid heat It is nothing but the Vizor of zeal looking a squint one way but tending another pretending God and his Glory but aiming at some private and sinister end Such was the zeal of Iehu who marched furiously and his word was The Lord of hosts Come said he to Ionadab and see my zeal for the Lord but his project was the Kingdom Iezabel proclaimed a Fast as out of an Extasie of zeal that God should be blasphemed but her aim was Naboth's vineyard So in Acts 19. Demetrius the Silver-Smith and his fellows cry Great is Diana of the Ephesians but meant the gain they got by making of her Silver Shrines vers 24. This Zeal is soon descried by the proper Character it hath namely an affectation of having their works seen of men which is said of the vain-glorious Pharisees in Matt. 6. be it by ostentation of their zealous deeds like Iehu or by the excess of affected gestures sighs and other like actions falling within the view of men Not but that a true zeal doth shew it self vehement even in external actions but it is the straining of them beyond measure which argues the Heart to be guilty of emptiness within 2. The Second kind of False zeal is Blind zeal Ignis fatuus or Fools fire leading a man out of the right way when men zealously affect evil things supposing them to be good or are eagerly bent against good things supposing them to be evil Such was the Zeal of the Iews of whom S. Paul witnesseth that they had a zeal of God that is in the matters of God but not according to knowledg And with this Zeal was he himself once carried when he persecuted the Christians with an opinion of doing God good service as the phrase is Iohn 16. 2. I verily thought saith he with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Iesus of Nazareth And such is the zeal of simple and devout Sectaries who blindly run after some person they esteem without knowing themselves either why or whither This kind of zeal is like to metal in a Blind horse that will speed to fall into a pit or to break his neck The counsel I would give for avoiding this kind is to look before we leap and see our way clearly before we run 3. The Third kind of False zeal is Turbulent zeal which S. Iames calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bitter zeal a kind of Wildfire transporting a man beyond all compass of Moderation namely when in the excess of our heat we either outgo the bounds of our place and calling or use undue Means or wayes or overshoot the limits of Love and Charity whether to God or our Neighbour For howsoever Zeal be an excess of our affections in the things of God yet must this excess never break over the banks either of our vocation or in choice of Means out-bound the Rule of God's Law as theirs most certainly doth who endeavour to colour their Religion by the Massacres of Princes overturning of Kingdoms breach of Oaths and almost all bands of humane Society Such was the Zeal of Saul when he slew the Gibeonites forgetting the Oath which the Princes of the Congregation had made unto them Iosh. 9. 15 18 19. And such was the zeal of Iames and Iohn in the Gospel when to vindicate the honour of Christ they would have Fire to come down from heaven to consume a whole Village of Samaria Such also was Peter's zeal when he cut off Malchus his ear The former outwent the limits of Love and Charity the last the limits of his Vocation As Clocks whose Springs are broken overstrike the hour of the day So this mad and untempered Zeal the measure of Moderation Thus I have briefly described these False fires that by the Law of contraries we may know who is the true Zealot whom God approveth namely He whose Spirit is in Fervency and not in Shew for God and not for himself guided by the Word and not with humours and opinions tempered with Charity and free from head-strong violence This is that Zeal which our Saviour calls for in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be zealous therefore This is that Zeal which whoso wants in him God hath no pleasure but will spue him out of his Mouth as it is said in vers 15. a little before my Text. But why will you say should this zeal be so needful or why may we not worship God without it Let us therefore now see the Reasons and Motives which do evince and prove it needful and should urge us to it 1. First therefore I will seek no further than my Text where the want of Zeal is reckoned for a Sin a Sin to be repented of Be zealous and Repent Is not that needful without which all our works are sinful But Vertue you will say consists in a Mean and not in Excess and why should not Piety also I answer The Mean wherein Vertue is placed is the Middle of different kinds and not the Middle or Mean of degrees in one and the same kind Vertue so it be Vertue is at the best in the highest degree and so is Religion in the highest pitch of Zeal 2. It is the Ground-rule of the whole Law of God and of all the Precepts concerning his Worship That we must love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our Soul with all our Mind and with all our Strength What is this else but to love him zealously to worship him with the highest pitch of our affections and the uttermost strain both of Body and Soul For he is the Soveraign and chiefest Good what Love then can suite to him but the very top and Soveraignty of Love All things in God are Supreme his Power his Knowledg his Mercy and therefore he cannot truly be worshipped unless we yield him whatsoever is Supreme in ourselves a supremacy of Fear a supremacy of Hope a supremacy of Thankfulness For whom then should we reserve the top and chief of our affections for our gold for our Herodias c How can we offer God a baser indignity will he endure that any thing in the world should be respected before him or equalled to him The Lord our God is a jealous God and will not suffer it Let therefore all the Springs and Brooks of our affections run into this Main and let no Rivulet be drawn another way If Zeal be good in any thing it is most required in the best things and if in any thing it be comely to work with all our might Eccles. 9. 10. certainly in the service of God it is most comely Be not slothful in business but fervent in spirit serving the Lord
it had been ere this well-nigh extinguished But experience tells us the contrary that this Fancy is not only still living but begins as it were to recover and get strength afresh In which regard my Discourse at this time will not be unseasonable if taking my rise from these words of our Saviour I acquaint you upon what grounds and example this practice of the Christian Church hath been established and how frivolous and weak the Reasons are which some of late do bring against it To begin therefore You see by the Text I have now read that our Blessed Saviour delivered a set Form of Prayer unto his Disciples and in so doing hath commended the use of a set Form of Prayer unto his Church Thus therefore saith he pray ye Our Father which art in Heaven c. Is not this a set Form of Prayer and did not our Saviour deliver it to be used by his Disciples They tell us No. For Thus say they in this place is not thus to be understood but for in this manner to this effect or sense or after this pattern not in these words and syllables To this I answer It is true that this form of Prayer is a Pattern for us to make other Prayers by but that this only should be the meaning of our Saviour's Thus and not the rehearsal of the words themselves I utterly deny and I prove it out of the eleventh Chapter of S. Luke where the same Prayer is again delivered in these words O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When ye pray say Our Father which art in Heaven that is do it in haec verba For what other phrase of Scripture is there to express such a meaning if this be not Besides in this of S. Luke the occasion would be considered It came to pass saith he as Iesus was praying in a certain place that when he ceased one of his Disciples said unto him Lord teach us to pray as Iohn also taught his Disciples From whence it may not improbably be gathered that this was the custom of the Doctors of Israel to deliver some certain Form of Prayer unto their Disciples to use as it were a badge and Symbolum of their Discipleship at least Iohn Baptist had done so unto his Disciples and thereupon our Saviour's Disciples besought him that he also would give them in like manner some Form of his making that they might also pray with their Master's spirit as Iohn's Disciples did with theirs For that either our Saviour's or Iohn's Disciples knew not how to pray till now were ridiculous to imagine they being both of them Iews who had their certain set hours of prayer which they constantly observed as the third sixth and ninth It was therefore a Form of Prayer of their Master's making which both Iohn is said to have given his Disciples and our Saviour's Disciples besought him to give them For the fuller understanding whereof I must tell you something more and the rather because it is not commonly taken notice of and that is That this delivery of the Lord's Prayer in S. Luke is not the same with that related by S. Matthew but another at another time and upon another occasion That of S. Matthew in that famous Sermon of Christ upon the Mount whereof it is a part that of S. Luke upon a special motion of the Disciples at a time when himself had done praying That of S. Matthew in the second that of S. Luke in the third year after his Baptism Consider the Text of both and you shall find it impossible to bring them into one and the same Whence it follows that the Disciples when it was first uttered understood not that their Master intended it for a Form of Prayer unto them but for a pattern or example only or it may be to instruct them in special in what manner to ask forgiveness of sins For if they had thought he had given them a Form of Prayer then they would never have asked him for one now Wherefore our Saviour this second time utters himself more expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When ye pray say Our Father which art in Heaven Thus their inadvertency becomes our confirmation For as Ioseph said to Pharaoh The dream is doubled unto Pharaoh because the thing is established by God so may we say here the delivery of this Prayer was doubled unto the Disciples that they and we might thereby know the more certainly that our Saviour intended and commended it for a set Form of Prayer unto his Church Thus much of that set Form of Prayer which our Saviour gave unto his Disciples as a precedent and warrant to his Church to give the like Forms to her Disciples or members a thing which from her infancy she used to do But because her practice is called in question as not warranted by Scripture let us see what was the practice of the Church of the Old Testament than whose example and use we can have no better rule to follow in the New First therefore we find two set Forms of Prayer or Invocation appointed by God himself in the Law of Moses One the Form wherewith the Priests were to bless the people Num. 6. 23 24 25 26. On this wise saith he shall Aaron and his sons bless the children of Israel saying unto them The Lord bless thee and keep thee The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace Is not this a set Form of Prayer For what is to bless but to pray over or invocate God for another The second is the Form of profession and prayer to be used by him who had paid his Tithes every third year Deut. 26. 13. O Lord God I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house and also have given them unto the Levite and unto the stranger and fatherless and unto the widow according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me I have not transgressed thy Commandments nor have I forgotten them 14. I have not eaten thereof in my mourning neither have I taken away thereof for an unclean use c. 15. Look down from thy holy habitation from heaven and bless thy people Israel and the Land which thou hast given us as thou swarest to our Fathers a Land that floweth with milk and honey But what need we seek thus for scattered Forms when we have a whole Book of them together The Book of Psalms was the Iewish Liturgy or the chief part of the Vocal service wherewith they worshipped God in the Temple This is evident by the Titles of the Psalms themselves which shew them to have been commended to the several Quires in the same To Asaph To the sons of Korah To Ieduthun and almost forty of them To the Magister Symphoniae the Prefect or Master of the Musick in general The like we are to conceive of those which have no Titles as for example of
