this Jesus a power to apply his merits and obedience we are no whit the safer no whit the better only we are so much the wiser to understand who shall condemn us This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universall the latter words would impugne the former for whiles he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear In respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whiles thou vexest a servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldnesse enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack for the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a further degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by Sense have easily granted the body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire But as all matters of Faith though they cannot be proved by Reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all Reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a reall For as in Blessedness the good Spirits finde themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves setled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive mere and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the Elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the skie and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to Spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of Gods justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that supreme and righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgement of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal Spirits of living men may be held in a lothed or painful body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my Soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite Mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they exspect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed terme of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgement should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of Heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say Before the time Even the very evil spirits confesse and fearfully attend a set
interposed Hadst thou merely respected thine own Glory thou hadst instantly changed thy grave for thy Paradise for so much the sooner hadst thou been possessed of thy Fathers joy we would not continue in a Dungeon when we might be in a Palace but thou who for our sakes vouchsafedst to descend from Heaven to earth wouldst now in the upshot have a gracious regard to us in thy return Thy death had troubled the hearts of many Disciples who thought that condition too mean to be compatible with the glory of the Messiah and thoughts of diffidence were apt to seize upon the holiest breasts So long therefore wouldst thou hold footing upon earth till the world were fully convinced of the infallible evidences of thy Resurrection of all which time thou only canst give an account it was not for flesh and blood to trace the waies of Immortality neither was our frail corruptible sinful nature a meet companion for thy now-glorified Humanity the glorious angels of Heaven were now thy fittest attendants But yet how oft did it please thee graciously to impart thy self this while unto men and not only to appear unto thy Disciples but to renew unto them the familiar forms of thy wonted conversation in conferring walking eating with them and now when thou drewest near to thy last parting thou who hadst many times shew'd thy self before to thy several Disciples thoughtest meet to assemble them all together for an universal valediction Who can be too rigorous in censuring the ignorances of well-meaning Christians when he sees the domestick Followers of Christ even after his Resurrection mistake the main end of his coming in the flesh Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel They saw their Master now out of the reach of all Jewish envie they saw his power illimited and irresistible they saw him stay so long upon earth that they might imagine he meant to fix his abode there and what should he doe there but reign and wherefore should they be now assembled but for the choice and distribution of Offices and for the ordering of the affairs of that state which was now to be vindicated O weak thoughts of well-instructed Disciples What should an Heavenly body doe in an earthly throne How should a spiritual life be imployed in secular cares How poor a business is the temporal Kingdome of Israel for the King of Heaven And even yet O Blessed Saviour I do not hear thee sharply controll this erroneous conceit of thy mistaken Followers thy mild correction insists rather upon the time then the misconceived substance of that restauration It was thy gracious purpose that thy Spirit should by degrees rectifie their judgements and illuminate them with thy Divine truths in the mean time it was sufficient to raise up their hearts to an expectation of that Holy Ghost which should shortly lead them into all needful and requisite verities And now with a gracious promise of that Spirit of thine with a careful charge renewed unto thy Disciples for the promulgation of thy Gospel with an Heavenly Benediction of all thine acclaming attendance thou tak'st leave of earth When he had spoken these things whiles they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight Oh happy parting fit for the Saviour of mankind answerable to that Divine conversation to that succeeding Glory O blessed Jesu let me so farre imitate thee as to depart hence with a blessing in my mouth let my Soul when it is stepping over the threshold of Heaven leave behind it a legacy of Peace and Happiness It was from the mount of Olives that thou tookst thy rise into Heaven Thou mightest have ascended from the valley all the globe of earth was alike to thee but since thou wert to mount upward thou wouldst take so much advantage as that staire of ground would afford thee thou wouldst not use the help of a Miracle in that wherein Nature offered her ordinary service What difficulty had it been for thee to have styed up from the very center of earth But since thou hadst made hills so much nearer unto Heaven thou wouldst not neglect the benefit of thy own Creation Where we have common helps we may not depend upon Supernatural provisions we may not strain the Divine Providence to the supply of our negligence or the humoring of our presumption Thou that couldst alwaies have walked on the Sea wouldst walk so but once when thou wantedst shipping thou to whom the highest mountains were but valleys wouldst walk up to an hill to ascend thence into Heaven O God teach me to bless thee for means when I have them and to trust thee for means when I have them not yea to trust to thee without means when I have no hope of them What hill was this thou chosest but the mount of Olives Thy Pulpit shall I call it or thine Oratory The place from whence thou hadst wont to showre down thine Heavenly Doctrine upon the hearers the place whence thou hadst wont to sent up thy Prayers unto thy Heavenly Father the place that shared with the Temple for both In the day-time thou wert preaching in the Temple in the night praying in the mount of Olives On this very hill was the bloody sweat of thine Agonie now is it the mount of thy Triumph From this mount of Olives did flow that oyle of gladness wherewith thy Church is everlastingly refreshed That God that uses to punish us in the same kind wherein we have offended retributes also to us in the same kind and circumstances wherein we have been afflicted To us also O Saviour even to us thy unworthy members dost thou seasonably vouchsafe to give a proportionable joy to our heaviness laughter to our mourning glory to contempt and shame Our agonies shall be answered with exaltation Whither then O Blessed Jesu whither didst thou ascend whither but home into thine Heaven From the mountain wert thou taken up and what but Heaven is above the hills Lo these are those mountains of spices which thy Spouse the Church long since desired thee to climbe Thou hast now climbed up that infinite steepness and hast left all sublimity below thee Already hadst thou approved thy self the Lord and Commander of Earth of Sea of Hell The Earth confest thee her Lord when at thy voice she rendered thee thy Lazarus when she shook at thy Passion and gave up her dead Saints The Sea acknowledged thee in that it became a pavement to thy feet and at thy command to the feet of thy Disciple in that it became thy Treasury for thy Tribute-money Hell found and acknowledged thee in that thou conqueredst all the powers of darkness even him that had the power of death the Devil It now onely remained that as the Lord of the Aire thou shouldst pass through all the regions of that yielding element and as Lord of Heaven thou shouldst pass through all the glorious contignations thereof that so every knee might bow
held on in a Line never interrupted Even in a forlorn and miserable Church there may be a personall succession How little were the Jewes better for this when they had lost the Urim and Thummim sincerity of Doctrine and Manners This stayed with them even whiles they and their Sons crucified Christ What is more ordinary then wicked Sons of holy Parents It is the succession of Truth and Holiness that makes or institutes a Church whatever become of the persons Never times were so barren as not to yeeld some good The greatest dearth affords some few good Eares to the Gleaners Christ would not have come into the world but he would have some faithful to entertain him He that had the disposing of all times and men would cast some holy ones into his own times There had been no equality that all should either over-run or follow him and none attend him Zachary and Elizabeth are just both of Aarons blood and John Baptist of theirs whence should an holy seed spring if not of the Loyns of Levi It is not in the power of Parents to traduce Holinesse to their Children it is the blessing of God that feoffes them in the Vertues of their Parents as they feoffe them in their sinnes There is no certainty but there is likelihood of an holy Generation when the Parents are such Elizabeth was just as well as Zachary that the fore-runner of a Saviour might be holy on both sides If the stock and the griffe be not both good there is much danger of the fruit It is an happy match when the Husband and the Wife are one not onely in themselves but in God not more in flesh then in the spirit Grace makes no difference of sexes rather the weaker carries away the more honour because it hath had lesse helps It is easie to observe that the New Testament affordeth more store of good women then the old Elizabeth led the ring of this mercy whose barrenness ended in a miraculous fruit both of her body and of her time This religious pair made no lesse progress in vertue then in age and yet their vertue could not make their best age fruitfull Elizabeth was barren A just soul and a barren womb may well agree together Amongst the Jews barrenness was not a defect only but a reproach yet while this good woman was fruitful of holy obedience she was barren of children As John which was miraculously conceived by man was a fit fore-runner of him that was conceived by the Holy Ghost so a barren Matron was meet to make way for a Virgin None but a son of Aaron might offer incense to God in the Temple and not every son of Aaron and not any one at all seasons God is a God of order and hates confusion no lesse then irreligion Albeit he hath not so streightned himself under the Gospel as to tie his service to persons or places yet his choice is now no lesse curious because it is more large He allows none but the authorised he authoriseth none but the worthy The incense doth ever smell of the hand that offers it I doubt not but that perfume was sweeter which ascended up from the hand of a just Zacharie The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to God There were courses of ministration in the Legal services God never purposed to burthen any of his creatures with devotion How vain is the ambition of any soul that would load it self with the universal charge of all men How thankless is their labour that do wilfully overspend themselves in their ordinary vocations As Zacharie had a course in Gods house so he carefully observed it the favour of these respites doubled his diligence The more high and sacred our calling is the more dangerous is neglect It is our honour that we may be allowed to wait upon the God of heaven in these immediate services Woe be to us if we flacken those duties wherein God honours us more then we can honour him Many sons of Aaron yea of the same family served at once in the Temple according to the variety of imployments To avoid all difference they agreed by lot to assign themselves to the several offices of each day the lot of this day called Zacharie to offer Incense in the outer Temple I doe not finde any prescription they had from God of this particular manner of designment Matters of good order in holy affairs may be ruled by the wise institution of men according to reason and expediencie It fell out well that Zacharie was chosen by lot to this ministration that Gods immediate hand might be seen in all the passages that concerned his great Prophet that as the person so the occasion might be of Gods own chusing In lots and their seeming casual disposition God can give a reason though we can give none Morning and Evening twice a day their Law called them to offer Incense to God that both parts of the day might be consecrate to the maker of time The outer Temple was the figure of the whole Church upon earth like as the Holy of holiest represented Heaven Nothing can better resemble our faithful prayers then sweet perfume these God looks that we should all his Church over send up unto him Morning and Evening The elevations of our hearts should be perpetual but if twice in the day we do not present God with our solemn invocations we make the Gospel lesse officious then the Law That the resemblance of prayers and incense might be apparent whiles the Priest sends up his incense within the Temple the people must send up their prayers without Their breath and that incense though remote in the first rising met ere they went up to heaven The people might no more goe into the Holy place to offer up the incense of prayers unto God then Zacharie might goe into the Holy of holies Whiles the partition wall stood betwixt Jews and Gentiles there were also partitions betwixt the Jews and themselves Now every man is a Priest unto God every man since the veil was rent prayes within the Temple What are we the better for our greater freedome of accesse to God under the Gospel if we doe not make use of our priviledge Whiles they were praying to God he sees an Angel of GOD as Gideon's Angel went up in the smoak of the sacrifice so did Zacharie's Angel as it were come down in the fragrant smoak of his incense It was ever great news to see an Angel of God but now more because God had long withdrawn from them all the means of his supernaturall revelations As this wicked people were strangers to their God in their conversation so was God grown a stranger to them in his apparitions yet now that the season of the Gospel approached he visited them with his Angels before he visited them by his Son He sends his Angel to men in the form of man before he sends his Son to take humane form The presence of Angels
A tyrannous guiltinesse never thinks it self safe but ever seeks to assure it self in the excesse of cruelty Doubtlesse he which so privily inquired for Christ did as secretly brew this massacre The mothers were set with their children on their laps feeding them with the breast or talking to them in the familiar language of their love when suddenly the Executioner rushes in and snatches them from their armes and at once pulling forth his Commission and his knife without regard to shrieks or teares murthers the innocent Babe and leaves the passionate mother in a mean between madnesse and death What cursing of Herod what wringing of hands what condoling what exclaiming was now in the streets of Bethleem O bloody Herod that couldst sacrifice so many harmlesse lives to thine ambition What could those Infants have done If it were thy person whereof thou wert afraid what likelihood was it thou couldst live till those sucklings might endanger thee This news might affect thy Successors it could not concern thee if the heat of an impotent and furious envy had not made thee thirsty of blood It is not long that thou shalt enjoy this cruelty After a few hatefull years thy soul shall feel the weight of so many Innocents of so many just curses He for whose sake thou killedst so many shall strike thee with death and then what wouldest thou have given to have been as one of those Infants whom thou murtheredst In the mean time when thine executioners returned and told thee of their unpartial dispatch thou smiledst to think how thou hadst defeated thy rivall and beguiled the Starre and deluded the Prophecies whiles God in Heaven and his Son on earth laugh thee to scorn and make thy rage an occasion of further glory to him whom thou meantest to suppresse He that could take away the lives of other cannot protract his own Herod is now sent home The coast is clear for the return of that holy Family now God calls them from their exile Christ and his Mother had not stayed so long out of the confines of the reputed visible Church but to teach us continuance under the Crosse Sometimes God sees it good for us not to sip of the cup of affliction but to make a diet-drink of it for constant and common use If he allow us no other liquor for many yeares we must take it off chearfully and know that it is but the measure of our betters Joseph and Mary stir not without a command their departure stay removall is ordered by the voice of God If Egypt had been more tedious unto them they durst not move their foot till they were bidden It is good in our own businesse to follow reason or custome but in God's businesse if we have any other guide but himself we presume and cannot expect a blessing O the wonderful dispensation of God in concealing 〈◊〉 himself from men Christ was now some five years old he bears 〈◊〉 as an infant and knowing all things neither takes nor gives notice of ought concerning his removall and disposing but appoints that to be done by his Angel which the Angel could not have done but by him Since he would take our nature he would be a perfect child suppressing the manifestation and exercise of that Godhead whereto that infant-nature was conjoyned Even so O Saviour the humility of thine infancy was answerable to that of thy birth The more thou hidest and abasest thy self for us the more should we magnifie thee the more should we deject our selves for thee Unto thee with the Father and the holy Ghost he all honour and glory now for ever Amen Contemplations THE SECOND BOOK Containing Christ among the Doctors Christ Baptized Christ Tempted Simon Called The Marriage in Cana. The good Centurion To the Honourable General Sir EDWARD CECILL Knight all Honour and Happiness Most Honoured Sir THE store of a good Scribe is according to our Saviour