could be suspected like Cato that came into the Theater at one door and went out at another Ideo tantum intrarunt ut exirent Surely the Disciples thought if these would have staid they could have hung at their lips and heard the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven from their mouth No says the voice let them go here is one that is the chief Master in Israel far above Moses and Elias hear him Moses will stand dumb while he speaks and this is Moses his own Doctrine concerning Christ A Prophet will the Lord your God raise up unto you like unto me hear him Deut. xviii Moses confesseth of himself O Lord I am not eloquent I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue therefore hear not him Exod. iv 10. Elias is rigid and severe and will call down fire from heaven hear not him Peter knew not what he said in this very story David said it in his haste but it is very true upon deliberation all men are liars Lying is not all that is naught in the mouth of man filthiness and blasphemies issue from some uncircumcised lips no ways fit to be heard as Eliakim the servant of Hezekiah besought that odious tongued Rabshekah to speak in such a language as few or none might understand him The talk of him that sweareth much maketh the hair stand upright and their brawls make one stop his ears Ecclus. xxvii 14. In a word men may bewitch us with their fair words not to obey the truth but we are sure how all that Christ speaketh is just and righteous therefore let men vanish away the truth of the Lord abideth for ever hear him Again the Disciples might be confused not only for the departure of Moses and Elias but because the form and fashion of Christ did return to his wonted humility the fashion of his countenance did no more look like the Sun neither was his rayment white and glistering what amends can be made for this loss But that God declares our happiness consists not in seeing but in hearing His Person must ascend unto the Father and his glory dwell there but his Word abideth for ever if we keep his sayings we are Christs and Christ is one with us hear him Be it the abrogation of Moses Law be it the contempt of the world the denying of our selves the sufferance of the Cross the losing of our life all is one his roughest Precepts are to be obeyed hear him indefinitely without restriction or exception As the Blessed Virgin his Mother said unto the Servants at Cana in Galilee Whatsoever he saith unto you do it Joh. ii 5. Be the Commandment great or small it claims obedience whosoever breaketh one of the least Commandments and doth not repent him shall be counted the least in the Kingdom of heaven Some man I know hath framed this cavillation already in his own heart if Jesus Christ were now upon the earth as sometimes he was in the Land of Jury who would not travel over Sea and Land to hear him This Precept should be kept with all alacrity Indeed the words which dropt from his own lips were most winning and pathetical Therefore this voice might justly challenge the Jews to give him fair audience and hear him speak and they could not refuse him If Tertullian presumed in his Apologetick to the Emperor that the Christian cause in his days had never been cried down if it might have been heard speak in the trial of judgment much more must it hold in the person of Christ himself Nolentes audire quod auditum damnare non possunt The Judges would not hear our Plea says Tertullian for had they heard us with patience they knew they could not cast us so the gracious words which fell from our Saviour made those Officers relent at least if not repent that were sent to betray him Never man spake like this man Joh. vii 46. They brake out into that passion before the Pharisees They had heard but little from Christ says St. Chysostome yet enough to turn their hearts from that purpose which they were sent to execute Cum mens fuerit incorrupta non longis sermonibus opus est Few words will prevail where the mind brings no corrupt passions to hold off the truth This is to shew that the Oracles which the Son of God spake from his own mouth were most moving and gracious that tongue was able to charm the very Devils to obey him Why Beloved we do hear him speak continually in the Church as verily as if he were now among us and preach'd daily as sometimes he did in the Temple at Jerusalem So St. Paul commends the Thessalonians that his Doctrine took with them as if they had heard Christ himself Ye received it not as the word of man but as it is in truth the Word of God For whatsoever we believe if you ask after the formal cause of faith the answer is neither because the Apostles writ it or the Church delivered it or such to whom God hath commited the dispensation of the Word do preach it but because God reveals it the formal cause of all faith is divine revelation therefore hear Christ speaking among you to this day not by the instrument of his own tongue but by the revelation of his Spirit I say the formal cause of faith is divine revelation but the Church is the mouth that utters it And therefore because the Church is the Pipe which conveys those sacred mysteries which Christ reveals our Lords own sentence was If he will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Ethnick The meaning is while the Church directs you in a right line The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe observe and do You hear what awful submission is due to them who are sent from God to teach you Perhaps you will demur upon those words of our Saviour For in that same Chap. Mat. xxiii 16. Christ calls the Pharisees blind guides reproves their interpretation of Scripture for saying If a man swore by the Temple it was nothing if he swore by the Gold of the Temple he was a debtor Generally he gave his Apostles a caveat Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees not meaning their Bread but their false Traditions But take our Saviours exhortation in a right construction and thus it is all that the Scribes and Pharisees recite out of Moses and the Law observe and do They are the mouth of God by their place and calling When they speak the truth all is one whether you hear them or Christ or God speak from heaven it is the same Gospel and all have but one intendment He that receiveth you receiveth me and he that heareth me heareth him that sent me you know who spake it This voice did not purpose the present Age should hear Christ only but that the future Ages should hear his Priests when they speak like
Day of Salvation says Isaiah and that day reacheth from the time that Remission of sins is preached in the bloud of Christ unto the end of the world Now as the Text is common to all Evangelical Days so there is one Day that lifts up its head above them all the most memorable Day of our Saviour's Resurrection then it was verily fulfilled as Peter urg'd it that the Stone which the Builders refused became the head of the corner St. Chrysostom Nyssen and almost who not pitch upon Easter-day for the particular application of this Text that was the Day wherein God did bring forth a more eminent work than in other common days and upon every Sunday in the year for that Day 's sake the Church hath appointed sacred Assemblies that we may rejoyce and be glad Well then of Davids Day first and from thence how particular Holidays may be ordeined to magnifie Gods extraordinary benefits next of the blessed Age of the Gospel wherein we have great cause to rejoyce and be comforted for Christ hath wiped away all tears from our eyes And last of all I shall take the right opportunity to speak of the glorious Feast of the Resurrection and how the Church doth keep the weekly Feast of the Lords day to rejoyce and be glad in it And first the Holy Ghost hath left it written for the honor of the Lords Anointed This is the Day which the Lord hath made There is one thing in that form of speech which jarrs a little against the ear how can it be said that God did make one day more than another for he hath framed all Times and Seasons alike the Sun knoweth his going down and he maketh it return again every morning to give light unto the World In the Hymns of the Heathen he is called Diespiter the Father of all days indifferently it is he that sets the Heavens in perpetual motion and makes the hours run on and when he calls back his word the Plumbets shall go down and time shall be no more It is granted therefore that he giveth continuance and being to all days after one sort and for the Phrase of my Text a new Writer hath well exprest himself Non includitur mensura temporis sed conditiones tempori incidentes it is not meant of the Day which the Sun makes with his diurnal motion but of the great Work which was wrought in that Day that is not that God made that Day more than others but that He made more in that Day than in others It is vulgar to impute the condition of things which fall out in some certain dayes to the days themselves per metonymiam adjuncti although a day as it is meerly a space of time cannot possibly be capable of such Attributes We take liberty to call this a cold or a moist day not for its own sake but because coldness and moisture happen in the day so for the contingency of glorious things we call the day it self glorious and to renown the memorable acts of the Lord we have got a use to speak thus This is the day which the Lord hath made In 1 Sam. 12.6 according to the Original and that 's pointed at in our Margent it is said that the Lord made Moses and Aaron why are not all that are born of a woman the works of his hands as well as Moses and Aaron therefore our Translation hath rendred the sense rather than the word that the Lord advanced Moses and Aaron In like manner we may read my Text thus This is the Day which the Lord advanced for he made it remarkable with an extraordinary favour and thereby gave it a Dignity and Exaltation above its fellows The going out and the return of every year are from the Almighty with the store and abundance that it brings forth but when the clouds drop fatness with unusual plenty then the Prophet says that he crowns that year with his goodness Psal lxv 11. So some principal Days are crowned above the rest as this Day wherein through the sun shine of his mercy he set a Crown of pure Gold upon the head of David his Servant Piety forbid that we should not thankfully receive the most vulgar benefits I know that common things are commonly neglected but learn to see God in small things or you shall never see him in greater If I had learnt it of no other yet I find enough in Seneca for that use Communia negligenda non sunt c. neglect not to give thanks for common and quotidian favours for life and health and suppeditation of food that the Sun doth shine upon us that we have the air to breath in that the Sea doth ebb and flow for navigation There are days of small things as Zachary calls them chap. iv 10. but those small things are to be consider'd of us with a grateful heart who are less than the least of all his mercies but how much more requisite is it then to observe those days wherein some eminent blessings are confer'd upon us what a behooveful thing it is every man for his own part to keep a Calender of the famous Acts of the Lord for our Birth for our Baptism for great Preservations and to represent them before us at the return of every year with grateful acknowledgment from the bottom of our heart and when God doth see that we are so mindful of a prosperous Day he will grant us many prosperous Years and for the period of joy a most prosperous Eternity that shall never have a period This is made as plane then as you can wish upon what special Prerogative the Lord is said to make a particular day because he doth appoint some special favour to fall out upon it and the Wise-mans Question is answered Ecclus. xxxiii 7. Why doth one day excel another when as all the light of every day of the year is of the Sun It is not the material light which distinguisheth the nobleness of Dayes but he that made the Sun more excellent than the other Stars of the Firmament hath made Princes glorious as the Sun in the Orb of the Common-wealth and a Day of a Princes Exaltation is like a Prince among Days and in that capacity to be magnified Such a day is said to be made by God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because God himself and none else is the Author of the Power of Kings He and none but He took David from following the Ews great with young and set him over the Princes of his People In a word since the Day is taken for the Work of the Day the real meaning of the first words of my Text is this is the King which the Lord hath made Samuel anointed him the People shouted and cried God save him but the Lord did constitute him the Ruler of the Twelve Tribes and gave him his Sovereign Authority the Crowns of Glory in Heaven and the Crowns of Dignity upon Earth are both held by
get that the very Walls of Gods House might bear a part in their rejoycing As for Processions from one Church to another on this day I find no such Custom in the best Ages of Religion Although in some late hundred years it is in use at Rome that their chief Prelates visit the seven principal Churches in grand Procession because and alass for so poor a cause that Christ after He was risen bad his Disciples go before him into Galilee Thirdly the Word of God was preached laboriously and studied for that occasion Ex verbo illud potissimum quod est tempori convenientissimum says Nazianzen let that Scripture be handled which belongs to the Season and beside the Sermon their Service was set forth with all gravity and sweetness of Musick Laeti exultantesque celebremus says St. Ambrose c. let our shrill voices proclaim it that we are glad and Theodoret gives warning that this Panegyrical Day be kept honestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not with drunkenness and riot and profuse laughter but singing Psalms and hearing the Word attentively Fourthly this Feast was the solemn time for receiving Baptism this and the Feast of Whitsuntide and unless in case of necessity it was never given of old at other times all that were presented at Baptism coming in white Garments professing thereby that they would keep their righteousness pure and immaculate until the second coming of the Lord. Fifthly as Baptism is the washing away of sins which could not choose but comfort their hearts over all the Church and make them chearful so the confirmation of that Faith was the receiving of the Holy Communion of Christs Body and Bloud which all did universally apply themselves to that could examin themselves and none did fail whereupon says Leo this is the peculiar Blessing of Easter-day ut in remissione peccatorum universa gaudeat Ecclesia that the whole Church had cause to rejoyce that remission of sins was sealed unto them that is either in the Sacrament of Baptism or in the Supper of the Lord. Sixthly whereas it was disputed and tossed about extremely at what time all Christians should keep their Easter the holy Bishops that were otherwise at odds consented in two things the one that it should begin immediately after the sorrowful affliction of Lent was laid aside The other that it should be appointed in the sweetness of the Spring when the year is most delightsom and beautiful Et laetitiam conciliat huic festo verna amaenitas says one the amiable verdure of the Spring is joyn'd unto it to make Easter more joyful Seventhly some did alter the year and set the beginning of it from the Feast of the Resurrection We come very near it in one computation our selves This I find that as some friends do send Presents one to the other at the beginning of the new year So Nazianzen says that at Easter all were wont to give either Oblations to God or Gifts to their Neighbours or Alms to the Poor For Festival Solemnities are a due mixture of Praise and Bounty The Jews at the Passover did offer to God the first fruits of their Barly at the Feast of Pentecost Loaves made of new Wheat at the Feast of Tabernacles the first fruits of other Fruits which they had gathered All pompous days had some mixture of liberality Eighthly in Theodosius the Emperors time a Law passed to the end that all might keep their Easter merrily without interruption that no Process or Arrest should go forth in any Court against any man from the Sunday before Easter to the Sunday after Easter that is for the space of fifteen days Ninthly as the Political Magistrate was so respectful of this Festival so was the Ecclesiastical For the ancient Council of Ancyra order'd that to the end all might rejoyce and be glad this day Excommunications Suspensions and all Censures should end at Easter nay the great Council of Nice took care that in every Province or Diocess a Synod of the Clergy should be held every Lent to set all matters strait against this time that there might be no variance no quarrel no complaint remaining As if this were our Jubilee wherein Servants were manumitted from Bondage Debts were remitted and Possessions restored to the owners that had sold them Certainly the holy Fathers meant that above all the Feasts of the year this was our joyful Jubilee Tenthly and lastly the principal stamp of gladness set upon this day was that the first day of the week namely Sunday is kept holy every day of the week for Easter-days sake of which I will make a larger work hereafter But every Sunday was strictly kept with such solemn postures of joy that the last Canon of the Nicene Council interdicted all Christians from kneeling on those days they must pray standing that is chearfully and kneeling was supposed to be the gesture of affliction and humiliation The end of all these Edicts and Ceremonies was to let us know that the Lord had done great things for us for which we ought to rejoyce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even to skip for joy for true joy will break forth as John did in the womb of Elizabeth Death is a comfort against all sorrows and the Resurrection is a comfort against Death and Christ is our comfort that we shall have a joyful resurrection and the holy Sacrament is our visible comfort that we still live in Christ for evermore AMEN A SERMON UPON THE Church Festivals PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it THE Substance of Religion is to fear God and to praise him The Circumstances thereof are to perform this in fit time and place and to do all things belonging to his Worship decently and in order It is for the sutableness of time that I continue my Meditations upon this Text for there are many things which are but accidentary to the main and yet of such forcible consequence that nothing can stand without them So opportunity of time is such a forcible annexion to the performance of Divine Service as no external thing is more available The sweet tongue of Musick would be unpleasant if it kept not time so the Christian Melody which we make to God would want the grace and delight that is in it if days and times were not solemnly and prudently divided to call holy Assemblies together for the work of the Lord. If I speak of time like a Naturalist it is but the measure of the continuance of things that have a being given unto them and it neither works in them any real effect nor is it self capable of any But passing it by in this low regard and taking it in hand Theologically so the hours which are appointed to present our reasonable Sacrifice in the House of the Almighty are of such great consideration to the furtherance of Piety that they are woven into Religion like sinews into the body neither
And though I am likely to do all this with very small Acumen and judgment yet I hope with true zeal and sincere affection to the glory of God and honour of the Church of England The Members of which Church have been reputed of all others the slackest to celebrate their own Worthies partly I conceive from the humility and modesty of their Principles and Education partly from the great multitude of incomparable Scholars therein to be commemorated that such labours would be almost infinite For which reason the Dypticks of the Ancient Church were likewise laid aside when Religion was setled and Christians grew numerous But yet if the Divines of the Church of England lived elsewhere we may well conjecture what Books the World should have had of their learning and piety For who sees not the many Volumes of Lives daily published by others wherein ample Commendations are given to idleness popularity and very ordinary deservings After an impartial reading thereof I cannot but think that our Own Church has far better Subjects and matter to write upon if we that survive wanted not ability or affection to maintain our own Cause and publish the Merits of our departed Worthies to the World Therefore out of Emulation partly and shame from a foolish Nation as St. Paul says but much more out of a profound sense of the Duty I owe to the Memory of this renowned Prelate and most of all out of hope of stimulating posterity to the imitation of the vertues of better times I have taken care to give the World this Account of our Author and not to permit his Books to be buried as it were in the Grave with his Body mortal and immortal to descend together into the same Land of oblivion Though it be no real Prerogative but an accidental and contingent thing How we are born after the flesh yet it is commendable to search into the Beginning and Causes of such things as we would throughly know and therefore the Extract and Parentage of learned and great men is usually enquired after in the first place John Hacket was born in the Parish of St. Martins in the Strand near Exeter House upon September 1. Anno Domini 1592. in the happy Reign of Queen Elizabeth of honest and virtuous Parents and of good reputation in that place his Father being then a Senior Burgess of Westminster and afterwards belonging to the Robes of Prince Henry descended from an antient Family in Scotland which reteins the Name to this day His Father and Mother were both true Protestants great lovers of the Church of England constant repairers to the Divine Prayers and Service thereof and would often bewail to their young Son after the coming in of their Countrymen with King James the seed of Fanaticism then laid in the scandalous neglect of the Publick Liturgy which all the Queens time was exceedingly frequented the people then resorting as devoutly to Prayers as they would afterwards to hear any famous Preacher about the Town And his aged Parents often observed to him that Religion towards God justice and love amongst Neighbours gradually declined with the disuse of our Publick Prayer In our Bishops opinion Parentage alone added little to any man no more than if we should commend the Stock of a Tree when we cannot commend the Fruit Mirari in trunco quod in fructu non teneas who held that the glory of our Forefathers reflected upon us was but Color intentionalis like the sparkling colour of wine upon fair Linnen or as the Sea-green and Purple in the Rainbow which are not real colours but meer shadows and reflections And that never was Pedegree so well set out as that of Noah These are the Generations of Noah Noah was a just man c. And in like manner our Blessed Saviour commends his Forerunner John Baptist not so much for his Honourable Descent and Miraculous Conception as for his pious and laborious Ministry in turning many to Righteousness This was agreeable to our Bishop's mind in comparison whereof he little valued all other Titles of Honour But in his discourse he would often give God thanks for the place he was born in viz. that he was born an Englishman and especially in the City of London He was indeed a great lover of his own Nation little England as he would term it the sweetest spot of all the Earth and say that the City of London was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very England of England Vrbs Vrbium and wish the Country were a little more sprinkled with her Flour for in his Travels he had discerned in places remote a Northern rigour and churlishness among our Villagers wanting that Southern sleekness that was usually found in Cities and great Towns the Metropolis especially And though there is no place but has in some Age been enlightned with some famous Luminary The Prophet Jonas was born in Galilee out of which said the Pharisees there arises no Prophet Yet withal it was observed in Scythia there was never born but one Philosopher but in Athens all were such So in all parts of England there have been learned men born but in London innumerable and therefore once in a pleasant discourse between Him and a learned Friend who were reckoning up the Country where many Scholars were born and could not presently tell what Countryman Mr. L. was the Bishop merrily said As the Rabbins believed when ever any great Prophet was named in Scripture and the place of his Birth not named that it was in Jerusalem so he would take it for granted by the like parity of reason since Mr. L's Country was unknown he must needs be born in London Yet in his judgment it was but a small lustre likewise that the Place where any Man was Teem'd could cast upon him but he ought rather to give Lustre to it for Places did not conciliate Honour to Men but Men to Places and that little Hippo was more ennobled by great St. Austin than great St. Austin by little Hippo. And therefore he never rejoyced so much for the City or Country wherein he was born as for the Churches sake wherein he was baptized and born again which of all others to his dying day he most loved and admired and accordingly he would often render hearty thanks to God that his Birth and Breeding was in a Reformed Church and of all others the most prudent and exact according to the Doctrine of holy Scripture and the Primitive Pattern that would neither continue in the Fulsom Superstitions of the Roman Church nor in Reforming be born down with the violent Torrent as some others were But from these lesser Circumstances of his Birth let us therefore proceed to those of his Education and Breeding which are far greater and do especially make the difference between one man and another For whereas all by Nature are born alike of the same corrupt Materials Education only like the Hand or Wheel of
say to this objection Prayer is the Incense which ascends up to heaven and brings down God's blessing upon us for fourscore and two years without interruption God hath continued true Religion among us and blessed this Kingdom with peace and prosperity and not without the daily assistance of the Prayers of Cathedral Churches How the Lord will dispose of us if those places be silenced touching the frequency of that holy duty it is only in the foreknowledg of God and no man can guess it Secondly I will proceed to the other Wing of the Cherubin the great power of God to work our conversion and salvation which is Preaching and therein the use and convenience of Cathedral and Collegiat Churches hath been and we hope may continue so to be very great May it please you Mr. Speaker and this Honourable House it must be confessed that in the beginning of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory many of our Parochial Churches were supplied with men of slight and easie parts but especial care was taken that in our Cathedral Churches to which great concourses did resort men of very able parts were planted to preach both on the Lords day and on some week day as appears by Dr. Alley afterwards Bishop of Exeter who preached such learned Sermons in the Church of St. Pauls that he hath left unto us good matter to collect out of him even to this day And give me leave Mr. Speaker to take occasion from hence to refel that slander which some have cast out that Lecture-preachers are a new Corporation Vpstarts and such other words of obloquy Sir this is nothing but ignorance and malice for as the local Statutes of all or the most Cathedral Churches do require Lecture-Sermons on the Week-dayes so from the beginning of Reformation they have been read in them by very able Divines And it is our humble suit Mr. Speaker unto this Honourable House that if our local Statutes have not laid enough upon us in the godly and profitable performance of Preaching that by the assistance of this Honourable House more may be exacted particularly that two Sermons may be preached in every Cathedral and Collegiate Church upon the Lords day and one at the least on the Week-days Our motion comes from this consideration that the Divines for the most part are studied and able men to perform them and those Churches are usually supplied with large and copious Libraries and the Monuments of Antiquity Councils Fathers Modern Authors Schoolmen Casuists and many Books must be turn'd over by him that will utter that which should endure the test and convince gainsayers In the third place Mr. Speaker I shall name that whose use and conveniency is so nearly and irrefragably concern'd by the prosperity of Cathedral and Collegiat Churches that it is as palpable as if you felt it with your hand and that 's the advancement and encouragement of Learning a benefit of that consideration that I am assured it doth deeply enter into the thoughts of this Honourable House And because our years ascend up by degrees therefore I will follow this speculation through three of those ascensions First touching our puny years in Grammar Schools Secondly touching young Students in the Vniversities that enter into their first course of Divinity Thirdly touching grave Divines of great proficiency who maintain the cause of true Religion by their learned Pen And first out principal Grammar Schools in the Kingdom are maintained by the charity of those Churches the care and discipline of them is set forward by their oversight fit Masters are provided for them and their method in teaching frequently examin'd and great cause for it for School-Masters of late are grown so fanciful inducing new Methods and Compendiums of teaching which tend to nothing but loss of time and ignorance so that it is not enough to nominate Governors to look unto them once in a twelve-month or every half year but there must be care without intemission to see that they swerve not as likewise for this use that the most deserving Scholars be transplanted to the Vniversities by their examination and choice so that these young Seminaries of Learning depend upon them and would come to lamentable decay if they had not such Governors For the next rank of young Students that are to begin the study of Divinity it must be confessed by all men that are conversant in the general experience of the world that they will be far more industrious when they see rewards prepared which may recompence the costs which they put their friends to in their education and make them some recompence for their great labours It is represented before them how many tedious dayes and nights they must devour prolix Authors that are set before them had they not need of encouragement to undergo it and where there is not a desirable Prize to run for who will toil himself much to contend for it Upon the fear and jealousie that these retributions of labour should be taken away from industrious Students the Vniversities of the Realm do feel a languor and a pining away already in both their bodies In a populous Colledge I mean Trinity Colledge in Cambridge wherein 70 or 80 Students were admitted communibus annis I have heard by two Witnesses of that Society that not above six were admitted from Allhalland-day to Faster Eeve Let any man ask the Booksellers of Pauls Church-yard and Little-Britain if their Books I mean grave and learned Authors do not lie upon their hand and are not sailable There is a timorous imagination abroad as if we were shutting up learning in a Case and laying it quite aside Mr. Speaker if the bare threatning make such a stop in all kind of literature what would it work if the blow were given To this end both the Universities have sent up their humble Petitions to this Honourable House which we greatly desire may graciously be admitted The third Rank are those that are the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel the Champions of Christs Cause against the Adversary by their learned Pen And those that have left us their excellent labours in this kind excepting some few have either been the Professors and Commorants in the two Universities or such as have had Preferments in Colledgiat and Cathedral Churches as I am able to shew by a Catalogue of their Names and Works For such and none but such are furnished with best opportunity to write Books for the defence of our Religion For as in the Universities the Society of many learned men may be had for advise and discourse so when we depart from them to live abroad we find small Academies in the company of many grounded Scholars in those Foundations and it is discourse that ripens learning as the spark of fire is struck out between the Flint and the Steel There likewise we have copious and well furnished Libraries to peruse learned Authors of all kinds which must be consulted in great
vox which I shall bring forth that they have barr'd all alienation with many curses and imprecations It is Gods own sentence upon the Censers which Core and his Complices used in their Schism with pretence to do God's service Numb 16.38 They offered them before the Lord therefore they are hallowed This is not spoken after the way of a Levitical form and nicety for the using of those Censers was anti-Levitical but this is an absolute Theological Rule out of the mouth of the Lord that which is offered unto the Lord is hallowed Again Prov. 20.25 It is a snare to the man that devoureth that which is holy This is Proverbial Divinity every mans notion and in every mans mouth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theology preached in every Street of the City and every High-way of the Field Let me only add that smart question of St. Paul Rom. 2.22 Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacrilege I have done Mr. Speaker if you will let me add this Epiphonema Upon the ruins of the rewards of learning no Structure can be raised up but ignorance and upon the Chaos of ignorance no Structure can be built but profaneness and confusion In the Afternoon it was put to the Question and carried by many Votes that their Revenues should not be taken away yet not long after in the same Session after a most Unparliamentary manner they put it to a second Vote and without a second hearing Voted the contrary And now all things tending to violence it was no longer safe to debate these things publickly therefore at his House were held constant meetings of the Loyal Clergy Bishops often and others Morton Brownrig Holdsworth Jefferies and many more who from thence wrote Letters all over England to all Divines of learning and reputation especially of the Vniversity of Cambridge to know how they stood affected Quae vobis mentes rectè quae stare solebant And to engage them to stand fast in the cause of the King and Church Amongst others Dr. Brownrig having been formerly acquainted sent to old Mr. Dod the Decalogist for his opinion who answered That he had been scandalized with the proud and tyrannical practices of the Marian Bishops but now after more than sixty years experience of many Protestant Bishops that had been worthy Preachers learned and Orthodox Writers great Champions for the Protestant Cause he wished all his friends not to be any impediment to them and exhorted all men not to take up Arms against the King which was his Doctrine he said upon the Fifth Commandment and he would never depart from it Likewise Letters were written by them to many Forreign Divines to try their affection in that day of need Blondel Vossius Hornbeck and whom he most condoled Salmasius were sent to in vain though afterwards that great Scholar came off from his rigour and made ample amends for his error Vossius contain'd himself for fear of the Parliament and of losing his Prebend at Canterbury in their possession which King Charles the First conferred upon him with great liberality Deodat wrote firm for Episcopal Government from Geneva and accused the Presbyterians of Schism Hugo Grotius said nothing hapned but what the wise King James had foretold and he now beheld with great horrors Episcopius much pitied the sufferings of the Kings Divines and particularly of Dr. Ward whom he accounted the most learned member of the Synod of Dort Monsieur Amyrald declared himself a friend to Episcopacy in a Select Tractate sent hither which one of that Party borrowed and would never restore and so it could not be Printed He who was thus zealous both in and out of his Pulpit in the King 's and Churches Cause could not be long permitted to Officiate in the City of London one Sunday while he was reading the Common Prayer in his Church a Souldier of the Earl of Essex came and clapt a Pistol to his breast and commanded him to read no further the Doctor smiled at his insolency in that sacred place and not at all terrified said he would do what became a Divine and he might do what became a Souldier so the Tumult for that time was quieted and the Doctor permitted to proceed But the War being begun and all things in confusion the Orthodox and Loyal Clergie were every where Articled against and ejected committed to Prisons without accommodations but upon unreasonable Payments such as they were unable to make In the City of London and Parishes adjacent one hundred and fifteen Parochial Ministers were turned out besides many hundreds in all Countries more than ever had been in all Queen Mary's Queen Elizabeth's and King James's or King Charles's Reigns by the Bishops of all sorts Some few factious Parishioners Articled against him at the Committee of Plunderers and he was advised by Mr. Selden that it was in vain to make defences they would never permit him to preach in that publick Theatre but he must retire to Cheam and he would endeavour to keep him quiet there but thither also the storm followed him for the Earl of Essex his Army being upon their March against the King took him Prisoner away with them till after some time he was brought before Essex himself and others who knew him and had often heard him preach at Whitehall who made him great proffers if he would turn to their side which he disdained to accept They kept on their March and as he would say at length the Princes of the people let him go free From that time he lay hid in his little Villa as Gregory the Great in his little Sazimus which he would pleasantly call Senectutis suae nidulum There he constantly preached every Sunday Morning expounded the Church Catechism every Afternoon read the Common Prayer all Sundays and Holy days continued his wonted Charity to all poor people that resorted to it upon the Week days in money besides other relief out of his Kitchin till the Committee of Surrey enjoyned him to forbear the use of it by Order of Parliament at any time and his Catechising out of it upon Sunday in the Afternoon Yet after this Order he ever still kept up the use of it in most parts never omitting the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments Confession and Absolution and many other particular Collects and always as soon as the Church Service was done absolved the rest at home with most earnest Prayers for the good success of his Majesties Armies of which he was ever in great hope till the Tidings came of the most unfortunate Battel at Nazby He was that Morning at an especial Friends house ready to sit down to Dinner but when the news came he desired leave to retire went to his Chamber and would not Dine but fasted and prayed all that day and then was afraid that excellent King and Cause was lost using to say of Cromwel as the Historian of Marius He lead the Army and Ambition lead him and therefore lookt far
