to a single Person as to the man of Judah prophesying against the Altar of Bethel or to a Nation as to the Jews at Sinai or to all Mankind as to the world descending from Noah it was nothing else but a trial or an instance of our Obedience a particular prosecution of the Law of Nature whereby we are obliged to do honour to God which was to be done by such expressions which are natural entercourses between God and us or such as he hath made to be so Now in Christianity we are wholly left to that manner of prosecuting this first natural Law which is natural and proportionable to the nature of the thing which the Holy Jesus calls worshipping God in spirit and truth In spirit that is with our Souls heartily and devoutly so as to exclude hypocrisie and 〈◊〉 and In truth that is without a lie without vain imaginations and phantastick resemblances of him which were introduced by the evil customs of the Gentiles and without such false guises and absurd undecencies which as they are contrary to man's Reason so are they contrary to the Glory and reputation of God such as was that universal Custom of all Nations of sacrificing in man's bloud and offering festival lusts and impurities in the solemnities of their Religion for these being against the purpose and design of God and against right Reason are a Lie and enemies to the truth of a natural and proper Religion The Holy Jesus only commanded us to pray often and to praise God to speak honour of his Name not to use it lightly and vainly to believe him to revere the instruments and ministers of Religion to ask for what we need to put our trust in God to worship him to obey him and to love him for all these are but the expressions of Love And this is all Christ spake concerning the first natural Law the Law of Religion For concerning the Ceremonies or Sacraments which he instituted they are but few and they become matter of duty but by accident as being instruments and rites of consigning those effects and mercies which God sent to the world by the means of this Law and relate rather to the contract and stipulation which Christ made for us than to the natural order between Duty and Felicity 28. Now all these are nothing but what we are taught by natural Reason that is what God enabled us to understand to be fit instruments of entercourse between God and us and what was practised and taught by sober men in all Ages and all Nations whose Records we have received as I shall remark at the Margent of the several Precepts For to make these appear certainly and naturally necessary there was no more requisite but that Man should know there was a GOD that is an eternal Being which gave him all that he had or was and to know what himself was that is indigent and necessitous of himself needing help of all the Creatures exposed to accidents and calamity and 〈◊〉 no ways but by the same hand that made him Creation and Conservation in the Philosophy of all the world being but the same act continuing and flowing on him from an instant to duration as a Line from its Mathematical Point And for this God took sufficient care for he conversed with Man in the very first in such clear and certain and perceptible transaction that a man could as certainly know that God was as that Man was And in all Ages of the world he hath not left himself without witness but gave such testimonies of himself that were sufficient for they did actually perswade all Nations barbarous and civil into the belief of a God And it is but a nicety to consider whether or no that Proposition can be naturally demonstrated For it was sufficient to all God's purposes and to all Man's that the Proposition was actually believed the instances were therefore sufficient to make faith because they did it And a man may remove himself so far 〈◊〉 all the degrees of aptness to believe a Proposition that nothing shall make them joyn For if there were a Sect of witty men that durst not believe their Senses because they thought them fallible it is no wonder if some men should think every Reason reproveable But in such cases Demonstration is a relative term and signifies every probation greater or lesser which does actually make faith in any Proposition And in this God hath never been deficient but hath to all men that believe him given sufficient to confirm them to those few that believed not sufficient to reprove them 29. Now in all these actions of Religion which are naturally consequent to this belief there is no scruple but in the instance of Faith which is presented to be an infused Grace an immission from God and that for its object it hath principles supernatural that is naturally incredible and therefore Faith is supposed a Grace above the greatest strength of Reason But in this I consider that if we look into all the Sermons of Christ we shall not easily find any Doctrine that in any sense troubles natural Philosophy but only that of the Resurrection for I do not think those mystical expressions of plain truths such as are being born again eating the flesh of the Son of man being in the Father and the Father in him to be exceptions in this assertion And although some Gentiles did believe and deliver that article and particularly Chrysippus and the Thracians as Mela and Solinus report of them yet they could not naturally discourse themselves into it but had it from the imperfect report and opinion of some Jews that dwelt among them And it was certainly a revelation or a proposition sent into the world by God But then the believing it is so far from being above or against Nature that there is nothing in the world more reasonable than to believe any thing which God tells us or which is told us by a man sent from God with mighty demonstration of his power and veracity Naturally our bodies cannot rise that is there is no natural agent or natural cause sufficient to produce that effect but this is an effect of a Divine power and he hath but a little stock of natural Reason who cannot conclude that the same power which made us out of nothing can also restore us to the same condition as well and easily from dust and ashes certainly as from mere nothing And in this and in all the like cases Faith is a submission of the understanding to the Word of God and is nothing else but a confessing that God is Truth and that he is omnipotent that is he can do what he will and he will when he hath once said it And we are now as ignorant of the essence and nature of forms and of that which substantially distinguishes Man from Man or an Angel from an Angel as we were of the greatest Article of our Religon before it was
death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the 〈◊〉 extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideons Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jewes themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jewes or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all 〈◊〉 and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their 〈◊〉 unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined onely to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or
no-where punctually described he that is most severe in his determination does best secure himself and by exacting the strictest account of himself shall obtain the easier scrutiny at the hands of God The use I make of this consideration is to the same purpose with the former For if every day of sin and every criminal act is a degree of recess from the possibilities of Heaven it would be considered at how great distance a death-bed Penitent after a vicious life may apprehend himself to stand for mercy and pardon and since the terms of restitution must in labour and in extension of time or intension of degrees be of value great enough to restore him to some proportion or equivalence with that state of Grace from whence he is fallen and upon which the Covenant was made with him how impossible or how near to impossible it will appear to him to go so far and do so much in that state and in those circumstances of disability 32. Concerning the third particular I consider that Repentance as it is described in Scripture is a system of holy Duties not of one kind not properly consisting of parts as if it were a single Grace but it is the reparation of that estate into which Christ first put us a renewing us in the spirit of our mind so the Apostle calls it and the Holy Ghost hath taught this truth to us by the implication of many appellatives and also by express discourses For there is in Scripture a Repentance to be repented of and a Repentance never to be repented of The first is mere Sorrow for what is past an ineffective trouble producing nothing good such as was the Repentance of Judas he repented and hanged himself and such was that of Esau when it was too late and so was the Repentance of the five foolish Virgins which examples tell us also when ours is an impertinent and ineffectual Repentance To this Repentance Pardon is nowhere promised in Scripture But there is a Repentance which is called Conversion or Amendment of life a Repentance productive of holy fruits such as the Baptist and our Blessed Saviour preached such as himself also propounded in the example of the Ninivites they repented at the preaching of Jonah that is they fasted they covered them in sackcloth they cried mightily unto God yea they turned every one from his evil way and from the violence that was in their hands And this was it that appeased God in that instance God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil and did it not 33. The same Character of Repentance we find in the Prophet Ezekiel When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right If the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he hath done that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die And in the Gospel Repentance is described with as full and intire comprehensions as in the old Prophets For Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of the Gospel Faith when it is in conjunction with a practical grace signifies an intellectual Faith signifies the submission of the understanding to the Institution and Repentance includes all that whole practice which is the intire duty of a Christian after he hath been overtaken in a fault And therefore Repentance first includes a renunciation and abolition of all evil and then also enjoyns a pursuit of every vertue and that till they arrive at an habitual confirmation 34. Of the first sence are all those expressions of Scripture which imply Repentance to be the deletery of sins Repentance from dead works S. Paul affirms to be the prime Fundamental of the Religion that is conversion or returning from dead works for unless Repentance be so construed it is not good sence And this is therefore highly verified because Repentance is intended to set us into the condition of our first undertaking and articles covenanted with God And therefore it is a redemption of the time that is a recovering what we lost and making it up by our doubled industry Remember whence thou art fallen repent that is return and do thy first works said the Spirit to the Angel of the Church of Ephesus or else I will remove the Candlestick except thou repent It is a restitution If a man be overtaken in a fault restore such a one that is put him where he was And then that Repentance also implies a doing all good is certain by the Sermon of the Baptist Bring forth fruits meet for Repentance Do thy first works was the Sermon of the Spirit Laying aside every weight and the sin that easily encircles us let us run with patience the race that is set before us So S. Paul taught And S. Peter gives charge that when we have escaped the corruptions of the world and of lusts besides this we give all diligence to acquire the rosary and conjugation of Christian vertues And they are proper effects or rather constituent parts of a holy Repentance For godly sorrow worketh Repentance saith S. Paul not to be repented of and that ye may know what is signified by Repentance behold the product was carefulness clearing of themselves indignation fear vehement desires zeal and revenge to which if we add the Epithet of holy for these were the results of a godly sorrow and the members of a Repentance not to be repented of we are taught that Repentance besides the purging out the malice of iniquity is also a sanctification of the whole man a turning Nature into Grace Passions into Reason and the flesh into spirit 35. To this purpose I reckon those Phrases of Scripture calling it a renewing of our minds a renewing of the Holy Ghost a cleansing of our hands and purifying our hearts that is a becoming holy in our affections and righteous in our actions a a transformation or utter change a crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts a mortified state a purging out the old leven and becoming a new conspersion a waking out of sleep and walking honestly as in the day a being born again and being born from above a new life And I consider that these preparative actions of Repentance such as are Sorrow and Confession of sins and Fasting and exteriour Mortifications and severities are but fore-runners of Repentance some of the retinue and they are of the family but they no more complete the duty of Repentance than the harbingers are the whole Court or than the Fingers are all the body There is more joy in Heaven said our Blessed Saviour over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance There is no man but needs a tear and a sorrow even for
