Institution 14. Two days before the 〈◊〉 the Scribes and Pharisees called a council to contrive crafty ways of 〈◊〉 Jesus they not daring to do it by open violence Of which meeting when Judas 〈◊〉 had notice for those assemblies were publick and notorious he ran from 〈◊〉 and offered himself to betray his Master to them if they would give him a considerable reward They agreed for thirty pieces of silver Of what value each piece was is uncertain but their own Nation hath given a rule that when a piece of silver is named in the Pentateuch it signifies a sicle if it be named in the Prophets it signifies a pound if in the other writings of the Old Testament it signifies a talent This therefore being alledged out of the Prophet Jeremy by one of the Evangelists it is probable the price at which Judas sold his Lord was thirty pound weight of silver a 〈◊〉 price for the Saviour of the world to be prized at by his undiscerning and unworthy Countreymen 15. The next day was the first day of 〈◊〉 bread on which it was necessary they should kill the Passeover therefore Jesus sent Peter and John to the City to a certain man whom they should 〈◊〉 carrying a pitcher of water to his house him they should follow and there prepare the Passeover They went and found the man in the same circumstances and prepared for Jesus and his Family who at the even came to celebrate the Passeover It was the house of John surnamed Mark which had always been open to this blessed Family where he was pleased to finish his last Supper and the mysteriousness of the Vespers of his Passion 16. When evening was come Jesus stood with his Disciples and 〈◊〉 the Paschal Lamb after which he girt himself with 〈◊〉 and taking a bason washed the feet of his Disciples not only by the ceremony but in his discourses instructing them in the doctrine of Humility which the Master by his so great 〈◊〉 to his Disciples had made sacred and imprinted the lesson in lasting characters by making it symbolical But Peter was unwilling to be washed by his Lord until he was told he must renounce his part in him unless he were washed which option being given to Peter he cried out Not my feet only but my hands and my head But Jesus said the ablution of the feet was sufficient for the purification of the whole man relating to the custom of those Countreys who used to go to supper immediately from the baths who therefore were sufficiently clean save only on their feet by reason of the dust contracted in their passage from the baths to the dining-rooms from which when by the hospitable master of the house they were caused to be cleansed they needed no more ablution and by it Jesus passing from the letter to the spirit meant that the body of sin was washed in the baths of Baptism and afterwards if we remained in the same state of purity it was only necessary to purge away the filth contracted in our passage from the Font to the Altar and then we are clean all over when the 〈◊〉 state is unaltered and the little adherencies of imperfection and passions are also washed off 17. But after the 〈◊〉 of the Paschal Lamb it was the custom of the Nation to sit down to a second Supper in which they ate herbs and unlevened bread the Major-domo first dipping his morsel and then the family after which the Father brake bread into pieces and distributed a part to every of the Guests and first drinking himself gave to the rest the chalice filled with wine according to the age and dignity of the person adding to each distribution a form of benediction proper to the mystery which was Eucharistical and commemorative of their Deliverance from Egypt This Supper Jesus being to celebrate changed the forms of benediction turned the Ceremony into Mystery and gave his body and bloud in Sacrament and religious configuration so instituting the venerable Sacrament which from the time of its institution is called the Lord's Supper which rite Jesus commanded the Apostles to perpetuate in commemoration of him their Lord until his second coming And this was the first delegation of a perpetual Ministery which Jesus made to his Apostles in which they were to be succeeded to in all generations of the Church 18. But Jesus being troubled in spirit told his Apostles that one of them should betray him which Prediction he made that they might not be scandalized at the sadness of objection of the Passion but be confirmed in their belief seeing so great demonstration of his wisdom and spirit of Prophecy The Disciples were all troubled at this 〈◊〉 arrest looking one on another and doubting of whom he spake but they beckned to the beloved Disciple 〈◊〉 on Jesus's breast that he might ask for they who knew their own innocency and infirmity were desirous to satisfie their curiosity and to be rid of their indetermination and their fear But Jesus being asked gave them a sign and a 〈◊〉 to Judas commanding him to do what he list speedily for Jesus was extremely 〈◊〉 till he had drunk the chalice off and accomplished his mysterious and 〈◊〉 Baptism After Judas received the sop the Devil entred into him and Judas went forth immediately it being now night 19. When he was gone out Jesus began his Farewel-Sermon rarely mixt of sadness and joys and studded with mysteries as with Emeralds discoursing of the glorification of God in his Son and of those glories which the Father had prepared for him of his sudden departure and his migration to a place whither they could not come yet but afterwards they should meaning first to death and then to glory commanding them to love one another and foretelling to Peter who made consident protests that he would die with his Master that before the cock should crow twice he should deny him thrice But lest he should afflict them with too sad representments of his present condition he comforts them with the comforts of Faith with the intendments of his departure to prepare places in Heaven for them whither they might come by him who is the way the truth and the life adding a promise in order to their present support and future felicities that if they should ask of God any thing in his name they should receive it and upon condition they would love him and keep his Commandments he would pray for the Holy Ghost to come upon them to supply his room to furnish them with proportionable comforts to enable them with great Gifts to lead them into all truth and to abide with them for ever Then arming them against future Persecutions giving them divers holy Precepts discoursing of his emanation from the Father and of the necessity of his departure he gave them his blessing and prayed for them and then having sung a Hymn which was part of the great Allelujah beginning at the 114 Psalm
to natural light being conversant about those things that do not derive their value and authority from any arbitrary constitutions but from the moral and intrinsick nature of the things themselves These Laws as being the results and dictates of right reason are especially as to their first and more immediate emanations the same in all Men in the World and in all Times and Places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ' as the Jewes call them Precepts that are evident among all Nations indeed they are interwoven into Mens nature inserted into the texture and constitution of their minds and do discover themselves as soon as ever they arrive to the free use and exercise of their reason That there are such Laws and Principles naturally planted in Mens breasts is evident from the consent of Mankind and the common experience of the World Whence else comes it to pass that all wicked Men even among the Heathens themselves after the commission of gross sins such as do more sensibly rouze and awaken conscience are filled with horrours and fears of punishment but because they are conscious to themselves of having violated some Law and Rule of Duty Now what Law can this be not the written and revealed Law for this the Heathens never had it must be therefore the inbred Law of Nature that 's born with them and fixed in their minds antecedently to any external revelation For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature by the light and evidence by the force and tendency of their natural notions and dictates the things contained in the Law these having not a Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the reasonings of their minds in the mean while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by turns accusing or else excusing one another that is although they had not a written Law as the Jewes had of old and we Christians have at this day yet by the help of their natural Principles they performed the same actions and discharged the same Duties that are contained in and commanded by the written and external Law shewing by their practices that they had a Law some common notions of good and evil written in their hearts And to this their very Consciences bear witness for according as they either observe or break these natural Laws their Consciences do either acquit or condemn them Hence we find God in the very infancy of the World appealing to Gain for the truth of this as a thing sufficiently plain and obvious Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen if thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be lift up able to walk with a pleased and a chearful countenance the great indication of a mind satisfied in the conscience of its duty but if thou doest not well sin lies at the door the punishments of sin will be ready to follow thee and conscience as a Minister of vengeance will perpetually pursue and haunt thee By these Laws Mankind was principally governed in the first Ages of the World there being for near Two Thousand Years no other fixed and standing Rule of Duty than the dictates of this Law of Nature those Principles of Vice and Vertue of Justice and Honesty that are written in the heart of every Man 3. THE Jewes very frequently tell us of some particular commands to the number of Seven which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Precepts of the Sons of Noah Six whereof were given to Adam and his Children and the Seventh given to Noah which they thus reckon up The first was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning strange worship that they should not give Divine honour to Idols or the Gods of the Heathens answerable to the two first commands of the Decalogue Thou shalt have no other Gods but me thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath or in the Water under the Earth thou shalt not bow down thy self to them or serve them for c. From the violation of this Law it was that Job one of the Patriarchs that lived under this dispensation solemnly purges himself when speaking concerning the worship of the Celestial Lights the great if not only Idolatry of those early Ages says he if I beheld the Sun when it shined or the Moon walking in her brightness and my heart hath been secretly inticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge for I should have denied the God that is above The second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning blessing or worshipping that they should not blaspheme the Name of God This Law Job also had respect to when he was careful to sanctifie his Children and to propitiate the Divine Majesty for them every Morning for it may be said he that my Sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts The third was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the shedding of blood forbidding Man-slaughter a Law expresly renewed to Noah after the Flood and which possibly Job aimed at when he vindicates himself that he had not rejoyced at the destruction of him that hated him or lift up himself when evil found him Nor was all effusion of humane blood forbidden by this Law capital punishments being in some cases necessary for the preservation of humane Society but only that no Man should shed the blood of an innocent Person or pursue a private revenge without the warrant of publick Authority The fourth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the disclosing of uncleanness against filthiness and adultery unlawful marriages and incestuous mixtures If mine heart says Job in his Apology hath been deceived by a Woman or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's door then let my Wife grind c. for this is an heinous crime yea it is an iniquity to be punished by the Judges The fifth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning theft and rapine the invading another Man's right and property the violation of bargains and compacts the falsifying a Man's word or promise the deceiving of another by fraud lying or any evil arts From all which Job justifies himself that he had not walked with vanity nor had his foot hasted to deceit that his step had not turned out of the way nor his heart walked after his eyes nor any blot cleaved to his hands And elsewhere he bewails it as the great iniquity of the Times that there were some that removed the Land-marks that violently took away the Flocks and fed thereof that drove away the Asse of the Fatherless and took the Widows Oxe for a pledge that turned the needy out of the way and made the poor of the Earth hide themselves together c. The sixth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
yet in the midst of judgment he remembers mercy he tells them that though he would not suffer his patience to be eternally prostituted to the wanton humours of wicked men yet that he would bear with them CXX Years longer in order to their reformation So loth is God to take advantage of the sins of men not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto repentance In the mean time righteous Noah found favour with Heaven a good man hath a peculiar guardianship and protection in the worst of times and God orders him to prepare an Ark for the saving of his House An Hundred Years was this Ark in building not but that it might have been finished in a far less time but that God was willing to give them so long a space for wise and sober considerations Noah preaching all the while both by his doctrine and his practice that they would break off their sins by repentance and prevent their ruine But they that are filthy will be filthy still the hardned World persisted in their impieties till the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost and destroyed the World of the ungodly God shut up Noah his Wife his three Sons and their Wives into the Ark together with provisions and so many Creatures of every sort as were sufficient not only for food but for reparation of the kind Miracles must not be expected where ordinary means may be 〈◊〉 and then opened the Windows of Heaven and broke up the Fountains of the Deep and brought in the Flood that swept all away Twelve months Noah and his Family continued in this floating habitation when the Waters being gone and the Earth dried he came forth and the first thing he did was to erect an Altar and offer up an Eucharistical Sacrifice to God for 〈◊〉 remarkable a deliverance some of the Jews tell us that coming out of the Ark he was bitten by a Lion and rendred unfit for Sacrifice and that therefore Sem did it in his room he did not concern himself for food or a present habitation but immediately betook himself to his devotion God was infinitely pleased with the pious and grateful sense of the good man and openly declared that his displeasure was over and that he would no more bring upon the World such effects of his severity as he had lately done and that the Ordinances of Nature should duly perform their constant motions and regularly observe their periodical revolutions And because Man was the principal Creature in this lower World he restored to him his Charter of Dominion and Soveraignty over the Creatures and by enacting some Laws against Murder and Cruelty secured the peace and happiness of his life and then established a 〈◊〉 with Noah and all Mankind that he would no more drown the World for the ratification and ensurance whereof he placed the Rain-bow in the Clouds as a perpetual sign and memorial of his Promise Noah after this betook himself to Husbandry and planting Vineyards and being unwarily overtaken with the fruit of the Vine became a scorn to C ham one of his own Sons while the two others piously covered their Fathers shame A wakeing out of his sleep and knowing what had been done he prophetically cursed Cham and his Posterity blessed Sem and in Japhet foretold the calling of the Gentiles to the worship of God and the knowledge of the Messiah that God should enlarge Japhet and that he should dwell in the Tents of Shem. He died in the DCCCCL Year of his Age having seen both Worlds that before the Flood and that which came after it 16. SEM and Japhet were the two good Sons of Noah in the assigning whose primogeniture though the Scripture be not positive and decretory yet do the most probable reasons appear for Japhet especially if we compute their Age. Sem was an Hundred Years old two Years after the Flood for 〈◊〉 he begat Arphaxad now the Flood hapned just in the DC Year of Noah's Age whence it follows that Sem was born when his Father was Five Hundred and Two Years old But Noah being expresly said to have begotten Sons in the Five Hundredth Year of his Age plain it is that there must be another Son two Years Elder than Sem which could be no other than Japhet Cham being acknowledged by all the Younger Brother And hence it is that Sem is called the Brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Japhet the Greater or as we render it the Elder They were both pious and devout Men having been brought up under the religious Institutions not only of their Father Noah but their Grand-father 〈◊〉 and their Great-grand-father Methuselah who had for some Hundreds of Years conversed with Adam The holy story records nothing concerning the state of Religion in their days and little heed 〈◊〉 to be given to the Eastern Writers when they tell us of Sem that according to the command of his Father he took the Body of Adam which Noah had secretly hidden in the Ark and joyning himself to Melchisedec they went and 〈◊〉 it in the heart of the Earth an Angel going before and conducting them to the placewith a great deal more with little truth and to as little purpose As for the 〈◊〉 born after the Flood little notice is taken of them besides the 〈◊〉 mention of their names Arphaxad Salah Eber. Of this last they say that he was a great 〈◊〉 that he instituted Schools and Seminaries for the advancement and propagation of 〈◊〉 and there was great reason for him to bestir himself if it be true what the Arabian Historians tell us that now Idolatry began mightily to prevail and men generally carved to themselves the Images of their Ancestors to which upon all occasions they addressed themselves with the most solemn veneration the Daemons giving answers through the Images wich they worshipped Heber was the Father of the Jewish Nation who from him are said to have derived the title of Hebrews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus tells us though there want not those who assign other reasons of the name and that the Hebrew Language was preserved in his family which till his time had been the mother-tongue and the common Language of the World To Eber succeeded his son Peleg a name given him out of a Prophetical foresight of that memorable division that hapned in his time For now it was that a company of bold daring persons combining themselves under the conduct and command of Nimrod resolved to erect a vast and stupendous Fabrick partly to raise themselves a mighty reputation in the World partly to secure themselves from the Invasion of an after-deluge and probably as a place of retreat and defence the better to enable them to put in practice that oppression and tyranny which they designed to exercise over the World But whatever it was God was displeased with the attempt and to shew how easily he can basfle the
