that his very bones might be told and lots should be cast for his garment Is not this Jesus whose doctrine I preach unto you This is the Master whom David invites us to hear speaking in the person of God To day if you hear his voice harden not your hearts as your Fore-fathers have done in the desart where I was made angry against those who durst distrust my power and censure all my workes for the space of forty yeares Their infidelity shall not go unpunished I will make them know that I can revenge my self in my wrath I sweare they shall not enter into the place of rest which I had prepared for them Behold dreadfull words and you will doe well to be warned by their loss lest you be excluded also from that place of repose which is offered to you As it availed them little to give ear to the relation of those who returned from the land of Promise and informed them of the true state of it because they would not believe what was said so it is not enough to heare the Gospel preached it must be received humbly to the end you may obtaine by faith the fruition of that repose which is spoken of in the passage I alledged It cannot be that repose which God assumed after he had made the world that being no other thing then a cessation from work nor is it likewise the repose of the Sabbath whose institution was before the birth of David In summe it is not that repose which our Fathers tasted in the Land whereinto they were led by Ioshua for that long since is past therefore it must needs be that the Psalmist speaks of another repose more holy a Sabbath more excellent which appertains to the people of God and in which the Just do eternally repose from all their labours as formerly our Lord did repose the seventh day from all his works Moyses could not bring us into that place where this divine Sabbath is celebrated Jesus Christ entred there the first to open it to those who should receive his doctrine This is the Priest deserving adoration who to purifie heaven and earth and to reconcile man to God has not not made use of the bloud of goats and bulls but of his owne which he has shed to the last drop upon the Altar of the Cross The high Priest of the Law was obliged to offer Sacrifices for his own sins as well as those of the People Jesus Christ is the Sovereign high Priest pure holy unpolluted uncapable of any spot consequently needs not offer any victime for himself he hath not received his Priest-hood by way of a carnall birth and succession as the Priests according to Aaron did but hee has been established eternal Priest according to the order of Melchisedec as we learn by those words of the Psalmist which you confess are to be understood of the Messias Our Lord hath sworne thou art an eternal Priest according to the order of Melchisedec If the Levitical Priest-hood which the people received together with the Law guided to perfection that is to say gave true Justice what need was there that another Priest should come according to the order of Melchisedec and if the Priest-hood be transferred it then follows that the Law is also changed because these two things are inseparably linked together Now that there has been a translation of the Priest-hood 't is not to be doubted since he of whom that passage I alledged speaks was of the Tribe of Iuda and not of Levi out of which Moyses ordained that the Priests should be chosen Observe also that the Leviticall Priest-hood was not established by oath as is that which I treat and this circumstance shewes the sanctity and immutability of that thing unto which God has pleased to unite it There were to be many Priests according to the order of Aaron because they were mortal But the Priest-hood of Jesus Christ is eternall as well as himself he has alwaies power to guide those to eternall salvation who believe in him He is alwaies in the functions of his Priesthood that is to say in continual oblation of himself to God and in prayer without intermission for hee that sayes Eternal Priest sayes also Eternal Oblation The Levitical Priests stood during the exercise of their Functions Jesus Christ having once offered the Hoast of his body is seated at the right hand of God according to the words of the Psalmist The Lord said to my Lord Take thy place till I have put thy enemies under my feet Be not you of that number my deare Brethren you that are descended from Abraham the Father of the Faithfull you whose Ancestours have been so holy you to whom those promises were made and for whom Jesus Christ principally came doe not permit strangers to carry away the benediction due to lawful children and having hitherto born the heavy yoke of Moyses doe not fear now to submit your selvs to that of Jesus Christ which is so light and pleasing And in this you will even obey Moyses by whom as you know God promised That after many ages hee would raise a Prophet of your Nation to whom hee would have you attend as to himself The Apostle spake much after this manner his discourse raised great Disputes amongst his Auditours some blaming what others approved some believing others continuing obstinate S. Paul finding hee could gaine little upon them hee told them freely I know well that ye will fulfill the prophesie of Esay to whom God spake in these tearms Goe to the Children of Israel and tell them