their owne confessions Tell vs. Whereunto we may adde that the lottery against Achan was both occasioned by an vnexpected overthrow taken at Ai by the direction of God himselfe in the whole maner thereof prescribed and as for Ionas he was a figure of Christ whose vesture was to be parted by lots and therefore the deprehension of his offence not to be brought into ordinary practise What is thine occupation If Ionas had confessed and opened his fact other likelihoodes helpes to finde it out had beene needlesse but it seemeth that before he could shape his answere to the 1. questioÌ„ they thrust an other vpoÌ„ him without intermission a third yet more like a peale of ordinance thundring about his eares that by the vnited strength of so many probabilities wound togither like a foure-folde corde Ionas may be entangled This first of the foure probabilities is of great moment to skan the life of man What is thine occupation thy art thy calling for 1. some haue no art or trade at all 2. some wicked vnlawful arts 3. others such artes as haue an easie provocation to iniustice and vngodlinesse Those that haue no arte are errand vagabond wandring persons as the planets in the Zodiacke never keeping a fixed place rather vsing their feete then their hands or whether they slitt abroad or gad at home their calling art is idlenes for Otium negotium Idlenes is a busines They are more troubled I doubt not how to spend the day then these that haue a trade wherin to be exercised they liue by the sweat of other mens browes will not disquiet the temples of their owne heades Let me freely speake without the offence of governours there are a number in this citty numerus tantuÌ„ a number onelie very artificial in this idle art those that can pleade their age impotencie necessary necessities I am their advocate I speake of pure and voluntary beggers who if they would worke haue it not it is pitty that you haue your wealth that your talent is not taken froÌ„ you giveÌ„ to others who would better vse it to Gods behoofe they should be Ditis examen domuâ— the bees that swarm in rich mens houses much more in opulent and wealthy cities many inferiour townes are superiour vnto you in the provision thereof but if they haue worke and wil not vndergoe it why are they suffered spontanea lassitudo a willing profered lazines in the body of a man is an introduction and argument of greater diseases these willing or wilfull rogues are not vnapt if ever occasioÌ„ be ministred to pilfer your goods cut your throtes fire your citty for their better advantage of maintenaunce When Iephtah was cast out of the house by his brethren because he was the sonne of a strange woman hee fled and dwelte in the lande of Tob and there gathered idle fellowes vnto him they went out with him The vnbeleeving Iewes in the Actes tooke vnto theÌ„ a coÌ„pany of waÌ„dring companions such as stand idle in the market place wicked men and gathered a multitude made an vprore in the whole citie and came to the house of Iason to fetch out Paul and Silas You see how readie they are to serue such turne to raise a tumult to make a conspiracie or rebellioÌ„ to associate theÌ„selues to any that will but leade them It were your wisest part to deale with such lewde and vnordinate vvalkers standers sitters in the vvaies of idlenesse as Philippe of Macedon dealt with 2. of his subiects in whome there was litle hope of grace he made one of them runne out of the countrey and the other driue him So his people was ridde of both Now there be other artes vtterly vnlawfull to be followed the very naming whereof doth condemne them as Coniurers charmers moone-prophets tellers of fortune our english Aegyptians robbers by lande pirates by sea cosenours harlottes bawdes vsurers which presently censure a man as soone as they are but hearde of to be wickedly disposed There are many besides vvhich though they haue vse lawfull enough in a common wealth yet there is but a narrow path betwixt fire and water as Esdras speaketh and one may easilie misse to do his duety there You looke perhappes that I shoulde rehearse them Though some are become more odious by reason of grosser abuses in them yet I will cover their face and keepe them from the light as they covered the face of Haman to keepe him from the eies of men because there is too much abuse to be espied in all our artes Monye hath marred them all they are all set to sale as Iugurthe spake of Rome and want but a chap-man Divines sell the liberty of a good conscience for favour and preferment Lawiers sell not onely their labours but the lawes and iustice it selfe Physitians sell ignoraunce vnskilfulnesse wordes vnsufficient drugges All men of all kindes of trades for the most part sell honesty trueth conscience othes soules for mony Our artes are artes indeede that is cosenages impostures fraudes circumventions Our English tongue doth well expresse the nature of the word vvee call them craftes and those that professe them craftes-men vvee may as well tearme them foxes as Christ tearmed Herode they are so bent to deceipt Others not content with so vulgar a name call them mysteries indeede the mysterie of iniquitie is in them misty obscure darke handling which God shall bring to light in due time Call we these callings sure they are such whereof the sentence shal be verified Many are called vnto them but few elected to partake the mercies of God O harken to the counsell which the Apostle giveth that ye may iustifie and warrant your vocations before God and man Let everie one abide in the same calling wherein hee was called and to make it significant let every one wherein he was called therein abide with God Let him not stay lâ—ke a passenger for a night but continue and hold himselfe not onely in the name but in the nature and vse of his calling that is let him walke worthy of it as in the sight of God who is a witnesse and iudge to all his proceedinges Let him not adde vnto the challinges and constitutions of God the callinges of the Devill as simony bribery forgery hypocrisie periuries for these are the Devilles challinges and let not those artes and professions which were given for the ornamentes and helpes of our life bee turned into snares and ginnes to entrappe our brethren In the audite of our Lorde and maister so farre shall wee bee from giving the accountes of faithfull servauntes Lorde thy piece hath gained other ten which we haue so falsified and defaced with the sleights of Sathan that wee cannot discharge our selues as the vnfaithfull reprobate servant did Beholde thou hast thine owne Our lawfull and honest vocations wherein wee were first placed wee haue
is whatsoever in nature or arte is most perfite and exquisite and hath as it were a kinde of divinity in it that to ascribe to GOD for these foote-printes and that imitation sake which it hath of his perfection Ordinarie mounetaines cedars or cittyes haue their fellowes and equalles vpon earth wherewith to bee sorted But such as excell in greatnesse and refuse the copartnershippe of all in that kinde because it vvere an iniurye and disparagement vnto them to match them with their inferiours they are claymed by GOD himselfe as his especiall rightes· Not to exempte the smaller from his care and providence who is as greate a GOD in the least as in the greatest and hath given more vvisedome to the little antes and bees then to asses and camels but to teach the vnwise worlde to esteeme his maiestie as it is not to serue him vvith lame or leane base and vnperfite offeringes and to thinke there is nothing in the whole godhead but is most rarely and incomparablie excellent Of three dayes iourney Some say if you walke the streetes a softe and leasurely pace with all the lanes and allies that are therein Some if you ioyne the villages rounde aboute the dition liberties and marches that appertained to Niniveh Others if you take it with the suburbes alone For though the name of the citty bee limited within the walles yet the name of Rome or Niniveh includeth also the continent buildinges Lastly others expounde it of the very ambite of their walles and turrettes And by the iudgemente of the civill lawe which defineth a daies iourney by twenty miles Niniveh mighte iustlye spende the labour of three daies I applye these testimonies of her largenesse to that which followeth Niniveh was a greate cittye vvhither you take the people or their dwellinges Ionas not more then an ordinarye man Niniveh was very greate Ionas very little and in comparison but as a locust amonge them Niniveh a cittie of three daies iourney Ionas had newly begunne to enter his voyage of the first day and yet this great and spacious cittye is presently reformed by the preaching of an ordinarye common and contemptible Prophet I will not reape the harvest of the nexte wordes but onely viewe them in haste to make my connexion They are all if you marke them stinted and diminished by the holy Ghost Ionas beganne had not finished to enter into the cittye had not gone over it the iourney of one daye the seconde and thirde were behinde yet Niniveh in these beginninges did not onely beginne but almost ende and consummate her repentaunce And as Ionas cried yet forty daies and Niniveh shall be destroied so Niniveh cried vnto him againe yet not forty howres and thou shalt see Niniveh wholy changed Our Saviour in the eight of Matthew telleth his disciples that the people had endured him nowe three dayes havinge nothinge to eate for hee helde their stomackes and appetites that they might not hunger as hee helde the disciples eies that were walking towardes Emaus that they mighte not see and when hee had fedde them sufficiently with the breade of life then hee restored them to nature againe and gaue them leaue to hunger and thirst after corporall reliefe The people of Niniveh as commendable in an other kinde never wearie of the preaching of Ionas and willing to endure him more then three daies without eating or drinking they wearie not him so much as to put him to the toile of the seconde and thirde day neither suffer they the nexte morninges sunne to arise vpon their former daies iniquity But as if every soule in the citty had beene summoned as Lot vvas Escape for thy life make haste and saue thy selfe so these addresse themselues with all possible speede to escape the wrath of GOD and the morning and the evening were the first day of their repentance At the beginninges of the preaching of Iohn Baptist they wente out by flockes vnto him Ierusalem and all Iudea and all the regions about Iordan as if the citties and townes had emptied themselues to fill the wildernesse and to leade new Colonies into desert and vnhabitable places and they were baptised of him in Iordan confessing their sinnes and manie of the Pharisees and Sadduces also vvente to his baptisme At one sermon of Peter Actes the seconde the principall and finall application whereof was Saue your selues from this frowarde generation there were added vnto the church aboute three thousande soules which was as great a nuber as a man may imagine at one time to haue beene capable of the speakers voice The LORDE hath not dealt so sparingly with our nation The vision hath spoken a long time and we nor waited for it but it for vs and he that hath begunne a good worke in vs hath endevoured to make it perfitie Our king hath followed the parable Matthew the two and twentith Hee hath sente foorth his servauntes to call vs away not to the house of mourning as he did Niniveh But to the marriage feast of his onely sonne which what honour it is to sit and eate at the kings table let Haman reporte to his wife and friendes Againe hee hath sent foorth other servauntes to tell vs what provision he hath made and to invite vs with the hope of most bountifull entertainement But we as these vnworthy ghestes rather esteeming the dinners of this world then the supper of the Lambe which is the last meale of the day and whereof who so tasteth shall never hunger againe And thinking the garlicke and onions of Egypt to haue a better relish then the milke and hony in the lande of promise make light of his often biddings and not much lesse then enforce him to pronounce against our vnthankefulnesse and to commune with his servauntes of furnishing his house vvith worthier ghestes All the day long hath he stretched out his handes vnto vs and made as long a day as ever he did to Iosuah and as long houres of the day as ever were shadowed vpon the diall of Ahaz to provoke our repentaunce for the twelue houres of the day he hath given vs thrice twelue yeares vnder the happy and peaceable goverment of our godly Iosias Yet as Paule asked them of Ephesus Whither they had received the holie ghost and they aunswered him We haue not so much as hearde whither there bee an holy Ghost so such strangers are wee to the worke and fruites of repentaunce that scarselie wee vnderstande what repentaunce meaneth And so farre is it off that wee are become true Israelites with Nathaniell or but almost Christians with Agrippa that we are rather proved fully Atheistes And that which Tully reporteth amongst his wonders in nature that in one country Drought causeth dirte and raine stirreth vp dust may bee truely applyed vnto vs that abundance of grace hath brought forth in vs abundance of sinne and as sinne tooke occasion by the lavve to waxe more sinnefull
they stand before their face attending their pleasure and ready to receiue and execute their imposed hests You haue the phrase in the first of Iob On a day when the children of God came and stoode before the Lorde Satan came also and stoode amongst them And Psal. 123. Beholde as the eyes of servantes looke vnto the handes of their maisters and as the eyes of a mayden vnto the handes of her mistresse So our eyes waite vpon the LORDE our GOD vntill hee haue mercy vpon vs. In the 18. of Mathew our Saviour adviseth his disciples not to despise one of those little ones the reason is this For I say vnto you that in heaven there Angelles alwaies beholde the face of my father which is in heaven The like manner of speech did Elizaeus vse to Naaman the Syriā when he offered him a reward As the Lord liveth before whome I stande a witnes to my actiōs the searcher of my hart whose honor service I tender more then my game I will not receiue it By these may we see what the phrase intendeth of fleeing from the presence of the Lord. It letteth vs vnderstand that Ionas as a fugitiue and refractary servant ranne from the Lord as Onesimus from his maister Philemō breaking his bonds of duty and making no conscience or care to do service vnto him Some haue presumed by coniecture vpon his goinge to Tharsis and fleeing from the face of the Lorde that not onely he reneged his obedience in this particular action but changed the vvhole trade of his life and leaving the office of a Prophet became a Marchante adventurer A worldly dangerous profession not only for the hazard of life and for vvracke of goods but for vvracke of conscience also which is the worst shipwracke which wrackes notwithstandinge are taken not onely in your ships abroad but in your shoppes and warehouses at home when you fall either vpon the Syrtes and quickesandes of lying which is a present and quicke kinde of sinne allwaies at the tongues end or vpon the rockes of periury which is a more obstinate and indurate transgression I wil not be so strict in this point as Chrysostome was who councelled Christiās to avoide marketting that neither they suffered nor offered guilefull dealing I know they are lawfull and profitable callinges in common vvealth if lawfully handled The state of the worlde cannot stand without buying selling traffique transportation Non omnis fert omnia tellus No country yeeldeth all kind of commodity There must be a path frō Aegypt to Assur and from Assur to Aegypt againe to make a mutuall supplye of their severall wants Mesech the king of Moab was a Lord of sheepe Hiram had store of timber and vvorkemen Ophir vvas famous for golde Chittim for yvorie Basan for oakes Lebanon for cedars Saba for frankincense c. But this I must tell you that liue vpon buying and selling you vvalke vpon coales and cary fire in your bosomes gaine is a busie tentation and there is neither stone nor Ephah measure nor ballaunce you vse but Satan is at hande to doe some office It is naught it is naught saith the buyer in the tvventith of the Proverbes and when hee is gone aparte hee boasteth Now on the other side It is good and very good saith that seller and when hee hath solde his wares hee boasteth indeede because hee hath given drosse for silver and water for wine Esay 1. I say no more but take heede that the treasures of wickednesse be not found in your houses neither a scante measure which is an abhomination vnto the Lord. Shall I iustify saith God the wicked balances and the bag of deceitfull weightes His meaning is that they shall never be iustified much lesse a wicked and deceitfull conscience I will not enforce this collection vpon you because is is not plainely expressed in the text and without such forraine and vnnecessary helps if I may so tearme them the bare letter of the words doth notoriously evict the disobedience of Ionas wherin he was so fixed and confirmed that neither respite of time neither danger of voiage nor expence of money coulde change his purpose Examine the particulars 1. He goeth downe to Iapho or Ioppe Iaffa at this day a city of Palestine an haven towne and rode for shipping it spent some travell and time no doubt before he came to Iapho 2. He findeth a ship going to Tharsis I am sure he was not presently acquainted with the keye neither did hee find that ship without some enquirie 3. He paieth the fare what incontinently it is not vnlikely but they staide one tide at the least 4. And it standeth with the order of the text that he paide the fare aforehand and in hast before he needed 5 Some of the Rabbines adde that he paide the fare of the whole ship for the rest of the passengers that were bound for Tharsis 6. Lastly when he had paid hee goeth downe into the ship not remembering the daunger hee entered into to put his life within 4. inches of death and what safety it is in comparison to see the raging of the waters form the sea banckes Is vvas one of the three thinges that Cato repented travel by sea vvhen by lande he might haue gone and a charge that antigonus gaue his sonnes when they were tossed with a tempest Remember my sonnes and warne your posteritye of it that they never hazard themselues vpon such adventures What needed the recitall of these particular and one vvoulde thinke trifling circumstances as that hee went to the haven founde a shippe paide the fare descended into it vvhich might haue beene spoken at once Hee went to Tharsis But to expresse thus much that though there were many occurrences that met and stopt him in the vvaie of disobedience as the Angell met Balaam manye messengers as it were sent from God to call him backe againe manie spaces of ground manie interruptions of time manie occasions of better advise and consultation yet as Agrippa came into the world with his heeles forward so Ionas holdeth on his vntoward course whether his feete woulde beare him having little reason and lesse grace to direct him The summe of all that hath beene spoken hitherto for I vvill leaue a remnant behinde at the least to make a connexion betweene this and the next sentence is stronge and incredible disobedience I say not conceived alone but brought forth perfited persisted in without remorse not against father mother magistrate any superiour but against God himselfe not in the taile of the people to vse the wordes of a Prophet but in the cheifest and honourablest part The complaint of God is now revived againe who so blinde as my servant or so deafe as hee whome I haue sent Ionas a servant in the highest roome a vessell of the greatest honour in the greate house a Prophet one of a principall spirit and as their vsuall name was for vnvsuall
greate and vvide sea vvherein are thinges creeping innumerable both small and greate beastes There goe the shippes the artificiallest wonder that ever vvas framed and there goeth that Leviathan the wonder of that nature vvhom thou hast made to play therein In the booke of Iob two argumeÌ„ts are produced to amplifie the incomparable power of God Behemoth by land Leviathan by sea and for the power and perswasion of wordes I do not thinke that ever more was vsed than where the power of those 2. creatures is expressed Of the latter of these it is professed in open tearms I wil not keepe silence coÌ„cerning his parts nor his power nor his comely proportion Indeed they are all worthily described by the tongue of the learned eveÌ„ the learnedst tongue that the holy ghost had Never were there rivers flouds of eloqueÌ„ce neither in the orators of AtheÌ„s Rome nor in the Seraphins of heaveÌ„ equal to those that are powred forth in that narratioÌ„ Augustine some-where noteth that al men marvailed at Tullies tongue but not his inveÌ„tion At Aristotles inveÌ„tioÌ„ all men but not his tongue At Platoes invention tongue both But for a tongue wisdome to not to be vttered by the tongue nor to be coÌ„prehended by the wisdoÌ„e of mortal man I remit you to those chapters Ierome writeth of the whole booke Singulain eo verba plena sunt sensibus Every word of it is very sententious But no where through the whole more sense more substance grace and maiestie spent than where the meaning and intent was that the maiesty of the most high God should fully be illustrated To cast mine eies backe againe from wheÌ„ce I am digressed it is writteÌ„ of the whale that wheÌ„ he swimmeth sheweth himselfe vpoÌ„ the flouds you would think that ilaÌ„ds swam towards you and that very high hils did aspire to heaven it selfe with their tops Pliny giveth the reasoÌ„ why many beasts in the sea are bigger theÌ„ those vpoÌ„ land Causa evidens humoris luxuria The evideÌ„t cause saith he is superfluity of moisture Howbeit it holdeth not in birds whose ofspring is froÌ„ the waters to quibus vita pendentibus because they liue haÌ„ging as it were hovering or waâ—ting in the aire But in the open champian sea being of a soft fruitfull encrease semperque pariente naturâ of a nature that is ever breeding and bringing forth monsters are often engendred He writeth of Balaeâ—a the whirle-poole or we may english iâ— also a whale so doth Tremelius interpret the name of Leviathan in Iob the Psalme that in the Indian sea there are some founde to the largenes of fowre acres of grounde that they are laden surcharged with their owne waight Likewise he reporteth of other beasts in the sea that the dores of houses were made of their iawes and the rafters of their bones some of which bones were 40. cubites in length and that the skins of some were broad enough to cover habitable houses So true is the opinion of the people coÌ„monly received that whatsoeuer is bred in any part of nature is in the sea many creatures besides which are no where els And therfore the lesse marvaile may it seeme eveÌ„ to a natural man by the course of nature it selfe his lady mistresse that God should prepare a fish great enough to swallow vp Ionas For the attribute is not adioyned for naught A great fish Seneca the philosopher writeth of one Senetio sirnamed Grandio others haue beene called Magni for the greatnes of their vertues Alexander in Greece Pompey in Rome Arsaces in Parthia Charles amongst the Emperors the great and Gregory the great amongst the Popes but Senetio had to name the graÌ„d or the great for his great vanity He liked of nothing that was not great He would not speake but what was great He kept no servants but great Vsed no plate but great The shoes he ware were over great The figs he ate were great outlaÌ„dish figs And he had a wife besids of a great stature But whosoever is greatest vpoÌ„ the face of the earth though his stile be as great as that emperours of whoÌ„ Eusebius writeth whose titles were suÌ„med togither in a long catalogue The greatest bishop greatest in Thebes greatest in Sarmatia in Persia fiue times the greatest greatest in Germany greatest in Egypt yet I will say vnto him as the Psalme to the princes of that time Give vnto the Lord yee sons of the mightie giue vnto the Lord glorie and strength giue vnto the Lord the honour due vnto his name That greatnesse belongeth vnto the Lord alone wee are taught by an excellent phrase of speech proper to the Hebrews The striving of Raâ—ell with her sister Leah about the bearing of childreÌ„ because it was very great is called the wrastling of God The mountaines of the earth wherwith the righteousnesse of God is coÌ„pared because they were very great are called the mountaines of God The city of Niniveh because very great of 3. daies iourney is called the citie of God In all which singular idiotismes the letter it selfe directeth vs rightly where to bestowe all greatnes Vndoubtedly it was the great God of heaven and earth that prepared great lightes in the firmament great fishes in the sea great men great beasts vpon the drie land magnitudinis eius non est finis and there is no ende no limits of his greatnesse To swallowe vp Ionas They have an history in prophane reading that Arion the Lesbian a famous musitian beeing embarked with some who for the gaine of his money woulde haue cast him into the sea he craved a litle respite of them before his casting forth taking his harpe in hand playing a while theron at length himselfe leapt into the waters was caried vpon the backe of a dolphin to the landing place intended before the Mariners could possibly ariue there In Herodotus the father of history saith Tully there are innumerable fables happily this amongst the rest But I alleadge it to this end that if God had prepared a whale to have borne Ionas vpon his back to have held him aboue the waters where he might have beheld the light of heaven drawn the comfort of the aire as other living souls there had been no fear of miscariage It is quite contrarie for the Lorde prepared a fish to swallow vp Ionas Whereof one spake a thing not hearde of before the belly of a fish is the habitation of a man If of a man dismeÌ„bred dissolved piece-meale I would never haue doubted The crocodiles of Nilus in Egypt Gangs in India other rivers of Mexico Peru will devour not onely men but whole heards of cattell And a physitian of our latter times hath written Calvin not sparing to testifie the seme that in the bowels of a Lamia hath beene found a whole armed man But Ionas is taken in
