me thus imperfectly happy before my time that when my time shall be no more I may be perfectly happy with thee in all Eternity XCII Upon the sight of an Harlot carted WIth what noise and tumult and zeal of solemn Justice is this sin punished The Streets are not more full of beholders then clamors Every one strives to expresse his detestation of the fact by some token of revenge one casts Mire another Water another rotten Egges upon the miserable offender neither indeed is she worthy of lesse but in the mean time no man looks home to himself It is no uncharity to say that too many insult in this just Punishment who have deserved more Alas we men value sins by the outward Scandall but the Wise and Holy God against whom onely our sins are done esteems them according to the intrinsecal Iniquity of them and according to the secret violation of his Will and Justice thus those Sins which are slight to us are to him hainous We ignorants would have rung David's Adultery with Basons but as for his numbring of the people we should have past it over as venial the wise Justice of the Almighty found more wickedness in this which we should scarce have accused Doubtlesse there is more mischief in a secret Infidelity which the World either cannot know or cares not to censure then in the foulest Adultery Publick sins have more Shame private may have more Guilt If the world cannot charge me of those it is enough that I can charge my Soul of worse Let others rejoice in these publick Executions let me pity the sins of others and be humbled under the sense of my own XCIII Upon the smell of a Rose SMelling is one of the meanest and least usefull of the Senses yet there is none of the Five that receives or gives so exquisite a contentment as it Methinks there is no earthly thing that yields so perfect a pleasure to any Sense as the odour of the first Rose doth to the Sent. It is the Wisdome and Bounty of the Creator so to order it that those Senses which have more affinity with the body and with that earth whereof it is made should receive their delight and contentation by those things which are bred of the earth but those which are more sprightfull and have more affinity with the Soul should be reserved for the perfection of their pleasure to another world There and then only shall my Sight make my Soul eternally blessed XCIV Upon a cancelled Bond. WHiles this Obligation was in force I was in servitude to my parchment my Bond was double to a Payment to a Penalty now that is discharged what is it better then a wast scroll regarded for nothing but the witness of its own voidance and nullity No otherwise is it with the severe Law of my Creator Out of Christ it stands in full force and bindes me over either to perfect Obedience which I cannot possibly perform or to exquisite torment and eternall Death which I am never able to indure but now that my Saviour hath fastened it cancelled to his Cross in respect of the rigour and malediction of it I look upon it as the monument of my past danger and bondage I know by it how much was owed by me how much was payed for me The direction of it is everlasting the obligation by it unto death is frustrate I am free from Curse who never can be free from Obedience O Saviour take thou Glory and give me Peace XCV Upon the report of a great losse by Sea THe Earth and the Water are both of them great givers and both great takers As they give matter and sustentation to all Sublunary creatures so they take all back again insatiably devouring at last the fruits of their own wombs Yet of the two the Earth is both more beneficial and lesse cruell for as that yields us the most generall maintenance and wealth and supportation so it doth not lightly take ought from us but that which we resign over to it and which naturally falls back unto it Whereas the Water as it affords but a small part of our livelihood and some few knacks of ornament so it is apt violently to snatch away both us and ours and to bereave that which it never gave it yields us no precious Metalls and yet in an instant fetches away millions And yet notwithstanding all the hard measure we receive from it how many do we daily see that might have firm ground under them who yet will be trusting to the mercy of the Sea Yea how many that have hardly crawled out from a desperate shipwrack will yet be trying the fidelity of that unsure and untrusty Element O God how venturous we are where we have reason to distrust how incredulously fearfull where we have cause to be confident Who ever relied upon thy gracious Providence and sure Promises O Lord and hath miscarried Yet here we pull in our Faith and make excuses for our Diffidence And if Peter have tried those waves to be no other then solid pavement under his feet whiles his Soul trod confidently yet when a billow and a winde agree to threaten him his Faith flags and he begins to sink O Lord teach me to doubt where I am sure to finde nothing but uncertainty and to be assuredly confident where there can be no possibility of any cause of doubting XCVI Upon sight of a bright Skie full of Stars I Cannot blame Empedocles if he professed a desire to live upon earth only that he might behold the face of the Heavens surely if there were no other this were a sufficient errand for a mans being here below to see and observe these goodly Spangles of Light above our heads their places their quantities their motions But the employment of a Christian is far more noble and excellent Heaven is open to him and he can look beyond the veil and see further above those Stars then it is thither and there discern those Glories that may answer so rich a pavement Upon the clear sight whereof I cannot but wonder if the chosen Vessel desired to leave the earth in so happy an exchange O God I blesse thine Infiniteness for what I see with these bodily eyes but if thou shalt but draw the curtain and let me by the eye of Faith see the inside of that thy Glorious frame I shall need no other Happiness here My Soul cannot be capable of more favour then Sight here and Fruition hereafter XCVII Upon the rumours of Wars GOod Lord what a shambles is Christendome become of late How are men killed like flies and blood poured out like water Surely the cruelty and ambition of the Great have an heavy reckoning to make for so many thousand Souls I condemn not just Arms those are as necessary as the unjust are hatefull even Michael and his Angels fight and the style of God is the Lord of Hoasts But wo be to the man by whom the offence
be insensible of so great an evil Where death hath once seized who can but doubt he will keep his hold No lesse hard was it not to grieve for the losse of an only Childe then not to fear the continuance of the cause of that grief In a perfect Faith there is no Fear by how much more we fear by so much lesse we believe Well are these two then coupled Fear not believe only O Saviour if thou didst not command us somewhat beyond Nature it were no thank to us to obey thee While the childe was alive to believe that it might recover it was no hard task but now that she was fully dead to believe she should live again was a work not easie for Jairus to apprehend though easie for thee to effect yet must that be believed else there is no capacity of so great a Mercy As Love so Faith is stronger then death making those bonds no other then as Sampson did his withes like threds of tow How much naturall impossibility is there in the return of these Bodies from the dust of their earth into which through many degrees of corruption they are at the last mouldred Fear not O my Soul believe onely it must it shall be done The sum of Jairus his first suit was for the Health not for the Resuscitation of his Daughter now that she was dead he would if he durst have been glad to have asked her Life And now behold our Saviour bids him expect both her Life and her Health Thy daughter shall be made whole alive from her death whole from her disease Thou didst not O Jairus thou daredst not ask so much as thou receivest How glad wouldest thou have been since this last news to have had thy Daughter alive though weak and sickly Now thou shalt receive her not living only but sound and vigorous Thou dost not O Saviour measure thy gifts by our petitions but by our wants and thine own mercies This work might have been as easily done by an absent command the Power of Christ was there whiles himself was away but he will goe personally to the place that he might be confessed the Author of so great a Miracle O Saviour thou lovest to goe to the house of mourning thy chief pleasure is the comfort of the afflicted What a confusion there is in worldly sorrow The mother shreeks the servants crie out the people make lamentation the minstrels howl and strike dolefully so as the eare might question whether the Ditty or the Instrument were more heavy If ever expressions of sorrow sound well it is when Death leads the quire Soon doth our Saviour charm this noise and turns these unseasonable mourners whether formal or serious out of doors Not that he dislikes Musick whether to condole or comfort but that he had life in his eye and would have them know that he held these Funeral ceremonies to be too early and long before their time Give place for the maid is not dead but sleepeth Had she been dead she had but slept now she was not dead but asleep because he meant this nap of death should be so short and her awakening so speedy Death and Sleep are alike to him who can cast whom he will into the sleep of Death and awake when and whom he pleaseth out of that deadly sleep Before the people and domesticks of Jairus held Jesus for a Prophet now they took him for a Dreamer Not dead but asleep They that came to mourn cannot now forbear to laugh Have we piped at so many Funerals and seen and lamented so many Corpses and cannot we distinguish betwixt Sleep and Death The eyes are set the breath is gone the limmes are stiffe and cold Who ever died if she do but sleep How easily may our Reason or Sense befool us in Divine matters Those that are competent Judges in natural things are ready to laugh God to scorn when he speaks beyond their compasse and are by him justly laughed to scorn for their unbelief Vain and faithlesse men as if that unlimited power of the Almighty could not make good his own word and turn either Sleep into Death or Death into Sleep at pleasure Ere many minutes they shall be ashamed of their errour and incredulity There were witnesses enough of her death there shall not be many of her restoring Three choice Disciples and the two Parents are only admitted to the view and testimony of this miraculous work The eyes of those incredulous scoffers were not worthy of this honour Our infidelity makes us incapable of the secret favours and the highest counsels of the Almighty What did these scorners think and say when they saw him putting the minstrels and people out of doors Doubtlesse the maid is but asleep the man fears lest the noise shall awake her we must speak and tread softly that we disquiet her not What will he and his Disciples doe the while Is it not to be feared they will startle her out of her rest Those that are shut out from the participation of God's counsels think all his words and projects no better then foolishnesse But art thou O Saviour ever the more discouraged by the derision and censure of these scornfull unbelievers Because fools jear thee dost thou forbear thy work Surely I do not perceive that thou heedest them save for contempt or carest more for their words then their silence It is enough that thine act shall soon honour thee and convince them He took her by the hand and called saying Maid arise and her spirit came again and she arose straightway How could that touch that Call be other then effectual He who made that hand touched it and he who shall once say Arise ye dead said now Maid arise Death cannot but obey him who is the Lord of life The Soul is ever equally in his hand who is the God of Spirits it cannot but goe and come at his command When he saies Maid arise the now-dissolved spirit knows his office his place and instantly reassumes that room which by his appointment it had left O Saviour if thou do but bid my Soul to arise from the death of Sin it cannot lie still if thou bid my Body to arise from the grave my Soul cannot but glance down from her Heaven and animate it In vain shall my sin or my grave offer to withhold me from thee The Maid revives not now to languish for a time upon her sick-bed and by some faint degrees to gather an insensible strength but at once she arises from her death and from her couch at once she puts off her fever with her dissolution she findes her life and her feet at once at once she findes her feet and her stomack He commanded to give her meat Omnipotency doth not use to goe the pace of Nature All God's immediate works are like himself perfect He that raised her supernaturally could have so fed her It was never the purpose of his Power to put ordinary
be actors None can awake Lazarus out of this sleep but he that made Lazarus Every mouse or gnat can raise us up from that other sleep none but an Omnipotent power from this This sleep is not without a dissolution Who can command the Soul to come down and meet the body or command the body to piece with it self and rise up to the Soul but the God that created both It is our comfort and assurance O Lord against the terrors of death and tenacity of the grave that our Resurrection depends upon none but thine Omnipotence Who can blame the Disciples if they were loath to return to Judaea Their last entertainment was such as might justly dishearten them Were this as literally taken all the reason of our Saviours purpose of so perilous a voyage they argued not amiss If he sleep he shall doe well Sleep in sickness is a good sign of Recovery For extremity of pain barres our rest when Nature therefore finds so much respiration she justly hopes for better terms Yet it doth not alwaies follow If he sleep he shall doe well How many have dyed in Lethargies how many have lost in sleep what they would not have forgone waking Adam slept and lost his rib Sampson slept and lost 〈◊〉 strength Saul slept and lost his weapon Ishbosheth and Holofeâ—â—â— slept and lost their heads In ordinary course it holds well here they mistook and erred The misconstruction of the words of Christ led them into an unseasonable and erroneous suggestion Nothing can be more dangerous then to take the speeches of Christ according to the sound of the Letter one errour will be sure to draw on more and if the first be never so slight the last may be important Wherefore are words but to express meanings why do we speak but to be understood Since then our Saviour saw himself not rightly construed he delivers himself planly Lazarus is dead Such is thy manner O thou eternal Word of thy Father in all thy sacred expressions Thine own mouth is thy best commentary what thou hast more obscurely said in one passage thou interpretest more clearly in another Thou art the Sun which givest us that light whereby we see thy self But how modestly dost thou discover thy Deity to thy Disciples not upon the first mention of Lazarus his death instantly professing thy Power and will of his resuscitation but contenting thy self only to intimate thy Omniscience in that thou couldst in that absence and distance know and report his departure they shall gather the rest and cannot chuse but think We serve a Master that knows all things and he that knows all things can doe all things The absence of our Saviour from the death-bed of Lazarus was not casual but voluntary yea he is not only willing with it but glad of it I am glad for your sakes that I was not there How contrary may the affections of Christ and ours be and yet be both good The two worthy Sisters were much grieved at our Saviours absence as doubting it might savour of some neglect Christ was glad of it for the advantage of his Disciples Faith I cannot blame them that they were thus sorry I cannot but bless him that he was thus glad The gain of their Faith in so Divine a Miracle was more then could be countervailed by their momentany sorrow God and we are not alike affected with the same events He laughs where we mourn he is angry where we are pleased The difference of the affections arises from the difference of the Objects which Christ and they apprehend in the same occurrence Why are the Sisters sorrowful because upon Christ absence Lazarus died Why was Jesus glad he was not there for the benefit which he saw would accrew to their Faith There is much variety of prospect in every act according to the several intentions and issues thereof yea even in the very same eyes The father sees his son combating in a Duel for his Country he sees blows and wounds on the one side he sees renown and victory on the other he grieves at the wounds he rejoyces in the Honour Thus doth God in all our Afflictions he sees our teares and hears our groans and pities us but withall he looks upon our Patience our Faith our Crown and is glad that we are afflicted O God why should not we conform our diet unto thine When we ly in pain and extremity we cannot but droop under it but do we finde our selves increased in true Mortification in Patience in Hope in a constant relyance on thy Mercies Why are we not more joyed in this then dejected with the other since the least grain of the increase of Grace is more worth then can be equalled with whole pounds of bodily vexation O strange consequence Lazarus is dead nevertheless Let us goe unto him Must they not needs think What should we doe with a dead man What should separate if death cannot Even those whom we loved dearliest we avoid once dead now we lay them aside under the board and thence send them out of our houses to their grave Neither hath Death more horrour in it then noisomeness and if we could intreat our eyes to endure the horrid aspect of Death in the face we loved yet can we perswade our sent to like that smell 〈◊〉 arises up from their corruption Oh love stronger then Death Behold here a friend whom the very Grave cannot sever Even those that write the longest and most passionate dates of their amity subscribe but your friend till death and if the ordinary strain of humane friendship will stretch yet a little further it is but to the brim of the grave thither a friend may follow us and see us bestowed in this house of our Age but there he leaves us to our worms and dust But for thee O Saviour the grave-stone the earth the coffin are no bounders of thy dear respects even after death and burial and corruption thou art graciously affected to those thou lovest Besides the Soul whereof thou saiest not Let us goe to it but Let it come to us there is still a gracious regard to that dust which was and shall be a part of an undoubted member of that mystical body whereof thou art the Head Heaven and earth yields no such friend but thy self O make me ever ambitious of this Love of thine and ever unquiet till I feel my self possessed of thee In the mouth of a mere man this word had been incongruous Lazarus is dead yet let us goe to him in thine O almighty Saviour it was not more loving then seasonable since I may justly say of thee thou hast more to doe with the dead then with the living for both they are infinitely more and have more inward communion with thee and thou with them Death cannot hinder either our passage to thee or thy return to us I joy to think the time is coming when thou shalt come to every of our graves
place to thy love and obedience How should we have known these evils so formidable if thou hadst not in half a thought inclined to deprecate them How could we have avoided so formidable and deadly evils if thou hadst not willingly undergone them We acknowledge thine holy fear we adore thy Divine fortitude Whiles thy Minde was in this fearfull agitation it is no marvell if thy Feet were not fixed Thy place is more changed then thy thoughts One while thou walkest to thy drouzy Attendants and stirrest up their needfull vigilancy then thou returnest to thy passionate Devotions thou fallest again upon thy face If thy body be humbled down to the earth thy Soul is yet lower thy prayers are so much more vehement as thy pangs are And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground O my Saviour what an agonie am I in whiles I think of thine What pain what fear what strife what horrour was in thy Sacred breast How didst thou struggle under the weight of our sins that thou thus sweatest that thou thus bleedest All was peace with thee thou wert one with thy coeternal and coessential Father all the Angels worshipped thee all the powers of Heaven and earth awfully acknowledged thine Infiniteness It was our person that feoffed thee in this misery and torment in that thou sustainedst thy Father's wrath and our curse If eternal death be unsufferable if every sin deserve eternal death what O what was it for thy Soul in this short time of thy bitter Passion to answer those millions of eternal deaths which all the sins of all mankinde had deserved from the just hand of thy Godhead I marvell not if thou bleedest a sweat if thou sweatest blood If the moisture of that Sweat be from the Body the tincture of it is from the Soul As there never was such another Sweat so neither can there be ever such a Suffering It is no wonder if the Sweat were more then natural when the Suffering was more then humane O Saviour so willing was that precious blood of thine to be let forth for us that it was ready to prevent thy Persecutors and issued forth in those pores before thy wounds were opened by thy Tormentors O that my heart could bleed unto thee with true inward compunction for those sins of mine which are guilty of this thine Agonie and have drawn blood of thee both in the Garden and on the Cross Woe is me I had been in Hell if thou hadst not been in thine Agonie I had scorched if thou hadst not sweat Oh let me abhor my own wickednesse and admire and blesse thy Mercy But O ye blessed Spirits which came to comfort my conflicted Saviour how did ye look upon the Son of God when ye saw him labouring for life under these violent temptations with what astonishment did ye behold him bleeding whom ye adored In the Wilderness after his Duell with Satan ye came and ministred unto him and now in the Garden whiles he is in an harder combat ye appear to strengthen him O the wise and marvellous dispensation of the Almighty Whom God will afflict an Angel shall relieve the Son shall suffer the Servant shall comfort him the God of Angels droupeth the Angel of God strengthens him Blessed Jesu if as Man thou wouldst be made a little lower then the Angels how can it disparage thee to be attended and cheared up by an Angel Thine Humiliation would not disdain comfort from meaner hands How free was it for thy Father to convey seasonable consolations to thine humbled Soul by whatsoever means Behold though thy Cup shall not passe yet it shall be sweetned What if thou see not for the time thy Fathers face yet thou shalt feel his hand What could that Spirit have done without the God of Spirits O Father of Mercies thou maiest bring thine into Agonies but thou wilt never leave them there In the midst of the sorrows of my heart thy comforts shall refresh my Soul Whatsoever be the means of my supportation I know and adore the Author Peter and Malchus or Christ Apprehended WHerefore O Saviour didst thou take those three choice Disciples with thee from their fellows but that thou expectedst some comfort from their presence A seasonable word may sometimes fall from the meanest attendant and the very society of those we trust carries in it some kinde of contentment Alas what broken reeds are men Whiles thou art sweating in thine Agonie they are snorting securely Admonitions threats intreaties cannot keep their eyes open Thou tellest them of danger they will needs dream of ease and though twice rouzed as if they had purposed this neglect they carelesly sleep out thy sorrow and their own peril What help hast thou of such Followers In the mount of thy Transfiguration they slept and besides fell on their faces when they should behold thy glory and were not themselves for fear in the garden of thine Agonie they fell upon the ground for drouzinesse when they should compassionate thy sorrow and lost themselves in a stupid sleepinesse Doubtlesse even this disregard made thy prayers so much more fervent The lesse comfort we finde on earth the more we seek above Neither soughtst thou more then thou foundest Lo thou wert heard in that which thou fearedst An Angel supplies men that Spirit was vigilant whiles thy Disciples were heavy The exchange was happy No sooner is this good Angel vanished then that domestick Devil appears Judas comes up and shews himself in the head of those miscreant troups He whose too much honour it had been to be a Follower of so Blessed a Master affects now to be the leader of this wicked rabble The Sheeps fleece is now cast off the Wolf appears in his own likenesse He that would be false to his Master would be true to his Chapmen Even evil spirits keep touch with themselves The bold Traitor dare yet still mix Hypocrisie with Villany his very salutations and kisses murder O Saviour this is no news to thee All those who under a shew of Godlinesse practise impiety do still betray thee thus Thou who hadst said One of you is a Devil didst not now say Avoid Satan but Friend wherefore art thou come As yet Judas it was not too late Had there been any the least spark of Grace yet remaining in that perfidious bosome this word had fetcht thee upon thy knees All this Sunshine cannot thaw an obdurate heart The sign is given Jesus is taken Wretched Traitor why wouldst thou for this purpose be thus attended and ye foolish Priests and Elders why sent you such a band and so armed for this apprehension One messenger had been enough for a voluntary prisoner Had my Saviour been unwilling to be taken all your forces with all the Legions of Hell to help them had been too little since he was willing to be attached two were too many When he did but