was the Sabbath which was to be kept with all imaginable care and strictness they being commanded to rest in it from all servile labours and to attend the Duties and Offices of Religion a type of that rest that remains for the People of God Their monthly Festivals were the New-moons wherein they were to blow the Trumpets over their Sacrifices and Oblations and to observe them with great expressions of joy and triumph in a thankful resentment of the blessings which all that Month had been conferred upon them Their Annual Solemnities were either ordinary or extraordinary Ordinary were those that returned every Year whereof the first was the Passover to be celebrated upon the Fourteenth day of the first Month as a Memorial of their great deliverance out of Egypt The second Pentecost called also the Feast of Weeks because just seven Weeks or fifty days after the Passover Instituted it was partly in memory of the promulgation of the Law published at Mount Sinai fifty days after their celebration of the Passover in Egypt partly as a thanksgiving for the in gathering of their Harvest which usually was fully brought in about this time The third was the Feast of Tabernacles kept upon the Fifteenth day of the Seventh Month for the space of Seven days together at which time they dwelt in Booths made of green Boughs as a memento of that time when they sojourn'd in Tents and Tabernacles in the Wilderness and a sensible demonstration of the transitory duration of the present life that the Earthly house of our Tabernacle must be dissolved and that therefore we should secure a building of God an house not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens These were the three great solemnities wherein all the Males were obliged to appear at Jerusalem and to present themselves and their offerings in testimony of their homage and devotion unto God Besides which they had some of lesser moment such as their Feast of Trumpets and that of Expiation The Annual Festivals extraordinary were those that recurr'd but once in the periodical return of several years such was the Sabbatical year wherein the Land was to lye fallow and to rest from ploughing and sowing and all manner of cultivation and this was to be every seventh year typifying the Eternal Sabbatism in Heaven where good men shall rest from their labours and their works shall follow them But the great Sabbatical year of all was that of Jubilee which returned at the end of seven ordinary Sabbatick years that is every fiftieth year the approach whereof was proclaimed by the sound of Trumpets in it servants were released all debts discharged and mortgaged Estates reverted to their proper heirs And how evidently did this shadow out the state of the Gospel and our Lord 's being sent to preach good tidings to the meek to bind up the broken hearted to preach liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord that they might lift up their heads because their redemption drew nigh 8. LASTLY They had Laws concerning the persons by whom their publick worship was administred and here there was appointed an High Priest who had his proper offices and rules of duty his peculiar attire and consecration ordinary Priests whose business was to instruct the people to Pray and offer sacrifice to bless the Congregation and judge in cases of Leprosie and such like at their Ordination they were to be chosen before all the people to be sprinkled with the water of Expiation their Hair shaved and their Bodies washed afterwards anointed and sacrifices to be offered for them and then they might enter upon their Priestly ministrations Next to these were the Levites who were to assist the Priests in preparing the Sacrifices to bear the Tabernacle while it lasted and lay up its Vessels and Utensils to purifie and cleanse the Vessels and Instruments to guard the Courts and Chambers of the Temple to watch weekly in the Temple by their turns to sing and celebrate the praises of God with Hymns and Musical Instruments and to joyn with the Priests in judging and determining Ceremonial causes they were not to be taken into the full discharge of their Function till the thirtieth nor to be kept at it beyond the fiftieth year of their age God mercifully thinking it fit to give them then a Writ of Ease whose strength might be presumed sufficiently impaired by truckling for so many years under such toilsom and laborious ministrations Though the Levitical Priests were types of Christ yet it was the High Priest who did eminently typifie him and that in the unity and singularity of his office for though many Orders and Courses of inferior Priests and Ministers yet was there but one High Priest There is one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus in the qualifications necessary to his election as to place he was to be taken out of the Tribe of Levi as to his person which was to be every ways perfect and comely and the manner of his Consecration in his singular capacity that he alone might enter into the holy of holies which he did once every year upon the great day of Expiation with a mighty pomp and train of Ceremonies killing Sacrifices burning Incense sprinkling the bloud of the Sacrifice before and upon the Mercy-seat going within the veil and making an attonement within the holy place All which immediately referred to Christ who by the sacrifice of himself and through the veil of his own flesh entred not into the holy place made with hands but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us All which might be represented more at large but that I intend not a discourse about these matters 9. BESIDES the Laws which we have hitherto enumerated there were several other particular Commands Ritual Constitutions about Meats and Drinks and other parts of humane life Such was the difference they were to make between the Creatures some to be clean and others unclean such were several sorts of pollution and uncleanness which were not in their own nature sins but Ceremonial defilements of this kind were several provisions about Apparel Diet and the ordering Family-affairs all evidently of a Ceremonial aspect but too long to be insisted on in this place The main design of this Ceremonial Law was to point out to us the Evangelical state The Law had only a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things themselves the body was Christ and therefore though the Law came by Moses yet grace and truth the truth of all those types and figures came by Christ. It was time for Moses to resign the Chair when once this great Prophet was come into the World Ceremonies could no longer be of use when once the substance was at hand well may the Stars disappear at the rising of the Sun the Messiah being cut off
Birth His austere Education and way of Life His Preaching what His initiating proselytes by Baptism Baptism in use in the Jewish Church It s Original whence His resolution and impartiality His Martyrdom The character given him by Josephus and the Jews The Evangelical Dispensation wherein it exceeds that of Moses It s 〈◊〉 and perfection It s agreeableness to humane nature The Evangelical promises better than those of the Law and in what respects The aids of the Spirit plentifully assorded under the Gospel The admirable confirmation of this Occonomy The great extent and latitude of it Judaism not capable of being communicated to all mankind The comprehensiveness of the Gospel The Duration of the Evangelical Covenant The Mosaical Statutes in what sence said to be for ever The Typical and transient nature of that State The great happiness of Christians under the Occonomy of the Gospel 1. GOD having from the very infancy of the World promised the Messiah as the great Redeemer of Mankind was accordingly pleased in all Ages to make gradual discoveries and manifestations of him the revelations concerning him in every Dispensation of the Church still shining with a bigger and more particular light the nearer this Sun of Righteousness was to his rising The first Gospel and glad tidings of him commenced with the fall of Adam God out of infinite tenderness and commiseration promising to send a person who should triumphantly vindicate and rescue mankind from the power and tyranny of their Enemies and that he should do this by taking the humane nature upon him and being born of the seed of the Woman No further account is given of him till the times of Abraham to whom it was revealed that he should proceed out of his loins and arise out of the Jewish Nation though both Jew and Gentile should be made happy by him To his Grandchild Jacob God made known out of what Tribe of that Nation he should rise the Tribe of Judah and what would be the time of his appearing viz. the departure of the Scepter from Judah the abrogation of the Civil and Legislative power of that Tribe and People accomplished in Herod the Idumaean set over them by the Roman power And this is all we find concerning him under that Oeconomy Under the Legal Dispensation we find Moses foretelling one main 〈◊〉 of his coming which was to be the great Prophet of the Church to whom all were to hearken as an extraordinary person sent from God to acquaint the World with the Councils and the Laws of Heaven The next news we hear of him is from David who was told that he should spring out of his house and family and who frequently speaks of his sufferings and the particular manner of his death by piercing his hands and his feet of his powerful Resurrection that God would not leave his Soul in Hell nor suffer his holy one to see corruption of his triumphant Ascension into Heaven and glorious session at God's right hand From the Prophet Isaiah we have an account of the extraordinary and miraculous manner of his Birth that he should be born of a Virgin and his name be Immanuel of his incomparable furniture of gifts and graces for the execution of his office of the entertainment he was to meet with in the World and of the nature and design of those sufferings which he was to undergo The place of his Birth was foretold by Micah which was to be 〈◊〉 the least of the Cities of Judah but honoured above all the rest with the nativity of a Prince who was to be Ruler in Israel whose goings forth had been from everlasting Lastly the Prophet Daniel 〈◊〉 the particular period of his coming expresly affirming that the Messiah should appear in the World and be cut off as a Victim and Expiation for the sins of the people at the expiration of LXX prophetical weeks or CCCCXC years which accordingly punctually came to pass 2. FOR the date of the prophetick Scriptures concerning the time of the 〈◊〉 's coming being now run out In the fulness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to 〈◊〉 them that were under the Law This being the truth of which God spake by the mouth of all his holy Prophets which have been since the World began But because it was not sit that so great a Person should come into the World without an eminent Harbinger to introduce and usher in his Arrival God had promised that he would send his Messenger who should prepare his way before him even 〈◊〉 the Prophet whom he would send before the coming of that great day of the Lord who should turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children c. This was particularly accomplished in John the Baptist who came in the power and spirit of Elias He was the Morning-star to the Son of Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Cyril says of him the great and eminent Fore-runner a Person remarkable upon several accounts First for the extraordinary circumstances of his Nativity his Birth foretold by an Angel sent on purpose to deliver this joyful Message a sign God intended him for great undertakings this being never done but where God designed the Person for some uncommon services his Parents aged and though both righteous before God yet hitherto Childless Heaven does not dispence all its bounty to the same Person Children though great and desirable blessings are yet often denied to those for whom God has otherwise very dear regards Elizabeth was barren and they were both well stricken in years But is any thing too hard for the Lord said God to Abraham in the same case God has the Key of the Womb in his own keeping it is one of the Divine Prerogatives that he makes the barren Woman to keep house and to be a joyful Mother of Children A Son is promised and mighty things said of him a promise which old Zachary had scarce faith enough to digest and therefore had the assurance of it sealed to him by a miraculous dumbness imposed upon him till it was made good the same Miracle at once confirming his faith and punishing his infidelity Accordingly his Mother conceived with Child and as if he would do part of his errand before he was born he leaped in her Womb at her salutation of the Virgin Mary then newly conceived with Child of our Blessed Saviour a piece of homage paid by one to one yet unborn 3. THESE presages were not vain and fallible but produced a Person no less memorable for the admirable strictness and austerity of his 〈◊〉 For having escaped Herod's butcherly and merciless Executioners the Divine providence being a shelter and a covert to him and been educated among the rudenesses and solitudes of the Wilderness his manners and way of life were very 〈◊〉 to his Education His Garments borrowed from no other Wardrobe than the backs
had bravely discoursed of the happy state of good men in the other Life plainly consessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and 〈◊〉 which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our 〈◊〉 state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it 〈◊〉 uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the insluences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and sloods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit 〈◊〉 enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to 〈◊〉 in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this 〈◊〉 is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods 〈◊〉 by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he 〈◊〉 down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when out Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so t were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious
death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the 〈◊〉 extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideons Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jewes themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jewes or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all 〈◊〉 and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their 〈◊〉 unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined onely to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or
revealed and we shall remain ignorant for ever of many natural things unless they be revealed and unless we knew all the secrets of Philosophy the mysteries of Nature and the rules and propositions of all things and all creatures we are fools if we say that what we call an Article of Faith I mean truly such is against natural Reason It may be indeed as much against our natural reasonings as those reasonings are against truth But if we remember how great an ignorance dwells upon us all it will be found the most reasonable thing in the world only to enquire whether God hath revealed any such Proposition and then not to say It is against natural Reason and therefore an Article of Faith but I am told a truth which I knew not till now and so my Reason is become instructed into a new Proposition And although Christ hath given us no new moral Precepts but such which were essentially and naturally reasonable in order to the End of Man's Creation yet we may easily suppose him to teach us many a new Truth which we knew not and to explicate to us many particulars of that estate which God designed for Man in his first production but yet did not then declare to him and to furnish him with new Revelations and to signifie the greatness of the designed End to become so many arguments of indearment to secure his Duty that is indeed to secure his Happiness by the infallible using the instruments of attaining it 30. This is all I am to say concerning the Precepts of Religion Jesus taught us he took off those many superinduced Rites which God injoyned to the Jews and reduced us to the natural Religion that is to such expressions of Duty which all wise men and Nations used save only that he took away the Rite of sacrificing Beasts because it was now determined in the great Sacrifice of Himself which sufficiently and eternally reconciled all the world to God All the other things as Prayers and Adoration and Eucharist and Faith in God are of a natural order and an unalterable expression And in the nature of the thing there is no other way of address to God than these no other expression of his Glories and our needs both which must for ever be signified 31. Secondly Concerning the Second natural Precept Christian Religion hath also added nothing beyond the first obligation but explained it all Whatsoever ye would men should do to you do ye so to them that is the eternal rule of Justice and that binds contracts keeps promises affirms truth makes Subjects obedient and Princes just it gives security to Marts and Banks and introduces an equality of condition upon all the world save only when an inequality is necessary that is in the relations of Government for the preservation of the common rights of equal titles and possessions that there be some common term indued with power who is to be the Father of all men by an equal provision that every man's rights be secured by that fear which naturally we shall bear to him who can and will punish all unreasonable and unjust violations of Property And concerning this also the Holy Jesus hath added an express Precept of paying Tribute and all Caesar's dues to Caesar in all other particulars it is necessary that the instances and minutes of Justice be appointed by the Laws and Customs of the several Kingdoms and Republicks And therefore it was that Christianity so well combined with the Government of Heathen Princes because whatsoever was naturally just or declared so by the Political power their Religion bound them to observe making Obedience to be a double duty a duty both of Justice and Religion And the societies of Christians growing up from Conventicles to Assemblies from Assemblies to Societies introduced no change in the Government but by little and little turned the Commonwealth into a Church till the World being Christian and Justice also being Religion Obedience to Princes observation of Laws honesty in Contracts faithfulness in promises gratitude to benefactors simplicity in discourse and ingenuity in all pretences and transactions became the Characterisms of Christian men and the word of a Christian the greatest solemnity of stipulation in the world 32. But concerning the general I consider that in two very great instances it was remonstrated that Christianity was the greatest prosecution of natural Justice and equality in the whole world The one was in an election of an A postle into the place of Judas when there were two equal Candidates of the same pretension and capacity the Question was determined by Lots which naturally was the arbitration in questions whose parts were wholly indifferent and as it was used in all times so it is to this day used with us in many places where lest there be a disagreement concerning the manner of tithing some creatures and to prevent unequal arts and unjust practices they are tithed by lot and their sortuitous passing through the door of their sold. The other is in the Coenobitick life of the first Christians and Apostles they had all things in common which was that state of nature in which men lived charitably and without injustice before the distinction of dominions and private rights But from this manner of life they were soon driven by the publick necessity and constitution of affairs 33. Thirdly Whatsoever else is in the Christian Law concerns the natural precept of Sobriety in which there is some variety and some difficulty In the matter of 〈◊〉 the Holy Jesus did clearly reduce us to the first institution of Marriage in Paradise allowing no other mixture but what was first intended in the creation and first sacramental union and in the instance he so permitted us to the natural Law that he was pleased to mention no instance of forbidden Lust but in general and comprehensive terms of Adultery and Fornication in the other which are still more unnatural as their names are concealed and hidden in shame and secrecy we are to have no instructer but the modesty and order of Nature 34. As an instance of this Law of Sobriety Christ superadded the whole doctrine of Humility which Moses did not and which seem'd almost to be extinguished in the world and it is called by S. Paul sapere ad sobrietatem the reasonableness or wisdom of sobriety And it is all the reason in the world that a man should think of himself but just as he is He is deceived that thinks otherwise and is a fool And when we consider that Pride makes wars and causes affronts and no man loves a proud man and he loves no man but himself and his flatterers we shall understand that the Precept of Humility is an excellent art and a happy instrument towards humane Felicity And it is no way contradicted by a natural desire of Honour it only appoints just and reasonable ways of obtaining it We are not forbidden to