not absolutely priviledg'd from failures and miscarriages in their lives these being of more personal and private consideration yet were they infallible in their Doctrine this being a matter whereupon the salvation and eternal interests of men did depend And for this end they had the spirit of truth promised to them who should guide them into all truth Under the conduct of this unerring Guide they all steer'd the same course taught and spake the same things though at different times and in distant places and for what was consign'd to writing all Scripture was given by inspiration of God and the holy men spake not but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Hence that exact and admirable harmony that is in all their writings and relations as being all equally dictated by the same spirit of truth Thirdly They had been eye-witnesses of all the material passages of our Saviour's life continually conversant with him from the commencing of his publick ministery till his ascension into heaven they had survey'd all his actions seen all his miracles observ'd the whole method of his conversation and some of them attended him in his most private solitudes and retirements And this could not but be a very rational satisfaction to the minds of men when the publishers of the Gospel solemnly declared to the world that they reported nothing concerning our Saviour but what they had seen with their own eyes and of the truth whereof they were as competent Judges as the acutest Philosopher in the world Nor could there be any just 〈◊〉 to suspect that they impos'd upon men in what they delivered for besides their naked plainness and simplicity in all other passages of their lives they chearfully submitted to the most exquisire hardships tortures and sufferings meerly to attest the truth of what they published to the World Next to the evidence of our own senses no testimony is more valid and forcible than his who relates what himself has seen Upon this account our Lord told his Apostles that they should be witnesses to him both in Judaea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth And so necessary a qualification of an Apostle was this thought to be that it was almost the only condition propounded in the choice of a new Apostle after the fall of Judas Wherefore says Peter of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went 〈◊〉 and out among us beginning from the Baptism of John unto the same day that he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his 〈◊〉 Accordingly we find the Apostles constantly making use of this argument as the most rational evidence to convince those whom they had to deal with We are witnesses of all things which Jesus did both in the Land of the Jews and in Jerusalem whom they slew and hanged on a tree Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto witnesses chosen 〈◊〉 of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he that is ordained of God to be Judge of the quick and dead Thus S. John after the same way of arguing appeals to sensible demonstration That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have look'd upon and our hands have handled of the word of life For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew unto you that cternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us This to name no more S. Peter thought a sufficient vindication of the Apostolical doctrine from the suspicion of forgery and imposture We have not followed 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 God had frequently given testimony to the divinity of our blessed Saviour by visible manifestations and appearances from Heaven and particularly by an audible voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Now this Voice which came from Heaven says he we heard when we were with him in the holy Mount IX Fourthly The Apostles were invested with a power of working Miracles as the readiest means to procure their Religion a firm belief and entertainment in the minds of men For Miracles are the great confirmation of the truth of any doctrine and the most rational evidence of a divine commission For seeing God only can create and controll the Laws of nature produce something out of nothing and call things that are not as if they were give eyes to them that were born blind raise the dead c. things plainly beyond all possible powers of nature no man that believes the wisdom and goodness of an infinite being can suppose that this God of truth should affix his seal to a lye or communicate this power to any that would abuse it to confirm and countenance delusions and impostures Nicodemus his reasoning was very plain and convictive when he concludes that Christ must needs be a teacher come from God for that no man could do those Miracles that he did except God were with him The force of which argument lies here that nothing but a Divine power can work Miracles and that Almighty God cannot be supposed miraculously to assist any but those whom he himself sends upon his own errand The stupid and barbarous Lycaonians when they beheld the Man who had been a Cripple from his Mothers womb cured by S. Paul in an instant only with the speaking of a word saw that there was something in it more than humane and therefore concluded that the Gods were come down to them in the likeness of men Upon this account S. Paul reckons Miracles among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the signs and evidences of an Apostle whom therefore Chrysostom brings in elegantly pleading for himself that though he could not shew as the signs of his Priesthood and Ministry long Robes and gaudy Vestments with Bells sounding at their borders as the Aaronical Priests did of old though he had no golden Crowns or holy Mitres yet could he produce what was infinitely more venerable and regardable than all these unquestionable Signs and Miracles he came not with Altars and Oblations with a number of strange and symbolick Rites but what was greater raised the dead cast out Devils cured the blind healed the lame making the Gentiles obedient by word and deed thorough many signs and wonders wrought by the power of the spirit of God These were the things that clearly shewed that their mission and ministry was not from men nor taken up of their own heads but that they
passage let the first hold his peace for ye may all all that have this gift prophesie one by one that so thus orderly proceeding all may learn and all may be comforted Nor can the 〈◊〉 pretend that this interruption is an unseasonable check to his revelation seeing he may command himself for though among the Gentiles the prophetick and 〈◊〉 impulse did so violently press upon the inspired Person that he could not govern himself yet in the Church of God the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets may be so ruled and restrained by them as to make way for others This order of Christian Prophets considered as a distinct Ministery by it self is constantly placed next to the Apostolical Office and is frequently by Saint Paul preferred before any other spiritual Gifts then bestowed upon the Church When this spirit of Prophecy ceased in the Christian Church we cannot certainly finde It continued some competent time beyond the Apostolick Age. Justin Martyr expresly tells Trypho the Jew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gifts of Prophecy are even yet extant among us an argument as he there tells him that those things which had of old been the great Priviledges of their Church were now translated into the Christian Church And 〈◊〉 speaking of a Revelation made to one Alcibiades who lived about the time of Irenaeus adds that the Divine Grace had not withdrawn its Presence from the Church but that they still had the Holy Ghost as their Councellor to direct them XI Secondly They had the gift of discerning spirits whereby they were enabled to discover the truth or falshood of mens pretences whether their gifts were real or counterfeit and their persons truly inspired or not For many men acted only by diabolical impulses might entitle themselves to Divine inspirations and others might be imposed upon by their delusions and mistake their dreams and fancies for the Spirits dictates and revelations or might so subtilly and artificially counterfeit revelations that they might with most pass for currant especially in those times when these supernatural gifts were so common and ordinary and our Lord himself had 〈◊〉 told them that false Prophets would arise and that many would confidently plead for themselves before him that they had prophesied in his name That therefore the Church might not be imposed upon God was pleased to endue the Apostles and it may be some others with an immediate faculty of discerning the Chaffe from the Wheat true from false Prophets nay to know when the true Prophets delivered the revelations of the Spirit and when they expressed only their own conceptions This was a mighty priviledge but yet seems to me to have extended farther to judge of the sincerity or hypocrisie of mens hearts in the profession of Religion that so bad men being discovered suitable censures and punishments might be passed upon them and others cautioned to avoid them Thus Peter at first sight discovered Ananias and Saphira and the rotten hypocrisie of their intentions before there was any external evidence in the case and told Simon Magus though baptized before upon his embracing Christianity that his heart was not right in the sight of God for I perceive says he that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity Thirdly the Apostles had the gift of Tongues furnished with variety of utterance able to speak on a sudden several languages which they had never learnt as occasion was administred and the exigences of persons and Nations with whom they conversed did require For the 〈◊〉 being principally designed to convert the world and to plant Christianity in all Countries and Nations it was absolutely necessary that they should be able readily to express their minds in the Languages of those Countries to which they addressed themselves seeing otherwise it would have been a work of time and difficulty and not consistent with the term of the Apostles lives had they been first to learn the different Languages of those Nations before they could have preached the Gospel to them Hence this gift was diffused upon the Apostles in larger measures and proportions than upon other men I speak with Tongues more than you all says S. Paul that is than all the gifted persons in the Church of Corinth Our Lord had told the Apostles before his departure from them that they should be endued with power from on high which upon the day of Pentecost was particularly made good in this instance when in a moment they were enabled to speak almost all the Languages of the then known World and this as a specimen and first-fruits of the rest of those miraculous powers that were conferr'd upon them XII A fourth gift was that of Interpretation or unfolding to others what had been delivered in an unknown tongue For the Christian Assemblies in those days were frequently made up of men of different Nations and who could not understand what the Apostles or others had spoken to the Congregation this God supplied by this gift of interpretation enabling some to interpret what others did not understand and to speak it to them in their own native language S. Paul largely discourses the necessity of this gift in order to the instructing and edifying of the Church seeing without it their meetings could be no better than the Assembly at Babel after the confusion of Languages where one man must needs be a Barbarian to another and all the praying and preaching of the Minister of the Assembly be to many altogether fruitless and unprofitable and no better than a speaking into the Air. What 's the speaking though with the tongue of Angels to them that do not understand it How can the Idiot and unlearned say Amen who understands not the language of him that giveth thanks The duty may be done with admirable quaintness and accuracy but what 's he the better from whom 't is lock'd up in an unknown tongue A consideration that made the Apostle solemnly profess that he had rather speak five words in the Church with his understanding that by his voice he may teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue Therefore if any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be but by two or at most by three and let one interpret what the rest have spoken but if there be no interpreter none present able to do this let him keep silence in the Church and speak to himself and to God A man that impartially reads this discourse of the Apostle may wonder how the Church of Rome in defiance of it can so openly practise so confidently defend their Bible and Divine Services in an unknown tongue so flatly repugnant to the dictates of common reason the usage of the first Christian Church and these plain Apostolical commands But this is not the only instance wherein that Church has departed both from Scripture Reason and the practice of the first and purest Ages of