You shall hear with your ears but shall not understand with your mindes you shall see with the eyes of the body but not with those of the soule for the heart of this people is suffocated with fat they have heard with their ears against their wills being incensed have shut their eyes for feare they should see by their eyes take in by their eares consent by their hearts and wills and so work their conversion and their cure The incredulous Jewes were extreamly offended at these words and more which he added viz. That the news of salvation should be carried to the Gentiles who would imbrace it This discourse gave occasion of much dispute to the Audience who not being able to come to an agreement every one returned home possessed with different thoughts and opinions Hitherto we have proceeded securely following the steps of Saint Luke who ends here his story and leaves the Apostle in the Confusion of Rome where he saies he remained two years and during that time preached the Doctrine of Jesus Christ without any let Receiving with freedome all those who came to see him Hence what concerns the rest of his life we know little yet I will endeavour to ground what I shall adde more of this Subject either upon certaine traditions or from his owne Epistles In the second Epistle which he writes to Tymothy his dear
pleased both in Heaven and Earth could doe nothing he desired in our will without wounding the liberty of it he I say who has created it free and who knowes best how it must be moved It is just we should be careful of our will but it is more reasonable we should be careful of the honour and power of him that hath bestowed it upon us and who healing its infirmity contracted by sin communicates this liberality unto us for the glory of his grace and not for the satisfaction of our vanity we must not stop at verity because it is harsh and humbles our humane understanding it is sufficient that it is an Evangelical verity which will have us to captivate our reaâ—on to the yoak of Faith and will not suffer that man should believe himselfe to have the greatest part in the work of his salvation The portion properly due to him is falshood and sinne and when God crownes his good works with the Crown of justice 't is after he has given him those good works as the Father of mercies We hold of him both our will and our acting as he begins in us 't is fit he should prosecute and bring to an end the designs of grace and love which he sets on foot for our eternal salvation The Apostle was resolved to take the way of Syria but the Jewes way-laying him enforced him to lengthen his journey and to turn back to pass by Macedonia Sosipater of the City of Beroe Aristarchus Secundus Caius and Timothy all of them Thessalonians Tichycus and Trophymus went before to expect him at Troad Thither he came with Saint Luke the Historian of his life After the Feast of Easter he abode there seven dayes during which time without intermission he announced unto them the Mysteries of God Upon a Sunday towards Evening the faithful being assembled together to receive the Eucharist he made them a long discourse the which if we consider his divine instructions we may suppose was much after this manner This action we have now in hand fills me with joy beyond expression for certainly our Master could not leave us a better testimony of his extream love then in giving this Bread which we break and this Cup which we bless For in eating the one doe we not participate of his body and in drinking the other doe we not participate of his bloud And could he close up his life better then in the institution of this adorable Mystery by which he continues amongst men to the end of the world 'T is he himselfe who has vouchsafed to reveale unto me that in that night when Judas delivered him into the hands of his enemies he took bread and giving thankes to his Father brake it and gave it to his Apostles saying to them Take and eat this is my Body which shall be delivered up for you Doe this in remembrance of me Likewise he took the Chalice after he had supped and said This Chalice is the new Testament in my bloud Doe this in commemoration of me every time you drink of it So that as often as you eat of this Bread and drink of this Chalice you declare the death of our Lord until his comming again But what doe you think Commemoration is and unto what in your opinions does it oblige you I will tell you in few words You must not onely call to minde the death of Jesus Christ but you must make it shine in your affections in your desires in your words to be brief in every passage of your life You must become Preachers of the Cross without speaking and by the Sanctity of your examples you must make that to be honoured and loved which to the Gentiles is a folly and to the Jewes a scandal If you be animated with this Spirit like persons grafted on the Cross of Jesus Christ you will produce fruits answerable to the root from which you sprung up If you hate the world which the Cross condemnes and which the Cross shall one day judge If you have shame ignominy reproaches poverty hunger thirst torments persecution of strangers displeasure of Parents deceits of Servants treason of false Brothers All which are fruits of the Cross of Jesus Christ I say if you be thus disposed and in the