death the Sun rose earlier by certain hours than the natural season Vt redderet lucis horas quas terror Dominicae passionis invaserat to make restitution of those hours of light which were lost by the Eclipse of the Sun at our Saviours Passion and so it should be called a Day because it was miraculous and longer than the natural proportion of a Day But this is without the Book and rather Poetical than Theological But secondly to more purpose it justly bears the title of a Day for were it not for the benefit of Christ's Resurrection we had been buried in eternal night our bodies had gone down into the Sepulchre as into the Land of darkness to perish and rot and never to see the light more Nox est perpetuò una dormienda but through him who hath planted us into the similitude of his Resurrection we awake from sleep we stand up from the dead and Christ shall give us light 3. The claritude of those glorified Bodies which we shall put on in the General Resurrection will make us carry Day about with us whithersoever we go You know how Christ did look at his Transfiguration his face did shine as the Sun and his raiment was white as the light Mat. xvii 2. therefore it must needs be day with the Saints for ever after they are risen from the dead since according to the Pattern of their Masters beauty their faces shall shine like the Sun in the Firmament But fourthly whether these curiosities touch the Point I am not sure upon this I dare build that it is called the Day which the Lord made because no greater work than the Resurrection of Christ was made upon any day since the world began for two things are to be considered in it Quod apparuit in Christo quod nondum apparuit in nobis that which was wrought upon Christ's Body and was seen in him and by virtue of his rising from the dead that which shall appear in us hereafter O infinite Power which quickned Jesus again the life and soul of all the Members of his Body and would not let him see corruption I know not how to compare the noblest Acts of the Lord as many have done I dare not do it as whether it were more to create a man out of nothing or to recompose a man again when his Soul was flitted and the Substance of his Body passed about into innumerous Transmutations after the revolution of five or six thousand years This I know that on our part it had been better for us never to have been than not to have been restored to the Image of God which was defaced in us and simply to be is nothing so well as to be made incorruptible in the outward man and the inward man to be restored unto Righteousness and Holiness of life Besides after the Creation God did cease from his work and there is no new thing under the Sun but after the Resurrection of Christ God doth continually save his people from their Sins Or if you interpose that as the Father did rest the last day of the Week from the Works of the Creation so the Son did rest on the first day of the Week having absolutely accomplished the Work of our Redemption then I infer if the Rest of the Father ceasing from creating material things did sanctifie a Day then this greater Rest of the Son must much more sanctifie a Festival As the new Heavens and the new Earth shall be more glorious than the old which are subject to vanity so the Jewish Feast on the Sabbath for the Remembrance of the Creation is nothing so honourable as the Christian Feast of the Lords Day in Remembrance of the Resurrection Therefore at the close of the Benefit let me admonish you of the Duty We will c. When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from a strange Land they came home again to the Land of Canaan from whence they were descended like men that had lien long among the dead and were quite forgotten But with so much mirth and joy as is unutterable their mouth was filled with laughter and their tongue with joy This was but a Type of the Body brought back out of the Grave therefore this gladness will become us much better in the Substance than in the Figure Christ is returned victoriously out of the Sepulcher and in that victory hath redeemed us all from the captivity of the Grave then how requisite is it that our mouth should be filled with laughter and our tongue with singing for the Lord hath done very great things for us whereof we are glad There was never any Society I am perswaded more disconsolate more crest-faln than the Disciples were upon the Eve of this happy Resurrection their faith failed them and their courage failed them they lockt themselves up and sat drowzily like men that had lost the fairest expectation that heart could imagin and had neither life nor soul Heaviness did endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Jesus came into the midst of them the doors being shut and shewed them his feet and his hands Then were the Disciples glad when they saw the Lord Joh. xx 20. before the Lords Ascension though their minds were yet somewhat carnal yet they were glad that his sayings were verified in despight of the Jews that He was risen again the third day The old Father confuted his churlish Son with that principle of good nature it was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy brother was dead and is alive again Luke xv 32. Again the Disciples were very frollick because when they saw the Lord revived again they were perswaded that He would restore the Temporal Kingdom unto Israel a thing which erroneously they had long lookt for but after his Ascension then their joy was high swoln and full to the brim for it was illuminated by faith they rejoyced that he was risen and gone up in glory to possess his Kingdom for when Christ our life shall appear again then shall we also appear in glory But because ancient Customs are things that will stick to the remembrance I will borrow a little time to impart unto you what glad remonstrances the Old Fathers of the Church were wont to make of it First their very outward Garments were of the best they had and full of splendor not out of pride and wantonness but to testifie that in every circumstance they did magnifie that holy Mystery of Christs rising from the dead and to witness in their outward habit that the resurrection of the dead is the cloathing of us with new and immortal apparel Therefore Nazianzen wishing for his own dissolution cries out take from me this ponderous Garment that is this sinful corruptible Body which makes me sweat and faint and give me a lighter that will never trouble me Secondly their Churches were trickt up with the best bravery that they could
humors then have with you they will be present in the Congregation Whereas our Saviour hath abstracted from all such humane qualifications and scandalous niceties that the sound of his Ministers should go forth into all the world and he that hath ears to hear let him not be so scrupulous in his choice but let him hear Paul was pleased to have Christ preached either through contention or sincerely all manner of ways says he I rejoyce Phil. i. 18. They that came to mock the Apostles as men drunk were caught by hearing them They that came to take our Saviour themselves were taken by hearing John vii 37. Many of the negligent rank that come to gaze about rather than to attend many that come hither with affections worse than beasts depart converted and repentant with a new heart and a new spirit more like Angels than men In brief let the Heathen that communicate not in the Gospel enjoy all that this earth and the plenty thereof can afford yet they and none but they are blessed that hear the word of God And if you will make a good man ply him apace with this exhortation to hear yet know now that is but the first rude draught of him till you finish him with that which follows he must hear and keep that which he hears Let him hear the sayings of Christ and do them then he shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock Mat. vii 24. Custodia Sermonis Dei est ejus adimpletio says Euthymius upon my Text to keep the word is to do as we are taught and to endeavour to fulfil the royal Law This is the very concluding promise which God did send to Israel by his messenger Moses If thou shalt hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day blessed shalt thou be in the City and blessed in the field Deut. xxviii most divinely the Psalmist Psal cxi 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have all they that do thereafter So that the understanding of the law of God consists not in knowledge and speculation but in practice and execution We must be Servants as well as Disciples The work of a Disciple is to hear and conceive aright but the work of a Servant is to do and obey and though dissimulation will intrude it self into every good thing yet there may be nay there is ten thousand times more hypocrisie in hearing than there can be in doing Imperfect fruits are more pleasing to God than bare leaves A sorry doer such a one as Ahab was in his sullen and crude repentance shall have more recompence from God than a barren unprofitable hearer that thrusts in at all the Lectures and Exercises that City and Country affords Live so that all men may see you have often talkt with God and God hath spoken often to you from this holy place else I must leave you among those that are censur'd by St. Paul 2 Tim. iii. 7. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth I told you before that Mary sate at our Saviours feet to hear his Sermon when Martha minded other domestical business between those two Maries choice was much more transcendent and unum necessarium but not unicum one necessary duty but not the only a part of Religion but not the whole for in another place Maries part of doing was far better than her part of hearing I mean her anointing of Christs head with a box of precious oyntment For this that she hath done shall be spoken of throughout the world Mat. xxvi 13. Let me make a summary application of all and so conclude This day we begin to solemnize the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and continue it with a Festival dedication for twelve days following There are three sorts of men that make most different uses of it some that are Epicures and never consider what great work the Lord wrought at this time that we have an Advocate with the Father who is the propitiation for our sins but they consider that feasting and freedom are vulgar in these days and they take their fill of that but according to their riotous manners you cannot conceive that they keep the Birth of Christ holy but that they celebrate a wakes for the making of some golden Calf for they sit down to eat and to drink and rise up to play Secondly There are others that honour God with their lips that will say this is an happy season wherein a Redeemer came down among us God hath raised up a mighty salvation for us all because he hath sent his Son to take our nature upon him And as Micah said being a most idolatrous sinner Now know I that the Lord will do me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Judg. xvii 11. So these men flatter themselves in their impenitent lives Now know I that the Lord will be merciful and spare me since the word became flesh and dwelt among us But I hope there are many of the third sort that conceive unutterrable gladness for the Nativity of their Saviour but they know withal that as Christ is the meritorious cause of all blessedness so it is a most barren faith to rest only in the contemplation of that for as all mankind are blessed that the womb did bear him and that the paps did give him suck so it must be accomplisht by this obedience Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Do you love him for his Incarnation then keep his sayings If a man love me he will keep my sayings Do you wonder that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son then take heed of maligning and hating one another He that says he loves God and hateth his brother is a lyar and there is no truth in him Do you honour his humility then command your self to imitate him in lowliness of heart would you do all due celebration to his sacred Birth frequent his holy Temple and hear his word and observe it 'T is much in every ones talk who keeps a good house in Christmass Beloved you are now at this present in the best that is Can any man keep a better house than God would you wish a more delicious banquet then such Confessions such Collects such Litanies such heavenly Prayers as our Church hath appointed in which there is nothing wanting but company to attend them what delicacies are contained in the holy Scriptures both read and preacht unto you what edifying Doctrine in the Homilies which are read on the Saints days together with the Divine Service and above all what Nectar what Manna what restoring Cordials are received in the Blessed Sacrament This is the house which God keeps who also allows you to be chearful at home at this season and commends it to you
give him the onset this is no God So Jesus grazing about like a poor sheep that could find nothing but stones for fodder the Wolf grins upon him but he proved to be the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Impar congressus Achilli and the wild beast of the Forest was repelled by him that led captivity captive the more infirmity pretended on Christs part the more glorious the victory Fames Domini pia fraus est ne caveat tentare Diabolus says Bonaventure This fast and hunger was a pious fraud or stratagem laid by God to draw on Satan to tempt his Lord and Maker and so prove him guilty of a most foul rebellion St. Austin doth so receive this opinion that he rejects all others it may be said says he that fasting came after Baptism even as a good diet is to be kept after health recovered for fear of a relapse but that is impertinent Illius causa jejunii non Jordanis tinctio sed Diaboli tentatio fuit This fast had no reference to the dipping in Jordan but to cozen Satan and make him rashly adventure upon the ensuing tentation So St. Ambrose likewise and almost all the best Authors of the best antiquity It is a fatal requital upon some busie wits that as they are sharp and sore deceivers so when their own turn comes about they are as sorrily deceived Marcus Crassus was one of the cunningst flatterers that ever was and yet no man so easily and so notoriously gull'd with flattery So Satan is the grand Impostor of mankind and yet this grand Imposture was thrust upon him to enter combate with Christ who is invincible and omnipotent And let cheaters and cunning practisers beware that their own shot rebound not upon themselves God hath a retorsion in store a fallere fallentem which will fall upon them in spight of subtilty and circumspection They think they work closely and no harm shall happen unto them I am sure that David prophesies how certainly they shall be stew'd in their own sawce they are taken in the crafty wiliness that they imagined for others in the same net that they hid privily is their foot taken The ways of a Serpent are slippery and treachery shall be tript up with treachery The Lord hath spoken it and the Lord hath done it I have set these three reasons why Christ fasted in the formost rank because they are warrantable Brentius I think mistook when he interserted this for a reason It is a great anxiety or a great sickness which keeps a man from his meat for a few days so as he thought the tentations of Christ were so violent and horrible that for forty days he eat nothing I suppose when I come to shew at what time the Devil began his work I shall make it appear that no tentation was offered to Christ until the fortieth day Howsoever the Author took his aim amiss for although we read that our Saviour endured a most violent conflict in the garden when he sweat drops of bloud in his Prayer the case is not the same in this conflict with the Devil In the Garden he stood before his Father representing himself not as the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased but under the imputation and malediction of all our sins and he struggled with his Fathers justice that he might bear our iniquities in his own body upon the cross This was a wrestling indeed to put all his strength and powers in a heat and all his spirits in an agony But to beat down the suggestions of the evil one it put him to no sollicitousness or anxiety never was victory got so easily None of those poysoned darts could stick in him this was the Lamb without spot that could commit no sin but came to take away the sins of the world This error is easily put off the next opinion is maintained more pertinaciously that this fasting was part of that obedience by which he merited exaltation of his Father and in like manner the pennance of fasting is meritorious to the obedient members of his Church Thus they I will examine this strictly by several pieces First to enter into a tedious disputation how or what Christ did merit by his obedience cannot consist with the time and it doth not piece well with my Text. But take a little knowledge of it by this similitude the Angels of heaven have a double operation one that they stand always before the face of our Father which is in heaven another that they are ministring Spirits and do good offices to the Church upon earth as they do always stand before God so they must needs be completely blessed having the substance of their reward but as they assist and help us so they have some kind of increase or as it is called accidental addition to their reward So Christ in the union of the two natures could not but ever behold the divine glory so that the fruition of that eternal happiness was ever conjoyned to him but inasmuch as the dispensation of our redemption was his continual exercise upon earth so that deserved him some additions to his glory in the glorification of the sensible part of mans nature the speedy resurrection of the body his speedy ascension or exaltation into heaven and as some do add that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow or if so be these things were so intrinsecal to the hypostatical union that they could not be parted from it yet thus it may be well agreed Mereri est de debito facere majus debitum These things accrued to Christ meritoriously because that which was due by the hypostatical union was made more due by his humiliation I add secondly that the great abstinence and sweet temperance of our Saviours life was part of his humiliation but for the forty days wherein he fasted I concur with them that maintain this was no part of his abstinence What abstinence could there be says one in this miraculous act when all that while he had no provocation in his appetite to long for meats no more than the Angels have who taste no corruptible things The faculties of nutrition call'd for no sustenance God repressed the appetite says Cajetan from feeling the provocations of hunger and thirst even as he suppressed the devouring quality of the fire that it should not burn the three constant Saints that were cast into it I make it my third reply though Christs obedience in his humiliation was meritorious yet there is so much disparity between his obedience and ours that men can take no measure of it I do not only mean in this difference which is so well known that he did exactly fulfil all the Law of God and for our part in many things we sin all There is another thing which puts as wide a difference between us Christ obeyed his Father because he would we because we must He obeyed without any terrour pronounced to compel
him we obey under the commination of hell fire if we be slack in our duty We are servants commanded to our task he did the works of him that sent him as a Prince receives the dignity of a province from his Father to administer it to his honour and if he had refused it it could not turn to his prejudice therefore both Angels and men owe as much obedience for their own part as they can perform but the dispensation of Christs humility was not imposed but freely undertaken and by that vertue and title meritorious In the last place therefore all the effects of Gods will are pleasing unto him to be done and so it is pleasing unto God to have us humble our souls sometimes before him with fasting and mourning but a good duty is wronged when the more rigid defenders of merit of condignity say that there is an equivalency and proportion between the studious keeping of some appointed Fasts with other voluntary afflictions and the reward of eternal life Is it not enough to say that our imperfect obedience pleaseth God and shall be rewarded according to his own promise and free grace Will it not satisfie us to go to heaven by mere mercy and undeserved liberality Beware to gild your works by the name of merit why should the ungodly make such proud boasting Dip them in the name of free remission of sins by the bloud of Jesus Christ and God will give glory to us his adopted Sons because we give all glory to the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 2. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterwards an hungry LET it not trouble my Auditors because I shall speak at this time of that Fast which our Saviour kept forty days this is not the proper season I confess and if any man be ready to say as one Philosopher in Laertius quipt another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why do you handle a matter that behoves us in a time that doth not behove it My answer is If I pickt out this for a single Text at this time my oversight were unpardonable but you know I take the parts of this Story in order and must follow my subject as it hapneth to be discuss'd Indeed our Church which doth always follow the steps of pure Antiquity hath appointed this portion of Gospel to be read yearly upon the first day of Lent For the memory of any great thing is better preserved when it is remembred solemnly about the time that it hapned So God said to the Children of Israel upon their coming out of Pharaohs bondage Remember this day continually in your generations Exod. xiv 3. And upon a great memorandum thus the Lord said to Ezekiel Son of man write the name of the day of this same day the King of Babylon set his face against Jerusalem this same day Ezek. xiv 3. And many have cited Nazianzen when they commend a word spoken in season Ex verbo illud potissimum quod est tempori convenientissimum That which best suits the time is best spoken out of the Scripture I subscribe to this wise direction and I do not violate it now out of neglect or contempt but upon apparent necessity that I may leave no gaps in this Scripture which I handle about our Saviours conflict with Satan but fill up the exposition of every verse as I proceed with such meditations as I am able to afford I come therefore to the remainder of this verse which is due unto you to be explained and it consists in two things The continuance of our Saviours fast and the consequent The continuance that he fasted forty days and forty nights the consequent that he was afterwards an hungry The one is a supernatural elevation the other is a natural condition In the first he shewed his divine vertue in the second his humane infirmity Upon the former the Devil feared he was the Son of God upon the latter he perswaded himself he was no more than a mortal man Whether is more strange that having flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone he should make his appetite forget to ask for sustenance so long Or being the Son of God who filleth every living thing with food himself should hunger and want In the first we admire him Be thou exalted Lord in thine own strength In the second we love him because he was made poor that we might be made rich in both we magnifie him Attend to these particulars and first that he had fasted forty days Forty days and forty nights not now a day and then a day at several times for that is easie and ordinary but all at once without intermission The Grammarians have medled with this Point to confirm it by this rule Jejunavit quadraginta dies non diebus quia tempus continuum ferè quarto casu ponitur Nouns of time expressed plurally in the Accusative case do betoken such a distance of time continued and not interrupted Therefore Christ observed a continuation of fast from the first day to the fortieth no man I think would understand it otherwise and if any were so captious St. Luke would not suffer him for his words are in those days he eat nothing Luk. iv 2. There is no efficacy in numbers said the wiser Philosophers and very truly but some numbers are apt to enforce a reverent esteem towards them by considering miraculous occurrencies which fell out in holy Scripture in such and such a number So Tolet in a sort magnifies this number of forty days that it is numerus mysteriis significandis accommodatus a number coincident very often to the greatest mysteries and noblest works of God Forty days it rained upon the earth in the days of Noah when God cleansed the great sins of the world by water Caleb and Joshuah returned from searching of the Land of Canaan after forty days Num. xiii 26. Christ continued upon earth forty days among his Disciples after he was risen from the dead before he ascended into heaven The Ninivites were forewarned that they should be consumed after forty days if they did not repent and turn unto the Lord. Thus it came to pass for what reason we cannot tell but God knows why his Providence doth so exactly and so often keep that measure of time in great signs and wonders Non potest fortuitò fieri quod tam saepe sit says one whom I never find superstitious in numbers It falls out too often to be called contingent and the oftener it falls out the more to be attended Yet it is the safest conclusion and hath least impertinency in it to say that Moses fasted forty days at the institution of the Law and Elias as long at the restauration of the Law so Christ kept even with them and fasted just as long as they before the publication of the Gospel As Jonas was three
loud voice Lazarus come forth AMong all the miracles that our Saviour wrought this suscitation of Lazarus or raising him up from the dead it was his true Benoni or Son of sorrow None came off with so much anxiety none cost him so dear in all the Gospel Twice he groaned in Spirit and once he wept his Passions were as variable as the life and death of Lazarus Look back to the fifteenth verse and you shall see it wrought comfortably I am glad for your sakes that Lazarus is dead Look unto the 35 verse and you shall see it wrought bitterly Jesus wept What alterations are there says St. Austin Gaudebat propter discipulos flebat propter Judeos horum fides confirmabatur horum incredulitas augebatur It joyed him for the Disciples sake that their faith would be confirmed and revived It grieved him for the Jews sake whose hearts were hardened The preparation then of this Miracle was not without sorrow but the event and sequel was worst of all For although the Counsel of the High Priests stomach'd at our Saviour long before yet they wisht his life no hurt till he had wrought this wonder which all the world were amazed at From that time Caiaphas began to talk like a Wizard That one man must die for the people and Christ must suffer Now you see good cause why our Lord might groan and weep Israel shall pass over into Canaan but Moses must die upon Mount Nebo the birth of Benjamin shall be Rachels funeral Lazarus shall be revived and Jesus crucified Yet I can tell you one thing Beloved how the Son of God shall neither groan nor weep for Lazarus but rejoyce in Spirit and be glad even at this day be glad as he stands at the right hand of God and it lies upon you to do it Did he then groan for the infidelity of the Pharisees Then sure he will now rejoyce if we believe in his works and have faith in the Resurrection Did he then weep because his own death was contrived for doing good Then he will now be comforted if you take heed that you do not again crucifie the Lord of life Tâ—llite lapidem as it is in verse 39 remove the stone the hardness of your heart and joy will follow in heaven for the conversion of a sinner Do you consider that the days past were a time of mourning and sad contrition Why here is a Text which was not preach'd without Christs mourning and lamentation Do you remember his Passion but the other day Why this is the Text which was an occasion to bring him to his Cross and Passion What do you meditate upon this day but our Saviours issuing out of the Grave Why here is Lazarus broke out of the Tomb Lazarus come forth Which words as I have read them rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon You shall perceive that the business in my Text is a work of great dignity that is one part and a work of great Divinity that is the other part The dignity consists in these two Points 1. In that which Christ had spoken before when he had said thus And what was that He pray'd unto his Father wherefore it is dignum oratione a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation 2. It is Dignum proclamatione it was cried with a loud voice and fit to be published to all the world The Divinity appears in these three circumstances 1. Exeat mortuus that a dead man is summoned to appear 2. Exeat Lazarus Lazarus after four days departure comes forth 3. Exeat ligatus one who was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths walks upon his feet O strange Divinity the Monuments which were shut did open for Christ did call who had the Key of David The dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds bring forth young ones and called Adam from the dust of the earth The body which lay putrified four days gave no offence in the smell Christ was at hand who is a sweet savour for us unto God The feet which were bound with Grave-cloaths could walk before him for in him we live and move and have our being Was not this excellent work worthy of a Prayer So far we have gone this day in our morning Sacrifice Was it not worthy of the proclamation of a loud voice fit to be preached that the world may hear of it and believe and be saved And that is the business which doth now take up your attentions With these two circumstances of the Miracle I must first begin the preparation of our Saviours Prayer and the promulgation of his loud voice or preaching And when he had thus said c. That is when he had prayed unto the Father Dimidium facti qui benè caepit habet And he that begins his work with Prayer as Christ did hath half dispatch'd it Vox clamantis the voice of a Crier was the fore-runner of Christ when he came upon the earth Vox orantis the voice of Prayer must be the fore-runner of our necessities when we look for any thing from heaven As the people shouted when the foundation of the Temple was laid grace grace be unto the first stone of the building so let the foundation of every thing be laid with shouting and strong Ejaculations to our God that he may say upon the moving of the first stone Grace be to the building In Gen. xii Abraham removed three times to several quarters and still before he pitcht his Tent he built an Altar to Jehovah remove not stir not enter upon no new task before you have built an Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom wheresoever you are pray and your own heart is a Temple or the Alter of Jehovah Religion is the Bow and the heart is the String but Prayer is that which bends the Bow Religion is unbent as it were and the Shafts cannot fly untill Prayer dispatch them Well might Peter who was prompt of tongue and ready to speak upon all occasions be counted a chief Apostle for Prayer which is the tongue of Religion and our Consciences Orator is the chief of all our vertues Debilem facito manu debilem coxâ pede no matter for infirmities in the feet for diseases in the hands so the dumb Devil be not in our tongues The penitent Thief had no hands to hold up they were nailed to the Cross no knees to bend for his legs were broken he had a tongue to say Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom and it did him service enough to open Paradise O the delusions of the Devil For all this that I have said you shall sooner make ignorants and vain people believe that Diseases are curable by unsignificant Charms by unhallowed mutterings than by godly Prayers As if the Devil could go further with Non-sense than a good Christian with Faith and Prayer One Talent in
Jordan his Disciples being with him What did this advantage them why Mors Lazari cum Lazaro discipulorum fides surgit cum sepulto says Chrysologus Lazarus was translated from death to life and this did increase the Disciples faith which lay half dead before 2. Martha sollicits for her Brother and 't is strange that Christ came to Bethany on purpose for Lazarus sake and yet spent more time with Martha than with them all The case is plain says Theophylact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alas her belief was near unto death almost quite gone and Christ came especially to quicken her with his grace that was Martha's resurrection 3. Her Sister Mary was a woful woman and she falls down in compassion about out Saviours feet St. Austin takes her to be the very same Mary that was the publick sinner which washt his feet with her tears and wip'd them with the hairs of her head Luke 7. whereupon he infers Maria peccatrix magis resuscitabatur quà m Lazarus Mary the Sinner was more revived when she was made a penitent Saint than Lazarus was when he was made a living man that was Marries resurrection 4. Here were divers Jews that came to comfort the two Sisters they were witnesses of this work and did glorifie God and believe Christ thanked his Father for it Whereupon says St. Ambrose Non unum Lazarum sed fidem omnium suscitavit it was a Resurrection day not for Lazarus alone but for the faith of all the multitude that were present whether they were the Disciples or Martha or Mary or the multitude of the Jews they had not been as they were if Christ had not made one in every part of the Miracle wherefore let us make a difference between them that came to gaze and them that came to believe a Miracle from the twelfth of this Gospel and the ninth verse The Jews came not only for Jesus sake but to see Lazarus also We come not together this day so much to see Lazarus reviv'd as to see the strength of Jesus above the power of death I have entred once before into this verse and the former both which rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon First it is a work of great Dignity that 's one part and a work of great Divinity that 's the other part The Dignity consists in these two points First in that which Christ had spoken before when he had thus said and what was that he prayed unto his Father wherefore it is dignum oratione a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation Secondly it is dignum proclamatione it was cried with a loud voice and fit to be publisht to all the world The Divinity appears in these three Circumstances 1. Exeat mortuus that a dead man was summon'd to appear 2. Exeat quatriduanus Lazarus after four days departure comes forth 3. Exeat ligatus he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin he comes forth of the Monument O strange Divinity the Sepulchers which were shut did open for Christ did call who had the key of David the dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds to bring forth young ones the Body which lay putrified four days gave no offence in the smel Christ was at hand who is a sweet favour for us unto God the feet which were bound with Grave-cloaths could walk before him for in him we live and move and have our being Was not this work worthy of a Prayer was it not worthy of a Proclamation so far I have gone already as likewise into the first Circumstance of the Divinity that a dead man was raised up As Aelian says of the Sybarites that they invite their Guests to a Feast a just year before the day of the Feast so long is it since I promised you the dispatch of this Text and now I am come to perform it you see what remains for this hours employment the two latter Circumstances Quatriduanus excitatur Lazarus is raised up after he had been four days in the Grave and 2 ligatus excitatur it was he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin two strange parts of his resurrection not lightly to be passed over for to speak of a Miracle suddenly and in a word non dat lucem videntibus sed pavorem it is like lightning says one the flash that glides by of a sudden it may terrifie the eye but not enlighten it First of ille quatriduanus he came forth alive who had been four days asleep in the Monument It is hard to perswade death to part with any thing it hath gotten The Devil strove with the Angel about the Body of Moses think you that Death would not strive with Christ much more about the Soul of Lazarus what a Guest of four dayes continuance and let him go I may say to the Grave as the Prophet said to Ahab for letting Benhadad escape Why hast thou let a man go out of thy hand who was appointed to utter destruction Wherefore St. Chrysostom brings in Death to complain of this fact for a sore grievance on this wise Elias rais'd up a Child whose soul was departed for a time Elisha did as much likewise this I took for a violence done to nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but here 's a Conqueror that 's more violent than them both he takes a dead man out of my chaws who stinks and hath been four days in the Sepulcher The same Father replies again this is a small thing to raise up one from burial after four days do you complain of that what if he were putrified what if he were dry bones what if he were dust and clay yea what if that dust were converted into other creatures Adam shall be cloathed again with flesh Noah hath lived in two Worlds he shall live again in a third And according to the Basil Edition of the 72. Job was one of those that rose and appeared in the holy City unto many Matth. 27. Si attendamus quis fecit delectari debemus potiùs quà m mirari says St. Austin If we do but attend who it is that doth all these things we shall rather break out into a passion of Joy than into Admiration For Christ that died for us and rose again for our Justification he hath the Keys of Life and Death and therefore we shall not see corruption for ever Martha had a faith that God could raise up her Brother again and that He would do it if Christ would pray unto him I know even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God God will give it thee O Woman says Chrysologus thou art yet but of little faith Judex ipse est quem tu postulas Advocatum Wouldest thou make Christ thine Advocate to plead thy Cause Nay Comfort is nearer at hand he is the Judge whom thou
of Heaven and all the Stars thereof Moreover Vna Sabbati litterally rendred is not the first but one day of the Week because one is the first ground to begin numbring and Theophilact says the Lords day is called the one day of the Week either because it is the only day from whence the blessing is procured for all the rest or besides it is a figure of the life to come Quando una tantum dies est nequaquam nocte interpolata when there shall be but one day for ever and no night of darkness to interrupt it Thus much of the words The matter of the Point is of a more profitable use And hence I begin that as God the Father upon the first day did begin to make this visible world of Creatures so Christ rose the same day from the dead to signifie that a new Age was then begun Resurrectio est alterius mundi spiritualis creatio says Justin Martyr The Resurrection is well called a creation of a new spiritual world On the first day of the Week God said Let there be light and he divided between the light and the darkness Verily on that wise on the first day of the Week God brought the light of the world out of the darkness of the Grave and the life says St. John was the light of men Now this infinite work to tread death under feet and to bring all flesh out of corruption into the state of immortality being more eximious than to make man in a possibility at first to die and perish therefore all Christian Churches have desisted to meet together at holy exercises upon the Sabbath of the Jews and the first day of the Week is the day appointed to sanctifie out selves unto the Lord for what reason I will now unfold and it is a case of no small perplexity And let me auspicate from the Text and Authority of Holy Scripture and these places following do conspire to verifie the Truth Acts xx 7. Paul abode seven days at Troas the seventh day of his abode was the first day of the Week then and not before it seems upon the first day of the Week when the Disciples came together to break Bread that is to partake of the Lords Supper Paul preacht unto them This seems to approve that in the Apostles time it was no more in use for their Disciples to meet upon the Sabbath but as well to honor the Resurrection as to separate from the Rites and Customs of the Jews in the Spirit of God they did convene together on the first day of the Week From Preaching and Administring the Holy Communion let us come to Collection of Alms. 1 Cor. xvi 2. Vpon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come How can this be expounded but that distributions were made to the poor upon the first day of the Week in their most solemn Assemblies For if the meaning were that every man should set apart a share of his own gains upon that day in his private Coffers and not in the publick Treasury when their Congregations were together then Collections had been to be made from house to house when Paul was to come who desires it might be laid up in readiness as it were in one stock before 'T is pity we are faln from that good order but in the most antient Church I find that they never miss'd to carry the Poors Box about every Lords Day witness this place of St. Cyprian Locuples es dives Dominicam celebrare te credis quae Corbanam omnino non respicis Thou that art rich and wealthy dost thou imagin thou keepest the Lords Day as thou oughtest and dost cast nothing into the Treasury Thirdly as the last day of the Week when God rested from his works was called the Sabbath of the Lord so it is of much moment to the point that the first day of the Week is called the Day of the Lord or the Lords Day Rev. i. 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lords Day as it appears Rev. i. 13. John was walking on the Sea shore meditating upon holy things in the Isle of Patmos Very probable that there was no solemn meeting to praise God as it ought to have been among those Pagan Islanders otherwise John had not betaken himself to solitary Meditations but see how he was recompensed Nactus est Doctorem ipsum Deum quando fortasse deessent quos ipse doceret when he was disconsolate because he wanted Auditors to teach God preached unto him the Mysteries of the Age to come But to enforce the Text forenamed for an Argument we have but two things in the New Testament called the Lords the Sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord 1 Cor. xi 20. and this day of Christian Assemblies is called the Lords Day the Lords Prayer and the Lords House are good Phrases but our own not the Scriptures but as we keep the Feast of Passeover no more but instead thereof eat the Lords Supper so neither do we observe the Jews Sabbath any more but instead thereof we keep the Lords Day Thus far I have prest the Authorities of Sacred Scripture The Authority of the Primitive Church and so downward to this Age will convince it clearly against any that is obstinate Ignatius was St. John's Scholar and as if he had learnt of his Teacher he writes thus Let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lords Day which is dedicated to the honor of his Resurrection the Queen and Princess of all days Justin Martyr commands the same day to be kept holy to the Lord every Week in his 2. Apolog. So doth Tertullian more than once and I cited St. Cyprian before The Council of Laodicea speaks thus resolutely Anathema to all those that rest upon the Sabbath let them keep the Lords Day when they observe a vacancy of labor and do as becometh Christians The great Council of Nice doth not command the first day of the Week to be kept holy but supposeth in the 20. Canon all good Christians would admit that without scruple and then appoints other significant Ceremonies to be kept upon the Lords Day from Easter to Whitsontide I need not reckon downward after the Nicen Council because in one word I have not heard or read that it was opposed by any of the Fathers They knew that an appointed time must be allotted for every necessary Duty and certainly upon the abrogation of the Old Sabbath not Man but God did appoint a time for so necessary a thing as the religious Service of his Name Christ made an end of all Sabbaths by his own Sabbath lying all that day and night in the Grave and to hold that the Sabbath which is but a Shadow is to continue is to hold that Christ the Body is not yet come yet that being laid apart let us
