the bones of them that have been or shall be interred here rest in peace untill a joyful resurrection Let heavenly goodness be on all those that shall here be wedded in lawful Matrimony remembring it is the mystery of Christ and his Church made one with him O let the most Divine Sacrament of Christs Body broken and his Bloud shed for us be the savour of life unto all that receive it Sanctify to holy Calling such as shall be ordained Priests and Deacons by Imposition of hands And we heartily pray that thy Word preached within these walls may be delivered with that truth sincerity zeal and efficacy that it may reclaim the ungodly confirm the righteous and draw many to salvation through Jesus Christ c. BLessed and immortal Lord who stirrest up the hearts of thy faithful people to do unto thee true and laudable service we magnifie thy Grace and the inward working of thy holy Spirit upon the heart of our gracious Soveraign Lord King CHARLES his Highness James Duke of York and his most Religious Dutchess and all Dukes Dutchesses Nobles and Peers of this Realm with our most gracious Metropolitan and all Bishops and others of the holy Orders of the Clergy all Baronets Knights and Gentry Ladies and devout persons of that Sex and for all the Gentry and godly Commonalty for all Cities Burrows Towns and Villages who have bountifully contributed to re-edify and repair this ancient and beautiful Cathedral which was almost demolished by Sons of Belial But these thy large-hearted and bountiful servants have raised up this Holy Place to its former beauty and comliness again Lord recompence them all sevenfold into their bosom As they have bestowed their temporal things willingly and largely upon this holy place so recompence them with eternal things and with increase of earthly abundance as thou knowest to be most expedient for them Let the Generation of the faithful be blessed and let their memories be precious to all posterity O Lord this is thy Tabernacle it is thy House and not mans perfect it we beseech thee in that which is wanting to accomplish it And for all those thy choice servants whose charitable hands have given their oblation to raise up again this sacred Habitation which was pulled down by impious hands give them all thine eternal Kingdom for their Habitation Amen O Thou Holy One who dwellest in the highest Heavens and lookest down upon all thy servants and considerest the condition of all men now we have begun to speak to our Lord God who are but dust and ashes permit us to continue our prayers for the souls health and external prosperity of all those that are concerned in this place Be favourable and merciful to the most reverend Father in God Gilbert Lord Archbishop of Canterbury our most munificent Benefactor under whose Government we reap much peace good order and happiness O Lord be merciful to me thy Servant the most unworthy of them that wear a linnen Ephod yet by thy providence and his Majesties favour the Bishop of this Church and of the Diocess to which it belongs Be a loving God to the Dean Archdeacons Canon Residentiaries Prebendaries Vicars Coral and to all that belong to this Christian Foundation Bless them that live and are encompassed in the Close and Ground of this Cathedral Pour down the plentiful showers of thy bounteous goodness upon this neighbour City of Litchfield the Bailiffs Sheriff Aldermen all the Magistrates and all the Inhabitants thereof Lord we extend our petitions further that thou wilt please to bless all that pertain to this large Diocess for all the Clergy of it that they may be godly examples to their Flock that they may attend to Prayer to Preaching and to administer thy holy Sacraments and diligently to do all duties to those under their charge that are in health or sickness O Lord multiply thy blessings upon all Christian people in the several Shires and Districts belonging to the Government of this Bishoprick and keep us all O Lord in faith and obedience to thee in loyalty to our Soveraign in charity one toward another in submission to the good and orderly Discipline of the Church And save us from Heresies Schisms Fanatical separations and all scandals against the Gospel And guide us all to live as becometh us in the true Communion of Saints Grant all this O Lord for Jesus Christ his sake To whom with Thee and thy Holy Spirit be ascribed and given c. PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorifie thy holy Name and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Then the Bishop pronounced a solemn Blessing upon the whole Administration performed and upon all that were present Then followed the Service of Morning Prayer for that day two especial Anthems in extraordinary being added Provision was made instantly for Alms to the Poor And in a very stately Gallery which the Bishop erected in the House where he lived his Lordship annexed to the precedent Solemnity a Feast for three days First to feast all that belonged to the Choir and the Church together with the Proctors and other Officers of the Ecclesiastical Courts On a second day to remember God's great goodness in the restauration and reconciliation of the Church He feasted the Bailiffs Sheriff and all the Aldermen of the City of Lichfield On a third day to the same purpose in the same place He feasted all the Gentry Male and Female of the Close and City He would often afterwards give God thanks who had accepted him as an unworthy Instrument to build him an House that what he could not accomplish at Holbourn in his younger years when he was more able to take pains yet He had now enabled him to do in his old age and far worse times when he found by experience the Wars had exhausted not only the Wealth but Piety of the Nation and that it was far easier under Charles the First his Reign to raise an hundred pound to Pious Vses than now ten pounds So some observe that in the Primitive Church Charity ebb'd lower and lower till the stream quite dried up the first examples thereof were most bountiful to provoke the liberality of following Ages Barnabas gave all his Possessions and so did many others Ananias divided half or thereabouts but the next Age minced it to a considerable Legacy and then it fell to Charity in small money afterwards to good words only as St. James sayes and I pray be comforted sed ecquid tinnit Dolabella seldom one cross or coyn dropt from them the like he observ'd in our own Church in the Ages past and present when Christianity was first planted among us our glorious Founders built Colledges and Cathedral Churches the next rank of Benefactors endowed Schools and Parishes after Ages gave
unto the worlds end The Schoolmen collect a threefold opening of the heaven in holy Scripture and every way through the power and act of Christ Says Ales In baptismo aperta est coeli janua per figuram in passione per meritum in ascensione per effectum 1. The gates of heaven were opened at this Baptism as in a Type or Figure that they should be opened and God will certainly make good whatsoever he did but shadow in a Figure 2. They were opened at the shedding of his bloud upon the Cross as by those means which did meritoriously procure the opening Therefore we sing in the Te Deum When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers 3. They were opened effectually when his own glorious body entred in once into the most Holy of Holies when the heads of the everlasting doors were lifted up at the day of his Ascension And where the head doth sit at the right hand of God the Members of the body having their sins washed clean away shall reign also The Earth never opened in holy Scripture but upon some Curse for the destruction of man The Heavens never opened but that some mighty Blessing might distil down upon us the probatum whereof is in the second general part of my Text for the first Miracle which we have handled did but make way unto the second And after the heavens were opened he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him That John Baptist had this Miracle so clearly in his eye that he saw the Spirit of God I find it not so material to the business of the Text as to insist much upon it For although some observe upon it that the first Witness that preach'd of the Son of God is conceited to be the first Witness that saw the Holy Ghost yet the Miracle hapned not so much for Johns sake as to lead the whole multitude into a right apprehension that Jesus was that holy One which came into the world for the redemption of Israel John was born of a barren woman his Garments very strange and uncouth no better than the skins of Camels clapt about him as they were flay'd from the beast his austerity of life stupendious his Preaching powerful high in estimation so that all the Regions round about came to him to be baptized this drew them to conceit that none could come into the world to be compared with John But Columba columbam docuit the Dove taught the Dove the Spirit taught the Church who was the Christ the Saviour of mankind by the descending of the Dove That which I will speak to this Point briefly shall be brancht out into a threefold inquiry 1. Whether this were a living bird or no more than the figurative Apparition of a Dove 2. How aptly the Spirit came in one figure upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at the day of Pentecost upon the Apostles 3. That the figure of a Dove doth sweetly admonish us of the properties of the Holy Ghost What manner of Dove this was is not a question of such doubtful resolution as the former how the heavens were opened for treading in the path of the Scripture as I adjudge it we may find the truth For three Evangelists say that the Spirit did sit upon him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as it were a Dove then add St. Luke unto it that the Dove came in ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in a bodily shape and these put together me seems do strongly prove two things 1. That it was not viva columba a Pigeon out of the Dove-Coats with a living soul for to notifie that there was but the outward fashion and resemblance of such a bird in three Gospels we read it was but quasi columba like a Dove And yet that you may not take it to be mere Phenomenon a shadow to perswade the eye having no substance in truth St. Luke hath not omitted that it was a bodily shape Verae effigies columbae a body created for this service having the true lineaments of a Dove To make both these opinions good by several illustrations And first what need it to be of the true Species of Doves Was not miraculous Omnipotency as much seen to frame such a shape out of the Elements at an instant and to put motion in it to descend upon the head of Christ as if it had been a very foul It was a work which could not be effected but by the infinite and incomprehensible Trinity For the Dove was a representation of the Holy Ghost the voice which came from heaven did speak the Father only the humane nature was united only to the Person of the Son but the Dove the voice the humane nature were the works of the whole Trinity which coequally works all effects in the world You may fully conceive what natural composition this Dove had by those bodily shapes wherein the Angels or God appeared of old to the Patriarchs they were not actuated by a soul but moved about by God or his Angels for the present turn as a Ship is by the Pilot. When their Errand was dispatcht the body vanisht away into air So the use of this Miracle being accomplished at Jordan the Dove was no more seen but instantly resolved into Elements Besides that which came down upon the Disciples at Whitsontide was a cloven tongue like as of fire did ever any man say it was fire indeed So this Apparition upon the head of Christ was like a Dove But for what purpose or necessity should it be a Dove indeed For Christ was man indeed because he took upon him the nature of man to redeem it therefore the reason is forcible that the Holy Ghost should not come down in a Dove indeed because he took not upon him the nature of a Dove to redeem it Secondly I gathered from St. Luke though it had not the life of a Dove yet it had lineaments and compacture of true substance like a Dove Christ came among us bodily in the flesh wherefore says St. Austin to shew that the assumption of a corporeal nature did not make an inequality of persons in the Godhead a voice was heard from heaven in the Person of the Father as if it had proceeded from the instruments of the body and a bodily Dove did descend from heaven in the Person as it were of the Holy Ghost Likewise the coming down is the motion of a body The Spirit is every where and cannot descend to any place which was not filled with his presence from the beginning of the world but in hôc signo in this bodily shape and effigie he came down And mark Beloved the Devil is Spiritus cadens I saw Satan fall like lightning down he tumbles to the nethermost Pit and all that follow him but the Holy Ghost descends like an humble Spirit according as our Saviour bids us place our selves at
but his illumination Wherefore the Church by way of external testimony was ever the best approved and most faithful witness of Christ yet this testimony so much beneath his Person were unauthorized and fruitless but that it is always governed by the inward Spirit of the Father Aquinas in a certain Sermon upon the Pentecost hath drawn up those things which bear witness of Christ into a certain number and that the verdict is given from twelve the most principal things in the world God the Father in this Proclamation God the Son in his own Confession God the Holy Ghost in the Dove-like Apparition the Angels at his Nativity the Saints that rose from the dead the Miracles which he wrought the Heaven which was darkned at his Passion the Fire when he sent the Comforter in that Element upon his Disciples the Air when he commanded the winds to be still the water when he made the Seas to be calm the Earth when it shook and quak'd at his Resurrection and lastly Hell it self when the Devils did acknowledge him calling him Jesus of Nazareth and saying We know thee who thou art But above all this testimony in my Text enforceth credence upon us more than any other as St. Ambrose thinks Si dubitatur de filio paterno non creditur testimonio If there be any spice of unbelief in your heart run hither to take it out for will you not take the Fathers word for the excellency of his Son that this is the Sacrifice in whom he is well pleased Shew us thy Father says Philip and it sufficeth Joh. xiv 8. Much more resolutely might the Church say Let us hear thy Father and it sufficeth We ask no surer warrant to confirm our faith For as Abraham answered the rich man concerning his brethren that did not believe If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one arose from the dead So I may say to all that receive not the faith If they will not believe the Father in whom all the treasures of knowledge are hidden then they may question if there be light in the Heavens perspicuity in the Air life in their own souls every thing that flesh and bloud can alledge must be dark and doubtful to their capacity God spoke from above through the air and it received his voice and when he speaks in our hearts shall not we receive his testimony Thus St. Ambrose in a sweet strain upon it Credidit mundus in Elementis credat in hominibus credidit in exanimis credat in viventibus credidit in mutis credat in loquentibus The rude Elements of the world were taught to admit the doctrine of Faith then much more let men embrace it inanimate things took the Symphony from the Fathers mouth let things which live much more receive it the dumb things of nature were taught to embrace the voice let those things which have tongues much more praise God for glorifying his Son To the upshot of the Point I add this and have done John Baptist did bear witness to our Saviour but his witness was too mean for so great a Person Quo ad nos in regard of our apprehension the testimony and approbation of holy men is a great matter but in regard of the honour of Christ it was fit that the Father who is coequal should testifie of the Son and so doth the Son of the Father which is excellently knit up in one Text Joh. v. 32. There is another that beareth witness of me and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true So by the voice of the Father we know the excellency of the Son and by the preaching of the Son we know the truth of the Father This is their mutual testimony In the second place the manner follows how the Father testified to the honour of his Son and that is by a voice Every Creature whether it live or whether it be inanimate every season of the year every blessing for our use that the earth brings forth though it be dumb yet I am not ashamed to say that it speaks aloud how there is a God that made us and preserved us To this purpose St. Paul spake to the Lycaonians Actc xiv 17. The living God left not himself without witness in that he gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness Since therefore all the Elements continually are dumb witnesses of the glory of God how easie is it for the Father Almighty to put a tongue into the air and make it speak I will not argue upon the strict terms of Logick how this can be called a voice being not uttered by the Throat and Palate and other Instruments of a rational Creature God is a transcendent above all the Arts in the world and many things proceeding from him are not to be examined by such rules this I may definitively say it was sonus articulatus an articulate intelligible sound of words as if it had come from the tongue of man And I would pass by this Point but that two things come in my way 1. How properly the Father is known by a voice 2. How well it expresseth the comforts of the Gospel Upon the first the School doth distinguish Efficientia vocis erat à totâ Trinitate declaratio spectat ad solum patrem Every effect belongs equally to the whole Trinity therefore this voice was as well the work of the Son and of the Holy Ghost as it was of the Father For so St. Austin beat down the blasphemy of the Arians who taught that the Father gave some honour to the Son which he had not nay says he Ille transeuntium verborum sonus non sine filio factus est alioquin non omnia per ipsum facta sunt That transient voice which was intended to glorifie the Son was made by the Son otherwise the Scriptures had not said All things were made by him and without him nothing was made But though the efficiency of the voice be common to every Person of the Trinity yet the signification of it was appropriated to the Father for he said the word and by it he made the worlds he spake and all things were created The Lord said indeed let the Firmament be made let the light be made and all things else not by oral prolocution but by the Decree of his holy will and as one said Facilius est Deo facere quam nobis dicere God can sooner make all things visible and invisible than we speak of it therefore the Phrase runs as if all things were existent at the uttering of a word And I know not if any similitude do speak that ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity better than this from the manifest pronunciation of a speech wherein are these three things together which cannot be parted The voice begets a word spoken and there is truth in that word which was spoken by the voice
away one opinion of St. Austins as quite out of the cancels of truth and then proceed He doth not deny but the dead through Gods concession may upon such occasions as the Lord directs them to appear unto the living he cites Samuel brought up by the Witch of Endor to speak with Saul What if that were not Samuel but an evil Spirit or an Imposter he cites Ecclesiasticus He objects what if that Book be refused because it is not in the Canon of the Hebrews Then he cites our present instance of Moses and Elias yet he falls off again and thinks the Saints themselves appear'd not but seem'd to appear by the Ministry of Angels Many times in the Old Testament when the Angel is sent from God as a Legate He speaks in the person of his King I am the Lord thy God therefore he presumes that Angels in this place might be called by the names of Moses and Elias for whom they appeared The same most excellent Author is more orthodox in other places upon this point This cannot well consist Christs glory was true and not ficticious it betokened a true estate of blessedness to us miserable men hereafter therefore it cannot piece well together that all this should be confirmed by ficticious and imaginary Witnesses Now I venture forward and first I will speak of Elias how he came in his own body then of Moses I have a reason for it and St. Mark 's words ly so there appeared unto them Elias with Moses In what body should Elias be an assistant to Christs glory now but in the same body wherein He was taken up in a whirlwind to Heaven Henoch and Elias were ever parallelled to be of the same condition in Gods favour that their Body was never dissolved from the Soul but in their whole substance assumed up on high Some Jewish Rabbins have presum'd to teach more than Scripture that the Bodies of Henoch and Elias were dissolved into Elements in their rapture and nothing but their Soul was received into Abrahams bosom I smell the leaven of the Sadduces in those Rabbies for certainly the origen of it came from such as they who resisted the truth that a Body could not be exalted to heavenly places Is not St. Paul enough to silence all tongues of that language Heb. xi 5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death If Enoch did not see death in his translation and that 's the fair letter of the Scripture no more did Elias Says Epiphanius Henoch and Helias their Bodies and Souls were never parted but remain undivided for ever Henoch lived a married life Elias was a Virgin to shew that continency in Marriage and Virginity shall both be glorified in the great day of the Resurrection Thus Epiphanius and I could name a multitude of concurrents who are advowers of the same sentence They that list to be contentious gainsay this Doctrin touching Elias his Body that it never was corrupted from the common theme of mans mortality Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. v. 12. Death passed upon all men what 's that but a just Sentence and Decree and none can say Why am I born to dy But there is mercy and power in the Most High to spare and to execute his Decree upon whom he pleaseth Heb. ix 27. Statutum est that presseth home says the Antagonist it is appointed unto men once to dye that 's the Text indeed but not statutum est omnibus it is appointed unto all men once to die as some do read it The ordinary end of men is death but God hath his exemptions and priviledges to limit that Statute I tell you a mystery says St. Paul We shall not all die but we shall all be changed there 's one limitation They that are found upon the earth at the second coming of Christ shall not die but shall be snatcht up with Christ in glory non separatione formae sed immutatione qualitatum their Soul shall not be taken of the Body but corruptible qualities shall be taken from the Body So it was in Elias his Rapture the Body was not destroyed but only that corruption which was in his Body Again it is appointed unto men once to die semel once and no more Yet the Shunamites Son Jairus Daughter Lazarus and many others brought back from their Graves died twice there 's another limitation of the Statute Nothing concludes from thence but that Elias his Body was never dissolved in that Body wherein he talked with God at Mount Horeb in the same Body he heard God talk to his Son at Mount Tabor about the time of the Transfiguration But as for Moses after what manner he came to Christ in the shape of a Body I cannot speak with any certainty To hold that the elements were compacted into the figure of a Body that he might use it for that occasion and then disperse it into air when the mysterie was finished hath an ill relish in it because imaginary shapes like Pageants to be set up for a while and strait taken down again were not fit demonstrations of the truth of the Resurrection Damascen observes wittily that it is likely how the Promise which God did long before make to Moses was now fulfilled Exod. xxxiii 23. That thou shalt see my back parts but my face shall not be seen meaning says he that the eye of man could not see his Divinity but he should have the honour to see Christ incarnate That is not unfitly called posteriora or exteriora Dei the out parts or the Veil of the Godhead Now was that desire of Moses fulfilled and the Son of Man in excellent beauty stood before him but had he not seen him with his own eyes all had not been according to his first desire and affection And me-seems that this conjecture is not weak if Elias had appeared in his own flesh Moses but in a phantastical shape this had derogated from the dignity of Moses who was the Prophet than whom none was greater from the Law to John the Baptist The Jews oppress us again with their figments in a second opinion saying that Moses was so beloved of God that he never saw death but continued in his Body for ever as Elias doth Josephus tells us his mind herein so plainly that I perceive the most did follow him that when Joshuah and Eleazar had parted with Moses upon Mount Nebo he was taken away from them in a Cloud and advanced to Heaven but to make the people quiet that they might not talk too much of his exaltation and attribute too much honour unto him he left it written that he died in the Land of Moab But this doth peremptorily contradict the Holy Word in divers places He died and was buried in a Valley in the Land of Moab Deut. xxxiv 6. according to the word of the Lord. That word is in the same book Deutr. xxxii 50. Thou
of Heaven and all the Stars thereof Moreover Vna Sabbati litterally rendred is not the first but one day of the Week because one is the first ground to begin numbring and Theophilact says the Lords day is called the one day of the Week either because it is the only day from whence the blessing is procured for all the rest or besides it is a figure of the life to come Quando una tantum dies est nequaquam nocte interpolata when there shall be but one day for ever and no night of darkness to interrupt it Thus much of the words The matter of the Point is of a more profitable use And hence I begin that as God the Father upon the first day did begin to make this visible world of Creatures so Christ rose the same day from the dead to signifie that a new Age was then begun Resurrectio est alterius mundi spiritualis creatio says Justin Martyr The Resurrection is well called a creation of a new spiritual world On the first day of the Week God said Let there be light and he divided between the light and the darkness Verily on that wise on the first day of the Week God brought the light of the world out of the darkness of the Grave and the life says St. John was the light of men Now this infinite work to tread death under feet and to bring all flesh out of corruption into the state of immortality being more eximious than to make man in a possibility at first to die and perish therefore all Christian Churches have desisted to meet together at holy exercises upon the Sabbath of the Jews and the first day of the Week is the day appointed to sanctifie out selves unto the Lord for what reason I will now unfold and it is a case of no small perplexity And let me auspicate from the Text and Authority of Holy Scripture and these places following do conspire to verifie the Truth Acts xx 7. Paul abode seven days at Troas the seventh day of his abode was the first day of the Week then and not before it seems upon the first day of the Week when the Disciples came together to break Bread that is to partake of the Lords Supper Paul preacht unto them This seems to approve that in the Apostles time it was no more in use for their Disciples to meet upon the Sabbath but as well to honor the Resurrection as to separate from the Rites and Customs of the Jews in the Spirit of God they did convene together on the first day of the Week From Preaching and Administring the Holy Communion let us come to Collection of Alms. 1 Cor. xvi 2. Vpon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come How can this be expounded but that distributions were made to the poor upon the first day of the Week in their most solemn Assemblies For if the meaning were that every man should set apart a share of his own gains upon that day in his private Coffers and not in the publick Treasury when their Congregations were together then Collections had been to be made from house to house when Paul was to come who desires it might be laid up in readiness as it were in one stock before 'T is pity we are faln from that good order but in the most antient Church I find that they never miss'd to carry the Poors Box about every Lords Day witness this place of St. Cyprian Locuples es dives Dominicam celebrare te credis quae Corbanam omnino non respicis Thou that art rich and wealthy dost thou imagin thou keepest the Lords Day as thou oughtest and dost cast nothing into the Treasury Thirdly as the last day of the Week when God rested from his works was called the Sabbath of the Lord so it is of much moment to the point that the first day of the Week is called the Day of the Lord or the Lords Day Rev. i. 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lords Day as it appears Rev. i. 13. John was walking on the Sea shore meditating upon holy things in the Isle of Patmos Very probable that there was no solemn meeting to praise God as it ought to have been among those Pagan Islanders otherwise John had not betaken himself to solitary Meditations but see how he was recompensed Nactus est Doctorem ipsum Deum quando fortasse deessent quos ipse doceret when he was disconsolate because he wanted Auditors to teach God preached unto him the Mysteries of the Age to come But to enforce the Text forenamed for an Argument we have but two things in the New Testament called the Lords the Sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord 1 Cor. xi 20. and this day of Christian Assemblies is called the Lords Day the Lords Prayer and the Lords House are good Phrases but our own not the Scriptures but as we keep the Feast of Passeover no more but instead thereof eat the Lords Supper so neither do we observe the Jews Sabbath any more but instead thereof we keep the Lords Day Thus far I have prest the Authorities of Sacred Scripture The Authority of the Primitive Church and so downward to this Age will convince it clearly against any that is obstinate Ignatius was St. John's Scholar and as if he had learnt of his Teacher he writes thus Let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lords Day which is dedicated to the honor of his Resurrection the Queen and Princess of all days Justin Martyr commands the same day to be kept holy to the Lord every Week in his 2. Apolog. So doth Tertullian more than once and I cited St. Cyprian before The Council of Laodicea speaks thus resolutely Anathema to all those that rest upon the Sabbath let them keep the Lords Day when they observe a vacancy of labor and do as becometh Christians The great Council of Nice doth not command the first day of the Week to be kept holy but supposeth in the 20. Canon all good Christians would admit that without scruple and then appoints other significant Ceremonies to be kept upon the Lords Day from Easter to Whitsontide I need not reckon downward after the Nicen Council because in one word I have not heard or read that it was opposed by any of the Fathers They knew that an appointed time must be allotted for every necessary Duty and certainly upon the abrogation of the Old Sabbath not Man but God did appoint a time for so necessary a thing as the religious Service of his Name Christ made an end of all Sabbaths by his own Sabbath lying all that day and night in the Grave and to hold that the Sabbath which is but a Shadow is to continue is to hold that Christ the Body is not yet come yet that being laid apart let us
be our Intercessor with his Father and to prepare a place for us Whitsunday or the Coming of the Holy Ghost is like a fair Land-mark to instruct the most unlearned that though our nature is most corrupt and averse from all good motions yet the spirit is poured into us whereby in some weak measure we become obedient Children and cry Abba Father These are the Days which the Lord hath made and when we devote our selves to magnifie him upon these occasions they prove the best means to teach us the Catechetical and fundamental points of faith And as Christ was great in himself and in those works of grace so He is great in the Angels of Heaven great in the Apostles in the Evangelists in all Saints and Martyrs and the choice is made by our Church of the Flower of all occasions in this kind publickly to praise the Lord and it is very fit I say that there should be a sensible difference between these and common days both for our thanksgiving and for the profitableness of our piety Gods works are all worthy of observation but not at all times alike to be remembred for as the Lord by being every where doth not give unto all places one and the same degree of holiness but the Church is more sacred than the High-ways of the Field though Gods Immensity and Omnipotency is alike in both so neither is one and the same dignity competent to all times although the Omnipotency of God doth work in all times but as his extraordinary presence hath hallowed and sanctified certain places so they are his extraordinary works which have worthily advanced certain times for which cause they ought with all men that honour God to be in more honour than other dayes I should add two things more that are very ponderous to confirm this truth one from the practice of some holy persons in the Old Testament whose constitutions God approved the other from the practice of our Fore-fathers in all Ages and 't is fit to tread in their steps in things that are laudable honest and indifferent but this shall not be hudled up I will dilate it hereafter To dispatch all beside our holy due of the Lords Day we are now to celebrate the Kings Day and for good reason in all equity we ought to do some Religious Service on His Day who is the Defendor of our Religion Next under the Providence of God who but the King doth maintain the Truth among us therefore on what day of the week soever this Day lights it becoms us to set open the Door of the Church and to praise the Lord because we have freedom to come to Church all the year by his grace and protection We have no Romish Superstition no Anabaptistical or Presbyterian Anarchy to make this holy place irksom unto us God be praised that has given his Anointed a faithful heart to serve him and to uphold his People in the right way that they may hold up clean hands to Heaven I do read that Constantine celebrated an yearly Feast for his Victory against Licinius I read that the Church of Alexandria celebrated a Day yearly wherein the waters asswaged after a great Inundation I read that Alexius Comnenus appointed a perpetual Holiday for the memory of the famous Emperor and Lawgiver Justinian nay St. Ambrose calls to mind that Felix Bishop of Cuma kept that day every year in a magnificent manner to God wherein he was consecrated Bishop Thus former Ages have given us light that we keep in the Circle of that which is lawful when we adorn the Anniversary Day of the Inauguration of our most noble King with joy and festivity in the sight of God and first let us confess the Lords benefit towards us and say as the People did of Solomon Because thy God loved Israel to stablish them for ever therefore made he thee King over them to do judgment and justice 1 Chron. ix viii Secondly let as put up Prayers and Intercessions to the Divine Majesty to give great prosperity to our Anointed Sovereign to his Royal Consort and to their Posterity for ever AMEN A SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it IF you have ever seen a piece of Coin stamp'd with one face upon the fore-side and with another upon the reverse then set that fancy before you to understand the double sense of this Text. First If you ask according to the Letter whose Image and Superscription is this I tell you and I have told it you once before it is Davids And this is the triumphant Hymn of the devout men of Israel exulting that God had given them such a King to go in and out before them If you ask according to the Spirit to whom this Verse belongs most certainly it aims at Christ and that two ways either calculating this Day for the whole Age of the Gospel that is the day which God hath made to put gladness into his chosen through the remission of our sins because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Or else in a more eminent sort it is the joyful acclamation of the Church upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus that being the most honourable and most welcome of days because the Resurrection hath ever been esteemed the most glorious of all the works of the Gospel I have spun out the first of these concerning David to the last thread now my Web which is upon the Loom is concerning Christ that is I have given unto Caesar that which is Caesars and it is very expedient as the more principal duty to give unto God that which is Gods Indeed I cannot say that I am come to the heart and to the vitals of the Text till now till now that I apply it not as formerly to the Lords Anointed but to Christ himself our Lord anointed And I have clear way made me for this interpretation as clear as I can wish for never any that have received the Book of the Psalms for spiritual and divine melody but do reckon this Psalm and especially this part of the Psalm to belong to Jesus the Author and finisher of our Salvation The Doctors of the Jews says St. Hierom did use to sing it in praise of the Messias And the Doctors of the Christians must be all of one Chorus to chant it merrily to the Son of God because four places of the New Testament that is witness enough have made a challenge unto it that this Psalm is an Allelujah or Hosannah to the Son of God And because the words of my Text are obvious to be recited upon any memorable and plausible occasion sometimes they have been drawn to congratulate humane affairs yet with this reservation that none under heaven hath a true interest in them I read that in the second Constant Council held under Justinian the Emperour Johannes Presbyter as he was
can we spend our time more profitably than to speak of time as it is to be referred and allotted to the glory of him that made all time But that I may leave no part of my Treatise naked but cover that which I shall run through with some portion of my Text I must put you to call to mind what I delivered in general in two Sermons that these words excel both in the Letter and in the Spirit In the Letter they are part of a Psalm which was sung for Davids sake and for that Festival which the People kept to God for his Inauguration when he was made King over Israel In the Spirit they reach to Christ as David in most of his Psalms had more regard to Christ than to himself and that with two interpretations By some the whole Age of the Gospel is entituled the day of Christ for through the Gospel the terrours of Sin and Death and Hell are broken and we are comforted on every side to rejoyce and be glad By others among all Evangelical days the Feast of the Resurrection is pickt out by way of eminency for never did the Sun shine upon any day wherein we had more cause to triumph and be joyful than when the Son of God having been crucified for our sins did rise from death the third day to conquer mortality and corruption that we might live forever These Points being dispatcht in their proper season what is left to be handled Two things of great moment Beloved First the Resurrection of Christ did not only sanctifie that one day wherein he rose but occasion was taken from thence to sanctifie the first day of every Week to the Lord because Christ rose on the first day Hence I am your debtor to shew how this and every Sunday is the day which the Lord hath made and we must rejoyce and be glad in it Secondly Forasmuch as an holy day was appointed that all Israel might worship Jehovah for that precious benefit that so good a King as David was reigned over them therefore the Ordination of Festival days to profess thanksgiving for the high and excellent works of God becometh the Church for so good a sanction and becometh the righteous to be joyful in them Then of the Lords day for our ordinary Assemblies in Gods House and of holy Festivals for our extraordinary Assemblies these are the matter of my ensuing Discourse which I will follow upon the touchstone of truth and for the benefit of your edification Concerning the day which we keep weekly in the name of the Lord I must speak of it two ways in reference to Gods making and our rejoycing in reference to the Divine Sanction and out Sanctification The Divine Sanction of the day must be traversed in four Points 1. What ground we have for keeping the Lords day in the fourth Commandment 2. What ground we have for it from the Resurrection of Christ 3. What ground we have for it in the Gospel from the Precept of Christ or his Apostles And 4. What ground we have for it from the practise of the Apostles and from the practise of the Church in all ages In this piece of a Sermon I will deliver you my mind upon this Controversie which now adays makes voluminous disputes First It is manifest that the Fourth Commandment hath another air and Constitution in it than the other Nine Those Nine being consonant to the light of natural reason so that they bind the Conscience without a Law-giver this is neither principle or necessary conclusion of natural reason in such a clear manner as that a judicious man shall be forced upon understanding the terms to yield assent unto it And I wonder that any one should stumble so grosly to say that it is natural Law to keep every seventh day that is the last day or the first day of the Week holy when the distribution of time into Weeks is arbitrary and not natural This Commandment therefore having a composition in it diverse from the rest it hath somewhat in it particular to the state of the Jewish Synagogue and somewhat that binds the Christian Church For it doth not stand for a Cypher in the two Tables at this time as if the force of it were expired but there is somewhat in it which is Moral and obligeth mankind unto the end of the world The enforcement of the seventh day in strict and Sabbatical rest is out of date as well as the rest of the Pedagogical Ordinances of Moses But there is this Kernel within the shell that holy Assemblies are for ever to be called together at fit and convenient times to praise the Lord nay further reason and gratitude cannot imagine a more fit and convenient time than the constant solemnizing of a Seventh day nay than the constant observation of this Seventh day the first day of the Week Therefore I determine that we ground the keeping of the Lords day upon the fourth Commandment not upon the Letter of it for that were Jewish but upon the natural equity or moral contents of it We recede from the Letter as much as can be for they rested and we work on their Sabbath but to rest on the seventh day and to work on the seventh day cannot flow out of the same Statute For the moral equity we give all diligence to obey it and he that rejects the Lords Day or violates it transgresseth the Fourth Commandment because though neither that day there mentioned nor the determination of a Seventh day is absolutely commanded yet it is deduced out of it by consequence It is enough to have general and common Rules for Ecclesiastical Orders of time and place under the liberty of the Gospel And God gives us the light of discretion to draw out special rules at what time in what place with what Decorum and Order to meet together and if the governance of this discretion be not observed the Spirit of the Lord is disobeyed The Lord hath not given over his interest in our time but that we must allot some days and hours to his Service as it were for the redemption of all our time which is due unto him Neither hath he given us a vagrant liberty to serve him when we will but the out-goings of the Morning and Evening must praise him and we must often throng together at solemn times to worship him To go further though the Commandment hath not prefixt us a day for it prefixt no definite day but the Sabbath to the Jews yet it hath given us light what ought to be done by way of prudent Constitution viz. that we of the Evangelical Kingdom should grievously sin if we did not voluntarily devote as much time to the honour of God as the Jews were bound to do And then since the Lord did enforce why that day was enjoyned to them it was the day wherein the Lord did rest from his work and it was most pious that they should remember the benefit
mans excogitation is frivolous Indeed Ceremonies for the most part are unprescribed that particular Churches may be their own carvers in them only let them beware that they use their liberty discreetly But the offering of burnt Sacrifices is a matter of substance how came this into Noahs heart to do it By divine information certainly At some time about the beginning of time God did appoint a form of Religion to Adam and his Posterity which in the Breviary of the Book of Genesis is omitted which Lesson was read to Cain and Abel from whom they undertook the solemnity of Sacrifice and the Candle was lighted from hand to hand till the Tradition came safe to Noah Or thus very briefly Which God did deliver to Adam which Adam did commit ro Jared he to Methusalem which Methusalem did commend to Noah Never imagine that they were appointed precisely about the food of their body that is in the Letter of the Book and no instruction delivered for the food of their Soul That were such an omission that the worst Lawgiver would prevent much more the wisest The Lord did set his holy Patriarchs in order from succession to succession till the Law was written to communicate true Religion And it is St. Hieroms rule Omne verum à quocunque dicitur à spiritu sancto est Every mouth that speaks truth speaks it from the Holy Ghost From Abel downward all those whose Oblations had a sweet savour offered by Faith if by Faith then by Precept and Instruction for Faith comes by hearing Rom. x. 17. Sacrifice then was that Divine Worship which God revealed did please him that was the general approbation I do not say that every time they kept that duty they had need of a new and a special Commission St. Ambrose says that Noah did this good work of his own genius and not by any new particular Commandment Qui debitum gratiae ut à se exigatur expectat ingratus est A man must not stay after he hath received a benefit till God say unto him thank me now for such thankfulness were ingratitude Yet St. Ambrose hath far more voices against him than of his part that this holy Father had special directions for the solemnizing this Sacrifice and that expresly it was revealed unto him upon the taking in of seven of the clean beasts into the Ark Gen. vii 2. Of clean beasts by sevens that three Pairs were for propagation and the single odd one the seventh of clean Beasts and clean Fowls the celebs animal the pure Creature which mixt with no female was to be dedicated in an whole burnt-offering to the Lord. And then this example will so little favour Will-worship that it utterly beats it down the invention of man had so little hand in it that it was Scientia à Deo indita an inspiration immediately put into the Prophet by the will of God The reason why the bloud of Beasts was poured out to the Lord and well accepted of him will be ripe to be rendred by and by when I have first shewn in a word that Religion did never discord from it self by mutation of times The Saints in all Ages had the same Faith the same Worship the same Hope and expectation Pietas ante legem in lege post legem piissime sibi concordat Piety in the Law before the Law and since the Law is constantly the same and did never vary Mark therefore from this Text that the Levitical Ordinances of Moses in many things are but a renovation and amplification of Ceremonial Customs before the Law I said in many things that I might not fall into the same error with them who have overlasht that all the Ceremonial Law was in use and practice with the Patriarchs and that Moses did but compile and gather it up into a body If these men had been askt where they did read of the Levites and all the ritual Orders of the Priesthood before Moses where concerning the trial of Leprosie of Jealousie and an hundred things more I know they must be gravell'd and could not answer Nay in the next Chapter and the third verse says the Lord to Noah Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you but many living things were prohibited to the Jews in the Law of Ordinances that they should not eat them But this ground I know cannot be shaken that many parts of the Ceremonial Law had clear passage in the Church presently after the Floud long before they came forth in Moses name And the whole Moral Law was acknowledged to be just and righteous even from the beginning of the world Sacrifices Altars distinction of clean from unclean abstaining from bloud and things strangled Vows the Brother to raise up seed unto the Brother that died without Issue these are all purely Ceremonial and yet in practice before ever Jacob went down into Egypt and that was 210 years before ever the Levitical Institutions were enacted And that all the Ten Commandments were ingrafted in the good seeds of nature there are such evident examples for them in all the book of Genesis that it will be less tedious for you to ruminate upon them than for me to remember them But as a Book which is ill set forth or rare to be had is sometimes reprinted again in a good Edition by them that are careful to propagate Learning So those things Moral and Ceremonial which were in use before were revived again when the Law was committed to Writing and called the Scripture partly because the Age of man grew short and the Tradition of Religion through the more hands it went was the more corrupted and because the Devil did superseminare in corde scatter so many Tares among the Wheat that the pure Law was scarce to be found in mans heart and partly men were grown so guilty of the Law that they would not look into their own hearts where they found thoughts accusing them Facti sunt fugitivi à cordibus suis says St. Austin they shunned to look into their own knowledge and conscience which did condemn them therefore it was necessary to have the Law written that it might come unto men since men did run from it But the effects and grounds both of Ceremonial Sacrifices and Moral Precepts were in force from the beginning And we may say with Solomon There is no new thing under the Sun that which is called new hath been already of old time which was before us Eccles i. 10. And because all things which are written are written for our instruction I will spare some time to shew that it concerns us even after the cessation of all Sacrifice to learn why the Lord would be honoured with the bloud of beasts and with the fat of Sacrifices One of the best and choicest of the Fathers thought it such a gross kind of serving of God to kill Oxen and Sheep and throw their flesh into the fire such a tyrannizing over the