a scandalous Minister had confiscated his own authority of reprehending that in others which he was guilty of himself and that the Doctrin and Discipline of our Church could never have been so contemptible but for their sakes who with their ill lives and manners made all the threatnings of holy Scripture which they preached and all the Censures of the Church which they passed or denounced ridiculous and insignificant yet withal his Lordship ever gave the people warning not to despise the chastening of their Mother for no man can lightly esteem the power of the Keys upon earth and yet be well prepared in heart to receive the judgment of God in the World to come For better amendment of whatsoever was amiss his Lordship would like St. Austin and other antient Bishops frequently sit Judg in his Ecclesiastical Courts and hasten the dispatch of all Affairs and especially if there were any thing that concerned his Clergie would always be present at the hearing of those Causes that neither his Clergie nor any by them might be wronged when he went not in person to the Court he gave ready access at his own House to all who came to complain even the meanest people who were grieved with long and tedious Suits and after hearing what they could say would sometimes send for the Chancellour and Proctors on both sides and what he could not redress at home he would oftentimes go to Court and end there throwing out many Causes that had been long depending for trivial matters and would not suffer any Causes to be entred for defamatory words or trifles without his own knowledg first to the end they might be composed without much vexation to the parties by this means his Lordship created to himself much trouble which he valued not for the great good he did by it and though less profit came to the Officers of the Court yet were they also contented believing God would better bless them for taking onely those Fees which so conscientious a Judge was willing to allow After Ordination he seldom dismissed any whom he ordain'd without rare counsel To remember they were Ordain'd to Cures not to Sine Cures the Cure of Souls the greatest of all others and wish them every day to think of the invaluable dignity and seriousness thereof and therefore in all their Preachings to avoid lightness Quia Nugae in ore Sacerdotum sunt blasphemiae as likewise all ridiculous gestures and loud vociferations empty affectation of words and phrases without weighty and ponderous sense and significancy accounting that elegant words without solid matter were but perfum'd Nonsense and that there was infinite difference between plainness and rudeness They had a duty to discharge both to the wise and unwise and therefore must take care that the learned Auditor might still learn somewhat and the unlearned Auditor might understand not only some but all His charge was that in every thing we should retain this great Principle to offer to God the very Best we have whosoever builds God an House let them build it better than their own the Ornaments thereof should be fairer than our own our Sermons there superiour to our ordinary discourses or labours in any other kind arising not from extemporary sawciness but our studied and best industry and therefore ever warned them as St. Paul did Timothy though he had the gift of Prophecying still to attend to reading as Preaching and remember St. Paul himself would not preach without Books and therefore caused them to be brought after him in all his Travels and sometimes preached the same thing the next Sabbath-day and therefore probably kept Notes He conceived it small commendations to any to pour out faster than they took in and that indiligent and over-frequent Preaching beyond the Preacher's parts or what the people 's needs required was no advantage to learning or piety especially in the obvious way of Preaching altogether by Doctrin Reason and Vse which of all Expositors of Scripture Musculus first took up and was one great means to lay the Pulpit open to the prophanations of the late times such Preaching being oftentimes so poor and easie that every Justice of Peace his Clerk thought he could perform as well as his Minister whereas a good Preacher had need be skill'd in the whole Encyclopedy of Arts and Sciences Logick to divide the Word aright Rhetorick to perswade School Divinity to convince Gainsayers knowledge of many Tongues to understand Originals and learned Authors and above all he would recommend St. Hierom's counsel Discamus in Terris quorum scientia nobis perseverabit in Coelis for otherwise all kind of learning in a Minister without good Example and innocency of life was but a jewel of gold in a Swine's snout This was his constant advice to his Clergie at Ordinations and Visitations which he duly held every third year Visitation of Churches he would maintain was no Filia noctis started up in a night of darkness and Popery but an Apostolical Institution and practised afterwards by all the Primitive Fathers and Bishops Herein his Lordship would oftentimes be the Preacher himself so that in his first Visitation Anno 1665. in his Progress in Shropshire and at Stafford from the last of May to the fifteenth of June he preached eight times in the compass of those few dayes at Bridgnorth Salop Elsmere Wem Whitchurch Drayton Hodnet and Stafford and confirmed above five thousand persons whom he required not to be tumultuarily presented but with the preexamination of their several Ministers and was in all places most joyfully received So that when he put on his Episcopal Robes he put not off his Ministerial Labours no man had reason to say his Majesty by making him Bishop had spoiled a good Preacher as it was said of Frier Giles that the Pope had marr'd a painful Clerk by making him a powerful Cardinal nor was he like Julius the third of whom the Historian complains that he had been formerly a diligent man but when he came to the Popedom never minded his Study or the Affairs of the Church more Our Bishop on the other side professed he found as many cares in his Bishops Rochet as he believed Antigonus did in his Royal Purple and if it were not for the glory of God and good of his Church had rather throw it away than hang it about his shoulders St. Paul very well understood his Office when he called it a good work not to be discharged without painful study often preaching daily hearing and determining Cases of Conscience judging in Causes Ecclesiastical repairing or building of Churches These and so many other things beside he found to do at home that all absence seemed tedious and intolerable to him abroad so that he never slept out of his Bishoprick in many years nor was willingly absent from his Flock but upon extraordinary occasions as in Parliament c. and then would often request my Lord Chamberlain
had often heard from credible Witnesses it was too usual with the discontented at their Meetings to charge the Church of England with those consequences which they did terminis terminantibus deny as the making of indifferent Ceremonies to be Sacraments and in kneeling at Sacrament to worship the Bread and thereupon be so furious against that reverend posture as though Kneeling were Popery and Sitting Protestancy when the Pope himself ever Communicates sitting These things were only spoken to make our Church odious to ignorant people and being permitted must needs in time destroy our Foundations again and therefore he wished that as of old all Kings and other Christians subscribed to the Conciliary Decrees so now a Law might pass that all Justices of Peace should do so in England and then they would be more careful to punish the depravers of Church Orders In matter of Doctrine he embraced no private and singular opinions as many great men delight to do in vetere viâ novam semitam quaerentes says the Father but was in all points a perfect Protestant according to the Articles of the Church of England always accounting it a spice of pride and vanity to affect singularity in any opinions or Expositions of Scripture without great cause and withal very dangerous to affect precipices as Goats use when they may walk in plain paths In the Quinquarticular Controversie he was ever very moderate but being bred under Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward in Cambridge was addicted to their Sentiments Bishop Vsher would say Davenant understood those Controversies better than ever any man did since St. Austin but He used to say he was sure he had three excellent men of his mind in this Controversie 1. Padre Paulo whose Letter is extant to Heinsius Anno 1604. 2. Thomas Aquinas 3. St. Austin but besides and above them all he believed in his conscience St. Paul was of the same mind likewise yet would profess withal he disliked no Arminian but such a one as reviled and defamed every one that was not so and would often commend Arminius himself for his excellent wit and parts but only tax his want of reading and knowledg in Antiquity and ever held it was the foolishest thing in the world to say the Arminians were Papists when so many Dominicans and Jansenists were no Arminians and so again to say the Anti-Arminians were Puritans or Presbyterians when Ward and Davenant and Prideaux and Brownrig were Anti-Arminians and also stout Champions for Episcopacy and Arminius himself was ever a Presbyterian and therefore much commended the moderation of our Church which made not any of these nice and doubtful Opinions the resolved Doctrin of the Church this he judg'd was the great fault of the Tridentine and late Westminster Assemblies But our Church was more ingenuous and left these dark and curious points to the several apprehensions of learned men and extended equal Communion to both There is another Controversie that hath been much vexed in our times concerning the case of Divorce and Marriage afterwards in which it is confessed our Bishop did dislike all those Churches or Polities that were facile to allow separation in Marriage and much more Marriage after yet allowed the question was intricate and such a one as the Pharisees sought to entangle our Saviour withal and that the Church of England had doctrinally determined neither way but for practice only judg'd it better that neither party should marry again after Divorce while the other liv'd and therefore in the Canons of Queen Elizabeth Anno 97 and in 107 Canon of King James Anno 1604. required Caution by sufficient Sureties to that purpose He condemned not other Churches that allowed it otherwise but prefer'd our own Caution before them and for this he wanted not many more reasons than were wrot in a hasty Letter to a Gentleman his Neighbour and published without leave after his death together with his own Answer but it is no credit to conquer the dead says the old Proverb While living He would urge for the indissolubleness of Wedlock the Authority of Divine Institution how God was pleased to make them Male and Female and first one and then two out of one and then again two to become one by a Divine Institution saying Whom God hath once joyned let no man put asunder 2. The Dignity of Marriage which represents the mystical Union that is betwixt Christ and his Church and His Union with our humane nature both which are indissoluble and perpetual 3. The excellency of that love that one ought to bear to the other in Marriage For this cause shall a man leave his Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife therefore it is a stronger relation then between Father and Son but the Son while his Father lives can never cease to be a Son much more while the Wife lives can the Husband cease to be an Husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall cleave to his Wife signifying a glutinous conjunction that will sooner break any where than be parted there 4. The manner of the conjunction one flesh that is according to the Hebrew Idiom one Man which supposes the Woman to be the Body and the Man to be the Soul so that none can part these but He alone that can part Soul and Body 5. And therefore though he conceived Eve did Adam a far greater injury than when a loathed Strumpet does defile the Bed of Marriage yet God nor Adam thought of no rupture in the case but God only pronounced her future sorrow in Conception indeed Paludanus and Navar Roman Casuists maintain if one party be indangered to be drawn into mortal sin by the other it is sufficient occasion to separate and therefore probably would have cited Eve into their Courts and proceeded accordingly against her but from the beginning it was not so 6. In the New Testament he observ'd our Saviour's answer seem'd strange to his own Disciples insomuch that they replied If the case were so it were better not marry at all which shews how they understood him 7. To be sure St. Paul would not allow it in a Bishop but strictly required him to be the Husband of one Wife that is having repudiated one to take no other without exception of any case 8. He was sure he had in the New Testament six places of his side to one against him one only carrying an outward face for it Matth. 19.9 Whosoever shall put away his Wife except it be for fornication and marrieth another committeth adultery But Matth. 5. 32. Mark 10.11 Luke 16.18 all sound another way Whosoever putteth away his Wife and marrieth another committeth adultery Rom. 7.2 The Woman that hath an Husband is bound as long as her Husband lives 1 Cor. 7.10 Let not the Wife depart from her Husband and if she depart let her remain unmarried and again the 27. verse Art thou bound to a Wife seek not to be loosed he held it safer
to hold with six places than with one some only say St. Matthew has that which others have not and he must expound them yea but one Evangelist is not false without the supplement of another and St. Mark 's Gospel was in some places where St. Matthew's was not 9. This would have given great scandal in the Heathen World who a long time used no Divorces the Romans none for 500 years Spurius Carbilius Gema was the first that broke the hedge a great shame for God's people to be more sensual than the Heathen that they should exceed them in chastity and integrity 10. We plight our faith in the face of the Church to hold till death us do part not till Adultery or any other scandalous cause which promise ought to be alter'd if we do not think meet to perform it Upon these and many like considerations which he would repeat but I cannot readily remember I know he held it more safe to bear with a private inconvenience than alter the antient strictness according to the looseness of our later times and since antient Writers tell us the Turtle is pudica univira would often wish God would please that the voice of the Turtle might be again heard in our Land Indeed he was a Prelate of venerable strictness and purity who would much bewail the unruly and horrid licentiousness of our times which he conceived grew great by the lessening of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction the Sword of Excommunication was lockt up in the Sheath and the Church had not the Key of it but men of vitious and lewd lives who formerly would have been thrust out for seven years were admitted without censure to the comfort of the Sacraments and so instead of godly sorrow too many exult in their sins jest and droll upon them in all Companies chant their Crimes to Musick and sing them sometimes in the high places of the Streets Our holy Bishop had a very chaste ear and would never permit the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or tongue-fornications of any but would presently reprove them wheresoever he was and he was once at a publick Table where he could not presently allay that prophane merriment so that he put back his Chair and resolv'd like Cato to be gone till the Company became sorry and promised to preserve his Episcopal reverence and gravity At a Table no man more chearful and pleasant yet ever wisely and inoffensively facete and would often call upon the company as Plato to the rough Xenocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sacrifice to the Graces to obtain hilarity But according to his own Motto Inservi Deo laetare Serve God and be chearful His Salt was ever candid and white not bitter and biting without all Sarcasms or Ironies saying mirth was too good a creature to be abused with any affrontive jeasts scurrility or bawdry He loved innocuos sine dente sales so as to make every body smile and no body blush Impudence and drolling upon Divine things he would not allow to be wit but want of wit on the other side God Almighty never forbad lawful pleasures and they are not more religious and spiritual who are more austere and morose than others Christ Jesus refused not chearful meetings but condemn'd the sad countenances and sullenness of the Pharisees and melancholy of all humours he held was fit to make a Bath for the Devil Chearfulness and innocent pleasure preserves our Mind from rust and the Body from putrifying with dulness and distempers and therefore would sometimes chearfully say he did not love to look upon a sowre man at dinner and if his Guests were pleased and merry within would bid them hang out the white Flag in their countenance In his Entertainments he was ever very Hospitable and held where Divines wanted a competency of Means besides necessary provision for a Family to be hospitable to others it was the fault of the State but where Divines had good Livings and did not keep Hospitality the Governors of the Church were in fault if they did not exact it of them Yet if he found in his Visitation an evil Churchman that spent vainly and riotously upon himself he would tell him he was guilty of Sacrilege and bound to make restitution to the Poor But in all his own Entertainments his Lordship was as free and communicative of his Discourse as of his Chear the Mind had the principal share there for he gave ever such excellent Sawce with his Meat so many witty Apophthegms and other ingenious sallies of wit as made every body eat with a better appetite He loved to be a rational Feeder not as at a Manger but a Table not much caring what his Provender was for such was all kind of food without talk Prandium Boum Asinorum and his discourse was not only chearful and pleasant but most learned and profitable full of recondite and polite learning that whoever heard presently became all ear and was not only better the next day but for ever I have heard many affirm that they never heard more learning from any man than from him sometimes at the close of a Dinner at a Table or in his Arbour afterwards and though he was very splendid in the Entertainment of his Friends yet very sparing in the entertainment of himself for himself he chose rather to have a Table replenished from an Orchard or a Dairy than from the Butchers Shambles To eat flesh he thought lawful from the beginning of the World but never used by Seth's Posterity the Line of the Church before the Floud and still recommended to all Scholars a plain Diet to which as Socrates said hunger and thirst was the best sawce and for his own part whenever he dined with any other Haugoust he lost the afternoon and therefore drank so little wine as to be almost abstemious and always of a very small sort and diluted with water for fear of fumes that hindred his Studies and Prayers saying withal that whoever eats and drinks temperately sacrifices to his own bodily health and good temper of mind but whoever eats and drinks otherwise must needs have a gross body and a foggy brain After he was made Bishop it made no change of his former sweetness and affability still he knew us and we knew him like a Star in the Firmament quo altior eo minor he rather seemed less to himself for being raised higher Who ever once discover'd insolency in him or that he bore himself with a big carriage to any man Humility with honour and urbanity with high dignity were never more really conjoyned he would still instantly condescend to speak with any Scholar though never so poor or young Once when he lay in Channel-row during his Attendance upon Parliament he rose at midnight and baptized a dying Child at a Neighbour's house when the Curate of the Parish could not be found and ever deem'd humility was the infallible cognizance or mark to distinguish
hour the heart of man is cast down and presageth some evil to come when God and his Angels appear though they entreat us peaceably The main reason is this Ne dignam suis meritis accipiant retributionem our own sins rise up against us as unanswerable accusers and we ominate and conjecture that God appears for nothing but to judge and condemn us When God and his Angels presented themselves to Jacob in a dream he breaks out into these words Gen. 28.27 How dreadful is this place this is no other but the gate of heaven Peace Jacob why doest thou not cry out how comfortable is this place this is no other but the gate of Heaven but it 's certain that the very comfort of heaven was dreadful and unpleasant to men in the Old Testament and our nature is still corrupted the vessel is still unclean that receives these blessings and therefore we are afraid of the great mercies of the Lord as well as of the great punishments Alas O Lord for I have seen an Angel of the Lord face to face says Gideon and yet for all that fear Gideon is named a mighty man of valour Manoah the sire of that race from which Sampson came the very name of valour yet he said to his Wife We shall surely dye because we have seen the Lord. The charitable widow of Sarepta was no less afraid of Elias an extraordinary Prophet Art thou come to slay my son and to call my sins to remembrance finally Peter drawing a miraculous draught of fish into the Ship as Christ bad him cast out the net thought of nothing but his own sins and Gods vengeance Depart from me Lord for I am a sinful man But here 's a messenger in my Text that bids the Shepherds cashiere all these affrightments neither to be dismay'd at the light that shin'd about them nor yet that God was in the glory of that light First Not to be troubled at the light for it was to make this doctrine manifest as if it had been written with a beam of the Sun that Christ is the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world And why says Bernard did God ordain that light should be instead of John the Baptist to usher Christ into the world when he was born but because he would illuminate him without Qui interioribus ignorantiae tenebris obducitur who was overcast with darkness within In him was life and that life was the light of men John 1.4 Quae necdum infundi poterat at divina saltem circumfunditur claritas as the light was but spread about their bodies here so it was a sign that if they would believe in him that was come to be the Messias and to save them from their sins their whole bodies should be transform'd into bodies of light hereafter in the Kingdom of Heaven And as every living thing rejoyceth when the night is past and the Sun appears upon the earth so they and we have cause to rejoyce that the night of Ceremonies pass'd away and the clear evidence of truth did shine abroad Vnto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise Mal. 4.2 Therefore according to Bernards elegancy this is the Angels fear not drawn out at large timetis phantasma en adest veritas You are afraid of some spectrum or vision fear not behold we come with the evidence of truth You suspect this is the lightning that goes before a thunder-clap No no it betokens there is a light risen into the world which is the comfortable light of men You suspect death but I annuntiate life You fear the gates of Hell but the Heavens are opened and God is come down among you You conjecture some perdition but behold I preach a Saviour that shall save you from your sins This is the meaning of the light which did dance at Midnight about the air when Jesus was born and the Angel said to them that trembled at the Vision fear it not But what if God himself were in that light What if it were a fiery Apparition darted from the presence of his Majesty Why yet Nolite timere Fear it not Once it pleased our heavenly Father to keep a distance with man upon these terms no man hath seen God at any time and lived Now the day is come when you shall see he communicates himself more friendly to dust and ashes so St. John begins his Epistle That which was from the beginning yet we have seen it with our eyes we have looked upon it and our hands have handled the Word of life It is not from henceforth since Christ was born as it was with the Bethshemites that lookt into the Ark which represented the glory of God and died for it Now no man hath so much cause to fear his indignation as he that shuns his presence and fears lest the Lord should appear before him How did St. Stephen exult when he saw the heavens opened and Christ Jesus standing at the right hand of God Do you think the Martyr was amazed to see the sight No my Beloved ever since the Son of God vouchsafed to take flesh in the womb of Mary it is not a sign of death to see any part of Gods glory but a good ominous presage of everlasting life Therefore be it that God was in the light which shin'd about the Shepherds yet all is well says the Angel Nolite timere Fear it not Secondly They must take courage and not be troubled à propriâ indignitate because of their own unworthiness Indeed what might they think within themselves that they were vouchsafed to hear the first Proclamation of this Blessed Nativity To us these Congratulations To us poor Swains this heavenly Embassage To us miserable Shepherds these Tidings who are set with the Dogs of the Flock Tell them to Caesar or to Herod his Lieutenant or to the chief Priest Non nobis Domine non nobis We are most desertless Wretches and why should God bestow such a royal favour upon us Do you remember Beloved how Peter drew our Saviour near unto him by crying out Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord Luk. v. 8. The more he requested him to be gone the more Christ did abide with Peter so by how much the Shepherds did abase themselves before the Angel the more did the Angel raise them up and bade them be encouraged to behold the Glory of God He that did choose little Infants to be his first Martyrs and ignorant Fishermen to be his first Apostles and Mary Magdalen a woman and a sinner to be the first Witness of his Resurrection it may appear that his grace is manifestly toward them who have a quick feeling of their own indignity The blessed Virgin when she had conceived her Son came to her Cosin Elizabeth that God might prove her lowliness and thus she exprest it Whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come unto me
glory of God and the firmament shews his handy work About beatitude or final felicity there have been great disputes whether it should consist in action or in contemplation but the best resolution of the problem is that praise consisting partly in contemplating the great goodness of the object to be praised partly in the fruit of the lips which sends forth that honour our blessedness shall consist in giving land to the Holy Trinity and unto the Lamb that sits upon the Throne for evermore Vidisti vilia audi mirifica says St. Ambrose upon these words that which the Shepherds saw with their eyes was a little Infant poorly brought forth into the world and cast aside neglectfully in a corner of a stable but that which they heard with their ears was strange and admirable both that all the tongues of men should glorifie this child and that the Angels who by nature had no tongues assumed bodies for that hour that they might speak with such a mouth with such a voice with such a dialect and language as men use to do and fill the world with praises of his name who made himself an improperium a derision and scorn unto many to take away our infamy and therefore worthy to be praised The Devil feigned the tongue of man to delude our first Parents that they should be made like unto God the good Angels also frame a voice in the air like unto the tongue of man to dissolve the works of the Devil and to teach us that God is made like unto us Let the Serpent hiss at it this heavenly host which consists of our friends and protectors doth sing it out and warble it Coelesti quadam ineffabili modulatione says the ordinary gloss with a celestial harmony far transcending all humane musick and above all possible Relation A Nurses lullaby will sing a Child out of crying and frowardness and make it still but it had need be a singing Angel nay the concent and harmony of all the Angels that should chear up our hearts with the gladness of a Saviour and wipe away all tears from our eyes when before we knew our selves dead in sins and trespasses And it is good to take it at the best sense great comfort it is that these holy Ministers of Heaven came with singing and exultation It was a sign that there was a great change wrought in the world and favour and propitiation come about to the full desire of our heart Angels have been sent with fire and brimstome as against Sodom and Gomorrah with wrath and reproof to make all the children of Israel to weep Judg. ii with a Sword and with the noisom Pestilence when David had sinned in numbring the people but all this horror and dreriment is cast aside by the birth of Christ says St. Chrysostom and Angels come with Anthems and Carols of praise Thus the Lord hath put a song of thanksgiving into our mouth for he hath done marvellous things If Asaph and that Choire did lift up their note with all sorts of musical instruments in the Old Law while the Sacrifice was burning upon the Altar I am sure we have much more cause not in imitation of Asaph but of the Angels to praise the Lord with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs Luther I know not upon what reason unless it were because the Angels in my Text did begin the Gospel with melody he makes Psalmody to be one of the notes of the Orthodox Church of Christ The voice of man certainly is to praise God in its best tunes and elegancies and the reasons why musical notes are most fit and necessary amidst our Christian Prayers are these four 1. Rules of piety steal into our mind with the delight of the harmony The Agathyrsians even to Plato's days were wont to sing their Laws and put them in tune that men might repeat them in their Recreations 2. It kindles Devotion and fills the soul with more loving affections Make a chearful noise to the God of Jacob says David As the noise of Flutes and of Trumpets inspire a courage into Souldiers and enflame them to be victorious so the Psalms of the Church raise up the heart and make it leap to be with God as if our soul were upon our lips and would fly away to heaven 3. An heavy spirit oppresseth zeal and that service of God is twice done which is done with alacrity and our Christian merriment by St. James his rule is singing and making melody to the Lord. When our Saviour and his company were sad the night before his Passion to put away that heaviness they sung an Hymn when they went to Mount Olivet 4. To sing some part of Divine Doctrine is very profitable because that which is sung is most treatibly pronounced the understanding stays long upon it and nails it the faster to the memory It was a Law of Numa among the Romans Nihil oportet in transcursu à diis petere sed ubi vacat est otium we must ask nothing of God by snatches but with sober deliberation And as our Parochial singing of Psalms is very sweet and requisite wherein all or most of the Congregation bear a part so it doth well become Princes Courts and Episcopal Churches to have more curious and sumptuous musick of several Instruments and a skilful Choire appointed to execute it It is semblable to that of my Text where the Angels sung the Service and the Shepherds gave them audience If some wayward humors say this Choiral Musick hath no relish with them it doth not help them in the practice of Religion they understand it not I answer they accuse themselves of many faults in their own complaint 1. That they understand not that which they have by roat if they would mark it 2. They are malicious that would deprive them of that sweetness who are much affected with it 3. It is arrogancy in a high nature to wish that their own ignorant immusical unfashion'd humour should be a prescription to a whole Church To conclude all I come from publick Church Musick to our private delight in holy Songs S. Hierom testifies that in his days as they walkt about the Market as they sailed in Ships as they were busie at Work they sung some holy Ditties It is our solace at home our recreation abroad says St. Basil Neither is it irksome to any but to the evil spirit for the evil spirit went out of Saul when David played upon his Harp and David was no profane Minstrel but a Divine Singer But I read of two sorts of Hereticks that quarrel'd it the Arrians dislik'd singing of Psalms because the Orthodox Christians did use it and the Manicheans because they condemn'd the whole Old Testament Insani sunt adversus medicamentum quo sani esse potuissent They are furious to find fault with that which would have healed their fury But we have learn'd to praise the Lord with our best skill with our
faln into it for where almost shall you find that men had not rather themselves should overcome than a good cause Always more studious of victory than of truth When Christ askt the Pharisees whether the Baptism of John were from heaven or from men though they could not deny it was from God yet they would not say so that the quarrel between them and Jesus might be endless Timentes lapidationem sed Magis timentes veritatis confessionem says St. Austin they were afraid to be stoned of the people for their obstinacy but they were more afraid to confess the truth What a fond affected glory is this Men account it among the flowers of their reputation not to be conquered in an arguement though it be never so absurd Like the two Harlots before Solomon nothing in their pleadings but clamour and reiteration the one said Nay but the living child is mine and the dead is thine the other said Nay but the dead is thine and the living is mine This is it which hath pluckt the Church of Christ into so many Schisms and Heresies that proud wits when they are in the wrong will never sit down quiet as if they were convicted and which is the calamity that our sins have justly deserved the Church must stay for peace till Sophisters and contentious have nothing to say that is when they shall be brought before the Tribunal of God and have not one word to answer for the crime of their invincible obstinacy Of pertinacious busie-bodies that will not be convicted when their errors be made apparent there are many sorts How stiff we are in civil brabbles never condescending to pacification every corner of the Kingdom is full of examples Do you know what you mean by that common Proverb of violence You will not lose your will though it put you to cost Not lose it said you O that you knew what will this is that you stand upon and you would never keep it It is the fuel of all cruel provocation the Gum that stiffens your anger the infernal fury that makes deadly fewds the defiance of love and charity the cross-bar of brotherly agreement nay it is Satans best advantage to make you miserable like himself in everlasting fire Is this that will for whose sake you will spend your estate to maintain it Is it not enough to lose your soul but that you will pay costs for damnation The heathen Greek Authors were very tart in their Proverb when they spoke of them that contended only for contention sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they strived for no more than the shadow of an Ass And Lucian who is a profest flouter says it is upon this occasion An Athenian was to ride to Delphos and hired an Ass to carry him In the heat of the day he reposed himself behind the Ass and made benefit of the shadow to keep his body from the Sun the Owner that went along to bring back the beast would not suffer it but demanded to sit in the shadow himself for he let out his Ass but not the shadow the Contention says Lucian went so far that it came into the Court. This is the Story somewhat light I confess but good enough to warn brabbling persons that they strive not about the shadow of an Ass Away with obstinacy therefore which is the endless repulse of godly Union and let truth prevail for what should prevail but that which is stronger than all things The greatest Learning in the world must be a slave to Faith and the greatest Majesty in the world must be a slave to Reason Plato writes to Dion the Ruler of Syracusa Pervicaciam tanquam solitudinis parentem fuge Fly obstinacy and wilfulness it will beget you a solitary melancholy life for all your friends will forsake you Creon in Sophocles would follow his own mind hearken to no admonition and so brought all to ruine Tiresias speaks to him not to be stiff and stubborn for it was ever the fore-runner of great calamity and hath these two similitudes First When a torrent of water breaks into a place the little Willows that bend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are not removed they that will not give way are rooted out of their place 2. When the Pilot of a ship will not turn his sail to the winds nor observe how to let a turbulent wave pass by him he splits his vessel therefore the conclusion of the Point shall be with Solomon An haughty spirit goes before a fall and it savours much more of a Christian mildness to be easily drawn off from our own imaginations than to hold a stiff opinion in our teeth in despite as it were of all wise perswasions To be wedded to our own will and fancy is very bad in temporal affairs but an inflexible perverseness is ten times worse in spiritual purposes It was a just invective wherewith St. Stephen reviled the Jews Vncircumcised in hearts and ears you do always resist the Holy Ghost First the heart is uncircumcised full of swelling and pride Such a distempered heart pollutes the ear and will not hear of wholsom Doctrine and when the ear is not tractable to receive the truth then follows the resistance of the Holy Ghost The great opposers both of Law and Gospel in holy Scripture were Sorcerers men that were bewitched as St. Paul says of the Galathians that they would not obey the truth such as could not endure to hear there was any divine wisdom revealed from above which was above their own magical Philosophy and as some of our adversaries have said blasphemously that they had rather err in some things with their Pseudo-Catholick Church than be in the right Cause with the Reformed So those Magicians when their senses were convicted that the finger of God was with Moses and the Apostles yet had they rather err in their own hellish way than go uprightly in the way of God Simon the Sorcerer what did he see in Peters Apostleship to oppose it Elymas the Sorcerer what did he hear from Pauls mouth to contradict it Only they must not seem to be overcome lest their name should be diminished among such as admired them God did smite the Magicians of Pharaoh with blains for resisting the truth and yet you never read that they repented twice their skill prevailed to imitate Moses and to do wonders like unto his in the third Plague they failed and were not able to perform it Moses turned the waters into bloud they did the like Moses brought abundance of Frogs upon the Land the Magicians did so with their inchantments At the third time Moses smote the dust of the ground and made it become Lice over all the Land of Egypt at this the Magicians were at a gaze and could not perform it St. Austin notes upon it In signo tertio defecerunt fatentes sibi adversum esse spiritum sanctum They failed in the third sign as who should say the Holy Ghost the third
