brought with him lookt another way Titus ii 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity Some few persons are culled out here for all that shall be shielded under the buckler of this Saviour unto you a Saviour is born says the Angel speaking only to the Shepherds that 's because no more were in the way But to as many as read these words and mark them the word speaks continually and is never silent the message is as properly brought to you as ever it was to the Shepherds to you a Saviour is born The Prophet Isaiah allows him to all the Sons of Adam that will lay claim unto him unto us a Child it born and unto us a Son is given Isa ix 6. 'T is a kind expression to rejoyce at the good news of another mans prosperity 't is incident to a sweet nature to do so And indeed if Angels were so enlightned with the gladsomness of our benefit that when they had said it over they could not choose but sing it also in the verses after my Text Cum de aliena gratia Angeli exultent quae nostra est stupiditas If the blessed Cherubims exult for the grace that we find in Gods eyes what stupidness is in us if our hearts do not triumph for gladness for the benefit flows unto us and not unto the Angels The Devils fretted and roared out against Christ because he came into the world for mans sake and not for their deliverance Quid nobis tibi What have we to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God we renounce thee Mat. viii 29. The evil spirits rage that he is not theirs the good Spirits of God rejoyce that his Father hath made him all ours being secure of their own glorious estate they triumph that we shall be exalted to the fellowship of their happiness Well then to you he is born not only to the Shepherds but inclusive to all men so you have heard in the former verse his birth was gaudium omni populo joy to all people only they are excluded that exclude themselves by infidelity Facit multorum infidelitas ut non omnibus nasceretur qui omnibus natus est says St. Ambrose the infidelity of many now infidelity is properly imputed to those within the Church who had the means to believe and did not the infidelity of many is a bar that the Incarnation of Christ pertains not to all men although he was born for all men Every man therefore must strive so to love Christ and to keep his Commandements that he may feel the joy of this day particularly enter into his heart and the Spirit testifying to his spirit unto me a Saviour is born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Greeks it comes of the possessive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tuus a Saviour restoreth every man to himself for a sinner is lost not only to God and the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven but he is lost to himself and to the comfort of a good conscience until Christ restore him again to joy and peace within his own heart that he may say to himself as Philip did to Nathanael I have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth c. Oportet uti nostro in utilitatem nostram de servatore salutem operari says Bernard Let us make our profit from that which is our own and let every man collect his own salvation from his own Saviour To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings Mal. iv 2. The Sun enlightens half the world at once yet none discern colours by the light but they that open their eyes and a Saviour is born unto us all which is Christ the Lord but enclasp him in thine heart as old Simeon did in his arms and then thou mayst sing his Nunc Dimittis or Mary's Magnificat My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour The fourth thing to be consider'd is what early tidings the Shepherds had of our Saviours birth hodie natus I do not tell it to you says the Angel after a month or after a week go to Bethlehem and search and ye shall find this is the first day that his Mother bore him This day is born unto you in the City of David c. Before the blessed seed was promised for a long while ye have had a state in reversion that Christ should come in the flesh to save his people from their sins now the act is accomplished ye have a state in being enter upon your happiness and possess it reckon from henceforth that you have your joy in hand this day the great deliverer hath taken up a poor Palace in the City of David According to a natural computation of days we forget the nights though an Infant be brought forth in the still hours of darkness yet from thenceforth we call it the Birth-day and not the birth-night of such an Infant In such accompts I know not how we speak of nothing but day for that 's the Dialect of the Kingdom of Heaven where there is day for ever and no darkness So the Shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night and after the first hour the morning began as the general conjecture runs our Saviour was born yet since a natural day comprehends darkness as well as light the Angel was pleas'd to say This day he is born This is literal and to the plain meaning yet I refrain not their allusions altogether that say the darkness was remov'd away by that radiant glory which shone round about the Angels and that the night was as clear in those parts as if the Sun had risen upon the earth therefore upon the comfort of that miraculous illumination the messenger says This day is born unto you And David by some men is made to speak to this allusion Psal cxxxviii The night is as clear as the day which was true say they at our Saviours Incarnation Others take their liberty to guess that good tidings make the night be called day and sad tidings make the day be called night Heavy misfortunes indeed have fallen out in the night for the most part Sennacheribi great host slain in the night Thou fool this night thy soul shall be taken from thee a threatning to the rich Epicure yet it holds not always But if Christ be the day-star and his Birth turns night into day it will become us as the Apostle says to walk as children of the light Curiosity hath gone too far in one question touching this part of my Text why this late day was esteemed most expedient in Gods wisdom to send his Son in the flesh four thousand years had almost expir'd since the seed of the Woman was promised to bruise the Serpents head and yet no sooner then hodie say they that will search in to all causes the Angel said to day but why he came punctually on that
no light Light is of the same time and antiquity with the Sun it self which brings it forth 3. Damascen collects truly that the Son of God is inseparable from his Father even as light cannot be taken away or parted from the Sun 4. Another observes how pure a generation that is with which the Father brings forth the Son because light though it be but a creature yet it is a pure and a spiritual quality and comes forth by no contaminated or polluted procreation 5. It extends further to resemble how the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son even as that comfortable warmth which cherisheth Plants and every living thing issues joyntly from the Sun it self and from the light thereof By this it appears how suitably a beam of admirable light did concur in the Angels message to set out the Majesty of the Son of God and I beseech you observe all you that would keep a good Christmas as you ought that the glory of God is the best celebration of his Sons Nativity and all your pastimes and mirth which I disallow not but rather commend in moderate use must so be manag'd without riot without surfeiting without excessive gaming without pride and vain pomp in harmlesness in sobriety as if the glory of the Lord were round about us Christ was born to save them that were lost but frequently you abuse his Nativity with so many vices such disordered outrages so that you make this happy time an occasion for your loss rather than for your salvation Praise him in the congregation of the people praise him in your inward heart praise him with the sanctity of your life praise him in your charity to them that need and are in want This is the glory of God shining round and the most Christian solemnizing of the Birth of Jesus Secondly This lightsome apparition about the Shepherds 't is Typus claritatis Evangelicae a type of the light and perspicuousness which is genuine and proper to the Gospel The Law of Moses was given to the people when the hill of Sinai was full of mists and dark pillars of smoke for there were many things delivered to that Nation of the Jews which were wrapt in darkness and in thick pillars of obscurity Types and Ceremonies were difficile to be understood but the faithfulness of the Gospel is as clear as the light and the righteousness of Gods promise as the noon-day The Law was lucerna pedibus meis a candle unto my feet and so says Solomon the Commandment is a lamp Prov. 6.23 Nay as if it were not a clear burning candle David says it is Lumen in laterna Thy word is a lanthorn unto my feet as if the old Law had been no other then a candle under a bushel as it is in the Parable but the Gospel is a light as great as the Sun in the firmament a candle upon a hill Posita super candelabrum Catholicae Ecclesiae says St. Ambrose and the Catholick Church over all the world is the candlestick to hold it This is not a splendor upon the face only as it befel Moses but it is splendor circumquaque says my Text it shines round about and no corner in all the Church which is Christs Family but it hath been enlightned A candle will suffice to give all men light that are in the room where it shines but it is such a light as doth not warm or cherish you So the Law was a candle whereby he that read might learn and know the will of God but it did not warm or comfort a man nay it left a man quivering and shaking extream chill and cold at the heart for it is written Cursed is he that doth not keep all these sayings and do them therefore the Gospel is a better light it gives light and withal heat and comfort zeal and joy to them that receive it as it is in the next verse Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy How proves he that why there is born unto you a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. It is Bonaventure if I mistake not that says upon my Text Claritas Dei circumfulsit non tantum exterius in corpore sed etiam interius in mente the light shin'd outwardly to the Shepherds and inwardly in their hearts that 's round about in full compass both in soul and body O you all presume that the light of the Gospel hath shin'd upon you as well as upon another you know Christ and his redemption and that 's enough for your share but do you find any comfort in it are you warm at the heart if you be cold in your profession not caring which way Religion stands or falls indifferent whether Christ be worship'd this way or that way then the light doth not shine round about you you have it without but not within Thirdly The dark night was brightned with a shining Cloud at our Saviours Nativity to signifie that he should be Lumen solatii in nocte tenebrarum a light of consolation to them that sate in the dark night of persecution and misery Mary Magdalen came to the Sepulchre early when it was yet dark she wept and afflicted her soul that she found not the body of Christ in the Sepulchre and loe it was very early and yet dark a season to increase sorrow but behold an Angel whose countenance was like lightning and his rayment white as snow did enlighten her heart and chear'd her spirits that Christ was risen from the dead Thus light did arise unto the faithful in the darkness of their heaviness Take another instance of sorrow which was hard at deaths door Peter was kept in chains in prison and one says he had no better room than the lowest dungeon Carcer erat teterrimus obscurissimus ne die quidquam lucis admitteret it was such a dark corner that there was not a chink in it to take in light in the day time yet an Angel came to him anon before the hour when he lookt for death which was long before the morning and a light shined in the prison Acts 12.7 And though no outward beam of light glance miraculously upon the Saints in their chains and captivity yet the comforter even the Holy Spirit will not fail to lighten their darkness within as David said in the midst of my sorrows thy mercies O Lord have refreshed my soul The Fathers of yore who were present at the execution of many Martyrs give us the report what unspeakable gladness was reveal'd unto them from above in their fiery trial the fiery flame which consum'd them was like the light and shining of an Angel to solace them Martyr est velut fracta Gedeonis lagena tunc emicat vincit it is the saying of Hugo Every one of Gideons Souldiers had a pitcher and lamp in it they broke their pitchers their lamps blaz'd and they had the conquest of their enemies so says he our body is an
two observations 1. It appears in St. Matthew that the Angel called him Jesus before he was born yea before he was conceived Luke i. 31. it was Gabriels message to Mary Thou shalt conceive in thy Womb and bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus Men called him so after he was born and circumcised Idem quippe Angeli salvator hominis hominis ab incarnatione Angeli ab initio creaturae for the same Lord is the Saviour both of Angels and Men of Angels before he was born from the beginning of the world of Men in the fulness of time after he was born That is the second person in Trinity being the eternal Son of the Father did confirm the good Angels in grace that they should never fall and the same person incarnate being the Mediator of God and Man did redeem the Elect that they should rise again from their sins and reign with him in glory 2. The complete imposition of the name was at his circumcision when he first shed his Blood as if his Death had been foretold as soon as he was born it would cost him blood not a few drops of the foreskin but the very blood of the heart to be called Jesus In Circumcision he was called a Saviour at his Passion the word Jesus was wrote upon the Cross then his enemies confest he was a Saviour In circumcisione non fuit actu perfecto sed destinatione salvator in Circumcision it was told by destination what he should be and incompleatly and by inchoation what he was It was a sign of servitude and of taking the guilt of sin to be Circumcised it was a sign of ignominy and reproach to be Crucified but this name exalted him and defended him against the bad opinion of the world when he was called at the one time in the Temple and entitled on the Cross at the other Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews To drive this point no longer about the honour of the imposition of the name this is the sum Angels and Men had their several shares in the dignity to give this attribute to our Lord but the name was grounded in his own nature of exceeding mercy and in his office of reconciliation therefore God alone could give him this name Innatum est ei nomen hoc non inditum ab humana aut Angelica natura says Bernard the name was bred with him and not imposed by men or Angels A name so royally impos'd must include a great deal of excellency that 's the next point Gallio the Deputy of Achaia was a great scorner of Religion and because Paul magnified Christ and the Jews blasphemed him Gallio said it was a controversie of words and names and he would not meddle with it it was not worth the while The name of Christ was beyond Gallio's reach to judge upon it David makes a great account of that which he did villifie Thou hast magnified thy name and thy word above all things Psal cxxxvii The names of God Jehovah are his names as a Creator and yet to be magnified above all things but the name of Jesus adds above his power of creation his goodness of saving and redemption Nihil nasci profuit nisi redimi profuisset it had been unbeneficial to be created unless we had been happily redeemed His Words his Actions his Miracles his Prayers his Sacraments his Sufferings all did smell of the Saviour Take him from his Infancy to his Death among his Disciples and among the Publicans among the Jews or among the Gentiles he was all Saviour The Jews were under the condition of thraldom at this time when Christ was born under the thraldom of their enemies and the tidings of a Saviour was sweet news at such a season yet the Shepherds could not so mistake that an Infant born but that day could go out with their hosts to subdue their enemies No person upon earth hath such need of a Saviour as a sinner whether it be peace or war Pandora's box of mischiefs all the miseries that can be named are the just reward of a sinner therefore the Angel doth not specifie to the Shepherds from what calamities he should redeem them and be called a Saviour indefinitely and absolutely from all A few particulars would but derogate from the honour of his salvation he sweeps away all evil at once like a Spiders web ab omni malo he saves us from the whole mass of evil a Saviour which is Christ the Lord Jer. xxiii 7. It shall no more be said the Lord Liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt but the Lord liveth which brought the house of Israel from the North Country the land of Chaldaea Alas both these are easie redemptions to that which calls him Jesus in the New Testament the Lord liveth who saveth his people from their sins there begins his mercy at that point to break the heavy yoke of sin from our necks to repress the dominion of the flesh rebelling against the spirit to take away earthly desires from our will and affections in a word to clear us in Gods Court that our iniquities may no more be imputed to us Who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood Revel i. 5. 2. He is a Saviour that delivers us from the sting and punishment of sin which is death He destroyed our death by dying on the Cross and repaired our life again by his own Resurrection 3. He is a Saviour that delivereth us from the power of Satan that although the enemy tempt and oppose vehemently yet he should not overcome his Saints Now is the judgment of this world now shall the Prince of this world be cast forth John xii 32. and so cast forth that he shall never renew his tyranny again For through death Chrst did destroy him that had the power of death the Devil Heb. ii 14. 4. He is a Saviour that frees us from the wrath of God and when we were enemies we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son Rom. v. From sin from death from Satan from the wrath of God These are the four heads of our Redemption and these are the excellencies included in the name of Saviour After these things thus declared methinks the third point should fall in directly without any contradiction Methinks of our selves without bidding men should strive to do abundant reverence at the hearing of this word a Jesus a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. We have not that feeling of our sins which we ought to have nor of the wrath of God for if we had we would hear this name with greater joyfulness but the destruction is not near enough to affect us Hell and damnation are not represented before our face if those things were so nigh that we did feel their horror we would not captiously gainsay that Ceremony of the Church to vail the head and bend the knee and to
mans excogitation is frivolous Indeed Ceremonies for the most part are unprescribed that particular Churches may be their own carvers in them only let them beware that they use their liberty discreetly But the offering of burnt Sacrifices is a matter of substance how came this into Noahs heart to do it By divine information certainly At some time about the beginning of time God did appoint a form of Religion to Adam and his Posterity which in the Breviary of the Book of Genesis is omitted which Lesson was read to Cain and Abel from whom they undertook the solemnity of Sacrifice and the Candle was lighted from hand to hand till the Tradition came safe to Noah Or thus very briefly Which God did deliver to Adam which Adam did commit ro Jared he to Methusalem which Methusalem did commend to Noah Never imagine that they were appointed precisely about the food of their body that is in the Letter of the Book and no instruction delivered for the food of their Soul That were such an omission that the worst Lawgiver would prevent much more the wisest The Lord did set his holy Patriarchs in order from succession to succession till the Law was written to communicate true Religion And it is St. Hieroms rule Omne verum à quocunque dicitur à spiritu sancto est Every mouth that speaks truth speaks it from the Holy Ghost From Abel downward all those whose Oblations had a sweet savour offered by Faith if by Faith then by Precept and Instruction for Faith comes by hearing Rom. x. 17. Sacrifice then was that Divine Worship which God revealed did please him that was the general approbation I do not say that every time they kept that duty they had need of a new and a special Commission St. Ambrose says that Noah did this good work of his own genius and not by any new particular Commandment Qui debitum gratiae ut à se exigatur expectat ingratus est A man must not stay after he hath received a benefit till God say unto him thank me now for such thankfulness were ingratitude Yet St. Ambrose hath far more voices against him than of his part that this holy Father had special directions for the solemnizing this Sacrifice and that expresly it was revealed unto him upon the taking in of seven of the clean beasts into the Ark Gen. vii 2. Of clean beasts by sevens that three Pairs were for propagation and the single odd one the seventh of clean Beasts and clean Fowls the celebs animal the pure Creature which mixt with no female was to be dedicated in an whole burnt-offering to the Lord. And then this example will so little favour Will-worship that it utterly beats it down the invention of man had so little hand in it that it was Scientia à Deo indita an inspiration immediately put into the Prophet by the will of God The reason why the bloud of Beasts was poured out to the Lord and well accepted of him will be ripe to be rendred by and by when I have first shewn in a word that Religion did never discord from it self by mutation of times The Saints in all Ages had the same Faith the same Worship the same Hope and expectation Pietas ante legem in lege post legem piissime sibi concordat Piety in the Law before the Law and since the Law is constantly the same and did never vary Mark therefore from this Text that the Levitical Ordinances of Moses in many things are but a renovation and amplification of Ceremonial Customs before the Law I said in many things that I might not fall into the same error with them who have overlasht that all the Ceremonial Law was in use and practice with the Patriarchs and that Moses did but compile and gather it up into a body If these men had been askt where they did read of the Levites and all the ritual Orders of the Priesthood before Moses where concerning the trial of Leprosie of Jealousie and an hundred things more I know they must be gravell'd and could not answer Nay in the next Chapter and the third verse says the Lord to Noah Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you but many living things were prohibited to the Jews in the Law of Ordinances that they should not eat them But this ground I know cannot be shaken that many parts of the Ceremonial Law had clear passage in the Church presently after the Floud long before they came forth in Moses name And the whole Moral Law was acknowledged to be just and righteous even from the beginning of the world Sacrifices Altars distinction of clean from unclean abstaining from bloud and things strangled Vows the Brother to raise up seed unto the Brother that died without Issue these are all purely Ceremonial and yet in practice before ever Jacob went down into Egypt and that was 210 years before ever the Levitical Institutions were enacted And that all the Ten Commandments were ingrafted in the good seeds of nature there are such evident examples for them in all the book of Genesis that it will be less tedious for you to ruminate upon them than for me to remember them But as a Book which is ill set forth or rare to be had is sometimes reprinted again in a good Edition by them that are careful to propagate Learning So those things Moral and Ceremonial which were in use before were revived again when the Law was committed to Writing and called the Scripture partly because the Age of man grew short and the Tradition of Religion through the more hands it went was the more corrupted and because the Devil did superseminare in corde scatter so many Tares among the Wheat that the pure Law was scarce to be found in mans heart and partly men were grown so guilty of the Law that they would not look into their own hearts where they found thoughts accusing them Facti sunt fugitivi à cordibus suis says St. Austin they shunned to look into their own knowledge and conscience which did condemn them therefore it was necessary to have the Law written that it might come unto men since men did run from it But the effects and grounds both of Ceremonial Sacrifices and Moral Precepts were in force from the beginning And we may say with Solomon There is no new thing under the Sun that which is called new hath been already of old time which was before us Eccles i. 10. And because all things which are written are written for our instruction I will spare some time to shew that it concerns us even after the cessation of all Sacrifice to learn why the Lord would be honoured with the bloud of beasts and with the fat of Sacrifices One of the best and choicest of the Fathers thought it such a gross kind of serving of God to kill Oxen and Sheep and throw their flesh into the fire such a tyrannizing over the
Jerusalem our Mother hath indulgence to appoint all external administrations of holiness It is no small ease as I have shewed it to be disingaged from the incumbrance of the old Ceremonies but that which comes next in order is so essential to our happiness that from thence we may say truly and from nothing else the Lord turned the captivity of Sion The time is past when salvation was offered to them turned the captivity of Sion The time is past when salvation was offered to them that did the works of the Law O those were days of bitterness and desperation the Covenant is renewed unto us in another form through the promise of mercy to them that believe in Jesus Christ Now Sin that great Tyrant shall have no dominion over us for we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. vi 14. Mark the two Covenants and the severe exaction in the one and the mild temperature of the other the one comes blustering like the whirlwind and breaks down Mountains before it the other is the still voice which beats sweetly upon the ear of Elias the one hath nothing but dayes of trouble and reproach the other is a continual Jubilee of rest and peace The Law may be compared to those wretched men that work at the Oar in a Gally they strein their sinews and their strength to plow the waves and yet they meet with such strong tempests that they cannot recover the Haven but the Gospel is a Ship whose sails are spread with faith and hope and the winds of mercy blow them fairly on that the Passengers are carried as in a dream to the Port with speed and tranquillity Hear them both speak Rom. x. 5. for that 's the clearest Scripture I take it for their distinction The righteousness of the Law saith the man that doth these things shall live by them but the righteousness which is by faith speaketh on this wise if thou shalt confess the Lord Jesus thou shalt be saved The man that doth these things shall live but the Lord looked down from Heaven and found no such man upon all the earth Be the imperfections in our manners that are not scandalously culpable yet the law hath not pardon for them that which must be weighed in Gods Balance it must not want a scruple Correct the wandring of your eye bridle your tongue watch your heart â—r servent in prayer be vigilant against tentations yet there is that repugnancy to the Law that unruliness in this body of death that the evil which you would not you shall do and then the Law turns to be that Adversary in St. Matthew which delivers you over to the Tormentor till you have paid the utmost farthing This was not only a bondage under a churlish Nabal that would not be satisfied with such diligence as a Servant could perform but the condition of a beast whose qualities cannot excuse him totally but that sometimes he shall be spurred and beaten Yet none were ever born that can impeach the Law of rigour no not in the equity of humane reason if you will examine them from first to last it will come but into the Margent of our Enditement that our actions have not been so pure and holy and fervent as the bounty of the Divine goodness towards us requires turpitudes of life abominable desires of the heart bruitish intemperance scalding malice unclean passions will fill up our accusations O what a perturbation what unquietness of consciences what a hell of fear it is to know that our Arraignment is just and to have nothing but the Law that inexorable letter of condemnation to comfort us Imus imus praecipites we should feel our selves tumbling down and see no bottom Sin is so ponderous that if the Ship had not been lightned of Jonas it had sunk the Heaven could not hold the Devil and his Angels from falling the Earth could not support Core and Dathan but it is more massy and leaden upon the conscience than in all the Elements What need I to tell you that God did give the Law in an angry form upon Mount Horeb or that he delivered it to Moses a Servant to bring to note the bondage of the Letter I have looked back enough to this let me bring you from this Ergastulum this Prison of Works into the Courts of Gods House into Jerusalem above which is free Jerusalem at the time when this Epistle was written to the Galatians was in bondage two ways in Civil servitude under the Romans in Legal servitude under Moses a miserable case that they should not feel the oppression they were in under Moses car'd not for a Deliverer nay did as much as in them lay to curse their Deliverer Christ that came to set them free they used him as a Servant in crucem servus they crucified him which was a most servile punishment Thus their stupidness in their bondage did make for our freedom and thereby was consummated the Covenant of Faith that we might believe in him who died to be a propitiation for our sins O what a pleasant condition it is what a free what a Princely state of life to wait upon Gods mercy and to be subject to the Ordinance of Faith Upon it depend Pardon Forgiveness Reconciliation Grace Adoption of Saints the Inheritance the Kingdom the Promise of everlasting life With how much diffidence did the Lawgiver intercede in the behalf of Israel Forgive the sin of the people if not blot me out of the book of life To supplicate forgiveness is a message sent from Faith but the Law plucks it back with this distrustful Omen if not if there be no hope then is my confusion before me for ever This is noted in the Generation of Ismael the Son of the Bond-woman Says Sarah to Abraham Go in to Hagar it may be I may obtain children by her This is the Law which despairs and doubts whether God will be gracious but Faith never speaks so faintly looks for no denial how unworthy soever to obtein its Petitions Publicans invite Christ home Adulteresses wash his feet Thieves recommend themselves to be received into his Kingdom and all this not because they are free from the Law but from the Covenant of it which is the bondage of the Law Had their conscience misdeemed that they must be saved by Works they had run away like Bond-men from an austere Lord their tongue had been tied that it durst not wag but light shining in their hearts revealed unto them that Jerusalem was free that the Inheritance came by the Promise of Grace they flock unto him who is the Mediatour of a better Covenant who vindicates his Portion from the bands of Sin and Death and Hell and hath given power to his Ministers to bring those that seek for mercy out of the prison and servitude of Satan for whatsoever they loose upon Earth shall be loosened in Heaven Hold here and stir not from this rock put not the point to
