better tidings to you Israelites than to any other Nation if you will accept them The Son of God came of their Fathers according to the flesh in their Country he came to preach daily and no where in the world beside in their eyes he wrought his Miracles and upon their bodies he practis'd his wonderful power to cure their Diseases to make their Blind to see and their Lame to walk He professed himself to be more devoted to their welfare than to all the earth beside before the Canaanitish woman I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel They were his he did acknowledge it he was theirs but they denied it he came to his own but his own received him not To abreviate my discourse in this point Evangelizo vobis they are glad tidings to you because it is given to you to hear the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven for blessed is the ear that heareth the things which you hear Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God It is flat cheating in the Devil to put dubitation into mans fancy on this wise I am partaker of the outward word but I know not whether God have gone any further with me to give me his inward Spirit to quicken that seed unto immortal life Beloved as Christ did institute both Bread and Wine to be the outward Elements of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood Bread is the substance of food Wine causeth the concoction and makes it comfortable food So the word preacht is the food of life and God never lets it go alone without some drops of the Wine of his Grace to make it nourishing and beneficial Jude xiii 23. Manoah the Father of Sampson cries out to his Wife we shall surely die because we have seen God Nay says she If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not receive a burnt-offering at our hand Neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would at this time have told us such things as these So let me answer all dubitative Christians unless the Lord did desire thy salvation he would not put his Word into thy ear nor his Sacrament into thy mouth The Gospel is an happy annuntiation to every one that hears it unless he quench the Grace which is offered unto him Evangelium omni populo the tidings are auspicious to all people To all people Trahit sua quemque voluptas There are so innumerous many fond pleasures desires vanities affections in several appetites can any thing satisfie them all yes it is relishable to every palat that will taste it though the true delight apprehended is included among the small number of the Elect yet it is given to all and no man shall say he is lost for want of a Redeemer and a sacrifice for his sins Cum omnibus scriptus significavit omnes says Origen He was taxed in his Mothers Womb by Augustus Caesar when all the world was taxed to intimate that he did communicate himself to all the world that after that conscription of their names in Caesars enrollment whosoever believed in him his name might be written among the Saints in the book of Life In the first lesson read upon Christmas-day thus you have it Isa ix 3. They joy before thee according to the joy in harvest and as men rejoyce when they divide the spoil A good Harvest is not welcome to one Village but it is gladsome to the whole Country round about and when spoils are divided after the vanquishing of an Enemy every Souldier is enricht and hath his share Such a communicative blessing is our Saviours Incarnation every man fills his bosom with the sheaves of the harvest every Christian Souldier that fights a good warfare plucks somewhat from the spoils of the Enemy The dew of thy birth is as the womb of the morning A learned Father of our own Church transposeth the Versicle on this wise Thy birth from the Womb is as the morning dew which waters the whole earth As the walls of Jericho fell down before the sound of the rams horns so the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile methinks it fell down flat to the ground at this blast of the Angels trumpet in my Text that these were glad tidings not toti populo but omni populo not to the whole people of the Jews but to all the people of the world The wall of discord is taken away in the universe which parted those two great houses and shall not the sweet welcome of the Birth of Christ take away a wall of partition between thee and thy neighbour which is in thy heart Can you out of enmity and hatred wish sorrow unto any when God wisheth joy great joy unto all dost thou envy at the prosperity of thy brother when the Lord would have the same glad tidings common to you both Lay down old grudgings and quarrels with the old year and begin the new year with a new reconciliation in love unfeigned and true meaning Charity and the Lord renew a right spirit in us all Amen THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 11. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. THE Angel hath made a brief Sermon upon a great occasion The occasion is the Incarnation of our Lord and who can be so copious upon that subject as the Mystery requires yet the Sermon which the Angel preacheth is neither a whole Chapter nor a whole Gospel but three verses of a Gospel In the multitude of words a great deal is lost unto the hearer the good application of a little whatsoever we think will yield the best fruits of increase But for such divine joy as is here proclaimed it was fit to roul it up in a small pill and to minister it to the audience in a little quantity How is it possible for frail flesh to subsist and not to be dissolv'd for gladness if the Angel had continued his tidings with such matter as he begun a Saviour is born unto you a Saviour is born no petty redeemer but the Lord strong and mighty a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. O it was provident care after the Shepherds had heard a little to tell them no more at once but rather to send them away into the City that they might see the rest After Israel had shaken off the Chaldean slavery and the Lord had turned the captivity of Sion David knew not how to express their astonisht joy but thus they were like unto them that dream as Livie says of the Grecians when the Romans that conquer'd them sent them unexpected liberty Mirabundi velut somni speciem arbitrabantur they received the tidings as if it had been a pleasing dream and themselves scarce awake So our sins have so much discomforted our hearts that our spirits are confus'd and faint if we receive all the comfort that God sends at once like a strong
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
Ordination shall be necessary for us for nothing is necessary in it self but as the Lord hath decreed and made it so Wherefore this is my first Proposition That the use of Baptism is simply necessary to a true Church and where it is not in use as among Jews and Mahometans that alone is enough to defie them that they are not members of that body whereof Christ is the head It is not to be opposed that the due administration of the Sacraments is an inseparable note of the Church For the Church being an outward company of Professors that depend upon the grace of God How can it outwardly be discerned that we depend upon him unless we accustom our selves to the outward means that seal and assure his blessings unto us Touching Baptism therefore it is necessary to a company of Believers who make a Church it is so necessary that they could give no evident token of their Christianity to men if that mark of our initiation into the visible Church were omitted Though Baptism as I will shew instantly is not simply necessary for the invisible incorporation of Infants in to Christ yet it is certain that the sprinkling of water gives them that visible incition whereby they are ingrafted into him That must be our ordinary practice or else we are none of his flock he is none of our Shepherd In the description of Paradise we read of two things that were in it Pleasant Rivers of waters and Trees which did abound with fruit for sustenance So the Church in whose blessings Paradise is restored unto us hath spiritual sustenance for life in the Lords Supper and water of Regeneration in the other Sacrament Without these two it is no more it self and therefore the Church of God in general may say I have need to be baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a necessity laid upon me My next Proposition consists of these terms Suppose that there are some grown to years of knowledge able to discern between good and evil who from their birth were Paynims Mahometans altogether ignorant in the truth of Salvation but at last the light of heaven hath shined upon them and by the preaching of the Word hath wrought upon their hearts to believe such Converts must desire to be wash'd in the Sacrament of water and confess that they have need and that they would be baptized First I say they must desire it cordially and with all the affection of their mind If it be not the only Lesson of the Gospel yet I am sure it is the main drift of Christ and his Apostles to teach all men to attain to Salvation by humility Therefore to pluck down our high imaginations see the admirable wisdom of Gods Dispensations he hath made man subject to those creatures which are much beneath himself that they should be the sanctified instruments to make him partaker of everlasting life Naaman the Syrian thought great scorn at first to make use of an whole River to recover his Leprosie Now leâ—t any man should have such insolent thoughts that he would not be beholding to small things for his salvation they that will be heirs of heaven must come to a Font and be glad of a little sprinkling in token that Christs bloud will cleanse them from their sins They must kneel and fall down likewise at Gods Table to pick up the crumbs and to taste a little of his banquet of bread and wine And he that despiseth these Elements as poor rubbish for so great a purpose he despiseth God himself and his heart is not right with the Lord. It is an essential propriety of faith to long for the Sacraments even as the Hart thirsteth after the Rivers of waters And he that sets those Mysteries at a low price as if it were not material to his souls benefit whether he used them or no the Devil hath pust him up to destroy him he wants the true life of Faith and is given over to the captivity of Satan I say no more than God hath denounced against the uncircumcised Gen. xvii 13. My Covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting Covenant the uncircumcised man-child shall be cut off