which thou hast laid for the foundation of thy Church and the structures of a vertuous life Remember me with much mercy and compassion when the sword of Sorrows or Afflictions shall pierce my heart first transfix me with love and then all the Troubles of this world will be consignations to the joys of a better 〈◊〉 grant for the mercies and the name sake of thy Holy Child Jesus Amen DISCOURSE III. Of Meditation 1. IF in the Definition of Meditation I should call it an unaccustomed and unpractised Duty I should speak a truth though somewhat inartificially for not only the interior beauties and brighter excellencies are as unfelt as Idea's and Abstractions are but also the practice and common knowledge of the Duty it self are strangers to us like the retirements of the Deep or the undiscovered treasures of the Indian Hills And this is a very great cause of the driness and expiration of mens Devotion because our Souls are so little 〈◊〉 with the waters and holy dews of Meditation We go to our prayers by chance or order or by determination of accidental occurrences and we recite them as we read a book and sometimes we are sensible of the Duty and a flash of lightning makes the room bright and our prayers end and the lightning is gone and we as dark as ever We draw our water from standing pools which never are filled but with sudden showers and therefore we are dry so often Whereas if we would draw water from the Fountains of our Saviour and derive them through the chanel of diligent and prudent Meditations our Devotion would be a continual current and safe against the barrenness of frequent droughts 2. For Meditation is an attention and application of spirit to Divine things a searching out all instruments to a holy life a devout consideration of them and a production of those affections which are in a direct order to the love of God and a pious conversation Indeed Meditation is all that great instrument of Piety whereby it is made prudent and reasonable and orderly and perpetual For supposing our Memory instructed with the knowledge of such mysteries and revelations as are apt to entertain the Spirit the Understanding is first and best imployed in the consideration of them and then the Will in their reception when they are duly prepared and so transmitted and both these in such manner and to such purposes that they become the Magazine and great Repositories of Grace and instrumental to all designs of Vertue 3. For the Understanding is not to consider the matter of any meditation in itself or as it determines in natural excellencies or unworthiness respectively or with a purpose to furnish it self with notion and riches of knowledge for that is like the Winter-Sun it shines but warms not but in such order as themselves are put in the designations of Theology in the order of Divine Laws in their spiritual capacity and as they have influence upon Holiness for the Understanding here is something else besides the Intellectual power of the Soul it is the Spirit that is it is celestial in its application as it is spiritual in its nature and we may understand it well by considering the beatifical portions of Soul and body in their future glories For therefore even our Bodies in the Resurrection shall be spiritual because the operation of them shall be in order to spiritual glories and their natural actions such as are Seeing and Speaking shall have a spiritual object and supernatural end and here as we partake of such excellencies and cooperate to such purposes men are more or less spiritual And so is the Understanding taken from its first and lowest ends of resting in notion and ineffective contemplation and is made Spirit that is wholly ruled and guided by God's Spirit to supernatural ends and spiritual imployments so that it understands and considers the motions of the Heavens to declare the glory of God the prodigies and alterations in the Firmament to demonstrate his handy-work it considers the excellent order of creatures that we may not disturb the order of Creation or dissolve the golden chain of Subordination Aristotle and Porphyry and the other Greek Philosophers studied the Heavens to search out their natural causes and production of Bodies the wiser Chaldees and Assyrians studied the same things that they might learn their Influences upon us and make Predictions of contingencies the more moral AEgyptian described his Theorems in Hieroglyphicks and phantastick representments to teach principles of Policy Oeconomy and other prudences of Morality and secular negotiation But the same Philosophy when it is made Christian considers as they did but to greater purposes even that from the Book of the Creatures we may glorifie the Creator and hence derive arguments of Worship and Religion this is Christian Philosophy 4. I instance only in considerations natural to spiritual purposes but the same is the manner in all Meditation whether the matter of it be Nature or Revelation For if we think of Hell and consider the infinity of its duration and that its flames last as long as God lasts and thence conjecture upon the rules of proportion why a finite creature may have an infinite unnatural duration or think by what ways a material fire can torment an immaterial substance or why the Devils who are intelligent and wise creatures should be so foolish as to hate God from whom they know every rivulet of amability derives This is to study not to meditate for Meditation considers any thing that may best make us to avoid the place and to quit a vicious habit or master and 〈◊〉 an untoward inclination or purchase a vertue or exercise one so that Meditation is an act of the Understanding put to the right use 5. For the Holy Jesus coming to redeem us from the bottomless pit did it by lifting us up out of the puddles of impurity and the unwholsome waters of vanity He redeemed us from our vain conversation and our Understandings had so many vanities that they were made instruments of great impiety The unlearned and ruder Nations had fewer Vertues but they had also fewer Vices than the wise Empires that ruled the World with violence and wit together The softer Asians had Lust and Intemperance in a full Chalice but their Understandings were ruder than the finer Latines for these mens understandings distilled wickedness as through a Limbeck and the Romans drank spirits and the sublimed quintessences of Villany whereas the other made themselves drunk with the lees and cheaper instances of sin so that the Understanding is not an idle and useless faculty but naturally drives to practice and brings guests into the inward Cabinet of the Will and there they are entertained and feasted And those Understandings which did not serve the baser end of Vices yet were unprofitable for the most part and furnished their inward rooms with glasses and beads and trifles fit for an American Mart. From all
it is nice to judge the condition of the effect and therefore it is prudent to ascertain our condition by improving our care and our Religion and in all accidents to make no judgment concerning God's Favour by what we feel but by what we do 6. When the Holy Virgin with much Religion and sadness had sought her joy at last she found him disputing among the Doctors hearing them and asking them questions and besides that he now first opened a fontinel and there sprang out an excellent rivulet from his abyss of Wisdom he consigned this Truth to his Disciples That they who mean to be Doctors and teach others must in their first accesses and degrees of discipline learn of those whom God and publick Order hath set over us in the Mysteries of Religion The PRAYER BLessed and most Holy Jesus Fountain of Grace and comfort Treasure of Wisdom and spiritual emanations be pleased to abide with me for ever by the inhabitation of thy interiour assistances and refreshments and give me a corresponding love acceptable and unstained purity care and watchfulness over my ways that I may never by provoking thee to anger cause thee to remove thy dwelling or draw a cloud before thy holy face but if thou art pleased upon a design of charity or trial to cover my eyes that I may not behold the bright rays of thy Favour nor be refreshed with spiritual comforts let thy Love support my spirit by ways insensible and in all my needs give me such a portion as may be instrumental and incentive to performance of my duty and in all accidents let me continue to seek thee by Prayers and Humiliation and frequent desires and the strictness of a Holy life that I may follow thy example pursue thy foot-steps be supported by thy strength guided by thy hand enlightned by thy favour and may at last after a persevering holiness and an unwearied industry dwell with thee in the Regions of Light and eternal glory where there shall be no fears of parting from the habitations of Felicity and the union and fruition of thy Presence O Blessed and most Holy Jesus Amen SECT VIII Of the Preaching of John the Baptist preparative to the Manifestation of JESVS ELIAS Luke 1 17. And he shall goe before him in the spirit and power of Elias S t IOHN the Baptist Luk 1 15 And as the people were in expectation ve 16 Iohn answered saying unto them all I indeed baptize you with water but one mightier then I cometh y e latchet of whose shooes I am not worthy to unloose he shall baptize you with y e Holy Ghost and with fire WHen Herod had drunk so great a draught of bloud at Bethlehem and sought for more from the Hill-country Elizabeth carried her Son into the Wilderness there in the desert places and recesses to hide him from the fury of that Beast where she attended him with as much care and tenderness as the affections and fears of a Mother could express in the permission of those fruitless Solitudes The Child was about eighteen months old when he first sled to Sanctuary but after forty days his Mother died and his Father Zachary at the time of his ministration which happened about this time was killed in the Court of the Temple so that the Child was exposed to all the dangers and infelicities of an Orphan in a place of solitariness and discomfort in a time when a bloudy King endeavoured his destruction But when his Father and Mother were taken from him the Lord took him up For according to the tradition of the Greeks God deputed an Angel to be his nourisher and Guardian as he had formerly done to Ishmael who dwelt in the Wilderness and to Elias when he fled from the rage of Ahab so to this Child who came in the spirit of Elias to make demonstration that there can be no want where God undertakes the care and provision 2. The entertainment that S. John's Proveditóre the Angel gave him was such as the Wilderness did afford and such as might dispose him to a life of Austerity for there he continued spending his time in Meditations Contemplation Prayer Affections and Colloquies with God eating Flies and wild Honey not clothed in soft but a hairy garment and a leathern girdle till he was thirty years of age And then being the fifteenth year of Tiberius Pontius Pilate being Governour of