pleased both in Heaven and Earth could doe nothing he desired in our will without wounding the liberty of it he I say who has created it free and who knowes best how it must be moved It is just we should be careful of our will but it is more reasonable we should be careful of the honour and power of him that hath bestowed it upon us and who healing its infirmity contracted by sin communicates this liberality unto us for the glory of his grace and not for the satisfaction of our vanity we must not stop at verity because it is harsh and humbles our humane understanding it is sufficient that it is an Evangelical verity which will have us to captivate our reaâ—on to the yoak of Faith and will not suffer that man should believe himselfe to have the greatest part in the work of his salvation The portion properly due to him is falshood and sinne and when God crownes his good works with the Crown of justice 't is after he has given him those good works as the Father of mercies We hold of him both our will and our acting as he begins in us 't is fit he should prosecute and bring to an end the designs of grace and love which he sets on foot for our eternal salvation The Apostle was resolved to take the way of Syria but the Jewes way-laying him enforced him to lengthen his journey and to turn back to pass by Macedonia Sosipater of the City of Beroe Aristarchus Secundus Caius and Timothy all of them Thessalonians Tichycus and Trophymus went before to expect him at Troad Thither he came with Saint Luke the Historian of his life After the Feast of Easter he abode there seven dayes during which time without intermission he announced unto them the Mysteries of God Upon a Sunday towards Evening the faithful being assembled together to receive the Eucharist he made them a long discourse the which if we consider his divine instructions we may suppose was much after this manner This action we have now in hand fills me with joy beyond expression for certainly our Master could not leave us a better testimony of his extream love then in giving this Bread which we break and this Cup which we bless For in eating the one doe we not participate of his body and in drinking the other doe we not participate of his bloud And could he close up his life better then in the institution of this adorable Mystery by which he continues amongst men to the end of the world 'T is he himselfe who has vouchsafed to reveale unto me that in that night when Judas delivered him into the hands of his enemies he took bread and giving thankes to his Father brake it and gave it to his Apostles saying to them Take and eat this is my Body which shall be delivered up for you Doe this in remembrance of me Likewise he took the Chalice after he had supped and said This Chalice is the new Testament in my bloud Doe this in commemoration of me every time you drink of it So that as often as you eat of this Bread and drink of this Chalice you declare the death of our Lord until his comming again But what doe you think Commemoration is and unto what in your opinions does it oblige you I will tell you in few words You must not onely call to minde the death of Jesus Christ but you must make it shine in your affections in your desires in your words to be brief in every passage of your life You must become Preachers of the Cross without speaking and by the Sanctity of your examples you must make that to be honoured and loved which to the Gentiles is a folly and to the Jewes a scandal If you be animated with this Spirit like persons grafted on the Cross of Jesus Christ you will produce fruits answerable to the root from which you sprung up If you hate the world which the Cross condemnes and which the Cross shall one day judge If you have shame ignominy reproaches poverty hunger thirst torments persecution of strangers displeasure of Parents deceits of Servants treason of false Brothers All which are fruits of the Cross of Jesus Christ I say if you be thus disposed and in the practise of these things then believe you are well prepared to eat the bread of which I speak and to thrive by its nourishment But if contrarywise you love the world and are wedded to Honours Riches Reputation Pleasures and other things of the Earth either by enjoying them or by an inordinate affection to them In a word if you eat this bread unworthily know that you are guilty of high Treason against the Body and Bloud of our Lord. God will not have the Kings of the Earth to be touched and declares that he will revenge their injuries because they are his anointed though onely by an exteriour and material Unction How severely then may ye think he will punish those who shall pollute the Body and Bloud of his Sonne whom he has established King upon Mount Sion to command over all the Kings of the Earth and who is his anointed by the ineffable Unction of his Divinity which inhabites corporally in him You abhor those Executioners who fastned him to the Cross pierced his feet and hands spit in his face and crowned his head with thornes But if you approach unworthily to his Table to eat his flesh and drink his bloud you are the greater offenders for they were Infidels and took him for a Criminal But you profess to believe in him and know that he is the Holy of God and the Source of the Sanctity of men Therefore try your selves diligently without flattering your selves in your evil customes Make a strict scrutiny against your selves enter into the bottome of your soule to discerne there the difference betwixt a lively and dead Faith betwixt