nothing but the ruine that came He was naturally of a very pleasant and chearful temper but sad news made his soul retire a great way further into him and quite of another humour Indeed no man was more troubled and angustiated in mind for the miseries and distresses of this Church and Kingdom I have often heard his deep Sighs and his great Complaints when he did profess he did only breath but not live I have seen the heaviness of his eyes when he spake nothing his grave and ripe wisdom made him apprehend Fears more deeply than other people did But when his Majesties sufferings in Person came no man could conjecture the load of sorrow that was upon him He would say he felt his old heart wither within him and could not but sigh away his spirit he would often repent He had done no more by Preaching and Writing to prevent it and after the Kings Death frequently desired nothing else but to depart from this world of sin and suffering crying out Satur sum omnium quae video aut audio But next to the Death of his Royal Majesty he would bewail the cutting up the pleasant Vine of the Church of England and alienating the Churches Patrimony together with those of the King Queen Loyal Nobility and Gentry whereby the whole Kingdom of England was then in the hands of unjust Possessors For the Citie 's abetting this bloudy War He was now grown to a strong aversation toward London the place where he was born baptized bred and nothing could ever move him to go thither more until the Earls of Holland and Norwich both requested his Assistance at their expected deaths The Earl of Holland was very penitent for that he had deserted so good a Master in the beginning of the Wars Norwich was very chearful in the comforts of a good Conscience He would much admire how God sometimes gives secret admonition of things contrary to all humane expectations for the Earl of Holland had many Messengers came and told him they had Votes enough and to spare for his life yet nothing would perswade him but he should die within a few days and so he did The Earl of Norwich that knew of no friends yet would not believe but he should escape and so he did After this he return'd to his Rural retirement to end his Old Age in continual Prayer and Study omitting all exercise of body whereupon he fell into a great fit of sickness and upon his recovery the famous Dr. Harvy enjoyned him two things to renew his chearful conversation and take moderate walks for exercise assuring him that in his practise of Physick since these times he observed more people died of grief of mind than of any other disease and that his studious and sedentary life would contract him frequent sickness unless he used seasonable exercise Whereupon afterwards for his healths sake he would every Morning before he setled to his study take large walks very early to make him expectorate phlegm and other cloudy and fuliginous vapours whereby he afterwards continued Vegete and healthful to the last At this time he did much good in the Country by keeping many Gentlemen firm to the Protestant Religion who were much assaulted by lurking Priests who sought to perswade them that it was then necessary to joyn with the Roman Church or else they could be of none for they saw as the others said the Protestant Church quite destroyed But the good Doctor advised them better that the Church of England was still in being and not destroyed rather refined by her sufferings God then tried us as Silver is tried in the hot fire of persecution which purifies but wastes not Then especially our Church resembled the Primitive which grew up in persecutions and as the Earth is said to be the Lords in all its Fulness so the Church of England was the Lords in all its penury and emptiness And in these lowest of times he was full of faith and courage that himself should still live to see a better world one day and would greatly blame any of the Kings Friends who despaired of seeing the time of the restitution of all things His opinion was the Youths at Westminster spun a Spiders Web that could not last long and therefore was very confident of his Majesties return and would instance in Josephs case who was sometime sold for a slave imprisoned as a Malefactor yet afterwards advanced to be Governour of the Kingdom and in David who was hunted over all the Mountains of Israel yea and forced to fly his Country too and yet after brought to the Throne and also in Caius Marius who was forced to hide himself in the Flags of a Fenny ditch from the pursuers of Sylla so that the Historian asks Quis eum fuisse Consulem aut futurum crederet Who would ever have thought him to have been Consul or should live to be Consul again And therefore when any would say There was but little hope he would answer Tum votorum locus est cum nullus est spei They ought to pray the more and Prayer was a good reserve at the last cast Accordingly he would acknowledge that his many cares for the welfare of the King and Church of England did often send him to his Prayers but gave God thanks that his Prayers did always expel his cares After a day spent in Prayer he would tell an especial Friend he found in himself a marvelous illumination and chearfulness in the Evening and that as usually thick clouds in Winter cause dark weather till they were dissolved in rain or snow but then the Sun would shew himself and the air grow pleasant again So sorrows and cares cloud the mind and soul till we are able to dissolve them into devotion and holy Prayers and then post nubila Phoebus and professed nothing more contributed to his divine joys than his often reading and meditation upon Davids Psalms which he conceived they had done very wisely who set them in the midst of the Bible as the Fourth Commandment for Religious Assemblies was by God himself in the midst of the Decalogue In those doleful days that was done in St. Paul's London which Selymus threatned to St. Peter's at Rome to Stable his horses in the Church and feed them at the High Altar whereupon our Doctor was very confident their ruine grew ripe apace and not long after hapned the death of Oliver of which being suddenly told and the manner of it he only said as Tully of a Villain Mortem quam non potuit optare obiit and that we should see within a little while all the world would stink of him and disdain his Arbitrary and bloudy usurpations and accordingly in a very short time we saw all things incline to work about the happy revolution towards the accomplishment whereof no man was more active in stirring up the Nobility Gentry Clergy and People to desire a free Parliament and Petition General Monk
had dedicated unto his name the most augustious Temple in the world Was a question made concerning such a Magnificent house whether it were fit for the Lord Then what say you to this grot This Manger of the Stable As Seneca said of Caius Marius when he was turned abroad to seek his lodging among the flags of the Fens Quis eum fuisse consulem aut futurum crederet Who would ever think that a man who shrowded his head in so mean a place had been the great Consul of Rome before or should be Consul again So he that should find Christ in such a despicable corner of a Room where beasts did feed who could think that it was that God that created the World before or should judge the World hereafter But to say the truth was he not safer among the beasts than he could be elsewhere in all the Town of Bethlem His enemies perchance would say unto him as Jael did to Sisera Turn in turn in my Lord when she purposed to kill him as the men of Keilah made a fair shew to give David all courteous hospitality but the issue would prove if God had not blessed him that they mean to deliver him into the hands of Saul that sought his bloud So there was no trusting of the Bethlemites who knows but that they would have prevented Judas and betrayed him for thirty pieces of Silver unto Herod More humanity is to be expected from the beasts than from some men and therefore she laid him in a Manger Do not your bowels yearn Beloved to make Christ some amends for this poor entertainment Do not you perswade your selves if you had been in Bethlem it should not have been so as it was Your Zeal is good and there is no time lost to do it yet Non erat ei nisi angustia in terris ut tu ei locum cordis tui proprium dilatares Christ was streightned for room in the Inn and thrust into the Stable that you might open your heart wide and enlarge it to give him an habitation to content him The heart of an Heretick the heart of a profane person is more loathsom more unfit for Christ than any Manger in the world between such a polluted sink of iniquity and this Manger as it was adorned there was no comparison It was the recreation which the old Friers had in their Monastical Cells to write lies Legends are for the most part fabulous and I had as lieve believe the dreams of a sick man as believe all the story of our Saviours birth which goes under the name of St. Bridget Yet I am altogether inclined to think that the Stable wherein Christ was born was so beautified for the time with the light of heaven which did shine in the place that a Palace of beaten gold could not seem to be half so rich and precious my reason is that if the glory of the Lord did shine about the Shepherds in the field with such an heavenly luster when the Angels came to sing their Carol most likely it is that the same glory seven fold brighter did cast celestial beams upon this place where this Child was laid in a Manger But no such beams of Heaven ever did shine upon the heart of a profligate sinner and therefore I have good reason to say that a Manger amongst beasts was fitter for our Saviour O praesepe splendidum in quo panis inventus est Angelorum O holy and venerable Cratch which was the repository to receive the bread of Angels Reclinavit is the strangest word to me in all the Text that Mary could part with him out of her arms and lay him aside in the Manger I did ever think old Simeon much indebted to her for that favour that he was permitted to take him up in his arms but what did the Stable and Cratch deserve to be the Throne of the Son of God Surely if Jacob understood that there was a Mystery in it when he laid his head upon a stone to sleep then it cannot be without many Mysteries that this Infant was laid in a Manger I will separate all the Meditations which the Fathers raise upon it that he was born in an Inn and confine my self only to express why this homely Room was lent him in a Stable First Beloved Periculosum est inter delicias poni 't is full of peril to rest among pleasures and delights It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting Eccl. 7.2 Adam had his habitation among the sweet savours and most delightful recreations of the Garden of Eden his senses were so filled with objects of pleasures that he forgot the Lord Therefore Jesus Christ the Second Adam who came to restore all that was lost pitcht upon the worst corner of the house where there were no delights at all to move tentation Shall I tell you a paradox which St. Chrysostome held He said he had rather be cast into Prison with St. Paul into the house of affliction than be wrapt up with him into the third Heavens Kings houses and well furnisht Mansions have their occasions of Lewdness but she laid her Son in a Manger Secondly Omnis caro sicut foenum all flesh is grass and our beauty is as a flower of the field this caused the flesh of Christ to be laid in the part of the Stable where the grass is cut down and withered Corruption sorts with Corruption the Saints that are in glory and can dye no more their dwellings are in the highest heavens which are free from change and alteration but the Son of man hath put on mortality and to signifie that his body is like unto ours which shall wither like grass Reclinavit in praesepi he was laid in a Manger Thirdly Learn from hence to condescend unto the Humility of Christ if you mean to ascend unto his glory for as the custom of those Regions was this Manger was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Vault cut out of a Rock as low a place as he could cast himself into but no man projects so wisely to raise up a mighty building as he that lays a low foundation It is reported of Sixtus Quintus how he was so far from shame that he was born in a poor Cottage that he would sport with his own fortune and say he was Familiâ illustri natus born in a bright resplendent Family because the Sun lookt in at every cranny of the house it is not the meanness of the place that can justly turn to any mans scorn nor doth a magnificent Palace build up any mans reputation Holofernes had a costly Tent to cover him and yet was never the honester and it was a pretty objection of Plutarchs against the vain consumption of cost upon the decking of our houses Quare homines in auratis lectis somnum capiunt quem Dii gratis dederunt What do we mean says he to be at such cost to deck our Chambers Why will we pay
so dear for our sleep when God if you please hath given you that for nothing the slenderest place served our Saviour to cover his head Reclinavit in praesepi She laid him in a Manger Fourthly and lastly God provided the Virgins wombe for our Saviour before he was born man provided a Manger after he was born that you may see that God is ever worse provided for by man than he provides for himself Let him provide for himself the manner of an Ark or inspire the heart of Solomon what Temple should be built unto him and the world had never such a piece of work for beauty and magnificence Let him trust to the benevolence of men I praise God I am not in the place now where I need to complain but more eyes have seen such Churches especially such Chancels which our Zealous Lay Parsons of the Kingdom have sacrilegiously unroof'd and uncas'd the Lead and left them thatch and straw for a covering and scarce that too O God I shame to speak it surely by all description of antient Writers our Saviour was better provided when He was laid in a Manger Their unworthiness deserves to be parallel'd with those men of strange condition in the last part of my Text that kept possession against Christ himself and shut him out of doors for there was no room for him in the Inn nor for his Mother Mary Was there no Obadiah that would receive a Prophet No Obededom that would take the Ark of God into his house Some say that because the whole City of David was so ungrateful to their new-born King therefore the Angel of purpose shunned all the Inhabitants and went into the field to find out Shepherds and sent them first to behold their Saviour which is Christ the Lord. Others say because Bethlem was so pittiless to this Babe therefore God raised up the fury of Herod which had no pity of their Babes but slew all their Children from two years old and under Surely we all see how the Roman Conquerours carried them away captive from their own Country neither man nor child hath room to inhabite Bethlem this day neither is there such a Town as Bethlem standing because there was no room for Christ You know the Parable of the good Samaritan that took the wounded man and carried him to his Inn and left him safe there and paid his charges The sence of the Parable is reduced by many of the Fathers unto Christ himself He is the good Samaritan that would not let our wounds bleed abroad but hous'd us and lodg'd us in his own Inn that is the Church to upbraid the incivility of men by the Letter of the Parable that we gave no hospitality to the Son of God The reasons given why Joseph and Mary were thus excluded are three The first is false nay indeed calumnious that they came tardy and after all other company to pay their Tribute money No Beloved such an hasty Couple so forward to give unto God that which is Gods would never be slack to give unto Caesar that which is Caesars Besides if she brought forth her first-born Son upon the first day of the week upon Sunday as some cast it out then the whole day before she was in Bethlem for upon the Saturday or Sabbath she must not travel perchance they had been longer in the City and as we say danced attendance being poor persons before the Officers of the Tribute would dispatch them and yet all this while no room was made in the Inn nor in any charitable house for the Nativity of Christ The indignation against this were able to make us like Jacob live under the dew and frost of Heaven as the Prophet protested never to climbe up to our bed because Christ was so disappointed Or as Vriah said unto David The Ark abides in Tents my Lord Joab is encampt in the open field and shall I go up into mine own house The glory of Israel was laid in a Cratch the Salvation of the world was turned into a Stable and dost thou permit us to live in sieled houses But the second and true reason why the Inn afforded them no room was this Augustus Caesars Tax had drawn multitudes unto Bethlem that filled every corner the true use of it was that there might be more attendance about the King of Glory to do him reverence and homage but the greater multitude the fouler was the neglect the more inexcusable the disobedience They that glory in multitudes as a great testimony to prove the verity of their Church are as wise as them that should prove their Harvest to be plentiful because it hath abundance of Thistles A multitude flockt after Christ in the Wilderness verily it is to eat of the Loaves and Fishes not for the Doctrines sake A multitude followed him into the High Priests Hall and the whole Rabble cried out Let him be crucified A troupe of Souldiers watcht his Sepulchre and belied his Resurrection a multitude was in Bethlem at his Nativity and there was no room for him in the Inn. But thirdly We may suppose the multitudes had not so pestered the Town but that one Lodging might be spar'd if there were horse-room in the Stable as it appears there was because Christ lay in the Manger then it cannot sound in my ear but there might be room made for men in the Inn. Yes but Lazarus is poor and therefore he must not come over the Threshold but lie at the rich Gluttons door and though the fish of the Sea were so liberal to pay our Saviours Tribute the beasts of the Stable so obedient to leave space for his birth yet reasonable men stood upon it that they would not entertain him for nothing Booz was a rare example that took Ruth into his house when she went a begging Booz was a Bethlemite but it seems he had left none behind him for Mary and Joseph were poor and there was no room for them in the Inn. I know not how it came to pass but for the credit of Poverty which was thus despised not many rich but many poor in the days of our Saviour did receive the Gospel As dry wood says Bernard sooner taketh fire than that which is green and flourishing So the poor did embrace the glad tidings of Salvation without resistance when the Nobles of the world that flourisht in their wealth refused it O but let Bethlem be ten times more populous for multitude were Mary of the poorest of the people which could not be admitting that she and Joseph paid Subsidies to Caesar nay were she a Samaritan with whom the Jew hated to commerce yet Barbarians would take her in and cherish her in the time of Childbirth Beloved it is a kind of churlishness that can admit no Apology This is all that I can say since men had left their civility to be men to wipe away that foul ignominy God took our nature upon him and was made man even He
we are lead to place and persons of a little better condition to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night from the shepherds by a manifest ascent to the Apparition of an Angel the Angel of the Lord from one Angel to a multitude which is much better a multitude of the heavenly Host from that noble Army to him who is greater than all the Angels a Saviour which is Christ the Lord And lastly from that Saviour on earth to his most excellent dominion in heaven Gloria in excelsis glory be to God on high And as in our Church Service we do or should shut up every Psalm with that devout Doxology Glory be to the Father c. as if that were it which gave every Psalm his tune and relish so glory be to God on high is a verse which may most fitly be said or sung to every circumstance which belongs to the birth of Christ He was laid in a Manger glory be to God on high for that humility proclaimed by Angels glory be to God on high for their attendance and ministry manifested to Shepherds glory be to God on high for instructing their simplicity finally to comfort our hearts that night and darkness are dispelled a glorious beam of light made the earth glister where they stood and therefore glory be to God on high for the comfort of that heavenly illumination and glory The Text which I have read unto you contains those particulars which are most natural to heaven and most proper to earth things most truly celestial are Angels and Light and glory all these did joyn together to solemnize this great Nativity when tidings came unto the Shepherds and that which properly savours of earth is fear especially 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great fear and shepherds not able suddenly to entertain heavenly visions were sore afraid If you will fully know how and in what triumphant manner these tidings were declared from heaven and withal with what astonishment they did possess the earth lend me your attention to these four parts in general 1. Here is Gods Minister imployed to divulge the Incarnation Loe the Angel of the Lord. 2. The pomp and solemnity which the Angel brought with him the glory of the Lord did shine round about 3. Here are the persons though I have spoke largely of them heretofore I say the persons honoured both with that messenger and that solemnity the Angel came to them the glory shone round about them they were Shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night 4. How this Angel and that shining glory did affect these poor men they were sore afraid And for your parts dearly beloved so prepare your souls so to meditate upon Christs Birth that when you promise your selves after your dissolution the joy of Angels and glory shining round about you remember to temper presumption with the Shepherds fear and reverence and again when weakness and little faith are sore afraid be mindful that Christ was born to bring us to that light which knows no darkness and to everlasting glory So knit them into your heart as they are most divinely woven into my Text And loe the Angel of the Lord came upon them c. And first be ready to hear how Gods Mnister was employed to divulge the Incarnation Loe the Angel of the Lord came upon them touching whose Apparition five interrogatories must be answered Quis what Angel this was of all the heavenly Hierarchy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it should seem one of conspicuous glory the Angel of the Lord. 2. Quando when he came I believe instantly after Mary was delivered Ecce loe he came that note demonstrative expresseth the celerity 3. Quomodo the true substance of an Angel is not visible and apparitive to men he came in some fashion altered from himself ecce it was wonderful loe an Angel 4. Quo situ how he did apply himself to the Shepherd de coelo supervenit says one Translation he stood above them astitit juxta illos says another he stood near unto them we say he came upon them 5. Quare why men were not accepted to do this office to manifest the Birth of Jesus but loe an Angel of the Lord. 1. Quis and who was this Angel of all the heavenly Hierarchy modest ignorance is better than presumptuous knowledge doubtless the Holy Spirit had given him his Name in this place if it had concerned our edification yet he was no novice but St. Cyprian himself that ventured to call him Gabriel Veniunt in Bethlehem quam praedixit Gabriel invenitur Emanuel that is the Shepherds came to Bethlehem as Gabriel had taught them and there they found Emanuel who is God with us Surely so Divine a Father would not bolt out without a mark to aim at and I discern some colour for that conjecture out of a Grammatical Article Zachary was visited by a messenger from heaven as he was doing his office in the Temple Luke 1.11 There appeared unto him an Angel of the Lord but verse 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angel Gabriel was sent to the Blessed Virgin in the City of Nazareth and as if he were to be known from that holy Spirit who came to Zachary by this emphatical Article being once named Gabriel from thenceforth he is spoken of according to his office the Angel of the Lord. Surely he was one of the most glorious attendants of heaven one of those principal Seraphins that stand always before the throne of God the business about which he came was of the highest nature that ever was sent from Heaven to Earth and therefore who should undertake it but as great a creature as the Heaven and Earth afforded But the School Doctors say otherwise who build upon the groundless curiosities of their adulterate Dionysius list to their speculation forsooth that Cherubins and Seraphins Thrones Principalities and Dominions are vertues of the highest rank and order always resident in the Orbs of Heaven never giving attendance to the Militant Church beneath But that commonly stiled Archangels and Angels in which degrees they place this Gabriel they have intercourse and messages as God appoints them to the world below A brave president if you mark it for their lazie Cardinal Prelates that the active Angels such as proclaim and preach Christ should be the underlings to the rest and to pretend that there are others of no such troublesome office and employment that are the superiour principalities Well as it is probable with St. Cyprian to say this welcome Messenger was Gabriel so it is more probable to hold against Dionysius his conjectures that this glorious Herauld who came to publish a Saviour to the world was one of the mightiest and chief of the Cherubins loe the Angel of the Lord. 1. The next interrogatory is quando at what time and season the Angel came Ecce venit surely he made no stay but came with great expedition after Christ was born if it were not in the same
earthen pitcher if martyrdom burn in it like a lamp and the pitcher be broken to pieces then we shall have victory against our spiritual enemies and peace with God Fourthly Let us make that use of our Saviours first coming into the world in flesh which St. Paul doth of his second coming in glory 1 Cor. 4.5 The Lord cometh who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart and then shall every man have praise of God The most obscure things shall be made manifest unto his light and the thoughts of all hearts shall be revealed unto him The righteous Lord trieth the very hearts and reins Psal 7.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to try the heart is verbum forense as when Magistrates examine the truth not by questions only but by rack and torments they will have all out in confession so God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to draw out all secrets from our inward breast And it is impossible to keep the subtilest thred of iniquity concealed When he came to judgment against Egypt and sent his Angel to kill their first-born yet at midnight he knew which was an Egyptian and which was an Israelite so though we carry our sins with a demure countenance and smooth it with subtile hypocrisie yet his knowledge shineth in the darkness of our hearts as if it were light and he can distinguish between our inward affections our thoughts our fancies our sighs and yearnings that this is an Israelite born of the will of God and this an Egyptian born of the will of flesh Laban could not find his Idols because Rachael had laid them privily in her stuff but the Lord can detect that Idolatry which we keep close in our hearts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Grammarian the Greeks denominate God from penetrating all things with his eye and when Christ could see into the profoundness of Nathanaels thoughts behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile Nathanael instantly confest Thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel Alas that we go on still in darkness and do not understand are you in your wits that think iniquity is farther from judgment because it is farther from appearance do you forget the discoverie of Achans wedge and Gehazi's briberie do you not recal how the Priests of Bel were detected for gluttons and impostors creeping in at secret doors to gurmandize the junkets prepared for the Idol deal squarely and without dissimulation for you think it is night and no man sees but the glory of the Lord is round about you Fifthly No sooner was the world blest with the Birth of this holy Child God and Man but the Angels put on white apparel the air grows clear and bright darkness is dispell'd therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and walk as children of the light the earth should be more innocently walkt on too and fro because Christ hath trod upon it our bodies kept clean in chastity because he hath assum'd our nature and blest it Gods word should be heard more respectfully because he hath preacht it finally our conversation should be honest as in the day because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Wicked men are groping like the Sodomites to find out mischief though God have hid it out of the way The Saints and Angels are in a state of light wherein they know as they are known perfectly partaking of the beatifical vision between these two there is a middle condition of godly men who see into the way of righteousness though it be darkly as in a glass but they that dress them by a glass can discern how to mend any thing that mis-becomes them So the Gospel of Grace is a mirror of the light of Glory it is not the fault of the Gospel but of our own darkness if we learn not of it to put on the true wedding garment The Apostle calls it the putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ Vbi animus tenebrescere tentationum caligine coeperit ad lucem gratiae reformatur When the conscience is overcast with the darkness of temptation it flies to the looking-glass of Grace and reforms it self by looking into it This is to vindicate our selves from the powers of darkness and to walk decently as in the day Works of lewdness come from the darkness of our understanding they love to be done in privacy and not before the eyes of men abjiciamus says St. Paul as if he would have you fling them away to the Devil and bid him take his own As a wise servant would not be found with folly in his hand if he knew his Master were near so because our salvation is come as this day in humility and we know not how little he will defer to come in Majesty therefore abjiciamus throw away his filthiness from you lest Christ should come and find profanation in your mouth oppression in your purse false tinctures of art and pride in your face and disobedience in your heart Every child of light will have his lamp burning in his hand and by this he will know you whether you be his Disciple if you speak the truth and come to the light as if the glory of the Lord were round about you Lastly A glimpse of some celestial light did sparkle at his Birth to set our teeth on edge to enjoy him who is light of lights very God of very God and to dwell with him in that City which hath no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the Glory of God did enlighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof I conclude with St. Paul Col. 1.12 Let us give thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son Amen THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 10. And the Angel said unto them Fear not for behold I bring yon good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people THat which is every mans salutation wherewith he greets his neighbour at this time of the year is the subject of my Text a merry Christmas it is it which we wish one to another among our friends and familiers and it is it which the Angel in my Text wisheth to all kindreds of the world as if we were all become his friends and familiers good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people And surely were it not that the Birth of Jesus made us merry at this season and put gladness into our hearts all the year beside would be louring and lumpish without all manner of consolation Until God sent forth his Son made of a woman we might not receive the adoption of Sons Without adoption we had no part in the inheritance without hope of the inheritance what