Judaea the Word of God came unto John in the Wilderness And he came into all the countrey about Jordan preaching and baptizing 3. This John according to the Prophecies of him and designation of his person by the Holy Ghost was the fore-runner of Christ sent to dispose the people for his entertainment and prepare his ways and therefore it was necessary his person should be so extraordinary and full of Sanctity and so clarified by great concurrences and wonder in the circumstances of his life as might gain credit and reputation to the testimony he was to give concerning his LORD the Saviour of the World And so it happened 4. For as the Baptist while he was in the Wilderness became the pattern of solitary and contemplative life a School of Vertue and Example of Sanctity and singular Austerity so at his emigration from the places of his Retirement he seemed what indeed he was a rare and excellent Personage and the Wonders which were great at his Birth the prediction of his Conception by an Angel which never had before happened but in the persons of Isaac and Sampson the contempt of the world which he bore about him his mortified countenance and deportment his austere and eremitical life his vehement spirit and excellent zeal in Preaching created so great opinions of him among the people that all held him for a Prophet in his Office for a heavenly person in his own particular and a rare example of Sanctity and holy life to all others and all this being made solemn and ceremonious by his Baptism he prevailed so that he made excellent and apt preparations for the LORD 's appearing for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and all the regions round about Jordan and were baptized of him confessing their sins 5. The Baptist having by so heavenly means won upon the affections of all men his Sermons and his testimony concerning Christ were the more likely to be prevalent and accepted and the summ of them was Repentance and dereliction of sins and bringing forth the fruits of good life in the promoting of which Doctrine he was a severe reprehender of the Pharisees and Sadducees he exhorted the people to works of mercy the Publicans to do justice and to decline oppression the Souldiers to abstain from plundering and doing violence or rapine and publishing that he was not the CHRIST that he only baptized with water but the Messias should baptize with the holy Ghost and with fire he finally denounced judgment and great severities to all the World
desertions and anguish of spirit expecting all should work together for the best according to the promise if you can strengthen your selves in God when you are weakest believe when you see no hope and entertain no jealousies or suspicions of God though you see nothing to make you confident then and then only you have Faith which in conjunction with its other parts is able to save your Souls For in this precise duty of trusting God there are the rays of hope and great proportions of Charity and Resignation 17. The summ is that pious and most Christian sentence of the Author of the ordinary Gloss To believe in God through Jesus Christ is by believing to love him to adhere to him to be united to him by Charity and Obedience and to be incorporated into Christ ' s mystical body in the Communion of Saints I conclude this with a collation of certain excellent words of S. Paul highly to the present purpose Examine your selves Brethren whether ye be in the Faith prove your own selves Well but how Know you not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates There 's the touchstone of Faith If Jesus Christ dwells in us then we are true Believers if he does not we are Reprobates we have no Faith But how shall we know whether Christ be in us or no Saint Paul tells us that too If Christ be in you the body is dead by reason of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness That 's the Christian's mark and the Characteristick of a true Believer A death unto sin and a living unto righteousness a mortified body and a quickned spirit This is plain enough and by this we see what we must trust to A man of a wicked life does in vain hope to be saved by his Faith for indeed his Faith is but equivocal and dead which as to his purpose is just none at all and therefore let him no more deceive himself For that I may still use the words of S. Paul This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works For such and such only in the great scrutiny for Faith in the day of Doom shall have their portion in the bosom of faithful Abraham The PRAYER I. O Eternal GOD 〈◊〉 of all Truth and Holiness in whom to believe is life eternal let thy Grace descend with a mighty power into my Soul beating down every strong hold and vainer imagination and bringing every proud thought and my confident and ignorant understanding into the obedience of Jesus Take from me all disobdience and refractoriness of spirit all ambition and private and baser interests remove from me all prejudice and weakness of perswasion that I may wholly resign my Understanding to the perswasions of Christianity acknowledging Thee to be the principle of Truth and thy Word the measure of Knowledge and thy Laws the rule of my life and thy Promises the satisfaction of my hopes and an union with thee to be the consummation of Charity in the fruition of Glory Amen II. HOly JESUS make me to acknowledge thee to be my Lord and Master and my self a Servant and Disciple of thy holy Discipline and Institution let me love to sit at thy feet and suck in with my ears and heart the sweetness of thy holy Sermons Let my Soul be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace with a peaceable and docile disposition Give me great boldness in the publick Confession of thy Name and the Truth of thy Gospel in despite of all hostilities and temptations And grant I may always remember that thy Name is called upon me and I may so behave my self that I neither give scandal to others nor cause disreputation to the honour of Religion but that thou mayest be glorified in me and I by thy mercies after a strict observance of all the holy Laws of Christianity Amen III. O Holy and ever-Blessed SPIRIT let thy gracious influences be the perpetual guide of my rational Faculties Inspire me with Wisdom and Knowledge spiritual Understanding and a holy Faith and sanctifie my Faith that it may arise up to the confidence of Hope and the adherencies of Charity and be fruitful in a holy Conversation Mortifie in me all peevishness and pride of spirit all heretical dispositions and whatsoever is contrary to sound Doctrine that when the eternal Son of God the Author and Finisher of our Faith shall come to make scrutiny and an inquest for Faith I may receive the Promises laid up for them that believe in the Lord Jesus and wait for his coming in holiness and purity to whom with the Father and thee O Blessed Spirit be all honour and eternal adoration payed with all sanctity and joy and Eucharist now and for ever Amen SECT XI Of CHRIST's going to Jerusalem to the Passeover the first time after his Manifestation and what followed till the expiration of the Office of John the Baptist. The Visitation of the Temple Marke 11. 15. And Iesus went into y e Temple began to cast out them that sold bought in y e Temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers 16. And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the Temple The Conference with Nicodemus Iohn 3. 9. Nicodemus answered said unto him How can these things be 10. Iesus answered and sayd unto him Art thou a Master of Israel and knowest not these things 1. IMmediately after this Miracle Jesus abode a few days in Capernaum but because of the approach of the great Feast of Passeover he ascended to Jerusalem and the first publick act of record that he did was an act of holy Zeal and Religion in behalf of the honour of the Temple For divers Merchants and Exchangers of money made the Temple to be the Market and the Bank and brought Beasts thither to be sold for sacrifice against the great Paschal Solemnity At the sight of which Jesus being moved with zeal and indignation made a whip of cords and drave the Beasts out of the Temple overthrew the accounting Tables and commanded them that sold the Doves to take them from thence For his anger was holy and he would mingle no injury with it and therefore the Doves which if let loose would be detrimental to the owners he caused to be fairly removed and published the Religion of Holy places establishing their Sacredness for ever by his first Gospel-Sermon that he made at Jerusalem Take these things hence Make not my Father's House a house of merchandise for it shall be called a house of Prayer to all Nations And being required to give a sign of his Vocation for this being an action like the Religion of the Zelots among the Jews if it was not attested by something extraordinary might be abused into an excess of liberty he only foretold the
God as holy Places of Religion must rise highest in this account I mean higher than any other places And this is besides the honour which God hath put upon them by his presence his title to them w ch in all Religions he hath signified to us 4. Indeed among the Jews as God had confined his Church and the rites of Religion to be used only in communion and participation with the Nation so also he had limited his Presence and was more sparing of it than in the time of the Gospel his Son declared he would be It was said of old that at Jerusalem men ought to worship that is by a solemn publick and great address in the capital expresses of Religion in the distinguishing rites of Liturgy for else it had been no new thing For in ordinary Prayers God was then and long before pleased to hear Jeremy in the dungeon Manasses in prison Daniel in the Lion's den Jonas in the belly of the deep and in the offices yet more solemn in the Proseuchae in the houses of prayer which the Jews had not only in their dispersion but even in Palestine for their diurnal and nocturnal offices But when the Holy Jesus had broken down the partition-wall then the most solemn Offices of Religion were as unlimited as their private Devotions were before for where-ever a Temple should be built thither God would come if he were worshipped spirituallly and in truth that is according to the rites of Christ who is Grace and Truth and the dictate of the Spirit and analogy of the Gospel All places were now alike to build Churches in or Memorials for God God's houses And that our Blessed Saviour discourses of places of publick Worship to the woman of Samaria is notorious because the whole question was concerning the great addresses of Moses's rites whether at Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim which were the places of the right and the 〈◊〉 Temple the 〈◊〉 of the whole Religion and in antithesis Jesus said Nor here nor there shall be the solemnities of address to God but in all places you may build a Temple and God will dwell in it 5. And this hath descended from the first beginnings of Religion down to the consummation of it in the perfections of the Gospel For the Apostles of our Lord carried the Offices of the Gospel into the Temple of Jerusalem there they preached and prayed and payed Vows but never that we read of offered Sacrifice which 〈◊〉 that the Offices purely Evangelical were proper to be done in any of God's proper places and that thither they went not in compliance with Moses's Rites but merely for Gospel-duties or for such Offices which were common to Moses and Christ such as were Prayers and Vows While the Temple was yet standing they had peculiar places for the Assemblies of the faithful where either by accident or observation or Religion or choice they met regularly And I instance in the house of John surnamed Mark which as Alexander reports in the life of S. Barnabas was consecrated by many actions of Religion by our Blessed Saviour's eating the 〈◊〉 his Institution of the holy Eucharist his Farewell-Sermon and the Apostles met there in the Octaves of Easter whither Christ came again and hallowed it with his presence and there to make up the relative Sanctification complete the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and this was erected into a fair 〈◊〉 and is mentioned as a famous Church by S. Jerome and V. Bede in which as 〈◊〉 adds S. Peter preached that 〈◊〉 which was miraculoasly prosperous in the Conversion of three thousand there S. James Brother of our Lord was 〈◊〉 first Bishop of Jerusalem S. Stephen and the other six were there ordained Deacons there the