of the Israelitish Midwifes but good deeds also which like the Alms of Cornelius shall reach up to Heaven The Sea hath raged horribly and swallowed the Innocent the Stream hath gone even over his Soul that we might restore it again as mercifully as the Whale did Jonas with the increase of our substance that we might cast our bread as Solomon preached upon the waters God hath suffered an heavy sickness to wast away the afflicted and to consume his bones not that the Dogs should be more merciful than Dives and lik the poor mans sores but that our liberality might make him whole Canaan and the Patriarchs were well nigh famished with hunger what because God had forgotten to be gracious and had shut up his loving kindness in displeasure Not so but that Egypt might relieve them with their Granaries The Husbandman soweth seed in the ground and the encrease comes up thereafter God giveth it a body and to every seed his own body but the merciful man soweth a Loaf of bread in the belly of the hungry and it shall rise up again unto a plentiful Harvest Christ was made poor says Paul that we might be made rich and for the good use of our riches he hath made many poor There are few so hard-hearted but will protest with an oath if our Saviour had been incarnate in these our days how they would have strived to make him welcom their choisest Palace should have received him and his Diet should have been whatsoever the Earth and Sea afforded I says Tertullian Porrigat manum Jupiter accipiat if Jupiter himself would ask alms he should have it every man can say so Alass to promise this excess to him who needs it not is a kind of spiritual bribery Keep your costly Mansions to your selves and afford him some sustenance in an Hospital Take the plenty of the Earth to your own Table in sobriety and temperance and feed him with your Alms Basket If he say loe here is Christ or loe there he is and that every distressed Christian is nourished for his sake you may believe him Haec est tunica quam dedisti mihi Martine it is an old Story in Sulpitius the good Bishop Martinus cloathed a Criple with his Coat in the day time and in the Dreams upon his Bed he saw Christ himself wear it and thank him for it Such there are whom otherwise we may call good men but spoil their good parts as Crassus did with the love of money and having closed their Ark will not suffer so much as a Crow to fly out of it they will not believe this Divinity that to spend well upon Earth is to lay up treasure in Heaven Such a mans eyes are made of Spittle and Clay but not by Christ and they love to behold nothing but Gold which is indeed a refined Clay burnt well like a Brick by the heat of the Sun and the influence of the other stars Now there are but two common pretendments to make us spare our Purse and keep our hand withered in our bosom Semper aliquid curtae deest rei we have nothing to spare we have but five loaves and two fishes and what are they among so many O can you forget those mighty Mites which the poor Widow cast into the Treasury Three things says St. Gregory are incruenta sacrificia Sacrifices well pleasing unto God without drop of bloud shed Castitas in juventute sobrietas in ubertate liberalitas in paupertate a Chast Youth unspotted touching the Flesh Sobriety in Plenty and Liberality in Poverty And this is the Devils Topicks to perswade us we must repay nothing back again unto God unless He would give us as much as we could wish for Plato thought he made a charitable Common Wealth when by his evil Law to permit promiscuous lust no man knew another whether he were Stranger or Brother or of nearer Consanguinity So hath God knitted his Church together that we are all Christs and Christ is ours and yet we feel not the afflictions of Joseph they are nothing to us Nay it were well if we were not readier to give Stones than Bread and for a Fish a Scorpion This was Nabals Largess to David he told him he was a Runnagate from Saul his Master The next excuse against Charity is the great abuse of all good deeds and the wrong employment But though men be evil and the dayes are evil and the bounty of holy men is oft times wrong employed yet the Churches of God are no Transgressors why do the Rich men of the World nothing for them Do you expect that the Holy Ghost should come down again like a mighty rushing wind and enter in that every Wall and Window is left naked and decayed especially in famous Cathedral Churches to the injuries of the weather Good God! what was the zeal of our Fore-fathers that they should build more unto Religion than we can keep in reparation When St. Paul pleaded for a Collection for the poor Saints of Jerusalem feed them says he with your plenty who are enriched with their abundance With what abundance did the Apostle mean O say the Friers with the abundance of their good works and zeal as a bought or borrowed sanctity No such matter but for the abundance of the Words sake which first came out of the bosom of Jerusalem But all the Gospel which is preached in our Cathedral Churches cannot procure them so much benevolence as to preserve them from the curse of desolation that one stone be not left upon another And I would the innocent stones could fall down from their high Pinacles into the bowels of the earth from whence they were digged then were they safe and would be at rest again but now great men take them up and we must say in charity that which made God a Chancel serves to build them up a Kitchen or a Stable O if you will not be so merciful as your Father which is in Heaven be but as merciful as your Forefathers upon Earth who were zealous for the House of the Lord. But these things should rather be done then spoken Therefore let this suffice for mercy which is the first part of my Text. Now a complete Christian is not like a small Vessel which recovers his Haven with one Sail alone with Mercy only If you will have Religion to be ponderibus librata suis full poised on every side magna est veritas praevalet truth also is a prevailing part let not mercy and truth forsake thee And what is truth says Pilate but he would not stay to take his answer Why the Spirit is truth says St. John 1. Ep. v. I am the truth says Christ John xiiii God is Truth and in him is no error In a word your holy Faith is the Truth that which is armatura lucis the Armour of Light with St. Paul Rom. xiii that which is stronger than all things says Zorobabel in his Parable But
novitate vel obscuritate vel parvitate either it hath no glorious beginning for it is new or it cannot shew it for it is obscure or it dare not shew it for it is course and mean Now the glory which we have by Christ is amplified through these Comparisons For first Our Society began not obscurely but at Antioch the Metropolis of Syria one of the most populous and fairest Seats of the World in those days 2. The Records of it are without all exception in this indubitable sacred History 3. Neither is it a Mushrome of the field lately sprung up but it began in that Age when the Apostles of our Lord were living 4. Neither did we purchase our appellation from base and unworthy offices as by adoring the fortunes of men or by worshipping vain Gods but from the unanimity and accord which both Gentiles and Jews that believed did profess in serving the true only God and his Son by whom he made the World Jesus Christ No more then can be said then to these three Points Here are our Progenitors of worthy memory the Disciples their Title of honor and distinction they were called Christians and the place where they received it Antioch to make more of that which is so full in three parts were to make it less But of these in their order To begin with the Disciples and a little searching into them and their condition will make them known to be a noble and a numerous Society I must premise that two things had gone before which filled the Church with infinite increase of Believers First the Martyrdom of St. Stephen whereupon all that addicted themselves that way fled from Jerusalem and were strangely scattered abroad in most remoted places St. James from thenceforth calls them the twelve Tribes of the Dispersion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã St. Peter comes to some particularities and greets them by the name of Strangers scattered throughout Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia Bythinia yet these were but a few of them in one Walk as I may say for such as write of the Conversion of Nations give a probable demonstrance that some of those dispersed Jews had crept into evety Kingdom that was habitable under the Sun And I instance in one thing especially because Baronius quotes an old English Manuscript contained in the Vatican Library for his Author that the chief adherents to Christ namely Joseph of Arimathaea Lazarus with his Sisters Mary and Martha were despitefully committed to the Seas in a Barque which had neither Oar nor Sail but Gods providence and the winds brought it safe to Marseils in France where they all landed and Joseph the Apostle of this Kingdom made a further journey into our Island And do not marvel that there should be enow to replenish all the World upon this dispersion for before our Saviour's Ascension he was seen of five hundred Brethren St. Peter's first Sermon after the coming of the Holy Ghost gained three thousand souls more The number of five thousand more were added to them by the power of his next Sermon preached in Solomons Porch Acts iv And after this St. Luke never counts how many were converted they were past his reckoning he relates the Blessing thus in the gross The number of the Disciples multiplied greatly and a great company of the Priests were obedient to the Truth Acts vi 7. You see what store of laborers here were which were all cast out of Jerusalem upon the Persecution which was raised at the death of Stephen Non dispersi sed seminati non imbecillitate disjecti sed fidei gratiâ divisi says St. Athanasius they were not turned abroad at random but sown like seed in every quarter of the earth it was not fear and infirmity but the Grace of God which divided them Well the next thing that made the Spirit of God blow like the wind in all places where it listeth was the Conversion and Baptizing of Cornelius the Italian Captain about the seventh year after the Ascension of our Saviour The baptizing of the Eunuch by Philip though he were a more honourable person than Cornelius the great Treasurer to Queen Candace yet it made no noise at all for the Eunuch though an Aethiopian and so a Gentile yet he was a Proselyte of the Jewish Religion and so no Gentile Cornelius and his Houshold were the first of meer Gentiles that received the Holy Ghost and were baptized in the Name of the Lord. The tidings hereof did quickly arrive among the Brethren in all places and the Disciples knew by that token that they might spend their labours not upon the Jews only but upon the Gentiles also You see the means by which the Evangelical Truth was advanced so did Antioch grow to be a famous Church partly by their labours who fled from Jerusalem when St. Stephen was stoned ver 19. partly by attracting great numbers of Graecians to the faith of the Lord Jesus ver 20. and these now compounded together in one Body the faithful of the Circumcision and the faithful of the Uncircumcision these are Disciples recorded in my Text. This will put it likewise from your conceit that the twelve Apostles are not meant here by the attribute of Disciples they come far short of that exceeding number of Saints that were so entitled nor yet those seventy sent by two and two to preach and to cure diseases Luk. x. for distinction sake they began to be called old Disciples in these days as Mnason of Cyprus is called an old Disciple Act. xxi 16. But according to the largest courtesie of the word those that embraced the Doctrin of eternal life and this is done with our Saviour's good leave as it is Joh. viii 31. If you continue in my word then are you my Disciples indeed Sectaries and prophane Hereticks spread their errors abroad wo unto those that give ear unto them The great Dictators of natural Sciences ground their conclusions upon Principles of reason and would attain felicity not by faith but by arguments Miserable were all those that affected to be so wise that they could not be saved they are not these Disciples But leaving these pudled fountains blessed were the true Scholars of Grace that drew their waters from the Cisterns of Christ Truth went before them as a light and Sanctity did guide them by the hand these are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã taught of God as the word is in St. Paul And this is consolation enough to sweeten all other misery so the Prophet cherisheth the distressed Church that it was her glory that her Children should be the Disciples of that Truth which came down from Heaven O thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted I will lay thy foundations with Saphires c. and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord Isa liv 13. How much did the Pharisees honour the poor man that was born blind when they meant to spit defiance in his face saying Thou art his Disciple Was
honour of God did infect the air and provoke this immediate putrefaction in Herods bowels Beloved We do all hold up our hands and bless our selves from such a vengeance as fell upon him that the very flesh should putrefie in his body and breed stink and loathsomness yet our lustful Gallants will take no warning but incur a more odious disease a more putrefying corruption of the body by their uncleanness and fornication than ever Herod had It is very strange to see how one Country will shift off the name of that disease to another which for reverence to your ears I will not mention The Indian will not own it The Naopolitan shuns the disgrace to have it pinn'd upon him the French translates it upon another People whole Kingdoms were ever ashamed of the infamy and yet this man and that man and the other that haunts Stews incurs it knows of it professeth it Beloved is such a putrefied Carkass fit to make a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in or rather fit to make a Hog for Satan to enter in and run him headlong to his ruine O you are sure all shall be cured by Baths and Chirurgeons when the Angel of the Lord may strike you immediately that you give up the Ghost So indeed our Saviour himself is said to give up the Ghost but with much difference from Herod in the very original phrase ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. John ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Luke and St. Mark ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Matthew still there is mention of the Spirit in all the four Evangelists because Christ was full of the Holy Ghost But ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says my Text of Herod he breathed out his soul no mention of the Spirit for he was homo ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as St. Paul says Efflavit animam he disgusted out his soul which no doubt did loath the body To conclude all If you ask me what became of Herod after these words He gave up the Ghost I have no Commission from the Scripture to search into it he had much cause to give God thanks if he were saved who gave him five days repentance after he was struck to be sorry for his sin If he were condemned we have cause to give God thanks who hath made Herod an example unto us and might have made us had we been created sooner an example unto Herod Like Davids Arrows about Jonathan so are Gods Judgments about us on this side and beyond round about our eyes his name be blessed for evermore that we are not the mark of his indignation Which mercy that he may continue towards us we beg for the merits of Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit c. THE FIRST SERMON UPON GAL. iv 26. But Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all AN odd conceit that came into the head of the Cosmographer who said that if two Eagles equally strong in flight should be chosen out the one being set at the furthest part of the East in Asia the other at the furthest part of the West in Europe if these two should take the wing just in the same moment and not rest till they came together they would meet both at Jerusalem as if it were the Navel of the habitable World I rehearse it as a Dream and I give it this Interpretation The Synagogue under the Law of Moses was the Occidental Eagle the Gospel of Grace the Oriental Eagle which did rise with Salvation in its wings why these two holy Professions which soared aloft when all other Religions crept upon the ground I say these two when St. Paul wrote this Epistle to the Churches of Galatia did conspicuously meet in Jerusalem as in that Theater whereon they did act their most principal part There was the Chair of the Scribes and Pharisees advanced that taught the exactest way of the Law there was the Temple wherein the Rites and Ceremonies were performed daily which Moses commanded And likewise from thence began the Gospel to go forth into all the Earth and had gained more ground there than in any other place You have filled Jerusalem with your Doctrin say the High Priests Lo this is the Rendezvouz of the Cosmographers two Eagles and this is the Explication of his Fable You know they continued there a short while for about the space of forty years like Twins strugling in one Womb. And though at first the Propugners of the Law would in no wise consent that the College of the Apostles the Preachers of the new Covenant of Grace should have any room in their Principality yet in a short time the Devil saw it best for his purpose to let them share together Nec meum nec tuum sed dividatur let it neither be Moses alone nor Christ alone but let them mix together This was the bane of sincere truth for every Metal that is mixed with gold embaseth it And yet it was entertain'd as a motion sent from Heaven to make peace and amity in all the Churches of Galatia till the Lord stirred up the spirit of St. Paul to dissolve this Combination which he performs with most approved success in this Chapter And because Similitudes and Figures will hold faster in the memory of the unlearned who are the greater number than powerful Arguments after weighty Reasons premised the Apostle concludes with an Allegory at the end of his Disputation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as a Banquet after a Meal of solid meat And thus it runs that they who sought righteousness by the Law were no better than Ismael the Son of Hagar they that sought righteousness by Faith were as Isaac the Heir of his Father That the Law came from Sinah which was seated in Arabia a Mountain quite out of the Confines of the Land of Promise the Gospel began at Sion or Jerusalem which was the heart of the Holy Land Or let Jerusalem be compared with it self and it was under servitude and malection by the Profession of the Law but it gained honour and a beautiful Portion by the Profession of the Gospel Jerusalem which now is in bondage with her Children but Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all Out of this contention between St. Paul and the Galatians those suspensive men those neutrals that would be half Jew half Christian and so were rightly neither Jews nor Christians I say from hence the legitimate Church which is the undefiled Spouse of Christ hath purchased this description which I have read unto you wherein divers of her Privileges are collected together I do not say all for under the Title of the Kings Daughter she is described circumamicta varietate Psal xlv clothed with as much embroidering and varieties as could be rehearsed in a long Psalm In this little Abstract of the excellency thereof six Portions of its glory are conteined in six words ãâã ãâã ãâã
frame which the wise men of the world did think most out of order Some will say in their first cogitations upon my Text Are these the Souls of the First-born in Heaven that make such a clamour against their Persecutors Can they indeed be so eager of revenge Tantae ne animis coelestibus irae Besides Are they so passionately addicted to their own desires that they will not stay the prefixed time which God hath set but challenge him for slackness Vsque quo How long dost thou put us off Again What imperfection is this which they pretend as if they knew not how long it were till Christ would take the Kingdom into his hand and judge the proud after their deserving How do they know as they are known if they be kept so short of divine revelation But to stifle these Cavillations take special notice that you lose the whole Chain of this Prophesie if you hold not fast by this Link that St. John was in a rapture and taken up to the Heaven in the Spirit where the passages which he met withal were not really transacted but he seem'd to see the souls which were slain and he seemed to hear the moans which they made which is nothing else but a Prosopopaea where the Spirits of the Martyrs are imaginarily brought in as if they demanded the suppression of violent men that had spilt their bloud which doth not evince that any infirmities or disorderly affections are in them which may rashly be supposed but to set two things streight in our opinion which many Philosophizing heads did champ upon as if they were crooked in the Divine Providence First The righteous are taken away and no man regardeth it as the Prophet says Their days are cut short by violence and cruelty and yet their Persecutors live and are mighty What did the Heathen say to this who had good report for their Moral Conversation Is there no Justice in heaven Or doth it set no price upon the bloud of Just men Yes here is the best assurance that can be demanded a Scene as it were acted in heaven wherein is represented that the wrongs of the Saints are fresh in memory and shall never be forgotten Yet this is not all As this Scale is hoised up so there is another that must down as fast and that is principally aimed at in this Text. An Oppressor whose hand hath been very heavy upon another he is always jealous that in the turn of the Wheel his malice may be requited For none so miserable but in the Revolutions of Fortune may call his injuries to an account if he live What is the Method therefore of them that are profound Graduates in Malice Why mortui non mordent Let not thine Adversary live if you love to be secure dispatch him As Bassianus insulted over his Brother Geta when he had killed him Sit Divus frater meus modò ne sit vivus as long as my Brother lives not I care not though he be among the Gods Or as Jezebel cheared up Ahab that the worst was past Arise eat and take possession Naboth is not alive but dead This is a Maxim then in the Devils Politicks if you hunt for the destruction of any man your safety is in his utter extirpation This is as false as God is holy and true It is palpable that my Text labours especially with this Doctrine That the poor oppressed is more likely to obtain redress against his enemy when he is dead than when he was alive His Soul is then most precious to the Lord his Prayer most flagrant he is so near to Christ that he is next to the Altar his understanding is so enlightned that he knows what to ask and never fail Do their Oppressors think that these can do no harm because their bones lie scattered before the pit I would not be in Ahabs case though Naboth be dead and not alive for no worldly good would I provoke the clamours of such as these for they cry with a loud voice c. Here you have a Petition then put up to a mighty King by some persons that had sustained injury and after that garb I will divide it First As it useth to be in such petitory Writs consider we to whom the Supplication is preferred to one from whom there lies no appeal the King of Kings and Lord of Lords And the words are so laid together that the Souls under the Altar do beseech him by his three mighty Attributes Per potentiam per bonitatem per trigam gloriae He is the Lord therefore they implore him by that power which can do all things He is Holy therefore they solicite him by that goodness which detests Oppressions He is Truth and therefore they urge him by those Promises made which he cannot but accomplish It is the Lord holy and true into his hands they commend their Petition Secondly The manner of Petitioning is with vehemency and importunity With vehemency for they cried with a loud voice With importunity for they expostulate that it is not yet done How long Lord c. Thirdly Their asking and request is for no petty injury but for their bloud to judge and avenge their bloud Lastly The parties against whom they complain are expressed by contempt of their condition They dwell upon earth And now tell me if the Eagle hath not cause to fear though he hath torn these innocent Doves to pieces in his talons In what peril do those Grantortoes live that have slain the poor Servants of Christ heaps upon heaps When such a God is besought by the souls of such dear servants with such zeal and vehemency upon so great an injury and against such worldlings whose best project is to live upon the earth what will this come to in the end But the restauration of the afflicted the destruction of their Persecutors unto these tears for their joy in the nethermost Hell unto the others joy for their tears in the Kingdom everlasting Having thus distributed the Text into portions I go back to that which I put in the first rank the Petition is preferred to the Lord to the Lord that is holy and true And those words are both an invocation of praise and an obtestation by those sacred properties of the Divine Nature that their desire might be effected He that makes his address to God let him begin with his praise let him commemorate his excellent greatness let him delight to rehearse his Titles of Majesty without these your Petition is headless it hath no Exordium to induct it into the Court of grace extol him in his noble Attributes before you begin to exhibite your desires and the everlasting doors will be lifted up to let you in for the Lord cannot refuse his own glory As David bears you up to it in the last Psalm the Trumpet the Harp the Cymbal the Organ all Instruments of Musick are in the Tongue of him that doth praise the Lord. They were no babies
therefore whatsoever the refractory think that filled our Liturgie with Te Deums with Magnificats with Doxologies Methinks Prayer were but a drowzy thing without them When we ask any thing that we need we speak in the Dialect of men but when we send forth acclamations to the honour of Jesus Christ we speak with the tongues of Seraphims In our Petitions we may exceed and ask too much in our Doxologies we cannot exceed It agrees well to the true only God which Plato ascribed to his Idols heap what Epithets you will upon the Gods you cannot flatter them Perhaps some are of the mind of that Heathen that asked a Rhetorician to what purpose he penn'd an Oration in praise of Hercules for who did ever discommend Hercules Or if Blasphemers should detract from God his excellency it is not made less So all the invocations and Halleluja's of the Saints cannot add on Cubit not one Inch to the stature of his Majesty it is uncapable of increase and can never grow greater But will you be content to open your lips unto the praise of the Coelestial goodness if it bring your self to honour though it be no amplification to the glory of God Agreed then no man can ascribe much praise to God but out of a large capacity of faith for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost No man can speak of the King of Heaven according to his due honour but it will procreate devotion and reverence no man doth advance the name of God in the preface of his Prayer but it is a tacite Confession that he prefers the glory of his Maker before his own Necessity Behold now though Gods honour be in the state that it was before yet your soul is in a better state by Prayer and Invocation for a spiritual gift in this life is a degree to a reward in the life to come Let me not defer it any longer to speak of the ditty of that praise which the Souls under the Altar did give unto the most High And the words when they are laid together are Triga divinae gloriae as it is called a Chariot drawn by the three transcendent Attributes of the Divine Nature Who doth excel in Power but the Lord Who doth excel in goodness but the Holy of Holies And He that brings to pass whatsoever he hath spoken he must excel in truth Power belongs unto the Father for all things are by him Truth belongs unto the Son for all the shadows of the Old Law are fulfilled in him Goodness belongs to the Holy Ghost for he is the Sanctification that is diffused in our hearts Therefore more praise cannot be couched in three words than in these Lord Holy and True We wretched and ignorant sinners that utter these words with polluted lips we cannot apprehend as the Martyrs in Heaven do what an eternal weight of glory is in every one of these Syllables Yet we know that he is Lord whose authority admits no equal the Idaea of all goodness whose sanctity admits no question A Truth which is the measure of all truth whose words and statutes admit no contradiction His Dominion is so strong that it cannot be resisted his Holiness is so sincere that it cannot sin and his Truth is so firmly coupled to his Holiness that he cannot lie There is no Power but in Him for all the Foundations of the Earth are weak There is no Holiness but in him for there is none that doth good no not one There is no verity but in him for God is true and every man a lyar As for all the Gods of the Heathen there was infirmity in their protection for they had no strength Viciousness in their Sanctions for they had no sanctity Delusions in their Oracles for they were nothing but vanity To contract a world of variety which may be morallized out of this Triple Crown of God it is not to be over-passed that these are the Titles upon which the Church depends for all its blessings the Hills unto which we lift up our eyes for help Solium gubernandi altare sanctificandi cathedra docendi The Throne of his Kingdom the Altar of his Priesthood the Chair of his Prophetical Wisdom which afford unto the Church Might to protect it Grace to purifie it and Truth to direct it in all things Or observe it how the Enemies of the Church are over-matcht and trodden down by these Attributes We all know they are in three Ranks Tyrants Hypocrites and Hereticks To suppress Tyrants he is the mighty Lord for the detestation of Hypocrites he is the Holy One of Israel for the conviction of Hereticks Truth hath flourisht out of the Earth and Righteousness hath looked down from Heaven But if these be the Flowers of Christs honour if the Martyrs as some Expositors say meant of him only they are Lines which will easily I am sure meet in that Center Though once he was compassed with our infirmities yet now what Power so great as his to whom the Father hath committed all judgment What Holiness so perfect as his which challenged the censure of his Enemies Which of you can reprove me of sin Or what Truth so praepotent as out of his mouth which made his Adversaries confess Never man spake like him Not to leave this Subject without some utility to our life Are these Titles of our Father no way hereditary to us by Adoption of Sons Yes surely after the model of our earthen Vessel the compellation of Lord which is so awful and to be adored in the Supreme Majesty it claims veneration and submissive obedience to those Powers upon earth to whom God hath committed the execution of his governance The other two Attributes are not so restrictive but are the Vrim and Thummim of every Christian or like the two eyes in our head we know not which is dearest Holiness and Truth Truth is the illumination of our understanding in all points to be believed Holiness is the reformation of our will in all cases of practice Which of these can you spare and live your brains or your heart If Holiness be true there will be no Hypocrisie If Truth be holy there will be no contention If Holiness be true Zeal shall be joyned to Knowledge If Truth be holy Knowledge shall be joyned to action Where Truth is not holy Herod for the engagement of his Oath will cut off the head of John Baptist Where holiness is not true the Pharisees in defence of the Law will Crucifie our Saviour Wherefore put on the new man which is created after God ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the holiness of truth or in true holiness Eph. iv 24. Forget not I pray that I said these Epithets were not only an Invocation but an obtestation also as if the Martyrs had said As thou art the Lord as thou art holy as thou art true avenge our bloud of them that
humors then have with you they will be present in the Congregation Whereas our Saviour hath abstracted from all such humane qualifications and scandalous niceties that the sound of his Ministers should go forth into all the world and he that hath ears to hear let him not be so scrupulous in his choice but let him hear Paul was pleased to have Christ preached either through contention or sincerely all manner of ways says he I rejoyce Phil. i. 18. They that came to mock the Apostles as men drunk were caught by hearing them They that came to take our Saviour themselves were taken by hearing John vii 37. Many of the negligent rank that come to gaze about rather than to attend many that come hither with affections worse than beasts depart converted and repentant with a new heart and a new spirit more like Angels than men In brief let the Heathen that communicate not in the Gospel enjoy all that this earth and the plenty thereof can afford yet they and none but they are blessed that hear the word of God And if you will make a good man ply him apace with this exhortation to hear yet know now that is but the first rude draught of him till you finish him with that which follows he must hear and keep that which he hears Let him hear the sayings of Christ and do them then he shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock Mat. vii 24. Custodia Sermonis Dei est ejus adimpletio says Euthymius upon my Text to keep the word is to do as we are taught and to endeavour to fulfil the royal Law This is the very concluding promise which God did send to Israel by his messenger Moses If thou shalt hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day blessed shalt thou be in the City and blessed in the field Deut. xxviii most divinely the Psalmist Psal cxi 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have all they that do thereafter So that the understanding of the law of God consists not in knowledge and speculation but in practice and execution We must be Servants as well as Disciples The work of a Disciple is to hear and conceive aright but the work of a Servant is to do and obey and though dissimulation will intrude it self into every good thing yet there may be nay there is ten thousand times more hypocrisie in hearing than there can be in doing Imperfect fruits are more pleasing to God than bare leaves A sorry doer such a one as Ahab was in his sullen and crude repentance shall have more recompence from God than a barren unprofitable hearer that thrusts in at all the Lectures and Exercises that City and Country affords Live so that all men may see you have often talkt with God and God hath spoken often to you from this holy place else I must leave you among those that are censur'd by St. Paul 2 Tim. iii. 7. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth I told you before that Mary sate at our Saviours feet to hear his Sermon when Martha minded other domestical business between those two Maries choice was much more transcendent and unum necessarium but not unicum one necessary duty but not the only a part of Religion but not the whole for in another place Maries part of doing was far better than her part of hearing I mean her anointing of Christs head with a box of precious oyntment For this that she hath done shall be spoken of throughout the world Mat. xxvi 13. Let me make a summary application of all and so conclude This day we begin to solemnize the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and continue it with a Festival dedication for twelve days following There are three sorts of men that make most different uses of it some that are Epicures and never consider what great work the Lord wrought at this time that we have an Advocate with the Father who is the propitiation for our sins but they consider that feasting and freedom are vulgar in these days and they take their fill of that but according to their riotous manners you cannot conceive that they keep the Birth of Christ holy but that they celebrate a wakes for the making of some golden Calf for they sit down to eat and to drink and rise up to play Secondly There are others that honour God with their lips that will say this is an happy season wherein a Redeemer came down among us God hath raised up a mighty salvation for us all because he hath sent his Son to take our nature upon him And as Micah said being a most idolatrous sinner Now know I that the Lord will do me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Judg. xvii 11. So these men flatter themselves in their impenitent lives Now know I that the Lord will be merciful and spare me since the word became flesh and dwelt among us But I hope there are many of the third sort that conceive unutterrable gladness for the Nativity of their Saviour but they know withal that as Christ is the meritorious cause of all blessedness so it is a most barren faith to rest only in the contemplation of that for as all mankind are blessed that the womb did bear him and that the paps did give him suck so it must be accomplisht by this obedience Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Do you love him for his Incarnation then keep his sayings If a man love me he will keep my sayings Do you wonder that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son then take heed of maligning and hating one another He that says he loves God and hateth his brother is a lyar and there is no truth in him Do you honour his humility then command your self to imitate him in lowliness of heart would you do all due celebration to his sacred Birth frequent his holy Temple and hear his word and observe it 'T is much in every ones talk who keeps a good house in Christmass Beloved you are now at this present in the best that is Can any man keep a better house than God would you wish a more delicious banquet then such Confessions such Collects such Litanies such heavenly Prayers as our Church hath appointed in which there is nothing wanting but company to attend them what delicacies are contained in the holy Scriptures both read and preacht unto you what edifying Doctrine in the Homilies which are read on the Saints days together with the Divine Service and above all what Nectar what Manna what restoring Cordials are received in the Blessed Sacrament This is the house which God keeps who also allows you to be chearful at home at this season and commends it to you
hath redeemed his people Take the whole verse now together which is the exordium of this Prophetical Song and it contains two parts the magnifying of the divine goodness and the reason rendred why it was fit to break out into that devotion In the first here is the comprehension of all praise in this word blessed Secondly the comprehension of the divine titles the Lord God of Israel The next general member why this praise is given is drawn from two acts that God hath visited and that he hath redeemed And the Object of both those acts is it which makes it praise-worthy and thanks worth he hath visited his People First of all here is a full ascribing of all glory to God in this word blessed O how Zachary did meditate this all the while he was dumb O how much he desired all the while his utterance was stopt to bring forth these good words to the honour of his Maker He kept silence a long time from this heavenly Canticle but it was pain and grief unto him Now his mouth was opened with the key of the Holy Spirit to discourse of the wonderful works of God and it was a blessed thing that as soon as he was able to talk this was the first language that flowed from him Blessed be the Lord. Two things are the grace and dignity of our Elocutions Deum laudare verum dicere to praise the great Majesty of Heaven and to tell the truth upon Earth but why do I divide them two which will most properly fall into one For no truth so clear and evident as that the name of Christ is blessed for evermore They that speak the truth of him must speak well of him and whosoever blasphemes his honour is a Liar and an Antichrist As Hezekiah paid the Tribute which Sennacherib imposed upon him out of the Treasure of the house of the Lord and out of the Gold which over-laid the doors of the Temple 2 Kings xviii 16. so the praise of God is the chief treasure of our heart the chief thing that belongs to this holy place the very Gold of the Temple therefore when we magnifie his name we pay him Tribute out of the best thing which the Church can afford Neither is there any good business of Religion whereof we may be so confident that we are in a right course and do not swerve Our Belief may be grounded upon strong errors as it is among Hereticks Our Zeal may be transported into Faction as it is among Schismaticks Our Repentance may be slight and superficial as it is among Hypocrites We may be too forward in our Hope having no firm assurance from the fruits of a good Conscience Too free of our Charity when we do not distinguish who are fit to receive it Too prodigal of our Commendations when we do not note mens Actions whether they deserve it but be as copious as you will in magnifying your Creator and Redeemer and you are certain the work is very good most certain that you cannot tread awry Yet Satan and our own negligence are able to frame an objection against any truth which is most demonstrative What will our sluggish spirit say The honour of God doth not depend upon the fame of this World His glory cannot be raised higher than it is by our Jubilees and Songs or by our Instruments of Musick no though we could praise him as loud as claps of Thunder But for all this will you be content to glorifie him if it will bring your self to honour though it be no amplification to the Majesty of God Agreed then And first it is an high advancement that he will permit us to do him that homage though we should have no recompence for our labour it is abundantly rewarded that he will give us leave to exalt him he hath not dealt so with all people Unto the ungodly said God Why dost thou take my name within thy lips As it is an honour to the Magistrate that God hath committed the Sword of Justice to their power so it is an honour to every Christian that he hath permitted unto us to talk of his honour it is an Angels life continually to bless him and sound forth his glory Therefore that parcel of the Psalm may look this way let the praise of God be in their mouth and a two edged Sword in their hand the one is as great a priviledge belonging to us as the other to a Magistrate Secondly St. Peter grants it generally to all godly people Yè are an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices to God 1 Pet. ii 5. What is the spiritual Sacrifice but Praise and Thanksgiving Therefore let us offer up the sacrifice of praise sweetly and devoutly and all Christians shall become Priests in that respect and the holy portion of God and having offered up this visible sacrifice of praise we our selves in our hearts shall become the invisible sacrifice of God and bring oblation upon oblation unto the Altar it is nothing worth unless your own soul be the principal Oblation I press this the rather because it is so ill forgotten in the Roman Missal For they that do so often trouble your ears with their sacrifice and their Altar have not one word in their Missal that we or our souls should be a reasonable holy and living sacrifice to God Thirdly In giving glory to the Lamb and to him that sits upon the Throne we do not give but receive for no man can ascribe much praise to God but out of a large capacity of faith no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost no man can speak of the King of Kings according to his due excellency but it will procreate devotion and reverence therefore though Gods honour be in the same state that it was before yet your soul is in better state than it was before by praise and glorification Fourthly We do all agree with St. Paul that Charity is greater than the two other Theological Vertues greater than Faith that believeth all mysteries greater than Hope that expecteth all Promises and therefore greater because it shall abide with us in the Kingdom of Heaven when the other two shall vanish away So to laud and magnifie our Omnipotent Creator is far above all other acts of Religion because nothing else shall abide with us when we see God face to face There shall be no confession of Christ our Mediator for none shall deny him there shall be no fasting for man shall eat Angels food and have no need of nourishment no Alms shall be given for it is life without want and scarcity no Prayer for forgiveness of sins no hearing of the Word no sufferance of the Cross no intercession for them that suffer but the praise of God continueth and supplieth all the rest uncessantly we shall cry out Holy holy Lord God of Hosts which was and is and is to come Therefore it is called blessing of God because it
faln into it for where almost shall you find that men had not rather themselves should overcome than a good cause Always more studious of victory than of truth When Christ askt the Pharisees whether the Baptism of John were from heaven or from men though they could not deny it was from God yet they would not say so that the quarrel between them and Jesus might be endless Timentes lapidationem sed Magis timentes veritatis confessionem says St. Austin they were afraid to be stoned of the people for their obstinacy but they were more afraid to confess the truth What a fond affected glory is this Men account it among the flowers of their reputation not to be conquered in an arguement though it be never so absurd Like the two Harlots before Solomon nothing in their pleadings but clamour and reiteration the one said Nay but the living child is mine and the dead is thine the other said Nay but the dead is thine and the living is mine This is it which hath pluckt the Church of Christ into so many Schisms and Heresies that proud wits when they are in the wrong will never sit down quiet as if they were convicted and which is the calamity that our sins have justly deserved the Church must stay for peace till Sophisters and contentious have nothing to say that is when they shall be brought before the Tribunal of God and have not one word to answer for the crime of their invincible obstinacy Of pertinacious busie-bodies that will not be convicted when their errors be made apparent there are many sorts How stiff we are in civil brabbles never condescending to pacification every corner of the Kingdom is full of examples Do you know what you mean by that common Proverb of violence You will not lose your will though it put you to cost Not lose it said you O that you knew what will this is that you stand upon and you would never keep it It is the fuel of all cruel provocation the Gum that stiffens your anger the infernal fury that makes deadly fewds the defiance of love and charity the cross-bar of brotherly agreement nay it is Satans best advantage to make you miserable like himself in everlasting fire Is this that will for whose sake you will spend your estate to maintain it Is it not enough to lose your soul but that you will pay costs for damnation The heathen Greek Authors were very tart in their Proverb when they spoke of them that contended only for contention sake ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that they strived for no more than the shadow of an Ass And Lucian who is a profest flouter says it is upon this occasion An Athenian was to ride to Delphos and hired an Ass to carry him In the heat of the day he reposed himself behind the Ass and made benefit of the shadow to keep his body from the Sun the Owner that went along to bring back the beast would not suffer it but demanded to sit in the shadow himself for he let out his Ass but not the shadow the Contention says Lucian went so far that it came into the Court. This is the Story somewhat light I confess but good enough to warn brabbling persons that they strive not about the shadow of an Ass Away with obstinacy therefore which is the endless repulse of godly Union and let truth prevail for what should prevail but that which is stronger than all things The greatest Learning in the world must be a slave to Faith and the greatest Majesty in the world must be a slave to Reason Plato writes to Dion the Ruler of Syracusa Pervicaciam tanquam solitudinis parentem fuge Fly obstinacy and wilfulness it will beget you a solitary melancholy life for all your friends will forsake you Creon in Sophocles would follow his own mind hearken to no admonition and so brought all to ruine Tiresias speaks to him not to be stiff and stubborn for it was ever the fore-runner of great calamity and hath these two similitudes First When a torrent of water breaks into a place the little Willows that bend ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they are not removed they that will not give way are rooted out of their place 2. When the Pilot of a ship will not turn his sail to the winds nor observe how to let a turbulent wave pass by him he splits his vessel therefore the conclusion of the Point shall be with Solomon An haughty spirit goes before a fall and it savours much more of a Christian mildness to be easily drawn off from our own imaginations than to hold a stiff opinion in our teeth in despite as it were of all wise perswasions To be wedded to our own will and fancy is very bad in temporal affairs but an inflexible perverseness is ten times worse in spiritual purposes It was a just invective wherewith St. Stephen reviled the Jews Vncircumcised in hearts and ears you do always resist the Holy Ghost First the heart is uncircumcised full of swelling and pride Such a distempered heart pollutes the ear and will not hear of wholsom Doctrine and when the ear is not tractable to receive the truth then follows the resistance of the Holy Ghost The great opposers both of Law and Gospel in holy Scripture were Sorcerers men that were bewitched as St. Paul says of the Galathians that they would not obey the truth such as could not endure to hear there was any divine wisdom revealed from above which was above their own magical Philosophy and as some of our adversaries have said blasphemously that they had rather err in some things with their Pseudo-Catholick Church than be in the right Cause with the Reformed So those Magicians when their senses were convicted that the finger of God was with Moses and the Apostles yet had they rather err in their own hellish way than go uprightly in the way of God Simon the Sorcerer what did he see in Peters Apostleship to oppose it Elymas the Sorcerer what did he hear from Pauls mouth to contradict it Only they must not seem to be overcome lest their name should be diminished among such as admired them God did smite the Magicians of Pharaoh with blains for resisting the truth and yet you never read that they repented twice their skill prevailed to imitate Moses and to do wonders like unto his in the third Plague they failed and were not able to perform it Moses turned the waters into bloud they did the like Moses brought abundance of Frogs upon the Land the Magicians did so with their inchantments At the third time Moses smote the dust of the ground and made it become Lice over all the Land of Egypt at this the Magicians were at a gaze and could not perform it St. Austin notes upon it In signo tertio defecerunt fatentes sibi adversum esse spiritum sanctum They failed in the third sign as who should say the Holy Ghost the third