faculty or Melancholia and Mania which they describe and distinguish thus Both of them to be when the Understanding is so disturbed that men imagine speak and do things which are most absurd and contrary to all reason sense and use of men but their difference to be in this that Melancholia is attended with fear sadness silence retiredness and the like Symptoms Mania with rage raving and fury and actions sutable which is most properly styled Madness Now when I say that those Daemoniacks in the Gospel were such as we call Mad-men understand me to mean not of Deliration ex vi morbi or of simple dotage but of those two last kinds Melancholici and Maniaci whereunto add morbus Comilialis or falling sickness and whatsoever is properly called Lunacy Such as these I say the Iews believed and so may we to be troubled and acted with evil Spirits as it is said of Saul's Melancholy that an evil Spirit from the Lord troubled him and therefore passing by all other Causes or Symptoms they thought sit to give them their Name from this calling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An occasion of the more frequent use of which expression in our Saviour's time and the ages immediately before him than formerly had been may seem to have been given by the Sect of the Saddâ—cees which after the time of Hyrcanus had much prevailed and affirmed as S. Luke tells us that there was no Resurrection neither Angel nor Spirit To affront and cry down whose error it is like enough the Pharisees and the rest of the right-believing Iews who followed them affected to draw their expressions wheresoever they could from Angels and Spirits as presently they did in the Acts when S. Paul awakened their faction in the Council saying I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee c. We find no evil say they in this man but if a Spirit or an Angel hath spoken unto him let us not fight against God Having thus sufficiently stated and explicated my Assertion now you shall hear what grounds I have for the same First therefore I prove it out of the Gospel it self and that in the first place from this Scripture which I have chosen for my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath a Devil and is mad Where I suppose the latter words to be an explication of the former Secondly I prove it out of Matth. 17. 14 15. where it is said There came to our Saviour a certain man kneeling down to him and saying Lord have mercy on my son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he is Lunatick and sore vexed for oft-times he falleth into the fire and oft into the water That this Lunatick was a Daemoniack it is evident both out of the 18. verse of this Chapter where it is said Our Saviour rebuked the Devil and he departed out of him and the child was cured from that very hour as also out of the 9. of the Gospel of S. Luke V. 39. where it is said of the self-same person Lo a spirit taketh him and he suddenly crieth out and it teareth him that he foameth again and bruising him hardly departeth from him By comparing of these places you may gather what kind of men they were which the Scripture calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Daemoniacks Now I come to other Testimonies And first take notice that the Gentiles also had the like apprehension of their Mad-men whence they called them Larvati and Cerriti where Larvati is as much as Larvis id est Daemonibus acti so Festus Larvati saith he furiosi mente moti quasi Larvis exterriti And for Cerriti they were so called quasi Cereriti hoc est à Cerere percussi And therefore you may remember that when Menaechmus in Plautus feigns himself mad and talks accordingly the Physician who was sent for to cure him asks the old man who came to fetch him whether he were Larvatus or Cerritus If the Gentiles thought thus of their Mad-men should we think it strange the Iews should I could tell you here that the Turks conceit of their Mad-men is not unlike this but that they suppose the Spirit that works in them to be a good rather than an evil one But I let this pass My next Testimony shall be out of Iustin Martyr who in his second Apology ad Antoninum to prove at least to a Gentile that the Souls of men have existence and sense after death brings for an Argument their Necromancy and their callings up the spirits of the deceased together with other the like and in the last place this of Daemoniacks where by his description of them we may easily gather what kind of people they were which were so taken to be They also saith he which are seised upon by the Spirits of the deceased for such were these Daemonia taken to be and are cast and tumbled upon the ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which all call Daemoniacks and Mad-men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were all one as men then conceived Note here that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were taken to be the Souls of men deceased and that not among the Gentiles only but as may seem among the Iews also For Iosephus in his seventh Book De Bello Iudaico Chap. 25. mentioning these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon occasion of a certain Herb supposed to be good for them saith expresly by way of Parenthesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Daemonia are the Spirits or Souls of the worst sort of men deceased which are gotten into the bodies of the living I tell not this with a meaning to avouch it for true but only that you might understand how Iustin Martyr's argument proceeds to prove that Souls have existence after Death from the Daemoniacks My last proof is taken from those Energumeni which are all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so often mentioned in the Church-Liturgies in the ancient Canons and in other Ecclesiastical writings many Ages after our Saviour's being on earth and that not as any rare and unaccustomed thing but as ordinary and usual They were wont to send them out of the Church when the Liturgy began as they did the Poenitentes Auditores and Catechumeni which might not be partakers of the Holy Mysteries If those were not such as we now-a-days conceive of no otherwise than as Mad-men surely the world must be supposed to be very well rid of Devils over it hath been which for my part I believe not Nay that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 possessed with the Devil or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Daemoniacks were such as I speak of Balsamon and Zonaras both in their Scholia upon the Canons of the Church will I think inform us For to reconcile two Canons concerning these Energumeni or possessed which seem contradictory one called of the Apostles in
Acts 2. 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They continued in breaking of Bread and in Prayers As for bodily expressions by gestures and postures as standing kneeling bowing and the like our Blessed Saviour himself lift up his sacred eyes to heaven when he prayed for Lazarus fell on his face when he prayed in his agony S. Paul as himself saith bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ He and S. Peter and the rest of the Believers do the like more than once in the Acts of the Apostles What was Imposition of hands but an external gesture in an act of invocation for conferring a blessing and that perhaps sometimes without any vocal expression joyned therewith Besides I cannot conceive any reason why in this point of Evangelical worship Gesture should be more scrupled at than Voice Is not confessing praising praying and glorifying God by Voice an external and bodily worship as well as that of Gesture why should then the one derogate from the worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth and not the other To conclude There was never any society of men in the world that worshipped the Father in such a manner as this interpretation would imply and therefore cannot this be our Saviour's meaning but some other Let us see if we can find out what it is There may be two senses given of these words both of them agreeable to Reason and the analogy of Scripture let us take our choice The one is That to worship God in Spirit and Truth is to worship him not with Types and shadows of things to come as in the Old Testament but according to the verity of the things exhibited in Christ according to that The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. Whence the Mystery of the Gospel is elsewhere by our Saviour in this Evangelist termed Truth as Chap. 17. ver 17. and the Doctrine thereof by S. Paul the word of Truth See Ephes. Chap. 1. ver 13. Rom. 15. 8. The time therefore is now at hand said our Saviour when the true worshippers shall worship the Father no longer with bloudy Sacrifices and the Rites and Ordinances depending thereon but in and according to the verity of that which these Ordinances figured For all these were Types of Christ in whom being now exhibited the true worshippers shall henceforth worship the Father This sense hath good warrant from the state of the Question between the Iews and Samaritans to which our Saviour here makes answer which was not about worship in general but about the kind of worship in special which was confessed by both sides to be tied to one certain place only that is of worship by Sacrifice and the appendages in a word of the Typical worship proper to the first Covenant of which see a description Heb. 9. This Iosephus expresly testifies Lib. 12. Antiq. cap. 1. speaking of the Iews and Samaritans which dwelt together at Alexandria They lived saith he in perpetual discord one with the other whilst each laboured to maintain their Country customs those of Ierusalem affirming their Temple to be the sacred place whither sacrifices were to be sent the Samaritans on the other side contending they ought to be sent to Mount Garizim For otherwise who knows not that both Iews and Samaritans had other places of worship besides either of these namely their Proseucha's and Synagogues wherein they worshipped God not with internal only but external worship though not with Sacrifice which might be offered but in one place only And this also may seem to have been a Type of Christ as well as the rest namely that he was to be that one and only Mediator of the Church in the Temple of whose sacred body we have access unto the Father and in whom he accepts our service and devotions according to that Destroy this Temple and I will rear it up again in three days He spake saith the Text of the Temple of his Body This sense divers of the Ancients hit upon Eusebius Demon. Evang. Lib. 1. Cap. