their sight and their hearing and had the rest of their sences the lame whom he cured did onely want the use of their feet and had the rest of their limbs the Lepers whom he cleansed did onely want their health and had the use of their limbs and sences but they which vvere dead had none of them all but vvere deprived of them altogether and so his raysing of such as vvere dead was a greater work then any of the former Therefore whensoever he raised the dead the people did greatly admire and honour him when he cured two blind men Mat. 9.31 Math. 9 They spread â—abroad his fame throughout all the land When he raised to life the Widowes sonne in Naim Luke 7.16 Luke 7. All that were present praised God and said A great Prophet is risen up amongst us and God hatâ— visited his people And vvhen he raised Lazarus from the dead John 11. it is said there that many of the Jewes that saw what Jesus did John 11. â—5 believed in him While a man is alive though he be never so much diseased or so dangerously sick yet vve send for Physitians and use other means because there is some hope that he may recover but when he is once dead there is no more hope and therefore we trouble our selves no further so when the Rulers daughter was sick he came unto Christ and besought him for her My little daughter saith he lyeth at the point of death but I pray thee come and lay thy hands on her and she shall live Mark 5.23 Mark 5.35 But his daughter dying before Christ came to her some brought the Ruler word Thy daughter is dead why troublest thou the Master any further as thinking it in vain when his daughter was dead to seek for help because the Physitian is not sought to for the dead but for the living But Christ that was as well able to revive the dead as to heale the sick raised diverse in the Gospel from death to life whereof some are not named but onely mentioned ingenerall as here it is said that the dead were raised up without specifying in particular who they were some are mentioned in particular as the Rulers daughter whom he restored to life when she was newly dead Marke 5. Mark 5.42 Luke 7.15 Joh. 11.17 The Widowes Son that was carried forth to be buried Luke 7. and Lazarus that had been foure dayes dead and was laid in his grave John 11. If Christ then were able to raise the dead while he lived here in the form of a servant we may well he assured that being in glory at the right hand of his Father he is both able to raise our souls from the death of sinne to the life of grace and to raise our bodies when they lie dead in their graves to the life of glory Indeed the raising of the body being dead see us a thing incredible unto flesh and blood And therefore when St. Paul Acts 17. did preach to the Athenians about the resurrection they were so far from believing that the dead should rise that they counted him a babler and laughed him to scorne But as Christ here raised some from death to life so at the â—â—st day he will raise all Act. 7.60 the one being as easie to him as the other Therefore our bodies when they die are said in the Scripture to â—all a sleep because Christ can as easily raise our bodies being dead as one man can wake another when he is faln a sleep If many be fallen asleep in a Chamber together yet one voice you know is able to waken them all and so the voice of Christ at the last day shâ—ll raise all that are dead in the whole world together The houâ—e shall come saith our Saviour John 5. John 5.28 in the which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Sonne of Man and they shall come forth that have done good unto the resurection of life and they that have done evill unto the refurrection of condemnation 1 Cor. 15.42 And therefore the buriall of our bodies is fitly resembled by St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. to the sowing of seed because as the seed being sowen in the ground doth afterwards revive and spring up againe so our bodies after they are dead and buried shall be revived and quickned Qui tibi grana seminum mortua et putrefacta vivificat August de ver Apost Sermo 34. per quae in hoe saeculâ— vivas multo magis te ipsum resuscitabit ut in aeternum vivas He saith St. Augustine that quickens for thee the graines of Corne when they are dead and rotten whereby thou mayst live upon the earth for a time much more will he raise thy self hereafter that thou mayst live for ever in Heaven For he hath not onely redeemed our souls but likewise our bodies and therefore will not suffer them to perish in their graves but will quicken them again that both our bodies and souls may live with him And thus much concerning his raysing the dead The last thing which is here mentioned is that the poore had the Gospel preached unto them It is the saying of the Prophet Esay Chap. 