from his people he hath broken my Covenant Beloved if an Israelites child died before the eighth day which the Lord appointed for Circumcision that did not offend the Lord neither was the child accounted out of the Covenant but if an Israelite of ripe years or a stranger within his gates did despise Circumcision that soul was cut off in the anger of the Lord. My third Proposition touching Converts of ripe age is this that if they desired Baptism and were prevented by the suddenness of death the Lord will accept the desire of their Faith and their soul shall not suffer for the want of Baptism Two Texts in the New Testament imply a strict command that we must all be baptized if we desire to be entred into the Covenant of grace yet I will draw from them that they are not altogether without limits and mitigation Mar. xvi 16. They are our Saviours words He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Mark with what wariness the words are repeated not thus he that is not baptized shall perish only the other member is taken into the threatning He that believeth not shall be damned To be an unbeliever to avoid the Sacrament out of disdain and not to be prevented by necessity that is the crime which according to our Saviours words shall not be unrevenged Hear in another place what he presseth more strictly upon Nicodemus Joh. iii. 5. Vnless a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Here is no time limited but it is spoken as if instantly the institution of Baptism were in force and that from thenceforth no man could plead his right to the Kingdom of heaven without it Yet we know the soonest that it took place was not till anon after his Resurrection when the Disciples had the word given Go and baptize all Nations c. For as he said elsewhere Joh. vi 53. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud ye have no life in you the words run in the Present tense yet he did not perfectly declare what he meant nor put in force till he eat his last Supper with his Disciples So it appears that Text before cited Vnless a man be born again of water and of the Spirit is not without limitation and the next verse clears the matter on this sort That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit where we see the Spirit alone is able to regenerate a man and not always necessarily both water and the Spirit Bernard in his 77 Epistle to Hugo writes more diligently I think than any before him in this argument He proves from the confession of the
that they shall lose the fruition of Gods glory There is a Kingdom and a Treasure in Heaven where Christ says Thieves shall not break in and steal If I had leisure to accumulate many words I could say unto such no more in effect than St. Paul hath done 2 Thes iii. 12. We command them that with quietness they work and eat their own bread His meaning is plain that every man must eat such bread as he may call his own by honest and lawful possession if we will be fed with the blessing of heaven we must not scrape our goods together by the art of the Devil Da panem nostrum non alienum How absonant is their Prayer to their practise who pray for their own substance and yet make any mans substance their own according to the Devils counsel because they want it The next of kind to these are those that use a bad Calling that heathen Wise man hath named but three sorts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gamesters Vsurers and Pandars By the first he means such as drive no other trade or negotiation to maintain their livelihood but profuse Gaming Is it not a misery to see a great Patrimony upon a Table set ready to be adjudged who shall have it by so base and dull an Instrument as a bale of Dice I read in the life of Augustus Caesar when he recreated himself to deceive the tediousness of time with any Game such moderate Stakes were set between him and Mecaenas that the blowing up of a young Heir and all his Inheritance in one night must needs be reckoned by the Sages of good times for the exercise of a bad Calling The second limb of this division which is an Vsurer is so guilty in his own conscience of that bad opinion which the world hath of him that hitherto he durst never profess himself of any Calling as yet no Company was ever founded for that Profession in this City and I think it is your own rule no Company no Calling or at least a bad Calling This is not the right way certainly to better a mans estate command that this Wax and Parchment be made bread St. Basil is very confident in his opinion that it is the sin for which penury of food doth sometimes pinch the whole Land this is that iniquity which turns bread into stones Renounce your Usury says he that the Earth may bring forth her increase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is unnatural for Money to beget Money therefore while you make Money which should be barren to be fruitful the Earth which useth to be fruitful becomes barren The third sort of those in that Wise mans enumeration who live by a most reprobate gain are those accursed people that keep unclean Brothels and profess an Ordinary for the Devil These are they in St. Pauls phrase that sell the body of Christ to be made the body of an Harlot or the body of a Fornicator At this time of the year the devout and penitent time of Lent if you will make it so all the Churches in Italy which are under the Papacy do labour and perswade more than through all the year beside that those common Prostitutes will bewail their former life renounce the evil world and enter into the strictness of some Cloyster for ever whom they call their Convertitaes And God send our Labours and Preaching in this City a good harvest in this kind that these odious persons the names by which they are known are unfit for my mouth that all such I say may be touch'd in conscience lament their beastly life and never more make sale and merchandise of fleshly iniquity O Lord how long hast thou forborn thine anger and not utterly consumed us that this abominable sin is not more strictly look'd into in all places and utterly rooted out And yet for all they talk of their Convertitaes in Italy it is among them but like Hydra's heads when one is cut off three new ones grow up in the room and ever will be so while their great Prelate is at a certain price with them for toleration Is not this above all other trespasses forenamed the direct sin to which the Tempter exhorts to make mony by any wicked courses to take Gold out of the Devils bag The first that led the way to this covetousness that ever I read of was Caligula the Emperour the worst not only of men but even of four footed beasts Vectigala inaudita capiebat mark ye he took a Tribute that was never heard of before Ex capturis prostitutarum quantum quaeque uno concubitu mereret he was allowed from every Stews in his Dominion a most impious proportion to fill his Coffers The final branch of the Division is that they make bread of stones that is they get their living by the Art of the Devil that cheat and couzen in a lawful Calling If the Angel of the Lord were to sprinkle the bloud of an innocent Lamb upon every door-post where a true Israelite dwelt that was not faulty in this kind I fear he would have but little work among us Vel duo vel nemo There are not many of that mark Is not all kind of Manufacture grown more slight more vile by far than it was in the former Generations Compare any work which comes from your hands now adays with that which was wrought and done in the days of old and the extreme odds would make you ashamed if there were any conscience in your dealing And yet you will spend more Oaths to justifie your bad Wares than our Fore-fathers would spend words to commend their good As Usury is defended by some that the common Traffique of Nations depends upon it so Lying will be defended in time by the same rule there can be no Shops opened there can be no Merchandize without it 'T is grown a word of course like an Interjection without which you cannot breath to swear you cannot afford it so cheap when you equivocate most impudently And all being truly considered well may you swear it when you sell away your faith with your Ware for so little profit Let me but repeat that verse which St. Paul took up and do you apply it the Cretians were always Liars evil beasts and slow-bellies Tit. i. 12. Beloved there is not one cheat which you put upon your Chapmen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are your friends that come to lay out their money with you there is not one circumvention with which you abuse them not one false Weight or Measure not one deceitful word not one false Asseveration not one adulterated Oath not one unreasonable Item but God writes it down in his Book by which you shall be judged at the last day more carefully than you keep your Shop-books To end all do not make hast to be rich by unjust means for so you will fall into manifold snares of the Devil When you ingross thousands you can have but one mans meat