a firme and a faint languishing hope betwixt a true and a feined Charity betwixt your love of Jesus Christ your love of creatures and your selves Notwithstanding this examine doe not think your selves so saintly disposed as is requisite to be altogether worthy of this heavenly bread for so long as we live in this world we cannot our selves be free from many defects and frailties But there is a great deal of difference betwixt faults which spring against our will from the corruption of our natures and the love of those defaults or our obstinacy to continue in wickedness For I speak not here of dogs that live in filth and often turn to their vomit biting their neighbors with their slandering tongues I have often told you that netiher Fornicators nor those who commit other villanies which I will not so much as name to you nor Theeves nor covetous persons nor envious nor slanderous nor proud shall enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Now all those who are excluded from a Heavenly Kingdome must be also banished from that which God has upon Earth
Tabernacle which was portable God accepted his good will but reserved to his Son Solomon the glory of building a Temple that testified no less his piety than his magnificence This place could not contain him who not onely fills all things but is immense who has the Heaven for his Throne and the Earth for his Footstool Princes who are men may busie and delight themselves in Palaces built by the hands of men Our God is a Spirit which resides not in the inclosure of walls and the most magnificent works of Architecture are not worthy of his greatness It is in the hearts of men be delights to dwell but those hearts must then be innocent They must be circumcised with a spiritual circumcision of which that of the body is but the mark You have not these innocent hearts but contrarywise I may without injury call them uncircumcised because they are tyed to earthly things wherewith they are replenish'd and possess'd with a horrid envy and execrable rage against our true Redeemer You are stiff-necked and continually resist the Holy Ghost In this you shew your selves true children of your Fathers for which of the Prophets have not they persecuted Those heavenly men have all of them announced unto you the coming of him whom by a black and ungrateful Treason you have murthered you who received the Law by the ministery of Angels observe it not but most impudently break it every day Jesus of Nazareth hath been required with so much the more ingratitude as his graces were extraordinary It is in him that God hath fulfilld the promise whereof a little before I spake to you that the Scepter should alwayes remaine in the house of David For he is descended from him according to flesh although you esteemed him the Son of a poor Carpenter It is he alone that sets at liberty not onely Israel but all men that are captive under the yoke of hell and sin It is he that is descended from Heaven to establish a Coelestiall Kingdome who apprehends not the vicissitude of humane things nor is subject to the violence of Tyrants and the inconstancy of the people It is he that has proved his Doctrine by miracles and such as Israel had never found in the Scriptures nor seen in the extent of their Provinces and yet his voyce could not soften the hardness of your hearts his Miracles seemed to you to be illusions You have injuriously sullyed the innocency of his life His humility made you become insolent His sufferings made you more bitter against him his patience made you furious and you have as little respect to those who speak to you in his name since his Resurrection But you deceave your selves in your designes That party which you think to root up shall be victorious Innocency shall triumph over Calumny The Church of him that is crucified which we announce unto you shall not destroy the Law but the Law shall serve for a foundation to the Church The true disciples of Moses will acknowledge him in their legal observations and they will hear him as their Master according to that Oracle of Moses which I alledged to you Certainly no man can reprove me to have spoken a word that savours of contempt against him and the testimony of my accusers destroys it self neither their condition nor their vertue render them so credible that I need take much pains to clear my self of their calumny They say I have spoken against the Law I deny it and by my precedent discourse you may understand my opinion of it but it is rather you that one may more justly accuse for the non-observance of it The Judges and others there present hearing so bold and free a discourse and such sharp reproaches from Saint Stephen were filled with despite and fury and began to grinde their teeth against this generous Deacon unto whom God designed a more particular favour in this encounter For as he lifted up his eyes to Heaven and that his heart filled with the Holy Ghost elevated it self by sublime acts of a most pure love he saw the glory of God which so transported him as he he cryed out I see the Heavens open and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God All those who heard these last words made a great out-cry and seized upon him The Judges stopt their eares as if they had heard blasphemy and the multitude presently hurried him away out of the City to stone him There was no alteration in his countenance and if any did appear it was rather that of joy He considered the stones in the hands of those Executioners as precious stones prepared