practise of these things then believe you are well prepared to eat the bread of which I speak and to thrive by its nourishment But if contrarywise you love the world and are wedded to Honours Riches Reputation Pleasures and other things of the Earth either by enjoying them or by an inordinate affection to them In a word if you eat this bread unworthily know that you are guilty of high Treason against the Body and Bloud of our Lord. God will not have the Kings of the Earth to be touched and declares that he will revenge their injuries because they are his anointed though onely by an exteriour and material Unction How severely then may ye think he will punish those who shall pollute the Body and Bloud of his Sonne whom he has established King upon Mount Sion to command over all the Kings of the Earth and who is his anointed by the ineffable Unction of his Divinity which inhabites corporally in him You abhor those Executioners who fastned him to the Cross pierced his feet and hands spit in his face and crowned his head with thornes But if you approach unworthily to his Table to eat his flesh and drink his bloud you are the greater offenders for they were Infidels and took him for a Criminal But you profess to believe in him and know that he is the Holy of God and the Source of the Sanctity of men Therefore try your selves diligently without flattering your selves in your evil customes Make a strict scrutiny against your selves enter into the bottome of your soule to discerne there the difference betwixt a lively and dead Faith betwixt a firme and a faint languishing hope betwixt a true and a feined Charity betwixt your love of Jesus Christ your love of creatures and your selves Notwithstanding this examine doe not think your selves so saintly disposed as is requisite to be altogether worthy of this heavenly bread for so long as we live in this world we cannot our selves be free from many defects and frailties But there is a great deal of difference betwixt faults which spring against our will from the corruption of our natures and the love of those defaults or our obstinacy to continue in wickedness For I speak not here of dogs that live in filth and often turn to their vomit biting their neighbors with their slandering tongues I have often told you that netiher Fornicators nor those who commit other villanies which I will not so much as name to you nor Theeves nor covetous persons nor envious nor slanderous nor proud shall enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Now all those who are excluded from a Heavenly Kingdome must be also banished from that which God has upon Earth
or unworthy But be you irreprehensible Labourers faithfull Stewards sincere Embassadors of our Lord for it is by you that he declares his will to men and it is at your hands hee will demand their soules Think of feeding your Flock and not how to cloath your selves with their wooll and drink of their milk There is nothing more shamefull to a Bishop or Priest then covetousness and the desire of sordid gain that justly takes away all credit from them and much weakens the force of their preaching We brought nothing with us into the world and must go out of it naked Therefore â—â—udy not to hoord up any thing but be content with moderate food and clothing seeking only to get riches of piety which is a great treasure and sufficient to satisfie a heart that is truely Christian They who desire to be rich do easily fall into the snares of the Divel and open a gap in their soules to temptation and to all sorts of bad desires and disquiets For covetousness of money is the root of all evils Yet for this we must not condemn rich men but put them often in minde that they be not proud nor put their trust too much in riches which many accidents may ravish from â—hem but rather to confide in the living God whose enjoyment can only render us truly happy You must also avoid another extremity which is the neglect of your own families for how shall he that cannot govern his own house govern well the Church Your family must be like a Church by the exemplar life of all those that are in it and your children born before your ordination must preach in silence to all the faithfull under your charge by their modesty and by the sanctity of their lives After you have been heard speak men will cast their eies upon the manner of your life and if your actions do not correspond with your words your preaching will be unprofitable Be you your selves sober to persuade sobriety chast to teach others continency patient when you suffer injuries to learn others how to bear them and modest to invite others to modesty Let your humility confound the proud and the contempt you have of riches reprove the covetous and make them ashamed use hospitality to the end you may encourage your Brethren that are able to practise it Love the poore and be ye first in their assistance that by your example others may respect help them Keep a watchfull guard upon your anger that your hands which are consecrated to bless the people never strike any body Above all avoid temporall affairs for you are Souldiers of a militia that requires you intirely and you serve a Master whom only you must study to please The sanctification and conduct of souls which he has redeemed the establishment