the first day of the Week We are not those that esteem one day more than another as it is the mere flux of time but we are those that must remember how God hath glorified himself in one day more than another and never so much on any as on this day The first day of the Week As God the Father upon the first day did begin to make this visible World of Creatures so Christ rose the same day from the dead to shew the beginning of a new Age. Resurrectio est alterius mundi spiritualis creatio says Justin Martyr The Resurrection is well called a Creation of a new spiritual world On the first day of the Week God said Let there be light and he divided between the light and the darkness Verily in the same sort upon the same day God brought the light of the world out of the darkness of the Grave and the life says St. John was the light of men Now this infinite work to tread death under feet and to bring mankind out of corruption into the state of immortality being more eximious than to make Adam in a possibility to die and perish therefore all Christian Churches have desisted to meet together at holy exercises upon the Sabbath of the Jews and the first day of the Week hath been solemnly appointed from the Apostles even to this Age to sanctifie the name of the Lord in publick Congregations It is but a fretful question which is too much agitated now adays since the first day of the Week is designed to be sanctified to the praise of God from the Resurrection of our Saviour what time we may borrow for the use of domestical affairs and harmless recreations He that is perswaded in his conscience no part of the day must be spared from Gods Service let him so do according to the resolution of his conscience no man can be offended that he is earnest for his own part to keep the whole day unto the Lord. Again he that is perswaded that the Lord must have his due service on that day but that he is not tied to a strict Sabbatical servitude surely his knowledge is good and he may use his liberty but without scandal to his brother To the first I say be a zealous Christian in keeping the Lords day but be not a Jew in opinion To the other I say give thanks to God for the freedom to which he hath called you and that he hath eased your shoulders from the servil burden of the Jewish Sabbath but be not a Libertine in practise And this is the sum of that which I will say to the first Point that this marvellous work was done upon the first day of the Week Now the Holy Ghost hath not only satisfied us with the designation of the day but because the more particularity the more certainty therefore the Spirit hath condescended to name almost the hour of the day so that I am sure we may guess near upon the time for it was early on the first day of the Week which denotes two things that the Lord made haste to rise from the dead to comfort the Disciples and that Mary Magdalen made haste to comfort herself with coming to the Sepulcher Christ started up suddenly out of sleep like Samson before the powers of hell those Philistines were aware of him To this it may be David alluded in Exurgam diluculò Awake my glory awake Lute and Harp I my self will awake right early Nescit tarda molimina spiritus sancti gratia Be not you slow in paying your debts to God God is ever before-hand in fulfilling his promises to you The words in the Second Psalm which are applied Heb. i. to our Saviours eternal Generation are referred by the same Apostle Acts xiii 33. to his Resurrection Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee I cannot pass it over that the Vulgar Latine reads it Ante luciferum genui te Before the Morning star have I begotten thee Very fitly to this Doctrine which I teach that Christ rose early this day before the Morning Star appeared Now that one Scripture may not seem to fall foul upon another these two must be reconciled how he that rose so early ante luciferum how he can be said to be three days like Jonas in the belly of the Grave The answer is you must measure these three days by a Synechdoche He was buried towards Evening upon the Jews day of preparation and so lay interred some part of Afternoon and all that night Upon the Jews Sabbath he rested in the Sepulcher all day and all night Upon the first day of the Week he continued in the state of death some hours of the Morning and very early he came forth an eternal Victor he fulfilled the Scriptures therefore and withal he made haste to fulfil his Promise upon the third day Euthymius expresseth it more elegantly than I can Quòd citiùs quà m sit constitutum efficitur potentiae est quòd tardiùs imbecilitatis Christus non solùm promissum explevit sed etiam gratiam velocitatis addidit To be tardier than our promise is a sign of some let and infirmity to be before hand with a promise is a sign of power and efficacy The promise of the Son of God was that in three days he would build up the Temple of his body again he did so and more than so soon after the third day was begun Behold the performance of his word and the sudden dispatch of his favour joyn'd unto it So we have seen both his truth in the Promise and his love in the speediness of the act doing above his promise Moreover I would have it be mark'd that as he rose early so he was sought early by Mary Magdalen The desire of Christ held her eyes waking and I believe she had took but small rest since Christ was crucified as soon as it was possible to have access to his Monument she came unto it I know not whether you are to learn it but it was not the usual manner of the Jews to bury their dead within the Walls of their Cities to a Garden you know the Corps of our Saviour was carried into the Suburbs of Jerusalem therefore she was compelled to attend till the Gates of the City were opened and passage being made she came before the break of day to the Sepulcher And believe it she sped much the better that she was such an early visitor do not imagine but the eye of the Lord unto this day is upon those that make haste to come unto the threshold of his sacred House and they are greatly deceived that think they shall find God as soon if they come late to Church as if they come early I pray you tell me is there any part of the Service so mean and unuseful that you can be content to spare it Or do you think that God is asleep and by that time the Congregation hath rouzed him up then
utterance ALL the joy which we celebrate for the famous acts of Christ is irksom to the Devil and the particular Solemnities which we keep are grievous to those that shut their eyes against the truth Upon the yearly day of our Saviours Nativity the Jew is sad and displeas'd because he believes not that he that was born of Mary a pure Virgin was the Son of God and the Messias whom their Fathers lookt for that should sit upon the Throne of David for evermore Upon the high Feast of his Resurrection the Sadducee gnasheth with his teeth because he denieth that the dead can be raised to life So upon this triumphant Feast wherein we abound with comfort for the sending of the Holy Ghost the Pelagian is malecontented who is an enemy to the efficacy of Grace and the more cause we have to maintain the dignity of it and to be throughly disciplin'd what the Holy Ghost hath wrought for our Soul because the Church is miserably soured of late in all places with the leaven of Pelagius Again as all the parts of our Saviours Mediatorship were several degrees to advance our Salvation and like the several steps of Jacobs Ladder to bring us nearer and nearer to Heaven so in this comparison the sending of the Holy Ghost is the loftiest degree and as it were the top of the spire which is next neighbour to the Kingdom of Glory for as man in his first creation had but an incomplete being till the Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life so man in his reparation was but incompletely restored till Christ did send the Comforter to infuse into him the breath of sanctification This day therefore is the concluding Feast of all the great days wherein we rememorate the noble works of our Lord and to go further this Text is the upshot of all the blessings that were conferred upon the Church in this happy day Christ took our nature upon him that he might die for our sins he suffered and was crucified that he might reconcile all such to his Father as would repent and believe repentance and faith to please God cannot enter into the heart of the natural man by his own abilities a power from Heaven must be the means to bring that about which is so repugnant to our corrupt nature Traverse over the mystery of our Redemption and you shall find that the work is at a stand till supernal grace poured in do draw it forward as Physicians say that spiritus est ultimum alimenti the last concoction and the most refined part of our nourishment is that which makes the spirits so the donation of the Holy Spirit is the accomplishment and final resolution of all the benefits which we partake in Christ And the last payment collated by that precious liberality to enrich the Church for ever is here in my Text nay indeed it was but a preparation before the talent of grace was not tendred till now That which was set forth in figure in the former verses is here exhibited in real substance Before a rushing wind made a noise here was the very thing imparted which was shadowed by the wind before certain firy tongues made a glittering that sat upon their head now their own tongues became most fluent and voluble with wonderful eloquence In brief to the exact building up of the Church two things were requir'd which are not wanting but abound in this verse First that the Lord should speak unto the Heart Secondly that he should speak unto the Ear by an invisible word and by a visible He spake invisibly to the Heart when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost he spake visibly to the Ear when his Ministers began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Nay more to gather a Society together whose Labours should be dispread over all the world it was expedient that the Lord should confer both ordinary and extraordinary Gifts upon them His ordinary Blessing and indeed nothing is blest without it is some quantity of Sanctification his extraordinary Blessing is twofold to send such as are not lightly sprinkled but filled with the Spirit and to speak with divers Tongues that their sound may go forth into all the World Yet again to shew the Amplitude of Gods allowance to his Primitive Church he makes a double provision first for every Disciple as he is one Member of this Body and so all and every one of them were filled with the Holy Ghost and then he provides for all the Members of his Body junctim in one union and communion they began c. so that here 's the inward and the outward blessing the ordinary and the extraordinary the particular and the universal The inward ordinary and particular blessing is this that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost If you look for the provision with which the Primitive Church was stored look for it in this Chapter and you will find out upon judicious survey that there are three things which make it plenteous with all manner of store Pastores Verbum and Spiritus First certain Pastors allotted to the sacred Function to guide the souls of the People 2. the Word of life which is put into their mouth to be preacht unto all Nations 3. The Spirit of grace accompanying the Word to make it fruitful and prolificous in the hearts of them that hear it and obey it That some were ordeined Pastors and Bishops to teach and rule the Church that 's clear the Apostles met together in Jerusalem with one accord as Christ had appointed and the Cloven Tongues which came from Heaven sat upon each of them that was their Commission to take their Bishoprick upon them that the Word was delivered unto them which they should preach and Elocution to impart that Word to every Kingdom and Language that 's as clear Eight times in this one Chapter St. Peter quotes the Scripture of the old Testament and with divers tongues according to the capacity of all the Nations and Languages that were met together and that the Holy Ghost was infused with much abundance at the same time that 's as clear and pregnant as the rest 't is twice gone over in my Text both in the beginning and in the end they were filled with the Holy Ghost and the Spirit gave them utterance A Church without lawful Pastors is but a Synagogue of Schismatiques a Pastor without a Tongue is but an Idol Shepherd or a dumb Dog a Tongue without the power of the Spirit is but sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal As St. Paul said of the three grand Theological Virtues Now abideth Faith Hope Charity these three but the greatest of these is Charity so I say of these necessary parts that constitute the Church the Ministry the Word and the Spirit but the chiefest and most excellent of these is the Spirit In some strange manner God may have a Church without a consecrated Priesthood as when Adam and
Day of Salvation says Isaiah and that day reacheth from the time that Remission of sins is preached in the bloud of Christ unto the end of the world Now as the Text is common to all Evangelical Days so there is one Day that lifts up its head above them all the most memorable Day of our Saviour's Resurrection then it was verily fulfilled as Peter urg'd it that the Stone which the Builders refused became the head of the corner St. Chrysostom Nyssen and almost who not pitch upon easter-Easter-day for the particular application of this Text that was the Day wherein God did bring forth a more eminent work than in other common days and upon every Sunday in the year for that Day 's sake the Church hath appointed sacred Assemblies that we may rejoyce and be glad Well then of Davids Day first and from thence how particular Holidays may be ordeined to magnifie Gods extraordinary benefits next of the blessed Age of the Gospel wherein we have great cause to rejoyce and be comforted for Christ hath wiped away all tears from our eyes And last of all I shall take the right opportunity to speak of the glorious Feast of the Resurrection and how the Church doth keep the weekly Feast of the Lords day to rejoyce and be glad in it And first the Holy Ghost hath left it written for the honor of the Lords Anointed This is the Day which the Lord hath made There is one thing in that form of speech which jarrs a little against the ear how can it be said that God did make one day more than another for he hath framed all Times and Seasons alike the Sun knoweth his going down and he maketh it return again every morning to give light unto the World In the Hymns of the Heathen he is called Diespiter the Father of all days indifferently it is he that sets the Heavens in perpetual motion and makes the hours run on and when he calls back his word the Plumbets shall go down and time shall be no more It is granted therefore that he giveth continuance and being to all days after one sort and for the Phrase of my Text a new Writer hath well exprest himself Non includitur mensura temporis sed conditiones tempori incidentes it is not meant of the Day which the Sun makes with his diurnal motion but of the great Work which was wrought in that Day that is not that God made that Day more than others but that He made more in that Day than in others It is vulgar to impute the condition of things which fall out in some certain dayes to the days themselves per metonymiam adjuncti although a day as it is meerly a space of time cannot possibly be capable of such Attributes We take liberty to call this a cold or a moist day not for its own sake but because coldness and moisture happen in the day so for the contingency of glorious things we call the day it self glorious and to renown the memorable acts of the Lord we have got a use to speak thus This is the day which the Lord hath made In 1 Sam. 12.6 according to the Original and that 's pointed at in our Margent it is said that the Lord made Moses and Aaron why are not all that are born of a woman the works of his hands as well as Moses and Aaron therefore our Translation hath rendred the sense rather than the word that the Lord advanced Moses and Aaron In like manner we may read my Text thus This is the Day which the Lord advanced for he made it remarkable with an extraordinary favour and thereby gave it a Dignity and Exaltation above its fellows The going out and the return of every year are from the Almighty with the store and abundance that it brings forth but when the clouds drop fatness with unusual plenty then the Prophet says that he crowns that year with his goodness Psal lxv 11. So some principal Days are crowned above the rest as this Day wherein through the sun shine of his mercy he set a Crown of pure Gold upon the head of David his Servant Piety forbid that we should not thankfully receive the most vulgar benefits I know that common things are commonly neglected but learn to see God in small things or you shall never see him in greater If I had learnt it of no other yet I find enough in Seneca for that use Communia negligenda non sunt c. neglect not to give thanks for common and quotidian favours for life and health and suppeditation of food that the Sun doth shine upon us that we have the air to breath in that the Sea doth ebb and flow for navigation There are days of small things as Zachary calls them chap. iv 10. but those small things are to be consider'd of us with a grateful heart who are less than the least of all his mercies but how much more requisite is it then to observe those days wherein some eminent blessings are confer'd upon us what a behooveful thing it is every man for his own part to keep a Calender of the famous Acts of the Lord for our Birth for our Baptism for great Preservations and to represent them before us at the return of every year with grateful acknowledgment from the bottom of our heart and when God doth see that we are so mindful of a prosperous Day he will grant us many prosperous Years and for the period of joy a most prosperous Eternity that shall never have a period This is made as plane then as you can wish upon what special Prerogative the Lord is said to make a particular day because he doth appoint some special favour to fall out upon it and the Wise-mans Question is answered Ecclus. xxxiii 7. Why doth one day excel another when as all the light of every day of the year is of the Sun It is not the material light which distinguisheth the nobleness of Dayes but he that made the Sun more excellent than the other Stars of the Firmament hath made Princes glorious as the Sun in the Orb of the Common-wealth and a Day of a Princes Exaltation is like a Prince among Days and in that capacity to be magnified Such a day is said to be made by God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because God himself and none else is the Author of the Power of Kings He and none but He took David from following the Ews great with young and set him over the Princes of his People In a word since the Day is taken for the Work of the Day the real meaning of the first words of my Text is this is the King which the Lord hath made Samuel anointed him the People shouted and cried God save him but the Lord did constitute him the Ruler of the Twelve Tribes and gave him his Sovereign Authority the Crowns of Glory in Heaven and the Crowns of Dignity upon Earth are both held by
be our Intercessor with his Father and to prepare a place for us Whitsunday or the Coming of the Holy Ghost is like a fair Land-mark to instruct the most unlearned that though our nature is most corrupt and averse from all good motions yet the spirit is poured into us whereby in some weak measure we become obedient Children and cry Abba Father These are the Days which the Lord hath made and when we devote our selves to magnifie him upon these occasions they prove the best means to teach us the Catechetical and fundamental points of faith And as Christ was great in himself and in those works of grace so He is great in the Angels of Heaven great in the Apostles in the Evangelists in all Saints and Martyrs and the choice is made by our Church of the Flower of all occasions in this kind publickly to praise the Lord and it is very fit I say that there should be a sensible difference between these and common days both for our thanksgiving and for the profitableness of our piety Gods works are all worthy of observation but not at all times alike to be remembred for as the Lord by being every where doth not give unto all places one and the same degree of holiness but the Church is more sacred than the High-ways of the Field though Gods Immensity and Omnipotency is alike in both so neither is one and the same dignity competent to all times although the Omnipotency of God doth work in all times but as his extraordinary presence hath hallowed and sanctified certain places so they are his extraordinary works which have worthily advanced certain times for which cause they ought with all men that honour God to be in more honour than other dayes I should add two things more that are very ponderous to confirm this truth one from the practice of some holy persons in the Old Testament whose constitutions God approved the other from the practice of our Fore-fathers in all Ages and 't is fit to tread in their steps in things that are laudable honest and indifferent but this shall not be hudled up I will dilate it hereafter To dispatch all beside our holy due of the Lords Day we are now to celebrate the Kings Day and for good reason in all equity we ought to do some Religious Service on His Day who is the Defendor of our Religion Next under the Providence of God who but the King doth maintain the Truth among us therefore on what day of the week soever this Day lights it becoms us to set open the Door of the Church and to praise the Lord because we have freedom to come to Church all the year by his grace and protection We have no Romish Superstition no Anabaptistical or Presbyterian Anarchy to make this holy place irksom unto us God be praised that has given his Anointed a faithful heart to serve him and to uphold his People in the right way that they may hold up clean hands to Heaven I do read that Constantine celebrated an yearly Feast for his Victory against Licinius I read that the Church of Alexandria celebrated a Day yearly wherein the waters asswaged after a great Inundation I read that Alexius Comnenus appointed a perpetual Holiday for the memory of the famous Emperor and Lawgiver Justinian nay St. Ambrose calls to mind that Felix Bishop of Cuma kept that day every year in a magnificent manner to God wherein he was consecrated Bishop Thus former Ages have given us light that we keep in the Circle of that which is lawful when we adorn the Anniversary Day of the Inauguration of our most noble King with joy and festivity in the sight of God and first let us confess the Lords benefit towards us and say as the People did of Solomon Because thy God loved Israel to stablish them for ever therefore made he thee King over them to do judgment and justice 1 Chron. ix viii Secondly let as put up Prayers and Intercessions to the Divine Majesty to give great prosperity to our Anointed Sovereign to his Royal Consort and to their Posterity for ever AMEN A SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it IF you have ever seen a piece of Coin stamp'd with one face upon the fore-side and with another upon the reverse then set that fancy before you to understand the double sense of this Text. First If you ask according to the Letter whose Image and Superscription is this I tell you and I have told it you once before it is Davids And this is the triumphant Hymn of the devout men of Israel exulting that God had given them such a King to go in and out before them If you ask according to the Spirit to whom this Verse belongs most certainly it aims at Christ and that two ways either calculating this Day for the whole Age of the Gospel that is the day which God hath made to put gladness into his chosen through the remission of our sins because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Or else in a more eminent sort it is the joyful acclamation of the Church upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus that being the most honourable and most welcome of days because the Resurrection hath ever been esteemed the most glorious of all the works of the Gospel I have spun out the first of these concerning David to the last thread now my Web which is upon the Loom is concerning Christ that is I have given unto Caesar that which is Caesars and it is very expedient as the more principal duty to give unto God that which is Gods Indeed I cannot say that I am come to the heart and to the vitals of the Text till now till now that I apply it not as formerly to the Lords Anointed but to Christ himself our Lord anointed And I have clear way made me for this interpretation as clear as I can wish for never any that have received the Book of the Psalms for spiritual and divine melody but do reckon this Psalm and especially this part of the Psalm to belong to Jesus the Author and finisher of our Salvation The Doctors of the Jews says St. Hierom did use to sing it in praise of the Messias And the Doctors of the Christians must be all of one Chorus to chant it merrily to the Son of God because four places of the New Testament that is witness enough have made a challenge unto it that this Psalm is an Allelujah or Hosannah to the Son of God And because the words of my Text are obvious to be recited upon any memorable and plausible occasion sometimes they have been drawn to congratulate humane affairs yet with this reservation that none under heaven hath a true interest in them I read that in the second Constant Council held under Justinian the Emperour Johannes Presbyter as he was
of the Creation This doth unavoidably suggest unto us that no day of the seven is fitter for our celebration than Sunday or the first day of the Week when Christ rose from the dead he having dispatcht all the works of exinanition and given us manifest assurance and joy for our eternal redemption And so I fall into the next member propounded what ground we have for keeping this day weekly to the service of God in the Resurrection of Christ Some what have been heedless in their assertions have confidently delivered that the Lords day is clearly instituted in the work of Christs Resurrection nay that the Resurrection did apply and determine the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment to the Lords day These go so far that all proof and reason forsakes them It is true that our Saviours victorious rising from the dead was a good occasion which the Church took to celebrate this day but that act of his rising from the dead was not instead of a Law to appoint the day They are not the works of God but his words that institute Laws and where there is no Imperative act of the Law-giver there can be no Law to bind In six days the Lord made heaven and earth and all things therein and rested the seventh day yet that Cessation of God from his works had not made that seventh day in every week holy to the Jews without his pleasure signified to keep it So the Resurrection of the Lord doth not make the Lords day a solemn day for Divine Service in all our Generations by a compulsory Statute unless it were said in the Gospel and so it was never said you shall keep the first day of the Week holy in honour of the Resurrection Without some imperative word or sentence to declare Gods pleasure we cannot deduce a Law And if the Resurrection of itself without a Precept annexed had exalted it to be an holy day St. Paul would never have agreed with them that esteemed all days alike Rom. xiv Out of this perverse zeal to make a rule out of Christs works without a Precept some would not be baptized till the age of thirty years because Christ was baptized no sooner Others stood nicely upon it that Orders of Priesthood were to be given to none before that age and for no other cause but because he preach'd no sooner Infinite fancies would be multiplied if these ways were allowed for good Divinity It is safe and true to say that the day is kept congruously but not necessarily for the Resurrection sake And surely the Primitive Church could have made choice of no day of the Week more proper and convenient for the Religious Worship of God in honour of that principal Article of our belief and the corner stone of all the rest Ignatius calls every Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection day St. Austin says Dominicus dies Christi resurrectione declaratus est ex illo coepit habere festivitatem suam Words which will bear no other construction howsoever some do torture them but thus that the Lords day is published by Christs Resurrection and from thenceforth began to be a Festival And again Domini resuscitatio consecravit nobis Dominicum diem promisit nobis aeternum diem The resuscitation of Christ hath consecrated for us the Lords day and doth promise us an eternal day yet there is no Imperative Edict from heaven to make it so but the light of holy discretion did guide the Church to appoint it so St. Austin hath clustered together many other admirable works of God done upon the first day of the Week in which God did make his first Creature of Light In which the Israelites went through the Red-Sea upon dry Land In which Manna did first fall from heaven In it was the first miracle of water turned into Wine Of the five loaves and two fishes In it Christ was baptized rose from the dead appeared often to his Disciples sent down the Holy Ghost and wherein we expect that at the last day he will come to judgment But the Resurrection is pre-eminent above all things else that hapned in it and that blessing though it do not ratifie a Law yet it is the occasion why this day is Weekly celebrated But I must tell you that one Analogy is ill prosecuted by some though it be vulgar in mens Writings That the Lords rest must be sanctified on what day soever it falleth that is not true unless there be a Law to enforce it therefore as the Sabbath was held holy when God rested from the works of the Creation so Sunday must be kept holy wherein the Son of God after his rising from the Grave rested gloriously from the work of our Redemption That last clause is falsly presumed for he made perfect our Redemption at his death and the price was paid for our sins not by his Resurrection but by his Sacrifice on the Cross and then he gave up the Ghost and said It is finished The day of the Passion therefore if you respect it as a resting from satisfying for our sins deserved to be made a continual Holy day but it was not meet to be kept with joy And mark it I pray you that we honour the day of his rising every Week rather than that of his suffering not because it is a better day or the day of his rest for he rested in the Grave and did spend his Resurrection day in much action but because it is the first day unto the Church of joy and gladness And a chief ingredient in an holy day dedicated to God is to rejoyce and be glad I proceed to the third thing to be inquired into what ground we have to keep the Lords day from any Precept mentioned in the Gospel either delivered by Christ himself or by his Apostles Certainly it never proceeded out of our Saviours mouth to appropriate this designed day to his honour and we must take heed to thrust Laws upon him of our own invention which he never imposed If such a thing had come from him no time had been fitter to express it than when the Pharisees cavilled at his Disciples for plucking the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath day Mat. xii Then he might have retorted that the observation of the Sabbath was expiring but he would constitute the first day of the Week to be the heir of the Sabbath Yet our Lord was so far from such a motion that whereas he reproved the Pharisees with much indignation Mat. v. and vi Chapters for their lax and dissolute interpretations of many moral Laws he corrects them often in the Gospel for being so strict in the rigid performance of the Sabbath which he would never have done if it had totally consisted of moral duties But about the definite appointment of a day Christ is silent for his Precepts in the New Testament are altogether touching spiritual worship And says St. Paul Carnal ordinances were imposed
St. Austin Did you think to burn like chaff and thorns to be out with a blaze The Scripture never meant it Your torments shall belike a firy Oven Psal xxi where heat is furious without the blessing of light You shall be like the burning of Lime Isa xii where the fire encreaseth when you think to extinguish it Nay you shall be as Wax before the fire Mic. i. melted and heated but not consumed Aetna was never cold yet as if it were the stomach of the world Montes uruntur durant quid improbi hostes Domini says Tertullian Yea says the Atheist Hills are but dirt and dross without life they may last and burn Then say we the Salamander hath life and yet is not consumed in the fire So shall it be with the wicked True says the Atheist such Creatures may play in the flames because it is their nature and delight but can the wicked abide in pains unsufferable and not be consumed St. Austin in this point hath outgone their Logick says he Mirabile est dolere in ignibus tamen vivere sed mirabilius vivere in ignibus nec dolere That is the miracle above the other for the little beast to live unscorched without any pain among the burning coals rather then as the damned to continue so in torment Do you believe a vain story for the one then believe the Scriptures for the other But I leave those and many more the like Problems for the Schoolmen whose subtil heads have extracted such questions by distillation from Hell Furnace as if they did not dispute but conjure And I pass from this Song of deliverance how mischief lighted upon the Viper to Canticum Canticorum the Song of Songs even Deborahs song in this happy preservation He shook the beast into the fire and felt no harm This was not a brand snatcht out of the fire half saved half consumed Not like your bloudy Victories wherein the Conquerours may sit down and count their losses as well as the Conquered As Pyrrhus said very well when twice he vanquished the Romans but lost the flower of his own Army in the Victories Si tertio vicerimus if we overcome the third time we are undone for ever But it is Dalmaticus triumphus sine sudore sanguine The Viper left not so much smart behind it as the prick of a thorn or thistle He felt no harm How would a Stoick interpret this now Forsooth to be an obstinate contempt of grief I will not call it patience as if Paul were toucht to the quick but would not feel it So Taurus the Philosopher in Gellius excused a sick person of his Sect that seemed to groan in his disease Non est gemitus alicujus victi à dolore sed anhelitus viri enitentis vincere That is pain and disease did not make him groan as if it troubled him but he fetcht his wind short to over-master his sickness this is robusta stultitia madness not manhood and Philosophy to affect such stubborness Nature cannot but love it self and retire from pain and Reason will follow Nature And this is enough to satisfie the most curious that trouble their heads why our Saviour cast out those strong ejaculations of grief against the bitter cup Mat. xxvi Cum natura cogit etiam ratio data à naturâ cogitur As I said before Reason will follow Nature Wherefore to say that Paul felt no harm is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did not suffer any He had been in the third heavens and in this one act God gave his body incorruption upon earth For so says Aquinas that many worthy Saints have had a taste of heaven upon earth not only by grace in their soul but by some other excellent quality shining in these vile bodies The properties of a glorified body are thus reckoned up by the same Author first that the Just shall shine like the Sun in the Firmament that is Claritas in corpore So the face of Stephen standing before the Council was bright as the face of an Angel The second ornament is agilitas in motu to be able to fly upon the wings of the wind thus Philip was carried by the Spirit from Gaza in the Desart to Azotus suddenly Thirdly our corruption shall put on incorruption as in this one act Paul suffered on his hand and felt no harm for the last attribute of a glorified body which is called spiritualitas I do not recknon it for according to the Schoolmens interpretation it doth quite destroy the nature of a body But let us remember to keep our bodies pure and undefiled since God hath given us a taste in this life that hereafter they shall be refined in greater glory O we doubt it not but we should all prove as holy as Paul himself if we were so dear to God as to feel no harm Our luxurious Courtiers would sing Songs unto the Lord with Shadrach Mesech and Abednego if the Son of God would walk with them in the firy Furnace and in the shadow of death that they might fear none ill Our wanton Ladies yea and their Handmaids also would play upon Timbrels unto God as well as Miriam if they might tread as safe upon the ground as she did and all Israel to fear none evil in the midst of the Sea No but if our danger did not come to be felt to tangit angit I fear we would be impudent and say there was no danger Like ignorant people who presume when beasts are tamed by discipline that they have no teeth because they bite not Jonah must be wakened to see the Tempest lest he sleep it out and deny it And if Saul miss nothing else yet he must lose his pot of water that he might acknowledge his own preservation and Davids fidelity As the Shepherd in Virgil was bitten by a Gnat to espy the hissing of a Serpent and we our selves try the edge of a Razor upon the nail of our finger and so come to know that if it should miscarry it would cut our throat And this is one cause why Paul did feel no harm because we are chastened with some feeling for they that be evil and feel no harm would be too too evil and feel no benefit But let my second reason be the answer and with your patience the conclusion for this time Such Miracles and such deliverances were required in the days of St. Paul the Apostle which are not now to be expected in these our days I call it a Miracle and so it is and in the nature of the greatest Miracles Small ones are but such as either seldom be seen and so come by their name so our Saviour wondred at the Centurions faith Or those which it is no news to see nor very hard to bring about but only it is above our reason perchance to know the cause as the turning of the point of the Loadstone to the North. But this is a more noble work and therefore
earthen pitcher if martyrdom burn in it like a lamp and the pitcher be broken to pieces then we shall have victory against our spiritual enemies and peace with God Fourthly Let us make that use of our Saviours first coming into the world in flesh which St. Paul doth of his second coming in glory 1 Cor. 4.5 The Lord cometh who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart and then shall every man have praise of God The most obscure things shall be made manifest unto his light and the thoughts of all hearts shall be revealed unto him The righteous Lord trieth the very hearts and reins Psal 7.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to try the heart is verbum forense as when Magistrates examine the truth not by questions only but by rack and torments they will have all out in confession so God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to draw out all secrets from our inward breast And it is impossible to keep the subtilest thred of iniquity concealed When he came to judgment against Egypt and sent his Angel to kill their first-born yet at midnight he knew which was an Egyptian and which was an Israelite so though we carry our sins with a demure countenance and smooth it with subtile hypocrisie yet his knowledge shineth in the darkness of our hearts as if it were light and he can distinguish between our inward affections our thoughts our fancies our sighs and yearnings that this is an Israelite born of the will of God and this an Egyptian born of the will of flesh Laban could not find his Idols because Rachael had laid them privily in her stuff but the Lord can detect that Idolatry which we keep close in our hearts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Grammarian the Greeks denominate God from penetrating all things with his eye and when Christ could see into the profoundness of Nathanaels thoughts behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile Nathanael instantly confest Thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel Alas that we go on still in darkness and do not understand are you in your wits that think iniquity is farther from judgment because it is farther from appearance do you forget the discoverie of Achans wedge and Gehazi's briberie do you not recal how the Priests of Bel were detected for gluttons and impostors creeping in at secret doors to gurmandize the junkets prepared for the Idol deal squarely and without dissimulation for you think it is night and no man sees but the glory of the Lord is round about you Fifthly No sooner was the world blest with the Birth of this holy Child God and Man but the Angels put on white apparel the air grows clear and bright darkness is dispell'd therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and walk as children of the light the earth should be more innocently walkt on too and fro because Christ hath trod upon it our bodies kept clean in chastity because he hath assum'd our nature and blest it Gods word should be heard more respectfully because he hath preacht it finally our conversation should be honest as in the day because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Wicked men are groping like the Sodomites to find out mischief though God have hid it out of the way The Saints and Angels are in a state of light wherein they know as they are known perfectly partaking of the beatifical vision between these two there is a middle condition of godly men who see into the way of righteousness though it be darkly as in a glass but they that dress them by a glass can discern how to mend any thing that mis-becomes them So the Gospel of Grace is a mirror of the light of Glory it is not the fault of the Gospel but of our own darkness if we learn not of it to put on the true wedding garment The Apostle calls it the putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ Vbi animus tenebrescere tentationum caligine coeperit ad lucem gratiae reformatur When the conscience is overcast with the darkness of temptation it flies to the looking-glass of Grace and reforms it self by looking into it This is to vindicate our selves from the powers of darkness and to walk decently as in the day Works of lewdness come from the darkness of our understanding they love to be done in privacy and not before the eyes of men abjiciamus says St. Paul as if he would have you fling them away to the Devil and bid him take his own As a wise servant would not be found with folly in his hand if he knew his Master were near so because our salvation is come as this day in humility and we know not how little he will defer to come in Majesty therefore abjiciamus throw away his filthiness from you lest Christ should come and find profanation in your mouth oppression in your purse false tinctures of art and pride in your face and disobedience in your heart Every child of light will have his lamp burning in his hand and by this he will know you whether you be his Disciple if you speak the truth and come to the light as if the glory of the Lord were round about you Lastly A glimpse of some celestial light did sparkle at his Birth to set our teeth on edge to enjoy him who is light of lights very God of very God and to dwell with him in that City which hath no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the Glory of God did enlighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof I conclude with St. Paul Col. 1.12 Let us give thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son Amen THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 10. And the Angel said unto them Fear not for behold I bring yon good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people THat which is every mans salutation wherewith he greets his neighbour at this time of the year is the subject of my Text a merry Christmas it is it which we wish one to another among our friends and familiers and it is it which the Angel in my Text wisheth to all kindreds of the world as if we were all become his friends and familiers good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people And surely were it not that the Birth of Jesus made us merry at this season and put gladness into our hearts all the year beside would be louring and lumpish without all manner of consolation Until God sent forth his Son made of a woman we might not receive the adoption of Sons Without adoption we had no part in the inheritance without hope of the inheritance what