increase will soon follow when you have begun happily God will teach you to proceed and to put your Talent into the way of increase The Lord loveth the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob says David that is he loveth the perfect Sacraments of the New Testament better than the types and shadows of the Old Now Baptism is called especially one of the gates of Sion for that it is but the first door to let us into the Church The Church it self is an upper Chamber as Christ is said to eat his Passeover with his Disciples in superiori caenaculo the highest in the world next to heaven it self there are many stairs and degrees of vertues upon which we must climb till we come to the top of the hill In Baptism we go down as it were into the River and sit in the lowest room of humility but as speedily as we can we must advance our soul and go up from grace to grace from vertue to vertue and you shall hear that voice of joy from Christ himself Friends sit up higher AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 16. And loe the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him AS Moses said unto himself when he saw the splendor of a bright fire in the bush so do I say unto you Let us now turn aside and see this great sight Great in the Object great in the Persons and great in the Mysteries Great in the Object to be seen for loe the heavens were opened And what mean trash was that which Satan did offer to the view of our Saviour in respect of this all the Kingdoms of the world made visible in the twinckling of an eye Great in the Persons to be understood in their several apparitions for these are the great Estates that rule the world God the Son manifested at the Baptism of water God the Holy Ghost to be discerned in the sensible shape of a Dove and God the Father whose glory was heard in the voice This is my well beloved Son This is no usual matter it must be some extraordinary solemnity which is graced by the full concourse of the Trinity I find it so once at the Creation Gen. i. and I find it at this time when Christ is baptized Man was created a brittle vessel for the Potters use without a Metaphor the servant of his Lord and to let him know to whom he owes his Creation every fountain of life is recited in the Story The Father the Word which was in the beginning and the Spirit which moved upon the face of the waters But in the New Testament we rise up higher from the state of Servants and become the Sons of our heavenly Father and that we may know to whom we owe our adoption and grace once again in this place Christ comes to Jordan the Holy Ghost descends in the bodily shape of a Dove and the Father utters himself in a voice from heaven Now for the mysteries I am bold to say the Church is capable of no greater than are here contained First Here are all the causes and instruments of our Salvation implied The Sacraments which are the Seals of righteousness the word taught which begets faith and the Spirit which moves upon them and puts life into them both The Father is in the Word the Son sanctifieth the Sacrament and the influence which blesseth them both unto us is the Dove which rested upon that sacred head unto whom all the members are fitly compacted And besides all these primary causes and instrumental helps of salvation here is an Epitomy of all those benefits which the Mediatorship of Christ will procure unto us The Heavens which were shut before set open to receive us the Spirit of Sanctification to be poured out upon us and that God will be pleased in us through his only beloved Son To recapitulate these things premised briefly the Mysteries are so great as none so superlative The Persons manifested infinitely glorious as none so excellent the Object so delightful to the eye of the soul as none so amiable And loe the heavens were opened unto him c. Of three immortal benefits which our Redeemer hath procured for us this Text contains a couple and both declared in no ordinary fashion but by the wonderful power of God First Here is a wonder wrought above Loe the heavens were opened unto him Secondly Here is another wonder come down below to the world beneath And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him These are the two members of the Text the first part whereof is opened already for how could we unlock that hidden Mystery unless the Key of David had unbarred it And loe the heavens c. Take notice in the first part of the Text that here is a word of invitement to draw our eyes upon it Loe the heavens were opened Nature hath made man with that erection of face to look upward that he must often view the heavens but the sight is never clear enough without abundance of grace to see them open Wherefore without the advantage of the second Miracle in the Text we should never be capable to conceive the first Christ procures the Dove to descend he makes the holy Spirit light among his Saints and then our eyes which were be-darkned before shall be ready to look up and perceive Loe the heavens were opened In this order I shall briefly discourse upon it 1. What is meant by the heavens standing open 2. What did procure and obtain it 3. How this Miracle fell out to glorifie Christ 4. What joy and comfort it implies to all those that are of the houshold of our Saviour The first inquiry is to this purpose what is meant and exprest by the heavens standing open We do but grope in the dark for such notions as this and mens opinions are divided into five several conjectures First When the true glory of the heavens is made visible to the eye of a man upon earth God imparting and revealing to the senses of his body a taste of that happiness which is laid up for them that fear him So Stephen was ravisht with such a sight and cried out I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God It is not needful to say that the parts of heaven were set open like a window to let him look in but as it is concluded in fairest probability Oculus ejus porrectus fuit usque ad coelum empyreum The glance of his eye was endowed with vertue to penetrate through the clouds and through the spheres unto the Throne of God This acception doth no way agree with my Text for the heavens are said to be opened in this Scripture that all the multitude might behold the miracle but you must not think it was given to them all good and
do all that God bids Give me a contented heart ready to endure all that God imposeth and then as thou shalt be an heir with Christ in the inheritance of heaven so thou shalt share with him in his sweetest title upon earth Thou art my beloved Son c. The last part of the Testimony comes now to my hand to be be dispatch'd that Christ is Filius complacentiae in whom and through whom the Father is well pleased O delicious words fit to be uttered by a voice from heaven and at the appearance of the Holy Gbost Partem aliquam venti Divum referatis ad aures We have delighted our hearts in the former Treatises to consider that from Servants we are become Sons from a People justly hated we are become beloved but to whom do we owe all this Surely as Mary and Martha said to Christ If thou hadst been here my brother Lazarus had not died So may we turn it and say if thou hadst not been here we had all died in our sins Therefore the voice points upon him that we may take notice how he is worth the knowing Hic est quem quaerimus hic est This is he that hath turned anger into reconciliation and enmity into peace As who should say I was once pleased at the making of the first Adam and I said all was very good for he was endued with original righteousness that he might have done all things well How much better am I pleased with the second Adam who hath done all things well and though it repented me afterward that I made man my Son yet now I am pleased with all that repent for my Sons sake Therefore thou art he for whose sake I will give heaven to them who have deserved the nethermost Hell thou art he by whom I have ordained to execute my pleasure to save the world To whom therefore do we owe our Salvation Or what moved our Father which is in heaven to elect us to the fruition of his glory If you will have an answer both clear according to Scripture and befitting our own humility it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the good pleasure of the Father whose will is the true and only cause that can be given for the happiness of all things that shall enjoy him who hath predestinated us to himself unto the adoption of Sons by Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will Eph. i. 6. To ascribe our Election to any thing discerned in our selves as I apprehend it shakes the foundation of the Gospel which in every passage makes Salvation the free gift of God by grace in Christ But Christ is both the exemplary the final and the meritorious cause of our Salvation The exemplary for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of his Son Rom. viii 23. From whence Aquinas fetcheth it that Christ is the true Pattern by which we are predestinated respecting the manner by which we obtain that infinite good which is by mere grace For as the humane nature was united to the Godhead by no precedent merits so by his mere good pleasure without any thing precedent in us to attract him we shall be united to his glory 2. He is the final cause of our Election for to what end are we beloved To what end pluckt out of the jaws of Hell like a brand out of the fire But that he might be glorified among his Brethren God ordained his Son to be head of the Church and then he gave unto him a portion to be members of his body Wherefore the Church most aptly is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fulness of him that filleth all in all Eph. i. ult As if Christ had not esteemed his own glory to be full and perfect without us But 3. He must also be acknowledged the meritorious cause of our Salvation For God so loved the good of his Creature that he did not forget to see his own justice satisfied by the obedience and death of Christ which satisfaction the Father lookt upon as the meritorious cause that we should be ordained to adoption of Sons God lookt upon the ransom of this Sacrifice when he did predestinate us to Salvation which surely is the sense of this voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Therefore this clause of my Text was St. Pauls warrant for so much as he wrote to the Colossians Chap. i. 20. It pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto himself by him by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven The self-same three things which are considerable in my Text and not yet opened are here likewise in their proper notions 1. That peculiarly above other Persons of Trinity the Father is said to be pleased with us and the Father reconciled 2. That it is assigned to the Office of the Son by it self to please and reconcile 3. That the Father is pleased in all things both in heaven and earth by the reconciliation of the Son cursorily of each For the first still the Scripture speaks that the Sacrifice placatory was offered up to the Father that he might draw us to himself who were aliens and castaways When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. v. 10. Believe it that every sin is committed against the whole divine Majesty and as every person in Trinity was dishonoured in the offence so we have need of pacification with all in the reconcilement But that the Scripture makes us rather take notice how the Father is reconciled unto us there are two reasons One that the Father is the Fountain of all Divinity the first person in order against whom we sin yet we sin against all So the first Person in order that is reconciled unto us yet we are reconciled to all 2. Though every work belonging to the Church be the conjunct act of the Trinity yet there are proper Offices belonging to several Persons to make our conceit more methodical So we know it by the phrase of Scripture that it is proper to the Father to receive us into grace proper to the Son to pay the price of our redemption and proper to the Holy Ghost to seal it to our hearts and to beget assurance in us It follows secondly that it belongs to the Office of the Son to make us pleasing and to reconcile us to God There is no other name under heaven but his in which Salvation can be hoped for Acts iv 12. for should the Angels or should men be appointed to such an Office to knit us into amity again with God and to reduce us to that eternal concord who were become open enemies It could not be For Angels and men owe as much obedience for their own part as they could perform Neither ought it to be for it was not fit that man should owe his Redemption to any other than to whom he owed his Creation
answers it better fight single against Satan one to one in the Wilderness than fight against Satan and wicked men who will entice you to sin as fast as Satan Therefore let them take out my Lesson and eschew the frequent Societies of populous places who find the Contagion of pestilent multitudes rub some rust upon them and infect their integrity It is not the place but the corruptions of the place which the meditations of the Fathers gathered out of my Text do lead you to abandon therefore the words of our Saviour shall stand in the last place to shut up this Point Joh. xvii 15. I pray not that thou shouldst take them that is the Disciples out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil So much for the circumstance of the place My Sermon thus far hath been upon the Wilderness against the handling of the next Point it is fit to ask What went we forth into the Wilderness to see Why to behold Christ fasting before he fought with the Devil Though that is not all he did there for there is much more behind yet this is enough to make it worth our labour Esurivit panis sicut defecit via sicut vulnerata est sanitas sicut mortua est vita says St. Austin By the same wonderful dispensation that the way of life was weary health it self was wounded life it self died by the same dispensation the bread of life fasted and was afterwards an hungry A sanctified fast hath two religious ends in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul says 1. To chastise our own body and to take revenge upon it 2. To put it into a good temperature for the minds sake Neither of these causes could be set before Christ in this long fast for his Flesh had never rebelled against the Spirit neither was there any inordinateness in his natural constitution which could be corrected by temperance Some therefore hold an opinion that Christ went not into the Wilderness to fast that fell out so indeed and was a necessary accessory because there was no food to be had You know the people ran after Christ into these spacious fields to hear Christ preach and not to fast with him yet there they continued three days fasting and had nothing to eat until four thousands were fed miraculously with five loaves and two fishes In like manner Moses went not up into the Mount to fast but to receive the Tables and truly this opinion is not to be contemned for St. Mark remembers that he was in the Wilderness tempted of Satan and quite omits his fasting This is prest the more zealously by some and with sufficient probability to shew upon what weak foundation they build who fetch it from hence that Christ observed the fast of forty days on purpose to constitute a yearly Lent in the Church for ever or a Quadragesimal fast for if it were by accident that Christ fasted here that can be no constitution of his intendment Nor indeed did he appoint any such thing as I will shew in just time Yet I concur not in the main sentence with those Authors for it seems to me this was purposed by Christ to go into the Desart and spend his time in Prayer and Fasting Now was the conflict at hand now was the first institution and undertaking of the greatest matter in the world the salvation of mankind and could not begin with a better Praeludium than an extraordinary Fast In this I will be directed by the interlineal gloss Jejunat ut tentetur tentatur quia jejunat He did fast that he might provoke tentations against himself and he did provoke tentations because he fasted For the better explication of the causes why he was pleased to fast I will lay down the distinction of Christs will as I find it considered in the School three ways Sicut ratio est unibilis corpori sicut est omnino conformis Deitati ratione membrorum 1. The soul is united to the body and for that union sake the will desireth the good of the whole man 2. God and man were united in Christ into one person therefore his will was subject in all things to the divine Law and pleasure 3. He was the head of the body which is the Church and therefore his will did graciously affect the prosperity of his members In these three respects there are so many causes of moment why Jesus fasted 1. Because it is profitable to conserve the whole man against tentations 2. It was the divine pleasure to provoke the Devil to give the onset by macerating and enfeebling his body and Satans foil was the greater because he was the challenger 3. He had regard unto his members to avenge himself on the Tempter by the victory of temperance who brought sin into the world through our first Parents by the sin of Gluttony Other causes I leave behind for refutation First I say it gives us a lesson to fast and withdraw the ordinary sustenance from the body when we perceive our selves in likelihood to encounter some temptation King Jehosaphat had a great battle to fight with the Ammonites and before the conflict he set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a Fast throughout all Judah 2 Chron. xx 3. So did Esther when she undertook the great danger to go in to Ahasuerus against the Law to intercede for the deliverance of the whole Nation of the Jews she would not venture upon so great a peril unless all the Jews would fast three whole days before the Lord and neither eat nor drink Est iv 16. What should I say more out of many examples Ezra suspecting what great opposition he should find to re-edifie the Temple of the Lord he proclaimed a Fast that all the People might afflict themselves before God Ezra viii 21. And St. Basil a great Practiser of this doctrine as any was in the world which is better than a Teacher bid all his Scholars take it upon his word that Sobriety was the best Antidote in the world to expel the venom of the Devil This holy Father was so good a spiritual Physician that the Church had not a better since his time I think to prescribe a good diet for the soul Adam went out of Paradise with a full stomack poor Lazarus went fasting to heaven scarce fraught with the crums of the rich mans Table Moses did fast upon Sinah for forty days when he talked with God But the People who in the mean time did commit Idolatry sate down to eat and to drink and rose up to play Daniel refused the meat and drink allowed him from the Kings Table 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to honour his temperance and fasting the very Lions into whose Den he was cast were taught to fast and hunger and not to eat up Daniel who was thrown before them to be a prey unto their teeth Thus far he If you ask me wherein we honour God in what part it
Supreme Magistrate of the Church to proclaime observations both for convenient seasons and for ordinary times of fasting I find indeed that one Aerius by name cried out for Christian liberty and pretended that Canonical Fasts were unjust thraldom but I find that the Church remitted none of her Discipline for all his clamour and he was counted but an Heretick for his labour But is it lawful not only to ordain a time of abstinence but also during that space to turn our ordinary food into another species and quality It is For that you may see what power the Church hath the first Canon that ever the Apostles made in the face of a publick Council was an ordination to inhibit the Brethren from meats offered to Idols and from bloud and from things strangled A temporary Canon it was to last for the space while the Jews took offence at the Gentiles converted unto the Faith but after the scandal was taken away the force of the Canon ceased witness one Text for all 1 Cor. viii 8. for in all appearance the worst of those meats forbidden was that which was offered to Idols yet St. Paul when he wrote that Epistle says it was lawful for a man to eat that meat offered to an Idol so he did not eat it with the conscience of an Idol Well then the Church did frame an injunction to make all men refrain from certain meats for a time As for this exception against some kind of diet for forty days which is called the quality of Fasting to say the troth the conscionable Writers of the Church of Rome will confess it is nothing less than a Fast properly taken Be it so that Flesh yields the most copious nourishment yet the greater sort of men are better pleased with the delicacies of Fish choice of Wines suckets and Electuaries it can be no Fast to replenish a mans self with these not only for necessity but even to flatter his Palate and to give his appetite satiety therefore even these things according to the intent of the Church should be taken with greater parsimony and abstinence than we do at other times And then I will shew it was impossible for the Church to take better care for the avoidance of gluttony than to appoint order for the quality of diet for no proportion can be set down in a general form and direction for the special quantity what every man should take for the space of forty days for a little pittance is a great meal to some queasie stomachs and a great allowance again would be too little to keep others in health who are of strong and sudden concoction Consider this reason and it will satisfie you for what cause your diet is moderated for forty days in the quality of our meat and not in the quantity Daniel fasted but half a Lent but three weeks and he inhibited himself for that space not to taste of Flesh or Wine In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks I eat no pleasant bread neither came Flesh or Wine into my mouth neither did I anoint my self at all till three whole weeks were fulfilled Dan. x. 2. Howsoever to close this Point obedience single by it self is better than fasting for fasting is reduced to the vertue of temperance obedience to the vertue of justice giving honour to whom honour belongeth and of all the cardinal vertues Justice is the fairest and the principal A lawful Constitution I have proved it but because many things are lawful which are not expedient it remains to be sifted and nothing remains but it whether it be a laudable appointment Certainly it is laudable in a very great degree both to rectifie our appetite in the concupiscible and in the irascible part In the concupiscible to abate our inclination toward the pleasure of our Palate and make us abstinent In the irascible to curb our lawless stubbornness and make us obedient Seneca an Heathen did perceive there was some defect in their Government that the people were not prohibited some kind of food for a time to make them know their subjection to the Magistrate Nullis animalibus nisi ex fastidio pax est says he The Creatures can never be at rest and quiet any time of the year when the Laws will have it so but when we loath them and we aim at temperance by our own palate and stomach not by the Law of the Magistrate Remember how directly you tread in the steps of Adam and follow the first sin that ever he committed if you set more by the pleasure of your Palate than by the duty of obedience St. Austin conceived this benefit would redound by that partial abstinence Qui ista vitamus quae aliquando licent imprimis peccata fugimus quae omnino non licent We that for a while deny our selves those things which are lawful will be the better prepared to shun iniquity which is altogether unlawful I omit one thing for in this copious subject I must make an Epitome not a full Treatise I omit I say the enumeration of all Political Emoluments those are in every mans tongue and knowledge to maintain Fishing to enrich the imployment of Mariners to inure us to hardness in the times of peace if Wars should exercise us abroad or at home to spare every young thing in the Spring of the year and to preserve the multiplication of the beasts of the field these things are commonly dictated from the bar of the Civil Governour But will you know the spiritual advantages Why we appease Gods wrath by humiliation and dejecting our selves for the sins of the whole year which we committed before It is a special time destined to sweep away the filth of the whole house for as in Moses Law Lev. xvi 30. All the people once a year did afflict themselves for expiation of their common sins so it is good to have a publick time allotted to deprecate the Divine Wrath that it may not fall upon the whole Nation Again all the Writers of all Ages cannot be deceived and all confess with one mouth that a moderation of diet especially continued for some considerable time of temperance must needs abate the violence of voluptuousness and luxury And because we see it in the examples of Peter and Daniel and many more in Scripture that Fasting doth elevate the mind and make it more capable of spiritual thoughts therefore it is well ordained that the most notable Fast in the year should go before the great Anniversary Communion of Easter I know some will say divers of the Reformed Churches have disused this ceremony to profess an abstinence in the quality of their meats for forty days They can best answer for themselves and do answer that their people if they retained that use would be seduced with Superstition But for our parts we have more cause to fear a pound of Gluttony than a dram of Superstition and more reason they should conform to us than we
possible for the Devil to understand how the union of the Godhead did determine that indifferency of the will only to good and did exempt it from all possibility or inclination to evil and the rage of malice dulling the sharpness of his intellectual parts he proceeds upon the Premises the second Person of Trinity is become flesh and born of a woman that in the same nature wherein mankind sinned they might be redeemed but if this fleshly nature could be contaminated with sin God would dissolve the Hypostatical Union and cast it off Dissolve the Union and he cannot be the Mediator between God and man and then the Sons of men shall be left without hope of redemption for ever And it may be the Devil had that foolish forecast in his mind when he stirred up Judas to betray him that by his death he might dissolve the union between his Godhead and our humane nature If any man will answer these Scholastical discourses and say the Devil hath no where revealed his own counsels I reply again we need not be ashamed of the modesty of St. John Rev. ii We have not known the depth of Satan but this one thing is not dubitable he would have tempted Christ to sin We can all easily discern the Devils deformity out of this Sermon what a grievous crime it was to sollicite God to do unjustly but what if this be our own fault many times dearly Beloved Will you not diligently amend it for the time to come When you see it is the blackest crime in the Devil 1. He that sweareth by the name of God and lies what doth he but implore the name of God to bear false witness to his Perjury Would man make God sin for his sake And is not man a Devil Again he that pretends he hath made a Vow unto the Lord and that his Vow constrains him to do some wicked thing doth he not make God the impulsive cause of his abomination Another prays for nothing more heartily than that the Lord will pour out his vengeance upon those whom he hates although they be innocent What is that else but to say Do thou kill that man for my sake who art a most just God whom it becomes not me to hurt that am a most wicked sinner And though we have not Satans opportunity to tempt Christ himself face to face yet remember that Kings are Gods Vicegerents upon earth and whosoever wrongs their ear with any corrupt communication or flattery he comes the nearest of any man to this sin in my Text to tempt God himself to evil Non ab acervo sed à semente furantur says Plutarch They that propound evil things to the Ruler of the People they do not steal from the Barn or from the Stack but from the seed-corn it self and by the Civil Law that is double thievery There are under parts likewise of this Tentation and certain insinuating ways to wriggle it in which are fit to be discovered First He closeth with Christ upon a most artificial obtestation If thou be the Son of God It is good Oratory you know to importune a man to do a thing by that which he will not for shame deny If you be an Israelite serve the Lord if Christ be your Master follow peace and humility These are deep adjurements So Satan turns this Rhetorick upon our Saviour If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread But Beloved be strong to resist these adjurations when they are turned upon you as stones of offence It is vulgar and trivial to cog a sin into a man with these lispings if you love me let me obtain this at your hands if you be my friend deny me not as you are a Gentleman refuse me not in this or another evil association retort such evil adjurements as these in the name of God I know no such sweetness in love and friendship as to serve God together in the unity of the same Spirit I know no such obligation upon the honour of a Gentleman as to keep a good conscience Sell not your soul away for a few fair words for which so dear a price was paid as the bloud of Christ What other device do you mark Why two in one word Command that these stones says Satan Mark what a great believer the Devil is turn'd it is in your power you can command it Nay it is in the Greek Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the word God made all things by the word of his power and you are that Word if you say it it is done As if he would profess such a faith as the Centurion was commended for dic verbo say the word and my servant shall be healed Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum I will not make a long Narration for the honour of Religion what mischiefs have been brought to pass by colour of Religion but I will tell you for a warning of such hypocrisie that as the curse of Jacob stuck close unto his Sons who made Circumcision their stratagem to kill the Sichemites so the curse of God shall stick close to them who cheat and betray and sow discords devour Widows houses make merchandise of holy things upon pretence of Sanctity For how is God abused by this fraudulency when he may truly say many sins are done which had never been committed if there had been no Religion in the World The other insinuation is the facility of doing it he perswades to that which is as easie as to breath speak but half a word and these stones are made bread Sin indeed is like suretiship it is an easie thing to get into bands but very troublesom to get out of them Facilis descensus Averni It is a wide gate and no rub in the way that leadeth to damnation but these foul actions which are so easie to wicked men that they cannot avoid them the Lord makes them very difficult to them that are regenerate and born again He hath set a watch before their lips so that they cannot speak the word which is dishonourable to his holy name or if they do speak it it is with much reluctancy and by this you shall know that heavenly grace is in your heart when you cannot do those things at all or at least with much unwillingness which the children of Satan do with great facility This touch and away for those three insinuations upon which the Devil did slide in his tentation Hitherto I have spoken upon no more but in general that the Prince of Devils attempted to make Christ a sinner And whereas his allurement in particular partly struck upon Gluttony partly or rather upon Infidelity how he urged unto Infidelity shall be deferred unto a larger explication and I will only add a few words upon his tentation to Gluttony before I conclude A marvellous subtil beginning he propounds nothing but that which nature necessarily calls for the most spiritual the most holy men in the
all intermeddle with the disposition of earthly Kingdoms either to restrain or depose Princes though tyrannical or heretical or blasphemous Their conversion is to be zealously prai'd for in the mean time their yoke is to be born with patience and we must kiss the scourge of God The Sorbon Divines of Paris do generally carry this badge and the Protestant Churches unanimously speak this Language The second Tenent is that the Temporal Soveraignty of the whole world is inherent in the Office of Christs Vicar as they call him to give change alter or confirm the Titles of particular Princes as his infallible judgment shall lead him Let every brain that is not distempered judge what a Doctrine this is Non sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes The third Tenent which Cardinal Bellarmine and the Jesuitical Pack maintain is a modification of the former The Pope hath no temporal Soveraignty at all annexed by vertue of the Papacy but Indirectè in ordine ad spiritualia indirectly and to remove the impediments of the common good especially of the Church he might send to the people by his Briefs that they owe no subjection to a wicked King that he could take off their Oath of Fealty and free them from Perjury that he hath power to excommunicate such Princes and translate their Kingdoms from them to such as he shall adjudge to be more Catholick Whether he will arm the Son against Father the Brother against the Brother a Rebel against his true King all these have been done why it lies In scrinio pectoris he may collate the Dominions of such Princes on whom it liketh him Pray you how much doth this opinion differ from the second You may easily find it is but white money turned into Gold and comes all to one payment For the Bishop of Rome is made the Judge himself when a Kingdom wants a fit Governour for the good of the Church for the wholsom administration of Justice since therefore all Regal Authority hangs upon Papal discretion it comes all to one pass with that most impudent second opinion which says the Power and glory of the Kingdoms in the world are absolutely in his donation It is no toying in so main a cause as this which concerns the Crowns and Scepters of all Sacred Princes therefore I will demonstrate that I plead against them according to the charge of their own Bill Thus Baronius to begin with him who speaks his mind in these words for his holy Father whom our Lord Jesus Christ the King of glory hath constituted a Prince over all the Kingdoms of the world Augustinus Triumphus All Power and Royalty is subdelegated from the Pope to other Princes No man can give him any Soveraignty which he had not by right before Nec Constantinus dedit quicquam Sylvestro quod non prius erat suum says he The Canonists talk of Constantines donation to Sylvester giving him the temporal Principality of Romania he gave him nothing but that which was his own before that and all beside was St. Peters Patrimony And some of them stake Scripture to prove it but most untowardly as that all power is from God therefore all power Regal and Imperial from Christs Vicar Yet more sinistrously from those words If I be lifted up I will draw all men after me that is if I had an Army strong enough I would recover all the Seigniories of the earth into mine own hand Practice is a plainer Argument than Book-words I will satisfie you then in that Alexander the Sixth a giver that will do but small credit to the gift but such as he is take him with all his faults he bestowed the whole West-Indies upon Ferdinand King of Spain Ex merâ liberalitate motu proprio as the Patent ran Their own Histories say that Athabaliba King of Peru maintained his Royalty by fighting against that Grant till he was taken Prisoner in Battel and then cried out that Pope could have no vertue or reverence to the God of heaven that gave away another mans Dominions from him but I will bring the case home That Bull which Pius the Fifth signed with his own Seal wherein he excommunicated the most blessed Queen Elizabeth hath this Line in it touching his own authority to use that incomparable Lady so unchristianly Hunc unum super omnes gentes omnia regna principem constituit God had constituted him over all Nations and over all Kingdoms O what vaulting spirits are these which run in the Veins of wretched man This forgetful Prelate grant him his own asking from whence his original came and it is from a most humble Apostle whose actions being all of them recorded not any one do lean toward Soveraignty or Principality Yet his Successor in challenge exalted above all that is called God will be a parallel Line and side with him in my Text who makes nothing to dispose of all the Regal Dignities in the world All this power will I give thee c. Let this be enough which I have said to have been discoursed upon the immensity of that honour which Satan challenged to be in his Jurisdiction I proceed to shew upon whose shoulders he would be content to lay it upon our Lord and Saviour Tibi universam hanc potestatem As for the thing it self he wisht that Christ had it in good earnest I make no doubt of it namely that his fortune had been to be an earthly King to be a Caesar Caesarum the Conquerour of all the Dominions in the world rather than such a one he suspected him for that Messias that came to redeem his People and to invite the Nations far and wide over all the earth to the fear of the Lord. Let him be all in all in a temporal Kingdom rather than Saviour that came to erect the spiritual Kingdom of faith to the subversion of the powers of darkness Conceive now unto your selves as if he had spoken more largely on this wise to Christ I find you hungry and forlorn in this Wilderness neither train to attend you nor food to cherish you Alas that such a one as you should be thus negglected 't is pity you are not honoured enough according to the great gifts of sanctity that are in you Why you are worthy to be Lord of the whole world if promotions went by desert And will you live in Famine and Scorn and Humility and at last be crowned with thorns and crucified Nay follow my directions and you shall be crowned with Gold and sway the whole Universe with a Scepter All this power will I give thee and the glory of them It came to pass with our Saviour after this Proposition as it befell chaste Joseph in the house of Potiphar He would not be incontinent yet upon defamation of incontinency he was clapt up in Irons So Christ would no such Kingdom as Satan offered yet upon suspicion that he went about to make himself a King his
