hope was not vain to work in these Gergesens a discontentment at Christ an unwillingness to entertain him a desire of his absence he meant to turn them into Swine by the loss of their Swine It was not the rafters or stones of the house of Job's children that he bore the grudge to but to the owners nor to the lives of the Children so much as the Soul of their Father There is no affliction wherein he doth not strike at the Heart which whilst it holds free all other dammages are light but a wounded spirit whether with sin or sorrow who can bear Whatever becomes of goods or lims happy are we if like wise souldiers we guard the vital parts Whilst the Soul is kept sound from impatience from distrust our Enemy may afflict us he cannot hurt us They sue for a sufferance not daring other then to grant that without the permission of Christ they could not hurt a very Swine If it be fearfull to think how great things evil Spirits can doe with permission it is comfortable to think how nothing they can doe without permission We know they want not malice to destroy the whole frame of God's work but of all Man of all men Christians But if without leave they cannot set upon an Hog what can they doe to the living Images of their Creatour They cannot offer us so much as a suggestion without the permission of our Saviour And can he that would give his own most precious bloud for us to save us from evil wilfully give us over to evil It is no news that wicked spirits wish to doe mischief it is news that they are allowed it If the Owner of all things should stand upon his absolute command who can challenge him for what he thinks fit to doe with his creature The first Fole of the Ass is commanded under the Law to have his neck broken what is that to us The creatures doe that they were made for if they may serve any way to the glory of their Maker But seldome ever doth God leave his actions unfurnished with such reasons as our weakness may reach unto There were Sects amongst these Jews that denied Spirits they could not be more evidently more powerfully convinced then by this event Now shall the Gadarens see from what a multitude of Devils they were delivered and how easie it had been for the same power to have allowed these Spirits to seize upon their Persons as well as on their Swine Neither did God this without a just purpose of their castigation His Judgments are righteous where they are most secret Though we cannot accuse these inhabitants of ought yet he could and thought good thus to mulct them And if they had not wanted grace to acknowledge it it was no small favour of God that he would punish them in their Swine for that which he might have avenged upon their Bodies and Souls Our Goods are farthest off us If but in these we smart we must confess we find mercy Sometimes it pleaseth God to grant the suits of wicked men and spirits in no favour to the suitours He grants an ill suit and withholds a good He grants an ill suit in judgment and holds back a good one in mercy The Israelites ask meat he gives Quails to their mouths and leanness to their souls The chosen Vessel wishes Satan taken off and hears onely My grace is sufficient for thee We may not evermore measure favours by condescent These Devils doubtless receive more punishment for that harmfull act wherein they are heard If we ask what is either unfit to receive or unlawfull to beg it is a great favour of our God to be denied Those Spirits which would go into the Swine by permission go out of the Man by command they had stayed long and are ejected suddenly The immediate works of God are perfect in an instant and do not require the aid of time for their maturation No sooner are they cast out of the Man then they are in the Swine They will lose no time but pass without intermission from one mischief to another If they hold it a pain not to be doing evil why is it not our delight to be ever doing good The impetuousness was no less then the speed The Herd was carried with violence from a steep-down place into the lake and was choaked It is no small force that could doe this but if the Swine had been so many mountains these Spirits upon God's permission had thus transported them How easily can they carry those Souls which are under their power to destruction Unclean beasts that wallow in the mire of sensuality brutish drunkards transforming themselves by excess even they are the Swine whom the Legion carries headlong to the pit of perdition The wicked Spirits have their wish the Swine are choaked in the waves What ease is this to them Good God that there should be any creature that seeks contentment in destroying in tormenting the good creatures of his Maker This is the diet of Hell Those Fiends feed upon spight towards Man so much more as he doth more resemble his Creatour towards all other living substances so much more as they may be more usefull to man The Swine ran down violently what marvell is it if their Keepers fled That miraculous work which should have drawn them to Christ drives them from him They run with the news the country comes in with clamour The whole multitude of the country about besought him to depart The multitude is a beast of many heads every head hath a several mouth and every mouth a several tongue and every tongue a several accent every head hath a several brain and every brain thoughts of their own So as it is hard to find a multitude without some division at least Seldome ever hath a good motion found a perfect accordance it is not so infrequent for a multitude to conspire in evil Generality of assent is no warrant for any act Common errour carries away many who inquire not into the reason of ought but the practice The way to Hell is a beaten road through the many feet that tread it When Vice grows into fashion Singularity is a Vertue There was not a Gadaren found that either dehorted their fellows or opposed the motion It is a sign of people given up to judgment when no man makes head against projects of evil Alas what can one strong man doe against a whole throng of wickedness Yet this good comes of an unprevailing resistence that God forbears to plague where he finds but a sprinkling of Faith Happy are they who like unto the celestial bodies which being carried about with the sway of the highest sphere yet creep on their own ways keep on the courses of their own holiness against the swindge of common corruptions They shall both deliver their own souls and help to withhold judgment from others The Gadarens sue to Christ for his departure It is too much favour to
have seen Oft-times those which are nearest in place are farthest off in affection Large objects when they are too close to the eye do so over-fill the sense that they are not discerned What a shame is this to Bethlehem the Sages came out of the East to worship him whom that village refused The Bethlehemites were Jews the Wise men Gentiles This first entertainment of Christ was a presage of the sequell The Gentiles shall come from far to adore Christ whilst the Jews reject him Those Easterlings were great searchers of the depths of nature professed Philosophers them hath God singled out to the honour of the manifestation of Christ Humane Learning well improved makes us capable of Divine There is no Knowledge whereof God is not the Authour he would never have bestowed any gift that should lead us away from himself It is an ignorant conceit that inquiry into Nature should make men Atheous No man is so apt to see the Star of Christ as a diligent disciple of Philosophy Doubtlesse this light was visible unto more onely they followed it who knew it had more then nature He is truly wise that is wise for his own Soul If these Wise men had been acquainted with all the other stars of heaven and had not seen the Star of Christ they had had but light enough to lead them into utter darknesse Philosophie without this Star is but the wisp of errour These Sages were in a mean between the Angels and the Shepherds God would in all the ranks of intelligent Creatures have some to be witnesses of his Son The Angels direct the Shepherds the Star guides the Sages the duller capacitie hath the more clear and powerfull helps The wisedome of our good God proportions the means unto the disposition of the persons Their Astronomy had taught them this Star was not ordinary whether in sight or in brightnesse or in motion The eyes of Nature might well see that some strange news was portended to the world by it but that this Star designed the Birth of the Messias there needed yet another light If the Star had not besides had the commentary of a revelation from God it could have led the Wise men onely into a fruitlesse wonder Give them to be the offspring of Balaam yet the true Prediction of that false Prophet was not enough warrant If he told them the Messias should arise as a Star out of Jacob he did not tell them that a Star should arise far from the posterity of Jacob at the birth of the Messias He that did put that Prophecy into the mouth of Balaam did also put this Illumination into the heart of the Sages The Spirit of God is free to breathe where he listeth Many shall come from the East and the West to seek Christ when the Children of the Kingdom shall be shut out Even then God did not so confine his election to the pale of the Church as that he did not sometimes look out for special instruments of his glory Whither do these Sages come but to Jerusalem where should they hope to hear of the new King but in the Mother-city of the Kingdome The conduct of the Star was first onely generall to Judaea the rest is for a time left to inquiry They were not brought thither for their own sakes but for Jewrie's for the world's that they might help to make the Jews inexcusable and the world faithfull That their tongues therefore might blazon the birth of Christ they are brought to the Head-citie of Judaea to report and inquire Their wisedome could not teach them to imagine that a King could be born to Judaea of that note and magnificence that a Star from Heaven should publish him to the earth and that his subjects should not know it and therefore as presupposing a common notice they say Where is he that is born King of the Jews There is much deceit in probabilities especially when we meddle with spirituall matters For God uses still to go a way by himself If we judge according to reason and appearance who is so likely to understand heavenly Truths as the profound Doctours of the world These God passes over and reveals his will to babes Had these Sages met with the Shepherds of the villages near Bethlehem they had received that intelligence of Christ which they did vainly seek from the learned Scribes of Jerusalem The greatest Clerks are not alwaies the wisest in the affairs of God these things goe not by discourse but by revelation No sooner hath the Star brought them within the noise of Jerusalem then it is vanished out of sight God would have their eyes lead them so far as till their tongues might be set on work to win the vocal attestation of the chief Priests and Scribes to the fore-appointed place of our Saviour's Nativity If the Star had carried them directly to Bethlehem the learned Jews had never searched the truth of those Prophecies wherewith they are since justly convinced God never withdraws our helps but for a farther advantage However our hopes seem crossed where his Name may gain we cannot complain of loss Little did the Sages think this Question would have troubled Herod they had I fear concealed their message if they had suspected this event Sure they thought it might be some Son or Grandchild of him which then held the Throne so as this might win favour from Herod rather then an unwelcome fear of rivality Doubtless they went first to the Court where else should they ask for a King The more pleasing this news had been if it had faln upon Herod's own loins the more grievous it was to light upon a Stranger If Herod had not over-much affected Greatness he had not upon those indirect terms aspired to the Crown of Jewry so much the more therefore did it trouble him to hear the rumour of a Successour and that not of his own Settled Greatness cannot abide either change or partnership If any of his Subjects had moved this question I fear his head had answered it It is well that the name of forreiners could excuse these Sages Herod could not be brought up among the Jews and not have heard many and confident reports of a Messias that should ere long arise out of Israel and now when he hears the fame of a King born whom a Star from Heaven signifies and attends he is nettled with the news Every thing affrights the guilty Usurpation is full of jealousies and fear no less full of projects and imaginations it makes us think every bush a man and every man a thief Why art thou troubled O Herod A King is born but such a King as whose Scepter may ever concur with lawfull Sovereignty yea such a King as by whom Kings do hold their Scepters not lose them If the Wise men tell thee of a King the Star tells thee he his Heavenly Here is good cause of security none of fear The most general enmities and oppositions to good arise
from mistakings If men could but know how much safety and sweetness there is in all Divine truth it could receive nothing from them but welcomes and gratulations Misconceits have been still guilty of all wrongs and persecutions But if Herod were troubled as Tyranny is still suspicious why was all Jerusalem troubled with him Jerusalem which now might hope for a relaxation of her bonds for a recovery of her liberty and right Jerusalem which now onely had cause to lift up her drooping head in the joy and happiness of a Redeemer Yet not onely Herod's Court but even Jerusalem was troubled So had this miserable City been over-toiled with change that now they were settled in a condition quietly evil they are troubled with the news of better They had now got a habit of Servility and now they are so acquainted with the yoke that the very noise of Liberty which they supposed would not come with ease began to be unwelcome To turn the causes of joy into sorrow argues extreme dejectedness and a distemper of judgment no less then desperate Fear puts on a visour of Devotion Herod calls his learned counsell and as not doubting whether the Messiah should be born he asks where he shall be born In the disparition of that other light there is a perpetually-fixed Star shining in the writings of the Prophets that guides the chief Priests and Scribes directly unto Bethlehem As yet envy and prejudice had not blinded the eyes and perverted the hearts of the Jewish Teachers so as now they clearly justifie that Christ whom they afterwards condemn and by thus justifying him condemn themselves in rejecting him The water that is untroubled yields the visage perfectly If God had no more witness but from his enemies we have ground enough of our faith Herod feared but dissembled his fear as thinking it a shame that strangers should see there could any power arise under him worthy of his respect or awe Out of an unwillingness therefore to discover the impotency of his passion he makes little adoe of the matter but onely after a privy inquisition into the time imploys the informers in the search of the person Goe and search diligently for the Babe c. It was no great journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem how easily might Herod's cruelty have secretly suborned some of his bloudy Courtiers to this inquiry and execution If God had not meant to mock him before he found himself mocked of the Wise men he had rather sent before their journey then after their disappointment But that God in whose hands all hearts are did purposely besot him that he might not find the way to so horrible a mischief There is no Villany so great but it will mask it self under a shew of Piety Herod will also worship the Babe The courtesie of a false Tyrant is death A crafty Hypocrite never means so ill as when he speaketh fairest The Wise men are upon their way full of expectation full of desire I see no man either of the City or Court to accompany them Whether distrust or fear hindred them I inquire not but of so many thousand Jews no one stirs his foot to see that King of theirs which Strangers came so far to visit Yet were not these resolute Sages discouraged with this solitariness and small respect nor drawn to repent of their journey as thinking What do we come so far to honour a King whom no man will acknowledge what mean we to travel so many hundred miles to see that which the inhabitants will not look out to behold but chearfully renew their journey to that place which the ancient light of Prophecy had designed And now behold God encourages their holy forwardness from Heaven by sending them their first Guide as if he had said What need ye care for the neglect of men when ye see Heaven honours the King whom ye seek What joy these Sages conceived when their eyes first beheld the re-appearance of that happy Star they onely can tell that after a long and sad night of Temptation have seen the loving countenance of God shining forth upon their Souls If with obedience and courage we can follow the calling of God in difficult enterprises we shall not want supplies of comfort Let not us be wanting to God we shall be sure he cannot be wanting to us He that led Israel by a Pillar of fire into the Land of Promise leads the Wise men by a Star to the Promised seed All his directions partake of that Light which is in him for God is Light This Star moves both slowly and low as might be fittest for the pace for the purpose of these Pilgrims It is the goodness of God that in those means wherein we cannot reach him he descends unto us Surely when the Wise men saw the Star stand still they looked about to see what Palace there might be near unto that station fit for the birth of a King neither could they think that sorry Shed was it which the Star meant to point out but finding their guide settled over that base roof they go in to see what guest it held They enter and O God! what a King do they find how poor how contemptible wrapt in clouts laid in straw cradled in the manger attended with beasts What a sight was this after all the glorious promises of that Star after the Predictions of Prophets after the magnificence of their expectation All their way afforded nothing so despicable as that Babe whom they came to worship But as those which could not have been wise men unless they had known that the greatest glories have arisen from mean beginnings they fall down and worship that hidden Majesty This Baseness hath bred wonder in them not contempt they well knew the Star could not lie They which saw his Star afar off in the East when he lay swaddled in Bethlehem do also see his Royalty farther off in the despised estate of his infancy a Royalty more then humane They well knew that Stars did not use to attend earthly Kings and if their aim had not been higher what was a Jewish King to Persian Strangers Answerable therefore hereunto was their adoration Neither did they lift up empty hands to him whom they worshipt but presented him with the most precious commodities of their Country Gold Incense Myrrh not as thinking to enrich him with these but by way of homage acknowledging him the Lord of these If these Sages had been Kings and had offered a Princely weight of Gold the Blessed Virgin had not needed in her Purification to have offered two young Pigeons as the sign of her penury As God loves not empty hands so he measures fulness by the affection Let it be Gold or Incense or Myrrh that we offer him it cannot but please him who doth not use to ask how much but how good V. The Purification THere could be no impurity in the Son of God and if the best substance of a pure