Apostles kept their first Council and 〈◊〉 their Creed by these actions and their frequent conventions shewing the same reason order and prudence of Religion in 〈◊〉 of special places of Divine service which were ever observed by all the Nations and Religions and wise men of the world And it were a strange imagination to 〈◊〉 that in Christian Religion there is any principle contrary to that wisdom or God and all the world which for order for necessity for convenience for the solemnity of Worship hath set apart Places for God and for Religion Private Prayer had always an unlimited residence and relation even under Moses's Law but the publick solemn Prayer of 〈◊〉 in the Law of Moses was restrained to one Temple In the Law of Nature it was not confined to one but yet determined to publick and solemn places and when the Holy Jesus disparked the inclosures of Moses we all returned to the permissions and liberty of the Natural Law in which although the publick and solemn Prayers were confined to a Temple yet the Temple was not consined to a place but they might be any-where so they were at all instruments of order conveniences of assembling residences of Religion and God who always loved order and was apt to hear all holy and prudent Prayers and therefore also the Prayers of Consecration hath often declared that he loves such Places that he will dwell in them not that they are advantages to him but that he is pleased to make them so to us And therefore all Nations of the world built publick Houses for Religion and since all Ages of the Church did so too it had need be a strong and a convincing argument that must shew they were deceived And if any man list to be 〈◊〉 he must be answered with S. Paul's reproof We have no such custom nor the Churches of God 6. Thus S. Paul reproved the Corinthians for despising the Church of God by such uses which were therefore unsit for God's because they were proper for their own that is for common houses And although they were at first and in the descending Ages so afflicted by the tyranny of enemies that they could not build many Churches yet some they did and the Churches themselves suffered part of the persecution For so 〈◊〉 reports that when under Severus and Gordianus 〈◊〉 and Galienus the Christian affairs were in a tolerable condition they built Churches in great number and expence But when the Persecution waxed hot under Diocletian down went the Churches upon a design to extinguish or disadvantage the Religion Maximinus gave leave to re-build them Upon which Rescript saith the story the Christians were overjoyed and raised them up to an incredible height and incomparable beauty This was Christian Religion then and so it hath continued-ever since and unless we should have new reason and new revelation it must continue so till our Churches are exchanged for Thrones and our Chappels for seats placed before the Lamb in the eternal Temple of celestial Jerusalem 7. And to this purpose it is observed that the Holy Jesus first ejected the Beasts of Sacrifice out of the Temple and then proclaimed the Place
The Samaritans coming to Jesus V. 28. The woman left her water pot went her way into the city saith to the men Come see a man which told me all things that ever I did is not this the Christ Then they went out of the city came unto him V. 39. Many of the Samaritans beleived on him for the saying of the woman when they were come to him many more believed because of his own word 1. WHen Jesus understood that John was cast into prison and that the Pharisees were envious at him for the great multitudes of people that resorted to his Baptism which he ministred not in his own person but by the deputation of his Disciples they finishing the ministration which himself began who as Euodins Bishop of Antioch reports baptized the Blessed Virgin his Mother ther and Peter only and Peter baptized Andrew James and John and they others he left Judaea and came into Galilee and in his passage he must touch Sychar a City of Samaria where in the heat of the day and the weariness of his journey he sate himself down upon the margent of Jacob's Well whither when his Disciples were gone to buy meat a Samaritan woman cometh to draw water of whom Jesus asked some to cool his thirst and refresh his weariness 2. Little knew the woman the excellency of the person that asked so small a charity neither had she been taught that a cup of cold water given to a Disciple should be rewarded and much rather such a present to the Lord himself But she prosecuted the spite of her Nation and the interest and quarrel of the Schism and in stead of washing Jesus's feet and giving him drink demanded why he being a Jew should ask water of a Samaritan for the Jews have no intercourse with the Samaritans 3. The ground of the quarrel was this In the sixth year of Hezekiah Salmanasar King of Assyria sacked Samaria transported the Israelites to Assyria and planted an Assyrian Colony in the Town and Country who by Divine vengeance were destroyed by Lions which no power of man could restrain or lessen The King thought the cause was their not serving the God of Israel according to the Rites of Moses and therefore sent a Jewish captive Priest to instruct the remanent inhabitants in the Jewish Religion who so learned and practised it that they still retained the Superstition of the Gentile rites till Manasses the Brother of Jaddi the high Priest at Jerusalem married the daughter of Sanballat who was the Governour under King Darius Manasses being reproved for marrying a stranger the daughter of an uncircumcised Gentile and admonished to dismiss her flies to Samaria perswades his Father-in-law to build a Temple in Mount Gerizim introduces the Rites of daily Sacrifice and makes himself high Priest and began to pretend to be the true successor of Aaron and commences a Schism in the time of Alexander the Great From whence the Question of Religion grew so high that it begat disassections anger animosities quarrels bloudshed and murthers not only in Palestine but where ever a Jew and Samaritan had the ill fortune to meet Such being the nature of men that they think it the greatest injury in the world when other men are not of their minds and that they please God most when they are most furiously zealous and no zeal better to be expressed than by hating all those whom they are pleased to think God hates This Schism was prosecuted with the greatest spite that ever any was because both the people were much given to Superstition and this was helped forward by the constitution of their Religion consisting much in externals and Ceremonials and which they cared not much to hallow and make moral by the intertexture of spiritual senses and Charity And therefore the Jews called the Samaritans accursed the Samaritans at the Paschal solemnity would at midnight when the Jews Temple was open scatter dead mens bones to profane and desecrate the place and both would fight and eternally dispute the Question sometimes referring it to Arbitrators and then the conquered party would decline the Arbitration after sentence which they did at Alexandria before Ptolemaeus Philometor when Andronicus had by a rare and exquisite Oration procured sentence against Theodosius and Sabbaeus the Samaritan Advocates The sentence was given for Jerusalem and the Schism increased and lasted till the time of our Saviour's conference with this woman 4. And it was so implanted and woven in with every understanding that when the woman perceived Jesus to be a Prophet she undertook this Question with him Our Fathers worshipped in this mountain and ye say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship Jesus knew the Schism was great enough already and was not willing to make the rent wider and though he gave testimony to the truth by saying Salvation is of the Jews and we know what we worship ye do not yet because the subject of this Question was shortly to be taken away Jesus takes occasion to preach the Gospel to hasten an expedient and by way of anticipation to reconcile the disagreeing interests and settle a revelation to be verified for ever Neither here nor there by way of confinement not in one Countrey more than another but where-ever any man shall call upon God in spirit and truth there he shall be heard 5. But all this while the Holy Jesus was athirst and therefore hastens at least to discourse of water though as yet he got none He tells her of living water of eternal satisfactions of never thirsting again of her own personal condition of matrimonial relation and professes himself to be the Messias And then was interrupted by the coming of his Disciples who wondred to see him alone talking with a woman besides his custom and usual reservation But the Woman full of joy and wonder left her water-pot and ran to the City to publish the Messias and immediately all the City came out to see and many believed on him upon the testimony of the Woman and more when they heard his own discourses They invited him to the Town and received him with hospitable civilities for two days after which he departed to his own Galilee 6. Jesus therefore came into the Countrey where he was received with respect and fair entertainment because of the Miracles which the Galileans saw done by him at the Feast and being at Cana where he wrought the first Miracle a Noble personage a little King say some a Palatine says S. Hierome a Kingly person certainly came to Jesus with much reverence and desire that he would be pleased to come to his house and cure his Son now ready to die which he seconds with much importunity fearing left his Son be dead before he get thither Jesus who did not do his Miracles by natural operations cured the child at distance and dismissed the Prince telling him his Son lived which by
spirit when Rebellion and Pride when secular Interest or ease and Licenciousness set men up against the Laws the Laws then are upon the defensive and ought not to give place It is ill to cure particular Disobedience by removing a Constitution decreed by publick wisdom for a general good When the evil occasioned by the Law is greater than the good designed or than the good which will come by it in the present constitution of things and the evil can by no other remedy be healed it concerns the Law-giver's charity to take off such positive Constitutions which in the authority are merely humane and in the matter indifferent and evil in the event The summ of this whole duty I shall chuse to represent in the words of an excellent person S. Jerome We must for the avoiding of Scandal quit everything which may be omitted without prejudice to the threefold truth of Life of Justice and Doctrine meaning that what is not expresly commanded by God or our Superiours or what is not expresly commended as an act of Piety and Perfection or what is not an obligation of Justice that is in which the interest of a third person or else our own Christian liberty is not totally concerned all that is to be given in sacrifice to Mercy and to be made matter of Edification and Charity but not of Scandal that is of danger and sin and falling to our neighbour The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus who art made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption give us of thy abundant Charity that we may love the eternal benefit of our 〈◊〉 Soul with a true diligent and affectionate care and tenderness Give us a fellow-feeling of one another's calamities a readiness to bear each others burthens aptness to forbear wisdom to advise counsel to direct and a spirit of meekness and modesty trembling at our 〈◊〉 fearful in our Brother's dangers and joyful in his restitution and securities Lord let all our actions be pious and prudent our selves wise as Serpents and innocent as Doves and our whole life exemplar and just and charitable that we may like Lamps shining in thy Temple serve thee and enlighten others and guide them to thy Sanctuary and that shining clearly and burning zealously when the Bridegroom shall come to bind up his Jewels and beautifie his Spouse and gather his Saints together we and all thy Christian people knit in a holy fellowship may enter into the joy of our Lord and partake of the eternal refreshments of the Kingdom of Light and Glory where thou O Holy and Eternal Jesu livest and reignest in the excellencies of a Kingdom and the infinite durations of Eternity Amen DISCOURSE XVIII Of the Causes and Manner of the Divine Judgments 1. GOD's Judgments are like the Writing upon the wall which was a missive of anger from God upon Belshazzar