oftentimes the Custom or the Philosophy of the opinions of a Nation are made instrumental through God's acceptance to ends higher than they can produce by their own energy and intendment And thus the Astrological Divinations of the Magi were turned into the order of a greater design than the whole Art could promise their imployment being altered into Grace and Nature into a Miracle But then when the Wise men were brought by this means and had seen Jesus then God takes ways more immediate and proportionable to the Kingdom of Grace the next time God speaks to them by an Angel For so is God's usual manner to bring us to him first by ways agreeable to us and then to increase by ways agreeable to himself And when he hath furnished us with new capacities he gives new Lights in order to more perfect imployments and To him that hath shall be given full measure pressed down shaken together and running over the eternal kindness of God being like the Sea which delights to run in its old Chanel and to fill the hollownesses of the Earth which it self hath made and hath once watered 5. This Star which conducted the Wise men to Bethlehem if at least it was proproperly a Star and not an Angel was set in its place to be seen by all but was not observed or not understood nor its message obeyed by any but the three Wise men And indeed no man hath cause to complain of God as if ever he would be deficient in assistances necessary to his Service but first the Grace of God separates us from the common condition of incapacity and indisposition and then we separate our selves one from another by the use or neglect of this Grace and God doing his part to us hath cause to complain of us who neglect that which is our portion of the work And however even the issues and the kindnesses of God's Predestination and antecedent Mercy do very much toward the making the Grace to be effective of its purpose yet the manner of all those influences and operations being moral perswasive reasonable and divisible by concourse of various circumstances the cause and the effect are brought nearer and nearer in various suscipients but not brought so close together but that God expects us to do something towards it so that we may say with S. Paul It is not I but the Grace of God that is with me and at the same time when by reason of our cooperation we actuate and improve God's Grace and become distinguished from other persons more negligent under the same opportunities God is he who also does distinguish us by the proportions and circumstantiate applications of his Grace to every singular capacity that we may be careful not to neglect the Grace and yet to return the intire glory to God 6. Although God to second the generous design of these wise personages in their Enquiry of the new Prince made the Star to guide them through the difficulties of their journey yet when they came to Jerusalem the Star disappeared God so resolving to try their Faith and the activity of their desires to remonstrate to them that God is the Lord of all his Creatures and a voluntary Dispenser of his own favours and can as well take them away as indulge them and to engage them upon the use of ordinary means and ministeries when they are to be had for now the extraordinary and miraculous Guide for a time did cease that they being at Jerusalem might enquire of them whose office and profession of sacred Mysteries did oblige them to publish the MESSIAS For God is so great a lover of Order so regular and certain an exactor of us to use those ordinary ministeries of his own appointing that he having used the extraordinary but as Architects do frames of wood to support the Arches till they be built takes them away when the work is ready and leaves us to those other of his designation and hath given such efficacy to these that they are as perswasive and operative as a Miracle and S. Paul's Sermon would convert as many as if Moses should rise from the grave And now the Doctrines of Christianity have not only the same truth but the same evidence and virtue also they had in the midst of those prime demonstrations extraordinary by Miracle and Prophecy if men were equally disposed 7. When they were come to the Doctors of the Jews they asked confidently and with great openness under the ear and eye of a Tyrant Prince bloudy and timorous jealous and ambitious Where is he that is born King of the Jews and so gave evidence of their Faith of their Magnanimity and fearless confidence and profession of it and of their love of the mystery and object in pursuance of which they had taken so troublesome and vexatious journeys and besides that they upbraided the tepidity and 〈◊〉 baseness of the Jewish Nation who stood unmoved and unconcerned by all the Circumstances of wonder and stirred not one step to make enquiry after or to visit the new-born King they also teach us to be open and confident in our Religion and Faith and not to consider our temporal when they once come to contest against our Religious interests 8. The Doctors of the Jews told the Wise men where Christ was to be born the Magi they address themselves with haste to see him and to worship and the Doctors themselves stir not God not only serving himself with truth out of the mouths of impious persons but magnifying the recesses of his Counsel and Wisdom and Predestination who uses the same Doctrine to glorifie himself and to confound his enemies to save the Scholars and to condemn the Tutors to instruct one and upbraid the other making it an instrument of Faith and a conviction of Infidelity the Sermons of the Doctors in such cases being like the spoils of Bevers Sheep and Silk-worms design'd to clothe others and are made the occasions of their own nakedness and the causes of their death But as it is a demonstration of the Divine Wisdom so it is of humane Folly there being no greater imprudence in the world than to do others advantage and to neglect our own If thou dost well unto thy 〈◊〉 men will speak good of thee but if thou beest like a Chanel in a Garden through which the water runs to cool and moisten the herbs but nothing for its own use thou buildest a fortune to them upon the ruines of thine own house while after thy preaching to others thou thy self dost become a cast-away 9. When the Wise men departed from Jerusalem the Star again appeared and they rejoyced with exceeding great joy and indeed to new Converts and persons in their first addresses to the worship of God such spiritual and exterior Comforts are often indulged because then God judges them to be most necessary as being invitations to Duty by the entertainments of our affections with such
Baptism of John joyned with confession of sins and publication of our infirmities yet it were better for us to lay by our loads and wash our ulcers than by concealing them out of vainer desires of impertinent reputation cover our disease till we are heart-sick and die But when so holy a person does all the pious Ministeries of the more imperfect it is a demonstration to us that a life common and ordinary without affectation or singularity is the most prudent and safe Every great change every violence of fortune all eminencies and unevennesses whatsoever whether of person or accident or circumstance puts us to a new trouble requires a distinct care creates new dangers objects more temptations marks us out the object of envy makes our standing more insecure and our fall more contemptible and ridiculous But an even life spent with as much rigour of duty to God as ought to be yet in the same manner of Devotions in the susception of ordinary Offices in bearing publick burthens frequenting publick Assemblies performing offices of civility receiving all the Rites of an established Religion complying with national Customs and hereditary Solemnities of a people in nothing disquieting publick peace or disrelishing the great instruments of an innocent communion or dissolving the circumstantial ligaments of Charity or breaking Laws and the great relations and necessitudes of the World out of fancy or singularity is the best way to live holily and 〈◊〉 and happily safer from sin and envy and more removed from trouble and temptation 2. When Jesus came to John to be baptized John out of humility and modesty refused him but when Jesus by reduplication of his desire fortifying it with a command made it in the Baptist to become a Duty then he obeyed And so also did the primitive Clerks refuse to do offices of great dignity and highest ministery looking through the honour upon the danger and passing by the Dignity they considered the charge of the Cure and knew that the eminency of the Office was in all sences insecure to the person till by command and peremptory injunction of their Superiours it was put past a dispute and became necessary and that either they must perish instantly in the ruines and precipices of Disobedience or put it to the hazard and a fair venture for a brighter crown or a bigger damnation I wish also this care were entailed and did descend upon all Ages of the Church for the ambitious seeking of Dignities and Prelacies Ecclesiastical is grown the Pest of the Church and corrupts the Salt it self and extinguishes the lights and gives too apparent evidences to the world that neither the end is pure nor the intention sanctified nor the person innocent but the purpose ambitious or covetous and the person vicious and the very entrance into Church offices is with an impure torch and a foul hand or a heart empty of the affections of Religion or thoughts of doing God's work I do not think the present Age is to be treated with concerning denying to accept rich Prelacies and pompous Dignities but it were but reasonable that the main intention and intellectual design should be to appreciate and esteem the Office and employment to be of greatest consideration It is lawful to desire a Bishoprick neither can the unwillingness to accept it be in a prudent account adjudged the aptest disposition to receive it especially if done in ceremony just in the instant of their entertainment of it and possibly after a long ambition but yet it were well if we remember that such desires must be sanctified with holy care and diligence in the Office for the hony is guarded with thousands of little sharp stings and dangers and it will be a sad account if we be called to audit for the crimes of our Diocese after our own Talleys are made even and he that believes his own load to be big enough and trembles at the apprehension of the horrors of Dooms-day is not very wise if he takes up those burthens which he sees have crushed their Bearers and presses his own shoulders till the bones crack only because the bundles are wrapt in white linen and bound with silken cords He that desires the Office of a Bishop desires a good work saith S. Paul and therefore we must not look on it for the fair-spreading Sails and the beauteous Streamers which the favour of Princes hath put to it to make it sail fairer and more secure against the dangers of secular discomforts but upon the Burthen it bears Prelacy is a good work and a good work well done is very honourable and shall be rewarded but he that considers the infinite dangers of miscarrying and that the 〈◊〉 of the Ship will be imputed to the Pilot may think it many times the safest course to put God or his Superiours to the charge of a Command before he undertakes such great Ministeries And he that enters in by the force of Authority as he himself receives a testimony of his worth and aptness to the employment so he gives the world another that his search for it was not criminal nor his person immodest and by his weighty apprehension of his dangers he will consider his work and obtain a grace to do it diligently and to be accepted graciously And this was the modesty and prudence of the Baptist. 3. When Jesus was baptized he prayed and the heavens were opened External Rites of Divine Institution receive benediction and energy from above but it is by the mediation of Prayer for there is nothing ritual but it is also joyned with something moral and required on our part in all persons capable of the use of Reason that we may 〈◊〉 that the blessings of Religion are works and Graces too God therefore requiring us to do something not that we may glory in it but that we may estimate the Grace and go to God for it in the means of his own hallowing Naaman had been stupid if when the Prophet bade him wash seven times in Jordan for his cure he had not confessed the cure to be wrought by the God of Israel and the ministery of his Prophet but had made himself the Author because of his obedience to the enjoyned condition and it is but a weak sancy to derogate from God's grace and the glory and the freedom of it because he bids us wash before we are cleansed and pray when we are washed and commands us to ask before we shall receive But this also is true from this instance that the external rite 〈◊〉 Sacrament is so instrumental in a spiritual Grace that it never does it but with the conjunction of something moral And this truth is of so great perswasion in the Greek Church that the mystery of Consecration in the venerable Eucharist is amongst them attributed not to any mystical words and secret operations of syllables but to the efficacy of the prayers of the Church in the just
God as holy Places of Religion must rise highest in this account I mean higher than any other places And this is besides the honour which God hath put upon them by his presence his title to them w ch in all Religions he hath signified to us 4. Indeed among the Jews as God had confined his Church and the rites of Religion to be used only in communion and participation with the Nation so also he had limited his Presence and was more sparing of it than in the time of the Gospel his Son declared he would be It was said of old that at Jerusalem men ought to worship that is by a solemn publick and great address in the capital expresses of Religion in the distinguishing rites of Liturgy for else it had been no new thing For in ordinary Prayers God was then and long before pleased to hear Jeremy in the dungeon Manasses in prison Daniel in the Lion's den Jonas in the belly of the deep and in the offices yet more solemn in the Proseuchae in the houses of prayer which the Jews had not only in their dispersion but even in Palestine for their diurnal and nocturnal offices But when the Holy Jesus had broken down the partition-wall then the most solemn Offices of Religion were as unlimited as their private Devotions were before for where-ever a Temple should be built thither God would come if he were worshipped spirituallly and in truth that is according to the rites of Christ who is Grace and Truth and the dictate of the Spirit and analogy of the Gospel All places were now alike to build Churches in or Memorials for God God's houses And that our Blessed Saviour discourses of places of publick Worship to the woman of Samaria is notorious because the whole question was concerning the great addresses of Moses's rites whether at Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim which were the places of the right and the 〈◊〉 Temple the 〈◊〉 of the whole Religion and in antithesis Jesus said Nor here nor there shall be the solemnities of address to God but in all places you may build a Temple and God will dwell in it 5. And this hath descended from the first beginnings of Religion down to the consummation of it in the perfections of the Gospel For the Apostles of our Lord carried the Offices of the Gospel into the Temple of Jerusalem there they preached and prayed and payed Vows but never that we read of offered Sacrifice which 〈◊〉 that the Offices purely Evangelical were proper to be done in any of God's proper places and that thither they went not in compliance with Moses's Rites but merely for Gospel-duties or for such Offices which were common to Moses and Christ such as were Prayers and Vows While the Temple was yet standing they had peculiar places for the Assemblies of the faithful where either by accident or observation or Religion or choice they met regularly And I instance in the house of John surnamed Mark which as Alexander reports in the life of S. Barnabas was consecrated by many actions of Religion by our Blessed Saviour's eating the 〈◊〉 his Institution of the holy Eucharist his Farewell-Sermon and the Apostles met there in the Octaves of Easter whither Christ came again and hallowed it with his presence and there to make up the relative Sanctification complete the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and this was erected into a fair 〈◊〉 and is mentioned as a famous Church by S. Jerome and V. Bede in which as 〈◊〉 adds S. Peter preached that 〈◊〉 which was miraculoasly prosperous in the Conversion