Here was no treasure to hide no hangings to take down no lands to secure The poor Carpenter needs do no more but lock the doors and away He goes lightly that wants a load If there be more pleasure in abundance there is more security in a mean estate The Bustard or the Ostridge when he is pursued can hardly get upon his wings whereas the Lark mounts with ease The rich hath not so much advantage of the poor in injoying as the poor hath of the rich in leaving Now is Joseph come down into Egypt Egypt was beholden to the Name as that whereto it did owe no less then their universal preservation Well might it repay this act of Hospitality to that Name and Bloud The goging down into Egypt had not so much difficulty as the staying there Their absence from their Country was little better then a Banishment But what was this other then to serve a Prentiship in the house of bondage To be any-were save at home was irksome but to be in Egypt so many years amongst idolatrous Pagans must needs be painfull to religious hearts The Command of their God and the Presence of Christ makes amends for all How long should they have thought it to see the Temple of God if they had not had the God of the Temple with them how long to present their Sacrifices at the Altar of God if they had not had him with them who made all Sacrifices accepted and who did accept the Sacrifice of their Hearts Herod was subtle in mocking the Wise men whiles he promised to worship him whom he meant to kill Now God makes the Wise men to mock him in disappointing his expectation It is just with God to punish those which would beguile others with illusion Great spirits are so much more impatient of disgrace How did Herod now rage and fret and vainly wish to have met with those false spies and tell with what torments he would revenge their treachery and curse himself for trusting Strangers in so important a business The Tyrants suspicion would not let him rest long Ere many days he sends to inquire of them whom he sent to inquire of Christ The notice of their secret departure increaseth his jealousie and now his anger runs mad and his fear proves desperate All the Infants of Bethlehem shall bleed for this one And that he may make sure work he cuts out to himself large measures both of time and place It was but very lately that the Star appeared that the Wise men re-appeared not They asked for him that was born they did not name when he was born Herod for more security over-reaches their time and fetches into the slaughter all the Children of two years age The Priests and Scribes had told him the Town of Bethlehem must be the place of the Messiah's nativity He fetches in all the Children of the coasts adjoyning yea his own shall for the time be a Bethlehemite A tyrannous guiltiness never thinks it self safe but ever seeks to assure it self in the excess of cruelty Doubtless he who so privily inquired for Christ did as secretly brew this Massacre The Mothers were set with their Children on their laps feeding them with the breast or talking to them in the familiar language of their love when suddenly the Executioner rushes in and snatches them from their arms and at once pulling forth his Commission and his Knife without regard to shrieks or tears murthers the innocent Babe and leaves the passionate Mother in a mean between madness and death What cursing of Herod what wringing of hands what condoling what exclaiming was now in the streets of Bethlehem O bloudy Herod that couldst sacrifice so many harmless lives to thine Ambition What could those Infants have done If it were thy person whereof thou wert afraid what likelihood was it thou couldst live till those Sucklings might endanger thee This news might affect thy Successours it could not concern thee if the heat of an impotent and furious envy had not made thee thirsty of bloud It is not long that thou shalt enjoy this cruelty After a few hatefull years thy soul shall feel the weight of so many Innocents of so many just Curses He for whose sake thou killedst so many shall strike thee with death and then what wouldest thou have given to have been as one of those Infants whom thou murtheredst In the mean time when thine Executioners returned and told thee of their unpartial dispatch thou smiledst to think how thou hadst defeated thy Rival and beguiled the Star and eluded the Prophecies whiles God in Heaven and his Son on earth laugh thee to scorn and make thy rage an occasion of farther glory to him whom thou meantest to suppress He that could take away the lives of others cannot protract his own Herod is now sent home The coast is clear for the return of that Holy Family Now God calls them from their Exile Christ and his Mother had not stayed so long out of the confines of the reputed visible Church but to teach us continuance under the Cross Sometimes God sees it good for us not to sip of the cup of Affliction but to make a diet-drink of it for constant and common use If he allows us no other liquour for many years we must take it off chearfully and know that it is but the measure of our betters Joseph and Mary stir not without a Command their Departure Stay Removal is ordered by the voice of God If Egypt had been more tedious unto them they durst not move their foot till they were bidden It is good in our own business to follow Reason or Custome but in God's business if we have any other guide but himself we presume and cannot expect a blessing O the wonderfull dispensation of God in concealing of himself from men Christ was now some five years old he bears himself as an Infant and knowing all things neither takes nor gives notice of ought concerning his removall and disposing but appoints that to be done by his Angel which the Angel could not have done but by him Since he would take our nature he would be a perfect child suppressing the manifestation and exercise of that Godhead whereto that Infant nature was conjoined Even so O Saviour the Humility of thine Infancy was answerable to that of thy Birth The more thou hidest and abasest thy self for us the more should we magnifie thee the more should we deject our selves for thee Unto thee with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and for ever Amen VII Christ among the Doctours EVen the Spring shews us what we may hope for of the tree in Summer In his Nonage therefore would our Saviour give us a taste of his future proof lest if his perfection should have shewed it self without warning to the world it should have been entertained with more wonder then belief now this act of his Childhood shall prepare the faith of men by
performance meets him one half of the way and he that believed somewhat ere he came and more when he went grew to more Faith in the way and when he came home inlarged his Faith to all the skirts of his Family A weak Faith may be true but a true Faith is growing He that boasts of a full stature in the first moment of his assent may presume but doth not believe Great men cannot want clients their example sways some their authority more they cannot go to either of the other worlds alone In vain do they pretend power over others who labour not to draw their families unto God XV. The Dumb Devil ejected THat the Prince of our Peace might approve his victories perfect wheresoever he met with the Prince of darkness he foiled him he ejected him He found him in Heaven thence did he throw him headlong and verified his Prophet I have cast thee out of mine holy mountain And if the Devils left their first habitation it was because being Devils they could not keep it Their estate indeed they might have kept and did not their habitation they would have kept and might not How art thou faln from heaven O Lucifer He found him in the Heart of man for in that closet of God did the evill Spirit after his exile from Heaven shrowd himself Sin gave him possession which he kept with a willing violence thence he casts him by his Word and Spirit He found him tyrannizing in the Bodies of some possessed men and with power commands the unclean Spirits to depart This act is for no hand but his When a strong man keeps possession none but a stronger can remove it In voluntary things the strongest may yield to the weakest Sampson to a Dalilah but in violent ever the mightiest carries it A spirituall nature must needs be in rank above a bodily neither can any power be above a Spirit but the God of Spirits No otherwise is it in the mentall possession Where ever Sin is there Satan is As on the contrary whosoever is born of God the seed of God remains in him That Evill one not onely is but rules in the sons of disobedience in vain shall we try to eject him but by the Divine power of the Redeemer For this cause the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devill Do we find our selves haunted with the familiar Devills of Pride Self-love Sensuall desires Unbelief None but thou O Son of the ever-living God can free our bosoms of these hellish guests O cleanse thou me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me O Saviour it is no Paradox to say that thou castest out more Devils now then thou didst whilst thou wert upon earth It was thy word When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me Satan weighs down at the feet thou pullest at the head yea at the heart In every conversion which thou workest there is a dispossession Convert me O Lord and I shall be converted I know thy means are now no other then ordinary If we expect to be dispossessed by miracle it would be a miracle if ever we were dispossessed O let thy Gospell have the perfect work in me so onely shall I be delivered from the powers of darkness Nothing can be said to be dumb but what naturally speaks nothing can speak naturally but what hath the instruments of speech which because spirits want they can no otherwise speak vocally then as they take voices to themselves in taking bodies This Devill was not therefore dumb in his nature but in his effect The man was dumb by the operation of that Devill which possessed him and now the action is attributed to the spirit which was subjectively in the man It is not you that speak saith our Saviour but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you As it is in bodily diseases that they do not infect us alike some seize upon the humours others upon the spirits some assault the brain others the heart or lungs so in bodily and spirituall possessions in some the evill spirit takes away their senses in some their lims in some their inward faculties like as spiritually they affect to move us unto severall sins one to Lust another to Covetousness or Ambition another to Cruelty and their names have distinguished them according to these various effects This was a dumb Devill which yet had possessed not the tongue onely of this man but his ear nor that onely but as it seems his eyes too O subtle and tyrannous spirit that obstructs all ways to the Soul that keeps out all means of grace both from the door and windows of the Heart yea that stops up all passages whether of ingress or egress of ingress at the Eye or Ear of egress at the Mouth that there might be no capacity of redress What holy use is there of our Tongue but to praise our Maker to confess our sins to inform our brethren How rise is this dumb Devill every-where whilst he stops the mouths of Christians from these usefull and necessary duties For what end hath man those two privileges above his fellow-creatures Reason and Speech but that as by the one he may conceive of the great works of his Maker which the rest cannot so by the other he may express what he conceives to the honour of the Creatour both of them and himself And why are all other creatures said to praise God and bidden to praise him but because they doe it by the apprehension by the expression of man If the heavens declare the glory of God how doe they it but to the eyes and by the tongue of that man for whom they were made It is no small honour whereof the envious Spirit shall rob his Maker if he can close up the mouth of his onely rationall and vocall creature and turn the best of his workmanship into a dumb Idol that hath a mouth and speaks not Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Praise is not more necessary then complaint praise of God then complaint of our selves whether to God or men The onely amends we can make to God when we have not had the grace to avoid sin is to confess the sin we have not avoided This is the sponge that wipes out all the blots and blurs of our lives If we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness That cunning Man-slayer knows there is no way to purge the sick soul but upward by casting out the vicious humour wherewith it is clogged and therefore holds the lips close that the heart may not dis-burthen it self by so wholsome evacuation When I kept silence my bones consumed For day and night thy hand O Lord was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer O let me confess against my self my wickedness unto
thee that thou maist forgive the punishment of my sin We have a Tongue for God when we praise him for our selves when we pray and confess for our brethren when we speak the truth for their information which if we hold back in unrighteousness we yield unto that dumb Devil Where do we not see that accursed Spirit He is on the Bench when the mute or partial Judge speaks not for truth and innocence He is in the Pulpit when the Prophets of God smother or halve or adulterate the message of their Master He is at the Bar when irreligious Jurours dare lend an oath to fear to hope to gain He is in the Market when godless Chapmen for their peny sell the truth and their soul He is in the common conversation of men when the tongue belies the heart flatters the guilty balketh reproofs even in the foulest crimes O Thou who onely art stronger then that strong one cast him out of the hearts and mouths of men It is time for thee Lord to work for they have destroyed thy Law That it might well appear this impediment was not natural so soon as the man is freed from the spirit his tongue is free to his speech The effects of spirits as they are wrought so they cease at once If the Son of God do but remove our spiritual possession we shall presently break forth into the praise of God into the confession of our vileness into the profession of truth But what strange variety do I see in the spectatours of his Miracle some wondering others censuring a third sort tempting a fourth applauding There was never man or action but was subject to variety of constructions What man could be so holy as he that was God what act could be more worthy then the dispossession of an evil spirit Yet this man this act passeth these differences of interpretation What can we doe to undergoe but one opinion If we give alms and fast some will magnifie our charity and devotion others will tax our hypocrisie if we give not some will condemn our hard-heartedness others will allow our care of justice If we preach plainly to some it will savour of a careless slubbering to others of a mortified sincerity elaborately some will tax our affectation others will applaud our diligence in dressing the delicate viands of God What marvel is it if it be thus with our imperfection when it fared not otherwise with him that was purity and righteousness it self The austere Fore-runner of Christ came neither eating nor drinking they say He hath a Devil The Son of man came eating and drinking they say This man is a glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners And here one of his holy acts carries away at once wonder censure doubt celebration There is no way safe for a man but to square his actions by the right rule of justice of charity and then let the world have leave to spend their glosses at pleasure It was an heroical resolution of the chosen Vessel I pass very little to be judged of you or of man's day I marvell not if the people marvelled for here were four wonders in one the blind saw the deaf heard the dumb spake the Demoniack is delivered Wonder was due to so rare and powerfull a work and if not this nothing We can cast away admiration upon the poor devices or activities of men how much more upon the extraordinary works of Omnipotency Whoso knows the frame of Heaven and Earth shall not much be affected with the imperfect effects of frail humanity but shall with no less ravishment of soul acknowledge the miraculous works of the same Almighty hand Neither is the spiritual ejection worthy of any meaner entertainment Rarity and Difficulty are wont to cause wonder There are many things which have wonder in their worth and lose it in their frequency there are some which have it in their strangeness and lose it in their facility Both meet in this To see men haunted yea possessed with a dumb Devil is so frequent that it is a just wonder to find a man free but to find the dumb spirit cast out of a man and to hear him praising God confessing his sins teaching others the sweet experiments of mercy deserves just admiration If the Cynick sought in the market for a Man amongst men well may we seek amongst men for a Convert Neither is the difficulty less then the rareness The strong man hath the possession all passages are block'd up all helps barred by the treachery of our nature If any soul be rescued from these spiritual wickednesses it is the praise of him that doeth wonders alone But whom do I see wondering The multitude The unlearned beholders follow that act with wonder which the learned Scribes entertain with obloquy God hath revealed those things to babes which he hath hid from the wise and prudent With what scorn did those great Rabbins speak of these sons of the earth This people that knows not the Law is accursed Yet the mercy of God makes an advantage of their simplicity in that they are therefore less subject to cavillation and incredulity As contrarily his justice causes the proud knowledge of others to lie as a block in their way to the ready assent unto the Divine power of the Messias Let the pride of glorious adversaries disdain the poverty of the clients of the Gospel it shall not repent us to go to Heaven with the vulgar whilst their great ones go in state to Perdition The multitude wondered Who censured but Scribes great Doctours of the Law of the divinity of the Jews what Scribes but those of Jerusalem the most eminent Academy of Judaea These were the men who out of their deep reputed judgment cast these foul aspersions upon Christ Great wits oft-times mis-lead both the owners and followers How many shall once wish they had been born dullards yea idiots when they shall find their wit to have barred them out of Heaven Where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made the wisedome of the world foolishness Say the world what it will a dram of Holiness is worth a pound of Wit Let others censure with the Scribes let me wonder with the multitude What could malice say worse He casteth out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils The Jews well knew that the Gods of the heathen were no other then Devils amongst whom for that the Lord of Flies so called whether for the concourse of flies to the abundance of his sacrifices or for his aid implored against the infestation of those swarms was held the chief therefore they style him The Prince of Devils There is a subordination of Spirits some higher in degree some inferiour to others Our Saviour himself tells us of the Devil and his Angels Messengers are inferiour to those that send them The seven Devils that entered into the swept and garnished house were worse then the former Neither can