for the making up of his Crown And those that were most cruel seemed to him most merciful He sustained this impetuosity standing like a Rock that mocks at tempests or rather as a Priest who sacrificeth himself In all the time of his suffering he did not once complain and when he felt death approaching he said Lord Jesu receive my soule But when he prayed for those that stoned him he kneeled downe knowing their offence was so great as to obtain their pardon it was necessary to joyn the humility of his countenance to the humility of his heart and to use violence if it may be so said to the goodness of God He cryed out O Lord let not this sin be imputed to them It was to this so ardent and admirable prayer that God according to the opinion of divers Fathers granted the conversion of him whose life we write and whom we will call Soul for a time as Saint Luke does in the Acts. He was not of the number of those who stoned Saint Stephen yet in looking to their garments he stoned him by their hands and made himself partaker of their impiety He was Cousin to the Martyr and they were both brought up by Gamaliel in the study of the Law notwithstanding the false zeal of Religion carried him beyond the Sentiment of nature and their fellowship in studies And having once with pleasure seen the bloud of this holy Deacon spilt he became thirsty after the bloud of those who professed the same Doctrine and made himself remarkable in that bloudy persecution which was enkindled against them He brake into houses and those he took prisoners were by himself conducted into Dungeons after which he sollicited their condemnation In a word he was a wild Boar in the Vineyard of the Son of God After he had filled Hierusalem with executions he would extend his cruelty farther and to that effect demanded of the Princes Priests Commissions and Letters in his favour that he might take all those persons in the City of Damascus who beleeved in him that was crucified His rage afforded him not one moment of rest He breathed nothing but the slaughter and bloud of the poor disciples of Jesus Christ and pleased himself onely with the thought of their punishment which was at hand He contrived in his imagination how he
there in the world any thing comparable to the glory of her Temple All Nations acknowledge this and these things being without dispute you need not fear any can attempt against the honour of that Divinity which you serve therefore take heed you undertake nothing rashly It is certaine these men whom you have brought hither to destroy are not guilty of any blasphemy against your Goddess Wherefore if Demetrius and those of his trade which follow him have any dispute with them why should you for their particular interest make this a generall cause Are there not persons ordained to decide causes and Magistrates who have power and ought to determine such differences But if there be question of any other thing you must remit the clearing of it to a lawfull Assemby and not treat of it in this which seemes to be altogether seditious Consider therefore well that we are responsable for the evill which may happen upon this and we run the hazard to be accused of sedition since we can give no good account of this dayes tumult This discourse appeased the people and happily saved the disciples of the Apostle who took resolution to leave this City that he might execute his former design of visiting the Churches of Achaia Macedonia and goe to Hierusalem from whence he proposed to himselfe to goe to Rome but without doubt in another manner then we shall see him conducted thither He left his dearly beloved Timothy to governe the Church of Ephesus whom Eusebius will have to be the first Bishop of that place He remained with them near three years and during that time Apollo of whom we have spoken came to Corinth to preach the Gospel the which he performed with so much eloquence as many taken therewith and judging of things only by apparance beâ—an to despise the Apostle who had taught them the same verities but in a more plain way accommâ—dated to their weakness Those who loved the memory of their first Master and remembred his holy waâ—… of struction defended him with a little too much heat insomuch as their Church began to be in some danger of Schisme the sequel whereof might have proved very dangerous Besides this disorder there was a man amongst them who had abused the wife of his Father They differed also much in opinions about the use of meates offered to Idols and there was some abuse in the banquets which they call Agapes that is to say Charitable where they took irreverently the Holy Eucharist There was moreover a great division amongst them by reason of Sutes of Law pleaded before Judges that were Gentiles these brought a scandal upon the Doctrine of the Gospel which recommends to the Professors nothing more then charity and the contempt of worldly goods These disorders obliged Saint Paul to write his first Epistle to the Corinthians There he fulminates excommunication against incestuous persons even to the terrour of the most confident and to let them know what they were to expect for it was neither out of the heat of zeale nor interest or compliance but to vindicate the honour of the Church and to save him whom for a time it was necessary to put into the hands of the Devil to the end he might not for ever remain so He rebukes the Corinthians who by their bitterness in Law-Sutes dishonoured the name of Jesus Christ And told them It was very ill done to plead one against