and harmless to him and at last he was fain to tell the men of the Land that they were metamorphosed into beasts and into the worst kind of all O ye Generations of vipers c. Son of man says God to Ezekil thou dwellest among Scorpions But Son of God thou didst die and wert crucified among Scorpions he changed for the worser company when he came from the beasts in the champion fields to the Pharisees in Jerusalem But to what a diminution of his excellency did Christ descend To what a low fall from that glory which was due unto him To be cast out from among the company of Angels into a desart to be a companion of beasts He before whom thousand thousands are said to minister and ten thousand thousands are said to stand before him Dan. vii 10. Instead of this Royal Train none but the savage cattel compass him round about His humility is the expiation of our pride he consorts with beasts that we may have fellowship with Angels He lives peaceably with Wolves and Tygers to obtain grace for us through the merit of his obedience that our brutish affections may be subject to reason and to the Law of God So St. Hierom made me bold with this Allegory Tunc bestiae nobiscum sunt cum caro non concupiscit adversus spiritum Then we and the beasts live quietly together when the Flesh doth not covet against the Spirit None of these descants which I have drawn from the best antiquity upon Christs removing into the Wilderness but were fit to be noted I have my own share to cast in that herein Christ was a lively exhibition of the Type of the Scape Goat of which you shall read a strange Ceremony Lev. xvi 20. The High Priest was not to come at all times into the holy place within the Vail no more than once a year First he was to offer a Bullock for a sin-offering for himself then he was to present two Kids of the Goats before the Lord at the door of the Tabernacle according as the lot fell the one Goat was slain and his bloud sprinkled within the Vail As for the other this Ceremony was appointed Aaron put both his hands upon the head of the live Goat and did confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel over him and did put them upon the head of the Goat and the Goat did bear away their Iniquities into a Land not inhabited and he was let go into the Wilderness The Learned in their best conjectures do expound it after this sort in an Allegory By the Goat which was slain and sacrificed they understand the Humane Nature of Christ for Christ suffered only in his flesh By the Scape-goat they understand his Divine Nature for according to his Divinity he could not die he could not be crucified and yet it was the infinite value of that nature that bore away all our Iniquities For as God could not suffer for sin so man alone could not satisfie for sin Thus by very good Analogy our Saviour Christ is the Scape-goat upon whose head we laid all our sins And the better to give light to this Mystery he was really sent into the Wilderness in my Text to put us in mind that the Goat which was sent away into a Land uninhabited was a Type of him and therefore St. Mark speaks of a violent expulsion Expulit eum in desertum The Spirit did drive him into the Wilderness A little spoken concerning these Typical shadows will quickly rise to enough I come to that Doctrine which is aptest to conclude the first general part of my Text how Christ made himself often a stranger to this world and shewed it by retiring unto unfrequented places Quasi in mundo extra mundum ageret says one as if he minded another world much more when he lived in this His flesh was not ill pampered or fatned for sin and yet he fasted His integrity was untaintable ill examples could not seduce him the viciousness of the age could not infect him yet he drew back sometimes from those scandalous contagions as if he had said to one of us or to every one of us give thy soul such respite sometimes that it may abandon all earthly cares for a time and have leisure to talk with God As Christ invites his Church from the empestring of multitudes of people and secular businesses Come my beloved let us go forth into the field let us lodge in the Villages Cant. vii 11. We had need of longer Vacations than Terms more rest to serve God than stirring days to enrich our selves that we may ask God forgiveness at leisure for the sins which we did commit in our business Come ye apart into a desart place and rest awhile says our Saviour to his Disciples Mar. vi 31. All cannot receive this saying you will say all have not the way and opportunity to retire themselves bodily from the conflux of the world but there is a way for every man that his mind may pluck it self out of the throng and adhere to God So St. Cyprian bears off all objections from this exhortation Etsi omnes diversorium non excipiat loci animi tamen omnino necessaria est solitudo All men cannot cast the World behind their back and go alone into remote places but it is necessary for the heart of every man to say often my God and I am alone together I am solitary with him often in the midst of troubles God hath made man a sociable creature if the contagion of the world doth not make him unsociable Who can live with patience or comfort where he sees the Creator of Heaven and Earth dishonoured daily No reverence in the lips of children but swearing and prophanation No faithfulness in mens words but deceit and guile The trust of Guardians turn'd to supplantation the league of Friendship turn'd to treachery the bond of Wedlock so impiously so often wronged in Adultery Whom can the Living trust for righteous dealing Whom can the dying trust for an upright Executor What good man doth not feel the passions of Lot within himself at the recital of these things His soul vext with the filthy conversation of the Sodomites and therefore from thence he was glad to fly and retire to Zoar This made the Prophet Jeremy complain O ye that dwell in Moab leave the Cities and dwell in the Rock Chap. xlviii 28. Fuge seculi mare naufragium non timebis says St. Ambrose Sail away into some little streams and leave that Ocean of ungodliness which is in the most frequented places and ye shall not fear Shipwrack St. Basil extols it in the height of Gorgias the Martyr his praise that he left his native soil and all society and made the desolate woods his habitation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he detested the buyers and sellers the forswearers and liars I told you before that Eremitical solitariness was much in danger of tentation but one
and confer it upon our Saviour I will look back no farther upon that which I have deliver'd already but the other half of his gift to which now I must proceed smels more rank of boasting for if it please you he will turn all the Kingdoms of the world into one Monarchy and settle it upon Christ all this power will I give thee and the glory of them This will bring his ends to pass indeed or nothing he that will not be bought with honors no not with great advancements no not with Princely Royalties to swarve from righteousness you may turn him loose against all the enticements of Hell for a Christian that is unvanquishable But the Tempter hath sound out by long experience that such pure matter is rarely to be found in the dross of this world he sees that men do seldom deny him any thing if he can accomplish the desires of their aspiring thoughts He makes good bargains of his petty promotions how much more of his greatest There are enough and too many that for a little command a vulgar title for a mean remove will turn their backs to God and their faces to Satan There are undergrowing ambitions which shall not need to be carried to the top of a mountain and have Kingdoms shewn unto them let them be lifted but to the lowest Steeple in a Diocess and they will commit Simony and forswear it To be a Ruler over thousands will shake an ambitious mans honesty very far to compass it nay to be a Ruler over ten which is the lag end of all honor some will violate their conscience rather than go without it what if it were to be but Doeg the chief Heardsman of Saul to have the greatest superiority over beasts Why Doeg was both a promoter and a blood-sucker for that contemptible promotion The twelve Disciples Christ himself walking just before them fell out among themselves into hot words and contention quis esset major which of them should be the greater If one had been the greatest as in very good sense they were all equal what should he have got by it to be the chief over eleven that had left all and were worth nothing If the Tempter be aware of this as our infirmities are not hid from him that men will tread virtue under foot to crawle up to a petty advancement then he would easily think this provocation in my Text were irresistable all this power and glory will I give thee and all the Kingdoms of the world If Balaac will say to some I will promote you to great honor as he did to Balaam all the Angels of heaven should not hinder them from going to it ambitious persons will break through the hedg of all honesty for a title of high preeminence and when their indirect courses carry them down to the deep their fancie flatters them that they go up like Elias in a whirl-wind to heaven There was nothing hanging with Christ upon his Cross except a title over his head Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews And why a great title crucified with him though he deserved that Inscription and a far greater than Pilat or all the world could invent yet above all the sins of men ambition and great titles which too often are obtained by crooked courses they deserve to be crucified Mans thoughts fly upward like the sparks from the fire Core and Dathan cannot endure to be less than the greatest Every man would be a Moses in the Common-wealth every man an Aaron in the Church Brethren forget brethren in way of Soveraignty as Joseph's brethren did consent to kill him or sell him away rather than bow unto him Absolon a Son and Subject abjures his duty to his Father and his Prince Athaliah defrauds her own child to get the supreme authority in her own hand This strugling for greatness especially for a Crown and Scepter hath occasion'd more iniquity more flagrant sins than any one storm that ever was rais'd Si violandum est jus regni causâ violandum sayes C. Caesar he would do no body wrong for less than to gain a Kingdom but he thought it impossible for a man to temper himself in that tentation that had opportunity And why should the appetite of supreme honor bewitch a man sooner than any thing else from the fear of God and draw him from it because power and glory are two such specious and attractive things which are intrinsecal to the dignity of Princes and Satan I warrant you did not forget to cast those two words in Christs way All this power will I give thee and the glory of them There is power in Princes as well to advance where they like as to punish offendors and reason good they should be serv'd with all humble reverence and have the highest glory on earth ascrib'd unto them because they are set over us for our good to maintain publick peace and true religion The power which Pharaoh had oh how it pleaseth an hauty spirit he tels Joseph what he would do for him in this phrase without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all Egypt Gen. xli 44. or that majestical terror which Nebuchadonosor put upon all that were under him nothing more greedily sought for Says Daniel to Belsbazzar The most high God gave Nebuchadonosor thy Father a Kingdom and glory and honor whom he would he slew and whom he would he kept alive whom he would he set up and whom he would he put down Dan. v. 19. Satan knew that to manage such power as this is a whetstone able to set akeen edg upon any mortal appetite But if any one love to govern with a soft hand and affect not the execution of that awful power to put terror upon inferiours yet the glory with which Soveraignty is bespangled will rob a man of his heart and steal it from him Who would refuse to be a Solomon his Palace was beyond all buildings his Throne so costly that there was not the like made in any Kingdom the Meat of his Table the Attendance of his Ministers and their Apparel the Queen of Sheba had never seen or heard of the like Such pomp as this would make a man believe he had built his nest in the stars Satan thought his tentation struck home when he promised such glory as this unto our Saviour How much more was this motion most perswasive when he beleaguer'd him with this offer to pluck the fairest feather out of every Monarchy and invest him with it where there was any power or any glory fit for his wish it should be cast upon him David had a Kingdom of much power yet of little glory for his reign was full of trouble and rebellion Hezekiah had a Kingdom of much glory great treasures great magnificence in his house yet it was of small power for he was an Homager and a Tributary to the King of Assyria and he sent him word that
if he had pleased but to grasp the Loaves or to hold them in his Palm it was a full signification that his power and liberality were eminently met together for it is that hand which openeth and filleth all things The Apostles knew where these Loaves were forth-coming but they set not their mind upon them they would not meddle with them The People were an hungry and far from home in a desart place where there was nothing but grass Two hundred penyworth of bread perchance would have staid their stomachs and Philip thought that would be too little Howsoever they had not the money to buy it Five barly Loaves and two Fishes were all they had in store and who durst take them forth and shew them openly lest they should scramble and quarrel for them The People were ready to stone Moses and Aaron in the Wilderness when they were pinched with scarcity of food Therefore some gave counsel to send them away betimes certainly suspecting a mutiny But here is an accepit which runs cross to all their imaginations Christ betakes himself to those means which they contemned instead of dismissing the Congregation he calls them closer together instead of referring them to the Villages round about he contents them amply in that barren place Instead of the Tumult which was dreaded the issue came to great applause and admiration In all their days they had never seen such a Feast as this Table in the Wilderness where every Crum became an Handful Great things became vile and vile things became great by the dispensation of Christ In his own Person the stone which the builders refused became the head of the corner and in his own hand the Loaves which the Disciples refused became such a Banquet as never was prepared Lord take it first into thine own hand whatsoever we receive and then it will increase and prosper Give us our daily bread and if it be thy gift for no more than one day the vertue of it will last a year Labour not then so much to have good things as to have them of God As David did quickly cast up a chearful account of all his estate O Lord my God all the store that we have it cometh of thine hand 1 Chron. xxix 16. whatsoever drops from his fingers is sweet smelling Myrrh Cant. v. 5. but all false ways he utterly abhors and whatsoever comes in by fraud by extortion by cavillation it will consume away as fast as ever the Loaves and Fishes increased But surely the whole quaternion of Evangelists have set down this Preamble to the Miracle with such joynt consent He took the Loaves that it cannot choose but have some depth of observation in it St. Chrysostome hath reacht it so far that great numbers follow him namely that our Saviour did impatronize himself thereby to the work which followed and published himself from thence to be the Author of the Miracle It was alike easie to his Omnipotency to say the word and to make bread of nothing Or to take a little into his hand and to amplifie it into a great quantity Depend upon this what we have he can increase and what we have not he can create it is all one to him But by handling the lump and so giving vertue to the augmentation the People might behold him as the Fountain of all Power and Majesty and say with the Lycaonians God is come down unto us in the likeness of man Hear what that Father says more unto it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was very expedient that the People should be taught these two Articles of their belief that Christ came from the Father and that he was equal with the Father The one must be proved by power the other by holiness The one by taking the Loaves the other by giving thanks The one by doing all the other by calling upon God when he did all Put the case he had looked up to Heaven and furnished them with satiety of victuals out of nothing what would the multitude have said why this comes from above this is Gods doing and this Jesus is a Prophet that 's come from God O but can humane reason be brought to no better opinion of him 't is true whatsoever can be done they that are unbelievers may gain-say it yet to subdue all contradiction in them that are willing to obey the truth he took the bread and took the glory to himself to make every loaf content a thousand that they might cry out with the Centurion this is of a Truth the Son of God and it is no robbery to say he is equal with the Father So at Cana in Galilee he did not create wine when they wanted and supplied them out of nothing but he turned water into wine water of their own fetching as this was bread of their own bringing a pre-existent matter whose substance they knew to be vulgar and natural he wrought upon these sensible things before their eyes that they might impute the transmutation to his own Divinity Unto which of the Prophets therefore can you liken him in this Miracle Moses obtained Manna from Heaven by prayer and supplication Christ did this by his own hand The Widows Barrel of Meal did not waste nor her Cruise of Oyl fail it was Elias his prediction not his immediate operation Elisha bad his Servant set twenty barley loaves before an hundred men they did eat and left thereof yet for his own part he did not meddle with it because he would have the children of the Prophets ascribe all to the Word of the Lord they did according to that spirit upon them which was circumscribed and limited God had lent them a tongue to declare his noble acts but the hand which did all was far above the hand of power was radical in Heaven therefore this is a distinctive note to know the Master from his Servants he took the loaves He took them indeed but for justice sake it is fit to ask unde habuit from whence he had them A mean question many times hath found a grave resolution it may prove so in this Whence he had them Why some say the Disciples did own them for they answer him Matt. xiv 17. We have here but five loaves and two fishes The words bear it as if they were theirs because their Master was wont to carry them into desolate places and to detein them there all night it was their wonted providence to carry some small refection with them in their journey as it appears Matth. xvi 7. When our Saviour bad them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Saducees they reasoned among themselves saying it is because we have taken no bread Then they had not yet usually they do not forget it and it may be this was their provision for the present season But the votes of them are more that conceive they did belong to some other In the nineth verse Andrew says there is a Lad here