Person of the Trinity did fight against them they resisted the Spirit of God and the same Spirit resisted them Certainly you shall confess out of holy Scripture that not only these but all other refractory men are inchanted with a kind of Sorcery who are contumacious and will not believe what the Word of God doth evidently perswade them 2 Tim. iii. 7. There are some says the Apostle ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth for as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses so do these also resist the truth men of corrupt minds reprobates concerning the Faith There are some who are always learning why there is no hurt in that nay it is most worthy of praise Seek the Lord and your soul shall live says David seek his face evermore My often named St. Austin hath a pure meditation upon it Quaeramus inveniendum quaeramus inventum ut inveniendus quaeratur occultus est ut inventus quaeratur immensus est That is seek the Lord that he may be found seek him when he is found be ever learning His glory is hidden secretly therefore he must be sought that he may be found And his glory is immense and infinite therefore seek him evermore when he is found But how comes it to pass that such as are always learning never come to the knowledge of the truth Because they deceive themselves and think that God hath made them wiser than their Teachers They will do nothing unless their own ignorant surmises and private spirit and doating revelations give them satisfaction There are labourers great store in the harvest you cannot say that you want Teachers I would we had not cause to complain that we want Learners Every illiterate man is as peremptory in his own opinion as if he were not a Disciple but a Judge of Divinity and if they be checkt for perverseness that they will not let the Pastor of their soul perswade them they are ready to reply as Zedekiah the false Wizzard did to Michaiah Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from us to you Take heed of this stiff-neckt perverseness as well in Civil matters as Spiritual ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says the best Poet let us condescend one to another I to you you to me and reach out our arms to hold peace and charity fast between us As for the obstinate and contentious they are far from the spirit of John Baptist who knew himself to be most insufficient to baptize our Saviour yet after one words direction he obeyed and Then he suffered him And this is enough to be spoken of the first part of the Text unless some turbulent spirits among you do still resolve to be obstinate in their obstinacy John refuseth no more and the impediment of this famous baptizing is removed away so the instrumental cause being aptly prepared now follows the effect Jesus was baptized The reasons for which Baptism I will first pass on and then some meditations of Use upon it I draw the reasons why Christ submitted his own Person to be baptized into five heads First that an Institution so poor and despicable in it self might not be contemned for what can be said more to give it warrant and authority than to say Thus my Saviour was washt in Jordan What so divine an instigation to press us all to come unto the floud of living waters to thirst for that immortal spring of grace than this that the Son of God himself did not decline to be partaker of the Baptism of Repentance To what end did he apply that remedy to himself whereof most manifestly he did not stand in need but that sinners should wishingly affect it for their souls health whose infirmities before the eyes of God and men do want a remedy Christus recipiendo Johannis baptismum instituit suum John did neither point to any Prediction to enable him to baptize which was spoken of by the Prophets no miracle from heaven did shine upon his labours that all men might say this is the finger of God the Scribes and Pharisees although they durst not gainsay because of the people yet they did not encourage and applaud his Ministry this Ceremony therefore had faln away like water which is spilt and cannot be gathered but that the mirrour of heaven and earth that draws all men after him came to Jordan to be baptized of him God dwelleth in light incomprehensible and he is too great to be imitated by man Man himself is a creature of much corruption and is a most ticklish uncertain example to be immitated by man the wisdom from above therefore did provide for us in the safest wise Vt videret homo quem sequeretur Deus factus est homo says Leo To set up a spectacle fit for our eyes to look upon God himself was made man And as our own Histories report of Cesar being somewhat reproachfully repelled by the ancient Brittains insomuch that his Cohorts kept themselves in their Ships and durst not land at last Cesar cast forth the chief Ensign their Eagle upon the shore waded forth himself into the waters and bad the best daring spirits to follow him So to make my Parallel complete the beginning of the next Chapter manifests that we have a Ghostly enemy to encounter our Ensign is not an Eagle but a Dove that came down upon the waters our Commander is the mighty God who first casts himself into the waters of Jordan that we may follow him and at the same Sacrament defie the Devil our enemy and all his works A comfortable General that would wear his own Colours ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Paul The author and the finisher of our faith Heb. xii 2. which Text may comfortably be reduced to the two blessed Sacraments for in his Last Supper he was the Author of our Faith most probably it being supposed that first he eat bread after he had blessed it and then gave it to the Disciples In Baptism he is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the perfecter and finisher of faith for John did begin that wholsome Ordinance and Christ did finish it and stampt a Seal of Authority upon the Institution because himself was baptized Secondly Christ was not only baptized to seal the Sacrament with his Priviledge and Licence but in that act he did sanctifie the waters to the blessing of his Church If Naaman had not been filled with the disease of Leprosie Elisha had not sent him to Jordan to wash and be clean If there had not been some impurity upon the best of the Apostles our Saviour had omitted his Ceremony to rinse their feet in water and to wipe them with a Towel Because every Infant is polluted with bloud from the nativity Occiso magis quam nato similis says Seneca more like to one that is killed than to one that is born therefore it is rub'd with water to take away all defilement So unless much filthiness did inhere in every child
the Feast Go and sit down in the lowest room but litterally descension is infallibly the motion of a body And otherwise the wonder had herein consisted not that such a Dove was seen but that such a strange spectacle appeared to John and to all the multitude which was not to be seen John did see the object it did not phantastically in a shadow deceive him as if he saw it And it is a touch worthy to be observed by the way that my Text says he saw the Spirit which is a clear Metonimy of the sign for the thing signified for in truth he saw no more than the outward sign of the Spirit To call the holy Spirit by the attribute of the Dove is a Sacramental signification not an essential mutation just such a form of speech as when Christ brake bread at his Last Supper and said unto his Disciples This is my body I proceed to that which follows how aptly the Spirit came in one figure at this time upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at this day of Pentecost upon the Apostles If I would rake old Heresies out of their dead embers to refute them here I had occasion The Arians extorted from hence that Christ did receive the mighty gift of Sanctification at this Baptism and other admirable graces of the Spirit which he had not before If they were worth the refuting I could tell them Joh. i. 14. As soon as ever the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us he was full of grace and truth On the contrary the Macedonian Hereticks men of corrupt minds did make a difference of dignity between Christ and the Holy Ghost as the body of a man was more excellent which belonged to Christ than the body of a Dove wherin the Spirit sate upon him Then belike if an Angel should come in the shape of a man or of an Eagle which is more glorious than a Dove he should also have the preheminence But the blindness of the error came from hence that they did not distinguish how Christ took upon him the nature of a man but the Holy Ghost did not assume the nature of a Dove Let these blasphemies go let them rot and consume with the Authors which invented them the Father the Son and the Spirit are all one in Glory equal in Majesty coeternal Upon occasion of Baptism the Master sent forth his Disciples saying Go and baptize all Nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Can I pass by the surpassing wit of St. Austin upon that place Non in nominibus sed in nomine patris ubi unum nomen est ibi unus Deus Not in the names but in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Where there is but one name and no more there is but one God and no more As in like argument St. Paul Gal. iii. 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the Promises made he saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ Let me return into my own path which I am to beat that Christ had one sign of the Holy Ghost coming down upon him and the Apostles had another Upon which diversity thus I find the Fathers exercising their wits in several meditations First The Spirit sate upon our Saviours head in the shape of an whole entire creature in no other figure but a tongue upon the Apostles which is no more than a little part of the body for we receive the grace of God by scantlings and pittances and small measures the whole Spirit flowed into Christ in all abundance In like manner Gregory shews the odds between his fulness and ours in Analogy between the head and other members of the body A body hath the sense of touching only and no more the head is the continent of all the five senses Ita membra superni capitis in quibusdam virtutibus emicant ipsum caput in cunctis virtutibus flagret So the Saints have several gifts and ornaments divided among them some in one kind some in another but the head of the Church hath all flourisheth with all those vertues united in himself which are parted among his members Secondly The tongues of holy men and Prophets did often promise grace and reconciliation to the world and therefore a tongue did sit upon them as it were a Crest of Armory a Dove when time was did actually exhibit that God was pacified and appeased when he had been wroth I mean the Dove which returned to the Ark with a dry Olive branch in her mouth in token that the waters were dried up and that Noah and his Family might come forth with safety Therefore a Dove most properly did belong to Christ Most properly I say but more transcendently says St. Chrysostom now than ever The first Dove did comfort the world ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that punishment was taken away this Dove is a sacred pledge that grace and blessings shall be bestowed upon us Now it appeared not to bring one man and his family safe into the possession of the earth but to bring all Believers safe into the possession of heaven Thirdly The Spirit came not to Christ in fire for he was full of Zeal nor yet in the shape of a tongue for full of grace were his lips But discite quia mitis learn of me because I am meek and gentle therefore says Bernard the Dove came to testifie the placidness of the Lamb. Quod agnus in animalibus columba in avibus such as the Lamb is among the beasts of the field such is the Dove among the fouls of the air Fire is stern and formidable Christ would have none of that that which sorts with consolation to recreate a trembling conscience was his peculiar choice therefore the third Person descended like a Dove and sate upon him Fourthly The tongues wherein the Apostles received the grace of God were cloven and divided not to signifie a rent and a division Linguarum distantiae non sunt schismata but because there is a diversity and a dispreading about of the gifts of God Then comes down one single Dove to honour Unity Spiritus sanctus divisus in linguis unitus in columbâ says St. Austin it was pride which caused that diversity of tongues it was the Holy Ghost through the humility of Christ which sanctified that diversity Quod turris dissociaverat Ecclesia collegit Babel the Tower of pride scattered the world the Church which is the Tower of humility gathers the world together But the Dove was the Ensign of our Saviours Kingdom standing for the unity of the Spirit which is the bond of peace Fifthly The Holy Ghost was made manifest to the Chruch first in a Dove at the feast of Christs Baptism afterward in fire at the Feast of Whitsontide to betoken it is the same Spirit which requires innocency in the
in domo charitatis in a charitable Hospital family every man hastened to a good work as if he had flown like a Dove Was not Paul a brave wing'd Apostle that traversed much of Asia and preacht the Gospel in every place from Jerusalem to Illyricum Seventhly The Doves eyes are fixt upon the Rivers of waters Cant. v. 12. some say out of vigilancy to espy therein the gliding of the Kite that flies above and to save it self So the spiritual man looks backward to the first waters wherein he was dipt to the Vow which he made in Baptism There he remembers his Garment was made white and he must not stain it for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is not only to wash away filth but to give tincture or colour to that which is died So in Baptism the foul spots of iniquity are taken forth and by sanctification a clear gloss is set upon our soul It was the exhortation of old at Baptism Accipe vestem candidam immaculatam c. Take this white garment pure and undefiled it was their Ceremony to put on such and keep it undefiled against the day of the Lord. Et grege de niveo gaudia pastor habet says Lactantius The Shepherd rejoyceth to see the fleeces of his Lambs fair and unspotted These are pennae deargentatae as the Psalmist says the Doves wings are silver wings and if they be bright Silver here it will be changed into a better Metal hereafter a Crown of Gold whose wings are silver wings and the feathers of Gold Lastly As it was toucht before in the days of Noah the Dove was a presager of a better world to come and in this Text likewise it is Nuncia futuri seculi the happy annuntiate that there is a better world to come when these evil days of sin and misery are ended So we are sealed with the holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance the Spirit is a pledge of that possession which is purchased for us in the Kingdom of heaven whither he bring us c. THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 17. And loe a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased SPeak O Heaven and hearken O Earth unto the word of the Lord. The Earth must keep silence and give ear when God is his own Orator himself and utters his pleasure with his own voice As it is usual when some great Palace is raising fron the Foundation that the Master of the Possession will lay the first stone with his own hands So the Church being to be built up again in the New Testament not upon the foundation of Works but upon Faith not upon Moses but upon Jesus Christ Loe the mighty God publisheth the first tidings of reconciliation from his own mouth and himself in the Prophet Isaiahs Phrase doth lay in Sion a chief corner stone elect and precious for the Foundation which sustains the whole body of the Saints is no other but such as is contained in that brief Proclamation which I have read unto you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Some of the Fathers very aptly call the Text Gods ample testimonial given to his Son that the world might receive him gladly being about to preach the glad tidings of salvation Moses you know would not offer himself to the Children of Israel to be the means that should release them from Pharaohs bondage before he had a token of Credence who did send him to the People and the Lord said unto him Thou shalt say I am hath sent me unto you So our High Priest and anointed Saviour would keep that form to have a clear testificate to commend him to the World Now a Dove was but a dumb shew and might be interpreted many ways wherefore an articulate and a majestical voice was heard from heaven which would pierce the ears of all that were gathered together and could not be mistaken In that nature therefore as a Testimonial given to him that was now about to be the great Preacher of righteousness I will divide the Text 1. The Person that did bear witness it is the Father 2. The manner how he testified to the honour of his Son by a voice Loe a voice 3. The authority of that voice which was every way to be accepted because it was from heaven 4. The Person to whom the witness is born to a Son This is my Son 5. What is witnessed of him in respect of himself that he was beloved This is my beloved 6. What is witnessed of him in respect of our consolation that he is filius complacentiae in whom and through whom the Father is well pleased That is to say not only beloved in himself but procures us to be beloved likewise for his sake for all that by Baptism have put on Christ are unto God as Christ himself is Filii dilecti complacentes Sons beloved well pleasing So the Text is our Saviours Testimonial and our own Consolation And loe a voice c. The Father is become a witness to glorifie his Son that is the first consideration to be made upon my Text. The Spirit hath done his part before now the voice the Father is come to perfect this great solemnity and so the justice of God agrees with his own Law Ex ore duorum aut trium testium Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established was ever any truth so strongly confirmed so undeniably maintained that the Father which made all things should ratifie it sensibly in the audience of men Never was it heard of but only in this case which is the top of all truth that Jesus was the Son of God Other truths we are well perswaded of which come from the light of reason or from the testimony of man yet reason may be blind and man may err but it is impossible that God should lie Heb. vi And admit it to be good for who can controul it that the Prophets and Apostles were inspired from God so that the contents which they have written are certain and infallible then his divine wisdom which gave them that instinct whatsoever he utters immediately from himself it may well stand upon comparisons that it is much more infallible So St. Hierom distinguisheth between that truth which is increate and which is infused and participate that the truth of the Saints is called a lie in respect of that verity which abideth in the Father Yea let God be true and every man a liar in which words says he it is implied that God alone is true even as he alone is said to have immortality for although he hath communicated immortality to Angels and to the souls of men yet it is not their own immortality but his love and favour to give it to them So the Prophets and holy men were inspired with true knowledge yet it was not their own truth
to the Members of his body and it was laudible in him to wish some trial that he might encounter the Devil and spoil him of his Kingdom Tentationem exoptare in eo qui succumbere nequit est laudabile say the Schoolmen It was an heroical magnanimity in Christ to wish tentations so might fall upon him because he could not be vanquished And therefore some gather an observation contrary to St. Chrysostom that our Saviour went into the Wilderness and fasted forty days and after was an hungry destinating that the Devil should find him out Obviam procedit Diabolo quem scit non pug naturum nisi lacessitum He went out to dare the Tempter because he knew he would not come on and fight unless he were provok'd yet it is the sounder way to collect that for our instruction when we should examine this Story Christ did not go in a bravado or a challenge to offer himself to be tempted but the Spirit led him as who should say this was not Curtius in foveam a precipitated intrusion Let not man expose himself to temptation Dubia est victoria who knows that carries the badge of Adams frailty in his body whether he shall come off with victory or captivity Happy is that man and the Lord shall bless his integrity who will not come near the suburbs of sin for no man can keep the Commandments unless he be careful to avoid the first invitations of evil and to shun the farthest and remotest impediments of obedience Have you seen little children dare one another which should go deepest into the mire But he is more childish that ventures further and further even to the brim of transgression and bids the Devil catch him if he can I will but look and like says the wanton where the object pleaseth me I keep company with some licentious persons says an easie nature but for no hurt because I would not offend our friendship I will but bend my body in the house of Rimmon when my Master bends his says Naaman I will but peep in to see the fashion of the Mass holding fast the former profession of my faith Beloved I do not like it when a mans conscience takes in these small leaks it is odds you will fill faster and faster and sink to the bottom of iniquity I have read of a Bishop that was performing the Office of Baptism to many that were converted from Gentilism and when a Virgin came near the Font of an extraordinary beauty he desired a substitute to discharge the place for he would not please his eyes no not for a few minutes to look upon such an object as allured his fancy What a careful Christian this was that kept off occasions of sin and would not suffer them before him as David charged his treacherous Son Absalom to keep a distance and not to come near Jerusalem Hannibal that approved Souldier placed himself in a battel where many Darts of the enemy flew round about him and when some commended him that he ventured his person upon the mouth of danger you mistake says Hannibal I am more ashamed of my self this day than ever I was in my life that being the General of the Field I came in peril to be wounded This is well applied to every Souldier that fights under Christs Banner when we are run into tentations it is good and blessed to come off with the least impairment to our innocency But why did you come so near the flame that you were in peril to be scorched Job comforted himself that he had kept his eyes from wandring Jeremy was careful neither to lend upon Usury nor to borrow upon Usury In a word when Tentations fall upon you by Gods permission resist them manfully but if you mean to be led by the Spirit do not wittingly and daringly fall upon tentations This is the sum of the third observation I defer the fourtn to a larger tractate To God the Father c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the VVilderness to be tempted of the Devil THis Text you see will not let me go I have been parting from it twice and still it invites me to stay As the Levite took his farewel at Bethlem sundry times and could not get away Judg. xix And now I have good cause to tarry being led by the leading of the Spirit Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile with him go with him twain says Christ Mat. v. 21. And if the Spirit of God compel us to go with him one Sermon we will go with him twain it cannot be irksom or weary to follow such contemplations But it is fit I should satisfie you where I stick in this verse for the present that I do not proceed how Christ was tempted wherefore he was tempted by whom he was tempted when he was tempted I have rid my hand of these discourses Likewise I have passed thus far how Christ was marshalled into the field by the divine impulsion of the Holy Ghost Here I resume my task into my hands where I left it That which remains for me to survey and for you to exercise your attentions upon is this First Since Christ himself was led by the Spirit when he went forth to fast and pray and to fight against the Devil therefore I will make enquiry how the grace of God doth lead us to eschew evil and to do good And secondly I will bring you along to consider the place whereon our Saviour planted himself to encounter his enemy it was the Wilderness How all men whom God calls to the saving truth by the preaching of the Spirit are led by the Spirit that is governed and directed by his grace is the Doctrine with which I begin in which intricate subject I confess my self to be in a Wilderness before I come to the last part of my Text if ever there were a question which troubled the whole world it is this How the will of man is guided unto Salvation by the supernatural help of God It is run into a Proverb that there are three things almost impossible to be traced The one how a King doth govern his Kingdom the secret reasons of state make the course of his actions so obscure Cor regis inperscrutabile says Solomon The other how grace doth govern the soul And the third how God doth govern the world We are sure divine motions move within us and yet we know not how they move Our Saviour did admonish us it would be a hard matter to understand when he spake of the Holy Ghost who doth regenerate us The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou knowest not whence it comes nor whither it goes What impression a spiritual quality doth or can make upon a spiritual substance Philosophy cannot judge of it but so far as the Scripture opens the mysterie Divinity may examine it and faith must believe it In these labyrinths
wherein so many run upon this Point I will give you my judgment in that method wherein I have always directed my self a method to give God the glory of all that which is good to make sinners humble because they have no good in themselves as of themselves and to make us all diligent in good works that we may not neglect the gift which is given us in Christ through sluggishness and security The grounds upon which I will insist are these 1. We must be led by the Spirit before we can work any thing which is good 2. I will unfold how we are led by initiating or preventing grace when we are first made partakers to taste of the hopes of a better life 3. I will shew how we are led by preparatory grace which goes before the complete act of our regeneration 4. With what great and mighty power the Spirit doth lead us in converting grace 5. How we are led by subsequent grace and sanctification which co-operates and assists us after our conversion To these heads I will briefly and peaceably reduce a volume of litigious disputation 1. I enter into all by this door before the Spirit come down upon us and lead us with his sweet motions our heart can produce nothing which is good The heathen are no competent witnesses in this cause how far nature is weakened in all vertue and how much it is prone to all evil they know no supernatural strength above nature and therefore could not acknowledge the efficacy of it In a word we must not believe man how far he is corrupted but God for man must not be judge in his own cause The Pharisees likewise shall not be heard to speak in this Point whose arrogancy made them enemies to grace You remember with what contempt they ask'd Christ are we blind Joh. ix 40. Alass of our selves we are all under that woe Vae vobis duces caeci Woe be to you blind guids Mat. xxiii 16. Whither will a blind mans feet carry him but into a pit or into a snare unless he have a leader By nature this dark blindness is upon us for else why have we a Leader Omne id naturae deesse intelligitur quod spiritus sancti operâ communicatur says St. Austin Whatsoever is put into us by the Holy Ghost manifests how much was wanting by nature The good Spirit may say of his direction as Job did of his charity I was eyes unto the blind and feet unto the lame Job xxix 15. The heathen erred from the truth through ignorance the Pharisees through arrogancy among Christians none offended more foully than the Pelagians partly through subtilty of wit partly through arrogance What shifts did they not invent rather than confess the truth Sometimes calling the endowments of mans nature even under this great blemish of depravation by the name of grace When that would not serve yet they would allow no grace to support mans free will but the external preaching of the Word and dispensation of the Sacraments 3. When this would not satisfie the Church they went thus far they did not hold there was grace of sanctification to prevent us from sin but grace of mercy to remit our sins Yet they stood under condemnation and at last this was all that could be wrung from them supernatural grace was necessary not simply to strengthen us to do good but only to do good with greater facility Whereas it behoved them to have accused nature in this present state of malignity so far that now it is become that accursed ground which of it self brings forth nothing but thorns and thistles There is not only a possibility in our will to sin as there was in Adam before the Fall but a violent and a precipitious inclination to transgress the Law The Saints and the heaven are not clean in Gods sight says Job How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water Job xv 16. The will of man is of that nature it cannot rest naked devested of all desires unfurnisht of an object and since in its own rebellion it hath forsaken God there is no relief but it will betake it self to the unlawful concupiscence of the Creature Mark how peremptorily St. Paul concludes against man as he is left to the will of his own flesh Rom. viii 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be In the state of this miserable captivity under sin for we are servants to that which we obey the will of man is partaker of its own freedom which grows with it and cannot be parted that it is not held under necessity to commit this or that sin naming any particular act what you will but under sin it is held so that the evil which we would not we shall do and the good which we would we shall not do But Christ is our Advocate and he will speak for us more than we could or durst say for our selves hear his testimony Joh. xv 4. The branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Because these words are parabolical he speaks roundly in the next verse Without me ye can do nothing It is not meant of natural or animal works as eating drinking walking indeed we can do none of these things unless his omnipresency and omnipotency support us but here it is meant of such things as are praise worthy before God without me that is without the divine assistance and help which I have merited by my obedience ye cannot bring forth the fruits of righteousness to eternal life Yet I pray you mark one thing to qualifie some mens severe opinions Christ did not say whatsoever ye do without me even with the best moral rectitude and justice shall plunge you further into damnation Every thing which comes from a meer natural man is so bad and defective that it shall do him no good toward the attaining of everlasting life but some things have a moral honesty according to the law of nature which do not deserve Hell fire but rather they are such things as shall make their damnation more tolerable The branch can bring forth no fruit unless it be in the tree Frugiferum opus est quod ad vitam aeternam refertur That is a frugiferous work which God rewards in his Kingdom No such fruits can grow from nature which wants the conduction of the Spirit St. Paul very cautiously 1 Cor. xiii mustering up the works of an unregenerate man which want Charity says he If I do all these things and want charity they profit me nothing not simply that the continence of Socrates the temperance of Scipio should hurt them but they profit me nothing a natural man brings forth nothing which can profit him to eternal life St. Austin doth so diligently ponder every word of the Text now cited that I must impart his sweet labours unto
first onset the Devil was not only an Explorator to sent it out what Christ was but an evil Counsellor to allure him furthermore to disobedience Exploravit ut tentaret tentavit ut exploraret says St. Ambrose Yet I must resolve you before I do any thing what sin it was which the wicked one did drive at Many are so curious to suit this Tentation in every Point with the tentation of our first Parents and what need that be so exactly sought for That they give sentence it was the sin of Gluttony and nothing else to which he was prompted Yes surely to some other sin as well as that and much rather than that for if Satan had required no more than to make Christ dissolve his fast and eat he would have brought him bread and not put him to it to make bread of stones Moreover there is small likelihood that one should sin much in Gluttony by eating bread And especially I would have you mark that Christ answered the Devil out of the Scripture not by a Text which should exhort to sobriety but to rely upon Gods providence in all things Man liveth not by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Wherefore if Gluttony be one skirt of the matter yet certainly according to Christs answer the sin mainly proposed was to make him distrust in God and to satisfie his wants by unlawful means And thus I have premised for your better understanding the drift of this wicked Fiend what mischief he would draw on by the words of my Text. If he had other secret policies which we cannot reach peradventure he had then let us say with the Spirit of God We have not known the depth of Satan Rev. ii 24. But now I have made you able to conceive how my Text may be broken into conspicuous parts The Tempter came to Christ for two ends Vt cognosceret ut corrumperet 1. To know Christ 2. To Corrupt him To corrupt him two ways principally by Infidelity consequently by Gluttony In the first we must watch Satan as a spie and beside the words of espial two circumstances shall be enquired into 1. When Satan made this address 2. How he made this address in what shape and fashion For the tempter came coming is a bodily motion And he said unto him speaking proceeds from corporeal instruments These little circumstances have some weight in them but the burden of the first part comes after where Satan plays the spie and explorator If thou be the Son of God c. And when the Tempter came to him is it not very natural to move this question upon those words When the tempter came to him Whether all the days that he continued in the Wilderness Satan was at his right hand to make him stumble at some stone of offence or whether the wicked Fiend approached not unto him till the forty days were ended there is the scruple And perhaps there is truth on both sides so I would judge it if it were left to my arbitration What more plain than St. Lukes narration He was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness being forty days tempted of the Devil So that it will agree with the Scripture that there were certain light skirmishes of Tentations between Christ and the Adversary all the while he was in the Desart but such faint assaults that they deserved not the relation Origen is of this judgment and this is his saying As the World could not hold the Books if all things were written which Christ did so the World could not hold the Books if all his Tentations were recorded Why not altogether probable that he passed not one day in the Wilderness without some Diabolical affront since his whole life was full of those hellish indignities Witness that praise which he gives to his Disciples Luk. xxii 28. You are they that have continued with me in my tentations his tentations were continual This is one part of Christs Passions and sufferings which the World takes little notice of the impostures of the Devil doing him molestation without ceasing Well might the Greek Liturgie urge him in their Prayers with these words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã By thine unknown torments sweet Jesu have mercy upon us Gall and Vinegar were not so untastful to his mouth as the offensive objections of Satan did grate upon his ear Nec in aurem tantûm Christi injectae sunt sed penetrarunt cor ipsum perfoderunt animum ejus says a late one Nor were these Tentations harsh only to the ear but their hainousness pierced his very heart Conceive thus much if a solacism rudely spoken is able to move the patience of a polite Grammarian then Blasphemy continually spoken by the wicked Angel must needs be a great contristation to the Son of God This is pleaded on the one side that in all the forty days some petty light tentations were darted by the Devil against our Saviour And on the other side again this is truth and reason the red Dragon did not begin his main battel nor did he propound those three infamous desperate Propositions upon which we entreat till the forty days were ended So I will alledge St. Cyprian to balance the Authority of Origen Postquam quadraginta dierum abstinentiam consummavit accessit Diabolus After our Lord had gone through the abstinence of forty days then the Tempter came unto him It is as fairly seen as the light that there was no ground for the first tentation till the long fast was absolved and Christs hunger did press him sore and call for sustenance then he provokes him to contrive for bread by any means in the world rather than want it Away with this tedious fasting and satiate your appetite Signum panis petit qui signum jejunii pertimescit the eloquence of Chrysologus Satan could not abide this miracle of fasting he had rather see him juggle for bread So the first question when the evil one came is now no more doubtful unto you He came oftentimes before with some weak provocations but at the end of forty days he put his Plough as deep as he could into the ground and harrowed up all the subtilties of Hell to prevail against him that is invincible Now for the shape and figure in which the Tempter came to our Saviour that is another circumstance of inquiry and very briefly upon it In his own substance you know Satan is a Spirit and this was the Arch-spirit of infernal darkness for surely says St. Austin the Regiment of Hell would trust no inferiour Goblin to try masteries with the mighty Son of God Yet there is no likelihood that he did offer himself now unto Christ in his invisible spiritual nature Undoubtedly he did exhibite himself in an humane body like some charitable good man that came to condole with our Saviour and was right sorry he had no sustenance I commend his ingenuity that
truth after so much Preaching and Writing which the very Devils believed though unwillingly after the manifestation of some signs and tokens that the Son of Mary the Virgin was the Son of God coeternal and consubstantial with his Father All that knew Christ to be the Lord did not apprehend him after the same manner His Disciples and generally all that belong to the true Church find him out per lumen fidei by the revelation of supernatural faith so you must understand that in St. John No man knoweth the Father but the Son and no man knoweth the Son but he to whom the Father will reveal him Secondly The Angels of heaven who desire to peep into these mysteries they know him per lumen gloriae by the illumination of celestial glory Thirdly The Devils who are able to collect from signs and conjectures far more than any man these were convicted by his outward works and miracles as the Centurion cried out when the Sun was eclipsed and the veil of the Temple was rent in twain surely this was the Son of God St. Austin hath two rules of great direction to them that would be satisfied in this question 1. Christus tantùm innotuit Daemonibus quantùm voluit That cannot be denied Christ was disclosed to the Devils so much at a time as he saw fit to reveal himself and no more therefore their reason lacks weight that object how the very evil Angels being at first created full of rare perfections must needs know the mystery of the holy Trinity and that was such a principle of divine knowledge as could never be lost and by consequent they could never misconceive who was the Son of God This Argument is sand without chalk and doth not hang together For all that rebellious Regiment being cast out of heaven they were bereft of that excellent knowledge and of all other supernatural endowments and now they apprehend no more of God than God thinks it expedient for his own glory So stands the second rule of St. Austin Sic eis innotuit sicut eis terrendis innotescendum fuit Christ opened himself to Satan even as in the revenge of his justice he thought it fit to increase his terrour and amazement It was not a saving knowledge to the Devil no nor a knowledge so much as to make him cautious but a knowledge that increased sorrow and inflamed him with hatred Concerning the most wicked of men it is said None of the Princes of this world knew him for had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of lifeâ But Satan knew him and knew the Prophets what a glorious triumph the ignominy of the Cross would be unto him and as Isaiah saith by his death My righteous servant shall justifie many he knew he should destroy his own kingdom by the death of Christ yet Satan did prosecute against him and put it into the heart of Judas for since God had appointed his Son should die the Devil could not hinder his counsel and an outragious malice made him run desperate upon his own ruine This sprig of the Devils condition is planted in too many who are maliciously carried away with that Hell within them which hunts for vengeance Here is one drives his neighbour through all the Purgatories of the Law and yet perceives it must eat out his own estate and beggar him Here is another will quarrel to the death though nothing more certain than fall under the Sword or hang under the Gallows How many bloudy Assassines have crept out of Friers Cels and Jesuites Colledges and have lifted up their hand against God himself I may say in the person of Gods Anointed This blow they are sure shall both curse the Miscreant that did it and the Religion that taught it These are not weakness of men infirmities of the flesh though men would be wicked yet unless the Devil were in it and his desperate malice to boot such apparent sottishness could not be in their wickedness The agitation of this first Point lies but one question further whether this argument of the Tempters were strong enough to discover the true Son of God Command that these stones be made bread Creation is an act proper to the Lord and certainly incommunicable to any creature for there is an infinite distance between something and nothing therefore nothing but an infinite power can make something of nothing Now to create is either simply to give a being where there was none before as to make the earth and the heavens of nothing or to produce a thing out of such matter as was no way prepared for such a form as to make a man of the slime of the earth For it is as much to produce one substance out of another in a moment which was no way prepared for alteration as it is to create it out of nothing These could not choose but be Satans principles to be confident in this experiment If thou be the Son c. You will say perhaps did not Elisha the Prophet increase whole vessels of oyl from a little Cruse And yet this is no warrant to say he was the Son of God Beloved Elisha did make the Prayer for the poor Widows sake and God did multiply the oyl into that mighty quantity therefore we must run to this answer Either Satan hath more quickness and insight than men have to know when a miracle is done immediately by God himself or by his Servant whether by the prime Independent power or by the second and derivative power or else there is no evasion but we must say for all his art the Devil required no sufficient argument to convince his Infidelity This Christ might do as the Son of God by excellent adoption not by eternal generation and this will make that frequent saying of Athanasius true that the Devil was an Arian Cardinal Tolet a man of no small wit goes further in his conjectures than any man hath done before him Thus he objects Whither would this Serpent wind himself Or what would he find out The very Son of God by such a miracle as this Did not Moses work stranger conversions before Pharaoh And yet Pharaoh did not say this is the Son of God but truly this is the finger of God or the power of God that worketh in Moses Nay the evil one himself is able to bring about strange prestigiations as were seen in Pharaohs Sorcerers You see how hard it is to ground our faith as the Devil would do his upon miracles Yet Satan was more cunning in this way than any man can be for his judgment did lean upon two principles first if Christ turned stones into bread the hand of God was in it for our Saviour was holy and unblameable no way tainted with Magical Sorcery and if any Daemoniacal Art were in the fact the Prince of Devils must needs be aware of it Secondly God worketh no miracle by the hands of his Prophets or holy men to
