bought into the Colledge Library and to the Vniversity Library he bequeath'd by Will all his own Books which cost him about 1500 l. It was his judgment that a Bishop was bound by antient Canons to dispend his Episcopal Revenues in Acts of charity and therefore no year passed without some eminent actions of that kind which were never written in any Book upon Earth the more certain that they are in Heaven To the several Prisons in London he sent oftentimes good relief by a Friend whom he ever straitly charged to conceal from whence it came When the Plague was in London he collected from his poor Diocess 351 l. by November Anno 65. for the City in that woful time besides what he sent particularly and bountifully to his old Parish of Holbourn from himself And all this he did without being burthensome to his Clergy ever giving them quick dispatch when they repaired to him for Institution and gave in charge to dismiss them with very small Fees Whenever he gave any of them preferment he was as clear from Simony as from Witchcraft which he detested above all sins and ever accounted it among the fatal Prognosticks of a dying Church When Jason outbid Onias and Menelaus outbid Jason 300 Talents it is set down as a prodigious token of the destruction of Jerusalem and joyned with the fiery Horsemen that appeared in the next Chapter to the same affrighting purpose Truth is in his poor Church he had but few preferments to give otherwise he would say he would never suffer good Scholars to sit close in their Studies unpreferred while others who less deserved sharkt them away To give the best Preferments to the worst men was in his opinion to set the Goats on the right hand and the Sheep on the left which would certainly hasten the Divine Judgment which would decree righteousness I will only add further upon this Head that wherever any object commendable and deserving was represented to him there needed not much speaking his charity was Distillatio Favi like the dropping of an Honeycomb you need not press it it would drop of it self without straining But for such as were Validi mendicantes Vagabonds and sturdy Beggars who had both health and limbs and yet sought to eat their bread by the sweat of others our Bishop never would encourage them for by long acquaintance with Judges he had heard they were generally Atheists Libertines living in promiscuous lust Pilferers evil Servants to God unprofitable to the King and Common-wealth dishonorers of the Christian Name and therefore sometimes was of the mind to go from the Church to the Quarter Sessions and complain there that Gods heavy Judgments would fall upon that Kingdom where these were permitted There never was a greater Enemy to idleness than this diligent and painful Bishop who would seldom spare an afternoon but nothing could divert him from his Morning study to his last and say he was then like a French-man primo impetu acerrimus best in a Morning and that Aurora was the Mother of Hony-dews and Pearls which dropt from Scholars Pens upon their Papers and ever reckoned that he had great advantage of some great Divines Dr. Holdsworth and Jeffries his dear Friends whom for their late watchings he called Noctuae Londinenses But by a constant study he had searcht into all kinds of learning he had been a great enquirer into the knowledg of Nature and made many peculiar observations of very many Creatures especially Bees Spiders Snails and of all sorts of Husbandry and would often merrily say since Husbandry was turned over to Swains and mean persons the Earth disdain'd to give so luxuriant a Crop as when it was turned up laureato vomere triumphali aratro by a laureat Plowman and one that had triumph'd in the Capitol and that it was much easier to be great and rich than wise and learned and if it were not below his Profession he would undertake to grow rich by Hops having strange skill in the weather and in the nature of the Plant so that he had an extraordinary foresight when they were likely to take or not as Aristotle reports of Thales the wise man that one year he bought up all the Oyle before hand when he foresaw the scarcity of the next but the Bishop intended nothing but Philosophy and therein the contemplation of the Creator of all things asserting that the least creature beneath us was worthy the contemplation of our whole life and yet would not be throughly understood and that David worthily made a Choir of all Creatures to praise God from the greatest Angel in the Host of Heaven to the smallest Flake of Snow In his younger time he had been much addicted to School-learning being then much used in the Vniversity but afterwards grew weary of it and professed he found more shadows and names than solid juyce and substance in it and would much mislike their horrid and barbarous terms more proper for Incantation than Divinity and became perfectly of B. Rhenanus his mind that the Schoolmen were rather to be reckoned Philosophers than Divines but if any pleased to account them such he had much rather with St. John Chrysostom be styled a pious Divine than an invincible or irrefragable one with T. Aquinas or our own Country-man Alex. Hales For knowledg in the Tongues he would confess he could never fix uppon Arabian learning the place was siticulosa regio a dry and barren land where no water is and had been discouraged in his younger years by such as had plodded most in it and often quarrelled his great friend Salmasius for saying he accounted no man solidly learned without skill in Arabick and other Eastern Languages our Bishop declared his mind otherwise and bewailed that many good Wits of late years prosecuted the Eastern Languages so much as to neglect the Western learning and discretion too sometimes Mr. Selden and Bishop Creitton had both affirmed to him that they should often read ten Pages for one line of sense and one word of moment and did confess there was no learning like to what Scholars may find in Greek Authors as Plato Plutarch c. and himself could never discern but that many of their quotations and proofs from them were in his own words incerta inexplorata 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After all this I would detein the Reader no longer in things of less concern especially knowing it to be against his mind to permit any Picture of himself that could not represent him within as well as without approving what Plotinus said that the other was only the Image of an Image and in thirty years commonly out of fashion and then grew ridiculous and serv'd only to make people laugh yet he had one taken by stealth to which I will add only a touch or two as is usual quia me juvat ire per omnem Heroa He was of bodily stature small and slender in all parts
thirty he drew in his head and in the fulness of ripe years he came to be baptized in Jordan Dion accounts it an happiness in Trajan that he began to govern the Roman Empire in his staid years I think he was then forty years old Vt neque per juventutem quicquam temere aggrederetur neque per senectutem languesceret that he was neither rash in execution by the heat of youth nor slow and timorous by the infirmity of age But the sacred story of the Scripture will give us instances that accord more aptly with our Saviour Joseph was thirty years old when he began to govern Egypt as who shoul say he was in the flower of abilities Joseph rul'd in another mans right David the best King of Israel in his own and he was thirty years old when be began to reign in Judah But because our Saviour offered himself to be known in my Text not in his Kingly but in his Priestly Office to be baptized for the washing away of our sins therefore the the best application will be to find the manner and custom of the Priests in the old Law and then for your satisfaction consult with the fourth of Numbers and it is ten times exprest in that Chapter that the Levites were to wait upon the work of the Tabernacle from thirty years upward and not before and at that very age Christ came to the waters of Jordan to be anointed an high Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech From this example some Canons have issued out in ancient Councils that none should take the Orders of a Priest before this age wherein our Saviour began to preach Afterward some years were abated for taking Priesthood yet peremptorily it was defin'd and never recalled that I know by any other Council that none should be allowed for a Bishop under the age of thirty So the Church of England hath appointed and commanded in the Book of Ordination of Priests and Consecration of Bishops which Book is confirm'd and ratified by Act of Parliament and yet it is sometimes dispensed withal in Rome that Children may hold the Title of the richest Archbishoprick in the world Viderit utilitas judge whether it be meant for the honour of God or for the profit of man Nazianzen urgeth it stiffly that the measure of this age of Christ is to be respected in every man before he negotiate in sacred Function to teach the Word of God Gregory collects the same from my Text Perfectae vitae gratiam non nisi perfectâ aetate praedicavit He taught his Disciples how to obtain the perfect life of glory when himself was gone on in his race to the perfect life of nature and like a good Master-builder he directs Novices as St. Paul calls them 1 Tim. iii. 6. to forbear a while and to give place to well-season'd Timber to make Pillars for the Church of God I have heard of a more satyrical similitude but a very true one that the Kine which gave milk drew the Ark to Bethshemesh and the young Calves were shut up in their Stalls at home I could not but give this instruction by the way taken from the complete age wherein our Saviour began to execute his Priestly Office There is a rub cast in my way by the Anabaptists which I must remove and so conclude this Point an exception against the Baptism of Infants because our Saviour was baptized in his manly stature Nay rather this collection is to be warranted that the children of faithful Parents are to be baptized in infancy even as Christ was circumcised an infant the eighth day And if any be converted to the Faith in their grown years it is not too late to come to that Sacrament for the washing away of their sins because Christ himself and many multitudes of elder people were baptized of John Surely Circumcision in the old Law doth so expresly answer to Baptism in the Gospel both being the first seals of the righteousness of faith that it stands uncontroulable that little ones are to