will shew you out of these words Fasciis involvit that she wrapt him in swadling clouts and laid him in a Manger Ipsa genitrix fuit obstetrix says St. Cyprian Mary was both the Mother and the Midwife of the Child far be it from us to think that the weak hand of the woman could facilitate the work which was guided only by the miraculous hand of God The Virgin conceived our Lord without the Lusts of the flesh and therefore she had not the pangs and travel of women upon her she brought him forth without the curse of the flesh These be the Fathers comparisons As Bees draw honey from the flower without offending it as Eve was taken out of Adams side without any grief to him as a sprig issues out of the bark of the tree as the sparkling light from the brightness of the Star such ease was it to Mary to bring forth her first-born Son and therefore having no weakness in her body feeling no want of Vigour she did not deliver him to any profane hand to be drest but by a special abillity above all that are newly delivered she wrapt him in swadling clouts Gravida sed non gravabatur she had a burden in her womb before she was delivered and yet she was not burdened for her journey which she took so instantly before the time of the Childs birth from Nazareth to Bethlem was above forty miles and yet she suffered it without weariness or complaint for such was the power of the Babe that rather he did support the Mothers weakness than was supported and as he lightned his Mothers travel by the way from Nazareth to Bethlem that it was not tedious to her tender age so he took away all her dolour and imbecillity from her travel in Child-birth and therefore she wrapt him in swadling clouts Now these clouts here mentioned which were not worth the taking up but that we find them in this Text are more to be esteemed than the Robes of Solomon in all his Royalty yea more valuable than the beauty of the Lilly or any Flower of the field or garden which did surpass all the Royalty of Solomon I may say they are the Pride of Poverty for I know not in what thing poverty may better boast and glory than in the raggs of Christ His tears are no comfort to them that laugh his Crach in the Manger is no comfort to them that affect the highest rooms in the Synagogues his want is no comfort to them that are rich his mean apparel is no comfort to our costly garments but this is a comfort to them that want cloathing to cover their Nakedness that Christ himself was wrapt in swadling clouts He triumphed over poverty in this poor and base Array says St. Austin as truly and verily as he triumphed over death Now death was conquered by Christ not that we should not dye at all but that we should vanquish death by the Resurrection So Poverty was thus led captive and overcome Non ut omnino essugeamus sed ut majori letitia toleremus not that we should never sustain it but that we should sustain it chearfully and with patience This was but the beginning of sorrow to be tenderly bound up in warm cloths there is a worse binding to come when the high Priests Servants shall find him in the Garden and lead him away bound like a Malefactor Feret aspera grandior aetas vincula cum palmam clavus utramque premet says a Christian Poet his hands will be straiter bound when they are pinned to the Cross with Nails and Iron for as the bloud which he spent at Circumcision was but an earnest of those drops which he should shed at his Passion So this wrapping and swadling of his Arms and Legs was but a representation how he should yield up all his Limbs to be bound unto the Cross O behold this thing you that think it no Christmas without bravery upon your backs these were our Saviours cloaths for this good time he had no other gaudy Garments but take up the fringe of your own Coats look upon the Ornaments you wear and tell me what Saviour it is you imitate you lay all you can upon your backs to celebrate his first coming into the world which was in baseness and poverty I pray you what would you be willing to put on when you shall meet him at his second coming in the clouds O then our mortal shall be swallowed up of immortality and as holy Nazianzen says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nakedness is all the cloathing we shall put on at the day of the great Resurrection Blessed Mary says St. Austin began betimes to let her Babe see nothing but modesty about him Nunc mulieres cum lacte in cunis superbiam infantibus instillant Now adays says he our women do so nuzzle their little Imps in their Cradle that they suck in vanity as soon as they take the dug and for the most part let men be so base to follow it if they will all our gay fashions come from some she inventrix as Synesius says of the Wife of Triphon that it was all her ambition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have the name of the curious Lady and that all fashions were warranted by her invention when by their leaves I think it is as little for their reputation as it was for Anak to find out Mules Thus I have followed the stream not departing from the common adnotation upon this place which says that Christ did consecrate and as it were sanctifie Poverty by this instance that he was wrapt in swadling clouts which is not so to be understood I think as if the first Linnen Ephod which was so happy to apparel the great High Priest of the Church had been some base or wragged piece of cloth For beloved to do all due right to the ever blessed Virgin she was not ignorant what a heavenly burden she bore she knew that after the custom of women the time of her deliverance was at hand she understood the Scriptures as well as the high Priests and Scribes that Christ must be born in Bethlem of Judah the place to which she went to be taxed with Joseph her husband Can we then imagine but that this most religious Mother had made preparation for such a Child and had furnisht her self against their journey Cum lineis pannis purissimis utpote partus conscia with the purest fine linnen cloths because she knew the hour of the most happy Nativity was at hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Greek Text in one word she swadled him up but sure with all observance and reverent decency But the poor and abject estate into which this Kingly Babe was cast as soon as he was born will appear most clearly by the fourth circumstance of the Text the strange condition of the place of his Nativity She laid him in a Manger And will the Lord dwell upon earth says Solomon when he
earthen pitcher if martyrdom burn in it like a lamp and the pitcher be broken to pieces then we shall have victory against our spiritual enemies and peace with God Fourthly Let us make that use of our Saviours first coming into the world in flesh which St. Paul doth of his second coming in glory 1 Cor. 4.5 The Lord cometh who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart and then shall every man have praise of God The most obscure things shall be made manifest unto his light and the thoughts of all hearts shall be revealed unto him The righteous Lord trieth the very hearts and reins Psal 7.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to try the heart is verbum forense as when Magistrates examine the truth not by questions only but by rack and torments they will have all out in confession so God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to draw out all secrets from our inward breast And it is impossible to keep the subtilest thred of iniquity concealed When he came to judgment against Egypt and sent his Angel to kill their first-born yet at midnight he knew which was an Egyptian and which was an Israelite so though we carry our sins with a demure countenance and smooth it with subtile hypocrisie yet his knowledge shineth in the darkness of our hearts as if it were light and he can distinguish between our inward affections our thoughts our fancies our sighs and yearnings that this is an Israelite born of the will of God and this an Egyptian born of the will of flesh Laban could not find his Idols because Rachael had laid them privily in her stuff but the Lord can detect that Idolatry which we keep close in our hearts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Grammarian the Greeks denominate God from penetrating all things with his eye and when Christ could see into the profoundness of Nathanaels thoughts behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile Nathanael instantly confest Thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel Alas that we go on still in darkness and do not understand are you in your wits that think iniquity is farther from judgment because it is farther from appearance do you forget the discoverie of Achans wedge and Gehazi's briberie do you not recal how the Priests of Bel were detected for gluttons and impostors creeping in at secret doors to gurmandize the junkets prepared for the Idol deal squarely and without dissimulation for you think it is night and no man sees but the glory of the Lord is round about you Fifthly No sooner was the world blest with the Birth of this holy Child God and Man but the Angels put on white apparel the air grows clear and bright darkness is dispell'd therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and walk as children of the light the earth should be more innocently walkt on too and fro because Christ hath trod upon it our bodies kept clean in chastity because he hath assum'd our nature and blest it Gods word should be heard more respectfully because he hath preacht it finally our conversation should be honest as in the day because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Wicked men are groping like the Sodomites to find out mischief though God have hid it out of the way The Saints and Angels are in a state of light wherein they know as they are known perfectly partaking of the beatifical vision between these two there is a middle condition of godly men who see into the way of righteousness though it be darkly as in a glass but they that dress them by a glass can discern how to mend any thing that mis-becomes them So the Gospel of Grace is a mirror of the light of Glory it is not the fault of the Gospel but of our own darkness if we learn not of it to put on the true wedding garment The Apostle calls it the putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ Vbi animus tenebrescere tentationum caligine coeperit ad lucem gratiae reformatur When the conscience is overcast with the darkness of temptation it flies to the looking-glass of Grace and reforms it self by looking into it This is to vindicate our selves from the powers of darkness and to walk decently as in the day Works of lewdness come from the darkness of our understanding they love to be done in privacy and not before the eyes of men abjiciamus says St. Paul as if he would have you fling them away to the Devil and bid him take his own As a wise servant would not be found with folly in his hand if he knew his Master were near so because our salvation is come as this day in humility and we know not how little he will defer to come in Majesty therefore abjiciamus throw away his filthiness from you lest Christ should come and find profanation in your mouth oppression in your purse false tinctures of art and pride in your face and disobedience in your heart Every child of light will have his lamp burning in his hand and by this he will know you whether you be his Disciple if you speak the truth and come to the light as if the glory of the Lord were round about you Lastly A glimpse of some celestial light did sparkle at his Birth to set our teeth on edge to enjoy him who is light of lights very God of very God and to dwell with him in that City which hath no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the Glory of God did enlighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof I conclude with St. Paul Col. 1.12 Let us give thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son Amen THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 10. And the Angel said unto them Fear not for behold I bring yon good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people THat which is every mans salutation wherewith he greets his neighbour at this time of the year is the subject of my Text a merry Christmas it is it which we wish one to another among our friends and familiers and it is it which the Angel in my Text wisheth to all kindreds of the world as if we were all become his friends and familiers good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people And surely were it not that the Birth of Jesus made us merry at this season and put gladness into our hearts all the year beside would be louring and lumpish without all manner of consolation Until God sent forth his Son made of a woman we might not receive the adoption of Sons Without adoption we had no part in the inheritance without hope of the inheritance what
passengers because he came into the world for a publick benefit The time most seasonable and accommodate the very fulness of time as the Apostle says Whereupon St. Ambrose Christus tanquam maturitas advenit ut nihil acerbum nihil immaturum nihil immite sit he came when all the fruits of comfort were mellow ripe and delicious that nothing might be sower or harsh or distasteful to us Tardius enascitur cupressus seris umbram factura nepotibus says Pliny the Cypress tree is long a growing yet when it is grown up to a tree the shade of it serves for an harbour to the child unborn So the long expectation of Christs coming is requited with those blessings that grow up more and more and spread wider and wider for all generations to come The company that came from heaven to congratulate this day most glorious and chearful a multitude of heavenly host and what a mighty army hath he levied to take our part in respect of those few scattered forces which are against us The manner of his birth most edifying and instructive in all abjectness and low estate in all poverty and humility A magnificent pompous Saviour would have been a scandalous example as we may well mistrust it to the high imaginations of our hearts and might sooner have destroyed this proud world than redeem'd it we did not want a Champion in arms but an Infant in swadling clouts We did not need a Prince guarded with his Peers but one in the form of a servant whose best companions that came about him were silly Shepherds It was not for our turn to have one that would keep state and ruffle Superbia non est magnitudo sed tumor Pride is not greatness verily and in truth nay but a tumor that is blown up with appearance It was for our profit to have one that did empty himself of his glory and make himself of low degree that man may blush away his own pride when he sees the Son of God invested with humility Finally the fruit of this Nativity O the fruit of it is passing delectable and unutterable grace illumination vacancy from fear of condemnation tranquility of conscience angelical protection here angelical society hereafter to know the rigor of the Law was the old lesson to know the Covenant of Grace the new to live and dye were vulgar things to rise from death and to live for ever came by him who being our head was made mortal that we might be immortal members of his body So I have pointed only to severals as in a map to the felicity of the Womb he chose of the place that received him of the time that exactly fitted him of the company that congratulated him of the humility that adorn'd him of the precious fruit that grew from him that the Sum might redound to make up this principal point of my Text everlasting blessing is the free gift of God to this whole world through the Incarnation c. The second Evangelical observation above that which the woman conceived that spake these words is thus Both the Womb and the Paps also of common Mothers are obnoxious to many miseries and to such great ones sometimes that they prove mortal The subtilty of the Serpent brought this curse upon the Womb of mothers Gen. iii. 16. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children That calamity is a common wound to that tender sex not so apt to bear any sore affliction But the birth of Christ was without the pangs and hard travail of the Mother The malediction was not upon Mary but Blessed was the womb that bare him Ipsa genetrix fuit obstetrix says St. Cyprian Mary was both the Mother and the Midwife of the Child Far be it from us to think that the weak hand of any woman could facilitate that work which was guided only by the miraculous hand of God The Lord did do his own work so great so transcendent without all humane assistance And mark another reason of St. Austins if any should headily contradict it Quod sine voluptate carnis concepit sine dolore peperit The Virgin conceived our Lord without the lusts of the flesh and therefore she brought him forth without the dolour without the curse of the flesh And many other of the Fathers for it was their common tradition have these similitudes upon it As a Bee draws hony from the flower without offending it as Eve was taken out Adams side without any grief to him as a Sprig opens the bark of a tree to grow out of it as the light sparkles from the light of a Star such ease it was to Mary to bring forth her first born Son Gravida sed non gravabatur says Bernard Shee had a burden in her Womb before she was delivered yet she was not burdened that lies upon this proof that shee took a journey instantly before she was delivered from Nazareth to Bethlehem above forty miles and yet she suffered it without weariness or complaint For such was the power of the Babe that he did rather support the Mothers weakness than was supported And as he lightned his Mothers travail by t he way that it was not tedious to her tender age so he took away all dolour and imbecillity from her travail in Child-birth This was a benediction upon her Womb Blessed is the Womb c. Thirdly In this the woman prophesied more than shee understood that whereas nature is like Hagar that bringeth forth children unto bondage and all the off-springs which Mothers bring forth are in themselves accursed from the womb for we are all born and conceived in sin Prius reati quam nati only this child this Immanuel this holy of holies was a righteous branch that knew no sin that had no part in iniquity and therefore exempted from that malediction which lies upon our shoulders from the first hour wherein we are born According to the strictness of the Law by which no flesh is justified that sentence is most righteous against us all Deut. xxviii 18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body Therefore Job sell out with his birth-day and so did Jeremy for until the time that we are regenerate and born anew 't is most true which they perhaps disgusted in discontent Cursed be the day wherein I was born let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed St. Ambrose reduceth it very well to this moral application let the day of my first birth perish that I may be accounted to live from the day of my regeneration Pereat dies secularis ut dies spiritualis oriatur vanish those days of sin that none but spiritual days may shine upon me But all that bitter mourning came from hence that nothing but wrath and rejection belongs unto us as we are born in original depravation This is true in all one only excepted who in the similitude of sinful flesh took our nature upon him