day or in that year he did not learn the Shepherds nay I speak it with modesty I do not think he could teach himself Therefore I recoil back from that nicety and lay down my doctrine in this large lesson it was expedient that many revolutions of years should run out from the promise of Christs Birth unto the actual accomplishment 1. So great a matter was worthy much expectation and many predictions of the Prophets So St. Austin Quanto major Judex veniebat tanto praeconum series longior praecedere debebat the greater the Judge that was to come the greater troop of Harbingers and Apparitors should go before him 2. His Incarnation is fitted to the fulness of time because it falls out equally to try their Faith that should believe in Christ to come and to try their Faith who ought to believe that he is come that he is dead and risen again and ascended into glory 3. Between the time of Adams disobedience and the Birth of the Lamb of God a long space of years doth interlope that man might have time enough to see and feel his misery before the medicine was made to apply unto his sore 4. God is pleas'd to confer great honour upon our humane nature at three extreme distances in the beginning of the world toward the midst of it and in the end of all things In the first creation God made man after his own Image so began our excellencies then he made his own Son in the similitude of man a long distance went between these two Hereafter at the period of all things we are sure to have a glorified body and that our mortal shall put on immortality Now Christs Incarnation comes in the midst because he is the center of all Gods mercies towards us 5. The Jews whom Christ above all others calls his own He came unto his own c. they did sustain at this time and for some years had sustain'd a bondage under the Roman Conquest perhaps it is our Saviours pleasure that a great part of the Church shall be under a Romish thraldom against his second coming But this bondage was bitter to the Jews even at this day when Christ was born Caesars taxes were very grievous for Mary being ready to lie down was compell'd to come to Bethlehem to be taxed now in this day of oppression when the Jews I believe thought the yoke of captivity to be more intolerable than their sins and that they wisht for a victorious champion to fight for them then did God send them a greater Saviour than they wisht or lookt for not to acquit them from the Roman Dominion but from the pit of Hell And this is all that can be modestly conjectured about the opportunity of time c. This day is born unto you and as near as we can observe the course of the year by Astronomical skill this was the very day yet it is not that hodie of which the Angel spake unto the Shepherds then is not this part of the Text utterly unappliable to us no beloved but appliable to us also in the nearest degree for as we say of the sin of Adam Actu transiit manet reatus the act past away at the first but the guilt remains upon his posterity so our Saviour was born upon one particular day which is past but the merit and virtue of it is never past but abides for ever Wherefore to them that make the right use of this blessing St. Paul says it is out of date at no time but now is the acceptable time now when you will your self now is the day of salvation The Prophet Isaiah says the joy of this birth it like the joy of men in harvest that 's for the universality of all those that belong unto the field but for the extension of time it is not for the season of harvest alone but for all the year not gaudium in annum but gaudium in sempiternum Not an harvest joy for the plenty of one year but this is the bread of life whose plenty rejoyceth the eartn unto all ages It is as good news upon any day as it was upon one day says Bernard that Christ is born That day comes always anew to them that are renewed in the spirit of their mind and he is born every day to them in whose hearts he lives by Faith I must here cut off the circumstance of time and because the Sacrament must have a time to be celebrated I will speak but a few words upon the place and conclude The Angel directs the Shepherds to the City of David and thither did all the Scribes and High Priests direct Herod with full consent Bethlehem of Judea was the place where Christ must be born for so it was spoken by the Prophet Now Bethlehem is that City of David I know in the Old Testament the Tower of Sion is sometimes called the City of David a strong fortress in Jerusalem which David built to curb the Jebusites but that famous Metropolis of Jerusalem had nothing to do with this birth Little Bethlehem is here called the City of David where David was born Take notice I pray you that the Angel could have call'd it Bethlehem to take away all mistaking but it makes more to the matter to shew that Christ came of the house and lineage of David which was foretold Psal cxxxi Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy seat And mark how it falls out agreeably that Joseph and Mary came to no other Town but this to pay Tribute unto Caesar Had they been only of the Tribe of Judah as David was no nearer allied unto him they might have gone up to many other Cities much more famous than this to be taxed but being of the stock of David and indeed the nearest living in blood unto him therefore they go up to no City but to Bethlehem the City of David And thus you see the Angel conferr'd with the Shepherds in such words as were very proper they knew the place it was the next at hand they knew it belong'd to him that should be the Saviour of his people who according to the Scriptures belong'd to David by blood and to the City of David for his Country A poor caskenet to contain so great a Jewel Thou Bethlehem says the Prophet Micaiah the least among the Princes of Judah yet big enough to contain the Prince of Heaven and Earth Little Zoar says Lot and yet Zoar was big enough to receive him and his Children safe out of the fire of Sodom Poor Bethlehem which had but one Inn for strangers in it all it seems and that of small capacity which had no room no by-corner for a woman to be delivered in but only the manger of the stable Mean Bethlehem unless the Angel had spoke it the Prophet foretold it and the Star had shewed it to the Wise men who would not have gainsaid that the Saviour of all men could be
be to God on high because he hath made peace on earth Lord let me not be at war with my own heart though all the world should defie me and set themselves against me As a continual dripping of humors upon the lungs consumes the body so a continual disquieting of mind as if viols of anger from heaven were ready to be poured upon it breeds such an anxiety in the whole man that he will wish his whole substance were dissolved into nothing O thrice happy when God sends that serenity of favour into our thoughts and cogitations to make us truly say with David Turn again unto thy rest O my soul Psal cxvi 7. This is that peace which the world cannot give This is St. Paul's confidence against all opposers Who is he that condemneth it is Christ that justifieth When the Wise men askt Where is he that is born King of the Jews Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him So sore troubled that he would not spare poor inoffensive babes who could not offend him no not his own babes as some say who were the pillars of his family when he thrust his sword into them he digged into his own bowels No man is able to express what a discomfortable mutiny this wretch had within himself No plague like a wounded disturbed spirit whereas old Simeon that saw death at the door that felt one foot in the Grave was exhilerated for all that through the joy which he had in Christ and warbled that Swan-like Dirge over his own Grave Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Wherefore if there be any of you which have a conscience sorely wounded with horror and even tempted to despair which God forbid chide it with David out of that dreadful moode Why art thou so sad O my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me Hath not Christ said there is peace between God and thee and dost thou say there is enmity foolish heart shall I not rather believe the tidings which an Angel brings than that which thou dost suggest and doth not he say Peace on earth Whosoever will not be cheared up will not be comforted will not be established with hope from this sweet proclamation which the Ministers of Heaven sang unto the Shepherds it had been better for him that he had never been born nay I speak it with reverence to God and condemnation to such a one it had been better for him that Christ had never been born because he receives not the Son of God into his heart neither believes in his Redemption Many flagitious sins do make men as execrable before God as the devil himself but he that despairs of Gods mercies as if Christ would not keep his Covenant of peace with him I may truly pronounce it against him that he is even possessed with a devil O cast forth that evil Spirit and be resolved the Lord would never have sent his Angel to sing the Hymn of peace unto men but to revive our souls and to raise them up from dust and despair because he is gracious and favourable to all penitent sinners And thus you have heard that upon the occasion of this blessed Nativity of Christs the Angels have congratulated both heaven and earth as David foretold it Psal xcvi 11. Let the heavens rejoyce and let the earth be glad The congratulation to men on earth hath been unfolded in two members that there is peace above us which passeth all understanding and peace within us such as the world cannot give Thirdly It follows they sing and rejoyce for our sakes that there is peace without us and on every side a good way laid open to take away all Schisms strifes divisions debates and as Solomon says in his mystical Song the voice of the Turtle is heard in our land What a hurly burly was in the world before Christ made his Church one body out of all Languages and Nations They that professed the Law of Moses you know had no communication with those millions of millions that knew no Schoolmaster to teach them but the law of nature Among those few that were zealous of the Law the Jew forsook them of Israel of the ten Tribes for Rebels and Idolaters Among the Jews the Pharisee condemned the Sadducce for an Heretick Then the Samaritan had an antipathy both against Jew and Israelite and all these accounted of the Gentiles no other ways than as bond-slaves of the Devil Here was nothing but hate and defiance between one Sect and another over all the world until Christ broke down the wall of separation made of two one invited them all to embrace and to greet one another with an holy kiss Thus the Prophet Isaiah upon it Chap. xix 23. in his stately but dark eloquence In that day shall there be a high-way out of Egypt to Assyria and the Assyrians shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria and in that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria that is there shall be traffique and friendship and conversation together from one Nation to another over all the earth And indeed National feuds are the more odious and unchristian by how much Christ hath called all people to the sprinkling of the same water and to alike participation of his Body and Blood at the same table And it was well apprehended of one that God hath given unto men more excellent gifts in the skill of Navigation since his Son is born than ever they had before that he might shew the way how all the Kingdoms of the earth should be sociable together for Christ hath breathed his peace upon all the Kingdoms of the world Then I descend from generals to specials The Angels did not only see that our Saviour had built a wall of Charity as it were about the whole earth and made it one but that his Gospel is the love knot and band of agreement between one member and another in all particular persons It turns the hearts of the Fathers unto the Children and of the Children unto the Fathers it makes peace conjugal between man and wife for Marriage is a Mystery of Christ and his Church and the instance which the Apostle lays before us is how Christ loved his Church and laid down his life for it It attones variances between Neighbour and Neighbour for it calls upon us to forgive and put up injuries it non-suits many actions of trespass between man and man with St. Pauls sweet proposition to the Corinthians Why do ye not rather suffer wrong That jangling fellow in the Gospel that came to Jesus to give him authority for his contention Dic fratri ut mecum dividat Master bid my brother that he divide the inheritance with me our Lord put him off and would hear of no division Such motions did jar in the ear of him that was the God of reconciliation The Law of Moses either was or did seem to be vindicative an eye for an eye
they believed him to be more than that little one or they had not worshipped him To make a full choir of consent thus St. Austin Adorant in carne verbum in infantiâ sapientiam in infirmitate virtutem They adored in the flesh that Word that was made flesh they adored in that Infant the Wisdom of the Father they adored in that infirmity the mighty power of God To whom c. SIX SERMONS UPON THE BAPTISM OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him YOU shall hear a Story beginning at this Verse and so ending with the Chapter how christ did enter into his Office of Mediatorship and how he began to make himself known to be the Promised Seed who should reconcile God and Men together It was as I have read unto you at a solemn Baptism which he received from the hand of John A happy beginning for us men and for our Salvation and a Baptism as useful for the spiritual liâ—e of all Christians as the Air conduceth to our natural conservation For as the same Air which God created in the beginning is the breath which our Fore-fathers did draw and which sustains us and shall serve the Generations of men which are yet unborn So the Baptism of our Saviour it purged all true believers that have gone before us it cleanseth us according to our Faith and shall work the same good work upon our childrens children for ever It stands us under the Gospel instead of the same comfort which the Rainbow afforded unto the old world The Rainbow is a reflexion of the Sun-beams in a watry cloud and was ordained as a sign of pacification that Gods anger should no more strive with man Such a Rainbow was Christ Jesus and therefore it encompasseth his Throne round about Apoc. 4. look upon him not standing majestically in a cloud above but wading like an humble servant into the waters of Jordan beneath look upon him how he sanctifies that Element which was once a means to drown the World and now is made a means to save it look upon him in that posture as a Rainbow in the water and you may read Gods sure Covenant made with his whole Church that his anger is pacified in his well beloved Son and that he will be gracious with his Inheritance A brave beginning and worthy to be the first work of his Mediatorship which is enough to say it will be most worthy your best attention Theodorus in Aristotle would never play a part in any histrionical sport unless he might be the first that came upon the stage He thought the first entrance in any person made the deepest impression in the Spectators And surely a good onset is no small grace to all that follows The first-born were sanctified to the Lord. God smelt a sweet savour out of the first Sacrifice that Noah offered unto him a distinct mark is set upon the first miracle which our Saviour wrought at Cana in Galilee by turning water into wine And this being the first work of his Prophetical Office is transcendently observable that he came from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him Which verse is but the preparatory to that which follows and therefore it affords no more than three circumstances of the main matter which lies behind at ver 16. First It refers us to inquire into the circumstance of time Then cometh Jesus from Galilee surely it was some very fit season and opportunity Secondly After what manner he would be baptized with the Baptism of John it will be necessary therefore to examine the dignity of Johns Baptism Thirdly The place must not be omitted which was the fortunate seat where this work was done not in Galilee but in Jordan Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan c. For the first of these we need not divine or follow conjectures of our own invention how seasonable it was for the Son of God to declare himself just at this present to be the Messias that would save his people three reasons may be drawn out of express Scripture and we can have no better 1. You may read in this Chapter the men of Judea and all Jerusalem round about were baptized in Jordan confessing their sins John preacht the doctrine of Repentance before them and wrought great compunction of heart in many that heard him they were afflicted for their sins and grieved for the days that were past Then did the Son of God present himself to be baptized in Jordan In the midst of their contrition when their souls were filled with the desire of grace Then said I loe I come Poor People they began to know themselves in what miserable condition they were even sick unto death and when their bowels did yearn O is there none to deliver us Then steps in the peace of heaven and earth as who should say Is it I that you look for Is there any beside me that can cure your miseries Observe my beloved how pat the comfort of Salvation comes in after true repentance David said unto Nathan I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan said unto David in the same line The Lord also hath put away thy Sin As soon as ever Stephen was besmeared with the bloud of Martyrdom then he saw the heavens opened and Christ standing at the right hand of God And Repentance comes but thus short of Martyrdom that it fetcheth bloud from the soul and killeth the old man with his concupiscence When tears of godly sorrow trickle down or at such time as compunction hath a bleeding heart within though the eyes be dry without then it hath an imaginary vision that it sees the Son of God making intercession for us to his Father and beckoning with his right hand to our wounded conscience that we should be comforted No man can ever say he languisht long in desire to obtain Gods grace and could not find it Let Mary Magdalen weep and wring her hands that Christ is taken away and if she turn about glad woman she shall perceive how near he is unto her He was born indeed at Bethlehem Angelis cantantibus when the Angels of heaven did sing for joy But being lost as it were to the knowledge of the world for a long space at the end of thirty years he manifests himself again hominibus plorantibus when men were broken in heart with Mortification and Repentance at the preaching of John Then cometh Jesus from Galilee c. Secondly The austerity of Johns life and the divinity of his preaching did amuze the world therefore the Priests and Levites sent to him from Jerusalem to know if he were the Christ Joh. i. 19. And another Evangelist says all the people were in suspence in their hearts whether John were the Christ Luke iii. 15. Now at this instant that the servant might no longer rob the
volume of thy book it is written of me that I should fulfill thy Law then said I loe I come 2. He fulfilled the Moral Law not only by giving it the right interpretation but by exact obedience whereupon he said Which of you can accuse me of sin 3. He gave life to the Ceremonies pointing to their true meaning as instead of the Circumcision of the flesh exhorting to the Circumcision of the heart 4. Whereas the judicial Law of the Jews did mention temporary and corporeal rewards and punishments Christ changed that stile of speech into spiritual and eternal No doubt but Christ did fulfil all righteousness for he came not to do his own will but the will of his Father his justice was multiformous in all the actions of his life from his Cratch to his Cross yet my Text says that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus by receiving Baptism by that one act fulfil all righteousness I know not one bad interpretation upon that Point which is rare among Expositors to be so divers in their judgments and yet all allowable One says it is meant quoad inchoationem justitiae that so it behoved him to begin the course of righteousness That was but one act of his humility but the first wherein he did manifest obedience So Baptism is the first step that we make into the Church of Christ therefore because light was the first thing that God made among his visible Creatures and Baptism is the first of his spiritual graces it hath ever been called in the Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the illumination of a Christian it is the day of inauguration when we first claim right unto our title of the Kingdom because we are adopted the Sons of God Surely the ordinary gloss conceits the words otherwise but very profitably Righteousness is either Legal which consists in an exact obedience to all the Commandments of God Or else Evangelical which knows Salvation is not attained unto by the works of the Law but thus Repent and believe and thou shalt obtain remission of sins therefore Christ speaking in the person of us who are his members says to John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus must we fulfil all righteousness by calling upon men to repent and be baptized in the true faith and their sins shall be covered and blessed is that man or righteous is that man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin This was the Doctrine taught in the Church every where three hundred years past and more Omnis justitia impletur ex gratiâ All our righteousness is fulfilled through grace and not through works Ut nullus ex operibus neque ex arbitrio glorietur they are the words of the gloss to the end that none may boast of works or in the power of his own free will but acknowledge himself guilty of damnation and obnoxious to the dreadful justice of God let us fly to that grace which freely washeth away our sins Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness Chemnitius makes this apprehension of the Text. Christ did omit no means to reconcile us to his Father that we might be justified before him and this he brought to pass two principal ways 1. When he gave himself an Oblation upon the Cross to take away our sins 2. When he did institute the means and instruments to apply that meritorious satisfaction unto us on this wise therefore he did fulfil righteousness by sanctifying the Sacrament unto us which is the especial medium to apply the righteousness of faith to every one that shall be saved Another and the last sense of this word that likes me also consists in these terms By receiving this Sacrament of Baptism we are tied as far as we are able to fulfil all righteousness It behoveth them that profess the true Faith to keep themselves undefiled from the world and to be holy unto the Lord. As Rachel cried out to Jacob Give me children or else I die so a sincere faith cries out unto the conscience Let me bring forth good works or else I shall be a dying faith and altogether unprofitable Do we make void the Law through faith Says St. Paul God forbid yea we establish the Law Rom. iii. 31. So it appears how righteousness buds forth from Baptism our conscience being watred with the heavenly dew of that Sacrament it makes us fruitful with good works Sed in istôc nequaquam sunt omnia will some man say Will that serve instead of all righteousness For our Saviour saith Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness God gave the word great was the company of Interpreters and his Spirit is in them all You shall hear the several consolations which they pick out from hence 1. To be a perfect teacher and a perfect doer of Gods will these are Tabor and Hermon the two fruitful hills upon which the blessing of the Lord descends To be a Teacher and not to do well is very bad like Hophni and Phinehas those dissolute Priests who polluted the holy Sacrifice To do well and not to teach is laudable and good but it is not excellent for to be an instructer and a doer is a degree of perfection beyond it Omne tulit punctum it is more blessed to give instruction than to receive therefore our Saviour was abundant in both Praeivit in exemplo quod verbo docuit He did lead the way of obedience by example and afterward did preach it to the people Blessed is he therefore that is not only a teacher but a doer of the word this is to fulfil all righteousness 2. Suum cuique there are but three heads from whence all justice is distributed and they may be drawn out of this Baptism for by receiving Baptism we are obedient to the institution of God we provide a salutiferous medicine for our own soul and by letting our light shine before men we do edifie our brother But to render that which is due to God to our own soul to our brother is to be perfect in every line of justice therefore in the universality Christ might say thus he did fulfil all righteousness 3. Says St. Austin Quid est impleatur omnis justitia Impleatur omnis humilitas The Son of God had this meaning how he fulfilled all righteousness because he condescended to the lowest step of humility for there are these three fallings as I may say one lower than another To be subject to a Superiour and not to prefer himself before an equal is justitia sufficiens sufficient humility and no want To be subject to an equal and not to prefer himself before an inferiour is justitia abundans that is not only justice enough but large and abundant humility but to be subject to an inferiour yea the most mighty God to be subject in Baptism to his Creature this is justitia perfectissima most perfect lowliness none can submit it self more and thus indeed to make the pride of base man to blush who
