look upon my miseries thy holy Hands be stretched out to my relief and succour let some of those precious distilling Tears which nature and thy compassion and thy Sufferings did cause to distill and drop from those sacred fontinels water my stony heart and make it soft apt for the impressions of a melting obedient and corresponding love and moisten mine eyes that I may upon thy stock of pity and weeping mourn for my sins that so my tears and sorrows being drops of water coming from that holy Rock may indeed be united unto thine and made precious by such holy mixtures Amen 3. BLessed Jesus now that thou hast sanctified and exalted Humane nature and made even my Body precious by a personal uniting it to the Divinity teach me so reverently to account of it that I may not dare to prophane it with impure lusts or caitive affections and unhallow that ground where thy holy feet have troden Give to me ardent desires and efficacious prosecutions of these holy effects which thou didst design for us in thy Nativity and other parts of our Redemption give me great confidence in thee which thou hast encouraged by the exhibition of so glorious favours great sorrow and confusion of face at the sight of mine own imperfections and estrangements and great distances from thee and the perfections of thy Soul and bring me to thee by the strictnesses of a Zealous and affectionate imitation of those Sanctities which next to the hypostatical Union added lustre and excellency to thy Humanity that I may live here with thee in the expresses of a holy life and die with thee by mortification and an unwearied patience and reign with thee in immortal glories world without end Amen DISCOURSE I. Of Nursing Children in imitation of the Blessed virgin-Virgin-Mother 1. THese later Ages of the world have declined into a Softness above the effeminacy of Asian Princes and have contracted customes which those innocent and healthful days of our Ancestors knew not whose Piety was natural whose Charity was operative whose Policy was just and valiant and whose Oeconomy was sincere and proportionable to the dispositions and requisites of Nature And in this particular the good women of old gave one of their instances the greatest personages nurst their own Children did the work of Mothers and thought it was unlikely women should become vertuous by ornaments and superadditions of Morality who did decline the laws and prescriptions of Nature whose principles supply us with the first and most common rules of Manners and more perfect actions In imitation of whom and especially of the Virgin Mary who was Mother and Nurse to the Holy Jesus I shall endeavour to correct those softnesses and unnatural rejections of Children which are popular up to a custom and fashion even where no necessities of Nature or just Reason can make excuse 2. And I cannot think the Question despicable and the Duty of meanest consideration although it be specified in an office of small esteem and suggested to us by the principles of Reason and not by express sanctions of Divinity For although other actions are more perfect and spiritual yet this is more natural and humane other things being superadded to a full Duty rise higher but this builds stronger and is like a part of the foundation having no lustre but much strength and however the others are full of ornament yet this hath in it some degrees of necessity and possibly is with more danger and irregularity omitted than actions which spread their leaves fairer and look more gloriously 3. First here I consider that there are many sins in the scene of the Body and the matter of Sobriety which are highly criminal and yet the Laws of God expressed in Scripture name them not but men are taught to distinguish them by that Reason which is given us by nature and is imprinted in our understanding in order to the conservation of humane kind For since every creature hath something in it sufficient to propagate the kind and to conserve the individuals from perishing in confusions and general disorders which in Beasts we call Instinct that is an habitual or prime disposition to do certain things which are proportionable to the End whither it is designed Man also if he be not more imperfect must have the like and because he knows and makes reflexions upon his own acts and understands the reason of it that which in them is Instinct in him is natural Reason which is a desire to preserve himself and his own kind and differs from Instinct because he understands his Instinct and the reasonableness of it and they do not But Man being a higher thing even in the order of creation and designed to a more noble End in his animal capacity his Argumentative Instinct is larger than the Natural Instinct of Beasts for he hath Instincts in him in order to the conservation of Society and therefore hath Principles that is he hath natural desires to it for his own good and because he understands them they are called Principles and Laws of Nature but are no other than what I have now declared for Beasts do the same things we do and have many the same inclinations which in us are the Laws of Nature even all which we have in order to our common End But that which in Beasts is Nature and an impulsive force in us must be duty and an inviting power we must do the same things with an actual or habitual designation of that End to which God designs Beasts supplying by his wisdom their want of understanding and then what is mere Nature in them in us is Natural reason And therefore Marriage in men is made sacred when the mixtures of other creatures are so merely natural that they are not capable of being vertuous because men are bound to intend that End which God made And this with the superaddition of other Ends of which Marriage is representative in part and in part effective does consecrate Marriage and makes it holy and mysterious But then there are in marriage many duties which we are taught by Instinct that is by that Reason whereby we understand what are the best means to promote the End which we have assigned us And by these Laws all unnatural mixtures are made unlawful and the decencies which are to be observed in Marriage are prescribed us by this 4. Secondly Upon the supposition of this Discourse I consider again that although to observe this Instinct or these Laws of Nature in which I now have instanced be no great vertue in any eminency of degree as no man is much commended for not killing himself or for not degenerating into beastly Lusts yet to prevaricate some of these Laws may become almost the greatest sin in the world And therefore although to live according to Nature be a testimony fit to give to a sober and a temperate man and rises no higher yet to do an action against Nature is the greatest
