this to shew thy liberty or thy power Liberty in that thou canst at pleasure use variety of means not being tied to any Power in that thou couldst make use of contraries Hadst thou pull'd out a box and applied some medicinall ointment to the eyes something had been ascribed to thy skill more to the naturall power of thy receit now thou mad'st use of clay which had been enough to stop up the eyes of the seeing the virtue must be all in thee none in the means The utter disproportion of this help to the Cure adds glory to the worker How clearly didst thou hence evince to the world that thou who of clay couldst make eyes wert the same who of clay hadst made man since there is no part of the body that hath so little analogy to clay as the eye this clearness is contrary to that opacity Had not the Jews been more blind then the man whom thou curedst and more hard and stiff then the clay which thou mollifiedst they had in this one work both seen and acknowledged thy Deity What could the clay have done without thy tempering It was thy spittle that made the clay effectuall it was that Sacred mouth of thine that made the spittle medicinall the water of Siloe shall but wash off that clay which this inward moisture made powerfull The clay thus tempered must be applied by the hand that made it else it avails nothing What must the blind man needs think when he felt the cold clay upon the holes of his eyes or since he could not conceive what an eye was what must the beholders needs think to see that hollowness thus filled up Is this the way to give either eyes or sight Why did not the earth see with this clay as well as the man What is there to hinder the fight if this make it Yet with these contrarieties must the Faith be exercised where God intends the blessing of a Cure It was never meant that this clay should dwell upon those pits of the eyes it is onely put on to be washed off and that not by every water none shall doe it but that of Siloam which signifies Sent and if the man had not been sent to Siloam he had been still blind All things receive their virtue from Divine institution How else should a piece of wheaten bread nourish the Soul How should spring-water wash off spirituall filthiness How should the foolishness of preaching save Souls How should the absolution of God's Minister be more effectuall then the breath of an ordinary Christian Thou O God hast set apart these Ordinances thy Blessing is annexed to them hence is the ground of all our use and their efficacy Hadst thou so instituted Jordan would as well have healed Blindness and Siloam Leprosy That the man might be capable of such a Miracle his Faith is set on work he must be led with his eyes daubed up to the pool of Siloam He washes and sees Lord what did this man think when his eyes were now first given him what a new world did he find himself now come into how did he wonder at Heaven and earth and the faces and shapes of all creatures the goodly varieties of colours the chearfulness of the light the lively beams of the Sun the vast expansion of the air the pleasant transparence of the water at the glorious piles of the Temple and stately palaces of Jerusalem Every thing did not more please then astonish him Lo thus shall we be affected and more when the scales of our mortality being done away we shall see as we are seen when we shall behold the blessedness of that other world the glory of the Saints and Angels the infinite Majesty of the Son of God the incomprehensible brightness of the all-glorious Deity O my Soul that thou couldst be taken up before-hand with the admiration of that which thou canst not as yet be capable of fore-seeing It could not be but that many eyes had been witnesses of this man's want of eyes He sate begging at one of the Temple-gates not onely all the City but all the Country must needs know him thrice a year did they come up to Jerusalem neither could they come to the Temple and not see him His very blindness made him noted Deformities and infirmities of body do more easily both draw and fix the eye then an ordinary symmetry of parts Besides his Blindness his Trade made him remarkable the importunity of his begging drew the eyes of the passengers But of all other the Place most notified him Had he sate in some obscure village of Judaea or in some blind lane of Jerusalem perhaps he had not been heeded of many but now that he took up his seat in the heart in the head of the chief City whither all resorted from all parts what Jew can there be that knows not the blind beggar at the Temple-gate Purposely did our Saviour make choice of such a Subject for his Miracle a man so poor and so publick the glory of the work could not have reach'd so far if it had been done to the wealthiest Citizen of Jerusalem Neither was it for nothing that the act and the man is doubted of and inquired into by the beholders Is not this he that sate begging Some said It is he others said It is like him No truths have received so full proofs as those that have been questioned The want or the sudden presence of an eye much more of both must needs make a great change in the face those little balls of light which no doubt were more clear then Nature could have made them could not but give a new life to the countenance I marvell not if the neighbours who had wont to see this dark visage led by a guide and guided by a staffe seeing him now walking confidently alone out of his own inward light and looking them chearfully in the face doubted whether this were he The miraculous cures of God work a sensible alteration in men not more in their own apprehension then in the judgement of others Thus in the redress of the Spiritual blindness the whole habit of the man is changed Where before his Face looked dull and earthly now there is a sprightfull chearfulness in it through the comfortable knowledge of God and Heavenly things Whereas before his Heart was set upon worldly things now he uses them but injoys them not and that use is because he must not because he would Where before his fears and griefs were onely for pains of body or loss of estate or reputation now they are onely spent upon the displeasure of his God and the peril of his Soul So as now the neighbours can say Is this the man others It is like him it is not he The late-blind man hears and now sees himself questioned and soon resolves the doubt I am he He that now saw the light of the Sun would not hide the light of Truth from others It is an
thing here had horrour The Place both solitary and a Sepulcher Nature abhors as the visage so the region of Death and Corruption The Time Night onely the Moon gave them some faint glimmering for this being the seventeenth day of her age afforded some light to the latter part of the night The Business the visitation of a dead Corps Their zealous Love hath easily overcome all these They had followed him in his Sufferings when the Disciples left him they attended him to his Cross weeping they followed him to his Grave and saw how Joseph laid him even there they leave him not but ere it be day-light return to pay him the last tribute of their duty How much stronger is Love then death O Blessed Jesu why should not we imitate thy love to us Those whom thou lovest thou lovest to the end yea in it yea after it even when we are dead not our Souls onely but our very dust is dearly respected of thee What condition of thine should remove our affections from thy person in Heaven from thy lims on earth Well did these worthy Women know what Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus had done to thee they saw how curiously they had wrapped thee how preciously they had embalmed thee yet as not thinking others beneficence could be any just excuse of theirs they bring their own Odours to thy Sepulture to be perfumed by the touch of thy Sacred Body What thank is it to us that others are obsequious to thee whilst we are slack or niggardly We may rejoyce in others forwardness but if we rest in it how small joy shall it be to us to see them go to Heaven without us When on the Friday-evening they attended Joseph to the intombing of Jesus they mark'd the place they mark'd the passage they mark'd that inner grave-stone which the owner had fitted to the mouth of that tomb which all there care is now to remove Who shall roll away the stone That other more weighty load wherewith the vault was barred the seal the guard set upon both came not perhaps into their knowledge this was the private plot of Pilate and the Priests beyond the reach of their thoughts I do not hear them say How shall we recover the charges of our Odours or How shall we avoid the envy and censure of our angry Elders for honouring him whom the Governours of our Nation have thought worthy of condemnation The onely thought they now take is Who shall roll away the stone Neither do they stay at home and move this doubt but when they are well forward on their way resolving to try the issue Good hearts cannot be so solicitous for any thing under Heaven as for removing those impediments which lie between them and their Saviour O Blessed Jesu thou who art clearly revealed in Heaven art yet still both hid and sealed up from too many here on earth Neither is it some thin veil that is spred between thee and them but an huge stone even a true stone of offence lies rolled upon the mouth of their hearts Yea if a second weight were superadded to thy Grave here no less then three spirituall bars are interposed betwixt them and thee above Idleness Ignorance Unbelief Who shall roll away these stones but the same power that removed thine O Lord remove that our Ignorance that we may know thee our Idleness that we may seek thee our Unbelief that we may find and enjoy thee How well it succeeds when we go faithfully and conscionably about our work and leave the issue to God Lo now God hath removed the cares of these holy Women together with the grave-stone To the wicked that falls out which they feared to the Godly that which they wished and cared for yea more Holy cares ever prove well the worldly dry the bones and disappoint the hopes Could these good Visitants have known of a greater stone sealed of a strong watch set their doubts had been doubled now God goes beyond their thoughts and at once removes that which both they did and might have feared The stone is removed the seal broken the watch fled What a scorn doth the Almighty God make of the impotent designs of men They thought the stone shall make the grave sure the seal shall make the stone sure the guard shall make both sure Now when they think all safe God sends an Angel from Heaven above the earth quakes beneath the stone rolls away the Souldiers stand like carkasses and when they have got heart enough to run away think themselves valiant the Tomb is opened Christ is risen they confounded Oh the vain projects of silly men as if with one shovel-full of mire they would dam up the Sea or with a clout hang'd forth they would keep the Sun from shining Oh these Spiders-webs or houses of cards which fond children have as they think skilfully framed which the least breath breaks and ruines Who are we sorry worms that we should look in any business to prevail against our Creatour What creature is so base that he cannot arm against us to our confusion The Lice and Frogs shall be too strong for Pharaoh the Worms for Herod There is no wisedom nor counsell against the Lord. Oh the marvellous pomp and magnificence of our Saviour's Resurrection The Earth quakes the Angel appears that it may be plainly seen that this Divine person now rising had the command both of Earth and Heaven At the dissolution of thine Humane nature O Saviour was an Earthquake at the re-uniting of it is an Earthquake to tell the world that the God of Nature then suffered and had now conquered Whilst thou laiest still in the earth the earth was still when thou camest to fetch thine own The earth trembled at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob. When thou our true Sampson awakedst and foundest thy self tied with these Philistian cords and rousedst up and brakest those hard and strong twists with a sudden power no marvell if the room shook under thee Good cause had the earth to quake when the God that made it powerfully calls for his own flesh from the usurpation of her bowells Good cause had she to open her graves and yield up her dead in attendence to the Lord of Life whom she had presumed to detain in that cell of darkness What a seeming impotence was here that thou who art the true Rock of thy Church shouldst lie obscurely shrouded in Joseph's rock thou that art the true corner-stone of thy Church shouldst be shut up with a double stone the one of thy grave the other of thy vault thou by whom we are sealed to the day of our Redemption shouldst be sealed up in a blind cavern of earth But now what a demonstration of power doth both the world and I see in thy glorious Resurrection The rocks tear the graves open the stones roll away the dead rise and appear the Souldiers flee and tremble Saints and Angels
her travail have been destitute of lodging in the City of David Little did the Bethlehemites think what a Guest they refused else they would gladly have opened their doors to him who was able to open the gates of Heaven to them Now their Inhospitality is punishment enough to it self They have lost the honour and happiness of being Host to their God Even still O Blessed Saviour thou standest at our doors and knockest every motion of thy good Spirit tells us thou art there Now thou comest in thine own name and there thou standest whilst thy head is full of dew and thy locks wet with the drops of the night If we suffer carnal desires and worldly thoughts to take up the lodging of our Heart and revell within us whilst thou waitest upon our admission surely our judgement shall be so much the greater by how much better we know whom we have excluded What do we cry shame on the Bethlehemites whilst we are wilfully more churlish more unthankfull There is no room in my heart for the wonder at this Humility He for whom Heaven is too streight whom the Heaven of heavens cannot contain lies in the streight cabbin of the womb and when he would inlarge himself for the world is not allowed the room of an Inne The many mansions of Heaven were at his disposing the Earth was his and the fulness of it yet he suffers himself to be refused of a base Cottage and complaineth not What measure should discontent us wretched men when thou O God farest thus from thy creatures How should we learn both to want and abound from thee who abounding with the glory and riches of Heaven wouldst want a lodging in thy first welcome to the earth Thou camest to thine own and thy own received thee not How can it trouble us to be rejected of the world which is not ours What wonder is it if thy servants wandred abroad in sheep-skins and goat-skins destitute and afflicted when their Lord is denied harbour How should all the world blush at this indignity of Bethlehem He that came to save Men is sent for his first lodging to the Beasts The Stable is become his Inne the Cratch his Bed O strange Cradle of that great King which Heaven it self may envy O Saviour thou that wert both the Maker and Owner of Heaven of Earth couldst have made thee a Palace without hands couldst have commanded thee an empty room in those houses which thy creatures had made When thou didst but bid the Angels avoid their first place they fell down from Heaven like lightning and when in thy humbled estate thou didst but say I am he who was able to stand before thee How easie had it been for thee to have made place for thy self in the throngs of the stateliest Courts Why wouldst thou be thus homely but that by contemning worldly Glories thou mightest teach us to contemn them that thou mightest-sanctify Poverty to them whom thou calledst unto want that since thou who hadst the choice of all earthly conditions wouldst be born poor and despised those which must want out of necessity might not think their Poverty grievous Here was neither friend to entertain nor servant to attend nor place wherein to be attended onely the poor Beasts gave way to the God of all the world It is the great mystery of godliness that God was manifested in the flesh and seen of Angels but here which was the top of all wonders the very Beasts might see their Maker For those Spirits to see God in the flesh it was not so strange as for the brute creatures to see him who was the God of spirits He that would be led into the wilderness amongst wild beasts to be tempted would come into the house of beasts to be born that from the height of his Divine Glory his Humiliation might be the greater How can we be abased low enough for thee O Saviour that hast thus neglected thy self for us That the visitation might be answerable to the homeliness of the place attendents provision who shall come to congratulate his birth but poor Shepherds The Kings of the earth rest at home and have no summons to attend him by whom they reign God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty In an obscure time the night unto obscure men Shepherds doth God manifest the light of his Son by glorious Angels It is not our meanness O God that can exclude us from the best of thy mercies yea thus far dost thou respect persons that thou hast put down the mighty and exalted them of low degree If these Shepherds had been snorting in their beds they had no more seen Angels nor heard news of their Saviour then their neighbours Their vigilancy is honoured with this heavenly Vision Those who are industrious in any calling are capable of farther Blessings whereas the Idle are fit for nothing but Temptation No less then a whole Chore of Angels are worthy to sing the Hymn of Glory to God for the Incarnation of his Son What joy is enough for us whose nature he took and whom he came to restore by his Incarnation If we had the tongues of Angels we could not raise this note high enough to the praise of our glorious Redeemer No sooner do the Shepherds hear the news of a Saviour then they run to Bethlehem to seek him Those that left their beds to tend their flocks leave their flocks to enquire after their Saviour No earthly thing is too dear to be forsaken for Christ If we suffer any worldly occasion to stay us from Bethlehem we care more for our sheep then our souls It is not possible that a faithfull heart should hear where Christ is and not labour to the sight to the fruition of him Where art thou O Saviour but at home in thine own house in the assembly of thy Saints Where art thou to be found but in thy Word and Sacraments Yea there thou seekest for us if there we haste not to seek for thee we are worthy to want thee worthy that our want of thee here should make us want the presence of thy face for ever IV. The Sages and the Star THE Shepherds and the Cratch accorded well yet even they saw nothing which they might not contemn neither was there any of those Shepherds that seemed not more like a King then that King whom they came to see But O the Divine Majesty that shined in this Basenesse There lies the Babe in the Stable crying in the Manger whom the Angels came down from Heaven to proclaim whom the Sages come from the East to adore whom an heavenly Star notifies to the world that now men might see that Heaven and Earth serves him that neglected himself Those Lights that hang low are not far seen but those that are high placed are equally seen in the remotest distances Thy light O Saviour was no lesse then heavenly The East saw that which Bethlehem might
infinitely stronger then the strong one in possession Else where powers are matcht though with some inequality they tug for the victory and without a resistence yield nothing There are no fewer sorts of dealing with Satan then with men Some have dealt with him by suit as the old Satanian Hereticks and the present Indian Savages sacrificing to him that he hurt not others by covenant conditioning their service upon his assistence as Witches and Magicians others by insinuation of implicit compact as Charmers and Figure-casters others by adjuration as the sons of Scaeva and modern Exorcists unwarrantably charging him by an higher name then their own None ever offered to deal with Satan by a direct and primary command but the God of Spirits The great Archangel when the strife was about the body of Moses commanded not but imprecated rather The Lord rebuke thee Satan It is onely the God that made this Spirit an Angel of light that can command him now that he hath made himself the Prince of darkness If any created power dare to usurp a word of command he laughs at their presumption and knows them his Vassals whom he dissembles to fear as his Lords It is thou onely O Saviour at whose beck those stubborn Principalities of hell yield and tremble No wicked man can be so much a slave to Satan as Satan is to thee the interposition of thy grace may defeat that dominion of Satan thy rule is absolute and capable of no lett What need we to fear whilst we are under so omnipotent a Commander The waves of the deep rage horribly yet the Lord is stronger then they Let those Principalities and Powers doe their worst Those mighty adversaries are under the command of him who loved us so well as to bleed for us What can we now doubt of his power or his will How can we profess him a God and doubt of his power How can we profess him a Saviour and doubt of his will He both can and will command those infernall powers We are no less safe then they are malicious The Devill saw Jesus by the eyes of the Demoniack For the same saw that spake but it was the ill Spirit that said I beseech thee torment me not It was sore against his will that he saw so dreadfull an object The over-ruling power of Christ dragged the foul Spirit into his presence Guiltiness would fain keep out of sight The Lims of so wofull an Head shall once call on the Hills and Rocks to hide them from the face of the Lamb such Lion-like terrour is in that mild face when it looks upon wickedness Neither shall it be one day the least part of the torment of the damned to see the most lovely spectacle that Heaven can afford He from whom they fled in his offers of grace shall be so much more terrible as he was and is more gracious I marvel not therefore that the Devill when he saw Jesus cried out I could marvell that he fell down that he worshipped him That which the proud Spirit would have had Christ to have done to him in his great Duell the same he now doeth unto Christ fearfully servilely forcedly Who shall henceforth brag of the externall homage he performs to the Son of God when he sees Satan himself fall down and worship What comfort can there be in that which is common to us with Devils who as they believe and tremble so they tremble and worship The outward bowing is the body of the action the disposition of the Soul is the soul of it therein lies the difference from the counterfeit stoopings of wicked men and spirits The religious heart serves the Lord in fear and rejoyces in him with trembling What it doeth is in way of service in service to his Lord whose sovereignty is his comfort and protection in the fear of a son not of a slave in fear tempered with joy in a joy but allayed with trembling Whereas the prostration of wicked men and Devils is onely an act of form or of force as to their Judge as to their Tormentour not as to their Lord in meer servility not in reverence in an uncomfortable dulness without all delight in a perfect horrour without capacity of joy These worship without thanks because they fall down without the true affections of worship Whoso marvels to see the Devill upon his knees would much more marvel to hear what came from his mouth Jesus the Son of the Most high God A confession which if we should hear without the name of the Authour we should ask from what Saint it came Behold the same name given to Christ by the Devil which was formerly given him by the Angel Thou shalt call his name JESUS That awfull Name whereat every knee shall bow in heaven in earth and under the earth is called upon by this prostrate Devil And lest that should not import enough since others have been honoured by this name in Type he adds for full distinction the Son of the Most high God The good Syrophoenician and blind Bartimaeus could say the Son of David it was well to acknowledge the true descent of his pedigree according to the flesh But this infernal Spirit looks aloft and fetcheth his line out of the highest Heavens the Son of the Most high God The famous confession of the prime Apostle which honoured him with a new name to immortality was no other then Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God and what other do I hear from the lips of a Fiend No more Divine words could fall from the highest Saint Nothing hinders but that the veriest miscreant on earth yea the foulest Devil in Hell may speak holily It is no passing of judgment upon loose sentences So Peter should have been cast for a Satan in denying forswearing cursing and the Devil should have been set up for a Saint in confessing Jesus the Son of the Most high God Fond hypocrite that pleasest thy self in talking well hear this Devil and when thou canst speak better then he look to fare better but in the mean time know that a smooth tongue and a foul heart carrie away double judgments Let curious heads dispute whether the Devil knew Christ to be God In this I dare believe himself though in nothing else He knew what he believed what he believed that he confessed Jesus the Son of the Most high God To the confusion of those Semi-Christians that have either held doubtfully or ignorantly mis-known or blasphemously denied what the very Devils have professed How little can a bare speculation avail us in these cases of Divinity So far this Devil hath attained to no ease no comfort Knowledge alone doth but puffe up it is our Love that edifies If there be not a sense of our sure interest in this Jesus a power to apply his merits and obedience we are no whit the safer no whit the better onely we are so much the wiser to understand who shall condemn us
attribute this to their modesty as if they held themselves unworthy of so Divine a guest Why then did they fall upon this suit in a time of their loss Why did they not tax themselves and intimate a secret desire of that which they durst not beg It is too much rigour to attribute it to the love of their Hogs and an anger at their loss then they had not intreated but expelled him It was their fear that moved this harsh suit a servile fear of danger to their persons to their goods lest he that could so absolutely command the Devils should have set these tormentours upon them lest their other Demoniacks should be dispossessed with like loss I cannot blame these Gadarens that they feared this power was worthy of trembling at Their fear was unjust They should have argued This man hath power over men beasts devils it is good having him to our friend his presence is our safety and protection Now they contrarily mis-inferre Thus powerfull is he it is good he were farther off What miserable and pernicious misconstructions do men make of God of Divine attributes and actions God is omnipotent able to take infinite vengeance of sin Oh that he were not He is provident I may be careless He is mercifull I may sin He is holy let him depart from me for I am a sinfull man How witty sophisters are natural men to deceive their own souls to rob themselves of a God O Saviour how worthy are they to want thee that wish to be rid of thee Thou hast just cause to be weary of us even whilst we sue to hold thee but when once our wretched unthankfulness grows weary of thee who can pity us to be punished with thy departure Who can say it is other then righteous that thou shouldst retort one day upon us Depart from me ye wicked XVIII The faithfull Canaanite IT was our Saviour's trade to doe good therefore he came down from heaven to earth therefore he changed one station of earth for another Nothing more commends goodness then generality and diffusion whereas reservedness and close-handed restraint blemish the glory of it The Sun stands not still in one point of heaven but walks his daily round that all the inferiour world may share of his influences both in heat and light Thy bounty O Saviour did not affect the praise of fixedness but motion One while I find thee at Jerusalem then at Capernaum soon after in the utmost verge of Galilee never but doing good But as the Sun though he daily compass the world yet never walks from under his line never goes beyond the turning points of the longest and shortest day so neither didst thou O Saviour pass the bounds of thine own peculiar people thou wouldst move but not wildly not out of thine own sphear Wherein thy glorified estate exceeds thine humbled as far as Heaven is above Earth Now thou art lift up thou drawest all men unto thee there are now no lists no limits of thy gracious visitations but as the whole Earth is equidistant from Heaven so all the nations of the world lie equally open to thy bounty Neither yet didst thou want outward occasions of thy removall Perhaps the very importunity of the Scribes and Pharisees in obtruding their Traditions drave thee thence perhaps their unjust offence at thy Doctrine There is no readier way to lose Christ then to clog him with humane Ordinances then to spurn at his heavenly Instructions He doth not always subduce his Spirit with his visible presence but his very outward withdrawing is worthy of our sighs worthy of our tears Many a one may say Lord if thou hadst been here my Soul had not died Thou art now with us O Saviour thou art with us in a free and plentifull fashion how long thou knowest we know our deservings and fear O teach us how happy we are in such a Guest and give us grace to keep thee Hadst thou walked within the Phoenician borders we could have told how to have made glad constructions of thy mercy in turning to the Gentiles thou that couldst touch the Lepers without uncleanness couldst not be defiled with aliens but we know the partition-wall was not yet broken down and thou that didst charge thy Disciples not to walk into the way of the Gentiles wouldst not transgress thine own rule Once we are sure thou camest to the utmost point of the bounds of Galilee as not ever confined to the heart of Jewry thou wouldst sometimes bless the outer skirts with thy presence No angle is too obscure for the Gospel The land of Zabulon and the land of Napthali by the way of the Sea beyond Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles the people which sate in darkness saw great light The Sun is not scornfull but looks with the same face upon every plot of earth not onely the stately palaces and pleasant gardens are visited by his beams but mean cottages but neglected bogs and moors God's Word is like himself no accepter of persons the wild Kern the rude Scythian the savage Indian are alike to it The mercy of God will be sure to find out those that belong to his election in the most secret corners of the world like as his judgments will fetch his enemies from under the hills and rocks The good Shepherd walks the wilderness to seek one sheep strayed from many If there be but one Syrophoenician Soul to be gained to the Church Christ goes to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon to fetch her Why are we weary to doe good when our Saviour underwent this perpetual toil in healing Bodies and winning Souls There is no life happy but that which is spent in a continual drudging for edification It is long since we heard of the name or nation of Canaanites all the country was once so styled that people was now forgotten yet because this woman was of the bloud of those Phoenicians which were anciently ejected out of Canaan that title is revived to her God keeps account of pedigrees after our oblivion that he may magnifie his mercies by continuing them to thousands of the generations of the just and by renewing favours upon the unjust No nation carried such brands and scars of a Curse as Canaan To the shame of those careless Jews even a faithfull Canaanite is a suppliant to Christ whilst they neglect so great salvation She doth not speak but cry need and desire have raised her voice to an importunate clamour The God of mercy is light of hearing yet he loves a loud and vehement solicitation not to make himself inclinable to grant but to make us capable to receive blessings They are words and not prayers which fall from careless lips If we felt our want or wanted not desire we could speak to God in no tune but cries If we would prevail with God we must wrastle and if we would wrastle happily with God we must wrastle first with our own dulness Nothing but cries can
himself is a several Goal Did ever any man that ran for a prize say I will keep up with the rest Doth he not know that if he be not foremost he loseth We had as good to have sate still as not so to run that we may obtain We obtain not if we out-run not the multitude So far did Zacchaeus over-run the stream of the people that he might have space to climb the Sycomore ere Jesus could pass by I examine not the kind the nature the quality of this Plant what Tree soever it had been Zacchaeus would have tried to scale it for the advantage of this prospect He hath found out this help for his stature and takes pains to use it It is the best improvement of our wit to seek out the aptest furtherances for our Souls Do you see a weak and studious Christian that being unable to inform himself in the matters of God goes to the cabinet of Heaven the Priests lips which shall preserve knowledge there is Zacchaeus in the Sycomore It is the truest wisedom that helps forward our Salvation How witty we are to supply all the deficiencies of Nature If we be low we can adde cubits to our stature if ill-coloured we can borrow complexion if hairless perukes if dim-sighted glasses if lame crutches and shall we be conscious of our spiritual wants and be wilfully regardless of the remedy Surely had Zacchaeus stood still on the ground he had never seen Christ had he not climbed the Sycomore he had never climbed into Heaven O Saviour I have not height enough of my own to see thee give me what Sycomore thou wilt give me grace to use it give me an happy use of that grace The more I look at the mercy of Christ the more cause I see of astonishment Zacchaeus climbes up into the Sycomore to see Jesus Jesus first sees him preventing his eyes with a former view Little did Zacchaeus look that Jesus would have cast up his eyes to him Well might he think the boys in the street would spy him out and shout at his stature trade ambition but that Jesus should throw up his eyes into the Sycomore and take notice of that small despised morsell of flesh ere Zacchaeus could find space to distinguish His face from the rest was utterly beyond his thought or expectation All his hope is to see and now he is seen To be seen and acknowledged is much more then to see Upon any solemn occasion many thousands see the Prince whom he sees not and if he please to single out any one whether by his eye or by his tongue amongst the press it passes for an high favour Zacchaeus would have thought it too much boldness to have asked what was given him As Jonathan did to David so doeth God to us he shoots beyond us Did he not prevent us with mercy we might climbe into the Sycomore in vain If he give Grace to him that doeth his best it is the praise of the giver not the earning of the receiver How can we doe or will without him If he sees us first we live and if we desire to see him we shall be seen of him Who ever took pains to climbe the Sycomore and came down disappointed O Lord what was there in Zacchaeus that thou shouldst look up at him a Publican a Sinner an Arch-extortioner a Dwarf in stature but a Giant in oppression a little man but a great Sycophant if rich in coin more rich in sins and treasures of wrath Yet it is enough that he desires to see thee all these disadvantages cannot hide him from thee Be we never so sinfull if our desires towards thee be hearty and fervent all the broad leaves of the Sycomore cannot keep off thine eye from us If we look at thee with the eye of Faith thou wilt look at us with the eye of mercy The eye of the Lord is upon the just and he is just that would be so if not in himself yet in thee O Saviour when Zacchaeus was above and thou wert below thou didst look up at him now thou art above and we below thou lookest down upon us thy mercy turns thine eyes every way towards our necessities Look down upon us that are not worthy to look up unto thee and find us out that we may seek thee It was much to note Zacchaeus it was more to name him Methinks I see how Zacchaeus startled at this to hear the sound of his own name from the mouth of Christ neither can he but think Doth Jesus know me Is it his voice or some other 's in the throng Lo this is the first blink that ever I had of him I have heard the fame of his wonderfull works and held it happiness enough for me to have seen his face and doth he take notice of my person of my name Surely the more that Zacchaeus knew himself the more doth he wonder that Christ should know him It was slander enough for a man to be a friend to a Publican yet Christ gives this friendly compellation to the chief of Publicans and honours him with this argument of a sudden intireness The favour is great but not singular Every elect of God is thus graced The Father knows the child's name as he calls the stars of heaven by their names so doth he his Saints the stars on earth and it is his own rule to his Israel I have called thee by thy name thou art mine As God's children do not content themselves with a confused knowledge of him but aspire to a particular appprehension and sensible application so doeth God again to them it is not enough that he knows them as in the croud wherein we see many persons none distinctly but he takes single and severall knowledge of their qualities conditions motions events What care we that our names are obscure or contemned amongst men whilst they are regarded by God that they are raked up in the dust of Earth whilst they are recorded in Heaven Had our Saviour said no more but Zacchaeus come down the poor man would have thought himself taxed for his boldness and curiosity it were better to be unknown then noted for miscarriage But now the next words comfort him For I must this day abide at thine house What a sweet familiarity was here as if Christ had been many years acquainted with Zacchaeus whom he now first saw Besides our use the Host is invited by the Guest and called to an unexpected entertainment Well did our Saviour hear Zacchaeus his heart inviting him though his mouth did not Desires are the language of the Soul those are heard by him that is the God of spirits We dare not doe thus to each other save where we have eaten much salt we scarce go where we are invited though the face be friendly and the entertainment great yet the heart may be hollow But here he that saw the heart and foreknew his welcome can boldly say I must this day
touch What a pattern of powerfull Faith had we lost if our Saviour had not called this act to triall As her modesty hid her disease so it would have hid her vertue Christ will not suffer this secrecy Oh the marvellous but free dispensation of Christ One while he injoyns a silence to his cured Patients and is troubled with their divulgation of his favour another while as here he will not lose the honour of a secret mercy but fetches it out by his Inquisition by his profession Who hath touched me for I perceive virtue is gone out from me As we see in the great work of his Creation he hath placed some Stars in the midst of Heaven where they may be most conspicuous others he hath set in the Southern obscurity obvious to but few eyes in the Earth he hath planted some flowers and trees in the famous gardens of the World others no less beautifull in untracked Woods or wild Desarts where they are either not seen or not regarded O God if thou have intended to glorifie thy self by thy Graces in us thou wilt find means to fetch them forth into the notice of the World otherwise our very privacy shall content us and praise thee Yet even this great Faith wanted not some weakness It was a poor conceit in this Woman that she thought she might receive so sovereign a remedy from Christ without his heed without his knowledge Now that she might see she had trusted to a power which was not more bountifull then sensible and whose goodness did not exceed his apprehension but one that knew what he parted with and willingly parted with that which he knew beneficial to so faithfull a receiver he can say Some body hath touched me for I perceive virtue is gone out from me As there was an errour in her thought so in our Saviour's words there was a correction His mercy will not let her run away with that secret offence It is a great favour of God to take us in the manner and to shame our closeness We scour off the rust from a Weapon that we esteem and prune the Vine we care for O God do thou ever find me out in my Sin and do not pass over my least infirmities without a feeling controlment Neither doubt I but that herein O Saviour thou didst graciously forecast the securing of the Conscience of this faithfull though over-seen Patient which might well have afterwards raised some just scruples for the filching of a Cure for Unthahkfulness to the Authour of her Cure the continuance whereof she might have good reason to misdoubt being surreptitiously gotten ingratefully concealed For prevention of all these dangers and the full quieting of her troubled heart how fitly how mercifully didst thou bring forth this close business to the light and clear it to the bottom It is thy great mercy to foresee our perils and to remove them ere we can apprehend the fear of them as some skilfull Physician who perceiving a Fever or Phrensy coming which the distempered Patient little misdoubts by seasonable applications anticipates that grievous malady so as the sick man knows his safety ere he can suspect his danger Well might the Woman think He who can thus cure and thus know his cure can as well know my name and descry my person and shame and punish my ingratitude With a pale face therefore and a trembling foot she comes and falls down before him and humbly acknowledges what she had done what she had obtained But the Woman finding she was not hid c. Could she have perceived that she might have slily gone away with the Cure she had not confessed it So had she made God a loser of Glory and her self an unthankfull receiver of so great a Benefit Might we have our own wills we should be injurious both to God and our selves Nature lays such plots as would be sure to befool us and is witty in nothing but deceiving her self The onely way to bring us home is to find we are found and to be convinced of the discovery of all our evasions As some unskilfull Thief that finds the owner's eye was upon him in his pilfering laies down his stoln commodity with shame Contrarily when a man is possessed with a conceit of secrecy and cleanly escape he is emboldened in his leudness The Adulterer chuses the twilight and says No eye shall see me and joys in the sweetness of his stoln waters O God in the deepest darkness in my most inward retiredness when none sees me when I see not my self yet let me then see thine all-seeing eye upon me and if ever mine eyes shall be shut or held with a prevailing Temptation check me with a speedy reproof that with this abashed Patient I may come in and confess my errour and implore thy mercy It is no unusual thing for kindness to look sternly for the time that it may indear it self more when it lists to be discovered With a severe countenance did our Saviour look about him and ask Who touched me When the woman comes in trembling and confessing both her act and success he clears up his brows and speaks comfortably to her Daughter be of good chear thy faith hath made thee whole go in peace O sweet and seasonable word fit for those mercifull and Divine lips able to secure any heart to dispell any fears Still O Saviour thou doest thus to us when we fall down before thee in an awfull dejectedness thou rearest us up with a chearfull and compassionate incouragement when thou findest us bold and presumptuous thou lovest to take us down when humbled it is enough to have prostrated us Like as that Lion of Bethel worries the disobedient Prophet guards the poor Ass that stood quaking before him Or like some mighty wind that bears over a tall Elme or Cedar with the same breath that it raiseth a stooping Reed Or like some good Physician who finding the body obstructed and surcharged with ill humours evacuates it and when it is sufficiently pulled down raises it up with sovereign Cordials And still doe thou so to my Soul if at any time thou perceivest me stiff and rebellious ready to face out my sin against thee spare me not let me smart till I relent But a broken and contrite heart thou wilt not O Lord O Lord do not reject It is onely thy Word which gives what it requires comfort and confidence Had any other shaken her by the shoulder and cheared her up against those oppressive passions it had been but waste wind No voice but his who hath power to remit sin can secure the heart from the conscience of sin from the pangs of Conscience In the midst of the sorrows of my heart thy comforts O Lord thy comforts onely have power to refresh my soul Her cure was Christ's act yet he gives the praise of it to her Thy faith hath made thee whole He had said before Virtue is gone out from me now he
