faln into it for where almost shall you find that men had not rather themselves should overcome than a good cause Always more studious of victory than of truth When Christ askt the Pharisees whether the Baptism of John were from heaven or from men though they could not deny it was from God yet they would not say so that the quarrel between them and Jesus might be endless Timentes lapidationem sed Magis timentes veritatis confessionem says St. Austin they were afraid to be stoned of the people for their obstinacy but they were more afraid to confess the truth What a fond affected glory is this Men account it among the flowers of their reputation not to be conquered in an arguement though it be never so absurd Like the two Harlots before Solomon nothing in their pleadings but clamour and reiteration the one said Nay but the living child is mine and the dead is thine the other said Nay but the dead is thine and the living is mine This is it which hath pluckt the Church of Christ into so many Schisms and Heresies that proud wits when they are in the wrong will never sit down quiet as if they were convicted and which is the calamity that our sins have justly deserved the Church must stay for peace till Sophisters and contentious have nothing to say that is when they shall be brought before the Tribunal of God and have not one word to answer for the crime of their invincible obstinacy Of pertinacious busie-bodies that will not be convicted when their errors be made apparent there are many sorts How stiff we are in civil brabbles never condescending to pacification every corner of the Kingdom is full of examples Do you know what you mean by that common Proverb of violence You will not lose your will though it put you to cost Not lose it said you O that you knew what will this is that you stand upon and you would never keep it It is the fuel of all cruel provocation the Gum that stiffens your anger the infernal fury that makes deadly fewds the defiance of love and charity the cross-bar of brotherly agreement nay it is Satans best advantage to make you miserable like himself in everlasting fire Is this that will for whose sake you will spend your estate to maintain it Is it not enough to lose your soul but that you will pay costs for damnation The heathen Greek Authors were very tart in their Proverb when they spoke of them that contended only for contention sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they strived for no more than the shadow of an Ass And Lucian who is a profest flouter says it is upon this occasion An Athenian was to ride to Delphos and hired an Ass to carry him In the heat of the day he reposed himself behind the Ass and made benefit of the shadow to keep his body from the Sun the Owner that went along to bring back the beast would not suffer it but demanded to sit in the shadow himself for he let out his Ass but not the shadow the Contention says Lucian went so far that it came into the Court. This is the Story somewhat light I confess but good enough to warn brabbling persons that they strive not about the shadow of an Ass Away with obstinacy therefore which is the endless repulse of godly Union and let truth prevail for what should prevail but that which is stronger than all things The greatest Learning in the world must be a slave to Faith and the greatest Majesty in the world must be a slave to Reason Plato writes to Dion the Ruler of Syracusa Pervicaciam tanquam solitudinis parentem fuge Fly obstinacy and wilfulness it will beget you a solitary melancholy life for all your friends will forsake you Creon in Sophocles would follow his own mind hearken to no admonition and so brought all to ruine Tiresias speaks to him not to be stiff and stubborn for it was ever the fore-runner of great calamity and hath these two similitudes First When a torrent of water breaks into a place the little Willows that bend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are not removed they that will not give way are rooted out of their place 2. When the Pilot of a ship will not turn his sail to the winds nor observe how to let a turbulent wave pass by him he splits his vessel therefore the conclusion of the Point shall be with Solomon An haughty spirit goes before a fall and it savours much more of a Christian mildness to be easily drawn off from our own imaginations than to hold a stiff opinion in our teeth in despite as it were of all wise perswasions To be wedded to our own will and fancy is very bad in temporal affairs but an inflexible perverseness is ten times worse in spiritual purposes It was a just invective wherewith St. Stephen reviled the Jews Vncircumcised in hearts and ears you do always resist the Holy Ghost First the heart is uncircumcised full of swelling and pride Such a distempered heart pollutes the ear and will not hear of wholsom Doctrine and when the ear is not tractable to receive the truth then follows the resistance of the Holy Ghost The great opposers both of Law and Gospel in holy Scripture were Sorcerers men that were bewitched as St. Paul says of the Galathians that they would not obey the truth such as could not endure to hear there was any divine wisdom revealed from above which was above their own magical Philosophy and as some of our adversaries have said blasphemously that they had rather err in some things with their Pseudo-Catholick Church than be in the right Cause with the Reformed So those Magicians when their senses were convicted that the finger of God was with Moses and the Apostles yet had they rather err in their own hellish way than go uprightly in the way of God Simon the Sorcerer what did he see in Peters Apostleship to oppose it Elymas the Sorcerer what did he hear from Pauls mouth to contradict it Only they must not seem to be overcome lest their name should be diminished among such as admired them God did smite the Magicians of Pharaoh with blains for resisting the truth and yet you never read that they repented twice their skill prevailed to imitate Moses and to do wonders like unto his in the third Plague they failed and were not able to perform it Moses turned the waters into bloud they did the like Moses brought abundance of Frogs upon the Land the Magicians did so with their inchantments At the third time Moses smote the dust of the ground and made it become Lice over all the Land of Egypt at this the Magicians were at a gaze and could not perform it St. Austin notes upon it In signo tertio defecerunt fatentes sibi adversum esse spiritum sanctum They failed in the third sign as who should say the Holy Ghost the third
For if we say we feel our selves translated from death to life by the fruits of mortification and vivification for the time past and by a firm resolution to produce better fruits for the time to come how will this agree with continuing in the works of the Devil and yet to collect we are the Sons of God There is no coherence in these two nay there is a flat contradiction in the terms For the practice of sin especially of any great crime cannot possibly stand with the assurance of special faith You cannot say I do verily believe I shall persist without interruption in the grace of God unless you add I do firmly purpose to walk in all the ways of God Eternal life is given conditionally believe that is believe effectually and thou shalt be saved Now it were extreme folly to make God a liar to think we should attain everlasting life without keeping the condition or giving all diligence to keep it As for the rejoynder to this it is altogether as weak as the objection that many live debauchedly and yet presume and crack of special assurance I know that the most wholsom truth that ever was taught may be distorted to ill use and so this Doctrine taken with the left hand may prove hurtful to some evil men will distort the Scripture to their own perdition Yet it is against reason and against the grounds of special faith if any man will look upon them but with half an eye For whosoever live like Libertines regardless to please God so far ought they to be from being certain of life eternal that according to that present state of bitterness wherein they are unless they mend they are certain of eternal damnation The Grashopper feedeth only on the dew and Ephraim feedeth on the wind Hos xii 1. A man that is in a dream may be deceived and think he sees what he doth not shall he that is awake therefore and knows what he sees misdoubt that he is deceived I do defend it and maintain it and that upon good consideration that there is no motive in Divinity of greater force and efficacy to encourage a man to do well or to preserve him from hainous sins than to fix in his heart that Christ died for the sins of the whole world and for his sins in particular and albeit he is laden with iniquity and hath abused the bloud of the Covenant yet by repentance and newness of life he is perswaded that bloud shall not be in vain to him but that God hath remitted his sin and is this a stumbling-block to make a man a hypocrite Will any but a most riotous unreclamable Son run on in leudness because he knows he hath an indulgent Father Or waste and consume his means because his Father hath entailed his Land upon him The Prodigal in the Gospel came to himself and turn'd a new leaf because he knew he had a Father would receive and forgive him Shall we abide in sin because grace abounds Rom. vi 1. St. Paul cries out upon it as the greatest Solecism in Divinity The more a man is assured of Gods love towards him in Christ in pardoning his sins in redeeming him in glorifying him hereafter the more will his heart be enflamed with love towards God and towards his neighbour yea towards his enemy for Gods sake the more studious he will be of his glory the more desirous to please the more careful to obey the more ready to return and repent when he hath offended I say it will be so not barely it ought to be so Paul and Peter and divers in the Gospel were assured upon Christs words of their Salvation do you ever read they were less faithful in their ways or any whit the more presumptuous If words can be clear and legible these are in St. John 1 Ep. iii. 2 3. We know when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure As if he had said A man cannot stedfastly hope for glorification but it will make him purifie his heart I must gather up my meditations briefer in the three following Conclusions And the third is in part already opened that this special assurance is not the formal act of justifying faith but an effect which follows it Faith is called special faith two ways 1. Because our Lord Jesus and his merits is the object of it and so it is called faith in his bloud Rom. iii. 5. For although by that faith which doth justifie we believe all the Articles of faith and the whole Word of God as well threatnings as promises yet the object of it as it justifies is Christ and in regard of the general compass of belief it is called special faith 2. It is called special faith in regard of the effect by which particularly and specially we apply Christ unto our selves Some have most inconsiderately taught That this special faith in the latter sense or particular application is the very essence of justifying faith Which opinion hath drawn upon it self a world of scandal and absurdity By faith we obtain remission of sins that is the Covenant of the Gospel But by what faith It cannot be by this special assurance For certainly a mans sins must be forgiven before he can be assured they be forgiven what more idle than to be assured by special affiance that we were reconciled to God before we were reconciled therefore in order of nature there is another degree of faith which goeth before by which we are justified before God and that is a lively and effectual assent that this is most true that Christ came into the World to seek and to save that which is lost This is eternal life that we might know thee the only God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Joh. xvii 3. And as that is a plain speculative Text so we have the exercise and practise of it Mat. xvi 16. Our Saviour ask'd his Disciples Whom say ye that I am Peter answered Thou art Christ the Son of the living God This was his intellectual asset to the truth of salvation and thereby he was justified Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona blessed for that confession Therefore special assurance is not the formal act of justifying faith In a word our confidence is begotten by Gods mercy our confidence doth not beget Gods mercy We live in our Mothers womb as soon as ever the soul possesseth the body yet we feel not when life was first given So we live by faith and we are justified by acknowledging the mystery of salvation as it is Rom. x. 9. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Yet we do not feel or perceive we are justified till the actions and fruits of faith put themselves forth abundantly in us Infants are
from thee and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth But St. Paul doth not use to obscure plain Doctrin with strange Poetical Phrases and Estius hath requited Beza with another place out of the Psalms to confirm my Doctrin Psal lxiii 9. Those that seek my Soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth that is the enemies of the innocent should go into the place of the damned The other Testimony of Scripture for I will press no more is Psal xvi 10. and rehearsed by St. Peter in this Chapter Thou shalt not leave my Soul in hell c. What pains some men have taken to no fruitful end that I know to make these words bear any sense rather than that which is literal no man that marks their diligence must deny but the Soul in divers Authors is taken for the Body and Hell for the Grave and so they patch it up Thou wilt not leave my life in the Sepulcher but why should literal Scripture be so eluded St. Austins rule is that when the literal sense of the Text sounds somewhat that is sinful or impossible then discreet and learned Interpretations must mollifie the letter but it is not to be suffered where good divinity is conteined in the letter as there is in this the meaning is as no flesh in the Sepulcher was ever free from corruption but only Christs so no Soul in Hell was ever supported and assisted by God and not forsaken but only Christs So Fulgentius most divinely anima immunis à peccato non erat subdenda supplicio carnem sine peccato non debuit vitiare corruptio Christs Soul knowing no sin went not to Hell to pay any debt of punishment for an innocent could not be obnoxious to those flames and torments and his Body never executing any evil act could not be tainted with corruption and putrefaction Is it not therefore consonant to reason to stick to the letter of Scripture when it bears an Orthodox exposition of faith and whether we say that Christ being free among the dead to walk whither he would his Soul being separated in death first shewed it self to the Saints in Joy to their exceeding comfort then to the Unbelievers in Hell to their woe and confusion or whether we say He descended that such as believed may never be thrust into that infernal Prison or rather that He brought his triumph over death with him before the face of Hell and brought those unruly spirits under his yoke entred upon the strong mans house and spoiled his house as it is in the Parable Matth. xii All these ways are agreeable to Gods word and to be admitted without contention Thus far upon Scripture attended by reason Indeed Stapleton says that two Articles of the Creed are not to be found in Scripture this of Christs descent in to Hell the other of the Catholick Church I confess in his sense they are not to be found in Scripture but in ours they are But last of all attend what light the very Creed it self will give to the confirmation of this Doctrin The ground that a learned Father of our own Church lays I take to be most rational Thus take these words properly and not figuratively as it is fit in a short abstract of faith next let them have a sense different in matter from all other Articles or else they were a superfluous repetition then let every Article keep a true consequent order of time one after another or else it would make a strange confusion and all other Expositions will give place Some of the Romish and some of our own part have taught that when Christ was crucified he susteined the pains of Hell but observe against them how this Article should come in most preposterously after his death and burial which was in time before Others make this sense of it that he was dead and deteined in death others to be no more but that he was buried but according to these opinions there shall neither be property of phrase nor difference of matter in this Article from them that went before To be dead and buried are as plain speeches as be in all the Creed and should these be explained by an enigmatical Phrase to descend into Hell rather to obscure than to explain the former Observe how our Church of England hath differenced it from death and burial art 3. As Christ died for us and was buried so also it is believed mark that 's another point that He went down into Hell And the thirtieth Article of the Church of Ireland doth not satisfie me that this line is in one comma I know not whether by the negligence of the Printer He was buried and descended into Hell I cannot come to the third part of my Text and I have done as much as the time will permit upon the second only let me add let weak capacities be no ways discomforted though they cannot explicitly understand the meaning of this controverted Article of the Creed Christs descending into Hell they must believe that Christ vanquished the Devil for our sakes that 's necessary both for their comfort and salvation And all Articles of Faith are not equally necessary and fundamental Gregory Valenza and many others I think not imprudently hold that the main and necessary points for unlearned simple people to believe are the great works of God remembred in the principal Feasts of the year Christs Nativity his Passion Resurrection Ascension into Heaven and the coming of the Holy Ghost And though this Article of the Descent into Hell contein an excellent mystery of Faith yet it comes not near the excellent knowledg and use of the former Suarez the Jesuit writes confidently that if by an Article of Faith we understand a Truth which all faithful people are bound explicitly to believe so he did not think it necessary to reckon it among the Articles of Faith The Nicene Creed in our Common-prayer Book hath left it out Ruffinus says that after 400 years it came into the Latin Church and like enough for St. Austin expounds the Creed five times and Chrysologus of Ravenna ann 440. six times and never glance it For that Creed called the Apostles was not so drawn up by the Apostles for ought we can find in good antiquity but called so because it conteins the sum of all Apostolical Doctrin one part of it was laid too after another and this I believe was the last addition of all Therefore it is a main arm of faith that Christ loosed the sorrows of death and a Truth it is no doubt though not of such prime consequence that He descended into Hell to loose those sorrows for our liberty but the main Pillar of Faith is the first Comma of my Text that God raised up Jesus from death and it was impossible He should be holden of it AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN xi 43. And when he had thus spoken he cried with a
as when a bow-string is snapt in twain yet both parts of the strings do still remain in the nocks of the Bow So the body of our Saviour was holy and venerable because it retained the personal union of the Godhead and the Sepulcher where it was reposed deserved the attendance of an Angel Fourthly If not an Angel who else would be believed in so great a matter as this was Tell me who could give testimony beside that would be credited The Disciples were never so tardy to conceive never so unapprehensive in any thing else as in this They knew not as yet what the rising from the dead did mean Observe the talk of Cleophas and the other Disciple Luk. xxiv 21. And guess at all the company beside They confess Christ had been a Prophet mighty in word and deed whom Pilate and the Rulers had condemned to death and crucified but we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel As who should say being he is dead there is an end of our hope we look for no more redemption from him God loves to have better witnesses than these in all his works that we may not say he takes us unprepared we were not well wrought to credulity David said it in his haste what if he had said it upon premeditation All men are liars It was not fit so fundamental an Article of faith as this was should be preatcht at first time by lying lips nay rather by an Angel who was confirmed in grace that he would not lie And how little had the authority of any man swayed Mary Magdalen to believe when albeit an Angel had told her the truth how Christ was risen yet she distrusts and runs to Peter and John with a quite contrary tale that some body had taken away her Masters body and she knew not where they had laid it and therefore because an Angel could not put that faith into her Christ took it in hand and disclosed himself Fifthly An Angel appears at the mouth of the Grave after Christ came to life again who is the first fruits of our Resurrection which is in effect to promise that we shall be exalted after death to the society of Angels Thus a worthy Author observed it before me The finding of an Angel in the place of dead bodies is for a pledge that there is a possibility and hope that dead bodies may come into the place of Angels Why not the bodies in the Grave to be advanced in heaven one day as well as the Angels in heaven to be about the Grave this day And I pray you mark it with me There are many Apparitions of Angels recorded in holy Scripture yet this one time and no more if I be not mistaken an accurate description is made what manner of Robe and Garment they did seem to wear His countenance was like lightning and his rayment white as snow in the next verse to my Text. The Holy Ghost would never have instanced in the bright colour of the Garment but to shew with what Angelical shapes we shall be cloathed in the Resurrection 6. Lastly Angels desire to be present at every thing wherein mankind is benefited that they may rejoyce with us No envy no malignity in them that we shall be made perfect in both parts of nature both in body and soul and so in that respect exceed them who are only spiritual substances For they that rejoyce when one sinner is converted how much more do they rejoyce that all mankind shall be deliver'd from the Prisons of death and beautified with immortality they fought with the Devil about the Body of Moses they will strive with death and corruption about the restauration of our bodies For God will send forth his Angels and they shall gather his Elect from the four corners of the earth this is meant of their Ministry to rake up our bones and dust together at the great day of the Resurrection Surgente Christo terrenis redditur coeleste commercium now Angels came down in bodily shapes because Christ had exalted frail flesh unto incorruption now they talk familiarly to Gods servants as with the tongues of men because our tongues shall be made Psalteries of the divine praise for ever I have done with the Angels descent from heaven and now I come to the third motion which was particularly about our Saviours Sepulchre He came and rolled back the stone from the door When you hear that the door of our Saviours Sepulchre was a great stone and a stone rolled upon it you must not conceive the manner by such Tombs and Monuments as we have now adaies Neither will I refer you to those types and Medals which are printed now adaies and taken from the fashion of the Sepulchre which at this day is to be seen in the Holy City and is kept by certain Orders of Friars with great reverence For with what assurance can I say it is the same Sepulchre wherein our Saviour lay when Eusebius says that in the reign of Constantine the Emperor the place was nothing but a rude heap of earth so that there was no memory remaining of our Saviours Burial place But those of the learned that seem to me to speak probably say thus Jerusalem was seated upon a rocky place so that all their chief Monuments were digged out of stony Quarries Every Family of noble reputation as the learned Casaubon notes it out of the Rabbies had a Sepulchre proper to it self with a certain number of hollow places or excavations to receive the Corpses of that Family Some say there were wont to be thirteen in every Vault some say but eight In such a Vault belonging to Joseph of Arimathaea was Christ laid a rocky stony Moument it was lest some should say he was digg'd out by some secret Mine a new one wherein never any had been laid lest they should say not He but another body rose a Tomb not belonging to himself but to another man because he neither died nor was buried for himself but for us men and for our salvation St. Cyril helps us further to know that the Monuments of the Kings of Juda and Israel were raised a little above the ground but the Tombs of all others of that Nation who were under the Princely rank were hewn out seven cubits under ground Eusebius very directly says of his Tomb it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Cave but none so pat as the Prophet Jeremy Lam. v. 53. They have cut off my life in the dungeon and cast a stone upon me An hollow descension into a low place is called a Dungeon And as we cover a Wells mouth with planks of wood or with lead so in sundry places of Scripture it appears that they rolled great stones upon the mouth of their Caves And surely Joseph of Arimathaea barr'd this Sepulchre with a stronger stone than ordinary that our Lords body might not be abused by the malice of his Enemies