of three thousand there S. James Brother of our Lord was 〈◊〉 first Bishop of Jerusalem S. Stephen and the other six were there ordained Deacons there the Apostles kept their first Council and 〈◊〉 their Creed by these actions and their frequent conventions shewing the same reason order and prudence of Religion in 〈◊〉 of special places of Divine service which were ever observed by all the Nations and Religions and wise men of the world And it were a strange imagination to 〈◊〉 that in Christian Religion there is any principle contrary to that wisdom or God and all the world which for order for necessity for convenience for the solemnity of Worship hath set apart Places for God and for Religion Private Prayer had always an unlimited residence and relation even under Moses's Law but the publick solemn Prayer of 〈◊〉 in the Law of Moses was restrained to one Temple In the Law of Nature it was not confined to one but yet determined to publick and solemn places and when the Holy Jesus disparked the inclosures of Moses we all returned to the permissions and liberty of the Natural Law in which although the publick and solemn Prayers were confined to a Temple yet the Temple was not consined to a place but they might be any-where so they were at all instruments of order conveniences of assembling residences of Religion and God who always loved order and was apt to hear all holy and prudent Prayers and therefore also the Prayers of Consecration hath often declared that he loves such Places that he will dwell in them not that they are advantages to him but that he is pleased to make them so to us And therefore all Nations of the world built publick Houses for Religion and since all Ages of the Church did so too it had need be a strong and a convincing argument that must shew they were deceived And if any man list to be 〈◊〉 he must be answered with S. Paul's reproof We have no such custom nor the Churches of God 6. Thus S. Paul reproved the Corinthians for despising the Church of God by such uses which were therefore unsit for God's because they were proper for their own that is for common houses And although they were at first and in the descending Ages so afflicted by the tyranny of enemies that they could not build many Churches yet some they did and the Churches themselves suffered part of the persecution For so 〈◊〉 reports that when under Severus and Gordianus 〈◊〉 and Galienus the Christian affairs were in a tolerable condition they built Churches in great number and expence But when the Persecution waxed hot under Diocletian down went the Churches upon a design to extinguish or disadvantage the Religion Maximinus gave leave to re-build them Upon which Rescript saith the story the Christians were overjoyed and raised them up to an incredible height and incomparable beauty This was Christian Religion then and so it hath continued-ever since and unless we should have new reason and new revelation it must continue so till our Churches are exchanged for Thrones and our Chappels for seats placed before the Lamb in the eternal Temple of celestial Jerusalem 7. And to this purpose it is observed that the Holy Jesus first ejected the Beasts of Sacrifice out of the Temple and then proclaimed the Place
For Faith being the gift of God and an illumination the Spirit of God will not give this light to them that prefer their darkness before it either the Will must open the windows or the light of Faith will not shine into the chamber of the Soul How can ye believe said our Blessed Saviour that receive honour one of another Ambition and Faith believing God and seeking of our selves are incompetent and totally incompossible And therefore Serapion Bishop of Thmuis spake like an Angel saith Socrates saying that the Mind which feedeth upon spiritual knowledge must throughly be cleansed The Irascible faculty must first be cured with brotherly Love and Charity and the Concupiscible must be suppressed with Continency and Mortification Then may the Understanding apprehend the mysteriousness of Christianity For since Christianity is a holy Doctrine if there be any remanent affections to a sin there is in the Soul a party disaffected to the entertainment of the Institution and we usually believe what we have a mind to Our Understandings if a crime be lodged in the Will being like icterical eyes transmitting the species to the Soul with prejudice disaffection and colours of their own framing If a Preacher should discourse that there ought to be a Parity amongst Christians and that their goods ought to be in common all men will apprehend that not Princes and rich persons but the poor and the servants would soonest become Disciples and believe the Doctrines because they are the only persons likely to get by them and it concerns the other not to believe him the Doctrine being destructive of their interests Just such a perswasion is every persevering love to a vicious habit it having possessed the Understanding with fair opinions of it and surprised the Will with Passion and desires whatsoever Doctrine is its enemy will with infinite difficulty be entertained And we know a great experience of it in the article of the Messias dying on the Cross which though infinitely true yet because to the Jews it was a scandal and to the Greeks 〈◊〉 it could not be believed they remaining in that indisposition that is unless the Will were first set right and they willing to believe any Truth though for it they must disclaim their interest Their Understanding was blind because the Heart was hardened and could not receive the impression of the greatest moral demonstration in the world 8. The Holy Jesus asked water of the Woman unsatisfying water but promised that himself to them that ask him would give waters of life and satisfaction infinite so distinguishing the pleasures and appetites of this world from the desires and complacencies spiritual Here we labour but receive no 〈◊〉 we sow many times and reap not or reap and do not gather in or gather in and do not 〈◊〉 or possess but do not enjoy or if we enjoy we are still 〈◊〉 it is with 〈◊〉 of spirit and circumstances of vexation A great heap of riches make 〈◊〉 our 〈◊〉 warm nor our meat more nutritive nor our beverage more 〈◊〉 and it seeds the eye but never fills it but like drink to an hydropick person increases the thirst and promotes the torment But the Grace of 〈◊〉 though but like a grain of 〈◊〉 dseed fills the furrows of the heart and as the capacity increases it self grows up in equal degrees and never suffers any emptiness or dissatisfaction but carries content and fulness all the way and the degrees of augmentation are not steps and near approaches to satisfaction but increasings of the capacity the 〈◊〉 is satished all the way and receives more not because it wanted any but that it can now hold more is more receptive of 〈◊〉 and in every minute of 〈◊〉 there is so excellent a condition of joy and high satisfaction that the very calamities the afflictions and persecutions of the world are turned into 〈◊〉 by the activity of the prevailing ingredient like a drop of water falling into a tun of wine it is ascribed into a new family losing its own nature by a conversion into the more noble For now that all passionate desires are dead and there is nothing remanent that is vexatious the peace the 〈◊〉 the quiet sleeps the evenness of spirit and contempt of things below remove the Soul from all neighbourhood of displeasure and place it at the foot of the throne whither when it is ascended it is possessed of Felicities eternal These were 〈◊〉 waters which were given to us to drink when with the rod of God the Rock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was smitten the Spirit of God moves for ever upon these waters and when the Angel of the Covenant hath stirred the pool who ever descends hither shall find health and peace joys spiritual and the satisfactions of Eternity The PRAYER O Holy Jesus Fountain of eternal life thou Spring of joy and spiritual satisfactions let the holy stream of bloud and water issuing from thy sacred side cool the thirst soften the hardness and refresh the barrenness of my desert Soul that I thirsting after thee as the wearied Hart after the cool stream may despise all the vainer complacencies of this world refuse all societies but such as are safe pious and charitable mortifie all 〈◊〉 appetites and may desire nothing but thee seek none but thee and rest in thee with intire 〈◊〉 of my own caitive inclinations that the desires of Nature may pass into desires of Grace and my thirst and my hunger may be spiritual and my hopes placed in thee and the expresses of my Charity upon thy relatives and all the parts of my life may speak thy love and obedience to thy Commandments that thou possessing my Soul and all its Faculties during my whole life I may possess thy glories in the fruition of a blessed Eternity by the light of thy Gospel here and the streams of thy Grace being guided to thee the fountain of life and glory there to be inebriated with the waters of Paradise with joy and love and contemplation adoring and admiring the beauties of the Lord for ever and ever Amen Considerations upon Christ's first Preaching and the Accidents happening about that time Jesus preaching to the people Mauh 4. 17. From that time Jesus began to preach saying Repent for the Kingodm of heaven is at hand V. 29. And he went about all Gallilee teaching preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness c. V. 25. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from Dâ—â—apolis and from Ierusalem etc. Christ sending forth his Apostles Mark 6. 7. And he called unto him y e twelve began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits And conunanded them that they should take nothing for their journey etc. V. 12 And they went out and preached that men should repent 1. WHen John was cast into Prison then began Jesus to preach not only because the Ministery of John
the same Saint When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord but if we would judge our selves we should not be judged where he expounds judged by chastened if we were severer to our selves God would be gentle and 〈◊〉 And there are only these two cautions to be annexed and then the direction is sufficient 1. That when promise of Pardon is annexed to any of these or another Grace or any good action it is not to be understood as if alone it were effectual either to the abolition or pardon of sins but the promise is made to it as to a member of the whole body of Piety In the coadunation and conjunction of parts the title is firm but not at all in distinction and separation For it is certain if we fail in one we are guilty of all and therefore cannot be repaired by any one Grace or one action or one habit And therefore Charity hides a multitude of sins with men and God too Alms deliver from death 〈◊〉 pierceth the clouds and will not depart before its answer be gracious and Hope purifieth and makes not ashamed and Patience and Faith and Piety to parents and Prayer and the eight Beatitudes have promises of this life and of that which is to come respectively and yet nothing will obtain these promises but the harmony and uniting of these Graces in a holy and habitual confederation And when we consider the Promise as singularly relating to that one Grace it is to be understood comparatively that is such persons are happy if compared with those who have contrary dispositions For such a capacity does its portion of the work towards complete Felicity from which the contrary quality does estrange and disintitle us 2. The special and minute actions and instances of these three preparatives of Repentance are not under any command in the particulars but are to be disposed of by Christian prudence in order to those ends to which they are most aptly instrumental and designed such as are Fasting and corporal severities in Satisfaction or the punitive parts of Repentance they are either vindictive of what is past and so are proper acts or effects of Contrition and godly sorrow or else they relate to the present and future estate and are intended for correction or emendation and so are of good use as they are medicinal and in that proportion not to be omitted And so is Confession to a Spiritual person an excellent instrument of Discipline a bridle of intemperate Passions an opportunity of Restitution Ye which are spiritual 〈◊〉 such a person overtaken in a fault saith the Apostle it is the application of a remedy the consulting with a guide and the best security to a weak or lapsed or an ignorant person in all which cases he is 〈◊〉 to judge his own questions and in these he is also committed to the care and conduct of another But these special instances of Repentance are capable of suppletories and are like the corporal works of Mercy necessary only in time and place and in accidental obligations He that relieves the poor or visits the sick chusing it for the instance of his Charity though he do not redeem captives is charitable and hath done his Alms. And he that cures his sin by any instruments by external or interiour and spiritual remedies is penitent though his diet be not 〈◊〉 and afflictive or his lodging hard or his sorrow bursting out into tears or his expressions passionate and dolorous I only add this that acts of publick Repentance must be by using the instruments of the Church such as she hath appointed of private such as by experience or by reason or by the counsel we can get we shall learn to be most effective of our penitential purposes And yet it is a great argument that the exteriour expressions of corporal severities are of good benefit because in all Ages wise men and severe Penitents have chosen them for their instruments The PRAYER O Eternal God who wert pleased in mercy to look upon us when we were in our 〈◊〉 to reconcile us when we were enemies to forgive us in the midst of our provocations of thy infinite and eternal Majesty finding out a remedy for us which man-kind could never ask even making an atonement for us by the death of thy Son sanctifying us by the bloud of the everlasting Covenant and thy all-hallowing and Divinest Spirit let thy 〈◊〉 so perpetually assist and encourage my endeavours conduct my will and fortifie my intentions that 〈◊〉 may persevere in that holy condition which thou hast put me in by the grace of the Covenant and the mercies of the Holy Jesus O let me never fall into those sins and retire to that vain conversation from which the eternal and merciful Saviour of the World hath redeemed me but let me grow in Grace adding Vertue to vertue reducing my purposes to act and increasing my acts till they grow into habits and my habits till they be confirmed and still confirming them till they be consummate in a blessed and holy perseverance Let thy Preventing grace dash all Temptations in their approach let thy Concomitant grace enable me to resist them in the assault and overcome them in the fight that my hopes be never discomposed nor my Faith weakned nor my confidence made remiss or my title and portion in the Covenant be lessened Or if thou permittest me at any time to 〈◊〉 which Holy Jesu avert for thy mercy and compession sake yet let me not sleep in sin but recall me instantly by the clamours of a nice and tender Conscience and the quickning Sermons of the Spirit that I may never pass from sin to sin from one degree to another lest sin should get the dominion over me lest thou be angry with me and reject me from the Covenant and I perish Purifie me from all 〈◊〉 sanctifie my spirit that I may be holy as thou art and let me never provoke thy jealousie nor presume upon thy goodness nor distrust thy mercies nor 〈◊〉 my Repentance nor rely upon vain confidences but that I may by a constant sedulous and timely endeavour make my calling and election sure living to thee and dying to thee that having sowed to the Spirit I may from thy mercies reap in the Spirit bliss and eternal sanctity and everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Saviour our hope and our mighty and ever-glorious Redeemer Amen Vpon Christ ' s Sermon on the Mount and of the Eight Beatitudes Moses delivers the Law Joh. 1. 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. These words the Lord spake unto all the Assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire with a great voice he wrote them in two Tables of stone delivered them unto me Deut. 5. 22. Christ preaches in the Mount He went up into a mountain opened his mouth taught them saying Blessed are the poor in
