death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the 〈◊〉 extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideons Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jewes themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jewes or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all 〈◊〉 and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their 〈◊〉 unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined onely to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or
God as holy Places of Religion must rise highest in this account I mean higher than any other places And this is besides the honour which God hath put upon them by his presence his title to them w ch in all Religions he hath signified to us 4. Indeed among the Jews as God had confined his Church and the rites of Religion to be used only in communion and participation with the Nation so also he had limited his Presence and was more sparing of it than in the time of the Gospel his Son declared he would be It was said of old that at Jerusalem men ought to worship that is by a solemn publick and great address in the capital expresses of Religion in the distinguishing rites of Liturgy for else it had been no new thing For in ordinary Prayers God was then and long before pleased to hear Jeremy in the dungeon Manasses in prison Daniel in the Lion's den Jonas in the belly of the deep and in the offices yet more solemn in the Proseuchae in the houses of prayer which the Jews had not only in their dispersion but even in Palestine for their diurnal and nocturnal offices But when the Holy Jesus had broken down the partition-wall then the most solemn Offices of Religion were as unlimited as their private Devotions were before for where-ever a Temple should be built thither God would come if he were worshipped spirituallly and in truth that is according to the rites of Christ who is Grace and Truth and the dictate of the Spirit and analogy of the Gospel All places were now alike to build Churches in or Memorials for God God's houses And that our Blessed Saviour discourses of places of publick Worship to the woman of Samaria is notorious because the whole question was concerning the great addresses of Moses's rites whether at Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim which were the places of the right and the 〈◊〉 Temple the 〈◊〉 of the whole Religion and in antithesis Jesus said Nor here nor there shall be the solemnities of address to God but in all places you may build a Temple and God will dwell in it 5. And this hath descended from the first beginnings of Religion down to the consummation of it in the perfections of the Gospel For the Apostles of our Lord carried the Offices of the Gospel into the Temple of Jerusalem there they preached and prayed and payed Vows but never that we read of offered Sacrifice which 〈◊〉 that the Offices purely Evangelical were proper to be done in any of God's proper places and that thither they went not in compliance with Moses's Rites but merely for Gospel-duties or for such Offices which were common to Moses and Christ such as were Prayers and Vows While the Temple was yet standing they had peculiar places for the Assemblies of the faithful where either by accident or observation or Religion or choice they met regularly And I instance in the house of John surnamed Mark which as Alexander reports in the life of S. Barnabas was consecrated by many actions of Religion by our Blessed Saviour's eating the 〈◊〉 his Institution of the holy Eucharist his Farewell-Sermon and the Apostles met there in the Octaves of Easter whither Christ came again and hallowed it with his presence and there to make up the relative Sanctification complete the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and this was erected into a fair 〈◊〉 and is mentioned as a famous Church by S. Jerome and V. Bede in which as 〈◊〉 adds S. Peter preached that 〈◊〉 which was miraculoasly prosperous in the Conversion of three thousand there S. James Brother of our Lord was 〈◊〉 first Bishop of Jerusalem S. Stephen and the other six were there ordained Deacons there the Apostles kept their first Council and 〈◊〉 their Creed by these actions and their frequent conventions shewing the same reason order and prudence of Religion in 〈◊〉 of special places of Divine service which were ever observed by all the Nations and Religions and wise men of the world And it were a strange imagination to 〈◊〉 that in Christian Religion there is any principle contrary to that wisdom or God and all the world which for order for necessity for convenience for the solemnity of Worship hath set apart Places for God and for Religion Private Prayer had always an unlimited residence and relation even under Moses's Law but the publick solemn Prayer of 〈◊〉 in the Law of Moses was restrained to one Temple In the Law of Nature it was not confined to one but yet determined to publick and solemn places and when the Holy Jesus disparked the inclosures of Moses we all returned to the permissions and liberty of the Natural Law in which although the publick and solemn Prayers were confined to a Temple yet the Temple was not consined to a place but they might be any-where so they were at all instruments of order conveniences of assembling residences of Religion and God who always loved order and was apt to hear all holy and prudent Prayers and therefore also the Prayers of Consecration hath often declared that he loves such Places that he will dwell in them not that they are advantages to him but that he is pleased to make them so to us And therefore all Nations of the world built publick Houses for Religion and since all Ages of the Church did so too it had need be a strong and a convincing argument that must shew they were deceived And if any man list to be 〈◊〉 he must be answered with S. Paul's reproof We have no such custom nor the Churches of God 6. Thus S. Paul reproved the Corinthians for despising the Church of God by such uses which were therefore unsit for God's because they were proper for their own that is for common houses And although they were at first and in the descending Ages so afflicted by the tyranny of enemies that they could not build many Churches yet some they did and the Churches themselves suffered part of the persecution For so 〈◊〉 reports that when under Severus and Gordianus 〈◊〉 and Galienus the Christian affairs were in a tolerable condition they built Churches in great number and expence But when the Persecution waxed hot under Diocletian down went the Churches upon a design to extinguish or disadvantage the Religion Maximinus gave leave to re-build them Upon which Rescript saith the story the Christians were overjoyed and raised them up to an incredible height and incomparable beauty This was Christian Religion then and so it hath continued-ever since and unless we should have new reason and new revelation it must continue so till our Churches are exchanged for Thrones and our Chappels for seats placed before the Lamb in the eternal Temple of celestial Jerusalem 7. And to this purpose it is observed that the Holy Jesus first ejected the Beasts of Sacrifice out of the Temple and then proclaimed the Place