of his kingdome by preaching his word are so glorious imployments that you ought to contemne all others though presented to you by the greatest Prince of the earth When either the glory of our Lord or charity requires you to undertake any affair be not negligent but presently quit your own repose and quiet Without such like occasions attend to cultivate the field which is appointed for you For Christians are the fields of God planted and watered by him and to him it belongs to give the encrease It suffices for your part that you omit nothing to make the Gospel flourish Be watchfull for after my departure ravenous wolves will fall upon your flocke and devoure them without pity and many false doctours shall rise amongst you who will seduce a great number of the faithfull by their false doctrine They will come with the name of our Lord in their mouthes their lookes will be modest their words Saint-like their actions wary their lives severe and they will teach nothing that is not delightfull But indeed they will be wolves in the skinnes of sheep They will be men that are lovers of themselves fraught with inordinate desires puffed up with pride obstinate in what they hold jealous of their opinions and unsatiable in praise honor and respect They will be called Masters give rules to all and concerning all things have the first place and be considered as men that had nothing of earth in them These blinde guides will lead many others so all fall into the ditch you shall see them come into houses and inquire into the greatest secrets of families not to reform the disorders but to soment them so to make benefit of their indulgence They will abuse men by their false Maxims they will make use of the simplicity of women whom they will lead by flocks aud make them believe they will free them from the burthen of their sinnes they will entertain them with a thousand vain superfluous things which shall render them alwaies more curious but never more learned in the doctrine of piety which they ought chiefly to know In fine they will oppose truth which is never favourable to them and will rise up against you without any respect to the power which Jesus Christ has given you as Jannes and Mambres did against Moyses You are not the work of men but the work of Jesus Christ that Sovereign Priest who has made you Priests to the end you continue the functions of his royall Priesthood He who is the head of Men and Angels will have you receive from him the influences of his graces to communicate them to his members you are the head of his mystical body which cannot subsist without you you are the eye to enlighten it the tongue to instruct it and the bosome to harbor it untill our Lord J. Christ be there formed Labor faithfully in a work that is so admirable be not weary to behold after a long time you have not much advanced resolve to sustain in your selves continual throws that you may beget soules to our Lord. Whilest a woman feels the pains of her childe-bearing she cries out aloud but no sooner is she delivered when she forgets all her dolours rejoices because she has brought a man into the world What then will be your joy when you shall have given children to God and how can all those agonies those disquiets those persecutions which you are to suffer before seem troublesom to you For my self I do neither glory that I am an Israelite or that I am skilful in the law nor that I have been elevated up to heaven nor that I am an Apostle nor in any other quality of my person But all my glory is that I have suffered incredible persecutions for Jesus Christ The most glorious badges of my Apostleship is to see me in nakedness to see me in want of food of drink in misery in prisons in chaines in affronts and scorns for the salvation of those to whom God has destinated the light of his Gospel It is now time that I leave you yet awake a while and call to minde the verities which I have declared unto you
the same cause Poppea followed not long after for Nero loving her like a Tyrant slew her in a fury with a spurn of his foot To these Massacres he added afterwards the unjust deaths of many Senators Thrasius Paetus and Bareâ—s Soranus But that of S. Paul was the completion of his sacrileges and it is now time after eight years absence that we return again with him to Rome He was imprisoned not long after his arrival If we will believe S. Chrysostom the conversion of the Emperours Mistress was the cause It is likely also the death of Simon the Magician contributed towards it This impostor had promised Nero to fly in his sight up to heaven and on the day appointed for this famous enterprise he was elevated in the aire by the devils all the people beholding him But at the prayers of S. Peter and S. Paul for S. Cyril of Hierusalem joynes them both in this action hee was precipitated in an instant to the earth where hee long survived not this shamefull fall Hereupon the Emperour who loved him would revenge his death upon those whom he believed to be the authors S. Peter after he had lain nine moneths in prison was condemned to be crucified and S. Paul to have his head struck off as being a Citizen of Rome Before the execution they were both whipped with rods for the crime of impiety whereof they were accused which supposed crime rendred S. Paul