Churches living under Persecution commenced many pretty opinions concerning the state and special dignity of Martyrs apportioning to them one of the three Coronets which themselves did knit and supposed as pendants to the great Crown of righteousness They made it suppletory of Baptism expiatory of sin satisfactory of publick 〈◊〉 they placed them in bliss immediately declared them to need no after-Prayer such as the Devotion of those times used to pour upon the graves of the faithful with great prudence they did endeavour to alleviate this burthen and sweeten the bitter chalice and they did it by such doctrines which did only remonstrate this great truth That since no love was greater than to lay down our lives nothing could be so great but God would indulge to them And indeed whatsoever they said in this had no inconvenience nor would it now unless men should think mere suffering to be sufficient to excuse a wicked life or that they be invited to dishonour an excellent patience with the mixture of an impure action There are many who would die for Christ if they were put to it and yet will not quit a Lust for him those are hardly to be esteemed Christ's Martyrs unless they be dead unto sin their dying for an Article or a good action will not pass the great scrutiny And it may be boldness of spirit or sullenness or an honourable gallantry of mind or something that is excellent in civil and political estimate moves the person and endears the suffering but that love only which keeps the Commandments will teach us to 〈◊〉 for love and from love to pass to blessedness through the red Sea of bloud And indeed it is more easie to die for Chastity than to live with it and many women have been found who suffered death under the violence of Tyrants for defence of their holy vows and purity who had they long continued amongst pleasures courtships curiosities and importunities of men might perchance have yielded that to a Lover which they denied to an Executioner S. Cyprian observes that our Blessed Lord in admitting the innocent Babes of Bethlehem first to die for him did to all generations of Christendom consign this Lesson That only persons holy and innocent were fit to be Christ's Martyrs And I remember that the Prince of the Latine Poets over against the region and seats of Infants places in the Shades below persons that suffered death wrongfully but adds that this their death was not enough to place them in such blessed mansions but the Judge first made inquiry into their lives and accordingly designed their station It is certain that such dyings or great sufferings are Heroical actions and of power to make great compensations and redemptions of time and of omissions and imperfections but if the Man be unholy so also are his Sufferings for Hereticks have died and vicious persons have suffered in a good cause and a dog's neck may be cut off in sacrifice and Swine's bloud may 〈◊〉 the trench about the Altar but God only accepts the Sacrifice which is pure and spotless first seasoned with salt then seasoned with fire The true Martyr must have all the preceding Graces and then he shall receive all the Beatitudes 19. The acts of this Duty are 1. Boldly to confess the Faith nobly to exercise publick vertues not to be ashamed of any thing that is honest and rather to quit our goods our liberty our health and life it self than to deny what we are bound to affirm or to omit what we are bound to do or to pretend contrary to our present perswasion 2. To rejoyce in Afflictions counting it honourable to be conformable to Christ and to wear the cognizance of Christianity whose certain lot it is to suffer the hostility and violence of enemies visible and invisible 3. Not to revile our Persecutors but to bear the Cross with evenness tranquillity patience and charity 4. To offer our sufferings to the glory of God and to joyn them with the Passions of Christ by doing it in love to God and obedience to his Sanctions and testimony of some part of his Religion and designing it as a part of duty The reward is the Kingdom of Heaven which can be no other but eternal Salvation in case the Martyrdom be consummate and they also shall be made perfect so the words of the reward were read in Clement's time If it be less it keeps its proportion all suffering persons are the combination of Saints they make the Church they are the people of the Kingdom and heirs of the Covenant For if they be but Confessors and confess Christ in prison though they never preach upon the rack or under the axe yet Christ will confess them before his heavenly Father and they shall have a portion where they shall never be persecuted any more The PRAYER O Blessed Jesus who art become to us the Fountain of Peace and Sanctity of Righteousness and Charity of Life and perpetual Benediction imprint in our spirits these glorious characterisms of Christianity that we by such excellent dispositions may be consigned to the infinity of Blessedness which thou camest to reveal and minister and exhibit to mankind Give us great Humility of spirit and deny us not when we beg Sorrow of thee the mourning and sadness of true Penitents that we may imitate thy excellencies and conform to thy sufferings Make us Meek patient indifferent and resigned in all accidents changes and issues of Divine Providence Mortifie all inordinate Anger in us all Wrath Strife Contention Murmurings Malice and Envy and interrupt and then blot out all peevish dispositions and morosities all disturbances and unevenness of spirit 〈◊〉 of habit that may hinder us in our duty Oh teach me so to hunger and thirst after the ways of Righteousness that it may be meat and drink to me to do thy Father's will Raise my affections to Heaven and heavenly things fix my heart there and prepare a treasure for me which I may receive in the great diffusions and communications of thy glory And in this sad interval of infirmity and temptations strengthen my hopes and 〈◊〉 my Faith by such emissions of light and grace from thy Spirit that I may relish those Blessings which thou preparest for thy Saints with so great appetite that I may despise the world and all its gilded vanities and may desire nothing but the crown of righteousness and the paths that lead thither 〈◊〉 graces of thy Kingdom and the glories of it that when I have served thee in holiness and strict obedience I may reign with thee in the glories of Eternity for thou O Holy Jesus art our hope and our life and glory our 〈◊〉 great reward Amen II. 〈◊〉 Jesu who art infinitely pleased in demonstrations of thy Mercy and didst descend into a state of misery suffering persecution and 〈◊〉 that thou mightest give us thy mercy and reconcile us to thy Father and make us
his unreasonableness will give him a new degree of torment when he shall find himself in flames for being a stupid an Atheistical an irreligious fool This only I desire should be observed that our Blessed Master forbids not only swearing by God but by any Creature for every Oath by a creature does involve and tacitely relate to God And therefore saith Christ Swear not by Heaven for it is the throne of God and he that sweareth by the throne of God sweareth by it and by him that sitteth thereon So that it is not a less matter to swear by a Creature than to swear by God for a Creature cannot be the instrument of testimony but as it is a relative to God and it by implication calls the God of that Creature to witness So that although in such cases in which it is permitted to swear by God we may in those cases express our Oath in the form of advocating and calling the Creature as did the primitive Christians swearing by the health of their Emperour and as Joseph swearing by the life of Pharaoh and as Elisha swearing by the life of Elias and as did S. Paul protesting by the rejoycing he had in Jesus Christ and as we in our forms of swearing in Courts of Judicature touch the Gospels saying So help me God and the Contents of this Book and in a few Ages lately past Bishops and Priests sometimes swore upon the Cross sometimes upon the Altar sometimes by their holy Order yet we must remember that this in other words and ceremonies is but a calling God for witness and he that swears by the Cross swears by the holy Crucifix that is Jesus crucified thereon And therefore these and the like forms are therefore not to be used in ordinary communication because they relate to God they are as obligatory as the immediate invocation of his Holiness and Majesty and it was a Judaical vanity to think swearing by Creatures was less obliging they are just with the same restraints made to be religious as the most solemn invocation of the holy and reverend Name of God lawful or unlawful as the other unless the swearing by a Creature come to be spoiled by some other intervening circumstance that is with a denying it to relate to God for then it becomes Superstition as well as Profanation and it gives to a Creature what is proper to God or when the Creature is contemptible or less than the gravity of the matter as if a man should swear by a Fly or the shadow of a Tree or when there is an indecorum in the thing or something that does at too great distance relate to God for that which with greatest vicinity refers to God in several Religions is the best instrument of an Oath and nearest to God's honour as in Christianity are the Holy Sacrament the Cross the Altar and the Gospels and therefore too great a distance may be an indecency next to a disparagement This only may be added to this consideration That although an Oath which is properly calling God or God's relative into testimony is to be understood according to the former Discourse yet there may be great affirmations or negations respectively and confirmed by forms of vehement asseveration such as the customes of a Nation or consent shall agree upon and those do in some cases promote our belief or confirm our pretensions better than a plain Yea or No because by such consent the person renders himself infamous if he breaks his word or trust And although this will not come under the restraint of Christ's words because they are not properly Oaths but circumstances of earnest affirmation or negation yet these are humane Attestations introduced by custome or consent and as they come not under the notion of Swearing so they are forms of testimony and collateral engagement of a more strict truth 24. The Holy Jesus having specified the great Commandment of loving God with all our heart in this one instance of hallowing and keeping his Name sacred that is from profane and common talk and less prudent and unnecessary entercourses instanced in no other commandment of Moses but having frequent occasion to speak of the Sabbath for ever expresses his own dominion over the Day and that he had dissolved the bands of Moses in this instance that now we were no more obliged to that Rest which the 〈◊〉 religiously observed by prescript of the Law and by divers acts against securities of the then-received practices did desecrate the day making it a broken yoke and the first great instance of Christian Liberty And when the Apostle gave instructions that no man should judge his 〈◊〉 in a Holy-day or New-moons or the Sabbath-days he declared all the Judaical Feasts to be obliterated by the spunge which Jesus tasted on the Cross it was within the Manuscript of Ordinances and there it was cancelled And there was nothing moral in it but that we do honour to God for the Creation and to that and all other purposes of Religion separate and hallow some portion of our time The Primitive Church kept both the Sabbath and the Lord's day till the time of the 〈◊〉 Council about 300 years after Christ's nativity and almost in every thing made them equal and therefore did not esteem the Lord's day to be substituted in the place of the obliterated Sabbath but a Feast celebrated by great reason and perpetual consent without precept or necessary Divine injunction But the liberty of the Church was great they found themselves disobliged from that strict and necessary Rest which was one great part of the Sabbatick rites only they were glad of the occasion to meet often for offices of Religion and the day served well for the gaining and facilitating the Conversion of the Jews and for the honourable sepulture of the Synagogue it being kept so long 〈◊〉 the forty days mourning of Israel for the death of their Father Jacob but their liberty they improved not to licence but as an occasion of more frequent assemblies And there is something in it for us to imitate even to sanctifie the Name of God in the great work of the Creation reading his praises in the book of his Creatures and taking all occasions of religious acts and offices though in none of the Jewish circumstances 25. Concerning the observation of the Lord's Day which now the Church observes and ever did in remembrance of the Resurrection because it is a day of positive and Ecclesiastical institution it is fit that the Church who instituted the day should determine the manner of its observation It was set apart in honour of the Resurrection and it were not ill if all Churches would into the weekly Offices put some memorial of that mystery that the reason of the Festival might be remembred with the day God thanked with the renewing of the Offices But because Religion was the design of the Feast and 〈◊〉
also in persons who are most apt to the vice women and young persons to whom God hath given a modesty and shame of nature that the entertainments of Lusts may become contradictions to our retreating and backward modesty more than they are satisfactions to our too-forward appetites It is as great a mortification and violence to nature to blush as to lose a desire and we find it true when persons are invited to confess their sins or to ask forgiveness publickly a secret smart is not so violent as a publick shame and therefore to do an action which brings shame all along and opens the Sanctuaries of nature and makes all her retirements publick and dismantles her inclosure as Lust does and the shame of carnality hath in it more asperity and abuse to nature than the short pleasure to which we are invited can repay There are unnatural Lusts Lusts which are such in their very condition and constitution that a man must turn a woman and a woman become a beast in acting them and all Lusts that are not unnatural in their own complexion are unnatural by a consequent and accidental violence And if Lust hath in it dissonancies to Nature there are but few apologies 〈◊〉 to excuse our sins upon Nature's stock and all that systeme of principles and reasonable inducements to Vertue which we call the Law of Nature is nothing else but that firm ligature and incorporation of Vertue to our natural principles and dispositions which whoso prevaricates does more against Nature than he that restrains his appetite And besides these particulars there is not in our natural discourse any inclination directly and by intention of it self contrary to the love of God because by God we understand that Fountain of Being which is infinitely perfect in it self and of great good to us and whatsoever is so apprehended it is as natural for us to love as to love any thing in the world for we can love nothing but what we believe to be good in it self or good to us And beyond this there are in Nature many principles and reasons to make an aptness to acknowledge and confess God and by the consent of Nations which they also have learned from the dictates of their Nature all men in some manner or other worship God And therefore when this our Nature is determined in its own indefinite principle to the manner of worship all acts against the Love the Obedience and the Worship of God are also against Nature and offer it some rudeness and violence And I shall observe this and refer it to every man's reason and experience that the great difficulties of Vertue commonly apprehended commence not so much upon the stook of Nature as of Education and evil Habits Our Vertues are difficult because we at first get ill Habits and these Habits must be unrooted before we do well and that 's our trouble But if by the strictness of Discipline and wholsome Education we begin at first in our duty and the practice of vertuous principles we shall find Vertue made as natural to us while it is customary and habitual as we pretend infirmity to be and propensity to vicious practices And this we are taught by that excellent Hebrew who said Wisdom is easily seen of them that love her and found of such as seek her She preventeth them that desire her in making her self first known unto them Whoso seeketh her early shall have no great travel for he shall find her sitting at his doors 4. Secondly In the strict observances of the Law of Christianity there is less Trouble than in the habitual courses of sin For if we consider the general design of Christianity it propounds to us in this world nothing that is of difficult purchase nothing beyond what God allots us by the ordinary and common Providence such things which we are to receive without care and solicitous vexation So that the Ends are not big and the Way is easie and this walk'd over with much simplicity and sweetness and those obtained without difficulty He that propounds to himself to live low pious humble and retired his main imployment is nothing but sitting quiet and undisturbed with variety of impertinent affairs But he that loves the World and its acquisitions entertains a thousand businesses and every business hath a world of employment and every employment is multiplied and made intricate by circumstances and every circumstance is to be disputed and he that disputes ever hath two sides in enmity and opposition and by this time there is a genealogy a long descent and cognation of troubles branched into so many particulars that it is troublesome to understand them and much more to run through them The ways of Vertue are very much upon the defensive and the work one uniform and little they are like war within a strong Castle if they stand upon their guard they seldom need to strike a stroak But a Vice is like storming of a Fort full of noise trouble labour danger and disease How easie a thing is it to restore the pledge but if a man means to defeat him that trusted him what a world of arts must he use to make pretences to delay first then to excuse then to object then to intricate the business next to quarrel then to forswear it and all the way to palliate his crime and represent himself honest And if an oppressing and greedy person have a design to cozen a young Heir or to get his neighbour's land the cares of every day and the interruptions of every night's sleep are more than the purchase is worth since he might buy Vertue at half that watching and the less painful care of a fewer number of days A plain story is soonest told and best confutes an intricate Lie And when a person is examined in judgment one false answer asks more wit for its support and maintenance than a History of truth And such persons are put to so many shameful retreats false colours Fucus's and dawbings with untempered morter to avoid contradiction or discovery that the labour of a false story seems in the order of things to be designed the beginning of its punishment And if we consider how great a part of our Religion consists in Prayer and how easie a thing God requires of us when he commands us to pray for blessings the duty of a Christian cannot seem very troublesome 5. And indeed I can cardly instance in any Vice but there is visibly more pain in the order of acting and observing it than in the acquist or promotion of Vertue I have seen drunken persons in their seas of drink and talk dread every cup as a blow and they have used devices and private arts to escape the punishment of a full draught and the poor wretch being condemned by the laws of Drinking to his measure was forced and haled to execution and he suffered it and thought himself engaged