it came upon an errand of Revenge and yet was writ in so dark characters that none could read it but a Prophet When-ever God speaks from Heaven he would have us to understand his meaning and if he declares not his sence in particular signification yet we understand his meaning well enough if every voice of God lead us to Repentance Every sad accident is directed against sin either to prevent it or to cure it to glorifie God or to humble us to make us go forth of our selves and to rest upon the centre of all Felicities that we may derive help from the same hand that smote us Sin and Punishment are so near relatives that when God hath marked any person with a sadness or unhandsome accident men think it warrant enough for their uncharitable censures and condemn the man whom God hath smitten making God the executioner of our uncertain or ungentle sentences Whether sinned this man or his parents that 〈◊〉 was born blind said the Pharisees to our blessed LORD Neither this man nor his parents was the answer meaning that God had other ends in that accident to serve and it was not an effect of wrath but a design of mercy both directly and collaterally God's glory must be seen clearly by occasion of the curing the blind man But in the present case the answer was something different Pilate slew the Galileans when they were sacrificing in their Conventicles apart from the Jews For they first had separated from Obedience and paying Tribute to Caesar and then from the Church who disavowed their mutinous and discontented Doctrines The cause of the one and the other are linked in mutual complications and endearment and he who despises the one will quickly disobey the other Presently upon the report of this sad accident the people run to the Judgment-seat and every man was ready to be accuser and witness and judge upon these poor destroyed people But Jesus allays their heat and though he would by no means acquit these persons from deserving death for their denying tribute to Caesar yet he alters the face of the tribunal and makes those persons who were so apt to be accusers and judges to act another part even of guilty persons too that since they will needs be judging they might judge themselves for Think not these were greater sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered such things I tell you nay but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish meaning that although there was great probability to believe such persons 〈◊〉 I mean and Rebels to be the greatest sinners of the world yet themselves who had designs to destroy the Son of God had deserved as great damnation And yet it is observable that the Holy Jesus only compared the sins of them that suffered with the estate of the other Galileans who suffered not and that also applies it to the persons present who told the news to consign this Truth unto us That when persons consederate in the same crimes are spared from a present Judgment falling upon others of their own society it is indeed a strong alarm to all to secure themselves by Repentance against the hostilities and eruptions of sin but yet it is no exemption or security to them that escape to believe themselves persons less sinful for God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons and they die for a common crime according as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of Predestination and either they that remain are sealed up to a worse calamity or left within the reserves and mercies of Repentance for in this there is some variety of determination and undiscerned Providence 2. The purpose of our Blessed Saviour is of great use to us in all the traverses and changes and especially the sad and calamitous accidents of the world But in the misfortune of others we are to make other discourses concerning Divine Judgments than when the case is of nearer concernment to our selves For first when we see a person come to an unfortunate and untimely death we must not conclude such a man perishing
Institution 14. Two days before the 〈◊〉 the Scribes and Pharisees called a council to contrive crafty ways of 〈◊〉 Jesus they not daring to do it by open violence Of which meeting when Judas 〈◊〉 had notice for those assemblies were publick and notorious he ran from 〈◊〉 and offered himself to betray his Master to them if they would give him a considerable reward They agreed for thirty pieces of silver Of what value each piece was is uncertain but their own Nation hath given a rule that when a piece of silver is named in the Pentateuch it signifies a sicle if it be named in the Prophets it signifies a pound if in the other writings of the Old Testament it signifies a talent This therefore being alledged out of the Prophet Jeremy by one of the Evangelists it is probable the price at which Judas sold his Lord was thirty pound weight of silver a 〈◊〉 price for the Saviour of the world to be prized at by his undiscerning and unworthy Countreymen 15. The next day was the first day of 〈◊〉 bread on which it was necessary they should kill the Passeover therefore Jesus sent Peter and John to the City to a certain man whom they should 〈◊〉 carrying a pitcher of water to his house him they should follow and there prepare the Passeover They went and found the man in the same circumstances and prepared for Jesus and his Family who at the even came to celebrate the Passeover It was the house of John surnamed Mark which had always been open to this blessed Family where he was pleased to finish his last Supper and the mysteriousness of the Vespers of his Passion 16. When evening was come Jesus stood with his Disciples and 〈◊〉 the Paschal Lamb after which he girt himself with 〈◊〉 and taking a bason washed the feet of his Disciples not only by the ceremony but in his discourses instructing them in the doctrine of Humility which the Master by his so great 〈◊〉 to his Disciples had made sacred and imprinted the lesson in lasting characters by making it symbolical But Peter was unwilling to be washed by his Lord until he was told he must renounce his part in him unless he were washed which option being given to Peter he cried out Not my feet only but my hands and my head But Jesus said the ablution of the feet was sufficient for the purification of the whole man relating to the custom of those Countreys who used to go to supper immediately from the baths who therefore were sufficiently clean save only on their feet by reason of the dust contracted in their passage from the baths to the dining-rooms from which when by the hospitable master of the house they were caused to be cleansed they needed no more ablution and by it Jesus passing from the letter to the spirit meant that the body of sin was washed in the baths of Baptism and afterwards if we remained in the same state of purity it was only necessary to purge away the filth contracted in our passage from the Font to the Altar and then we are clean all over when the 〈◊〉 state is unaltered and the little adherencies of imperfection and passions are also washed off 17. But after the 〈◊〉 of the Paschal Lamb it was the custom of the Nation to sit down to a second Supper in which they ate herbs and unlevened bread the Major-domo first dipping his morsel and then the family after which the Father brake bread into pieces and distributed a part to every of the Guests and first drinking himself gave to the rest the chalice filled with wine according to the age and dignity of the person adding to each distribution a form of benediction proper to the mystery which was Eucharistical and commemorative of their Deliverance from Egypt This Supper Jesus being to celebrate changed the forms of benediction turned the Ceremony into Mystery and gave his body and bloud in Sacrament and religious configuration so instituting the venerable Sacrament which from the time of its institution is called the Lord's Supper which rite Jesus commanded the Apostles to perpetuate in commemoration of him their Lord until his second coming And this was the first delegation of a perpetual Ministery which Jesus made to his Apostles in which they were to be succeeded to in all generations of the Church 18. But Jesus being troubled in spirit told his Apostles that one of them should betray him which Prediction he made that they might not be scandalized at the sadness of objection of the Passion but be confirmed in their belief seeing so great demonstration of his wisdom and spirit of Prophecy The Disciples were all troubled at this 〈◊〉 arrest looking one on another and doubting of whom he spake but they beckned to the beloved Disciple 〈◊〉 on Jesus's breast that he might ask for they who knew their own innocency and infirmity were desirous to satisfie their curiosity and to be rid of their indetermination and their fear But Jesus being asked gave them a sign and a 〈◊〉 to Judas commanding him to do what he list speedily for Jesus was extremely 〈◊〉 till he had drunk the chalice off and accomplished his mysterious and 〈◊〉 Baptism After Judas received the sop the Devil entred into him and Judas went forth immediately it being now night 19. When he was gone out Jesus began his Farewel-Sermon rarely mixt of sadness and joys and studded with mysteries as with Emeralds discoursing of the glorification of God in his Son and of those glories which the Father had prepared for him of his sudden departure and his migration to a place whither they could not come yet but afterwards they should meaning first to death and then to glory commanding them to love one another and foretelling to Peter who made consident protests that he would die with his Master that before the cock should crow twice he should deny him thrice But lest he should afflict them with too sad representments of his present condition he comforts them with the comforts of Faith with the intendments of his departure to prepare places in Heaven for them whither they might come by him who is the way the truth and the life adding a promise in order to their present support and future felicities that if they should ask of God any thing in his name they should receive it and upon condition they would love him and keep his Commandments he would pray for the Holy Ghost to come upon them to supply his room to furnish them with proportionable comforts to enable them with great Gifts to lead them into all truth and to abide with them for ever Then arming them against future Persecutions giving them divers holy Precepts discoursing of his emanation from the Father and of the necessity of his departure he gave them his blessing and prayed for them and then having sung a Hymn which was part of the great Allelujah beginning at the 114 Psalm
helped by none comforted by none and he makes himself a companion of Devils to everlasting ages but in the judgment of Repentance and Tribunal of the Church the penitent sinner is prayed for by a whole army of militant Saints and causes joy to all the Church triumphant And to establish this Tribunal in the Church and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime and to appoint Physicians and Guardians of the Soul was one of the designs and mercies of the Resurrection of Jesus And let not any Christian man either by false opinion or an unbelieving spirit or an incurious apprehension undervalue or neglect this ministery which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the Church is built that the Church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck and the shivers of the broken heart may re-unite them pouring Oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin and restoring with meekness gentleness care counsel and authority persons overtaken in a fault For that act of Ministery is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in Heaven and that Authority is not contemptible which the Holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his Church the Holy Ghost But Christ intended that those whom he had made Guides of our Souls and Judges of our Consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon should also be used by us in all cases of our Souls and that we go to Heaven the way he hath appointed that is by offices and ministeries Ecclesiastical 17. When our Blessed Lord had so confirmed the Faith of the Church and appointed an Ecclesiastical Ministery he had but one work more to do upon earth and that was the Institution of the holy Sacrament of Baptism which he ordained as a solemn Initiation and mysterious Profession of the Faith upon which the Church is built making it a solemn Publication of our Profession the