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not by Symbols and Types but as our Saviour saith in Spirit and Truth Not that in the New Testament men should worship God without all external services For the New Testament was to have external and visible services as well as the Old but such as should imply the verity of the promises already exhibited not be Types and shadows of them yet to come We know the Holy Ghost is wont to call the figured Face of the Law the Letter and the Verity thereby signified the Spirit As for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Spirit and Truth both together they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but once found in holy Writ to wit only in this place and so no light can be borrowed by comparing of the like expression any where else to expound them Besides nothing hinders but they may be here taken one for the exposition of the other namely that to worship the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with to worship him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But howsoever this exposition be fair and plausible yet methinks the reason which our Saviour gives in the words following should argue another meaning God saith he is a Spirit therefore they that worship him must worship in Spirit and Truth But God was a Spirit from the beginning If therefore for this reason he must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth he was so to be worshipped in the Old Testament as well as in the New Let us therefore seek another meaning For the finding whereof let us take notice that the Samaritans at whom our Saviour here aimeth were the off-spring of those Nations which the King of Assyria placed in the Cities of Samaria when he had carried away the Ten Tribes captive These as we may read in the second Book of the Kings at their first coming thither worshipped not the God of Israel but the gods of the Nations from whence they came wherefore he sent Lions amongst them which slew them Which they apprehending either from the information of some Israelite or otherwise to be because they knew not the worship of the God of the Country they informed the King of Assyria thereof desiring that some of the captiv'd Priests might be sent unto them to teach them the manner and rites of his worship which being accordingly done they thenceforth as the Text tells us worshipped the Lord yet feared their own Gods too and so did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Chrysostome speaks mingle things not to be mingled In this medley they continued about three hundred years till toward the end of the Persian Monarchy At what time it chanced that Manasse brother to Iaddo the High Priest of the returned Iews married the daughter of Sanballat then Governour of Samaria for which being expelled from Ierusalem by Nehemiah he fled to Sanballat his Father in Law and after his
example many other of the Iews of the best rank having married strange wives likewise and loth to forgo them betook themselves thither also Sanballat willingly entertains them and makes his son-in-Law Manasse their Priest For whose greater reputation and state when Alexander the Great subdued the Persian Monarchy he obtained leave of him to build a Temple upon Mount Garizim where his son-in-Law exercised the office of High Priest This was exceedingly prejudicious to the Iews and the occasion of a continual Schism whilst those that were discontented or excommunicated at Ierusalem were wont to betake themselves thither Yet by this means the Samaritans having now one of the sons of Aaron to be their Chief Priest and so many other of the Iews both Priests and others mingled amongst them were brought at length to cast off all their false gods and to worship the Lord the God of Israel only Yet so that howsoever they seemed to themselves to be true worshippers and altogether free from Idolatry nevertheless they retained a smack thereof inasmuch as they worshipped the true God under a visible representation to wit of a Dove and circumcised their Children in the name thereof as the Iewish Tradition tells us who therefore always branded their worship with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or spiritual Fornication Iust as their predecessors the Ten Tribes worshipped the same God of Israel under the similitude of a Cals This was the condition of the Samaritan Religion in our Saviour's time and if we weigh the matter well we shall find his words here to the woman very pliable to be construed with reference thereunto You ask saith he of the true place of worship whether Mount Garizim or Ierusalem which is not now greatly material forasmuch as the time is at hand when men shall worship the Father at neither But there is a greater difference between you and us than of Place though you take no notice of it namely even about the Object of worship it self For ye worship what ye know not but we Iews worship what we know How is that Thus Ye worship indeed the Father the God of Israel as we do but you worship him under a corporeal representation wherein you shew you know him not But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth In Spirit that is conceiving of him no otherwise than in Spirit and in Truth that is not under any corporeal or visible shape For God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not fancying him as a Body but as indeed he is a Spirit For those who worship him under a corporeal similitude do beli◠him according as the Apostle speaks Rom. 1. 23. of such as changed the glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible Man Birds or Beasts They changed saith he the truth of God into a lie and served the creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 juxta Creatorem as or with the Creator who is blessed for ever v. 25. Hence Idols in Scripture are termed Lies as Amos 2. 4. Their Lies have caused them to erre after which their Fathers walked The Vulgar hath Seduxerunt eos Idola ipsorum Their Idols have caused them to erre And Esay 28. 15. We have made Lies our refuge And Ier. 16. 19 20. The Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say Surely our Fathers have possessed the Chaldee hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have worshipped a lie vanity wherein there is no profit Shall a man make Gods unto himself and they are no Gods This therefore I take to be the genuine meaning of this place and not that which is commonly supposed against external worship which I think this Demonstration will evince To worship what they know as the Iews are said to do and to worship in Spirit and Truth are taken by our Saviour for one and the same thing else the whole sense will be inconsequent But the Iews worshipped not God without Rites and Ceremonies who yet are supposed to worship him in Spirit and Truth Ergo To worship God without Rites and Ceremonies is not to worship him in Spirit and Truth according to the meaning here intended DISCOURSE XIII S. LUKE 24. 45 46. Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures And said unto them Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day OUR Blessed Saviour after he was risen from the dead told his Disciples not only that his Suffering of death and Rising again the third day was foretold in the Scriptures but also pointed out those Scriptures unto them and opened their understanding that they might understand them that is he expounded or explained them unto them Certain it is therefore that somewhere in the Old Testament these things were foretold should befall Messiah Yea S. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 3 4. will further assure us that they are I delivered unto you saith he first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures And that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures Both of them therefore are somewhere foretold in the Scriptures and it becomes not us to be so ignorant as commonly we are which those Scriptures be which foretell them It is a main point of our Faith and that which the Iews most stumble at because their Doctors had not observed any such thing foretold to Messiah The more they were ignorant thereof the more it concerns us to be confirmed therein I thought good therefore to make this the Argument of my Discourse at this time to inform both you and my self where these things are foretold and if I can to point out those very Scriptures which our Saviour here expounded to his Disciples Which that I may the better do I will make the words fore-going my Text to be as the Pole-star in this my search These are the things saith our Saviour which I spake unto you while I was yet with you That all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning me Then follow the words I read Then opened he their understanding c. These two events therefore of Messiah's death and rising again the third day were foretold in these Three parts of Scripture In the Law of Moses or Pentateuch in the Nebiim or Prophets and in the Psalms and in these Three we must search for them And first for the First That Messiah should suffer death This was fore-signified in the Law or Pentateuch First in the story of Abraham where he was commanded to offer his son Isaac the son wherein his seed should be called and to whom the promise was entailed That in it should all the Nations