the Monopoly of Scepters and Diadems at his command All these things will I give thee And before whom could he have told this tale to be taken in a lye so soon as by driving this bargain with Christ as if a thief should steal Plate and offer to sell it to the owner or a Plagiary filtch a great deal out of a book and rehearse it for his own before the Author so the Tempter had rob'd Christ of that Honor and Majesty which was most properly his own I mean he rob'd him of it by the blasphemy and falshood of his tongue and then brings it to Christ to barter it away for other merchandise Autori quae autoris sunt repromittit What theft more palpable than this the Father gives all things by the Son by him He made the worlds by him He hears the prayers and supplications of the Church by him He gives us health and salvation by him He gives Rulers and Princes to go in and out before his People and yet Satan intrudes as if he were our Mediator in part at least in setling Thrones and Monarchies he was the means for those things and it was his hap I say the more to discredit his impudency to tell this tale to our Saviour from whom truly and indeed the Kings of the Earth do hold their Royalty Vtrobique regnatur per Christum he sets the Crown on their heads that wear them both in this world and in the world to come Observe it that He rides upon the white horse with many Crowns upon his head Revel xix 12. This is a Vision and this is the interpretation of it that those that honor him He will honor he settles the Royalty on whom He pleaseth not one or two Kingdoms and bequeatheth the rest to the fortune of war to the free choice of popular elections much less is any such good thing deliver'd up to our adversary the Devil Christ had many Crowns on his head for the whole earth shall stand in aw of him he lifteth up whom he pleaseth and setteth him with the Princes of his people When Wisdom proclameth that of Solomon which I laid for my first ground in this point by me Kings reign indefinitely it is to be understood of God but restrictively of Christ the second person in Trinity he is appropriatively the wisdom of the Father he is meritoriously and by way of an Impetrator the conduit pipe of all benefits to high and low rich and poor therefore we endear all our prayers to God with this conclusion per Christum Dominum nostrum through Christ our Lord. But what dulness was in the Manichaeans to fall upon such Texts as this and to build upon them that the God of Heaven made all invisible blessings and that Satan had divisum imperium cum Jove he was Lord of all visible and material things What are any of these the sooner his because he said they were deliver'd to him and to whomsoever he would he gave them Why it was as cheap in his mouth and he could have said it with the same labour that he could help whom he pleased to the Kingdom of Heaven It is the Most High that ruleth in the Kingdom of men and he appointeth over it whom he will Dan. v. 21. The cause of preservation is the cause of constitution God rules the hearts of the Subjects to obey and gives them commandment for allegeance and fidelity if any commotion be like to rise the Lord stilleth the raging of the sea and the madness of the people from God is the power of soveraignty and through his good spirit the duty of obedience but Satan stirs up seditions jealousies and cross humors in people never to submit therefore he plucks down the Kingdoms of the world and obscures the glory of them he is not the founder of order but of confusion O but sayes the Manichaean if Satan have not the total managing of these Powers beneath yet a share cannot be denied him They that govern by tyranny and injustice they that lift up themselves in their pride against heaven shall we not yield that these are of his ordination No why the Prophet Hosea says chap. viii 5. Ipsi regnaverunt sed non ex me they have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not In my opinion the literal and textual answer to that place is that they chose unto themselves Heathen Idols Gods of silver and gold and forsook the Lord Howsoever this distinction giveth unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God that which is Gods Regnaverunt non ex me quoad viam sed quoad potestatem that evil way which they chose to follow that perverse manner by which they reigned and troubled all was not from God but he gave power to Manasses to Rehoboam to Ahab as well as unto David unto Josiah and to the best Kings that rul'd with righteousness Or as another limits it a Deo bono sunt potestates a malo Angelo potestatis ambitio the Power on earth is Gods the ambition to usurp that Power is the Devils Take that which is thine Satan and leave the rest to Christ When occasion is given to speak of a wicked Magistrate the Phrase is Hos xiii 11. I gave them a King in my anger angry I was when I gave him but I gave him though and that which He gives we must take it and keep it be it scourge be it blessing it is most foul rebellion to say the Lord shall not fasten evil upon us we will not keep that which the Lord hath given us And so much for the claim of the Giver in my Text whom we have found to have no right or title to deliver unto any one the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them Indefinitely all Kings reign by Christ good and bad but the justice of the good more peculiarly is from the grace of God the tyranny and ambition of the worst is from the suggestion of Satan and nothing about them is his but that which is worse than nothing the iniquity of Princes Now I proceed The gift was furtum theft in the highest degree that which he profer'd was not his to bestow the giver mendacium he falsified his evidencies and laid title to that which was only Gods to bestow The condition now follows to be handled which is fire and sulphur mixt together blasphemy and idolatry he requires that Christ should fall down and worship him Let me begin upon this point as Solomon said when Adonijah askt Abishag to wife Let him ask the Kingdom also Satan himself was not able to speak such another word I think for horror and impiety it exceeds that sin for ought we know by far which provokt the Lord at first to cast him out of Heaven into chains of eternal darkness For Isaiah tells us in the Parable of the King of Babylon chap. xiii the insolency of that sin consisted in these
bodie nor with our substance He shall have neither our goods nor our knee but likely we put it off He shall have our soul why this is only to give God his thirds as a reverend Father saies to compound like Bankrupts and give him two parts less than we owe him and yet we look for ten thousand times more than He owes us We have some that are to be suspected for a kind of Sadduces among us that believe no resurrection of the body else they would never palter with discipline but be more forward in the prostration and worship of the bodie than the Church could be to command them Some have given a great blow to this duty by harping upon the bare words of S. John and not digesting the true meaning of his Text Joh. iv 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Mark the occasion why this was spoken and the words precedent The woman of Samaria moved a doubt whether God was to be worshipped at Jerusalem as the Jews taught or at Mount Girizin as the Samaritans taught Now the Samaritans worshipt God falsely they worshipt they knew not what says Christ The Jews held strictly to Moses Law and observ'd figures and shadows of things to come which were all to give place and vanish upon the incarnation of our Lord. Now it is easie to discern the substance of our Saviours answer what it is to serve God in spirit and truth Truth is opposed to the false superstition of the Samaritans Spirit is opposed to the Jewish figures and sacrifices And Christ tells the woman God will neither be served any more after the Samaritan way or Jewish way but after the newness of the Gospel The hour cometh and now is when ye shall neither worship the Father in this Mountain nor at Jerusalem but they shall worship him in spirit and truth Do these words exempt the worship of the body nothing less The word spirit is not taken there for the soul divided from the body signifying only an internal act of the spirit but for all manner of virtuous actions as well external as internal which proceed from the grace of the Holy Spirit being acceptable to God because the Holy Spirit brings them forth not because they are figures of things to come I will sing with the spirit says St. Paul 1 Cor. xiv 15. and yet singing is a bodily action He did worship in spirit when he said For this cause bow I my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Ephes iii. to come to a point Remember therefore how we adore God in spirit when we adore him with those outward gestures of the body to which we are stirred up by the Spirit of truth And so much of the first member of my Text which I laid out to be handled by it self the Lord God is to be worshipped The next duty is the other Pillar of Religion which upholds the Church of the Elect the Lord God is to be served By worship you know already we understand all humble outward devotion and reverence Now by service you must conceive the inward conformity of the heart to all duty and obedience The will of the Lord is revealed to us two manner of ways Either as he doth promise us blessings and benefits and assures us great rewards in the Kingdom of heaven Or as he doth stipulate and covenant with us what we shall do to obtain his favour In the former respect as he hath given us the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth most liberally and as he doth promise greater fruits of his mercy most graciously we fall down and worship him for his benefits but as he doth condition with us to do somewhat for his sake that he may leave a blessing with us we serve him faithfully and bind our inward faculties our soul and our mind to be prompt and ready to execute all obedience That you may the better compose your hearts to attend Gods will in all things and to serve him I will supply your knowledge with these few motives following First There is no other Lord beside our God properly called 1 Cor. viii Though there be that are called Gods as there be Gods many and Lords many that is by opinion and nuncupation but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him And again Eph. v. 4. One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God who is above all and through all and in you all Super omnes dominio per omnes providentiâ in omnibus justificatione Above all by his Dominion through all by his Providence in all by sanctifying us with his grace and justifying us from sin He that is subject to none inferiour to none independent of himself in all his power He may well be called a Lord and such a Lord deserves to be served Petty Magistrates hold of Princes favours and Kings hold their tenure under God Therefore some of the Roman Emperours having the perceivance that they could command nothing absolutely if he that sate above the heavens did stop it they would not be called Domini because themselves were servants in relation to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords therefore their circumscribed power did not answer the title When the Scripture brings in the most High the saying is Haec dicit Dominus Thus saith the Lord. If we would examine this after the stile of man you would say Lord of what Why universal Lord without any particular designment Specifications to be Lords of this or that are earthly phrases are notes of minority Attalus the Martyr was askt what name that Lord had whom he served Says he Qui plures sunt nominibus discernuntur qui autem unus est non indiget nomine Where there are many Lords they must be distinguish'd by their properties but what need that Lord a name for distinction who is the only Ruler by himself without any equal or partner in his dominion now since we must serve for sin hath brought servitude into the world whom would a man choose to serve but that only Lord to whose sheave all other sheaves do bend and who only hath authority Secondly In all service you will consider in what state and place it puts you Do so in this and spare not But let St. Peter be the Judge 1 Epist ii 9. Ye are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people There is royalty in the very service Cui servire est regnare To do him service is a Kingly Ministry Nay there is more in one of our Church Collects in one Line of it than in the most Augustious title of a King God whose service is perfect freedom A King may be so much subject to naughty passions as he shall be in vile thraldom to his own sensualities and so
unless they be equalized with God Then the Platonicks taught good divinity for they worshipped their Daemones or Angels not as the first causes of all things but as Spirits employed by the first Principle of the world If an Angel from heaven teach the same doctrine in his own case which Paul did surely two such Witnesses both in one tale cannot be refused The instance is more beaten than any high way Rev. xix 10. St. John certainly being even beside himself with the excellency of Revelation fell at an Angels feet to worship him who said unto him See thou do it not I leave it to your judgments if this be not a monstrous prevarication of Bellarmines That the Angel might have accepted that dutiful homage if he had pleased and did not make shy of it before Christ was incarnate but in honour of our Lords incarnation who took our nature upon him Angels from thenceforth will not be religiously worshipped by men Therefore we do what becomes us when we fall down to worship Angels and Angels do what becomes them when they refuse it thus He. But I beseech you if learned men may take such leave to interpret Scripture they may turn it to any thing Doth the Angel say any such thing to John that the times were altered human nature was now more precious than before and grown too good for such servile observance No but very plainly in the Text See thou do it not to me I am thy fellow-servant worship God Mark both his reasons first I am thy fellow-servant Fellow servants are to worship one Master together not one to worship the other Yes says the Adversary hereafter we shall worship together in the Church Triumphant and be stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why we have the same excellency and beatitude which then shall be revealed in a lively faith and a steadfast hope And if they shall be less honoured of us hereafter than now the Angels should lose honour by our being exalted into heaven Nay rather their glory shall be increased to requite that sedulous care which they had over us here against the tyranny of the world and the devil I will wish no other Author but St. Austin to speak on my side says he Let us believe that the best Angels and most excellent ministring spirits do desire that we may worship one God together with them Honoramus eos charitate non servitute That is we love them for their good will we do not serve them Nec eis templa construimus they would not be so honoured of us for they know none better if we be holy we our selves are the Temples of the Holy Ghost This we have learnt out of the first reason what the Angel meant Fall not down before me I am thy fellow-servant Beside it is added Worship God Can any question be made but St. John would worship God Surely he was not to be taught that No but he was to be rouzed out of an extasie that God only is to be adored with a sanctified fear and no Creature It is easie to cast a scruple in any mans way so the Pontificians give us an objection to pick Josh v. 14. A man stood over against Joshuah with a drawn Sword Joshuah demands Art thou for us or for our Adversaries The supposed man replies Nay but a Captain of the Host of the Lord am I now come Then Joshuah fell on his face to the earth and did worship First the Antagonist presumes without all suspition of denial that Joshuah did worship the Angel But the Text says no more than as soon as he knew God had sent him a Captain from heaven he did worship But if it were Religious Worship it was done not to the Angel but unto Gods upon the coming of the Angel When such things come before us as are signs of Gods presence and grace of his mission and institution not of our own invention ware that it is good pious devotion to fall down and worship God when those things are before us As it is most laudable in us to kneel not to the outward Elements upon the Lords Table but unto God at the receiving of Christ in those Elements So Moses probably fell down at or before the burning bush where God spake When the fire came down from heaven to consume the Sacrafice it was a sign of the Lords special presence and the people fell down and worshipped 2. Chron. vii 3. Thus Joshuah seeing the Captain of Gods Host come to succour him fell down and praised the Lord. This answer I dare build upon yet if it were extorted that either Joshuah worshipped this Angel or Balaam that other Angel who bowed down his head and fell flat on his face Num. xxii 31. It is not or ever will be proved that these were religious Adorations but very great moral reverence done unto them more than to any men on earth according to their Coelestial and Supernatural excellency But Angels are not to be religiously worshipped in heaven why then on earth Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven and that is in this precept Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Yet a few words before I end To adore the Eucharist the Reliques of Saints the Figure of the Cross or Images of Christ and his Servants departed is to commit Idolatry with inanimate things those being all alike in that I will keep that bundle of Tares for another occasion But the superstitious worshipping of Saints is so near of kin to that of Angels against which I concluded before that the same Notions I used before and a little added will clearly condemn it We must not think more divinely of a Creature than a Creature is capable And even in this we have cause to bless God that our Religion is repurged from most strong defilements that our common Prayers have none of those blasphemies which some chant over to the most glorious Virgin the Mother of our Lord. And all this happens that they impute more Divinity unto her then is competent to a Creature So the Heathenish Lycaonians saw that Paul and Barnabas were men but they thought some Divinity did inhabite them such as is in God Certainly so the good Centurion Cornelius was mistaken for he gave unto Peter both civil observance as unto a man But because the Lord did bid him send for Peter for his souls Salvation he thought there was a genious in him above a Creature Otherwise Peter had not corrected the reverence he did him with those words Stand up I my self also am a man Acts x. 26. His cogitation had apprehended some divineness in Peter which made him commit a religious prostration for which he was rebuked And indeed an opinion is bread in the superstitious touching the Saints departed that there is more Divineness in them than they can receive else they would not bow down themselves to the mention of their names and
make supplications unto them When I commend my self to the Prayers of any man upon earth I attribute nothing unto him falsly as divine he hath ears to hear me he hath memory faith and chariry to commend his brethren to God But when I do the like to the Saints granting the distinction that they call upon them to intercede not to perform their request but when I do the like to them I make them stand in the place of God to hear all men every where at once perhaps lifting up their voice nay perchance no more than the thought of their heart unto them Solius Dei proprium est ubique omnes audire exandire It is the excellency of God alone to hear and attend to all men in all places at once Therefore he makes an Idol of that Saint in whom he supposeth as much vertue and excellency to hear him how much soever distant as is in God himself I omit burning Incense to their Shrines making Pilgrimages to their Sepulchres Building Churches wherein their memory may be worshipped and invoked And making Vows in their names which is one of the flowers of Gods eternal royalty They that are such earnest Devotees to Creatures and think there is not work enough for a Christian to worship God alone deserve that gross delusion which hath started from some of their own Confessions that many names are enrolled for glorified Saints and great Patrons of the Church whose souls are tormented in Hell Let God be worshipped for the holy Prophets Apostles and Martyrs departed so shall we our selves we trust one day have a place in that Coelestial Quire where the Lord our God is only worshipped and he only served day and night without ceasing AMEN THE TWENTIETH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve I Am come to this Text again in the zeal of Elias to let no kind of Idolater be unrebuked that doth not worship the Lord and serve him only according to these words which were Law at first and our Saviour by reciting them hath made them Gospel Take the Priests of Baal says that holy man and let not one of them escape 1 King xviii 40. I will trace his steps in this cause and will rather be a man of contention as Jeremy became by taking the Lords part then suffer Rags and Reliques Stocks and Stones to have an attractive virtue more than magnetical to draw religious honour and adoration unto them If men would hold their peace these things which I now proceed to arraign and condemn for having holy worship done unto them have no tongues to defend themselves They are not Angels or Saints departed they have neither life nor motion in them neither the Cedar that grows in Libanus nor the Hisop that grows on the top of the wall but the Trunck of the Cedar and such other things as Art hath made unfit for any further benefit of nature 'T is strange that sharp-witted men will take pains to extol such dull inanimate things as can never thank them And concerning inanimate liveless things how superstitiously such glory as belongeth to God alone hath been imparted unto them I shall spend my labours at this time for concerning rank Heathen Idol Gods imaginaries Deities and concerning the Host of Heaven above and the Spirits of darkness beneath how they are idolized by some I have maintained the judgment of our Church before But our quarrel against the Pontificians to vindicate all religious worship latrical and dulical to the Lord of Heaven alone is like a Suit in Law that holds many Terms as long a quarrel as upon any other common place in all Divinity I am in hand at this time with the same Controversie again to protest against four things namely 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religious adoration of the Reliques of Saints 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religious adoration of the Elements in the Lords Supper 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religious adoration of the Sign of the Cross and that most stiffely and impudently maintained 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Worship of Pictures and Images whether resembling Christ or his Saints Wo is it for the Church of Christ that we must spend an hour in these dissentions but what peace can there be while these Idolatries are maintained under the name of great devotion and anathema denounced against them that cry out for the Lord and for his Christ to them glory and worship and to none but them And now I have sounded the trumpet to this battel I betake me to the particulars propounded First that Religious adoration of Reliques confronts the verity of my Text c. But in the Exordium if any one shall ask how do our Opposites worship or serve Reliques or any of the aforenamed I will satisfie him that for the intentions of their heart in their inward reverence towards these things we could not accuse them but that they profess and teach it is religious and holy honour for if it were no more than precious estimation to some of those things we would not disfavour their practice but consent unto it and for their outward behaviour which expresseth the affections within judg if this be not to worship to kneel unto to kiss those things to prostrate the body to hold up the hands and eyes and uncover the head before them judg also if this be not serving of them censing of perfumes in those places lighting candles to honour them adorning with the richest cost of jewels and gold Circumgestation Procession Supplication Festival days appointed for their service and as much as all these Guilds and Religious Orders appointed to attend them This is square and open dealing that I impute Idolatry and Will-worship unto them upon grounds of practice and confession Nay I have not said all no not by half touching that over respect which is done to the Reliques of Christ and his Saints They exalt them above the Altar St. Ambrose thought it a great honour for himself or any deceased Bishop to lye under the Altar they call that adoration which is given to them meritorious The Priests teach the people that there is a kind of grace communicated to those Reliques they take Pilgrimages to them swear by them carry parts about as Prophylacticks against bodily and ghostly evil and pronounce indulgence for venial sins to them that fall down and worship them Beside the main sin see the uncertainty of all this Of Saints they have mightily multiplied the number and of their Reliques far more than is possible to belong unto them Yet it is impossible to know by faith who are Saints deceased but those whose memorial is recorded in Scripture and for their Reliques it is not denied they are conjectur'd at by mere humane credulity The bones of a Varlet may be carried in procession for the bones of a Martyr decem millia talium rerum Romae fiunt says L.
Septuagint Translation marrs all when it renders it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was taken up as it were into Heaven There is no such diminution of as it were in the sacred Text He went up to heaven sayes the Original That could not be the Element of Air which is sometimes called Heaven for the Air is rather the Seat of Satan who is called the Prince of the Air than of the Blessed from thence come turbulencies and winds and tempests but they are at rest from all labour and unquietness Nor can it be meant of that Heaven of the lower Orbs for then they should be hurried about every day with the swift motion of the Spheres from East to Occident Where then could Elias be reposed but in the Heaven of happiness in the tranquillity of Abraham's bosom as Dathan and Abiram were swallowed alive into Hell so Enoch and Elias were lifted up alive into Heaven Heaven is taken two wayes both for the place and for the state and condition of it and both wayes I have good ground to say that Elias was in body among the spirits of the Kings and Patriarchs and Prophets and just men who are dead in the love of God and all they went to Heaven locally as to their place and to Heaven figuratively that is to joy and happiness Which I oppose to the adverse and very erroneous opinion maintained by the Schoolmen among the Pontificians that the spirits of just men which departed before Christs ascension into Heaven were reclused into a receptacle call'd Limbus Patrum which was the verge or fringe of Hell where they suffered no pain but sustained a temporal loss having not as yet admittance into the Courts of the House of our God How unconsonant is this to our Saviour's words Many shall come from the East and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the Kingdom of God How unlike to that Phrase of David Lord who shall ascend into thy holy hill how unagreeing to the title of Abrahams bosom wherein Lazarus was in a long distance from the gulf of sorrow But to go one step further and no more at this time did not Christ by his ascension open a passage to the Souls of the blessed to draw nearer to God in the highest heavens than ever before yes verily I believe it and I am compelled to maintain it by St. Pauls Doctrine Heb. ix 8. The way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing that is while the Law of Moses did endure Their Souls departing were at rest in Heaven in the hand of God no way obtruded near the confines of Hell as the Schoolmen taught who either could not or would not discern a medium between the Limbus of Hell and the highest Heaven They lived by the same faith that we do though not with the same evidence and fulness that we have therefore their Souls departing had a dimension of happiness allotted for them yet not with that fulness of joy which now they have nor perhaps with that measure and proportion which they and we shall have hereafter Beloved remember and consider Heaven is so large and spacious that it is fit to admit divers Quarterings and Mansions in it the Arch-angels Throne the Angels Palace the blessed seats of the faithful since Christs ascension the Refrigerium of the faithful before his ascension a Tabernacle allotted for Enock and Elias all these might be several yet Heaven big enough to make room for all In my Fathers house there are many mansions says Christ that went before us to prepare a place And To thee O blessed Saviour c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON The Transfiguration LUKE ix 31 32. Who appeared in glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Hierusalem But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep and when they were awake they saw his glory and the two men that stood with him WHen I compare many parcels of Sacred Scripture and many fictions of the Heathen together which are of great similitude I perceive that Satan intended to discredit the holy Writ by devising Fables so like to the sacred truth I do verily think their Deucalion and his floud was taken from the story of our Noah and his Deluge Their Hippolytus refusing the tentations of Phedra and yet accused by her for a Rape is our Joseph after the same manner impeached by his lustful Mistress Their Hercules is our Joshuah Their Bellerophon carrying Letters to cut his own throat is our Vrias so betrayed by David Their Nisus of Megara and his fatal purple hair cut off by Scylla is our Sampson and his locks cut off by Dalilah So their infamous transmutations of their Gods into Bulls and Swans and a thousand lying shapes were publisht by the Devil to make the Transfiguration of our Saviour suspected Shame upon such gross Figments which can no way darken the manifold light of the Gospel so palpably counterfeit that they need no refutation As Irenaeus passed his censure upon them Victoria est sententiae vestrae manifestatio it was victory enough to the Christian cause to tell and relate their absurd opinions But in reference to the Metamorphoses of those Idol Gods St. Peter justifies the truth of our Saviours Transfiguration thus We have not cunningly devised Fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye witnesses of his Majesty 2. Pet. i. 16. The Heathen write how their Gods were changed upon earth but to their shame and ignominy The Son of God was changed miraculously upon earth but into a body of resplendent glory When God was come down to men upon earth the Heaven did seem to come down upon earth to God When the Greek Emperour John Palaeologus was drawn into Italy by Pope Eugenius the forth to be present in the Florentine Council the City of Venice entertained him so magnificently with their Streets all guilded and their Boats and Galleys as rich as their Streets that the Greeks in astonishment at the bravery cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth was become a Heaven for that day I have met with no parcel of a Story in my reading more fit to be applied to this occasion When Mount Thabor did harbour our Lord and our Lord did glister with beatifical brightness and the Saints above did come thither in their Princely array and the very clouds did look more white than Lillies and the voice of the Father spake more pleasing than the sweetest Musick This is my well beloved Son I may justly cry out the Earth was become an Heaven for that day All things else in the Gospel are intermixed with much humility this one Treatise lifts up my stile and makes me say Paulò majora canamus This piece which I spred before you is nothing but Triumph and Majesty and Glory Unto these words which
is like Gods Rainbow in the Clouds not only a beautiful but a merciful Token a Bow with the string towards the earth so that it is not prepared to shoot arrows against us As Pliny said to Trajan of his virtuous Consort nihil sibi ex fortunâ tuâ nisi gaudium vendicat so all that a Christian challengeth for his own is the blessed Virgins solace My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour Beloved they forget that God is called the Father of mercies and the God of all consolations they forget that since Christ is come in the flesh the Dove is returned with the Olive branch of peace in his mouth who fill the minds of men with melancholly desperate doubts and do oftner cast before them black stones of condemnation than white stones of absolution Chearfulness and a delightsom countenance becomes the Disciples of Christ howsoever the austere Pharisees censur'd our Saviour himself for a Winebibber and a Glutton because he was sociable and did not always lowr and pout after their hypocritical fashion St. Chrysostom neither lived with content to his own heart nor gave content to other because he was untractable to all manner of joyful familiarity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was so earnest for sobriety that he run into a Cynical austerity Some not unfitly I think contend so much that a Christian is to deport himself in a sweet consolatory fashion that they understand Solomon to that meaning Eccl. ix 8. Eat thy bread with joy and let thy garments be always white as if none should put on mournings for the Gospel sake unless they wanted a good conscience to rejoyce in Christ Though the splendour of the Law was terrible yet the glory of the New Testament is amiable bonum est says St. Peter it is a good thing to see the Majesty of our Saviour in perfect beauty Secondly Thus far the Apostle gave a right judgment upon the vision and thus much further that he said it was bonum nobis intended not so much for Christs exalted bravery as for our good When I began this Miracle I cited a rule out of Damascen and I repeat it again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the impulsive cause of all things that our Saviour did upon earth was the love which he did bear to the generation of men yea the Lord hath made man the scope of all his other works in a subordinate way to his own glory For man is made to serve the Lord and the earth is made to serve and supply the use of man and both ways man is made happy and not God says Lombard Et quod accepit obsequium à creaturis quod impendit Deo either to take homage from the Creature or to do homage to the glory of God All things are ours says St. Paul whether it be the world or life whether it be the World as the Vassal of our service or Life eternal as the Crown of our service When our Saviour did exhibit himself in this rare feature at Mount Thabor quorsum haec was it not to catch our hearts and affect them with the vision he did not present himself as Agrippa and Bernice did Act. xxv 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great pomp and estate to shew the regal lustre of their Royalty no the very Heathen were contented to say that the supreme power of Heaven must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contented with himself and needed no accessories to set forth his honour as Caesar spake in a lofty contempt to his mutinous Souldiers an vos momenta putatis ulla dedisse mihi so it would sound better from Gods mouth All the creatures upon earth cannot confer a scruple or the least moment to advance his excellency Christ was not contemptible by being made humble nor more renowned than he was before by appearing in Majesty Every way he is unobnoxious to the censure of man because every way he made himself fit for the good of man and when he joyned both humility and glory in one act both were for us See his lowly modesty when he rode upon an Ass to Jerusalem see his triumphs of dignity at the same time in those popular acclamations Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. But all was to this end that we might see and hear the honor of God and the fruit of our own salvation all the brightness which shin'd upon him in Mount Thabor was to enlighten our darkness Bonum est nobis says Peter it is good for us 3. Yet once again I will speak that the Apostle did speak the very truth in a third Point it was good to be continually present with Christs glory and never part from it Bonum est esse hic there is no mutation in perfect joy but an abiding for ever We cannot change for the better to go from the beatifical presence of God how could Peter choose but desire to hold him to that when he had begun to taste of it I have read in some obsolete stories of Lazarus who was raised to life after he had been dead four days and some others of the like kind that their soul had seen a little of the happiness of the life to come and being brought again into the body by the word of Christ they were never seen to laugh or smile either because they knew better than others that there was no true joy upon earth or because they were melancholy to have their happiness interrupted My soul longeth and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord says David Psal lxxxiv 2. If he could faint with desire to obtain that which he had never seen how might this Disciple faint and languish to leave that which he had seen Old Anna the Widow departed not out of the Temple of God day nor night which is as much in effect as if St. Luke had said Whatsoever place is called by Gods name deserves our frequent company and I say unto you of this house where now we are which is called by his name Bonum est nos esse hic it is good for us to be here St. Chrysostome tells me of some great Princes in his time that desired upon their death-bed to be buried in the Porch of the Church that although they were taken away from being present at the holy Service which they were wont to love yet their bodies even in the Grave might as it were be door-keepers for ever in the house of God I will conclude this general part with Bernards words Quid aliud videtur bonum quam in bonis animam demorari quandoquidem adhuc corpus non potest What is good for a man but that his soul should abide and persevere in good meditations and good works since there is no good place of continuance upon earth to receive his body You have the flower of St. Peters Speech bolted out but there is more bran remaining in six Conclusions that