both old new I would if I durst be ambitious of this only honour Having therefore drawn forth those not frivolous thoughts out of the Old Testament I fetch these following from the New God is the same in both as the body differs not with the age of the sute with the change of robes The old and new wine of holy Truth came both out of one vineyard yet here may we safely say to the Word of his Father as was said to the Bridegroom of Cana Thou hast kept the best wine till the last The authority of both is equally sacred the use admits no lesse difference then is betwixt a Saviour fore shadowed and come The intermission of those military imployments which have wone you just honour both in forrain nations and at home is in this onely gainfull that it yields you leisure to these happy thoughts which shall more fully acquaint you with him that is at once the God of Hosts and the Prince of Peace To the furtherance whereof these my poor labours shall doe no thankless offices In lieu of your noble favours to me both at home and where you have merited command nothing can be returned but humble acknowledgments and hearty prayers for the increase of your Honour and all Happiness to your self and your thrice-worthy and vertuous Lady by him that is deeply obliged and truly devoted to you both JOS. HALL Christ among the Doctors EVen the Spring shews us what we may hope for of the tree in Summer In his nonage therefore would our Saviour give us a tast of his future proof lest if his perfection should have shewed it self without warning to the world it should have been entertained with more wonder then belief Now this act of his Childhood shall prepare the faith of men by fore-exspectation Notwithstanding all this early demonstration of his Divine graces the incredulous Jews could afterwards say Whence hath this man his wisdome and great works What would they have said if he had suddenly leapt forth into the clear light of the world The Sun would dazle all eyes if he should break forth at his first rising into his full strength now he hath both the day-star to goe before him and to bid men look for that glorious body and the lively colours of the day to publish his approach the eye is comforted not hurt by his appearance The Parents of Christ went up yearly to Jerusalem at the Feast of the Passeover the Law was only for the males I do not finde the Blessed Virgin bound to this voiage the weaker sex received indulgence from God Yet she knowing the spiritual profit of that journey takes pains voluntarily to measure that long way every year Piety regards not any distinction of sexes or degrees neither yet doth God's acceptation rather doth it please the mercy of the Highest more to reward that service which though he like in all yet out of favour he will not impose upon all It could not be but that she whom the holy Ghost over-shadowed should be zealous of God's
at liberty in this Deep the Nets of wholsome Doctrine draw up some to the shore of Grace and Glory How much skill and toile and patience is requisite in this Art Who is sufficient for these things This Sea these Nets the Fishers the Fish the Vessels are all thine O God doe what thou wilt in us and by us Give us ability and grace to take give men will and grace to be taken and take thou glory by that which thou hast given The Marriage in Cana. WAS this then thy first Miracle O Saviour that thou wroughtest in Cana of Galilee And could there be a greater Miracle then this that having been thirty years upon earth thou didst no miracle till now that thy Divinity did hide it self thus long in flesh that so long thou wouldst lie obscure in a corner of Galilee unknown to that world thou camest to redeem that so long thou wouldst strain the patient expectation of those who ever since thy Star waited upon the revelation of a Messias We silly wretches if we have but a dram of vertue are ready to set it out to the best shew thou who receivedst not the Spirit by measure wouldst content thy self with a willing obscurity and concealedst that power that made the world in the roof of an humane breast in a cottage of Nazareth O Saviour none of thy miracles is more worthy of astonishment then thy not doing of miracles What thou didst in private thy wisdome thought fit for secrecy but if thy Blessed Mother had not been acquainted with some domestical wonders she had not now expected a miracle abroad The Stars are not seen by day the Sun it self is not seen by night As it is no small art to hide Art so is it no small glory to conceal glory Thy first publick Miracle graceth a Marriage It is an ancient and laudable institution that the rites of Matrimony should not want a solemn celebration When are Feasts in season if not at the recovery of our lost rib if not at this main change of our estate wherein the joy of obtaining meets with the hope of further comforts The Son of the Virgin and the Mother of that Son are both at a wedding It was in all likelihood some of their kindred to whose nuptial feast they were invited so far yet was it more the honour of the Act then of the Person that Christ intended He that made the first Marriage in Paradise bestows his first Miracle upon a Galilean marriage He that was the Author of Matrimony and sanctified it doth by his holy presence honour the resemblance of his eternal union with his Church How boldly may we spit in the faces of all the impure Adversaries of wedlock when the Son of God pleases to honour it The glorious Bridegroom of the Church knew well how ready men would be to place shame even in the most lawful conjunctions and therefore his first work shall be to countenance his own Ordinance Happy is that Wedding where Christ is a guest O Saviour those that marry in thee cannot marry without thee There is no holy Marriage whereat thou art not however invisible yet truly present by thy Spirit by thy gracious benediction Thou makest marriages in Heaven thou blessest them from Heaven O thou that hast betrothed us to thy self in Truth Righteousness do thou consummate that happy Marriage of ours in the highest Heavens It was no rich or sumptuous Bridal to which Christ with his Mother Disciples vouchsafed to come from the further parts of Galilee I find him not at the magnificent Feasts or triumphs of the Great The proud pomp of the World did not agree with the state of a servant This poor needy Bridegroom wants drink for his guests The Blessed Virgin though a stranger to the house out of a charitable compassion and a friendly desire to maintain the decencie of an hospital entertainment inquires into the wants of her Host pities them bemoans them where there was power of redresse When the wine failed the mother of Jesus said unto him They have no wine How well doth it beseem the eyes of piety and Christian love to look into the necessities of others She that conceived the God of mercies both in her heart and in her womb doth not fix her eyes upon her own teacher but searcheth into the penurie of a poor Israelite and feels those wants whereof he complains not They are made for themselves whose thoughts are only taken up with their own store or indigence There was wine enough for a meal though not for a Feast and if there were not wine enough there was enough water yet the Holy Virgin complains of the want of wine and is troubled with the very lack of superfluitie The bounty of our God reaches not to our life only but to our contentment neither hath he thought good to allow us only the bread of sufficiency but sometimes of pleasure One while that is but necessary which some other time were superfluous It is a scrupulous injustice to scant ourselves where God hath been liberal To whom should we complain of any want but to the Maker and Giver of all things The Blessed Virgin knew to whom she sued She had good reason to know the Divine nature and power of her Son Perhaps the Bridegroom was not so needy but if not by his purse yet by his credit he might have supplied that want or it were hard if some of the neighbour-guests had they been duely solicited might not have furnished him with so much wine as might suffice for the last service of a dinner But Blessed Mary knew a nearer way she did not think best to lade at the shallow Channel but runs rather to the Well-head where she may dip and fill the Firkins at once with ease It may be she saw that the train of Christ which unbidden followed unto that Feast and unexspectedly added to the number of the guests might help forward that defect and therefore she justly solicits her Son JESUS for a supply Whether we want Bread or Water or Wine necessaries or comforts whither should we run O Saviour but to that infinite munificence of thine which neither denieth nor upbraideth any thing We cannot want we cannot abound but from thee Give us what thou wilt so thou give us contentment with what thou givest But what is this I hear A sharp answer to the suit of a Mother Oh woman what have I to doe with thee He whose sweet mildness and mercy never sent away any suppliant discontented doth he only frown upon her that bare him He that commands us to honour Father and Mother doth he disdain her whose flesh he took God forbid Love and Duty doth not exempt Parents from due admonition She sollicited Christ as a Mother he answers her as a Woman If she were the Mother of his flesh his Deity was eternal She might not so remember her self to be a Mother that she should forget she was
I kept silence my bones consumed For day and night thy hand O Lord was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer O let me confess against my self my wickedness unto thee that thou maist forgive the punishment of my sinne We have a tongue for God when we praise him for our selves when we pray and confess for our brethren when we speak the truth for their information which if we hold back in unrighteousness we yield unto that dumb Devil Where do we not see that accursed spirit He is on the Bench when the mute or partial Judge speaks not for truth and innocence He is in the Pulpit when the Prophets of God smother or halve or adulterate the message of their Master He is at the Barre when irreligious Jurours dare lend an oath to fear to hope to gain He is in the Market when godless chapmen for their peny sell the truth and their soul He is in the common conversation of men when the tongue belies the heart flatters the guilty balketh reproofs even in the foulest crimes O thou who onely art stronger then that strong one cast him out of the hearts and mouths of men It is time for thee Lord to work for they have destroyed thy Law That it might well appear this impediment was not natural so soon as the man is freed from the spirit his tongue is free to his speech The effects of spirits as they are wrought so they cease at once If the Son of God do but remove our spiritual possession we shall presently break forth into the praise of God into the confession of our vileness into the profession of truth But what strange variety do I see in the spectators of his Miracle some wondring others censuring a third sort tempting a fourth applauding There was never man or action but was subject to variety of constructions What man could be so holy as he that was God What act could be more worthy then the dispossessing of an evil spirit Yet this man this act passeth these differences of interpretation What can we doe to undergoe but one opinion If we give almes and fast some will magnifie our charity and devotion others will tax our hypocrisie If we give not some will condemn our hard-heartedness others will allow our care of justice If we preach plainly to some it will favour of a careless slubbering to others oft a mortified sincerity elaborately some will tax our affectation others will applaud our diligence in dressing the delicate viands of God What marvel is it if it be thus with our imperfection when it fared not otherwise with him that was Purity and Righteousness it self The austere forerunner of Christ came neither eating nor drinking they say He hath a Devil The Son of man came eating and drinking they say This man is a glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners and here one of his holy acts carries away at once wonder censure doubt celebration There is no way safe for a man but to square his actions by the right rule of justice of charity and then let the world have leave to spend their glosses at pleasure It was an heroical resolution of the chosen vessel I pass very little to be judged of you or of mans day I marvel not if the people marvelled for here were four wonders in one the blind saw the deaf heard the dumb spake the Demoniack is delivered Wonder was due to so rare and powerful a work and if not this nothing We can cast away admiration upon the poor devices or activities of men how much more upon the extraordinary works of Omnipotency Whoso knows the frame of Heaven and earth shall not much be affected with the imperfect effects of frail Humanity but shall with no less Ravishment of soul acknowledge the miraculous works of the same Almighty hand Neither is the spiritual ejection worthy of any meaner entertainment Rarity and difficulty are wont to cause wonder There are many things which have wonder in their worth and lose it in their frequence there are some which have it in their strangeness and lose it in their facilitie Both meet in this To see men haunted yea possessed with a dumb Devil is so frequent that it is a just wonder to finde a man free but to finde the dumb spirit cast out of a man and to hear him praising God confessing his sins teaching others the sweet experiments of mercy deserves just admiration If the Cynick sought in the market for a man amongst men well may we seek amongst men for a Convert Neither is the difficulty less then the rareness The strong man hath the possession all passages are block'd up all helps barred by the treachery of our nature If any soul be rescued from these spiritual wickednesses it is the praise of him that doth wonders alone But whom do I see wondring The multitude The unlearned beholders follow that act with wonder which the learned Scribes entertain with obloquy God hath revealed those things to babes which he hath hid from the wise and prudent With what scorn did those great Rabbins speak of these sons of the earth This people that knows not the Law is accursed Yet the Mercy of God makes an advantage of their simplicity in that they are therefore less subject to cavillation and incredulitie as contrarily his Justice causes the proud knowledge of others to lie as a block in their way to the ready assent unto the Divine power of the Messias Let the pride of glorious adversaries disdain the povertie of the clients of the Gospel it shall not repent us to go to Heaven with the vulgar whiles their great ones go in state to perdition The multitude wondered Who censured but Scribes great Doctors of the Law of the divinitie of the Jews What Scribes but those of Jerusalem the most eminent Academie of Judaea These were the men who out of their deep reputed judgement cast these foul aspersions upon Christ Great wits ofttimes mislead both the owners and followers How many shall once wish they had been born dullards yea idiots when they shall finde their wit to have barred them out of Heaven Where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made the wisdome of the world foolishness Say the world what it will a dram of holiness is worth a pound of wit Let others censure with the Scribes let me wonder with the multitude What could malice say worse He casteth out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils The Jewes well knew that the Gods of the heathen were no other then Devils amongst whom for that the Lord of Flies so called whether for the concourse of flies to the abundance of his sacrifices or for his aid implored against the infestation of those swarms was held the chief therefore they stile him The Prince of Devils There is a subordination of spirits some higher in degree some inferiour to others Our Saviour himself tells
and fears comes deliverance At their entrance into the ship at the arising of the tempest at the shutting in of the evening there was no news of Christ but when they have been all the night long beaten not so much with storms and waves as with their own thoughts now in the fourth watch which was near to the morning Jesus came unto them and purposely not till then that he might exercise their patience that he might inure them to wait upon Divine Providence in cases of extremity that their Devotions might be more whetted by delay that they might give gladder welcome to their deliverance O God thus thou thinkest fit to doe still We are by turns in our sea the windes bluster the billows swell the night and thy absence heighten our discomfort thy time and ours is set as yet it is but midnight with us can we but hold out patiently till the fourth watch thou wilt surely come and rescue us Oh let us not faint under our sorrows but wear out our three watches of tribulation with undaunted patience and holy resolution O Saviour our extremities are the seasons of thine aide Thou camest at last but yet so as that there was more dread then joy in thy presence Thy coming was both miraculous and frightfull Thou God of Elements passedst through the aire walkedst upon the waters Whether thou meantest to terminate this Miracle in thy body or in the waves which thou trodest upon whether so lightning the one that it should make no impression in the liquid waters or whether so consolidating the other that the pavemented waves yielded a firm causey to thy sacred feet to walk on I neither determine nor inquire thy silence ruleth mine thy power was in either miraculous neither know I in whether to adore it more But withall give me leave to wonder more at thy passage then at thy coming Wherefore camest thou but to comfort them and wherefore then wouldest thou passe by them as if thou hadst intended nothing but their dismay Thine absence could not be so grievous as thy preterition that might seem justly occasioned this could not but seem willingly neglective Our last conflicts have wont ever to be the sorest as when after some dreeping rain it powrs down most vehemently we think the weather is changing to serenity O Saviour we may not alwaies measure thy meaning by thy semblance sometimes what thou most intendest thou shewest least In our Afflictions thou turnest thy back upon us and hidest thy face from us when thou most mindest our distresses So Jonathan shot the arrows beyond David when he meant them to him So Joseph calls for Benjamin into bonds when his heart was bound to him in the strongest affection So the tender mother makes as if she would give away her crying childe whom she hugs so much closer in her bosome If thou passe by us whiles we are strugling with the tempest we know it is not for want of mercy Thou canst not neglect us Oh let not us distrust thee What Object should have been so pleasing to the eyes of the Disciples as their Master and so much the more as he shewed his Divine power in this miraculous walk But lo contrarily they are troubled not with his presence but with this form of presence The supernatural