be baptized as well as they were circumcized and the Ordinance of Circumcision being once appointed to belong to Infants the Holy Ghost hath spared the labour to appoint any other age for the Baptism of Christian Children as if no reasonable man could make a question of it And as all Israel that came out of Egypt men women and children were baptized that is had the figure of Baptism in the Cloud and in the Sea through which they marcht and escapt the pursuit of Pharoah so in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile Bond nor Free Male nor Female Young nor Old no difference of Nations Age or Sex but all are baptized unto the Remission of sins Our Saviour suffered his disciples to doubt somewhat concerning Infants for our better resolution for when they rebuked such as brought Babes unto him Jesus called them and said Suffer little Children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God Suffer them to come why we cannot put them into Christs arms where he sits in glory how shall they come unto him then unless we present them in the Sacrament Besides that which follows presseth further Theirs is the kingdom of heaven it is not theirs by such right as the Angels hold their place in heaven because they are free from sin And how can it be theirs since they are dead in Adam unless it be theirs by the seal of some Covenant And that is the Fountain of Regeneration I call them regenerate in that Fountain for as Christ blessed them when he took them up in his own arms so he blesseth them in our arms and if they be blest they are regenerate And so likewise they are made believers but after what sort they believe I know not St. Austin hath two opinions The first on this wise Accommodat mater Ecclesia aliorum pedes ut veniant aliorum cor â—t credant c. The Church our mother helps babes with other folks feet to bring them to the Font with other mens hearts to believe with other mens tongues to confess the truth so he means they are called Believers by the faith of the Congregation till they come to age to know Christ themselves His other opinion grants that Infants themselves are believers even as faith is in men that sleep who do not perceive it Aqua forinsecus exhibet sacramentum gratiae spiritus sanctus intrinsecus operatur beneficium gratiae The water sprinkles them with the outward Sacrament of grace and the Spirit breaths upon them the inward blessing of grace I see no cause why we may not apprehend this and assent unto it 1. It is as easie to apprehend they have a faith which they cannot use as to know they have an intellectual reason which they cannot employ And to facilitate our assent one urgeth it modestly thus it was passing strange that
is in his own house and may lurk there safe and secure but when he departs this life and comes out of doors Vae capiti woe be to him then his torment was deferred to be increased When Hagar and Ismael had spent their bottle of water and were ready to give up the Ghost for thirst was not this a good time to remember how injuriously Sarah had been despised and Isaac mocked And that both he and she were the root and fruit of fornication He that in the distress of scarcity will smite his hand upon his breast and examine his secret faults and say I have sinned against the Lord this man hath made great gain of his poverty Quisque optat cum sanâ mente lamentari quà m cum insanâ perpetuò ridere says Gregory Who had not rather with the enjoying of his wits be weak than with the loss of his wits be strong and merry So who had not rather feel the Famine and misery of the world and repent than flow in the satiety of all things never feel the sting of his sins and die impenitent As one said that good Fathers sometimes have wicked Children lest vertue should seem to descend by natural inheritance and again wicked Fathers have sometimes vertuous Children that wickedness may not run on in a perpetual propagation so riches and abundance lest they should be thought to be no blessings at all now and then fall upon the best And yet lest you should think them the best of all things now and then they fall upon the worst men Or as another draws out the line of justice very well no man is absolutely good or absolutely evil but as the best have some evil in them so the worst have some good some talent of nature which serves for the use of Common-wealths encrease of Arts publick peace or some ornament of the Universe therefore the good of the worst men is rewarded with a gift of outward fortune and the evil of the best men is punished with scarcity no wonder therefore if he that is the Son of God do sometimes pine for lack of bread Fourthly Though a good man labour and watch and cannot earn the bread of his carefulness yet he shall fill his bosom with better fruits for occasion is given hereby to the righteous to exercise these three spiritual graces Prayer and Patience and Charity Prayer comes after trouble and necessity as Resurrection comes after death Even the very Philistins were driven to repentance to restitution to send back the Ark of God into his own Land when the Lord smote them with Emerauds and diseases If such fruits grew from an evil stock when a vengeance and calamity was in their Land then much better fruits of sighs and prayer will bud from them who are planted by the rivers of waters who weep and lament that their iniquities have deserved such great chastisement The Beasts and Fowls of the air do lack and suffer hunger that by the voice of nature they may call upon the Lord to be replenished then the young Ravens do call upon him and the Lions roaring after their prey do seek their meat of God He is the door which opens to let forth all blessings spiritual and temporal Quam nemo nisi ebrius ignorat as one says ' None but a reeling drunkard can miss the door into which he should pass David seems to utter a Paradox Psal xxxvii 25. I never saw the righteous forsaken nor his seed beg their bread Surely experience is opposite to this and the Posterity of many have been in great want whose memory is blessed for their righteous conversation Some have very well turn'd the Verb beg into a Participle begging and then the construction is fair I never saw the righteous forsaken nor his seed forsaken begging their bread for they are not forsaken to whom the Lord gives patience in the inward man though they be destitute and forsaken Let God wrestle as he will and cast us down yet we must pray and suffer and not let him go until he bless us But abundance of all things is a great slur unto devotion In Egypt where the River Nilus over-flows their grounds constantly instead of rain and where the heaven is clear continually above nemo oratorum coelos aspicit the heathen could say so God had fewer Prayers made unto him there than in any place of the world Therefore lay the beginning of this Point unto the end is not the soul better than the body Is not the spirit of Prayer better than a full barn Is not a little holiness better than all the Vintage of Abiezer Moreover we are commanded patience we promise patience and I hope we resolve patience now that we may draw this good motion out of the secret corners of our heart distress and penury will put it in practice This is it which St. Austin calls Gods great allowance above thousands of Gold and Silver Patrimonium fidei patientiae in corde Christ makes the righteous sole Executors and Administrators of his patience Be not tormented with emulation though you see another shine like a bigger Planet than your self though you see the most vicious man set over you in advancement Dabo huic novissimo sicut tibi The Owner of all the Earth may do what he will with his own he will give unto him that is last in his favour as unto thee nay more than unto thee in this life yet I cannot call it more if you will balance those light wares with the talent of your Patience When God took all from Job yet says Gregory Patientiae munere coronabatur He was crowned like a Saint in heaven with the victorious Crown of patience upon earth Is it not better to suffer in the present because we had not these things to use than suffer because we had them and did abuse them It is a saying attributed to the supposed Dionysius Divinae justitiae est non emollire optimorum fortitudinem materialium donationibus It suits well with the Divine Justice and Providence not to make the fortitude of his Saints effeminate with abundance And if they had always their Salary of earthly blessings here as upon compact their Religion would be more weighed down with Avarice than confirmed with patience The last spiritual exercise which is caused by the need and want of Gods beloved is this that merciful minded men may fill the bellies of the hungry with the bread of their charity God hath suffered his fire to wast away the habitation of the poor man that your contribution may build him up again a covering for his head and those good works shall receive you into the everlasting Mansions The waves of the Sea swallow up the substance of our brethren that our collections may restore it again and this is it which Solomon calls Casting our bread upon the waters Jacob and the Patriarches were well-nigh famished in the Land of Canaan that Pharaoh might relieve them