it will be time enough for you to come in and joyn in Prayer O ye loyterers Do you know the hurt of it when ye lose the opportunity of one minute to serve the Lord Pliny in his Letters to Trajan reports of the Christians that they had Ante lucanos congressus they met together before day to read the Scriptures to pray and sing Psalms I confess there was great reason for it then because they held their Assemblies when their Enemies were in bed that they might not know of it But I am sure since the Apostles time never were so many miracles wrought as at those early Vigils And that I may conclude this Point with one use more Mans life is but a day and what part of life is the early morning of that day but Youth If you will do well unto your own souls seek out Christ betimes when the Sun of Reason begins to dispel the darkness of ignorance in your tender age Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth and God will not forget thee nor forsake thee in thy old Age. Some Fiend of hell made that Proverb Angelicus juvenis senibus Satanizat in annis as if the Child could be taught too soon to choose the good and to refuse the evil as if young holiness were obnoxious to become old iniquity I will ask you Why do we Catechize the younger of both Sexes in Lent but to teach them to seek Christ early against Easter I will come to a less matter why do we ever paint Angels with the faces of young men or Children but that youth is a fit stock upon which we should ingraft the heavenly vertues and holiness of Angels If Mary Magdalen gained by rouzing her self up early to seek Jesus Christ seek him then I beseech you when he may be found that is with the most timely opportunity I have done with the circumstances which were but Preambles to the substance of the Text that substance may easily be discerned from all the rest for the Kernel taken out of the words is this that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen As it is said of St. Thomas the Apostle so of her she believed more than she saw yet according to the dimness of faith which was in those times unless she had seen she had not believed If Christ as soon as he was risen had ascended immediately unto heaven if no Witnesses had been left behind that could say they saw him and eat with him and conversed with him the words of truth would have wanted credit with the world because our wisdom is rather carnal than spiritual Therefore says St. Peter Acts x. 40. God raised him up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto Witnesses chosen before of God This made the Apostles set their Seal to the confirmation of it Luk. xxiv 34. The Lord is risen indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you would say in good earnest he is risen and hath appeared unto Simon Now let no man contradict it for Peter hath seen him with his eyes But let me tell you the bodily eye ought not to come in for his part to peep into those mysteries into which Faith doth search The secrets of the Kingdom of heaven which we believe are invisible and incomprehensible But Christ considered it was but New Moon with the Church now it was but Tyrocinium Ecclesiae the fresh-man-ship I may say of Christian Religion and the young graft must be held with Props from the shaking of the winds which are needless to be used to an old Tree whose root is fastned The Apostles and sundry women and divers brethren did see Christ after he was risen this was milk for babes but now we must believe that which we have not seen and the vision of God and of his Son shall be the reward of faith in the Kingdom of glory Last of all he was seen of me also says St. Paul as of one born out of due time 1 Cor. xv 8. Then look not to see him manifest in his fleshly presence any more till he comes in judgment For the Apostle seems to me to say plainly that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last of all that shall see him in that manner So having setled the ground-work that he appeared I draw on to consider by what degrees he appeared and that is suppeditated to us with much variety out of the twentieth Chapter of St. John's Gospel The last year you know I handled that part of sacred story fit for the day how this woman having complained to the Disciples that the body of our Lord was stoln away Peter and John ran hastily to see the wonder and she would not be left behind she follows them to see what they could make of it they found it true as she had related and departed full of great admiration This poor Wretch alone continues at the Monument and resolves not to stir till she have better satisfaction Quantum bonum est assiduitas perseverantia says Theophylact Shall not assiduity and perseverance reap plenteous fruits of comfort Yes no question yet because she was a narrow-brim'd vessel observe how God pours his favours into her as it were by spoonfuls that she might not be overwhelmed with the excellency of revelations She that had often lookt into the Sepulchre and was sure the body she sought was not there I know not by what divine instinct she looks in again Whether it were as Tully said of Crassus the Orator says he we came into the Capitol to please our selves with looking upon that Bench in the Senate where that famous Citizen was wont to sit So she looked in now with a resolved mind that it would delight her to view the place where her Saviour had been interred though nothing else were to be discerned But loe she spied that there she did not look for two heavenly Ministers all in white the Grave which always before was the den of worms was now become the throne of Angels And it came so to pass first to refer us to that which shall befall all the Sons of God our bodies shall be buried by the Ministry of men as Christs was by Joseph and Nicodemus but we shall be raised out of the dust at the last day by the Ministry of Angels Secondly says St. Hierom in his Epistle to Hebidias this was enough for all parties if they would think upon it wisely that the body of our Lord was not stoln out of the Grave by any malicious Adversaries because the place was so well guarded with the custody of Angels And thirdly Jesus appeared by these as by his Proxies they stand in his stead for a while to tell Mary to tell the other women He is not here he is risen But behold she looked for a greater than these for him of whom it is said When he bringeth his first-born into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him
opened that the Word should run swiftly throughout all the world when good tidings were diffusive great joy unto all people The sound came flying upon the wings of the wind that there was neither Speech nor Language upon the earth but their voices were heard among them The Law made a great din when it was published there came thunder with it and the noise of a Trumpet louder and louder Yet this noise was spread in the Desart of Sinai in a desolate and uninhabited Region But this sound which hapned when the Gospel was authorized to be preached in every Nation it had audience in the most populous place of all Judaea in the City of Jerusalem As who should say it was a communicable sound which should be received into the Imperial Cities of all Kingdoms I draw this only observation from it to your holy practice that the Lord loveth fragorem vocis not a whispering silence but an exalted voice a loud exclamation to praise him Open confession of Gods name is an effect individually connex'd with a true lively faith so says David Psal cxvi I believed and therefore I spake There are three things hateful to God which jar against it 1. Hypocritical profession when the protestation of the mouth is not rooted in the heart 2. Abnegation of the Faith whether they deny the truth for fear or for resolved Apostasie 3. There is another way to sin against the confession of the Faith and that is malum silentium not to glorifie God openly in our profession when it concerns his honour in whose person the Psalmist speaks I kept silence yea even from good words but it was pain nay it will be pain and grief unto them St. Paul complains of those Christians that were of Rome in his days that none would openly declare themselves of his side in the time of persecution At my first answer none stood with me but all forsook me I pray God it may not be laid to their charge 1 Tim. iv 16. The Lord would not have it lurk only in the secrets of our breast that we are Christs Disciples but that it should resound abroad to his glory for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation And let Gods service be performed on all sides on the Priests part and on the peoples with fervor and strength of voice like the sound of many waters You may pray tacitly in the heart but sure the holy Spirit came not from heaven like a vehement sound to teach you to fumble in the mouth and scarce to open your lips when you are in Prayer Prayer is a calling upon God Call upon me in the time of trouble Psal l. Nay a roaring for very disquietness of heart says the same Prophet in another place Our humble Petitions are called Vituli labiorum Heb. xiii Their lips will offer their sacrifice aloud if the true incense of zeal do burn within for our Saviour says Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh A troubled soul I grant it sometimes cannot utter it self sometimes a dumb-born Prayer is very powerful as Hannah the Mother of Samuel is the great instance of it but in the ordinary way assuredly the more strength of voice we put to our Supplications the more we shake off the drowsiness of the flesh the more we stir up the grace of the holy Spirit which loves that the Eccho and chearful sounds of the voice should ascend up to heaven But the Scripture doth not leave at this that there came a sound from heaven it goes further and tells us the manner of the sound that it was like unto that noise which is caused by a vehement wind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if the wind had blown but it was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Oecumenius that you might not imagine the holy Spirit to be a corporeal breathing like the vaporous substance of the wind therefore the quasi is very significant that it had but the similitude of the wind Yet it is very inquirable why like that more than any thing else If we had been left to guess what sound it was why might not we have imagined it to be the purling of some soft streams Or the humming of Bees about their Hive Or the voice of harpers playing with their harps Rev. xiv 2. None of those it was but as the fragor of the wind And when God declares his vertue in some sensible object you must perswade your reason there is some great relation between the sign and the thing signified Did not our Saviour illustrate unto Nicodemus our Regeneration or new Birth from the blasts of the air Joh. iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the voice thereof and knowest not whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit Yet more feelingly when he did infuse into his Apostles the power of the Holy Ghost bequeathing them that great Sacerdotal priviledge Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Was it not conveyed by blowing upon them like the wind by insufflation Joh. xx 22. He breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost Now I will tell you together where both the mystery and the use of it do consist First As the breath which we send forth comes from the warmth of our Lungs and of our bowels within so the Spirit proceedeth from the substantial love of the Father and of the Son What was the meaning then of that sensible expiration But that as the breath which he vented out came from his Humane Nature so the Holy Ghost which he breathed on his Disciples came from his Divine Nature And this must follow to give it you by the way that Christ is very God for who but God can communicate the Holy Ghost For it was Gods Promise that He and none but He would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh Isa xliv And it stands as well proved that the Holy Ghost is God for the prime and supreme power to remit sins is the Holy Ghosts he was given to the Disciples for that end and none can forgive sins but God alone Secondly Christ communicated his spiritual gifts by breathing to shew that he even the same Lord was the Author both of our temporal and eternal life For in the Creation the Lord breathed into mans nostrils the breath of life Gen. ii 7. But this life shall pass away and the body shall crumble into dust Why behold the breath of the Lord will go forth again to cause a joyful Resurrection as it is in the Prophets vision of the dry bones Ezek. xxxvil 5. Thus saith the Lord unto these bones Behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live Yet if this body wherein sin reigns and inclines it only to
Brethren let your word be pure able to endure the fiery trial even for his sake who in the beginning was the Word and that Word was God As for such double tongues whose Heart is a Jew and their Tongue a Christian and for those aequivocating Jesuits who teach you to adulterate Truth in mental reservation let them have their portion with Sisera that told a lie and so spake his last for he warned Jael to deny him if any did enquire for him and then says the Text he slept and then he perished So much hath been spoken for these Celestial Graces Truth and Mercy considered in disjunction but as the Wings of the Cherubins touched one another in the midst of the House so there must be a copulation of these spiritual Blessings for Mercy and Truth are such a Pair as will either lodg together or leave together There was such a similitude of nature between the Twins of Love Eros Anteros that at once they wept and at once they smil'd they fell sick together and they recovered joyntly Such are the Twins of Grace Truth and Mercy she that would have them cut in twain and parted is an Harlot she that cries spare and preserve them whole she is the Mother and must enjoy them Look upon them in a state of policy Mercy without Truth is a sweet shower dropping on the barren sands quite spilt and no blessing follows it Truth without Mercy is extreme right and extreme injury Mercy without Truth is a dangerous pitty Truth without Mercy is not verity but severity Consider them towards God and Heaven and then most unfit it is that either should be alone A Faith of meer Protestation without Good Works such is Truth without Mercy it might have been in the Gergasens Swine for such a Faith is in the Devil says St. James and therefore might have been in the Gergasens Swine to bear him company and all the integrity of the Heathen all the goodness that Socrates could teach because it is not in Christ such is Mercy without Truth it comes tardy like Esaus Venison and the Blessing is remov'd upon the head of Jacob. St. Austin compares them thus A Pagan living without blame before men is a man with his eyes open in the dark midnight and he that professeth Christ and not mercy but is sold to commit iniquity is one with his eyes shut in the clear day and he sees as little Such an unadorned Faith is like a fair Shield which the Tyroes among the Romans carried to the battel it is a piece of Harness indeed as Faith is called by St. Paul but it makes no shew it hath not the imprese of any Stratagem upon it Our holy Life and conscionable Conversation must be engraven upon our Faith like the Posie of the Lover upon the Tree Crescetis amores as the bark grew so the letters waxed bigger if the one prospered the other thrived as well For the whole Jury of our Creed the twelve Articles will not save us unless the Law be on our side Though not altogether that is impossible yet by endeavour and pious industry to acquit our selves of many trespasses The sum of all is Two are better than one I know that some rely too much upon the Example of the Penitent Thief the eyes of whose Faith were not opened until his hands and feet were pierced with the nails of death but look a little better into his Practice and you shall see that he prov'd himself so good a Christian in the last hour as if he had been reprieved from the Cross for another Assizes First he reproved the scorner Secondly he preached Moses Dost thou not fear God Thirdly he confessed his guiltiness But we suffer justly Fourthly he justified the innocent This man hath done nothing amiss Fifthly he consented to the power of the Magistrate We receive the reward of our deeds Sixthly he acknowledged Christs Divinity as he did his Humanity before saying that Heaven was his Kingdom Lastly he prayed and believed Lord remember me in thy Kingdom See what a Swarm of Bees hang upon his lips in a few words lest in this one Example the mercies of Christ might be made an occasion to excuse the mercy of man But Faith and Truth are our Wedding Garment Good Works and Mercy are the Broidering upon it Haec est tunica filii mei this is my Sons Coat says the Lord and the Spouses Cloathing is of wrought needle-work Psal xlv Let them hear of this especially who by their Profession are the Pillars of Truth in the Church and should be the Censors of sweet Perfume also let them look to it that these Wings of Truth and Mercy be equally poised that their knowledg preach continually in their holy life lest it prove with us as St. Austin spake of Antony the Eremite that grew exceeding devout when all the Cloisters were idle and lascivious and the Eremite being so ignorant that he knew not letters rapiunt indocti regnum coelorum literati excluduntur the great Clerks studied for Heaven but the simple People took it by violence and possessed it What should I speak more If Man be a little World and his Soul a great Heaven in it then these are duo magna luminaria Truth is the Orient Star of the Understanding and Mercy is the bâ—ightness of the Will like the Sun and Moon in the Firmament like the faithful Witness in Heaven But take heed that the Stars themselves be not swept away from the Sky with the Tail of the Dragon take heed lest like the dastard Ephramites being harnessed and carrying Bows we turn our backs in the day of battel for so it follows in the fourth part of my Text there is a deserant Gods Gifts may forsake us and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall Mercy and Truth they may forsake us What will some man say our Justification our Righteousness in Christ may that forsake us Superbia quo ascendis Why doth the presumption of man move such angry questions But Beloved I have no such uncomfortable Doctrine at this time to deliver I wish it prosperously that the head of the Serpent may be bruised that there be no leading the free-born into Captivity and no complaining in our streets But Sanctification shakes her leaves sometimes like the accursed Figtree Mercy in King David spilt the bloud of an innocent truth forsook truth with a curse in the mouth of St. Peter Now every quality may cease to be and grow to nothing three ways as it is distinguished in Philosopny 1. Defectu firmae inhaesionis seu radicationis 2. Admotione contrarii 3. Desitione subjeoti I will explain them in order First I say defectu firmae inhaesionis When Truth and Mercy want root and have no hold to stay long As a luke-warm heat quickly evaporates out of the water if the fire be not maintained An Inceptor that proceeded not was a fool among the Galatians and with
to distort this saying as if Christian were general to every Schismatick and Sectary and Catholick were appropriated to the Orthodox abiding in the bosom of the true Church Nay some are so senseless to make the Apostles the Authors of such childish counsel that because good and bad would invade the name of Christian therefore the Disciples should call themselves Catholicks for distinction sake Why list I pray you he that can falsly say Christian is my name can he not with as much impudency and falshood say that Catholick is my surname the word becomes the Creed most divinely the holy Catholick Church for what Church shall I adhere to That which is for Time universal from the preaching of Christ unto these dayes that which is for Place universal dispersed wheresoever the Faith of the Elect is received that which is for Truth universal believing all that the Prophets and Apostles have delivered and whatsoever the Church hath ratified by its continual interpretation But our fine Italian Wits have spun out another notion that particular Church is Catholick which hath reteined the pure Truth in all Ages since Christ and never failed from whence hath resulted that proud inclosure of Roman Catholick an error not to be argued me thinks but to be whooped at I am sure Catholick in their sense is neither name nor surname of them that seek for peace They pour it on as Vinegar to make the wounds of the Church smart The Name of Christian is the Sanctuary of Unity and Oil to heal the wound let that be our Badg then which was the good Disciples c. But if you wear this Livery of Christ what service will you do him do you consider it unto what holiness you are engaged if your Title be derived from so pure a Fountain Now I am at the top of the spire at that point of my Text which is nearer to Heaven than any other It is well that we were Infants when we were first inrolled to be Christians in those sucking days we did not feel the weight that was laid upon our shoulders if we came with ripe years to Baptism and with premeditated understanding it would make us sink down when we put our foot into the waters and tremble all over to bethink us what heavenly part a Christian is to act upon the Earth as if he were an Angel incarnate Alexander Severus the Emperor whose Mother Mammaea was a Christian was saluted in the name of Antoninus by the Romans a name which had been most auspicious in that Republick By no means says the Emperor do not engage me to the necessity of that expectation Nomina insignia onerosa sunt illustrious names are burdensom and I cannot satisfie that which is looked for from them Alas but a trifle was looked for from an Antoninus in comparison of that is looked for from a Christian A few sins were esteemed no blemish in one of them one sin and unrepented of shall be an everlasting woe to one of us The similitude of a few Vertues made up a gallant Heathen the defect of one Vertue degrades a Christian In whom there is not meekness and mercies there 's no print of Christ in whom there is not humility there 's no colour of Christ in whom there is not perfect charity there is no agreement with Christ non potest esse concors cum Christo qui est discors cum Christiano he that doth not abrenuntiate and deny himself he hath no part in Christ for he that thinks his good works are estimable with Heaven and looks to be saved by his own merits est latro insultans cruci Domini says St. Austin he is the wicked Thief that insults over the Cross of Christ He that hath Christ alwayes in his eye to follow him in his heart to love him in his faith to trust in him in his works to glorifie him he is co Christus he shall communicate of his name here and he shall be cohaeres Co-heir with him in his Fathers Kingdom hereafter St. Austin calls us Heirs in this World by the usurpation of this Name sicut sunt haeredes nominis ita sunt imitatores sanctitatis Christian thou art Heir of his Name thou shalt do well therefore to be Executor of his Sanctity There are three things as the same Father hath filed them together with which our Christendom holds a secret antipathy in his short book of true Religion Neque in confusione Paganorum neque in caecitate Judaeorum neque in purgamentis Haeâ—eticorum quaerenda est it is neither to be found in the confusion of Pagans nor in the blindness of the Jews nor in the filthiness of Hereticks Justin Martyr is well rejected by the great Annalist for condescending to call all the Heathen Christians qui 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vixerunt who from the beginning of the World had instituted themselves by well guided reason This can never be concocted with truth for Christianity in the very essence is an explicit knowledg of the Son of God that died for our sins and rose again for our justification Beside Gentilism doth incorporate in it the worshipping of vain Gods and how abhorrent is that to this Name When the Roman Deputy urged Polycarpus to swear by the Genius of Cesar his answer was no more but I am a Christian a Negative to all Idolatry in that Affirmative Secondly Where there is Judaism there is no Christianism He that hath relished the honey of the Gospel says St. Austin cannot endure the bitter waters of the Law Circumcision hath a bitter acrimony in it to offend his taste nec hostiarum ferre cruorem valet nec Sabbati observantiam custodire he will not offer the bloud of Sacrifices he will not keep the observation of the Sabbath Let them note that who strive to have the entire fourth Commandment to be moral and perpetual A strange refractariness in some men that cannot endure to be Christians in Ceremonies and yet are content to fall back to those beggarly Elements of Moses and to be Jews in Ceremonies Thirdly The filthiness of Hereticks either in Doctrin or Life it draws a dash through the Name of Christian and blots it out No lie is of the truth and he that denies that Jesus is the Christ he is a liar and an Antichrist Jesus is the name of the Person of our Lord Christ is the name of his Office how every Heresie clasheth either against his Person or his Office and such a one doth so little merit to pass for a Christian that he is published for an Antichrist Or be it that you are undepraved in the truth but most depraved in manners there again you forfeit your interest in this spotless Name For why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Luk. vi 46. Cum impiis homines sumus sed non cum impiis Christiani sumuâ—â— I do not yield clearly to that but