the word of men though they call themselves the Church for the children of men are deceitful upon the weights they are altogether lighter than vanity it self To draw this Doctrine streight and even upon the Text 1. Many will alledge Simeons example and say they could willingly die if they might see this or that come to pass Pray observe that such as these seldom or never see their desire come to pass because they fabricate vain hopes to themselves without the word of the Lord. 2. When that which they long'd for doth come to pass they are content to redeem it with any Physick or cost that they may not die for all their bragging like the woman in the Fable that was miserably poor and gathering sticks for her fire and herbs for her sustenance being vexed with extreme want she bursts out into this frowardness O that death would come to me Says the Fable death did come to her to know what she would have Help me up with my bundle of sticks says she I have nothing else to say to you But this is the sum of this point all our petitions are but avaritious craving or unchristian presumption unless we say Lord let it be according to thy word And now I shall end my Sermon in that point wherein Simeon desired to end his life it is the reason upon which he stood why he would depart because he had seen that which his soul waited for before it flitted away For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which is to this effect the Redeemer is come let my fetters therefore be broken off my joy is excessive and superlative this frail flesh cannot contain it The new Wine is poured in O let the old bottles break Thou hast granted me more than ever thou didst grant to any Prophet upon earth therefore exalt me to thy Saints in heaven For all the Prophets could get no more than this answer that a Virgin should conceive Immanuel that is God with us should be born and their posterity should not fail to behold him in after ages but says St. Paul all these died in Faith not having received the promises themselves but having seen them afar off Heb. xi 13. Now this Patriarch did far exceed all the Prophets that he saw the Messias with his own eyes and none other And mark the Pleonasmus not contented to have said I have seen thy salvation He doth denote the assurance of the act that he was not deceived hisce oculis vidi I have seen him with mine eyes it is the very Jesus that shall save the world I cannot be deluded as Vlysses speaks to Circe in Homer that she should re-transform his associates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishing true sight from phantastical Nicephorus a most corrupt Historian hath a tale by himself that Simeon was so far stricken in years that he had been long blind and as soon as ever this heavenly babe was brought near unto him he recovered his sight and therefore he magnifies God that his eyes were restored to see the object of all objects the blessed Child Incarnate and is it likely that St. Luke would have concealed such a miracle if it had been true and would God have let us receive it from so corrupt an hand as Nicephorus The Scripture says ver 27. of this Chapter He came by the Spirit into the Temple not that he was led like a blind man There are some conjectures that rove at random likewise by what means he should discern such Divine glory in our Saviour Admit there were other Infants presented in the Temple at the same time how did he perceive that this was the Son of the most high rather than any of the rest I find one Author shoot his bolt that a celestial splendor came down from Heaven and shone round about the Child I find another Author more superstitious than this that the Blessed Virgin was compast about with a cloud of glorious light in the place where she stood and so that honour should terminate it self upon her and not upon Christ This is to trifle in a most serious matter for certainly the suggestion of the Holy Ghost within him was enough to direct him without any external cognizance and therefore Nyssen says well Blessed were the eyes both of his soul and body his bodily eyes did see the happiest sight in heaven and earth but the eyes of his soul did respect that which is invisible His bodily eyes did see God made of a woman an object more beautiful and estimable then even Paradise it self when Adam saw it at the best Nay more beautiful than the whole Revelation which S. John saw in heaven excepting Christ himself whom he saw upon his throne Abraham would have given his portion in the promised land to have seen him David his Kingdom Solomon his revenews of Ophir and therefore no wonder if Simeon triumph in it that the eyes of his body had seen him But what the eyes of his soul did pierce into is magnum auctarium an huge addition They did see his salvation and salvation cannot be comprehended but by a lively and an effectual Faith They did see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cornu salutis as old Zachary calls it in whom God had reposed all the stock and treasure of salvation But why thy salvation and not rather ours had it not been more proper to say mine eyes have seen mine or our salvation There is no difference in effect one saying is as proper as the other salutare tuum for he is the Son of God the gift of God to us the holy One conceived by the Holy Ghost and in those notions Gods salvation as David says the Lord hath made known his salvation Psal xcviii 2. Again salutare nostrum for he came to redeem us and to give himself a ransom for us and so he is our salvation As if Simeon had said this is he after whom Jacobs heart panted Gen. xlix 18. I have waited for thy salvation O Lord. This is he of whom Isaiah foretold All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God chap. lii 10. He comes with much impotency and weakness to be presented in the Temple and to be redeemed after the custom of the Law with five shekels of silver but he will redeem us both from the bondage of the Law and from the bondage of sin with the five wounds of his body If such salvation as this were only to be glanced upon perfunctorily this sage Israelite would have been contented to have seen him and rested there but forasmuch as we must incorporate our Saviour in our souls and endeavour that there be a real union 'twixt Christ and us therefore in the verse before my Text Simeon took up our Saviour into his arms and St. John makes that a great mystery of his own and his brethrens happiness that their hands had handled the word of life Quod Simeon ulnis gestavit nos fide
time Therefore not St. Austin but some other forgetful Author said in 29 Serm. de Temp. that Christ was magnified for a fourth renowned work also upon that day namely for the first miracle of the loaves and fishes Concerning the first three I have authority enough in ancient Writers and three such miracles to be celebrated in the offices of one feast are enough to give it a principal reputation So gladsom a festival it was chiefly to sing praises to the Lord for the calling of the Gentiles that if either King or Potentate withdrew himself from Church on this day it was enough to tax him for a Pagan and that he did abhor the Gospel Therefore such as write of Julian the Emperour and his deep hypocrisie note in him that for many years he would come in all Princely pomp to Gods house at this feast lest he should have seemed openly and directly to have renounced all Christianity I have told you in what price and estimation this Festival was held of old because nothing was so precious to the Gentiles as their own salvation Therefore I hope you will do the day that common right to give diligent ear to some portion of the Scripture while I entreat upon it with what persons and miracles and other circumstances the preamble of our calling and illumination began In the Epistle for the day if you mark it we forget not Pauls kindness that he was a prisoner for us Gentiles Eph. 3.1 it is worth our thanks and remembrance much more is it worth the recitation in the Gospel what Christ became for our sakes a condition far meaner than for an Apostle to become a prisoner Paul from a sinful man became a diligent Apostle Christ being God came unto us in the shape of a sinful man of an impotent Babe and was bound though not in fetters yet in swadling clouts laid up in a Manger as contemptible a corner as a gaol and being all innocency reputed for our sakes worse than Barrabas the greatest scandal of the prison of him St. Paul did preach and the Prophets did preach and the Stars did preach and these Wise-men did preach that we Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of the same promise in Christ I have been copious upon the descent and stock and other qualities of these wise men upon their coming upon their journey so long and perilous from the East to Jerusalem Three things do equally divide my whole matter the doings and the sayings of these Pilgrims and the occasion of both For their doings and sayings to be equally regarded upon this Text I find that I concur with St. Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see the vertue of these Wise men both to come so far and to speak so far to come from home for Christs sake and to speak so home for Christs sake Where is he that is born c. The occasion of all is now to be handled Now when Jesus was born which is opened by two circumstances of the place that was in Bethlem and of the time In the days of Herod the King Now their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or boldness of speaking the truth is drawn to two heads by the Fathers Vnum quaerunt unum asserunt say they but here is one question and two assertions The confident question Where is he that is born King of the Jews The assertions first What God had wrought for them We have seen his Star in the East Secondly What God had wrought in them And are come to worship him And in the beginning I take the occasion in hand Now when Jesus was born Is that the Axel upon which all the business of these Eastern Travellers turns it self No wonder if that beget a great holy day for Christs birth is the occasion of all the holy days in the year If you keep some days festival for the Evangelists you know how they deserve it because they were his Penmen and Recorders if other times are celebrated for the Martyrdom of the Apostles because they were his Witnesses the Innocents of Bethlehem were slain in his quarrel and Michael and all the Angels fight for the Church because Christ is the head both of things in heaven and of things in earth All our joy all our triumphs all our glory move from hence and from this occasion Now when Jesus was born But to what end was all this hast Why should they make forward to see the Child as soon as ever he was born What could they report of him when they returned home but that they had seen an Infant His Tongue was not apt to speak as yet nor his hands to shew any proof of strength and mightiness They might have spared their labour one would think till he had been well grown to years of action and perfection nay but the Star calls them forth and will not let them loiter if they omit this opportunity God knows whether ever they have the benefit of a Star to usher them again The Lord above did know and the new Creature this strange Star did preach it and the hearts of the Wise-men were enlightened to understand it that there was occasion enough to call all the heathen or at least the wisest of the heathen or at least the Princes of the West I say to call them from the ends of the world to Judea to see this little Bethlemite lately born yet greater than all the Angels though they spring not from fleshly generation to see him suck at the breasts of Mary for a few drops of milk who feeds every living thing with plenteousness to see him supported in a Mothers arms who sustains the whole world by his power and founded the Elements upon nothing to see him cast his eyes about and newly peep out of those lidds of flesh to whom all things lie naked and discovered even the darkness of the pit and the secrets of the heart of man Nothing can be said nothing can be thought of this birth but is so mysterious and incomprehensible that the silly Shepherds who could not ponder those Magnalia Dei those Metaphysicks which the Angels told them made known abroad the things which they had heard concerning this Child but as for these Wise-men that could delve into a Mystery when they saw the young Child they fell down and worshipped him and presented him with their Treasures but we do not read of one word they spake either at Bethlem or when they returned home to their own Country the thing was ineffable and perhaps they praised God in silence and admiration that such a Child was born but could not utter it Such as would travel for wisdom had enough occasion for their journey were it never so far to behold the very Nativity though abstracted from the blessing that grows unto it Oritur origo rerum that he should have any kind of being in time who is Ens entium the cause and fountain of all
us that we may be condemned and Christ upbraided on this wise See these Servants of yours see those Children of men how full of all iniquity they are for whom you have shed your precious bloud These slanders and foul detractions of his though we do not hear them yet I have satisfied you so far herein out of my Text because his name imports them But we do feel it to our hurt and molestation that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tempter as it is in the third verse of this Chapter The word it self I would not have you think it is altogether evil for even God is said to tempt man Non ut ipse sed ut ij quos tentat se cognoscant says St. Austin not that he may bring any thing to light which was unmanifested to him but that our own effects may be known to our selves and to all the world as Deut. xiii 3. The Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul but the vulgar Latin reads it Vt palam fiat to make it known that you love him Again one man may tempt another to find what excellency is in him as the Queen of Sheba came to prove Solomon with hard questions besides there is a good Tentation wherein a man is bound to prove and to try himself Examine your selves whether ye be in the faith prove your own selves 2 Cor. xiii 5. In all these acceptions the Word is innocent but there is an abusive Phrase for man to tempt God as if we had not good experiment of his power and goodness but would search it further but let not us tempt Christ as some of them tempted and were destroyed of Serpents 1 Cor. x. 9. Lastly the word Tentation taken for allurement and provocation to sin is proper to Satan and to Satans instruments Among military rules this is one in all Authors it brings some advantage with it to study the nature and condition of our enemy I will beat a little upon that advice I have met with some who have humm'd and haw'd at it whether there were any Devils or no as if it were a thing that were disputable Perchance these give credit to nothing further than their outward senses apprehend after the manner of beasts or like the Sadduces that held there was neither Spirit nor Angel because they could see none If you ask them if Christ did not cast out divers Devils from those that were possessed their evasion is perhaps those might be enormous sins But could sins which are no substance but qualities cry out and tear a man and run into the Swine and confess Christ This is such an opinion says a late Writer Ac si oves putarent fabulam esse de lupis as if the Sheep should think Wolves were but a tale there were no such creatures that sought to devour them St. Austin brings in such an unbeliever objecting How should I overcome Satan How should I repel him whom I cannot see or perceive Well enough says the Father Facile habent remedium se ipsos interius vincant de illo foris triumphant overcome the instigations of evil motions within and you triumph over the Devil without None hath described the puissance of our ghostly enemies more tragically than St. Paul Eph. vi 12. We wrastle not against flesh and bloud but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickednesses in high places Every word of this description is Vae vae Woe be to them that are not strong to resist Our Adversaries in their essence are Spirits in their form invisible in their designs wicked in their power rulers of this world in their subtilties dealers in darkness in their place they have the higher ground much above our reach they hover in the air in high places The Prophet Isaiah demonstrated the weakness of the Egyptians That their horses were flesh and not Spirit Isa xxxi 3. The odds are the more against us that our adversaries are Spirit and not Flesh Daemonum tanto major nequitia quantò natura nobilior says Aquinas The more noble is the nature of hellish Fiends the more dangerous is their wickedness The more fleshly is our nature the more weak our resistance An Epicuraean will say perhaps that gives himself over to all licentiousness it is not in me to withstand the assaults of the Devil why should I go about it since I am made of a corruptible Elementary substance which cannot hold out against a spiritual wickedness But to make all such sinners inexcusable God hath made us a recompence and we have as good help on our side to say the least of it as they have of theirs partly by the help of his assisting grace partly by the Ministry of good Angels Some there are likewise that cry out man is unequally dealt withal because the Princes of darkness have that odds of us in their multitude they boast that their name is Legion Dionysius called the Areopagite as I read it in Aquinas reduceth the damnation of all sinners to this Multitudo Daemonum est causa omnium malorum the world is so over-laid with numbers of Devils that from thence ariseth all damnation I would not set so much by that single authority if St. Hierom had not said Communis est doctorum opinio this is the common received opinion of the Doctors Aer iste coelum terram medio dividens plenus est contrariis fortitudinibus The whole Element of the Air between heaven and earth is full of Diabolical troops that rise up against our soul and oppose our Salvation Howsoever this is but opinion and I am sure the Scripture doth no where put us in the perplexity of such a terror And that of Anthony the Eremite is confessed to be but a dream that he saw all the space between heaven and earth full of Satans snares to catch the souls of men Against these dreams and opinions I set the saying of Elisha on the one hand There are more that be with us than against us And the promise of our heavenly Father to the Children of Israel on the other hand One of you shall chase a thousand and two of you shall put ten thousand to flight Howsoever in all distress of tentation here is our refuge in this or the like Prayer Wilt thou suffer the destroyer O Lord to prevail against me Wilt thou permit him to say there there we have devoured him God spake once and twice that power belongeth unto God Semel atque iterum ob firmitatem once and twice because that truth is strongly established He that hath said unto the proud waves of the Sea hitherto shall ye go and no further He doth say unto Satan Hitherto shalt thou tempt and no farther It is not for the Devils deserving but for the wicked mans undeservings that God doth give him his