follow which I propound by way of question and thus first An bonum sit Christum non crucifigi If it could be good for them that Christ should entrench himself in Mount Thabor and never go to Jerusalem to be crucified Lord grant us not our own wishes when we desire evil unto our selves for this Apostle unwittingly desired as much mischief to fall upon his own head as the Devil could wish Peter was well strucken in years his person of grave authority his affections full of well-meaning love to Christ therefore this was but one of three times that he made bold to resist his Masters passion and disswade it Mat. xvi 22. Be propitious unto thy self Lord thou shalt not be killed by the Scribes and High Priests At another time he cut off Malchus ear in the Garden to save his Saviour And though he durst not openly dehort him now for he was check'd before and called Satan for that fault yet the same meaning is closely conveyed in these words Master it is good for us to be here What should I say It was not his opinion alone but it seems all his brethren were of the same mind they knew not the Scriptures and thought the Church might do well enough though Christ did never die upon the Cross for when Peter alone did speak in this cause St. Mark says Christ turned about and looked upon all his Disciples Mar. viii 33. And then rebuked Peter Get thee behind me Satan Peter gives him the title of Master if he would stay there and not die but St. Paul shews that even by death he won himself the Mastership Col. 2.18 He is the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the pre-eminence His deceived Servants thought that it was inglorious for him to die whereas it was an honour to the Lamb of God to be brought unto that Altar So it behaved Christ to suffer and to enter into his glory I have met with one who delivered his opinion very eloquently how fit it was for our Saviour to remove from this place where his Disciple would have fixed him Says He this is not the Mount where our Lord must end his days but the fatal Calvary His face shall not shine with light but be disgraced with Spittle and smeared with bloud His Garments shall not be white to honour him but in scorn and derision He shall not stand between Moses and Elias but hang between two Thieves Thou Peter shalt not think it good to be with him but run away and deny him The Father shall not call unto him from heaven Thou art my well-beloved Son but the Son shall cry out that he is forsaken of the Father There shall not be a bright cloud over the place but darkness over the face of the earth Finally no other Tabernacle shall be built for him but a Cross of malediction 2. And might not Peter counsel him without offence against this ignominious death No my Beloved For it is not to be excused how he knew not the Scriptures that this was the course appointed for the redemption of the world the hungry could not eat their bread until it was broken We could not quench our thirst with the water of life till it was poured out of his wounds We could not be healed of the sting of death till the brazen Serpent was lifted up Jonas must be cast out of the belly of the Whale before he preach to the Ninivites Christ must die and rise again before the Disciples be sent to preach to all Nations The lxx Psalm hath this title A remembrance to the chief Musician and the first words of the Psalm are these Haste thee O Lord to deliver me make haste to help me O Lord. As who should say Thou that art the chief Musician unto whom all the Angels of heaven sing their Alelujah haste thee to redeem us by thy precious bloud Go up to thy Cross and suffer for it is time that thou have mercy upon us yea the time is come But you will say Had it not been most barbarous in Peter according to the tenure of that Psalm in the Exposition which I have given to wish the death of Christ First it might become his own Apostle that did tenderly love him neither to urge him nor disswade him but to say The will of the Lord be done Next I must tell you it is no such horrid thing as a weak Christian may imagine to have pray'd unto the Father that his Son might die upon the Cross for our Redemption Even so Father because thou wilt have it Yet this distinction must mollifie it Intuitu nostrae redemptionis non ipsius cruciatus says Lombard Rejoycing for the benefit of our Salvation but sorrowing for the bitterness of his Passion grieving for his sorrows but giving thanks with gladness for our own deliverance Therefore in no wise did Peter give right counsel when to decline the issue of that dismal Passion he said Master it is good c. But Ne quicquam sapit qui sibi non sapit How should he be a good Counsellor for his Master that was not wise for himself For I ask in the next place An bonum non videre mortem If it could be good for Peter and the two Disciples not to see death No surely there is a gain and advantage to be made by death Phil. i. 21. Then when we languish as we think of our last sickness then we begin to call our sins to remembrance then we look over the Covenant of the Law which we have so often broken then we breath out our soul in Prayer and fill our eyes and our heart with repentance the sense of imminent death takes away the sting of death by contrition and a most consciencious examination of the days that are past one hour well imployed about that time is better than a year in diebus illis when we were remiss and careless Even Balaam the Sorcerer did perceive what Soveraign Physick of Salvation God did administer to his Saints upon their sick bed and therefore he cries out O let me die the death of the righteous A righteous mans death is like the Cherubin standing before the Garden of Eden that with one blow lets him into Paradise and would Peter stay in the Mountain and want the best Schoolmaster of Repentance and Mortification Besides it is a good thing to be weary of every thing even of life it self till we come to heaven I know a man may desire to die out of frowardness I praise not that As Elias and Jonas were fretful because they were cross'd and in that vexation of mind they desired to die This is rudeness and impatiency to desire to die because they would not live as God would have them But there is earning to get above the desires of frail nature and to desire to put off the body that we may put on Christ So Nazianzen begins an Epistle to Nyssen out of
his own mouth and Oracle any mortal man to build a place for him but the most conspicuous Prophet and the most conspicuous King in all Israel Moses for the Tabernacle and Solomon for the Temple and therefore Peter asked no ignoble office from Christ when he would be appointed from him to make him a Tabernacle If thou wilt let us make here three Tabernacles he asked his leave Matt. xvii 4. Of that humble submission I will speak a word by and by one thing calls me to consider it first that here is an infallible note of a large and a vehement love affectus sine mensurâ propriarum virium an affection which never measured how it could perform that to which it offered true love doth not consider how it shall be able to finish that which it undertakes we undertake to renounce the Devil and all his works to keep all the Commandments which all our frailties will not permit but love adventures to try what it can do and therefore love is called the fulfilling of the Law Mary Magdalen came to enbalm our Saviour's body in the Sepulcher and never thought till she was hard by that there was a stone upon the Sepulcher which she could not roll away when Christ was risen and she took him for the Gardner Sir says she If thou hast born him hence tel me where thou hast laid him and I will take him away Why a dead body useth to be born by four strong men to the ground and this had need of more help when his body was wrapt up with an hundred pound weight of sweet spices yet out of more confidence than strength she said she would bring his corps again into the Grave So Peter and his helpers would raise up three Tabernacles in Mount Thabor having neither Workmens tools nor materials nor skill I think in that Trade yet he would dispatch a Building instantly that he would to receive his Lord and those two Gloriosoes that were with him if Christ let him alone what unartificial work he would have made But true love strides over all impossibilities nihil erubescit nisi nomen difficultatis it would be ashamed of it self to think any thing were difficult You see his aim was above his skill and will it fully excuse him to say all was out of love never lay it upon that love Christ loves well but if it be love that is right and considerate says a most accurate Father of our own Church St. Paul commends love on this wise 1 Cor. xiii 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nihil perperam facit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not behave it self unseemly keeps decorum forgets not what belongs to duty and decency then the Lord accepts it Love may and doth forget it self otherwhile and then the Heathen mans saying is true importunus amor parum distat a simultate he that loves God inconsiderately and perversely is a kind of enemy Peter thought let him work and then there they would stay and all should be happy whereas there can be no true happiness where there is so much as faciamus any bodily work Though there was a fault yet love makes it but a diminutive error in him and as in every Evangelists relation we may read his love so in St. Matthew his obedience if thou wilt let us make three Tabernacles and well remembred of him that Christ said I came from Heaven not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me Joh. vi so though Peter thought himself in Heaven yet he must not do his own will but the will of the Lord Nay if it were not for doing our own will against his there would be nothing but Heaven Cesset propria voluntas infernus non erit says Bernard Give up your own will to the will of the Lord into his hands and direction and there would be no Hell in the world The chief part of our wisdom is not to lean upon our own wisdom Let his will guide all that cannot deceive us whose will it was to suffer death upon the Cross because our own will had destroyed us A Client will refer his Cause to the direction of his Counsel a Builder the Fabrique of his House to a Master of Architecture the Lord will plead our cause against them that strive against us the Lord will build up the decayed places of Jerusalem and make us polished stones for his own Temple except the Lord build the house their labour is but lost that build it si tu faciamus not our will but thy will be done if thou wilt let us make c. This makes for the Apostles defence but there is some coliquintida in all things that man can do or say for as Peter consulted with God so he consulted also with his own fancy But in spiritual things says the Apostle I consulted not with flesh and blood Galat. i. 16. Here is Peter holding God in one hand and his own carnal imagination in another and indeed this was not to ask if Christ would such a thing but to tempt him to be willing to that which was scandalous and inglorious to his Majesty say the Apostles Acts i. Lord wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom unto Israel Their question may seem to be submissive but it was not there was venom in those fair words for they would have him willing to establish a temporal Soveraignty in Israel I will conclude this first part with an exact rule of St. Pauls Be ye not unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is Ephes v. 17. So much for the Builders faciamus let us make I proceed to the Fabrique or Building tria Tabernacula three Tabernacles either Booths compacted of arms of trees lopt off from the trunck called attegias by the Old Latins or pleasant Arbors of living boughs which are writhed in arch-wise over head and every sprig close twisted in to fence off the weather called arbuscula topiaria the best Shelters to receive these great persons that the poor man could think of whether the Mountain could afford them or no we have no evidence to make it appear that was never thought of when he spoke it for he was so surpriz'd with joy that he had no leisure to recollect himself but herein his zeal was very generous he would fain build another world and never see this again Quem seculi hujus illecebrosa non caperent gratia resurrectionis allexit says St. Ambrose though the provocations of this world could not intangle Peter yet he was catcht with that fair sight how God will honour us in the Resurrection there he would build there he would fain set his rest to dwell in a Tabernacle made of boughs and bushes with Christ and Moses and Elias affected him better than to enjoy a Palace in this sinful World Exilium in Pompeii causâ est tanquam patria says a Roman that a man could not miss his native Country that endured banishment
in Pompey's company I may say in a better capacity of truth that the three Disciples could not miss their Parents their Children their Friends their Possessions their Countrey no nor the whole World beneath if they could but reserve a Tabernacle in any secret place wherein they might enjoy our Lord Jesus Christ The Prophets who were preserv'd by Obadiah's favour were contented to live in a Cave where they might serve God without Idolatry and Peter would possess a new-found World not inhabited by evil men alter alteri magnum theatrum sumus a few good ones are enough to enjoy one another without a contagion of the multitude Alas when he would needs be making a place for Christ that he could devise no better Structure than a Tabernacle But will God indeed dwell on the earth says Solomon Behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee how much less this House that I have builded Solomon thought so meanly of the goodliest Temple that ever was built for Gods honour what a Building was here then not worthy to be named Let us make three Tabernacles As he was laid in a Manger when he was born so he was never housed richly and sumptuously all the while he lived upon earth never till Joseph of Arimathaea composed his body decently in a fair Sepulcher which is not an excuse that we should make him vile houses now but a provocation to make him amends on our part for that contempt which was offered him when he lived in Judaea As for the instance of my Text that Peter offered him a Tabernacle made of a few sticks it is to be born with both because he knew not what he said and he was able to do no better True love is satisfied that all will be taken in good part which is well intended As Jacob set up a Stone and poured oil upon it and called it the House of God Gen. xxviii 18. what would you have him do that had no better at hand but where the Land abounds with costly and sumptuous materials can ye bestow them better than upon the Church of Christ Do you not perswade your self that there the Lord hath heard you often from Heaven and given you all manner of things that are good and can you suffer those walls to be unadorn'd where you have been prosperous or can any heart be so hardned to suffer that Table to be unfurnisht with Ornaments at which we have often been fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Benediction I charge not this place with any such neglect but I commend and pronounce them blessed especially who have been liberal that Gods honour might be set out among us in the beauty of holiness and I lament it where it is otherwise for it is a mournful sight me-thinks to see any place excel the Church in preeminence and magnificence not as if I thought the Lord did favour us for fair walls and roofs without a fair inside but first it signifies the almightiness of God when we honour him with the best and chiefest of all outward things and secondly it makes our zeal shine before men that we love our Heavenly Father better than all the wealth of the Earth and the Lord loveth a chearful giver The best Temples that we can dedicate to God are our sanctified Souls and Bodies and therefore St. Austin said alluding to this Text Qui Deo vult facere tabernacula praeparet ei penitralia cordis He that will make a Tabernacle for God let him prepare a clean heart this is well said if we play not the hypocrites with this figurative Religion If some men be incited to offer up the Sacrifice of Alms unto Christ they tell you spare them for that and they will offer up the Sacrifice of a contrite heart Are not these two ill divided bid them worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker that they hold superfluous for they will bend the knees of their heart Are not those two ill divided Charge the rich men of the World to repair Gods decayed Churches and make them beautiful that draws money from them too fast therefore they say we will build a Sanctuary to the Lord in our inward heart Be not deceived God cannot be mocked with these metaphorical excuses I had rather offer with St. Peter to build a Tabernacle unadvisedly where there was no cause than be backward to build a Tabernacle for the mighty Lord where there was a cause Because Moses and Elias had preached Christ unto the Disciples they would do something again to requite it not hear the word of God gratis as some do as if they would give no mony for it If you will give nothing for that precious gift which cometh from above take heed the Lord do not say to you at the last day What good service have you done in all your life that I should give any thing to you as some men have their customs not to give so undoubtedly God hath his custom not to reward As David said to Araunah The Lord forbid I should sacrifice unto him of that which cost me nothing so Peter would not hear a Sermon of Christ crucified and do no good thing for it faciamus c. These Tabernacles which he spake of being an allusion to the Church I find them agree very well in this that the Militant Church is but like a Tabernacle portable from one place to another to be taken down in one place and to be set up in another always removing As we see the Gospel began to shine most bright at first in the Eastern Countries and now it hath pleased God that in the most conspicuous purity it is carried into the West From Jerusalem it removed to Antioch from Antioch to divers places of Achaia in Greece further and further every Age till now that the multitude of the Isles do praise the Lord like a Militant Tabernacle or Pavilion pitcht where God pleaseth to fight against the Devil and his Angels and to win ground from him that would destroy the Earth Psal cxxviii 3. The Wife which is spoken of there and likned to a fruitful Vine is an Allegory of the Church Now the Church while it wanders upon earth is vitis in lateribus domus a fruitful Vine upon the walls of the House it stands without the doors of the Palace but when the Church shall be settled quietly in the upper Jerusalem it shall be vitis in penetralibus domus the Vine shall be translated into the midst of Paradice there it shall be a City abiding for ever and no longer a removing Tabernacle Now you have heard St. Peters zeal in the Fabrique which he moved to be built in the progress of this point you shall hear these Tabernacles of his were but wild Chimaera's or as we say Castles in the air for he took Mount Thabor as it was now adorn'd with glory for the Heaven which he desired to enjoy
beat strong upon Elias his ear the whole Camp of the Aramites ran away when they did but think they heard a noise the figure of a mans hand dampt King Belshazzar a Whip of small cords shaken in our Saviours hand made the Mony-changers overturn their Tables for haste and run out of the Temple 2 Macch. iv the Author of that History says that the Lord made the Clouds in the air appear like a great Battail and like horse-men fighting to the terror of Jerusalem it is an easie thing therefore for him that dwells above to make a little Cloud seem a terrible spectacle And this which shook the Disciples had some extraordinary qualities in it to strike the outward senses with amazement it had not the conditions of a natural Meteor for it had much more brightness than any other part of the air it was a Cloud that rid close upon the earth and was not exalted as they use to be into the higher parts of the air it was framed like some beauteous Chamber to receive the Son of God in Majesty together with Moses and Elias it was dissolved at an instant as soon as ever this apparition was dispatcht This was enough then to cause astonishment that the finger of God was in this Cloud above the ordinary course of nature Now there is not the least empty Cloud which the wind blows about but the Lord appoints it for some end and service much more you will allow there were manifold causes for the sending of this Cloud and the judgments of the skilful conceit them to be these First the Lord did shew that He could frame a better piece of Architecture of a sudden than Peter could imagin to build he spake of three Tabernacles which would be long in piecing together God in a moment creates one Cloud to receive them all better than an hundred Tabernacles Such a one as Moses and the Israelites had in the Wilderness to shadow them against all offence Such things the Heathen did drive at in their Poetical Fictions but I am sure the Lord is able to pitch a Cloud between his chosen and their enemies that the hand of violence shall not touch them neither shall any evil come nigh their dwelling Trust in the Lord in the time of danger if ever our foes should rise up against us and say though we are not within the fence of strong Walls and Bulwarks yet if thou O God of Hosts will cast but a thin Cloud between us and our enemies we shall be safe under thy wings until their tyranny be over-past Secondly a Cloud did interpose it self to qualify the Object of the Transfiguration and to make it fit for the Disciples to behold it the Cloud indeed was very bright yet it was dark and opacous in respect of Christs body which did exceed the very light of the Sun Which St. Chysostom proves that I may add somewhat more than I have said before to this purpose in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his face was compared to shine as the Sun yet sayes he the Disciples bewray how it did exceed that example for they never fell down for fear to see the light of the Sun but they fell down to see the light of his body Therefore this Cloud did cast it self between as if Christ would put a Veil upon his face that their weak sight might the better behold him In this life we must look through a Cloud we must expect to see him as in a Glass darkly hereafter we shall see him face to face Mark the infirmity of mans nature in this sinful corruptible condition and let us learn humility it was not enough that Peter John and James were not transformed in the Mount as Christ was no nor as Moses and Elias were our vile flesh is not receptive of such celestial excellency but to abase them and us further a shady Cloud opposed it self before their eyes because we are not fit nor worthy to behold such pure happiness in these days of vanity Such knowledg is too excellent for me says David I cannot attain unto it Thirdly this Cloud was set up for a Land-mark to limit curiosity and to drive men off from approaching too near to pry into the Divine secrets where God sets up a Cloud it is a manifest sign that those are our bounds and we must not break them As when the Lord came down upon Mount Sinah it was full of smoak and vapour that his Majesty might be concealed in those thick mists and none of the people no not so much as a Beast durst come nearer under pain of death What a becoming thing it is to look no further into Gods secrets than he hath given us eyes to see and when there is a mystery which the wisest God hath given no charge to search into it to say I see a Cloud between me and this secret and I must go no further The Devil himself doth not envy us knowledg but he doth envy us obedience The ancient Apostolical Creed consists of twelve Articles to be believed as they are commonly divided Pope Pius the fourth made them twelve four and twenty such as they are and if we want more mysteries of faith and knowledg to work upon I doubt not but Satan would allow us a thousand But as the Romanists who have twelve Articles of Creed more than we yet have one Commandment less for the second is quite left out of their Portresses and Breviaries no nor the least mention of it made in the Expositions of the great Schoolman Aquinas so the restless wit of man runs presumptuously upon all uncouth paths of knowledg which he should not tread but he keeps off from the Law and Good Works as if there were a Cloud say I between them nay as if there were a Lion in the way and so there is but it is that Lion which goes about night and day seeking whom he may devour But as our Proverb is of speculative men that dare enquire into any thing though it be never so much above their capacity that they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sore aloft in the air and talk in the clouds so the Apostle intimates that they are not wise unto sobriety and being drunk with curious knowledg as the Jews very falsly said the Apostles were with new wine they must needs stumble and fall Fourthly and I am sure this reason searcheth the true cause of the Cloud as near as any God the Father in the Old Testament was wont to utter his voice out of the thick clouds of the air and so he continues his holy will in the Gospel and therefore prepared this Cloud to preach from thence the words which follow This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him It was thus when he spake unto Moses himself Exod. xxiv 16. the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai and the Cloud covered it six days and the seventh day
Cause which was a Cause before all time and then with that Cause which was a Cause in time Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledg of God What is this determinate counsel what is this foreknowledg how was Christ delivered through those means these are the first Doctrins to be opened Counsel or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristotle is to canvass and to consider doubts discreetly and providently before some action is to be effected and to conclude out of those doubts well weighed what is best to be done that is it which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or understanding 't is very true this is the way and progress of mans wit to run through uncertain objections and at last to come to clear determinations and counsel among us is a rational remedy against rash and precipitate proceedings beware to think that these rules do conclude Almighty God there is counsel in God not by way of deliberation and discourse but because his infinite wisdom hath decreed all things both which way they shall tend and the bounds which they shall not pass and that 's the event of counsel Concilium dicitur non propter inquisitionem sed propter certitudinem cognitionis says Aquinas that is counsel is attributed to God not because He doth advise and demur much less because He doth require the suffrages and opinions of others but forasmuch as He hath established all things how they should be effected in the fulness of time therefore that Order and Decree which is the upshot of counsel among men is called to help the infirmness of our capacity counsel in the Most High Damascen was so scrupulous in this that he chose words on purpose to destinguish between God and Man In Deo est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resolution as you would say not a consultation for all things are manifest to him at once both of things that are and things that shall be nay of things that are only possible in themselves and never shall be But St. Paul prevented Damascen and avoids that distinction by putting those words together to make up one sense Ephes 1.11 Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Will and Counsel are united in the operations of God when you hear of his counsel conceive the wonderful and mysterious wisdom of God when you hear his will is joyned unto it observe his free power and authority it was of old the description of a Tyrant that his will was law sic volo sic jubeo he managed all things according to the decree of his will but if you lookt for counsel you should find nothing but rashness and for the most part injustice but in all the Statutes and Ordinances of God there is counsel in his will summa ratio verity and judgment in all things that he hath appointed yet summa libertas nothing impels God to any Decree but his own free will and election tempering all things with wisdom and justice God doth decree both the means and the end of all things and hath set them a Law as David says that they shall not pass In the next place some light must be given to this other term in the Text the Foreknowledg of God to foresee a thing before it be actually effected comes to pass in a threefold manner either by the insight of natural causes So Artists can foretel at what day and hour Eclipses of the Sun and Moon will happen or by rational sagacity as a prudent man can espy how affairs will succeed when a good foundation is laid or by Divine inspiration when the Lord from above doth give a spirit to his Prophets to behold things to come as if they were present before their eyes These three are thus laid down after the measure of our own understanding but when we speak of Gods foreknowledg it is of another fadom for first all things that were that are that shall be are present to him at one instant those successions of time past present and to come which are differences to us are none at all to God his knowledg which is eternal reacheth with one simple act even to the producing of effects in time without all variation and therefore is called Prescience very improperly and with much dissimilitude from humane ways of prescience 2. Our foresight is bare foreknowledg not able to put forward a good event and as unable to prevent a calamity Abraham could truly presage that Israel should come out of Egyptian bondage but he could not hasten the time of their return Isaiah could foretel that Judah should be led away into captivity but he could not mitigate their bondage but Gods foreknowledg hath his hand and power always annexed unto it for whereas my Text says Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledg of God St. Peter says Acts iv 28. that Herod and Pilate and the Gentils were gathered together against Christ to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done He doth not only foresee good how like it is unto himself and evil per dissimilitudinem sui how unlike it is unto himself but his providence intervenes and manageth that evil which he foresees will arise out of the corrupt and depraved will of the creature to his own glory It were an Epicuraean dream to imagin there is such a dull barren knowledg of things to come in God as should not interpose but leave all things to their own course and swing therefore Stapleton had no such just cause to declaim against Beza for rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place not Praescience but Providence God did not provide that is decree it antecedently that Judas should sin and betray Christ but since the Creature will decline from good consequently the Lord decrees the evil man shall not be restrained but shall be suffered to heap vengeance upon his own head Let Stapleton chafe at Estius a great Doctor of their own that says Prescience in this place stands for Predestination him being delivered by the determinate counsel and praedestination of God Now Providence is the ordaining of all things to a good end but Predestination is the ordaining of Gods chosen Portion to a blessed end I am sure Tremelius for Foreknowledg doth translate it Providence out of the Syrian Paraphrast and do but mark the scope of this place and you will find that Prescience here is annext with Providence For whereas the Jews thought that Christ had faln into their hands through unability of defending himself from his Enemies St. Peter beats down that error that Gods determinate Counsel and Providence was in the fact but that had been a very weak Apology to say that God foresaw it long before And so much concerning these simple terms to wit the determinate counsel and
betray me by the warning of the sop by rebuke and confusion Judas betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss though the treachery was permitted yet these were impediments though not such as would take place with a Reprobate Secondly God is no idle Spectator upon the actions of men whether good or bad where he permits the Devil to draw us into temptation his hand is not quite taken off from our sins but that he moderates our offences and that many ways as stopping our sins at such a quantity and excess that they shall go no further they that had power given them to kill Christ had not power to break his legs a bone of him could not be broken and the Lord sets other moments of time than the sinner casts about for himself as no man could lay hands on Christ yet the Pharisees fingers itcht at him because his hour was not yet come Therefore thirdly it must hang together with that which goes before that God disappoints a wicked man of that which he intends in his naughtiness and brings it about to his own glorious ends As Joseph said to his Brethren Ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good Gen. l. 20. Deus cogitavit id ipsum in bonum convertere Junius adds that unto it God did provide to convert it unto good Neither is our faith endangered hereupon to suspect God as the cause of sin because he draws his own ends out of evil that He may do and yet be no Author of sin but abhor it because He is Lord of those Creatures that sin and rebel against him and the Creature can no more exempt it self from his dominion because it is sinful then because it is sinful it will escape his Law or dissolve it self to nothing So then the antecedent Doctrin is summ'd up into this Thesis If you ask in these terms what was the cause of Christs death the answer is it was Gods Decree and eternal Statute for as much as He loved us with an everlasting love and would not spare his own Son to pull us out of destruction Again if you ask who was the cause that Christ was buffeted spot upon crowned with thorns crucified the answer is the Devil and his Instruments but when the Lord foresaw how their cruelty and blasphemy would abound his Counsel did direct moderate confine their sin and his loving kindness towards us that He might shew us plenteous redemption did permit it The ancient Fathers of the Church thought this the truest and most inoffensive conclusion to refer the injurious slaughter of Christ not to Gods ordination but to his permission You heard Leo's judgment before to whom St. Austin agrees The Jews enacted a sin which the righteous Lord did not compel them to do for no sin doth please him sed facturos esse praevidit quem nihil latuit but this was foreseen of him to whom nothing is concealed Yet St. Chrysostom more clearly that the scope of this part of St. Peters Sermon to the Jews is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was not their rage and violence which could have prevailed against Christ if God had not permitted it for as He did not command the evil Spirit to seduce Ahab and his flattering Prophets but the Devil offering himself and being most desirous to do that mischief God gave him leave and would not inhibit him so the Jews were not authorized or ordained or stirred up from God to shew that prodigious hatred to his Son but He yielded him up to their fury and did not deliver him therefore Christ did not say Father why hast thou given me up into their hands but my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Surely this is the scope of my Text and I believe they shoot wide from the mark that collect from hence that St. Peters meaning was either to excuse their heinous trespass or else to comfort their wounded conscience because Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledg of God no all the comfort which was administred is vers 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins There is no comfort under the Sun no balm in the world for a miserable sinner but repent and believe that there is abundant mercy in the satisfaction of Christ Jesus and for excuse that little extenuation of their fact which could be made is chap. iii. ver 17. Ye desired a Murtherer and killed the Prince of Life but I wote that through ignorance you did it as did also your Rulers these are plain and divine Allegations and there is no colour to help the greatness of their sin either from the determinate counsel or from the foreknowledg of God not from the determinate counsel for they had not an eye in the crucifying of Christ to comply with Gods counsel but to satiate their own spleen and hatred for impious men may execute that which God is content should come to pass and yet they do nothing less than obey God for obedience is not grounded upon the thing done but upon the readiness and duty of the will in doing beside was there any Law that commanded the High-Priests to crucifie our Saviour for God doth ever reveal his will in some Law No such Law I am sure therefore no obedience in this bloudy work of the Jews For no man can be said to obey that doth not know the will of the Lord neither doth direct his actions by the Rule of any Commandment And what had they to do with Gods secret counsel They had not the least glimpse of it Therefore my Text chargeth them home Ye have taken him and by wicked hands have crucified and slain him It is an error to amaze a man that reads it in the Popes Canon Law that because it was the counsel of the holy Trinity and the obedience of Christ to humble himself unto death even unto the death of the Cross therefore the Jews had sinned deadly if they had not crucified him It was well rejoyn'd by one that he wondred how the dumb and dead Paper did not stand up refusing to take that ink wherewith such an abominable blasphemy should be printed whereby the immaculate Lamb of God in whom there was no sin is affirmed to be justly and worthily condemned But will the fore-knowledge of God and that permission which followed it plead any part of their pardon Nothing less his fore-knowledge compels no man into the way of perdition God fore-sees iniquity in us because we will be evil but we are not made evil because he foresees it There have been always some in the world whom the Devil hath blinded with pernicious error making them dream of inevitable Fate and Destiny chiefly knitting this fallacy to fool themselves that Gods fore-sight cannot be deceived therefore such sins as he foresaw they would fall into are not to be declined St. Austin reprehended one of his Colledge
