a maister where is my feare If Ionas were now his seruant it was but in name onely he did in truth litle regard his maister At this time then he hath much more occasion to stand in awe of his punishment and in that sence he might well say that he feared the God of heauen He who looketh on the next Chapter shall see this to be most likely 15 The horrour of sinne is such euen in the hearts of the best of Gods children that if faith do sleepe but a little and the resolued assurance of mercy in the Sauiour be eclipsed but for a moment it maketh their soules to tremble in such sort as if diffidence and despaire should swallow them vp by and by How was Dauid dismaied when he cried out Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thine holy Spirit from me What did Iob imagine of his owne desert when he thus professed I abhorre my selfe and repent in dust and ashes In what an horrible anguish was Peter when he went out and wept bitterly But our Prophet of all other fearing the dreadfull burthen of sinne vpon his shoulders and gessing at the strange punishment which should follow him immediatly with some measure of seruile feare doth tremble at his Lord. His feare should haue bene before that he had not runne wilfully into sinne for as it is noted in one of those Epistles which are in the workes of Ambrose although not thought to be his It is one thing to feare because thou hast offended another thing to feare least that thou shouldest offend In the one is a dread of punishment in the other is a carefulnesse that thou mayst obtaine the reward Saint Austen doth describe this slauish quaking feare in one and childes feare in another as the schoolemen do call it by a comparison drawne from a good wife and a harlot The adulterous wife and the chast wife sayth he do both feare if the husband be away The one feareth and the other but aske the reason of both and you shall see an apparant difference The bad vvife standeth in feare of her husband least he should come to her The good vvife is in feare least her husband should go from her This feareth least he should condemne her because she hath deserued it That feareth least he should forsake her because she loueth him dearely Remember these things sayth Austen and so thou shalt find a bad feare whom charity driueth foorth and another chast feare vvhich abideth for euer and euer 16 Ionas who was accustomed in his cogitations of God to ioyne a loue with his reuerence as toward a father now thinketh on him no otherwise then as of a Lord ready to take strong vengeance vpon him as on a prisoner deputed to death This is the best fruite of vngratefulnesse and of negligence in our duties to come as vnto a iudge astonished and amased and trembling to see his face or almost to remember his name whereas we might come as to a father or as to a brother with confidence and boldnesse as to the throne of grace Fye filthy sinne that for thy sake we should thus disable our selues we should so disgrace our soules that when we might liue euen in this world with a dayly deaw of sweete influence distilling vpon our hearts from the holy Spirit of God to reuiue vs and refresh vs and whereas Paradise could not yeeld greater comfort to our eye then the presence of the Trinitie dwelling supping with vs would do vnto our minds and wheras we might dye in rest as hauing that ioy of consciēce that perfect peace of God which passeth all vnderstanding resigning vp with gladnesse our spirites vnto our maker yea that whereas either liuing or dying we may rest our selues on that rocke that euermore we are the Lordes belonging to his election and sealed vp with his adoption to that end that we may enioy sinne for a season and the wantonnesse of this flesh the vanities of this earth and the foolerie of this world which are scant worth the naming to a man that hath heard of wisedome which leaue vs and liue not with vs we should plunge our selues into that horrour which wayteth vpon the reprobates and be perplexed in our thoughtes in our vnderstanding dazeled discouraged in our life discomforted in our end thinking of hell and iudgement and wrath and fearefull vengeance which maketh men liue in miserie with sobs and many a sigh and dye without hope of mercie Let vs raise vp our selues at length and with sober meditation contemplate vpon this matter Let our soule be dearer to vs euen that soule which Christ hath bought with his bloud with his precious heart bloud then sinne with his tayle of a scorpion who departeth not without stinging Better to loue God as Ionas should then to quake at God as Ionas did The God of heauen who made the sea and the drie land 17 But here I must not forget the last wordes of my text because they yeeld a speciall doctrine most fit for these present times In this speech Ionas doth entitle his maister to all the world he is first the God of the heauen and then he did create the sea and the drie land Heauen oftentimes by a generall name containeth all things aboue vs be they elements or be they other bodies so then God did make this whole frame The heauen is as his seate the earth he made from which the sea he made to which the Prophet did here flie Be it wet or be it dry be it passable be it nauigable be it aboue or below this maker did create it So Nehemiah witnesseth Thou art Lord alone thou hast made heauē and the heauen of all heauens with all their host the earth and all things that are therein the seas and all that are in them and thou preseruest them all and the host of the heauen vvorshippeth thee So Iob speaketh so Dauid testifieth So the Articles of our faith do teach vs to beleeue on the maker of heauen and earth Whereby it is plaine that he doth renounce the groundes of Christianitie who doth deny this doctrine Yet the world hath hatched such monsters euen of the seed of Christiās as who make no bones therof But young ones abash not at it nor abash not at it old ones for it is no more thē we looke for S. Peter long ago foretold it that in the last dayes there should come such deriders as should laugh at the speech of Christes coming and at the day of iudgement maintaining that there shall be an eternall continuance of all things in such sort as now they are Where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers dyed all things continue alike from the beginning of the creation These will not beleeue that euer the heauen earth were not but they receiue it that they haue stood from all eternitie and shall so continue They see
