mans excogitation is frivolous Indeed Ceremonies for the most part are unprescribed that particular Churches may be their own carvers in them only let them beware that they use their liberty discreetly But the offering of burnt Sacrifices is a matter of substance how came this into Noahs heart to do it By divine information certainly At some time about the beginning of time God did appoint a form of Religion to Adam and his Posterity which in the Breviary of the Book of Genesis is omitted which Lesson was read to Cain and Abel from whom they undertook the solemnity of Sacrifice and the Candle was lighted from hand to hand till the Tradition came safe to Noah Or thus very briefly Which God did deliver to Adam which Adam did commit ro Jared he to Methusalem which Methusalem did commend to Noah Never imagine that they were appointed precisely about the food of their body that is in the Letter of the Book and no instruction delivered for the food of their Soul That were such an omission that the worst Lawgiver would prevent much more the wisest The Lord did set his holy Patriarchs in order from succession to succession till the Law was written to communicate true Religion And it is St. Hieroms rule Omne verum à quocunque dicitur à spiritu sancto est Every mouth that speaks truth speaks it from the Holy Ghost From Abel downward all those whose Oblations had a sweet savour offered by Faith if by Faith then by Precept and Instruction for Faith comes by hearing Rom. x. 17. Sacrifice then was that Divine Worship which God revealed did please him that was the general approbation I do not say that every time they kept that duty they had need of a new and a special Commission St. Ambrose says that Noah did this good work of his own genius and not by any new particular Commandment Qui debitum gratiae ut à se exigatur expectat ingratus est A man must not stay after he hath received a benefit till God say unto him thank me now for such thankfulness were ingratitude Yet St. Ambrose hath far more voices against him than of his part that this holy Father had special directions for the solemnizing this Sacrifice and that expresly it was revealed unto him upon the taking in of seven of the clean beasts into the Ark Gen. vii 2. Of clean beasts by sevens that three Pairs were for propagation and the single odd one the seventh of clean Beasts and clean Fowls the celebs animal the pure Creature which mixt with no female was to be dedicated in an whole burnt-offering to the Lord. And then this example will so little favour Will-worship that it utterly beats it down the invention of man had so little hand in it that it was Scientia à Deo indita an inspiration immediately put into the Prophet by the will of God The reason why the bloud of Beasts was poured out to the Lord and well accepted of him will be ripe to be rendred by and by when I have first shewn in a word that Religion did never discord from it self by mutation of times The Saints in all Ages had the same Faith the same Worship the same Hope and expectation Pietas ante legem in lege post legem piissime sibi concordat Piety in the Law before the Law and since the Law is constantly the same and did never vary Mark therefore from this Text that the Levitical Ordinances of Moses in many things are but a renovation and amplification of Ceremonial Customs before the Law I said in many things that I might not fall into the same error with them who have overlasht that all the Ceremonial Law was in use and practice with the Patriarchs and that Moses did but compile and gather it up into a body If these men had been askt where they did read of the Levites and all the ritual Orders of the Priesthood before Moses where concerning the trial of Leprosie of Jealousie and an hundred things more I know they must be gravell'd and could not answer Nay in the next Chapter and the third verse says the Lord to Noah Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you but many living things were prohibited to the Jews in the Law of Ordinances that they should not eat them But this ground I know cannot be shaken that many parts of the Ceremonial Law had clear passage in the Church presently after the Floud long before they came forth in Moses name And the whole Moral Law was acknowledged to be just and righteous even from the beginning of the world Sacrifices Altars distinction of clean from unclean abstaining from bloud and things strangled Vows the Brother to raise up seed unto the Brother that died without Issue these are all purely Ceremonial and yet in practice before ever Jacob went down into Egypt and that was 210 years before ever the Levitical Institutions were enacted And that all the Ten Commandments were ingrafted in the good seeds of nature there are such evident examples for them in all the book of Genesis that it will be less tedious for you to ruminate upon them than for me to remember them But as a Book which is ill set forth or rare to be had is sometimes reprinted again in a good Edition by them that are careful to propagate Learning So those things Moral and Ceremonial which were in use before were revived again when the Law was committed to Writing and called the Scripture partly because the Age of man grew short and the Tradition of Religion through the more hands it went was the more corrupted and because the Devil did superseminare in corde scatter so many Tares among the Wheat that the pure Law was scarce to be found in mans heart and partly men were grown so guilty of the Law that they would not look into their own hearts where they found thoughts accusing them Facti sunt fugitivi à cordibus suis says St. Austin they shunned to look into their own knowledge and conscience which did condemn them therefore it was necessary to have the Law written that it might come unto men since men did run from it But the effects and grounds both of Ceremonial Sacrifices and Moral Precepts were in force from the beginning And we may say with Solomon There is no new thing under the Sun that which is called new hath been already of old time which was before us Eccles i. 10. And because all things which are written are written for our instruction I will spare some time to shew that it concerns us even after the cessation of all Sacrifice to learn why the Lord would be honoured with the bloud of beasts and with the fat of Sacrifices One of the best and choicest of the Fathers thought it such a gross kind of serving of God to kill Oxen and Sheep and throw their flesh into the fire such a tyrannizing over the
volume of thy book it is written of me that I should fulfill thy Law then said I loe I come 2. He fulfilled the Moral Law not only by giving it the right interpretation but by exact obedience whereupon he said Which of you can accuse me of sin 3. He gave life to the Ceremonies pointing to their true meaning as instead of the Circumcision of the flesh exhorting to the Circumcision of the heart 4. Whereas the judicial Law of the Jews did mention temporary and corporeal rewards and punishments Christ changed that stile of speech into spiritual and eternal No doubt but Christ did fulfil all righteousness for he came not to do his own will but the will of his Father his justice was multiformous in all the actions of his life from his Cratch to his Cross yet my Text says that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus by receiving Baptism by that one act fulfil all righteousness I know not one bad interpretation upon that Point which is rare among Expositors to be so divers in their judgments and yet all allowable One says it is meant quoad inchoationem justitiae that so it behoved him to begin the course of righteousness That was but one act of his humility but the first wherein he did manifest obedience So Baptism is the first step that we make into the Church of Christ therefore because light was the first thing that God made among his visible Creatures and Baptism is the first of his spiritual graces it hath ever been called in the Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the illumination of a Christian it is the day of inauguration when we first claim right unto our title of the Kingdom because we are adopted the Sons of God Surely the ordinary gloss conceits the words otherwise but very profitably Righteousness is either Legal which consists in an exact obedience to all the Commandments of God Or else Evangelical which knows Salvation is not attained unto by the works of the Law but thus Repent and believe and thou shalt obtain remission of sins therefore Christ speaking in the person of us who are his members says to John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus must we fulfil all righteousness by calling upon men to repent and be baptized in the true faith and their sins shall be covered and blessed is that man or righteous is that man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin This was the Doctrine taught in the Church every where three hundred years past and more Omnis justitia impletur ex gratiâ All our righteousness is fulfilled through grace and not through works Ut nullus ex operibus neque ex arbitrio glorietur they are the words of the gloss to the end that none may boast of works or in the power of his own free will but acknowledge himself guilty of damnation and obnoxious to the dreadful justice of God let us fly to that grace which freely washeth away our sins Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness Chemnitius makes this apprehension of the Text. Christ did omit no means to reconcile us to his Father that we might be justified before him and this he brought to pass two principal ways 1. When he gave himself an Oblation upon the Cross to take away our sins 2. When he did institute the means and instruments to apply that meritorious satisfaction unto us on this wise therefore he did fulfil righteousness by sanctifying the Sacrament unto us which is the especial medium to apply the righteousness of faith to every one that shall be saved Another and the last sense of this word that likes me also consists in these terms By receiving this Sacrament of Baptism we are tied as far as we are able to fulfil all righteousness It behoveth them that profess the true Faith to keep themselves undefiled from the world and to be holy unto the Lord. As Rachel cried out to Jacob Give me children or else I die so a sincere faith cries out unto the conscience Let me bring forth good works or else I shall be a dying faith and altogether unprofitable Do we make void the Law through faith Says St. Paul God forbid yea we establish the Law Rom. iii. 31. So it appears how righteousness buds forth from Baptism our conscience being watred with the heavenly dew of that Sacrament it makes us fruitful with good works Sed in istôc nequaquam sunt omnia will some man say Will that serve instead of all righteousness For our Saviour saith Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness God gave the word great was the company of Interpreters and his Spirit is in them all You shall hear the several consolations which they pick out from hence 1. To be a perfect teacher and a perfect doer of Gods will these are Tabor and Hermon the two fruitful hills upon which the blessing of the Lord descends To be a Teacher and not to do well is very bad like Hophni and Phinehas those dissolute Priests who polluted the holy Sacrifice To do well and not to teach is laudable and good but it is not excellent for to be an instructer and a doer is a degree of perfection beyond it Omne tulit punctum it is more blessed to give instruction than to receive therefore our Saviour was abundant in both Praeivit in exemplo quod verbo docuit He did lead the way of obedience by example and afterward did preach it to the people Blessed is he therefore that is not only a teacher but a doer of the word this is to fulfil all righteousness 2. Suum cuique there are but three heads from whence all justice is distributed and they may be drawn out of this Baptism for by receiving Baptism we are obedient to the institution of God we provide a salutiferous medicine for our own soul and by letting our light shine before men we do edifie our brother But to render that which is due to God to our own soul to our brother is to be perfect in every line of justice therefore in the universality Christ might say thus he did fulfil all righteousness 3. Says St. Austin Quid est impleatur omnis justitia Impleatur omnis humilitas The Son of God had this meaning how he fulfilled all righteousness because he condescended to the lowest step of humility for there are these three fallings as I may say one lower than another To be subject to a Superiour and not to prefer himself before an equal is justitia sufficiens sufficient humility and no want To be subject to an equal and not to prefer himself before an inferiour is justitia abundans that is not only justice enough but large and abundant humility but to be subject to an inferiour yea the most mighty God to be subject in Baptism to his Creature this is justitia perfectissima most perfect lowliness none can submit it self more and thus indeed to make the pride of base man to blush who
gave you Sons and Daughters you give Obsides Domino Hostages unto God and if you rebel as Nathan said to David because thou hast made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the Child that is born unto thee shall surely die The Fathers sins are visited unto the third and fourth Generation while the Grandsire full of fourscore years of sin stays awhile behind like the rotten root of evil and sees the tender branches cut away because the root was bad and corrupted Thus is the brief sum of the second part of my Text man perished in iniquity Corporeorum incorporeorum horison says Synesius the noble Image of God Secondly That man Achan a branch of the Olive tree even Israel which God had planted But an evil branch is evil though the stock were a Cedar of Libanus Non debent gloriari sarmenta quia non sunt spinarum ligna sed vitis says St. Austin Is it any glory for the dead branches to boast they were Vine branches and not Heythorn since they are cut off and cast away Lastly Non solus periit he fell down like the Tower of Siloam and brain'd all that were about him I have but one short part to dispatch Periit his execution how that man Perished c. To search much into Achans punishment were not the way to be more learned but more tormented And he that is Ingeniosus in suppliciis exquisite in describing the ruine of any man his invention smells of tyranny Briefly thus Every man in the rank of a Subject lives under the authority of three Commanders 1. Under the Conscience of his own heart 2. Under the Laws of his King 3. Under the Commandments of God Triplici nodo triplex cuneus every knot hath a wedge to drive into it And if we displease either God or the King or our own Conscience vengeance meets us on every side Conscientia parit vermem Magistratus mortem Deus Gehennam Conscience hath a worm in store nay a Cockatrice to sting us the Magistrate bears a Sword to divide us but especially it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God In an evil conscience we die unto all joy and comfort In our trespass against the Laws of man we die unto men In breaking the Statutes of God we die unto heaven surely he deserved not to die but one death that offended three All sin is mortal yet among sins some are still-born and make no noise in the world Some are crying sins that have a voice and a voice like the Edomites that cryed against Jerusalem Down with it down with it unto the ground Like the Jews that cried Crucifie him crucifie him and doubled the files of their iniquities Like the men of Ephesus that for two hours space made a noise Great is Diana of the Ephesians When sinners do double thus God finds out more deaths than one to punish them as if judgment had ransack'd the body to find two or three souls and would not leave to destroy all the brood of the Viper Abimelech a cruel murtherer of seventy brethren was crush'd under a Mill-stone and slain with his own Servants Sword it is pity he died not seventy times It was Sauls destiny first to die by the Arrows of the Bow and then to fall upon his own Sword It was Absolons destiny to be hang'd by the head in the Oak tree and be thrust through the heart with the Darts of Joab It was Judas his destiny to cast himself from the Gallows and to be broken in pieces upon the ground And lastly it was Achans destiny to be stoned with stones and then burnt with fire Thus that man perished c. It is very likely if this notorious rich sinner had lived his Tomb should have been as costly to lie over his dead corps as his Babylonish Garment was sumptuous to cover his living body But now there is not so much honour left him for his burial as earth to earth all is turned to ashes that the winds may blow him back again out of Canaan into Egypt from whence he brougt his iniquity A fair Tomb I confess cannot prove that I died a good man but that I died a wealthy Yet some honour is to be shewed to our dead corps because a dead body is nearer to the Resurrection than a living The Egyptians embalming the dead and the Odours and Spices which the Jews were wont to bestow do condemn those uncivil Funerals which some report of Geneva and Amsterdam that bury their dead in ditches and dunghils It makes Jesuits scoff at our Religion Scis ut haeretici colant parentes sulcant coemiteria sic colunt parentes Michael the Archangel fought about the body of Moses and Prudentius played the Poet very well touching Eulalia a Virgin Martyrs body cast abroad in a frosty night to the injury of the air and before morning it was overspread with icycles like a crystal Tomb. Pallioli vice linteoli ipsa elementa jubente Deo exequias Tibi virgo ferunt And certainly there was some such thing or St. Austin would not report it that divers Miracles as healing the sick and converting unbelievers have been wrought by Gods providence at the Tombs of the Martyrs to honour their death and memory But Achan was denied this happiness and though he had two deaths yet he had not one Tomb to be buried in Only an heap of stones were cast upon him for an infamy that as Varro said Monumentum quasi monimentum a Monument for admonition that we fear God and rebel not like Achan that perished fearfully c. The Papists will not leave Achan thus and remove him from Joshuahs hands and the Valley of Achor where he suffered into Purgatory But by what proof or warrant or Enditement Expect an Exposition fit for the nimble brains of the Colledge of Jesuits Achan was stoned with stones and then he died Afterward he and all he had were burnt with fire viz. Opera ejus accensa sunt in Purgatorio he and his works were burnt in Purgatory A likely matter since Joshuah was commanded to burn him and not the Devil Do you think Columbus that found out the fourth part of the world could have found out this third place to receive souls in which is neither Heaven nor Hell The Devil is much beholding to his Advocates that have made him not only Prince of darkness but that which God never made him Prince of Purgatory Some perchance will go a thought further and pronounce a fearful sentence that this man was wiped for ever out of the book of the living That is periit at the height the Lord bless us from it But St. Chrysostom was more mild and charitable As the digging of the earth says the Father and the plowing of it may seem but churlish usage yet that is the way to make it fruitful Ita magis erat Achani salutare supplicium quam aliis impunitas So Achan might go sooner to
not consent to Pharaoh's tyranny He that will sin to please another makes his Friend either to be a God that shall rule him or a Devil that shall tempt him Three things says Aristotle do preserve the life of friendship 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to answer love with like affection 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some similitude and likeness of condition 3. But above either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither to sin our selves nor for our sakes to lay the charge of sin upon our familiars No he is too prodigal of his kindness that giveth his Friend both his heart and his conscience I may not forget how Agesilaus his Son behaved himself in this point toward his own Father the cause was corrupt wherein his Father did sollicit the Son answers him with this modesty Your Education taught me from a Child to keep the Laws and my youth is so inured to your former Discipline that I cannot skill the latter Here let Rhetoricians declaim whether this were duty or disobedience But let us examin the case by Philosophy I am sure that no mans reason is so nearly conjoyned to my soul as my own appetite although my appetite be meerly sensitive And must I oftentimes resist my own appetite and enthral it as a civil Rebel and have I not power much more to oppose any mans reason that perswades me unto evil his reason being but a stranger unto me and not of the secret Council of my Soul Yes out of question Remember what Herodias asked when the Kings oath was passed to deny her nothing St. Paul put in a caution that his Galatians should beware of them that came to pervert their faith in the shape of Angels Licet Angelus What could he say more for it is not the Angel of Smirna and Thiatira they had their faults not the Angel of Millain and Hippona the noble Army of the Church they might have their faults But if an Angel from Heaven preach another Gospel unto you than we have preached what then dare we say nolumus nay but anathema let him be accursed How it pitties me to hear some men say that they could live as soberly as chastly as Saintlike as the best if it were not for Company Fie upon such weakness what Simeon and Levy Brethren in iniquity let such a one be a Proverb and a By-word like Milo the Wrestler whose strength was so great that no Champion in Greece could wring a Pomegranet out of his hand but some lascivious Mistress some painted Harlot could make him let go his hold with a kiss Quid refert utrum in matre an in uxore dummodo Eva in omni muliere caveatur says St. Austin If thy Mother speak thee fair if the Wife of thy Bosom tempt thy heart beware of Eve and think of Adam The Serpent was a wise creature Gen. iii. and Eve could not but take his word in good manners Fond Mother of Mankind so ready to believe the Devil that her posterity ever since have been slow to believe God This is the weakness of our Times and to use holy Nazianzens words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to overwhelm sobriety with Wine in sweet courtesie and Healths as if every tipsie Friend were a Physician I doubt not but the men of Sodom that perished with fulness of bread even they how uncivil soever would have shewn enough of this kindness unto Lot and the Angels But is not this against nature says St. Basil to invite Acquaintants to a Feast for the sustenance of their lives and to endeavour to carry them out of doors like dead men Do you not pity the old Prophet that threatned Jeroboams Altar and made the ashes to tremble by the mighty power of his Message but yet was allured foolishly to turn in and eat when God forbad him He could not say non bibam and stand to it but a Lion out of the Forest did rend the morsels out of his belly before they were digested Beloved never can there be a better season for nolumus for every Christian to be a Rechabite then when any man reacheth out a Cup of intemperance unto us to say boldly we will not drink it And what if I should put you in mind of a more pernicious Cup than that which begets the surfeit of drunkenness it is called the Golden Cup of abominations and the Jesuits are the Cupbearers God give you grace to refuse it when it is reached out unto you and these are the days of trial when swarms of Romanists buz about to pervert the innocent What can they say unto you Beloved are they so meek and humble as we are who built their Popedom above Kings and made their Cardinals the Princes of the Earth Is their life more holy than ours tell me why Stews are maintained why they do sell Indulgences for sins Are they so merciful Who knows not Duke d'Alva's bloudy days Queen Maries Bonfires and the torments of Inquisitions Are they so loyal-hearted alass woe for the loss of so many Princes by their Treasons and Conspiracies But is Christ more magnified by them Why do they interfere upon his Intercession by praying to Saints upon his Mediation by their own Merits Is their Worship of God more spiritual wherefore do I see their Images Are Gods Ordinances so strictly observed in Rome why do some marry incestuously why are some forbidden Marriage Can they prove their Doctrin by so good a foundation as we do wherefore do they urge Traditions Finally Is their Religion more ancient no more than Abrahams Idolatry at Vr in Chaldaea was ancienter than the Worship of the living God Wherefore as our Saviour said to Peter Thou art Simon Bar Jona but thou shalt be called Peter Jonah signifies a Pigeon and Peter an hard Stone as who should say quem inveni timidum ut columbam efficiam lapidem So God confirm the feeble such as tremble on both sides and are fearful as Doves that they may be as the Rock against which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail that you may hold fast your Profession and say against that Cup as the Rechabites did to this non bibemus we will drink no poison Now I proceed to the second part of my Text which hath a strong connexion with the former for why did they resist these enticements and disavow the Prophet Jeremy because says the eighth verse of this Chapter They will obey the voice of Jonadab the Son of Rechab in all things that he hath charged them all the days of their life Their obedience is the second part of their Encomium They will obey the voice of Jonadab their Father The name of Father was that wherewith God was pleased to mollify our stony hearts and bring them into the subjection of the fifth Commandment Illa enim superioritas maximé amabilis est minimè invidiosa says Calvin we cannot envy the superiority of a Father every man being likely to succeed in the same dignity Festus reports