suffered till now now thy bloody Passion begins a cruell expoliation begins that violence Again do these grim and mercilesse Souldiers lay their rude hands upon thee and strip thee naked again are those bleeding wales laid open to all eyes again must thy Sacred body undergoe the shame of an abhorred nakednesse Lo thou that clothest man with raiment beasts with hides fishes with scales and shells earth with flowers Heaven with Stars art despoiled of cloaths and standest exposed to the scorn of all beholders As the First Adam entred into his Paradise so dost thou the Second Adam into thine naked and as the First Adam was clothed with Innocence when he had no cloaths so wert thou the Second too and more then so thy nakednesse O Saviour cloaths our Souls not with Innocence only but with Beauty Hadst not thou been naked we had been cloathed with confusion O happy nakednesse whereby we are covered from shame O happy shame whereby we are invested with glory All the beholders stand wrapped with warm garments thou only art stripped to tread the wine-presse alone How did thy Blessed Mother now wish her veile upon thy shoulders and that Disciple who lately ran from thee naked wish'd in vain that his loving pity might doe that for thee which fear forced him to for himself Shame is succeeded with Pain Oh the torment of the Crosse Methinks I see and feel how having fastned the transverse to the body of that fatal Tree and lai'd it upon the ground they racked and strained thy tender and sacred Lims to fit the extent of their fore-appointed measure and having tentered out thine arms beyond their natural reach how they fastned them with cords till those strong iron nails which were driven up to the head through the palms of thy Blessed hands had not more firmly then painfully fixed thee to the Gibbet The tree is raised up and now not without a vehement concussion setled in the mortise Woe is me how are thy joynts and sinews torn and stretched till they crack again by this torturing distension how doth thine own weight torment thee whiles thy whole body rests upon this forced and dolorous hold till thy nailed feet bear their part in a no lesse afflictive supportation How did the rough iron pierce thy Soul whiles passing through those tender and sensible parts it carried thy flesh before it and as it were rivetted it to that shamefull Tree There now O dear Jesu there thou hangest between Heaven and earth naked bleeding forlorn despicable the spectacle of miseries the scorn of men Be abashed O ye Heavens and earth and all ye creatures wrap up your selves in horrour and confusion to see the shame and pain and curse of your most pure and Omnipotent Creator How could ye subsist whiles he thus suffers in whom ye are O Saviour didst thou take flesh for our Redemption to be thus indignely used thus mangled thus tortured Was this measure fit to be offered to that Sacred body that was conceived by the Holy Ghost of the pure substance of an immaculate Virgin Woe is me that which was unspotted with sin is all blemished with humane crueltie and so wofully disfigured that the Blessed Mother that bore thee could not now have known thee so bloody were thy Temples so swolne and discoloured was thy Face so was the skin of thy whole body streaked with red and blew stripes so did thy thornie diadem shade thine Heavenly countenance so did the streams of thy blood cover and deform all thy parts The eye of Sense could not distinguish thee O dear Saviour in the nearest proximity to thy Crosse the eye of Faith sees thee in all this distance and by how much more ignominy deformity pain it finds in thee so much more it admires the glory of thy mercy Alas is this the Head that is decked by thine eternall Father with a Crown of pure gold of immortall and incomprehensible Majesty which is now bushed with thorns Is this the Eye that saw the Heavens opened and the Holy Ghost descending upon that head that saw such resplendence of Heavenly brightnesse on mount Tabor which now begins to be overclouded with death Are these the Eares that heard the voice of thy Father owning thee out of Heaven which now tingle with buffettings and glow with reproaches and bleed with thorns Are these the Lips that spake as never mans spake full of grace and power that called out dead Lazarus that ejected the stubbornest Devils that commanded the cure of all diseases which now are swoln with blows and discoloured with blewnesse and blood Is this the Face that should be fairer then the sons of men which the Angels of Heaven so desired to see and can never be satisfied with seeing that is thus foul with the nasty mixtures of sweat and blood and spittings on Are these the Hands that stretched out the Heavens as a curtain that by their touch healed the lame the deaf the blind which are now bleeding with the nailes Are these the Feet which walked lately upon the liquid pavement of the sea before whose footstool all the Nations of the earth are bidden to worship that are now so painfully fixed to the Crosse O cruell and unthankfull mankind that offered such measure to the Lord of Life O infinitely mercifull Saviour that wouldst suffer all this for unthankfull mankind That fiends should doe these things to guilty souls it is though terrible yet just but that men should doe thus to the Blessed Son of God it is beyond the capacity of our horrour Even the most hostile dispositions have been only content to kill Death hath sated the most eager malice thine enemies O Saviour held not themselves satisfied unlesse they might injoy thy torment Two Thieves are appointed to be thy companions in death thou art designed to the midst as the chief malefactor on whether hand soever thou lookest thine eye meets with an hatefull partner But O Blessed Jesu how shall I enough admire and celebrate thy infinite Mercy who madest so happy an use of this Jewish despight as to improve it to the occasion of the Salvation of one and the comfort of millions Is not this as the last so the greatest specialty of thy wonderfull compassion to convert that dying Thief with those nailed hands to snatch a Soul out of the mouth of Hell Lord how I blesse thee for this work how doe I stand amazed at this above all other the demonstrations of thy Goodnesse and Power The Offender came to die nothing was in his thoughts but his guilt and torment whiles he was yet in his blood thou saidst This Soul shall live Ere yet the intoxicating Potion could have time to work upon his brain thy Spirit infuses Faith into his heart He that before had nothing in his eye but present death and torture is now lifted up above his Crosse in a blessed ambition Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome Is this the voice of a Thief
His eyes look to the Gentiles c. saith the Psalmist As Christ therefore on his Cross looked towards us sinners of the Gentiles so let us look up to him Let our eyes be lift up to this Brazen Serpent for the cure of the deadly stings of that old Serpent See him O all ye beholders see him hanging upon the Tree of shame of curse to rescue you from curse and confusion and to feoâ—â—e you in everlasting Blessednesse See him stretching out his arms to receive and embrace you hanging down his head to take view of your misery opening his precious side to receive you into his bosome opening his very heart to take you in thither pouring out thence water to wash you and blood to redeem you O all ye Nazarites that passe by out of this dead Lion seek and finde the true honey of unspeakable and endlesse comfort And ye great Masters of Israel whose lips professe to preserve knowledge leave all curious and needlesie disquisitions and with that Divine and extatical Doctor of the Gentiles care only to know to preach Christ and him crucified But this though the sum of the Gospel is not the main drift of my Text I may not dwell in it though I am loth to part with so sweet a meditation From Christ crucified turn your eyes to Paul crucified you have read him dying by the Sword hear him dying by the Cross and see his moral spiritual living Crucifixion Our Apostle is two men Saul and Paul the old man and the new in respect of the Old man he is crucified and dead to the law of sin so as that sin is dead in him neither is it otherwise with every regenerate Sin hath a body as well as the man hath Who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7. 24. a body that hath lims and parts Mortifie your earthly members saith our Apostle Colos 3. 5. Not the lims of our humane body which are made of earth so should we be hosles naturae as Bernard but the sinfull lims that are made of corruption Fornication uncleanness inordinate affection c. The 〈◊〉 of sin is wicked devices the heart of sin wicked desires the hands and 〈◊〉 wicked executions the tongue of sin wicked words the eyes of sin 〈◊〉 apprehensions the forehead of sin impudent profession of evil the back of sin a strong supportation and maintenance of evil all this body of sin is not only put to death but to shame too so as it is dead with disgrace I am crucified S. Paul speaks not this singularly of himself but in the person of the Renewed sin doth not cannot live a vital and vigorous life in the Regenerate Wherefore then say you was the Apostles complaint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Mark I beseech you it was the body of sin not the life of sin a body of death not the life of that body or if this body had yet some life it was such a life as is left in the lims when the head is struck off some dying quiverings rather as the remainders of a life that was then any act of a life that is or if a further life such a one as in swowns and fits of Epilepsie which yields breath but not sense or if some kinde of sense yet no motion or if it have some kinde of motion in us yet no manner of dominion over us What power motion sense relicks of life are in a fully-crucified man Such a one may waft up and down with the winde but cannot move out of any internal principle Sin and Grace cannot more stand together in their strength then life and death In remisse degrees all contraries may be lodged together under one roof S. Paul swears that he dies daily yet he lives so the best man sins hourly even whiles he obeys but the powerfull and over-ruling sway of sin is incompatible with the truth of Regeneration Every Esau would be carrying away a Blessing no man is willing to sit out Ye shall have strong drinkers as Esay calls them Esay 5. 22. neighing stallions of lust as Jeremy calls them Jer. 5. 8. mighty hunters in oppression as Nimrod Gen. 10. 9. rotten talkers Ephes 4. 29. which yet will be challenging as deep a share in Grace as the conscionablest Alas how many millions do miserably delude themselves with a mere pretence of Christianity Aliter vivunt aliter loquuntur as he said of the Philosophers Vain Hypocrites they must know that every Christian is a crucified man How are they dead to their fins that walk in their sins how are their sins dead in them in whom they stir reign flourish Who doth not smile to hear of a dead man that walks Who derides not the solecism of that Actor which exprest himself fully dead by saying so What a mockery is this eyes full of lust itching ears scurrilous tongues bloody hands hearts full of wickedness and yet dead Deceive not your Souls dear Christians if ye love them This false death is the way to the true eternal incomprehensibly-wofull death of body and Soul If ye will needs doe so walk on ye falsly-dead in the waies of your old sins be sure these paths shall lead you down to the chambers of everlasting death If this be the hanging up of your corruptions fear to hang in hell Away with this hateful simulation God is not mocked Ye must either kill or die Kill your sins or else they will be sure to kill your Souls apprehend arraign condemn them fasten them to the tree of shame and if they be not dead already break their legs and arms disable them to all offensive actions as was done to the Thieves in the Gospel so shall you say with our Blessed Apostle I am crucified Neither is it thus onely in matter of notorious crime and grosse wickednesse but thus it must be in the universal carriage of our lives and the whole habitual frame of our dispositions in both these we are we must be crucified Be not deceived my Brethren it is a sad and austere thing to be a Christian This work is not frolick jovial plausible there is a certain thing call'd true Mortification required to this businesse and whoever heard but there was pain in death but among all deaths in crucifying What a torture must there needs be in this act of violence what a distention of the body whose weight is rack enough to it self what straining of the joynts what nailing of hands and feet Never make account to be Christians without the hard tasks of Penitence It will cost you tears sighs watchings self-restraints self-struglings self-denials This word is not more harsh then true Ye delicate Hypocrites what do you talk of Christian profession when ye will not abate a dish from your belly nor spare an hours sleep from your eyes nor cast off an offensive rag from your backs for your
Church cannot abide either Conventicles of Separation or pluralities of professions or appropriations of Catholicism Catholick Romane is an absurd Donatian Solecism This is to seek Orbem in urbe as that Council said well Happy were it for that Church if it were a sound lim though but the little toe of that mighty and precious body wherein no believing Jew or Indian may not challenge to be jointed Neither difference of time nor distance of place nor rigor of unjust censure nor any unessential errour can barre our interest in this blessed Unity As this flourishing Church of great Britain after all the spightfull calumniations of malicious men is one of the most conspicuous members of the Catholick upon earth so we in her Communion do make up one body with the holy Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and faithfull Christians of all ages and times We succeed in their Faith we glory in their Succession we triumph in this Glory Whither go ye then ye weak ignorant seduced souls that run to seek this Dove in a forein cote She is here if she have any nest under Heaven Let me never have part in her or in Heaven if any Church in the world have more part in the Universal Why do we wrong our selves with the contradistinction of Protestant and Catholick We do only protest this that we are perfect Catholicks Let the pretensed look to themselves we are sure we are as Catholick as true Faith can make us as much one as the same Catholick Faith can make us and in this undoubted right we claim and injoy the sweet and inseparable communion with all the blessed members of that mystical body both in earth and Heaven and by virtue thereof with the glorious Head of that dear and happy body Jesus Christ the righteous the Husband to this one Wife the Mate to this one Dove to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit three Persons and one God be given all Praise Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen THE FASHIONS OF THE WORLD Laid forth in a SERMON at Grayes-Inne on Candlemas day By J. H. Rom. 12. 2. Fashion not your selves like to this World but be ye changed by the renewing of your minde c. THAT which was wont to be upbraided as a scorn to the English may be here conceived the Embleme of a Man whom ye may imagine standing naked before you with a paire of sheers in his hand ready to cut out his own fashion In this deliberation the World offers it self to him with many a gay misshapen fantasticall dresse God offers himself to him with one onely fashion but a new one but a good one The Apostle like a friendly monitor adviseth him where to pitch his choice Fashion not your selves like to this world but be ye changed by the renewing of your minde How much Christianity crosses Nature we need no other proof then my Text. There is nothing that Nature affects so much as the Fashion and no fashion so much as the worlds for our usuall word is Doe as the most And behold that is it which is here forbidden us Fashion not your selves like to this world All fashions are either in Device or Imitation There are vain heads that think it an honour to be the founders of Fashions there are servile fools that seek onely to follow the Fashion once devised In the first rank is the World which is nothing but a mint of Fashions yet which is strange all as old as mis-beseeming We are forbidden to be in the second If the World will be so vain as to mis-shape it self we may not be so foolish as to follow it Let us look a little if you please at the Pattern here damn'd in my Text The world As in extent so in expression the World hath a large scope yea there are more Worlds then one There is a world of creatures and within that there is a world of men and yet within that a world of believers and yet within all these a world of corruptions More plainly there is a good world an evil world an indifferent A good world as of the creatures in regard of their first birth so of men in regard of their second a world of renewed Souls in the first act of their renovation believing Joh. 17. 20. upon their belief reconciled 2 Cor. 5. 19. upon their reconcilement saved Joh. 3. 16. An evil world yea set in evil 1 Joh. 5. 19. a world of corrupt unregeneration that hates Christ and his Joh. 15. 18. that is hated of Christ Jam. 4. 4. An indifferent world that is good or evil as it is used whereof St. Paul Let those that use the world be as not abusing it 1 Cor. 7. 31. This indifferent world is a world of commodities affections improvement of the creature which if we will be wise Christians we must fashion to us framing it to our own bent whether in want or abundance The good world is a world of Saints whose Souls are purified in obeying the truth through the Spirit 1 Pet. 1. 22. To this world we may be fashioned The evil world is a world of mere men and their vicious conditions God hath made us the lords of the indifferent world himself is the Lord of the good Satan is lord of the evil Princeps hujus Seculi And that is most properly the world because it contains the most as it is but a chaffe-heap wherein some grains of wheat are scattered To this evil world then we may not fashion our selves in those things which are proper to it as such in natural in civil actions we may we must follow the world singularity in these things is justly odious herein the World is the true master of Ceremonies whom not to follow is no better then a Cynicall irregularity in things positively or morally evil we may not There is no material thing that hath not his form the outward form is the fashion the fashion of outward things is variable with the times so as every external thing cloaths building plate stuffe gesture is now in now out of fashion but the fashions of Morality whether in good or evil are fixed and perpetual The world passeth and the fashion of it but the evil of the fashions of the world is too constant and permanent and must be ever the matter of our detestation Fashion not your selves like to this world But because evils are infinite as wise Solomon hath observed it will be requisite to call them to their heads and to reduce these forbidden fashions to the several parts whereto they belong I cannot dream with Tertullian that the Soul hath a Body but I may well say that the Soul follows the body and as it hath parts ascribed to it according to the outward proportion so are these parts suited with severall fashions Let your patient attention follow me through them all Begin with the Head a part not more eminent in place then in power What is the
Upon the sight of an Eclipse of the Sun LIght is an ordinary and familiar Blessing yet so dear to us that one hours interception of it sets all the world in a wonder The two great Luminaries of Heaven as they impart light to us so they withdraw light from each other The Sun darkens the full Moon in casting the shadow of the earth upon her opposed face the new Moon repays this blemish to the Sun in the interposing of her dark body betwixt our eyes and his glorious beams the earth is troubled at both O God if we be so afflicted with the obscuring of some piece of one of thy created lights for an hour or two what a confusion shall it be that thou who art the God of these Lights in comparison of whom they are mere darknesse shalt hide thy face from thy creature for ever O thou that art the Sun of Righteousnesse if every of my sins cloud thy face yet let not my grievous sins eclipse thy light Thou shinest alwayes though I do not see thee but Oh never suffer my sins so to darken thy visage that I cannot see thee IV. Upon the sight of a gliding Star HOw easily is our sight deceived how easily doth our sight deceive us We saw no difference betwixt this Star and the rest the light seemed alike both whiles it stood and whiles it fell now we know it was no other then a base slimy Meteor guilded with the Sun-beams and now our foot can tread upon that which ere while our eye admired Had it been a Star it had still and ever shined now the very fall argues it a false and elementary Apparition Thus our Charity doth and must mis-lead us in our Spirituall judgements If we see men exalted in their Christian Profession fixed in the upper region of the Church shining with appearances of Grace we may not think them other thenâ—stars in this lower firmament but if they fall from their holy station and imbrace the present world whether in Judgement or Practice renouncing the Truth and power of Godliness now we may boldly say they had never any true light in them and were no other then a glittering composition of Pride and Hypocrisie O God if my Charity make me apt to be deceived by others let me be sure not to deceive my self Perhaps some of these apostating Stars have thought themselves true let their mis-carriage make me heedfull let the inward light of thy Grace more convince my truth to my self then my outward Profession can represent me glorious to others V. Upon a fair Prospect WHat a pleasing variety is here of Towns Rivers Hills Dales Woods Medows each of them striving to set forth the other and all of them to delight the eye So as this is no other then a naturall and reall Landscap drawn by that Almighty skilfull hand in this table of the Earth for the pleasure of our view no other creature besides Man is capable to apprehend this Beauty I shall doe wrong to him that brought me hither if I do not feed my eyes and praise my Maker It is the intermixture and change of these Objects that yields this contentment both to the Sense and Minde But there is a sight O my Soul that without all variety offers thee a truer and fuller delight even this Heaven above thee All thy other Prospects end in this This glorious circumference bounds and circles and inlightens all that thine eye can see whether thou look upward or forward or about thee there thine eye alights there let thy thoughts be fixed One inch of this lightsome Firmament hath more Beauty in it then the whole face of the Earth And yet this is but the floor of that goodly fabrick the outward curtain of that glorious Tabernacle Couldst thou but Oh that thou couldst look within that veile how shouldst thou be ravisht with that blissefull sight There in that incomprehensible light thou shouldst see him whom none can see and not be blessed thou shouldst see millions of pure and majesticall Angels of holy and glorified Souls there amongst thy Fathers many mansions thou shouldst take happy notice of thine owne Oh the best of earth now vile and contemptible Come down no more O my Soul after thou hast once pitched upon this Heavenly glory or if this flesh force thy descent be unquiet till thou art let loose to Immortality VI. Upon the frame of a Globe casually broken IT is hard to say whether is the greater Mans Art or Impotence He that cannot make one spire of grasse or corn of sand will yet be framing of Worlds he can imitate all things who can make nothing Here is a great World in a little room by the skill of the workman but in lesse room by mis-accident Had he seen this who upon the view of Plato's Book of Common-wealth eaten with Mice presaged the fatall miscarriage of the publick State he would sure have construed this casualty as ominous Whatever become of the Materiall world whose decay might seem no lesse to stand with Divine Providence then this Microcosme of individuall man sure I am the frame of the Morall world is and must be dis-joynted in the last times Men do and will fall from evil to worse He that hath made all times hath told us that the last shall be perilous Happy is he that can stand upright when the world declines and can endeavour to repair the common ruine with a constancy in goodnesse VII Upon a Cloud WHether it were a naturall Cloud wherewith our ascending Saviour was intercepted from the eyes of his Disciples upon mount Olivet I inquire not this I am sure of that the time now was when a Cloud surpassed the Sun in glory How did the intentive eyes of those ravished beholders envy that happy Meteor and since they could no more see that glorious Body fixed themselves upon that Celestiall Chariot wherewith it was carried up The Angels could tell the gazing Disciples to fetch them off from that astonishing prospect that this Jesus should so come again as they had seen him depart He went up in a Cloud and he shall come again in the clouds of Heaven to his last Judgement O Saviour I cannot look upward but I must see the sensible monuments both of thine Ascension and Return Let no cloud of Worldlinesse or Infidelity hinder me from following thee in thine Ascension or from expecting thee in thy Return VIII Upon the sight of a Grave digged up THE Earth as it is a great devourer so also it is a great preserver too Liquors and Fleshes are therein long kept from putrifying and are rather heightened in their Spirits by being buried in it but above all how safely doth it keep our Bodies for the Resurrection We are here but lay'd up for custody Balmes and Sere-cloths and Leads cannot doe so much as this lap of our common Mother when all these are dissolved into her dust as being unable to keep themselves from