another but much worse and more considerrable to doe it before Judges who were Idolaters That they ought rather to choose the meanest persons of the Church to accord their differences who would be capable enough to judge of such temporall things the Faithfull being onely to judge the World and the Devils He put them in minde that before Baptisme they were soyled with abominable ordures but by their spiritual regeneration they were become the Temples of God and the members of Jesus Christ therefore this glorious quality obliged them to be pure and that their bodies were not given to serve fornication it being not their part to dispose of them but our Lord and that God would raise them again He instructs married people also to use marriage as a holy thing and permits them to separate themselves that they may be vacant in prayer which he means should be done but for a term of time and then to return to their conjugall society as an innocent remedy against incontinence Notwithstanding he protests that he permits it them by indulgence because the severity of Christian Lawes in marriage allow the use of it onely for the generation of children but mans infirmity requires it that he might resist temptations so that as Saint Augustine hath since said the sanctity of Nuptials render pardonable that which properly appertains not to marriages From this Subject he passes to treat of Virginity which he councels by his example and by reason in that it does perfectly withdraw one from the tye of creatures and cares of the World Those who are of opinion that S. Paul was married should doe well to blot out the words he sets down in this Epistle if they will defend so new and ill grounded an opinion Notwithstanding he leaves this Angelical rather then humane forme of life under the bare terms of Counsel and protests there is no precept of our Lord for it that he onely counsels it as believing it better and of more advantage to the Corinthians He exhorts Widows to continue in their widowhood and if they cannot keep the purity of that state to espouse themselves to our Lord that is to say with a Christian intention and with such as believe in Jesus Christ and not for sensuality Concerning meats offered to Idols he teaches them that the use is indifferent in it self but yet they ought to abstain from them lest the simple people who conceive them forbidden should be scandalized to see them eaten and they themselves may thereby take occasion to eat them after a superstitious manner To confirme this Document he represents unto them That in delivering them the Gespel he would not suffer them to furnish him with necessaries for his subsistence although he had right to receive nay indeed to require it That he seemed to be a Jew amongst the Jewes and not to observe the Law amongst those that knew not the Law In fine that he made himselfe all things to all to gaine all men to God But there is nothing he reproves with so much fervour as the irreverence which they committed before their approach to the Holy Table He shewes the institution of the Eucharist and sayes That as often as we eat it we announce the death of our Lord untill his comming again that is to say this Sacrament is the lively commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ and so a participation of his body and blood offered upon the Cross He concludes That he who drinks and eats this unworthily is guilty of the body and bloud of our Lord
that is his Church and consequently deprived of the food which he has prepared to nourish his Spouse during her Pilgrimage and if they eat it they shall eat their judgement the body of Jesus Christ shall enter into their breasts and there engrave in characters undeleble the arrest of their death and whilest they think to receive a pledge of their salvation it shall prove the assurance of their damnation For they will be not onely guilty persons but persons already condemned and adjudged to death and the separation of them from the Elect shall be justly grounded upon the litle distinction they made of the body and bloud of the Sonne of God taking ordinary meat with more care and circumspection Alas there are but too many who are guilty of this Sacriledge Men know them not but they cannot lye hid from God who reads their most secret thoughts and sees clearly the evil dispositions of their carnal soules We see young men perish in the flower of their age we behold strong and lusty men fall into languishing diseases of which we know not the cause Suddain death dayly takes away divers persons who in respect of their age and health might have promised themselves a long life These accidents are ordinarily attributed to natural causes but beleeve it 't is a secret punishment for the profanation of the body of Jesus Christ Therefore judge your selves to the end you be not judged Yet be not seized with so great a fear as to hinder you from approaching to him who is as wel bread to strengthen the weak and fraile as to nourish the strong and is a medicine as well as food Eat dayly of this bread but then let your life correspond with your food and as the one is heavenly let not the other savour of the corruption of the Earth As you eat of the same bread and drink of the same cup at the Table of your Father so let there be a perfect union in your desires and in your thoughts as to be one thing This bread which is made of many graines of corn and the wine which is drawne from many grapes teach you to unite your hearts by charity You must be to one another as one bread