Jerusalem our Mother hath indulgence to appoint all external administrations of holiness It is no small ease as I have shewed it to be disingaged from the incumbrance of the old Ceremonies but that which comes next in order is so essential to our happiness that from thence we may say truly and from nothing else the Lord turned the captivity of Sion The time is past when salvation was offered to them turned the captivity of Sion The time is past when salvation was offered to them that did the works of the Law O those were days of bitterness and desperation the Covenant is renewed unto us in another form through the promise of mercy to them that believe in Jesus Christ Now Sin that great Tyrant shall have no dominion over us for we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. vi 14. Mark the two Covenants and the severe exaction in the one and the mild temperature of the other the one comes blustering like the whirlwind and breaks down Mountains before it the other is the still voice which beats sweetly upon the ear of Elias the one hath nothing but dayes of trouble and reproach the other is a continual Jubilee of rest and peace The Law may be compared to those wretched men that work at the Oar in a Gally they strein their sinews and their strength to plow the waves and yet they meet with such strong tempests that they cannot recover the Haven but the Gospel is a Ship whose sails are spread with faith and hope and the winds of mercy blow them fairly on that the Passengers are carried as in a dream to the Port with speed and tranquillity Hear them both speak Rom. x. 5. for that 's the clearest Scripture I take it for their distinction The righteousness of the Law saith the man that doth these things shall live by them but the righteousness which is by faith speaketh on this wise if thou shalt confess the Lord Jesus thou shalt be saved The man that doth these things shall live but the Lord looked down from Heaven and found no such man upon all the earth Be the imperfections in our manners that are not scandalously culpable yet the law hath not pardon for them that which must be weighed in Gods Balance it must not want a scruple Correct the wandring of your eye bridle your tongue watch your heart â—r servent in prayer be vigilant against tentations yet there is that repugnancy to the Law that unruliness in this body of death that the evil which you would not you shall do and then the Law turns to be that Adversary in St. Matthew which delivers you over to the Tormentor till you have paid the utmost farthing This was not only a bondage under a churlish Nabal that would not be satisfied with such diligence as a Servant could perform but the condition of a beast whose qualities cannot excuse him totally but that sometimes he shall be spurred and beaten Yet none were ever born that can impeach the Law of rigour no not in the equity of humane reason if you will examine them from first to last it will come but into the Margent of our Enditement that our actions have not been so pure and holy and fervent as the bounty of the Divine goodness towards us requires turpitudes of life abominable desires of the heart bruitish intemperance scalding malice unclean passions will fill up our accusations O what a perturbation what unquietness of consciences what a hell of fear it is to know that our Arraignment is just and to have nothing but the Law that inexorable letter of condemnation to comfort us Imus imus praecipites we should feel our selves tumbling down and see no bottom Sin is so ponderous that if the Ship had not been lightned of Jonas it had sunk the Heaven could not hold the Devil and his Angels from falling the Earth could not support Core and Dathan but it is more massy and leaden upon the conscience than in all the Elements What need I to tell you that God did give the Law in an angry form upon Mount Horeb or that he delivered it to Moses a Servant to bring to note the bondage of the Letter I have looked back enough to this let me bring you from this Ergastulum this Prison of Works into the Courts of Gods House into Jerusalem above which is free Jerusalem at the time when this Epistle was written to the Galatians was in bondage two ways in Civil servitude under the Romans in Legal servitude under Moses a miserable case that they should not feel the oppression they were in under Moses car'd not for a Deliverer nay did as much as in them lay to curse their Deliverer Christ that came to set them free they used him as a Servant in crucem servus they crucified him which was a most servile punishment Thus their stupidness in their bondage did make for our freedom and thereby was consummated the Covenant of Faith that we might believe in him who died to be a propitiation for our sins O what a pleasant condition it is what a free what a Princely state of life to wait upon Gods mercy and to be subject to the Ordinance of Faith Upon it depend Pardon Forgiveness Reconciliation Grace Adoption of Saints the Inheritance the Kingdom the Promise of everlasting life With how much diffidence did the Lawgiver intercede in the behalf of Israel Forgive the sin of the people if not blot me out of the book of life To supplicate forgiveness is a message sent from Faith but the Law plucks it back with this distrustful Omen if not if there be no hope then is my confusion before me for ever This is noted in the Generation of Ismael the Son of the Bond-woman Says Sarah to Abraham Go in to Hagar it may be I may obtain children by her This is the Law which despairs and doubts whether God will be gracious but Faith never speaks so faintly looks for no denial how unworthy soever to obtein its Petitions Publicans invite Christ home Adulteresses wash his feet Thieves recommend themselves to be received into his Kingdom and all this not because they are free from the Law but from the Covenant of it which is the bondage of the Law Had their conscience misdeemed that they must be saved by Works they had run away like Bond-men from an austere Lord their tongue had been tied that it durst not wag but light shining in their hearts revealed unto them that Jerusalem was free that the Inheritance came by the Promise of Grace they flock unto him who is the Mediatour of a better Covenant who vindicates his Portion from the bands of Sin and Death and Hell and hath given power to his Ministers to bring those that seek for mercy out of the prison and servitude of Satan for whatsoever they loose upon Earth shall be loosened in Heaven Hold here and stir not from this rock put not the point to
that heavenly Host who were the first that preacht the Gospel to the Shepherds I take my self off from this discourse in which I might amply proceed lest you say unto me as one said of Hortensius that he advanc'd Eloquence to the skies craftily meaning that himself might be advanc'd as an Eloquent Orator in the commendation If we glory we will glory in our infirmities and in the Cross of Christ not presuming upon that amplification of analogy with Angels I will lay the scene of my reproof beyond the Seas but I would we were quit of the fault at home How many exalted Prelates refuse to do that office to teach Christ especially to poor Shepherds although a Cherubim of Heaven in my Text did willingly submit himself to do the work It troubled the Historiographers among our Adversaries to find out one Pope in almost 100 years that was a pulpit man when he became a Pope that was Pius V and he but rarely I may say of such men as Pliny did of those Emperours who made great suit to be Consuls and then disdain'd to discharge the Function O inscitia verae majestatis concupiscere honorem quem dedigneris dedignari quem concupieris O ignorance of duty to affect that honour which they scorn'd to execute to scorn to execute that honour which they earnestly affected Is an Angel no more than fit to preach Christ and is proud man too good for it 6. The fancies of men have assaye'd to add this for a sixth reason to the former that the noble Hierarchies of Heaven do merit some increase and addition of glory by their care and obsequiousness toward the universal body of the Church of Christ but the matter was better scann'd by Biel who therefore refutes that sentence of Lombard Tum sequitur si homo non fuisset creandus Angelus non habuisset summam suam beatitudinem Then it would follow that the Eternal Felicity of the Thrones of Heaven did depend upon the creation of man for except there had been a Church here below to which they might administer they had wanted occasion to demerit some increase of their glory Indeed it is an opinion that savours of servility and baseness as if they that stand always before the face of God would do nothing but upon gain and advantage Alas they have no other end of their labour but that which every man should have in charity the increase and enlargement of the Triumphant Church in Heaven and therefore our Saviour Luke 12.9 threatens Apostates from the Faith thus He that denieth me before men him will I deny before the Angels of God that is before the greatest friends and well-wishers of our beatitude Lastly It is an observation not to be omitted how St. Austin compares three several ways wherein Christ was manifested to the Shepherds by an Angel to the Wise men by a Star to Simeon and Anna devout people that spent their age in the Temple by the Holy Ghost Simeon and Anna were exceeding faithful such as waited and expected every day the salvation of Israel and therefore the Holy Ghost told them secretly in their hearts as soon as the Babe was brought into the Temple that this was the Lamb of God which should take away the sins of the world The Shepherds I presume were just men but had not so much perfection in the knowledge of the Law to look for and expect a Saviour therefore an extraordinary Nuntio an Angel was sent unto them but the Gentiles utter aliens from the Faith were directed to the Manger by signs and wonders from heaven So says St. Paul 1 Cor. 14.22 Signs are for them that believe not and Prophesies for them that believe And as the axiom is in Philosophy every thing is best collated when it is fitted ad modum recipientis Now the Shepherds were Jews and were taught in the Synagogues concerning the Apparition of Angels the Magi were Astronomers and better knew the course of Stars The book of the Creature was sit to teach the Gentiles but a Divine Spirit was better accommodate to teach a Jew that they might receive the Gospel even as they had received the Law and the Law was delivered says St. Paul by the ministration of Angels And so much for the first general part all the five questions being satisfied which of the Angels this was when he came in what figure and apparition how he did apply himself to the Shepherds and lastly why men were not accepted to do this office but loe an Angel of the Lord. The order which I propounded requires now that I speak of the pomp and solemnity which the Angel brought with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the glory of the Lord shone round about them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the glory of the Lord fitly rendred in this place by the vulgar Latin Claritas Domini a lightsome brightness or splendor which God caus'd to shine in that place making the night unto the Shepherds as clear as if it had been day So when a lightsome pure cloud did appear in the Dedication of Solomons Temple the Text says 1 Kings 8.11 The glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord therefore it was not properly that essential glory of God unto which no man in this life can approach but lux ante gloriam the consolation of a beautiful light which was the shadow and the fore-runner of Glory But it were a great trespass in Art to run into obscurity and confusion when we are to speak of light 1. Therefore I will endeavour to shew how many ways such brightsome apparitions are observable in holy Scripture 2. Why this illustrious Glory did shine round about the Shepherds When God would beautifie and adorn a thing in some excellent manner I find that in a four-fold fashion he scatters and transfuses the beams of light and splendor either upon it or about it 1. Let us reflect our remembrance upon our Saviours Transfiguration his face did shine as the Sun and his rayment was white as the light as white as snow says St. Mark so that no Fuller on earth could make a thing so white Now we know that Christ was not as yet glorified his body had not yet put on incorruption therefore Eluxit splendor à Divinitate it was the pleasure of his Divinity at this instant to alter his countenance and his garment and from the union of his Divine nature this glory did redound upon the outward parts 2. In the Resurrection when our flesh shall become an inhabitant of the heavens not only the face but all the body of man shall look in a triumphant manner like a pillar of light which unspeakable beauty shall result from the soul to the blessing and ornament of the body So I read Dan. 12.3 They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever 3. This claritude and heavenly
life of Christ and so forth we go on with chearfulness to abandon fear The Fathers note it in the Cratch of the Manger where he was laid a place made unclean with the dung of beasts but ipsa stercora mundefecit As his presence did purifie the room albeit the filthiness of the dung so his Nativity hath cleansed as many as believed in him albeit the loathsomness of their iniquities I have but one thing to say more to this point noted as I remember by Gregory out of the Genealogy of his birth Mat. i. thrice fourteen Generations are reckoned up and but four women incidentarily put into the Catalogue Judah begat Pharez of Thamar Salmon begat Booz of Rahab and Booz begat Obed of Ruth and David begat Solomon of her that had been the Wife of Vriah No women cited in the Chapter but these four three of which had been unchast ones very Strumpets to chear up the penitent sinner that their sins and his and the sins of all that believe are done away by him by him that is above all names the Son of God who came into the world to purge us of our filthiness therefore the true mirth of Christmas is to say with David Psal xxiii 4. Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me to save me from destruction Thus far I have enlarged the Angels comfortable Preface to the Shepherds Fear not that they should not be dismayed either at the light of glory which shined about them or at their own unworthiness which was a darkness within them or at the malediction of the Law which pleaded condemnation against them for the Birth of Christ as I have shewed was a remedy to take all malignity from them Perchance if the Angel should come amongst us in these days of slumber and security he might spare that part of his Message For where 's the man that humbles himself as he ought as if there were any evil to come We are all confident and void enough from fear if that be good Therefore I come now to lay the second part of my Text to the former how we should not be afraid not with an immoderate fear not with a desperate damning fear which dogs a sullen unrepentant sinner up and down but there is a pious reverential fear which well becomes the Saints and now I proceed to speak of those particulars The Schoolmen very rightly consider fear two ways Quà donum quà passio gift of the good Spirit of God one way and another way as it is meerly a natural passion And first I will speak of it as it is a gift of the Holy Spirit Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor says Statius not so soundly that fear was the first thing in the world that made a God But I am sure that want of filial and awful fear is the first thing that will make an Atheist and perswade a man there is no God The Prophet Isaiah could say no worse of the Idols made of stocks and stones but that we should not be dismayed at their Godship they could neither do good nor hurt But if we will revereri we must vereri there can be no true worship of God without a sollicitous and most anxious care not to displease his Majesty He that is not conscientiously afraid to offend doth most of all offend When Zacharies mouth was opened and began to divine of this day Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited his people fear fell upon all that were round about him Luke i. 65. it fell upon them indeed even as the Holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles at Whitsontide Acts ii In like manner when the Widows Son of Naim was raised from the dead by the word which Christ spake Fear came upon all that were there and they glorified God Luke xvii 16. Surely they had not glorified God as they ought if that fear had not come upon them One instance more 1 Kings iii. 28. All Israel feared Solomon when they saw the judgment of God was in him And shall not all the World bow down with reverence and astonishment when they know that the power of all judgment is in God himself But as for this filial devout fear perhaps we love to hear of it for the Angels themselves cover their faces with their wings standing before the throne of the most high Isa vi as if the Majesty of God were awful and dreadful unto them And indeed a sollicitousness to do the will of God because he is good and gracious the study of the heart which is wary and circumspect not to decline from his Law if you will call this fillial fear it may become an Angel for David speaks of it as if it should endure in heaven Psal xix 9. The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever This is it to whose perfection we must aspire to live justly and soberly though there were no Hell at all but purely out of the principle of love and zeal to the honour of our heavenly Father and what a becoming thing it is unto Religion to approach to divine Prayers especially to the Table of the Lord with an awful duty as if we were afraid to speak to God or to touch the crums of his heavenly banquet Is not this better than to thrust our selves into such coelestial actions with a sawcy familiarity without fear or wit What is more comfortable than to taste of that Cup which betokens the precious bloud that was shed for our sins And yet the Greek Fathers term it usually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tremendum mysterium a mystery to be trembled at when we partake thereof Assuredly we may presuppose that when Mary took the clouts into her hand to wrap about her Infant when Joseph did assist as it were in the office of a Father when the Wisemen offered their gifts when the Shepherds came out of the fields into Bethlem and peept in where Christ was laid to see what was done every action of theirs was mixt with reverent fear and joy they stood amazed they prostrated themselves there was no more spirit left in them as it is said of the Queen of Sheba when she beheld the royalty of Solomon therefore the Angel forbids not but after this sort they should dread the Lord with a filial and reverential fear Nay I go further the Angel would not disapprove of that fear which trembles at the wrath to come and endeavours to live unblameable because God is an avenger of unrighteousness for to discredit this fear by calling it fervile and to dehort Christians from it against which stone some I know do stumble it shall not be my Doctrine I hold it not safe and warrantable If they take fervile fear in that notion in which the Sententiaries do take Attrition that is to be displeased at our sins only because judgment will follow but neither sorrowing that God is
with us than against us Our friends do exceed the number of our enemies therefore we may be couragious Besides the name of Gabriel supposed to be that Messenger that came to the Shepherds his name by interpretation is Fortitudo Domini the strength of God as if he were a great Bulwark on our side Quoniam bellum indictum est Daemonibus upon Christmas day began open hostility against the Devil therefore it is a good Omen a blessed presage that the trumpet of Gabriel blew these tidings abroad who is fortitudo Domini a valiant Prince such a one as Michael was that conquered the Dragon as his name is so is himself the strength of God Finally we may be sure that what he said to encourage us was solid comfort without flattery no false alarm no smoother of sweet words where there is no cause for there are Mountebanks in Divinity that will promise many sorts of remedies to a sin-sick soul where there is none at all As Jeremy describes those false blandishing Prophets They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly saying peace peace when there is no peace Slightly or verbis leviculis says Vatablus with gibing frumps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read the Septuagint scornful despising them whom they seduced with lying hopes Periculosiora sunt animae secura quà m corpori adversa says St. Austin security is more perillous to the soul than affliction to the body But such messengers as my Text speaks of cannot publish a falshood because they are ever enlightned with the spirit of truth we may build upon a rock of confidence if they say Nolite timere fear not One touch more and this Point is done You hear that the Tongues of Angels are chearful comfortable Tongues their tidings are no flattery yet they are words of mirth and gladness Then it were good me thinks that discretion and the consideration of Christs merciful Gospel did mitigate their zeal who think they are bound to thunder nothing so much to the people as fears and terrors like the writer of Iambiques that spote anger and poyson to put Archilochus into desperation Let Vices be threatned but let the hope that accompanies true repentance go together Let Judgment be put home to the obdurate conscience but let Mercy be an Advocate for the broken in heart Let the strictness of Law and the Curse thereof fetch a tear from our eyes but let the ransom of our sins be set before us and that Christ will wipe all tears from our eyes St. Paul wisht himself at Corinth not to affright them but to rejoyce with the Brethren as it was said of the mild nature of the Emperour Vespasian Neminem unquam dimisit tristem he never sent any man from him discontent but gave him some comfort and satisfaction So the Gospel is such a sweet demulcing Lesson that if it be truly preach'd it must always revive the heart it cannot leave a sting behind it You see the Angel delights not to scare but to comfort the Shepherds Fear not I shall lead your patience no further than one thing more why they should not fear Propter nuntiatum that 's the most principal regard because Christ was born to be their comfort This is to be descanted at large hereafter upon the remainder of this Text and for the present I will prevent what I shall say hereafter but with this one observation that concerning all such as are terrified and perplex'd in mind we can do no more than the Angel hath done preach Christ unto them for their comfort if the joy of his Nativity will not allay their disconsolate melancholy desperation then there is no Balm in Gilead to help them that 's all the infusion of solace which the Angel did pour into the world when it was cast down with sin Poor soul that art terrified with a condemning conscience tell me to what end was Christ born but to seek and to save them that were lost Was not he partaker of flesh and bloud as thou art And dost thou surmise that he made any for condemnation whose nature he took upon him unless by their own infidelity they make themselves reprobates Did he come among us to bring great joy unto all people And wilt thou thrust thy self out of the number Did not he weep in his Cratch that thou mightest sing in heaven Did not he fly from Herod that thou mightest fly from Satan Was not he brought forth amongst us in great humility and misery that thou mightest be translated out of misery into glory Be not like Rachel that would not be comforted Fear not little flock it is your Fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifieth who shall condemn us It is Christ that was born and died and rose again to deliver us from all evil it is he that was made man that thou mightest be made a glorious Saint a fellow Citizen with Angels AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 10. Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people IN the same Text where we ended the old year let us begin the new Jesus Christ last year and this year and the same for ever To speak of our Saviours Nativity says Bernard is as new at these days as it was in the first Twelfth-tide after he was born Semper novum est quod semper innovat mentes nec unquam vetus est quod fructificare non cessat That 's justly esteemed a new meditation which prepares us to newness of life neither can we say a tree grows old by standing long in the soil which fructifies continually as much as ever it did before In the imagination of our Faith Christ seems to be offered up again so often as we remember his Death and Passion in the Sacrament so he seems as verily to be born again so often as we do faithfully annuntiate his Incarnation Once we have done that work already in the day it self the time is not yet expired which belongs to that Solemnity now we are come once more to the same business to dispatch it that you may see the difference between the antiquation of the Old Law plucking out the sting of fear and the publication of the new Covenant the Gospel which breaths unspeakable gladness First I have preacht upon these words how we should purge out the old leaven of distrustful fear now I come to shew what it is to have a new heart created full of spiritual joy I observed unto you upon the whole verse that as much might be said from hence to extol the benefit which we receive by Christs Nativity as is usually delivered to express that everlasting felicity which we shall enjoy with God in the highest Heavens to that beatitude of the Saints say the Schoolmen very rightly two things must concur Omnis miseria excluditur omne