is the brightness of his Fathers glory and the express image of his person Upon those words of the Apostle Col. iv 18. the salutation of me Paul with my own hand says S. Chrysostom it was great comfort to the brethren to see salutations and greetings and wishes under Pauls own hand Some comfort it might be but far short of this to see not only the word of salutation but the word of salvation dwell among us the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth As Pliny said to Trajan of his virtuous Wife Nihil sibi ex fortuna tua nisi gaudium vendicat she desired no further interest in his good fortune but to rejoyce and to be glad at his felicity so the righteous man leaves the wide world for the children of the world to share it among them Nihil sibi nisi gaudium vendicat all that he challengeth for his own is the Blessed Virgins solace and My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour O my beloved it cannot be uttered what tranquility and joy is in that heart which seriously apprehends those evident signs that God is reconciled unto us Those heavens which Pythagoras spoke of that they were never without concent and harmony that Fable being moralized is agreeable to nothing but to that soul which is comforted in the mercies of Christ Semper illic serenum est it is like the state of the world above the Moon it is ever fair and clear in that place without any storm or tempest it is like the tribe of Zabylon situated in a safe harbour close unto the tumultuous Seas Aliorum videt naufragia sed ipse salvus est it looks forth upon the Seas and sees how some are tost in perilous waters how some are shipwrackt and cast away but it self is safe under the shadow of Christ and in no such terror or calamity The ordinary comforts of this world which concur to the being and to the well-being of nature may be wanting perchance to a true servant of God these may a little abate the courage perhaps it makes us appear says St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sorrowful 't is but as if it were so Tanquam lugentes as sorrowful but always rejoycing The tongues of men and Angels are not able to devise a message of joy more sweet and allective than this that our severe Judge hath sent his Son to be our Mediator and that Mediator to be our Judge and that Judge to be our Brother for so he calls us by that term of intimate affection This is such a demulcing comfort to a sin-wounded conscience that it leaves our heart in St. Austins phrase to be Thalamus Dei palatium Christi habitaculum Spiritus sancti the marriage-chamber of God the courtly Palace of Christ and the habitation of the Holy Ghost This is the proper joy of Christs Birth with which the Angel did accost the Shepherds the delight and serenity of a good Conscience It is agreeing to the solemnity of this time to speak also of the other branch of joy which is sufferable and may be warranted which is called Risus ad naturae recreationem pastimes and delightful exercises to refresh the sadness of the heart And if there be any man whose strictness will allow of no sports or pleasurable jocundities at this season of our Saviours Nativity let me tell him that such austerity is groundless and hath no foundation in the Word of God and to censure all innocent relaxation of mirth because with some men and in some places it is done with excessive vanity and riot he wants a grain of Charity Shall we build no houses to put our head in because fools built a Babel shall we plant no Vineyards because Noah was overseen shall we forswear courtesie because Absalom's kindness was full of flattery what is another mans sin to my harmless mirth Joy is in the Text and if there be harmless joy in the time no judicious man will disallow it But why do sickly men imagine that all meats taste rank and unsavory it is the ill affection of their own palat Why do Boat-men think that the shore goes from them because they go from the shore So the heart of churlish men is undelightsome and that makes them to think all delight is vicious There is a time to weep and a time to laugh says the Wise man Eccles iii. 4. And what time more convenient for rejoycing than this when Solomon dedicated his Temple to the Lord first he magnified God in a solemn prayer then all Israel kept a Feast and a joyful holy day This Temple was but a figure of Christ the everlasting Priest these are the days wherein we celebrate the dedication of this Temple and after we have magnified Gods name in solemn Prayer for his mighty work we may chear and refresh our selves with joy in a lawful measure of innocency and sobriety Why should we lowre and look sad like those hypocrites the Pharisees who had nothing in them but a form of outward austerity True joy cannot contein it self in a contemplative meditation it will exult it will break forth like John Baptist in his Mothers womb who rejoyced in the Spirit that Mary had conceived the Messias in her Womb. Nor was that all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Babe sprang and leapt for gladness Whatsoever mirth is honest and lawful whether spiritual or civil joy the Angel gives liberty to the Shepherds to use it Behold I bring you tidings of great joy The spiritual and the innocent civil joy are both native and proper to these festival days of the Birth of Christ but by our abuse that which is most frequent and common is the third member of the distinction which is sinful Risus ex immoderata turpi laetitia a mirth bestain'd with riot and all kind of offensiveness It is time to cry down the noise of all immoderate and wicked pleasures with an heavenly song How different are our tunes of beastliness from that which the children of Jerusalem did sing upon the Advent of Christ Hosanna to the Son of David Hosanna in the highest How different were their modest garments from that pomp and pride which divers of us do bear upon our backs they spread their garments in the way to entertain the King of Glory Christ would not have honour'd yours with his feet he would not have trod upon your Peacock attire which is so vain and alterable O beloved what an incongruity is this Christ came down from Heaven to dwell among us and you rake Hell for merriment to make him welcome If a Jubilee come once a year wherein you have indulgence for a sweet relaxation in Sports and Festivals must you needs lose your wits exeat Cato as if no sober man all that while were fit for our company If you will spend a few days of solace and recreation so wickedly so untowardly do you not deserve that God should turn your Feasts
perfume the sweetness overcomes our sence Here 's one line for a copy and enough to be taken out at one time Vnto you is born this day c. The Text cannot be divided into equal parts for here is one word among them which not only in this place but wheresoever you find it it is like Saul higher by head and shoulders then all the rest As Painters and Guilders write the names of God in glass or upon the walls with many rays and flaming beams to beautifie it round about so the name of Saviour is the great word in my Text and all that is added beside in other circumstances is a trail of golden beams to beautifie it First then with reverend lips and circumcised ears let us begin with the joyful tidings of a Saviour 2. Here 's our participation of him in his Nature natus he is born and made like unto us 3. It is honourable to be made like us but it is beneficial to be made for us and natus vobis unto you is born a Saviour 4. Is not the use of his Birth superannuated the virtue of it long since expir'd no 't is fresh and new as a man is most active when he begins first to run hodie natus he is born this day 5. Is he not like the King in the Gospel who journeyed into a far Country extra orbem solisque vias quite out of the way in another world no the circumstance of place points his dwelling to be near in civitate David he is born in the City of David 6. Perhaps to make him man is to quite unmake him shall we find him able to subdue our enemies and save us since he hath taken upon him the condition of humane fragility yes the last words speak his excellency and power for he is Christus Dominus such a Saviour as is Christ the Lord for unto you is born this day in the City of David c. The beginning of our days work is from that word which magnifies him that is the word of God above all things for he is a Saviour Time was when the children of Israel had rather Moses should speak unto them than God Speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we dye Exod. xx 19. Now let Israel say let not Moses speak with us nor the Law for then we shall surely die Above all tongues let the Angel speak with us that proclaims a Saviour and we shall surely live If all comfort in the world were forgotten nothing but darkness and weeping and captivity over all the earth yet here 's a word which is enough to turn all that sorrow into gladness yea to turn Hell it self into Heaven This day is born unto you a Saviour it comprehends all other names of Grace and blessing as Manna is said to have all kind of sapors in it to please the taste When you have call'd him the glass in which we see all truth the fountain in which we taste all sweetness the ark in which all precious things are laid up the pearl which is worth all other riches the flower of Jesse which hath the savour of life unto life the bread that satisfieth all hunger the medicine that healeth all sickness the light that dispelleth all darkness when you have run over all these and as many more glorious titles as you can lay on this one word is above them and you may pick them all out of these syllables a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. Abraham could endure to live in a strange Land nay he could endure to want his only Son Isaac if God pleas'd Elias could want his bodily sustenance for forty days John Baptist could want the comfort of all society in the Wilderness Peter could leave all he had and want his substance Paul could live in bonds and want his liberty Paphnutius could want his eyes yea the Martyrs for Christs sake could want their lives but they could not be without the redemption of their soul they could not want a Saviour The Prophet Isaiah hath foretold that the heaven and earth should joyn their strength together to make a Saviour Isa xlv 8. Drop down the heavens from above and let the earth open and let them bring forth salvation that 's the effect and the 15. verse speaks of the person O God of Israel the Saviour The heavens must drop down from above and the earth must open and concur beneath the whole universe must be put together the Divine Nature and the Humane tantae molis erat to make a Saviour To confuse the Jews with this place I have read of a learned Scribe of theirs one Rabbi Accados who wrote thus before the coming of Christ that the Messias should come into the world to save men and the Gentiles should call him Jesus or the Saviour of the world Indeed the Gentiles did not only do so after our Saviours ascension into Heaven being taught unto it by the Apostolical preaching but in the time of Idolatry which is very strange Tully says in the 4. Oration against Verres that he saw an Image at Syracuse in Sicily with this Inscription upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour and he admires at the strong significancy of the word Hoc quantum est magnum est ut latine exprimi uno verbo non possit to give salvation or to be a Saviour is such an appellative that all the Latine tongue was not furnished with a word to set it forth But what if their language could have fit it that 's nothing unless the soul do unite it to it self and write it upon the tables of the heart But that the name may not be an empty sound to us as it was to them consider these three things 1. With what honour it was impos'd 2. What excellency it includes 3. What reverence it deserves For the first of these an honour in the imposition of a name will ever stick by the person and the origen hereof came from the chiefest that is above all Phil. ii 9. Wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name It was ever of old in the right of the Father to give a name unto his child Zachary when he could not speak call'd for writing tables to appoint the name of John the Baptist therefore Christ having no Father on earth his Father gave him a name from Heaven His Father gave it but he did commit it to the trust of an Angel to bring it for the Angel was the first that ever mention'd it to Joseph the husband of Mary in a dream Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins Matth. i. 21. God gave it the Angel brought it and men did assign it the eighth day when he was circumcised his name was called Jesus which was so named of the Angel before he was conceived in the Womb. Hereupon Bernard casts in
prostrate our selves to the earth in giving honour to Christ for our salvation Both the Saints in heaven and the Faithful on earth and the Dead departed under the earth all these hath God ordained to bow the knee at the name of his Son Jesus Phil. ii 10. Indeed to do it toties quoties at every repetition of the name is not necessarily inferr'd from thence perhaps say it be no more than a pious Institution of the Church to keep us in a faithful remembrance that we do not forget it yet a dutiful Child will hearken to the voice of the Church and not wave her Authority and neglect it as if the Spirit of God had not directed her to prescribe outward things in a decent manner to the setting forth of Gods glory Isaiah could not speak of a Saviour in the Old Testament but this comes in Vnto me shall every knee bow and every tongue shall swear Isa xlv 23. and lest the world might suppose they may be bold and sawcy with a merciful Saviour St. Paul admonisheth how that Saviour shall be a Judge Rom. xiv 11. We shall all stand before the Judgment-seat of Christ for it is written As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God Beloved now ye are in Gods Temple judgment you neither see nor fear but imagin with me the Lord were coming in the clouds every mans innumerable sins laid open before him to condemn him in this distraction of amazement is there any thing to put life into your terrified souls but the name of a Saviour then let an Angel preach before you There is no name under heaven by which you can be saved but only the name of Jesus Tell me from your own heart what you think if in that case your head would not uncover your knee bend yea your face grovel upon the earth confess this and amend your stubbornness it is nothing but the forgetfulness of destruction which makes ye so unregardful to do reverence at the name of salvation One thing more and I shall have said enough to this Zanchy and others allow that soon after the first 300 years it was a custom ungain-said in that ancient Orthodox Church to put S. Paul's item in practice and more than that to bend and uncover at the name of Jesus and this done to let the Arrians see that all worship and honour was due to the eternal Son of God Though I trust there be now no Arrians among us is it not fit to hold the Ceremony that we may keep simple and perverse men from being Arrians Princes do not use to lose any part of the honour which was once given them upon any occasion and will not God look to have that honour maintain'd which was once laudibly ascrib'd vnto him by all mens confession he cannot grow less to have his honour impair'd howsoever there may be a mutability in occasions I will end with St. Austins words Hoc nomen salvatoris mei in ipso adhuc lacte matris cor meum pie biberat my heart did drink in this name of Saviour with piety and reverence even from my Mothers breasts So much for the honour of imposition the benefit of application and that worship of reverence which is due to be done at the name of Saviour Now I may say I have built up the Tower in my Text the strong Tower of David our chief defence that which remains is but the raising of the Walls to compass it about And you remember what we must deal with next he comes so near unto us that he participates of our nature Salvator natus he is a Saviour that is born born might the Shepherds say what an Infant whose mouth was not yet opened so that an Angel spake for him can this be that wonderful one ye talk of that shall deliver us Ecce venit equitans that had been more probable to be believ'd behold he cometh riding though it were in despicable humility Beheld he cometh riding upon an ass and upon a colt the foal of an ass But to be born an Infant though it were his diminution it was our glory and exaltation He was born and made like unto us in all things sin only excepted not to give us a natural life such as he took after our image but to make us partakers of his Divine Excellency that as we have carried the image of the earthly we might carry the image of the heavenly We rejoyce at the birth of our own children the Psalmist calls them arrows in our quiver as if they were the might of our strength Yet alas for their birth it would be unto nothing but eternal sorrow unless it were for the Incarnation of this Infant in my Text we might curse the day wherein we were born with Job and wish the day quite blotted out with Jeremy but that we cast off our former birth as it were and begin our life again at Baptism in the name of our Saviour How wisely the Almighty doth fold one work in another and one counsel in another to perfect the body of the Saints is past our finding out Yet it is sweet to enquire into the method of our salvation and to ask after this mystery among others why the Son of God would destroy sin in the nature of man and why he would be born in the similitude of corruptible flesh to gain for us an immortal inheritance I must prefer St. Paul's reason in the first place because it is direct Scripture Heb. iv 15. We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin So that Christ as he was God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds he knew our misery and infirmity but as he was man of the substance of his Mother born in the world so did he feel our afflictions and compassionate our infirmities He knoweth whereof we be made and remembreth that we are but dust When the bones of the poor cleave to the skin in time of famine and scarcity when the blood waxeth wan and pale with sickness when the body is under the torments of a tyrant in these extremities we may fly to Christ with boldness and plead unto his mercies O our Saviour that wert incarnate thou thy self didst take a corruptible body into the unity of thy person the chastisement of our peace was upon thy flesh thou knowest what we are able to suffer thou knowest our weakness and our frailty As for other causes why he would be conceiv'd in the womb of a mortal woman and be born to be a Saviour I will briefly go along with Damascen who reduceth them to these four heads that God might demonstrate the goodness of his Love his Justice his Wisdom and his power 1. To the first of these the heathen spake somewhat but knew not well what they said Amor
glory of God and the firmament shews his handy work About beatitude or final felicity there have been great disputes whether it should consist in action or in contemplation but the best resolution of the problem is that praise consisting partly in contemplating the great goodness of the object to be praised partly in the fruit of the lips which sends forth that honour our blessedness shall consist in giving land to the Holy Trinity and unto the Lamb that sits upon the Throne for evermore Vidisti vilia audi mirifica says St. Ambrose upon these words that which the Shepherds saw with their eyes was a little Infant poorly brought forth into the world and cast aside neglectfully in a corner of a stable but that which they heard with their ears was strange and admirable both that all the tongues of men should glorifie this child and that the Angels who by nature had no tongues assumed bodies for that hour that they might speak with such a mouth with such a voice with such a dialect and language as men use to do and fill the world with praises of his name who made himself an improperium a derision and scorn unto many to take away our infamy and therefore worthy to be praised The Devil feigned the tongue of man to delude our first Parents that they should be made like unto God the good Angels also frame a voice in the air like unto the tongue of man to dissolve the works of the Devil and to teach us that God is made like unto us Let the Serpent hiss at it this heavenly host which consists of our friends and protectors doth sing it out and warble it Coelesti quadam ineffabili modulatione says the ordinary gloss with a celestial harmony far transcending all humane musick and above all possible Relation A Nurses lullaby will sing a Child out of crying and frowardness and make it still but it had need be a singing Angel nay the concent and harmony of all the Angels that should chear up our hearts with the gladness of a Saviour and wipe away all tears from our eyes when before we knew our selves dead in sins and trespasses And it is good to take it at the best sense great comfort it is that these holy Ministers of Heaven came with singing and exultation It was a sign that there was a great change wrought in the world and favour and propitiation come about to the full desire of our heart Angels have been sent with fire and brimstome as against Sodom and Gomorrah with wrath and reproof to make all the children of Israel to weep Judg. ii with a Sword and with the noisom Pestilence when David had sinned in numbring the people but all this horror and dreriment is cast aside by the birth of Christ says St. Chrysostom and Angels come with Anthems and Carols of praise Thus the Lord hath put a song of thanksgiving into our mouth for he hath done marvellous things If Asaph and that Choire did lift up their note with all sorts of musical instruments in the Old Law while the Sacrifice was burning upon the Altar I am sure we have much more cause not in imitation of Asaph but of the Angels to praise the Lord with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs Luther I know not upon what reason unless it were because the Angels in my Text did begin the Gospel with melody he makes Psalmody to be one of the notes of the Orthodox Church of Christ The voice of man certainly is to praise God in its best tunes and elegancies and the reasons why musical notes are most fit and necessary amidst our Christian Prayers are these four 1. Rules of piety steal into our mind with the delight of the harmony The Agathyrsians even to Plato's days were wont to sing their Laws and put them in tune that men might repeat them in their Recreations 2. It kindles Devotion and fills the soul with more loving affections Make a chearful noise to the God of Jacob says David As the noise of Flutes and of Trumpets inspire a courage into Souldiers and enflame them to be victorious so the Psalms of the Church raise up the heart and make it leap to be with God as if our soul were upon our lips and would fly away to heaven 3. An heavy spirit oppresseth zeal and that service of God is twice done which is done with alacrity and our Christian merriment by St. James his rule is singing and making melody to the Lord. When our Saviour and his company were sad the night before his Passion to put away that heaviness they sung an Hymn when they went to Mount Olivet 4. To sing some part of Divine Doctrine is very profitable because that which is sung is most treatibly pronounced the understanding stays long upon it and nails it the faster to the memory It was a Law of Numa among the Romans Nihil oportet in transcursu à diis petere sed ubi vacat est otium we must ask nothing of God by snatches but with sober deliberation And as our Parochial singing of Psalms is very sweet and requisite wherein all or most of the Congregation bear a part so it doth well become Princes Courts and Episcopal Churches to have more curious and sumptuous musick of several Instruments and a skilful Choire appointed to execute it It is semblable to that of my Text where the Angels sung the Service and the Shepherds gave them audience If some wayward humors say this Choiral Musick hath no relish with them it doth not help them in the practice of Religion they understand it not I answer they accuse themselves of many faults in their own complaint 1. That they understand not that which they have by roat if they would mark it 2. They are malicious that would deprive them of that sweetness who are much affected with it 3. It is arrogancy in a high nature to wish that their own ignorant immusical unfashion'd humour should be a prescription to a whole Church To conclude all I come from publick Church Musick to our private delight in holy Songs S. Hierom testifies that in his days as they walkt about the Market as they sailed in Ships as they were busie at Work they sung some holy Ditties It is our solace at home our recreation abroad says St. Basil Neither is it irksome to any but to the evil spirit for the evil spirit went out of Saul when David played upon his Harp and David was no profane Minstrel but a Divine Singer But I read of two sorts of Hereticks that quarrel'd it the Arrians dislik'd singing of Psalms because the Orthodox Christians did use it and the Manicheans because they condemn'd the whole Old Testament Insani sunt adversus medicamentum quo sani esse potuissent They are furious to find fault with that which would have healed their fury But we have learn'd to praise the Lord with our best skill with our
without a Lutrum or satisfaction This stops the mouth of the Devil that he cannot calumniate and it resounds the praise of God that the iniquity of the world did not escape unrevenged Caiaphas meant to speak bitterly and to blaspheme but the Lord turned the curse of his mouth into the words of blessing It is expedient for us that one man die for the people and that the whole Nation perish not Joh. xi 50. Secondly They divulge the honour of Christ unto the ends of the world for the mercy that came down with him upon all those that should believe in his name if his Justice was not forgotten in their Song surely his Mercy should be much more solemnized The Angels for their own share were unacquainted with mercy 't was news in heaven till this occasion hapned they had felt gratiam confirmantem but not gratiam condonantem that is the Lord bestowed upon the good Angels grace to confirm them in grace but for those rebellious ones of their Order that had sinned they found no grace to remit their trespasses properly that is called mercy but a thing so rare and unheard of in heaven that as soon as ever they saw it stirring in the earth they sing Glory to God in the highest Thirdly They praise the Lord on high for the Incarnation of his Son because the dignity of the work was so from himself that no Creature did merit it none did beseech or intercede unto him for it before he had destinate it nothing but his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and compassion could move him to it Nemo in hoc opere glorietur nullius merito ascribatur no man can ascribe it to his deserts no man can partake in the glory What was man that the Son of God did visit him For him we shall be glorified by him we have obtained peace through him good will hath shined upon men therefore unto him be all the glory This was the Angels Congratulation and no doubt God shall be glorified in his holy places on high but shall that God who is most high be worshipped and glorified by us below That is it the Angels pray for and wish for our sakes and for our Salvation that we of the Militant Church beneath may extol the name of the Lord and give him glory Among men sinners pray for sinners and it is but one for another the People pray for the Prince and the Prince for the People The Priest for the Congregation and the Congregation for the Priest Great and small there are no odds in that they requite one another with their mutual Charity the head cannot say unto the feet I have no need of your Prayers nor the feet unto the head Dum singuli orant pro omnibus omnes orant pro singulis while every particular man prays for all Christians in the Church all Christians in the Church pray for every particular man but as I said this is sinners for sinners quid pro quo But when the Angels are sollicitous in Hymns and Supplications for us it is not that we should pray to them or pray for them again but shew charity that cannot be requited They know that many Sacrifices of Prayers are requisite to bless any Congregation on earth that God may have his due honour from it and therefore all the powers in heaven above assist us with their intercession And especially they are mindful over us to make that Petition on our behalf that we may never forget that our condition is base and as low as the clay and dust of the earth and that God is highly exalted above all the world therefore that we are made to worship him and to fall down before him and to render the homage of our humility to our Chief that is dominion and glory to him that is the highest We find this title of most high in Melchisedechs title Gen. xiv 18. and never before There it comes in as some say whom I approve for this reason Melchisedech is the first in holy Scripture that is called a King that being the greatest name of pre-eminency among men God blazons his own honour just at the first discovery of that name to shew how far it exceeds all earthly Principality and calls him Melchisedech King of Salem a Priest of the most high God And indeed there was a glory due to that Melchisedech and to every one in his rank that is set on high above the people but take heed we let not our Worship and Service rest in them and in the admiration of their outward Pomp and go no higher God set Princes in their Thrones of Majesty to be bowed unto and obeyed that we may rise up in our Meditations and consider how excellent and superlative he is that gave such power and dominion to men Before Christ came into the world it was Gloria in excelsis men worshipt their Idols in every high place as the Prophets did greatly complain of it but it was not Deo in altissimis they worshipt the Host of heaven and things above but they did not lift up their hearts to him that sitteth above the heavens Therefore this is the sum of the Angels Prayer that men may give dominion and praise and thanksgiving to the true God and their wish was as effectual as they could desire for even immediately upon the Birth of Christ Idolatry went down the heathen Gods were discovered more and more to be but Wood and Stone the work of mens hands and the praise of the true God began to be sounded forth in all places The next issue of this first Point is the Angels teach us by the contents of their Prayer that Gods glory is to be sought before all things Nihil aequius est quam ut pro quo quis oret pro eo etiam laboret says St. Austin Whatsoever we pray for we must not only stand wishing it but as much as in us lies endeavour it also First repeating often the marvelous works which he hath done for the conservation of those that praise him and for the destruction of his enemies O God we have heard with our ears and our Fathers have declared unto us the noble works that thou didst in their days and in the old time before them Secondly By confessing of our grievous sins which makes his mercy and his grace so excellent throughout all the world and depressing our best works to be as ineffectual as our sins unto Salvation unless the Lord will cover the stains that are in them with the bloud of Christ Surely the reward which he brings with him is much exalted when we deny not but the best thing we do is less than the least of all his mercies Thirdly by defying by shunning by resisting nay by rooting out the children of Belial that blaspheme his glory for God will avenge himself of them that are tame and patient when his name is violated and his honour prophaned it is the glory of humane Laws
was to be feared that he was to be admired for his excellency that he was increate immortal eternal and not like the Idols of the Heathen there was Grace and Religion other Nations knew not him therefore he puts them by as if he knew not them he is the God of Israel Secondly This whole World is made for no other end but that Christ may exalt his Dominion in it and therefore the Nation of whom he was to come according to the Flesh that is spoken of as if it belonged to God alone and all other People were quite forgotten Well therefore might Zachary say O thou God of Israel for upon the Nativity of Christ now it was fulfilled why long since he was called the God of Israel His Incarnation as old Simeon said it was the glory of his people Israel his conversation among them was their temporal protection that their enemies should not devour them while he was with them upon earth his word confirmed it that the children of the Bride-chamber should not mourn while the Bridegroom was with them Finally His appearance among them in the Flesh was their spiritual exaltation for he preacht to none other but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel But Israel doth now no longer stand for those that according to the Flesh descended out of the Loyns of Abraham as St. Paul says he is a Jew that is one inwardly Rom. ii 29. So he is an Israelite that is a true man like Nathanael that hath no guile in him he that believeth in Christ that visited and redeemed Israel And that you may know the term stands now for the Church of the Faithful and Elect St. Paul calls them that walk according to the rule of Jesus Christ the Israel of God Gal. vi 16. You know that Jacob wrestled with an Angel of God at Peniel and thereupon the Angel changed his name and called him Israel because as a Prince he had power with God and men and had prevailed Gen. xxxii 28. he prevailed over men that is over his Persecutors Esau and Laban He prevailed with God by tears and supplications and this is the exact description of all those that belong to the Church of Christ that is of the Israel of God Their outward foes shall be subdued unto them when God shall think it time to put an end to their sufferings they must overcome their spiritual Foes that is get the victory over the passions and lusts of their own flesh vanquish the Devil overcome the attractive delights of the world and then they shall be no more Jacob but Israel they shall prevail with God It is well noted by one that when the Church in holy Scripture speaks of her infirmity she is called Jacob when she speaks of her happiness she is called Israel Isa xli 14. Fear not thou worm Jacob and Amos vii 2. by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small but in a thousand places ye shall find thus saith the Lord God the King of Israel and never was the Church in more prosperity then when Christ came among us in the likeness of man then it was not Jacob the worm but it grew mighty indeed it prevailed with him that sits on high then it was fit the Song should run in the best title Blessed be the Lord God of Israel You have received the first part of the Text entirely in every particle the solemn praise of the Divine goodness now follows the reason in two most glorious acts why the God of Israel deserveth this praise For he hath visited and redeemed his people Blessed be his name for he hath visited blessed be the Lord for he hath done marvellous things We want not many of these fo rs when we ascribe excellency to the King of Heaven Fame is a good companion for Virtue I love to see them fast together let there want no praise if there be a quia visitavit a good reason for it a deserving action to advance it but to spend our good word upon them that have no merit to speak good of the covetous as David saith whom God abhorreth to cry up Absalom among the people for a little out-side formality such praise is most fulsom that 's broacht either by flattery or ignorance When renown is so ill bestowed upon the wicked it makes the righteous that they do not regard it But the object of Zachary's benediction is so gracious so full of perfection that when we say all we can in the honour thereof we shall say too little for he hath visited for he hath redeemed his people The first of these is that which makes this the double double Holy day above all the Feasts of the year visitavit he visited and it is once again repeated in this Hymn of Zachary's the day-spring from on high hath visited us ver 78. Some there be that collect the three capital works of Christs dispensation out of my Text and the verse that follows for that he visited us say they it denotes his Incarnation that he redeemed us it betokens his Death and Passion that the horn of salvation was raised up in the house of his servant David it implies his Resurrection I think these things are minc'd asunder that should not be divided but all agree that to visit is a word so proper to Christmas-day as none more namely to take flesh and to dwell among us Doth the same fountain says S. James send forth sweet waters and bitter why that 's no such marvail for this very word to visit is so diverse in holy Scripture that sometimes it relisheth as sweet as mercy can make it sometimes it is as bitter as the very gall of his anger can temper it Visitat quando flagellat quando miseretur says S. Austin God visiteth when he punisheth and he visits when he pittieth In the first acception nothing is better known than that of the Decalogue Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me And again I will visit their offences with the rod and their sins with scourges and in the Latin Translation Jer. xxvii 8. That Nation will I visit with sword with famine and with pestilence And Psal lix 5. Thou Lord of Hosts awake and visit the Heathen and be not merciful to any wicked transgressors From hence we have drawn it into our common phrase that we call the infliction of the contagious Pestilence the visitation of the Lord. God is ever present with us but when he shews himself to be present by some exterior and notable work bringing his Judgment or his Mercy in a conspicuous manner to our City or even to the doors of our own house then he is said to visit us And if it be a visitation of vengeance yet refrain not to say Blessed be the Lord God of Israel whether he send his Angel with a Sword to smite us or with a Song as at Christs Nativity
truth that the very God became a perfect man and was Immanuel God with us says David Psal viii 4. When I consider the heavens the work of thy hands the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained what is man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of man that thou visitest him as who should say he that hath such rare and excellent heavenly bodies to delight in what should he do on earth what is the Son of man who is nothing but sin and misery that the Son of God should visit him O first let it be remembred with faith and thankfulness lest desolation come upon us as it did upon the Jews because we knew not the time of our visitation Luke xix 44. Secondly Let us answer the humility of our Saviour with all possible humility and say as the Centurion did Lord we are not worthy that thou shouldest come under our roof well deserved that all the succors of heaven should have fled from us and abhorred our face therefore blessed be his name for evermore that brought us peace from his Father sanctification from the Holy Ghost justification by his own merits humble your selves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in the day of his visitation as the vulgar Latin reads it 1 Pet. v. vi Thirdly Abraham made a feast to the three Angels when they visited him at his tent door Gen. xviii so let us prepare a table to entertain our blessed Lord that is come unto us not a feast of junckets and costly viands but let us receive him piously and devoutly as befitteth such a guest at his own Table Ipse est conviva convivium He is come to be feasted and he hath giuen us his own body to make us a feast and blessed be the Lord God of Israel that hath visited us and given himself to be the true spiritual food for the nourishment of our souls And so much of that act which is most conjunct with the festivity of this day Christ hath visited us yet peradventure we should esteem that work of courtesie and friendship but of no benefit at all unless it did extend it self to some further end and what can our desires wish to follow better than that which comes after in this place visitavit redemit by visiting he hath redeemed his people It is of such consequence above all things else that are needful to our well-being that St. Cyprian doth quite drown the former act in the latter and reads my Text thus Prospexit Deus redemptionem populo suo not a tittle about visiting but he hath provided redemption for his people Now captivity must be presupposed on our part because we did await and expect redemption Miseri sunt quos visitavit captivi quos redemit as I said before our soul was filled with a sore disease and therefore we were visited we were also under the captivity of sin and the Devil and lamentable were our case if we had not been redeemed Look upon the bondage out of which we were pluckt and it will make us more thankful for the freedom unto which we are called Ad servum rex descendisti ut servum redimeres says St. Austin thou didst descend to be a servant O King of Heaven to enfranchise a servant and to bring him out of thraldom Remember therefore at once for all since we all desire to have our part in this redemption we must all confess we were envassalled in a servitude So St. Austin against the Pelagians who denied the traduction of natural corruption from Adam says he How can Infants be said to be redeemed in Baptism unless they were captives before by original sin Therefore in imitation of our Saviours mercy as the Ancient Church 1200. years ago was copious in all deeds of Charity so their greatest care was to dispend their treasury to redeem captives and Paulinus a Pious Bishop as some stories say when all the stock of the Church was spent put himself into captivity to redeem a poor Christian miserably chained under the yoke of Infidels But this charitable deliverance of their brethren from temporal bondage was to shew how gratefully we should take it that Christ had redeemed all those that would lay hold of his mercies from eternal captivity Secondly As his goodness is amplified from our captivity so the redemption is the more valuable because none else could have pluckt us out of those fetters but the Holy One our Lord and Master Says David no man can deliver his Brother nor make a ransom to God for him for it cost more to redeem their souls so that he must let that alone for ever Psal xlix 7. when we had all incurred everlasting misery and mercy did so far prevail that the Divine Justice was content to forgive us the wisdom of God held the scale and arbitrated the case that when a law was broken and a mediation for pardon was entertained the best way was not to pass by the fault with a total indulgence but with a commutation of punishment And when men and Angels were unfit for that service then steps in the Son of God and undergoes the condition in his own person and became our brother flesh of our flesh that according to the Law being next of kindred to us he might redeem that which we had morgaged Lev. xxv 25. we had sinned and so needed a Redeemer and not so sinned but God the Father being placable a Redeemer would serve the turn And there the point had stuck for ever and we for ever had been helpless unless Christ had given himself a ransom for many Alius solvit pro debitore aliud solvitur quam debebatur one was the debtor and another satisfied one thing was owed to God I mean the life of sinners but another thing was payed I mean the life of an Innocent And let it make a third animadversion that the manner of our redemption doth greatly exaggerate the most meritorious compassion of the Redeemer there hath been redemption wrought by force and victory so Moses brought the Israelites with an high hand out of the slavery of Egypt There is a redemption which is wrought by intercession and supplication so Nehemiah prevailed with King Cyrus to dismiss the Jews out of the Babylonish captivity or thirdly either gold or silver or somewhat more precious is laid down to buy out the freedom of that which is in thraldom that 's the most costly and estimable way when value for value is payed or fourthly the body of one is surrendred up for the ransom of another life for life blood for blood and greater charity cannot be shewn than to bring redemption to pass by such a compensation So St. Peter extolls that act in our Saviour says he ye were not redeemed with corruptible things but with the Blood of Christ as a lamb undefiled So out of his own mouth Matth. xx 28. the Son of man came not