loud voice Lazarus come forth AMong all the miracles that our Saviour wrought this suscitation of Lazarus or raising him up from the dead it was his true Benoni or Son of sorrow None came off with so much anxiety none cost him so dear in all the Gospel Twice he groaned in Spirit and once he wept his Passions were as variable as the life and death of Lazarus Look back to the fifteenth verse and you shall see it wrought comfortably I am glad for your sakes that Lazarus is dead Look unto the 35 verse and you shall see it wrought bitterly Jesus wept What alterations are there says St. Austin Gaudebat propter discipulos flebat propter Judeos horum fides confirmabatur horum incredulitas augebatur It joyed him for the Disciples sake that their faith would be confirmed and revived It grieved him for the Jews sake whose hearts were hardened The preparation then of this Miracle was not without sorrow but the event and sequel was worst of all For although the Counsel of the High Priests stomach'd at our Saviour long before yet they wisht his life no hurt till he had wrought this wonder which all the world were amazed at From that time Caiaphas began to talk like a Wizard That one man must die for the people and Christ must suffer Now you see good cause why our Lord might groan and weep Israel shall pass over into Canaan but Moses must die upon Mount Nebo the birth of Benjamin shall be Rachels funeral Lazarus shall be revived and Jesus crucified Yet I can tell you one thing Beloved how the Son of God shall neither groan nor weep for Lazarus but rejoyce in Spirit and be glad even at this day be glad as he stands at the right hand of God and it lies upon you to do it Did he then groan for the infidelity of the Pharisees Then sure he will now rejoyce if we believe in his works and have faith in the Resurrection Did he then weep because his own death was contrived for doing good Then he will now be comforted if you take heed that you do not again crucifie the Lord of life Tâ—llite lapidem as it is in verse 39 remove the stone the hardness of your heart and joy will follow in heaven for the conversion of a sinner Do you consider that the days past were a time of mourning and sad contrition Why here is a Text which was not preach'd without Christs mourning and lamentation Do you remember his Passion but the other day Why this is the Text which was an occasion to bring him to his Cross and Passion What do you meditate upon this day but our Saviours issuing out of the Grave Why here is Lazarus broke out of the Tomb Lazarus come forth Which words as I have read them rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon You shall perceive that the business in my Text is a work of great dignity that is one part and a work of great Divinity that is the other part The dignity consists in these two Points 1. In that which Christ had spoken before when he had said thus And what was that He pray'd unto his Father wherefore it is dignum oratione a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation 2. It is Dignum proclamatione it was cried with a loud voice and fit to be published to all the world The Divinity appears in these three circumstances 1. Exeat mortuus that a dead man is summoned to appear 2. Exeat Lazarus Lazarus after four days departure comes forth 3. Exeat ligatus one who was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths walks upon his feet O strange Divinity the Monuments which were shut did open for Christ did call who had the Key of David The dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds bring forth young ones and called Adam from the dust of the earth The body which lay putrified four days gave no offence in the smell Christ was at hand who is a sweet savour for us unto God The feet which were bound with Grave-cloaths could walk before him for in him we live and move and have our being Was not this excellent work worthy of a Prayer So far we have gone this day in our morning Sacrifice Was it not worthy of the proclamation of a loud voice fit to be preached that the world may hear of it and believe and be saved And that is the business which doth now take up your attentions With these two circumstances of the Miracle I must first begin the preparation of our Saviours Prayer and the promulgation of his loud voice or preaching And when he had thus said c. That is when he had prayed unto the Father Dimidium facti qui benè caepit habet And he that begins his work with Prayer as Christ did hath half dispatch'd it Vox clamantis the voice of a Crier was the fore-runner of Christ when he came upon the earth Vox orantis the voice of Prayer must be the fore-runner of our necessities when we look for any thing from heaven As the people shouted when the foundation of the Temple was laid grace grace be unto the first stone of the building so let the foundation of every thing be laid with shouting and strong Ejaculations to our God that he may say upon the moving of the first stone Grace be to the building In Gen. xii Abraham removed three times to several quarters and still before he pitcht his Tent he built an Altar to Jehovah remove not stir not enter upon no new task before you have built an Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom wheresoever you are pray and your own heart is a Temple or the Alter of Jehovah Religion is the Bow and the heart is the String but Prayer is that which bends the Bow Religion is unbent as it were and the Shafts cannot fly untill Prayer dispatch them Well might Peter who was prompt of tongue and ready to speak upon all occasions be counted a chief Apostle for Prayer which is the tongue of Religion and our Consciences Orator is the chief of all our vertues Debilem facito manu debilem coxâ pede no matter for infirmities in the feet for diseases in the hands so the dumb Devil be not in our tongues The penitent Thief had no hands to hold up they were nailed to the Cross no knees to bend for his legs were broken he had a tongue to say Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom and it did him service enough to open Paradise O the delusions of the Devil For all this that I have said you shall sooner make ignorants and vain people believe that Diseases are curable by unsignificant Charms by unhallowed mutterings than by godly Prayers As if the Devil could go further with Non-sense than a good Christian with Faith and Prayer One Talent in
of Christ the other at his Resurrection Terra quae in passione concussa fuerat horrore jam prae gaudio exilire videtur The whole Land of Judaea did quake with horror when he hung upon the Cross but it danced for joy when he rose out of the Grave so I have rendred the fifth reason The Sixth is Allegorical and thus in brief that our hearts must be shaken and inwardly troubled with compunction and repentance before we believe stedfastly in the Resurrection of Jesus Peter preacht and they that heard him were prickt in heart and said to him and to the rest of the Apostles Men and brethren what shall we do There was an heart-quake before they believed Paul and Silas prayed and sung praises to God and suddenly there was a great Earthquake then the Jaylor came in trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and said Sirs what must I do to be saved Here was an heart rent and torn a commotion in his conscience greater than an Earthquake and then he believed When Eve took and eat the forbidden fruit says an eloquent Father there was no Earthquake no horror to affright her O that the Palsie had possess'd her fingers O that her teeth had chattered that she might not have eaten but vitiis semper serviunt blandimenta All was hush and still nothing but fair allurements do minister to our vices But at Christs Resurrection the sound of an hideous noise was fierce and terrible to the ear Virtutibus austera fortia sunt amica Harsh and austere occurrencies are best agreeable to vertue Roul the thoughts of your heart up and down like a tempestuous Sea if you mean to make a fair voyage to heaven the commotion of a troubled spirit will breed eternal peace As Paul was smitten down before he believed so faith must be beaten into us with violence and therefore behold there was a great Earthquake at the Resurrection of Jesus Unto the motion of the Earth I conjoyn the next circumstance of my Text which I called the motion of the heaven it were like Copernicus his fancy in Astronomy to think that the Earth did only move and the Heavens stand still at the operation of this Miracle No the everlasting doors were set open and the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven Here is one Keeper more than the Jews look'd for about our Saviours Sepulchre one more than Pilate appointed One mighty Prince of that supernal Host whose countenance was able to daunt a Legion of the best Roman Souldiers perhaps there was a multitude with him to celebrate the Resurrection as there was a multitude that appeared in the fields of Bethlem to rejoyce at his Nativity But this Angel I may say determinately was one of the most royal Spirits that stand before the face of God for ever To make short I will not defer to give my reasons presently how sweetly the eternal Wisdom did dispose to let an Angel shew himself openly both at this place of the Grave and upon the celebration of this great day First Those ministring Spirits had been attendants upon all the parts of our Saviours humility and reason good they should be occupied upon all occasions of his exaltation and glory Since we read of Angels that gave all diligent attendance at his birth the holy Spirit of God knew that men would look for their company at the Resurrection I mean that we who know him now by faith would expect their mention upon this occasion in the Book of God Besides his Resurrection is a birth not called so because of a resemblance how man is brought to life out of the womb of his mother in natural Generation but properly in it self according to the phrase of Scripture Acts xiii 33. For Paul preaching at Antioch that God had fulfilled his Promise in raising up Jesus again says he As it is written in the second Psalm thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee So that these Phrases it seems are equivalent this day have I raised thee up from the dead and this day have I begotten thee And surely as a Father of our own Church says very well the news of his birth if God had so pleased might well have been brought by a mortal man it was but the entrance into a mortal life But the news of his Resurrection do become the mouth of an immortal Messenger because it was an entrance into life immortal Secondly The women came out of doors to embalm Christs body with a great deal of confidence they never thought how many difficulties were in their way and such difficulties as could never have been mastered if the Angel had not been sent to facilitate all things for them They mind not how the High Priests would excommunicate all those that professed to believe or do good to our Lord and Saviour they came to touch a dead body which was pollution by the Law they stand not upon that The Sepulcher was guarded with Souldiers who would permit none to come near it they would try that The Grave was sealed with Pilates perhaps with Caesars Seal which none must cancel on pain of death they would venture that The Grave-stone was exceeding heavy as much as twenty men could move says Nicephorus and barred strongly with Iron and they were out of doors and far on their way before they thought of that then they ask Quis removebit Who will roul us away this stone As who should say God will send us some assistance in so good an enterprise we will put on and hope for that and the Lord to make their Pilgrimage prosperous sent an Angel from heaven to remove away the stone Scipio Africanus besieged a City in Spain well fortified every way and wanted nothing and no hope did appear to take it In the mean time Scipio heard many causes pleaded before him and put off one before it was ended to be heard three days after and being asked by his Officers where he would keep his next Court he pointed to the chief Cittadel of the besieged City and told them he would hear the Cause there in that space he became Master of the Town and did as he had appointed He was not more confident to enter into a City rampar'd against him by his valour than these women were to enter into a Sepulcher by faith sealed and shut up but the Lord is present with couragious attempts and he sent his Angel to assist them Thirdly This shewed says St. Chrysostome that he who had been buried there was God as well as man Cum ad sepulchrum tanquam in coelo ubi Deus habitat assisterent for Angels were as officious at the Sepulcher as they use to be in heaven which is the throne of God If men be laid in their Tomb the worms attend them corruption goes to corruption But the body of Christ even when the soul had left it was still united in one person with the Godhead
Behold he goes before you to Galilee Was there any cause therefore that they should think to bless their eyes with him before they had made a journey into Galilee but behold the Angels had not all the mind of the Lord revealed unto them Jesus met the women hard by where the word was spoken and long before they went into Galilee So it is with all who are dear to God They look not for the vision of God till they are dead for no man shall see God at any time and live Yet before we get into Galilee before the Soul ascends into heaven he grants us that blessing to see him often with the eye of faith As the place is one part of the wonder so there is another Ecce another behold in the time just as they were going to tell the Disciples that an Angel had publisht at the Monument that the Master was risen just then he met them One hath made a good note of it qui communicant Christum aliis ipsum altiùs intelligent Teach the ways of the Lord to others and thou shalt understand them the better thy self Communicate unto the ignorant what thou knowest of Christ thy Saviour and thine own knowledg shall increase unto thee in the communication A great encouragement though the mysteries of faith are deep and inexplicable yet to preach them as we are able because we have this hope that Jesus the revealer of all secrets will meet us by the way And yet behold again that Jerusalem being so populous and at this time of the Passover throng'd with all sorts of strangers he was descerned of none but of these women these he meets and salutes them This is their reward that they left their soft Couch and some hours before the Sun rose came to seek the Lord. The Servants of God are called generatio quaerentium Psal xxii This is the generation of them that seek thee even of them that seek thy face O Jacob. He says in the Prophet Isaiah that he was found of them that sought him not much more will he be found of those that sought him Ask St. Cyprian why many that thought themselves Eagles could not behold him with their piercing eyes and that this little Nest of Sparrows these few women did encounter him St. Cyprian says quae ardentiùs dilexerunt quae devotiùs quaesicrunt such as loved him more affectionately such as sought him more devoutly they have the blessing to enjoy him But a wiser than Cyprian even Solomon says it Prov. viii 17. I love them that love me and those that seek me early shall find me In a word Christ meets all those that go in the way of faith and obedience as these women did And as the Father went out to meet his prodigal Son before his Son did look for him so go on in repentance in love in zeal in holiness and you shall see the unexpected day of the Lord. After this hear the words which our Saviour spake to the women St. Paul heard his voice from heaven but did not at first see him St. Stephen saw him stand at the right hand of God but did not hear him speak these persons had the blessedness both to hear him and see him and his tunable voice gave them this salutation before they spake to him all hail It is no question but Christ spake unto them in the Syrian or in the Hebrew tongue and their word of love and courtesie to one another when they met was shalom or peace And so the Syrian Paraphrast renders these words of my Text pax vobis peace be unto you But the Evangelist hath kept the Greek form of salutation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rejoyce The Latin tongue useth that word which was usual in the mouth of the Romans when they gave the wishes of a good day unto any avete an old Latian word whose meaning themselves did not know The Poet Martial was a good Critick that confessed it Exprimere Rufe fidicula licet cogant Ave latinum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non potes Gracum Now at last to descend to our language we express it as you read it all hail which is a Saxon ideom for all health The optative form of the Hebrews was Peace of the Greeks Joy they were merry Greeks of us English health The common custom was that friends should meet friends with auspicious words with congratulation of happiness one to another whensoever they came together upon appointment or incidentary occasions Among the Heathen Humanity and Civility among us Christians Brotherly love is the original to salute one another with a Prayer when we meet But who is he among an hundred that thinks the name of God and a Prayer is in his mouth when he bids a Good morrow or a Good even to his Neighbour he hath no perceivance of his all hail or of those charitable words that come from him He doth not bless his Brother after the meaning of the phrase but he talks by rote like a Parrot And as it is most supine negligence to mean no good in our salutation and will fall into the condemnation of idle words so it is most devillish to give the outward salute of good words and to have war in our heart As Joab spake peaceably to Abner that is saluted him and then smote him that he died as Judas gave all hail to his Master and betrayed him with a signal of a courtesie A familiar thing in this wicked world to bid God save and God speed to them whose destruction we covet and to think of cursing in our heart at the same instant when the form of blessing is in our mouth Shame be to our dissimulation that it is but a form It began to be so odious among the Heathen to salute out of wanton fashion when they meant no kindness that it grew in use among them to confirm their Greetings with an oath In one of Terence his Comedies this passage is between two Servants Salve mecastor Parmeno tu aedipol Syra they swore they did verily mean them all the good wherewith they saluted them But this would not mend the matter in our dissembling age for we have many that will salute and swear and yet intend mischief to their neighbour and so will mix malice with perjury I leave them to the bitterness of their own sins and to have their portion with Hypocrites I am sure the salutation of our Saviour did really bring peace and joy and health to them that were saluted Gaudere eas jubet quae condemnatae erant ad habendum merorem says Euthymius womenkind in Eve was condemned to sorrow Gen. iii. Now Christ bids them rejoyce and obliterates the handwriting of sorrow that was against them Avete 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now be merry and joyful now that you have seen with your eys that Christ is the resurrection and the life the Heavens and all the powers therein Archangels and Angels Patriarchs and Prophets
upon them to make them loiter from their daily necessary labour but it was an high solemnity as fell out in all the year Dies celeberrimus sanctissimus as the Vulgar Latin reads it Lev. xxiii 21. where we read that then they should proclaime and call an holy Convocation So I have summed up the three occasions of this Feast in the Old Law first to give thanks for their deliverance from bondage Secondly to honour the day wherein first they received the Law at Mount Sinah and thirdly to offer up the first fruits of their Harvest will you see now how aptly the gift of the Holy Ghost was distributed at the same time When the day of Pentecost c. First Whereas the Jews did celebrate at the Feast of Pentecost their enfranchisement from the house of bondage so the benefit of liberty was augmented this day much more than ever it was before This Satan knew well enough and therefore the longest thing wherein he held the Church in ignorance was about the sending of the Holy Ghost long after the name of Christ and his power was received whole Cities and Societies confessed they had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost or not Ignorance in those Points which are necessary to salvation is the greatest thraldom and captivity in the world False Prophets says S. Paul do lead captive silly women laden with sins 2 Tim. iii. 6. I spake not only of such as sate in the darkness of death and were lost these were like Samson in fetters having their eies put out but the Disciples the flower of Christs train saw nothing in holy mysteries as they ought to see till the influence of this glorious day cleared there eye-sight their eyes were held their hearts were held they knew not which way their Redemption was brought about and how Israel was restored Our Saviour took out but one Text in all the New Testament it is out of Isaiah and it is to this very purpose that the Spirit of God redeemed us out of the captivity of ignorance the place is extant Luk. iv 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised This comes home to the matter I am sure Yet moreover this is a day of restitution unto liberty because it dissolved the Church from the tye and yoke of Levitical Ceremonies from those multitude of Statutes which overwhelmed the people with observation As Pharaoh was drowned in the red Sea so the tenure of Mosaical Ceremonies was drowned in the bloud of Christ which was shed upon the Cross and on this Feast we received the Seal of the Spirit that we were rid of them all So far I have demonstrated that at this time we shook off the bondage of Ignorance and Ceremonies which makes it a feast of Pentecost to us Christians as well as it was to the Jews Secondly You shall find the other correspondency marvelously kept between the Law and the Gospel Christ at his death was slain not only as the Paschal Lamb but even when the Lamb was slain on the Feast of Passeover Now from the Feast of Passeover or rather from the second day of sweet bread reckoning fifty days the Children of Israel came to Mount Sinah and there received the Law which was kept ever after with a most sacred memorial so fifty days after Christ rose from the dead the Apostles and the Church received the Spirit of Sanctification And I am sure we have much more cause to renown our Pentecost than the Jews had to honour theirs If the Law which was the ministration of death was so thankfully remembred how much more the dedication of the Gospel For this day as the Fathers say very well was the first dedication of Christs Catholick Church upon earth They were made the Sons of the bondwoman by the Law we are made the Sons of the free-woman by the Spirit We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the spirit of adoption Rom. viii 15. A sinner could have no comfort in the Pentecost of the Jews they had the Law and that condemned them this was miserable comfort We have gladsom tidings this day not from Sinah but out of Sion which bids us live by faith in Christ In no other Feast of the Jews might Leaven be eaten it was an hainous transgression but the two loaves of the first fruits were to be baked with Leaven which were dedicated to God at this Feast Lev. xxiii 17. Expositors say no more to it but thus Leaven was put into the dough of new corn Vt panes sapidiores essent to make it more savory certainly so vulgar an interpretation is much under the meaning of the Holy Ghost I would rather say it had a mystical construction that Leaven was allowed at this Feast to intimate that the Holy Spirit would bear with the leaven of our nature with our sins of frailty and infirmity And it is observable that this is the number of the Jubilee every fiftieth year was the Jubilee year which was a time with the Jews to restore all men to their Lands which were sold away by ill-husbandry and a general forgiving of all debts So this day was a true Jubilee for remission of Trespasses it was at this time that Peter preach'd remission of sins to all that did repent and believe to all without exception for says he the Promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even to as many as the Lord our God shall call So I have shewed that we received the divine Spirit of grace at Sion at the same time that they received the terrible Law at Sinah which makes it a greater Feast of Pentecost to us Christians than it was unto the Jews Thirdly We agree no less with them in the next similitude for keeping this day The Israelites according to the early maturity of corn in that climate began to put their Sickle at this time into Wheat Harvest so the Apostles from this day forward went forth to reap that which the Prophets had sown gathering much fruit unto eternal life and bringing the Wheat of God into his Garner unto the everlasting praise of the glory of his grace Their Barly Harvest such was the condition of their Soil and Husbandry begun at Easter their Wheat was begun to be cut down seven weeks after at Whitsuntide and the latter was called Tempus primitiarum the Time or Festival of First-fruits which were presented to the Lord. So God breathed his spirit into man at the creation of Adam that was the first Harvest which spirit being choked by him and coming to nothing this day there was a second emission of the spirit into man fully to restore and renew him again Now the two Loaves
the name of the whole Congregation to offer up two Lambs of the first year for a Sacrifice of Peace-offerings You will say that 's no strange matter to present a Peace-offering to the Lord true indeed particular persons did it often in their own behalf but Maimonides observes it that the publick Body the Vniversal Church of the Jews never offered any Peace-offering but at the Feast of Pentecost O who will work this work for the Militant Catholique Church that we may say of all the parts of it omnes unanimiter they conclude all for the Orthodox Faith with one accord Some strange salvation must drop out of the clouds we know not how to work this Attonement yet on both sides let every man take heed he make not the rent bigger with more obstinacy and greater separation sweetly did a meek Moses of our own Church write there will come a time when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive a far more blessed reward than three thousand Volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit It may seem a wonderful and unanswerable scruple that many in the former Ages of the Church did so much transcend us in these dayes for gifts of Miracles gifts of Devotion and Learning for Watchings and Fastings for Industry and assiduous diligence for most prosperous success in winning many Souls to the Kingdom of Heaven but the true cause is that their unanimity and pious agreement opened a wide gate to admit sanctification into their breast and our discords exclude it No spirit can give life to Members dismembred unless they be first united and compact together Ezekiel knew not how scattered bones could live but the bones came together bone to his bone and then the breath of the Lord came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet Ezekiel xxxvii 10. The Scribes and Elders of the Jews in few years after our Saviour was crucified were like broken bones scattered and divided like as one breaketh and heweth wood every year by bribery or calumniations the High Priest lost his dignity and a new one was substituted Josephus most impartially hath related that there was no care of Religion no zeal for the Law among them because there was nothing but bandings and factions in their Synagogues Here was no accord and therefore no Holy Spirit came down into their habitations Against the Congregation of the famous first Nicene Council the Fathers that met together it is not to be concealed forgat themselves so far that they put up innumerous Bills of complaints one against another before the Emperor Constantine The Emperor knew this was a most repugnant beginning to the good work they had in hand to enter into the consideration of Christs business with distracted enmities therefore he threw all their bills and brables into the fire and then bad them proceed in the name of Christ and in the grace of his Holy Spirit Their heart is divided now shall they be found faulty says the Prophet Hosea chap. x. 2. A contentious stickler that loves to be the head of a Faction and to disjoynt things out of peace and quietness I wonder whether ever he thinks how the Apostles were composed and prepared when they received the Holy Ghost Fuerunt omnes eâdem animatione simul in unam so St. Austin reads they had one heart and one mind and one inclination to advance the Kingdom of Christ they were all with one accord in one place I enter now upon the last part of all that I may find the way out of my Text and conclude it is the other Preparation for the coming of the Holy Ghost as all the Disciples were knit in vinculo pacis in the bond of peace and concord so they were united together in vinculo spei in the bond of hope by patience and expectation they were ejusdem unanimitatis and ejusdem longanimitatis they kept together for the promise of the Holy Ghost till fifty days were fulfilled God made the Israelites number fifty days after their coming out of Egypt before the Law was delivered ut adventus sui desiderium accenderet to make their hearts burn within them with longing for his coming so he put off the coming of the Holy Ghost for the same space of time to make them think of his promise with eager expectation The Jews called it the Feast of fifty days and the Feast of weeks for whether we reckon by days or weeks or years we must wait the Lords leisure and say expectans expectavi Psal xl 1. I have waited patiently for the Lord and say with our Saviour not my will but thy will be done that is not my time but thy time be fulfilled Where is the faith where is the humility of those rash spirits that will not tarry the fulness of time but have all things at their whistle by and by or quarrel with God as if he had forgot them They received this blessing of wonderful grace that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 long abiders in the 13. verse of the former chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or perseverantes ver 14. such as continue till the day of promise was fully come He that believeth let him not make haste says the Prophet Isaiah God will do all things by his own leisure and maturity if he happen to stay stay for him Habak ii 3. for at last he that cometh will come and then he is no flitter his gifts are without repentance and he will abide with us for ever AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 2. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and filled all the house where they were sitting THE Feast of Christs Resurrection and the Feast of Whitsunday or coming of the Holy Ghost are distant one from another fifty days in space of time but are as near to themselves as the bark unto the tree in real substance and in spiritual conjunction In the Resurrection the strength of Hell was weakened for us In the descending of the Holy Ghost the vertue of Heaven was made powerful in us In the first the doors of the Grave were unlock'd that we might not be held in death In the other the windows of heaven were opened that we might be partakers of the life to come The Resurrection reduceth the soul into the body again which was dissolved by the sin of Adam The coming of the Holy Ghost doth again reduce grace into the Soul when original Justice had been taken from it by the same mans transgression These are parallell'd in primo gradu and the comparison may reach a little further to our present business that there was a great noise caused at Christs rising For behold there was an Earthquake Mat. xxviii 2. And loe as great a noise from above at the coming of the Holy Ghost for behold there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind These two honourable Feasts
not hear you Hitherto I have made it good against Satan and all infernal Sorceries against Tyrants that attempt to exalt themselves and against all popular Factions that would seem to have an interest in the making and marring of Princes that God is the initial cause the conserving cause the sole Fountain and Author of all Supreme Sovereignty There is but one Adversary more to struggle with in this point that Hildibrand◠spirit in the Church of Rome who either directly or indirectly claims authority to himself to take account of the Government of Kings and when he pleaseth to break their Scepters with a Rod of Iron It is no toying in so main a Cause as this therefore I will demonstrate that I charge them right 1. The great number of the Canonists defend without any circumlocution that the Temporal Soveraignty of the whole world is inherent in the Office of Christs Vicar to give change alter or confirm the Titles of particular Princes as his infallible judgment shall lead him Thus Baronius who speaks his mind in these words for his Holy Father whom our Lord Jesus Christ the King of Glory hath constituted a Prince over all the Kingdoms of the World Says Augustinus Triumphus all Power and Royalty is subdelegated from the Pope to other Princes no man can give him any Soveraignty which he had not before nec Constantinus dedit quicquam Sylvestro quod non prius erat suum says he some talk of Constantines donation to Sylvester that he gave him the Temporal Principality of Romania he gave him nothing but that which was his own before that and all beside was St. Peters Patrimony But Practice is a plainer Argument than Book-words Alexander the Sixth a Giver that will do but small credit to his Gift but such as he is take him with all faults he bestowed the whole West-Indies to Ferdinand King of Spain ex merâ liberalitate motu proprio as it is in the words of the Bull. Their own Histories say that Athabaliba King of Peru maintained his Dominions by fighting against that Grant till he was taken prisoner in battel and then cried out That Pope could have no reverence to vertue or to the God of Heaven that took away another mans Kingdom from him You see now that this Successor of St. Peter as he would be stiled lays claim to that which St. Peter never dreamt of to belong to him for how could his imagination comprehend such things when he knew they were disclaimed by Christ Joh. xviii 36. My Kingdom is not of this world if it were my Servants would fight for me that I should not be delivered to the Jews but my Kingdom is not from hence God gave unto Christ the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his Possession that is to dilate his Spiritual Kingdom over all the world but neither that himself or his Apostles should excel in any Temporal Dignity It remains therefore against all opposite Parties that the Kingdoms of the World are the Lords and he doth set his Annointed in their Thrones out of his holy Hill and therefore when Popes of old did write to Kings their usual stile was to wish them health in eo per quem reges regnant in him by whom Kings do reign that is in God above And all this is to declare that David held his Crown from none but God because upon the Solemn Feast of his Inauguration it is said This is the Day which the Lord hath made All Kings are made by God yet not all alike there is more of the Divine mercy and favour in the making of David a man after Gods own heart than in making of Saul one whom it repented God that ever he made him more of his sacred workmanship in the making of Melchisedech a King of Righteousness than in the making of Nimrod a King of Violence They that sow the fruits of righteousness in peace those are reges primae intentionis Kings in whom God and Man do especially delight and they that have been compassed about with most cruel Wars abroad and with most terrible Enemies and Treasons at home and yet have waded prosperous out of all these dangers those are reges primae providentiae Kings of miraculous providence above the trivial current and you that have read the two Books of Samuel and the first Book of Chronicles meet with a thousand passages what memorable marks the Lord had set upon the person of David which of you doth note the mean condition out of which he did rise and the Throne to which he was exalted but you will say digitus Dei you do mark the print of Gods finger in the work collect the imminent dangers which he escaped the fury of Saul the Hosts of the Philistins the Duel with Goliah the Plots of Ahitophel the overawings of the Sons of Zeruiah the almost inevitable Conspiracy of Absalon and finally the Usurpation of his other Son Adonijah even while he was upon his Death-bed and you will say there was never any Potentate begirt with so many assaults and brought off with such safety that there was not an hair of his head did perish As David's Day hath these characters in it so we are to glorifie the sweet Providence of God that our Royal Sovereign's Day hath none of them For first the mean Parentage of David did much prejudice him it was a word of contempt that he could not claw off to be called the Son of Jessai the Son of a poor Yeoman in Bethlem But his Majesty's Throne hath been the Throne of his glorious Ancestors for many Generations and a concurrence of the best blood in the world doth meet in himself and in his Royal Progeny For domestical Enemies God be praised for the terms of eleven years of his most Religious Reign never any durst shew their faces if they should I trust we should see their heads shewn for a direful spectacle to after Ages But whereas the blessed Princes that upheld our Reformed Religion have been hemmed about with Treasons upon Treasons every one of them God hath so confounded them in their malicious devices that His Sacred Majesty hath hitherto gone in and out before us without the least whisper of any infernal attempt against him no Prince in this Island that profest the same Reformed Faith being able to say as he can that neither popular commotion nor secret conspiracy hath hitherto reacht itself against his Royal Person and God grant such safety to himself and such true and loyal hearts to his People and that gracious protection will make us see that the Buckler of the Most High is on every side of him and that his name is written in the Book of Life Another thing is David was very much exercised in wars against the Philistins and his Sword did never come out of the Field without a Conquest but the best Victory is bought with the price of much bloud and therefore