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath annointed me to preach good tydings unto the poore he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaime liberty to the Captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound Which words Christ expounding Luke 4. when he preached in Nazareth he applies them to himself This day saith he Luke 4.21 is this Scripture fulfilled in your eares to shew that he was annointed of God to preach the Gospel unto the poor Now by the poor to whom he preached the Gospel they are understood who are said by our Saviour Math. 5.3 to be poor in spirit For there are two sorts of poverty the one outward vvhen a man hath not means to maintain himself but wants outward necessaries the other inward vvhen a man is destitute of spirituall graces And thus every one of us all are poor but some do not see their poverty and want as the Laâ—diceans Revel 3.17 that thought themselves rich and increased with goods when they were poor and naked Some see their poverty and find in themselves a want of grace and therefore do hunger and thirst after it and these are the poore to whom Christ is said here to have preached the Gospel Therefore in the place which I named before the Prophet shews to what poor the Gospel should be preached by naming presently the broken hearted And Esay 66.2 The Lord promiseth to have respect unto him that is poore and of a contrite Spirit the latter of these explaining the former that they are the poor whom God respects who are humbled with the sight of their spirituall wants and bewaile nothing more then their want of grace Such were they to whom Christ here
we must be content to yield him obedience and to live as becomes his servants or he will not save us And therefore only the godly that serve him in their life can with comfort commend their souls unto him at the time of their death and say as Steven did Lord Jesus receive my spirit He prayes not for his body but for his soule Though it were his body which was here in danger while the Jews were stoning him yet it is not his body but it is his soule that he prayes for as being more sensible of his future estate then of his present condition and not so much regarding this present life as the life to come Many in their life and at the time of their death are carefull for their bodies thinking of the great pain which their bodies are to suffer when death siezes upon them and taking care how they shall be able to overcome the same This care troubles many that are good Christians who are the more afraid of death for the pain thereof and imagine the pain to be greater then it is That death is painfull there is not any question Si nulla esset mortis amaritudo non magna esset martyrum fortitudo saith Augustine If there were no sharpnesse and pain in death it were no great fortitude in the Martyrs to suffer it But though death be painfull yet we must remember this for our comfort that it will be no more painfull to us then it hath been to the godly in all ages and therefore why should we be afraid to undergo that which all the godly have undergone before us Will not any man be content to be put to that whereunto the King puts his chiefe Favourites for he will think with himselfe if I be put to no more then the Kings Favourites are I shall fare well enough The godly ye know are Gods chiefe Favourites God loves and favours them above all others if therefore they have suffered the paine of death and have not been exempted by God from it we may well be the lesse carefull to undergo it and may assure our selves that though the paine were never so great yet Christ who hath redeemed both our soules and bodies will inable us to bear it and as Cyprian saith Qui semel pro nobis mortem vicit semper vincet in nobis He that once overcame death for us will alwayes overcome it in us And therefore whether we die for the Lord or in the Lord we may well lay the care of our bodies aside and may chearfully commend our soules unto Christ as Steven here did Lord Jesus receive my spirit Doct. I might hence observe the immortality of the soule That though the body do die yet the soule is immortall This is signified by those words of Solomon Eccles 12.7 That the body shall returne to the earth from Whence it was taken and the spirit shall returne unto God who gave it Mat. 10.28 and by that saying of our Saviour Fear not those that can kill the body but are not able to kill the soule But I will passe this over and come briefly to the prayer which he makes for his persecutours He kneeled down and cryed with a loud voice Lord lay not this sinne to their charge Where first observe the gesture he used he kneeled down when he prayed The Jews did commonly stand when they prayed Therefore Christ alluding to this their custome Mark 11. When ye stand saith he and pray if ye have ought against any man forgive him And the Jewes have a saying Sine stationibus non consisteret mundus that the world could not consist without standing that is without praying because they were wont to pray standing 1 Kings 19.4 1 Chro. 17.16 The Prophet Eliah when he fled from Iezabel he prayed sitting And we read the like of David that he sat and prayed Other kinde of gestures we use in our prayers which may be reduced unto these two heads such as we use in regard of our Hope or in regard of our Humiliation and Reverence In regard of our hope we lift up our eyes and we stretch forth our hands as expecting and requiring Gods