Pride another of the Tentigo of Lust another of the Vertigo of Inconstancy another of the choaking Squinancy of Curses and Blasphemies one of the Boulimy of Gluttony another of the Pleuritical stitches of Envy one of the contracting Cramp of Covetousness another of the Atrophie of Unproficiency one is hide-bound with Pride another is consumed with Emulation another rotten with Corrupt desires and we are so much the sicker if we feel not these distempers Oh that we could wait at the Bethesda of God attend diligently upon his Ordinances we could no more fail of cure then now we can hope for cure We wait hard and endure much for the Body Quantis laboribus agitur ut longiore tempore laboretur Multi cruciatus suscipiuntur certi ut pauci dies adjiciantur incerti What toil do we take that we may toil yet longer We endure many certain pains for the addition of a few uncertain days saith Austin Why will we not doe thus for the Soul Without waiting it will not be The Cripple Act. 3.4 was bidden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Look up to us He look'd up It was cold comfort that he heard Silver and Gold have I none but the next clause made amends for all Surge ambula Rise and walk and this was because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he attended expecting verse 5. Would we be cured It is not for us to snatch at Bethesda as a Dog at Nilus nor to draw water and away as Rebecca nor to set us a while upon the banks as the Israelites by the rivers of Babylon but we must dwell in God's House wait at Bethesda But what shall I say to you Courtiers but even as Saint Paul to his Corinthians Ye are full ye are rich ye are strong without us Many of you come to this place not as to Bethel the House of God or Bethesda the house of effusion but as to Bethaven the house of vanity If ye have not lost your old wont there are more words spoken in the outer Closet by the hearers then in the Chappel by the Preacher as if it were Closet quasi close-set in an Exchange like communication of News What do ye think of Sermons as matters of formality as very Superfluities as your own idle Complements which either ye hear not or believe not What do ye think of your selves Have ye onely a postern to go to Heaven by your selves where-through ye can go besides the foolishness of Preaching or do ye sing that old Pelagian note Quid nunc mihi opus est Deo What need have I of God What should I say to this but Increpa Domine As for our houshold Sermons our Auditours are like the fruit of a tree in an unseasonable year or like a wood new felled that hath some few spires left for standers some poles distance or like the tithe sheaves in a field when the corn is gone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as he said It is true ye have more Sermons and more excellent then all the Courts under Heaven put together but as Austin said well Quid mihi proderit bona res non utenti bene What am I the better for a good thing if I use it not well Let me tell you all these forcible means not well used will set you the farther off from Heaven If the Chappel were the Bethesda of promotion what thronging would there be into it Yea if it were but some mask-house wherein a glorious though momentany show were to be presented neither white staves nor halberts could keep you out Behold here ye are offered the honour to be by this seed of regeneration the Sons of God The Kingdom of Heaven the Crown of Glory the Scepter of Majesty in one word Eternall Life is here offered and performed to you O let us not so far forget our selves as in the Ordinances of God to contemn our own Happiness But let us know the time of our visitation let us wait reverently and intentively upon this Bethesda of God that when the Angel shall descend and move the Water our Souls may be cured and through all the degrees of Grace may be carried to the full height of their Glory XXIX The Transfiguration of CHRIST 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 Majesty 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 eternall The Circumstances shall be to us as the skirts of the Hill which we will climbe up lightly the Time Place Attendents Company The Time after six days the Place an high hill apart the Attendents 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 make us 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 tast of death till they have seen the Son of Man come in his Kingdom 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 usuall distinction of inclusivè and exclusivè necessary for all computations and Luke's about eight so methinks seems to intimate God's seventh day the Sabbath why should there be else so precise mention of six days 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 man's 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 Kingdom 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 Christ 's glorious appearance and our transfiguration with him But I know what our Saviour's farewell was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not for us to know But if we may not know we may conjecture yet not above that we ought saith S. Paul we may not super sapere as Tertullian's phrase
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 spred with full bowls with costly dishes and curious sauces the dainties of all three elements says Bonum est esse hîc And yet eating hath a satiety and satiety a wearînest 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 Hierom And he 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 Psalmist's 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 says 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 nor 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 ones seek to purchase contentment with Oppression Sacrilege Bribery out-facing innocence and truth with power damning your own Souls for but the humouring 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 merry Ye delicatest Courtiers tell me if Pleasure it self have not an unpleasant tediousness hanging upon it and more sting then honey And whereas all happiness even here below is in the vision of God how is our spirituall eye hindered as the body is from his Object by darkness by false light by aversion Darkness he that doeth sin is in darkness False light whilst we measure eternal things by temporary Aversion whilst as weak eyes hate the light we turn our eyes from the true and immutable good to the fickle and uncertain We are not on the hill but in the valley where we have tabernacles not of our own making but of clay and such as wherein we are witnesses of Christ not transfigured in glory but blemished with dishonour dishonoured with oaths and blasphemies re-crucified with our sins witnesses of God's Saints not shining in Tabor but mourning in darkness and in stead of that Heavenly brightness cloathed with sackcloath and ashes Then and there we shall have tabernacles not made with hands eternall in the heavens where we shall see how sweet the Lord is we shall see the triumphs of Christ we shall hear and sing the Hallelujahs of Saints Quae nunc nos angit vesania vitiorum sitire absynthium c saith that devout Father Oh! how hath our corruption bewitched us to thirst for this wormwood to affect the shipwrecks of this world to dote upon the misery of this fading life and not rather to fly up to the felicity of Saints to the society of Angels to that blessed contemplation wherein we shall see God in himself God in us our selves in him There shall be no sorrow no pain no complaint no fear no death There is no malice to rise against us no misery to afflict us no hunger thirst weariness temptation to disquiet us There O there one day is better then a thousand There is rest from our labours peace from our enemies freedome from our sins How many clouds of discontentment darken the Sunshine of our joy while we are here below Vae nobis qui vivimus plangere quae pertulimus dolere quae sentimus timere quae exspectamus Complaint of evils past sense of present fear of future have shared our lives amongst them Then shall we be semper laeti semper satiati always joyfull always satisfied with the vision of that God in whose presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore Shall we see that heathen Cleombrotus abandoning his life and casting himself down from the rock upon an uncertain noise of immortality and shall not we Christians abandon the wicked superfluities of life the pleasures of sin for that life which we know more certainly then this What stick we at my beloved Is there a Heaven or is there none have we a Saviour there or have we none We know there is a Heaven as sure as that there is an earth below us we know we have a Saviour there as sure as there are men that we converse with upon earth we know
own unworthiness and just repulse Our inordinate desires are worthy of a check when we know that our requests are holy we cannot come with too much confidence to the throne of Grace He that knew all their thoughts afar off yet as if he had been a stranger to their purposes asks What wouldst thou Our infirmities do then best shame us when they are fetcht out of our own mouths Like as our prayers also serve not to acquaint God with our wants but to make us the more capable of his mercies The suit is drawn from her now she must speak Grant that these my two sons may sit one on thy right hand the other on thy left in thy Kingdom It is hard to say whether out of more pride or ignorance It was as received as erroneous a conceit amongst the very Disciples of Christ that he should raise up a Temporal Kingdom over the now-tributary and beslaved people of Israel The Romans were now their masters their fancy was that their Messias should shake off this yoke and reduce them to their former Liberty So grounded was this opinion that the two Disciples in their walk to Emmaus could say We trusted it had been he that should have delivered Israel and when after his Resurrection he was walking up mount Olivet towards Heaven his very Apostles could ask him if he would now restore that long-expected Kingdom How should we mitigate our censures of our Christian brethren if either they mistake or know not some secondary truths of Religion when the domestick attendents of Christ who heard him every day till the very point of his Ascension misapprehended the chief cause of his coming into the world and the state of his Kingdom If our Charity may not bear with small faults what doe we under his name that conniv'd at greater Truth is as the Sun bright in it self yet there are many close corners into which it never shined O God if thou open our hearts we shall take in those beams till thou doe so teach us to attend patiently for our selves charitably for others These Fishermen had so much Courtship to know that the right hand and the left of any Prince were the chief places of Honour Our Saviour had said that his twelve Followers should sit upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel This good woman would have her two sons next to his person the prime Peers of his Kingdom Every one is apt to wish the best to his own Worldly Honour is neither worth our suit nor unworthy our acceptance Yea Salome had thy mind been in Heaven hadst thou intended this desired preeminence of that celestial state of Glory yet I know not how to justifie thine ambition Wouldst thou have thy sons preferred to the Father of the faithfull to the blessed Mother of thy Saviour That very wish were presumptuous For me O God my ambition shall go so high as to be a Saint in Heaven and to live as holily on earth as the best but for precedency of Heavenly honour I do not I dare not affect it It is enough for me if I may lift up my head amongst the heels of thy Blessed ones The mother asks the sons have the answer She was but their tongue they shall be her ears God ever imputes the acts to the first mover rather then to the instrument It was a sore check Ye know not what ye ask Tn our ordinary communication to speak idly is sin but in our suits to Christ to be so inconsiderate as not to understand our own petitions must needs be a foul offence As Faith is the ground of our Prayers so Knowledge is the ground of our Faith If we come with indigested requests we profane that Name we invoke To convince their unfitness for Glory they are sent to their impotency in suffering Are ye able to drink of the cup whereof I shall drink and to be baptized with the Baptism wherewith I am baptized O Saviour even thou who wert one with thy Father hast a cup of thine own never Potion was so bitter as that which was mixed for thee Yea even thy draught is stinted it is not enough for thee to sip of this Cup thou must drink it up to the very dregs When the vinegar and gall were tendred to thee by men thou didst but kiss the cup but when thy Father gave into thine hands a potion infinitely more distastfull thou for our health didst drink deep of it even to the bottom and saidst It is finished And can we repine at those unpleasing draughts of Affliction that are tempered for us sinfull men when we see thee the Son of thy Father's love thus dieted We pledge thee O Blessed Saviour we pledge thee according to our weakness who hast begun to us in thy powerfull sufferings Onely do thou enable us after some four faces made in our reluctation yet at last willingly to pledge thee in our constant Sufferings for thee As thou must be drenched within so must thou be baptized without Thy Baptism is not of water but of bloud both these came from thee in thy Passion we cannot be thine if we partake not of both If thou hast not grudged thy precious bloud to us well maist thou challenge some worthless drops from us When they talk of thy Kingdome thou speakest of thy bitter Cup of thy bloudy Baptism Suffering is the way to reigning Through many tribulations must we enter into the Kingdome of Heaven There was never wedge of gold that did not first pass the fire there was never pure grain that did not undergoe the flail In vain shall we dream of our immediate passage from the pleasures and jollity of earth to the glory of Heaven Let who will hope to walk upon Roses and Violets to the throne of Heaven O Saviour let me trace thee by the track of thy Bloud and by thy red steps follow thee to thine eternall rest and Happiness I know this is no easy task else thou hadst never said Are ye able Who should be able if not they that had been so long blessed with thy presence informed by thy doctrine and as it were beforehand possessed of their Heaven in thee Thou hadst never made them judges of their power if thou couldst not have convinced them of their weakness Alas how full of feebleness is our body and our mind of impatience If but a Bee sting our flesh it swells and if but a tooth ake the head and heart complain How small trifles make us weary of our selves What can we doe without thee without thee what can we suffer If thou be not O Lord strong in my weakness I cannot be so much as weak I cannot so much as be Oh do thou prepare me for my day and enable me to my trialls I can doe all things through thee that strengthenest me The motion of the two Disciples was not more full of infirmity then their answer We are able Out of an eager
more shall the King of Heaven give this immunity to his onely and natural Son so as in true reason I might challenge an exemption for me and my train Thou mightest O Saviour and no less challenge a tribute of all the Kings of the earth to thee by whom all powers are ordained Reason cannot mutter against this claim the creature owes it self and whatsoever it hath to the Maker he owes nothing to it Then are the children free He that hath right to all needs not pay any thing else there should be a subjection in Sovereignty and men should be debtours to themselves But this right was thine own peculiar and admits no partners why dost thou speak of children as of more and extending this privilege to Peter say Lest we scandalize them Was it for that thy Disciples being of thy robe might justly seem interessed in the liberties of their Master Surely no otherwise were they children no otherwise free Away with that fanatical conceit which challenges an immunity from secular commands and taxes to a spiritual and adoptative Sonship no earthly Saintship can exempt us from tribute to whom tribute belongeth There is a freedom O Saviour which our Christianity calls us to affect a freedom from the yoke of Sin and Satan from the servitude of our corrupt affections we cannot be Sons if we be not thus free Oh free thou us by thy free Spirit from the miserable bondage of our Nature so shall the children be free but as to these secular duties no man is less free then the children O Saviour thou wert free and wouldst not be so thou wert free by natural right wouldst not be free by voluntary dispensation Lest an offence might be taken Surely had there followed an offence it had been taken onely and not given Woe be to the man by whom the offence cometh It cometh by him that gives it it cometh by him that takes it when it is not given no part of this blame could have cleaved unto thee either way Yet such was thy goodness that thou wouldst not suffer an offence unjustly taken at that which thou mightest justly have denied How jealous should we be even of others perils how carefull so to moderate our power in the use of lawfull things that our Charity may prevent others scandalls to remit of our own right for another's safety Oh the deplorable condition of those wilfull men who care not what blocks they lay in the way to Heaven not forbearing by a known leudness to draw others into their own damnation To avoid the unjust offence even of very Publicans Jesus will work a Miracle Peter is sent to the sea and that not with a net but with an hook The Disciple was now in his own trade He knew a net might inclose many fishes an hook could take but one with that hook must he go angle for the Tribute-money A fish shall bring him a stater in her mouth and that fish that bites first What an unusual bearer is here what an unlikely element to yield a piece of ready coin Oh that Omnipotent power which could command the fish to be both his treasurer to keep his silver and his purveyour to bring it Now whether O Saviour thou causedst this fish to take up that shekel out of the bottom of the sea or whether by thine Almighty word thou mad'st it in an instant in the mouth of that fish it is neither possible to determine nor necessary to inquire I rather adore thine infinite Knowledge and Power that couldst make use of unlikeliest means that couldst serve thy self of the very fishes of the sea in a business of earthly and civil imployment It was not out of need that thou didst this though I do not find that thou ever affectedst a full purse What veins of Gold or mines of Silver did not lie open to thy command But out of a desire to teach Peter that whilst he would be tributary to Caesar the very fish of the sea was tributary to him How should this incourage our dependence upon that Omnipotent hand of thine which hath Heaven earth sea at thy disposing Still thou art the same for thy Members which thou wert for thy self the Head Rather then offence shall be given to the world by a seeming neglect of thy dear children thou wilt cause the very fowls of Heaven to bring them meat and the fish of the sea to bring them money O let us look up ever to thee by the eye of our Faith and not be wanting in our dependence upon thee who canst not be wanting in thy Providence over us XL. Lazarus Dead OH the Wisedom of God in penning his own story The Disciple whom Jesus loved comes after his fellow-Evangelists that he might glean up those rich ears of history which the rest had passed over That Eagle soars high and towrs up by degrees It was much to turn water into wine but it was more to feed five thousand with five loaves It was much to restore the Ruler's son it was more to cure him that had been 38 years a cripple It was much to cure him that was born blind it was more to raise up Lazarus that had been so song dead As a stream runs still the stronger and wider the nearer it comes to the Ocean whence it was derived so didst thou O Saviour work the more powerfully the nearer thou drewest to thy Glory This was as one of thy last so of thy greatest Miracles when thou wert ready to die thy self thou raisedst him to life who smelt strong of the grave None of all the sacred Histories is so full and punctuall as this in the report of all circumstances Other Miracles do not more transcend Nature then this transcends other Miracles This alone was a sufficient eviction of thy Godhead O Blessed Saviour none but an infinite power could so far goe beyond Nature as to recall a man four days dead from not a mere privation but a settled corruption Earth must needs be thine from which thou raisest his body Heaven must needs be thine from whence thou fetchest his Spirit None but he that created man could thus make him new Sickness is the common preface to death no mortall nature is exempted from this complaint even Lazarus whom Jesus loved is sick What can strength of Grace or dearness of respect prevail against disease against dissolution It was a stirring message that Mary sent to Jesus He whom thou lovest is sick as if she would imply that his part was no less deep in Lazarus then hers Neither doth she say He that loves thee is sick but He whom thou lovest not pleading the merit of Lazarus his affection to Christ but the mercy and favour of Christ to him Even that other reflexion of love had been no weak motive for O Lord thou hast said Because he hath set his love upon me therefore will I deliver him Thy goodness will not be behind us for love who professest to love
and Spirit yours materiall His rule is over the Conscience yours over bodies and lives He punishes with Hell ye with temporall death or torture Yea so far is he from opposing your Government that by him ye Kings reign Your Scepters are his but to maintain not to wield not to resist O the unjust fears of vain men He takes not away your earthly Kingdoms who gives you Heavenly he discrowns not the Body who crowns the Soul his intention is not to make you less great but more happy The charge is so fully answered that Pilate acquits the prisoner The Jewish Masters stand still without their very malice dares not venture their pollution in going in to prosecute their accusation Pilate hath examined him within and now comes forth to these eager complainants with a cold answer to their over-hot expectation I find in him no fault at all O noble testimony of Christ's Innocence from that mouth which afterwards doomed him to death What a difference there is betwixt a man as he is himself and as he is the servant of others wills It is Pilate's tongue that says I find in him no fault at all It is the Jews tongue in Pilate's mouth that says Let him be crucified That cruel sentence cannot blot him whom this attestation cleareth Neither doth he say I find him not guilty in that whereof he is accused but gives an universall acquittance of the whole carriage of Christ I find in him no fault at all In spite of Malice Innocence shall find abettours Rather then Christ shall want witnesses the mouth of Pilate shall be opened to his justification How did these Jewish bloud-suckers stand thunder-stricken with so unexpected a word His absolution was their death his acquitall their conviction No fault when we have found Crimes no fault at all when we have condemned him for capitall offences How palpably doth Pilate give us the lie How shamefully doth he affront our authority and disparage our justice So ingenuous a testimony doubtless exasperated the fury of these Jews the fire of their indignation was seven-fold more intended with the sense of their repulse I tremble to think how just Pilate as yet was and how soon after depraved yea how mercifull together with that Justice How fain would he have freed Jesus whom he found faultless Corrupt custome in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage allowed to gratify the Jews with the free delivery of some one prisoner Tradition would be incroaching the Paschall Lamb was monument enough of that happy rescue men affect to have something of their own Pilate was willing to take this advantage of dismissing Jesus That he might be the more likely to prevail he proposeth him with the choice and nomination of so notorious a Malefactour as he might justly think uncapable of all mercy Barabbas a Thief a Murtherer a Seditionary infamous for all odious to all Had he propounded some other innocent prisoner he might have feared the election would be doubtfull he cannot misdoubt the competition of so prodigious a Malefactour Then they all cried again Not him but Barabbas O Malice beyond all example shameless and bloudy Who can but blush to think that an Heathen should see Jews so impetuously unjust so savagely cruell He knew there was no Fault to be found in Jesus he knew there was no Crime that was not to be found in Barabbas yet he hears and blushes to hear them say Not him but Barabbas Was not this think we out of similitude of condition Every thing affects the like to it self every thing affects the preservation of that it liketh What wonder is it then if ye Jews who profess your selves the murtherers of that Just One favour a Barabbas O Saviour what a killing indignity was this for thee to hear from thine own Nation Hast thou refused all Glory to put on shame and misery for their sakes Hast thou disregarded thy Blessed self to save them and do they refuse thee for Barabbas Hast thou said Not Heaven but Earth not Sovereignty 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 whilst thou sawest their rage and heardst their noise of Crucify crucify Pilate would have chastised thee Even that had been a cruel mercy from him for what evil hadst thou done But that cruelty had been true mercy to this of the Jews whom no bloud would satisfy but that of thy heart He calls for thy Fault they call for thy Punishment as proclaiming thy Crucifixion is not intended to satisfy Justice but Malice They cried the more Crucify him Crucify him As their clamour grew so the President 's 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 aims 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 wind 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 play'd their first part the Gentiles must now act theirs Cruell Pilate who knew Jesus was delivered for envy 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 bloudy sweat dost now bedew the pavement of Pilate's Hall with the showrs of thy bloud 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
us O give me to thirst after those waters which thou promisest what-ever become of those waters which thou wouldst want The time was when craving water of the Samaritan thou gavest better then that thou askedst Oh give me to thirst after that more precious Water and so do thou give me of that water of life that I may never thirst again Blessed God! how marvellously dost thou contrive thine own affairs Thine enemies whilst they would despight thee shall unwittingly justifie thee and convince themselves As thou fore-saidst In thy thirst they gave thee vinegar to drink Had they given thee Wine thou hadst not taken it the night before thou hadst taken leave of that comfortable liquour resolving to drink no more of that sweet juice till thou shouldst drink it new with them in thy Father's Kingdom Had they given thee Water they had not fulfilled that prediction whereby they were self-condemned I know not now O dear Jesu whether this last draught of thine were more pleasing to thee or more distastfull Distastfull in it self for what liquour could be equally harsh pleasing that it made up those Sufferings thou wert to endure and those Prophecies thou wert to fulfill Now there is no more to doe thy full consummation of all predictions of all types and ceremonies of all sufferings of all satisfactions is happily both effected and proclaimed nothing now remains but a voluntary sweet and Heavenly resignation of thy Blessed Soul into the hands of thine eternall Father and a bowing of thine head for the change of a better Crown and a peaceable obdormition in thy bed of ease and honour and an instant entrance into rest triumph Glory And now O Blessed Jesu how easily have carnall eyes all this while mistaken the passages and intentions of this thy last and most glorious work Our weakness could hitherto see nothing here but pain and ignominy now my better-inlightned eyes see in this elevation of thine both honour and happiness Lo thou that art the Mediatour betwixt God and man the Reconciler of Heaven and earth art lift up betwixt earth and Heaven that thou mightest accord both Thou that art the great Captain of our Salvation the conquerour of all the adverse powers of Death and Hell art exalted upon this Triumphall Chariot of the Cross that thou mightest trample upon Death and drag all those Infernall Principalities manicled after thee Those Arms which thine enemies meant violently to extend are stretched forth for the imbracing of all mankind that shall come in for the benefit of thine all-sufficient redemption Even whilst thou sufferest thou reignest Oh the impotent madness of silly men They think to disgrace thee with wrie faces with tongues put out with bitter scoffs with poor wretched indignities when in the mean time the Heavens declare thy righteousness O Lord and the Earth shews forth thy power The Sun pulls in his light as not abiding to see the Sufferings of his Creatour the Earth trembles under the sense of the wrong done to her Maker the Rocks rend the veil of the Temple tears from the top to the bottom shortly all the frame of the world acknowledges the dominion of that Son of God whom Man despised Earth and Hell have done their worst O Saviour thou art in thy Paradise and triumphest over the malice of men and Devils The remainders of thy Sacred person are not yet free The Souldiers have parted thy garments and cast lots upon thy seamless coat Those poor spoils cannot so much inrich them as glorifie thee whose Scriptures are fulfilled by their barbarous sortitions The Jews sue to have thy bones divided but they sue in vain No more could thy garments be whole then thy body could be broken One inviolable Decree over-rules both Foolish executioners ye look up at that crucified Body as if it were altogether in your power and mercy nothing appears to you but impotence and death little do ye know what an irresistible guard there is upon that Sacred corps such as if all the powers of Darkness shall band against they shall find themselves confounded In spite 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 ways 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 bloud One of the souldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith there came out bloud and water Malice is wont to end with life here it over-lives it Cruell man what means this so late wound what commission hadst thou for this bloudy act Pilate had given leave to break the bones of the living he gave no leave to goar the side of the dead what wicked superrerogation 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 Master's 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 thee and consider how thy holy and wise Providence so overrules the most barbarous actions of men that besides their will they turn beneficiall I can at once hate them and bless thee This very wound hath a mouth to speak the Messiah ship 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 Evangelicall 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 onely but of bloud too O Saviour by thy water we are washed by thy bloud we are redeemed Those two Sacraments which thou didst institute alive flow also from thee dead as the last memorialls of thy Love to thy Church the Water of Baptism which is the laver of Regeneration the Bloud 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 O precious
attend thy rising O Saviour thou laiest down in weakness thou risest in power and glory thou laiest down like a man thou risest like a God What a lively image hast thou herein given me of the dreadfull majesty of the generall Resurrection and thy second appearance Then not the earth onely but the powers of Heaven shall be shaken not some few graves shall be open and some Saints appear but all the bars of death shall be broken and all that sleep in their graves shall awake and stand up from the dead before thee not some one Angel shall descend but thou the great Angel of the Covenant attended with thousand thousands of those mighty Spirits And if these stout Souldiers were so filled with terrour at the feeling of an Earthquake and the sight of an Angel that they had scarce breath left in them for the time to witness them alive where shall thine enemies appear O Lord in the day of thy terrible appearance when the earth shall reel and vanish and the elements shall be on a flame about their ears and the Heavens shall wrap up as a scroll O God thou mightest have removed this stone by the force of thine Earthquake as well as rive other rocks yet thou wouldst rather use the ministery of an Angel or thou that gavest thy self life and gavest being both to the stone and to the earth couldst more easily have removed the stone then moved the earth but it was thy pleasure to make use of an Angel's hand And now he that would ask why thou wouldst doe it rather by an Angel then by thy self may as well ask why thou didst not rather give thy Law by thine own immediate hand then by the ministration of Angels why by an Angel thou struckest the Israelites with plagues the Assyrians with the sword why an Angel appeared to comfort thee after thy Temptation and Agony when thou wert able to comfort thy self why thou usest the influences of Heaven to fruiten the earth why thou imployest Second causes in all events when thou couldst doe all things alone It is good reason thou shouldst serve thy self of thine own neither is there any ground to be required whether of their motion or rest besides thy will Thou didst raise thy self the Angels removed the stone They that could have no hand in thy Resurrection yet shall have an hand in removing outward impediments not because thou neededst but because thou wouldest like as thou alone didst raise Lazarus thou badest others let him loose Works of Omnipotency thou reservest to thine own immediate performance ordinary actions thou doest by subordinate means Although this act of the Angels was not merely with respect to thee but partly to those devout Women to ease them of their care to manifest unto them thy Resurrection So officious are those glorious Spirits not onely to thee their Maker but even to the meanest of thy servants especially in the furtherance of all their spirituall designs Let us bring our Odours they will be sure to roll away the stone Why do not we imitate them in our forwardness to promote each others Salvation We pray to doe thy will here as they doe in Heaven if we do not act our wishes we do but mock thee in our Devotions How glorious did this Angel of thine appear The terrified Souldiers saw his face like lightning both they and the Women saw his garments shining bright and white as snow such a presence became his errand It was fit that as in thy Passion the Sun was darkened and all creatures were clad with heaviness so in thy Resurrection the best of thy creatures should testifie their joy and exultation in the brightness of their habit that as we on Festivall-days put on our best cloaths so thine Angels should celebrate this blessed Festivity with a meet representation of Glory They could not but injoy our joy to see the work of man's Redemption thus fully finished and if there be mirth in Heaven at the conversion of 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 bloud 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 perpetuall 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 spirituall 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 overjoyed with the happy memory of this great work of thy Divine Power and unconceivable 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 despite 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 Sum 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 defrayed that quarrell 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 powerfull Redeemer it cannot now
Women the first witnesses of the Resurrection as also of the two Disciples walking to Emmaus whose hearts burning within them had set their tongues on fire in a zealous relation of those happy occurrences with the assured reports of the rising and re-appearance of many Saints in attendence of the Lord and giver of life yet still he struggles with his own distrust and stiffly suspends his belief to that truth whereof he cannot deny himself enough convinced As all bodies are not equally apt to be wrought upon by the same Medicine so are not all Souls by the same means of Faith one is refractory whilst others are pliable O Saviour how justly mightest thou have left this man to his own pertinacy whom could he have thank'd if he had perished in his unbelief But O thou good Shepherd of Israel that couldst be content to leave the ninety and nine to go fetch one stray in the wilderness how carefull wert thou to reduce this straggler to his fellows Right so were thy Disciples re-assembled such was the season the place the same so were the doors shut up when that unbelieving Disciple being now present with the rest thou so camest in so stoodst in the midst so shewedst thy hands and feet and singling out thy incredulous client invitest his eyes to see and his fingers to handle thine hands and his hand to be thrust into thy side that he might not be faithless but faithfull Blessed Jesu how thou pitiest the errours and infirmities of thy servants Even when we are froward in our misconceits and worthy of nothing but desertion how thou followest us and overtakest us with mercy and in thine abundant compassion wilt reclaim and save us when either we meant not or would not By how much more unworthy those eyes and hands were to see and touch that immortall and glorious Body by so much more wonderfull was thy Goodness in condescending to satisfy that curious Infidelity Neither do I hear thee so much as to chide that weak obstinacy It was not long since thou didst sharply take up the two Disciples that walk'd to Emmaus O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken but this was under the disguise of an unknown traveller upon the way when they were alone Now thou speakest with thine own tongue before all thy Disciples in stead of rebuking thou onely exhortest Be not faithless but faithfull Behold thy Mercy no less then thy Power hath melted the congealed heart of thy unbelieving follower Then Thomas answered and said unto him My Lord and my God I do not hear that when it came to the issue Thomas imployed his hands in this triall his eyes were now sufficient assurance the sense of his Master's Omniscience in this particular challenge of him spared perhaps the labour of a farther disquisition And now how happily was that doubt bestowed which brought forth so faithfull a confession My Lord my God I hear not such a word from those that believed It was well for us it was well for thee O Thomas that thou distrustedst else neither had the world received so perfect an evidence of that Resurrection whereon all our Salvation dependeth neither hadst thou yielded so pregnant and divine an astipulation to thy Blessed Saviour Now thou dost not onely profess his Resurrection but his Godhead too and thy happy interest in both And now if they be blessed that have not seen and yet believed blessed art thou also who having seen hast thus believed and blessed be thou O God who knowest how to make advantage of the infirmities of thy chosen for the promoting of their Salvation the confirmation of thy Church the glory of thine own Name Amen LI. The Ascension IT stood not with thy purpose O Saviour to ascend immediately from thy grave into Heaven thou meantest to take the earth in thy way not for a sudden passage but for a leisurely conversation Upon thine Easter-day thou spakest of thine Ascension but thou wouldst have forty days interposed Hadst thou meerly respected thine own Glory thou hadst instantly changed thy grave for thy Paradise for so much the sooner hadst thou been possessed of thy Father's joy we would not continue in a Dungeon when we might be in a Palace but thou who for our sakes vouchsafedst to descend from Heaven to earth wouldst now in the upshot have a gracious regard to us in thy return Thy Death had troubled the hearts of many Disciples who thought that condition too mean to be compatible with the glory of the Messiah and thoughts of diffidence were apt to seize upon the holiest breasts So long therefore wouldst thou hold footing upon earth till the world were fully convinced of the infallible evidences of thy Resurrection of all which time thou onely canst give an account it was not for flesh and bloud to trace the ways of Immortality neither was our frail corruptible sinfull nature a meet companion for thy now-glorified Humanity the glorious Angels of Heaven were now thy fittest attendents But yet how oft did it please thee graciously to impart thy self this while unto men and not onely to appear unto thy Disciples but to renew unto them the familiar forms of thy wonted conversation in conferring walking eating with them And now when thou drewest near to thy last parting thou who hadst many times shewed thy self before to thy severall Disciples thoughtest meet to assemble them all together for an universall valediction Who can be too rigorous in censuring the ignorances of well-meaning Christians when he sees the domestick Followers of Christ even after his Resurrection mistake the main End of his coming in the flesh Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel They saw their Master now out of the reach of all Jewish envy they saw his power illimited and irresistible they saw him stay so long upon earth that they might imagine he meant to fix his abode there and what should he doe there but reign and wherefore should they be now assembled but for the choice and distribution of Offices and for the ordering of the affairs of that state which was now to be vindicated Oh weak thoughts of well-instructed Disciples What should an Heavenly body doe in an earthly throne How should a spirituall life be imployed in secular cares How poor a business is the Temporall Kingdom of Israel for the King of Heaven And even yet O Blessed Saviour I do not hear thee sharply controll this erroneous conceit of thy mistaken Followers thy mild correction insists rather upon the time then the misconceived substance of that restauration It was thy gracious purpose that thy Spirit should by degrees rectify their judgments and illuminate them with thy Divine truths in the mean time it was sufficient to raise up their hearts to an expectation of that Holy Ghost which should shortly lead them into all needfull and requisite verities And now with a gracious promise of that Spirit of thine
must use But though he have ceased to speak yet he ceased not to minister He takes not this Dumbness for a Dismission but stays out the eight days of his Course as one that knew the Eyes and Hands and Heart would be accepted of that God which had bereaved him of his Tongue We may not straight take occasions of withdrawing our selves from the publick Services of our God much less under the Gospell The Law which stood much upon Bodily perfection dispensed with Age for attendence The Gospell which is all for the Soul regards those inward powers which whilst they are vigorous exclude all excuses of our ministration II. The Annunciation of CHRIST THe Spirit of God was never so accurate in any description as that which concerns the Incarnation of GOD. It was fit no circumstance should be omitted in that Story whereon the Faith and Salvation of all the World dependeth We cannot so much as doubt of this truth and be saved No not the number of the Moneth not the Name of the Angel is concealed Every particle imports not more certainty then excellence The time is the sixth moneth after John's Conception the prime of the Spring Christ was conceived in the Spring born in the Solstice He in whom the World received a new Life receives Life in the same season wherein the World received its first Life from him and he which stretches out the days of his Church and lengthens them to Eternity appears after all the short and dim light of the Law and enlightens the World with his Glory The Messenger is an Angel A Man was too mean to carry the news of the Conception of God Never any business was conceived in Heaven that did so much concern the Earth as the Conception of the God of Heaven in the Womb of Earth No less then an Arch-angel was worthy to bear these tidings never any Angel received a greater honour then of this Embassage It was fit our Reparation should answer our Fall An evill Angel was the first Motioner of the one to Eve a Virgin then espoused to Adam in the Garden of Eden A good Angel is the first Reporter of the other to Mary a Virgin espoused to Joseph in that place which as the Garden of Galilee had a name from Flourishing No good Angel could be the Authour of our Restauration as that evill Angel was of our Ruine But that which those glorious Spirits could not doe themselves they are glad to report as done by the God of Spirits Good news rejoyces the bearer With what joy did this holy Angel bring the news of that Saviour in whom we are redeemed to Life himself established in Life and Glory The first Preacher of the Gospell was an Angel that Office must needs be glorious that derives it self from such a Predecessour God appointed his Angel to be the first Preacher and hath since called his Preachers Angels The Message is well suited An Angel comes to a Virgin Gabriel to Mary he that was by signification the strength of God to her that was by signification exalted by God to the conceiving of him that was the God of strength To a Maid but espoused a Maid for the honour of Virginity espoused for the honour of Marriage The Marriage was in a sort made not consummate through the instinct of him that meant to make her not an Example but a Miracle of women In this whole work God would have nothing ordinary It was fit that she should be a married Virgin which should be a Virgin-mother He that meant to take Man's nature without man's corruption would be the Son of man without man's seed would be the Seed of the Woman without Man and amongst all Women of a pure Virgin but amongst Virgins of one espoused that there might be at once a Witness and a Guardian of her fruitfull Virginity If the same God had not been the authour of Virginity and Marriage he had never countenanced Virginity by Marriage Whither doth this glorious Angel come to find the Mother of him that was God but to obscure Galilee A part which even the Jews themselves despised as forsaken of their privileges Out of Galilee ariseth no Prophet Behold an Angel comes to that Galilee out of which no Prophet comes and the God of Prophets and Angels descends to be conceived in that Galilee out of which no Prophet ariseth He that filleth all places makes no difference of places It is the Person which gives honour and privilege to the place not the Place to the person as the Presence of God makes the Heaven the Heaven doth not make the Owner glorious No blind corner of Nazareth can hide the Blessed Virgin from the Angel The Favours of God will find out his Children wheresoever they are withdrawn It is the fashion of God to seek out the most despised on whom to bestow his Honours We cannot run away as from the Judgments so from the Mercies of our God The Cottages of Galilee are preferred by God to the famous Palaces of Jerusalem he cares not how homely he converses with his own Why should we be transported with the outward glory of Places whilst our God regards it not We are not of the Angel's diet if we had not rather be with the Blessed Virgin at Nazareth then with the proud Dames in the Court of Jerusalem It is a great vanity to respect any thing above Goodness and to disesteem Goodness for any want The Angel salutes the Virgin he prays not to her He salutes her as a Saint he prays not to her as a Goddess For us to salute her as he did were gross Presumption For neither are we as he was neither is she as she was If he that was a Spirit saluted her that was Flesh and bloud here on earth it is not for us that are Flesh and bloud to salute her which is a glorious Spirit in Heaven For us to pray to her in the Angel's Salutation were to abuse the Virgin the Angel the Salutation But how gladly do we second the Angel in the praise of her who was more ours then his How justly do we bless her whom the Angel pronounceth blessed How worthily is she honoured of men whom the Angel proclaimeth beloved of God O Blessed Mary he cannot bless thee he cannot honour thee too much that deifies thee not That which the Angel said of thee thou hast prophesied of thy self we believe the Angel and thee All Generations shall call thee blessed by the fruit of whose womb all Generations are blessed If Zachary were amazed with the sight of this Angel much more the Virgin That very Sex had more disadvantage of Fear If it had been but a Man that had come to her in that secrecy and suddenness she could not but have been troubled how much more when the shining Glory of the Person doubled the Astonishment The Troubles of Holy minds end ever in Comfort Joy was the errand of the Angel and not Terrour