with the thing it self which they supposed would be a federal Rite under the dispensation of the Messiah but only quarrelled with him for taking upon him to administer it when yet he denied himself to be one of the prime Ministers of this new state They said unto him why baptizest thou then if thou be not that Christ nor 〈◊〉 neither that 〈◊〉 Either of which had he owned himself they had not questioned his right to enter Proselytes by this way of Baptism It is called the Baptism of Repentance this being the main qualification that he required of those who took it upon them as the fittest means to dispose them to receive the Doctrine and Discipline of the Messiah and to intitle them to that pardon of sin which the Gospel brought along with it whence he is said to baptize in the Wilderness and to preach the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And the success was answerable infinite Multitudes flocking to it and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins Nor is it the least part of his happiness that he had the honour to baptize his Saviour which though modestly declined our Lord put upon him and was accompanied with the most signal and miraculous attestations which Heaven could bestow upon it 5. AFTER his Preparatory Preachings in the Wilderness he was called to Court by Herod at least he was his frequent Auditor was much delighted with his plain and impartial Sermons and had a mighty reverence for him the gravity of his Person the strictness of his Manners the freedom of his Preaching commanding an awe and veneration from his Conscience and making him willing in many things to reform But the bluntness of the holy Man came nearer and touched the King in the tenderest part smartly reproving his adultery and incestuous embraces for that Prince kept Herodias his Brother Philip's Wife And now all corrupt interests were awakened to conspire his ruine Extravagant Lusts love not to be controll'd and check'd Herodias resents the asfront cannot brook disturbance in the pleasures of her Bed or the open challenging of her honour and therefore by all the arts of Feminine subtlety meditates revenge The issue was the Baptist is cast into Prison as the praeludium to a sadder fate For among other pleasures and scenes of mirth performed upon the King's Birth-day Herod being infinitely pleased with the Dancing of a young Lady Daughter of this Herodias promised to give her Her request and solemnly ratified his promise with an Oath She prompted by her Mother asks the Head of John the Baptist which the King partly out of a pretended reverence to his Oath partly out of a desire not to be interrupted in his unlawful pleasures presently granted and it was as quickly accomplished Thus died the Holy man a man strict in his conversation beyond the ordinary measures of an Anchoret bold and resolute faithful and impartial in his Office indued with the power and spirit of Elias a burning and a shining light under whose light the Jews rejoyced to sit exceedingly taken with his temper and principles He was the happy Messenger of the Evangelical tidings and in that respect more than a Prophet a greater not arising among them that were born of Women In short he was a Man loved of his Friends revered and honoured by his Enemies Josephus gives this character of him that he was a good man and pressed the Jews to the study of vertue to the practice of picty towards God and justice and righteousness towards men and to joyn themselves to his Baptism which he told them would then become effectual and acceptable to God when they did not only cleanse the body but purifie the mind by goodness and vertue And though he gives somewhat a different account of Herod's condemning him to dic from what is assigned in the Sacred History yet he confesses that the Jews universally looked upon the putting him to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod's Army and an evident effect of the Divine vengeance and displeasure The Jews in their Writings make honourable mention of his being put to death by Herod because reproving him for the company of his Brother Philip's Wife stiling him Rabbi Johanan the High-Priest and reckoning him one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the wise men of Israel Where he is called High-Priest probably with respect to his being the Son of Zachariah Head or Chief of one of the XXIV Families or courses of the Priests who are many times called Chief or High-Priests in Scripture 6. THE Evangelical state being thus proclaimed and ushered in by the Preaching and Ministry of the Baptist our Lord himself appeared next more fully to publish and confirm it concerning whose Birth Life Death and Resurrection the Doctrine he delivered the Persons he deputed to Preach and convey it to the World and its success by the Ministry of the Apostles large particular accounts are given in the following work That which may be proper and material to observe in this place is what the Scripture so frequently takes notice of the excellency of this above the preceding dispensations especially that brought in by Moses so much magnified in the Old Testament and so passionately admired and adhered to by the Jews at this day Jesus is the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls it of a better Covenant And better it is in several regards besides the infinite difference between the Persons who were imployed to introduce and settle them Moses and our Lord. The preheminence eminently appears in many instances whereof we shall remark the most considerable And first the Mosaick dispensation was almost wholly made up of types and shadows the Evangelical has brought in the truth and substance The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Their Ordinances were but shadows of good things to come sensible representations of what was to follow after the Body is Christ the perfection and accomplishment of their whole ritual Ministration Their Ceremonies were Figures of those things that are true the Land of Canaan typified Heaven Moses and Joshua were types of the Blessed Jesus and the Israelites after the flesh of the true Israel which is after the Spirit and all their Expiatory Sacrifices did but represent that Great Sacrifice whereby Christ offered up himself and by his own bloud purged away the sins of mankind indeed the most minute and inconsiderable circumstances of the Legal Oeconomy were intended as little lights that might gradually usher in the state of the Gospel A curious Artist that designs a famous and excellent piece is not wont to complete and finish it all at once but first with his Pencil draws some rude lines and rough draughts before he puts his last hand to it By such a method the wise God seems to have delivered the first draughts and Images of those things by Moses to the Church the substance
parts concurring to his integral constitution Body and Soul and Spirit and all these have their proper activities and times but every one in his own order first that which is natural then that which is spiritual And what Aristotle said A man first lives the life of a Plant then of a Beast and lastly of a Man is true in this sence and the more spiritual the principle is the longer it is before it operates because more things concur to spiritual actions than to natural and these are necessary and therefore first the other are perfect and therefore last And who is he that so well understands the Philosophy of this third principle of a Christian's life the Spirit as to know how or when it is infused and how it operates in all its periods and what it is in its being and proper nature and whether it be like the Soul or like the faculty or like a habit or how or to what purposes God in all varieties does dispence it These are secrets which none but bold people use to decree and build propositions upon their own dreams That which is certain is * That the Spirit is the principle of a new life or a new birth * That Baptism is the Laver of this new birth * That it is the seed of God and may lie long in the furrows before it springs up * That from the faculty to the act the passage is not always sudden and quick * That the Spirit is the earnest of our Inheritance that is of Resurrection to eternal life which inheritance because Children we hope shall have they cannot be denied to have its Seal and earnest that is if they shall have all they are not to be denied a part * That Children have some effects of the Spirit and therefore do receive it and are baptized with the Spirit and therefore may with Water which thing is therefore true and evident because some Children are sanctified as Jeremy and the Baptist and therefore all may And because all Sanctification of persons is an effect of the Holy Ghost there is no peradventure but they that can be 〈◊〉 by God can in that capacity receive the Holy Ghost and all the ground of dissenting here is only upon a mistake because Infants do no act of Holiness they suppose them incapable of the grace of 〈◊〉 Now 〈◊〉 of