uncapable of the priviledge of a free Denison In the Church of S. Mary beyond the bridge over Tyber are yet to be seen the Pillars whereunto 't is said they were fastned The Prince of the Apostles would dye with his head downwards to make in that shamefull death a distinction betwixt the Master and the Servant S. Paul on the way to his execution converted three Souldiers who conducted him During his imprisonment he and his noble Companion converted forty seven of their guard besides Processas and Martinian their Goalers for whose baptisme God miraculously made a fountain to issue forth in the prison The Apostle prayed for his Executioner offered his head with more joy then if had been to receive a Diademe three times the head gave a leap and at every bound produced a fountain A Tradition approved by many antient Fathers of the Church adds that milk instead of blood ranne out of his wound which caused no less astonishment to the Gentiles then consolation to the Faithfull I know it is very hard to marke out the precise time of Martyrdom both of the one and other but it is certain they suffered with a courage sutable to the transcendency of their Apostleship and it is the opinion of the Church that having been so strictly linked together in their lives God would have them likewise so in their deaths by suffering for one and the same cause on the same day and in the Capitall City of the world where they had assaulted Idolatry even in the throne preaching the Gospel laid the foundation of an Empire against which hell it selfe shall never be able to prevail Thus S. Paul ended his life in the sixty eighth year of his age and the thirty fifth of his Conversion Nature had not bestowed upon him a presence to his advantage as hee himselfe confesses but shee recompenced it in a vast wit and a courage which even dangers fortified To the science of humane Learning acquired at Tharsus he added a perfect knowledge of the Law of Moyses which he learnt at the feet of Gamaliel a most eminent Doctor both for his doctrine and piety His zeal for this Law transported him into those extremities of fury which became the subject of repentance in the whole sequel of his life Hee thought to be a faithfull disciple to Moyses He must needs be an irreconciliable enemy to Jesus Christ and unto all those who believed in him The name alone of being his disciple seemed to him a just ground for his hatred hee thought he could not better testifie a zeal for his religion then by forgetting all obligatiâ—ns of friendship and stifling in his heart all sense feeling of nature though S. Stephen was his near kinsman yet nevertheless he was an assistant and complice in his death His rage was was not content with this spectacle esteeming it an honour to be employed as executioner in the cruel commands of the Priests and gloried much when either by force or cunning he had drawn any one to deny the Faith of Jesus Christ The fury of his blinde and impoisoned zeal could not be kept within the limits of Hierusalem He would also make it remarkable in the City of Damasco to this end hee obtained express orders that he might seize on all the faithfull and bring them prisoners to the Capital City of Judea to make their deaths more ignominious by making it more publick But in his most violent excess of hatred against the Saviour of the world he found the effects of his extraordinary goodness For a light more radiant then the Sun although it was at mid day dazled his eies and a divine illustration cleared his understanding J. Christ reproved him for his persecution and the persecuter presently acknowledged him for his Master The grace of J. C. manifested in this change it s most miraculous effects shews men who flatter themselves with an opinion of their own merits that it is not conferred upon them because they are Saints but rather to make them Saints It appears there needs not time to soften the most rebellious hearts and that the most obstinate must yeeld to the amorous violence of its impulses by a happy liberty which places them in the holy and pleasant servitude of Justice Pelagius a long time after lest hee should make a slave of mans will made it a divinity but his error was sufficiently condemned by this Conversion Sinners may here learn to hope for the effect of some mercy which purifies when it pleases the greatest stains mollifies the most obdurate hearts Never any one has better known both the old new man in which consists all Christian religion then S. Paul He has taught the world what miseries the first hath brought upon it the unhappy effects of his poison on those who descended from him Hee hath shewed the proud man who flatters himself in his own excellency that he was the son of an offender the slave of sin the heir of death He has represented to him all his deformities discovered all his ulcers convinced him in this that he is frail and miserable He has made the wisest amongst the Gentiles to observe that their wisedom was indeed true folly that they were lost in their imaginations and that their vertues had but a false appearance of goodness Hee so drew to the life the corruption of manners which attends Idolatry as a just punishment of its blindness that those who were not wholly stupified and obdurate became at lest ashamed if not