works of God when we look upon them with our own eyes are subject to a dangerous misprision The very Sun-beams to whom we are beholden for our sight if we eye them directly blinde us Miserable men we are ready to suspect Truths to run away from our safety to be afraid of our comforts to mis-know our best friends And why are they thus troubled They had thought they had seen a Spirit That there have been such apparitions of Spirits both good and evil hath ever been a Truth undoubtedly received of Pagans Jews Christians although in the blinde times of Superstition there was much collusion mixed with some verities Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world But even where there was not Truth yet there was Horror The very Good Angels were not seen without much fear their sight was construed to bode Death how much more the Evil which in their very nature are harmfull and pernicious We see not a Snake or a Toad without some recoiling of blood sensible reluctation although those creatures run away from us how much more must our hairs stand upright and our senses boggle at the sight of a Spirit whose both nature will is contrary to ours and protessedly bent to our hurt But say it had been what they mistook it for a Spirit why should they fear Had they well considered they had soon found that evil spirits are neverthelesse present when they are not seen and neverthelesse harmfull or malicious when they are present unseen Visibility addes nothing to their spight or mischief And could their eyes have been opened they had with Elisha's servant seen more with them then against them a sure though invisible guard of more powerfull Spirits and themselves under the protection of the God of Spirits so as they might have bidden a bold defiance to all the powers of Darkness But partly their Faith was yet but in the bud and partly the presentation of this dreadfull Object was suddain and without the respite of a recollection and settlement of their thoughts Oh the weakness of our frail Nature who in the want of Faith are affrighted with the visible appearance of those adversaries whom we professe daily to resist and vanquish and with whom we know the Decree of God hath matched us in an everlasting conflict Are not these they that ejected Devils by their command Are not these of them that could say Master the evil spirits are subdued to us Yet now when they see but an imagined spirit they fear What power there is in the eye to betray the heart Whiles Goliah was mingled with the rest of the Philistin hoast Israel camped boldly against them but when that Giant stalks out single between the two armies and fills and amases their eyes with his hideous stature now they run away for fear Behold we are committed with Legions of Evil spirits and complain not Let but one of them give us some visible token of his presence we shreek and tremble and are not our selves Neither is our weakness more conspicuous then thy mercy O God in restraining these spiritual enemies from these dreadfull and ghastly representations of themselves to our eyes Might those infernal Spirits have liberty to appear how and when and to whom they would certainly not many would be left in their wits or in their lives It is thy power and goodness to frail mankinde that they are kept in their chains and reserved in the darkness of their own spiritual being that we may both oppugn and subdue them unseen But oh the deplorable condition of reprobate souls If but the imagined sight of one of these Spirits of darkness can
forsaking Here thou wouldst knowingly delay whether for the greatning of the Miracle or for the strengthning of thy Disciples Faith Hadst thou gone sooner and prevented the death who had known whether strength of Nature and not thy miraculous power had done it Hadst thou overtaken his death by this quickning visitation who had known whether this had been only some â—ualm or extasy and not a perfect dissolution Now this large gap of time makes thy work both certain and glorious And what a clear proof was this beforehand to thy Disciples that thou wert able to accomplish thine own Resurrection on the third day who wert able to raise up Lazarus on the fourth The more difficult the work should be the more need it had of an omnipotent confirmation He that was Lord of our times and his own can now when he found it seasonable say Let us goe into Judaea again Why left he it before was it not upon the heady violence of his enemies Lo the stones of the Jews drove him thence the love of Lazarus and the care of his Divine glory drew him back thither We may we must be wise as serpents for our own preservation we must be careless of danger when God cals us to the hazard It is far from God's purpose to give us leave so farre to respect our selves as that we should neglect him Let Judaea be all snares all crosses O Saviour when thou callest us we must put our lives into our hands and follow thee thither This journey thou hast purposed and contrived but what needest thou to acquaint thy Disciples with thine intent Where didst thou ever besides here make them of counsel with thy voyages Neither didst thou say How think you if I goe but Let us goe Was it for that thou who knewest thine own strength knewest also their weakness Thou wert resolute they were timorous they were sensible enough of their late peril and fearful of more there was need to fore-arm them with an exspectation of the worst and preparation for it Surprisal with evils may indanger the best constancy The heart is apt to fail when it findes it self intrapped in a suddain mischief The Disciples were dearly affected to Lazarus they had learned to love where their Master loved yet now when our Saviour speaks of returning to that region of peril they pull him by the sleeve and put him in minde of the violence offered unto him Master the Jews of late sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again No less then thrice in the fore going Chapter did the Jews lift up their hands to murder him by a cruel lapidation Whence was this rage and bloody attempt of theirs Onely for that he taught them the truth concerning his Divine nature and gave himself the just style of the Son of God How subject carnal hearts are to be impatient of Heavenly verityes Nothing can so much fret that malignant spirit which rules in those breasts as that Christ should have his own If we be persecuted for his Truth we do but suffer with him with whom we shall once reign However the Disciples pleaded for their Masters safety yet they aimed at their own they well knew their danger was inwrapped in his It is but a cleanly colour that they put upon their own fear This is held but a weak and base Passion each one would be glad to put off the opinion of it from himself and to set the best face upon his own impotency Thus white-livered men that shrink and shift from the Cross will not want fair pretences to evade it One pleads the peril of many dependants another the disfurnishing the Church of succeeding abettors each will have some plausible excuse for his sound skin What errour did not our Saviour rectifie in his followers Even that fear which they would have dissembled is graciously dispelled by the just consideration of a sure and inevitable Providence Are there not twelve hours in the day which are duely set and proceed regularly for the direction of all the motions and actions of men So in this course of mine which I must run on earth there is a set and determined time wherein I must work and doe my Fathers will The Sun that guides these houres is the determinate counsel of my Father and his calling to the execution of my charge whiles I follow that I cannot miscarry no more then a man can miss his known way at high noon this while in vain are either your disswasions or the attempts of enemies they cannot hurt ye cannot divert me The journey then holds to Judaea his attendants shall be made acquainted with the occasion He that had formerly denied the deadliness of Lazarus his sickness would not suddenly confess his death neither yet would he altogether conceal it so will he therefore confess it as that he will shadow it out in a borrowed expression Lazarus our friend sleepeth What a sweet title is here both of death and of Lazarus Death is a sleep Lazarus is our friend Lo he saies not my friend but ours to draw them first into a gracious familiarity and communion of friendship with himself for what doth this import but Ye are my friends and Lazarus is both my friend and yours Our friend Oh meek and merciful Saviour that disdainest not to stoop so low as that whiles thou thoughtest it no robbery to be equall unto God thou thoughtest it no disparagement to match thy self with weak and wretched men Our friend Lazarus There is a kinde of parity in Friendship There may be Love where is the most inequality but friendship supposes pairs yet the Son of God saies of the sons of men Our friend Lazarus Oh what an high and happy condition is this for mortal men to aspire unto that the God of Heaven should not be ashamed to own them for friends Neither saith he now abruptly Lazarus our friend is dead but Lazarus our friend sleepeth O Saviour none can know the estate of life or death so well as thou that art the Lord of both It is enough that thou tellest us death is no other then sleep that which was wont to pass for the cozen of death is now it self All this while we have mistaken the case of our dissolution we took it for an enemy it proves a friend there is pleasure in that wherein we supposed horror Who is affraid after the weary toiles of the day to take his rest by night or what is more refreshing to the spent traveller then a sweet sleep It is our infidelity our impreparation that makes death any other then advantage Even so Lord when thou seest I have toiled enough let me sleep in peace and when thou seest I have slept enough awake me as thou didst thy Lazarus But I goe to awake him Thou saidst not Let us goe to awake him those whom thou wilt allow companions of thy way thou wilt not allow partners of thy work they may be witnesses they cannot
corps such as if all the Powers of Darkness shall band against they shall finde themselves confounded In spight of all the gates of Hell that word shall stand Not a bone of him shall be broken Still the infallible Decree of the Almighty leads you on to his own ends through your own waies Ye saw him already dead whom ye came to dispatch those bones therefore shall be whole which ye had had no power to break But yet that no piece either of your cruelty or of Divine prediction may remain unsatisfied he whose bones may not be impaired shall be wounded in his flesh he whose Ghost was yielded up must yield his last blood One of the souldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith there came out blood and water Malice is wont to end with life here it overlives it Cruel man what means this so late wound what commission hadst thou for this bloody act Pilate had given leave to break the bones of the living he gave no leave to gore the side of the dead what wicked supererogation is this what a superfluity of maliciousness To what purpose did thy spear pierce so many hearts in that one why wouldst thou kill a dead man Methinks the Blessed Virgin and those other passionate associates of hers and the Disciple whom Jesus loved together with the other of his fellows the friends and followers of Christ and especially he that was so ready to draw his sword upon the troup of his Masters apprehenders should have work enough to contain themselves within the bounds of patience at so savage a stroke their sorrow could not chuse but turn to indignation and their hearts could not but rise as even mine doth now at so impertinent a villany How easily could I rave at that rude hand But O God when I look up to theee and consider how thy holy and wise Providence so overrules the most barbarous actions of men that besides their will they turn beneficial I can at once hate them and bless thee This very wound hath a mouth to speak the Messiahship of my Saviour and the truth of thy Scripture They shall look at him whom they have pierced Behold now the Second Adam sleeping and out of his side formed the Mother of the living the Evangelical Church Behold the Rock which was smitten and the waters of life gushed forth Behold the fountain that is set open to the house of David for sin and for uncleanness a fountain not of water only but of blood too O Saviour by thy water we are washed by thy blood we are redeemed Those two Sacraments which thou didst institute alive flow also from thee dead as the last memorials of thy Love to thy Church the water of Baptisme which is the laver of Regeneration the blood of the new Testament shed for remission of sins and these together with the Spirit that gives life to them both are the three Witnesses on earth whose attestation cannot fail us Oh precious and soveraign wound by which our Souls are healed Into this cleft of the rock let my Dove fly and enter and there safely hide her self from the talons of all the birds of prey It could not be but that the death of Christ contrived and acted at Jerusalem in so solemn a Festival must needs draw a world of beholders The Romans the Centurion and his band were there as actors as supervisors of the Execution Those strangers were no otherwise ingaged then as they that would hold fair correspondence with the Citizens where they were engarisoned their freedome from prejudice rendred them more capable of an ingenuous construction of all events Now when the Centurion and they that were with him that watched Jesus saw the Earthquake and the things that were done they feared greatly and glorified God and said Truely this was the Son God What a marvelous concurrence is here of strong and irrefragable convictions Meekness in suffering Prayer for his murderers a faithful resignation of his Soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father the Sun eclipsed the Heavens darkned the earth trembling the graves open the rocks rent the veile of the Temple torn who could goe less then this Truly this was the Son of God He suffers patiently this is through the power of Grace many good men have done so through his enabling The frame of Nature suffers with him this is proper to the God of Nature the Son of God I wonder not that these men confessed thus I wonder that any Spectator confessed it not these proofs were enough to fetch all the world upon their knees and to have made all mankind a Convert But all hearts are not alike no means can work upon the wilfully-obdured Even after this the Souldier pierced that Blessed side and whiles Pagans relented Jews continued impenitent Yet even of that Nation those beholders whom envie and partiality had not interessed in this slaughter were stricken with just astonishment and smote their breasts and shook their heads and by passionate gesture spake what their tongues durst not How many must there needs be in this universal concourse of them whom he had healed of diseases or freed from Devils or miraculously fed or some way obliged in their persons or friends These as they were deeply affected with the mortal indignities which were offered to their acknowledged Messiah so they could not but be ravished with wonder at those powerful demonstrations of the Deity of him in whom they believed and strangely distracted in their thoughts whiles they compared those Sufferings with that Omnipotence As yet their Faith and Knowledge was but in the bud or in the blade How could they chuse but think Were he not the Son of God how could these things be and if he were the Son of God how could he die His Resurrection his Ascension should soon after perfect their belief but in the mean time their hearts could not but be conflicted with thoughts hard to be reconciled Howsoever they glorifie God and stand amazed at the expectation of the issue But above all other O thou Blessed Virgin the Holy Mother of our Lord how many swords pierced thy Soul whiles standing close by his Cross thou sawest thy dear Son and Saviour thus indignely used thus stripped thus stretched thus nailed thus bleeding thus dying thus pierced How did thy troubled heart now recount what the Angel Gabriel had reported to thee from God in the message of thy blessed Conception of that Son of God How didst thou think of the miraculous formation of that thy Divine burden by the power of the Holy Ghost How didst thou recal those prophecies of Anna and Simeon concerning him and all those supernatural works of his the irrefragable proofs of his Godhead and laying all these together with the miserable infirmities of his Passion how wert thou crucified with him The care that he took for thee in the extremity of his torments could not chuse but melt thy heart into sorrow But