confirm delusions but to testifie to truth and innocency therefore if he did provoke him to turn stones into bread it would be for a true testimony that he was the very Son of God If he do this miracle and be not the Son of God the eternal truth should confirm a lie which is impossible This was Satans cunning Philosophy and now you see the very nerves of his Argument Let me draw out one Corollary for your Instruction The first part of Satans engine was ut cognosceret to prove God a liar if he could I heard a voice say you are the beloved Son of God but are you so indeed This desire to litigate and quarrel with Gods truth made him fall into a strange doting ignorance almost incredible in so intelligent a substance What he that is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã quasi ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of a most vast capacity of understanding because of his spirituality and so many thousand years experience He that thought he could open the market of knowledge and sell what he pleased to our first Parents Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil that he should stagger and for a long time mistake the very foundation of all truth that Jesus was the Son of God Is not this passing wonderful Why this comes of it when any will bend their wits to object against the plain truth when it is manifest then God requites their iniquity with this dulness 2 Thes ii 1. For this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie Strong delusion we read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so St. Paul and I had rather translate it the efficacy of errour Tentation is from the enemy the efficacy of Tentation is not from him but in the power of God So falshood is from the Devil but the efficacy of falshood that this error should prevail to seduce the Reprobate that is in the hand of God For if the efficacy and event of error were from the Tempter nothing would help us but that all men should be deluded The event and prevalency of errors comes from Gods permission upon them that would not obey the truth Let me put this now into your mind it is the fashion of the World to have mens persons in admiration some are carried away with the opinion of their learning and good life that walk not after the wholsom Injunctions of the Ceremonies and Discipline of our Church as Salvianus says very well Tantùm dicta existimant quantus est ipse qui dixit nec tam considerant quid legunt quà m cujus legunt They measure truth not in it self but by the opinion of him that defends it nor so much consider what it is they read as whose it is they read Purge out this leven I beseech you and remember when men would expound all things by their own private spirit God will turn their good gifts into vanity Likewise if some others stand upon it that there is no sort of Learning but abounds in the Church of Rome and why should not the most Learned wear the Garland Let them know this is as foolish an inference well considered as his in the Proverb that the Peacock must sing best of all birds because it had the fairest train Julian the most learned Emperour Galen the most learned Physician Porphyry one of the learnedst Philosophers all were Atheists and without God in the World The Novices of the Roman Colleges are sworn to particular opinions and to a particular belief and then study their course of Divinity to maintain it So it comes to pass They study to maintain a lye as Satan did against Christ and thereby they are catcht in strong delusions And let this suffice for the first general part of the Text That one end of these words which Satan cast forth was ut cognosceret to learn more perfectly that which he mistrusted before that Christ was the eternal Son of God And because he had more Hooks than one to his Angle remember that beside his curiosity to explore him his words likewise are full of malice to corrupt him Command that these stones be made bread The boldest and most flagitious attempt that ever was to make Christ sin Murdering of Sacred Princes devices to blow up the Majesty of an whole State conspiracy to root out whole Nations endeavouring to burn up an whole Empire with Nero betraying Christ himself to be crucified with Judas all these ugly sins not only single but put all together have less horror and impiety in them than this attempt to lie in wait to draw sin and impurity from the most pure God We cannot compare Satan so well as with himself therefore I go further the great rebellion of Lucifer for which he was first cast out of heaven made him not so guilty of high disobedience as this Proposition did to tempt Christ to Gluttony and Infidelity His first presumption is collected out of these words of Isaiah I will be like the most High but this presumption hath more rancor in it by far the most High shall fall into wickedness and be made like unto me Ero similis altissimo I will ascend as high as the glory of God so the evil Angel coveted his own perfection in excess but Altissimus erit similis mihi I will bring down the most High to trespass as I have done that is to covet Gods imperfection The very Angels are not pure in his sight says Job now this was the Devils practical gloss neither shall he be pure in the sight of the Angels But how foolish is the Serpent become the subtillest of all Creatures how foolish is he become because he will not understand the truth of God O Lord thou art purer than the heavens thou art Justice and Righteousness and Innocency it self and therefore the Church doth sing a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to his honour Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts One Scripture says he cannot lie another Scripture that he cannot deny himself and another that he cannot be tempted Where was Satans prudence to make an impossible motion How had he forgot his cunning to pump for an iniquity out of the Well of everlasting purity Some pretension yet there was for this plot and some hope no question as the Jews cloak'd their own malice before Pilate with this excuse Had he not been a Sinner we had not brought him unto thee so there was some likelihood to make him offend as it appeared to Satan and surely thus he collected it If Joseph who was espoused to Mary be his Father I shall prevail whatsoever is born of flesh is flesh whatsoever is begotten by carnal generation is conceived in sin But if it be true that the Angel said unto Mary the Holy Ghost should over-shadow her yet the will of every man if he be true man is indifferent and apt of it self to turn to evil as well as good Now perhaps it was not
of the Serpent and nothing can be truer than the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or application that one sin is never hatcht alone especially if it be a great one but it hath a train to follow it God challeng'd his people that they had broken the bond of marriage between him and their soul not with one adultery and no more but the Prophet chargeth Jerusalem fornicata es cum multis amatoribus thou hast committed fornication with many lovers that is with many sensual pleasures Upon this consideration virtue is compared to salt have salt in our selves sayes Christ to his Disciples of which you cannot take up one corn alone upon your knifes point but many grains will cleave together and upon the same respect wickedness is compared to the sands of the sea one mote is very rarely severed by it self sand is a Noun Collective which supposeth many motes of dust for there is not any sin but respectively to divers parts of disobedience it may be call'd by divers names David emplung'd himself into many crimes what with Bathsheba what with Vriah what with Joab whom he made his evil instrument Peter fell into three denials one after another He that will praise the Lord as he ought in the uprightness of his life must honor him upon a ten-stringed Lute upon all the Commandments and he that wilfully fails in one instance will put every string out of tune for he that committeth one sin is guilty of the whole law These funiculi peccatorum cords of vanity sins entwisted one within another come into my mind from this third Tentation in my Text so that Tertullian is justified in his saying by this practice multiplicia spiritus incitamenta jaculantis the rebellious spirit hath more than one shaft for his bow a quiver full at least as it is Psal xi 2. For lo the ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrows within their quiver For what sin hath not the Devil committed in these words All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me furtum perduellio mendacium blasphemia they are all here in the height of their offence Furtum the largest theft that ever was committed he would give all the substance in the world to Christ but then he must rob the right owners Perduellio a most foul attempt of treason he would give him all Kingdoms and honour but then he must depose all just and lawful Princes Mendacium not a plain lie but a very monster of untruth as St. Luke hath it in large for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give it Lastly Blasphemia a blasphemy that vies beyond all the rest if thou therefore wilt worship me all shall be thine Now I have added to make up my Text at this time how easily God doth cut off all these heads of Hydra at once with his revenge and justice for this short rebuke of Christ is enough to controul the Devil with all his sins about him Get thee hence Satan or as St. Luke Get thee behind me Satan The words then which I have read amount to four parts the Gift which I have entirely dispatcht the Giver the Condition the Repulse The Gift furtum both to rob private men of their peculiar and Kings of their Royalty The Giver mendacium a lye without all shame that all the honors of the world were at his dispose The Condition blasphemia he bargains that Christ should earn all this by falling down to worship him But the Repulse is justitia Gods vindicative justice Get thee hence Satan words of anger and revenge as I will shew anon but first I will disclose what a great giver Satan would make himself All these things will I c. Twice as it appears in the two former Tentations the Devil used all his cunning to discover if Christ were the Son of God and since our Saviour would not reveal what He was Satan is the more bold to make himself the Son of God as if he were that holy one to whom the Father had committed all power in Heaven and in Earth All these things will I give thee This will be the easiest way to sift this saying wherein the wicked one usurps to himself that he advanceth to all honors to consider what likelihood of truth there is in those words by accident and secondly what great unlikelihood Marvel not that I give it for a conclusion granted that there is some colour and likelihood for Satan to say this is deliver'd to me and to whomsoever I will give it for he is the Prince of the power of the air that spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience and whosoever is successful in promotion by iniquity the Devil did sway the event so far that he calls himself their Benefactor Abimelech and Zimri got Kingdoms by treachery Joab wrought himself into Abners honor to be Captain of King Davids Host by murder Jason and Menelaus in the book of Machabees strived one against another for the High Priest-hood by Simony there are not so many names of honour as there are sins crying sins sins died in scarlet that have purchast them The infelicity of it is so general of such long continuance and so desperate against all hope of redress that Satan speaks as if he had forgot that this power was ever out of his hand For upon the event we may lament it but cannot deny it he brings the basest instruments into private favour with mighty men he bestows offices he presents to Churches Difficile est Satyram non scribere no abuse in the world will provoke a suffering spirit sooner than this to be satyrical nostrâ miseriâ magnus factus es we may be asham'd and our ambition blush for it that the most hateful of all Gods creatures should have cause to boast that all manner of dignities and titles depend on his beneficence yet the world is not so bad but that he is a shameless slanderer in that saying far be it from us to number the righteous with the wicked to bestain all dignified persons with an evil reproach as he doth to condemn all the worthies of David that wickedness was their original because sometimes Satan hath a predominant faction among them He was a great Prince indeed in the Emperor Tiberius his Court scarce any advancement escapt him but went through his hands ad Consulatum non nisi per Sejanum aditus neque Sejani voluntas nisi scelere quaerebatur Every one that would be Consul us'd Sejanus for his preferment and every one that would have preferment Sejanus us'd him for some criminous villany Thus the eloquence of the Historian exaggerates the naughtiness of the times yet a little after when things grew much worse rather than mended in the reign of Nero Paul had many friends and Christ had many faithful servants even in Caesars Houshold The Spirit of God in the holy Scripture doth but very rarely amplifie
bodie nor with our substance He shall have neither our goods nor our knee but likely we put it off He shall have our soul why this is only to give God his thirds as a reverend Father saies to compound like Bankrupts and give him two parts less than we owe him and yet we look for ten thousand times more than He owes us We have some that are to be suspected for a kind of Sadduces among us that believe no resurrection of the body else they would never palter with discipline but be more forward in the prostration and worship of the bodie than the Church could be to command them Some have given a great blow to this duty by harping upon the bare words of S. John and not digesting the true meaning of his Text Joh. iv 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Mark the occasion why this was spoken and the words precedent The woman of Samaria moved a doubt whether God was to be worshipped at Jerusalem as the Jews taught or at Mount Girizin as the Samaritans taught Now the Samaritans worshipt God falsely they worshipt they knew not what says Christ The Jews held strictly to Moses Law and observ'd figures and shadows of things to come which were all to give place and vanish upon the incarnation of our Lord. Now it is easie to discern the substance of our Saviours answer what it is to serve God in spirit and truth Truth is opposed to the false superstition of the Samaritans Spirit is opposed to the Jewish figures and sacrifices And Christ tells the woman God will neither be served any more after the Samaritan way or Jewish way but after the newness of the Gospel The hour cometh and now is when ye shall neither worship the Father in this Mountain nor at Jerusalem but they shall worship him in spirit and truth Do these words exempt the worship of the body nothing less The word spirit is not taken there for the soul divided from the body signifying only an internal act of the spirit but for all manner of virtuous actions as well external as internal which proceed from the grace of the Holy Spirit being acceptable to God because the Holy Spirit brings them forth not because they are figures of things to come I will sing with the spirit says St. Paul 1 Cor. xiv 15. and yet singing is a bodily action He did worship in spirit when he said For this cause bow I my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Ephes iii. to come to a point Remember therefore how we adore God in spirit when we adore him with those outward gestures of the body to which we are stirred up by the Spirit of truth And so much of the first member of my Text which I laid out to be handled by it self the Lord God is to be worshipped The next duty is the other Pillar of Religion which upholds the Church of the Elect the Lord God is to be served By worship you know already we understand all humble outward devotion and reverence Now by service you must conceive the inward conformity of the heart to all duty and obedience The will of the Lord is revealed to us two manner of ways Either as he doth promise us blessings and benefits and assures us great rewards in the Kingdom of heaven Or as he doth stipulate and covenant with us what we shall do to obtain his favour In the former respect as he hath given us the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth most liberally and as he doth promise greater fruits of his mercy most graciously we fall down and worship him for his benefits but as he doth condition with us to do somewhat for his sake that he may leave a blessing with us we serve him faithfully and bind our inward faculties our soul and our mind to be prompt and ready to execute all obedience That you may the better compose your hearts to attend Gods will in all things and to serve him I will supply your knowledge with these few motives following First There is no other Lord beside our God properly called 1 Cor. viii Though there be that are called Gods as there be Gods many and Lords many that is by opinion and nuncupation but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him And again Eph. v. 4. One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God who is above all and through all and in you all Super omnes dominio per omnes providentiâ in omnibus justificatione Above all by his Dominion through all by his Providence in all by sanctifying us with his grace and justifying us from sin He that is subject to none inferiour to none independent of himself in all his power He may well be called a Lord and such a Lord deserves to be served Petty Magistrates hold of Princes favours and Kings hold their tenure under God Therefore some of the Roman Emperours having the perceivance that they could command nothing absolutely if he that sate above the heavens did stop it they would not be called Domini because themselves were servants in relation to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords therefore their circumscribed power did not answer the title When the Scripture brings in the most High the saying is Haec dicit Dominus Thus saith the Lord. If we would examine this after the stile of man you would say Lord of what Why universal Lord without any particular designment Specifications to be Lords of this or that are earthly phrases are notes of minority Attalus the Martyr was askt what name that Lord had whom he served Says he Qui plures sunt nominibus discernuntur qui autem unus est non indiget nomine Where there are many Lords they must be distinguish'd by their properties but what need that Lord a name for distinction who is the only Ruler by himself without any equal or partner in his dominion now since we must serve for sin hath brought servitude into the world whom would a man choose to serve but that only Lord to whose sheave all other sheaves do bend and who only hath authority Secondly In all service you will consider in what state and place it puts you Do so in this and spare not But let St. Peter be the Judge 1 Epist ii 9. Ye are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people There is royalty in the very service Cui servire est regnare To do him service is a Kingly Ministry Nay there is more in one of our Church Collects in one Line of it than in the most Augustious title of a King God whose service is perfect freedom A King may be so much subject to naughty passions as he shall be in vile thraldom to his own sensualities and so
relation to civil use commit great Idolatry in this first conclusion for Jews and Turks those I mean worship not the true God but a Figment of their own mind I avouch it what they adore is a mere Figment of their own it is not a Creature that they deny and very truly neither is it the Creator and Lord of all things for they do not worship Three Persons in Trinity and one God in Vnity This is the most subtil and pernicious kind of Idolatry of all others the more pernicious because so hardly discerned But thus I have made good by Paradox They that hate all Images are the greatest Idolaters I proceed to the second Tribe of them whom I endited of Idolatry even those that know the true God and serve him but yet allow a modification of Religious Worship to some of his Creatures In the censure of this Crime I will begin with that sin which is most to be detested Satan had an eye upon Idolaters that some worshipped the Elements and built Temples to the Fire to the Water and Earth and made themselves Priests for those abuses Some kneeled unto the Sun and Moon the Children gathered sticks the Fathers made the fire and the Women made Cakes to the Queen of heaven that is to the Sun which was a Feminine Idol and is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in St. Paul Nay Satan had traced out that Angels were adored by some superstitious therefore being puft that he was a most excellent Creature in his Essence and none of the least Angels he demands worship of our Saviour All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me This Idolatry which he would have is so rank above all other that it smels of the very fire and brimstone of Hell Because St. Paul says what the Gentiles sacrifice to Idols they sacrifice to Devils some of the Fathers expound it that the Devils lurkt invisibly in Idols that were worshipped so they themselves at the second hand were worshipped in Idols He may lurch homage by those slights but I do almost doubt whether it be possible for any man to be so intoxicated and seduced as directly to honour the Devil For my part I give no credit to such stories as are written of the Indians in Calicut They that write Cosmography or Navigations leaze up such reports from Seamen and Mariners and may be fit to be read in a sleepy day but never to be believed Those Indians they write of are a most ingenuous witty people in all Manufacture that comes from them and I cannot think them of such a dark capacity in Religion to worship that odious Fiend of Hell Mary if there be such among them as are Witches and Sorcerers though Satan croucheth to such and is commanded by them yet they be Idolaters in a most high delinquency because they compact with the Devil yea and are sealed to him by certain Characters For the Children of God are received into Covenant with God first by Circumcision then by Baptism therefore obliquely they take the Devil for a God who enter Covenant with him by marks in the flesh or any other sign as it were in imitation of a Sacrament And it makes it worship according to the true properties of Worship when they take his promises for some benefits to be received and reciprocally return him promises of obedience This is to attribute verity to Satan that he will do what he says and power that he can bring extraordinary effects to pass and so they worship him both by faith and confederation These are they against whom Moses speaks so often in the Law that they must not be suffred to live if they be detected he had been brought up in all the learning of the Egyptians and knew the ways of their most accursed Sorcerers And because every one baptized unto Christ doth detest this sin from the bottom of his heart to give honour to the Devil therefore look to it that you do not touch the skirts of it before you are aware by Ignorance Perversness or Curiosity It is idolizing of the Devil to consult with those for any satisfaction whom we suspect to have confederacy with the Devil whether they have or no. There shall not be found among you a Consulter with familiar Spirits or with a Wizard or a Necromancer Deut. xviii 11. It is Idolizing of him to use divinations by dreams by calling on the dead by the tunes of birds by Lots and generally by all such means as are not directly natural or appointed by God to find out the truth Many things are Diabolical where there hath not passed any Diabolical communication And in such things where you offer no service to Satan yet you busie your self before you take heed with the Art and Spirit of Satan You would think it were rigid Divinity to say that it was in some wise an Idolizing of the Devil to expel Aches and Diseases by Charms and strange words which you understood not What do you know but that Satan may be secretly called upon in those words when you think you do nothing less than call upon him That great Divine Zanchius confesseth of himself that he rid himself of the Tooth-ach by muttering certain strange Lines which he was taught in Italy But he repented him for the fact because for ought he knew it was the Devils receipt for God and Nature never appointed such remedies to cure diseases And so much be spoken against the idolizing the worst of all Gods Creatures the Devil Nor are the best of his Creatures to be honoured with Religious Worship no not good Angels nor Saints living or departed I must not spare any that wander from my Text for God himself is the complete and entire Object of all Religious Worship Him only shalt thou serve Shew me where the Church is bidden to adore Angels with divine Adoration What so much writing and zeal to maintain that so much fury to bid Anathema to them that dislike it and yet no exhortation in all the Bible to commend it Was ever any punish'd by God for default that way Any one so much as check'd or quarrel'd for it The Letter of the Scripture presseth upon all things else to the least scruple if they be forgotten If Gods House be not honoured if his Tithes be not paid if his Prophets be evil intreated yet for the religious reverencing of Angels not one word of expostulation to advance it in the Law or Gospel Nay St. Paul says they that teach the worshipping of Angels do but beguile you with voluntary humility Col. ii 18. O say the Rhemists if any should attribute such pious culture to the Angels as Simon Magus did making them equal with God then he is within the reprehension of that Text. A frothy evasion for who regards what Simon Magus did The Apostle gives us a general caution That we be not beguiled by worshipping of Angels Is there no trespass
these many Agonies he had with the powers of darkness Ad solatium refero so Calvin on my Text. When he prayed earnestly in the Garden to have the Cup pass from him there appeared an Angel unto him from heaven strengthening him Luke xxii 43. This was their promptness to do all dutious offices to the Son of God Non ex necessitate sed ex officio not for necessity as if he wanted such as they but out of bounden obsequiousness Toward us their care and charity is truly necessary and their friendship to succour us in our conflicts is the mercy of God as the Angels took up Lazarus to heaven after much want and poverty into Abrahams bosom Thirdly they ministred unto him may be well interpreted they worshipped and adored him For when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him Their ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Heb. i. ult that is their Ministry is for the praise and glory of God whether it be that they sing Alleluja to him in heaven or help his Saints upon earth all is one the one work or the other are both of them their Liturgies For they minister only to Christ or for their sakes that shall be heirs of the Promise as St. Paul said He sustained all things for the Elâct 2 Tim. ii Therefore it is an over-curious yea and false distinction to put degrees between Angels that some laud the Lord continually before his Throne some minister to his Church and nothing for the foundation of it but this Prophetical place Dan. vii 10. Thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand thousands stood before him There they stood indeed only to be sent away of the Lords Errand when he should dispatch them For what Scripture can be clearer than the foresaid place Are they not all ministring Spirits Let the Sectaries of Thomas limit it and distinguish upon it an hundred ways but the Context of the Chapter will never bear it For first the manner of the Apostles bringing it out nonne omnes Are they not all so An Interrogation as if that were a common notion and never doubted Secondly in the precedents it cannot be shifted but that he speaks of them all excepts none To whom of the Angels did God say thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Thirdly if he did compare Christ but with one part and not with all the Angels the Hebrâws would have excepted against the main scope of his Epistle that Christ was not more excellent than all creatures above all comparison Let it be grounded then for the conclusion of all against the fancies of the Pseudo-Dionysius all are ministring Spirits In ministerium Christi propter homines lent unto us out of pitty and charity but attending Christ out of homage and duty His they are so we call them now by faith and such we shall perceive them to be by Vision at the last day Mat. xvi 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father with his Angels AMEN VII SERMONS UPON The Transfiguration OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON The Transfiguration LUKE ix 28 29. And it came to pass about an eight dayes after these sayings he took Peter and John and James and went up into a mountain to pray And as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering BECAUSE St. Luke doth more completely narrate all the circumstances of our Saviours Transfiguration than the other Evangelists therefore I have chosen to entreat out of his words upon that glorious miracle I confess he that reacheth this mysterie must ascend with Peter and James and John he must climb up to an exceeding high mountain of speculation which toucheth the very heavens But why should that confuse you Dearly beloved when there is so much pure glittering and illumination upon the mountain our Saviour's face shined with glory for his Gospel is perspicuous Moses ane Elias the Law and Prophets were clear and lightsom and the cloud which overshadowed the place I mean the virtue of the Holy Ghost will embrighten all obscurity There is hope then out of the explication of this story that you shall all be transfigured from darkness into light and from ignorance perhaps in some part into the knowledge of the truth And whereas I have purposely destined this work apart for this time of the year I think I have begun it in the ripest opportunity I find among antient Liturgies that the miracle of the Transfiguration was the Gospel appointed for the second Sunday in Lent the reasons were two partly to exhort all Christians in strictest times of penitence to be transformed into new men partly because it is certain this strange accident fell out in the beginning of the Spring not long before our Saviour's Passion for Moses and Elias came to tell him a short while before his death what he should suffer at Jerusalem Yet again I find in the old Latin Calender that some Churches kept a Feast in memory of the Transfiguration upon the sixt day of August But this was done upon a fancy they call it a Tradition that when Christ bad his Disciples not to tell as yet of those things they saw upon the mountain till a more convenient time they obeyed and revealed it not in five months following till the sixt of August and upon the publication of these things at that season they did consent to honour the memorial of the day with the celebration of a Feast Without prejudice to those ancient customs be it spoken I have a surer ground to stand upon that this is the proper time to preach upon it soon after the great Feast of our Saviour's Resurrection is accomplished My authority is Matth. 17.9 As the three disciples came down from the mountain Christ charged them saying Tell the vision to no man until the Son of man be risen from the dead And beside it shall appear in due order that the principal scope of the Transfiguration was to learn us what the excellency and glorification of a body shall be that is raised from the dead But because it is fit to work in the Lord's Vineyard at any hour of the day and to dress this Tree of Life the holy Scripture in every bough and branch at any instant and occasion of time therefore cutting off that Preface I will mark out those things which are fit to be handled severally in the words now read unto you and they be four quando quibuscum quâ humilitate quâ gloriâ at what time Christ was transfigured what associates he took with him with what humility he prepared himself with what glory he was dignified The Time is noted by three circumstances dicta dies iter 1. After some sayings he had uttered 2. About an eight dayes after those sayings 3. When he had gon up to a mountain In
the second branch his associates are Peter John and James ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he took them to see his glory it was his association St. Mark adds by way of emphasis ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he took three only and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã privatim he sequestred them apart from this world that they might see his glory Thirdly he prepar'd himself for this illustrious accident in great humility inter precandum he had prostrated himself before his Father in prayer And then fourthly this majestical glory came upon him two waies quoad vultum quoad vestitum in his person in his apparel in his flesh an astonishing radiancy the fashion of his countenance was altered in his cloaths an admirable purity his raiment was white and glistering I cannot be copious upon so many particulars of some more largely of the most succinctly In the first circumstance of all the Spirit of God hath noted out the Time and therefore I must not balk it no not in any of the three respects post dicta post dies post itâr First after those sayings says my Text inquiry shall be made what words those be and with whom he had that communication which went before the demonstrance of his glory in two preceding verses in this chapter Christ exhorted his Disciples and many others to the assurance of his Cross and that they might know he was able to recompence their sorrows who endured affliction for his name sake yea and would recompence it he speaks thus The Son of man shall come in his own glory and in his Fathers and of the holy Angels and I tell you of a truth there he some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God He refers the multitude to look for the last day of judgment when he would come in infinite Majesty to call the World before him but he refers certain nameless persons to expect after a while a pregustation of some heavenly apparition wherein they should see how he would be cloathed with power and excellencie when he came to sit upon his Throne and to call the Nations before him they should not taste of death till they saw a spectacle of the Kingdom of God in his transfiguration This was the occasion which made him exhibit his body with that glorious lustre in the Mount and yet some have ignorantly distorted those words to another purpose There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God what doth it mean say they but that John the Disciple whom Jesus loved should live till the last day of judgment as the report went among the Brethren how that disciple should not die Thus Theophylact and the counterfeit Hypolitus that error which hath run through so many Pens grew from hence that when Peter being told with what death he should glorifie God asked What should become of his fellow Disciple John Christ gave him no clear satisfaction because his question deserved it not but only thus If I will that he stay till I come what is that to thee follow thââ me Let it be but probably discovered what coming Christ speaks of and there is no great perplexity in the saying Attend therefore this coming is nothing less than that great coming in personal Majesty at the last day but his coming in wrath and judgment against the Nation of the Jews to punish them and quite to extirpate their seed from Jerusalem Touching this coming by the fury of the Romans to execute his vengeance St. James speaketh to the faithful converted from Judaism and then sore afflicted by the Synagogue Be ye patient and stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh Jam. v. 8. Whereas therefore antient stories have delivered unto us that all the other Apostles were swept away by Martyrdom before the final destruction of Jerusalem onely John outlived that time even till the reign of Trajan This then is a plain meaning of our Saviour's answer if I will that he live till that dismal day when I come to destroy this people which hath crucified me what is that to thee Peter thou shalt never see that day but prepare thy self before for a speedier Martyrdom And to what use should the Apostle live a mortal life upon earth unto the end of the world and yet never appear to any man he lived to see the coming of Gods judgments against the holy City and he together with Peter and James lived to see a mirror of celestial glory in the Transfiguration that 's the meaning of our Saviour's promise going before my Text There be some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Kingdom of God It follows to be noted in the observation of the Time that after these sayings he fulfilled his word neither at the instant nor after a long distance but about an eight days after these sayings It was neither so quickly dispatcht before they had meditated upon it nor so long put off that they could forget it be it about an eight days or about eight thousand ages it is but a little while to God who measures all things by Eternity Now in these words which are the very front of the story there are two days odds in the relations of the Evangelists St. Luke you hear sayes about an eight days after St. Matthew and St. Mark after six days Doth not this account differ no not a whit six days complete did go between his sayings and his mighty work St. Matthew and the other speak of that time only but in a part of one day he had said there be some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Kingdom of God in part of another day He took those three up into the mountain and so St. Luke computes exactly 't was about an eight dayes after those sayings So hath the Divine wisdom disposed that the same thing should be repeated in several Gospels with some alteration of phrase but with no difference or contradiction and that for two causes When outwardly there seems to be some disagreement between the Text of one Evangelist and another these difficulties do whet our industry to study the book of God there must be knots and mysteries hard to be understood ut homo semper discat Deus semper doceat that man may alwayes learn and God may always teach unto the end of the world 2. Says another si per omnia consentirent nemo putarent eos seorsim scripsisse if they had all jumpt in the same words quite throughout as some say of the 72 Interpreters in the Old Testament it might have been imagined that the Gospels were not writ at distinct times and in distinct places now the dissonancy of their phrase doth warrant us to say that the Evangelists did not cast their heads together when they committed the Scriptures to writing but wrote apart and yet the same spirit
which was in them all brought out an harmony of the same truth from several Authors apprehend it if you will by this vulgar similitude A Gardiner curious in devices had taught four several learners to draw the same artificial knot upon the ground and every of the four laid out his knot as he was instructed upon several beds but each set it with several kinds of herbs you will not say I hope but the knot is the same albeit the herbs planted upon it are different So all the four Evangelists were taught by one Holy Ghost to draw out the same model of our Saviour's life his Transfiguration his Passion his Resurrection the herbs indeed with which every Gospel is planted are divers the narrations differ in words but that 's the excellency of the truth of our Gospel that in several phrases every one of those holy Scribes sets down the same Lord Jesus Christ This I have added to the illustration of this seeming difference after six days Christ was transfigured 't is true and as true it was about an eight days after these sayings The last respect unto the time is joyned with the place this Transfiguration fell out after he was gone up into a mountain to pray A valley is as capable of Gods glory as a mountain for God is God of the valleys as well as of the hills whatsoever Benhadad the King of Syria said to the contrary but Christ chose this high hill as well for the exercise of Prayer as for the mystery of his Transformation there may seem to be two intentions that he desired such a place for prayer quia coeli conspectus liberior quia solitudo major First upon the higher ground there is the more free contemplation of Heaven the place to which we lift up our eyes and our hearts in prayer for though our Lord is every where both in heaven and earth and under the earth yet thither we advance our devotions as to the chief Throne of his Majesty Next our Saviour left a concourse of people beneath and went to the mountain to pour out his devotions there as in a solitary sequestration where he should not be troubled Into such unfrequented hills he did often retire alone as if he would teach us to bid all the world adieu and all earthy thoughts when we utter our supplications before our heavenly Father neither doth it seem expedient to act the miracle of the Transfiguration upon a meaner Theater than an exceeding high mountain to shew what ascensions must be in their soul who have a desire to be exalted to Gods glory Our heart according to its own evil inclination cleavs unto the dust like a serpent our thoughts are of low stature like Zachaeus if they will climb up let it be for no other end or errand but as he did to see Christ There are two mountains says Bernard which we must ascend but not both at once First there is the mountain where the Son of God did preach Mat. v. and after that go up to the mountain where he was transfigured Mat. 17. Non solum meditemur in praemiis sed etiam in mandatis Domini I beseech you first meditate upon the Sayings and Commandments of God and afterward upon his Transfiguration upon the reward of glory and not as it is the vain custom of the world run on presumptuously upon assurance of glorification and to forget the true order first to ascend upon the mountain of obedience If you think it material to my expositions to know what mountain this was on which the dignity of this great work did befall you shall be informed in that also I know none but Ephrem the Syrian that says it was Mount Sinah He had his fetch oportebat in eo suggeftu consignari novum testamantum in quo conscriptum fuit vetus it behoved he speaks as if he would appoint God it behoved the New Testament to be chiefly honoured in that place where the old Law was delivered But God is not bound to man's witty divinations for this Mountain as it appears in our Saviour's journeys was in Galilee and Sinai is in Arabia Galat. iv 25. St. Hierom did long dwel and study in the Region of Judaea and he says in his Epitaph or Funeral farewel to Paula that it was Mount Tabor And Euthymius interserts as much Psa lxxxix 13. upon those words Tabor and Hermon shall rejoyce in thy name This was so constantly believed that Helen the Mother of Constantine built a Church upon that ground to celebrate the place where Christ had been wonderfully dignified and if relations deceive us not there are the ruins of two little Chappels more upon Mount Tabor at this day erected by some superstitious conceipt because St. Peter said Master let us build here three Tabernacles All that I read beside is in Josephus that it was the most craggy and steepy high place in all Galilee in some parts inaccessible the fitter to resemble the Kingdom of Heaven to which we cannot ascend but in one rugged path repentance and faith And the Historian who was a famous Captain also adds that he built a wall about it in 40 days that the Jews might defend themselves there as in a strong Castle from the incursion of the Romans It is more than all these have said that S. Peter calls it the Holy Mount This voice we heard when we were with him in the holy mount Holy because the Sacred Trinity did open it self in that place as I will shew hereafter holy because Jesus the Holy of Holies did shine there in the bright lustre of beatitude not as if there were any holiness in the soil and all other earth prophane God did not mean so when he said to Moses Put off thy shoos from thy feet for the place on which thou standest is holy ground but because it puts an holy reverence into a man that approacheth either in body or mind and thinketh seriously what wonders were done upon that holy Mountain So I have done with the first part of my Text the circumstance of time and place which is the entrance into this Miracle It cannot be unpleasant to examine the smallest parcels of such divine works to them that love the History of Christ In the next general part we read as there was choice of time and place so there was choice of persons He took Peter and John and James What a-do should we have had with some men if none but Peter had followed his Master into the Mountain upon this glorious occasion as it is Leo caught hold of it to speak strange words and such as may amuse the Reader The Lord did take Peter into the fellowship of the indivisible Trinity When the Wolf in the Fable peept into the Shepheards house and saw him and his servants dress a Lamb to be eaten says the Wolf what a stir would have been made if I had done as much So I dare be bold
fullonicant ingeniis suis says Origen Hereticks set a bright gloss upon their false opinions they in his construction are those Fullers upon earth that would make their doctrine if it were possible as white as truth but if you pattern it with the Scripture you shall see it colours not with that spiritual light which comes from Christ That Doctrine which hath the simplicity of the Spirit without the knotty entanglements of mans wit that which says let God have the glory but to us belongs shame and confusion of face That which impresseth humility into the thoughts zeal and devotion into the heart all manner of vertue into the practice This is that true light which comes from heaven no Fuller upon earth none that sit in the pestilent Chair of deceitful tongues can make a thing so white and every one that is of the truth loveth the light and hateth darkness And so far upon this admirable vision His countenance was altered and his rayment white and glistering These were res mirae strange and uncouth things the next general part of the Text doth handle personas miras strange persons whom a man would not expect in that place and at that time Behold there talked with him two men which were Moses and Elias If any of the people had been by that took him to be Elias or Jeremias or one of the old Prophets they should have seen a difference in this Vision between the head and the feet between the Lord and his Servants For surely some of the old Prophets two for all and those whom the Jews did most admire came upon this Theater to be seen that Christs glory might appear the more Let the eyes of Peter look upon them together and see if Christs glory be not far exalted above all the Saints Quantùm lenta solent inter viburna cupressi Among the Gods there is none like unto thee O Lord Psal lxxxvi 8. Non in Angelis coelestibus seu in altissimis says the Chaldee Paraphrase not among the Angels nor among any of the blessed souls that live in the highest places Was this such a business to be taught will some men say to bring the dead out of their graves Can any mistake that the honour of Christ is far exalted above all his Servants For to which of the Angels did the Father say at any time Sit thou on my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool Beloved are there none that keep the festival days of the Saints with more devotion and observance then the first day of the week for ever to be sanctified because Christ rose from the dead on that day Do they not make more Pilgrimages and Vows to some Patrons of their own invention who have been but men Are not there more Temples erected in their name More costly Ornaments bestowed upon their Images More Prayers poured out unto them than to Christ himself And had I not need to remember you that two men who were now glorified talked with Christ upon Mount Tabor that they might appear like little stars obscured before the greatest Planet Moses did but verifie in person what he had taught in a Song before Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods Who is like unto thee Exod. xv 11. I adjudge it for another reason that two men beatified came to talk with him because he would not seem to ingross the light of glory to himself without derivation to others It is not a treasure to be reserved unto himself but a communicable donative The glory which thou gavest me I have given them Joh. xvii 22. As a seed-corn is fruitless unless it die and bring forth stalks of Wheat so Christ compares himself to such a grain of Wheat which must die to bring forth much fruit or else it abideth alone as if all were marred unless we were accommodated by his fruitfulness The Kings honour is in the multitude of his people the joy of the Father is in the Olive branches round about his Table The glory of the woman is for the children to grow up and call the mother blessed The felicity of these consists herein to have some that are partners of their felicity But God is all-sufficient to contemplate his own glory though he had never made the world he did not make man to praise him as if he wanted voices to magnifie his name and make him God Yet he is pleased to express his love so far that his honour should be alone unless the goodly fellowship of Saints and Prophets were round about him Except a seed-corn fall into the ground and die it abideth alone Joh. xii 24. Lord why dost thou esteem thy self alone and heaven to be solitary without us But O man how canst thou be without him in thy heart on earth that would not be alone without thee in heaven Behold when he brought down heaven upon earth in his own body two of the Elect brought down their glory to the Mountain to assist him His own Disciples were yet but earth and corruption and therefore incapable of such illuminated brightness till the time should come to be translated out of the prison of mortality And Angels were not fit to be his Compeers at this bout because he manifested the glorification of the flesh which pertains not to Angels but to Men. None of the living would serve the turn to appear with him in Majesty they were not supernaturalized to undergo it nor any of the Angelical Order they were not of the right Predicament two men came down unto him who had been exalted into Heaven and now I will shew with what great congruity these two men who were Moses and Elias But to omit nothing which is fit to be observ'd I will make three general heads of this matter 1. Whether all Elias and all Moses did appear both body and soul 2. From whence they came to be Parties at the celebration of this great Miracle And 3. If I can reach so far Why they became the representative persons for the whole Body of the Saints in Heaven To the first that these two Witnesses presented themselves in bodily shapes there is no wit so scrupulous I think that can make a question of it for S. Matthew says ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã these men were seen of Peter James and John Then they were heard talking and by their talk discover'd to be those grand Prophets as I will shew hereafter They talked as men to men vocally not in an intellectual fashion as spirits do And the Apostles in their extasie mentioned the making of Tabernacles to shrowd them in but a Tabernacle is a Coverture for a Body and not for a Spirit The controversie doth not consist in this therefore I pass it over That which hath caused diversities of judgments to arise is herein what manner of Bodies these were wherewith Moses and Elias were cloathed to attend the Transfiguration of Christ I will make bold to remove