in bloud and to sprinkle it seven times before the Lord septies sanguis no less would serve the turn and think you that Christ did fail in this perfect number no not once if you will count it 1. He was circumcised and there was bloud 2. He sweat in the Garden not without drops of bloud 3. He was buffetted upon the mouth that must needs draw bloud Then the scourgings upon his back the thorns platted upon his head the nails driven into his feet and hands those three likewise could not be without great effusion of bloud At the seventh and last time a Souldier thrust a Spear into his side and then came forth a stream of bloud The heart of man hath entangled it self with seven deadly sins like the Woman of Samaria seven had taken her to wife according to the number of the capital sins seven times did Christ lay down the price of a Ransom seven times the bloud was sprinkled before the Lord but when I say seven I do not exclude many more it is numerus finitus pro infinito The rich man in the Gospel besought Father Abraham that he would send Lazarus with his finger dipt in water to cool his tongue There was a foul mistake in the Petition to ask for water why not rather for bloud 't is bloud that quencheth the fire which without it is unquenchable And yet there is some use of water O the use of it is excellent and unvaluable therefore water also came from the side of Jesus It is a wonder that this dolorous Passion of our Lord did not call for fire to rain upon Jerusalem as it fell down upon Sodom and Gomorrah which lest it should be here was a pipe of water opened to quench the wrath of God Four great Rivers were little enough to water the Garden of Eden this little Spout is enough to water all the World for when all other Interpretations fail us the Stream that bubbled out of the side of Christ is the water above the Heavens all Israel drank of the Rock in the Wilderness every Soul which was a thirst drank What a copious deflux was that So all the Israel of God may drink of the spiritual Rock his Spring is no less abundant and that spiritual Rock is Christ A spiritual Rock did Paul say he was used no better than if he had been a very Rock of Stone As Moses struck the Rock with his Staff so was the Body of Christ with a Spear and water gushed out apace Now at several times there was a threefold passage of water in our Saviour sudoris lacrymarum lateris the one when he sweat in the Garden the second was the distillation of tears and the third was this Fountain which was opened in his side Put the seven Issues of bloud and the three Issues of water together and here are ten Drink-offerings according to the number of the Ten Commandments which we have broken Divinity is nothing else but a Tractate of admiration and lo a Miracle the last of Christ's Miracles before he was buried as the first Miracle which he wrought was by the Element of Water at Cana in Galilee so his last Miracle was in Water which came out of his side for that this was no natural Issue they know full well that have tried Dissections and Anatomies And where did you ever read that an Apostle urged the truth of that which he recited so far that he knew his record was true and that the thing was done that we might believe I say where did you ever meet with such a Protestation in the Bible if the thing entreated of were not a Miracle The sweat was miraculous in the Garden the bloud was miraculous which streamed afresh from the dead body so was this gush of water from his side most supernatural whether some inward part of Christ was resolved into this Element of a sudden or whether it was newly created for the purpose let them dispute it who love to seek that which they can never find But I am sure the water was miraculous and far be it from us to think that it was not water as some have doubted but a spumeous phlegmatick humour As Christ himself is truth and not appearance so this humour had not the name and appearance only but the essence of water There are three that bear record on earth says St. John the Spirit the Water and Blood the Spirit which he gave up when he groan'd his last and that was a true Spirit the Bloud that drill'd down from him and that was true Bloud the Water that leakt out of his side and that was very Water So much of the two Streams severally considered now I come to the Conjunction Bloud and Water For his love could bring forth no less than Twins sanguis aqua if he would undergo the Law was it not sufficient that he was circumcised and wounded in the flesh but he was baptized also in Jordan there was satisfaction both by Bloud and Water When he suffered the sharp Agony in the Garden water alone had been a sign of a terrible conflict with his Father but there trickled from him bloud and water When the whip did tear his flesh and the thorns enter into the quick many do modestly suppose that He mingled tears with bloud and then at every passion there was bloud and water John Baptist was the Forerunner of the Bridegroom he came only in water the Martyrs were the friends of the Bridegroom they came in bloud Christ is the Bridegroom himself and he came in bloud and water When the Spouse was asked what a one her Well-beloved was Cantic 4. she answered he was white and ruddy white in water and ruddy in bloud not by water alone says our Apostle Ep. 1. chap. 5. that had made but half a Mediator but by water and bloud Sanguis ejus super nos was the cry of the miscreant people they condemned him in bloud Pilate pronounced the Sentence but washed his hands at it he condemned him in water Let them behold whom they have pierced says Zachary let his Judg and Accusers behold their fact in one in bloud and water I told you of the Miracle before now I will tell you of the Mystery of this work or rather of the Mysteries for they are more than one aperuit ostium miles unde Sacramenta Ecclesiae manârunt that 's St. Austins observation the door was opened and the Sacraments of the Church issued out What all of them it seems he knew of no more the Sacraments of the Church came forth with Bloud and Water For as the Romanists make Bread serve the people by a Synechdoche for the whole Supper of the Lord so Bloud by a Synechdoche in this place stands for all that Sacrament There was Divinity even in the cold stream that flow'd from the side of Christ and it speaks like the bloud of Abel as if he had said away with
your Paschal Lamb cease hereafter the circumcision of the flesh bloud and water shall take place now I deliver them to be your Sacraments you shall be born again by water and you shall be fed with that Cup which is the New Testament in my bloud but why bloud and wherefore water says St. Ambrose this question will bring on a second Mystery aqua ut emundaret sanguis ut redimeret wretched Babes we were brought forth into this world as Elisha brought the Aramites blind into the midst of Samaria among their Enemies Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them says the King of Israel O no says Elisha use them friendly and set bread and water before them Thus I say we were born obstinati ad peccatum destinati ad judicium polluted with iniquity bound over to condemnation Shall I smite them says Justice now I have them here shall I consume them at once O no says our blessed Master I will wash away their pollutions with water and make them white as snow I will redeem them from condemnation and lay down bloud for bloud Here is a strain of curtesie far higher than that of Elisha's not bread and water but water and bloud Moses was sent to deliver Israel out of captivity he was tractus ex aquis as his name tells us sav'd out of a River where he was cast to be drown'd he came by water but the deliverance stuck a long time and could not go forward Moses's Miracles Aarons Eloquence the Plagues upon Pharaoh all could do no good until the door-posts were smitten with the bloud of the Lamb. First Moses in water and then the Lamb in bloud their Redemption was made perfect in bloud and water And these two streams at the last cast were enough to drown an Heresie which Christ knew would spring up like a Tare among the Wheat That 's the third Mystery Marcion he foresaw would doubt of the truth of his body whether his substance was flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone or but an airy phantastique I know not what Nay surely it had an elementary composition for here was water and it had the composition of the humors for here was bloud so Aquinas and the School Divines consider it even for this cause as a fountain of providence that for conviction of Heresie his side was pierced and c. But while I consider these two Blessings as they are Miracles and Mysteries so they are extra nos coming from Christ but not coming to us but upon some application you shall find them intra nos lying at every mans conscience First that which was bloud and water in Christ must be tears of much anguish for your sins in you and true compunction of heart I do not ask for a sullen grief in Nabal which smothers the heart in desperation and cannot vent it self in a weeping eye I do not ask for the weeping eye of a Crocodile which is not commanded by the compunction of the heart that were like Gideons Fleece which was wet when the Floor was dry but I ask for Mary Magdalens eye melting into tears and for Davids sinful heart melting in his breast like wax the one is the root and the other the fruit of repentance bloud and water Quicquid Christus in corpore mater sustinuit in corde every stroke that did fall upon the body of Christ did light upon the heart of the blessed Virgin Mary So who can think upon that which she did suffer but must suffer as much as she did think my pride my gluttony my wantonness my blasphemy my oppression my prophanness what have you done do you know whom you have kill'd O no Father forgive them My sins knew not what they did now they weep for it now they are prickt in heart and that 's my bloud and water Secondly that which was bloud and water in Christ what is it more in us amor erga Deum caritas erga proximum it shall be in me a provocation toward the fulfilling of the whole Law to love God and my Neighbour St. Paul speaks of a resistance unto blood and who is he that is dearer unto me than my bloud but my Redeemer Christ Our Saviour speaks of giving my Alms away or if I have nothing else in store let me give but a Cup of cold water for his names sake and it shall not lose a reward And who are they that must have my water my alms yea a plentiful gift from my hands it is my Brother my Neighbour or if you will love him better for God's sake than for your own sake he is one of the Members of Christ Martyrdom is welcom for Christs sake my love shall express it self in any good office for my Brothers sake Martyrdom and Charity are my bloud and water Thirdly and so you shall have your full doses of these two streams sanguis valet contra iram aqua contra libidinem Remember this last Application all our sensual and brutish affections are drawn into two heads by Philosophy the irascible part which is rectified by patience and endurance of evil and the concupiscible part which is rectified by absteining from that which is an apparent and a deceitful good if your stomach fret within you and malign at tribulation when the Cross of Christ is laid upon you prick the angry vein to save the Soul let out the bloud of an impatient heart if your appetite be intemperate your concupiscence effeminate dry up the body by fasting parch it even like a Bottle that is hung in the smoke Venus orta mari drain out those superfluous streams that surcharge the body sufferance of evil and abstinence from the baits of pleasures these are my bloud and water And so much touching the Conjunction of these two streams Now I come in a word to the Order first bloud and then water Some may say to the bloud here as the Midwife did to Pharez who striv'd to come into the world before Zarah his Brother Why didst thou make a breach why art thou the first Malice Beloved is ever full of confusion it heeds not where it begins nor how it proceeds to vengeance but blessings are like fruit taken in their season they descend in their order as in this place by bloud and water For do but consider how these two were applied even now to the several vertues of a Christian and you shall find that bloud hath the preeminence and deserves the first place for is not compunction of heart better than sorrowful tears is not martyrdom for Gods sake better than charity to our Neighbour is it not a greater conquest to suffer evil patiently than to abstain from deceitful good aquâ vocati sanguine electi is not Election better than Vocation If all these Comparisons hold as I think they do bloud is preeminent in way of blessing above water 2. Here were the great Legacies paid unto the World the two Testaments