Children is their Adoption to the Inheritance of sons their Presentation to Christ their Consignation to Christ's service and to Resurrection their being put into a possibility of being saved their restitution to God's favour which naturally that is as our Nature is depraved and punished they could not have And in short the case is this * Original righteousness was in Adam 〈◊〉 the manner of Nature but it was an act or effect of Grace and by it men were not made but born Righteous the inferiour Faculties obeyed the superiour the Mind was whole and right and conformable to the Divine Image the Reason and the Will always concurring the Will followed Reason and Reason followed the Laws of God and so long as a man had not lost this he was pleasing to God and should have passed to a more perfect state Now because this if Adam had stood should have been born with every child there was in Infants a principle which was the seed of holy life here and a blessed hereafter and yet the children should have gone in the road of Nature then as well as now and the Spirit should have operated at Nature's leisure God being the giver of both would have made them instrumental to and perfective of each other but not destructive Now what was lost by Adam is restored by Christ the same Righteousness only it is not born but superinduced not integral but interrupted but such as it is there is no difference but that the same or the like principle may be derived to us from Christ as there should have been from Adam that is a principle of Obedience a regularity of 〈◊〉 a beauty in the Soul and a state of acceptation with God And we see also in men of understanding and reason the Spirit of God 〈◊〉 in them which Tatianus describing uses these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soul is possessed with sparks or materials of the power of the Spirit and yet it is sometimes ineffective and unactive sometimes more sometimes less and does no more do its work at all times than the Soul does at all times understand Add to this that if there be in 〈◊〉 naturally an evil principle a proclivity to sin an ignorance and pravity of mind a disorder of affections as experience teacheth us there is and the perpetual Doctrine of the Church and the universal mischiefs issuing from mankind and the sin of every man does witness too much why cannot Infants have a good principle in them though it works not till its own season as well as an evil principle If there were not by nature some evil principle it is not possible that all the world should chuse sin In free Agents it was never heard that all individuals loved and chose the same thing to which they were not naturally inclined Neither do all men chuse to marry neither do all chuse to abstain and in this instance there is a natural inclination to one part But of all the men and women in the world there is no one that hath never sinned If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us said an Apostle If therefore Nature hath in Infants an evil principle which operates when the child can chuse but is all the while within the Soul either Infants have by Grace a principle put into them or else Sin abounds where Grace does not superabound expresly against the doctrine of the Apostle The event of this discourse is That if Infants be capable of the Spirit of Grace there is no reason but they may and ought to be baptized as well as men and women unless God had expresly forbidden them which cannot be pretended and that Infants are capable of the Spirit of Grace I think is made very credible Christus infantibus infans 〈◊〉 sanctificans 〈◊〉 said Irenaeus Christ became an Infant among the Infants and does sanctifie Infants and S. Cyprian affirms Esse apud omnes 〈◊〉 Infantes 〈◊〉 majores 〈◊〉 unam divini muneris aequitatem There is the same dispensation of the Divine grace to all alike to Infants as well as to men And in this Royal Priesthood as it is in the secular Kings may be anointed in their Cradles Dat Deus sui Spiritûs 〈◊〉 gratiam quam etiam latenter infundit in parvulis God gives the most secret Grace of his Spirit which he also secretly infuses into Infants And if a secret infusion be rejected because it cannot be proved at the place and at the instant many men that hope for Heaven will be very much to 〈◊〉 for a
Resurrection of his body after three days death but he expressed it in the metaphor of the Temple Destroy this Temple and I will build it again in three days He spake of the Temple of his Body and they understood him of the Temple at Jerusalem and it was never rightly construed till it was accomplished 2. At this publick Convention of the Jewish Nation Jesus did many Miracles published himself to be the Messias and perswaded many Disciples amongst whom was Nicodemus a Doctor of the Law and a Ruler of the Nation he came by night to Jesus and affirmed himself to be convinced by the Miracles which he had seen for no man could do those miracles except God be with him When Jesus perceived his understanding to be so far disposed he began to instruct him in the great secret and mysteriousness of Regeneration telling him that every production is of the same nature and condition with its parent from flesh comes flesh and corruption from the Spirit comes spirit and life and immortality and nothing from a principle of nature could arrive to a supernatural end and therefore the only door to enter into the Kingdom of God was Water by the manuduction of the Spirit and by this Regeneration we are put into a new capacity of living a spiritual life in order to a spiritual and supernatural end 3. This was strange Philosophy to Nicodemus but Jesus bad him not to wonder for this is not a work of humanity but a fruit of God's Spirit and an issue of Predestination For the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and is as the wind certain and notorious in the effects but secret in the principle and in the manner of production And therefore this Doctrine was not to be estimated by any proportions to natural principles or experiments of sense but to the secrets of a new Metaphysick and abstracted separate Speculations Then Christ proceeds in his Sermon telling him there are yet higher things for him to apprehend and believe for this in respect of some other mysteriousness of his Gospel was but as Earth in comparison of Heaven Then he tells of his own descent from Heaven foretells his Death and Ascension and the blessing of Redemption which he came to work for mankind he preaches of the Love of the Father the Mission of the Son the rewards of Faith and the glories of Eternity he upbraids the unbelieving and impenitent and declares the differences of a holy and a corrupt Conscience the shame and fears of the one the confidence and serenity of the other And this is the summ of his Sermon to Nicodemus which was the fullest of mystery and speculation and abstracted sences of any that he ever made except that which he made immediately before his Passion all his other Sermons being more practical 4. From Jerusalem Jesus goeth into the Country of Judaea attended by divers Disciples whose understandings were brought into subjection and obedience to Christ upon confidence of the divinity of his Miracles There his Disciples did receive all comers and baptized them as John at the same time did and by that Ceremony admitted them to the Discipline and Institution according to the custom of the Doctors and great Prophets among the Jews whose Baptizing their Scholars was the ceremony of their Admission As soon as John heard it he acquitted himself in publick by renewing his former testimony concerning Jesus affirming him to be the Messias and now the time was come that Christ must increase and the Baptist suffer diminution for Christ came from above was above all and the summ of his Doctrine was that which he had heard and seen from the Father whom God sent to that purpose to whom God had set his seal that he was true who spake the words of God whom the Father loved to whō he gave the Spirit without measure and into whose hands God had delivered all things this was he whose testimony