see thee whiles the doors were barred without any noise of thine entrance to stand in the midst well might they think thou couldst not thus be there if thou wert not the God of Spirits There might seem more scruple of thy realty then of thy power and therefore after thy wonted greeting thou shewest them thy hands and thy feet stamped with the impressions of thy late sufferings Thy respiration shall argue the truth of thy life Thou breathest on them as a man thou givest them thy Spirit as a God and as God and man thou sendest them on the great errand of thy Gospel All the mists of their doubts are now dispelled the Sun breaks out clear They were glad when they had seen the Lord. Had they known thee for no other then a mere man this re-appearance could not but have affrighted them since till now by thine Almighty power this was never done that the long-since dead rose out of their graves and appeared unto many But when they recounted the miraculous works that thou hadst done and thought of Lazarus so lately raised thine approved Deity gave them confidence and thy presence joy We cannot but be losers by our absence from holy Assemblies Where wert thou O Thomas when the rest of that Sacred Family were met together Had thy fear put thee to so long a flight that as yet thou wert not returned to thy fellows or didst thou suffer other occasions to detain thee from this happiness Now for the time thou missedst that Divine breath which so comfortably inspired the rest now thou art suffered to fall into that weak distrust which thy presence had prevented They told thee We have seen the Lord was not this enough would no eyes serve thee but thine own were thy eares to no use for thy Faith Except I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side I will not believe Suspicious man who is the worse for that Whose is the loss if thou believe not Is there no certainty but in thine own senses Why were not so many and so holy eyes and tongues as credible as thine own hands and eyes How little wert thou yet acquainted with the waies of Faith Faith comes by hearing These are the tongues that must win the whole world to an assent and dost thou the first man detrect to yield Why was that word so hard to pass Had not that thy Divine Master foretold thee with the rest that he must be crucified and the third day rise again Is any thing related to be done but that which was fore-promised any thing beyond the sphere of Divine Omnipotence Go then and please thy self in thine over-wise incredulity whiles thy fellows are happy in believing It is a whole week that Thomas rests in this sullen unbelief in all which time doubtless his eares were beaten with the many constant assertions of the holy Women the first witnesses of the Resurrection as also of the two Disciples walking to Emmaus whose hearts burning within them had set their tongues on fire in a zealous relation of those happy occurrences with the assured reports of the rising and re-appearance of many Saints in attendance of the Lord and giver of life yet still he struggles with his own distrust and stiffely suspends his belief to that truth whereof he cannot deny himself enough convinced As all bodies are not equally apt to be wrought upon by the same Medicine so are not all Souls by the same means of Faith one is refractory whiles others are pliable O Saviour how justly mightest thou have left this man to his own pertinacie whom could he have thank'd if he had perished in his unbelief But O thou good Shepherd of Israel that couldst be content to leave the ninety and nine to go fetch one stray in the wilderness how careful wert thou to reduce this stragler to his fellows Right so were thy Disciples re-assembled such was the season the place the same so were the doors shut up when that unbelieving Disciple being now present with the rest thou so camest in so stoodst in the midst so shewedst thy hands and feet and singling out thy incredulous client invitest his eyes to see and his fingers to handle thine hands and his hand to be thrust into thy side that he might not be faithless but faithful Blessed Jesu how thou pittiest the errors and infirmities of thy servants Even when we are froward in our misconceits and worthy of nothing but desertion how thou followest us and overtakest us with mercy and in thine abundant compassion wilt reclaim and save us when either we meant not or would not By how much more unworthy those eyes and hands were to see and touch that immortal and glorious body by so much more wonderful was thy Goodness in condescending to satisfie that curious Infidelity Neither do I hear thee so much as to chide that weak obstinacy It was not long since thou didst sharply take up the two Disciples that walk'd to Emmaus O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken but this was under the disguise of an unknown traveller upon the way when they were alone Now thou speakest with thine own tongue before all thy Disciples in stead of rebuking thou only exhortest Be not faithless but faithfull Behold thy Mercy no less then thy Power hath melted the congealed heart of thy unbelieving follower Then Thomas answered and said unto him My Lord and my God I do not hear that when it came to the issue Thomas imployed his hands in this tryal his eyes were now sufficient assurance the sense of his Masters Omniscience in this particular challenge of him spared perhaps the labour of a further disquisition And now how happily was that doubt bestowed which brought forth so faithful a confession My Lord my God I hear not such a word from those that believed It was well for us it was well for thee O Thomas that thou distrustedst else neither had the world received so perfect an evidence of that Resurrection whereon all our Salvation dependeth neither hadst thou yielded so pregnant and divine an astipulation to thy Blessed Saviour Now thou dost not only profess his Resurrection but his Godhead too and thy happy interest in both And now if they be blessed that have not seen and yet believed blessed art thou also that having seen hast thus believed and blessed be thou O God who knowest how to make advantage of the infirmities of thy chosen for the promoting of their Salvation the confirmation of thy Church the glory of thine own Name Amen The Ascension IT stood not with thy purpose O Saviour to ascend immediately from thy grave into Heaven thou meantest to take the earth in thy way not for a suddain passage but for a leisurely conversation Upon thine Easter-day thou spakest of thine Ascension but thou wouldst have forty daies
sacred Trumpet to his lips Never was it never can it be more seasonable then now now that we are fallen into a war of Religion now that our friends and Allies grone either under miscarriage or danger now that our distressed neighbours implore our help in tears and blood now that our God hath humbled us with manifold losses now that we are threatned with so potent enemies now that all Christendome is embroiled with so miserable and perilous distempers oh now it hath seasonably pleased your Majesty to blow the Trumpet in Zion to sanctifie a Fast to call a solemn Assembly The miraculous successe that God gave to your Majesty and your Kingdome in this holy exercise may well incourage an happy iteration How did the publick breath of our Fasting-prayers cleanse the aire before them How did that noisome Pestilence vanish suddenly away as that which could not stand before our powerfull Humiliations If we be not streightned in our own bowels the hand of our God is not shortned O Daughter of Zion gird thee with sackcloth and wallow thy self in ashes make thee mourning and most bitter lamentation Fast and pray and prosper And in the mean time for us let us not think it enough to forbear a meal or to hang down our heads like a bulrush for a day but let us break the bands of wickedness and in a true contrition of Soul vow and perform better Obedience Oh then as we care to avert the heavy Judgments of God from our selves and our Land as we desire to traduce the Gospel with peace to our posterity let each man humble one let each man rend his heart with sorrow for his own sins and the sins of his people shortly let every man ransack his own Soul and life and offer an holy violence to all those sinfull corruptions which have stirred up the God of Heaven against us and never leave till in truth of heart he can say with our blessed Apostle I am crucified Ye have seen Christ crucified S. Paul crucified see now both crucified together I am crucified with Christ It is but a cold word this I am crucified it is the company that quickens it He that is the Life gives it life and makes both the word and act glorious I am crucified with Christ Alas there is many a one crucified but not with Christ The Covetous the Ambitious man is self-crucified he plaits a crown of thorny cares for his own head he pierces his hands and feet with toilsome and painfull undertakings he drencheth himself with the vineger and gall of discontentments he gores his side and wounds his heart with inward vexations Thus the man is crucified but with the world not with Christ The Envious man is crucified by his own thoughts he needs no other gibbet then another man's prosperity because anothers person or counsel is preferred to his he leaps to hell in his own halter This man is crucified but it is Achitophel's Crosse not Christ's The Desperate man is crucified with his own distrust he pierceth his own heart with a deep irremediable unmitigable killing sorrow he paies his wrong to God's Justice with a greater wrong to his Mercy and leaps out of an inward Hell of remorse to the bottomlesse pit of damnation This man is crucified but this is Judas's Crosse not Christ's The Superstitious man is professedly mortifiâ—d The answer of that Eremite in the story is famous Why dost thou destroy thy body Because it would destroy me He useth his body therefore not as a servant but a slave not as a slave but an enemy He lies upon thorns with the Pharisee little ease is his lodging with Simeon the Anachoret the stone is his pillow with Jacob the tears his food with exiled David he lanceth his flesh with the Baalites he digs his grave with his nails his meals are hunger his breathings sighs his linen hair-cloath lined and laced with cords and wires lastly he is his own willing tormentor and hopes to merit Heaven by self-murder This man is crucified but not with Christ The Felon the Traitor is justly crucified the vengeance of the Law will not let him live The Jesuitical Incendiary that cares only to warm himself by the fires of States and Kingdomes cries out of his suffering The world is too little for the noise of our Cruelty their Patience whiles it judgeth of our proceedings by our Laws not by our executions But if they did suffer what they fâ—lsly pretend as they now complain of ease they might be crucified but not with Christ they should bleed for Sedition not Conscience They may steal the Name of Jesus they shall not have his Society This is not Christs Cross it is the cross of Barabbas or the two malefactors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mark 15. 7. All these and many more are crucified but not as S. Paul was here with Christ How with Christ In partnership in person In Partnership of the suffering every particularity of Christs Crucifixion is re-acted in us Christ is the model we the metal the metal takes such form as the model gives it so are we spred upon the Cross of Christ in an unanswerable extension of all parts to die with him as the Prophet was upon the dead child to revive him Superstitious men talk of the impression of our Saviours wounds in their Idol S. Francis This is no news S. Paul and every believing Christian hath both the lathes and wounds and transfixions of his Jesus wrought upon him The Crown of thorns pierces his head when his sinful conceits are mortified his lips are drencht with gall and vineger when tharp and severe restraints are given to his tongue his hands and feet are nailed when he is by the power of God's Spirit disabled to the wonted courses of sin his body is stripped when all colour and pretences are taken away from him shortly his heart is pierced when the life-blood of his formerly-reigning corruptions is let out He is no true Christian that is not thus crucified with Christ Woe is me how many fashionable ones are not so much as pained with their sins It is no trouble to them to blaspheme oppress debauch yea rather it is a death to them to think of parting with their dear Corruptions the world hath bewitched their love That which Erasmus saith of Paris that after a man hath acquainted himself with the odious sent of it hospitibus magìs ac magìs adlubescit it grows into his liking more and more is too true of the world and sensual minds Alas they rather crucifie Christ again then are crucified with Christ Woe to them that ever they were for being not dead with Christ they are not dead in Christ and being not dead in Christ they cannot but die eternally in themselves for the wages of sin is death death in their person if not in their surety Honourable and beloved let us not think it safe for us to rest in this miserable and
in that Heaven one uniform face of all that glorious Vault the nature of the holy Angels is one and simple as creatures can be the head of Angels and Saints one Saviour whose blessed Humanity if it carry some semblance of composition yet it is answered by a threefold Union of one and the same Subject a double union of the Deity with the Humanity a third union of the Humanity in it self So that as in the Deity there is one Essence and three Persons in Christ is one Person and three Essences united into that one If from Heaven we look to earth from God to men we have but one Earth one Church in that earth one King in that Church and for us one Deputy of that King one Scepter one Law of both one Baptism one Faith Cor unum viam unam and all these make up Columbam unam one Dove It would perhaps be no unnecessary excursion to take hereupon occasion to discourse of the perfectest form of Church-government and to dispute the case of that long and busie competition betwixt Monarchy and Aristocracy Ingenuous Richier the late eye-sore of the Sorbon hath made methinks an equal arbitration That the State is Monarchical the Regiment Aristocratical The State absolutely Monarchical in Christ dispensatively Monarchical in respect of particular Churches forasmuch as that power which is inherent in the Church is dispensed and executed by some prime Ministers like as the faculty of Seeing given to the man is exercised by the Eye which is given for this use to man And if for the Aristocratical Regiment there be in the native Senate of the Church which is a General Council a power to enact Canons for the wielding of this great body as more eyes see more then one yet how can this consist without Unity Concilium is not so much a concalando as Calepine hath mistaken as a conciliando or as Isidore à ciliis oculorum which ever move together In this Aristocracy there is an Unity for as that old word was long since Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tcnetur In a word no Regiment no State can have any form but deformity without Unity Neither is there more Perfection then Strength in Unity Large bodies if of a stronger composition yet because the spirits are diffused have not that vigor and activity which a well-knit body hath in a more slender frame The praise of the invincible strength of Jerusalem was not so much in the natural walls the hills round about it as in the mutual compactednesse within it self And Solomon tells us it is the twisted Cord that is not easily broken The Rule of Vegetius that he gives for his best stratagem is that which our Jesuites know too well to set strife where we desire ruine Our Saviour saies that of every City which one said anciently of Carthage That division was the best engine to batter it A City divided cannot stand On the contrary of every happy Church of every firm State is that verified which God speaks in the whirlewinde of Leviathan's scales una uni conjungitur one is joyned to another that the winde cannot passe between them they stick together that they cannot be sundred Job 41. 16 17. That there is Perfection and Strength in Unity cannot be doubted but how agrees this Unity to Christ's Dove his Church It shall be thus absolutely in patria at home but how is it in via in the passage Even here it is One too not divided not multiplied To begin with the former It hath been a stale quarrel that hath been raised from the divisions of the Christian world worn thredbare even by the pens and tongues of Porphyrie Libanius Celsus Julian and after them Valens the Emperour was puzzled with it till Themistius that memorable Christian Philosopher in a notable Oration of his convinced this idle cavil telling the Emperour He should not wonder at the dissensions of Christians that these were nothing in comparison of the differences of the Gentile Philosophers which had above three hundred severall Opinions in agitation at once and that God meant by this variety of judgments to illustrate his own Glory that every man might learn so much more to adore his Majesty by how much harder it is rightly to apprehend him The justice of this exception hath been confessed and bewailed of old by the antient Fathers St. Chrysostome shall speak for all Deridiculo facti sumus Gentibus Judaeis dum Ecclesia in mille partes scinditur We are made a scorn to Jews and Gentiles saith he whiles the Church is torn into a thousand pieces Little do these fools that stumble at these contentions know the weight of S. Paul's Oportet There must be heresies little are they acquainted with Gods fashions in all his works Hath he not set contrary motions in the very Heavens Are not the Elements the main stuffe of the world contrary to each other in their forms and qualities Hath he not made the natural Day to consist of light and darknesse the Year of seasons contrarily tempered yea all things according to the guesse of that old Philosopher ex lite amicitia And shall we need to teach God how to frame his Church Will these wise censurers accuse the Heavens of misplacing the Elements of mistemper or check the Day with the deformity of his darknesse or upbraid the fair beauty of the Year with ice-icles and wrinkles or condemn that reall Friendship that arises from debate If the wise and holy Moderator of all things did not know how by these fires of contradiction to trie men and to purifie his Truth and to glorifie himself how easie were it for him to quench them and confound their Authors Can they commend it in a wise Scipio that he would not have Carthage though their greatest enemy destroied ut timore libido premeretur libido pressa non luxuriaretur that riot might be curbed with fear as S. Austin expresses it and shall not the most wise God have leave to permit an exercise to keep his children in breath that they be not stuft up with the foggy unsound humors of the world When these presuming fools have stumbled and faln into the bottome of hell the Spouse of Christ shall be still his Dove in the clests or scissures of the Rocks and she shall call him her Roe or yong Hart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the hills of Division Cant. 2. 17. But yet when all is done in spight of all dissentions the Church is Columba una one Dove The word is not more common then equivocal whether ye consider it as the aggregation of the outward visible particular Churches of Christian professors or as the inward secret universal company of the Elect it is still One. To begin with the former What is it here below that makes the Church one one Lord One Faith One Baptism One Lord so it is one in the Head One Faith so it is