upon the death of the Testator The Covenant of the old Testament was continued by Sacrifice renewed by Circumcision altogether confirmed by effusion of bloud Well the Covenant of the New Testament is established in Baptism in the Pool of water O what a comely thing is Order God kept it in his very death the Old Law was first drawn drie in the Bloud and the New Law succeeds it in the stream of Water and I like his Meditation well that said our Saviour had first uttered out every drop of bloud from his veins ut nos ad bibendum de aquâ aeternae vitae invitaret to invite us from thenceforth to drink of the water of everlasting life Our Romish Adversaries stand much upon that which I handle now for say they if the two Sacraments had been precisely out of Christs side then St. John would have made his Relation thus A Souldier pierced his side and there came out Water and Bloud for Baptism is our beginning in the Church our first milk and after that when we know how to examin our selves as St. Paul says then we come to the Supper of the Lord just so as they would have it Aquinas a sure man of their own side compares the Sacraments in this wise Baptism is a Sacrament of the greatest necessity of the twain the Supper of the Lord is of more perfection though not of so much necessity Well then since we must aim at perfection as the Apostle says why might not Christ give the first place to that which makes us perfect and the second place to that which is first in time but lag in perfection nay rather than we should make use of this Text for no more than a yoke of Sacraments they will allow it to be a Figure of none but of the Supper of the Lord for their wine is dash'd with water in their Chalice and this Text is the Authority for it bloud and water I am sure the letter of the Scripture is on our side that use pure wine in the Eucharist de fructu geniminis I do not read that Christ gave his Disciples ought but wine to drink I deny not but some of the ancient Fathers concur with them but it is apparent I can make no better excuse they forsake the Letter and build upon an Allegory He that feeds upon the Letter of the Text feeds upon Manna he that lives by the Allegorie feeds upon licious Quails Israel may desire such curious food but God was better pleased when they were contented with Manna I have done with the Order The period of all in a word is the readiness of the Fountain which could not be stopt for a moment Forthwith came thereout bloud and water Love is no delaier no protractor of time ready to do good speedy in execution good deeds did not hang in our Saviours fingers as they do with many of us our hands unclasp to part with any thing like a lock that 's rusty and goes hard you can scarce open it Abrahams forwardness in entertaining the Angels and the dispatch that he made is as much commended as his hospitality Gen. xviii Abraham says the Text hastened to the Tent to Sarah 2. Sarah made ready quickly three measures of fine meal 3. Abraham ran to the Herd for a tender Calf 4. Abrahams young man did hast to dress it nemo piger est in domo caritatis not a slothful person not a protractor of time in all the House of Charity Such expedition did our Saviour make to express his love to the World he yields up his body in the flower of his age not a wrinkle in his brow not a grey hair in his head he made haste to suffer Judas says he what thou doest do it quickly as who should say I know thy heart is against me and that thou wouldest sell me into mine enemies hand yet for old acquaintance sake do me the curtesie to protract no time what thou doest do it quickly There past but a little time from midnight to midday betwixt his Attachment his Arraignment and his Execution This was a Paschal Lamb eaten in haste as God gave Moses in charge for the Lord will hasten you out of Egypt And to come to the instance in my Text his joynts were stiff and cold the moisture of his body congealed long it would be I should have thought before a few drops of liquor could come forth with much violence and chafing the flesh O but the Testator was dead his Sacraments are the Seals of his mercy wherewith he assures his Promises unto us and he would not have the World stay one whit for their Legacies capiat qui capere potest out it gusheth like a torrent and forthwith came thereout bloud and water All you that thirst for the living God be as ready to drink as he was to give else we are magis mortui quà m mortuus as dead as death it self and past recovery Repent you but instantly make restitution of all things wrongfully gotten but instantly be reconciled to your enemies stick not at it but instantly instantly I say but continue those instants unto your lives end Our Saviour compared his love towards Jerusalem to a Hen that gathers her Chickens under her wings let this Comparison be the Pattern of our love to Christ You know the Hen must not sit for a spurt and be gone then her eggs addle and the Brood is spoiled Take the application unto your conscience nourish the good motions of Gods spirit in your heart sit upon them as the Hen doth upon her Brood that they may quicken in you by a lively faith We had need to do it for as Christ was sudden and made haste to express his love so he is sudden and will make haste to judgment Surely I come quickly they are the close of our Bible Even so come Lord Jesus and prepare us for thy second coming that we who drink at thy mystical Wound here may be satisfied with thy goodness as out of a River in thy Kingdom of glory AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE PASSION GEN. xxii 13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a Ram caught in a thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the Ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his Son THe place where this memorable Sacrifice was offered up had a name given unto it by Abraham in the next verse to that which I have read Deus in monte videbatur or Deus in monte apparuit which is interpreted God is seen or God did appear in the Mount from which name Origen raiseth this Meditation Nihil hic corporeum sentias sed quae Scripta sunt in spiritu videas Do not think in the story of this Sacrifice that you see a Ram or that you see Isaac you must apprehend it in Spirit and believe that you see nothing but the Oblation of the Son of God upon the
the Spirit of grace and strive to put off the incomprehensible work of God with a jest These men are full of new Wine So that as soon as God sent firy Tongues from heaven upon his Apostles the Devil likewise raised up firy Tongues from Hell and put them in the mouth of his Apostles Envy and despitefulness cares not what reproach it puts upon good men though there be neither sense nor probability to make it credible That is right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word which is here used to vent any thing against the credit of holy persons whether it be right or wrong It was impossible they should perswade it in any one that they were overtaken with new Wine for there is no such liquor to be had in May not till September at the soonest But slanders use to rove at random And new wine say the Greeks will sooner intoxicate than old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what sign was there to make the objection credible that the Apostles were drunken Did their tongues falter Were their eyes red Was the Gesture foolish I know no man but Carthusian who goes about to invent a sign which should put the Jews into that unlikely suspicion that as the face of Steven when he was full of the Holy Ghost did shine with brightness so the countenances of the Disciples had a splendour and ruddiness in them with the fire of the tongues which sate upon their heads which made the rash Gazers conceive that they were inflamed with drink As the countenances of many that are most sober being red with the heat of the Liver make the uncharitable surmise that they are intemperate so I remember a story that Cassius Bishop of Narnia was despised by King Toteila because he was high coloured whereas Cassius was most abstemious but high coloured by natural infirmity Another thing concurred that it was the Feast day of Pentecost wherein the Jews were wont to rejoyce yet it was not their wont to solemnize the day with Feasting till the morning Sacrifice was offered up and that time was not yet come Therefore St. Peter answers That these men were not drunken for it was but the third hour of the day They that are scandalous in the sin of drunkenness use not to be gone so soon They that are drunken are drunken in the night says St. Paul that is most usual Although some do spend the whole night in quaffing untill the morning In lucem semper Acerra bibit Some prevent the rising of the Sun and are scarce sober one hour of the day whose souls lie under the Prophets woe Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to follow strong drink Isa v. 11. But Peter did not strive to make an invincible refutation of their slander because their scurrility was so improbable and ridiculous and a defence which is over-anxious makes a good cause suspicious Had the accusation been true it had deserved a scorn as Noah was derided when he was drunken The drunkard makes himself an Ape for Boys to sport with his brutishness a natural fool is not such an object for derision and laughter So that passively it is true what Solomon says Wine is a mocker Prov. xx 1. It exposeth it self to the flouting of vain persons here and shall reap the scorn of God hereafter But says St. Cyril the wickedness of man shall turn to the praise of God and this slander of the Jews shall expound some Prophesies of Scripture and the mystery of the Holy Ghost It is granted says the Father the Apostles on this day were full