service Those that will goe no further then they are dragged in their Religious exercises are no whit of kin to her whom all Generations shall call blessed The childe Jesus in the minority of his age went up with his Parents to the holy solemnity not this year only but in all likelihood others also He in the power of whose Godhead and by the motion of whose Spirit all others ascended thither would not himself stay at home In all his examples he meant our instruction This pious act of his nonage intended to lead our first years into timely Devotion The first liquor seasons the vessel for a long time after It is every way good for a man to bear God's yoke even from his infancy it is the policie of the Devil to discourage early holinesse He that goes out betimes in the morning is more like to dispatch his journey then he that lingers till the day be spent This Blessed Family came not to look at the Feast and be gone but they duly stai'd out all the appointed daies of unlevened bread They and the rest of Israel could not want houshold-businesses at home those secular affairs could not either keep them from repairing to Jerusalem or send them away immaturely Worldly cares must give place to the sacred Except we will depart unblest we must attend God's services till we may receive his dismission It was the fashion of those times and places that they went up and so returned by troups to those set meetings of their holy Festivals The whole Parish of Nazareth went and came together Good fellowship doth no way so well as in the passage to Heaven much comfort is added by society to that journey which is of it self pleasant It is an happy word Come let us goe up to the house of the Lord. Mutual incouragement is none of the least benefits of our holy assemblies Many sticks laid together make a good fire which if they lie single lose both their light and heat The Feast ended what should they do but return to Nazareth God's services may not be so attended as that we should neglect our particular callings Himself cals us from his own House to ours and takes pleasure to see a painful Client They are foully mistaken that think God cares for no other trade but devotion Piety and diligence must keep meet changes with each other Neither doth God lesse accept of our return to Nazareth then our going up to Jerusalem I cannot think that the Blessed Virgin or good Joseph could be so negligent of their Divine charge as not to call the child Jesus to their setting forth from Jerusalem But their back was no sooner turned upon the Temple then his face was towards it He had businesse in that place when theirs was ended there he was both worshipped and represented He in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily could doe nothing without God his true Father led him away from his supposed Sometimes the affairs of our ordinary vocation may not grudge to yield unto spirituall occasions The Parents of Christ knew him well to be of a disposition not strange nor sullen Stoicall but sweet and sociable and therefore they supposed he had spent the time and the way in company of their friends and neighbours They do not suspect him wandered into the solitary fields but when evening came they go to seek him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance If he had not wonted to converse formerly with them he had not now been sought amongst them Neither as God nor man doth he take pleasure in a stern froward austerity and wilde retiredness but in a milde affableness and amiable conversation But O Blessed Virgin who can express the sorrows of thy perplexed Soul when all that evening search could afford thee no news of thy Son Jesus Was not this one of those swords of Simeon which should pierce through thy tender breast How didst thou chide thy credulous neglect in not observing so precious a charge and blame thine eyes for once looking beside this object of thy love How didst thou with thy careful Husband spend that restless night in mutual expostulations and bemoanings of your loss How many suspicious imaginations did that while rack thy grieved spirit Perhaps thou mightest doubt lest they which laid for him by Herod's command at his birth had now by the secret instigation of Archelaus surprised him in his childhood or it may be thou thoughtest thy Divine Son had now withdrawn himself from the earth and returned to his heavenly Glory without warning or peradventure thou studiedst with thy self whether any carelesness on thy behalf had not given occasion to this absence O dear Saviour who can miss and not mourn for thee Never any soul conceived thee by faith that was less afflicted with the sense of thy desertion then comforted with the joy of thy presence Just is that sorrow and those tears seasonable that are bestowed upon thy losse What comfort are we capable of whiles we want thee What relish is there in these earthly delights without thee What is there to mitigate our passionate discomforts if not from thee Let thy self loose O my soul to the fulness of sorrow when thou findest thy self bereaved of him in whose presence is the fulness of joy and deny to receive comfort from any thing save from his return In vain is Christ sought among his kindred according to the flesh So far are they still from giving us their aide to finde the true Messias that they lead us from him Back again therefore are Joseph and Mary gone to seek him at Jerusalem She goes about in the City by the streets and by the open places and seeks him whom her soul loveth she sought him for the time and found him not Do we think she spared her search The evening of her return she hastes to the Inne where she had left him where missing him she inquires of every one she met Have you not seen him whom my soul loveth At last the third day she finds him in the Temple One day was spent in the journey towards Galilee another in the return to Jerusalem the third day recovers him He who would rise again the third day and be found amongst the living now also would the third day be found of his Parents after the sorrow of his absence But where wert thou O blessed Jesu for the space of these three daies where didst thou bestow thy self or who tended thee whiles thou wert thus alone at Jerusalem I know if Jerusalem should have been as unkind to thee as Bethleem thou couldst have commanded the Heavens to harbour thee and if men did not minister to thee thou couldst have commanded the service of Angels But since the form of a Servant called thee to a voluntary homeliness whether it pleased thee to exercise thy self thus early with the difficulties of a stranger or to provide miraculously for thy self I inquire not since thou revealest not only this I
I kept silence my bones consumed For day and night thy hand O Lord was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer O let me confess against my self my wickedness unto thee that thou maist forgive the punishment of my sinne We have a tongue for God when we praise him for our selves when we pray and confess for our brethren when we speak the truth for their information which if we hold back in unrighteousness we yield unto that dumb Devil Where do we not see that accursed spirit He is on the Bench when the mute or partial Judge speaks not for truth and innocence He is in the Pulpit when the Prophets of God smother or halve or adulterate the message of their Master He is at the Barre when irreligious Jurours dare lend an oath to fear to hope to gain He is in the Market when godless chapmen for their peny sell the truth and their soul He is in the common conversation of men when the tongue belies the heart flatters the guilty balketh reproofs even in the foulest crimes O thou who onely art stronger then that strong one cast him out of the hearts and mouths of men It is time for thee Lord to work for they have destroyed thy Law That it might well appear this impediment was not natural so soon as the man is freed from the spirit his tongue is free to his speech The effects of spirits as they are wrought so they cease at once If the Son of God do but remove our spiritual possession we shall presently break forth into the praise of God into the confession of our vileness into the profession of truth But what strange variety do I see in the spectators of his Miracle some wondring others censuring a third sort tempting a fourth applauding There was never man or action but was subject to variety of constructions What man could be so holy as he that was God What act could be more worthy then the dispossessing of an evil spirit Yet this man this act passeth these differences of interpretation What can we doe to undergoe but one opinion If we give almes and fast some will magnifie our charity and devotion others will tax our hypocrisie If we give not some will condemn our hard-heartedness others will allow our care of justice If we preach plainly to some it will favour of a careless slubbering to others oft a mortified sincerity elaborately some will tax our affectation others will applaud our diligence in dressing the delicate viands of God What marvel is it if it be thus with our imperfection when it fared not otherwise with him that was Purity and Righteousness it self The austere forerunner of Christ came neither eating nor drinking they say He hath a Devil The Son of man came eating and drinking they say This man is a glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners and here one of his holy acts carries away at once wonder censure doubt celebration There is no way safe for a man but to square his actions by the right rule of justice of charity and then let the world have leave to spend their glosses at pleasure It was an heroical resolution of the chosen vessel I pass very little to be judged of you or of mans day I marvel not if the people marvelled for here were four wonders in one the blind saw the deaf heard the dumb spake the Demoniack is delivered Wonder was due to so rare and powerful a work and if not this nothing We can cast away admiration upon the poor devices or activities of men how much more upon the extraordinary works of Omnipotency Whoso knows the frame of Heaven and earth shall not much be affected with the imperfect effects of frail Humanity but shall with no less Ravishment of soul acknowledge the miraculous works of the same Almighty hand Neither is the spiritual ejection worthy of any meaner entertainment Rarity and difficulty are wont to cause wonder There are many things which have wonder in their worth and lose it in their frequence there are some which have it in their strangeness and lose it in their facilitie Both meet in this To see men haunted yea possessed with a dumb Devil is so frequent that it is a just wonder to finde a man free but to finde the dumb spirit cast out of a man and to hear him praising God confessing his sins teaching others the sweet experiments of mercy deserves just admiration If the Cynick sought in the market for a man amongst men well may we seek amongst men for a Convert Neither is the difficulty less then the rareness The strong man hath the possession all passages are block'd up all helps barred by the treachery of our nature If any soul be rescued from these spiritual wickednesses it is the praise of him that doth wonders alone But whom do I see wondring The multitude The unlearned beholders follow that act with wonder which the learned Scribes entertain with obloquy God hath revealed those things to babes which he hath hid from the wise and prudent With what scorn did those great Rabbins speak of these sons of the earth This people that knows not the Law is accursed Yet the Mercy of God makes an advantage of their simplicity in that they are therefore less subject to cavillation and incredulitie as contrarily his Justice causes the proud knowledge of others to lie as a block in their way to the ready assent unto the Divine power of the Messias Let the pride of glorious adversaries disdain the povertie of the clients of the Gospel it shall not repent us to go to Heaven with the vulgar whiles their great ones go in state to perdition The multitude wondered Who censured but Scribes great Doctors of the Law of the divinitie of the Jews What Scribes but those of Jerusalem the most eminent Academie of Judaea These were the men who out of their deep reputed judgement cast these foul aspersions upon Christ Great wits ofttimes mislead both the owners and followers How many shall once wish they had been born dullards yea idiots when they shall finde their wit to have barred them out of Heaven Where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made the wisdome of the world foolishness Say the world what it will a dram of holiness is worth a pound of wit Let others censure with the Scribes let me wonder with the multitude What could malice say worse He casteth out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils The Jewes well knew that the Gods of the heathen were no other then Devils amongst whom for that the Lord of Flies so called whether for the concourse of flies to the abundance of his sacrifices or for his aid implored against the infestation of those swarms was held the chief therefore they stile him The Prince of Devils There is a subordination of spirits some higher in degree some inferiour to others Our Saviour himself tells
passes from the ship to the shore That which brought him from Heaven to earth brought him also from the sea to land his compassion on their Souls that he might teach them compassion on their Bodies that he might heal and feed them Judaea was not large but populous it could not be but there must be amongst so many men many diseased it is no marvel if the report of so miraculous and universal sanations drew customers They found three advantages of cure above the power and performance of any earthly Physician Certainty Bounty Ease Certainty in that all comers were cured without fail Bounty in that they were cured without charge Ease in that they were cured without pain Farre be it from us O Saviour to think that thy Glory hath abated of thy Mercy still and ever thou art our assured bountiful and perfect Physician who healest all our diseases and takest away all our infirmities Oh that we could have our faithful recourse to thee in all our spiritual maladies it were as impossible we should want help as that thou shouldest want power and mercy That our Saviour might approve himself every way beneficent he that had filled the Souls of his Auditors with spiritual repast will now fill their Bodies with temporal and he that had approved himself the universal Physician of his Church will now be known to be the great housholder of the world by whose liberal provision mankinde is maintained He did not more miraculously heal then he feeds miraculously The Disciples having well noted the diligent and importune attendance of the multitude now towards evening come to their Master in a care of their repast and discharge This is a desart place and the time is now past Send the multitude away that they may goe into the villages and buy themselves victuals How well it becomes even spiritual guides to regard the bodily necessities of God's people This is not directly in our charge neither may we leave our sacred ministration to serve Tables But yet as the bodily father must take care for the Soul of his childe so must the spiritual have respect to the Body This is all that the world commonly looks after measuring their Pastors more by their dishes then by their doctrine or conversation as if they had the charge of their Bellies not of their Souls if they have open Cellars it matters not whether their Mouths be open If they be sociable in their carriage favourable and indulgent to their recreations full in their chear how easily doth the world dispense with either their negligence or enormities As if the Souls of these men lay in their weasand in their gut But surely they have reason to exspect from their Teachers a due proportion of Hospitality An unmeet parsimony is here not more odious then sinful And where ability wants yet care may not be wanting Those Preachers which are so intent upon their spiritual work that in the mean time they over-strain the weaknesses of their people holding them in their Devotions longer then humane frailty will permit forget not themselves more then their pattern and must be sent to school to these compassionate Disciples who when evening was come sue to Christ for the peoples dismission The place was desart the time evening Doubtless our Saviour made choice of both these that there might be both more use and more note of his Miracle Had it been in the morning their stomack had not been up their feeding had been unnecessary Had it been in the Village provision either might have been made or at least would have seemed made by themselves But now that it was both desart and evening there was good ground for the Disciples to move and for Christ to work their sustentation Then onely may we exspect and crave help from God when we finde our need Superfluous aid can neither be heartily desired nor earnestly lookt for nor thankfully received from the hands of mercy Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee If it be not a burden it is no casting it upon God Hence it is that Divine aid comes ever in the very upshot and exigence of our trials when we have been exercised and almost tired with long hopes yea with despairs of success that it may be both more longed for ere it come and when it comes more welcome Oh the Faith and Zeal of these clients of Christ They not only follow him from the City into the Desart from delicacy to want from frequence to solitude but forget their bodies in pursuit of the food of their Souls Nothing is more hard for an healthful man to forget then his belly within few hours this will be sure to solicit him and will take no denials Yet such sweetness did these hearers finde in the spiritual repast that they thought not on the bodily the Disciples pitied them they had no mercy on themselves By how much more a mans minde is taken up with Heavenly things so much less shall he care for earthly What shall earth be to us when we are all Spirit And in the mean time according to the degrees of our intellectual elevations shall be our neglect of bodily contentments The Disciples think they move well Send them away that they may buy victuals Here was a strong Charity but a weak Faith A strong Charity in that they would have the people relieved a weak Faith in that they supposed they could not otherwise be so well relieved As a man when he sees many wayes lie before him takes that which he thinks both fairest and nearest so doe they this way of relief lay openest to their view and promised most Well might they have thought It is as easie for our Master to feed them as to heal them there is an equal facility in all things to a supernatural power yet they say Send them away In all our projects and suits we are still ready to move for that which is most obvious most likely when sometimes that is less agreeable to the will of God The All-wise and Almighty arbiter of all things hath a thousand secret means to honour himself in his proceedings with us It is not for us to carve boldly for our selves but we must humbly depend on the disposal of his Wisdom and Mercy Our Saviours answer gives a strange check to their motion They need not depart Not need They had no victuals they must have there was none to be had What more need could be He knew the supply which he intended though they knew it not His command was therefore more strange then his assertion Give ye them to eat Nothing gives what it hath not Had they had victuals they had not called for a dismission and not having how should they give It was thy wisdom O Saviour thus to prepare thy Disciples for the intended Miracle Thou wouldst not doe it abruptly without an intimation both of the purpose of it and the necessity And how modestly dost thou
in the Sea Where do we ever else finde any compulsion offered by Christ to his Disciples He was like the good Centurion he said to one Go and he goeth When he did but call them from their nets they came and when he sent them by paires into the Cities and Country of Juâ—aea to preach the Gospel they went There was never errand whereon they went unwillingly only now he constrained them to depart We may easily conceive how loth they were to leave him whether out of love or of common civility Peter's tongue did but when it was speak the heart of the rest Master thou knowest that I love thee Who could chuse but be in love with such a Master and who can willingly part from what he loves But had the respects been only common and ordinary how unfit might it seem to leave a Master now towards night in a wild place amongst strangers unprovided of the means of his passage Where otherwise therefore he needed but to bid now he constrains O Saviour it was ever thy manner to call all men unto thee Come to me all that labour and are heavy laden When didst thou ever drive any one from thee Neither had it been so now but to draw them closer unto thee whom thou seemedst for the time to abdicate In the mean while I know not whether more to excuse their unwillingness or to applaud their obedience As it shall be fully above so it was proportionally here below In thy presence O Saviour is the fulness of joy Once when thou askedst these thy Domesticks whether they also would depart it was answered thee by one tongue for all Master whither should we goe from thee thou hast the words of eternal life What a death was it then to them to be compelled to leave thee Sometimes it pleaseth the Divine goodness to lay upon his servants such commands as savour of harshness and discomfort which yet both in his intention and in the event are no other then gracious and soveraign The more difficulty was in the charge the more praise was in the obedience I do not hear them stand upon the terms of capitulation with their Master nor pleading importunately for their stay but instantly upon the command they yield and goe We are never perfect Disciples till we can depart from our reason from our will yea O Saviour when thou biddest us from thy self Neither will the multitude be gone without a dismission They had followed him whiles they were hungry they will not leave him now they are fed Fain would they put that honour upon him which to avoid he is fain to avoid them gladly would they pay a Kingdome to him as their shot for their late banquet he shuns both it and them O Saviour when the hour of thy Passion was now come thou couldst offer thy self readily to thine apprehenders and now when the glory of the world presses upon thee thou runnest away from a Crown Was it to teach us that there is less danger in suffering then in outward prosperity What do we dote upon that worldly honour which thou heldest worthy of avoidance and contempt Besides this reservedness it was devotion that drew Jesus aside He went alone up to the mountain to pray Lo thou to whom the greatest throng was a solitude in respect of the fruition of thy Father thou who wert uncapable of distraction from him with whom thou wert one wouldst yet so much act man as to retire for the opportunity of prayer to teach us who are nothing but wilde thoughts and giddy distractedness to goe aside when we would speak with God How happy is it for us that thou prayedst O Saviour thou prayedst for us who have not Grace enough to pray for our selves not worth enough to be accepted when we do pray Thy prayers which were most perfect and impetrative are they by which our weak and unworthy prayers receive both life and favour And now how assiduous should we be in our supplications who are empty of grace full of wants when thou who wert a God of all power praiedst for that which thou couldst command Therefore do we pray because thou praiedst therefore do we exspect to be graciously answered in our prayers because thou didst pray for us here on earth and now intercedest for us in Heaven The evening was come the Disciples look'd long for their Master and loath they were to have stirred without him but his command is more then the strongest wind to fill their sailes and they are now gone Their expectation made not the evening seem so long as our Saviours devotion made it seem short to him He is on the mount they on the sea yet whiles he was in the mount praying and lifting up his eyes to his Father he failes not to cast them about upon his Disciples tossed on the waves Those all-seeing eyes admit of no limits At once he sees the highest Heavens and the midst of the sea the glory of his Father and the misery of his Disciples Whatever prospects present themselves to his view the distress of his Followers is ever most noted How much more dost thou now O Saviour from the height of thy glorious advancement behold us thy wretched servants tossed on the unquiet sea of this World and beaten with the troublesome and threatning billows of Affliction Thou foresawest their toil and danger are thou dismissedst them and purposedly sendest them away that they might be tossed Thou that couldest prevent our sufferings by thy power wilt permit them in thy wisdome that thou maist glorifie thy mercy in our deliverance and confirm our Faith by the issue of our distresses How do all things now seem to conspire to the vexing of thy poor Disciples The night was sullen and dark their Master was absent the sea was boistrous the windes were high and contrary Had their Master been with them howsoever the elements had raged they had been secure Had their Master been away yet if the sea had been quiet or the winds fair the passage might have been indured Now both season and sea and winde and their Master's desertion had agreed to render them perfectly miserable Sometimes the Providence of God hath thought good so to order it that to his best servants there appeareth no glimpse of comfort but so absolute vexation as if Heaven and earth had plotted their full affliction Yea O Saviour what a dead night what a fearful tempest what an astonishing dereliction was that wherein thou thy self cryedst out in the bitterness of thine anguished Soul My God my God why hast thou for saken me Yet in all these extremities of misery our gracious God intends nothing but his greater glory and ours the Triumph of our Faith the crown of our Victory All that longsome and tempestuous night must the Disciples wear out in danger and horror as given over to the windes and waves but in the fourth watch of the night when they were wearied out with toils