one in the Heart One Baptism so it is one in the Face Where these are truly professed to be though there may be differences of administrations and ceremonies though there may be differences in opinions yet there is Columba una all those are but diversly-coloured feathers of the same Dove What Church therefore hath one Lord Jesus Christ the righteous one Faith in that Lord one Baptism into that Faith it is the One Dove of Christ To speak more short one Faith abridges all But what is that one Faith what but the main fundamental Doctrine of Religion necessary to be known to be believed unto Salvation It is a golden and usefull distinction that we must take with us betwixt Christian Articles and Theological Conclusions Christian Articles are the Principles of Religion necessary to a Believer Theological Conclusions are School-points fit for the discourse of a Divine Those Articles are few and essential these Conclusions are many and unimporting upon necessity to Salvation either way That Church then which holds those Christian Articles both in terms and necessary consequences as every visible Church of Christ doth however it vary in these Theological Conclusions is Columba una Were there not much latitude in this Faith how should we fetch in the antient Jewish Church to the unity of the Christian Theirs and ours is but one Dove though the feathers according to the colour of that fowl be changeable It is a fearfull account then that shall once be given before the dreadfull Tribunal of the Son of God the only Husband of this one Church by those men who not like the children of faithfull Abraham divide the Dove multiplying Articles of Faith according to their own fancies and casting out of the bosome of the Church those Christians that differ from their either false or unnecessary conclusions Thus have our great Lords of the Seven hills dared to doe whose faction hath both devoured their Charity and scorned ours to the great prejudice of the Christian world to the irreparable damage of the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus The God of Heaven judge in this great case betwixt them and us us who firmly holding the foundation of Christian Religion in all things according to the antient Catholick Apostolick Faith are rejected censured condemned accursed killed for refusing their gainfull Novelties In the mean time we can but lament their fury no lesse then their errours and send out our hopelesse wishes that the seamlesse coat might be darn'd up by their hands that tore it From them to speak to our selves who have happily reformed those errours of theirs which either their ambition or profit would not suffer them to part with since we are one why are we sundred One saies I am Luther's for Consubstantiation another I am Calvin's for Discipline another I am Arminius's for Predestination another I am Barrow's or Brown's for Separation What frenzy possesses the brains of Christians thus to squander themselves into Factions It is indeed an envious cavil of our common adversaries to make these so many Religions No every branch of different Opinion doth not constitute a several Religion were this true I durst boldly say old Rome had not more Deities then the modern Rome hath Religions These things though they do not vary Religions and Churches yet they trouble the quiet unity of the Church Brethren since our Religion is one why are not our tongues one why do we not bite in our singular conceits and binde our tongues to the common Peace But if from particular visible Churches which perhaps you may construe to be the threescore Queens here spoken of you shall turn your eyes to the true inward universal company of Gods Elect and secret ones there shall you more perfectly finde Columbam unam one Dove for what the other is in profession this is in truth that one Baptism is here the true Laver of Regeneration that one Faith is a saving reposal upon Christ that one Lord is the Saviour of his Body No natural body is more one then this mystical one Head rules it one Spirit animates it one set of joynts moves it one Food nourishes it one Robe covers it So it is one in it self so one with Christ as Christ is one with the Father That they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me John 17. 22. Oh blessed Unity of the Saints of God which none of the makebates of Hell can ever be able to dissolve And now since we are thus and every other way one why are we not united in Love why do we in our ordinary conversation suffer slight weaknesses to set off our Charity Mephibosheth was a cripple yet the perfect love of Jonathan either cures or covers his impotency We can no more want infirmities then not be men we cannot stick at infirmities if we be Christians It is but a poor love that cannot passe over small faults even quotidianae incursionis as that Father speaks It is an injurious niceness to condemn a good Face in each other for a little mole Brethren let us not aggravate but pity each others weaknesses and since we are but one Body let us have but one Heart one Way And if we be the Dove of Christ and his Dove is one oh let us be so one with each other as he is one with us And as the Church and Commonwealth are twins so should this be no lesse one with it self and with her temporal head Divisum est cor eorum Their heart is divided was the judgment upon Israel ose 10. 2. Oh how is every good heart divided in sunder with the grief for the late divisions of our Reuben We do not mourn we bleed inwardly for this distraction But I do willingly smother these thoughts yea my just sorrow choaks them in my bosome that they cannot come forth but in sighs and groans O thou that art the God of peace unite all hearts in Love to each other in loyal Subjection to their Soveraign Head Amen As the Church is one in not being divided so she is but one in not being multiplied Here is unus uni unam as the old word is He the true Husband of the Church who made and gave but one Eve to the first Adam will take but one wife to himself the second Adam There are many particular Churches all these make up but one universal as many distinct lims make up but one intire body many grains one bach many drops and streams one Ocean So many Regions as there are under Heaven that do truly professe the Christian name so many National Churches there are in all those Nations there are many Provincial in all those Provinces many Diocesan in all those Dioceses many Parochial Churches in all those Parishes many Christian Families in all those Families many Christian Souls now all those Souls Families Parishes Dioceses Provinces Nations make up but one Catholick Church of Christ upon earth The God of the
Church cannot abide either Conventicles of Separation or pluralities of professions or appropriations of Catholicism Catholick Romane is an absurd Donatian Solecism This is to seek Orbem in urbe as that Council said well Happy were it for that Church if it were a sound lim though but the little toe of that mighty and precious body wherein no believing Jew or Indian may not challenge to be jointed Neither difference of time nor distance of place nor rigor of unjust censure nor any unessential errour can barre our interest in this blessed Unity As this flourishing Church of great Britain after all the spightfull calumniations of malicious men is one of the most conspicuous members of the Catholick upon earth so we in her Communion do make up one body with the holy Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and faithfull Christians of all ages and times We succeed in their Faith we glory in their Succession we triumph in this Glory Whither go ye then ye weak ignorant seduced souls that run to seek this Dove in a forein cote She is here if she have any nest under Heaven Let me never have part in her or in Heaven if any Church in the world have more part in the Universal Why do we wrong our selves with the contradistinction of Protestant and Catholick We do only protest this that we are perfect Catholicks Let the pretensed look to themselves we are sure we are as Catholick as true Faith can make us as much one as the same Catholick Faith can make us and in this undoubted right we claim and injoy the sweet and inseparable communion with all the blessed members of that mystical body both in earth and Heaven and by virtue thereof with the glorious Head of that dear and happy body Jesus Christ the righteous the Husband to this one Wife the Mate to this one Dove to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit three Persons and one God be given all Praise Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen THE FASHIONS OF THE WORLD Laid forth in a SERMON at Grayes-Inne on Candlemas day By J. H. Rom. 12. 2. Fashion not your selves like to this World but be ye changed by the renewing of your minde c. THAT which was wont to be upbraided as a scorn to the English may be here conceived the Embleme of a Man whom ye may imagine standing naked before you with a paire of sheers in his hand ready to cut out his own fashion In this deliberation the World offers it self to him with many a gay misshapen fantasticall dresse God offers himself to him with one onely fashion but a new one but a good one The Apostle like a friendly monitor adviseth him where to pitch his choice Fashion not your selves like to this world but be ye changed by the renewing of your minde How much Christianity crosses Nature we need no other proof then my Text. There is nothing that Nature affects so much as the Fashion and no fashion so much as the worlds for our usuall word is Doe as the most And behold that is it which is here forbidden us Fashion not your selves like to this world All fashions are either in Device or Imitation There are vain heads that think it an honour to be the founders of Fashions there are servile fools that seek onely to follow the Fashion once devised In the first rank is the World which is nothing but a mint of Fashions yet which is strange all as old as mis-beseeming We are forbidden to be in the second If the World will be so vain as to mis-shape it self we may not be so foolish as to follow it Let us look a little if you please at the Pattern here damn'd in my Text The world As in extent so in expression the World hath a large scope yea there are more Worlds then one There is a world of creatures and within that there is a world of men and yet within that a world of believers and yet within all these a world of corruptions More plainly there is a good world an evil world an indifferent A good world as of the creatures in regard of their first birth so of men in regard of their second a world of renewed Souls in the first act of their renovation believing Joh. 17. 20. upon their belief reconciled 2 Cor. 5. 19. upon their reconcilement saved Joh. 3. 16. An evil world yea set in evil 1 Joh. 5. 19. a world of corrupt unregeneration that hates Christ and his Joh. 15. 18. that is hated of Christ Jam. 4. 4. An indifferent world that is good or evil as it is used whereof St. Paul Let those that use the world be as not abusing it 1 Cor. 7. 31. This indifferent world is a world of commodities affections improvement of the creature which if we will be wise Christians we must fashion to us framing it to our own bent whether in want or abundance The good world is a world of Saints whose Souls are purified in obeying the truth through the Spirit 1 Pet. 1. 22. To this world we may be fashioned The evil world is a world of mere men and their vicious conditions God hath made us the lords of the indifferent world himself is the Lord of the good Satan is lord of the evil Princeps hujus Seculi And that is most properly the world because it contains the most as it is but a chaffe-heap wherein some grains of wheat are scattered To this evil world then we may not fashion our selves in those things which are proper to it as such in natural in civil actions we may we must follow the world singularity in these things is justly odious herein the World is the true master of Ceremonies whom not to follow is no better then a Cynicall irregularity in things positively or morally evil we may not There is no material thing that hath not his form the outward form is the fashion the fashion of outward things is variable with the times so as every external thing cloaths building plate stuffe gesture is now in now out of fashion but the fashions of Morality whether in good or evil are fixed and perpetual The world passeth and the fashion of it but the evil of the fashions of the world is too constant and permanent and must be ever the matter of our detestation Fashion not your selves like to this world But because evils are infinite as wise Solomon hath observed it will be requisite to call them to their heads and to reduce these forbidden fashions to the several parts whereto they belong I cannot dream with Tertullian that the Soul hath a Body but I may well say that the Soul follows the body and as it hath parts ascribed to it according to the outward proportion so are these parts suited with severall fashions Let your patient attention follow me through them all Begin with the Head a part not more eminent in place then in power What is the
one But since as Erasmus hath too truly observed there is nothing so happy in these humane things wherein there are not some intermixtures of distemper and Saint Paul hath told us there must be Heresies and the Spouse in Solomon's Song compares her blessed Husband to a yong Hart upon the Mountain of Bether that is Division yea rather as under Gensericus and his Vandals the Christian Temples flamed higher then the Towns so for the space of these last hundred years there hath been more combustion in the Church then in the Civil State my next wish is that if differences in Religion cannot be avoided yet that they might be rightly judged of and be but taken as they are Neither can I but mourn and bleed to see how miserably the World is abused on all hands with prejudice in this kind Whiles the adverse part brands us with unjust censures and with loud clamours cries us down for Hereticks on the other side some of ours do so slight the Errours of the Romane Church as if they were not worth our Contention as if our Martyrs had been rash and our quarrels trifling others again do so aggravate them as if we could never be at enough defiance with their Opinions nor at enough distance from their Communion All these three are dangerous extremities the two former whereof shall if my hopes fail me not in this whole Discourse be sufficiently convinced wherein as we shall fully clear our selves from that hateful slander of Heresie or Schisme so we shall leave upon the Church of Rome an unavoidable imputation of many no less foul and enormous then novel Errours to the stopping of the mouths of those Adiaphorists whereof Melanchthon seems to have long agoe prophesied Metuendum est c. It is to be feared saith he that in the last Age of the World this errour will reign amongst men that either Religions are nothing or differ onely in words The third comes now in our way That 〈◊〉 Laertius speaks of Menedemus that in disputing his very ears would sparkâ—â—â— is true of many of ours whose zeal transports them to such a detestation of the Romane Church as if it were all Errour no Church affecting nothing more then an utter opposition to their Doctrine and Ceremony because theirs like as Maldonat professeth to mislike and avoid many fair interpretations not as false but as Calvin's These men have not learned this in S. Augustine's School who tels us that it was the rule of the Fathers as well before Cyprian and Agrippinus as since that whatsoever they found in any Schism or Heresie warrantable and holy that they allowed for its own worth and did not refuse it for the abettors Neither for the chaff do we leave the floor of God neither for the bad Fishes do we break his nets Rather as the Priests of Mercurie had wont to say when they eat their Figs and Honey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. All truth is sweet it is indeed Gods not ours wheresoever it is found the Kings Coin is current though it be found in any impure Chanel For this particular they have not well heeded that charitable profession of zealous Luther Nos fatemur c. We profess saith he that under the Papacy there is much Christian good yea all c. I say moreover that under the Papacy is true Christianity yea the very kernel of Christianity c. No man I trust will fear that fervent spirits too much excess of indulgence under the Papacy may be as much good as it self is evil Neither do we censure that Church for what it hath not but for what it hath Fundamental truth is like that Maronaean wine which if it be mixed with twenty times so much water holds his strength The Sepulchre of Christ was overwhelmed by the Pagans with earth and rubbish and more then so over it they built a Temple to their impure Venus yet still in spight of malice there was the Sepulchre of Christ And it is a ruled case of Papinian that a Sacred place loseth not the Holiness with the demolished wals No more doth the Romane lose the claim of a true visible Church by her manifold and deplorable corruptions her unsoundness is not less apparent then her being If she were once the Spouse of Christ and her Adulteries are known yet the Divorce is not sued out CHAP. II. The Original of the Differences IT is too true that those two main Elements of evil as Timon called them Ambition and Covetousness which Bernard professes were the great Masters of that Clergie in his times having palpably corrupted the Christian World both in doctrine and manners gave just cause of scandal and complaint to godly mindes which though long smothered at last brake forth into publick contestation augmented by the fury of those guilty defendants which loved their reputation more then Peace But yet so as the Complainants ever professed a joynt allowance of those Fundamental Truths which descried themselves by their bright lustre in the worst of that confusion as not willing that God should lose any thing by the wrongs of men or that men should lose any thing by the envy of that evil spirit which had taken the advantage of the publick sleep for his Tares Shortly then according to the prayers and predictions of many Holy Christians God would have his Church reformed How shall it be done Licentious courses as Seneca wisely have sometimes been amended by correction and fear never of themselves As therefore their own President was stirred up in the Council of Trent to cry out of their corruption of Discipline so was the Spirit of Luther somewhat before that stirred up to tax their corruption of Doctrine But as all beginnings are timorous how calmly did he enter and with what submiss Supplications did he sue for redress I come to you saith he most holy Father and humbly prostrate before you beseech you that if it be possible you would be pleased to set your helping hand to the work Intreaties prevail nothing the whiles the importune insolence of Eckius and the undiscreet carriage of Cajetan as Luther there professes forced him to a publick opposition At last as sometimes even Poisons turn Medicinal the furious prosecution of abused Authority increased the Zeal of Truth like as the repercussion of the flame intends it more and as Zeal grew in the Plaintif so did Rage in the Defendant so as now that was verified of Tertullian A primordio c. From the beginning Righteousness suffers violence and no sooner did God begin to be worshipped but Religion was attended with Envie The masters of the Pythonisse are angry to part with a gainful though evil guest Am I become your enemy because I told you the truth saith Saint Paul yet that truth is not more unwelcome then successful For as the breath of