wherein they shall heare that sentence and that is in the resurrection There were in former times many figures of that matter euen before the light of the Gospell as when Enoch and Elias were assumed vp into heauen and translated to immortalitie to shew that other after them should haue the same vncorruptnesse although by another change and to make proofe of a life which is elsewhere for our bodies but shall not be reuealed vntill that generall rising In like sort when there were shewed vnto the Prophet Ezechiel great heapes of scattered bones which the Lord yet put together and laid sinewes vpon them and made flesh grow thereon and then couered both with skinne and afterward breathed life into them In Iob is an euident testimonie I am sure that my Redeemer liueth and he shall stand the last on the earth And although after my skinne the wormes destroy this bodie yet shall I see God in my flesh So in the end of Daniel Many of them that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall avvake some to euerlasting life and some to shame and perpetuall contempt But how euident is this in the new Testament When the Sonne of man commeth in his glorie and all the holy Angels with him then shall he sit vpon the throne of his glorie And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepheard separateth the sheepe from the goates And in the second to the Corinthians that vve must all appeare before the iudgement seate of Christ that euerie man may receiue the things done in his bodie according as he hath done vvhether it be good or euill But most manifest of all other is that of Iohn in his Reuelation I saw a great white throne and one that sate on it from whose face fled away both the earth and heauen and their place vvas no more found And I saw the dead both great and small stand before God and the bookes vvere opened Then foorthwith And the sea gaue vp her dead which vvere in her and death and hell deliuered vp the dead which vvere in them So oftentimes and so plainely doth God foretell vnto vs this generall resurrection In so much that it is as certaine as that the Lord sitteth in heauen that this shall one day bee 16 As there is in all the faithful an assenting to this doctrine the like might be in very Ethnicks sauing that their eies are closed therfore they cānot see as a sound to a deaf eare is nothing which yet is discerned by another man so the miscreants of all ages belly-gods and beast-like men can in no sort endure it Indeede they haue little reason for that the portion is very small which shall then be allowed vnto them Such were those swinish Epicures falsely termed Philosophers who luxuriating in voluptuousnesse and thinking that to be felicitie to bath themselues in delight did enioy the present with the Asse but vtterly denied the immortalitie of the soule and by a consequent that the bodie shall euer be repaired Like to them was Sardanapalus who had this Epitaph on his graue Drinke and play our life is mortall and our time is short vpon earth but our death is euerlasting if a man once be come to it Pliny the elder was a man most worthy praise for his labours which were inestimable yet that speech of his was impious and vnbeseeming those good partes which were otherwise in Plinie To all men from their last day is the same state as was before their first day neither is there after death any more feeling in the bodie or the soule then was before the birthday Certainely the Saduces were in this beleefe of whom the Euangelist witnesseth that they denied the resurrection And you may put them in this number who in Saint Paules time did vse this by-word Let vs eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye as intending that in death should be a finall end and we should be no more heard of The persecuting Gentiles were plainely of this opinion of some of whom in Fraunce Eusebius witnesseth that they in scorne of the resurrection which the Christians do beleeue did burne many of the Martyrs and afterward threw their ashes into the riuer Rhodanus with this foolish exprobration Let vs see now if their God be able to reuiue them In a word most of the Pagans in all ages of the world and all Atheists among Christians a thing in our time too well knowne do oppugne this truth beyond measure At whose liues I do not maruell if they be like their profession that is such some few ciuill respects excepted as are fit for those men who feare neither God nor Diuell I could wish that since it must needes be that Gods wrath is oftentimes by these plucked downe vpon our land the sword of the ciuill magistrate would with seueritie prouide some remedie for them that there might not be in Israel a man who should once dare to blaspheme the name of the Lord. I remember it is recorded of the Atheniens that in the respect which they caried to their false and fained Gods they so detested Diagoras for talking against their heathenish religion that he standing in feare of his life was glad to flye the countrie But herewith the other not contented did put foorth a proclamation that whosoeuer it were that would kill that Diagoras should haue an honourable reward that was a talent of siluer for his labour 17 But to leaue these lawes vnto the Christian magistrate and to proceed as a Minister the arguments of all these and a thousand more of that sute are but vanitie of all vanities when they come once to be weighed in the ballāce of the Sanctuary and are counterpoised onely with the high Gods omnipotencie For why should we tye his power vnto our foolish wit Suppose that there be dying vpon dying and deuouring vpon deuouring that a man be slaine and his members consumed some by birdes some by beastes some by fishes and imagine that those creatures be taken and eaten againe by men and those men be then burnt and their ashes throwne into the water and if we can go farther let there be as many mutations more what is all this to plunge his abilitie who can do euerie thing whatsoeuer himselfe shall please He can do euery thing and therefore raise this man If nature cannot conceiue it learne to looke a little higher to grace and faith beyond nature Plato an heathen man did much reprooue Anaxagoras because tying himselfe too farre to naturall causes and reasons he omitted to thinke on the efficient cause of all things which is surely God the first moouer This is a monstrous errour of vs also But will we allow that to God the like wherof we do allow vnto men If an image should be made of lead to the proportion of a man and the workman
sort of things which be they or be they not it maketh not any matter A conceipt which is very earthie and dull as is the clay and in no sort beseeming a reasonable soule who should carry his face vpright to God and to the heauens and thinke himselfe to be made for somewhat to glorifie the Almightie to be a part of the Church to helpe to adorne the world to be doing honest actions while he is here in this life and not to go poring forward as a beast which looketh onely downeward Is it nothing that he hath giuen thee speech and reason which he denieth to euery thing but man Is it nothing that his sonne redeemed thee with his bloud and payd such a raunsome for thee Or to note what my text doth note is it nothing that thy life is dayed and houred and inched out by a fearefull God and a terrible who among so many motions and directions and disposings and altering transmutations of heauen and earth and water yet hath thee so in his reckening and beareth such an eye vpon thee on thy in-going and thy out-going of thy lying owne thy rising of thy sicknesse and thy health of thy liuing and thy dying as if onely he did intend vnto thy selfe in speciall Do not thou esteeme that to be vile which he reckeneth of so much worth let that soule be precious to thee which he accounteth of so great price do not hang downe thy head but with industrie adorne thy soule and with diligence in his seruice thinking it a shame to see that actiue nimble and stirring substance to be ouergrowne with mossinesse and rust of such neglect as hitherto hath possessed it 6 Now as it is not vnproper to obserue this in glauncing sort because the Prophet giueth that attribute to the Lord that it is his prerogatiue to take away life so from this there euidently ariseth as a doctrine to be thought of in the next place that it is a great fault and a transgression not excusable to thrust our selues into that which belongeth vnto our maker and so by an vsurpation to depriue God of that singular priuiledge which is proper to himselfe of taking away life from man I do not here speake of the Magistrates who carry the sword as from God