me yet they are not so uncharitable to bid Anathema to any in so disputable a point I am sure St. Austin having disputed on both sides concludes he would not strive eagerly with him that should say sins were remitted in the Baptism of John meaning it did not essentially differ from the Baptism of Christ yet I will end with this third observation that in some less principal respects the Baptism of Christ doth exceed the Baptism of John I will name five distinctions 1. In formâ verborum John baptized in the name of the Messias that came after him Acts xix 4. and it was more advantage to teach it to every of the Jews as he baptized them one by one than to proclaim it to the whole multitude But Christ bade his Disciples choose another form and for that he would not take all honour to himself it must be in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 2. They differ in amplitudine nationum John medled with none but such as were within the Regions of Judea Christ bad his Disciples to except no people but to wash all Nations from their sins 3. Christs Baptism transcends Johns in varietate personarum for it sounds not to likelihood that John baptized Infants they could not confess their sins nor learn the doctrine of Repentance nor be taught the coming of the Messias such only came to him But Christs Baptism pertains to little ones and his spirit was poured out upon all flesh your Sons and Daughters shall Prophesie and your young men see visions 4. Christs Baptism hath the upper hand in gradibus efficaciae the Spirit is more operative in Baptism since Christ did go to his Father to send us the Comforter than ever it was before 5. It is greater than Johns baptism in modo necessitatis The Sacraments of the New Testament had the seeds of life in them from the first institution and they were good to the receiver but they were not imposed by necessary commandment till the old Law was quite abolished and that was at the Resurrection says Leo or at the farthest in other mens opinions at the feast of Pentecost So Johns baptism was always good never necessary Christs baptism is always good is and ever will be necessary unto the end of the world These are less principal differences the substance of both being the same for one thing yet remains to be proposed that the Baptism of John opened the gate unto everlasting life as some have shewed by an Allegorical reason taken from the place where John did baptize Christ in Jordan says this Text not a private dipping in a Chamber and of all other places of Jordan it was Bethabara Joh. i. 28. which is being interpreted Domus transitus the house of passing over even in all likelihood where Joshuah divided Jordan and passed over into the Land of Promise this is the circumstance of place which I propounded the fortunate seat where this work was done to betoken that as Joshuah brought the twelve Tribes at that very standing through the River into that pleasant Land which was promised to Abraham so Jesus will bring us through the sprinkling of water into the Kingdom of heaven AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 14. But John forbad him saying I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me IN which Text you may see that ancient Sentence verified how an ambitious man is afraid left too little honour be cast upon him and an humble man is afraid of too much Our blessed Saviour saw multitudes of Penitents coming to John to be baptized and to confess their sins Among these people whose iniquities stood in need of cleansing he steps in for one into the River Jordan not to receive Sanctification unto himself but to sanctifie the waters unto others O exceeding dignity far above all honour that ever was vouchsafed to any Prophet for to which of them was it said at any time Dip thine hand in water and anoint the head of my Son And therefore Christ was pleased to give this Character of John that he was more than a Prophet More than a Prophet not only in the Office which he sustained to be the immediate fore-runner of the Messias but more than any Prophet or Patriarch in the expression of his humility Jacob wrestled with God but it was to get a blessing from his Angel he would not be denied John the Baptist wrestles with the Son of God to decline the blessing which was brought before him and fain he would be denied His hand shrunk up and durst not attempt to pour water upon his head who is the immortal head of the Church visible and invisible both of men and Angels He thought it no sin to disobey when he was required to such a work which in his eyes appeared far too excellent for any creature Therefore conceive him modestly starting back and making this reply to our Saviour Lord why dost thou tempt thy servant Why wouldst thou put the Potter into the hand of the Clay What is it to thee to be dipt in water Whose precious Bloud shall wash away all sins and mine in the reckoning among the rest Behold this exact humility more than any Prophet exprest how John forbad him to be baptized saying I have need to be baptized c. The matter of the Text may be handled in these three several Points 1. The Baptist did declare how jealous he was of Gods honour therefore the Text says he forbad Christ to come under the Ministry of a Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he would fain have put him by thinking it ignoble for the Lord of all Lords to descend so low 2. He disables himself and makes profession of his own vileness and infirmity I have need to be baptized of thee 3. He ends with the admiration of his Saviours humility And comest thou to me Yet again I will consider him in the exercise of the three spiritual vertues Faith Hope and Charity 1. He believed this was the Christ as soon as ever he saw him and that made him interpose to forbid him stoop so low as to be baptized there was his faith 2. He confesseth that he relies upon him to be baptised with his Spirit and to be saved through his merits there is his hope Lastly he breaks out into an extasie of admiration as soon as ever he saw him like old Simeon that sung a Canticle for joy Comest thou to me O thou expectation of the World O thou desire of our eyes There was his ardent love these are his Faith his Hope his Love and remember that every tittle of his praise is the rule of your practise Set your attentions now upon the first part of the Text that John was jealous of our Saviours honour and forbad him to be baptized The interpretation of the word certainly is not so harsh as it may be thought to
to favour the weakness of Infants we cast no more than a dew of water upon their face yet when young men converted from heathen Idolatry required the Baptism of the Church their whole body waded into the River even as they that came to John stood up to the neck in Jordan yea and in hotter countries Infants were dipt into the bottom of the Font this the Fathers called a resemblance that the old Adam was buried in the waters St. Paul makes it a mystery that we are buried with Christ therefore I find that some were wont especially to baptize on the Satterday wherein Christ lay in the Grave and a threefold immersion of the Child into the water was an usual Ceremony because Christ lay buried three days in the Sepulchre After the representation of burial in the outward Element the good use of that Sacrament tells us we should die unto sin I say first buried and then die for the end of being buried with Christ is that we should die daily unto sin This order is no hard thing to conceive for suppose a man by mischance sunk into the bottom of the water before he loseth his life and dies it is true to say that he is buried in the stream which is gone over his head therefore upon this burial-resembling baptism it behoves you to die unto the world and to mortifie your members upon earth The death of sin is thus to be conceived not an utter privation of all evil but a beating down of concupiscence it is a death to your Adversary the Devil when he cannot reign in your mortal body Weeds which are cut down perhaps will grow no more but their savour still stinks upon your dunghil So you may sheare down the viciousness of your life like an unprofitable weed lay it dead and let it grow no more but it will ever leave a noisom smell in our nature While we live in this world flesh is but a dunghil of corruption it made St. Paul have a great desire to be dissolved that he might be a sweet savour in Christ As we are buried and die with Christ in Baptism so we must rise with him through the faith of the operation of God Col. ii 12. For when Christ is given to us to be our life to what end should we die as it were with him in the Laver of new birth unless it be to rise up in a new life This meditation cannot choose but stick by you if you will always carry the remembrance of those words before your eyes Abrenuntio Satanae I renounce the Devil and all his works They are a part of your Indenture that you made with God and how will you answer the violating of your Covenant St. Ambrose declames thus upon it Tenetur vox tua non in tumulo mortuorum sed in libro viventium Praesentibus Angelis locutus es non est fallere non est mentiri This word is recorded not among the dead but in the book of the living The Angels were present in the Church when the Sureties in your name gave their faith to God therefore hold you to your word you must not falter you must not lie unto the Lord. Walk in newness of life that Phrase hath somewhat in it that is not said barely in a new life In novis vivendi formis let there be no kind of likeness and conformity to thy self as once thou wert a neglecter of Prayer a Traducer a Fornicator a Drunkard an Oppressor Here is a Temple built up new unto the Holy Ghost which once was a den of uncleanness that which is to come of my life is altogether consecrated to the glory of my Saviour look not therefore before me now but get thee behind me Satan You have now heard all the five Reasons upon the second part of the Text why Christ was baptized I said in the third place it was but a preparatory to greater matters which should follow therefore he went up straightway out of the water The Text says straightway as who should say he staid not long upon that Circumstance no more will we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did ascend out of Jordan and very presently both these are the crums of the Text and they must not be lost Literally it imports that Christ stood not upon the shore having a few drops of water cast upon him but he went with his whole body into the River to intimate that if God should not help the deep waters of our sins would take us up to the neck and the stream had gone over our soul So Philip and the Eunuch went down into the waters Acts viii 38. That great Courtier of Queen Candace stript himself of all his cloaths before his servants that he might wash from head to foot What was it to him to be naked in the sight of divers men He was so ashamed of his sins that he forgot all other shamefac'dness Thus he press'd close to the example of our Saviour who went down into the stream of Jordan and it being not the time of harvest when that River used to fill his banks he went up and ascended from the Pool St. Austin allegorizeth Confestim ascendit ut ostendat quà m gravi onere in baptismo liberamur He went up nimbly to the banks to shew that by Baptism we are lightned of the great burden of our sins and fit to ascend unto our Father Others fasten this observation upon it that Christ went straightway out of the water For his Baptism was done with more speed and expedition than the common peoples the reason is this Among the multitude every one was baptized confessing their sins that took up some time to detain them before they parted Christ staid for no more than the sprinkling of the River who had no sins to confess and straightway went out of the water St. Luke affords a pious conjecture Luk. iii. 21. being baptized he prayed Therefore to teach us with what reverence these great mysteries are to be entertained he made hast incontinently to the shore to fall upon his knees and pray unto his Father Adoremus coram creatore says the Psalmist O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our maker If we are to worship him even as low as with the most humble prostration of our face upon the earth because he created us and gave us the life of nature then what knee can be so refractory as not to worship and fall down when we celebrate his infinite goodness in either of the Sacraments that he hath redeemed us from eternal death called us to the participation of grace and given us assurance in those blessed Seals of his Covenant that we shall enjoy the life of glory Remember what I said in the beginning beware of obstinacy Lastly He went up out of the waters to shew us every good deed is a step into another Do but enter into the practice of one good action and