Bloud of Christ namely That as Water washeth away the filth of the Body so the Bloud of Christ cleanseth us from the guilt and pollution of Sin And there is no question but the Bloud of Christ is the Fountain of all the grace and good communicated unto us either in this or any other Sacrament or Mystery of the Gospel But that this should be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Counter-part or thing figured by the Water in Baptism I believe not Because the Scripture which must be our guide and direction in this case makes it another thing to wit the Spirit or Holy Ghost this to be that whereby the Soul is cleansed and renewed within as the Body with Water is without So saith our Saviour to Nicodemus Iohn 3. 5. Except a man he born of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And the Apostle in the words I have read parallels the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost as Type and Counter-type God saith he hath saved us that is brought us into the state of salvation by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost where none I trow will deny that he speaks of Baptism The same was represented by that Vision at our Saviour's Baptism of the Holy Ghost's descending upon him as he came out of the water in the similitude of a Dove For I suppose that in that Baptism of his the Mystery of all our Baptisms was visibly acted and that God sayes to every one truly baptized as he said to him in a proportionable sense Thou art my Son in whom I am well pleased And how pliable the Analogy of Water is to typifie the Spirit well appears by the figuring of the Spirit thereby in other places of Scripture As in that of Esay I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and flouds upon the day ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine off-spring where the latter expounds for former Also by the discourse of our Saviour with the Samaritan woman Iohn 4. 14. Whosoever saith he drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a Well of water springing up to everlasting life By that also Iohn 7. 37. where on the last day of the great Feast Iesus stood and said If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink He that believeth on me as the Scripture saith that is as the Scripture is wont to express it for otherwise there is no such place of Scripture to be found in all the Bible out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water But this saith the Evangelist V. 39. he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive Nor did the Fathers or ancient Church as far as I can find suppose any other Correlative to the Element in Baptism but this of this they speak often of the Bloud of Christ they are altogether silent in their Explications of this Mystery Many are the Allusions they seek out for the illustration thereof and some perhaps forced but this of the Water signifying or having relation to the Bloud of Christ never comes amongst them which were impossible if they had not supposed some other thing figured by the Water than it which barred them from falling to that conceit The like silence is to be observed in our Liturgy where the Holy Ghost is more than once parallel'd with the Water of Baptism washing and regeneration attributed thereunto but no such notion of the Bloud of Christ. And that the opinion thereof is novel may be gathered because some Lutheran Divines make it peculiar and proper to the followers of Calvin Whatsoever it be it hath no foundation in Scripture and we must not of our own heads assign significations to Sacramental types without some warrant thence For whereas some conceive those two expressions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sprinkling of the bloud of Christ and of our being washed from our sins in or by his bloud do intimate some such matter they are surely mistaken For those expressions have reference not to the Water of Baptism in the New Testament but to the rite and manner of sacrificing in the Old where the Altar was wont to be sprinkled with the bloud of the Sacrifices which are offered and that which was unclean purified with the same bloud whence is that elegant discourse of S. Paul Heb. 9. comparing the Sacrifices of the Law with that of Christ upon the Cross as much the better And that whereas in the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Almost all things were purified with bloud V. 22. so much more the bloud of Christ who offered himself without spot to God cleanseth our consciences from dead works V. 14. But that this washing that is cleansing by the bloud of Christ should have reference to Baptism where is that to be found I suppose they will not alledge the water and bloud which came out of our Saviour's side when they pierced him for that is taken to signifie the Two Sacraments ordained by Christ that of Bloud the Eucharist of Water Baptism and not both to be referred to Baptism I adde because perhaps some means fancies are corrupted therewith that there was no such thing as sprinkling or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in Baptism in the Apostles times nor many ages after them and that therefore it is no way probable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sprinkling of the Bloud of Christ in S. Peter should have any reference to the Laver of Baptism Let this then be our Conclusion That the Bloud of Christ concurs in the Mystery of Baptism by way of efficacy and merit but not as the thing there figured which the Scripture tells us not to be the Bloud of Christ but the Spirit AND so I come to my other Quaere From what property or use of Water the washing therewith is a Sacrament of our new Birth for so it is here called the washing of regeneration and our Saviour saies to Nicodemus Except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God For in every Sacrament there is some analogy between what is outwardly done and what is thereby signified therefore in this But what should it be It is a thing of some moment and yet in the Tractates of this Mystery but little or seldom enquired after and therefore deserves the more consideration I answer This analogy between the Washing with water and Regeneration lies in that custome of washing Infants from the pollutions of the womb when they are first born For this is the first office done unto them when they come out of the womb if they purpose to nourish and bring them up As therefore in our natural birth the Body is washt with water from the pollutions wherewith it comes besmeared out of the
matrix so in our second birth from above the Soul is purified by the Spirit from the guilt and pollution of sin to begin a new life to God-ward The analogy you see is apt and proper if that be true of the custome whereof there is no cause to make question For the use at present any man I think knows how to inform himself For that of elder times I can produce two pregnant and notable testimonies one of the Iews and people of God another of the Gentiles The first you shall find in the sixteenth Chapter of Ezekiel where God describes the poor and forlorn condition of Ierusalem when he first took her to himself under the parable of an exposed Infant As for thy nativity saith he in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee thou wast not salted at all nor swadled at all no eye pitied thee none to do any of these things unto thee to have compassion on thee but thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born Here you may learn what was wont to be done unto Infants at their nativity by that which was not done to Israel till God himself took pity on her cutting off the navel-string washing salting swadling Upon this place S. Hierome takes notice but scarce any body else for ought I can yet find that our Saviour when speaking of Baptism he sayes Except a man be born of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God alludes to the custome here mentioned of washing Infants at their nativity The other Testimony and that most pertinent to the application we make I find in a story related by Plutarch in his Quaestiones Romanae not far from the beginning in this manner Among the Greeks if one that were living were reported to be dead and funeral obsequies performed for him if afterward he returned alive he was of all men abominated as a prophane and unlucky person no man would come in his company and which was the highest degree of calamity they excluded him from their Temples and the Sacrifices of their Gods It chanced that one Aristinus being fallen into such a disaster and not knowing which way to expiate himself therefrom sent to the Oracle at Delphos to Apollo beseeching him to shew him the means whereby he might be freed and discharged thereof Pythia gave him this answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What women do when one in childbed lies That do again so maist thou sacrifice Aristinus rightly apprehending what the Oracle meant offered himself to women as one newly brought forth to be washed again with water From which example it grew a custome among the Greeks when the like misfortune befel any man after this manner to expiate them They called them Hysteropotmi or Postliminio nati How well doth this befit the Mystery of Baptism where those who were dead to God through sin are like Hysteropotmi regenerate and born again by Water and the Holy Ghost These two passages discover sufficiently the analogy of the washing with water in Baptism to Regeneration or New birth according as the Text I have chosen for the scope of my Discourse expresseth it namely That washing with water is a Sign of spiritual Infancy forasmuch as Infants are wont to be washed when they come first into the world Hence the Iews before Iohn the Baptist came amongst them were wont by this rite to initiate such as they made Proselytes to wit as becoming Infants again and entring into a new life and being which before they had not That which here I have affirmed will be yet more evident if we consider those other rites anciently added and used in the celebration of this Mystery which had the self-same end we speak of viz. to signifie spiritual Infancy I will name them and so conclude As That of giving the new-baptized milk and honey ad Infantandum as Tertullian speaks ad infantiae significationem so S. Hierome because the like was used to Infants new-born according to that in the 7. of Esay of Immanuel's infancy A Virgin shall conceive and bear a son Butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse evil and chuse good Secondly That of salt as is implied in that of Ezekiel Thou wast not washed with water nor salted with salt Thirdly That of putting on the white garment to resemble swadling All these were anciently especially the first used in the Sacrament of our Spiritual birth out of reference to that which was done to Infants at their Natural birth Who then can doubt but the principal rite of washing with water the only one ordained by our Blessed Saviour was chosen for the same reason to be the element of our initiation and that those who brought in the other did so conceive of this and from thence derived those imitations DISCOURSE XVIII IOSHUA 24. 26. And Ioshua took a great stone and set it up there viz. in Sichem under the Oak which was in the Sanctuary of the Lord Alii by the Sanctuary Heb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE Story whereupon these Words depend is this Ioshua a little before his death assembled all the Tribes of Israel at Shechem or Sichem there to make a solemn Covenant between them and the Lord To have him alone for their God and to serve no other Gods besides him Which they having solemnly promised to do saying The Lord our God will we serve and his voice will we obey Ioshua for a testimony and monument of this their stipulation erects in the place a great Stone or Pillar under an Oak which was by or as the Hebrew hath it in the Sanctuary of the Lord. Of this Oak or rather collectively Quercetum or Oaken-hold of Sichem is twice mention made elsewhere in Scripture For this was the place where Abram first sate down and where the Lord appearing unto him he erected his first Altar in the Land of Canaan after he came out of Haran thither as we read Gen. 12. 6. in these words And Abram passed through the Land unto the place of Sichem unto the Oak or Oak-grove of Morch where the Lord appeared unto him saying Unto thy seed will I give this Land and there he builded an Altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him And what place more fit for Abraham's posterity to renew a Covenant with their God than that where their God first made his Covenant with Abraham their Father Again it was this place where in the after-times of the Iudges◠one hundred and seventy years after the death of Ioshua the Sichemites made Abimelech the base son of Ierubbaal or Gideon King as we read Iudg. 9. 6. that all the men of Sichem gathered together and all the house of Millo and went and made Abimelech King by the Oak of the Pillar which was in Sichem The words are