requisite additions and put it out of question The Wisemen adored him with costly Gifts after the manner of an earthly Prince The Angels glorifie him with Hymns and Praises after the Majesty of God In every respect this is the greatest testimony of Christ in all the Scripture excepting where God used his own voice immediately from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased These things are but said now I will prove it in the prosecuting of the parts which are these The Messengers the preparation to the Message and the Message it self or the Choristers the preparation to their Musick and then the Anthem The Choristers are 1. Heavenly ones 2. A multitude 3. An Host or an Army of them Their preparation is twofold With much suddenness suddenly there was with the Angel and with much chearfulness for they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 singing praise unto God The Anthem it self hath three rests in it Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will towards men And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly Host these are the Choristers that sung the Carol and the first thing we note in them is that they were heavenly ones Many things in the former Verses of this Chapter were exceeding mean if I may not say vile and sordid touching our Saviours Nativity but this portion of the story is of another nature and very honourable the more his Divinity had hid it self in Clouts in Flesh in a Manger the more it is illustrated by a glorious testimony The Earth afforded him one of the worst places it had the Heavens afforded him their very best attendance the Angels These heavenly Spirits you see gaze not upon the Work of our Redemption nor upon the Oeconomy of the Church as idle Spectators but they were imployed from the beginning in all the works of the Lord Job xxxviii 7. Who laid the corner stone of the earth when the morning Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy Some Expositors infer from hence that the Angels applauded and praised the Lord for the Creation of the world for the Chaldee Paraphrase instead of the Sons of God reads it Acies Angelorum the Army of Angels And the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the corner stone of the earth was laid all my Angels praised me with a loud voice St. Chrysostome says upon it that the Angels admired to see the beauty of the world beneath they were astonished to behold the degrees of the Elements the multitude of all sorts of Creatures their Order Number and measure And by so much were they transported with the beauty of Gods Excellency more than we and of all his Works by how much they did better perceive that they were wrought with infinite and inexplicable wisdom This apprehension of the Fathers upon those words of Job I think is not to be refused Anastasius Sinaita is cited to go a great deal further that on the fourth day of the Creation the Angels saw the Sun rise in the morning from under the interposition of the Earth and presently they bethought them how Christ Sol justitiae should be born of a pure Virgin and dwell upon the earth and immediately they sung this very Song Gloria in excelsis as a prevention or prediction what should be sang upon this day almost four thousand years before it came to pass But this conjecture supposeth one of these two things scarce to be admitted either that these heavenly ones foresaw the fall of Adam before it came to pass as well as God and that the Son of God should be given in the flesh for a Propitiation to be the remedy or else another scholastic quidlibet must be received that Christ was so the head of the Angels that he should have been Incarnate and the Angels saved by faith in that Incarnation though Adam had never faln which is but harsh in the delivery This is the true Doctrine and the right descant upon the Point these Spirits that dwell in Heaven rejoyced for the Creation of the Earth when the Foundations of it were laid as Job says how much more would they bear a part and triumph for our sakes at the Restauration and the Redemption of the Earth Yet now we are at the truth mistake not the reason of their joy as some have done let me but touch upon a petty error and so proceed to the true causes It is supposed by many that the Angels are ready to attend the Church with all their help and diligence and exceeding glad in our prosperity because they receive an augmentation of their blessedness by their pious Ministry towards the Sons of men Now this savours of a little servility me thinks as if those holy ones did not communicate themselves to be safeguards and watchmen over us without expectation of reward but Biel presseth it further Tum sequitur si homo non fuisset creandus Angelus non habuisset beatitudinem It would follow that Angels had never come to the height of their beatitude unless men had been created nay it will follow further they should come short of their full beatitude unless man had sinned and disobeyed Gods Commandment Let me lay down more sufficient reasons therefore for your further satisfaction First The Angels had always done their best to pitch their Pavilions round about us and to keep us from the tyranny of the Devil but they perceived that their protection was not a saving Medicine it would not cure it would not keep us in life but it bred them great content and joy when Christ did manifest himself in flesh upon the earth to heal our sores and bruises and to overcome that strong man for us and spoil him generally to supply in himself whatsoever was defective in their abilities This is Origens reason and his Simile follows as if many unexpert but well affected Physicians should spend their pains to no profit about a sick person whom they would fain recover and hearing that one of renowned skill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was come into the City who would undoubtedly restore the languishing party all the rest that had attempted it did much congratulate his coming So our heavenly Friends the Angels could not speed us as they desired but as soon as they saw the Prince of Physicians was come into the world first one Angel appeared the Prolocutor of the whole Host and he broke with the Shepherds about good tidings of great joy to all People This day is born c. All this while the rest of his consort hovered in the air and at last became visible and discovered themselves in a Volley Apparuerunt cum illo Angeli says the Syrian Paraphrast exulting and praising God that the Lamb was yeaned that should take away the sins of the World Secondly The fruit of this birth came to us and not to them Nusquam Angelos Christ took not on him the
learning of the world hath busied it self about conjecture this is evident truth and no conjecture that they were Gentiles far remote from the Temple at Jerusalem which God had chosen out above all the earth for the holy place of his honour This is the reason that makes Twelfth-day so great a Feast throughout all the world because in the person of the Wise men a door of Faith was opened unto the Nations that knew not God As a Star is an heavenly body that is common to all Coasts and Climates to illuminate them so the Birth of Christ was attended by a Star because all people should partake of his Grace and Gospel Behold ye the Philistines and they of Tyre with the Morians loe there was he born Psal lxxxvii 4. As who should say it should be no prejudice to us that he was born among the Jews in the City of David for his blessing shall be with us as much as if he had been born in every Country of the Gentiles They that believe in Christ they are his Country-men They that hear the word of God and keep it they are my Mother and my Brothers and my Sisters says our Saviour The Prophet Jonas who was a Type of Christ in none of his smallest works but even in his glorious Resurrection he was sent to the Gentiles of Ninive to denote that through Christ that great Prophet whom the Lord would raise up the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven should be opened to the Gentiles But this is stale now and little thought upon because the sound of the word hath gone forth into the ends of the world for sixteen hundred years who considers this merciful loving kindness as he ought though at the first every small thing was admired and it was marvellous in mens eyes to see any partakers of the heavenly gift but the very natural branches of the stock of Abraham Christ himself wondered at the Centurions Faith for he was not of the house of Israel he was astonisht at the importunity and zeal of the Syro-phenisian O woman great is thy faith at the Samaritan who being a Samaritan was thankful when nine others were forgetful These were rare occurrences in the beginning And when St. Luke brings in his Shepherds to visit Christ in his manger he doth not say ecce pastores behold there were Shepherds of the Jews that saw the Birth of our Lord but St. Matthew lays an index of wonder upon these Gentiles Ecce Magi Behold there came Wise men of the East to Jerusalem A great change as ever was in the world to be remembred on this day with most festival Thanksgiving but never to be forgotten Every Nation loves to know above all other Antiquities when her people were converted to the Faith as our Country reckons from King Lucius the French from Clodoveus but the whole world from this day from the coming of the Wise men of the East to Jerusalem But the end of this strange work should especially be kept in mind and with that I end this point Our Saviour told the Pharisees to what end God called the Gentiles The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof Mat. xxi 43. From hence I move a little forward with their motion to the next thing observed Venerunt they came as if the Star had said unto them seek ye my face and they had answered with David Thy face Lord will I seek As soon as ever Christ was born cum natus est at that instant they set forward and made no delay Make no tarrying to turn to the Lord and put not off from day to day says the Wise man Ecclus. v. 7. Remigius says that the Wise men were brought through the air by an Angel to Jerusalem as Habakkuk was taken up when he carried meat to the Reapers but what needed a Star to direct them if they had not beaten out the way of themselves the Scripture says not they were brought but they came they trod out a long journey with much chearfulness though with much distress to their wearied bodies but where the carkass is thither will the Eagles be gathered and no happiness in any place but to be with the Lord. These were honourable persons and of great account in their own Country though they were not Kings as I have adjudged it before they could have spared their own labour and have sent their servants into Judea to have brought them tidings what strange thing had happened and truly there are too many that would have excused themselves by messengers the way being so long and tedious between them and Christ If it be far to Church from our own home 't is too common to mutter at it and to maunder at a little way every one would have a Chappel of Ease at his next door as if it were fitter for Christ to come to them than for them to come to Christ You forget in the mean time that God considers your bodily labour the molestations and inconveniences which you suffer in the flesh for his word sake To do your Masters work with so much tenderness and easiness to your own person is negligence and self love and as you sow you shall reap Herod I pray you mark it at the eighth verse of this Chapter he would not move out of Jerusalem to look out Christ himself and yet Bethlehem was but six miles off but he sent the Wise men to Bethlehem and bad them search diligently for the Child and when they had found him bring him word but because he sate still himself and set others about it he never found our Saviour Oleaster ad olivam non oliva ad oleastrum veniebat says St. Austin The wild Olive must come to the natural Olive to be ingrafted into it the natural Olive must not go to the wild Olive Venite qui laboratis Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden The fountain must not come to the thirsty man but the thirsty man must come to the fountain to drink The place where the blessed babe lay the Maker of his Mother is worth the seeing to this day worth their travel that have resorted to it from West and East how much more worthy of a journey ten thousand times when the glorious Infant himself was in the place Most justly did our Saviour condemn the whole world that the Queen of Sheba came from far to hear the Wisdom of Solomon and yet the Gentiles did not flock so fast as they ought to have done when a greater than Solomon was upon the earth Tully speaks it of Crassus the Orator as I remember being lately departed we came into the Senate house to look upon the place where that renowned Senator was wont to stand What part of Bethlehem or Jerusalem or Galilee is not a thousand times more worth the viewing where any thing can be recalled to memory of Christs Birth or Miracles
thirty he drew in his head and in the fulness of ripe years he came to be baptized in Jordan Dion accounts it an happiness in Trajan that he began to govern the Roman Empire in his staid years I think he was then forty years old Vt neque per juventutem quicquam temere aggrederetur neque per senectutem languesceret that he was neither rash in execution by the heat of youth nor slow and timorous by the infirmity of age But the sacred story of the Scripture will give us instances that accord more aptly with our Saviour Joseph was thirty years old when he began to govern Egypt as who shoul say he was in the flower of abilities Joseph rul'd in another mans right David the best King of Israel in his own and he was thirty years old when be began to reign in Judah But because our Saviour offered himself to be known in my Text not in his Kingly but in his Priestly Office to be baptized for the washing away of our sins therefore the the best application will be to find the manner and custom of the Priests in the old Law and then for your satisfaction consult with the fourth of Numbers and it is ten times exprest in that Chapter that the Levites were to wait upon the work of the Tabernacle from thirty years upward and not before and at that very age Christ came to the waters of Jordan to be anointed an high Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech From this example some Canons have issued out in ancient Councils that none should take the Orders of a Priest before this age wherein our Saviour began to preach Afterward some years were abated for taking Priesthood yet peremptorily it was defin'd and never recalled that I know by any other Council that none should be allowed for a Bishop under the age of thirty So the Church of England hath appointed and commanded in the Book of Ordination of Priests and Consecration of Bishops which Book is confirm'd and ratified by Act of Parliament and yet it is sometimes dispensed withal in Rome that Children may hold the Title of the richest Archbishoprick in the world Viderit utilitas judge whether it be meant for the honour of God or for the profit of man Nazianzen urgeth it stiffly that the measure of this age of Christ is to be respected in every man before he negotiate in sacred Function to teach the Word of God Gregory collects the same from my Text Perfectae vitae gratiam non nisi perfectâ aetate praedicavit He taught his Disciples how to obtain the perfect life of glory when himself was gone on in his race to the perfect life of nature and like a good Master-builder he directs Novices as St. Paul calls them 1 Tim. iii. 6. to forbear a while and to give place to well-season'd Timber to make Pillars for the Church of God I have heard of a more satyrical similitude but a very true one that the Kine which gave milk drew the Ark to Bethshemesh and the young Calves were shut up in their Stalls at home I could not but give this instruction by the way taken from the complete age wherein our Saviour began to execute his Priestly Office There is a rub cast in my way by the Anabaptists which I must remove and so conclude this Point an exception against the Baptism of Infants because our Saviour was baptized in his manly stature Nay rather this collection is to be warranted that the children of faithful Parents are to be baptized in infancy even as Christ was circumcised an infant the eighth day And if any be converted to the Faith in their grown years it is not too late to come to that Sacrament for the washing away of their sins because Christ himself and many multitudes of elder people were baptized of John Surely Circumcision in the old Law doth so expresly answer to Baptism in the Gospel both being the first seals of the righteousness of faith that it stands uncontroulable that little ones are to be baptized as well as they were circumcized and the Ordinance of Circumcision being once appointed to belong to Infants the Holy Ghost hath spared the labour to appoint any other age for the Baptism of Christian Children as if no reasonable man could make a question of it And as all Israel that came out of Egypt men women and children were baptized that is had the figure of Baptism in the Cloud and in the Sea through which they marcht and escapt the pursuit of Pharoah so in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile Bond nor Free Male nor Female Young nor Old no difference of Nations Age or Sex but all are baptized unto the Remission of sins Our Saviour suffered his disciples to doubt somewhat concerning Infants for our better resolution for when they rebuked such as brought Babes unto him Jesus called them and said Suffer little Children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God Suffer them to come why we cannot put them into Christs arms where he sits in glory how shall they come unto him then unless we present them in the Sacrament Besides that which follows presseth further Theirs is the kingdom of heaven it is not theirs by such right as the Angels hold their place in heaven because they are free from sin And how can it be theirs since they are dead in Adam unless it be theirs by the seal of some Covenant And that is the Fountain of Regeneration I call them regenerate in that Fountain for as Christ blessed them when he took them up in his own arms so he blesseth them in our arms and if they be blest they are regenerate And so likewise they are made believers but after what sort they believe I know not St. Austin hath two opinions The first on this wise Accommodat mater Ecclesia aliorum pedes ut veniant aliorum cor â—t credant c. The Church our mother helps babes with other folks feet to bring them to the Font with other mens hearts to believe with other mens tongues to confess the truth so he means they are called Believers by the faith of the Congregation till they come to age to know Christ themselves His other opinion grants that Infants themselves are believers even as faith is in men that sleep who do not perceive it Aqua forinsecus exhibet sacramentum gratiae spiritus sanctus intrinsecus operatur beneficium gratiae The water sprinkles them with the outward Sacrament of grace and the Spirit breaths upon them the inward blessing of grace I see no cause why we may not apprehend this and assent unto it 1. It is as easie to apprehend they have a faith which they cannot use as to know they have an intellectual reason which they cannot employ And to facilitate our assent one urgeth it modestly thus it was passing strange that
Person of the Trinity did fight against them they resisted the Spirit of God and the same Spirit resisted them Certainly you shall confess out of holy Scripture that not only these but all other refractory men are inchanted with a kind of Sorcery who are contumacious and will not believe what the Word of God doth evidently perswade them 2 Tim. iii. 7. There are some says the Apostle ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth for as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses so do these also resist the truth men of corrupt minds reprobates concerning the Faith There are some who are always learning why there is no hurt in that nay it is most worthy of praise Seek the Lord and your soul shall live says David seek his face evermore My often named St. Austin hath a pure meditation upon it Quaeramus inveniendum quaeramus inventum ut inveniendus quaeratur occultus est ut inventus quaeratur immensus est That is seek the Lord that he may be found seek him when he is found be ever learning His glory is hidden secretly therefore he must be sought that he may be found And his glory is immense and infinite therefore seek him evermore when he is found But how comes it to pass that such as are always learning never come to the knowledge of the truth Because they deceive themselves and think that God hath made them wiser than their Teachers They will do nothing unless their own ignorant surmises and private spirit and doating revelations give them satisfaction There are labourers great store in the harvest you cannot say that you want Teachers I would we had not cause to complain that we want Learners Every illiterate man is as peremptory in his own opinion as if he were not a Disciple but a Judge of Divinity and if they be checkt for perverseness that they will not let the Pastor of their soul perswade them they are ready to reply as Zedekiah the false Wizzard did to Michaiah Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from us to you Take heed of this stiff-neckt perverseness as well in Civil matters as Spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the best Poet let us condescend one to another I to you you to me and reach out our arms to hold peace and charity fast between us As for the obstinate and contentious they are far from the spirit of John Baptist who knew himself to be most insufficient to baptize our Saviour yet after one words direction he obeyed and Then he suffered him And this is enough to be spoken of the first part of the Text unless some turbulent spirits among you do still resolve to be obstinate in their obstinacy John refuseth no more and the impediment of this famous baptizing is removed away so the instrumental cause being aptly prepared now follows the effect Jesus was baptized The reasons for which Baptism I will first pass on and then some meditations of Use upon it I draw the reasons why Christ submitted his own Person to be baptized into five heads First that an Institution so poor and despicable in it self might not be contemned for what can be said more to give it warrant and authority than to say Thus my Saviour was washt in Jordan What so divine an instigation to press us all to come unto the floud of living waters to thirst for that immortal spring of grace than this that the Son of God himself did not decline to be partaker of the Baptism of Repentance To what end did he apply that remedy to himself whereof most manifestly he did not stand in need but that sinners should wishingly affect it for their souls health whose infirmities before the eyes of God and men do want a remedy Christus recipiendo Johannis baptismum instituit suum John did neither point to any Prediction to enable him to baptize which was spoken of by the Prophets no miracle from heaven did shine upon his labours that all men might say this is the finger of God the Scribes and Pharisees although they durst not gainsay because of the people yet they did not encourage and applaud his Ministry this Ceremony therefore had faln away like water which is spilt and cannot be gathered but that the mirrour of heaven and earth that draws all men after him came to Jordan to be baptized of him God dwelleth in light incomprehensible and he is too great to be imitated by man Man himself is a creature of much corruption and is a most ticklish uncertain example to be immitated by man the wisdom from above therefore did provide for us in the safest wise Vt videret homo quem sequeretur Deus factus est homo says Leo To set up a spectacle fit for our eyes to look upon God himself was made man And as our own Histories report of Cesar being somewhat reproachfully repelled by the ancient Brittains insomuch that his Cohorts kept themselves in their Ships and durst not land at last Cesar cast forth the chief Ensign their Eagle upon the shore waded forth himself into the waters and bad the best daring spirits to follow him So to make my Parallel complete the beginning of the next Chapter manifests that we have a Ghostly enemy to encounter our Ensign is not an Eagle but a Dove that came down upon the waters our Commander is the mighty God who first casts himself into the waters of Jordan that we may follow him and at the same Sacrament defie the Devil our enemy and all his works A comfortable General that would wear his own Colours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Paul The author and the finisher of our faith Heb. xii 2. which Text may comfortably be reduced to the two blessed Sacraments for in his Last Supper he was the Author of our Faith most probably it being supposed that first he eat bread after he had blessed it and then gave it to the Disciples In Baptism he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfecter and finisher of faith for John did begin that wholsome Ordinance and Christ did finish it and stampt a Seal of Authority upon the Institution because himself was baptized Secondly Christ was not only baptized to seal the Sacrament with his Priviledge and Licence but in that act he did sanctifie the waters to the blessing of his Church If Naaman had not been filled with the disease of Leprosie Elisha had not sent him to Jordan to wash and be clean If there had not been some impurity upon the best of the Apostles our Saviour had omitted his Ceremony to rinse their feet in water and to wipe them with a Towel Because every Infant is polluted with bloud from the nativity Occiso magis quam nato similis says Seneca more like to one that is killed than to one that is born therefore it is rub'd with water to take away all defilement So unless much filthiness did inhere in every child