dishonour and impiety in the world I mean of actions whose scene lies in the Body and disentitles us to all relations to God and vicinity to Vertue 5. Thirdly Now amongst actions which we are taught by Nature some concern the being and the necessities of Nature some appertain to her convenience and advantage and the transgressions of these respectively have their heightnings or depressions and therefore to kill a man is worse than some preternatural pollutions because more destructive of the end and designation of Nature and the purpose of instinct 6. Fourthly Every part of this Instinct is then in some sense a Law when it is in a direct order to a necessary End and by that is made reasonable I say in some sence it is a Law that is it is in a near disposition to become a Law It is a Rule without obligation to a particular punishment beyond the effect of the natural inordination and obliquity of the act it is not the measure of a moral good or evil but of the natural that is of comely and uncomely For if in the individuals it should fail or that there pass some greater obligation upon the person in order to a higher end not consistent with those means designed in order to the lesser end in that particular it is no fault but sometimes a vertue And therefore although it be an Instinct or reasonable towards many purposes that every one should beget a man in his own image in order to the preservation of nature yet if there be a superaddition of another and higher end and contrary means perswaded in order to it such as is holy Coelibate or Virginity in order to a spiritual life in some persons there the instinct of Nature is very far from passing obligation upon the Conscience and in that instance ceases to be reasonable And therefore the Romans who invited men to marriage with priviledges and punished morose and ungentle natures that refused it yet they had their chaste and unmarried Vestals the first in order to the Commonwealth these in a nearer order to Religion 7. Fifthly These Instincts or reasonable inducements become Laws obliging us in Conscience and in the way of Religion and the breach of them is directly criminal when the instance violates any end of Justice or Charity or Sobriety either designed in Nature's first intention or superinduced by God or man For every thing that is unreasonable to some certain purpose is not presently criminal much less is it against the Law of Nature unless every man that goes out of his way sins against the Law of Nature and every contradicting of a natural desire or inclination is not a sin against a law of Nature For the restraining sometimes of a lawful and a permitted desire is an act of great Vertue and pursues a greater reason as in the former instance But those things only against which such a reason as mixes with Charity or Justice or something that is now in order to a farther end of a commanded instance of Piety may be without errour brought those things are only criminal And God having first made our instincts reasonable hath now made our Reason and Instincts to be spiritual and having sometimes restrained our Instincts and always made them regular he hath by the intermixture of other principles made a separation of Instinct from Instinct leaving one in the form of natural inclination and they rise no higher than a permission or a decency it is lawful or it is comely so to do for no man can asfirm it to be a Duty to kill him that assaults my life or to maintain my children for ever without their own industry when they are able what degrees of natural fondness 〈◊〉 I have towards them nor that I sin if I do not marry when I can contain and yet every one of these may proceed from the affections and first inclinations of Nature but until they mingle with Justice or Charity or some instance of Religion and Obedience they are no Laws the other that are so mingled being raised to Duty and Religion Nature inclines us and Reason judges it apt and requisite in order to certain ends but then every particular of it is made to be an act of Religion from some other principle as yet it is but fit and reasonable not Religion and particular Duty till God or man hath interposed But whatsoever particular in nature was fit to be made a Law of Religion is made such by the superaddition of another principle and this is derived to us by tradition from Adam to Noah or else transmitted to us by the consent of all the world upon a natural and prompt reason or else by some other instrument derived to us from God but especially by the Christian Religion which hath adopted all those things which we call things honest things comely and things of good report into a law and a duty as appears Phil. 4. 8. 8. Upon these Propositions I shall infer by way of Instance that it is a Duty that Women should nurse their own Children For first it is taught to women by that Instinct which Nature hath implanted in them For as Favorinus the Philosopher discoursed it is but to be half a Mother to bring forth Children and not to nourish them and it is some kind of Abortion or an exposing of the Infant which in the reputation of all wise Nations is infamous and uncharitable And if the name of Mother be an appellative of affection and endearments why should the Mother be willing to divide it with a stranger The Earth is the Mother of us all not only because we were made of her Red clay but chiefly that she daily gives us food from her bowels and breasts and Plants and Beasts give nourishment to their off-springs after their production with greater tenderness than they bare them in their wombs and yet Women give nourishment to the Embryo which whether it be deformed or perfect they know not and cannot love what they never saw and yet when they do see it when they have rejoyced that a Child is born and forgotten the sorrows of production they who then can first begin to love it if they begin to divorce the Infant from the Mother the Object from the Affection cut off the opportunities and occasions of their Charity or Piety 9. For why hath Nature given to women two exuberant Fontinels which like two Rocs that are twins feed among the Lilics and drop milk like dew from Hermon and hath invited that nourishment from the secret recesses where the Infant dwelt at first up to the Breast where naturally now the Child is cradled in the entertainments of love and maternal embraces but that Nature having removed the Babe and carried its meat after it intends that it should be preserved by the matter and ingredients of its constitution and have the same diet prepared with a more mature and proportionable digestion If Nature