have seen Oft-times those which are nearest in place are farthest off in affection Large objects when they are too close to the eye do so over-fill the sense that they are not discerned What a shame is this to Bethlehem the Sages came out of the East to worship him whom that village refused The Bethlehemites were Jews the Wise men Gentiles This first entertainment of Christ was a presage of the sequell The Gentiles shall come from far to adore Christ whilst the Jews reject him Those Easterlings were great searchers of the depths of nature professed Philosophers them hath God singled out to the honour of the manifestation of Christ Humane Learning well improved makes us capable of Divine There is no Knowledge whereof God is not the Authour he would never have bestowed any gift that should lead us away from himself It is an ignorant conceit that inquiry into Nature should make men Atheous No man is so apt to see the Star of Christ as a diligent disciple of Philosophy Doubtlesse this light was visible unto more onely they followed it who knew it had more then nature He is truly wise that is wise for his own Soul If these Wise men had been acquainted with all the other stars of heaven and had not seen the Star of Christ they had had but light enough to lead them into utter darknesse Philosophie without this Star is but the wisp of errour These Sages were in a mean between the Angels and the Shepherds God would in all the ranks of intelligent Creatures have some to be witnesses of his Son The Angels direct the Shepherds the Star guides the Sages the duller capacitie hath the more clear and powerfull helps The wisedome of our good God proportions the means unto the disposition of the persons Their Astronomy had taught them this Star was not ordinary whether in sight or in brightnesse or in motion The eyes of Nature might well see that some strange news was portended to the world by it but that this Star designed the Birth of the Messias there needed yet another light If the Star had not besides had the commentary of a revelation from God it could have led the Wise men onely into a fruitlesse wonder Give them to be the offspring of Balaam yet the true Prediction of that false Prophet was not enough warrant If he told them the Messias should arise as a Star out of Jacob he did not tell them that a Star should arise far from the posterity of Jacob at the birth of the Messias He that did put that Prophecy into the mouth of Balaam did also put this Illumination into the heart of the Sages The Spirit of God is free to breathe where he listeth Many shall come from the East and the West to seek Christ when the Children of the Kingdom shall be shut out Even then God did not so confine his election to the pale of the Church as that he did not sometimes look out for special instruments of his glory Whither do these Sages come but to Jerusalem where should they hope to hear of the new King but in the Mother-city of the Kingdome The conduct of the Star was first onely generall to Judaea the rest is for a time left to inquiry They were not brought thither for their own sakes but for Jewrie's for the world's that they might help to make the Jews inexcusable and the world faithfull That their tongues therefore might blazon the birth of Christ they are brought to the Head-citie of Judaea to report and inquire Their wisedome could not teach them to imagine that a King could be born to Judaea of that note and magnificence that a Star from Heaven should publish him to the earth and that his subjects should not know it and therefore as presupposing a common notice they say Where is he that is born King of the Jews There is much deceit in probabilities especially when we meddle with spirituall matters For God uses still to go a way by himself If we judge according to reason and appearance who is so likely to understand heavenly Truths as the profound Doctours of the world These God passes over and reveals his will to babes Had these Sages met with the Shepherds of the villages near Bethlehem they had received that intelligence of Christ which they did vainly seek from the learned Scribes of Jerusalem The greatest Clerks are not alwaies the wisest in the affairs of God these things goe not by discourse but by revelation No sooner hath the Star brought them within the noise of Jerusalem then it is vanished out of sight God would have their eyes lead them so far as till their tongues might be set on work to win the vocal attestation of the chief Priests and Scribes to the fore-appointed place of our Saviour's Nativity If the Star had carried them directly to Bethlehem the learned Jews had never searched the truth of those Prophecies wherewith they are since justly convinced God never withdraws our helps but for a farther advantage However our hopes seem crossed where his Name may gain we cannot complain of loss Little did the Sages think this Question would have troubled Herod they had I fear concealed their message if they had suspected this event Sure they thought it might be some Son or Grandchild of him which then held the Throne so as this might win favour from Herod rather then an unwelcome fear of rivality Doubtless they went first to the Court where else should they ask for a King The more pleasing this news had been if it had faln upon Herod's own loins the more grievous it was to light upon a Stranger If Herod had not over-much affected Greatness he had not upon those indirect terms aspired to the Crown of Jewry so much the more therefore did it trouble him to hear the rumour of a Successour and that not of his own Settled Greatness cannot abide either change or partnership If any of his Subjects had moved this question I fear his head had answered it It is well that the name of forreiners could excuse these Sages Herod could not be brought up among the Jews and not have heard many and confident reports of a Messias that should ere long arise out of Israel and now when he hears the fame of a King born whom a Star from Heaven signifies and attends he is nettled with the news Every thing affrights the guilty Usurpation is full of jealousies and fear no less full of projects and imaginations it makes us think every bush a man and every man a thief Why art thou troubled O Herod A King is born but such a King as whose Scepter may ever concur with lawfull Sovereignty yea such a King as by whom Kings do hold their Scepters not lose them If the Wise men tell thee of a King the Star tells thee he his Heavenly Here is good cause of security none of fear The most general enmities and oppositions to good arise
then native subjection yet where God did countermand Herod there could be no question whom to obey They say not We are in a strange Country Herod may meet with us it can be no less then death to mock him in his own territories but chearfully put themselves upon the way and trust God with the success When men command with God we must obey men for God and God in men when against him the best obedience is to deny obedience and to turn our backs upon Herod The Wise men are safely arrived in the East and fill the world full of expectation as themselves are full of wonder Joseph and Mary are returned with the Babe to that Jerusalem where the Wise men had inquired for his Birth The City was doubtless still full of that rumour and little thinks that he whom they talk of was so near them From thence they are at least in their way to Nazareth where they purpose their abode God prevents them by his Angel and sends them for safety into Egypt Joseph was not wont to be so full of Visions It was not long since the Angel appeared unto him to justifie the innocency of the Mother and the Deity of the Son now he appears for the preservation of both and a preservation by flight Could Joseph now chuse but think Is this the King that must save Israel that needs to be saved by me If he be the Son of God how is he subject to the violence of men How is he Almighty that must save himself by flight or how must he flie to save himself out of that land which he comes to save But faithful Joseph having been once tutoured by the Angel and having heard what the Wise men said of the Star what Simeon and Anna said in the Temple labours not so much to reconcile his thoughts as to subject them and as one that knew it safer to suppress doubts then to assoil them can believe what he understands not and can wonder where he cannot comprehend Oh strange condition of the King of all the world He could not be born in a baser estate yet even this he cannot enjoy with safety There was no room for him in Bethlehem there will be no room for him in Judaea He is no sooner come to his own then he must flie from them that he may save them he must avoid them Had it not been easie for thee O Saviour to have acquit thy self from Herod a thousand ways What could an arm of flesh have done against the God of spirits What had it been for thee to have sent Herod five years sooner unto his place what to have commanded fire from heaven on those that should have come to apprehend thee or to have bidden the earth to receive them alive whom she meant to swallow dead We suffer misery because we must thou because thou wouldest The same will that brought thee from Heaven into earth sends thee from Jewry to Egypt As thou wouldst be born mean and miserable so thou wouldst live subject to humane vexations that thou who hast taught us how good it is to bear the yoke even in our youth mightst sanctifie to us early afflictions Or whether O Father since it was the purpose of thy wisedom to manifest thy Son by degrees unto the world was it thy will thus to hide him for a time under our infirmity And what other is our condition we are no sooner born thine then we are persecuted If the Church travail and bring forth a male she is in danger of the Dragons streams What do the Members complain of the same measure which was offered to the Head Both our Births are accompanied with Tears Even of those whose mature age is full of trouble yet the infancy is commonly quiet but here life and toil began together O Blessed Virgin even already did the sword begin to pierce thy Soul Thou which wert forced to bear thy Son in thy womb from Nazareth to Bethlehem must now bear him in thy arms from Jewry into Egypt Yet couldst thou not complain of the way whilest thy Saviour was with thee His presence alone was able to make the Stable a Temple Egypt a Paradise the way more pleasing then rest But whither then O whither dost thou carry that blessed burthen by which thy self and the world are upholden To Egypt the Slaughter-house of God's people the Furnace of Israel's ancient affliction the Sink of the world Out of Egypt have I called my Son saith God That thou calledst thy Son out of Egypt O God is no marvell It is a marvell that thou calledst him into Egypt but that we know all earths are thine and all places and men are like figures upon a table such as thy disposition makes them What a change is here Israel the first-born of God flies out of Egypt into the promised Land of Judaea Christ the first-born of all creatures flies from Judaea into Egypt Egypt is become the Sanctuary Judaea the Inquisition-house of the Son of God He that is every where the same makes all places alike to his He makes the fiery Furnace a Gallery of pleasure the Lions den an house of defence the Whales belly a lodging-chamber Egypt an harbour He flees that was able to preserve himself from danger to teach us how lawfully we may flee from those dangers we cannot avoid otherwise It is a thankless fortitude to offer our throat unto the knife He that came to die for us fled for his own preservation and hath bid us follow him When they persecute you in one City flee into another We have but the use of our lives and we are bound to husband them to the best advantage of God and his Church God hath made us not as Butts to be perpetually shot at but as the marks of Rovers movable as the wind and sun may best serve It was warrant enough for Joseph and Mary that God commands them to flee yet so familiar is God grown with his approved servants that he gives them the reason of his commanded flight For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him What wicked men will do what they would doe is known unto God beforehand He that is so infinitely wise to know the designs of his enemies before they are could as easily prevent them that they might not be but he lets them run on in their own courses that he may fetch glory to himself out of their wickedness Good Joseph having this charge in the night staies not till the morning no sooner had God said Arise then he starts up and sets forward It was not diffidence but obedience that did so hasten his departure The charge was direct the business important He dares not linger for the light but breaks his rest for the journey and taking advantage of the dark departs toward Egypt How knew he this occasion would abide any delay We cannot be too speedy in the execution of Gods commands we may be too late
Here was no treasure to hide no hangings to take down no lands to secure The poor Carpenter needs do no more but lock the doors and away He goes lightly that wants a load If there be more pleasure in abundance there is more security in a mean estate The Bustard or the Ostridge when he is pursued can hardly get upon his wings whereas the Lark mounts with ease The rich hath not so much advantage of the poor in injoying as the poor hath of the rich in leaving Now is Joseph come down into Egypt Egypt was beholden to the Name as that whereto it did owe no less then their universal preservation Well might it repay this act of Hospitality to that Name and Bloud The goging down into Egypt had not so much difficulty as the staying there Their absence from their Country was little better then a Banishment But what was this other then to serve a Prentiship in the house of bondage To be any-were save at home was irksome but to be in Egypt so many years amongst idolatrous Pagans must needs be painfull to religious hearts The Command of their God and the Presence of Christ makes amends for all How long should they have thought it to see the Temple of God if they had not had the God of the Temple with them how long to present their Sacrifices at the Altar of God if they had not had him with them who made all Sacrifices accepted and who did accept the Sacrifice of their Hearts Herod was subtle in mocking the Wise men whiles he promised to worship him whom he meant to kill Now God makes the Wise men to mock him in disappointing his expectation It is just with God to punish those which would beguile others with illusion Great spirits are so much more impatient of disgrace How did Herod now rage and fret and vainly wish to have met with those false spies and tell with what torments he would revenge their treachery and curse himself for trusting Strangers in so important a business The Tyrants suspicion would not let him rest long Ere many days he sends to inquire of them whom he sent to inquire of Christ The notice of their secret departure increaseth his jealousie and now his anger runs mad and his fear proves desperate All the Infants of Bethlehem shall bleed for this one And that he may make sure work he cuts out to himself large measures both of time and place It was but very lately that the Star appeared that the Wise men re-appeared not They asked for him that was born they did not name when he was born Herod for more security over-reaches their time and fetches into the slaughter all the Children of two years age The Priests and Scribes had told him the Town of Bethlehem must be the place of the Messiah's nativity He fetches in all the Children of the coasts adjoyning yea his own shall for the time be a Bethlehemite A tyrannous guiltiness never thinks it self safe but ever seeks to assure it self in the excess of cruelty Doubtless he who so privily inquired for Christ did as secretly brew this Massacre The Mothers were set with their Children on their laps feeding them with the breast or talking to them in the familiar language of their love when suddenly the Executioner rushes in and snatches them from their arms and at once pulling forth his Commission and his Knife without regard to shrieks or tears murthers the innocent Babe and leaves the passionate Mother in a mean between madness and death What cursing of Herod what wringing of hands what condoling what exclaiming was now in the streets of Bethlehem O bloudy Herod that couldst sacrifice so many harmless lives to thine Ambition What could those Infants have done If it were thy person whereof thou wert afraid what likelihood was it thou couldst live till those Sucklings might endanger thee This news might affect thy Successours it could not concern thee if the heat of an impotent and furious envy had not made thee thirsty of bloud It is not long that thou shalt enjoy this cruelty After a few hatefull years thy soul shall feel the weight of so many Innocents of so many just Curses He for whose sake thou killedst so many shall strike thee with death and then what wouldest thou have given to have been as one of those Infants whom thou murtheredst In the mean time when thine Executioners returned and told thee of their unpartial dispatch thou smiledst to think how thou hadst defeated thy Rival and beguiled the Star and eluded the Prophecies whiles God in Heaven and his Son on earth laugh thee to scorn and make thy rage an occasion of farther glory to him whom thou meantest to suppress He that could take away the lives of others cannot protract his own Herod is now sent home The coast is clear for the return of that Holy Family Now God calls them from their Exile Christ and his Mother had not stayed so long out of the confines of the reputed visible Church but to teach us continuance under the Cross Sometimes God sees it good for us not to sip of the cup of Affliction but to make a diet-drink of it for constant and common use If he allows us no other liquour for many years we must take it off chearfully and know that it is but the measure of our betters Joseph and Mary stir not without a Command their Departure Stay Removal is ordered by the voice of God If Egypt had been more tedious unto them they durst not move their foot till they were bidden It is good in our own business to follow Reason or Custome but in God's business if we have any other guide but himself we presume and cannot expect a blessing O the wonderfull dispensation of God in concealing of himself from men Christ was now some five years old he bears himself as an Infant and knowing all things neither takes nor gives notice of ought concerning his removall and disposing but appoints that to be done by his Angel which the Angel could not have done but by him Since he would take our nature he would be a perfect child suppressing the manifestation and exercise of that Godhead whereto that Infant nature was conjoined Even so O Saviour the Humility of thine Infancy was answerable to that of thy Birth The more thou hidest and abasest thy self for us the more should we magnifie thee the more should we deject our selves for thee Unto thee with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and for ever Amen VII Christ among the Doctours EVen the Spring shews us what we may hope for of the tree in Summer In his Nonage therefore would our Saviour give us a taste of his future proof lest if his perfection should have shewed it self without warning to the world it should have been entertained with more wonder then belief now this act of his Childhood shall prepare the faith of men by
who will be sure to watch all opportunities of our mischief and where he sees any advantage of weakness will not neglect it How should we stand upon our guard for prevention both that we may not give him occasions of our hurt nor take hurt by those we have given When our Saviour was hungry Satan tempts him in matter of Food not then of Wealth or Glory He well knows both what baits to fish withall and when and how to lay them How safe and happy shall we be if we shall bend our greatest care where we discern the most danger In every Temptation there is an appearance of good whether of the body mind or estate The first is the lust of the flesh in any carnal desire the second the pride of heart and life the third the lust of the eyes To all these the First Adam is tempted and in all miscarried the Second Adam is tempted to them all and overcometh The first man was tempted to carnal appetite by the forbidden fruit to pride by the suggestion of being as God to covetousness in the ambitious desire of knowing good and evil Satan having found all the motions so successful with the First Adam in his innocent estate will now tread the same steps in his Temptations of the Second The stones must be made bread there is the motion to a carnal appetite The guard and attendence of Angels must be presumed on there is a motion to pride The Kingdomes of the earth and the glory of them must be offered there to covetousness and ambition Satan could not but have heard God say This is my wel-beloved Son he had heard the Message and the Caroll of the Angels he saw the Star and the Journey and Offerings of the Sages he could not but take notice of the gratulations of Zachary Simeon Anna he well knew the Predictions of the Prophets yet now that he saw Christ fainting with hunger as not comprehending how infirmities could consist with a Godhead he can say If thou be the Son of God Had not Satan known that the Son of God was to come into the World he had never said If thou be the Son of God His very supposition convinces him The ground of his temptation answers it self If therefore Christ seemed to be a meer Man because after forty days he was hungry why was he not confessed more then a Man in that for forty days he hungred not The motive of the temptation is worse then the motion If thou be the Son of God Satan could not chuse another suggestion of so great importance All the work of our Redemption of our Salvation depends upon this one Truth Christ is the Son of God How should he else have ransomed the World how should he have done how should he have suffered that which was satisfactory to his Father's wrath How should his actions or passion have been valuable to the sins of all the World What marvell is it if we that are sons by Adoption be assaulted with the doubts of our interest in God when the naturall Son the Son of his Essence is thus tempted Since all our comfort consists in this point here must needs be laid the chief battery and here must be placed our strongest defence To turn Stones into Bread had been no more faulty in it self then to turn Water into Wine But to doe this in a distrust of his Father's Providence to abuse his power and liberty in doing it to work a miracle of Satan's choice had been disagreeable to the Son of God There is nothing more ordinary with our spirituall Enemy then by occasion of want to move us to unwarrantable courses Thou art poor steal Thou canst not rise by honest means use indirect How easie had it been for our Saviour to have confounded Satan by the power of his Godhead But he rather chuses to vanquish him by the Sword of the Spirit that he might teach us how to resist and overcome the powers of darkness If he had subdued Satan by the Almighty power of the Deity we might have had what to wonder at not what to imitate now he useth that weapon which may be familiar unto us that he may teach our weakness how to be victorious Nothing in heaven or earth can beat the forces of Hell but the Word of God How carefully should we furnish our selves with this powerfull munition how should our hearts and mouths be full of it Teach me 0 Lord the way of thy Statutes O take not from me the words of Truth Let them be my Songs in the house of my pilgrimage so shall I make answer to my Blasphemers What needed Christ to have answered Satan at all if it had not been to teach us that Temptations must not have their way but must be answered by resistence and resisted by the Word I do not hear our Saviour averre himself to be a God against the blasphemous insinuation of Satan neither do I see him working this miraculous Conversion to prove himself the Son of God but most wisely he takes away the ground of the Temptation Satan had taken it for granted that man cannot be sustained without bread and therefore infers the necessity of making bread of stones Our Saviour shews him from an infallible Word that he had mislayed his suggestion That man lives not by usual food onely but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God He can either sustain without bread as he did Moses and Elias or with a miraculous bread as the Israelites with Manna or send ordinary means miraculously as food to his Prophet by the Ravens or miraculously multiply ordinary means as the Meal and Oil to the Sareptan Widow All things are sustained by his Almighty Word Indeed we live by food but not by any virtue that is without God without the concurrence of whose Providence bread would rather choak then nourish us Let him withdraw his hand from his creatures in their greatest abundance we perish Why do we therefore bend our eyes on the means and not look up to the hand that gives the blessing What so necessary dependence hath the blessing upon the creature if our Prayers hold them not together As we may not neglect the means so we may not neglect the procurement of a blessing upon the means nor be unthankfull to the hand that hath given the blessing In the first assault Satan moves Christ to doubt of his Father's Providence and to use unlawfull means to help himself in the next he moves him to presume upon his Father's protection and the service of his blessed Angels He grounds the first upon a conceit of want the next of abundance If he be in extremes it is all to one end to mislead unto evill If we cannot be driven down to Despair he labours to lift us up to Presumption It is not one foil that can put this bold Spirit out of countenance Temptations like waves break one in the neck of another
Whilst we are in this warfare we must make account that the repulse of one Temptation doth but invite to another That Blessed Saviour of ours that was content to be led from Jordan into the Wilderness for the advantage of the first Temptation yields to be led from the Wilderness to Jerusalem for the advantage of the second The Place doth not a little avail to the Act. The Wilderness was fit for a Temptation arising from want it was not fit for a Temptation moving to vain-glory The populous City was the fittest for such a motion Jerusalem was the glory of the World the Temple was the glory of Jerusalem the Pinacle the highest piece of the Pinacle there is Christ content to be set for the opportunity of Temptation O Saviour of men how can we wonder enough at this humility of thine that thou wouldst so far abase thy self as to suffer thy pure and sacred Body to be transported by the presumptuous and malicious hand of that unclean Spirit It was not his power it was thy patience that deserves our admiration Neither can this seem over-strange to us when we consider that if Satan be the Head of wicked men wicked men are the Members of Satan What was Pilate or the Jews that persecuted thine innocence but lims of this Devil And why are we then amazed to see thee touched and locally transported by the Head when we see thee yielding thy self over to be crucified by the Members If Satan did the worse and greater mediately by their hands no marvel if he doe the less and easier immediately by his own yet neither of them without thy voluntary dispensation He could not have looked at thee without thee And if the Son of God did thus suffer his own holy and precious Body to be carried by Satan what wonder is it if that Enemy have sometimes power given him over the sinfull bodies of the adopted sons of God It is not the strength of Faith that can secure us from the outward violences of that Evil one This difference I find betwixt his spiritual and bodily assaults those are beaten back by the shield of Faith these admit not of such repulse As the best man may be lame blind diseased so through the permission of God he may be bodily vexed by the old Man-slayer Grace was never given us for a Target against external Afflictions Methinks I see Christ hoised upon the highest Battlements of the Temple whose very roof was an hundred and thirty cubits high and Satan standing by him with this speech in his mouth Well then since in the matter of nourishment thou wilt needs depend upon thy Father's Providence that he can without means sustain thee take now farther trial of that Providence in thy miraculous preservation Cast thy self down from this height Behold thou art here in Jerusalem the famous and holy City of the World here thou art on the top of the Pinacle of that Temple which is dedicated to thy Father and if thou be God to thy self the eyes of all men are now fixt upon thee there cannot be devised a more ready way to spread thy glory and to proclaim thy Deity then by casting thy self headlong to the Earth All the World will say there is more in thee then a Man and for danger there can be none What can hurt him that is the Son of God And wherefore serves that glorious Guard of Angels which have by Divine Commission taken upon them the charge of thine Humanity Since therefore in one act thou maist be both safe and celebrated trust thy Father and those thy serviceable Spirits with thine assured preservation Cast thy self down And why didst thou not O thou malignant Spirit endeavour to cast down my Saviour by those same presumptuous hands that brought him up since the descent is more easie then the raising up Was it because it had not been so great an advantage to thee that he should fall by thy means as by his own Falling into sin was more then to fall from the pinacle Still thy care and suit is to make us authours to our selves of evil Thou gainest nothing by our bodily hurt if the Soul be safe Or was it rather for that thou couldst not I doubt not but thy malice could as well have served to have offered this measure to himself as to his holy Apostle soon after but he that bounded thy power tethers thee shorter Thou couldst not thou canst not doe what thou wouldst He that would permit thee to carry him up binds thy hands from casting him down And woe were it for us if thou wert not ever stinted Why did Satan carry up Christ so high but on purpose that his fall might be the more deadly So deals he still with us he exalts us that we may be dangerously abased He puffs men up with swelling thoughts of their own worthiness that they may be vile in the eyes of God and fall into condemnation It is the manner of God to cast down that he may raise to abase that he may exalt contrarily Satan raises up that he may throw down and intends nothing but our dejection in our advancement Height of place gives opportunity of Temptation Thus busie is that Wicked one in working against the members of Christ If any of them be in eminence above others those he labours most to ruinate They had need to stand fast that stand high Both there is more danger of their falling and more hurt in their fall He that had presumed thus far to tempt the Lord of Life would fain now dare him also to presume upon his Deity If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down There is not a more tried shaft in all his quiver then this a perswasion to men to bear themselves too bold upon the favour of God Thou art the Elect and Redeemed of God sin because Grace hath abounded sin that it may abound Thou art safe enough though thou offend be not too much an adversary to thy own liberty False Spirit it is no liberty to sin but servitude rather there is no liberty but in the freedome from sin Every one of us that hath the hope of Sons must purge himself even as he is pure that hath redeemed us We are bought with a price therefore must we glorifie God in our body and spirits for they are God's Our Sonship teaches us awe and obedience and therefore because we are Sons we will not cast our selves down into sin How idlely do Satan and wicked men measure God by the crooked line of their own misconceit I wiss Christ cannot be the Son of God unless he cast himself down from the Pinacle unless he come down from the Cross God is not mercifull unless he humour them in all their desires not just unless he take speedy vengeance where they require it But when they have spent their folly upon these vain imaginations Christ is the Son of God though he stay on the top of
Christ carried up so high but for prospect If the Kingdoms of the earth and their glory were onely to be presented to his Imagination the Valley would have served if to the outward Sense no Hill could suffice Circular bodies though small cannot be seen at once This show was made to both divers Kingdoms lying round about Judaea were represented to the Eye the glory of them to the Imagination Satan meant the Eye could tempt the Fancy no less then the Fancy could tempt the Will How many thousand souls have died of the wound of the Eye If we do not let in sin at the window of the Eye or the door of the Ear it cannot enter into our Hearts If there be any pomp majesty pleasure bravery in the world where should it be but in the Courts of Princes whom God hath made his Images his Deputies on earth There is soft raiment sumptuous feasts rich jewels honourable attendence glorious triumphs royal state These Satan lays out to the fairest show But oh the craft of that old Serpent Many a Care attends Greatness No Crown is without Thorns High seats are never but uneasie All those infinite discontentments which are the shadow of earthly Sovereignty he hides out of the way nothing may be seen but what may both please and allure Satan is still and ever like himself If Temptations might be but turn'd about and shewn on both sides the Kingdom of darkness would not be so populous Now whensoever the Tempter sets upon any poor Soul all sting of conscience wrath judgment torment is concealed as if they were not Nothing may appear to the eye but pleasure profit and a seeming happiness in the enjoying our desires Those other wofull objects are reserved for the farewell of sin that our misery may be seen and felt at once When we are once sure Satan is a Tyrant till then he is a Parasite There can be no safety if we do not view as well the back as the face of Temptations But oh presumption and impudence that Hell it self may be ashamed of The Devil dares say to Christ All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me That beggarly Spirit that hath not an inch of Earth can offer the whole World to the Maker to the Owner of it The Slave of God would be adored of his Creatour How can we hope he should be sparing of false boasts and of unreasonable promises unto us when he dares offer Kingdoms to him by whom Kings reign Temptations on the right hand are most dangerous How many that have been hardned with Fear have melted with Honour There is no doubt of that Soul that will not bite at the golden hook False Liars and vain-glorious Boasters see the top of their pedigree if I may not rather say that Satan doth borrow the use of their tongues for a time Whereas faithfull is he that hath promised who will also doe it Fidelity and Truth is the issue of Heaven If Idolatry were not a dear sin to Satan he would not be so importunate to compass it It is miserable to see how he draws the world insensibly into this sin which they profess to detest Those that would rather hazzard the furnace then worship Gold in a Statue yet do adore it in the stamp and find no fault with themselves If our hearts be drawn to stoop unto an over-high respect of any creature we are Idolaters O God it is no marvel if thy jealousie be kindled at the admission of any of thine own works into a competition of honour with their Creatour Never did our Saviour say Avoid Satan till now It is a just indignation that is conceived at the motion of a rivality with God Neither yet did Christ exercise his Divine power in this command but by the necessary force of Scripture drives away that impure Tempter It is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve The rest of our Saviour's answers were more full and direct then that they could admit of a reply but this was so flat and absolute that it utterly daunted the courage of Satan and put him to a shamefull flight and made him for the time weary of his trade The way to be rid of the troublesome solicitations of that Wicked one is continued resistence He that forcibly drove the Tempter from himself takes him off from us and will not abide his assaults perpetual It is our exercise and trial that he intends not our confusion X. Simon called AS the Sun in his first rising draws all eyes to it so did this Sun of righteousness when he first shone forth into the world His miraculous Cures drew Patients his Divine Doctrine drew Auditours both together drew the admiring multitude by troops after him And why do we not still follow thee O Saviour through desarts and mountains over land and seas that we may be both healed and taught It was thy word that when thou wert lift up thou wouldst draw all men unto thee Behold thou art lift up long since both to the Tree of shame and to the Throne of heavenly Glory Draw us and we shall run after thee Thy Word is still the same though proclaimed by men thy Virtue is still the same though exercised upon the spirits of men Oh give us to hunger after both that by both our souls may be satisfied I see the people not onely following Christ but pressing upon him Even very Unmannerliness finds here both excuse and acceptation They did not keep their distances in an awe to the Majesty of the Speaker whilst they were ravished with the power of the Speech yet did not our Saviour check their unreverent thronging but rather incourages their forwardness We cannot offend thee O God with the importunity of our desires It likes thee well that the Kingdom of heaven should suffer violence Our slackness doth ever displease thee never our vehemency The throng of Auditours forced Christ to leave the shore and to make Peter's Ship his Pulpit Never were there such nets cast out of that fisher-boat before Whilst he was upon the land he healed the sick bodies by his touch now that he was upon the Sea he cured the sick souls by his doctrine and is purposely severed from the multitude that he may unite them to him He that made both Sea and Land causeth both of them to conspire to the opportunities of doing good Simon was busie washing his nets Even those nets that caught nothing must be washed no less then if they had sped well The night's toil doth not excuse his day's work Little did Simon think of leaving those nets which he so carefully washed and now Christ interrupts him with the favour and blessing of his gracious presence Labour in our calling how homely soever makes us capable of Divine benediction The honest Fisher-man when he saw the people flock after Christ and heard him speak with such power could not
to his God Christ hath left many a soul for froward and unkind usage never any for the disparagement of it self and intreaties of humility Simon could not devise how to hold Christ faster then by thus suing to him to be gone then by thus pleading his Unworthiness O my soul be not weary of complaining of thine own wretchedness disgrace thy self to him that knows thy vileness be astonished at those mercies which have shamed thine ill deservings Thy Saviour hath no power to go away from a prostrate heart He that resists the proud heartens the lowly Fear not for I will make thee henceforth a Fisher of men Loe this Humility is rewarded with an Apostleship What had the Earth ever more glorious then a Legacy from Heaven He that bade Christ go from him shall have the honour to go first on this happy errand This was a Trade that Simon had no skill of it could not but be enough to him that Christ said I will make thee the Miracle shewed him able to make good his word He that hath power to command the Fishes to be taken can easily inable the hands to take them What is this Divine Trade of ours then but a spiritual Piscation The World is a Sea Souls like Fishes swim at liberty in this Deep the Nets of wholsome Doctrine draw up some to the shore of Grace and Glory How much skill and toil and patience is requisite in this Art Who is sufficient for these things This Sea these Nets the Fishers the Fish the Vessels are all thine O God doe what thou wilt in us and by us Give us ability and grace to take give men will and grace to be taken and take thou Glory by that which thou hast given XI The Marriage in Cana. WAS this then thy first Miracle O Saviour that thou wroughtest in Cana of Galilee And could there be a greater Miracle then this that having been thirty years upon earth thou didst no Miracle till now that thy Divinity did hide it self thus long in Flesh that so long thou wouldst lie obscure in a corner of Galilee unknown to that World thou camest to redeem that so long thou wouldst strain the patient expectation of those who ever since thy Star waited upon the revelation of a Messias We silly wretches if we have but a dram of Vertue are ready to set it out to the best show Thou who receivedst not the Spirit by measure wouldst content thy self with a willing obscurity and concealedst that Power that made the World in the roof of an Humane breast in a Cottage of Nazareth O Saviour none of thy Miracles is more worthy of astonishment then thy not doing of Miracles What thou didst in private thy wisedom thought fit for secrecy but if thy Blessed Mother had not been acquainted with some domestical Wonders she had not now expected a Miracle abroad The Stars are not seen by day the Sun it self is not seen by night As it is no small art to hide Art so is it no small glory to conceal Glory Thy first publick Miracle graceth a Marriage It is an ancient and laudable institution that the Rites of Matrimony should not want a solemn celebration When are Feasts in season if not at the recovery of our lost Rib if not at this main change of our estate wherein the joy of obtaining meets with the hope of farther comforts The Son of the Virgin and the Mother of that Son are both at a Wedding It was in all likelihood some of their Kindred to whose nuptiall feast they were invited so far yet was it more the honour of the act then of the person that Christ intended He that made the first Marriage in Paradise bestows his first Miracle upon a Galilaean Marriage He that was the Authour of Matrimony and sanctified it doth by his Holy presence honour the resemblance of his eternall union with his Church How boldly may we spit in the faces of all the impure Adversaries of Wedlock when the Son of God pleases to honour it The glorious Bridegroom of the Church knew well how ready men would be to place shame even in the most lawfull conjunctions and therefore his first work shall be to countenance his own Ordinance Happy is that Wedding where Christ is a Guest O Saviour those that marry in thee cannot marry without thee There is no holy Marriage whereat thou art not however invisible yet truly present by thy Spirit by thy gracious Benediction Thou makest Marriages in Heaven thou blessest them from Heaven O thou that hast betrothed us to thy self in Truth and Righteousness do thou consummate that happy Marriage of ours in the highest Heavens It was no rich or sumptuous Bridal to which Christ with his Mother and Disciples vouchsafed to come from the farther parts of Galilee I find him not at the magnificent feasts or triumphs of the Great The proud pomp of the World did not agree with the state of a Servant This poor needy Bridegroom wants drink for his guests The Blessed Virgin though a stranger to the house out of a charitable compassion and a friendly desire to maintain the decency of an hospitall entertainment inquires into the wants of her Host pities them bemoans them where there was power of redress When the wine failed the mother of Jesus said unto him They have no wine How well doth it beseem the eyes of piety and Christian love to look into the necessities of others She that conceived the God of mercies both in her heart and in her womb doth not fix her eyes upon her own Trencher but searcheth into the penury of a poor Israelite and feels those wants whereof he complains not They are made for themselves whose thoughts are onely taken up with their own store or indigence There was wine enough for a meal though not for a feast and if there were not wine enough there was enough water yet the Holy Virgin complains of the want of wine and is troubled with the very lack of superfluity The bounty of our God reaches not to our life onely but to our contentment neither hath he thought good to allow us onely the bread of sufficiency but sometimes of pleasure One while that is but necessary which some other time were superfluous It is a scrupulous injustice to scant our selves where God hath been liberal To whom should we complain of any want but to the Maker and Giver of all things The Blessed Virgin knew to whom she sued She had good reason to know the Divine nature and power of her Son Perhaps the Bridegroom was not so needy but if not by his purse yet by his credit he might have supplied that want or it were hard if some of the neighbour-guests had they been duely solicited might not have furnished him with so much wine as might suffice for the last service of a dinner But Blessed Mary knew a nearer way she did not think best to lade at the shallow Chanel but runs