by an amorous communication of your gifts either spiritual or temporal that all shadow of division even of singularity may be banished from the Church Goe on then my dear Brethren in such a manner as may answer the Sanctity of your name and vocation You are called Christians and this name shewes your Royal Unction and Priesthood together You are of that Kingly Stock doe not then make your selves slaves of sinne which is the most infamous and cruel Master you can choose You are Priests therefore cloath your selves with justice Offer your selves to God as a holy Host immaculate by Jesus Christ our Lord who is the Eternal Priest by whom and in whom our oblations are made acceptable to the heavenly Father I behold here persons of all conditions and therefore I will briefly set down some rules how to performe the duty of Christians Husbands and Wives I would have you know that marriage which has joyned you together is a great Sacrament in Jesus Christ and his Church It represents the adorable union of the heavenly Espouse and this Chaste Bride whom he has purified from all uncleanness by the word of life so that she who before was black and soyled in the time of her disorders now appears more white then Lilies without any spot or wrinckle to dishonour her He has not onely expressed his love to her by these favours but also given his life for her and made his bloud the Seale of his love Therefore love your Wives after this model and consider their bodies as a thing that is yours and consequently ought to be the subject of your care But as the love which Jesus Christ beares to his Church is pure so let the love which you bear to the companions of your bed be likewise pure As Jesus Christ beares with the frailties of his Church so you must bear the infirmites of those whose Sex being more fraile is more excusable and may better claim to be supported when you love them you love your selves for marriage makes that you are two in one flesh Wives be you subject to your husbands as to those who hold the place of our Lord over you they are your heads as Jesus Christ is head of the Church The head conducts the rest of the body take them therefore for the guides of your life and repose more trust in their conduct then in that of your own reason As the Church is subject to the will of Jesus Christ be you obedient to the wills of your husbands never give them any cause of anger nor occasion to distrust you Think not of pleasing any but them to that end adorn your selves modestly as Sarah did and those holy women in times past who were so carefull of gaining the hearts of their husbands as they called them their Lords and were much more carefull in the adorning of their souls then bodies Curled hair with affectation your costly Jewels garments of gold and silver and other dressings of vanity by which you desire to draw the eies of others upon you are unworthy of a Christian wife and indeed in stead of setting her forth renders her deformed Fathers and Mothers breed your Children in the fear of our Lord Suffer them not in your presence to offend him unto whom they appertain more then to your selves and for whose service you ought to bring them up Be carefull rather to make them good then rich and breed them rather for heaven then the earth Never provoke them to anger nor make them despair by holding too vigorous a hand over them but rather use indulgence towards them to reduce them to reason if they fly out Children obey your Fathers and Mothers the observance of this command for your encouragement is recompenced with the promise of a long life The honour which you give them returns to God who is the fountain of all Paternity both in heaven and earth Bear with their froward humors shun all occasions of displeasing them and assuredly believe you can never acquit your selves of the obligations you owe in duty to them You that are servants respect your Masters with a sincere and upright heart and believe that in serving them as you ought you serve Jesus Christ Do not render them service only when they look upon you for hope of reward or fear of punishment but do it in conformity to the faith and religion you profess Consider your selves as Servants of our Lord for the love of whom you serve men whose providence you ought to adore that has put you in that condition Think not of freeing your selves of that bondage but to use it well and to make it voluntary Expect from him the rewards due to your service your fidelity and diligence with love and
Gods permission who would have him thereby known a viper issuing forth fastned upon his hand there hung the Islanders according to their feeble understanding judged him to be some wicked man whom the divine Justice had saved from the fury of the sea to punish more exemplarly rigorously at land But when they beheld him to shake the viper into the fire and that he had no harm by the biting of it As the mindes of the Vulgar in the same moment are capable of different impressions they presently took him for a God hidden under a humane form The marvelous cure of Publius his Father Prince of that Island oppressed by a strong Fever and Disentery increased their respect and esteem of his sanctity and caused them to bring to him from all parts diseased persons whom he restored to health by invocating the name of Jesus Christ He converted there many to the faith and at this day it is the Bulwark against the fury of the Turks who finde it a stubborn rock to resist their power by the visible protection of God He stayed there