and are bound not to acquit or excuse the guiltie To them the charge is giuen against murtherers and manquellers that he vvho sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed Moses stoned the blasphemer Iosuah did so by Achan and Salomon in his vprightnesse tooke away the life of Ioab But I speake here of that case which might touch our Prophet nearer that is that although he did pretend that he willingly would be dead yet he doth not take a course violently to lay hands on himselfe and his owne bodie but prayeth the Lord to dissolue him Wherein it appeareth that although he were peruerse and discontent yet he was not come to that height of iniquity and impietie as to destroy himselfe A sinne of the most straunge nature that any is in the world that whereas all other sinnes are to preserue the body indeed or in a fancie in circumstance or in substance this is to ouerthrow it Yea to ouerthrow it with God and ouerthrow it with man in this world and the next without hope and all recouerie vnlesse the Lords mercie which cannot be limited do that whereof is no warrant His commandement is in generall Thou shalt commit no murther If no murther vpon other then much lesse on thy selfe For thou must loue thy neighbour but as thou louest thy selfe and the patterne of all dutie to be extended in him is taken from thine owne person Then when the Lord hath created thee and put thee into the world and bid thee there to keepe as in a standing place as in a watch or ward from whence thou mayest not mooue till he come to discharge thee wilt thou dare to leaue thy ground and forsake that which he hath enioyned thee When thy soule shall come before his iust and fearefulll countenance how must it needes be dismayed when that speech shall come from his mouth what doest thou in this place who sent for thee who dismissed thee As thou with violence hast cut thy selfe from thy bodie so with violence I do cut thee from all hope of participation in my glorie 7 What a trembling may this sentence procure vpon this soule what mountaines may it not cry to or what hils to fall vpon it to be freed from such a doome It is good therefore that euerie Christian who desireth to haue his part in the holie resurrection should flie from this as the way to euerlasting damnation This is a pranke for such as despairing Saule was to fall vpon his owne sword or of cursed craftie Ahitophell to go home and hang himselfe or of Iudas to go foorth and worke himselfe to his end How many are the miseries and vexations which a Christian should suffer all his life time here before that he should once thinke of this With what earnestnesse of prayer should he resist this tentation Should I say that Iosephus a Iew with full reasons refuted that which was vrged for this vngodly fact at such time as he was pressed vnto it by his bloudy minded fellowes Yea heathen men haue taught this as Plato in Phaedone from whom we find that Macrobius hath collected seauen reasons why we should not dare to attempt this But the speech of Tully is excellent in that Somnium Scipionis whereupon Macrobius there commenteth For when Scipio had said If true life be onely in heauen vvhy stay I then vpon earth vvhy hast I not to come to you No it is not so sayth his father for vnlesse that God vvhose Temple all this is that thou seest free thee from the fetters of thy body thou canst not haue an entrance thither For men are begotten and bred vpon that condition that they should maintaine that round thing vvhich thou seest in the middest of that Temple and vvhich is called the earth And there is giuen vnto them a soule of those euerlasting fires vvhich you call starres and planets Wherefore ô Publius both thy soule and the soules of all good men is to be kept by them in the safe custodie of thy body neither vvithout his commandement by vvhom it is giuen vnto you are you to leaue this life lest you should seeme to flye this duty assigned by God If a heathen man by the light of nature could go so farre it were a thing very admirable that bare reason should be able to teach so much But we may very well imagine that this came from the Diuinitie of the lewes For Tully in that place deriueth his position from Plato which Macrobius plainely noteth and Platoes diuine Philosophy was by hearing or reading sucked from the bookes of Moses which thing Eusebius in his booke De
vpon the Prophet his company asketh him from what nation he did come of what people he was borne By these the like interrogatories they desired to know the truth that the fault might lye on him who had deserued it and that they might be freed from the daunger of suffering shipwracke And thus haue you the first verse the demaunds which were made to Ionas Now let vs come to his answer And he answered them I am an Hebrew and I feare Iehouah the God of heauen 12 When the whip of God and the rod of his iustice had ouertaken Ionas so that now he seeth heauen and earth to be against him down cometh his proud hart the sleeper now awaketh the run-away crieth peccaui contrition confession come now tumbling vpon him yea to make vp his full penance there shal be satisfaction if his life can make amends Now with Dauid he will confesse his sinnes against him selfe in ingenuous manner no concealing no excusing no pleading for himselfe It is I who by my follie haue wrought you all this danger Wreake your anger vpon me Me me adsum qui feci in me conuertite ferrum O Rutuli mea fraus omnis It is I it is I here I am vvho did it turne your swordes against me all the fault is mine as Nisus saith in Virgil to saue his friend Eurialus To display my transgression and condemne my self the more I will tell you the whole matter I should be a man of some skill in Gods seruice I should be able to know good froÌ„ euill and practise it accordingly for I am an Hebrew he speaketh that with an Emphasis no idolater no infidell no ignorant person but an Hebrew trained vp in vnderstanding and pietie therefore my fall is most filthie I am ashamed of my selfe The name Hebrew was giuen to the people of God which theÌ„ was the onely sanctified seede of Heber who descended from Sem the sonne of Noe from whom by succession those came who were at that time the sole sonnes of adoption called Hebrewes of Heber as the Iewes afterward tooke their name of Iudah one of the twelue Patriarkes and the Israelites of Iacob whom the Angell after his wrestling called Israell This I thinke to be the true deriuation of that name 13 These Hebrewes instructed their children in the seruice of the highest euen as Moses Dauid commanded vnto them that they should teach their sonnes Gods miracles their children his preceptes The wals of their houses and the postes of their doores could remember them of his statutes The most vnlearned persons among them euen their children could as well rehearse the lawes giuen downe by Moses as they could recite their owne names For Iosephus against Apion doth giue that testimonie of them wherein I suppose that he meaneth the ten commaundements and not the whole law Then for a man a Prophet to forget that which a child or any vnlearned one could not chuse but thinke of to wit his precise duetie doth argue a great fault and he who acknowledgeth this doth not spare himselfe at all He addeth this more in his wordes to them that he feareth the Lord Iehouah the God of heauen he belongeth to his seruice and therefore should be expert in each thing that is good Iehouah is that name wherein the Lord appeared only to the Israelites and not to all them neither not to Abraham nor to Isaac nor to