nothing different from a servant The faithful since the coming of Christ are adulti heirs come to age such I may say as have sued out their livery past pupillage past the pedagogie of Ceremonies for the yoke of Ceremonies was most troublesome that the coming of Christ which cancelled such things might the more be desired Then they beheld a Messias in types and shadows now he is manifest in his own person then Faith was obscurer now it is more clear then the Spirit was given scantily now it is poured out in full abundance Abundantia spiritus est elogium regni Christi then the preaching of Faith was included in the Kingdom of Israel now it is diffused throughout all the world Mark it now I beseech you how these three do differ The Law did terrifie and astonish there were no good tidings in that The promise of Grace and Mercy was an annuntiation of good news worth the hearing and it was fit that a promise should go before that the day of Christ might be long'd for and much desired before he came yet this did cool the comfort that hope deferred doth afflict the soul Wherefore when the desire of our eyes did come into the world to satisfie the Law for us and to satisfie he expectation of all promises then it became Evangelium good tidings happy news nothing shall be heard any more to vex us or to trouble us unless for want of Faith we would vex our selves And what ear will not listen to good tidings when old Jacob heard that Joseph was living his spirit reviv'd and Israel said it is enough Joseph my son is yet alive Joseph was advanc'd in Egypt by the wonderful providence of God that he might receive his brethren in the great distress of famine these were good tidings to Israel but is it not much better to hear of this sound out of Ephrata that Christ is come into the world to feed his brethren in the time of dearth with the bread of life O quoties quae nobis Galataea locuta est as a passionate woer longs to hear of a sweet message from the party whom he loves so the Spouse which is the Church rejoyceth to hear glad tidings from the Bridegroom that so it might enjoy his presence here that she might dwell with him hereafter for ever Calisthenes approacht towards Alexander the Great portending much alacrity in his countenance what says Alexander An Homerus revixit iterum are there any tidings to be brought which make you so merry unless Homer were alive again all that he could pitch upon for good news was if that divine Poet were alive again to record his story in a long lasting Poem O how infinitely do these good tidings surpass that ambitious fancy Christus natus est a Saviour is born to write our names for ever in the book of life St. Paul took out this lesson from hence Quam speciosi pedes Rom. x. 15. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of things The Prophet Isaiah spoke of them that foretold of the delivery of Israel out of the Babylonish captivity and if those messengers were welcome that uttered things concerning bodily felicity much more shall their coming be acceptable that solace the inward man the heart and soul Beauty is that which attracts affections to it so the Apostles are said to be beautiful because they drew the world unto them and it was proper concerning them to say how beautiful are their feet rather than their lips for they did not rest in one place but took the whole world for their circuit from City to City and because of their dangerous and painful travel by Sea and Land the Prophet said How beautiful are their feet Despise not therefore such as succeed them though much unworthy in the same errand but have them in honour for their welcome message Though Christ hath not washt our feet to make them beautiful as he did his Disciples yet the very word that we have to say doth honour our lips for they are good tidings no things in the world compar'd to the comfort of the Gospel they are good tidings c. The main drift of the Text did hang upon this word how the Angel did Evangelize that is to say bring good tidings now we are clear'd and come off from that and although there are many things in the Gospel very harsh to flesh and blood as to leave all and follow Christ to suffer persecution c. Yet these things as I noted in the third place produce joy joy of a grand size in the intention great joy joy of an infinite measure in the extension everlasting joy joy that shall be says the Text and these are now to be consider'd together and first that the Birth of Christ bids us rejoyce and be glad Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn when such a Bridegroom is come unto them he came unto the world like ripe fruit in the fulness of time whereupon says St. Ambrose Christus tanquum maturitas advenit ut nihil acerbum nihil immaturum nihil immite sit He came when all the fruits of comfort were mellow and delicious that nothing might be sower or harsh or distastful to his beloved I alledged the Text of Isaiah before How beautiful are the feet of them that brought tidings of him The Septuagint according to some Editions read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what a spring there was in the Mountains when he was preacht whereupon says S. Cyril as the Spring chears up the hearts of men beautifies the earth and the fields after the desolating frosts of a wastful Winter so the preaching of this Nativity made every thing to flourish after the bitter blasting frosts of the Law If there were such joy at the birth of Isaac that they call'd him Isaac from laughter then let all the earth clap their hands and rejoyce when he was manifested in the flesh that made the laughter of Isaac For our more orderly proceeding I must consider joy three manner of ways 1. What true joy doth properly result from the Birth of Christ 2. What joy may be allowed and indulg'd to Christians 3. What joy is condemnable For the first that joy which doth properly result from the Birth of Christ is Risus ex serenitate conscientiae the mirth and delight of a good conscience for he that hath given us his only Son how shall he not with him freely give us all things Rom. viii 32. The Israelites were confident of victorious success when the Ark of God was in their Camp The Ephesians thought themselves safe and secure when they had but an Image which fell down from Heaven This was but a fiction like him that dreams of comfort and loe he is in desperate extremities but our case is most clear and happy to whom the God of Gods made his approach as one friend that visits another who
brought with him lookt another way Titus ii 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity Some few persons are culled out here for all that shall be shielded under the buckler of this Saviour unto you a Saviour is born says the Angel speaking only to the Shepherds that 's because no more were in the way But to as many as read these words and mark them the word speaks continually and is never silent the message is as properly brought to you as ever it was to the Shepherds to you a Saviour is born The Prophet Isaiah allows him to all the Sons of Adam that will lay claim unto him unto us a Child it born and unto us a Son is given Isa ix 6. 'T is a kind expression to rejoyce at the good news of another mans prosperity 't is incident to a sweet nature to do so And indeed if Angels were so enlightned with the gladsomness of our benefit that when they had said it over they could not choose but sing it also in the verses after my Text Cum de aliena gratia Angeli exultent quae nostra est stupiditas If the blessed Cherubims exult for the grace that we find in Gods eyes what stupidness is in us if our hearts do not triumph for gladness for the benefit flows unto us and not unto the Angels The Devils fretted and roared out against Christ because he came into the world for mans sake and not for their deliverance Quid nobis tibi What have we to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God we renounce thee Mat. viii 29. The evil spirits rage that he is not theirs the good Spirits of God rejoyce that his Father hath made him all ours being secure of their own glorious estate they triumph that we shall be exalted to the fellowship of their happiness Well then to you he is born not only to the Shepherds but inclusive to all men so you have heard in the former verse his birth was gaudium omni populo joy to all people only they are excluded that exclude themselves by infidelity Facit multorum infidelitas ut non omnibus nasceretur qui omnibus natus est says St. Ambrose the infidelity of many now infidelity is properly imputed to those within the Church who had the means to believe and did not the infidelity of many is a bar that the Incarnation of Christ pertains not to all men although he was born for all men Every man therefore must strive so to love Christ and to keep his Commandements that he may feel the joy of this day particularly enter into his heart and the Spirit testifying to his spirit unto me a Saviour is born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Greeks it comes of the possessive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tuus a Saviour restoreth every man to himself for a sinner is lost not only to God and the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven but he is lost to himself and to the comfort of a good conscience until Christ restore him again to joy and peace within his own heart that he may say to himself as Philip did to Nathanael I have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth c. Oportet uti nostro in utilitatem nostram de servatore salutem operari says Bernard Let us make our profit from that which is our own and let every man collect his own salvation from his own Saviour To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings Mal. iv 2. The Sun enlightens half the world at once yet none discern colours by the light but they that open their eyes and a Saviour is born unto us all which is Christ the Lord but enclasp him in thine heart as old Simeon did in his arms and then thou mayst sing his Nunc Dimittis or Mary's Magnificat My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour The fourth thing to be consider'd is what early tidings the Shepherds had of our Saviours birth hodie natus I do not tell it to you says the Angel after a month or after a week go to Bethlehem and search and ye shall find this is the first day that his Mother bore him This day is born unto you in the City of David c. Before the blessed seed was promised for a long while ye have had a state in reversion that Christ should come in the flesh to save his people from their sins now the act is accomplished ye have a state in being enter upon your happiness and possess it reckon from henceforth that you have your joy in hand this day the great deliverer hath taken up a poor Palace in the City of David According to a natural computation of days we forget the nights though an Infant be brought forth in the still hours of darkness yet from thenceforth we call it the Birth-day and not the birth-night of such an Infant In such accompts I know not how we speak of nothing but day for that 's the Dialect of the Kingdom of Heaven where there is day for ever and no darkness So the Shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night and after the first hour the morning began as the general conjecture runs our Saviour was born yet since a natural day comprehends darkness as well as light the Angel was pleas'd to say This day he is born This is literal and to the plain meaning yet I refrain not their allusions altogether that say the darkness was remov'd away by that radiant glory which shone round about the Angels and that the night was as clear in those parts as if the Sun had risen upon the earth therefore upon the comfort of that miraculous illumination the messenger says This day is born unto you And David by some men is made to speak to this allusion Psal cxxxviii The night is as clear as the day which was true say they at our Saviours Incarnation Others take their liberty to guess that good tidings make the night be called day and sad tidings make the day be called night Heavy misfortunes indeed have fallen out in the night for the most part Sennacheribi great host slain in the night Thou fool this night thy soul shall be taken from thee a threatning to the rich Epicure yet it holds not always But if Christ be the day-star and his Birth turns night into day it will become us as the Apostle says to walk as children of the light Curiosity hath gone too far in one question touching this part of my Text why this late day was esteemed most expedient in Gods wisdom to send his Son in the flesh four thousand years had almost expir'd since the seed of the Woman was promised to bruise the Serpents head and yet no sooner then hodie say they that will search in to all causes the Angel said to day but why he came punctually on that
special priviledge not by common publication that which was a secret among some few is now vulgar to all God hath disclosed his hidden treasures to us as unto friends He was their Lord so he is ours but he is also our Father They were his servants and so are we but the interest we have in Christ that hath taken our nature upon him hath made us more than servants and exalted us to be his friends Hitherto I have held your attentions to the Supplicant now the Petition of his soul comes in order that he may depart The Servant had a burden that opprest him a frail and a corruptible body and he desires the Lord to ease him of it and to take it from him For so St. Ambrose and the Syrian Paraphrast read the word optatively Dimitte O take me away from hence and let me depart And they that say it is dimittis for dimittes the Present Tense for the Future bring it up to the same sense Lord thou wilt now let thy servant depart so Origen and St. Cyprian read it for the Hebrews use to make their Petitions in the future time as thou shalt hear my prayer in an acceptable time which is a fit form of words to ask in faith and not to waver as St. James says but the word here is Metaphorical in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you would say in the native term Lord now lettest thou thy servant be unloosed as horses are taken from the Plough and set up to rest when they have drawn till Evening and are weary or to signifie says St. Ambrose that necessity compelled him to stay here Ideo dimitti poscit quasi à vinculis quibusdam ad libertatem festinaret therefore he desires to be let loose as if he had been enthraled like some Captive and now would shake off his bonds and attain his liberty This earth is not our Country therefore though we have an inbred desire to have the union of the body and soul maintained yet our willingness inclines to be uncloathed of the body rather than not go from hence when we are full of days Quis peregre constitutus non prepararet in patriam regredi says St. Cyprian that man were unnatural that affected to be a stranger and had rather travel always than settle himself at home in peace revolve in your memory the words of just men in holy Scripture and you shall find that this is common to them all to mourn and sigh because their pilgrimage was prolonged Wo is me that I am constrained to live with Mesech says David Who shall deliver me from the body of this death Says St. Paul It is enough Lord take away my life I am not better than my Fathers says Elias While the body was a Palace the soul was content to stay in it now it is become a filthy prison no wonder if it desires to be gone Let not Simeons Nunc dimittis nor this Doctrine be mistaken every mans willingness to leave this world and to die is not commended from hence but when it is joyned with patience and good internal motives especially when we find an aptness and good preparation in our selves that when we go from hence we shall be joyned to the Lord. There is no worse sign in some that God is departed from them than when they are sullen and froward with their life and care not which way they break violently out of the world so they may depart Seneca could say Mori velle non tantum fortis patiens set etiam fastidiosus potest that is not only stout men are resolved to die and such as are fortified against fear but the discontented that cannot bear his cross had rather lose himself than his peevishness good and bad upon several reasons are contented both to die and to live Sunt homines qui cum patientiâ moriuntur sunt autem quidam perfecti qui cum patientiâ vivunt says St. Austin There are some holy men that exercise their patience to be content to die there are some perfect men that exercise their patience to be content to live therefore the motives that induced Simeon to this must be sifted to make him an inoffensive nay a profitable example Salmeron the Jesuit follows a most capricious invention that this reverend Sire importuned God to put a period to his days as soon as Christ was born that he might be the first Nuncio to the Fathers that were in limbo and certifie them that the Messias was come into the world who would exalt them from that lowly condition in which they were held and conduct their souls into the Kingdom of heaven This is so extravagant that I give it you to note the man and the far-fetcht way of their expositions The true reason is that this cygnea cantio this farewel Song of his hath taught us that there is no terror in going to the Grave no sting in death since God appeared before us and became man to deliver our souls from the nethermost hell and to make our bodies like to his own most glorious body They that know not what their condition may be in the next world must needs think of death with an heavie heart and sigh and wring their hands when they feel it approaching He that could see Christ no otherwise than through the dark mists of the Law did count it somewhat an irksom thing to go out of the land of the living it was a good King of Judah that chattered like a Swallow when Isaiah told him he should live no longer But it is incredible to humane reason how it encourageth a faithful man to meet his death with chearfulness because though not in our own bodies yet in the Apostles and others we have seen we have heard and our hands have handled the word of life and that we know there is plentious redemption for us in Christ our Saviour Simeon knew the instant of his dissolution was at hand and yet he sang away the remainder of his life with joy as who should say Egredere ô anima fly away my soul fly away like a dove and take thy rest for now I see that the promises of grace and mercy are true here is Christ thy Saviour in thy hands thine eyes do see thine arms do support thy Salvation though thou departest thou shalt not go from him for he is man on earth to comfort thee and God in heaven to glorifie thee This is it which did animate Simeon to say Lord let me depart and therefore as the Patriarches in the time of the Law desired length of days upon earth that they might live to see the Messias so let us desire a joyful departure to be with him for evermore I proceed the time which he sets for the accomplishment of his Petition is presently or at that instant Now Lord now let c. Nunc ante hâc non item As who should say if I had been summoned to leave
is in the new Temple of Jerusalem above the Stars that doth secretly teach the heart As the times go the efficacy of grace had need be stiffly maintained against bare outward means Mark the consent of antiquity upon this Point Non satis fuisset stella nisi adfuisset fides illustratio sancti spiritus says St. Ambrose they had never moved so far for the Star alone without the illumination of faith and the holy Spirit Fulgentior veritatis radius eorum corda perdocuit says Leo certain impulsions and illustrations of the holy Spirit gave them understanding and will to come to Christ Deus direxit eos tam in viâ morum quà m in viâ pedum says Chrysologus God did direct them both in their inward and in their outward ways The natural man is not able to discern the things that belong to God let these alone to themselves and shew them a bright Lamp from heaven and they would have thought of any thing as soon as of this question Where is he that is born the King of the Jews Suppose they had certain Traditions in their Schools that when such a Star was seen the Messias was come into the world yet no man could apply himself to seek out Christ and worship him but by the Spirit of God Every man is full of his conjectures who should deliver the expectation of the Messias to those remote Gentiles whether Daniel or some other Prophet that was in the Chaldean Captivity Or whether Balaam who lived in the Mountains of the East a thousand years before Daniel Nay another Author puts it upon Seth that he left a Prophesie concerning such an occasion which should fall out against the birth of Christ and that the Wise-men of the East appointed twelve men of their Colledge to watch that Star every year from the beginning of Autumn to the Winter and when one of those twelve died they supplied the number that their Watchmen might never fail Some Predictions they had I will not contend about it preacht to the outward ear yet this had been but sounding brass and empty words if the Lord had not secretly moved their heart What you will say and was the Spirit diffused even among the disperced of the Nations that lived without the Law Yes Beloved that was more than seldom seen as the spirit of grace was in Cornelius to send up Prayers and Alms to heaven before he knew what it was to be baptized unto remission of sins in the bloud of Christ The spirit of direction was upon Cyrus an heathen 2 Chron. c. ult 22. he was admonisht from God to build the Temple The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus the King of Persia And the spirit of Divination or Prophesie was upon the wicked Soothsayers of the Philistins 1 Sam. vi 9. they divined if the Cart in which they put the Ark of the Lord went up straight to Bethshemesh to its own Coast then the Lord had laid evil upon them for detaining it and so it came to pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom God did make the Event answer to the Prediction of those wicked Soothsayers No opposition therefore in this but the Spirit bloweth where it listeth even among the dispersed of the heathen even among these Wise-men of the East Dedit aspicientibus intellectum qui prestitit signum The grace of God was in their understanding and his signs and wonders in their outward eye And so much of their first Assertion what God had wrought for them We have seen c. Said I even now that the benediction of the Spirit was upon them So it is evident by the last part of my Text their second Assersion what God had wrought in them and are come to worship him Many might come a journey to see him as well as they for that Herod that cut off John Baptist his head desired of a long time to see him Many might see the Star as well as they and be never the better for sundry saw as great signs and miracles that never believed Many of the Scribes knew where he was to be born and were able to tell the Wise-men when they knew not the matter lies not therefore in venimus or in vidimus but in adoramus this is their praise and this is their piety that they came to worship him and that they profess they will worship him though they knew him to be but an Infant new born and never scan the case in what condition they may find him The Queen of the South came as far as these men did but she found a King in all Royalty and such a glorious Court as never was the like these men found a Child in a Cratch the poorest and most unlikely birth that ever was to prove a King no sight to comfort them not a word that came from him for which they were the wiser and yet they were as good as their word they did fall down and worship him and more than worship him present him with their gifts Why should not they humble themselves to the earth when they saw the Stars above did obey him and wait his attendance You will say If we could see such a Star as they did the obstinate would be more convinced to do him worship but it will be more acceptable to worship him though we have not seen Beside They adored him when he was so little in his humiliation who will be slack to perform that homage now he is so great in his glorification I will rather regard the time than dispatch all that remains But one thing is to be spoken of that some take the very foundation of this Point from us namely that the worship of the Wise-men was no religious worship they came not to exhibit a pious veneration to Christ as to the Eternal Son of God but they saluted him with their bended knee as the Persian manner was to behave themselves before their Kings But why should Persians tender such civil worship to one that was none of their own Kings but the King of the Jews One would answer it thus to ingratiate themselves into him betimes if happily he should become the Oriental Monarch in his elder years A conjecture too slight for his great judgment that uttered it Is it possible that wise men should conceive in him no more than a man and yet do him all Princely honour lying in the Cratch of a Stable Are they such men as were admonisht in a dream by the divine Oracles which way to return home and yet shall we interpret their actions politically and not after a divine manner St. Chrysostom says They did both adore him in Bethlehem and preach of his heavenly Kingdom when they came home into Persia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Ambrose is for the same they worshipped him being a little babe in swadling clouts Vtique parvulum non adorassent si parvulum tantum credidissent But
faln into it for where almost shall you find that men had not rather themselves should overcome than a good cause Always more studious of victory than of truth When Christ askt the Pharisees whether the Baptism of John were from heaven or from men though they could not deny it was from God yet they would not say so that the quarrel between them and Jesus might be endless Timentes lapidationem sed Magis timentes veritatis confessionem says St. Austin they were afraid to be stoned of the people for their obstinacy but they were more afraid to confess the truth What a fond affected glory is this Men account it among the flowers of their reputation not to be conquered in an arguement though it be never so absurd Like the two Harlots before Solomon nothing in their pleadings but clamour and reiteration the one said Nay but the living child is mine and the dead is thine the other said Nay but the dead is thine and the living is mine This is it which hath pluckt the Church of Christ into so many Schisms and Heresies that proud wits when they are in the wrong will never sit down quiet as if they were convicted and which is the calamity that our sins have justly deserved the Church must stay for peace till Sophisters and contentious have nothing to say that is when they shall be brought before the Tribunal of God and have not one word to answer for the crime of their invincible obstinacy Of pertinacious busie-bodies that will not be convicted when their errors be made apparent there are many sorts How stiff we are in civil brabbles never condescending to pacification every corner of the Kingdom is full of examples Do you know what you mean by that common Proverb of violence You will not lose your will though it put you to cost Not lose it said you O that you knew what will this is that you stand upon and you would never keep it It is the fuel of all cruel provocation the Gum that stiffens your anger the infernal fury that makes deadly fewds the defiance of love and charity the cross-bar of brotherly agreement nay it is Satans best advantage to make you miserable like himself in everlasting fire Is this that will for whose sake you will spend your estate to maintain it Is it not enough to lose your soul but that you will pay costs for damnation The heathen Greek Authors were very tart in their Proverb when they spoke of them that contended only for contention sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they strived for no more than the shadow of an Ass And Lucian who is a profest flouter says it is upon this occasion An Athenian was to ride to Delphos and hired an Ass to carry him In the heat of the day he reposed himself behind the Ass and made benefit of the shadow to keep his body from the Sun the Owner that went along to bring back the beast would not suffer it but demanded to sit in the shadow himself for he let out his Ass but not the shadow the Contention says Lucian went so far that it came into the Court. This is the Story somewhat light I confess but good enough to warn brabbling persons that they strive not about the shadow of an Ass Away with obstinacy therefore which is the endless repulse of godly Union and let truth prevail for what should prevail but that which is stronger than all things The greatest Learning in the world must be a slave to Faith and the greatest Majesty in the world must be a slave to Reason Plato writes to Dion the Ruler of Syracusa Pervicaciam tanquam solitudinis parentem fuge Fly obstinacy and wilfulness it will beget you a solitary melancholy life for all your friends will forsake you Creon in Sophocles would follow his own mind hearken to no admonition and so brought all to ruine Tiresias speaks to him not to be stiff and stubborn for it was ever the fore-runner of great calamity and hath these two similitudes First When a torrent of water breaks into a place the little Willows that bend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are not removed they that will not give way are rooted out of their place 2. When the Pilot of a ship will not turn his sail to the winds nor observe how to let a turbulent wave pass by him he splits his vessel therefore the conclusion of the Point shall be with Solomon An haughty spirit goes before a fall and it savours much more of a Christian mildness to be easily drawn off from our own imaginations than to hold a stiff opinion in our teeth in despite as it were of all wise perswasions To be wedded to our own will and fancy is very bad in temporal affairs but an inflexible perverseness is ten times worse in spiritual purposes It was a just invective wherewith St. Stephen reviled the Jews Vncircumcised in hearts and ears you do always resist the Holy Ghost First the heart is uncircumcised full of swelling and pride Such a distempered heart pollutes the ear and will not hear of wholsom Doctrine and when the ear is not tractable to receive the truth then follows the resistance of the Holy Ghost The great opposers both of Law and Gospel in holy Scripture were Sorcerers men that were bewitched as St. Paul says of the Galathians that they would not obey the truth such as could not endure to hear there was any divine wisdom revealed from above which was above their own magical Philosophy and as some of our adversaries have said blasphemously that they had rather err in some things with their Pseudo-Catholick Church than be in the right Cause with the Reformed So those Magicians when their senses were convicted that the finger of God was with Moses and the Apostles yet had they rather err in their own hellish way than go uprightly in the way of God Simon the Sorcerer what did he see in Peters Apostleship to oppose it Elymas the Sorcerer what did he hear from Pauls mouth to contradict it Only they must not seem to be overcome lest their name should be diminished among such as admired them God did smite the Magicians of Pharaoh with blains for resisting the truth and yet you never read that they repented twice their skill prevailed to imitate Moses and to do wonders like unto his in the third Plague they failed and were not able to perform it Moses turned the waters into bloud they did the like Moses brought abundance of Frogs upon the Land the Magicians did so with their inchantments At the third time Moses smote the dust of the ground and made it become Lice over all the Land of Egypt at this the Magicians were at a gaze and could not perform it St. Austin notes upon it In signo tertio defecerunt fatentes sibi adversum esse spiritum sanctum They failed in the third sign as who should say the Holy Ghost the third