the world received not And that they might know not only what person they sleighted but how great Salvation also they neglected he summs up all his Sermons and finishes his Mission with this saying He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him 5. For now that the Baptist had fulfilled his Office of bearing witness unto Jesus God was pleased to give him his writ of ease and bring him to his reward upon this occasion John who had so learned to despise the world and all its exteriour vanities and impertinent relations did his duty justly and so without respect of persons that as he reproved the people for their prevarications so he spared not Herod for his but abstaining from all expresses of the spirit of scorn and asperity mingling no discontents interests nor mutinous intimations with his Sermons he told Herod it was not lawful for him to have his Brother's wife For which Sermon he felt the furies and malice of a woman's spleen was cast into prison and about a year after was sacrificed to the scorn and pride of a lustful woman and her immodest daughter being at the end of the second year of Christ's Preaching beheaded by Herod's command who would not retract his promise because of his honour and a rash vow he made in the gayety of his Lust and complacencies of his riotous dancings His head was brought up in a dish and made a Festival-present to the young girl who gave it to her mother a Cruelty that was not known among the Barbarisms of the worst of people to mingle banquetings with bloud and sights of death an insolency and inhumanity for which the 〈◊〉 Orators accused Q. Flaminius of Treason because to satisfie the wanton cruelty of Placentia he caused a condemned slave to be killed at supper and which had no precedent but in the furies of Marius who caused the head of the Consul Antonius to be brought up to him in his Feasts which he handled with much pleasure and insolency 6. But God's Judgments which sleep not long found out Herod and marked him for a Curse For the Wise of Herod who was the Daughter of Aretas a King of Arabia Petraea being repudiated by paction with Herodias provoked her Father to commence a War with Herod who prevailed against Herod in a great Battel defeating his whole Army and forcing him to an inglorious flight which the Jews generally expounded to be a Judgment on him for the unworthy and barbarous execution and murther of John the Baptist God in his wisdom and severity making one sin to be the punishment of another and neither of them both to pass without the signature of a Curse And Nicephorus reports that the dancing daughter of Herodias passing over a frozen lake the ice brake and she fell up to the neck in water and her head was parted from her body by the violence of the fragments shaked by the water and
The Samaritans coming to Jesus V. 28. The woman left her water pot went her way into the city saith to the men Come see a man which told me all things that ever I did is not this the Christ Then they went out of the city came unto him V. 39. Many of the Samaritans beleived on him for the saying of the woman when they were come to him many more believed because of his own word 1. WHen Jesus understood that John was cast into prison and that the Pharisees were envious at him for the great multitudes of people that resorted to his Baptism which he ministred not in his own person but by the deputation of his Disciples they finishing the ministration which himself began who as Euodins Bishop of Antioch reports baptized the Blessed Virgin his Mother ther and Peter only and Peter baptized Andrew James and John and they others he left Judaea and came into Galilee and in his passage he must touch Sychar a City of Samaria where in the heat of the day and the weariness of his journey he sate himself down upon the margent of Jacob's Well whither when his Disciples were gone to buy meat a Samaritan woman cometh to draw water of whom Jesus asked some to cool his thirst and refresh his weariness 2. Little knew the woman the excellency of the person that asked so small a charity neither had she been taught that a cup of cold water given to a Disciple should be rewarded and much rather such a present to the Lord himself But she prosecuted the spite of her Nation and the interest and quarrel of the Schism and in stead of washing Jesus's feet and giving him drink demanded why he being a Jew should ask water of a Samaritan for the Jews have no intercourse with the Samaritans 3. The ground of the quarrel was this In the sixth year of Hezekiah Salmanasar King of Assyria sacked Samaria transported the Israelites to Assyria and planted an Assyrian Colony in the Town and Country who by Divine vengeance were destroyed by Lions which no power of man could restrain or lessen The King thought the cause was their not serving the God of Israel according to the Rites of Moses and therefore sent a Jewish captive Priest to instruct the remanent inhabitants in the Jewish Religion who so learned and practised it that they still retained the Superstition of the Gentile rites till Manasses the Brother of Jaddi the high Priest at Jerusalem married the daughter of Sanballat who was the Governour under King Darius Manasses being reproved for marrying a stranger the daughter of an uncircumcised Gentile and admonished to dismiss her flies to Samaria perswades his Father-in-law to build a Temple in Mount Gerizim introduces the Rites of daily Sacrifice and makes himself high Priest and began to pretend to be the true successor of Aaron and commences a Schism in the time of Alexander the Great From whence the Question of Religion grew so high that it begat disassections anger animosities quarrels bloudshed and murthers not only in Palestine but where ever a Jew and Samaritan had the ill fortune to meet Such being the nature of men that they think it the greatest injury in the world when other men are not of their minds and that they please God most when they are most furiously zealous and no zeal better to be expressed than by hating all those whom they are pleased to think God hates This Schism was prosecuted with the greatest spite that ever any was because both the people were much given to Superstition and this was helped forward by the constitution of their Religion consisting much in externals and Ceremonials and which they cared not much to hallow and make moral by the intertexture of spiritual senses and Charity And therefore the Jews called the Samaritans accursed the Samaritans at the Paschal solemnity would at midnight when the Jews Temple was open scatter dead mens bones to profane and desecrate the place and both would fight and eternally dispute the Question sometimes referring it to Arbitrators and then the conquered party would decline the Arbitration after sentence which they did at Alexandria before Ptolemaeus Philometor when Andronicus had by a rare and exquisite Oration procured sentence against Theodosius and Sabbaeus the Samaritan Advocates The sentence was given for Jerusalem and the Schism increased and lasted till the time of our Saviour's conference with this woman 4. And it was so implanted and woven in with every understanding that when the woman perceived Jesus to be a Prophet she undertook this Question with him Our Fathers worshipped in this mountain and ye say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship Jesus knew the Schism was great enough already and was not willing to make the rent wider and though he gave testimony to the truth by saying Salvation is of the Jews and we know what we worship ye do not yet because the subject of this Question was shortly to be taken away Jesus takes occasion to preach the Gospel to hasten an expedient and by way of anticipation to reconcile the disagreeing interests and settle a revelation to be verified for ever Neither here nor there by way of confinement not in one Countrey more than another but where-ever any man shall call upon God in spirit and truth there he shall be heard 5. But all this while the Holy Jesus was athirst and therefore hastens at least to discourse of water though