the settled lees of their long continued abhominations and thou shalt end many labours in one thou shalt doe a cure vpon the heart of the principall cittie the benefite whereof shall spread it selfe into the partes of the whole countrie But if Niniveh bee so greate in vvealth and so deepely rooted in pride that shee vvill not bee reformed tell hâ—r shee hath climbde so high to have the lower downe-fall though her children should die in their sinnes yet their bloud for example given shall especially bee required at her handes Many goodly citties were there in Asia Babylon so big that Aristotle called it a country not a citty and Niniveh greater then Babylon and Troy lesse then them both but in her flourishing daies the piller of that part of the world of vvhich and many their companions wee may now truely say O iam periere ruinae the very ruines of them are gone to ruine The king of the Gothes when he saw Constantinople pronounced that the Emperour there was an earthly God They write of Quinsay at this day that it is an hundreth miles about and furnished with 12000. bridges of marble Let not Ierusalem leese her honour amongst the rest Though her honour and happinesse were laide in the dust long since They that were alive when IerusaleÌ„ lived to have numbred her tovvers considered her walles and marked her bulwarckes and to have tolde their posterity of it might have made a reporte skarsely to have beene beleeved I am sure vvhen the Kinges of the earth were gathered togither and sawe it they marvailed they were astonied and suddainely driven backe Let mee adde the renowned citties of Italy by some never sufficiently magnified Rich Venice Greate Millaine Auncient Ravenna Fruitfull Bononia Noble Naples with all their glorious sisters and confederates and her that hath stolen the birth-right from the rest and saith she is ancientest and the mother to theÌ„ all which only is a citty in the iudgment of Quintilian and others are but townes were they all cities great and walled vp to heaven as those of the Anakins were they regions as hee spake of Babilon and every one a world in it selfe yet time shall weare them away sin shall dissolue and vndoe their composition and hee that is greate over all the kingdomes of the earth can cover them with brambles sowe them with salt and turne them vpside downe as if they had never beene When the Emperour Constantius came in triumph to Rome and behelde the companies that entertained him he repeated a saying of Cyneas the Epirote that he had seene so many Kings as Citizens But viewing the buildinges of the cittie the stately arches of the gates the turrets tombes temples theatres bathes and some of the workes like Babell so high that the eye of man coulde skarcely reach vnto them he was amazed and said that nature had emptied all her strength vpon that one cittie Hee spake to Hormiâ—da maister of his workes to erect him a brasen horse in Constantinople like vnto that of Traian the Emperour which hee there sawe Hormisda aunswered him that if hee desired the like horse hee must also provide him the like stable All this much more in the honour of Rome At length hee asked Horsmida what hee thought of the cittie Who tolde him that hee tooke not pleasure in any thing but in learning one lesson which was that men also died in Rome This was the end of those kinglie men which Constantius so tearmed and the end of that lady citty the mirrour and mistresse of the worlde vvill bee the same that hath befallen her predecessours And as nature emptied her selfe vpon it so shee must empty her selfe into nature againe if shee be so happy to fulfill the number of her daies and come to a perfit age but such may bee the iudgement of God vpon her notorious and vncureable witchcraftes that as an vntimely fruite shee may perish reape the meede of the bloud-sucker in the Psalme not to liue out halfe her daies Preach vnto it the preaching which I bid thee Or proclaime against it the proclamation which I enioyne thee So that first the matter must be receaved from the Lord secondly the manner must bee by proclamation and out-crying which requireth not onelye the lowdenesse of voice but the vehemency and fervency of courage to excecute his makers will In Esay they are both ioyned togither For first the Prophet is willed to cry And secondly because he was loth to trust the invention of his owne spirit hee taketh his texte from the mouth of the Lord What shall I cry that all fleshe is grasse c. Iohn Baptist in the gospell is but a voice himselfe not the authour nor speaker but onely the voice of one that cried in the wildernesse prepare the waies of the Lorde And whether hee spake as lowde as the will of that Crier was I report mee to the Scribes and Pharisees Publicans souldiers Herode and Herodias vvhose eares hee claue in two with denouncing his maisters iudgementes The preaching which I bid thee Howe daungerous it is for any messenger of the Lord to exceede the boundes of his commission by addinge his owne devises thereunto and taking words into his mouth which were never ministred vnto him or to come shorte of it by keeping backe the couÌ„sailes of his master which he hath disclosed to be made knowne let that fearefull protestation in the ende of the booke summing and sealing vp all the curses and woes that went before testifie to the worlde I protest vnto euerie man that beareth the wordes of the prophecie of this booke and of all those other bookes that the finger of God hath written If any man shall adde vnto these things God shall adde vnto him the plagues that are written in this booke And if any man shall diminishe of the wordes of the booke of this Prophecie God shall take away his parte out of the booke of life and out of the holy cittie and from those thinges which are written in this booke The protestation hath vveight enough vvithout helpe to make it sinke into the dullest eares of those who dare adventure at such a price to set their sacrilegious handes to those nice and religious pointes Let them bevvare that preach themselues and in their ovvne names and saye the Lord hath said vvhen he never said that abuse the worlde vvith olde wiues tales olde mens dreames traditions of Elders constitutions of Popes precepts of men vnwriten truthes vntrue writings or that sell the worde of the Lorde for gaine and marchandize that pearle which the vvise marchant vvill buy vvith all the treasure hee hath that holde the truth of God in vnreghteousnesse and dare not free their soules for feare of men and deale in the worke of the Lorde as adulterers in their filthines for as these esteeme not issue but lust so the others not the glory of God nor
more matter is ministred for pitty to worke vpon Ierusalem vvas more laboured and applied by Christ in the daies of his flesh than either Bethania a country towne or any other cittye of Iudah or Samaria lesse than Ierusalem Agesilaus a renowned Lacedaemonian was grieved in his heart when he had slaine tenne thousand of his enemies and when many of the rest that were left aliue had withdrawne themselues within the citty of Corinth his friends advising him to lay siedge vnto it he answered that it was not fit for him so to do for he was a man which would compell offendours to do their duety but not pull downe citties The ruinating and overthrowing of citties are miserable either spectacles or histories to those that vvith any humanity shall consider them Nero may sing and triumph when Rome is on fire a bloudy horse-leach feedinge vpoÌ„ the spoiles of men and townes but Abraham will pray for Sodome though the sinke of the earth and not onely Ieremy will lament write lamentations but Christ will mourne for the downe-fall of Ierusalem And Titus whilste he lieth in siedge when hee shall see such slaughter of the Iewes will throw vp his hands to heaven and lay the massacre vpon God to cleare himselfe That Sodome wherof I â—pake consider but the raine that fell vpon it brimstone and fire from the Lord in heaven it selfe overthrowne with her sisters and all the plaine and all the inhabitants of the cittie and all that grevv vpon the earth turned into ashes and whatsoever came vp afterwards from that ground vnholsome and vnprofitable fruite pestelent vines bitter clusters the whole lande mingled with cloudes of pitch and heapes of ashes the people suffering the vengeance of eternall fire and notwithstanding all this it selfe made a by-word to all ages that came after it as we read in Esay 1. and Rom. 9. vnlesse the Lorde had left vs a seede wee shoulde haue bene as Sodome I say consider but these thinges and pitty her ruine and desolation though she be Sodome because she was a citty Though Iericho were Iericho a citty of the vncircumcised idolatrous in the worshippe of God and hostile towards his people can it sincke into your eares without pittying and bemoaning the gate therof to heare that her walles fell flat and all that was therein was vtterly destroyed both man and woman young and olde oxe and sheepe and asse with the edge of the sworde and the citty burnt with fire all that was in the citty except some silver and gold that was reserved Though Iericho be suncke so low that it shall never rise againe to stand long for it is sealed with a curse to his person that should adventure to reedifie Iericho with the bloud of his eldest and yongest sonnne yet say to your selues when you reade that lamentable narration alas for Iericho because it was a citty sometimes girded with walles fortified with bulwarkes stored with treasure and wealth peopled with men and furnished with other such habilities as the very name of a citty presently implieth But that Ierusalem wherof I also spake Ierusalem the sanctified citty and the cittye of the everlasting God Ierusalem builte in vnitye Ierusalem the Queene and Empresse of the provinces so defaced and levelled with the ground that not a stone was left standing vpon a stone neither in their houses walles bulwarkes turrets no nor in the altars sanctuary temple of Ierusalem the old and young matrones virgins mothers infants princes priests prophets Nazarites all slaine famished fettered skattered abroade vtterlye consumed If it come into the minde of any man either by reading or hearing vvithout commiseration I say that his heart is more barbarous and rude than the very fragments and rubbell wherein Ierusalem is lodged Who can expresse those havockes by speech or finde teares enough to equall their miseries For this cause I vveepe faith the Prophet mine eye even mine eye casteth out water which it draweth vp from the fountaine of my over-flowing heart and he calleth to the daughter of Sion to let teares run downe like a river daie night to take no rest neither to suffer the apple of her eie to cease to arise cry in the night in the beginning of the watches to power out her heart like water before the Lord. Aeneas Silvius in his oration of the spoile of CoÌ„staÌ„tinople against the Turke with great compassion relateth the murdering of their children before the faces of their parents the noble meÌ„ slaughtered like beasts the Priests torne in pieces the religious flead the holy virgins incestuously defiled the mothers their daughters despightfully vsed at leÌ„gth he crieth out O miseraÌ„ vrbis faciem O the miserable face of that citty O vnhappy people O wicked Mahomet Who is able to report such things without tears there was nothing to be seene but ful of mourning murder bloud-shed dead carkasses At last converting himselfe to Greece his mind eveÌ„ quaking starting backe with sorrow he thus bewaileth it O famous renowmed Greece behold now thy end now thou art dead alas how many mighty wealthy citties haue heretofore bin extinguished what is become of Thebes of Athens of Micene of Larissa of Lacedemon of Corinth of other memorable townes whose wals if thou seekest for thou canst not find so much as their ruines no maÌ„ caÌ„ shew the grouÌ„d werein they are are laid along our meÌ„ do oftentimes look for Greece in Greece it selfe only CoÌ„staÌ„tinople is no remaining of the carkasses of so many citties Such so lamentabl hath ever been the devastation of citties to meÌ„ of any affection such it seemed to God in this place shall not I spare Niniveh that great city Ionas could haue found in his hearte to haue seene it in the dust corne fieldes ploughed vp where the walles buildinge stood or rather an heape of nettles and salt-pits in the place thereof the smoake of the fire waving in the aire hiding away the light of the sun the flames spiring vp into heaveÌ„ the king his senatours marchants people those that walked with staues for age those that were nourished at the breasts for weaknes their flocks of sheepe heards of cattle all wasted and consumed in the saÌ„e pile if God would haue yelded to the madnes of his cruel appetite But he aunswereth with more clemency shall not I spare Niniveh that great citty Hitherto were but titles names the proofe followeth Wherein are sixe thousand persons that cannot discerne c. It may easily be ghessed quantus sit numerus alteriuâ— aetatis cúm tantus sit parvulâ—ruÌ„ how great the number of other ages when there were so many infants The prophecie was here fulfilled vvhich vvas given to Israel Iudah Ier. 31. Behold the daies come that I vvill sowe the house of Israell the house of Iudah with the seede of man and the seede of
debt vvherewith he was oppressed slept quietly and tooke his ease desired to buy the pallet that hee lodged vpon his servants marveâ—ling thereat he gaue them this answere that it seemed vnto him some wonderfull bed and worth the buying whereon a man could sleepe that was so deepely indebted Surely if we consider with our selues the duety and debt vve owe to God and man to our country to our family to homeborne to strangers that is both to Israell and to Niniveh and most especially to those of the houshold of faith that as it was the lawe of God before the law that we shoulde eate our bread in the sweat of our face so it is the law of the gospell also that hee that laboureth not should not eate that the blessed sonne of God ate his bread not onely in the sweate but in the bloud of his browes rather he ate not but it was his meate to doe his fathers will and to finish his worke that even in the state of innocency Adam was put into the garden to dresse it that albeit all labourers are not chosen yet none are chosen but labourers that the figge tree was blasted by the breath of Gods owne lippes with an everlasting curse because it bare but leaues and the axe of heavy displeasure is laide vnto the roote of every tree that is barren of good fruites and if it be once dead in naturall vegetation it shall bee twise deade in spirituall malediction and pluckt vp by the roote It would make vs vow vvith our selues I will not suffer mine eie-liddes to slumber nor the temples of my head to take any rest vntill I haue finished that charge vvhereunto I am appointed Iacobs apologie to Laban may be a mirrour to vs all not to neglect our accountes to a higher maister then ever Laban vvas These twentie yeares haue I beene in thy house I was in the daie consumed with heate and with frost in the night and the sleepe departed from mine eies So industrious vvas Iacob to discharge the dueties of his place and carefull to make his reckoning straight vvith his maister vpon the earth But I speake of an heavier reckoning to an heavier Lord that will aske an account of everie idle worde much more of an idle habite and therefore let them foresee that heate and that frost to come those restlesse eies the hire of their forepassed drowsinesse for daies for nightes for everlasting generations that are ever framing an excuse It is either hotte or cold that I cannot worke there is a Lyon in the streete or a Beare in the way that I dare not goe forth that being called to an office and having their taskes laide forth vnto them say not vvith Samuell at the call of the Lorde Speake Lord thy servant heareth but in a stubborne and perverse veine speake and command Lord and appoint my order wherein I shall vvalke but I neither heare thy voice neither shall my heart goe after thy commaundements I passed by the field of the sloathfull saith Salomon and by the vineyard of the man destitute of vnderstanding and loe it was all growen over with thornes and nettles had covered the face thereof Peruse the rest of that scripture The wise king behelde and considered it well and received instruction by it that a litle sleepe brought a greate deale of poverty and a little slumber a greate deale of necessity And surely as the field of the slouthfull is covered with nettles and thornes so shall his body be overgrowen vvith infirmities his minde vvith vices his conscience shall want a good testimony to it selfe and his soule shal be empty of that hope hereafter which might haue reioiced it I ende this point Ionas his arise and go to Niniveh giueth a warning to vs all for wee haue all a Niniveh to go vnto Magistrates arise and go to the gate to execute Gods iudgementes Ministers arise and go to the gospel to do the workes of Evangelists people arise and go to your trades to eate the labours of your handes eye to thy seeing foote to thy walking Peter to thy nettes Paul to thy tents Marchant to thy shipping Smith to thy anvile Potter to thy wheele vvomen to your whernes and spindles let not your candle go out that your workes may praise you in the gates Your vocations of life are Gods sanctions he ordeined them to mankinde he blesseth them presently at his audite hee will crowne them if when he calleth for an account of your forepassed stewardships you be able to say in the vprightnes of your soule I haue runne my race and as the maister of the house assigned me so by his grace and assistance I haue fulfilled my office But why to Niniveh Niniveh of the Gentiles vncircumcised Niniveh Niniveh of the Assyrians imperious insolent intolerable Niniveh Niniveh swollen with pride and her eies standing out of her heade with fatnesse Niniveh setled vpon her lees not lesse then a thousand three hundred yeares Niniveh infamous for idolatrie with Nisroch her abhomination Niniveh with idlenes so vnnaturallie effeminated and her iointes dissolued vnder Sardanapalus as some conceiue their 38. Monarch who sate and spanne amongst women that as it was the wonder and by-word of the earth so the heavens aboue could not but abhorre it Foure reasons are alleadged why Ionas was sent to Niniveh First God will not smite a citye or towne without warning according to the rule of his owne lawe that no city bee destroyed before peace hath beene offered vnto it The woman of Abell in her wisedome obiected this law vnto Ioab when he had cast vp a mounte against Abel where shee dwelt They spake in olde time and said They should aske of Abell and thus haue they continued that is first they should call a parle and open their griefes before they vsed hostility against it The sword of the Lord assuredly is ever drawne and burnished his bow bent his arrowes prepared his instrumentes of death made ready his cuppe mingled yet hee seldome powreth dovvne his plagues but there is a showre of mercie before them to make his people take heede Pax domui huic peace be vnto this house was sounded to everie doore vvhere the Apostles entered but if that house vvere not vvorthy of peace and benediction it returned backe vnto them Vertues were vvroughte in Chorazin and Bethsaida before the vvoe tooke holde vpon them Noah vvas sent to the olde world Lot to Sodom Moses and Aaron to the Aegyptians Prophets from time to time to the children of Israell Iohn Baptist and Christ and the Apostles togither vvith signes in the host of heauen tokens in the elementes to Ierusalem before it was destroied Chrysostome vpon the first to Timothie giueth the reason hereof that God by threatning plagues sheweth vs howe to avoide plagues and feareth vs with hell before hande that we may learne to eschew it And it was his
vsuall speech as hee there confesseth that the commination of hell fire doeth no lesse commende the providence of God towardes man then the promise of his kingdome the terrour of the one and sweetenesse of the other working togither like oile and wine to make man vvise to his salvation Niniveh had not stood a longer time if Ionas had not said before Niniveh shal be overthrowne The message of their overthrow overthrew the message the prophecie fell and the citie fell not because her fall was prophecied O new and admirable thing saith he in a homily to the people of Antioch The denunciation of death hath brought forth life the sentence of destruction hath made a nullitie in the sentence c. It was a snare it became their fortresse it was their gulfe it became their tower of defence they heard that their houses should fall and they forsooke not their houses but themselues and their ancient wicked waies Secondly he sendeth him to Niniveh to make the cōversiō therof as it were of his first fruits a figure type of the cōversion of other the Gentiles and to shew to the people a far off far from the seat of Iudea farther frō the covenant that the daies drew on wherein they should be called by the names of sons daughters though they vvere now strangers And as ten men in Niniveh tooke holde of the skirt of one Ionas an Hebrew and said wee will goe with thee for we nowe heare that God is with you so tenne and tenne millions of men out of all languages should ioine themselues to the Iewes in the worshippe of that Lord whom they adored A glimpse of this overspreading light had now and then opened it selfe in some singular persons aliens from the common wealth of Israel as in Melchizedech king of Salē Naaman the Syrian Iob in the land of Vz in Thamar Rahab and Ruth inserted into the pedegree of Christ to shew amongst other reasons that as he came of the Gentiles so for the Gentiles to and that the waters of life as Zachary tearmeth them shoulde flowe from Ierusalem farther then to the river of Tigris vvhereon Niniveh stoode halfe of them towardes the East sea and halfe of them towards the vttermost sea that both endes of the earth might bee watered therewith Thirdly he sendeth him to Niniveh as he sent Ioseph into Egypt to provide a remedy against a mischiefe not farre of Ioseph to prepare bread for his fathers house in the famine Ionas to prepare a place for the Lords exiles in the captivity This carefulnes of their weldoing herein appeareth vnto vs in a charge giuen to Moab in the prophesie of Esay Hide them that are chased out bewray not him that is fled let my banished dwell with thee Moab be thou their covert from the face of the destroier The time vvas to come when the sonnes of Iacob should go captiues into Assyria righteous and vnrighteous cleane and vncleane those vvhom hee tendered as the apple of his owne eie vvith their vngratefull and vngracious brethren yet such was his provident fore-sight tovvardes his little remnante grovving as thinne among the rest as oliue berries vpon the tree after the vintage a berrie heere and there in the outmost boughes that though they bare their parte of thraldome in a straunge lande yet they shoulde meete with some of milde and tractable spirits whose hearts had beene mollified before by the preaching of Ionas Lastlie hee sendeth him to Niniveh vvhich I rather fasten vpon to provoke his people of the Ievves with those that were not a people to vpbraide their contempte defie their frovvardnesse and to shevve that his soule loatheth abhorreth abhominateth their incorrigible rebellions Whom he had girt to himselfe as a girdle to ones raines and married in everlasting kindnesse to vvhome hee had risen earlie and stretched out his hande all the daie long and cryed vpon them all Harken O Israell and I vvill protest vnto thee Thou shalt bee my people and I will bee thy God whome hee had chidden and not chidden vvith so fatherlie a spirite and such obtesting protestations that they seeme to bee angrie without anger As I liue I woulde not your deathes VVhy will yee die O house of Israell wilt thou not bee made cleane VVhen shall it once bee lastlie to whome hee had appealed though men of vnaequall iudgementes yet not so farre from aequalitie as to condemne his vvaies wherein haue I grieved thee testifie against mee these hee giveth to vnderstande that at the preaching of one prophet when they had precept vpon precept a stranger amongst strangers a man of an vnknovvne tongue the whole people of Niniveh though heathenish and idolatrous shoulde bee wonne to repentaunce Arise Ionas goe to Niniveh Sanctifie a people vnto mee vvhere I had no people fetch mee sonnes and daughters from farre let the barren beare children and let the married bee barren I haue beene served vvith the sinnes of Israell a longe time I am wearie of their back-sliding let them henceforth lie and rotte in their iniquity Goe thou to Niniveh Manie the like angrie and opprobrious comparisons hath the mouth of the LORD vttered with much indignitie in other places in the eighteenth of Ieremy Aske nowe amongst the heathen who hath hearde such thinges The Virgin of Israell hath done verie filthilie Strumpets and brothels had done but their kinde but in the virgin of Israell vvho woulde haue thought it In the first of Hosea Goe take thee a vvife of fornication the meaning of the type is this I vvill finde more faithfulnesse in a lande inured to whoredomes then one vvhich I tenderly loved as mine owne vvife Christ in the gospell iustifieth this collection against the evill and adulterous generation of that time The men of Niniveh shall rise in iudgement with this generation and condemne it For they repented at the preaching of Ionas and beholde a greater then Ionas is heere And in the same Evangelist hee rateth them in parables for despising the doctrine of Iohn Publicanes and harlottes shall goe before you into the kingdome of GOD For they beleeved him and yee thoughe yee sawe it vvere not mooved to repentance The argumente brieflie thus standeth The people of Niniveh shall condemne the people of Israell For they vvill repente at the preaching of one Ionas the others repent not at the preaching of manie hundreds of Prophets It is a curse of all curses the verie bottome of the viall and dregges of the vengeaunce of God vvhen prophetes are vvilled to relinquish their accustomed flockes and their message is translated to forrainers and straungers the dust of vvhose feete but shaken against a citie or towne or the lappe of their garment emptied the least remembrance I meane and vvatchvvorde in the vvorlde betvveene GOD and his servauntes that heere or there they haue beene delivered their errande in his name and vvere not accepted shall vvitnesse
vvith a vvitnesse their disobedience in the day of his visitation So the disciples of CHRIST vvere vvilled to proclaime in everye citye of the earth vvhere they vvere not received even in the streetes and thorough-fares thereof The verie dust of your citye vvhih cleaveth vnto vs wee vvipe of against you Notwithstanding knowe this that the kingdome of GOD was come neare vnto you You see the scourge of those places from vvhich the Disciples are enforced to goe for want of entertaynement the kingdome of GOD goeth vvith them And if that kingdome bee once gone their ioye goeth vvith it all the Empires and dominions in the worlde subdued all scepters and crownes heaped togither cannot blesse them Paul and Barnabas observed the direction of their maister to the Ievves at Antioch both in gesture and speech for they first shooke of the dust of their feete against those that dispised them and then vvent to Iconium but they had tolde them before their going vvhich if they had anie sense was as the wounding of penkniues and rasours vnto their harts It was necessarie that the worde of God shoulde first haue beene spoken vnto you because the lawe must come out of Sion and the gospell beginne at Ierusalem but seeing you put it from you and iudge your selues vnworthy everlasting life beholde wee turne to the Gentiles Gospell and everlasting life you heare are ioyned together And therefore the iudgement of God was sharper against them there pronounced then if they had brought them tydinges Beholde the Romanes are come to take away your kingdome to fire your townes ruinate your houses ravish your wiues and daughters to dashe your infantes against the stones in the streetes to pull your eyes from out your heades and your bovvelles from out your bodies Beholde vvee turne to the Gentiles vvilde vnnaturall and neglected branches and herein beeholde the full measure of your miseries beeholde the dispersion and dissipation of your persons vpon the face of the earth beholde the desolation and wast of your country behold the detestation of your names the hissing and clapping at your downfal amongst all nations The losse of the word of God hath lost you credite libertie peace prosperity salvation both in your owne daies and in the daies of your childrens children In the eighteenth of the Actes when the Iewes at Corinth resisted and blasphemed the doctrine of Paul testifying vnto them that Iesus was that Christ he shooke his rayment as before and loosed his tongue with much boldnes against them your bloud be vpon your owne heades I am cleane froÌ„ hence-forth I will goe to the Gentiles As if he had said I found you the children of death and so I leaue you growe in your filthinesse and vnrighteousnesse till you haue fulfilled the measure of your forefathers for mine owne part I wash my hands in innocency I can free my soule in the sight of God I was carefull to apply my cure to the hurtes of Corinthe but you were not healed Lastly at Rome in the last of the Actes he made an open proclamation to the vnbeleeuing Iewes Bee it knowne vnto you that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles and they shall heare it And so be it knowne vnto vs my brethren that the meaning of the holy Ghost in these tearmes of promulgation knowe and bee it knowne was to make these despisers of Antioch Corinthe and Rome examples to all posteritie especially to vs on vvhome the endes of the vvorlde are come and vvith the ende of the vvorlde an ende of all goodnesse that if vvee take not vvarninge heereby as vvee plough the like disobedience so vve shall reape the like vvretchednesse If ever the like transgression be founde in this lande of ours I will sooner wish it a wildernesse for serpentes and dragons to dvvell in that as Iordan went backe and turned his course so the gospel go backe and turne his passage and as it was saide to a prophet in Israell Arise and goe to Niniveh so it be saide to the prophets in Englande Arise and goe into India Turckie or Barbarie and there prophecie and there eate your bread I will then say that iudgement hath both begunne and made an ende with vs and that our case is more desperate then if the grounde of this ilande had opened her â—awes and in one common graue buried all her inhabitantes If ever the like transgression bee founde in this citie of yours I vvill sooner vvish it pooles of vvater and all the stones of your building throwne downe into emptinesse that as the brutish people of the Gadarenes esteemed of their svvine so you of the pleasure of sinne for a season more then Christ Iesus and even hunte him from your coastes as they did and as it vvas saide vnto a prophet in Israel Arise and go to Niniveh so to the prophets amoÌ„gst you Arise and go to the borders where theft and reuenge are helde for currant law and all the streames of bloud vvhich Christ shed vpon the tree cannot begge redemption for one iniury done vnto theÌ„ goe carry your tidings of peace to those vnpeaceable vncivill lavvles gracelesse persons then were your honor gone And though the gravell of your river that bringeth in marchaÌ„dise vnto you were turned into pearles every showre of raine from the clouds aboue were a showre of siluer and golde into your houses yet then vvere you cast from the favour of God your sonnes and your daughters accursed the sinne of their fathers not to be forgotten nor the iniquity of the mothers to be done away whilst your name and memory should continue The prophets are yet in Israell long may they prophecie in Israell the pearle is yet in our fielde forraine Marchants haue not bought it from vs the gospell is yet amongst vs O alwaies may it florish and spread like a palme tree amidst our tabernacles the kingdome of God is now not farre off neither in heauen aboue that we neede climbe vp neither in the earth beneath that we need digge low neither beyond the sea that we neede go over for it neither in those mists and obscurities wherein former ages had involved it we haue the sounde thereof daily in our eares the bookes in our houses and handes the letter walking through our lippes O that we wanted not the power of the gospell in our consciences the life and manifestation of it in our liues The Lord make an happy and an inseparable coniunction betweene all these and graunt that his law and our obedience may alwaies meete togither his gospell and our fruites kisse each other his trueth and our righteousnes his blessings and our thankefulnes neuer be founde a sunder Let him say of England even for ever and ever as Sometimes he saide of Sion Here will I dwell I haue chosen Englande for my habitation let him confirme that blessing of the Psalme vpon vs The Lord gaue the word great was the company of the