in domo charitatis in a charitable Hospital family every man hastened to a good work as if he had flown like a Dove Was not Paul a brave wing'd Apostle that traversed much of Asia and preacht the Gospel in every place from Jerusalem to Illyricum Seventhly The Doves eyes are fixt upon the Rivers of waters Cant. v. 12. some say out of vigilancy to espy therein the gliding of the Kite that flies above and to save it self So the spiritual man looks backward to the first waters wherein he was dipt to the Vow which he made in Baptism There he remembers his Garment was made white and he must not stain it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not only to wash away filth but to give tincture or colour to that which is died So in Baptism the foul spots of iniquity are taken forth and by sanctification a clear gloss is set upon our soul It was the exhortation of old at Baptism Accipe vestem candidam immaculatam c. Take this white garment pure and undefiled it was their Ceremony to put on such and keep it undefiled against the day of the Lord. Et grege de niveo gaudia pastor habet says Lactantius The Shepherd rejoyceth to see the fleeces of his Lambs fair and unspotted These are pennae deargentatae as the Psalmist says the Doves wings are silver wings and if they be bright Silver here it will be changed into a better Metal hereafter a Crown of Gold whose wings are silver wings and the feathers of Gold Lastly As it was toucht before in the days of Noah the Dove was a presager of a better world to come and in this Text likewise it is Nuncia futuri seculi the happy annuntiate that there is a better world to come when these evil days of sin and misery are ended So we are sealed with the holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance the Spirit is a pledge of that possession which is purchased for us in the Kingdom of heaven whither he bring us c. THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 17. And loe a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased SPeak O Heaven and hearken O Earth unto the word of the Lord. The Earth must keep silence and give ear when God is his own Orator himself and utters his pleasure with his own voice As it is usual when some great Palace is raising fron the Foundation that the Master of the Possession will lay the first stone with his own hands So the Church being to be built up again in the New Testament not upon the foundation of Works but upon Faith not upon Moses but upon Jesus Christ Loe the mighty God publisheth the first tidings of reconciliation from his own mouth and himself in the Prophet Isaiahs Phrase doth lay in Sion a chief corner stone elect and precious for the Foundation which sustains the whole body of the Saints is no other but such as is contained in that brief Proclamation which I have read unto you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Some of the Fathers very aptly call the Text Gods ample testimonial given to his Son that the world might receive him gladly being about to preach the glad tidings of salvation Moses you know would not offer himself to the Children of Israel to be the means that should release them from Pharaohs bondage before he had a token of Credence who did send him to the People and the Lord said unto him Thou shalt say I am hath sent me unto you So our High Priest and anointed Saviour would keep that form to have a clear testificate to commend him to the World Now a Dove was but a dumb shew and might be interpreted many ways wherefore an articulate and a majestical voice was heard from heaven which would pierce the ears of all that were gathered together and could not be mistaken In that nature therefore as a Testimonial given to him that was now about to be the great Preacher of righteousness I will divide the Text 1. The Person that did bear witness it is the Father 2. The manner how he testified to the honour of his Son by a voice Loe a voice 3. The authority of that voice which was every way to be accepted because it was from heaven 4. The Person to whom the witness is born to a Son This is my Son 5. What is witnessed of him in respect of himself that he was beloved This is my beloved 6. What is witnessed of him in respect of our consolation that he is filius complacentiae in whom and through whom the Father is well pleased That is to say not only beloved in himself but procures us to be beloved likewise for his sake for all that by Baptism have put on Christ are unto God as Christ himself is Filii dilecti complacentes Sons beloved well pleasing So the Text is our Saviours Testimonial and our own Consolation And loe a voice c. The Father is become a witness to glorifie his Son that is the first consideration to be made upon my Text. The Spirit hath done his part before now the voice the Father is come to perfect this great solemnity and so the justice of God agrees with his own Law Ex ore duorum aut trium testium Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established was ever any truth so strongly confirmed so undeniably maintained that the Father which made all things should ratifie it sensibly in the audience of men Never was it heard of but only in this case which is the top of all truth that Jesus was the Son of God Other truths we are well perswaded of which come from the light of reason or from the testimony of man yet reason may be blind and man may err but it is impossible that God should lie Heb. vi And admit it to be good for who can controul it that the Prophets and Apostles were inspired from God so that the contents which they have written are certain and infallible then his divine wisdom which gave them that instinct whatsoever he utters immediately from himself it may well stand upon comparisons that it is much more infallible So St. Hierom distinguisheth between that truth which is increate and which is infused and participate that the truth of the Saints is called a lie in respect of that verity which abideth in the Father Yea let God be true and every man a liar in which words says he it is implied that God alone is true even as he alone is said to have immortality for although he hath communicated immortality to Angels and to the souls of men yet it is not their own immortality but his love and favour to give it to them So the Prophets and holy men were inspired with true knowledge yet it was not their own truth
him we obey under the commination of hell fire if we be slack in our duty We are servants commanded to our task he did the works of him that sent him as a Prince receives the dignity of a province from his Father to administer it to his honour and if he had refused it it could not turn to his prejudice therefore both Angels and men owe as much obedience for their own part as they can perform but the dispensation of Christs humility was not imposed but freely undertaken and by that vertue and title meritorious In the last place therefore all the effects of Gods will are pleasing unto him to be done and so it is pleasing unto God to have us humble our souls sometimes before him with fasting and mourning but a good duty is wronged when the more rigid defenders of merit of condignity say that there is an equivalency and proportion between the studious keeping of some appointed Fasts with other voluntary afflictions and the reward of eternal life Is it not enough to say that our imperfect obedience pleaseth God and shall be rewarded according to his own promise and free grace Will it not satisfie us to go to heaven by mere mercy and undeserved liberality Beware to gild your works by the name of merit why should the ungodly make such proud boasting Dip them in the name of free remission of sins by the bloud of Jesus Christ and God will give glory to us his adopted Sons because we give all glory to the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 2. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterwards an hungry LET it not trouble my Auditors because I shall speak at this time of that Fast which our Saviour kept forty days this is not the proper season I confess and if any man be ready to say as one Philosopher in Laertius quipt another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why do you handle a matter that behoves us in a time that doth not behove it My answer is If I pickt out this for a single Text at this time my oversight were unpardonable but you know I take the parts of this Story in order and must follow my subject as it hapneth to be discuss'd Indeed our Church which doth always follow the steps of pure Antiquity hath appointed this portion of Gospel to be read yearly upon the first day of Lent For the memory of any great thing is better preserved when it is remembred solemnly about the time that it hapned So God said to the Children of Israel upon their coming out of Pharaohs bondage Remember this day continually in your generations Exod. xiv 3. And upon a great memorandum thus the Lord said to Ezekiel Son of man write the name of the day of this same day the King of Babylon set his face against Jerusalem this same day Ezek. xiv 3. And many have cited Nazianzen when they commend a word spoken in season Ex verbo illud potissimum quod est tempori convenientissimum That which best suits the time is best spoken out of the Scripture I subscribe to this wise direction and I do not violate it now out of neglect or contempt but upon apparent necessity that I may leave no gaps in this Scripture which