Septuagint Translation marrs all when it renders it thus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he was taken up as it were into Heaven There is no such diminution of as it were in the sacred Text He went up to heaven sayes the Original That could not be the Element of Air which is sometimes called Heaven for the Air is rather the Seat of Satan who is called the Prince of the Air than of the Blessed from thence come turbulencies and winds and tempests but they are at rest from all labour and unquietness Nor can it be meant of that Heaven of the lower Orbs for then they should be hurried about every day with the swift motion of the Spheres from East to Occident Where then could Elias be reposed but in the Heaven of happiness in the tranquillity of Abraham's bosom as Dathan and Abiram were swallowed alive into Hell so Enoch and Elias were lifted up alive into Heaven Heaven is taken two wayes both for the place and for the state and condition of it and both wayes I have good ground to say that Elias was in body among the spirits of the Kings and Patriarchs and Prophets and just men who are dead in the love of God and all they went to Heaven locally as to their place and to Heaven figuratively that is to joy and happiness Which I oppose to the adverse and very erroneous opinion maintained by the Schoolmen among the Pontificians that the spirits of just men which departed before Christs ascension into Heaven were reclused into a receptacle call'd Limbus Patrum which was the verge or fringe of Hell where they suffered no pain but sustained a temporal loss having not as yet admittance into the Courts of the House of our God How unconsonant is this to our Saviour's words Many shall come from the East and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the Kingdom of God How unlike to that Phrase of David Lord who shall ascend into thy holy hill how unagreeing to the title of Abrahams bosom wherein Lazarus was in a long distance from the gulf of sorrow But to go one step further and no more at this time did not Christ by his ascension open a passage to the Souls of the blessed to draw nearer to God in the highest heavens than ever before yes verily I believe it and I am compelled to maintain it by St. Pauls Doctrine Heb. ix 8. The way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing that is while the Law of Moses did endure Their Souls departing were at rest in Heaven in the hand of God no way obtruded near the confines of Hell as the Schoolmen taught who either could not or would not discern a medium between the Limbus of Hell and the highest Heaven They lived by the same faith that we do though not with the same evidence and fulness that we have therefore their Souls departing had a dimension of happiness allotted for them yet not with that fulness of joy which now they have nor perhaps with that measure and proportion which they and we shall have hereafter Beloved remember and consider Heaven is so large and spacious that it is fit to admit divers Quarterings and Mansions in it the Arch-angels Throne the Angels Palace the blessed seats of the faithful since Christs ascension the Refrigerium of the faithful before his ascension a Tabernacle allotted for Enock and Elias all these might be several yet Heaven big enough to make room for all In my Fathers house there are many mansions says Christ that went before us to prepare a place And To thee O blessed Saviour c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON The Transfiguration LUKE ix 31 32. Who appeared in glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Hierusalem But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep and when they were awake they saw his glory and the two men that stood with him WHen I compare many parcels of Sacred Scripture and many fictions of the Heathen together which are of great similitude I perceive that Satan intended to discredit the holy Writ by devising Fables so like to the sacred truth I do verily think their Deucalion and his floud was taken from the story of our Noah and his Deluge Their Hippolytus refusing the tentations of Phedra and yet accused by her for a Rape is our Joseph after the same manner impeached by his lustful Mistress Their Hercules is our Joshuah Their Bellerophon carrying Letters to cut his own throat is our Vrias so betrayed by David Their Nisus of Megara and his fatal purple hair cut off by Scylla is our Sampson and his locks cut off by Dalilah So their infamous transmutations of their Gods into Bulls and Swans and a thousand lying shapes were publisht by the Devil to make the Transfiguration of our Saviour suspected Shame upon such gross Figments which can no way darken the manifold light of the Gospel so palpably counterfeit that they need no refutation As Irenaeus passed his censure upon them Victoria est sententiae vestrae manifestatio it was victory enough to the Christian cause to tell and relate their absurd opinions But in reference to the Metamorphoses of those Idol Gods St. Peter justifies the truth of our Saviours Transfiguration thus We have not cunningly devised Fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye witnesses of his Majesty 2. Pet. i. 16. The Heathen write how their Gods were changed upon earth but to their shame and ignominy The Son of God was changed miraculously upon earth but into a body of resplendent glory When God was come down to men upon earth the Heaven did seem to come down upon earth to God When the Greek Emperour John Palaeologus was drawn into Italy by Pope Eugenius the forth to be present in the Florentine Council the City of Venice entertained him so magnificently with their Streets all guilded and their Boats and Galleys as rich as their Streets that the Greeks in astonishment at the bravery cried out ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Earth was become a Heaven for that day I have met with no parcel of a Story in my reading more fit to be applied to this occasion When Mount Thabor did harbour our Lord and our Lord did glister with beatifical brightness and the Saints above did come thither in their Princely array and the very clouds did look more white than Lillies and the voice of the Father spake more pleasing than the sweetest Musick This is my well beloved Son I may justly cry out the Earth was become an Heaven for that day All things else in the Gospel are intermixed with much humility this one Treatise lifts up my stile and makes me say Paulò majora canamus This piece which I spred before you is nothing but Triumph and Majesty and Glory Unto these words which
But her tentation would not take he preferred to refuse this offer and return home to his own Country Pleasure is not a Goddess but a Sorceress which would offer us the like Bonum est esse hic this is a fair inheritance were it not a gay thing if this were heaven and you imparadised in this pleasant seat for ever O no says celestial love go out my soul go out take the wings of the morning fly away to thy Country above the heavenly Jerusalem and then rest for ever Philip that mighty Macedonian feasted many Wits at a Banquet and he propounded a question to be argued before him What was the greatest thing in Nature After many Opinions one collected all that had been said and concluded Neither was Philip himself the greatest of all things nor the Hill Olympus nor the Sea of waters nor the Sun in the Firmament Sed cor quod res maximas despiceret the greatest of all things was an heart that despised the greatest things which are in this world beneath Unclog your affections from all contents of this miserable life if Tabor it self transport you the best part of the Militant Church where Christs glory shines which by Gods mercy I am confident we enjoy yet forget that and yearn for the Church Triumphant Be willing to bequeath the earth to the succession that follows you and your body to the ground and your soul to God 5. I am ready to move the fifth question alas when I consider it how unfit is the natural man for spiritual things An bonum sit quod paucis solummodò est bonum Whether we should call that good which is appropriated to our selves and not communicated to many This is it for which Origen thinks that Satan stirred up Peter to utter these words to entreat him to bless that little company upon Mount Taber with his presence and to leave all mankind without redemption O too forgetful Nimiumque oblite tuorum both of the other nine Disciples and of all that people that sate in darkness and in the shadow of death It was the most Jewish maliciousness that the Jews had to challenge God that his mercies and blessings belonged to their Nation and to no other Kingdom but this contraction is far more unreasonable to beseech Christ to smother his glory in a private corner with Moses and Elias and three Apostles as if these were the five wise Virgins enough to enter into the Marriage Chamber of the Bridegroom If one member be honoured all the members shall rejoyce with it but when all the members of the body are honoured every member shall rejoyce much more Tolle invidiam tuum est quod habeo tolle invidiam meum est quod habes says St. Austin Be not you envious and that which I have is yours Let not me be envious and that which you have is mine A carnal man you see wisheth his own happiness with the consequent infelicity of all the world beside let me oppose unto this the stupendious example of a regenerate man that wished his own damnation for the salvation of a great people I could wish that my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh Rom. ix 3. Some have commented upon it that Paul was unadvised in those words and offended God Nay Beloved the Holy Ghost cannot be unadvised by whose instinct he wrote and he doth Preface in the beginning I say the truth in Christ I lie not St. Chrysostom cannot speak better than he did upon that verse Quia nos longè sumus ab hâc dilectione Pauli ideo intelligere ejus verba non possumus We want so much of that love to our brethren which Paul had to his that we are not able to make a good construction of his meaning Yet I will direct you in a few words Paul did not desire to be separated for his brethrens sake from the charity and friendship of Christ for then he should love man better than God but from the felicity and sweet fruit of that friendship He would perish for ever not as Christs enemy but as an offering for his Nation He doth not desire to be out of the love of Christ but out of the Vision of Christ The conversion of an whole people he thought was more for Gods glory than the salvation of one man therefore although Gods Election must stand and that was impossible which he desired yet so long as he loved his brethren in God and not against God it was no excessive love And that is the judgment of Calvin But to draw to the use of the Point you see that perfect charity squints not at its own benefit with the great detriment of others Bonum est nobis is bad divinity and bad civility it spoils Church and Commonwealth that which is good to one or to a few will never thrive if it be not good for many It is true he is one of the fools of the world that is not wise for himself but he is one of Gods Reprobates that is wise for none but for himself Nequicquam sapit qui non omnibus sapit When every man is his own end all things will come to a bad end Blessed were those days when every man thought himself rich and fortunate by the good success of the publick wealth and glory We want publick souls we want them I speak it with compassion there is no sin or abuse in the world that afflicts my thought so much Every man thinks that he is a whole Commonwealth in his private Family Omnes quae sua sunt quaerunt All seek their own Did St. Paul write it against us or against the Philippians Chap. ii 21. Can the Publick be neglected and any mans Private be secure It is all one whether the mischief light upon him or his Posterity There are some says Tully that think their own Gardens and Fish-ponds shall be safe when the Commonwealth is lost Doth he not call them fools by craft Away with this bonum nobis to intend our own good rather than the general it was the greatest error that St. Peter committed 6. To the last question briefly in a word An bonum consistit in aspectu humanitatis Christi Could it be the supreme good of man to behold the Humane Nature of Christ only beatified Surely the Humane Nature shining as light as the Sun was a rare object that Peter could have been contented with that and no more for his part for ever yet the resolution of the School holds certain that blessedness consists essentially in beholding the Divine Nature which is the fountain of all goodness and power and in the fruition thereof accidentally it consists in beholding Christs Humane Nature glorified and in the consequent delectation These things must not be enlarged now because I am prevented by the time To God the Father c. THE FIFTH SERMON UPON The Transfiguration LUKE ix
he called unto Moses out of the midst of the Cloud Some more veneration certainly redounds to the Divine Majesty by drawing a Veil before him that his glory may be kept secret The Mercy-seat from whence God promised the Children of Israel to tell them all things whatsoever they should do it was covered with the wings of the Cherubins that every rash eye might not behold it But this was not all that a shadowed darkness should beget veneration there was another reason that men might see no manner of shape or resemblance to make them figure the Lord in any form and commit Idolatry I will take Salmeron the Jesuit at his word in this Notation Ne si aliqua effigies videretur Deus pingeretur a Cloud did invelop the glory of the Father whensoever he spake that men might not say they saw his likeness and therefore paint or carve an image like unto him And since the Lord continues to speak out of a Cloud as well in the New Testament as in the Old surely his purpose continues the same to bridle our inclinations to Idolatry O that men knew what this Cloud meant and they would never be so forward to make the Images of God and they that will not learn that wholsom lesson from the Pillar of Cloud shall be consum'd by the Pillar of Fire Let us come from the substance of it to the qualities and certainly St. Matthew hath left us matter to work upon that he says it was ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a bright Cloud it seems it lookt like that part of Heaven which we see in a fair night and is called via lactea the Milky way which is the concurrence of the light of many small Stars as if it were a Lane made or paved with dimpling Stars Such a Cloud must needs be more delectable than the clearest Summer day which had no thickness in the air but were all serenity And such it must be in a great measure in Aquinas's interpretation for when Peter talkt of Tabernacles close shady Arbors to keep out the light of the Sun he was thus confuted says Aquinas that light did rather become the Saints than shady darkness Claritas mundi innovati erit sanctorum tabernaculum when there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth bedeckt with infinite light that 's the Tabernacle of the Blessed which shall abide for ever But the chief reason was to fulfil that promise which David knew should be performed the Lord shall make my darkness to be light here was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the World Jesus Christ it is He that came to bring a Lantern to our feet and a Light unto our paths that we should not stumble and fall In the Old Testament the Clouds where God appeared were densissima tenebrosae thick and dark Clouds Exod. xix 16. vapours and pillars of smoak in the New Covenant the darkness is dispersed and the Cloud remaines white and of a pure lustre For the first Testament is full of Ceremonies and Shadows of things to come the Covenant of Faith in the Gospel exhibits the manifest and open truth says Paschasius Ratbertus it was neither a fiery Cloud nor a dark Cloud but a brightsom quia non in igne terroris nunc venit non in caligine caecitatis sed in lumine veritatis the terror of fire is overpast the mistiness of Clouds is cleared truth comes forth like the morning and is ascended to the height like the Sun at noon day Nay as the things to be believed are clear so there are no mists and fogginess in their affections where the spirit of grace will abide Non calligat affectibus hominum sed revelat occulta says St. Ambrose Our depraved imaginations shall not make the truth a lie but God shall bring to light the hidden things before the eyes of all men What 's the whole Gospel indeed but nubes lucida a very Cloud in it self but made lightsome and perspicuous by the gift of interpretation For although the Veil of the Law is removed away yet even among the Evangelical Writers there are says St. Peter ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã certain things hard to be understood the Incarnation of our Lord the Resurrection of the Dead the ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity still we are in nubibus these are thick Clouds and it is impossible for the natural man with the dim eye of nature to see through them without doubt great is the mystery of godliness God manifested in the flesh Faith is a very mysterious thing but that the cloud is illuminated by the revelation of the Holy Spirit and as he that sees through the Water or through a Cloud suppose an Oar through the Water or the Sun through a Cloud will rather trust to his judgment than to his outward sense which would much deceive him so because we do all see the secrets of God through a thick Cloud let us rather trust to our faith than to our reason there are many strong delusions incident to reason because it looks through the clouds of sin and infirmity And Beloved as for the Priests that should keep the Key of knowledge what is their Office and Calling but to make Clouds appear bright And therefore Christ said of his Apostles Vos estis lux mundi Ye are the light of the world Though now adays it is the fashion of many to make that which was lightsom before appear as duskie as a Cloud Such as especially about Gods unsearchable decrees tangle knots and ravel Divinity that you shall find no end And after much is spoken or written you may say Incertior sum multó quà m dudum I was in a Cloud before that was dark now I am in a smoak that puts out my eyes All the light which some voluminous Compilers afford which would teach men Gods secret purpose in their Election and the way of their own heart in their Conversion both which are inscrutable it is like a Candle in a Thieves Lanthorn perhaps they see a little themselves but I am sure no body else shall be the better for their light Finally to end this Point God who can colour a thick Cloud with whiteness and make it transparent is able to lay the dark conveyances of our hypocrisie conspicuous and naked before him Laban could not find his Idols because Rachel had hid them in her Tent but God can discover those sins which are our greatest Idols though we have set them up in the inmost corner of our heart If the Spirit of Elisha went along with Gehazi when Gehazi ran after Naaman to take a Bribe then the Lord that gave that Spirit to Elisha traceth along all the Compacts of Simony all the fine conveyances of Bribery all manner of Corruption though it be dark as midnight The fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is 1 Cor. iii. 13. When it once catcheth fire it will be
emulation may go out for want of combustible matter and in this case not he that violates the peace by stickling much but he that obeys and holds his peace deserves the greater reward This power our Saviour exercised over his Apostles to tie their tongues for a time that they should not publish the glory of his Transfiguration till men were fit to receive it He charged them they should tell no man of the things which they had seen I would but so much humility might be marked from hence as would repress insolence and vain boasting Christ laid his command upon this matter rather than upon any other and imposed silence upon all the three Witnesses that they should not blab the Vision of his Excellency abroad How much unlike is this to them who had rather lose an ounce of their blood nay the sweet odour of virtue than an hour of fame and popularity And so much good as is done and not openly known and divulged is soon repented Where shall we find such a modest temper as that of St. Paul so much admired by Theophylact after fourteen years he tells the Corinthians of the Revelation which God granted him and of his Rapture into Paradise and in all that space he did never impart that celestial honour which was done him either to friend or stranger and then he was ashamed that he was put to it says he I am become a fool in glorying ye have compelled me but what fools are they then that will make such proud boasting without compulsion Jospeph being but a child he did as a child and having the inspiration of two several Dreams he could not hold but made all his Brethren acquainted with them to his own affliction He dreamt a dream and told it to his brethren and they hated him the more Therefore in his riper years though God had given him the spirit of Prophesy he would not divulge himself that he had the interpretation of Dreams He bad Pharaoh's Butler remember him when he was in place And according to the old Saw qui bene latuit bene vixit he conteined himself from manifesting the Gift of God which was in him till the Butler could not choose but call him to mind to put Pharaoh's heart in peace Elizabeth hid her self five months after the Lord had made her conceive a Child miraculously to the astonishment of all the World that great Prophet John the Baptist The Blessed Virgin was saluted by an Angel from Heaven conceived by the Holy Ghost visited by the Wisemen from the East she encountred every day many strange celestial Tokens and yet made no noise of these things to the World but kept all these sayings in her heart Luke ii 51. The mighty power of God will shine and shew it self at last be not ambitious to have it displayed for your own ostentation Christ refrained to have the Vision of the Transfiguration presently notified He charged them c. Generally the Fathers consider the Apostles but as Novices in sacred matters who were yet but in training up and as deficient in those abilities which were requisite to handle such a mysterie Sacred things saies the Greek Proverb must not be toucht ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã with unwashen hands This made the ancient Fathers of the Church as fearful to come into a Pulpit as our raw Scholars now adays are forward You need not charge these hasty Predicants as our Saviour did his Disciples not to speak of that for a certain time which they know I would they could be admonished not to be so bold to speak of that which they know not I am not certain for the greater part of such that they have seal but I will bear them record with St. Paul it is not according to knowledg But will you know the spring head from whence this abuse ariseth How can they preach unless they be sent And why was Authority so overseen to send them licentiâ sumus omnes deteriores it is the licence which enables for those things wherein they have no ability Yet again another Text of St. Paul rubs my memory multa licent quae non expediunt there are too many such licences granted which are not expedient If men would let knowledg ripen in them before they speak and not blurt out any thing with extemporary barbarism the Word of God preached would not come so much in contempt for a Parable is an undecent thing in the mouth of a fool Prov. xxvi 9. Our Saviour destined a large space of time to have the cogitation of his great Works mellow in the thoughts of Peter James and John before they testified them to the World which is another reason why they must not speak of that which they had seen till the Son of man was risen from the dead Another reason shall stand in the last place of this point it is fit that they and none but they should preach of Christs Glory who are affrighted with nothing The Apostles were very timerous and would desert a good Cause if they were strongly opposed you know the infirmity of Peter that could not answer the challenge of a silly Damosel but denied his Master This was in diebus illis when the Holy Ghost had not yet come down upon him in the shape of a fire afterward he durst speak the truth though he had been in the midst of fire nay he could not repress the Gospel his will was overcom and could not revolt if the literal sense of the Text be right as sure it is We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard Act. iv 20. Grace was as it were turned into nature in them now as in the Angels confirmed in grace says the ordinary Gloss Vino coelesti ebrit se continere non poterant says Lyra the Scoffers of Jerusalem said they were full of new wine it was indeed by a figure a celestial wine with which their spirit was inebriated and as a drunken mans tongue will not ly quiet so in this resemblance they were such that could not but speak the Gospel of Jesus Christ they were these times of courage which Christ had destin'd that in them his Transfiguration should be revealed openly Moses found not constancy in himself and therefore would have balked Gods Message says he Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh So the eleven Disciples were so fearful after out Saviours death that they shut the doors upon themselves where they were assembled for fear of the Jews and after the Resurrection we read that Christ did many times erect their courage which was dejected with these words Be not afraid and therefore he said unto them Tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem until ye be indued with power from on high Luke xxiv 49. When that power had possessed them with spirit and resolution they had leave to unfold this mysterie and not before he charged them saying Tell the Vision to no man till the Son
of man be risen from the dead In the fourth general member of the Text as they were enjoyn'd so my Text says they kept secrecy they told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen When I first entred upon this part of the Gospel I told you that the Latin Churches keep an annual Feast in memory of the Transfiguration upon the sixth day of August for this reason the Transfiguration it self fell out in the beginning of the Spring a few weeks before our Saviours Passion The three Disciples which saw it being admonished to be private in that which they had seen till more convenient time confessed it not in five moneths following unto their fellow Disciples and then made a solemn publication of it upon the sixth of August which day thereupon had some sacred honour done it Obedience is a virture of great necessity even in the smallest things and they that are subject to obey must not examin with what little prejudice a small command may be broke but rather consider with what great ease it may be kept Things forbidden says the School are of two sorts Quaedam prohibentur quia mala quaedam sunt mala quia prohibentur some things are absolutly evil in themselves and therefore are prohibited as Murder and Adultery some things are prohibited by just authority and therereupon respectively become evil as the eating of the forbidden fruit in Paradise if God had not expresly prohibited that Tree to man it had been no sin to taste of it So our Saviour made that sinful by his command which otherwise had been harmless to be spoken of if he had not encharged his Disciples to obsequiousness and they performed that secrecy which they undertook not envying their Brethren the relation of the things which they had seen but observing that time of restraint which their Master had prefixed And thus they reap praise even out of their infirmity that although they were unfit to speak of such transcendent miracles as yet yet they knew their duty to hold their peace Dearly Beloved the wonderful works of our Lord were never brought to pass to be hid like a Candle under a Bushel and to remain alwayes undiscover'd no it was Pauls defence before Felix and Agrippa that every thing which belonged to Christ was advanced to the open view These things sayes he were not done in a corner The Heathen had their sacra Cereris Eleusinia non divulganda the Ceremonies and Rituals of Ceres never to be divulged the more shame for those Idolaters to have such filthy abominations in their Temples which they durst not publish Christ did only sequester his secrets for the most apt times of manifestation Dies dici eructat verbum one day certifieth another Time is the most prudent Master in the world In those days appointed for silence Peter and John and James did shut up the secret committed unto them but only in those times and now it is left to be preached to all Nations as to you at this time ever since the Resurrection of the Son of God The Catechumeni in the Primitive Church that is the novice Christians instructed in the Rudiments of Faith and not yet baptized were not permitted to be present in the Church at the celebration of the Lords Supper such as are baptized have admittance to partake of all Mysteries when they can examine themselves because they are baptized into the Faith of his Resurrection And yet there is a Veil drawn before our eyes till the times of great accomplishment I mean the Resurrection of the body then we shall be filled with the glory of the Lord which shall enlighten us to behold all things that conduce to our eternal happiness AMEN FOUR SERMONS UPON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE PASSION MAT. xxvii 24. I am innocent of the bloud of this just Person see you to it AS Pilate sate in Judgment upon our Saviour so are we met together this day to sit in judgment upon Pilate The Ruler marveled when his Prisoner stood before him and said nothing for himself But now is the time to speak it was Christs good pleasure to leave his cause to be defended by us who should live in after Ages and wheresoever the Gospel is preached throughout the world the Word doth testifie now in every mans mouth Christ is pittied and Pilate is censured When they reach'd a Reed unto our Saviour they put an Emblem in his hand says St. Hierom that their own infamy should be endited against them to after Ages Calamum tenet in manu ut inimicorum sacrilegium scriberet The Reed was in his hand to pen the sacriledge of his enemies But Pilates crime shall be the least part of our Meditation that which I would require to be the fruit of your attention is to beware of committing the same faults which we tax in another ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a reproach retorted upon our selves is a double infamy For as the Orator said of the Faction of Augustus and Antony when Caesar was treacherously slain Tyrannus occidit tyrannis vivit the Tyrant was suppressed but not the Tyranny so when Pilate shall have sentence against him we must every man also arrain his own infidelity which thinks it self innocent of the bloud of Christ or else I must tell you plainly that you do condemn the Hypocrite and acquit Hypocrisie He that says he did not crucifie Christ is his greatest crucifier he that will confess that they were his blasphemies which spat upon his face his Briberies that nailed his hands to the Cross his gluttony and drunkenness that gave him Gall to drink his wrath and malice that pierced him in the side his disobedience against Magistrates that bruized him in the head his wanton Apparel that stript him of his Robe he that will not only die with Christ in his arms as old Simeon did but acknowledge that Christ died by his arms he shall find peace at the last and righteousness with the God of his salvation What became of our Saviours Reed and of his Robe we find in holy Scripture they were taken from him by the Souldiers but it is not written whether any man took up the Crown of thorns as if that were our share or any mans else who is goaded with true compunction And to say truth all the sins which we do commit let us make the best of them are but thorns and briers but if we confess them in humility and ask pardon in tears and contrition then they are corona spinea a crown of thorns Before I begin either to judge Pilate or to examine our selves I must tell you of a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a figure of confusion which is most proper to the Devils Rhetorick For in one and the same breath nay in the self-same period he will do three divers things Lie and tell truth and Prophesie Lie like himself tell truth like a believer and Prophesie
meditation I would resolve to be a true man where Pilat was an hypocrite and say in defiance of all the world c. The rather did this Deputy endeavour to clear himself of blood either because he had been taxed before for extreme severity The Galilaeans were rebellious and he mingled their own blood with their Sacrifice it was that as some conjecture which put enmity between him and Herod or rather he shun'd the imputation of blood because he was a Ruler and a Magistrate Ferrum adhibere nisi in extremis neque civile neque medicum As in the Body of man so in the Estate political that Member should be very corrupt which is cut off with the Sword Many Executions are no more honourable to the Judg than many Funerals to the Physician Mercy and Clemency are stronger than Lions to support the Crown of the King and that Throne shall be established says Synesius where the People are afraid of nothing so much as for the Kings safety It is said of Trajan the Emperor that he was both subtle and industrious to examin the crimes of Malefactors sed mallet non invenire quod quaerit quà m invenire quod puniat that it pleased him better not to find out that which he sought for than to find out any thing which must be punished The life of Jehu the Son of Nimshi is it not a strange Legend as ever was recorded no act or exploit of his memory remaining in all the Scripture but interfecit interfecit here he kill'd one there he murdered forty then he slew 400 but as soon as all the Enemies of God were cut off then says the Text he slept with his Fathers as if his work were done and he died for want of more employment But I need not enlarge my discourse in this point we having not so much cause to preach to man as to praise God for lenity And I have not so learnt Christ to think the Sword of vengeance doth not become the arm of the Civil Magistrate David had a good purpose to build a Temple unto God but it was not accepted because he was a man of war and had shed much blood 1 Chron. xxviii Why was the work then cast upon Solomon his Son had not he given sentence of death against Adonijah Joab and Shemei and is it not as lawful to cut off the Enemies in war as Malefactors in peace First the hearts of Warriours are not always bent upon justice as the heart of the Magistrate then it is the Word of the Judg that fetcheth blood but it is the Hand of the Battel therefore God himself hath thus distinguished that the blood of War did defile King David but the blood of Civil Justice did not cast a blemish upon Solomon They that cannot distinguish between vengeance and just authority are like the Moabites that lookt upon the waters and saw them ruddie and thought it was effusion of blood when it was the brightness of the Sun and the light of Heaven But was Pilat so tender of taking life away did it come so hardly from him to doom the Sentence of death against a Prisoner Lord what Dam did they suck into whose hands our Ancestors fell the Grey-head the Reverend Praelacy the fruitful Womb of Mothers all were sentenced unto one fiery Execution for Religion's sake Surely it had been a Premunire in the Court of Rome to have shewn mercy unto any man or to talk of clemency It was the disposition of the old Indian Philosophers says St. Hierom Eorum disciplina juvare non nisi justè novit nocere nec justè they would do good only when there was justice to do it but they would not hurt any man no not when they had reason for it The Papists are as far from this meekness as Dan from Beersheba that let out floulds of Christian blood to maintain their unbloody Sacrifice When Cyrus the younger would have slain his Brother Artaxerxes see the tender compassion of the Mother she bound him about her own neck with the hair of her head and it was a sufficient Sanctuary to save his life Our holy Martyrs and Professors were bound to the Church their Mother by Baptism by Truth by Faith by Charity by the Prerogative of Natural Branches and yet like a Perfume of Incense they were burnt to ashes It is enough and they cannot hate the false Church by the Canons and Confession of Trent may hate their parricidious and malicious minds by the fire in Smithfield It is a Saint-like indulgence that we do not mete the same measure into their own bosom an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth no it is canticum canticorum the Canticle of our Church and the Song of the Spouse of Christ I am innocent of blood Now I will bring Pilat upon his last Trial from innocens sanguinis to innocens hujus sanguinis to the trial of this man's blood and you shall see how he mocked his conscience that he was innocent of the blood of Christ those few things which he could say for himself are these In the first place He stood upon it before all the people that Christ was harmless and guilty of no crime or imputation Ecce priùs absolvit quam damnat if Christ was harmless why was he beaten here 's a Judg indeed fitter for Outlaws and Robbers than for a civil Corporation first he absolves and then condemns his Prisoner As St. Austin said to Lucretia Nocentior fuit quae seipsam interfecit quantò erat in causâ innocentior Lucretia was the greater Murderer of her self because Lucretia was innocent So it holds in the crucifying of our Saviour and nothing doth more aggravate the fact to make Pilat nocent than that he confesseth Christ was innocent When Sylla did send out his Guard to cut off the head of Antonius the Orator the well-spoken man did so bewitch the Souldiers with fair words who came to kill him that they hung down their heads wept and spared his life till he sent other Assassines more cruel than the former who did the deed Lo a greater wonder Christ making no declaration of his Cause in pathetical words cast such a look upon the Judg O what a sight it had been to have seen his face but for that moment that he could not but confess the heart was true where the countenance was so honest Thus according to the case of Antonius in the first assault the Ballance of Justice was held even till the Rulers inconstancy and the Peoples importunity weighed it down against the best alive therefore the clearing of Jesus from all faults by protestation is nothing to make Pilat innocent Secondly what can he say beside in his own justification marry like a tender-hearted Murderer he would not let his own hand be upon him but sent him as a Malifactor of Galilee unto Herod Call you this commiseration to be delivered from the Adversary to the Judg from the Judg to
in bloud and to sprinkle it seven times before the Lord septies sanguis no less would serve the turn and think you that Christ did fail in this perfect number no not once if you will count it 1. He was circumcised and there was bloud 2. He sweat in the Garden not without drops of bloud 3. He was buffetted upon the mouth that must needs draw bloud Then the scourgings upon his back the thorns platted upon his head the nails driven into his feet and hands those three likewise could not be without great effusion of bloud At the seventh and last time a Souldier thrust a Spear into his side and then came forth a stream of bloud The heart of man hath entangled it self with seven deadly sins like the Woman of Samaria seven had taken her to wife according to the number of the capital sins seven times did Christ lay down the price of a Ransom seven times the bloud was sprinkled before the Lord but when I say seven I do not exclude many more it is numerus finitus pro infinito The rich man in the Gospel besought Father Abraham that he would send Lazarus with his finger dipt in water to cool his tongue There was a foul mistake in the Petition to ask for water why not rather for bloud 't is bloud that quencheth the fire which without it is unquenchable And yet there is some use of water O the use of it is excellent and unvaluable therefore water also came from the side of Jesus It is a wonder that this dolorous Passion of our Lord did not call for fire to rain upon Jerusalem as it fell down upon Sodom and Gomorrah which lest it should be here was a pipe of water opened to quench the wrath of God Four great Rivers were little enough to water the Garden of Eden this little Spout is enough to water all the World for when all other Interpretations fail us the Stream that bubbled out of the side of Christ is the water above the Heavens all Israel drank of the Rock in the Wilderness every Soul which was a thirst drank What a copious deflux was that So all the Israel of God may drink of the spiritual Rock his Spring is no less abundant and that spiritual Rock is Christ A spiritual Rock did Paul say he was used no better than if he had been a very Rock of Stone As Moses struck the Rock with his Staff so was the Body of Christ with a Spear and water gushed out apace Now at several times there was a threefold passage of water in our Saviour sudoris lacrymarum lateris the one when he sweat in the Garden the second was the distillation of tears and the third was this Fountain which was opened in his side Put the seven Issues of bloud and the three Issues of water together and here are ten Drink-offerings according to the number of the Ten Commandments which we have broken Divinity is nothing else but a Tractate of admiration and lo a Miracle the last of Christ's Miracles before he was buried as the first Miracle which he wrought was by the Element of Water at Cana in Galilee so his last Miracle was in Water which came out of his side for that this was no natural Issue they know full well that have tried Dissections and Anatomies And where did you ever read that an Apostle urged the truth of that which he recited so far that he knew his record was true and that the thing was done that we might believe I say where did you ever meet with such a Protestation in the Bible if the thing entreated of were not a Miracle The sweat was miraculous in the Garden the bloud was miraculous which streamed afresh from the dead body so was this gush of water from his side most supernatural whether some inward part of Christ was resolved into this Element of a sudden or whether it was newly created for the purpose let them dispute it who love to seek that which they can never find But I am sure the water was miraculous and far be it from us to think that it was not water as some have doubted but a spumeous phlegmatick humour As Christ himself is truth and not appearance so this humour had not the name and appearance only but the essence of water There are three that bear record on earth says St. John the Spirit the Water and Blood the Spirit which he gave up when he groan'd his last and that was a true Spirit the Bloud that drill'd down from him and that was true Bloud the Water that leakt out of his side and that was very Water So much of the two Streams severally considered now I come to the Conjunction Bloud and Water For his love could bring forth no less than Twins sanguis aqua if he would undergo the Law was it not sufficient that he was circumcised and wounded in the flesh but he was baptized also in Jordan there was satisfaction both by Bloud and Water When he suffered the sharp Agony in the Garden water alone had been a sign of a terrible conflict with his Father but there trickled from him bloud and water When the whip did tear his flesh and the thorns enter into the quick many do modestly suppose that He mingled tears with bloud and then at every passion there was bloud and water John Baptist was the Forerunner of the Bridegroom he came only in water the Martyrs were the friends of the Bridegroom they came in bloud Christ is the Bridegroom himself and he came in bloud and water When the Spouse was asked what a one her Well-beloved was Cantic 4. she answered he was white and ruddy white in water and ruddy in bloud not by water alone says our Apostle Ep. 1. chap. 5. that had made but half a Mediator but by water and bloud Sanguis ejus super nos was the cry of the miscreant people they condemned him in bloud Pilate pronounced the Sentence but washed his hands at it he condemned him in water Let them behold whom they have pierced says Zachary let his Judg and Accusers behold their fact in one in bloud and water I told you of the Miracle before now I will tell you of the Mystery of this work or rather of the Mysteries for they are more than one aperuit ostium miles unde Sacramenta Ecclesiae manârunt that 's St. Austins observation the door was opened and the Sacraments of the Church issued out What all of them it seems he knew of no more the Sacraments of the Church came forth with Bloud and Water For as the Romanists make Bread serve the people by a Synechdoche for the whole Supper of the Lord so Bloud by a Synechdoche in this place stands for all that Sacrament There was Divinity even in the cold stream that flow'd from the side of Christ and it speaks like the bloud of Abel as if he had said away with
from thee and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth But St. Paul doth not use to obscure plain Doctrin with strange Poetical Phrases and Estius hath requited Beza with another place out of the Psalms to confirm my Doctrin Psal lxiii 9. Those that seek my Soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth that is the enemies of the innocent should go into the place of the damned The other Testimony of Scripture for I will press no more is Psal xvi 10. and rehearsed by St. Peter in this Chapter Thou shalt not leave my Soul in hell c. What pains some men have taken to no fruitful end that I know to make these words bear any sense rather than that which is literal no man that marks their diligence must deny but the Soul in divers Authors is taken for the Body and Hell for the Grave and so they patch it up Thou wilt not leave my life in the Sepulcher but why should literal Scripture be so eluded St. Austins rule is that when the literal sense of the Text sounds somewhat that is sinful or impossible then discreet and learned Interpretations must mollifie the letter but it is not to be suffered where good divinity is conteined in the letter as there is in this the meaning is as no flesh in the Sepulcher was ever free from corruption but only Christs so no Soul in Hell was ever supported and assisted by God and not forsaken but only Christs So Fulgentius most divinely anima immunis à peccato non erat subdenda supplicio carnem sine peccato non debuit vitiare corruptio Christs Soul knowing no sin went not to Hell to pay any debt of punishment for an innocent could not be obnoxious to those flames and torments and his Body never executing any evil act could not be tainted with corruption and putrefaction Is it not therefore consonant to reason to stick to the letter of Scripture when it bears an Orthodox exposition of faith and whether we say that Christ being free among the dead to walk whither he would his Soul being separated in death first shewed it self to the Saints in Joy to their exceeding comfort then to the Unbelievers in Hell to their woe and confusion or whether we say He descended that such as believed may never be thrust into that infernal Prison or rather that He brought his triumph over death with him before the face of Hell and brought those unruly spirits under his yoke entred upon the strong mans house and spoiled his house as it is in the Parable Matth. xii All these ways are agreeable to Gods word and to be admitted without contention Thus far upon Scripture attended by reason Indeed Stapleton says that two Articles of the Creed are not to be found in Scripture this of Christs descent in to Hell the other of the Catholick Church I confess in his sense they are not to be found in Scripture but in ours they are But last of all attend what light the very Creed it self will give to the confirmation of this Doctrin The ground that a learned Father of our own Church lays I take to be most rational Thus take these words properly and not figuratively as it is fit in a short abstract of faith next let them have a sense different in matter from all other Articles or else they were a superfluous repetition then let every Article keep a true consequent order of time one after another or else it would make a strange confusion and all other Expositions will give place Some of the Romish and some of our own part have taught that when Christ was crucified he susteined the pains of Hell but observe against them how this Article should come in most preposterously after his death and burial which was in time before Others make this sense of it that he was dead and deteined in death others to be no more but that he was buried but according to these opinions there shall neither be property of phrase nor difference of matter in this Article from them that went before To be dead and buried are as plain speeches as be in all the Creed and should these be explained by an enigmatical Phrase to descend into Hell rather to obscure than to explain the former Observe how our Church of England hath differenced it from death and burial art 3. As Christ died for us and was buried so also it is believed mark that 's another point that He went down into Hell And the thirtieth Article of the Church of Ireland doth not satisfie me that this line is in one comma I know not whether by the negligence of the Printer He was buried and descended into Hell I cannot come to the third part of my Text and I have done as much as the time will permit upon the second only let me add let weak capacities be no ways discomforted though they cannot explicitly understand the meaning of this controverted Article of the Creed Christs descending into Hell they must believe that Christ vanquished the Devil for our sakes that 's necessary both for their comfort and salvation And all Articles of Faith are not equally necessary and fundamental Gregory Valenza and many others I think not imprudently hold that the main and necessary points for unlearned simple people to believe are the great works of God remembred in the principal Feasts of the year Christs Nativity his Passion Resurrection Ascension into Heaven and the coming of the Holy Ghost And though this Article of the Descent into Hell contein an excellent mystery of Faith yet it comes not near the excellent knowledg and use of the former Suarez the Jesuit writes confidently that if by an Article of Faith we understand a Truth which all faithful people are bound explicitly to believe so he did not think it necessary to reckon it among the Articles of Faith The Nicene Creed in our Common-prayer Book hath left it out Ruffinus says that after 400 years it came into the Latin Church and like enough for St. Austin expounds the Creed five times and Chrysologus of Ravenna ann 440. six times and never glance it For that Creed called the Apostles was not so drawn up by the Apostles for ought we can find in good antiquity but called so because it conteins the sum of all Apostolical Doctrin one part of it was laid too after another and this I believe was the last addition of all Therefore it is a main arm of faith that Christ loosed the sorrows of death and a Truth it is no doubt though not of such prime consequence that He descended into Hell to loose those sorrows for our liberty but the main Pillar of Faith is the first Comma of my Text that God raised up Jesus from death and it was impossible He should be holden of it AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN xi 43. And when he had thus spoken he cried with a