for us and by imputation to bear our iniquities is part of those unknown torments of our Saviour which cannot be uttered Christo innocentissimo maxima fuit crux tradi iniquitati says one it was not such a sorrow to Christ to be delivered up to Caiaphas to Pilate to the Souldiers to the Cross as to be bound over to carry the mass of all our sins upon his shoulders Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the Cross 1 Pet. ii 17. Moriar prae amore amoris tui Domine O let me die for love of that great love of thine O Lord as one cries out upon it There are three things miserable and afflictive in the nature of man and that our Elder Brother Christ Jesus might be like unto his Brethren in all things he did in some manner undergo them all The first are taedia naturae the tedious and irksom difficulties of nature as hunger thirst weariness sharp punishments and fetters there was never any Martyr better acquainted with these than our blessed Lord. The second are languores naturae the diseases and defects of nature but these belong not to mankind in general but are personal mishaps for this and other reasons our Saviour was clear of them yet he did bear all those sicknesses and maladies for us in compassion as St. Paul says Bear ye one anothers burdens Gal. 6. that is by mutual pitty and affection so Christ did take our diseases upon him by compunction and commiseration for his brethren The third are deformitates naturae all manner of sins which are the ugly blots and deformities of nature and those he did bear for us not by being made a sinner but by representation when he stood before John in Jordan like one that was defiled He came to undergo infirmities and to confer strength to take injuries to bestow dignities to stand for a sick person and to bring health to represent a sinner but to act a Saviour That is the sum of the third reason Fourthly St. Austin imagined that Christ had another intention in his Baptism indirectly and by the by Vt Daemoni se occultaret for the device of a stratagem to mock the Devil that he might not be known of him but to draw Satan into the combat of a tentation which fell out in the beginning of the next Chapter The Figures out of the Old Testament were not unknown to this cunning Serpent that it must be only an Heifer without blemish and a Lamb without spot which was offered up unto the Lord to be a Sacrifice of attonement Therefore he must be holy and undefiled who should be sent from God to bruise the Serpents head and to save the people from their sins Then this projecting Satan makes no question to rank him for a defiled person that came to be baptized therefore he doth infer foolishly that upon advantage of fasting forty days he might tempt him to sin against the Lord. Because the Devil and his Angels make it their life and pleasure to delude us silly men God makes it his glory in our just revenge to mock and delude our enemy as the Priests of Baal abused the poor people with hypocritical false pretences therefore Elias turned those scoffs upon themselves and flouted the Priests of Baal It is strange that when as the Devil glories in the subtilty of a Serpent yet God should make his understanding so blind that he never perfectly understood how Christ was the eternal Son of God that came to destroy his grizzly kingdom untill he had suffered upon the Cross and died for the sins of the world First Satans eyes were dazled that he could not learn whether Christ was born of a pure Virgin because by Gods providence she was married to Joseph Besides like a meer man he was obedient to his Parents and for thirty years neither preacht nor wrought any miracle In the first issue he sees him baptized in the representation at least of a sinful man he sees him in a great peril upon the waters nigh to drowning observes he kept no austere life but eat and drank with sinners finally views him betrayed by a Disciple that was his own familiar friend then beaten and bruised by every cruel Officer All these badges of infirmity put together did drive those Fiends of darkness to surmise this was not He that should conquer death and the nethermost Pit At last the most refined of the ancient Authors do ingenuously collect that when Satan perceived him answering nothing before Pilate but willing to be offered up then he began to interpret this was the Lamb dumb before the shearer so opened he not his mouth and finally at the Passion of the Cross he might see plainly that God had darkned him not to find the truth and that his Dominion through his own malice was taken away for ever by the death of Jesus Therefore I return where I began the reason this wicked one was intrapt to think our blessed Lord was a sinner because he was baptized Says Origen upon the Passion Christ was visibly crucified in Mount Calvary but invisibly the Devil and the powers of Hell was nailed to the Cross so I may say Christ was visibly baptized but Satan and his Host were invisibly drowned in those waters because they were sanctified in this washing to save us from our sins And that is the sum of the fourth reason For brevity sake I will joyn our last reason and some meditations of Use together Our Saviour came to be baptized Vt per novum ritum homines ad novitatem introducerentur that by his example to undergo a new Rite and Ordinance men might be drawn from old customs to newness of life The new Ordinance had ratification and authority from the act of Christ as I have shewed before he was both circumcized and baptized but says Bernard Illud mihi tenendum tradidit quod ultimò suscepit He hath delivered to me to have and to hold for the perpetual Sacrament of the Church that which was last in being for the form of a new Covenant was established to evacuate the old But what 's a new form if the old corruptions be retained What an eye-sore is a new piece in an old garment As good be an unbelieving Jew after the ancient tincture of the Law as be a novel transformed Christian after the old leven of the Devil As St. Paul put the Romans in mind of their first rudiments so must I remember you Rom. vi 4. Therefore we are buried with Christ by Baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so also we should walk in newness of life Here are three things in order that have a pious connexion between them first a burial as it were in the water then a death and after that a rising again First I say the plunging or dipping in the water resembles a burial for although
in domo charitatis in a charitable Hospital family every man hastened to a good work as if he had flown like a Dove Was not Paul a brave wing'd Apostle that traversed much of Asia and preacht the Gospel in every place from Jerusalem to Illyricum Seventhly The Doves eyes are fixt upon the Rivers of waters Cant. v. 12. some say out of vigilancy to espy therein the gliding of the Kite that flies above and to save it self So the spiritual man looks backward to the first waters wherein he was dipt to the Vow which he made in Baptism There he remembers his Garment was made white and he must not stain it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not only to wash away filth but to give tincture or colour to that which is died So in Baptism the foul spots of iniquity are taken forth and by sanctification a clear gloss is set upon our soul It was the exhortation of old at Baptism Accipe vestem candidam immaculatam c. Take this white garment pure and undefiled it was their Ceremony to put on such and keep it undefiled against the day of the Lord. Et grege de niveo gaudia pastor habet says Lactantius The Shepherd rejoyceth to see the fleeces of his Lambs fair and unspotted These are pennae deargentatae as the Psalmist says the Doves wings are silver wings and if they be bright Silver here it will be changed into a better Metal hereafter a Crown of Gold whose wings are silver wings and the feathers of Gold Lastly As it was toucht before in the days of Noah the Dove was a presager of a better world to come and in this Text likewise it is Nuncia futuri seculi the happy annuntiate that there is a better world to come when these evil days of sin and misery are ended So we are sealed with the holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance the Spirit is a pledge of that possession which is purchased for us in the Kingdom of heaven whither he bring us c. THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 17. And loe a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased SPeak O Heaven and hearken O Earth unto the word of the Lord. The Earth must keep silence and give ear when God is his own Orator himself and utters his pleasure with his own voice As it is usual when some great Palace is raising fron the Foundation that the Master of the Possession will lay the first stone with his own hands So the Church being to be built up again in the New Testament not upon the foundation of Works but upon Faith not upon Moses but upon Jesus Christ Loe the mighty God publisheth the first tidings of reconciliation from his own mouth and himself in the Prophet Isaiahs Phrase doth lay in Sion a chief corner stone elect and precious for the Foundation which sustains the whole body of the Saints is no other but such as is contained in that brief Proclamation which I have read unto you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Some of the Fathers very aptly call the Text Gods ample testimonial given to his Son that the world might receive him gladly being about to preach the glad tidings of salvation Moses you know would not offer himself to the Children of Israel to be the means that should release them from Pharaohs bondage before he had a token of Credence who did send him to the People and the Lord said unto him Thou shalt say I am hath sent me unto you So our High Priest and anointed Saviour would keep that form to have a clear testificate to commend him to the World Now a Dove was but a dumb shew and might be interpreted many ways wherefore an articulate and a majestical voice was heard from heaven which would pierce the ears of all that were gathered together and could not be mistaken In that nature therefore as a Testimonial given to him that was now about to be the great Preacher of righteousness I will divide the Text 1. The Person that did bear witness it is the Father 2. The manner how he testified to the honour of his Son by a voice Loe a voice 3. The authority of that voice which was every way to be accepted because it was from heaven 4. The Person to whom the witness is born to a Son This is my Son 5. What is witnessed of him in respect of himself that he was beloved This is my beloved 6. What is witnessed of him in respect of our consolation that he is filius complacentiae in whom and through whom the Father is well pleased That is to say not only beloved in himself but procures us to be beloved likewise for his sake for all that by Baptism have put on Christ are unto God as Christ himself is Filii dilecti complacentes Sons beloved well pleasing So the Text is our Saviours Testimonial and our own Consolation And loe a voice c. The Father is become a witness to glorifie his Son that is the first consideration to be made upon my Text. The Spirit hath done his part before now the voice the Father is come to perfect this great solemnity and so the justice of God agrees with his own Law Ex ore duorum aut trium testium Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established was ever any truth so strongly confirmed so undeniably maintained that the Father which made all things should ratifie it sensibly in the audience of men Never was it heard of but only in this case which is the top of all truth that Jesus was the Son of God Other truths we are well perswaded of which come from the light of reason or from the testimony of man yet reason may be blind and man may err but it is impossible that God should lie Heb. vi And admit it to be good for who can controul it that the Prophets and Apostles were inspired from God so that the contents which they have written are certain and infallible then his divine wisdom which gave them that instinct whatsoever he utters immediately from himself it may well stand upon comparisons that it is much more infallible So St. Hierom distinguisheth between that truth which is increate and which is infused and participate that the truth of the Saints is called a lie in respect of that verity which abideth in the Father Yea let God be true and every man a liar in which words says he it is implied that God alone is true even as he alone is said to have immortality for although he hath communicated immortality to Angels and to the souls of men yet it is not their own immortality but his love and favour to give it to them So the Prophets and holy men were inspired with true knowledge yet it was not their own truth
So the Father is the Voice the Son is the Word the Spirit proceeding from them both is the Truth and these three are all one and undivided So you see why the Father is resembled in the signification of a voice I must adjoyn also how well this doth express the comforts of a Gospel The Law was a dead Letter litera occidit by the strength of sin it killed us all because we were not able to perform it The Gospel is viva vox a quickning living voice such a one as quickned Lazarus when he was four days in the Grave The Law was heard in Trumpet and Thunder upon Mount Sinai Now comes a still voice such a one as would not scare a Dove away now comes Musick from heaven now comes obsecro vos that fair spoken language of the Apostles I beseech ye brethren This is such a winning allicient voice that the words that proceed from it are rather kisses than words therefore the Church speaking to the praise of the Gospels sweetness begins the song on this wise Cant. i. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth The first time that ever we read of Gods voice in the Old Testament you shall hear what Adam says upon it Gen. iii. 10. I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid But at the first time that you read of Gods voice in the New Testament it is made smooth and soft to our ear with This is my beloved and here I am well pleased What else to be concluded from hence But that an evidence and manifestation of faith shall be discovered to all men As when one telleth his mind to his Friend not by messengers or by Script but face to face Thou spakest sometimes in dreams and visions to thy people But says the Lord I will speak with my Servant Moses mouth to mouth Num. xii 8. So by the revelation of the Gospel we are all become as precious to God as Moses was and the Lord talketh with us as one doth with his friend face to face And with all succinctness that is the sum of the second Point Neither must I insist long upon the third thing noted which is the great Authority that this voice doth carry because it came from heaven and Loe a voice from heaven The Oracles of the Gentiles were wont to come out of hollow Caves and Rocks The Law of the Hebrews was delivered from the top of a smoaking hill but as Judges and great Magistrates were wont to publish their Laws from their Throne of State so doth God deliver the Law of Faith from Heaven and that Firmament above it is the Throne of God When the Earth opens it is to swallow Chore Dathan and Abiron When the Heaven opens it is to pour out consolation The Gospel reckons up three times that the Lord spake from heaven above and at each time it had the same Theme to magnifie the Saviour of the World The first time at his Baptism the second time at his Transfiguration the third time anon before his Passion when the Son begg'd earnestly Father glorifie thy name the Father answers him I have glorified it and I will glorifie it again Joh. xii 28. And that you may be assured how that celestial voice continues to speak unto us in the accent of comfort John tells us he heard a voice from heaven saying Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord Rev. xiv 13. Bode no evil with your tongue to any since the Lord out of his habitation speaks nothing but love and benediction towards us The voice of God is an open heaven but as for the curser and reviler his throat is an open sepulchre Sursum corda The tidings of Salvation come not from beneath they hover above our head therefore lift up your heart lift up your understanding and you will easily perceive that every part of sacred Scripture is a voice from heaven I know unless the inward testimony of the Spirit prevail upon your soul and induce it to believe all external Arguments from the judgment of the Church in all Ages from harmony of truth from fulfilling of Prophesies and whatsoever else will be insufficient to perswade you Yet if any thing more than other will puzzle the refractory it is this that in every part and scope it sounds like a voice from heaven far otherwise than the books of humane learning That which drives our labours and studies only to the glory of God that which propounds no other reward but the fruition of God that which talks of no acts and monuments but such as belong to God this must be divine and from above Nec vox hominem sonat Surely it must be a voice from heaven But do the Heathen thus in any of those three parts of their Sciences either in their Moral Institutions or Natural Disquisitions or Historical Narrations In their Histories they write to honour men in their Philosophy to know the World in their Moral and Politick Axioms to make a just and a noble Patriot for his Country No Tract throughout all mans wit and learning but only in the sacred Scriptures like a voice from heaven Perhaps here and there a Sentence of theirs may soar aloft but as Kites flie high yet still look down to the Carion upon the Dunghil So the stile of the Heathen may rise up in some things as it were in the clouds but from thence they look down how they may be famous and popular And that is no better than a blast of vanity sure it is no voice from heaven Beloved this is a most illustrious opening of the Gospel that the heavens assumed a tongue and began to speak wherefore it is for good reason that our Saviour had that diction so often in his mouth He that hath ears to hear let him hear Let me be bold to add he that hath a tongue to confess let him praise the Lord. As we delight to have the Lord speak to us so it delighteth the Lord to have us speak to him And as the Father did vouchsafe to send his voice from heaven to earth so let our lips be full of Prayers that we may send our voice from earth to heaven God is not an Eccho nothing but empty voice we read of his face and his presence and his right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore And as Absalon though he were a disloyal Son yet he did wishly desire to stand before his Father Says he to Joab wherefore am I come from Gerar to Jerusalem if I may not see the Kings face So the rebounding of the voice from heaven is to enflame our affections that we may see his face in heaven So shall it be their fair lot and inheritance who are Fìlii dilecti complacentes Sons Beloved in whom he is well pleased These are the Testimonials due to Christ and flowing from Christ to us which now I come to handle The fourth annotation is the Person to whom
first onset the Devil was not only an Explorator to sent it out what Christ was but an evil Counsellor to allure him furthermore to disobedience Exploravit ut tentaret tentavit ut exploraret says St. Ambrose Yet I must resolve you before I do any thing what sin it was which the wicked one did drive at Many are so curious to suit this Tentation in every Point with the tentation of our first Parents and what need that be so exactly sought for That they give sentence it was the sin of Gluttony and nothing else to which he was prompted Yes surely to some other sin as well as that and much rather than that for if Satan had required no more than to make Christ dissolve his fast and eat he would have brought him bread and not put him to it to make bread of stones Moreover there is small likelihood that one should sin much in Gluttony by eating bread And especially I would have you mark that Christ answered the Devil out of the Scripture not by a Text which should exhort to sobriety but to rely upon Gods providence in all things Man liveth not by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Wherefore if Gluttony be one skirt of the matter yet certainly according to Christs answer the sin mainly proposed was to make him distrust in God and to satisfie his wants by unlawful means And thus I have premised for your better understanding the drift of this wicked Fiend what mischief he would draw on by the words of my Text. If he had other secret policies which we cannot reach peradventure he had then let us say with the Spirit of God We have not known the depth of Satan Rev. ii 24. But now I have made you able to conceive how my Text may be broken into conspicuous parts The Tempter came to Christ for two ends Vt cognosceret ut corrumperet 1. To know Christ 2. To Corrupt him To corrupt him two ways principally by Infidelity consequently by Gluttony In the first we must watch Satan as a spie and beside the words of espial two circumstances shall be enquired into 1. When Satan made this address 2. How he made this address in what shape and fashion For the tempter came coming is a bodily motion And he said unto him speaking proceeds from corporeal instruments These little circumstances have some weight in them but the burden of the first part comes after where Satan plays the spie and explorator If thou be the Son of God c. And when the Tempter came to him is it not very natural to move this question upon those words When the tempter came to him Whether all the days that he continued in the Wilderness Satan was at his right hand to make him stumble at some stone of offence or whether the wicked Fiend approached not unto him till the forty days were ended there is the scruple And perhaps there is truth on both sides so I would judge it if it were left to my arbitration What more plain than St. Lukes narration He was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness being forty days tempted of the Devil So that it will agree with the Scripture that there were certain light skirmishes of Tentations between Christ and the Adversary all the while he was in the Desart but such faint assaults that they deserved not the relation Origen is of this judgment and this is his saying As the World could not hold the Books if all things were written which Christ did so the World could not hold the Books if all his Tentations were recorded Why not altogether probable that he passed not one day in the Wilderness without some Diabolical affront since his whole life was full of those hellish indignities Witness that praise which he gives to his Disciples Luk. xxii 28. You are they that have continued with me in my tentations his tentations were continual This is one part of Christs Passions and sufferings which the World takes little notice of the impostures of the Devil doing him molestation without ceasing Well might the Greek Liturgie urge him in their Prayers with these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By thine unknown torments sweet Jesu have mercy upon us Gall and Vinegar were not so untastful to his mouth as the offensive objections of Satan did grate upon his ear Nec in aurem tantûm Christi injectae sunt sed penetrarunt cor ipsum perfoderunt animum ejus says a late one Nor were these Tentations harsh only to the ear but their hainousness pierced his very heart Conceive thus much if a solacism rudely spoken is able to move the patience of a polite Grammarian then Blasphemy continually spoken by the wicked Angel must needs be a great contristation to the Son of God This is pleaded on the one side that in all the forty days some petty light tentations were darted by the Devil against our Saviour And on the other side again this is truth and reason the red Dragon did not begin his main battel nor did he propound those three infamous desperate Propositions upon which we entreat till the forty days were ended So I will alledge St. Cyprian to balance the Authority of Origen Postquam quadraginta dierum abstinentiam consummavit accessit Diabolus After our Lord had gone through the abstinence of forty days then the Tempter came unto him It is as fairly seen as the light that there was no ground for the first tentation till the long fast was absolved and Christs hunger did press him sore and call for sustenance then he provokes him to contrive for bread by any means in the world rather than want it Away with this tedious fasting and satiate your appetite Signum panis petit qui signum jejunii pertimescit the eloquence of Chrysologus Satan could not abide this miracle of fasting he had rather see him juggle for bread So the first question when the evil one came is now no more doubtful unto you He came oftentimes before with some weak provocations but at the end of forty days he put his Plough as deep as he could into the ground and harrowed up all the subtilties of Hell to prevail against him that is invincible Now for the shape and figure in which the Tempter came to our Saviour that is another circumstance of inquiry and very briefly upon it In his own substance you know Satan is a Spirit and this was the Arch-spirit of infernal darkness for surely says St. Austin the Regiment of Hell would trust no inferiour Goblin to try masteries with the mighty Son of God Yet there is no likelihood that he did offer himself now unto Christ in his invisible spiritual nature Undoubtedly he did exhibite himself in an humane body like some charitable good man that came to condole with our Saviour and was right sorry he had no sustenance I commend his ingenuity that