for the Angel even after his Resurrection says He is not here for he is risen Sect. 3. Transubstantiation against Reason NEver did or can Reason triumph so much over any prodigious Paradox as it doth over this Insomuch as the Patrons of it are fain to disclaim the Sophistry of Reason and to stand upon the suffrages of Faith and the plea of Miracles We are not they who with the Manichees refuse to believe Christ unless he bring Reason we are not they who think to lade the Sea with an egge-shell to fadome the deep Mysteries of Religion with the short reach of natural apprehension We know there are wonders in Divinity fit for our adoration not fit for our comprehending But withall we know that if some Theological Truths be above right Reason yet never any against it for all Verity complies with it self as springing from one and the same Fountain This Opinion therefore we receive not not because it transcends our conceit but because we know it crosseth both true Reason and Faith It implies manifest contradiction in that it referres the same thing to it self in opposite relations so as it may be at once present and absent near and far off below and above It destroies the truth of Christ's humane body in that it ascribes Quantity to it without extension without locality turning the flesh into spirit and bereaving it of all the properties of a true body those properties which as Nicetas truely cannot so much as in thought be separated from the essence of the body insomuch as Cyril can say If the Deitie it self were capable of partition it must be a body and if it were a body it must needs be in a place and have quantity and magnitude and thereupon should not avoid circumscription It gives a false body to the Son of God making that every day of Bread by the power of words which was made once of the substance of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost It so separates Accidents from their Subjects that they not onely can subsist without them but can produce the full effects of Substances so as bare Accidents are capable of Accidents so as of them Substances may be either made or nourished It utterly overthrows which learned Cameron makes the strongest of all reasons the nature of a Sacrament in that it takes away at once the Signe and the Analogie betwixt the Signe and the thing signified The Signe in that it is no more Bread but accidents the Analogie in that it makes the Signe to be the thing signified Lastly it puts into the hands of every Priest power to doe every day a greater Miracle then God did in the Creation of the World for in that the Creator made the Creature but in this the creature daily makes the Creator Since then this Opinion is both New and convinced to be grossly Erroneous by Scripture and Reason justly have we professed our deterstation of it and for that are unjustly ejected CHAP. VIII The Newness of the Half-Communion THE Novelty of the Half-Sacrament or dry Communion delivered to the Laity is so palpable as that the Patrons of it in the presumptuous Council of Constance profess no less Licet Christus c. Although Christ say they after his Supper instituted and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds of Bread and Wine c. Licet in primitiva c. Although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament were received by the faithful under both kinds Non obstance c. Yet this custome for the avoiding of some dangers and scandals was upon just reason brought in that Laicks should receive onely under one kinde and those that stubbornly oppose themselves against it shall be ejected and punished as Hereticks Now this Council was but in the year of our Lord God 1453. Yea but these Fathers of Constance however they are bold to controll Christ's Law by Custome yet they say it was consuetudo diutissimè observata a custome very long observed True but the full age of this Diutissimè is openly and freely calculated by Cassander Satis constat It is apparent enough that the Western or Romane Church for a thousand years after Christ in the solemn and ordinary Dispensation of this Sacrament gave both kinds of Bread and Wine to all the members of the Church A point which is manifest by innumerable ancient Testimonies both of Greeks and Latines And this they were induced to doe by the example of Christs institution Quare non temerè c. It is not therefore saith he without cause that most of the best Catholicks and most conversant in the reading of Ecclesiastical Writers are inflamed with an earnest desire of obtaining the Cup of the Lord that the Sacrament may be reduced to that ancient custome and use which hath been for many Ages perpetuated in the universal Church Thus he We need no other Advocate Yea their Vasquez draws it yet lower Negare non c. We cannot deny that in the Latin Church there was the use of both kinds and that it so continued until the dayes of Saint Thomas which was about the year of God 1260. Thus it was in the Romane Church but as for the Greek the World knows it did never but communicate under both kinds These open Confessions spare us the labour of quoting the several testimonies of all Ages else it had been easie to shew how in the Liturgie of Saint Basil and Chrysostome the Priest was wont to pray Vouchsafe O Lord to give us thy Body and thy Blood and by us to thy people how in the order of Rome the Archdeacon taking the Chalice from the Bishops hand confirmeth all the receivers with the blood of our Lord and from Ignatius's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Cup distributed to all to have descended along through the clear records of S. Cyprian Hierome Ambrose Augustine Leo Gelafius Paschasius and others to the very time of Hugo and Lombard and our Halensis and to shew how S. Cyprian would not deny the blood of Christ to those that should shed their blood for Christ how Saint Austin with him makes a comparison betwixt the blood of the Legal Sacrifices which might not be eaten and this blood of our Saviours Sacrifice which all must drink But what need allegations to prove a yielded truth So as this halfing of the Sacrament is a mere novelty of Rome and such a one as their own Pope Gelasius sticks not to accuse of no less then Sacriledge Sect. 2. Half-Communion against Scripture NEither shall we need to urge Scripture when it is plainly confessed by the last Councils of Lateran and Trent that this practice varies from Christs institution Yet the Tridentine Fathers have left themselves this evasion that however our Saviour ordained it in both kinds and so delivered it to his Apostles notwithstanding he hath not by any command enjoyned it to
〈◊〉 c. The Holy Scriptures inspired by God are in themselves all-sufficient to the instruction of truth and if Chemnitius construe it all truth This needs not raise a cavil the word signifies no lesse for if they be all-sufficient to instruction they must needs be sufficient to all instruction in the truth intended Tertullian professes openly Adoro Scripturae plenitudinem c. I adore the fulnesse of Scripture Let the skill of Hermogenes shew where it is written if it be not written let him fear that woe which is propounced against those that adde or detract Thus he Who can but fear that the Cardinal shifts this evidence against his own heart For saith he Tertull. speaks of that one point That God created all things of nothing and not of a pre-existent matter as Hermogenes dreamed now because this Truth is clearly expressed in Scripture therefore the fulness of Scripture as concerning this Point is adored by Tertullian and for that Hermogenes held an opinion contrary to Scripture he is said to adde unto Scripture and to incur that malediction Now let any Reader of common sense judge whether the words of Tertullian be not general without any limitation and if the first clause could be restrained the second cannot Scriptum esse doceat c. Whatsoever therefore is not written by this rule may not be obtruded to our belief Neither doth he say If it be written against but If it be not written and his challenge is nusquam legi that the words are no where read as if this were quarrell enough without a flat contradiction to what is read So as the Cardinals Glosse merely corrupts the Text. How easie were it for me to tire my Reader with the full suffrages of Origen Cyprian Chrysostome Basil Cyril Epiphanius Hierome Ambrose Theodoret Hilarie Vincentius Lirinensis and in a word with the whole stream of Antiquity which though they give a meet place to Traditions of Ceremony of History of Interpretation of some immaterial Verities yet reserve the due honour to the Sacred monuments of Divine Scriptures Our learned Chemnitius hath freely yielded seven sorts of Traditions such as have a correspondence with or an attestation from the written Word the rest we do justly together with him disclaim as unworthy to appear upon that awfull Bench amongst the inspired Pen-men of God Sect. 2. Traditions against Scripture IT is not to be imagined that the same word of God which speaks for all other Truths should not speak for it self how fully doth it display its own sufficiencie and perfection All Scripture saith the Chosen Vessel is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness Profitable saith the Cardinal but not sufficient Many things may avail to that end whereto they suffice not so meat is profitable to nourish but without natural heat it nourisheth not Thus he Hear yet what followeth That the man of God may be perfected and throughly furnished unto all good works Loe it is so profitable to all these services that thereby it perfects a Divine much more an ordinary Christian That which is so profitable as to cause perfection is abundantly sufficient and must needs have full perfection in it self That which can perfect the Teacher is sufficient for the Learner The Scriptures can perfect the man of God both for his calling in the instruction of others and for his own glory Thou hast known the Scriptures from a childe saith S. Paul to his Timothy which are able not profitable only to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus It is the charge therefore of the Apostle not to be wise above that which is written The same with wise Solomon's The whole word of God is pure Adde thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a lier Loe he saith not Oppose not his words but Adde not to them Even Addition detracts from the majestie of that Word For the Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart the Commandement of the Lord is pure enlightning the eyes As for those Traditions which they do thus lift up to an unjust competition with the written Word our Saviour hath beforehand humbled them into the dust In vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandements of men making this a sufficient cause of abhorring both the persons and the services of those Jews that they thrust humane Traditions into Gods chair and respected them equally with the institutions of God Cardinal Bellarmine would shift it off with a distinction of Traditions These were such saith he quas acceperunt à recentioribus c. as they had received from some later hands whereof some were vain some other pernicious not such as they received from Moses and the Prophets And the Authors of these rejected Traditions he cites from Epiphanius to be R. Akiba R. Juda and the Asamoneans from Hierome to be Sammai Hillel Akiba But this is to cast a mist before the eyes of the simple For who sees not that our Saviours challenge is generall to Traditions thus advanced not to these or those Traditions And where he speaks of some later hands he had forgotten that our Saviour upon the Mount tells him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that these faulted Traditions were of old And that he may not cast these upon his Sammai and Hillel let him remember that our Saviour cites this out of Esay though with some more clearness of expression who far overlooked the time of those pretended Fathers of mis-traditions That I may not say how much it would trouble him to shew any dogmatical Traditions that were derived from Moses and the Prophets in parallel whereof let them be able to deduce any Evangelical tradition from the Apostles and we are ready to imbrace it with all observance Shortly it is clear that our Saviour never meant to compare one Tradition with another as approving some rejecting others but with indignation complains that Traditions were obtruded to God's people in a corrivalty with the written Word which is the very Point now questioned Sect. 3. Traditions against Reason EVen the very light of Reason shews us that as there is a God so that he is a most wise and most just God needs therefore must it follow that if this most just and wise God will give a Word whereby to reveal himself and his will to mankinde it must be a perfect Word for as his Wisdome knows what is fit for his creature to know of himself so his Justice will require nothing of the creature but what he hath enabled him to know and doe Now then since he requires us to know him to obey him it must needs follow that he hath left us so exquisite a Rule of
our remedies Thus that learned Spaniard in an honest confession of the degenerate courses of the late Popes from the simple integrity of their Predecessors What should I adde unto these the presumptuous Dispensations with Vows and Oaths with the Laws of God himself with the Law of Nature a priviledge ordinarily both yielded and defended by flattering Canonists and that which meets with us at every turn in Hostiensis Archidiaconus Felinus Capistranus Triumphus Angelus de Clavasio Petrus de Ancorano Panormitan as is largely particularized by our learned Bishop of Derry Sect. V. The new challenge of Popes domineering over Kings and Emperours I May well shut up the Scene with that notorious Innovation of the Popes subducing himself from the due Obedience of his once-acknowledged Lord and Soveraign and endeavouring to reduce all those Imperiall powers to his homage and obedience The time was when Pope Gregory could say to Mauritius Vobis obedientiam praebere desidero I desire to give you due obedience and when Pope Leo came with cap and knee to Theodosius for a Synod to be called with Clementia vestra concedat as Cardinall Cusanus cites it from the History The time was when Nemo Apostolicae c. No man did offer to take upon him the steering of the Apostolick Bark till the authority of the Emperour had designed him as their Balbus out of their own law That of Pope Gregory is plain enough Ecce serenissimus c. Behold saith he speaking of his own advancement to the Bishoprick of Rome our gracious Lord the Emperor hath commanded an Ape to be made a Lion and surely at his command it may be called a Lion but it cannot be one so as he must needs lay all my faults and negligences not upon me but upon his own piety which hath committed this Ministery of power to so weak an Agent The time was when the Popes of Rome dated their Apostolick letters with the style of the reign of their Lords the Emperours now ever since Pope Paschal they care only to note the year of their own Apostleship or Papacy The time was when the holy Bishops of that See professed to succeed Saint Peter in homely simplicity in humble obedience in piety in zeale in preaching in tears in sufferings now since the case is altered the world sees and blushes at the change for now Quanta inter Solem Lunam c. Look how much the Sun is bigger then the Moon so much is the Papall power greater then the Imperiall now Papa est Dominus Imperatoris The Pope is the Emperours Lord saith their Capistranus and the Emperour is subject to the Pope as his minister or servant saith Triumphus and lest this should seem the fashionable word of some clawing Canonist only hear what Pope Adrian himself saith Unde habet c. Whence hath the Emperour his Empire but from us all that he hath he hath wholly from us Behold it is in our power to give it to whom we list And to the same purpose is that of Pope Innocent the Fourth Imperator est advocatus c. The Emperour is the Popes Advocate and swears to him and holds his Empire of him But perhaps this place is yet too high for an Emperour a lower will serve fit Canonicus c. The Emperor is of course made a Canon and brother of the Church of Lateran Yet lower he shall be the Sewer of his Holiness Table and set on the first dish and hold the Bason for his hands Yet lower he shall be the Train-bearer to the Pope in his walking Processions he shall be the Quirie of his Stable and hold his stirrup in getting upon his horse he shall be lastly his very Porter to carry his Holinesse on his shoulder And all this not out of will but out of duty Where now is Augustus ab Augendo as Almain derives him when he suffers himself thus to be diminished Although there is more wonder in the others exaltation Papae Men are too base to enter into comparison with him His authority is more then of the Saints in Heaven saith one yet more he excelleth the Angels in his Jurisdiction saith another yet more once The Pope seems to make one and the same Consistory with God himself and which comprehends all the rest Tu es omnia super omnia Thou art all and above all as the Council of Lateran under Julius Oh strange alteration that the great Commanders of the World should be made the drudges of their subjects That Order and Soveraignty should lose themselves in a pretence of Piety That the professed Successour of him that said Gold and silver have I none should thus trample upon Crowns That a poor silly Worm of the Earth should raise up it self above all that is called God and offer to crawle into the glorious Throne of Heaven CHAP. XVIII The Epilogue both of Exhortation and Apologie NOT to wearie my Reader with more particularities of Innovation let now all Christians know and be assured that such change as they sensibly finde in the Head they may as truly though not so visibly note in the Body of the Roman Church yea rather in that Soul of Religion which informeth both And if thereupon all our endeavour as we protest before God and his holy Angels hath been and is only to reduce Rome to it self that is to recall it to that original Truth Piety Sincerity which made it long famous through the World and happy how unjustly are we ejected persecuted condemned But if that Antient Mistress of the World shall stand upon the terms of her Honour and will needs plead the disparagement of her retractions and the age and authority of these her impositions let me have leave to shut up all with that worthy and religious contestation of Saint Ambrose with his Symmachus That eloquent Patron of Idolatry had pleaded hard for the old Rites of Heathenism and brings in Antient Rome speaking thus for her self Optimi principes c. Excellent Princes the Fathers of your Country reverence ye my years into which my pious Rites have brought me I will use the Ceremonies of my Ancestors neither can I repent me I will live after mine own fashion because I am free This Religion hath brought the World under the subjection of the Laws these sacred Devotions have driven Hannibal from our walls from our Capitol Have I been preserved for this that in mine old age I should be reproved Say that I did see what were to be altered yet late and shamefull is the amendment of age To which that holy Father no lesse wittily and elegantly answers by way of retortion bringing in Rome to speak thus rather I am not ashamed in mine old age to be a Convert with all the rest of the World It is surely true that in no age it