it is not easily apprehended to be the portion of her care to give it spiritual milk and therefore it intrenches very much upon Impiety and positive relinquishing the education of their Children when Mothers expose the spirit of the Child either to its own weaker inclinations or the wicked principles of an ungodly Nurse or the carelesness of any less-obliged person 12. And then let me add That a Child sucks the Nurse's milk and digests her conditions if they be never so bad seldom gets any good For Vertue being superaddition to Nature and Perfections not radical in the body but contradictions to and meliorations of natural indispositions does not easily convey it self by ministrations of food as Vice does which in most instances is nothing but mere Nature grown to Custom and not mended by Grace so that it is probable enough such natural distemperatures may pass in the rivulets of milk like evil spirits in a white garment when Vertues are of harder purchase and dwell so low in the heart that they but rarely pass through the fountains of generation And therefore let no Mother venture her child upon a stranger whose heart she less knows than her own And because few of those nicer women think better of others than themselves since out of self-love they neglect their own bowels it is but an act of improvidence to let my Child derive imperfections from one of whom I have not so good an opinion as of my self 13. And if those many blessings and holy prayers which the Child needs or his askings or sicknesses or the Mother's fears or joyes respectively do occasion should not be cast into this account yet those principles which in all cases wherein the neglect is vicious are the causes of the exposing the Child are extremely against the Piety and Charity of Christian Religion which prescribes severity and austere deportment and the labours of love and exemplar tenderness of affections and piety to children which are the most natural and nearest relations the Parents have That Religion which commands us to visit and to tend sick strangers and wash the feet of the poor and dress their ulcers and sends us upon charitable embassies into unclean prisons and bids us lay down our lives for one another is not pleased with a niceness and sensual curiosity that I may not name the wantonnesses of lusts which denies suck to our own children What is more humane and affectionate than Christianity and what is less natural and charitable than to deny the expresses of a Mother's affection which certainly to good women is the greatest trouble in the world and the greatest violence to their desires if they should not express and minister 14. And it would be considered whether those Mothers who have neglected their first Duties of Piety and Charity can expect so prompt and easie returns of Duty and Piety from their Children whose best foundation is Love and that love strongest which is most natural and that most natural which is conveyed by the first ministeries and impresses of Nourishment and Education And if Love descends more strongly than it ascends and commonly falls from the Parents upon the Children in Cataracts and returns back again up to the Parents but in gentle Dews if the Child's affection keeps the same proportions towards such unkind Mothers it will be as little as atoms in the Sun and never express it self but when the Mother needs it not that is in the Sun-shine of a clear fortune 15. This then is amongst those Instincts which are natural heightned first by Reason and then exalted by Grace into the obligation of a Law and being amongst the Sanctions of Nature its prevarication is a crime very near those sins which Divines in detestation of their malignity call Sins against Nature and is never to be excused but in cases of Necessity or greater Charity as when the Mother cannot be a Nurse by reason of natural disability or is afflicted with a disease which might be 〈◊〉 in the milk or in case of the publick necessities of a Kingdom for the securing of Succession in the Royal Family And yet concerning this last Lycurgus made a Law that the Noblest amongst the Spartan women though their Kings Wives should at least nurse their Eldest son and the Plebeians should nurse all theirs and Plutarch reports that the second son of King Themistes inherited the Kingdom in Sparta only because he was nursed with his Mother's milk and the eldest was therefore rejected because a stranger was his Nurse And that Queens have suckled and nursed their own children is no very unusual kindness in the simplicity and hearty affections of elder Ages as is to be seen in Herodotus and other Historians I shall only remark one instance out of the Spanish Chronicles which Henry Stephens in his Apology for Herodotus reports to have heard from thence related by a noble personage Monsieur Marillac That a Spanish Lady married into France nursed her child with so great a tenderness and jealousie that having understood the little Prince once to have suck'd a stranger she was unquiet till she had forced him to vomit it up again In other cases the crime lies at their door who inforce neglect upon the other and is heightned in proportion to the motive of the omission as if Wantonness or Pride be the parent of the crime the Issue besides its natural deformity hath the excrescencies of Pride or Lust to make it more ugly 16. To such Mothers I propound the example of the Holy Virgin who had the honour to be visited by an Angel yet after the example of the Saints in the Old Testament she gave to the Holy Jesus drink from those bottles which himself had filled for his own drinking and her Paps were as surely blessed for giving him suck as her Womb for bearing him and reads a Lecture of Piety and Charity which if we deny to our children there is then in the world left no argument or relation great enough to kindle it from a cinder to a flame God gives dry breasts for a curse to some for an affliction to others but those that invite it to them by voluntary arts love not blessing therefore shall it be far from them And I remember that it was said concerning Annius Minutius the Censor that he thought it a prodigy and extremely ominous to Rome that a Roman Lady refused to nurse her Child and yet gave suck to a Puppy that her milk might with more safety be dried up with artificial applications Let none therefore divide the interests of their own Children for she that appeared before Solomon and would have the Child divided was not the true Mother and was the more culpable of the two The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal God Father of the Creatures and King of all the World who hast imprinted in all the sons of thy Creation principles and abilities to serve the end of their own preservation and to Men