in the Field As the Fable is that the Vnicorn dips his horn into the River and makes it wholsom for all the beasts to drink so the mercy of the Lord shall breath upon all thy sustenance and sanctifie it for chearfulness and health and thy bones shall be filled with marrow and fatness But though we take our meat from God yet through infidelity it seems to me we will not take his word that he will concoct it to vivificate and strengthen us For if you do trust to that secret infusion that he gives unto his gifts why are you so sollicitous what you shall eat and what you shall drink Why do you confect every thing you take with such licious cost Why do you ingurgitate your selves with superfluity I am sure this makes it evident that you will neither trust God nor nature unless all the Art which Luxury and Wantonness can excogitate be added unto it As Elkanah said to Hannah his Wife Am not I better to thee than ten Sons So let it run in your mind as if the Lord spake it to you in your ear Am not I better unto thee than all the Corn in the Fields Than all the Cattel upon a thousand hills Than all the Cookery in the world that can be sweet upon the Palate What is bread What is a plentiful Table without my benediction Man shall not live by bread alone c. The last Proposition shall be the more succintly handled as it is least of all the meaning of the Text. That there is another life for man to look to beside this which is sustained with bread the inward man the spiritual man which lives upon the first word which I handled in my Text Scriptum est it is written Non in solo pane vivet homo non potior pars hominis quae est anima as St. Ambrose The better half of man which is the Soul and Spirit lives not by material bread but by the Word of God A heavenly Doctrine and is not minded yet not the proper and native construction of the verse I confess Yet the reason why some Fathers inclined to that meaning in their Commentaries was forasmuch as Christ mentioned the Word which proceeded out of the mouth of God now indeed that particle Word is not in the Hebrew Text which goes no further than thus Man liveth not by bread alone but by every thing suppose that cometh out of the mouth of God The 72 Translators made it up by every word and so St. Cyprian and others made this plausible sense that bread indeed strengthens mans heart but the soul liveth by the Law of God Yet in this meaning the Devil had had room to prosecute his Argument and would have said Give your soul such comfort as befits the soul yet that is no impediment but the body also must have his necessary refection Satan dares not be so impudent to deny but there is somewhat in man which is to be cared for more than the flesh for he himself is a Spirit which will make him confess that a spiritual substance deserves our sollicitous love before a body which is made of dirt Therefore the banquet for the soul is like Benjamins Mess five times yea five hundred times as good as the victuals of this Carkass Martha was careful to provide meat for the families her Sister Mary sate at our Saviours feet and fed upon the Manna of those divine words which fell from him You know who made the comparison Mary hath chosen the better part A Philosopher that preferred solid knowledge before the best diet could say He had rather be invited by Plato than by any Nobleman in Athens for he that supp'd with him might be the better for his discourse the morrow after O how much better is it then to sup with Christ Sometimes tasting of his Sacrament sometime hearing his Priests deliver the Mysteries of Faith sometime reading the mellifluous story of his Gospel sometime meditating often praying that we may not suffer a famine of the Word which we justly deserve for our sins but that his sayings may sink into our hearts and nourish us that we may grow up from grace to grace from vertue to vertue that we may eat the bread of life in the Kingdom of Heaven and never hunger again AMEN THE TENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 5. Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City and setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple AT this Verse Satan fenceth against Christ with a new weapon and after the tentation of the Wilderness Now follows the tentation of the Pinacle wherein Christ fulfilled that Doctrine in the Gospel He that will compel thee to go with him one mile go with him twain for it was no presumption in our Lord to go with him from one trial to another because he was sure he should out-go him As the Romans said of Hannibal their enemy that he was a perpetual fire Cui nihil deerat nisi qui eum excitaret that would instantly flame if any man would stir him up So neither loss nor victory will make the Devil sit down with peace he is a perpetual fire to kindle sin in man that wants nothing but an occasion to stir him up When he could do no good by his first Patent taking away all that Job had he comes and sues for a new Commission that he might touch his flesh and bone Semblably when his first onset took no effect and could not penetrate our Saviour to make him satiate his hunger by unlawful means now he deals with him in a most different way whether he would be taken with pride and vain-glory He that will not despair of his Fathers Providence but that he shall be fed will he then presume of his protection that in the midst of the greatest dangers he shall be preserved Let not the Pontificians take my similitude in ill part for I shall speak no more than the truth As they have particular ways to ravish all mens affections and to fit each humour that every fancy may be satisfied and every appetite find what to feed on they have the dignity of a Cardinal to allure the magnificent mind the humility of a Capuchin to agree with a despiser of the world Employment enough for the stirring metal'd spirit of a Jesuite and ease enough for the sullen restive disposition of a Monk a Cloyster of Virgins for the chaste a street of Curtezans for the dissolute So Satan will be with some in the desart Wilderness with others in the populous City Practiseth with one man upon his hunger and poverty with another upon his ambition no retiring place so low but he hath an Engine to use in that no Pinacle so high but he can reach at that Cum tristibus severè cum remissis jucundè as the Orator did point out Cataline for a Devil incarnate he can sigh with them that want but to make them murmur
worship the Lord there with pure and undefiled service he wandred away from this regal fortune to keep sheep in the Wilderness O most magnanimous servant of God that had rather keep sheep with a pure conscience than be a King among Idolaters for how much wiser is it to purchase eternal felicity with a little miserie than to heap up eternal miserie by enjoying a little felicity There are things to come far more precious than these which the tempter extols but alass he did offer nothing to speak of to countervail the loss of a soul when he mouthed these words as a donative which could not be refused all these things will I give thee Finally to go but one deliberation further though Satan was incredulous and would not be perswaded that Christ was the eternal Son of God consubstantial with the Father that had taken our flesh in the Virgins womb to redeem us yet he could not but observe how holy and zealous He was in all his waies endowed with sanctity beyond all the Prophets that ever liv'd therefore this Tentation must needs be ill placed and most unseasonable for God is all manner of riches to those that serve him unfeinedly and with an upright heart Plenitudo deliciarum sufficientia divitiarum Deus est no strong line but a sweet and most emphatical meditation of St. Austins Where God abides there goes with him the alacrity of all delight and the inheritance of all riches Where was St. Pauls Exchequer think you in what corner of the world did his rents lye that he wrote to the Philippians I have all and abound Philip iv 18. Satan cannot be so shameless to offer any thing to him that hath all already there 's work for an Auditor let him cast up those sums if he can and make them even 2 Cor. vi 10. as having nothing and yet possessing all things such Apostolical spirits those few that are measure themselves wealthy not by the weight of silver and gold but by the grace of God which inhabits in them and doth enable them to refuse more than Satan can pretend to give There was somewhat else which St. Peter lookt for that was not in the Inventory of all this baggage which the tempter would impart to Christ these are his words Lo we have left all and followed thee what shall we have Mark x. 28. this is odd you will say to leave all and then to fall a demanding and looking for more but first he lookt for the promise of the coming of the Holy Ghost which David pray'd for Encline my heart unto thy law and not to covetousness rather a dram of virtue than a talent of fortune Secondly he lookt for the glorification of body and soul where Satan shall no more stand at our right hand to tempt us where the spirit shall be ready and the flesh as willing to fall down and worship the Lord for evermore Amen THE SIXTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 9. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me St. Luke more largely renders it thus chap. iv 6. All this power Will I give thee and the glory of them for that is deliver'd unto me and to whom soever I will give it if thou therefore Wilt Worship me all shall be thine YOU heard before what vast sums of wealth the great Prince of the riches of this World did commend out of his most abundant but deceitful liberality to our Saviour all these things will I give thee Solomon had a mighty Tribute 666 talents of gold yearly and silver as the stones of the street all his vessels were of pure gold silver was not anything accounted of in the daies of Solomon Yet the whole revenue of Solomon was but beggerie to those comings in which Satan promised in this place haec omnia whatsoever the globe of the earth conteins without exception or deduction But as if the Tempter would exceed himself and rise above all expectation his mouth speaks greater things by far in that which follows now to be handled than in those particulars which I opened before for he will engage to make our Saviour Lord of all the Kingdoms in the World all this power will I give thee and the glory of them he should have that into the bargain Pompey the great saith Livie made the Romans Lords of so much land by his successful victories that unless he had taken so many captives as he did the land could not have been till'd and occupied and again he made them Lords of so many captives that unless he had seiz'd upon so much land the captives could not have been received and harbour'd So the Devil offer'd our Saviour so much wealth that unless he had promis'd to give him all the honour of the world it could not have been spent and again he offer'd him so much honour that unless he had promised him all the wealth in the world it could not have been maintein'd But what will all this come to here 's a shower of wealth and glory pour'd down what thunderbolt comes after it timeo Daneos dona ferentes shut the gift out of doors till ye know the condition why it should be receiv'd a wise man will be as careful lest any thing should be basely given him as he will be circumspect that nothing be unjustly taken from him for many times the intent of pernicious liberality is to make a man incur the foulest sins in the world to avoid ingratitude The woman had a cup of gold in her hand but it was full of abomination Rev. 17.14 so the purpose of this great gift is to take the Devils Damm with a Dowry to be raised up on high above all the Dominions of the Earth ut lapsu graviore ruat then to fall down from that height and to commit Idolatry What were the several particulars which I charged upon the whole Text the last time it will be fit for me to repeat and for you to hear First wherein the forcible enticement of this last Tentation consists in giving a speeding word I told you and very provocative dabo I will give thee Secondly what and how much he would give and that 's twofold First as a Mammon of iniquity all riches and possessions that the eye could see and as a Lucifer of pride the power of all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them Thirdly he shews Christ his evidences quo jure by what right and authority he can make over all this unto him in those words for that is deliver'd unto me and to whomsoever I will give it Fourthly and lastly every bait hath his hook under it this promise hath a most impious condition annext unto it if Christ will fall down and worship him I have spoken of the former part of the gift which this insolent Braggart made ostentation to bestow he would put all the riches of the world into one donative
that is which Thieves may break in and steal breaks out that a covetous man so defrauded may cry out as Laban did Who hath stoln away my Gods Tales sunt Dii tui ut quis eos furari queat Are your Gods such trash that they cannot keep themselves from stealing Then let him be your God alone who is the watchman of Israel that keepeth all in safety I alledge St Hierom next and no man interprets St. Paul more literally that Covetousness is Idolatry Imaginem sive sculpturam nummi colit His eye is taken with the very Picture and Stamp upon the Coin and he shews it more reverence than becoms a Christian to do to a corruptible thing St. Austins suffrage is of moment with the best Fruitur nummo utitur Deo quoniam non nummum propter Deum impendit sed Deum propter nummum colit A covetous man makes use of God to set his stay upon his unrighteous Mammon for he doth not bestow his riches for Gods sake but he loves God for his riches sake I had rather troul over the rest than be tedious Gregory distinguisheth that the Covetous is an Idolater Non exhibitione ceremoniarum sed oblatione concupiscentiarum Which is thus worded in one of the School-men Non ex compacto sed obsequio Not by an outward ceremonious Adoration for which St. Hierom in some part accuseth him but by offering up his heart And perhaps Aquinas would be so understood in his distinction that the love of money is Idolatry Non secundum speciem sed similitudinem Not that it hath the very Essence of Idolatry but a great likeness and similitude As a Lover may be said to Idolize a Mistress to whom he is too obsequious So a man may be said to Idolize his Substance when he puts himself upon all servile baseness to obtain it And so Theophylact concludes it or rather inverts it from the words of David David says that the Idols of the Heathen are Silver and Gold Theophylact turns it that Silver and Gold are the Idols of those Christians that put their trust in uncertain riches I have almost panelled a Jury upon this Point yet if that will not serve he that is wiser than the wisest of men hath spoken enough to bewray that Covetousness is Idolatry Mat. vi 24. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon He serveth Mammon as he serveth God and parts stakes between them and that is gross Idolatry Or if it be true that Plutarch says Malice will teach a man more sometimes for nothing than a sweet Friend with all his good counsel learn it from our Adversary from the Devil that he makes one of these sins reach unto the other and to clasp fast in one he begins in Covetousness and ends in Idolatry All these c. I promised you two observations out of St. Ambrose upon the Point this makes the second that Satan indents to raise up our Saviour to all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them upon these Premises that he must fall down and worship Now this must make him bold to demand it that Pride will undergo any servile Office to win Promotion Ambitio ut dominetur servit curvatur obsequio ut honore donetur Machiavel may write his pleasure that Christian humility dejects the spirits and embaseth a good courage I cross his opinion utterly and say that the truly humble Christian hath the most generous and lofty stomach of all others which defies Flattery and fawning and Court-crowching and stands upon resolute terms to be beholding to none but to God and integrity for exaltation Is not his Spirit more dull and narrow that makes his Fortune out of bowing and scraping legs and diseasing themselves to be the shadows of great men to attend them at all times and hours Certainly so What bondman could put up more than Aristippus did He wiped off the spittle very patiently which a great man had thrown in his face and excused it that a Fisherman would endure to be wet all over to catch a few Smelts why not he then suffer so little moysture to catch a Whale Such scorns the Ambitious must suffer that are high Projectors Serviet aeternum qui parvo nesciet uti says the wise Poet. No servant shall drudge more or endure more than he that will not be contented with a little They that bear the proudest head you may perceive that they study to follow new observancies and new Vassallage throwing themselves down beneath the feet of them that will raise them up Their vote and suffrage must go with them of whom they have their dependencies be the matter never so imprudent and unequal as if they had chang'd not their consciences for there is nothing cheaper with them than that but even reason which makes a man that they may be in the rank of great and glorious yet baseness becomes them best 't is pitty their fortune should be mended Absolon when he aimed at no less than a Kingdom by treachery could perswade himself to complement to the ground with every Peasant to win the hearts of the people They that look to be advanced by Jezebel did stoop to Baal You see such as hunt for honour take it in good part to be thrown to the ground like Balls that they may rebound the higher Sixtus Quintus was the most crowching Frier in all his Cloyster the most yielding observant Cardinal in all the Conclave but the most imperious haughty Pope that ever governed The heat of the Sun lifts up a vapour from the Dunghil and in time it becomes Thunder This is enough to shew that the dignity which the ambitious attains unto is mixt with much baseness and servitude Satan did presuppose it when he called for so much homage and bowing down before he would part with all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them I will conclude it with this deduction from it Can you endure the waitings the comes again Superba fastidia the commands the disdains which a great man puts upon you in hope of his liberality at last O then take up the Cross of Christ suffer affliction for a season sit down a little in the lowest room worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord your Maker that he may say unto thee Friend sit up higher in the Kingdom of heaven I have handled before you the shameless lying of Satan that challenged unto himself power to give all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and then his horrid Blasphemy demanding that Christ would fall down and worship him Now follows our Saviours justice the repulse which he gave the Tempter and the vengeance which he took of his enemy Then saith Jesus unto him Get thee hence Satan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of anger and imprecation often in that language as you would say Abi in malam rem Get you gone with a mischief St. Luke puts more to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
to the Law of Ceremonies Wherefore says St. Austin Sicut hyemi aestas succedit sensim addito calore c. As Summer doth succeed Winter and brings heat to thaw the Ice which went before and gives light also to clear the darknes of the short days so the Messias was presented to the world to set on fire the frozen hearts of them who were but half believers and did also enlighten those mystical observations But whosoever shall scan our Saviours Sermon in the Mount Matth. v. Let him report if such a Teacher do deserve ill of the Law of Moses if such an Interpreter could pervert the Nation Every Text thereof was so mis-expounded that like the Pool of Bethesda there was no vertue remaining in it unless the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus himself had troubled it Touching then the perverting of the Nation you see the report is malicious Yet take this for your instruction that those Romish Emissaries Priests and Jesuites who shall lurk in thievish corners to pervert Religion where Scripture is in every tittle received and Gods Laws unviolated they that privily teach a Doctrine against Allegeance and Fidelity should be sharply chastised since the very Jews did think that man that did pervert the Law of Moses deserved to be crucified In the third impeachment envy is cast upon our Saviour that he forbad to give Tribute unto Caesar What neither allow God his Temple nor the King his Tribute These are faults indeed if they could be proved Alas nothing less Could he be an enemy to Tribute who was a friend to Publicans Especially in such a Common-wealth where they were Vassals by War not only Subjects by Allegeance Can he deny that which was due whose Discipline was so famous to part with our Coat also if our Cloak were taken from us First reconcile these contradictions and then accuse him I will give Pilate no Bribe to absolve him but only the Penny upon which he preached Give unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God that which is Gods But because Christ would not have such witness as might speak for him he borrowed the money of a fish wherewith he paid the Tole-gatherers the dumbest creature of all that are sensible In the days of Alexander the Great says Josephus the Jews were so forward to pay Tribute that when Alexander took great delight in the Prophecy of Daniel which was applied to his own Conquests he promised any favour to the Jews which they should request They asked no more than to be exempted from the seventh years Tribute because they sowed no Lands in that year nor reaped any Harvest But for the other six years the heart of the people was as the heart of one man to pay a portion of their yearly encrease Why was the memory of that Age so soon forgotten Covetousness encroached every day they payed their Tribute but with a single hand and cursed with a double heart and no man was so filthy in their eyes as a Tole-gatherer and a Publican Beloved the Treasury of the Prince is the vena porta which conveys bloud and life to all the veins of the body of the Realm The justice which protects you at home it is the Kings expence the peace which you have abroad with forrein Nations the burden lies upon his Revenue The Magnificence of the Kingdom the maintenance of the Navy the relief of noble Families decayed the rewards of good Subjects all these are an exhausting of his Treasury Our common happiness might unhappily be dissolved if these were not publickly maintained I will but name the Fable and leave the Application to your selves The Mule was overladen and the Horse that stalked refused to ease him of the superfluity of his burden till at length the Mule sunk down dead and then the Horse was fain to carry home both the burden and the Corps of the Mule We are to impart Subsidies says St. Austin not so much in the name of Kings as in the name of Fathers of our Country Gratius est nomen pietatis quà m potestatis and God forbid but we should relieve out Fathers The Athenians says Plutarch for private vertues were the best of all men But in publick vertues the Lacedaemonians carried away the glory And who had not rather see a Kingdom flourish than a Family When Constantius the Father of Constantine was upbraided by Embassadors of Asia for his poverty his Subjects to take away that defamation piled him up such an Exchequer in three days that the world had not a more plentiful A good man says Seneca accounts himself rich because he hath the Air to breath in the Sea to sail upon Neque quicquam magis esse suum judicat quà m cujus illi cum humano genere consortium That blessing wherein all men did partake he did esteem his own most properly If I would proceed in this Argument I might be copious in the praise of our own Nation especially of this most illustrious and magnificent City wherein there have been at all times so many chearful givers and who would be guilty of such a crime which the Jews did think worthy to be crucified The last accusation pretended was not against the Coffers but against the Crown of Cesar that he made himself a King A cunning piece of villany For as Joseph was accused for an Adulterer by Potiphars Wife because he would not be an Adulterer So Christ is accused for making himself a King because he would not be a King when all the people sought to cast that honour upon his shoulders Joh. vi My Kingdom is not of this world says Christ Why what a Gods name is his fault then Had Cesar any Land in another world In hoc mundo regnum habet non de hoc mundo says St. Austin He had infinite power and authority in this world but it was not of this world but of an eternal Kingdom True Prophets and true Priests have been always the trustiest servants to Kings and religious Kings have been always the advancers of Priests and Prophets See their interchangable affection in doing mutual honour one to another in holy Scripture The Prophets have entituled their Books the Books of the Kings and King Solomon hath called his divine Book the Book of the Preacher And would Christ who was the Chief Priest and the anointed Prophet cast any indignity upon Caesar Kings are the Images of God and the highest powers says Nazianzen do resemble Images drawn to the feet the middle sort of Rulers are likened to Pictures drawn but to the waste the lowest in authority are like Pictures drawn but to the neck and shoulders but all in some sort are the Image of God And would Christ deface his own Image By reason indeed of the Omnipotency of his Divinity there was some Regal Majesty glittering upon earth in Christs humanity Augustus Domini appellationem sicut maledictum exhorruit says Suâ—tonius Augustus took it for a scoff to be called