the Books written after the Captivity he is styled Deus coeli the God of Heaven as in Ezra Nehemiah Daniel in which Books together with the last of Chronicles the title of Deus Sabaoth The Lord of Hosts is not to be found but the title of Deus Coeli The God of Heaven only which as may seem was taken up for some reason in stead of the other But to return to what we have in hand It was the Angelical Host as ye hear who sang this Song of joy and praise unto the most High God And wherefore For any restitution or addition of Happiness to themselves No but for Peace on Earth and Good-will towards men He that was now born took not upon him the Nature of Angels but of men He came not into the world to save Angels but for the salvation of men Nor was the state of Angels to receive advancement in glory by his coming but the state of men and that too in such a sort as might seem to impeach the dignity and dim the lustre of those excellent creatures when an inferiour Nature the nature of Man was now to be advanced unto a throne of Divine majesty and to become Head and King not only of men but of the Heavenly Host it self O ye blessed Angels what did these tidings concern you That ruined mankind should be restored again and taken into favour whereas those of your own Host which fell likewise remained still in that gulf of perdition whereinto their sin had plunged them without hope of mercy or like promise of Deliverance What did it add to your eminent Dignity the most excellent of the creatures of God that the Nature of man should be advanced above yours that at the Name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth The Observation therefore which this Act of the Angels first presents unto us is The ingenuous goodness and sweet disposition of those immaculate and blessed Spirits in whose bosomes Envy the Image of the Devil and deadly poison of Charity hath no place at all For if any inclination to this cankered passion had been in these Heavenly creatures never such an occasion was offered nor greater could be to stir it up as now But Heaven admits of no such passion nor could such a torment consist with the blissful condition of those who dwell therein It is the smoke of that bottomless pit a native of Hell the character and cognisance of those Apostate Angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation and are reserved for chains of everlasting darkness These indeed grieve no less at the Happinâ—ss of men than the Angels joy witness the name of their Prince Satan which signifies the Fiend or malicious one who out of Envy overthrew mankind in the beginning out of Envy he and all his fellow-fiends are so restless and indefatigable to seduce him still The Use of this Observation will not be far to seek if we remember the admonition our Saviour hath given us in the Prayer left unto his Church which is To make the Angels the pattern of our imitation in doing the will of our heavenly Father for so he teacheth us to pray Let thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven that is Grant us O Lord to do thy will here as thy holy Angels do it there And as we should imitate them in all things else so in this affection towards the happiness and prosperity of others And good reason I think if we mean at all to approve our selves unto God our Father why we should endeavour rather to be like unto them than unto Devils But in nothing can we be more like them than in this to rejoyce for the good and not repine at the happiness of our Brethren Hoc enim Angelicum est This is the Character of the Angelical nature and consequently of those who one day shall have fellowship with them To be contrarily affected Diabolicum est is the badge and brand of Devils and Fiends and those who wear their Livery reason good they should keep them company Let every one therefore examine his own heart concerning this point that he may learn upon what terms he stands with God and what he may promise himself of the Blessedness to come Do the gifts of God doth his favour or blessing vouchsafed to thy brother when thou â—eest or hearest of them torment and crucifie thy soul dost thou make their happiness thy misery is thine eye evil to thy Brother because God's is good If this be so without doubt thy heart is not right before God nor doth his Spirit but the spirit of Devils and Fiends reign therein But if the contrary appear in any reasonable measure with a desire to encrease it for we must not look to attain the perfection of Angels in this life but in some measure and degree only if thou canst rejoyce at anothers good though it concerns not thy self the Spirit of God rests upon thee For emulations and envyings saith the Apostle Gal. 5. 19. c. are the fruits of the flesh but the fruits of the Spirit are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kindness and goodness So he calls the opposite vertues to those former vices But as any good that betides our brother ought to affect us with some degree of joy and not with grief and envy so chiefly and most of all his Spiritual good and that which concerns his Salvation ought so to do This was that the holy Angels praised God for in my Text on the behalf of men That unto them a Saviour was born who should save them from their sins and reconcile them unto God Which sweet disposition of those good and blessed spirits our Saviour himself further witnesseth when he saith Luke 15. 7 10. There is joy in heaven namely among the holy Angels for one sinner that repenteth But is there any man will you say such a son of Belial as he will not do this will not imitate the holy Angels in this Iudge ye There is an evil disease which commonly attends upon Sects and Differences in opinion That as men are curiously inquisitive into the lives and actions of the adverse party so are they willing to find them faulty and rejoyce at their falls and slips hear and relate them with delight namely because they suppose it makes much for their own side that the contrary should by such means be scandalized and the Patrons and followers thereof disreputed But should that be the matter of our grief whereat the Angels joy or that the matter of our joy whereat the Angels grieve How is this to do our Father's will on earth as the Angels do in heaven Nay if this be not to put on the robes of darkness and to shake hands with hellish Fiends I know not what is O my Soul come not thou into their secret unto
them that trespass against us DISCOURSE XXV S. MARK 1. 14 15. Now after that Iohn was put in prison Iesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God And saying The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and Believe the Gospel THESE words are a Narration of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ his first beginning to preach the Gospel which they describe 1. By the Time when 2. By the Place where 3. By the Summe of what he preached 1. The Time when After that Iohn was put in prison 2. The Place where Galilee Iesus came into Galilee preaching c. 3. Lastly The Summe of what he preached The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and believe the Gospel In which Sermon there are also some parts to be considered which we shall more conveniently distinguish when we come to handle it Mean while let us begin with the Three parts or circumstances already named in order And first with the First The Time when After that Iohn was put in prison Our Saviour began not his solemn preaching till his Messenger Iohn the Baptist who was sent to prepare his way was cast into prison This circumstance is elsewhere precisely noted in the Scripture so that we cannot doubt but there is some matter of moment therein For S. Matthew tells us as S. Mark doth Now when Iesus had heard saith he that Iohn was cast into prison he departed into Galilee and then it follows From that time Iesus began to preach and to say Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand So S. Peter Acts 10. when he came to preach the Gospel of Christ to Cornelius was careful to mention this circumstance of Time as well as the other of Place The word saith he V. 36 37. which God sent unto the children of Israel preaching peace by Iesus Christ he is Lord of all That word I say you know which was published throughout all Iudaea and began from Galilee after the Baptism which Iohn preached Loe here the Place Galilee and the Time After that Iohn Baptist had done as in my Text. All which argues this circumstance of Time to be one of the marks of the true Messiah as namely That this Iesus was that Lord whom they looked for who was to send a messenger before him the voice of a cryer in the wilderness to usher his preaching and prepare the way of his Gospel as was prophesied by Esay and Malachi and the Iews at that time expected Which was the reason of that scruple of the Disciples in the Gospel when they saw our Saviour and Elias whom they supposed should be his Forerunner appear in glory both together at his Transfiguration Why then say they do the Scribes say that Elias must come first Our Saviour tells them that Iohn Baptist was that Elias the Forerunner of Messiah according to those words of his Father Zachary And thou child shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways namely as the Angel told him in the power and spirit of Elias For this reason as our Saviour was not conceived nor born till six months after Iohn so he began not his prophecy till Iohn had done that so the Scripture might be fulfilled and Iohn be his forerunner and messenger both in the one and the other And lastly to conclude the illustration of this circumstance Iohn was not only a Forerunner of our Saviour in his Nativity and Prophecy but also in his Passion and Suffering For so our Saviour himself expresly saith Matth. 17. 12. Elias is come and they knew him not but have done unto him whatsoever they listed even so also shall the Son of man suffer of them Now for the Observation or if you will the Consideration I will make upon this circumstance it shall be this If that Messiah according to Prophecy were to have an Harbinger to prepare the way for his coming and the Holy Ghost in the New Testament thought this circumstance so needful to prove the verity thereof as so curiously to note it in the history of his Nativity Preaching and Suffering It would be considered seeing the coming of Christ is twofold First and Second whether the same Prophecy imply not that there should be an Harbinger as well of his Second coming as of his First as well an Elias to prepare the way for his coming in glory to judge the world as there was at his First coming in humility to preach the Gospel and suffer for the world An Elias I mean to be the Harbinger of Christ to the nation of the Iews before his Second coming as Iohn Baptist was at his First For to the Iews alone is this Elias promised and not to the Gentiles and Iohn Baptist we know the Elias of his First coming preacht to them alone It is well known that all the Fathers unless S. Hierom somewhat staggered were of this opinion and why we should so wholly reject it as we are wont to do I can see no sufficient reason For if the Fathers erred concerning the person and other circumstances of this Elias yet it follows not but the substance of their opinion might be true As we know also they erred concerning the person quality and reign of Antichrist and yet for the substance the thing was true Our Saviour rejected not the Tradition of the Scribes concerning the coming of Elias when the Apostles objected it though it were mingled with some falshood but corrected it only for they looked for Elias the Thisbite but our Saviour admits it only of Elias in Spirit not of Elias in Person so yielding it true for the substance though erring in circumstance So should we do in the like case For he that throws away what he finds because it is foul and dirty may perchance sometimes cast away a Iewel or a piece of gold or silver So he that wholly rejects an ancient Tenet because it hath some Error annexed to it may unawares cast away a Truth as this seems to be of an Elias to be the Harbinger of Christ's Second coming and that for these Reasons First Though the Prophecy of Esaias The voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight alledged by all the four Evangelists and by Iohn himself seems appliable only to the First coming of Christ yet the other out of Malachi expresly quoted by S. Mark and by our Saviour Matth. 11. 14. though elsewhere alluded unto seems by Malachi himself to be applied not only to the First coming of Christ but also to his Second coming to Iudgment For in his last chapter speaking of the coming of that day which shall burn like an oven wherein all the proud yea and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble and it shall burn them up leaving neither