Principalities and Powers and Governours and Princes of the darkness of this World design other then several ranks of evil Angels There can be no being without some kind of order there can be no order in parity If we look up into Heaven there is the King of Gods the Lord of Lords higher then the highest If to the Earth there are Monarchs Kings Princes Peers People If we look down to Hell there is the Prince of Devils They labour for confusion that call for parity What should the Church doe with such a form as is not exemplified in Heaven in Earth in Hell One Devil according to their supposition may be used to cast out another How far the command of one spirit over another may extend it is a secret of infernal state too deep for the inquiry of men The thing it self is apparent upon compact and precontracted composition one gives way to other for the common advantage As we see in the Commonwealth of Cheaters and Cutpurses one doeth the fact another is feed to bring it out and to procure restitution both are of the trade both conspire to the fraud the actour falls not out with the revealer but divides with him that cunning spoil One malicious miscreant sets the Devil on work to the inflicting of disease or death another upon agreement for a farther spiritual gain takes him off There is a Devil in both And if there seem more bodily favour there is no less spiritual danger in the latter In the one Satan wins the agent the suitour in the other It will be no cause of discord in Hell that one Devil gives ease to the body which another tormented that both may triumph in the gain of a soul Oh God that any creature which bears thine Image should not abhor to be beholden to the powers of hell for aid for advice Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that men go to inquire of the God of Ekron Can men be so sottish to think that the vowed enemy of their souls can offer them a bait without an hook What evil is there in the City which the Lord hath not done what is there which he cannot as easily redress He wounds he heals again And if he will not it is the Lord let him doe what seems good in his eyes If he do not deliver us he will crown our faithfulness in a patient perseverance The wounds of God are better then are the salves of Satan Was it possible that the wit of Envy could devise so high a Slander Beelzebub was a God of the heathen therefore herein they accuse him for an Idolater Beelzebub was a Devil to the Jews therefore they accuse him for a Conjurer Beelzebub was the chief of Devils therefore they accuse him for an Arch-exorcist for the worst kind of Magician Some professours of this black Art though their work be devillish yet they pretend to doe it in the name of Jesus and will presumptuously seem to doe that by command which is secretly transacted by agreement The Scribes accuse Christ of a direct compact with the Devil and suppose both a league and familiarity which by the Law of Moses in the very hand of a Saul was no other then deadly Yea so deep doth this wound reach that our Saviour searching it to the bottom finds no less in it then the sin against the Holy Ghost inferring hereupon that dreadfull sentence of the irremissibleness of that sin unto death And if this horrible crimination were cast upon thee O Saviour in whom the Prince of this world found nothing what wonder is it if we thy sinfull Servants be branded on all sides with evil tongues Yea which is yet more how plain is it that these men forced their tongue to speak this slander against their own heart Else this Blasphemy had been onely against the Son of man not against the Holy Ghost but now that the Searcher of hearts finds it to be no less then against the Blessed Spirit of God the spight must needs be obstinate their malice doth wilfully cross their conscience Envy never regards how true but how mischievous So it may gall or kill it cares little whether with truth or falshood For us Blessed are we when men revile us and say all manner of evil of us for the name of Christ For them What reward shall be given to thee thou false tongue Even sharp arrows with hot burning coals yea those very coals of hell from which thou wert enkindled There was yet a third sort that went a mid way betwixt wonder and censure These were not so malicious as to impute the Miracle to a Satanical operation they confess it good but not enough and therefore urge Christ to a farther proof Though thou hast cast out this dumb Devil yet this is no sufficient argument of thy Divine power We have yet seen nothing from thee like those ancient Miracles of the times of our forefathers Joshua caused the Sun to stand still Elias brought fire down from heaven Samuel astonisht the people with thunder and rain in the midst of harvest If thou wouldst command our belief doe somewhat like to these The casting out of a Devil shews thee to have some power over Hell shew us now that thou hast no less power over Heaven There is a kind of unreasonableness of desire and insatiableness in Infidelity it never knows when it hath evidence enough This which the Jews over-looked was a more irrefragable demonstration of Divinity then that which they desired A Devil was more then a Meteor or a parcel of an element to cast out a Devil by command more then to command fire from heaven Infidelity ever loves to be her own carver No son can be more like a father then these Jews to their progenitors in the desart That there might be no fear of degenerating into good they also of old tempted God in the Wilderness First they are weary of the Egyptian bondage and are ready to fall out with God and Moses for their stay in those furnaces By ten miraculous Plagues they are freed and going out of those confines the Egyptians follow them the Sea is before them now they are more afflicted with their liberty then their servitude The Sea yields way the Egyptians are drowned and now that they are safe on the other shore they tempt the providence of God for water The Rock yields it them then no less for bread and meat God sends them Manna and Quails they cry out of the food of Angels Their present enemies in the way are vanquished they whine at the men of measures in the heart of Canaan Nothing from God but mercy nothing from them but temptations Their true brood both in nature and in sin had abundant proofs of the Messiah if curing the blind lame diseased deaf dumb ejecting Devils over-ruling the elements raising the dead could have been sufficient yet still they must have a sign from Heaven and shut up in
This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the Most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universal the latter words would impugn the former for whilst he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the Most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear in respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil Spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whilst thou vexest a Servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from Knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldness enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny Or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack For the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour Or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a farther degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are Tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by sense have easily granted the Body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a Spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire but as all matters of faith though they cannot be proved by reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a real For as in Blessedness the good Spirits find themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves settled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive meer and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the sky and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of God's justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that Supreme and Righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgment of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal spirits of living men may be held in a loathed or painfull body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name Who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil Spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they expect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed term of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgment should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say before the time Even the very evil spirits confess and fearfully attend a set day of universal Sessions They believe less then Devils that either doubt of or deny that Day of final retribution O the wonderfull mercy of our God that both to wicked men
himself is a several Goal Did ever any man that ran for a prize say I will keep up with the rest Doth he not know that if he be not foremost he loseth We had as good to have sate still as not so to run that we may obtain We obtain not if we out-run not the multitude So far did Zacchaeus over-run the stream of the people that he might have space to climb the Sycomore ere Jesus could pass by I examine not the kind the nature the quality of this Plant what Tree soever it had been Zacchaeus would have tried to scale it for the advantage of this prospect He hath found out this help for his stature and takes pains to use it It is the best improvement of our wit to seek out the aptest furtherances for our Souls Do you see a weak and studious Christian that being unable to inform himself in the matters of God goes to the cabinet of Heaven the Priests lips which shall preserve knowledge there is Zacchaeus in the Sycomore It is the truest wisedom that helps forward our Salvation How witty we are to supply all the deficiencies of Nature If we be low we can adde cubits to our stature if ill-coloured we can borrow complexion if hairless perukes if dim-sighted glasses if lame crutches and shall we be conscious of our spiritual wants and be wilfully regardless of the remedy Surely had Zacchaeus stood still on the ground he had never seen Christ had he not climbed the Sycomore he had never climbed into Heaven O Saviour I have not height enough of my own to see thee give me what Sycomore thou wilt give me grace to use it give me an happy use of that grace The more I look at the mercy of Christ the more cause I see of astonishment Zacchaeus climbes up into the Sycomore to see Jesus Jesus first sees him preventing his eyes with a former view Little did Zacchaeus look that Jesus would have cast up his eyes to him Well might he think the boys in the street would spy him out and shout at his stature trade ambition but that Jesus should throw up his eyes into the Sycomore and take notice of that small despised morsell of flesh ere Zacchaeus could find space to distinguish His face from the rest was utterly beyond his thought or expectation All his hope is to see and now he is seen To be seen and acknowledged is much more then to see Upon any solemn occasion many thousands see the Prince whom he sees not and if he please to single out any one whether by his eye or by his tongue amongst the press it passes for an high favour Zacchaeus would have thought it too much boldness to have asked what was given him As Jonathan did to David so doeth God to us he shoots beyond us Did he not prevent us with mercy we might climbe into the Sycomore in vain If he give Grace to him that doeth his best it is the praise of the giver not the earning of the receiver How can we doe or will without him If he sees us first we live and if we desire to see him we shall be seen of him Who ever took pains to climbe the Sycomore and came down disappointed O Lord what was there in Zacchaeus that thou shouldst look up at him a Publican a Sinner an Arch-extortioner a Dwarf in stature but a Giant in oppression a little man but a great Sycophant if rich in coin more rich in sins and treasures of wrath Yet it is enough that he desires to see thee all these disadvantages cannot hide him from thee Be we never so sinfull if our desires towards thee be hearty and fervent all the broad leaves of the Sycomore cannot keep off thine eye from us If we look at thee with the eye of Faith thou wilt look at us with the eye of mercy The eye of the Lord is upon the just and he is just that would be so if not in himself yet in thee O Saviour when Zacchaeus was above and thou wert below thou didst look up at him now thou art above and we below thou lookest down upon us thy mercy turns thine eyes every way towards our necessities Look down upon us that are not worthy to look up unto thee and find us out that we may seek thee It was much to note Zacchaeus it was more to name him Methinks I see how Zacchaeus startled at this to hear the sound of his own name from the mouth of Christ neither can he but think Doth Jesus know me Is it his voice or some other 's in the throng Lo this is the first blink that ever I had of him I have heard the fame of his wonderfull works and held it happiness enough for me to have seen his face and doth he take notice of my person of my name Surely the more that Zacchaeus knew himself the more doth he wonder that Christ should know him It was slander enough for a man to be a friend to a Publican yet Christ gives this friendly compellation to the chief of Publicans and honours him with this argument of a sudden intireness The favour is great but not singular Every elect of God is thus graced The Father knows the child's name as he calls the stars of heaven by their names so doth he his Saints the stars on earth and it is his own rule to his Israel I have called thee by thy name thou art mine As God's children do not content themselves with a confused knowledge of him but aspire to a particular appprehension and sensible application so doeth God again to them it is not enough that he knows them as in the croud wherein we see many persons none distinctly but he takes single and severall knowledge of their qualities conditions motions events What care we that our names are obscure or contemned amongst men whilst they are regarded by God that they are raked up in the dust of Earth whilst they are recorded in Heaven Had our Saviour said no more but Zacchaeus come down the poor man would have thought himself taxed for his boldness and curiosity it were better to be unknown then noted for miscarriage But now the next words comfort him For I must this day abide at thine house What a sweet familiarity was here as if Christ had been many years acquainted with Zacchaeus whom he now first saw Besides our use the Host is invited by the Guest and called to an unexpected entertainment Well did our Saviour hear Zacchaeus his heart inviting him though his mouth did not Desires are the language of the Soul those are heard by him that is the God of spirits We dare not doe thus to each other save where we have eaten much salt we scarce go where we are invited though the face be friendly and the entertainment great yet the heart may be hollow But here he that saw the heart and foreknew his welcome can boldly say I must this day
rectified The ordination of Marriage is one for one They twain shall be one flesh There cannot be two heads to one body nor two bodies to one head Herod was her Adulterer he was not her Husband she was Herod's Harlot Philip's Wife Yet how doth Herod dote on her that for her sake he loads John with irons Whether will not the fury of inordinate Lust transport a man Certainly John was of late in Herod's favour That rough-hewn Preacher was for a Wilderness not for a Court Herod's invitation drew him thither his reverence and respects incouraged him there Now the love of his Lust hath carried him into an hate of God's Messenger That man can have no hold of himself or care of others who hath given the reins to his unruly Concupiscence He that hath once fixed his heart upon the face of an Harlot and hath beslaved himself to a bewitching Beauty casts off at once all fear of God respect to Laws shame of the world regard of his estate care of wife children friends reputation patrimony body Soul So violent is this beastly passion where it takes neither ever leaves till it hath hurried him into the chambers of death Herodias her self had first plotted to kill the Baptist her murtherers were suborned her ambushes laid The success failed and now she works with Herod for his durance O marvellous hand of the Almighty John was a mean man for estate solitary guardless unarmed impotent Herodias a Queen so great that she swayed Herod himself and not more great then subtle and not more great or subtle then malicious yet Herodias laid to kill John and could not What an invisible and yet sure guard there is about the poor servants of God that seem helpless and despicable in themselves There is over them an hand of Divine protection which can be no more opposed then seen Malice is not so strong in the hand as in the heart The Devil is stronger then a world of men a legion of Devils stronger then fewer spirits yet a legion of Devils cannot hurt one Swine without a permission What can bands of enemies or gates of Hell doe against God's secret ones It is better to trust in the Lord then to trust in Princes It is not more clear who was the Authour then what was the motive of this imprisonment the free reproof of Herod's Incest It is not lawfull c. Both the offenders were nettled with this bold reprehension Herod knew the reputation that John carried his Conscience could not but suggest the foulness of his own fact neither could he but see how odious it would seem to persecute a Prophet for so just a reproof For the colour therefore of so tyrannical an act he brands John with Sedition these presumptuous taxations are a disgrace and disparagement to Authority It is no news with wicked Tyrants to cloak their Cruelty with pretences of Justice Never was it other then the lot of God's faithfull servants to be loaded with unjust reproaches in the conscionable performance of their duties They should speed too well in the opinion of men if they might but appear in their true shape The fact of Herod was horrible and prodigious to rob his own Brother of the partner of his bed to tear away part of his flesh yea his body from his head So as here was at once in one act Adultery Incest Violence Adultery that he took another's wife Incest that he took his Brother's Violence that he thus took her in spite of her Husband Justly therefore might John say It is not lawfull for thee He balked not one of Herod's sins but reproved him of all the evils that he had done though more eminently of this as that which more filled the eye of the world It was not the Crown or awfull Scepter of Herod that could daunt the homely but faithfull messenger of God as one that came in the spirit of Elias he fears no faces spares no wickedness There must meet in God's ministers Courage and Impartiality Impartiality not to make difference of persons Courage not to make spare of the sins of the greatest It is an hard condition that the necessity of our Calling casts upon us in some cases to run upon the pikes of displeasure Prophecies were no Burthens if they did not expose us to these dangers We must connive at no evil Every sin unreproved becomes ours Hatred is the daughter of Truth Herod is inwardly vexed with so peremptory a reprehension and now he seeks to kill the authour And why did he not He feared the people The time was when he feared John no less then now he hates him he once reverenced him as a just and holy man whom now he heart-burns as an enemy neither was it any counterfeit respect sure the man was then in earnest What shall we say then was it that his inconstant heart was now fetcht off by Herodias and wrought to a disaffection or was it with Herod as with Salomon's Sluggard that at once would and would not His thoughts are distracted with a mixt voluntary contradiction of purposes as an holy man and honoured of the people he would not kill John he would kill him as an enemy to his Lust The worse part prevaileth Appetite oversways Reason and Conscience and now were it not for fear of the people John should be murthered What a self-conflicting and prodigious creature is a wicked man left over to his own thoughts whilst on the one side he is urged by his Conscience on the other by his lustfull desires and by the importunity of Satan There is no peace saith my God to the wicked and after all his inward broils he falls upon the worst so as his yieldance is worse then his fight When God sees fit Herod's tyranny shall effect that which the wise Providence of the Almighty hath decreed for his Servant's glory In the mean while rubs shall be cast in his way and this for one He feared the people What an absurd and sottish thing is Hypocrisy Herod fears the people he fears not God Tell me then Herod what could the people doe at the worst Perhaps mutiny against thee raise arms and tumults disturb the Government it may be shake it off What could God doe yea what not stir up all his creatures to plague thee and when he hath done tumble thee down to Hell and there torment thee everlastingly O fond Herod that fearest where no fear was and fearest not where there is nothing but terrour How God fits lewd men with restraints If they be so godless as to regard his creature above himself he hath externall buggs to affright them withall if bashfull he hath shame if covetous losses if proud disgrace and by this means the most wise Providence keeps the world in order We cannot better judge of our hearts then by what we most fear No man is so great as to be utterly exempted from fear The Jews feared Herod Herod feared the Jews the