you will leave at that Idem facis ac qui è monte se praecipitans velit sistere says Tully You are unwise as he that did cast himself headlong from a steepy rock and thought he could stop before he lost his breath Sin hath no moderation Qui facit peccatum est servus peccati He that commits sin is the servant of sin you cannot play fast and loose with the Devil If you be once bound it will ask you plenty of tears and many groans of repentance that Christ may make you free Sin is not like the green wit hs that tied Samson and brake like a thread of Tow but like the fetters cast upon poor Joseph The Iron entred into his soul says David It is such a long captivity as the Jews suffred in Babylon it trusseth you up as the tares were bound in bundles for everlasting fire Mat. xiii Can the Ethiopian change his skin Or the Leopard his spots Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil Jer. xiii 23. Now because sin is a bond especially sin that is enormous and scandalous not only Satan by inclining them to evil but God in his justice holds them fast to it that they cannot get loose For the Priest he casts another bond upon that Quodcunque lig averitis whatsoever you bind upon earth they bind none but incorrigible and contumacious sinners that is one bond for another and then the Lords bond is thrown upon them both whatsoever you bind upon earth it is bound in heaven the bond of iniquity is upon the sinner the bond of Ecclesiastical Censure is upon the bond of iniquity the bond of Gods judgment ratifies the bond of Ecclesiastical Censure How can the planchers fly out when they are thus hoopt about A threefold cord is not easily broken Ligantur poenâ qui ligati fuerunt culpâ à bonis operibus says Lira They are bound over to eternal punishment in the life to come who in this life bound themselves from doing good Thirdly Let us understand what it is for a sinner to be bound hand and foot Manus non extensae ad eleemosynam pedes tardi ad bonum so says the Gloss Hands that were shut to the poor and gave no Alms feet that have not frequently walked to the house of God these were bound in this life when they should have executed their Function and then follows Take him and bind him hand and foot and cast him into utter darkness Mat. xxii The hand is the principal Engine of all other instruments and if it be bound we may direct much perchance yet can execute nothing But there is no musick in that eloquence where the tongue perswades enough but the hand is like the hand of Jeroboam dried up and withered He that takes upon him to teach and direct let his hands be loose that he may give a demonstration of his Doctrine in his own works and then it is powerful Dux consilio miles exemplo as it was said of Caesar He gave the counsel of a General he did the work of a Common Souldier The Sun under a Cloud looks as if his glorious beams were shut up and imprisoned So it is a dark and a gloomy Profession of Piety to cast no beams abroad let your light shine before men that they may see your good works If your hands I mean your good deeds be bound up the bonds are such as Lazarus had and worse the swadling bonds of eternal death Pedes sunt affectus sensuales qui terrae adhaerent that is the usual Moral by feet are understood our sensual Passions and Affections which cleave unto the earth Indeed Lazarus will walk better with those feet when they are obedient to reason and bound to her Law than when they are loose and run their own ways Excellent Servants to be guided but unruly Masters to command O let your affections be set upon heaven above and not fix themselves upon earth beneath and then you may say with David I will run the way of thy Commandments So much for the binding of the hands and feet The last Point and that which shuts up all is to open this Mystery that Lazarus his face was bound with a Napkin Lazarus came forth with his winding-sheet about his body with his Napkin about his face here again is the Resurrection of Lazarus distinguished from the Resurrection of Christ As for Christs grave cloaths Peter look'd in and saw them wrapt together when his body was without And what caused this difference Beloved Why first to answer a false rumour which belied both Christ and his Disciples at once even for that cause our Saviours linnen cloaths were left behind in the Monument You will say his Disciples came by night and stole him away But if they took out the body why did they leave the linnen cloaths behind Had desperate thieves such leisure to uncase him and to fold up several parcels by themselves when a guard of Souldiers were round about them Now when as no such objection should be made against Lazarus he came forth with his winding sheet knit about his hands and feet and his face with a Napkin 2. Lazarus rose out of the Grave but to die again he was virbius One poor life served him to change it for two deaths and therefore he came abroad like a mortal man with his raggs wrapt about him to cover his nakedness But Christs says Nissen rose to immortality and therefore left those clouts in the grave which had been cast about him That blessed life which we shall enjoy needs not garments to cloath the body In the days of innocency Adam and Eve walked naked and were not ashamed they saw no uncomliness in it Then shall apparel much less be an ornament to a glorified body And therefore Elias mounting up to heaven in the fiery Chariot left his Mantle with Elisha But he in our Text returned to the estate of frailty and corruption his face was covered with a Napkin Thirdly says St. Austin Lazarus in the Tomb was the figure of a sinful man Lazarus coming forth was the type of one that was born again and is regenerate But as touching a man new born and regenerate still there remain in him Vinculum peccati velumignorantiae The intanglements of some sins and the vail of ignorance The bonds about the feet and the Napkin about the face But as for Christs linnen cloaths in whom there was nor sin nor ignorance but a soul full of grace and truth why should he carry away his Shrowd or his Kercher No he bequeathed them to the earth and left them to the Monument Let us be wise unto salvation and not too curious in searching these things the Text doth admonish us For why was Lazarus his face covered though his Spirit was returned unto him again St. Austin answers Quod in hâc vitâ per speculum videmus in aenigmate postea autem facie ad
the twelve stones which Joshuah set up on the banks of Jordan are there to this day after Dagon fell on the Threshold the Priests of Baal tread not on the Threshold to this day so this figment was commonly reported among the Jews long after that is unto this day See what Prophets were their Instructors after they had set their heart to resist the truth Testimonium Martyrum nolunt audire ut vivant testimonium dormientium receperunt ut pereant They stop their ears at the Doctrine of the holy Martyrs that invite them to eternal life and receive the witness of Souldiers that belie themselves saying they slept and did not and belie Christ and his victory over the Grave saying that such men as I think they knew not His Disciples came and stole him away by night Attende potiùs eum qui emit te non eum qui mendacium emit tibi Listen unto Christ and learn of him who hath bought thee with a price with the price of his own bloud to inherit eternal life listen not to them that gave a price of money to buy a lie whereby thou shalt be swallowed up of eternal death And beware to be either active or passive in false subornations either the giver or the taker Beware of lying lips and a deceitful tongue all these are most odious for their sakes that would have undermined the credit of our Saviours Resurrection Wherefore putting away all lying speak every man truth with his neighbour for we are members one of another Buy the truth and sell it not Prov. xxiii 23. Now the Jews have rigg'd their Witnesses and set them forth so well greazed in the hand that they dare say any thing We are come in the third place to that which they must say First They must lop at the branches and strike at the root afterward the Disciples must be first drawn into danger that they are breakers open of graves and robbers of the dead his Disciples came by night Poor souls they thought they had taken the safest way that the wit of man could invent to escape both envy and danger they were shut up stirr'd not abroad medled with nothing but let a man live as private as he can as retired as he can if malice mean him an ill turn it shall fall upon him Christ was private enough in Mount Olivet yet there he was attached And it is an argument unto us that many times they fared better through Gods providence who adventured themselves abroad in ill times and contested for the name of Christ rather than they that out of humane providence would hide themselves and their gifts for fear like a Candle under a Bushel But whether in a private or in a publick life the Disciple is not better than his Master If Christs Doctrine and Miracles were so ill entertained by the Pharisees that they hated him to the death yea and beyond death his Ministers shall feel their anger before the storm be ended the very name of a Disciple was grown a taunt and reproach The Synagogue thought it had called the blind man all to nought when they said of him in their passion Thou art his Disciple Joh. ix This is an infallible character of a base and ignoble spleen to grudge at all those that depend upon such as they persecute to despite the poor Disciples for Christs sake As Zedekiah commanded not only Jeremiah the Prophet to be laid up in Prison but Baruch his Scribe to be apprehended Jer. xxxvi 26. And the Jews when they could not tear Paul in pieces nor come at him they beat Sosthenes his Companion whom he had converted to the faith Act. xviii The old devillish State rule was leave no whelps living of the brood of a Lion so the Pharisees would destroy all those whom Christ had gathered about him if these were made away they thought there was not a tongue left that would wag to offend them with this truth that Christ was risen from the dead His Disciples came by night did they will you stand to it then call the Disciples and the Souldiers face to face and examine them before Pilate reus ore proprio respondere debet it is the Law of Nations and Nature that the accused in all Courts of the world must speak for themselves against their accusers this is most indifferent justice it cannot be denied to believe a tale against a man without suffering him to say what he can for his innocency is barbarous and inhumane proceeding He that came to the Marriage Chamber not having on a Wedding Garment was not cast forth till he became speechless and could not answer But the Disciples have no shadow of law or trial permitted unto them but are impleaded and condemned behind their backs his Disciples came by night Since they were not permitted to say ought to clear themselves I will anticipate a little of the last point and say one thing for them how improbable this defamation was with little partiality to their person They that ran away in the Garden from their Master when he was alive because a few Bandogs of the High Priests had him in their teeth how durst they adventure against an whole Cohort of Souldiers to come near his Sepulcher when he was dead though one of them drew a sword and smote a Servant of the High Priests it was before Christ was griped in their clutches but since they saw him dead nil iste nec ausus nec potuit their hearts fainted they shut themselves close and durst not be known where they were are these likely to rescue their Masters Body from a Roman Garrison Loquere verisimilia speak likelihoods though they be falsehoods Good wits says one love to make discoveries of treasons where there are none it makes their own perspicacy and discerning admired but they do it upon seeming and strong conjectures but here is no scent in this tale to follow it to any probability The truth is a knavish wit might have found out many more colourable evasions but with this fiction if it took the High Priests set forth themselves not only for wise men but to have Prophesie and Divination in their spirit for in the former chapter verse 64. they request Pilate that he would command the Sepulcher should be made sure lest his Disciples come by night and steal him away No better excuse therefore to advance their credit to be Divine and Prophetical than to charge the Disciples with the same fact even as they had foretold it a day before Nonne sex totos menses priùs olfecissem says old Demea So these were such cunning men that they had the Disciples plot in the wind before ever it was intended Silly fellows God wot for all this cunning fifty days full had not run on after Christ rose from the dead but St. Peter and his Associates filled all Jerusalem with their Doctrin that Jesus was risen from the dead and that He
dead works were not quickned by grace better it might be for us that we had never been born therefore the life of Sanctification was begun in the Church as it were with a gentle gust of wind when Christ breathed on his own and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost So you see this outward sign of insufflation was constantly used at our Creation at our Resurrection at our Sanctification to shew how it is the same God that worketh all in all Yet St. Ambrose comes in with a third Meditation upon it Says he God did give man a living soul at first by breathing or inspiration to let him see he did not only give him a temporal or carnal vivification but grace and sanctity to live for ever But when man had lost this primitive grace and original righteousness it was fit to let us know that such losses could be repaired by none but Christ therefore Christ breathed again upon man to demonstrate that he was the restorer of those immortal blessings which exceed our merits and pass all understanding But when Christ was ascended up on high the Spirit could not be infused immediately from the breath of his mouth but in Analogy to it it came into the place where the Apostles were gathered together like the murmuring wind or the breath of heaven As Solomon fore-told it in his Poetical Ode Cant. iv 16. Awake O North wind and come thou South blow upon my Garden that the Spices thereof may flow out And here again I shall pass through some humane Comparisons to the illustration of most divine Mysteries First of all Elementary Creatures the Wind is the most active thing in the world nothing so quick and active as it Vsque adeo agit ut nisi agat non sit when it is not active it is not at all no stirring of the air no wind So it is with the Spirit of faith and love the very being of it consists in being operative What shall I do to inherit eternal life ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Chrysostome it impels the heart to be never out of motion in some spiritual exercise Either the Tongue is praying or the Ear is hearing or the Heart is meditating or the Hand is giving or the Soul is thirsting for remission of sins When the Spirit beats not in the Pulses there is no spirit in the body it is a dead Carkass and in whomsoever there is a cessation from all good works you may say it justly that there the Holy Ghost is extinguished there is no difference between a standing Puddle and a dead Sea And cozen not your selves with a vain confidence that albeit you be altogether barren and unprofitable no fruit of Sanctification budding from you yet Semen Dei manet the sap may be in the root the vertue in the Seed-corn though it do not put out These may-bees are pitiful Anchors of hope and miserable comforters Will you say the wind is up when there is a still Serena no puff of air moving Then think as little that God dwells in that brest where there are no tokens of Sanctification Secondly I have it from St. Austin Flatus ille à carnali palea corda mundabit The Wind is the advantage of the Husbandman to winnow Chaff from Wheat and where the Spirit blows upon the conscience it will purge it from all dead works The cares of this world the thought of getting Riches anxieties for honours and advancements these overspread the life of a natural man left to the ways of carnal reason but as soon as ever we begin to sift and discuss these cogitations by the doctrine of the Spirit they vanish and disperse Tradam protervis in mare Creticum portare ventis they are light and empty of true goodness and so are blown away to the Father of errors and delusions to the Devil himself from whence they came Thirdly Says St. Chrysostome Suppose a Ship be well appointed with Pilot Mariners Sails Cables Anchors and all convenient appurtenances to what use will all this serve if the winds stir not So let there be profound Judgment quick Invention neat Eloquence and all the graces of Art in a man these will not bring a man one whit onward in his Voyage to the haven of happiness to the kingdom of glory unless the sweet gales of the Spirit carry him forward those are the wings of the Dove upon which the Soul shall fly away and be at rest Another Author taken for St. Chrysostome writing upon St. Matthew composeth it thus As the ground doth not fructifie by rain alone but there is a prolificous vertue in the winds which blows upon the fields and makes the Spring to sprout So it is not our Doctrine alone which converts your Souls though it distill like the soft drops of rain upon the earth but benediction of inward grace that goes with the word breaths salvation upon our heart The Letter may kill but the Spirit quickneth and in our Evangelical Priesthood we are Ministers not of the Letter alone but of the Spirit also Qui instat praecepto praecurrit auxilio the words of Leo which I take to be solid truth in this Point when God presseth us with the outward instruction of his Word He impresseth the secret operation of his Spirit to make it fructifie And now to come to another portion of the Text it agrees very accurately with the nature of that supernal gift which God infuseth into his Saints that the Spirit came with a sudden flaw of wind And I am very willing to make that collection of it which divers have done before me Datur haec gratia ex improviso sine meritis Grace is a blessing that comes unlook'd for unawares nay it is impossible for an unconverted man to say now I am prepared for it now I expect it now my heart is ready to receive it for there is no good preparation for grace in the soul of man till some portion of it have entred before Natural dispositions cannot attain to bring in supernatural grace Therefore the first influx and admission of it must needs be sudden and unawares As you can make no rules for the Wind why it should blow South to day and North to morrow why from this Point of heaven at such a season rather than from another So there is no aim to be taken how this or that man was first partaker of the heavenly light which is thus couched in our Saviours words The kingdom of God cometh not with observation neither shall they say loe here or loe there for the Kingdom of God is within you Luk. xvii 20. For what observation can we make or through what tokens can we collect that God will begin to draw a sinner unto him Will you say he lives justly and chastely If they were Christian justice and chastity the seed of the Spirit was in his heart before If they be but moral conformities he is still the
resistency be never taken away in this life but is ever smothered and couchant in the bitter root of our corruption yet according to the efficacious and sweet motion of grace God disposeth that it shall not come out into act It is not therefore the power to resist which is taken away for then the will were violenced and nature quite transformed whereas grace is the perfection not the abolition or destruction of nature It is only the actual resistency which is stopt Most excellently Prosper Hanc abundantiorem gratiam ita credimus potentem ut negemus violentam There is a special abundant grace which is the Lot of that remnant which shall be saved and this we believe that it hath powerful success upon the will but makes no violent that is irresistible entrance But it carries all the affections with it with a most urgent undeniable perswasive force it ravisheth a man from himself he feels himself as it were compelled in spight of Tyrants in spight of death to confess the truth We cannot but speak the things which we have heard and seen Acts iv 20. Nihil imperiosius side The Spirit of God hath a most imperious authority over the soul where it will dwell a smooth tongue in an eloquent man will win much upon his hearers and draw them far but the Spirit of God is a commanding principle a rushing mighty wind ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says Oecumenius this is a sign of abundance of vehemence it is the breath of God whose might is invincible But thirdly there is another way that some conjecture at the vehemency of the Wind and that was to strike terrour Into whom you will say In some sort says Calvin into the Disciples themselves that received the Holy Ghost Thus he most judiciously Nunquam ad recipiendam Dei gratiam ritè sumus comparati nisi domitâ priùs carnis confidentiâ That is we are never fitly disposed to receive the grace of God untill our carnal pride and security be beaten down and humbled Some roaring terrible wind of judgment and the expectation of hell fire if we repent not must shake us soundly Or else we will fall asleep in our sins and wallow in wantonness with the slumbering soft noise of mercy As the Spring of the year wherein all things grow begins roughly with March and ends sweetly with May so Renovation and New-birth it begins austerely with the angry Pedagogie and Discipline of the Law with consternation in a troubled Spirit then begin the fruits of the Spirit to spring up but it proceeds to gladness and rejoycing and to peace in Christ First the strong Wind passed by Elias that rent the Mountains and brake the Rocks in pieces then an Earthquake and a fire and after the fire a still small voice The Angels coming to the Blessed Virgin had first fear and astonishment in it then greeting and salutation So the Wind that came at the Feast of Whitsontide did first roar and terrifie them that were gathered together afterwards it was as Oyl that comforted and as new Wine that maketh glad the heart So says Bernard upon the conclusion of it Tranquillus Deus tranquillat omnia quietum aspicere quiescere est God is peace and sets all at peace and to behold him in whom our soul rests is to rest for ever But others say for all the mightiness of the Wind it is not expressed that any fear did fall upon the Apostles the vehemency of the sound was to corroberate the Apostles and to let them know there were blasts in store to cast down their enemies Such as repelled the Darts of Maximinus the Tirant into his own face when he gave battel to the Christians Such as hath dispersed the invincible Navies of our Enemies Et conjurati veniunt in classica venti Christ descended gently as the rain into the Fleece of Wool in the days of his exinanition He shall not cry nor cause his voice to be heard in the street Isa xlii 2. But now he is exalted into glory and hath the rule put into his hand he will thunder and break forth in strong violence against his enemies Thus far you have heard that the Holy Ghost came sensibly and audibly to the Ear like a sound the similitude of that sound was the noise of the Wind the Attributes of it two sudden and mighty and yet these two Points are undispatcht the terminus à quo it came from heaven and the terminus ad quem it filled the house where they were sitting But briefly The first of these moves much to one thing that is handled before that there is vehement strength in the grace of God because it comes from heaven says the great Counsellor Gamaliel If this work be of men it will come to nought but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it The Winds naturally arise out of the Caves of the earth they steame from beneath and blow laterally from one Coast to another So are worldly graceless devices all unsanctified counsels they blow from beneath from the Forge of Satan the principles are drawn from Ambition Hatred Emulation Treachery and have an oblique collateral motion which is profound dissimulation But the root of grace is above in heaven and grows down to the earth it fetcheth all its drifts from Peace from Religion from Charity from the Sanctuary from the Glory of God Strip all your politick projects from their fair pretences and see the ground and foundation upon which they rest and you will find them to be hollow and putrified vapours Again slight not the harmless ways and simplicity of good men for if you could discover their conscience as God doth you would find their scope and aim to be celestial And nothing comes from heaven but with this purpose to convert our earthly inclinations into heavenly directions And let this superficial inspection satisfie for the term and place whence the sound came it came from heaven The end of our work is the consideration of the place where it staid and lighted It filled all the house where they were sitting If you expect to have it treated of how the blast of the Spirit did fill the house I must put you off to the fourth verse of this Chapter where it is recorded of the Apostles that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and better speak of it touching men than touching the Room of an house that Christ is the fulness of him that filleth all in all Moreover if you look for any touch upon the House it self remember I told you such Traditions for it last year as I found in Antiquity but with this modest conclusion that the Point was not material and all humane Records are uncertain This we may and must build upon that it was an upper Room of some dwelling in Jerusalem Acts i. 13. and of large capacity we are sure to contain at least one hundred and twenty persons ver 15. Perhaps also of
for God will be mild as a Dove toward us if we will be hot as fire against our selves That he may spare us with his mercy let us be angry at our selves with godly revenge And so they that made no bones of lies and fictions have renowned St. Dunstan in his Legend that a Dove descended from heaven upon him Et remigia alarum scintillantis ignis splendorem prae se ferebant says Capgrave And the wings of it when they were stretcht out did sparkle like fire Their meaning is in this Fable as I call it to set him forth as most full of the Holy Ghost upon whom both the Dove and fire descended Fourthly says St. Austin where God causeth the Tongue to speak the truth fire that is sorrow and trouble will follow Ignis portendit tribulationem quam propter linguas erunt perpessuri The fire imports that tribulation which the Apostles must undergo by preaching the Gospel The Devil did rage against those that were the Pillars of the Church and of true Doctrine and blew the coals of many a fire to consume them Fifthly and to shut up that Point the Tongue being left to it self is full of much corruption as I have amplified already and it had need of a purging fire to cleanse it and refine it In all the old Sacrifices of the Grecians Homer says ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they threw the tongue of the beast into the fire whereupon says Coelius Rhodoginus Comburendo linguas perperam dictorum labes expurgabant They made expiation thereby in the flames of fire for all words that had been spoken offensively St. James says the Tongue is a fire Chap. iii. 6. meaning a fire of discord and mischief and that fire had need to be corrected by another fire from heaven or else the torments of hell-fire would be the end of it And now we will rest at last in that Point which is the resting and setling of these Tongues There appeared unto them c. and it sate upon each of them It sate Why we spoke of Tongues in the Plural number before What Enallage is this Cajetan and the most Divines interpret it that the fire sate upon each of them Calvin by a Metonimy of signi pro re signatâ that the Spirit sate upon each of them The Syrian Paraphrast refers it directly to the Tongues and puts it in the Plural number sederunt they sate upon each of them Indeed to refer it to many Tongues and yet to make the Verb of the Singular number is the best exposition of all it sate to shew that it is one Holy Ghost in the administration of divers gifts ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as I said before one root and many stalks There are diversity of operations but it is the same Lord that worketh all in all 1 Cor. xii 6. But upon whom did they descend and sit For now I make haste Upon every one of the hundred and twenty that were gathered together Or upon the Apostles only Somewhat is in it that when all are named to whom this fire appeared all to be filled with the Holy Ghost yet the Tongues are said to sit upon each of them In two ancient Copies some of our Criticks say that the Text runs they sate upon each of the Apostles and I think that a very probable gloss The Reasons are First the Spirit in some particular manner was promised to them only Acts i. 7. Secondly when some Scoffers said they were full of new wine that had the gift of Tongues St. Peter makes his apology for himself and the Eleven only Thirdly it is said hereupon that they all spake or preacht the mighty things of God This befits the Apostles and not those one hundred and twenty among whom was the Blessed Virgin and other women whose office it was not to preach Fourthly the standers by said Are not all these of Galilee that speak with divers tongues which was true in the Apostles now Judas was taken away but very improbable to agree to all the rest Howsoever let there be no discord about this it is not worth the while no more is the next quere upon what part of them the Cloven Tongues did sit That is not exprest but in all likelihood it was their head for thereunto all Expositors do give their suffrage The Spirit must be in summo loco we must give it and the inspiration thereof the pre-eminence in all things These Tongues says Gregory did encircle about their head Vt novae coronae spirituales capiti eorum imponerentur as if the King of heaven had crowned them with spiritual Crowns from heaven They are ridiculous among the Pontifician Writers that would fetch it from hence that Christ did ordain the Apostles Bishops at this time and used this Ceremony to touch their head from heaven for Consecratio Episcoporum est in capite as they urge it out of Clemens Constitution For another while they confess that the Episcopal character and all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and authority was given them in those words As my Father sent me so do I send you These things being thus put out of the way the main Doctrine agreed on all hands is that the sitting of the Tongues did betoken the constant abiding of the Spirit he is no flitter he doth not come with a lick and away but his gifts are without repentance ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so St. Chrysostome and his true follower Oecumenius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã both agree that the Spirit was setled upon them not to depart away It is a fire like that on the Altar permanent and never going out according to our Saviours Promise Joh. xiv 16. I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that may abide with you for ever Some of the Schoolmen find a knot in this plain Doctrine whether the Apostles and all upon whom the Spirit did now abide were confirmed in grace Certain Ecclesiastical Historians trouble them in their conclusions who say that Nicholas the Deacon from whom the Nicolaitans were derived and many other ring-leaders of Hereticks were present at this time and although the Spirit descended upon them yet they forsook their first faith The answer is if these stories be Authentical these gifts were gratiae gratis datae not gratum facientes Gifts which God did graciously give not gifts which made them gracious to God that received them And the continuance and residency of these tongues is established in these words that the Comforter whom Christ would send should abide with them for ever that is it should abide in the Church that is in them and in their Successors unto the ends of the world till Christ should come again in glory as I will open upon the next verse AMEN THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them
these persons and to this season not to these persons for it is most likely that none but the Apostles were partakers of the Divine illumination which came from Heaven upon this day and the Apostles no man calls it in question had the talents of that grace delivered unto them which saved their souls Ir is a masterless and a false fame that any castaways were in the number of these that were filled with the Holy Ghost Christ himself is said to be full of the Holy Ghost Luke iv 1. and the Blessed Virgin gratiâplena full of grace and St. Stephen the Captain of all Martyrs full of the Holy Ghost Acts vi and Barnabas the Son of Consolation full of the Holy Ghost Acts xi None but such as were peerless Saints are deigned with that praise to give this scruple a full satisfaction regard the time and season wherein this dew of heaven did drop down into the Fleece of wooll it is the day so long before promised wherein the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh the scaturigo the first spouting out of the Spirit and do you think that this being the original from whence the spring began that all the best Balsams and Liquors did not flow into them that received it I resolved therefore that these persons in my Text did not only partake such gifts as made them wonderful in the eyes of the world but such also as made them holy and acceptable in the sight of God that is it did not only speak in their tongues but it was diffused in their hearts To end this matter remember what manner of spirit that is which God bestows it is from above it is holy it is not our own but Christs a Spirit from above and not from beneath as St. Paul says Now we have received not the spirit of this world but of God 1 Cor. ii 12. Spiritus mundi est per quem arripiuntur phanatici says St. Ambrose that 's the spirit of this world with which phanatical men are led which drives them into contention or vain glory but they are enemies to peace and savour not the things which belong to God And since we are bidden to deny our selves if we will be Christs Disciples we must also deny our own private Spirit and submit our selves to the Spirit of the Church which is the Spirit of God for our Saviour hath promised to be with it unto the end of the world Take heed of this hot windy humour which makes some cleave pertinaciously to their own imagination and attribute far more to their own ignorant judgment than becomes them The Spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets but if any one think that some new mysteries are revealed to him which the Church never heard of before and begin to trouble our peace with his falsesly pretended raptures and enthusiasms I say unto such in Ezekiels words Woe unto the foolish Prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing Thus far I have spoken of the Gift which was given to the Apostles to supply the room of Christ himself now he was gone and ascended into Heaven Hominem portavit in coelum Deum misit in terram says St. Austin he carried away his Manhood into Heaven and instead thereof he sent down God unto the Earth I mean the Holy Ghost and this Gift more worth than all the world beside is his usual and continual favour but the measure of it is more than ordinary repleti sunt omnes they were all filled with the Holy Ghost And Leo did very well to mark it that this was not spiritus inchoans but cumulans not the initiation but the accumulation of the Spirit the augmenting of the old stock which the Apostles had in a good quantity before not the beginning of a new They had the Spirit before as appears particularly in St. Peter when Christ told him he had prayed that his faith might not fail therefore he had a portion of faith In general it is most manifest that Christ breathed on them all and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost But as it appears by Elisha's request to his Master Elias there are single and there are double Portions of the Spirit there is a single Talent of Grace given to one Servant two to a second and five Talents committed to him that was most entrusted by his Master there are such as have a little of this Manna in their Omer and them that have it top full And these that received the Holy Ghost at this Feast were such as were not sprinkled but replenished with it quibus nulla pars animae mansit carens spiritu sancto says Cajetan the fruits of sanctification did not grow thinly in them here a berry and there a berry upon the top of a bough but pious conformity to Gods will obedience and the fear of the Lord were in every faculty of their soul and body The Romanists oftentimes put in such impertinent cautions that their bedging in of some needless exception lays waste the truth of God Among others of that bad stamp this is one that the Apostles and other holy men are said to be filled at this time with the Holy Ghost because an Increase was put to that which they had before but the Blessed Virgin was so full before that she received not any new addition or if she received a new distillation of it now illud erat ut in nos tantum effunderet says Lorinus it was for our sakes that it might overflow and be transfused from her to us even as Christ was full of grace and truth from the first moment that he was incarnate and yet for our sakes the Spirit came upon him when he was baptized in Jordan Matth. iii. a most scandalous comparison between the Infinite and the Finite between the Creator and the Creature for though Christ thought it no robbery to be equall with God Philip. ii yet it is a great robbery of the Divine honor to make the Blessed Virgin equal with Christ But to keep to mine own work the Apostles had an earnest penny of the Spirit before but they came to the fulness of it by degrees first they were baptized and so had an introduction unto sanctity afterward Christ breathed on them that was their proficiency last of all came this mighty rushing and cloven tongues as it were fire and sat upon each of them that 's their perfection by nature and of themselves they were of the earth earthly but they were regenerate and born again in Baptism that 's an Element above the Earth The next step of their heavenly promotion was that the Lord breathed on them so the Air is above the Water In conclusion the Holy Ghost came down upon them in fire this is a sign that they were now full to the brim for that 's the Element which is above the Water and the Air and is the next to Heaven And well may it be called a
very Apostles were enough to prove the Majesty of God 't is strange to work good upon any of us all our will is knotty timber our heart hollow and unsound what can the Workman make of such stuff but to commit the Talents of the Holy Ghost to such as these and to make them the Bankers from whom we should borrow the stock of the Church this is his exploit alone who can make a graine of mustard seed dispread into a tree that the Fouls of the air may build their nests in it Lord what are we that thou hast given such power unto men But Lord what art thou that hast given such power to most homely and simple men O Lord how excellent is thy name in all the world Thou that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained praise and put the Eloquence of the earth to silence by such unlookt-for Instruments These were no men of spirit active and stirring in the world such busie heads would never be fortunate to propagate the Gospel of peace Again they were of no honourable Order the Spirit had more use of humility than of dignity Inspirat non inflat as one said very well it inspired them it did not puff them up To be short they were not of the Scribes and Doctors that were Proficients in Arts and Learning that the work of God might disperse the greater amazement through such who were noted for ignorance and infirmity Yet they were not sent forth like Ideots and Fishermen that knew nothing but their Mechanical trade but were endued with power from on high to teach the Mystery of Godliness in all the Tongues that could be spoken Which is the next provocation to transport them with wonder as we read it ver 9. How hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born It will ask travel and pains through the whole life of a man to be cunning in two or three Tongues good Linguists know what study it costs them to come to a Grammatical excellency in a few Languages much more to a voluble pronunciation of them But to preach Christ Jesus in all the borders of the earth required more dispatch than to begin to get the elements of learning therefore by a shorter cut God gives them an inspiration to speak all Tongues in a moment and to preach the true sense of the Scripture in all those Tongues Sentire quae velint loqui quae sentiant they had words to cloath their matter as they pleased and they had matter to utter as well as words Quid voveat dulci nutricula maejus alumno quà m sapere fari quae sentiat They needed no more abilities than wisdom to know the mind of God and a tongue to declare their wisdom As in the beginning when God created the Heaven and the Earth he spake what he pleased and it was done Let there be light and there was light Let there be a Sea and there was a Sea So in the first foundations of the Church it was no more but let there be a revelation of the mysteries of the Gospel and there was a Revelation Let there be Tongues and there were Tongues Let there be a fountain opened in Jerusalem whose several spouts may water all the quarters of the world and it was so in the twinkling of an eye If God himself had come from heaven in his own Majesty his Almighty Word could not have been clearer than in this miracle Such as have an incredulous grudge in their minds an Ague that will never leave some carnal hearts they are troubled with a longing when they hear of this O that we had lived in those days when the arm of power from on high was made so manifest We take things up as the long revolutions of time have committed them to us but we live not in the days of wonder we see nothing for us by this strange omnipotency Beloved if there were a new Gospel to be preached we should have new Tongues as the Apostles had to publish it but the truth hath been preached round about the world to all Nations the continuance is old therefore why should new Wine of new Miracles be put into old bottles Then it was meet I mean on the first Whitsunday that the Gentiles should understand that way was made to call them to Salvation which could not be confirmed better than to hear the Cross of Jesus Christ published in so many forein Dialects and that the Prediction of the Psalm is fulfilled His sound is gone forth into all the earth and his Word unto the ends of the world there is neither Speech nor Language but their voice is heard among them Now it is confessed that it is accomplished and were not a miracle a most unnecessary and supernumerary thing to confirm it Hold you content that the Spirit is yet upon your tongues the seal is printed upon them to pray to God to bless one another to comfort one another If any thing will amaze a man in these days it is the bitterness the murmuring the swearing the lying the slandering of the tongue that we should do God more dishonour with one tongue than the Apostles did him honour with twenty So much for that Passion which took away the reason of them that were present for a time ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they were in an extasie they were amazed Now follows that which troubled their reason and exercised their reason I will put them both in one they hang so close together They were in doubt saying one to another What meaneth this Doubting is the unquietness of the mind which proceeds from ignorance It flutters about like Noahs Dove and knows not where to set its foot they wanted the Anchor of faith to fasten them to some certain resolution for as yet they knew not the Scriptures of the Prophet Joel to which St. Peter directed them Ver. 17. It shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh Doubtfulness is the fruit of carnal wisdom it holds to nothing stedfastly it hath more faces than Janus looking every way and on every side and hath as many thoughts as there be minutes in the hour and it is impossible it should be fix'd until it pitch upon some clear Text of Scripture and say this is the truth I build upon it for so it is written in the Word of God The benefit of the holy Spirit descending as this day upon the Church was to bring us out of the windings and crooked Lanes of doubting and reduce all opinions to one setled conclusion that there was no salvation to be found but in the meritorious Passion of Jesus Christ The Academicks of Greece were so far from any certainty of knowledge that it was the perfection of their learning to doubt of every thing Whereupon an Egyptian Priest reproved them for that puerility ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã you that call your selves