Rom. 12. 11. 3. Zeal is that which carries our Devotions up to Heaven As Wings to a Fowl Wheels to a Chariot Sails to a Ship so is Zeal to the Soul of Man Without Zeal our Devotions can no more ascend than Vapours from a Still without fire put under it Prayer if it be fervent availeth much but a cold Sute will never get to Heaven In brief Zeal is the Chariot wherein our Alms our Offerings and all the good works we do are brought before the Throne of God in Heaven No Sacrifice in the Law could be offered without fire no more in the Gospel is any Service rightly performed without Zeal Be zealous therefore lest all thy works all thy endeavours be else unprofitable Rouze up thy dull and heavy Spirit serve God with earnestness and fervency and pray unto him that he would send us this fire from his Altar which is in Heaven whereby all our Sacrifices may become acceptable and pleasing unto him AND thus I come to the next thing in my Text Repentance Be zealous and repent Repentance is the changing of our course from the old way of Sin unto the new way of Righteousness or more briefly A changing of the course of sin for the course of Righteousness It is called also Conversion Turning and Returning unto God This matter would ask a long discourse but I will describe it briefly in five degrees which are as five steps in a Ladder by which we ascend up to Heaven 1. The first step is the Sight of Sin and the punishment due unto it for how can the Soul be possessed with fear and sorrow except he Understanding do first apprehend the danger for that which the Eye sees not the Heart rues not If Satan can keep sin from the Eye he will easily keep sorrow from the Heart It is impossible for a man to repent of his wickedness except the reflect and say What have I done The serious Penitent must be like the wary Factor he must retire himself look into his Books and turn over the leaves of his life he must consider the expence of his Time the employment of his Talent the debt of his Sin and the strictness of his Account 2. And so he shall ascend unto the next step which is Sorrow for sin For he that seriously considers how he hath grieved the Spirit of God and endangered his own Soul by his sins cannot but have his Spirit grieved with remorse The Sacrifices of God are a contrite Spirit Neither must we sorrow only but look unto the quality of our Sorrow that it be Godly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to the quantity of it that it be Great We must fit the plaister to the wound and proportion our sorrow to our Sins He that with Peter hath sinned heinously or with Mary Magdalen frequently must with them weep bitterly and abundantly 3. The Third step of this Ladder is the Loathing of sin A Surfiet of Meats how dainty and delicate soever will afterwards make them loathsome He that hath taken his fill of sin and committed iniquity with greediness and is sensible of his supersinity or abundance of naughtiness and hath a great Sorrow for it he will the more loath his sins though they have been never so full of delight Yea it will make him loath himself and cry out in a mournful manner with S. Paul Rom. 7. 24. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death 4. The fourth step is the leaving off Sin For as Amnon hating Tamar shut her out of doors So he that loaths and hates his Sins the sight the thought the remembrance of them will be grievous unto him and he will labour by all good means to expel them For true Repentance must be the consuming of sin To what purpose doth the Physician evacuate ill humors if the Patient still distempers himself with ill diet What shall it avail a man to endure the launcing searching and tenting of a wound if he stay not for the cure So in vain also is the Sight of sin and the Sorrow for and Loathing of Sin if the works of darkness still remain and the Soul is impatient of a through-cure And therefore as Amnon not only put out his loathed Sister but bolted the door after her as it is said in the forequoted place So must we keep out our sins with the Bolts of Resolution and Circumspection Noah pitched the Ark within and without Gen. 6. 14. So to keep out the waters and a Christian must be watchful to secure all his Senses External and Internal to keep out sin 5. The Fifth and last step is the Cleaving unto God with full purpose of heart to walk before him in newness of life All the former Degrees of Repentance were for the putting off of the Old man this is for the putting on of the New For ubi Emendatio nulla Poenitentia necessariò vana saith Tertullian de Poenit. c. 2. Where there is no Reformation there the Repentance must needs be vain and fruitless for as he goes on caret fructu suo eui eam Deus sevit i. e. hominis saluti it hath not its fruit unto holiness nor the end everlasting life Rom. 6. 22. And thus have I let you see briefly What Repentance is Will you have me say any more to make you to affect it as earnestly as I hope by this time you understand it clearly Know then that this is that which opens Heaven and leads into Paradise This is that Ladder without which no man can climb thither and therefore as S. Austin saith Mutet vitam qui vult accipere vitam Let us change our life here if we look for the Life of Glory hereafter Let us leave the old way of sin for the new way of righteousness and to apply all to my Text Let us change our course of Lukewarmness for a course of fervency in God's service our dull and drowsie Devotions for a course of Zeal Be zealous and Repent AND thus I come to the Third thing I propounded namely the Connexion and dependance of these latter words Be zealous therefore and Repent upon the former As many as I love I rebuke and chasten Many things might be here observed but I will name but one which is this That Repentance is the means to avoid and prevent God's Iudgments For as Tertullian in his de Poenitentia observes * Qui poenam per judicium destinavit idem veniam per poenitentiam spospondit He that hath decreed to punish by Iustice hath promised to grant pardon by Repentance And so we read in Ieremy 18. 7. When I shall speak saith the Lord there concerning a Nation or Kingdom to pluck up to pull down and to destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from evil I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them And in Ezekiel 18. Repent and turn
Daemon-gods of the Nations for Christ's Monarchical Mediation excludes all other Mediators and Daemons not that the wooden Idol was ought of it self but that the Gentiles supposed there dwelt some Daemon therein who received their sacrifices and to whom they intended their services Thus may this place be expounded and so the use of the word Daemon in the worst sense or directly for a Devil will be almost confined to the Gospel where the subject spoken of being men vexed with Evil spirits could admit no other sense or use and yet S. Luke the best-languaged of the Evangelists knowing the word to be ambiguous and therefore as it were to distinguish it once for all doth the first time he useth it do it with an explication Chapter 4. verse 33. There was saith he a man in the Synagogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having the spirit of an unclean Daemon Thus much of the word Daemonium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture whereby I hope it appears that this place of my Text is not the only place where the word is used according to the notion of the Gentiles and their Theologists But you will say Did any of the Fathers or Ancients expound it thus in this place If they had done so the Mystery of iniquity could never have taken such footing which because it was to come according to divine disposition what wonder then if this were hidden from their eyes Howsoever it may seem that God left not his spirit without a witness For as I take it Epiphanius one of the most zealous of the Fathers of his time against Saint-worship then peeping took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text for a Doctrine of worshipping dead men You may read him in the seventy eighth Heresie towards the conclusion where upon occasion of some who made a Goddess of the blessed Virgin and offered a cake unto her as the Queen of Heaven he quotes this place of my Text concerning them saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in English sounds thus That also of the Apostle is fulfilled of these Some shall apostatize from the sound Doctrine giving heed to Fables and Doctrines of Daemons for saith he they shall be worshippers of Dead men as they were worshipped in Israel Are not these last words for an Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what will you say doth he mean by the Dead worshipped in Israel I suppose he means their Baalim who as is already shewed were nothing else but Daemons or Deified Ghosts of men deceased yet he brings in two examples besides one of the Sichemites in his time who had a Goddess or Daemoness under the name of Iephtah's daughter another of the AEgyptians who worshipped Thermutis that daughter of Pharaoh which brought up Moses Some as Beza would have these words of Epiphanius to be a part of the Text it self in some copy which he used But how is that likely when no other Father once mentions any such reading Nay it appears moreover that Epiphanius intended to explain the words as he quoteth them as he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Faith by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sound Doctrine and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 erroneous spirits by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fables and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giving heed to Doctrines of Daemons by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worshipping Dead men Otherwise we must say he used either a very corrupt copy or quoted very carelesly But grant that Epiphanius read so