help and assistance So David in the 121. Psalm I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help And Moses praying for the Isracletes Exod. 17. That they might prevale against Amaleck he stretched forth his hands For as Saint Austin saith Oculus erectus expectat manus extensa postulat The eyes being lift up expect help and the hands being stretcht forth do seeme to reuqire it In regard of our humiliation and reverence we uncover our heads we bow down our bodies and we kneele on our knees we uncover our heads which is Magnificentia depositio a laying aside of our greatnesse And thus Kings and Princes when they pray unto God do uncover their heads laying aside their state and acknowledging thereby that they are Gods Servants So we prostrate our selves and fall down on our knees as Steven here did in token of the reverence we owe unto God in offering our prayers And this gesture of kneeling we finde to have been often used by the faithfull and as the Magdeburgenses who wrote the Centuries affirme hath been the most ancient gesture in prayer and the most used by the Church in all ages Peter as we see in the 9. of the Asts and Paul in the 20. did pray kneeling so did the Prophet Daniel in his sixt Chapter Saint James the first Bishop of Jerusalem was so frequent in praying on his knees that he made his knees as hard as the hoofe of a Camel with continuall kneeling And the like did Asella as we read in St. Jerome It is true indeed that it is the heart and affection of him that prays and not the gesture of the body which God respects but withall this is true that he that makes no conscience of praying reverently doth never pray heartily and he that will not bend the knee unto God much lesse out of doubt will he bend the heart O come let us Worship and fall down saith the Psalmest and kneele before the Lord our maker Psal 95.6 Micah 6.6 Where withall shall I come saith the Prophet Micah in his sixt chapter before the Lord and bow my self before the high God To shew that he might not come into his presence but with great reverence And therefore this serves to reprove those that shew no signes of reverence unto God 2 Chr. 6.13 Luke 22 4â— when they come before him to offer up their prayers We see that Solomon when he consecrated the Temple 2 Chron. 6. he kneeled down and prayed and a greater then Solomon our blessed Saviour Luke 22. kneeled down when he prayed be for his passion If he therefore used such reverence in prayer should not we much more For shall mercy bend her knee and shall not misery Shall the Physician and shall not the Patient Shall
notice of the means or instrument whereby they are afflicted but look not up unto him that sent is as the dog flieth upon the stone that is thrown at him but mindeth not him that threw it but in every affliction we look up to God as the principall Agent Thus when Shimei reviled David 2 Sam. 16. telling him openly before all the people that he was a murderer and a wicked man and that he was an usurper of Sauls Kingdom and Davids Servants would have stain Shemei for railing on him David would not suffer them to do him any harm and he gives this reason Suffer him saith he to curse me for the Lord hath bidden him and so he looks not upon Shimei 2 Sam. 16. 11. but he hath an eye unto God as the Authour of this affliction Thus when the Devill had got a licence from God to afflict Job and the Sabeans on the one side took away his oxen as they were plowing and his asses as they were feeding in their places and the Calde ans on the other side took away his Camels and put his servants to the edge of the sword Job though he understood by his servants that it was done by them yet he passeth them by as being but the instruments and ascribes it to God as the principall Agent The Lord saith he hath given Job 1.21 and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. And thus when Joseph was afflicted by his brethren and sold into Egypt though he knew that this was done by them and that of an evill intent and meer malice towards him yet he looks not upon them but he looks upon God as the Author of his affliction Gen. 45.7.8 Gen. 50.20 The Lord saith he hath sent me hither for your preservation and the Lord hath disposed it unto good So that whensoever we are any way afflicted we are to passe by all second causes as being but the means and instruments which God useth to afflict us but we are especially to have an eye unto God as to the principall Agent and to remember that it is God that chastens us Vse 2 Secondly Seeing God is the Authour of all afflictions Therefore whensoever we are afflicted we are to humble our selves under the hand of God and to bear with patience whatsoever it shall please God to lay upon us For seeing God is the Authour of our afflictions who as Saint Paul saith 1 Cor. 10. is faithfull and will not suffer us to be tempted above our power but will give an issue with the temptation that we may be able to bear it and seeing that if we indure chastening as the Apostle here telleth us in the next verse God offers himselfe unto us as unto Sons Heb. 12.7 he offers himself as a