hath so graciously abated thee and could be but so low dejected before thee as thou hast stooped low unto us that we could be but as lowly subjects of thy Goodness as we are unworthy O admirable return of humility Christ will goe down to visit the sick Servant The Master of that Servant says Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof The Jewish Elders that went before to mediate for him could say He is worthy that thou shouldst doe this for him but the Centurion when he comes to speak for himself I am not worthy They said he was worthy of Christ's Miracle he says he is unworthy of Christ's Presence There is great difference betwixt others valuations and our own Sometimes the world under-rates him that finds reason to set an high price upon himself Sometimes again it over-values a man that knows just cause of his own humiliation If others mistake us this can be no warrant for our errour We cannot be wise unless we receive the knowledge of our selves by direct beams not by reflexion unless we have learned to contemn unjust applauses and scorning the flattery of the World to frown upon our own vileness Lord I am not worthy Many a one if he had been in the Centurion's coat would have thought well of it A Captain a man of good ability and command a founder of a Synagogue a Patron of Religion yet he overlooks all these and when he casts his eye upon the Divine worth of Christ and his own weakness he says I am not worthy Alas Lord I am a Gentile an Alien a man of bloud thou art Holy thou art Omnipotent True Humility will teach us to find out the best of another and the worst piece of our selves Pride contrarily shews us nothing but matter of admiration in our selves in others of contempt Whilst he confest himself unworthy of any favour he approved himself worthy of all Had not Christ been before in his heart he could not have thought himself unworthy to entertain that Guest within his house Under the low roof of an humble breast doth God ever delight to dwell The state of his Palace may not be measured by the height but by the depth Brags and bold faces do ofttimes carry it away with men nothing prevails with God but our voluntary dejections It is fit the foundation should be laid deep where the building is high The Centurion's Humility was not more low then his Faith was lofty That reaches up into Heaven and in the face of humane weakness descries Omnipotence Onely say the word and my Servant shall be whole Had the Centurion's roof been Heaven it self it could not have been worthy to be come under of him whose Word was Almighty and who was the Almighty Word of his Father Such is Christ confessed by him that says Onely say the word None but a Divine power is unlimited neither hath Faith any other bounds then God himself There needs no footing to remove Mountains or Devils but a word Do but say the word O Saviour my Sin shall be remitted my Soul shall be healed my Body shall be raised from dust both Soul and Body shall be glorious Whereupon then was the steddy confidence of the good Centurion He saw how powerfull his own word was with those that were under his command though himself were under the command of another the force whereof extended even to absent performances well therefore might he argue that a free and unbounded power might give infallible commands and that the most obstinate Disease must therefore needs yield to the beck of the God of Nature Weakness may shew us what is in strength By one drop of water we may see what is in the main Ocean I marvell not if the Centurion were kind to his Servants for they were dutifull to him he can but say Doe this and it is done These mutuall respects draw on each other Chearfull and diligent service in the one calls for a due and favourable care in the other They that neglect to please cannot complain to be neglected Oh that I could be but such a Servant to mine heavenly Master Alas every of his Commands says Doe this and I doe it not every of his Inhibitions says Doe it not and I doe it He says Goe from the World I run to it he says Come to me I run from him Woe is me this is not service but enmity How can I look for favour whilst I return rebellion It is a gracious Master whom we serve there can be no Duty of ours that he sees not that he acknowledges not that he crowns not We could not but be happy if we could be officious What can be more marvellous then to see Christ marvell All marvelling supposes an ignorance going before and a knowledge following some accident unexpected Now who wrought this Faith in the Centurion but he that wondred at it He knew well what he wrought because he wrought what he would yet he wondred at what he both wrought and knew to teach us much more to admire that which he at once knows and holds admirable He wrought this Faith as God he wondred at it as Man God wrought and Man admired he that was both did both to teach us where to bestow our wonder I never find Christ wondring at gold or silver at the costly and curious works of humane skill or industry yea when the Disciples wondred at the magnificence of the Temple he rebuked them rather I find him not wondring at the frame of Heaven and Earth nor at the orderly disposition of all creatures and events the familiarity of these things intercepts the admiration But when he sees the grace or acts of Faith he so approves them that he is ravished with wonder He that rejoyced in the view of his Creation to see that of nothing he had made all things good rejoyces no less in the reformation of his Creature to see that he had made good of evill Behold thou art fair my Love behold thou art fair and there is no spot in thee My Sister my Spouse thou hast wounded my heart thou hast wounded my heart with one of thine eyes Our Wealth Beauty Wit Learning Honour may make us accepted of men but it is our Faith onely that shall make God in love with us And why are we of any other save God's diet to be more affected with the least measure of Grace in any man then with all the outward glories of the World There are Great men whom we justly pity we can admire none but the Gracious Neither was that plant more worthy of wonder in it self then that it grew in such a soil with so little help of rain and Sun The weakness of means addes to the praise and acceptation of our proficiency To doe good upon a little is the commendation of thrift it is small thank to be full-handed in a large estate As contrarily the strength of means doubles the revenge
of our neglect It is not more the shame of Israel then the glory of the Centurion that our Saviour says I have not found so great faith in Israel Had Israel yielded any equall faith it could not have been unespied of these All-seeing eyes yet though their Helps were so much greater their Faith was less and God never gives more then he requires Where we have laid our Tillage and Compost and Seed who would not look for a Crop but if the uncultured Fallow yield more how justly is that unanswerable ground near to a curse Our Saviour did not mutter this censorious testimony to himself not whisper it to his Disciples but he turned him about to the people and spake it in their ears that he might at once work their shame and emulation In all other things except spirituall our self-love makes us impatient of equalls much less can we endure to be out-stripped by those who are our professed inferiours It is well if any thing can kindle in us holy ambitions Dull and base are the spirits of that man that can abide to see another overtake him in the way and out-run him to Heaven He that both wrought this Faith and wondred at it doth now reward it Go thy ways and as thou hast believed so be it unto thee Never was any Faith unseen of Christ never was any seen without allowance never was any allowed without remuneration The measure of our receits in the matter of favour is the proportion of our belief The infinite Mercy of God which is ever like it self follows but one rule in his gift to us the Faith that he gives us Give us O God to believe and be it to us as thou wilt it shall be to us above that we will The Centurion sues for his Servant and Christ says So be it unto thee The Servant's health is the benefit of the Master and the Master's Faith is the health of the Servant And if the Prayers of an earthly Master prevailed so much with the Son of God for the recovery of a Servant how shall the intercession of the Son of God prevail with his Father in Heaven for us that are his impotent Children and Servants upon Earth What can we want O Saviour whilst thou suest for us He that hath given thee for us can deny thee nothing for us can deny us nothing for thee In thee we are happy and shall be glorious To thee O thou mighty Redeemer of Israel with thine Eternal Father together with thy Blessed Spirit one God infinite and incomprehensible be given all Praise Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen XIII The Widow's Son raised THE favours of our beneficent Saviour were at the least contiguous No sooner hath he raised the Centurion's Servant from his Bed then he raises the Widow's Son from his Bier The fruitfull clouds are not ordained to fall all in one field Nain must partake of the bounty of Christ as well as Cana or Capernaum And if this Sun were fixed in one Orb yet it diffuseth heat and light to all the world It is not for any place to ingross the Messengers of the Gospel whose errand is universal This immortal Seed may not fall all in one furrow The little City of Nain stood under the hill of Hermon near unto Tabor but now it is watered with better dews from above the Doctrine and Miracles of a Saviour Not for state but for the more evidence of the work is our Saviour attended with a large train so entering into the gate of that walled City as if he meant to besiege their Faith by his Power and to take it His providence hath so contrived his journey that he meets with the sad pomp of a Funeral A wofull Widow attended with her weeping neighbours is following her onely Son to the grave There was nothing in this spectacle that did not command compassion A young man in the flower in the strength of his age swallowed up by death Our decrepit age both expects death and solicits it but vigorous youth looks strangely upon that grim Serjeant of God Those mellow apples that fall alone from the tree we gather up with contentment we chide to have the unripe unseasonably beaten down with cudgels But more a young man the onely Son the onely Child of his mother No condition can make it other then grievous for a well-natur'd mother to part with her own bowels yet surely store is some mitigation of loss Amongst many children one may be more easily missed for still we hope the surviving may supply the comforts of the dead But when all our hopes and joys must either live or die in one the loss of that one admits of no consolation When God would describe the most passionate expression of sorrow that can fall into the miserable he can but say O daughter of my people gird thee with sackcloath and wallow thy self in ashes make lamentation and bitter mourning as for thine onely Son Such was the loss such was the sorrow of this disconsolate mother neither words nor tears can suffice to discover it Yet more had she been aided by the counsel and supportation of a loving Yoke-fellow this burthen might have seemed less intolerable A good Husband may make amends for the loss of a Son Had the Root been left to her intire she might better have spared the Branch now both are cut up all the stay of her life is gone and she seems abandoned to a perfect misery And now when she gave her self up for a forlorn mourner past all capacity of redress the God of comfort meets her pities her relieves her Here was no Solicitour but his own Compassion In other occasions he was sought and sued to The Centurion comes to him for a Servant the Ruler for a Son Jairus for a Daughter the neighbours for the Paralytick here he seeks the Patient and offers the Cure unrequested Whilst we have to doe with the Father of mercies our Afflictions are the most powerfull suitours No tears no prayers can move him so much as his own commiseration O God none of our secret sorrows can be either hid from thine eyes or kept from thine heart and when we are past all our hopes all possibilities of help then art thou nearest to us for deliverance Here was a conspiration of all parts to mercy The Heart had compassion the Mouth said Weep not the Feet went to the Bier the Hand touched the Coffin the power of the Deity raised the dead What the Heart felt was secret to it self the Tongue therefore expresses it in words of comfort Weep not Alas what are words to so strong and just passions To bid her not to weep that had lost her onely Son was to perswade her to be miserable and not feel it to feel and not regard it to regard and yet to smother it Concealment doth not remedy but aggravate sorrow That with the counsel of not weeping therefore she might see cause of
thee that thou maist forgive the punishment of my sin 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 Bar 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 spectatours of his Miracle some wondering 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 dispossession 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 alms 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 savour of a careless slubbering to others of 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 Fore-runner 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 man's day I marvell 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 powerfull 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 frequency there are some which have it in their strangeness and lose it in their facility Both meet in this To see men haunted yea possessed with a dumb Devil is so frequent that it is a just wonder to find a man free but to find 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 doeth wonders alone But whom do I see wondering 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 incredulity 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 poverty of the clients of the Gospel it shall not repent us to go to Heaven with the vulgar whilst their great ones go in state to Perdition The multitude wondered Who censured but Scribes great Doctours of the Law of the divinity of the Jews what Scribes but those of Jerusalem the most eminent Academy of Judaea These were the men who out of their deep reputed judgment cast these foul aspersions upon Christ Great wits oft-times mis-lead both the owners and followers How many shall once wish they had been born dullards yea idiots when they shall find 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 wisedome 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 Jews 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 style him The Prince of Devils There is a subordination of Spirits some higher in degree some inferiour to others Our Saviour himself tells us of the Devil and his Angels Messengers are inferiour to those that send them The seven Devils that entered into the swept and garnished house were worse then the former Neither can
Principalities and Powers and Governours and Princes of the darkness of this World design other then several ranks of evil Angels There can be no being without some kind of order there can be no order in parity If we look up into Heaven there is the King of Gods the Lord of Lords higher then the highest If to the Earth there are Monarchs Kings Princes Peers People If we look down to Hell there is the Prince of Devils They labour for confusion that call for parity What should the Church doe with such a form as is not exemplified in Heaven in Earth in Hell One Devil according to their supposition may be used to cast out another How far the command of one spirit over another may extend it is a secret of infernal state too deep for the inquiry of men The thing it self is apparent upon compact and precontracted composition one gives way to other for the common advantage As we see in the Commonwealth of Cheaters and Cutpurses one doeth the fact another is feed to bring it out and to procure restitution both are of the trade both conspire to the fraud the actour falls not out with the revealer but divides with him that cunning spoil One malicious miscreant sets the Devil on work to the inflicting of disease or death another upon agreement for a farther spiritual gain takes him off There is a Devil in both And if there seem more bodily favour there is no less spiritual danger in the latter In the one Satan wins the agent the suitour in the other It will be no cause of discord in Hell that one Devil gives ease to the body which another tormented that both may triumph in the gain of a soul Oh God that any creature which bears thine Image should not abhor to be beholden to the powers of hell for aid for advice Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that men go to inquire of the God of Ekron Can men be so sottish to think that the vowed enemy of their souls can offer them a bait without an hook What evil is there in the City which the Lord hath not done what is there which he cannot as easily redress He wounds he heals again And if he will not it is the Lord let him doe what seems good in his eyes If he do not deliver us he will crown our faithfulness in a patient perseverance The wounds of God are better then are the salves of Satan Was it possible that the wit of Envy could devise so high a Slander Beelzebub was a God of the heathen therefore herein they accuse him for an Idolater Beelzebub was a Devil to the Jews therefore they accuse him for a Conjurer Beelzebub was the chief of Devils therefore they accuse him for an Arch-exorcist for the worst kind of Magician Some professours of this black Art though their work be devillish yet they pretend to doe it in the name of Jesus and will presumptuously seem to doe that by command which is secretly transacted by agreement The Scribes accuse Christ of a direct compact with the Devil and suppose both a league and familiarity which by the Law of Moses in the very hand of a Saul was no other then deadly Yea so deep doth this wound reach that our Saviour searching it to the bottom finds no less in it then the sin against the Holy Ghost inferring hereupon that dreadfull sentence of the irremissibleness of that sin unto death And if this horrible crimination were cast upon thee O Saviour in whom the Prince of this world found nothing what wonder is it if we thy sinfull Servants be branded on all sides with evil tongues Yea which is yet more how plain is it that these men forced their tongue to speak this slander against their own heart Else this Blasphemy had been onely against the Son of man not against the Holy Ghost but now that the Searcher of hearts finds it to be no less then against the Blessed Spirit of God the spight must needs be obstinate their malice doth wilfully cross their conscience Envy never regards how true but how mischievous So it may gall or kill it cares little whether with truth or falshood For us Blessed are we when men revile us and say all manner of evil of us for the name of Christ For them What reward shall be given to thee thou false tongue Even sharp arrows with hot burning coals yea those very coals of hell from which thou wert enkindled There was yet a third sort that went a mid way betwixt wonder and censure These were not so malicious as to impute the Miracle to a Satanical operation they confess it good but not enough and therefore urge Christ to a farther proof Though thou hast cast out this dumb Devil yet this is no sufficient argument of thy Divine power We have yet seen nothing from thee like those ancient Miracles of the times of our forefathers Joshua caused the Sun to stand still Elias brought fire down from heaven Samuel astonisht the people with thunder and rain in the midst of harvest If thou wouldst command our belief doe somewhat like to these The casting out of a Devil shews thee to have some power over Hell shew us now that thou hast no less power over Heaven There is a kind of unreasonableness of desire and insatiableness in Infidelity it never knows when it hath evidence enough This which the Jews over-looked was a more irrefragable demonstration of Divinity then that which they desired A Devil was more then a Meteor or a parcel of an element to cast out a Devil by command more then to command fire from heaven Infidelity ever loves to be her own carver No son can be more like a father then these Jews to their progenitors in the desart That there might be no fear of degenerating into good they also of old tempted God in the Wilderness First they are weary of the Egyptian bondage and are ready to fall out with God and Moses for their stay in those furnaces By ten miraculous Plagues they are freed and going out of those confines the Egyptians follow them the Sea is before them now they are more afflicted with their liberty then their servitude The Sea yields way the Egyptians are drowned and now that they are safe on the other shore they tempt the providence of God for water The Rock yields it them then no less for bread and meat God sends them Manna and Quails they cry out of the food of Angels Their present enemies in the way are vanquished they whine at the men of measures in the heart of Canaan Nothing from God but mercy nothing from them but temptations Their true brood both in nature and in sin had abundant proofs of the Messiah if curing the blind lame diseased deaf dumb ejecting Devils over-ruling the elements raising the dead could have been sufficient yet still they must have a sign from Heaven and shut up in
be our strong helper that hath not given us over to be a prey unto their teeth Or if some scope have been given to that envious one to afflict us hath it been with favourable limitations it is thine onely mercy O God that hath chained and muzzled up this band-dog so as that he may scratch us with his paws but cannot pierce us with his fangs Far far is this from our deserts who had too well merited a just abdication from thy favour and protection and an interminable seisure by Satan both in soul and body Neither do I here see more matter of thanks to our God for our immunity from the external injuries of Satan then occasion of serious inquiry into his power over us for the spiritual I see some that think themselves safe from this ghostly tyranny because they sometimes find themselves in good moods free from the suggestions of gross sins much more from the commission Vain men that feed themselves with so false and frivolous comforts will they not see Satan through the just permission of God the same to the Soul in mental possessions that he is to the Body in corporal The worst Demoniack hath his lightsome respites not ever tortured not ever furious betwixt whiles he might look soberly talk sensibly move regularly It is a wofull comfort that we sin not always There is no Master so barbarous as to require of his Slave a perpetual unintermitted toil yet though he sometimes eat sleep rest he is a vassal still If that Wicked one have drawn us to a customary perpetration of evil and have wrought us to a frequent iteration of the same sin this is gage enough for our servitude matter enough for his tyranny and insultation He that would be our Tormentour always cares onely to be sometimes our Tempter The possessed is bound as with the invisible fetters of Satan so with the material chains of the inhabitants What can bodily force prevail against a spirit Yet they endeavour this restraint of the man whether out of charity or justice charity that he might not hurt himself justice that he might not hurt others None do so much befriend the Demoniack as those that bind him Neither may the spiritually possessed be otherwise handled for though this act of the enemy be plausible and to appearance pleasant yet there is more danger in this dear and smiling tyranny Two sorts of chains are fit for outrageous sinners good Laws unpartial Executions that they may not hurt that they may not be hurt to eternal death These iron chains are no sooner fast then broken There was more then an humane power in this disruption It is not hard to conceive the utmost of nature in this kind of actions Sampson doth not break the cords and ropes like a thread of tow but God by Sampson The man doth not break these chains but the Spirit How strong is the arm of these evil angels how far transcending the ordinary course of nature They are not called Powers for nothing What flesh and bloud could but tremble at the palpable inequality of this match if herein the mercifull protection of our God did not the rather magnifie it self that so much strength met with so much malice hath not prevailed against us In spite of both we are in safe hands He that so easily brake the iron fetters can never break the adamantine chain of our Faith In vain do the chafing billows of Hell beat upon that Rock whereon we are built And though these brittle chains of earthly metall be easily broken by him yet the sure tempered chain of God's eternal Decree he can never break That Almighty Arbiter of Heaven and Earth and Hell hath chained him up in the bottomless pit and hath so restrained his malice that but for our good we cannot be tempted we cannot be foiled but for a glorious victory Alas it is no otherwise with the spiritually possessed The chains of restraint are commonly broken by the fury of wickedness What are the respects of civility fear of God fear of men wholsome laws carefull executions to the desperately licentious but as cobwebs to an hornet Let these wild Demoniacks know that God hath provided chains for them that will hold even everlasting chains under darkness These are such as must hold the Devils themselves their Masters unto the judgment of the great Day how much more those impotent Vassals Oh that men would suffer themselves to be bound to their good behaviour by the sweet and easie recognizances of their duty to their God and the care of their own souls that so they might rather be bound up in the bundle of life It was not for rest that these chains were torn off but for more motion This prisoner runs away from his friends he cannot run away from his Jaolour He is now carried into the Wilderness not by meer external force but by internal impulsion carried by the same power that unbound him for the opportunity of his tyranny for the horrour of the place for the affamishment of his body for the avoidance of all means of resistence Solitary Desarts are the delights of Satan It is an unwise zeal that moves us to doe that to our selves in an opinion of merit and holiness which the Devil wishes to doe to us for a punishment and conveniency of temptation The evil Spirit is for solitariness God is for society He dwells in the assembly of his Saints yea there he hath a delight to dwell Why should not we account it our happiness that we may have leave to dwell where the Authour of all happiness loves to dwell There cannot be any misery incident unto us whereof our gracious Redeemer is not both conscious and sensible Without any intreaty therefore of the miserable Demoniack or suit of any friend the God of spirits takes pity of his distress and from no motion but his own commands the evil Spirit to come out of the man O admirable precedent of mercy preventing our requests exceeding our thoughts forcing favours upon our impotence doing that for us which we should and yet cannot desire If men upon our instant solicitations would give us their best aid it were a just praise of their bounty but it well became thee O God of mercy to go without force to give without suit And do we think thy goodness is impaired by thy glory If thou wert thus commiserative upon earth art thou less in Heaven How dost thou now take notice of all our complaints of all our infirmities how doth thine infinite pity take order to redress them What evil can befall us which thou knowest not feelest not relievest not How safe are we that have such a Guardian such a Mediatour in Heaven Not long before had our Saviour commanded the winds and waters and they could not but obey him now he speaks in the same language to the evil Spirit he intreats not he perswades not he commands Command argues superiority He onely is
praise of concord is in the subject if that be holy the consent is Angelical if sinfull devillish What a fearfull advantage have our spiritual enemies against us If armed troups come against single stragglers what hope is there of life of victory How much doth it concern us to band our hearts together in a communion of Saints Our enemies come upon us like a torrent O let us not run asunder like drops in the dust All our united forces will be little enough to make head against this league of destruction Legion imports Order Number Conflict Order in that there is a distinction of regiment a subordination of Officers Though in Hell there be confusion of faces yet not confusion of degrees Number Those that have reckoned a Legion at the lowest have counted it six thousand others have more then doubled it though here it is not strict but figurative yet the letter of it implies multitude How fearfull is the consideration of the number of Apostate Angels And if a Legion can attend one man how many must we needs think are they who all the world over are at hand to the punishment of the wicked the exercise of the good the temptation of both It cannot be hoped there can be any place or time wherein we may be secure from the onsets of these enemies Be sure ye lewd men ye shall want no furtherance to evil no torment for evil Be sure ye godly ye shall not want combatants to try your strength and skill Awaken your courages to resist and stir up your hearts make sure the means of your safety There are more with us then against us The God of heaven is with us if we be with him and our Angels behold the face of God If every Devil were a Legion we are safe Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we shall fear no evil Thou O Lord shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of our enemies and thy right hand shall save us Conflict All this Number is not for sight for rest but for motion for action Neither was there ever hour since the first blow given to our first Parents wherein there was so much as a truce betwixt these adversaries As therefore strong Frontier-towns when there is a Peace concluded on both parts break up their garrison open their gates neglect their Bulwarks but when they hear of the enemy mustering his forces in great and unequal numbers then they double their guard keep sentinel repair their Sconces so must we upon the certain knowledge of our numerous and deadly enemies in continual array against us address our selves always to a wary and strong resistence I do not observe the most to think of this ghostly hostility Either they do not find there are Temptations or those Temptations hurtfull they see no worse then themselves and if they feel motions of evil arising in them they impute it to fancy or unreasonable appetite to no power but Nature's and those motions they follow without sensible hurt neither see they what harm it is to sin Is it any marvel that carnal eyes cannot discern spiritual objects that the World who is the friend the vassal of Satan is in no war with him Elisha's servant when his eyes were opened saw troups of spiritual souldiers which before he discerned not If the eyes of our Souls be once enlightned by supernatural knowledge and the clear beams of Faith we shall as plainly descry the invisible powers of wickedness as now our bodily eyes see Heaven and Earth They are though we see them not we cannot be saâ—â— from them if we do not acknowledge not oppose them The Devils are now become great suitours to Christ that he would not command them into the deep that he would permit their entrance into the Swine What is this deep but Hell both for the utter separation from the face of God and for the impossibility of passage to the region of rest and glory The very evil Spirits then fear and expect a farther degree of torment they know themselves reserved in those chains of darkness for the judgment of the great day There is the same wages due to their sins and to ours neither are the wages paid till the work be done They tempting men to sin must needs sin grievously in tempting as with us men those that mislead into sin offend more then the actours not till the upshot therefore of their wickedness shall they receive the full measure of their condemnation This Day this Deep they tremble at what shall I say of those men that fear it not It is hard for men to believe their own Unbelief If they were perswaded of this fiery dungeon this bottomless deep wherein every sin shall receive an horrible portion with the damned durst they stretch forth their hands to wickedness No man will put his hand into a fiery crucible to fetch gold thence because he knows it will burn him Did we as truly believe the everlasting burning of that infernal fire we durst not offer to fetch pleasures or profits out of the midst of those flames This degree of torment they grant in Christ's power to command They knew his power unresistible had he therefore but said Back to Hell whence ye came they could no more have staid upon earth then they can now climb into heaven O the wonderfull dispensation of the Almighty who though he could command all the evil Spirits down to their dungeons in an instant so as they should have no more opportunity of temptation yet thinks fit to retain them upon earth It is not out of weakness or improvidence of that Divine hand that wicked Spirits tyrannize here upon earth but out of the most wise and most holy ordination of God who knows how to turn evil into good how to fetch good out of evil and by the worst instruments to bring about his most just decrees Oh that we could adore that awfull and infinite power and chearfully cast our selves upon that Providence which keeps the Keys even of Hell it self and either lets out or returns the Devils to their places Their other suit hath some marvel in moving it more in the grant that they might be suffered to enter into the Herd of swine It was their ambition of some mischief that brought forth this desire that since they might not vex the Body of man they might yet afflict men in their Goods The malice of these envious Spirits reacheth from us to ours It is sore against their wills if we be not every way miserable If the Swine were legally unclean for the use of the table yet they were naturally good Had not Satan known them usefull for man he had never desired their ruine But as Fencers will seem to fetch a blow at the leg when they intend it at the head so doeth this Devil whilst he drives at the Swine he aims at the Souls of these Gadarens By this means he hoped well and his
an happy thing to hear the report of them back from Heaven but if we always do not so it is not for us to be dejected and to accuse either our infidelity or thy neglect since we find here a faithfull suitour met with a gracious Saviour and yet he answered her not a word If we be poor in spirit God is rich in mercy he cannot send us away empty yet he will not always let us feel his condescent crossing us in our will that he may advance our benefit It was no small fruit of Christ's silence that the Disciples were hereupon moved to pray for her Not for a meer dismission It had been no favour to have required this but a punishment for if to be held in suspense be miserable to be sent away with a repulse is more But for a mercifull grant They saw much passion in the woman much cause of passion they saw great discouragement on Christ's part great constancy on hers Upon all these they feel her misery and become suitours for her unrequested It is our duty in case of necessity to intercede for each other and by how much more familiar we are with Christ so much more to improve our interest for the relief of the distressed We are bidden to say Our Father not mine Yea being members of one body we pray for our selves in others If the Foot be prickt the Back bends the Head bows down the Eyes look the Hands stir the Tongue calls for aid the whole man is in pain and labours for redress He cannot pray or be heard for himself that is no man's friend but his own No Prayer without Faith no Faith without Charity no Charity without mutual Intercession That which urged them to speak for her is urged to Christ by them for her obtaining She cries after us Prayer is as an Arrow if it be drawn up but a little it goes not far but if it be pull'd up to the head it flies strongly and pierces deep If it be but dribbled forth of careless lips it falls down at our foot the strength of our ejaculation sends it up into Heaven and fetches down a blessing The child hath escaped many a stripe by his loud crying and the very unjust Judge cannot endure the widow's clamour Heartless motions do but teach us to deny fervent suits offer violence both to earth and heaven Christ would not answer the Woman but doth answer the Disciples Those that have a familiarity with God shall receive answers when strangers shall stand out Yea even of domesticks some are more intire He that lay in Jesus his bosome could receive that intelligence which was concealed from the rest But who can tell whether that silence or this answer be more grievous I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel What is this answer but a defence of that silence and seeming neglect Whilst he said nothing his forbearance might have been supposed to proceed from the necessity of some greater thoughts but now his answer professeth that silence to have proceeded from a willing resolution not to answer and therefore he doth not vouchsafe so much as to give to her the answer but to her solicitours that they might return his denial from him to her who had undertaken to derive her suit to him I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Like a faithfull Embassadour Christ hath an eye to his commission that may not be violated though to an apparent advantage whither he is not sent he may not go As he so all his have their fixed marks set at these they aim and think it not safe to shoot at rovers In matter of morality it is not for us to stand onely upon inhibitions avoiding what is forbidden but upon commands endeavouring onely what is injoyned We need no other rule of our life then the intention of our several stations And if he that was God would take no farther scope to himself then the limits of his commission how much doth it concern us frail men to keep within compass or what shall become of our lawlesness that live in a direct contrariety to the will of him that sent us Israel was Jacob's name from him derived to his posterity till the division of the Tribes under Jeroboam all that nation was Israel then the Father's name went to the most which were ten Tribes the name of the Son Juda to the best which were two Christ takes no notice of this unhappy division he remembers the ancient name which he gave to that faithfull wrastler It was this Christ with whom Jacob strove it was he that wrencht his hip and changed his name and dismist him with a blessing and now he cannot forget his old mercy to the house of Israel to that onely doth he profess himself sent Their first brood were Shepherds now they are Sheep and those not guarded not empastured but strayed and lost O Saviour we see thy charge the house of Israel not of Esau sheep not goats not wolves lost sheep not securely impaled in the confidence of their safe condition Woe were to us if thou wert not sent to us He is not a Jew which is one without Every Israelite is not a true one We are not of thy fold if we be not sheep thou wilt not reduce us to thy fold if we be not lost in our own apprehensions O Lord thou hast put a fleece upon our backs we have lost our selves enough make us so sensible of our own wandrings that we may find thee sent unto us and may be happily found of thee Hath not this poor woman yet done Can neither the silence of Christ nor his denial silence her Is it possible she should have any glimps of hope after so resolute repulses Yet still as if she saw no argument of discouragement she comes and worships and cries Lord help me She which could not in the house get a word of Christ she that saw her solicitours though Christ's own Disciples repelled yet she comes Before she followed now she overtakes him before she sued aloof now she comes close to him no contempt can cast her off Faith is an undaunted grace it hath a strong heart and a bold forehead Even very denials cannot dismay it much less delays She came not to face not to expostulate but to prostrate her self at his feet Her tongue worshipt him before now her knee The eye of her Faith saw that Divinity in Christ which bowed her to his earth There cannot be a fitter gesture of man to God then Adoration Her first suit was for mercy now for help There is no use of mercy but in helpfulness To be pitied without aid is but an addition to misery Who can blame us if we care not for an unprofitable compassion The very suit was gracious She saith not Lord if thou canst help me as the father of the Lunatick but professes the power whilst she begs the act
that there should be a ceremonious carriage of thy solemn actions which thou pleasest to produce cloathed with such circumstantial forms It did not content thee to put one finger into one ear but into either ear wouldst thou put a finger both ears equally needed cure thou wouldst apply the means of cure to both The Spirit of God is the finger of God then dost thou O Saviour put thy finger into our ear when thy Spirit inables us to hear effectually If we thrust our own fingers into our ears using such humane perswasions to our selves as arise from worldly grounds we labour in vain yea these stoppells musts needs hinder our hearing the voice of God Hence the great Philosophers of the ancient world the learned Rabbins of the Synagogue the great Doctours of a false faith are deaf to spiritual things It is onely that finger of thy Spirit O Blessed Jesu that can open our ears and make passage through our ears into our hearts Let that finger of thine be put into our ears so shall our deafness be removed and we shall hear not the loud thunders of the Law but the gentle whisperings of thy gracious motions to our souls We hear for our selves but we speak for others Our Saviour was not content to open the ears onely but to untie the tongue With the ear we hear with the mouth we confess The same hand is applied to the tongue not with a dry touch but with spittle in allusion doubtless to the removall of the naturall impediment of speech moisture we know glibs the tongue and makes it apt to motion how much more from that sacred mouth There are those whose ears are open but their mouths are still shut to God they understand but do not utter the wonderfull things of God there is but half a cure wrought upon these men their ear is but open to hear their own judgement except their mouth be open to confess their Maker and Redeemer O God do thou so moisten my tongue with th◠〈◊〉 that it may run smoothly as the pen of a ready writer to the praise of thy name Whilst the finger of our Saviour was on the tongue in the ear of the Patient his eye was in Heaven Never man had so much cause to look up to Heaven as he there was his home there was his throne he onely was from heaven heavenly Each of us hath a good mind homeward though we meet with better sights abroad how much more when our home is so glorious above the region of our peregrination but thou O Saviour hadst not onely thy dwelling there but thy seat of majesty there the greatest Angels adored thee it is a wonder that thine eye could be ever any-where but there What doeth thine eye in this but teach ours where to be fixed Every good gift and every perfect giving come down from above how can we look off from that place whence we receive all good Thou didst not teach us to say O infinite God which art every-where but O our Father which art in heaven there let us look up to thee O let not our eyes or hearts grovell upon this earth but let us fasten them above the hills whence cometh our salvation thence let us acknowledge all the good we receive thence let us expect all the good we want Why our Saviour look'd up to Heaven though he had Heaven in himself we can see reason enough but why did he sigh Surely not for need the least motion of a thought was in him impetratory How could he chuse but be heard of his Father who was one with the Father Not for any fear of distrust But partly for compassion partly for example For compassion of those manifold infirmities into which sin had plunged mankind a pitifull instance whereof was here presented unto him For example to fetch sighs from us for the miseries of others sighs of sorrow for them sighs of desire for their redress This is not the first time that our Saviour spent sighs yea tears upon humane distresses We are not bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh if we so feel not the smart of our brethren that the fire of our passion break forth into the smoke of sighs Who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not Christ was not silent whilst he cured the Dumb his Epphatha gave life to all these his other actions His sighing his spitting his looking up to heaven were the acts of a man but his command of the ear and mouth to open was the act of God He could not command that which he made not His word is imperative ours supplicatory He doeth what he will with us we doe by him what he thinks good to impart In this mouth the word cannot be severed from the success our Saviour's lips are no sooner opened in his Epphatha then the mouth of the Dumb and the ears of the Deaf are opened at once Behold here celerity and perfection Naturall agents work by leisure by degrees nothing is done in an instant by many steps is every thing carried from the entrance to the consummation Omnipotency knows no rules no imperfect work can proceed from a cause absolutely perfect The man hears now more lightly then if he had never been deaf and speaks more plainly then if he had never been tongue-ty'd And can we blame him if he bestowed the handsel of his speech upon the power that restored it if the first improvement of his tongue were the praise of the giver of the maker of it Or can we expect other then that our Saviour should say Thy tongue is free use it to the praise of him that made it so thy ears are open hear him that bids thee proclaim thy cure upon the house-top But now behold contrarily he that opens this man's mouth by his powerfull word by the same word shuts it again charging silence by the same breath wherewith he gave speech Tell no man Those tongues which interceded for his Cure are charmed for the concealment of it O Saviour thou knowest the grounds of thine own commands it is not for us to enquire but to obey we may not honour thee with a forbidden celebration Good meanings have oft-times proved injurious Those men whose charity imployed their tongues to speak for the dumb man do now imploy the same tongues to speak of his cure when they should have been dumb This charge they imagine proceeds from an humble modesty in Christ which the respect to his honour bids them violate I know not how we itch after those forbidden acts which if left to our liberty we willingly neglect This prohibition increaseth the rumour every tongue is busied about this one What can we make of this but a well-meant disobedience O God I should more gladly publish thy Name at thy command I know thou canst not bid me to dishonour thee there is no danger of such an injunction but if thou shouldst bid me to