they deny the fact and double it When they would repair their losses they fall to Gaming and besides that they are infinitely full of fears passions wrath and violent disturbances in the various chances of their game that which they use to restore their 〈◊〉 ruines even the little remnant and condemns them to beggery or what is worse Thus evil men 〈◊〉 for content out of things that cannot satisfie and take care to get that content that is they raise War to enjoy present Peace and renounce all Content to get it They strive to depress their Neighbours that they may be their equals to disgrace them to get reputation to themselves which arts being ignoble do them the most disparagement and resolve never to enter into the felicities of God by content taken in the prosperities of man which is a making our selves wretched by being wicked Malice and Envy is indeed a mighty curse and the Devil can shew us nothing more foolish and unreasonable than Envy which is in its very formality a curse an eating of coals and vipers because my neighbour's table is full and his cup is crowned with health and plenty The Christian Religion as it chuseth excellent ends so it useth proportionate and apt means The most contradictory accident in the world when it becomes hallowed by a pious and Christian design becomes a certain means of felicity and content To quit our lands for Christ's sake will certainly make us rich to depart from our friends will encrease our relations and beneficiaries but the striving to secure our temporal interests by any other means than obedient actions or obedient sufferings is declared by the Holy Jesus to be the greatest improvidence and ill husbandry in the world Even in this world Christ will repay us an hundred fold for all our losses which we suffer for the interests of Christianity In the same proportion we find that all Graces do the work of humane felicities with a more certain power and 〈◊〉 effect than their contraries Gratitude endears Benefits and procures more Friendships Confession gets a Pardon Impudence and lying doubles the fault and exasperates the offended person Innocence is bold and rocks a man asleep but an evil Conscience is a continual alarm Against this folly of using disproportionate means in order to their ends the Holy Jesus hath opposed the Eight Beatitudes which by contradictions of nature and improbable causes according to humane and erring estimate bring our best and wisest ends to pass infallibly and divinely 32. But this is too large a field to walk in for it represents all the flatteries of sin to be a mere cozenage and deception of the Understanding and we find by this scrutiny that evil and unchristian persons are infinitely unwise because they neglect the counsel of their superiours and their guides They dote passionately upon trifles they rely upon false foundations and deceiving principles they are most confident when they are most abused they are like shelled fish singing loudest when their house is on fire about their ears and being merriest when they are most miserable and perishing when they have the option of two things they ever chuse the worst they are not masters of their own actions but break all purposes at the first temptation they take more pains to do themselves a mischief than would 〈◊〉 Heaven that is they are rude ignorant foolish unwary and undiscerning people in all senses and to all purposes and are incurable but by their Obedience and conformity to the Holy Jesus the eternal Wisdome of the Father 33. Upon the strength of these premisses the yoke of Christianity must needs be apprehended light though it had in it more pressure than it hath because lightness or heaviness being relative terms are to be esteemed by comparison to others Christianity is far easier than the yoke of Moses's Law not only because it consists of fewer Rites but also because those perfecting and excellent Graces which integrate the body of our Religion are made easie by God's assisting and the gifts of the Holy Ghost and we may yet make it easier by Love and by Fear which are the proper products of the Evangelical Promises and Threatnings For I have seen persons in affrightment have carried burthens and leaped ditches and climbed walls which their natural power could never have done And if we understood the sadnesses of a cursed Eternity from which we are commanded to fly and yet knew how near we are to it and how likely to fall into it it would create fears greater than a sudden fire or a mid-night alarm And those unhappy souls who come to feel this truth when their condition is without remedy are made the more miserable by the apprehension of their stupid folly For certainly the accursed Spirits feel the smart of Hell once doubled upon them by considering by what vain unsatisfying trifles they lost their happiness with what pains they perished and with how great ease they might have been beatified And certain it is Christian Religion hath so furnished us with assistences both exteriour and interiour both of perswasion and advantages that whatsoever Christ hath doubled upon us in perfection he hath alleviated in aids 34. And then if we compare the state of Christianity with Sin all the preceding discourses were intended to represent how much easier it is to be a Christian than a vile and wicked person And he that remembers that whatever fair allurements may be pretended as invitations to a sin are such false and unsatisfying pretences that they drive a man to repent him of his folly and like a great laughter end in a sigh and expire in weariness and indignation must needs confess himself a fool for doing that which he knows will make him repent that he ever did it A sin makes a man afraid when it thunders and in all dangers the sin detracts the visour and affrights him and visits him when he comes to die upbraiding him with guilt and threatning misery So that Christianity is the easiest Law and the easiest state it is more perfect and less troublesome it brings us to Felicity by ways proportionable landing us in rest by easie and unperplexed journeys This Discourse I therefore thought necessary because it reconciles our Religion with those passions and desires which are commonly made the instruments and arguments of sin For we rarely meet with such spirits which love Vertue so metaphysically as to abstract her from all sensible and delicious compositions and love the purity of the Idea S. Lewis the King sent Ivo Bishop of Chartres on an Embassy and he told that he met a grave Matron on the way with fire in one hand and water in the other and observing her to have a melancholick religious and phantastick deportment and look asked her what those symbols meant and what she meant to do with her fire and water She answered My purpose is with the fire to burn Paradise and with my water to quench
concernment to God's glory to gain the Gentiles than to retain the Jews and yet if it had not the Apostles were bound to bend to the inclinations of the weaker rather than be mastered by the wilfulness of the stronger who had been sufficiently instructed in the articles of Christian liberty and in the adopting the Gentiles into the Family of God Thus if it be a question whether I should abate any thing of my external Religion or Ceremonies to satisfie an Heretick or a contentious person who pretends Scandal to himself and is indeed of another Perswasion and at the same time I know that good persons would be weakned at such forbearance and estranged from the good perswasion and Charity of Communion which is part of their Duty it more concerns Charity and the glory of God that I secure the right than twine about the wrong wilful and malicious persons A Prelate must rather fortifie and encourage Obedience and strengthen Discipline than by remisness toward refractory spirits and a desire not to seem severe weaken the hands of consciencious persons by taking away the marks of difference between them that obey and them that obey not and in all cases when the question is between a friend to be secured from Apostasie or an enemy to be gained from Indifferency S. Paul's rule is to be observed Do good to all but especially to the houshold of Faith When the Church in a particular instance cannot be kind to both she must first love her own children 12. Eighthly But when the question is between pleasing and contenting the fancies of a Friend and the gaining of an Enemy the greater good of the Enemy is infinitely to be preferred before the satisfying the unnecessary humour of the Friend and therefore that we may gain persons of a different Religion it is lawful to entertain them in their innocent customs that we may represent our selves charitable and just apt to comply in what we can and yet for no end complying farther than we are permitted It was a policy of the Devil to abuse Christians to the Rites of 〈◊〉 by imitating the Christian Ceremonies and the Christians themselves were before-hand with him in that policy for they facilitated the reconcilement of Judaism with Christianity by common Rites and invited the Gentiles to the Christian Churches because they never violated the Heathen Temples but loved the men and imitated their innocent Rites and only offered to reform their Errors and hallow their abused purposes and this if it had no other contradictory or unhandsome circumstance gave no offence to other Christians when they had learned to trust them with the government of Ecclesiastical affairs to whom God had committed them and they all had the same purposes of Religion and Charity And when there is no objection against this but the furies or greater heats of a mistaken Zeal the compliance with evil or unbelieving persons to gain them from their Errors to the ways of Truth and sincerity is great prudence and great Charity because it chuses and acts a greater good at no other charge or expence but the discomposing of an intemperate Zeal 13. Ninthly We are not bound to intermit a good or a lawful action as soon as any man tells us it is scandalous for that may be an easie stratagem to give me laws and destroy my liberty but either when the action is of it self or by reason of a publick known indisposition of some persons probably introductive of a sin or when we know it is so in fact The other is but affrighting a man this only is prudent that my Charity be guided by such rules which determine wise men to actions or omissions respectively And therefore a light fame is not strong enough to wrest my liberty from me but a reasonable belief or a certain knowledge in the taking of which estimate we must neither be too credulous and easie nor yet ungentle and stubborn but do according to the actions of wise men and the charities of a Christian. Hither we may refer the rules of abstaining from things which are of evil report For not every thing which is of good report is to be followed for then a false opinion when it is become popular must be professed for Conscience sake nor yet every thing that is of bad report is to be avoided for nothing endured more shame and obloquy than Christianity at its first commencement But by good report we are to understand such things which are well reported of by good men and wise men or Scripture or the consent of Nations And thus for a woman to marry within the year of mourning is scandalous because it is of evil report gives suspicion of lightness or some worse confederacy before the death of her husband the thing it self is apt to minister the suspicion and this we are bound to prevent And unless the suspicion be malicious or imprudent and unreasonable we must conceal our actions from the surprises and deprehensions of suspicion It was scandalous amongst the old Romans not to marry among the Christians for a Clergy-man to marry twice because it was against an Apostolical Canon but when it became of ill report for any Christian to marry the second time because this evil report was begun by the errors of Montanus and is against a permission of holy Scripture no Lay-Christian was bound to abstain from a second bed for fear of giving scandal 14. Tenthly The precept of avoiding Scandal concerns the Governours of the Church or State in the making and execution of Laws For no Law in things indifferent ought to be made to the provocation of the Subject or against that publick disposition which is in the spirits of men and will certainly cause perpetual irregularities and Schisms Before the Law be made the Superiour must comply with the subject after it is made the subject must comply with the Law But in this the Church hath made fair provision accounting no Laws obligatory till the people have accepted them and given tacite approbation for Ecclesiastical Canons have their time of probation and if they become a burthen to the people or occasion Schisms Tumults publick disunion of affections and jealousies against Authority the Laws give place and either fix not when they are not first approved or disappear by desuetude And in the execution of Laws no less care is to be taken for many cases occur in which the Laws can be rescued from being a snare to mens Consciences by no other way but by dispensation and slacking of the Discipline as to certain particulars Mercy and Sacrifice the Letter and the Spirit the words and the intention the general case and the particular exception the present disposition and the former state of things are oftentimes so repugnant and of such contradictory interests that there is no stumbling-block more troublesome or dangerous than a severe literal and rigorous exacting of Laws in all cases But when Stubbornness or a Contentious
in his name to plant the Faith to govern and superintend the Church at present and by their wise and prudent settlement of affairs to provide for the future exigencies of the Church III. The next thing then to be considered is the nature of their Office and under this enquiry we shall make these following remarks First it is not to be doubted but that our Lord in founding this Office had some respect to the state of things in the Jewish Church I mean not only in general that there should be superiour and subordinate Officers as there were superiour and inferiour Orders under the Mosaic dispensation but that herein he had an eye to some usage and custom common among them Now amongst the Jews as all Messengers were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Apostles so were they wont to dispatch some with peculiar letters of authority and Commission whereby they acted as Proxies and Deputies of those that sent them thence their Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every man's Apostle is as himself that is whatever he does is look'd upon to be as firm and valid as if the person himself had done it Thus when Saul was sent by the Sanhedrim to Damascus to apprehend the Jewish converts he was furnished with letters from the High Priest enabling him to act as his Commissary in that matter Indeed Epiphanius tells us of a sort of persons called Apostles who were Assessors and Counsellors to the Jewish Patriarch constantly attending upon him to advise him in matters pertaining to the Law and sent by him as he intimates sometimes to inspect and reform the manners of the Priests and Jewish Clergy and the irregularities of Country-Synagogues with commission to gather the Tenths and First-fruits due in all the Provinces under his jurisdiction Such Apostles we find mention'd both by Julian the Emperor in an Epistle to the Jews and in a Law of the Emperor Honorius imploy'd by the Patriarch to gather once a year the Aurum Coronarium or Crown-Gold a Tribute annually paid by them to the Roman Emperors But these Apostles could not under that notion be extant in our Saviour's time though sure we are there was then something like it Philo the Jew more than once mentioning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sacred messengers annually sent to collect the holy treasure paid by way of First-fruits and to carry it to the Temple at Jerusalem However our Lord in conformity to the general custom of those times of appointing Apostles or Messengers as their Proxies and Deputies to act in their names call'd and denominated those Apostles whom he peculiarly chose to represent his person to communicate his mind and will to the World and to act as Embassadors or Commissioners in his room and stead IV. Secondly We observe that the persons thus deputed by our Saviour were not left uncertain but reduced to a fixed definite number confin'd to the just number of Twelve he ordained twelve that they should be with him A number that seems to carry something of mystery and peculiar design in it as appears in that the Apostles were so careful upon the fall of Judas immediately to supply it The Fathers are very wide and different in their conjectures about the reason of it S. Augustine thinks our Lord herein had respect to the four quarters of the World which were to be called by the preaching of the Gospel which being multiplied by three to denote the Trinity in whose name they were to be called make Twelve Tertullian will have them typified by the twelve fountains in Elim the Apostles being sent out to water and refresh the dry thirsty World with the knowledge of the truth by the twelve precious stones in Aaron's breast-plate to illuminate the Church the garment which Christ our great High Priest has put on by the twelve stones which Joshua chose out of Jordan to lay up within the Ark of the Testament respecting the firmness and solidity of the Apostles Faith their being chosen by the true Jesus or Joshua at their Baptism in Jordan and their being admitted in the inner Sanctuary of his Covenant By others we are told that it was shadowed out by the twelve Spies taken out of every Tribe and sent to discover the Land of Promise or by the twelve gates of the City in Ezekiel's vision or by the twelve Bells appendant to Aaron's garment their sound going out into all the World and their words unto the ends of the Earth But it were endless and to very little purpose to reckon up all the conjectures of this nature there being scarce any one number of Twelve mentioned in the Scripture which is not by some of the Ancients adapted and applied to this of the Twelve Apostles wherein an ordinary fancy might easily enough pick out a mystery That which seems to put in the most rational plea is that our Lord pitched upon this number in conformity either to the twelve Patriarchs as founders of the twelve Tribes of Israel or to the twelve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or chief heads as standing Rulers of those Tribes among the Jews as we shall afterwards possibly more particularly remark Thirdly these Apostles were immediately called and sent by Christ himself elected out of the body of his Disciples and followers and receiv'd their Commission from his own mouth Indeed Matthias was not one of the first election being taken in upon Judas his Apostasie after our Lord's Ascension into Heaven But besides that he had been one of the seventy Disciples called and sent out by our Saviour that extraordinary declaration of the Divine will and pleasure that appeared in determining his election was in a manner equivalent to the first election As for S. Paul he was not one of the Twelve taken in as a supernumerary Apostle but yet an Apostle as well as they and that not of men neither by man but by Jesus Christ as he pleads his own cause against the insinuations of those Impostors who traduced him as an Apostle only at the second hand whereas he was immediately call'd by Christ as well as they and in a more extraordinary manner they were called by him while he was yet in his state of meanness and humiliation he when Christ was now advanced upon the Throne and appeared to him encircled with those glorious emanations of brightness and majesty which he was not able to endure V. Fourthly The main work and imployment of these Apostles was to preach the Gospel to establish Christianity and to govern the Church that was to be founded as Christ's immediate Deputies and Vicegerents they were to instruct men in the doctrines of the Gospel to disciple the World and to baptize and initiate men into the Faith of Christ to constitute and ordain Guides and Ministers of Religion persons peculiarly set apart for holy ministrations to censure and punish obstinate and contumacious offenders to compose and over-rule