against every thing but nothing could please them But wisdom righteousness had a theatre in its own family and is justified of all her children Then he proceeds to a more applied reprehension of Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida for being pertinacious in their sins and infidelity in defiance and reproof of all the mighty works which had been wrought in them But these things were not revealed to all dispositions the wife and the mighty of the world were not subjects prepared for the simplicity and softer impresses of the Gospel and the down-right severity of its Sanctions And therefore Jesus glorified God for the magnifying of his mercy in that these things which were hid from the great ones were revealed to babes and concludes this Sermon with an invitation of all wearied and disconsolate persons loaded with sin and misery to come to him promising ease to their burthens and refreshment to their weariness and to exchange their heavy pressures into an easie yoke and a light burthen 9. When Jesus had ended this Sermon one of the Pharisees named Simon invited him to eat with him into whose house when he was entred a certain woman that was a sinner abiding there in the City heard of it her name was Mary she had been married to a noble personage a native of the Town and Castle of Magdal from whence she had her name of Magdalen though she her self was born in Bethany a widow she was and prompted by her wealth liberty and youth to an intemperate life and too free entertainments She came to Jesus into the Pharisee's house not as did the staring multitude to glut her eyes with the sight of a miraculous and glorious person nor as did the Centurion or the 〈◊〉 or the Ruler of the Synagogue for cure of her sickness or in behalf of her friend or child or servant but the only example of so coming she came in remorse and regret for her sins 〈◊〉 came to Jesus to lay her burthen at his feet and to present him with a broken heart and a weeping eye and great affection and a box of Nard Pistick salutary and precious For she came trembling and fell down before him weeping bitterly for her sins pouring out a 〈◊〉 great enough to wash the feet of the Blessed Jesus and wiping them with the hairs of her head after which she brake the box and anointed his feet with ointment Which expression was so great an ecstasie of love sorrow and adoration that to anoint the feet even of the greatest Monarch was long unknown and in all the pomps and greatnesses of the Roman Prodigality it was not used till Otho taught it to Nero in whose instance it was by Pliny reckoned for a prodigy of unnecessary profusion and in it self without the circumstance of 〈◊〉 free a dispensation it was a present for a Prince and an Alabaster-box of Nard Pistick was sent as a present from 〈◊〉 to the King of Ethiopia 10. When Simon observed this sinner so busie in the expresses of her Religion and 〈◊〉 to Jesus he thought with himself that this was no Prophet that did not know her to be a sinner or no just person that would suffer her to touch him For although the Jews Religion did permit Harlots of their own Nation to live and enjoy the priviledges of their Nation save that their Oblations were refused yet the Pharisees who pretended to a greater degree of Sanctity than others would not admit them to civil 〈◊〉 or the benefits of ordinary society and thought Religion it self and the honour of a Prophet was concerned in the interests of the same superciliousness and therefore Simon made an objection within himself Which Jesus knowing for he understood his thoughts as well as his words made her Apology and his own in a civil question expressed in a Parable of two Debtors to whom a greater and a less debt respectively was forgiven both of them concluding that they would love their merciful Creditor in proportion to his mercy and donative and this was the case of Mary Magdalen to whom because much was forgiven she loved much and expressed it in characters so large that the Pharisee might read his own incivilities and inhospitable entertainment of the Master when it stood confronted with the magnificency of Mary Magdalen's penance and charity 11. When Jesus had dined he was presented with the sad sight of a poor Demoniack possessed with a blind and a dumb Devil in whose behalf his friends intreated Jesus that he would cast the Devil out which he did immediately and the blind man saw and the dumb spake so much to the amazement of the people that they ran in so prodigious companies after him and so scandalized the Pharisees who thought that by means of this Prophet their reputation would be lessened and their Schools empty that first a rumour was scattered up and down from an uncertain principle but communicated with tumult and apparent noises that Jesus was beside himself Upon which rumour his friends and kindred came together to see and to make provisions accordingly and the holy Virgin-mother came her self but without any apprehensions of any such horrid accident The words and things she had from the beginning laid up in her heart would furnish her with principles exclusive of all apparitions of such fancies but she came to see what that persecution was which under that colour it was likely the Pharisees might commence 12. When the Mother of Jesus and his kindred came they found him in a house encircled with people full of wonder and admiration And there the holy Virgin-mother might hear part of her own Prophecy verified that the generations of the earth should call her blessed for a woman worshipping Jesus cried out Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that gave thee suck To this Jesus replied not denying her to be highly blessed who had received the honour of being the Mother of the Messias but advancing the dignities of spiritual excellencies far above this greatest temporal honour in the world Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and do it For in respect of the issues of spiritual perfections and their proportionable benedictions all immunities and temporal honours are empty and hollow blessings and all relations of kindred disband and empty themselves into the greater chanels and flouds of Divinity 13. For when Jesus being in the house they told him his Mother and his Brethren staid for him without he told them those relations were less than the ties of Duty and Religion For those dear names of Mother and Brethren which are hallowed by the laws of God and the endearments of Nature are made far more sacred when a spiritual cognation does supervene when the relations are subjected in persons religious and holy but if they be abstract and separate the conjunction of persons in spiritual bands in the same Faith and the same Hope and the union of them