abide at thine house What a pleasant kind of entire familiarity there is betwixt Christ and a good heart If any man open I will come in and sup with him It is much for the King of Glory to come into a cottage and sup there yet thus he may doe and take some state upon him in sitting alone No I will so sup with him that he shall sup with me Earthly state consists in strangeness and affects a stern kind of majesty aloof Betwixt God and us though there be infinite more distance yet there is a gracious affability and familiar intireness of conversation O Saviour what doest thou else every day but invite thy self to us in thy Word in thy Sacraments who are we that we should entertain thee or thou us dwarfs in grace great in nothing but unworthiness Thy praise is worthy to be so much the more as our worth is less Thou that biddest thy self to us bid us be fit to receive thee and in receiving thee happy How graciously doth Jesus still prevent the Publican as in his sight notice compellation so in his invitation too That other Publican Levi bade Christ to his house but it was after Christ had bidden him to his Discipleship Christ had never been called to his feast if Levi had not been called into his family He loved us first he must first call us for he calls us out of love As in the generall calling of Christianity if he did not say Seek ye my face we could never say Thy face Lord will I seek so in the specialties of our main benefits or imployments Christ must begin to us If we invite our selves to him before he invite himself to us the undertaking is presumptuous the success unhappy If Nathanael when Christ named him and gave him the memorial-token of his being under the fig-tree could say Thou art the Son of God how could Zacchaeus doe less in hearing himself upon this wild fig-tree named by the same lips How must he needs think If he knew not all things he could not know me and if he knew not the hearts of men he could not have known my secret desires to entertain him He is a God that knows me and a mercifull God that invites himself to me No marvel therefore if upon this thought Zacchaeus come down in haste Our Saviour said not Take thy leisure Zacchaeus but I will abide at thine house to day Neither did Zacchaeus upon this intimation sit still and say When the press is over when I have done some errands of my office but he hasts down to receive Jesus The notice of such a Guest would have quickned his speed without a command God loves not slack and lazy executions The Angels of God are described with wings and we pray to doe his will with their forwardness Yea even to Judas Christ saith What thou doest doe quickly O Saviour there is no day wherein thou dost not call us by the voice of thy Gospel what doe we still lingering in the Sycomore How unkindly must thou needs take the delays of our Conversion Certainly had Zacchaeus staid still in the Tree thou hadst balked his house as unworthy of thee What construction canst thou make of our wilfull dilations but as a stubborn contempt How canst thou but come to us in vengeance if we come not down to entertain thee in a thankfull obedience Yet do I not hear thee say Zacchaeus cast thy self down for haste this was the counsell of the Tempter to thee but Come down in haste And he did accordingly There must be no more haste then good speed in our performances we may offend as well in our heady acceleration as in our delay Moses ran so fast down the hill that he stumbled spiritually and brake the Tables of God We may so fast follow after Justice that we out-run Charity It is an unsafe obedience that is not discreetly and leisurely speedfull The speed of his descent was not more then the alacrity of his entertainment He made haste and came down and received him joyfully The life of hospitality is chearfulness Let our chear be never so great if we do not reade our welcome in our friend's face as well as in his dishes we take no pleasure in it Can we marvell that Zacchaeus received Christ joyfully Who would not have been glad to have his house yea himself made happy with such a Guest Had we been in the stead of this Publican how would our hearts have leapt within us for joy of such a presence How many thousand miles are measured by some devout Christians onely to see the place where his feet stood How much happier must he needs think himself that owns the roof that receives him But O the incomparable happiness then of that man whose heart receives him not for a day not for years of days not for millions of years but for eternity This may be our condition if we be not streightned in our own bowels O Saviour do thou welcome thy self to these houses of clay that we may receive a joyfull welcome to thee in those everlasting habitations Zacchaeus was not more glad of Christ then the Jews were discontented Four vices met here at once Envy Scrupulousness Ignorance Pride Their eye was evil because Christ's was good I do not hear any of them invite Christ to his home yet they snarl at the honour of this unworthy Host they thought it too much happiness for a Sinner which themselves willingly neglected to sue for Wretched men they cannot see the Mercy of Christ for being bleared with the Happiness of Zacchaeus yea that very Mercy which they see torments them If that viper be the deadliest which feeds the sweetest how poisonous must this disposition needs be that feeds upon Grace What a contrariety there is betwixt good Angels and evil Men The Angels rejoyce at that whereat men pout and stomach Men are ready to cry and burst for anger at that which makes musick in Heaven O wicked and foolish elder brother that feeds on hunger and his own heart without doors because his younger brother is feasting on the fat calf within Besides Envy they stand scrupulously upon the terms of Traditions These sons of the earth might not be conversed with their threshold was unclean Touch me not for I am holier then thou That he therefore who went for a Prophet should go to the house of a Publican and Sinner must needs be a great eye-sore They that might not go in to a Sinner cared not what sins entred into themselves the true cousins of those Hypocrites who held it a pollution to go into the Judgment-hall no pollution to murther the Lord of life There cannot be a greater argument of a false heart then to stumble at these straws and to leap over the blocks of gross impiety Well did our Saviour know how hainously offensive it would be to turn in to this Publican he knows and regards it not A Soul is to
healthfull fear sickness the free servitude the people fear a Tyrant's oppression and cruelty the Tyrant fears the people's mutiny and insurrection If there have been some so great as to be above the reach of the power and machinations of inferiours yet never any that have been free from their fears and suspicions Happy is he that fears nothing but what he should God Why did Herod fear the people They held John for a Prophet And this opinion was both common and constant even the Scribes and Pharisees durst not say his Baptism was from men It is the wisedom and goodness of God ever to give his children favour somewhere If Jezebel hate Elias Ahab shall for the time honour him and if Herod hate the Baptist and would kill him yet the people reverence him Herod's malice would make him away the people's reputation keeps him alive As wise Princes have been content to maintain a faction in their Court or State for their own purposes so here did the God of Heaven contrive and order differences of judgment and affection betwixt Herod and his Subjects for his own holy ends Else certainly if all wicked men should conspire in evil there could be no being upon earth as contrarily if evil spirits did not accord Hell could not stand Oh the unjust and fond partiality of this people They all generally applaud John for a Prophet yet they receive not his message Whose Prophet was John but of the Highest what was his errand but to be the way-maker unto Christ what was he but the Voice of that Eternal Word of his Father what was the sound of that Voice but Behold the Lamb of God He that comes after me is greater then I whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unlose Yet they honour the Servant and reject the Master they contemn that Prince whose Embassadour they reverence How could they but argue John is a Prophet he speaks from God his words must be true he tells us this is the Lamb of God the Messias that should come to redeem the World this must then needs be he we will look for no other Yet this perverse people receives John and rejects Jesus There is ever an absurdity in unbelief whilst it separates those relations and respects which can never in nature be disjoyned Thus it readily apprehends God as mercifull in pardoning not as just in punishing Christ as a Saviour not as a Judge Thus we ordinarily in a contrariety to these Jews profess to receive the Master and contemn the Servants whilst he hath said that will make it good He that despiseth you despiseth me That which Herod in policy durst not in wine he dares doe And that which God had restrained till his own time now in his own time he permits to be done The day was as one of the Evangelists styles it convenient if for the purpose of Herodias I am sure for God's who having determined to glorify himself by John's martyrdome will cast it upon a time when it may be most notified Herod's birth-day All the Peers of the Country perhaps of the neighbour Nations are now assembled Herodias could not have found out a time more fit to blazon her own shame and cruelty then in such a confluence The wise Providence of God many times pays us with our own choice so as when we think to have brought about our own Ends to our best content we bring about his purposes to our own confusion Herod's Birth-day is kept and so was Pharaoh's both of them with bloud These personal stains cannot make the practice unlawfull Where the man is good the Birth is memorable What blessing have we if Life be none and if our life be a blessing why should it not be celebrated Excess and disorder may blemish any Solemnity but that cleaves to the act not to the institution Herod's birth-day was kept with a Feast and this Feast was a Supper It was fit to be a night-work this Festivity was spent in works of darkness not of the light it was a child of darkness that was then born not of the day Those that are drunken are drunk in the night There is a kind of shame in Sin even where it is committed with the stiffest resolution at least there was wont to be if now Sin be grown impudent and Justice grown bashfull wo be to us That there might be perfect revells at Herod's Birth-day besides the Feast there is musick and dancing and that by Salome the daughter of Herodias A meet Daughter for such a Mother bred according to the disposition of so immodest a Parent Dancing in it self as it is a set regular harmonious motion of the body cannot be unlawfull more then walking or running Circumstances may make it sinfull The wanton gesticulations of a Virgin in a wild assembly of Gallants warmed with Wine could be no other then riggish and unmaidenly It is not so frequently seen that the Child follows the good qualities of the Parent it is seldome seen that it follows not the evil Nature is the soil good and ill Qualities are the herbs and weeds the soil bears the weeds naturally the herbs not without culture What with traduction what with education it were strange if we should miss any of our Parents mis-dispositions Herodias and Salome have what they desired The dance pleased Herod well those indecent motions that would have displeased any modest eye though what should a modest eye doe at Herod's Feast over-pleased Herod Well did Herodias know how to fit the tooth of her Paramour and had therefore purposely so composed the carriage and gesture of her Daughter as it might take best although doubtless the same action could not have so pleased from another Herod saw in Salome's face and fashion the image of her whom he doated on so did she look so did she move besides that his lavish cups had predisposed him to wantonness and now he cannot but like well that which so pleasingly suted his inordinate desire All humours love to be fed especially the vicious so much more as they are more eager and stirring There cannot be a better glass wherein to discern the face of our hearts then our pleasures such as they are such are we whether vain or holy What a strange transportation was this Whatsoever thou shalt ask half a Kingdom for a dance Herod this pastime is over-pay'd for there is no proportion in this remuneration this is not bounty it is prodigence Neither doth this pass under a bare Promise onely but under an Oath and that solemn and as it might be in wine serious How largely do sensual men both profer and give for a little momentany and vain contentment How many censure Herod's gross impotence and yet second it with a worse giving away their precious Souls for a short pleasure of sin What is half a Kingdom yea a whole World to a Soul So much therefore is their madness greater as their loss is more So large a boon was
means to fill Hell lothness to displease A good heart will rather fall out with all the world then with God then with his Conscience The mis-grounded sorrow of worldly hearts doth not withhold them from their intended sins It is enough to vex not enough to restrain them Herod was sorry but he sends the Executioner for John's head One act hath made Herod a Tyrant and John a Martyr Herod a Tyrant in that without all legall proceedings without so much as false witnesses he takes off the head of a man of a Prophet It was Lust that carried Herod into Murther The proceedings of sin are more hardly avoided then the entrance Whoso gives himself leave to be wicked knows not where he shall stay John a Martyr in dying for bearing witness to the Truth Truth in life in judgment in doctrine It was the holy purpose of God that he which had baptized with water should now be baptized with bloud Never did God mean that his best children should dwell always upon earth should they stay here wherefore hath he provided Glory above Now would God have John delivered from a double prison of his own of Herod's and placed in the glorious liberty of his sons His head shall be taken off that it may be crowned with glory Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints O happy birth-day not of Herod but of the Baptist Now doth John enter into his joy and in his name is this day ever celebrated of the Church This blessed Fore-runner of Christ said of himself I must decrease He is decreased indeed and now grown shorter by the head but he is not so much decreased in stature as increased in glory For one minute's pain he is possessed of endless joy and as he came before his Saviour into the world so is he gone before him into Heaven The Head is brought in a Charger What a dish was here for a Feast How prodigiously insatiable is the cruelty of a wicked heart O blessed service fit for the table of Heaven It is not for thee O wicked Herod nor for thee malicious and wanton Herodias it is a dish precious and pleasing to the God of Heaven to the blessed Angels who look'd upon that Head with more delight in his constant fidelity then the beholders saw it with horrour and Herodias with contentment of revenge It is brought to Salome as the reward of her dance she presents it to her Mother as the dainty she had longed for Methinks I see how that chast and holy countenance was tossed by impure and filthy hands that true and faithfull tongue those sacred lips those pure eyes those mortified cheeks are now insultingly handled by an incestuous Harlot and made a scorn to the drunken eyes of Herod's guests Oh the wondrous judgments and incomprehensible dispositions of the holy wise Almighty God! He that was sanctified in the womb born and conceived with so much note and miracle What manner of child shall this be lived with so much reverence and observation is now at midnight obscurely murthered in a close prison and his head brought forth to the insultation and irrision of Harlots and Ruffians O God thou knowest what thou hast to doe with thine own Thus thou sufferest thine to be misused and slaughtered here below that thou mayest crown them above It should not be thus if thou didst not mean that their glory should be answerable to their depression XXII The five Loaves and two Fishes WHat flocking there was after Christ which way soever he went How did the Kingdom of Heaven suffer an holy violence in these his followers Their importunity drave him from the land to the sea When he was upon the sea of Tiberias they followed him with their eyes and when they saw which way he bent they followed him so fast on foot that they prevented his landing Whether it were that our Saviour staid some while upon the water as that which yielded him more quietness and freedom of respiration or whether the foot-passage as it oft falls out were the shorter cut by reason of the compasses of the water and the many elbows of the land I inquire not sure I am the wind did not so swiftly drive on the ship as desire and zeal drave on these eager clients Well did Christ see them all the way well did he know their steps and guided them and now he purposely goes to meet them whom he seemed to fly Nothing can please God more then our importunity in seeking him when he withdraws himself it is that he may be more earnestly inquired for Now then he comes to find them whom he made shew to decline and seeing a great multitude he 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 Far be it from us O Saviour to think that thy Glory hath abated of thy Mercy still and ever thou art our assured bountifull and perfect Physician who healest all our diseases and takest away all our infirmities O that we could have our faithfull recourse to thee in all our spiritual maladies it were as impossible we should want help as that thou shouldst want power and mercy That our Saviour might approve himself every way beneficent he that had filled the Souls of his Auditours 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 mankind is maintained He did not more miraculously heal then he feeds miraculously The Disciples having well noted the diligent and importune attendence 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 go 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 child so must the spiritual have respect to the Body This is all that the world commonly looks after measuring their Pastours more by their dishes then by their doctrine or conversation
perpetuall Miracle O God which thou workest for our preservation Without thee there is no more power in the grain to multiply then in the loaf it is thou that givest it a body at thy pleasure even to every seed his own body it is thou that givest fulness of bread and cleanness of teeth It is no reason thy goodness should be less magnified because it is universall One or two baskets could have held the five loaves and two fishes not less then twelve can hold the remainders The Divine munificence provides not for our necessity onely but for our abundance yea superfluity Envy and ignorance whilst they make God the authour of enough are ready to impute the surplusage to another cause as we commonly say of Wine that the liquour is God's the excess Satan's Thy Table O Saviour convinces them which had more taken away then set on thy Blessing makes an estate not competent onely but rich I hear of barns full of plenty and presses bursting out with new wine as the rewards of those that honour thee with their substance I hear of heads anointed with oyl and cups running over O God as thou hast a free hand to give so let us have a free heart to return thee the praise of thy Bounty Those fragments were left behind I do not see the people when they had filled their bellies cramming their pockets or stuffing their wallets yet the place was desart and some of them doubtless had far home It becomes true Disciples to be content with the present not too solicitous for the future O Saviour thou didst not bid us beg bread for to morrow but for to day not that we should refuse thy bounty when thou pleasest to give but that we should not distrust thy Providence for the need we may have Even these fragments though but of barley loaves and fish-bones may not be left in the desart for the compost of that earth whereon they were increased but by our Saviour's holy and just command are gathered up The liberall housekeeper of the world will not allow the loss of his orts the childrens bread may not be given to dogs and if the crums fall to their share it is because their smalness admits not of a collection If those who out of obedience or due thrift have thought to gather up crums have found them pearls I wonder not Surely both are alike the good creatures of the same Maker and both of them may prove equally costly to us in their wilfull mis-spending But oh what shall we say that not crusts and crums not loaves and dishes and cups but whole patrimonies are idly lavisht away not merely lost this were more easy but ill spent in a wicked riot upon dice drabs drunkards Oh the fearfull account of these unthrifty Bailifs which shall once be given in to our great Lord and Master when he shall call us to a strict reckoning of all our talents He was condemned that increased not the summe concredited to him what shall become of him that lawlesly impairs it Who gathered up these fragments but the twelve Apostles every one his basket-full They were the servitours that set on this banquet at the command of Christ they waited on the Tables they took away It was our Saviour's just care that those offalls should not perish but he well knew that a greater loss depended upon those scraps a loss of glory to the omnipotent Worker of that Miracle The feeding of the multitude was but the one half of the work the other half was in the remnant Of all other it most concerns the successours of the Apostles to take care that the marvellous works of their God and Saviour may be improved to the best they may not suffer a crust or crum to be lost that may yield any glory to that Almighty Agent Here was not any morsel or bone that was not worthy to be a relique every the least parcel whereof was no other then miraculous All the ancient monuments of God's supernatural power and mercy were in the keeping of Aaron and his sons There is no Servant in the Family but should be thriftily carefull for his Master's profit but most of all the Steward who is particularly charged with this oversight Wo be to us if we care onely to gather up our own scraps with neglect of the precious morsels of our Maker and Redeemer XXIII The Walk upon the Waters ALL Elements are alike to their Maker He that had well approved his power on the Land will now shew it in the Air and the Waters he that had preserved the multitude from the peril of hunger in the Desart will now preserve his Disciples from the peril of the tempest in the Sea Where do we ever else find 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 pairs into the Cities and Country of Judaea to preach the Gospel they went There was never errand whereon they went unwillingly onely 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 onely 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 go 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 go 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 whilst 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 Kingdom 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 heldst 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 wild thoughts and giddy distractedness to go 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 nor 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 expect 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 loth they were to have stirred without him but his command is more then the strongest wind to fill their sails and they are now gone Their expectation made not the evening seem so long as our Saviour's devotion made it seem short to him He is on the mount they on the sea yet whilst he was in the mount praying and lifting up his eyes to his Father he fails 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 ere thou dismissedst them and purposedly sendest them away that they might be tossed Thou that couldst prevent our sufferings by thy power wilt permit them in thy wisedom that thou mayest 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 the poor Disciples The night was sullen and dark their Master was absent the sea was boistrous the winds 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 endured Now both season and sea and wind 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 fearfull tempest what an astonishing dereliction was that wherein thou thy self criedst out in the bitterness of thine anguished Soul My God my God why hast thou forsaken 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 lonesome and tempestuous night must the Disciples wear out in danger and horrour as given over to the winds and waves but in the fourth watch of the night when they were wearied out with toils and fears comes deliverance At their entrance into the ship at the arising of the tempest at the shutting in of the evening there was no news of Christ but when they have been all the night long beaten not so much with storms and waves as with their own thoughts now in the fourth watch which was near to the morning Jesus came unto them and purposely not till then that he might exercise their patience that he might inure them to wait upon Divine Providence in cases of extremity that their Devotions might be more whetted by delay that they might give gladder welcome to their deliverance O God thus thou thinkest fit to doe still We are by turns in our sea the winds bluster the billows swell the night and thy absence heighten our discomfort thy time and ours is set as yet it is but midnight with us can we but hold out patiently till the fourth watch thou wilt surely come and rescue us Oh let us not faint under our sorrows but wear out our three watches of tribulation with undaunted patience and holy resolution O Saviour our extremities are the seasons of thine aid Thou camest at last but yet so as that there was more dread then joy in thy presence Thy coming was both miraculous and frightfull Thou God of Elements passedst through the air walkedst upon the waters Whether thou meantest to terminate this Miracle in thy Body or in the waves which thou trodest upon whether so lightning the one that it should make no impression in the liquid waters or whether so consolidating the other that the pavemented waves yielded a firm causey to thy sacred feet to walk on I neither determine nor inquire thy silence ruleth mine thy power was in either miraculous neither know I in whether to adore it more But withall give me leave to wonder more at thy passage then at thy coming Wherefore camest thou but to comfort them and wherefore then wouldst thou pass by them as if thou hadst intended nothing but their dismay Thine absence could not be so grievous as thy preterition that might seem justly occasioned this could not but seem willingly neglective Our last conflicts have wont ever to be the forest as when after some dripping rain it pours down most vehemently we
think the weather is changing to serenity O Saviour we may not always measure thy meaning by thy semblance sometimes what thou most intendest thou shewest least In our Afflictions thou turnest thy back upon us and hidest thy face from us when thou most mindest our distresses So Jonathan shot the arrows beyond David when he meant them to him So Joseph calls for Benjamin into bonds when his heart was bound to him in the strongest affection So the tender mother makes as if she would give away her crying child whom she hugs so much closer in her bosome If thou pass by us whilst we are struggling with the tempest we know it is not for want of mercy Thou canst not neglect us O let not us distrust thee What Object should have been so pleasing to the eyes of the Disciples as their Master and so much the more as he shewed his Divine power in this miraculous walk But lo contrarily they are troubled not with his presence but with this form of presence The supernatural works of God when we look upon them with our own eyes are subject to a dangerous misprision The very Sun-beams to whom we are beholden for our sight if we eye them directly blind us Miserable men we are ready to suspect Truths to run away from our safety to be afraid of our comforts to mis-know our best friends And why are they thus troubled They had thought they had seen a Spirit That there have been such apparitions of Spirits both good and evil hath ever been a Truth undoubtedly received of Pagans Jews Christians although in the blind times of Superstition there was much collusion mixed with some verities Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world But even where there was not Truth yet there was Horrour The very Good Angels were not seen without much fear their sight was construed to bode Death how much more the Evil which in their very nature are harmfull and pernicious We see not a Snake or a Toad without some recoiling of bloud and sensible reluctation although those creatures run away from us how much more must our hairs stand upright and our senses boggle at the sight of a Spirit whose both nature and will is contrary to ours and professedly bent to our hurt But say it had been what they mistook it for a Spirit why should they fear Had they well considered they had soon found that evil spirits are never the less present when they are not seen and never the less harmfull or malicious when they are present unseen Visibility adds nothing to their spite or mischief And could their eyes have been opened they had with Elisha's servant seen more with them then against them a sure though invisible guard of more powerfull Spirits and themselves under the protection of the God of Spirits so as they might have bidden a bold defiance to all the powers of darkness But partly their Faith was yet but in the bud and partly the presentation of this dreadfull Object was sudden and without the respite of a recollection and settlement of their thoughts Oh the weakness of our frail Nature who in the want of Faith are affrighted with the visible appearance of those adversaries whom we profess daily to resist and vanquish and with whom we know the Decree of God hath matched us in an everlasting conflict Are not these they that ejected Devils by their command Are not these of them that could say Master the evil spirits are subdued to us Yet now when they see but an imagined Spirit they fear What power there is in the eye to betray the heart Whilst Goliah was mingled with the rest of the Philistin hoast Israel camped boldly against them but when that Giant stalks out single between the two armies and fills and amazes their eyes with his hideous stature now they run away for fear Behold we are committed with Legions of Evil spirits and complain not Let but one of them give us some visible token of his presence we shreek and tremble and are not our selves Neither is our weakness more conspicuous then thy mercy O God in restraining these spiritual enemies from these dreadfull and ghastly representations of themselves to our eyes Might those infernal Spirits have liberty to appear how and when and to whom they would certainly not many would be left in their wits or in their lives It is thy power and goodness to frail mankind that they are kept in their chains and reserved in the darkness of their own spiritual being that we may both oppugn and subdue them unseen But oh the deplorable condition of reprobate souls If but the imagined sight of one of these spirits of darkness can so daunt the heart of those which are free from their power what a terrour shall it be to live perpetually in the sight yea under the torture of thousands of legions of millions of Devils Oh the madness of wilfull sinners that will needs run themselves headily into so dreadfull a damnation It was high time for our Saviour to speak What with the Tempest what with the Apparition the Disciples were almost lost with fear How seasonable are his gracious redresses Till they were thus affrighted he would not speak when they were thus affrighted he would not hold his peace If his presence were fearfull yet his word was comfortable Be of good chear it is I yea it is his word onely which must make his presence both known and comfortable He was present before they mistook him and feared there needs no other erection of their drooping hearts but It is I. It is cordial enough to us in the worst of our afflictions to be assured of Christ's presence with us Say but It is I O Saviour and let evils doe their worst thou needest not say any more Thy voice was evidence enough so well were the Disciples acquainted with the tongue of thee their Master that It is I was as much as an hundred names Thou art the good Shepherd we are not of thy Flock if we know thee not by thy voice from a thousand Even this one is a great word yea an ample style It is I. The same tongue that said to Moses I am hath sent thee saith now to the Disciples It is I I your Lord and Master I the Commander of winds and waters I the soveraign Lord of Heaven and earth I the God of Spirits Let Heaven be but as one scroll and let it be written all over with titles they cannot express more then It is I. Oh sweet and seasonable word of a gracious Saviour able to calm all tempests able to revive all hearts Say but so to my Soul and in spight of Hell I am safe No sooner hath Jesus said I then Peter answers Master He can instantly name him that did not name himself Every little hint is enough to Faith The Church sees her Beloved as well through the Lattice as through the open Window Which
be bidden to walk unto Christ he thought of the waters Bid me to come to thee on the waters he thought not on the winds which raged on those waters or if he thought of a stiff gale yet that tempestuous and sudden gust was out of his account and expectation Those evils that we are prepared for have not such power over us as those that surprise us A good water-man sees a dangerous billow coming towards him and cuts it and mounts over it with ease the unheedy is overwhelmed O Saviour let my haste to thee be zealous but not improvident ere I set my foot out of the ship let me foresee the Tempest when I have cast the worst I cannot either miscarry or complain So soon as he began to fear he began to sink whilst he believed the Sea was brass when once he began to distrust those waves were water He cannot sink whilst he trusts the power of his Master he cannot but sink when he misdoubts it Our Faith gives us as courage and boldness so success too our Infidelity lays us open to all dangers to all mischiefs It was Peter's improvidence not to foresee it was his weakness to fear it was the effect of his fear to sink it was his Faith that recollects it self and breaks through his Infidelity and in sinking could say Lord save me His foot could not be so swift in sinking as his heart in imploring he knew who could uphold him from sinking and being sunk deliver him and therefore he says Lord save me It is a notable both sign and effect of true Faith in sudden extremities to ejaculate holy desires and with the wings of our first thoughts to fly up instantly to the throne of Grace for present succour Upon deliberation it is possible for a man that hath been careless and profane by good means to be drawn to holy dispositions but on the sudden a man will appear as he is what-ever is most rife in the heart will come forth at the mouth It is good to observe how our surprisals find us the rest is but forced this is natural Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh O Saviour no evil can be swifter then my thought my thought shall be upon thee ere I can be seized upon by the speediest mischief at least if I over-run not evils I shall overtake them It was Christ his Lord whom Peter had offended in distrusting it is Christ his Lord to whom he sues for deliverance His weakness doth not discourage him from his refuge O God when we have displeased thee when we have sunk in thy displeasure whither should we fly for aid but to thee whom we have provoked Against thee onely is our sin in thee onely is our help In vain shall all the powers of Heaven and Earth conspire to relieve us if thou withhold from our succour As we offend thy Justice daily by our sins so let us continually rely upon thy Mercy by the strength of our Faith Lord save us The mercy of Christ is at once sought and found Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him He doth not say Hadst thou trusted me I would have safely preserved thee but since thou wilt needs wrong my power and care with a cowardly diffidence sink and drown but rather as pitying the infirmity of his fearfull Disciple he puts out the hand for his relief That hand hath been stretch'd forth for the aid of many a one that hath never ask'd it never any ask'd it to whose succour it hath not been stretched With what speed with what confidence should we fly to that sovereign bounty from which never any suitour was sent away empty Jesus gave Peter his hand but withall he gave him a check O thou of little faith why doubtedst thou As Peter's Faith was not pure but mixed with some distrust so our Saviour's help was not clear and absolute but mixed with some reproof A reproof wherein there was both a censure and an expostulation a censure of his Faith an expostulation for his Doubt both of them sore and heavy By how much more excellent and usefull a grace Faith is by so much more shamefull is the defect of it and by how much more reason here was of confidence by so much more blame-worthy was the Doubt Now Peter had a double reason of his confidence the command of Christ the power of Christ the one in bidding him to come the other in sustaining him whilst he came To misdoubt him whose will he knew whose power he felt was well worth a reprehension When I saw Peter stepping forth upon the waters I could not but wonder at his great Faith yet behold ere he can have measured many paces the Judge of hearts taxes him for little Faith Our mountains are but moats to God Would my heart have served me to dare the doing of this that Peter did Durst I have set my foot where he did O Saviour if thou foundest cause to censure the weakness and poverty of his Faith what mayest thou well say to mine They mistake that think thou wilt take up with any thing Thou lookest for firmitude and vigour in those Graces which thou wilt allow in thy best Disciples no less then truth The first steps were confident there was fear in the next Oh the sudden alteration of our affections of our dispositions One pace varies our spiritual condition What hold is there of so fickle creatures if we be left never so little to our selves As this lower world wherein we are is the region of mutability so are we the living pieces of it subject to a perpetual change It is for the blessed Saints and Angels above to be fixed in good Whilst we are here there can be no constancy expected from us but in variableness As well as our Saviour loves Peter yet he chides him It is the fruit of his favour and mercy that we escape judgment not that we escape reproof Had not Peter found grace with his Master he had been suffered to sink in silence now he is saved with a check There may be more love in frowns then in smiles Whom he loves he chastises What is chiding but a verbal castigation and what is chastisement but a real chiding Correct me O Lord yet in thy judgment not in thy fury O let the righteous God smite me when I offend with his gracious reproofs these shall be a precious oyl that shall not break my head XXIV The Bloudy issue healed THE time was O Saviour when a worthy woman offered to touch thee and was forbidden now a meaner touches thee with approbation and â—ncouragement Yet as there was much difference in that body of thine which was the Object of that touch being now mortal and passible then impassible and immortal so there was in the Agents this a stranger that a familiar this obscure that famous The same actions vary with time and other circumstances and accordingly receive their dislike or
Samaritan Cottage It was thy choice O Saviour to take upon thee the shape not of a Prince but of a Servant How can we either neglect means or despise homeliness when thou the God of all the World wouldst stoop to the suit of so poor a provision We know well in what terms the Samaritans stood with the Jews so much more hostile as they did more symbolize in matter of Religion no Nations were mutually so hatefull to each other A Samaritan's bread was no better then Swines-flesh their very fire and water was not more grudged then infectious The looking towards Jerusalem was here cause enough of repulse No enmity is so desperate as that which arises from matter of Religion Agreement in some points when there are differences in the main doth but advance hatred the more It is not more strange to hear the Son of God sue for a lodging then to hear him repelled Upon so churlish a deniall the two angry Disciples return to their Master on a fiery errand Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them as Elias did The Sons of Thunder would be lightning straight their zeal whether as kinsmen or Disciples could not brook so harsh a refusal As they were naturally more hot then their fellows so now they thought their Piety bade them be impatient Yet they dare not but begin with leave Master wilt thou His will must lead theirs their choler cannot drive their wills before his all their motion is from him onely True Disciples are like those artificiall engines which goe no otherwise then they are set or like little Children that speak nothing but what they are taught O Saviour if we have wills of our own we are not thine Do thou set me as thou wouldst have me goe do thou teach me what thou wouldst have me say or doe A mannerly preface leads in a faulty suit Master wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them Faulty both in presumption and in desire of private revenge I do not hear them say Master will it please thee who art the sole Lord of the Heavens and the Elements to command fire from Heaven upon these men but Wilt thou that we command As if because they had power given them over diseases and unclean spirits therefore Heaven and Earth were in their managing How easily might they be mistaken Their large commission had the just limits Subjects that have munificent grants from their Princes can challenge nothing beyond the words of their Patent And if the fetching down fire from Heaven were less then the dispossessing of Devils since the Devil shall inable the Beast to doe thus much yet how possible is it to doe the greater and stick at the less where both depend upon a delegated power The Magicians of Aegypt could bring forth Frogs and Bloud they could not bring Lice ordinary Corruption can doe that which they could not It is the fashion of our bold Nature upon an inch given to challenge an ell and where we find our selves graced with some abilities to flatter our selves with the faculty of more I grant Faith hath done as great things as ever Presumption undertook but there is great difference in the enterprises of both The one hath a warrant either by instinct or express command the other none at all Indeed had these two Disciples either meant or said Master if it be thy pleasure to command us to call down fire from Heaven we know thy word shall enable us to doe what thou requirest if the words be ours the power shall be thine this had been but holy modest faithfull but if they supposed there needed nothing save a leave onely and that might they be but let loose they could go alone they presumed they offended Yet had they thus overshot themselves in some pious and charitable motion the fault had been the less now the act had in it both cruelty and private revenge Their zeal was not worthy of more praise then their fury of censure That fire should fall down from Heaven upon men is a fearfull thing to think of and that which hath not been often done It was done in the case of Sodome when those five unclean Cities burned with the unnatural fire of hellish Lust it was done two severall times at the suit of Elijah it was done in an height of triall to that great pattern of Patience I find it no more and tremble at these I find But besides the dreadfulness of the judgment it self who can but quake at the thought of the suddenness of this destruction which sweeps away both Body and Soul in a state of unpreparation of unrepentance so as this fire should but begin a worse this Heavenly flame should but kindle that of Hell Thus unconceivably heavy was the revenge but what was the offence We have learned not to think any indignity light that is offered to the Son of God but we know these spiritual affronts are capable of degrees Had these Samaritans reviled Christ and his train had they violently assaulted him had they followed him with stones in their hands and blasphemies in their mouths it had been a just provocation of so horrible a vengeance Now the wrong was onely negative they received him not And that not out of any particular quarrel or dislike of his Person but of his Nation onely the men had been welcome had not their Country distasted All the charge that I hear our Saviour give to his Disciples in case of their rejection is If they receive you not shake off the dust of your feet Yet this was amongst their own and when they went on that sacred errand of publishing the Gospel of Peace These were strangers from the commonwealth of Israel This measure was not to Preachers but to Travellers onely a meer inhospitality to misliked guests Yet no less revenge will serve them then fire from Heaven I dare say for you ye holy sons of Zebedee it was not your spleen but your zeal that was guilty of so bloudy a suggestion your indignation could not but be stirred to see the great Prophet and Saviour of the world so unkindly repelled yet all this will not excuse you from a rash Cruelty from an inordinate Rage Even the best heart may easily be miscarried with a well-meant Zeal No affection is either more necessary or better accepted Love to any Object cannot be severed from hatred of the contrary whence it is that all creatures which have the concupiscible part have also the irascible adjoyned unto it Anger and displeasure is not so much an enemy as a guardian and champion of Love Whoever therefore is rightly affected to his Saviour cannot but find much regret at his wrongs O gracious and divine Zeal the kindly warmth and vital temper of Piety whither hast thou withdrawn thy self from the cold hearts of men Or is this according to the just constitution of the old