better for themselves would to God they were theirs as well in true use as in possession It was an ill descant that a nimble Papist made upon those words of Luther which yield them the kernel of Christianity If we have the kernel saith he let them take the shell Soft friend you are too witty Luther did not give you the kernell and reserve us the shell He yielded you both kernell and shell such as it is but the shell rotten the kernell worm-eaten Make much of your kernell but as you have used it it is but a bitter morsel swallow that if you please and save the shell in your pocket Neither think to goe away with an idle misprision We are a true visible Church what need we more why should we wish to be other then we are Alas poor souls a true Visibility may and doth stand with a false Belief Ye may be of a true visible Church and yet never the nearer to Heaven It is your interest in the true mysticall body of Christ that must save your Souls not in the outwardly visible your Errours may be and are no less damnable for that ye are by outward profession Christians yea so much the more Woe is me your danger is more visible then your Church If ye persist wilfully in these gross Corruptions which do by consequent raze that foundation which ye profess to lay ye shall be no less visible spectacles of the wrath of that just God whose Truth and Spirit ye have so stubbornly resisted The God of Heaven open your eyes to see the glorious light of his Truth and draw your hearts to the love of it and make your Church as truely sound as it is truly visible Thus in a desire to stand but so right as I am in all honest judgements I have made this speedy and true Apologie beseeching all Readers in the fear of God before whose bar we shall once give an account of all our overlashings to judge wisely and uprightly of what I have written in a word to doe me but justice in their opinions and when I beg it favour Farewell Reader and God make us Wise and Charitable THE RECONCILER AN EPISTLE PACIFICATORY Of the seeming Differences of Opinion concerning the Trueness and Visibility of the Roman Church By JOS. EXON TO THE Right Honourable and Truly Religious My singular good Lord EDWARD Earl of NORWICH My ever Honoured Lord I Confess my Charity led me into an Errour Your Lordship well knows how apt I am to be overtaken with these better deceits of an over-kinde credulity I had thought that any dash of my Pen in a sudden and easie advertisement might have served to have quitted that ignorant Scandal which was cast upon my mistaken Assertion of the true Visibility of the Romane Church The issue proves all otherwise I finde to my grief that the misunderstanding tenacity of some zealous spirits hath made it a quarrel It cannot but trouble me to see that the Position which is so familiarly current with the best Reformed Divines and which hath been so oft and long since published by me without contradiction yea not without the approbation and applause of the whole representative body of the Clergy of this Kingdom should now be quarrelled and drawn into the detestation of those that know it not As one therefore that should think it corrosive enough that any occasion should be taken by ought of mine to ravell but one thred of that seamless Coat I do earnestly desire by a more full explication to give clear satisfaction to all Readers and by this seasonable Reconcilement to stop the flood-gates of contention I know it will not be unpleasing to your Lordship that through your Honourable and Pious hands these welcome Papers should be transmitted to many Wherein I shall first beseech yea adjure all Christians under whose eyes they shall fall by the dreadful Name of that God who shall judge both the quick and the dead to lay aside all unjust Prejudices and to allow the words of Truth and Peace I dare confidently say Let us be understood and we are agreed The Searcher of all hearts knows how far it was from my thoughts to speak ought in favour of the Romane Synagogue If I have not sufficiently branded that Strumpet I justly suffer Luther's broad word is by me already both safely construed and sufficiently vindicated But do you not say It is a true visible Church Do you not yield some kinde of Communion with these clients of Antichrist What is if this be not Favour Mark well Christian Reader and the Lord give thee understanding in all things To begin with the latter No man can say but the Church of Rome holds some Truths those Truths are God's and in his right ours why should not we challenge our own wheresoever we find it If a very Devil shall say of Christ Thou art the Son of the living God we will snatch this Truth out of his mouth as usurped and in spight of him proclaim it for our own Indeed there is no communion betwixt light and darkness but there is communion betwixt light and light Now all Truth is Light and therefore symbolizeth with it self With that light therefore whose glimmering yet remains in their darkness our clearer light will and must hold communion If they profess Three Persons in one Godhead Two Natures in one Person of Christ shall we detrect to joyn with them in this Christian Verity We abhor to have any Communion with them in their Errours in their Idolatrous or Superstitious practices these are their own not ours If we durst have taken their part in these this breach had not been Now who can but say that we must hate their evil and allow their good It is no countenance to their Errours that we imbrace our own Truths it is no disparagement to our Truths that they have blended them with their Errours Here can be no difference then if this Communion be not mistaken No man will say that we may sever from their common Truths no man will say that we may joyn with them in their hateful Errours For the former He that saith a Thief is truly a man doth he therein favour that Thief He that saith a diseased dropsied dying body is a true though corrupt body doth he favour that Disease or that living carkass It is no other no more that I say of the Church of Rome Trueness of Being and outward Visibility are no praise to her yea these are aggravations to her falshood The advantage that is both sought and found in this Assertion is onely ours as we shall see in the sequel without any danger of their gain I say then that she is a True Church but I say withall she is a false Church True in Existence but false in Belief Let not the homonymie of a word breed jarres where the sense is accorded If we do not yield her the true Being of a Church why do we
in his own sense onely let our hearts and tongues and hands conspire together in peace with our selves in warre with our common enemies Thus far have I Right Honourable in a desire of peace poured out my self into a plain explication and easie accordance Those whom I strive to satisfie are onely mistakers whose censures if some man would have either laught out or despised yet I have condescended to take off by a serious deprecation and just defence It is an unreasonable motion to request minds prepossessed with Prejudice to hear Reason Whole Volumes are nothing to such as have contented themselves onely to take up Opinions upon trust and will hold them because they know where they had them In vain should I spend my self in beating upon such anviles but for those ingenuous Christians which will hold an eare open for Justice and Truth I have said enough if ought at all needed Alas my Lord I see and grieve to see it it is my Rochet that hath offended and not I in another habit I long since published this and more without dislike it is this colour of innocence that hath bleared some over-tender eyes Wherein I know not whether I should more pity their Errour or applaud my own Sufferings Although I may not say with the Psalmist What hath the righteous done let me I beseech your Lordship upon this occasion have leave to give a little vent to my just grief in this point The other day I fell upon a Latine Pamphlet homely for style tedious for length zealously uncharitable for stuff wherein the Author onely wise in this that he would be unknown in a grave fierceness flies in the face of our English Prelacie not so much inveighing against their Persons which he could be content to reverence as their very Places I blest my self to see the case so altered Heretofore the Person had wont to bear off many blows from the Function now the very Function wounds the Person In what case are we when that which should command respect brands us What black Art hath raised up this spirit of Aerius from his pit Wo is me that zeal should breed such monsters of conceit It is the Honour the Pomp the Wealth the Pleasure he saith of the Episcopal Chair that is guilty of the depravation of our Calling and if himself were so overlay'd with Greatness he should suspect his own Fidelity Alas poor man at what distance doth he see us Foggie Air useth to represent every Object far bigger then it is Our Saviour in his Temptation upon the Mount had only the Glory of those Kingdomes shewed to him by that subtile Spirit not the Cares and vexations Right so are our Dignities exhibited to these envious beholders little do these men see the Toiles and Anxieties that attend this supposedly-pleasing eminence All the revenge that I would wish to this uncharitable Censurer should be this that he might be but for a while adjudged to this so glorious seat of mine that so his experience might taste the bewitching Pleasures of this envied Greatness he should well finde more danger of being over-spent with work then of languishing with ease and delicacy For me I need not appeal to Heaven eyes enough can witness how few free hours I have enjoyed since I put on these Robes of Sacred Honour Insomuch as I could finde in my heart with holy Gregory to complain of my change were it not that I see these publick troubles are so many acceptable services to my God whose Glory is the end of my Being Certainly my Lord if none but earthly respects should sway me I should heartily wish to change this Palace which the Providence of God and the Bounty of my Gracious Soveraign hath put me into for my quiet Cell at Waltham where I had so sweet leisure to enjoy God your Lordship and my self But I have followed the calling of my God to whose service I am willingly sacrificed and must now in an holy obedience to his Divine Majesty with what chearfulness I may ride out all the storms of Envie which unavoidably will alight upon the least appearance of a conceived Greatness In the mean time whatever I may seem to others I was never less in my own apprehensions and were it not for this attendance of Envie could not yield my self any whit greater then I was Whatever I am that good God of mine make me faithfull to him and compose the unquiet spirits of men to a conscionable care of the publick peace with which Prayer together with the apprecation of all happiness to your Lordship and all yours I take leave and am Your Lordships truly devoted in all hearty Observance and Duty JOS. EXON TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD THOMAS LORD Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield MY Lord may your leisure serve you to read over this poor sheet of Paper and to censure it Your Name is left out in the Catalogue of some other famous Divines mentioned in the body of it that you might not be forestalled I suffer for that wherein your self amongst many renowned Orthodox Doctors of the Church are my partner As if you had not already said it enough I beseech your Lordship say once more what you think of the true Being and Visibility of the Roman Church Your excellent and zealous Writings have justly wone you a constant reputation of great Learning and no less Sincerity and have placed you out of the reach of suspicion No man can no man dare misdoubt your decision If you finde any one word amiss in this Explication spare me not I shall gladly kiss your Rod and hold your utmost severity a favour But if you here meet with no other then the words of a commonly-professed Truth acquit me so far as to say there is no reason I should suffer alone And let the wilfull or ignorant mistakers know that they wound Innocencie and through my sides strike their best friends I should not herein desire you to tender my Fame if the injury done to my name did not reflect upon my holy Station upon my well-meant Labours upon almost all the famous and well-deserving Authors that have stood for the Truth of God and lastly if I did not see this mistaken Quarrell to threaten much prejudice to the Church of God whose Peace is no less dear to us both then our Lives In earnest desire and hope of some few satisfactory lines from your Reverend hand in answer to this my bold yet just suit I take leave and am Your much devoted and loving Brother JOS. EXON TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD My very good Lord and Brother JOSEPH Lord Bishop of EXON these RIght Reverend and as dearly beloved Brother I have I confess been too long in your Lordships debt for these Letters which are now to Apologize for me that although I had my payment ready and in numeratis at the first reading of your Reconciler yet I reserved my Answer untill I had perused
of the forein Divines with whom I have so long conversed beyond the Seas concerning that Point I might answer in two lines that I have read your Reconciler and judge your Opinion concerning that Point to be learned sound and true Though that if I durst favour an officious lie I would willingly give my Suffrage to those Divines which out of a most fervent Zeal to God and perfect hatred to Idolatry hold that the Roman Church is in all things BAâ—EL in nothing BETHEL And as they which seek to set right a crooked Tree bow it the clean contrary way to make it straight so to recover and pull out of the fire of eternal Damnation the Romane Christians I would gladly pourtray them with sable colours and make their Religion more black in their own eyes then they are in ours the hellish-coloured faces of the flat-nosed Ethiopians or to the Spaniard the monstrous Sambenit of the Inquisition But fearing the true reproach cast by Job in his friends teeth Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him and knowing that we must not speak a lie no not against the Devil which is the Father of lies I say that the Roman Church is both BABEL and BETHEL and as God's Temple was in Christs daies at once the house of Prayer and a den of thieves so she is in our daies God's Temple and the habitation of Devils the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird Which I prove thus The Church is to be considered three manner of waies First according to Gods right which he keepeth over her and maintaineth in her by the common and external Calling of his Word and Sacraments Secondly according to the pure Preaching of the Word and external Obedience in hearing receiving and keeping the Word sincerely preached Thirdly according to the election of Grace and the personal Calling which hath perpetually the inward working of the Holy Ghost joyned with the outward Preaching of the Word as in Lydia Thence cometh the answer of a good conscience toward God by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ To begin with the last Consideration These onely are Gods Church which are Jews inwardly in the spirit as well as outwardly in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God who are Nathanaels and true Israelites in whom there is no guile invisible to all men visible to God alone who knoweth them that are his and each of them to themselves because they have received the Spirit which is of God that they might know the things which are freely given them of God and the white stone and new name which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it Of this Church called by the Apostle the people which God foreknew Rom. 11. 2. there is no controversie amongst our Divines In the second Consideration these onely are the true visible Church of God amongst whom the Word of God is truly preached without the mixture of humane Traditions the holy Sacraments are celebrated according to their first institution and the people consenteth to be led and ruled by the word of God As when Moses laid before the faces of the people all the words which the Lord commanded him And all the people answered together All that the Lord hath spoken we will doe The Lord said unto Moses Write thou these words for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel And Moses said to the people Thou hast avouched this day the Lord to be thy God and to walk in his waies and to keep his Statures and his Commandments and his Judgements and to hearken unto his voice And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee and that thou shouldest keep all his Commandements This condition of the Commandement God did often inculcate into their ears by his Prophets As when he said to them by Jeremiah This thing commanded I them saying Obey my voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people and walk ye in all the waies that I have commanded you that it may be well unto you So in the Gospel Christ saith My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me But a stranger will they not follow but will flie from him for they know not the voice of strangers where he giveth the first mark of the Visible true and pure Church to wit the pure Preaching and Hearing of Christs voice As likewise St. John saith He that knoweth God heareth us Hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of Errour Again the Lord saith By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another pointing out the Concord and holy agreement which is among the Brethren as another mark of the Orthodox Church As likewise when he saith Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven he sheweth that good Works are the visible mark of the true Orthodox Church The true Preaching and reverend Hearing of the Gospel is a visible mark of our Faith and Hope our Concord in the Lord is a mark of our Charitie our good Works are real and sensible testimonies of our inward Faith Hope and Charitie Where we finde these three Signes we know certainly that there is Christs true Church and judge charitably that is probably that every one in whom we see these outward tokens of Christs true and Orthodox Church is a true member of the mystical body of the Lord Jesus I say charitably because outward marks may be outwardly counterfeited by Hypocrites as it is said of Israel They did flatter with their mouth and they lyed unto him with their tongues For their heart was not right with him neither were they stedfast in his Covenant and of many of those that followed our Saviour Many believed in his Name when they saw the Miracles which he did But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men Therefore when the people of Israel departed from the Covenant and by their Idolatry brake as much as in them lay the contract of Marriage between them and God they ceased in that behalf to be Gods true Spouse and people though still they called him their Husband and their God When they made a molten Calf in the wilderness and worshipped the works of their own fingers God said to Moses Thy people which thou broughtest out of the Land of Egypt have corrupted themselves and not my people And Moses to shew that on their part they had broken the Covenant broke the Tables of the Covenant When under Achaz they did worse Isaiah called them children that are corrupted their Prince and Governours Rulers of Sodome themselves people of Gomorrah their holy