intromission Thus to Lustful natures he represents the softer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of Fornication to the Angry and revengeful he offers to consideration the satisfactions and content of a full Revenge and the emissions of anger to the Envious he makes Panegyricks of our Rivals and swells our fancies to opinion our opinion to self-love self-love to arrogance and these are supported by contempt of others and all determine upon Envy and expire in Malice Now in these cases when our natures are caitive and unhandsome it were good we were conscious of our own weaknesses and by special arts and strengths of Mortification fortifie that part where we are apt and exposed to danger we are sure enough to meet a Storm there and we also are likely to perish in it unless we correct those a versenesses and natural indispositions and reduce them to the evennesses of Vertue or the affections and moderation of a good nature Let us be sure that the Devil take not a helve from our own branches to 〈◊〉 his axe that so he may cut the tree down and certainly he that does violence to his nature will not be easie to the entertainment of affections preternatural and violent 5. Secondly But the Devil also observes all our exteriour Accidents Occasions and Opportunities of action he sees what Company we keep he observes what degrees of love we have to our Wives what looseness of affection towards Children how prevalent their perswasions how inconvenient their discourses how trifling their interests and to what degrees of determination they move us by their importunity or their power The Devil tempted Adam by his Wife because he saw his affections too pliant and encirling her with the entertainment of fondness joy wonder and amorous fancy It was her hand that made the fruit beauteous to Adam She saw it 〈◊〉 of it self and so she ate but Adam was not moved by that argument but The Woman gave it me and I did eat she gave vivacity to the Temptation and efficacy to the argument And the severity of the Man's understanding would have given a reasonable answer to the 〈◊〉 of the Serpent That was an ugly Beast and his arguments not being of themselves convincing to a wise person either must put on advantages of a fair insinuation and representment or they are returned with scorn But when the 〈◊〉 hands of his young Virgin Mistriss became the Orators the Temptation was an amorevolezza he kisses the presenter and hugs the ruine Here therefore it is our safest course to make a retrenchment of all those excrescences of Affections which like wild and irregular Suckers draw away nourishment from the Trunk making it as sterile as it self is unprofitable As we must restrain the inclinations of Nature so also of Society and Relation when they become inconvenient and let nothing of our Family be so adopted or naturalized into our affections as to create within us a new concupiscence and a second time spoil our nature What God intended to us for a Help let not our fondnesses convert into a Snare and he that is not ready to deny the importunities and to reject the interests of a Wife or Child or Friend when the question is for God deserves to miss the comforts of a good and to feel the troubles of an imperious woman 6. Thirdly We also have Ends and designs of our own some great purpose upon which the greatest part of our life turns it may be we are to raise a Family to recover a sunk Estate or else Ambition Honour or a great Imployment is the great hindge of all our greater actions and some men are apt to make haste to be rich or are to pass through a great many difficulties to be honourable and here the Devil will swell the hopes and obstruct the passages he will heighten the desire and multiply the business of access making the concupiscence more impatient and yet the way to the purchase of our purposes so full of imployment and variety that both the implacable desire and the multitude of changes and transactions may increase the danger and multiply the sin When the Enemy hath observed our Ends he makes his Temptations to reflect from that angle which is direct upon them provoking to malice and impatience against whomsoever we find standing in our way whether willingly or by accident then follow naturally all those sins which are instrumental to removing the impediments to facilitating the passage to endearing our friends to procuring more confidents to securing our hopes and entring upon possession Simon Magus had a desire to be accounted some great one and by that purpose he was tempted to Sorcery and Divination and with a new object he brought a new sin into the world adding Simony to his Sorcery and taught posterity that crime which till then had neither name nor being And those Ecclesiasticks who violently affect rich or pompous Prelacies pollute themselves with worldly Arts growing covetous as Syrian Merchants ambitious as the Levantine Princes factious as the people revengeful as 〈◊〉 and proud as Conquerors and Usurpers and by this means Beasts are brought into the Temple and the Temple it self is exposed to sale and the holy Rites as well as the beasts of Sacrifice are made venial To prevent the 〈◊〉 inconveniencies that thrust themselves into the common and great roads of our life the best course is to cut our great Chanel into little Rivulets making our Ends the more that we may be indifferent to any proposing nothing great that our desires may be little for so we shall be better able to digest the troubles of an Enemy the contradictions of an unhandsome accident the crossing of our hopes because our desires are even and our ends are less considerable and we can with much readiness divert upon another purpose having another ready with the 〈◊〉 proportion to our hopes and desires as the 〈◊〉 Thus 〈◊〉 we propound to our selves an honest imployment or a quiet retirement a work of Charity abroad or of Devotion at home if we miss in our first setting sorth we return to shoar where we can 〈◊〉 with content it being alike to us either to 〈◊〉 abroad with more gain or trade at home with more 〈◊〉 But when we once grow great in our desires fixing too earnestly upon one object we either grow 〈◊〉 as Rachel Give me children or I die or take ill courses and use 〈◊〉 means as Thamar chusing rather to lie with her Father than to die without issue or else are 〈◊〉 in the loss and frustration of our hopes like the Women of Ramah who would 〈◊〉 be comforted Let therefore our life be moderate our desires reasonable our hopes little our Ends none in eminency and 〈◊〉 above others for as the rays of Light passing through the thin air end in a small and undiscerned Pyramis but 〈◊〉 upon a wall are doubled and increase the warmth to a scorching and troublesome heat so the desires of