that God is with us from the beginning to the end of our life in want and in abundance in liberty and captivity in evil report and good report and he will never forsake us The words of the Prophet Isaiah are sweeter than the dropping of an honey-comb Isa xlix 14. Sion said the Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the Son of her womb Yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me St. Austin attributes so much to the power of faith against all the machinations of hell that he says the very Lesson of it being said by rote is able to defend us Ipsa recitatio symboli retundit inimicum The very repetition of the Creed doth beat off the enemy How much more mighty is the true feeling of faith when it lives within us If thou canst believe saith Christ all things are possible to him that believeth Mar. ix 23. Let Satan therefore keep his demur his hesitation his If thou be the Son of God unto himself Let him not take away your Garland by wavering for he that wavereth is as a wave of the sea sometimes rising aloft sometimes carried down to the Deep Let him not dry up the very fountain of grace So the Greek Fathers did always entitle faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mother the spring of all celestial gifts If any man say what faith what spring is this so much commended Briefly I will borrow this description to make it facile No man can have so much as an historical faith and well attend it but he must taste of some fiducial application that he is under the wings of the Almighty and looks for safety under his custody Nemo rectè potest credere Deo quin in Deum is no bad rule but I stand not upon that The faith of the Elect by which we shall be able to overcome our Ghostly enemies is not that which taketh all the holy Scriptures in the lump to be true but it is a willing a lively and an effectual assent to the Promise of the Gospel that Jesus the Son of the blessed Virgin Mary is the Son of God and is the Saviour of all those that repent and believe I say it is a willing and approving a rejoycing assent not forced like that of the Devils and wicked men who are convicted by the evidence of truth and with great horror and disdain confess it Moreover I said it was an effectual assent not a knowledge swimming in the brain informing the judgment but not reforming the heart such as hypocrites have But the understanding being enlightned by the Holy Ghost the will embraceth that which is good the heart is purified by it it works by love and transforms us into a new conversation answerable to that which we believe Now this belief in Christ which is the keeping the condition of Gods Promise doth imply three acts The first of assent that he is the Saviour of all those that believe in him which assent when it is lively and effectual is the proper act of that faith whereby we are justified before God The second act is of application when believing truly he is the Saviour of all that believe I therefore believe that he is my Saviour which is the act of that special faith by which we are justified in our own conscience The third act is of trust and assurance that because I do believe not only that he is the Saviour of the World but also my Saviour therefore I rest upon him for salvation So says our Saviour to his Disciples Let not your hearts be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me Joh. xiv 1. But this is not the act of faith as it justifieth us before God nor yet the proper act of special faith which doth justifie us in our own conscience but a fruit and consequent thereof and such a fruit as the Devil would pluck from the tree with this scrupulous injection if thou be the Son of God Now I will let you see as in a Map by pointing at spots of ground for whole Countries how faith is the fountain of all divine graces and therefore when Satan can make us reel and totter in our opinion whether we are the Sons of God there is not one Christian function in us stands sure but all the parts of true Religion are out of frame For first how can a man hope and wait for the performance of the Promises that doth not believe that they belong unto him Faith being the substance of things hoped for How can a man have true peace of conscience who is not perswaded that God is reconciled to him How can a man rejoyce in God who is not assured of Gods favour towards him How can a man be thankful to God who is not perswaded of Gods love and bounty to him They that have sinned how shall they be perswaded to turn unto him if they be not perswaded that his mercy is ready to receive them No man can perform obedience who is not perswaded that his endeavours are accepted of him No man can pray fervently who doth not assure himself that he shall be heard For so the Apostle How shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed Rom. x. 14. Who can patiently bear afflictions who is not perswaded that those fatherly chastisements proceed from Gods love and and tend to purge him as the Chaff is Winnowed from the Wheat Who can worship God with zeal and devotion who is not resolved and comforted that his service is accepted of him Hope Joy Peace Thankfulness Repentance Obedience Prayer Patience Worship all these will vanish away like a morningmist before the Sun if the Devil can make you distrust with such a tentation as this If thou c. And no marvel if in the first place and before all other parts of sin Satan labours to fill the World with little faith he can spare enough of that out of his own store to infect all the earth for who so great an Infidel as himself in this very tentation The words indeed come off very roundly and confidently that the Son of God with one word can command all the stones in the Wilderness to be made bread But to what end I pray you Whether you say for Christs sake or for the Devils sake every way it will chime Infidelity Argue in the first place why it should be done for Christs sake For if he were God what need he make bread of a stone that could make it of nothing Or though he were hungry what need he make bread at all Is not the bread of heaven able to live without material bread And Chrysologus revies it with his objection Nonne potest panem vertere in saturitatem qui potest in famem lapides immutare He
these many Agonies he had with the powers of darkness Ad solatium refero so Calvin on my Text. When he prayed earnestly in the Garden to have the Cup pass from him there appeared an Angel unto him from heaven strengthening him Luke xxii 43. This was their promptness to do all dutious offices to the Son of God Non ex necessitate sed ex officio not for necessity as if he wanted such as they but out of bounden obsequiousness Toward us their care and charity is truly necessary and their friendship to succour us in our conflicts is the mercy of God as the Angels took up Lazarus to heaven after much want and poverty into Abrahams bosom Thirdly they ministred unto him may be well interpreted they worshipped and adored him For when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him Their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. i. ult that is their Ministry is for the praise and glory of God whether it be that they sing Alleluja to him in heaven or help his Saints upon earth all is one the one work or the other are both of them their Liturgies For they minister only to Christ or for their sakes that shall be heirs of the Promise as St. Paul said He sustained all things for the Elâ—ct 2 Tim. ii Therefore it is an over-curious yea and false distinction to put degrees between Angels that some laud the Lord continually before his Throne some minister to his Church and nothing for the foundation of it but this Prophetical place Dan. vii 10. Thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand thousands stood before him There they stood indeed only to be sent away of the Lords Errand when he should dispatch them For what Scripture can be clearer than the foresaid place Are they not all ministring Spirits Let the Sectaries of Thomas limit it and distinguish upon it an hundred ways but the Context of the Chapter will never bear it For first the manner of the Apostles bringing it out nonne omnes Are they not all so An Interrogation as if that were a common notion and never doubted Secondly in the precedents it cannot be shifted but that he speaks of them all excepts none To whom of the Angels did God say thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Thirdly if he did compare Christ but with one part and not with all the Angels the Hebrâ—ws would have excepted against the main scope of his Epistle that Christ was not more excellent than all creatures above all comparison Let it be grounded then for the conclusion of all against the fancies of the Pseudo-Dionysius all are ministring Spirits In ministerium Christi propter homines lent unto us out of pitty and charity but attending Christ out of homage and duty His they are so we call them now by faith and such we shall perceive them to be by Vision at the last day Mat. xvi 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father with his Angels AMEN VII SERMONS UPON The Transfiguration OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON The Transfiguration LUKE ix 28 29. And it came to pass about an eight dayes after these sayings he took Peter and John and James and went up into a mountain to pray And as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering BECAUSE St. Luke doth more completely narrate all the circumstances of our Saviours Transfiguration than the other Evangelists therefore I have chosen to entreat out of his words upon that glorious miracle I confess he that reacheth this mysterie must ascend with Peter and James and John he must climb up to an exceeding high mountain of speculation which toucheth the very heavens But why should that confuse you Dearly beloved when there is so much pure glittering and illumination upon the mountain our Saviour's face shined with glory for his Gospel is perspicuous Moses ane Elias the Law and Prophets were clear and lightsom and the cloud which overshadowed the place I mean the virtue of the Holy Ghost will embrighten all obscurity There is hope then out of the explication of this story that you shall all be transfigured from darkness into light and from ignorance perhaps in some part into the knowledge of the truth And whereas I have purposely destined this work apart for this time of the year I think I have begun it in the ripest opportunity I find among antient Liturgies that the miracle of the Transfiguration was the Gospel appointed for the second Sunday in Lent the reasons were two partly to exhort all Christians in strictest times of penitence to be transformed into new men partly because it is certain this strange accident fell out in the beginning of the Spring not long before our Saviour's Passion for Moses and Elias came to tell him a short while before his death what he should suffer at Jerusalem Yet again I find in the old Latin Calender that some Churches kept a Feast in memory of the Transfiguration upon the sixt day of August But this was done upon a fancy they call it a Tradition that when Christ bad his Disciples not to tell as yet of those things they saw upon the mountain till a more convenient time they obeyed and revealed it not in five months following till the sixt of August and upon the publication of these things at that season they did consent to honour the memorial of the day with the celebration of a Feast Without prejudice to those ancient customs be it spoken I have a surer ground to stand upon that this is the proper time to preach upon it soon after the great Feast of our Saviour's Resurrection is accomplished My authority is Matth. 17.9 As the three disciples came down from the mountain Christ charged them saying Tell the vision to no man until the Son of man be risen from the dead And beside it shall appear in due order that the principal scope of the Transfiguration was to learn us what the excellency and glorification of a body shall be that is raised from the dead But because it is fit to work in the Lord's Vineyard at any hour of the day and to dress this Tree of Life the holy Scripture in every bough and branch at any instant and occasion of time therefore cutting off that Preface I will mark out those things which are fit to be handled severally in the words now read unto you and they be four quando quibuscum quâ humilitate quâ gloriâ at what time Christ was transfigured what associates he took with him with what humility he prepared himself with what glory he was dignified The Time is noted by three circumstances dicta dies iter 1. After some sayings he had uttered 2. About an eight dayes after those sayings 3. When he had gon up to a mountain In
he called unto Moses out of the midst of the Cloud Some more veneration certainly redounds to the Divine Majesty by drawing a Veil before him that his glory may be kept secret The Mercy-seat from whence God promised the Children of Israel to tell them all things whatsoever they should do it was covered with the wings of the Cherubins that every rash eye might not behold it But this was not all that a shadowed darkness should beget veneration there was another reason that men might see no manner of shape or resemblance to make them figure the Lord in any form and commit Idolatry I will take Salmeron the Jesuit at his word in this Notation Ne si aliqua effigies videretur Deus pingeretur a Cloud did invelop the glory of the Father whensoever he spake that men might not say they saw his likeness and therefore paint or carve an image like unto him And since the Lord continues to speak out of a Cloud as well in the New Testament as in the Old surely his purpose continues the same to bridle our inclinations to Idolatry O that men knew what this Cloud meant and they would never be so forward to make the Images of God and they that will not learn that wholsom lesson from the Pillar of Cloud shall be consum'd by the Pillar of Fire Let us come from the substance of it to the qualities and certainly St. Matthew hath left us matter to work upon that he says it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bright Cloud it seems it lookt like that part of Heaven which we see in a fair night and is called via lactea the Milky way which is the concurrence of the light of many small Stars as if it were a Lane made or paved with dimpling Stars Such a Cloud must needs be more delectable than the clearest Summer day which had no thickness in the air but were all serenity And such it must be in a great measure in Aquinas's interpretation for when Peter talkt of Tabernacles close shady Arbors to keep out the light of the Sun he was thus confuted says Aquinas that light did rather become the Saints than shady darkness Claritas mundi innovati erit sanctorum tabernaculum when there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth bedeckt with infinite light that 's the Tabernacle of the Blessed which shall abide for ever But the chief reason was to fulfil that promise which David knew should be performed the Lord shall make my darkness to be light here was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the World Jesus Christ it is He that came to bring a Lantern to our feet and a Light unto our paths that we should not stumble and fall In the Old Testament the Clouds where God appeared were densissima tenebrosae thick and dark Clouds Exod. xix 16. vapours and pillars of smoak in the New Covenant the darkness is dispersed and the Cloud remaines white and of a pure lustre For the first Testament is full of Ceremonies and Shadows of things to come the Covenant of Faith in the Gospel exhibits the manifest and open truth says Paschasius Ratbertus it was neither a fiery Cloud nor a dark Cloud but a brightsom quia non in igne terroris nunc venit non in caligine caecitatis sed in lumine veritatis the terror of fire is overpast the mistiness of Clouds is cleared truth comes forth like the morning and is ascended to the height like the Sun at noon day Nay as the things to be believed are clear so there are no mists and fogginess in their affections where the spirit of grace will abide Non calligat affectibus hominum sed revelat occulta says St. Ambrose Our depraved imaginations shall not make the truth a lie but God shall bring to light the hidden things before the eyes of all men What 's the whole Gospel indeed but nubes lucida a very Cloud in it self but made lightsome and perspicuous by the gift of interpretation For although the Veil of the Law is removed away yet even among the Evangelical Writers there are says St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certain things hard to be understood the Incarnation of our Lord the Resurrection of the Dead the ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity still we are in nubibus these are thick Clouds and it is impossible for the natural man with the dim eye of nature to see through them without doubt great is the mystery of godliness God manifested in the flesh Faith is a very mysterious thing but that the cloud is illuminated by the revelation of the Holy Spirit and as he that sees through the Water or through a Cloud suppose an Oar through the Water or the Sun through a Cloud will rather trust to his judgment than to his outward sense which would much deceive him so because we do all see the secrets of God through a thick Cloud let us rather trust to our faith than to our reason there are many strong delusions incident to reason because it looks through the clouds of sin and infirmity And Beloved as for the Priests that should keep the Key of knowledge what is their Office and Calling but to make Clouds appear bright And therefore Christ said of his Apostles Vos estis lux mundi Ye are the light of the world Though now adays it is the fashion of many to make that which was lightsom before appear as duskie as a Cloud Such as especially about Gods unsearchable decrees tangle knots and ravel Divinity that you shall find no end And after much is spoken or written you may say Incertior sum multó quà m dudum I was in a Cloud before that was dark now I am in a smoak that puts out my eyes All the light which some voluminous Compilers afford which would teach men Gods secret purpose in their Election and the way of their own heart in their Conversion both which are inscrutable it is like a Candle in a Thieves Lanthorn perhaps they see a little themselves but I am sure no body else shall be the better for their light Finally to end this Point God who can colour a thick Cloud with whiteness and make it transparent is able to lay the dark conveyances of our hypocrisie conspicuous and naked before him Laban could not find his Idols because Rachel had hid them in her Tent but God can discover those sins which are our greatest Idols though we have set them up in the inmost corner of our heart If the Spirit of Elisha went along with Gehazi when Gehazi ran after Naaman to take a Bribe then the Lord that gave that Spirit to Elisha traceth along all the Compacts of Simony all the fine conveyances of Bribery all manner of Corruption though it be dark as midnight The fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is 1 Cor. iii. 13. When it once catcheth fire it will be
express when Christ did appear to his mother after his Resurrection to shew he was no accepter of persons in way of carnal Affinity He did appear to more than five hundred brethren at once doubtless she was one of them he did appear to the eleven and to them that were gathered together with them Luk. xxiv 33. I may suppose the Blessed Virgin was there because she was John's charge to take her with him but certainly she was none of that Train which came early in the morning with Mary Magdalen to the Sepulcher Then let us proceed and say from hence that God hath done great honour to this Sex to make them the first Instruments that should know and declare his Resurrection Where were the Apostles at this time Alas they were terrified and had â—â—ielded like Men to the Passions of the Flesh they were shut up close for fear of the Jews and durst not shew their heads only a few Women which had followed Christ were more adventurous than all the rest and as if it irked them to care for their Life any longer since the Life of the World was put to death una salus nullam sperare salutem they step out boldly let come what will Wherefore to give you St. Austins words Munus Apostolicum viris creptum ad breve tempus eis resignat the Apostolical Office was taken from the Disciples for a time and it was given to them to preach that wonderful work of God Christ risen from the dead Audentes tu Christe juvas you shall lose nothing to be couragious in a good cause that great glory to see the Son of God in a vision now alive again was given to them that did adventure to find him Secondly none wept so much for his death as these tender-hearted souls the Daughters of Jerusalem they were the first that mourned and they are the first that be comforted the greatest partakers of grief for his passion are made the first partakers of joy for his Resurrection Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted And if there be any that repine much at their own daily misfortunes who say they have buâ—â—â—ttle joy in this world let them strike their hand upon their brest and say it is because they have taken but little grief Jesus is our Passeover that was sacrificed for us but you heard the Ceremony read to day which God appointed the Lamb must be eaten with sower herbs or else you must not taste of the Passeover Christian whosoever thou be that art taught this day what a victory thy Saviour obtained against the Grave and against the nethermost Hell if thy heart be not replenished with joy upon the tidings if it do not assure unto thee the seal of the Divine Promise which is the earnest of thine inheritance it is because thou hast not eaten sower herbs with the Passeover Thou hast not yet afflicted thy voluptuous heart sufficiently as Mary Magdalen did and the other women before they came unto the Sepulcher Thirdly women are the first witnesses in daily Childbirths how we are born into this world children of wrath and God hath revealed to their knowledge in the first place how we shall be made alive again and become heirs of salvation For Resurrection is the birth of the dust and when the Grave had given up the dead body of Christ these women came as it were unto the labour much about the time that the Monument did groan even when an Earthquake had gone just before it Once it was their curse to have a woe pronounced upon them In dolore paries In sorrow shalt thou bring forth Children Gen. iii. 16. Now they see another manner of travel that God can quicken us to life again not miserably but triumphantly and the earth shall give up the dead with joy and gladness Fourthly we may well know him to be the same Christ who was crucified and rose again the third day because he chose no better witnesses than these were for so great a mystery The world it may be will contemn such simplicity of the Spirit but because it so pleased our Saviour Mary Magdalen and the women are most authentick witnesses and beyond all exception Shepherds address unto his cratch where he was born Women unto his Tomb where he was risen from the dead that you may see how Satans method of deceiving is quite contrary to Gods method of saving The Devil dealt all by craft to tempt our first Parents in the shape of a Serpent and Christ deals all by simplicity and innocency through the testimony of Shepherds through the testimony of Women If you be hard to believe the things which were very strange at his Nativity and at his Resurrection examine these persons and ye shall have plain truth without tricks and turnings A righteous cause needs not a supportance by Art and subtilty a piercing wit may find a way to make a bad action seem good but when the action is without controversie good already the devices of a sharp wit will never make it seem better for truth is least suspected when it is not varnished over with Policy Lastly To end this Point among all other women Mary Magdalen the great sinner is with the first that comes unto the Sepulchre to refresh our conscience which is opprest with the fore burden of iniquity that our Redeemer liveth to gratifie repentant sinners in especial wise that fly unto his mercy If it were fit for Mary to bury her sins in that Grave it will be fit likewise for thee and me Repentance may be described to be the Resurrection of the soul from the death of sin And this Resurrection from sin which I may call Metaphorical hath a fast interest none so sure as it in Christ as he comes forth from the darkness of the grave and shines upon the world All men shall be restored to life just and unjust for the Son of God redeemed the whole nature of man from the corruption of the Grave and the Devil did utterly lose jus mortis the whole dominion of death because our Saviour being an innocent was put to death over whom he had no dominion But the glory of our Saviours victory was to conquer two at once Hell and Death So the Prophet Hosea cries out in form of an Epinicium O death where is thy sting O hell where is thy victory And from his own voice he declares his glory Rev. i. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead behold I am alive for evermore and have the keys of Hell and of Death Therefore this great Festival is the penitent sinners holy day for whose sakes both the Keys are turned for whose sakes both the Gates are opened that the soul may pass from the judgment of Hell and the body from the rottenness of corruption And thus it appears why Christ was first seen of Women in his bodily manifestation after death It was granted to their couragious attempt that durst