Upon the sight of an Eclipse of the Sun LIght is an ordinary and familiar Blessing yet so dear to us that one hours interception of it sets all the world in a wonder The two great Luminaries of Heaven as they impart light to us so they withdraw light from each other The Sun darkens the full Moon in casting the shadow of the earth upon her opposed face the new Moon repays this blemish to the Sun in the interposing of her dark body betwixt our eyes and his glorious beams the earth is troubled at both O God if we be so afflicted with the obscuring of some piece of one of thy created lights for an hour or two what a confusion shall it be that thou who art the God of these Lights in comparison of whom they are mere darknesse shalt hide thy face from thy creature for ever O thou that art the Sun of Righteousnesse if every of my sins cloud thy face yet let not my grievous sins eclipse thy light Thou shinest alwayes though I do not see thee but Oh never suffer my sins so to darken thy visage that I cannot see thee IV. Upon the sight of a gliding Star HOw easily is our sight deceived how easily doth our sight deceive us We saw no difference betwixt this Star and the rest the light seemed alike both whiles it stood and whiles it fell now we know it was no other then a base slimy Meteor guilded with the Sun-beams and now our foot can tread upon that which ere while our eye admired Had it been a Star it had still and ever shined now the very fall argues it a false and elementary Apparition Thus our Charity doth and must mis-lead us in our Spirituall judgements If we see men exalted in their Christian Profession fixed in the upper region of the Church shining with appearances of Grace we may not think them other thenâ—stars in this lower firmament but if they fall from their holy station and imbrace the present world whether in Judgement or Practice renouncing the Truth and power of Godliness now we may boldly say they had never any true light in them and were no other then a glittering composition of Pride and Hypocrisie O God if my Charity make me apt to be deceived by others let me be sure not to deceive my self Perhaps some of these apostating Stars have thought themselves true let their mis-carriage make me heedfull let the inward light of thy Grace more convince my truth to my self then my outward Profession can represent me glorious to others V. Upon a fair Prospect WHat a pleasing variety is here of Towns Rivers Hills Dales Woods Medows each of them striving to set forth the other and all of them to delight the eye So as this is no other then a naturall and reall Landscap drawn by that Almighty skilfull hand in this table of the Earth for the pleasure of our view no other creature besides Man is capable to apprehend this Beauty I shall doe wrong to him that brought me hither if I do not feed my eyes and praise my Maker It is the intermixture and change of these Objects that yields this contentment both to the Sense and Minde But there is a sight O my Soul that without all variety offers thee a truer and fuller delight even this Heaven above thee All thy other Prospects end in this This glorious circumference bounds and circles and inlightens all that thine eye can see whether thou look upward or forward or about thee there thine eye alights there let thy thoughts be fixed One inch of this lightsome Firmament hath more Beauty in it then the whole face of the Earth And yet this is but the floor of that goodly fabrick the outward curtain of that glorious Tabernacle Couldst thou but Oh that thou couldst look within that veile how shouldst thou be ravisht with that blissefull sight There in that incomprehensible light thou shouldst see him whom none can see and not be blessed thou shouldst see millions of pure and majesticall Angels of holy and glorified Souls there amongst thy Fathers many mansions thou shouldst take happy notice of thine owne Oh the best of earth now vile and contemptible Come down no more O my Soul after thou hast once pitched upon this Heavenly glory or if this flesh force thy descent be unquiet till thou art let loose to Immortality VI. Upon the frame of a Globe casually broken IT is hard to say whether is the greater Mans Art or Impotence He that cannot make one spire of grasse or corn of sand will yet be framing of Worlds he can imitate all things who can make nothing Here is a great World in a little room by the skill of the workman but in lesse room by mis-accident Had he seen this who upon the view of Plato's Book of Common-wealth eaten with Mice presaged the fatall miscarriage of the publick State he would sure have construed this casualty as ominous Whatever become of the Materiall world whose decay might seem no lesse to stand with Divine Providence then this Microcosme of individuall man sure I am the frame of the Morall world is and must be dis-joynted in the last times Men do and will fall from evil to worse He that hath made all times hath told us that the last shall be perilous Happy is he that can stand upright when the world declines and can endeavour to repair the common ruine with a constancy in goodnesse VII Upon a Cloud WHether it were a naturall Cloud wherewith our ascending Saviour was intercepted from the eyes of his Disciples upon mount Olivet I inquire not this I am sure of that the time now was when a Cloud surpassed the Sun in glory How did the intentive eyes of those ravished beholders envy that happy Meteor and since they could no more see that glorious Body fixed themselves upon that Celestiall Chariot wherewith it was carried up The Angels could tell the gazing Disciples to fetch them off from that astonishing prospect that this Jesus should so come again as they had seen him depart He went up in a Cloud and he shall come again in the clouds of Heaven to his last Judgement O Saviour I cannot look upward but I must see the sensible monuments both of thine Ascension and Return Let no cloud of Worldlinesse or Infidelity hinder me from following thee in thine Ascension or from expecting thee in thy Return VIII Upon the sight of a Grave digged up THE Earth as it is a great devourer so also it is a great preserver too Liquors and Fleshes are therein long kept from putrifying and are rather heightened in their Spirits by being buried in it but above all how safely doth it keep our Bodies for the Resurrection We are here but lay'd up for custody Balmes and Sere-cloths and Leads cannot doe so much as this lap of our common Mother when all these are dissolved into her dust as being unable to keep themselves from
how much we are more apt to take it Let but some spark of Heretical Opinion be let fall upon some unstable proud busie spirit it catcheth instantly and fires the next capable subject they two have easily inflamed a third and now the more Society the more speed and advantage of a publick combustion When we see the Church on a flame it is too late to complain of the flint and steel It is the holy wisdome of Superiors to prevent the dangerous attritions of stubborn and wrangling spirits or to quench their first sparks in the tinder But why should not Grace and Truth be as successfull in dilating it self to the gaining of many hearts Certainly these are in themselves more winning if our corruption had not made us indisposed to good O God out of an holy envy and emulation at the speed of evill I shall labour to enkindle others with these Heavenly flames it shall not be my fault if they spread not XXVII Upon the sight of an humble and patient Begger SEE what need can doe This man who in so lowly a fashion croucheth to that Passenger hath in all likelihood as good a stomack as he to whom he thus abaseth himself and if their conditions were but altered would look as high and speak as big to him whom he now answers with a plausible and dejected reverence It is thus betwixt God and us He sees the way to tame us is to hold us short of these earthly contentments Even the savagest Beasts are made quiet and docible with want of food and rest O God thou onely knowest what I would doe if I had health ease abundance do thou in thy Wisdome and Mercy so proportion thy gifts and restraints as thou knowest best for my Soul If I be not humbled enough let me want and so order all my estate that I may want any thing save thy self XXVIII Upon the sight of a Crow pulling off wool from the back of a Sheep HOw well these Creatures know whom they may be bold with That Crow durst not doe this to a Wolf or a Mastive The known simplicity of this innocent beast gives advantage to this presumption Meeknesse of spirit commonly draws on injuries The cruelty of ill natures usually seeks out those not who deserve worst but who will bear most Patience and mildnesse of Spirit is ill bestowed where it exposes a man to wrong and insultation Sheepish dispositions are best to others worst to themselves I could be willing to take injuries but I will not be guilty of provoking them by lenity For harmlesness let me goe for a Sheep but whosoever will be tearing my fleece let him look to himself XXIX Upon the sight of two Snails THere is much variety even in creatures of the same kinde See there two Snails one hath an house the other wants it yet both are Snailes and it is a question whether case is the better That which hath an house hath more shelter but that which wants it hath more freedome The priviledge of that cover is but a burthen you see if it have but a stone to climb over with what stresse it draws up that beneficiall load and if the passage prove streight findes no entrance whereas the empty Snail makes no difference of way Surely it is alwaies an ease and sometimes an happinesse to have nothing No man is so worthy of Envy as he that can be chearfull in want XXX Upon the hearing of the street-Cries in London WHat a noise do these poor souls make in proclaiming their commodities Each tells what he hath and would have all hearers take notice of it and yet God wot it is but poor stuffe that they set out with so much ostentation I do not hear any of the rich Merchants talk of what bags he hath in his chests or what treasures of rich wares in his store-house every man rather desires to hide his Wealth and when he is urged is ready to dissemble his ability No otherwise is it in the true Spirituall Riches He that is full of Grace and Good works affects not to make shew of it to the world but rests sweetly in the secret testimony of a good Conscience the silent applause of Gods Spirit witnessing with his own whiles contrarily the venditation of our own Worth or Parts or Merits argues a miserable indigence in them all O God if the confessing of thine own Gifts may glorifie thee my modesty shall not be guilty of a niggardly unthankfulnesse but for ought that concerns my self I cannot be too secret Let me so hide my self that I may not wrong thee and wisely distinguish betwixt thy Praise and my own XXXI Upon the Flies gathering to a galled Horse HOw these Flies swarm to the galled part of this poor Beast and there sit feeding upon that worst piece of his flesh not medling with the other sound parts of his skin Even thus do malicious tongues of Detractors if a man have any infirmity in his person or actions that they will be sure to gather unto and dwell upon whereas his commendable parts and well-deservings are passed by without mention without regard It is an envious self-love and base cruelty that causeth this ill disposition in men In the mean time this only they have gained it must needs be a filthy Creature that feeds upon nothing but Corruption XXXII Upon the sight of a dark Lantern THere is light indeed but so shut up as if it were not and when the side is most open there is light enough to give direction to him that bears it none to others He can discern another man by that light which is cast before him but another man cannot discern him Right such is reserved Knowledge no man is the better for it but the owner There is no outward difference betwixt concealed skill and ignorance and when such hidden knowledge will look forth it casts so sparing a light as may only argue it to have an unprofitable being to have ability without will to good power to censure none to benefit The suppression or ingrossing of those helps which God would have us to impart is but a Thieves Lantern in a true mans hand O God as all our light is from thee the Father of lights so make me no niggard of that poor Rush-candle thou hast lighted in my Soul make me more happy in giving light to others then in receiving it into my self XXXIII Upon the hearing of a Swallow in the Chimney HEre is musick such as it is but how long will it hold When but a cold morning comes in my guest is gone without either warning or thanks This pleasant season hath the least need of chearfull notes the dead of Winter shall want and wish them in vain Thus doth an ungratefull Parasite no man is more ready to applaud and injoy our Prosperity but when with the times our condition begins to alter he is a stranger at least Give me that Bird which will sing in Winter
into that sacred order that we stick at There we finde that none but Christ can make a Sacrament for none but he who can give Grace can ordain a Signe and Seal of Grace Now it is evident enough that these adscititious Sacraments were never of Christs institution So was not Confirmation as our Alexander of Hales and Holcot so was not Matrimony as Durand so was not Extreme Unction as Hugo Lombard Bonaventure Halensis Altissiodore by the confession of their Suarez These were ancient Rites but they are new Sacraments All of them have their allowed and profitable use in Gods Church though not in so high a nature except that of Extreme Unction which as it is an apish mis-imitation of that extraordinary course which the Apostolick times used in their cures of the sick so it is grosly mis-applied to other purposes then were intended in the first institution Then it was Ungebant sanabant the oyle miraculously conferring bodily recovery but now Non nisi in mortis articulo adhibetur it is not used but upon the very point of death as Cajetan and Cassander confesse and all experience manifests and by Felix the Fourth drawn to a necessity of addresse to eternall life Sect 2. Seven Sacraments beside Scripture NOT to scan particulars which all yield ample exceptions but to wind them all up in one bottome Whosoever shall look into the Scripture shall finde it apparent that as in the time of mans Innocency there were but Two Sacraments the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge so before and under the Law however they had infinite Rites yet in the proper sense they had but Two Sacraments the same in effect with those under the Gospel the one the Sacrament of Initiation which was their Circumcision parallel'd by that Baptisme which succeeded it the other the Sacrament of our holy Confirmation that spirituall meat and drink which was their Paschall Lambe and Manna and water from the rock prefiguring the true Lambe of God and bread of life and blood of our Redemption The great Apostle of the Gentiles that well knew the Analogy hath compared both Moreover brethren I would not have you ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized in the cloud and in the sea and all did eat the same spirituall meat and all did drink the same spirituall drink for they drank of that spirituall Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ What is this in any just construction but that the same two Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper which we celebrate under the Gospel were the very same with those which were celebrated by Gods ancient people under the Law they two and no more Hoc facite Doe this is our warrant for the one and Ite baptizate c. Goe teach and Baptize for the other There is deep silence in the rest Sect. 3. Against Reason IN Reason it must be yielded that no man hath power to set to a seal but he whose the writing is Sacraments then being the seals of Gods gracious evidences whereby he hath conveyed to us eternall life can be instituted by no other then the same power that can assure and perform life to his creature In every Sacrament therefore must be a Divine institution and command of an Element that signifies of a Grace that is signified of a word adjoyned to that element of an holy act adjoyned to that word Where these concur not there can be no true Sacrament and they are palpably missing in these five Adjections of the Church of Rome Lastly The Sacraments of the new Law as Saint Austin often flowed out of the side of Christ None flowed thence but the Sacrament of water which is Baptisme and the Sacrament of blood in the Supper whereof the Author saith This cup is the new Testament in my blood which is shed for you The rest never flowing either from the side or from the lips of Christ are as new and mis-named Sacraments justly rejected by us and we thereupon as unjustly censured CHAP. XVI The Newnesse of the Doctrine of Tradition THE chief ground of these and all other Errours in the Church of Rome is the over-valuing of Traditions which the Tridentine Synod professes to receive and reverence with no lesse pious affection then the Books of the Old and New Testament and that not in matter of Rite and History onely but of Faith and Manners also wherein as they are not unwilling to cast a kinde of imputation of imperfection upon the written Word so they make up the defects of it by the supply of unwritten Traditions to which indeed they are more beholden for the warrant of the greater part of their superadded Articles then to the Scriptures of God Both which are Points so dangerously envious as that Antiquity would have abhorred their mention Neither is any thing more common with the holy Fathers of the Church then the magnifying the compleat perfection of Scripture in all things needfull either to be believed or done What can be more full and clear then that of Saint Austine In his quae apertè c. In these things which are openly laid forth in Scripture are found all matters that contain either Faith or Manners Cardinall Bellarmine's elusion is not a little prejudicial to his own Cause He tells us that Saint Austin speaks of those Points which are simply necessary to Salvation for all men all which he acknowledges to be written by the Apostles But besides these there are many other things saith he which we have only by Tradition Will it not therefore hence follow that the common sort of Christians need not look at his Traditions that commonly men may be saved without them that Heaven may be attained though there were no Traditions Who will not now say Let me come to Heaven by Scripture goe you whither you will by Traditions To which adde that agreat yea the greater part if we may believe some of their own of that which they call Religion is grounded upon onely Tradition If then Tradition be onely of such things as are not simply necessary to Salvation then the greater part of their mis-named Religion must needs be yielded for simply unnecessary to all men And if we may be saved without them and be made Citizens of Heaven how much more may we without them be members of the true Church on Earth As for this place S. Augustine's words are full and comprehensive expressing all those things which contain either Faith or Manners whether concerning Governours or people If now they can finde out any thing that belongs not either to belief or action we do willingly give it up to their Traditions but all things which pertain to either of those are openly comprized in Scripture What can be more direct then that of holy Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