our Souls may be cured and through all the degrees of Grace may be carried to the full height of their Glory The first Part of the Meditations upon the Transfiguration of Christ In a Sermon preacht at Havering-Bower before K. James of Blessed memory THere is not in all Divinity an higher speculation then this of Christ transfigured Suffer me therefore to lead you up by the hand into Mount Tabor for nearer to Heaven ye cannot come while ye are upon earth that you may see him glorious upon earth the Region of his shame and abasement who is now glorious in Heaven the throne of his Majestie He that would not have his Transfiguration spoken of till he were raised would have it spoken of all the world over now that he is raised and ascended that by this momentany glory we may judge of the eternal The circumstances shall be to us as the skirts of the Hill which we will climb up lightly the Time place Attendants Company The Time after six dayes the Place an high hill apart the Attendants Peter James John the Company Moses and Elias which when we have passed on the top of the hill shall appear to us that sight which shall once make us glorious and in the mean time happy All three Evangelists accord in the Terminus à quo that it was immediately after those words There be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the Son of Man come in his Kingdome Wherein methinks the act comments upon the words Peter James and John were these some they tasted not of death till they saw this Heavenly image of the Royalty of Christ glorified But the Terminus quò disagrees a little Matthew and Mark say after six Luke post ferè octo which as they are easily reconciled by the usual distinction of inclusivè and exclusivè necessary for all computations and Luke's about eight so methinks seem to intimate God's seventh day the Sabbath why should there be else so precise mention of six dayes after and about eight but to imply that day which was betwixt the sixth and eighth God's day was fittest for so Divine a work and well might that day which imported God's rest and mans glory be used for the clear representation of the rest and glory of God and man But in this conjecture for ought I know I goe alone I dare not be too resolute Certainly it was the seventh whether it were that seventh the seventh after the promise of the glory of his Kingdome exhibited and this perhaps not without a mystery God teacheth both by words and acts saith Hilary that after six Ages of the world should be Christs glorious appearance and our transfiguration with him But I know what our Saviours farewel was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not for us to know But if we may not know we may conjecture yet not above that we ought faith S. Paul we may not super sapere as Tertullian's phrase is For the Place tradition hath taken it still for Tabor I list not to cross it without warrant This was an high Hill indeed thirty furlongs high saith Josephus mirâ rotundiâ—ate sublimis saith Hierome and so steep that some of our English travellers that have desired to climbit of late have been glad to give it up in the mid-way and to measure the rest with their eyes Doubtless this Hill was a Symbol of Heaven being near it as in situation in resemblance Heaven is expressed usually by the name of God's hill and Nature or this appellation taught the Heathens to figure it by their Olympus All Divine affairs of any magnificence were done on Hils On the hill of Sinai was the Law delivered on the hill of Moriah was Isaac to be sacrificed whence Abraham's posie is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in monte providebitur on the hill of Rephidim stood Moses with the rod of God in his stretched hand and figured him crucified upon the hill whom Joshua figured victorious in the valley on the hils of Ebal and Gerizim were the Blessings and Curses on Carmel was Eliah's sacrifice The Phrontisteria Schools or Universities of the Prophets were still Ramah and Gibeah excelsa High places Who knows not that on the hill of Sion stood the Temple I have looked up to the hils saith the Psalmist And Idolatry in imitation had their hill-altars On the Mount of Olives was Christ wont to send up his Prayers and sent up himself And here Luke saith he went up to an high hill to pray not for that God makes difference of places to whose immensity Heaven it self is a valley It was an heathenish conceit of those Aramites that God is Deus montium the God of the mountains but because we are commonly more disposed to good by either the freedom of our scope to Heaven or the awfulness or solitary silence of places which as one saith strikes a kinde of adoration into us or by our local removal from this attractive body of the earth howsoever when the body sees it self above the earth the eye of the Minde is more easily raised to her Heaven It is good to take all advantage of place setting aside superstition to further our Devotion Aaron and Hur were in the mountain with Moses and held up his hands Aaron say some Allegorists is mountainous Hur fiery Heavenly Meditation and the fire of Charity must lift up our prayers to God As Satan carried up Christ to an high hill to tempt him so he carries up himself to be freed from temptation and distraction If ever we would be transfigured in our disposition we must leave the earth below and abandon all worldly thoughts Venite ascendamus Oh come let us climb up to the hill where God sees or is seen saith devout Bernard O all ye cares distractions thoughtfulness labours pains servitudes stay me here with this ass my body till I with the boy that is my Reason and Understanding shall worship and return saith the same Father wittily alluding to the journey of Abraham for his sacrifice Wherefore then did Christ climb up this high hill Not to look about him but saith S. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pray not for prospect but for devotion that his thoughts might climb up yet nearer to Heaven Behold how Christ entred upon all his great works with Prayers in his mouth When he was to enter into that great work of his Humiliation in his Passion he went into the Garden to pray when he is to enter into this great work of his Exaltation in his Transfiguring he went up into the mountain to pray he was taken up from his knees to both O noble example of Piety and Devotion to us He was God that prayed the God that he prayed to he might have commanded yet he prayed that we men might learn of him to pray to him What should we men dare to doe without prayers when he that was God would doe nothing
therefore say to you with the Psalmist I have said ye are Gods if ye were transfigured in Tabor could ye be more but ye shall die like men there is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was a worthy and witty note of Hierome that amongst all trees the Cedars are bidden to praise God which are the tallest and yet Dies Domini super omnes Cedros Libani Esay 2. Ye gallants whom a little yellow earth and the webs of that curious worm have made gorgeous without and perhaps proud within remember that ere long as one worm decks you without so another worm shall consume you within and that both the earth that you pranck up and that earth wherewith you pranck it is running back into dust Let not your high estate hide from you your fatal humiliation let not your Purples hide from you your Winding-sheet But even on the top of Tabor think of the depth of the Grave think of your departure from men while ye are advanced above men We are now ascended to the top of the Hill Let us therefore stand and see and wonder at this great sight as Moses to see the bush flaming and not consumed so we to see the Humanity continuing it self in the midst of these beams of Glory Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul in the form of a servant now for the time he was truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transformed That there is no cause why Maldonat should so inveigh against some of ours yea of his own as Jansenius who translates it Transformation for what is the external form but the figure and their own Vulgar as hotly as he takes it reads it Philip. 2. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 formam servi accipiens There is no danger in this ambiguity Not the substantial form but the external fashion of Christ was changed he having three forms as Bernard distinguishes contemptam splendidam Divinam changeth here the first into the second This is one of the rarest occurrences that ever befel the Saviour of the World I am wont to reckon up these four principal Wonders of his life Incarnation Tentation Transfiguration and Agonie the first in the Womb of the Virgin the second in the Wilderness the third in the Mount the fourth in the Garden the first that God should become man the second that God and man should be tempted and transported by Satan the third that man should be glorified upon earth the last that he which was man and God should sweat blood under the sense of Gods wrath for man And all these either had the Angels for witnesses or the immediate voice of God The first had Angels singing the second Angels ministring the third the voice of God thundring the fourth the Angels comforting that it may be no wonder the Earth marvels at those things whereat the Angels of Heaven stand amazed Bernard makes three kinds of wonderful changes Sublimitas in humilitatem Height to lowliness when the Word took flesh Contemptibilitas in Majestatem when Christ transformed himself before his Disciples Mutabilitas in Aeternitatem when he rose again and ascended to Heaven to reign for ever Ye see this is one of them and as Tabor did rise out of the valley of Galilee so this Exaltation did rise out of the midst of Christ's Humiliation Other marvels do increase his dejection this onely makes for his Glory and the glory of this is matchable with the humiliation of all the rest That Face wherein before saith Esay there was no form nor beautie now shines as the Sun That Face which men hid their faces from in contempt now shines so that mortal eyes could not chuse but hide themselves from the lustre of it and immortal receive their beams from it He had ever in vultu sidereum quiddam as Hierome speaks a certain heavenly Majesty and port in his countenance which made his Disciples follow him at first sight but now here was the perfection of supercelestial brightness It was a Miracle in the Three Children that they so were delivered from the flames that their very garments smelt not of the fire it is no less Miracle in Christ that his very garments were died Celestial and did savour of his Glory like as Aaron was so anointed on his head and beard that his skirts were all perfumed His clothes therefore shined as snow yea that were but a waterish white as the Light it self saith S. Mark and Matthew in the most Greek Copies That seamless coat as it had no welt so it had no spot The King's Son is all fair even without O excellent Glory of his Humanitie The best Diamond or Carbuncle is hid with a case but this brightness pierceth through all his garments and makes them lightsome in him which use to conceal light in others Herod put him on in mockage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 23. not a white but a bright robe the ignorance whereof makes a shew of disparity in the Evangelists but God the Father to glorifie him cloaths his very garments with Heavenly splendor Behold thou art fair my beloved behold thou art fair and there is no spot in thee Thine head is as fine gold thy mouth is as sweet things and thou art wholly delectable Come forth ye daughters of Sion and behold King Salomon with the Crown wherewith his Father crowned him in the day of the gladness of his heart O Saviour if thou wert such in Tabor what art thou in Heaven If this were the glory of thy Humanity what is the presence of thy Godhead Let no man yet wrong himself so much as to magnifie this happiness as anothers and to put himself out of the participation of this glory Christ is our head we are his members As we all were in the First Adam both innocent and sinning so are we in the Second Adam both shining in Tabor and bleeding sweat in the Garden And as we are already happy in him so shall we be once in our selves by and through him He shall change our vile bodies that they may be like his glorious body Behold our Pattern and rejoyce Like his glorious body These very bodies that are now cloddie like the earth shall once be bright as the Sun and we that now see clay in one anothers faces shall then see nothing but Heaven in our countenances and we that now set forth our bodies with clothes shall then be clothed upon with Immortality out of the wardrobe of Heaven And if ever any painted face should be admitted to the sight of this Glory as I much fear it yea I am sure God will have none but true faces in Heaven they would be ashamed to think that ever they had faces to daub with these beastly pigments in comparison of this Heavenly complexion Let us therefore look upon this flesh not so much with contempt of what it was and is as with a joyfull hope of what it shall be And when our courage is assaulted with the
miserabilior affectata miserior Forced bondage is more worthy of pity affected bondage is more miserable And if God's hand touch him never so little can his Gold bribe a disease can his bags keep his head from aking or the Gout from his joynts or doth his loathing stomack make a difference betwixt an earthen and silver dish O vain desires and impotent contentments of men who place happiness in that which doth not onely not save them from evils but help to make them miserable Behold their wealth feeds them with famine recreates them with toil chears them with cares blesses them with torments and yet they say Bonum est esse hîc How are their sleeps broken with cares how are their hearts broken with losses Either Riches have wings which in the clipping or pulling flye away and take them to Heaven or else their Souls have wings Stulte hac nocte Thou fool this night and fly from their riches to Hell Non Dominus sed colonus saith Seneca Not the Lord but the farmer So that here are both perishing riches and a perishing Soul Uncertainty of riches as S. Paul to his Timothy and certainty of misery And yet these vain men say Bonum est esse hîc The man of Honour that I may use Bernard's phrase that hath Assuerus his proclamation made before him which knows he is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain great man as Simon affected but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the man which Demosthenes was proud of that sees all heads bare and all knees bent to him that findes himself out of the reach of envy on the pitch of admiration saies Bonum est esse hîc Alas how little thinks he of that which that good man said to his Eugenius Non est quòd blandiatur celsitudo ubi solicitudo major what care we for the fawning of that greatness which is attended with more care King Henry the seventh's Embleme in all his buildings in the windows was still a Crown in a bush of Thorns I know not with what historical allusion but sure I think to imply that great places are not free from great cares Saul knew what he did when he hid himself among the stuff No man knoweth the weight of a Scepter but he that swaieth it As for subordinate greatness it hath so much less worth as it hath more dependance How many sleepless nights and restless days and busie shifts doth their ambition cost them that affect eminence Certainly no men are so worthy of pity as they whose height thinks all other worthy of contempt High places are slippery and as it is easie to fall so the ruine is deep and the recovery difficult Altiorem locum sortitus es non tutiorem sublimiorem sed non sccuriorem saith Bernard Thou hast got an higher place but not a safer a loftier but not more secure Aulae culmen lubricum The slippery ridge of the Court was the old title of Honour David's curse was fiat via eorum tenebrae lubricum Let their way be made dark and slippery What difference is there betwixt his curse and the happiness of the Ambitious but this That the way of the one is dark and slippery the way of the other lightsome and slippery that dark that they may fall this light that they may see and be seen to fall Please your selves then ye great ones and let others please you in the admiration of your height But if your goodness do not answer your greatness Sera querela est quoniam elevans allisisti me It is a late complaint Thou hast lift me up to cast me down Your ambition hath but set you up a scaffold that your misery might be more notorious And yet these clients of Honour say Bonum est esse hîc The pampered Glutton when he seeth his table spread with full bowls with costly dishes and curious sawces the dainties of all three elements says Bonum est esse hîc And yet eating hath a satiety and satiety a weariness his heart is never more empty of contentment then when his stomack is fullest of Delicates When he is empty he is not well till he be filled when he is full he is not well till he have got a stomack Et momentanea blandimenta gulae stercoris fine condemnat saith Hierome And condemns all the momentany pleasures of his maw to the dunghill And when he sits at his feasts of marrow and fat things as the Prophet speaks his table according to the Psalmists imprecation is made his snare a true snare every way His Soul is caught in it with excess his estate with penury his Body with diseases Neither doth he more plainly tear his meat in pieces with his teeth then he doth himself and yet this vain man saies Bonum est esse hîc The petulant Wanton thinks it the onely happiness that he may have his full scope to filthy dalliance Little would he so doe if he could see his Strumpet as she is her eyes the eyes of a Cockatrice her hairs snakes her painted face the visor of a fury her heart snares her hands bands and her end wormwood consumption of the flesh destruction of the Soul and the flames of lust ending in the flames of Hell Since therefore neither Pleasures nor Honour not Wealth can yield any true contentment to their best favourites let us not be so unwise as to speak of this vale of misery as Peter did of the hill of Tabor Bonum est esse hîc And if the best of earth cannot doe it why will ye seek it in the worst How dare any of you great one seek to purchase contentment with Oppression Sacriledge Bribery out-facing innocence and truth with power damning your own Souls for but the humoring of a few miserable days Filii hominum usquequo gravi corde ad quid diligitis vanitatem quaeritis mendacium O ye sons of men how long c. But that which moved Peter's desire though with imperfection shews what will perfect our desire and felicity for if a glimpse of this Heavenly glory did so ravish this worthy Disciple that he thought it happiness enough to stand by and gaze upon it how shall we be affected with the contemplation yea fruition of the Divine Presence Here was but Tabor there is Heaven here were but two Saints there many millions of Saints and Angels here was Christ transfigured there he sits at the right hand of Majesty here was a representation there a gift and possession of Blessedness Oh that we could now forget the world and fixing our eyes upon this better Tabor say Bonum est esse hîc Alas this life of ours if it were not short yet it is miserable and if it were not miserable yet it is short Tell me ye that have the greatest command on earth whether this vile world have ever afforded you any sincere contentation The world is your servant if it were your Parasite yet could it make you heartily
is up the whole City is moved Neither is it otherwise in the private oeconomy of the Soul O Saviour whiles thou dost as it were hide thy self and lye still in the heart and takest all termes contentedly from us we entertain thee with no other then a friendly welcome but when thou once beginnest to ruffle with our Corruptions and to exercise thy Spiritual power in the subjugation of our vile Affections now all is in a secret uprore all the angles of the heart are moved Although doubtless this commotion was not so much of tumult as of wonder As when some uncouth sight presents it self in a populous street men run and gaze and throng and inquire the feet the tongue the eyes walk one spectator draws on another one asks and presses another the noise increases with the concourse each helps to stir up others exspectation such was this of Jerusalem What meanes this strangeness Was not Jerusalem the Spouse of Christ Had he not chosen her out of all the earth Had he not begotten many children of her as the pledges of their love How justly maiest thou now O Saviour complain with that mirrour of Patience My breath was grown strange to my own wife though I intreated her for the childrens sake of my own body Even of thee is that fulfilled which thy chosen Vessel said of thy Ministers Thou art made a gazing-stock to the world to Angels and to men As all the world was bound to thee for thy Incarnation and residence upon the face of the earth so especially Judaea to whose limits thou confinedst thy self and therein above all the rest three Cities Nazaret Capernaum Jerusalem on whom thou bestowedst the most time and cost of preaching and miraculous works Yet in all three thou receivedst not strange Entertainment only but hostile In Nazaret they would have cast thee down headlong from the mount In Capernaum they would have bound thee In Jerusalem they crucified thee at last and now are amazed at thy presence Those places and persons that have the greatest helps and priviledges afforded to them are not alwaies the most answerable in the return of their thankfulness Christs being amongst us doth not make us happy but his welcome Every day may we hear him in our streets and yet be as new to seek as these Citizens of Jerusalem Who is this Was it a question of applause or of contempt or of ignorance Applause of his abettors contempt of the Scribes and Pharisees ignorance of the multitude Surely his abettors had not been moved at this sight the Scribes and Pharisees had rather envied then contemned The multitude doubtless inquired seriously out of a desire of information Not that the citizens of Jerusalem knew not Christ who was so ordinary a guest so noted a Prophet amongst them Questionless this question was asked of that part of the train which went before this Triumph whiles our Saviour was not yet in sight which ere long his presence had resolved It had been their duty to have known to have attended Christ yea to have published him to others since this is not done it is well yet that they spend their breath in an inquiry No doubt there were many that would not so much as leave their shop-board and step to their doors or their windows to say Who is this as not thinking it could concern them who passed by whiles they might sit still Those Greeks were in some way to good that could say to Philip We would see Jesus O Saviour thou hast been so long amongst us that it is our just shame if we know thee not If we have been slack hitherto let our zealous inquiry make amends for our neglect Let outward pomp and worldly glory draw the hearts and tongues of carnal men after them Oh let it be my care and happiness to ask after nothing but thee The attending Disciples could not be to seek for an answer which of the Prophets have not put it into their mouths Who is this Ask Moses and he shall tell you The seed of the Woman that shall break the Serpents head Ask our Father Jacob and he shall tell you The Shiloh of the tribe of Judah Ask David and he shall tell you The King of glory Ask Esay he shall tell you Immanuel Wonderful Counsellor The mighty God The everlasting Father The Prince of peace Ask Jeremy and he shall tell you The righteous Branch Ask Daniel he shall tell you The Messiah Ask John the Baptist he shall tell you The Lamb of God If ye ask the God of the Prophets he hath told you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Yea if all these be too good for you to consult with the Devils themselves have been forced to say I know who thou art even that Holy One of God On no side hath Christ left himself without a testimony and accordingly the Multitude here have their answer ready This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazaret in Galilee Ye undervalue your Master O ye well-meaning Followers of Christ A Prophet yea more then a Prophet John Baptist was so yet was but the harbinger of this Messiah This was that God by whom the Prophets were both sent and inspired Of Nazaret say you ye mistake him Bethleem was the place of his Birth the proof of his Tribe the evidence of his Messiahship If Nazareth were honored by his preaching there was no reason he should be dishonoured by Nazareth No doubt he whom you confessed pardoned the errour of your confession Ye spake but according to the common style the two Disciples in their walk to Emmaus after the Death and Resurrection of Christ give him no other title This belief passed current with the people and thus high even the vulgar thoughts could then rise and no doubt even thus much was for that time very acceptable to the Father of Mercies If we make profession of the Truth according to our knowledg though there be much imperfection in our apprehension and delivery the mercy of our good God takes it well not judging us for what we have not but accepting us in what we have Shouldst thou O God stand strictly upon the punctuall degrees of knowledg how wide would it goe with millions of Souls for besides much errour in many there is more ignorance But herein do we justly magnifie and adore thy Goodness that where thou findest diligent endeavour of better information matched with an honest simplicity of heart thou passest by our unwilling defects and crownest our well-meant confessions But oh the wonderful hand of God in the carriage of this whole business The people proclaimed Christ first a King and now they proclaim him a Prophet Why did not the Roman bands run into armes upon the one why did not the Scribes and Pharisees and the envious Priesthood mutiny upon the other They had made Decrees against him they had laid wait for him yet now he passes in state through their streets acclamed both