injoying them Jerusalem was grown a City of bloud to the persecution of the Prophets to a wilfull despight of what belonged to her peace to a profanation of God's Temple to a mere formality in God's services and yet here were publick works of Charity in the midst of her streets We may not always judge of the truth of Piety by charitable actions Judas disbursed the money for Christ there was no Traitour but he The poor traveller that was robb'd and wounded betwixt Jerusalem and Jericho was passed over first by the Priest then the Levite at last the Samaritan came and relieved him His Religion was naught yet his act was good the Priest's and Levite's Religion good their Uncharity ill Novatus himself was a Martyr yet a Schismatick Faith is the soul and good works are the breath saith S. James but as you see in a pair of bellows there is a forced breath without life so in those that are puffed up with the wind of ostentation there may be charitable works without Faith The Church of Rome unto her four famous Orders of Jacobins Franciscans Augustines and Carmelites hath added a fifth of Jesuites and like another Jerusalem for those five Leprous and lazarly Orders hath built five Porches that if the water of any State be stirred they may put in for a share How many Cells and Convents hath she raised for these miserable Cripples and now she thinks though she exalt her self above all that is called God though she dispense with and against God though she fall down before every block and wafer though she kill Kings and equivocate with Magistrates she is the onely City of God Digna est nam struxit Synagogam She is worthy for she hath built a Synagogue Are we more orthodox and shall not we be as charitable I am ashamed to think of rich Noblemen and Merchants that die and give nothing to our five Porches of Bethesda What shall we say Have they made their Mammon their God in stead of making friends with their Mammon to God Even when they die will they not like Ambrose's good Usurers part with that which they cannot hold that they may get that which they cannot lose Can they begin their will In Dei nomine Amen and give nothing to God Is he onely a Witness and not a Legatee Can we bequeath our Souls to Christ in Heaven and give nothing to his Lims on earth And if they will not give yet will they not lend to God He that gives to the poor foeneratur Deo lends to God Will they put out to any but God and then when in stead of giving security he receives with one hand and pays with another receives our bequest and gives us glory Oh damnable niggardliness of vain men that shames the Gospel and loses Heaven Let me shew you a Bethesda that wants Porches What truer house of effusion then the Church of God which sheds forth waters of comfort yea of life Behold some of the Porches of this Bethesda so far from building that they are pulled down It is a wonder if the demolished stones of God's House have not built some of yours and if some of you have not your rich Suits garded with Souls There were wont to be reckoned three wonders of England Ecclesia Foemina Lana The Churches the Women the Wool Foemina may pass still who may justly challenge wonder for their Vanity if not their Person As for Lana if it be wonderfull alone I am sure it is ill joyned with Ecclesia The Church is fleeced and hath nothing but a bare pelt left upon her back And as for Ecclesia either men have said with the Babylonians Down with it down with it even to the ground or else in respect of the Maintenance with Judas Vt quid perditio haec Why was this waste How many remorsefull souls have sent back with Jacob's sons their money in their Sacks mouths How many great Testators have in their last Will returned the anathematized peculium of Impropriations to the Church chusing rather to impair their heir then to burthen their Souls Dum times nè pro te patrimonium tuum perdas ipse pro patrimonio tuo peris saith Cyprian Whilst thou fearest to lose thy patrimony for thy own good thou perishest with thy patrimony Ye great men spend not all your time in building Castles in the air or houses on the sand but set your hands and purses to the building of the Porches of Bethesda It is a shame for a rich Christian to be like a Christmas-box that receives all and nothing can be got out till it be broken in pieces or like unto a drown'd man's hand that holds whatsoever it gets To doe good and to distribute forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased This was the Place what was the Use of it All sorts of Patients were at the bank of Bethesda where should Cripples be but at the Spittle The sick blind lame withered all that did either morbo laborare or vitio corporis complain either of sickness or impotency were there In natural course one receit heals not all diseases no nor one Agent one is an Oculist another a Bone-setter another a Chirurgeon But all diseases are alike to the supernaturall power of God Hippocrates though the Prince of Physicians yet swears by Aesculapius he will never meddle with cutting of the Stone There is no Disease that Art will not meddle with there are many that it cannot cure The poor Haemorrhoïssa was eighteen years in the Physicians hands and had purged away both her body and her substance Yea some it kills in stead of healing whence one Hebrew word signifies both Physicians and dead men But behold here all Sicknesses cured by one hand and by one water O all ye that are spiritually sick and diseased come to the Pool of Bethesda the Bloud of Christ Do ye complain of the Blindness of your Ignorance here ye shall receive clearness of Sight of the distemper of Passions here Ease of the superfluity of your sinfull Humours here Evacuation of the impotency of your Obedience here Integrity of the dead witheredness of good Affections here Life and Vigour Whatsoever your infirmity be come to the Pool of Bethesda and be healed All these may be cured yet shall be cured at leisure all must wait all must hope in waiting Methinks I see how enviously these Cripples look one upon another each thinking other a lett each watching to prevent other each hoping to be next like emulous Courtiers that gape and vie for the next preferment and think it a pain to hope and a torment to be prevented But Bethesda must be waited on He is worthy of his Crutches that will not stay God's leisure for his Cure There is no virtue no success without patience Waiting is a familiar lesson with Courtiers and here we have all need of it One is sick of an overflowing of the Gall another of a Tumour of
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 rotunditate sublimis saith Hierome and so steep that some of our English travellers that have desired to climbe it 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 Hills 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 hills 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 hills saith the Psalmist And Idolatry in imitation had its 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 freedome of our scope to Heaven or the awfulness or solitary silence of places which as one saith strikes a kind of adoration into us or by our locall removall from this attractive body of the earth howsoever when the body sees it self above the earth the eye of the Mind 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 dispositions we must leave the earth below and abandon all worldly thoughts Venite ascendamus O come let us climbe 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 Vnderstanding shall worship and return saith the same Father wittily alluding to the journey of Abraham for his sacrifice Wherefore then did Christ climbe 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 climbe 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 without them The very heathen Poet could say A Jove principium and which of those verse-mongers ever durst write a ballad without imploring of some Deity which of the heathens durst attempt any great enterprise insalutato numine without invocation and sacrifice Saul himself would play the Priest and offer a burnt-offering to the Lord rather then the Philistins should fight with him unsupplicated as thinking any devotion better then none and thinking it more safe to sacrifice without a Priest then to fight without Prayers Vngirt unblest was the old word as not ready till they were girded so not till they had prayed And how dare we rush into the affairs of God or the State how dare we thrust our selves into actions either perillous or important without ever lifting up our eyes and hearts unto the God of Heaven Except we would say as the devillish malice of Surius slanders that zealous Luther Nec propter Deum haec res coepta est nec propter Deum finietur c. This business was neither begun for God nor shall be ended for him How can God bless us if we implore him not how can we prosper if he bless us not How can we hope ever to be transfigured from a lump of corrupt flesh if we do not ascend and pray As the Samaritan woman said weakly we may seriously The well of mercies is deep if thou hast nothing to draw with never look to tast of the waters of life I fear the worst of men Turks and the worst Turks the Moors shall rise up in Judgement against many Christians with whom it is a just exception against any witness by their Law that he hath not prayed six times in each naturall day Before the day break they pray for day when it is day they give God thanks for day at noon they thank God for half the day past after that they pray for a good Sun-set after that they thank God for the day passed and lastly pray for a good night after their day And we Christians suffer so many Suns and Moons to rise and set upon our heads and never lift up our hearts to their Creatour and ours either to ask his blessing or to acknowledge it Of all men under Heaven none had so much need to pray as Courtiers That which was done but once to Christ is always done to them They are set upon the hill and see the glory of the Kingdoms of earth but I fear it is seen of them as it is with some of the Mariners The more need the less devotion Ye have seen the Place see the Attendents He would not have many because he would not have it yet known to all hence was his intermination and sealing up their mouths with a Nemini dicite Tell no man Not none because he would not have it altogether unknown and afterwards would have it known to all Three were a legall number in ore duorum aut trium in the mouth of two or three witnesses He had
quandoque One the informer once of the people the other the reformer sometimes saith Tertull. in 4. advers Marcionem Alter initiator Veteris Testamenti alter consummator Novi One the first Register of the Old Testament the other the shutter up of the New I verily think with Hilary that these two are pointed at as the forerunners of the second coming of Christ as now they were the foretellers of his departure neither doubt I that these are the Two Witnesses which are alluded to in the Apocalyps howsoever divers of the Fathers have thrust Enoch into the place of Moses Look upon the place Apoc. 11.5 Who but Elias can be he of whom it is said If any man will hurt him fire proceedeth out of his mouth and devoureth his enemies alluding to 2 Kings 1 Who but Elias of whom it is said He hath power to shut the Heaven that it rain not in the days of his prophesying alluding to 1 Kings 18 Who but Moses of whom it is said He hath power to turn the waters into bloud and smite the earth with all manner of plagues alluding to Exod. 7. and 8 But take me aright let me not seem a friend to the Publicans of Rome an abettour of those Alcoran-like Fables of our Popish Doctours who not seeing the wood for trees do haerere in cortice stick in the bark taking all concerning that Antichrist according to the letter Odi arceo So shall Moses and Elias come again in those Witnesses as Elias is already come in John Baptist their Spirits shall be in these Witnesses whose Bodies and Spirits were witnesses both of the present Glory and future Passion of Christ Doubtless many thousand Angels saw this sight and were not seen these two both saw and were seen O how great an Happiness was it for these two great Prophets in their glorified flesh to see their glorified Saviour who before his Incarnation had spoken to them to speak to that Man God of whom they were glorified and to become Prophets not to men but to God And if Moses his face so shone before when he spoke to him without a body in mount Sinai in the midst of the flames and clouds how did it shine now when himself glorified speaks to him a man in Tabor in light and majesty Elias hid his face before with a mantle when he passed by him in the Rock now with open face he beholds him present and in his own glory adores his Let that impudent Marcion who ascribes the Law and Prophets to another God and devises an hostility betwixt Christ and them be ashamed to see Moses and Elias not onely in colloquio but in consortio claritatis not onely in conference but in a partnership of brightness as Tertull. speaks with Christ whom if he had misliked he had his choice of all the Quire of Heaven and now chusing them why were they not in sordibus tenebris in rags and darkness Sic inalienos demonstrat illos dum secum habet sic relinquendos docet quos sibi jungit sic destruit quos de radiis suis exstruit So doth he shew them far from strangeness to him whom he hath with him so doth he teach them to be forsaken whom he joyns with himself so doth he destroy those whom he graces with his beams of glory saith that Father His act verifies his word Think not that I come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfill them Matt. 5.17 Oh what consolation what confirmation was this to the Disciples to see such examples of their future Glory such witnesses and adorers of the eternal Deity of their Master They saw in Moses and Elias what they themselves should be How could they ever fear to be miserable that saw such precedents of their insuing glory how could they fear to die that saw in others the happiness of their own change The rich Glutton pleads with Abraham that if one came to them from the dead they will amend Abraham answers They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them Behold here is both Moses and the Prophets and these too come from the dead how can we now but be persuaded of the happy state of another world unless we will make our selves worse then the damned See and consider that the Saints of God are not lost but departed gone into a far country with their Master to return again richer and better then they went Lest we should think this the condition of Elias onely that was rapt into Heaven see here Moses matched with him that died and was buried And is this the state of these two Saints alone Shall none be seen with him in the Tabor of Heaven but those which have seen him in Horeb and Carmel O thou weak Christian was onely one or two lims of Christ's body glorious in the Transfiguration or the whole He is the Head we are the Members If Moses and Elias were more excellent parts Tongue or Hand let us be but Heels or Toes his body is not perfect in glory without ours When Christ which is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Colos 3.4 How truly may we say to death Rejoyce not mine enemy though I fall yet shall I rise yea I shall rise in falling We shall not all sleep we shall be changed saith S. Paul to his Thessalonians Elias was changed Moses slept both appeared to teach us that neither our sleep nor change can keep us from appearing with him When therefore thou shalt receive the sentence of death on mount Nebo or when the fiery chariot shall come and sweep thee from this vale of mortality remember thy glorious re-apparition with thy Saviour and thou canst not but be comforted and chearfully triumph over that last Enemy outfacing those terrours with the assurance of a blessed Resurrection to Glory To the which c. XXX The Transfiguration of CHRIST The Second Part. IT falls out with this Discourse as with Mount Tabor it self that it is more easily climbed with the eye then with the foot If we may not rather say of it as Josephus did of Sinai that it doth not onely ascensus hominum but aspectus fatigare weary not onely the steps but the very sight of men We had thought not to spend many breaths in the skirts of the hill the Circumstances and it hath cost us one hour's journey already and we were glad to rest us ere we can have left them below us One pause more I hope will overcome them and set us on the top No Circumstance remains undiscussed but this one What Moses and Elias did with Christ in their apparition For they were not as some sleepy attendents like the three Disciples in the beginning to be there and see nothing nor as some silent spectatours mute witnesses to see and say nothing but as if their Glory had no whit changed their profession they are Prophets still
there is happiness as sure as we know there is misery and mutability upon earth Oh our miserable sottishness and infidelity if we do not contemn the best offers of the world and lifting up our eyes and hearts to Heaven say Bonum est esse hîc Even so Lord Jesus come quickly To him that hath purchased and prepared this Glory for us together with the Father and Blessed Spirit one Incomprehensible God be all praise for ever Amen XXXI The Prosecution of the Transfiguration BEfore the Disciples eyes were dazzled with Glory now the brightness of that Glory is shaded with a Cloud Frail and feeble eyes of mortality cannot look upon an Heavenly luster That Cloud imports both Majesty and obscuration Majesty for it was the testimony of God's presence of old the Cloud covered the Mountain the Tabernacle the Oracle He that makes the clouds his chariot was in a cloud carried up into Heaven Where have we mention of any Divine representation but a Cloud is one part of it What comes nearer to Heaven either in place or resemblance Obscuration for as it shew'd there was a Majesty and that Divine so it shew'd them that the view of that Majesty was not for bodily eyes Like as when some great Prince walks under a Canopy that veil shews there is a Great person under it but withall restrains the eye from a free sight of his person And if the cloud were clear yet it shaded them Why then was this cloud interposed betwixt that glorious Vision and them but for a check of their bold eyes Had they too long gazed upon this resplendent spectacle as their eyes had been blinded so their hearts had perhaps grown to an over-bold familiarity with that Heavenly Object How seasonably doth the cloud intercept it The wise God knows our need of these vicissitudes and allays If we have a light we must have a cloud if a light to chear us we must have a cloud to humble us It was so in Sinai it was so in Sion it was so in Olivet it shall never be but so The naturall day and night do not more duely interchange then this light and cloud Above we shall have the light without the cloud a clear vision and fruition of God without all dim and sad interpositions below we cannot be free from these mists and clouds of sorrow and misapprehension But this was a bright cloud There is difference betwixt the cloud in Tabor and that in Sinai This was clear that darksome There is darkness in the Law there is light in the grace of the Gospel Moses was there spoken to in darkness here he was spoken with in light In that dark cloud there was terrour in this there was comfort Though it were a Cloud then yet it was bright and though it were bright yet it was a Cloud With much light there was some shade God would not speak to them concerning Christ out of darkness neither yet would he manifest himself to them in an absolute brightness All his appearances have this mixture What need I other instance then in these two Saints Moses spake oft to God mouth to mouth yet not so immediately but that there was ever somewhat drawn as a curtain betwixt God and him either fire in Horeb or smoak in Sinai so as his face was not more veiled from the people then God's from him Elias shall be spoken to by God but in the rock and under a mantle In vain shall we hope for any revelation from God but in a cloud Worldly hearts are in utter darkness they see not so much as the least glimpse of these Divine beams not a beam of that inaccessible light The best of his Saints see him here but in a cloud or in a glass Happy are we if God have honoured us with these Divine representations of himself Once in his light we shall see light I can easily think with what amazedness these three Disciples stood compassed in that bright Cloud expecting some miraculous event of so Heavenly a Vision when suddenly they might hear a voice sounding out of that Cloud saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him They need not be told whose that voice was the place the matter evinced it No Angel in Heaven could or durst have said so How gladly doth Peter afterwards recount it For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son c. It was onely the ear that was here taught not the eye As of Horeb so of Sinai so of Tabor might God say Ye saw no shape nor image in that day that the Lord spake unto you He that knows our proneness to idolatry avoids those occasions which we might take to abuse our own fancies Twice hath God spoken these words to his own Son from Heaven once in his Baptism and now again in his Transfiguration Here not without some oppositive comparison Not Moses not Elias but This. Moses and Elias were Servants this a Son Moses and Elias were sons but of grace and choice this is that Son the Son by nature Other sons are beloved as of favour and free election this is The Beloved as in the unity of his essence Others are so beloved that he is pleased with themselves this so beloved that in and for him he is pleased with mankind As the relation betwixt the Father and the Son is infinite so is the Love We measure the intension of Love by the extension The love that rests in the person affected alone is but streight true Love descends like Aaron's Ointment from the head to the skirts to children friends allies O incomprehensibly-large love of God the Father to the Son that for his sake he is pleased with the world O perfect and happy complacence Out of Christ there is nothing but enmity betwixt God and the Soul in him there can be nothing but peace When the beams are met in one center they do not onely heat but burn Our weak love is diffused to many God hath some the world more and therein wives children friends but this infinite love of God hath all the beams of it united in one onely Object the Son of his Love Neither doth he love any thing but in the participation of his Love in the derivation from it O God let me be found in Christ and how canst thou but be pleased with me This one voice proclaims Christ at once the Son of God the Reconciler of the world the Doctour and Law-giver of his Church As the Son of God he is essentially interessed in his Love as he is the Reconciler of the world in whom God is well pleased he doth most justly challenge our love and adherence as he is the Doctour and Law-giver he doth justly challenge our audience our obedience Even so Lord teach us to hear and obey thee as our Teacher to love thee and believe in
thee as our Reconciler and as the eternall Son of thy Father to adore thee The light caused wonder in the Disciples but the voice astonishment They are all fallen down upon their faces Who can blame a mortall man to be thus affected with the voice of his Maker Yet this word was but plausible and hortatory O God how shall flesh and bloud be other then swallowed up with the horrour of thy dreadfull sentence of death The Lion shall roar who shall not be afraid How shall those who have slighted the sweet voice of thine invitations call to the rocks to hide them from the terrour of thy Judgments The God of mercies pities our infirmities I do not hear our Saviour say Ye lay sleeping one while upon the earth now ye lie astonished Ye could neither wake to see nor stand to hear now lie still and tremble But he graciously touches and comforts them Arise fear not That voice which shall once raise them up out of the earth might well raise them up from it That hand which by the least touch restored sight lims life might well restore the spirits of the dismaied O Saviour let that sovereign hand of thine touch us when we lie in the trances of our griefs in the bed of our securities in the grave of our sins and we shall arise They looking up saw no man save Jesus alone and that doubtless in his wonted form All was now gone Moses Elias the Cloud the Voice the Glory Tabor it self cannot be long blessed with that Divine light and those shining guests Heaven will not allow to earth any long continuance of Glory Onely above is constant Happiness to be look'd for and injoyed where we shall ever see our Saviour in his unchangeable brightness where the light shall never be either clouded or varied Moses and Elias are gone onely Christ is left The glory of the Law and the Prophets was but temporary yea momentany that onely Christ may remain to us intire and conspicuous They came but to give testimony to Christ when that is done they are vanished Neither could these raised Disciples find any miss of Moses and Elias when they had Christ still with them Had Jesus been gone and left either Moses or Elias or both in the Mount with his Disciples that presence though glorious could not have comforted them Now that they are gone and he is left they cannot be capable of discomfort O Saviour it matters not who is away whilst thou art with us Thou art God all-sufficient what can we want when we want not thee Thy presence shall make Tabor it self an Heaven yea Hell it self cannot make us miserable with the fruition of thee XXXII The Woman taken in Adultery WHat a busie life was this of Christ's He spent the night in the mount of Olives the day in the Temple whereas the night is for a retired repose the day for company His retiredness was for prayer his companiableness was for preaching All night he watches in the Mount all the morning he preaches in the Temple It was not for pleasure that he was here upon earth his whole time was penall and toilsome How do we resemble him if his life were all pain and labour ours all pastime He found no such fair success the day before The multitude was divided in their opinion of him messengers were sent and suborned to apprehend him yet he returns to the Temple It is for the sluggard or the coward to plead a Lion in the way upon the calling of God we must overlook and contemn all the spight and opposition of men Even after an ill harvest we must sow and after denialls we must woe for God This Sun of Righteousness prevents that other and shines early with wholsome doctrines upon the Souls of his hearers The Auditory is both thronged and attentive Yet not all with the same intentions If the people came to learn the Scribes and Pharisees came to cavill and carp at his teaching With what a pretence of zeal and justice yet do they put themselves into Christ's presence As lovers of Chastity and Sanctimony and haters of Uncleanness they bring to him a Woman taken in the flagrance of her Adultery And why the Woman rather since the Man's offence was equall if not more because he should have had more strength of resistence more grace not to tempt Was it out of necessity Perhaps the man knowing his danger made use of his strength to shift away and violently brake from his apprehenders Or was it out of cunning in that they hoped for more likely matter to accuse Christ in the case of the woman then of the man for that they supposed his mercifull disposition might more probably incline to compassionate her weakness rather then the stronger vessell Or was it rather out of partiality Was it not then as now that the weakest soonest suffers and impotency lays us open to the malice of an enemy Small flies hang in the webs whilst wasps break through without controll The wand and the sheet are for poor offenders the great either out-face or out-buy their shame A beggarly drunkard is haled to the Stocks whilst the rich is chambered up to sleep out his surfeit Out of these grounds is the woman brought to Christ Not to the mount of Olives not to the way not to his private lodging but to the Temple and that not to some obscure angle but into the face of the assembly They pleaded for her death the punishment which they would onwards inflict was her shame which must needs be so much more as there were more eyes to be witnesses of her guiltiness All the brood of sin affects darkness and secrecy but this more properly the twilight the night is for the adulterer It cannot be better fitted then to be dragged out into the light of the Sun and to be proclaimed with hootings and basins Oh the impudence of those men who can make merry professions of their own beastliness and boast of the shamefull trophees of their Lust Methinks I see this miserable Adulteress how she stands confounded amidst that gazing and disdainfull multitude how she hides her head how she wipes her blubbered face and weeping eyes In the mean time it is no dumb show that is here acted by these Scribes and Pharisees they step forth boldly to her accusation Master this Woman was taken in adultery in the very act How plausibly do they begin Had I stood by and heard them should I not have said What holy honest conscionable men are these what devout clients of Christ with what reverence they come to him with what zeal of justice When he that made and ransacks their bosom tells me All this is done but to tempt him Even the falsest hearts will have the plausiblest mouths like to Solomon's Curtizan their lips drop as an hony-comb and their mouth is smoother then oyl but their end is bitter as wormwood False and hollow Pharisees he is your Master
either of the presence of God or of the mention of his sins O fools if ye could run away from God it were somewhat but whilst ye move in him what doe ye whither go ye Ye may run from his Mercy ye cannot but run upon his Judgement Christ is left alone Alone in respect of these complainants not alone in respect of the multitude there yet stands the mournfull Adulteress She might have gone forth with them no body constrained her stay but that which sent them away stayed her Conscience She knew her guiltiness was publickly accused and durst not be by herself denied as one that was therefore fastened there by her own guilty heart she stirs not till she may receive a dismission Our Saviour was not so busie in writing but that he read the while the guilt and absence of those accusers he that knew what they had done knew no less what they did what they would doe Yet as if the matter had been strange to him he lifts up himself and says Woman where are thy accusers How well was this sinner to be left there Could she be in a safer place then before the Tribunall of a Saviour Might she have chosen her refuge whither should she rather have fled O happy we if when we are convinced in our selves of our sins we can set our selves before that Judge who is our Surety our Advocate our Redeemer our ransome our peace Doubtless she stood doubtfull betwixt hope and fear Hope in that she saw her accusers gone Fear in that she knew what she had deserved and now whilst she trembles in expectation of a sentence she hears Woman where are thy accusers Wherein our Saviour intends the satisfaction of all the hearers of all the beholders that they might apprehend the guiltiness and therefore the unfitness of the accusers and might well see there was no warrantable ground of his farther proceeding against her Two things are necessary for the execution of a Malefactour Evidence Sentence the one from Witnesses the other from the Judge Our Saviour asks for both The accusation and proof must draw on the sentence the sentence must proceed upon the evidence of the proof Where are thy accusers hath no man condemned thee Had sentence passed legally upon the Adulteress doubtless our Saviour would not have acquitted her For as he would not intrude upon others offices so he would not cross or violate the justice done by others But now finding the coast clear he says Neither do I condemn thee What Lord dost thou then shew favour to foul offenders Art thou rather pleased that gross sins should be blanched and sent away with a gentle connivency Far far be this from the perfection of thy Justice He that hence argues Adulteries not punishable by death let him argue the unlawfulness of dividing of inheritances because in the case of the two wrangling brethren thou saidst Who made me a divider of inheritances Thou declinedst the office thou didst not dislike the act either of parting lands or punishing offenders Neither was here any absolution of the woman from a sentence of death but a dismission of her from thy sentence which thou knewest not proper for thee to pronounce Herein hadst thou respect to thy calling and to the main purpose of thy coming into the world which was neither to be an arbiter of Civil Causes nor a judge of Criminal but a Saviour of mankind not to destroy the Body but to save the Soul And this was thy care in this miserable Offender Goe and sin no more How much more doth it concern us to keep within the bounds of our vocation and not to dare to trench upon the functions of others How can we ever enough magnifie thy Mercy who takest no pleasure in the death of a sinner who so camest to save that thou challengest us of unkindness for being miserable Why will ye die O house of Israel But O Son of God though thou wouldst not then be a Judge yet thou wilt once be Thou wouldst not in thy first coming judge the sins of men thou wilt come to judge them in thy second The time shall come when upon that just and glorious Tribunall thou shalt judge every man according to his works That we may not one day hear thee say Goe ye cursed let us now hear thee say Goe sin no more XXXIII The Thankfull Penitent ONE while I find Christ invited by a Publican now by a Pharisee Where-ever he went he made better chear then he found in an happy exchange of spirituall repast for bodily Who knows not the Pharisees to have been the proud enemies of Christ men over-conceited of themselves contemptuous of others severe in shew Hypocrites in deed strict Sectaries insolent Justiciaries Yet here one of them invites Christ and that in good earnest The man was not like his fellows captious not ceremonious had he been of their stamp the omission of washing the feet had been mortall No profession hath not yielded some good Nicodemus and Gamaliel were of the same strain Neither is it for nothing that the Evangelist having branded this Sect for despising the counsell of God against themselves presently subjoyns this history of Simon the Pharisee as an exempt man O Saviour thou canst find out good Pharisees good Publicans yea a good Thief upon the Cross and that thou maist find thou canst make them so At the best yet he was a Pharisee whose table thou here refusedst not So didst thou in wisedom and mercy attemper thy self as to become all things to all men that thou mightest win some Thy Harbenger was rough as in cloaths so in disposition professedly harsh and austere thy self wert milde and sociable So it was fit for both He was a preacher of Penance thou the authour of comfort and Salvation He made way for Grace thou gavest it Thou hast bidden us to follow thy self not thy Fore-runner That then which Politicks and time-servers doe for earthly advantages we will doe for spirituall frame our selves to all companies not in evil but in good yea in indifferent things What wonder is it that thou who camest down from Heaven to frame thy self to our nature shouldst whilst thou wert on earth frame thy self to the severall dispositions of men Catch not at this O ye licentious Hypocrites men of all hours that can eat with gluttons drink with drunkards sing with ribalds scoffe with profane scorners and yet talk holily with the religious as if ye had hence any colour for your changeable conformity to all fashions Our Saviour never sinn'd for any man's sake though for our sakes he was sociable that he might keep us from sinning Can ye so converse with leud good-fellows as that ye repress their sins redress their exorbitances win them to God now ye walk in the steps of him that stuck not to sit down in the Pharisee's house There sate the Saviour and Behold a woman in the City that was a sinner I marvell not
Devotion neglected not any of those sacred Solemnities will not neglect the due opportunities of his bodily refreshing as not thinking it meet to travell and preach harbourless he diverts where he knew his welcome to the village of Bethany There dwelt the two devout Sisters with their Brother his Friend Lazarus their roof receives him O happy house into which the Son of God vouchsafed to set his foot O blessed women that had the grace to be the Hostesses to the God of Heaven How should I envy your felicity herein if I did not see the same favour if I be not wanting to my self lying open to me I have two ways to entertain my Saviour in his Members and in himself In his Members by Charity and Hospitableness what I doe to one of those his little ones I doe to him In himself by Faith If any man open he will come in and sup with him O Saviour thou standest at the door of our hearts and knockest by the solicitations of thy Messengers by the sense of thy Chastisements by the motions of thy Spirit if we open to thee by a willing admission and faithfull welcome thou wilt be sure to take up our Souls with thy gracious presence and not to sit with us for a momentany meal but to dwell with us for ever Lo thou didst but call in at Bethany but here shall be thy rest for everlasting Martha it seems as being the elder Sister bore the name of the House-keeper Mary was her assistent in the charge A Blessed pair Sisters not more in Nature then Grace in spirit no less then in flesh How happy a thing it is when all the parties in a family are joyntly agreed to entertain Christ No sooner is Jesus entred into the house then he falls to preaching that no time may be lost he stays not so much as till his meat be made ready but whilst his bodily repast was in hand provides spiritual food for his Hosts It was his meat and drink to doe the will of his Father he fed more upon his own diet then he could possibly upon theirs his best chear was to see them spiritually fed How should we whom he hath called to this sacred Function be instant in season and out of season We are by his sacred ordination the Lights of the world No sooner is the candle lighted then it gives that light which it hath and never intermits till it be wasted to the snuff Both the Sisters for a time sate attentively listening to the words of Christ Houshold occasions call Martha away Mary sits still at his feet and hears Whether shall we more praise her Humility or her Docility I do not see her take a stool and sit by him or a chair and sit above him but as desiring to shew her heart was as low as her knees she sits at his feet She was lowly set richly warmed with those Heavenly beams The greater submission the more Grace If there be one hollow in the valley lower then another thither the waters gather Martha's house is become a Divinity-school Jesus as the Doctour sits in the chair Martha Mary and the rest sit as Disciples at his feet Standing implies a readiness for motion Sitting a settled composedness to this holy attendence Had these two Sisters provided our Saviour never such delicates and waited on his trencher never so officiously yet had they not listened to his instruction they had not bidden him welcome neither had he so well liked his entertainment This was the way to feast him to feed their ears by his Heavenly Doctrine His best chear is our proficiency our best chear is his Word O Saviour let my Soul be thus feasted by thee do thou thus feast thy self by feeding me this mutual diet shall be thy praise and my happiness Though Martha was for the time an attentive hearer yet now her care of Christ's entertainment carries her into the Kitchin Mary sits still Neither was Mary more devout then Martha busie Martha cares to feast Jesus Mary to be feasted of him There was more solicitude in Martha's active part more piety in Mary's sedentary attendence I know not in whether more zeal Good Martha was desirous to express her joy and thankfulness for the presence of so blessed a Guest by the actions of her carefull and plentious entertainment I know not how to censure the Holy woman for her excess of care to welcome her Saviour Sure she her self thought she did well and out of that confidence fears not to complain to Christ of her Sister I do not see her come to her Sister and whisper in her ear the great need of her aid but she comes to Jesus and in a kind of unkind expostulation of her neglect makes her moan to him Lord dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone Why did she not rather make her first address to her Sister Was it for that she knew Mary was so tied by the ears with those adamantine chains that came from the mouth of Christ that untill his silence and dismission she had no power to stir Or was it out of an honour and respect to Christ that in his presence she would not presume to call off her Sister without his leave Howsoever I cannot excuse the Holy woman from some weaknesses It was a fault to measure her Sister by her self and apprehending her own act to be good to think her Sister could not doe well if she did not so too Whereas Goodness hath much latitude Ill is opposed to Good not Good to Good Neither in things lawfull or indifferent are others bound to our examples Mary might hear Martha might serve and both doe well Mary did not censure Martha for her rising from the feet of Christ to prepare his meal neither should Martha have censured Mary for sitting at Christ's feet to feed her Soul It was a fault that she thought an excessive care of a liberal outward entertainment of Christ was to be preferred to a diligent attention to Christ's spirituall entertainment of them It was a fault that she durst presume to question our Saviour of some kind of unrespect to her toil Lord dost thou not care What saiest thou Martha Dost thou challenge the Lord of Heaven and earth of incogitancy and neglect Dost thou take upon thee to prescribe unto that infinite Wisedom in stead of receiving directions from him It is well thou mettest with a Saviour whose gracious mildness knows how to pardon and pity the errours of our zeal Yet I must needs say here wanted not fair pretences for the ground of this thy expostulation Thou the elder Sister workest Mary the younger sits still And what work was thine but the hospitall receit of thy Saviour and his train Had it been for thine own paunch or for some carnal friends it had been less excusable now it was for Christ himself to whom thou couldst never be too obsequious But all this cannot deliver thee