father unto us therefore we are patiently to under go all afflictions that he shall lay upon us Diogenes the Philosopher being visited with sicknesse and being impatient by reason of his pain his friend to comfort him willed him to be of good chear and to bear it with patience because God was the Authour of his sicknesse Oh saith the Philosopher but this is that which grieves me the more this is that which maketh me the more impatient seeing that my sicknesse is sent of God But it is not so with the children of God they are always the more patient when they are afflicted and do bear the same without murmuring and repining because God is the Authour of their afflication So when old Eli 1 Sam. 3. understood by Samuel what God had threatned even to root out his house for ever he submitted himself unto Gods will It is faith he the Lord 1 Sam. 3.18 Psal 39.9 let him do what seemeth him good The like did David Psal 39. when the hand of the Lord was so heavy upon him that it even consumed him yet he bare it patiently I became faith he dumb and opened not my mouth for it was thy doing When Jobs wife would have had him to blaspheme and to curse God in the extreamity of his pain Job 2.10 Thou speakest saith Job like a foolish woman shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evill as thinking it unreasonable that we should be content to receive the one and not the other If our earthly parents do chasten and correct us we will endure it with patience and should we not endure the chastisement and correction of our heavenly Father We have had saith the Apostle here in the 9th verse the fathers of our bodies which have corrected us and we have given them reverence and should we not faith he much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits We will suffer the Physician in the time of our sicknesse because he hath seen our water or felt our pulse to let us bloud we will suffer him to prescribe us a lesse diet and to take away from us the use of some meats wherein in our health we were much delighted and we will patiently endure the want thereof and not murmure against him And should we not yield as much unto God as we do to the Physician yet if God take away from us any of those things wherein we were wont to take comfort and delight if he afflict us with the losse of our goods with the losse of our health or with the losse of our friends we presently fall into great impatiencie as if so be God dealt too hardly with us But doth not God know what is best for us if he afflict thee with the losse of thy goods he fore-saw it may be they would have done thee harm and that thou would'st have set thy heart upon them Nisi perdidisses tu illa te fortè perdidissent faith Seneca If God had not withdrawn thy riches from thee it may be thy riches would have withdrawn thee from God If God take away thy health and afflict thee with sicknes it may be it is to cure thee of a more dangerous disease as foreseeing that otherwise if thou hadst had thy health thou wouldest have taken a greater surfet of the pleasures of this life If God do afflict thee with any kind of disgrace by suffering thee to be wronged in thy good name and credit it may be he doth it to teach thee humility as fore-seeing that otherwise thou wouldest have waxed proud and vain-glorious For vicâ—sin the mind saith Plato are as diseases in the body and chastilements as medicines and surely God is the Physician that knows best how to apply them And therefore whensoever we are any way afflicted we are to possesse our soules with patience because it is God that chastens Lastly Seeing it is God that chastens this may therefore teach us in all our afflictions to seek vnto God for help deliverance Vse 3 that he that wounded us may cure recover us the same hand that cast us down may raise us up again I saith
are kept out by Porters yet they have free liberty to come into Gods House and though they have not accesse to rich mens tables yet they may have accesse to the Table of the Lord as well as the richest And though here the poor toile and take great pains to supply their wants yet this may be their comfort That God hath provided them if they serve him a place of rest hereafter and that the time is but short that they shall live in want and be forced thereby to toile and take paines for when they die they shall be freed from their wants and shall rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 And in the mean time though the poor do live in want yet as that holy Martyr said when some threatned to famish her Elizabeth Young If you saith she take away my meat I trust that God will take away my hunger So if the poor depend upon God for that which they want instead thereof he will give them contentment by taking away their desire of that which they want that they shall not need it And these things if the poorer sort considered it would make their poverty lesse evill to themselves and lesse hurtfull to others And as Agur here prayes That God would not give him poverty so likewise that God would not give him riches Give me saith he neither poverty nor riches To pray against poverty