Not Heaven but Earth not Soveraignty but Service not the Gentile but the Jew and do they say Not him but Barabbas Do ye thus requite the Lord O ye foolish people and unjust Thus were thine ears and thine eyes first crucified and through them was thy Soul wounded even to death before thy death whiles thou sawest their rage and heardst their noise of Crucifie crucifie Pilate would have chastised thee Even that had been a cruell mercy from him for what evil hadst thou done But that cruelty had been true mercy to this of the Jews whom no blood would satisfie but that of thy heart He calls for thy Fault they call for thy Punishment as proclaiming thy Crucifixion is not intended to satisfie Justice but Malice They cried the more Crucifie him Crucifie him As their clamour grew so the Presidents Justice declined Those Graces that lie loose and ungrounded are easily washt away with the first tide of Popularity Thrice had that man proclaimed the Innocence of him whom he now inclines to condemn willing to content the people Oh the foolish aimes of Ambition Not God not his Conscience come into any regard but the People What a base Idol doth the proud man adore even the Vulgar which a base man despiseth What is their applause but an idle winde what is their anger but a painted fire O Pilate where now is thy self and thy people whereas a good conscience would have stuck by thee for ever and have given thee boldness before the face of that God which thou and thy people shall never have the Happiness to behold The Jews have plaid their first part the Gentiles must now act theirs Cruell Pilate who knew Jesus was delivered for envie accused falsly maliciously pursued hath turned his profered chastisement into scourging Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him Woe is me dear Saviour I feel thy lashes I shrink under thy painfull whippings thy nakedness covers me with shame and confusion That tender and precious body of thine is galled and torn with cords Thou that didst of late water the garden of Gethsemani with the drops of thy bloody sweat dost now bedew the pavement of Pilate's Hall with the showrs of thy blood How fully hast thou made good thy word I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting How can I be enough sensible of my own stripes these blows are mine both my sins have given them and they give remedies to my sins He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes are we healed O blessed Jesu why should I think strange to be scourged with tongue or hand when I see thee bleeding what lashes can I fear either from Heaven or earth since thy scourges have been born for me and have sanctified them to me Now dear Jesu what a world of insolent reproaches indignities tortures art thou entring into To an ingenuous and tender disposition scorns are torment enough but here pain helps to perfect thy misery their despight Who should be actors in this whole bloody execution but grim and barbarous Souldiers men inured to cruelty in whose faces were written the characters of Murder whose very trade was killing and whose looks were enough to prevent their hands These for the greater terrour of their concourse are called together and whether by the connivence or the command of their wicked Governour or by the instigation of the malicious Jews conspire to anticipate his death with scorns which they will after inflict with violence O my Blessed Saviour was it not enough that thy Sacred body was stripped of thy garments and waled with bloody stripes but that thy Person must be made the mocking-stock of thine insulting enemies thy Back disguised with purple robes thy Temples wounded with a thornie Crown thy Face spate upon thy Cheeks buffeted thy Head smitten thy Hand sceptred with a reed thy self derided with wrie mouths bended knees scoffing acclamations Insolent Souldiers whence is all this jeering and sport but to flout Majesty All these are the ornaments and ceremonies of a Royal Inauguration which now in scorn ye cast upon my despised Saviour Goe on make your selves merry with this jolly pastime Alas long agoe ye now feel whom ye scorned Is he a King think you whom ye thus plai'd upon Look upon him with gnashing and horrour whom ye look'd at with mockage and insultation Was not that Head fit for your Thorns which you now see crowned with Glory and Majesty Was not that Hand fit for a Reed whose iron Scepter crushes you to death Was not that Face fit to be spate upon from the dreadfull aspect whereof ye are ready to desire the mountains to cover you In the mean time whither O whither dost thou stoop O thou coeternal Son of thine eternal Father whither dost thou abase thy self for me I have sinned and thou art punished I have exalted my self and thou art dejected I have clad my self with shame and thou art stripped I have made my self naked and thou art clothed with robes of dishonour my head hath devised evil and thine is pierced with thorns I have smitten thee and thou art smitten for me I have dishonoured thee and thou for my sake art scorned Thou art made the sport of men for me that have deserved to be insulted on by Devils Thus disguised thus bleeding thus mangled thus deformed art thou brought forth whether for compassion or for a more universal derision to the furious multitude with an Ecce homo Behold the man look upon him O ye mercilesse Jews see him in his shame in his wounds and blood and now see whether ye think him miserable enough Ye see his Face blew and black with buffeting his Eyes swoln his Cheeks beslabbered with spittle his Skin torn with scourges his whole Body bathed in blood and would ye yet have more Behold the man the man whom ye envied for his greatnesse whom ye feared for his usurpation Doth he not look like a King is he not royally dressed See whether his magnificence do not command reverence from you Would ye wish a Finer King Are ye not afraid he will wrest the Scepter out of Caesar's hand Behold the man Yea and behold him well O thou proud Pilate O ye cruel Souldiers O ye insatiable Jews Ye see him base whom ye shall see glorious the time shall surely come wherein ye shall see him in another dresse he shall shine whom ye now see to bleed his Crown cannot be now so ignominious and painfull as it shall be once majestical and precious ye who now bend your knees to him in scorn shall see all knees both in Heaven and in earth and under the earth to bow before him in an awfull adoration ye that now see him with contempt shall behold him with horrour What an inward war do I yet finde in
corps such as if all the Powers of Darkness shall band against they shall finde themselves confounded In spight of all the gates of Hell that word shall stand Not a bone of him shall be broken Still the infallible Decree of the Almighty leads you on to his own ends through your own waies Ye saw him already dead whom ye came to dispatch those bones therefore shall be whole which ye had had no power to break But yet that no piece either of your cruelty or of Divine prediction may remain unsatisfied he whose bones may not be impaired shall be wounded in his flesh he whose Ghost was yielded up must yield his last blood One of the souldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith there came out blood and water Malice is wont to end with life here it overlives it Cruel man what means this so late wound what commission hadst thou for this bloody act Pilate had given leave to break the bones of the living he gave no leave to gore the side of the dead what wicked supererogation is this what a superfluity of maliciousness To what purpose did thy spear pierce so many hearts in that one why wouldst thou kill a dead man Methinks the Blessed Virgin and those other passionate associates of hers and the Disciple whom Jesus loved together with the other of his fellows the friends and followers of Christ and especially he that was so ready to draw his sword upon the troup of his Masters apprehenders should have work enough to contain themselves within the bounds of patience at so savage a stroke their sorrow could not chuse but turn to indignation and their hearts could not but rise as even mine doth now at so impertinent a villany How easily could I rave at that rude hand But O God when I look up to theee and consider how thy holy and wise Providence so overrules the most barbarous actions of men that besides their will they turn beneficial I can at once hate them and bless thee This very wound hath a mouth to speak the Messiahship of my Saviour and the truth of thy Scripture They shall look at him whom they have pierced Behold now the Second Adam sleeping and out of his side formed the Mother of the living the Evangelical Church Behold the Rock which was smitten and the waters of life gushed forth Behold the fountain that is set open to the house of David for sin and for uncleanness a fountain not of water only but of blood too O Saviour by thy water we are washed by thy blood we are redeemed Those two Sacraments which thou didst institute alive flow also from thee dead as the last memorials of thy Love to thy Church the water of Baptisme which is the laver of Regeneration the blood of the new Testament shed for remission of sins and these together with the Spirit that gives life to them both are the three Witnesses on earth whose attestation cannot fail us Oh precious and soveraign wound by which our Souls are healed Into this cleft of the rock let my Dove fly and enter and there safely hide her self from the talons of all the birds of prey It could not be but that the death of Christ contrived and acted at Jerusalem in so solemn a Festival must needs draw a world of beholders The Romans the Centurion and his band were there as actors as supervisors of the Execution Those strangers were no otherwise ingaged then as they that would hold fair correspondence with the Citizens where they were engarisoned their freedome from prejudice rendred them more capable of an ingenuous construction of all events Now when the Centurion and they that were with him that watched Jesus saw the Earthquake and the things that were done they feared greatly and glorified God and said Truely this was the Son God What a marvelous concurrence is here of strong and irrefragable convictions Meekness in suffering Prayer for his murderers a faithful resignation of his Soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father the Sun eclipsed the Heavens darkned the earth trembling the graves open the rocks rent the veile of the Temple torn who could goe less then this Truly this was the Son of God He suffers patiently this is through the power of Grace many good men have done so through his enabling The frame of Nature suffers with him this is proper to the God of Nature the Son of God I wonder not that these men confessed thus I wonder that any Spectator confessed it not these proofs were enough to fetch all the world upon their knees and to have made all mankind a Convert But all hearts are not alike no means can work upon the wilfully-obdured Even after this the Souldier pierced that Blessed side and whiles Pagans relented Jews continued impenitent Yet even of that Nation those beholders whom envie and partiality had not interessed in this slaughter were stricken with just astonishment and smote their breasts and shook their heads and by passionate gesture spake what their tongues durst not How many must there needs be in this universal concourse of them whom he had healed of diseases or freed from Devils or miraculously fed or some way obliged in their persons or friends These as they were deeply affected with the mortal indignities which were offered to their acknowledged Messiah so they could not but be ravished with wonder at those powerful demonstrations of the Deity of him in whom they believed and strangely distracted in their thoughts whiles they compared those Sufferings with that Omnipotence As yet their Faith and Knowledge was but in the bud or in the blade How could they chuse but think Were he not the Son of God how could these things be and if he were the Son of God how could he die His Resurrection his Ascension should soon after perfect their belief but in the mean time their hearts could not but be conflicted with thoughts hard to be reconciled Howsoever they glorifie God and stand amazed at the expectation of the issue But above all other O thou Blessed Virgin the Holy Mother of our Lord how many swords pierced thy Soul whiles standing close by his Cross thou sawest thy dear Son and Saviour thus indignely used thus stripped thus stretched thus nailed thus bleeding thus dying thus pierced How did thy troubled heart now recount what the Angel Gabriel had reported to thee from God in the message of thy blessed Conception of that Son of God How didst thou think of the miraculous formation of that thy Divine burden by the power of the Holy Ghost How didst thou recal those prophecies of Anna and Simeon concerning him and all those supernatural works of his the irrefragable proofs of his Godhead and laying all these together with the miserable infirmities of his Passion how wert thou crucified with him The care that he took for thee in the extremity of his torments could not chuse but melt thy heart into sorrow But
one sinner how much more when a world of sinners is perfectly ransomed from death and restored to Salvation Certainly if but one or two appeared all rejoyced all triumphed Neither could they but be herein sensible of their own happy advantage who by thy mediation are confirmed in their glorious estate since thou by the blood of thy Cross and power of thy Resurrection hast reconciled things not in earth onely but in Heaven But above all other the Love of thee their God and Saviour must needs heighten their joy and make thy Glory theirs It is their perpetual work to praise thee how much more now when such an occasion was offered as never had been since the world began never could be after when thou the God of Spirits hadst vanquished all the spiritual powers of darkness when thou the Lord of Life hadst conquered death for thee and all thine so as they may now boldly insult over their last enemy O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Certainly if Heaven can be capable of an increase of joy and felicity never had those Blessed Spirits so great a cause of triumph and gratulation as in this day of thy glorious Resurrection How much more O dear Jesu should we men whose flesh thou didst assume unite revive for whose sake and in whose stead thou didst vouchsafe to suffer and die whose arrerages thou payedst in death and acquittedst in thy Resurrection whose Souls are discharged whose Bodies shall be raised by the power of thy rising how much more should we think we have cause to be over-joyed with the happy memory of this great work of thy Divine Power and unconceiveable Mercy Lo now how weak soever I am in my self yet in the confidence of this victorious Resurrection of my Saviour I dare boldly challenge and defie you O all ye adverse Powers Doe the worst ye can to my Soul in despight of you it shall be safe Is it Sin that threats me Behold this Resurrection of my Redeemer publishes my discharge My Surety was arrested and cast into the prison of his Grave had not the utmost farthing of mine arrerages been paid he could not have come forth He is come forth the Summe is fully satisfied What danger can there be of a discharged Debt Is it the Wrath of God Wherefore is that but for sin If my sin be defraied that quarrel is at an end and if my Saviour suffered it for me how can I fear to suffer it in my self That infinite Justice hates to be twice paid He is risen therefore he hath satisfied Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen Is it Death it self Lo my Saviour that overcame death by dying hath triumph'd over him in his Resurrection How can I now fear a conquered enemy What harm is there in the Serpent but for his sting The sting of death is sin that is pulled out by my powerful Redeemer it cannot now hurt me it may refresh me to carry this cool Snake in my bosome O then my dear Saviour I bless thee for thy Death but I bless thee more for thy Resurrection That was a work of wonderful Humility of infinite Mercy this was a work of infinite Power In that was humane Weakness in this Divine Omnipotence In that thou didst die for our sins in this thou didst rise again for our Justification And now how am I conformable to thee if when thou art risen I lie still in the grave of my Corruptions How am I a lim of thy body if whiles thou hast that perfect dominion over death death hath dominion over me if whiles thou art alive and glorious I lie rotting in the dust of death I know the locomotive faculty is in the Head by the power of the Resurrection of thee our Head all we thy Members cannot but be raised As the earth cannot hold my body from thee in the day of the Second Resurrection so cannot sin withhold my Soul from thee in the First How am I thine if I be not risen and if I be risen with thee why do I not seek the things above where thou sittest at the right hand of God The Vault or Cave which Joseph had hewn out of the rock was large capable of no less then ten persons upon the mouth of it Eastward was that great stone rolled within it at the right hand in the North part of the Cave was hewn out a receptacle for the body three handfuls high from the pavement and a stone was accordingly fitted for the cover of that Grave Into this Cave the good Women finding the stone rolled away descended to seek the body of Christ and in it saw the Angels This was the Goal to which Peter and John ran finding the spoils of death the grave cloaths wrapped up and the napkin that was about the head folded up together and laid in a place by it self and as they came in haste so they return'd with wonder I marvel not at your speed O ye blessed Disciples if upon the report of the Women ye ran yea flew upon the wings of zeal to see what was become of your Master Ye had wont to walk familiarly together in the attendance of your Lord now society is forgotten and as for a wager each tries the speed of his legs and with neglect of other vies who shall be first at the Tomb. Who would not but have tried masteries with you in this case and have made light touches of the earth to have held paces with you Your desire was equal but John is the yonger his lims are more nimble his breath more free he first looks into the Sepulcher but Peter goes down first O happy competition who shall be more zealous in the enquiry after Christ Ye saw enough to amaze you not enough to settle your Faith How well might you have thought Our Master is not subduced but risen Had he been taken away by others hands this fine linen had not been left behinde Had he not himself risen from this bed of earth he had not thus wrapped up his night-cloaths and laid them sorted by themselves What can we doubt when he foretold us he would rise O Blessed Jesu how wilt thou pardon our errours how should we pardon and pity the errours of each other in lesser occasions whenas yet thy prime and dearest Disciples after so much Divine instruction knew not the Scriptures that thou must rise again from the dead They went away more astonished then confident more full of wonder as yet then of belief There is more strength of zeal where it takes in the weaker Sex Those holy Women as they came first so they staid last especially devout Mary Magdalene stands still at the mouth of the Cave weeping Well might those tears have been spared if her Knowledge had been answerable to her Affection her Faith to her Fervour Withall as our eye will be where we love she stoops and looks down
to thee both in Heaven and in Earth and under the earth Thou hadst an everlasting right to that Heaven that should be an undoubted possession of it ever since it was yea even whiles thou didst cry and spraul in the Cratch whiles thou didst hang upon the Cross whiles thou wert sealed up in thy Grave but thine Humane nature had not taken actual possession of it till now Like as it was in thy true Type David he had right to the Kingdome of Israel immediately upon his anointing but yet many an hard brunt did he pass ere he had the full possession of it in his ascent to Hebron I see now O Blessed Jesu I see where thou art even farre above all Heavens at the right hand of thy Father's Glory This is the farre countrey into which the Nobleman went to receive for himself a Kingdom farre off to us to thee near yea intrinsecal Oh do thou raise up my Heart thither to thee place thou my Affections upon thee above and teach me therefore to love Heaven because thou art there How then O Blessed Saviour how didst thou ascend Whiles they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight So wast thou taken up as that the act was thine own the power of the act none but thine Thou that descendedst wast the same that ascendedst as in thy descent there was no use of any power or will but thine own no more was there in thine ascent Still and ever wert thou the Master of thine own acts Thou laidst down thy own life no man took it from thee Thou raisedst up thy self from death no hand did or could help thee Thou carriedst up thine own glorified flesh and placedst it in Heaven The Angels did attend thee they did not aid thee whence had they their strength but from thee Elias ascended to Heaven but he was fetcht up in a Chariot of fire that it might appear hence that man had need of other helps who else could not of himself so much as lift up himself to the Aiery Heaven much less to the Empyreal But thou our Redeemer neededst no Chariot no carriage of Angels thou art the Author of life and motion they move in and from thee As thou therefore didst move thy self upward so by the same Divine power thou wilt raise us up to the participation of thy Glory These vile bodies shall be made like to thy glorious body according to the working whereby thou art able to subdue all things unto thy self Elias had but one witness of his rapture into Heaven S. Paul had none no not himself for whether in the body or out of the body he knew not Thou O Blessed Jesu wouldst neither have all eyes witnesses of thine Ascension nor yet too few As after thy Resurrection thou didst not set thy self upon the pinnacle of the Temple nor yet publickly shew thy self within it as making thy presence too cheap but madest choice of those eyes whom thou wouldst bless with the sight of thee thou wert seen indeed of five hundred at once but they were Brethren So in thine Ascension thou didst not carry all Jerusalem promiscuously forth with thee to see thy glorious departure but onely that selected company of thy Disciples which had attended thee in thy life Those who immediately upon thine ascending returned to Jerusalem were an hundred and twenty persons a competent number of witnesses to verifie that thy miraculous and triumphant passage into thy Glory Lo those onely were thought worthy to behold thy Majestical Ascent which had been partners with thee in thy Humiliation Still thou wilt have it thus with us O Saviour and we embrace the condition if we will converse with thee in thy lowly estate here upon earth wading with thee through contempt and manifold afflictions we shall be made happy with the sight and communion of thy Glory above O my Soul be thou now if ever ravished with the contemplation of this comfortable and blessed farewel of thy Saviour What a sight was this how full of joyful assurance of spiritual consolation Methinks I see it still with their eyes how thou my glorious Saviour didst leisurely and insensibly rise up from thine Olivet taking leave of thine acclaming Disciples now left below thee with gracious eyes with Heavenly Benedictions Methinks I see how they followed thee with eager and longing eyes with arms lifted up as if they had wished them winged to have soared up after thee And if Eliah gave assurance to his servant Elisha that if he should behold him in that rapture his Masters Spirit should be doubled upon him what an accession of the Spirit of joy and confidence must needs be to thy happy Disciples in seeing thee thus gradually rising up to thy Heaven Oh how unwillingly did their intentive eyes let goe so Blessed an Object How unwelcome was that Cloud that interposed it self betwixt thee and them and closing up it self left only a glorious splendour behind it as the bright track of thine Ascension Of old here below the Glory of the Lord appeared in the Cloud now afarre off in the sky the Cloud intercepted this Heavenly Glory if distance did not rather doe it then that bright meteor Their eyes attended thee on thy way so farre as their beams would reach when they could goe no further the Cloud received thee Lo yet even that very screen whereby thou wert taken off from all earthly view was no other then glorious how much rather do all the beholders fix their sight upon that Cloud then upon the best piece of the Firmament Never was the Sun it self gazed on with so much intention With what long looks with what astonished acclamations did these transported beholders follow thee their ascending Saviour as if they would have lookt through that Cloud and that Heaven that hid thee from them But oh what tongue of the highest Archangel of Heaven can express the welcome of thee the King of Glory into those Blessed Regions of Immortality Surely the Empyreal Heaven never resounded with so much joy God ascended with jubilation and the Lord with the sound of the Trumpet It is not for us weak and finite creatures to wish to conceive those incomprehensible spiritual Divine gratulations that the Glorious Trinity gave to the victorious and now-glorified Humane nature Certainly if when he brought his onely-begotten Son into the world he said Let all the Angels worship him much more now that he ascends on high and hath led captivity captive hath he given him a Name above all Names that at the name of JESUS all knees should bow And if the Holy Angels did so caroll at his Birth in the very entrance into that estate of Humiliation and in firmity with what triumph did they receive him now returning from the perfect atchievement of man's Redemption And if when his Type had vanquished Goliah and carried the head into Jerusalem the damsels came forth to meet him with dances and