Iacob and the old Patriarkes but first of all to Moses This was that name which the Iewes reputed to be his dreadfull name the ineffable name of God the vnspeakeable name of the Lord which they dared not so much as to vtter that appellation by which he was distinguished from all other heathen Idols from Princes and from Magistrates to whom the name of God in some sence is permitted But Ionas to make him knowne doth giue him another title Iehouah the Lord of heauen who alone doth rule the skie who alone possesseth the firmament not many as you do suppose but he alone ruleth the heauen No doubt but this God had some one time or other bene specified to these mariners they vsed to go to Iapho a hauen towne neare Palestina and verie likely it is that there about they had heard of the miracles which this God had done before in Egypt what worke he made in Canaan His name was a name of fame ouer all the world And perhaps the word Iehouah was not wholy vnknowne to them â—he Romanes which were also heathen men and liued much farther of as I thinke did take some notice of that word when they called their great God Iupiter in some cases Iouis Iouem which might roaue at the name Iehouah But this is but a coniecture and it was some yeares afterward 14 But to let this go he feareth the Lord God of heauen that is either he dreadeth his iudgement for the grieuousnesse of his sinne or else he belongeth vnto him as a seruaunt he reuerenceth him and oweth duetie to him For oftentimes in the Scripture the feare of the Lord importeth his honour or his seruice and so Saint Hierome doth expound it writing vpon this place But as Saint Austen saith of Lucretia if she were an adulteresse why is she commended by those that write the storie of her and by common report if chast why was she slayne why did she kill her selfe So might not I say to Ionas if thou serue the Lord Iehouah why then doest thou flie from him or if thou runne from him how doest thou serue him Ionas thou shouldst haue serued him but thou didst not and that was thy heauy fault Indeed it was his fault as you haue heard oft before and himselfe doth now confesse it For he who giueth true honour to him that is his maker should be obsequious to his will and obseruant of his word in all things great and small much more in things important as Niniue was to the Prophet He that should withdraw from thee that daily foode which thou puttest into thy belly should be reputed of thee for an enemy and can the Lord thinkest thou take it well that thou shouldst withdraw from him that obedience which thou owest vnto him That speech which Saint Cyprian hath is very excellent to this purpose Thou requirest a duty of thy seruant and whereas thou art but a man thou forcest another man to be obedient to thee Yea whereas there is betweene thee and him but one sort of being borne one condition and quality of dying one substance of your bodies yet thou beatest him with the vvhip thou correctest him with the rod. And when thou wilt thus exercise dominion ouer another vvilt thou not acknowledge one to be a Lord ouer thee and do thy best seruice to him God doth expect this at thy hands for saith he if I be a father vvhere is mine honour if I be
all things into her owne lap and bodies do owe to themselues the end of themselues O Caesar if fire do not novv consume these slaine men yet it shall hereafter burne them vp together with the earth and the sea For there remaineth to come one bone-fire which shall be common to all the vvorld and shall mingle the starres in heauen with their bones on earth Ouer and aboue these men of learning Peru the South part of America doth yeeld to vs an ignorant people who by the light of nature and by a generall apprehension for God knoweth they had nothing else do beleeue that the world shall end and that there shall be then a reward for the good and for the euill according to their desert An end doth suppose a beginning as the learned do well know A marring intendeth a making He who drowned the earth by water can dissolue the heauen by fire But the deluge of Deucaliō so much song of by the Poets doth witnesse that there was such a floud in the dayes of Noe and that all things were spilled by the water which could not haue bene but by him who made both the earth and the water Thus the Poets do roaue at that in their fables which Moses teacheth vs in our most sacred Bible 20 Adde some reasons to authority If the world were not created man had not once a beginning how cōmeth it about that all things which make vs liue like men appeare to haue their originall in time and place we know where an when and that but as yesterday to eternity I must not here speake of Moses which telleth vs who first made tents who made the Harpe and the Organ who first did worke in brasse because he is now in question But I bid you rather looke on Polidore Virgil who hath written a large tract of purpose to shew by whom the most matters which be of excellencie were inuented There is no greater grace to a man then knowledge and the artes of learning But Mercurie as some say as some other the Phaenicians are reported by the Gentiles to haue inuented the first letters and others are sayd afterward to haue added to them But we know that the Hebrew letters were before their time euen in the dayes of Moses who as Eusebius saith in that admirable worke of his De praeparatione Euāgelica was more ancient thē the Gods of the Greekes for that they began but after the daies of Cadmus who came much short of Moses Notwithstanding allow it to the Gentiles that there men were the authors of letters it must follow thereupon that before the birth of those persons there was no kind of Grammer How are we beholding to Zeno and Socrates and Aristotle for the vse of Logicke We know well when these liued Aristotle was schoolemaister to Alexander and Plato vnto Aristotle and Socrates vnto Plato some 400 yeares before Christ. Zeno was litle beyond thē For Philosophy Phythagoras is thought to be one of the most ancient Yet he came into Italy after that Rome was built Astronomy should be supposed to be as old as any Yet how lately were the Eclipses of the Moone which are things so well knowne in nature most feareful to the armies of the Graecians and the Romanes as in the war against Perseus Was not the yeare brought to the orderly course of the Sun by Iulius Caesar How long haue kings bene on earth when Nimrod as Moses calleth him or Ninus as other terme him for these two are thought to be one was one of the first among all nations What lawes were among the Greekes before the dayes of Lycurgus Iosephus against Apion writeth that in the time of Homere the name of law was not so much as knowne and that in all the workes of Homere there is not the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that they were thē ruled by the speech commaundement of Princes Nay what do I speake of these things when the very foode of men in any ciuill sort had his beginning but of late for among the Ethnicks is not Bacchus sayd first to haue found out the vine we know that Noe was the man of the vine cometh the wine How cometh it about that Ceres is canonized among them for a Goddesse but for shewing their forefathers the first vse of corne All these and a thousand more imply that as things with vs are in good perfection so not long since they were rude and not long before that they were nothing because all things were nothing For the world had his beginning and these in the world their beginning 21 My text speaketh of the sea I would know of this proud disputes