which many so fear is no more then the most will do but to pray against riches which the most so desire may be thought a Paradox But Agur here desiring rather to be good then great and fearing that riches would make him worse he praies that God would not give him riches Though riches be not evill in their own nature yet they may be as we heard before of poverty occasions of evill occasions of evill to him that is rich and of evill to others through his being rich First Of evill to him that is rich For riches do often make men proud and to forget God This Agur implies in the next verse by giving this reason why he desired that he might not be rich Least saith he I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord For none are so prone to forget God as they commonly are whom he hath blest with riches though their riches should make them the more to remember him as gifts call to mind the givers of them Therefore Moses gave a speciall Caveat to the Children of Israel to beware they forgat not the Lord when he had enricht them in the Land of Canaan Deut. 6.10 When the Lord thy God saith Moses Deut. 6. shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildest not and houses full of all good things which thou filledst not and wels digged which thou diggedst not vineyards and olive-trees which thou plantedst not when thou hast eaten and art full then beware lest thou forget the Lord. Deut. 8.11 And again Deut. 8. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God lest when thou hast eaten and art full and hast builded goodly houses and dwelt therein and when thy heards and thy flocks do multiply and when thy silver and gold and all that thou hast is multiplyed then thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord implying that then they would be most prone to forget him For riches by the fair shew they make do steal away mens hearts from God 2 Sam. 15.6 Psal 62.10 as Absolon by his fair shews to the people did steal away their hearts from David Therefore David gives rich men this counsell Psal 62. If riches increase set not your hearts upon them because if the heart be set upon riches then not upon God For no man saith our Saviour can serve two Masters Mat. 6.24 ye cannoâ— serve both God and riches no more then the eye as St. Augustine saith can both look up to heaven and down to the earth at the same time And as riches do steale mens hearts from God and make them not to regard him so sometimes they steale mens hearts from themselves that they regard themselves lesse then they do their riches and therefore toyle continually to get Wealth and yet are not satisfied though they have more then enough And therefore Agur in the 15. and 16. ver of this Chapter compares the covetous rich-man to those things that are the most insatiable of all other as to the Horse-leach which is ever crying give give which sucks the blood untill she be filled and then she fals off and yet presently after she fals to it a fresh and is as hungry of it as she was before To the grave that never cries it is enough but though it receive never so many dead bodies yet it consumes all and is still gaping as it were and opening the mouth that it may receive more To the earth that cannot be satisfied with water but though sometimes it be so glutted with raine and made as it were drunken so that it vomits it up againe that a man would thinke that it had taken such a surfet that it would brook rain the worse for a long time after yet ye know if it be but without showers for a while it will begin to chappe and chaune and be as thirsty thereof as it was before And so likewise to fire which is of so insatiable a nature that it cannot be exstinguisht with adding fewell unto it but the more fewell it has the more greedy it is catching hold of all that is round about it first of the chimney where it was first kindled then of the roof of the house then of the whole building and yet it will not stay there but will presently take hold of the house that is next it and so will still go further further till it have devour'd and consumed whatsoever is nere it Now as these are insatiable as the Horse-leach is not satisfyed with sucking blood the grave with the dead the earth with water nor the fire with fewell no more can a covetous rich-man be satisfied with riches though he have never so much Hence it is that such do make themselves drudges to the world to get wealth and yet grudge themselves any part thereof as unwilling to lessen that which they have For the more they have Viri divitiarum the more they desire their riches which should be a medicine to cure them of covetousnesse increasing their disease and making them more covetous and lesse willing to spend any thing upon themselves For Mammon doth commonly use his servants as Gardeners use their Asses in some Countries loading them to the Market with good herbes which are a burden to them and food for others and turning them when they have done to feed upon Thistles And thus doth Mammon deale with his followers loading them with wealth and not suffering them to injoy the benefit thereof but makes them to fare