ours is both a more joyful condition to enjoy the halcyon days of peace than to be renowned for the most triumphant days of war As Seneca said of the innocent days of Saturns Age that there were no terrible Battels fought by seditious Princes odium omne in feras verterant they kill'd none but wild Beasts in hunting so it is far more Christian in our days to hear it talked that Dogs do chace Stags than that Men devour Men as they do in our neighbour Nations But as David was the first King of Israel that maintained a Navy of Ships at Sea both to procure safety and honour and wealth to his people so it will be written of our Dread Soveraign that he hath matched if not exceeded all his Predecessors in that glory Touching the Personal Qualities of David Gifts of Virtue and Grace I confess they were rare and will admit but of few Comparisons never such an Enditer of holy Songs never any did exceed him in Zeal and Piety never since the world began did any Monarch heap up such a mass of Treasure to build up the Temple an hundred thousand Talents of Gold a thousand thousand Talents of Silver and Gold and Silver without number 1 Chron. xxii for ordering the Service of God in the disposition of the Priests in settling the sacred Musick he was so exquisite as the like was never heard of and in ordering all temporal affairs he was wise as an Angel of God says the woman of Tekoa for his mercy in forgiving offendors you shall not meet with the like till you ascend up to God himself how soon did a few courteous words in the mouth of Abigail cool his anger when he was in a most chaffing indignation what horrid revilings did he put up which Shemei cast upon him how indulgent he was to have spared Absolom the lewdest Son that did ever rise up against a Father When God did give such Ornaments to his Servant it may well be said that he made the day wherein he crowned him and for our due acknowledgment of Gods favours poured upon the head of our Augustious Sovereign you cannot deny but he is religious pious temperate gentle prudent good in all respects as David was but blemished with none of his vices But I will not make my Sermon a Cento of his deserved Praises not for that reason which Plato gives that it is folly to commend any man while he lives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because man is a changeable creature and may alter from good to worse I fear not this I see such constancy and stiff perseverance in all virtuous ways in our Illustrious King but partly because all Encomiastick Exercises are censur'd for flattery and do soon prove scandalous to the Auditors partly because the Temple is a place selected for the Praise of God and not of Man but I will confidently say that since we are so prosperous a People in a religious wise just chast merciful and temperate Sovereign no Nation under the Sun all things duly weighed hath more cause to confess than we this is the day which the Lord hath made And I may well say hitherto I have spoken of a Benefit now I am come to our bounden thankfulness we will rejoyce and be glad in it as who should say this is the Day which God made for this very end that we should rejoyce and be glad in it As the Lord loveth a chearful Giver so he loveth a chearful Receiver of his mercies he would have us consign it in our countenance and gesture that it pleaseth us and delights us exceedingly to be partakers of his Propitiations And surely this is no hard request no heavy yoke I am certain to require us to rejoyce and be merry with them that keep holy day to accommodate our selves to the season It becometh the righteous to be glad it becometh them to be merry and joyful says our Psalmist If we descend into the consideration of our manifold sins we had need of a long Lent set apart to bewail them nay the Church very anciently provided that every week in the year we should cast up that reckoning and singled out two whole days Wednesday and Friday for fasting weeping and mourning Yet since there is nothing worse for our proficiency in sanctification than to be swallowed up in grief and melancholy therefore it is the will of our Father that we should recreate our selves in solemn Festivals for the remembrance of his benefits which my Text calls to rejoyce and be glad The same passion of Exhilaration perhaps is set forth in both these terms yet it is usual to ascribe them severally the one to the Body the other to the Soul referring joy to the Body and gladness to the Soul for we owe our selves to God in both and we must honour him both in the inward and in the outward man Cor meum caro mea they go both together Psal xvi 9. therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope In such times as great Benefits are to be celebrated we must not think it enough to joy in our bosom it must break out into some sensible tokens and yet again we must not have a clear face and a cloudy overcast heart but let our Body and Soul be equally devoted to triumph in the name of the Lord. I dare not open too wide a gap for mirth lest instead of thanksgiving it prove to be licentiousness Solomon among other varieties would prove his own heart with mirth and pleasure and behold it turned to vanity Eccl. ii no passion more obnoxious to degenerate into vice therefore gaudete in Domino let the Lord be in the joy both of Body and Soul and forget not that the speakers in my Text promise not a carnal but a religious Festival wherein the Lord should be praised For the 27 verse of this Psalm in our reading promiseth a Sacrifice to God upon that Day in his holy Temple Bind the Sacrifice with cords unto the horns of the Altar but the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and it is followed by the Vulgar Latin which reads it Constituite diem solemnem in condensis usque ad cornua altaris appoint an holy day that the People may stand thick in the Temple from the Porch up to the horns of the Altar Some part of the day must be spent in the Church upon our Solemn times or else our rejoycing is not sanctified It is the mirth of Fools or rather of Mad-men to suppose that Christmas Holidays are well kept with gaming and revelling that Whitsun Holidays were made for nothing but Wakes and Dancing that the Solemnity of May-day being the Feast of two Apostles Philip and Jacob consists in decking up houses with green boughs or as in old time the Common People celebrated Allhollan-day with nothing but ringing of Bells Lawful Exercises and Pastimes may be used to refresh both the body and
to be sought out in a higher rank Great astonishments are quite above our nature Aquinas hath contrived them into three sorts First The wonder lies in substantiâ facti in the very thing done as when the Sun went backward Secondly The thing may be natural in it self but admirable and past our power if we consider the subject upon which it is wrought as for the blind to see for the dead to be raised up to life Thirdly and lastly Both the thing performed is ordinary and done with ease upon the subject but the manner of doing it makes the wonder as for a Fever to be cured in a moment Of all these three the first in order is the greatest in substantiâ facti such was this in my Text and no meaner that it should not kill and empoyson Aesculapius among the heathen the very deity of Physick his Emblem was a Serpent as the glory of his Cures and the very utmost of his Art Now when Miracles have but two ends say the Schoolmen to do honour to the Word of God and to confirm it that is the first or to honour the life of him that works in the Ministry in the justice of both causes never was there more need than at this time of a Miracle Here was the poor Island of Melita which Publius and the Roman Army had found out long ago to destroy it but the Gospel was not heard of before this day to save it St. Paul that should plant the faith was cast ashore by shipwrack as one neglected of God bound over a close Prisoner as one hated of his Countrymen suspected by the Barbarians to be a Murderer then his cause was tried by the word of the Lord it was time to shake Vipers into the fire and feel no harm Thus Christianity began by a Miracle in the Island of Melita and perchance long ago so it began with us but now we do not so learn Christ when the boughs of the Church are grown and spread like the goodly Cedar trees Nehemiah and all the People shouted for joy when the Foundation of the Temple was laid but from thenceforth they built with silence no exclamations were heard When faith had scarce made entrance into Jerusalem our Saviour came in strangely when the doors were shut but being once in he went plainly to work with Thomas Put thy finger into my side and be not faitless but faithful This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fit wedge to drive out the jugling Divinity of the Papists What do you tell us of your Legend of wonders in Compostella Thousand Miracles and more thousand Murders in India Images that turn their eyes about and Statues that weep and sweat Saints limb'd out in bloudy straws Strange Exorcisms of Devils When the worst was but the Toothach or a Fever As Apelles said to another Painter none of the best workmen but one of the quickest that bragg'd he made twenty Pictures every day and shewed the Patterns I wonder says Apelles you do not make twice twenty of this sort So the Miracle that I take hold of is this why the learned Fatherhood invent no louder or more unlikely miracles But take it to you work Signs and Wonders perchance by the secret operation of Satan Et eorum spirituum operatione videbantur admirandi à quibus sunt damnandi says their own Master Lombard And they lookt for admiration by the power of those Spirits by whom they shall receive damnation As the Rivers of Paradise are without Paradise and run into divers parts of the world so the gifts of Miracles and the gifts of Tongues are like those Rivers which run both within and without the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostome Signs and Wonders are not so near to Gods House as the Porch is unto the Temple except there be holiness to the Lord in Aarons Breast as well as Buds of Almonds in his Rod. Remember Jannes and Jambres remember Simon the Sorcerer yea the very Divels do Miracles says Lombard Ne tale aliquid facere fideles pro magno desiderent lest the Faithful should seem to desire to do the like as if it were some great matter If not Magnum then surely not Maximum the greatest note of a Church Especially if it be true which St. Austin says Omni miraculo quod fit per hominem majus miraculum est homo If man be a greater wonder than can pass through the hands of man then certainly a regenerate man is the greatest power of God his Prayers and Charity and Faith are more excellent than to shake a Viper into the fire and feel no harm Grant O Lord such Wonders unto thy Church whereby thy name may be glorified in true holiness and cloath thy Priests with health as thou didst thy Servant Paul and because we look for a greater deliverance Quis me liberabit Who shall deliver me from the body of this death Let us say assuredly as he did even Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON ENOCH GEN. V. 24. And Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him DAys appointed for Repentance and Humiliation you know these to be of that institution but those are times to do and not to say therefore I have read a Text unto you rather of Deeds than Sayings an active Example and not a verbal Exhortation And it is an Example of no mean pitch you will like it the better for that one Star differs from another in glory and one Saint differs from another in sanctity and perfection There were Pillars in Solomons Temple and golden Chapiters on the top of the Pillars so the Patriarchs of old the Apostles in the Christian Ages were Pillars of the Church all of them Pillars but such as bore the chief praise for using the gifts of grace with all advantage to Gods glory these are the golden Chapiters upon the tops of the Pillars I will promise you to make it good by that which I shall say anon that I have propounded unto you one of the golden Crowns upon the top of the Pillars as heavenly and as happy a president as can be found out of a meer man as compleat a Pattern as can be chosen out of all the Sons of Adam and who would not write by the best Copy In the most ancient Epistle of Clemens the Roman written to the Corinthians lately made publick to the world out of the Princely store-house of this Kingdom that holy Father moves the Corinthians with this extimulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us look stedfastly towards them who have perfectly ministred in holy service to the excellent glory of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to the Catalogue of Saints in the middle Region but to them that walked highest above this world And in the very next words following Ecce homo behold the man of his choice to whom he gives precedency above all others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us take out
walk with God is to let him draw us after him as far as his Commandments reach and no further It is not material that there were neither Scriptures extant nor the Tables of the Law divulged in the days of Enoch certainly the Children of God in that Age were not left to themselves to woship in a wild undistinct way without some divine prescription Some Canon of Faith and good Works they had delivered them it concerns the Providence of God and that order which must necessarily be among them to say so and by the extent of that revealed rule Enoch walked with God Let all things be done according to the pattern which thou sawest in the Mount so the Law-giver himself to Moses Nothing must be changed though you think for the better but keep you close to the Pattern in every part and proportion Honorato jucundissimus honor est quem ipse vult it is St. Chrysostome's The Majesty of God takes it for an honour to do him honour by his own Commandment Peter thought he had shewed himself a most obsequious Disciple and reverenced his Master more than all the rest when he would not let him wash his feet but Christ shewed him it must be so and that particular recusancy of his was to dishonour him above his fellows If you think that God will bate you one inch of that he hath commanded you walk by your self without him Alas for that poor soul that is so deceived whither will his feet carry him Heaven and earth shall pass away before one tittle of the Law doth perish Repent and turn to the Lord and he will run forth to meet you forgive one another and Christ will forgive you there he concurs with you defraud no man and the righteous Lord will give you an inheritance there he joyns with you Hold him fast to you in continual Prayer and let him not go away till he give you a blessing there he dwels with you In all things bear in mind the will of the Lord be done for no man walks with God unless he be a complete obedient Above all other aberrations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or will-worship is that which strides quite over the way and walks solitary by it self and not with God All holy service is fitly called new obedience But can Will-worship which is a start of a mans own invention be called obedience in any latitude I think not For how can a man be said to obey in that which was never enjoyned him Obedience and somewhat bidden and imposed to be done are relatives His servants ye are to whom you obey says St Paul Wherefore if you frame a Religion or a part of Religion after your own fancy you are your own servants and not God's and you have no reason to look for wages from our heavenly Master In vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of men Vanum est quod fine suo destituitur They that serve serve for a reward therefore a rewardless service which is threatned against Will-worship is a vanity But who are comprised in this crime of Will-worship not to walk with God Such as profess a proper immediate essential Worship of God of their own coining but they want a great measure of understanding or charity that inveigh against arbitrary Ceremonies in that name which are imposed as mere accidental and circumstantial parts of Religion wherein not the proper Worship of God but the manner of using the same is intended Proper Worship of God is an action done immediatly to the honour of God in the act it self as Prayer and Preaching Improper Worship is an act done with Gods Service not directly and by it self but in conjunction with some proper act of Worship as kneeling holding up the hands and eyes sever these by themselves and they are no service of God at all David danced before the Ark in a Linnen Ephod To dance to wear a Linnen Garment are things of a mixt use and therefore can be no parts of Gods proper immediate Worship neither did David mean them so but they are decencies and laudable adjuncts of the very true Worship and for their sakes far be it from us to think that Enochs example is violated who walked with God You have heard now that there is a familiar heavenly friendship and a complete obedience without all admixtion of Will-worship in the holy life of this Patriarch that kept even with God in all his ways Now thirdly it makes this sense that Enoch was a principal upholder of that side that did sincerely profess the true faith he opposed himself stiffly to the Cainites that is to the Sinagogue of Satan and he that condemns the evil world and defies the faction of it deserves this praise that he walks with God In vitia alter alterum trudimus says the heathen Every wicked man draws his next fellow after him and the most live rather by custom than by rule and reason running like those Swine in the Gospel into which the Devil had entred by whole herds into the Sea But a man that esteems his soul by that price which his dear Redeemer paid for it will dare to set his face in a good cause against plurality and multitudes and fears not to stand up alone against an host of the Priests of Baal like Elias that walked solitary in the wilderness with the Lord when Ahab and Jezabel had won the whole Land of Israel to Idolatry Singularity when it proceeds from self opinion and pertinacy it deserves to be hooted at but to divorce from men of erroneous minds of malicious and filthy conversation to be cast off from such like a Pelican in the Wilderness and like an Owl that is in the Desart is a singularity to be admired As soon as ever the Devil left our Saviour at the end of the three Tentations the words following are Behold Angels came and ministred unto him Whereupon one doth thus meditate Qui expelllit à se Satanam allicit ad se Angelos Sort not your self with those that have not the fear of God before their eyes abandon impious Society and you shall find heavenly comforters in your soul Bid Satan get him hence and the Angels take it for an invitation to come and walk with you Lot lived like a stranger in his own City he shut himself up and barred his doors against those filthy people What could he do more to keep the ungodly from his vexy sight As David said Thus estranging himself from the evil doings of those that were round about him he was thought fit to give hospitality to Angels and walkt out of Sodom with those Angels and when he lingred in that place they laid hold of his hand and pulled him away with some violence of love Thus Enoch could not endure the Cainites perhaps persecuted them perhaps was persecuted by them he would not partake of their fellowship but shook off their dust from his feet and so
it came to be said that he walked with God After this that hath been spoken I ought not to conceal from you any longer how the Septuagint have translated these words upon which I insist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Enoch pleased God This must not be shuffled over without observation upon it not only because St. Chrysostome and such other Greek Fathers as I have perused do so read the Text nor only for the Son of Syrachs sake Ecclus. xliv 16. who consents with the lxxii But for St. Pauls sake in whom we find the same character of him Heb. xi 5. Before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God The wisdom of God alone best knows why there should be such a diversity of terms a diversity I say without any real difference for it is but a Consequent put for an Antecedent he that walks in new obedience eschewing the company of the ungodly and setting God always before him consequently he shall please the Lord. If we had such a Master as Nabal was so crooked and unpropitious that none could speak to him or please him If we served under the Lord as Jacob did under Laban who had nothing but murmuring and persecution for all his fidelity then we might cross our arms and say we had lost our oyl and our labour But our service is full of benevolence and encouragement Euge bone serve Well done good and faithful servant every title chimes Alacrity And yet it follows that servant was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faithful what In all words and works No faithful in a little Enoch pleased because God would be pleased with his imperfect righteousness it is his indulgence to call things that are not as things that are he will give a days wages for an hours work in the Parable If there be a willing mind it shall be commended according to that which a man hath not according to that which he hath not he that affects the right way and would not swerve from it shall carry this badge upon his name that he pleased and walked with God Quamvis claudicet labatur though sometimes he limps sometimes he stumbles through the infirmity of the flesh Our renowned Patriarch in my Text was a sinner from his mothers womb for Adam begat a Son in his own likeness after his image but that likeness was the similitude yea and the very essence I may say of sinful flesh Yet such a Son of Adam doth please being made by adoption and grace the Son of God But I have not said all nay not a moiety what it is to please our holy Father For his love and complacency is not a bare affection like Man's Amor Dei in effctu non in affectu situs est Where he is pleased he doth not affect a thing only Theorically but will effect some good for it as Aeneas said of his followers Nemo ex hôc numero mihi non donatus abibit All that did attend his very games should have some reward for their labour God is not unrighteous to forget your love and your labour which you have shewed toward his name Heb. vi 10. Please not your self even as Christ also pleased not himself says St. Paul Rom. xv 3. And you shall walk before the Lord in the Land of the living Psal cxvi 9. Placebo Domino I shall please the Lord in the Land of the living so the Vulgar Latine readeth it More precisely to the cause In some sense all the Creatures and their natural operations do please the Lord but in a supernatural order nothing doth please him but that into which he hath put a supernatural bonity and those good effects which are wrought in man by his own grace He doth not only love and delight in them but will remunerate them with this sober restriction which might pacifie many hot contentions if the Devil were not too strong Bona opera non habent condignitatem ad praemium coeleste sed quandam ordinabilitatem that is good works have no intrinsecal worth or value to claim eternal life but through the gracious promise of God they are ordained unto it By Faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death Faith indeed is an ambulatory thing it hath no rest till it see God and walks from one degree to another from righteousness to righteousness and never stands still but in the clear Vision of the Beatifical Essence it walks no more but stands before the face of the Lord for ever From those notions which I have passed over grounded upon Text and Reason I proceed last of all to give them a little room in my discourse that have made either probable or unprobable divinations upon the word The Jerusalem Targum instead of Enoch walked reads it more at large he served or laboured in the truth before the Lord. Whether he were Ruler or Priest that Gloss decides it not or both Ruler and Priest as they were coincident in the person of Melchisedech and I believe long before him truth is a Princes care as well as a Prophets he is Custos utrinsque tabulae and shall answer to the King of Kings how his people discharged their duty to God as well as to their Neighbour But by whomsoever that good work is wrought that truth shall flourish upon the earth by the power and authority of the Scepter or by the diligence and painfulness of the Miter such a one shall have a blessed name that he walks with God that he is legatus à là tere he stirs not from his side he is set upon his right hand and shall remain among the blessed at that right hand for ever But howsoever I may be perswaded that Enoch was a Ruler and some great Government lay upon his shoulders yet his interest was more than so in labouring for the truth he was a diligent instructor of the people by word and communication St. Jude hath rehearsed a piece of a Sermon that he made wherein he preached of a better life to come Here again I must have recourse to the Idiom of the Scripture wherein I will shew that the very phrase to walk with God doth imply a pleasing or acceptable ministration of office before the Lord as 1 Sam. ii 30 I said indeed it is a message to old Eli that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever that is that thou and the house of thy Father should execute the office of a Priest and offer sacrifice before me And let it imprint this in your mind what veneration is due to the divine Oracles of truth when they are delivered unto you We are Embassadors for Christ says St. Paul but you must abstract that word from any earthly similitude we come indeed in the name of the King of heaven not as from him that is absent but invisible We do not only come from him to speak to men priviledge enough to our person but in the
Conventicles which are the obstructions of Vnity and the decay of Allegeance and Loyalty They that live far from Court may perhaps see their danger sooner than the wisest that hear it and scarce hear all reports which threaten danger It is easie to spit out a spark but not a flame When Pliny in his Proconsulate in Asia wrote to Trajan that he found the Christians meeting in secret corners before day then they had no Churches and to be a harmless people that sung Psalms to Christ that confederated not to kill not to commit Adultery and the like Budaeus upon the Pandects is my Author that Trajan wrote to Pliny that he did not like to have them gather together in that privy sort for it might tend to conspiracy That thereupon the Christians certified of the Emperours jealousie refrained their meetings though as yet they had no publick places to assemble in for the Worship of Christ But try our Christians that meet in hugger mugger in houshold Congregations I doubt you will not find that inoffensiveness and modesty among them which was in our Primitive Brethren who would sooner observe the Edict of a Pagan Prince than these will the Defenders of the Faith Look upon this Point once more Noah called all that were about him together to the solemn Worship of God A good Spring sets all the Wheels a going with a true and an equal motion and it was fit this good work should be carried on in his person The Father of the Family the Master of the Houshold the chief Priest of the Church in Sacred causes the Supreme Magistrate in Civil causes in any of these respects but much more in all together he was to give a good example to his Relatives A good example let us look to it to whom it most belongs is a sweet savour to many far and wide to the whole World in the Twelve Apostles Upon which Gregory runs out in this exuberant eloquence The Apostles were flowers of all sweet smels as the flower of the Grape Doctrina praedicatorum inebriat mentes audientium their Doctrine did inebriate their Auditors with the Cup of Salvation there was in them the flower of the Olive in the sweet works of mercy the flower of the Rose in the crimson bloud of their Martyrdom the flower of the white Lilly in some by Virginity in all by pureness and chastity and the flower of the Violet in lowly growth or humility Holy conspicuous men are flowers of Paradise whose odours and colours are delectable an orient colour in their own conscience within a fragrant odour in their good name to those that are without Justus lilium est in se candidum sed proximo odoratum A just man is a Lilly that hath inherent whiteness to himself but sweet as a Rose to his neighbour by the edifying of his example that others may see his good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven It is happy to live well thrice happy to lead well like Cesars Souldiers that were called an Army of Commanders St. Basil says that some in his time did sprinkle sweet Ointment upon the Wings of tame Pigeons and sent them abroad like our coy Ducks to fetch in the wild Flocks that they might take delight in them and follow them home So as he applies it the good Odour which may be sented from them that are exemplarily vertuous attracts the wild and dissolute to the Dove Coats or the Collections of the Saints of God All that have done eminently to abandon Profaneness suppress Superstition revoke Sacriledge discourage the Factious suppress Hereticks and Contentious Kings Potentates Prelates shall be renowned as Josias was that famous restorer of Religion there remembrance shall be sweet as honey in all mouths and as Musick at a banquet of wine Ecclus. xlix 1. Enough now of this Point that Noah before all necessaries of life and nature took care for the instauration of true Religion begun in a most divine unity and setled it by his great example Therefore the Lord smelled a sweet savour The third thing which in the Affirmative interprets the phrase of my Text is That God is mightily delighted with Oblations of thankfulness Noah had a very small stock of Creatures with him to begin a new Generation and when they came forth of the Ark none were appointed to be slain but had their Exeatis with this blessing Be fruitful and multiply on the earth Yet the Patriarch knew by faith how he that had preserved them so miraculously could multiply their paucity and the sooner if somewhat were gratefully repayed to God Let Elias have a little of a little and the Widow shall have the more These few Beasts and Fowls I speak of were the Reliques of the Old World and the Seminary of the New Now how well did a Sacrifice come in to divide between these two Points of Religion To give thanks for the remainder preserved and to bespeak their increase for the time to come So God is justly acknowledged in both his titles Servator reliquiarum multiplicator seminarii the conserver of the little remainder the multiplier of the total Seminary O give thanks unto the Lord for he is gracious The most material exception that a good man can make against the shortness of life is that we want space to run over all the benefits we have received Woe be to them that have time and spare little for such Meditations Some man who is not very practical in this duty will say question me not whether I praise the Lord for his great mercies for my Redemption for my Salvation How can I forget it Or had I been in Noahs case escaped a common Deluge I would have offered a Sacrifice I see God must buy our gratitude dear if he will have it and many times when he pays well for it he goes without it For some do premeditately except against the Publick Thanksgiving of women delivered from the peril of Childbirth as if it savoured of Jewish Purification The time is to come when such shall know that it is better to be a thankful Jew than an unthankful Christian This was St. Austins Divinity Liberata est uxor tua à periculo partus benedicis Dominum When thy Wife is delivered and well recovered thou wilt say The name of the Lord be praised The like will any man almost do that is come off from a bloudy Battel a raging Tempest a burning Feaver a malicious Conspiracy that he may not appear a rank Atheist But the Lord as I said buys such thanks at a great rate Do you think he gives common blessings like a vantage above the dozen which you shall not pay for Is it nothing that the Sun doth shine upon us and not burn us That the Seas flow and ebb again and not overwhelm us That the Cattel of the field feed us and not devour us Nothing should befal us without a retribution of praise In every thing
man were frustrate then God riseth up in his greatness goodness and Majesty expels the wonder of a vengeance by a wonder of healing removes the punishment of the body by a blessing of salvation and drives away the Serpents by Christ I have now spoken enough to the Sin of Israel which was Murmuring and to the Punishment of their Sin by Serpents That was their grief and not ours Now by way of application I must tell you of those Serpents which we must pray unto the Lord to take away from our selves And those are three the Serpent Satan the Serpent Sin and the Serpent Man when he changeth himself from manhood into such a beast The first that may justly be called a Serpent is Satan For it is all one to say the Serpent beguiled Eve and Satan beguiled her 'T is frequent to involve the principal cause in the name of the instrument The Devil indeed is not so much as named Gen. iii. but necessarily to be understood Though his name lie in silence his effects bewray him for none else is left to father the wickedness God can tempt none to sin the good Angels wish us good and no harm there were none of humane generation on earth but Adam and Eve themselves bruitish creatures could not contrive it None is left to own it but the Serpent called the Devil and Satan who deceiveth the World Revel xii 9. Therefore God did not say to the creeping worm why hast thou done this as he charged our first Parents for that Creature did not do it As the words which a man says that is possest are not his own but the spirits that is entred into him so the evil that is attributed to the Snake was not his doing but the Devil 's that managed it Take warning therefore of the malice of that evil Fiend who never forgave himself that injury but seeks continually whom he may devour Be watchful of him for we wrestle not against flesh and bloud but against the Rulers of the darkness of this World Eph. vi 11. He makes out matter of tentation by the words that often fall from our mouth notes our usances searcheth into all our inclinations there is no passion nor frailty wherein we lie open to assault but he knows it As David was more afraid of the counsel of Ahitophel than of all the Host of Rebels that followed Absolom so all that the wicked world can muster together is not so dangerous as the methods of Satan Fast as you are able pray that God would bruise him under your feet So did Paul three times when the Messenger of Satan was sent to buffet him Paul had much grace grace that was sufficient for prayer Holiness becometh the House of Prayer and holiness becometh the mouth of Prayer What have they to do with Prayer that have no fellowship with holy Practice To come before God with a lapful of sins and a mouthful of prayers is a motley Sacrifice And in Fasting and Prayer watch your wandring heart that the Devil steal it not away with idle fancies when you pray against him which will flutter in your mind like motes in the Sun But challenge him of Sacriledg that he hath rob'd you of your devotion follow him with hue and cry and he will fly away from you Let there be any thing that we are more eagerly set upon to obtain than all the rest we will never start aside never run out of the circle when we come to that Petition And this Petition is as useful as any That the Lord would take away the old Serpent from us If Satan be a Serpent so is sin Partus sequitur ventrem such as the Dam is such is the Issue Then secondly pray unto God against Serpent sin The mortifying of it is called crushing a Cockatrice in the egg and Solomon says of drunkenness it bites like a Serpent and stings like an Adder Prov. xxiii 32. To begin with original sin 't is fitly called by Tertullian Plaga antiqui serpentis the biting of the old Serpent And many good Authors delight themselves for good cause to note it on the accident that I preach of that the people in the Wilderness did pray that the Lord would take away the Serpents from them yet he did not and for all that their Prayer sped well For God gave means to as many as were stung to be healed by looking on a Serpent that was lifted up So we are all wounded with a loathsom disease from our Mothers womb and remain wounded Baptism and Prayer make the wound less howsoever still it is a wound but God hath provided how to cure the guilt of it by intuition of faith looking on Christ who bare our sins upon his Cross And as the living Serpents were charm'd by the dead one that they had no power to kill so sin that lives in us is weakned that it shall not condemn by the Son of God that died to save us And as this sin is one by likeness in us all so one Saviour crucified for the sins of the World is sufficient to help us all The Israelites had not distinct Serpents erected after the number of their Tribes much less many more according to the number of their Families but one Serpent lifted up and but one Mediator between God and Man Aim by that level and you hit the mark The hope of remedy is founded in unity Our Gods are not plural our Redeemers are not many they that have divers Saviours have never a Saviour They that have tutelary Saints for every day for every disease Patron Martyrs for every Kingdom almost for every Parish have a serpentine swarm of superstition But as our wound is one in all so one Jesus is rich in mercy unto all Likewise a serpentine corruption is notorious in all our actual and wilful sins For the biting of a poisonous worm is not only perillous to that part of the flesh in which it fixeth its tooth but every drop of bloud draws in the malignity of that which was next unto it till there be no sound part remaining So one member of the body being tainted with the venom of sin traduceth corruption to another If the ear be tickled with filthy talk the loins will be unchast if the eye be wanton it will run into the heart Observe it by another propagation when you commit one sin you are at the brink of another the second offence makes the way smooth and slippery for a third Any transgression not presently physicked with the antidote of repentance will fetch in so many that they will sink you into the bottomless pit Yet there is another serpentine dispreading in the works of the flesh One sinner is an hundred sinners in the catching infection of his leprosie one Absolom is an Host of Rebels one Ringleader a shole of Schismaticks one Jeroboam a Kingdom full of Idolaters one incestuous Corinthian a leaven that will leaven the whole lump Therefore