I handle about our Saviours conflict with Satan but fill up the exposition of every verse as I proceed with such meditations as I am able to afford I come therefore to the remainder of this verse which is due unto you to be explained and it consists in two things The continuance of our Saviours fast and the consequent The continuance that he fasted forty days and forty nights the consequent that he was afterwards an hungry The one is a supernatural elevation the other is a natural condition In the first he shewed his divine vertue in the second his humane infirmity Upon the former the Devil feared he was the Son of God upon the latter he perswaded himself he was no more than a mortal man Whether is more strange that having flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone he should make his appetite forget to ask for sustenance so long Or being the Son of God who filleth every living thing with food himself should hunger and want In the first we admire him Be thou exalted Lord in thine own strength In the second we love him because he was made poor that we might be made rich in both we magnifie him Attend to these particulars and first that he had fasted forty days Forty days and forty nights not now a day and then a day at several times for that is easie and ordinary but all at once without intermission The Grammarians have medled with this Point to confirm it by this rule Jejunavit quadraginta dies non diebus quia tempus continuum ferè quarto casu ponitur Nouns of time expressed plurally in the Accusative case do betoken such a distance of time continued and not interrupted Therefore Christ observed a continuation of fast from the first day to the fortieth no man I think would understand it otherwise and if any were so captious St. Luke would not suffer him for his words are in those days he eat nothing Luk. iv 2. There is no efficacy in numbers said the wiser Philosophers and very truly but some numbers are apt to enforce a reverent esteem towards them by considering miraculous occurrencies which fell out in holy Scripture in such and such a number So Tolet in a sort magnifies this number of forty days that it is numerus mysteriis significandis accommodatus a number coincident very often to the greatest mysteries and noblest works of God Forty days it rained upon the earth in the days of Noah when God cleansed the great sins of the world by water Caleb and Joshuah returned from searching of the Land of Canaan after forty days Num. xiii 26. Christ continued upon earth forty days among his Disciples after he was risen from the dead before he ascended into heaven The Ninivites were forewarned that they should be consumed after forty days if they did not repent and turn unto the Lord. Thus it came to pass for what reason we cannot tell but God knows why his Providence doth so exactly and so often keep that measure of time in great signs and wonders Non potest fortuitò fieri quod tam saepe sit says one whom I never find superstitious in numbers It falls out too often to be called contingent and the oftener it falls out the more to be attended Yet it is the safest conclusion and hath least impertinency in it to say that Moses fasted forty days at the institution of the Law and Elias as long at the restauration of the Law so Christ kept even with them and fasted just as long as they before the publication of the Gospel As Jonas was three
as they were bidden and that bidding made it no intrusion upon their Fathers Providence The Lord also bad Gideon bring his Souldiers down unto the water and he would try them by a sign which of them should go against the Madianites the Lord did say it and therefore it was fit for him to obey that miraculous direction And Divines agree that it was not a fair answer in King Ahaz when God bid him ask a sign either in the depth beneath or in the height above he answered I will not ask neither will I tempt the Lord for the favour was propounded unto him both for his own part to increase his faith and much more for the instruction of all the people therefore he should have ask'd it But sometimes though upon no express command yet holy Prophets upon some divine instinct have tempted God to grant them a sign above the common and ordinary way of nature and yet their asking was laudable as Gen. xv God is very gracious to Abraham in all the passages I and commends him for his faith yet Abraham says Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this Land of Canaan And a miracle was wrought to establish the Promise unto him Thus you must interpret wheresoever in holy Scripture you find such eminent men ask a sign to whom God talkt familiarly or poured Revelations into them or spake unto them in Visions that they had a Prophetical instinct for it which maks their case different from us that walk by ordinary faith Now I pray you mark that many times wicked people undertake things of a strange condition by instinct and bring them to pass but it is not Prophetical for it is an instinct of which themselves are not aware as the Mariners were prompted by instinct no doubt to cast lots and the Lot fell right upon Jonas yet they had no feeling that the hand of the Lord was in it But it is a Prophetical instinct which makes the act warrantable when the party imployed in it by God knows it and understands it to be such and concurreth with God as well in will as in the work Eliezer Abrahams Servant was sent to provide a Wife for Isaac and coming to Mesopotamia to the City of Nahor he makes this Prayer O Lord God of my Master Abraham send me good speed this day Loe I stand by the Well of water grant that the Maid to whom I say bow down thy Pitcher I pray thee that I may drink if she say drink and I will give thy Camels drink also may be she that thou hast ordained for thy Servant Isaac And it was so in the event The Scripture makes no description of this Eliezer for a Prophet yet if he felt a motion from God to try the Marriage this way good and lawful if not howsoever God let it come to pass for Abraham and Isaacs sake the course was not excusable but superstitious The like judgment I pass upon Jonathan for God only knows by what inspiring or revelation he did this he went up against the Philistines with his Armour-bearer and he resolves if they say come up unto us we will go up For the Lord hath delivered them into our hand and this shall be a sign unto us Though some say this was not to doubt of Gods excellency but of their own act yet that distinction avails not to explore the success of your own act by means unordained for that use unless divine instinct do help it is a vicious tentation Yet this I will add Jonathans act may be rescued from being tax'd for a tempting of God and exposing themselves to most doubtful peril in that two of them fought with an whole Host for the place was narrow where they could grapple but one to one and Jonathan had the upper ground and the Promise was ratified in the Book of Moses That one of them should chase an hundred and two of them put a thousand to flight Therefore Gods Command or his Promise or a Prophetical instinct do qualifie those things to be vertuous actions which otherwise were tentations ill adventured to anger the Lord. Thirdly Weighty and extraordinary callings had need of a mighty faith to undergo them and such men of old had a liberty allowed unto them to try their Vocation by some sign or some powerful work of God both for themselves and principally for the people that were committed to their governance As Moses pleaded when he was destined to be the Captain that should bring Israel out of Egypt Loe they will not believe me nor hearken to my voice they will say the Lord hath not appeared unto thee presently he was satisfied God bad him cast forth his Rod and it became a Serpent This the Lord did bear withal and let him require an extraordinary Warrant for an extraordinary Function So Gideon being a poor Thresher was called upon by the Angel to sight for Israel against the Madianites he deprecates that the Angel would take it no offence if he desired the encouragement of a Miracle to raise his faith to an eminent pitch Be not angry with me let me prove thee once again with the Fleece let it now be dry only upon the Fleece and let dew be upon all the ground To a private man this demand had been sin but to Gideon to sustain that excellent person which the Angel imposed on him at least it was tollerable Fourthly and finally there is a speculative inquiry or Antecedent to prove Gods will and power by Signs and Tokens and that is unlawful and there is an experimental or consequent one to enquire after Gods goodness in a mans own self by descending into the effects and enumerations of his mercies and proving our own Spirit and that is lawful So Mal. iii. 10. Bring ye all the Tithes into the store-house and prove me therewith saith the Lord of Hosts if I will not open the windows of heaven unto you It were sinful to pay Tythes to that end as if you would tempt God by that conclusion whether he could open the windows of heaven and help you with store but consecutivè the trial is good do you that and God will do this put it to the success if the Lord do not treble his bounty unto those that pay him his Tythes and Offerings this is to taste and try how gracious he will be to our obedience not to put him to such effects as we imagine in the capreols of our own fancy for that is a culpable tentation So this Point being traversed as much as I intend and the time will give me leave I leave it behind me and proceed to the next What are the general heads of those presumptuous ways wherein the party sins that tempts the Lord And surely one principal and notorious offence is committed when a man exposeth his life to unnecessary dangers upon an ill-grounded confidence that God will bring him off with safety Upon this