and felicity if his absence could be grievous his return shall be happy and glorious Even so Lord Jesus come quickly In the mean while it is not Heaven that can keep thee from me it is not earth that can keep me from thee Raise thou up my Soul to a life of Faith with thee let me ever injoy thy conversation whiles I exspect thy return A SERMON OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING For the wonderful Mitigation of the late Mortalitie Preached before His Majestie upon His gracious Command at His Court of Whitehall Jan. 29. 1625. and upon the same Command published by JOS. HALL Dean of Worcester Psal 68. vers 19 20. Blessed be the Lord who loadeth us daily with benefits even the God of our Salvation Selah He that is our God is the God of Salvation and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death YEa blessed be the Lord who hath added this unto the load of his other Mercies to his unworthy servant that the same Tongue which was called not long since to chatter out our Publick Mournings in the Solemn Fast of this place is now imployed in a Song of Praise and the same Hand which was here lifted up for Supplication is now lift up in Thanksgiving Ye that then accompanied me with your tears and sighs accompany me now I beseech you in this happy change of note and time with your joyful Smiles and Acclamations to the GOD that hath wrought it It is not more natural for the Sun when it looks upon a moist and wellfermented earth to cause Vapors to ascend thence then it is for Greatness and Goodness when they both meet together upon an honest heart to draw up holy desires of gratulation The worth of the Agent doth it not alone without a â—it disposition in the Subject Let the Sun cast his strongest beams upon a flint a pumice he fetches out no stream Even so the Greatness and Goodness of the Almighty beating upon a dry and hard heart prevailes nothing Here all three are happily met In God infinite Greatness infinite Goodness such Greatness that he is attended with thousand thousands of Angels a Guard fit for the King of Heaven such Goodness that he receives Gifts even for the rebellious In David a Gracious heart that in a sweet sense of the great Goodness of his God breaths out this Divine Epiphonema Blessed be the Lord who loadeth us daily with benefits even the God of our Salvation c. Wherein methinks the sweet Singer of Israel seems to raise his note to the emulation of the Quire of Heaven in the melody of their Allelujahs yea let me say now that he sings above in that Blessed Consort of glorious Spirits his Ditty cannot be better then this that he sung here upon earth and wherein we are about to bear our parts at this time Prepare I beseech you both your eares for David's Song and your hearts and tongues for your own And first in this Angelical strain your thoughts cannot but observe without me the Descant and the Ground The Descant of Gratulation Blessed be the Lord wherein is both Applause and Excitation an Applause given to God's Goodness and an Excitation of others to give that Applause The Ground is a threefold respect Of what God is in himself God and Lord Of what God is and doth to us which loadeth us daily with benefits Of what he is both in himself and to us The God of our Salvation which last like to some rich Stone is set off with a dark foyl To God the Lord belong the issues from death So in the first for his own sake in the second for our sakes in the third for his own and ours as God as Lord as a Benefactor as a Saviour and Deliverer Blessed be the Lord. It is not hard to observe that David's Allelujahs are more then his Hosannas his thanks more then his suits Oft-times doth he praise God when be begs nothing seldome ever doth he beg that favour for which he doth not raise up his Soul to an anticipation of Thanks neither is this any other then the universal under-song of all his Heavenly Ditties Blessed be the Lord. Praised as our former Translation hath it is too low Honour is more then Praise Blessing is more then Honour Neither is it for nothing that from this word Barac to bless is derived Berec the knee which is bowed in blessing and the cryer before Joseph proclaimed Abrech calling for the honour of the knee from all beholders Gen. 41. 43. Every slight trivial acknowledgement of worth is a Praise Blessing is in a higher strain of gratitude that carries the whole sway of the heart with it in a kinde of Divine rapture Praise is in matter of complement Blessing of Devotion The Apostle's Rule is that the less is blessed of the greater Abraham of the King of Salem The Prophets charge is that the greater should be blessed of the less yea the greatest of the least God of man This agrees well Blessing is an act that will bear reciprocation God blesseth man and man blesseth God God blesseth man imperatively man blesseth God optatively God blesseth man in the acts of Mercy man blesseth God in the notions in the expressions of thanks God blesses man when he makes him good and happy man blesseth God when he confesseth how good how gracious how glorious he is so as the blessing is wholly taken up in agnition in celebration in the one we acknowledge the Bounty of God to us in the other we magnifie him vocally really for that Bounty Oh see then what high account God makes of the affections and actions of his poor silly earth-creeping creatures that he gives us in them power to bless himself and takes it as an honour to be blessed of us David wonders that God should so vouchsafe to bless man how much more must we needs wonder at the mercy of God that will vouchsafe to be blessed by man a worm an atome a nothing Yet both S. James tels us that with the tongue we bless God and the Psalmist calls for it here as a service of dear acceptation Blessed be the Lord. Even we men live not Cameleon-like with the aire of thanks nor feed ere the fatter with praises how much less our Maker O God we know well that whatsoever men or Angels doe or doe not thou canst not but be infinitely Blessed in thy self before ever any creature was thou didst equally injoy thy blessed Self from all Eternity what can this worthless loose filme of flesh either adde to or detract from thine Infiniteness Yet thou that humblest thy self to behold the things that are done in Heaven and earth humblest thy self also to accept the weak breath of our Praises that are sent up to thee from earth to Heaven How should this incourage the vows the endeavours of our hearty thankfulness to see them graciously taken Would men take up with good words with good desires and quit our bonds
deadly condition As ye love your Souls give no sleep to your eyes nor peace to your hearts till ye find the sensible effects of the Death and Passion of Christ your Saviour within you mortifying all your corrupt affections and sinful actions that ye may truly say with S. Paul I am crucified with Christ Six several times do we find that Christ shed blood in his Circumcision in his Agonie in his Crowning in his Scourging in his Affixion in his Transfixion The instrument of the first was the Knife of the second vehemence of Passion of the third the Thorns of the fourth the Whips of the fifth the Nails of the last the Spear In all these we are we must be Partners with our Saviour In his Circumcision when we draw blood of our selves by cutting off the foreskin of our filthy if pleasing Corruptions Col. 2. 11. In his Agony when we are deeply affected with the sense of God's displeasure for sin and terrified with the frowns of an angry Father In his Crowning with thorns when we smart and bleed with reproches for the name of Christ when that which the world counts Honour is a pain to us for his sake when our guilty thoughts punish us and wound our restless heads with the sad remembrance of our sins In his Scourging when we tame our wanton and rebellious flesh with wise rigor and holy severity In his Affixion when all the powers of our Souls and parts of our body are strictly hampered and unremovably fastened upon the Royal Commandements of our Maker and Redeemer In his Transfixion when our hearts are wounded with Divine love with the Spouse in the Canticles or our Consciences with deep sorrow In all these we bleed with Christ and all these save the first onely belong to his Crucifying Surely as it was in the Old Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without bloodshed there was no remission Heb. 9. 22. so it is still and ever in the New If Christ had not thus bled for us no remission if we do not thus bleed with Christ no remission There is no benefit where is no partnership If Christ therefore bled with his Agony with his Thorns with his Whips with his Nails with his Spear in so many thousand passages as Tradition is bold to define and we never bleed either with the Agony of our sorrow for sin or the Thorns of holy cares for displeasure or the Scourges of severe Christian rigour or the Nails of holy constraint or the Spear of deep remorse how do we how can we for shame say we are crucified with Christ Divine S. Austin in his Epistle or Book rather to Honoratus gives us all the dimensions of the Cross of Christ The Latitude he makes in the transverse this saith he pertains to good Works because on this his hands were stretched The Length was from the ground to the transverse this is attributed to his longanimity and persistance for on that his Body was stayed and fixed The Height was in the head of the Cross above the transverse signifying the exspectation of supernal things The Depth of it was in that part which was pitcht below within the earth importing the profoundness of his free Grace which is the ground of all his beneficence In all these must we have our part with Christ In the Transverse of his Cross by the ready extension of our hands to all good Works of Piety Justice Charity in the Arrectary or beam of his Cross by continuance and uninterrupted perseverance in good in the Head of his Cross by an high elevated hope and looking for of Glory in the Foot of his Cross by a lively and firm Faith fastening our Souls upon the affiance of his free Grace and Mercy And thus shall we be crucified with Christ upon his own Cross Yet lastly we must goe further then this from his Cross to his Person So did S. Paul and every Believer die with Christ that he died in Christ For as in the first Adam we all lived and sinned so in the second all Believers died that they might live The first Adam brought in death to all mankind but at last actually died for none but himself the second Adam died for mankind and brought life to all Believers Seest thou thy Saviour therefore hanging upon the Cross all mankind hangs there with him as a Knight or Burgess of Parliament voices his whole Burrough or Country What speak I of this The arms and legs take the same lot with the head Every Believer is a lim of that body how can he therefore but die with him and in him That real union then which is betwixt Christ and us makes the Cross and Passion of Christ ours so as the thorns pierced our heads the scourages blooded our backs the nails wounded our hands and feet and the spear gored our sides and hearts by virtue whereof we receive justification from our sins and true mortification of our corruptions Every Believer therefore is dead already for his sins in his Saviour he needs not fear that he shall die again God is too just to punish twice for one fault to recover the summe both of the surety principal All the score of our arrerages is fully struck off by the infinite satisfaction of our Blessed Redeemer Comfort thy self therefore thou penitent and faithful Soul in the confidence of thy safety thou shalt not die but live since thou art already crucified with thy Saviour he died for thee thou diedst in him Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifies Who shall condemn It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again and lives gloriously at the right hand of God making intercession for us To thee O Blessed Jesu together with thy Coeternal Father and Holy Spirit three Persons in one infinite and incomprehensible Deity be all Praise Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen ONE OF THE SERMONS Preached to the LORDS OF THE High Court of Parliament In their solemn Fast held on Ashwednesday Feb. 18. And by their Appointment published by the B. of EXCESTER Acts 2. 37 38 40. 37. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their hearts and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and brethren what shall we doe 38. Then said Peter unto them Repent and be baptized c. 40. And with many other words did he testifie and exhort them saying Save your selves from this untoward generation WHO knows not that Simon Peter was a Fisher That was his trade both by Sea and Land if we may not rather say that as Simon he was a Fisher-man but as Peter he was a Fisher of men he that call'd him so made him so And surely his first draught of Fishes which as Simon he made at our Saviours Command might well be a trade Type of the first draught of men which as Peter he made in this place for as then the nets were ready to
subduction thus Save thy self from a froward generation The last and utmost of all dangers is Confusion That charge of God by Moses is but just Numb 16. 26. Depart I pray you from the tents of these men and touch nothing of theirs lest ye perish in all their sins Lo the very station the very touch is mortal Indeed what reason is there to hope or to plead for an immunity if we share in the work why should we not take part of the wages The wages of sin is death If the Stork be taken damage faisant with the Cranes she is enwrapped in the same net and cannot complain to be surprized Qui cum lupis est cum lupis ululet as he said He that is with wolves let him howl with wolves If we be fratres in malo brethren in evil we must look to be involved in the same curse Be not deceived Honourable and beloved here is no exemption of Greatness nay contrarily Eminence of place aggravates both the sin and the judgement When Ezra heard that the hand of the Princes and Rulers had been chief in that great offence then he rent his cloaths and tore his hair Ezra 9. 3. Certainly this case is dangerous and fearful wheresoever it lights Hardly are those sins redressed that are taken up by the Great Easily are those sins diffused that are warranted by great Examples The great Lights of Heaven the most conspicuous Planets if they be eclipsed all the Almanacks of all Nations write of it whereas the small Stars of the Galaxy are not heeded All the Country runs to a Beacon on fire no body regards to see a Shrub flaming in a valley Know then that your sins are so much greater as your selves are and all the comfort that I can give you without your true repentance is That mighty men shall be mightily tormented Of all other men therefore be ye most careful to keep your selves untainted with the common sins and to renew your covenant with God No man cares for a spot upon a plain russet riding-suit but we are curious of a rich robe every mote there is an eye-sore Oh be ye careful to preserve your Honour from all the foul blemishes of corruption as those that know Vertue hath a greater share in Nobility then Blood Imitate in this the great frame of the Creation which still the more it is removed from the dregs of this earth the purer it is Oh save ye your selves from this untoward Generation so shall ye help to save your Nation from the imminent Judgements of our just God so shall ye save your Souls in the day of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one infinite God be all Honour and Glory ascribed now and for ever Amen THE HYPOCRITE Set forth in A SERMON at the Court February 28. 1629. Being the third Sunday in LENT By Jos. Exon. To my ever most worthily Honour'd Lord the Earl of NORWICH My most Honoured Lord I Might not but tell the world that this Sermon which was mine in the Pulpit is Yours in the Press Your Lordship's will which shall never be other then a command to me fetches it forth into the Light before the fellows Let me be branded with the Title of it if I can think it worthy of the publick view in comparison of many accurate pieces of others which I see content themselves daily to die in the ear Howsoever if it may doe good I shall bless your Lordship for helping to advance my gain Your Noble and sincere true-heartedness to your God your King your Countrey your Friend is so well known that it can be no disparagement to your Lordship to patronize this Hypocrite whose very inscription might cast a blur upon some guilty reputation Goe on still most noble Lord to be a great Example of Vertue and Fidelity to an hollow and untrusty Age. You shall not want either the Acclamations or Prayers of Your Lordships ever devoted in all true Duty and Observance Jos. Exon. THE HYPOCRITE 2 Tim. 3. 5. Having a Form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof IT is an unperfect Clause you see but a perfect Description of an Hypocrite and that an Hypocrite of our own times the last which are so much the worse by how much they partake more of the craft and diseases of age The Prophets were the Seers of the Old Testament the Apostles were the Seers of the New those saw Christ's day and rejoyced these foresaw the reign of Antichrist and complained These very times were as present to S. Paul as to us our Sense doth not see them so clearly as his Revelation I am with you in the Spirit saith he to his absent Colossians rejoycing and beholding your order he doth as good as say to them I am with you in the Spirit lamenting and beholding your misdemeanours By these Divine Opticks he sees our formal Piety real Wickedness both which make up the complete Hypocrisie in my Text Having a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof I doubt not but some will be ready to set this sacred Prognostication to another Meridian And indeed we know a Generation that loves themselves too well much more then Peace and Truth so covetous that they would catch all the world in S. Peter's net proud boasters of their own merits perfections supererogations it would be long though easie to follow all We know where too many Treasons are hatched we know who in the height of minde exalts himself above all that is called God we know where pleasure hath the most delicate and debauch'd Clients we know where Devotion is professedly formal and lives impure and surely were we clearly innocent of these crimes I should be the first that would cast this stone at Rome But now that we share with them in these sins there is no reason we should be sejoyned in the Censure Take it among ye therefore ye Hypocrites of all professions for it is your own Ye have a form of Godliness denying the power thereof What is an Hypocrite but a Player the Zani of Religion as ye heard lately A Player acts that he is not so do ye act good and are wicked Here is a semblance of good a form of Godliness here is a real evil a denial of the power of Godliness There is nothing so good as Godliness yea there is nothing good but it nothing makes Godliness to be good or to be Godliness but the power of it for it is not if it work not and it works not if not powerfully Now the denial of good must needs be evil and so much more evil as the good which is denied is more good and therefore the denial of the power of Godliness must needs be as ill as the form or shew of Godliness would seem good and as the power of Godliness is good This is therefore the perfect Hypocrisie of fashionable Christians they have the form they deny the
but dead in sin Colos 2. 13. yea with Lazarus quatriduani and ill-senting yea if that will adde any thing as St. Jude's trees or as they say of acute Scotus twice dead Would ye arise It is only Godliness that can doe it Ye are risen up through the faith in the operation of God Col. 2. 12. This only can call us out of the grave of our sins Arise thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and christ shall give thee life Christ is the Author Godliness is the means All ye that hear me this day either ye are alive or would be Life is sweet every one challenges it Do ye live willingly in your sins Let me tell you ye are dead in your sins This life is a death If you wish to live comfortably here and gloriously hereafter it is Godliness that must mortifie this life in sin that must quicken you from this death in sin Flatter your selves how you please ye great Gallants of both Sexes ye think your selves goodly pieces without Godliness ye are the worst kinde of carkasses for as death or not-being is the worst condition that can befall a creature so death in sin is so much the worst kind of death by how much Grace is better then Nature A living Dog or Toad is better then a thus-dead sinner Would ye rise out of this loathsome and woful plight it is Godliness that must breath Grace into your dead lims and that must give you the motions of holy Obedience Is it not a wonder to cast out Devils I tell you the corporal possession of ill spirits is not so rare as the spiritual is rise No natural man is free One hath the spirit of errour 1 Tim. 4. 1. another the spirit of fornications Ose 4. 12. another the spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. 7. another the spirit of slumber another the spirit of giddiness another the spirit of pride all have spiritum mundi the spirit of the world 1 Cor. 2. 12. Our story in Guliel Neubrigensis tells us of a Countryman of ours one Kettle of Farnham in King Henry the Second's time that had the faculty to see spirits by the same token that he saw the Devils spitting over the Drunkards shoulders into their pots the same faculty is recorded of Antony the Eremite and Sulpitius reports the same of Saint Martin Surely there need none of these eyes to discern every natural mans Soul haunted with these evil Angels Let me assure you all ye that have not yet felt the power of Godliness ye are as truely though spiritually carried by evil spirits into the deeps of your known wickedness as ever the Gadarene hogs were carried by them down the precipice into the Sea Would you be free from this hellish tyranny only the power of Godliness can doe it 2 Tim. 2. 26 27. Is peradventure God will give them repentance that they may recover themselves out of the snares of the Devil and Repentance is you know a main part of Godliness If ever therefore ye be dispossessed of that Evil one it is the power of Godliness that must doe it What speak I of power I had like to have ascribed to it the acts of Omnipotencie And if I had done so it had not been much amiss for what is Godliness but one of those rayes that beams forth from that Almighty Deity what but that same Dextra Excelsi whereby he works mightily upon the Soul Now when I say the man is strong is it any derogation to say his arme is strong Faith and Prayer are no small pieces of Godliness and what is it that God can doe which Prayer and Faith cannot doe Will ye see some instances of the further acts of Godliness Is it not an act of Omnipotence to change Nature Jannes and Jambres the Aegyptian Sorcerers may juggle away the Staffe and bring a Serpent into the room of it none but a Divine power which Moses wrought by could change the Rod into a Serpent or the Serpent into a Rod. Nothing is above Nature but the God of Nature nothing can change Nature but that which is above it for Nature is regular in her proceedings and will not be crost by a finite power since all finite Agents are within her command Is it not a manifest change of the nature of the Wolf to dwell quietly with the Lamb of the Leopard to dwell with the Kid of the Lion to eat straw with the Oxe of the Aspe to play with the child How shall this be It is an idle conceit of the Hebrews that savage beasts shall forgo their hurtful natures under the Messias No but rational beasts shall alter their dispositions The ravenous Oppressor is the Wolf the tyrannical Persecutor is the Leopard the venemous Heretick is the Aspe these shall turn innocent and useful by the power of Godliness for then the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord Esay 11. 6 c. Is it not a manifest change of nature for the Ethiopian to turn white for the Leopard to turn spotless This is done when those doe good which are accustomed to evil Jer. 13. 23. And this Godliness can doe Is it not a manifest change of nature for the Camel to pass through a needles eye this is done when through the power of Godliness ye Great and rich men get to Heaven Lastly it is an easie thing to turn men into beasts a cup too much can doe it but to turn beasts into men men into Saints Devils into Angels it is no less then a work of Omnipotencie And this Godliness can doe But to rise higher then a change Is it not an act of Omnipotencie to create Nature can go on in her track whether of continuing what she actually finds to be or of producing what she finds to be potentially in pre-existing Causes but to make new matter transcends her power This Godliness can doe here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new Creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. There is in Nature no predisposition to Grace the man must be no less new then when he was made first of the dust of the earth and that earth of nothing Novus homo Eph. 4. 24. How is this done by Creation and how is he created in righteousness and holiness Holiness to God Righteousness to men both make up Godliness A Regeneration is here a Creation Progenuit is expressed by Creavit Jam. 1. 18. and this by the word of truth Old things are passed saith the Apostle all must be new If we will have ought to doe with God our bodies must be renewed by a glorious Resurrection ere they can enjoy Heaven our Souls must be renewed by Grace ere we can enjoy God on earth Are there any of us pained with our heart of stone We may be well enough the stone of the reines or bladder is a woful pain but the stone of the heart is more deadly He can by this power take it out and give us an