dissemble with thee they are a rebellious nation they and their fathers before them vnto this daie children harde of face and stiffe harted Thou shalt say vnto them thus saith the Lorde God but surely they will not heare neither will they cease for they are rebels and thornes and scorpions I haue now vnfoulded the conditions of thy charge If thou findest thy courage sufficient to endure the gain-saying of rebels the pricking and rending of thornes tearinge the eares with contumely and the name of thy maker with blasphemous speech the hissing and stinging of pestilent scorpions then go to the children of Israell if not thou art vnmeete for this busines As if a prophet of our daies should be sent to Constantinople and haue his instruction given him at his setting forth that it is a portlye and insolent city the seate of the greate Turke the hart of the Empire a cage of all vncleanenes an enemy to the name of Christians vvarring continually against the saints a scorner of our crucified Redeemer a worshipper of the false prophet Mahomet vvith other such like colde encouragements feeling his pulses as it were and examining his spirit whether it hath a power to fight with these daungers It was some comfort no doubt amongst the discomfortes to come that our saviour lessonned his Disciples before their goinge abroade Beholde I send you as lambes among Wolues They will deliver you vp to the Councelles and scourge you in their synagogues and you shall bee brought to the governours and Kings for my sake in witnes to them and to the Gentiles In the 16. of Iohn hee plainely professeth his meaning in these kinds of predictions these thinges haue I saide vnto you that yee should not bee offended They shall xcommunicate you yea the time shall come that whosoever killeth you shall thinke that hee doth God service But these thinges haue I told you that when the houre shall come you may remember that I told you of them The foreknowledge of dangers ensuing gaue invincible constancy and resolution to Paul as appeareth in his excellent oration made at Miletum behold I go bounde in the spirit to Ierusalem know not what things shall come vnto mee there saue that the holie Ghost witnesseth in everie citie saying that bandes and afflictions staie for mee Herevpon he composeth his heart to patience and calleth all his forces home to himselfe to resist those afflictions But I passe not at all neither is my life deare vnto me c. And when Agabus at Caesarea had taken the girdle of Paul and bounde his owne hands and feete saying from the mouth of the holy Ghost So shall the Iewes at Ierusalem bind the man that oweth this girdle when his friends would haue held him backe from going to Ierusalem he aunswered boldly and saide what doe ye weeping and breaking mine heart For I am ready not to be bounde onely but also to die at Ierusalem for the name of the Lorde Iesus Peter perswadeth the dispersed saints dwelling here and there to patience in troubles by an argument drawen from the knowledge and experience thereof before had Dearlie beloved saith he thinke it not strange concerning the fierie triall which is amongst you to proue you as though some new thing were come vnto you as if he had saide this fire is auncient and well knowen you haue long seene the smoke thereof and therefore the breaking forth of the flames should not so greatly astonish you His owne practise was not inferiour to his advise For vpon that praesage which his maister gaue in the last of Iohn when thou art olde thou shalt stretch forth thine handes and an other shall girde thee c. hee tooke his occasion to vse more diligence in his calling knowing as himselfe speaketh that the time was at hand whē he must lay downe his tabernacle even as the Lord Iesus Christ had shewed him Thus much on the behalfe of Ionas that if the greatnes of the citie were anie terrour vnto him hee might not complaine that he was taken at vnawares sodainely called and improvidently thrust forth but with alacritie of minde set his shoulder to the vvorke and settle his confidence in the greatnesse of that God from whom he was commaunded It is a direction to vs all whatsoever our service be wherein God shall employ vs whether in Church or in common vvealth vvhether vve sit vpon the thrones of David for execution of iudgment or in the chaire of Moses for exposition of the lavve vvhich are the combersomst charges vpon the earth the very heate and burthen of the day if I may so tearme them not to remit our labours and vvith the sonnes of Ephraim being armed and bearing bowes to turne our backes in the day of battell but though vvee be crossed vvith a thousande afflictions and haue iust cause to crie out as Moses in his government why hast thou vexed thy servant yet to persist and go forward in our paines addressing our soules to contentment and quietnes this was I called vnto I cannot pleade ignorāce neither had I reason to expect lesse travell vexation anguish of spirit were giuen me for my lot and my portion to drinke when I first entered into these affaires 2 Touching the place vvhen vvee heare it commended for a great citie shall vve inferre heerevpon Therefore priviledged to carelesnesse hautinesse oppression wickednesse vvhich are the wormes and mothes for the most part that breede of greatnesse therefore may Niniveh sin with impunity and say I am the Queene of the earth who shall controll me therefore must sinnes set vp a monarchie also in Niniveh must Prophets go to Bethel and prophecie in out-corners because Niniveh is the Kings Court and cannot beare the words of Prophets can the mightines of her state singularity of her government climing of her walles aspiring of her towres multitude of her people make her secure against the vvrath of the Lorde of hostes or can the barres of her gates keepe out his iudgementes Alas vvhat is the greatnes of Niniveh compared with the greatnes of the Lord The landes of Alcibiades in the mappe of the vvhole vvorlde vvere lesse then a center and small title they could not be espied all the islandes of the sea are as a little dust in the sight of the almighty and the nations as the droppe of a wel bucket vvhat is the number and the heigth of thy proude turrets though they hold the earth in awe they cannot threaten heaven and the closer they presse to the seate of God the nearer they lie to his lightning The challenge of God to the selfe same citie is notablie set dovvne in the prophecy of Nahum Art thou better then No which was full of people that lay in the rivers and had the waters rounde about it whose ditch was the sea and her wall was from the sea Aethiopia and Aegypt were her strength and there was no ende
Put and Lubim were her helpers yet was shee carried awaie and vvent into captivitie her young children were broken in pieces at the heade of all the streetes and they cast lots for her noble men and all her mightie men were bounde in chaines The reason holdeth by equality the strength and puissance of No was abased and thy mighte shal be cast downe It was afterward accomplished vpon Niniveh because shee was full of bloud full of lies and robbery a maistres of witchcraftes her multitude vvas slaine and the deade bodies were manie there was no ende of her carkases and they euen stumbled as they went vpon her corpses Mercurius Trismegistus sometime spake to Asclepius of Aegypt after this sort Art thou ignorant O Asclepius that Aegypt is the image of heaven c. And if vvee shall speake more truely our land is the temple of the whole vvorlde and yet the time shall come when Aegypt shall be forsaken and that land which was the seate of the Godhead shal be deprived of religion and left destitute of the presence of the Gods It is written of Tyrus in the three and twentith of Esay that shee was rich with the seede of Nilus that brought her abundance the harvest of the river were her revenewes and shee was a mart of the nations c. Yet the Lord triumpheth and maketh disport at her overthrowe Is this that glorious citie of yours vvhose antiquitie is of auncient daies c who hath decreede this against Tyrus shee that crowned men whose marchants are princes and her chapmen the nobles of the worlde the Lord of hostes hath decreede it to staine the pride of all glory and to bring to contempte all the honorable in the earth It is fallen it is fallen saith the Angell in the Revelation Babilon the great citie having the same title of greatnes that Niniveh hath in this place and is become the habitation of divelles and the hole of all fowle spirites and a cage of every vncleane and hatefull birde though shee had saide in her heart I sit as a Queene I am no widovv and shall see no mourning That everlasting citie of Rome as Ammianus Marcellinus called her shall see the day vvhen the eternity of her name and the immortalitie of her soule vvherewith shee is quickned I meane the supremacie of her prelates aboue Emperours and princes shal be taken from her and as Babilon before mencioned hath left her the inheritaunce of her name so it shall leaue her the inheritaunce of her destruction also and she shal become as other presumptuous cities a dwelling for hedghogs an habitation for owles and vultures thornes shall growe in her palaces and nettles in her strong holdes The lamentations of Ieremie touching the ruine of Ierusalem sometimes the perfection of beauty and the ioy of the whole earth as neare vnto God as the signet vpon his right hand yet afterwardes destroyed as a lodge in a garden that is made but for one night if they can passe by the eares of any man and leaue not lamentation and passion behinde them I will say that his harte is harder then the nether milstone How were her gates sunck to the ground her barres broken the stones of her sanctuary scattered in the corners of every streete her mountaine of Syon so desolate that the very foxes runne vpon it whose strength was such before that the Kinges of the earth and all the inhabitants of the worlde woulde never haue beleeved that the enemy shoulde haue entered into the gates of Ierusalem I now conclude Greatenesse of sinnes will shake the foundations of the greatest cities vpon the earth if their heades stoode amongst the stars iniquitie woulde bring them downe into dust and rubble Multitude of offences vvill minish and consume multitudes of men that although the streets were sowen with the seede of man yet they shal be so scarse that a child may tel them yea the desolation shal be so great that none shall remaine to say to his friend leaue thy fatherlesse children behind thee and I will preserue them aliue and let thy widdowes trust in me The daies can speake and the multitude of yeares can teach vvisdome aske your fathers and they can reporte vnto you that grasse hath growen in the streetes of your cities for want of passengers and a man hath beene as precious as the gold of Ophir as rare almost to bee found as if the grounde of your city had beene the moores and wasts where no man dwelleth One would haue wished a friend more then the treasures of the East to haue kept him company releeved his necessity to haue taken some paines with his vviddowe and Orphanes to haue closed his eies at the time of his death to haue seene him laide forth for buriall and his bones but brought to the graue in peace The arme of the Lorde is not shortned hee that smote you once can smite you the second time hee can visit the sonnes as well as the fathers he is a God both in the mountaines and in the vallies in the former later ages he is able againe to measure the grouÌ„d of your citie with a line of vanity pull downe your houses into the dust of the earth and turne the glory of your dwellings into ploughed feilds onely the feare of his name is your safest refuge righteousnes shal be a stroÌ„ger bulwarke vnto you then if you were walled with bras mercy and iudgment and truth and sobriety and sanctimony of life shall stand with your enemies in the gate repell the vengaÌ„ce of God in the highest streÌ„gth therof And so I come to the 2 generall part wherein we are to consider what Ionas was to doe at Niniveh it is manifested in the wordes following Crâ—e against it Laye not thine hande vpon thy mouth neither drawe in thy breath to thy selfe vvhen the cause of thy maister must bee dealt in Silence can never breake the dead sleepe of Niniveh Softnesse of voice cannot pearce her heavy eares Ordinary speaking hath no proportion with extraordinary transgression Speake and speake to bee heard that when shee heareth of her fall shee may bee wounded with it It was not nowe convenient that Ionas should goe to Niniveh as God came to Elias in a still and softe voyce but rather as a mightie strong winde rending the mountaines and breaking the rockes abasing the highest lookes in Niniveh and tearing the hardest hearte in peeces as an earthquake and fire consuming all her drosse and making her quake with the feare of the iudgementes of God as the trees of the forrest Iericho must bee overthrowne with trumpets and a shout and Niniveh will not yeeld but to a vehement outcry A prophet must arme himselfe I say not with the speare but with the zeale of Phinees when sinne is impudent and cannot blush God cannot endure dallying and trifling in weighty matters The gentle spirit of Eli is not
vvhich are not vvilling to redeeme the liues of their brethren shall I say vvith the hazarde of their owne liues no nor with the losse of their shoe-latchets with the hazarde I meane of transitory and fading commodities vvhich never are touched with the afflictions of Ioseph and though a number be greeued and pinched as if they belonged to a forreine bodie neuer vouchsafe to partake the smart with them vvith whome it is a common speech that that dieth let it die that they may knovve at length they were not borne to singe or say laugh or ioy to themselues not to eate and drinke thriue or liue to their priuate families but that others which stand in neede by very prerogatiue of mankinde haue also an interest in their succour and seruice I noted the humanity of the marriners by occasion of some circuÌ„stances before past and I woulde now haue spared you in the repetition of the same argument but that my texte spareth you not I vvere vvorthy of much blame if when my guide shewed mee the way I would purposedly forsake it neither caÌ„ I iustly make mine excuse if when the scripture taketh me by the hand biddeth me commend humanity once againe I then neglect it You may perceiue hovve vvell they affected Ionas both by the continuance and by the excesse of their paines I make it a further proofe that it is saide in the text The men rovved as if hee had saide they vvere meere straungers vnto mee I cannot say they are Grecians or Cilicians I knowe not their countries or dwelling places I knowe not their private generations and kindreds much lesse their proper names and conditions I know them no more then to be men after the name commonly belonging to all mankinde It is an vsuall manner amongst vs when we know not men by their other differences and proprieties to tearme them by that generall appellation which apperteineth equally to vs all When Paul was disposed to conceale his person as touching the visions and revelations which were sent vnto him I knovve saith he a man in Christ whether in the bodie or out of the body c. I say not that he was an Hebrewe I name no Apostle I name not Paul I knovve a man of such a man I vvill reioice of my selfe I vvill not excepte it bee of mine infirmities They asked the young man vvhose sight vvas restored Iohn 6. Hovve his eies were opened who because hee knew not Christ in the propriety either of his nature or office to be the sonne of God or the Messias that shoulde come he answered thus for himselfe The man that is called Iesus made clay and anointed mine eies Concerning whom he afterwardes bevvraieth his ignoraunce whether a sinner or no I cannot tel but one thing I know that I was blinde and now I see Is it not thinke you a vvonderfull blemish and maime to Christianity that those vvho were but men even straungers vnto Ionas aliens in countrey aliens in religion but that they beganne a litle to bee seasoned with the knowledge of the true God shoulde thus bee minded vnto him vvee that are ioyned and builte togither not onely in the frame of our common kinde but in a new building that came from heauen vvee that are men and more than men men of an other birth than vvee tooke from Adam men of a better family than our fathers house regenerate sanctified sealed by the spirite of God against the day of redemption men that are concorporate vnder one heade Iesus Christ knitte and vnited by nature grace by fleshe faith humanity Christianitie shoulde be estranged in affection Christians towards Christians protestantes towards protestants more than ever were Iewes and Samaritanes of whom we read in the gospel that they might not converse Doubtlesse there are many thinges that haue an attractiue vertue to winne and gaine the opinions of men vnto them The vnestimable vvisedome of Salomon drevve a vvoman a Queene from a farre countrey that shee might but heare and question with him The admirable learning of Origen caused vngracious and wicked Porphyrie to go froÌ„ his natiue land â—o the citty of Alexandria to see him and Mammaea the Empresse to send for him into her presence It never wanteth honor that is excellent The voice of friendship where it is firmely plight is this as Ambrose observeth in his offices Tuus sum totus I am wholy thine What difference was there betwixte Alexander Hephestion Marriage by the ordinaÌ„ce of God knoweth no other methode but composition of two it maketh one as God of one before made two by resolution The first day of marriage soleÌ„nized amongst the heathens the bride challenged of the bridegrome Vbi tu Caius ego Caia where you are master I will be mistresse But the onely load-stone attractiue vpon the earth to draw heauen and earth men angels East West Iewes Barbarians sea and lande landes and Islandes togither and to make one of two of thousands of all is religion by which they are coupled and compacted vnder the government of one Lord tied and conglutinate by the sinewes of one faith washed from their sinnes by the same laâ—er of new birth nourished by the milke of the same word feasted at the supper of the same Lambe and assumed by the same spirit of adoption to the vndoubted inheritance of one and the same kingdome And I cannot mislike their iudgement who thinke that the little knowledge of God but elementary learning which Ionas preached when he made his graue confession of the true God laide the foundation of all this kindnes which proceeded from these marriners How hath religion bin a band vnto Christendome the discordes dissensions whereof like a fire in the midst of the house consuming both timber stones haue laide more countries to the dition of the Turke than ever his bow shield could haue purchased Wee maie truely say as they in Athens sometimes we of Athens our selues haue amplified strengthned Philip our enimy It was prudeÌ„tly espied by Cortugal one of the Turkish princes in his oration perswasiue to his Lord to besiege Rhodes Christianus occasus discordijs intestinis corroboratur the fal of Christendome is set forward by civil disagreemeÌ„t In the daies of Mahomet the second they had gleaned out of Christendome I mean those polluted Saracens like scattered eares of corne neglected by the owners 200. cities 12. kingdomes 2. empires What an harvest they haue reaped since that time or rather wee reaped for them who knoweth not yet the canker runneth on fretting and eating into Christendome because the whole neglecteth the partes seeketh not to preserue them VVho is not mooved with that lamentable description which AEneas Silvius maketh of Greece in his oration against the Turkes for the composing and attoneing of Christened kingdomes O noble Greece beholde nowe thine ende thou art deade and buried If vvee seeke for
driue him to desperation the Sabaeans to store vp treasures of vvickednesse and to shew that stolne bread is sweet vnto them The envy and malignity of Sathan whence is it of God No. God borroweth and vseth his service I graunte but Sathan first profered it so the malice is his owne who was a murtherer from the beginning hee onely addâ—ng gouernement and moderation therevnto The furious and bloudy rapines of the other whence are they from God no. They lay in the cisternes of their owne heartes Sathan drew them forth by insâ—igation themselues let loose the streame and when it was once on flote the Lorde directed and disposed the course by his wisedome For this present I ende God is of pure eies and can beholde no vvickednesse hee hath 〈◊〉 righteousnesse to the rule and vveighed his iustice in a ballance his soule hateth and abhorreth sin I haue served with your iniquities It is a labour service thraldome vnto him more than Israell endured vnder their grievous task-masters his law to this day curseth and condemneth sin his hands haue smitten scrouged sin he hath throwne downe angels plagued men overturned cities ruinated nations and not spared his owne bowels whilst hee appeared in the similitude of sinfull flesh hee hath drowned the world vvith a floud of waters shall burne the world with a floud of fire because of sin The sentence shall stand vnmooueable as long as heaven and earth endureth tribulation anguish vpon every soule that doth evil Ievv or Gentile All adulterers murtherers idolaters sacrilegious blasphemous covetous wretches liers swearers forswearers whom the Apostle calleth dogges barking at the iustice of God making a causelesse complaint against him as if he were cause of their sins shall one day see the folly and feele the price of their vnrighteous inâ—ectation Let God therefore be true and let all men be liers let God be iust and all men sinners let God be iustified in al his iudgements and let all his accusers vanish and consume in the madnes of their heartes as the fome vpon the waters THE XIX LECTVRE Chap. 1. ver 14. For thou Lord hast done as it pleased thee THe Mariners in this reason of their petition acknowledge 2. things directly 1. the worke of God in the casting foorth of Ionas Thou Lord hast done it 2. the ground of his workes his owne will as it pleased thee A third thing is acknowledged by implication the equity iustice of that will as the warrant for their deed for thou Lord c. their meaning is not therein either to charge him with a tyraÌ„nous will quod libet licet as the manner of grievous princes is to thinke that lawfull whatsoever pleaseth them either to insimulate and accuse him of iniustice to make him actor or patrone of any their sins who dealeth in the actions of meÌ„ sometimes with open sometimes with secret but alwaies with a righteous iudgement Therefore I noted their corruption who thinke themselues excused in their most enormous and execrable sins because they fulfill the will of God in one sense not that open and revealed will which he hath given in tables published by sound of a trumpet specified by blessings cursings promises threatnings exhortations dehortations and such like wherevnto they stand strictly bound but a secret and hidden will written in another booke wrapt vp in the counsâ—iles of his owne breast which neither they intended when they did their misdeedes neither were they ever charged therewith from Gods lips Secreta Domino revelata nobis filijs nostris Secret thinges belong to the Lord revealed to vs our children 1. Quantum ad ipsos fecerunt quod Deus noluit touching their owne purpose and intendment they have done that which God would not they have transgressed his lawe with contentation of heart perhappes with gladnes it may be with greedinesse taking a solace and pleasure therein and not wishing to have done otherwise they have pursued it to the third and fourth generation from the first assault or motion of sin to consent from consent to delight from delight to custome and yet not giving over till they come to a spirit of slumber or rather a death in sin 2. Quantum ad omnipotentiam Dei nullo modo id efficere valuerunt touching the omnipotencie of God they were never abâ—e to doe it he sitteth in heaven that laugheth them to scorne he besiegeth them round about and his hand is vpon them They are not able to depart from his will more than if a ship were going from Ioppe to Tharsis as this ship was from West to East and one by walking vpon the hatches a contrary course as if he would goe from East to West from Tharsis towardes Ioppe againe might stay the motion or flight of the shippe he doth his endevour to hinder it by bending both his face and his pace backewarde but the ship is too well winged and of too huge a burthen to be resisted so those others shewe their will to frustrate and faile the will of God by committing sinne prohibited but yet they shall doe a will of his or rather his will shal be done vpon them maugre their malicious and sworne contradictions De hijs qui faciunt quae non vult facit ipse quae vult Of those that doe what he would not he doth what he would and as he commanded light to shine out of darknes so he can commaund good out of euill treasure from out the midst of drosse and commodity from the very heart of deepest wickednesse at least he will execute his iustice vpon offenders as he professeth Exod. 14. I will get me honour vpon Pharaoh and all his host for this cause he set him vp to shew his power in him and that his name might be declared to the whole earth Exod. 9. To reduce a diffused but a dangerous intricate question wherin as I then protested the warinesse of my proceeding so now I againe protest the subiection of my spirite to the spirites of prophets God forbid that I should not bee readier to learne than to teach I say to reduce it to heads I proposed vnto you the errors of some in 2. 〈◊〉 of extremities some going too far in that they make God the 〈◊〉 of sin others comming aâ— short that God doth only permit 〈◊〉 The former an error 〈◊〉 for devils than men the latter an error of humanity offending of simplicity rather then malice speaking truth of God when they acknowledge his permission of sinne but 〈…〉 who le truth because they thinke God only permitteth it both deny the godhead in effect the one destroying the goodnes and 〈◊〉 the other impairing the omnipotency providence government thereof in that they restraine it from some thinges The former of these two opinions that God is the author of sin most prodigious to coÌ„ceive though engendred in the braine I know not whether of men or devils yet is taken by