is the only Master that we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over our spirit and câ—nscience but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must be diligent to attend our governours according to the flesh in Temporal and Civil Offices and Functions Col. iii. 22. There St. Paul gives a Livery to all Servants to wear not upon their back but upon their heart Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as men-pleasers but in singleness of heart as fearing God And whatsoever ye do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men knowing that of the Lord ye receive the reward of the Inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ Mark those last words we serve but one Master though we have one in earth and another in heaven for we serve him on earth for his sake and for his command that is in heaven When a petty Magistrate bids you do this or that in the Kings Name you obey not so much him that speaks unto you as the Kings Authority which he lays upon you So that service which is performed to man by the ordination of Christ is performed to Christ himself Servit Deo qui propter Deum servit homini as St. Hierom says upon that place of St. Paul The Lord hath set you on work to serve a Master upon earth it is his service and not mans do it diligently and faithfully and as your Masters on earth must justly give the hireling his or her Wages so over and above God will see it rewarded Vtilitas operis ad homines respicit animus operantis ad Deum The benefit of that outward work which a servant doth redounds materially to man The intention of his heart that works justly and truly is bent in conscience to God These Masters are not contrary one to another but subordinate and you shall be paid on both sides In as much as you did it to one of these you did it unto me See how God is willing to engage himself to owe us for all our Ministerial labour I know that Text was fitted by Christ to works of Charity that he who gave a cup of cold water to one of his little ones for his names sake gave it to himself but it is a general Axiom to be applied to all humane Uses and Offices which we do one to another under God In as much as you did it to one of these you did it unto me The Apostle goes so far in this Point that though a Christian were a bondman to an Infidel yet the Christian must do his task and submit himself unto him for temporal Authority and Dominion is not founded in grace And if Infidelity do not cast a man out of his Government in a private Family is there any shew or appearance that Heresie or Infidelity should make a Prince uncapable any longer to hold his Kingdom but lay him quite open to deposition from all his Dignity Neither Infidelity nor Tyranny can exempt Subjects or Servants from that homage which they owe their Superiours on earth because we are tied to subjection to these not for their own sakes but for Gods sake and he will not dispence with us Let St. Peter teach his Pro-Peter that would be 1 Ep. ii 18. Servants be subject to your Masters with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward It follows For this is thanksworthy towards God Let me dispatch You hear it not written no man can have two Masters he may have two that are subordinate Gods Service being ever preferred before mans You hear indeed no man can serve two Masters that would be equal not subordinate or Contraria praecipientes such as call you contrary ways at once or bid you do contrary things for in that case one must be served and the other neglected They that are set over you on earth must command the same thing that Christ commends and then with the same pains you content them both But if the lesser power on earth shall say hearken to me for this time and to God at some other turn Nay said the mouth of the Apostles Whether it be fitter to obey God or you judge ye Iniquum est ut illis pareatur contra Christum quibus paretur propter Christum Says the just man we serve our Masters on earth for Christs sake otherwise all underlings would rise up and cry out for Anarchy and licence which they wrongfully call liberty but we submit unto you for Christs sake and would you be obeyed against Christ when you should never be obeyed but for Christs sake No in all things lawful and honest I subject my self so I make my self a Minister to God and man conjoyntly but not divided And thus Servants obey their Masters on earth and yet observe my Text most religiously Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve AMEN THE NINETEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve AT the same time that our Saviour alleged these words out of holy Scripture against the Devil He bid him apage get thee hence as who should say this was true doctrin but no way for his turn Even as Elisha said to the Noble-man of Samaria there should be store of corn in the gates of Samaria tu tamen non gustabis but it shall do you no good you shall never taste of it Assuredly though Satan was sent away from this godly doctrine to his own place and this sentence of Holy Writ was thrown after him like a stone at a dog to make him be gone the faster yet it invites us to come about it as Wisdom says in Solomon Come near my children not get you hence hearken unto me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. For that proposition in Logick is a direct teacher which speaks positively as they say categorically what is to be done so doth this thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and then it is very satisfactory and leavs no question after it for it hath an express sign or note in it which every proposition should have which will be clear to the understanding and him Only shalt thou serve That particle of the Text is like the point of the Loadstone referring to whom all religious honour constantly and unchangeably is to be performed Do but imagin that word only were in another print from the rest or in capital letters as that which is the emphasis of the verse and whereupon all divine duty doth lean and there needs no more preface to prepare you for that which follows Upon this word I will speak now according to its own property that is of nothing else at this time That God is only to be worshipped and served shall be my only Treatise and I will go in hand with it two ways 1. Building up the true doctrine affirmatively 2. Beating down those
of the Creation This doth unavoidably suggest unto us that no day of the seven is fitter for our celebration than Sunday or the first day of the Week when Christ rose from the dead he having dispatcht all the works of exinanition and given us manifest assurance and joy for our eternal redemption And so I fall into the next member propounded what ground we have for keeping this day weekly to the service of God in the Resurrection of Christ Some what have been heedless in their assertions have confidently delivered that the Lords day is clearly instituted in the work of Christs Resurrection nay that the Resurrection did apply and determine the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment to the Lords day These go so far that all proof and reason forsakes them It is true that our Saviours victorious rising from the dead was a good occasion which the Church took to celebrate this day but that act of his rising from the dead was not instead of a Law to appoint the day They are not the works of God but his words that institute Laws and where there is no Imperative act of the Law-giver there can be no Law to bind In six days the Lord made heaven and earth and all things therein and rested the seventh day yet that Cessation of God from his works had not made that seventh day in every week holy to the Jews without his pleasure signified to keep it So the Resurrection of the Lord doth not make the Lords day a solemn day for Divine Service in all our Generations by a compulsory Statute unless it were said in the Gospel and so it was never said you shall keep the first day of the Week holy in honour of the Resurrection Without some imperative word or sentence to declare Gods pleasure we cannot deduce a Law And if the Resurrection of itself without a Precept annexed had exalted it to be an holy day St. Paul would never have agreed with them that esteemed all days alike Rom. xiv Out of this perverse zeal to make a rule out of Christs works without a Precept some would not be baptized till the age of thirty years because Christ was baptized no sooner Others stood nicely upon it that Orders of Priesthood were to be given to none before that age and for no other cause but because he preach'd no sooner Infinite fancies would be multiplied if these ways were allowed for good Divinity It is safe and true to say that the day is kept congruously but not necessarily for the Resurrection sake And surely the Primitive Church could have made choice of no day of the Week more proper and convenient for the Religious Worship of God in honour of that principal Article of our belief and the corner stone of all the rest Ignatius calls every Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection day St. Austin says Dominicus dies Christi resurrectione declaratus est ex illo coepit habere festivitatem suam Words which will bear no other construction howsoever some do torture them but thus that the Lords day is published by Christs Resurrection and from thenceforth began to be a Festival And again Domini resuscitatio consecravit nobis Dominicum diem promisit nobis aeternum diem The resuscitation of Christ hath consecrated for us the Lords day and doth promise us an eternal day yet there is no Imperative Edict from heaven to make it so but the light of holy discretion did guide the Church to appoint it so St. Austin hath clustered together many other admirable works of God done upon the first day of the Week in which God did make his first Creature of Light In which the Israelites went through the Red-Sea upon dry Land In which Manna did first fall from heaven In it was the first miracle of water turned into Wine Of the five loaves and two fishes In it Christ was baptized rose from the dead appeared often to his Disciples sent down the Holy Ghost and wherein we expect that at the last day he will come to judgment But the Resurrection is pre-eminent above all things else that hapned in it and that blessing though it do not ratifie a Law yet it is the occasion why this day is Weekly celebrated But I must tell you that one Analogy is ill prosecuted by some though it be vulgar in mens Writings That the Lords rest must be sanctified on what day soever it falleth that is not true unless there be a Law to enforce it therefore as the Sabbath was held holy when God rested from the works of the Creation so Sunday must be kept holy wherein the Son of God after his rising from the Grave rested gloriously from the work of our Redemption That last clause is falsly presumed for he made perfect our Redemption at his death and the price was paid for our sins not by his Resurrection but by his Sacrifice on the Cross and then he gave up the Ghost and said It is finished The day of the Passion therefore if you respect it as a resting from satisfying for our sins deserved to be made a continual