as yet he got none He tells her of living water of eternal satisfactions of never thirsting again of her own personal condition of matrimonial relation and professes himself to be the Messias And then was interrupted by the coming of his Disciples who wondred to see him alone talking with a woman besides his custom and usual reservation But the Woman full of joy and wonder left her water-pot and ran to the City to publish the Messias and immediately all the City came out to see and many believed on him upon the testimony of the Woman and more when they heard his own discourses They invited him to the Town and received him with hospitable civilities for two days after which he departed to his own Galilee 6. Jesus therefore came into the Countrey where he was received with respect and fair entertainment because of the Miracles which the Galileans saw done by him at the Feast and being at Cana where he wrought the first Miracle a Noble personage a little King say some a Palatine says S. Hierome a Kingly person certainly came to Jesus with much reverence and desire that he would be pleased to come to his house and cure his Son now ready to die which he seconds with much importunity fearing left his Son be dead before he get thither Jesus who did not do his Miracles by natural operations cured the child at distance and dismissed the Prince telling him his Son lived which by
and peace where wearied Souls were to lay their heads and dispose their cares and there to turn them into joys and to gild their thorns with glory That holy tongue which was parched with heat streamed forth rivulets of holy Doctrine which were to water all the world to turn our Deserts into Paradise And though he begged water at Jacob's Well yet Jacob drank at his For at his charge all Jacob's flocks and family were sustained and by him Jacob's posterity were made honourable and redeemed But because this Well was deep and the woman had nothing to draw water with and of her self could not fathom so great a depth therefore she refused him just as we do when we refuse to give drink to a thirsty Disciple Christ comes in that humble manner of address under the veil of poverty or contempt and we cannot see Christ from under that robe and we send him away without an alms little considering that when he begs an alms of us in the instance of any of his poor relatives he asks of us but to give him occasion to give a blessing for an alms Thus do the Ministers of Religion ask support but when the Laws are not more just than many of the people are charitable they shall fare as their Master did they shall preach but unless they can draw water themselves they shall not drink but si scirent if men did but know who it is that asks them that it is Christ either in his Ministers or Christ in his poor servants certainly they could not be so obstructed in the issues of their Justice and Charity but would remember that no honour could be greater no love more fortunate than to meet with an opportunity to be expressed in so noble a manner that God himself is pleased to call his own relief 5. When the Disciples had returned from the Town whither they went to buy provision they wondred to see the Master talking alone with a woman They knew he never did so before they had observed him to be of a reserved deportment and not only innocent but secure from the dangers of Malice and suspicion in the matter of Incontinence The Jews were a jealous and froward people and as nothing will more blast the reputation of a Prophet than effeminacy and wanton affections so he knew no crime was sooner objected or harder cleared than that Of which because commonly it is acted in privacy men look for no probation but pregnant circumstances and arguments of suspect so nothing can wash it off until a man can prove a negative and if he could yet he is guilty enough in the estimate of the vulgar for having been accused But then because nothing is so destructive of the reputation of a Governour so contradictory to the authority and dignity of his person as the low and baser appetites of Uncleanness and the consequent shame and scorn insomuch that David having faln into it prayed God to confirm or establish him spiritu principali with the spirit of a Prince the spirit of Lust being uningenuous and slavish the Holy Jesus who was to establish a new Law in the authority of his person was highly curious so to demean himself that he might be a person uncapable of any such suspicions and of a temper apt not only to answer the calumny but also to prevent the jealousie But yet now he had a great design in hand he meant to reveal to the Samaritans the coming of the Messias and to this his discourse with the Woman was instrumental And in imitation of our great Master Spiritual persons and the Guides of others have been very prudent and reserved in their societies and entercourse with women Hereticks have served their ends upon the impotency of the Sex and having led captive silly women led them about as triumphs of Lust and knew no scandal greater than the scandal of Heresie and therefore sought not to decline any but were infamous in their unwary and lustful mixtures Simon Magus had his Helena partner of his Lust and Heresie the author of the Sect of the Nicolaitans if S. Hierom was not misinformed had whole troups of women Marcion sent a woman as his Emissary to Rome Apelles had his Philomene Montanus Prisca and Maximilla Donatus was served by Lucilla Helpidius by Agape Priscillian by Galla and 〈◊〉 spreads his nets by opportunity of his conversation with the Prince's Sister and first he corrupted her then he seduced the world 6. But holy persons Preachers of true Religion and holy Doctrines although they were careful by publick Homilies to instruct the female Disciples that they who are heirs together with us of the same Hope may be servants in the same Discipline and Institution yet they remitted them to their Husbands and Guardians to be taught at home And when any personal transactions concerning the needs of their spirit were of necessity to intervene between the Priest and a woman the action was done most commonly under publick test or if in private yet with much caution and observation of circumstance which might as well prevent suspicion as preserve their innocence Conversation and frequent and familiar address does too much rifle the ligaments and reverence of Spiritual authority and amongst the best persons is matter of danger When the Cedars of Libanus have been observed to fall when David and Solomon have been dishonoured he is a bold man that will venture farther than he is sent in errand by necessity or invited by charity or warranted by prudence I deny not but some persons have made holy friendships with women S. Athanasius with a devout and religious Virgin S. Chrysostome with Olympia S. Hierome with Paula Romana S. John with the elect Lady S. Peter and S. Paul with Petronilla and Tecla And therefore it were a jealousie beyond the suspicion of Monks and Eunuchs to think it impossible to have a chaste conversation with a distinct Sex 1. A pure and right intention 2. an entercourse not extended beyond necessity or holy ends 3. a short stay 4. great modesty 5. and the business of Religion will by God's grace hallow the visit and preserve the friendship in its being spiritual that it may not degenerate into carnal affection And yet these are only advices useful when there is danger in either of the persons or some scandal incident to the Profession that to some persons and in the conjunction of many circumstances are oftentimes not considerable 7. When Jesus had resolved to reveal himself to the Woman he first gives her occasion to reveal her self to him fairly insinuating an opportunity to confess her sins that having purged her self from her impurity she might be apt to entertain the article of the revelation of the Messias And indeed a crime in our Manners is the greatest indisposition of our Understanding to entertain the Truth and Doctrine of the Gospel especially when the revelation contests against the Sin and professes open hostility to the Lust.