that her Lords body was gone but then Christ appears first unto her whom she took to be the Gardener Presently she goes and tells the Disciples she had seen the Lord. The other women who had fled from the Sepulcher and were amazed said nothing to any man of that which the Angel before did bid them say for they are yet incredulous and then comes in St. Lukes relation that they looked again into the Sepulcher and the two men in white whom they saw said unto them Why seek ye the living among the dead He is not here but he is risen And as St. Matthew adds he goeth before you into Galilee there shall ye see him Then they returned and told all these things to the Eleven but they seemed to them as idle tales And as these women went to tell the Disciples Christ did meet them according to the Angels promise and saluted them and they held him by the feet and worshipped him These rumours went abroad into every mans mouth and toward the setting of the Sun Christ adjoyned himself to Cleophas and the other Disciple as a waifaring man and was known of them in the breaking of bread whereupon they return to Jerusalem and tell the Disciples Now the Disciples had a message sent them to go into Galilee and there they should see the Lord but out of fear and incredulity they durst not move out of doors Therefore on the same day at Evening being the first day of the week when the doors were shut where the Disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews came Jesus and stood in the midst of them and said peace be unto you This was the fourth Apparition which he made on this very day A day of so many noble acts and chances that it is able alone to make an history and a history of that great moment that St. Paul writes as if a lively and effectual assent to this Article of the Creed to this one Article were able alone to make a Christian Rom. x. 9. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved And although there are other limbs of truth which make up the body of Christian Faith yet if any man ask me about Faith as one askt Christ about the Commandments which is the first and greatest Commandment So in the Point of belief if any one shall say which is the first and great Article of the Creed I would boldly reply this before any other The third day he rose again from the dead The matter then which it behoves us to speak on at this solemn Feast for the quality it is the very Essence and Elixar of our faith and for the quantity so copious that above all the narrations of the Gospel it is most venerable and delightful for the variety of the story I have passed already as the year hath come about into these Points how Mary Magdalen and the other women brought sweet Odours and Spices on the first day of the Week to embalm his body and that as they were on their way three strange motions came to pass the one in the whole Element of Earth the foundations whereof were opened behold there was a great Earthquake and then the heavens were opened for an Angel came down from thence and then the Grave was opened by the rouling away of the stone Now follows the Text which I have read in order wherein is contained this section of the story the Angel puts on a terrible appearance and removes away those that would not believe and so makes room for those that came devoutly prepared If the Band of Souldiers had staid at the Sepulcher these godly women durst not approach for fear of violent ravishment nor durst the Disciples have come near lest these hirelings should spill their bloud But to prevent all outrage the Angel put on a look like lightning and made the hearts of these miscreants faint and when they were driven off the zealous women and the Disciples were admitted to see this glorious work which the Lord had wrought and to testifie what they had seen to all the world The two verses which enter us into this part of the story may be thus distinguished The first is a description of Gods Watchman of his coelestial guard His Countenance was like lightning and his Rayment white as snow The second is a description of Pilates Watchmen and his Roman Guard For fear of him the Keepers did shake and became as dead men Gods Angel is notified by his Visage His Countenance was like lightning and by his Rayment it was white as snow Pilates Ruffians are much betrayed by outward fear for fear of him the Keepers did shake but the inward damp of conscience was most terrible they became as dead men Of these particulars that God may be glorified and you edified You have seen the figures of many Angels and Cherubims about the Tombs of Princes and great men carved by the Art of the Statuary but all the histories of the world afford not such an instance that a very Angel sate upon a Grave-stone excepting this occurrence at our Saviours Resurrection St. Luke says that the women saw two men cloathed in white St. Mark says it was a young man cloathed in a long white garment but they were not very men that came from the dead as Moses and Elias were seen in the Mount at the Transfiguration they were true Angels in the visible shapes of men who took it now for a dignity to be seen in a body because our body was exalted to be incorruptible in the Resurrection of Christ Whether then they be called Angels or men all is one but when St. Matthew mentions one Angel and St. John reckons two when St. Mark says there was one young man in white St. Luke says there were two men in shining garments Is not this a discord No not at all There was but one Angel that spake to the women now St. Matthew and St. Mark refer us only to that person that was the speaker St. Luke and St. John labour to tell us the number of those witnesses that were present and testified of his Resurrection and they were two This is no difference when some write of the singular person of that Angel which spake and others in the plural person of those Angels that witnessed You have heard the reason why this Angel is called a man and why but one is named though there were two in place now I will put this unto it that he came to the Sepulcher neither as a man alone nor as an Angel alone but as an Angel and a Man John Baptist the fore runner of the Nativity came poorly clad with a vesture of Camels skins and a leathern Girdle about his loyns his Errand was to witness to the Son of God coming to us in great humility but this Angel who is the fore-runner of the
seen in the Emblem of a Fool that thought to fly aloft and had a Plume of Feathers in one hand to carry him up like a birds wing but there was a stone in the other hand The word was Non tam pluma vehit quam grave mergit onus So vain ostentation is but a Feather to lift a man on high Gods wrath is like a Milstone to weigh him down and to lay his honour in the dust In a corrupt Age he may perhaps be advanced that had rather be great than good but because much of greatness consists in the opinion that men have of them as well as in the title Honor in honorante the world was never so bad yet to hold him great in the common estimation that had no conscience to be good Want of Piety want of the fear of God doth eclipse the most generous qualities of Nature and Morality and make them contemptible Solomon wrote most choice Philosophy upon the Plants of the earth from the Hyssop on the Wall to the Cedar in Lebanon yet Posterity neglected to preserve those Monuments of his wisdom though they were the Labours of a King because Lust and strange flesh made his wisdom despicable Julian a man of rare moral qualities for an Emperour Vlpian the greatest Lawyer Galen the greatest Physician Plotinus the greatest Platonist Porphyrie the greatest Aristotelian to descend lower Aretine the quaintest wit of Italy we vilifie the men and set a mask upon their good parts as God did upon Jeroboam that he made Israel to sin because their Religion was Atheism and Profanation I have told you before that Eli the High Priest was the man shot at in this Text not for any personal crime of commission in himself but for a sin of omission because he did not reform or else severely punish the unpriestly behaviour of his two Sons Hophni and Phineas One part of disgrace that fell upon him is in the third Chapter following my Text and the first Verse Sermo domini erat pretiosus in diebus istis the word of the Lord was precious in those days there was no open Vision that is Cessaverunt responsiones divinae Propheticae in illo tempore Prophesie and Divine Revelations were well nigh deceased in those times for the wickedness of the Sons and the indulgence of the Father Moreover in the next verse to my Text God says he will cut off his arm and the arms of his Fathers house that is the Succession of the Priesthood should be removed from that naughty Generation Afterward it is denounced that there shall not be an old man in his house Alas Counsel must needs perish when Age and Experience doth not govern Thus you see that for want of bridling nay for want of deposing and not utterly cutting off of scandalous Sons of his own body Eli the High Priest should be so despised that is his Succession should fail the wisdom of old men should not support him and divine Revelations had utterly forsaken him Tell this to the Bishop of Rome to him that would be the sole High Priest of the Church of Christ Are there any Christians in the world more riotous more lascivious than his Sons the Cardinals And by your leave it is often seen that some of them are his Natural Sons Is there any Father more facile and connivent than he That it seems will ever hearken to the counsel which Nicholas Archbishop of Capua gave to Pope Leo the Tenth Ne quid omnino reformantur at any hand whatever the Lutherans said to mend nothing How can we then refrain to despise them as the Lord said the house of Eli should be despised Can we believe that Succession hath not been long ago cut off from the chair of the Scorners Shall we delude our selves that the Revelation of Truth is among them Or that the Oracles of infallible illumination are not more precious among them than they were in the days of Eli's declination They take upon them the Honour of Eli I know they are guilty of the faults of Eli and of crimes much more flagitious was the Scripture written for any one mans sake Shall not the infamy also of Eli be inflicted upon them As my Text says They that despise me shall be lightly estâ—med Yet it were happy for the despisers of God if this were only their doom to be inglorious in this life and a scorn of men as I said before that the best Saints of God had marks of ignominy branded upon them Stephen died in the name of a Blasphemer Naboth died in the name of a Traitor St. Paul who was entertained by the Corinthians instar Angeli as an Angel of God passed among the Jews and Tertullus for a pestilent fellow but as Aulus Gellius said of the Epithete illaudatus that more was meant by it than not to be worthy of praise it was as much in true sense as innominandus Neque unquam nominandus one that should never be named or mentioned so to be lightly esteemed in this place is to be put out of Gods Check to have their names raced out of the book of life when the Saints carry Palms in their hands and Crowns upon their heads who have made their red Robes white in the bloud of the Lamb they shall be cast out of doors among the foolish Virgins with a Non novi vos Depart from me for I know yâ—u not Can any thing be made more vile and abject than not to know it Others will say perchance Lord thy hands have made us and fashioned us by thee have we been upholden ever since we were born how can it be that thou that knowest all things shouldst not know what we are In Mat. xxv when Christ spake in the person of a Judge how he would challenge the uncharitable for not refreshing him in Hunger nor in Prison nor in Nakedness they make answer as if God either knew not their thoughts or knew not them throughly or knew not what he said Domine quando te vidimus esurientem Lord when did we see thee in hunger Therefore God puts this derision upon them at the judgment since you think I am mistaken in you Non novi vos be it so as you would have it I know you not Which interpretation puts me in mind of the last Point and the very height of these mens miseries for to be cast aside as an ignoâ—e person is a most light esteem but being utterly forlorn and miserable then to be made a â—lout and derision it passeth all other scorn and contumely Says the Lord Prov. i. 26. I will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh So he seems to triumph and insult over the Devil and his Angels Isa xiii How art thou faln from Heaven O Lucifer thou son of the Morn In the Second Psalm there is mention of as great a Faction banding against the Lord as could cluster together the Heathen
it came to be said that he walked with God After this that hath been spoken I ought not to conceal from you any longer how the Septuagint have translated these words upon which I insist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Enoch pleased God This must not be shuffled over without observation upon it not only because St. Chrysostome and such other Greek Fathers as I have perused do so read the Text nor only for the Son of Syrachs sake Ecclus. xliv 16. who consents with the lxxii But for St. Pauls sake in whom we find the same character of him Heb. xi 5. Before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God The wisdom of God alone best knows why there should be such a diversity of terms a diversity I say without any real difference for it is but a Consequent put for an Antecedent he that walks in new obedience eschewing the company of the ungodly and setting God always before him consequently he shall please the Lord. If we had such a Master as Nabal was so crooked and unpropitious that none could speak to him or please him If we served under the Lord as Jacob did under Laban who had nothing but murmuring and persecution for all his fidelity then we might cross our arms and say we had lost our oyl and our labour But our service is full of benevolence and encouragement Euge bone serve Well done good and faithful servant every title chimes Alacrity And yet it follows that servant was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faithful what In all words and works No faithful in a little Enoch pleased because God would be pleased with his imperfect righteousness it is his indulgence to call things that are not as things that are he will give a days wages for an hours work in the Parable If there be a willing mind it shall be commended according to that which a man hath not according to that which he hath not he that affects the right way and would not swerve from it shall carry this badge upon his name that he pleased and walked with God Quamvis claudicet labatur though sometimes he limps sometimes he stumbles through the infirmity of the flesh Our renowned Patriarch in my Text was a sinner from his mothers womb for Adam begat a Son in his own likeness after his image but that likeness was the similitude yea and the very essence I may say of sinful flesh Yet such a Son of Adam doth please being made by adoption and grace the Son of God But I have not said all nay not a moiety what it is to please our holy Father For his love and complacency is not a bare affection like Man's Amor Dei in effctu non in affectu situs est Where he is pleased he doth not affect a thing only Theorically but will effect some good for it as Aeneas said of his followers Nemo ex hôc numero mihi non donatus abibit All that did attend his very games should have some reward for their labour God is not unrighteous to forget your love and your labour which you have shewed toward his name Heb. vi 10. Please not your self even as Christ also pleased not himself says St. Paul Rom. xv 3. And you shall walk before the Lord in the Land of the living Psal cxvi 9. Placebo Domino I shall please the Lord in the Land of the living so the Vulgar Latine readeth it More precisely to the cause In some sense all the Creatures and their natural operations do please the Lord but in a supernatural order nothing doth please him but that into which he hath put a supernatural bonity and those good effects which are wrought in man by his own grace He doth not only love and delight in them but will remunerate them with this sober restriction which might pacifie many hot contentions if the Devil were not too strong Bona opera non habent condignitatem ad praemium coeleste sed quandam ordinabilitatem that is good works have no intrinsecal worth or value to claim eternal life but through the gracious promise of God they are ordained unto it By Faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death Faith indeed is an ambulatory thing it hath no rest till it see God and walks from one degree to another from righteousness to righteousness and never stands still but in the clear Vision of the Beatifical Essence it walks no more but stands before the face of the Lord for ever From those notions which I have passed over grounded upon Text and Reason I proceed last of all to give them a little room in my discourse that have made either probable or unprobable divinations upon the word The Jerusalem Targum instead of Enoch walked reads it more at large he served or laboured in the truth before the Lord. Whether he were Ruler or Priest that Gloss decides it not or both Ruler and Priest as they were coincident in the person of Melchisedech and I believe long before him truth is a Princes care as well as a Prophets he is Custos utrinsque tabulae and shall answer to the King of Kings how his people discharged their duty to God as well as to their Neighbour But by whomsoever that good work is wrought that truth shall flourish upon the earth by the power and authority of the Scepter or by the diligence and painfulness of the Miter such a one shall have a blessed name that he walks with God that he is legatus à là tere he stirs not from his side he is set upon his right hand and shall remain among the blessed at that right hand for ever But howsoever I may be perswaded that Enoch was a Ruler and some great Government lay upon his shoulders yet his interest was more than so in labouring for the truth he was a diligent instructor of the people by word and communication St. Jude hath rehearsed a piece of a Sermon that he made wherein he preached of a better life to come Here again I must have recourse to the Idiom of the Scripture wherein I will shew that the very phrase to walk with God doth imply a pleasing or acceptable ministration of office before the Lord as 1 Sam. ii 30 I said indeed it is a message to old Eli that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever that is that thou and the house of thy Father should execute the office of a Priest and offer sacrifice before me And let it imprint this in your mind what veneration is due to the divine Oracles of truth when they are delivered unto you We are Embassadors for Christ says St. Paul but you must abstract that word from any earthly similitude we come indeed in the name of the King of heaven not as from him that is absent but invisible We do not only come from him to speak to men priviledge enough to our person but in the
the light that was before and to turn to the smoak that was behind This is no distorted amplification but an evident spot in her crime yet not in her alone but in all those that cannot shew the use of good examples in the fruits of their lives A good Example is the fairest transcript of Gods will texted in capital letters so that he that runs may read and as a Picture expresseth the life more when colours are laid upon it than when 't is drawn out only in the rude figure so where piety lives and moves in the actions of virtuous men 't is more illustrious so by far than in empty Precepts and God expects it at our hands that where we are deaf to plain instruction yet we would easily be won with imitation We will run after thee in odore unguentorum says the Spouse in the smell of those fragrancies which the Worthies of the Church have left behind them Our Church which hath omitted no opportune occasion to put sound devotion in our mouths hath taught us often to pray in several Collects in that admirable piece of piety the Common-Prayer Book for grace of conformity with the best of Gods Children that we may learn to love our enemies by the example of his Martyr St. Stephen that after the example of John the Baptist we may constantly speak the truth and patiently suffer for the truths sake that we may follow all the Saints that are knit together in one communion and fellowship in vertuous and godly living this is the true celebration of their Holy-days to tread their footsteps as they have gone before us unto everlasting life But Novelists had rather be talkt of that they began a fashion and set a Copy for others than that they contein'd themselves within a strict imitation of the most excellent Presidents Be ye followers of me says Paul to the Church of Corinth and is it not better says Nazianzen to one Nichobalus upon the mention of those words to come after the Apostles heels than be a ringleader or the formost among Sectaries Praestat infra aquilas paululum quà m supra alaudas volitare it is a fairer pitch to fly a little under an Eagle than to soar somewhat above a Lark The Age is blessed the days are blessed when conspicuous facts of holy men are like Beacons on a hill which cannot choose but be gazed upon And if our sluggishness obscure such rare Examples for want of emulation and make them vanish like prints in snow that are soon forgotten the Lord will set up others of a contrary kind that shall last longer to our terror For since the memory of the just is no more regarded which is eternized for our imitation he will powder and make brine of the wicked for our confusion Here 's an instance in my Text of one that observ'd not a faithful Leader that conducted her She would not be tied to example and in that place where she refused to learn she was left for an example to all posterity But why do I stick at this only that she would not be a Scholar to Lot he was a frail man and had need of a Guide himself herein rather it appears that she was most averse from discipline nothing would make her wise for there was an Angel or twain in the Troop they were the Leaders of this little Flock out of Sodom yet she order'd her steps disobediently even in the sight of an Angel No earthly means or perswasions no nor heavenly patterns can reduce some head-strong sinners to repentance they have hardned their hearts like the nether milstone The rich Glutton in Hell thought that by some new device his Brethren might be converted if one would come from the dead and admonish them And do not most of you imagin if an Angel were sent from Heaven to preach there would be great reformation among us we would mend apace yes perhaps as much as Lots Wife did who would tread her own path though the Angel were at her elbow They that will not hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be converted for that they would be at the same stay though Angels walked daily among them The express words of my Text have afforded me hitherto all that I have objected against this sinner and what I shall say more shall be deducted out of it both by facil and easie consequence and by fair authority especially in the imputations of incredulity and recidivation And to come to them with the more perspicuity and order I observe the same rottenness in the sin of Lots Wife which Cajetan discovered in the transgression of Eve Eve cavilled upon that which God had commanded two wayes first she turned that absolute sentence in the day thou eatest that fruit thou shalt die into ye shall not eat of it lest you die or as the Vulgar Latin ne forte lest perhaps ye die Then she cloyed the Commandment with more austerity than was in it to shew she was weary of it ye shall not eat of it neither shall ye touch it concerning the not touching her own loathing of the Law did put in that addition So the poison of the Devil had crept into her understanding and into her affections says Cajetan In intellectum per haesiâ—ationem poenae in affectum per displicentiam praecepti in her understanding she doubted no such punishment would follow as was threatned in her affections she distasted the Commandment and these are just so in the Subject we handle In the 10. of Wisdom ver 7. I name an Author of all that are in the Apocryphal List next to Canonical credit Lots Wife is called a standing Pillar of salt as a Monument of an unbelieving soul An unbeliever is one that gives not faith to that which God hath said and revealed Now she fell into unbelief in one of these two points or in both either she believed not that the place from whence she came should be destroyed as the Angels had denounced or else she believed not it would conduce to her safety whether she looked back or no the former she would try out of curiosity and the latter she would put to hazard upon peevish presumption The Sun rose clear that morning ver 23. there was no thunder nor darkness in the Heavens she began to suspect she was drawn from home to no purpose and they were wiser that stayed behind So she stood in motu trepidationis she knew not whether she should believe or not believe at last she resolved to trust Gods Messenger no further than she saw cause and would make her own eyes her sureties though she were strictly forbidden You cannot provoke God to anger sooner than by reserving power and license to your self to judg whether all his sayings are certain and infallible He that believeth not is condemned already Faith is the eye of all Religion if you wink with that eye you shall never see the Lord Especially to think you can discern