Saints but would not have them forget Zeal Ne dolum habeas in columba demonstratum est ne simplicitas frigida remaneat in igne demonstratum est Guile and circumvention are to be banisht from Christianity if the Dove sit upon your head it will instill simplicity but simplicity may be chil and faint in a good cause therefore if a Pillar of fire sit upon your head it will infuse fervency There was no fire wanting in Stephen the Martyr when he did asperse the Jews with all manner of disdainful reproaches because they were stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart There was no Dove-like simplicity wanting because he prayed for them that stoned him And so far of the second point how aptly the Spirit came like a Dove upon Christ at his Baptism in cloven tongues and in fire upon the Apostles at the Feast of Whitsontide The conclusion of the Text rests now upon this Point that the figure of the Dove sweetly doth admonish us concerning many properties of the Holy Ghost It sate upon Christs head not to enrich him with any heavenly treasure which he wanted before but to derive the manifold issues of sanctification into our heart Solus injuriis se subdidit Dominus sed solus gratiam non quaesivit says St. Ambrose all manner of ignominies and buffetings all manner of injuries upon the Cross our Lord and Saviour took them to himself alone but the coming down of the Spirit that he took not to himself alone I will pray unto the Father and he will send you another Comforter Open your heart wide therefore and this Dove will fill it A dumb creature ye know and may signifie many things and because I am perswaded the Holy Ghost came down in that shape which had the largest number of significations for the advancement of piety therefore I will hold me to my task to collect all that are profitable and omit none And because it bears a similitude which will increase into many applications I will enter upon that occasion first therefore it is animal foecundum it is a bird of a most teaming fertility and whether any bird that flies doth breed oftner I am not certain I believe not many such fecundity there is always in a lively faith Like the trees of Eden always bearing fruit never without some good work either the tongue is praying or the ear is hearing or the heart is meditating or the eye is weeping or the hand is giving or the soul is thirsting for remission of sins and every pious action is like a Pomgranate in Aarons garment full of kernels to betoken it will seed farther and spread in infinitum This is faiths fertility therefore the Spirit harboured himself in the shape of a Dove Secondly The Gall is the drought of cholerical matter in mans body out of that distemper proceed anger revenge and malice but the Dove hath no gall or if Aristotle hath observed it better than others so small a one that it can scarce be perceived So the Spirit loves to inhabit in a mild and gentle soul without wrath and fury The wrath of man worketh not the will of God for his will is mercy and forgiveness The Dove will intreat for Miriam as Moses did and sheild off the revenge of David from Nabals folly as Abigail did and crave pardon of Philemon for his fugitive servant Onesiphorus as Paul did The bruised reed shall not be broken and the smoaking flax shall not be quenched therefore when James and John called for fire from heaven upon the Samaratans their check was Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of as who should say ye have forgot the coming down of the Dove Thirdly The harmlesness of that bird is notable it hath neither beak nor talons to tyrannize over smaller Creatures Sine armis extra sine felle intus the smallest flies or gnats may hum about it and take no harm for it devours nothing wherein there is life There is not I dare pronounce it a more Saint-like ornament in any Christian than a Dove-like innocency Devour not one another by greedy gaining by racking oppression by strict advantages by extortion by treacherous blind informations He that wrongfully fleeceth his neighbour of all his substance to increase his own store would eat the flesh likewise from his brothers arm like a savage Cannibal if he wanted sustenance The spoyls which you have robb'd from others perhaps they shall be found upon thy back at the dreadful hour of judgment but wil our Saviour say thou didst not learn this thou extortioner from the Dove that sate upon me Fourthly The Dove feeds cleanly not upon Carrion like Vultures Corvi de morte pascuntur Crows peck upon dead carkasses but it picks up grains of corn and the purest fruits of the field Me thinks in this propertie I see the Spirit invite us to the Table of the Lord What corn-food so pure as that which our Saviour brake and gave to his Disciples saying Take eat this is my body Non hoc corpus quod crucifigetur c. not as St. Austin glosseth my very body which shall be crucified and my very bloud which shall be spilt that was the gross understanding of the sapernaits to think our Saviour meant his fleshly body The Dove is no devourer of that fleshly body of Christ which he assumed from the Virgin Mary but it satisfies its spiritual hunger with those pure crums of bread which are the Sacrament of his body Fifthly It is impossible to teach a Dove to sing a chearful tune for nature hath ingrafted in it a solemn mourning Gemitus pro cantu and it is the Spirit that puts compunction into our spirit with groans unutterable Sometime hang up the Harps of mirth and sit down and weep You never read that God will honour your joy in his eternal remembrance you are sure he will not forget your mourning says David Psal lvi 8. Thou tellest my slittings put my tears into thy bottle are not these things noted in thy book Yea not only doth he bear them in mind and keep them in register but if some Interpreters erre not he wears them upon his head Cant. v. 2 My head is filled with dew says Christ and my locks with the drops of the night as if he wore our tears says the Paraphrast like drops of Pearl upon his head Dry eyes and unrelenting hearts are the curse of God Ezek. xxiv 23. Ye shall not mourn nor weep but ye shall pine away for your iniquities Sixthly The Holy Ghost useth the wings of Angels the wings of the wind the wings of the Dove a bird of strong flight for the Spirit is swift in operation what he doth he doth it quickly Nescit tarda molimina Abraham ran forth to meet the Angels that drew to his Tent Sarah made ready quickly three measures of fine meal Abrahams young man ran to the Herd to fetch a Calf tender and good Nemo piger est
and harmless to him and at last he was fain to tell the men of the Land that they were metamorphosed into beasts and into the worst kind of all O ye Generations of vipers c. Son of man says God to Ezekil thou dwellest among Scorpions But Son of God thou didst die and wert crucified among Scorpions he changed for the worser company when he came from the beasts in the champion fields to the Pharisees in Jerusalem But to what a diminution of his excellency did Christ descend To what a low fall from that glory which was due unto him To be cast out from among the company of Angels into a desart to be a companion of beasts He before whom thousand thousands are said to minister and ten thousand thousands are said to stand before him Dan. vii 10. Instead of this Royal Train none but the savage cattel compass him round about His humility is the expiation of our pride he consorts with beasts that we may have fellowship with Angels He lives peaceably with Wolves and Tygers to obtain grace for us through the merit of his obedience that our brutish affections may be subject to reason and to the Law of God So St. Hierom made me bold with this Allegory Tunc bestiae nobiscum sunt cum caro non concupiscit adversus spiritum Then we and the beasts live quietly together when the Flesh doth not covet against the Spirit None of these descants which I have drawn from the best antiquity upon Christs removing into the Wilderness but were fit to be noted I have my own share to cast in that herein Christ was a lively exhibition of the Type of the Scape Goat of which you shall read a strange Ceremony Lev. xvi 20. The High Priest was not to come at all times into the holy place within the Vail no more than once a year First he was to offer a Bullock for a sin-offering for himself then he was to present two Kids of the Goats before the Lord at the door of the Tabernacle according as the lot fell the one Goat was slain and his bloud sprinkled within the Vail As for the other this Ceremony was appointed Aaron put both his hands upon the head of the live Goat and did confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel over him and did put them upon the head of the Goat and the Goat did bear away their Iniquities into a Land not inhabited and he was let go into the Wilderness The Learned in their best conjectures do expound it after this sort in an Allegory By the Goat which was slain and sacrificed they understand the Humane Nature of Christ for Christ suffered only in his flesh By the Scape-goat they understand his Divine Nature for according to his Divinity he could not die he could not be crucified and yet it was the infinite value of that nature that bore away all our Iniquities For as God could not suffer for sin so man alone could not satisfie for sin Thus by very good Analogy our Saviour Christ is the Scape-goat upon whose head we laid all our sins And the better to give light to this Mystery he was really sent into the Wilderness in my Text to put us in mind that the Goat which was sent away into a Land uninhabited was a Type of him and therefore St. Mark speaks of a violent expulsion Expulit eum in desertum The Spirit did drive him into the Wilderness A little spoken concerning these Typical shadows will quickly rise to enough I come to that Doctrine which is aptest to conclude the first general part of my Text how Christ made himself often a stranger to this world and shewed it by retiring unto unfrequented places Quasi in mundo extra mundum ageret says one as if he minded another world much more when he lived in this His flesh was not ill pampered or fatned for sin and yet he fasted His integrity was untaintable ill examples could not seduce him the viciousness of the age could not infect him yet he drew back sometimes from those scandalous contagions as if he had said to one of us or to every one of us give thy soul such respite sometimes that it may abandon all earthly cares for a time and have leisure to talk with God As Christ invites his Church from the empestring of multitudes of people and secular businesses Come my beloved let us go forth into the field let us lodge in the Villages Cant. vii 11. We had need of longer Vacations than Terms more rest to serve God than stirring days to enrich our selves that we may ask God forgiveness at leisure for the sins which we did commit in our business Come ye apart into a desart place and rest awhile says our Saviour to his Disciples Mar. vi 31. All cannot receive this saying you will say all have not the way and opportunity to retire themselves bodily from the conflux of the world but there is a way for every man that his mind may pluck it self out of the throng and adhere to God So St. Cyprian bears off all objections from this exhortation Etsi omnes diversorium non excipiat loci animi tamen omnino necessaria est solitudo All men cannot cast the World behind their back and go alone into remote places but it is necessary for the heart of every man to say often my God and I am alone together I am solitary with him often in the midst of troubles God hath made man a sociable creature if the contagion of the world doth not make him unsociable Who can live with patience or comfort where he sees the Creator of Heaven and Earth dishonoured daily No reverence in the lips of children but swearing and prophanation No faithfulness in mens words but deceit and guile The trust of Guardians turn'd to supplantation the league of Friendship turn'd to treachery the bond of Wedlock so impiously so often wronged in Adultery Whom can the Living trust for righteous dealing Whom can the dying trust for an upright Executor What good man doth not feel the passions of Lot within himself at the recital of these things His soul vext with the filthy conversation of the Sodomites and therefore from thence he was glad to fly and retire to Zoar This made the Prophet Jeremy complain O ye that dwell in Moab leave the Cities and dwell in the Rock Chap. xlviii 28. Fuge seculi mare naufragium non timebis says St. Ambrose Sail away into some little streams and leave that Ocean of ungodliness which is in the most frequented places and ye shall not fear Shipwrack St. Basil extols it in the height of Gorgias the Martyr his praise that he left his native soil and all society and made the desolate woods his habitation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he detested the buyers and sellers the forswearers and liars I told you before that Eremitical solitariness was much in danger of tentation but one
possible for the Devil to understand how the union of the Godhead did determine that indifferency of the will only to good and did exempt it from all possibility or inclination to evil and the rage of malice dulling the sharpness of his intellectual parts he proceeds upon the Premises the second Person of Trinity is become flesh and born of a woman that in the same nature wherein mankind sinned they might be redeemed but if this fleshly nature could be contaminated with sin God would dissolve the Hypostatical Union and cast it off Dissolve the Union and he cannot be the Mediator between God and man and then the Sons of men shall be left without hope of redemption for ever And it may be the Devil had that foolish forecast in his mind when he stirred up Judas to betray him that by his death he might dissolve the union between his Godhead and our humane nature If any man will answer these Scholastical discourses and say the Devil hath no where revealed his own counsels I reply again we need not be ashamed of the modesty of St. John Rev. ii We have not known the depth of Satan but this one thing is not dubitable he would have tempted Christ to sin We can all easily discern the Devils deformity out of this Sermon what a grievous crime it was to sollicite God to do unjustly but what if this be our own fault many times dearly Beloved Will you not diligently amend it for the time to come When you see it is the blackest crime in the Devil 1. He that sweareth by the name of God and lies what doth he but implore the name of God to bear false witness to his Perjury Would man make God sin for his sake And is not man a Devil Again he that pretends he hath made a Vow unto the Lord and that his Vow constrains him to do some wicked thing doth he not make God the impulsive cause of his abomination Another prays for nothing more heartily than that the Lord will pour out his vengeance upon those whom he hates although they be innocent What is that else but to say Do thou kill that man for my sake who art a most just God whom it becomes not me to hurt that am a most wicked sinner And though we have not Satans opportunity to tempt Christ himself face to face yet remember that Kings are Gods Vicegerents upon earth and whosoever wrongs their ear with any corrupt communication or flattery he comes the nearest of any man to this sin in my Text to tempt God himself to evil Non ab acervo sed à semente furantur says Plutarch They that propound evil things to the Ruler of the People they do not steal from the Barn or from the Stack but from the seed-corn it self and by the Civil Law that is double thievery There are under parts likewise of this Tentation and certain insinuating ways to wriggle it in which are fit to be discovered First He closeth with Christ upon a most artificial obtestation If thou be the Son of God It is good Oratory you know to importune a man to do a thing by that which he will not for shame deny If you be an Israelite serve the Lord if Christ be your Master follow peace and humility These are deep adjurements So Satan turns this Rhetorick upon our Saviour If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread But Beloved be strong to resist these adjurations when they are turned upon you as stones of offence It is vulgar and trivial to cog a sin into a man with these lispings if you love me let me obtain this at your hands if you be my friend deny me not as you are a Gentleman refuse me not in this or another evil association retort such evil adjurements as these in the name of God I know no such sweetness in love and friendship as to serve God together in the unity of the same Spirit I know no such obligation upon the honour of a Gentleman as to keep a good conscience Sell not your soul away for a few fair words for which so dear a price was paid as the bloud of Christ What other device do you mark Why two in one word Command that these stones says Satan Mark what a great believer the Devil is turn'd it is in your power you can command it Nay it is in the Greek Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the word God made all things by the word of his power and you are that Word if you say it it is done As if he would profess such a faith as the Centurion was commended for dic verbo say the word and my servant shall be healed Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum I will not make a long Narration for the honour of Religion what mischiefs have been brought to pass by colour of Religion but I will tell you for a warning of such hypocrisie that as the curse of Jacob stuck close unto his Sons who made Circumcision their stratagem to kill the Sichemites so the curse of God shall stick close to them who cheat and betray and sow discords devour Widows houses make merchandise of holy things upon pretence of Sanctity For how is God abused by this fraudulency when he may truly say many sins are done which had never been committed if there had been no Religion in the World The other insinuation is the facility of doing it he perswades to that which is as easie as to breath speak but half a word and these stones are made bread Sin indeed is like suretiship it is an easie thing to get into bands but very troublesom to get out of them Facilis descensus Averni It is a wide gate and no rub in the way that leadeth to damnation but these foul actions which are so easie to wicked men that they cannot avoid them the Lord makes them very difficult to them that are regenerate and born again He hath set a watch before their lips so that they cannot speak the word which is dishonourable to his holy name or if they do speak it it is with much reluctancy and by this you shall know that heavenly grace is in your heart when you cannot do those things at all or at least with much unwillingness which the children of Satan do with great facility This touch and away for those three insinuations upon which the Devil did slide in his tentation Hitherto I have spoken upon no more but in general that the Prince of Devils attempted to make Christ a sinner And whereas his allurement in particular partly struck upon Gluttony partly or rather upon Infidelity how he urged unto Infidelity shall be deferred unto a larger explication and I will only add a few words upon his tentation to Gluttony before I conclude A marvellous subtil beginning he propounds nothing but that which nature necessarily calls for the most spiritual the most holy men in the
ingrafted into Christ by Baptism before they can perceive their insition and do not say this reason holds not in us we are of age to understand our own belief It is not our understanding that makes God gracious unto us but his own free mercy And in this respect many like new-born babes receive the kingdom of heaven I mean that divers go out of this World into Abrahams bosom who never overcome distrusts and tentations at least till they are even going out of the World But this charitable and most true assertion were invalid if particular application of Christs mercies by firm assurance did justifie a sinner I resolve it therefore unto you that general assent goes first in order that Christ perfect man and perfect God is the Saviour of all those that believe then we draw a particular assent that he is my God and my Saviour then our boldness and assurance that by him we shall pass from death and reign with him in glory is the effect of that particular assent and so the Scripture speaketh Eph. iii. 12. In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him Here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which causeth us to speak with alacrity to God here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may assure it self any thing and these are effects produced by faith in him that is by justifying faith Not to cloy you with more than one other quotation 1 Tim. iii. 13. They purchase themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus The object of faith is verum the object of certitude and assurance is bonum Faith is a perswasion or assurance of the mind though working upon the heart Affiance is an affection of the heart though proceeding from the assurance of the mind Now hear the fourth Conclusion speak This affiance or special assurance is not alike in all that are justified nor at all times alike in any man This Conclusion will serve to quiet the troubles of the Conscience two ways First When the same man at sundry times finds himself so divers from himself now full of spiritual Consolation a few days after that his comfort is but luke-warm at another season almost stark cold let no man think his case remediless because of these alterations in his Spirit Many times doubts will arise and continue long with a terrible perplexity Nevertheless though I am sometime afraid yet put I my trust in thee says Dauid Psal lvi 11. When these flat contrary perswasions come into your mind yet God will never leave you so destitute of his grace but that you shall have some strength left to pray to be delivered out of those tentations that the bones which he hath broken may rejoyce and a happy wading out of those doubts may prove to be the greater confirmation The spirit of a good man is sometimes well enlightned with assurance sometime a little obscured sometime very dark after there shall be a long and a lasting serenity in his Conscience As a woman that hath newly conceived begins to suspect her conception by and by some other signs cast into her mind that she is deluded Afterwards she feels the fruit of her womb quicken and then her opinion is constantly confirmed Faith after the manner of alterative qualities hath its growth its declension its reparation It grows to an infancy then to youthfulness then to a stronger age and the more it lays hold of the Promise for its own blessing the more it cleaves fast to the foundation Besides this should procure them peace of mind who cannot alledge that great confidence for their own part and strength of assurance that others seem to challenge to themselves yea and truly have Every tree doth not shoot out his root so far as another and yet may be firm in the ground and live as well as that whose root is largest So every faith stretcheth not forth the arms of particular assurance to embrace Christ alike and yet it may be a true faith that lives by charity repentance and good works some faith abounds with one sort of fruits some with another God is delighted with all that are good and he will reward them In all kind of Divine Conclusions some are more doubtful spirited than others In our very meats one believeth that he may eat all things another eateth herbs Rom. xiv One man esteemeth one day above another another esteemeth all days alike Let not him that is strong in faith despise him that is weak So one hath examined himself is perswaded especially by his good endeavours to please the Lord and by the redemption of Christs bloud which he felt effectual in him in the Sacraments rests every way assured that Christ will glorifie him at his second appearance Another dares not take such solid comfort for he is more oppressed with tentations more afflictions come upon him and chiefly perhaps ignorance darkens his understanding give this man leave to say and he shall be heard Lord I believe help thou my unbelief Because I said that ignorance especially darkens the understanding of them that are so weak in faith you shall know wherein Many are pluckt back from particular affiance in Christ because they know not the method how to proceed For they are taught that nothing is to be believed with the certainty of faith unless it be contained in the Creed or in holy Scripture but they cannot find this or that mans Salvation written there therefore they are posed how to apprehend it with the certainty of faith I make my answer First how easie it is to reduce it to one of the Articles of the Creed or more than one but especially to this that we believe the forgiveness of sins But to the main Objection all the Doctrine of Faith which we believe is written or deduced out of holy Scripture but the act wherewith we believe is in our selves and not to be lookt for in Paper and Ink No but that is wrot in our own hearts through the testimony of the Spirit by good examination Now the Major Proposition is Whosoever believeth stedfastly shall be saved in Scripture The Minor Proposition but I believe stedfastly is wrote by the Spirit in our own heart therefore the Conclusion is divine and good And because it dependeth upon an Argument whereof the principal part which draws on all the rest is totally and immediately revealed in Scripture therefore the assurance of a mans particular Justification is lawfully reduced to the assurance and certainty of Faith Another fair pretence causeth divers men rather to leave place in themselves for some distrust than to aim at strong assurance because it relisheth much more of humility to be cast down at the recognition of our manifold sins Indeed it is good to ponder our own unworthiness and imbecillity so far as to make us humble and to acknowledge no good can come to us from any thing that is in our selves but it
followed Remigius in this fancy for it delivers that the Devil took him up to a place which had been often infected with vain-glory In Cathedrâ doctorum multos deceperat inanis gloria many of the Pharisaical Doctors who sate in the Chair of Moses to teach the people loved the praise of men more than the praise of God and were infected with vain-glory But this opinion will quickly vanish when it is rationally opposed For the Pulpit out of which Solomon prayed and left it for the use of teaching was but five Cubits high above the people and it was within the outward part of the Temple and it was fit to be no higher that the voice of the Teacher might come clearly to the Auditory But surely the place from whence our Saviour was egg'd to take his leap was an exceeding Altitude And I find that the height of the Temple was one hundred and twenty Cubits 2 Chron. iii. 4. There is no probability that their Rabbins sate so far aloft above their Auditory to preach unto them I think the second Temple wanted sixty of that till Herod finished it with Altitude and Glory Others having look'd upon exact delineations of the Temple deliver that the Roof of the Temple was built flat after the manner of all the Jewish buildings and as all private houses were commanded by the Law to have a Battlement about them to keep them from danger that walk'd upon the top of the Tarras so the Temple had a Battlement about it adorned in several spaces which perhaps were made like Wings and call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Pinacles How those Battlements were capable for Christ to stand upon they describe not but I am sure according to Josephus no man could set his foot upon the flat Roof of the Temple Quod aureis verubus horrebat acutissimis ne ab insidentibus avibus pollueretur says he it was stuck thick with gilded Spires as sharp as Needles that the birds of the Air might not mewte upon it and defile it We Christians dare do all unseemliness against the Walls of our Churches no reverence of the place will deter us but the Jews were so careful that they would not endure the Fowls of the Air should lay their dung upon the top of the Sanctuary Thirdly others draw out Models of the Temple having at each corner lofty Spires higher than all the rest I know not whether David alludes to them when he speaks of Polished corners of the Temple Psal cxliv. 12. and upon one of these I think in best propriety of phrase and matter Jesus was placed as upon an Altitude conspicuous to all the City though as I told you before our Saviour declin'd that intention of Satans and made himself invisible The observations from hence shall be two First that the Devil chooseth the highest place he could find And secondly the most divine place of all where to pitch the ground of his tentation Upon the first I mean not so much the local elevation of the place to which I could add that Satan loves to ascend on high to build up a sin as high as Babel and that David was aloft walking on the house-top when he fell into unlawful love with Bathsheba let this pass for as great sins may be practised in the lowest corners of the earth but I mean after the figurative Exposition of the Fathers they that have clambered up to some high Pinacle of Fortune they whom God hath made eminent in any gifts of Art or Nature let them take heed that Satan stand not at their right hand to puff them up with Arrogancy If you despise those whom you see beneath you whether it be a Pinacle of the Kingdom or a Pinacle of the Temple upon which you stand remember by that mark that you must needs come thither of the Devils setting Many that have designs upon promotion think the bird is catcht when they are advanced they are as sure as a Ship in the Haven which need fear no tossing when if they understood their own condition well it concerns them to be more vigilant of themselves and of their affections than ever The wiliness of the Tempter hath made it as hard a thing to moderate a great fortune Servare modum rebus sublata secundis as it is to guide a Ship Royal under all the Sails Therefore St. Austin said upon my Text Non est laus stetisse in pinnaculo sed stetisse non cecidisse It is no such cunning thing to stand upon a Pinacle but to stand sure and not fall there is the cunning The Historian says true many were thought fit to govern till they were trusted with Government for this evil Angel hath such inveterate malice against all those that bear rule and title that it is very rare to find a man so well affected to Gods glory to the Church to the publick good when he sits at the Stern to govern as when he was a private man Divers that had true hearts to all good purposes when they stood upon the same level with the common people are quite metamorphosed by that time they get up to the top of a Pinacle Satan passed them over in the throng but he joyns close to them when they are exalted S. Pauls was a rare temper and to be found but among men of most divine graces that could stand safe any where and not pollute his conscience I know both how to be abased and how to abound Phil. iv 12. God is very abundant in his mercies to endue some with that spirit that they are as humble as just as conscionable upon a lofty Pinacle as upon the lowest Pavement But more usually those Potentates whom the Scripture records have fallen into the snares of destruction Joab was resolved he could not be great enough without the fall of Abner nor Naaman but by pretence of Idolatry nor Sanballat but by hindring the work of the Temple nor Felix but by Bribery no nor Nicodemus himself but by some dissimulation If every good Saint hath his Angel Guardian as certainly every honourable Magistrate hath an evil Angel of hostility to oppugn him every high Pinacle hath his Satan Lastly Observe how the wicked One would pollute no common place but the very house of God he setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple Many times when a City is taken by the enemy some strong Castle or Fort holds out which is not won so easily The Church is Gods Castle his Tower of defence against all spiritual iniquities and Satan would not only take possession of the holy City but of the best Fortress which God held in it and brings Christ to be tempted upon the top of the Temple All places are pervious unto him he is shut out of none you shall find him says Chrysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Exchange of Merchants upon the Bench of Judges in the Temple of the Priests And above all places on earth if he