with Water and then with Bloud and afterwards built it up by the hands of the Spirit Himself enter'd at that door by which his Disciples for ever after were to follow him for therefore he went in at the door of Baptism that he might hallow the entrance which himself made to the House he was now building 2. As it was in the old so it is in the new Creation out of the waters God produced every living creature and when at first the Spirit moved upon the waters and gave life it was the type of what was designed in the Renovation Every thing that lives now is born of Water and the Spirit and Christ who is our Creator and Redeemer in the New birth opened the fountains and hallowed the stream Christ who is our Life went down into the waters of Baptism and we who descend thither find the effects of life it is living Water of which whose drinks needs not to drink of it again for it shall be in him a Well of water springing up to life eternal 3. But because every thing is resolved into the same principles from whence they are taken the old World which by the power of God came from the Waters by their own sin fell into the Waters again and were all drowned and only eight persons were saved by an Ark and the World renewed upon the stock and reserves of that mercy consigned the Sacrament of Baptism in another figure for then God gave his sign from Heaven that by water the World should never again perish but he meant that they should be saved by water for Baptism which is a figure like to this doth also now save us by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 4. After this the Jews report that the World took up the doctrine of Baptisms in remembrance that the iniquity of the old world was purged by water and they washed all that came to the service of the true God and by that Baptism bound them to the observation of the Precepts which God gave to Noah 5. But when God separated a Family for his own special service he gave them a Sacrament of Initiation but it was a Sacrament of bloud the Covenant of Circumcision and this was the fore-runner of Baptism but not a Type when that was abrogated this came into the place of it and that consigned the same Faith which this professes But it could not properly be a Type whose nature is by a likeness of matter or ceremony to represent the same Mystery Neither is a Ceremony as Baptism truly is properly capable of having a Type it self is but a Type of a greater mysteriousness And the nature of Types is in shadow to describe by dark lines a future substance so that although Circumcision might be a Type of the effects and graces bestowed in Baptism yet of the Baptism or Ablution it self it cannot be properly because of the unlikeness of the symbols and configurations and because they are both equally distant from substances which Types are to consign and represent The first Bishops of Jerusalem and all the Christian Jews for many years retained Circumcision together with Baptism and Christ himself who was circumcised was also baptized and therefore it is not so proper to call Circumcision a Type of Baptism it was rather a Seal and Sign of the same Covenant to Abraham and the Fathers and to all Israel as Baptism is to all Ages of the Christian Church 6. And because this Rite could not be administred to all persons and was not at all times after its institution God was pleased by a proper and specifick Type to consign this Rite of Baptism which he intended to all and that for ever and God when the family of his Church grew separate notorious numerous and distinct sent them into their own Countrey by a Baptism through which the whole Nation pass'd for all the Fathers were under the Cloud and all passed through the Sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea so by a double figure foretelling that as they were initiated to Moses's Law by the Cloud above and the Sea beneath so should all the persons of the Church men women and children be initiated unto Christ by the Spirit from above and the Water below for it was the design of the Apostle in that discourse to represent that the Fathers and we were equal as to the priviledges of the Covenant he proved that we do not exceed them and it ought therefore to be certain that they do not exceed us nor their children ours 7. But after this something was to remain which might not only consign the Covenant which God made with Abraham but be as a passage from the Fathers through the Synagogue to the Church from Abraham by Moses to Christ and that was Circumcision which was a Rite which God chose to be a mark to the posterity of Abraham to distinguish them from the Nations which were not within the Covenant of Grace and to be a Seal of the righteousness of Faith which God made to be the spirit and life of the Covenant 8. But because Circumcision although it was ministred to all the males yet it was not to the females although they and all the Nation were baptized and initiated into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea therefore the Children of Israel by imitation of the Patriarchs the posterity of Noah used also Ceremonial Baptisms to their Women and to their Proselytes and to all that were circumcised and the Jews deliver That Sarah and Rebecca when they were adopted into the family of the Church that is of Abraham and Isaac were baptized and so were all strangers that were married to the sons of Israel And that we may think this to be typical of Christian Baptism the Doctors of the Jews had a Tradition that when the Messias would come there should be so many Proselytes that they could not be circumcised but should be baptized The Tradition proved true but not for their reason But that this Rite of admitting into Mysteries and Institutions and Offices of Religion by Baptisms was used by the posterity of Noah or at least very early among the Jews besides the testimonies of their own Doctors I am the rather induced to believe because the Heathens had the same Rite in many places and in several Religions so they initiated disciples into the Secrets of Mithra and the Priests of 〈◊〉 were called 〈◊〉 because by Baptism they were admitted into the Religion and they thought Muther Incest Rapes and the worst of crimes were purged by dipping in the Sea or fresh Springs and a Proselyte is called in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Baptized person 9. But this Ceremony of Baptizing was so certain and usual among the Jews in their admitting Proselytes and adopting into Institutions that to baptize and to make Disciples are all one and when John the Baptist by an order from Heaven went to