Martha might have sate still as well as she She might have stirr'd about as well as Martha Mary's will made this choice not without the inclination of him who both gave this will and commends it That will was before renewed no marvel if it chose the good though this were not in a case of good and evil but of good and better We have still this holy freedome through the inoperation of him that hath freed us Happy are we if we can improve this liberty to the best advantage of our Souls The stability or perpetuity of good addes much to the praise of it Martha's part was soon gone the thank and use of a little outward Hospitality cannot long last but Mary's shall not be taken away from her The act of her hearing was transient the fruit permanent she now hears that which shall stick by her for ever What couldst thou hear O Holy Mary from those Sacred lips which we hear not still That Heavenly Doctrine is never but the same not more subject to change then the Authour of it It is not impossible that the exercise of the Gospel should be taken from us but the benefit and virtue of it is as inseparable from our Souls as their Being In the hardest times that shall stick closest to us and till death in death after death shall make us happy XXXV The Beggar that was born blind cured THE man was born blind This Cure requires not Art but Power a Power no less then infinite and Divine Nature presupposeth a matter though formless Art looks for matter formed to our hands God stands not upon either Where there was not an Eye to be healed what could an Oculist doe It is onely a God that can create Such are we O God to all spiritual things we want not sight but eyes it must be thou onely that canst make us capable of illumination The blind man sate begging Those that have eyes and hands and feet of their own may be able to help themselves those that want these helps must be beholden to the eyes hands feet of others The impotent are cast upon our mercy Happy are we if we can lend lims and senses to the needy Affected beggary is odious that which is of God's making justly challengeth relief Where should this blind man sit begging but near the Temple At one gate sits a Cripple a Blind man at another Well might these miserable Souls suppose that Piety and Charity dwelt close together the two Tables were both of one quarry Then are we best disposed to mercy towards our brethren when we have either craved or acknowledged God's mercy towards our selves If we go thither to beg of God how can we deny mites when we hope for talents Never did Jesus move one foot but to purpose He passed by but so as that his Virtue stayed so did he pass by that his eye was fixed The blind man could not see him he sees the blind man His goodness prevents us and yields better supplies to our wants He saw compassionately not shutting his eyes not turning them aside but bending them upon that dark and disconsolate Object That which was said of the Sun is much more true of him that made it Nothing is hid from his light but of all other things Miseries especially of his own are most intentively eyed of him Could we be miserable unseen we had reason to be heartless O Saviour why should we not imitate thee in this mercifull improvement of our Senses Wo be to those eyes that care onely to gaze upon their own beauty bravery wealth not abiding to glance upon the sores of Lazarus the sorrows of Joseph the dungeon of Jeremy the blind Beggar at the gate of the Temple The Disciples see the blind man too but with different eyes our Saviour for pity and cure they for expostulation Master who did sin this man or his Parents that he is born blind I like well that whatsoever doubt troubled them they straight vent it into the ear of their Master O Saviour whilst thou art in Heaven thy school is upon earth Wherefore serve thy Priests lips but to preserve knowledge What use is there of the tongue of the learned but to speak a word in season Thou teachest us still and still we doubt and ask and learn In one short question I find two Truths and two Falshoods the Truths implied the Falshoods expressed It is true that commonly man's suffering is for sin that we may justly and do often suffer even for the sins of our Parents It is false that there is no other reason of our suffering but sin that a man could sin actually before he was or was before his being or could before-hand suffer for his after-sins In all likelihood that absurd conceit of the Transmigration of Souls possessed the very Disciples How easily and how far may the best be miscarried with a common errour We are not thankfull for our own illumination if we do not look with charity and pity upon the gross mis-opinions of our brethren Our Saviour sees and yet will wink at so foul a misprision of his Disciples I hear neither chiding nor conviction He that could have inlightned their minds as he did the world at once will doe it by due leisure and onely contents himself here with a mild solution Neither this man nor his Parents We learn nothing of thee O Saviour if not meekness What a sweet temper should be in our carriage towards the weaknesses of others judgments how should we instruct them without bitterness and without violence of Passion expect the meet seasons of their better information The tender Mother or Nurse doth not rate her little one for that he goes not well but gives him her hand that he may goe better It is the spirit of lenity that must restore and confirm the lapsed The answer is direct and punctuall neither the sin of the man nor of his Parents bereaved him of his eyes there was an higher cause of this privation the glory that God meant to win unto himself by redressing it The Parents had sinned in themselves the man had sinned in his first Parents it is not the guilt of either that is guilty of this blindness All God's afflictive acts are not punishments some are for the benefit of the creature whether for probation or prevention or reformation all are for the praise whether of his Divine Power or Justice or Mercy It was fit so great a work should be usher'd in with a preface A sudden and abrupt appearance would not have beseemed so glorious a demonstration of Omnipotence The way is made our Saviour addresses himself to the Miracle a Miracle not more in the thing done then in the form of doing it The matter used was Clay Could there be a meaner could there be ought more unfit O Saviour how oft hadst thou cured blindnesses by thy word alone how oft by thy touch How easily couldst thou have done so here Was
unthankfull silence to smother the works of God in an affected secrecy To make God a loser by his bounty to us were a shamefull injustice We our selves abide not those sponges that suck up good turns unknown O God we are not worthy of our spiritual eye-sight if we do not publish thy mercies on the house top and praise thee in the great congregation Man is naturally inquisitive we search studiously into the secret works of Nature we pry into the reasons of the witty inventions of Art but if there be any thing that transcends Art and Nature the more high and abstruse it is the more busie we are to seek into it This thirst after hidden yea forbidden Knowledge did once cost us dear but where it is good and lawfull to know inquiry is commendable as here in these Jews How were thine eyes opened The first improvement of humane Reason is inquisition the next is information and resolution and if the meanest events pass us not without a question how much less those that carry in them wonder and advantage He that was so ready to profess himself the subject of the Cure is no niggard of proclaiming the Authour of it A man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and sent me to Siloam to wash and now I see The blind man knew no more then he said and he said what he apprehended A man He heard Jesus speak he felt his hand as yet he could look no farther upon his next meeting he saw God in this man In matter of Knowledge we must be content to creep ere we can goe As that other recovered blind man saw first men walk like trees after like men so no marvell if this man saw first this God onely as man after this man as God also Onwards he thinks him a wonderfull man a mighty Prophet In vain shall we either expect a sudden perfection in the understanding of Divine matters or censure those that want it How did this man know what Jesus did He was then stone-blind what distinction could he yet make of persons of actions True but yet the blind man never wanted the assistence of others eyes their relation hath assur'd him of the manner of his Cure besides the contribution of his other Senses his Ear might perceive the spittle to fall and hear the injoyned command his Feeling perceived the cold and moist clay upon his lips All these conjoyned gave sufficient warrant thus to believe thus to report Our ear is our best guide to a full apprehension of the works of Christ The works of God the Father his Creation and Government are best known by the Eye The works of God the Son his Redemption and Mediation are best known by the Ear. O Saviour we cannot personally see what thou hast done here What are the monuments of thine Apostles and Evangelists but the relations of the blind man's guide what and how thou hast wrought for us On these we strongly rely these we do no less confidently believe then if our very eyes had been witnesses of what thou didst and sufferedst upon earth There were no place for Faith if the Ear were not worthy of as much credit as the Eye How could the neighbours doe less then ask where he was that had done so strange a Cure I doubt yet with what mind I fear not out of favour Had they been but indifferent they could not but have been full of silent wonder and inclined to believe in so Omnipotent an Agent Now as prejudiced to Christ and partiall to the Pharisees they bring the late-blind man before those professed enemies unto Christ It is the preposterous Religion of the Vulgar sort to claw and adore those which have tyrannically usurped upon their Souls though with neglect yea with contempt of God in his word in his works Even unjust authority will never want soothing up in whatsoever courses though with disgrace and opposition to the Truth Base minds where they find possession never look after right Our Saviour had pick'd out the Sabbath for this Cure It is hard to find out any time wherein Charity is unseasonable As Mercy is an excellent Grace so the works of it are fittest for the best day We are all born blind the Font is our Siloam no day can come amiss but yet God's day is the properest for our washing and recovery This alone is quarrell enough to these scrupulous wranglers that an act of Mercy was done on that day wherein their envy was but seasonable I do not see the man beg any more when he once had his eyes no Burger in Jerusalem was richer then he I hear him stoutly defending that gracious authour of his Cure against the cavills of the malicious Pharisees I see him as a resolute Confessour suffering Excommunication for the name of Christ and maintaining the innocence and honour of so Blessed a Benefactour I hear him reade a Divinity-Lecture to them that sate in Moses his chair and convincing them of blindness who punish'd him for seeing How can I but envy thee O happy man who of a Patient provest an Advocate for thy Saviour whose gain of bodily sight made way for thy Spirituall eyes who hast lost a Synagogue and hast found Heaven who being abandoned of Sinners art received of the Lord of Glory XXXVI The stubborn Devil ejected HOW different how contrary are our conditions here upon earth Whilst our Saviour is transfigured on the Mount his Disciples are perplexed in the valley Three of his choice Followers were with him above ravished with the miraculous proofs of his Godhead nine other were troubled with the business of a stubborn Devil below Much people was met to attend Christ and there they will stay till he come down from Tabor Their zeal and devotion brought them thither their patient perseverance held them there We are not worthy the name of his clients if we cannot painfully seek him and submissly wait his leisure He that was now awhile retired into the Mount to confer with his Father and to receive the attendence of Moses and Elias returns into the valley to the multitude He was singled out awhile for prayer and contemplation now he was joyned with the multitude for their miraculous cure and Heavenly instruction We that are his spirituall agents must be either preparing in the mount or exercising in the valley one while in the mount of Meditation in the valley of Action another alone to study in the assembly to preach here is much variety but all is work Moses when he came down from the hill heard Musick in the valley Christ when he came down from the hill heard discord The Scribes it seems were setting hard upon the Disciples they saw Christ absent nine of his train left in the valley those they fly upon As the Devil so his Imps watch close for all advantages No subtle enemy but will be sure to attempt that part where is likelihood of least defence most
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 sorrowfull because upon Christ's absence Lazarus died Why was Jesus glad he was not there for the benefit which he saw would accrue to their Faith There is much variety of prospect in every act according to the severall intentions and issues thereof yea even in the very same eyes The father sees his son combating in a Duell 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 doeth God in all our Afflictions he sees our tears 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 lie in pain and extremity we cannot but droop under it but do we find our selves increased in true Mortification in Patience in Hope in a constant reliance 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 that arises up from its corruption O 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 farther 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 buriall 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 mysticall body whereof thou art the Head Heaven and earth yield 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 and call us up out of our dust and we shall hear thy voice and live XLI Lazarus Raised GReat was the opinion that these devout Sisters had of the Power of Christ as if Death durst not shew her face to him they suppose his presence had prevented their Brother's dissolution And now the news of his approach begins to quicken some late hopes in them Martha was ever the more active She that was before so busily stirring in her house to entertain Jesus was now as nimble to goe forth of her house to meet him She in whose face joy had wont to smile upon so Blessed a Guest now salutes him with the sighs and tears and blubbers and wrings of a disconsolate mourner I know not whether the speeches of her greeting had in them more sorrow or Religion She had been well catechized before even she also had sate at Jesus his feet and can now give good account of her Faith in the Power and Godhead of Christ in the certainty of a future Resurrection This Conference hath yet taught her more and raised her heart to an expectation of some wonderfull effect And now she stands not still but hasts back into the Village to her Sister carried thither by the two wings of her own hopes and her Saviour's commands The time was when she would have called off her Sister from the feet of that Divine Master to attend the houshold occasions now she runs to fetch her out of the house to the feet of Christ Doubtless Martha was much affected with the presence of Christ and as she was over-joyed with it her self so she knew how equally welcome it would be to her Sister yet she doth not ring it out aloud in the open Hall but secretly whispers this pleasing tidings in her Sister's ear The Master is come and calleth for thee Whether out of modesty or discretion It is not fit for a woman to be loud and clamorous nothing beseems that Sex better then silence and bashfulness as not to be too much seen so not to be heard too far Neither did Modesty more charm her tongue then Discretion whether in respect to the guests or to Christ himself Had those guests heard of Christ's being there they had either out of fear or prejudice withdrawn themselves from him neither durst they have been witnesses of that wonderfull Miracle as being over-awed with that Jewish edict which was out against him or perhaps they had withheld the Sisters from going to him against whom they knew how highly their Governours were incensed Neither was she ignorant of the danger of his own person so lately before assaulted violently by his enemies at Jerusalem She knew they were within the smoak of that bloudy City the nest of his enemies she holds it not therefore fit to make open proclamation of Christ's presence but rounds her Sister secretly in the ear Christianity doth not bid us abate any thing of our wariness and honest policies yea it requires us to have no less of the
stick at this shovel-full Yea how easy had it been for thee to have brought up the body of Lazarus through the stone by causing that marble to give way by a sudden rarefaction But thou thoughtest best to make use of their hands rather whether for their own more full conviction for had the stone been taken away by thy Followers and Lazarus thereupon walked forth this might have appeared to thy malignant enemies to have been a set match betwixt thee the Disciples and Lazarus or whether for the exercise of our Faith that thou mightest teach us to trust thee under contrary appearances Thy command to remove the stone seemed to argue an impotence straight that seeming weakness breaks forth into an act of Omnipotent power The homeliest shews of thine humane infirmity are ever seconded with some mighty proofs of thy Godhead and thy Miracle is so much more wondred at by how much it was less expected It was ever thy just will that we should doe what we may To remove the stone or to untie the napkin was in their power this they must doe to raise the dead was out of their power this therefore thou wilt doe alone Our hands must doe their utmost ere thou wilt put to thine O Saviour we are all dead and buried in the grave of our sinfull Nature The stone of obstination must be taken away from our hearts ere we can hear thy reviving voice we can no more remove this stone then dead Lazarus could remove his we can adde more weight to our graves O let thy faithfull agents by the power of thy Law and the grace of thy Gospell take off the stone that thy voice may enter into the grave of miserable corruption Was it a modest kind of mannerliness in Martha that she would not have Christ annoyed with the ill sent of that stale carkass or was it out of distrust of reparation since her brother had passed all the degrees of corruption that she says Lord by this time he stinketh for he hath been dead four days He that understood hearts found somewhat amiss in that intimation his answer had not endeavoured to rectifie that which was utterly faultless I fear the good woman meant to object this as a likely obstacle to any farther purposes or proceedings of Christ Weak faith is still apt to lay blocks of difficulties in the way of the great works of God Four days were enough to make any corps noisome Death it self is not unsavoury immediately upon dissolution the body retains the wonted sweetness it is the continuance under death that is thus offensive Neither is it otherwise in our Spiritual condition the longer we lie under our sin the more rotten and corrupt we are He who upon the fresh commission of his sin recovers himself by a speedy repentance yields no ill sent to the nostrills of the Almighty The Candle that is presently blown in again offends not it is the Snuffe which continues choaked with its own moisture that sends up unwholsome and odious fumes O Saviour thou wouldst yield to death thou wouldst not yield to corruption Ere the fourth day thou wert risen again I cannot but receive many deadly foils but oh do thou raise me up again ere I shall pass the degrees of rottenness in my sins and trespasses They that laid their hands to the stone doubtless held now still awhile and looked one while on Christ another while upon Martha to hear what issue of resolution would follow upon so important an objection when they find a light touch of taxation to Martha Said not I to thee that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the glory of God That holy woman had before professed her belief as Christ had professed his great intentions both were now forgotten and now our Saviour is fain to revive both her memory and Faith Said not I to thee The best of all Saints are subject to fits of unbelief and oblivion the onely remedy whereof must be the inculcation of God's mercifull promises of their relief and supportation O God if thou have said it I dare believe I dare cast my Soul upon the belief of every word of thine Faithfull art thou which hast promised who wilt also doe it In spite of all the unjust discouragements of Nature we must obey Christ's command What-ever Martha suggests they remove the stone and may now see and smell him dead whom they shall soon see revived The sent of the corps is not so unpleasing to them as the perfume of their obedience is sweet to Christ And now when all impediments are removed and all hearts ready for the work our Saviour addresses to the Miracle His Eyes begin they are lift up to Heaven It was the malicious mis-suggestion of his enemies that he look'd down to Beelzebub the beholders shall now see whence he expects and derives his power and shall by him learn whence to expect and hope for all success The heart and the eye must go together he that would have ought to doe with God must be sequestred and lifted up from earth His Tongue seconds his Eye Father Nothing more stuck in the stomack of the Jews then that Christ called himself the Son of God this was imputed to him for a Blasphemy worthy of stones How seasonably is this word spoken in the hearing of these Jews in whose sight he will be presently approved so How can ye now O ye cavillers except at that title which ye shall see irrefragably justified Well may he call God Father that can raise the dead out of the grave In vain shall ye snarl at the style when ye are convinced of the effect I hear of no Prayer but a Thanks for hearing Whilst thou saidst nothing O Saviour how doth thy Father hear thee Was it not with thy Father and thee as it was with thee and Moses Thou saidst Let me alone Moses when he spake not Thy will was thy prayer Words express our hearts to men thoughts to God Well didst thou know out of the self-sameness of thy will with thy Father's that if thou didst but think in thine heart that Lazarus should rise he was now raised It was not for thee to pray vocally and audibly lest those captious hearers should say thou didst all by intreaty nothing by power Thy thanks overtake thy desires ours require time and distance our thanks arise from the Echo of our prayers resounding from Heaven to our hearts Thou because thou art at once in earth and Heaven and knowest the grant to be of equall paces with the request most justly thankest in praying Now ye cavilling Jews are thinking straight Is there such distance betwixt the Father and the Son is it so rare a thing for the Son to be heard that he pours out his thanks for it as a blessing unusuall Do ye not now see that he who made your heart knows it and anticipates your fond thoughts with the same breath I knew that thou hearest me always but
I said this for their sakes that they might believe Mercifull Saviour how can we enough admire thy goodness who makest our belief the scope and drift of thy doctrine and actions Alas what wert thou the better if they believed thee sent from God what wert thou the worse if they believed it not Thy perfection and glory stands not upon the slippery terms of our approbation or dislike but is reall in thy self and that infinite without possibility of our increase or diminution We we onely are they that have either the gain or loss in thy receit or rejection yet so dost thou affect our belief as if it were more thine advantage then ours O Saviour whilst thou spak'st to thy Father thou liftedst up thine eyes now thou wert to speak unto dead Lazarus thou liftedst up thy voice and criedst aloud Lazarus come forth Was it that the strength of the voice might answer to the strength of the affection since we faintly require what we care not to obtain and vehemently utter what we earnestly desire Was it that the greatness of the voice might answer to the greatness of the work Was it that the hearers might be witnesses of what words were used in so miraculous an act no magicall incantations but authoritative and Divine commands Was it to signifie that Lazarus his Soul was called from far the speech must be loud that shall be heard in another world Was it in relation to the estate of the body of Lazarus whom thou hadst reported to sleep since those that are in a deep and dead sleep cannot be awaked without a loud call Or was it in a representation of that loud voice of the last Trumpet which shall sound into all graves and raise all flesh from their dust Even so still Lord when thou wouldst raise a Soul from the death of sin and grave of corruption no easie voice will serve Thy strongest commands thy loudest denunciations of Judgments the shrillest and sweetest promulgations of thy Mercies are but enough How familiar a word is this Lazarus come forth no other then he was wont to use whilst they lived together Neither doth he say Lazarus revive but as if he supposed him already living Lazarus come forth To let them know that those who are dead to us are to and with him alive yea in a more entire and feeling society then whilst they carried their clay about them Why do I fear that separation which shall more unite me to my Saviour Neither was the word more familiar then commanding Lazarus come forth Here is no suit to his Father no adjuration to the deceased but a flat and absolute injunction Come forth O Saviour that is the voice that I shall once hear sounding into the bottom of my grave and raising me up out of my dust that is the voice that shall pierce the rocks and divide the mountains and fetch up the dead out of the lowest deeps Thy word made all thy word shall repair all Hence all ye diffident fears he whom I trust is Omnipotent It was the Jewish fashion to enwrap the corps in linen to tie the hands and feet and to cover the face of the dead The Fall of man besides weakness brought shame upon him ever since even whilst he lives the whole Body is covered but the Face because some sparks of that extinct Majesty remain there is wont to be left open In death all those poor remainders being gone and leaving deformity and gastliness in the room of them the Face is covered also There lies Lazarus bound in double fetters One Almighty word hath loosed both and now he that was bound came forth He whose power could not be hindred by the chains of death cannot be hindred by linen bonds He that gave life gave motion gave direction He that guided the Soul of Lazarus into the body guided the body of Lazarus without his eyes moved the feet without the full liberty of his regular paces No doubt the same power slackned those swathing-bands of death that the feet might have some little scope to move though not with that freedome that followed after Thou didst not onely O Saviour raise the body of Lazarus but the Faith of the beholders They cannot deny him dead whom they saw rising they see the signs of death with the proofs of life Those very swathes convinced him to be the man that was raised Thy less Miracle confirms the greater both confirm the Faith of the beholders O clear and irrefragable example of our resuscitation Say now ye shameless Sadducees with what face can ye deny the Resurrection of the body when ye see Lazarus after four-days death rising up out of his grave And if Lazarus did thus start up at the bleating of this Lamb of God that was now every day preparing for the slaughter-house how shall the dead be rouzed up out of their graves by the roaring of that glorious and immortall Lion whose voice shall shake the powers of Heaven and move the very foundations of the earth With what strange amazedness do we think that Martha and Mary the Jews and the Disciples look'd to see Lazarus come forth in his winding-sheet shackled with his linen fetters and walk towards them Doubtless fear and horrour strove in them whether should be for the time more predominant We love our friends dearly but to see them again after their known death and that in the very robes of the grave must needs set up the hair in a kind of uncouth rigour And now though it had been most easy for him that brake the adamantine fetters of death to have broke in pieces those linen ligaments wherewith his raised Lazarus was encumbred yet he will not doe it but by their hands He that said Remove the stone said Loose Lazarus He will not have us expect his immediate help in that we can doe for our selves It is both a laziness and a presumptuous tempting of God to look for an extraordinary and supernaturall help from God where he hath enabled us with common aid What strange salutations do we think there were betwixt Lazarus and Christ that had raised him betwixt Lazarus and his Sisters and neighbours and friends what amazed looks what unusuall complements For Lazarus was himself at once here was no leisure of degrees to reduce him to his wonted perfection neither did he stay to rub his eyes and stretch his benummed lims nor take time to put off that dead sleep wherewith he had been seized but instantly he is both alive and fresh and vigorous if they do but let him goe he walks so as if he had ailed nothing and receives and gives mutuall gratulations I leave them entertaining each other with glad embraces with discourses of reciprocall admiration with praises and adorations of that God and Saviour that had fetched him into life XLII CHRIST's Procession to the Temple NEver did our Saviour take so much state upon him as now that he was going towards his
didst we have reason to be patient thou enduredst what we do we have reason to be thankfull But what shall we say to this thine early hunger The morning as it is privileged from excess so from need the stomack is not wont to rise with the body Surely as thine occasions were no season was exempted from thy want thou hadst spent the day before in the holy labour of thy Reformation after a supperless departure thou spentest the night in Prayer no meal refreshed thy toil What do we think much to forbear a morsell or to break a sleep for thee who didst thus neglect thy self for us As if meat were no part of thy care as if any thing would serve to stop the mouth of hunger thy breakfast is expected from the next Tree A Fig-tree grew by the way side full grown well spred thick leaved and such as might promise enough to a remote eye thither thou camest to seek that which thou foundest not and not finding what thou soughtest as displeased with thy disappointment cursedst that plant which deluded thy hopes Thy breath instantly blasted that deceitfull tree it did no otherwise then the whole world must needs doe wither and die with thy Curse O Saviour I had rather wonder at thine actions then discuss them If I should say that as man thou either knewest not or consideredst not of this fruitlesness it could no way prejudice thy Divine Omniscience this infirmity were no worse then thy weariness or hunger It was no more disparagement to thee to grow in Knowledge then in Stature neither was it any more disgrace to thy perfect Humanity that thou as man knewest not all things at once then that thou wert not in thy childhood at thy full growth But herein I doubt not to say it is more likely thou camest purposely to this Tree knowing the barrenness of it answerable to the season and fore-resolving the event that thou mightest hence ground the occasion of so instructive a Miracle like as thou knewest Lazarus was dying was dead yet wouldst not seem to take notice of his dissolution that thou mightest the more glorifie thy Power in his resuscitation It was thy willing and determined disappointment for a greater purpose But why didst thou curse a poor Tree for the want of that fruit which the season yielded not If it pleased thee to call for that which it could not give the Plant was innocent and if innocent why cursed O Saviour it is fitter for us to adore then to examine We may be sawcy in inquiring after thee and fond in answering for thee If that season were not for a ripe fruit yet for some fruit it was Who knows not the nature of the Fig-tree to be always bearing That plant if not altogether barren yields a continuall succession of increase whilst one fig iâ— ripe another is green the same bough can content both our tast and our hope This tree was defective in both yielding nothing but an empty shade to the mis-hoping traveller Besides that I have learn'd that thou O Saviour wert wont not to speak onely but to work Parables And what was this other then a reall Parable of thine All this while hadst thou been in the world thou hadst given many proofs of thy Mercy the earth was full of thy Goodness none of thy Judgments now immediately before thy Passion thou thoughtest fit to give this double demonstration of thy just austerity How else should the world have seen thou canst be severe as well as meek and mercifull And why mightest not thou who madest all things take liberty to destroy a plant for thine own Glory Wherefore serve thy best creatures but for the praise of thy Mercy and Justice What great matter was it if thou who once saidst Let the earth bring forth the herb yielding seed and the tree yielding the fruit of its own kind shalt now say Let this fruitless tree wither All this yet was done in figure In this act of thine I see both an Embleme and a Prophecy How didst thou herein mean to teach thy Disciples how much thou hatest an unfruitfull profession and what judgments thou meantest to bring upon that barren generation Once before hadst thou compared the Jewish Nation to a Fig-tree in the midst of thy vineyard which after three years expectation and culture yielding no fruit was by thee the Owner doomed to a speedy excision now thou actest what thou then saidst No tree abounds more with leaf and shade no Nation abounded more with Ceremoniall observations and semblances of Piety Outward profession where there is want of inward truth and reall practice doth but help to draw on and aggravate judgment Had this Fig-tree been utterly bare and leafless it had perhaps escaped the Curse Hear this ye vain Hypocrites that care onely to shew well never caring for the sincere truth of a conscionable Obedience your fair outside shall be sure to help you to a Curse That which was the fault of this Tree is the punishment of it fruitlesness Let no fruit grow on thee hence-forward for ever Had the boughs been appointed to be torn down and the body split in pieces the doom had been more easie that juicy plant might yet have recovered and have lived to recompense this deficiency now it shall be what it was fruitless Woe be to that Church or Soul that is punished with her own Sin Outward plagues are but favours in comparison of Spirituall judgments That Curse might well have stood with a long continuance the Tree might have lived long though fruitless but no sooner is the word passed then the leaves flag and turn yellow the branches wrinkle and shrink the bark discolours the root dries the plant withers O God what creature is able to abide the blasting of the breath of thy displeasure Even the most great and glorious Angels of Heaven could not stand one moment before thine anger but perish'd under thy wrath everlastingly How irresistible is thy Power how dreadfull are thy Judgements Lord chastise my fruitlesness but punish it not at least punish it but curse it not lest I wither and be consumed XLIV CHRIST Betrayed SUch an eye-sore was Christ that raised Lazarus and Lazarus whom Christ raised to the envious Priests Scribes Elders of the Jews that they consult to murther both Whilst either of them lives neither can the glory of that Miracle die nor the shame of the oppugners Those malicious heads are laid together in the Parlour of Caiaphas Happy had it been for them if they had spent but half those thoughts upon their own Salvation which they misimployed upon the destruction of the innocent At last this results that Force is not their way Subtlety and Treachery must doe that which should be vainly attempted by Power Who is so fit to work this feat against Christ as one of his own There can be no Treason where is not some Trust Who so fit among the domesticks as he that bare
Blessed Mother that a sword should pierce through her Soul but alas how many swords at once pierce thine Every one of these words is both sharp and edged My Soul is exceeding sorrowfull even unto death What humane Soul is capable of the conceit of the least of those sorrows that oppressed thine It was not thy Body that suffered now the pain of body is but as the body of pain the anguish of the Soul is as the soul of anguish That and in that thou sufferedst Where are they that dare so far disparage thy Sorrow as to say thy Soul suffered onely in sympathy with thy Body not immediately but by participation not in its self but in its partner Thou best knewest what thou feltest and thou that feltest thine own pain canst cry out of thy Soul Neither didst thou say My Soul is troubled so it often was even to tears but My Soul is sorrowfull as if it had been before assaulted now possessed with grief Nor yet this in any tolerable moderation changes of Passion are incident to every humane Soul but Exceeding sorrowfull Yet there are degrees in the very extremities of evils those that are most vehement may yet be capable of a remedy at least a relaxations thine was past these hopes Exceeding sorrowfull unto death What was it what could it be O Saviour that lay thus heavy upon thy Divine Soul Was it the fear of Death was it the fore-felt pain shame torment of thine ensuing Crucifixion Oh poor and base thoughts of the narrow hearts of cowardly and impotent mortality How many thousands of thy blessed Martyrs have welcomed no less tortures with smiles and gratulations and have made a sport of those exquisite cruelties which their very Tyrants thought unsufferable Whence had they this strength but from thee If their weakness were thus undaunted and prevalent what was thy power No no It was the sad weight of the Sin of mankind it was the heavy burthen of thy Father's wrath for our sin that thus pressed thy Soul and wrung from thee these bitter expressions What can it avail thee O Saviour to tell thy grief to men who can ease thee but he of whom thou saidst My Father is greater then I Lo to him thou turnest O Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me Was not this that prayer O dear Christ which in the days of thy flesh thou offeredst up with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save thee from death Surely this was it Never was cry so strong never was God thus solicited How could Heaven chuse but shake at such a Prayer from the Power that made it How can my heart but tremble to hear this suit from the Captain of our Salvation O thou that saidst I and my Father are one dost thou suffer ought from thy Father but what thou wouldst what thou determinedst was this Cup of thine either casuall or forced wouldst thou wish for what thou knewest thou wouldst not have possible Far far be these mis-raised thoughts of our ignorance and frailty Thou camest to suffer and thou wouldst doe what thou camest for yet since thou wouldst be a man thou wouldst take all of man save sin it is but humane and not sinfull to be loth to suffer what we may avoid In this velleity of thine thou wouldst shew what that Nature of ours which thou hadst assumed could incline to wish but in thy resolution thou wouldst shew us what thy victorious thoughts raised and assisted by thy Divine power had determinately pitched upon Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt As man thou hadst a Will of thine own no humane Soul can be perfect without that main faculty That will which naturally could be content to incline towards an exemption from miseries gladly vails to that Divine will whereby thou art designed to the chastisements of our peace Those pains which in themselves were grievous thou embracest as decreed so as thy fear hath given 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 Whilst thy Mind 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 Attendents 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 bloud falling down to the ground O my Saviour what an agony am I in whilst 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 worshipp'd 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 mankind had deserved from the just hand of thy Godhead I marvell not if thou bleedest a sweat if thou sweatest bloud 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 bloud of thine to be let forth for us that it was ready to prevent thy Persecutours and issued forth in those pores before thy wounds were opened by thy Tormentours Oh that my heart could bleed unto thee with true inward compunction for those sins of mine which are guilty of this thine Agony and have drawn bloud 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 Agony I had scorched if thou hadst not sweat Oh let me abhor my own wickedness and admire and bless thy Mercy But O ye blessed Spirits which came to comfort my conflicted Saviour how did ye look upon this 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
meek tongue smites him gently who had furiously smote thine enemy Put up thy sword It was Peter's sword but to put up not to use there is a sword which Peter may use but it is of another metall Our weapons are as our warfare spiritual if he smite not with this he incurs no less blame then for smiting with the other as for this material sword what should he doe with it that is not allowed to strike When the Prince of Peace bade his followers sell their coat and buy a sword he meant to insinuate the need of these arms not their improvement and to teach them the danger of the time not the manner of the repulse of danger When they therefore said Behold here are two swords he answered It is enough he said not Go buy more More had not been enow if a bodily defence had been intended David's tower had been too streight to yield sufficient furniture of this kind When it comes to use Peter's own sword is too much Put up thy sword Indeed there is a temporal sword and that sword must be drawn else wherefore is it but drawn by him that bears it and he bears it that is ordained to be an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil for he bears not the sword in vain If another man draw it it cuts his fingers and draws so much bloud of him that unwarrantably wields it as that he who takes the sword shall perish with the sword Can I chuse but wonder how Peter could thus strike unwounded how he whose first blow made the fray could escape hewing in pieces from that band of Ruffians This could not have been if thy power O Saviour had not restrained their rage if thy seasonable and sharp reproof had not prevented their revenge Now for ought I see Peter smarts no less then Malchus neither is Peter's ear less smitten by the mild tongue of his Master then Malchus his ear by the hand of Peter Weak Disciple thou hast zeal but not according to knowledge there is not more danger in this act of thine then inconsideration and ignorance The cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it Thou drawest thy sword to rescue me from suffering Alas if I suffer not what would become of thee what would become of mankind where were that eternal and just Decree of my Father wherein I am a Lamb slain from the beginning of the world Dost thou go about to hinder thine own and the whole world's Redemption Did I not once before call thee Satan for suggesting to me this immunity from my Passion and dost thou now think to favour me with a reall opposition to this great and necessary work Canst thou be so weak as to imagine that this Suffering of mine is not free and voluntary Canst thou be so injurious to me as to think I yield because I want aid to resist Have I not given to thee and to the world many undeniable proofs of my Omnipotence Didst thou not see how easy it had been for me to have blown away these poor forces of my adversaries Dost thou not know that if I would require it all the glorious troups of the Angels of Heaven any one whereof is more then worlds of men would presently shew themselves ready to attend and rescue me Might this have stood with the Justice of my Decree with the Glory of my Mercy wirh the Benefit of Man's Redemption it had been done my Power should have triumphed over the impotent malice of my enemies but now since that eternal Decree must be accomplished my Mercy must be approved mankind must be ransomed and this cannot be done without my Suffering thy well-meant valour is no better then a wrong to thy self to the world to me to my Father O gracious Saviour whilst thou thus smitest thy Disciple thou healest him whom thy Disciple smote Many greater Miracles hadst thou done none that bewraied more mercy and meekness then this last Cure of all other this ear of Malchus hath the loudest tongue to blazon the praise of thy Clemency and Goodness to thy very enemies Wherefore came that man but in an hostile manner to attach thee Besides his own what favour was he worthy of for his Masters sake And if he had not been more forward then his fellows why had not his skin been as whole as theirs Yet even amidst the throng of thine apprehenders in the heat of their violence in the height of their malice and thine own instant peril of death thou healest that unnecessary ear which had been guilty of hearing Blasphemies against thee and receiving cruell and unjust charges concerning thee O Malchus could thy ear be whole and not thy heart broken and contrite with remorse for rising up against so mercifull and so powerfull an hand Couldst thou chuse but say O Blessed Jesu I see it was thy Providence that preserved my head when my ear was smitten it is thine Almighty Power that hath miraculously restored that ear of mine which I had justly forfeited this head of mine shall never be guilty of plotting any farther mischief against thee this ear shall never entertain any more reproaches of thy name this heart of mine shall ever acknowledge and magnifie thy tender mercies thy Divine Omnipotence Could thy fellows see such a demonstration of Power and Goodness with unrelenting hearts Unthankfull Malchus and cruell souldiers ye were worse wounded and felt it not God had struck your breasts with a fearfull obduration that ye still persist in your bloudy enterprise And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away c. XLVII CHRIST before Caiaphas THat Traitour whom his own cord made soon after too fast gave this charge concerning Jesus Hold him fast Fear makes his guard cruell they bind his hands and think no twist can be strong enough for this Sampson Fond Jews and Souldiers if his own will had not tied him faster then your cords though those Manicles had been the stiffest cables or the strongest iron they had been but threads of tow What eyes can but run over to see those hands that made Heaven and Earth wrung together and bruised with those merciless cords to see him bound who came to restore us to the liberty of the Sons of God to see the Lord of Life contemptuously dragged through the streets first to the house of Annas then from thence to the house of Caiaphas from him to Pilate from Pilate to Herod from Herod back again to Pilate from Pilate to his Calvary whilst in the mean time the base rabble and scum of the incensed multitude runs after him with shouts and scorns The act of death hath not in it so much misery and horrour as the pomp of death And what needed all this pageant of Cruelty wherefore was this state and lingring of an unjust execution Was it for that their malice held a quick dispatch too much Mercy Was it for that whilst they meant to be