Either this reading was true and so I have enough because then the Apostle with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. should expound himself by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mean the Deifying of the dead Or it was not the original reading but added by some or other for explication sake and so it will follow that those who did it made no question but that the words there contained some such thing as worshipping of the dead Therefore take it which way you will it will follow that some such matter as we speak of was in times past supposed to be in this Text and Prophecy CHAP. VII Why those words in the description of the Mystery of Godliness Received into Glory are set last That praying to Saints glorified as Mediators and Agents for us with God is Idolatry For the proof of this several Grounds are laid down To be prayed to in Heaven and to present our Devotions to God and to deal as an Agent and Mediator between us and him is a Prerogative appropriate to Christ a Flower of his Glory and Exaltation to sit at God's Right hand a Royalty incommunicable to any other That none but Christ our High Priest is to be an Agent for us with God in the Heavens was figured under the Law in that the High Priest alone had to do in the Most holy place and there was to be Agent for the people That though Christ in regard of his Person was capable of this God-like Glory and Royalty yet it was the Will of God that he should purchase it by suffering an unimitable Death This proved from several Testimonies of Scripture Saint-worship is a denial of Christ's Prerogative Bread-worship in the Eucharist to what kind of Idolatry it may be reduced How Saint-worship crept into the Church NOW I come to the Second point to maintain and prove That praying to Saints glorified as Mediators and Agents for us with God is justly charged with Idolatry For this is the hinge whereupon not the Application only of my Text but the Interpretation thereof chiefly turneth For this is that which I told you in the beginning that my Text depended upon the last words of the former chapter and verse Received into glory which were therefore out of their due order put in the last place because my Text was immediately to be inferred upon them The like misplacing and for the like reason see Heb. 12. 23. where in a catalogue or recension of the parts of the Church Christ the Head and the sprinkling of his bloud is mentioned in the last place and after the spirits of just men because the next verses are continued upon this sprinkling of Christ's bloud Ye are come to the general assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect And to Iesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the bloud of sprinkling which speaketh better things than that of Abel whereas the right order should have been◠First God the Iudge of all secondly Christ the Mediator of the new Covenant and thirdly in the last place the Spirits of just men made perfect Agreeably therefore to this dependance of my Text I am to shew That the Invocation of Saints glorified implies an Apostasie from Christ and a denial of his Glory and Majesty whereunto he is installed by his Assumption into heaven to sit at the right hand of God Which before I do I
begins at the Great Iudgment That the Kingdom in Daniel and that of a 1000 years in the Apocalyps are one and the same Kingdom appears thus First Because they begin ab eodem termino namely at the destruction of the Fourth Beast That in Daniel when the Beast then ruling in the wicked Horn was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame Dan. 7. vers 11 22 27. That in the Apocalyps when the Beast and the false Prophet the wicked Horn in Daniel were taken and both cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone Apoc. 19. ver 20 21 c. Secondly Because S. Iohn begins the Regnum of a thousand years from the same Session of Iudgement described in Daniel as appears by his parallel expression borrowed from thence Daniel sayes Chap. 7. S. Iohn says Chap. 20. V. 9. I beheld till the Thrones were pitched down and the Iudgment i. Iudges sat V. 4. I saw Thrones and they sat upon them 22. And Iudgment was given to the Saints of the most High And Iudgment was given unto them And the Saints possessed the Kingdom viz with the Son of Man who came in the clouds And the Saints lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years Now if this be sufficiently proved That the thousand years begin with the Day of Iudgment it will appear further out of the Apocalyps that the Iudgment is not consummate till they be ended For Gog and Magog's destruction and the universal Resurrection is not till then Therefore the whole thousand years is included in the Day of Iudgment Consectarium de Interpretatione aliorum Scripturae locorum huc pertinentium Hence it will follow That whatsoever Scripture speaks of a Kingdom of Christ to be at his second appearing or at the destruction of Antichrist it must needs be the same which Daniel saw should be at that time and so consequently be the Kingdom of a thousand years which the Apocalyps includes between the beginning and consummation of the Great Iudgment Ergo That in Luke 17. from verse 20. to the end And that in Luke 19. from the 11. verse to the 15. inclusively And that in Luke 21. verse 31. When ye see these things come to pass know that the Kingdom of God is at hand See what went before viz. The Son of man's coming in a cloud with power and great glory borrowed from Daniel And that in 2 Tim. 4. 1. I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom By these we may understand the rest taking this for a sure ground That this expression of The Son of man's coming in the clouds of heaven so often inculcated in the New Testament is taken from and hath reference to the Prophecie of Daniel being no where else found in the Old Testament As our Saviour also calls himself so frequently The Son of man because Daniel so called him in that Vision of the Great Iudgment and that we might look for the accomplishment of what is there prophesied of in him It was not in vain that when our Saviour quoted the Prophecie of Daniel he added He that readeth him let him understand Certainly the great mystery of Christ is chiefly and most distinctly revealed in that Book which God the Father of lights so enable us with his Spirit that we may understand to his glory and our own comfort Amen I pray compare this with the Paper I sent you of the Four Monarchies which I called The A. B. C. of Prophecie and with the latter end of my Specimina de mille annis and with my Interpretation of Praeconium Tubae VII You shall find the grounds of all this in them I have no copy of this I now send I would desire you when you are weary with reading it to send me it again that I may get it transcribed to save me a labour another time when some other friend shall make a Quaere to like purpose I find ever and anon inconvenience for want of such a provision I will send you it again presently Before Christmass will be time enough I desire to be remembred to Master Doctor Twisse to whose Letter I shall make some Answer when I get some leisure now I have none Yours Ioseph Mede Christ's Colledge Novemb. 25. 1629. EPISTLE XVI Dr. Twisse his Second Letter to Mr. Mede Worthy Sir I Pray forgive me this once in interrupting your more momentous meditations Thankfulness urgeth me to express that your Letter is a Iewel unto me making me partaker of such fruits and giving me interest in such affections I profess you have strange conceits I mean for the worthiness of them they possess me with admiration especially that touching the manner of the Iews Conversion Those passages of Scripture and the reference of them which you make I do consider with Reverence and the particular relation S. Paul makes of himself as first tasting of that Grace in reference to the like which were to succeed had he made mention of the miraculous operation in his Conversion as he doth of God's Long-suffering and Patience the Congruity had been absolute Yet I seem to discern something whereby that may be argued also to be implied for otherwise in likelihood he was not the first Yet to object for your Ingenuity I perceive gives me leave S. Paul was a particular person and then travelling on the way The Conversion we speak of is of a Nation and that wonderfully dispersed in the world the like manner of Christ's appearing unto whom for their Conversion is hard to conceive And besides I seem to conceive evidence from 2 Cor. 3. 15 16. that their Conversion shall be wrought from amongst themselves by reading Moses and the Prophets for it is the veil laid before their Hearts which hinders them from discerning the end of the Law which is Christ which veil shall be taken away and being taken away they shall be turned unto Christ. Yet I confess the Text saith not when the veil is taken away they shall be turned to the Lord but rather when they shall be turned to the Lord the veil shall be taken away Yet again so it is said Luk. 7. 47. that many sins were forgiven her for she loved much yet by the scope of the Parable there proposed the formal truth appears to be this She loved much for many sins were forgiven her So here it may be argued that the taking away of their veil is the cause of their turning to the Lord for the position of the veil is that which hinders them from discerning him therefore the removing of the veil is the making may for the discerning of him by that in Moses Yet I seem to see how this may be answered The veil hinders from discerning him in the Law of Moses but if God be pleased to manifest his Son by sight the veil can no way hinder that And why may not the