faults of Parents and Kings and relatives do bring evil upon their Children and subjects and correlatives it is but equal that our children may have benefit also by our charity and 〈◊〉 But concerning making an agreement for them we find that God was confident concerning Abraham that he would teach his children and there is no doubt but Parents have great power by strict education and prudent discipline to efform the minds of their children to Vertue 〈◊〉 did expresly undertake for his houshold I and my house will serve the Lord and for children we may better do it because till they are of perfect choice no Government in the world is so great as that of Parents over their children in that which can concern the parts of this Question for they rule over their Understandings and children know nothing but what they are told and they believe it infinitely And it is a rare art of the Spirit to engage Parents to bring them up well in the 〈◊〉 and admonition of the Lord and they are persons obliged by a superinduced band they are to give them instructions and holy principles as they give them meat And it is certain that Parents may better stipulate for their Children than the Church can for men and women For they may be present Impostors and Hypocrites as the Church story tells of some and consequently are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not really converted and ineffectively baptized and the next day they may change their resolution and grow weary of their Vow and that is the most that Children can do when they come to age and it is very much in the Parents whether the Children shall do any such thing or no. purus insons Ut me collandem si vivo charus amicis Causa fuit Pater his Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnes Circum Doctores aderat quid multa pudicum Qui primus virtutis honos servavit ab omni Non solùm facto verùm opprobrio quoque turpi ob hoc nunc Laus illi debetur à me gratia major For education can introduce a habit and a second nature against which Children cannot kick unless they do some violence to themselves and their inclinations And although it fails too 〈◊〉 when-ever it fails yet we pronounce prudently concerning future things when we have a less influence into the event than in the present case and therefore are more unapt persons to stipulate and less reason in the thing it self and therefore have not so much reason to be confident Is not the greatest prudence of Generals instanced in their foreseeing 〈◊〉 events and guessing at the designs of their enemies concerning which they have less reason to be confident than Parents of their childrens belief of the Christian Creed To which I add this consideration That Parents or Godfathers may therefore safely and prudently promise that their Children shall be of the Christian Faith because we not only see millions of men and women who not only believe the whole Creed only upon the stock of their education but there are none that ever do renounce the Faith of their Country and breeding unless they be violently tempted by 〈◊〉 or weakness antecedent or consequent He that sees all men almost to be Christians because they are bid to be so need not question the fittingness of Godfathers promising in behalf of the Children for whom they answer 29. And however the matter be for Godfathers yet the tradition of baptizing Infants passed through the hands of 〈◊〉 Omnem aetatem sanctificans per illam quae ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 similitudinem Omnes 〈◊〉 venit per semetipsum salvare omnes inquam qui per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Deum infantes parvulos 〈◊〉 juvenes seniores Ideo per 〈◊〉 venit 〈◊〉 infantibus infans factus sanctificans infantes in parvulis 〈◊〉 c. Christ did sanctifie every age by his own susception of it and similitude to it For he came to save all men by himself I say all who by him are born again unto God infants and children and boys and young men and old men He was made an Infant to Infants sanctifying Infants a little one to the little ones c. And Origen is express 〈◊〉 traditionem ab Apostolis suscepit 〈◊〉 parvulis dare Baptismum The Church hath received a Tradition from the 〈◊〉 to give Baptism to Children And S. 〈◊〉 in his Epistle to 〈◊〉 gives account of this Article for being questioned by some less 〈◊〉 persons whether it were lawful to baptize Children before the eighth day he gives account of the whole Question And a whole Council of sixty six Bishops upon very good reason decreed that their Baptism should at no hand be deferred though whether six or eight or ten days was no matter so there be no danger or present necessity The whole Epistle is worth the reading 30. But besides these Authorities of such who writ before the starting of the Pelagian Questions it will not be useless to bring the discourses of them and others I mean the reason upon which the Church did it both before and after 31. 〈◊〉 his Argument was this Christ took upon him our Nature to sanctific and to save it and passed through the several periods of it even unto death which is the symbol and effect of old age and therefore it is certain he did sanctifie all the periods of it and why should he be an Infant but that Infants should receive the crown of their age the 〈◊〉 of their stained nature the sanctification of their persons and the saving of their 〈◊〉 by their Infant Lord and elder Brother 32. Omnis 〈◊〉 anima 〈◊〉 in Adam censetur 〈◊〉 in Christo recenseatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every Soul is accounted in Adam till it be new accounted in Christ and so long as it is accounted in Adam so long it is unclean and we know no unclean thing 〈◊〉 enter into Heaven and therefore our Lord hath desined it Unless 〈◊〉 be born of Water and the Spirit ye cannot 〈◊〉 into the Kingdom of Heaven that is ye cannot be holy It was the argument of 〈◊〉 which the rather is to be received because he was one less favourable to the Custom of the Church in his time of baptizing Infants which Custom he noted and acknowledged and hath also in the preceding discourse fairly proved And indeed that S. Cyprian may superadd his symbol God who is no accepter of persons will also be no accepter of ages For if to the greatest delinquents 〈◊〉 long before against God remission of sins be given when afterwards they believe and from Baptism and from Grace no man is forbidden how much more ought not an 〈◊〉 be forbidden who being new born hath 〈◊〉 nothing save only that being in the 〈◊〉 born of Adam in his first birth he hath contracted the contagion of an old death who therefore comes the easier to obtain 〈◊〉 of sins because