insolent reproaches indignities tortures arr 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 actours in this whole bloudy execution but grim and barbarous Souldiers men inured to cruelty in whose faces were written the characters of Murther 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 bloudy 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 thorny Crown thy Face spat upon thy Cheeks buffetted thy Head smitten thy Hand sceptred with a reed thy Self derided with wry 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 Royall 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 play'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 spat 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 cloathed 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 universall derision to the furious multitude with an Ecce homo Behold the man look upon him O ye merciless Jews see him in his shame in his wounds and bloud 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 bloud and would ye yet have more Behold the man the man whom ye envied for his greatness 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 dress 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 find in the breast of Pilate His Conscience bids him spare his Popularity bids him kill His Wife warned by a Dream warns him to have no hand in the bloud of that just man the importunate multitude presses him for a sentence of death All shifts have been tried to free the man whom he hath pronounced innocent All violent motives are urged to condemn that man whom malice pretends guilty In the height of this strife when Conscience and moral Justice were ready to sway Pilate's distracted heart to a just dismission I hear the Jews cry out If thou let this man goe thou art not Caesar's friend There is the word that strikes it dead it is now no time to demur any more In vain shall we hope that a carnal heart can prefer the care of his Soul to the care of his safety and honour God to Caesar Now Jesus must die Pilate hasts into the Judgment-hall the Sentence sticks no longer in his teeth Let him be crucified Yet how foul so ever his Soul shall be with this fact his hands shall be clean He took water and washed his hands before the multitude saying I am innocent of the bloud of this just person see ye to it Now all is safe I wis this is expiation enough water can wash off bloud the hands can cleanse the heart protest thou art innocent and thou canst not be guilty Vain Hypocrite canst thou think to scape so Is Murther of no deeper dye Canst thou dream waking thus to avoid the charge of thy wife's dream Is the guilt of the bloud of the Son of God to be wip'd off with such ease What poor shifts do foolish sinners make to beguile themselves Any thing will serve to charm the Conscience when it lists to sleep But Oh Saviour whilst Pilate thinks to wash off the guilt of thy bloud with water I know there is nothing that can wash off the guilt of this his sin but thy bloud Oh do thou wash my Soul in that precious bathe and I shall be clean Oh Pilate if that very bloud which thou sheddest do not wash off the guilt of thy bloudshed thy water doth but more defile thy Soul and intend that fire wherewith thou burnest Little did the desperate Jews know the weight of that bloud which they were so forward to wish upon themselves and their children Had they deprecated their interest in that horrible murther they could not so easily have avoided the vengeance but now that they fetch it upon themselves by a willing execration what should I say but that they long for a curse it is pity they should not be miserable And have ye not now felt O Nation worthy of plagues have ye not now felt what bloud it was whose guilt ye affected Sixteen hundred years are now passed since you wished your selves thus wretched have ye not been ever since the hate and scorn of the world Did ye not live many of you to see your City buried in ashes
find leisure to bestow our commiseration on those who need it perhaps less then our selves Even now O Saviour when thou wert within the view of thy Calvary thou canst foresee and pity the vastation of thy Jerusalem and givest a sad Prophecy of the imminent destruction of that City which lately had cost thee tears and now shall cost thee bloud It is not all the indign cruelty of men that can rob thee of thy Mercy Jerusalem could not want Malefactours though Barabbas was dismissed That all this execution might seem to be done out of the zeal of Justice two capital offenders adjudged to their Gibbet shall accompany thee O Saviour both to thy death and in it They are led manicled after thee as less criminous no stripes had disabled them from bearing their own Crosses Long agoe was this unmeet society foretold by thine Evangelical Seer He was taken from prison and from judgment He was cut out of the land of the living He made his grave with the Wicked O Blessed Jesu it had been disparagement enough to thee to be sorted with the best of men since there is much sin in the perfectest and there could be no sin in thee but to be matched with the scum of mankind whom vengeance would not let to live is such an indignity as confounds my thoughts Surely there is no Angel in Heaven but would have been proud to attend thee and what could the earth afford worthy of thy train yet malice hath suited thee with company next to Hell that their viciousness might reflect upon thee and their sin might stain thine Innocence Ye are deceived O ye fond Judges This is the way to grace your dying malefactours this is not the way to disgrace him whose guiltlesness and perfection triumph'd over your injustice his presence was able to make your Thieves happy their presence could no more blemish him then your own Thus guarded thus attended thus accompanied art thou Blessed Jesu led to that loathsome and infamous hill which now thy last bloud shall make Sacred now thou settest thy foot upon that rising ground which shall prevent thine Olivet whence thy Soul shall first ascend into thy Glory There whilst thou art dressing thy self for thy last Act thou art presented with that bitter and farewell-potion wherewith dying Malefactours were wont to have their senses stupified that they might not feel the torments of their execution It was but the common mercy of men to alleviate the death of Offenders since the intent of their last doom is not so much pain as dissolution That draught O Saviour was not more welcome to the guilty then hatefull unto thee In the vigour of all thine inward and outward senses thou wouldst incounter the most violent assaults of death and scornedst to abate the least touch of thy quickest apprehension Thou well knewest that the work thou wentest about would require the use of all thy powers it was not thine ease that thou soughtest but our Redemption neither meantest thou to yield to thy last enemy but to resist and to overcome him which that thou mightest doe the more gloriously thou challengedst him to doe his worst and in the mean time wouldst not disfurnish thy self of any of thy powerfull faculties This greatest combat that ever was shall be fought on even hand neither wouldst thou steal that Victory which thou now atchievedst over Death and Hell Thou didst but touch at this cup it is a far bitterer then this that thou art now drinking up to the dregs thou refusedst that which was offered thee by men but that which was mixed by thine eternal Father though mere Gall and Wormwood thou didst drink up to the last drop And therein O Blessed Jesu lies all our health and salvation I know not whether I do more suffer in thy pain or joy in the issue of thy Suffering Now even now O Saviour art thou entring into those dreadfull lists and now thou art grappling with thy last enemy as if thou hadst not suffered till now now thy bloudy Passion begins a cruell expoliation begins that violence Again do these grim and merciless Souldiers lay their rude hands upon thee and strip thee naked again are those bleeding wales lay'd open to all eyes again must thy Sacred Body undergoe the shame of an abhorred nakedness Lo thou that cloathest 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 cloathed with Innocence when he had no cloaths so wert thou the Second too and more then so thy nakedness O Saviour cloaths our Souls not with Innocence onely but with Beauty Hadst not thou been naked we had been cloathed with confusion O happy nakedness whereby we are covered from shame O happy shame whereby we are invested with glory All the beholders stand wrapped with warm garments thou onely art stripped to tread the wine-press alone How did thy Blessed Mother now wish her veil 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 Cross Methinks I see and feel how having fastned the transverse to the body of that fatal Tree and laid 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 settled 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 whilst thy whole body rests upon this forced and dolorous hold till thy nailed feet bear their part in a no-less-afflictive supportation How did the rough iron pierce thy Soul whilst 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 Creatour How could ye subsist whilst he thus suffers in whom ye are O Saviour didst thou take flesh for our Redemption to be thus indignly 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 cruelty and so wofully disfigured that the Blessed Mother that bore thee could not now have known thee so bloudy were thy Temples so swoln and discoloured was thy Face so was the Skin of thy whole body streaked with red and blew stripes so did thy thorny diadem shade thine Heavenly Countenance so did the streams of thy bloud cover and deform all thy Parts The eye of Sense could not distinguish thee O dear Saviour in the nearest proximity to thy Cross 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 brightness on mount Tabor which now begins to be overclouded with death Are these the Ears 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 man 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 blewness and bloud 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 bloud 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 nails 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 Cross 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 onely content to kill Death hath sated the most eager malice thine enemies O Saviour held not themselves satisfied unless they might enjoy thy torment Two Thieves are appointed to be thy companions in death thou art designed to the midst as the chief malefactour 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 bless thee for this work how do I stand amazed at this above all other the demonstrations of thy Goodness and Power The Offender came to die nothing was in his thoughts but his guilt and torment whilst he was yet in his bloud 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 Cross in a blessed ambition Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom Is this the voice of a Thief or of a Disciple Give me leave O Saviour to borrow thine own words Verily I have not found so great faith no not in all Israel He saw thee hanging miserably by him and yet styles thee Lord he saw thee dying yet talks of thy Kingdom he felt himself dying yet talks of a future remembrance O Faith stronger then death that can look beyond the Cross at a Crown beyond dissolution at a remembrance of Life and Glory Which of thine eleven were heard to speak so gracious a word to thee in these thy last pangs After thy Resurrection and knowledge of thine impassible condition it was not strange for them to talk of thy Kingdom but in the midst of thy shamefull death for a dying malefactour to speak of thy reigning and to implore thy remembrance of himself in thy Kingdom it is such an improvement of Faith as ravisheth my Soul with admiration O blessed Thief that hast thus happily stoln Heaven How worthy hath thy Saviour made thee to be a partner of his sufferings a pattern of undauntable belief a spectacle of unspeakable mercy This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Before I wondred at thy Faith now I envy at thy Felicity Thou cravedst a remembrance thy Saviour speaks of a present possession This day thou suedst for remembrance as a favour to the absent thy Saviour speaks of thy presence with him thou spakest of a Kingdom thy Saviour of Paradise As no Disciple could be more faithfull so no Saint could be happier O Saviour what a precedent is this of thy free and powerfull grace Where thou wilt give what unworthiness can bar us from Mercy when thou wilt give what time can prejudice our vocation who can despair of thy goodness when he that in the morning was posting towards Hell is in the evening with thee in Paradise Lord he could not have spoken this to thee but by thee and from thee What possibility was there for a Thief to think of thy Kingdom without thy Spirit That good Spirit of thine breathed upon this man breathed not upon his fellow their trade was alike their sin was alike their state alike their cross alike onely thy Mercy makes them unlike One is taken the other is refused Blessed be thy Mercy in taking one blessed be thy Justice in leaving the other Who can despair of that Mercy who cannot but tremble at that Justice Now O ye cruell Priests and Elders of the Jews ye have full leisure to feed your eyes with the sight ye so much longed for there is the bloud ye purchased and is not your malice yet glutted Is not all this enough without your taunts and scoffs and sports at so exquisite a misery The people the passengers are taught to insult where they should pity Every man hath a scorn ready to cast at a dying innocent A generous nature is more wounded with the tongue then with the hand O Saviour thine ear was more painfully pierced then thy brows
or hands or feet It could not but goe deep into thy Soul to hear these bitter and girding reproaches from them thou camest to save But alas what flea-bitings were these in comparison of those inward torments which thy Soul felt in the sense and apprehension of thy Father's wrath for the sins of the whole world which now lay heavy upon thee for satisfaction This oh this was it that pressed thy Soul as it were to the neathermost Hell Whilst thine Eternall Father look'd lovingly upon thee what didst thou what neededst thou to care for the frowns of men or Devils but when he once turn'd his face from thee or bent his brows upon thee this this was worse then death It is no marvell now if darkness were upon the face of the whole earth when thy Father's Face was eclipsed from thee by the interposition of our sins How should there be light in the world without when the God of the world the Father of lights complains of the want of light within That word of thine O Saviour was enough to fetch the Sun down out of Heaven and to dissolve the whole frame of Nature when thou criedst My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh what pangs were these dear Jesu that drew from thee this complaint Thou well knewest nothing could be more cordiall to thine enemies then to hear this sad language from thee they could see but the outside of thy sufferings never could they have conceived so deep an anguish of thy Soul if thy own lips had not expressed it Yet as not regarding their triumph thou thus pourest out thy sorrow and when so much is uttered who can conceive what is felt How is it then with thee O Saviour that thou thus astonishest men and Angels with so wofull a quiritation Had thy God left thee Thou not long since saidst I and my Father are one Are ye now severed Let this thought be as far from my Soul as my Soul from Hell No more can thy Blessed Father be separated from thee then from his own Essence His Union with thee is eternall his Vision was intercepted He could not withdraw his Presence he would withdraw the influence of his comfort Thou the Second Adam stoodst for mankind upon this Tree of the Cross as the First Adam stood and fell for mankind under the Tree of offence Thou barest our sins thy Father saw us in thee and would punish us in thee thee for us how could he but withhold comfort where he intended chastisement Herein therefore he seems to forsake thee for the present in that he would not deliver thee from that bitter Passion which thou wouldst undergoe for us O Saviour hadst thou not been thus forsaken we had perished thy dereliction is our safety and however our narrow Souls are not capable of the conceit of thy pain and horrour yet we know there can be no danger in the forsaking whilst thou canst say My God He is so thy God as he cannot be ours all our right is by Adoption thine by Nature thou art one with him in eternall Essence we come in by Grace and mercifull election yet whilst thou shalt enable me to say My God I shall hope never to sink under thy desertions But whilst I am transported with the sense of thy Sufferings O Saviour let me not forget to admire those sweet Mercies of thine which thou pouredst out upon thy Persecutours They rejoyce in thy death and triumph in thy misery and scoff at thee in both In stead of calling down fire from Heaven upon them thou heapest coals of fire upon their heads Father forgive them for they know not what they doe They blaspheme thee thou prayest for them they scorn thou pitiest they sin against thee thou prayest for their forgiveness they profess their malice thou pleadest their ignorance O compassion without example without measure fit for the Son of God the Saviour of men Wicked and foolish Jews ye would be miserable he will not let you ye would fain pull upon your selves the guilt of his bloud he deprecates it ye kill he sues for your remission and life His tongue cries louder then his bloud Father forgive them O Saviour thou couldst not but be heard Those who out of ignorance and simplicity thus persecuted thee find the happy issue of thine intercession Now I see whence it was that three thousand souls were converted soon after at one Sermon It was not Peter's speech it was thy prayer that was thus effectuall Now they have grace to know and confess whence they have both forgiveness and salvation and can recompense their blasphemies with thanksgiving What sin is there Lord whereof I can despair of the remission or what offence can I be unwilling to remit when thou prayest for the forgiveness of thy murtherers and blasphemers There is no day so long but hath his evening At last O Blessed Saviour thou art drawing to an end of these painfull Sufferings when spent with toil and torment thou criest out I thirst How shouldst thou doe other O dear Jesu how shouldst thou doe other then thirst The night thou hadst spent in watching in prayer in agony in thy conveyance from the Garden to Jerusalem from Annas to Caiaphas from Caiaphas to Pilate in thy restless answers in buffetings and stripes the day in arraignments in haling from place to place in scourgings in stripping in robing and disrobing in bleeding in tugging under thy Cross in woundings and distension in pain and passion No marvell if thou thirstedst Although there was more in this drought then thy need It was no less requisite thou shouldst thirst then that thou shouldst die Both were upon the same predetermination both upon the same prediction How else should that word be verified Psal 22.14 15. All my bones are out of joynt my heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of death Had it not been to make up that word whereof one jot cannot pass though thou hadst felt this thirst yet thou hadst not bewrayed it Alas what could it avail to bemoan thy wants to insulting enemies whose sport was thy misery How should they pity thy thirst that pitied not thy bloudshed It was not their favour that thou expectedst herein but their conviction O Saviour how can we thy sinfull servants think much to be exercised with hunger and thirst when we hear thee thus plain Thou that not long since proclaimedst in the Temple If any man thirst let him come to me and drink He that believeth in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters now thy self thirstest Thou in whom we believe complainest to want some drops thou hadst the command of all the waters both above the firmament and below it yet thou wouldst thirst Even so Lord thou that wouldst die for us wouldst thirst for
and sovereign 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 Festivall must needs draw a world of beholders The Romans the Centurion and his band were there as actours as supervisours of the Execution Those strangers were no otherwise engaged 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 Truly this was the Son of God What a marvellous concurrence is here of strong and irrefragable convictions Meekness in suffering Prayer for his murtherers a faithfull 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 veil 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 Spectatour 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 whilst Pagans relented Jews continued impenitent Yet even of that Nation those beholders whom envy 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 universall 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 mortall indignities which were offered to their acknowledged Messiah so they could not but be ravished with wonder at those powerfull demonstrations of the Deity of him in whom they believed and strangely distracted in their thoughts whilst 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 glorify 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 whilst standing close by his Cross thou sawest thy dear Son and Saviour thus indignly 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 burthen by the power of the Holy Ghost How didst thou recall those prophecies of Anna and Simeon concerning him and all those supernaturall 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 oh when in the height of his pain and misery thou heardst him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me what a cold horrour possessed thy Soul I cannot now wonder at thy qualms and swounings I could rather wonder that thou survivedst so sad an hour But when recollecting thy self thou sawest the Heavens to bear a part with thee in thy mourning and feltest the Earth to tremble no less then thy self and foundest that the dreadfull concussion of the whole frame of Nature proclaimed the Deity of him that would thus suffer and die and remembredst his frequent predictions of drinking this bitter cup and of being baptized thus in Bloud thou beganst to take heart and to comfort thy self with the assured expectation of the glorious issue More then once had he foretold thee his victorious Resurrection He who had openly professed Jonas for his type and had fore-promised in three days to raise up the ruined Temple of his Body had doubtless given more full intimation unto thee who hadst so great a share in that sacred Body of his The just shall live by Faith Lo that Faith of thine in his ensuing Resurrection and in his triumph over death gives thee life and chears up thy drouping Soul and bids it in an holy confidence to triumph over all thy fears and sorrows and him whom thou now seest dead and despised represents unto thee living immortall glorious L. The Resurrection GRace doth not ever make show where it is There is much secret riches both in the earth and sea which never eye saw I never heard any news till now of Joseph of Arimathaea yet was he eminently both rich and wise and good a worthy though close Disciple of our Saviour True Faith may be wisely reserved but will not be cowardly Now he puts forth himself and dares beg the Body of Jesus Dearth is wont to end all quarrells Pilate's heart tells him he hath done too much already in sentencing an innocent to death no doubt that Centurion had related unto him the miraculous symptoms of that Passion He that so unwillingly condemned Innocence could rather have wished that just man alive then have denied him dead The Body is yielded and taken down and now that which hung naked upon the Cross is wrapped in fine linen that which was soiled with sweat and bloud is curiously washed and embalmed Now even Nicodemus comes in for a part and fears not the envy of a good profession Death hath let that man loose whom the Law formerly over-awed with restraint He hates to be a night-bird any longer but boldly flies forth and looks upon the face of the Sun and will be now as liberall in his Odours as he was before niggardly in his Confession O Saviour the earth was thine and the fulness of it yet as thou hadst not an house of thine own whilst thou livedst so thou hadst not a grave when thou wert dead Joseph that rich Councillour lent thee his lent it
so as it should never be restored thou took'st it up but for a while but that little touch of that Sacred Corps of thine made it too good for the owner O happy Joseph that hadst the honour to be Landlord of the Lord of Life how well is thy house-room repay'd with a mansion not made with hands eternall in the heavens Thy Garden and thy Tomb were hard by Calvary where thou couldst not fail of many monitions of thy frailty How oft hadst thou seasoned that new Tomb with sad and savoury meditations and hadst oft said within thy self Here I shall once lie down to my last rest and wait for my Resurrection Little didst thou then think to have been disappointed by so Blessed a Guest or that thy grave should be again so soon empty and in that emptiness uncapable of any mortall in-dweller How gladly dost thou now resign thy grave to him in whom thou livest and who liveth for ever whose Soul is in Paradise whose Godhead every-where Hadst thou not been rich before this gift had enriched thee alone and more ennobled thee then all thine earthly Honour Now great Princes envy thy bounty and have thought themselves happy to kiss the stones of that rock which thou thus hewedst thus bestowedst Thus purely wrapped and sweetly embalmed lies the precious Body of our Saviour in Joseph's new Vault Are ye now also at rest O ye Jewish Rulers Is your malice dead and buried with him Hath Pilate enough served your envy and revenge Surely it is but a common hostility that can die yours surviveth death and puts you upon a farther project The chief Priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate saying Sir we remember that this Deceiver said whilst he was yet alive After three days I will rise again Command therefore that the Sepulcher be made sure till the third day lest his Disciples come by night and steal him away and say to the people he is risen How full of terrours and inevitable perplexities is guiltiness These men were not more troubled with envy at Christ alive then now with fear of his Resurrection And what can now secure them Pilate had helpt to kill him but who shall keep him from rising Wicked and foolish Jews how fain would ye fight against God and your own hearts how gladly would ye deceive your selves in believing him to be a Deceiver whom your consciences knew to be no less true then powerfull Lazarus was still in your eye That man was no phantasm his death his reviving was undeniable the so-fresh resuscitation of that dead body after four days dissolution was a manifest conviction of Omnipotence How do ye vainly wish that he could deceive you in the fore-reporting of his own Resurrection Without a Divine power he could have raised neither Lazarus nor himself with and by it he could as well raise himself as Lazarus What need we other witnesses then your own mouths That which he would doe ye confess he foretold that the truth of his word might answer the power of this deed and both of them might argue him the God of Truth and Power and your selves enemies to both And now what must be done The Sepulcher must be secured and you with it An huge stone a strong guard must doe the deed and that stone must be sealed that guard of your own designing Methinks I hear the Souldiers and busie Officers when they were rolling that other weighty Stone for such we probably conceive to the mouth of the vault with much toil and sweat and breathlesness how they bragg'd of the sureness of the place and unremovableness of that load and when that so choice a Watch was set how they boasted of their valour and vigilance and said they would make him safe from either rising or stealing Oh the madness of impotent men that think by either wile or force to frustrate the will and designs of the Almighty How justly doth that wise and powerfull Arbiter of the world laugh them to scorn in Heaven and befool them in their own vain devices O Saviour how much evidence had thy Resurrection wanted if these enemies had not been thus maliciously provident how irrefragable is thy Rising made by these bootless endeavours of their prevention All this while the devout Maries keep close and silently spend their Sabbath in a mixture of grief and hope How did they wear out those sad hours in bemoaning themselves each to other in mutuall relations of the patient sufferings of the happy expiration of their Saviour of the wonderfull events both in the Heavens and earth that accompanied his Crucifixion of his frequent and clear Predictions of his Resurrection And now they have gladly agreed so soon as the time will give them leave in the dawning of the Sunday-morning to visit that dear Sepulcher Neither will they goe empty-handed She that had bestowed that costly Alabaster-box of Ointment upon their Saviour alive hath prepared no less precious Odours for him dead Love is restless and fearless In the dark of night these good Women goe to buy their spices and ere the day-break are gone out of their houses towards the Tomb of Christ to bestow them This Sex is commonly fearfull it was much for them to walk alone in that unsafe season yet as despising all fears and dangers they thus spend the night after their Sabbath Might they have been allowed to buy their Perfumes on the Sabbath or to have visited that holy Tomb sooner can we think they would have staid so long can we suppose they would have cared more for the Sabbath then for the Lord of the Sabbath who now kept his Sabbath in the Grave Sooner they might not come later they would not to present their last homage to their dead Saviour Had these holy women known their Jesus to be alive how had they hasted who made such speed to doe their last offices to his sacred Corps For us we know that our Redeemer liveth we know where he is O Saviour how cold and heartless is our love to thee if we do not haste to find thee in thy Word and Sacraments if our Souls do not fly up to thee in all holy Affections into thy Heaven Of all the Women Mary Magdalen is first named and in some Evangelists alone She is noted above her fellows None of them were so much obliged none so zealously thankfull Seven Devils were cast out of her by the command of Christ That Heart which was freed from Satan by that powerfull dispossession was now possessed with a free and gracious bounty to her deliverer Twice at the least hath she poured out her fragrant and costly Odours upon him Where there is a true sense of favour and beneficence there cannot but be a fervent desire of retribution O Blessed Saviour could we feel the danger of every sin and the malignity of those spirituall possessions from which thou hast freed us how should we pour out our selves into thankfulness unto thee Every
implant me with Grace prune me with meet corrections bedew me with the former and latter rain doe what thou wilt to make me fruitfull Still the good woman weeps and still complains and passionately enquires of thee O Saviour for thy self How apt are we if thou dost never so little vary from our apprehensions to mis-know thee and to wrong our selves by our mis-opinions All this while hast thou concealed thy self from thine affectionate client thou sawest her tears and heardest her importunities and inquiries at last as it was with Joseph that he could no longer contain himself from the notice of his brethren thy compassion causes thee to break forth into a clear expression of thy self by expressing her name unto her self Mary She was used as to the name so to the sound to the accent Thou spakest to her before but in the tone of a stranger now of a friend of a Master Like a good Shepherd thou callest thy sheep by their name and they know thy voice What was thy call of her but a clear pattern of our Vocation As her so thou callest us first familiarly effectually She could not begin with thee otherwise then in the compellation of a stranger it was thy mercy to begin with her That correction of thy Spirit is sweet and usefull Now after ye have known God or rather are known of him We do know thee O God but our active knowledge is after our passive first we are known of thee then we know thee that knewest us And as our Knowledge so is our Calling so is our Election thou beginnest to us in all and most justly saist You have not chosen me but I have chosen you When thou wouldst speak to this Devout client as a stranger thou spakest aloof Woman whom seekest thou now when thou wouldst be known to her thou callest her by her name Mary Generall invitations and common mercies are for us as men but where thou givest Grace as to thine elect thou comest close to the Soul and winnest us with dear and particular intimations That very name did as much as say Know him of whom thou art known and beloved and turns her about to thy view and acknowledgment She turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is to say Master Before her face was towards the Angels this word fetches her about and turns her face to thee from whom her misprision had averted it We do not rightly apprehend thee O Saviour if any creature in Heaven or earth can keep our eyes and our hearts from thee The Angels were bright and glorious thy appearance was homely thy habit mean yet when she heard thy voice she turns her back upon the Angels and salutes thee with a Rabboni and falls down before thee in a desire of an humble amplexation of those Sacred feet which she now rejoyces to see past the use of her Odours Where there was such familiarity in the mutuall compellation what means such strangeness in the charge Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Thou wert not wont O Saviour to make so dainty of being touched It is not long since these very same hands touched thee in thine anointing the Bloudy-fluxed woman touched thee the thankfull Penitent in Simon 's house touched thee What speak I of these The multitude touch'd thee the Executioners touch'd thee and even after thy Resurrection thou didst not stick to say to thy Disciples Touch me and see and to invite Thomas to put his fingers into thy side neither is it long after this before thou sufferest the three Maries to touch and hold thy feet How then saist thou Touch me not Was it in a mild taxation of her mistaking as if thou hadst said Thou knowest not that I have now an Immortal body but so demeanest thy self towards me as if I were still in my wonted condition know now that the case is altered howsoever indeed I have not yet ascended to my Father yet this Body of mine which thou seest to be reall and sensible is now impassible and qualified with immortality and therefore worthy of a more awfull veneration then heretofore Or was it a gentle reproof of her dwelling too long in this dear hold of thee and fixing her thoughts upon thy Bodily presence together with an implied direction of reserving the height of her affection for thy perfect Glorification in Heaven Or lastly was it a light touch of her too much haste and eagerness in touching thee as if she must use this speed in preventing thine Ascension or else be indangered to be disappointed of her hopes as if thou hadst said Be not so passionately forward avd sudden in laying hold of me as if I were instantly ascending but know that I shall stay some time with you upon earth before my going up to my Father O Saviour even our well-meant zeal in seeking and injoying thee may be faulty if we seek thee where we should not on earth how we should not unwarrantably There may be a kind of carnality in spiriuall actions If we have heretofore known thee after the flesh henceforth know we thee so no more That thou livedst here in this shape that colour this stature that habit I should be glad to know nothing that concerns thee can be unusefull Could I say here thou satest here thou layest here and thus thou wert crucified here buried here settest thy last foot I should with much contentment see and recount these memorialls of thy presence But if I shall so fasten my thoughts upon these as not to look higher to the spirituall part of thine atchievements to the power and issue of thy Resurrection I am never the better No sooner art thou risen then thou speakest of ascending as thou didst lie down to rise so didst thou rise to ascend that is the consummation of thy Glory and ours in thee Thou that forbadst her touch enjoynedst her errand Goe to my brethren and say I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God The annunciation of thy Resurrection and Ascension is more then a private fruition this is for the comfort of one that for the benefit of many To sit still and injoy is more sweet for the present but to goe and tell is more gainfull in the sequel That great Angel thought himself as he well might highly honoured in that he was appointed to carry the happy news unto the Blessed Virgin thy Holy Mother of her conception of thee her Saviour how honourable must it needs be to Mary Magdalene that she must be the messenger of thy second birth thy Resurrection and instant Ascension How beautifull do the feet of those deserve to be who bring the glad tidings of peace and Salvation What matter is it O Lord if men despise where thou wilt honour To whom then dost thou send her Goe tell my Brethren Blessed Jesu who are those were they not thy Followers yea were they not thy Forsakers yet still
with a carefull charge renewed unto thy Disciples for the promulgation of thy Gospel with an Heavenly Benediction of all thine acclaiming attendents thou takest leave of earth When he had spoken these things whilst they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight Oh happy parting fit for the Saviour of mankind answerable to that Divine conversation to that succeeding Glory O Blessed Jesu let me so far imitate thee as to depart hence with a blessing in my mouth let my Soul when it is stepping over the threshold of Heaven leave behind it a legacy of Peace and Happiness It was from the mount of Olives that thou tookest thy rise into Heaven Thou mightest have ascended from the valley all the globe of earth was alike to thee but since thou wert to mount upward thou wouldst take so much advantage as that stair of ground would afford thee thou wouldst not use the help of a Miracle in that wherein Nature offered her ordinary service What difficulty had it been for thee to have styed up from the very center of earth But since thou hadst made hills so much nearer unto Heaven thou wouldest not neglect the benefit of thine own Creation Where we have common helps we may not depend upon Supernaturall provisions we may not strain the Divine Providence to the supply of our negligence or the humouring of our presumption Thou that couldst alwaies have walked on the Sea wouldst walk so but once when thou wantedst shipping thou to whom the highest mountains were but valleys wouldst walk up to an hill to ascend thence into Heaven O God teach me to bless thee for means when I have them and to trust thee for means when I have them not yea to trust to thee without means when I have no hope of them What Hill was this thou chosest but the mount of Olives Thy Pulpit shall I call it or thine Oratory The place from whence thou hadst wont to showr down thine Heavenly Doctrine upon the hearers the place whence thou hadst wont to send up thy Prayers unto thy Heavenly Father the place that shared with the Temple for both In the day-time thou wert preaching in the Temple in the night praying in the mount of Olives On this very hill was the bloudy sweat of thine Agony now is it the mount of thy Triumph From this mount of Olives did flow that oyl of gladness wherewith thy Church is everlastingly refreshed That God that uses to punish us in the same kind wherein we have offended retributes also to us in the same kind and circumstances wherein we have been afflicted To us also O Saviour even to us thy unworthy members dost thou seasonably vouchsafe to give a proportionable joy to our heaviness laughter to our mourning glory to contempt and shame Our agonies shall be answered with exaltation Whither then O Blessed Jesu whither didst thou ascend whither but home into thine Heaven From the mountain wert thou taken up and what but Heaven is above the hills Lo these are those mountains of spices which thy Spouse the Church long since desired thee to climbe Thou hast now climbed up that infinite steepness and hast left all sublimity below thee Already hadst thou approved thy self the Lord and commander of Earth of Sea of Hell The Earth confess'd thee her Lord when at thy voice she rendered thee thy Lazarus when she shook at thy Passion and gave up her dead Saints The Sea acknowledged thee in that it became a pavement to thy feet and at thy command to the feet of thy Disciple in that it became thy treasury for thy Tribute-money Hell found and acknowledged thee in that thou conqueredst all the powers of darkness even him that had the power of death the Devil It now onely remained that as the Lord of the Air thou shouldst pass through all the regions of that yielding element and as Lord of Heaven thou shouldst pass through all the glorious contignations thereof that so every knee might bow 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 whilst thou didst cry and spraul in the Cratch whilst thou didst hang upon the Cross whilst thou wert sealed up in thy Grave but thine Humane nature had not taken actuall possession of it till now Like as it was in thy true type David he had right to the Kingdom 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 far above all Heavens at the right hand of thy Father's Glory This is the far country into which the Nobleman went to receive for himself a Kingdom far off to us to thee near yea intrinsecall 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 Whilst 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 fetch'd up in a chariot of fire that it might appear hence that man had need of others helps who else could not of himself so much as lift up himself to the Aiery Heaven much less to the Empyreall But thou our Redeemer needest no chariot no carriage of Angels thou art the Authour 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
many conflicts it was the vale of tears into which thou wert come down So soon as thou wert risen the women saw an Angel in the form of a young man cloathed in white and now so soon as thou art ascended Two men cloathed in white stand by thy Disciples thy task was now done thy victory atchieved and nothing remained but a Crown which was now set upon thy Head Justly therefore were those blessed Angels suited with the robes of light and joy And why should our garments be of any other colour why should oyl be wanting to our heads when the eyes of our Faith see thee thus ascended It is for us O Saviour that thou art gone to prepare a place in those celestiall mansions it is for us that thou sittest at the right hand of Majesty It is a piece of thy Divine Prayer to thy Father that those whom he hath given thee may be with thee To every bleeding Soul thou saiest still as thou didst to Peter Whither I goe thou canst not follow me now but thou shalt follow me hereafter In assured hope of this Glory why do I not rejoyce and beforehand walk in white with thine Angels that at the last I may walk with thee in white Little would the presence of these Angels have availed if they had not been heard as well as seen They stand not silent therefore but directing their speech to the amazed beholders say Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing into Heaven What a question was this Could any of those two hundred and forty eyes have power to turn themselves off to any other Object then that Cloud and that point of Heaven where they left their ascended Saviour Surely every one of them were so fixed that had not the speech of these Angels called them off there they had set up their rest till the darkness of night had interposed Pardon me O ye Blessed Angels had I been there with them I should also have been unwilling to have mine eyes pull'd off from that dear prospect and diverted unto you Never could they have gazed so happily as now If but some Great man be advanced to Honour over our heads how apt we are to stand at a gaze and to eye him as some strange meteor Let the Sun but shine a little upon these Dialls how are they look'd at by all passengers Yet alas what can earthly advancement make us other then we are dust and ashes which the higher it is blown the more it is scattered Oh how worthy is the King of Glory to command our eyes now in the highest pitch of his Heavenly exaltation Lord I can never look enough at the place where thou art but what eye could be satisfied with seeing the way that thou wentest It was not the purpose of these Angels to check the long looks of these faithfull Disciples after their ascended Master it was onely a change of Eyes that they intended of Carnall for Spirituall of the eye of Sense for the eye of Faith This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him goe into Heaven Look not after him O ye weak Disciples as so departed that ye shall see him no more if he be gone yet he is not lost those Heavens that received him shall restore him neither can those Blessed mansions decrease his Glory Ye have seen him ascend upon the chariot of a bright Cloud and in the clouds of Heaven ye shall see him descend again to his last Judgment He is gone can it trouble you to know you have an Advocate in Heaven Strive not now so much to exercise your bodily eyes in looking after him as the eyes of your Souls in looking for him Ye cannot O ye Blessed Spirits wish other then well to mankind How happy a diversion of eyes and thoughts is this that you advise If it be our sorrow to part with our Saviour yet to part with him into Heaven it is our comfort 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 whilst I expect thy return THE END Books Printed for or sold by Jacob Tonson at the Judge's Head in Chancery-Lane near Fleet-street THE Heroin Musquetier or the Female Warriour in Four Parts Containing many true and delightfull Adventures of a French Lady in the late Campagnes of 1676. and 1677. Sir Patient Fancy a Comedy Acted at the Duke 's Theatre and written by the Authour of the Rover. Friendship in Fashion a Comedy written by Thomas Otway Acted at the Duke 's Theatre Mr. Rimer's Criticisms upon the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher in a Letter to Fleetwood Sheppard Esq The Art of Making Love or a Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in the affairs of Love Price 1 s. Pleas of the Crown Written by Sir Matthew Hales late Chief Justice of the Court of King's-Bench An Historical Discourse of Parliaments in their Original before the Conquest and continuance since together with the Original growth and continuance of these Courts following viz. The High Court of Chancery King's-Bench Common Pleas Exchequer Dutchy and other inferiour Courts Price 1 s. Brutus of Alba or the Enchanted Lovers a Tragedy written by N. Tate Acted at the Duke's Theatre The Counterfeits a Comedy Acted at the Duke's Theatre A Treatise of the Principall Grounds of the Law Written by W. Noy late Attorney Generall to King Charles the First Ready for the Press A Treatise of Sublimity Translated out of Longin by H. Watson of the Inner Temple Gent. Matth. 17.14 compared with Mark 9.14 Luk. 4.31 compared with 38. Vide Chap. 10. ver 31 39. For the full explicaâ—ion whereof I refer my Reader to my Passion-Sermon wherein the particularities are largely discussed Gal. 4.9