that God is with us from the beginning to the end of our life in want and in abundance in liberty and captivity in evil report and good report and he will never forsake us The words of the Prophet Isaiah are sweeter than the dropping of an honey-comb Isa xlix 14. Sion said the Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the Son of her womb Yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me St. Austin attributes so much to the power of faith against all the machinations of hell that he says the very Lesson of it being said by rote is able to defend us Ipsa recitatio symboli retundit inimicum The very repetition of the Creed doth beat off the enemy How much more mighty is the true feeling of faith when it lives within us If thou canst believe saith Christ all things are possible to him that believeth Mar. ix 23. Let Satan therefore keep his demur his hesitation his If thou be the Son of God unto himself Let him not take away your Garland by wavering for he that wavereth is as a wave of the sea sometimes rising aloft sometimes carried down to the Deep Let him not dry up the very fountain of grace So the Greek Fathers did always entitle faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mother the spring of all celestial gifts If any man say what faith what spring is this so much commended Briefly I will borrow this description to make it facile No man can have so much as an historical faith and well attend it but he must taste of some fiducial application that he is under the wings of the Almighty and looks for safety under his custody Nemo rectè potest credere Deo quin in Deum is no bad rule but I stand not upon that The faith of the Elect by which we shall be able to overcome our Ghostly enemies is not that which taketh all the holy Scriptures in the lump to be true but it is a willing a lively and an effectual assent to the Promise of the Gospel that Jesus the Son of the blessed Virgin Mary is the Son of God and is the Saviour of all those that repent and believe I say it is a willing and approving a rejoycing assent not forced like that of the Devils and wicked men who are convicted by the evidence of truth and with great horror and disdain confess it Moreover I said it was an effectual assent not a knowledge swimming in the brain informing the judgment but not reforming the heart such as hypocrites have But the understanding being enlightned by the Holy Ghost the will embraceth that which is good the heart is purified by it it works by love and transforms us into a new conversation answerable to that which we believe Now this belief in Christ which is the keeping the condition of Gods Promise doth imply three acts The first of assent that he is the Saviour of all those that believe in him which assent when it is lively and effectual is the proper act of that faith whereby we are justified before God The second act is of application when believing truly he is the Saviour of all that believe I therefore believe that he is my Saviour which is the act of that special faith by which we are justified in our own conscience The third act is of trust and assurance that because I do believe not only that he is the Saviour of the World but also my Saviour therefore I rest upon him for salvation So says our Saviour to his Disciples Let not your hearts be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me Joh. xiv 1. But this is not the act of faith as it justifieth us before God nor yet the proper act of special faith which doth justifie us in our own conscience but a fruit and consequent thereof and such a fruit as the Devil would pluck from the tree with this scrupulous injection if thou be the Son of God Now I will let you see as in a Map by pointing at spots of ground for whole Countries how faith is the fountain of all divine graces and therefore when Satan can make us reel and totter in our opinion whether we are the Sons of God there is not one Christian function in us stands sure but all the parts of true Religion are out of frame For first how can a man hope and wait for the performance of the Promises that doth not believe that they belong unto him Faith being the substance of things hoped for How can a man have true peace of conscience who is not perswaded that God is reconciled to him How can a man rejoyce in God who is not assured of Gods favour towards him How can a man be thankful to God who is not perswaded of Gods love and bounty to him They that have sinned how shall they be perswaded to turn unto him if they be not perswaded that his mercy is ready to receive them No man can perform obedience who is not perswaded that his endeavours are accepted of him No man can pray fervently who doth not assure himself that he shall be heard For so the Apostle How shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed Rom. x. 14. Who can patiently bear afflictions who is not perswaded that those fatherly chastisements proceed from Gods love and and tend to purge him as the Chaff is Winnowed from the Wheat Who can worship God with zeal and devotion who is not resolved and comforted that his service is accepted of him Hope Joy Peace Thankfulness Repentance Obedience Prayer Patience Worship all these will vanish away like a morningmist before the Sun if the Devil can make you distrust with such a tentation as this If thou c. And no marvel if in the first place and before all other parts of sin Satan labours to fill the World with little faith he can spare enough of that out of his own store to infect all the earth for who so great an Infidel as himself in this very tentation The words indeed come off very roundly and confidently that the Son of God with one word can command all the stones in the Wilderness to be made bread But to what end I pray you Whether you say for Christs sake or for the Devils sake every way it will chime Infidelity Argue in the first place why it should be done for Christs sake For if he were God what need he make bread of a stone that could make it of nothing Or though he were hungry what need he make bread at all Is not the bread of heaven able to live without material bread And Chrysologus revies it with his objection Nonne potest panem vertere in saturitatem qui potest in famem lapides immutare He
to be the Cabinet Counsellors both to great and petty Princes not only in Europe but beyond the Line in Peru and Goa in more Kingdoms than I think verily the Devil shew'd our Saviour The general Constitutions of their Order as we may read them in print do strictly command them in severest manner no way to meddle in State matters or in Kings affairs But verte folium I would we could see the other leaf of special instructions for in their practice the world never saw the like Corporation for stickling in all Kingdoms and Civil Governments but I leave them with him that useth to shew all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them upon the top of a Mountain Thirdly this is the Tempters way if not to shew to the eye yet to buz into mens thoughts and to possess them with strong apprehensions that they are not unlikely to get Kingdoms and Glory and Exaltation fools men with imaginations of strange fortunes and advancements as the Bramble in Jothams Parable thought it self fit to be a King over the Trees of the Wood and the Thistle in another Parable would have the Cedars Daughter married to his Son The Holy Ghost thought it fitter to deliver these senseless impossible ambitious projects of men in Parables than to speak plainly how folly and melancholy make some men suck at the Dugs of hope and fill themselves with wind and vanity Luther expresseth this madness in this phrase that every man hath a Pope in his belly It seems the truth of his saying may go far if such mean persons as the Mother of Zebedees Children the Wife of a silly drudging Fisherman could make such a Petition that one of her Sons might sit at the right hand of our Saviour in his Kingdom the other at his left Who had greater fortunes than David and who did expect less Psal 131. I do not exercise my self in great matters which are too high for me but I refrain my soul and keep it low like as a Child that is weaned from his Mother he restrained his soul and would not let it wander in ambitious speculations he weaned it as a Child from his Mother from the Earth which is the Mother of us all and from her transitory abundance But though all which Satan did shew could not move Christ one jot yet in the next point the amplitude and generality of the object I am sure is worth our admiration he sheweth him all the Kingdoms of the World and St. Luke adds that he did not carry him about in any long travail but so suddenly that it is exprest in a momentary motion in the twinkling of an eye There hath been some shame and disorder some soul blur upon every Realm and Territory in the earth therefore the Devil durst shew all and every parcel without any prejudice to his own proceedings The description of a Platonique Common-wealth an Vtopia or new Atlantis is to be found in ink and paper but never among men There have been treacheries tyrannical intrusions disinheriting the true and lawful Successors deposing of anointed Princes in every Government of the world such horrid things have passed every where to get Kingdoms by blood and violences and all kind of cruelties that Kingdoms so set forth are fit only for the Devil to shew 't is pity any History should record them qua terra patet fera regnat Erinnys as David said the whole earth is full of darkness and cruel habitation Satan hath quite marr'd this world and made it fit for himself and for his own children to look upon Omnis seculi honor est diaboli negotium says St. Hilarie that is all kind of honor is so degenerated and stained that the wicked Fiend makes it his business to represent it all unto our Saviour Nay but Satan shewed all the Kingdoms and the glory of them therefore none of their soils and deformities Very right indeed as St. Ambrose catcheth at that word ostendit regna gloriam celavit taedia labores he shewed the best outside of Kingdoms the pomp power attendance and riches but he did not represent within this pleasing object the multitudes of cares the distractions the fears and jealousies all those restless vexations that dance within the circle of a Crown and cannot be separated from Soveraignty well be it granted that these were kept out of sight I concur with St. Ambrose that they were yet I deny that he was able to shew the true and essential glory of the Kingdoms of the world for the first original beauty and integrity which they had is quite gone irreparably lost and never to be recalled All the foundations of the earth are out of frame saies the Psalmist the ancient Land-marks are removed all Nations have been invaders have been invaded every man means for his own ends and not for the publick peace is loathed if it be long kept Princes would over-rule and Subjects would but half obey how can the glory of Kingdoms be shewn when almost nothing is in that fashion wherein God ordein'd it Do you think a large Territory of Land a fruitful Soil a rich People a ruffling Gentry a war-like Nation terra potens armis atque ubere glebâ do you think I say that these are the original and essential glory of a Kingdom belike Satan would have ye believe so and since he could shew no more my Text speaks after his meaning and purpose He shewed him all the Kingdoms c. But admit he had not presumed to medle with the glory of the Earth it is enough to take up our admiration that he shewed every quarter and parcel of it yea and that in the twinkling of an eye and upon this whether miracle or delusion I will spend the time arguing two wayes in what manner this could not be done in what manner possiby it was done but since the Scripture is silent concerning the modus no man must define resolutely thus it must be done First then it must not be conceiv'd as if Satan did or could shew any thing which was not manifest to Christ before Ostensio fit quasi ignoranti to take upon him to shew the world unto Christ was to suppose there was ignorance in him before whom all things lye naked and unto whom all the foundations of the world are discovered the attempt comes to one pass as if a mortal man would teach an immortal Angel what incomprehensible glory is laid up in heaven nay the odds are far greater if I would go about to amplifie it The metaphysical Maxim is duo accidentia ejusdem speciei non possunt esse in eodem subjecto as two sweetnesses cannot be in the same lump of sugar nor two hardnesses in the same piece of steel so the knowledg of all the Kingdoms of the world was in Christs mind before in him were all the treasures of wisdom therefore the Devil could not cause any knowledge there for two knowledges of the same
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 get thee behind me Satan which confutes those Expositors that consulted no further than St. Matthew and have made quiddetts upon it that Christ did not reprehend St. Peter Mat. xvi with the same chiding that the Devil hath here Yes even the very same because Peter suggested most carnal counsel from the evil one he suffred this reprehension Get thee behind me Satan But I leave to touch that any further it is not in the Verge of my Text. This is the first time throughout all the three Tentations that Christ calls him by name Satan And surely Cajetan says well upon it Quia manifestavit se esse principem mundi Christus non ei amplius respondit ut homini Because he manifested himself to be the Prince of this world Christ communes not with him now in the former key as if he were a man And unless he had revealed himself perhaps our Saviour would have forborn to detect him that himself might have remained undiscovered to be the Son of God Well though the Tempter borrowed shapes before to hide himself notice is taken now what he was and with much passion our Lord shook him up Get thee hence Satan Our Saviour passed over the two former Tentations mildly but purposes of Idolatry deserve no meek answer The irreverent usage of Gods House when it was defiled with money-changers and the most irreverent abuse of Gods glory in this Text stirred up fire in Christ more than in all other cases and made him hot and vehement Moses the meekest man on earth that would resent no injuries against himself when God was dishonoured in the Calf which the Children of Israel worshipped his anger was so kindled that he threw stones at the Idolaters and broke the Tables which he had in his hand as who should say the Law is broken Let not Gods quarrel want a Patron in you and you shall not want an Advocate with the Father in Christ But what did Satan suffer upon this rebuke What was he the worse for it You can scarce imagin how to conceive more punishment out of so few words than some contemplative men have collected from these First If the High Priests servants were terrified and fell backward when no more was said unto them but Ego sum I am he then what amazement must this reproof strike Get thee hence get thee far from me thou presumptuous Spirit This did not only cast him to the ground but even bruize him under our Saviours feet Rom. xvi 20. The least check from the Lord is able to make the stoutest stomach look pale as death When thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin thou makest his beauty to consume away O if that dreadful Judge speak one word of anger who is able to abide it Secondly To be commanded away by one that appeared a man of weakness and infirmity what a great fall was this from that high opinion which even now the Devil had of himself He went away says Chrysologus and was fain to give glory to him of whom he askt adoration He boasted of giving a Kingdom to Christ and Christ gives Law to him and he must obey it Before he would be Christs Leader he lead him to the Mountain he took him nay carried him to the Pinacle of the Temple now he is compelled to change places and come after Get thee behind me Satan Yet I do not say he hath the dignity to come immediately next after Christ Solo Deo minor that is the title of anointed Kings upon earth Nay this reproachful word Get thee behind me deposeth him under all the servants of God Non retro Christum solùm sed post omnes qui spiritum Christi habent ire cogitur He is not only set beneath the Son of God but is an underling far after all those in the Church that have the spirit of Adoption Thirdly You know that this word Get thee behind me was a word of hostility in Jehu's mouth What hast thou to do with peace Get thee behind me So this rebuke proclaims the Devil an enemy whom God drives away and puts him out of his view and sight like an antipathy to the Godhead Ejicitur à facie Dei as one says he was cast behind God hid his face from him he should never more see the beams of that comfort Fourthly It is not expressed whither Christ did banish him when he charged him with his Vade Get thee hence to some woful banishment that is certain but to what degree of woe is most uncertain The Devils not long after this story in spight of their infidelity acknowledged him and trembled for fear which way he would send them Therefore they besought him that he would not send them into the depth In abyssum into that inestimable depth of woe in the nethermost Hell Luk. viii 31. And some do so interpret Get thee hence as if Satan before these Tentations were cast out of heaven into the earth but from this time that Christ rebuked him and bid him avant further he was cast from the earth into the lowest darkness They are questions not to be heeded which some move whether the Prince of the air were bound fast by these words that he should hurt the earth no more by his own person but by his instruments Or rather whether not until anon before our Saviours Passion at those words Now shall the Prince of this world be cast forth Or whether the binding is to be accounted from some other time Apoc. xx Tyrannis vivit tyrannus occidit Whether the great dragon so called be chained up or not God knows his tyranny and mischief lives in the power of other instruments all the Church of God knows that by experience Fifthly These words Get thee behind me Satan are our Saviours epinicium or Song of triumph that he hath conquered the Adversary both for his own peace and kingdoms sake and for the members of his body So many gross sins were reformed throughout all the world from this time forward especially in the redress of Idolatry that some say the malicious weapons of Satan are rebated and their edge taken off Indeed if it be meant with this distinction that follows the doctrine is acceptable the Devil hath less power since Christ came unto us in the flesh then he had before Non quod demonum sit imminuta virtus sed quod fidelibus per Christum abundantior concessa est gratia The Devils are as malicious as instant as operative as cunning as ever they were but since the holy Ghost hath put upon us the Armour of light since grace hath abounded through Christ we are better able to resist our Ghostly Enemies To conclude all whosoever is tempted of his own evil concupiscence let him spend no time to please himself with the first motions of sin but let him rebuke his own heart instantly in these words Apage Satana get thee hence away depart from me Satan Conjure
for the profit of my Soul rather than upon all the eloquence and wit in the world There is more to be learnt by meditating upon his Passion seriously and devoutly one day than by ripping up all other needless questions through the whole year Si Christum discis satis est si caetera nescis Si Christum nescis nihil est si caetera discis Says the Old Verse If you have learnt Christ crucified for thy sins do not bewail thy ignorance simple Soul though thou knowest no more if thou hast not learnt his sufferings and that with his stripes thou art healed bewail thy knowledg great Master of Arts and Sciences though except that one thing thou hast learned all And what though you fix your speculations upon Christ himself yet all is in vain that you can preach of Christ until you set your notions afloat upon his blood and sail down to this out of all that he was crucified for our transgressions If you be not enemies to his Cross you will easily agree with the truth of the whole Gospel if you do not agree with his Cross as with the only cause by which we obtain salvation you will be an enemy to all the truth of the Gospel Turn this key right that we are justified from our sins by his blood shedding and all is open wrench the door with any other key as if we would pick open the lock of Heaven gates with our own sufferings and righteousness and all is shut Surely St. Paul did pattern his preaching by this Copy of Moses and Elias 1 Cor. ii 2. I determined not to know any thing among you saving Jesus Christ and him crucified Secondly Yes indeed this was fit communication for Paul to impart nothing else to the Corinthians who did abound with the Greek Philosophy and eloquence and it sorted the better to speak of nothing but the sorrows of our Lord while fears and persecutions and death did daily environ them but in my next Observation it shall appear that this discourse was well chosen rather than any other at the Transfiguration of glory here was nothing upon the Mountain but celestial joy and in the height of this joy no other talk to entertain the time but about a Cross and about a woful tribulation If our sorrow be not enlightned with some joy it will turn to a melancholick desperation so if our joy be not dampt with the sadness and seriousness of some sorrow it will fly out into excess and presumption The Graecians did not allow their frisking Lydian Musick to be playd without the gravity of the Dorique Instruments which they called in one name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So David tun'd this mixture upon his Harp Psal ii 11. Serve the Lord in fear and rejoyce unto him with reverence Surely Peter and the other Apostles thought they were past all the bitter storms and frowns of the world where the place whereon they stood was more bedeckt with beauty than ever they had read of Paradice as if God had rained down Heaven upon Earth their mind was filled with this saying and their lips in the next verse spake nothing less Give us the Kingdom which is prepared for us give us the fruition of thy glory Nay hold and take this before Priùs de calice cogitate quà m de regno Drink of my cup before you reign in my Kingdom hear Moses and Elias preach of my Cross before you be enthronized among the Elders to sing praises unto the Lamb for evermore But was this a gratulatory Oration fit for the Prophets to make to Christ in the brightness