Holy day but it was not meet to be kept with joy And mark it I pray you that we honour the day of his rising every Week rather than that of his suffering not because it is a better day or the day of his rest for he rested in the Grave and did spend his Resurrection day in much action but because it is the first day unto the Church of joy and gladness And a chief ingredient in an holy day dedicated to God is to rejoyce and be glad I proceed to the third thing to be inquired into what ground we have to keep the Lords day from any Precept mentioned in the Gospel either delivered by Christ himself or by his Apostles Certainly it never proceeded out of our Saviours mouth to appropriate this designed day to his honour and we must take heed to thrust Laws upon him of our own invention which he never imposed If such a thing had come from him no time had been fitter to express it than when the Pharisees cavilled at his Disciples for plucking the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath day Mat. xii Then he might have retorted that the observation of the Sabbath was expiring but he would constitute the first day of the Week to be the heir of the Sabbath Yet our Lord was so far from such a motion that whereas he reproved the Pharisees with much indignation Mat. v. and vi Chapters for their lax and dissolute interpretations of many moral Laws he corrects them often in the Gospel for being so strict in the rigid performance of the Sabbath which he would never have done if it had totally consisted of moral duties But about the definite appointment of a day Christ is silent for his Precepts in the New Testament are altogether touching spiritual worship And says St. Paul Carnal ordinances were imposed
Earth or in the Sea since my flesh hath been the consumption both of Sea and Land And again since we are born to that care and distress that every day must have his several necessity of hunger and thirst be not luxurious upon one entertainment as if at once you would spend all the brood of nature and leave nothing for to morrow To morrow must be cared for You cannot say to your appetite this is thy stint and hereafter thou shalt have no more It was but poor provision to send Hagar and her Child away with one Bottle of water into the desart Wilderness when the Bottle was spent her desire did come again upon her like an armed man for whosoever c. Yet this is not meant altogether to throw us into affliction that we must cater for the stomach every day It makes us often cast down our eyes upon the necessities of the Poor it makes us often lift up our eyes to the providence of our Heavenly Father it compels the Societies of men to seek out many industrious Vocations and to disrellish idleness In these regards it was an extravagant Prayer which the Woman of Samaria made in the next verse Sir give me such water to drink as I may not thirst neither come hither to draw But in some particular persons Gods vengeance is bent sore to vex their appetite where water nor wine nor any liquor hath vertue to satiate their thirst when that which they drink doth them no good but it is as if they had taken nothing As God gave bread to the Israelites but sent leanness withal into their souls So Haggai brought news of the Lords wrath unto the people c. i. v. 6. Ye eat but ye have not enough ye drink but ye are not filled Some Heathen Lawgivers attempted to rate every private Family in their Cities what they should spend at their Board and at last one of the wisest of them concluded there could be no rule given in that case because an heavenly hunger sometimes lights upon some men which devours in excess and is not satisfied It is the grace of God which gives meat in due season so that health and comfort go together with it I will borrow this Similitude to give it light Sometimes when we go to Physick for any Disease we are bidden to seeth such and such herbs in running water and then to drink the water We know it is not the water helpeth the sick man but the decoction of the infusion So it is not bread or drink consider'd barely in it self which doth nourish the body but the blessing of God infused into it When the Lord is pleased not to bless your victuals with his goodness soak what you can into your skin you shall thirst as if you never drank and again if He will let his power be shewed in our weakness you shall have the gift to abstain from all manner of liquors as if you never thirsted Spiritus sanctus aliquando supplet locum cibi potus in corpore says St. Hierom the Holy Ghost is called our Food not only in a mystical sense but sometimes God makes his Spirit supply the place of bodily refection that we shall not need to ask for it He that corroborated Elias to eat nothing for fourty days could have continued that Miracle upon his Servant for ever I will not reach for an instance beyond that Story which was the occasion of my Text. Our Saviour came hungry and thirsty to Jacob's Well sent his Disciples into the Town to buy provision in the interim demands drink of a strange Woman yet falling into a Divine discourse with this Woman forgets his hunger and thirst and when food was come he did not regard it And I am not incredulous of such Stories which report of long continued Fasts in devout men who spent their time so earnestly in Prayer that they put their body to an agony if not to an exstasie in these the Spirit did support the Fabrick of Nature instead of corruptible things It is a good thing says St. Paul that the heart be established with grace and not with meats Heb. xiii 9. To conclude this Argument God shewed in his Prophet Elias that he can find out sundry ways to uphold the state of our flesh One way Elias was fed by a miraculous multiplication of Oil and Meal with the Widow of Sarephath 2. By the Ministry of the Ravens in the Wilderness 3. By putting strength into his bones and marrow forty days to need no reparation And fourthly by using the Creature with temperance and sobriety at his daily repast so he did feel the continual urging of the appetite as all men do upon the face of the earth For whosoever drinketh c. So far upon the Text litterally and upon no other waters but such as the Woman of Samaria drew out of Jacobs Well In the Allusion Interpreters make it extend to all kind of worldly pleasure wherein our heart rejoyceth This one piece of natures store which gives but imperfect content stands for all the rest qui unam noverit omnes noverit It is in every thing else under the Sun as it is in this one Creature our thoughts are not quiet when they have enjoyed them no not a day you cannot gulp so much down of these earthly delights but ye shall thirst again The first thing which must be noted hereupon is the ground of the Similitude that all these vanities which we affect are justly compared to waters that slide away Whatsoever those fancies be that ensweeten your affections towards them they come unto you like that young Prophet whom Elisha sent to Jehu to Ramoth Gilead says Elisha Thou shalt anoint him King over Israel then open the door and fly and tarry not Salute him with good luck and be gone Good fortune as we call it sends no body of her errand but they dispatch as suddenly and fly away If any man that loves this World expostulate with himself that his pleasures dodg him as thus When will my delights continue for a time when shall I have rest from thirsting after more and enjoy that which is past O says the Tempter it will come anon you shall see it by and by Alass what a sickness is expectation which is no better than a doting delusion As the Mother of Sisera looked out at a Window to see her Son come home in triumph and she speaks to her wise Ladies in Debora's Song Why are his Charriot wheels so long a coming Look not after transitory delights as if a thing which is always in fluxu could be made permanent the Devil and all his Alchymistry cannot fix this Mercury A River may be shut up by a Frost and when the Sun thaws the ice the stream runs his current again So if you can attain to mortifie your heart as I think old Barzillai did whose affections to all worldly alacrity were Ice and Marble he cared not he said to
double condition of our sinful nature homo nec fructum servat operationis nec statum rectitudinis the rectitude of innocency is turned crooked in us and then it is impossible we should bring forth the fruit of good works The Soul stands upright when it desires to be with Christ but it is bowed down with a spirit of infirmity when our treasure is upon earth You know how Gedeon's choice Souldiers did drink of the Brook putting water in their hands and lapping like a Dog but the rest bowed down to the River to drink upon their knees ver 6. Whereupon Gregory took occasion to shew symbolically what different postures our spiritual and our carnal appetite have in partaking those things they love mundi aqua bibitur facie pronâ in terram fons aquae viventis facie supinâ we drink the waters beneath with our face bowed down to the earth we drink the waters of life with our face and eyes turned up to Heaven To him that walks in a Valley every Shrub is tall that grows upon the top of a Mountain so perhaps our pleasures seem aloft to us and not to lie so low as the bottom of a Well because we our selves do walk in the shadow of death and in the valley of corruption An ambitious man will scarce believe his soul is bowed down when he seeks for honour but rather that aspiring to a grand Title doth lift up his thoughts O that you did stand upon a Pinacle of faith and from thence look up to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith and you would then acknowledg that all these empty clouds did fly below you Why do you not expect the grace of God and pray often unto him when wilt thou make good thy promise to me O Lord which thou hast spoken to me O Lord Es lviii 14. Thou shalt delight thy self in the Lord and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth Sustollam te super altitudines terrae O that I could be exalted above the earth then would I not bow down my soul to draw forth vanity from this deep Well and nothing but the waters of bitterness You see what these waters are there is no permanency in them they flit away and yet we draw them from the very depth of Hell with much toil and carefulness and it is disputable with St. Austin which of the two be more commodious to man labor in hauâ—iendo affligens aut sitis crucians but after the labour of our body to draw them forth follows the greediness of our heart to be