determination of our Saviour when the Apostles were contending about this very thing which of them should be accounted the greatest he thus quickly decides the case The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them But ye shall not be so but whosover will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your Servant Than which nothing could have been more peremptorily spoken to rebuke this naughty spirit of preheminence Nor do we ever find S. Peter himself laying claim to any such power or the Apostles giving him the least shadow of it In the whole course of his affairs there are no intimations of this matter in his Epistle he styles himself but their fellow-Presbyter and expresly forbids the governours of the Church to Lord it over God's heritage When dispatched by the rest of the Apostles upon a message to Samaria he never disputes their authority to do it when accused by them for going in unto the Gentiles does he stand upon his prerogative no but submissively apologizes for himself nay when smartly reprov'd by S. Paul at Antioch when if ever his credit lay at stake do we find him excepting against it as an affront to his supremacy and a sawcy controlling his superiour surely the quite contrary he quietly submitted to the reproof as one that was sensible how justly he had 〈◊〉 it Nor can it be supposed but that S. Paul would have carried it towards him with a greater reverence had any such peculiar soveraignty been then known to the World How confidently does S. Paul assert himself to be no whit inferiour to the chiefest Apostles not to Peter himself the Gospel of the uncircumcision being committed to him as that of the circumcision was to Peter Is Peter oft named first among the Apostles elsewhere others sometimes James sometimes Paul and Apollos are placed before him Did Christ honour him with some singular commendations an honourable elogium conveys no super-eminent power and soveraignty Was he dear to Christ we know another that was the beloved Disciple So little warrant is there to exalt one above the rest where Christ made all alike If from Scripture we descend to the ancient Writers of the Church we shall find that though the Fathers bestow very great and honourable Titles upon Peter yet they give the same or what are equivalent to others of the Apostles Hesychius stiles S. James the Great the Brother of our Lord the Commander of the new Jerusalem the Prince of Priests the Exarch or chief of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the top or crown amongst the heads the great light amongst the Lamps the most illustrious and resplendent amongst the stars 't was Peter that preach'd but 't was James that made the determination c. Of S. Andrew he gives this encomium that he was the sacerdotal Trumpet the first born of the Apostolick Quire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prime and firm Pillar of the Church Peter before Peter the foundation of the foundation the first fruits of the beginning Peter and John are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equally honourable by S. Cyril with his whole Synod of Alexandria S. John says Chrysostom was Christ's beloved the Pillar of all the Churches in the world who had the Keys of Heaven drank of his Lords cup was wash'd with his Baptism and with confidence lay in his bosome And of S. Paul he tells us that he was the most excellent of all men the Teacher of the world the Bridegroom of Christ the Planter of the Church the wise Master-builder greater than the Apostles and much more to the same purpose Elsewhere he says that the care of the whole world was committed to him that nothing could be more noble or illustrious yea that his Miracles considered he was more excellent than Kings themselves And a little after he calls him the tongue of the earth the light of the Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of the faith the pillar and ground of truth And in a discourse on purpose wherein he compares Peter and Paul together he makes them of equal esteem and vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What greater than Peter What equal to Paul a Blessed pair 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who had the Souls of the whole world committed to their charge But instances of this nature were endless and infinite If the Fathers at any time style Peter Prince of the Apostles they mean no more by it than the best and purest Latine writers mean by princeps the first or chief person of the number more considerable than the rest either for his age or zeal Thus Eusebius tells us Peter was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prolocutor of all the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the greatness and generosity of his mind that is in Chrysostome's language he was the mouth and chief of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because eager and forward at every turn and ready to answer those questions which were put to others In short as he had no Prerogative above the rest besides his being the Chair-man and President of the Assembly so was it granted to him upon no other considerations than those of his age zeal and gravity for which he was more eminent than the rest VIII We proceed next to enquire into the fitness and qualification of the Persons commissionated for this employment and we shall finde them admirably qualified to discharge it if we consider this following account First They immediately received the Doctrine of the Gospel from the mouth of Christ himself he intended them for Legati à latere his peculiar Embassaders to the World and therefore furnished them with instructions from his own mouth and in order hereunto he train'd them up for some years under his own Discipline and institution he made them to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when to others it was not given treated them with the affection of a Father and the freedom and familiarity of a friend Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you They heard all his Sermons were privy both to his publick and private discourses what he preach'd abroad he expounded to them at home he gradually instructed them in the knowledge of Divine things and imparted to them the notions and mysteries of the Gospel not all at once but as they were able to bear them By which means they were sufficiently capable of giving a satisfactory account of that doctrine to others which had been so immediately so frequently communicated to themselves Secondly They were insallibly secured from error in delivering the Doctrins and Principles of Christianity for though they were
Iron and that for three years and an half together as in the case of 〈◊〉 's prayer if he say to the Sea Divide 't will run upon heaps and become on both sides as firm as a wall of Marble Nothing can be more natural than for the fire to burn and yet at God's command it will forget its nature and become a screen and a fence to the three Children in the Babylonian Furnace What heavier than Iron or more natural than for gravity to tend downwards and yet when God will have it Iron shall float like Cork on the top of the water The proud and raging Sea that naturally refuses to bear the bodies of men while alive became here as firm as Brass when commanded to wait upon and do homage to the God of Nature Our Lord walking towards the Ship as if he had an intention to pass by it he was espied by them who presently thought it to be the Apparition of a Spirit Hereupon they were seiz'd with great terror and consternation and their fears in all likelihood heightned by the vulgar opinion that they are evil Spirits that chuse rather to appear in the night than by day While they were in this agony our Lord taking compassion on them calls to them and bids them not be afraid for that it was no other than he himself Peter the eagerness of whose temper carried him forward to all bold and resolute undertakings intreated our Lord that if it was he he might have leave to come upon the water to him Having received his orders he went out of the Ship and walked upon the Sea to meet his Master But when he found the wind to bear hard against him and the waves to rise round about him whereby probably the sight of Christ was intercepted he began to be afraid and the higher his fears arose the lower his Faith began to sink and together with that his body to sink under water whereupon in a passionate fright he cried out to our Lord to help him who reaching out his arm took him by the hand and set him again upon the top of the water with this gentle reproof O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt It being the weakness of our Faith that makes the influences of the Divine power and goodness to have no better effect upon us Being come to the Ship they took them in where our Lord no sooner arrived but the winds and waves observing their duty to their Sovereign Lord and having done the errand which they came upon mannerly departed and vanished away and the Ship in an instant was at the shore All that were in the Ship being strangely astonished at this Miracle and fully convinced of the Divinity of his person came and did homage to him with this confession Of a truth thou art the Son of God After which they went ashore and landed in the Country of Genezareth and there more fully acknowledged him before all the people 6. THE next day great multitudes flocking after him he entred into a Synagogue at Capernaum and taking occasion from the late Miracle of the loaves which he had wrought amongst them he began to discourse concerning himself as the true Manna and the Bread that came down from Heaven largely opening to them many of the more sublime and Spiritual mysteries and the necessary and important duties of the Gospel Hereupon a great part of his Auditory who had hitherto followed him finding their understandings gravelled with these difficult and uncommon Notions and that the duties he required were likely to grate hard upon them and perceiving now that he was not the Messiah they took him for whose Kingdom should consist in an external Grandeur and plenty but was to be managed and transacted in a more inward and Spiritual way hereupon fairly left him in open field and henceforth quite turned their backs upon him Whereupon our Lord turning about to his Apostles asked them whether they also would go away from him Peter spokes-man generally for all the rest answered whither should they go to mend and better their condition should they return back to Moses Alas he laid a yoke upon them which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Should they go to the Scribes and Pharisees they would feed them with Stones instead of Bread obtrude humane Traditions upon them for Divine dictates and Commands Should they betake themselves to the Philosophers amongst the Gentiles they were miserably blind and short-sighted in their Notions of things and their sentiments and opinions not only different from but contrary to one another No 't was he only had the words of Eternal life whose doctrine could instruct them in the plain way to Heaven that they had fully assented to what both John and he had said concerning himself that they were fully perswaded both from the efficacy of his Sermons which they heard and the powerful conviction of his Miracles which they had seen that he was the Son of the living God the true Messiah and Saviour of the World But notwithstanding this fair and plausible testimony he tells them that they were not all of this mind that there was a Satan amongst them one that was moved by the spirit and impulse and that acted according to the rules and interest of the Devil intimating Judas who should betray him So hard is it to meet with a body of so just and pure a constitution wherein some rotten member or distempered part is not to be found SECT IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passover Our Saviour's Journy with his Apostles to Caesarea The Opinions of the People concerning Him Peter's eminent Confession of Christ and our Lord 's great commendation of it Thou art Peter and upon this Rock c. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven how given The advantage the Church of Rome makes of these passages This confession made by Peter in the name of the rest and by others before him No personal priviledge intended to S. Peter the same things elsewhere promised to the other Apostles Our 〈◊〉 discourse concerning his 〈◊〉 Peter's unseasonable zeal in disswading him from it and our Lord 's severe rebuking him Christ's Transfiguration and the glory of it Peter how affected with it Peter's paying Tribute for Christ and himself This Tribute what Our Saviour's discourse upon it Offending brethren how oft to be forgiven The young man commanded to sell all What compensation made to the followers of Christ. Our Lord 's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem Preparation made to keep the Passover 1. IT was some time since our Saviour had kept his third Passover at Jerusalem when he directed his Journy towards Caesarea Philippi where by the way having like a lawful Master of his Family first prayed with his Aposlles he began to ask them having been more than two Years publickly conversant amongst them what the world thought concerning him They answered that
XLVIII in the sixth year of Claudius if not somewhat sooner for S. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not necessarily imply that Fourteen years were completely past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying circa as well as post but that it was near about that time This being granted and if it be not it is easie to make it good then three things amongst others will follow from it First That whereas according to Bellarmine and Baronius S. Peter after his first coming to Rome which they place Ann. XLIV and the second of Claudius was seven years before he returned thence to the Council at Jerusalem they are strangely out in their story there being but three or at most four years between his going thither and the celebration of that Council Secondly That when they tell us that S. Peter's leaving Rome to come to the Council was upon the occasion of the decree of Claudius banishing all Jews out of the City this can no ways be For Orosius does not onely 〈◊〉 but prove it from Josephus that Claudius his Decree was published in the Ninth Year of his Reign or Ann. Chr. LI. Three Years at least after the Celebration of the Council Thirdly That when Baronius tells us that the Reason why Peter went to Rome after the breaking up of the Synod was because Claudius was now dead he not daring to go before for fear of the Decree this can be no reason at all the Council being ended at least Three Years before that Decree took place so that he might 〈◊〉 have gone thither without the least danger from it It might further be shewed if it were necessary that the account which even they themselves give us is not very consistent with it self So fatally does a bad cause draw Men whether they will or no into Errours and Mistakes 5. THE truth is the learned Men of that Church are not well agreed among themselves to give in their verdict in this case And indeed how should they when the thing it self affords no solid foundation for it Onuphrius a man of great learning and industry in all matters of antiquity and who as the writer of Baronius his life insorms us designed before Baronius to write the History of the Church goes a way by himself in assigning the time of S. Peter's founding his See both at Antioch and Rome For finding by the account of the sacred story that Peter did not leave 〈◊〉 for the Ten first Years after our Lord's Aseension and consequently could not in that time erect his See at Antioch he affirms that he went first to Rome whence returning to the Council at Jerusalem he thence went to Antioch where he remained Seven Years till the Death of Claudius and having spent almost the whole Reign of Nero in several parts of Europe returned in the last of Nero's Reign to Rome and there dyed An opinion for which he is sufficiently chastised by Baronius and others of that Party And here I cannot but remarque the ingenuity for the learning sufficiently commends it self of Monsieur l'alois who freely confesses the mistake of Baronius Petavius c. in making Peter go to Rome Ann. XLIV the Second Year of Claudius when as it is plain says he from the History of the Acts that Peter went not out of Judaea and Syria till the Death of Herod Claudii Ann. IV. Two whole Years after Consonant to which as he observes is what Apollonius a Writer of the Second Century reports from a Tradition current in his time that the Apostles did not depart asunder till the Twelfth Year after Christ's Ascension our Lord himself having so commanded them In confirmation whereof let me add a passage that I meet with in Clemens of Alexandria where from S. Peter he records this Speech of our Saviour to his Apostles spoken probably either a little before his Death or after his Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any Israelite shall repent and believe in God through my Name his sins shall be forgiven him after twelve years Go ye into the World lest any should say we have not heard This passage as ordinarily pointed in all Editions that I have seen is scarce capable of any tolerable sence for what 's the meaning of a penitent Israelite's being pardoned after twelve years It is therefore probable yea certain with me that the stop ought to be after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned to the following clause and then the sence will run clear and smooth If any Jew shall repent and believe the Gospel he shall be pardoned but after twelve years go ye into all the World that none may pretend that they have not heard the sound of the Gospel The Apostles were first to Preach the Gospel to the Jews for some considerable time Twelve Years after Christ's Ascension in and about Judaea and then to betake themselves to the Provinces of the Gentile-World to make known to them the glad tidings of Salvation exactly answerable to the Tradition mentioned by Apollonius Besides the Chronicon Alexandrinum tells us that Peter came not to Rome till the Seventh Year of Claudius Ann. Christi XLIX So little certainty can there be of any matter wherein there is no truth Nay the samo excellent Men before mentioned does not stick elsewhere to profess he wonders at Baronius that he should make Peter come from Rome banished thence by Claudius his Edict to the Synod at Jerusalem the same Year viz. Ann. Claudii 9. a thing absolutely inconsistent with that story of the Apostles Acts recorded by S. Luke wherein there is the space of no less than Three Years from the time of that Synod to the Decree of Claudius It being evident what he observes that after the celebration of that Council S. Paul went back to Antioch afterwards into Syria and Cilicia to Preach the Gospel thence into Phrygia Galatia and Mysia from whence he went into Macedonia and first Preached at Philippi then at Thessalonica and Beraea afterwards stay'd some consider time at Athens and last of all went to Corinth where he met with Aquila and Priscilla lately come from Italy banished Rome with the rest of the Jews by the Decree of Claudius all which by an easie and reasonable computation can take up no less than Three Years at least 6. THAT which caused Baronius to split upon so many Rocks was not so much want of seeing them which a Man of his parts and industry could not but in a great measure see as the unhappy necessity of defending those 〈◊〉 principles which he had undertaken to maintain For being to make good Peter's five and twenty years presidency over the Church of Rome he was forced to confound times and dislocate stories that he might bring all his ends together What foundation this story of Peter's being five and twenty years Bishop of Rome has in antiquity I find not unless it sprang from