learning of the world hath busied it self about conjecture this is evident truth and no conjecture that they were Gentiles far remote from the Temple at Jerusalem which God had chosen out above all the earth for the holy place of his honour This is the reason that makes Twelfth-day so great a Feast throughout all the world because in the person of the Wise men a door of Faith was opened unto the Nations that knew not God As a Star is an heavenly body that is common to all Coasts and Climates to illuminate them so the Birth of Christ was attended by a Star because all people should partake of his Grace and Gospel Behold ye the Philistines and they of Tyre with the Morians loe there was he born Psal lxxxvii 4. As who should say it should be no prejudice to us that he was born among the Jews in the City of David for his blessing shall be with us as much as if he had been born in every Country of the Gentiles They that believe in Christ they are his Country-men They that hear the word of God and keep it they are my Mother and my Brothers and my Sisters says our Saviour The Prophet Jonas who was a Type of Christ in none of his smallest works but even in his glorious Resurrection he was sent to the Gentiles of Ninive to denote that through Christ that great Prophet whom the Lord would raise up the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven should be opened to the Gentiles But this is stale now and little thought upon because the sound of the word hath gone forth into the ends of the world for sixteen hundred years who considers this merciful loving kindness as he ought though at the first every small thing was admired and it was marvellous in mens eyes to see any partakers of the heavenly gift but the very natural branches of the stock of Abraham Christ himself wondered at the Centurions Faith for he was not of the house of Israel he was astonisht at the importunity and zeal of the Syro-phenisian O woman great is thy faith at the Samaritan who being a Samaritan was thankful when nine others were forgetful These were rare occurrences in the beginning And when St. Luke brings in his Shepherds to visit Christ in his manger he doth not say ecce pastores behold there were Shepherds of the Jews that saw the Birth of our Lord but St. Matthew lays an index of wonder upon these Gentiles Ecce Magi Behold there came Wise men of the East to Jerusalem A great change as ever was in the world to be remembred on this day with most festival Thanksgiving but never to be forgotten Every Nation loves to know above all other Antiquities when her people were converted to the Faith as our Country reckons from King Lucius the French from Clodoveus but the whole world from this day from the coming of the Wise men of the East to Jerusalem But the end of this strange work should especially be kept in mind and with that I end this point Our Saviour told the Pharisees to what end God called the Gentiles The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof Mat. xxi 43. From hence I move a little forward with their motion to the next thing observed Venerunt they came as if the Star had said unto them seek ye my face and they had answered with David Thy face Lord will I seek As soon as ever Christ was born cum natus est at that instant they set forward and made no delay Make no tarrying to turn to the Lord and put not off from day to day says the Wise man Ecclus. v. 7. Remigius says that the Wise men were brought through the air by an Angel to Jerusalem as Habakkuk was taken up when he carried meat to the Reapers but what needed a Star to direct them if they had not beaten out the way of themselves the Scripture says not they were brought but they came they trod out a long journey with much chearfulness though with much distress to their wearied bodies but where the carkass is thither will the Eagles be gathered and no happiness in any place but to be with the Lord. These were honourable persons and of great account in their own Country though they were not Kings as I have adjudged it before they could have spared their own labour and have sent their servants into Judea to have brought them tidings what strange thing had happened and truly there are too many that would have excused themselves by messengers the way being so long and tedious between them and Christ If it be far to Church from our own home 't is too common to mutter at it and to maunder at a little way every one would have a Chappel of Ease at his next door as if it were fitter for Christ to come to them than for them to come to Christ You forget in the mean time that God considers your bodily labour the molestations and inconveniences which you suffer in the flesh for his word sake To do your Masters work with so much tenderness and easiness to your own person is negligence and self love and as you sow you shall reap Herod I pray you mark it at the eighth verse of this Chapter he would not move out of Jerusalem to look out Christ himself and yet Bethlehem was but six miles off but he sent the Wise men to Bethlehem and bad them search diligently for the Child and when they had found him bring him word but because he sate still himself and set others about it he never found our Saviour Oleaster ad olivam non oliva ad oleastrum veniebat says St. Austin The wild Olive must come to the natural Olive to be ingrafted into it the natural Olive must not go to the wild Olive Venite qui laboratis Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden The fountain must not come to the thirsty man but the thirsty man must come to the fountain to drink The place where the blessed babe lay the Maker of his Mother is worth the seeing to this day worth their travel that have resorted to it from West and East how much more worthy of a journey ten thousand times when the glorious Infant himself was in the place Most justly did our Saviour condemn the whole world that the Queen of Sheba came from far to hear the Wisdom of Solomon and yet the Gentiles did not flock so fast as they ought to have done when a greater than Solomon was upon the earth Tully speaks it of Crassus the Orator as I remember being lately departed we came into the Senate house to look upon the place where that renowned Senator was wont to stand What part of Bethlehem or Jerusalem or Galilee is not a thousand times more worth the viewing where any thing can be recalled to memory of Christs Birth or Miracles
before us Try all things and prove your own heart if you understand which way you walk unto the Lord. Ephraim feedeth on the wind and followeth after the East wind wherein the Prophet deciphers them that know not what they seek after or at least how they would comprehend it Some eat and drink their own damnation because they discern not the Lords body they come by custom to the Table of the Lord not with solemn and faithful preparation these are not led by the Spirit Some lay their hand to this Plow to preach the Kingdom of Christ but never bethought them seriously what it was to bear the Ark of God upon their shoulders they took the Priests Office upon them only for the hire and wages but never examined whether they were inwardly called these were not led by the Spirit The Widows in St. Pauls days who were to continue in supplications night and day these were not to be taken into that Society which attended the Church under threescore years of age and such as had been diligent in every good work In after Ages out of more presumption than due care some were accepted to take the vow of continency upon them at the age of forty Others more dangerously admitted Virgin Votaries at the age of twenty five And now every youngling at the age of fourteen is solemnly received to be incloystered in an unmaried estate for ever before they know the hazard of their own frailty the iron bondage of such a Vow or how to avoid the continual tentations of most discontenting melancholy these took their snare upon them by fond enticements and ignorant devotion they were not led by the Spirit This was St. Ambrose his reason of this phrase 2. The next owes it self to St. Hilary Non aliter tentatus est quà m spiritûs permissu auxilio He was led by the Spirit that is he maintained this quarrel against the Devil by the permission and assistance of the Holy Spirit The Holy Ghost is not an idle Spectator but a party that leads us by the hand and holds up our hands to conquer these Amalekites as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses The Apostles were like things shut up that durst not come abroad till they were filled with the Spirit that had no heart to offer themselves to the trial of any affliction but kept out of the way But in Gods help as David says they leapt over the wall and ventured forth out of that narrow imprisonment and to make some satisfaction for that privacy when they lived as recluses they travelled boldly through all places of the world baptizing all Nations in the name of the Lord Jesus What durst they not do for the honour of God when they were led by the Spirit The Children of Israel made no scruple to pitch their Tents within the borders of their enemies if the Pillar of cloud did remove before them so wheresoever the grace of God doth carry a man Gods glory being his undoubted end without all vain delusions and carnal reservations he may be bold to venture As we read of Sampson that before he did those great and heroical exploits against the Philistines he was possessed with the Spirit of the Lord and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him when he slew a thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an Ass Judg. xv 14. So it holds in the works of Regeneration Patience Obedience denying of our selves taking up the Cross of Christ mortifying the body of Sin these cannot be done unless the Spirit of the Lord do move upon us But according to the method of the Psalm first we must trust in God to pluck our feet out of the snare before he lead us in the right way and set us upon a rock of stone where we shall not be moved First lead us not into tentation that is leave us not to our selves and then bear us on Eagles wings and bring us to himself Exod. xix 4. We do not so much deprecate in the Lords Prayer that we should not come near the assault of any tentations as that we may not be drawn into the midst of them and there left unto our selves Most excellently the Apostle Heb. xiii 20. The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus through the bloud of the everlasting Covenant he will bring us out of the Pit-falls of the Devil that is implied for it follows he will make us perfect in every good work to do his will Aristotle hath a rule in his Rhetoriques how that must needs be an excellent thing which the worst men desire they may seem to have though they want it As liberality must needs be a graceful vertue for few are so sordidly covetous but that they love to be accounted liberal So the guidance of the divine Spirit necessarily must be the most laudable principle of all humane actions for there is not so palpable an hypocrite that will confess he was led by his own Concupiscence or seduced by his Passions no he will pretend it is the fear of God and his Conscience that doth lead him in all things What wonder if Christian Hypocrites have such conceits For the King of Assyria a Most prophane Blasphemer thought it was the best way to make the same pretension when he came to pluck down the living God Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it The Lord said to me go up against this Land to destroy it And I would it were not the disgrace of these times that many such live among us who have their secret stratagems and desires to make havock of the small revenue of the Church and to pluck down the glory and dignity of it but with the same ungodly flourish that the King of Assyria made We are led by the Spirit the Lord said unto us go and destroy this as they most impudently and ignorantly call it Superstition I will give them the Prophet Ezekiels woe for their reward Ezek. xiii 3. Thus saith the Lord God woe unto the foolish Prophets that follow their own Spirit and have seen nothing These are led on by their fury to bring to pass the works of the evil one not led by the Spirit as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Arch-leader was to overcome the tentations of the Devil The third reason is out of St. Chrysostoms Quiver and I cannot exceed beyond that at this time Non simpliciter profectus sed abductus God did inspire the Evangelists to write in this manner how Christ was led when he went into temptation rather than that he went of himself simply without more addition because no man should offer himself rashly and voluntarily to be tempted unless God did put some constraint and impulsion upon him It is a most cautilous note if you observe it for take the matter right and consider Christ in himself alone without respect of leaving an example
to them since some of their own do ingenuously confess of our Divines that we are Purioris antiquitatis retentissimi most retentive of purer antiquity In a word there is no necessity by Gods Word to keep a Lent of forty days therefore those Churches are not condemnable But because the use hath been propagated to us in so many Ages both in the Greek and Latine Churches I presume to say that our custom is more justifiable and more laudable One thing for the last relish the Quadragesimal Fast is grounded upon long custom of time upon Ecclesiastical Constitution and Political Confirmation therefore it is not like one of the arch Precepts of the Law fac vives do this and live man was made for those vertues of Faith and Charity to which Gods Laws do immutably bind him but the Lent was made for man and not man for it The Libertine is too scandalous that tusheth altogether at this Ordinance but they that terrifie weak consciences that do not punctually observed it at all times are too rigorous that I may not say too Pharisaical who lay such heavy burdens upon mens shoulders under pain of damnation The Laws of the King which belong to the especial good of the Kingdom or for advancement of piety cannot be broken without manifest incurring of a great offence before God but the Laws of Fasts concern not the main substance of Religion or the necessary welfare of the Common-wealth therefore according to the indulgence of the Supreme Magistrate it may well be thought that they are not rigorously to be understood but civilly that is we are to give heed unto them that we do not break them with open contempt or scandal or out of the humour of a Libertine or any such neglect for then it is sin unto thee But where such food cannot sufficiently be supplied or if infirmity grow upon us or where some honest or reasonable cause shall be offered neither contempt being in our hearts nor scandal given by our neglect they that do contrary are not held neglecters of their duty or contemners of the Magistrate As upon Feast-days we dispense with mens necessities for bodily labour so upon Fasts respect is had to our weakness lest we should suffer harm in doing good Thus much hath been spoken upon the continuance of Christs Fast forty days and forty nights I will be brief in the consequent He was afterwards an hungry The Devil is exceeding subtil and works much upon advantage no greater advantage for his tentations than penury and necessity Yet Christ would hunger when he was to be tempted as who should say I am in that plunge which the Devil wisheth and yet let him do his worst I know not how Satan came by the knowledge that he was an hungry unless Christ discovered himself by searching for food and making enquiry where it might be expected and finding none This is manifest his appetite was destitute and in some distress all the time of the forty days going before he was sustained by the divine vertue that he should not hunger afterwards he suffered nature to have its course This only may be thought a little strange that after Moses and Elias had ended their fast of forty days we do not read in Scripture that they were an hungry why should the Holy Ghost leave it written that there was more infirmity in Christ than there was in them Because no more is spoken of Moses and Elias than to shew how the divine vertue did manifest it self upon them but our Saviour did exhibite a proof that the vertue of God was in him and the infirmity of man Only remember that Christ had satiety and hunger in his own power to manifest them when he pleased Qui Dominus est totius terrae Dominus est naturae suae says St. Austin He that was Lord of the whole Earth know it and mistrust it not he was Lord also of his own nature it was in his power to lay down his life when he pleased therefore it must be in his power to hunger when he pleased Hunger and thirst pain and sorrow were as naturally in Christ as they are in us but with two marks of difference First Christus non contraxit defectus naturae sed assumpsit Christ took such defects upon him he yielded to undergo them but we do merit and contract them to deserve infirmity and to assume infirmity are two divers things Secondly Impotencies of nature do command us we cannot command them If we have watch'd and fasted any long time sleep and meat are tribute which nature calls for and must be paid but our Saviour had them under subjection quantum quando quomodo to take them not out of necessity but voluntarily in no measure but when he pleased at no time but when he thought fit in all respects according to his own wisdom and appointment Now to that God who was made poor that we might be made rich that was made exceeding sorrowful that we might rejoyce that did hunger and thirst that we might be filled with good things be Praise and Honour AMEN THE SIXTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 3. And when the Tempter came to him he said If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread OF four things hard to be understood one says Solomon is the way of a Serpent upon a stone or rock Via colubrina super petram Proverbs for the most part have some dark allusion in them rather than a literal meaning and so hath this Satan is the Serpent Christ is the Stone Tentation is the way of the Serpent and nothing more obscure than the way of that Serpents tentation upon this elect precious Stone in Sion the chief Stone in the corner as the Prophets call him Concerning this Verse which I have read it is debated by learned Authors what fetch the Tempter had Some say his scope was to satisfie his own distrust and to find out whether Christ were the very Son of God he found no sin in our Saviour he heard the voice from Heaven at his Baptism he had learnt what John Baptist testified of him behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world this was enough to convince all the Furies of Hell and to put it out of doubt yet Satan was extreme unwilling to be perswaded of that which would put him to so much sorrow and for all this he is no further than if If thou be the Son of God Some say the Devils drift was to draw Christ to offend God with some capital iniquity and if this project could possibly have succeeded the redemption of mankind had been utterly marred for no Sacrifice would serve our turn but a Lamb without spot that is undefiled Surely some sin or other was part of the intendment in this first Tentation because it is evident he counselled Christ to sin against heaven in the Tentations following Therefore in this
with his Granaries Christ was made poor that we might be made rich and for the good use of our riches he hath made many poor I did read you even now what Exposition might be made upon those words of David I never saw the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread some not unfitly do bend it to this sense The Psalmist commends liberality in the preceding verses and those that are prone to relieve the helpless Now lest any man might object yet I may cloath others so far that I may leave my self naked I may supply others till I be drawn dry No says he in that verse no misfortune shall come to such liberality I never saw the righteous forsaken meaning such righteous as he spake of before that are liberal and lend I never saw his seed beg their bread The charitable shall have his loan again sometimes corporally sometimes spiritually always certainly And thus you have heard my reasons to controul Satans rule that there are and have been divers opprest with necessity and want of bread and yet God doth not cease to be their Father and they must retain the comfort that they are his Sons Only take in this to the advantage of the Point As Satan is vigilant to espy who are in want and to suggest doubts and infidelity into their heart so there is no man shall think he is not in want if he will be ruled by his perswasion I told you before out of Theophylact what he propounded to our Saviour Cum panis unus sufficeret jubet lapides in panes converti When one loaf of bread might satisfie a mans hunger he required all the stones in the Wilderness which were near at hand to be turned into bread It is he that makes our prodigal Feasters wish their chear were better when they have already too much To have bare enough in his construction is to want and nothing is sufficient but an Epicures superfluity Perhaps the plenty which is present will evict the greatest murmurer and make him confess here is well and enough for the present occasion O but says the Tempter are you sure of large suppeditation for the time hereafter If you are not aforehand with the world you are in a bad case and want bread If your condition be not more comfortable than your Prayer Give us this day our dayly bread you may pray and perish Howsoever Beloved do you rely upon this that Gods providence will be the best interpreter of his own Prayer he that bids you pray for the sustenance of one day best knows how he will cherish and relieve you tomorrow Whereas in the former petitions we are taught to ask that the Kingdom of heaven might come it were unwise having so good a thing in our wish to ask much for the bread of this life One days dimensum is enough to ask for at once for who knows whether after a day he shall go from hence for ever and be no more seen If happily a worldly man be satisfied to say I have enough for one and enough for my time Soul thou hast much goods laid up in store for many years yet Satan will object that you want bread for you have not enough laid up for your Posterity and for many generations and because men know not how their stock may increase and fructifie therefore they dilate their appetite in infinitum and say after the words of that Disciple Whence shall I have bread for so many that come out of my Loyns that every one may have a little Gehazi did not say his Master had need of Naamans Rayments or his money but there were two children of the Prophets lately come to him and he would have two change of Rayments and a Talent of Silver for them So many will confess they have wherewithal to serve their own turn they cannot complain but their own necessities are liberally provided but they would have change of Rayments and Talent upon Talent for their children And if it were possible like Noah and those that came out of the Ark with him they would have the whole world to be distributed among their Sons and Daughters All these ways our Adversary the Devil doth shape discontent in our hearts to make us say we lack and have not enough then he objects Who is then your Father that should provide for you What Son is he that wanteth bread if he have a merciful Father And so far upon the first general part of the Text. And as this Satanical rule upon which I have spoken depraves our judgment in the most capital conclusion of true Religion the next rule which I now come to open bars and corrupts our practise in all manner of justice and righteousness it is thus whosoever wants bread let him get it by any stratagem or device by any unlawful slight which Proposition though it be not exprest in such plain terms in my Text yet the wit of Satan neither would nor could insinuate that bad meaning in any other Language to Christ than as we read it Command that these stones be made bread I know Christ hath extended his miracles to supply worldly blessings to his people especially at a push as Peter found ready pay for his Masters Tribute and for his own out of the head of a Fish and lest the people should faint that had continued fasting three days to hear Christ preach in the Wilderness a wonderful increase of food was multiplied to satisfie many thousands out of five loaves and two fishes God did get himself glory by these works in the sight of all Jury But the case is quite altered in this which Satan demands Christ was private by himself in the Desart when he had fasted forty days and forty nights and was afterwards an hungry the Devil had no colour in that place to bid him filch or cheat or do any base office to feed his belly The worst therefore he could say was altogether to omit he should call upon God nay rather since the Lord had destituted him of all provision without expectation of help from the Divine Providence do the best you can for your self Command that these stones c. This is that Maxim which those Heathens that had no Equity nor Philosophy in them did maintain Quocunque modo rem stand not upon the niceties of Truth and Law and Justice but get your living as you can Victum tibi confice quem Deus non suppeditat as our most literal Expositors do Paraphrase my Text God cares not for you but shift for your self as well as you can you must have bread Such are those irreligious and discontented words 2 Kings vi 33. The evil is of the Lord what should I wait for the Lord any longer There is no Commandment of the two Tables can be unviolated if you remove the bounds of justice and give your wit and conscience scope to make a fortune upon all jugling and devices Blasphemy Idolatry
of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is sometimes Simpliciter assumere not Assumptum transferre barely to take along in company not to transport or transpose in the taking as Christ took up Peter and James and John into the Mountain where he was transfigured that is he made them his Associates but their own feet did bear them The Verb indeed will bear both significations and more fit a great deal that in this place it should bear the latter and not the former For first the great Wilderness which is generally allowed for the place where our Saviour was tempted is distant from Jerusalem a journey of two days supposing all the way should be trod on foot now all the three tentations were dispatch'd in part of one for Christ fasted forty days and no longer and the Tempter did not settle to his work till upon the end of the Fast Secondly If Christ had gone up stairs to the top of the Temple what means the Scripture to say that the Devil set him on a Pinacle Or thirdly with what authority or favour did our Lord get up unto the top of that holy place since none but the Priests came so far as into the Temple or sanctuary and the people were admitted no further than the outward Porch Fourthly If there had been stairs to ascend to the Pinacle and Christ had pass'd up that way then there had been no colour for this presumptuous Proposition Cast thy self down c. the answer had been very obvious no I will return back the same way I came I forsake this opinion therefore because it cannot be defended against these objections that Christ did only go along with Satan to the holy City The third opinion which being opened and inlarged will much better shew the mischief and subtilty of this tentation is thus Then Satan did transport our Lord from the Desart wherein he fasted to the highest Battlements of the Sanctuary This will appear hard at the first to the infirmity of some Auditors So Gregory did suppose it would trouble some when he wrote the truth Aures humanae audire expavescant Some mens ears for a while will be unwilling to hear it till the scruples be removed But when you shall understand how much the patience the wisdom the power of Christ did surmount hereby how at every turn he over-reacht Satan in his own contrivances you will grant the Exposition to be sound delightful and profitable Mark I beseech you doth it appear a thing not to be assented unto that Christ would fly through the Air with Beelzebub the greatest enemy of God That seems uncouth but this will allay the horror of it Remember Satan was permitted at this time to use all his engines to provoke our Saviour to sin if Christ had refused him to cut a passage through the Air with him as far as the principal Pinacle of the Temple it would have left him confident that our Lord durst not hazard himself to that tentation Let him do the best he can or he will never confess himself utterly conquered Nemo victus est quandiu pugnare vult No body is quite beaten as long as he offers to fight again and if he were not beaten at all his own weapons the wicked Fiend would say he had not lost all his glory Origen therefore brings in the Devil to say you have well answered about my Proposition for making bread of stones but will your courage serve you to go with me to the highest Tower of the Temple And then in his phrase Christ answers Duc quò vis tenta ut placet sustineo quae suggesseris Come your ways I will not stay behind see I am ready for you at all suggestions What ready to be put into his hands and be carried Even so says Gregory it was his Fathers will and his own patience and humility Quid mirum est si se permisit ab illo duci qui se pertulit ab ejus membris crucifigi It is nothing strange to adventure himself to be taken up by Satan knowing by his own power and vertue his passage should be safe when as none will deny but he suffered himself to be led to Caiaphas to Pilate to Herod to Mount Golgotha by those that were the members of the Divel to be buffeted to be scourged to be crucified Now this opinion certainly seems not rigid to the understanding Auditor and yet to mollifie it more St. Chrysostome and many his learned followers say this miscreant came not to Christ in his own most ugly Diabolical shape but was now transformed into such a glorious humane shape as the Angels of light were wont to assume when they came from God And upon this fair appearance he closeth with him The Angels of God are your guard and custody and loe I am an Angel of light that will conduct you with all diligence and tenderness This is the first deception which Satan swallowed he thought he was so perfectly trasfigured that Christ did not know him like the Ass in the Fable having put on a Lions skin he thought the Countrymen would not know him by his long ears but our Saviour let his enemy play with his new disguise as if he pass'd without discovery O how easie it is for the sharpest wit when it would be wiser than God to be more ignorant than a beast God did open the eyes of Balaams Ass to know a true Angel then what should hinder the Son of God to know a counterfeit But secondly Is not this a matter to be stumbled at To be taken up and born away implies a kind of power and superiority in him that beareth another for his vertue must exceed the others As the Angel had authority over Philip when he lifted him suddenly from Gaza in the Desart to Azotus Acts viii And Habakkuk was in subjection to that Angel who took him up by the hair of the head and carried him into Babylon Beloved All such transportations are not alike some earthly bodies indeed are removed miraculously and violently from one place to another conferring no vertue of their own to the motion but suffer themselves to be moved by some spiritual efficacy applied unto them as in the fore-named instances of Habakkuk and Philip and in Paul who was wrapt up he knew not how into the third heavens Again some bodies make use of another thing to bear them as a Chariot or any Instrument so the Psalmist says of God himself that he came flying upon the wings of the wind and in this sense St. Austin justifies that Christ was neither violently nor imperiously carried by Satan but moved himself by his own vertue and let the Devil assist as an Instrument Says the Father Si dicas meliores sunt qui portant quam qui portantur ergo jumenta meliora sunt hominibus If you litigate that the bearer is better than him that is born then you shall confess that the beast is better
make us his instruments to defile the holy Temple Gods glory is put to the greatest scandal and reproach And this is brought to pass so many ways that it is plain to see there hath been a most witty complotter in the treachery 1. When any Prelate is so puft up that he thinks himself too great to be a door-keeper in Gods house but will be higher than all the Church and seâ— on the top of the Pinacle who sitting in the Temple of God exalts himself above all that is called God 2. The Temple is defiled by setting up Idols in the Courts of our heavenly King even in the midst of thee O thou Sanctuary of the Lord. 3. By offering up unclean Sacrifice either false Doctrine or impious Prayers or superstitious Worship or corrupted Sacraments 4. When men set their foot within the sacred Tabernacle with carnal thoughts with worldly imaginations with no zeal or attention 5. To bring any prophane work any secular business within those walls which are consecrated to the name of the Lord. This is that Camel which the Jewish Priests did swallow when they strained at a Gnat. For they told our Saviour that he brake the Sabbath he did not keep the Law but they themselves did licence and allow the prophanation of the Temple by bringing Merchandize into it selling of Sheep and Oxen and changing money and you know how Christ revenged it even with anger and indignation I must borrow time to tell you how Christ did bestir himself in the reformation of that abuse more than in any thing else throughout all the Gospel For first he corrected that fault twice over in the second of St. Johns Gospel in the beginning of his Ministry and Mat. xxi toward the end of his life anon before he suffered You see what an obstinate evil it was which would not be redressed for one admonition 2. When he came to Jerusalem there were many other faults flagrant crimes wherewith the place abounded yet the first thing he reformed was the abuse of the Temple 3. He would not tolerate the least prophanation wink at no fault for he would not permit that any should carry so much as a Vessel through the Temple Mar. xi 16. 4. He reformed this trespass not only by preaching and quoating Scripture against it but by a scourge and by violence by word and deed And surely if words will not serve God will bring blows to maintain the reverence of his house that it be not contemned What a dissolute carriage it is to see a man step into a Church and neither veil his head nor bend his knee nor lift up his hands or eyes to heaven Who dwels there I pray you that you are so familiar in the house Could you be more saucy in a Tavern or in a Theater This is no other but the very gate of heaven says Jacob when he had but a vision of God and his Angels Brethren renounce the Devil let him not alienate your reverence from that place which God hath specially appointed for the saving of your soul Holiness becometh thine house for ever O holy blessed and glorious Trinity AMEN THE ELEVENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 6. And saith unto him If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down For it is written He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone IT is altogether unknown to man when a sin comes merely from the suggestion of his own heart and when it comes from the tentation of the Devil But in one case eminently above many others it is most likely that there is some hellish provocation when out of good principles and religious grounds our heart is quite turned out of the way to rebell against the Lord. Ely the High Priest had a tender fatherly affection Who could turn this wholsom water into poyson to make him wink at the vices and dissoluteness of his Sons but Satan David was a thankful Prince and loved to remember how God had multiplied his favours upon him yet upon this stock grew that evil fruit to number the people Why the Text says Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel King Josias was an enemy to the Heathen that knew not God and he that deludes good motions made him so irreconcilable that he would fight against Pharaoh Necho to his own destruction and harkened not to the word which came from the mouth of God Certainly the hand of Joab was in this and in all such fallacies where a good fountain is made to send forth sweet waters and bitter as to sin because grace abounds to neglect publick Prayer because faith comes by hearing to cark and care too much for the world because a man would provide for his Posterity And this master-wit of Hell laid this bait to make our Saviour swallow it in this present tentation For Christ being demanded to make bread of stones he replies that he was confident in his Fathers Promises Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Are you so confident Thinks the Tempter and upon this confidence I will thrust you on Have you appeal'd to Cesar And to Cesaer you shall go It is true that you say God is very gracious and will not destitute you in any want or danger you have answered very well therefore cast your self down from this Pinacle and be confident still God will look to it that you shall be supported This is the very train discovered and made as clear unto you as the light of the Sun In the former tentation he would drive Christ to unlawful means if that take not because he trusts in God then trust in him still and refrain from the use of things lawful so St. Austin distinguisheth that his first fallacy was Deum defuturum ubi promisit that God would not help where he had promised to assist and the second fallacy which now I am to handle is Deum adfuturum ubi non promisit that God would help where he had not promised to assist Where many things are to be found out in one verse they must be divided severally and in this order I take it to be expedient 1. Here is Satans demand Cast thy self down 2. Upon what supposition he demands it Why if thou be the Son of God 3. Upon what authority authority enough for it is written 4. Upon what assistance why the best in the world whether it is the supreme or the instrumental The supremeis God He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and the instrumental are the most glorious powerful and excellent creatures in all the world the whole Host of Angels in their hands they shall bear thee lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone These are such particulars as the wisdom of the Spirit hath left us