three moneths and at the end departed thence in a vessel of Alexandria which had wintred there The winde was favourable to them till they came to Syracusa where they tarried three dayes from thence coasting along the land they got to Regium and the next day arrived at Putzeoli They found Christians there who conjured him to stay seven dayes with them to which he easily condescended in acknowledgment of their charity and of the honour which they had done him The report of his arrival being spread through Rome most of the faithfull that dwelt there came to meet him some as farre as the market place of Appius and others to a structure called the Three Taverns the sight of them afforded him great consolation He with them entered into this great City which one may call the seat of Idolatry as well as of the Empire in whose conversion that of the whole world was included So great a worke required a zeale no less ardent and a minde no less cleare then that of the Apostle whom God had ordained together with S. Peter by their preaching to found the principal Church upon earth to cultivate it by their cares and as we shall see a little after to consecrate it with their bloud The Captain who conducted him remitted him with the rest of his prisoners into the hands of the Prefect of the Pretorium who was named Burrus this man was content to allow the Apostle a souldier for his guard so that though he was not intirely free yet he might go whither he pleased with his guard who was fastned to him with the same chain as the custom was but so as it hindered him not from walking he by that meanes with facility declared the Gospel to the Jewes Gentiles that lived in Rome He began first with the Jewes and the third day after his arrival assembled the principal of them together and told them That he was made Prisoner at Hierusalem and put into the hands of the Romanes by those of his own nation although he was not guilty of any crime either in word or deed against any particular person or against the Law That the hatred and fury of his accusers constrained him to appeale to Caesar that he came thither to present himself not to accuse his Country-men but onely to defend his owne innocency That he found his chain very pleasing since he bore it for declaring the coming of him who was the hope of Israel and that he might give them an account of all things hee defired them they would come unto him They answered him they had received no letters from Judea nor seen any body that had made the least complaint against him and for the rest they desired him hee would freely tell them what this new Sect was which he preached and which they understood was generally opposed with great contradiction The Apostle unable then to satisfie their desires appointed them another day when he should have more time to explicate so highly important verities They failed not to come to this conference and when every one had taken his place S. Paul spake much after this manner Brethren in the subject you desire to be instructed it is a great advantage to me and likewise a great consolation that I am not obliged to prove the principles to you from which I am to draw my Consequences You receive Moses for the Law giver and with reason esteem his words as Oracles Certainly it is most reasonable we should hearken to him whom God treated with so much familiarity upon the Mountain and by whom he hath wrought so many wonders in favour of our fore-fathers We must onely be careful that we go not contrary to the intentions of this great man He hath been faithful in the house of God but it has been in quality of a Servant He hath declared to the people the will of the eternal Father but as Interpreter He has established Purifications and sacrifices but it was onely for that time according as providence had ordained which was to preceed the birth of the new Law giver whom I preach and who is no other then Jesus Christ It is he Brethren by whom God hath vouchsafed to speake to us in these last ages having spoken in the former by the Prophets after divers manners This is the Son to the Father of that Family whereof Moses is a member This is the truth of all our figures the end of the whole body of the Law the object of all the Prophesies His death was figured in that of Abell whose innocent blood Cain spilt througy a raging jealousie Moses in delivering our Ancestors from the bondage of Egypt represents the exemption from the tyranny of sin and death wrought by him whom I preach unto you The brazen Serpent erected in the Desart which was a Cure for the biting of real Serpents teacheth us that the Son of man was to be lifted up from the Earth and placed upon the Cross and that he should prove a saving Physitian to the Mortal desease of humane nature The immolation of the Paschal Lamb the sacrifice of the Goat emissary on whom were charged all the sins of the people were the images of his bloody oblation which hath opened us the way to eternal life and which has expiated all the sins of the world The Prophet Esay seems to have beheld it with his eyes and unless you will blind your selves you must acknowledge that which he spake of a Virgin that should conceive and bring forth a Son who should be the light the hope the leader the Master and King of Nations in whom the Spirit of Wisedome Counsel and Force should reside whose feet and hands should be pierced who should be made a man of dolours a man chastised by God for the sins of his people and in whom neither beauty nor comlinesse should appear insomuch