haue saved Ionas Put from the succor of the ship froÌ„ the frieÌ„dship of his associats having no rocke to cleaue vnto far from the shore and neither able perhaps nor desirous to escape by swimming yeelding himselfe to death and to a living graue with as mortified an affection as if lumps of lead had been cast down yet God had prepared a meanes to preserue the life of Ionas EveÌ„ the bowels of a cruel fish are as a chariot vnto him to beare him in safety through those vnsearchable depthes O how many wonders in howâ— few wordes how many riddles and darke speeches to the reason of man he will scarselie beleeue when they shall be tolde vnto him 1. That so huge a fish shoulde bee so ready to answere at the call of the Lorde to saue his prophet 2. So able to devour a man at a morsel without comminutioÌ„ or bruise offered to any one bone of his 3. That a man could liue the space of 3. daies and nights in a fishes belly But so it was The Lorde doeth but vse a preamble to finish his worke intended He suffereth not the ship to carry him forth-right to the city but so ordereth the matter that the Mariners deliver him to the sea the sea to the whale the whale to the Lorde and the Lorde to Niniveh That we may learne thereby when our sinnes hange fast vpon vs the harbour of a warme shippe cannot bee beneficiall but when wee haue shaken them of the sea shall make a truce and the vngentlest beastes bee in league with vs. The demaunde of the earthlie man in these vnprobable workes hath ever beene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how can this bee Though an angell from heaven shall tell Sarah of a sonne after hath ceased to bee with her after the manner of women shee will 〈◊〉 within her selfe and saie What after I am waxen olde and my Lord 〈◊〉 But what saith the Angell vnto her Shall any thing bee harde to the â—orde VVhen the children of Israell wanted flesh to eate and cryed in the eares of the Lorde quis dabit VVho shall giue vs flesh to eate God promised it for a moneth togither vntil it should come out of their nostrels And Moses saide sixe hundreth thousande footemen are there among the people of whom I am and thou saiest I will giue them flesh to eate a moneth long Shall the sheepe and the beeves be slaine for them to finde them either shall all the fish of the sea bee gathered togither for them to suffice them But the Lorde aunswered him is the Lords hand shortened Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to passe vnto thee or no. Elizeus prophecied in that wofull famine of Samaria when they bought an Asses head and Doues dunge at an vnreasonable rate To morrowe by this time a measure of fine flowre shall bee solde for a shekell c. Then a prince on whose hande the king leaned aunswered the man of GOD Though the Lorde woulde make windowes in heaven can this thinge come to passe the prophet aunswered him Beholde thou shalt see it with thine eies but shalt not eate thereof Saint Augustine in his thirde epistle to Volvsian and elsewhere giveth the rules to satisfie these distrustfull reasonings Wee must graunte that GOD is able to doe some thinge vvhich wee are not able to finde out in such works the whole reason of the doing is the power of the doer It is GOD that hath done them Consider the authour and all doubts will cease Therefore if Marie receiving a message of vnexpected vnwonted conception shal say at the first how shall this thing be yet when the angell shal say vnto her that it is the worke of the holy ghost and the might of the most high that her coâ—zen Elizabeth hath also conceived in her olde age though shee had purchased the name of barren by her barrennesse because with God saith the angell nothing is vnpossible then let Marie lay her hande vpon her heart and saie Beholde the hand-maide of the Lorde that is without further disceptation I submit my selfe to the power of God But if that former reason of his all-sufficient might bee not of strength enough to resolue either pagans abroade or atheistes at home touching the likelihoode and probability of such vnlikely actes but the innocencie of the sacred Scriptures wherein they are written must be arraigned and condemned by their carnall reason and our whole religion derided because wee iustifie them I will say no more vnto them but as Augustine doth in his bookes of the city of God Quicquid mirabile fit in hoc mundo profectò minus est quà m totus hic mundus The very creation of the worlde which being the booke of nature they runne and read and can deny no part of it though they deny depraue the booke of scripture sheweth them a greater miracle in the world it selfe than whatsoever in these or the like singularities seemeth most incredible A great fish Some of the rabbines thinke that the fish was created at that moment when Ionas was to be swallowed Others that he had lasted from the sixt day of the world A thirde sorte that it was a whale that first devoured Ionas that afterwardes the Lord beckened vnto him then hee cast him into the mouth of a female which was full of yong where being streightned of his wonted roume he fel to praier Fabulous inveÌ„tions fruit according to the trees that bare it Whither tâ—e fish were created at that instaÌ„t or before sooner or later I list not enquire Neither will I further engage my self herein thaÌ„ the spirit of God giveth me direction Only that which the prophet setteth downe in 2. words by a circumlocution a great fish it shall not be amisse to note that the evaÌ„gelists abridge name more distinctly in one shewing the kinde of the fish therefore Matthew calleth it the belly of a whale So do the 70. interpretours from whom it is not vnlikely the expositour of Matthew tooke his warrant I never found any mentioÌ„ of this goodly creâ—ture but the wisdoÌ„e of God the creator was willing to commeÌ„d it in some sort In the first of Genes God saide Let the waters bring forth in abundance every creeping thing that hath the soule of life howbeit in all that abundaunce there is nothing specified but the whale as being the prince of the rest and to vse the speach of Iob the king of all the children of pride vvherein the workemanshippe of the maker is most admired for so it is saide Then God created the whales and not singlie vvhales but vvith the same additament that this prophet vseth the greate vvhales So doth the Poet tearme them also immania caete the huge vvhales as being the stateliest creature that mooveth in the waters Likewise in the Psalme The earth is full of thy riches so is the
al posterity to come that I will not meane-while forget to looke vp to the mountaines from whence my helpe was It is the parte of an honest ingenious minde to confesse vvho they are by whome thou hast profited but on the other side the marke of a most vngratious amd vnhappy nature rather to be taken in the theft than to returne like for like And what doe they else but steale and embezell the graces of God which either dissembling their authour assume them to themselves or confessing the authour extenuate their worth as if they were not meete to bee accounted for These are the theeves robbers indeede capitall malefactours sure to bee cut of on the right hand and on the left and not to inherite the kingdome of God as the Apostle threatneth The stealing of temporall things may bee acquited againe either with single or double foure-folde or seven-folde resolution But the filching and purloming of the glory of God can never bee aunswered Others steale of necessity to satisfie their soules because they are hungrie and but equall from equall man from man But these of pleasure and pride breake through heaven which though it bee free from violent theeves yet these by a wile and insidiation enter into it and steale away the honour of God which is most precious vnto him When Iohn Baptist was borne the neighbours and cousins vpon the eighth day at the circumcising of the childe called him Zacharias after the name of his father Elizabeth aunswered them not so but hee shal bee called Iohn though it were a mervaile to them all and none of his kinred were so named and Zachary wrote in his tables that Iohn should be his name They knew that hee was the gift of God which his mother in her olde age and in the state of her barrennes had conceaved and therfore called him Iohn that is the gift of God in remembrance of natures vnfuitfulnesse and their vndeserved sonne whome neither father nor mother nor kinred I meane not ordinary and carnall generation could haue given vnto them· such are the children of our wombes a gift that commeth from the Lorde And such are our children and fruit otherwise whatsoever wee possesse outwarde or inwarde wee holde it in Capite even in the Lorde of Lordes who is the giver of every good perfit gifte as Iames writeth Scipio Africanus the elder had made the citty of Rome being in a consumption and readie to giue vp the ghost Lady of Africke At length being banished into a base country towne his will was that his tombe should haue this inscription vpon it Ingrata patria ne ossa quidem mea habes vnthankefull country thou hast not so much as my bones Many and mightye deliverances haue risen from the Lorde to this lande of ours to make provocation of our thankefulnesse For not to goe by a kalender but to speake in 2. wordes wee haue lien in ignorance as in the belly of the whale or rather the belly of hell for blindnesse of heart is the very brimme and introduction into the hell of the damned the Lorde hath pulled vs thence Wee haue also lien in the heart of our enemies as in the belly of the fishe Gebal and Ammon and Amelek and the Philistines with those of Tyre haue combined themselues and cried a confoederacy a confoederacy against vs the Lorde hath also delivered vs to make some proofe of our gratefull spirites For this a rule in beneficence Ingratus est adversus unum beneficium is a man vnthankefull for one benefite for a seconde hee will not Hath hee forgotten two the third will reduce to his memory those that are slipt thence God hath liberally tried vs with one and an other and a third and yet ceaseth not But what becommeth of our gratitude It hath bene our manner for the time to haue pamphlets and formes of thankesgiving in our churches our heartes haue burnt within vs for the present as of the two disciples that went to Emaus to assemble our selues at praiers preachings breaking of bread and to give an howre or two more than vsuall from our worldly affaires as a recompense of Gods goodnes Our mouthes have beene filled with laughter and our tonges with ioy and wee have bene content to say the Lord hath done greate thinges for vs wherof wee reioyce But how quickly forget wee all againe Ingrata Anglia ne ossa quidam habes Vngratefull England thou hast not so much as the bones of thy patrone and deliverer thou hast exiled him from thy thoughtes buried him in oblivion there is not one remnant or footeprint left to witnesse to the worlde that thou hast bene protected What others have testified in former times by building of altars pitching of huge stones raysinge of pillers dedication of feastes vvriting of bookes that their childrens children might aske a reason and bee instructed in GODS auncient mercies thou haste not lefte to thy race to come by one stone one turfe one post one paper or schrole of continuaunce in remembraunce vnto them of thy ampler benefites It deserveth the protestation of GOD 1. Esay Heare O men and harken O Angels no. A greater auditorie is required Heare ô heavens and harken ô earth I have brought vp preferred and exalted sonnes and they have despised me If servauntes and bond-men the sonnes of Agar of whome it was saide Cast out the bond-man it mighte lesse have beene marvayled at but sonnes of mine owne education adopted by speciall grace these have despised mee They had an action in Athens against vnthankefull persons The more their blame Qui cum aequissima iura sed iniquissima haberent ingenia moribus suis quà m legibus vti maluerunt vvho having good lavves ill natures had rather vse their manners than their lawes For if some of those excellent men which Athens despightfully and basely required Theseus who was buried in a rock Miltiades who dyed in prison and the sonne of Miltiades vvho inherited nothinge amongst them but his fathers bandes Solon Aristides Phocion who lived in banishmente shoulde bring their action against Athens in the courte of some other cittye vvere it able to aunswere their iust exprobrations O Athens thy wals thy people thy trophees and triumphes farre and neare by lande and sea are thus and thus multiplyed Horum authores vbi vixerint vbi iaceant responde But put in thine aunsvvere and shevve vvhere the authours of those thinges lived and vvhere they are buryed God hath an action of ingratitude against his sonnes and bringeth them into lawe not before citty or nation but to note the horror of the vice before heaven and earth that all the corners and creatures of the vvorlde may both knowe and detest it And surelye it was well marked by a learned man No man wondreth at dogs or wolues because they are common but centaures and satyres such monsters of nature al gaze vpon It may be drunkennes
to our cities and townes barres to our houses a surer cover to our heads than an helmet of steele a better receite to our bodies than the confection of Apothecaries a better receite to our soules than the pardons of Rome is Salus Iehovae the salvation of the Lord. The salvation of the Lord blesseth preserveth vpholdeth all that we have our basket and our store the oile in our cruises our presses the sheepe in our folds our stalles the children in the wombe at our tables the corne in our fieldes our stores our garners it is not the vertue of the stars nor nature of the things themselves that giveth being continuance to any of these blessings And what shall I more say as the apostle asked Hebr. 11. when he had spoken much and there was much more behind but that time failed him Rather what should I not say for the world is my theatre at this time and I neither thinke nor can feigne to my selfe any thinge that hath not dependaunce vpon this acclamation Salvation is the Lordes Plutarcke writeth that the Amphictyones in Greece a famous counsell assembled of twelve sundrie people wrote vpon the temple of Apollo Pythius in steede of the Iliades of Homer or songes of Pindarus large and tyring discourses shorte sentences and memoratives as Know thy selfe Vse moderation Beware of suretishippe and the like And doubtlesse though every creature in the world whereof we haue vse be a treatise and narration vnto vs of the goodnesse of God and wee might weary our flesh and spend our daies in writing bookes of that vnexplicable subiect yet this short apopthegme of Ionas compreheÌ„deth all the rest and standeth at the ende of the songue as the altars and stones that the Patriarkes set vp at the partinge of the waies to giue knowledge to the after-worlde by what meanes hee was delivered I would it were dayly preached in our temples sunge in our streetes written vpon our dore-postes painted vppon our walles or rather cut with an admant claw vpon the tables of our hearts that wee might never forget Salvation to bee the Lordes wee haue neede of such remembrances to keepe vs in practise of revolvinge the mercies of God For nothinge decayeth sooner than loue And of all the powers of the soule memorye is most delicate tender and brittle and first waxeth olde and of all the apprehensions of memory first a benefite To seeke no further for the proofe and manifestation of this sentence within our coastes I may say as our Saviour in the nineteenth of Luke to Zacheus This day is salvation come vnto this house Even this day my brethren came the salvation of the LORDE to this house of David to the house of this Kingdome to the houses of Israell and Aaron people and priestehode church and common wealth I helde it an especiall parte of my duety amongst the rest the day invitinge and your expectation callinge mee thereunto and no text of mercy and salvation impertinent to that purpose to correcte and stirre vp my selfe with those fowre lepers that came to the spoile of the Syrian tentes I doe not well this day is a day of good tidinges and shoulde I holde my peace let the leprosie of those men cleaâ—e vnto my skinne if it bee not as ioyfull a thinge vnto mee to speake of the honour of this day as ever it vvas to them to carrye the happye nevves of the flight of Aram. It is the birth-day of our countrey It vvas deade before and the verye soule of it quite departed Sound religion which is the life of a kingdome was abandoned faith exiled the gospell of Christ driven into corners and hunted beyond the seas All these fell with the fall of an honorable and renowned plante which as the first flowre of the figtree in the prime and bloominge of his age was translated into heaven they rose againe with the rising and advancement of our gracious Lady and Soveraigne Were I as able as vvillinge to procure solemnitye to the day I would take the course that David did I would begin at heaven and call the Angelles and armieâ— thereof the sunne moone and starres I woulde descend by the aire and call the fire haile and snow vapours and stormy windes I would enter into the sea and call for dragons and all deepes I woulde ende in the earth and call for the mountaines and hilles fruitfull trees and cedars beastes and all cattell creeping thinges and feathered fowles Kinges of the earth and all people Princes Iudges yonge men and maidens olde men and children to lend their harmony and accord vnto vs to praise the name of the Lorde to accompany and adorne the triumph of our land and to showte into heaven with no other cry than this salus Iehovae salvation is only from the Lord by whome the horne of this people hath so mightily bene exalted O happy English if wee knew our good if that roiall vessell of gold wherein the salvation of the Lorde hath bene sent vnto vs were as precious and deare in our accounte as it rightly deserveth Her particular commendations common to her sacred person not with many princes I examine not Let it bee one amongst a thousand which Bernard gaue to a widowe Queene of Ierusalem and serveth more iustly to the maiden Queene of England that it was no lesse glory vnto her to liue a widowe havinge the worlde at will and beinge to sway a kingdome which required the helpe of an husband than a Queene The one saith he Came to thee by succession the other by vertue the one by descent of bloude thâ— other by the gift of God the one it was thy happinesse to bee borne the other thy manlinesse to haue atteined vnto a double honour the one towardes the worlde the other towardes God both from God Her wisedome as the wisedome of an Angell of the Lorde so spake the widowe sometimes to David fitter for an Angell than my selfe to speake of her knowledge in the tongues and liberall learninge in all the liberall sciences that in a famous Vniversitie amongst the learnedest men shee hath bene able not onely to heare and vnderstand which were somethinge but to speake perswade decide like a graduate oratour professour and in the highest court of parliameÌ„t hath not onely sitten amongst the peeres of her realme and delivered her minde maiestate manus by some bodily gesture in signe of assent but given her counsaile and iudgemente not inferiour to any and her selfe by her selfe hath aunswered the embassadours of severall nations in their severall languages with other excellent graces beseeming the state of a prince though they best know on whose hande shee leaâ—eth and that are nearest in attendaÌ„ce and observance about her maiesty yet if any man bee ignorant of let him aske of strangers abroade into whose eares fame hath bruited and blowne her vertues and done no more but right in giving such giftes vnto her
profit of their heartes but their ovvne vvantonnesse Some haue too many fingers vpon their handes like the Gyant in the second of Samuell And some too fewe like those vvhome Adonibezek mained some offend in excesse some in defecte some adde some diminishe But hee that hath power to adde plagues whilest the worlde standeth that is to multiplie and continue them in such sort that they shall ever encrease to an hundreth hundreth fold and never see an ende and to diminish blessinges so lowe that not the least dramme of them shall remaine hee shall retale their doinges into their bosomes and giue them their reward in the same maner and kinde wherein they haue deserved it The Apostle vvalked vvisely in this calling and stinted himselfe with that measure which God had divided vnto him Quod accepi á domino tradidi What I haue received of the Lord that I haue delivered vnto you neither more nor lesse but iust weight And being iealous over Timothy vvith a godly iealousie for feare hee mighte erre concerning the faith as others had done before him hee adiureth him in the sight of GOD who quickneth all thinges and before Iesus Christ who vnder Pontius Pilate vvitnessed a good confession to keepe the commaundement given vnto him vvithout spotte and vnrebukeable vntill the appearing of our Lord Iesus Christ. And in that praescience he had of times to come and loue hee bare to his scholler he calleth vnto him vvith intensiue inclamation O Timotheus keepe that pledge or gage that is committed vnto thee VVho is that Timotheus in our times The church the Priestes the doctours the pastours the treaters of the worde of God vvhatsoever Keepe it because of Theeues because of enemies vvhich watch to sowe their tares That that is committed vnto thee not that thou hast invented that thou haste received not devised a matter not of thine ovvne vvit but of thy learning not privaâ—lie caught vp but publickely taught vvherein thou must not bee an author but a keeper nor a master but a scholler nor a guide but a follower The Talent of the vniversall faith vvherevvith thou art credited keepe vnviolated thou hast received gold returne gold giue not lead or brasse or copper in steede of golde The precious iewels of heavenly doctrine cut and adorne giue beauty grace and comelines vnto them but suborne them not Illustrate that which was obscure and let posterity gratulate it selfe for vnderstanding that which before they reuerently esteeemed being not vnderstoode But ever bee sure that thou teach the same things which thou hast learned though thou bring vnto them a new fashion let the matter and substance be all one Much more in fitter tearmes doth Vincentius vtter to the same purpose Preach or proclaime vnto it The office of a faithfull prophet vvhen he hath received his message from the Lord is as faithfullie to deliver it Ieremy savve vvhat ensued vpon his simple and plaine dealing in not dissembling the faultes of the vvorlde but setting them in order before the faces of men· Since I spake I cried out of wronge and proclaimed desolation therefore the worde of the LORDE was made a reproach vnto mee and had in derision daylie And hee hearde the rayling of manie and feare on everie side and thought to giue over speaking in the name of the Lord but his vvorde was as fire within his bones and hee was weary of forbearing and coulde not doe it Hee afterwardes cursed the day of his birth and the man that brought newes to his father saying a man child is borne and wished the messenger in case of one of those citties which God overturned without repenting him because hee had not slaine him from the wombe that his mother might haue beene his graue and his belly his everlasting conception that hee might not haue come forth to see labour and sorrow and to haue consumed his daies with shame hee went not into corners to smother the will of him that sent him but in tearmes of defiance and personall application to the stowtest that bare an heade roundlye disclosed it Hee had shewed the precisenesse of his callinge that hee must not spare either small or greate though it pulled the whole vvorlde vpon him not longe before and with vvords of no lesse heavinesse Woe is mee my mother that thou hast borne mee a contentious man and a man that striveth vvith the vvhole earth I haue neither lente in vsurye nor men haue lent vnto mee that is I deale not in these affaires vvhich for the most part breed quarrelles and heart-burninges yet everye one doth curse mee We are the children of those prophets that haue lived in former daies We were borne to contend striue with the whole earth we are despised despighted hated cursed of every man because wee preach the preachings that the Lord hath biddeÌ„ vs proclaime his vengaÌ„ce against sinners our hand against every man every mans hand against vs our tongue against every vice and every tongue walketh rangeth at liberty through our actions We are thought to clamarous against the disorders of commoÌ„ life to busie severe in makinge Philippickes and declamations against every offence Forgiue vs this fault A necessitie is laide vpon vs. And as it is our woe that our mothers haue bredde vs to so quarrelsome a vocation so it is an other and our greater woe if wee preach not the Gospell if not also the lawe if not the tydinges of ioy to those that reioyce in our message if not also the terrours of iudgemente to those that contemne it if not liberty to captiues if not also captivity to libertines if wee pipe not to those that will daunce after vs and sounde not a trumpet of warre to those that resist if wee builde not an arke to those that wil bee saved and poure not out a floude of curses against those that will perish Lastly if wee open not the doores to those that knock and are penitent and stand not at the gates with a flaminge swoorde in our mouthes againste those that are obstinate What Shall the invincible tâ—nts of Christ saith Cyprian defended with the strength of the Lord giue place to the terrours threatnings of men shall the Church yeeld to the Capitoll shall the outrages of mad men bee greater than the iudgments and censures of ministers It must not be If wee bee the light of the vvorld we must espâ—e faultes and if voices of Iohn Baptist we must cry against them If we be the seers of the Lord we must not be blind and if his criers we must not be duÌ„be or tongue-tide I know the preaching of mercy is more acceptable vnto you O how beautifull are the feete how sweete the tongues of those that declare peace and publish good things and how vnwelcome of those that proclaime warres publish woes If every congregation vvee came into we would cry peace to to this
3. according to the worde of the Lorde which erst he had disobeyed Thus farre we vnderstood whither he went nowe we are to learne what hee did in Niniveh namely 1. for the time Hee beginneth his message presently at the gates 2. for the place hee had entred but a thirde parte of the citie so much as might be measured by the travaile of one day 3. for the manner of his preaching hee cried 4. for the matter or contentes Yet fortye daies and Niniveh shall bee destroyed I haue tasted nothinge of this present verse but vvhat mighte make a connexion with the former For the greatnesse of Niniveh repeated in the latter ende thereof served to this purpose partly to commend the faith of the Ninivites who at the first sounde of the trumpet chaÌ„ged their liues partly to giue testimony ito the diligence constaÌ„cy of the Prophet who was not dismaide by so mighty a chardge And Ionas beganne to enter into the city All the wordes are spoken by diminution Ionas beganne had not made an ende to enter the citty had not gone through A daies iourney which was but the third parte of his way Not that Ionas began to enter the citty a daies iourney and then gaue over his walke for hee spent a day and daies amongest them in redressing of their crooked waies But Niniveh did not tarry the time nor deferre their conversion till his embassage vvas accomplished amongest them which is so much the more marveilous for that he came vnto them a messenger of evill and vnwelcome tydinges it is rather a wonder vnto mee that they skorned him not that they threw not dust into the aire ran vpon him with violence stopped his mouth threw stones at him with cursing and with bitter speaking as Shemei did at David as Ahab burdened Elias with troubling Israell so that they had not challenged Ionas for troubling Niniveh because he brought such tidinges as might sette an vprore and tumulte amongst all the inhabitantes That vvicked king of Israell whome I named before hated Micheas vnto the death for no other cause but that hee never prophecied good vnto him A man that ever did evill and no good coulde not endure to heare of evill And for the same cause did Amaziah the priest of Bethell banish Amos from the lande for preaching the death of Ieroboam and the captivitie of Israell therefore the Lorde was not able to beare his words and hee had his pasporte sealed O thou the seer goe flee thou avvaie into the lande of Iudah and there eate thy breade and prophecie there but prophecie no more at Bethel for this is the kinges chappell and this is the kinges courte so I woulde rather haue thought that they shoulde haue entertained Ionas in the like manner because hee came with fire and sworde in his mouth against them the cittye is not able to beare thy wordes vvee cannot endure to heare of the death of our king and the vniversall overthrow of our people and buildings O thou the seer get thee into the lande of Iudah and returne to thy cittye of Ierusalem and there eate thy breade and prophecye there but prophecie no more at Niniveh for this is the kings chappell nay this is the court of the mighty Monarch of Assyria But Niniveh hath a milder spirite and a softer speech and behaviour in receiving the Lordes prophet Now on the other side if you set togither the greatnesse of Niniveh and the present on-set vvhich the prophet gaue vpon it that immediately vpon his chardge without drawing breath hee betooke him to his hard province it maketh no lesse to the commendation of his faithfulnesse then their obedience For when hee came to Niniveh did hee deliberate what to doe examine the nature of the people vvhether they were tractable or no enquire out the convenientest place wherein to doe his message and where it might best stande with the safegarde of his person did he stay till hee came to the market place or burse or the kings palace where there was greatest frequency and audience No but where the buildings of the citty beganne there hee began to builde his prophecie And even at the entrance of the gates hee opened his lippes and smote them with a terrour of most vngratefull newes Againe he entered their citty not to gaze vpon their walles not to number their turrets nor to feede his eies with their high aspiring buildings much lesse to take vp his Inne and there to ease himselfe but to travaile vp and downe to wearie out his stronge men not for an houre or two but from morning til night even as long as the lighte of the daie vvill giue him leaue to worke I departe not from my texte for as you heare 1. Ionas began protracted not 2. to enter not staying till he had proceeded 3. to travaile not to be idle 4. the whole day not giving any rest or recreation to his bodie If wee will further extende and stretch the meaning of this sentence we may apply it thus It is good for a man to begin betimes and to beare the yoke of the Lord from his childe-hoode as Goliath is reported to haue beene a warriour from his youth to enter in the vineyard the first houre of the daie and to holde out till the twelfth to begin at the gates of his life to serue God and even from the wombe of his mother to giue his bodie and soule as Anna gaue her Samuell Nazarites vnto the Lord that his age and wisedome and grace may growe vp togither as Christes did And that as Iohn Baptist was sanctified in his mothers wombe Salomon was a witty childe Daniell and his yong companions were vvell nurtured in the feare of the Lorde and David wiser then his auncientes so all the parts degrees of his life from the first fashioning of his tender limmes may savour of some mercy of God which it hath received That whether hee bee soone deade they may say of him hee fulfilled much time or whither he carry his graye haires vvith him downe into the graue he may say in his conscience as David did Thy statutes haue ever beene my songes in the house of my pilgrimage As for the devils dispensation youth must bee borne with and as that vnwise tutour sometimes spake It is not trust mee a faulte in a younge man to followe harlots to drinke wine in bowls to daunce to the tabret to weare fleeces of vanity aboute his eares and to leaue some token of his pleasure in every place so giving him lycense to builde the frame of his life vpon a lascivious and riotous foundation of long practised wantonnesse it vvas never written in the booke of God prophets and Apostles never drempt of it the law-giver never delivered it heâ—l onelye invented it of pollicy to the overthrow of that age which God hath most enabled to doe him best service And as it was the