of St. Austin where doth he say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is another species of religious worship which is divers from latria I cannot find that nor they neither yes it is extant that He teacheth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an honour to be given to Angels and Saints but doth he say that honour is an inferiour part of religious worship at no hand nor of religious worship I believe mistakes have past on both sides that worship hath been divided by our Divines into religious and civil without further explication for some acute wits have objected that the honour given to a person is grounded upon some excellency in him but excellency is threefold therefore there must be a threefold honour or worship there is the divine and infinite excellencie of God which requires an honour peculiar to it self of the highest strein then there is humane excellencie consisting in such honour and reverenced qualities as men have to which a civil reverence is to be paid Between these there is another excellency which is supernatural that grace and glory which the Angels and Saints have here they demand that some honour above the ordinary civil garb should be paid to supernatural excellency This I believe S. Austin for want of words called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but never meant it was a religious expression But to make things clearer I have divided worship before into three parts the first is of most holy religion to God alone the second of civil subjection to our Superiors honour to whom honour belongeth as the Apostle says but the third must not be forgotten when we give moral reverence to some not upon the relation of being subject and under them for excellent endowments so Kings have faln down prostrate before Prophets so Abraham bowed down to the three Angels and this moral reverence is greater or less as we apprehend the person to have natural or supernatural excellency This surely was St. Austin's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the meaning of his distinction is tolerable but he states a difference in words which are not to be differenced as I will declare it briefly The words both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either of them stand for all sort of worship confusedly of religion of moral reverence and of civil subjection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 each word in Eustathius denote a Servant if there be any odds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the more enthralled and captivated Servant for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the hired Servant a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the wages of an hired one But an hirling is at his own choice whether he will do a mans work or no but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Bond servant part of his Masters possession he mustgirt him to his work and cannot avoid it therefore we are Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Servants that must do his will his Bond-servants we ought to obey him in all things though He had covenanted to give us no wages 'T is the greater subjection if you stand upon words and therefore due to the greatest I press further that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture stands not only for holy service but for civil observance Matth. xviii that Servant that owed his Master more than he could pay fell down and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he worshipt him but evidently Levit. xxiii 3. The Seventh day is a Sabbath of rest an holy Convocation ye shall do no work therein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the 72. which must not stand for Religious that is the day proper but for secular tasks and businesses Once again let me strike upon the same Pin How often do both these words present unto us the same thing Even Gods holy service Rom. i. 9. God is my witness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whom I serve in the Spirit In the same Epistle Cha. xvi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they serve not our Lord Jesus Christ And nothing more fairly markt out that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a Religious relation is only due to God then that Text Gal. iv 8. St. Paul tells the Galatians that while they were Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye served them that by nature were not Gods The Argument is fix'd on this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 religiously belongs to the true God and not to Angels Saints or any nuncupative Gods So the Arrians were accused of Idolatry by Athanasius because they professed to worship Christ and yet confessed him not to be God eternal coequal with his Father They had no such distinction as latria and dulia to shift the Objection I have been compelled to fight with words I know with little profit to the ordinary hearer but the skilful will bear me witness these things could not well be omitted upon this Theme Now I come to ponder the meaning of the distinction yet no Pontifician whom I have read hath made a clear meaning of it Yes some will say they hold latria is a supreme religious Adoration to be given to God alone Dulia is an inferiour religious worship aptly given to persons or things of some supernatural graces or divine relations That is God hath his due reserved the Angels the Saints and their Images and Reliques are worshipped Absque latria which is to say in strictness of Grammer they worship them without worship For latria put in English is Worship But I leave that and demand here are two Religious Worships in their Church the one to God the other to some of his Creatures what belongs to the one that doth not to the other if both be religious Do they differ in degrees only That the intention of the heart is bent more earnestly to honour the one and with less zeal and ardour the other That is no real difference for so the same man praiseth God with more vehemency of spirit at one time than at another Or is it diversified to be another species of Religious Worship by performing the same external garbe and the like internal honour to the Creator and to the Creature but with this odds that the Devotee doth apprehend God as an infinite essence but the created substances as fellow Servants and therefore no way to be worshipped above Servants with God-like honour This I think is all that can be said I have read no more said for it yet this is nothing for so the understanding only conceives a different object but it is not demonstrated that the will or the body brings forth several acts of Worship And it is enough to overthrow their errour if they would mark it that they say how they consider it is but a Creature which they adore with dulie or secondary religious Worship for the foundation of all religious Worship is Excellentia infinita apprehensa sub ratione primi principii summi
sed honoramus We neither worship nor adore the Reliques of Martyrs but honour them Now decent burial is the honor of their bones as I proved before and so much for that point In the next place as Christ urged my Text against Satan so I do allege it against them that profess a superstitious adoration of the Cross for the very Cross on which Christ suffred hangs so near to the former Treatise that it is accounted the very Flower of Reliques Prima crux non modò inter imagines sed etiam inter reliquias habenda est says Aquinas the first Cross of all stands both for an Image and for a Relique to be adored The Pontifician Authors have emulated one another who should say most for the Worship of the Cross deterior qui vicerit he that hath gone farthest hath wrote foulest Aquinas speaks all at a breath that it behoves to give it latriam the highest religious service which is given to God cum habitudine relatione ad prototypum with importance and relation to the Prototype that suffer'd upon it Turrecremata finds out three ways to worship the Cross either as it represents Christs arms stretched out and himself suffering or as it was honour'd by touching his very body or as in some places his blood was sprinkled upon it So Turrecremata leavs it but one Salesius quoted truly by Chamierus I make no question thus disposeth it Ordinary Crosses exemplified by the first are to be adored as all Images The very first Cross as it is a Relique of Christ is to be worshipped with the adoration of hyperdulia but as it represents Christ crucified and is sprinkled with his blood it deserves latria the same worship that Christ himself hath thus that Salesius Costerus hath a crotchet by himself 1. That every Cross must have more veneration given it than the Images of the Saints 2. That which had Christ nailed upon it must have a more pretious religious veneration than all Creatures but where a drop of Christs blood shall appear to have coloured it there not the wood of the Cross but Christ in that drop of blood is to be adored Thus they all study as it seems to me which of them by the acuteness of his learning should run furthest into Idolatry Here is zeal as it seems but not according to Scripture that 's not once thought of in all these conclusions That one word is enough to dash all their sophistry but to tear all their devices piece-meal listen briefly First the Figure of the Cross represents our Lord as He died for our sins I deny that it represents not him in the matter or in the figure it may represent the sufferings of sundry others yet if by use and often remembrance it doth more especially recall his passion to our mind it is no more to be adored than the word which is preached upon the same occasion But if I should swallow that how it exemplifies unto us Christ crucified that comes not home to the mark that it is fit to be adored The Brazen Serpent prefigured how Christ should be lifted up and die upon a tree yet when the people fell down before it Hezekiah made it away and would not suffer it And how hath it necessarily merited religious honour because our Saviours body touched it happy were they that saw him and touched him by faith but it was no happiness to Judas lips to the Executioners arms that lifted him to the thorns that sat close upon his brows or to the wood that bore his body And whereas they make great reckoning that some of that blood which saved us was to be seen where it had run down upon his Cross I answer with reverence that if mine eyes were so happy to see any true tokens of my dear Redeemers blood I would bless God with all humility of heart and body to behold a drop of that stream which flowed from my Saviour that my poor eyes should see part of the richest ransom that ever the world had but I must not give it divine worship For ancient Councils tell me the Humanity of Christ ought to have divine honour done unto it as united personally to the Godhead therefore those drops of blood divided from the unity of his person were not religiously to be honoured It is easie to multiply fluent phrases on their side as that the Cross was the Chariot in which our Lord triumphed over death the Ladder upon which he chose to go up to heaven that wood once accursed in which He took away all malediction from us Well all this is as if you had said that the Cross by accident was an instrument of his glory and our salvation as much as the nails were and no more It was not the Cross that made him triumph but the Death He sustained on the Cross for by death he overcame death I said they did not once quote Scripture in all this Argument but a few of their loose rovers venture at the xxiv of Matth 30. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven It is worth the sifting to answer it What if that be an Hebraism as some say it is that the sign of the Son of man is the Son of man himself signantèr perspicuè venturus most evidently and expresly coming in the Heavens to judge the world or if with more likelihood the Sign of Christ is not Christ himself yet whether the Apostle means the wounds in his Body or his Cross or it may be a strange Star such as appeared at his Birth who knows but here 's no hint of Adoration no matter for the rest be it what you will But the last refuge is to betake them to Legends and strange stories especially in two instances I will not cloy you with them at large but first we are told how Helen the renown of our Britany in her age and the Mother of Constantine had a divine admonishment how to find the Cross which had been lost above three hundred years And long after when the Pagans had taken it by violence from the Christians that Heraclius the Emperor fought with Chosroes and his Persians to recover it and that stones from heaven fell upon the Persians never the like seen but once in the days of Joshua Touching the Invention of the Cross by Helena though St. Ambrose speaks of it yet it sticks hard with me to believe it because Eusebius omits it who spake of other renowned works of Helens and how Constantine her Son found out the Holy Sepulcher but let it have credit and that of Heraclius too though both deservedly suspected What will it come to the Book of the Law was as strangely found out by Josiah and more certainly yet never adored Elizeus his bones were found by casting a dead man into his Grave and nothing followed Yea Saul found out his Fathers Asses by divine admonition And for the miraculous and victorious recovery of
as well as zealous intention of inward reverence Behold the creatures of bread and wine non quà sunt sed quà significant not as they are elementary food but as they are significant of greater things And for that significancy we bend our knees in the receiving to our Lord Jesus Christ not to do honour to the Elements let none be so simple or so uncharitable to say it nor to any visible thing present but to the Immortal God who hath saved us by the blood of his Son as of a lamb undefiled Now upon the taking of the bread and wine not absolute necessity but decency and order call for the duty of our knee The visible Sacrament is objectum adorationis à quo non ad quod upon occasion of seeing those things we do worship but the worship is not terminated to those things The people of Israel for certain worshipped before the Ark was the Ark any better sign of Gods presence than the Bread and Wine are of the Body and Blood of Christ The Ark was called Jehovah so those Elements are called his Body and Blood for the representation and Sacramental relation Throughout all the Old Testament wheresoever the people of God had notice of the divine presence and grace in signs ordinary and extraordinary they have with free conscience bowed down and worshipped Moses fell down to God when he saw the fire in the Bush Joshuah worshipped not the Angel but Jehovah at the sight of the Angel Josh v. The people fell down and worshipped when they saw the fire from heaven fall on the Sacrifice 2 Chron. vii 3. Nay Ezra cast himself down before the House of God when there was no House standing but the remembrance of the place What if a devout man walking through goodly Fields of standing corn and marking those plentiful blessings should uncover his head yea and kneel to give God thanks were not this well done much more though not any worship is done to the bread when he sees that bread in which by faith he receives Christ and all his benefits I will follow this point no further happy is he that believes and doth neither commit Idolatry to the outward Elements nor grudg at due and devout reverence to be done at the most Holy Supper of the Lord. Me-thinks now our last business of all touching the worshipping of Images should be but sport to skirmish with Babies and Puppies like the fray that is spoken of between the Cranes and the Pigmies O strong delusions in the hearts of men that there should be any cause to contest with Christians in such a Controversie Blasphemy Witchcraft Murder are not more plainly condemn'd in Scripture than to set up an Image for adoration and if Gods own words utter'd with his own mouth from Mount Sinai in thunder and lightning will not serve the turn to what end is it to dispute or preach against it but for Sions sake I will not hold my peace and for Jerusalems sake I will not rest The worshipping of Images is accounted no slender Ceremony among the Romanists but a branch of Religion wherein they shew great zeal to God and the Saints The Tridentine Catechism provides that the catechized in their childhood should learn this for Catechisms are principally for youth that it is not only lawful to have Pictures and Images in Churches wherein they see we assent so far but to exhibit honor and worship unto them Parochus sanctorum imagines in templis positas demonstrabit ut colantur left the people should think the Images stand in the wall for a cypher or for bare ornament the Parish Priest shall admonish his Flock that they stand there to be worshipped So Cajetan those stand not for fashion sake only in the Church like the Cherubins in Solomons Temple meerly to be lookt upon but to be adored and this is upheld with so much vehemency that they accurse all such as oppose it and with so much cruelty that we learn out of their own storie that Balthasar Hinâ—marus was burnt at Vienna and Aegidius Hispanus at Sevil for denying that Religious Adoration was due to Images Beside what Panegyricks Praises and Poems have been made in honor of those Statues before which many miracles have been wrought though nothing truly done but by imposture and delusion What injunctions given to Penitentiaries to creep unto them What offerings of Plate and Coin and Jewels bestowed upon them and by the bounty of fools they are made richer than the givers and the living are defrauded of the works of mercy to deck an Idol with sumptuous bravery And after all this madness and cost to uphold the credit of their golden Gods Cardinal Bellarmine's voluntary confession is worthy to be noted nihil periret de fide aut religione si nulla ficta vel picta esset imago Faith and Religion should suffer no loss though there were no Image in the world This is even such another lightning as came from him in his Controversies upon Justification for after all his arguments to make the good works of the faithful have a merit of condignity he concludes tutissimum est yet it is the safest way to hope to be saved by Christ alone so after all his sophistry for Images this is plain dealing nihil periret de fide religione it were not the worse for Faith and Religion if there were no Images at all Lend your ear now to the stir that is made among their Writers what portion of Religious Worship is allowed to their Pictures and Statues that stand for Christ especially and likewise for the Saints That infamous second Nicene Synod whose Canons are precious in the eye of the Church of Rome to this day that pack of Idol-mongers condemned all such as said their use went no further than to put us in mind of Christ nay Tharasius the busiest man in that ill work said all that confessed they did esteem venerably of sacred Images and would not adore them were hypocrites It was there defined they should have Religious Salutation and Adoration but not latriam the most Religious Worship which is proper only to God The Tridenâ—ine Council leaves men to pick what they can out of indefinite words and says only such Images are to have Veneration made to them and Holy Worship There are three Sects of opinions among their learned men who differently state the case Durandus says that Images are not adored but improperly and by abuse of the word quia ad praesentiam earum fit rememoratio exemplarium tunc adorantur in praesentia imaginum they being at hand do make men remind Christ and think upon him and then Christ is adored in the presence of the Image but not the Image at all Such remembrances sometimes might be spared because of the danger and scandal yet this opinion is moderate I only dislike that he says he would not have the people so taught for Christ bad his doctrin should be
the second branch his associates are Peter John and James 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he took them to see his glory it was his association St. Mark adds by way of emphasis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he took three only and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 privatim he sequestred them apart from this world that they might see his glory Thirdly he prepar'd himself for this illustrious accident in great humility inter precandum he had prostrated himself before his Father in prayer And then fourthly this majestical glory came upon him two waies quoad vultum quoad vestitum in his person in his apparel in his flesh an astonishing radiancy the fashion of his countenance was altered in his cloaths an admirable purity his raiment was white and glistering I cannot be copious upon so many particulars of some more largely of the most succinctly In the first circumstance of all the Spirit of God hath noted out the Time and therefore I must not balk it no not in any of the three respects post dicta post dies post itâ—r First after those sayings says my Text inquiry shall be made what words those be and with whom he had that communication which went before the demonstrance of his glory in two preceding verses in this chapter Christ exhorted his Disciples and many others to the assurance of his Cross and that they might know he was able to recompence their sorrows who endured affliction for his name sake yea and would recompence it he speaks thus The Son of man shall come in his own glory and in his Fathers and of the holy Angels and I tell you of a truth there he some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God He refers the multitude to look for the last day of judgment when he would come in infinite Majesty to call the World before him but he refers certain nameless persons to expect after a while a pregustation of some heavenly apparition wherein they should see how he would be cloathed with power and excellencie when he came to sit upon his Throne and to call the Nations before him they should not taste of death till they saw a spectacle of the Kingdom of God in his transfiguration This was the occasion which made him exhibit his body with that glorious lustre in the Mount and yet some have ignorantly distorted those words to another purpose There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God what doth it mean say they but that John the Disciple whom Jesus loved should live till the last day of judgment as the report went among the Brethren how that disciple should not die Thus Theophylact and the counterfeit Hypolitus that error which hath run through so many Pens grew from hence that when Peter being told with what death he should glorifie God asked What should become of his fellow Disciple John Christ gave him no clear satisfaction because his question deserved it not but only thus If I will that he stay till I come what is that to thee follow thâ—â— me Let it be but probably discovered what coming Christ speaks of and there is no great perplexity in the saying Attend therefore this coming is nothing less than that great coming in personal Majesty at the last day but his coming in wrath and judgment against the Nation of the Jews to punish them and quite to extirpate their seed from Jerusalem Touching this coming by the fury of the Romans to execute his vengeance St. James speaketh to the faithful converted from Judaism and then sore afflicted by the Synagogue Be ye patient and stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh Jam. v. 8. Whereas therefore antient stories have delivered unto us that all the other Apostles were swept away by Martyrdom before the final destruction of Jerusalem onely John outlived that time even till the reign of Trajan This then is a plain meaning of our Saviour's answer if I will that he live till that dismal day when I come to destroy this people which hath crucified me what is that to thee Peter thou shalt never see that day but prepare thy self before for a speedier Martyrdom And to what use should the Apostle live a mortal life upon earth unto the end of the world and yet never appear to any man he lived to see the coming of Gods judgments against the holy City and he together with Peter and James lived to see a mirror of celestial glory in the Transfiguration that 's the meaning of our Saviour's promise going before my Text There be some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Kingdom of God It follows to be noted in the observation of the Time that after these sayings he fulfilled his word neither at the instant nor after a long distance but about an eight days after these sayings It was neither so quickly dispatcht before they had meditated upon it nor so long put off that they could forget it be it about an eight days or about eight thousand ages it is but a little while to God who measures all things by Eternity Now in these words which are the very front of the story there are two days odds in the relations of the Evangelists St. Luke you hear sayes about an eight days after St. Matthew and St. Mark after six days Doth not this account differ no not a whit six days complete did go between his sayings and his mighty work St. Matthew and the other speak of that time only but in a part of one day he had said there be some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Kingdom of God in part of another day He took those three up into the mountain and so St. Luke computes exactly 't was about an eight dayes after those sayings So hath the Divine wisdom disposed that the same thing should be repeated in several Gospels with some alteration of phrase but with no difference or contradiction and that for two causes When outwardly there seems to be some disagreement between the Text of one Evangelist and another these difficulties do whet our industry to study the book of God there must be knots and mysteries hard to be understood ut homo semper discat Deus semper doceat that man may alwayes learn and God may always teach unto the end of the world 2. Says another si per omnia consentirent nemo putarent eos seorsim scripsisse if they had all jumpt in the same words quite throughout as some say of the 72 Interpreters in the Old Testament it might have been imagined that the Gospels were not writ at distinct times and in distinct places now the dissonancy of their phrase doth warrant us to say that the Evangelists did not cast their heads together when they committed the Scriptures to writing but wrote apart and yet the same spirit
the Torturer Is John Baptists head so soon forgotten that it could be suspected of this Herod he would pitty Christ could it be imagined so chast a person could find good usage before such a man whose Marriage was incestuous This was like the removing of the Prophet Jeremy from the Kings Prison to the Dungeon of Malchal Jer. xxxviii But thus it was fit to be say the Fathers to toss Christ between Annas and Caiaphas Herod and Pilat that he might be reviled by four slanderous Judges as his glory should be revealed in the Gospel by four Evangelists yea Pilat and Herod interchangeably made another mystery flat against themselves For Herod clad our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a white shining Robe says St. Luke as the Ancients read it Pilat did alter the colour and made it purple says St. Matthew to express against their own corrupt proceedings that he was candidus innocentiâ rubicundus martyrio that his Soul was white with innocency and his Body died purple with passion according to that which Solomon spoke mystically of Christ I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lilly of the Valleys the White Lilly of the Valleys in his sanctified life the Red Rose of Sharon in his bloody sufferings There is a superstition in some men and perchance it is all the Religion which they have they will not put their own finger into an ill Cause but they make no scruple to sollicit and procure it by their Instruments This was a piece of Statism which Saul observed against David let not my hand do him hurt but let the hand of the Philistins be upon him Like our lascivious Gallants who call them Bawds and Panders who deal for other mens sins and are Officers for these voluptuous Markets but to enjoy that sin which their Instruments compounded for as they think it is no stain to their reputation So Pilat in my Text shifts our Saviour from his own Tribunal Justice forbid that He should hurt him but he removes him into Herods Court to receive his Sentence from a Tyrant Alas then this was not enough to make Pilat innocent But thirdly his Apologie stands upon one point more for perceiving the insatiate rancour of the Jews that nothing would content them except they had revenge upon the Body of Christ he stript him naked and scourged him that his stripes might give satisfaction and his life be saved Debilem facito manu debilem coxa pede vita dum superest bene est says Mecaenas a smart in the hand or in the head may be patiently taken to save our vitals 'T is true that such pitty is in the wisdom of the Judg when a lesser offence is compared with a greater but it is more injustice to chastise an innocent like a petty malefactor than to punish a petty Malefactor like a notorious Offendor The Jews cried out that if he spared his life but I say if he race his skin he is no Friend to Caesar but as it happens unto some Beasts that if they taste of blood it puts a thirst into them to make them raven and devour every prey that they catch So the drops that trickled from his shoulders put a ravenous appetite into the Jews to thrust a Spear into his side as deep as to his heart to make a passage for a greater effusion the very nakedness of his body when he was stript to be scourged and to be crucified says St. Austin was irksom to a modest man Obtenebratus est sol ut celaret pudicitiam creatoris in nudo corpore says the Father but to take such a scourging that Pilat himself shook his head to behold the man Et fuit in toto corpore sculptus amor says a Christian Poet that the testimony of his love was enameled or engraven in every part of his body to fall into the hands of such Executioners that did over-do their Commission and would gratifie the People in their Function as much as their Master had done in his Sentence before them will this defence hold water to make Pilat innocent Then let us hear his fourth Allegation When he had made a Protestation of Christ's integrity but it would not be believed when he had tempted Herod to end the Trial but the Cause was returned to his own Court when scourges were applied to take off the edg of his Enemies cruelty yet nothing was heard but crucifie him in the voice of the Multitude he casts about to save him by the priviledg of the Passover choose you who shall be released Barabbas that seditious Murderer or Jesus that is called Christ Is it come to the choice and the People made Arbiters then no doubt Christ must prepare for the Altar and Barabbas shall be hircus emissarius the Scape-goat let to run away into the Wilderness Et mecum certasse feretur may the Son of God say shall the Joy of Heaven and Earth come in scrutiny with Barabbas but we have no quarrel against him Non reprehendimus O Judaei quod per Pascha liberastis nocentem sed quod occidistis innocentem says St. Austin If you have a mind O ye Israelites to save a sinner at the Passover spare not to shew mercy who can be offended at it But if that be a business fit for the day it cannot be a good work to kill an innocent Upon what occasion the custom was grounded to acquit a Thief at the Passover it is not upon record Some are confident that it was very ancient in memory of their own deliverance out of the Land of Egypt some think it was later begun after the Roman Conquest upon this occasion Their Cities of Refuge were quite taken from them because the crimes of blood and death were translated from the Law of Moses to the Tribunal of Caesar wherefore this courtesie was instead of a recompence to release unto them one Prisoner at the Passover Now I strike at Pilats hypocrisie for this custom says Lyra was not ex imperiali sanctione sed consuetudine the surrender of one Malefactor was not strengthened by the Imperial Law but by courtesie Why did not Pilat then confine the Roman mercy to this just person but leave it indifferent as well for him as for the benefit of a Murderer There is no such Beast in the World as Demetrius and the City of Ephesus broke loose into a mutiny what they choose or what they refuse the greater part are always ignorant take the people in this wild phrensie and they would like the company of Barabbas before any man such an hair-brain would make a Ringleader fit to cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him be crucified Had Antiochus the chief Enemy of their Nation been living and set up against our Saviour surely the voice had gone not Him but Antiochus wherefore to propound Christ and Barabbas it was a delusion and will not hold to make Pilate innocent Give him water now to wash his hands manus lavet
word of the power of Christ which coupled again those parts divorced the soul and body not by breathing a new life into the body but by breathing out a loud voice Lazarus come forth Such as had been but banished their Country in the days of Caesar the Dictator and were restored again by the grace of Augustus and Antony were called Charonitae as if they had been wasted back again into this world when they were quite extinguished Those Roman Potentates would be esteemed Gods of another world that could unlock a man from the fetters of banishment needs then must he be greater than the Kings of the earth whose authority can break the bars of death and bring the Prisoners forth from the captivity of corruption The Scythians says Lucian swear by these two Idols as the Gods of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Wind and by the Sword Hic spirandi est autor ille mortis The one gives breath to live the other takes life away Now that which gives life and that which takes away life can be no less than a God say the very Scythians These heathen knew no more of Gods power than to give life and to take away life Had they known what it was to restore life again that would have been the chief power of divinity even in their estimation Majus est restituere quà m dare quantò miserius est perdidisse quà m omnino non accepisse It is more admirable to restore the soul again than to create it at the first because it is more miserable for the body to have lost a soul than never to have received it The great Clerks the Athenians could not tell what to make of the infinite power of the Resurrection It is pretty that St. Chrysostome observes upon them Acts xvii when Paul preached unto them and mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Resurrection of the dead they thought this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been a God the unknown God at whose Altar they did worship Evil men can abuse that which is good God can make good employment of that which is evil Death upon the first sin was named to be a punishment It is Meritoria in Martyribus and I may say Gloriosa in resurgentibus it is made an instrument of great reward unto the Martyrs and the passage to an Article of faith to believe in the Resurrection We call them that are dead in the Lord Abraham and Isaac and Jacob alas there are no such now Abraham dissolved into dust is no longer Abraham the soul cannot be called Abraham only the whole man both soul and body but so sted fastly do we trust the dead shall rise again Quod defunctorum animas nominibus suppositi appellamus says Thomas We speak of the dead as if they were now alive because they shall live again even as Christ spake to the corps of Lazarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as to a Corps but as to one living not as to one that was dead but as to ears that could hear Lazarus come forth And it is well says the Father that among all the Corpses in the dust Christ pickt him out by name as who should say now I will have none but Lazarus to come forth others shall appear in their time otherwise all the Legions of the dead had come to light and stood thick upon the earth from the East unto the West Indeed the souls under the Altar cry our Quousque Domine fain would they stand before him like Enoch and Elias so eager they are and vehement instantly to have tongues to speak and hands to hold up and knees and heads to bow as if they were not contented that their days to come for those things were days of eternity We shall meet together all in the same Livery cloathed with bodies of youth according to the measure of our Saviours Age Eph. iv Alexander out of a surly Magnificence Soli Antipatro Phocioni salutem scripsit in Epistolis never wrote in the top of his Letters I wish you long life and prosperity but only to Phocion and Antipater But God will direct his voice to every member of his Church one summon shall call forth Abraham and Isaac and all the world which at this time begins for a relish of faith but with this person alone Lazarus come forth And thus much for the first thing wherein the power of his Divinity appeared Mortuus excitatur a dead Man was raised Now that Lazarus after four days was raised that he which was bound came forth of the Grave is discourse for some other time Thus much only in a word upon the present occasion The next thing that you shall read concerning Lazarus after he was raised is this he sate at Supper with our Saviour in the second verse of the next Chapter Why behold the Supper of the Lord there is the next place where you are to meet with Christ after you are risen from your sins and the preparation of this Table to replenish your hungry souls with grace is as great a testimony of our Saviours Divinity as to raise up Lazarus Tu das epulis accumbere Divum it is the highest power of God which he confers to his Church upon earth to give them leave to meet together before the food of Angels As Manna melted away with the Sun-rising and new store fell upon earth the next morning which is a kind of Resurrection so you that have quenched Gods Spirit that have melted away his grace and let it putrifie for want of good employment this is the Morning this is the Season to gather a new Omer full that you may cherish and increase your faith Which that you may do c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN xi 44. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face was bound about with a Napkin THis is an Easterday Text notwithstanding that the party intreated of is Lazarus for as John Baptist was born a little before the birth of Christ and John was the Forerunner of his Nativity so Lazarus rose from death but a little before Christ rose and was the Forerunner of his Resurrection The Jews Passover was nigh at hand so you shall read in the 55. verse of this Chapter certainly it was not long before Christ the true Paschal Lamb was offered upon the Cross that this Miracle was done Feriâ sextâ ante Dominicam de Passione says one the Friday before Passion Sunday which is nine days past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom he put them into admiration with this work before this great day of admiration came Nor have we a Praeludium only how our Saviour should conquer death in this Chapter but you shall resent and perceive some resurrection wrought upon every person that had interest in this story First the news of Lazarus death was brought unto Christ beyond
wouldst make an Advocate It is in his own power to raise up thy Brother after four days Two days our Saviour abode beyond Jordan after Lazarus was dead and after he set forward to Bethany he made two days Journey of it before he came to the place all this while the Prisoner was fast lockt up under the Gates of Death Belike Lazarus could not be released till Christ came unto the Cave where he was laid No such necessity Beloved Vbicunque Christus steterat patebant inferi Hell must open her mouth in any place where Christ did set his foot nay in any place where he should but say unto the Grave I will be thou opened Therefore another Reason must be given why Lazarus staid until the fourth day for his Enlargement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom Jonas and Lazarus both were Servants they must not jump with Christ in the same Privileges in every thing then the Servant should be equal with his Master Jonas came out of the Whales Belly the third day so did Christ out of the Tomb but Jonas was alive and Christ was dead there was the Difference between the Servant and the Master Christ rose from the dead and so did Lazarus but Christ the third day and Lazarus the fourth there 's the Difference between the Master and the Servant The Resurrection of the dead is an Article of the Creed ingendred in the heart by a very strong Faith 't is mirabilium mirificentia as one says The astonishment of all admiration and when it shall be reported by the Women that an Angel told them it the best of them all will doubt Thomas and many more will flatly deny it What deny that Christ could quicken himself the third day when he raised up Lazarus the fourth Lazarus was unto Christ as Aaron's Rod was unto Aaron The Sedition of Dathan and Abiram opposed Aaron and would not acknowledge him to be the High Priest That shall be tried says the Lord and Aaron's Rod which was a dry stick budded buds and bloomed blossoms as if it had been living more than all the other Rods of the Tribes of Israel So Lazarus was laid up in the Cave like the Rod of Aaron in the Tabernacle and when his life was restored the fourth day it proved that Christ could build up the Temple again in three days which they had pluckt down before What shall we say then That the Resurrection was more wonderful in Lazarus by one day than in Christ himself Nothing less For Christ was raised up by his own power and Lazarus by the power of Christ Christs death was violent his very heart as some think was digg'd through with the Souldiers Spear Lazarus his death was natural and no principal part of his body was wounded or impaired Si aliud videtur vobis mortuus aliud videtur occisus if it be one thing to die in the peace of nature and another thing to be made away by violence Ecce Dominus utrumque fecit here are examples of both that returned to life Christ the third day from the death of violence Lazarus the fourth day from the death of nature both are from the Lord. As a Servant said of an unlucky day wherein all things went cross huic diei oculos eruere vellem he vished the Sun had never shined upon it So this fourth day hath not a little troubled Satan Upon the fourth day Gen. i. 14. God set lights in the Firmament to what end to divide the day from the night and the light from the darkness Periisti Satana this is a fatal day with the Devil who would have mingled night with day and darkness with light but now his works are discovered The fourth year hath been as climacterical unto him and as much out of his way in the 13. of St. Luke and the 7. verse These three years says the Lord of the Vineyard I have lookt for fruit and find none now I will cut down the Vine nay says the Dresser of the Vineyard stay but this year also and the fourth there are hopes it will bring forth grapes and please the Lord. To say thus much for our Evangelist St. John the fourth Evangelist gave the shrewdest blow to the stratagems of Satan and hath so prov'd the Divinity of Christ almost in every verse that Ebion and Cerinthus were confounded and Heresie is proved a lyar to her face for ever Even so was this number critical unto death in the Resurrection of Lazarus three days he was given for lost and upon the fourth day Christ cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth There is a moral sense besides that whereof I have spoken and that is like fine flower boulted out of the Letter and it yields like the bread which our Saviour broke to the multitude and will satisfie thousands Death was the reward of sin In that Lazarus was dead and buried I read the Parable of a sinner upon his Sepulcher In that he was four days dead he must be magnus peccator says St. Austin no small offender can be meant by that but a grievous sinner Where have you laid him says Christ O what a dreadful question is that Lord know me for one of thy children but know me for a sinner rather than not know me at all Let it not be said unto me Depart from me I know you not Projectus sum à facie oculorum tuorum says David in the person of a castaway I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes Perditum nescit ubi sit it is Gods language he pretends he sees not them he knows not them that were lost Adam where art thou says God O Adam that question had confounded thee if Christ had not answer'd for thee Loe I come Where are the other nine says Christ of the Lepers de ingratis quasi ignotis loquitur ungrateful men were not in Christs Book he knows not what becoms of them nor whither they wander so to enquire of Lazarus as if he knew not where he was laid is to set him forth as the similitude of a great sinner ubi posuistis where have you laid him nay but this agrees not perchance with his Sisters message He whom thou lovest is sick and again See how he loved him Yes it agrees full well Si peccatores non amaret Deus de coelo non descenderet it was out of a most compassionate love that God descended from heaven to save sinners Behold he lov'd him and yet Lazarus stands for the Parable of a sinner That foundation is laid and then you shall know the better what is meant by lying four days in the Sepulcher First we are all dead born man as soon as he sees the light his heart is in darkness he brings the seeds of original sin with his frail flesh into the world and then he is dead one day 2. Nature hath dictated a Law unto us The Gentiles are a Law unto themselves sais St.