make us his instruments to defile the holy Temple Gods glory is put to the greatest scandal and reproach And this is brought to pass so many ways that it is plain to see there hath been a most witty complotter in the treachery 1. When any Prelate is so puft up that he thinks himself too great to be a door-keeper in Gods house but will be higher than all the Church and seâ— on the top of the Pinacle who sitting in the Temple of God exalts himself above all that is called God 2. The Temple is defiled by setting up Idols in the Courts of our heavenly King even in the midst of thee O thou Sanctuary of the Lord. 3. By offering up unclean Sacrifice either false Doctrine or impious Prayers or superstitious Worship or corrupted Sacraments 4. When men set their foot within the sacred Tabernacle with carnal thoughts with worldly imaginations with no zeal or attention 5. To bring any prophane work any secular business within those walls which are consecrated to the name of the Lord. This is that Camel which the Jewish Priests did swallow when they strained at a Gnat. For they told our Saviour that he brake the Sabbath he did not keep the Law but they themselves did licence and allow the prophanation of the Temple by bringing Merchandize into it selling of Sheep and Oxen and changing money and you know how Christ revenged it even with anger and indignation I must borrow time to tell you how Christ did bestir himself in the reformation of that abuse more than in any thing else throughout all the Gospel For first he corrected that fault twice over in the second of St. Johns Gospel in the beginning of his Ministry and Mat. xxi toward the end of his life anon before he suffered You see what an obstinate evil it was which would not be redressed for one admonition 2. When he came to Jerusalem there were many other faults flagrant crimes wherewith the place abounded yet the first thing he reformed was the abuse of the Temple 3. He would not tolerate the least prophanation wink at no fault for he would not permit that any should carry so much as a Vessel through the Temple Mar. xi 16. 4. He reformed this trespass not only by preaching and quoating Scripture against it but by a scourge and by violence by word and deed And surely if words will not serve God will bring blows to maintain the reverence of his house that it be not contemned What a dissolute carriage it is to see a man step into a Church and neither veil his head nor bend his knee nor lift up his hands or eyes to heaven Who dwels there I pray you that you are so familiar in the house Could you be more saucy in a Tavern or in a Theater This is no other but the very gate of heaven says Jacob when he had but a vision of God and his Angels Brethren renounce the Devil let him not alienate your reverence from that place which God hath specially appointed for the saving of your soul Holiness becometh thine house for ever O holy blessed and glorious Trinity AMEN THE ELEVENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 6. And saith unto him If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down For it is written He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone IT is altogether unknown to man when a sin comes merely from the suggestion of his own heart and when it comes from the tentation of the Devil But in one case eminently above many others it is most likely that there is some hellish provocation when out of good principles and religious grounds our heart is quite turned out of the way to rebell against the Lord. Ely the High Priest had a tender fatherly affection Who could turn this wholsom water into poyson to make him wink at the vices and dissoluteness of his Sons but Satan David was a thankful Prince and loved to remember how God had multiplied his favours upon him yet upon this stock grew that evil fruit to number the people Why the Text says Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel King Josias was an enemy to the Heathen that knew not God and he that deludes good motions made him so irreconcilable that he would fight against Pharaoh Necho to his own destruction and harkened not to the word which came from the mouth of God Certainly the hand of Joab was in this and in all such fallacies where a good fountain is made to send forth sweet waters and bitter as to sin because grace abounds to neglect publick Prayer because faith comes by hearing to cark and care too much for the world because a man would provide for his Posterity And this master-wit of Hell laid this bait to make our Saviour swallow it in this present tentation For Christ being demanded to make bread of stones he replies that he was confident in his Fathers Promises Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Are you so confident Thinks the Tempter and upon this confidence I will thrust you on Have you appeal'd to Cesar And to Cesaer you shall go It is true that you say God is very gracious and will not destitute you in any want or danger you have answered very well therefore cast your self down from this Pinacle and be confident still God will look to it that you shall be supported This is the very train discovered and made as clear unto you as the light of the Sun In the former tentation he would drive Christ to unlawful means if that take not because he trusts in God then trust in him still and refrain from the use of things lawful so St. Austin distinguisheth that his first fallacy was Deum defuturum ubi promisit that God would not help where he had promised to assist and the second fallacy which now I am to handle is Deum adfuturum ubi non promisit that God would help where he had not promised to assist Where many things are to be found out in one verse they must be divided severally and in this order I take it to be expedient 1. Here is Satans demand Cast thy self down 2. Upon what supposition he demands it Why if thou be the Son of God 3. Upon what authority authority enough for it is written 4. Upon what assistance why the best in the world whether it is the supreme or the instrumental The supremeis God He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and the instrumental are the most glorious powerful and excellent creatures in all the world the whole Host of Angels in their hands they shall bear thee lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone These are such particulars as the wisdom of the Spirit hath left us
glory Put thy fear into us all that we do not crucifie our Lord anew by Blasphemies by Vncharitableness by an Impenitent heart lest we be brought into the bondage of sin lest our heart wax gross and want understanding lest we lose thy favour as thine own Israel did upon earth lest we lose the light of thy countenance in heaven for ever O Lord hear us and be merciful to us for his sake who died upon the Cross c. THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE PASSION JOHN xix 34. But one of the Souldiers with a Spear pierced his side and forthwith came there out Bloud and Water WE cannot meddle with any part of our Saviours Body this day but we shall touch a wound and the greatest of them all without controversie is this in my Text. Thomas might put a finger in where the nails had entred but where the Spear had opened his side Christ bad him thrust in his hand Of Evils be sure to choose the least as David did but of Blessings such were all the wounds of Christs Passion wisdom without art will lead our meditations to the greatest And as Lot chose the Plain of Jordan to dwell there before all the Land of Canaan besides because it had variety of Springs of waters so this wound was the moistest and had the most plentiful issue of all the five it gushed out into two streams of blood and water I have not found such a passage in the Meditations of the Ancients that they came to drink at the hands or feet of Christ although the bloud trickled down from them also But it is usual with them in their Allegories to speak unto their Soul as if they laid their mouth unto the side of our Lord and did draw at it for the Fountain of everlasting life Did they suppose said I that they laid their lips there Nay Bernard could not satisfie his desire till he found a way to lay his heart upon the place and at length thus he hit upon it he believed as he had received that this Souldiers Spear entred at the right side of our Saviour Now says he that Elisha stretcht his living Body upon the dead Corps of the Child to raise it again to life it is a figure that Christ should apply his Body to our body which is dead in sin that it might live unto God his mouth which bled with buffeting upon our mouth that hath been full of deceit and bitterness his brows enameld with the pricks of thorns upon our heads which have contrived mischief and malice his hands which were riveted with nails upon ours that they may be washt in innocency his feet upon ours that have trod in the crooked ways of the Serpent then the Orifice of this Wound laying his right side to our left shall ly directly upon our heart and cure that part which disperseth iniquity to all the body The other three Evangelists exact in most circumstances of the Passion have all omitted this violence done to the dead Body of Christ surely had they wrote like meer men you might have thought the long story of these sufferings to be so lamentable that they could not for very compassion draw it quite out to an end John says in the next verse that he saw it done and that he knows he speaks the truth Amatus amans vulnera Domini the beloved Disciple that loved the wounds of his Master and would not let one of them be unrecorded this is the last wound that the Son of God received and therefore it is recorded by the last Evangelist The whole Story is comprized in this one verse and it will yield us these two points the malice of the living and the blessing that came from the dead The malicious action conteins four circumstances 1. Who was that evil person who did offer ignominy to the Body of Christ one of the Souldiers 2. What was the violence he offered he pierced him with a spear 3. Upon what part of his Body this fury did light upon his side 4. When he smote him you shall find by the thirtieth verse when he had given up the ghost In the second general branch which is the blessing that came from the dead there is the mystical opening of the Fountain of life wherein I consider first the two streams severally Bloud and Water 2. Their Conjunction Bloud and Water together 3. Their Order first Bloud and then Water 4. The Readiness of the Fountain that gushed out the stream could not be stopped no not for a minute forthwith there came out Bloud and Water Of these in their order Vnus militum one of the Souldiers did a despiteful fact upon the Body of Christ The Romans having the whole Nation of the Jews under their subjection at this time did gratifie them notwithstanding in many things to prevent rebellion and to satisfie their Law which forbids their dead to hang upon a tree after Sun-set lest the Land should be defiled Pilate gave them leave to take away the Bodies this day crucified from the Cross Wherefore to dispatch the Malefactors that they might be taken down two Thieves had their legs broken in whom there was life remaining It seems the chief Centurion would not be more rigid than the Law to do any further despite to Christ when he was dead already yet the cracking of his bones to splinters was the chief thing the Jews intended but one of the Souldiers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certainly says the Father for a fee to please the people thrust a spear into his side I doubt me that those who delighted in war bore no good will unto our Saviour His birth was destinated by providence unto the days of peace his Name was the Prince of Peace his Doctrin was utterly against the Sword qui gladium sumpserit gladio ferietur now see what comes of it when he is faln into the hands of Souldiers Joab and the mighty men of the Camp were all for Adoniah and all against Solomon Adoniah was like to live in the field as his Father David had done but Solomon's hand must spill no blood that it may build up a Temple The Emperor Probus let a word of meekness slip from him equus nascetur ad pacem he hoped to have horses brought up to do service in peace and not in war and the Captains of the Host cut short his dayes and so it far'd with the great Preacher of Peace Christ had as good be guarded by one of the Pharisees as by one of the Souldiers As Aristotle said of Bees and Swallows Nec feri sunt generis nec mansueti they were neither reckoned among those creatures that were wild nor those that were tame but of a middle sort Such was the condition of these Spear-men somewhat ruder than civil men somewhat tamer than Savages but violent in their disposition as they are pleased or provoked Yet I am not of Tertullian's mind to
the wrath to come behold a door is opened in the side that you may enter in You that want and have any thing to wish this is the beautiful gate of the Temple lie down here and ask your Alms. One said of our Saviours hands Non possunt claudi ad beneficia quia in cruce fixae apertae sunt Benefits must drop from them they cannot keep close because they were opened upon the Cross So in his side a gate is made that will never be closed against thee Thomas found it open and so shall I. You have heard of the Marriage of the Lamb and that his Beloved hath made her self ready Behold the time when he made a Wife unto himself and when the Marriage was celebrated For as Adam was cast into an heavy sleep and then God opened his side and made woman out of the man while he slept So says St. Austin Christ bowed down his head as if he did but nod and sleep upon the Cross the side of the Bridegroom was then opened that with bloud and water he might make a Spouse unto himself which is the body of his Church Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse says Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast ravished my heart as if we had not robb'd him of his bloud but of his very heart so infinitely is he enamoured upon the salvation of his Saints Vulnerasti cor meum that interpretation goes current with the Fathers thou hast wounded my heart my Sister my Spouse thou hast wounded my heart Twice wounded you see His enemies did wound him and so did his Beloved There is a carnal wound which was done by the violence of the Souldier there is a spiritual wound which he suffers for compassion of his Elect. Woe worth their malice that rent the wound in his flesh blessed be his own mercies which made a spiritual wound of love in his heart Why was thy side wounded O mirrour of sufferance when head and feet and hands and every part of thy body had suffered before Me thinks He answers because he would teach us throughly to crucifie the old man in our sinful flesh It is not enough to look to thy feet and thy paths It is not enough to set a watch before thy lips to make a Covenant with thine eyes Open thy heart dive into the depth of it there thou shalt find the root of evil and concupiscence St. Basil reasons seriously why our Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount Mat. v. was more earnest to repress the inward corruption of concupiscence in the heart than the outward disordered actions As for outward sin says the Father it cannot be done without attendance of circumstances opportunity and time of execution and yoke-fellows to draw on iniquity with Cartropes and bodily labour But the evil thought of the heart is still born without noise it is conceived with less labour than breathing it is fruitful at all seasons it betrays not a demure look then it boots not to crucifie and afflict and subdue the whole body unless the grace of God pierce into the bottom of our heart But let me ask again and it is sweet to question it Why was thy side wounded O blessed Jesus Was it not to shew that thou didst not love us in tongue and in word only but at the very heart John the Disciple did but lean upon his breast and yet he carries the title away from them all Discipulus amatus the Disciple whom he loved The breast was shut when John did lean upon it now his side is opened his Elect may go into his very bowels and see how he loved them The Use is proper for the place we are in for the world slanders the Court much or else there is more protestation of good will than sound affection among you Court holy water is an ancient by-word your consciences know best whether you deserve it God and his Christ have given you a most notable example to amend it It was not enough for our Saviour to stretch out his hands as if he would embrace us nor yet to pray earnestly and forgive us but to shew what the love of a Christian should be to a Christian he suffered the precious Casket to be broken open and let us see his heart Yea I will ask but this once why was thy side pierced and opened O sweet Redeemer Was it to set up a mark for our devotion That we may lay our mouth spiritually at it and suck at the fountain of eternal life Thomas touched it with his hand and it proved to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a demonstration for belief O taste and try how sweet the Lord is Let us be called dogs such dogs as the Canaanitish woman was full of faith so we may lick these wounds as the dogs did the sores of Lazarus Constantine the Emperour kissed the hollow pit of Paphnusius eye kissed it often which had been plucked out for the profession of the Gospel The Jaylor washed the stripes of Paul and Silas The wounds of them that suffer for the name of Christ are the wounds of Christ himself let them be more honourable to us than the most unspotted beauty in the world To end this Point We read of blessed souls under the throne of God there they are safe and happy we read of Lazarus in Abrahams bosome there he found refreshment But I even I says Bernard will direct my soul unto this gaping wound thither it shall fly I will take my aim at it Hora mortis meus slatus intret Iesu tuum latus A door it is but a narrow door cast away the superfluity of sin and the immoderate care for things of this world These are great burdens upon our back and a Camel cannot enter in at the side of Christ but especially they that look to pass through a raw and a tender part must not have the thorns of malice about them lest they tear and offend the wound of Christ It is a wound of love and by antipathy would bleed afresh if the malicious should approach unto it The fourth and last circumstance of the Souldiers violence is now to be scanned that pierced ejus latus Christs side when he had given up the Ghost A carkess bereft of life is no more a man but the image of a man Now as some have exprest their malice against their enemies Image when his person was out of their reach as the Antiochians brake the Statues of the Empress Pulcheria for anger So the Souldier runs his Spear at an Image at a shadow at the cold body of him who was stiff and dead A stout Souldier I wiss such a one as Aristophanes gibed at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he dare kill none but him that is slain already For with whom doth this Champion fight The divine nature of Christ is uncapable of a wound negatively unless he confounded the natures
the Gospel could do no good for it was but one Talent upon the return but one single Petition will fructifie like a grain of Wheat into stalks and handfuls For as it is said of the nine Muses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 call but upon one by name and all her Sisters beside will assist the invocation so call but for one blessing piously and though you ask but for a drop much abundance of waters of comfort will gush out when the spout is opened Fear not Zachary says Gabriel when he came to tell him of the birth of John for thy prayers are heard Luk. i. 13. Why surely says St. Austin he prayed for the whole Congregation at that time and not for Children Not for Children for his Wife was old and barren he despaired of Issue What of that He prayed for the publick good and God gave him joy in particular he prayed for the Congregation as it was fit for the Father of a Flock and God made him the Father of a Son Such notice was taken of this solemn Prayer which our Saviour made for Lazarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostome a Church was built from the ground in that place where the Monument of Lazarus had been before For who would not flock to pray in that place where Jesus had prayed unto his Father It was na Oratory wherby the Prelates of the highest state might learn to officiate by Christs example and execute in their place Alas of too much contempt to pray in the Congregation The proud Emperors of Rome did so perswade themselves Vt sibi viderentur Principes esse desinere si quid facerent tanquam Senatores They thought it did derogate from the Magnificence of a Prince to employ their pains toward the publick good like Senators So to mutter Mass once a year is enough for the Roman Bishop to bless the people with so much breath as to pray for them by the Book O it is too mean a Function for a dignified person What And was it a disparagement to the Son of God to pray among the people when he raised Lazarus The Arrians indeed did object against Christs Divinity in this place for making a Petition in the behalf of Lazarus Where was the vertue of his own Godhead Where was his Omnipotency Say those graceless Hereticks is it not a token of infirmity to ask that of another which we are not able to do by our own efficacy And doth this offend them that Christ should pray that he might conjoyn with us in our infirmities But to give a larger resolution to the doubt Says Martha in the 21 22 verses before Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died but I know even now whatsoever thou dost ask of God God will give it thee Christ then had no need to pray for Lazarus to support his own power but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to satisfie the desire and weakness of Martha he betook him to a prayer Says the Centurion Lord only say the word and my servant shall be healed Be it so says Christ and he went no further O says another Come and heal my daughter vouchsafe your presence to the sick person Why Christ came and healed her Could they ask any more Not only the diseases were remedied but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was done in what fashion or circumstance they pleased Will Martha have her brother raised with a formal supplication before She hath her will and Jesus prayed unto the Father It was not done then for Lazarus his sake it needed not not for Martha's sake only but for the people that stood by nay that 's not all not for them alone but for us and for as many as shall hear the Gospel preached to the ends of the world For as the beating of the wings and the crowing of the Cock raised up Peter when he was buried in the sins of the High Priests Hall so the knocking of the breast and the voice which cries unto the Lord before the morning watch is that which must raise us up from the luxurious beds of sensuality Some Orders of Mendicant Friers wander about and present themselves to the eyes of men but say not a word for an Alms to make themselves known to the ear of the charitable This is rather sharking than begging for benevolence Let them bear the badge of St. Francis but we the badge of Christ ask and pray for a quickning spirit if you would be raised up to newness of life Hezekiah having emptied his heart of some words which were well disgusted out an as if he had opened a vein in each eye to let out tears by that means saw fifteen years more after a desperate sickness Ahaziah's Child perchance had gained twice fifteen years if the Father had done as much but it lived not fifteen hours after the King had sent for Physick to the God of Ekron Like Coriolanus whom the people thought worthy of any favour if his proud heart would have stoopt and asked for favour Not long before the destruction of Jerusalem the great Gate toward the East fast barr'd and lock'd opened of its own accord says Eusebius This is good luck said the more confident Priests Deus aperuit nobis portam bonorum God hath opened unto us a gate of good fortune of his own accord Nay said the more wise Hostibus introitum patefecit He hath opened a gap for the enemy to come in and that proved to be the truest Divination Dearly Beloved if a blessing fall into your lap when you were dissolute irreligious and never thought of God to give it the gates of your heart being barr'd and fastned do you dream like the foolish people of Jerusalem that a gate of good fortune is opened of its own accord No no beware the after-clap It may be pleasant it may be rich which comes without a Prayer to usher it into the world but like a base-born child it is seldom prosperous Me thinks I should be very much afraid if God had sent me any blessing for which either in special or in general I had not earnestly prayed Whatsoever good thing you possesse and never pray'd for it I pity your title you came to it by robbery And so much for the first dignity of this work it had the preparation of a Prayer Jesus first cast up his eyes and opened his lips to heaven before he stoopt to the Corps beneath and opened the Monument before he cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth He cried with a loud voice and that is the dignity of the publication When our Saviour issued out of the Grave the third day it was done early in the morning the stone was rolled away and no noise was heard that which was done was done with wonderful silence Why doth Lazarus come out with a loud voice Nay why shall the Angel at the Great Day call the dead out of the earth with the blast
wouldst make an Advocate It is in his own power to raise up thy Brother after four days Two days our Saviour abode beyond Jordan after Lazarus was dead and after he set forward to Bethany he made two days Journey of it before he came to the place all this while the Prisoner was fast lockt up under the Gates of Death Belike Lazarus could not be released till Christ came unto the Cave where he was laid No such necessity Beloved Vbicunque Christus steterat patebant inferi Hell must open her mouth in any place where Christ did set his foot nay in any place where he should but say unto the Grave I will be thou opened Therefore another Reason must be given why Lazarus staid until the fourth day for his Enlargement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom Jonas and Lazarus both were Servants they must not jump with Christ in the same Privileges in every thing then the Servant should be equal with his Master Jonas came out of the Whales Belly the third day so did Christ out of the Tomb but Jonas was alive and Christ was dead there was the Difference between the Servant and the Master Christ rose from the dead and so did Lazarus but Christ the third day and Lazarus the fourth there 's the Difference between the Master and the Servant The Resurrection of the dead is an Article of the Creed ingendred in the heart by a very strong Faith 't is mirabilium mirificentia as one says The astonishment of all admiration and when it shall be reported by the Women that an Angel told them it the best of them all will doubt Thomas and many more will flatly deny it What deny that Christ could quicken himself the third day when he raised up Lazarus the fourth Lazarus was unto Christ as Aaron's Rod was unto Aaron The Sedition of Dathan and Abiram opposed Aaron and would not acknowledge him to be the High Priest That shall be tried says the Lord and Aaron's Rod which was a dry stick budded buds and bloomed blossoms as if it had been living more than all the other Rods of the Tribes of Israel So Lazarus was laid up in the Cave like the Rod of Aaron in the Tabernacle and when his life was restored the fourth day it proved that Christ could build up the Temple again in three days which they had pluckt down before What shall we say then That the Resurrection was more wonderful in Lazarus by one day than in Christ himself Nothing less For Christ was raised up by his own power and Lazarus by the power of Christ Christs death was violent his very heart as some think was digg'd through with the Souldiers Spear Lazarus his death was natural and no principal part of his body was wounded or impaired Si aliud videtur vobis mortuus aliud videtur occisus if it be one thing to die in the peace of nature and another thing to be made away by violence Ecce Dominus utrumque fecit here are examples of both that returned to life Christ the third day from the death of violence Lazarus the fourth day from the death of nature both are from the Lord. As a Servant said of an unlucky day wherein all things went cross huic diei oculos eruere vellem he vished the Sun had never shined upon it So this fourth day hath not a little troubled Satan Upon the fourth day Gen. i. 14. God set lights in the Firmament to what end to divide the day from the night and the light from the darkness Periisti Satana this is a fatal day with the Devil who would have mingled night with day and darkness with light but now his works are discovered The fourth year hath been as climacterical unto him and as much out of his way in the 13. of St. Luke and the 7. verse These three years says the Lord of the Vineyard I have lookt for fruit and find none now I will cut down the Vine nay says the Dresser of the Vineyard stay but this year also and the fourth there are hopes it will bring forth grapes and please the Lord. To say thus much for our Evangelist St. John the fourth Evangelist gave the shrewdest blow to the stratagems of Satan and hath so prov'd the Divinity of Christ almost in every verse that Ebion and Cerinthus were confounded and Heresie is proved a lyar to her face for ever Even so was this number critical unto death in the Resurrection of Lazarus three days he was given for lost and upon the fourth day Christ cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth There is a moral sense besides that whereof I have spoken and that is like fine flower boulted out of the Letter and it yields like the bread which our Saviour broke to the multitude and will satisfie thousands Death was the reward of sin In that Lazarus was dead and buried I read the Parable of a sinner upon his Sepulcher In that he was four days dead he must be magnus peccator says St. Austin no small offender can be meant by that but a grievous sinner Where have you laid him says Christ O what a dreadful question is that Lord know me for one of thy children but know me for a sinner rather than not know me at all Let it not be said unto me Depart from me I know you not Projectus sum à facie oculorum tuorum says David in the person of a castaway I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes Perditum nescit ubi sit it is Gods language he pretends he sees not them he knows not them that were lost Adam where art thou says God O Adam that question had confounded thee if Christ had not answer'd for thee Loe I come Where are the other nine says Christ of the Lepers de ingratis quasi ignotis loquitur ungrateful men were not in Christs Book he knows not what becoms of them nor whither they wander so to enquire of Lazarus as if he knew not where he was laid is to set him forth as the similitude of a great sinner ubi posuistis where have you laid him nay but this agrees not perchance with his Sisters message He whom thou lovest is sick and again See how he loved him Yes it agrees full well Si peccatores non amaret Deus de coelo non descenderet it was out of a most compassionate love that God descended from heaven to save sinners Behold he lov'd him and yet Lazarus stands for the Parable of a sinner That foundation is laid and then you shall know the better what is meant by lying four days in the Sepulcher First we are all dead born man as soon as he sees the light his heart is in darkness he brings the seeds of original sin with his frail flesh into the world and then he is dead one day 2. Nature hath dictated a Law unto us The Gentiles are a Law unto themselves sais St.