some brand or stamp upon them which points at the Sin for which they are inflicted you may call it a Sin-mark If the passages and ground of the continuance of this German War be well considered would not a man think they spake that of the Apostle Thou that hatest Idols dost thou commit Sacriledge But I dare go no further it may be I have said too much already For I well know the way that I go pleaseth neither party the one loves not the Pope should be Antichrist nor the other to hear that these things should not be Popery Thus you see I have at length brought both ends together and end where I began Pardon me this one Letter and I will trouble you no more with this Theme your Reply to my short Answer to your Quere occasioned it I forget not my best respect unto your self nor my prayers to the Almighty for blessing to you and yours Thus I rest Christ's Coll. Iuly 15. 1635. Your assured Friend Ioseph Mede I sent by Mr. B. 4. or 5. Exercises upon passages of Scripture such as I had in separate papers and fit to be communicated For those that were in Books joyned with other things I could not and some that were apart for some Reasons I would not expose to danger of censure I hope those which I sent are safely arrived with you EPISTLE LIX Dr. Twisse's Ninth Letter to Mr. Mede thanking him for his pains in the foregoing Letter and desiring his resolution of a Doubt concerning the 7 Lamps signifying the 7 Angels in Zach. 4. Right dear and Right worthy Sir I AM somewhat of a more chearful spirit than when I wrote my last I have gotten more liberty of spirit to consider your large Discourse savouring of great Learning no less Iudgment and a distinctive Apprehension of things of good importance and that not in my judgment only but in the judgment of others though all require serious and further consideration And for mine own particular I cannot but reflect upon my self how deeply I am beholden unto you for intrusting me in so liberal a manner with these your Speculations We can never offend in putting difference between the Holy and Prophane neither can we offend in presenting our selves too reverently at the Lord's Table Never was the Mercy-seat so well known in the days of the Old Testament as in these days of the New We now behold the glory of the Lord with open face and accordingly our Saviour tells us the Lord requires the true worshippers should worship him in spirit and in truth in distinction from worshipping him either at Ierusalem or in the Mount the woman spake of And in this kind of worship we cannot exceed But as for outward Gestures I doubt I shall prove but a Novice as long as I breath and we affect not to make ostentation of our Devotion in the face of the world the rather because thereby we draw upon our selves the censure of Hypocrisie and sometimes if a man lifts up his Eyes he is censured for a P. and I confess there is no outward Gesture of Devotion which may not be as handsomly performed by as carnal an heart as breaths I am confident you are far from studia partium so should we be all and be ambitious of nothing but of the love and favour of God and of our conformity unto him in truth and holiness I heartily thank you for all and particularly for these Pieces which now I return I hope they will arrive safely in your hands What I wrote the last time I have almost utterly forgotten saving the clearing of one Objection concerning the Seven Angels standing before the Throne represented by the Seven Lamps which I much desired it arising from the Text it self the Lamps being maintained by the Oile which drops from the Two Olive-trees which are interpreted to be Zorobabel and Ieshua But I have troubled you so much that I fear the aspersion of immodesty in troubling you any further I cannot sufficiently express my thankfulness for that I have already received I desire ever to be found Newbury Iuly 27. 1635. Yours in the best respect Will. Twisse EPISTLE LX. Dr. Twisse's Tenth Letter to Mr. Mede desiring him to reveal unto him those Pluscula in Zach. chapters 9 10 11. which fit not so well Zachary's time as Ieremy's as also to resolve a Doubt about the 7. Lamps in Zach. 4. with some reflexions upon Mr. Mede's large Letter about Temples and Altars and the Christian Sacrifice Worthy Sir DO you not miss your Letter ad Ludovicum de Dieu And do you not find it strange it is not returned with the rest I assure you I took no notice of it till Wednesday last two days after the last week's Letter I wrote unto you In every particular it was welcome unto me as all yours always are But your Variae lectiones concerning the Old Testament and the pregnant evidences thereof which you alledge do astonish me and above all your adventure to vindicate unto Ieremy his own Prophecy which so long hath gone under the name of Zachary I never was acquainted with any better way of reconciliation than that which Beza mentions of the likeness of abbreviations of each name which might cause a mistake by the Transcribers O that you would reveal unto me those Pluscula which in those three Chapters of Zachary 9 10 11. do more agree as you observe to the time of Ieremy than to the time of Zachary Why may you not have a peculiar way also to reconcile the Genealogie in the LXX with that in the Hebrew where Kainan is found in the one which is not in the other Thus I make bold to put you to new trouble but I presume it is no more trouble to you than the writing like as that other whereabout I moved you How the Seven Lamps are maintained by the oyl derived from the two Olive-Trees if by the Seven Lamps are meant the Seven Angels that stand before the Throne of God Yet have I not done with your large Letter concerning Temples and Altars Since the writing of my last while I was reading that large Letter of yours to some Divines who were much taken with admiration at the Learning contained therein in an Argument wherein we had been so little versed I say in the reading of it I observed one thing which in all my former readings I took no notice of and that is in these words This is a point of great moment and consequent worthy to be looked into by all the Learned of the Reformed Religion lest while we have deservedly abolished the prodigious and blasphemous Sacrifice of the Papists wherein Christ is again hypostatically offered to his Father we have not but very implicitely and obscurely reduced that ancient Commemorative Sacrifice of Christians wherein that one Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross was continually by that sacred Rite represented and inculcated to his Father his Father
the nature and grounds of what they practised lest for want thereof they might cherish some unsafe conceit And notwithstanding I preached for Bowing as you say to Altars yet I have not hitherto used it my self in our own Chappel though I see some others do it If I come into other Chappels where it is generally practised I love not to be singular where I have no scruple But you would not have me have any hand in killing the Witnesses God forbid I should I rather endeavour they might not be guilty of their own deaths And I verily believe the way that many of them go is much more unlikely to save their lives than mine I could tell you a great deal here if I had you privately in my chamber which I mean not for any mans sake to commit to paper Siracusae vestrae capientur in pulvere pingitis As for Bowing at the name Iesus 't is commanded by our Church And for my self I hold it not unlawful to adore my Saviour upon any Cue or hint given Yet could I never believe it to be the meaning of that place of the Philippians nor that it can be inferred thence otherwise than by way of a general and indefinite consequence I derive it rather from the Custom of the World in several Religions thus to express some kind of Reverence when that which they acknowledge for their God is named as we find the Turks do at this day Besides I conceive to do this reverence at the name Iesus only is proper to the Latine Church and it may be of later standing For if some Greeks have not deceived me the custom of the Orient is to bow the head not only at the name Iesus but at the name Christ and sometimes though not so frequently at the name God And if that were the fashion of the elder Christianity that out of S. Hierom would found more to the purpose Moris est Ecclesiastici Christo genu-flectere This is all I can say to this point having had fewer Notions thereabout than about any of the rest That the worship of the Inward man is that which God principally requires and looks at I think no Christian man denies But what then Doth not our Saviour's rule hold notwithstanding in such a comparison 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And consider that the Question is not here as most men seem to make it between Inward worship and Outward worship seorsim for in such case it is plain the Outward is nothing worth but whether the Inward worship together with the Outward may not be more acceptable to God than the Inward alone As for that so commonly objected Scripture in this question Of worshipping the Father in spirit and truth as the Characteristical difference of the Evangelical worship from the Legal I believe it hath a far different sense from that it is commonly taken to have and that the Iews in our Saviour's sense worshipped the Father in spirit and truth But my work grows so fast that I must let it pass and be content with that vulgar answer viz. That under the Old Testament God was worshipped in types and figures of things to come but in the New men should worship the Father in spirit and truth that is according to the verity of the things presignified not that they should worship him without all gestures or postures of Body to which purpose it is wont to be alledged But all this while my mind is upon another matter which at length I am gotten unto viz. your strange construction and censure of the pains I took in opening my thoughts so freely unto you concerning these matters of reverential posture and gesture in respect of that interlaced piece wherein I intimated the Eucharist to have in it ratio sacrificii For 1. Because in the close of my Letter I expressed my fear of some Iudgment to befall the Reformed Churches because out of the immoderation of their zeal they had in a manner taken away all Difference between Sacred and Prophane you will needs suspect I aimed to make the present Iudgments of God upon Christendom to be for neglect of that Sacrifice which I had spoken of a thing I never thought of nor thought so plain an expression of my meaning could ever have been so mistaken I pray let me intreat you to read over those papers once again and then tell me with whom the fault is For why Is not to esteem the Eucharist a Sacrament to account it a Sacred thing unless it be accounted a Sacrifice 2. It seems strange to you that a matter of so great importance as I seem to make this Sacrifice to be should have so little evidence in God's Word and Antiquity and depend merely upon certain conjectures As for Scripture if you mean the name of Sacrifice neither is the name Sacrament nor Eucharist according to our Expositions there to be found no more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet may not the thing be But when you speak of so little Evidence to be found in Antiquity I cannot but think such an Affirmation far more strange than you can possibly my Opinion For what is there in Christianity for which more Antiquity may be brought than for this I speak not now of the Fathers meaning whether I guessed rightly at it or not but in general of their Notion of a Sacrifice in the Eucharist If there be little Antiquity for this there is no Antiquity for any thing Eusebius Altkircherus a Calvinist printed Neustadii Palatinorum 1584. 1591. De mystico incruento Ecclesiae Sacrificio pag. 6. Fuit haec perpetua semper omnium Ecclesiasticorum Patrum concors unanimis sententia Quòd instituta per Christum passionis mortis suae in Sacra Coena memoria etiam Sacrificii in se contineret commendationem Bishop Morton in Epist. Dedicator prefixed to his Book of the Eucharist Apud veteres Patres ut quod res est liberè fateamur de Sacrificio Corporis Christi in Eucharistia incruento frequens est mentio quae dici vix potest quantopere quorundam alioqui doctorum hominum ingenia exercuerit torserit vexaver◠aut è contrà quà m jactanter Pontificii de ea re se ostentent And that in the Age immediately following the Apostles the Eucharist was generally conceived of under the name and notion of a Sacrifice to omit the Testimonies of Ignatius and Iustin Martyr take only this of Irenaeus Lib. 4. cap. 32. Dominus discipulis suis dans consilium primitias Deo offerre ex suis creaturis eum qui ex creatura Panis est accepit gratias egit dicens Hoc est Corpus meum Calicem similiter qui est ex ea creatura quae est secundùm nos suum Sanguinem confessus est Novi Testamenti novam docuit Oblationem quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens in universo mundo offert Deo c. And chap. 34. Igitur Ecclesiae Oblatio quam