think the weather is changing to serenity O Saviour we may not always measure thy meaning by thy semblance sometimes what thou most intendest thou shewest least In our Afflictions thou turnest thy back upon us and hidest thy face from us when thou most mindest our distresses So Jonathan shot the arrows beyond David when he meant them to him So Joseph calls for Benjamin into bonds when his heart was bound to him in the strongest affection So the tender mother makes as if she would give away her crying child whom she hugs so much closer in her bosome If thou pass by us whilst we are struggling with the tempest we know it is not for want of mercy Thou canst not neglect us O let not us distrust thee What Object should have been so pleasing to the eyes of the Disciples as their Master and so much the more as he shewed his Divine power in this miraculous walk But lo contrarily they are troubled not with his presence but with this form of presence The supernatural works of God when we look upon them with our own eyes are subject to a dangerous misprision The very Sun-beams to whom we are beholden for our sight if we eye them directly blind us Miserable men we are ready to suspect Truths to run away from our safety to be afraid of our comforts to mis-know our best friends And why are they thus troubled They had thought they had seen a Spirit That there have been such apparitions of Spirits both good and evil hath ever been a Truth undoubtedly received of Pagans Jews Christians although in the blind times of Superstition there was much collusion mixed with some verities Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world But even where there was not Truth yet there was Horrour The very Good Angels were not seen without much fear their sight was construed to bode Death how much more the Evil which in their very nature are harmfull and pernicious We see not a Snake or a Toad without some recoiling of bloud and sensible reluctation although those creatures run away from us how much more must our hairs stand upright and our senses boggle at the sight of a Spirit whose both nature and will is contrary to ours and professedly bent to our hurt But say it had been what they mistook it for a Spirit why should they fear Had they well considered they had soon found that evil spirits are never the less present when they are not seen and never the less harmfull or malicious when they are present unseen Visibility adds nothing to their spite or mischief And could their eyes have been opened they had with Elisha's servant seen more with them then against them a sure though invisible guard of more powerfull Spirits and themselves under the protection of the God of Spirits so as they might have bidden a bold defiance to all the powers of darkness But partly their Faith was yet but in the bud and partly the presentation of this dreadfull Object was sudden and without the respite of a recollection and settlement of their thoughts Oh the weakness of our frail Nature who in the want of Faith are affrighted with the visible appearance of those adversaries whom we profess daily to resist and vanquish and with whom we know the Decree of God hath matched us in an everlasting conflict Are not these they that ejected Devils by their command Are not these of them that could say Master the evil spirits are subdued to us Yet now when they see but an imagined Spirit they fear What power there is in the eye to betray the heart Whilst Goliah was mingled with the rest of the Philistin hoast Israel camped boldly against them but when that Giant stalks out single between the two armies and fills and amazes their eyes with his hideous stature now they run away for fear Behold we are committed with Legions of Evil spirits and complain not Let but one of them give us some visible token of his presence we shreek and tremble and are not our selves Neither is our weakness more conspicuous then thy mercy O God in restraining these spiritual enemies from these dreadfull and ghastly representations of themselves to our eyes Might those infernal Spirits have liberty to appear how and when and to whom they would certainly not many would be left in their wits or in their lives It is thy power and goodness to frail mankind that they are kept in their chains and reserved in the darkness of their own spiritual being that we may both oppugn and subdue them unseen But oh the deplorable condition of reprobate souls If but the imagined sight of one of these spirits of darkness can so daunt the heart of those which are free from their power what a terrour shall it be to live perpetually in the sight yea under the torture of thousands of legions of millions of Devils Oh the madness of wilfull sinners that will needs run themselves headily into so dreadfull a damnation It was high time for our Saviour to speak What with the Tempest what with the Apparition the Disciples were almost lost with fear How seasonable are his gracious redresses Till they were thus affrighted he would not speak when they were thus affrighted he would not hold his peace If his presence were fearfull yet his word was comfortable Be of good chear it is I yea it is his word onely which must make his presence both known and comfortable He was present before they mistook him and feared there needs no other erection of their drooping hearts but It is I. It is cordial enough to us in the worst of our afflictions to be assured of Christ's presence with us Say but It is I O Saviour and let evils doe their worst thou needest not say any more Thy voice was evidence enough so well were the Disciples acquainted with the tongue of thee their Master that It is I was as much as an hundred names Thou art the good Shepherd we are not of thy Flock if we know thee not by thy voice from a thousand Even this one is a great word yea an ample style It is I. The same tongue that said to Moses I am hath sent thee saith now to the Disciples It is I I your Lord and Master I the Commander of winds and waters I the soveraign Lord of Heaven and earth I the God of Spirits Let Heaven be but as one scroll and let it be written all over with titles they cannot express more then It is I. Oh sweet and seasonable word of a gracious Saviour able to calm all tempests able to revive all hearts Say but so to my Soul and in spight of Hell I am safe No sooner hath Jesus said I then Peter answers Master He can instantly name him that did not name himself Every little hint is enough to Faith The Church sees her Beloved as well through the Lattice as through the open Window Which
Jewess and therefore well knew that her touch was in this case no better then a pollution as hers perhaps but not of him For on the one side Necessity is under no positive law on the other the Son of God was not capable of impurity Those may be defiled with a touch that cannot heal with a touch he that was above Law is not comprised in the Law Be we never so unclean he may heal us we cannot infect him O Saviour my Soul is sick and foul enough with the Spirituall impurities of sin let me by the hand of Faith lay hold but upon the hem of thy garment thy Righteousness is thy garment it shall be both clean and whole Who would not think but a man might lade up a dish of water out of the Sea unmissed Yet that water though much is finite those drops are within number that Art which hath reckoned how many corns of sand would make up a World could more easily compute how many drops of water would make up an Ocean Whereas the mercies of God are absolutely infinite and beyond all possibility of proportion And yet this bashfull soul cannot steal one drop of mercy from this endless boundless bottomless Sea of Divine bounty but it is felt and questioned And Jesus said Who touched me Who can now say that he is a poor man that reckons his store when that God who is rich in mercy doth so He knows all his own Blessings and keeps just tallies of our receits delivered so much Honour to this man to that so much Wealth so much Knowledge to one to another so much Strength How carefully frugal should we be in the notice account usage of God's several favours since his bounty sets all his gifts upon the file Even the worst servant in the Gospel confest his Talents though he imployed them not We are worse then the worst if either we misknow or dissemble or forget them Who now can forbear the Disciples reply Who touched thee O Lord the multitude Dost thou ask of one when thou art pressed by many In the midst of a throng dost thou ask Who touched me Yea but yet some one touched me All thronged me but one touched me How riddle-like soever it may seem to sound they that thronged me touched me not she onely touched me that thronged me not yea that touched me not Even so O Saviour others touched thy body with theirs she touched thy hem with her hand thy Divine power with her Soul Those two parts whereof we consist the bodily the spiritual do in a sort partake of each other The Soul is the Man and hath those parts senses actions which are challenged as proper to the Body This spiritual part hath both an hand and a touch it is by the hand of Faith that the Soul toucheth yea this alone both is and acts all the spiritual senses of that immaterial and Divine part this sees hears tasteth toucheth God and without this the Soul doeth none of these All the multitude then pressed Christ he took not that for a touch since Faith was away onely she touched him that believed to receive virtue by his touch Outward fashionableness comes into no account with God that is onely done which the Soul doeth It is no hoping that virtue should go forth from Christ to us when no hearty desires go forth from us to him He that is a Spirit looks to the deportment of that part which resembleth himself as without it the body is dead so without the actions thereof bodily Devotions are but carkasses What reason had our Saviour to challenge this touch Some body touch'd me The multitude in one extreme denied any touch at all Peter in another extreme affirmed an over-touching of the multitude Betwixt both he who felt it can say Some body touched me Not all as Peter not none as the multitude but some body How then O Saviour how doth it appear that some body touch'd thee For I perceive virtue is gone out from me The effect proves the act virtue gone out evinces the touch These two are in thee convertible virtue cannot go out of thee but by a touch and no touch can be of thee without virtue going out from thee That which is a Rule in Nature That every Agent works by a contact holds spiritually too Then dost thou O God work upon our Souls when thou touchest our hearts by thy Spirit then do we re-act upon thee when we touch thee by the hand of our Faith and confidence in thee and in both these virtue goes out from thee to us Yet goes not so out as that there is less in thee In all bodily emanations whose powers are but finite it must needs follow that the more is sent forth the less is reserved but as it is in the Sun which gives us light yet loseth none ever the more the luminosity of it being no whit impaired by that perpetual emission of lightsome beams so much more is it in thee the Father of lights Virtue could not go out of thee without thy knowledge without thy sending Neither was it in a dislike or in a grudging exprobration that thou saidst Virtue is gone out from me Nothing could please thee better then to feel virtue fetch'd out from thee by the Faith of the receiver It is the nature and praise of good to be communicative none of us would be other then liberal of our little if we did not fear it would be lessened by imparting Thou that knowest thy store so infinite that participation doth onely glorifie and not diminish it canst not but be more willing to give then we to receive If we take but one drop of water from the Sea or one corn of sand from the shore there is so much though insensibly less but were we capable of Worlds of virtue and benediction from that munificent hand our inriching could no whit impoverish thee Thou which wert wont to hold it much better to give then to receive canst not but give gladly Fear not O my Soul to lade plentifully at this Well this Ocean of Mercy which the more thou takest overflows the more But why then O Saviour why didst thou thus inquire thus expostulate Was it for thy own sake that the glory of the Miracle might thus come to light which otherwise had been smothered in silence Was it for Jairus his sake that his depressed heart might be raised to a confidence in thee whose mighty Power he saw proved by this Cure whose Omniscience he saw proved by the knowledge of the Cure Or was it chiefly for the Woman's sake for the praise of her Faith for the securing of her Conscience It was within her self that she said If I may but touch none could hear this voice of the heart but he that made it It was within her self that the Cure was wrought none of the beholders knew her complaint much less her recovery none noted her touch none knew the occasion of her
and decrepit age of the world into which we are fallen How many are there that think there is no wisedom but in a dull indifferency and chuse rather to freeze then burn How quick and apprehensive are men in cases of their own indignities how insensible of their Saviour's But there is nothing so ill as the corruption of the best Rectified zeal is not more commendable and usefull then inordinate and misguided is hatefull and dangerous Fire is a necessary and beneficial element but if it be once misplaced and have caught upon the beams of our houses or stacks of our corn nothing can be more direfull Thus sometimes Zeal turns Murther They that kill you shall think they doe God service sometimes Phrensie sometimes rude Indiscretion Wholsome and blessed is that Zeal that is well grounded and well governed grounded upon the word of Truth not upon unstable fancies governed by Wisedom and Charity Wisedom to avoid rashness and excess Charity to avoid just offence No motion can want a pretence Elias did so why not we He was an holy Prophet the occasion the place abludes not much there wrong was offered to a servant here to his Master there to a man here to a God and man If Elias then did it why not we There is nothing more perillous then to draw all the actions of Holy men into examples For as the best men have their weaknesses so they are not privileged from letting fall unjustifiable actions Besides that they may have had perhaps peculiar warrants signed from Heaven whether by instinct or special command which we shall expect in vain There must be much caution used in our imitation of the best patterns whether in respect of the persons or things else we shall make our selves Apes and our acts sinfull absurdities It is a rare thing for our Saviour to find fault with the errours of zeal even where have appeared sensible weaknesses If Moses in a sacred rage and indignation brake the Tables written with God's own hand I find him not checked Here our meek Saviour turns back and frowns upon his furious suitours and takes them up roundly Ye know not of what spirit ye are The faults of uncharitableness cannot be swallowed up in zeal If there were any colour to hide the blemishes of this misdisposition it should be this crimson die But he that needs not our Lie will let us know he needs not our Injury and hates to have a good cause supported by the violation of our Charity We have no reason to disclaim our Passions Even the Son of God chides sometimes yea where he loves It offends not that our Affections are moved but that they are inordinate It was a sharp word Ye know not of what spirit ye are Another man would not perhaps have felt it a Disciple doth Tender hearts are galled with that which the carnal mind slighteth The spirit of Elias was that which they meant to assume and imitate they shall now know their mark was mistaken How would they have hated to think that any other but God's Spirit had stirred them up to this passionate motion now they shall know it was wrought by that ill spirit whom they professed to hate It is far from the good Spirit of God to stir up any man to private revenge or thirst of bloud Not an Eagle but a Dove was the shape wherein he chose to appear Neither wouldst thou O God be in the whirlwind or in the fire but in the soft voice O Saviour what do we seek for any precedent but thine whose name we challenge Thou camest to thine own thine own received thee not Didst thou call for fire from Heaven upon them didst thou not rather send down water from thy compassionate eyes and weep for them by whom thou must bleed Better had it been for us never to have had any spirit then any but thine We can be no other then wicked if our mercies be cruelty But is it the name of Elias O ye Zelots which ye pretend for a colour of your impotent desire Ye do not consider the difference betwixt his Spirit and yours His was extraordinary and heroical besides the instinct or secret command of God for this act of his far otherwise is it with you who by a carnal distemper are moved to this furious suggestion Those that would imitate God's Saints in singular actions must see they go upon the same grounds Without the same Spirit and the same warrant it is either a mockery or a sin to make them our Copies Elias is no fit pattern for Disciples but their Master The Son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Then are our actions and intentions warrantable and praise-worthy when they accord with his O Saviour when we look into those sacred Acts and monuments of thine we find many a life which thou preservedst from perishing some that had perished by thee recalled never any by thee destroyed Onely one poor fig-tree as the reall Emblem of thy severity to the unfruitfull was blasted and withered by thy curse But to man how ever favourable and indulgent wert thou So repelled as thou wert so reviled so persecuted laid for sold betrayed apprehended arraigned condemned crucified yet what one man didst thou strike dead for these hainous indignities Yea when one of thine enemies lost but an ear in that ill quarrel thou gavest that ear to him who came to take life from thee I find some whom thou didst scourge and correct as the sacrilegious money-changers none whom thou killedst Not that thou either lovest not or requirest not the duly severe execution of justice Whose sword is it that Princes bear but thine Offenders must smart and bleed This is a just sequel but not the intention of thy coming thy will not thy drift Good Princes make wholsome Laws for the well-ordering of their people there is no authority without due coercion The violation of these good Laws is followed with death whose end was preservation life order and this not so much for revenge of an offence past as for prevention of future mischief How can we then enough love and praise thy mercy O thou preserver of men How should we imitate thy saving and beneficent disposition towards mankind as knowing the more we can help to save the nearer we come to thee that camest to save all and the more destructive we are the more we resemble him who is Abaddon a murtherer from the beginning XXVII The Ten Lepers THE Samaritans were tainted not with Schism but Heresie but Paganism our Saviour yet balks them not but makes use of the way as it lies and bestows upon them the courtesie of some Miracles Some kind of commerce is lawfull even with those without Terms of intireness and leagues of inward amity are here unfit unwarrantable dangerous but civil respects and wise uses of them for our convenience or necessity need not must not be forborn Ten Lepers are here met those that