that as oft as he heard him he seemed to hear not words but thunder that in all his citations he made use of the most prudent artifices using simple words and which seemed to carry nothing but plainness along with them but which way soever a Man turned breathed force and thunder He seems intangled in his cause but catches all that comes near him turns his back as if intending to fly when 't is only that he may overcome 9. SAINT Peter long since observed that in Paul's Epistles there were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some things hard to be understood which surely is not altogether owing to the profoundness of his sence and the mysteriousness of the subject that he treats of but in some degree to his manner of expression his frequent Hebraisms common to him with all the Holy Writers of the New Testament his peculiar forms and ways of speech his often inserting Jewish Opinions and yet but tacitly touching them his using 〈◊〉 words in a new and uncommon sence but above all his frequent and abrupt transitions suddainly starting aside from one thing to another whereby his Reader is left at a loss not knowing which way to follow him not a little contributing to the perplex'd obscurity os his discourses Irenaeus took notice of old that S. Paul makes frequent use of these Hyperbata by reason of the swiftness of his arguings and the great fervour and impetus that was in him leaving many times the designed srame and texture of his discourse not bringing in what should have immediately connected the sence and order till some distance after which indeed to Men of a more nice and delicate temper and who will not give themselves leave patiently to trace out his reasonings must needs create some obscurity Origen and S. Hierom sometimes observe that besides this he uses many of his Native phrases of the Cilician dialect which being in a great measure forraign and exotick to the ordinary Greek introduces a kind of strangeness into his discourse and renders it less intelligible Epiphanius tells us that by these methods he acted like a skilful Archer hitting the mark before his adversaries were aware of it by words misplaced making the frame of his discourse seem obscure and intangled while in it self it was not only most true but elaborate and not difficult to be understood that to careless and trifling Readers it might sometimes seem dissonant and incoherent but to them that are diligent and will take their reason along with them it would appear full of truth and to be disposed with great care and order 10. AS for the order of these Epistles we have already given a particular account of the times when and the places whence they were written That which is here considerable is the Order according to which they are disposed in the sacred Canon Certain it is that they are not plac'd according to the just order of time wherein they were written the two Epistles to the Thessalonians being on all hands agreed to have been first written though set almost last in order Most probable therefore it is that they were plac'd according to the dignity of those to whom they were sent the reason why those to whole Churches have the precedency of those to particular persons and among those to Churches that to the Romans had the first place and rank assigned to it because of the majesty of the Imperial City and the eminency and honourable respect which that Church derived thence and whether the same reason do not hold in others though I will not positively assert yet I think none will over-confidently deny The last enquiry concerns the subscriptions added to the end of these Epistles which were they authentick would determine some doubts concerning the time and place of their writing But alas they are of no just value and authority not the same in all Copies different in the Syriac and Arabic Versions nay wholly wanting in some ancient Greek Copies of the New Testament and were doubtless at first added at best upon probable conjectures When at any time they truly represent the place whence or the Person by whom the Epistle was sent 't is not that they are to be relied upon in it but because the thing is either intimated or expressed in the body of the Epistle I shall add no more but this observation that S. Paul was wont to subscribe every Epistle with his own hand which is my token in every Epistle so I write Which was done says one of the Ancients to prevent impostures that his Epistles might not be interpolated and corrupted and that if any vented Epistles under his name the cheat might be discovered by the Apostles own hand not being to them And this brings me to the last consideration that shall conclude this Chapter 11. THAT there were some even in the most early Ages of Christianity who took upon them for what ends I stand not now to enquire to write Books and publish them under the name of some Apostle is notoriously known to any though but never so little conversant in Church-Antiquities Herein S. Paul had his part and share several supposititious Writings being fathered and thrust upon him We find a Gospel ascribed by some of the Ancients to him which surely arose from no other cause than that in some of his Epistles he makes mention of my Gospel Which as S. Hierom observes can be meant of no other than the Gospel of S. Luke his constant Attendant and from whom he chiefly derived his intelligence If he wrote another Epistle to the Corinthians precedent to those two extant at this Day as he seems to imply in a passage in his first Epistle I have wrote unto you in an Epistle not to keep company c. a passage not conveniently appliable to any part either in that or the other Epistle nay a Verse or two after the first Epistle is directly opposed to it all that can be said in the case is that it long since perished the Divine providence not seeing it necessary to be preserved for the service of the Church Frequent mention there is also of an Epistle of his to the Laodiceans grounded upon a mistaken passage in the Epistle to the Colossians but besides that the Apostle does not there speak of an Epistle written to the Laodiceans but of one from them Tertullian tells us that by the Epistle to the Laodiceans is meant that to the Ephesians and that Marcion the Heretick was the first that changed the title and therefore in his enumeration of S. Paul's Epistles he omits that to the 〈◊〉 for no other reason doubtless but that according to Marcion's opinion he had reckoned it up under the title of that to the Laodiceans Which yet is more clear if we consider that Epiphanius citing a place quoted by Marcion out of the Epistle to the Laodiceans it is in the very same words found
engaged in the solemn celebration of Divine worship and binding his Feet with Cords dragged him through the streets and the most craggy places to the Bucelus a Precipice near the Sea and for that Night thrust him into Prison where his Soul was by a Divine Vision erected and encouraged under the ruines of his shattered Body Early the next Morning the Tragedy began again dragging him about in the same manner till his Flesh being raked off and his Blood run out his spirits failed and he expired But their malice died not with him Metaphrastes adds that they burnt his Body whose Bones and Ashes the Christians there decently intombed near the place where he was wont to Preach His Body at least the remains of it were afterwards with great pomp removed from Alexandria to Venice where they are religiously honoured and he adopted as the Tutelar Saint and Patron of that State and one of the richest and stateliest Churches erected to his Memory that the World can boast of at this Day He suffered in the Month Pharmuthi on the XXV of April though the certain Year of his Martyrdom is not precisely determined by the Ancients Kirstenius out of the Arabick Memoires of his Life says it was in the Fourteenth or the last Year of Claudius S. Hierom places it in the Eighth of Nero. But extravagantly wide is Dorotheus his computation who makes him to suffer in the time of Trajan with as much truth as Nicephorus on the other hand affirms him to have come into Egypt in the Reign of Tiberius If in so great variety of Opinions I may interpose my conjecture I should reckon him to have suffered about the end of Nero's Reign For supposing him to have come with S. Peter to Rome about the Fifth or Sixth Year of Nero he might thence be dispatched to Alexandria and spend the residue of his Life and of that Emperor's Reign in planting Christianity in those parts of the World Sure I am that Irenaeus reports S. Mark to have out-lived Peter and Paul and that after their decease he composed his Gospel out of those things which he had heard Peter preach But whatever becomes of that it is evident that Irenaeus supposed whose supposition certainly was not founded upon meer fancy and conjecture that S. Mark for some considerable time survived the Martyrdom of those two great Apostles A passage that so troubled Christophorson one of those who in these later Ages first translated Eusebius into Latin because crossing the accounts of their Writers in this matter that he chose rather to expunge the word decease and substitute another of a quite different sence expresly contrary to the faith of all ancient Copies and to the most ancient Version of Irenaeus it self But to return S. Mark as to his Person was of a middle size and stature his Nose long his Eye brows turning back his Eyes graceful and amiable his Head bald his Beard prolix and gray his Gate quick the constitution of his Body strong and healthful 5. HIS Gospel the only Book he left behind him was as before we observed written at the intreaty of the Converts at Rome who not content to have heard Peter preach pressed S. Mark his Disciple that he would commit to Writing an Historical account of what he had delivered to them which he performed with no less faithfulness than brevity all which S. Peter perused ratified with his Authority and commanded to be publickly read in their Religious Assemblies And though as we noted but now Irenaeus seems to intimate that it was written after Peter's death yet all that can be inferred hence will be what in it self is a matter of no great moment and importance that the Ancients were not agreed in assigning the exact time when the several Gospels were published to the World It was frequently stiled S. Peter's Gospel not so much because dictated by him to S. Mark as because he principally composed it out of that account which S. Peter usually delivered in his Discourses to the People Which probably is the reason of what Chrysostome observes that in his stile and manner of expression he delights to imitate S. Peter representing much in a few words Though he commonly reduces the story of our Saviour's Acts into a narrower compass than S. Matthew yet want there not passages which he relates more largely than he The last Chapter of his Gospel at least part of it was as Hierom informs us wanting in all ancient Greek Copies rejected upon pretence of some disagreement with the other Gospels though as he there shews they are fairly consistent with each other His great impartiality in his Relations appears from hence that he is so far from concealing the shameful lapse and denial of Peter his dear Tutor and Master that he sets it down with some particular circumstances and aggravations which the other Evangelists take no notice of Some dispute has been made in what Language it was written whether in Greek or Latin That which seems to give most countenance to the Latin Original is the note that we find at the end of the Syriac Version of this Gospel where it is said that Mark preached and declared his Holy Gospel at Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Roman or the Latin Tongue An evidence that with me would almost carry the force of a demonstration were I assured that this note is of equal value and authority with that Ancient Version generally supposed to come very few Centuries short of the Apostolick Age. But we know how usual it is for such additions to be made by some later hand And what credit is to be given to the subscriptions at the end of S. Paul's Epistles we have shewed elsewhere Besides that it is not here said that he wrote but that he Preached his Gospel at Rome in that Language The Advocates of the Romish Church plead that it 's very congruous and suitable that it should at first be consigned to Writing in that Language being principally designed for the use of the Christians at Rome An objection that will easily vanish when we consider that as the Convert Jewes there understood very little Latin so there were very few Romans that understood not Greek it being as appears from the Writers of that Age the gentile and fashionable Language of those Times Nor can any good reason be assigned why it should be more inconvenient for S. Mark to write his Gospel in Greek for the use of the Romans than that S. Paul should in the same Language write his Epistle to that Church The Original Greek Copy written with S. Mark' s own hand is said to be extant at Venice at this Day Written they tell us by him at Aquileia and thence after many Hundreds of Years translated to Venice where it is still preserved though the Letters so worn out with length of time that they are not capable of
not being able to bear the aspersions which some unjustly cast upon him though God signally and miraculously vindicated his innocency he left his Church and retired into desarts and solitudes In his absence was chosen XXXII Dius who sat 8. years After him XXXIII Germanio 4. XXXIV Gordius 5. In his time Narcissus as one from the dead returned from his solitudes and was importuned by the people again to take the government of the Church upon him being highly revercuced by them both for his strict and Philosophical course of life and the signal vengeance which God took of his accusers And in this second administration he continued 10. years suffering martyrdom when he was near 120. years old To relieve the infirmities of his great Age they took in to be his Colleague XXXV Alexander formerly Bishop in Cappadocia who at that time had out of devotion taken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem the choice being extraordinarily designed by a particular revelation from Heaven He was an eminent Confessor and after having sat 15. years died in prison under the Decian persecution By him Origen was ordained Presbyter He was a great Patron of Learning as well as Religion a studious preserver of the Records of the Church He erected a Library at Jerusalem which he especially furnished with the Writings and Epistles of Ecclesiastical persons And out of this treasury it was that Eusebius borrowed a great part of his materials for the composing of his History XXXVI Mazabanes 9. years XXXVII Hymenaeus 23. XXXVIII Zabdas 10. XXXIX Hermon 9. he was as Eusebius tells us the last Bishop of this See before that fatal persecution that rag'd even in his time XL. Macarius ordain'd Ann. Christ. CCCXV. He was present in the great Nicene Council He sat says Nicephorus of Constantinople 20. years but S. Hierom allows him a much longer time BYZANTIUM afterwards called CONSTANTINOPLE THAT this Church was first founded by S. Andrew we have shewed in his Life The succession of its Bishops was as followeth I. S. Andrew the Apostle He was crucified at Patrae in 〈◊〉 II. Stachys whom S. Paul calls his beloved Stachys ordained Bishop by S. Andrew he sat 16. 〈◊〉 III. Onesimus 14. IV. Polycarpus 17. V. Plutarchus 16. VI. Sedecio 9. VII Diogenes 15. Of the last three no mention is made in Nicephorus of Constantinople but they are delivered by Nicephorus Callistus lib. 8. c. 6. p. 540. VIII Eleutherius 7. IX Felix 5. X. Polycarpus 17. XI Athenodorus 4. he erected a Church called Elea afterwards much beautified and enlarged by Constantine the Great XII Euzoius 16. though Nicephorus Callistus allow but 6. XIII Laurentius 11. years and 6. months XIV Alypius 13. XV. Pertinax a man of Consular dignity he built another Church near the Sea-side which he called Peace He sat 19. years which Nicephorus Callistus reduces to 9. XVI Olympianus 11. XVII Marcus 13. XVIII Cyriacus or Cyrillianus 16. XIX Constantinus 7. In the first year of his Bishoprick he built a Church in the North part of the City which he dedicated to the honour of Euphemia the Martyr who had suffered in that place In this Oratory he spent the remainder of his life quitting his Episcopal Chair to XX. Titus who sat 35. years and 6. months though Nicephorus Callistus makes it 37. years After him came XXI Dometius brother as they tell us to the Emperor Probus he was Bishop 21. years 6. months XXII Probus succeeded his Father Dometius and sat 12. years As after him XXIII Metrophanes his brother who governed that Church 10. years And in his time it was that Constantine translated the Imperial Court hither enlarged and adorned it called it after his own name and made it the seat of the Empire XXIV Alexander succeeded a man of great piety and integrity zealous and constant in maintaining the truth against the blasphemies of Arrius He sat 23. years ALEXANDRIA THE foundations of this Church were laid and a great part of its superstructure rais'd by S. Mark who though 〈◊〉 strictly and properly an Apostle yet being an Apostle at large and immediately commissionated by S. Peter it justly obtained the honour of an Apostolical Church Its Bishops and Governours are thus recorded I. S. Mark the Evangelist of whose travels and martyrdom we have spoken in his Life Nicephorus of Constantinople makes him to sit two years II. Anianus charactered by Eusebius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man beloved of God and admirable in all things He ruled in that Throne 22. years III. Avilius 12 or as Eusebius 13. IV. 〈◊〉 succeeded about the first year of Trajan he sat 10. years according to Eusebius 11. V. Primus 12. VI. 〈◊〉 or Justinus 10. VII Eumenes 10 or as Eusebius 13. S. Hierom in his translation calls him Hymenaeus VIII Marcus or Marcianus 13 or as Eusebius 10. IX Celadion 10 but in Eusebius his computation 14. X. Agrippinus 14 according to Eusebius 12. XI Julianus 15 though Eusebius allows but 10. XII Demetrius 21 but Eusebius more truly makes him to have governed that Church no less than 43. years He was a man of great zeal and piety and underwent many troubles in the persecution at Alexandria He was at first a great friend to Origen but afterwards became his enemy laying some irregularities to his charge partly out of emulation at the great reputation which Origen had gained in the world partly in that Origen had suffered 〈◊〉 to be ordained Presbyter by two other Bishops Alexander Bishop of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Caesarea XIII Heraclas a man of a Philosophical genius and way of life He was educated under the institution of Origen and by him taken to be his Assistant in the School of the Catechumens the whole government whereof he afterwards resigned to him and upon the death of Demetrius he was advanced to the government of that Church the care whereof he took for 16. years though Nicephorus of Constantinople by a mistake I suppose for his predecessor makes it 43. XIV 〈◊〉 17. He was one of the most eminent Bishops of his time He was one of Origen's Scholars then preferr'd first Master of the Catechetical School at Alexandria and afterwards Bishop of that See In the persecution under Decius he was banished first to Taposiris a little Town between Alexandria and Canopus then to Cephro and other places in the Desarts of Libya But a large account of his own and others sufferings with many other transactions of those times we have out of his own Letters yet extant in Eusebius He died in the Twelfth year of the Emperor Gallienus XV. Maximus of a Presbyter he was made Bishop of Alexandria he sat in that Chair 18. years according to Eusebius his computation though Nicephorus of Constantinople assign but 8. XVI Theonas 17 or according to S. Hierom's Version of Eusebius 19. To him succeeded XVII Petrus 12. He began his office three years before the last persecution A man of infinite strictness and accuracy and of indefatigable