what reason he can assigne that the sea in diuerse places should be higher then the land and yet not ouerflow the bankes Saint Sasile in his Hexaemeron doth excellently shew it and confirmeth it to be so This may be founde to be thus by instruments Geometricall or otherwise by the eye as Leuius hath obserued and that of his owne knowledge sensibly discerning it in the Atlantike sea neare the coast of Mauritania Nature can yeelde no reason for this their best is but a cauill But diuinitie endeth this doubt God hath tyed it within his limites as a Lyon fastened in a chayne Thou saith Dauid speaking of the waters in the sea hast set them a bound which they shall not passe they shall not returne to couer the earth So God saith to Iob Who hath shut vp the sea with dores whē it issued and came forth as out of the wombe when I made the clouds as a couering thereof and darknesse in the swadling bandes thereof When I stablished my commaundement vpon it and set barres and dores and said hitherto shalt thou come and no farther and here shall it stay thy proude waues My text speaketh of the land and that hath so great alterations as in time will bring a ruine Heare the iudgement of a Gentile vpon this Aelian in the eighth booke of his historie telleth vs that not onely the mountaine in Sicilia Aetna for thereof may be giuen some reason because of the wasting and consuming of it by fire but Parnassus and Olympus did appeare to be lesse and lesse to such as sayled at sea the height thereof sinking as it seemed Whereupon he doth giue that note that men most skilfull in the secrets of nature did say that the world it selfe should perish and haue an end I know to whom I do speake that is to men of great vnderstanding As therefore I name but a few things so you see I dwell not on them 22 To that position of those who oppugne this doctrine of the creating and continuing of all by God by saying that it is Nature who produceth euery thing I might answere that there is no such matter as Nature taking it in that sense which they foolishly
the wicked vseth to do when some villanie is cōmitted as Iudas was pricked in his heart after his treason practised on our Sauiour whē he went out male-cōtented and hanged himselfe in despaire No I hold the reason of it to be another matter as anon I shall shew vnto you This had bene a sinne more fearefull then any that went before For murthering of himselfe whereof he had bene guiltie if for that intent he had spoken it though other mens hands had done it is a sin so grieuous that scāt any is more hainous vnto the Lord. This sheweth a graund solemne possession which Satan hath in a man a distrust of all Gods loue when a man groweth to the summitie of such malice against himselfe as that naturall affection and the account to be giuē of all our deedes vpon the earth is quite exiled out of memory A doctrine which I take to be nothing besides the purpose if largely it be discoursed of in the iniquitie of these times wherin wretchednesse hath so fearefully preuailed in some persons and almost daily doth preuaile that they dare to plunge themselues into this pit of terrible destruction 18 Our God in his ten commandements hath set this down for one thou shalt commit no murther He is so precise vpon bloud that he not onely hath sayd at the hand of a man euen at the hand of a mans brother will I require the life of man And who so sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed And yee shall take no recompence for the life of the murtherer which is worthy to dye but he shall be put to death But the verie Oxe that goreth a man or woman that he dye this oxe shall be stoned to death and his flesh shall not be eaten He that slue a man vnwillingly at the wood with an axe flying out of his hand should loose his life for his labour if the pursuer did so follow him as that he ouertooke him before he came to the city of refuge This was to make men the more vigilant that they did no such mischaunces as we commonly do terme them But if it were wilfull murther the offender was to be taken from the very hornes of the altar and slaine as Ioab was serued a man of so noble birth a man of such seruice before These are the lawes which were made concerning the murthering of other men And doth not the law of God and the explication of it by Iesus Christ his sonne originally require of vs that all fit things which we owe to other men should be done by our selues to our selues Thou oughtest to loue thy neighbour but as thou louest thy selfe The example of thy charitie is drawne from thy selfe at home Thy soule thy preseruation the good wished to thy selfe should be the true direction of thy deedes vnto thy neighbour But thou must not lay any bloudy and murthering hands vpon another therefore much lesse on thy selfe 19 God hath placed thee in this world as in a watch or a standing from whence thou must not stirre thy foote till he bid thee to remooue He hath imprinted a most passionate loue betweene thy soule and thy body that they grieue to leaue one another The mind will haue many inuentions the body will beare many stripes before that either from other of them do willingly depart and be dissolued Wise men haue no greater reason of perswasion to induce that the parting with any friend or the loosing of the nearest and dearest must be borne with patience then that a dearer couple the nearest that this world hath that is our soules and our bodies must depart and flye a sunder The affection is so entire the coniunction is so inward which the one of these hath to the other God would haue our natiuitie to be bitter to our mothers that they might loue vs the dearer but he would haue our death to be soure vnto our selues that we might the more feare to hasten it And therfore although the spirite may be willing in any man yet surely the flesh is weake in the laying downe of the life for a good conscience and the Gospell What one is he whome Gods spirite hath not in great measure mortified that feeleth not in himselfe oftentimes an horrour and a quaking to thinke of this dissolution that he who in some sort may yet be called the image of God should become dust and clay that the goodliest of those creatures whome the Almightie hath framed vnder the heauen should prooue a rotten carcasse that he who hath seene the starres and beheld the heauen in his beauty yea hath meditated on the highest and contemplated on the Trinitie should be put into a graue and tumbled into the earth to be amongst worms and vermin in darkenesse and corruption all which a naturall man doth loath he could wish that it might not be Now when our owne hand shall hasten that which nature doth so far hate which our heart doth so dislike which God doth so detest how wicked is our wickednesse 20 Egesippus in his third booke of the destruction of Hierusalem rehearseth a worthy Oration although in some other words then I find it in Iosephus himselfe which Iosephus that great and learned Iewe made to his souldiers in a caue where they lay hid after the losse of the citie Iotapata which Vespasian the Romane Generall tooke There his owne men would take no naye but that they must murther downe one another whereupon he vseth a speech which in my iudgement is most patheticall The Almighty God hath giuen vnto vs our life as a most precious treasure he hath shut it and sealed it vp in this earthen vessell and giuen it vs to be kept till that himself do aske for it againe And were it not a fault now as on the one side to deny it when he shall require it againe so on the other side to spill and cast this treasure forth which was thus committed to vs before he do demaund it And after a few other words he goeth thus forward If we should kill our selues who is he that should admit vs into the company of good soules Shall it not be sayd to vs as once it was sayd to Adam Where art thou so where are yee who contrary to my precept are come where you should not be because I haue not yet loosed you from the bonds of your bodies This is a Christian speech out of the mouth of a Iewe which caryeth such matter with it as is worthy to be reuolued It was not well with Adam when he who should haue bene in the plaine was crept into the bushes his misery then began And without Gods exceeding mercie whereof no man can presume nay great and mightie preiudice is to the contrary it wil be most ill with them who do aduenture vpon such deedes they do rush themselues into torments 21 Let heathen men be famous for