of new Wine Novum verè erat illud vinum novi Testamenti gratia that is it is the grace of the New Testament which makes glad the heart of man Inebriabuntur pinguedine domus â—uae the Vulgar Latine keeps that word Psal xxxvi 8. we read They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures And again Cant. v. 1. I have drunk my wine with my milk meaning both the comfort and the nourishment of the Gospel O friends drink yea drink abundantly O beloved To this pertains another Psalm of David xxv 5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies thou anointest my head with oyl my Cup runneth over Here is the oyl of the Spirit here is the Table of the Lord here is the Cup of Christs bloud an overflowing Cup sufficient to save a thousand worlds This Cup is that which ravisheth our Souls and carries up our Spirit to Heaven to partake of the body and bloud of Christ when we come to his holy Table this is Sobria ebrietas non madens vino sed ardens Deo This is a sober drunkenness an inflammation not with Wine but with the love of the Lord Jesus Happy were these Apostles that were drunken with drinking of him who says I am the Vine and ye are the branches But here is the difference between the meaning of these Scoffers and the meaning of those that make it an heavenly mystery he that is drunken with Wine looks like an incarnate Devil he that is drunken with the Spirit looks like an incarnate Angel I will stay a little while more not very long to shew how the mighty gifts poured out upon the Apostles on this day was a spiritual drunkenness First excess of Wine procures forgetfulness of things past so the Mission of the Holy Ghost made them that were converted to Christ forget the Ceremonial Law of Moses saving that little that was tolerated for a time to satisfie the weakness of the Jews it was laid aside as if it were quite dead and out of remembrance Thus St. Paul doth as it were make his Shears to pass between the Old and the New Law forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before Phil. iii. 13. Upon that accident that there wanted Wine at the Marriage in Cana the Gloss says Vetus legis vinum defecerat in nuptiis Ecclesiae none of the Wine of the Law remained at the Marriage of the Christian Church it was tilted and spent Secondly He that is giddy with wine makes no distinction of persons knows not his Friends from his Foes So he that is full of the Spirit renounceth all friendship affinity parentage in respect of the engagements of holiness and Religion Per calcatum perge patrem If thy Mother hold out her Breasts to entice thee from God if thy Father stop thy way shut thine eyes against the one tread upon the other make no respect of persons in that cause It is the praise and a most magnificent one which Moses gives to Levi Deut. xxxiii 9. Who said unto his Father and to his Mother I have not seen him neither did he acknowledge his brethren nor knew his own children Thus the mighty working of God works an extasie in his Servants that they care not for
a Pillar of Salt But let us come from persons to things that concern Gods Worship and Honour and note how we defalk and rob God in them Of two Testaments of holy Scriptures the Manichaeans Hereticks in ancient times and now our modern Anabaptists do reject the Old Of two parts of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Bread and Wine to signifie the body of Christ crucified and his bloud spilt the Layty you know where have lost the use of the Cup. Of four Commandments in the First Table of the Law the Second among some is either snapt off for brevity sake or crouded into the First to make it lose its force and vigour Instead of Faith and good Works which are both necessary to salvation we are much too slow with our good Works and think to come off well enough with a dry barren Faith Instead of our Prayers early and late as a Morning and Evening Sacrifice dissolute men and women think a short good-night will serve the turn as they go to bed Instead of glorifying God in our bodies and in our spirits many do subtract their humility of bodily worship and suppose it is abundantly well done to serve him in Spirit Finally instead of devoting our whole Age to repentance and newness of life many will not abandon their sins till their sins are forsaking them in their last years nay perhaps in the last hour nay God help them perhaps but in the last gasp or two of that latest hour thus the Devil hath envenomed the World with a Sacrilegious Poyson and perswades us that all is well gotten which is lost to God But in deed and in truth God loseth nothing He will be honoured either in our Conversion or in our Confusion As his mercy was content to be glolified in the deliverance of Lots Wife so his justice was exalted in her punishment Thirdly This woman was come out of Sodom come out of the Plain hard by the Gates of Zoar at the very last Furlong of the way as Adrichomius describes it and cast her self wilfully away when she was almost past all danger as the Proverb is In portu naufragium she had pass'd the Waves of a perilous Journey but shipwrackt and lost all when she was come home to the Haven Quod quisque vitet nunquam homini satis cautum est in horas None perish so soon as they that think they cannot perish now they are past the worst and so become less wary of their safety When Caesar had it divin'd unto him that the Ides of March should be fatal to him he should never out-live that day he was jocund and secure about afternoon and frumpingly told his Wizzards the day was far-spent and he felt no sign of death O but says one that Prophesied evil to him the day is come but it is not pass'd yet and the event of the day was the slaughter of Caesar So many are wound up to the last minute of confidence and security and there began their ruine where they thought to consummate their felicity Abimelech marched against the City of Thebes he took it he besieged the Tower close to the Gates of the Tower and was about to set fire to the Gates thus he stood in limine victoriae as his Victory was come to the just complement a woman cast down a piece of a Mill stone and brake his skull that he died Judg. ix 22. Thus as a Gamesters whole Stake and winnings may be lost at the last cast so many men have had a long progress in prosperity and for want of due thankfulness of that they had received their conclusion and shutting up of their eyes hath been bitterness Relapsing in sickness a thing as frequent as the water that runs by us it is not unskilfully imputed to the heedlesness of him that was too adventurous upon recovery and some other indisposition of natural causes but when we see a man brought down to the Grave with infirmity and brought back again by Art and skil and yet in the midst of his joy to be strangely cast back into the former languishment Let not the sound judge anothers servant but let the sick party judge himself that either he returned to the vomit of his former sins which he did abandon upon fear of death or promised restitution of something got by fraud which afterwards he would not perform or forgave his enemies at the point of extremity and being restored renewed his old grudge or forgot his Vows which he had made or flubbered over the benefit which God had done for him with careless ingratitude Certainly some offence did intervene that when the bitterness of death did seem to be past the Lord should cause his very recovery to be his ruine For there is nothing more dangerous than deliverance out of danger if we do not use our fortune reverently and stand in awe of God even in the midst of his mercies And this is more conspicuous in the soul than in the body Gods grace leads a penitent man along by the hand in the narrow way of righteousness but if he begin to think that he can go alone without a supporter when he thinks he hath one foot in heaven he shall be thrown down to hell or as our Saviour speaks the latter end of that man shall be worse than the first How many have revolted from the true Faith through the deceivable wit of seducers even upon the last bed of their sickness How many have repulsed Satans tentations oftentimes and have yielded as you would say at the last time of asking As Samson denied Delilah sundry times but betrayed his life into her hands at the last onset and importunity What a courage had Peter against the whole band of the Priests servants And how much discouraged at the voice of a silly Damosel and made to forswear his Master This was in extremo actu deficere to be far from Sodom and almost at Zoar and yet to fall back from God when we are within sight and almost within touch of the Crown of life this is that turpitude which is most ignominious to our Christian Warfare With shame enough shall back-sliders hear that reproach from God You did run well who did hinder you You were almost at the top of my holy hill why did your feet slip Why did you look back to Sodom Wherefore my Beloved when your conscience tells you that hitherto your heart hath been right with the Lord you have plaid your part well to the last act why then be most sollicitous that you be not defective in the end and lose your reward and the fruit of all your labour that went before But pray with David Forsake me not O Lord in mine old age when I am gray-headed Let me not forget thee as Lots Wife did when I am almost at Zoar and then the Lord will say Even to your old age even to your hoary hairs will I carry you Isa xlvi 4. So much be