your Paschal Lamb cease hereafter the circumcision of the flesh bloud and water shall take place now I deliver them to be your Sacraments you shall be born again by water and you shall be fed with that Cup which is the New Testament in my bloud but why bloud and wherefore water says St. Ambrose this question will bring on a second Mystery aqua ut emundaret sanguis ut redimeret wretched Babes we were brought forth into this world as Elisha brought the Aramites blind into the midst of Samaria among their Enemies Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them says the King of Israel O no says Elisha use them friendly and set bread and water before them Thus I say we were born obstinati ad peccatum destinati ad judicium polluted with iniquity bound over to condemnation Shall I smite them says Justice now I have them here shall I consume them at once O no says our blessed Master I will wash away their pollutions with water and make them white as snow I will redeem them from condemnation and lay down bloud for bloud Here is a strain of curtesie far higher than that of Elisha's not bread and water but water and bloud Moses was sent to deliver Israel out of captivity he was tractus ex aquis as his name tells us sav'd out of a River where he was cast to be drown'd he came by water but the deliverance stuck a long time and could not go forward Moses's Miracles Aarons Eloquence the Plagues upon Pharaoh all could do no good until the door-posts were smitten with the bloud of the Lamb. First Moses in water and then the Lamb in bloud their Redemption was made perfect in bloud and water And these two streams at the last cast were enough to drown an Heresie which Christ knew would spring up like a Tare among the Wheat That 's the third Mystery Marcion he foresaw would doubt of the truth of his body whether his substance was flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone or but an airy phantastique I know not what Nay surely it had an elementary composition for here was water and it had the composition of the humors for here was bloud so Aquinas and the School Divines consider it even for this cause as a fountain of providence that for conviction of Heresie his side was pierced and c. But while I consider these two Blessings as they are Miracles and Mysteries so they are extra nos coming from Christ but not coming to us but upon some application you shall find them intra nos lying at every mans conscience First that which was bloud and water in Christ must be tears of much anguish for your sins in you and true compunction of heart I do not ask for a sullen grief in Nabal which smothers the heart in desperation and cannot vent it self in a weeping eye I do not ask for the weeping eye of a Crocodile which is not commanded by the compunction of the heart that were like Gideons Fleece which was wet when the Floor was dry but I ask for Mary Magdalens eye melting into tears and for Davids sinful heart melting in his breast like wax the one is the root and the other the fruit of repentance bloud and water Quicquid Christus in corpore mater sustinuit in corde every stroke that did fall upon the body of Christ did light upon the heart of the blessed Virgin Mary So who can think upon that which she did suffer but must suffer as much as she did think my pride my gluttony my wantonness my blasphemy my oppression my prophanness what have you done do you know whom you have kill'd O no Father forgive them My sins knew not what they did now they weep for it now they are prickt in heart and that 's my bloud and water Secondly that which was bloud and water in Christ what is it more in us amor erga Deum caritas erga proximum it shall be in me a provocation toward the fulfilling of the whole Law to love God and my Neighbour St. Paul speaks of a resistance unto blood and who is he that is dearer unto me than my bloud but my Redeemer Christ Our Saviour speaks of giving my Alms away or if I have nothing else in store let me give but a Cup of cold water for his names sake and it shall not lose a reward And who are they that must have my water my alms yea a plentiful gift from my hands it is my Brother my Neighbour or if you will love him better for God's sake than for your own sake he is one of the Members of Christ Martyrdom is welcom for Christs sake my love shall express it self in any good office for my Brothers sake Martyrdom and Charity are my bloud and water Thirdly and so you shall have your full doses of these two streams sanguis valet contra iram aqua contra libidinem Remember this last Application all our sensual and brutish affections are drawn into two heads by Philosophy the irascible part which is rectified by patience and endurance of evil and the concupiscible part which is rectified by absteining from that which is an apparent and a deceitful good if your stomach fret within you and malign at tribulation when the Cross of Christ is laid upon you prick the angry vein to save the Soul let out the bloud of an impatient heart if your appetite be intemperate your concupiscence effeminate dry up the body by fasting parch it even like a Bottle that is hung in the smoke Venus orta mari drain out those superfluous streams that surcharge the body sufferance of evil and abstinence from the baits of pleasures these are my bloud and water And so much touching the Conjunction of these two streams Now I come in a word to the Order first bloud and then water Some may say to the bloud here as the Midwife did to Pharez who striv'd to come into the world before Zarah his Brother Why didst thou make a breach why art thou the first Malice Beloved is ever full of confusion it heeds not where it begins nor how it proceeds to vengeance but blessings are like fruit taken in their season they descend in their order as in this place by bloud and water For do but consider how these two were applied even now to the several vertues of a Christian and you shall find that bloud hath the preeminence and deserves the first place for is not compunction of heart better than sorrowful tears is not martyrdom for Gods sake better than charity to our Neighbour is it not a greater conquest to suffer evil patiently than to abstain from deceitful good aquâ vocati sanguine electi is not Election better than Vocation If all these Comparisons hold as I think they do bloud is preeminent in way of blessing above water 2. Here were the great Legacies paid unto the World the two Testaments
of a Trumpet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Paul meaning no doubt some shrill clamour because the Son of God would have his Resurrection an Article of the Creed and Faith is of things not seen Yea because he did meditate nothing but to abase and obscure himself and to do us honour O glorious voice which summoned Fishermen from their Ships Publicans from their trade Matthew from the Custom-house Paul from the bloudy City of Damascus and Lazarus from the Tomb. To hear him pray there was Rhetorick in that to incline every heart unto Piety To see Lazarus reviv'd there was Logick in that a demonstration of his Divinity To hear him cry aloud there was Musick in that no note was ever so sweet no tune of such a relish as the voice of our Saviour In Demosthenis scriptis magna abest pars Demosthenis It is said that much of Demosthenes is lost in his Writings because the matter was set forth with such a graceful utterance And surely unless we supply it with faith much of our Saviours Miracles is lost to us for want of living in that Age when we might hear that loud voice which commanded the Miracle It is not a superfluous phrase when we read it often that Jesus opened his mouth and saith Aperuit os suum qui in veteri lege aperire solebat ora Prophetarum God did open the Prophets mouths in the old world but he opened his own mouth and told his own tale in the Gospel O what contention of spirit What earnestness our Saviour did use when he did watch a good turn for any of his poor Members He would venter to break his own sides rather than not to break the gates of death which did lock up Lazarus whom he loved as Antigonus rent his Lungs and so died with incouraging his Souldiers Duritia vincenda est non suadenda says Tertullian you must not use fair means and perswasions to them who are in a Lethargy of sin Like old Eli to Hophni and Phinehas What my Sons I hear an evil report Qui timidè rogat negare docet he that asketh any thing faintly teacheth you how to deny him Qui timidè redarguit peccare docet and he that chides faintly teacheth you to despise him and puts on audacity to sin the more Where is the courage of Elias Where is the tongue of St. Chrysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His life was like a flash of lightning and his doctrine like a clap of thunder As fast as the Pharisees could throw stones at St. Stephen he threw darts of rebuke at them Stiff-necked uncircumcised in heart despisers of the Law this was to speak against sin like a Commander and a Magistrate not like a Petitioner This was to cry with a loud voice to speak as it were under correction against Sacriledge usury corruption and the like to touch them as if you were loath to be understood God will say it is not Preaching but Libelling What labour What contention was this The softest whisper had it not been enough to command Satan and Hell and the Grave As Pompey said of his own power in Italy Si tellurem pede pulsavero copiae militum prodibunt So soon as he did but tread upon the earth it would serve him with a puissant army So Christ if He had but trod upon the Serpents head upon the Grave stone would it not have sufficed to have ransomed Lazarus and all the bodies that were buried Yes it had sufficed But this is dignum proclamatione fit for a loud voice to proclaim it Prayer like a good Angel went before it Publication like the Trumpet of Fame comes behind it You know it well says Paul to Agrippa speaking of the Resurrection it was not done in a corner Two Angels appeared in the Tomb where Christ rose from the dead Angelus nuncius Dei resurrectio erat annuncianda Angels are the Messengers of heaven and this is the prime and principal message Go tell Peter go tell my brethren How sollicitous was Christ to have it told Every one he met was sent to publish it And they that nestle in their Cells and forget this office summon them like dead men to come out of their Monuments Lazarus come forth This was matter for a loud voice then and business for the Pulpit now the suscitation of Lazarus but do you not disgrace the dignity of a Preacher when every petty vain occasion doth challenge the honour of a Sermon before it If ever there were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good work marr'd for being done unseasonably Now it is when grace before meat will not serve the turn but every luxurious feast must have the Benediction of a Preachers pains before it Quis te ferat caenantem ut Lucullus concionantem ut Cato Much less is it to be endured that some body must make a Sermon because Lucullus hath made a Supper It is such a flout upon our Calling me thinks as the Chaldeans put upon the Jews in their Captivity they in the height of their jollity must have one of the Songs of Sion I have done with the Dignity of this work I proceed now to the Divinity thereof which is brancht out into these three powerful circumstances Mortuus excitatur a dead man is raised 2. Lazarus four days dead is raised 3. Lazarus who was bound is raised and comes forth Mortuus excitatur behold that principally a dead man is raised It is noted in Hierusalem that she was implacable against the Prophets of the Lord for twice our Saviour called upon her O Hierusalem Hierusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee and yet her anger would not cease no not for a double Admonition It is noted of St. Paul that his mind was most bitter against the Saints for Christ was fain to toll on both sides once and a second time to summon him by his name Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The persecuting Rage of Hierusalem was invincible the Malice of Saul was hardly bridled both more headstrong than Death it self Non sustinuit mors secundas voces Domini says St. Austin Death was obedient at the first Command our Saviour called but once and no more Lazarus come forth Could you blame St. Peter whose heart earned and was sorrowful that Christ said the third time Peter lovest thou me One word is enough to make Hell it self fly open O Lord are our Hearts more hard than Hell that thou hast so often spoken and still they are shut up Lewis the 11 th of France was wont to say that he passed away his time in making or marring of men an honest confession for whether they be Kings or meaner persons their power is prone as well to root up as to plant as well to pluck down as to set up a Building But Christ hath not only passed away time but meditated from all eternity how to make the World
wouldst make an Advocate It is in his own power to raise up thy Brother after four days Two days our Saviour abode beyond Jordan after Lazarus was dead and after he set forward to Bethany he made two days Journey of it before he came to the place all this while the Prisoner was fast lockt up under the Gates of Death Belike Lazarus could not be released till Christ came unto the Cave where he was laid No such necessity Beloved Vbicunque Christus steterat patebant inferi Hell must open her mouth in any place where Christ did set his foot nay in any place where he should but say unto the Grave I will be thou opened Therefore another Reason must be given why Lazarus staid until the fourth day for his Enlargement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom Jonas and Lazarus both were Servants they must not jump with Christ in the same Privileges in every thing then the Servant should be equal with his Master Jonas came out of the Whales Belly the third day so did Christ out of the Tomb but Jonas was alive and Christ was dead there was the Difference between the Servant and the Master Christ rose from the dead and so did Lazarus but Christ the third day and Lazarus the fourth there 's the Difference between the Master and the Servant The Resurrection of the dead is an Article of the Creed ingendred in the heart by a very strong Faith 't is mirabilium mirificentia as one says The astonishment of all admiration and when it shall be reported by the Women that an Angel told them it the best of them all will doubt Thomas and many more will flatly deny it What deny that Christ could quicken himself the third day when he raised up Lazarus the fourth Lazarus was unto Christ as Aaron's Rod was unto Aaron The Sedition of Dathan and Abiram opposed Aaron and would not acknowledge him to be the High Priest That shall be tried says the Lord and Aaron's Rod which was a dry stick budded buds and bloomed blossoms as if it had been living more than all the other Rods of the Tribes of Israel So Lazarus was laid up in the Cave like the Rod of Aaron in the Tabernacle and when his life was restored the fourth day it proved that Christ could build up the Temple again in three days which they had pluckt down before What shall we say then That the Resurrection was more wonderful in Lazarus by one day than in Christ himself Nothing less For Christ was raised up by his own power and Lazarus by the power of Christ Christs death was violent his very heart as some think was digg'd through with the Souldiers Spear Lazarus his death was natural and no principal part of his body was wounded or impaired Si aliud videtur vobis mortuus aliud videtur occisus if it be one thing to die in the peace of nature and another thing to be made away by violence Ecce Dominus utrumque fecit here are examples of both that returned to life Christ the third day from the death of violence Lazarus the fourth day from the death of nature both are from the Lord. As a Servant said of an unlucky day wherein all things went cross huic diei oculos eruere vellem he vished the Sun had never shined upon it So this fourth day hath not a little troubled Satan Upon the fourth day Gen. i. 14. God set lights in the Firmament to what end to divide the day from the night and the light from the darkness Periisti Satana this is a fatal day with the Devil who would have mingled night with day and darkness with light but now his works are discovered The fourth year hath been as climacterical unto him and as much out of his way in the 13. of St. Luke and the 7. verse These three years says the Lord of the Vineyard I have lookt for fruit and find none now I will cut down the Vine nay says the Dresser of the Vineyard stay but this year also and the fourth there are hopes it will bring forth grapes and please the Lord. To say thus much for our Evangelist St. John the fourth Evangelist gave the shrewdest blow to the stratagems of Satan and hath so prov'd the Divinity of Christ almost in every verse that Ebion and Cerinthus were confounded and Heresie is proved a lyar to her face for ever Even so was this number critical unto death in the Resurrection of Lazarus three days he was given for lost and upon the fourth day Christ cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth There is a moral sense besides that whereof I have spoken and that is like fine flower boulted out of the Letter and it yields like the bread which our Saviour broke to the multitude and will satisfie thousands Death was the reward of sin In that Lazarus was dead and buried I read the Parable of a sinner upon his Sepulcher In that he was four days dead he must be magnus peccator says St. Austin no small offender can be meant by that but a grievous sinner Where have you laid him says Christ O what a dreadful question is that Lord know me for one of thy children but know me for a sinner rather than not know me at all Let it not be said unto me Depart from me I know you not Projectus sum à facie oculorum tuorum says David in the person of a castaway I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes Perditum nescit ubi sit it is Gods language he pretends he sees not them he knows not them that were lost Adam where art thou says God O Adam that question had confounded thee if Christ had not answer'd for thee Loe I come Where are the other nine says Christ of the Lepers de ingratis quasi ignotis loquitur ungrateful men were not in Christs Book he knows not what becoms of them nor whither they wander so to enquire of Lazarus as if he knew not where he was laid is to set him forth as the similitude of a great sinner ubi posuistis where have you laid him nay but this agrees not perchance with his Sisters message He whom thou lovest is sick and again See how he loved him Yes it agrees full well Si peccatores non amaret Deus de coelo non descenderet it was out of a most compassionate love that God descended from heaven to save sinners Behold he lov'd him and yet Lazarus stands for the Parable of a sinner That foundation is laid and then you shall know the better what is meant by lying four days in the Sepulcher First we are all dead born man as soon as he sees the light his heart is in darkness he brings the seeds of original sin with his frail flesh into the world and then he is dead one day 2. Nature hath dictated a Law unto us The Gentiles are a Law unto themselves sais St.
Egyptians hasted away the Israelites at midnight to be gone let them go with their Jewels and Riches which they had borrowed for if they staid they were afraid to lose lives and all Thus much of the literal sense that Lazarus came forth bound and that instantly says the Latin vulgar Translation Now for the Moral which is the Use of this Point wherein thus I will proceed 1. What it is to come forth 2. What it is to be bound 3. Concerning the binding of the feet and hands 4. Concerning the binding of his face with a Napkin Briefly of these that we may make such haste from the Text as Lazarus did from the Tomb. What is it to come forth Do we first question that Poenitet surgit Confitetur prodit says Burgensis To repent of sin is to rise from it to come forth is to confess it which was hid before When Jonathan and his Armour bearer appeared to the Philistines the Philistines derided them saying See how the Hebrews come out of the holes where they hid themselves So profane men will laugh at you if you betray your self so much unto any man as to confess your sins and imperfections but God is well pleased when you do not disguise your self in hypocrisie When the Publican smote his breast Arguebat aliquid quod latebat in pectore says St. Austin He pierced his own heart and gave it vent to draw out that acknowledgment God be merciful to me a sinner Why hast thou eaten of the tree that I forbad thee says God to Adam What is this that thou hast done says he again to Eve He calls both them to an account that they may make an humble confession and be pardoned Serpens persuasor qui non erat revocandus ad veniam non est de culpâ requisitus says Gregory but the Serpent was never questioned It was bootless for him to confess and give an answer because God never thought to pardon him To accuse our selves of great disobedience what is it but to magnifie his mercies who remits our sins Si nos accusemus Deum laudemus bis Deum laudamus says St. Austin Then if we condemn our selves and praise him what is it but to give double praise unto his name As gall and bitter humours come off from the stomach with great distaste unto the mouth So it doth not please our Palat it offends our tongue to bewray those vices which our heart would fain conceal I but all this while Lazarus is in the Tomb he is close kept and stinks said Martha While you would not be known of that which is past Non te Domino sed dominum abscondis tibi You do not keep your self close from God but you keep God from your self You take a course a woful course that you may not see his face that sees all things in the world but you cannot bring it about that he who sees all things in the world may not see you I have not covered my transgression says Job as Adam did by hiding my iniquity in my bosom a testimony of a sound conscience howsoever his body was diseased Vir iste magnus in virtutibus suis mihi certè etiam sublimis apparet in peccatis says Gregory Job was a man of eminence in his vertues but I renown him in his very sins because he opened them to him that will have mercy The confession that we speak of is thus amplified further in my Text that Lazarus came forth when another called him Many take a pride to descend to so much humility as to impeach themselves but if another condemn them and provoke them to acknowledge their faults they deny it with indignation You must not say that he is a Swearer though himself comfesseth he is a Blasphemer You must not say he is Intemperate though he confess himself to be Luxurious You must not say that he is uncharitable though himself confess that he hates his enemies thus while we arrogantly defend our selves against reproof it is manifest that we did accuse our selves but out of arrogance or for fashion sake or out of hypocrisie In this vitious Age I admire Chastity and Justice and charitable works but considering the stubborn imaginations of mens hearts I do not so much wonder at those vertues as I do admire the humble confession of a sinner when he is chid and reproved by him that hath the charge of his soul It is not so hard to shun some sins before they are committed as to cry guilty when they are committed And therefore to teach us to come out of the close dens of sin by confession Christ says Gregory did not say to this man revivisce but prodi foras not Lazarus live again but Lazarus come forth Secondly Let us learn what it is to be bound it is to be plunged in sin like Simon the Sorcerer who was in obligatione iniquitatis In the bond of iniquity Acts viii 23. As debtors are in bonds to pay what they owe or else to yield their bodies to imprisonment Wherefore our trespasses are called our debts in the Lords Prayer Mat. vi Lex a ligando It is good to keep the Law of God there is no greater freedom in the world but they that take freedom to have their own swing and to do what they list are held unto the greatest slavery in the world Man is born like a wild Asses Colt says Job The wild Ass is not bridled and he taketh his pastime where he will in the Wilderness but such beasts as are of use and service must be tied unto the Yoke So the natural man gives his lusts and desires what they ask no command controuls him but he is held with the cords of his own sins saith Solomon Prov. v. And who is such a Vassal as he that can deny the lust of his own concupiscence nothing Herod was bound by promise to Herodias and so he could not save the head of John Baptist who might have cut off the head of Herodias had he been a free man Judas had taken Press-money of the Devil and he must betray his Master More than forty men had bound themselves by oath to kill St. Paul O what a Tyrant is Satan He binds Kings in chains and Nobles with links of Iron And when the hand of one Ruffian might have killed a silly weak Apostle he knits above forty men with one knot to eat nothing till they had dispatch'd him as who should say You shall starve if you will not be Murderers God hath set bounds unto the Ocean Sea and hath said unto it Hither thou shalt go and no further Can any man say so to his own lusts thus far I will sin and no more You fools that gaze upon beauties and put your feet into unchaste doors and say that you will go no further into wantonness You doating Covetous that think it nothing to corrupt your selves with one base reward and say