nature and manner of the present communication Only this last because it is more malicious and a declension from a greater grace is something like the fall of Angels And of this the Emperour Julian was a sad example 19. But as these are degrees immediately next and a little less so the hopes of pardon are the more visible Simon Magiss spake a word or at least thought against the Holy Ghost he thought he was to be bought with mony Concerning him S. Peter pronounced Thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity Yet repent pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee Here the matter was of great difficulty but yet there was a possibility 〈◊〉 at least no impossibility of recovery declared And therefore S. Jude bids us of some to have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the fire meaning that their condition is only not desperate And still in descent retaining the same proportion every lesser sin is easier pardoned as better consisting with the state of Grace the whole Spirit is not destroyed and the body of sin is not introduced Christ is not quite ejected out of possession but like an oppressed Prince still continues his claim and such is his mercy that he will still do so till all be lost or that he is provoked by too much violence or that Antichrist is put in substitution and sin reigns in 〈◊〉 mortal body So that I may use the words of Saint John These things I write unto you that ' you sin not But if any man sin we have an Advocate with the 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Righteous And he is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world That is plainly Although the design of the Gospel be that we should erect a Throne for Christ to reign in our spirits and this doctrine of Innocence be therefore preached that ye sin not yet if one be overtaken in a fault despair not Christ is our Advocate and he is the Propitiation he did propitiate the Father by his death and the benefit of that we receive at our first access to him but then he is our Advocate too and prays perpetually for our perseverance or restitution respectively But his purpose is and he is able so to do to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his Glory 20. This consideration I intend should relate to all Christians of the world And although by the present custom of the Church we are baptized in our infancy and do not actually reap that fruit of present Pardon which persons of a mature age in the primitive Church did for we yet need it not as we shall when we have past the calentures of Youth which was the time in which the wisest of our Fathers in Christ chose for their Baptism as appears in the instance of S. Ambrose S. Austin and divers others yet we must remember that there is a Baptism of the Spirit as well as of water and when-ever this happens whether it be together with that Baptism of water as usually it was when only men and women of years of discretion were baptized or whether it be ministred in the rite of Confirmation which is an admirable suppletory of an early Baptism and intended by the Holy Ghost for a corroborative of Baptismal grace and a defensative against danger or that lastly it be performed by an internal and merely spiritual Ministery when we by acts of our own election verifie the promise made in Baptism and so bring back the Rite by receiving the effect of Baptism that is when-ever the filth of our flesh is washt away and that we have the answer of a pure conscience towards God which S. Peter affirms to be the true Baptism and which by the purpose and design of God it is expected we should not defer longer than a great reason or a great necessity enforces when our sins are first explated and the sacrifice and death of Christ is made ours and we made God's by a more immediate title which at some time or other happens to all Christians that pretend to any hopes of Heaven then let us look to our standing and take heed lest we fall When we once have tasted of the heavenly gift and are made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come that is when we are redeemed by an actual mercy and presential application which every Christian that belongs to God is at some time or other of his life then a fall into a deadly crime is highly dangerous but a relapse into a contrary estate is next to desperate 21. I represent this sad but most true Doctrine in the words of S. Peter If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again entangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto them So that a relapse after a state of Grace into a state of sin into confirmed habits is to us a great sign and possibly in it self it is more than a sign even a state of reprobation and final abscission 22. The summ of all is this There are two states of like opposite terms First Christ redeems us from our vain conversation and reconciles us to God putting us into an intire condition of Pardon Favour Innocence and Acceptance and becomes our Lord and King his Spirit dwelling and reigning in us The opposite state to this is that which in Scripture is called a crucifying the Lord of Life a doing despite to the Spirit of grace a being entangled in the pollutions of the world the Apostasie or falling away an impotency or disability to do good viz. of such who cannot cease from sin who are slaves of sin and in whom sin reigns in their bodies This condition is a full and integral deletery of the first it is such a condition which as it hath no Holiness or remanent affections to Vertue so it hath no hope or revelation of a mercy because all that benefit is lost which they received by the death of Christ and the first being lost there remains no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful expectation of Judgment But between these two states stand all those imperfections and single delinquencies those slips and falls those parts of recession and apostasie those grievings of the Spirit and so long as any thing of the first state is left so long we are within the Covenant of grace so long we are within the ordinary limits of mercy and the Divine compassion we are in possibilities of
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
his Disciples to verifie his Promise to make demonstration of his Divinity to lay some superstructures of his Church upon the foundation of his former Sermons to instruct them in the mysteries of his Kingdom to prepare them for the reception of the Holy Ghost and as he had in his state of Separation triumphed over Hell so in his Resurrection he set his foot upon Death and brought it under his dominion so that although it was not yet destroyed yet it is made his subject it hath as yet the condition of the Gibeonites who were not banished out of the land but they were made drawers of water and bewers of wood so is Death made instrumental to Christ's Kingdom but it abides still and shall till the day of Judgment but shall serve the ends of our Lord and promote the interests of Eternity and do benefit to the Church 8. And it is considerable that our Blessed Lord having told them that after three days he would rise again yet he shortened the time as much as was possible that he might verifie his own prediction and yet make his absence the less troublesome he rises early in the morning the first day of the week for so our dearest Lord abbreviates the days of our sorrow and lengthens the years of our consolation for he knows that a day of sorrow seems a year and a year of joy passes like a day and therefore God lessens the one and 〈◊〉 the other to make this perceived and that supportable Now the Temple which the Jews destroyed God raised up in six and thirty hours but this second Temple was more glorious than the first for now it was clothed with robes of glory with clarity agility and immortality and though like Moses descending from the mount he wore a veil that the greatness of his splendor might not render him unapt for conversation with his servants yet the holy Scripture affirms that he was now no more to see corruption meaning that now he was separate from the passibility and affections of humane bodies and could suffer S. Thomas to thrust his hand into the wound of his side and his singer into the holes of his hands without any grief or smart 9. But although the graciousness and care of the Lord had prevented all diligence and satisfied all desires returning to life before the most forward faith could expect him yet there were three Maries went to the grave so early that they prevented the rising of the Sun and though with great obedience they stayed till the end of the Sabbath yet as soon as that was done they had other parts of duty and affection which called with greatest importunity to be speedily satisfied And if Obedience had not bound the feet of Love they had gone the day before but they became to us admirable patterns of Obedience to the Divine Commandments For though Love were stronger than death yet Obedience was stronger than Love and made a rare dispute in the spirits of those holy Women in which the flesh and the spirit were not the litigants but the spirit and the spirit and they resisted each other as the Angel-guardian of the Jews resisted the tutelar Angel of Persia each striving who should with most love and zeal perform their charge and God determined And so he did here too For the Law of the Sabbath was then a Divine Commandment and although piety to the dead and to such a dead was ready to force their choice to do violence to their will bearing them up on wings of desire to the grave of the LORD yet at last they reconciled Love with Obedience For they had been taught that Love is best expressed in keeping of the Divine Commandments But now they were at liberty and sure