in holy Scripture both how the Devil tempted Christ to see if He were God and how the Pharisees brought a case before him to try if He were Messias Cast thy self down from the Pinacle of the Temple says Satan if thou be the Son of God No that were cruelty against his own person and charity begins at home Then the Pharisees brought a sinner before him taken in adultery Joh. viii Their fingers itcht to be casting stones at her but he would not suffer them And this mercy proved him both to be Messias and the Son of God If men and Angels had kept good we had only known the friendship of God what it was and not his anger that was natural unto him We provoked justice violently and wrung it out of his hands And as the King of Israel said to Elisha when his enemies were inclosed within his power Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them No says the Prophet but set bread and water before them So Justice said to God when we had transgressed Shall I smite them Shall I consume them at once O no says our Saviour but set bread and wine before them the Sacrament of his body and bloud which being eaten by faith will save our souls Christ wept but twice in all once over his friend Lazarus that was a natural grief and once over Jerusalem that sought his bloud that was a coelestial passion Nay though he went but a foot pace from one City to another to preach the Gospel yet he would needs ride to Jerusalem so to make haste to suffer longing till the work of our Redemption was finished St. Ambrose says he groaned as well to have the bitter Cup come quickly as to have it pass away and grew weary of delay till He had paid the Hand-writing which was against us There passed but a little time from midnight to midday betwixt his Attachment his Arraignment and his Execution as if his feet had stood upon thorns until his head was crowned with them Now tell me how you will look upon this Christ O ye malicious hearted whose feet are swift to shed bloud in Duels and fierce Encounters your hatred and his pitty your desire to destroy your enemies and his good will to recover them and bless them they savour undoubtedly of two sort of Serpents Christ is the Brazen Serpent lifted up who cured the infirmities of the People they are like the fiery Vermin which stung Gods Travellers in the Wilderness And when God was put to it to punish see how Mercy wrestled with Indignation Ah I will be avenged of mine enemies says the Prophet Isaiah he sighed because he must be wrathful as it was said of the mild Emperor Vespasian Indoluit quoties debuit esse ferox When he destroyed Sodom with an heayy wrath his justice came down but in slow drops of fire but his mercy is a full torrent like Jordan in a time of Harvest it brought Israel to a Land flowing with milk and honey for his mercy endureth for ever His goodness is swifter than Eagles for in six dayes he framed the World and all that is therein But he took forty days to destroy one City of Nineveh and then he spared it When he was first angry with man he did but walk in the cool says the Text to chide Adam but the Father of the Prodigal you know who I mean ran in haste to meet his Son and pardon him when he was yet far from him Finally it is written in Mat. xxv that benediction is from God Come ye blessed of my Father But malediction and cursing are not from him Go ye cursed but not cursed of my Father no such word in the Text he has no hand in that It was Gods Dialogue with Jonas Shouldst thou grieve that the Gourd of herbs is decayed and should not compassion touch me much more for this mighty People true Lord but if thou pardonest man for sin who in thy sight is but as a flower of the field less than the Gourd of Jonas should not man much more remit the offence of his Brother which is done against him I say much more it behoveth man and I will hold my self to that For first there is somewhat in our eyes that blinds them it is pulvis humanitatis the dust of our humane nature that makes us when we are the most sharp censurers of other mens faults not to discern truly the filth of their sin but the eyes of the Lord are bright as a couple of flaming Torches in the Revelation and offences appear before them more ghastly and tragical than our dim Candle half put out can enlighten us to perceive For instance hereof To morrow there is a Feast unto Jehovah says Aaron but the Lord could see that the Feast was luxury they rose up to play and the Sport was flat Idolatry So Saul could discern no harm in himself but a little foolish pitty when he spared Agag but the flaming eye saw it was Rebellion as foul as the sin of Witchcraft And is the Lord merciful to our transgressions when they cry unto him like the sound of many waters and should not Man much more acquit the World of every offence done against him for as much as we conceive not what is evil because our selves are evil Secondly among men a gift pleaseth the eyes and a recompence is a safe correcting of an injury but that were peccatum bis tinctum a sin died in scarlet to think to blot out sins before the Lord with the Fruit of our Body or with Rivers of Oil And can this God be reconciled then and should not man much more be merciful Beloved in the third place We are all full of our own infirmities Who knows whose turn it may be next to fly unto the Altar for a pardon Two that grind in the same Mill and two that walk in the same Field nay Barnabas and Paul fellow Labourers in the same Gospel may daily stumble one at another Our communication together cannot choose but be offensive as the earth licks up the water and the water devours the earth but who is the churlish Labourer to whom God cannot say Friend I do thee no wrong O can the just one have mercy upon us and should not offenders between themselves sinners unto sinners much more be charitable But there is one thing more in mercy than forgiveness alms and bounty to do good and distribute to be Oil and Physick to the wounded like the good Samaritan this is also a full Plume in the Wing of Charity like that other Mat. xxiii how often would I have gathered thee under my wings as a Hen doth her Chickens but thou wouldest not Beloved God hath suffered his fire to be unmerciful to sweep away the Habitation of the fatherless and innocent that our hands might build it up again And we shall not only build up houses of clay the reward
our Rulers have left us in the way of a good life and changed their own for a better We owe duty to our Rulers in all things honest and lawful in obeying Rites and Ceremonies indifferent in Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical Illis imperii jus concessum est nobis relicta est obsequii gloria But where God controuls or wherein our liberty cannot be enthralled we are bound ad patiendum and happy if we suffer for righteousness sake Now that the obedience of the Rechabites was lawful and religious and a thing wherein they might profitably dispence with freedom and liberty the third part of my Text that is their Temperance will make it manifest for in this they obeyed Jonadab non bibemus c. To spare somewhat which God hath given us for our sustenance is to restore a part of the plenty back again if we lay hands upon all that is set before us it is suspicious that we expected more and accused nature of frugality And though the Vine did boast in Jothams Parable that it cheared up the heart of God and Man though it be so useful a Creature for our preservation that no Carthusian or Coelestine Monk of the strictest Order did put this into their Vow to drink no Wine yet the Rechabites are contented to be more sober than any and lap the water of the Brook like Gideons Souldiers Which moderation of diet though as I said in the beginning as it is an extreme and as it is a Vow for ever to drink no Wine I do not urge it to your imitation yet it did enable them to avoid Luxury and swinish drunkenness into which sin whosoever falls makes himself subject to a fourfold punishment First The heat of too liberal a proportion kindles the lust of the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Poet calls it elegantly Wine is the milk of Venus Lot who was not consumed in Sodom with the fire of Brimstone drunkenness set him on fire with incestuous lust in Zoar. The Brimstone trickled down like rain but Luxury broke in upon him like a breach of the Sea And as Epaminondas said Modicum prandium non capit proditionem Treasons were never plotted at a frugal Table so Fornications and Adulteries were never hatcht in Cups of water but then they steal upon us where our Bowls are crowned with superfluity In jejuniis in castitate 2 Cor. vi What St. Paul hath coupled let us not divide fastings go first then follows pureness and chastity Secondly How many brawls and unmanly combates have we seen Nay how much bloud spilt under the Ensign of a Tavern Ivy bush Memento te sanguinem terrae bibere says Androcides in Pliny Wine is but the bloud of the earth and bloud toucheth bloud says the Prophet Hosea Antonius vino gravis sitiebat sanguinem says Seneca When Antonius his head turned round with drink he thirsted for the bloud of his enemies After Riot follows strife says St. Paul Rom. xiii I will fill them with wine and dash them one against another says the Prophet Jeremy Chap. xiii It is a sweet thing that men must fall at odds and stand nicely upon their terms of Honour in their drink when no man can disgrace them so much as their own intemperance which hath made them beasts Is that a time to strive for Mastery when they are the vilest servants upon earth to their own brutish appetite Thirdly Superfluity of drink it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the draught of foolishness Such a misery in my opinion that I would think men had rather lose their right arm than the government of their reason if they knew the Royalty thereof Wine and the foolishness of Idolatry were in the Feasts of Belshazzar And let St. Austin in his Epist 64. be well discussed and it will be found that quaffing which was used to be celebrated every year at the Tombs of the Martyrs was the first thing that brought in Offerings and Prayers for the dead a most erroneous Doctrine St. Basil calls Wine-bibbers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Idols of the Gentiles for as David describes Idols in the Psalms so they have eyes and see not ears and hear not hearts and understand not Lastly Whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sobriety is the sustentation of that which decays in man drunkenness is the utter decay of the body It was all the excuse that Callisthenes had for himself when he refused Alexanders drinking Feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I had rather want your Feast than stand in need of Aesculapius And when I see new Taverns multiply the next thing I look to see is to have more Apothecaries set up and more Physicians practise among us That then which bereaves our bodies of health and our minds of reason that which puts fury into our hands and fire into our breasts is that it which is grown the mean mans Recreation and the great mans Solemnity O ye Galatians who hath bewitched you Satisfie me in one question and I will ask no more To rob a man of his Garment or his Purse would you not think it dishonourable for you to do And Theft to be punished by the Kings Laws But I pray you which is the greater robbery to force or flatter your Friend to kindness whereby he loseth his reason which is the Vessel of Gods grace or to bereave him of a little money which is the instrument of fortune Whosoever hath been guilty of this crime to seduce another into weakness if his heart do not burn within him for shame know that Foelix the corrupt Governour was more conscionable for Foelix trembled when Paul did preach of temperance Of all other sins surfeiting of meats and drinks is a transgression of private flattery for every costly junquet is to content nature to perfect nature to strengthen nature and poor nature is as innocent of these things as the Idol Bel that had the name indeed but tasted not the Kings Provision Cum corpus impinguo hostem adversus meipsum nutrio says St. Bernard To cram up our body too much is to maintain a civil Rebel within our own skin and bone Si contenti erimus naturâ tam supervacuus est coquus quà m miles says Seneca In Peace what use have we of Souldiers God forbid but their service should be rewarded nobly but then we have no imployment for their service So if we go no further than the sustenance of mere Nature we shall have no use of Cookery Beasts and Fishes and the Fowls of the Air find that at hand which is fit for their sustenance Non fuit noverca natura ut homo sine tot artibus non possit vivere was Nature a Stepdame to man only that no less than two hundred Arts and Trades may be reckoned before his Table can be furnished Adam went out of Paradise with a full stomach he sunk like a Ship over-laden with Traffick but Lazarus went fasting to heaven scarce fraught with the crums of