it had beene supprest by silence as one that seeth the branches and fruites of a tree knoweth there is a roote that carrieth them though it be buried in the moulde of the grounde or the members of the bodie of man stirring and mooving themselues to their severall functions knoweth there is a heart that ruleth them though it dwell secretly within the bosome so though the name of faith had not heere beene heard of he that had seene such branches and members of religious devotion and humiliation in the people of Niniveh might easilie haue ghessed that there was a roote and hearte of faith from whence they proceeded To this they adioine fasting and sacke-cloath not only as arguments and outward professions of their inwarde contrition or griefe but as adminicles helpes commendations besides to that effectuall praier of theirs which afterwardes they powred forth The belly they say hath no eares and we may as truely say it hath no tongue or spirit to call vpon God and sumptuous garmentes are either the banner of pride and nest of riotousnes as the Emperour of Rome tearmed them or tokens at least of a minde at rest and no way disquieted therfore they cry in the second of Wisedome Let vs fill our selues with costly wine and ointments and let vs crowne our selues with rose buddes And Amos complaineth of them in the sixt of his prophecie that put the evill day farre from them and approach to the seate of iniquitie that they eate the lambes of the flocke and the calues out of the stall drinke their wine in bowles and anointe themselues with the chiefe ointmentes but no man is sory for the affliction of Ioseph For it is not likely that the affliction of oth ers should mooue their heartes who are so occupied and possest before with fulnes of pleasures For the better explication heereof it shall not be impertinent to consider and apply the behavior of Benadab 1. Kings 20. he had received an overthrow of the children of Israell one yeare in the mountaines the next at Aphek An hundred thousand footmen were slaine in the field in one day seven and twenty thousand perished with the fall of a wall in the city besides the danger of the king who is afraid of his owne life and runneth from chamber to chamber to hide himselfe Vpon this misery wherewith they were toucht one daunger being past another imminent his servauntes come vnto him with these wordes Behold now we haue heard say that the kings of Israell are mercifull kings we pray thee therefore let vs put sacke-cloath about our loines and ropes about our heades and goe out to the king of Israell it may be that hee will saue thy life They did so and came to the king and said thy servant Benadab saith I pray thee let me liue Benadab of late a puissant king having two and thirty kings in his army is novv content with the name of a servant First then you see there is a perswasion of mercy in the kings of Israell so there must be a perswasion of mercy in the God of heaven vvhich the Ninivites were not voide of Secondly that perswasion was vnperfect mingled with feare standing vpon tearmes of doubt it may bee hee will saue thy life so likewise said the king of Niniveh who knoweth if the Lorde will repent Thirdlie vpon this perswasion such as it is the Sirians go and entreate the king of Israell vpon the like doe the inhabitantes of Niniveh cry vnto God Lastly to testifie their humilitie and to mooue him to pitty they put sacke-cloath aboute their loines and ropes aboute their heades so doe the people of Niniveh sit in sacke-cloath and ashes to bewray their contrite spirites Now as Aram put ropes about their heades to shew that for their owne partes they had deserved nothing but their liues and deathes vvere in the kings handes either to saue or hange them so to fast or vveare sacke-cloath with any intention to merite or satisfie the anger of God is to abuse the endes of both these services Aquinas reciteth three endes of a fast First to represse and subdue the insolencie of the flesh hee prooveth it from the seconde to the Corinthians the sixte vvhere the Apostle ioyneth fasting and chastitie togither the one the cause the other the effect that followeth it Secondly to elevate the minde and make it more capable of heavenly revelation as Daniell in the tenth of his prophecie after his fasting three vveekes from pleasaunt breade flesh and vvine behelde a vision Thirdlie to satisfie and appease the anger of God for sinnes which wee can in no case admit the proofe he bringeth is from the seconde of Ioell vvhere we are willed to turne vnto the Lorde with all our hearte with fasting and mourninge and weeping to rende our heartes and not our garmentes c. VVhat then It is the manner and vsage wee graunte of suppliant petitioners to abstaine from meates and to teare their garmentes from their backes not with purpose to satisfie the wrath of GOD but rather to execute vvrath and vengaunce vpon themselues and by macerating their bodies and stripping them of their best ornaments to shew howe vnworthy they are of the blessings of God whom by their hainous iniquities they haue so offended For it is not fasting and sacke-cloath that pleaseth him so much nor rending the garments nor looking vnder the brow nor hanging downe the head like a bulrush nor shaving the head and the beard nor casting dust vpon the face nor sitting in ashes nor filling the aire with howlinges and out-cries but inwarde and hartie conversion to God acknowledgement of our grievous provocations confession of our owne vnworthines by these outward castigations vnfained repentance vacation to praier a faithfull apprehension of his auncient and accustomed mercies Therefore it followeth in Ioel For the Lord is gracious and mercifull slow to anger of great kindnes and repenteth him of the evill As much as to say when you haue sorrowed sufficiently for your sinnes and signified that sorrow with abstinence and teares take comforte at the length againe not in your owne satisfactions but in the remembrance and view of Gods everlasting mercies For word came vnto the king of Niniveh Some thinke that the matter herein contained is distinguished from that which wente before in the fifte verse and that the rulers and warders of the several partes of the city which Ionas had past through had proclaimed a fast to the people before the preaching of the prophet came to the kings eares Herevpon they inferre that in matters appertaining to God we must not tarry the leasure of Princes their license be obtained for Princes they say are slowest to beleeue and farthest from humbling themselues before the maiesty of God when his anger is kindled I take it to be otherwise and I am not left alone in that opinion for most agree that the former verse is but an index or
For I like not in any case that the least advantage and scope in the earth bee given to the people against his lawfull and Christian governour It is as fire to flaxe an easie and welcome perswasion to busie and catching natures The least exception once taken against their want of religion pietie iustice or the like is so farre followed that not onely the prince in the ende but the vvhole people rueth it The Anabaptist in Germanie no sooner entertained this fancie in his braine that a godlesse magistrate may bee made away but foorthwith he granteth to himselfe that all the magistrates of Germanie are of that kind and casteth in his heade howe hee may laye his handes vpon the Lordes anointed Hee beareth the worlde in hand that God hath had speech with him and given him a chardge to destroy the wicked and to constitute a newe vvorlde consisting of righteous and innocent The ordinary preachings of Muncer were these God hath warranted mee face to face hee that cannot he hath commanded mee to attempte the chandge by these meanes even by killinge the magistrates Phifer his lewde companion did but dreame in the night time of the killing of many mice and presentlye expounded his dreame of murthering the nobles So likewise let a papist from Rome or Rhemes giue foorth that a prince vvhich is an Apostata or excommunicate by the Church for heresie or Schisme and openlie denounced to bee such may bee deposed from his seate seignories title to the crowne claime of subiects allegiance how many trayterous heartes slaunderous and mutinous bookes libelles speeches declamations defamations rebellious violent hostile conspiracies hath it brought forth how ready hath the Lion beene to take cares for hornes that is a preiudicate opinion of men maliciouslie bent to interprete the service of God heresie and departing out of Babylon schisme and falling away from Antichrist flat Apostasie The Brownist in England of late imagining to himselfe that in the disorders of the Church reformation may be made without the leasure and leaue of the Prince if God had not slak't that heate vvoulde haue followed his conceipt per saxa perignes through all the daungers and difficulties that are woulde haue trodden order obedience conscience religion duty to God and man vnder his feete rather then haue missed his purpose But the mercy of God assisting vs we haue found it true which Cyprian some times observed that schismatickes are ever hotest in their first beginninges but cannot take encrease To conclude this fact of the people of Niniveh in this their religious intendment of publique repentance and conversion to God evē for that order and obedience sake which they holde towardes their king is the rather to be commended may be an image to all other kingdomes and Churches on the earth how to demeane themselues in the like businesses not to neglect their rulers and governours not to suspect them of carelesnesse in their chardges not to impaire their credit and dignitie in the opinions of men vvith vncharitable and hastie surmises not to vsurpe their authoritie in the practise or publication of vnusuall actes But to giue them this prerogatiue not onely for pollicie but even for conscience sake that as they are the heads of the bodye and set over the rest so in all such weightie affaires as this whereof I speake they thinke their knowledge advise and association most fit to be required And word came to the king of Niniveh If vvee consider the wordes in particular wee shall finde them to haue marveilous force 1. Worde came not onely the bruite fame reporte tidinges or hear say of it but a word of a far different kinde a burden a iudgement a powrefull terrifying threatning worde a dreadfull alarme of the wrath of God a word that hath a deede in it and is not onely pronounced but done or not farre from doing Such a vvorde as wee reade of in the second of Luke when the shepheardes said one to another let vs go into Bethlehem and see this vvord that is done this singular miraculous extraordinary worde the like whereof we never heard vttered 2. to the king of Niniveh not to a vice-roy apetite and tributary king a king of a mole-hill or of a little ile a king vnder avve and subiection to some higher kingdome but to the king of Niniveh the successour of Nimrod the Monarch of the 〈◊〉 the terrour and scourge of the vvorlde farre and neare the mightiest maiesticallest prowdest king that the sunne at that day lookt vpon For what is the reason that the history having mentioned Niniveh so often before goe to Niniveh and he went to Niniveh and Niniveh shall bee overthrowne and the men of Niniveh beleeve God doeth yet adde the name of the citie as if vvithout this addition it could not be vnderstood vvhat king vvere meante but that the minde of the holy Ghost therein vvas to note the vnlikeliest king to strike sailes and to yeeld his scepter to the king of kings of all the countries and kingdomes that the worlde had Yet this potent and insolent king of Niniveh though he had builte his nest as the eagles of the sky for earthly provision and preheminence assoone as he heard the tidings of this worde vvhat did he 3. hee arose as if hee had felte his seate shaken vnder him and tost with an earth-quake so he raiseth himselfe starteth from his ease and tranquillity thinketh it no time to sit and deliberate and aske questions to examine circumstances to convent the disturber of Niniveh before him and to take an account of his preaching but if ever he hasted and bestirred his iointes and called his senses and wittes his princes and people togither to worke a worke now to doe it 4. hee rose from his throne not from his bedde VVhereon he tooke his ease nor from his borde whereat hee ate and dranke but from his seate of honour and principalitie his royall magnificent monarchicall throne where he sate as king and commaunded and tooke state vpon him From thence hee arose to doe his obeysance to the Lord of all Lordes whose throne is the heaven of heavens and all the thrones of the earth but his foote-stooles 5 More then this as if the robe of maiestie his vesture of purple and gold his kingly attire had beene a burden to his backe and as vnseemely to be vvorne as ever the botch or scabbe vvas to the Egyptians he doth not onely despise or refuse and not recken of it but he putteth it off nay he casteth it off throweth it downe and biddeth it farewell for ever as not becomming him as if hee had rated and reprooved it in this manner haue I 〈◊〉 thee for pompe and pride and given countenaunce vnto my beggerlie and base vveedes in comparison of him who is cloathed with zeale as with a cloake and with righteousnesse as with an habergeon lye aside I mistooke thy nature thou
vse of it I have heard of a nation of men I will not say that their neighbour-hoode hath a little infected England who when their king hath intended a feast for the honour of his country and entertainement of forraine Embassadours they on the other side have proclaimed a fast as if God had sent them an Embassage of the last iudgement I cannot deny them time but surely they tooke not a season for so doing I will proove the matter in hand in the next circumstance and ioine them both togither wherein I observed Secondly that it was an orderly fast because the king and his counsaile had first decreed it I toucht it a litle by occasioÌ„ of the former senteÌ„ce the words directly leading 〈◊〉 therevnto If any remaine as yet vnsatisfied first for mine owne purgation know ye that I speake not as the Lord of your faith but as one that had obtained mercy to be faithfull in my calling I shewed you mine opinion and iudgement 2. for the thing it selfe search the scriptures for they beare witnesse of the trueth whither these publique religious extraordinary fasts had not alwaies their authority emanation from publike persons In the 20. of the booke of Iudges the chosen souldiers of Israell which vvere taken by lot out of all their tribes to fight against Beniamin in the quarrell of the levite whose wife was shamefully abused and murdered they held a publique fast from morning vntill evening the cause was a slaughter which they had receved of forty thousand men and a conscience they made of fighting against Beniamin their brethren The authors of the fast are the rulers of the people who in the Original are called the corners and heades of the people In the 1. of Sam. 7. they fast publiquely they drew water saith the text even rivers of teares powred them out before the Lorde the appointment is from Samuell who iudged Israel in Mispah and the cause their idolatry committed to strange Gods the absence of the arke from them full twenty yeares In the 2. Chronic. 20. there is a fast proclaimed throughout all Iudah Iehosophat the king proclaimed it the cause was the sodaine comming of a great multitude from Ammon and Moab aad Aram to invade his kingdome Esdr. 8. there is likewise a publique fast summoned in their returne towards Ierusalem Esdras the high priest ordaineth it the reason is that God woulde directe them in their way and preserue themselues their children and goodes in safety Another Esther 4. which Esther gaue Mordecay in charge for now Mordecay was the man on whome the heartes of all the Iewes in Shusan depended at that time The cause that God would assist Esther who with the hazard of her head when her people vvere neare their vtter extirpation adventured her selfe to speake to the king in his inner court being not called before him Another Ieremy 36. In the daies of wicked Iehoikim who cut the booke of the Lord with a penknife and caused it to be burnt It was certainely proclaimed by order from some that might commaund For who else could assemble together all the people in Ierusalem and all the rest that came from the citties of Iudah without speciall authority yea Iezâ—bell her selfe though the daughter of Belial was not ignorant what the manner of those times was Shee proclaimed a fast in Iezrael where Nâ—both dwelt to rob him of his vineyard and to betraie his life but first shee sent letters in the kinges name and secondlye sealed them with the kinges seale and lastly directed them to the elders and nobles of Iezraell that they might put them in execution But the Phrases vsed in Ioel doe sufficiently determine the nature of this action Blow a trumpet in Sion sanctifie a fast call a solemne assemblie gather the people sanctifie the congregation gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the lande assemble the children and those that sucke the breastes let the bridegroome and the bride goe forth of their chamber Now what is a sanctified fast but that which is publikely called and established either by God himselfe Levit. 23. or by the magistrate Bishop or prophet or who hath authority to draw the people from their worke to gather the aged and sucklings and al the inhabitants of the country togither to apoint an holy day vnto the Lord to be spent in praiers sacrifices but only these governours As in a receipt of Physicke the ingredients may al be good yet is it not so warrantable vnto vs neither are we willing to meddle therwith vnlesse a professour of Physicke by his art and authority prescribe it so in a publike fast privately convented I said before that all the exercises were christian religious their praier preaching singing and distributing to the poore but as our saviour told the rich yong man in the gospell there is one thing wanting vnto thee if thou wilâ— bee perfect sell all that thou hast c. So there is one thing wanting vnto these and to give them their full perfection we must suffer the rulers of the common wealth to apoint them Chrisostome calleth fastinge a kinde of Physicke but Physicke may be profitable a thousand times yet be hurtfull at a time for want of skill to vse it therefore he would never have it done but congrua cum lâ—ge with all the lawes that agree vnto it and every circumstance of time quantity state of the body with the like precisely observed He applieth the Apostles similitude No man striving for a maistery is crowned vnlesse he strive lawfully so it may fall out that amiddest the paines and afflictions of fasting vvee may leese the crowne of it Zonaras hath a rule to the same purpose treating likewise of fastes Good is never good except it bee done in good sort And Cyprian in like manner It prooveth not well which is done of headinesse and without order The Thirde thinge in the fast of Niniveh is the vniversalitye of it for it vvas not onelye publique and open but included almost vvhatsoever breathed amongst them It concerned first men which is heere indefinitelye put signifying the whole kinde from the man of grayest haires to the tenderest infant and as you hearde before from the greatest to the smalest secondly Beastes yea all sortes of beastes great and small oxen horses sheepe goates and whatsoever cattell they had of any service Fourthly it was very strict for they are forbidden to feede I say not to glut themselues but they might not so much as tast perhappes not delicate meates no nor anye thinge it had beene enough to haue kept them from eating but neither might they drinke I say not wines and curious electuaries but not so much as water which their rivers and welles afforded them Fiftelye it was serious and vnfained not false and sophisticall as the manner of hypocrites is It appeareth by that that followeth in returning from
handes These are they that doe all the Popes businesse You see how actiue and stirring the handes are Surely as Anaxagoras thought man to bee the wisest of all creatures because hee onely had handes whereby hee is able to speake if neede bee and to expresse all signes so I doe thinke him the wickedst of all creatures because hee onely hath handes and no Tiger or vulture vnder heaven more hurtefull vvith his clawes or talentes then man with his excellente member vvhen hee is disposed to vse it to bad purposes But to returne from those vvicked hands the Popes factours As Paul albeit he knew nothing by himselfe yet was hee not iustified thereby so though I know nothing by either of those two places vvhich I speake of yet haue I not freed my soule nor dischardged my duety vnlesse I admonish them both of that which may bee I trust they will pardon my charitable iealousie over them the same reasons of mightinesse and authority agreeing to them which were founde in Niniveh For what is the reason that men first imagine iniquitie and afterwardes contriue wickednes in their beddes and vvhen the morning is lighte put it in practise but because their hande hath power First they covet fieldes and then take them by violence and houses and take them away so they oppresse a man and and his house even a man and his heritage When a malicious will and a mightie hand concupiscence and violence meete you see how a familie and posterity is overthrowne by it VVhatsoever either violence or fraude bee meante by the wickednesse of the handes the Hebrewes agree that the meaning of the king and his counsaile vvas to call for restitution In the observation whereof as R. Kimhi affirmeth their forefathers of godly memorie were so carefully carefull not to offende that they made this decree If any had wrongfully taken a beame or rafter and vsed it in the building of a greate tower hee vvas to plucke downe the whole tower againe and restore that peece to his owner Habacuk doeth not much dissent from them For the stone shall crie out of the vvall and the beame out of the timber shall aunswere it woe vnto him that buildeth a towne in bloude and erecteth a cittie vvith iniquitie It shall bee better for them to pull downe towers and townes and citties and countries to the grounde rather then to suffer such skâ—ich-owles of woe to singe in the chambers thereof Saint Augustine to Macedonius is as peremptory in tearmes as ever the oppressour was in his violence That if the goods of an other man the taking away whereof was vniust maie bee restored and is not repentaunce is never truelie done but counterfeited But vvhere it is truelye done the sinne shall never bee pardrned till the spoile bee restored But as I saide before vvhen it may hee restored Wherein thou mayest deceiue thy selfe For though thou canst not restore in identity the same for the same yet thou mayest restore in equalitie so much for so much which was the meaning of Augustine Fulgentius noteth vpon the vvordes of Matthew Every tree vvhich bringeth not good fruite c. If barrennesse shall bee cast into the fire what doeth rapine and robbery deserue If iudgement shall bee without mercy to him that sheweth not mercy vvhat iudgemente shall bee to him that doeth also shewe cruelty And Rabanus noteth no lesse vpon that complainte of Christ Matthew twenty fiue I was hungry and thou gavest mee no breade VVhat shall hee receaue for taking away other mens who shall ever burne in hell fire for not giving his owne I vvas hungry and thou gavest mee no breade Nay I was hungry and that little breade that I had thou tookest from me I was naked and thou gavest mee no cloathing Nay that simple coate and cloke that I had thou spoiledst mee of I had but one vineyarde and thou deceavedst mee of it These in their iudgementes and conclusions went not so farre touching the necessity of restitution but Nehemias avowed it as deepely by actuall demonstration for hee shooke the lap of his garment and wished that the Lorde woulde even so shake out all those that restored not But if so excellent a governour in so different a case the houses and lands of the people beeing laide to gage by themselues and monye received vpon them vvere so angrye in his minde for the crie of the poore that he rebuked the princes and rulers for their sakes and set a greate assembly against them and put them to silence telling them that for the reproach of the heathen they ought to haue vvalked in the feare of the Lorde Which nowe they did not and praying them to giue backe the pledges againe and to remitte some parte also of the debte and not contente with their worde binding them by oath before the priestes to perfourme it nor vvith their oath but sealing it for more assurance vvith that fearefull sacrament of emptying his garmente himselfe cursing them to their faces if they brake promise and all the congregation crying Amen what shall vvee then saie of them or vvith vvhat reasons shall vve vrdge them or vvhat bondes shall vve take for their restitution who haue taken the houses and fields and of their brethren not as pledges but praies not voluntarilye yeelded but violentlye wrunge ouâ— without either mony or recompence to those vvhome they haue displaced If they loose the accepted time they will come and restore hereafter as Iudas did He brought the thirty pieces of silver againe but it was too late Let them rather learne of famous Zacheus whose praise is in the gospell and the singularity of whose fact maketh it almost a miracle Hee was the chiefe receiver of the tribute and hee was rich withall and if the country belyed him not a man of a sinnefull life I vvil not say that his office made him rich and his riches an evill man but officers that grow rich in haste hardly escape that gradation howsoever it were little Zacheus but as great in example as ever we read of a chiefe receiver and a chiefe restorer rich in substance and rich in good workes and in the midst of his sinnefull life a renouncer of his sinnefulnesse no sooner hee received Christ into his house and much more into his conscience but as if hee had lien in his dregges of extortion before hee novve stoode vp and not caring to bee heard of men nor hunting after earthly commendation spake vnto the LORDE Beholde Lorde with a readie and cheerefull heart offering his service and sacrifice before the face of his Saviour not the crummes of my table nor morselles of my meate but halfe of my goods a franke and bountifull present and I take them to bee mine owne honestly and lawefully gotten I giue with as free a minde as ever thou gavest to mee not to my friendes and kindred or to the rich of the vvorlde who are able to make