enough they made use of its first minute and going so early to seek Christ they were sure they should find him 10. The Angels descended Guardians of the Sepulchre for God sent his guards too and they affrighted the Watch appointed by Pilate and the Priests but when the women came they spake like comforters full of sweetness and consolation laying aside their affrighting glories as knowing it is the will of their Lord that they should minister good to them that love him But a conversation with Angels could not satisfie them who came to look for the Lord of the Angels and found him not and when the Lord was pleased to appear to Mary Magdalen she was so swallowed up with love and sorrow that she entred into her joy and perceived it not she saw the Lord and knew him not For so from the closets of darkness they that immediately stare upon the Sun perceive not the beauties of the light and feel nothing but amazement But the voice of the Lord opened her eyes and she knew him and worshipped him but was denied to touch him and commanded to tell the Apostles for therefore God ministers to us comforts and revelations not that we may dwell in the sensible fruition of them our selves alone but that we communicate the grace to others But when the other women were returned and saw the Lord then they were all together admitted to the embracement and to kiss the feet of Jesus For God hath his opportunities and periods which at another time he denies and we must then rejoyce in it when he vouchsafes it and submit to his Divine will when he denies it 11. These good women had the first fruits of the apparition for their forward love and the passion of their Religion made greater haste to entertain a Grace and was a greater endearment of their persons to our Lord than a more sober reserved and less active spirit This is more safe but that is religious this goes to God by the way of understanding that by the will this is supported by discourse that by passions this is the sobriety of the Apostles the other was the zeal of the holy women and because a strong fancy and an earnest passion sixed upon holy objects are the most active and forward instruments of Devotion as Devotion is of Love therefore we find God hath made great expressions of his acceptance of such dispositions And women and less knowing persons and tender dispositions and pliant natures will make up a greater number in Heaven than the severe and wary and enquiring people who sometimes love because they believe and believe because they can demonstrate but never believe because they love When a great Understanding and a great Affection meet together it makes a Saint great like an Apostle but they do not well who make abatement of their religious passions by the severity of their Understanding It is no matter by which we are brought to Christ so we love him and obey him but if the production admit of 〈◊〉 that instrument is the most excellent which produces the greatest love and 〈◊〉 discourse and a sober spirit be in it self the best yet we do not always suffer that to be a
Communication 94. 3. Triumphant riding of Jesus 359. 4. Thief upon the Cross pardoned and in what sence 200. 8. An excellent Penitent 354. 32. Themistocles appeased King Admetus by 〈◊〉 his Son to his sight 372. 7. Thomas's Infidelity 420. 3. Tongue-murther 247. V. VAin Repetitions in Prayer to be avoided 270. Value of the Silver pieces Judas had 349. 14. Value of Jesus in this World was always at a low rate 57. 4. Vespasian upon the Prophecies concerning the Messias 〈◊〉 himself into hopes of the Empire 25. 2. Vinegar and Gall offered to Jesus 355. 35. Virginity preserred before Marriage 327. Vertue is honourable 301. 11. Productive of 〈◊〉 299. 7. More pleasant than Vice 69. 6. The holy Virgin incouraged Joseph of Arimathea to a publick Confession of Jesus 356. 38. She caused Ministers to take her Son's Body from the Cross 356. Full of sorrow at the Passion 356. 37. She was saluted Blessed by a Capernaite 292. 12. Vice a great Spender 301. 9. It 〈◊〉 from Vertue sometimes but in one nice degree 45. 15. Why we are more prone to Vice than Vertue 37. 4. A Virgin shut her self up twelve Years in a Sepulchre to cure her Temptation 114. 34. Vicious persons not to be admitted to the Sacrament 374. 12. Unitive way of Religion to be practised with caution 60. 20. Vows are a good instance of Importunity in Prayer 270. 20. To be made with much caution and prudence ibid. Uncleanness of Body and Spirit forbidden to Christians 249 W. WAter-pots among the Jews at Feasts and why 152. 7. Way to Heaven narrow in what sence 297. Washing the Feet an hospitable civility to Strangers 350. 16. Washing the Disciples Feet ib. Wandring thoughts in Prayer to be prayed against 268. Watchfulness designed in the Parable of the ten Virgins 348. Want cannot be where God undertakes the Provision 77. Wenceslaus King of Bohemia led his Servant by a vigorous example 4. Exh. 10. Widows two Mites accepted 348. Widowhood harder to preserve Continence than Virginity 86. Wise-mens expectation lessened at the sight of the Babe lying in a Stable 28. But not 〈◊〉 ibid. They publickly consess him 33. Wilderness chosen by Christ he was not involuntarily driven by the evil Spirit 95. Works of Religion upon our Death-bed after a pious Life are of great concernment 403. Women must be lovers of Privacy 9. Instrumental to Conversion of Men 182. 3. To Heresie 189. 5. Not to be conversed withall too freely by Spiritual persons ibid. They 〈◊〉 Religious Friendships with Apostles and Bishops ibid. 6. Cautions concerning Conversation with Women ibid. They ministred to Christ 293. 17. Go early to the Sepulchre 419. Will for the Deed accepted how to be understood 213. 41. Will of God is to be chosen before our own 247. 267. World to be refused when the Devil offers it 100. Wine mixed with Myrrhe offered to Jesus 353. Y. YOak of Christianity easie 295. Yoak of Moses and Yoak of Sin broken by Christ 295. 1. Z. ZEal of Elias not imitable by us 324. 18. Zeal of Prayer of great efficacy 269. 18. It discomposed Moses and Elisha 85. 8. Zacchaeus his Repentance 346. 4. Zebedee's Sons Petition ibid. Zechary slain by Herod and why 66. 5. His Bloud left a Tincture in the Pavement for a long while after ibid. The End of the TABLE ERRATA PAge 85. Line 13. for Consulted by three things read Consulted by three Kings Antiquitates Apostolicae OR THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES OF OUR SAVIOUR To which are added The Lives of the two EVANGELISTS SS MARK and LVKE By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his MAJESTY 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. Praesat in Epist. ad Philem. pag. 1733. LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1675. TO THE READER IT will not I suppose seem improbable to the Reader when I tell him with how much reluctancy and unwillingness I set upon this undertaking Besides the disadvantage of having this piece annexed to the Elaborate Book of that excellent Prelate so great a Master both of Learning and Language I was intimately conscious to mine own unfitness for such a Work at any time much more when clogg'd with many habitual Infirmities and Distempers I considered the difficulty of the thing it self perhaps not capable of being well managed by a much better Ten than mine few of the Ancient Monuments of the Church being extant and little of this nature in those few that are Indeed I could not but think it reasonable that all possible honour should be done to those that first Preached the Gospel of peace and brought glad tidings of good things that it was fit men should be taught how much they were obliged to those excellent Persons who were willing at so dear a rate to plant Christianity in the World who they were and what was that Piety and that Patience that Charity and that Zeal which made them to be reverenc'd while they liv'd and their Memories ever since to be honourably celebrated through the World infinitely beyond the glories of Alexander and the triumphs of a Pompey or a Caesar. But then how this should be done out of those few imperfect Memoires that have escaped the general shipwrack of Church-Antiquities and much more by so rude and unskilful a hand as mine appear'd I confess a very difficult task and next door to impossible These with some other considerations made me a long time obstinately resolve against it till being overcome by importunity I yielded to do it as I was able and as the nature of the thing would bear THAT which I primarily designed to my self was to draw down the History of the New Testament especially from our Lord's death to enquire into the first Originals and Plantations of the Christian Church by the Ministery of the Apostles the success of their Doctrine the power and conviction of their Miracles their infinite Labours and hardships and the dreadful Sufferings which they underwent to consider in what instances of Piety and Vertue they ministred to our imitation and served the purposes of Religion and an Holy Life Indeed the accounts that are left us of these things are very short and inconsiderable sufficient possibly to excite the appetite not to allay the hunger of an importunate Enquirer into these matters A consideration that might give us just occasion to lament the irreparable loss of those Primitive Records which the injury of time hath deprived us of the substance being gone and little left us but the shell and carcass Had we the Writings of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis and Scholar says Irenaeus to S. John wherein as himself tells us he set down what he had learnt from those who had familiarly conversed with the Apostles the sayings and discourses of Andrew and Peter of Philip and Thomas c.