there is happiness as sure as we know there is misery and mutability upon earth Oh our miserable sottishness and infidelity if we do not contemn the best offers of the world and lifting up our eyes and hearts to Heaven say Bonum est esse hîc Even so Lord Jesus come quickly To him that hath purchased and prepared this Glory for us together with the Father and Blessed Spirit one Incomprehensible God be all praise for ever Amen XXXI The Prosecution of the Transfiguration BEfore the Disciples eyes were dazzled with Glory now the brightness of that Glory is shaded with a Cloud Frail and feeble eyes of mortality cannot look upon an Heavenly luster That Cloud imports both Majesty and obscuration Majesty for it was the testimony of God's presence of old the Cloud covered the Mountain the Tabernacle the Oracle He that makes the clouds his chariot was in a cloud carried up into Heaven Where have we mention of any Divine representation but a Cloud is one part of it What comes nearer to Heaven either in place or resemblance Obscuration for as it shew'd there was a Majesty and that Divine so it shew'd them that the view of that Majesty was not for bodily eyes Like as when some great Prince walks under a Canopy that veil shews there is a Great person under it but withall restrains the eye from a free sight of his person And if the cloud were clear yet it shaded them Why then was this cloud interposed betwixt that glorious Vision and them but for a check of their bold eyes Had they too long gazed upon this resplendent spectacle as their eyes had been blinded so their hearts had perhaps grown to an over-bold familiarity with that Heavenly Object How seasonably doth the cloud intercept it The wise God knows our need of these vicissitudes and allays If we have a light we must have a cloud if a light to chear us we must have a cloud to humble us It was so in Sinai it was so in Sion it was so in Olivet it shall never be but so The naturall day and night do not more duely interchange then this light and cloud Above we shall have the light without the cloud a clear vision and fruition of God without all dim and sad interpositions below we cannot be free from these mists and clouds of sorrow and misapprehension But this was a bright cloud There is difference betwixt the cloud in Tabor and that in Sinai This was clear that darksome There is darkness in the Law there is light in the grace of the Gospel Moses was there spoken to in darkness here he was spoken with in light In that dark cloud there was terrour in this there was comfort Though it were a Cloud then yet it was bright and though it were bright yet it was a Cloud With much light there was some shade God would not speak to them concerning Christ out of darkness neither yet would he manifest himself to them in an absolute brightness All his appearances have this mixture What need I other instance then in these two Saints Moses spake oft to God mouth to mouth yet not so immediately but that there was ever somewhat drawn as a curtain betwixt God and him either fire in Horeb or smoak in Sinai so as his face was not more veiled from the people then God's from him Elias shall be spoken to by God but in the rock and under a mantle In vain shall we hope for any revelation from God but in a cloud Worldly hearts are in utter darkness they see not so much as the least glimpse of these Divine beams not a beam of that inaccessible light The best of his Saints see him here but in a cloud or in a glass Happy are we if God have honoured us with these Divine representations of himself Once in his light we shall see light I can easily think with what amazedness these three Disciples stood compassed in that bright Cloud expecting some miraculous event of so Heavenly a Vision when suddenly they might hear a voice sounding out of that Cloud saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him They need not be told whose that voice was the place the matter evinced it No Angel in Heaven could or durst have said so How gladly doth Peter afterwards recount it For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son c. It was onely the ear that was here taught not the eye As of Horeb so of Sinai so of Tabor might God say Ye saw no shape nor image in that day that the Lord spake unto you He that knows our proneness to idolatry avoids those occasions which we might take to abuse our own fancies Twice hath God spoken these words to his own Son from Heaven once in his Baptism and now again in his Transfiguration Here not without some oppositive comparison Not Moses not Elias but This. Moses and Elias were Servants this a Son Moses and Elias were sons but of grace and choice this is that Son the Son by nature Other sons are beloved as of favour and free election this is The Beloved as in the unity of his essence Others are so beloved that he is pleased with themselves this so beloved that in and for him he is pleased with mankind As the relation betwixt the Father and the Son is infinite so is the Love We measure the intension of Love by the extension The love that rests in the person affected alone is but streight true Love descends like Aaron's Ointment from the head to the skirts to children friends allies O incomprehensibly-large love of God the Father to the Son that for his sake he is pleased with the world O perfect and happy complacence Out of Christ there is nothing but enmity betwixt God and the Soul in him there can be nothing but peace When the beams are met in one center they do not onely heat but burn Our weak love is diffused to many God hath some the world more and therein wives children friends but this infinite love of God hath all the beams of it united in one onely Object the Son of his Love Neither doth he love any thing but in the participation of his Love in the derivation from it O God let me be found in Christ and how canst thou but be pleased with me This one voice proclaims Christ at once the Son of God the Reconciler of the world the Doctour and Law-giver of his Church As the Son of God he is essentially interessed in his Love as he is the Reconciler of the world in whom God is well pleased he doth most justly challenge our love and adherence as he is the Doctour and Law-giver he doth justly challenge our audience our obedience Even so Lord teach us to hear and obey thee as our Teacher to love thee and believe in
whether in prison or in exile or at the stake we do not hasten thither to injoy thee The Place was not more unfit then the Time a Pharisee's house was not more unproper for a sinner then a Feast was for humiliation Tears at a Banquet are as Jiggs at a Funeral There is a season for all things Musick had been more apt for a Feast then mourning The heart that hath once felt the sting of sin and the sweetness of remission hath no power to delay the expressions of what it feels and cannot be confined to terms of circumstance Whence then was this zeal of her access Doubtless she had heard from the mouth of Christ in those heavenly Sermons of his many gracious invitations of all troubled and labouring Souls she had observed how he vouchsafed to come under the roofs of despised Publicans of professed enemies she had noted all the passages of his power and mercy and now deep remorse wrought upon her heart for her former viciousness The pool of her Conscience was troubled by the descending Angel and now she steps in for a cure The arrow stuck fast in her Soul which she could not shake out and now she comes to this sovereign Dittany to expell it Had not the Spirit of God wrought upon her ere she came and wrought her to come she had never either sought or found Christ Now she comes in and finds that Saviour whom she sought she comes in but not empty-handed though debauched she was a Jewess She could not but have heard that she ought not to appear before the Lord empty What then brings she It was not possible she could bring to Christ a better present then her own Penitent Soul yet to testifie that she brings another delicate both for the vessell and the contents a box of Alabaster a solid hard pure clear marble fit for the receit of so precious an ointment the ointment pleasant and costly a composition of many fragrant Odours not for medicine but delight The Soul that is truly touched with the sense of its own sin can think nothing too good too dear for Christ The remorsed sinner begins first with the tender of burnt-offerings and calves of a year old thence he ascends to Hecatombs thousands of rams and above that yet to ten thousand rivers of oyl and yet higher could be content to give the first-fruit of his body to expiate the sin of his Soul Any thing every thing is too small a price for peace O Saviour since we have tasted how sweet thou art lo we bring thee the daintiest and costliest perfumes of our humble Obediences yea if so much of our bloud as this woman brought oyntment may be usefull or pleasing to thy name we do most chearfully consecrate it unto thee If we would not have thee think Heaven too good for us why should we stick at any earthly retribution to thee in lieu of thy great mercies Yet here I see more then the price This odoriferous perfume was that wherewith she had wont to make her self pleasing to her wanton Lovers and now she comes purposely to offer it up to her Saviour As her Love was turned another way from sensuall to Divine so shall her Ointment also be altered in the use that which was abused to Luxury shall now be consecrated to Devotion There is no other effect in whatsoever true Conversion As we have given our members servants to iniquity to commit iniquity so shall we now give our members servants unto righteousness in holiness If the dames of Israel that thought nothing more worth looking on then their own faces have spent too much time in their glasses now they shall cast in those metalls to make a Laver for the washing of their uncleannesses If I have spent the prime of my strength the strength of my wit upon my self and vanity I have bestowed my Alabaster-box amiss O now teach me my God and Saviour to improve all my time all my abilities to thy glory This is all the poor recompence can be made thee for those shamefull dishonours thou hast received from me The Woman is come in and now she doth not boldly face Christ but as unworthy of his presence she stands behind How could she in that site wash his feet with her tears Was it that our Saviour did not sit at the Feast after our fashion but according to the then Jewish and Roman fashion lay on the one side Or was it that this phrase doth not so much import posture as presence Doubtless it was bashfulness and shame arising from the conscience of her own former wickedness that placed her thus How well is the case altered She had wont to look boldly in the face of her Lovers now she dares not behold the awfull countenance of her Saviour She had wont to send her alluring beams forth into the eyes of her wanton paramours now she casts her dejected eyes to the earth and dares not so much as raise them up to see those eyes from which she desired commiseration It was a true inference of the Prophet Thou hast an whore's forehead thou canst not blush there cannot be a greater sign of whorishness then impudence This woman can now blush she hath put off the Harlot and is turned true Penitent Bashfulness is both a sign and effect of Grace O God could we but bethink how wretched we are in nature how vile through our sins how glorious holy and powerfull a God thou art before whom the brightest Angels hide their faces we could not come but with a trembling awfulness into thy presence Together with shame here is sorrow a sorrow testified by tears and tears in such abundance that she washes the feet of our Saviour with those streams of penitence She began to wash his feet with tears We hear when she began we hear not when she ended When the grapes are pressed the juice runs forth so when the mind is pressed tears distill the true juice of penitence and sorrow These eyes were not used to such clouds or to such showrs there was nothing in them formerly but sun-shine of pleasure beams of Lust Now they are resolved into the drops of grief and contrition Whence was this change but from the secret working of God's Spirit He caused his wind to blow and the waters flowed he smote the rock and the waters gushed out O God smite thou this rocky Heart of mine and the waters of Repentance shall burst forth in abundance Never were thy feet O Saviour bedewed with more precious liquour then this of remorsefull tears These cannot be so spent but that thou keepest them in thy bottle yea thou returnest them back with interest of true comfort They that sow in tears shall reap in joy Blessed are they that mourn Lo this wet seed-time shall be followed with an harvest of happiness and glory That this service might be complete as her Eyes were the Ewre so her Hair was the Towell for the feet
Devotion neglected not any of those sacred Solemnities will not neglect the due opportunities of his bodily refreshing as not thinking it meet to travell and preach harbourless he diverts where he knew his welcome to the village of Bethany There dwelt the two devout Sisters with their Brother his Friend Lazarus their roof receives him O happy house into which the Son of God vouchsafed to set his foot O blessed women that had the grace to be the Hostesses to the God of Heaven How should I envy your felicity herein if I did not see the same favour if I be not wanting to my self lying open to me I have two ways to entertain my Saviour in his Members and in himself In his Members by Charity and Hospitableness what I doe to one of those his little ones I doe to him In himself by Faith If any man open he will come in and sup with him O Saviour thou standest at the door of our hearts and knockest by the solicitations of thy Messengers by the sense of thy Chastisements by the motions of thy Spirit if we open to thee by a willing admission and faithfull welcome thou wilt be sure to take up our Souls with thy gracious presence and not to sit with us for a momentany meal but to dwell with us for ever Lo thou didst but call in at Bethany but here shall be thy rest for everlasting Martha it seems as being the elder Sister bore the name of the House-keeper Mary was her assistent in the charge A Blessed pair Sisters not more in Nature then Grace in spirit no less then in flesh How happy a thing it is when all the parties in a family are joyntly agreed to entertain Christ No sooner is Jesus entred into the house then he falls to preaching that no time may be lost he stays not so much as till his meat be made ready but whilst his bodily repast was in hand provides spiritual food for his Hosts It was his meat and drink to doe the will of his Father he fed more upon his own diet then he could possibly upon theirs his best chear was to see them spiritually fed How should we whom he hath called to this sacred Function be instant in season and out of season We are by his sacred ordination the Lights of the world No sooner is the candle lighted then it gives that light which it hath and never intermits till it be wasted to the snuff Both the Sisters for a time sate attentively listening to the words of Christ Houshold occasions call Martha away Mary sits still at his feet and hears Whether shall we more praise her Humility or her Docility I do not see her take a stool and sit by him or a chair and sit above him but as desiring to shew her heart was as low as her knees she sits at his feet She was lowly set richly warmed with those Heavenly beams The greater submission the more Grace If there be one hollow in the valley lower then another thither the waters gather Martha's house is become a Divinity-school Jesus as the Doctour sits in the chair Martha Mary and the rest sit as Disciples at his feet Standing implies a readiness for motion Sitting a settled composedness to this holy attendence Had these two Sisters provided our Saviour never such delicates and waited on his trencher never so officiously yet had they not listened to his instruction they had not bidden him welcome neither had he so well liked his entertainment This was the way to feast him to feed their ears by his Heavenly Doctrine His best chear is our proficiency our best chear is his Word O Saviour let my Soul be thus feasted by thee do thou thus feast thy self by feeding me this mutual diet shall be thy praise and my happiness Though Martha was for the time an attentive hearer yet now her care of Christ's entertainment carries her into the Kitchin Mary sits still Neither was Mary more devout then Martha busie Martha cares to feast Jesus Mary to be feasted of him There was more solicitude in Martha's active part more piety in Mary's sedentary attendence I know not in whether more zeal Good Martha was desirous to express her joy and thankfulness for the presence of so blessed a Guest by the actions of her carefull and plentious entertainment I know not how to censure the Holy woman for her excess of care to welcome her Saviour Sure she her self thought she did well and out of that confidence fears not to complain to Christ of her Sister I do not see her come to her Sister and whisper in her ear the great need of her aid but she comes to Jesus and in a kind of unkind expostulation of her neglect makes her moan to him Lord dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone Why did she not rather make her first address to her Sister Was it for that she knew Mary was so tied by the ears with those adamantine chains that came from the mouth of Christ that untill his silence and dismission she had no power to stir Or was it out of an honour and respect to Christ that in his presence she would not presume to call off her Sister without his leave Howsoever I cannot excuse the Holy woman from some weaknesses It was a fault to measure her Sister by her self and apprehending her own act to be good to think her Sister could not doe well if she did not so too Whereas Goodness hath much latitude Ill is opposed to Good not Good to Good Neither in things lawfull or indifferent are others bound to our examples Mary might hear Martha might serve and both doe well Mary did not censure Martha for her rising from the feet of Christ to prepare his meal neither should Martha have censured Mary for sitting at Christ's feet to feed her Soul It was a fault that she thought an excessive care of a liberal outward entertainment of Christ was to be preferred to a diligent attention to Christ's spirituall entertainment of them It was a fault that she durst presume to question our Saviour of some kind of unrespect to her toil Lord dost thou not care What saiest thou Martha Dost thou challenge the Lord of Heaven and earth of incogitancy and neglect Dost thou take upon thee to prescribe unto that infinite Wisedom in stead of receiving directions from him It is well thou mettest with a Saviour whose gracious mildness knows how to pardon and pity the errours of our zeal Yet I must needs say here wanted not fair pretences for the ground of this thy expostulation Thou the elder Sister workest Mary the younger sits still And what work was thine but the hospitall receit of thy Saviour and his train Had it been for thine own paunch or for some carnal friends it had been less excusable now it was for Christ himself to whom thou couldst never be too obsequious But all this cannot deliver thee