were set free from all redeemed by his body and ransomed by his bloud admitted into the couenant and incorporated into himselfe so that now we are made free denizons of the city which is aboue What can be a greater blessing When ignorance and barbarisme were growne ouer the world and the darknesse of superstition as thicke as that of Egypt had possessed the shew of all Christendome that maine Antichrist dominering and triumphing at his pleasure so that few were to be found without the marke of the beast God did dispell that darknesse by sending vs light from heauen and causing the Sunne of righteousnesse to shine out by his word he cleered that filthy mist that the nations of the earth may now fully behold the purity of the Gospell That which was denied to great ones hath bene reuealed to vs. As Moses had more liberty to see the Lord then the people had so we see more then our ancestours But what thankes do we yeeld for that celestiall comfort Do we magnifie his mighty name and sing and speake out the honour of him who hath done such things for men Where is that Glory to God on high and blessed be our strong Redeemer 11 We who liue in this land haue sate as at the well head for many yeares together We haue had a most gracious Princesse a mother to our countrey and a nource vnto Gods Church vnder the shadow of whose wings next after the eternall Lord we haue enioyed much peace prosperity and abundance Our neighbours who grone vnder the burthen of heauinesse and oppression of persecution and ciuill warres do very much admire it Learning hath flourished with vs and manuall artes encreased nauigation hath bene aduanced and trafficke entred with many to the enriching of our people and the honour of our nation I doubt that we are not so thankfull as all this hath deserued Yea it hath come so fast on vs and continued without interruption that our hearts are fatted with it and we as full and glutted haue fallen a sleepe in security so that we vnderstand not the sweete things which are on vs much lesse do we with heart and soule and all the powers which are in vs extoll the author who hath done such things for vs. Conspiracies haue bene made to depriue our land of her gouernesse and to bring it into the thraldom of a proud and bloudy nation yet by the Lords strong prouidence they all haue bene preuented The great fleete which meant to haue made such hauocke hath bene confounded when men did not much to helpe vs the winds and waues did fight for vs. Truth it is that as the Romanes did giue thankes to their Gods when Hannibal was remooued who had oppressed and troubled Italy for sixteene yeares together so by the highest authority in the most famous place of our land and by the noblest persons and in most solemne manner Gods prayse was sounded foorth which was a most holy action and worthy of a Christan kingdome but see whether since that time the common sort of men do study to remember it Our thoughts within are so curious and our eares without are so itching that we loath to heare the Preacher to name this in the pulpit we imagine that this neuer commeth but for want of other matter being a crambe oftentimes sodde It seemeth that we are litle mooued whē we thinke so lightly of that which to the naturall inhabitants of this land was so great a deliuerance as our eyes neuer saw We haue reason to feare that God lately hath brought the same enemy so neare our land to quicken vs and to stirre vs to a remembrance of the former mercy by shaking his rod ouer the sea vnto vs. The acts which God did in Egypt of the which I spake before and his victories by the conduct of Iosuah were commaunded to be proclaimed to all succeeding ages and were bidden to be spoken off I do maruell why no man in that time obiected What shall we neuer haue done of hearing these old matters No their thankfull mind did vse it otherwise and recorded that matter and recounted it as the fairest floure in their garland and their honour with all the earth We should make such reckening of all Gods mercies towards vs but most of all of the greatest The enioying of apparant good things or the escaping of fearefull and dreadfull euils doth deserue thanksgiuing with vs. Ionas had felt the bitternesse being in hazard of destruction of body and soule together but by compassion of his maister he is like to passe through this daunger and therefore he maketh a promise that he will sacrifice to the Highest in spirituall manner by giuing him praise and glory And thus you haue the first point of that which he vndertooke now let vs come to the second I vvill pay that which I haue vowed 12 The making of vowes was a solemne custome among the children of Israel that when any good thing was graunted vnto them but especially if they earnestly desired to haue any thing they would bind themselues by promise or peraduenture by an oath to be kept without violating that this they would performe or that they would abstaine from as it might be drinke no wine or not cut their haire as the vse of the Nazarites was or dedicate their children to an attendance in Gods tabernacle or offer such and such offerings Wherein the care of those who were faithfull was first that they vowed nothing but that which was lawfull and secondly that they performed the thing which they vowed So the Israelites did vow that if the Lord would giue them victory they would raze downe and destroy the cities of Canaan A matter which was lawfull nay which God required of them Barren Hanna did vow that if the Lord would so respect her as to send her a sonne she would giue him to God all the dayes of his life She spake it and she performed it in Samuel her child Thou shalt render thy vowes saith Eliphaz to Iob. My vowes will I performe before all that do feare him saith Dauid of himselfe They knew that God did expect it precisely had enioyned it by a speciall law It is a peremptory place in the three and twentieth of Deuteronomy When thou shalt vow a vow vnto the Lord thy God thou shalt not be slacke to pay it for the Lord thy God vvill surely require it of thee and it should be sinne vnto thee he meaneth if thou performe it not but when thou abstainest from vowing it shall be no sinne vnto thee He would not haue men beare themselues so carelesly toward him as foolishly to promise and falsely to breake promise 13 This made men vnder the law to be very well aduised what it was whereunto they tied themselues by vow that what they vndertooke should still be to Gods glory and withall their promise was for such things as should be