and be utterly annihilated So an unbeliever who knows of no better condition that shall befall him than happens to Beasts that is not established in faith that though worms eat this Body in the Grave yet our Soul shall be cloathed with flesh and bone and enjoy an everlasting union in the highest places this man looks upon death as the extremity of all evils in which there is nothing but irreparable loss a thing that can admit of no consolation Resurrection is the edg of all valour and fortitude there can be no courage without it In assurance of it there is no sting there is no terror in our dissolution Says St. Paul Why stand we in jeopardy every hour why have I fought with beasts at Ephesus if the dead rise not as who should say there 's the encouragement of all that endure for the name of Christ Now these Souldiers whom the Jews obtein'd of Pilate to watch the Sepulcher were so far from apprehending this comfort that this Tabernacle of ours when we lay it down is sequesterd for a time till God restore it again out of the dust that they kept that place on purpose that there might be no resurrection According to their great demerits therefore those that were the most envious adversaries of life did shake for fear and became as dead men Fourthly the Souldiers feared exceedingly because they had been aiders to the malice of the Jews to crucifie Christ now when they saw the Sepulcher open the stone rolled away the Angel sitting upon it and by these signs the Resurrection declared that He whom they had put to death most barbarously was greater than death and Lord of the Angels their guiltiness must needs shake them to pieces and extreme horror stare them in the face When St. Peter came to that verse of his Sermon Act. ii 36. God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ The Jews that heard this they were pricked in their hearts and cried out Men brethren what shall we do St. Chrysostom says that many of those who had cried out in Pilate's Judgment-Hall Crucifie him crucifie him were at the Sermon so perhaps those Souldiers that had cast lots upon his Vesture and he that thrust the Spear into his side was at the Sepulcher The greater would be their oppressure of fear when they had been actors in the Tragedy They shall look upon me whom they have pierced Zach. xii 10. a most melancholy object to his Persecutors Eusebius says that the Jews did recall to mind that innocent bloud of Christ which they had shed upon the time that their City was besieged by Titus and that the thought thereof did so enfeeble their hands that they could not fight Although their own Historian Josephus will not impute the calamity of the City to that fault but confesseth sin did reign in Jerusalem at that time so copiously and prodigiously as the like was never in Sodom and Gomorrah but certainly the suspicion of that sin hath debased the courage and broke the heart of all the Nation of the Jews to this day St. Paul writing to the Hebrews bids them cast aside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. xii 1. the weight of their sin and I do not remember that he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a weighty ponderous sin to any other but to them I know we ought all to be sorry and lament that Christ was crucified for our sakes for those manifold sins that we have perpetrated and solum peccatum homicida est therefore we must be crucified with Christ in mortification and be buried with him in Baptism but the personal procurers of his death were the capital transgressors their sin was died in his bloud as it were in scarlet The Son of man must die and be betrayed but wo unto that man that doth betray him and crucifie him Beware therefore that we do not crucifie to our selves the Son of God a fresh the exposition is in the words following that we do not put him to an open shame Heb. vi 6. by heinous scandalous sins to cause Christs name to be blasphemed that is to put Christ to an ignominy and as it were to crucifie him again Such crimes will leave a sting behind them that will never cease to wound your conscience especially at the hour of death The Gentiles at first could not endure the Sign of the Cross it called their sins to remembrance but how will it tear your heart within you when you call to mind that the ignominy of Christ crucified is in your Soul The Souldiers saw what abomination they had committed when an Angel beautified Christs Sepulcher with his presence and for fear of him c. Fifthly the Souldiers could not keep Christs body in the Sepulcher as they were appointed by Pilat and the High-Priests therefore they feared those that had commanded them the task an evil Instrument is ever afraid of those that do imploy him The Pharisees were angry with their Servants and Officers that they did not bring Christ unto them and lay hands upon Him Joh. vii 43. yet it was not in them to do it no man could lay hands on him then for his hour was not yet come So the Watchmen knew what offence would be taken that Christs body was taken out of the Sepulcher yet they could not stop it No servitude in the world so heavy so dangerous so full of fear as to observe a wilful unreasonable Tyrant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nebuchadonosor put his Chaldaeans and Southsayers to death because they could not tell him the Dream which himself had forgotten Dan. ii 12. It is a just reward of wicked Instruments that they were always suspected always secretly hated by those that practise with them And when I have told you but one story in that kind I could be voluminous you will say Ohe jam satis est it is enough to represent the certain perdition of them that minister to ungodly practises But thus briefly Pope Paul the fifth fell out with the whole State of Venice interdicted all their Dominions began to raise arms against them for imprisoning the Abbot of Nervase whose crimes beside many other foul offences were these three 1. He poisoned his own Brother and wrought the death of a Prior of St. Austins Order and his Servant because they were conscious of it 2. He had long time the carnal knowledg of his own Sister and empoisoned her Maid lest she should betray him 3. He caused an Enemy of his to be killed and after that empoisoned the Murtherer lest he might accuse him This is related by no Protestant Pen but by Friar Paul of Venice of the Order of the Servites Nor do I report it to let you know what kind of offender the Pope protected but to manifest how He brought all those to an untimely end that had either the privacy or their parts to work for his iniquity I do
Church was that there were no divisions or distractions in their Body God be praised for the multiplication of his Saints now over all the world we cannot meet now under one Roof as these did nor sit down in rows in one Field together as those 5000 did whom our Saviour fed in the Desart the bounds of all the Land of Canaan are not able to hold us God be glorified for the increase Our unity of place is to meet in those publique Assemblies which are allotted to particular Churches at those appointed times which are enjoyned us In no wise to slack our presence here on the Lords day to flock together on other festival days at Morning Prayer on week days to be much more diligent than we have been fie upon our tardiness and excuses in that duty do we look that God shall bless us in our Persons and Calling to take a Benediction away with us to serve us the whole week and come no oftner is not he the God that makes men to be of one mind to come to the Temple together and there to receive the Holy Ghost Chiefly I wish heartily in Christ that they would consort together with us who take no offence at our Doctrine established but make a separation and strangeness both from us and among themselves for matter of Ceremonies and things indifferent They that are baptized into Christ and one Faith why should they not come together with one accord in one place I must not be prolix I will say no more to it but let us say with St. Paul Hebr. x. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are not of them who separate or draw back unto perdition Vnto perdition let that be noted The observation of this point gains thus much more out of St. Austin As all the Tribes of Israel were gathered together about Mount Sinah to hear in what manner the Law was proclaimed so here was an agreement of all persons to joyn together to receive the Holy Ghost but in that admirable similitude there is this dissimilitude that the people were prohibited with many terrors to come near the place where the Law was delivered but at this time the Holy Ghost was sent unto them who expecting the promise were all with one accord in one place And Calvin conjects much unto this note that the minds of the faithful were exceedingly encouraged and chang'd for the better the stoutest Champions of them all had no manlike fortitude in them before the Shepherd was smitten and instantly they were scattered and ran away for fear now the very women had hardned themselves against all danger they mix themselves together in one place with that holy company and fear no evil that can happen unto them A resolved constant mind an heroick heart to take up the Cross of Christ and to suffer unto the death for righteousness sake is a sign of much grace in the soul and an admirable preparation to receive the greatest measure of the Holy Ghost And that you may not think this Apostolical Society had crept into a dark corner where no espials could find them out Many Authors that have laboured to understand where it was say it was a spacious goodly Room of as much note as any private House in all Jerusalem and frequented so often by the Apostles that their haunt was known through all the City All that I have met withal conclude it was the same upper Chamber where our Saviour celebrated his last Supper and so consecrated the place Nicephorus and Cedrenus say it was the House of John the Evangelist for he took the Blessed Virgin to his own home and she was now among them a slender guess God wot and repugnant to many circumstances of Scripture Theophylact says it was the House of Simon the Leper how can that be when his House was in Bethany Matth. xxvi 6. Euthymius says it was the House of Joseph of Arimathea an honourable Counseller and had goodly Rooms to receive them Baronius goes with the most voices all are but conjectures that it was the House of Mary the Mother of John whose surname was Mark. To this Adrichomius consents and says this was the place where 3000 Jews were converted by Peter and baptized thither Peter betook himself when the Angel brought him out of prison there Stephen and others were made Deacons there James the Brother of our Lord so called was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem there the first Council of the Apostles was held Acts xv All ancient Authors conclude it was about where the Tower of Sion stood and this is certain that Helen the Mother of Constantine did build a goodly Temple upon the same place to honour that holy ground It was a Figure of the whole Church of Christ so much the more to be remembred and the Church is a Figure of the Kingdom of Heaven where all the Saints and I trust all we shall praise the Lord with one accord in one place for evermore It follows now as the outward Bond of Peace was with this Society so they were claspt together faster with the inward Bond of Agreement with the unity of the same spirit they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one accord There cannot be a more proper true and certain disposition to make us meet for the Holy Ghost than unanimity As the Halcyon so our Naturalists say never appears but against fair weather so the Spirit comes either not at all or not very plentifully unto us until he find concord among us without jars and tranquility without bitterness The unity of the Apostles is called by the Fathers parasceue spiritus the way-making to receive the grace of God and if the Patient be prepared aright the Agent will do his work the sooner and the better No gifts of benediction are given to strive and oppose to fight one against another but for charity and edification therefore it was the beginning of our Collect three Sundays past Almighty God which dost make the minds of all faithful men to be of one will and it is a principal part of our Gospel for this day Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you That peace which Christ left among the Apostles was as it were an earnest penny put into their hands that they should have the full donative of the Comforter from above Our Saviour was born in the days of Caesar Augustus when a still Peace was over all the world now He pours out his holy spirit upon them that were of one accord and of one heart the one was his first act upon earth the other is his last then he was cloathed with our flesh now we are invested with his spirit This remarkable amity and Saint-like brotherhood among the Members of the Church which had no ruptures was well prefigur'd in the old Feast of Pentecost which was kept by the Jews For Levit. xxiii 19. upon the day of Pentecost among other Burnt-offerings the Priests were appointed in
not hear you Hitherto I have made it good against Satan and all infernal Sorceries against Tyrants that attempt to exalt themselves and against all popular Factions that would seem to have an interest in the making and marring of Princes that God is the initial cause the conserving cause the sole Fountain and Author of all Supreme Sovereignty There is but one Adversary more to struggle with in this point that Hildibrand◠spirit in the Church of Rome who either directly or indirectly claims authority to himself to take account of the Government of Kings and when he pleaseth to break their Scepters with a Rod of Iron It is no toying in so main a Cause as this therefore I will demonstrate that I charge them right 1. The great number of the Canonists defend without any circumlocution that the Temporal Soveraignty of the whole world is inherent in the Office of Christs Vicar to give change alter or confirm the Titles of particular Princes as his infallible judgment shall lead him Thus Baronius who speaks his mind in these words for his Holy Father whom our Lord Jesus Christ the King of Glory hath constituted a Prince over all the Kingdoms of the World Says Augustinus Triumphus all Power and Royalty is subdelegated from the Pope to other Princes no man can give him any Soveraignty which he had not before nec Constantinus dedit quicquam Sylvestro quod non prius erat suum says he some talk of Constantines donation to Sylvester that he gave him the Temporal Principality of Romania he gave him nothing but that which was his own before that and all beside was St. Peters Patrimony But Practice is a plainer Argument than Book-words Alexander the Sixth a Giver that will do but small credit to his Gift but such as he is take him with all faults he bestowed the whole West-Indies to Ferdinand King of Spain ex merâ liberalitate motu proprio as it is in the words of the Bull. Their own Histories say that Athabaliba King of Peru maintained his Dominions by fighting against that Grant till he was taken prisoner in battel and then cried out That Pope could have no reverence to vertue or to the God of Heaven that took away another mans Kingdom from him You see now that this Successor of St. Peter as he would be stiled lays claim to that which St. Peter never dreamt of to belong to him for how could his imagination comprehend such things when he knew they were disclaimed by Christ Joh. xviii 36. My Kingdom is not of this world if it were my Servants would fight for me that I should not be delivered to the Jews but my Kingdom is not from hence God gave unto Christ the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his Possession that is to dilate his Spiritual Kingdom over all the world but neither that himself or his Apostles should excel in any Temporal Dignity It remains therefore against all opposite Parties that the Kingdoms of the World are the Lords and he doth set his Annointed in their Thrones out of his holy Hill and therefore when Popes of old did write to Kings their usual stile was to wish them health in eo per quem reges regnant in him by whom Kings do reign that is in God above And all this is to declare that David held his Crown from none but God because upon the Solemn Feast of his Inauguration it is said This is the Day which the Lord hath made All Kings are made by God yet not all alike there is more of the Divine mercy and favour in the making of David a man after Gods own heart than in making of Saul one whom it repented God that ever he made him more of his sacred workmanship in the making of Melchisedech a King of Righteousness than in the making of Nimrod a King of Violence They that sow the fruits of righteousness in peace those are reges primae intentionis Kings in whom God and Man do especially delight and they that have been compassed about with most cruel Wars abroad and with most terrible Enemies and Treasons at home and yet have waded prosperous out of all these dangers those are reges primae providentiae Kings of miraculous providence above the trivial current and you that have read the two Books of Samuel and the first Book of Chronicles meet with a thousand passages what memorable marks the Lord had set upon the person of David which of you doth note the mean condition out of which he did rise and the Throne to which he was exalted but you will say digitus Dei you do mark the print of Gods finger in the work collect the imminent dangers which he escaped the fury of Saul the Hosts of the Philistins the Duel with Goliah the Plots of Ahitophel the overawings of the Sons of Zeruiah the almost inevitable Conspiracy of Absalon and finally the Usurpation of his other Son Adonijah even while he was upon his Death-bed and you will say there was never any Potentate begirt with so many assaults and brought off with such safety that there was not an hair of his head did perish As David's Day hath these characters in it so we are to glorifie the sweet Providence of God that our Royal Sovereign's Day hath none of them For first the mean Parentage of David did much prejudice him it was a word of contempt that he could not claw off to be called the Son of Jessai the Son of a poor Yeoman in Bethlem But his Majesty's Throne hath been the Throne of his glorious Ancestors for many Generations and a concurrence of the best blood in the world doth meet in himself and in his Royal Progeny For domestical Enemies God be praised for the terms of eleven years of his most Religious Reign never any durst shew their faces if they should I trust we should see their heads shewn for a direful spectacle to after Ages But whereas the blessed Princes that upheld our Reformed Religion have been hemmed about with Treasons upon Treasons every one of them God hath so confounded them in their malicious devices that His Sacred Majesty hath hitherto gone in and out before us without the least whisper of any infernal attempt against him no Prince in this Island that profest the same Reformed Faith being able to say as he can that neither popular commotion nor secret conspiracy hath hitherto reacht itself against his Royal Person and God grant such safety to himself and such true and loyal hearts to his People and that gracious protection will make us see that the Buckler of the Most High is on every side of him and that his name is written in the Book of Life Another thing is David was very much exercised in wars against the Philistins and his Sword did never come out of the Field without a Conquest but the best Victory is bought with the price of much bloud and therefore
subtilties against David who advanced him to the highest honour of his counsel I will say that there is no mouth but doth bless him that feeds it no needy soul but doth pray for him that relieves it rather than discourage the liberal Benefactors weaken the hands of them whose hearts are enlarged to help the poor with their plenteousness Again the truly charitable delights in his own good deed because it is given and bestowed not because it is returned The glory of the Roman Commonwealth says M. Antony in Plutarch appears not by the rich tributes they receive but by the chargeable succours which they afford to their distressed Confederates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly If you shut up your compassion against all men because a few unthankful have put up your kindness in the dark taking no notice of your hand that gave it you commit not only rigour but great injustice to punish more than have offended As for him that rewards evil for good leave him to God to receive his judgment Serpents can bear poison to envenom others which doth not harm themselves but the venom of the malicious shall be his own bane The Viper dropt into the fire which hung upon St. Pauls hand Acts xxviii as if it had taken punishment of it own self Quod nihil ad se attinens corpus attigisset because it light upon a body which it should not have assaulted but Achitophel not so conscionable as this Viper whom it irkt to have toucht the Saint of God broke his own neck for madness because he could not supplant David When Scevola ran his Weapon at King Porsenna but missed his mark the good King intreated him so courteously that he made his enemy to say Ego fortunae non succenseo quòd à bono viro aberraverim I am not angry at Fortune which turn'd away my Sword from so good a man But this Politician in my Text had not the grace to rejoyce and be glad that his Lord and King did escape his pernicious stratagem but ambitious of nothing but to seem wise disposeth his house in a prudent order and hangs himself And because I cannot leave such a miscreant in a better place here ends my treatise of Achitophel of Davids complaint and the first part of this exercise Yea mine c. And as Achitophel left himself hanging between heaven and earth for all men to gaze upon so likewise hath Judas in the second part of the Text. I am now come from the complotting Statesman to the Apostaticall Churchman from him that dealt perfidiously with David to him that was the traitor against Davids Lord The Lord said unto my Lord Psal cx Corruptio optimi est pessima That which is sweetest when it is corrupted is most unsavoury and by how much an Apostle of Christ was an office of more sanctity and faith than a Counsellour of King David by so much the corruption of Judas is more soul than the corruption of Achitophel To be called the Friend of his Creator to be trusted by him who was the wisdom of the Father to eat of the Paschal Lamb with him who was the Lamb of God and yet to be the man that did ensnare his life methinks the Devil did not enter into Judas but Judas was more likely to enter and possess the Devil Of every branch let me speak a little as I did in the former complaint Yea mine own familiar friend Origen was so astonied to see Judas have this honourable compellation that he would make us believe in his 35. Hom. upon St. Matthew that no good man is so called in the Scripture Friend how camest thou hither not having a wedding garment he was bad to him that grudg'd that he received but one peny in the Parable Friend I do thee no wrong take that which is thine own and depart he was stark naught But Origen did not remember that Abraham was called the friend of God or that the Lord talked with Moses as one doth with his Friend or that John Baptist was called the Friend of the Bridegroom for the honour of these Saints be it spoken it is strange that Judas should be stiled his own familiar friend But such reasons as I have pickt up I will briefly lay down before you 1. Judas did bear himself as the friend of Christ like a false dissembler I will instance only in that profane kiss a sign unto those that should lead him bound unto Caiaphas Why did not the Traitor say him whom you shall see chiding and reproving me him that spits upon me and accurseth me no he trusted too much to the lenity and gentleness of his Lord therefore him whom you see me kiss hold him fast St. Chrysostome knows not which he should blame most whether the High Priests for sending their Servants with swords and staves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sweet muster for Priests to make says the Father I would the High Priest of Italy would mark it or whether Judas that came to betray his Master with a kiss If thou wert not ashamed of the fact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is it possible thou shouldst not be ashamed to give thy accomplices such a token But out of that mouth which had bargained for the wages of iniquity nothing could come from those lips but a sign of mischief O let no false Brother be encouraged that the Son of God did not detest the kiss of an hypocrite Non ut simulare nos doceat sed ne proditionem fugere videatur It was not to embrace a false friend but he would not thrust him back lest he should seem to decline and avoid his Passion Would you not think but as Elisha put life into the Shunamites Child by laying mouth to mouth so Judas much more might have received life by laying his mouth to our Saviours Had it not been probable that since the woman was cured of her bloudy issue by touching the Hem of his Garment much more Judas should be cured of a bloudy heart by this royal favour No beloved they are not the lips that kiss him nor the womb that bare him nor the paps that gave him suck that make any one happy but a heart without guile and love unfained Small comfort it is to Judas that upon this outward sign of courtesie he is called his own familiar friend Secondly Judas doth pass current with this mighty name because Christ did use him as a friend Bad as he was the Spirit of God is not ashamed to call him one of the Twelve Ne tam exiguus numerus esset sine malo says St. Austin that we may see how corrupt the world is since in so small a flock there is a Wolf in sheeps cloathing The time will give me leave to make but one instance of our Saviours good offices unto Judas and that is the washing of his feet Nay Lorinus tells it as a received tradition of the Church that among all the Disciples Judas was
and the names of the Stars and Constellations and with flat Romances about the good Angels falling in love with mortal Creatures things most unworthy to be fathered upon Enoch that walked with God Therefore St. Jerom moderates the variance Non probavit librum totum Judas sed illud duntaxat testimonium St. Jude did patronize no more of that Book but that Prophesie which he copied out into his Epistle As St. Paul gave no divine authority to certain heathen Poets but only to those particular Verses which he borrowed To come to a point It sounds nearest to truth that Enoch was no such Prophet as left Canonical Records because Christ was wont to argue against the Jews from Moses and the Prophets allowing Moses for the most ancient Prophet that delivered Scripture to the Church by inspiration A late Capuchin Frier hath laboured to prove as he thinks solidly as I think very superficially that Monkish Fraternities and Covents were the first invention in the Church and in his sense to be a Prophet is all one as if Enoch had been of some Colledge or religious Order separated from the ordinary Sons of God Out of his own conjectures he doth erect two strict sodalities of Religion in those ancient days From Enos the Enoscaei such as professed silence from all talk and sequestration from all men And from Cainan the Cinaei or Kenites such as lived in a regular but an active Vocation More of this in due time but we read of no vow or affected institution of life into which the Patriarchs entred we read of some illuminated Prophets or Prophet among them and that was Enoch As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets which have been since the world began Luk. i. 70. 3. His next mark of glory follows That he was an example of repentance to all Generations They that are careful to expound these words in Ecclesiasticus accurately are divided in the sense Some have searched among the Rabbines for their opinions of this and one of them says that wickedness did abound in the Age of Enoch the foul crimes of Sorceries and Witchcrafts had begun to shew their blade and Lamech was the seventh from Adam in the Race of Cain a Bigamist and a Murderer His sins in all likelihood were scandalous and contagious at that time over a great part of the earth and for these iniquities the Lord drowned the third part of the habitable world in Enochs time and Enoch threatned an universal Deluge to all flesh if they did not repent which indeed came to pass so his Doctrine and Prophesies gave notice of Repentance to all Generations But Procopius says upon this Text and he had it from some Jewish Scribes that this holy man had been very incontinent and vicious before he begat Methusalah but after that he proved so relenting a Convert laid hold so fast on God because he knew what a misery it was to lose him that his few years of repentance did God more faithful service than almost a thousand years of innocence in the best of the Patriarchs Which aspersion upon this holy Saint since it hath no ground to build upon it is answered well enough by Cajetan Enoch is twice commended in this Chapter that he walked with God in this Text and within two Verses before it the ingemination of that puts it into more probability that he was a constant follower of good works from his youth up till the time that God translated him Leaving these far-fetch'd conjectures this is the most sutable exposition to the words as I apprehend repentance is often taken for all that sanctification and righteousness which is in man that is born and conceived in sin Acts v. 31. God hath exalted Christ to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins but God gives a new heart and a new spirit to Israel and new obedience when he gives them forgiveness of sins To repent is properly reverti à peccato to return from a sinful life but sometimes it is avertere à peccato to turn a side from the broad way which leadeth to perdition though the Child of God never went astray in it So Enoch having a corruptible body which pressed down the pious alacrity of the soul and doing those things by frailty sometimes which he ought not to have done his innocency and holiness is called repentance whereupon the Son of Syrach calls him an example of repentance to all Generations 4. To be a Prophet to be an example of repentance both of these gives us an introduction to understand this Phrase that he walked with God but the true key that opens it is the fourth thing Vpon the earth was no man created like Enoch says the Son of Syrach A Cedar among other fair trees a great Star among other lesser lights a most sanctified man among many just ones like the man in the Parable that was the truest servant to his Master exceeded him that gained but two Talents exceeded him that gained five Talents he made return of ten Talents to his Lord and bore the praise away from them all that had done very well before him upon the earth was no man created like Enoch We commend those from our lips that are inter non pessimè malos not so bad as the worst But God commends them from his mouth that are inter optimos praecipui the most excellent of them that are the best Reuben was kinder towards Joseph than the rest of his Brethren so Reuben tells them of it Gen. xlii 22. yet he was but unnatural Jehu was a truer worshipper of God than the Priests of Baal yet wanted much of sincerity Gamaliel was more favourable to the Apostles than the rest of the Judges yet he did them unjustice and was an unbelieving Pharisee The Kingdom of heaven is not to be look'd for upon assurance that there are greater sinners than you but hereby you shall try if the love of God be in you when you pant and strive with all your soul and with all your might that none may be better It is a pitiful and indeed a dishonourable praise to point out a man and say he is religious devout or conscionable as the world goes Hath God ever promised to take measure from that form as a bad world goes how he will give a man an heritage with the Angels in the world to come To be an Hercules among the Argonautes I mean the first Champion in the Lords cause in the first file a Peter among the Disciples Lovest thou me more than these An Elias among Prophets a Moses an Aaron among his Priests and Samuel among such as called upon his name an Enoch among the Patriarchs upon the earth was no man created like him this is the pitch we must desire to grow unto and not to say with the Proverb Occupet extremum scabies All is well if you be not the worst of a wicked company Whatsoever you know or hear of