of his Excellency did He love to hear of this above any thing that He should die an ignominious death at Jerusalem yes it was as the most pleasant thing to our Saviour and none so acceptable to be spoken of When a poor woman annointed his head with ointment in the house of Simon the Leper he defends her for it against the indignation of his Disciples says He In that she poured this ointment on my body she did it for my Burial I have a Baptism to be baptized with and how I am straitned till it be accomplished Luke xii 50. never was such haste made to any place as he made to Mount Calvarie there past but a little time from midnight to midday betwixt his Attachment his Arraignment and his Execution as if his feet had stood upon thorns until his head were crowned with them The content he took in those torments is thus laid forth in St. Paul who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. A certain Author makes an elegant comparison between that triumph when Christ rode upon an Ass to Jerusalem and between this triumph of the Transfiguration on Mount Thabor Infesto palmarum illacrymat considerans mala nostra in hoc festo mirabiliter exultat recolens mala sua Though he was then received with Palm branches and shoutings yet he wept upon Jerusalem to consider their sins at this Feast he is all glorious and rejoyceth for our sakes to hear the commemoration of his own sorrows And thirdly it must not be forgotten how Moses and Elias were those chosen Orators which spake of his decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem all that was mystical in the Types and Shadows of Moses Law all that was darkly delivered in the deep style of the Prophets concerning this passion is explained against the teeth of the Jews Moses and Elias came to interpret themselves Moses say the Fathers saw what medicine and healing was in the cross when he lift up the brazen Serpent in the Wilderness to cure the people that were stung and wounded and Prudentius in a sweet versifying way that Moses learnt how all spiritual foes Death Satan Sin and Hell should be vanquisht by the Cross when by the stretching out of his hands the Amalekites were destroyed in Battel by the Children of Israel Passis in altum brachiis sublimis Amalech premit crucis quod instar tum fuit Again they make the same Commentation upon Elias that he laid his body upon the Childs body his hands upon the Childs hands which he brought to life again even as Christ did stretch himself out upon the Cross and hath quickned us being dead in our sins having forgiven us all our trespasses Colos ii 13. and not us only who have been born since the time that his blood was actually shed but all those who lived with the Fathers under the Law and from the beginning of the world who did believe to escape eternal death by the blood of that Sacrifice which should be offered up upon the Tree of malediction A strange Medicament that the drops of this sacred bloud should cure so many millions before it self was extant If an Herbalast say he will make a Panacaea a rare juice of salutiferous roots the next year can it cure this Spring yet the Remedy of the Cross
Worship not one for Christ c. Herein as Peter knew not what he said so he said somewhat which Expositors wonder how he should know namely he calls these men Moses and Elias but how was it revealed to him The Text intimates how they spake to Christ but no where that Christ spake to them and used their names to make them familiar and well known And certainly he had never seen so much as their Pictures to make himself acquainted with the fashion of their countenance The Jews did hold themselves so strictly to the Letter of the Second Commandment that they made no Picture or Graven Image without Gods especial Commandment To resolve this doubt almost every Writer hath laboured to make his own ingenuous conjecture most probable Says Theophylact Moses might say Thou art the Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the World whose Passion I prefigured in the institution of the Paschal Lamb And might Elias say Thou art the Christ whom we believe shall rise again from the dead and that thy power over death might be believed I raised up the Widows Son to life Another way says Christianus Druthmarus Elias might say ascend on high and lead Captivity Captive even as I mounted up to heaven before Elisha Then Moses might vie with him Do thou deliver thy Saints from Hell even as I brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt Did both express that they two had fasted forty days and that they alone above all others had that symbolical mark with Christ Might not the one bring the two Tables of the Law in his hand as if they were his Escutchion by which he would be known And the other perhaps came in his Chariot of fire that bore him up to heaven that is a fourth way So wise an Author as Tolet might have taken any of these conjectures rather than his own forsooth that Elias came as he is described 2 Kings i. 8. An hairy man with a girdle of leather about his Loins and Moses came as their vulgar Latine most ridiculously sets him forth Cum cornutâ facie with Horns for where we read his face shined according to the Hebrew they read his face had horns Indeed this would well become some of their late Canonized Worthies who do rather deserve horns to be fixed to their heads for Monsters than the irradiation of beams for glorified men Zachary Chrysopolitanus hath a Scholastique way by himself Nec probo nec improbo That Peter and the other two Apostles were partakers of some heavenly glory when they saw the Transfiguration and therefore had that spark of happiness to know all persons whom they saw intuitivè as if they had been glorified So he discerned these to be Moses and Elias whom he had never seen before by that gift of grace whereby every Saint shall know all the Society of Saints by name after the Resurrection I will not enter upon that Theme to enlarge this opinion whether we shall know one another perfectly in the life to come Luther very judiciously held the affirmative part the very same night that he gave up his Spirit to the Lord. But to Zacharies opinion I give this dash that Peter was no partaker of glorified qualities at this time especially by way of knowledge and the gift of discerning For he knew not what he said There are reasons to be glanced at before I leave this Point why Peter would impale Moses and Elias in Mount Thabor in his Tabernacles to keep his Master company First he thought says one that none were more gracious with God to be fed miraculously with corporal sustenance so that for their sakes they should all have food enough Moses obtained Manna to fall from heaven about the Tents of the Israelites for forty years at his desire he brought Quails and opened the hard Rock so that waters flowed out And the very Ravens that use to devour all they can get they did spread a Table for Elias and brought him bread and flesh Secondly Fain would Peter defend his Master that he might not be delivered up to the high Priests to be crucified Now he bethought how near Moses was to drowning and his life was preserved how near to be stoned by the people and yet protected Num. xiv How violent was Jezebel against Elias and yet he escaped These had been very fortunate in their preservation therefore he would make Tabernacles for these to dwell with Christ Thirdly If Mount Thabor should happen to be environed with enemies that came to hale them to judgment why Peter may surmise let Moses have a Tabernacle here and he can bring Plagues upon Plagues against them that will meddle with Christ as he did upon Pharaoh and all his Host Let Elias have a Tabernacle here and he will call for fire from heaven to devour their Captains These are the glosses of ancient Writers but I would not confidently say it that the Apostle had all or any of these weak policies in his head when he spake these words Surely he had not time to confer with John and James no nor upon the sudden starting of fear any leisure to roule things in his own reason much less to apply reason to Divine Faith It was an extemporary Ejaculation and a very infirm one not knowing what he said All the first part of my Text was zeal to Christs glory the next part shews it was Zeal not according to knowledge not knowing what he said Upon these words some have quite mistaken the fault some have aggravated it too much some have excused it too far some have delivered their mind as I conceive with reason and moderation The Historiographers of Magdeburg in the first place conceived the case amiss who thought that Peter would have three Tabernacles built upon that flore in memory of the Transfiguration whereas he would have made his Fabrick not for the remembrance of the work that was past but for their cohabitation for the time present and to come In the next place Origen lays so great a crime to the Apostles charge that he says a Diabolical Spirit seduced him to say these words to impedite his Masters Passion for in the sixteenth Chapter of St. Matthew when he disswaded Christ from his sufferings Christ said unto him Get thee behind me Satan therefore all such seducements as this was must be Satanical St. Mark knew the reason of Peters transgression better than Origen this is all that he says Mar. vi 9. He wist not what to say for they were sore afraid It was not the evil Spirit of darkness but the spirit of fear that misguided him And as for the Passion of our Lord who more ready than Satan to hasten it Did he not put it into the heart of Judas that he might procure the death of Christ Did not Christ say to the Jews You are of your father the Devil and you would fulfil his desires when they sought to kill him Joh. viii It was too
everlasting curse His bloud be upon us and upon our Children Sanguis ille veniat super nos sed in ablutionem Let his bloud come upon us all I beseech God but to wash away our sins in the Laver of Regeneration But upon whom it comes for vengeance it must needs put out their eyes and make them stark blind A bloudshed eye can never see well A man never fares worse than when he is his own carver No greater infelicity can betide us than when we have our own wishes Inter vota imprecantium senescimus says Seneca No marvel if we do not thrive in this world What by our own prayers what by the prayers of our friends who shoot wide of the true good we spend our age in imprecations The Jews here did ask such a thing that they never had the reason more to ask any thing that was good They see no more than if a beam were in their eyes a beam as big as the tree of the Cross of Christ And so much for the second punishment the blindness of the Nation But thirdly A just reward is faln upon these murderers that the haters of the Lord should be despised in the eyes of all men Canes facti sunt filii filii facti sunt canes says Theodoret long since Those who were called dogs in the person of the Syrophaenician woman are beloved like the Children and those that were Children are spurned at like Dogs under the Table If we meet a Jew our phancy makes us believe that we see our enemy Nay the most part of men presage no better luck after their sight than if some dismal beast had been in the way which our superstition is afraid of Truly we may say of their dejected countenance and that malignant Mark of Cain in their face as Caesar did of Cassius Quid Cassius sibi vult mihi pallor ejus non placet Cassius did dart treason in his eyes and they dart murder I will not report it upon tradition because fame is but the Post-master to carry lies that the savour of death is in their bodies to this day or that their Children are born with knots of bloud in their hands This I may be bold to say it is an heavy vengeance and the great judgment of God if these things be true But true or false the anger of God is broke out upon them that the whole world with one consent should speak such things unto their infamy as their Conquerours thought them not worthy to be Freemen So as if they had been worse than beasts and not fit to make good bondslaves thirty of them have been sold at a baser price than an Ass head was sold in Samaria or than they sold our Saviour Alas they that find none to love to regard to pity them to prize them at an honest rate they are in Hell already but God forbid that I should teach you to hate a Jew Every living soul for which Christ died is the object of a Christians charity This is the very day wherein we offer up our prayers both at Morning and Evening Sacrifice for the salvation of Jews and Paynims according to our Church Liturgie I come now to end this long discourse with the fourth malediction to wit that we may well fear that they and their Children die an accursed death who crucified our Saviour They that were so nice as to deny to come into Pilates house in the days of the Passeover lest they should be defiled with bloud What will become of their poor souls when they shall be thrust into the Valley of Hinnon Into the Tophet of damnation Timent contaminari habitaculo alieno non timent contaminari scelere proprio says the Gloss It was a perillous thing to set foot in Pilates doors that would defile them But what destruction will it be to take the mystical house of Pilate I mean the Kingdom of darkness over their head for ever They that ignominiously bad our Saviour come down from the Cross the greatest Cross in the world is come down upon them says Nazianzen Forty years did the Lord prove them in the Wilderness seventy years in Babilon But as Christ said unto Peter Thou shalt forgive thy brother unto seventy times seven times Even just so many years were there by true computation between the return from Babylon and the destruction of the Temple Now they have endured almost one thousand seven hundred years of desolation O that the anger of the Lord would go no further then they might sing a Jubilee for ever But the Prophet Isaiah doth threaten them Though you lift up your hands I will not hear your Prayers because they are defiled with bloud Their Mothers were fruitful for nothing but to bring forth abundance of them who might be slaughtered Beside the number as great as the sand upon the Sea-shore that perished under Titus in the Wars of Adrian when they gathered themselves under Barcosdau their Pseudomessias twice as many say our Histories were slain with the Sword as came out of Egypt Assyria and Babylon have known their Captivity Vespasian drove them into Italy Adrian from thence into Spain They have been cast out into Brittany and cashiered Into France and banished Out of Spain by Emanuel and Ferdinand expulsed O where shall they rest at last But where there is no rest for ease no Christ for Redemption no pity for consolation Yet believe it Brethren the Lord hasten the day of his merciful visitation the time will come when a Remnant shall be saved The Holy Ghost did dip the Pen of St. Paul into Prophesie and he cannot deceive us Wherefore one glosseth thus upon my Text Vestrum peccatum vestra poena vestra ut omnium redemptio Your sin it is O Israel your punishment it must be and see to it further for if his Persecutors do repent your redemption it shall be But to construe the words of the Prophets touching a visible Kingdom of the Jews to come a new Jerusalem another Temple a potent Monarchy over all the World Let this fancy prevail with other men for my part I will say to it as one did in the like case His victoribus herbam porrigo sed elleborum Two things says St. Hierom are of great obscurity in the New Testament the Kingdom of Antichrist and the restauration of the Jews We know all about what hour Christ gave up the Ghost so we shall be able in some conjecture to trace the steps of Antichrist but at what hour Christ arose from the dead we cannot tell Ita majus est mysterium quando Judaei restituentur quia est quaedam resurrectio says the Father So it is a more intricate mystery when the Jews shall be restored because it is a kind of resurrection But O Lord we call upon thee and beseech thee to begin thy Kingdom of grace in our hearts upon earth Also to call home thine ancient people the Jews and to hasten thy Kingdom of
Cross To this end our Church hath made this Chapter one of the Lessons for this day the first that was read in Morning Service and I have warrant that the practice was ancient because I find it was so in St. Austins days for excusing himself that he had not expounded this Scripture to his Auditors all the time of Lent He gives this reason In Vigiliis Paschae propter Sacramentum dominicae passionis reservatur it was ordained to be handled upon a Good Friday because of the mystery of our Saviours Passion There is a Text John viii 56. which Christ alledgeth to the Pharisees Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it and was glad Which of his days Or when did he see it It is not mentioned I confess and that makes a variance among Expositors St. Austin glosseth upon it that Abraham and all the Prophets had a Revelation of the Incarnation St. Hierom conceives it to be that day when the mystery of the Trinity was opened unto him Gen. xviii Tres vidit unum adoravit He saw three Angels and worshipped but one But divers whom I could name especially St. Ambrose that wrote whole Books upon the story of Abraham say that my Text was the glass wherein he saw that joyful day Vidit diem immolationis in Ariete He saw the day wherein Christ was crucified for our Redemption in this Ram that was burnt upon the wood instead of Isaac and shall not the Children of Abraham look so far into this Type to see the Oblation for our sins which is past and gone already when Father Abraham so many years before did discern the day to come Elevemus oculos as it is specified of him in my Text let us lift up our eyes and look about and we shall find it plainly dividing the whole Text into these three parts 1. Here is Studium sollicitum a careful and a sollicitous heart upon the matter Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked 2. Here is Presens auxilium help at an instant in the best opportunity behold behind him a Ram caught in a Thicket by his horns 3. Here is Sacrificium succedaneum one Sacrifice answering for another or coming in the place of another as it is in the words following and Abraham went and took the Ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his Son Every one of these shall be subdivided as we handle them in order the leading part of the three is Studium sollicitum the carefulness and sollicitousness of Abraham That he lifted up his eyes and looked Isaac was not nearer to be slaughtered when the Sacrificing knife was at his throat than we were to be condemned when God was wrath with all the Posterity of Adam for the disobedience of that one man but the timely voice of mercy was heard from heaven the Angel of the Covenant appeared as if he had said Miserebor cujus miserebor the remnant of the Election are appointed to be spared Isaac shall live God hath spoken it and he shall not see destruction then at the instant when the Angel bad Save the Child and lay no violent hands upon him then Abraham lifted up his eyes So that the first emergent observation is this It was Gestus benedicentis The gesture of him that blessed the Lord because his mercy was revealed Indeed if God had not said that Isaac and in him the promised seed should live our countenances would look like death and be cast down as Cains was guiltiness would not let the sinner look towards heaven for corruption cannot enter into these incorruptible places our transgressing Parents withdrew from the Lord into the thicket of the Garden and could not abide to appear Nuditatem non audebant ostendere talibus oculis quae displicebat suis They durst not shew their shame and nakedness to such glorious eyes which was irksome to themselves Hezekiah turned his face to the wall when his doom was told him that he must die and not live And our Saviour doth insert that passage into the story of the Publican surely afflicted for his sins that he would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven all did not please him that he saw there be it never so glorious a body As St Basil spake like an eloquent Orator in his Homily concerning Paradise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rose was a delightful flower but it made him ashamed to use it because that thorns and pricks grew upon it Gods curse for the sin of man So the firmament of heaven sheweth the chief handy-work of the Maker yet to some it is a dreadful sight because the God of vengeance will shew himself from thence when he comes to judge the earth As David said to Absalon the Son of his displeasure let him turn to his own house and let him not see my face So the severity of God said unto man In terram reverteris turn again into your own place from whence you came into dust and clay but you shall not lift up your head to stand before me in the Kingdom of my glory O but mercy begg'd the life of Isaac Et levavit oculos And Abraham lifted up his eyes Anatomists say that there is one Nerve more descending from the brain to the eye of man than in any beast that it may turn up it seems with greater readiness and facility Now to stand gazing up into heaven a thing which the Angel reproved in the Disciples Acts i. 11. but as if the voice of the tongue and the affection of the heart were encircled in the eye to laud and magnifie his name that remitted vengeance and spared our soul from death I appove the old Philosophy Visus fit intramittendo species but allowing this divinity Visus fit extramittendo gratias if nothing else yet an eflux of thanks goes out of the eye when we look up to heaven At the cxx Psalm begin those Psalms of David which are called the Songs of degree And see by what steps he marcheth up in those degrees to the Mercy Seat of God In the cxx Psal I cryed unto the Lord in my distress there his voice ascended In the cxxi I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills there his eye ascended cxxii Our feet shall stand in the gates of Jerusalem there his feet ascended cxxiii Unto thee lift I up mine eyes O thou that dwellest in the heavens at every other step or degree his eyes are cast up for Christ hath not only opened the Kingdom of heaven but also opened our eyes and put courage into all believers to look up unto the Kingdom of heaven and therefore as I said it is gestus benedicentis the gesture of him that blesseth the name of the Lord. Secondly It is gestus admirantis an expression of wonder and astonishment Abrahams heart was full so overcome with the loving kindness of the Lord that he stood dumb and