of liberty epicurisme sensualitie that we plucke vp good vvorkes as weedes by the rootes and cast them foorth of the doores as the children of the bondwomaÌ„ not worthy to inherite with the free-borne We never said that faith without workes barren and empty of her fruits iustified an vnrighteous soule but that faith so qualified doth notwithstanding iustifie without those workes this we mainetaine against men and angels so we remooue not workes from faith but workes from iustifying Still they followe their mistresse but in remission of sinnes and cloathing the sinner with the iustice of God therein they giue her the place and put the burthen of that worke vpon her shoulders Let Bilha the handmaide supply the defectes of Rahell and beare children vnto Iacob but let her ever remember that Rahel is aboue her and singular in some respect And let not Ioseph forget though he ride in the second chariot of Egypt be the next man to the king yet that the king hath reserved the throne to himselfe Shall I yet teach you by a more sensible and familiar demonstration Bethulia is in danger of Holofernes the terrour of the East as we of the iustice of God and as the strength of Bethulia was thought too weake to encounter him so all our obedience to the law of God is weake and vnsufficient to defende vs. Iudith vndertaketh for the people of her city faith for vs Iudith goeth accompanied with her handmaides faith with her works and though the eies of her handmaid were ever towards her Lady to carry the scrippe c. yet in performing that act of deliverance Iudith is alone her maide standing and waiting at the dore and not so much as setting her foot within the chamber So although our loue and obedience bee as attendant to faith as ever that servant was to Iudith yet in performing this mighty act of deliverance acquiting the conscience froÌ„ the curse of the law pacifying the anger of God and presenting vs blamelesse before his holy eies al which standeth in the apprehension of the merites of Christ and a stedfast perswasion that he hath assumed for vs faith is wholely and solely alone our workes not claiming any part in that sacred action Therefore wee conclude saith the Apostle Rom. 3. that a man is iustified by faith without the workes of the law Therefore you see saith Iames in the second of his Epistle that of works a man is iustified and not of faith only He is and he is not doth the one conclude the former and doeth the other inferre also by way of conclusion that he hath prooved the latter What shall we say is God divided or is there dissension in the spirit of vnity or is there more than one truth Apostle against Apostle Iames against Paul in one and the same question deriving a contrary conclusion Not so But as the striking of two flintes togither beateth out fire so the comparing of these their two opinions will make the truth more manifest Surely by faith we are iustified without the workes of the law Meane it of ceremonies as some doe meane it of morall commandements the position is both waies true This rocke we must cleaue vnto this rocke must be published abroad rockes stones will publish this rocke if we conceale it To him that worketh not but beleeveth on him that iustifieth the vngodly his faith is accounted for righteousnes Rom. 4. to him that worketh not I will not say that he worketh not at all but he worketh not in this action nor with any intent either to prepare or further his iustificatioÌ„ before the face of God his workes are not reckoned at that time nay they withdraw their presence and hang downe their heades and are abashed to offer themselues in that service But here is the point As I am iustified by faith without the workes of the law so by the workes of the law must my faith be iustified that is avouched made good and testified both to God and man with effectuall proofe and demonstration that it is not a naked fruitlesse hypocriticall faith but soundlye and substantially conditioned So Iames ment it And Thomas Aquinas writing vpon that Epistle confirmeth that meaning that the iustification vvhereof he spake is the exercising or accomplishing of iustice for a thing is then saide to bee done either vvhen it is perfected or when it is made knowne So then there is one righteousnesse imputed favoured and cast vpon vs though it bee not ours there is another righteousnes exercised or declared there is one iustice of iustification there is another iustice of testification there is one that acquiteth before God another that approveth especially before man the one without vs and lent the other within vs inhabitant and inherent the one in Christ and from him communicated to vs the other in our selues and to him in some sort recompenced For such is the nature of faith and loue as the Auncientes described their graces the one is in taking and apprehension the other is in giving and remuneration First we receiue by our faith and then by our charitie we returne some-thing Paule speaketh of the former of these iustifications Iames of the latter Paule delivered simply the doctrine Iames answered an obiection against those that gloried in the name and shadow of faith Paule instructed the vnderstanding Iames informed the life Paule as a Doctor and in the schooles lecturing Iames as a pastour and in the pulpit applying the one handling iustification properly the other to speake as properly sanctification the one establishing a reall christian iustifying faith the other confuting a verball devilish falsifying faith There is now then but one Lord one spirit one truth one gospell one tongue one soule in both these Apostles Consider the state of the question in this present example of the Ninivites You know what they were not only aliantes and strangers fâ—om the covenant and hope of God but of aliantes strangers such whose iniquity streamed into the highest heaven and called downe vengance vpon them What should they now doe to redeeme their peace For if they had fasted till their knees had bowed vnder them if they had put sacke-cloath about their loines till the haire and wale thereof had entred even into their soules if they had spent the day in crying and the night in wailing and if they had lived besides as iustly to the world as Aristides did in Athens who was banished the city for over-much iustice and had not withall beleeved I wil not say but God might haue spared to haue made them notorious examples of his iustice to the worlde but surely they had remained as aforetime children of darknes still and sonnes of perdition and the waies of peace they had never knowne Therefore to conclude on their parte they are iustified by their faith This is it that investeth them into the friendship and loue of God their very beleeving of him is imputed
vnto them for righteousnesse as it was to Abraham and to testifie that faith to man to make it perfect before God to seale it vp to their owne conscience they are abundant also in good workes which is that other iustification vvhereof Iames disputeth For as in the temple of Ierusalem there were 3. distinctions of roumes the entry or porch where the beasts were killed the altar where they were sacrificed the holiest place of al whither the high priest entred once every yeare so in this repentance of Niniveh there are 3. sortes of righteousnes the first of ceremony in wearing sacke-cloath and fasting the second of morality in restitution the third the iustice of faith and as it were the dore of hope wherby they first enter into the kingdome of heaven We haue heard what the Ninivites did for their partes let vs nowe consider what God for his It is said that he saw their workes and repentâ—d him of the plague intended and brought it not Nay it is saide that God saw their workes God repented him of the plague vvith repetitioÌ„ of that blessed name to let the world vnderstande that the mischiefe was not turned away for the value and vertue of their workes but for the acceptance of his own good pleasure nor for the repentance of the city but for the repentaÌ„ce of his own heart a gracious inclination propension that he tooke to deliver them No marvaile it was if when God saw their workes he bethought him of their deliverance For when the person is once approved received to grace which their faith procured them his blemishes are not then looked vpon his infirmities covered his vnperfect obedience taken in good part nay coÌ„meÌ„ded honored rewarded daily provoked with promises invitatioÌ„s of greater blessednes to come So a father allureth his son the servaÌ„t doth ten times more yet is the recoÌ„peÌ„ce of the son ten times greater for the father respecteth not so much the workes of his child but because he is a father teÌ„dreth followeth him with fatherly affection wheras the hired servant on the other side is but a stranger vnto him Why then were the works of Niniveh acceptable vnto God not of theÌ„selues but for their sakes that wrought them they for their faith for this is the root that beareth theÌ„ al. In that great cloud of witnesses Heb. 11. what was the reason that they pleased God besides the honour of the world that they vvere vvell reported of and obtained the promises which was the garlande they ranne for besides their suffering of adversities subduing of kingdomes vvorking of righteousnesse with many other famous exploites there ascribed vnto them what was the reason I say but their faith which is the whole burdeÌ„ of the song in that memorable bead-role By faith did Abell thus Enoch thus and others otherwise But why not their workes of themselues For is not charity more than faith these three remaine faith hope and loue but the greater of these three is loue 1. Cor. 13. And the first and the greate commaundemente is this Thou shalt loue the Lorde thy GOD c. Math. the two and twentith And the end of the commaundement is loue 1. Tim. 1. And loue is the fulfilling of the lawe Romanes the thirteenth I graunt all this if thou be able to performe it Loue the Lorde thy God with all thy heart c. and thy neighbour as thy selfe and there is nothing wanting vnto thee thou hast kept the commandement thou hast fulfilled the law thou needest not the passion of thy redeemer thou maiest catch the crowne of life by rightfull desert But this thou art not able to performe were thou as righteous as Noe as obedient as Abraham as holy as Iob as faithfull as David as cleare as the sunne and moone as pure as the starres in heaven yet thou must sing and sigh with a better soule than thine owne who saw and sighed for the impurity of all living flesh Enter not into iudgement vvith thy servant O Lorde for no flesh living can bee iustified in thy sight God hath concluded thee and thy fathers before thee and the fruit of thy body to the last generation of the world vnder sinne and because vnder sinne therefore vnder wrath and malediction and death if thou flie not into the sanctuarie to hide and safegarde thy selfe But blessed be the name of Christ the daies are come wherein this song is sunge in the lande of Iudah and through all the Israell of God farre and neare vvee haue a stronge cittie salvation hath God set for wals and bul-workes about it Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth faith may enter in Which is that righteous nation that shall enter into the citty of God thus walled and fortressed but that which keepeth faith or rather faithes as the Hebrew hath that is all faith not ceasing to beleeue till their liues end They that beleeue thus adding faith vnto faith the Lord vvill returne them as great a measure of his blessing even peace vpon peace in the next wordes because they trust in him We neede no better expositour The righteous man is he that beleeveth and the beleeving man is he that vvorketh righteousnes for these two shall never be sundred and the onlie key that openeth vnto vs the gates of the citty is our faith So then when we see good workes we must know that they are but fruites and seeke out the root of them and when we haue the root we must also haue regarde to the moisture and iuice whereby it is nourished For as the fruits of the earth grow from their root that root liveth not by it selfe but is fedde and preserved by the fatnes of the soile warmth of the sun benefite of the aire vnder which it standeth so good workes grow from faith and that faith liveth in the obiect the merites and obedience of Iesus Christ feeding and strengthning it selfe by the sweet influence and sappe of these heavenly conceites that he came into the worlde to saue sinners and that he died for her sinne and rose to life for her iustification For as we esteeme the worth of a ring of gold not so much in it selfe as in the gemme that it carrieth so are we iustified magnified also in the sight of God by faith in Christ not for this quality of beleeving which is as vnperfite as our works but for the obiect of this quality Christ our mediatour which is the diamonde and iewell borne therein The hand of a leper though never so bloudy and vncleane yet it may doe the office of an hand in taking and holding fast the almes that is given The giver may bee liberall enough and the gift sufficient to releeue though the hand that received it full of impurity So it is not the weakenesse of our faith in apprehending and applying the passion of Christ that
surely I rather thinke that they blessed Ionas in their heartes and that the dust of his feete was welcome and precious vnto them who by his travaile and paines had taught them to flie from the anger of God that was now falling Others conceaue the reason heere implyed therefore I prevented to be this Hee saw that the conversion of the Gentiles vvas by consequence an introduction of the overthrow and castinge out of the Iewes and that it woulde bee fulfilled vpon them which is written in Deuteronomy They haue mooved mee to iealousie with that which is not God they haue provoked mee to anger with their vanities and I mooue them to iealousie with those which are no people I vvill provoke them to anger vvith a foolish nation That is if wee vvill interpret it by this present subiect Niniveh shall repente and condemne Israell the more for not hearkning to the voice of so many Prophets Ierome brieflie thus It grieveth him not that the Gentiles are saved but that Israell perisheth Our Saviour we all know would not giue the breade of children to dogges and hee vvas not sent but to the lost sheepe of the house of Israell and he vvepte over Ierusalem which hee never did over Tyre and Sidon and the prerogatiue of the Iews was either onely or principally that repentance and remission of sinnes should be preached vnto them I remit you to the 10. of the Actes to see what labour was made to drawe Peter to the Gentiles whome hee called common and vncleane thinges And in the 11. of the same booke they of the circumcision contended with him aboute it sayinge thou vventest in vnto the vncircumcised and hast eaten with them It might be his further griefe that he onely amongst so many Prophets should bee singled out to declare the ruine of his people by the vprising of straungers to beare the envy of the facte and to bee the messenger of the vnwelcomest newes that ever Israll received For he is the first that must bring Iudaisme in contempt and make it manifest to the vvorlde that his country-men at home are vnfruitfully occupied and troubled about many things sacrifices sacramentes washinges cleansinges and the like when others abroade observing that one thing that is necessarie with lesse labour and businesse came to be saved Luther comparing the times wherein Ionas and himselfe lived openeth the case by familiar explication thus The Iewes accompted themselues by a constant opinion and claime the peculiar people of God the Romish themselues the onely Catholiques they thought there could be no salvation without observing the law of Moses and the rites of the Iewish Synagogue nor these without observing the ordinances and ceremonies of the Romish Church they cried powre out thy wrath vpon the nations and vpon the people that haue not called vpon thy name these held them for hereticks not worthy the aire they drew that ioyned not themselues vnto them Nowe lastlie as it was an odious office in these latter daies to preach vnto any nation or city vnder heaven that the foolishnesse of preaching and onely Christ crucified was able to saue soules without creeping to crosses kneeling knocking kissing sprinckling censing ringing fasting gadding with such like toyes and the conversion of any parte of Christendome vvith lesse circumstaunce coulde not but bee a shame preiudice and condemnation vnto Rome in some sorte that having greater helpes and furtherances to God went further from him so the reclaiminge of Niniveh by one when Iury had many prophetes by the denouncement of one when Iury had many prophecies by a single and short commination when Iury had the whole law and testimonies by a compendious course of repentance when they fasted and tithed and sacrificed and cryed the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord and I know not what coulde not lesse be than a reproach to the people which was so backwarde and an exception to their whole forme of religion wherein they no better profited It had beene no marvaile if when Ionas returned into Israell the hand of his own father and mother had beene first against him for doing that wrong to his people as they adiudged their bodies to the fire and their souls they delivered to Satan who opened their mouth against the church of Rome Whatsoever his reasons were whither the care of his credite or whither affection to his country-men drew him away to that recusancie both which are but particular and partiall respects when God commandeth otherwise his fault is no way excusable by reason but that God of his grace is ready to giue pardon and relaxation to al kinde of sinne Therefore I prevented Thy grounde is vnstable Ionas thy argumente vnsounde thou vsest but a fallacie to deceiue thy selfe thou hadst no reason so to do the will of the Lord of hostes which is absolute righteousnes a reason beyond all reasons withstoode it Thou thoughtest to prevent the Lord thou couldest not the vvindes saw thy hast staied thee the sea held thee backe the fish made resistaÌ„ce against thee the bars of the earth shut thee vp if these had failed in their misteries the wisedome of God would haue invented other staies He could haue stopped thee in thy course as he stopped Paule in his iourney by dazeling thine eies that thou shouldest not haue fouÌ„d thy way or as he stopped Lots wife in her way by making thee a pillar of salt or some other rocke of stone a monument of contradiction to the latest age of the world He could haue dried vp thy hands tied vp thy feete in iron no but in the bands of death never to haue stirred againe Let all the wisdome of man beware of the like preventioÌ„ least it prevent it selfe thereby of all the blessings of God vse of natiue country comfort of kinsmen friendes life of bodie happines of soule as Ionas might haue done if the mercies of God had not fauoured him When we are ignorant of the wil of God let vs lay our hands vpon our mouthes vpon our hearts too till God grant wisdome that we may descry it when we are doubtfull let vs enquire deliberate aske counsaile of the lawe testimony of God but when it is clearley revealed by open and expresse commâ—undement let vs not then pawse vpon the matter much lesse resist least of al prevent vnlesse by making a proofe experiment of our own wit as Ionas did we wil hazard that losse which the gain of the whole world shall never be able to recompence For I knew that thou art a gracious God and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindnesse and repentest thee of the evill· Ionas proceedeth to that which was the ground inducement to his rebellion For the order of the scripture is this God is a mercifull God for many respectes one part of office of that mercy is to repeÌ„t him of the evill that is to change his
to see brethren dwelling togither in vnity minding the same thing not the like but the same and having the same loue not equal but the same and having the same soules growing togither like twins concorporate coanimate and being of one iudgement Lastly he forgetteth not the most exquisite patterne of all loving kindnesses let the same minde be in you that vvas in Christ Iesus The same minde I am out of hope of it his loue was as stronge as death water could not quench it yea water and bloud could not put it out He cried vpon his crosse for the Iewes when hee hung vpon the top of a mountaine in the open face of heaven God and angelles and men beholding hearing wondering at it father forgiue them they know not what they doe Let not that minde be in you which is in lions and leopardes and good enough I haue heard of such peaceable times prophecied that swordes shoulde bee turned into fishes and speares into mattockes but never of so warlike furious wherein the tongues of men should be turned into swords and their heartes into wounding and slaying instrumentes yet though this were never prophecied we haue fulfilled it To make an ende the best remedy against iniuries is forgetfulnes Marcus Cato on a time being smitten in the bath to him that had done the wrong was desirous to make him amendes aunswered I remember not that I was smitten Shal Cato be wiser and patienter in his generation than wee in ours If wee cannot forget the time wherein wee haue beene smitten or otherwise iniuried at least let vs follow the coūsaile of the Psalme to bee angry without sinning that is if wee doe that which is naturall and vsuall and can hardly be stayed let vs avoide the other which can never be iustified Or if we sinne in our anger as who in the world is angry and sinneth not let the monition of the spirite of God in another place quickly temper our heat let vs beware that the sun goe not downe vpon it It was one part of the epitaphe written vpon Sylla his tombe Nemo me inimicus inferēdâ iniuriâ superavit I never had enimy that went beyond me in doing wrong Let not our liues or deaths bee testified vnto the world by such monumentes It was an honour fitter for Sylla of Rome an heathen a tyrant who died the chānels of the streetes with bloud than for any Christian. I will by your patience enter a little way into the next verse send as it were a spie to view at least the borders thereof before I proceede to examine the whole contentes So Ionas went out of the cittie It is thought by some that he offended no lesse in going foorth than when he first refused to come thither For he should haue continued amongst them to haue given them more warning The reason why Ionas went out I cannot rightly set downe Some coniecture and it is not vnlikely to avoide the company of wicked men for so he accompted the Ninivites and hee was afraide to beare a parte of their plagues The rule is good for can a man take coles in his bosome and not bee burnt or handle pitch and not bee defiled or flie with the Ostriches and Pellicans and not grow wild or dwell in the tents of wickednesse and not learne to be wicked or if Rahab abide still in Iericho Lot and his kindred in Sodome Noah and his family in the wast world Israell in Babylon shall those execrable places and people be punished by the hand of God and these not partake the punishmēt One place for many Iosh. 23. If yee cleaue vnto these nations make marriages with thē go vnto them they vnto you the Lord will no more cast them out but they shal be a snare and destruction vnto you a whip on your sides thornes in your eies vntill yee perish out of this good land which the Lord your God hath given you but his errour vvas in the applicatiō of the rule for if the Ninivites were so penitēt as before we heard the worst man for ought I know was within his owne bosome And sate on the East side of the city His purpose in chosing his groūd cannot certainly be perceived Ar. Mōt giveth this gesse that he thought if any plague were sent frō God it was likely to come from West and South because Iudaea in respect of Niniveh was so placed therfore because God was only knowne in Iudaea seemed to dwel no where els he wold surely punish thē out of those quarters for this cause as if he had decreed with himselfe if a scourge come frō God it shall not cōe neare me he taketh vp his lodging in that part of the city which was most safe Others make this supposition they say Tigris the river ranne on the west side of Niniveh vvhere by reason of their haven there was daily concourse of marchantes and passengers to and fro This frequencie Ionas avoided and betooke himselfe to that parte where the vvalkes were most solitaire and his heart might least be troubled Others thinke that hee shunned the heate of the sunne which in those countryes is farre more fervent than in ours and because in the mourning it is more remisse than at the heigth of the day when it is in the south or betweene the heigth and the declination when it draweth to the west therefore hee seated himselfe on the east side of the citie where hee might be freest from it Happily he vvent vnto that side by adventure quòpes tulit as his minde and feete bare him and it had beene indifferent vnto him to haue applied his body to any other side Or it may bee hee was thither brought by the especiall commandement and providence of almighty God As when Elias had prophecied of the drought for three yeares he was willed to goe towardes the East where he should finde a brooke to drinke of and the ravens were apointed to feede him It is not vnlawfull for mee to adde my surmise amongst other men In the East because of the sunne-rising there seemeth to bee greatest comforte and I nothing doubt but in this banishment of his Ionas sought out al the comfortes he might The garden in Eden which the Lorde God planted for man was planted Eastwarde Some say Eastwarde in respect of the place where Moses wrote the story that is of the wildernesse where Israell then was Others with more probabilitie in the Easterne part of Eden the whole tract wherof was not taken in for the garden but the choicest and fruitfullest parte which was to the East It is true in nature which some applyed to policie and to the state of kingdomes and families That more worshippe the sunne in his rising than at his going downe I saw all men living saith the Preacher ioyning themselues with the seconde childe which shall stande vp in the
proofe hereof may seeme to haue bin already past the forty daies fully accōplished Some thinke that Ionas went out of the citty some 3. or 4. daies before that tearme expired there waited the event that he was not displeased with God till after the time fulfilled Which seemeth not probable vnto me that Ionas so lately seriously with so much daūger of his life admonished of his duety neglected before would now againe forsake the Ninivites giue over his preaching before the accōplishment of those daies which God hath nūbred vnto him Others are of iudgmēt that the time was fully elasped that Ionas knew wel enough that God was minded to spare Niniveh touching their finall vtter overthrow yet not to pardō thē altogither without the irrogatiō of some lighter punishment vpō them As he dealt with Israel Exod. 23. when they worshipped the moltē calfe saying these be thy gods O Israel c. He threatned to cōsume thē yet afterwards though by the intercession of Moses he changed his minde from the evil which he threatned vnto them yet he forgaue thē not wholy but punished thē by the slaughter of three thousand men Lastly it is thought by a third cōpany that Ionas saw by revelarion the sparing of Niniveh In such variety of opinions I abridge not your liberty to take which best liketh you But howsoever you take it Ionas you see hath the thirstiest nature after the destructiō of Niniveh that might be If Ionas had bin armed vvith povver for in this respect he wanted not the spirit and wish of Elias to haue commaunded fire against the Ninivites as Elias did against the captaines and their bandes Niniveh had lien in ashes at the end of fourty daies for nothing can please Ionas vnlesse somewhat be done against the people of that place But his message being ended why returneth he not towards Israel again No he wil take an homely comfortlesse habitation he wil labour with his hands put them to base service he wil lie abroade in the field bearing the heate and burden of the day wet with the dew of the night and happily not fed in that solitary place but with the waters from the brooke and fruites of the earth of his owne provision and dressing only to stay the time and not to misse that opportunity when God should plague Niniveh the bruite and report whereof might not content but he wil see with his eies his desire vpon his enemies for they that heare are able to speak but of hear-say they that see are out of doubt There was some reasō that Moses was so sharply bent against an Egyptiā offering wrong to one of his coūtry-men Phinees against adulterers Peter against Malchus a servāt to his masters ēemies Paul against Elymas a sorcerer other Apostles against a village of Samaria for refusing to entertaine Christ but Ionas vpon smal reason a prophet of the Lord but lately his oratour bead-mā in a capitall daūger of his own you heare how his heart eies are fixed in a mercilesse affection against penitent and reformed men And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come vp over Ionas It seemeth that the booth was withered being built but of boughes or reedes or some other stuffe which the heate of the sun did easily worke vpon For when the gourd was afterward smitten the sun and the wind beat vpon the head of Ionas which argueth that his booth was defaced Before you haue heard of the building of Ionas novv God buildeth the one by art the other by nature the one a tabernacle of boughs the other an arbor or boure of a living or growing tree which the fatnes of the earth nourished having seed bud in it according to the kind therof the one withereth because it is but propt vp having no iuice in it the other spreadeth her rootes and strings in the ground having whereby to encrease I need not say how vnprofitable and barren the labour of man is being left to it selfe without the favour of God to supply the imperfectiōs therof This very place doth sufficiently iustifie that of the Psalme Except the Lorde build the house they labor in vaine that build it The fruites of the body fruites of the field fruits of cattle encrease of kine flockes of sheepe the basket the store in the basket they make a number shew of goodly cōmodities but vnlesse you giue them their blessing which is their annexed benedict us fructus vētris blessed shal be the fruit of thy body and blessed al the rest mourne as Esau did when Iacob had prevented him of the blessing as the grasse vpon the house tops which no man taketh in his hād or blesseth in his hearte so doe they languish pine away come to nothing The Lord must cōmaund his blessings to be with vs in our store-houses in al that we set our hād vnto as it is there added or our labour dieth betweene on◠fingers Zophar Iob 20. speaketh many things of the ioy of an hypocrite his excellency mounting vnto heavē his head reaching vp vnto the clouds yet he shal perish saith Zophar like the dunge they that haue seene him shal say where is he he shal flee away as a dream◠passe away as a vision of the night there is nothing left of his meate and no man shal hope for his good yea when he shall haue filled his belly God shall send downe his fierce wrath raine even vpon his meate You see there is nothing prospereth with him because he is an hypocrite and when he went to his worke the blessing of the Lorde was cōmaunded to stay behind The blessing of the Lord must be vpon the building of our houses watching of our citties tilling of our ground filling of our bellies training vp of our children or whatsoever paines we bestow in al these falleth into emptines This was it that secōded supplied the labour of Ionas hee built him a booth which withered but God prepared him a gourd an house of a better foundation because it lived by the moisture of the earth which the other was destitute of There is a great question cōtentiō betweene writers touching the plāt that was here provided what it was by kind how to be termed The wisdōe which God gaue vnto Adā Gen. 2. was yery great in the morning of all those creatures that God brought before him But concerning the hearbe or tree heere mētioned the most learned wise amōgst the Hebrews Greciās Latines Spanish Frēch Germanes Hetruriās haue labored beatē their braines to giue it a nāc but hitherto haue not found it and vnlesse there be some second Adam to speake his mind or an other Salomon who was able to speake of the trees frō the Cedar to the Hysope I thinke the controversie wil never be ended Notwithstanding as