more with these bodily senses than with the inerrable light of Divine Truth is an extreme indignity A grave Patrician would be grieved that the deposition of a noted Varlet should be heard against his innocency And will you hear the objections of sense and reason against that sacred evidence Thus saith the Lord that were to trust to darkness before light the Flesh before the Spirit to lying vanities before unalterable and eternal truth But to her senses this Infidel would appeal and they would instruct her sufficiently whether it had gone with Sodom so ill as it was foretold And was she sure to be satisfied by looking back I greatly doubt it a mist might rise up like the smoak of a Furnace and she conceive it to come from fire when it did not Or the Sun might shine upon the waters in the Plain and she misdoubt that the waters were become bloud as the Moabites were so mistaken Doth not a late Historian tell us of the whole Watch of a City that misdoubted a Field of thistles a far off was a Troop of Pikemen that encamped there to besiege them Was ever man more cautious according to humane rules than St. Thomas the Apostle He would trust no mans reports that his Master was risen from the dead he would see somewhat neither would he trust his own eyes he would feel too nay he would not trust his fingers ends in small wounds but he would wallow his whole hand in the rent of his side For all this wariness he might have been deluded The Syrians saw Elisha and yet wist not it was he The Sodomites felt all night at Lots door and were still to seek Old Isaac held Jacob fast and was deluded the hands are Esau's hands says he and yet they were not And will this woman trust her eye-sight and at a distance rather than Gods peremptory assertion O trust not in man trust not in these fallible humane means Our senses are bruitish Nature is corrupt Philosophy is vain but Faith leans upon that strong pillar the revelation of the Spirit from above which cannot falter and to lie it is impossible And as this woman was called an incredulous Soul because she looked back to see whether vengeance had passed upon the Cities of the Plain as the Angel of the Lord had foretold so for want of faith touching the caution which was given to her own person she fell into presumption and by presumption into death it would not sink into her thoughts that God was in earnest that as many of their Troop as looked behind them should be consumed she thought they were big words to scare timerous persons such as Prophetical men in their zeal did every day denounce against sinners yet they liv'd and rub'd on that took their own liberty to disobey for God was gracious and would not suffer his whole displeasure to arise against miserable sinners Feel feel the pulse of your own conscience I beseech you tell me if it do not beat disorderly Doth it not confuse you to call to mind that this infidelity this in ipso genere hath betrayed you to the tentations of Satan more than all his snares beside that desperate courage which you assume to your selves upon some hope of impunity is it not the spur to all transgression God is gentle and of long suffering his minacies are terrible but his dearly beloved Son and our only Saviour is merciful sed exorabile numen fortasse experiar says the Heathen his loving kindness is soon entreated This is a bastard faith of our own to subvert the true faith which is begotten by the Spirit A Diabolical infusion that God doth menace out of policy that which He never meant to make us obsequious by the shadow of his scourge but remember that non moriemini was a lie 'T is the Serpents Master-piece to expel all faith and fear out of our mind for they go hand in hand together and to break our necks with confidence A barbarous beastly kind of life says Aristotle hardned the Scythians that they neither feared Thunder nor Earthquakes but it is infernal witchcraft that makes obdurate hearts believe that all the woes and curses in the Gospel are but a strong noise terrible while it is heard but comes to nothing Quotidie Diabolus quae Deus minatur levigat says Gregory God affirms the Woman doubts the Devil denies O unhappy they that think Truth it self may be deceived and give ear to a deceitful spirit If all the maledictions against Impenitents were not indubitably to be expected Christianity were but fainthearted superstition Religion nothing but panick fear Faith not the Evidence of things to come but a devised Fable and the sacred Scriptures in all penalties and threatnings a vizard of mockery But as sin brought punishment upon us so let the certain expectation of punishment bring us out of sin Remember Lots Wife the only memento that Christ fixeth upon any Story of the Old Testament The less she believed the less she feared but the less she feared the more she smarted What God hath threatned will not be declin'd by our contrary opinion Though Christ shed his bloud to save a sinner God will not lie to save a sinner No title of his Word shall fail no not to save an hundred thousand souls out of the infernal pit I am come to the utmost portion of the hour and not to the utmost of the first part of my Text by three points She fainted in well-doing she neglected mercy and was slow to save her self she contemned the benefit of preservation in respect of that which was taken from her But as Logick convinceth more than Rhetorick as the fist knit together is stronger than the hand spread abroad so all this will be most doctrinal in one point that she relapsed and sunk after she was in fair speed to obtain mercy because she fell in love with wicked Sodom again from whence God had withdrawn her This is her crime which Philo exaggerates more than once aestu refluo retrosum absorpta she was like a Ship sailing with full sails from the sinful delights of the World but the contrary winds and tides of concupiscence carried her clean back again Josephus accuseth her worse upon the same charge that though her feet came from that impious City yet her heart staid behind Et saepius tardavit vertendo se ad civitatem she stood still more than once to take her full view of that loss which she so much bemoaned nor was it at the first turning about as he says that she was turn'd into a pillar of salt The very Apples of Sodom remain as a token against her to this day which put forth at first as if they would grow to be very delicious in the taste and in conclusion they pulverize and become sooty ashes So Lots Wife ran well at first but in the midst of her course nay almost at the end she fainted and stuck fast
you must know that there is a threefold evidence of truth to be distinguished First there is the evidence of our outward senses Matt. xvi when it is Evening you say it will be fair weather for the Sky is red O ye hypocrites can you discern the face of heaven says our Saviour as who should say then there is more to be understood 2. There is the evidence of knowledg which will condemn the Heathen that know not God for the invisible things may be understood by the things which are made even his eternal Godhead Rom. i. both these truths you see are fruitless without a third and what is that but the evidence of faith Heb. xi As for other Truths every man is in the high way to get them capiat qui capere potest but as for this Truth it hath looked down from Heaven says David looked upon whom it listeth and all men have not faith Whether Faith be the evident Truth or not all the World almost upon a time stuck at that point but onely Abraham either because their eyes were dim or because it shined like the face of Moses that they could not behold it Yea we have sundry Traditions that some Philosophers cast an eye upon the first verse of the Scripture In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth but they started at it like the Host of Israel at the dead Corps of Amasa and went no further Alas poor Philosophy who knows not how to confound the wisdom of her Principles The fire hath been as temperate as the morning air Dan. 3. the waters have stood upon an heap like the strong ribs of a Mountain Exod. xiv the Sun hath hid his face at noon day when Astronomy could find no reason for it their Art was as blind as the Heaven in the Eclipse But every part of nature should be out of frame Heaven and Earth should pass away before one title of Gods book should perish that with the dissolution of the Heavens no Angels might remain and with the ruine of the Earth no men might be left to testify against it The holy Martyrs have forsaken their lives that this truth might not forsake them And as it is reported of our Philosopher that the ashes spread upon the high Mountains of Tenariffa retain for ever any letters drawn out upon them by reason of the tranquillity of the place So no wind or storm can scatter away those holy words of Gods Book since they have been written in the ashes of the Martyrs the Law cannot endure better in the Tables of Stone than the Gospel in that sacred dust If Faith be not a Truth how did Abraham see Christmas day and rejoyce and keep it a solemn Festival more than a thousand years before the name was entred into our Calender He knew the faithfulness of Gods Promise that made Jesus our Redemption so undoubtedly that he swore him a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech The Mother of our Lord might ask reverently quomodo How should these things be The best in the World have their doubts of infirmity but Domine non erit tibi this thing shall not be so when Christ had spoken it that was a mistake in St. Peter and yet behold the Evidence of Truth shewed it self more abundantly anon after in the faith of that Apostle than in all the skill of Greece and Egypt Tell me what Physician could promise recovery to the Cripple lying at the Beautiful Gate Durst all the Colledg of Galen say unto him confidently stand up and walk but the Apostle saw that one grane of faith could give him the use of his feet and ancle bones that he might leap and praise the Lord. Whatsoever is confirmed by the mouth of two or three Witnesses it passeth for truth by the Law of God and Man and good reason for it Now the Old Testament was confirmed under the name of three Patriarchs I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. In the New Covenant whether it were at the Transfiguration of Christ Peter James and John three Attendants did bear him company to Mount Tabor in like manner at the raising up of Jairus Daughter and in the Mount of Olives when he sweat and prayed so many were with him as before and the self same three Disciples all was confirmed under the mouth of three Witnesses But I will take no more pains in this point to prove Faith to be a Truth as I remember the great Orator reports of a good man Q. Metellus he was excused or rather forbidden to shew his proof unto the Senate in a Controversie to be debated lest the Bench should seem to distrust so reverend a Citizen None but Julian the Apostate and such accursed as he hath left behind him would scoff at Faith whose cavil it was as Nazianzen reports that we had a starting hole for all objections in one silly word Believe These men knew not that Faith in a little Pearl was worth all the substance of a Merchant and he sold all he had to buy the Pearl Matt. xiii Surely if the Womb of Mary deserved a Blessing from all Generations that bore the Infant from everlasting if the Arms of Simeon deserved a Church Anthem every Evensong that enclasped him if the Tomb of Joseph was attended by Angels where his body lay then cut down Palms and spread your Garments in the way for Christ is rode in triumph into that heart into which faith is entred Now Truth is fruitful and brings forth Truth a Daughter not unlike her self Divine Truth is the cause of Human Truth of a true Conversation of a right Balance and a just Fphah Her Merchandise is such as Abraham's was with the Hittites Gen. 23. which I will ever commend when he bought a Tomb for Sarah such as the ancient Romans was aedes pestilentes vendo the Seller was not ashamed to confess that his House had the Pestilence Not as St. Hierom told the Trades of his time tanti vitrium quanti margaritam to chop away Glass for Rubies or as St. Basil says of Gordias the Martyr that his Soul was vexed with the City and he retired into the Wilderness leaving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he could not endure the Buyers and Sellers the forswearers and liars And what doth all come to when they cast up their Audit Prov. xxi 6. The getting of riches by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death Let our Merchants beware that they carry not that report which the Wits of St. Paul's time put upon the Cretians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwayes liars evil beasts and slow-bellies or as Plutarch spake of Demades the Pleader then grown past the best that there was nothing left in him but his Tongue and his Paunch his Tongue to tell lies and his Belly to surfeit the meer Reliques of an Ox sacrificed Nay I beseech you
of the Spring and Harvest must give it blade and mature it but Christ had all these in the palm of his hand eminenter he took a fragment of a barly loaf into his hand and to teach his Church that his grasp had in it the fecundity of the earth the moisture of the showers the influence of the Sun the comprehension of all times and seasons and the excellency of all power as he broke it it enlarged it self far beyond those goodly ears of Wheat which Pharaoh saw in his Dream and every crum became an handful quinque panes erant quinque semina non terrae mandata sed ab illo qui terram fecit multiplicata says St. Austin the five loaves were after the manner of five seeds of corn not fructifying in the earth but multiplying in his hand that made the earth But because all kind of pulse and grane yea though it were Manna it self that came from Heaven is of that condition that it must run through much art before it be made bread but that which Christ brake and gave to his Disciples was bread in the first existence and production therefore St. Hilary had rather compare the loaves that swelled thus by Christs blessing to a River whose fountain supplies one wave to run after another with an indifferent succession and whatsoever the Cattle drink riseth again out of the Spring and the channel is always filled so the loaves received no diminution by the portions which were broken off sed quicquid aufertur usurario quodam meatu reparatur nay the principal was not only repaired but it was requited with interest Having stood at gaze a while to behold that which was done shall we walk round about it as it were to observe if we can after what manner it was done he that takes upon him to search into the modus how a Miracle was effected must beware of two rocks in his way that he do not distrust and say in his mind how is it possible to be and that he do not circumscribe the Divine power and say necessarily thus it must be Steering my self by these advisoes I say first Christ could amplify that little portion of bread into those great exceedings by creating some new substance to eek out that which was in his hand before qui sine seminibus operatur semina he spake the word and the first seeds that ever grew came out of nothing nothing is not removed at such vast distance from his power but that it may be made something because he is infinite in doing all things Secondly He that turned water into wine with the same vertue could turn the adjacent air into the substance of Bread and Fish Which sudden alteration in a thin and a fluid body unprepared to take such an impression was an action proper to God and no less transcendent than the principal Creation Thirdly Though growth be the affection only of a living thing yet he could make every fragment of those victuals to grow in an instant of time as the dry stick in Aarons hand did shoot out Leaves and Almonds Fourthly If he pleased it was not difficult to him but that he could distend and widen that small matter into a far broader substance as when a little water is rarified and boiles over a Cauldron when it is vehemently heated or as the Rib which was taken out of Adams side was extended to make a Woman which surpassed it self an hundred fold in magnitude Finally I may miss in all these for the ways of the Lord are past finding out and some other means may be used upon which the eye of Philosophy did never open You may as soon tell the number of the Stars as reckon in what divers fashions such an unwonted augmentation should come to pass and my Text is read in some old Copies very consonant hereunto that our Saviour distributed of both species Bread and Fish not quantum volebant as much as the five thousand desired but quantum volebat as much as he would Whatsoever his will affects his strength effects or else there were not only impotency but contristation in the Divine Nature but his goodness is not bounded by our imperfect desires nor his truth by our weak understanding In which title the Apostle had reason to glorifie him Eph. iii. 20. Vnto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think unto him be glory throughout all ages world without end The report which Pliny makes of the Lioness that she whelps but once in all her life perhaps is mistaken yet the principle toward which he lookt in that report is a good one that great births and great effects fall out but seldom Christ did not make many such distributions as this was and yet it was not like Plinies Lioness once more he brought forth the like First He shewed what strange things his Divinity could command among the Jews for first he was sent to them Soon after and in the very next Chapter after the order of St. Matthew he fed four thousand with seven Loaves and a few Fishes near to Decapolis among those of Tyre and Sidon and they were Gentiles If Miracles would prove infallible means to convert sinners commonly we think so but it is our ignorance if they were natural nourishment to beget sound and wholsom Faith they had seen them oftner But to lay it open to you that this Miracle upon which I preach did not take with them as it deserved the very same persons that had eat of his Banquet expostulate with Christ in the thirtieth verse of this Chapter What sign shewest thou that we may see and believe thee What dost thou work See what it is come to That which was done but the other day was forgotten and a Sign they ask for as if they had never seen any before Nay before the end of this Chapter Ver. 66. Many of these whom he had engaged unto him by his miraculous benefits they dropt off like withered Leaves from that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him No better came of his great work done upon the Loaves and Fishes no better came of Manna in the days of Moses which was every morning spread about their Tents And yet we are perswaded if God would shew such tokens among us it would make us such earnest such thankful Christians that the kindness would not be lost upon us And doth that conceit hold you that to see five thousand fed with a few fragments would do your Faith and Conscience such a pleasure Why then I tell you you see a greater Argument of Gods infinite power every day in the year Millions of People being in the world as many as there be drops in the Sea yet all these have their daily bread and the celestial benignity is never exhausted This is customary indeed but much more than the other Et insolita stupendo vident quibus quotidiana
being of our nature and yet I will tell you a vitious filthy sinner doth so ill become the name of a man that there is far more congruity between him and a Beast he is more Swine or Tyger or Fox or locust than man he is not four-footed but he is bruitish hearted in his inward parts he hath put off humanity But if repentance shall restore him out of this bestial conversation if God shall set good men at his right hand that by strength of reason force of perswasion timeliness of admonition yea or by sharpness of correction shall make him feel and know the beauty of an honest life he is redintegrated in the powers and faculties of a man which he had quite lost So that our being in the austerity of Philosophy is connexed with our well-being No good man and by consequent no not a man till he be governed by the Principality of reason civil Education and the conditement of Vertue is such a Parent as reposeth a vile person a transformed Monster into the proper line of his own Praedicament it makes him Man Not to flutter in the air as it were any longer with Paradoxes impious Catives I confess shall stand for men for they shall suffer the curses and punishment of men in Hell-fire What is it therefore which Jerusalem adds unto us that she is called our Mother why the renovation of the mind or the new man created after God in righteousness and true holiness And as the Birthright which Jacob obteined from Esau was instead of another birth unto Jacob so when such as were vessels of wrath became Heirs of the Promise by Baptism and the Ministry of the Church is not this a Mother that gives them a better life than they had before The Love of God is our life Faith conceives us Hope brings us forth Charity feeds us with her breasts Obedience wraps us in swadling bands and knowledg brings us up God doth inhabit our mind and understanding as the Soul doth inspire the Body As Abram was turned into Abraham and Simon into Peter when they pleased the Lord so take any one that is regenerate and chang'd from his vain conversation though his shape and substance continue as it was before yet the Angels that rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner behold him with their celestial eyes not as the same but as another Creature And no wonder if he become another object in the sight of Heaven the reasonable Soul is that which constitutes the natural man but Faith being superadded a better spirit possesseth him and Christ is the form of a Christian It is St. Paul's Phrase ver 19. of this Chapter My little children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed in you As Ananias travel'd and earned for a Child till Christ was formed in Paul so Paul travel'd and had the sorrows of a Mother when â—he brings forth in the anxiousness of his heart till Christ was formed in the Galatians First the Church brought him forth then he laboured abundantly and assisted the Church to bring forth others The true solution of the old Riddle Mater me genuit eadem mox gignitur ex me the Son of Grace is begotten of this Mother and afterward filling up a place in the Communion of Saints he is reckoned into the collective Body which is called Jerusalem our Mother But a late Writer puts in his judgment very well I think how far the Motherhood of the Church intends to make us Children of Adoption it travels in birth that by her work Christ may be formed in us The Members of our fleshly body are formed in our Mothers Womb by her natural faculties she can go further for the absolution of the work that is the inhabitation of the Soul is the act of God so the Church doth the part of a Mother it propounds repentance discloseth the mysteries of faith perswades us with the expectation of a great reward in Heaven offers us the use of both the salutiferous Sacraments thus a new fashion a new Creature even the form of Christ doth creep upon us but the life by which we live it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it comes from without from above from the inspiration of the spirit of Christ But without that efformation or effigeation in the Womb of the Mother never expect the vivification or information of the Holy Ghost a Doctrin best known in those trivial words of St. Austin he cannot have God for his Father that will not have the Church for his Mother Ascribe the top of the blessing to him from whom every good gift especially those which are supernatural descends Of his own good will He begat us with the word of truth Jam. 1.18 His good will moved him to pity us his vertue and power went out from him to beget us and his truth which shined in our hearts was the instrumental cause to convert us Carry it along with you therefore that the invisible Father that is in Heaven works by the visible Mother the Church that is on Earth As Eve was the Mother of all living so she is the Mother of all believing Crescite multiplicamini is spoken to one as well as to the other both were ordeined in their several sorts for that blessing increase and multiply Therefore St. James hath conjoyned the Word of Truth to the Will of God both are mixed together to regenerate a pious people And although some have been too nice in expounding the Phrase Of his own will he begat us with the word of truth not with the words of truth in the plural as if our salvation were effected by pronouncing one word as when first we were made Members of Christ by saying I baptize thee and when we have sinned and return again to the Lord by saying I absolve thee yet be it briefly or largely it is the word spoken and preached by the Church which gives us this heavenly feature to be the holy ones of God Briefly the Mother that doth beget us is the Church Militant but the Mother to whose filiation and inheritance we aspire is the Church Triumphant It is true that in relation to Christ the Church is his Body and all we are his Members and in that reference it doth not make the Elect Servants of God but rather it is compounded of those Servants for properly the Body is not the Mother of the Members the Members are not the effect of the Body but they constitute the Body as integral parts And so Solomon hath more aptly given it honour in those delicious Metaphors of a Bundle of Myrrh a Cluster of Grapes and a Pomegranat which I think is the best resemblance a Pomgranat contains many kernels under one Coat so many thousands of Disciples are under the covering of Christ 2. As many kernels are in the small Pomegranat as in the great so the Graces of Christ are in the little Churches as in the more spacious 3. As