earth then in a state of sin Be changed therefore if ye wish well to your own Souls that it may be said of you in S. Paul's words Such ye were What an enemy would upbraid by way of reproch is the greatest praise that can be Faults that were Oh happy men that can hear Ye were profane unclean idolatrous oppressive riotous Their very sins honour them as the very Devils that Mary Magdalen had are mentioned for her glory since we do not hear of them but when they were cast out As there are some carelesse nasty creatures that can abide to weare none but their old patched sordid rags such as that miscreant Cistercian Spanish Deist whom we saw walk in and pollute our streets men that out of sullennesse or affection are habited as the Gibeonites were out of craft so there are spiritually such natural men yea natural fools that please themselves in a false constancy and brag they are no changelings whose glory is their shame whose end if they go on so is damnation Let the great Bridegroom come in and finde one of these crept into his Feast he shall be sure to send him out with a mischief How camest thou in hither Binde him hand and foot and cast him into utter darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Mat. 22. 13. Away with this frippery of our Nature Old things are passed if ever we look to have any party in God in Heaven we must be changed But secondly every change will not serve the turn The word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alteration nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Metamorphosis a word whose sound we are better acquainted with then the sense the meaning is There must be a change in our very form There is no motion no action we passe through without a change as there is no step wherein we change not our Meridian so there is no act which works not some mutation in us But there are slight changes wherein the places habits actions vary without any change of the form as Caelum non animum was an old word and we know the Body is the same whiles the Sutes are divers And again there are changes that reach to the very forms whence all actions arise as when of evil we are made good of carnal spiritual This is the Metamorphosis that is here called for Indeed it hath been a not more antient then true observation that the change of some things makes all things seem changed as when a man comes into an house wherein the partitions are pulled down the roof raised up the floor paved bay-windows set out the out-side rough-cast he shall think all the frame new and yet the old foundation beams studs roof stand still so it is here the very substance of the Soul holds still but the Dispositions and qualities and the very cast of it are altered as when a round piece of past is formed into a square or which is the highest of all patterns as our Blessed Saviour was transformed in the Mount Tabor His Deity was the same his Humanity the same the same Soul the same body yet he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is the very word that the Holy Ghost uses both there and here in that the Deity did put a glorious splendor upon his humane body which before it had not Thus it must be in our Transformation onwards the Spirit of God doth thus alter us through Grace whiles we are yet for essence the same Can a Leopard change his spots or a Blackmore his skin saith the Prophet See I beseech you how this change is not easie though not substantial The spots are not of the essence of that beast the blackness is not of the essence of an Aethiopian yet how hard these are to put off we know Our Mythologists tell us of many strange Metamorphoses of men turn'd into Beasts Birds Trees wherein doubtlesse they had morall allusions Let me tell you of a Metamorphosis as strange as theirs and as true as theirs fabulous They tell us of men turn'd into Swine by Circe I tell you of Swine turn'd into men when Drunkards and obscene persons turn sober and well-governed They tell you of men turn'd into Stones and of stones turn'd into men immediately upon their Deluge I tell you that of very stones Sons are raised up to Abraham They tell us of a Lycaon turn'd into a Wolf I tell you of a Wolf turn'd into a man when a ravenous Oppressor turns mercifull They tell us of men turn'd into Oaks and Rocks I tell you of the oaky rocky flinty hearts of men turn'd into flesh as Ezekiel speaks They tell us of an Actaeon turn'd into the beast which he loved to hunt and devoured of those beasts wherewith he was wont to hunt I tell you of a voluptuous beast abandoning those pleasures which had wont to spend him They tell us of a self-loving man turn'd to a Flower I tell you of a fading transitory creature changed into the image of the Son of God They tell us of a Proteus turn'd into all forms I tell you of a man of all hours all companies all religions turn'd into a constant Confessour and Martyr for the name of Christ They tell us lastly of their Jupiter and other Deities turn'd into the shape of beasts for the advantage of their Lust I tell of men naturally of a bestial disposition made the Sons of God partakers of the Divine nature as the Apostle speaketh These changes are not imaginary as in the case of Lycanthropie and delusions of jugling Sorcerers but reall and unfeigned truly wrought by God truly felt by us truly seen by others Not that we can alwaies judge of these things by the mere outsides for even Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light neither do any faces look fairer then the painted But ex fructibus is the rule of our Saviour that will trie out the truth of all our Transformations Let us not flatter our selves Honourable beloved we are all born Wolves Bears Tigers Swine one beast or other It must needs be a notable change if of beasts we become men of men Saints Thus it must be else we are not transformed Neither is this transformation reall only but totall not resting in the parts but enlarged to the whole person and therefore the charge is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be ye transformed not some pieces of you but the whole There are those which are changed in the face that look civil at least if not Saint-like but their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness and blasphemies There are those whose tongues are smooth-filed abounding not only with plausible words but holy and seemingly gracious too when their right hand is a right hand of wickedness If they have the faces and tongues of men they have the talons of Grisons full of rapine cruelty oppression There are those whose one half the upper part is man the lower is still Centaur-like
are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Lo as impossible as it is for a dead man to come down from his gibbet or up from his coffin and to doe the works of his former life so impossible it is that a renewed man should doe the old works of his unregeneration If therefore you find your Hearts unclean your Hands idle and unprofitable your Ways crooked and unholy your Corruptions alive and lively never pretend any renewing you are the old men still and however ye may go for Christains yet ye have denied the power of Christianity in your lives and if ye so continue the fire of Hell shall have so much more power over you for that it finds the Baptismal water upon your faces Our last head is the subject of this Renewing The Minde There are that would have this Renovation proper to the inferiour which is the affective part of the Soul as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they call it the supreme powers of that Divine part needed it no◠These are met with here by out-Apostle who placeth this renewing upon the Mind There are contrarily that so appropriate this renewing to the Mind which is the highest lost of the Soul as that they diffuse it not to the lower rooms nor to the our houses of the body as if onely the Soul were capable as of Sin so of Regeneration Both these shoot too short and must know that as the Mind so not the Mind only must be renewed That part is mentioned not by way of exclusion but of principality It is the man that must be renewed not one piece of him Except ye please to say according to that old Philosophical Adage The Mind is the man and the Body as the wisest Ethnick had wont to say nothing but the Case of that rich Jewel To say as it is the most Saint-like Philosophy was somewhat injurious in disparaging the outward man Whatever they thought this Body is not the hung-by but the partner of the Soul no less interessed in the man then that Spirit that animates it no less open to the inhabitation of God's Spirit no less free of Heaven Man therefore that is made of two parts must be renewed in both but as in the first birth whole man is born onely the Body is seen so in the second whole man is renewed onely the Soul is instanced in Our Apostle puts both together 1 Thes 5. 23. The God of peace sanctifie you wholly that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Why then is the Mind thus specified Because it is the best part because as it enlivens and moves so it leads the rest If the Mind therefore be renewed it boots not to urge the renovation of the body For as in Nature we are wont to say that the Soul follows the temperature of the Body so in Spiritual things we say rather more truly that the Body follows the temper and guidance of the Soul These two companions as they shall be once inseparable in their final condition so they are now in their present dispositions Be renewed therefore in your Minds and if you can hold off your earthly parts No more can the Body live without the Soul then the Soul can be renewed without the Body First then the Mind then the Body All defilement is by an extramission as our Saviour tels us That which goeth into the body defileth not the man so as the spring of corruption is within That must be first cleansed else in vain do we scour the channels Ye shall have some Hypocrites that pretend to begin their renewing from without On foul hands they will wear white Gloves on foul hearts clean hands and then all is well Away with these Pharisaical dishes filthy within clean without fit onely for the service of unclean Devils To what purpose is it to lick over the skin with precious oyle if the Liver be corrupted the Lungs rotten To what purpose is it to crop the top of the weeds when the root and stalk remains in the earth Pretend what you will all is old all is naught till the Mind be renewed Neither is the Body more renewed without the Mind then the renewing of the Mind can keep it self from appearing in the renewing of the Body The Soul lies close and takes advantage of the secrecy of that Cabinet whereof none but God keeps the Key and therefore may pretend anything we see the man the Soul we cannot see but by that we see we can judge of that we see not He is no Christian that is not renewed and he is worse then a beast that is no Christian Every man therefore lays claim to that renovation whereof he cannot be convinced yea there want not those who though they have a ribaldish tongue and a bloody hand yet will challenge as good a Soul as the best Hypocrite when the Conduit-head is walled in how shall we judge of the spring but by the water that comes out of the pipes Corrupt nature hath taught us so much craft as to set the best side outward If therefore thou have obscene lips if bribing and oppressing hands if a gluttonous tooth a drunken gullet a lewd conversation certainly the Soul can be no other then abominably filthy It may be worse then it appears better it cannot lightly be The Mind then leads the Body the Body descries the Mind both of them at once are old or both at once new For us as we bear the face of Christians and profess to have received both Souls and Bodies from the same hand and look that both Bodies and Souls shall once meet in the same Glory let it be the top of all our care that we may be transformed in the renewing of our minds and let the renewing of our Minds bewray it self in the renewing of our Bodies Wherefore have we had the powerful Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ so long amongst us if we be still our selves What hath it wrought upon us if we be not changed Never tell me of a Popish Transubstantiation of men of an invisible insensible unfeisible change of the person whiles the species of his outward life and carriage are still the same These are but false Hypocritical juglings to mock fools withall If we be transformed and renewed let it be so done that not onely our own eyes and hands may see and feel it but others too that the by-standers may say How is this man changed from himself He was a blasphemous Swearer a profane Scoffer at goodness now he speaks with an awful reverence of God and holy things He was a Luxurious wanton now he possesseth his vessel in Holiness and honour He was an unconscionable Briber and abettor of unjust causes now the world cannot see him to speak for wrong He was a wild roaring Swaggerer now he is a sober Student He was a Devil now he is
him Insomuch as Cardinal Bellarmine himself is fain to confess a very high Hyperbole in their speeches Non est novum It is no unusual thing saith he with the Ancients and especially Irenaeus Hilary Nyssen Cyril and others to say that our bodies are nourished by the holy Eucharist Neither do they use less height of speech as our Learned Bishop hath particularly observed in expressing our participation of Christ in Baptisme wherein yet never any man pleaded a Transubstantiation Neither have there been wanting some of the Classical Leaders of their Schools which have confessed more probability of ancient evidence for Consubstantiation then for this change Certainly neither of them both entred ever into the thoughts of those Holy men however the sound of their words have undergone a prejudicial mistaking Whereas the sentences of those Ancients against this mis-opinion are direct punctual absolute convictive and uncapable of any other reasonable sense What can be more choaking then that of their Pope Gelasius above a thousand years since Et tamen c. Yet there ceaseth not to be the very substance of Bread and Wine What can be more plain then that of S. Augustine It is not this Body which you see that you shall eat neither is it this Blood which my Crucifiers shall spill that you shall drink it is a Sacrament that I commend unto you which being spiritually understood shall quicken you Or that other Where a flagitious act seems to be commanded there the speech is figurative as when he saith Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man c. it were an horrible wickedness to eat the very flesh of Christ therefore here must needs be a figure understood What should I urge that of Tertullian whose speech Rhenanus confesseth to have been condemned after in Berengarius My Body that is the figure of my Body That of Theodoret The mystical signes after consecration lose not their own nature That of S. Chrysostome It is a carnal thing to doubt how Christ can give us his flesh to eate whenas this is mystically and spiritually to be understood And soon after inquiring what it is to understand carnally he thus explicates it It is to take things simply as they are spoken and not to conceive of any other thing meant by them This wherein we are is a beaten path trod with the feet of our holy Martyrs and traced with their blood What should I need to produce their familiar and ancient Advocates who have often wearied and worn this bare Athanasius Justine Origen Cyprian Nazianzen Basil Hierome Hilary Cyril Macarius Bertram besides those whom I formerly cited Of all others which I have not found pressed by former Authors that of our Albinus or Beda's learned Scholar who lived in the time of Charles the Great seems to me most full and pregnant Hoc est ergo This is therefore to eate that flesh and to drink that blood to remain in Christ and to have Christ remaining in us so as he that remains not in Christ and in whom Christ remaineth not without doubt doth not spiritually eat his flesh although carnally and visibly he chew the Sacrament of his body and blood with his teeth but rather he eates and drinks the Sacrament of so great a thing unto his own Judgement because he presumed to come unclean unto those Sacraments of Christ which none can take worthily but the clean Thus he Neither is this his single testimony but such as he openly professeth the common voice of all his Predecessours And a little after upon those words The flesh profiteth nothing he addeth The flesh profiteth nothing if ye understand the flesh so to be eaten as other meat as that flesh which is bought in the Shambles This is the ordinary language of Antiquity whereof we may truely say as the Disciples did of Christ Behold now thou speakest plainly and speakest no Parable At last Ignorance and misunderstanding brought forth this Monster of Opinion which Superstition nursed up but fearfully and obscurely and not without much scope of contrary judgements till after Pope Nicolas had made way for it in his proceedings against Berengarius by so gross an expression as the Gloss is fain to put a caveat upon Anno 1060. the Laterane Council authorised it for a matter of Faith Anno 1215. Thus yong is Transubstantiation Let Scripture and Reason shew how erroneous Sect. 2. Transubstantiation against Scripture WEre it not that men do wilfully hood-wink themselves with their own prejudice the Scripture is plain enough For the mouth that said of bread This is my Body said also of the same body My flesh is meat indeed long before there can be any plea of Transubstantiation and I am the bread that came down from Heaven so was he Manna to the Jews as he is bread to us And S. Paul says of his Corinths Ye are the body of Christ yet not meaning any transmutation of substance And in those words wherein this powerful conversion is placed he says onely This is not This is transubstantiate and if whiles he says This is he should have meant a Transubstantiation then it must needs follow that his Body was transubstantiate before he spake for This is implies it already done He adds This is my body His true natural humane Body was there with them took the Bread brake it gave it ate it if the Bread were now the Body of Christ either he must have two bodies there or else the same body is by the same body taken broken eaten and is the while neither taken nor broken nor eaten Yet he adds which is given for you This was the body which was given for them betrayed crucified humbled to the death not the glorious body of Christ which should be capable of ten thousand places at once both in Heaven and Earth invisible incircumscriptible Lastly he addes Doe this in remembrance of me Remembrance implies an absence neither can we more be said to remember that which is in our present sense then to see that which is absent Besides that the great Doctor of the Gentiles tels us that after consecration it is bread which is broken and eaten neither is it less then five times so called after the pretended change Shortly Christ as man was in all things like to us except sin and our humane body shall be once like to his glorious body The glory which is put upon it shall not strip it of the true essence of a body and if it retain the true nature of a body it cannot be at the same instant both above the Heavens and below on earth in a thousand distant places He is locally above for the heavens must receive him till the times of the restitution of all things He is not at once in many distant places of the earth
of a Blinde man ib. MED LVIII Upon a Beech-tree full of Nuts 470 MED LIX Upon the sight of a piece of Money under the Water ib. MED LX. Upon the first rumour of the Earthquake at Lime wherein a Wood was swallowed up with the fall of two Hills ib. MED LXI Upon the sight of a Dormouse 471 MED LXII Upon Bees fighting ib. MED LXIII Upon Wasps falling into a Glass ib. MED LXIV Upon a Spring in the wilde Forest 472 MED LXV Upon the sight of an Owle in the twilight ibid. MED LXVI Upon an Arm benummed 473 MED LXVII Upon the Sparks flying upward ib. MED LXVIII Upon the sight of a Raven ib. MED LXIX Upon a Worm 474 MED LXX Upon the putting on of his Cloaths ibid. MED LXXI Upon the sight of a great Library ibid. MED LXXII Upon the red Cross on a Door 475 MED LXXIII Upon the change of Weather ib. MED LXXIV Upon the sight of a Marriage ib. MED LXXV Upon the sight of a Snake 476 MED LXXVI Upon the Ruines of an Abby ib. MED LXXVII Upon the discharging of a Peece 477 MED LXXVIII Upon the tolling of a passing-Bell ib. MED LXXIX Upon a Defamation dispersed 478 MED LXXX Upon a ring of Bells ib. MED LXXXI Upon the sight of a full Table at a Feast ib. MED LXXXII Upon the hearing of a Lute well played on 479 MED LXXXIII Upon the sight and noise of a Peacock ib. MED LXXXIV Upon a penitent Malefactor ibid. MED LXXXV Upon the sight of a Lilly 480 MED LXXXVI Upon the sight of a Coffin stuck with Flowers ib. MED LXXXVII Upon the view of the World ib. MED LXXXVIII Upon the stinging of a Wasp 481 MED LXXXIX Upon the Arraignment of a Felon ib. MED XC Upon the Crowing of a Cock 482 MED XCI Upon the variety of Thoughts ib. MED XCII Upon the sight of an Harlot carted ibid. MED XCIII Upon the smell of a Rose 483 MED XCIV Upon a cancelled Bond. ib. MED XCV Upon the report of a great losse by Sea ib. MED XCVI Upon sight of a bright Skie full of Stars 484 MED XCVII Upon the rumours of Wars ib. MED XCVIII Upon a Childe crying 485 MED XCIX Upon the beginning of a Sicknesse ibid. MED C. Upon the challenge of a Promise 486 MED CI. Upon the sight of Flies ib. MED CII Upon the sight of a fantasticall Zelot ib. MED CIII Upon the sight of a Scavenger working in the Canell 487 MED CIV Upon a pair of Spectacles ib. MED CV Upon Moats in the Sun ib. MED CVI. Upon the sight of a Bladder ib. MED CVII Upon a man Sleeping 488 MED CVIII Upon the sight of a Deaths-head ib. MED CIX Upon the sight of a Left-handed man ib. MED CX Upon the sight of an old unthatched Cottage 489. MED CXI Upon the sight of a fair Pearl ib. MED CXII Upon a Screen ib. MED CXIII Upon a Bur-leaf ib. MED CXIV Upon the Singing of a Bird. ib. MED CXV Upon the sight of a man Yawning 490 MED CXVI Upon the sight of a Tree lopped ib. MED CXVII Upon a Scholar that offered violence to himself ib. MED CXVIII Upon the coming in of the Judge 491 MED CXIX Upon the sight of an Heap of stones ibid. MED CXX Upon sight of a Bat and Owle ib. MED CXXI Upon the sight of a well-fleeced Sheep 492 MED CXXII Upon the hearing of Thunder ib. MED CXXIII Upon the sight of an Hedg-hog ib. MED CXXIV Upon the sight of a Goat 493 MED CXXV Upon the sight of the Blinde and the Lame ib. MED CXXVI Upon the sight of a Map of the World ib. MED CXXVII Upon the sight of Hemlock 494 MED CXXVIII Upon a Flower-de-luce ib. MED CXXIX Upon the sight of two Trees one high the other broad ib. MED CXXX Upon the sight of a Drunken man ibid. MED CXXXI Upon the whetting of a Sithe 495 MED CXXXII Upon the sight of a Looking-glass ibid. MED CXXXIII Upon the shining of a piece of Rotten wood ib. MED CXXXIV Upon an Ivie tree 496 MED CXXXV Upon a Quartan ague ib. MED CXXXVI Upon the sight of a loaded Cart. ibid. MED CXXXVII Upon the sight of a Dwarf 497 MED CXXXVIII Upon an importunate Begger ibid. MED CXXXIX Upon a Medicinal potion ib. MED CXL Upon the sight of a Wheel 498 Occasionall MEDITATIONS I. Upon the sight of the Heavens moving I Can see nothing stand still but the Earth all other things are in motion Even the Water which makes up one Globe with the Earth is ever stirring in ebbes and flowings the Clouds over my head the Heavens above the clouds these as they are most conspicuous so are they the greatest patterns of perpetuall action What should we rather imitate then this glorious frame O God when we pray that thy will may be done in Earth as it is in Heaven though we mean chiefly the Inhabitants of that place yet we do not exclude the very Place of those Blessed inhabitants from being an example of our Obedience The motion of this thy Heaven is perpetuall so let me ever be acting somewhat of thy will the motion of thy Heaven is regular never swerving from the due points so let me ever walk steddily in the wayes of thy will without all diversions or variations from the line of thy Law In the motion of thine Heaven though some Stars have their own peculiar and contrary courses yet all yield themselves to the sway of the main circumvolution of that First mover so though I have a will of mine own yet let me give my self over to be ruled and ordered by thy Spirit in all my waies Man is a little World my Soul is Heaven my Body is Earth if this Earth be dull and fixed yet O God let my Heaven like unto thine move perpetually regularly and in a constant subjection to thine Holy Ghost II. Upon the sight of a Diall IF the Sun did not shine upon this Diall no body would look at it in a cloudy day it stands like an uselesse post unheeded unregarded but when once those beams break forth every passenger runs to it and gazes on it O God whiles thou hidest thy countenance from me methinks all thy Creatures passe by me with a willing neglect indeed what am I without thee And if thou have drawn in me some lines and notes of able endowments yet if I be not actuated by thy Grace all is in respect of use no bettter then nothing But when thou renewest the light of thy loving countenance upon me I finde a sensible and happy change of condition methinks all things look upon me with such chear and observance as if they meant to make good that Word of thine Those that honour me I will honour now every line and figure which it hath pleased thee to work in me serve for usefull and profitable direction O Lord all the glory is thine give thou me light I shall give others information both of us shall give thee praise III.