iniquities but bring them not to action As much as to say I knowe that the motion of anger is not in your power but take heede of consenting vnto it Cassiodore expoundeth it thus the blessed Prophet permitted that which is vsual and accustomable vnto man which is to bee angry but forbad that vvhich in anger is sinnefull Others are of opinion that hee rather counsailed that which is naturall allowing it to bee good than permitted that which is vsuall Surely to bee angry is not sinne but in the circumstance wee may offende either in regarde of the obiect vvhich is revendge as if wee desire revendge against him who hath not deserved it or more than hee hath deserved or not holding a lavvefull course therein or not observing the right ende that is if wee bende not our selues to the preservation of iustice and the correction of offences but to execute our malice either in regard of the measure when we are angry over-much For anger is a tyrannicall affection if it bee not stayed with lawes and there is litle oddes betweene it and madnesse And as hardely are they ordered and pacified that are throughly possessed vvith a fitte thereof as men possessed with divels To the measure of affection we may also adde the length of time For anger and a sweete conceite of revendge may so long bee kept in the vessels of our hearts til it waxe eager and sower and bee turned into malice For anger and malice differ but in age as newe and olde wine Chrysostome concludeth vpon the wordes of our Saviour Math. 5. VVhosoever is angry with his brother without a cause c. Qui cum causâ non irascitur peccat Therefore hee that is not angry when there is iust cause sinneth for vnreasonable and supine patience soweth vice nourisheth negligence and inviteth not onely the bad and ill disposed but the good to naughtinesse The iustest cause is the cause of God rather than of man publique rather than private when the gospell of Christ is dishonoured iustice troden vnder foote falshod extolled not when our proper iniuries are pursued For as anger in the former place conceaved is not anger but iudgemente and a simple or advised motion of the will in the vpper part of the soule arising by the prescripte and rule of reason not a suddaine and troublesome passion of the sensitiue and lower part so apprehended in the later place for private and personall grudges whither vniustly or vpon deserte it never findeth toleration in the sight of God Cain was angry with Abell vndeservedly and sinned Esau with Iacob vpon the receipt of iniurie yet sinned Vterque punietur in iusté irascens quia in iusté iustà quia iniuriarum memor Both shal be punished the one for being angry without cause because without the other for cause given because he remembreth wrongs Wherefore the schoole-men and divines to keepe vs within our markes haue distinguished anger into two sortes The one agreeing with the commaundement of GOD and lawfull the other flatly against wis will The former zealous officious grounded vpon cause having both radicem bonam finem bonum as Bucer requireth a good roote and a good end such as the anger of Moses was Exodus the two and thirteeth for the golden calfe that was made when hee avendged the quarrell of GOD vpon a fewe and spared the multitude to shevve that hee hated the sinne loved their persons The other vicious affectionate private lightly accepted forgetting iniuries done to God and proposing to please it selfe as Lamech did Truely Lamech shall be avendged seventy times seven-folde and not regarding so much the offense as desirous that the offendour himselfe may bee rooted not The former of these two a little troubleth the eie of reason as eye-salue at the first causeth smarting and hindereth sight but aftervvardes the eye is cleared and amended thereby the other putteth it quite out By this shorte discourse you perceiue vvhat kinde of anger is not onely allowable but necessarie and requisite in those that are zealously zealous for the LORD of hostes as Elias vvas and cannot abide that his name and honour shoulde take harme vvhat kinde vtterlye condemned the originall vvhereof is in the sandes that is for trifles and gourdes the proceeding rest-lesse till a moate becommeth a beame vvhich difference Augustine noteth betvveene anger and hatred the marke the person not the crime and the end not to amende but to destroye him I conclude therefore with Saint Basile if you vvill bee angry vvithout sinning and shew forth the righte vse of this naturall and lavvefull affection knovve that one is allured to sinne another allureth him Converte your anger against the latter of these tvvo a murtherer of the brethren and the father of lies maligne not the other Irascimui vbi est culpa cui irasci debetatis Bee angrie vvhere there is a faulte that maye beare anger VVhich cannot bee private displeasure but a faulte openlye tendinge to the prophanation of Gods fearefull name pollution of his service and sacramentes a publicke scandalous enormous incorrigible and vnsufferable fault whereby his Christ is dishonoured his good Spirit of grace despighted and the whole congregation or family that is named in heaven and earth wounded blasphemed Be angry with those that are angry with God vpon every light occasion for every crosse wherewith they are tried ready to goe backe to walke no longer with him or if their mouthes be not filled with laughter and pleasure to their heartes desire or their bellies with garlicke and onions and flesh-pots as in the daies of darknes breaking forth into tearmes of highest vndutifulnes what profit haue wee by him Be angry vvith those that are angry with the prophets for prophecying right things vnto them and freeing their soules Be angry with Ionas and your prophets if they goe out of the citty to sit and shadow themselves vnder bowers and preach not and be angry with the citty if it repent not at the preaching of her prophets rather when they have pronounced the threatnings and iudgments of the most High take them to be but fables and like the sayings and doings of the madde man Prov. 26. who casteth fire-brands arrowes and mortall things and then saith Am I not in sport Be angry with dogges who returne continually to their vomit though they have bene purdged ten times And finally to knit vp all in one with the wordes of Ludolphus vpon the fourth Psalme irascimini vitijs diabolo vanit atibur mendacijs vobis ipsis c. Be ye angry with sinnes the devill vanities lies your selves with hearty repentaunce for your former misdeedes and zealous indignation that ever you have fallen into so base and beastly corruption nolite peccare vlteriùs and take heede that you fall not the second time as Ionas did into the same faultes THE XLVIII LECTVRE Cha. 4. ve 10.11 Then said the Lord thou hast had pitty on the
and kennings in some sort but not sufficient measures to skanne it by It is well observed by Cassiodore vpon the 51. Psalme that the beginning thereof Have mercy vpon me O Lord is the onely voice quae nunquam discutitur sed tranquille semper auditur which is never examined suspended delaied deliberated vpon but evermore heard with peace and tranquillity from God And in the Psalme 136. you shall finde his mercye both the mother that bread and the nurse that to this day feedeth and to the end of the world shal cherish and maintaine al the workes of God It standeth there like a piller or bounder at the end of every verse an endlesse and durable mercy not onely to beautifie the Psalme but to note that the whole frame of the world and every content thereof in particular touching both creation and government oweth not onely their being but their preservation and sustenance to Gods goodnes 4. To leave the persons and to examine the thinges themselves what was a gourd a matter of nothing and in nature but a vulgar ordinary plant for there is a difference in trees as Deut. 20. there is a law made that in besieging a citty they shall not destroy the trees thereof by smiting an axe into them the reason is for thou mayest eate of them therefore thou shalt not cut them downe For the tree of the fielde is mans life Onelye those trees vvhich thou knowest are not for meate those thou shalt destroy and make fortes against the citty Nowe of this tree there vvas none other vse either for meate or for ought besides that he knew save onely for shadow From this difference of things our Saviour argueth Luke 14. when hee healed the man sicke of the dropsy vpon the sabboth day vvhich of you shall have an asse or an oxe fallen into a pit and will not straight way pull him our on the sabboth day For if they tendered the welfare of their beastes much more might he regard the life of man which was far more precious And it is there said that they were not able to aunswere him againe in those things they were so plainely evicted 5. Touching the accidents of this gourd if Ionas had planted nursed it vp which he did not he should have regarded it none otherwise than as a gourd he should not have doted vpon it as Xerxes is reported to have loved a plane-tree in Lydia and he could hardly be drawne away from it and Passienus Crispus twise Consul of Rome a mulberry tree they seeme to have beene some notable bovvers which they fel so in love with The nature of man is to love the works of his owne handes The Poet describeth it in the fable of Pigmalion arte suâ miratur hee is surprised with the liking of his owne arte Who planteth a vineyard saith the Apostle and eateth not of the fruite thereof For this is the ende why he planted it It is confessed Eccles. 2. to be the hand of God that wee eate and drinke and delight our soules with the profit of our labours Nabuchadonozor Dan. 4. boasteth of his greate pallace not which his fathers and progenitours had left vnto him but himselfe had built for the honour of his kingdome The Apostle telleth the Corinthians that hee had laid the foundation amongst them and that others did but builde vpon his beginninges and that although they had tenne thousand maisters in Christ yet had they not many fathers for in Christ Iesus hee had begotten them through the gospell Wherfore he requireth them in equity to be followers of him because they were his building and children and he had a right in their consciences which other men coulde not challendge Novv this vvas a tree wherein Ionas bestowed no labour nec arans nec serens nec rigans neither in preparing the ground nor in setting nor in dressing it was not his worke whereas the Ninivites were Gods creatures neither belonged that to his tuition or chardge to see it preserved whereas that people had evermore lived vnder Gods providence 6. If the continuance and diuturnity of time had bred any liking in Ionas towards the gourd because we coÌ„monly loue those things wherwith we are acquainted his passion might the better haue bene tolerated Nathan doth the rather amplifie the fault of David in taking away the poore mans sheepe because he had had bought it and nourished it vp and it grew vp with him and vvith his children Length of time commendeth many things It commendeth vvine vvee say the olde is better It commendeth wisedome Counsaile must be handled by the aged speres by the young It commendeth truth Id verius quod prius The first is truest It commendeth custome thou shalt not remoue the auncâ—ent boundes which thy fathers haue set It commendeth friendshippe thine owne friend and thy fathers friend forsake thou not forsake not an olde friend for a new will not bee like vnto him It commendeth service in the fielde dost thou despise the souldiours of thy father Philippe saith Clytus to Alexander and hast thou forgotten that vnlesse this olde Atharias had called backe the young men when they refused to fight wee had yet stucke at Halicarnassus Lastly it commendeth our dwellinge places possessions Barzillai telleth David vvho vvoulde faigne haue drawne him alonge vvith him I am foure-skore yearee olde let mee returne to mine ovvne citâ—ye and be buryed in the graue of my father and mother And Naboâ—h telleth Ahab the Lorde keepe me from giving the inheritance of my father vnto thee It would somwhat more haue commended the gourd if Ionas had long enioyed the vse thereof which he did not it was but the child of a night both in rising and falling sodainely sprung vp and sodainely dead againe So there is neither price in it because it is but a gourd nor propriety because he had not laboured for it nor prescription of long acquaintance because it was soone dead Now that which is set against the gourd on the other side is by name Niniveh by forme a citty by quantity a great citty and shall not I spare Niniveh that great citty Niniveh at this time the heade of Assiria the fame and bruite wherof filleth the world and holdeth the people in awe by reason of her soveraigne government Niniveh no villadge or hamlet of the East but a citty that had walles gates for so is the nature of a citty described we haue a strong citty salvation shall God set for our walles and bulwarks Esay 26. and the people wherof are inclosed within orders and lawes as the buildinges within fences Niniveh no small citty in Assiria as Bethlehem was in Iudah or as the litle city of Zoar which Lot fled into but a lardge and spacious citty in circuite of ground but for the number of inhabitants most populous and abundant Now the greater the place is the
some are loath to feele it I haue both knowne and felt what to read a lecture is For if to read alecture be not onely to read as the name soundeth or onely to speake by an houre glasse and to spend the time if more than to talke and conferre vvith some single commentary and not onely to search translations as the brookes but to examine the original as the wel-spring both to peruse and compare the expositions of the learned for the spirites of prophets are subiect to prophets and wee all prophecie one by one in severall ages that we all may haue comfort one by anothers labours and not as drones to liue by the hony which Bees haue gathered but our selues to make hony and to adde to the travaile of others for the building and perfecting of Gods church for as they haue found out many thinges so they haue left many to be sought by vs and to plaie the partes of thrifty and good husbandes in making our patrimonie lardger which we haue received from our fathers togither with studious meditation discreete application to the time persons and place endlesse succession of paines after paines then I am sure that to read a lecture is a greater labour than some in opinion wil conceiue others demonstrate and make proofe of by practise There be that run awaie with a lecture as horses with an empty cart I cannot do it It is but a moate with them to read thrise in a weeke and twise in a day sometimes I will not dissemble my wantes It was a beame to my backe to make it my weekely exercise For if ever my handes were manicled and my feete bounde vp before I say not from taking pleasure which I little regarde but from follovving the course of my necessarie and gravest studies then did I purchase that bondage vnto my selfe vvhen I offered my necke to this yoke How often haue I said within my selfe Beatus ille qui procul negotijs Paterna rura bobus exercet suis as Horace commended a country life howe happy is that man in comparison if to liue in ease be any part of happines who hath a rural chardge That I leaue no man to succeed me as Moses left Iosuah Elias Elizaeus and such like though it be my griefe yet I cannot remedie it It is threatned for a curse in Ieremy there shall bee none to saie leaue thy fatherlesse children vnto me Mihi non minori curae est qualis Respublica post mortem meam futura sit quà m qualis bodie My care is as great for your church when I am departed as whilst I am present For I hate the improvident and importunate nature of Heliogabalus who wished to bee heire to himselfe and to see an ending and dying of all things with his owne person But your benevolence is your owne and I cannot commende it as inheritaunce to any otherman Onely my comfort is that which Abraham gaue to Isaac when hee savv not the sacrifice Deus providebit God will provide for you if you bee not wanting to your selues For let me say with your favourable construction there are many vvithin these walles that know not their right handes from the left children in vnderstanding and much cattle take them in that sense that Peter and Iude meane them beastes vvithout reason men vvithout humanity as bad as the horse and the mule in whome is none vnderstanding For these there are not preachers enough or rather to saie the truth authority hath not edge and vigour enough to compell them to come in that the house of God may bee filled They walke in the fieldes in the streetes at their pleasure they lie at their dores vpon their beddes they sit downe to eate drinke and to be drunken and rise vp to play They may doe worse than all this in chambering in wantonnes in vntolerable filthines even vpon the best daies and in the best houres of the day and who suth vnto them what do yee They haue lived a part by themselues a long time and sung with their own muses whome I would haue besought now lastly even in the bowels of Christ and for conscience towardes God to haue redressed this blot to their cittie But so they haue lived and dwelt as if Iordan had lien betweene them and vs that they could not come at vs. I mislike not their absence for they are provided of their owne and as the women said in Esay we will eate our owne bread and vveare our owne garmentes so may they iustly excuse themselues we haue a peculiar vineyard and a labourer of our owne to see it kept and manured I say so but if there were more than this forgiue my Christan iealousie that some of purpose would not and others might not come because of offence God forgiue it I never offended thē vnlesse I committed that fault which the Apostle speaketh of 2. Cor. 12. that I was not chardgeable or burthensome vnto them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee desired them to forgiue him that wrong and if mine be the same trespasse I aske the same pardon I preached not Christ of envy I preached not Christ for glory I preached not Christ for gaine and neither to please nor iustly to offende any man I preached Christ in vprightnes and simplicity of heart and walked with the evenest foote that I could by all meanes labouringe if it were possible to saue some Which if I haue obtained though it be my great ioy and a crowne vnto me yet I glory in him that hath enabled me therevnto and cast my crowne at his feet by whom I had grace to performe it Lastlie it is my comforte and ever may it be to see such an happie and friendlie aspect of so manie principall planets togither in one place I hope they shall ever bee founde in that mutuall correspondence vvherein I now leaue them For whilest I liue I shall pray for the peace of our Ierusalem Which peace of our Ierusalem if either praiers to God or petitions to men if travaile of body or contention of minde if sheading of teares or spending of bloude may purchase to our Church or common-wealth it is not dearely bought Division had well-nigh broken of late the heart-strings of religiō amongst vs. O let the head and the heart with other the soveraigne parts evermore accord that the inferiour members may bee the better governed Finallie my brethren fare yee well It is the Apostles farewell to the Corinthians be perfite sticke not alwaies in the rudimentes and first beginnings Bee of good comforte you know who hath overcome the world Be of one minde and liue in peace and the God of loue and peace shall bee with you And so I leaue you to the mercy of God neither greater nor lesse than this prophecie doth record beseeching the God both of Israell and Niniveh and al the endes of the earth that his blessings may bee
are duo in carne vnà as it were two in one flesh Some are vnskilfull in their profession such as Plinie speaketh of experimenta per mortes agunt they kill men to gaine experience And Seneca noteth the like officiosissimè multos occîdunt they are very busie to cast many men away Others are vnfaithfull these in my iudgment are moe to be eschewed than the former evil couÌ„sailors healing the hurts of the people with sweet words crying peace peace al is wel wheÌ„ behold Annibal is at the gates death is entered in at the windowes and at the dores and hath taken the fort of the body into her handes Such are very vnlikely to make found bodies because they come with vnsound hearts and of these is the proverbe verified tituli pharmaca habent pyxides venena al their titles pretences and promises are health health but their drugges and receiptes are poyson I meane not so much to the bodies as the soules of men Trust not in man therefore neither in his strength nor in his skil fidelity for there is no helpe in him Why no help His spirit departeth not only his strength his health his agilitie his liuelihood but his breath I wil ioine the residue of my thxt all in one nor only his breath but his flesh bloud bones marrow sinewes arteries al must goe There is a resolution of his whole substance his last garment which is his skin shal be pulled of he hath here no abiding place nor any state of perpetuity but returneth not immediatly to heaven but to the earth nor to the earth as a straÌ„ger vnto him or an vnknown place but to his earth as his familiar friend of old acquaintaÌ„ce Neither is there only an end of these materiall partes but part of his inward man also perisheth so farre as his carnall and wordly designements went which he fansied to himselfe in his life time Here is the end of al flesh they soiourne vpon the face of the earth their spirit also soiourneth within their bodies It coÌ„meth returneth as a ttavailer by the way staieth perhaps for an houre a daie a yeare a decade of yeares more or lesse theÌ„ exit spiritus our breath departeth from vs. And God called Abraham â—xi de terra tua goe out of thy countrey vvherein thou wert borne bred so he calleth to our spirites come out of your houses wherein you haue long dwelt There is but one manner of entering into the world but many waies of going out we are full of holes wee take water at a thousand breaches one dyeth younge another in a good age some in their full strength vvhen their breasts are full of milke some by the hande of God some by sicknes infirmity some by violence The infants of Bethelem are slaine in their cradles Eglon in his parlour Saule in the field Isboseth vpon his bed Zenacharib in the teÌ„ple Ioab at the very altar some die by famine as the cildren of Ierusalem some by saturitie and surfetting as the children of Sodome some by beares as the boies that mocked Elizeus some by lioÌ„s as the disobedient prophet some by wormes as Herod some by dogges as Euripides but Lucian better deserved that death and he also sustained it The sonnes and daughters of Iob in the middest of their leasting with the fall of an house Chore his complices with the opening of the arth the captaines and their fifties with fire from heaven the coles whereof were never blowne Zimri with fire from earth which himselfe kindled eosdem penates hahuit regiam rogum sepulchrum as Val. Maximus writeth of Tullus Hostilius who was smitten with lightning the same house was both his pallace pile graue to be buried in I adde that which is more admirable Homer died of griefe because he coulde not aunswere a riddle which fisher-men proposed vnto him Sophocles with ioy because in a prize of learning after long expectation he got the victory of his adversary but by one voice Behold ye despisers ' woÌ„der at the haÌ„d of God you that are in league with death make a truce with the graue you that say to your soules take thine ease bee at rest for many yeares to morrow shal be as this day much better with whoÌ„ there is nothing but as in the daies of Noah eate drinke marry vntill the floud coÌ„meth Seeing that both sorrow ioy are able to kil you and your life hangeth vpon so small a thread that the least gnat in the aire can choke you as it choked a Pope of Rome a little haire in your milke strangle you as it did a counsailour in Rome a stone of a raisin stop your breath as it did the breath of Anacreon put not the evill daie far froÌ„ you which the ordinaÌ„ce of God hath put so neare remeÌ„ber your Creator in time before the day come wherin you shal say we haue no pleasure in them walke not alwaies with your faces to the East somtimes haue an eie to the West where the sun goeth downe sit not ever in the prow of the ship sometimes goe to the sterne stand in your watch-towres as the creature doth Rom. 8. and waite for the houre of your deliverance provide your armies before that dreadful king coÌ„meth to fight against you with his greater forces order your houses before you die that is dispose of your bodies and soules and all the implements of them both let not your eies be gadding after pleasure nor your eare itching after rumors nor your mindes wandering in the fields when death is in your houses your bodies are not brasse noâ— your strength the strength of stones your life none inheritance your breath no more than as the vapour and smoake of the chimny within your nostrels or as a stranger within your gates comming going againe not to returne any more til the day of finall redemption It is a wonder that there should be need of any such exhortation after so long experience If we were as Adam was who never saw the example of any precedent death we might the more iustly be excused for as Christ spake in the gospell of the vertues done in Chorazin Bethsaida if the vertues wrought amongst you had beene wrought elsewhere c. So if those innumerable deathes which haue bin shewed amongst vs had beene shewed in the daies of Adam before his fall he would never haue runne into that contempt We know that we must die and as Calvus spake againg Vatinius you know that he hath practised ambition and there is no man but knoweth that you know so much so we know the certainety of our death as we knovv our names and the iointes of our fingers and yet we regard it not What are all the citties and townes of the earth so farre as the line thereof is stretched but humanarum cladium miseranda