not the same For howsoever they took upon them this glorious appearance yet it was nothing to them they are glorious spirits we shall be glorified both in body and in spirit they shall possess the double in their Land Everlasting joy shall be with them Isa lxi 7. Duplicia possidebunt this is their double portion their soul shall be filled with the vision of God and their body shall be bright like this Angels Garment yea fairer than earthly resemblance can decipher And so much for Gods Watchman upon the first verse and for those occurrent meditations which fell out upon it His countenance c. Against these the next verse opposeth Pilates Watchmen Watchmen indeed out of suspicions and infidelity not out of devotion and reverence Souldiers they were and no worse than of a Roman Garison but Souldiers in a piece of Arras would have serv'd as well Are these Romani rerum Domini Roman spirits whose brave resolution is a Proverb throughout all the world miserable Keepers that were set to daunt others and yet themselves shake for fear and became as dead men The Doctrin of this point will make up several Propositions to be considered First That the stoutest of wicked men have their great fears for their own heart tells them that there is one against them against whom it is impossible to stand The Philistins are mistrustful Who is able to withstand these mighty Gods The Aramites are quell'd if they do but think they hear a noise All the Money-changers of the Temple run away from a little scourge if Christ take it into his hand The High Priests Servants arm'd with swords and staves fall flat to the ground if He say no more unto them but whom seek ye I am He. Non potest stare quem conscientia destituit quem impellit reatus He that hath plummets of sin upon his conscience must sink to the ground it is impossible his legs should bear him And do not think this doctrine is less to be credited because there appears most resolute courage in many blasphemous Ruffians that are scarce half Christians that neither fear roaring Seas nor Earthquakes as the barbarous Celts were wont to say of themselvs for howsoever they are prodigal of their bloud and had rather die than seem to quail yet if you could see into their brest it must be that you should find a natural damp there because the Soul will be inquisitive what shall betide it hereafter and it is impossible it should speak comfort unto it self A Wolf is a most adventurous Beast yet he cannot run a furlong to seek his prey but he looks about to watch who follows him because he knows he is hated so the stoutest of the ungodly is bridled by the terror of an evil conscience in all his pride and glory I confess that some portion of fear is a passion incident to the righteous and best disposed Many things may intimidate a good man or woman for want of instruction what the Divine assistance can bring to pass out of a soft complexion out of a remorse for sin more acute in some than in others and out of too much love to themselves and those things upon earth which are most dear unto their love for such imperfections are in the best but it is not such a confus'd malignant fear as the enemies of Christ feel which makes Judas burst in twain which makes Arius fall in pieces which makes Cain surmise every one that sees him will kill him which makes Tyrants they dare not trust their nearest Servants nor their dearest Children which makes the Keepers of the Sepulcher shake for fear and become as dead men Secondly attend how terror falls upon them that think to terrifie Christs Saints they that were set to afright the Disciples are more afrighted themselves 'T is true that the zealous women which came with Odors and sweet Spices to the Sepulcher were much amazed yet the Angel spake mild and gentle words unto them and bid them be not afraid but the Souldiers were overwhelmed with perturbation and never comforted Let Pilate set another Guard upon his Guard for these are daunted upon whom both He and the Jews relied to maintain their fact which they had done against God and Man But the terrible men are requited with terror Pharaoh did never threaten Moses so sharply but before he saw him again he was in a worse perplexity than Moses for some grievous plague that was faln upon him David fled from Saul and yet Saul was more dejected in his heart than David Eusebius says upon the resolution of the Martyrs that their Persecutors were more afraid to see them suffer their torments than they were to endure it And some Heathen Historians testifie to this that Julian the Emperor had a device to trouble the Christian Church above measure by allowing and furthering the Jews to build up the Temple at Jerusalem again but the Workmen and their Taskmasters were let from proceeding by thunder and eruptions of fire and many such impediments which came from Heaven Satan was sent to buffet Paul but Paul did buffet Satan by mortiâ—ying his body by praying to the Lord that the rebellion of concupiscence might be taken from him The poor man in the Gospel possessed with Devils who fomed and gnasht with his teeth and was even torn with violence this man was not so much tormented as the Devils were to be cast forth and sent headlong to the Sea Of all stories methinks those are the pleasantest to read to see a malicious man stewed in his own sawce burnt in the same fire which he kindled for his neighbour An invading Enemy driven back with a mighty overthrow a litigious person cast in Law to his undoing A merciless man in the Gospel changing places with him whom he cast in prison Matth. xviii Hamans plot against Mordecai executed upon himself the Lions that were kept hungry to eat up Daniel devouring those that accused him the Souldiers set to scare all the well-willers of Christ that came to the Sepulcher and themselves scared out of their wits that their heart was dead within them The Dogs are sometimes gor'd and pauncht by the Beast which they hunted and they that meant destruction to the Saints are first destroyed O Lord let the malice of them that are ill affected to Christ and his Flock be ever so requiâ—ed Thirdly let it be attended that the fear of death is exceedingly in the hearts of them that do not believe in the Resurrection Alas they that set all their stake upon this life and are perswaded when this puff of breath is stopt that they shall sleep in an eternal night and never be wakened more can you wonder if they be infinitely agast upon the summons of death The Stag when he is at bay and ready to be pluckt down and torn sheds tears naturally and drops of sorrow trickle down from him because he shall part with his life for ever
fulness not that the Vessel of any of their hearts was so replenisht but that God could have poured in more if it had seemed good unto him for nothing but the essence of God is all sufficient and can admit of no augmentation but never was there such copious measure of it either diffused among the Israelites in the Old Law no nor imparted to us Christians since this Generation did leave the world Rupertus says upon it it was now now when this Ocean of the Spirit was poured out that the Devil was bound and cast into the bottomless pit though that is rather to be ascribed to the virtue of Christ's Passion and to his bloud shed upon the Cross When Mary poured a Box of Spiknard very precious upon our Saviour's head Judas grumbled and said quorsum perditio to what end is so much waste and lest any profane person should so gibe at this blessing and say to what end was so much plenty and superfluity of the Spirit take these reasons with you for your use and instruction and I will begin with two Maxims of reasons 1. Si natura non deficit in necessariis multò minùs spiritus sanctus if Nature is furnisht with all instruments and faculties fit for its work surely the Holy Ghost would not be scanty in any thing that should conduce to resound the Glory of God over all the world 2. Speculative men tell us tantum medii sumendum est quantum ad finem conducit he that is a wise Appointer will lay forth so much means as will bring the end to pass Put these together and it will follow that here was neither too little nor too much nothing wanting nor yet to spare The work of the Apostles was the greatest Task that ever was put upon mens shoulders Christ gave them one Commission which might be discharg'd with some moderate pains and adventures to preach unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel Their second Commission might seem unto flesh and bloud insupportable Go and teach all Nations c. How much ground was to be trod how many deaths to be hazarded how many subtle Philosophers to be convinced we preach unto them that are brought up in Religion and are glad to hear us they were sent to those that stop their ears at them and could not endure the name of Christ their heart therefore their judgment their courage their patience did require a far other proportion of the Spirit than will suffice a common Christian their filling must be more abundant because they were to empty it out to so many And unto whomsoever God hath imparted more copious grace let him not despise his Brethren but let him use that plenteous Gift for the benefit of many for the edification of the Members of Christ's Body or else the blessing that did adorn him will condemn him The next thing we learn is that we must strive and contend and pray for the fulness of the Spirit it is not every Modicum and pittance of it which will content him that truly loves the Lord. The Son of Syrach says of that wisdom which sanctifieth all things They that eat me shall be hungry and they that drink me shall yet be thirsty Ecclus xxiv 21. And very certain none so eager to have more grace as they that have a liberal portion already None so instant to get ten Talents as he that hath received five Let Elisha have some enlightnings of a Prophetical Spirit and then he makes bold to ask that a double portion of Elias his Spirit may rest upon him Gregory says it is the property of the fruits of the Spirit Cum non habentur in fastidio sunt cum habentur in desiderio They that have them not either never miss them or think vilely of them they that have them do insatiably desire them It is a sign of a disdainful lothsomness in nature to come to the Fountain of living waters and to do no more but sip and wet our lips with it He that hath a truly heavenly gust of it pleno se proluit alveo As St. Paul phraseth it We are all made to drink into one spirit 1 Cor. xii 12. Still we shall call for more and more not because want and driness doth afflict us but because desire doth please us Nemo primo statim die ad satietatem potatur spiritus sancti says Calvin no man is made Christian enough in a day to go to the Kingdom of heaven unless it be in such a rare example as that was of the penitent Thief It is a false spirit that says unto any mortal man it is well if you can keep at this stay and prove no worse I know the greatest part of indifferent Christians are so affected to carnal content that if it were possible to measure out to a drachm what quantity of righteousness would serve them to be endued with that they might attain salvation they would reach so far if the grace of God would assist them but would take no care to seek any further I say if they knew the trick how to make just a Saint and no more they would spare a labour for seeking beyond that Point and for the rest sacrifice to carnal security Christianum esse probant minimum esse non probant as St. Hierom speaks they do not love a man unless he be a Christian And again they will not love him if he be a vehement and an earnest Christian to serve the Lord. Certainly it is a sign that there is no sanctification in that conscience where there is not a studious longing of the soul for an augmentation The learned among the Heathen love to talk of strange Creatures and Plutarch tells of a fish whereof if a man taste but a little it is hurtful if he eat it up all it is medicinal True or false be his story it comes fit to be applied a little holiness will vanish away like a morning mist as Hosea speaks nay it is prone to turn to mans hurt for when there is but little of it it turns to hypocrisie but as God hath given us plenteous redemption in Christ so we must return him plenteous faith and plenteous obedience with all our heart and with all our soul and love our neighbour with a plenteous love even as we love our selves and that is to be filled with the Holy Ghost Let this be the conclusion of the first part of my Text the inward donation of the Spirit the outward exercise of it remains to be handled They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance The Spirit which is signified by the wind and inspiration is necessary to all Christians who are invited to faith But as it appears in Tongues so it was requisite for them only that were sent to teach all Nations That is if God had meant only to make good men of them the wind would have sufficed but intending to make good Apostles of
Spirit of grace into the Soul and is not discerned there it sanctifies there it reforms there it changeth the mind and yet we cannot understand what manner of quality it is a thing of no appearance and yet of infinite efficacy Our senses are the Cinque-ports of all humane knowledg if any thing come into us either it must enter by those passages or we have no means to know how it should enter without those passages But when we feel the agitation of grace in our heart nothing is left us but to say Lord how camest thou hither We know not which way thou camest The Jews were sealed outwardly in the Body with the Mark of Circumcision whereby every man knew his Brother but our Mark is privily imprinted upon the Soul the Holy Spirit whereby we are sealed unto the day of Redemption whereby God only knoweth his Elect. God knows it the Conscience of the faithful feels but if we go about to consider what manner of Essence or Influence it is it will amaze us that we cannot understand it Again do you wonder at things which are rarely found then marvel to see how sparingly the Grace of God doth grow upon the Earth To whom hath the Arm of the Lord been revealed and who hath believed our Report The Sun illuminates half the World at once with his Light and leaves the other half in Darkness but the tenth part of the Sons of Men are not beautified with the Light of Grace nay the sixth part of the Earth hath not heard whether there be an Holy Ghost It strikes me with Admiration how so many do want the Heavenly Calling for the Ravens and the Sparrows do not want the comfort of their daily Food Naturas rerum minimarum non destituit Deus the smallest things that be God doth not leave them destitute yet there are Millions of men and women that continue in a barbarous and unrepented life So that it turns to be the Subject of Admiration to find out those few that are the small Remnant of Jacob. Christ himself marvelled at the faith of the Centurion a Commander and so submissive a Gentile and so devout an Example seldom seen and the Lord did marvel at it So he lifted up his voice in Acclamation to the Canaanitish womans praise O woman great is thy faith a denied Supplicant and so constant a disgraced Supplicant and so patient Seldom doth the Grace of God inhabit where it proves so well But O love the Saints and magnifie God in their good success Such as serve God truly in spirit are no usual sight therefore the coming down of the Holy Ghost was matter of Amazement But above all the Effects and Benefits of it are so beneficial to mankind that it amounts to the highest admiration It opens unto us the meaning of the Scriptures without which the Eunuch may read but he knows not the interpretation it teacheth us to pray with zeal and faith without which our words are but babling it makes us hear the Word of God to our edifying and salvation without which it is lost in stony or thorny ground it puts the tast of Christs Body and Bloud into our mouths when we receive the Sacrament without which we eat and drink our own damnation it comforts us though we find the horror of sin in our conscience and tribulation in the world without which the vengeance of God and the wrath of man would overwhelm us it seasons our actions with piety and obedience without which nothing that we can do but is corrupted with the root of bitterness it intenerates the most stony Hearts it hath civilized the most barbarous Nations it hath brought in Nurture and the Use of Laws and Discipline among them that lived by nothing but rapine and robbery it hath made the Flesh of Man which was a Cage of uncleanness to be the Temple of God Upon whomsoever the Spirit of Grace doth rest the Lycaonians may say of them without offence Gods are come down unto us in the likeness of Men. You may justly extol it with a boundless Praise and a boundless Praise must needs close in with an Extasie of admiration You would bless your selves with wonder to see a mighty Cure wrought upon the Body by the Finger of God a Cure above nature and is it not more astonishable to see a supernatural Cure wrought upon the desperate Diseases and Distempers of the Soul If one that is born blind be made to see O then they cry out Never was the like seen from the beginning of the world Consider your selves I pray you in the better part are we not by nature blind and ignorant groping in darkness and cannot find a true step to Heaven The Spirit is eyes unto the understanding it makes us walk in marvelous light so that we shall not dash our foot against the stones and ruins of tentations which of these two is the greater Miracle To cast out a Devil from him that is possessed would make the Earth ring of the mighty virtue Doth not Grace cast out a Legion of Devils from the Soul To skip over all other instances but one no Miracle which Fame did publish with a lowder Trumpet than to raise the Dead chiefly to raise up Lazarus that had been four days dead Why a continuance in sin is the death of the Soul and no Paradox it is to say it is an immortal death Yet Christ rolls away the stone of impenitence under which it is buried looseth our hands and feet which were bound with the cords of Satan calls us forth from the Grave of Custom renews our spirit and makes us live unto holiness and you being dead in sins and trespasses hath he quickned Colos ii 13. So you see how hard it is to know the Spirit how rare to find it for totus mundus in maligno positus how copious and infinite in his Effects and Benefits it is above our capacity to measure it and most worthy of amazement to admire it Now as we know the Gift of the Holy Ghost better than these Jews so it is the more admirable to us by how much we know it the better but the persons of the Apostles were better known to the Jews than to us and that circumstance they fell upon as a strange thing which they could not dive into why the Lord did put so great a Treasure into such homely Vessels There was not a Moses among them skill'd in all the Learning of the Egyptians not a Joshua in all the cluster that could lead a Battel not a Samuel that had worn a Linnen Ephod from his childhood before the Lord not a Rabbi not a Pharisee not one of polite Education It is that which confounded the Multitude at the 7. verse Behold are not all these which speak Galilaeans There was some reverence done to them in that Character they might have said are not all these Fishermen Publicans and Ideots Truly if there were nothing else these
his Story of the Jesuits affairs makes his Protoplast Ignatius Loiola to be so fortunate in carrying all the substance of the Scripture in his mind that had the Scriptures been utterly lost a thing perchance which he wisht for Ignatius could have delivered all points of faith without book I would you were all as truly such as Orlandine fain'd and imagin'd him to be I would you were such as that Antonius of Padua who by those that admired his cunning in the Scriptures was called Arca Testamenti the Ark wherein the Law of God was laid up to be kept I would you would make them your inheritance as David did Thy testimonies have I claimed as mine inheritance for ever Like righteous Naboth though Ahab and Jezebel the Devil and the flesh would extort that Inheritance from you sooner die than part with it but when you are so oblivious and forgetful of all holy things Gods blessings your own repentance and the sweet relish of the Scriptures is it not a sign that you despise the Lord Thirdly contempt is seen in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to take it to heart not to be wounded with compassion when Sion is wasted and Gods honour is trampled under feet Like Gallio the Deputy in the 18. of the Acts that professed he sat in judgment to take up discords of civil peace but if a controversie come before him about the Law of God let it be right or wrong he would not meddle with it But Lot was grieved and afflicted with the filthy conversation of the Sodomites 2 Pet. ii 7. though Persecutions of bloud be not upon our land and O Lord be gracious still and for ever to keep them from us yet a righteous man suffers some persecution in his soul when filthy conversation jets about before his eyes Phineas was inflam'd with zeal to see Adultery in the Congregation and slew both Zimri and the Moabitess Num. 25. Ezekias rent his Garments and put on sackcloth when he heard the blasphemy of Rabshekah against the living God Horror hath taken hold on me says David because of the wicked that forsake thy Law Psal cxix 53. there is not such a Sacrifice offered up unto God says St. Ambrose as a zealous conscience that is eaten up as it were and consumed because the fear of God is imminish'd among the Sons of men nay says he take away zeal for Gods honour and you take away the office the excellency nay the very nature and substance of an Angel Old Polycarpus went always right with the true Doctrine of the Church but because Hereticks grated his ears with their unsavoury opinions he cries out Deus bone in quae tempora me reservasti at haec audiam Good Lord why do I live to hear such pestilent speeches against thy glory Beloved upon these your Festival days of pomp and ostentation give ear a little to the calamities which the Protestant Church doth suffer at this day under the hands of Tirants that do not love the purity of our Gospel Our Brethren that suffer the least share of their fury are threatned and besieged a most Valiant and Illustrious King through the covetousness and mutiny of his own Forces much weakned and dejected the florishing Inheritance of the Rhene quite rent away from the true and ancient Possessors Can O can you forget when the Tribe of Benjamin was as it were quite cut off with the edg of the sword that the Eleven Tribes remaining came to the House of the Lord and abode there till Evening and lift up their voices and wept sore and said O Lord God of Israel why is this come to pass in Israel that there should be to day one Tribe lacking in Israel The Country Palatine was a strong Pillar to uphold the happy proceedings of the Reformed Churches our Confederacy is now much weakned in that damage Away with Sports and Revels and gaudy Pastimes a Tribe it wanting this day in Israel let us mourn for it in our Prayers and engage our fortunes for it in the field He that doth not condole for the great blow given to the Church doth he not slight the miseries of Sion and depise the Lord Hearken now to the fourth sign of scorn and contempt which consists in this to speak ill of those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who are precious to God and of high esteem as when Hezekiah called the brasen Serpent Nehushtan a lump of Brass which the people did superstitiously adore it is manifest that Hezekiah did despise the vanity of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the saying is speak that which may be lucky and fortunate both to your selves and others let the Praises of God and his Saints be in your mouths the Lord delights to have their names exalted and magnified See what a commemoration S. Paul hath made of the faithful departed Heb. xi he passeth not over one without some Encomium of his zeal and piety nay our Saviour gave Mary Magdalen his blessing that wheresoever the Gospel was preached in all the world it should be reported to her honour what costly ointment she had poured upon his head and should we be so froward as some are to put down the solemn Holy-daies which are allotted to the memory of the Evangelists and Apostles upon whose foundation I mean their doctrin and not their person the Church is built throughout the world I fear that God would be offended at us and impute it to our disdain that we despised him because we grew weary to revive the memory of his Saints Many are willing that Bartholomew or any other Apostle should hold a Fair in the City for the quick uttering of Wares and Merchandize but they would not have the Church opened upon a solemn day for St. Bartholomews My Brethren both may be well done but the last of the two much better than the other for I hope you will know St. Bartholomew was a Churchman and not a Merchant Another fault there is let it lye upon the score of private persons and not upon the whole Church The adoration which the Church of Rome ascribes to the Blessed Virgin Mary the Invocation of Saints which they maintain St. Peters Supremacy and the Popes Succession in his person which they defend as their life these opinions are false and superstitious but none of those noble persons have therefore deserved ill at your hands that in the heat of the controversy we should insult over St. Peters faults or make havock of the Reliques of the Saints or speak slightly of that incomparable vessel the Virgin Mary and mince her title of Blessed when the sacred Hymn says that all generations shall call her blessed leave this to the railing Jew who in disdain calls our Saviour not Ben Mariam the Son of Mary but Ben Aariam the Son of her that is vile as smoak As for such backbiters of the glorious Children of God like as the smoak vanisheth so shall
Creature rather than a worshiping of the Creator that he esteemed it was granted the Ceremonial Church because it could not be shifted For since it was to be feared that the Israelites had cast their eye upon those fond customs of the Gentiles and did affect to imitate them rather than they should sacrifice to false Gods God did permit they should sacrifice to his name to prevent Idolatry But I answer The most ancient and primitive use of sacrificing such as Noahs was in my Text is not so to be slighted For a bad thing by a toleration is not made half a vertue nay after toleration it still remains more than half a Vice Moses did allow a Bill of divorce for the hardness of mens hearts but that which is allowed for the hardness of the heart is yet a sin after the allowance the connivance of the Law cannot make any fashions of pride excusable and the farming out of Stews for Pensions cannot make Fornication venial But I pray you what Idolatry was suspicious in Abels time or at this time when Noah came new out of the Ark And yet even then Sacrifice was and was a sweet savour And the ground of the objection is mistaken for who can ever prove that the Children of Israel had learnt the formes of sacrificing in the Land of Egypt It is impossible For the Egyptians hated sacrificing and killing of Cattel wherefore Moses would not consent to Pharaoh to sacrifice to God in that Land Says he Shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us And the Egyptians continued such long after Christ when the Satyrist fell thus upon them Nefas illic foetum jugulare capellae carnibus humanis vesci licet c. This hath declared that the Ordinance of Sacrificing from the beginning was not a bare toleration to divert men from laying their Offering upon the Altars of their Idols But to make all perspicuous we are to harken to the judgment of Irenaeus and St. Hierom that Sacrificing was an holy Worship which God did like and allow from the beginning of the world and for many Ages there was no prescription for the manner all holy men had their freedom for quantùm and quomodo for how much for when it should be done but when the seed of Abraham proved recreants and fell in love with the superstition and worse than superstition then and not before was the Levitical Law drawn out at large to command all the true Worshipers of God to follow that written prescription in all their Sacrifices That is when the Molten Calf was set up by Aaron and the People to provoke God when they offered burnt-offerings and Peace-offerings unto it the Lord saw it was time no more to leave them to themselves to offer indefinitely and indeterminately how they list but after that he bound them to those Levitical rules whereof Moses made an entire book Says God ye shall break down the Altars and Groves of the Gods of the heathen but the Lord will chuse a place for you and thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings ye shall not do after all things that we do here this day every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes That is their ancient liberty in sacrificing after what manner they pleased was restrained after the adoration of the Calf for fear of further Idolatry Sacrifice therefore was not barely a toleration for avoidance of Idolatry in the first institution but properly had many parts of Religious Worship in it which are these First the mind of him that brought the offering was bent to honour God that he was the giver of all things and the end to which all things were to be referred Which reason the Schoolmen very well put into this Proposition Emanant ex fide sacrificia quae amplissimè de Deo sentit The Religion of Sacrificing proceeds out of Faith which esteems most devotionately of Gods excellent greatness and in the act of Sacrificing it is carried up to worship God in his invisible glory And surely some Litany or Collects of Prayers were said at the same time with such like Ejaculations in them as these We lay this gift on thy Altar O Lord to acknowledge that every living thing is thine this is a Testimony that thine is the Power and the Dominion over all things let every thing do thee service for thou art the Saviour both of Man and Beast the life of every thing upon earth is in thy hand but thou alone art immortal thou art the same and endurest for ever or such a form of supplication as came from Davids mouth when he offered for the building of the Temple Who am I and what is my people that we shall be able to offer so willingly after this sort for all things come of thee and of thine own hand have we given thee Now the rudeness of the old World I may say did require these lessons to be taught and repeated often in visible figures in lessons that might be felt as well as heard which were fit to be written not in ink alone but even in the bloud of Sheep and of Goats A visible sign is a fair mark of remembrance for them that are slow to learn They that distrust their memory will wear a gimmal ring nay a thread or a rush about the finger to bring business into mind which might have been forgotten And God distrusting mans memory put him into the way of sacrificing a good shore or support for such a use so by that object which did incur into all the senses the Divine honour was kept in an everlasting remembrance Well then in this very service wherein they brought somewhat unto the Altar yet it was the Lords purpose to give and not to take Nothing is left to him in an whole Burnt-offering no more than a Prince gets when his Subjects make Bonfires at or upon the memory of his Inauguration Julian the Emperor scoffing at all the Royal Cesars that had been before him gives Antoninus Pius the praise before them all for this saying He being askt by Silenus what was the end of his life and of all his actions he answered to imitate the Gods And wherein consists that imitation says Silenus Antoninus rejoyns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stand in need of little and to be beneficial to many that 's the true blazon indeed of the Divine dignity to want nothing and to do good to all Gods honour was recognized in sacrifice that was the end of it but our Goods and Oblations were nothing to him and therefore the elementary part of their gratitude was consum'd to nothing It was a Law not to be broken for the bloud of every Sacrifice to be spilt before the Altar and the fat to be burnt in the fire the bloud stood for the life which we breath the fat for the abundance of all increase which we enjoy now we ought to