a little extemporary acquaintance and no more with that to which they say Amen Next let every man preach that challengeth he hath the gift sorrily God knows and then he knows that Preaching will come to nothing as well as Prayer Beware that you let not our great Adversary subvert all Piety and Religion by these encroachments bad men may mock holy Ordinances but God is not mocked Fear the Lord reverence his ways receive the blessings of the Spirit with thanksgiving and praise rule the Tongue to glorifie him that made it to set forth his honour that gives it utterance AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE CORONATION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the Day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and he glad in it THE words which I have selected to preach upon are part of a Psalm which excels both in the Letter and in the Spirit rich in the litteral sense copious in the spiritual the Kingdom of David set forth magnificently in the one the Kingdom of Christ glorified in the other Sometimes the ditty of the Song points directly at the Throne of David and sometimes at Christs Triumphs over his Death and his victorious Resurrection I cannot choose between them both but think of the Country of Mesopotamia the fruitful Garden of the world girt about with waters the Rivers did flow in and out in all quarters of the Land and the Land was much more pleasant for the windings and intricate Maeanders of the Rivers So this Hymn hath a most delightful alternation in it skipping often from Christ to David and from David to Christ with sundry melodious changes as if it purposed to make the Reader lose himself if he did not curiously note the Narration There hath been much ado among Expositors whether the Psalm should concern them both or only one of them choose you which you will Some refer it all to David and to the rejoycing of the People in his behalf that they saw him happily inaugurated King of Israel after he had been long kept back by the House of Saul and many other potent Enemies The Jewish Rabbins make no other construction of it and they follow the Chaldee Paraphrast who doth thus read the 22. verse of this Psalm the Builders did reject the youngest of the Sons of Jessai and would not let him reign over them but he hath deserved to be received for their Prince and Governor therefore we will keep holy day and rejoyce Thus Vatablus and Isidore Clarius and many others of this latter Age have dived no further than into the superficies of this Scripture that is into so much and no more than concerned the Monarchy of David But they did not see into the bottom that lookt no further for the Antient Fathers of the Church not one but all have discover'd so manifest a Prophesie concerning our Saviour that nothing can be clearer It is a general rule that David in most of his Psalms had more regard to Christ than to Himself in this more eminently than ordinary so that the New Testament is full of the application Pick out the 22. verse The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner according to three several Gospels our Saviour demonstrates that himself was the Stone which the Scribes and Pharisees refused but God had exalted him to be the Head of the Church both ih Heaven and Earth St. Peter proves as much in the audience of many thousands of the Jews and none of them did contradict him Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified this is the Stone which is set at naught of you Builders which is become the head of the corner ver 26. of this Psalm Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord I doubt not but all the loyal hearts of Juda and Jerusalem did congratulate David in those words when he entred into the Royal City but all the Multitude of the People applied them to the Advent of the Messias Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord Matth. xxi 9. And indeed St. Hierom says that the Jews in their Liturgy of old were wont to read this Psalm in their Synagogues for the Messias sake and did put it among those Prayers in which they did heartily desire the coming of Christ the Lord Nay says Cajetan the 17. verse can become the mouth of no mortal man but it is the voice of the immortal Son of God to say I will not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Therefore those Authors that had the most judicious Palat have acknowledged that sometimes Davids matters are brought into this Psalm and sometimes Christs nay sometimes both of them in one verse as in my Text. The begining of the Psalm says St. Chysostom was a Celebration for the setting on the Crown upon the head of the King of Israel but ex improviso mutavit argumentum in a sudden extasie the Prophet changeth his argument and speaks of Christ nay says Euthymius if a man will be acquainted with the stile of the Propets let him remember that this is their custom intercidere solent sermones in rem aliam transire ne adversarii manus injiciant they use to break off abruptly and fall from one thing to another lest if the Enemies of the Truth did understand them they would make away those holy Writings to the irrecoverable loss of the Church of Christ This was necessary to be premised that you might know what to look for out of my Text namely David's Day in the Letter and Christ's Day in the Spirit In the Case of David no man doubts what day is pointed at surely it is the day of his Inauguration when after much resistance made by his Enemies at last he did enjoy the Scepter of all Israel quietly and peaceably and there was an Holy-day instituted to remember it with sacred Solemnity The Lord had made that Day happy unto David and the People did celebrate it in a joyful and religious manner I need not to tell you how proper that construction of my Text is to this Day wherein God hath settled our Anointed Sovereign over all the Kingdoms of his Father and I trust you profess your due thankfulness to God for his most pious and religious Reign and that we have great cause to rejoyce and be glad in it But which is that among all the days of Christ which God did make more transcendently than the rest there 's a little scruple in that point I find one or two refer it to the day of his Nativity but their reasons are weak and they are no considerable number to be followed St. Hierom and St. Austin are in the right I think for they apply it to the whole time of the Gospel wherein the terrors of the Law are broken and all things are most sweet and pleasant to penitent Believers Behold now is the acceptable Time now is the
more with these bodily senses than with the inerrable light of Divine Truth is an extreme indignity A grave Patrician would be grieved that the deposition of a noted Varlet should be heard against his innocency And will you hear the objections of sense and reason against that sacred evidence Thus saith the Lord that were to trust to darkness before light the Flesh before the Spirit to lying vanities before unalterable and eternal truth But to her senses this Infidel would appeal and they would instruct her sufficiently whether it had gone with Sodom so ill as it was foretold And was she sure to be satisfied by looking back I greatly doubt it a mist might rise up like the smoak of a Furnace and she conceive it to come from fire when it did not Or the Sun might shine upon the waters in the Plain and she misdoubt that the waters were become bloud as the Moabites were so mistaken Doth not a late Historian tell us of the whole Watch of a City that misdoubted a Field of thistles a far off was a Troop of Pikemen that encamped there to besiege them Was ever man more cautious according to humane rules than St. Thomas the Apostle He would trust no mans reports that his Master was risen from the dead he would see somewhat neither would he trust his own eyes he would feel too nay he would not trust his fingers ends in small wounds but he would wallow his whole hand in the rent of his side For all this wariness he might have been deluded The Syrians saw Elisha and yet wist not it was he The Sodomites felt all night at Lots door and were still to seek Old Isaac held Jacob fast and was deluded the hands are Esau's hands says he and yet they were not And will this woman trust her eye-sight and at a distance rather than Gods peremptory assertion O trust not in man trust not in these fallible humane means Our senses are bruitish Nature is corrupt Philosophy is vain but Faith leans upon that strong pillar the revelation of the Spirit from above which cannot falter and to lie it is impossible And as this woman was called an incredulous Soul because she looked back to see whether vengeance had passed upon the Cities of the Plain as the Angel of the Lord had foretold so for want of faith touching the caution which was given to her own person she fell into presumption and by presumption into death it would not sink into her thoughts that God was in earnest that as many of their Troop as looked behind them should be consumed she thought they were big words to scare timerous persons such as Prophetical men in their zeal did every day denounce against sinners yet they liv'd and rub'd on that took their own liberty to disobey for God was gracious and would not suffer his whole displeasure to arise against miserable sinners Feel feel the pulse of your own conscience I beseech you tell me if it do not beat disorderly Doth it not confuse you to call to mind that this infidelity this in ipso genere hath betrayed you to the tentations of Satan more than all his snares beside that desperate courage which you assume to your selves upon some hope of impunity is it not the spur to all transgression God is gentle and of long suffering his minacies are terrible but his dearly beloved Son and our only Saviour is merciful sed exorabile numen fortasse experiar says the Heathen his loving kindness is soon entreated This is a bastard faith of our own to subvert the true faith which is begotten by the Spirit A Diabolical infusion that God doth menace out of policy that which He never meant to make us obsequious by the shadow of his scourge but remember that non moriemini was a lie 'T is the Serpents Master-piece to expel all faith and fear out of our mind for they go hand in hand together and to break our necks with confidence A barbarous beastly kind of life says Aristotle hardned the Scythians that they neither feared Thunder nor Earthquakes but it is infernal witchcraft that makes obdurate hearts believe that all the woes and curses in the Gospel are but a strong noise terrible while it is heard but comes to nothing Quotidie Diabolus quae Deus minatur levigat says Gregory God affirms the Woman doubts the Devil denies O unhappy they that think Truth it self may be deceived and give ear to a deceitful spirit If all the maledictions against Impenitents were not indubitably to be expected Christianity were but fainthearted superstition Religion nothing but panick fear Faith not the Evidence of things to come but a devised Fable and the sacred Scriptures in all penalties and threatnings a vizard of mockery But as sin brought punishment upon us so let the certain expectation of punishment bring us out of sin Remember Lots Wife the only memento that Christ fixeth upon any Story of the Old Testament The less she believed the less she feared but the less she feared the more she smarted What God hath threatned will not be declin'd by our contrary opinion Though Christ shed his bloud to save a sinner God will not lie to save a sinner No title of his Word shall fail no not to save an hundred thousand souls out of the infernal pit I am come to the utmost portion of the hour and not to the utmost of the first part of my Text by three points She fainted in well-doing she neglected mercy and was slow to save her self she contemned the benefit of preservation in respect of that which was taken from her But as Logick convinceth more than Rhetorick as the fist knit together is stronger than the hand spread abroad so all this will be most doctrinal in one point that she relapsed and sunk after she was in fair speed to obtain mercy because she fell in love with wicked Sodom again from whence God had withdrawn her This is her crime which Philo exaggerates more than once aestu refluo retrosum absorpta she was like a Ship sailing with full sails from the sinful delights of the World but the contrary winds and tides of concupiscence carried her clean back again Josephus accuseth her worse upon the same charge that though her feet came from that impious City yet her heart staid behind Et saepius tardavit vertendo se ad civitatem she stood still more than once to take her full view of that loss which she so much bemoaned nor was it at the first turning about as he says that she was turn'd into a pillar of salt The very Apples of Sodom remain as a token against her to this day which put forth at first as if they would grow to be very delicious in the taste and in conclusion they pulverize and become sooty ashes So Lots Wife ran well at first but in the midst of her course nay almost at the end she fainted and stuck fast
neither thrive abroad nor at home Pyrrho haec Samnitibus I can wish our Enemies no greater harm than such corrupted minds That Pyrrhus it is in Plutarch was a rambling Warriour and cared not whom he oppressed Says Cyneas to him his best Counsellor Shall we live thus always No says Pyrrhus when we have vanquished the Romans Compotabimus in otio vivemus We will drink stoutly and live merrily His Horse would have said as much if he could have spoken that when his service was done he would stand in the Stable and eat his Provender But the end of War is Peace and the end of Peace is to die unto Sin and to live unto Righteousness These are the last words I have to say now In the justness of our Cause confidence of Faith fervour of Prayer amendment of our Lives United Hearts and in our Religious and Noble ends we commend our most serene and excellent Admiral the whole Royal and gallant Expedition which he manageth to God In whom alone is our help For there is none that fights for us powerfully and irresistably but only thou O God To which God c. A SERMON UPON PROV iii. 3. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee THE Children of Israel were exhorted from their Prophet Moses to write the Law upon the Posts of their doors and to have Copies of it in the Fringes of their Garments as if the whole Land of Jury had been bound into one Sacred Volume to make a Bible for them This was Mandatum latissimum as David said a Commandment exceeding broad but a Proverb being by the very interpretation of the name ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as St. Basil says ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a quaint speech used in every street of the City and every high way of the field it is more vulgar and common than the Law it self that thou maist be unexcusable O man when his words are gone forth into the ends of the world Now in this brief essay which I have read unto you as the Heathen were wont to set up the Image of Mercury in the turnings of high-ways to direct Passengers their journey which was called Mercurialis acervus so King Solomon in these words hath reared up a Pillar in the broad way to instruct our ignorance which is ready to turn aside and wander like the lost sheep that whithersoever we set our face we keep this Via Regia the Kings high way Let not c. Mercy and truth so excellent a workmanship that I reverse what I said before it is not like a Pillar set up for an heathen Idol but rather Solomon hath made a new Cherubin for a new Temple a Cherubin with two wings stretched out upon our soul The wings are Mercy and Truth which either bear up the body to heaven as David says My soul flieth unto the Lord before the morning watch I say before the morning watch Or if it grow laden with sin that so great a burden cannot be supported these wings can fly away alone these vertues will be gone like Elias in his firy Chariot for a wounded Conscience who can bear it But if it be true that Tertullian says Omnis spiritus ales est Every Spirit is winged to fly much more let the Spirit of every regenerate man be this Avis Paradisi that our soul may say as David the Sparrow hath found her a nest and the Swallow a place to lay her young ones even thine Altar O Lord of Hosts and being thus fledg'd Mercy and Truth shall not forsake us Out of which words I collect these parts in order The first wing of a Christian soul is Mercy He shall protect me under his wings and I shall be safe under his feathers so God was merciful unto David and mercy is a Wing Secondly The next that answers unto it is Truth For the word of the Lord is that flying roul which Ezekiel saw and the Word of the Lord is the truth it self so that Truth is a wing Thirdly Note their conjunction Mercy and Truth they are coupled together Mercy and Truth are met together righteousness and peace have kissed each other they met long ago in Christ the head and we must not part them in his members Fourthly You must know that we may be so careless in our holy Profession that we may be stript of all the good endowments which we had Mercy and Truth may forsake us and then say we had them Lastly If we look to our part the gifts of God are without repentance ne deserant let them not depart there is a careful way whereby we may imp these wings from flying that they shall not forsake us else ne deserant were sounding brass and no true doctrine these are the five Lamps it remains I put oyl into them I begin at Mercy the fairest Omen that ever the World had in it The unmerciful brethren of Joseph consulted to put the blame of their cruelty upon the beasts we will say a cruel beast hath devoured him It is very well that they durst not profess themselves to be men who were so barbarous But neither is ât in every beast of the field to be stony hearted The fouls of the air are gentle in their kind witness the Ravens that fed Elias and for the Cattel upon the hills the Ass forsook not his old Master the Prophet that was rent by the Lion The meanest of Creatures then have mercy by instinct of nature yea and the most glorious also dread not the Angels though they be called flaming spirits but rather consider what pity they have shewn in their Function towards the Sons of men To execute Gods wrath few do always come down as loath to be Ministers of indignation One destroying Angel appeared to punish Jerusalem one alone brought weeping news to Bochim Jud. ii Three appeared unto Abraham to bring him the joyful Message of a Son but their company grew less by one and but two of them brought tidings to Lot of the vengeance of Sodom But Elishas Servant saw Chariots and Horsemen and thousands in the Mountain to protect them To publish peace and joy heaven it self as I may so speak it was empty and there appeared a multitude of the heavenly Host to the Shepherds and sang praises unto God surely then one of their wings is Mercy But we must fetch our example further than the Angels let us go boldly to the throne of grace and fetch it from the third heavens Be you merciful with a sicut says our Saviour as your heavenly Father is merciful And if we cast our eye upon that pattern it blossoms like the rod of Aaron into these two buds condonationem and donationem First To forgive and remit sins Secondly To give liberally as God hath enabled us In the first I will thus proceed First that it is Gods nature and property to forgive secondly that man should rather forgive than God It did well deserve record
you must know that there is a threefold evidence of truth to be distinguished First there is the evidence of our outward senses Matt. xvi when it is Evening you say it will be fair weather for the Sky is red O ye hypocrites can you discern the face of heaven says our Saviour as who should say then there is more to be understood 2. There is the evidence of knowledg which will condemn the Heathen that know not God for the invisible things may be understood by the things which are made even his eternal Godhead Rom. i. both these truths you see are fruitless without a third and what is that but the evidence of faith Heb. xi As for other Truths every man is in the high way to get them capiat qui capere potest but as for this Truth it hath looked down from Heaven says David looked upon whom it listeth and all men have not faith Whether Faith be the evident Truth or not all the World almost upon a time stuck at that point but onely Abraham either because their eyes were dim or because it shined like the face of Moses that they could not behold it Yea we have sundry Traditions that some Philosophers cast an eye upon the first verse of the Scripture In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth but they started at it like the Host of Israel at the dead Corps of Amasa and went no further Alas poor Philosophy who knows not how to confound the wisdom of her Principles The fire hath been as temperate as the morning air Dan. 3. the waters have stood upon an heap like the strong ribs of a Mountain Exod. xiv the Sun hath hid his face at noon day when Astronomy could find no reason for it their Art was as blind as the Heaven in the Eclipse But every part of nature should be out of frame Heaven and Earth should pass away before one title of Gods book should perish that with the dissolution of the Heavens no Angels might remain and with the ruine of the Earth no men might be left to testify against it The holy Martyrs have forsaken their lives that this truth might not forsake them And as it is reported of our Philosopher that the ashes spread upon the high Mountains of Tenariffa retain for ever any letters drawn out upon them by reason of the tranquillity of the place So no wind or storm can scatter away those holy words of Gods Book since they have been written in the ashes of the Martyrs the Law cannot endure better in the Tables of Stone than the Gospel in that sacred dust If Faith be not a Truth how did Abraham see Christmas day and rejoyce and keep it a solemn Festival more than a thousand years before the name was entred into our Calender He knew the faithfulness of Gods Promise that made Jesus our Redemption so undoubtedly that he swore him a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech The Mother of our Lord might ask reverently quomodo How should these things be The best in the World have their doubts of infirmity but Domine non erit tibi this thing shall not be so when Christ had spoken it that was a mistake in St. Peter and yet behold the Evidence of Truth shewed it self more abundantly anon after in the faith of that Apostle than in all the skill of Greece and Egypt Tell me what Physician could promise recovery to the Cripple lying at the Beautiful Gate Durst all the Colledg of Galen say unto him confidently stand up and walk but the Apostle saw that one grane of faith could give him the use of his feet and ancle bones that he might leap and praise the Lord. Whatsoever is confirmed by the mouth of two or three Witnesses it passeth for truth by the Law of God and Man and good reason for it Now the Old Testament was confirmed under the name of three Patriarchs I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. In the New Covenant whether it were at the Transfiguration of Christ Peter James and John three Attendants did bear him company to Mount Tabor in like manner at the raising up of Jairus Daughter and in the Mount of Olives when he sweat and prayed so many were with him as before and the self same three Disciples all was confirmed under the mouth of three Witnesses But I will take no more pains in this point to prove Faith to be a Truth as I remember the great Orator reports of a good man Q. Metellus he was excused or rather forbidden to shew his proof unto the Senate in a Controversie to be debated lest the Bench should seem to distrust so reverend a Citizen None but Julian the Apostate and such accursed as he hath left behind him would scoff at Faith whose cavil it was as Nazianzen reports that we had a starting hole for all objections in one silly word Believe These men knew not that Faith in a little Pearl was worth all the substance of a Merchant and he sold all he had to buy the Pearl Matt. xiii Surely if the Womb of Mary deserved a Blessing from all Generations that bore the Infant from everlasting if the Arms of Simeon deserved a Church Anthem every Evensong that enclasped him if the Tomb of Joseph was attended by Angels where his body lay then cut down Palms and spread your Garments in the way for Christ is rode in triumph into that heart into which faith is entred Now Truth is fruitful and brings forth Truth a Daughter not unlike her self Divine Truth is the cause of Human Truth of a true Conversation of a right Balance and a just Fphah Her Merchandise is such as Abraham's was with the Hittites Gen. 23. which I will ever commend when he bought a Tomb for Sarah such as the ancient Romans was aedes pestilentes vendo the Seller was not ashamed to confess that his House had the Pestilence Not as St. Hierom told the Trades of his time tanti vitrium quanti margaritam to chop away Glass for Rubies or as St. Basil says of Gordias the Martyr that his Soul was vexed with the City and he retired into the Wilderness leaving ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he could not endure the Buyers and Sellers the forswearers and liars And what doth all come to when they cast up their Audit Prov. xxi 6. The getting of riches by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death Let our Merchants beware that they carry not that report which the Wits of St. Paul's time put upon the Cretians ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã alwayes liars evil beasts and slow-bellies or as Plutarch spake of Demades the Pleader then grown past the best that there was nothing left in him but his Tongue and his Paunch his Tongue to tell lies and his Belly to surfeit the meer Reliques of an Ox sacrificed Nay I beseech you
as if our charity could be altogether inoffensive No the Spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. viii but it doth not quite take away all infirmity we are not made of the substance of Angels while we travel in this mortal flesh Sanctification will leak out at certain crannies but all is made sure with cupio dissolvi take in sunder the soul and body by death and in the state of our Exaltation Mercy can never get away There is a molting time for these two Wings and the best Christian displumes certain feathers through tentation but O that I had wings like a Dove says David for then would I fly away and be at rest Now the last Point is that which troubles all the world especially our Western world which is in continual combat with our Romish Adversaries wherein the Art lies to preserve Truth that it may not forsake us But some there are clouds without water men unstable in their minds halting between God and Baal that think the whole Church is at a loss for truth and we can stedfastly trust to nothing For it will easily break prison out of the Syllogism of the old Philosophers witness so many busie disputations of late and the success so unprofitable it cannot be bound up in the laborious Tomes of Controversies no Age more industrious to write than ours hath been and none further from Peace To think that the limits of Truth are bound to St. Peters Chair so called is most childish and frivolous The two Testaments indeed are the touchstone of Truth but they are stained with presumptuous glosses and we do not ask now adays Quomodo scriptum est How is it written But Qomodo expositum est What is the intepretation of Expositors Lastly If we say that Truth is the Daughter of Time and that the reverend Antiquity of the Fathers must be her Register What if one say one thing and some another What if they be equally divided What if index expurgatorius spunge out all that should be justly alleadged And hear what Cyprian says Non dixit Christus ego sum consuetudo sed ego sum veritas Surely yet among these many conflicts there is a way to bind truth as a Crown unto us give me leave to unfold it without ornament of Language in a particular declaration In the midst of a froward Generation whose Wits sweat on both sides to win the day who would not take a sure course which cannot be reproved Now all the Law and the Prophets are comprised in these three things 1. In Prayer and Thanksgiving to God 2. In a sincere belief 3. In obedience to his Commandments The absolute form of Prayer is the same which Christ taught us Mat. vi The sum of our Belief is the Apostles Creed And the two Tables of the Law want nothing which should teach Religion and Justice towards God and men What Christianity can be more secure than this How can Truth forsake him that rules himself to the Letter of these holy Institutions and goes no further But whatsoever is more than this is tossed about with every blast of disputation it may be erroneous it may be Will-worship it cannot be the substance of things not seen it impeacheth Gods wisdom as if he would not reveal unto man the explicite way of his salvation When I come into the Temple and see a devout Monk running over the Hierarchy of heaven upon his Beads and filling the Saints with the noise of his complaints and when I see another Christian piercing the highest heavens with zeal and coming boldly to the Throne of Grace to God alone to which part shall he that is unlearned say Amen Beloved if Our Father would not serve the turn it may seem John Baptist did teach his Disciples to pray better than Christ Sweet Jesu they are thine own words therefore I cannot do amiss to turn me from the Angels when I have Christ for my Master but they that make the Elders about the Throne Partners with God in Invocation they cannot be so confident that truth doth not forsake them Again one Church entertains the craft of Demetrius and the Silversmiths even upon Gods own Shrine their eyes are filled with their molten Images when they look unto the hills from whence cometh their salvation But they distinguish that they keep their body to a lesser Religious Worship and not to the highest Adoration and they exalt the Image of the true God not the Idols of the heathen Our Church refuseth no Ornaments of Decency no Histories of Piety no remembrance of eternal Glory But the Law is not in our eye but in our heart and we pray as if it were our Saviour at midnight in the Garden when no resemblance could be before him What should a soul say here disquieted with the rents of Sion Why thus Lord thou hast forbidden all graven Similitudes thy Commandment did not comment upon a petty duty to the Saints a nice Hyperdulia to our Lady and an admirable Latria to thy self thou hast not made me so good a Lapidary to discern in stocks and stones between an Image and an Idol I may be an Idolater with the Inventions of the former I cannot err in the spiritual Worship of the latter Confounded then be all they that worship carved Images I will not let thy Truth forsake me Thirdly Concerning that inquinatissima purgatio that loathsom cleansing of sins after this life in torments which is a kind of Spanish Inquisition Why art thou so vexed O my soul And why do thoughts arise within thee So trust in God not as fearing the scorching Kitchin of Purgatory or the freezing of St. Patricks Lake for a season but as dreading an eternal death for ever not as if my punishment must be mitigated after my death by the Beads and Orizons and Bribery of my forgetful Executors but as if in my life they must be redeemed by the luke-warm bloud of Jesus Christ Then for the thing propounded I know my Saviour descended into Hell to triumph over Satan and bruize his head I know He ascended up into Heaven to make Intercession for us to God the Father this is my Creed I am sure and the third place is Apocrypha my belief is as broad as the holy Apostles made the pattern and if I stop mine ears at the rest I will not let thy truth forsake me Fourthly Concerning the material part of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper I take my Saviours words into the explication of my Faith This is my body this is my bloud But what have I to do to let men interpret Christs meaning when themselves confess it is such a mystery that cannot be comprehended Is it not enough for me to receive these precious gifts with thanksgiving but that I must argue how and after what manner Christ is present at that participation I am sure the outward Elements of Bread and Wine are there for as God gave me an heart to believe so he
gave me not my outward senses to delude me I am sure that Christ is there and I partake the meritorious Passion of his Body crucified and his Bloud shed upon the Cross all that men controvert more than this is to beget sorrow to the Church and laughter to the Devil My soul dwelleth among them that are enemies unto peace but I am content to say this is my Saviour who offered himself up for me therefore I will not let thy truth forsake me Lastly In that great Controversie of Justification there is a way in which the mists of errour cannot arise and there is a way in which the substantial food is lost by striving to comprehend the shadow with it By vertue of the Law I know my duty that I must be a Doer and thereby I discern my infirmity that I must be a Debtor By vertue of the Lords Prayer I find my self arreraged in iniquities that are past my flesh trembling at tentations to come my soul and body gasping for deliverance from evil round about me I find not one line wherein I may obtest unto God by any part of my own Sanctification Thirdly By vertue of my Creed I find that my Saviour was incarnate suffered and rose again to purchase Redemption unto us and Remission of our sins The Angels are not more sure of their incorruptible glory than we may be to say As many as walk in this rule peace be to them and mercy and on the Israel of our God Cogita de Deo quicquid meliùs potes de teipso quod deterius vales says St. Bernard and then thy truth is like Mount Sion which cannot be removed But to go a little further and to creep into the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ there is no likelihood but it should prove an unthankful blasphemy Being rooted in this most holy Faith and in our active Mercy toward the whole body of Christs Church there remains for us a passive mercy which will not forsake us the sure mercies of David in our blessed Redeemer who is called Amen and in whom are all the Promises And there is a truth which will stick to us as fast and answer for us against the slanders of Satan who is the Reviler of the Brethren For he that confesseth me before men there is truth on our part I will confess him before my Father which is in heaven there is truth on Gods part to which God Father c. A SERMON UPON THE RECHABITES JEREM. xxxv 6. But they said we will drink no Wine AT the first hearing of these words I may conjecture that some men thought of no such Scripture and that most men look for a strange construction and you shall have a construction to mollify the Paradox since it was ever safe to decline extremes in all opinions for they are like Jehu in his furious march what have they to do with peace Indeed if you will recount among many who they were that have professed so much austerity as those that say in my Text We will drink no wine you will neither commend them for wisdom nor for piety Lycurgus in the Luxury of his Country cut up every Vine by the roots and destroyed the Vineyards like those inconsiderate men in our dayes superexcessive Reformers of Religion who think there is no way to amend that which is abused but with Hezekias Justice against the Brazen Serpent utterly to consume it The Manichees would not endure to taste the Cup at the holy Communion as if Christ had been too prodigal to bestow Wine at his last Supper upon his Disciples And you know who they are that want not much to be Manichees Tertullian mentions a most harsh Discipline among the Romans that no Woman might know the taste of Wine sed sub Romulo quae vinum tetigerat impunè à marito trucidata est that it was lawful for the Husband to shed his own Wifes bloud if she tasted of the bloud of the Grape So likewise there were certain Christians called Severiani by a nick name that grudged the whole World St. Pauls allowance that Modicum which he granted unto Timothy and Pharaohs Butler with these men had been kept for ever in prison had he pressed a few Grapes into the Kings own Cup. But for all these men who grudg Cato his draught of wine when he is wearied with the affairs of the Common-wealth I say their abstemious life is perverseness and such were not the Rechabites that say in my Text We will drink no wine In which Text barren as it may seem there are many things very Religious and profitable to make up my Treatise at this time And as boldly as Prudentius said by a Catachresis that there were jejuniorum victimae many Sacrifices offered up to God by fasting and abstaining from meats so say I that this Text is abstemiorum racematio there is a fruitful Vintage to be gathered out of non bibemus We will drink no wine This whole Chapter is but of one entire piece like the silver Trumpets of Moses Numb 10. so is the discourse thereof without interruption or almost without full point from the beginning to the end First God is provoked to wrath by the rebellions of Judah False Prophets were crept in that had taught strange Doctrin and the People had itching ears and were worse Disciples Now what instrument should the Lord choose to lay open his indignation whom but Jeremy the Propher and him God knew to be fit for the Errand not as he knew Nathaniel under the shade of his Fig-leaves sed sub carnis umbraculo in his Mothers Womb. Jeremy sets himself to the Task and lays open their sins not by revilings by menacies by zeal as hot as fire and who could do less they made Moses the meekest Soul alive throw stones at them and break the Tables but setting before them the Example of the Rechabites promising their obedience should be had in an everlasting remembrance and Judah his stubborn Son should see their happiness and want it Et spectet nostros jam plebs Romana triumphos Will it not grieve them to see Strangers and Aliens bear the Bell away and themselves look on and be quite neglected Lastly what was the Obligation that kept the Rechabites under such aw and duty for Jeremy spread a Table entreated them courteously and set Flagons of wine before them Why nothing but this their Father Jonadab had made them protest to take this austere life upon them that they would drink no wine A hard case between God and Israel if you mark it What was Jonadab or who was it that gave him wisdom no stedfast faith could be put in his Laws nor certainty in his Statutes nay upon this Text it is Calvins opinion laudatur obsequium filiorum non legi approbatum fuisse consilium paternum 't is true that Jeremy commends the Sons of Jonadab for their obedience but the Holy Ghost did no where commend Jonadab for making such
to distort this saying as if Christian were general to every Schismatick and Sectary and Catholick were appropriated to the Orthodox abiding in the bosom of the true Church Nay some are so senseless to make the Apostles the Authors of such childish counsel that because good and bad would invade the name of Christian therefore the Disciples should call themselves Catholicks for distinction sake Why list I pray you he that can falsly say Christian is my name can he not with as much impudency and falshood say that Catholick is my surname the word becomes the Creed most divinely the holy Catholick Church for what Church shall I adhere to That which is for Time universal from the preaching of Christ unto these dayes that which is for Place universal dispersed wheresoever the Faith of the Elect is received that which is for Truth universal believing all that the Prophets and Apostles have delivered and whatsoever the Church hath ratified by its continual interpretation But our fine Italian Wits have spun out another notion that particular Church is Catholick which hath reteined the pure Truth in all Ages since Christ and never failed from whence hath resulted that proud inclosure of Roman Catholick an error not to be argued me thinks but to be whooped at I am sure Catholick in their sense is neither name nor surname of them that seek for peace They pour it on as Vinegar to make the wounds of the Church smart The Name of Christian is the Sanctuary of Unity and Oil to heal the wound let that be our Badg then which was the good Disciples c. But if you wear this Livery of Christ what service will you do him do you consider it unto what holiness you are engaged if your Title be derived from so pure a Fountain Now I am at the top of the spire at that point of my Text which is nearer to Heaven than any other It is well that we were Infants when we were first inrolled to be Christians in those sucking days we did not feel the weight that was laid upon our shoulders if we came with ripe years to Baptism and with premeditated understanding it would make us sink down when we put our foot into the waters and tremble all over to bethink us what heavenly part a Christian is to act upon the Earth as if he were an Angel incarnate Alexander Severus the Emperor whose Mother Mammaea was a Christian was saluted in the name of Antoninus by the Romans a name which had been most auspicious in that Republick By no means says the Emperor do not engage me to the necessity of that expectation Nomina insignia onerosa sunt illustrious names are burdensom and I cannot satisfie that which is looked for from them Alas but a trifle was looked for from an Antoninus in comparison of that is looked for from a Christian A few sins were esteemed no blemish in one of them one sin and unrepented of shall be an everlasting woe to one of us The similitude of a few Vertues made up a gallant Heathen the defect of one Vertue degrades a Christian In whom there is not meekness and mercies there 's no print of Christ in whom there is not humility there 's no colour of Christ in whom there is not perfect charity there is no agreement with Christ non potest esse concors cum Christo qui est discors cum Christiano he that doth not abrenuntiate and deny himself he hath no part in Christ for he that thinks his good works are estimable with Heaven and looks to be saved by his own merits est latro insultans cruci Domini says St. Austin he is the wicked Thief that insults over the Cross of Christ He that hath Christ alwayes in his eye to follow him in his heart to love him in his faith to trust in him in his works to glorifie him he is co Christus he shall communicate of his name here and he shall be cohaeres Co-heir with him in his Fathers Kingdom hereafter St. Austin calls us Heirs in this World by the usurpation of this Name sicut sunt haeredes nominis ita sunt imitatores sanctitatis Christian thou art Heir of his Name thou shalt do well therefore to be Executor of his Sanctity There are three things as the same Father hath filed them together with which our Christendom holds a secret antipathy in his short book of true Religion Neque in confusione Paganorum neque in caecitate Judaeorum neque in purgamentis Haeâeticorum quaerenda est it is neither to be found in the confusion of Pagans nor in the blindness of the Jews nor in the filthiness of Hereticks Justin Martyr is well rejected by the great Annalist for condescending to call all the Heathen Christians qui ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã vixerunt who from the beginning of the World had instituted themselves by well guided reason This can never be concocted with truth for Christianity in the very essence is an explicit knowledg of the Son of God that died for our sins and rose again for our justification Beside Gentilism doth incorporate in it the worshipping of vain Gods and how abhorrent is that to this Name When the Roman Deputy urged Polycarpus to swear by the Genius of Cesar his answer was no more but I am a Christian a Negative to all Idolatry in that Affirmative Secondly Where there is Judaism there is no Christianism He that hath relished the honey of the Gospel says St. Austin cannot endure the bitter waters of the Law Circumcision hath a bitter acrimony in it to offend his taste nec hostiarum ferre cruorem valet nec Sabbati observantiam custodire he will not offer the bloud of Sacrifices he will not keep the observation of the Sabbath Let them note that who strive to have the entire fourth Commandment to be moral and perpetual A strange refractariness in some men that cannot endure to be Christians in Ceremonies and yet are content to fall back to those beggarly Elements of Moses and to be Jews in Ceremonies Thirdly The filthiness of Hereticks either in Doctrin or Life it draws a dash through the Name of Christian and blots it out No lie is of the truth and he that denies that Jesus is the Christ he is a liar and an Antichrist Jesus is the name of the Person of our Lord Christ is the name of his Office how every Heresie clasheth either against his Person or his Office and such a one doth so little merit to pass for a Christian that he is published for an Antichrist Or be it that you are undepraved in the truth but most depraved in manners there again you forfeit your interest in this spotless Name For why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Luk. vi 46. Cum impiis homines sumus sed non cum impiis Christiani sumuââ I do not yield clearly to that but
from thence he assists his Sacraments sanctifieth his Ministry gives grace unto his Word And if they did not escape who refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn from him that speaketh from Heaven Secondly Our Jerusalem is above not only in the Head but in the Members I do not say in all the Members for the Church is that great House in which are Vessels of honour and dishonour Terms of Excellency though indistinctly attributed to the whole are agreeing oftentimes only to the chiefer or more refined part Some there are in this Body whom though we salute not by the proud word of their Sublimity yet in true possession which shall never be taken from them they are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã those that are above Witness that the Angels make up one Church with us being the chief Citizens that are reckoned in the triumphant part fellow Servants with us under one Lord adopted Sons under one Father Elect under one Christ This is the language of the Scripture and surely Members of one Mystical Body for the same Jesus is the Head of all Principality and Power Colos ii 10. Of this Family also are the Saints departed even all those holy Spirits that obey God in heavenly places and do not imitate the Devil and his Angels This is that Church which hath neither spot nor wrinkle for when I speak of such a Church says St. Austin in his retractations I mean none but those in Heaven After these that make the front and first File of our March there are many among us I trust who have their part in this description Jerusalem which is above the Elect of God the Church invisible invisible I say not for their persons but for their qualites for who can see who hath an internal union with Christ the Head Who can tell whether this or that may be filled with his Grace and quickned with his Spirit Cusanus says very well that there is no certain judgment to be made by the outward fruits who are living Members of the Church but in Infants that are newly baptized With the mouth we confess the truth but with the heart man believes unto righteousness and only God can see the heart But these whose integrity their Master knows and loves no matter in what base condition they wander here they are greater by far than the ungodly that over-peer them in promotion they are above indeed for they are as high as the pinacle of blessedness and their names are written in the Book of Life for their sakes God hath dropt down the beautiful style of Jerusalem upon the Houshold of Christ but without these no name were so fit for it as Sodom or Samaria Such as will wrangle where no occasion is offered have carped at this as if we removed all from the Church but such as are Israel in occulto and have their sins forgiven in Christ It was never our meaning neither can we help it but that we must keep communion with all those that profess the common Faith But if the Church had known Hypocrites it had not admitted them into the Portion of the Lord or else it had excluded them Et quid prodest non ejici coetu piorum si mereris ejici says St. Cyprian What the better is it for an Hypocrite that he is not cast out of the Congregation since he deserves to be cast out he may abide with us in the outward Society of them that call upon Christ praesumptivè non veraciter as Spalatensis says because we presume he is faithful though indeed he is the Child of the Devil numero non merito he makes up one of the Multitude that go in the broad way he is none of the few that strive to enter in at the steight gate he keeps the formality of a Christian with others beneath he perteins not to Jerusalem which is above Thirdly We have obtained this dignity to be ranked as them that are above because our calling is very holy He hath saved us and called us with an holy calling 2 Tim. i. 9. called to Doctrin which is above which flesh and bloud did not reveal but the Father that giveth wisdom plentifully ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says Theophilact upon my Text God did preach the Gospel from on high with his own voice for take a Breviary of it and it is no more but that which he said from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased We are called to obey the truth by illumination from above from thence is sent the spirit of them that are baptized the spirit of the Apostles and Martyrs the spirit of Bishops and Doctors the spirit of all those that have lived in the Truth and shed their bloud for the Truth 's sake We are called to that Religion which consists in celestial Functions in Faith and Hope in Prayer and Charity not in a Religion which presseth them down that observe it with an insupportable weight of Shadows and Ceremonies but the hour is come when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth Beware of those of the Concision says St. Paul and among bad marks which they carry this is the conclusion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they mind earthly things that is they are pleased with carnal Ordinances with these low and beggerly Observations of the Levitical Priesthood but immediately turning himself to the Fundamentals of the Gospel and the practice thereof says he nostra politeia our way of serving God our manner of worship is in Heaven So Bernard says that the Synagogue moved in a low Orb. But Solomon speaking of the New Testament says Quae est ista quae ascendit Cant. iii. 3. Who is she that cometh up from the Wilderness perfumed with mirrh and frankincense with all the powders of the Merchant Above all we are called to holy actions which savour not of mans passions and purposes but are qualified from above Our fortitude is heavenly fortitude our temperance heavenly temperance our liberality to the poor heavenly liberality but the moral deeds of the Heathen living out of the Church that had the best gloss upon them were smutcht with some bad vapour below and every grane of vertue that grew out of their stalks did abound with the chaff of vanity And what exceeds all that I have said beside to make our calling heavenly and holy God is so gracious to those things which are done in the Church in the name of his Son that where an unfit instrument may seem to marr all by his extravagant profaneness by his impenitent conscience nay by his heretical pravity yet Christs presence and assistance are not wanting to his Word and Sacraments but their efficacy is free and current to the people though they be performed by a crooked and an adulterous Generation As the Posterity of Jacobs Handmaid had a Princedom among their Brethren in the Land of Canaan