Paul and when we do those things which Nature her self is asham'd at and blusheth then we are dead the second day 3. God gave us a Law by Moses for the spark which he had kindled in nature was almost put out and it was time to dig that into stone which was worn out in flesh and he that violates the Law of Moses is dead the third day 4. Sin is grown strong by the Law Precept upon Precept made us the worse corruption in the soul is like an ill affected body it desires that most which is forbidden And therefore Christ gave us Legem Evangelii a short Lesson Repent and believe which is called the Law of the Gospel and if we violate that Law it is the fourth day of death and we begin to stink in the Sepulcher What an hard task hath Christ what a troublesome work have we put him to to diminish the power of original sin to rectifie the impairs and decays of Nature to satisfie for the Law but above all to mollifie a stony heart that will not believe to quicken an unrepentant heart this is dignus vindice nodus Martha and Mary sent to Christ when their Brother was sick to come and help now he had more need of Christ quatriduanus est this is the Parable of a sinner that will not believe the Gospel Help Lord and raise us up for who else can do it but the Lord Five Miracles you shall meet with in this Gospel of St. John four of which are recorded by no other Evangelist every one is greater than another but this is the Master-piece The first was turning of Water into Wine at Cana in Galilee Christ at the first conversion makes us quite other men than we were before cold water becoms warm and chearful wine 2. Follows the scourging of the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple that signifies contrition and compunction of the heart when theevish fancies such as steal away our soul are cashiered from the holy place 3. A man was healed at Bethesda that had been sick of an infirmity 38 years Custom in sin and want of devotion is a sore languishing sickness it is more to cure them than to cast the den of theeves out of the Temple 4. A man born blind was restored to his sight he that languished 38 years had enjoyed health before but he that was born blind was never better and it exceeded all the rest to dispel ignorance and blindness quando synteresis extincta est when the light of the conscience was quite put out But fifthly what talk we of sickness or blindness the dead man the Graves Tenant for four dayes dead by original sin dead by imperfection of nature dead by disobedience to the Law dead by unbelief and want of faith in Christ dead four days is raised up Tollite lapidem says Christ away with the stone removete legis pondus gratiam praedicate away with the burden that lies heavy upon him preach grace and remission of sins unto him and he shall live Behold another Moral of the same Authors in the Sermons de tempore if they be St. Austins Sin when it is made very sinful grows up by four degrees titillatione consensu facto consuetudine 1. By delighting in the suggestions of sin not but that suggestions of sin are sin but I speak of the growth of sin and not the root 2. By consenting to those delights 3. By committing the evil whereunto we consented 4. By continuing in the custom of delight and consent and committing evil Delight is the rotting of the seed in the ground Consent is the blade Commission of evil is the grown fruit Custom is the root that fastens it to the ground the seed may quickly be pickt up the blade may be blasted the fruit may be cut down but the root lies deep hidden you must plow and turn up the earth and dig deep before you can get it out In the 3 former parts the waves of ungodliness are coming up but custom is the inundation of iniquity the stream that goes over our head It was said of one Mandrabulus that the Oracle of Apollo pronounced against him that he grew worse and worse For out of a thankful mind for all his happiness received the first year he offered up a Gold Cup he repented him of his cost and the next year it was a Cup of Silver yet he thought he was too bountiful and the third year it was a Boul of Wood the fourth year he thought he had been thankful enough and gave just nothing Now says Apollo is Mandrabulus as bad as He can be So the heart which pleaseth it self with vicious cogitations is much corrupted yet God may still have the better part The heart that makes a bargain with Satan to do injustice is half the Devil 's yet the Body is not defiled with the act The body also may be an instrument of uncleanness then the heart is even lost and gone yet it may detest the fact and return unto the Lord. But when custom hath as it were sealed the Covenant to the Devil and delivered up the Deed the case is very desperate all the heart is in the enemies hand Lazarus is under a Grave-stone four days Difficilè surgit quem moles malae consuetudinis premit he will hardly swim above water again that is cast into the bottom of the Gulf with a Milstone of evil custom about his neck Yet Christ can quicken him as he did Lazarus I do not deny it but let no man treasure up sin as it were to prepare himself to repent of such a mass of iniquities but let no man dispair of that repentance if frailty have overtaken him If you feel your self incline to presume of repentance says St. Austin oppose against it the uncertain hour of death if you feel your self incline to despair of repentance oppose against it the abundance of grace Moderation is the best When sin doth post from delight to consent from consent to act from act to custom yet after four days says Christ Lazarus come forth So much of that circumstance Lazarus quatriduanus that being four days dead he was raised up to life It follows to be considered Lazarus ligatus he was bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin He was laid like a pledge in the grave and bound for security Christ was willing to release him some bonds he cancelled himself and some he left to be untied by others As for the bonds of death God did bind them and unloose them as for the bonds of the grave-cloaths let them unknit them that made the knot God did unty that which God bound let men unty their own work and then they are sure there can be no deceit As if our Saviour had said I know you will say of Lazarus as you did of the man born blind This is not he Will you deny it But here is your own
allow God a seventh day for sanctification so much is divine in the fourth Commandment and what seventh day but the same which Christ sanctified in his Resurrection which is the new Creation of the World the same which the Scriptures point at the same which the Church hath constantly kept in all successions Salve festa dies toto venerabilis anno says Lactantius and Origen says that Manna did begin to fall down about the Tents of the Israelites the first day of the Week and in the same day you are bound to bring your Omer to gather Spiritual Manna in your holy Assemblies that your Soul may eat and be satisfied When the Proconsuls of several Provinces enquired who were Christians to punish them you shall find in the Acts of the Martyrs this was their Question to descry them Dominicam servâsti What do you keep the Lords Day The good man being persecuted answers Christianus sum intermittere non possum I am a Christian and cannot intermit it Do we differ from the Jews then in nothing but exchanging day for day Yes Beloved as in sanctifying Gods name we are to go beyond them because the Spirit is given to us in more abundant measure than it was to them so in nice Points of rest and cessation from all bodily labour and exercise we are not tied so strictly as they were I wonder from whom they had their Doctrine that teach the contrary I know they will not say they had it from the Fathers I know they cannot say it justly I appeal to the best lights of this latter Age. Out of the French Reformed Churches I cite Beza Thus he The keeping of the Lords day is an Apostolical and a divine Tradition yet so that we are not tied he means by Gods Law to observe the Judaical cessation from all kind of work for to observe the Judaical rest were to change the day and not the Judaism Imperial Laws made by Constantine and other godly Princes did first interdict that no open and usual buying and selling or other Merchandise should be used for it is fit for the better sanctifying of the day that we should sequester worldly affairs and be altogether vacant to God Thus far he Out of the German Reformed Churches I will cite Paraeus This is his Argument Who first approves that the Lords day is to be kept with a decent cessation from manual labours and that it is very scandalous to pollute it with usual secular affairs but if any will run further to impose upon Christians the Rites and Ceremonies of the Jewish rest in their Sabbath thus he convinceth them The observation of the Jewish rest was figurative and typical and all those figures of truth were to be kept under pain of severe judgment because the figure was the pledge and Protestation of the truth which should come to pass now there being no such figurative dependence upon the sanctification of the Lords day we are tied only to such rest as shall adorn and beautifie our Worship of God upon that day I mean both our Morning and Evening Sacrifice Beware therefore to be a Jew in opinion but beware to be a dissolute Libertine in practice Violate not this day nor any the like in the whole year with Negligence Idleness Luxurious Pastimes or Riot give thy body rest that the soul may be more busie in the holy work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rest which is not imployed in the fear of God is the Mother of all wickedness I cannot end this Point better than with those words of St. Basil Let me adventure with your patience upon the next Point and I will defer the handling of the last That which I mean only to speak of is Mary Magdalens expedition her restless diligence her watchfulness without all sloath She came early when it was yet dark Every hour seemed seven to this pious Matron till she came to the body of Christ the Sabbath of the Jews was but now ended and she had much ado to refrain coming before it was done The Stars of the night had not yet run their courses when she set forth toward the Monument for it is probable she kept the Sabbath at her own Town and she dwelt at Bethany two miles from Jerusalem yet by Sun-rising when it was yet dark she was come to the Sepulcher a journey of two miles and had brought her Spices with her She had no sleep I believe fell upon her eyes for thinking of her Saviour I am sure she had no leisure to paint her face to powder her hair or to dress her self with finical curiosity We had divers I confess that came early this morning to the holy Sacrament when it was yet dark I praise them for it We have others that seldom or never find the way to Church till the Afternoon you may know by their vain Attire trickt up in Print what they were doing all the Morning At last we have their company scarce with half a thought to please God but with their whole heart to be praised of fools and to please such wanton and adulterous eyes that gaze upon them What a coil is here with this carion flesh Ye are but painted Sepulchers full of rotten bones and not worthy to come with Mary to the Sepulcher of Christ much less to come to the Communion of his body and bloud O proud mortality they that make their Looking-glass all the Text which they take out in the Morning little think that the Grave may be the Pew in the Church wherein they shall be placed before Evening Now they walk abroad so strong with sweet smells that they are able to perfume a Sepulcher with Spices in less than four days all this delicacy may turn to stink and rottenness Come early to the Sepulcher that is think of death in your young blossoming years how suddenly ye may be cut off then leave to fashion your selves after this French or that Italian dressing and spin a poor shrowding sheet which may wrap you up in the earth against the day of the Resurrection I hasten Was it yet dark when Mary came when St. Mark says punctually it was at the rising of the Sun What an intricate case some have made of this objection which is nothing in it self For the Evangelist doth not mean it was so dark that the women could not see about them for then all they reported would be taken to be fancy and not a known truth But the Sun newly rising some obscurity of darkness remains in some places especially it might be so about a Monument which was cut of a Rock in the Earth and the Monument in a Garden where shady trees do not suddenly admit light and the Garden perhaps lying under an Hill and compassed about with a Wall some dusky darkness may incloud such a place early in the Morning They shoot wide therefore that expound the darkness figuratively that the Scriptures were not opened as yet how
get that the very Walls of Gods House might bear a part in their rejoycing As for Processions from one Church to another on this day I find no such Custom in the best Ages of Religion Although in some late hundred years it is in use at Rome that their chief Prelates visit the seven principal Churches in grand Procession because and alass for so poor a cause that Christ after He was risen bad his Disciples go before him into Galilee Thirdly the Word of God was preached laboriously and studied for that occasion Ex verbo illud potissimum quod est tempori convenientissimum says Nazianzen let that Scripture be handled which belongs to the Season and beside the Sermon their Service was set forth with all gravity and sweetness of Musick Laeti exultantesque celebremus says St. Ambrose c. let our shrill voices proclaim it that we are glad and Theodoret gives warning that this Panegyrical Day be kept honestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not with drunkenness and riot and profuse laughter but singing Psalms and hearing the Word attentively Fourthly this Feast was the solemn time for receiving Baptism this and the Feast of Whitsuntide and unless in case of necessity it was never given of old at other times all that were presented at Baptism coming in white Garments professing thereby that they would keep their righteousness pure and immaculate until the second coming of the Lord. Fifthly as Baptism is the washing away of sins which could not choose but comfort their hearts over all the Church and make them chearful so the confirmation of that Faith was the receiving of the Holy Communion of Christs Body and Bloud which all did universally apply themselves to that could examin themselves and none did fail whereupon says Leo this is the peculiar Blessing of Easter-day ut in remissione peccatorum universa gaudeat Ecclesia that the whole Church had cause to rejoyce that remission of sins was sealed unto them that is either in the Sacrament of Baptism or in the Supper of the Lord. Sixthly whereas it was disputed and tossed about extremely at what time all Christians should keep their Easter the holy Bishops that were otherwise at odds consented in two things the one that it should begin immediately after the sorrowful affliction of Lent was laid aside The other that it should be appointed in the sweetness of the Spring when the year is most delightsom and beautiful Et laetitiam conciliat huic festo verna amaenitas says one the amiable verdure of the Spring is joyn'd unto it to make Easter more joyful Seventhly some did alter the year and set the beginning of it from the Feast of the Resurrection We come very near it in one computation our selves This I find that as some friends do send Presents one to the other at the beginning of the new year So Nazianzen says that at Easter all were wont to give either Oblations to God or Gifts to their Neighbours or Alms to the Poor For Festival Solemnities are a due mixture of Praise and Bounty The Jews at the Passover did offer to God the first fruits of their Barly at the Feast of Pentecost Loaves made of new Wheat at the Feast of Tabernacles the first fruits of other Fruits which they had gathered All pompous days had some mixture of liberality Eighthly in Theodosius the Emperors time a Law passed to the end that all might keep their Easter merrily without interruption that no Process or Arrest should go forth in any Court against any man from the Sunday before Easter to the Sunday after Easter that is for the space of fifteen days Ninthly as the Political Magistrate was so respectful of this Festival so was the Ecclesiastical For the ancient Council of Ancyra order'd that to the end all might rejoyce and be glad this day Excommunications Suspensions and all Censures should end at Easter nay the great Council of Nice took care that in every Province or Diocess a Synod of the Clergy should be held every Lent to set all matters strait against this time that there might be no variance no quarrel no complaint remaining As if this were our Jubilee wherein Servants were manumitted from Bondage Debts were remitted and Possessions restored to the owners that had sold them Certainly the holy Fathers meant that above all the Feasts of the year this was our joyful Jubilee Tenthly and lastly the principal stamp of gladness set upon this day was that the first day of the week namely Sunday is kept holy every day of the week for easter-Easter-days sake of which I will make a larger work hereafter But every Sunday was strictly kept with such solemn postures of joy that the last Canon of the Nicene Council interdicted all Christians from kneeling on those days they must pray standing that is chearfully and kneeling was supposed to be the gesture of affliction and humiliation The end of all these Edicts and Ceremonies was to let us know that the Lord had done great things for us for which we ought to rejoyce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even to skip for joy for true joy will break forth as John did in the womb of Elizabeth Death is a comfort against all sorrows and the Resurrection is a comfort against Death and Christ is our comfort that we shall have a joyful resurrection and the holy Sacrament is our visible comfort that we still live in Christ for evermore AMEN A SERMON UPON THE Church Festivals PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it THE Substance of Religion is to fear God and to praise him The Circumstances thereof are to perform this in fit time and place and to do all things belonging to his Worship decently and in order It is for the sutableness of time that I continue my Meditations upon this Text for there are many things which are but accidentary to the main and yet of such forcible consequence that nothing can stand without them So opportunity of time is such a forcible annexion to the performance of Divine Service as no external thing is more available The sweet tongue of Musick would be unpleasant if it kept not time so the Christian Melody which we make to God would want the grace and delight that is in it if days and times were not solemnly and prudently divided to call holy Assemblies together for the work of the Lord. If I speak of time like a Naturalist it is but the measure of the continuance of things that have a being given unto them and it neither works in them any real effect nor is it self capable of any But passing it by in this low regard and taking it in hand Theologically so the hours which are appointed to present our reasonable Sacrifice in the House of the Almighty are of such great consideration to the furtherance of Piety that they are woven into Religion like sinews into the body neither
can we spend our time more profitably than to speak of time as it is to be referred and allotted to the glory of him that made all time But that I may leave no part of my Treatise naked but cover that which I shall run through with some portion of my Text I must put you to call to mind what I delivered in general in two Sermons that these words excel both in the Letter and in the Spirit In the Letter they are part of a Psalm which was sung for Davids sake and for that Festival which the People kept to God for his Inauguration when he was made King over Israel In the Spirit they reach to Christ as David in most of his Psalms had more regard to Christ than to himself and that with two interpretations By some the whole Age of the Gospel is entituled the day of Christ for through the Gospel the terrours of Sin and Death and Hell are broken and we are comforted on every side to rejoyce and be glad By others among all Evangelical days the Feast of the Resurrection is pickt out by way of eminency for never did the Sun shine upon any day wherein we had more cause to triumph and be joyful than when the Son of God having been crucified for our sins did rise from death the third day to conquer mortality and corruption that we might live forever These Points being dispatcht in their proper season what is left to be handled Two things of great moment Beloved First the Resurrection of Christ did not only sanctifie that one day wherein he rose but occasion was taken from thence to sanctifie the first day of every Week to the Lord because Christ rose on the first day Hence I am your debtor to shew how this and every Sunday is the day which the Lord hath made and we must rejoyce and be glad in it Secondly Forasmuch as an holy day was appointed that all Israel might worship Jehovah for that precious benefit that so good a King as David was reigned over them therefore the Ordination of Festival days to profess thanksgiving for the high and excellent works of God becometh the Church for so good a sanction and becometh the righteous to be joyful in them Then of the Lords day for our ordinary Assemblies in Gods House and of holy Festivals for our extraordinary Assemblies these are the matter of my ensuing Discourse which I will follow upon the touchstone of truth and for the benefit of your edification Concerning the day which we keep weekly in the name of the Lord I must speak of it two ways in reference to Gods making and our rejoycing in reference to the Divine Sanction and out Sanctification The Divine Sanction of the day must be traversed in four Points 1. What ground we have for keeping the Lords day in the fourth Commandment 2. What ground we have for it from the Resurrection of Christ 3. What ground we have for it in the Gospel from the Precept of Christ or his Apostles And 4. What ground we have for it from the practise of the Apostles and from the practise of the Church in all ages In this piece of a Sermon I will deliver you my mind upon this Controversie which now adays makes voluminous disputes First It is manifest that the Fourth Commandment hath another air and Constitution in it than the other Nine Those Nine being consonant to the light of natural reason so that they bind the Conscience without a Law-giver this is neither principle or necessary conclusion of natural reason in such a clear manner as that a judicious man shall be forced upon understanding the terms to yield assent unto it And I wonder that any one should stumble so grosly to say that it is natural Law to keep every seventh day that is the last day or the first day of the Week holy when the distribution of time into Weeks is arbitrary and not natural This Commandment therefore having a composition in it diverse from the rest it hath somewhat in it particular to the state of the Jewish Synagogue and somewhat that binds the Christian Church For it doth not stand for a Cypher in the two Tables at this time as if the force of it were expired but there is somewhat in it which is Moral and obligeth mankind unto the end of the world The enforcement of the seventh day in strict and Sabbatical rest is out of date as well as the rest of the Pedagogical Ordinances of Moses But there is this Kernel within the shell that holy Assemblies are for ever to be called together at fit and convenient times to praise the Lord nay further reason and gratitude cannot imagine a more fit and convenient time than the constant solemnizing of a Seventh day nay than the constant observation of this Seventh day the first day of the Week Therefore I determine that we ground the keeping of the Lords day upon the fourth Commandment not upon the Letter of it for that were Jewish but upon the natural equity or moral contents of it We recede from the Letter as much as can be for they rested and we work on their Sabbath but to rest on the seventh day and to work on the seventh day cannot flow out of the same Statute For the moral equity we give all diligence to obey it and he that rejects the Lords Day or violates it transgresseth the Fourth Commandment because though neither that day there mentioned nor the determination of a Seventh day is absolutely commanded yet it is deduced out of it by consequence It is enough to have general and common Rules for Ecclesiastical Orders of time and place under the liberty of the Gospel And God gives us the light of discretion to draw out special rules at what time in what place with what Decorum and Order to meet together and if the governance of this discretion be not observed the Spirit of the Lord is disobeyed The Lord hath not given over his interest in our time but that we must allot some days and hours to his Service as it were for the redemption of all our time which is due unto him Neither hath he given us a vagrant liberty to serve him when we will but the out-goings of the Morning and Evening must praise him and we must often throng together at solemn times to worship him To go further though the Commandment hath not prefixt us a day for it prefixt no definite day but the Sabbath to the Jews yet it hath given us light what ought to be done by way of prudent Constitution viz. that we of the Evangelical Kingdom should grievously sin if we did not voluntarily devote as much time to the honour of God as the Jews were bound to do And then since the Lord did enforce why that day was enjoyned to them it was the day wherein the Lord did rest from his work and it was most pious that they should remember the benefit
is a great tyranny to teach that they immediately bind the conscience whereas they bind only mediately as coming from the lawful Magistrate they bind for good order sake and to avoid scandal and no otherwise If they bound immediately why are some ancient Feasts quite put down as solemnizing the 50 days between Easter and Whitsuntide Lastly To thrust many abuses together our Adversaries please themselves in bodily rest and going gaudily in opere operato without faith and repentance Let there be holiness within or it is a folly to keep holy-day without they think God gives more grace at such times than other that their prayers are sooner heard at such times that the Devil flies from them at those seasons which must proceed from this Tenet harsh in the very words that there is a sanctity inherent in this day whereas the Church cannot make a day holy in it self but per metonymiam adjuncti in regard of those duties which we are to perform to God Holiness becometh Gods House holiness becometh his People And God grant we may so order our days here that we may sing with the Angels Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts which was and is and shall be for evermore AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE CORONATION 1 SAM ii 30. Them that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed THis solemn Festival which you keep this day Right Honourable Right Worshipful c. shall give you I trust among other good works that plentiful reward which is in the first part of my Text God will honour you because you honour the Resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour was contented to take three Disciples into Mount Tabor and no more that they might view the glory of his Transfiguration but behold a greater Mystery than that Christ is risen from the dead and therefore all your Tribes and Companies are gathered together not for once and no more but three days in their order for the more solemn consummation of that great Feast which indeed is the chief Pillar and the strength of our Faith Beloved since this day as you all know is but one of the followers of the principal Feast what could I choose to speak of more fitly than that which shall instantly follow upon the grand Resurrection when all that are dead shall arise out of their Graves and appear in Judgment and that is no other than this Sentence pronounced from the mouth of Gods Messenger Them that honour me c. For as Empedocles said that two things made this world at the first Lis amicitia that is to say Union and Separation So when we shall all appear before the face of the terrible Judge Union and Separation shall make two great parts of the next world some set on the right hand some cast off unto the left them that honour me I will honour there is the union of the blessed with Christ as he reigns in glory And they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed there is the separation of the Chaff from the Wheat they shall be made a scorn and a reproach and the Lord shall have them in derision You see then and every ordinary capacity may discern that I must not cast my Text into one mould as Moses made two Trumpets of Silver of one whole piece Num. x. For in this portion of Scripture as sometimes in the womb of Rebekah Jacob and Esau two Nations are divided and the one people shall be mightier than the other Of them therefore that honour God and shall be honoured let us speak distinctly by themselves and in the first place their pre-eminence deserves it and two things will fall naturally into that discourse which chiefly augment the celebrity of this day 1. The happy Inauguration of a most illustrious and a gracious King 2. These Penons and Triumphs of your charity which are placed before mine eyes God maintain the Kings honour and give him the necks of his Enemies under his feet God maintain the prosperity of your famous City under his just and careful Government and God comfort the Widow the Diseased and the Fatherless under the refreshing of your charity Salus Regis Salus Populi as we truly say that the safety of the King is the safety of the People So I may as truly say Salus Civitatis Salus Pauperum the safety this City is the comfort and refuge of the poor and needy To knit all these together Salvation to the King the Kings blessed Government to the State the charity of the State to the afflicted and those that are in want I say to bind all these fast in one I have chosen this Text to compass them about Honorantes Honorabo Them c. Which words that they were spoken to Eli the High Priest a person of quality and esteem is not to be doubted and that the Message was sent from God is as clear and never controverted but by whom the Message was brought I do not read in the Text and therefore it was never resolved Yet among many reasonable conjectures I am not against theirs that think an Angel was sent on purpose to give the charge for Angels let us speak after the manner of men are Faeciales Coeli the Heralds of Heaven and can best skill of dignities and promotions in heavenly places The blessed Virgin Mary her self was to learn of them that she was highly favoured of God and therefore Honorantes Honorabo deserves to be an Angels Message Besides Eli the High Priest was the first and chief Master in Israel Then God might pick out such an Instrument why not Who was above Eli in wisdom and might be able to teach all the Priests in the world and that was an Angel But it skills not who did utter it since the Spirit of God did endite it not for Eli alone no Scripture was written for one mans sake it serves the turn most fitly to all them that are mighty in Dignity or mighty in Substance And as Pyrrhus spake of the Senate of Rome that it was Senatus regum every man in it looked like a Prince and a Commander and as Zeba and Zalmunna said of the Sons of Gideon that every one look'd like the Son of a King So there is an Excellency nay some divine Majesty in every of these words and so I will divide them First Here is Honor in Deo an Honour residing in God Secondly Honorabo I will Honour that is Honor à Deo Honour communicated and diffused from God Thirdly Honor propter Deum Honour for Honour a Covenant established to the advancement of our glory if we glorifie God To begin with these parts in order and least we should strain courtesie and expect at Gods hands whether He should honour us first or we do Honour unto Him Let Honor in Deo the Honour due unto God have the first place and before all other in this discourse If we were enjoyned to magnifie and
glory The former Promise honorantes honorabo was fit I told you for the day this latter minacy of Gods anger is rather fit for our Age and for the lamentable profanation of our times They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed Which words as it seems to me will best bear this division of two parts 1. Here is ignominia indigna a disdain much undeserved that God should be despised in the opinion of man 2. Here is ignominia dignissima a scorn and disdain justly deserved such a man set at nought in the eyes of God First I note that here is a disdain much undeserved that God should be despised in the eyes of man As one said that there were no Adulterers in Lacaedemon and as Solon thought that there could be no Parricides in Athens so I ask are there any in the world guilty of this blemish to despise God There have been some men so compleatly furnisht with Heroical virtues that they were esteemed to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men above the reach of obtrectation and envy surely then the mighty God whose glory is incomprehensible whose power is infinite his Majesty is far above contempt and disdain Beloved the enormity of this evil act to despise is not grosly against the Essence of God as if that could be contemned but by reducement it is a sin of so great extension and compass that it will be most necessary for your use and my orderly proceeding to confine our selves to a rule that hath certainty in it The properties of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or contempt are most distinctly set down in the 2. of the Philosophers Rhetor. as Artists know and them I will lay down before you by which when you examine your own practice you will know whether you be among those that despise God The first sign of despising is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we contemn that which we neglect to understand as when a prudent man will not beat his brains to study curious and unlawful Arts it is manifest he doth despise them so whomsoever thou art that art not painful to understand the Sum of thy faith and the mystery of thy salvation it must be granted that thou setst it at no price and estimation I do not say that every mans capacity will serve him to be a skilful Divine labour for so much knowledg as is referrâ—d to Gods Worship whatsoever the best enquire after beyond that Solomon calls it sorrow Eccl. i. I call it curiosity Brethren I beseech you be perswaded that ignorance is a fault for there is a Sacrifice appointed to make an attonement for it in the Old Law besides David had been uncharitable to pray to God to pour out his indignation upon the Heathen that do not know him unless their slothfulness not to know him did deserve it For your better satisfaction there is a threefold ignorance the first is called invincible ignorance that could not be helpt I call it the ignorance of the Woman of Samaria how could she tell that Christ was the Messias until he revealed it unto her this was not to be blamed The second is called affectata ignorance that is wilful and affected I call it the ignorance of Pharaoh Who is the Lord that I should let the people go He could not away with it to hear of the name of the Lord and therefore his opinion was that Religion was an idle mans exercise You are idle says he to Moses and therefore you say Let us go worship in the Wilderness A practised liar will not understand that every word of dissimulation in buying and selling is cosenage and hypocrisie A man that loves increase of wealth will not conceive that any usury is a gross sin and the bane of charity He that thinks a little is too much for the Church will not be informed that Sacrilege authorized by custom can be Sacrilege these proceed from stubborn and affected ignorance The third is called supina ignorance growing upon us by sloth and carelessness this I call the ignorance of Nicodemus he knew not the mystery of regeneration and what it was to be born again of the spirit simple education God knows for a Master in Israel I fear to speak it but it is most true there are many that know as little now adays with their Bibles open as our Forefathers knew in the time of Popery with their Bibles shut How many are there that pass for Believers like the men of Ephesus Act. xix and yet know not whether there be an Holy Ghost or no how many Anthropomorphites God help them that know not that God is an infinite Essence comprehended in no place but think he hath eyes and hands and feet according to the bare letter of the Scripture as whole Covents of Monks fell into that illiterate opinion says Socrates Your own regardlesness that you do not search into the ordinary discourses of Divinity it is the cause that most Sermons are obscure and fruitless to the hearers and that which we think is as easie as milk unto your Palats it is strong meat which cannot be digested because of your ignorance Thus when you set it so light whether you know the mystery of godliness or no is it not to despise the Lord Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those things which we despise we put out of mind and easily forget forgetfulness is a sign of contempt How many preservations how many strange deliverances have befaln us so apparently miraculous that our enemies were compell'd to say this was the finger of God and yet I am afraid most of us would seldom remember them if they were not printed in the Rubrick of our Almanack how much sooner is a sensless Winter tale remembred than a sacred story how new is that unto your ears this day in many things which perhaps you have heard from the Pulpit twenty times before that which we hear once a week concerning faith and good works is sooner out of our head than that which we hear but once in an age from a Proclamation as Tully said of old mens memories Nunquam quemquam audivi oblitum quo loco Thesaurum obruisset he never read of one that forgot where he had laid his treasure So those things only fix themselves in our head which are set in our heart and that only slides away like water which we regard not The first thing which the Devil stole from Eve was her memory God said in the day you eat you shall surely die she said she must not eat lest peradventure she should die Thus we forget instantly what God says like Eve nay we forget what our selves said like Peter he would not forsake his Master but hold out when all fail'd and alas he was the first that denied him how often is the next thing that follows our repentance fresh iniquity how often is the next thing after our prayers profaneness and then do we not forget what we said our selves Orlandine in