direction not to retort her eyes under the guilt of a mortal sin or she thought the Commandement held her no longer when she came out of the Plain and was even entring into Zoar. Here 's a Jesuitical subtlety for you to aggravate the offence to the bigness of a Mountain if a Novice violate the private Law of his Superior but to extenuate the sin almost to nothing if a Servant disobey the private Law of his heavenly Master But it is not the wit of man that can set a size upon sins which are mortal and which are venial for it is the Lord that judgeth the Earth The next place to which I refer the heinousness of this womans sin is great folly and blindness of heart for she refused the will of God and the preservation of her own life upon such easie conditions as to hold still her head When Elisha's Messenger bad Naaman wash seven times in Jordan and he turn'd away in a rage his Servants spake reason to him if the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing wouldst thou not have done it how much rather then when he saith to thee wash and be clean If he would not use such gentle means so near at hand means of no expence no pain no lingring molestation he deserved to continue a Leper In like sort if Lots Wife had been set a task of many observations put to a strict and a tedious penance would she not have done it to have escaped a storm of fire and brimstone how much more when this was all that was required from her Go on streight to the Mountain that is before thee turn neither to the right hand nor to the left Quanta erat iniquitas in peccando ubi tanta erat non peccandi facilitas says the Father What a shame it was to offend when there was so much facility to decline the offence Were not all the Regions of the World free for her to look upon excepting that one City behind her which could not be seen for the smoak Ex omnibus unum elige Myrrha virum modo ne sit in omnibus unus A single exception is the smallest exception that can be made and let them feel the smart that cannot conform themselves to those things which are of such easie observation For wherein did the transgression of Adam and Eve especially consist God knows best but the trivial and best grounded conjecture is quod levis fuisset in tantâ copiâ unius arboris continentia all the Trees of the Garden else were frankly theirs both for food and pleasure both for delight and necessity What an easie imposition was this let this only Graft be untoucht the Tree of the knowledg of good and evil and all beside is yours Who could forget it or neglect it But they stumbled when there was nothing to make them fall that is they violated a Law which was neither burdensom in strictness nor in multitude of circumstances Therefore in those good hours which we set apart for repentance and bewayling of our sins let it strike us deep to the heart when we remember how much evil we have done upon very small provocation how many branches of the Law we have broken when we cannot justly say that we were strongly beset with any tentation and how far we have given way to our frailties when 't was prompt and easie to repress them The negative Commands of the Law are more obvious to us more ready in our power to obey them than the affirmative So St. Chrysostom spends his judgment upon it with a tacit reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is far easier to hold off our hand from sin than to put to our hand to virtue and we can sooner shew the evil that we have not done than the good that we have done Nay the Father makes that such a slight thing that he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Beasts might alledg that or it might be alledged for them that they had done no iniquity yet what a strong charge it will be against us all in the day of judgment that we have not girt our selves close no not to this negative obedience touch not taste not What facil Ordinances are these to a temperate man and nothing but custom and a sluggish spirit hath made them difficult to the intemperate Defraud no man extort from no man God is no austere God in those Statutes they are quickly learnt and quickly kept yet the wealthiest many times will do the contrary when they could not pretend as the necessitous may the least impulsion of poverty How soon may any one abstein from the Lords Table that finds himself unprepared and uncomposed for those sacred Mysteries yet God shall have their company at that holy Feast when he least desires it How easie a thing it is for a man not to fall down before Stocks and Stones and to worship them yet a smack of Idolatry abounds even in the Church of Christ We dream of difficulties we cry out against invincible tentations when there is no such matter I know there are Royal Laws in Scripture fit for heroick vertue to bless them that persecute you to pull down every high imagination to quench all the sparks of concupiscence to lay down our life for Christs sake God doth justly weigh both the duress and the weight of these Commands and our infirmity to fulfil them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sees us strive for mastery in those Combats and admires the fortitude of his Saints but in other things it is as strange how quickly our faintness and easiness is subdued Could you not watch one hour says our Lord to his Disciples What a poor request is this to wake one hour for his comfort and service Therefore the objurgation was the sharper because they fail'd him You will pollute my name for handfuls of barly and pieces of bread Ez. xiii 19. The Devil 's haec omnia is a strong allurement All these things will I give thee he may bate a great deal of that offer to them that are ready to run into sin let it be hoc aliquid a little preferment a little countenance and they are taken with the Snare O insensati O slow of heart like this sinner in my Text will you reject God and forsake his Word even in things wherein you may so easily perform obedience Thirdly it is another brand upon her sin that she was indocilis most unattentive to learn Lot went before her constantly and stedfastly without any reciprocation or backsliding the Example was in her eye all the way from Sodom to Zoar every step he trode was a Sermon to bid her do the like if she would be saved yet she made no benefit of the Pattern though he were her own Mate her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with whom she was bound in a more particular bond than all others to draw the same yoke What was this but to shut her eyes unto
more with these bodily senses than with the inerrable light of Divine Truth is an extreme indignity A grave Patrician would be grieved that the deposition of a noted Varlet should be heard against his innocency And will you hear the objections of sense and reason against that sacred evidence Thus saith the Lord that were to trust to darkness before light the Flesh before the Spirit to lying vanities before unalterable and eternal truth But to her senses this Infidel would appeal and they would instruct her sufficiently whether it had gone with Sodom so ill as it was foretold And was she sure to be satisfied by looking back I greatly doubt it a mist might rise up like the smoak of a Furnace and she conceive it to come from fire when it did not Or the Sun might shine upon the waters in the Plain and she misdoubt that the waters were become bloud as the Moabites were so mistaken Doth not a late Historian tell us of the whole Watch of a City that misdoubted a Field of thistles a far off was a Troop of Pikemen that encamped there to besiege them Was ever man more cautious according to humane rules than St. Thomas the Apostle He would trust no mans reports that his Master was risen from the dead he would see somewhat neither would he trust his own eyes he would feel too nay he would not trust his fingers ends in small wounds but he would wallow his whole hand in the rent of his side For all this wariness he might have been deluded The Syrians saw Elisha and yet wist not it was he The Sodomites felt all night at Lots door and were still to seek Old Isaac held Jacob fast and was deluded the hands are Esau's hands says he and yet they were not And will this woman trust her eye-sight and at a distance rather than Gods peremptory assertion O trust not in man trust not in these fallible humane means Our senses are bruitish Nature is corrupt Philosophy is vain but Faith leans upon that strong pillar the revelation of the Spirit from above which cannot falter and to lie it is impossible And as this woman was called an incredulous Soul because she looked back to see whether vengeance had passed upon the Cities of the Plain as the Angel of the Lord had foretold so for want of faith touching the caution which was given to her own person she fell into presumption and by presumption into death it would not sink into her thoughts that God was in earnest that as many of their Troop as looked behind them should be consumed she thought they were big words to scare timerous persons such as Prophetical men in their zeal did every day denounce against sinners yet they liv'd and rub'd on that took their own liberty to disobey for God was gracious and would not suffer his whole displeasure to arise against miserable sinners Feel feel the pulse of your own conscience I beseech you tell me if it do not beat disorderly Doth it not confuse you to call to mind that this infidelity this in ipso genere hath betrayed you to the tentations of Satan more than all his snares beside that desperate courage which you assume to your selves upon some hope of impunity is it not the spur to all transgression God is gentle and of long suffering his minacies are terrible but his dearly beloved Son and our only Saviour is merciful sed exorabile numen fortasse experiar says the Heathen his loving kindness is soon entreated This is a bastard faith of our own to subvert the true faith which is begotten by the Spirit A Diabolical infusion that God doth menace out of policy that which He never meant to make us obsequious by the shadow of his scourge but remember that non moriemini was a lie 'T is the Serpents Master-piece to expel all faith and fear out of our mind for they go hand in hand together and to break our necks with confidence A barbarous beastly kind of life says Aristotle hardned the Scythians that they neither feared Thunder nor Earthquakes but it is infernal witchcraft that makes obdurate hearts believe that all the woes and curses in the Gospel are but a strong noise terrible while it is heard but comes to nothing Quotidie Diabolus quae Deus minatur levigat says Gregory God affirms the Woman doubts the Devil denies O unhappy they that think Truth it self may be deceived and give ear to a deceitful spirit If all the maledictions against Impenitents were not indubitably to be expected Christianity were but fainthearted superstition Religion nothing but panick fear Faith not the Evidence of things to come but a devised Fable and the sacred Scriptures in all penalties and threatnings a vizard of mockery But as sin brought punishment upon us so let the certain expectation of punishment bring us out of sin Remember Lots Wife the only memento that Christ fixeth upon any Story of the Old Testament The less she believed the less she feared but the less she feared the more she smarted What God hath threatned will not be declin'd by our contrary opinion Though Christ shed his bloud to save a sinner God will not lie to save a sinner No title of his Word shall fail no not to save an hundred thousand souls out of the infernal pit I am come to the utmost portion of the hour and not to the utmost of the first part of my Text by three points She fainted in well-doing she neglected mercy and was slow to save her self she contemned the benefit of preservation in respect of that which was taken from her But as Logick convinceth more than Rhetorick as the fist knit together is stronger than the hand spread abroad so all this will be most doctrinal in one point that she relapsed and sunk after she was in fair speed to obtain mercy because she fell in love with wicked Sodom again from whence God had withdrawn her This is her crime which Philo exaggerates more than once aestu refluo retrosum absorpta she was like a Ship sailing with full sails from the sinful delights of the World but the contrary winds and tides of concupiscence carried her clean back again Josephus accuseth her worse upon the same charge that though her feet came from that impious City yet her heart staid behind Et saepius tardavit vertendo se ad civitatem she stood still more than once to take her full view of that loss which she so much bemoaned nor was it at the first turning about as he says that she was turn'd into a pillar of salt The very Apples of Sodom remain as a token against her to this day which put forth at first as if they would grow to be very delicious in the taste and in conclusion they pulverize and become sooty ashes So Lots Wife ran well at first but in the midst of her course nay almost at the end she fainted and stuck fast
that was snatcht away unpreparedly without all sense of death It is true she had no Will to make she had no Legacies to bequeath for all was lost She had no house to set in order with Hezekiah for her Habitation was consumed with fire and brimstone yet she had a Soul to set in order which was ten thousand times more than all beside And although I will define nothing rashly against her for this judgment sake for I have learnt that modesty to let God only judge his own servants yet this momentary destruction of Lots Wife I am sure is worth both this and many hours meditations Quod cuivis cuiquam that which hapned but once since the world began to this one person may happen in some kind every day to any man Saul was desperately driven to seek to raise Samuel from the dead and appear before him this instance in my Text is one that never went down to the grave among the dead that she might always be in the remembrance of the living how she looked back to Sodom and became a Pillar of Salt Which words I divided formerly into such terms as might both respect the Contents of the Text and be expedient places for your memory Therefore I called the two principal branches an Epitaph and a Tomb. The Epitaph thus But his Wife looked back from behind him The Tomb which this Epitaph respects in that which follows And she became a Pillar of Salt If God made Epitaphs the stones of the Church should not be guilty of such flattery as they are for none of the offences of Lots Wife are left out in these few words but she is accused and very justly of these particulars as I shewed before 1. Of disobedience that she would not observe the precise Commandment of God in every motion of her body 2. Of great folly and blindness of heart that she would reject God and the preservation of her own life upon such easie conditions as to hold still her head 3. Of a Spirit most unattentive to learn for Lot went before her constantly and stedfastly the example was in her eye every step from Sodom to Zoar yet she would go her own ways 4. Of incredulity an incredulous soul Wisd x. 7. Either she did not believe that Sodom should be consumed as God had sent word or else she thought it would not be the worse for her though she turn'd about and lookt upon it 5. She relapsed and fainted in well-doing and desired to live again among those wicked sinners from whom God had withdrawn her This was opened in the first part The second is as strange for a Tomb as this was for an Epitaph A Christian Poet wrote thus Enigmatically upon it Cadaver nec habet suum sepulchrum sepulchrum nec habet suum cadaver sepulchrum tamen cadaver intus That she was made a Carkass that had no Sepulchre nay that she was made a Sepulchre that had no Carkass or rather that she was both Carkass and Sepulchre And to conform my self to the resolution of this Riddle I will consider this punishment inflicted from God two ways in reference to her self as to the Carkass and in reference to that into which she was turned as to the Sepulchre She that was punisht 1. Was one of those very few that professed the name of God among thousands that were unrighteous 2. She was one of four that were brought out of Sodom and yet there wanted one of those four before they got into Zoar. 3. She was well nigh pass'd all danger and suffred shipwrack in the very Haven 4. She did wilfully cast her self away at the last cast therefore we read she was lost but not that she was ever bemoaned After this in reference to the Pillar of Salt 1. I consider it as a new punishment the like was never heard 2. As a sudden or momentaneous punishment 3. As a miraculous and most supernatural punishment 4. As a mortal punishment but not as a final destruction Of these in order The Lord told Abraham in the former Chap. that the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was very great and therefore He was come down to see how grievous their sin was That which called him down to execute vengeance was not the iniquity of Lots house that little Family was all the remnant He had there to call upon his name but the filthy sins of the other Canaanites that abounded with rank and unnatural pollutions And the Angel tells Lot in this Chapter they were come to spare him and his but the Lord had sent them to destroy that City because the cry of it was waxen great before the Lord. They confess their Commission was given them to punish none but those Children of perdition that were aliens from all fear of God And yet behold one that was in the Catalogue of them that professed the Worship of God she offended and the hand of Gods fury is stretched out upon her She became a pillar of Salt Says one upon it Par est ut judex priùs suam domum examinet quà m alienam A Magistrate that will reform abuses let him make his own house the first example of reformation and then his Justice may more confidently call any to account that are not so near unto him St. Paul grounding upon that equitable case deciphers a good Bishop to be one that ruleth his own house well for if a man know not how to rule his own house how shall he take care of the Church of God 1 Tim. iii. 5. This brings it to our apprehension directly why this person in my Text was chastised with no less than death because God would shew his justice upon his own Family where they sinned that unconverted Reprobates might expect nothing but the utmost of severity For if these things be done in a green tree what shall be done in a dry Luk. xxiii 31. There is no sort of anguish no calamity of any name or magnitude Captivities Famines Diseases that doth not shew it self as soon within the bowels of the Church as in any part of the World beside For a small trespass is taken more unkindly at their hands where grace abounds than a great profanation from the Heathen who were left as forsaken as the Mountains of Gilboa in Davids curse upon whom no dew of heaven did fall A small sin in Judah is as bad as an Idol in Samaria A lukewarmness or faintness of Religion in Laodicaea as bad as Paganism in those Regions that sate in darkness and in the shadow of death Therefore the first stroke of indignation shall light upon their sins from whom the Lord did expect the least offence and the most obedience Slay utterly both young and old both Maids and Children and begin at my Sanctuary says God Ezek. ix 6. You hear that the sword of vengeance shall be drawn forth first against the Sanctuary that is the pollutions of the Sanctuary Christ will sooner take his scourge
blessing as the High Priests did Aceldema to bury the accursed treasure this is scandalous to the weak consciences which are without What will the Heathen say Are these the peculiar Nation whom the Lord hath chosen And woe unto the World because of scandals Mark how many Ages how much ground our Saviour compasseth in vaè mundo one Age is but an hour-glass of time these will lie in our memory for ever like the pain in the Shunamites head caput dolet it may be our death Vae mundo the pale horse wounded but the fourth part of the earth Apoc. iv but scandals may cover all the four Quarters like the flies of Egypt O you that live in Canaan upon holy ground on Faery Land as we call it whose vices the weakness of some would be proud to imitate why will the Lord reckon not only with the Goats on his left hand but with the Sheep of his right hand in one mighty day since in particular the last minute of every mans life is the first minute of his trial Why is there one day of judgment since there have been a thousand long ago both for glory and condemnation Because though corruption have seized upon thee in the Grave and so much of thy dust remain not as may offend a tender eye yet thy sins may live and he that looks upon them may conceive spots like the Flocks of Jacob. I do not excuse those tender ones that turn a sore eye more carefully from the Sun which would make it smart than from an ill example that will cast a dark shadow upon the soul The man in the Comedy that made Jupiter his leader to commit Fornication says St. Austin Nullo modo peccasset si Catonem imitari maluisset quà m Jovem But yet it was a fault in you that removed not the stone as the Angel did but cast it in the way against which he stumbled It is a good Meditation that the soul of that man let it consult with it self will never attain to a perfect peace that made another sin I am reconciled unto God in Jesus Christ Could I wish any more Yes I shall ever be unresolved whether he be reconciled unto God by repentance whom I entangled by my occasion David in his one sin polluted Bathsheba with his bed Vriah with drunkenness Joab with cruelty David asked forgiveness I find it in his Penitential Psalms I never read that Vriah did so or that Bathsheba did the like I hope the best I never find it where Joab did repent I fear the worst And could David be at peace if Joab perished The Tyrants of Thrace think themselves never secure in their Thrones but by the destruction of their kindred and brethren but unhappy are the Saints of God if they rob his Kingdom of any that should reign for company And how is that done Never worse than by that scandal which christens sin with a name as the Sodomites Simon Magus the Nicolaitans all Masters of Heresies woe unto such as are the Parents of transgressions Like Achan that perished not alone in his iniquity The second part of his iniquity is disobedience the Canker-worm that eats into the heart of Soveraignty Thine eyes shall not spare the City all shall be accursed put not your hand unto the spoils lest you trouble Israel this was a Proclamation From Joshuah their Prince but Laws could not be heard in the noise of the Battel Should I ask these unnecessary burdens of a Commonwealth whether the most riotous Malefactor expects not the protection of the Law to belong unto him I know he would claim it And why not the obedience of the Laws The Earth and Water of our Country do no longer pertain unto us than our duty and allegeance doth deserve them And to say truth obedience is no less necessary for the happiness of the Subject than for the prosperity of the Prince It is true that Epaminondas said when the Thebans praised his Government and said they were happy that he ruled so well Not so says Epaminondas the Commonwealth is happy because you obey so well And as fit to this purpose is that pretty Emblem of a Graft flourishing when it was bound about to the stock Per vincula cresco as if the bonds of Government made the Kingdom flourish The World was never so unruly and therefore never more unlucky than under the Emperour Maximilian whom his Subjects called by a nick-name Rex Regum a King of Kings because the People lived Lawless rather like Emperours than Subjects Nazianzen says that the two sins of Julian did you ever hear of worse were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apostacy of faith against God and a mutiny of Rebellion against Constance the Emperour I do not wonder at it if He that fell out first with God then transgressed against the King the Lieutenant of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and the King are knit together by an invisible copulation Plutarch called the Discipline of Sparta a most flourishing Commonwealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Exercitation of obedience And our Saviour who was made obedient unto death prefers factus obediens before factus ad mortem his word was Obedience is better than Sacrifice that is more honourable than death Because says Aquinas in Sacrifice we give up but the flesh of beasts but in Obedience we offer up our own will The love of the Centurion to his Servant was wonderful to make such means to Christ by all the Elders of the Jews for his recovery but he deserved it by that description of his Souldiers I say unto one go and he goeth to another come and he cometh and to my Servant do this and he doth it Yet you know not the rebellion of Achan until we examine it by the fifth Commandment of the Law There God blesseth the true Spartan Discipline which stands demurely before Government like the Sacrifice bound with cords to the horns of the Altar Honour thy Father and Mother c. Indeed it is a blessing most emphatical that thy days may be long in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee Why Canaan was that Land and cursed Cham the worst thing that escaped the Floud the Father of Canaan this ungracious Son made himself sport with his Fathers nakedness which he should have covered Would he not do the duty of a Son He shall do the duty of a Servant nay of a Servants Servant a Servant of Servants shall he be Noah did speak it in Prophesie And indeed Israel won him and wearied him out of Canaan the fruitful habitation And could Achan think to enter upon this Inheritance fulfilling the same sin ipso facto which dispossessed the Canaanite Shall God and Heaven change for the worse Shall the Lord cast out the disobedient and plant in the rebellious No if Adam be turned away an Angel must come into Paradise I will not say the Oratour said wrong