apt to be separated I suppose an Epicure may lose his conscience in a mist for a little while and dispute it like a Galenist that the soul is nothing else but the temperature of the first qualities and so in death extinguished but can you imagine that the Spirit it self doth not often give him the lie and say within his breast you do me wrong I am immortal Verily I believe that they that put it off doubtingly and would be uncontrouled in their voluptuousness it may be it is not so are often tormented with the other part of the opinion it may be it is so If you will hear this truth upheld out of holy Scripture there is no resistance or cavillation against it Because I will not tie my self to every Text which chimes that way I will choose compendiously where others have made choice before me The Sadduces being stiff opposers against the separated existence of the Spirit and yet commending themselves in the Holy Patriarchs from whose Loyns they descended our Saviour selected that Scripture above all other to convict them which would catch them in their own net I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living How was God the God of Abraham unless he lived And in what did Abraham live but in his soul which was divorced from the body Irenaeus admires that any one should doubt of the souls perseverance after death since the enarration is so âlear that the rich man saw Lazarus in joys when himself was tormented St. Hierom sets his rest upon those words Mat. x. 22. Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul St. Austin recommends the words of Stephen to nick the Point without all contradiction Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Si animus moriturus esset causae nihil foret cur animum potiùs quà m corpus commendaret Aquinas against the Gentiles lays his strength upon that place of St. Paul 2 Cor. v. 8. We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with God One quotation were enough then how forcible are all these together He must be a beast in understanding that knows not that the souls of good men are Angels in reversion There are others that profess so much faith that the soul hath a state of happiness in reversion to those that die in the favour of God But that it comes not to any gust of this happiness till the end of the World For the soul say they falls asleep when the body perisheth that is it dies together with the body and when the flesh shall be quickned again and gathered out of the dust then the soul shall live again when both it and the body shall be exalted in the Resurrection I do not create Monsters to fight with all St. Austin found such Hereticks in his days he calls them Arabians who taught it every where that the Soul had no being after death till in the consummation of the World they both obtained together a joyful Resurrection Nay these Tares were sown long before St. Austin lived Irenaeus took the pains to root them up in his Age and he confutes them out of my Text says he how did St. John see the souls of the Martyrs who had been slain for the Testimony of Christ if the Soul should cease to be till the final Resurrection And if a Caviller shall say it doth not cease to be but it lies quiet and senseless in a trance Irenaeus blunts the point of that objection because in the next verse they desire vengeance for their bloud that was shed but principally because in the eleventh verse they are clad in white garments which are cognizances of their joy and glory and doubtless they wear them not sleeping but waking And do not think that I rake in the ashes of ancient Heresies that are quite forgotten For the Anabaptists in their Theses Printed at Cracovia Anno 1568 have this position We deny that any Soul hath a separated being after death that was a devise invented by the Papists to maintain Invocation of Saints and Purgatory this is Popery trimly reformed and according to that Proverb of the Jews they cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils And even at this day a new Generation of Vipers risen up at Racovia in Polonia do pledge the Anabaptists in the same cup namely that there is a futurition of glory for the soul when the whole Fabrick of man shall be redintegrated again in the Resurrection but they profess they cannot tell whether in the mean time there be any such thing extant as a separated soul yet St. Paul says he desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ And yet Christ told the good Thief that day he should be with him in Paradise And yet the Souls of just men departed do follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Rev. xiv 4. These instances are more perswasive I am sure than that which they pretend that the Just do rest from their labours What rest in Gods name do they dream of They are not in a profound trance without motion or action as Adam was cast into a deep sleep when Eve was taken out of his side but it is a rest when the Spirit doth acquiesce in the Vision of God as David said Turn again unto thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath rewarded thee There are some that I must afford a little Patronage who are accused to lean to the Anabaptists in their opinion that do nothing less It was allowed for 1400 years as a Problem wherein Christians without breach of charity might have Latitude to dissent granting that the soul after the dissolution from the body was received into the joys of heaven whether it be not sequestred in some distance from the highest heaven where the invisible God doth chiefly reign in Power and Majesty till the whole Body of the Saints be accomplished It is well known what way St. Bernard took Nec sancti sine plebe nec spiritus sine carne That such as die before us shall not see the Beatifical Vision of the holy Trinity without us nor without their own body and that an integral Beatitude is not given but to an integral person And Calvin hath taken his freedom to be of the same mind says he Christ himself only is entred into the supreme Sanctuary of Heaven Et solus populi eminus in atrio residentis vota ad Deum defert and he alone commends the Petitions of the Saints to his Father whose Spirits attend in the outward Courts Those over-awing Fathers of the Florentine and Tridentine Councils have defined it indeed as an irrefragable Article of Faith that the Saints enjoy the most perfect Vision of God immediately after death What is that to us who will not lose our moderation in indifferent points for their
dwell on the earth Haec commemoratio est quaedam necessitas exaudiendi How can this great King to whom they supplicate choose but grant them their asking when his own Attributes intercede in their behalf How can their Enemies choose but fall before them when they sound out these awful names of God as with the blast of a Trumpet As a Christian Poet says of Satan who was cast out of the Possessed in the name of Jesus Nec fulmina verbi ferre potest that blessed word was like Thunder in his ears he could not endure the noise of it So when the men of the earth have exalted themselves To run over the Attributes of God against them is as it were to give fire to a peal of Ordnance and their Pride will totter before them Religion hath its name à religando it binds man to God and it binds God to man The Martyrs were bound by their Vow in Baptism to stand to their Faith to the death and the Lord hath bound himself by his Truth and Holiness to avenge his Saints that cry day and night unto him With much confidence may we appeal unto him in the name of the Lord. Magnum nomen sub quo nemini desperandum says St. Austin Who can be discouraged that can recite that word with a true feeling in the Preface of his Prayer It is in effect to say Rise up thou arm of the most High Isa li. 9. Stir up thy strength and come and help us Psal lxxx 2. Let all the Kingdoms of the earth know that thou art the Lord Isa xxxvii 20. It is to challenge protection from the relation which can never be dissolved as who should say Thou art our King and we are thy Subjects therefore we claim our Copy that thou shouldst guard and defend us at least that thou shouldst pluck down the arrogance of those that have offended us But what passionate Advocates are the other two sacred terms that go together with it Holy and True Which is in effect to plead Thou hast made us holy as thou art holy thou hast kept us in the truth even as thou art truth thou hast given us such gifts as are in thine own Titles therefore we are sure thou dost love us with an everlasting love thou that art holy and true wilt pluck thine arm out of thy bosom to avenge them that are holy and true against their oppressors The Holiness of God calls upon him to hate the ungodly that have devoured Jacob and laid wast his dwelling place His Truth calls upon him to put them to confusion because he hath promised to recompence them for the evil which they have done unto his Servants He that is holy cannot favour their part that are ambitious bloud-suckers invaders of the Possessions of the Innocent He that is truth it self cannot support them that are dissemblers truce-breakers full of fraud and equivocation The Holy One will be sanctified the True One will be justified the Lord will be glorified I will hold you no longer in the Porch of the Text for the Invocation is no more I come to the Prayer it self the Souls under the Altar cry out unto the Lord to judge and avenge their bloud ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Verb to judge may belong to the sifting of the Cause the other Verb to avenge may import the dispatch of the sentence against the Delinquents but I take them both to be an amplification of one thing urged that vengeance may fall upon the head of them that have spilt the bloud of the Saints a Prayer that a mild man perhaps will stand amazed at His Lesson is Bless them that curse you pray for them that despitefully use you Whence comes it that the Saints in Heaven take the liberty to perform Christs will not so charitably as the poor Disciples on earth But good words and all grace and piety be ascribed to the Spirits which are in the bosom of God We cannot say to them as our Saviour did to the Sons of Zebedee You know not what ye ask This is a voice which came not from Earth but from Heaven and therefore we must maintain it And it is as easie a task as a man can put his Pen to because it will admit such variety of Apology First of all Vengeance being not usurpt by the hand of a private man but prosecuted under the shelter of lawful authority like Vsque quo Domine In this place it is not unlawful It is pars justitiae punitivae a stirring up of that part of justice which distributes punishments to them that deserve them and to demand it in a regular way is in no wise rugged to the Law of charity The Schoolmen comprize the right use and the abuse of it in one short distinction Velle vindictam ad odium saturandum pessimum est ex amore justitiae bonum It is honest sometimes to claim revenge for wrongs out of the love of Justice it is abominable when we aim at nothing but to glut our spleen and hatred with the ruine of our enemy St. Austin puts it better home with two exceptions Revenge is strictly repressed in the Gospel Non ut correctionem hominum negligamus sed ne alieno malo animum pasceres not quite repressed so that offenders must not be called to account to be corrected but when a rankerous mind would be fed and fatted with the penalty of another Again says he Non ut praeterita vindicemus sed in futurum consulamus The injuries that are past and done might be friendly put up but recompence must be required sometimes that the times to come may be more peaceably ordered Many stumbled at this Doctrine because they made not a clear difference between the affections of malice and justice Origen against Celsus disputes that if is not lawful for Christians to go to war yet David praiseth God for teaching his hands to war and his fingers to fight The Manichaeans brooked not Moses for those words An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth yet he saith Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people Lev. xix Julian charged the Christians that they were enemies to Civil Courts and all Political Orders for they held that no wrong was to be called in question And they that replied unto him defended it coldly that it was a thing adiaphorous and better let alone St. Austin in one place says that the Old Law did license the Jews to commence suits against their Enemies but it was a permission to the hardness of their hearts this mistake came upon a slip of memory for he thought there had been such words in the Text of the Old Law Thou shalt hate thine enemy Hugo taught that the Precepts of strict charity which Christ taught agreed to the suffering times of the Primitive Church but were now expired Some of the School Divines would have the Prayer for our
So the Father is the Voice the Son is the Word the Spirit proceeding from them both is the Truth and these three are all one and undivided So you see why the Father is resembled in the signification of a voice I must adjoyn also how well this doth express the comforts of a Gospel The Law was a dead Letter litera occidit by the strength of sin it killed us all because we were not able to perform it The Gospel is viva vox a quickning living voice such a one as quickned Lazarus when he was four days in the Grave The Law was heard in Trumpet and Thunder upon Mount Sinai Now comes a still voice such a one as would not scare a Dove away now comes Musick from heaven now comes obsecro vos that fair spoken language of the Apostles I beseech ye brethren This is such a winning allicient voice that the words that proceed from it are rather kisses than words therefore the Church speaking to the praise of the Gospels sweetness begins the song on this wise Cant. i. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth The first time that ever we read of Gods voice in the Old Testament you shall hear what Adam says upon it Gen. iii. 10. I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid But at the first time that you read of Gods voice in the New Testament it is made smooth and soft to our ear with This is my beloved and here I am well pleased What else to be concluded from hence But that an evidence and manifestation of faith shall be discovered to all men As when one telleth his mind to his Friend not by messengers or by Script but face to face Thou spakest sometimes in dreams and visions to thy people But says the Lord I will speak with my Servant Moses mouth to mouth Num. xii 8. So by the revelation of the Gospel we are all become as precious to God as Moses was and the Lord talketh with us as one doth with his friend face to face And with all succinctness that is the sum of the second Point Neither must I insist long upon the third thing noted which is the great Authority that this voice doth carry because it came from heaven and Loe a voice from heaven The Oracles of the Gentiles were wont to come out of hollow Caves and Rocks The Law of the Hebrews was delivered from the top of a smoaking hill but as Judges and great Magistrates were wont to publish their Laws from their Throne of State so doth God deliver the Law of Faith from Heaven and that Firmament above it is the Throne of God When the Earth opens it is to swallow Chore Dathan and Abiron When the Heaven opens it is to pour out consolation The Gospel reckons up three times that the Lord spake from heaven above and at each time it had the same Theme to magnifie the Saviour of the World The first time at his Baptism the second time at his Transfiguration the third time anon before his Passion when the Son begg'd earnestly Father glorifie thy name the Father answers him I have glorified it and I will glorifie it again Joh. xii 28. And that you may be assured how that celestial voice continues to speak unto us in the accent of comfort John tells us he heard a voice from heaven saying Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord Rev. xiv 13. Bode no evil with your tongue to any since the Lord out of his habitation speaks nothing but love and benediction towards us The voice of God is an open heaven but as for the curser and reviler his throat is an open sepulchre Sursum corda The tidings of Salvation come not from beneath they hover above our head therefore lift up your heart lift up your understanding and you will easily perceive that every part of sacred Scripture is a voice from heaven I know unless the inward testimony of the Spirit prevail upon your soul and induce it to believe all external Arguments from the judgment of the Church in all Ages from harmony of truth from fulfilling of Prophesies and whatsoever else will be insufficient to perswade you Yet if any thing more than other will puzzle the refractory it is this that in every part and scope it sounds like a voice from heaven far otherwise than the books of humane learning That which drives our labours and studies only to the glory of God that which propounds no other reward but the fruition of God that which talks of no acts and monuments but such as belong to God this must be divine and from above Nec vox hominem sonat Surely it must be a voice from heaven But do the Heathen thus in any of those three parts of their Sciences either in their Moral Institutions or Natural Disquisitions or Historical Narrations In their Histories they write to honour men in their Philosophy to know the World in their Moral and Politick Axioms to make a just and a noble Patriot for his Country No Tract throughout all mans wit and learning but only in the sacred Scriptures like a voice from heaven Perhaps here and there a Sentence of theirs may soar aloft but as Kites flie high yet still look down to the Carion upon the Dunghil So the stile of the Heathen may rise up in some things as it were in the clouds but from thence they look down how they may be famous and popular And that is no better than a blast of vanity sure it is no voice from heaven Beloved this is a most illustrious opening of the Gospel that the heavens assumed a tongue and began to speak wherefore it is for good reason that our Saviour had that diction so often in his mouth He that hath ears to hear let him hear Let me be bold to add he that hath a tongue to confess let him praise the Lord. As we delight to have the Lord speak to us so it delighteth the Lord to have us speak to him And as the Father did vouchsafe to send his voice from heaven to earth so let our lips be full of Prayers that we may send our voice from earth to heaven God is not an Eccho nothing but empty voice we read of his face and his presence and his right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore And as Absalon though he were a disloyal Son yet he did wishly desire to stand before his Father Says he to Joab wherefore am I come from Gerar to Jerusalem if I may not see the Kings face So the rebounding of the voice from heaven is to enflame our affections that we may see his face in heaven So shall it be their fair lot and inheritance who are Fìlii dilecti complacentes Sons Beloved in whom he is well pleased These are the Testimonials due to Christ and flowing from Christ to us which now I come to handle The fourth annotation is the Person to whom
first observed it how Satan did clamber higher and higher in every Tentation and still changed his outward appearance to do the feat the better First as a man he did commiserate humane wants and necessities and insinuates the sin of Infidelity Secondly He transformed himself into an Angel of light and urgeth him to presumption and vain-glory In the last bout having now deceived himself that Christ was not the eternal Son of God he did truly manifest the Luciferian audaciousness and impudency and in his own shape he provokes the most holy one of God to most horrid Idolatry The Thief comes not but to steal says our Gospel and the Impostor of the world comes not but to deceive Totus quantus est mendacium est Every thing in him was lying and fiction and delusion The promises which he made were lying promises the pity which he pretended was lying pity the Scripture which he quoted as he quoted it was lying Scripture and the shape in which he came was a lying shape Alas that man who was made an excellent Creature after the Image of God should degenerate so much in all goodness that his shape should grow a fit coverture to cloak the couzenage of the Devil Might not this be the art of this our capital enemy That since God cursed the Serpent because the Devil came in his shape to tempt our first Parents so the Lord might be exasperated to curse mankind because his only Son was tempted to wickedness in the shape of man Beloved this inference from hence may be our instruction We know not in what form or transmutation Satan will come to seduce our souls therefore be wise as Serpents And since our own shape is not free from his Impostures as it follows in the next verse Mat. x. 17. Beware of men Take heed that beauty tempt you not to wantonness it is but dirt well tempered with bloud Let not pleasing words steal away your heart from the truth that is but to dance when the Devil Pipes Every man that speaks contrary to faith and holiness his mouth is become the instrument wherein Satan speaks his Oracles And so much for that circumstance how he disguised himself in the shape of man After this I will lay hold of one of the main parts of the Text. The Tempter had two ends in casting forth these words before our Saviour Vt cognosceret incognitum ut corrumperet cognitum First to learn more perfectly that which he terribly mistrusted whether Christ were the Son of God and upon this do depend some remarkable observations And to make this Point profitable I begin from hence that Satan had not yet perfectly discovered who our Saviour was and therefore he wrought in this Mine in the first Tentation to find it out Many of the Fathers do acknowledge that this was part of his business and St. Hillary doth well express it Erat Diabolo de metu suspicio non de suspicione cognitio The Devil being rather suspicious than clearly resolved took this course to find it out whether this were the Seed of the woman that should bruise the Serpents head And mark how his words lie to this purpose He did not say since you are hungry bid this stone be made bread that were to entice him to bare gluttony Nor thus you are the Son of God bid this stone be made bread but in a doubting irony If thou be the Son of God It is strange that a Spirit so subtil by nature so intellectual so vigilant to espy Christ in all his ways so able to understand Jacobs Prophesie that the Scepter was departed from Judah and therefore Shiloh should come should hold off so long and doubt of that which was clearly manifest There were some Divines in St. Hieroms time that took a middle way for their opinion how the Inferiour Furies of Hell did long before believe and tremble and had cast it up for certain that this was the Son of God but Beelzebub the Prince of Devils was so much blinded with malice more than all the rest that he continued a time after all the rest in ignorance and Infidelity But this is meerly their own fancy without the suffrage of the holy Scripture The darkness of unbelief was upon all the Angels of disobedience for Satan who is the accuser of the brethren and no doubt complaineth to God that many of his Elect are slow of belief hath this malicious slander retorted upon himself that after many evident tokens better known to him than to weak men he faltred and doubted shamefully as my Text says If thou be the Son of God This was like for like repayed unto him he blinds our hearts with sundry fallacies that we should not know good from evil and God blinded his understanding that he should not discern truth from falshood And that you may not marvel that the Tempter should be dubitative in so manifest a case and knew not which way to incline recollect one thing that did infatuate him he being the Angel of pride and judging all events according to the pitch of his own ambition how could it come into his mind that the Son of God would debase himself with so much humility And so it hath fared ever since those days nothing hath so much hardned their hearts who are slow of belief as pride and insolency For it is the arrogant conceit we have of our own wit which hinders sometimes that we do not subject reason to the knowledge of God I must be careful in this Point that one place of Scripture may not make another obscure especially to leave no shadow of contradiction between one Text and another In this business Jesus fasting forty days in the Wilderness the Devil seems not to understand perfectly that he was Christ the Lord. In the Synagogue of Capernaum Luk. iv 34. the unclean Spirit calls him by his name and title and Country Jesus of Nazareth I know thee who thou art the holy one of God So intelligent above any of the Jews that he is the first that ever called him a Nazarite Nor do I reckon upon these words so much that the evil Spirit said I know thee who thou art for Satan is a liar and must not be credited when he speaks truth But the Evangelist St. Luke says in his own person from the inspiration of God he suffered not the Devils to speak for they knew that he was Christ in the same Chapter verse 41. Beloved distinguish the times and the matter is reconciled Before the encounter of this Tentation the enemy knew him not Christs humility and extreme exinanition did shadow him that he was not discerned After the infamous repulse that Satan suffered in these Tentations and upon the admiration of some other subsequent miracles he was compelled to confess thou art he that art come to torment me and to destroy my Kingdom the holy one of God So Nazianzen exprobrates to the Arians how they resisted that
drawn by the copy of the Devils Charters impoverishing the right owner to give a stranger not robbing Peter as we say to pay Paul but robbing knowledge to pay ignorance robbing the Pulpit to feed lazie Lubbers in a word it was to pluck the fleece from the Sheeps back to keep the Wolf warm Antonius de Rosellis a Canonist of Naples defends this Position that the Pope as he is Christs Vicar on earth hath a right to all things in this world and may take from one whatsoever he will and give it to another without fraud or injurie This Book is licensed in Italy and never found fault with by the Inquisition I shall meet with this business more aptly when I come to open the next point where Satan boasts that he would give the Son of God all the Kingdoms of the World yet in the mean time is it not worth an objection that this power and privilege to give all things cannot belong to the Devil since another hath claimed it in print and Antonius de Rosellis proves it for his Client out of this Text Henceforth will I make you Fishers of men The scurvy luck of it is that those words were not spoken to Peter only for then it seems to be a Fisher of men had receiv'd this gloss to sweep all into his Net that the whole Generation of mankind doth enjoy upon the face of the earth But this is apparent here are two that lay claim they can give all these things to any man who shall carry it but perhaps there is no jealousie between them and they will agree among themselves Some man would imagin so from this Text the Dragon hath given to the Beast with seven heads all his power his seat and authority Revel xiii 2. And so much for that observation Somewhat else must be in it that Satan unaskt and unsought to is so ready to part with all that he can give God is very liberal and opens his hand and fills all things living with plenteousness but sayes the Apostle dives est in omnes qui invocant eum he is rich unto all that call upon him We must ask and seek and pray unto him good reason for it and then he will give us a blessing And is this greater dealer of riches in my Text the Devil more forward in liberality than God for he past his word voluntarily unpetitioned all these things will I give thee There is some guile in this you may be sure it cannot be otherwise Beloved the Lord God defers not to be gracious he stakes down and puts us in possession of his benefits and no good thing doth he withhold from them that lead a godly life But the Devil makes his adherents stay and look for reversions when they fall he dodges and deludes men with vain hopes of the time to come he will give all things let such as Ephraim take his word that fill their belly with the East wind for he doth give nothing He called Christ the Son of God in the two former Tentations do you think if he had riches or honors to dispose the Sons of God should be the better for his liberality ne're a whit A poor Philosopher that could get nothing among hard-hearted rich men said they were like trees hanging over the side of a rock which had fruit in great abundance but Vultures and unclean birds eat it up no man could come at it to gather it So whosoever fares the better for Nabols wealth David shall be sure to go without if he ask him any thing but it may be they shall have a fair promise if they can keep life with that like this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this future tense in my Text he is not furnisht for the present but dabo I will give thee Why are his Charriot wheels so long a-coming sayes the Mother of Sisera when she lookt for her Son that was slain and dead So with much vexation to be deluded shall the wicked say where is my hire which the Tempter promised when shall I receive my wages Oh it will come anon says this delayer stay for it and you shall speed at last Doth God deal so deceitfully with those that trust in him no says David I have been young and now am old yet I never saw the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread For although the plentiful reward of the faithful is not on earth but in heaven yet they have a testimony of his liberality in this life that he doth deposit somewhat in earnest and lets us not build onely upon promises carnalis populus si parva non acciperet magna non crederet We are flesh and frailty and must have a little in hand that we may the better believe we shall receive an hundred fold hereafter Mark now the unequal wayes of the wicked who grumble at God as the Apostle sayes for delaying his second coming and that the glorification of the resurrection is not revealed whereas all things else which the Prophets have foretold in Scripture are exactly fulfilled and nothing but Christs second appearance remains to be revealed and yet these worldlings will believe the Devil without repining and yet among all his promises from nequaquam moriemini downward he hath performed nothing The first time that ever he pawn'd his word to mankind in three particulars he broke it every title 1. Ye shall not dye yet we are all become tenants to the grave and no man can escape death 2. Ye shall be as Gods far otherwise we are become as beasts 3. Ye shall know good and evil but alas we are blind and ignorant that refuse the good and take the evil And are not these promises as faithless all things will I give thee yes undoubtedly he would take away all that we have and all that we hope for and gives that satisfaction which Cesar Borgia did when he drew many of the noble family of the Vrsin together upon pretense of good will and then slew them sayes this arch-Hypocrite it was their fault that believed me St. Chrysostom had no faith in the Devils asseveration but speaks thus upon my Text ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when he makes shew that he will give much to man his intent is to rob him of all Will you reap this fruit from the observation before I leave it be faithful of your word and huddle not out promises you care not what which you never purpose to perform that 's the Devil's dealing If you separate your word from your meaning you separate your honesty from your conscience It is the common sin that follows buying and selling God be merciful to you your âords fall from you like leaves in Autumn the owner cares not which way the wind blows them The first thing that you break is your word and many times the whole estate breaks after it David asks who shall dwell in the holy tabernacle of the most High and he answers three times in
that Psalm they that are just and faithful in their sayings he that speaks the truth from his heart v. 2. he that hath used no deceit in his tongue v. 3. he that sweareth to his neighbour and disappointeth him not though it were to his own hinderance v. 5. David desired to know by some sign whether he should come into the presence of Saul or fly from him Why Jonathan kept his word with David Jonathan desired that David would be merciful to his Posterity after him David sware unto him and kept his word with Jonathan But be you just in your promises to your brother and God will make good unto you the promise of eternal life the Lord is faithful in all his sayings and holy in all his works The next collection from hence shall be this that the Devil would not offer less than all he had to win a Soul he would not offer a trifle for that which he knew was the most precious thing upon earth And it is a little excuse though far from a good answer when a man is fetcht into a sin for a great bewitching recompence pretio octuplicis stipendii illectus as that famous Renego pleaded for himself that he was enticed back to the Church of Rome with a stipend eight times greater than he had in England but to be enticed from our heavenly Father like a Child with toyes of no estimation it accuseth us that we do not value our own soul at so good a rate as the Devil doth What a narrow mean reward was that for which the lying Prophets did change the service of God Ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread Ezek. xiii 19. What will you give me sayes Judas and I will betray him And you do not find that he did drive the Market with the Priests and Elders but took the first sum that they appointed him Anima lucri cupida etiam pro exiguo perire non metuit sayes Leo. A greedy covetous mind will damn both body and soul for a little money What could Esau have taken less than a mess of pottage especially made of lentiles the meanest pittance of relief that a beggar looks for at every door and what had Esau in this world to exchange for it so precious and valuable as his Birthright the Law shews the dignity thereof that all the first-born were peculiarly consecrated and given unto God Exod. xxii 29. they were next in honor to their Parents they had a double portion of their Fathers goods Until the Law was given the first-born administred the Priesthood in the Family that was a sacred thing and yet more sacred he was a type of Christ for Christ is called the first-born among many brethren Rom. viii 29. Moreover and above it was a type of our adoption and being heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven See what a vile exchange Esau did make for all this heavenly dignity that the Holy Ghost for good cause calls him a prophane person who for one meals meat and for such a course meal sold his birthright Heb. xii 16. If we will prostitute our selves so cheaply to the Prince of darkness and ask less than for shame he can offer to put our selves into the bondage of iniquity mark what will follow the Lord will debase us as we have debased our selves thou sellest thy people for nought and takest no money for them sayes the sweet Singer of Israel or as Moses told the Israelites if they sold themselves to commit iniquity they should be sold for slaves and no man would buy them Deut. xxviii 68. But for all this I must give you to know in my next admonition though Satan offer'd all that is in this world yet he did not offer enough for that which he would gain namely to win a soul every thing under the Sun comes short of that appretiation much more in this case it is to be considered that if our Lord Jesus could have been supplanted which was impossible all mankind had perisht for upon his righteousness and upon his perfect obedience did depend our Crown and our Salvation if therefore one soul is worth the whole world and more what could be valued against all the souls in the world But I will instance upon this for our use there is nothing so valuable that should bribe a man to commit the least sin against our Heavenly Father You will smile at the Indian Savages that part with gold and spices and amber for glass beads and saffron brouches yet whosoever sins for the mammons of iniquity barters for a far more unequal merchandise you change immortality for death eternal joy for continual care a certain treasure for uncertain riches the most happy fruition of the Creator for less than the felicity of a dream aut transeunt nobis viventibus aut dimittuntur nobis dormientibus the living may lose all they have got by injustice but for certain the dead cannot keep it What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away Luke ix 25. if he lose himself the word following is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the vulgar read it detrimentum sui faciat from whence a good Expositor sayes there is no comparison in the purchasing of earthly things non solùm cum damnatione aeternâ sed etiam cum jacturâ gratiae Dei though damnation and hell fire were not incurr'd to suffer the loss of the Holy Spirit and of the Grace of God Wherefore all that Satan could shew and let him shew as many worlds as Alexander could wish all is not worth such a cringe as he would have the Son of God to make to bow down and commit Idolatry We read of one Apostle so abounding in charity to his own Nation that he could be content to lose his part of heaven cupio anathema esse pro fratribus it was St. Paul who was willing to be anathema for his brethren that God might be glorified in all the people of Israel but he would not exchange the least degree of his sanctity and faith in Christ for all the muck in the world Joseph had rather lose that was comfortable to him in this life liberty good name yea the garments from his back then be defil'd with lust I have no instance fit to come after that of Moses Hebr. xi 24. who by faith refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Philo sayes of him that Thermut the only child and daughter of Pharaoh being long married and quite barren wanting issue to succeed fained her self big and at last to be delivered of Moses whom she found in an ark of bulrushes exposed to be drown'd him she brought up for her adopted child to inherit all the Kingdoms of Egypt But because Idolatry reigned in that place he could not
like an Angel of light One most perspicuous instance is Mar. i. 24. The unclean spirit exclaims against Christ Jesus of Nazareth what have we to do with thee No Not with God that created them that was a lie of malice Art thou come to torment us There was a touch of Prophesie I know thou art the holy one of God that was as true as Gospel You shall have just these three parts now in Pilates Apology Mendacium de seipso verum testimonium de Christo Prophetiam de populo 1. I am innocent of this bloud that was false 2. He confesseth Christ to be a just person that was true 3. He threatens the people that if that just person died the vengeance should light upon their head vos videbitis that was a Prophesie Every man is his own flatterer else Pilate had not thought himself an innocent God will be cleared by every mans conscience else Pilate had not preached for our Saviours righteousness But how easie a thing it is to discern and protest against other mens faults Else Pilate had not Prophesied We take account of our own imperfections as it were at midnight when there is no light to discover us then we run into error and plead that we are innocent We see God in his works as by a dim candle and confession of truth will be extorted from us that He is a just person But we behold the crimes of those men that walk about us as at noon day and in the clear Sun-shine and then we Prophesie vos videbitis you that are sinners shall be punished Here is as very a Riddle as the old Sphinx made of three divers forms ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the fore-part a Lyar in the next a true one in the third a Prophet and all these three in my Text I am innocent of the bloud c. I begin with Pilate in the first member of his speech the untruth which he tells in his own behalf I am innocent A vice which had been fitter for the meanest of the people than for the Ruler of Jury the supreme Deputy for the Roman Empire For truth as Synesius doth define it it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as who should say that a word truly spoken is a Gentleman born falshood and lying are but beggarly begotten But this is the wisdom of the World whatsoever we can coin for our own reputation it is not falshood but the strein of an Orator And as the Optiques do determine that in the composition of all colours there is lucidum and opacum one part which shines and makes a lustre to the eye another part dark and gross which casts a shadow so there is such an ingredient of two qualities in the actions of men lucidum and opacum some black deformity which is concealed somewhat that glisters and shews fair to the outward appearance Alas that is it which puts us into a good opinion of our selves that is it which prompted Pilates tongue to say before the people I am innocent Every disease says Hippocrates is the more dangerous ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when our face is so much changed that our friends cannot know us But who is in so bad a case as that man who is so desperately diseased that he doth not know himself St. Austin hath mark'd out two examples especially for this purpose First the young man in the Gospel that talk'd of keeping all the Commandments was bad to follow Christ and did not Matthaeus peccator sequutus est vocantem Matthew the Publican that sold and bought sin and could not deny that it was a trade of iniquity he left all to attend our Saviour when he was called Secondly He doth compare St. Peter with himself there was a Peter that thought his fellows might be faint hearted and run away but for his own part he knew his courage was stronger than all tentation but there is another Peter or the same Peter of another mind who was ashamed to shew his face and went out and wept bitterly and of the twain he was the true Apostle Salubrius sibi displicuit Petrus quando flevit quà m sibi placuit quando praesumsit Wretched was that Peter who did presume upon himself happy was that Peter who did dislike and bewail his own infirmities Are you well advised upon how many nice Points innocency doth stand that dare advouch your own integrity First I am guilty of all the sins which I do not hate in another The Church of Pergamos did not deny the faith but God took up this quarrel against them That they did not hate the Doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans Again I am guilty of all those sins which I do not rebuke in another Qui tacet consentire videtur the judgment hereof fell upon Eli and his house for ever Again I am guilty of every sin wherein I gave way to the lewdness of another and did not restrain it The Kings of Judah when they did not cut down the Groves and demolish the Images which they themselves did not worship yet their memory is Taxed that their heart was not perfect before the Lord because they were not zealous to cut off iniquity Now put all these together these nice observations of an upright heart and then let Pilate tell me who was innocent Leucatius a Roman well reputed of would needs stand in defence against the City that all his actions had been unblameable in every circumstance But I will never sit Judge in this cause says Fimbria whom he chose for the Umpire Quia justitia innumerabilibus officiis continetur For justice contains so many duties that it is hard to number them but to observe them all impossible Indeed the Heathen were so modest in this Point that in all the Language of Greece that rich and copious Tongue there is not one word which is proper for Innocency To say truth says Tertullian what should they do with the word in their mouth and want the matter in their heart which it signifies Quid si nos solum innocentes sumus Innocency such as the world can afford it is among Christians or no where Who is the man then that would put on the white Robe of a Saint and cast it over his crimson sins Let him first as it useth to be draw out his life with o Pencil in black colours and confess his iniquities What soul is that which like a chaste Virgin would become the Spouse of Christ Nec magis alba velit quà m det natura videri as the Poet speaks Let her lay no complement to that beauty or deformity which God hath afforded her And he that thinks himself less than the greatest sinner shall not be so great as the least Saint in the Kingdom of heaven But let no man deceive himself as if a confession of course would serve the turn such as we say by rote perchance at the beginning of our Morning and Evening Service There is not such an
utterance ALL the joy which we celebrate for the famous acts of Christ is irksom to the Devil and the particular Solemnities which we keep are grievous to those that shut their eyes against the truth Upon the yearly day of our Saviours Nativity the Jew is sad and displeas'd because he believes not that he that was born of Mary a pure Virgin was the Son of God and the Messias whom their Fathers lookt for that should sit upon the Throne of David for evermore Upon the high Feast of his Resurrection the Sadducee gnasheth with his teeth because he denieth that the dead can be raised to life So upon this triumphant Feast wherein we abound with comfort for the sending of the Holy Ghost the Pelagian is malecontented who is an enemy to the efficacy of Grace and the more cause we have to maintain the dignity of it and to be throughly disciplin'd what the Holy Ghost hath wrought for our Soul because the Church is miserably soured of late in all places with the leaven of Pelagius Again as all the parts of our Saviours Mediatorship were several degrees to advance our Salvation and like the several steps of Jacobs Ladder to bring us nearer and nearer to Heaven so in this comparison the sending of the Holy Ghost is the loftiest degree and as it were the top of the spire which is next neighbour to the Kingdom of Glory for as man in his first creation had but an incomplete being till the Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life so man in his reparation was but incompletely restored till Christ did send the Comforter to infuse into him the breath of sanctification This day therefore is the concluding Feast of all the great days wherein we rememorate the noble works of our Lord and to go further this Text is the upshot of all the blessings that were conferred upon the Church in this happy day Christ took our nature upon him that he might die for our sins he suffered and was crucified that he might reconcile all such to his Father as would repent and believe repentance and faith to please God cannot enter into the heart of the natural man by his own abilities a power from Heaven must be the means to bring that about which is so repugnant to our corrupt nature Traverse over the mystery of our Redemption and you shall find that the work is at a stand till supernal grace poured in do draw it forward as Physicians say that spiritus est ultimum alimenti the last concoction and the most refined part of our nourishment is that which makes the spirits so the donation of the Holy Spirit is the accomplishment and final resolution of all the benefits which we partake in Christ And the last payment collated by that precious liberality to enrich the Church for ever is here in my Text nay indeed it was but a preparation before the talent of grace was not tendred till now That which was set forth in figure in the former verses is here exhibited in real substance Before a rushing wind made a noise here was the very thing imparted which was shadowed by the wind before certain firy tongues made a glittering that sat upon their head now their own tongues became most fluent and voluble with wonderful eloquence In brief to the exact building up of the Church two things were requir'd which are not wanting but abound in this verse First that the Lord should speak unto the Heart Secondly that he should speak unto the Ear by an invisible word and by a visible He spake invisibly to the Heart when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost he spake visibly to the Ear when his Ministers began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Nay more to gather a Society together whose Labours should be dispread over all the world it was expedient that the Lord should confer both ordinary and extraordinary Gifts upon them His ordinary Blessing and indeed nothing is blest without it is some quantity of Sanctification his extraordinary Blessing is twofold to send such as are not lightly sprinkled but filled with the Spirit and to speak with divers Tongues that their sound may go forth into all the World Yet again to shew the Amplitude of Gods allowance to his Primitive Church he makes a double provision first for every Disciple as he is one Member of this Body and so all and every one of them were filled with the Holy Ghost and then he provides for all the Members of his Body junctim in one union and communion they began c. so that here 's the inward and the outward blessing the ordinary and the extraordinary the particular and the universal The inward ordinary and particular blessing is this that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost If you look for the provision with which the Primitive Church was stored look for it in this Chapter and you will find out upon judicious survey that there are three things which make it plenteous with all manner of store Pastores Verbum and Spiritus First certain Pastors allotted to the sacred Function to guide the souls of the People 2. the Word of life which is put into their mouth to be preacht unto all Nations 3. The Spirit of grace accompanying the Word to make it fruitful and prolificous in the hearts of them that hear it and obey it That some were ordeined Pastors and Bishops to teach and rule the Church that 's clear the Apostles met together in Jerusalem with one accord as Christ had appointed and the Cloven Tongues which came from Heaven sat upon each of them that was their Commission to take their Bishoprick upon them that the Word was delivered unto them which they should preach and Elocution to impart that Word to every Kingdom and Language that 's as clear Eight times in this one Chapter St. Peter quotes the Scripture of the old Testament and with divers tongues according to the capacity of all the Nations and Languages that were met together and that the Holy Ghost was infused with much abundance at the same time that 's as clear and pregnant as the rest 't is twice gone over in my Text both in the beginning and in the end they were filled with the Holy Ghost and the Spirit gave them utterance A Church without lawful Pastors is but a Synagogue of Schismatiques a Pastor without a Tongue is but an Idol Shepherd or a dumb Dog a Tongue without the power of the Spirit is but sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal As St. Paul said of the three grand Theological Virtues Now abideth Faith Hope Charity these three but the greatest of these is Charity so I say of these necessary parts that constitute the Church the Ministry the Word and the Spirit but the chiefest and most excellent of these is the Spirit In some strange manner God may have a Church without a consecrated Priesthood as when Adam and