Enoch for our Lesson that is his Text Letter upon which he flourisheth Enoch is his Antesignanus his Standard-bearer that leads Noah and Abraham and many others after him and the same that he offers to the Corinthians I commend to you Such a Patriarch that the Holy Ghost hath made a great difference between him and other men For it is the method of the Scripture to record the lives and deaths of the Saints but upon this Person the stile alters he was a priviledged man from death which is the common condition of all that are born of woman and Moses speaks of his double life he could not speak of his death his life of grace and his life of glory Ambulavit cum Deo or coram Deo he walked with God that is the Summary Collection how he lived the life of grace And Non apparuit coram hominibus He was not for God took him there is the Miracle how he was wrapt up into glory In the dividing of the parts I will put no more upon my text than it was made to bear and two Points I am sure upon which only I will insist are the very bowels of it First the Integrity of Enoch Secondly his Immortality First how uncorrupt he was in his ways and Enoch walked with God Secondly that he suffered no corruption in the body He was not for God took him In the one member is how he used this world the other how he enjoy'd a better The one of faith the other of fruition The one for our imitation the other for our consolation And first your patient attention how uncorrupt he was in his ways And Enoch walked with God In a good Picture every Limb nay every shadow of it is worthy to be looked upon and in the story of such a Patriarch as Enoch was every word that breaths upon his name is sweet and memorable Now in holy Scripture or in those books which are contiguous to holy Scripture four things are remembred of him which will make him better understood in both parts of this Verse St. Jude in the fourteenth verse of his Epistle sets two marks upon him first in his Genealogy he was the seventh from Adam Secondly in his divine knowledge he Prophesied The Son of Syrach also in his rehearsal of famous men hath given him two additions more the one that his vertue was most communicable He was an example of repentance to all Generations Eccl. xliv 16. The other that his vertue was most unparallel'd or inimitable Vpon the earth was no man created like Enoch Chap. xlix 14. I will dispatch these with a running hand First to be the seventh from Adam what if that was no more than to be the fourth or fifth or any other number For it is a general Rule there is no prerogative to be born after the flesh But God rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had made and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work therefore some Writers must needs fall upon this observation as indeed divers have noted it that Enoch the man of the seventh Generation was taken away to rest with God which bids us labour in the works of mercy and repentance all the six days of this life and after those days like Enoch the seventh from Adam we shall be translated into peace and tranquility for ever Some others go farther a little more curiously than certainly the Patriarchs for six descents all died and were turned into earth again Enoch the seventh from Adam was carried away from the world and saw not death So death shall reign through six Ages of the world Septimâ immortalitas vigebit in the seventh Age corruption shall be done away and immortality shall take place for ever Such mysteries as these are but Speculations that tangle us but plainly and directly this priviledge came to Enoch because he was the seventh from Adam that he lived most happily in a brave society of wise men it was no rude or barbarous Age as if he alone had pleased God for five of his Forefathers in a right line were then living five the brightest Lamps of the Church when the Lord translated him A happy thing it is to be well taught by any single wisdom but there is more affiance in a number of Counsellors Enoch the seventh from Adam had no less than six renowned Patriarchs to go in and out before him in the fear of the Lord. 2. To be born in such a descent is an accidental thing a contingency But the next note upon him is that he had a Prophetical illumination Enoch the seventh from Adam Prophesied All the Sons of Adam in the good Race of Seth whose names are filed in this Chapter were Heads of the People Lawgivers Priests of the most high God Noah more eminently than the rest a Preacher of righteousness in St. Peters phrase yet Enoch stands by himself alone for a Prophet And no marvel if we hear no tidings of his Prophesie till St. Jude divulged it in the last Epistle but one of all the Scripture it seems to me that it stands there in the fittest place because it is a Prophesie that concerns neither the first nor the middle Age but the very end of the world Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that were ungodly The heavens and earth were but in their first beginnings men and women did but begin to multiply yet that divinity was preached in those early days Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of Saints to judge the world the expectation of that coming draws nearer to us than it did to them how much more should we prepare to see that with our eyes which they did but hear with their ears And to double our watchfulness and attention as much as the Ages of the world since Enochs time have passed on and multiplied Enoch prophesied that which Jude hath made Canonical Scripture This hath troubled some to dispute it whether ever he wrote such books as were once in the Canon of the Scripture I hold the Negative for though he were a Prophet and had inspirations yet Scripture is not only given by inspiration of God but such inspiration as is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction of righteousness Such Oracles were deposited by God with his Church and never suffered to perish How will it appear but St. Jude received those words by tradition Or quoted them as he found them cited in some other Author It were shame such antiquity should scape both Josephus and Philo who never mention it But at last some falsary no man can guess him authored a most vain Book upon Enoch Origen who perused it gives us a taste of it in his last Homily upon Numbers that it was stuft with secrets of Philosophy about the motions of the Heavens
walk with God is to let him draw us after him as far as his Commandments reach and no further It is not material that there were neither Scriptures extant nor the Tables of the Law divulged in the days of Enoch certainly the Children of God in that Age were not left to themselves to woship in a wild undistinct way without some divine prescription Some Canon of Faith and good Works they had delivered them it concerns the Providence of God and that order which must necessarily be among them to say so and by the extent of that revealed rule Enoch walked with God Let all things be done according to the pattern which thou sawest in the Mount so the Law-giver himself to Moses Nothing must be changed though you think for the better but keep you close to the Pattern in every part and proportion Honorato jucundissimus honor est quem ipse vult it is St. Chrysostome's The Majesty of God takes it for an honour to do him honour by his own Commandment Peter thought he had shewed himself a most obsequious Disciple and reverenced his Master more than all the rest when he would not let him wash his feet but Christ shewed him it must be so and that particular recusancy of his was to dishonour him above his fellows If you think that God will bate you one inch of that he hath commanded you walk by your self without him Alas for that poor soul that is so deceived whither will his feet carry him Heaven and earth shall pass away before one tittle of the Law doth perish Repent and turn to the Lord and he will run forth to meet you forgive one another and Christ will forgive you there he concurs with you defraud no man and the righteous Lord will give you an inheritance there he joyns with you Hold him fast to you in continual Prayer and let him not go away till he give you a blessing there he dwels with you In all things bear in mind the will of the Lord be done for no man walks with God unless he be a complete obedient Above all other aberrations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or will-worship is that which strides quite over the way and walks solitary by it self and not with God All holy service is fitly called new obedience But can Will-worship which is a start of a mans own invention be called obedience in any latitude I think not For how can a man be said to obey in that which was never enjoyned him Obedience and somewhat bidden and imposed to be done are relatives His servants ye are to whom you obey says St Paul Wherefore if you frame a Religion or a part of Religion after your own fancy you are your own servants and not God's and you have no reason to look for wages from our heavenly Master In vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of men Vanum est quod fine suo destituitur They that serve serve for a reward therefore a rewardless service which is threatned against Will-worship is a vanity But who are comprised in this crime of Will-worship not to walk with God Such as profess a proper immediate essential Worship of God of their own coining but they want a great measure of understanding or charity that inveigh against arbitrary Ceremonies in that name which are imposed as mere accidental and circumstantial parts of Religion wherein not the proper Worship of God but the manner of using the same is intended Proper Worship of God is an action done immediatly to the honour of God in the act it self as Prayer and Preaching Improper Worship is an act done with Gods Service not directly and by it self but in conjunction with some proper act of Worship as kneeling holding up the hands and eyes sever these by themselves and they are no service of God at all David danced before the Ark in a Linnen Ephod To dance to wear a Linnen Garment are things of a mixt use and therefore can be no parts of Gods proper immediate Worship neither did David mean them so but they are decencies and laudable adjuncts of the very true Worship and for their sakes far be it from us to think that Enochs example is violated who walked with God You have heard now that there is a familiar heavenly friendship and a complete obedience without all admixtion of Will-worship in the holy life of this Patriarch that kept even with God in all his ways Now thirdly it makes this sense that Enoch was a principal upholder of that side that did sincerely profess the true faith he opposed himself stiffly to the Cainites that is to the Sinagogue of Satan and he that condemns the evil world and defies the faction of it deserves this praise that he walks with God In vitia alter alterum trudimus says the heathen Every wicked man draws his next fellow after him and the most live rather by custom than by rule and reason running like those Swine in the Gospel into which the Devil had entred by whole herds into the Sea But a man that esteems his soul by that price which his dear Redeemer paid for it will dare to set his face in a good cause against plurality and multitudes and fears not to stand up alone against an host of the Priests of Baal like Elias that walked solitary in the wilderness with the Lord when Ahab and Jezabel had won the whole Land of Israel to Idolatry Singularity when it proceeds from self opinion and pertinacy it deserves to be hooted at but to divorce from men of erroneous minds of malicious and filthy conversation to be cast off from such like a Pelican in the Wilderness and like an Owl that is in the Desart is a singularity to be admired As soon as ever the Devil left our Saviour at the end of the three Tentations the words following are Behold Angels came and ministred unto him Whereupon one doth thus meditate Qui expelllit à se Satanam allicit ad se Angelos Sort not your self with those that have not the fear of God before their eyes abandon impious Society and you shall find heavenly comforters in your soul Bid Satan get him hence and the Angels take it for an invitation to come and walk with you Lot lived like a stranger in his own City he shut himself up and barred his doors against those filthy people What could he do more to keep the ungodly from his vexy sight As David said Thus estranging himself from the evil doings of those that were round about him he was thought fit to give hospitality to Angels and walkt out of Sodom with those Angels and when he lingred in that place they laid hold of his hand and pulled him away with some violence of love Thus Enoch could not endure the Cainites perhaps persecuted them perhaps was persecuted by them he would not partake of their fellowship but shook off their dust from his feet and so
examination for they will not tell us what they mean It cannot be that Terrestrial Paradise out of which Adam was banisht it cannot be that for the Floud prevailed above all the earth to waste and spoil it And for figurative significations of the word they are endless who can interpret them But will you know the truth upon Eccles xliv 16. The Vulgar Latine of such authentick credit with them hath cogg'd in the word Paradise Enoch pleased the Lord and was translated into Paradise The Arabick Version I hear upon the eleventh of the Hebrews hath used St. Pauls Text so and inserted the word Paradise into it Yet there is no such syllable in the 72 or in the Greek Text of the Son of Syrach that is all one to them where it serves their turn they make use of the Greek Copies before the Hebrew and of the Latine before the Greek the Roman Church can dignifie what Language it pleaseth But enough of this it is a meer Latine errour which first seduced the Schoolmen to write that Enoch was translated into Paradise Touching Limbus Patrum their Doctrine is more clear and explicite that it is a place below the earth called in large sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell a receptacle of the souls of those holy ones and good believers that died before Christ ascended into heaven where they were at rest and peace but enjoyed not the presence of God And this they expound to be that bosom of Abraham whither the Angels carried the soul of Lazarus The latter instance I suppose is enough to confute the former for the rich man looked up and saw Abraham and Lazarus in the high places above him a great gulf of exceeding distance being between them therefore it could be no such Limbus as they dream of in the Confines or Suburbs of hell And St. Austin dasht this opinion long since with an Argument not to be answered I have searched the Scriptures says he and could never find that Hades or Hell was taken in good part therefore to make a place of rest and joyful habitation to be the fourth and best degree of hell as all their Authors take it is beyond his understanding But why not Enoch assumed into some part of heaven Their reason for that The Scripture says plainly that Elias was carried up to heaven not because any quiet Habitation may be called Heaven in respect of this world of misery but forasmuch as verily he did change Earth for Heaven and therein is made a Type of Christs Ascension as Jonas the Prophet was a Type of his Resurrection So St. Ambrose I should have remembred it before upon the Funerals of Valentinian allows Abrahams bosom to be the house of God above the Firmament Certainly St. Paul would never have used that distinction Whether in the body or out of the body he knew not if it had been impossible for the body of man to be exalted into the third Heavens As Core and Dathan were swallowed quick into Hell body and soul for their great Rebellion so Enoch and Elias were carried quick into heaven body and soul for their great obedience The Greek Church keeps the Feast of Elias upon the twentieth of July says Metaphrastes in his Catalogue All that Lapide the Jesuit says unto it is that Elias his name is honoured upon that day by the Greek Church but he is not worshiped or invocated on that day because he is not in Heaven I know not whether the Jesuit say truth in that because I never saw the work of Metaphrastes but if the Greek Church neither make Prayers unto him nor give him religious honour I am sure they are the wiser and the farther from the Roman Superstition They have one question among the Schoolmen maintained pro and con with bitter contentions so God afflicts their wits that resist the truth upon their supposition that Enoch and Elias are not yet in Patriâ termino not yet come to the consummation of their days not yet in the receptacles of heaven but in some other place whither they be still in proficiency of holiness waxing better and better as when they lived upon earth for then say those Doctors this absurdity would follow they should exceed the Merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints their stock of good Works should run on in infinitum I think they are afraid they might prove such excellent servants that God should scarce be able to requite them Thus they entangle themselves in endless strifes to keep Enoch out of Heaven and with him all those souls that died in the Faith before our Saviour gave up the Ghost and upon affected misconstruction of those Texts that Christ was the first fruits of them that sleep that no man hath ascended into heaven but he that first descended the Son of man that is in heaven To explain my self and satisfie them remember our Saviours words that there are divers mansions in his Fathers house that is divers Stories of glory in his Fathers house built one above another there are outward Courts of glory and inward Chambers Now it is not to be denied but that Enoch and all the souls of all the just men of the Old Testament were in some quarterings of Heaven as in their proper place and in a state of happiness and salvation which is figuratively called heaven yet I do not say but Christ did open a door unto them to bring them nearer to the Vision of God in the highest heavens when himself did enter into glory The souls of good men deceased were ever in the hand of God but not ever in like distance to the joyes of God They were in Heaven before Christ ascended but not in such an Heaven as they possess now after he ascended Their Lot was Heaven from the beginning but their inheritance is augmented that Verse in our Morning Hymn looks this way I take it when thou hadst overcome c. But of St. Pauls meaning to jump with this Doctrine I am very confident Heb. ix 8. The way into the holiest of all was not yet mode manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing That I may leave no objections behind me to stumble you the main scruple is that the Scripture speaks as if Christ had made the first passage into Heaven in his own person which must be interpreted of the highest heavens where the blessed shall remain for ever no man was admitted there not the body nor the soul of man till he that was God and man in one person went in first and by his own merits and intercession gave access unto his brethren I settle in my own belief upon this answer not for want of two other answers and both of them probable The one that before ever Christ took flesh virtually and meritoriously he opened the Kingdom of heaven to all Believers Ab origine mundi operata est Christi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministry of
heaven out of the fire than some out of their feather-bed The soul is in the body as the Lamps were in Gideons Pitchers break the Pitchers and the Lamps will shine and then begins the Victory What Seneca said of the state of Rome under Caesar the Dictator Respub sub eo stare non potuit sed cecidit in sinum boni principis the same is competent to the state of man We cannot hold out long we shall sink under the burden of sin Sed cecidit homo in sinum boni principis repent and we may fall into Abrahams bosom When Scipio led his Army against Carthage and his Scabberd fell off from his Sword his Souldiers were dismayed at it as a sign of ill fortune This is nothing says Scipio for I have my Sword still in my hand and that I must fight with So let the body fall into the dust or ashes keep the Soul clean make it white in the bloud of the Lamb by Faith and then all is safe It is the soul that first must taste of glory St. Austin asks why the Devil made so much of his darling Sylla that in all his life he was scarce perplexed with any misfortune The Father replies Timuit magis Diabolus nè corrigeretur Sylla quà m nè vinceretur The Devil cared not if he had burst his neck but he was afraid his vertue would be greater if his felicity were less Wherefore if Achan did give God the glory as Joshuah did instruct him all might go well with his soul though iste periit his body were consumed The Romans were wont to Deifie their Emperours on this sort Their bodies were placed in a pile of wood and at the top of the Hearse an Eagle was kept close untill the flame had taken hold of the body and then the Eagle was suffered to fly away to heaven So leave we the body of Achan in the Pile of wood yet in the mercies of Jesus Christ his Soul might take the wings of the Morning as David says and after all his tedious Pilgrimage live in rest for ever Nothing should make me mistrustful and doubt of his salvation but his too late repentance Is this a time to leave off sin when we must leave off life and can sin no more Poenitentiam dare possumus securitatem non possumus Do you then come to play the Huxters for mercy as if the Market were cheapest at the latter end of the day The Son of man will come to judgment suddenly as swift as the lightning The Resurrection shall be suddenly at one blast of the Archangels Trumpet Corruptio fit in momento the soul will not creep but fly out of the body suddenly Shall all things be sudden but mans repentance If you love your Country and wish it victory against all her enemies if you tender your Children and Allies and desire their safety nay if you love your Gold and Silver and cast about to leave a good inheritance beware to draw the anger of God Vnius ob noxam furias upon so many innocent souls have peace in Jesus Christ and let Achan perish alone in his aniquity AMEN A SERMON Preached before the KING at WHITE-HALL the 5. of April 1665. UPON THE SOLEMN FAST To crave a Blessing of GOD for his MAJESTIES NAVAL FORCES NEHEM i. 4. And it came to pass when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned certain dayes and fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven WE have many Solemn dayes in the year to remember the noble Works of our Saviour But the Church hath set forth no proper day to mind us how He will come to judgment in the end of the World Is not that an oversight will some say that there is no red letter in the Calender to bring the Object of that mighty Judgment before us that it may not be forgotten Hear the reason and I know you will excuse it All the beneficial Works of our Saviour came to pass upon certain days of the year whose revolution is known or easily guessed at and those days are exactly kept with holy diligence But for the Day of Judgment it is kept secret so that the Angels of Heaven are ignorant of it Therefore to keep one solemn day recurrent every year for an admonition that such a dreadful hour is to come were in a sort to prescribe God to an appointed time who must not be prescribed If any press it further and say Shall we then have no solemn opportunity to learn that capital Lesson that Christ will come in the clouds with power and great glory to call the Earth before him Far be that omission from us For to what end servs a publick Fast but to prepare us all to hear that voice Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye forth to meet him This is the day wherein every tender conscience should feel the Ax laid to the root of the Tree Now the whole Kingdom stands as it were at the Bar to be arraigned before the Majesty of God We come to call our selvs to judgment before Christ calls us to prevent him Here we are met not to justify our selves O God forbid but to confess the evil we have done that we may not suffer the evil we have deserved They are mighty sins which we come to deplore not only the iniquities of this place though great and exemplary not the sins of the great City alone though it abound in people and wickedness but the innumerous contagious crying sins of this Nation of this England for which and whose pardon we come to make our mournful supplication Now to teach you to stear your course by a Godly instance I lay my matter among the Servants of God in the Land of Judah of whom I could have told you that when they were in fear of bad Neighbours round about them kept a general Humiliation for all the People Nehem. ix 1. The People fasted in sackcloth and cast ashes upon their heads But I know where I am and I will rather instruct you from the Pattern of Nehemiah called the Tirshata a mighty Prince among the People who was so zealous for the prosperity of his Country that you can scarce match him with all that went before him Moses was the Grandfather of Israel that brought them out of the Captivity of Egypt Nehemiah was their Co founder or Foster father who repaired the ruins of the Captivity of Babylon The Text shews what he did in the beginning of his zeal to appease the anger of the Lord. In two general parts I will discover his piety which I call the wound of his heart and the cure of that wound the occasion of his humiliation and the humiliation it self The wound of his heart was given by evil tydings It came to pass when I heard these words which afflicted him two wayes first for the ruins which the Land had suffered secondly for the impediments of its reparation The care of the
from godly sorrow and repentance It knows not the way to sit down and to be dejected to the earth and yet to none else but such will our Saviour say Friend go up higher Another observation on this Point is that when sorrows came hudling upon Nehemiah and fell as thick as hail he sate down which is an evidence of patience that he submitted himself under the hand of the Lord. It is our modern phrase to express the humour of a man who struggles to repel an injury that he will not sit down by it But this servant of the Lord in my Text had no quarrel against the providence of his Maker let the cup of judgment be never so bitter which he was to drink he was quiet and sate down He knew we are all as clay in the hand of the Potter and shall the Vessel say to him that framed it what makest thou Gods judgments are wonderful and unsearchable sometimes they are never unjust And what fruit can the stubborn reap by endeavouring to break their chains What hath it ever profited them to challenge the Lord in the bitterness of their discontent What have they got by cursing murmuring and repining no other than to make the furnace of tribulation seven times hotter As it is best for the Child and for the Mother when the birth stays the due time before it be born So let us not struggle and toss about to ease our selves in a time of infelicity our redress will be most facile and fair when the Lord bringeth it to pass at his good pleasure If you think to be delivered sooner by quarrelling violence commotion it will prove an abortive remedy If you long to have things better when they are ill tarry for the Lord sit down and mourn be humble obedient keep a good conscience girt Nehemiahs patience unto you sit down and be still A third instruction upon this Point is that to sit down is to muse and to consider sadly of that which is brought before us So Nehemiah sate down to call his soul to counsel he intermitted all worldly business and composed himself to think of the Judgments of God It is well that the Royal Piety hath called us together to day upon so good an occasion Here is a Senate of Gods Servants gathered together in this holy place and in all other houses of God throughout this Realm Now we are set to it to call our ways to remembrance to revolve in our mind both every one a part how far we have corrupted our ways And likewise have taken this pause of time and sequestred our selves from all secular affairs to take a considerate view upon the sins of the Kingdom how near we are in all likelihood to relapse into some great troubles because the fear of the Lord is not much conspicuous among any sorts of men Are our Peers and Nobles renowned for their advancement and protection of true honour and vertue as their great Ancestors have been Sit down and think upon it The Reverend Sages of the Law are their minds set upon righteousness And do they judge the thing that is right with courage and integrity Sit down and think upon it The portion and Tribe of God the holy Clergy do they remember or can they forget how they were lately trodden down reviled and cast out of all they had for twenty years And doth it stir us up to be burning and shining lights more than ever And to double our diligence now in Prayer in Preaching and administring the holy Sacraments Sit down and think upon it For the Gentry are they not addicted to waste and riot Do they not crowd themselves into our enlarged Suburbs where they have no Calling but to emulate one another in excess of feminine Pride and rude debauchery Sit down and think upon it As for what concerns the great City not to rub it with salt and Satyrs is it not as palpable as Gods light that it did poison the whole Land with Rebellion and still infects it with Gaudiness Gluttony Whoredoms and Falshoods Sit down and think upon it Do the Country Villages deserve the old commendations of simplicity and innocency But how ignorant are they in the knowledge of Salvation How unthankful to God in all seasons How hath Satan bewitched them of late years into dissolute lives and drunkenness Sit down and think upon it I pass over many things in silence as not fit for publication Now though I have shewn you an Ocean of ungodliness breaking in upon us who almost unless such an extraordinary day as this doth spur them on who doth consider it and muse upon it with a leisurable sorrow The most will shake their heads at it and give it a shrug and then they are at their furthest There is all the regard they have when the sins of an whole Nation look as if they were white for harvest It is too tedious for them to sit down to cast up a sollicitous account to survey the parcels of our crimes to cast them up into a total sum as much as is possible This is too long labour for them who are very busie a doing nothing They will sit down as the Israelites did to eat and to drink and rise up to play Whereas the beginning of true repentance is to allot some time day by day for considering our own works seriously and the criminal faults of the whole Land Grant some good hours for the serious understanding of those things and run not away lightly from such holy thoughts but possess Nehemiahs room sit down and ponder the Judgments of the Lord. It follows in the second branch of his penitential carriage that the sins and desolation of Jerusalem wrought upon him so far that he wept Perhaps some sturdy spirit will say Mulier quid ploras Woman what ailest thou to weep A manly courage thinks shame of it Nay Infans quid ploras It is childish as some conceive to put the finger into the eye Indeed Quid potest infans nisi plorare How can a Child help it self when it is offended but by crying But when our heavenly Father is offended it is a sweet sign of grace to demean our selves like Children and cry Except you become as little children you cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven Mat. xviii 3. Nay says David I have brought my soul low like a weaned Child Psal cxxxi 2. and yet he no coward He became as a Child and not such a one as hath the breast and is still but a weaned Child taken from the comforts and lullabies of the Nurse and then you know it will burst into tears True repentance you see abhors all stubbornness and obstinate resolutions it abates its fortitude it melts in the sight of God Is not this much more religious than to have Nerves of Adamant and an heart of brass A stomach that is insensible of the divine wrath is a symptome of madness and not of courage There is
an Ordinance but the Laws of the Lord are pure and just like Silver purged seven times in the fire without dross or corruption yet Jonadab is obeyed and God despised 2. Where was Jonadab now composed in the Grave of silence dust to dust the end of all men The Lord liveth for ever and there is no end of his dayes Yet Jonadab preacheth being buried and the words of the Lord are like a Dream which he that waketh hath forgotten 3. Jonadab was austere and his yoke exceeding heavy to dwell in no Houses but Shades and Tents not to till the ground the happiness of Cain above his younger Brother To live in poverty in Canaan where it was easie for all to be rich but Israel that I may not run into many particulars had but ten Commandments to keep and ten thousand Blessings for their Guerdon Et merces ab eo qui jubere potest vim necessitatis affert sayes Tacitus the days work may be well done when the Bondman is made an hired Servant Yet Jonadab finds duty in his Children and God finds rebellion in Israel Lastly was there any thing to give advantage to the Rechabites in the way of godliness more than Israel had did they want the snare of a delicious Table to make them wanton read what a Banquet Jeremy spread before them in the former verses But they said c. St. Austin says of the Syrophaenecian Woman who was both hardly spoken of by out Saviour at first and anon commended highly before her face quae contumeliam maximam sine dolore pertulit etiam laudationem perferret sine superbiâ she that took not her reproach in scorn would not wax arrogant upon her commendation so these Rechabites who lived with good content in a life full of neglect may the better endure to have their good deeds scanned without fear of begetting ostentation And therefore I will branch out my Text into these four parts in every of which they will justly deserve our praise and in some our imitation First when the Prophet Jeremy did try them with this tentation whether they would feast it and drink wine they make him a resolute denial a Prophet could draw them to no inconvenient act nolumus we will not 2. Very dutiful and religious was their obedience to the Orders of their Father Jonadab ask them if they will rebel and transgress no for obedience sake nolumus we will not do it 3. Junquets and banquetting were provided for them but they had weaned their Bodies from the Paps of luxury and thus says Temperance nolumus we will drink no wine 4. Here is stedfastness in their Vow made unto God For this is more than a frugal Diet it is the Vow of Sobriety nolumus in aeternum say the last words of this verse We have said for ever c. Some are good men of themselves but easily drawn aside by allurements such are not the Rechabites Some will lead well but they cannot follow good Masters but bad Servants all for freedom and nothing for obedience So are not the Rechabites Some are sober in their Diet but will not endure the Laws to interdict meats for a season and enjoyn Fasts and Abstinence such were not the Rechabites Some will protest unto God and oblige themselves to many performances which are instantly dissolved into wind and air such were not the Rechabites Resist Enticements love Obedience follow Temperance promise unto God and perform your Vows These are the praises of the Rechabites these are the four Distributions of my Text and of these in order I begin with Nolumus Jeremy hath no answer but they will not It is a hard case in earnest and the World will never run otherwise a Prophet must be acquainted with nolumus and look to be denied Do you speak for God and for his Altar Practise patience with that old Philosopher that solemnly begged alms among the Statues and Images in Athens and thus he tried how to bear with hard fortune when living men should refuse him Nolumus we will not Is this all the account may some man say of a Prophets words Our Saviour might excuse the Woman of Samaria a weak Vessel like the Pitcher wherewith she drew her water Hadst thou known who it is that asked of thee then thou wouldest have granted it but the Rechabites could not plead ignorance that they knew not Jeremy who was set up for a Sign against Judah and Benjamin Again our Saviour did commend St. Peters judgment that there might be many worse men than the churlish Son that said He would not to his Father yet he turned his mind and did as he would have him But with these men non is as much as nunquam they will never do it repentance is hid from their eyes Resolve we therefore that this is such a request where the Petitioner sued for nolumus and to be said nay is the fairest courtesie For that which Jeremy propounded it was not petitio beneficii but probatio fidei So Christ asked Philip for bread to feed the Multitude in Philippo non desideravit panem sed fidem he did it to prove his faith This is the Doctrin Let not thy Soul consent to be enticed unto folly When Syrens and Allurers come with honey in their mouths be you as wise as they were that had wax in their ears Like a sure Musician maintain your part and though some be out of tune be not carried away with their discords to offend against good harmony Vt rupes immota c. says the Poet let a wave dash against you and a billow break it self in twain and fome but for thy part give no ground unto the Tempter Jeremy nor any man alive must look to obtein more than the Servants of Naaman thought fit to be granted si magnum if the Prophet ask a great thing it must be done for the Prophets sake si malum if it be an unlawful thing si per amicitiam patris atque suam the highest Power upon earth hath not power to command it O what an excellent Court did King Saul keep not one of his Servants no not one about him would slay the Priests of God for the Kings Command Turn and slay the Priests of God says Saul unto his Guard 1 Sam. xxii they durst not do it those mighty men of volour durst not draw a sword in a bad Cause because they feared the Lord. Then Doeg is called for from among the Beasts a Herdsman more brutish than the Flocks he kept and he slew that day 85 persons that did wear a Linnen Ephod Such another was that Tribune of the Roman Army that had rather worship Idols with Gallienus the Emperor than serve the true God with Fructuosus the Martyr Jussum est Caesaris ore Gallieni quod princeps colit haec colamus omnes But Amram the Father of Moses is recounted among St. Pauls Saints Heb. 11. because he hid the Child three months and would