honour of the present Festival and as a donative to the people But the spirit of Malice was here the more prevalent and they desired that Barabbas a Murtherer a Thief and a seditious person should be exchanged for him Then Pilate casting about all ways to acquit Jesus of punishment and himself of guilt offered to scourge him and let him go hoping that a lesser draught of bloud might stop the furies and rabidness of their passion without their bursting with a river of his best and vital liquor But these leeches would not so let go they cry out Crucifie him and to engage him finally they told him if he did let this man go he was no friend to Caesar. 28. But Pilate called for water and washed his hands to demonstrate his own unwillingness and to reject and transmit the guilt upon them who took it on them as greedily as they sucked the bloud they cried out His bloud be on us and our children As Pilate was going to give sentence his Wife being troubled in her dreams sent with the earnestness and passion of a woman that he should have nothing to do with that just Person but he was engaged Caesar and Jesus God and the King did seem to have different interests or at least he was threatned into that opinion and Pilate though he was satisfied it was but Calumny and Malice yet he was loth to venture upon his answer at Rome in case the High Priest should have accused him For no man knows whether the interest or the mistake of his Judge may cast the sentence and who-ever is accused strongly is never thought intirely innocent And therefore not only against the Divine Laws but against the Roman too he condemned an innocent person upon objections notoriously malicious he adjudged him to a death which was only due to publick Thieves and Homicides crimes with which he was not charg'd upon a pretence of Blasphemy of which he stood accused but not convicted and for which by the Jewish Law he should have been stoned if found guilty And this he did put into present execution against the Tiberian Law which about twelve years before decreed in favour of condemned persons that after sentence execution should be deferred ten days 29. And now was the Holy Lamb to bleed First therefore Pilate's souldiers array him in a kingly robe put a reed in his hand for a Sceptre plait a Crown of thorns and put it on his head they bow the knee and mock him they smite him with his phantastick Sceptre and in stead of tribute pay him with blows and spittings upon his holy head and when they had emptied the whole stock of poisonous contempt they devest him of the robes of mockery and put him on his own they lead him to a pillar and bind him fast and scourage him with whips a punishment that Slaves only did use to suffer free persons being in certain cases beaten with rods and clubs that they might add a new scorn to his afflictions and make his sorrows like their own guilt vast and mountainous After which Barabbas being set free Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified 30. The Souldiers therefore having framed a Cross sad and heavy laid it upon Jesus's shoulders who like Isaac bore the wood with which he was to be sacrificed himself and they drive him out to Crucifixion who was scarce able to stand under that load It is generally supposed that Jesus bore the whole Tree that is both the parts of his Cross but to him that considers it it will seem impossible and therefore it is more likely and agreeable to the old manner of crucifying malefactors that Jesus only carried the cross part the body of it being upon the place either already fixed or prepared for its station Even that lesser part was grievous and intolerable to his tender virginal and weakned body and when he fainted they compel Simon a Cyrenian to help him A great and a mixt multitude followed Jesus to Golgotha the 〈◊〉 house of the City and the place of Execution But the Women wept with bitter exclamations and their sadness was increased by the sad predictions Jesus then made of their future misery saying Ye daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children For the time shall come that men shall say Blessed are the barren that never bare and the paps that never gave 〈◊〉 for they shall call on the hills to cover them and on the mountains to fall upon them that by a sudden ruine they may escape the lingring calamities of famine and fear and the horror of a thousand deaths 31. When Jesus was come to Golgotha a place in the mount of Calvary where according to the tradition of the Ancients Adam was buried and where Abraham made an Altar for the sacrifice of his Son by the piety of his Disciples and it is probable of those good women which did use to minister to him there was provided wine mingled with myrrh which among the Levantines is an excellent and pleasant mixture and such as the piety and indulgence of the nations used to administer to condemned persons But Jesus who by voluntary susception did chuse to suffer our pains refused that refreshment which the piety of the women presented to him The souldiers having stripp'd him nail'd him to the Cross with four nails and divided his Mantle into four parts giving to each souldier a part but for his Coat because it would be spoiled if parted it being weaved without seam they cast lots for it 32. Now Pilate had caused a title containing the cause of his death to be superscribed on a Table in Latine Greek and Hebrew the Hebrew being first the Greek next and the Latine nearest to the holy body but all written after the Jewish manner from the right hand to the left for so the Title is shewn in the Church of Santa Croce in Rome the Latin letters being to be read as if it were Hebrew the reason of which I could never find sufficiently discovered unless it were to make it more legible to the Jews who by conversing with the Romans began to understand a little Latine The title was JESUS OF NAZARETH KING OF THE JEWS But the Pharisees would have it altered and that he said he was King of the Jews But Pilate out of wilfulness or to do despight to the Nation or in honour to Jesus whom he knew to be a just person or being over-ruled by Divine providence refused to alter it And there were crucified with Jesus two Thieves Jesus being in the midst according to the Prophecy He was reckoned with the transgressors Then Jesus prayed for his Persecutors Father forgive them for they know not what they do But while Jesus was full of pain and charity and was praying and dying for his Enemies the Rulers of the Jews mocked him upbraiding him with the good works