filled with them we drink them down All things were made for man the pleasures of art and wit the abundance of the whole World the Myrrh and Frankincense of one India the Gold and Silver of the other Divinity must not deny you that which is your own The great God is as liberal to us as He was to his own People but he gave them the labours of the Heathen in possession that they might keep his Laws Carnalis populus si parva non acciperet magna non credoret says Gregorianus As Caleb and Joshua brought a bunch or two of Grapes to let the people see what a rich Land it was which the Lord had promised so a Modicum is allotted to us for our present use that we may look for a real and more substantial treasure in Heaven And indeed this is the purpose of my Text to commend the Grace of God above all things but not altogether to contemn his Creatures The Crime reproved is to swallow them down like drink that runs in all our veins and is presently incorporated into our bloud and spirits as a learned Author says that a greedy heart hath animam triticeam not an heavenly spirit but a wheaten soul altogether projecting for outward means it must have bread it must have store the Barn must be thwackt full the provision must be able to serve many years such wheaten cogitations make a wheaten soul By such another Catechresis I may say out of my Text that a greedy tipling desire makes a drunken soul an unsatiated mind is as brutish a Monster as Job's Behemoth He drinketh up a river he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth David would not drink of that water which was brought from the Well of Bethel with the jeopardy of his Servants bloud therefore he poured it out to the Lord but our desires fetch such things unto us which are brought with the hazard of that which is better than life David hath shewed us the way what is to be done pour them forth unto the Lord if they be sinful pleasures by repentance if they be riches by alms and charity By all means pour them forth lest they consume us like those waters in the Levitical Law which the Priest gave to the Woman suspected for Adultery if she were defiled the waters turn'd bitter and did rot her thigh and she became a curse among all the people It is a prefiguration I do verily think of that diseaseful rottenness which doth oftentimes in these days befall Adultery And as the rottenness goes before so be sure the curse will come behind it I might be copious from this Allegory in my Text that a wanton appetite is a drunken disease but I will contract it by shewing one dissimilitude he that pours any liquor into his body it is to cherish himself but the most men drink greedily of worldly things to make others swell and heap up riches that their children may gather them So the Son often times vomits up that wealth whereof the Father surseited for you shall never purchase so much as your Posterity would sell away in the third or fourth Generation The good Father thought he said enough to discipline an avaritious fool when he bad him number his days which were very short and therefore cut shorter his covetous desires which were very long Longa nostra desideria increpat vita brevis Alas says Nabal I measure not my necessities by the span of my own life but according to the breadth and length of all my Posterity who must enjoy these things after me I shall answer it with a Paradox yet it is such a rule as I never saw many exceptions against it If your children love gains as well as you have done they will thrive though you leave them but a little If they regard not Parsimony as you have done they will break and decay though you bequeath them a great treasure Lighten your self therefore of these superfluous burdens which you carry like a Camel for their sakes that will never bear them after you And if God have given you a large Issue be you more bountiful in Alms-deeds and Charity as St. Cyprian reasons Pro pluribus placandus est eleemosynis as Job offered Sacrifices to God according to the number of his Sons and Daughters So must you offer up gifts unto the Lord
for us and by imputation to bear our iniquities is part of those unknown torments of our Saviour which cannot be uttered Christo innocentissimo maxima fuit crux tradi iniquitati says one it was not such a sorrow to Christ to be delivered up to Caiaphas to Pilate to the Souldiers to the Cross as to be bound over to carry the mass of all our sins upon his shoulders Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the Cross 1 Pet. ii 17. Moriar prae amore amoris tui Domine O let me die for love of that great love of thine O Lord as one cries out upon it There are three things miserable and afflictive in the nature of man and that our Elder Brother Christ Jesus might be like unto his Brethren in all things he did in some manner undergo them all The first are taedia naturae the tedious and irksom difficulties of nature as hunger thirst weariness sharp punishments and fetters there was never any Martyr better acquainted with these than our blessed Lord. The second are languores naturae the diseases and defects of nature but these belong not to mankind in general but are personal mishaps for this and other reasons our Saviour was clear of them yet he did bear all those sicknesses and maladies for us in compassion as St. Paul says Bear ye one anothers burdens Gal. 6. that is by mutual pitty and affection so Christ did take our diseases upon him by compunction and commiseration for his brethren The third are deformitates naturae all manner of sins which are the ugly blots and deformities of nature and those he did bear for us not by being made a sinner but by representation when he stood before John in Jordan like one that was defiled He came to undergo infirmities and to confer strength to take injuries to bestow dignities to stand for a sick person and to bring health to represent a sinner but to act a Saviour That is the sum of the third reason Fourthly St. Austin imagined that Christ had another intention in his Baptism indirectly and by the by Vt Daemoni se occultaret for the device of a stratagem to mock the Devil that he might not be known of him but to draw Satan into the combat of a tentation which fell out in the beginning of the next Chapter The Figures out of the Old Testament were not unknown to this cunning Serpent that it must be only an Heifer without blemish and a Lamb without spot which was offered up unto the Lord to be a Sacrifice of attonement Therefore he must be holy and undefiled who should be sent from God to bruise the Serpents head and to save the people from their sins Then this projecting Satan makes no question to rank him for a defiled person that came to be baptized therefore he doth infer foolishly that upon advantage of fasting forty days he might tempt him to sin against the Lord. Because the Devil and his Angels make it their life and pleasure to delude us silly men God makes it his glory in our just revenge to mock and delude our enemy as the Priests of Baal abused the poor people with hypocritical false pretences therefore Elias turned those scoffs upon themselves and flouted the Priests of Baal It is strange that when as the Devil glories in the subtilty of a Serpent yet God should make his understanding so blind that he never perfectly understood how Christ was the eternal Son of God that came to destroy his grizzly kingdom untill he had suffered upon the Cross and died for the sins of the world First Satans eyes were dazled that he could not learn whether Christ was born of a pure Virgin because by Gods providence she was married to Joseph Besides like a meer man he was obedient to his Parents and for thirty years neither preacht nor wrought any miracle In the first issue he sees him baptized in the representation at least of a sinful man he sees him in a great peril upon the waters nigh to drowning observes he kept no austere life but eat and drank with sinners finally views him betrayed by a Disciple that was his own familiar friend then beaten and bruised by every cruel Officer All these badges of infirmity put together did drive those Fiends of darkness to surmise this was not He that should conquer death and the nethermost Pit At last the most refined of the ancient Authors do ingenuously collect that when Satan perceived him answering nothing before Pilate but willing to be offered up then he began to interpret this was the Lamb dumb before the shearer so opened he not his mouth and finally at the Passion of the Cross he might see plainly that God had darkned him not to find the truth and that his Dominion through his own malice was taken away for ever by the death of Jesus Therefore I return where I began the reason this wicked one was intrapt to think our blessed Lord was a sinner because he was baptized Says Origen upon the Passion Christ was visibly crucified in Mount Calvary but invisibly the Devil and the powers of Hell was nailed to the Cross so I may say Christ was visibly baptized but Satan and his Host were invisibly drowned in those waters because they were sanctified in this washing to save us from our sins And that is the sum of the fourth reason For brevity sake I will joyn our last reason and some meditations of Use together Our Saviour came to be baptized Vt per novum ritum homines ad novitatem introducerentur that by his example to undergo a new Rite and Ordinance men might be drawn from old customs to newness of life The new Ordinance had ratification and authority from the act of Christ as I have shewed before he was both circumcized and baptized but says Bernard Illud mihi tenendum tradidit quod ultimò suscepit He hath delivered to me to have and to hold for the perpetual Sacrament of the Church that which was last in being for the form of a new Covenant was established to evacuate the old But what 's a new form if the old corruptions be retained What an eye-sore is a new piece in an old garment As good be an unbelieving Jew after the ancient tincture of the Law as be a novel transformed Christian after the old leven of the Devil As St. Paul put the Romans in mind of their first rudiments so must I remember you Rom. vi 4. Therefore we are buried with Christ by Baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so also we should walk in newness of life Here are three things in order that have a pious connexion between them first a burial as it were in the water then a death and after that a rising again First I say the plunging or dipping in the water resembles a burial for although