to us in our first birth our new birth acquits us from him and cuts off all his claim How miserable are they that have nothing but Nature Better had it been to have been unborn then not to be born again And if this poor soul from an infant were thus miserably handled having done none actual evil how just cause have we to fear the like Judgments who by many foul offences have deserved to draw this executioner upon us O my Soul thou hast not room enough for thankfulness to that good God who hath not delivered thee up to that malignant Spirit The distressed Father sits not still neglects not means I brought him to thy Disciples Doubtless the man came first to seek for Christ himself finding him absent he makes suit to the Disciples To whom should we have recourse in all our spiritual complaints but to the agents and messengers of God The noise of the like cures had surely brought this man with much confidence to crave their succour and now how cold was he at the heart when he found that his hopes were frustrate They could not cast him out No doubt the Disciples tried their best they laid their wonted charge upon this dumb spirit but all in vain They that could come with joy and triumph to their Master and say The Devils are subject to us find now themselves matched with a stubborn and refractory spirit Their way was hitherto smooth and fair they met with no rub till now And now surely the father of the Demoniack was not more troubled at this event then themselves How could they chuse but fear lest their Master had with himself with-drawn that spiritual power which they had formerly exercised Needs must their heart fail them with their success The man complained not of their impotence it were fondly injurious to accuse them for that which they could not doe had the want been in their will they had well deserved a querulous language it was no fault to want power Onely he complains of the stubbornness and laments the invincibleness of that evil spirit I should wrong you O ye blessed Followers of Christ if I should say that as Israel when Moses was gone up into the Mount lost their belief with their guide so that ye missing your Master who was now ascended up to his Tabor were to seek for your Faith Rather the Wisedom of God saw reason to check your over-assured forwardness and both to pull down your hearts by a just humiliation in the sense of your own weakness and to raise up your hearts to new acts of dependence upon that sovereign power from which your limited virtue was derived What was more familiar to the Disciples then ejecting of Devils In this onely it is denied them Our good God sometimes finds it requisite to hold us short in those abilities whereof we make least doubt that we may feel whence we had them God will be no less glorified in what we cannot doe then in what we can doe If his Graces were alwaies at our command and ever alike they would seem naturall and soon run into contempt now we are justly held in an awfull dependence upon that gracious hand which so gives as not to cloy us and so denies as not to discourage us Who could now but expect that our Saviour should have pitied and bemoaned the condition of this sad father and miserable son and have let fall some words of comfort upon them In stead whereof I hear him chiding and complaining O faithless and perverse generation how long shall I be with you how long shall I suffer you Complaining not of that wofull father and more wofull son it was not his fashion to adde affliction to the distressed to break such bruised reeds but of those Scribes who upon the failing of the success of this suit had insulted upon the disability of the Followers of Christ and depraved his power although perhaps this impatient father seduced by their suggestion might slip into some thoughts of distrust There could not be a greater crimination then faithless and perverse faithless in not believing perverse in being obstinately set in their unbelief Doubtless these men were not free from other notorious crimes all were drowned in their Infidelity Morall uncleannesses or violences may seem more hainous to men none are so odious to God as these Intellectuall wickednesses What an happy change is here in one breath of Christ How long shall I suffer you Bring him hither to me The one is a word of anger the other of favour His just indignation doth not exceed or impeach his Goodness What a sweet mixture there is in the perfect simplicity of the Divine Nature In the midst of judgment he remembers mercy yea he acts it His Sun shines in the midst of this storm Whether he frown or whether he smile it is all to one purpose that he may win the incredulous and disobedient Whither should the rigour of all our censures tend but to edification and not to destruction We are Physicians we are not executioners we give purges to cure and not poisons to kill It is for the just Judge to say one day to reprobate Souls Depart from me in the mean time it is for us to invite all that are spiritually possessed to the participation of mercy Bring him hither to me O Saviour distance was no hindrance to thy work why should the Demoniack be brought to thee Was it that this deliverance might be the better evicted and that the beholders might see it was not for nothing that the Disciples were opposed with so refractory a spirit or was it that the Scribes might be witnesses of that strong hostility that was betwixt thee and that foul spirit and be ashamed of their blasphemous slander or was it that the father of the Demoniack might be quickened in that Faith which now through the suggestion of the Scribes begun to droop when he should hear and see Christ so chearfully to undertake and perform that whereof they had bidden him despair The possessed is brought the Devil is rebuked and ejected That stiffe spirit which stood out boldly against the commands of the Disciples cannot but stoop to the voice of the Master that power which did at first cast him out of Heaven easily dispossesses him of an house of clay The Lord rebuke thee Satan and then thou canst not but flee The Disciples who were not used to these affronts cannot but be troubled at their mis-success Master why could not we cast him out Had they been conscious of any defect in themselves they had never ask'd the question Little did they think to hear of their Unbelief Had they not had great Faith they could not have cast out any Devils had they not had some want of Faith they had cast out this It is possible for us to be defective in some Graces and not to feel it Although not so much their weakness is guilty of this unprevailing as
own unworthiness and just repulse Our inordinate desires are worthy of a check when we know that our requests are holy we cannot come with too much confidence to the throne of Grace He that knew all their thoughts afar off yet as if he had been a stranger to their purposes asks What wouldst thou Our infirmities do then best shame us when they are fetcht out of our own mouths Like as our prayers also serve not to acquaint God with our wants but to make us the more capable of his mercies The suit is drawn from her now she must speak Grant that these my two sons may sit one on thy right hand the other on thy left in thy Kingdom It is hard to say whether out of more pride or ignorance It was as received as erroneous a conceit amongst the very Disciples of Christ that he should raise up a Temporal Kingdom over the now-tributary and beslaved people of Israel The Romans were now their masters their fancy was that their Messias should shake off this yoke and reduce them to their former Liberty So grounded was this opinion that the two Disciples in their walk to Emmaus could say We trusted it had been he that should have delivered Israel and when after his Resurrection he was walking up mount Olivet towards Heaven his very Apostles could ask him if he would now restore that long-expected Kingdom How should we mitigate our censures of our Christian brethren if either they mistake or know not some secondary truths of Religion when the domestick attendents of Christ who heard him every day till the very point of his Ascension misapprehended the chief cause of his coming into the world and the state of his Kingdom If our Charity may not bear with small faults what doe we under his name that conniv'd at greater Truth is as the Sun bright in it self yet there are many close corners into which it never shined O God if thou open our hearts we shall take in those beams till thou doe so teach us to attend patiently for our selves charitably for others These Fishermen had so much Courtship to know that the right hand and the left of any Prince were the chief places of Honour Our Saviour had said that his twelve Followers should sit upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel This good woman would have her two sons next to his person the prime Peers of his Kingdom Every one is apt to wish the best to his own Worldly Honour is neither worth our suit nor unworthy our acceptance Yea Salome had thy mind been in Heaven hadst thou intended this desired preeminence of that celestial state of Glory yet I know not how to justifie thine ambition Wouldst thou have thy sons preferred to the Father of the faithfull to the blessed Mother of thy Saviour That very wish were presumptuous For me O God my ambition shall go so high as to be a Saint in Heaven and to live as holily on earth as the best but for precedency of Heavenly honour I do not I dare not affect it It is enough for me if I may lift up my head amongst the heels of thy Blessed ones The mother asks the sons have the answer She was but their tongue they shall be her ears God ever imputes the acts to the first mover rather then to the instrument It was a sore check Ye know not what ye ask Tn our ordinary communication to speak idly is sin but in our suits to Christ to be so inconsiderate as not to understand our own petitions must needs be a foul offence As Faith is the ground of our Prayers so Knowledge is the ground of our Faith If we come with indigested requests we profane that Name we invoke To convince their unfitness for Glory they are sent to their impotency in suffering Are ye able to drink of the cup whereof I shall drink and to be baptized with the Baptism wherewith I am baptized O Saviour even thou who wert one with thy Father hast a cup of thine own never Potion was so bitter as that which was mixed for thee Yea even thy draught is stinted it is not enough for thee to sip of this Cup thou must drink it up to the very dregs When the vinegar and gall were tendred to thee by men thou didst but kiss the cup but when thy Father gave into thine hands a potion infinitely more distastfull thou for our health didst drink deep of it even to the bottom and saidst It is finished And can we repine at those unpleasing draughts of Affliction that are tempered for us sinfull men when we see thee the Son of thy Father's love thus dieted We pledge thee O Blessed Saviour we pledge thee according to our weakness who hast begun to us in thy powerfull sufferings Onely do thou enable us after some four faces made in our reluctation yet at last willingly to pledge thee in our constant Sufferings for thee As thou must be drenched within so must thou be baptized without Thy Baptism is not of water but of bloud both these came from thee in thy Passion we cannot be thine if we partake not of both If thou hast not grudged thy precious bloud to us well maist thou challenge some worthless drops from us When they talk of thy Kingdome thou speakest of thy bitter Cup of thy bloudy Baptism Suffering is the way to reigning Through many tribulations must we enter into the Kingdome of Heaven There was never wedge of gold that did not first pass the fire there was never pure grain that did not undergoe the flail In vain shall we dream of our immediate passage from the pleasures and jollity of earth to the glory of Heaven Let who will hope to walk upon Roses and Violets to the throne of Heaven O Saviour let me trace thee by the track of thy Bloud and by thy red steps follow thee to thine eternall rest and Happiness I know this is no easy task else thou hadst never said Are ye able Who should be able if not they that had been so long blessed with thy presence informed by thy doctrine and as it were beforehand possessed of their Heaven in thee Thou hadst never made them judges of their power if thou couldst not have convinced them of their weakness Alas how full of feebleness is our body and our mind of impatience If but a Bee sting our flesh it swells and if but a tooth ake the head and heart complain How small trifles make us weary of our selves What can we doe without thee without thee what can we suffer If thou be not O Lord strong in my weakness I cannot be so much as weak I cannot so much as be Oh do thou prepare me for my day and enable me to my trialls I can doe all things through thee that strengthenest me The motion of the two Disciples was not more full of infirmity then their answer We are able Out of an eager
them that love thee But yet the argument is more forcible from thy love to us since thou hast just reason to respect every thing of thine own more then ought that can proceed from us Even we weak men what can we stick at where we love Thou O infinite God art Love it self Whatever thou hast done for us is out of thy love the ground and motive of all thy mercies is within thy self not in us and if there be ought in us worthy of thy love it is thine own not ours thou givest what thou acceptest Jesus well heard the first groan of his dear Lazarus every short breath that he drew every sigh that he gave was upon account yet this Lord of Life lets his Lazarus sicken and languish and die not out of neglect or impotence but out of power and resolution This sickness is not to death He to whom the issues of death belong knows the way both into it and out of it He meant that sickness should be to death in respect of the present condition not to death in respect of the event to death in the process of Nature not to death in the success of his Divine power that the Son of God might be glorified thereby O Saviour thy usuall style is the Son of man thou that wouldst take up our infirmities wert willing thus to hide thy Godhead under the course weeds of our Humanity but here thou saist That the Son of God might be glorified Though thou wouldst hide thy Divine glory yet thou wouldst not smother it Sometimes thou wouldst have thy Sun break forth in bright gleams to shew that it hath no less light even whilst it seems kept in by the clouds Thou wert now near thy Passion it was most seasonable for thee at this time to set forth thy just title Neither was this an act that thy Humanity could challenge to it self but far transcending all finite powers To die was an act of the Son of man to raise from death was an act of the Son of God Neither didst thou say merely that God but that the Son of God might be glorified God cannot be glorified unless the Son be so In very naturall Relations the wrong or disrespect offered to the child reflects upon the father as contrarily the parent's upon the child how much more where the love and respect is infinite where the whole essence is communicated with the intireness of relation O God in vain shall we tender our Devotions to thee indefinitely as to a glorious and incomprehensible Majesty if we kiss not the Son who hath most justly said Ye believe in the Father believe also in me What an happy family was this I find none upon earth so much honoured Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus It is no standing upon terms of precedency the Spirit of God is not curious in marshalling of places Time was when Mary was confessed to have chosen the better part here Martha is named first as most interessed in Christ's love for ought appears all of them were equally dear Christ had familiarly lodged under their roof How fit was that to receive him whose in-dwellers were hospital pious unanimous Hospital in the glad entertainment of Jesus and his train Pious in their Devotions Unanimous in their mutual Concord As contrarily he balks and hates that house which is taken up with uncharitableness profaneness contention But O Saviour how doth this agree thou lovedst this Family yet hearing of their distress thou heldest off two days more from them Canst thou love those thou regardest not canst thou regard them from whom thou willingly absentest thy self in their necessity Behold thy love as it is above ours so it is oft against ours Even out of very affection art thou not seldom absent None of thine but have sometimes cried How long Lord What need we instance when thine eternal Father did purposely estrange his face from thee so as thou criedst out of forsaking Here thou wouldst knowingly delay whether for the greatning of the Miracle or for the strengthning of thy Disciples Faith Hadst thou gone sooner and prevented the death who had known whether strength of Nature and not thy miraculous power had done it Hadst thou overtaken his death by this quickning visitation who had known whether this had been onely some qualm or ecstasie and not a perfect dissolution Now this large gap of time makes thy work both certain and glorious And what a clear proof was this beforehand to thy Disciples that thou wert able to accomplish thine own Resurrection on the third day who wert able to raise up Lazarus on the fourth The more difficult the work should be the more need it had of an Omnipotent confirmation He that was Lord of our times and his own can now when he found it seasonable say Let us go into Judaea again Why left he it before was it not upon the heady violence of his enemies Lo the stones of the Jews drove him thence the love of Lazarus and the care of his Divine glory drew him back thither We may we must be wise as serpents for our own preservation we must be careless of danger when God calls us to the hazzard It is far from God's purpose to give us leave so far to respect our selves as that we should neglect him Let Judaea be all snares all crosses O Saviour when thou callest us we must put our lives into our hands and follow thee thither This journey thou hast purposed and contrived but what neededst thou to acquaint thy Disciples with thine intent Where didst thou ever besides this make them of counsell with thy voiages Neither didst thou say How think you if I go but Let us go Was it for that thou who knewest thine own strength knewest also their weakness Thou wert resolute they were timorous they were sensible enough of their late perill and fearfull of more there was need to fore-arm them with an expectation of the worst and preparation for it Surprisall with evils may indanger the best constancy The heart is apt to fail when it finds it self intrapped in a sudden mischief The Disciples were dearly affected to Lazarus they had learned to love where their Master loved yet now when our Saviour speaks of returning to that region of perill they pull him by the sleeve and put him in mind of the violence offered unto him Master the Jews of late sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again No less then thrice in the fore-going Chapter did the Jews lift up their hands to murther him by a cruel lapidation Whence was this rage and bloudy attempt of theirs Onely for that he taught them the truth concerning his Divine nature and gave himself the just style of the Son of God How subject carnal hearts are to be impatient of Heavenly verities Nothing can so much fret that malignant spirit which rules in those breasts as that Christ should have his own If we be persecuted