take him into her possession Let the covetous also remember this Nature shal as narrowly examine them at their going out as at their first entring They brought nothing with them into this world but skin over their teeth and over the other partes of their bodie and it is as certaine they shall carry avvay nothing They ioine house to house field to field by disioyning the companies and societies of men they vvill dwell alone vpon the earth leaue the inheritance of the worlde to their babes after them And as they vvere happy common-weales heretofore wherein these speaches Mine Thine were least heard so are we falleÌ„ into these vnhappy and vnrighteous daies wherein there is small care taken what communities bee overthrowne and dispersed so all may acrue to a fewe Lordes Socrates carried Alcibiades bragging of his landes to a map of the world and bade him demonstrate where his land lay He could not espie it for Athens it selfe was but a smal thing I will not deale so sparinglie with you ye rich men of this world for the Apostle distinguisheth you to shew that there are both riches and a worlde to come I will tell you where your lande lieth and vvhat is truely mine and thine and belonging to every man So much measure of ground to the length and breadth of your bodies as maie serue to burie them in or so manie handfulles of dust as your bodies goe into after their consumption This is terra mea terra sua terra vestra my earth and his earth and your earth more than this we connot claime Therefore as the son of Sirach asked the prowd Quid superbis terra câ—â—is so I the covetous quid concupiscis terra cinis VVhy doest thou covet earth and ashes vvhen if it vvere possible for thee to possesse as much grounde as ever the devill shewed vnto the sonne of GOD from that high mountaine yet in the ende thou shalt be driven from all this as the people of Canaan vvere driven from that lande vvhich they thought their everlasting inheritance and thou must betake thy selfe to thine ovvne earth to that little quantitie and rod of grouÌ„d which nature hath proportioned unto thee Ecce vix totam Hercules Implevit vruam Behold great and victorious Hercules the subduer of the monsters of the world when he was dead and his bodie resolved into ashes scarselie filled an earthen pitcher Amongst other thy purchases forget not to buy a field as AbrahaÌ„ did to bury thy dead in a potters field such as they had at Ierusalem bought with the price of bloude vvherein thy bones and the bones of thy sonnes and nephewes may be bestowed· Now the thoughtes of man are endlesse Aboue all things man hath an vnfaithfull hearte saieth the Prophet as deepe as the sea vvho can finde it out I leaue it to the searcher of all hartes to examine The ambitious hath his thoughtes as lardge as hell such as Pyrrhus had from Macedon to Greece from Greece to Italy c. The voluptuous his thoughtes let vs eate and drinke Better is a living dogge than a dead lion The malicious his thoughtes vvho vvill giue mee of his flesh to eate The covetous his thoughtes soule take thy rest to daie or to morrovve wee will goe into such a cittie and there continue a yeare and buy and sel and gaine Such are the purposes and supposals of men minding earthlie things But the Lord knoweth the thoughts of meÌ„ that they are but vanity I would they were not grosse impiety And they imagine such counsailes as they are not able to bring to passe for their thoughts perish Plus proficitur cum in rem praesentem venitur there is more good done by one example than by manie preceptes Perhaps I haue told you a tale as to men a sleepe and novve I haue done you aske me vvhat is the matter This is the matter if there vvere none other explication the present spectacle before your eies is the example of this precept the life of this letter this precept the sentence or moral of this spectacle For if you will aske me of the person proposed to your view what he was surely he was a Prince a great state of the land and I maie saie of him as David said of Abner hoaâ—e princeps cecidit in Israele this daie is there a chiefe man fallen in England If you demauÌ„d further what he was by generatioÌ„ I auÌ„swer one of the sonnes of men If what by impotencie and imperfection vnable to helpe either himselfe or others there is no salvatioÌ„ in him If whither he were mortall or no yea for his spirit is departed from him If what becommeth of his body you see we haue brought it to the earth and thither 〈◊〉 must returne If what of his minde his thoughtes are also gone Lastly if you wil know the vse take an advise and counsaile out of all these put not your trust in him nor in anie the like fraile mutable creatures Blessed is the man whose helpe is in the Lord Non â—lle homo aut ille homo non ille angelus aut ille angeâ—u not this man or that man not this Angell nor that Angell but the God of Iacob the Lorde of hostes vvhich made heaven earth the sea and all that therein is and keepeth his promise for ever He that not long since was a glorious tree amongst vs like the Cedar of Libanus his boughes were a shadow to these North partes hath had the message of the Lord by his angell accomplished vpon him hew downe the tree and there is but a stumpe left a remnant of that substance now to be hid and buried in the earth till the daie-spring froÌ„ an high the light of Gods couÌ„tenance shal againe visite it Do you doubt of the fal of Princes handle see his body that here lieth examine his nostrels if there be any breath in them his eies if they haue any sight his cheeks if any colour his veines if any warme bloud and then beleeue as the Samaritans did not because of my word but because your selues are witnesses vnto it And as his body in life hath giveÌ„ you many an instructioÌ„ so let his dead breathlesse corpse adde one more vnto you of coÌ„moÌ„ vnevitable mortalitie It hath bin the maÌ„ner of auÌ„cient times to coÌ„meÌ„d their dead rather to testifie their good affection bemoane their losse to hold out the lampe of their vertuous liues to others left aliue than to gratifie the deceased Thus David commended Saul and Abner Elizaeus Elias the Apostles those Sainctes whome the worlde was not worthy of Nazianzen Basil making his followers in comparison with him for his excellent parts no more than an Eccho to the true voice Thus Bernard lamented Malachy complayning that his very bovvells were pulled from him and he could not but feele the wounde Our
which barre vp thine owne sinnes Looke not into the coffers and corners of other mens infirmities Otherwise thy dissembled sinnes which thou hordest vp vvithin thy bones and arte afraide to set before thine eies shall be written in the brow of thy face brought to light and blowne abroad with the sounde of trumpets that all the world may say Lo this is the man that iustified himselfe in his life time and would not confesse his sinne THE TENTH LECTVRE Cap. 1. ver 7. And the lot fell vpon Ionas OF the foure parts before specified collected out of this verse the last onlie remaineth to be examined to wit the successe of the lottes which the last member thereof doth plainelie open vnto vs. Let me once againe remember the proverbe vnto you The lots are cast into the lap but the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. In a matter merely casuall for ought the wisedome of man can iudge as Tullie sometimes said to a man who spake rashly and vnadvisedly Hoc non est considerare sed quasi sortiri quid loquare this is not to speake with discretion but as it were by lot and hap-hazard the triall standing herevpon who threw more who lesse who drew blacke who white so forth the choice of the whole bunch lying before him his own hands his carvers ministers in the action each man faining that hope to him selfe for his evasion which the son of Sirach mentioneth In populo magno non agnoscar quae est anima mea in taÌ„ immensâ creaturâ I cannot be known in so greate a multitude what is my one soule amongst a 100 yet doth the finger of the lot directly faithfully point him out for whose cause the storme was sent The strong perswasion that these men had that their lot would not erre in the verdit thereof giveth a singular testimony approbation to the providence of the godheade as being an vniversall imperiall art which all the affaires in the worlde are subiect vnto that in the greatest smallest thinges in matters of both choice chance as they seeme to vs the wisdome knowledge of God is at hand to manage them according to the Apostles speech Ephe. 1. He worketh all things after the counsell purpose of his will so first he hath a will secondly a counsell to go before his will thirdly an effect accomplishment to succeede it lastly as generall patent a subiect as the world hath There are Philosophers haue beene which thought that the Gods had no regard of humane affaires whose opinion saith Tullie if it be true what piety can there be what sanctity what religion Others though they went not so far as to exempt al thinges yet they withdrew the smaller from the heauenly providence For it was thought most iniurious to bring down the maiesty of God so lowe as to the husbaÌ„ding of bees pismires as if in the nuÌ„ber of Gods there were soÌ„e Myrmecides to carue procure the smaller works Elswhere he also reciteth their improvident speeches to the same purpose as for the smaller things that Gods neglect them they go not so far as to take view of euery parcell of ground and litle vine that every one hath neither if blasting or haile hath endamaged any man doth Iupiter obserue it nay they make a scorne that those who are quiet at ease in heaven should trouble themselues about petty occasions The Peripatetickes an other sect colledge of philosophers housed that providence aboue the moone and thought it had no descent beneath the circle thereof to intend inferiour businesses What doe the Epicures in Iob say lesse Eliphas at least in their names How shoulde God know can he iudge through the darke cloudes the cloudes hide him that he cannot see and he walketh in the circle of heaven A verroës sirnamed the Commenter a Spanish physitian that he may seeme to be mad with reason by reason fortifieth the former iudgements For he thinketh that the knowledge and vnderstanding of God would become vile if it vvere abased to these inferiour and infirmer obiectes As if a glasse vvere deformed because it presenteth deformities or the beames of the sunne defiled because they fall vpon muddie places or the providence of God vilified who though hee hath his dwelling on high yet he abaseth himselfe to beholde thinges in heaven and in earth As he spake the worde and all things were created so he sustaineth and beareth vp all thinges by the power of his worde His creation was as the mother to bring them forth his providence the nurse to bring them vp his creation a short providence his providence a perpetuall creation the one setting vp the frame of the house the other looking to the standing and reparation thereof I cannot determine this pointe in tearmes more graue and significant then Tully hath vsed against the Atheists and Epicures of that age He is Curiosus plenus negoâ—ij Deus a curious God exquisite in all things full of busines He is not a rechles careles improvident God or a God to halfes in part aboue not beneath the moone or as the Syrians deemed vpon the mountaines and not in the vallies in the greater and not in the lesser emploimeÌ„ts he is very precise inquisitiue having a thousand eies and as many handes yea all eie all hand both to obserue and to dispatch withal examining the least moments titles in the world that can be imagined to an handfull of meale and a cruse of oile in a poore widdowes house the calving of hindes the feeding of â—ong Lions and ravens the fâ—lling of sparrowes to the grounde cloathing of lillies and grasse of the fielde numbring of haires and to returne to that from which I first digressed the successe of lottes I cannot conceiue how the land of Canaan coulde bee devided as it was betweene many and few for so was the order by God set that many shoulde haue the more few the lesser inheritance vnlesse the hand of the Lord had beene in the lap to reach vnto every tribe familie what was convenient proportionate otherwise the fewer might haue had the more and the more the lesse inheritaÌ„ce And was it not much thinke you that vvhen Samuell had annointed Saul king over Israel he woulde afterwards goe from his right leaue a certainty put it to the hazard of lottes whether Saul should be king or no but that hee assured himselfe the providence of the Lord would never forsake his intendement Therefore of all the tribes of Israell Beniamin of all the families of Beniamin Matri of all the kindred of Matri the house of Cis and of all the house of Cis Saul was chosen to the kingdome In the booke of Esther the day and the moneth were by lot appointed when all the people of the Iewes olde and young women and
children within the citty of Shusan throughout all the provinces of the kingdome should be destroied But did the Almighty sleepe at this wicked and bloudy designemeÌ„t or was his eie held blind-folded that he could not see it No that powerfull and dreadfull God who holdeth the bal of the world in his hand and keepeth a perfite kalender of all times seasons had so inverted the course of thinges for his chosens sake that the moneth day before prefined became most dismal to those that intended mischiefe Without further allegations this may suffice as touching the successe of the lots and consequently the providence of God in the moderation thereof It is now a questioÌ„ meete to be discussed the offender being found whether it stande with the iustice of God to scourge a multitude because one in the coÌ„pany hath transgressed For though I condemned their arrogancy before in that not knowing who the offender was they wiped their mouthes each man in the ship with the harlot in the Proverbs asked in their harts Is it I yet when the oracle of God hath now dissolved the doubt and set as it were his marke vpon the trouble plague of the whole ship they had some reason to thinke that it was not a righteous parte to lay the faults of the guilty vpon the harmelesse innocent This was the cause that they complained of old that the whole fleete of the Argiues was overthrowne Vnius ob noxam furias Aiacis Oilei for one mans offence Nay they were not content there to rest but they charged the iustice of God with an accusation of more vveight Plerunque nocenâ—es Praeterit examinatque indignos inque nocentes as though oftentimes hee freed the nocent and laide the burthen of woes vpon such as deserved them not It appeareth in Ezechiell that the children of Israell had taken vp as vngratious a by-word amongst them the fathers haue eaten the sower grape and the childrens teeth are set on edge and they conclude therehence the waies of God are not equall It was an exception that Bion tooke against the Gods that the fathers smarte was devolved to their posterity and thus hee scornefully matched it as if a physitian for the grandfathers or fathers disease shoulde minister physicke to their sonnes or nephewes They spake evill of Alexander the greate for razing the city of the Branchides because their auncestoures had pulled downe the temple of Miletum They mocked the Thracians for beating their wiues at that day because their foreruÌ„ners had killed Orpheus And Agathocles escaped not blame for wasting the island Corcyra because in ancienter times it gaue entertainment to Vlysses Nay Abraham himselfe the father of the faithfull heire of the promises friend of God disputeth with the Lord about Sodome to the like effect Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked Againe Be it far from thee for doing this thing to slay the righteous with the vnrighteous and that the iust should be as the vniust this be far from thee shal not the iudge of al the world do right In the booke of Numbers when God willed Moses Aaron to seperate themselues froÌ„ the congregation that he mighte at once destroy them they fel vpon their faces said O God the God of the spirits of every creature hath not one man only sinned wilte thou bee wroth with all the congregation In the first of Chronicles when for the offence of David in numbring his people the plague fell vpon them slew seventy thousand of them the king with the elders fell downe cried vnto the Lord Is it not I that commanded to number the people It is even I that haue sinned and committed this evill but these sheepe what haue they done O Lord my God I beseech thee let thine hand bee vpon me and vpon my fathers house and not on thy people for their destruction I answere this hainous crimination grievance against the righteousnes of God in few words froÌ„ the authorities of Ezechiel Ieremy before alleaged Behold all soules are mine saith the Lord both the soule of the father also of the sonne are mine the soule that sinneth it shall die O yee house of Israel is not my way equal or are not your waies vnequall If it vvere a truth which the poet sang to his friend Delicta maiorum immeritus lues Romane thou shalt beare the faultes of thy forefathers vvithout thine owne deservings the question vvere more difficult But who is able to say my heart is cleane though I came from an vncleane seede though I were borne of a Morian I haue not his skinne though an Ammorite were my father and my mother an Hittite I haue not their nature I haue touched pitch am not defiled I can wash mine handes in innocency say with a cleare conscience I haue not sinned But if this be the case of vs all that there is not a soule in the whole cluster of mankind that hath not offended though not as principal touching the fact presently enquired of as Achan in taking the accursed thing Corah in rebelling David in numbring the people yet an accessary in consenting coÌ„cealing if neither principal nor accessary in that one sin yet culpable in a thousand others coÌ„mitted in our life time perhaps not open to the world but in the eies of God as bright as the sun in the firmament for the scorpion hath a stinge though hee hath not thrust it forth to wounde vs man hath malice though he hath not outwardly shewed it it may be some sins to come which God foreseeth some already past which he recouÌ„teth shall we stand in argument with God as man would plead with man charge the iudge of the quicke dead with iniurious exactions I haue paide the thinges that I neuer tooke I haue borne the price of sinne which I neuer committed You heare the ground of mine answere We haue al sinned father and son rush branch deservedly are to expect that wages from the hands of God which to our sin appertaineth touching this present company I nothing doubt but they might particularly bee touched for their proper private iniquities though they had missed of Ionas Bias to a like fare of passengers shakeÌ„ with an horrible tempest as these were and crying to their Gods for succor answered not without some iest in that earnest hold your peace least the Gods hap to heare that you passe this way noting their lewdnesse to be such as might iustly draw downe a greater vengeance Besides it caÌ„not be denied but those things which we seyer part in our conceits by reason that distance of time place hath sundred theÌ„ some being done of old some of late some in one quarter of the world some in an other those doth the God of knowledge vnite and veweth them at once as if they were done
because corruption hath put on incorruption and neither feele the horrour of darknesse nor misse the comforte of the sunne because the presence of eternall and substantiall lighte illighteneth all places My purpose was not vpon so easie an occasion to prooue the resurrection either of Christ which I haue else-where assayed to doe or of his members that belonge vnto him For as it reioyced Paule that hee was to speake before kinge Agrippa vvho had knovvledge of all the customes and questions amongest the Ievves so it is the happier for mee that I speake to those vvho are not vnskilled in the questions of Christianity and neither are Sadducees nor Atheistes nor Epicures to denye the faith of these liuelye mysteries Onelye my meaning vvas vpon the LORDES day whereon hee rose to life and chandged the longe continued sabboth of the Iewes and sanctified a newe day of rest vnto vs to leaue some little comforte amongst you aunswerable to the feast which wee nowe celebrate Surelie the angelicall spirites aboue keepe these paschall solemnities this Easter with greate ioye They wonder at the glorye of that most victorious Lion who hath triumphed over death and hell It doeth them good that the shape of a servaunt is againe returned into the shape of GOD. They never thought to haue seene that starre in the East vvith so fresh and beautifull a hewe which was so lowe declined to the VVest and past hope of gettinge vp VVee also reioyce in the memorye and are most blessed for the benefite and fruite of this daye the sabboth of the newe vvorlde our Passe-over from everlastinge death to life our true Iubilee the first daye of our weeke and chiefe in our kalender to be accounted of whereon our Phoenix rose from his ashes our eagle renevved his bill the first fruites of sleepers avvoke the first begotten of the dead was borne from the wombe of the earth and made a blessed world in that it was able to say The man-childe is brought forth the seede of Abraham which seemed to haue perished vnder the clods fructified not by proportioÌ„s of thirty or sixty or an hundreth but with infinite measure of glory both to himselfe to all those that liue in his root Him we looke for shortly in the cloudes of heaven to raise our bodies of humility out of the dust to fashion them like to his owne to performe his promise to finish faith vpon the earth to perfite our glory and to draw vs vp to himselfe where he raigneth in the heaven of heavens our blessed redeemer and advocate THE XLV LECTVRE Chap. 4 vers 5. And there made him a booth and sate vnder it in the shadowe BEfore the Lorde hath begunne to reprehend Ionas in wordes nowe hee addresseth himselfe to reprooue him also by a sensible signe and because his eares vvere vncapable speaketh vnto his eies and shevveth him a life glasse wherein hee may see himselfe and his blemishes Words are oftentimes received as riddles and precepte vpon precept hath not prevailed when a familiar and actuall demonstration hath done good So Ahâ—iah the Prophet rent the new garment of Ieroboam the king in twelue peeces and bade him reserve ten to himselfe in signe that the kingdome was rent out of the handes of Salomon and ten tribes given to Ieroboam So Esay by going bare-foote teacheth Egypte and AEthiopia that they shall also go into captivity in the like sort Ieremy by wearing yokes about his necke and sending yokes and giues to the kings of Edom Moab Ammon Tyre Sydon Iudah giveth them a visible sacrament and representation of their captivity in Babylon Thus Ezechiell portrayed the siedge of Ierusalem vpon a bricke thus Agabus taketh the girdle of Paule and bindeth himselfe handes and feete and saith so shall the man bee bound that oweth this girdle And thus doth the Lorde admonish Ionas by a reall Apophthegme a liuelie subiection to his eies vvhat it is that hee hath iust cause to dislike in him But before wee come to the very pointe and winding of the matter wherein vvee may see the minde of God there are many Antecedents and preparatiues before hande to be viewed 1. That Ionas goeth out of the citty 2. buildeth him a booth 3. that God provideth him a gourd 4. sendeth a worme to consume it 5. that the sunne and the winde bet vpon the heade of Ionas till hee fainted All this is but the Protasis an onely proposition so farre wee perceiue not whitherto the purpose of God tendeth then followeth the narration the anger of Ionas once againe and once againe Gods increpation first touching the type or image which was the gourd for the gourd standing and flourishing was an image of Niniveh in her prime and prosperity the gourd withered of Niniveh overthowen then touching the truth represented by that figure which was the city it selfe For the meaning of God was to laye open the iniquity of Ionas before his face in that he was angry for the withering of an hearbe and had no pitty in his hearte vpon a mighty and populous citty The order of the words from this present verse to the end of the prophecy is this in this fifth Ionas buildeth for himselfe in the 6. GOD planteth for him in the 7. he destroyeth his planting in the 8. Ionas is vexed and angry to the death in the 9. God reprooveth him in the figure in the 10. and 11. in the trueth by that figure exemplified Of the Antecedentes I haue already tasted two members 1. his goinge out of the cittie to shunne their company who did not so wel like him 2. his sitting on the East-side of the citty either to bee farther from the iudgement of God which was likely to come Westward because Ierusalem stoode that way or to bee out of the trade and thorough-fare of the people which was likeliest to bee at their kaie for the river laye also vpon the West-side or to bee freer from the heate and parching of the sunne vvhich in the morning and towardes the East is lesse fervent or lastly I tolde you to take the comfort and benefite of the sunne rising Now the 3. in the number of those Antecedentes is that hee maketh himselfe a booth Wherein I mighte obserue vnto you that a Prophet is enforced to labour with his handes for the provision of necessaries And surely if it were not worthy the notinge the Apostle woulde never haue said Act. 20. You know that these handes haue ministred vnto my necessities and to those that were with mee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these verye handes that breake the breade of the Lord these handes that baptize and that are laide vpon the heades of Gods servauntes these haue ministred vnto my necessities Likeweise the first to the Corinthians and fourth VVee labour vvorking vvith our owne bandes And in his Epistles to the Thessalonians twise hee maketh mention of his labour and travaile day and night But I rather
chardge you at this time with these particulars 1. what Ionas made a booth 2. for what vse to sit vnder the shadowe of it 3. how long to continue till hee mighte see vvhat vvas done in the cittie The 1. and the 2. shew vnto vs the one the nature the other the vse of all buildinges By nature they are but boothes and tabernacles and such as the Prophet reporteth of Sion that shee shoulde remaine as a cottage in a vineyarde and like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers Or as Iob speaketh in the 27. of his booke like a lodge that the watchman maketh no longer to abide than till that service is ended I would be loth to tearme them the houses of spiders and moathes as Iob doth but compared with eternity such they are The patriarches and people of auncienter times dwelt but in tentes easily pight and as easily remooved and as many other things in antiquity so this amongst the rest was a figure to all the ages of the world to come that so long as they dwell vpon the earth they haue but a temporall and transitory habitation The earth which we dwel vpon is but our place of soiourning and wherein vvee are strangers as God tolde Abraham Gen. 17. In the 47 of the same booke Pharaoh asked Iacob howe many were the daies of the yeares of his life Iacob to expresse our condition of travailing and flitting vpon the earth to and fro aunswered the king the whole time not of my life but of my pilgrimage or rather pilgrimages by reason of often remooues is an hundreth and thirty yeares Few and evill haue the daies of my life beene and I haue not attained vnto the yeares of the life of my fathers in the daies of their pilgrimages David 1. Chron. 29. giveth thankes vnto the Lord in behalfe of himselfe and his people that they were able to offer so willingly towards the building of the temple because all thinges came of him and from his owne hande or liberalitie they had given vnto him For saith he we are strangers before thee and soiourners like all our fathers our daies are as the shadowe vpon the earth and there is none abiding Thus Iacob and his fathers David and his Princes and his people and their fathers al were pilgrimes Let vs see nowe what vse the Apostle maketh hereof Hee saith of Abell Enoch Noah Abraham Sarah and the rest that all these died in faith and received not the promises but sawe them a farre of and beleeved them and receaved them thankefullie and confessed that they vvere strangers pilgrimes on the earth For they that say such things declare plainly that they seeke a country It may bee their owne from whence they were exiled the Apostle aunswereth no. For if they had beene mindefull of that countrey froÌ„ whence they came out they had leasure to haue returned But now they desire a better that is an heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God for he hath prepared for theÌ„ a citty Likewise he exhorteth vs Heb. 13. As Iesus to sanctifie the people vvith his owne bloud suffered without the gate so that we should goe forth of the campe bearing his reproach for here we haue no continuing citty but wee seeke one to come And our Saviour told his disciples Ioh. 4. that in his fathers house there were many mansions or settled dwellings for here wee haue but tabernacles Houses I confesse we haue as foxes haue thtir holes birdes their nestes and bees their hiues to be chased and driven from them but till the promise be fulfille which is mentioned Revel 21. that the tabernacle of God shal be with men that is men shal be with the tabernacle of God and God dwell with vs and we with him in heavenly Ierusalem we must trust to that other prophecie Mich. 2. surgite ite arise and depart for this is not your rest The vse of buildings is that we may sit vnder the shadowe thereof The posterity of Noah Gen. 11. having fouÌ„d out a place in the plaÌ„ie of Sinar said go to let vs build vs a citty towre to get vs a name Was that the end of buildings Nabuchodonosor Dan. 4. built them a palace for the house of his kingdome and for the honour of his maiesty to vaunt of the mightines of his power and to forget the God of heaven Was that the end of building It seemeth by the wordes of Salomon Eccles. 2. that hee made him great worke and built him houses to prooue his hearte vvith ioie and to take pleasure in pleasant thinges Or was that the end of building Some build wonders of the world as the walles of Babylon set vp by Semiramis the house of Cyrus the tombe of Mâ—usolus All which buildings whither they be summer-parlours as Eglons Iud. 3. or winter-caÌ„hbers houses in the citty or TusculaÌ„ farmes in the couÌ„try were they as stately for heigth as the spires of Egypt or as the teÌ„ple of the great Diana of the Ephesians which as they were woÌ„dred at for their buildings so for their ruine dissipation or were they as sumptuous for cost as that pallace of king Alcinous the wals wherof were of brasse the gates of gold the entries of silver they are all but vanity and vvhen vvee haue all done there is none other vse of building than to sit and shadovve our selues and to defend our bodies from the violence of the weather and other forreigne iniuries It is a sickenesse that some men haue to spend their time in building as the Epigramme noted Gellius Gellius aedificat semper Gellius is alvvaies building or repayring or chaunging or doing somewhat to keepe his hand in If a friend come to borrowe money of him Gellius hath no other word in his mouth but I am in building Alas to what purpose are these lardge and spacious houses without inhabitants chimneyes without smoake windowes not for prospect but for martins to breed and owles to sing in Such are the tenants insteed of families heretofore kept hospitality maintained nowe hedge-hogs lying vnder the walles wesels dwelling in the parlours Ieremy doth notably taxe the vanity of a great builder Hee saith I wil build me a wide house and lardge chambers so he wil make himselfe greate windowes and seele theÌ„ with Cedar paint them with Vemiâ—ton But shalt thou raigne saith the prophet because thou closest thy selfe in Cedar did not thy father thy grandfather eate and drinke and prosper when they executed iudgement and iustice kept houses relieved the poore but thine eies thy heart are but only for covetuousnes oppression for vainglory to coÌ„maund and over-looke the country round about and to leaue a name behind thee even to do this and according to the endes thou proposest herein so shall the Lord visite thee Till he might see what should be done in the citty But the