Altar you see the strength and mightiness of his power in the Goats that he bore the similitude of sinful flesh in the Ram his Principality that he governed the Flock in the Lamb his meekness and innocency but before the Law this in my Text is the first by name which the Fathers took notice of as a type of the Sacrifice upon the Cross Quis in ariete figuratus nisi Christus spinis Judaicis coronatus of this Type St. Austin is bold to say this Ram in the Thicket was but a rellish and pregustation of him that was compelled to weare a Crown of thorns It is the first praise that Pliny gives to this harmless Creature Magna huic pecori gratia in placamentis Deorum among other attonements it was very gracious to please and pacifie the divine powers how could Idolaters confess so much unless with Caiaphas they prophesied and knew not what they said Indeed we can say omnis huic pecori gratia in placamentis Domini All our attonement all our reconciliation all our pardon it rests upon the head of this Oblation the principal of the Flock Who can think upon the innocence of the Sheep and not remember this spotless Sacrifice without sin Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth 1 Pet. ii 22. Non Petrus erat qui haec dixit adulatus Magistro sed Esaias praedixit says Cyril Peter did not say this of himself to flatter his Master he had it from an Evangelical Prophet Isaiah foretold it under the name of an innocent sheep led unto the slaughter The Pharisees called him Carpenter in disgrace but they could not call him Sinner Clamant habet damonium non Clamant habet peccatum they cry out he had a Devil and yet their tongue would not let them say there was a fault in him Our Saviour proclaimes it Quis vestrum Which amongst you doth accuse me of sin Again who can think upon the meekness of the sheep and not remember this Sacrifice that was led dumb before the Shearer Moses was meek yet he commanded that the Adulteress should be put to death Christ was meeker his sentence was clemency every jot Joh. viii Go and sin no more Moses was meek yet he brought Mandatum lapideum a stony Law to the People Christ was meeker and turned those stones into bread at his last Supper he set before them Mandatum triticeum Take and eat in remembrance of me At his Baptism a Dove sat upon his head Columba super agnum a Dove upon a Lamb meekness upon meekness What heart could be more intenerated and mollified than that which prayed for his Persecutors Yet once more let me speak who can think upon the profitableness of the Sheep and not remember this Sacrifice that did yield commodity both in life and death He liv'd in innocency of life for our imitation he suffered in the bitterness of death for our redemption ut afferret remedium in passione mortis ut praeberet exemplum in innoecntiâ vitae says Leo Innoceny Meekness Utility all do correspond that the Angel should take one of the Flock rather than any other Beast to prefigure the Sufferings of Christ And we must not omit that among all the Flock the Ram was cull'd out to be substituted for Isaac propter masculam virtutem never was there more need of a masculine courage and a spirit heroick than to tolerate and endure so much as our Saviour did this day stripes and strokes blasphemies and buffetings thorns and nails to drink up all the bitterness of the Cup to fight with God himself and his wrath in that Agony in the Garden every vein of the body vented bloud quia de toto corpore id est de Ecclesiâ emanaturae sunt passiones martyrum says Prosper because the Martyrs should suffer in every part of his Body which is the Church Such a Samson we had need of that could break the green wit hs and snap the cords in sunder Such a Lion we had need of sprung from the Tribe of Judah and it falls out I know not whether by art or by arbitrary imposition that the Latin word Aries for a Ram comes from the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Lion come to his growth and vigour I am sure he that is the Ram in my Text is likewise the strong Lion of the Tribe of Judah Very appertinent is that which I find related in Ortelius concerning the Christian King of the Abyssens that he gives for his Crest a Lion holding a Cross in his paw notifying that Christ stuck to his Passion and his Cross with that power and fortitude like a Lion that no tentation nor Devil nor infirmity could pluck him from it An Angel came to strengthen him says St. Luke I pray you did the Ram give back then was the Lion frighted did weakness creep upon him not so but because in the very gall of affliction he had strength and courage therefore he did merit to be strengthened by the ministery of Angels For example in this Militant state of the Church they that couragiously endure their trial at length shall not want Divine consolation This Exposition likes me best which ascribes all masculine courage to the Ram which was caught in the Thicket Ecce aries behold a Ram why John Baptist makes him younger above a thousand years after Ecce Agnus Dei behold the Lamb of God Nay in one mystical verse Gen. xlix 9. Judah is called a Lions Whelp and a strong Lion and an old Lion great diversity of age in so few words I must say of these places as St. Austin did reconciling the Prophesies of Esay and Jeremiah To us a Child is born says Esay Mulier circumdabit virum says Jeremiah A woman shall compass a man and both speak of Christ Why time says the Father doth not make him older than he was before the beginning of the world sed insinuant ei nunquam defuisse virtutem but if the Child be call'd a man it is to insinuate that full strength and perfection was alwayes in him Now you have seen the thing which was bestowed upon Abraham The Wife of Manoah could say if the Lord were pleased to kill them he would not accept a Burnt-offering at their hands neither would he have told them of a Son to be born much more may I say if the Lord were not pleased with Abraham and his Seed he would not have given us a Burnt-offering nor told us of him that was to come in the ends of the World as it is in the first mark which is upon this Ram He is Aries post eum Abraham saw a Ram behind him For long it was indeed long after Abrahams days that the manifestation of this Shadow was revealed in the death of Christ My father says Isaac in the 7. verse of this Chapter behold the Fire and the Wood but where is the Lamb Isaac spake of no more than the present
Et fuit in toto corpore sculptus amor says a Christian Poet the thorns of the field catch the Fleece and tear off locks sometimes that is more the Shepherds loss than the Sheep but Blessed Jesus thou wert stript of thy Garments and the skin was flaid off and then the thorns were dinted into the flesh the least touch of pain was too much for thee but let not thy Cup seem too sower to thy Children the greatest dose that can be given is not too much for us Secondly as Tertullian said abstulit omnes aculeos mortis dominici capitis tolerantia there will be tribulations there will be sorrows in the world but the mortal sting is gone the thorns of all our persecutions and vexations are stuck in the Temples of our Saviour his sufferance hath blunted their sharp points that they shall not run in so far as to our heart to make our spirit sad and heavy within us quite contrary to Synesius his Art of Gardening 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he would have strong and unsavoury roots planted neer to Rose-trees that the neglected root might draw the ill sap and venom of the earth into it self and save the Rose-trees harmless but here the Rose of Sharon did save the Garlick and the wild Roots harmless and drunk up the bitter juice into it self lest God should come and root us out of his Vineyard Thirdly we read of a purple Robe put upon the back of Christ of bowing and bending to him of a Reed in his hand of a Crown upon his head alas it was thorns all these Ensigns of Majesty were put upon him in scorn What doth this mockery express Quod regnum Christi in hoc mundo ludibrio futurum sit because the Kingdom of Heaven in this world that is the Kingdom of Christ in his Church should be made a taunt and a by-word to them that sit in the Chair of the scorner the Power Ecclesiastical and the Hierarchical Dignity of it is flouted at by them that would neither allow the Head of it a Crown nor the supreme Priests their Miters but trample all Rule and Order under their feet Fourthly and lastly to end this part the place where the Ram is caught is a Thicket of thorns but what place was this afterward Quantum mutatus ab illo as I told you before from St. Hierom that the Cross was set up upon the very plot of ground where the Ram was sacrificed so upon the next part of this Hill of Moriah Solomon built the Temple for so it is 2 Chron. iii. 1. Then Solomon began to build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah and why may it not be that the Jebusites who inhabited that Hill are called thorns in the eys of Israel why may not that be their Nick-name because thorns had overgrown their Habitation certainly in the Thickets of thorns there are the Walls of the Church reared up such a choice was made as the famous Antiquary of this Island hath wrote for the foundation of the Abbey which is the next to this place the ground was sometime called Thornega Thus you see we must lay our foundation in thorns we must sow in tears the higher we build from earth the further from the briars then our sorrows will be trampled down and we shall reap in joy and though thorns were a curse which was laid upon the vast World yet to plant in thorns shall be a blessing to the Church whose faith shall be refined in affliction as Gold is tried in the furnace Remember how St. Paul stil'd himself to Philemon Vinctum Christi a Prisoner of Christ not the Jews Prisoner not Festus his Prisoner not Caesars Prisoner but rejoycing in his Bonds for the Gospel a Prisoner of Jesus Christ And so far of the second General Part praesens auxilium Abrahams necessities were supplied at an instant Behold behind him a Ram caught in a Thicket by his horns In the handling of the last Part I must obey the time I called it Sacrificium succedaneum one Sacrifice answering for another or coming in the place of another And Abraham went and took the Ram and offered him up for a Burnt-offering in the stead of his Son 1. Abraham went and took the Ram so to apprehend and lay hold upon Christ that 's our duty 2. And offered him up that 's only consonant to God the Father 3. For a Burnt-offering there comes in Christs part 4. Instead of his Son there 's the redemption of the Elect I hope there comes in our part The hand of faith the good will of God the Father the full satisfaction of God the Son The full redemption of all that shall be saved With these four Points briefly we will end And Abraham went and took the Ram. It was the comfortablest hand that ever Peter felt when upon the danger to sink and perish in the Sea Christ stretched forth his hand and caught him So it was the most comfortable thing that ever Abraham caught hold of to apprehend this Ram in the Thicket partly out of natural affection partly supernatural the life of Isaac lay at the stake just before all the Sons of promise that he had and if he be cut off call him no more Abraham call him Abram again for how can he be the Father of many Nations or if that be made good in Ismael yet shall Isaac die the joy and laughter of his Father as his name goes quasi nusquam alibi gaudium ei restaret as if there were no joy without him Once Abraham had fought valiantly against five Kings when He was young 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom what a hard thing was it for him in his old age to fight against nature O had not his natural affections a brave occasion of joy to work upon when a Ram was put into his hands instead of Isaac and all this sorrow prevented but the Spirit 's comfort is the eye-sight of the Spirit into supernatural blessings hereby there was the gladness as Jacob laid hold of an Angel so did Abraham of this Ram the principal of the Flock the Leader of all the Sheep in the Pasture he was sure of a blessing before he parted with him Joabs hands may be pluckt from the Altar of refuge Sauls hand may be rent from the Garment of Samuel the Children of Bethlem may be pluckt from the arms of their own Mothers and slain before their eyes but who so apprehendeth the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ he that doubteth not as Thomas did and yet approacheth by faith so near as to put his hand into his wounds as if he would bury his sins in that Grave he shall lie safe in that Harbour and never be removed from the love of God in Christ Caius Caesar his foot slipt landing upon Affrica and the palm of his hand fell upon the ground verso in meliùs omine teneo te inquit Affrica turning it to the
bond can you deny that Is not this Lazarus See but what infirmity Christ pretended in the beginning of this work and how powerfully it ended Jesus wept in the 35 verse as if it were a pitiful case indeed but he could not help it He asked where they had laid him Lord dost thou ask for the grave which was hard by and yet knowst thine own self no man told thee being two days journey from Bethany that Lazarus was dead Then he ask'd for help to take away the stone Debile initium miraculi a weak beginning God knows how should we expect that he should open the gates of Hell that with a word doth not command the Sepulchers to open Doth this offend you What and if you see not only a dead man after four days raised to life but also to walk before you when his feet and hands were bound As if he moved like an Angel rather by the will of his own Spirit than by bodily instruments This was the conclusion of the Miracle and whatsoever the beginning was the end was admirable As Samson went away with the Pin and the Web Judg. xvi 14. which were tied to his hair whatsoever Delilah bound him with still he walked So Lazarus went away with his bonds as if he had triumphed over death and carried the Ensigns away that is the grave-cloaths with him Peters Chains fell off from his hands and so he avoided the imprisonment of Herod Peter thought so strangely of this to walk when his fetters were off that a great while he wist not it was true that was done but thought he saw a vision What did Peter think of Lazarus then For he was one that stood by His eyes were blindfold that he could not see his way the hands are the blind mans Candle and serve to feel out the way and they had Manicles The feet had Shackles that should tread the way Yet as if he had flown out of the Grave rather than walked Lazarus came forth he was in the Sepulchre shortly to be brought forth as if he had been hatching in his mothers womb rather than in a Cave of interred men He was says St. Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like a babe new born wrapt in swadling clouts rather than like one in a winding sheet But when he walk'd without the use of feet or hands he was like Paul wrapt up into the third heavens whether in the body or out of the body he knew not It is a great comfort unto us says Irenaeus that Lazarus came forth cap-a-pe the same man that he was laid in the Grave nothing altered about him Igitur eâdem animâ eodem corpore sumus resurrecturi it shall be our own body it shall be our own soul in the Resurrection no substances newly created Lazarus could best speak for the soul that it must be his own because his former fancy and remembrance still remained And his Sisters could speak for the body they knew what they had foulded up and what they found when they had unfoulded it And therefore some think that it was unto Martha and Mary that Christ spake in the end of this verse Loose him and let him go When Elias raised up the Son of the Widow of Sarepta to life he gave him to his Mother when Elisha restored the Shunamites Child to life he gave him to his Mother when Christ raised up Lazarus from the Grave he puts him into the hands of his Sisters that they may unty what they had bound before nay when he rose from death himself he appeared first to Mary Magdalen What is the reason that at every turn the women had the Resurrection first declared unto them Because they did first occasion death therefore to shew that by faith they were excusable of the fault they had the first news of the life of them that rose again Lord says Martha if thou hadst been here my brother had not died She put all the fault upon the absence of Christ Nay woman says Chrysologus Nisi tu fuisses in paradiso If thou hadst not been in Paradise thy brother had not died But Lazarus is bound that you may unty him and give him breath who first did stop his breath by eating the forbidden fruit Exiit ligatus he came forth bound Lazarus was not glorified in body by this Miracle as the Saints shall be yet here you shall see one of the properties of a glorified body and they are reckoned up to be four by the Schoolmen Claritas incorruptibilitas spiritualitas motus agilitas 1. There shall be an exceeding brightness in those bodies as our Saviours body shined so white at the Transfiguration that no Fuller could make a thing so white 2. They shall be incorruptible Summer and Winter Fire and Sword could do them no violence as Christ said unto Mary Touch me not 3. They shall not be gross like our bodies and sustained with meat It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body 4. It shall be nimble in motion like an Angel flying as Philip did from Gaza in the Desart to Azotus suddenly gliding upon the wings of the wind not depending upon feet as we do and to prefigure this property in a glorified body hereafter Lazarus came forth bound The vulgar Translation puts in a word to make the Miracle more strange Statim exiit that Lazarus came instantly forth without delay though his feet and hands were bound and his face with a Napkin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Nonnus he came not out like one that was shackled and halted because of his impediments he ran swiftly before them all For Christ useth not to do his work lamely and by halves St. Chrysostome makes this comparison As a horse and his Rider listen at the Race when the word shall be given and take it at the first syllable to be gone So says he as soon as Christ had but said Lazarus come forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he started out like the horse at his game and came on with speed and chearfulness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like one that watch'd the Sepulcher rather than the Corps Chrysologus brings in the Devil who is the Jaylor of death wonderfully amazed that our Saviour called for a dead Corps and makes him to speak thus Let him have the man he calls for let him have him bound hand and foot if he will let us not stay so long as to unty the knots make no delay Ne dum tardius unum referimus omnes cogeremur afferre lest while we prolong the time to restore one dead man he should call unto the Graves to restore them all As Luther called upon the Pope at first to have but one error amended concerning indulgences and while he trifled and hung off to do that Luther cried so loud that he caused divers Churches most happily to mend twenty more So death hastned away Lazarus being bound lest if he staid more would follow him As the