our Rulers have left us in the way of a good life and changed their own for a better We owe duty to our Rulers in all things honest and lawful in obeying Rites and Ceremonies indifferent in Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical Illis imperii jus concessum est nobis relicta est obsequii gloria But where God controuls or wherein our liberty cannot be enthralled we are bound ad patiendum and happy if we suffer for righteousness sake Now that the obedience of the Rechabites was lawful and religious and a thing wherein they might profitably dispence with freedom and liberty the third part of my Text that is their Temperance will make it manifest for in this they obeyed Jonadab non bibemus c. To spare somewhat which God hath given us for our sustenance is to restore a part of the plenty back again if we lay hands upon all that is set before us it is suspicious that we expected more and accused nature of frugality And though the Vine did boast in Jothams Parable that it cheared up the heart of God and Man though it be so useful a Creature for our preservation that no Carthusian or Coelestine Monk of the strictest Order did put this into their Vow to drink no Wine yet the Rechabites are contented to be more sober than any and lap the water of the Brook like Gideons Souldiers Which moderation of diet though as I said in the beginning as it is an extreme and as it is a Vow for ever to drink no Wine I do not urge it to your imitation yet it did enable them to avoid Luxury and swinish drunkenness into which sin whosoever falls makes himself subject to a fourfold punishment First The heat of too liberal a proportion kindles the lust of the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Poet calls it elegantly Wine is the milk of Venus Lot who was not consumed in Sodom with the fire of Brimstone drunkenness set him on fire with incestuous lust in Zoar. The Brimstone trickled down like rain but Luxury broke in upon him like a breach of the Sea And as Epaminondas said Modicum prandium non capit proditionem Treasons were never plotted at a frugal Table so Fornications and Adulteries were never hatcht in Cups of water but then they steal upon us where our Bowls are crowned with superfluity In jejuniis in castitate 2 Cor. vi What St. Paul hath coupled let us not divide fastings go first then follows pureness and chastity Secondly How many brawls and unmanly combates have we seen Nay how much bloud spilt under the Ensign of a Tavern Ivy bush Memento te sanguinem terrae bibere says Androcides in Pliny Wine is but the bloud of the earth and bloud toucheth bloud says the Prophet Hosea Antonius vino gravis sitiebat sanguinem says Seneca When Antonius his head turned round with drink he thirsted for the bloud of his enemies After Riot follows strife says St. Paul Rom. xiii I will fill them with wine and dash them one against another says the Prophet Jeremy Chap. xiii It is a sweet thing that men must fall at odds and stand nicely upon their terms of Honour in their drink when no man can disgrace them so much as their own intemperance which hath made them beasts Is that a time to strive for Mastery when they are the vilest servants upon earth to their own brutish appetite Thirdly Superfluity of drink it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the draught of foolishness Such a misery in my opinion that I would think men had rather lose their right arm than the government of their reason if they knew the Royalty thereof Wine and the foolishness of Idolatry were in the Feasts of Belshazzar And let St. Austin in his Epist 64. be well discussed and it will be found that quaffing which was used to be celebrated every year at the Tombs of the Martyrs was the first thing that brought in Offerings and Prayers for the dead a most erroneous Doctrine St. Basil calls Wine-bibbers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Idols of the Gentiles for as David describes Idols in the Psalms so they have eyes and see not ears and hear not hearts and understand not Lastly Whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sobriety is the sustentation of that which decays in man drunkenness is the utter decay of the body It was all the excuse that Callisthenes had for himself when he refused Alexanders drinking Feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I had rather want your Feast than stand in need of Aesculapius And when I see new Taverns multiply the next thing I look to see is to have more Apothecaries set up and more Physicians practise among us That then which bereaves our bodies of health and our minds of reason that which puts fury into our hands and fire into our breasts is that it which is grown the mean mans Recreation and the great mans Solemnity O ye Galatians who hath bewitched you Satisfie me in one question and I will ask no more To rob a man of his Garment or his Purse would you not think it dishonourable for you to do And Theft to be punished by the Kings Laws But I pray you which is the greater robbery to force or flatter your Friend to kindness whereby he loseth his reason which is the Vessel of Gods grace or to bereave him of a little money which is the instrument of fortune Whosoever hath been guilty of this crime to seduce another into weakness if his heart do not burn within him for shame know that Foelix the corrupt Governour was more conscionable for Foelix trembled when Paul did preach of temperance Of all other sins surfeiting of meats and drinks is a transgression of private flattery for every costly junquet is to content nature to perfect nature to strengthen nature and poor nature is as innocent of these things as the Idol Bel that had the name indeed but tasted not the Kings Provision Cum corpus impinguo hostem adversus meipsum nutrio says St. Bernard To cram up our body too much is to maintain a civil Rebel within our own skin and bone Si contenti erimus naturâ tam supervacuus est coquus quà m miles says Seneca In Peace what use have we of Souldiers God forbid but their service should be rewarded nobly but then we have no imployment for their service So if we go no further than the sustenance of mere Nature we shall have no use of Cookery Beasts and Fishes and the Fowls of the Air find that at hand which is fit for their sustenance Non fuit noverca natura ut homo sine tot artibus non possit vivere was Nature a Stepdame to man only that no less than two hundred Arts and Trades may be reckoned before his Table can be furnished Adam went out of Paradise with a full stomach he sunk like a Ship over-laden with Traffick but Lazarus went fasting to heaven scarce fraught with the crums of
humour into devotion and Prayer Is your Temperature Sanguine and chearful I can tell what that will do if this living water feed it the mind will be bountiful easie to remit injuries glad of reconciliation comfortable to the distressed always rejoycing in the Lord. If a man be Phlegmatick and fearful there is a trial likewise what God can bring forth from such a nature How wary will the Conscience be to give no offence How pitiful How penitent How ready to weep over its own transgressions Finally in every Age of the life old or young in every condition of fortune regal honourable or servile this living water where God pleaseth incorporates it self into it and makes it grow and fructifie according to that use and purpose for which it was planted It is water then which doth increase and vegetate every Plant which our heavenly Father hath planted but with much disparity from our common waters as you may apprehend by divers instances For first pour all that you can draw from your fountain upon a tree that is quite dead and your labour is lost it will never spring again but most wretched were the state of man if the water which Christ gives did not bring us to live again when we were quite dead in corruption And you being dead in your sins hath he quickned c. having forgiven you all your trespasses Col ii 13. All the Sons of Adam beside our earthly mortality are under the infliction of a double death by nature it is a spiritual death to be bereft of grace It is an eternal death to be guilty of hell fire We are St. Judes fruitless trees bis mortuae once were enough but we are twice dead pluckt up from the root yet if the light of Gods countenance shine upon us we shall sprout again and wax green like a Cedar in Libanus What a sapless tree was Zachaeus before the Holy Ghost the Lord and giver of life as we do well call him in the Nicene Creed did bring salvation to his house You might as soon have squeezed water from a Pummy stone as charity from a Publican before his conversion yet though he were dead in covetousness as soon as He began to live in him he scattered abroad and gave unto the poor As the Father said of his Prodigal Child being now come home into his bosom This thy brother was dead and is alive again So let every penitent soul confess my root was dried up how should it come to spring again but by some influence from heaven I was a withered tree that cumbered the ground how am I exalted like Aarons Rod to bring forth Buds and Almonds I was a sensless stone and God hath raised me from thence to be a Child of Abraham Take another instance of diversity in every Plant that lives water is the means to make it bear but in every Plant it makes it bear such fruit and no other as was first grafted upon it it causeth a Fig-tree to bring forth Figs and a Vine to be laden with Grapes But if the fruit were sowre and unpleasant by nature water it while your arms ake it will never help it But this water in my Text which is so worthy of our Saviours praise it will make you gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles Indeed it should do so but our Preaching is no better with many than River water gushing upon a Crab-tree the more we teach the more you are laden with your own natural fruit Pride Luxury Intemperance Faction Malice and Incontinency are as rife as ever they were nothing grows upon the stock for all the labour that is spent but sowre Wildings that set the teeth on edge it seems the chief ingredient is wanting the blessing from above you mind other things and then the chief pipe of all will be stopt by which the Spirit should enter into our soul There are some and I would they were but few that put in Bill and Answer as it were against Gods plea they urge their personal infirmities and natural inclinations and think that God can ask no more I am dull of understanding says one and what I am taught I cannot bear it away I am suddenly transported with indignation and I cannot suffer I am retentive of a wrong and cannot easily be reconciled All these are in the same tune with those ill manner'd Guests in the Gospel we cannot come I pray you have us excused Humilitas sonat in ore superbia in actione To plead excuse is a form of humility but in effect it is an open arrogancy Spend this breath of excuse in Prayer and Supplication and cry out often and affectionately drop down upon this heart O Lord drop down upon it and it shall bring forth fruit quite against the grain of your custom quite against the bias of nature The high-minded shall be humble as a Lamb The implacable shall forgive his brother seventy times seven times The Impostor shall make restitution the Bravaries of the time shall confess and amend their vanity Loe this is an alteration which nothing can produce but living water from natural sterility of good to supernatural fruitfulness Origen confounds Celsus with this Argument that the Christian Religion must needs be the power of God and not of man For in all Kingdoms where it had success it did civilize the most barbarous Nations It did mollifie and intenerate the most stony hearts It brought in Justice and good Laws among them that lived by Rapine and Robbery A strange fruit to be found upon such wild Plants Could it otherwise come to pass than because they were watered from above I think you will like this Doctrine best in the Prophet Isaiahs expression Chap. xi 6. under the Kingdom of Christ so it goes before The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid. The Calf and the young Lâ—on and the Fatling shall feed together and a young Child shall lead them All that place is noted by Eusebius for a Prophesie to be meant of the conversion of the Gentiles whose brutishness and savage life was changed into good nurture and sweet conversation Ye were darkness but now ye are light in the Lord. O blessed are ye when that which is natural and inbred to our disposition drops off and grows no more Then if ye be planted by the River of God ye shall bring forth your fruit in due season and look whatsoever you do it shall prosper Take a third instance of diversity Our Elementary water helps a Plant to bring forth one kind fruit at one season of the year and this is a blessing of Gods left hand to fill us with the plenty of the earth but the water which is the blessing of his right hand hath this excellency to make the same tree bear all manner of spiritual fruit and at all times and seasons never unfurnisht never empty A moral temperate man may be unjust A
honour of God did infect the air and provoke this immediate putrefaction in Herods bowels Beloved We do all hold up our hands and bless our selves from such a vengeance as fell upon him that the very flesh should putrefie in his body and breed stink and loathsomness yet our lustful Gallants will take no warning but incur a more odious disease a more putrefying corruption of the body by their uncleanness and fornication than ever Herod had It is very strange to see how one Country will shift off the name of that disease to another which for reverence to your ears I will not mention The Indian will not own it The Naopolitan shuns the disgrace to have it pinn'd upon him the French translates it upon another People whole Kingdoms were ever ashamed of the infamy and yet this man and that man and the other that haunts Stews incurs it knows of it professeth it Beloved is such a putrefied Carkass fit to make a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in or rather fit to make a Hog for Satan to enter in and run him headlong to his ruine O you are sure all shall be cured by Baths and Chirurgeons when the Angel of the Lord may strike you immediately that you give up the Ghost So indeed our Saviour himself is said to give up the Ghost but with much difference from Herod in the very original phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Luke and St. Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Matthew still there is mention of the Spirit in all the four Evangelists because Christ was full of the Holy Ghost But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says my Text of Herod he breathed out his soul no mention of the Spirit for he was homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul says Efflavit animam he disgusted out his soul which no doubt did loath the body To conclude all If you ask me what became of Herod after these words He gave up the Ghost I have no Commission from the Scripture to search into it he had much cause to give God thanks if he were saved who gave him five days repentance after he was struck to be sorry for his sin If he were condemned we have cause to give God thanks who hath made Herod an example unto us and might have made us had we been created sooner an example unto Herod Like Davids Arrows about Jonathan so are Gods Judgments about us on this side and beyond round about our eyes his name be blessed for evermore that we are not the mark of his indignation Which mercy that he may continue towards us we beg for the merits of Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit c. THE FIRST SERMON UPON GAL. iv 26. But Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all AN odd conceit that came into the head of the Cosmographer who said that if two Eagles equally strong in flight should be chosen out the one being set at the furthest part of the East in Asia the other at the furthest part of the West in Europe if these two should take the wing just in the same moment and not rest till they came together they would meet both at Jerusalem as if it were the Navel of the habitable World I rehearse it as a Dream and I give it this Interpretation The Synagogue under the Law of Moses was the Occidental Eagle the Gospel of Grace the Oriental Eagle which did rise with Salvation in its wings why these two holy Professions which soared aloft when all other Religions crept upon the ground I say these two when St. Paul wrote this Epistle to the Churches of Galatia did conspicuously meet in Jerusalem as in that Theater whereon they did act their most principal part There was the Chair of the Scribes and Pharisees advanced that taught the exactest way of the Law there was the Temple wherein the Rites and Ceremonies were performed daily which Moses commanded And likewise from thence began the Gospel to go forth into all the Earth and had gained more ground there than in any other place You have filled Jerusalem with your Doctrin say the High Priests Lo this is the Rendezvouz of the Cosmographers two Eagles and this is the Explication of his Fable You know they continued there a short while for about the space of forty years like Twins strugling in one Womb. And though at first the Propugners of the Law would in no wise consent that the College of the Apostles the Preachers of the new Covenant of Grace should have any room in their Principality yet in a short time the Devil saw it best for his purpose to let them share together Nec meum nec tuum sed dividatur let it neither be Moses alone nor Christ alone but let them mix together This was the bane of sincere truth for every Metal that is mixed with gold embaseth it And yet it was entertain'd as a motion sent from Heaven to make peace and amity in all the Churches of Galatia till the Lord stirred up the spirit of St. Paul to dissolve this Combination which he performs with most approved success in this Chapter And because Similitudes and Figures will hold faster in the memory of the unlearned who are the greater number than powerful Arguments after weighty Reasons premised the Apostle concludes with an Allegory at the end of his Disputation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Banquet after a Meal of solid meat And thus it runs that they who sought righteousness by the Law were no better than Ismael the Son of Hagar they that sought righteousness by Faith were as Isaac the Heir of his Father That the Law came from Sinah which was seated in Arabia a Mountain quite out of the Confines of the Land of Promise the Gospel began at Sion or Jerusalem which was the heart of the Holy Land Or let Jerusalem be compared with it self and it was under servitude and malection by the Profession of the Law but it gained honour and a beautiful Portion by the Profession of the Gospel Jerusalem which now is in bondage with her Children but Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all Out of this contention between St. Paul and the Galatians those suspensive men those neutrals that would be half Jew half Christian and so were rightly neither Jews nor Christians I say from hence the legitimate Church which is the undefiled Spouse of Christ hath purchased this description which I have read unto you wherein divers of her Privileges are collected together I do not say all for under the Title of the Kings Daughter she is described circumamicta varietate Psal xlv clothed with as much embroidering and varieties as could be rehearsed in a long Psalm In this little Abstract of the excellency thereof six Portions of its glory are conteined in six words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
dwell on the earth Haec commemoratio est quaedam necessitas exaudiendi How can this great King to whom they supplicate choose but grant them their asking when his own Attributes intercede in their behalf How can their Enemies choose but fall before them when they sound out these awful names of God as with the blast of a Trumpet As a Christian Poet says of Satan who was cast out of the Possessed in the name of Jesus Nec fulmina verbi ferre potest that blessed word was like Thunder in his ears he could not endure the noise of it So when the men of the earth have exalted themselves To run over the Attributes of God against them is as it were to give fire to a peal of Ordnance and their Pride will totter before them Religion hath its name à religando it binds man to God and it binds God to man The Martyrs were bound by their Vow in Baptism to stand to their Faith to the death and the Lord hath bound himself by his Truth and Holiness to avenge his Saints that cry day and night unto him With much confidence may we appeal unto him in the name of the Lord. Magnum nomen sub quo nemini desperandum says St. Austin Who can be discouraged that can recite that word with a true feeling in the Preface of his Prayer It is in effect to say Rise up thou arm of the most High Isa li. 9. Stir up thy strength and come and help us Psal lxxx 2. Let all the Kingdoms of the earth know that thou art the Lord Isa xxxvii 20. It is to challenge protection from the relation which can never be dissolved as who should say Thou art our King and we are thy Subjects therefore we claim our Copy that thou shouldst guard and defend us at least that thou shouldst pluck down the arrogance of those that have offended us But what passionate Advocates are the other two sacred terms that go together with it Holy and True Which is in effect to plead Thou hast made us holy as thou art holy thou hast kept us in the truth even as thou art truth thou hast given us such gifts as are in thine own Titles therefore we are sure thou dost love us with an everlasting love thou that art holy and true wilt pluck thine arm out of thy bosom to avenge them that are holy and true against their oppressors The Holiness of God calls upon him to hate the ungodly that have devoured Jacob and laid wast his dwelling place His Truth calls upon him to put them to confusion because he hath promised to recompence them for the evil which they have done unto his Servants He that is holy cannot favour their part that are ambitious bloud-suckers invaders of the Possessions of the Innocent He that is truth it self cannot support them that are dissemblers truce-breakers full of fraud and equivocation The Holy One will be sanctified the True One will be justified the Lord will be glorified I will hold you no longer in the Porch of the Text for the Invocation is no more I come to the Prayer it self the Souls under the Altar cry out unto the Lord to judge and avenge their bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Verb to judge may belong to the sifting of the Cause the other Verb to avenge may import the dispatch of the sentence against the Delinquents but I take them both to be an amplification of one thing urged that vengeance may fall upon the head of them that have spilt the bloud of the Saints a Prayer that a mild man perhaps will stand amazed at His Lesson is Bless them that curse you pray for them that despitefully use you Whence comes it that the Saints in Heaven take the liberty to perform Christs will not so charitably as the poor Disciples on earth But good words and all grace and piety be ascribed to the Spirits which are in the bosom of God We cannot say to them as our Saviour did to the Sons of Zebedee You know not what ye ask This is a voice which came not from Earth but from Heaven and therefore we must maintain it And it is as easie a task as a man can put his Pen to because it will admit such variety of Apology First of all Vengeance being not usurpt by the hand of a private man but prosecuted under the shelter of lawful authority like Vsque quo Domine In this place it is not unlawful It is pars justitiae punitivae a stirring up of that part of justice which distributes punishments to them that deserve them and to demand it in a regular way is in no wise rugged to the Law of charity The Schoolmen comprize the right use and the abuse of it in one short distinction Velle vindictam ad odium saturandum pessimum est ex amore justitiae bonum It is honest sometimes to claim revenge for wrongs out of the love of Justice it is abominable when we aim at nothing but to glut our spleen and hatred with the ruine of our enemy St. Austin puts it better home with two exceptions Revenge is strictly repressed in the Gospel Non ut correctionem hominum negligamus sed ne alieno malo animum pasceres not quite repressed so that offenders must not be called to account to be corrected but when a rankerous mind would be fed and fatted with the penalty of another Again says he Non ut praeterita vindicemus sed in futurum consulamus The injuries that are past and done might be friendly put up but recompence must be required sometimes that the times to come may be more peaceably ordered Many stumbled at this Doctrine because they made not a clear difference between the affections of malice and justice Origen against Celsus disputes that if is not lawful for Christians to go to war yet David praiseth God for teaching his hands to war and his fingers to fight The Manichaeans brooked not Moses for those words An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth yet he saith Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people Lev. xix Julian charged the Christians that they were enemies to Civil Courts and all Political Orders for they held that no wrong was to be called in question And they that replied unto him defended it coldly that it was a thing adiaphorous and better let alone St. Austin in one place says that the Old Law did license the Jews to commence suits against their Enemies but it was a permission to the hardness of their hearts this mistake came upon a slip of memory for he thought there had been such words in the Text of the Old Law Thou shalt hate thine enemy Hugo taught that the Precepts of strict charity which Christ taught agreed to the suffering times of the Primitive Church but were now expired Some of the School Divines would have the Prayer for our