three nor fortie and yet both three and fortie yet fortie three dayes saith he 17 This worthie man as it seemeth would haue a way by himselfe but by moderating two sides he hath drawne them both vpon him In which his case may not vnfitly be compared to that of Martin Luther which is so famous For he knowing that the Papists in the matter of the Sacrament held a Transubstantiation as the Septuagint hold three in Ionas both of these opinions both concerning three and the transubstantiating hauing continued a long time but not from the beginning and that Zuinglius held that the bread remained after Consecration but yet representing the body of Christ which agreeth with the Scripture as fortie here doth with the Hebrew would needes like to Iustinus Martyr bring both these sides after a sort together that there should be bread with Zuinglius and the body too with the Romanists not by turning the bread into Christs bodie but by a Consubstantiation or ioyning each with other And in holding this opinion being driuen to those extremities as to maintaine that the flesh of Christ is in the bread and with the bread and vnder the bread yea euery where in the earth and ayre and heauen he drew both sides vpon him and is oppugned by both with bitternesse and great egernesse Whereout I do make this vse that Gods acts are miraculous and his ordinances wonderfull when he suffereth the best to fall that none in this world may be perfect but only the Godhead which is immaculate and vndefiled and so by this meanes all glorie may be his Moses shall haue his spots although in another kind and Peter shall deserue to be reprooued by Paule So many Martyrs and Fathers in the old and Primitiue Church had their spots and noted spots and yet were Gods noble seruants In like sort that renowmed man the great instrument of the Lords glorie who so cleared that point of iustification the very ground of saluation against all the Rabbines and schoolemen and so purged out other superstitions that all Europe at this day doth shine the brighter for him and therefore as his memorie shall be blessed to the end in despite of all that gaine-say it so his soule doth rest with the Highest had his lapsum humanum his errour incident to a man that we might euermore remember that he was a man although an excellent man and not more dote vpon him then we should vpon a creature Yet there wanteth not good testimonie that himself before he died did dislike that opinion and thought that he had gone too farre I haue named this by occasion of that in Iustinus Martyr in whom that about three and fortie dayes was an errour although I put a great difference betweene the mistaking of a number and this higher point of religion 18 But to preuent in our selues the like slips which befell to them writing concerning Ionas the best and readiest way is to haue recourse to the wel-springs wherin the word was written which Saint Austen himselfe doth confesse although he were nothing seene in the Hebrew and but little in the Greeke In which toungs the greater knowledge is the greater gift of God which although he do not graunt in abundant sort to all as to one he giueth this thing to another that to the end that all may stand in need one of another yet it is good for a Diuine to know something in them that when great doubts arise he be not quite to seeke albeit he be not so well furnished as to reade a Lecture of a toung in an Vniuersitie In that little wherof I haue taken notice which I confesse is not much I do find in some of the Auncient ouersights which are greater then ordinarie for want of vnderstanding in the originall of the Hebrew and this hath fallen out in the greatest controuersies I will name one for all but such a one as then the which nothing is more euident nothing is more materiall He who hath read the old Councels or the Ecclesiasticall storie or the writings of such Fathers as succeeded the time of Constantine within one or two hundred yeares may sufficiently see and surfet how Arius and his companie oppugned the Godhead of Christ and his equalitie with his Father What more maine question was there euer concerning the grounds of Christianitie or what could possibly strike deeper In the reading of those forenamed writers we find that at the first Athanasius was the onely man for writing and disputing to oppugne them as was euident in the Nicene Councell and otherwise afterward And he suffered so much for his labour that he well deserued to be called a ring-leader and bel-wether of the flocke a pillar of the faith that inuincible Athanasius a champion for Christ Iesus and whatsoeuer else is honorable Yet it is maruell to see how in all his disputations he is troubled with that place in the eighth chapter of the Prouerbs where wisedome saith of her selfe which he cannot chuse but interpret to be the Sonne of God the Lord made me or created me the beginning of his wayes whereout the Arrians vrged that Iesus Christ in the Godhead was made or created and consequently was a creature and so of another substance And this they had from the Septuagint who translated it in that manner The Lord made me or the Lord created me It is strange to see how in answere of that place the good Father is driuen as elsewhere so in Decretis Nicenae synodi to expound and distinguish this creature and to shew how Gods Sonne in the Deity may be so called Truth it is that he holdeth the ground as an Orthodoxe Catholike man but he is put to hard shifts Now if his skill had bene such as to haue repaired to the Hebrew text the matter had bene soone answered and he had found that which Hierome quickly afterward did discouer that it is there in the place Dominus possedit me or Dominus acquisiuit me as Arias Montanus hath it the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way which maketh not for the Arrian Iehouah Canani which doth not come of Canan nidificare for then the former Nun should haue Daghes in the middle but of Canah acquirere possidere with the Affixe in the end And so it had bene better translated by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some of whose tenses do signifie possideo then by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 creo And this being so answered to the enemie had razed the greatest fort wherein he trusted most Let this place out of the Prouerbes in so renowmed a man as Athanasius was and the other out of Ionas which was mistaken by so many shew what a helpe it is to be able vpon occasion to looke to the originall where finding as we do Yet fortie dayes and Niniue shall be destroyed I will not farther dispute it But hauing now made this way to the doctrine of