Passion other journies he measured on foot without noise or train this with a Princely equipage and loud acclamation Wherein yet O Saviour whether shall I more wonder at thy Majesty or thine Humility that Divine Majesty which lay hid under so humble appearance or that sincere Humility which veiled so great a glory Thou O Lord whose chariots are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels wouldst make choice of the silliest of beasts to carry thee in thy last and Royall progress How well is thy birth suited with thy triumph Even that very Ass whereon thou rodest was prophesied of neither couldst thou have made up those vaticall Predictions without this conveyance O glorious and yet homely pomp Thou wouldst not lose ought of thy right thou that wast a King wouldst be proclaimed so but that it might appear thy Kingdome was not of this world thou that couldst have commanded all worldly magnificence thoughtest fit to abandon it In stead of the Kings of the earth who reigning by thee might have been imployed in thine attendence the people are thine heralds their homely garments are thy foot-cloath and carpets their green boughs the strewings of thy way those Palms which were wont to be born in the hands of them that triumph are strewed under the feet of thy beast It was thy greatness and honour to contemn those glories which worldly hearts were wont to admire Justly did thy Followers hold the best ornaments of the earth worthy of no better then thy treading upon neither could they ever account their garments so rich as when they had been trampled upon by thy carriage How happily did they think their backs disrobed for thy way How gladly did they spend their breath in acclaiming thee Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Where now are the great Masters of the Synagogue that had enacted the ejection of whosoever should confess Jesus to be the Christ Lo here bold and undaunted clients of the Messiah that dare proclaim him in the publick road in the open streets In vain shall the impotent enemies of Christ hope to suppress his glory as soon shall they with their hand hide the face of the Sun from shining to the world as withhold the beams of his Divine truth from the eyes of men by their envious opposition In spite of all Jewish malignity his Kingdome is confessed applauded blessed O thou fairer then the children of men in thy Majesty ride on prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things In this Princely and yet poor and despicable pomp doth our Saviour enter into the famous City of Jerusalem Jerusalem noted of old for the seat of Kings Priests Prophets of Kings for there was the throne of David of Priests for there was the Temple of Prophets for there they delivered their errands and left their bloud Neither know I whether it were more wonder for a Prophet to perish out of Jerusalem or to be safe there Thither would Jesus come as a King as a Priest as a Prophet acclaimed as a King teaching the people and foretelling the wofull vastation of it as a Prophet and as a Priest taking possession of his Temple and vindicating it from the foul profanations of Jewish Sacrilege Oft before had he come to Jerusalem without any remarkable change because without any semblance of State now that he gives some little glimpse of his Royalty the whole City was moved When the Sages of the East brought the first news of the King of the Jews Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him and now that the King of the Jews comes himself though in so mean a port there is a new commotion The silence and obscurity of Christ never troubles the world he may be an underling without any stir but if he do but put forth himself never so little to bear the least sway amongst men now their bloud is up the whole City is moved Neither is it otherwise in the private oeconomy of the Soul O Saviour whilst thou dost as it were hide thy self and lie still in the heart and takest all terms contentedly from us we entertain thee with no other then a friendly welcome but when thou once beginnest to ruffle with our Corruptions and to exercise thy Spiritual power in the subjugation of our vile Affections now all is in a secret uproar all the angles of the heart are moved Although doubtless this commotion was not so much of tumult as of wonder As when some uncouth sight presents it self in a populous street men run and gaze and throng and inquire the feet the tongue the eyes walk one spectatour draws on another one asks and presses another the noise increases with the concourse each helps to stir up others expectation such was this of Jerusalem What means this strangeness Was not Jerusalem the Spouse of Christ Had he not chosen her out of all the earth Had he not begotten many children of her as the pledges of their love How justly maist thou now O Saviour complain with that mirrour of Patience My breath was grown strange to my own wife though I intreated her for the childrens sake of my own body Even of thee is that fulfilled which thy chosen Vessel said of thy Ministers Thou art made a gazing-stock to the world to Angels and to men As all the world was bound to thee for thine Incarnation and residence upon the face of the earth so especially Judaea to whose limits thou confinedst thy self and therein above all the rest three Cities Nazareth Capernaum Jerusalem on whom thou bestowedst the most time and cost of preaching and miraculous works Yet in all three thou receivedst not strange entertainment onely but hostile In Nazareth they would have cast thee down headlong from the Mount In Capernaum they would have bound thee In Jerusalem they crucified thee at last and now are amazed at thy presence Those places and persons that have the greatest helps and privileges afforded to them are not always the most answerable in the return of their thankfulness Christ's being amongst us doth not make us happy but his welcome Every day may we hear him in our streets and yet be as new to seek as these Citizens of Jerusalem Who is this Was it a question of applause or of contempt or of ignorance Applause of his abettours contempt of the Scribes and Pharisees ignorance of the multitude Surely his abettours had not been moved at this sight the Scribes and Pharisees had rather envied then contemned the multitude doubtless inquired seriously out of a desire of information Not that the Citizens of Jerusalem knew not Christ who was so ordinary a guest so noted a Prophet amongst them Questionless this question was asked of that part of the train which went before this Triumph whilst our Saviour was not yet in sight which ere long his presence had resolved It had been their duty
the bag and over-lov'd that which he bare That heart which hath once enslaved it self to red and white earth may be made any thing Who can trust to the power of good means when Judas who heard Christ daily whom others heard to preach Christ daily who daily saw Christ's Miracles and daily wrought Miracles in Christ's name is at his best a Thief and ere long a Traitour That crafty and malignant Spirit which presided in that bloudy counsel hath easily found out a fit instrument for this Hellish plot As God knows so Satan guesses who are his and will be sure to make use of his own If Judas were Christ's domestick yet he was Mammon's servant he could not but hate that Master whom he formally professed to serve whilst he really served that master which Christ professed to hate He is but in his trade whilst he is bartering even for his Master What will ye give me and I will deliver him unto you Saidst thou not well O Saviour I have chosen you twelve and one of you is a Devil Thou that knewest to distinguish betwixt men and spirits callest Judas by his right name Loe he is become a Tempter to the worst of evils Wretched Judas whether shall I more abhor thy treachery of wonder at thy folly What will they what can they give thee valuable to that head Which thou proferest to sale Were they able to pay or thou capable to receive all those precious metalls that are laid up in the secret cabins of the whole earth how were this price equivalent to the worth of him that made them Had they been able to have fetch'd down those rich and glittering spangles of Heaven and to have put them into thy fist what had this been to weigh with a God How basely therefore dost thou speak of chaffering for him whose the world was What will ye give me Alas what were they what had they miserable men to pay for such a purchace The time was when he that set thee on work could say All the Kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them are mine and I give them to whom I please all these will I give thee Had he now made that offer to thee in this wofull bargain it might have carried some colour of a temptation and even thus it had been a match ill made But for thee to tender a trade of so invaluable a commodity to these pelting petty-chapmen for thirty poor silverlings it was no less base then wicked How unequall is this rate Thou that valuedst Mary's ointment which she bestowed upon the feet of Christ at three hundred pieces of silver sellest thy Master on whom that precious odour was spent at thirty Worldly hearts are peny-wise and pound-foolish they know how to set high prices upon the worthless trash of this world but for Heavenly things or the God that owns them these they shamefully undervalue And I will deliver him unto you False and presumptuous Judas it was more then thou couldst doe thy price was not more too low then thy undertaking was too high Had all the powers of Hell combined with thee they could not have delivered thy Master into the hands of men The act was none but his own all that he did all that he suffered was perfectly voluntary Had he pleased to resist how easily had he with one breath blown thee and thy complices down into their Hell It is no thank to thee that he would be delivered O Saviour all our safety all our comfort depends not so much upon thine act as upon thy will in vain should we have hoped for the benefit of a forced redemption The bargain is driven the price paid Judas returns and looks no less smoothly upon his Master and his fellows then as if he had done no disservice What cares he his heart tells him he is rich though it tell him he is false He was not now first an Hypocrite The Passeover is at hand no man is so busy to prepare for it or more devoutly forward to receive it then Judas Oh the sottishness and obdureness of this son of Perdition How many proofs had he formerly of his Master's Omniscience There was no day wherein he saw not that thoughts and things absent came familiar under his cognisance yet this Miscreant dares plot a secret villany against his person and face it if he cannot be honest yet he will be close That he may be notoriously impudent he shall know he is descried whilst he thinks fit to conceal his treachery our Saviour thinks not fit to conceal the knowledge of that treacherous conspiracy Verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me Who would not think but that discovered wickedness should be ashamed of it self Did not Judas think we blush and grow pale again and cast down his guilty eyes and turn away his troubled countenance at so galling an intimation Custome of sin steels the brow and makes it uncapable of any relenting impressions Could the other Disciples have discerned any change in any one of their faces they had not been so sorrowfully affected with the charge Methinks I see how intentively they bent their eyes upon each others as if they would have look'd through those windows down into the bosome with what self-confidence with what mutuall jealousie they perused each others foreheads and now as rather thinking fit to distrust their own innocence then their Master's assertion each trembles to say Lord is it I It is possible there may lurk secret wickedness in some blind corner of the heart which we know not of It is possible that time and temptation working upon our corruption may at last draw us into some such sin as we could not fore-believe Whither may we not fall if we be left to our own strength It is both wise and holy to misdoubt the worst Lord is it I In the mean time how fair hath Judas all this while carried with his fellows Had his former life bewrayed any falshood or misdemeanour they had soon found where to pitch their just suspicion now Judas goes for so honest a man that every Disciple is rather ready to suspect himself then him It is true he was a thief but who knows that besides his Maker The outsides of men are no less deceitfull then their hearts It is not more unsafe to judge by outward appearances then it is uncharitable not to judge so Oh the head-strong resolutions of wickedness not to be checked by any opposition Who would not but have thought if the notice of an intended evil could not have prevented it yet that the threats of judgment should have affrighted the boldest offender Judas can sit by and hear his Master say Wo be to the man by whom the Son of man is betraied it had been better for that man never to have been born and is no more blank'd then very innocence but thinks What care I I have the money I shall escape the shame the fact
shall be close the match gainfull it will be long ere I get so much by my service if I fare well for the present I shall shift well enough for the future Thus secretly he claps up another bargain he makes a covenant with death and with Hell an agreement O Judas didst thou ever hear ought but truth fall from the mouth of that thy Divine Master Canst thou distrust the certainty of that dreadfull menace of vengeance How then durst thou persist in the purpose of so flagitious and damnable a villany Resolved sinners run on desperately in their wicked courses and have so bent their eyes upon the profit or pleasure of their mischievons projects that they will not see Hell lie open before them in the way As if that shameless man meant to outbrave all accusations and to outface his own heart he dares ask too Master is it I No Disciple shall more zealously abominate that crime then he that fosters it in his bosome Whatever the Searcher of hearts knows by him is lock'd up in his own breast to be perfidious is nothing so he may be secret his Master knows him for a Traitour it is not long that he shall live to complain his fellows think him honest all is well whilst he is well esteemed Reputation is the onely care of false hearts not truth of being not conscience of merit so they may seem fair to men they care not how foul they are to God Had our Saviour onely had this knowledge at the second hand this boldness had been enough to make him suspect the credit of the best intelligence Who could imagine that a guilty man dared thus brow-beat a just accusation Now he whose piercing and unfailing eyes see things as they are not as they seem can peremptorily convince the impudence of this hollow questionist with a direct affirmation Thou hast said Foolish Traitour couldst thou think that those blear eyes of thine would endure the beams of the Sun or that counterfeit slip the fire was it not sufficient for thee to be secretly vicious but thou must presume to contest with an Omniscient accuser Hast thou yet enough Thou supposedst thy crime unknown To men it was so had thy Master been no more it had been so to him now his knowledge argues him Divine How durst thou yet resolve to lift up thy hand against him who knows thine offence and can either prevent or revenge it As yet the charge was private either not heard or not observed by thy fellows it shall be at first whispered to one and at last known to all Bashfull and penitent sinners are fit to be concealed shame is meet for those that have none Curiosity of Knowledge is an old disease of humane nature besides Peter's zeal would not let him dwell under the danger of so doubtfull a crimination he cannot but sit on thorns till he know the man His signs ask what his voice dare not What law requires all followers to be equally beloved Why may not our favours be freely dispensed where we like best without envy without prejudice None of Christ's train could complain of neglect John is highest in grace Bloud affection zeal diligence have indeared him above his fellows He that is dearest in respect is next in place in that form of side-sitting at the Table he leaned on the bosome of Jesus Where is more love there may be more boldness This secrecy and intireness privileges John to ask that safely which Peter might not without much inconvenience and perill of a check The beloved Disciple well understands this silent language and dares put Peter's thought into words Love shutteth out fear O Saviour the confidence of thy Goodness emboldens us not to shrink at any suit Thy love shed abroad in our hearts bids us ask that which in a stranger were no better then presumption Once when Peter ask'd thee a question concerning John What shall this man doe he received a short answer What is that to thee Now when John asks thee a question no less seemingly curious at Peter's instance Who is it that betrays thee however thou mightest have returned him the same answer since neither of their persons was any more concerned yet thou condescendest to a mild and full though secret satisfaction There was not so much difference in the men as in the matter of the demand No occasion was given to Peter of moving that question concerning John the indefinite assertion of treason amongst the Disciples was a most just occasion of moving John's question for Peter and himself That which therefore was timorously demanded is answered graciously He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it And he gave the sop to Judas How loth was our Saviour to name him whom he was not unwilling to design All is here expressed by dumb signs the hand speaks what the tongue would not In the same language wherein Peter asked the question of John doth our Saviour shape an answer to John what a beck demanded is answered by a sop O Saviour I do not hear thee say Look on whomsoever I frown or to whomsoever I doe a publick affront that is the man but To whomsoever I shall give a sop Surely a by-stander would have thought this man deep in thy books and would have construed this act as they did thy tears for Lazarus See how he loves him To carve a man out of thine own dish what could it seem to argue but a singularity of respect Yet lo there is but one whom thou hatest one onely Traitour at thy board and thou givest him a sop The outward Gifts of God are not always the proofs of his Love yea sometimes are bestowed in displeasure Had not he been a wise Disciple that should have envied the great favour done to Judas and have stomacked his own preterition So foolish are they who measuring Gods affection by temporall benefits are ready to applaud prospering wickedness and to grudge outward blessings to them who are uncapable of any better After the sop Satan entred into Judas Better had it been for that treacherous Disciple to have wanted that morsell Not that there was any malignity in the bread or that the sop had any power to convey Satan into the receiver or that by a necessary concomitance that evil spirit was in or with it Favours ill used make the heart more capable of farther evil That wicked Spirit commonly takes occasion by any of Gods gifts to assault us the more eagerly After our Sacramentall morsell if we be not the better we are sure the worse I dare not say yet I dare think that Judas comparing his Master's words and John's whisperings with the tender of this sop and finding himself thus denoted was now so much the more irritated to perform what he had wickedly purposed Thus Satan took advantage by the sop of a farther possession Twice before had that evil Spirit made a palpable entry into that leud heart First