that any Martyr or Confessor departed hath done for Christs sake it is a shame for you if you do not covet to do as much or more than that at least accuse your self if you be not sorry that your frailties make you come short of the best Lay your hand every one upon his own conscience and you may well say after me sweet Jesu should any of thy Creatures love thee better than I Should any servant be more obedient than I Any Martyr be willing to suffer more than I Should Enoch that walked with God desire to please thee more than I Never will I give over to try if I can run before them for none of thine Elect is so much endebted to thy bloudy Passion as I am because none of them had so many sins to be forgiven Press on to be the nearest of them that shall stand before the presence of the Lord and account it among thy great sins if thy heart do not pant and yearn to be equal with the principal of the Saints And make not your estimation of a good man by this rule that his vertues are more than his vices Or as Guicciardine says who had cause to know what he wrote that Popes are praised for their goodness when they do not exceed the wickedness of other men and trust not to that fleshly sloth that a moderate competency of honesty is well enough Non omnes possunt esse Scipiones Maximi All men cannot be anointed with the oyl of gladness above their fellows If Noah and Abraham and Moses had roused up their spirit no better what should the Church have done for exquisite Semplars of Zeal and Faith but if it had wanted all these an absolute pattern of holiness had remained in Enoch upon the earth was no man created like him we must therefore carry some transcendent sanctity in our notions to know what it is to walk with God First It commends him that he had much conversation or as it were a familiar friendship with God Can two walk together unless they be agreed Amos iii. 3. Agreement is not all it imports as much as an endearing and a sociable benevolence We took sweet counsel together and walked in the house of God as friends Psal lv 14. Let this embolden none to walk and strout it in the body of the Church while others are at their Prayers in the Quire they are more bold and familiar with God than welcome I know not what greater contempt could be shewn by a civil man if he were present at the time of sacred hours in one of the Mosques of Mahomet But I will not digress To walk with God is to go hand in hand like a loving Associate and I need not mince it to say like the friend of God We are all servants properly naturâ debito in our Nature and in our debt to the Law Neither do we ever cease to be servants by the gift of grace but it is an Evangelical priviledge that some of those that are servants and obey his will in all things should be called the friends of God So our Saviour says to his Disciples after he had given them a taste of all saving knowledge Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you Now although the condition that all men lived in before Christ came into the world was the state of servants yet such Prophets and Patriarchs as were greatly illuminated with Evangelical faith praeter rationem status notwithstanding the bondage of Nature and of the Law were vouchsafed this Title the friends of God A thrice blessed name which vindicates us from Captivity it breaks our bonds asunder it makes us partakers of divine acquaintance it consigns us an interest in the love of Christ more than we dare boast of it And is this the way to procure it to walk with God What say you to walking through Fire and Sword What think you of walking through the Valley of the shadow of death Break not hands with such a God though it should come to a most bitter exigent But in that ease and safety that we live now few or none are put to any hardness for Christs sake No League in the world more sought for more willingly accepted no Amity less burdensom or more beneficial St. Austin in his Confessions brings in a couple that served the Roman Emperour thus debating the matter What can we look for in this Palace more than to be called the friends of the Emperour This is no sure unmovable favour when we have it and how long must we wait and attend before we get it Amicus Dei si esse voluero ecce nunc fio Let me turn to God to day and desire to be his friend it shall be done instantly and never delayed So they resolved though their courses were excentrick to the way of honour and preferment they would walk in righteousness to be called the friends of Christ and so Enoch walked with God Vera amicitia est idem velle idem nolle says the Oratour A friendship will hold fast between them that chuse the same things and refuse the same things and agree in all things So that to walk with God so far till it grow to the tide of a friendship is no more nor no less than Fiat voluntas tua The will of the Lord be done The fore-cited Clemens in his lately revived Epistle instead of saying that Enoch walked with God phraseth it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God found him to be a just man through all obedience and so translated him and the Chaldee Paraphrase He walked in the fear of the Lord turning neither to the right hand nor to the left I know the word being metaphorical may be varied and followed in many senses and all according to a godly Canou Gregory the Great deviseth this distinction of the word out of his own ingenuity Some walk from God as Apostates and Demas that turned to the world Some walk against God or set their face against him as the proud and rebellious so the stiff-necked Israelites Ye walk contrary to me Lev. xvi 21. But some on the laudable part may be said to walk before God as the Prophets so John the Baptist was a forerunner of Christ He went before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways Some walk after God as humble Penitents and those that take up their Cross and follow him Finally A religious Magistrate that is solo Deo minor whose power is from God and useth that power as he ought he walks with God and he that despiseth him despiseth the Lord. Every whit of this may be maintained with good construction but lest the phrase should be dissected too much to the loss of the sense I will rather be rude in expression than subtil to
Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Altar And the Lord smelled a sweet savour IT is impossible to choose a better method than Elihu did to find out wisdom Repetam scientiam meam à principio Job xxxvi 3. I will fetch my knowledge from far or from the very beginning But why do I call it Elihu's method When behold a greater than Elihu impugning the frivolous divorcements of marriages among the Jews which then had common passage doth thus overthrow them Ab initio non fuit sic It was not so from the beginning From which words I am bold to pronounce that this must be the leading rule of Divine Learning that all Religion must be tried and allowed from the first and most ancient Ordinations Now we have four Ages to run through upon that examination First for the Age before the Floud whereof Almighty God hath left us a very short and confused memorial I will not say as some do that the Church began when Enos was born to Seth although we find it written Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord Gen. iv ult Nor from the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel for the tradition of the Hebrews hath reason in it that Adam himself had often sacrificed before but the first hint of Religion in that Age is at this mark where the Lord made woman and brought her unto man which was a mystery of Christ and his Church Eph. v. 12. Secondly if you will know how the fear of God was first professed after the Floud it is written in my Text. Thirdly If you will be acquainted with the first institution of the Mosaical Law enquire for it at that time when God appeared in glory at Mount Sinai And fourthly If you will search to the bottom when the Law was quite abrogated and the Gospel was purely in force reckon from the coming down of the Holy Ghost at the Feast of Whitsontide Among these four I have wittingly light upon the second that I may entreat before you how Religion was first managed presently after the Deluge under the Law ot Nature For this seems to me to borrow somewhat of all the rest so that speaking of this one they will all be remembred The Mystery of Christ and his Church knit together is not here forgotten where the clean Beasts and the clean Fowls are laid upon the Altar The Sacrifices of Moses Law certainly were patterned by this example and the inspiration of the holy Spirit must needs be in the Sacrifices work from whence the Lord smelt a sweet savour If your attention be now ready to receive the distribution of these words into their several parts they may thus be divided into two principal branches here is the material part and the formal part the body and the soul of that Divine Worship which Noah performed unto the Lord. He builded an Altar unto the Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Altar that is the matter the visible body of his good work And the Lord smelled a sweet savour there is the invisible part or the Soul The material outward work contains these three things 1. That he offered burnt offerings 2. Of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl 3. Vpon an Altar which he built And Noah builded an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt offerings on the Altar In the formal part there are two things to be spoken of sensibile and sensus The sensibile that this Sacrifice had a sweet savour 2. There was a quick sense that took it and that is the Lords the Lord smelled a sweet savour And Noah builded an Altar c. I take the material part first in hand and this is the principal composition in the matter that Noah offered burnt-offerings to the Lord. This was it I perceive why Noah thought it long till the Floud were asswaged and sent one bird after another to learn if the waters were faln that he might come forth and worship him with an holy Worship that made both the Flouds and the dry Land As a conscionable man recovering from a perilous sickness which brought him even to deaths door thinks every hour seven till he present himself in the Church before the Lord that he may praise his name in the Congregation So the heart of this Patriarch had been so long full of meditations all those days that he was shut up in the Ark how he and his Posterity alone were preserved from the common Deluge that his desires grew restless and he sent forth the Dove three several times and no less to bring him better news if he might come forth and do his homage for the possession of the Earth upon an Altar of earth and that the Incense of his devotion might smoke up to heaven in Sacrifice Now I lift up this example before you to let you behold why we are born and for what use we have our Station in this Globe of Creatures The Lord hath opened our Mothers Womb to bring us forth into the light as he opened the door of the Ark to set Noahs feet in a large room We were shut up in a place which God had appointed for us till our passage was made into the world almost as long as he now we have our egress and the liberty of the Earth and Air. To what end all this What is appointed for man Which way should his business tend To enjoy the pleasures of the Age To extend our appetite over the abundance of all things which the earth affords To build and plant To be renowned and leave a Posterity behind us No that account is ill cast up for you may see in this condition of Noah that he and all that were with him were let forth of the Ark as a people then born again into a new world and the end was to offer up spiritual Sacrifices with a clean heart and while we have any being to praise the Lord. When the Angel had delivered the Apostles out of the common-Prison into which they were cast says he Go stand and speak to the people in the Temple all the words of this life So we are set at liberty from our Mothers Womb from that Ark to which we were committed for a time that we may go to the Courts of the house of our God even as Noah came abroad and took seisin of the earth immediately to make an Altar thereof and thereon to offer Sacrifice to the strength of his deliverance The question will be what direction the holy man had to worship the Lord with this kind of Service Lay it down for that which must be granted He that makes his own brain the model of his Religion shall have little thanks for his forwardness Ascribe unto the Lord the honour due unto his name honour of Duty and Precept is best that which is redundant and of
not taken reward against the innocent a clean eye that doth not look so far till it make the Soul commit fornication undefiled lips which have not defiled the holy name of the Most High and above all an heart that hath no savage inhumane malice in it Make clean the inside of the Platter or the best meat that you eat will be so unclean unto you that you will make the Table of the Lord become the Table of Devils Therefore as great persons in their Galleries keep the patterns of virtues in colours or in sculpture so these Creatures were forbidden to the Jews as the patterns and representments of inward uncleanness and ghostly pollution 3. If God can find uncleanness in these dumb things which follow their natural inclination and do not violate it what filthiness is in us in whom the rebellion of concupiscence is always burning We are all as an unclean thing says the Prophet an original leprosie hath overspread us but we must wash in the Bethesda of Christs bloud and we shall be purified from our sins So I have tried the Law briefly what is clean and unclean both for Meats and Sacrifice How stood it with Tradition before the Law Now I come close to that First as for Meats when flesh began to be meat all things were clean before the Law was given without restriction Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things Gen. ix 3. And for sacrifice Theodoret and Beda think that all things promiscuously might be sacrificed before the Law there was nothing then disallowed as unclean and that Moses wrote the Book of Genesis since the Law and that some things were call'd unclean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by anticipation But all ancient Expositors beside make a part against them that the Patriarchs received an institution from the beginning by Divine revelation delivered to Adam of what kind only and with exclusion of all things else they should sacrifice unto him And the Lord God caused Noah to receive clean Beasts and clean Fowls by sevens that the odd one might be allotted in due time for a Burnt-offering Therefore Rabbi Eleezar paraphraseth my Text that Noah brought out an Heifer a Sheep and a Goat a Turtle Dove and a Pigeon and offered these five creatures of every clean Beast and of every clean foul upon the Altar And to confirm it the more those are the very particulars and none other which God caused Abraham to present unto him Gen. xv 9. This Exposition yet some man will say had been much the clearer if it had been written that Abel had brought an Offering of clean things unto the Lord. But require it not beloved because it needed not Abel was a Keeper of sheep and Abel brought of the firstlings de grege suo says the Text therefore it is all one to say he presented a clean Sacrifice As Noah by due estimation of circumstances cannot be said to come short of Abel in that his Offering is not said to be de primitiis of the first birth of the Flock for he had no firstlings perhaps in the Ark but since he had not primitias pecorum yet he had primitias temporis he consecrated the first minutes of time unto the Lord as soon as ever he came out of the Ark and the choicest things that were in the Ark of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl For this is a common Law in every thing if it be for the name of the Good God let it be of the goodliest and best If one build an House of Prayer let it be fairer than his own Dwelling if he feed the hungry let it be of the wholsomest of the Table if he sanctify any thing for the ornament of Gods House let it be of the costliest if he preach Gods Word let it come from his studied and best industry and not with extemporary sawciness which some do they say for conscience I say for laziness and therein imitate Gonzaga the Jesuit of whom one of his own Fatherhood says he would preach ridiculously on purpose that he might be scorn'd and laught at Levit. iii. 16. all the fat is the Lords that is bring him none but the best the purest and choicest Oblations of clean Beasts and of clean Fowls to which I make but this short Appendix that as there were unclean Cattel as well as clean in the Ark so the ungodly are mixt in the Church with the righteous but the faithful only are the sacrifice of good acceptation and of sweet savour Good and bad are in the Ark but the pure and undefiled are received upon the Altar Many of the coarsest sort belong to the outward Society of the Church hypocrites seducers men empoisoned and empoisoning with malice but they are not of that principal and high degree that the blessings of the Church are made effectual in them and their souls offered up to the Lord on the Golden Altar before the Throne which is an Allegory of Christ Revel viii 3. So St. Austin differenceth the two diverse Tribes of the Church alii sunt in domo Dei ut ipsi etiam sint domus Dei c. Some are in such sort in the House of God that they also are the House of God and some are so in the House of God that they pertain not to the Frame and Fabrick of it But here the similitude concurs not between the unclean Beasts in the Ark and Hypocrites in the Church between the clean ones and the elect for once a clean beast and ever clean once an unclean and ever so accounted by the Law but How many are there that now wallow in all impurity and filthiness that hereafter we hope may be converted prove chast and undefiled How many that either blaspheme or know not Christ who we trust and expect shall be illuminated and believe These are sheep in Gods preordination yet for the present are unclean and follow the voice of a stranger On the other side How many have we known that have been chast for a while and afterward plunged themselves in sensuality How many that have vowed to bear the Cross of Christ and yet denied him How many that have eaten of the Lords Table and yet have resolv'd in their heart to betray their fellow Disciples as Judas did to betray Christ These had the seeds of righteousness and yet proved unclean which says let him that standeth take heed lest he fall and take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart to depart from the Living God To be brief in the remainder There is no separation now between clean and unclean things Rabbi Moses is quoted by Lyra for this saying nulla animalia erunt immunda tempore Messia when the Messias comes no living things shall be accounted unclean by any legal imputation So it is come to pass indeed and we have witness out of the mouth of an
in the mire of recoyling desires These are the Apples of Sodom Plants bearing fruit that never come to ripeness Wisd x. 7. This was not her native Country from whence the Angel brought her I confess that would have moved a stony heart to have pitied it if they had seen it desolate No Lot and she were strangers in Sodom and but coarsly used by the lawless luxurious multitude but wealth came in apace Lot chose it for that end there were other reasons I believe that took her more there was the conflux of the Gallantry there were the Fashions there was the Bravery there were the Sports that filled up idle hours there were the Servants and the Visitants and some things else which we much mistrust did follow all this O 't is an harsh thing for feminine pride and wantonness to be sent from such a City into little Zoar or into a Mountain No marvail if good counsel do not altogether work that good effect in this kind among our Ladies that might be expected for the Angels of God could neither perswade nor affright Lots Wife from such a place but that being a mile or so out of the Gates she longs to return He that puts his hand to the plough and looks back says our Saviour is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven Post aratrum respicit qui ad mala revertitur quae reliquit says Gregory If you call back any sin to which you had bid adieu then you mar that furrow which is before your eyes wherein you were casting good seed and make it crooked This is a cleanly Comparison but because relapsing is an odious sin St. Peter hath streined for a loathsome Similitude and calls it returning with the dog unto his vomit Si canis hoc faciens horret oculis tuis tu quid eris oculis Dei says St. Austin if a dog is not to be endured in our sight that will lap in his own digustments how shall God cast thee out of the sight of his eyes which dost wallow in those sins which thou hadst abjured 'T is a subtle question which Clemens propounds in the 2. of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the resolution of it will cost them dear I think that resume those sins for which they had asked pardon whether it be worse to sin in one kind once with a mans full knowledg and obstinacy or out of negligence and weakness to return again to those faults whereof he had repented certainly the determination will be that relapsing begets extreme obstinacy and obstinacy begets obdurateness Facit obrigescere in peccato as one says the Metaphor is taken from her in my Text that after recidivation became senseless as a Pillar and did not feel what it was to sin They marry those sins again from whence their Soul was once divorced they are reinamoured of iniquity which once they confessed was to be loathed they do as it were say unto God take thy restraining grace again we will have none of it they were drawn out of the snare of the Hunter and put in their foot again improbè Neptunum accusat qui iterum naufragium facit said the Heathen therefore as their first illumination was an illustrious example of mercy so their sliding back and ingratitude shall be punished with a memorable instance of justice The Canonists say bis recidivus non debet commutare A simple offender in whom unfeined sorrow appears if the Magistrate please may be punished in his Purse for once to excuse him from his corporal shame but if he fall into the same offence again he must undergo his own penance without all indulgence of commutation Consider therefore and the Lord put it into all our thoughts that all Vows Promises and Protestations of amendment of any fault that are retrograde cease and become nothing will be the most terrible witnesses against us in the day of judgment The Scape-goat that was sent out into the Wilderness with the sins of the people was dismissed never to return again The Philosopher Plato could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as one would say go out of Sodom and never turn back to look upon it Christ bad us not only come unto him Matth. xi 28. but also abide with him and stay with him Jo. 15.4 There is no labour to lost labour to begin in the spirit and to end in the flesh Root up vanity that it may grow no more if you do but clip off the top it will grow the thicker afterward The Philistins let the hair of Samson grow again to their own destruction Take heed that your repentance be not the worst sin that ever you committed be as constant in well doing as the worst are in evil be constant unto the end and the Lord will give you a Crown of Life AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON LOT'S WIFE GEN. xix 26. And she became a pillar of salt HEre is a relation of a great sin and of the destruction of the sinner and both in the compass of one short verse And yet as brief as the Story is I believe it is longer in telling than the deed was a doing Though it might give us not an hours but an Ages time to consider how such a transmutation should come to pass for every alteration in nature requires time and previous dispositions to work it yet a thousand years to the Lord are but as one day and a moment of one day as sufficient to bring his will to pass as a thousand years If you regard the gripes of pain which customarily are antecedent to death I think never any died with less sense of pain than this woman did for a numbness took her all over in the twinkling of an eye and left her as it had been a stone And you know long lingring punishments are most cruel and most exquisite to flesh and bloud Ita moriatur ut se mori sentiat was a most tyrannical sentence But of that the example in my Text was most free and yet never the happier Julius Caesars quick answer to his friends demand what death is most eligible and he said the quickest is much cited but little commended For though his opinion seem specious in one similitude that no Seafaring man will complain that he was brought too soon to the Haven Yet there is another similitude to counterpoise that how an unprovided Steward may be shent because he was brought too soon to his reckoning A little warning time at the latest of all may be worth much time Moses had this bestowed upon him for the fulness of all favours that went before to have his passing-bell toll in his ears in those words which God spake unto him Get thee up into Mount Nebo and die in the Mountain whither thou goest up and be gathered unto thy people From hence I collect that this Judgment in my Text will be most sensible to our apprehension because we shall hear of one
you must know that there is a threefold evidence of truth to be distinguished First there is the evidence of our outward senses Matt. xvi when it is Evening you say it will be fair weather for the Sky is red O ye hypocrites can you discern the face of heaven says our Saviour as who should say then there is more to be understood 2. There is the evidence of knowledg which will condemn the Heathen that know not God for the invisible things may be understood by the things which are made even his eternal Godhead Rom. i. both these truths you see are fruitless without a third and what is that but the evidence of faith Heb. xi As for other Truths every man is in the high way to get them capiat qui capere potest but as for this Truth it hath looked down from Heaven says David looked upon whom it listeth and all men have not faith Whether Faith be the evident Truth or not all the World almost upon a time stuck at that point but onely Abraham either because their eyes were dim or because it shined like the face of Moses that they could not behold it Yea we have sundry Traditions that some Philosophers cast an eye upon the first verse of the Scripture In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth but they started at it like the Host of Israel at the dead Corps of Amasa and went no further Alas poor Philosophy who knows not how to confound the wisdom of her Principles The fire hath been as temperate as the morning air Dan. 3. the waters have stood upon an heap like the strong ribs of a Mountain Exod. xiv the Sun hath hid his face at noon day when Astronomy could find no reason for it their Art was as blind as the Heaven in the Eclipse But every part of nature should be out of frame Heaven and Earth should pass away before one title of Gods book should perish that with the dissolution of the Heavens no Angels might remain and with the ruine of the Earth no men might be left to testify against it The holy Martyrs have forsaken their lives that this truth might not forsake them And as it is reported of our Philosopher that the ashes spread upon the high Mountains of Tenariffa retain for ever any letters drawn out upon them by reason of the tranquillity of the place So no wind or storm can scatter away those holy words of Gods Book since they have been written in the ashes of the Martyrs the Law cannot endure better in the Tables of Stone than the Gospel in that sacred dust If Faith be not a Truth how did Abraham see Christmas day and rejoyce and keep it a solemn Festival more than a thousand years before the name was entred into our Calender He knew the faithfulness of Gods Promise that made Jesus our Redemption so undoubtedly that he swore him a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech The Mother of our Lord might ask reverently quomodo How should these things be The best in the World have their doubts of infirmity but Domine non erit tibi this thing shall not be so when Christ had spoken it that was a mistake in St. Peter and yet behold the Evidence of Truth shewed it self more abundantly anon after in the faith of that Apostle than in all the skill of Greece and Egypt Tell me what Physician could promise recovery to the Cripple lying at the Beautiful Gate Durst all the Colledg of Galen say unto him confidently stand up and walk but the Apostle saw that one grane of faith could give him the use of his feet and ancle bones that he might leap and praise the Lord. Whatsoever is confirmed by the mouth of two or three Witnesses it passeth for truth by the Law of God and Man and good reason for it Now the Old Testament was confirmed under the name of three Patriarchs I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. In the New Covenant whether it were at the Transfiguration of Christ Peter James and John three Attendants did bear him company to Mount Tabor in like manner at the raising up of Jairus Daughter and in the Mount of Olives when he sweat and prayed so many were with him as before and the self same three Disciples all was confirmed under the mouth of three Witnesses But I will take no more pains in this point to prove Faith to be a Truth as I remember the great Orator reports of a good man Q. Metellus he was excused or rather forbidden to shew his proof unto the Senate in a Controversie to be debated lest the Bench should seem to distrust so reverend a Citizen None but Julian the Apostate and such accursed as he hath left behind him would scoff at Faith whose cavil it was as Nazianzen reports that we had a starting hole for all objections in one silly word Believe These men knew not that Faith in a little Pearl was worth all the substance of a Merchant and he sold all he had to buy the Pearl Matt. xiii Surely if the Womb of Mary deserved a Blessing from all Generations that bore the Infant from everlasting if the Arms of Simeon deserved a Church Anthem every Evensong that enclasped him if the Tomb of Joseph was attended by Angels where his body lay then cut down Palms and spread your Garments in the way for Christ is rode in triumph into that heart into which faith is entred Now Truth is fruitful and brings forth Truth a Daughter not unlike her self Divine Truth is the cause of Human Truth of a true Conversation of a right Balance and a just Fphah Her Merchandise is such as Abraham's was with the Hittites Gen. 23. which I will ever commend when he bought a Tomb for Sarah such as the ancient Romans was aedes pestilentes vendo the Seller was not ashamed to confess that his House had the Pestilence Not as St. Hierom told the Trades of his time tanti vitrium quanti margaritam to chop away Glass for Rubies or as St. Basil says of Gordias the Martyr that his Soul was vexed with the City and he retired into the Wilderness leaving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he could not endure the Buyers and Sellers the forswearers and liars And what doth all come to when they cast up their Audit Prov. xxi 6. The getting of riches by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death Let our Merchants beware that they carry not that report which the Wits of St. Paul's time put upon the Cretians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwayes liars evil beasts and slow-bellies or as Plutarch spake of Demades the Pleader then grown past the best that there was nothing left in him but his Tongue and his Paunch his Tongue to tell lies and his Belly to surfeit the meer Reliques of an Ox sacrificed Nay I beseech you