an Ordinance but the Laws of the Lord are pure and just like Silver purged seven times in the fire without dross or corruption yet Jonadab is obeyed and God despised 2. Where was Jonadab now composed in the Grave of silence dust to dust the end of all men The Lord liveth for ever and there is no end of his dayes Yet Jonadab preacheth being buried and the words of the Lord are like a Dream which he that waketh hath forgotten 3. Jonadab was austere and his yoke exceeding heavy to dwell in no Houses but Shades and Tents not to till the ground the happiness of Cain above his younger Brother To live in poverty in Canaan where it was easie for all to be rich but Israel that I may not run into many particulars had but ten Commandments to keep and ten thousand Blessings for their Guerdon Et merces ab eo qui jubere potest vim necessitatis affert sayes Tacitus the days work may be well done when the Bondman is made an hired Servant Yet Jonadab finds duty in his Children and God finds rebellion in Israel Lastly was there any thing to give advantage to the Rechabites in the way of godliness more than Israel had did they want the snare of a delicious Table to make them wanton read what a Banquet Jeremy spread before them in the former verses But they said c. St. Austin says of the Syrophaenecian Woman who was both hardly spoken of by out Saviour at first and anon commended highly before her face quae contumeliam maximam sine dolore pertulit etiam laudationem perferret sine superbiâ she that took not her reproach in scorn would not wax arrogant upon her commendation so these Rechabites who lived with good content in a life full of neglect may the better endure to have their good deeds scanned without fear of begetting ostentation And therefore I will branch out my Text into these four parts in every of which they will justly deserve our praise and in some our imitation First when the Prophet Jeremy did try them with this tentation whether they would feast it and drink wine they make him a resolute denial a Prophet could draw them to no inconvenient act nolumus we will not 2. Very dutiful and religious was their obedience to the Orders of their Father Jonadab ask them if they will rebel and transgress no for obedience sake nolumus we will not do it 3. Junquets and banquetting were provided for them but they had weaned their Bodies from the Paps of luxury and thus says Temperance nolumus we will drink no wine 4. Here is stedfastness in their Vow made unto God For this is more than a frugal Diet it is the Vow of Sobriety nolumus in aeternum say the last words of this verse We have said for ever c. Some are good men of themselves but easily drawn aside by allurements such are not the Rechabites Some will lead well but they cannot follow good Masters but bad Servants all for freedom and nothing for obedience So are not the Rechabites Some are sober in their Diet but will not endure the Laws to interdict meats for a season and enjoyn Fasts and Abstinence such were not the Rechabites Some will protest unto God and oblige themselves to many performances which are instantly dissolved into wind and air such were not the Rechabites Resist Enticements love Obedience follow Temperance promise unto God and perform your Vows These are the praises of the Rechabites these are the four Distributions of my Text and of these in order I begin with Nolumus Jeremy hath no answer but they will not It is a hard case in earnest and the World will never run otherwise a Prophet must be acquainted with nolumus and look to be denied Do you speak for God and for his Altar Practise patience with that old Philosopher that solemnly begged alms among the Statues and Images in Athens and thus he tried how to bear with hard fortune when living men should refuse him Nolumus we will not Is this all the account may some man say of a Prophets words Our Saviour might excuse the Woman of Samaria a weak Vessel like the Pitcher wherewith she drew her water Hadst thou known who it is that asked of thee then thou wouldest have granted it but the Rechabites could not plead ignorance that they knew not Jeremy who was set up for a Sign against Judah and Benjamin Again our Saviour did commend St. Peters judgment that there might be many worse men than the churlish Son that said He would not to his Father yet he turned his mind and did as he would have him But with these men non is as much as nunquam they will never do it repentance is hid from their eyes Resolve we therefore that this is such a request where the Petitioner sued for nolumus and to be said nay is the fairest courtesie For that which Jeremy propounded it was not petitio beneficii but probatio fidei So Christ asked Philip for bread to feed the Multitude in Philippo non desideravit panem sed fidem he did it to prove his faith This is the Doctrin Let not thy Soul consent to be enticed unto folly When Syrens and Allurers come with honey in their mouths be you as wise as they were that had wax in their ears Like a sure Musician maintain your part and though some be out of tune be not carried away with their discords to offend against good harmony Vt rupes immota c. says the Poet let a wave dash against you and a billow break it self in twain and fome but for thy part give no ground unto the Tempter Jeremy nor any man alive must look to obtein more than the Servants of Naaman thought fit to be granted si magnum if the Prophet ask a great thing it must be done for the Prophets sake si malum if it be an unlawful thing si per amicitiam patris atque suam the highest Power upon earth hath not power to command it O what an excellent Court did King Saul keep not one of his Servants no not one about him would slay the Priests of God for the Kings Command Turn and slay the Priests of God says Saul unto his Guard 1 Sam. xxii they durst not do it those mighty men of volour durst not draw a sword in a bad Cause because they feared the Lord. Then Doeg is called for from among the Beasts a Herdsman more brutish than the Flocks he kept and he slew that day 85 persons that did wear a Linnen Ephod Such another was that Tribune of the Roman Army that had rather worship Idols with Gallienus the Emperor than serve the true God with Fructuosus the Martyr Jussum est Caesaris ore Gallieni quod princeps colit haec colamus omnes But Amram the Father of Moses is recounted among St. Pauls Saints Heb. 11. because he hid the Child three months and would
a square body throw it as you will it lies flat and firm every way it keeps the same decent posture And so much for the second inducement which Jonadab had to ordain this Vow of Tabernacles and abstemiousness it was for the better preparation against Captivity In communi fame atque obsidione quà m utilis fuit frugalitas c. When Famine and Wars were in the City great advantage had the Rechabites above other men by their temperance and hard lodging in Tents says Calvin upon this place Lastly Jonadabs counsel was as an Oracle of God to frame such a Vow at this season Because the riches of the Land did exceedingly multiply above all Nations from the Reign of Solomon and to profess so much contempt of the world when all Jury was like a rich Exchequer full of Silver and Gold what an honour was this to the Rechabites that they durst be poor when all the Kingdom surfeited of plenty Quid habere nobis turpe sit quaeris Nihil says the Poet. Nothing was shame-worthy in that place but to be poor and have nothing Yet nothing they possess but such a quantity of substance as might best serve them to praise the Lord. Cattel they had and Lambs they had wherewith the Priests might make attonement for their sins and the sins of Judah Goods and substance which was not useful to the Temple of God to them such Riches were Apocryphal Some bring Censors of Gold some sweet Odours to the Altar They have no such Offerings But as it was said of Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 None so poor in the riches of this world none so rich in the expectation of the next world The children of the true Church are compared to sheep coming from the shearer Cant. i. Whereupon says one Christianus est ovis detonsa hoc est omnibus mundanis spoliata A Christian is a sheep that stands dumb and is willing to part with all his Fleece and to lay it at the feet of the Shearer The Lord is merciful calcantibus terram says the Prophet Isaiah to them that spurn the earth From whence St. Austin raised this Meditation Est iis misericors qui amore coelestium terrena contemnunt He is merciful to men who trample the riches of the earth under feet and meditate upon the Kingdom of Heaven For as the Fathers observe upon St. Peters words Depart from me for I am a sinful man that such a depart was a Fishers hook to draw Christ nearer unto him So for these men to plant neither Vine nor Olive nor to so Seed in the Canaan beneath was to purchase the holy Paradise of happiness which remains for ever O let me oppose the life of these men to the covetous death of many in our Age that put out money upon Usury after they are buried like him in the Poet having his deaths wound Terram ore momordit he would carry his mouth full of earth away with him as if he should not have enough in his grave Had not the Israelites been too richly furnished with golden Ear-rings they had never had stuff to make an Idol there had been no Calf in Horeb. Had not Hezekiah been exalted with the pomp of so great a Treasury the Messengers of the King of Babylon had not known the riches of the Kings Palace an Army had not been brought against the Kingdom Methinks says Seneca the Romans should tremble at nothing more than to see Plate in their Streets and Jewels in their Chains and Gold upon the Posts of their doors Cogitet Romanus has apud victos se reperisse When they were first Conquerours they had none of these but they found them among their vanquished Captives So let Judah remember that they found their Gold and Silver among the Canaanites who were slain and rooted out And are they not fair baits to fall again into the hands of Conquerours Now alas says Synesius no man can think he is enthralled in the Fetters of Captivity as long as his Fetters be of Gold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are not wary of mischief being in a glorious misfortune Had they been all as wise as the Rechabites their abundance had not dazled the eyes of their enemies but now like Fowls which shed their feathers about their Nest they betray themselves by their own superfluity I have read of an Advocate of Rome that professed himself to be able to teach any man the Law to save his Lands from all question that he might be disquieted by no impleadment I do not value that cunning says Seneca but teach me to lose all I have and not to be moved with the misfortune and then I will pay you for my learning In like manner had Jonadab left a great volume of Precepts behind him how to teach his Kindred thrift and husbandry had he bequeathed to them the magisterium of the Philosophers Stone why all this labour had only made them worldly and avaritious But to institute a course and to put them in practise how to want and suffer scarcity as many as walk in that rule may have bodies that can live without this world as they have souls that can live without these bodies And so much for the three laudable inducements unto which Jonadab did respect when he made his Children vow a Vow unto the Lord. 1. It was expedient for strangers 2 It was a Cordial to comfort them in the Captivity of Babylon 3. It was an occasion both to withdraw the fuel which kindled the love of the world in their souls and it extinguished the envy of their Adversaries who were about to subdue their Country Now I follow my own method to handle the second consideration of this Vow that these circumstances were not only well foreseen but that the conditions of the thing vowed are just and lawful Not to tumble over all the distinctions of the Schoolmen which are as multiplicious in this cause as in any of Vows some are singular in uno individuo which concern one man and no more as when David vowed to build an house unto the Lord this was not a Vow of many associated in that pious work but of David only Some are publick when there is an unity of consent in divers persons to obtest the same thing before the presence of God And such was this Vow in my Text it concerned the whole Family of the Rechabites Again some Vows are private not in regard of the persons which may be numerous but in respect of the place some Vows are solemn when the protestation is made unto the Church So was not this Vow it was not solemn it was no Church matter To say that the Rechabites lived about the Temple and were a kind of Monks I know not what could be spoken more ignorantly by our Adversaries and yet it hath been written in defiance of our Religion None lived about the Temple but Priests and Levites except some great Prophetical Spirit was discerned in
were more remaining in his hand than he had taken out of his Coffers Yes if the old man were not purblind and knew not what he took out I accept their good will that relate it somewhat they have imagined like to this success of eternal memory touching the five Loaves and two Fishes while the owners possessed it to themselves it was but a handful when they fed the hungry with it they found themselves Masters of Gods plenty Says Solomon There is that scattereth and that increaseth that 's consonant to my Text and there is that holdeth more than is meet and it tendeth to poverty Prov. xi 26. This is a riddle to Unbelievers that bounty should make them rich and yet an Heathen confessed it in that saying Haec habeo quaecunque dedi and that Parsimony should make them poor and yet a thousand examples confirm this where the blessing of the Lord hath subducted it self from the niggard One instance is as much as a Volume which Eusebius hath in the life of Constantine Ablaevius was a principal Officer both in the Palace and in the Army every where much esteemed by the Emperor his main fault was he had amassed up an infinite treasure craved perpetually and lived most sparingly upon a time as he pressed his Master the Emperor to obtein a suit that would bring in no small sum Constantine with a Spear in his hand drew the proportion of Ablavius his body upon the ground and says he When I have given thee all I can this is all that thou shalt have at last if thou gettest so much That if was a Prophetical word and there was a Divine sentence in the lips of the King as Solomon says for at last Ablavius was torn in pieces by the rude multitude and not an handful of his body was left to be buried in a Sepulcher The sum is the state of him that is gripple and cruel will be improsperous to himself much more to his Posterity But as alms and charity thrived extremely with the Disciples so it shall be with all those that remember the afflictions of Joseph and the Sun of comfort will shine upon those clouds above that drop their fatness upon the earth beneath And I am yet within the compass of the first part of my Text till I have delivered unto you not only what the Disciples did as good men but also as good Pastors they distributed unto them that were set down that is they fed the Flock which was committed unto them to feed the hungry to see that the fatherless and Widow have sustenance is an Ecclesiastical care I an Episcopal duty in no small degree The Apostles though they gave themselves wholly to prayer and to the Ministry of the Word yet they took order how the poor should be relieved Act. vi But it is a greater matter that this Miracle points unto not so much how the hunger of the body should be refreshed with charity as how the soul should be fed with the Word of Life So the ancient Doctors do commonly allude to those words which were the Introduction to this great work Give ye them to eat that our Saviour appointed the Twelve to sow the seeds of wholsom Doctrin among the people that there might not be a famine of the Word but to give them meat that endureth to everlasting life And in all likelihood this is the true cause why Christ when he had blessed the bread gave it over unto them to part it to the Assembly to shew that a Disciple is magnus animarum oeconomus as Nazianzen said of Athanasius his Lords Steward to provide for souls nay that one man should be as it were a God unto another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a terrestrial God to bring him salvation To the conveyance of divers benefits God hath called to himself divers Instruments and joyned them by a great condescension of his glory as Partners to himself as our Parents in the work of our bringing forth our Teachers in our training up Kings and Magistrates in the preservation of our lives and peace but the Ministers of his Word and Sacraments for the erudition of our souls The Omnipotent needs no such assistants as we are What is Man who could not keep the possession of a pleasant Garden upon earth that he should procure a celestial Paradise for the remnant that shall be saved And yet that we may be disciplined in the way of eternal life by such means as are familiar and connatural to our own infirmities we are labourers together with God 1 Cor. iii. 9. Reason is a strong adversary against this and will say that it is too excellent a function for one that consists both of clay and sin to preach the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven What! would you have the Lord to speak out of the clouds with his own voice O you know not what you ask you that shrink at the roaring of thunder would run into the dust for fear of his Majesty if he should speak The Cherubins and Seraphins can scarce endure it but they hide their faces when they hear the Trumpet of his glory An Army of five hundred thousand men interceded with Moses Speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we die Well if his Majesty make him too awful to be the Prolocutor of his Word and Testimonies yet would not the Angels be far better Ambassadors than Men to deliver the things pertaining to faith and godliness no nor they so fit For first Satan cannot now revile Gods justice that he is not repulsed upon equal terms as he overcame so is he vanquished again Us he tempted to disobedience and we are the mouth of the Lord to teach repentance and obedience Secondly better to have a Priest taken out among men than among Angels for men are compassed with infirmity and can have compassion of the ignorant and of them that are out of the way Thirdly since Christ took our flesh to make our Attonement with God in this nature this nature is the fittest to continue the working of that grace unto the end of the World This is ratified by an instance not to be controuled Act. x. An Angel comforts Cornelius that his Prayers and Alms were remembred before God medles no further but transmits him to the holy Priesthood of the Church Send to Joppa for one Simon he shall speak words whereby thou and thy houshold shall be saved The upshot is our Saviour could have finished this Miracle without Coadjutors and have given the portions of bread to the hungry with his own hands but to teach us that such as he delivers his Commission unto at no hand any others that they shall intercur in sacred Offices between him and his People The Disciples distributed to them that were set down And these were faithful Stewards that kept nothing back freely they received and freely they gave They were taught in this
rather thus If we live as wicked men do we are scarce men but rather beasts and they that are scarce men by reason of their sins they are utterly lost I am sure for being Christians O if you have not Christ within you let your forehead blush that was sealed wâ—th his Cross without you How much better would it be for Hypocrites that they had been Pagans that never abused this Name than to have been outside Disciples no further than the name dealbati nomine Christiano says St. Austin not anointed with the oil of Christ the unction of the Spirit but parjeted over with the name of Christian like whited walls The Athenians forbad that any Bondman should be called by the name of Harmodius and Aristogeiton men that had jeoparded their lives to free their Country from servitude they held it dishonorable that those names that were devoted to the publick liberty should be polluted with servile contagion Domitian who was tyrannical in all his actions put one Metius a man of good condition to death for calling an inferior Vassal of his by the victorious name of Hannibal The Title of Philosopher O how the true Philosophers would storm when Caterpillars usurped it that had no affinity with true Philosophy it is a sickness and a very fever to me says one of them quod istiusmodi spurca animalia nomen usurpent sanctissimum that these unclean animals should steal such a sacred appellation If these men were so tender to preserve Civil and Academical honors from defamation will not God be much more incensed at pseudo-Christians and say why dost thou take the name of my well-beloved Son upon thee to pollute it Quid est dignitas in indigno nisi ornamentum in luctu says Salvian this glory with which you invest your selves shall be your utter shame you blot this Name with whoredoms and oppressions here therefore shall your names be blotted out of the book of life My invention will not serve me to conclude this point better than St. Austin hath done Vt nomen Christianum non ad judicium sed ad remedium habeamus convertamus nos ad bona opera that we may assume this name as a soveraign remedy against the Devil and not unto condemnation let us bring forth works worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ for whose sake we are called Christians And thou Antioch in the Land of Syria art not the least among those places that were holy ground thou wert like a new Hierusalem to us that are called Gentiles for in thee the sound was first heard which filled the earth with thy Majesty And the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch A place not long after the first foundation of it bruited abroad for much infelicity so frequently was it shattered with strong Earthquakes a place polluted with no small Idolatry for Apollo had his Shrine and Diana had hers within the Circuit of it Of a sudden when she was scandalous and forlorn those evils and calamities were redrest because God had a delight in a new Off-spring which was grown up within her walls and all the Inhabitants of the Earth did look upon her as a Star that was shot from Heaven Now began all the honors that the times would permit to be heaped upon it Some say that this being the best City wherein the Gospel had got ground St. Peter the chief Apostle was made the Bishop of it To make no brable of it lest I go beyond the allowance of my time this is all I will say if St. Peter were the Bishop of it then Ignatius was but a bad remembrancer that wrote so many Epistles and never spake of it then St. Chrysostom likewise who was a famous Pulpit-man in that City and made the best Sermons in Antioch that ever he made he were much overseen that he should never call it to mind in so many commemorations which he made concerning their dignity This is surely upon Record St. Peter afforded it his blessed presence and so did St. Paul his likewise a brave building of faith was erected there when the Covering was laid upon two such Pillars And a Bishoprick was founded there by those two great Apostles whose succession was happy in painful Prelates and constant Martyrs all Syria was subject to it as the Metropolis the Arabick Canons which Turrian hath set forth as constituted by the great Council of Nice say that all the Churches in Persia obeyed it as a Patriarchical See Justinian the Emperor because we had our best name imposed there gave it a better name and called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is being interpreted the City of God You may be sure their brave Presbyter St. Chrysostom hath often run over this string and made musick upon it In one place thus If any contention for priority ariseth you Antiochians may claim it before all the World illo scilicet privilegio vobis blandientes bearing up your selves upon that privilege that you were the first fruits of them that are called Christians this is your victory over your enemies this is your Diadem above your friends What a pudder some would have made of it if they could have boasted of this Prerogative O how the chief Pontif of Rome would have been hoisted up for an Oecumeniacal Bishop And out of the word Christian what a flourish Cardinal Bellarmin would have made for an Antichristian Supremacy God hath provided better things for us than that we should not be pelted with such a paper Bullet The Antiochians behaved themselves reverently and modestly and did not abuse the Grace of God unto wantonness They were not called Christianissimi more Christian than their Brethren for this verbal priority They did not arrogate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief Patriarchical Primacy before all other Prelates but were contented with the third rank to follow rome and Alexandria And in my slender opinion Baronius is never more to be commended in any thing than for rendring the true reason 〈◊〉 Says he in giving honorable place to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch regard was had to follow the steps of the Roman Magistrate and to settle Ecclesiastical Precedency just as he did distribute his principal Civil Dignities Now among all the Oriental Praefectures the Proconsul of Antioch was the most chief and honorable hence Antioch was established to be the Oriental Metropolis But because the temporal glory of Alexandria was greater and the chief Roman Praefecture of all others called Augustalis praefectura therefore though it was the younger Church in order of time yet her Patriarch preceded Antioch in order of dignity And if he had not wilfully shut his eyes against the light would he not have subscribed that this was the very cause that the Praelacy of Rome was preposed before them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom we yield it priority because it is the chief Imperial City or in Baronius his own
against him Qui meretricibus voluptatibus inservit non liber est sed servus To be under pleasure is to be under tyranny and therefore the Statue of a Strumpet did better resemble servitude But happy are thy servants O Lord that stand before thee Deo parere libertas est you may think that Seneca had conferred with St. Paul when he learnt that Lesson that the service of God is perfect freedom who hath made us a Royal Priesthood and holy Nation Says Leo in the second Anniversary Sermon upon his own Assumption to the Papacy nothing so Kingly as a mind subject to God and Ruler of his own passions nothing so Priestly as to offer up the sacrifice of a pure conscience and the oblation of a broken heart There were ancient Ceremonies in Baptism as if the party to be baptized came to be inaugurated to a Kingdom when he professed himself a Disciple of the Gospel For it appears in some Rituals that they put a Crown of flowers upon the head of the Neophyte to which the Collect then used doth testifie We beseech thee O King of heaven for this dissoluble Crown to give him a Crown of justice and good works The same was figured by these Ceremonies in confirmation that is by the unction of their forehead and by the fascia which bound about their temples as a Diadem All these customs do border upon this phrase that our Jerusalem is every where in the Gospel called the Kingdom of heaven God is such a King whom none but Kings do serve none but Melchisedechs who are free from sin and at once both Servants of righteousness and Kings of righteousness Dignitate Domini honorata sit conditio servi He is so great a Lord that it is a Lordship nay a Kingdom to serve him In a word remember that our freedom is a strict obligation to all excellent vertue that being delivered from the hands of our enemies we may serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life Lord keep thy Jerusalem free from the bondage of sin that we may not be cast into the prison of utter darkness AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON GAL. iv 26. Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all HAving drawn out the description of the Church in sundry lines of beauty that it is a Jerusalem a visible and glorious City for the external Communion a Jerusalem from above for her internal Graces a Jerusalem that is free for her Redemption through the bloud of Christ every man I suppose will attest thus unto it nihil addi potest huic bono nisi ut sit perpetuum O that it would last thus unto the worlds end by continual propagation for nothing can be added unto that which is so completely good but that it should be perpetual Lo I shall land you now upon that Shore and represent the Church unto you as a Mother that brings forth and is never barren whose fruitfulness continues her praise and happiness for ever she is the Mother of us all and of all those Generations after us that live by the faith of the Son of God as long as the World endures We are not in the condition of Xerxes who had as goodly a Train of Souldiers as ever marched into the Field but it drew tears from his eyes to think that in less than the space of an hundred years not one of all those thousands should remain alive They had not a Mother which brought forth uncessantly to repair their mortality That good which will not continue breeds great discomfort upon certain expectation of mutability But our Jerusalem shall never wain nor consume it is sown with the seeds of immortality If we were all included in one Isaac and he were slain upon the Altar for a Sacrifice yet Abraham were sure that God would restore him again being dead Jacob might faint and fear lest his Sons should miscarry one after another and he remain childless his despair was grounded upon the sadness of humane events if I be bereaved of my Children I am bereaved Gen. xliii 14. But the Church shall see her Childrens Children grow up by succession without end of dayes Christ should be put to death again and rise no more which is most impossible if she should quite disappear The root of the Tree of Life should die which cannot be imagined if her branches should all wither But this is a Lamp which is nourished with fresh oil from Heaven and shall never be put out it is the chiefest of all that is called good upon Earth and a constant perpetual good Therefore let the Children rise up and call this Mother blessed And as the Church hath taken upon it the proper name of Jerusalem yet without any Contract to the local and material building of Jerusalem so she hath taken up the appellation of a Mother yet without any respect to nature no way bending to natural causes or natural affections For not only our Parents in the flesh but the whole World hath quite lost us in this word As Moses remembred the great devotion of Levi that he said of his Father and Mother I have not seen them or I respect them not and of his Brethren I do not acknowledg them Deut. xxxiii 9. So by deriving our selves from this Mother we cast our fleshly Parentage aside and we say to her who did give us to suck from her Breasts as our Saviour did to the Blessed Virgin Mulier quid mihi tecum Woman what have I to do with thee Jerusalem is ours and we are hers Jerusalem which is above is free c. This remainder of the verse which is the dispatch of the whole Text requires our inspection into three particulars First To know our Mother that we may not be ignorant either of her fruitfulness or our own obedience He is a wise Son says Telemachus in Homer that knows his Father but he is a foolish Son that doth not know his Mother Secondly Note the unity and indivision of the Children of this Mother They are a cluster of Grapes hanging upon one Stalk a Brood of Chickens clockt under the wings of one Hen there is but one Steâ— and one Progeny one Nostrum in relation to this Parent Mater nostrum the Mother of us The third and last part puts us to observe that the note of Universality was large in Pauls days but now much more amplified than in those times mater nostrum omnium the Mother of us all First A Mother gives a being to those whom she brings forth and that which is brought forth owes a great duty to the Mother upon these two hinges this main part of the Text is turned the one is the Fruitfulness of the Mother the other is the Obedience of the Children And what being is that which Jerusalem above doth contribute unto us that she is called our Mother It challengeth no part in our specifical essence or the
served under Decius the Emperour in Affrica banished hundreds of Christians out of Affrica threatning death unto them if they returned Divers of them did creep in secretly giving reason that they came to comfort their Brethren and to strengthen them in the faith St. Cyprian writes to them out of Prison to exile themselves again and to return no more else if they suffered they should be reputed not for Martyrs but for Malefactors I will not load them with envy though it be true that many of their Tenebrioes crept into England with damnable intentions make the best they can of their own actions St. Cyprian says if banisht men will enter into a Realm against the Law they shall die as Malefactors It is the Cause and not the Punishment that makes a Martyr What more trivial If a Virgin choose to die rather than to be ravished she is slain for the Word of If a good man be ruined rather than give his assistance to the ruine of an innocent it is for the Word of God c. But if he be brought to the Stake for confessing there are no Gods made with hands and that Jesus Christ God and man is the Saviour of all that believe if he stand to it and will not flinch for any terrour that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hold his Testimony then he is slain for the Word of God and for the Testimony of the Lamb as the Dragon fought with them that kept the Commandments of God and had the Testimony of Jesus Christ meaning such as were holy and faithful very godly in their works very Orthodox in their belief This is that mixture of sweet Spices in whose exhalation a Martyr becomes an odour of a sweet savour unto the Lord. They were victimae altaris and thymiamata altaris Sacrifices slain upon the Altar of burnt-offerings and therefore became sweet Spices offered up upon the Altar of Incense which shall be the conclusion of this Point and the beginning of the next where the Apostle did behold those Saints that had exchanged their lives to glorifie God under the Altar And where doth St. John mean Where about is that Every curious itching ear will be more attentive to it than to any instruction that can be raised out of the Text A Traveller that asks his way if many of the Country Folk be present at his question it is ten to one but they will diversifie in their opinions and set him in so many ways that he shall never be wiser for their direction So I have consulted with more than a few Expositors to learn where I may find this Altar and not miss of it one points this way another that way Et incertior sum multò quà m dudum Among their variety of directions I know not which way to move Cosmography is a very easie part of learning to design the confines or distances of City from City Kingdom from Kingdom But it is one of the most difficult tasks in Divinity to understand the several quarterings and Mansion-places of heaven I confess I have no skill in Ouranography But to cut off all Proem I will be brief in my relation what is said to it and more brief in my determination The discordious opinions may be drawn to three heads some mean by the Altar an allotted place some relate it to the condition of their body some refer it to the state and condition of their Spirit Whosoever give the words a local meaning that the Souls were under the Altar they all agree in this that it imports that the Saints are kept back awhile from the uppermost part of Heaven where the Angels do offer up Praises continually upon the Altar of Incense which is next to the Holy of Holies and they that have not the nearest access to the Vision of God in form of Prophetical speech may be said to be under the Altar Some who pitcht upon this Interpretation had such fumes in their heads that they did not see the light Tertullian conceived that their Mansion was an earthly Paradise whither Enoch and Elias are translated Origen you may be sure hath some roaving excursion it is thus that the souls of the Faithful are put to School in some secret places before they go to heaven where they are purified from ignorance by degrees and then exalted Victorinus Afer a better Rhetorician than a Divine thinks that to be under the Altar is as if the souls were under the earth in some ample and pleasant regions like the Elysian Fields All these are humane Phantasies and I slip them aside But the most beaten rode to this purpose is that the souls of the Martyrs have a remuneration for their labours and sufferings past but not a consummation of that glory which shall be revealed unto them a share in Heaven but not a possession in the highest Heaven In atriis non in domo They are kept a loof off from the perfect Vision of God in the fulness of time they shall see him face to face Which is Bernards meaning when he says the blessed that are under the Altar because they are admitted to see the Humane Nature of Christ and not the Divine Not so as if totally they did see nothing of the Divine Nature but because they see it with less perspicacity than they shall hereafter so St. Ambrose and St. Hilary close with him And St. Chrysostom upon the Eleventh to the Hebrews Praeveniunt nos in certaminibus non praevenient in coronis they have fought a good fight before us but they shall not be crowned before us not because our Resurrection shall be at once the words will not bear it and the body is but the Robe which we shall put on the glory with which we shall be filled brim full that is the Crown which we shall wear in our Fathers Kingdom I know this is much distasteful to the Prelates of the Florentine and Tridentine Councils who have defined that the pure Souls in heaven enjoy the clearest Vision of God before the day of Judgment and want nothing to their integral happiness but the resuscitation of their bodies It may be so as they will have it But I am contented to say their state is Heaven and will go no further Neither can I see cause why the Churches of Christ should dissent if one say without pervicacious obstinacy the Spirits of righteous men are in the highest Heaven and another will say nothing peremptorily but that they are in Heaven indeed and do live with the Lord. Malo timidus esse quà m temerarius The Conclusion now is thus much That if this be granted for a Local Posture that the Souls are under the Altar there is nothing against Analogy of Faith to say they are in the outward Rooms of Heaven and stay there in expectation of more abundant glory Secondly Some relate this to the condition of their bodies And the Jesuits Ribera and à Lapide will have no