parent of as great Religion as the good women make their fancy their softness and their passion 12. Our Blessed Lord appeared next to Simon and though he and John ran forthtogether and S. John outran Simon although Simon Peter had denied and forsworn his Lord and S. John never did and followed him to his Passion and his death yet Peter had the savour of seeing Jesus first Which some Spiritual persons understand as a testimony that penitent 〈◊〉 have accidental eminences and priviledges sometimes 〈◊〉 to them beyond the temporal graces of the just and innocent as being such who not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the remanent and inherent evils even of repented sins and their aptnesses to relapse but also because those who are true Penitents who understand the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and that for a sinner to pass from death to 〈◊〉 from the state of sin into pardon and the state of Grace is a greater gift and a more excellent and improbable mutation than for a just man to be taken into glory out of gratitude to God and indearment 〈◊〉 so great a change added to a fear of returning to such danger and misery will re-enforce all their industry and double their study and 〈◊〉 more diligently and watch more carefully and redeem the 〈◊〉 and make amends for their omissions and oppose a good to the former evils beside the duties of the 〈◊〉 imployment and then commonly the life of a holy Penitent is more holy active zealous and impatient of Vice and more rapacious of Vertue and holy actions and arises to greater 〈◊〉 of Sanctity than the even and moderate affections of just persons who as our Blessed Saviour's expression is 〈◊〉 no Repentance that is no change of state nothing but a perseverance and an improvement of degrees There is more joy in heaven before the Angels of God over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 ninety nine just persons that need it not for where sin hath abounded there doth grace super abound and that makes joy in Heaven 13. The Holy Jesus having received the affections of his most passionate Disciples the women and S. 〈◊〉 puts himself upon the way into the company of two good men going to Emmaus with troubled spirits and a reeling faith shaking all its upper building but leaving some of its foundation firm To them the Lord discourses of the necessity of the Death and Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 and taught them not to take estimate of the counsels of God by the designs and proportions of man for God by ways contrary to humane judgment brings to pass the purposes of his eternal Providence The glories of Christ were not made pompous by humane circumstances his Kingdom was spiritual he was to enter into Felicities through the gates of Death he refused to do Miracles before 〈◊〉 and yet did them before the people he confuted his accusers by silence and did not descend from the Cross when they offered to believe in him if he would but 〈◊〉 them to be perswaded by greater arguments of his power the miraculous circumstances of his Death and the glories of his Resurrection and by walking in the secret paths of Divine election hath commanded us to adore his footsteps to admire and revere his Wisdom to be satisfied with all the events of Providence and to rejoyce in him if by Afflictions he makes us holy if by Persecutions he supports and enlarges his Church if by Death he brings us to life so we arrive at the communion of his Felicities we must let him chuse the way it being sufficient that he is our guide and our support and our exceeding great reward For therefore Christ preached to the two Disciples going to 〈◊〉 the way of the Cross and the necessity of that passage that the wisdom of God might be glorified and the conjectures of man ashamed But whilest his discourse lasted they knew him not but in the breaking of bread he discovered himself For he turned their meal into a Sacrament and their darkness to light and having to his Sermon added the Sacrament opened all their discerning faculties the eyes of their body and their understanding too to represent to us that when we are blessed with the opportunities of both those instruments we want no exteriour assistence to guide us in the way to the knowing and enjoying of our Lord. 14. But the Apparitions which Jesus made were all upon the design of laying the foundation of all Christian Graces for the begetting and establishing Faith and an active Confidence in their persons and building them up on the great fundamentals of the Religion And therefore he appointed a general meeting upon a mountain in Galilee that the number of witnesses might not only disseminate the same but establish the Article of the Resurrection for upon that are built all the hopes of a Christian and if the dead rise not then are we of all men most miserable in quitting the present possessions and entertaining injuries and affronts without hopes of reparation But we lay two gages in several repositories the Body in the bosome of the earth the Soul in the 〈◊〉 of God and as we here live by Faith and lay them down with hope so the 〈◊〉 is a restitution of them both and a state of re-union And therefore although the glory of our spirits without the body were joy great enough to make compensation for mere than the troubles of all the world yet because one shall not be glorified without the other they being of themselves incomplete substances and God having revealed nothing clearly concerning actual and complete felicities till the day of Judgment when it is promised our bodies shall rise therefore it is that the Resurrection is the great Article upon which we rely and which Christ took so much care to prove and ascertain to so many persons because if that should be disbelieved with which all our felicities are to be received we have nothing to establish our Faith or entertain our Hope or satisfie our desires or make retribution for that state of secular inconveniences in which by the necessities of our nature and the humility and patience of our Religion we are engaged 15. But I consider that holy Scripture onely instructs us concerning the life of this world and the life of the Resurrection the life of Grace and the life of Glory both in the body that is a life of the whole man and whatsoever is spoken of the Soul considers it as an essential part of man relating to his whole constitution not as it is of it self an intellectual and separate substance for all its actions which are separate and removed from the body are relative and incomplete Now because the Soul is an incomplete substance and created in relation to the Body and is but a part of the whole man if the Body were as eternal and incorruptible as the Soul yet the separation of the one from the other would be