upon their bare knees to procure them that happiness to be readmitted into the union of the body of Christ Rowl those words in your conscience which Christ spake to the Apostles Whatsoever ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and it would gripe you as if the knot were tied about your Heart to be shut out of the Fold of Christs Flock by the Sentence Ecclesiastical They that are set over your soul have not the use of the material Sword but the words of Discipline that proceed out of their mouth are sharper than any two-edged Sword Having in readiness to revenge all disobedience says St. Paul 2 Cor. x. 13. In promptu habentes What so ready upon all occasions as the Tongue If this Mother be offended by the impenitency and contumacy of her degenerous Sons she will suddenly smite them with such a wound as nothing can heal but her own forgiveness and the grace of God But a Mother is soon intreated if the Child seek her with tears and lowliness It is a gentle caution which Bernard gives to them that sway the authority in spiritual censures Discite subditorum matres vos esse non Dominos studete magis amari quà m metui si interdum severitate opus sit materna sit non tyrannica Let not your severity be tyrannical but with the compassion of a Mother Thirdly Forasmuch as the Church is our Mother we must carry that venerable duty towards her that great heed must be had to her determinations of Faith not as if it were the rule of truth that is the prerogative of Sacred Scripture but because it holds out the rule of truth and the Ministry thereof is the condition subordinate under God to find out truth My Son forsake not the teaching of thy Mother says Solomon Prov. vi 10. Means he our natural Parent only Nay says Mercer Potes ad Ecclesiam si velis referre You may refer it to the Church if you will And a good reason why that not only it may be but most aptly it should be applied to our mystical or spiritual Mother for the blessings reckoned up in that place to those that will be taught by the wisdom of their Mother are so many as they are not like to be the fruits of obedience to a natural mother only To make my self way the sooner out of this vast Point by distinctive conclusions First If we call that Jerusalem that Church our Mother which St. Paul doth here the most Primitive Church which includes the Apostles Evangelists it is bootless to dispute in a thing so evident that it is to explain the sense and decide the meaning of all Articles of Faith for the Apostles spake as God did give them utterance who is the Author of all hidden and heavenly truths and we are to rest in him as the fountain of all illumination Secondly Excluding the Apostles Evangelists and others conversant with them who were immediately inspired to know all truth which makes a perfect Christian in their own person take the Vniversal Church from their days unto this time and I conceive that the uniform practice and general judgment of all Gods servants that went before us is a certain and undoubted explication of all those Points contained in Scripture that concern our salvation We are taught in the Articles of our Creed that this Church is a witness which we ought to listen unto I believe the holy Catholick Church It hath the promise that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Also Isa lix 21. This is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy Seed nor out of the mouth of thy Seeds Seed from henceforth and for ever This is a Promise that the Church dispersed in all places and continued in all times shall keep the trust of saving truth inviolably So Tertullian so Vincentius Lir. upon this subject Quod apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum says the former That which is uniformly taught by many much more by all is no lie but a truth delivered by that Church to which God hath entailed his blessing that it shall not forsake it I do not say yet that this Vniversal Church is absolutely free from error but from such error only as would shake the stability of faith Some things that may be unknown without prejudice were ever concealed But the whole Church that is and was is so free from error and ignorance that it knows and possesseth all the truth which Christ hath revealed The Churches are the Golden Candlesticks in the midst whereof the Son of God did walk Rev. i. 12. Thirdly take the Church for all those Christians that are now presently living in the world and among those there will ever be some whom God will preserve from pernicious Error yet those some are not necessarily and always such as are in place of Authority or palpably notorious that we may have recourse unto them In a populous Congregation I have heard a Psalm sung quite out of tune by the greater part and those few that sung tunably could not be heard for a long time till at last their good harmony gained a considerable number to listen unto them and to imitate them So false Doctrine may spread far and the soundest judgments be silenced in the Plurality of opposition If their tunable Notes beget good Musick in others it is the working of God which is stronger than the violence of men But from hence I collect that there is no man living nor any Society of men living which hath such indubitable authority from God that they may pronounce a judicial definitive Sentence to oblige and convince the Consciences of others in Controversies of Religion To relie upon one mans Oracle it were a ready way indeed if it were a certain But that man whom we mean is of such little credit with those that cry him up that he cannot make his Partisans submit unanimously to him in his own cause And for general Councils the great Army of Jesus Christ his pitch'd battel since the former may be corrected by the later and have been corrected their judgment is so awful as may quel the resistance of private men but not so irrefragable upon their decision as to tie their Conscience You will say then hath God provided no certain and external judicial authority to Umpire differences of Religion in this or that present Age I answer First he hath given the complete and perfect Rule of Faith in holy Scripture which hath spoken so plainly in things necessary to be believed that it needs no Gloss to make it plainer As Aristotle says That Laws which are penn'd with the best wisdom do leave but little to the will of the Expounder Secondly We are not Brutes that know not our right hand from
apt to be separated I suppose an Epicure may lose his conscience in a mist for a little while and dispute it like a Galenist that the soul is nothing else but the temperature of the first qualities and so in death extinguished but can you imagine that the Spirit it self doth not often give him the lie and say within his breast you do me wrong I am immortal Verily I believe that they that put it off doubtingly and would be uncontrouled in their voluptuousness it may be it is not so are often tormented with the other part of the opinion it may be it is so If you will hear this truth upheld out of holy Scripture there is no resistance or cavillation against it Because I will not tie my self to every Text which chimes that way I will choose compendiously where others have made choice before me The Sadduces being stiff opposers against the separated existence of the Spirit and yet commending themselves in the Holy Patriarchs from whose Loyns they descended our Saviour selected that Scripture above all other to convict them which would catch them in their own net I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living How was God the God of Abraham unless he lived And in what did Abraham live but in his soul which was divorced from the body Irenaeus admires that any one should doubt of the souls perseverance after death since the enarration is so â—lear that the rich man saw Lazarus in joys when himself was tormented St. Hierom sets his rest upon those words Mat. x. 22. Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul St. Austin recommends the words of Stephen to nick the Point without all contradiction Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Si animus moriturus esset causae nihil foret cur animum potiùs quà m corpus commendaret Aquinas against the Gentiles lays his strength upon that place of St. Paul 2 Cor. v. 8. We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with God One quotation were enough then how forcible are all these together He must be a beast in understanding that knows not that the souls of good men are Angels in reversion There are others that profess so much faith that the soul hath a state of happiness in reversion to those that die in the favour of God But that it comes not to any gust of this happiness till the end of the World For the soul say they falls asleep when the body perisheth that is it dies together with the body and when the flesh shall be quickned again and gathered out of the dust then the soul shall live again when both it and the body shall be exalted in the Resurrection I do not create Monsters to fight with all St. Austin found such Hereticks in his days he calls them Arabians who taught it every where that the Soul had no being after death till in the consummation of the World they both obtained together a joyful Resurrection Nay these Tares were sown long before St. Austin lived Irenaeus took the pains to root them up in his Age and he confutes them out of my Text says he how did St. John see the souls of the Martyrs who had been slain for the Testimony of Christ if the Soul should cease to be till the final Resurrection And if a Caviller shall say it doth not cease to be but it lies quiet and senseless in a trance Irenaeus blunts the point of that objection because in the next verse they desire vengeance for their bloud that was shed but principally because in the eleventh verse they are clad in white garments which are cognizances of their joy and glory and doubtless they wear them not sleeping but waking And do not think that I rake in the ashes of ancient Heresies that are quite forgotten For the Anabaptists in their Theses Printed at Cracovia Anno 1568 have this position We deny that any Soul hath a separated being after death that was a devise invented by the Papists to maintain Invocation of Saints and Purgatory this is Popery trimly reformed and according to that Proverb of the Jews they cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils And even at this day a new Generation of Vipers risen up at Racovia in Polonia do pledge the Anabaptists in the same cup namely that there is a futurition of glory for the soul when the whole Fabrick of man shall be redintegrated again in the Resurrection but they profess they cannot tell whether in the mean time there be any such thing extant as a separated soul yet St. Paul says he desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ And yet Christ told the good Thief that day he should be with him in Paradise And yet the Souls of just men departed do follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Rev. xiv 4. These instances are more perswasive I am sure than that which they pretend that the Just do rest from their labours What rest in Gods name do they dream of They are not in a profound trance without motion or action as Adam was cast into a deep sleep when Eve was taken out of his side but it is a rest when the Spirit doth acquiesce in the Vision of God as David said Turn again unto thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath rewarded thee There are some that I must afford a little Patronage who are accused to lean to the Anabaptists in their opinion that do nothing less It was allowed for 1400 years as a Problem wherein Christians without breach of charity might have Latitude to dissent granting that the soul after the dissolution from the body was received into the joys of heaven whether it be not sequestred in some distance from the highest heaven where the invisible God doth chiefly reign in Power and Majesty till the whole Body of the Saints be accomplished It is well known what way St. Bernard took Nec sancti sine plebe nec spiritus sine carne That such as die before us shall not see the Beatifical Vision of the holy Trinity without us nor without their own body and that an integral Beatitude is not given but to an integral person And Calvin hath taken his freedom to be of the same mind says he Christ himself only is entred into the supreme Sanctuary of Heaven Et solus populi eminus in atrio residentis vota ad Deum defert and he alone commends the Petitions of the Saints to his Father whose Spirits attend in the outward Courts Those over-awing Fathers of the Florentine and Tridentine Councils have defined it indeed as an irrefragable Article of Faith that the Saints enjoy the most perfect Vision of God immediately after death What is that to us who will not lose our moderation in indifferent points for their
denial but that they have brought the Point to the true Touchstone I quoated somewhat out of St. Ambrose before that the bodies of some who gave up their life for the Faith were interred in the Church under the Lords Table which with reference to the representation of the Sacrifice of Christ Crucified is figuratively called an Altar St. Austin confirms it There let their dead corpses be interred where the death of our Lord is continually celebrated And in later years when they studied for increase of Ceremonies every principal Church under the Pontifician command hath a Vault under the Altar where the supposed Reliques of the Martyrs or the Reliques of supposed Martyrs are reserved Out of these Ritual Forms the Jesuits interpret St. John that he saw the Souls of them that were slain for the word whose bodies lay encombed under the Altar and whose Reliques were kept there in custody They had need of a long Figure to bring these ends together Neither shall they ever perswade me that St. John bends his aim at a Custom of Sepulture which began above two hundred years after he wrote his Prophesie No toleration can be found for the burial of the Martyrs in those holy places till the Pacificous Reign of Constantine the Great And how did the Church understand this Scripture in the mean time A Modern Writer of our own handles it much more learnedly to the same relation He notes it very acutely that the Theater wherein St. John saw all his Visions hath a resemblance in every part to the Camp of Israel and to the Tabernacle of Moses in the Wilderness it is enough to have named it Now the Apostle being acquainted by the Spirit what innumerous Troops of Martyrs should be slaughtered he saw as it were the Altar of burnt-offerings belonging to the Tabernacle and the Saints that were sacrificed to God were under it not as ashes are underneath that fall through a grate but they lay like beasts newly slain at the foot of the Altar that is sprauling upon the ground before the Altar The Soul then is taken by Synechdoche here for the whole man or according to the usual style of Scripture for the body of the man The conjecture I think may pass for probable and judicious There is but one thing to disparage it it is but one mans conjecture But if you will hear that which hath judgment to commend it and multitude of Authors it is likely to be found among them that in the third place refer this figuratively to the condition of their Spirits Yet I mean not him that says the Ark and the Covering thereof did represent Gods Mercy Seat but the Altar did represent his Justice for it was the place of fire and bloudshed and that these souls were under the Altar that is under the Justice of God to be avenged of their Adversaries It is nothing so for as it appears by them that fled unto it for refuge the Altar was a place of Propitiation The Altar here by the greatest number of votes is He that mitigates the stern Justice of his Father Jesus Christus Agnus propter mactationem Altare propter propitiationem He is all by whatsoever we are reconciled to God the Altar the Priest and the Sacrifice St. Gregory proves it that the Altars of the Levitical Service were express Types of him for either they were to be made of rude earth Temeraria de sespite altaria in Tertullians words or of rough and unpolisht stones Exod. xx Wherefore of earth but to betoken the Incarnation of our Lord Quicquid offerimus Deo in altari terreo i. e. in fide Dominicae incarnationis solidamus Whatsoever we bring unto God lay it upon the earthen Altar upon this faith that Christ was incarnate to save his people from their sins When the Altar was made of stone it was rough and unpolisht and in those materials likewise we shall meet with Christ For he was the Living Stone in Daniel cut out of the Mountain without hands neither was he polisht by Art by Education or by any thing that man can put into him as he came from the Quarry from the Womb of his Mother he was full of Grace and Truth This standing is firm that the term of Altar agrees well with our Saviour many reasons may be easily rendred why the souls of the Blessed were under the Altar 1. Says Estius a little too slightly They have not yet attained to be like the glorious body of Christ they have not resumed their Carkasses as He is risen from the dead they are yet below His dignity and so under the Altar 2. The Just that died in the Lord in the Old Law are said to be in Abrahams bosom because they professed the Faith of Abraham so they that died in the Faith of the Gospel that Christ is the Altar upon whom all our works that please God are to be offered up their Souls are under that Altar 3. As Lazarus the poor man full of Piety is said to be in Abrahams bosom as if he were placed in heaven next to Abraham so the godly Martyrs are next to the Altar for dignity of glorification next to Christ himself and wheresoever the Carkass is thither will the Eagles be gathered together Luk. xvii Lastly Which takes me most the persecuted Saints had no shelter on earth to defend them now their souls are at rest disquieted with no fear under the protection and custody of Christ Under him we are in safety upon earth and no man can take his sheep out of his hand and under his Wings we shall be safe in Heaven for ever yea and though we have the faith of Martyrs to spend our life for the love of God yet our hope is not in ourselves but to be covered with the Altar to run to Christ as to our Shield and Buckler without his Merits to assoil us from our sins Martyrs cannot appear before the face of God O prepare your selves to come unto this holy Sanctuary He that comes with an hypocritical Conscience to partake of the Altar of the Lords Table he shall find no place for his Soul under that Altar which is above And take heed of high imaginations and exalted thoughts Our state in Heaven is subter and not super And all subters in this World are not worth a good mans thought to reflect upon them Let me be an underling let me be abased let me go down to the lowest Room let my Spirit aim at nothing but to be Templum sub altari the Temple of God here that hereafter I may rest under the Altar in life everlasting AMEN A SERMON UPON REVEL vi 10. And they cried with a loud voice saying How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our bloud on them that dwell on the Earth NOthing may seem more out of order than these words are at the first reading but their true scope is to put that in
therefore whatsoever the refractory think that filled our Liturgie with Te Deums with Magnificats with Doxologies Methinks Prayer were but a drowzy thing without them When we ask any thing that we need we speak in the Dialect of men but when we send forth acclamations to the honour of Jesus Christ we speak with the tongues of Seraphims In our Petitions we may exceed and ask too much in our Doxologies we cannot exceed It agrees well to the true only God which Plato ascribed to his Idols heap what Epithets you will upon the Gods you cannot flatter them Perhaps some are of the mind of that Heathen that asked a Rhetorician to what purpose he penn'd an Oration in praise of Hercules for who did ever discommend Hercules Or if Blasphemers should detract from God his excellency it is not made less So all the invocations and Halleluja's of the Saints cannot add on Cubit not one Inch to the stature of his Majesty it is uncapable of increase and can never grow greater But will you be content to open your lips unto the praise of the Coelestial goodness if it bring your self to honour though it be no amplification to the glory of God Agreed then no man can ascribe much praise to God but out of a large capacity of faith for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost No man can speak of the King of Heaven according to his due honour but it will procreate devotion and reverence no man doth advance the name of God in the preface of his Prayer but it is a tacite Confession that he prefers the glory of his Maker before his own Necessity Behold now though Gods honour be in the state that it was before yet your soul is in a better state by Prayer and Invocation for a spiritual gift in this life is a degree to a reward in the life to come Let me not defer it any longer to speak of the ditty of that praise which the Souls under the Altar did give unto the most High And the words when they are laid together are Triga divinae gloriae as it is called a Chariot drawn by the three transcendent Attributes of the Divine Nature Who doth excel in Power but the Lord Who doth excel in goodness but the Holy of Holies And He that brings to pass whatsoever he hath spoken he must excel in truth Power belongs unto the Father for all things are by him Truth belongs unto the Son for all the shadows of the Old Law are fulfilled in him Goodness belongs to the Holy Ghost for he is the Sanctification that is diffused in our hearts Therefore more praise cannot be couched in three words than in these Lord Holy and True We wretched and ignorant sinners that utter these words with polluted lips we cannot apprehend as the Martyrs in Heaven do what an eternal weight of glory is in every one of these Syllables Yet we know that he is Lord whose authority admits no equal the Idaea of all goodness whose sanctity admits no question A Truth which is the measure of all truth whose words and statutes admit no contradiction His Dominion is so strong that it cannot be resisted his Holiness is so sincere that it cannot sin and his Truth is so firmly coupled to his Holiness that he cannot lie There is no Power but in Him for all the Foundations of the Earth are weak There is no Holiness but in him for there is none that doth good no not one There is no verity but in him for God is true and every man a lyar As for all the Gods of the Heathen there was infirmity in their protection for they had no strength Viciousness in their Sanctions for they had no sanctity Delusions in their Oracles for they were nothing but vanity To contract a world of variety which may be morallized out of this Triple Crown of God it is not to be over-passed that these are the Titles upon which the Church depends for all its blessings the Hills unto which we lift up our eyes for help Solium gubernandi altare sanctificandi cathedra docendi The Throne of his Kingdom the Altar of his Priesthood the Chair of his Prophetical Wisdom which afford unto the Church Might to protect it Grace to purifie it and Truth to direct it in all things Or observe it how the Enemies of the Church are over-matcht and trodden down by these Attributes We all know they are in three Ranks Tyrants Hypocrites and Hereticks To suppress Tyrants he is the mighty Lord for the detestation of Hypocrites he is the Holy One of Israel for the conviction of Hereticks Truth hath flourisht out of the Earth and Righteousness hath looked down from Heaven But if these be the Flowers of Christs honour if the Martyrs as some Expositors say meant of him only they are Lines which will easily I am sure meet in that Center Though once he was compassed with our infirmities yet now what Power so great as his to whom the Father hath committed all judgment What Holiness so perfect as his which challenged the censure of his Enemies Which of you can reprove me of sin Or what Truth so praepotent as out of his mouth which made his Adversaries confess Never man spake like him Not to leave this Subject without some utility to our life Are these Titles of our Father no way hereditary to us by Adoption of Sons Yes surely after the model of our earthen Vessel the compellation of Lord which is so awful and to be adored in the Supreme Majesty it claims veneration and submissive obedience to those Powers upon earth to whom God hath committed the execution of his governance The other two Attributes are not so restrictive but are the Vrim and Thummim of every Christian or like the two eyes in our head we know not which is dearest Holiness and Truth Truth is the illumination of our understanding in all points to be believed Holiness is the reformation of our will in all cases of practice Which of these can you spare and live your brains or your heart If Holiness be true there will be no Hypocrisie If Truth be holy there will be no contention If Holiness be true Zeal shall be joyned to Knowledge If Truth be holy Knowledge shall be joyned to action Where Truth is not holy Herod for the engagement of his Oath will cut off the head of John Baptist Where holiness is not true the Pharisees in defence of the Law will Crucifie our Saviour Wherefore put on the new man which is created after God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the holiness of truth or in true holiness Eph. iv 24. Forget not I pray that I said these Epithets were not only an Invocation but an obtestation also as if the Martyrs had said As thou art the Lord as thou art holy as thou art true avenge our bloud of them that