rite of Stipulation or entring Covenant with our Lord the solemnity of the Paction Evangelical in which we undertake to be Disciples to the Holy Jesus that is to believe his Doctrine to fear his Threatnings to rely upon his Promises and to obey his Commandments all the days of our life and he for his part actually performs much and promises more he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days purging our Souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence promising withall that if we perform our undertaking and remain in the state in which he now puts us he will continually assist us with his Spirit prevent and attend us with his Grace he will deliver us from the power of the Devil he will keep our Souls in merciful joyful and safe custody till the great Day of the Lord he will then raise our Bodies from the Grave he will make them to be spiritual and immortal he will re-unite them to our Souls and beatifie both Bodies and Souls in his own Kingdom admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories All which that he might verifie and prepare respectively in the presence of his Disciples he ascended into the bosome of God and the eternal comprehensions of celestial Glory The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast overcome Death and triumphed over all the powers of Hell Darkness Sin and the Grave manifesting the truth of thy Promises the power of thy Divinity the majesty of thy Person the rewards of thy Glory and the mercies and excellent designs of thy Evangelical Kingdom by thy glorious and powerful Resurrection preserve my Soul from eternal death and make me to rise from the death of Sin and to live the life of Grace loving thy Perfections adoring thy Mercy pursuing the interest of thy Kingdom being united to the Church under thee our Head conforming to thy holy Laws established in Faith entertained and confirmed with a modest humble and certain Hope and sanctified by Charity that I engraving thee in my heart and submitting to thee in my spirit and imitating thee in thy glorious example may be partaker of thy Resurrection which is my hope and my desire the support of my Faith the object of my Joy and the strength of my Confidence In thee Holy Jesus do I trust I confess thy Faith I believe all that thou hast taught I desire to perform all thy injunctions and my own undertaking my Soul is in thy hand do thou support and guide it and pity my infirmities and when thou shalt reveal thy great Day shew to me the mercies and effects of thy Advocation and Intercession and Redemption Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God for in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Thou art just thou 〈◊〉 merciful thou art gracious and compassionate thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective but make me capable and receptive of thy Mercies and then I am certain to receive them I am thine O save me thou art mine O Holy Jesus O dwell with me for ever and let me dwell with thee adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THE END 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE TABLE OF The Life of CHRIST Where are more Numbers than one the first Number denotes the Page the latter the Number of the Section A. ABsolution of dying Persons of what benefit 407. 23. Whether to be given to all that desire it 408. 24. Acceptable Year of the Lord what it means 186. 22. Actions of Jesus confuted his Accusers 390. 2. Acts of Vertue to be done by sick and dying Persons 405 406. 19 20. Accusation of Criminals not to be aggravated odiously 393. 8. It ought to be onely for purposes of Charity ibid. Accusation of innocent persons ought to be born patiently by the innocent 393. 9. Accusation of Jesus 352. 24. Adam buried in Golgotha 354. 31. Adoption of Sons 316. 7. Advent of our Lord must be entertained with joy 156. 3. Adultery made more criminal under the Gospel than under the Law 249. 37 c. Adultery of the eyes 250. 36. Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in the place of Christ's Birth 14. 6. Agony of Jesus in the Garden 350. 20. Agesilaus was more commended for his modesty and obedience than for his prosperous good Conduct 50. 25. Albes or white garments wore by the Church and why 393. 9 10. Alms intended for a defensative against Covetousness 258. 1. Ordinarily to be according to our ability ibid. Sometimes beyond in what cases ibid. Necessities of all indigent people are the object of our Alms 259. 3. Manner of Alms an office of Christian prudence ibid. The two Altars in Solomon's Temple what they did represent 83. 4. Ambitious seeking Ecclesiastical Dignities very criminal 96. 2. Ambition is
on to preach confidently and securely for that he himself would stand by him and preserve him 2. ABOUT this time as is most probable he wrote his first Epistle to the Thessalonians Silas and Timothy being lately returned from thence and having done the message for which he had sent them thither The main design of the Epistle is to confirm them in the belief of the Christian Religion and that they would persevere in it notwithstanding all the afflictions and persecutions which he had told them would ensue upon their profession of the Gospel and to instruct them in the main duties of a Christian and Religious life While the Apostle was thus imployed the malice of the Jews was no less at work against him and universally combining together they brought him before Gallio the Proconsul of the Province elder Brother to the famous Seneca Before him they accused the Apostle as an Innovator in Religion that sought to introduce a new way of worship contrary to what was established by the Jewish Law and permitted by the Roman Powers The Apostle was ready to have pleaded his own cause but the Proconsul told them that had it been a matter of right or wrong that had faln under the cognizance of the Civil Judicature it had been very fit and reasonable that he should have heard and determined the case but since the controversie was only concerning the punctilio's and niceties of their Religion it was very improper for him to be a Judge in such matters And when they still clamoured about it he threw out their Indictment and commanded his officers to drive them out of Court Whereupon some of the Towns men seised upon Sosthenes one of the Rulers of the Jewish Consistory a man active and busie in this Insurrection and beat him even before the Court of Judicature the Proconsul not at all concerning himself about it A year and an half S. Paul continued in this place and before his departure thence wrote his second Epistle to the Thessalonians to supply the want of his coming to them which in his former he had resolved on and for which in a manner he had engaged his promise In this therefore he endeavours again to confirm their minds in the truth of the Gospel and that they would not be shaken with those troubles which the wicked unbelieving Jews would not cease to create them a lost and undone race of men and whom the Divine vengeance was ready finally to overtake And because some passages in his 〈◊〉 Letter relating to this destruction had been mis-understood as if this day of the Lord were just then at hand he rectifies those mistakes and shews what must precede our Lord's coming unto Judgment 3. S. 〈◊〉 having thus fully planted and cultivated the Church at Corinth resolved now for Syria And taking along with him Aquila and Priscilla at Cenchrea the Port and Harbour of Corinth Aquila for of him it is certainly to be understood shaved his head in performance of a Nazarite-Vow he had formerly made the time whereof was now run out In his passage into Syria he came to Ephesus where he preached a while in the Synagogue of the Jews And though desired to stay with them yet having resolved to be at Jerusalem at the Passeover probably that he might have the fitter opportunity to meet his friends and preach the Gospel to those vast numbers that usually 〈◊〉 to that great solemnity he promised that in his return he would come again to them Sailing thence he landed at Caesarca and thence went up to Jerusalem where having visited the Church and kept the Feast he went down to Antioch Here having staid some time he traversed the Countries of Galatia and Phrygia confirming as he went the new-converted Christians and so came to 〈◊〉 where finding certain Christian Disciples he enquired of them whether since their conversion they had received the miraculous gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost They told him that the Doctrine which they had received had nothing in it of that nature nor had they ever heard that any such extraordinary Spirit had of late been bestowed upon the Church Hereupon he further enquired unto what they had been baptized the Christian Baptism being administred in the name of the Holy Ghost They answered they had received no more than John's Baptism which though it 〈◊〉 them to repentance yet did explicitly speak nothing of the Holy Ghost or its gists and powers To this the Apostle replied That though John's Baptism did openly oblige to nothing but Repentance yet that it did implicitly acknowledge the whole Doctrine concerning Christ and the Holy Ghost Whereto they assenting were solemnly initiated by Christian Baptism and the Apostle laying his hands upon them they immediately received the Holy Ghost in the gift of Tongues Prophecy and other miraculous powers conferred upon them 4. AFTER this he 〈◊〉 into the Jewish Synagogues where for the first three months he contended and disputed with the Jews endeavouring with great earnestness and resolution to convince them of the truth of those things that concerned the Christian Religion But when instead of success he met with nothing but refractoriness and infidelity he left the Synagogue and taking those with him whom he had converted instructed them and others that resorted to him in the School of one Tyrannus a place where Scholars were wont to be educated and instructed In this manner he continued for two years together In which time the Jews and Proselytes of the whole 〈◊〉 Asia had opportunity of having the Gospel preached to them And because Miracles are the clearest evidence of a Divine commission and the most immediate Credentials of Heaven those which do nearliest affect our senses and consequently have the strongest influence upon our minds therefore God was pleased to ratifie the doctrine which S. Paul delivered by great and miraculous operations and those of somewhat a more peculiar and extraordinary nature Insomuch that he did not only heal those that came to him but if Napkins or Handkerchiefs were but touched by him and applied unto the sick their diseases immediately vanished and the Daemons and evil Spirits departed out of those that were possessed by them 5. EPHESUS above all other places in the World was noted of old for the study of Magick and all secret and hidden Arts whence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so often spoken of by the Ancients which were certain obscure and mystical Spells and Charms by which they endeavoured to heal Diseases and drive away evil Spirits and do things beyond the reach and apprehensions of common people Besides other professors of this black Art there were at this time at Ephesus certain Jews who dealt in the arts of 〈◊〉 and Incantation a craft and mystery which Josephus affirms to have been derived from Solomon who he tells us did not only find it out but composed forms of Exorcism and Inchantment whereby to cure diseases and expel