of all the Royal Order yet neither the hand of man nor the fury of Satan could do him hurt but immediatly the Angel c. Brethren you see my Text speaks of a smiting Angel An Angel smote the first-born of Pharaoh an Angel made an exceeding slaughter in the Host of Sennacharib An Angel brandished a Sword before David when seventy thousand died of the Pestilence Conceive not of these things as if an Angel had a Sword of Steel or offered any visible violence per contactum but as Abulensis says the Angel did apply some pestilent noisomness to the air which in a moment entred into their bowels and destroyed their Vitals Beloved the holy Angels seem as it were desirous and ambitious to avenge Gods glory against the pride of Herod Indeed there is so little zeal in his cause now adays so few do stir in it as if to this hour we left all to them and expected Angels Nay rather as if we thought of neither God nor Angel Where is the Courage of Phinehas Where is the Zeal of Elias Where is the Voice of John the Baptist Where is the Sword that is not lent in vain unto the Magistrate The lean Cattel it may be shall go to the Shambles but Amalek and the fat ones are your prey and your Sacrifice Ecquid tinnit Dolobella Then no man cuts him off though he give not God the glory The world is grown as unconscionable as that heathen man who said He had rather heaven should lose a Star from the Firmament than himself to lose an heifer from his flocks of Cattel So we are more tender of our own reputation than to maintain his glory by whom Kings reign and by whom we hope to reign as Kings in glory The Noble Descent of our Ancestors the Antiquity of our House the Dignity of our Place the Gravity of our Years Praecedere quatuor annis these are things that our bloud will rise at if they be called in question but the profanation of the name of Jesus the alienation of holy things the demolishment of Churches irreverent carriage at Divine Prayers and the holy Communions are as little our care as matters of Religion did pertain to Gallio I must again recall you to the practice of the Angels For when the Sadducees did so much dishonour them that they said there were no Angels at all yet we do not read in all the Scripture that these Angels did avenge themselves of the Sadducees in their own behalf but in another quarrel in Gods cause they are as quick and hot as a flaming fire Nay for fear lest some body should step in before them to do the deed as soon as ever the word was out of Herods mouth that he was magnified as a God immediatly he is apprehended And that is the third part Tantus tam repentè without pause without time of revocation immediately c. The Judgments of the Lord are so sudden so accustomed to tread upon the heels of sin that all the comparisons of nimble motion are borrowed to express it The Flying Arrow Psal xci The noysom Pestilence that cleaves to the flesh in a moment in the same place The coming of a Bridegroom whose longing desires use not to be tardy Mat. xxv The Thief in the night that gives no warning The gliding of the Lightning from the East unto the West The blast of a Trumpet The crowing of a Cock that breaks our sleep What can be said more that Gods Angel doth immediately strike the insolent Nazianzen speaking of those Scoffers that abused S. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is marvel that Thunderbolts are not stirring upon such a trespass St. Hierom in his Commentary upon the Prophet Habakkuk relates That Julian the Apostate reading this story of Herods downfall cavilled against the Christians for saying their God was patient and of long suffering Nihil iracundius nihil hoc furore praesentius says he ne modico spatio indignationem distulit Nothing more angry nothing more sudden he did not defer his indignation no not for an hour It is true indeed sin and death are Acus filum iniquity draws on judgment as the Needle draws the thread immediately after it For such as are vessels of dishonour when they first jussel against Gods Commandments they begin to crack in the very moment although they break not in pieces till the fulness of time when the Milstone shall fall upon them and grind them to powder In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die says God to Adam that is thou shalt grow mortal and decline every minute more and more to the grave But there is a chosen Generation yet let them not presume upon grace that shall be pardoned seventy seven times Whereupon says St. Austin Commemoratione hujus numeri omnia peccata sunt dimissa quando ipse per quem omnia peccata remissa sunt septuagessimâ septimâ generatione secundum Lucam natus est That is if sins be remitted seventy seven times to the Elect then all their sins shall be remitted for he in whom all sins are remitted Christ Jesus was born by a mystery in the seventy seventh Generation from God the Eternal Father according to St. Luke Immediately he was smitten in such Splendour of Attire in such Celebrity of Attendants before the face of Strangers among those who in their hearts were no better than his enemies never did he come out of that Chair of the Scorner from that Throne wherein he was Canonized till he was stript of all Dignity and deprived of that Title by the Angel of the Lord. Had he been struck with sickness in any other place I know how it would have been excused the fault would have been laid upon his long journey from Galilee to Cesarea perchance the Sidonians had been charged to poyson him such suspicions are very rife as if it were impossible for Princes to come to their end by natural infirmities but now no such rumour could be broached Immediately c. Beloved It is the most dreadful thing upon earth to be suddenly apprehended by judgment What will not our strict Reformers cavil at who demand to have the Prayer against sudden death to be put out of the Litany It is well if they themselves be so well prepared for the hour of Judgment come it never so unexpected Indeed it should be so But let the Christian whom I would instruct pray every Morning as if he should see the Sun rise no more Pray every Evening as if he should see the Sun set no more be ready to meet the Bridegroom at Midnight and yet despise not that Supplication From sudden death good Lord deliver us He that promiseth God repentance hereafter pays him in the mean time with iniquity Ab hôc loco hoc ipso tempore Deo servire statui it is St. Austins Meditation If your heart be touched at any Sermon do not consult with your Almanack what day will be most
from thence he assists his Sacraments sanctifieth his Ministry gives grace unto his Word And if they did not escape who refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn from him that speaketh from Heaven Secondly Our Jerusalem is above not only in the Head but in the Members I do not say in all the Members for the Church is that great House in which are Vessels of honour and dishonour Terms of Excellency though indistinctly attributed to the whole are agreeing oftentimes only to the chiefer or more refined part Some there are in this Body whom though we salute not by the proud word of their Sublimity yet in true possession which shall never be taken from them they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are above Witness that the Angels make up one Church with us being the chief Citizens that are reckoned in the triumphant part fellow Servants with us under one Lord adopted Sons under one Father Elect under one Christ This is the language of the Scripture and surely Members of one Mystical Body for the same Jesus is the Head of all Principality and Power Colos ii 10. Of this Family also are the Saints departed even all those holy Spirits that obey God in heavenly places and do not imitate the Devil and his Angels This is that Church which hath neither spot nor wrinkle for when I speak of such a Church says St. Austin in his retractations I mean none but those in Heaven After these that make the front and first File of our March there are many among us I trust who have their part in this description Jerusalem which is above the Elect of God the Church invisible invisible I say not for their persons but for their qualites for who can see who hath an internal union with Christ the Head Who can tell whether this or that may be filled with his Grace and quickned with his Spirit Cusanus says very well that there is no certain judgment to be made by the outward fruits who are living Members of the Church but in Infants that are newly baptized With the mouth we confess the truth but with the heart man believes unto righteousness and only God can see the heart But these whose integrity their Master knows and loves no matter in what base condition they wander here they are greater by far than the ungodly that over-peer them in promotion they are above indeed for they are as high as the pinacle of blessedness and their names are written in the Book of Life for their sakes God hath dropt down the beautiful style of Jerusalem upon the Houshold of Christ but without these no name were so fit for it as Sodom or Samaria Such as will wrangle where no occasion is offered have carped at this as if we removed all from the Church but such as are Israel in occulto and have their sins forgiven in Christ It was never our meaning neither can we help it but that we must keep communion with all those that profess the common Faith But if the Church had known Hypocrites it had not admitted them into the Portion of the Lord or else it had excluded them Et quid prodest non ejici coetu piorum si mereris ejici says St. Cyprian What the better is it for an Hypocrite that he is not cast out of the Congregation since he deserves to be cast out he may abide with us in the outward Society of them that call upon Christ praesumptivè non veraciter as Spalatensis says because we presume he is faithful though indeed he is the Child of the Devil numero non merito he makes up one of the Multitude that go in the broad way he is none of the few that strive to enter in at the steight gate he keeps the formality of a Christian with others beneath he perteins not to Jerusalem which is above Thirdly We have obtained this dignity to be ranked as them that are above because our calling is very holy He hath saved us and called us with an holy calling 2 Tim. i. 9. called to Doctrin which is above which flesh and bloud did not reveal but the Father that giveth wisdom plentifully 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Theophilact upon my Text God did preach the Gospel from on high with his own voice for take a Breviary of it and it is no more but that which he said from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased We are called to obey the truth by illumination from above from thence is sent the spirit of them that are baptized the spirit of the Apostles and Martyrs the spirit of Bishops and Doctors the spirit of all those that have lived in the Truth and shed their bloud for the Truth 's sake We are called to that Religion which consists in celestial Functions in Faith and Hope in Prayer and Charity not in a Religion which presseth them down that observe it with an insupportable weight of Shadows and Ceremonies but the hour is come when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth Beware of those of the Concision says St. Paul and among bad marks which they carry this is the conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they mind earthly things that is they are pleased with carnal Ordinances with these low and beggerly Observations of the Levitical Priesthood but immediately turning himself to the Fundamentals of the Gospel and the practice thereof says he nostra politeia our way of serving God our manner of worship is in Heaven So Bernard says that the Synagogue moved in a low Orb. But Solomon speaking of the New Testament says Quae est ista quae ascendit Cant. iii. 3. Who is she that cometh up from the Wilderness perfumed with mirrh and frankincense with all the powders of the Merchant Above all we are called to holy actions which savour not of mans passions and purposes but are qualified from above Our fortitude is heavenly fortitude our temperance heavenly temperance our liberality to the poor heavenly liberality but the moral deeds of the Heathen living out of the Church that had the best gloss upon them were smutcht with some bad vapour below and every grane of vertue that grew out of their stalks did abound with the chaff of vanity And what exceeds all that I have said beside to make our calling heavenly and holy God is so gracious to those things which are done in the Church in the name of his Son that where an unfit instrument may seem to marr all by his extravagant profaneness by his impenitent conscience nay by his heretical pravity yet Christs presence and assistance are not wanting to his Word and Sacraments but their efficacy is free and current to the people though they be performed by a crooked and an adulterous Generation As the Posterity of Jacobs Handmaid had a Princedom among their Brethren in the Land of Canaan
comfort could the children have we had been all like Esau afflicted and desperate when we had no share in the birth-right no part in the blessing of our Father The Israelites that toil'd like Gally-slaves under the works of the Law had their New Moons and their Solemn Feasts of Trumpets and Tabernacles had many other gaudy days which carried a shew of gladness but indeed there was no solid consolation in them they wanted a Christmas-day the Nativity of a Saviour to make all chearful their pleasantness was like the singing of a bird fast lockt in a cage sometimes it chants a sweet note yet flutters and is always unquiet because it is under captivity Therefore it is to them that Amos denounceth that heavy note chap. 8.10 The Lord will turn your feasts into mourning but for our sakes the message is transpos'd and the Lord will turn our mourning into an everlasting feast So said the Angel not only to a few Shepherds as in the former verse but to all that watch over their souls as they did over their flocks Fear not c. It is very manifest therefore that the scope of my Text bends to this point how Christ made flesh as this day in the similitude of man that he might redeem that nature from the curse of his Fathers wrath which he had taken into the union of his Person I say how the Son of God for our sakes incarnate is our crown and our rejoycing the consummation of all our felicity which thus I prove by a true division of the parts To that eternal happiness in which we shall rejoyce before God for ever two things say the Schoolmen very rightly do equally concur Omnis miseria excluditur omne desiderium expletur all misery shall be excluded all desire shall be satiated and both these two are most remarkable in this Angelical congratulation First the depulsion or sending of all manner of evil and misery from our blessed estate fear not Secondly the inclusion of all those joys and solaces that can be askt that 's laid open in Evangelizo good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people Privatively the messenger brought no discomfort nay positively he brought comfort which twain put together make up the complement of our final beatitude In the first general branch wherein the Angel promiseth a deliverance or award from all evil that might make the Shepherds sorrowful I consider these particulars for the explication 1. What they should not fear 2. How they should not fear 3. Why they should not fear in the first they are incourag'd that three things be not dreadful unto them Splendor Angelicus propria indignitas legis maledictio tremble not either at the heavenly glory that shone round about them nor be dejected at their unworthiness nor be affrighted at the threatnings and maledictions of the Law In the second we may consider a natural fear which may be too passionate and immoderate they must cast off that and there is a worldly sorrow or fear which is altogether unprofitable they must fly that but there is a religious reverential fear which is not passio but donum not a passion of flesh and blood but a gift of the Holy Spirit they must pray for that The next interrogatory was why they should not fear and that for two reasons Propter nuntium propter nuntiatum first in a less principal respect because an Angel came to comfort them but chiefly in a more principal regard because Christ was born to be their comfort The second general branch abounds much above this where not only evil is dispell'd but a whole box broken and all the oyl of gladness poured upon their head wherein you may note first the Angels Trumpet with which he proclaims his errand ecce behold it then the errand consisting in no less than seven parts of Benediction 1. Ecce ego says Gabriel Behold I bring unto you the terms were much amended with Heaven and us that an Angel came upon a peaceable message 2. Ecce Evangelizo he was no Law-giver that was terrible but an Evangelist 3. The sweet air of the Gospel hath some harsh tidings to take up the Cross and endure unto blood and death but these were tidings of joy 4. Joys are of several sizes this is a great one nay none so great 5. Joys and great ones are quickly done this is gaudium quod erit joy that shall be and continue 6. A man may be a conduit-pipe to transmit joy to others and have no benefit himself this is gaudium vobis joy to you to every ear that hears it 7. A good nature would not engross a blessing but desires to have it diffused and so was this gaudium omni populo joy to all people None of these many circumstances can be omitted for I must be faithful in making this rehearsal Sermon as I may call it and omit nothing of that which the Angel hath preacht before me Now let us begin again with every parcel divided asunder The Angel said unto them fear not what should they not fear first non a splendore divino let not their hearts be troubled because the glory of the Lord shone round about them Sore eyes are distempered at much light and it is a sign there is some darkness within us all which loves not to be discover'd that the best of us all are much perplext if any extraordinary brightness flash upon us A glorious splendor fill'd the mountain where Christ was transfigur'd and it did amuse Peter James and John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who carry the name of the chief Apostles that they knew not what they spake Out of St. Pauls own mouth concerning his conversion Acts 22.6 Suddenly from heaven there shone a great light about me and I fell with my face unto the ground Well might the Psalmist say his lightnings gave shine unto the world the earth trembled and was afraid Ever ever shall we be afraid of any surpassing measure of light in this life because our deeds are darkness Especially the Shepherds hearts did mis-give them that the Lord himself was in this marvellous light it is his decking and his garment when he comes forth in Majesty Thou deckest thy self with light as with a garment Now you know Elias a man of mighty courage covered his face with a mantle when a still small voice passed by his ears and the Lord was in the voice then it were strange if poor Shepherds should not quake when they were perswaded that the Lord was in the light that shin'd upon them A learned Expositor confirms what I say Erat claritas creata praeseferens divinam Majestatem it was a splendor of glory newly made on purpose which did bear the evident shew of no created Spirit but of a Divine Majesty And ever since Adam was diffident of himself in the Garden or Eden and confessed in this wise Gen. 3.10 extimui I was afraid and hid my self ever since that
hour the heart of man is cast down and presageth some evil to come when God and his Angels appear though they entreat us peaceably The main reason is this Ne dignam suis meritis accipiant retributionem our own sins rise up against us as unanswerable accusers and we ominate and conjecture that God appears for nothing but to judge and condemn us When God and his Angels presented themselves to Jacob in a dream he breaks out into these words Gen. 28.27 How dreadful is this place this is no other but the gate of heaven Peace Jacob why doest thou not cry out how comfortable is this place this is no other but the gate of Heaven but it 's certain that the very comfort of heaven was dreadful and unpleasant to men in the Old Testament and our nature is still corrupted the vessel is still unclean that receives these blessings and therefore we are afraid of the great mercies of the Lord as well as of the great punishments Alas O Lord for I have seen an Angel of the Lord face to face says Gideon and yet for all that fear Gideon is named a mighty man of valour Manoah the sire of that race from which Sampson came the very name of valour yet he said to his Wife We shall surely dye because we have seen the Lord. The charitable widow of Sarepta was no less afraid of Elias an extraordinary Prophet Art thou come to slay my son and to call my sins to remembrance finally Peter drawing a miraculous draught of fish into the Ship as Christ bad him cast out the net thought of nothing but his own sins and Gods vengeance Depart from me Lord for I am a sinful man But here 's a messenger in my Text that bids the Shepherds cashiere all these affrightments neither to be dismay'd at the light that shin'd about them nor yet that God was in the glory of that light First Not to be troubled at the light for it was to make this doctrine manifest as if it had been written with a beam of the Sun that Christ is the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world And why says Bernard did God ordain that light should be instead of John the Baptist to usher Christ into the world when he was born but because he would illuminate him without Qui interioribus ignorantiae tenebris obducitur who was overcast with darkness within In him was life and that life was the light of men John 1.4 Quae necdum infundi poterat at divina saltem circumfunditur claritas as the light was but spread about their bodies here so it was a sign that if they would believe in him that was come to be the Messias and to save them from their sins their whole bodies should be transform'd into bodies of light hereafter in the Kingdom of Heaven And as every living thing rejoyceth when the night is past and the Sun appears upon the earth so they and we have cause to rejoyce that the night of Ceremonies pass'd away and the clear evidence of truth did shine abroad Vnto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise Mal. 4.2 Therefore according to Bernards elegancy this is the Angels fear not drawn out at large timetis phantasma en adest veritas You are afraid of some spectrum or vision fear not behold we come with the evidence of truth You suspect this is the lightning that goes before a thunder-clap No no it betokens there is a light risen into the world which is the comfortable light of men You suspect death but I annuntiate life You fear the gates of Hell but the Heavens are opened and God is come down among you You conjecture some perdition but behold I preach a Saviour that shall save you from your sins This is the meaning of the light which did dance at Midnight about the air when Jesus was born and the Angel said to them that trembled at the Vision fear it not But what if God himself were in that light What if it were a fiery Apparition darted from the presence of his Majesty Why yet Nolite timere Fear it not Once it pleased our heavenly Father to keep a distance with man upon these terms no man hath seen God at any time and lived Now the day is come when you shall see he communicates himself more friendly to dust and ashes so St. John begins his Epistle That which was from the beginning yet we have seen it with our eyes we have looked upon it and our hands have handled the Word of life It is not from henceforth since Christ was born as it was with the Bethshemites that lookt into the Ark which represented the glory of God and died for it Now no man hath so much cause to fear his indignation as he that shuns his presence and fears lest the Lord should appear before him How did St. Stephen exult when he saw the heavens opened and Christ Jesus standing at the right hand of God Do you think the Martyr was amazed to see the sight No my Beloved ever since the Son of God vouchsafed to take flesh in the womb of Mary it is not a sign of death to see any part of Gods glory but a good ominous presage of everlasting life Therefore be it that God was in the light which shin'd about the Shepherds yet all is well says the Angel Nolite timere Fear it not Secondly They must take courage and not be troubled à propriâ indignitate because of their own unworthiness Indeed what might they think within themselves that they were vouchsafed to hear the first Proclamation of this Blessed Nativity To us these Congratulations To us poor Swains this heavenly Embassage To us miserable Shepherds these Tidings who are set with the Dogs of the Flock Tell them to Caesar or to Herod his Lieutenant or to the chief Priest Non nobis Domine non nobis We are most desertless Wretches and why should God bestow such a royal favour upon us Do you remember Beloved how Peter drew our Saviour near unto him by crying out Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord Luk. v. 8. The more he requested him to be gone the more Christ did abide with Peter so by how much the Shepherds did abase themselves before the Angel the more did the Angel raise them up and bade them be encouraged to behold the Glory of God He that did choose little Infants to be his first Martyrs and ignorant Fishermen to be his first Apostles and Mary Magdalen a woman and a sinner to be the first Witness of his Resurrection it may appear that his grace is manifestly toward them who have a quick feeling of their own indignity The blessed Virgin when she had conceived her Son came to her Cosin Elizabeth that God might prove her lowliness and thus she exprest it Whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come unto me
mans life by it self A just Father a just Counsellor a just Judge and so likewise in the particular condition of that Office a just Saviour and Mediator Out of this last acception surely we may best pick out the meaning of my Text. For this humility and obedience which our Saviour did now profess in coming to Jordan with the multitude to be baptized it could not be reduced to the observance of any Ceremony in the old Law nor to any Precept of the Ten Commandments wherein a necessary part of justice consisted but it was agreeable to the person of his Mediatorship and he was accountable for all such duties as parts of righteousness For let the Sacrament of Baptism be considered in two sorts First from the efficient cause that it was established by divine authority Secondly From the end in that it signifies the washing away of sins in both these respects it pertained to his Office to be baptized who was the Mediator between God and man In the former regard we have his own confession I came to do the will of my Father that sent me and although necessity did not lie upon him to meddle with that Ceremony which betokened the cleansing of sins yet it was expedient that he should not contemn but do honour to his Fathers Ordinance What did it concern him to be subject to his Parents To be Circumcized To keep the Feast days of the Jews But because it was a part of righteousness to apply himself devotionately to all divine Institutions In the latter regard though his own soul was pure neither was iniquity found in him Yet he bore the iniquity of us all and we have need of washing not our feet only but our hands and our head It is a full saying of Maximus to this purpose Justissimum erat quia totum suscepisset homimem ut per omnia hominis transiret sacramenta Since he took man upon him with the guilt of all his corruptions it behoved him to pass through all those Sacraments which are the means to take away our corruptions So you see what righteousness signifies in this place Non justitiam aequalitatis legis sed aequitatis vocationis Not such justice as is commanded in the Law but a decent equity according to the Office and vocation of his Mediatorship The next thing to be considered is the fulfilling of righteousness Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness Every one in whom the Spirit of God abides hath a good purpose to do justice and the works of the Law but he that fulfils righteousness and is exact in his ways without all reproof is the Son of God I say as for us that know God by faith and live in tabernacles of flesh wherein there is always malicious resistance against the inward operations of grace we are all transgressors of righteousness it is impossible we should fulfil it Let every man humble himself before God confessing that he is a great sinner because Christ humbled himself for us all to come to that Sacrament which is remediable for Sin St. Austin was troubled with one Celestinus who opposed him that one of the Sons of Adam might be exactly righteous in this life notwithstanding the manifold tentations of frailty St. Austin rejoyns are we not all taught to say the Lords Prayer But if any could be clear from trespasses he need not say Forgive us our trespasses We do not say therefore that there is a man without sin we say there may be a man without sin Quomodo autem possit per quem possit de hôc quaeritur But the question is how and by what means he may be so For the Orthodox Church did never mean a man could be so in this life untill he were translated to the Kingdom of Glory Attend what it is which the same Father brings under the compass of sin and let every man examine himself by that Peccatum est cum vel non est caritas quae esse debet vel minor est quà m esse debet sive hoc voluntate vitari possit sive non possit It is a sin either not to have charity which we ought to have or to have less charity than we ought to have Though we could avoid that defect by our own will or though we could not meaning sure our inability to fulfil the Law by the corruption we draw from our first Parents the guilt lies upon us for want of charity Who can tell how oft he offendeth Says David Is there any man then upon earth who can tell how oft he offendeth Rely not therefore upon thy self but upon Christ who alone was able to fulfil all righteousness The Devil tried him in the Wilderness whether the perfection of all justice were in him But was repelled and he could not draw him to forsake his righteousness The Scribes and Pharisees worse than Satan misdeemed the Doctrine of Christ how his Discipline would be some new thing quite different from obedience to the Law But our Saviour prevented their ill surmise saying I came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them Mat. v. 17. To destroy the Law is either to take the true sense from it by false interpretations or to cancell the force by which it obliged or lastly by malice and presumption to violate and infringe it For violation of the Law they did accuse him but not convince Pilate who did strive to do them favour was compelled to say I find no evil that he hath done For delivering the right sense and meaning of it his interpretations were most divine and discovered the vanity of Pharisaical Traditions Whereupon says Theophylact as a Painter laying fresh colours upon an old Picture Non delendo sed perficiendo tollit priorem imaginem makes as it were a new Image not by blotting out the old but by varnishing and washing it new again So Christ gave as it were a new Law to the Jews not by expunging or adding any thing but by applying the natural exposition to the Text. As for cancelling the force by which it tied it is true indeed that he did abrogate all Ceremonial Figures and Shadows because such things were to vanish away when the substance was exhibited in his own person Wherefore Cajetan marks the words accutely that Christ did not say I will destroy no part of the Law no not the Ceremonies but Non veni solvere they shall be laid aside hereafter but I came not to destroy them in my own person So St. Stephen was accused Acts vi 14. We heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth shall change the Customs which Moses hath delivered us Summarily therefore thus our Saviour fulfilled the Law and all righteousness The Law consists of four things Prophesies Moral Precepts Ceremonial Rites Judicial Statutes He fulfilled the Prophetical part personally exhibiting himself to be born to be crucified to rise the third day to ascend into glory In the