and drowned in bloud to see your selves no Nation Was there ever people under Heaven that was made so famous a spectacle of misery and desolation Have ye yet enough of that bloud which ye called for upon your selves and your children Your former Cruelties Uncleannesses Idolatries cost you but some short Captivities God cannot but be just this Sin under which you now lie groaning and forlorn must needs be so much greater then these as your vastation is more and what can that be other then the murther of the Lord of Life Ye have what ye wisht be miserable till ye be penitent XLIX The Crucifixion THE sentence of Death is past and now who can with dry eyes behold the sad pomp of my Saviour's bloudy execution All the streets are full of gazing spectatours waiting for this ruefull sight At last O Saviour there thou comest out of Pilate's gate bearing that which shall soon bear thee To expect thy Cross was not torment enough thou must carry it All this while thou shalt not onely see but feel thy death before it come and must help to be an agent in thine own Passion It was not out of favour that those scornfull robes being stripped off thou art led to death in thine own cloaths So was thy face besmeared with bloud so swoln and discoloured with buffettings that thou couldst not have been known but by thy wonted habit Now thine insulting enemies are so much more imperiously cruell as they are more sure of their success Their merciless tormentings have made thee half dead already yet now as if they had done nothing they begin afresh and will force thy weakned and fainting nature to new tasks of pain The transverse of thy Cross at least is upon thy shoulder when thou canst scarce goe thou must carry One kicks thee with his foot another strikes thee with his staff another drags thee hastily by thy cord and more then one spur on thine unpitied weariness with angry commands of haste Oh true form and state of a servant All thy former actions O Saviour were though painfull yet free this as it is in it self servile so it is tyrannously inforced Inforced yet more upon thee by thy own Love to mankind then by their power and despight It was thy Father that laid upon thee the iniquity of us all It was thine own Mercy that caused thee to bear our sins upon the Cross and to bear the Cross with the curse annexed to it for our sins How much more voluntary must that needs be in thee which thou requirest to be voluntarily undertaken by us It was thy charge If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Thou didst not say Let him bear his cross as forceably imposed by another but Let him take up his cross as his free burthen free in respect of his heart not in respect of his hand so free that he shall willingly undergoe it when it is laid upon him not so free as that he shall lay it upon himself unrequired O Saviour thou didst not snatch the Cross out of the Souldiers hands and cast it upon thy shoulder but when they laid it on thy neck thou underwentest it The constraint was theirs the will was thine It was not so heavy to them or to Simon as it was to thee they felt nothing but the wood thou feltest it clogged with the load of the sins of the whole world No marvell if thou faintedst under that sad burthen thou that bearest up the whole earth by thy word didst sweat and pant and groan under this unsupportable carriage O Blessed Jesu how could I be confounded in my self to see thee after so much loss of bloud and over-toiledness of pain languishing under that fatal Tree And yet why should it more trouble me to see thee sinking under thy Cross now then to see thee anon hanging upon thy Cross In both thou wouldst render thy self weak and miserable that thou mightest so much the more glorify thy infinite mercy in suffering It is not out of any compassion of thy misery or care of thine ease that Simon of Cyrene is forced to be the porter of thy Cross it was out of their own eagerness of thy dispatch thy feeble paces were too slow for their purpose their thirst after thy bloud made them impatient of delay If thou have wearily struggled with the burthen of thy shame all along the streets of Jerusalem when thou comest once past the gates an helper shall be deputed to thee the expedition of thy death was more sweet to them then the pain of a lingring passage What thou saidst to Judas they say to the Executioner What thou doest doe quickly Whilst thou yet livest they cannot be quiet they cannot be safe to hasten thine end they lighten thy carriage Hadst thou done this out of choice which thou didst out of constraint how I should have envied thee O Simon of Cyrene as too happy in the honour to be the first man that bore that Cross of thy Saviour wherein millions of blessed Martyrs have since that time been ambitious to succeed thee Thus to bear thy Cross for thee O Saviour was more then to bear a Crown from thee Could I be worthy to be thus graced by thee I should pity all other glories Whilst thou thus passest O dear Jesu the streets and ways resound not all with one note If the malicious Jews and cruell Souldiers insulted upon thee and either haled or railed thee on with a bitter violence thy faithfull Followers were no less loud in their moans and ejulations neither would they endure that the noise of their cries and lamentations should be drowned with the clamour of those reproaches but especially thy Blessed Mother and those other zealous associates of her own sex were most passionate in their wailings And why should I think that all that devout multitude which so lately cried Hosanna in the streets did not also bear their part in these publick condolings Though it had not concerned thy self O Saviour thine ears had been still more open to the voice of grief then of malice and so thy lips also are open to the one shut to the other Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children Who would not have thought O Saviour that thou shouldst have been wholly taken up with thine own sorrows The expectation of so bitter a Death had been enough to have overwhelmed any Soul but thine yet even now can thy gracious eye find time to look beyond thine own miseries at theirs and to pity them who insensible of their own insuing condition mourned for thine now present They see thine extremity thou foreseest theirs they pour out their sorrow upon thee thou divertest it upon themselves We silly creatures walk blindfolded in this vale of tears and little know what evil is towards us onely what we feel we know and whilst we feel nothing can
Women the first witnesses of the Resurrection as also of the two Disciples walking to Emmaus whose hearts burning within them had set their tongues on fire in a zealous relation of those happy occurrences with the assured reports of the rising and re-appearance of many Saints in attendence of the Lord and giver of life yet still he struggles with his own distrust and stiffly suspends his belief to that truth whereof he cannot deny himself enough convinced As all bodies are not equally apt to be wrought upon by the same Medicine so are not all Souls by the same means of Faith one is refractory whilst others are pliable O Saviour how justly mightest thou have left this man to his own pertinacy whom could he have thank'd if he had perished in his unbelief But O thou good Shepherd of Israel that couldst be content to leave the ninety and nine to go fetch one stray in the wilderness how carefull wert thou to reduce this straggler to his fellows Right so were thy Disciples re-assembled such was the season the place the same so were the doors shut up when that unbelieving Disciple being now present with the rest thou so camest in so stoodst in the midst so shewedst thy hands and feet and singling out thy incredulous client invitest his eyes to see and his fingers to handle thine hands and his hand to be thrust into thy side that he might not be faithless but faithfull Blessed Jesu how thou pitiest the errours and infirmities of thy servants Even when we are froward in our misconceits and worthy of nothing but desertion how thou followest us and overtakest us with mercy and in thine abundant compassion wilt reclaim and save us when either we meant not or would not By how much more unworthy those eyes and hands were to see and touch that immortall and glorious Body by so much more wonderfull was thy Goodness in condescending to satisfy that curious Infidelity Neither do I hear thee so much as to chide that weak obstinacy It was not long since thou didst sharply take up the two Disciples that walk'd to Emmaus O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken but this was under the disguise of an unknown traveller upon the way when they were alone Now thou speakest with thine own tongue before all thy Disciples in stead of rebuking thou onely exhortest Be not faithless but faithfull Behold thy Mercy no less then thy Power hath melted the congealed heart of thy unbelieving follower Then Thomas answered and said unto him My Lord and my God I do not hear that when it came to the issue Thomas imployed his hands in this triall his eyes were now sufficient assurance the sense of his Master's Omniscience in this particular challenge of him spared perhaps the labour of a farther disquisition And now how happily was that doubt bestowed which brought forth so faithfull a confession My Lord my God I hear not such a word from those that believed It was well for us it was well for thee O Thomas that thou distrustedst else neither had the world received so perfect an evidence of that Resurrection whereon all our Salvation dependeth neither hadst thou yielded so pregnant and divine an astipulation to thy Blessed Saviour Now thou dost not onely profess his Resurrection but his Godhead too and thy happy interest in both And now if they be blessed that have not seen and yet believed blessed art thou also who having seen hast thus believed and blessed be thou O God who knowest how to make advantage of the infirmities of thy chosen for the promoting of their Salvation the confirmation of thy Church the glory of thine own Name Amen LI. The Ascension IT stood not with thy purpose O Saviour to ascend immediately from thy grave into Heaven thou meantest to take the earth in thy way not for a sudden passage but for a leisurely conversation Upon thine Easter-day thou spakest of thine Ascension but thou wouldst have forty days interposed Hadst thou meerly respected thine own Glory thou hadst instantly changed thy grave for thy Paradise for so much the sooner hadst thou been possessed of thy Father's joy we would not continue in a Dungeon when we might be in a Palace but thou who for our sakes vouchsafedst to descend from Heaven to earth wouldst now in the upshot have a gracious regard to us in thy return Thy Death had troubled the hearts of many Disciples who thought that condition too mean to be compatible with the glory of the Messiah and thoughts of diffidence were apt to seize upon the holiest breasts So long therefore wouldst thou hold footing upon earth till the world were fully convinced of the infallible evidences of thy Resurrection of all which time thou onely canst give an account it was not for flesh and bloud to trace the ways of Immortality neither was our frail corruptible sinfull nature a meet companion for thy now-glorified Humanity the glorious Angels of Heaven were now thy fittest attendents But yet how oft did it please thee graciously to impart thy self this while unto men and not onely to appear unto thy Disciples but to renew unto them the familiar forms of thy wonted conversation in conferring walking eating with them And now when thou drewest near to thy last parting thou who hadst many times shewed thy self before to thy severall Disciples thoughtest meet to assemble them all together for an universall valediction Who can be too rigorous in censuring the ignorances of well-meaning Christians when he sees the domestick Followers of Christ even after his Resurrection mistake the main End of his coming in the flesh Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel They saw their Master now out of the reach of all Jewish envy they saw his power illimited and irresistible they saw him stay so long upon earth that they might imagine he meant to fix his abode there and what should he doe there but reign and wherefore should they be now assembled but for the choice and distribution of Offices and for the ordering of the affairs of that state which was now to be vindicated Oh weak thoughts of well-instructed Disciples What should an Heavenly body doe in an earthly throne How should a spirituall life be imployed in secular cares How poor a business is the Temporall Kingdom of Israel for the King of Heaven And even yet O Blessed Saviour I do not hear thee sharply controll this erroneous conceit of thy mistaken Followers thy mild correction insists rather upon the time then the misconceived substance of that restauration It was thy gracious purpose that thy Spirit should by degrees rectify their judgments and illuminate them with thy Divine truths in the mean time it was sufficient to raise up their hearts to an expectation of that Holy Ghost which should shortly lead them into all needfull and requisite verities And now with a gracious promise of that Spirit of thine
didst we have reason to be patient thou enduredst what we do we have reason to be thankfull But what shall we say to this thine early hunger The morning as it is privileged from excess so from need the stomack is not wont to rise with the body Surely as thine occasions were no season was exempted from thy want thou hadst spent the day before in the holy labour of thy Reformation after a supperless departure thou spentest the night in Prayer no meal refreshed thy toil What do we think much to forbear a morsell or to break a sleep for thee who didst thus neglect thy self for us As if meat were no part of thy care as if any thing would serve to stop the mouth of hunger thy breakfast is expected from the next Tree A Fig-tree grew by the way side full grown well spred thick leaved and such as might promise enough to a remote eye thither thou camest to seek that which thou foundest not and not finding what thou soughtest as displeased with thy disappointment cursedst that plant which deluded thy hopes Thy breath instantly blasted that deceitfull tree it did no otherwise then the whole world must needs doe wither and die with thy Curse O Saviour I had rather wonder at thine actions then discuss them If I should say that as man thou either knewest not or consideredst not of this fruitlesness it could no way prejudice thy Divine Omniscience this infirmity were no worse then thy weariness or hunger It was no more disparagement to thee to grow in Knowledge then in Stature neither was it any more disgrace to thy perfect Humanity that thou as man knewest not all things at once then that thou wert not in thy childhood at thy full growth But herein I doubt not to say it is more likely thou camest purposely to this Tree knowing the barrenness of it answerable to the season and fore-resolving the event that thou mightest hence ground the occasion of so instructive a Miracle like as thou knewest Lazarus was dying was dead yet wouldst not seem to take notice of his dissolution that thou mightest the more glorifie thy Power in his resuscitation It was thy willing and determined disappointment for a greater purpose But why didst thou curse a poor Tree for the want of that fruit which the season yielded not If it pleased thee to call for that which it could not give the Plant was innocent and if innocent why cursed O Saviour it is fitter for us to adore then to examine We may be sawcy in inquiring after thee and fond in answering for thee If that season were not for a ripe fruit yet for some fruit it was Who knows not the nature of the Fig-tree to be always bearing That plant if not altogether barren yields a continuall succession of increase whilst one fig iâ— ripe another is green the same bough can content both our tast and our hope This tree was defective in both yielding nothing but an empty shade to the mis-hoping traveller Besides that I have learn'd that thou O Saviour wert wont not to speak onely but to work Parables And what was this other then a reall Parable of thine All this while hadst thou been in the world thou hadst given many proofs of thy Mercy the earth was full of thy Goodness none of thy Judgments now immediately before thy Passion thou thoughtest fit to give this double demonstration of thy just austerity How else should the world have seen thou canst be severe as well as meek and mercifull And why mightest not thou who madest all things take liberty to destroy a plant for thine own Glory Wherefore serve thy best creatures but for the praise of thy Mercy and Justice What great matter was it if thou who once saidst Let the earth bring forth the herb yielding seed and the tree yielding the fruit of its own kind shalt now say Let this fruitless tree wither All this yet was done in figure In this act of thine I see both an Embleme and a Prophecy How didst thou herein mean to teach thy Disciples how much thou hatest an unfruitfull profession and what judgments thou meantest to bring upon that barren generation Once before hadst thou compared the Jewish Nation to a Fig-tree in the midst of thy vineyard which after three years expectation and culture yielding no fruit was by thee the Owner doomed to a speedy excision now thou actest what thou then saidst No tree abounds more with leaf and shade no Nation abounded more with Ceremoniall observations and semblances of Piety Outward profession where there is want of inward truth and reall practice doth but help to draw on and aggravate judgment Had this Fig-tree been utterly bare and leafless it had perhaps escaped the Curse Hear this ye vain Hypocrites that care onely to shew well never caring for the sincere truth of a conscionable Obedience your fair outside shall be sure to help you to a Curse That which was the fault of this Tree is the punishment of it fruitlesness Let no fruit grow on thee hence-forward for ever Had the boughs been appointed to be torn down and the body split in pieces the doom had been more easie that juicy plant might yet have recovered and have lived to recompense this deficiency now it shall be what it was fruitless Woe be to that Church or Soul that is punished with her own Sin Outward plagues are but favours in comparison of Spirituall judgments That Curse might well have stood with a long continuance the Tree might have lived long though fruitless but no sooner is the word passed then the leaves flag and turn yellow the branches wrinkle and shrink the bark discolours the root dries the plant withers O God what creature is able to abide the blasting of the breath of thy displeasure Even the most great and glorious Angels of Heaven could not stand one moment before thine anger but perish'd under thy wrath everlastingly How irresistible is thy Power how dreadfull are thy Judgements Lord chastise my fruitlesness but punish it not at least punish it but curse it not lest I wither and be consumed XLIV CHRIST Betrayed SUch an eye-sore was Christ that raised Lazarus and Lazarus whom Christ raised to the envious Priests Scribes Elders of the Jews that they consult to murther both Whilst either of them lives neither can the glory of that Miracle die nor the shame of the oppugners Those malicious heads are laid together in the Parlour of Caiaphas Happy had it been for them if they had spent but half those thoughts upon their own Salvation which they misimployed upon the destruction of the innocent At last this results that Force is not their way Subtlety and Treachery must doe that which should be vainly attempted by Power Who is so fit to work this feat against Christ as one of his own There can be no Treason where is not some Trust Who so fit among the domesticks as he that bare