Dives Table Moses did fast upon Mount Sinai when he talked with God but in the Valley beneath the people sate down to eat and to drink and rose up to play Elias did not drink for forty days at length he did pray for rain and had drink from heaven But Luxury corrupts the Air and breeds sterility Tot curiis decuriis ructantibus acescit coelum says Tertullian by an excellent Hyperbole Daniel by his slender food of pulse and water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Basil taught the Lions to hunger and want their prey all night when he was cast into their Den. Therefore foul shame it was for the Pharisees says the same Father to look sowerly and sickly when they wanted their repast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why did they not rejoyce rather for the healthfulness of their soul Wherefore when thou fastest anoint thy head and wash thy face says our Saviour You would think by this that a Fast were the celebration of some Bridal He was no Benefactor in Greece that did not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mend their diet No Emperour for the people of Rome that did not enter into his Kingdom with a Congiary or Banquet But the Saints of God will not let us know when or what day they went to heaven without a Fast before it Let not this Doctrine give occasion to the Wealthy of this Kingdom to lessen their Magnificence and pinch their Table Charitable house-keeping hath been always the honour of this Realm and a blessing destined for the poor But whatsoever your eye beholds when you set before you plenteous provision will you think as the Epicure of Rome did that the Table is furnished for your own throat and boast that Lucullus sups with Lucullus No Beloved look upon it as the Father of a Family whose eyes wait upon your benevolence look upon it as the Steward of the poor whose mouths shall bless God that hath enlarged your heart to do good unto them And be not like the larded Epicure that eateth like Behemoth Job xl 16 whose force is in the navel of his belly What unfitness is in such a corps for speculation of knowledge What dulness to Prayer and Devotion Had we not need of a long Lent between our Shroving and our Easter And besides the sin of the gurmundizing Glutton I must not spare to tell you that there is luxuria in modico a riotous diet which longs after nothing but dainties and delicates As to be wanton stomacht after Mandrakes with Rachel to long after the fruits of Pontus and Asia with Lucullus To affect strange Cookery of France and Italy Why should you make more of your corruptible bodies than our Saviour did of his glorified body Ecquid habetis filioli Children have you any thing to eat Do but observe the prohibition of meats in the old Law neither herbs nor roots nor any homely food were forbidden but the curiosity of some delicious flesh was denied to the children of Israel They had their Quails indeed in the Wilderness when they lusted and they that fasted three days in the Desart with our Saviour had nothing but two fishes and five barly loaves among two thousand Chuse you with whether of these you would make your Table They with the Quails had the curse of God and these had the blessing of our Saviour It is a mystery methinks that Father Jacob sent away his Honey and Spices Nuts and Almonds for a Present unto Joseph to buy him coarser food I mean the Corn of Egypt Nos oleris coma nos siliqua foeta legumine paverit innocuis Epulis says the sweet Prudentius In Ethnick Rome a Senator was charged to keep so mean a Table by the Law called Centussis that a Mess of Friers now adays would rise an hungry from it Ignorance it is wilful ignorance that hath made the world so riotous both in Gluttony and Drunkenness because forsooth these are such sins as are not forbidden in the Ten Commandments Not to trouble you with many conjectures why God did so I will give you this answer for your utmost satisfaction Nothing is forbidden in the Ten Commandments Nisi directè deordinet hominem ad Deum aut ad proximum says Hales except it be a transgression directly against God or our Neighbour Gluttony and drunkenness are principally inordinate passions not against God and our Neighbour but against our own body But doth this diminish the guilt of these sins No Beloved but rather they do many ways dispose a man to disorder himself both to God and his Neighbour God is often blasphemed bloud spilt lust provoked the Lords day violated the Magistrate disobeyed and next to the pronity of original sin intemperance of meats and drinks is the fuel of all sins Wherefore be a Rechabite or the next to a Rechabite in surfeit and immoderation to drink no Wine There is but one thing remains to dispatch our exercise for this time I have made a large discourse how Fasting and Temperance are the third Encomium or praise of the Rechabites Indeed David doth wish it above all curses to the enemies of the Lord that their Table may be made a snare But for mensa laqueus that a prodigal Table is a snare to a good conscience it is no strange thing What say you to inedia laqueus To fast and subdue the body is made a greater snare as the Devil hath contrived it among our Romish Adversaries I knew the Devil could tempt an innocent to offend with eating but would you think he could take advantage upon an empty stomach Would you think that Lent and a few Ember Weeks should be called Lutrum peccatorum A satisfaction for sin To cross this error that it was not abstinence from meats and drinks simply taken which did commend us unto God therefore as we lost the knowledge of God by Gluttony and eating Gen. iii. So the Second Adam was known to his Disciples and Cleophas thrice after his Resurrection as they were at meat to shew that the Table of sobriety was sanctified in the Lord. Wherefore let the boast of the proud Pharisee I fast twice a week be made a Collect in the Roman Prayer-book We are tied to say grace unto God when we receive our meat but these men expect most impiously that God should say grace and give them thanks for fasting especially if it were a Vow as this was of the Rechabites Nunquam bibemus for ever we will drink no wine It is a blessed conspiracy when sundry souls confederate themselves together to serve the Lord. Glad was Davids heart to have company to go to the Altar I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the house of the Lord. Indeed the Spouse of Christ is not one stick of Juniper or a single lump of Frankincense though never so sweet but Fasciculus Myrrhae a bundle of Myrrh Cant. i. Faith in unity it is the glory of Christianity I know not
as if our charity could be altogether inoffensive No the Spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. viii but it doth not quite take away all infirmity we are not made of the substance of Angels while we travel in this mortal flesh Sanctification will leak out at certain crannies but all is made sure with cupio dissolvi take in sunder the soul and body by death and in the state of our Exaltation Mercy can never get away There is a molting time for these two Wings and the best Christian displumes certain feathers through tentation but O that I had wings like a Dove says David for then would I fly away and be at rest Now the last Point is that which troubles all the world especially our Western world which is in continual combat with our Romish Adversaries wherein the Art lies to preserve Truth that it may not forsake us But some there are clouds without water men unstable in their minds halting between God and Baal that think the whole Church is at a loss for truth and we can stedfastly trust to nothing For it will easily break prison out of the Syllogism of the old Philosophers witness so many busie disputations of late and the success so unprofitable it cannot be bound up in the laborious Tomes of Controversies no Age more industrious to write than ours hath been and none further from Peace To think that the limits of Truth are bound to St. Peters Chair so called is most childish and frivolous The two Testaments indeed are the touchstone of Truth but they are stained with presumptuous glosses and we do not ask now adays Quomodo scriptum est How is it written But Qomodo expositum est What is the intepretation of Expositors Lastly If we say that Truth is the Daughter of Time and that the reverend Antiquity of the Fathers must be her Register What if one say one thing and some another What if they be equally divided What if index expurgatorius spunge out all that should be justly alleadged And hear what Cyprian says Non dixit Christus ego sum consuetudo sed ego sum veritas Surely yet among these many conflicts there is a way to bind truth as a Crown unto us give me leave to unfold it without ornament of Language in a particular declaration In the midst of a froward Generation whose Wits sweat on both sides to win the day who would not take a sure course which cannot be reproved Now all the Law and the Prophets are comprised in these three things 1. In Prayer and Thanksgiving to God 2. In a sincere belief 3. In obedience to his Commandments The absolute form of Prayer is the same