corruption she receives and restores her charge I can no more withhold my body from the earth then the earth can withhold it from my Maker O God this is thy Cabinet or Shrine wherein thou pleasest to lay up the precious relicks of thy dear Saints untill the Jubilee of Glory With what confidence should I commit my self to this sure reposition whiles I know thy word just thy Power infinite IX Upon the sight of Gold melted THis Gold is both the fairest and most solid of all Metals yet is the soonest melted with the fire others as they are courser so more churlish and hard to be wrought upon by a dissolution Thus a sound and good heart is most easily melted into sorrow and fear by the sense of Gods Judgments whereas the carnal minde is stubborn and remorslesse All Metals are but earth yet some are of finer temper then others all hearts are of flesh yet some are through the power of Grace more capable of Spirituall apprehensions O God we are such as thou wilt be pleased to make us Give me a heart that may be sound for the truth of Grace and melting at the terrors of thy Law I can be for no other then thy Sanctuary on earth or thy Treasury of Heaven X. Upon the sight of a Pitcher carried THus those that are great and weak are carried by the eares up and down of Flatterers and Parasites Thus ignorant and simple hearers are carried by false and mis-zealous Teachers Yet to be carried by both eares is more safe then to be carried by one It argues an empty Pitcher to be carried by one aâ—one Such are they that upon the hearing of one part rashly passe their sentence whether of acquitall or censure In all disquisitions of hidden Truths a wise man will be led by the eares not carried that implies a violence of Passion over-swaying Judgement but in matter of civill occurrence and unconcerning rumor it is good to use the Eare not to trust to it XI Upon the sight of a Tree full blossomed HEre is a Tree over-laid with blossomes it is not possible that all these should prosper one of them must needs rob the other of moisture and growth I do not love to see an Infancy over-hopefull in these pregnant beginnings one Faculty starves another and at last leaves the Minde saplesse and barren As therefore we are wont to pull off some of the too-frequent blossomes that the rest may thrive so it is good wisdome to moderate the early excesse of the parts or progresse of over-forward Childhood Neither is it otherwise in our Christian profession a sudden and lavish ostentation of Grace may fill the eye with wonder and the mouth with talk but will not at the last fill the lap with fruit Let me not promise too much nor raise too high expectations of my undertakings I had rather men should complain of my small hopes then of my short performances XII Upon the report of a man suddenly struck dead in his Sin I Cannot but magnifie the Justice of God but withall I must praise his Mercy It were woe with any of us all if God should take us at advantages Alas which of us hath not committed sins worthy of a present revenge had we been also surprized in those acts where had we been O God it is more then thou owest us that thou hast waited for our Repentance it is no more then thou owest us that thou plaguest our offences The wages of Sin is Death and it is but Justice to pay due wages Blessed be thy Justice that hast made others Examples to me blessed be thy Mercy that hast not made me an Example unto others XIII Upon the view of the Heaven and the Earth WHat a strange contrariety is here The Heaven is in continuall motion and yet there is the onely place of Rest the Earth ever stands still and yet here is nothing but Unrest and unquietnesse Surely the end of that Heavenly motion is for the benefit of the Earth and the end of all these Earthly turmoils is our reposall in Heaven Those that have imagined the Earth to turn about and the Heavens to stand still have yet supposed that we may stand or sit still on that whirling Globe of earth how much more may we be perswased of our perfect Rest above those moving Sphears It matters not O God how I am vexed here below a while if ere long I may repose with thee above for ever XIV Upon occasion of a Red-brest coming into his Chamber PRetty Bird how chearfully dost thou sit and sing and yet knowest not where thou art nor where thou shalt make thy next meal and at night must shrowd thy self in a Bush for lodging What a shame is it for me that see before me so liberal provisions of my God and finde my self set warm under my own roof yet am ready to droop under a distrustfull and unthankfull dulnesse Had I so little certainty of my harbour and purveyance how heartlesse should I be how carefull how little list should I have to â—â—ke musick to thee or my self Surely thou camest not hither without a Providence God sent thee not so much to delight as to shame me but all in a conviction of my sâ—llen unbelief who under more apparent means am lesse chearfull and confident Reason and Faith have not done so much in me as in thee mere instinct of Nature Want of fore-sight makes thee more merry if not more happy here then the foresight of better things maketh me O God thy Providence is not impaired by those Powers thou hast given me above these Brute things let not my greater helps hinder me from an holy security and comfortable reliance upon thee XV. Upon occasion of a Spider in his Window THere is no vice in man whereof there is not some Analogie in the brute Creatures As amongst us men there are Thieves by Land and Pirats by Sea that live by spoil and blood so is there in every kinde amongst them variety of natural Sharkers the Hawk in the Aire the Pike in the River the Whale in the Sea the Lion and Tiger and Wolf in the Desart the Wasp in the Hive the Spider in our Window Amongst the rest see how cunningly this little Arabian hath spred out his tent for a prey how heedfully he watches for a Passenger So soon as ever he hears the noise of a Flie afar off how he hastens to his door and if that silly heedlesse Traveller do but touch upon the verge of that unsuspected walk how suddenly doth he seize upon the miserable booty and after some strife binding him fast with those subtile cords drags the helplesse Captive after him into his cave What is this but an Embleme of those Spiritual Free-booters that lie in wait for our Souls They are the Spiders we the Flies they have spred their nets of Sin if we be once caught they binde us fast and hale us into Hell O Lord
no other no better then beast as if according to that old foolish Heresie God had not made both There are those whose hands are white and clean from bribes from extortion but their feet are yet swift to shed blood upon their own private revenge Let not these men say they are transformed Let the first say their face is changed let the next say their tongue is changed let the other say their breasts or hands are changed but unlesse face and tongue and breast and hand and foot and all be changed the man is not changed God be mercifull to us the world is full of such monsters of Hypocrisie who care onely for an appearing change of some eminent and noted part neglecting the whole as some sorry Tap-house white-limes and glazes the front towards the street and sets out a painted sign when there is nothing in the inward parts but sticks and clay and ruines and cold earthen floors and fluttery This is to no purpose If any piece of us be unchanged we are still our old selves odious to God obnoxious to death But as all motions have their termes what is that into which we must be transformed I see transformations enough every where God knows too many I see zealous Professors transformed to key-cold worldlings reformed Catholicks turn'd to Romish Factionists I see men transformed into women in their effeminate dispositions and demeanours women transform'd to men in their affectation of masculine boldness and fashions I see men and women transform'd into Beasts of all kindes some into drunken Swine others into cruell Tigers others into ranck Goats others into mimick Apes yea I see those beasts transform'd again into Devils in the delight they take in sin in their mischievous tempting of others to sin All these are transformed so as it is from good to ill from bad to worse so transformed that as Cypran said of painted faces it is no marvell if God know them not for they have made themselves quite other from what he made them That whereinto we must be transformed is the image of God 2 Cor. 3. 18. consisting in holinesse and righteousness Ephes 4. 24. That Image we once had and lost and now must recover by our transformation Oh blessed change that of the Sons of men we become the children of the ever-living God of the firebrands of hell such we are naturally we become the heirs of Heaven That as the eternal Son of God having the form of God did yet graciously change this glorious habit for the form of a servant so we that are the sons of men should change the servile form of our wretched nature into the Divine form of the Son of God! This is a change not more happy then needfull It was another change that Job said he would wait for but of this change we must say I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep nor mine eye-lids to slumber untill an happy change have wrought this heart of mine which by Nature is no better then a stie of unclean devils to be an habitation for the God of Jacob. Wo be to the man whose last change overtakes him ere this change be wrought in him There is nothing more wretched then a mere man We may brag what we will how noble a creature man is above all the rest how he is the Lord of the world a world within himself the mirrour of Majesty the visible model of his Maker but let me tell you if we be but men it had been a thousand times better for us to have been the worst of beasts Let it not seem to savour of any Misanthropie to say that as all those things which are perfections in creatures are eminently in God so all the vicious dispositions of the creature are eminently in man in that debauch'd and abused Reason is the quintessence of all Bestialitie What speak I of these silly brutes In this streight triangle of man's Heart there is a full Conclave of Cardinal wickednesses an Incorporation of Cheaters a Goal of Malefactors yea a legion of Devils Seest thou then the most loathsome Toad that crawls upon the earth or the most despised Dog that creeps under thy feet thou shalt once envy their condition if thou be not more then a man Thou seest the worst of them thou canst not conceive the worst of thine own For flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdome of God and fores canes without shall be Dogs Revel 22. 15. When they shall be vanished into their first nothing thou shalt be ever dying in those unquenchable flames which shall torment thee so much the more as thou hadst more Wit and Reason without Grace But oh what a wofull thing it is to consider and how may we bemone our selves to Heaven and earth that yet men will not be transformed All the menaces all the terrors of God cannot move men from what they are but he that is filthy will be filthy still In spight of both Law and Gospel men have obdured their selves against the counsel of God they have an iron neck Esa 48. 4. an uncircumcised care Jer. 6. 10. a brawny heart Mark 3. 5. Say God and man what they will these enchanted creatures will rather be beasts still then return to men If we will not change be sure God will not He hath said it and he will perform it After thine hardness and heart that cannot repent thou treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God Rom. 2. 5. Far far be this obstinacy from us Honorable and beloved For God's sake for your Souls sake yield your selves willingly into the hands of God and say Convert me O Lord and I shall be converted As we love our selves and fear hell let us not content our selves with the shape with the faculties of men but let us be transformed and think that we were only made men that we might passe through the estate of humanity to Regeneration This for the Transformation See now that this transformation must be by Renewing The same Spirit that by Solomon said There is nothing new under the Sun saith by S. Paul All things are become new Nothing is so new that it hath not been All things must be so new as they were This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 renovation implies that which once was and therefore was new before That God who is the Antient of daies doth not dislike any thing for mere Age for Time is his and continuance of Time is so much more excellent as it comes nearer to the duration of Eternity Old age is a crown of glory Neither is ought old in relation to God but to us neither is age faulty in respect of Nature but of corruption for as that word of Tertullian is true Primum verum the first is true so may I as truly say Primum bonum the first is good Only now as our Nature stands depraved our Old man is the body of corruptions which
we brought with us and carry about us and there can be no safety unlesse we be transformed by renovation Behold God saies I make all things new a new Heaven and a new earth Esay 65. 17. The year renews and to morrow we say is a new day we renew our clothes when they are worn our leases when they grow towards expiring only our hearts we care not to renew If all the rest were old so that our Heart were new it were nothing Nothing but the main of all is neglected What should I need any other motives to you then the view of the estate of both these Look first at the old Put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitfull lusts Ephes 4. 22. Lo the old man is corrupt this is enough to cashier him what man can abide to carry rotten flesh about him If but a wound fester and gather dead flesh we draw it we corrode it till it be clear at the bottome Those that make much of their old man do like that monstrous twin willingly carry about a dead half of themselves whose noisomnesse doth torment and kill the living Look at the new Being freed from sin and made servants to God ye have your fruit in holiness and the end everlasting life Rom. 6. 22. Holiness is a lovely thing of it self there is a beauty of Holiness Gloria Sanctitatis as the Vulgar turns it Psal 144. and goodness doth amply reward it self Yet this Holiness hath besides infinite recompence attending it Holiness is life begun eternal life is the consummation of Holiness Holiness is but the way the end whereto it leads is everlasting life As therefore we would avoid the annoiance and danger of our sinful corruptions as we would ever aspire to true and endless blessedness Oh let us be transformed by renewing But how is this renewing wrought and wherein doth it consist Surely as there are three ways whereby we receive a new being by Creation by Generation by Resuscitation so according to all these is our spiritual renewing it is by Creation Whosoever is in Christ is a new Creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. it is by Regeneration Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdome of God Joh. 3. 3. it is by Resuscitation Even when we were dead in sins hath he quickened us together with Christ Ephes 2. 5. From whence arises this double Corollary 1. That we can give of our selves no active power to the first act of our Conversion no more then Adam did to his first Creation no more then the child doth to his own Conception no more then the dead man to his raising from the grave 2. That there must be a Privation of our old corrupt forms and a reducing us from our either nothing or worse to an estate of Holiness and new Obedience This is that which is every where set forth unto us by the Mortification of our earthly members and putting off the old man on the one part and by the first resurrection and putting on the new on the other Nothing is more familiar then these resemblances But of all Similes none doth so fitly methinks express the manner of this renewing as that of the Snake which by leaving his old slough in the streights of the Rock glides forth glib and nimble I remember Holcot urges the Similitude thus To turn off the Snakes skin saith he two things are requisite The first is foraminis angustia the streightness of the passage else he must needs draw the old skin through with him the latter is stabilitas saxi the firmness of the stone else in stead of leaving the skin he shall draw the stone away with him So must it be in the business of our renovation First we must pass through the streight way of due Penitence secondly we must hold the firm and stable purpose of our perseverance in good True sorrow and contrition of heart must begin the work and then an unmoved constancy of endeavour must finish it Whosoever thou art therefore if thy heart have not been toucht yea torn and rent in pieces with a sound Humiliation for thy sins the old slough is still upon thy back thou art not yet come within the ken of true Renovation Or if thou be gone so farre as that the skin begins to reave up a little in a serious grief for thy sins yet if thy resolutions be not steadily setled and thine endeavours bent to go through with that holy work thou comest short of thy renewing thine old loose filme of corruption shall so cumber thee that thou shalt never be able to pass on smoothly in the ways of God But because now we have a conceit that man as we say of fish unless he be new is naught every man is ready to challenge this honour of being renewed and certainly there may be much deceit this way We have seen plate or other vessels that have look'd like new when they have been but new guilded or burnish'd we have seen old faces that have counterfeited a youthly smoothness and vigorous complexion we have seen Hypocrites act every part of renovation as if they had falne from Heaven Let us therefore take a trial by those proofs of examination that cannot fail us And they shall be fetcht from those three ways of our renewing which we have formerly specified If we be renewed by Creation here must be a clean Heart Cor mundum crea saith the Psalmist Psal 51. 10. For as at the first God look'd on all his works and found them very good so still no work of his can be other then like himself holy and perfect If thy heart therefore be still full of unclean thoughts wanton desires covetousness ambition profaneness it is thine old heart of Satans marring it is no new heart of God's making for nothing but clean can come from under his hands But if we plead the closeness of the heart which may therefore seem impervious even to our own eyes see what the Apostle saith Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created unto good works The cleanness of the heart will shew it self in the goodness of the Hands But if our hands may deceive us as nothing is more easily counterfeited then a good action yet our Feet will not I mean the trade of our wayes That therefore from our Creation we may look to our Regeneration if we be the sons of God we are renewed and how shall it appear whether we be the sons of God It is a golden Rule Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 8. 14. Yet if in both of these life could be counterfeited death cannot That therefore from our Creation and Regeneration we may look to our Resuscitation and from thence back to our grave Mortifie your members which are on earth Col. 3. 5. There is a death of this body of sin and what manner of death Those that
what a task the Stomack must be put to in the concoction of so many mixtures I am not so austerely scrupulous as to deny the lawfulnesse of these abundant provisions upon just occasions I finde my Saviour himself more then once at a Feast this is recorded as well as his one long Fast Doubtlesse our bountifull God hath given us his creatures not for necessity only but for pleasure but these Exceedings would be both rare and moderate and when they must be require no lesse Patience then Temperance Might I have my option O God give me rather a little with peace and love He whose provision for every day was thirty measures of fine Flower and threescore measures of Meal thirty Oxen an hundred Sheep besides Venison and Fowl yet can pray Give me the Bread of sufficiency Let me have no perpetuall Feast but a good Conscience and from these great preparations for the health both of Soul and Body let me rise rather hungry then surcharged LXXXII Upon the hearing of a Lute well played on THere may be for ought we know infinite inventions of Art the possibility whereof we should hardly ever believe if they were fore-reported to us Had we lived in some rude and remote part of the World and should have been told that it is possible only by an hollow piece of Wood and the guts of Beasts stirred by the fingers of men to make so sweet and melodious a noise we should have thought it utterly incredible yet now that we see and hear it ordinarily done we make it no wonder It is no marvell if we cannot fore-imagine what kinde and means of Harmony God will have used by his Saints and Angels in Heaven when these poor matters seem so strange to our conceits which yet our very Senses are convinced of O God thou knowest infinite wayes to glorifie thy self by thy Creatures which do far transcend our weak and finite capacities Let me wonder at thy Wisdome and Power and be more awfull in my Adorations then curious in my Inquiries LXXXIII Upon the sight and noise of a Peacock I See there are many kinds of Hypocrites of all Birds this makes the fairest shew and the worst noise so as this is an Hypocrite to the Eye There are others as the Black-bird that looks foul and sooty but sings well this is an Hypocrite to the Eare. There are others that please us well both in their shew and voice but are crosse in their carriage and condition as the Popingay whose colours are beautifull and noise delightfull yet is it apt to doe mischief in scratching and biting any hand that comes neare it these are Hypocrites both to the Eye and Eare. Yet there is a degree further beyond the example of all brute Creatures of them whose shew whose words whose actions are fair but their hearts are foul and abominable No outward Beauty can make the Hypocrite other then odious For me let my Profession agree with my words my words with my actions my actions with my heart and let all of them be approved of the God of Truth LXXXIIII Upon a penitent Malefactor I Know not whether I should more admire the Wisdome or the Mercy of God in his proceedings with Men. Had not this man sinned thus notoriously he hâ—d never been thus happy whiles his courses were fair and civil yet he was gracelesse now his miscarriage hath drawn him into a just Affliction his Affliction hath humbled him God hath taken this advantage of his Humiliation for his Conversion Had not one foot slipt into the mouth of Hell he had never been in this forwardnesse to Heaven There is no man so weak or foolish as that he hath not strength or wit enough to sin or to make ill use of his sin It is only the goodness of an infinite God that can make our sin good to us though evil in it self O God it is no thank to our selves or to our sins that we are bettered with evill the Work is thine let thine be the Glory LXXXV Upon the sight of a Lilly THis must needs be a goodly Flower that our Saviour hath singled out to compare with Solomon and that not in his ordinary dresse but in all his Royalty Surely the earth had never so glorious a King as he Nature yielded nothing that might set forth Royall magnificence that he wanted yet he that made both Solomon and this Flower sayes that Solomon in all his Royalty was not clad like it What a poor thing is this earthly Bravery that is so easily overmatched How ill judges are we of outward Beauties that contemn these goodly Plants which their Creator thus magnifies and admire those base Metals which he in comparison hereof contemns If it be their transitorinesse that embaseth them what are we All flesh is Grasse and all the glory of man as the flower of Grasse As we cannot be so brave so we cannot be more permanent O God let it be my ambition to walk with thee hereafter in white Could I put on a robe of Stars here with proud Herod that glittering garment could not keep me from Lice or Worms Might I sit on a Throne of Gold within an house of Ivory I see I should not compare with this Flower I might be as transitory I should not be so beautifull What matters it whether I goe for a Flower or a Weed here whethersoever I must wither Oh thou which art greater then Solomon do thou cloath me with thy perfect Righteousnesse so shall I flourish for ever in the Courts of the House of my God LXXXVI Upon the sight of a Coffin stuck with Flowers TOO fair appearance is never free from just suspicion Whiles here was nothing but mere Wood no Flower was to be seen here now that this Wood is lined with an unsavoury Corps it is adorned with this sweet variety The Firre whereof that Coffin is made yields a naturall redolence alone now that it is stuffed thus noisomely all helps are too little to countervail that sent of corruption Neither is it otherwise in the Living Perpetual use of strong perfumes argues a guiltiness of some unpleasing savour The case is the same Spiritually an over-glorious outside of Profession implies some inward filthinesse that would fain escape notice Our uncomely parts have more comelinesse put on Too much Ornament imports extreme deformity For me let my shew be moderate so shall I neither deceive applause nor merit too deep censure LXXXVII Upon the view of the World IT is a good thing to see this materiall World but it is a better thing to think of the intelligible World This thought is the sight of the Soul whereby it discerneth things like it self Spirituall and Immortall which are so much beyond the worth of these sensible Objects as a Spirit is beyond a Body a pure substance beyond a corruptible an infinite God above a finite Creature O God how great a word is that which the Psalmist sayes of thee that
thou abasest thy self to behold the things both in Heaven and Earth It is our glory to look up even to the meanest piece of Heaven it is an abasement to thine incomprehensible Majesty to look down upon the best of Heaven Oh what a transcendent Glory must that needs be that is abased to behold the things of Heaven What an happinesse shall it be to me that mine eyes shall be exalted to see thee who art humbled to see the place and state of my blessednesse Yea those very Angels that see thy face are so resplendently glorious that we could not overlive the sight of one of their faces who are fain to hide their faces from the sight of thine How many millions attend thy Throne above and thy Footstool below in the ministration to thy Saints It is that thine invisible world the Communion wherewith can make me truely blessed O God if my body have fellowship here amongst Beasts of whose earthly substance it participates let my Soul be united to thee the God of Spirits and be raised up to enjoy the insensible society of thy blessed Angels Acquaint me before-hand with those Citizens and affairs of thine Heaven and make me no stranger to my future Glory LXXXVIII Upon the stinging of a Wasp HOW small things may annoy the greatest Even a Mouse troubles an Elephant a Gnat a Lion a very Flea may disquiet a Giant What weapon can be nearer to nothing then the sting of this Wasp Yet what a painfull wound hath it given me that scarce-visible point how it envenomes and ranckles and swells up the flesh The tenderness of the part addes much to the grief And if I be thus vexed with the touch of an angry File Lord how shall I be able to indure the sting of a tormenting Conscience As that part is both most active and most sensible so that wound which it receives from it self is most intolerably grievous there were more ease in a nest of Hornets then under this one Torture O God howsoever I speed abroad give me Peace at home and whatever my Flesh suffer keep my Soul free Thus pained wherein do I finde ease but in laying honey to the part infected That Medicine only abates the anguish How near hath Nature placed the remedy to the offence Whensoever my Heart is stung with the remorse for sin only thy sweet and precious Merits O blessed Saviour can mitigate and heal the wound they have virtue to cure me give me Grace to apply them that soveraign receipt shall make my pain happy I shall thus applaud my grief It is good for me that I was thus afflicted LXXXIX Upon the Arraignment of a Felon WIth what terrour doth this Malefactor stand at that Bar his Hand trembles whiles it is lift up for his triall his very Lips quake whiles he saith Not guilty his Countenance condemns him before the Judge and his fear is ready to execute him before his Hangman Yet this Judge is but a weak man that must soon after die himself that Sentence of Death which he can pronounce is already passed by Nature upon the most innocent that act of Death which the Law inflicteth by him is but momentany who knows whether himself shall not die more painfully O God with what horror shall the guilty Soul stand before thy dreadfull Tribunall in the day of the great Assizes of the World whiles there is the presence of an Infinite Majesty to daunt him a fierce and clamorous Conscience to give in evidence against him Legions of ugly and terrible Devils waiting to seize upon him a gulf of unquenchable Fire ready to receive him whiles the Glory of the Judge is no lesse confounding then the Cruelty of the Tormenters where the Sentence is unavoidable and the Execution everlasting Why do not these terrors of thee my God make me wise to hold a privy Sessions upon my Soul actions that being acquitted by my own heart I may not be condemned by thee and being judged by my self I may not be condemned with the World XC Upon the Crowing of a Cock. How harshly did this note sound in the eare of Peter yea pierced his very heart Many a time had he heard this Bird and was no whit moved with the noise now there was a Bird in his bosome that crowed lowder then this whose shrill accent conjoined with this astonished the guilty Disciple The wearie Labourer when he is awakened from his sweet sleep by this natural Clock of the Houshold is not so angry at this troublesome Bird nor so vexed at the hearing of that unseasonable sound as Peter was when this Fowl awakened his sleeping Conscience and called him to a timely repentance This Cock did but crow like others neither made or knew any difference of this tone and the rest there was a Divine hand that ordered this Mornings note to be a Summons of Penitence He that fore-told it had fore-appointed it that Bird could not but crow then and all the noise in the High Priests Hall could not keep that sound from Peter's eare But O Saviour couldst thou finde leisure when thou stoodst at the Bar of that unjust and cruell Judgment amidst all that bloody rabble of Enemies in the sense of all their fury and the exspectation of thine own Death to listen unto this Monitor of Peter's Repentance and upon the hearing of it to cast back thine eyes upon thy Denying Cursing Abjuring Disciple O Mercy without measure and beyond all the possibility of our admiration to neglect thy self for a Sinner to attend the Repentance of one when thou wert about to lay down thy life for all O God thou art still equally mercifull Every Elect Soul is no lesse dear unto thee Let the sound of thy faithfull Monitors smite my ears and let the beams of thy mercifull eyes wound my heart so as I may go forth and weep bitterly XCI Upon the variety of Thoughts WHen I bethink my self how Eternity depends upon this moment of life I wonder how I can think of any thing but Heaven but when I see the distractions of my Thoughts and the aberrations of my life I wonder how I can be so bewitched as whiles I believe an Heaven so to forget it All that I can doe is to be angry at mine own vanity My Thoughts would not be so many if they were all right there are ten thousand by-waies for one direct As there is but one Heaven so there is but one way to it that living way wherein I walk by Faith by Obedience All things the more perfect they are the more do they reduce themselves towards that Unity which is the Center of all Perfection O thou who art one and infinite draw in my heart from all these stragling and unprofitable Cogitations and confine it to thine Heaven and to thy self who art the Heaven of that Heaven Let me have no life but in thee no care but to injoy thee no ambition but thy Glory Oh make