34. Behold I send unto you prophets and wisemen and scribes some of them ye shall kill and crucifie some of them shall ye scurge in your synagogues and persecute them from Cyty to City The Sacred History sparing in the Acts of the succeeding Apostles and why S. Andrew's Birth-place Kindred and way of Life John the Baptist's Ministry and Discipline S. Andrew educated under his Institution His coming to Christ and 〈◊〉 to be a Disciple His Election to the Apostolate The Province assigned for his Ministry In what places he chiesly preached His barbarous usage at Sinope His planting Christianity at Byzantium and ordaining Stachys Bishop there His travails in Greece and preaching at Patrae in Achaia His arraignment before the Proconsul and resolute defence of the Christian Religion The Proconsul's displeasure against him whence An account of his Martyrdom His preparatory sufferings and crucifixion On what kind of Cross he suffered The Miracles reported to be done by his Body It s translation to Constantinople The great Encomium given of him by one of the Ancients 1. THE Sacred Story which has hitherto been very large and copious in describing the Acts of the two first Apostles is henceforward very sparing in its accounts giving us only now and then a few oblique and accidental remarques concerning the rest and some of them no further mentioned than the meer recording of their Names For what reasons it pleased the Divine wisdom and providence that no more of their Acts should be consigned to Writing by the Pen-men of the Holy story is to us unknown Probably it might be thought convenient that no more account should be given of the first plantations of Christianity in the World than what concerned Judaea and the Neighbour-countries at least the most eminent places of the Roman Empire that so the truth of the Prophetical Predictions might appear which had foretold that the Law of the Messiah should come forth from Sion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Besides that a particular relation of the Acts of so many 〈◊〉 done in so many several Countries might have swell'd the Holy Volumes into too great a bulk and rendred them less serviceable and accommodate to the ordinary use of Christians Among the Apostles that succeed we first take notice of S. Andrew He was born at Bethsaida a City of Galilee standing upon the banks of the Lake of Gennesareth Son to John or Jonas a Fisherman of that Town Brother he was to Simon Peter but whether Elder or Younger the Ancients do not clearly decide though the major part intimate him to have been the younger Brother there being only the single authorlty of Epiphanius on the other side as we have formerly noted He was brought up to his Father's Trade whereat he laboured till our Lord called him from catching Fish to be a Fisher of men for which he was fitted by some preparatory Institutions even before his coming unto Christ. 2. JOHN the Baptist was lately risen in the Jewish Church a Person whom for the efficacy and impartiality of his Doctrine and the extraordinary strictness and austerities of his Life the Jews generally had in great veneration He trained up his Proselytes under the Discipline of Repentance and by urging upon them a severe change and reformation of life prepared them to entertain the Doctrine of the Messiah whose approach he told them was now near at hand representing to them the greatness of his Person and the importance of the design that he was come upon Besides the multitudes that promiscuously flock'd to the Baptists discourses he had according to the manner of the Jewish Masters some peculiar and select Disciples who more constantly attended upon his Lectures and for the most part waited upon his Person In the number of these was our Apostle who was then with him about Jordan when our Saviour who some time since had been baptized came that way upon whose approach the Baptist told them that this was the 〈◊〉 the great Person whom he had so 〈◊〉 spoken of to usher in whose appearing his whole Ministry was but subservient that this was the Lamb of God the true Sacrifice that was to expiate the sins of Mankind Upon this testimony Andrew and another Disciple probably S. John follow our Saviour to the place of his abode Upon which account he is generally by the Fathers and ancient Writers stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the first called Disciple though in a strict sence he was not so for though he was the first of the Disciples that came to Christ yet was he not called till afterwards After some converse with him Andrew goes to acquaint his Brother Simon and both together came to Christ. Long they stayed not with him but returned to their own home and to the exercise of their calling wherein they were imployed when somewhat more than a Year after our Lord passing through Galilee found them 〈◊〉 upon the Sea of Tiberias where he fully satisfied them of the Greatness and Divinity of his Person by the convictive evidence of that miraculous draught of Fishes which they took at his command And now he told them he had other work for them to do that they should no longer deal in Fish but with Men whom they should catch with the efficacy and influence of that Doctrine that he was come to deliver to the World commanding them to follow him as his immediate Disciples and Attendants who accordingly left all and followed him Shortly after S. Andrew together with the rest was called to the Office and Honour of the Apostolate made choice of to be one of those that were to be Christ's immediate Vice-gerents for planting and propagating the Christian Church Little else is particularly recorded of him in the Sacred story being comprehended in the general account of the rest of the Apostles 3. AFTER our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and that the Holy 〈◊〉 had in its miraculous powers been plentifully shed upon the Apostles to fit them for the great errand they were to go upon to root out prophaneness and idolatry and to subdue the World to the Doctrine of the Gospel it is generally affirmed by the Ancients that the Apostles agreed among themselves by lot say some probably not without the special guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost what parts of the World they should severally take In this division S. Andrew had Scythia and the Neighbouring Countries primarily allotted him for his Province First then he travelled through Cappadocia Galatia and Bithynia and instructed them in the Faith of Christ pasling all along the Euxin Sea formerly called Axenus from the barbarous and inhospitable temper of the People thereabouts who were wont to sacrifice strangers and of their skulls to make Cups to drink in in their Feasts and Banquets and so into the solitudes of Scythia An ancient Author though whence deriving his intelligence I know not gives us a more particular
Divine Commission nor probably so much as heard any tidings of his appearance and especially being a Galilean and so of a more rustick and unyielding temper But it cannot be doubted but that he was admirably versed in the writings of Moses and the Prophets Metaphrastes assures us though how he came to know it otherwise than by conjecture I cannot imagine that from his childhood he had excellent education that he frequently read over Moses his Books and considered the Prophecies that related to our Saviour And was no question awakened with the general expectations that were then on foot among the Jews the date of the Prophetick Scriptures concerning the time of Christ's coming being now run out that the 〈◊〉 would immediately appear Add to this that the Divine grace did more immediately accompany the command of Christ to incline and dispose him to believe that this person was that very 〈◊〉 that was to come 3. NO sooner had Religion taken possession of his mind but like an active principle it began to 〈◊〉 and diffuse it self A way he goes and 〈◊〉 Nathanael a person of note and eminency acquaints him with the tidings of the new-found Messiah and conducts him to him So forward is a good man to draw and direct others in the same way to happiness with himself After his call to the Apostleship much is not recorded of him in the Holy story 'T was to him that our Saviour propounded the question What they should do for so much bread in the wilderness as would feed so vast a multitude to which he answered That so much was not easily to be had not considering that to feed two or twenty thousand are equally 〈◊〉 to Almighty Power when pleased to exert it self 'T was to him that the Gentile Proselytes that came up to the Passeover addressed themselves when desirous to see our Saviour a person of whom they had heard so loud a fame 'T was with him that our Lord had that discourse concerning himself a little before the last Paschal Supper The holy and compassionate Jesus had been fortifying their minds with fit considerations against his departure from them had told them that he was going to prepare room for them in the Mansions of the Blessed that he himself was the way the truth and the life and that no man could come to the Father but by him and that knowing him they both knew and had seen the Father Philip not duly understanding the force of our Saviour's reasonings begged of him that he would shew them the Father and then this would abundantly convince and satisfie them We can hardly suppose he should have such gross conceptions of the Deity as to imagine the Father vested with a corporeal and visible nature but Christ having told them that they had seen him and he knowing that God of old was wont frequently to appear in a visible shape he only desired that he would 〈◊〉 himself to them by some such appearance Our Lord gently reproved his ignorance that aster so long attendance upon his instructions he should not know that he was the Image of his Father the express characters of his infinite wisdom power and goodness appearing in him that he said and did nothing but by his Father's appointment which if they did not believe his miracles were a sufficient evidence That therefore such demands were unnecessary and impertinent and that it argued great weakness after more than three years education under his discipline and Institution to be so unskilful in those matters God expects improvement according to mens opportunities to be old 〈◊〉 ignorant in the School of Christ deserves both reproach and punishment 't is the character of very bad persons that they are ever learning but never come to the knowledge of the truth 4. IN the distribution of the several Regions of the World made by the Apostles though no mention be made by Origen or 〈◊〉 what part fell to our Apostle yet we are told by others that the Upper Asia was his Province the reason doubtless why he is said by many to have preached and planted Christianity in 〈◊〉 where he applied himself with an indefatigable diligence and industry to recover men out of the snare of the Devil to the embracing and acknowledgment of the truth By the constancy of his preaching and the efficacy of his Miracles he gained numerous Converts whom he baptized into the Christian Faith at once curing both Souls and Bodies their Souls of Error and Idolatry their Bodies of infirmities and distempers healing diseases dispossessing Daemons setling Churches and appointing them Guides and Ministers of Religion 5. HAVING for many years successfully managed his Apostolical Office in all those parts he came in the last periods of his life to Hierapolis in Phrygia a City rich and populous but answering its name in its Idolatrous Devotions Amongst the many vain and trifling Deities to whom they payed religious adoration was a Serpent or Dragon in memory no doubt of that infamous Act of Jupiter who in the shape of a Dragon insinuated himself into the embraces of Proserpina his own Daughter begot of Ceres and whom these phrygians chiefly worshipped as Clemens Alexandrinus tells us so little reason had Baronius to say that they worshipped no such God of a more prodigious bigness than the rest which they worshipped with great and solemn veneration S. Philip was troubled to see the people so wretchedly enslaved to error and therefore continually solicited Heaven till by prayer and calling upon the name of Christ he had procured the death or at least vanishing of this famed and beloved Serpent Which done he told them how unbecoming it was to give Divine honours to such odious creatures that God alone was to be worshipped as the great Parent of the World who had made man at first after his own glorious Image and when fallen from that innocent and happy state had sent his own Son into the World to redeem him who died and rose from the dead and shall come again at the last day to raise men out of their Graves and to sentence and reward them according to their works The success was that the people were ashamed of their fond Idolatry and many broke loose from their chains of darkness and ran over to Christianity Whereupon the great enemy of mankind betook himself to his old methods cruelty and persecution The Magistrates of the City seise the Apostle and having put him into prison caused him to be severely whip'd and scourg'd This preparatory cruelty passed he was led to execution and being bound was hanged up by the neck against a pillar though others tell us that he was crucified We are further told that at his execution the Earth began suddenly to quake and the ground whereon the people stood to sink under them which when they apprehended and bewailed as an evident act of Divine vengeance pursuing them for their sins it as