which Christ taught us Mat. vi The sum of our Belief is the Apostles Creed And the two Tables of the Law want nothing which should teach Religion and Justice towards God and men What Christianity can be more secure than this How can Truth forsake him that rules himself to the Letter of these holy Institutions and goes no further But whatsoever is more than this is tossed about with every blast of disputation it may be erroneous it may be Will-worship it cannot be the substance of things not seen it impeacheth Gods wisdom as if he would not reveal unto man the explicite way of his salvation When I come into the Temple and see a devout Monk running over the Hierarchy of heaven upon his Beads and filling the Saints with the noise of his complaints and when I see another Christian piercing the highest heavens with zeal and coming boldly to the Throne of Grace to God alone to which part shall he that is unlearned say Amen Beloved if Our Father would not serve the turn it may seem John Baptist did teach his Disciples to pray better than Christ Sweet Jesu they are thine own words therefore I cannot do amiss to turn me from the Angels when I have Christ for my Master but they that make the Elders about the Throne Partners with God in Invocation they cannot be so confident that truth doth not forsake them Again one Church entertains the craft of Demetrius and the Silversmiths even upon Gods own Shrine their eyes are filled with their molten Images when they look unto the hills from whence cometh their salvation But they distinguish that they keep their body to a lesser Religious Worship and not to the highest Adoration and they exalt the Image of the true God not the Idols of the heathen Our Church refuseth no Ornaments of Decency no Histories of Piety no remembrance of eternal Glory But the Law is not in our eye but in our heart and we pray as if it were our Saviour at midnight in the Garden when no resemblance could be before him What should a soul say here disquieted with the rents of Sion Why thus Lord thou hast forbidden all graven Similitudes thy Commandment did not comment upon a petty duty to the Saints a nice Hyperdulia to our Lady and an admirable Latria to thy self thou hast not made me so good a Lapidary to discern in stocks and stones between an Image and an Idol I may be an Idolater with the Inventions of the former I cannot err in the spiritual Worship of the latter Confounded then be all they that worship carved Images I will not let thy Truth forsake me Thirdly Concerning that inquinatissima purgatio that loathsom cleansing of sins after this life in torments which is a kind of Spanish Inquisition Why art thou so vexed O my soul And why do thoughts arise within thee So trust in God not as fearing the scorching Kitchin of Purgatory or the freezing of St. Patricks Lake for a season but as dreading an eternal death for ever not as if my punishment must be mitigated after my death by the Beads and Orizons and Bribery of my forgetful Executors but as if in my life they must be redeemed by the luke-warm bloud of Jesus Christ Then for the thing propounded I know my Saviour descended into Hell to triumph over Satan and bruize his head I know He ascended up into Heaven to make Intercession for us to God the Father this is my Creed I am sure and the third place is Apocrypha my belief is as broad as the holy Apostles made the pattern and if I stop mine ears at the rest I will not let thy truth forsake me Fourthly Concerning the material part of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper I take my Saviours words into the explication of my Faith This is my body this is my bloud But what have I to do to let men interpret Christs meaning when themselves confess it is such a mystery that cannot be comprehended Is it not enough for me to receive these precious gifts with thanksgiving but that I must argue how and after what manner Christ is present at that participation I am sure the outward Elements of Bread and Wine are there for as God gave me an heart to believe so he
gave me not my outward senses to delude me I am sure that Christ is there and I partake the meritorious Passion of his Body crucified and his Bloud shed upon the Cross all that men controvert more than this is to beget sorrow to the Church and laughter to the Devil My soul dwelleth among them that are enemies unto peace but I am content to say this is my Saviour who offered himself up for me therefore I will not let thy truth forsake me Lastly In that great Controversie of Justification there is a way in which the mists of errour cannot arise and there is a way in which the substantial food is lost by striving to comprehend the shadow with it By vertue of the Law I know my duty that I must be a Doer and thereby I discern my infirmity that I must be a Debtor By vertue of the Lords Prayer I find my self arreraged in iniquities that are past my flesh trembling at tentations to come my soul and body gasping for deliverance from evil round about me I find not one line wherein I may obtest unto God by any part of my own Sanctification Thirdly By vertue of my Creed I find that my Saviour was incarnate suffered and rose again to purchase Redemption unto us and Remission of our sins The Angels are not more sure of their incorruptible glory than we may be to say As many as walk in this rule peace be to them and mercy and on the Israel of our God Cogita de Deo quicquid meliùs potes de teipso quod deterius vales says St. Bernard and then thy truth is like Mount Sion which cannot be removed But to go a little further and to creep into the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ there is no likelihood but it should prove an unthankful blasphemy Being rooted in this most holy Faith and in our active Mercy toward the whole body of Christs Church there remains for us a passive mercy which will not forsake us the sure mercies of David in our blessed Redeemer who is called Amen and in whom are all the Promises And there is a truth which will stick to us as fast and answer for us against the slanders of Satan who is the Reviler of the Brethren For he that confesseth me before men there is truth on our part I will confess him before my Father which is in heaven there is truth on Gods part to which God Father c. A SERMON UPON THE RECHABITES JEREM. xxxv 6. But they said we will drink no Wine AT the first hearing of these words I may conjecture that some men thought of no such Scripture and that most men look for a strange construction and you shall have a construction to mollify the Paradox since it was ever safe to decline extremes in all opinions for they are like Jehu in his furious march what have they to do with peace Indeed if you will recount among many who they were that have professed so much austerity as those that say in my Text We will drink no wine you will neither commend them for wisdom nor for piety Lycurgus in the Luxury of his Country cut up every Vine by the roots and destroyed the Vineyards like those inconsiderate men in our dayes superexcessive Reformers of Religion who think there is no way to amend that which is abused but with Hezekias Justice against the Brazen Serpent utterly to consume it The Manichees would not endure to taste the Cup at the holy Communion as if Christ had been too prodigal to bestow Wine at his last Supper upon his Disciples And you know who they are that want not much to be Manichees Tertullian mentions a most harsh Discipline among the Romans that no Woman might know the taste of Wine sed sub Romulo quae vinum tetigerat impunè à marito trucidata est that it was lawful for the Husband to shed his own Wifes bloud if she tasted of the bloud of the Grape So likewise there were certain Christians called Severiani by a nick name that grudged the whole World St. Pauls allowance that Modicum which he granted unto Timothy and Pharaohs Butler with these men had been kept for ever in prison had he pressed a few Grapes into the Kings own Cup. But for all these men who grudg Cato his draught of wine when he is wearied with the affairs of the Common-wealth I say their abstemious life is perverseness and such were not the Rechabites that say in my Text We will drink no wine In which Text barren as it may seem there are many things very Religious and profitable to make up my Treatise at this time And as boldly as Prudentius said by a Catachresis that there were jejuniorum victimae many Sacrifices offered up to God by fasting and abstaining from meats so say I that this Text is abstemiorum racematio there is a fruitful Vintage to be gathered out of non bibemus We will drink no wine This whole Chapter is but of one entire piece like the silver Trumpets of Moses Numb 10. so is the discourse thereof without interruption or almost without full point from the beginning to the end First God is provoked to wrath by the rebellions of Judah False Prophets were crept in that had taught strange Doctrin and the People had itching ears and were worse Disciples Now what instrument should the Lord choose to lay open his indignation whom but Jeremy the Propher and him God knew to be fit for the Errand not as he knew Nathaniel under the shade of his Fig-leaves sed sub carnis umbraculo in his Mothers Womb. Jeremy sets himself to the Task and lays open their sins not by revilings by menacies by zeal as hot as fire and who could do less they made Moses the meekest Soul alive throw stones at them and break the Tables but setting before them the Example of the Rechabites promising their obedience should be had in an everlasting remembrance and Judah his stubborn Son should see their happiness and want it Et spectet nostros jam plebs Romana triumphos Will it not grieve them to see Strangers and Aliens bear the Bell away and themselves look on and be quite neglected Lastly what was the Obligation that kept the Rechabites under such aw and duty for Jeremy spread a Table entreated them courteously and set Flagons of wine before them Why nothing but this their Father Jonadab had made them protest to take this austere life upon them that they would drink no wine A hard case between God and Israel if you mark it What was Jonadab or who was it that gave him wisdom no stedfast faith could be put in his Laws nor certainty in his Statutes nay upon this Text it is Calvins opinion laudatur obsequium filiorum non legi approbatum fuisse consilium paternum 't is true that Jeremy commends the Sons of Jonadab for their obedience but the Holy Ghost did no where commend Jonadab for making such