place IN this Book of the Acts of the Apostles you have the Evidences and most antient Records of the Primitive Church Christ in the four Evangelists taught us what an absolute Church should be and St. Luke practically hath given us an exemplar what an absolute Church was and flourished in the time of the holy Apostles In the first Chapter of this Book you may note what a thin company and small Society was first intrusted with the Gospel of Christ How the number of the Twelve was made complete again after the loss of Judas by the election of Matthias and these together with some other Disciples made up 120 names ver 15. Pusillus Grex a very little flock indeed as many as conveniently met in one dining room or upper Chamber and these to deal with all the world not half so many as Gideon selected out of thirty thousand to save and deliver Israel from the Midianites Though it was a most stately Altitude in the Roof of Solomons Temple that the height of it was 120 Cubits yet it was but a narrow scantling for the Primitive Church of our Saviour to have but 120 Disciples Could these few would flesh and bloud say be heard over the face of the whole earth Well says King Ahaz it is all one unto the Lord to save with many or with few And as if the Lord had thought these too many to propagate the Christian faith Salmeron says I know not from whom he had it that fourteen of those 120 proved arch Hereticks and sowers of false Doctrine and then that little number of faithful ones was more than the tenth part diminished But put this second Chapter in the balance against the first and you will say there were labourers enough for Gods Harvest though half of them had been spared Consider what excellent unutterable and even God-like gifts they had given to them at this Feast of Pentecost so that all Nations and Languages that dwelt round about were astonish'd in this Chapter at the grace that came out of their lips One of them was able to deal with many thousands of natural men that were not illuminated and to confound them in their wisdom And now I purpose to adjoyn my self God willing to that Treatise what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what wonderful works these were which God poured upon those that expected the influence of his grace at this season how many and manifold gifts were given upon this day in one gift the gift of the Holy Ghost At this time I will go as far in that subject as my Text will lead me in these Points First Here is the time of the Holy Ghost's coming the day of Pentecost Secondly The company that received the Holy Ghost all of them a multitude with whom anon we shall be better acquainted Thirdly and principally it is to be noted how they were prepared to receive the Holy Spirit Which I draw to two Heads they were Vna and Vnanimes they were all in one place no strangeness or separation one from another and they were Vnanimes of one accord which is divided into two blessings though they were not divided for they were in vinculo pacis and in vinculo spei they were knit in the bond of peace by concord and all knit in the bond of hope by patience and expectation that the Holy Ghost would come upon them And when the day of Pentecost was fully come c. That Doctrine which our Saviour preached to his Apostles in the seventh verse of the former Chapter is fit to begin the first Point The Father keeps the times and seasons in his own power and all his good fruits he brings forth in such due seasons that the season is as fertile of observation as the fruit it self so it will fall out to ingender copious observations that the Holy Ghost was given now unto the Apostles just at this Feast and not untill this day the Feast of Pentecost Let us have recourse to the Law of Moses that we may make our selves perfect in this mystery God spake unto Pharaoh to let the Children of Israel go that they might hold a feast unto the Lord in the Wilderness Exod. v. 1. Therefore when they were brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm they did perform what the Lord intended they did hold a Feast not presently but after they were out of the dread of the Egyptians just fifty days after the Passeover that Pharaoh was content to send them away And from thence the Greek 72 Translators put it into one word and called it Pentecost The Hebrew Doctors all say that the first Pentecost was celebrated on the sixth day of the third month so reckoning after their Tradition from the second day of the feast of unleavened bread which was the sixteenth day of the first month it made a compleat number of a Pentecost or fifty days and was called therefore the Feast of Weeks because they were to number exactly by days and weeks and not to miss the day which the Lord had appointed God was very curious and exact in his Commandment Well this Feast was first solemnized at Mount Sinah after they had cast Egypt at their back fifty days what were the conditions and reasons for which it was instituted Let me resolve that and you will understand all First In remembrance how joyful and thankful they were that they came out of Captivity Oleaster notes very truly though one of the Jesuites carp at him for it that the remembrance of their long Captivity was one end of this Feast it is so expresly Deut. xvi 12. Thou shalt keep the Feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God and thou shalt remember thou wast a bondman in Egypt Secondly On the same fiftieth day that they came out of Egypt the Law was delivered upon Mount Sinah or Horeb for Horeb is but a part of Mount Sinah and the memorial thereof was ever after celebrated upon this yearly Feast So St. Hierom says in an Epistle to Fabiola Dedicatio legis est Pentecoste The Pentecost is the dedication of the Law Thirdly It had another respect to make it holy for it was called festum messis or primitiarum the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of First-fruits for as soon as they put in their Sickle into the Wheat harvest they baked two Loaves leavened made of fine flower of the first fruits and waved them before the Lord and offered them up with many bloudy Sacrifices Now this was not put in ure at the present but it was a festival Ceremony not to be omitted to celebrate Gods mercies for the fruitfulness of the earth when they came into the Land of Canaan It is true that the Feasts of the Passeover and of Tabernacles were observed in an holy wise seven days together at the feast of Weeks or Pentecost they kept but that one day sacred to the Lord because it was the beginning of Harvest and God put no decrees
posse says Tacitus That which may be repaid is well accepted of but some are so devillish that instead of good will they return hatred when they know they must die ingrateful So did this false Apostle who not contented to be an under confederate was Dux eorum says St. Peter Acts i. 16. the Ringleader the Captain of them that took Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says my Text He did lift up and exalt his power Magnificavit dolum says the Chaldee Paraphrase He did advance his treachery not like Dan An Adder in the path lurking to bite the horse heels to make the rider fall backward Gen. xlix 17. no such lurking Adder but as a flying Serpent magnificavit dolum he lift up his heel he triumphed in his ungodliness And yet will you know what interest he had in his Masters favour Comedebat panes meos he did eat of my bread If we follow the interpretation of the Gloss it is to be understood de buccellâ quam intinxerat Iesus of the sop which was dipt and given into his hands with this reproach To whom I give the sop he shall betray me John xiii 26. If we follow Cassiodor he says this bread is Doctrina in quâ spiritualiter epulamur Christs continual preaching and instruction which is the food of the soul So David repeating my Text in a Paraphrase p. 55. turns it thus We took sweet counsel together there was the trust and walked in the house of God as friends there was the bread which was eaten But if we follow St. Hierom and a list of Worthies after him it is to be understood of the blessed Sacrament Say it were the Sop and did you ever hear of a Conscience so feared up That durst be treacherous when he was branded with the suspicion Tu es homo Thou art the man Say it were the preaching of the Word and what Adder would have stopt his ears except this Serpent When that voice charm'd him so often at which the Angels are astonished and hide their faces Say it were the bread of the Celestial Communion and how stubborn was this unbeliever that could not relish how precious the body of Christ was before he did betray it Beloved I would that Judas were to be blamed alone But if we could consider what things the Lord hath done for our peace who is he among us all that hath not had his â—op that is some particular token some especial means Gods hand reaching out a good occasion unto us as well as unto Judas We have not the lively voice of the very Oracle but we have the Letter of the very Oracle and the true Prophets of the very Oracle reading the Law in the Congregation expounding faith and good works from the Pulpit giving to you all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the portion of your food And we cannot say but there is a Pot of Manna in the Ark the holy Supper provided at solemn Feasts heavenly meat dispensed in due season whereof we have been partakers Now if after particular warning a token best known to every mans conscience if after the Word preach'd if after the Sacrament of Christs own body we wax stubborn and rebellious as David charged Achitophel as Christ impeached Judas so will God endite thee Yea mine c. Had I not read of the poysoning of an Emperour with the Cup of the Eucharist and of a suspicion that a Pope was made away with the consecrated Host I should have thought that none had come to the Communion Table with a murderous heart but only Judas But now I have considered that to enter into conspiracies with the Sacrament set before them is as solemnly kept and as usual with the Jesuits as to tune Instruments before Musick I can give an instance for what I say in that execrable Powder Plot they that have transubstantiated the Wine into bloud and the Cake into raw flesh are fed for nothing but to prey upon the flesh of their enemies like Diomedes horses and to drink their bloud Tam bibit hoc avidè quà m bibit ante merum They are not beholding to the Devil for his temptation Mat. iv To turn stones into bread Let the Devil rather be beholding to them and learn how to turn bread into stone and brain there our familiars Melchisedech brought forth bread and wine for Abraham after the slaughter of his enemies if you would moralize it after the mortification of his sins but was ever such an holy Table spread to furnish any man to go out to battel to kill his Friends and Confederates I have not many words to speak against this violent sin the extinguisher of all grace and the shame of nature but I will speak home Whosoever frequents this Supper and beats out Plots upon this Table as upon the Anvile of malice like Judas like the Jesuits the root is Hell and the fruit is certain condemnation St. Austin in his twelfth Sermon upon St. John hath given me the hint to go one step further The good members of the Church says he are set forth in the person of St. Peter In Judae personâ reprobi the lost part the Reprobates are charactered in the person of Judas Wherefore there is great reason from hence to cry after collapsed Hereticks who renounce the Faith which once they professed in sincerity and to summon those discontented Runnagates who fall off from our Church to the glorious superstition of the Papacy with this compassionate verse Yea mine own familiar friends yea my Children that have suck'd my breasts have drawn bloud from me such upon whom I have laid hands of Ordination have broken the Covenant and smote me with the Palmes of their hands their Pen hath wounded me with bitter Motives Such as have eaten my bread and compassed my Communion board like Olive branches of peace round about my Table they have called me the Seed-plot of new Doctrine and the Mother of Sacriledge they have lift up their heel against me and kiss'd the proud feet of my Adversaries We have no such enemies against our peace no such slanderers of our Church no such forgers of Calumniations almost incredible as among those fugitives that have skulked to Rome and Downy to worship the Gods of the Groves As if they could not prove themselves to have forsaken us unless they had forsaken natural affection and the ingenuous colour of modesty Away with them rebellious tongues let them pack to other Kingdoms we are not afraid as Pyrrhus was that they who spoke evil of him at home would backbite him worse if they were banisht and sent abroad No I am glad there is Sea enough about the Island to purge away such filth from the shore retrimenta populi Let them who abide with us be more couragious like the remnant of Gideons army and be confident that although some which were harnessed and carried Bows have turned their backs from us in the day of battel yet by the hands of the
that was snatcht away unpreparedly without all sense of death It is true she had no Will to make she had no Legacies to bequeath for all was lost She had no house to set in order with Hezekiah for her Habitation was consumed with fire and brimstone yet she had a Soul to set in order which was ten thousand times more than all beside And although I will define nothing rashly against her for this judgment sake for I have learnt that modesty to let God only judge his own servants yet this momentary destruction of Lots Wife I am sure is worth both this and many hours meditations Quod cuivis cuiquam that which hapned but once since the world began to this one person may happen in some kind every day to any man Saul was desperately driven to seek to raise Samuel from the dead and appear before him this instance in my Text is one that never went down to the grave among the dead that she might always be in the remembrance of the living how she looked back to Sodom and became a Pillar of Salt Which words I divided formerly into such terms as might both respect the Contents of the Text and be expedient places for your memory Therefore I called the two principal branches an Epitaph and a Tomb. The Epitaph thus But his Wife looked back from behind him The Tomb which this Epitaph respects in that which follows And she became a Pillar of Salt If God made Epitaphs the stones of the Church should not be guilty of such flattery as they are for none of the offences of Lots Wife are left out in these few words but she is accused and very justly of these particulars as I shewed before 1. Of disobedience that she would not observe the precise Commandment of God in every motion of her body 2. Of great folly and blindness of heart that she would reject God and the preservation of her own life upon such easie conditions as to hold still her head 3. Of a Spirit most unattentive to learn for Lot went before her constantly and stedfastly the example was in her eye every step from Sodom to Zoar yet she would go her own ways 4. Of incredulity an incredulous soul Wisd x. 7. Either she did not believe that Sodom should be consumed as God had sent word or else she thought it would not be the worse for her though she turn'd about and lookt upon it 5. She relapsed and fainted in well-doing and desired to live again among those wicked sinners from whom God had withdrawn her This was opened in the first part The second is as strange for a Tomb as this was for an Epitaph A Christian Poet wrote thus Enigmatically upon it Cadaver nec habet suum sepulchrum sepulchrum nec habet suum cadaver sepulchrum tamen cadaver intus That she was made a Carkass that had no Sepulchre nay that she was made a Sepulchre that had no Carkass or rather that she was both Carkass and Sepulchre And to conform my self to the resolution of this Riddle I will consider this punishment inflicted from God two ways in reference to her self as to the Carkass and in reference to that into which she was turned as to the Sepulchre She that was punisht 1. Was one of those very few that professed the name of God among thousands that were unrighteous 2. She was one of four that were brought out of Sodom and yet there wanted one of those four before they got into Zoar. 3. She was well nigh pass'd all danger and suffred shipwrack in the very Haven 4. She did wilfully cast her self away at the last cast therefore we read she was lost but not that she was ever bemoaned After this in reference to the Pillar of Salt 1. I consider it as a new punishment the like was never heard 2. As a sudden or momentaneous punishment 3. As a miraculous and most supernatural punishment 4. As a mortal punishment but not as a final destruction Of these in order The Lord told Abraham in the former Chap. that the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was very great and therefore He was come down to see how grievous their sin was That which called him down to execute vengeance was not the iniquity of Lots house that little Family was all the remnant He had there to call upon his name but the filthy sins of the other Canaanites that abounded with rank and unnatural pollutions And the Angel tells Lot in this Chapter they were come to spare him and his but the Lord had sent them to destroy that City because the cry of it was waxen great before the Lord. They confess their Commission was given them to punish none but those Children of perdition that were aliens from all fear of God And yet behold one that was in the Catalogue of them that professed the Worship of God she offended and the hand of Gods fury is stretched out upon her She became a pillar of Salt Says one upon it Par est ut judex priùs suam domum examinet quà m alienam A Magistrate that will reform abuses let him make his own house the first example of reformation and then his Justice may more confidently call any to account that are not so near unto him St. Paul grounding upon that equitable case deciphers a good Bishop to be one that ruleth his own house well for if a man know not how to rule his own house how shall he take care of the Church of God 1 Tim. iii. 5. This brings it to our apprehension directly why this person in my Text was chastised with no less than death because God would shew his justice upon his own Family where they sinned that unconverted Reprobates might expect nothing but the utmost of severity For if these things be done in a green tree what shall be done in a dry Luk. xxiii 31. There is no sort of anguish no calamity of any name or magnitude Captivities Famines Diseases that doth not shew it self as soon within the bowels of the Church as in any part of the World beside For a small trespass is taken more unkindly at their hands where grace abounds than a great profanation from the Heathen who were left as forsaken as the Mountains of Gilboa in Davids curse upon whom no dew of heaven did fall A small sin in Judah is as bad as an Idol in Samaria A lukewarmness or faintness of Religion in Laodicaea as bad as Paganism in those Regions that sate in darkness and in the shadow of death Therefore the first stroke of indignation shall light upon their sins from whom the Lord did expect the least offence and the most obedience Slay utterly both young and old both Maids and Children and begin at my Sanctuary says God Ezek. ix 6. You hear that the sword of vengeance shall be drawn forth first against the Sanctuary that is the pollutions of the Sanctuary Christ will sooner take his scourge