the old Greek Proverb goes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in every Pomgranat there are some corrupt kernels so there are some wicked ones in every Church 4. As the seeds of the Pomegranat are of a bloudy colour so the Robes of the Apostles and others the best kernels of the Church were red in the bloud of Martyrdom but made white in the bloud of the Lamb. The sum is in the whole Pomgranat in the lump we are the Body of Christ but take us one by one and consider us as sometimes we were darkness and now light in the Lord and that this fire was kindled in us all from the Altar of Christ Jesus and by them that minister at it so Jerusalem which is above is the Mother of us all For the most proper work of a Mother is to bring forth Children and the most proper work of a good Mother is to bring them up And because of these two Solomon in the same Canticle hath used this appellation which my Text doth I will bring thee into the House of my Mother that is the Church And though he were the greatest King one of them that ever the Earth saw yet it is no disparagement to him to call that his Mother which God calls his Spouse I will betroth thee unto me for ever yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and faithfulness Hos ii 19. The Bridegroom hath taken this Bride unto him and their Offspring are multiplied and happy are those and none but they who are the legitimate Children of this sacred Marriage The Font of Baptism is the Womb of the Church the Spirit that moves upon the waters to sanctify them is the Father and from these two are brought forth the Sons of the Most High that shall dwell in glory for evermore And because of this indissoluble connexion between the Holy Ghost and this Spouse who is always present with it St. Austin notes that she must not only be a fruitful Mother in abundance of issue but also a pure Virgin because she knows none other Husband Ecclesia virgo est parit Mariam imitatur quae Dominum peperit the Church is both a Virgin and a Mother like the Mother of our Lord although a Mother yet of unquestioned virginity St. Ambrose runs more division upon the same string on this sort Sancta Ecclesia immaculata coit◠foecunda part◠virgo est castitate mater prole the holy Catholick Church keeps her Bed immaculate and yet her Offspring is innumerous a Mother by perpetual propagation and yet a Virgin by perpetual chastity Parit nos non dolore membrorum sed gaudio Angelorum nutrit nos non corporis lacte sed Apostolorum she is delivered of us with no pain or sorrow but with the joy of the Angels in Heaven she feeds us not with the breasts of a woman but the Milk of the Apostles which is better than Nectar to the Soul and the Manna that comes down from Heaven It is yet more admirable what God hath wrought upon this Jerusalem by demonstration of the Spirit and of power We are the dispersions of the Gentiles that are now the People of the Lord we were as a Strumpet that went a whoring after Idols and God hath betrothed this Church unto him and made it an unpolluted Virgin I deny not but lament it that there are some Christian stations affected towards Idolatry which renews the infamy of our ancient whoredoms But whatsoever our Mother is now our Grandmother was chaste and pure in Hegesippus dayes Take it in that sincerity of practice and Doctrin and then you may see the mighty works of Christ to turn an Harlot into a Virgin and a Virgin into a Mother Magna est sponsae singularis dignitas meretricem invenit virginem fecit says St. Austin this is the great and singular dignity of the Bride which hath prepared her self to meet the Bridegroom that comes from Heaven he hath changed her whoredom into virginity and multiplied her virginity into foecundity that she is the Mother of us all You see the Mother through whose Ministery every Christian is born again of water and of the Holy Spirt neque parcit unigenito pro sic genito the Father did not spare his only begotten Son that we might be thus begotten But is there no more that belongs to a Mother than to bring forth yes says Clemens Alexandrinus and I quote him because he speaks of the Church every thing that brings forth is obliged by nature to supply nourishment unto that which it brings forth I am not so rigid but I will grant that in cases of weakness and divers accidental indispositions that which nature doth ordinarily urge and provide for may be dispensed but this rule is born with every Female that which is so fruitful as to be a Mother should be so careful as to be a Nurse And so is the Church Not only Moses the Law-giver carried the People of Promise as a nursing Father carrieth his Child Num. xi 12. by tenderness by ordering their steps by breeding them in good Precepts and Laws but the Apostles were much more laborious to feed the Christian Proselytes with the Word of life that they might grow up from grace to grace unto the stature of perfect righteousness I have fed you with Milk says St. Paul to the newly converted Corinthians 1 Cor. iii. 2. and he suppeditated stronger meat to them that could digest it And for all manner of sweetness and forbearance he behaved himself gently among the Thessalonians as a Nurse cherisheth her Children 1 Thes ii 7. Every Rule and Doctrin which is delivered sincerely and in truth is Milk to those that thirst to drink of the Well of salvation Honey and Milk are under thy tongue says Solomon speaking of this Mother and Nurse Cant. iv xi Milk is a pleasant food so is the Gospel to them that have a spiritual taste there is no Aloes or bitterness in it but to them that have a carnal palat It is Antalcidas his answer in Plutarch to one that asked how he might speak that which might be accepted says he Si loquaris jucundissima praestes utilissima if you will deliver that which is most pleasant and season it with that which is most profitable so that which is sucked from the Breasts of this Parent arrides the taste with sweetness and it is as profitable as sweet and called Milk because it is a most growing nourishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Naturalists as they were accounted plain and innocent above all other People so they did excel for health and magnitude of body Be admonished therefore that such Christians as wax not better and better take some other thing for their nourishment than the Milk of the Church which doth not prosper in them If you do not grow and add virtue to virtue you have chosen a Nurse with dry breasts and whose complexion is diverse
chief counsellors of Persia and with greatest trust that can be had to conjectures we may say they made a Voyage from Persia to Jerusalem to see our Saviour Now the nearest confines of Persia are but 200 leagues from Jerusalem and the Camels of those Countries as good Authors testifie upon their own experience will travel forty leagues a day by which proportion it may be collected how possible it is to come in twelve days from the most Eastern parts of Persia to Jerusalem In Divine matters even the smallest things should be diligently sifted therefore I would not let this circumstance go till I had vindicated it from obsâ—â—rity and now these Travellers deserve their commendation and we their imitation They liv'd in honour and safety in their own Country but Patria est ubicunquè est Christus that 's a man's Country and his home where Christ is reverently worshipped and where the fear of God is in the place Hearken O daughter and consider incline thine ear forget also thine own people and thy fathers house What is honour and safety to a man at home if true Religion be abroad God be thanked we have both therefore these honourable persons leave their own Country as Abraham did I will not extol their faith more than his or his more than theirs comparisons are odious they could not come from the East to Judea but by Arabia Petrea a most rocky cumbersom Country and by Arabia deserta a most thievish murdering Country and from the heavens above they could have no better comfort at this time of the year but either bitter frosts to travel in or foul winter weather and to continue thus for twelve days together it was a great proof of zeal and patience that would run through all difficulties to be satisfied in this one question Where is he that is born the King of the Jews twelve days journey do I speak of nay twelve furlongs are a great matter for persons of quality to come to Church if it mizzle with a little rain or the air be sharp or the place throng'd or any slight inconvenience to keep them away and yet I must tell you these were Wise men that came to Christ through thick and thin through dread and danger strid over all molestations therefore unless you will have me leave my Text I cannot call them wise that will spare themselves from Gods service for every trifle of inconveniency The cape from whence they came affords one short note more that they were Easterlings for in that capacity they were not only Gentiles but of such Gentiles as had provok'd God to anger more ab antiquo dierum from many ages before than any other Nation They were not only Gentiles but sinners of the Gentiles as St. Paul says Gal. ii 15. The tower of Babel was built in the East that tower whose builders erected it as it were in defiance of heaven from thence came tyranny with Nimrod that opprest his people and as Histories tell us the first invention of Images sprung from those parts in that Tomb which Belus made for the untimely departure of his Son and from the Mountains of the East came Balaam and the false Prophets that loved the wages of iniquity I cannot say it confidently as St. Chrysostom doth that these wise men were the best of all those sinners in the East 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that these were better composed to believe than any other It is manifest this Eastern part of the world was as full of sins as any and the Scripture placeth nothing in their person that they had better morality than their fellows it was the Lords free mercy and compassion that the Star of his Grace should shine upon them and that they were selected above many thousands where all of them some in greater measure some in less deserved to sit in the shadow of death and to die in eternal condemnation and when Christ was scarce born we see the largeness of his grace that it was diffused to the furthest parts of the world and the freeness of his grace that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance A blessed Birth by which many were made alive unto God who were dead in sins and trespasses A blessed apparition by which the day-spring from on high hath visited us A blessed Incarnation by which the wicked mass of our nature is sanctified A blessed calling of the Gentiles by which all Tongues and Languages do praise the Lord from the East unto the West from the North unto the South O praise the Lord all ye kindreds of the earth for he hath done marvellous things for us in giving us his Child Jesus to be our sanctification and redemption Amen THE FOURTEENTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION MAT. ii 1 2. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem Saying where is he that is born King of the Jews For we have seen his Star in the East and are come to worship him SInce the Lords day and the Feast of the Epiphany do light together this holy day is sure to be observed with frequent Assemblies in all Christian Churches as it is at this time in this place But in former Ages and in the most devout times when religious men studied for the fittest occasions to praise the Lord this Epiphany which we call Twelfth-day though it fell upon any day of the week was kept with the presence of the noblest persons with as much outward honour with as solemn service with as many testifications of zeal and joy as any day in the year For to crown it with more blessings than one the memory of three illustrious manifestations of Christ were celebrated upon this feast First that which is rememorated in our Church and no more the bringing of the Gentiles to Bethlem to see the Lord by the assistance of a Star 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's the most renowned apparition Secondly The Baptism of our Saviour was computed to this day when the Holy Ghost gave testimony who he was descending upon his head in the shape of a Dove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the honour of these two memorable accidents Nazianzen calls it festum sanctorum luminum the feast of sacred lights or illuminations for Baptism is called our illumination Thirdly The miracle of turning water into wine was remembred together for the third manifestation of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. John says this beginning of miracles did Jesus in Canae of Galilee and manifested forth his glory Leo and Chrysologus speak of these three glorious works to be solemnized at this one time and Bernard a much later man than they goes no further Tres apparitiones Domini legimus unâ quidem die sed non uno tempore factas We celebrate three mighty apparitions of our Lord all in one day though they fell not out all in one
time Therefore not St. Austin but some other forgetful Author said in 29 Serm. de Temp. that Christ was magnified for a fourth renowned work also upon that day namely for the first miracle of the loaves and fishes Concerning the first three I have authority enough in ancient Writers and three such miracles to be celebrated in the offices of one feast are enough to give it a principal reputation So gladsom a festival it was chiefly to sing praises to the Lord for the calling of the Gentiles that if either King or Potentate withdrew himself from Church on this day it was enough to tax him for a Pagan and that he did abhor the Gospel Therefore such as write of Julian the Emperour and his deep hypocrisie note in him that for many years he would come in all Princely pomp to Gods house at this feast lest he should have seemed openly and directly to have renounced all Christianity I have told you in what price and estimation this Festival was held of old because nothing was so precious to the Gentiles as their own salvation Therefore I hope you will do the day that common right to give diligent ear to some portion of the Scripture while I entreat upon it with what persons and miracles and other circumstances the preamble of our calling and illumination began In the Epistle for the day if you mark it we forget not Pauls kindness that he was a prisoner for us Gentiles Eph. 3.1 it is worth our thanks and remembrance much more is it worth the recitation in the Gospel what Christ became for our sakes a condition far meaner than for an Apostle to become a prisoner Paul from a sinful man became a diligent Apostle Christ being God came unto us in the shape of a sinful man of an impotent Babe and was bound though not in fetters yet in swadling clouts laid up in a Manger as contemptible a corner as a gaol and being all innocency reputed for our sakes worse than Barrabas the greatest scandal of the prison of him St. Paul did preach and the Prophets did preach and the Stars did preach and these Wise-men did preach that we Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of the same promise in Christ I have been copious upon the descent and stock and other qualities of these wise men upon their coming upon their journey so long and perilous from the East to Jerusalem Three things do equally divide my whole matter the doings and the sayings of these Pilgrims and the occasion of both For their doings and sayings to be equally regarded upon this Text I find that I concur with St. Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see the vertue of these Wise men both to come so far and to speak so far to come from home for Christs sake and to speak so home for Christs sake Where is he that is born c. The occasion of all is now to be handled Now when Jesus was born which is opened by two circumstances of the place that was in Bethlem and of the time In the days of Herod the King Now their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or boldness of speaking the truth is drawn to two heads by the Fathers Vnum quaerunt unum asserunt say they but here is one question and two assertions The confident question Where is he that is born King of the Jews The assertions first What God had wrought for them We have seen his Star in the East Secondly What God had wrought in them And are come to worship him And in the beginning I take the occasion in hand Now when Jesus was born Is that the Axel upon which all the business of these Eastern Travellers turns it self No wonder if that beget a great holy day for Christs birth is the occasion of all the holy days in the year If you keep some days festival for the Evangelists you know how they deserve it because they were his Penmen and Recorders if other times are celebrated for the Martyrdom of the Apostles because they were his Witnesses the Innocents of Bethlehem were slain in his quarrel and Michael and all the Angels fight for the Church because Christ is the head both of things in heaven and of things in earth All our joy all our triumphs all our glory move from hence and from this occasion Now when Jesus was born But to what end was all this hast Why should they make forward to see the Child as soon as ever he was born What could they report of him when they returned home but that they had seen an Infant His Tongue was not apt to speak as yet nor his hands to shew any proof of strength and mightiness They might have spared their labour one would think till he had been well grown to years of action and perfection nay but the Star calls them forth and will not let them loiter if they omit this opportunity God knows whether ever they have the benefit of a Star to usher them again The Lord above did know and the new Creature this strange Star did preach it and the hearts of the Wise-men were enlightened to understand it that there was occasion enough to call all the heathen or at least the wisest of the heathen or at least the Princes of the West I say to call them from the ends of the world to Judea to see this little Bethlemite lately born yet greater than all the Angels though they spring not from fleshly generation to see him suck at the breasts of Mary for a few drops of milk who feeds every living thing with plenteousness to see him supported in a Mothers arms who sustains the whole world by his power and founded the Elements upon nothing to see him cast his eyes about and newly peep out of those lidds of flesh to whom all things lie naked and discovered even the darkness of the pit and the secrets of the heart of man Nothing can be said nothing can be thought of this birth but is so mysterious and incomprehensible that the silly Shepherds who could not ponder those Magnalia Dei those Metaphysicks which the Angels told them made known abroad the things which they had heard concerning this Child but as for these Wise-men that could delve into a Mystery when they saw the young Child they fell down and worshipped him and presented him with their Treasures but we do not read of one word they spake either at Bethlem or when they returned home to their own Country the thing was ineffable and perhaps they praised God in silence and admiration that such a Child was born but could not utter it Such as would travel for wisdom had enough occasion for their journey were it never so far to behold the very Nativity though abstracted from the blessing that grows unto it Oritur origo rerum that he should have any kind of being in time who is Ens entium the cause and fountain of all
Angel if his Superiour called him he must come instantly away These are whimsies in the head when the Devil prompts them to do some strange tricks more than ordinary Christians are able even as he would have put our Saviour upon a supernatural shall I say Nay upon a contra-natural exploit because he was the Son of God Whereas the true marks of Filiation and Adoption are these Humility awful Fear Faith that works by Love hate of Vain-glory Denying of our selves giving all honour to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost AMEN THE TWELFTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 6. For it is written He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone THey that meditate mischief against others usually they begin with perswasion and end in hostility their first way is subtilty and their last is violence As Themistocles told the men of Andria that he had brought two great Goddesses with him to exact Tribute of that Island 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perswasion and Necessity First I pray do it and then you must do it The Devil held our Saviour play all the while he was on the Earth with the same method For a long space he laid his train privily to overcome him with Art and Tentation at length he made his assault openly to bring him to his Death and Passion Vulpes in primo congressu leo in crucifixione at this bout he made towards him like a Fox with many trim perswasions but when he stood out perswasions he rose against him like a Lion as David prophesied They would tear my soul in pieces like a lion while there is none to deliver me In this story of Scripture upon which I insist he practiseth the Arts of the Fox upon which subtil creature Gregory lends this Observation to our present matter Nunquam rectis itineribus sed tortuosis anfractibus currunt they never run straight on when they are hunted but make an hundred windings and doublings that it may be more difficult to trace them So Satan never went right on with any Proposition which he made to our Saviour sometimes he urgeth one way sometimes another comes forward and falls back practiseth like Pharaoh with Moses who profess'd he would deal subtilly with the people of Israel One while Pharaoh makes an offer to let the men of Israel go serve the Lord in the Wilderness but not their Children nor their Cattel then he changeth his Sentence and detains them all Then he gives them leave to take their Children with them but nothing else at last he gives order to let them all be gone Children and Herds and Flocks Bag and Baggage they should have all to be rid of them Beloved there can be no good meaning where there is so much alteration and inconstancy Square dealing stands upon one firm base hold fast to that without being removed Delusions and devices hop about like Ignis fatuus This holds very right on the Tempters part in my Text. You see he shifted ground from the Wilderness to the Temple and then he flies back from the Temple to the Mountains in the Wilderness He tries if he can make him despair then he falls off and ventures to make him presume Upbraids him at first that God would give him no bread Perswades with him by and by that God will give him all his Angels First he would put the working of a miracle into Christs hands command that these stones be made bread Next he refers the work of power to the Angels He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up Thirdly He assumes the doing of great matters to himself All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me He laboured with our first Parents neither to believed God nor the Word which he spake now he makes a shew that he would have Christ both trust in God and in his Angels and in his Word the holy Scripture For it is written He shall give his Angels charge c. The whole verse was thus distributed to you before First in order I propounded the demand which Satan made Cast thy self down 2. Upon what supposition If thou be the Son of God there I ended with the hour 3. Upon what Authority Why upon the warrant of the holy Scripture For it is written 4. Upon what assistance Why the best in the world which here is twofold Supreme and Instrumental The Supreme is God He will give his Angels charge concerning thee The Instrumental helps are the first Instruments of all Creatures the whole host of good Angels In their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone And first I must meditate hereupon at this time that the wicked one hath quoated the best Authority which the Church hath to justifie the lawfulness of his demand Scriptum est enim for it is written Perhaps he had never thought of Scripture at this time but that Christ put him in mind of it in the fomer Tentation and it was his old sin Ero similis altissimo I will be like the most High do every thing as Christ did not out of pious imitation but out of perverse affecting an equality And because Christ had the start of him to fly first to the Word of God therefore the Devil doth both quote Scripture and carry him to the Temple as if he would shew Religion and Sanctity double as much as our Saviour did Joab in his necessity will fly to the horns of the Altar for sanctuary as if the Lord would protect a Rebel that had set up a concurrent against his lawful King So the Devil will fly to the Scripture for a need as if there were any refuge there for him that had been a Traitor to his God Occasio fallendi est maxima ubi est maxima authoritas says St. Ambrose the most perilous way to deceive is under pretence of the greatest authority Therefore the Tempter comes like a Divine with a Psalter in his hand you know how well he counterfeited Samuel putting on the shape of that good Prophet to abuses Saul and here he counterfeits David nay therein he counterfeits the very Spirit of God A man would have thought Satan would have skipt the Book of the Psalms though he had search'd over all the Scripture beside It is the Volume of joy of consolation of alacrity the very Songs of Angels Is any man merry Let him sing Psalms says St. James Is there any use of that sweet harmony for him that lives in perpetual torment But they that mean to abuse the Sacred Text instance in those places where you would least expect to find them From the Commandment to sanctifie the Sabbath day the Pharisees wrung in their exception that it was not lawful for Christ on that day to
exercise the works of Charity to cure the sick to heal the impotent The Donatists penn'd up the Church of Christ within the limits of Affrica for in the Song of Solomon God says to the Spouse mystically Vbi pascis Vbi cubas sub meridie Cant. i. 7. Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon As if the true Church therefore were limited to those Southern parts or Meridian Is it not as wonderful to fetch the Cardinalitian dignity of the Church of Rome from this Text 1 Sam. ii 8. Domini sunt cardines terrae The Pillars of the earth are the Lords and he hath set the world upon them Or Adoration of Images from this Text that Jacob worshipped leaning upon the top of his staff Heb. xi 21. And is not a Lay Presbytery screwed in to govern the Church instead of the most ancient Hierarchy of Bishops from this quite mistaken Citation 1 Tim. v. 17. Let the Presbytery the Elders that rule well be accounted worthy of double honour especially they that labour in the Word and Doctrine I will not put my self to the task to go any further in this reckoning for all Schisms and Heresies and almost all sins will shroud under the Patronage of the Word of God Yet such is the pureness of that Fountain that it is not pudled though dirty Swine do wallow in it nay though the Devil himself run headlong into it as he did into the Sea Here he tumbles about in this Psalm to cast dirt upon it yet the Psalm is no whit less sacred and venerable than it was before Et malè quod recitas incipit esse tuum as he did use it most blasphemously it was not Scripture but rather Magick and Incantation For first according to St. Hierom the Psalm pertains not to Christ but to his Members they have the promise that they shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty and the Arrians who did mainly contend against the Orthodox that David made the Hymn upon Christ and not upon pious men do but follow the Exposition of the Devil But of this hereafter 2. He did quite abuse the meaning of the Prophet The Angels are appointed by God to keep the faithful in safety against their enemies but the promise extends not to him that will throw himself into danger and be his own greatest enemy 3. He curtalled the holy Scripture and left out these most emphatical words In omnibus viis tuis that God shall keep thee in all thy ways Surely he was ashamed to mention these words for it can be none of a mans ways to cast himself down from a Pinacle of the Temple Diaboli est truncare autoritates this is a devillish craft which God abhors to lop off somewhat of the Scripture that the remainder may do hurt If any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this Prophesie God shall take away his part out of the book of life God is most highly abused when his sayings are mangled and misreported How much more when a whole Commandment and of principal consequence against worshipping of Images is omitted in many Missals I know not upon what pretence of brevity Even among men 't is taken for the sign of a most contumelious affection to report one Sentence or one Comma of a mans speech without the supplement of all Circumstances As Serapion served Severianus If thou diest a good Christian says Severianus and not an arrant Reneigo Christ was never made man Serapion brings him to his answer for this Heresie that he maintained Christ was never made man Thus the Devil had what he pleased and made use of what he lust in the Psalm and so like a broken glass it was for no service Fourthly says St. Ambrose why did he not go on to the end of the Psalm at least why did he not take in the very next verse Psal xci 13. Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet Quare siles super Aspidem Basiliscum nisi quia tu es Leo Basiliscus Satan is the Lion and the Adder whom not only Christ but every good member of his flock should tred under his feet these were his own names therefore he durst not recite them And yet the time was I can tell you when the Devil made as good use of that verse as he did of the precedent verse when he tempted Christ it seems he loves to be tempting with this Psalm but thus it was Pope Alexander the third persecuted the Emperour Frederick Barbarossa by Arms and Excommunications till he brought him upon his knees and lower than his knees in all servile and base submission and Alexander setting his foot upon the Emperours neck a scorn which Alexander the Great never put upon Darius insulted over him with that verse which next follows the Devils quotation in my Text Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder and shalt trample the Dragon under thy feet Nothing makes worse corruption than that which is best of all wnen it is marred and spoyled and nothing makes worse sense than the Oracles of God when they are perverted And as Samson having his Locks cut off wherein consisted the spirit of Fortitude was weak as another man so the Scripture mutilated and mangled having not the native and wholsom interpretation wherein the efficacy of the Spirit consists is of no force or validity The Devil himself was not afraid of the name of Jesus when it was not rightly used Acts xix The holy Incense was to be offered up in the Lords Censors so the Scripture hath a right savour in it when it is offered up with the meaning of the Holy Ghost Delaiah brought a false Prophesie to Nehemiah to hide himself from his enemies in the Temple but Nehemiah would not hear him Chap. vi 10. 'T is a grace of God which every one of us should beg often upon our knees that he would open the true meaning of the Scripture unto us Who hath the key of David that openeth and no man shutteth that we may not distort those good Lessons to our perdition and by our own ill digestion convert the most sincere milk of the Word into the rankest poyson These two cautions shall be the conjunct uses of this Point First that ignorant men be not removed from the truth by misconceiving such doubtful places of Scripture which are fittest to be argued by them that sit in Moses Chair It is a laudable conjecture of a modern Author that the Devil knew our Saviour was not brought up in the Schools of knowledge all the Jews could descant upon it Whence hath this man learning Is not this the Carpenters Son And therefore he mis-scited the Scripture unto Christ as unto an illiterate person that could not discover him Every man is not an Apollos mighty in the Scripture some
to be sought out in a higher rank Great astonishments are quite above our nature Aquinas hath contrived them into three sorts First The wonder lies in substantiâ facti in the very thing done as when the Sun went backward Secondly The thing may be natural in it self but admirable and past our power if we consider the subject upon which it is wrought as for the blind to see for the dead to be raised up to life Thirdly and lastly Both the thing performed is ordinary and done with ease upon the subject but the manner of doing it makes the wonder as for a Fever to be cured in a moment Of all these three the first in order is the greatest in substantiâ facti such was this in my Text and no meaner that it should not kill and empoyson Aesculapius among the heathen the very deity of Physick his Emblem was a Serpent as the glory of his Cures and the very utmost of his Art Now when Miracles have but two ends say the Schoolmen to do honour to the Word of God and to confirm it that is the first or to honour the life of him that works in the Ministry in the justice of both causes never was there more need than at this time of a Miracle Here was the poor Island of Melita which Publius and the Roman Army had found out long ago to destroy it but the Gospel was not heard of before this day to save it St. Paul that should plant the faith was cast ashore by shipwrack as one neglected of God bound over a close Prisoner as one hated of his Countrymen suspected by the Barbarians to be a Murderer then his cause was tried by the word of the Lord it was time to shake Vipers into the fire and feel no harm Thus Christianity began by a Miracle in the Island of Melita and perchance long ago so it began with us but now we do not so learn Christ when the boughs of the Church are grown and spread like the goodly Cedar trees Nehemiah and all the People shouted for joy when the Foundation of the Temple was laid but from thenceforth they built with silence no exclamations were heard When faith had scarce made entrance into Jerusalem our Saviour came in strangely when the doors were shut but being once in he went plainly to work with Thomas Put thy finger into my side and be not faitless but faithful This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fit wedge to drive out the jugling Divinity of the Papists What do you tell us of your Legend of wonders in Compostella Thousand Miracles and more thousand Murders in India Images that turn their eyes about and Statues that weep and sweat Saints limb'd out in bloudy straws Strange Exorcisms of Devils When the worst was but the Toothach or a Fever As Apelles said to another Painter none of the best workmen but one of the quickest that bragg'd he made twenty Pictures every day and shewed the Patterns I wonder says Apelles you do not make twice twenty of this sort So the Miracle that I take hold of is this why the learned Fatherhood invent no louder or more unlikely miracles But take it to you work Signs and Wonders perchance by the secret operation of Satan Et eorum spirituum operatione videbantur admirandi à quibus sunt damnandi says their own Master Lombard And they lookt for admiration by the power of those Spirits by whom they shall receive damnation As the Rivers of Paradise are without Paradise and run into divers parts of the world so the gifts of Miracles and the gifts of Tongues are like those Rivers which run both within and without the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostome Signs and Wonders are not so near to Gods House as the Porch is unto the Temple except there be holiness to the Lord in Aarons Breast as well as Buds of Almonds in his Rod. Remember Jannes and Jambres remember Simon the Sorcerer yea the very Divels do Miracles says Lombard Ne tale aliquid facere fideles pro magno desiderent lest the Faithful should seem to desire to do the like as if it were some great matter If not Magnum then surely not Maximum the greatest note of a Church Especially if it be true which St. Austin says Omni miraculo quod fit per hominem majus miraculum est homo If man be a greater wonder than can pass through the hands of man then certainly a regenerate man is the greatest power of God his Prayers and Charity and Faith are more excellent than to shake a Viper into the fire and feel no harm Grant O Lord such Wonders unto thy Church whereby thy name may be glorified in true holiness and cloath thy Priests with health as thou didst thy Servant Paul and because we look for a greater deliverance Quis me liberabit Who shall deliver me from the body of this death Let us say assuredly as he did even Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON ENOCH GEN. V. 24. And Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him DAys appointed for Repentance and Humiliation you know these to be of that institution but those are times to do and not to say therefore I have read a Text unto you rather of Deeds than Sayings an active Example and not a verbal Exhortation And it is an Example of no mean pitch you will like it the better for that one Star differs from another in glory and one Saint differs from another in sanctity and perfection There were Pillars in Solomons Temple and golden Chapiters on the top of the Pillars so the Patriarchs of old the Apostles in the Christian Ages were Pillars of the Church all of them Pillars but such as bore the chief praise for using the gifts of grace with all advantage to Gods glory these are the golden Chapiters upon the tops of the Pillars I will promise you to make it good by that which I shall say anon that I have propounded unto you one of the golden Crowns upon the top of the Pillars as heavenly and as happy a president as can be found out of a meer man as compleat a Pattern as can be chosen out of all the Sons of Adam and who would not write by the best Copy In the most ancient Epistle of Clemens the Roman written to the Corinthians lately made publick to the world out of the Princely store-house of this Kingdom that holy Father moves the Corinthians with this extimulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us look stedfastly towards them who have perfectly ministred in holy service to the excellent glory of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to the Catalogue of Saints in the middle Region but to them that walked highest above this world And in the very next words following Ecce homo behold the man of his choice to whom he gives precedency above all others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us take out