humour into devotion and Prayer Is your Temperature Sanguine and chearful I can tell what that will do if this living water feed it the mind will be bountiful easie to remit injuries glad of reconciliation comfortable to the distressed always rejoycing in the Lord. If a man be Phlegmatick and fearful there is a trial likewise what God can bring forth from such a nature How wary will the Conscience be to give no offence How pitiful How penitent How ready to weep over its own transgressions Finally in every Age of the life old or young in every condition of fortune regal honourable or servile this living water where God pleaseth incorporates it self into it and makes it grow and fructifie according to that use and purpose for which it was planted It is water then which doth increase and vegetate every Plant which our heavenly Father hath planted but with much disparity from our common waters as you may apprehend by divers instances For first pour all that you can draw from your fountain upon a tree that is quite dead and your labour is lost it will never spring again but most wretched were the state of man if the water which Christ gives did not bring us to live again when we were quite dead in corruption And you being dead in your sins hath he quickned c. having forgiven you all your trespasses Col ii 13. All the Sons of Adam beside our earthly mortality are under the infliction of a double death by nature it is a spiritual death to be bereft of grace It is an eternal death to be guilty of hell fire We are St. Judes fruitless trees bis mortuae once were enough but we are twice dead pluckt up from the root yet if the light of Gods countenance shine upon us we shall sprout again and wax green like a Cedar in Libanus What a sapless tree was Zachaeus before the Holy Ghost the Lord and giver of life as we do well call him in the Nicene Creed did bring salvation to his house You might as soon have squeezed water from a Pummy stone as charity from a Publican before his conversion yet though he were dead in covetousness as soon as He began to live in him he scattered abroad and gave unto the poor As the Father said of his Prodigal Child being now come home into his bosom This thy brother was dead and is alive again So let every penitent soul confess my root was dried up how should it come to spring again but by some influence from heaven I was a withered tree that cumbered the ground how am I exalted like Aarons Rod to bring forth Buds and Almonds I was a sensless stone and God hath raised me from thence to be a Child of Abraham Take another instance of diversity in every Plant that lives water is the means to make it bear but in every Plant it makes it bear such fruit and no other as was first grafted upon it it causeth a Fig-tree to bring forth Figs and a Vine to be laden with Grapes But if the fruit were sowre and unpleasant by nature water it while your arms ake it will never help it But this water in my Text which is so worthy of our Saviours praise it will make you gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles Indeed it should do so but our Preaching is no better with many than River water gushing upon a Crab-tree the more we teach the more you are laden with your own natural fruit Pride Luxury Intemperance Faction Malice and Incontinency are as rife as ever they were nothing grows upon the stock for all the labour that is spent but sowre Wildings that set the teeth on edge it seems the chief ingredient is wanting the blessing from above you mind other things and then the chief pipe of all will be stopt by which the Spirit should enter into our soul There are some and I would they were but few that put in Bill and Answer as it were against Gods plea they urge their personal infirmities and natural inclinations and think that God can ask no more I am dull of understanding says one and what I am taught I cannot bear it away I am suddenly transported with indignation and I cannot suffer I am retentive of a wrong and cannot easily be reconciled All these are in the same tune with those ill manner'd Guests in the Gospel we cannot come I pray you have us excused Humilitas sonat in ore superbia in actione To plead excuse is a form of humility but in effect it is an open arrogancy Spend this breath of excuse in Prayer and Supplication and cry out often and affectionately drop down upon this heart O Lord drop down upon it and it shall bring forth fruit quite against the grain of your custom quite against the bias of nature The high-minded shall be humble as a Lamb The implacable shall forgive his brother seventy times seven times The Impostor shall make restitution the Bravaries of the time shall confess and amend their vanity Loe this is an alteration which nothing can produce but living water from natural sterility of good to supernatural fruitfulness Origen confounds Celsus with this Argument that the Christian Religion must needs be the power of God and not of man For in all Kingdoms where it had success it did civilize the most barbarous Nations It did mollifie and intenerate the most stony hearts It brought in Justice and good Laws among them that lived by Rapine and Robbery A strange fruit to be found upon such wild Plants Could it otherwise come to pass than because they were watered from above I think you will like this Doctrine best in the Prophet Isaiahs expression Chap. xi 6. under the Kingdom of Christ so it goes before The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid. The Calf and the young Lâ—on and the Fatling shall feed together and a young Child shall lead them All that place is noted by Eusebius for a Prophesie to be meant of the conversion of the Gentiles whose brutishness and savage life was changed into good nurture and sweet conversation Ye were darkness but now ye are light in the Lord. O blessed are ye when that which is natural and inbred to our disposition drops off and grows no more Then if ye be planted by the River of God ye shall bring forth your fruit in due season and look whatsoever you do it shall prosper Take a third instance of diversity Our Elementary water helps a Plant to bring forth one kind fruit at one season of the year and this is a blessing of Gods left hand to fill us with the plenty of the earth but the water which is the blessing of his right hand hath this excellency to make the same tree bear all manner of spiritual fruit and at all times and seasons never unfurnisht never empty A moral temperate man may be unjust A
their avengers It cannot utterly be gainsaid therefore but that the Grammatical words will bear this sense that the Souls under the Altar pray for deliverance rather than revenge For the deliverance of their Brethren that suffer not for the confusion of those Malefactors that spill their bloud I confess if you take Revenge in the usual way for a cankered desire to see the hurt of another this construction were the safer And for Analogy of Faith it agrees well with that that the holy Ones in the sight of God pray that their Brethren may be pluckt out of the jaws of their Tormentors and fill up their Society in Heaven So St. Cyprian Illic copiosa turba nos desiderat de suâ immortalitate secura adhuc de nostra solicita An innumerous company of holy ones in Heaven desire our coming resting secure in their own peace and glory but solicitous for ours And Bernard very vehemently Vnde tibi hoc ô caro foetida How comes this to pass O filthy and sinful flesh of man that they in whom Gods Image is repaired should long for thy fellowship in whom it is defaced That they who are made white with the bloud of the Lamb should wish for thee that art polluted So I leave this Point with a probable assent but no more that the Saints desire not the vengeance of the ungodly but the deliverance of the righteous It is drawn up more solidly in the fourth Conclusion That vengeance indeed is no part of their Petition in Heaven it was their love and forgiveness of their Enemies which God accepted when he exalted them thither and surely their Charity is increased and not diminished But how then will St. Johns Vision and their Charity hold together Well enough directly they pray for that which is fit for the voice of Saints but because no good thing is good to them that hate the Church obliquely it brings vengeance upon them Cajetan is the great abettor of this Interpretation I shall find another Author for it they are our Saviours words Luk. xviii 7. Shall not God avenge his own Elect that cry day and night unto him Says he The assiduous cry of the Elect tends formally to this that the Kingdom of God would come and that he would accomplish all things but forasmuch as when this Kingdom is come and the Elect are gathered together from the four Winds the wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the people that imagined evil against his Sanctuary therefore virtually and indirectly they invocate God that his Foes may be swept away with the Beesom of destruction Affectu orant pro persecutoribus effectu pro vindictâ Their affections are sweet and tender that all Infidels who defie the Gospel of Christ may be converted but the effect which follows their Prayers shall not be their Salvation but their Subversion for ever The Casuists express this after a pretty manner that the Will of any man is Mother to some effects and Grandmother to other some Such things as it wisheth for expresly it is the Mother of those desires when many things fall out consequently upon these desires and quite beside the intention of the wish they are not the Children of our own Will but our Daughters Daughters as it were and our Will is but Grandmother unto them I desire fair weather meerly for mine own delight my fancy covets nothing else but this may hinder the Seeds-man in the Field or burn up his Flowers that hath planted a Garden those effects are not begot by my Will their relation is that they came to pass out of that which I desired they are my Childrens Children and so remotely they are mine Or as a Ward wisheth that he were come to Age and had sued out his Livery his aim is to be seized of his own Inheritance yet that desire cannot be accomplished in some instances without wringing his Estate out of the hand of his Guardian and leaving him poor and succourless So says Gregory the Great to this case in my Text Sancti petunt mundi consummationem atque indui corporibus These blessed Souls call for the consummation of the World for a joyful Resurrection and to be cloathed with their bodies But woe unto violent men that have insulted upon the Righteous when that shall come to pass then shall their cruelty begin to be requited The Saints do praise God day and night and the Incense of their Prayers is lifted up unto him for a greater amplification of their triumph yet since their honour must be the ruine of many this must necessarily be derived out of their Petitions that the Lord would judge and avenge their bloud on them that dwell on the Earth But you will say I have not yet made it to appear that the primary and direct Petition of the Saints is that God will reveal his utmost glory in the end of all things and in the Resurrection of their bodies I refer you for that to the verse which follows my Text for why had each of them his white Robe given Or why is it said That they should rest for a little season and till all were fulfilled This is no answer to the words of my Text but an answer to their uncessant Prayer for the future Resurrection that the pittance of glory which they had must satisfie them and in due time when the whole body was gathered together there should be an accomplishment of their blessedness I do not say That the time deferred is irksom to them for their heart is so devoted to every thing that God pleaseth to have done that it is sweeter to them since the Lord will have it so to have the time adjourned when they shall be cloathed with their house which is from Heaven than if it were now at hand Yet the Spirit hath such a thirst to resume the Flesh again that it spends their affections in part upon the object which otherwise would freely and intirely without deducting any share be consecrated to the praise of the Eternal Majesty To dispatch this Conclusion now if I look right upon it it is sound and hath no flaw namely that the proper ingredients of the prayer of the Saints departed are for the hastening of Christs Kingdom and for a speedy Resurrection but to the terror of them that are destructive and unmerciful that heavenly supplication devoves them by consequent to the nethermost Hell There is but one Conclusion more behind the fifth and last which stands upon this firm Basis that if any man will be contentious that revenge is every way to be exploded out of the Prayers of holy Martyrs though his conscience receive scandal unjustly where none is given yet there is one interpretation left which is obnoxious to no exception namely that these words are not Oratio personae sed rei the Martyrs themselves do not utter such a Prayer in the ears of God but the wrongs and injuries which they sustained
in hand to drive the money changers out of the Temple than to correct the Publicans and Tole-gatherers at the Custom-house who were the greater Extortioners A tree that was made to bear fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire if it continue barren but wild Plants from which neither Figs nor Olives were expected God never threatens them with the Axe but lets them stand till they decay with age and rottenness This is the reason of it that although God had no more in Sodom for his share but a very little houshold yet one of his own Domesticks that look'd back upon Sodom perish'd as well as those his Enemies that never came out But if God spared not his own what remains for them that were never folded up in his flock never called by his name Si flagellantur filii quid debent sperare servi nequissimi says S. Austin If the Sons of the Family be scourged what can Runnagates hope for If King Josias a Saint worth all the men of Judah beside was brought to an untimely end that stroke was but a forerunner that all the stubborn Nation beside should soon after be cast out into a most woful captivity Quando justis non parcitur propter perficiendam purgationem non parcetur impiis tanquam sarmentis praecisis ad combustionem so St. Austin goes on in a sweet similitude If God do not forbear the Righteous but prune them off sometimes to trim the tree certainly the unrighteous shall not be endured who are dead sear boughs and most combustible for the fire Vpon the Land of my people shall come up thorns and briars how much more upon all the houses of the joyous City Isa xxxii 13. As waters are still and shallow near the Spring-head but run with the swifter Current as they are further off so the indignation of Divine Justice which begins calmly in the Church which is near to God will increase more violently among the out-casts of Satan among whom at last it will end Says St. Peter 1 Epist iv 17. The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel of God The House of God shall be punished and severity begins at them but it is not finis eorum that is not their final doom nay it is no more but a twitch by the way but punishment in St. Peters own words is the end the last cast of impenitent sinners What shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel Inchoatur ira judicii divini à correptione justorum ut in reproborum damnatione conquiescat so Gregory in reference to St. Peter The Rod of Gods Power begins with the chastisement of the Just that it may give over in the damnation of Reprobates And as Gregory expounds St. Peter so our Vulgar English Margin makes St. Peter to expound Solomon Prov. xi 31. Behold the Righteous shall be recompenced in the earth much more the wicked and the sinner Finally as God spares not the nearest to him so let us take up the same justice my meaning is let no man spare himself Proximus egomet mihi If thy right eye offend thee thine own eye thy right eye pull it out and cast it from thee Beati qui cum omnium misereantur sibi nunquam penitus ignoscant says Salvianus Happy are they that are pitiful to all men only they will not pity themselves but avenge themselves of themselves that God may shew them mercy Secondly She became a Pillar of Salt even she that was one of four that were brought out of Sodom to be delivered and yet there wanted one of those four before they got into Zoar. I will not move that question hereupon that one did to our Saviour in the Gospel Luk. xiii 23. Lord are there few that be saved No answer can be given to this directly but either curious or uncomfortable Our Saviour replies unto it in that same place thus Strive to enter in at the straight gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able But because St. Matthew says of that straight gate that leadeth unto life few there be that find it Therefore Cajetan says that in effect our Saviour rejoyned to that mans question few should be saved Ex angustiâ portae significans paucos esse qui salvantur the narrowness of the way did signifie how few should hit upon that path that conducteth to eternal life But I had rather take in light at another window and receive St. Austins Exposition that Christ did purposely decline to give punctual and affirmative satisfaction to that question deriving his words to this scope rather to make us study which way every man may be saved than to know how many or how few shall be saved Ad questionis vaniloquium nihil dicit sed transfert suum sermonem ad rem magis necessariam He would not reply to such an impertinent interrogatory but raised doctrine out of it more necessary to edification Let not that curious investigation then lie in our way what a small number of souls four were in respect of so many thousands that were burnt to ashes in the destruction of four Cities and yet how much that portion decreased because one of them four was cut short by the way rather I will turn the Point into this consideration that the Devil is always detracting and abating from that small portion and remnant which God hath set apart for himself Could our Saviour have chosen fewer than Twelve Apostles to testifie over all the world what they had heard and seen And yet the Devil entred into one of these to make him the guide unto those that betrayed Jesus God cantonized out for himself but Twelve Families or Tribes out of all the Kingdoms of the Earth with whom he made a Covenant by Sacrifice and Ten portions of those Twelve revolted both from God and the King and fell into Idolatry and Treason I might be infinite both in Sacred and Humane Histories but our own experience is as sure a touch unto us The Christian Faith you know is received but into few Regions of the habitable world I may say according to Nathans Parable that Europe was unto God as that only Ewe Lamb all that the poor man had but the Devil is like that rich one that had many Flocks and Herds besides in all places under the Sun yet you see what a great stride Mahomet hath stept into Europe though the Church complains of her small number as Micah did Woe is me I am as when they have gathered the Summer fruits as the grape-gleanings of the Vintage there is no cluster to eat yet the envious one would abate the Lord of that small Remnant among all the Inhabitants of Sodom he thought four too great a number to escape and one of them relapsed and became