knoweth saith Austen that his haire doth please I know not whom He hateth thee reprehending him with true iudgement and keepeth in himselfe what he liketh with peruerse counsell But to follow this point no farther let nothing which God giueth be delighted in too much let vs take such things as he offereth vs for helpes and vse them accordingly but let vs not esteeme of moale-hils as if they were mightie mountaines not of shadowes as of graces not of transitorie trifles as of heauenly and spirituall ioyes not of creatures as of God Our great ioy must be in the Lord other things must be but appendices and additaments and circumstances As we need not be vnsensible whē such things are bestowed vpon vs so we must take heed of exceeding gladnesse and ouermuch ioying in them lest besides the offence to God that end come on them quickly which did light here vpon the couer of Ionas which now commeth in the third place to be deliuered to you The Lord prepared a worme 12 When Ionas thought with himselfe that he had such a pleasing knacke as no man had the like it is all dashed on the sudden The Lord prepared a worme Perhaps it was a caterpillar perhaps of some other kind and this the very next morning after that the Prophet was in his glorie came and gnawed the stalke of his shrowde and made it forthwith wither so that the shadow and greennesse of that which the man before esteemed as his chiefe delight did perish in a moment Now might this vexed soule easily learne that his loue before was vaine whē a little worme was able to ouerturne his felicitie Looke what course God vsed here in this his extraordinarie worke the same he oftentimes doth vse in matters which are more common When things come to vs in hast as this tree did here in one night they as hastily part againe When riches come too quickly they quickly take their flight Sudden glories decay suddenly When we behold greene things to shew themselues as with a kind of violence we may feare a quicke dissolution The fruite which is soonest ripe is found to be soonest rotten When children in tender yeares do abound with incredible wits as being ouer forward they hold out few times long God doth recompence that in towardlinesse which he denieth in time when he hath made them fit he taketh them to himselfe When the greennesse and the freshnesse and shade is more then it should be then feare some worme which may gnaw some sicknesse which may dissolue this rath-ripe soone-rotten fruite 13 But this doctrine is yet more generall for if there be any thing come it soone or come it late whereon the heart is too much set God hath meanes to destroy it and the more our ioy is on it the rather he doth remooue it For there is nothing here of longer lasting then seemeth good to himselfe and to speake generally here is nothing of continuance Rockes themselues do consume great towers come tumbling downe the timber hath his rottennesse the iron hath his rust the garments haue their mothes The fauour of mightie Princes hath a sudden worme of mutation Ioab the greatest about Dauid is by the mouth of Dauid designed to execution Parmenio and Philotas as they felt the sweet of Alexander so they felt the bitter also Honest Seneca had hard measure at the hands of his scholer Nero. So riches haue their wings to fly away when we most need them Iob the mightiest in all the East is poore euen to a Prouerbe Haman who was so glorious that he thought to haue deuoured a whole nation for one pray is suddenly stripped of all yea and put from his life too So it is for health and so for wit Tullus Hostilius the king of Rome who before was healthfull and an able stirring man lyeth afterward drowping with sicknesse The Emperour Iustinus who thought that he had wit at will lost it all and became a mad man Then what is there here wherewith a wise man would be in loue especially to ioy in it so as to count it his high contentment when there is not the least moment but in it all may be dissolued and a departure made of this felicitie but i◠none of so many good things as the world reputeth them be diminished yet there commeth some small matter besides which spilleth all the glorie of them Heare what Austen saith of this It is a true and worthie saying Although mad ioyes be no ioyes indeede yet be they as they be and delight they what they can the gloriousnesse of riches the swelling pompe of honour the deuouring of daintie fare the warres which are seene on stages the vncleannesse of harlotrie the wantonnesse of bathes yet if there come but a little ague it taketh away all these and depriueth men while they liue of this false beatitude There remaineth an emptie and wounded conscience which must feele the Lord for a iudge whome it would not haue for a keeper and find him a rough maister whome it did despise to seeke vnto and loue as a sweet father Such is the knowne vncertaintie and vanitie of those things which this world yeeldeth to vs and therefore we are well helped vp to set our hearts vpon them 14 To weane vs from such thoughts and make vs see our folly when we let our eyes be dazeled with the brightnesse of such a glasse God doth take away that wherein our pleasure did most consist that when we haue admired some things of this world as excellent and thought them to be great yet lose them in a trice we may see how vaine they be and so direct our thoughts our hopes and meditations vnto that which is more lasting And this he doth to vs in his fatherly discretion for as the burned child dreadeth the fire so when by sound experimēt it shall be beaten into vs that we haue leaned but on that which is like a broken reede which faileth and peraduenture hurteth too we may afterward passe by such things as not esteeming them at all or but thinke of them in their place And this is a certaine argument of Gods friendly mind vnto vs that in the end he meaneth to bring vs home to himselfe because he cutteth off such snares and intanglements and impediments as would plucke vs from heauenly studies he maketh the wildernesse tedious and bitter and smartfull to vs that we may the more long for Canaan But he suffereth the worldlings and Epicures to enioy their fill their pleasures do stand with them and follow one another that they may haue their heauen here their glorie vpon earth for elsewhere they shall not see it that being full fed with earthly and temporarie delights they may be in loue with those follies and choking vanities And that is the cause why wicked and vnmortified men being readie to dye do account it a hell vnto them to leaue all and
and hide vs from the presence of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lambe They cannot escape his sight they cannot auoyd his iudgement When Pericles once was sad about yeelding an account of much money to the Atheniens which he possibly could not discharge his nephew Alcibiades did helpe him with this good counsel that he should not beat his braines how he might giue a reckening but he rather should deuise how he might giue no reckening He tooke this course indeed and by plunging the Atheniens into a grieuous warre he did auoyd the account Before the Lord of heauen this will not serue the turne he knoweth all things and seeth all things Ionas could not be so grosse as to run so from his presence 18 But if that thought were in him or if any man wil so take it he went the worst way to worke for himselfe that euer man did For he that would be so blockish as to thinke he might flie from God and would go to sea to do it were worthie to be registred for a man most vnaduised This is as much as if to auoid some heate that commeth by an ague the patient should run into the fire as it is said that Hercules did being troubled with a frenzie or if another to auoide a showre of raine should leape into the riuer for if Gods hand any where do euidently appeare or if any where it be fearefull it is in being at sea where as the Poet speaketh a man is stil within foure or at most seuen inches of his death where stormes that be impetuous do cause them to pray who scant euer prayed before where rockes and sands and gulfes are readie still to deuoure The remembrance of this made Dauid speake so sufficiently They that go dovvne to the sea in ships and occupy by the great vvaters they see the vvorkes of the Lord and his vvonders in the deepe Paule found this by experience when he endured such a storme and wrecke too in the Mediterrane sea He who would see more of this let him reade in Virgil what a tempest is described to haue befallen Aeneas in the Sicilian sea So then if God be present any where to punish or preserue it is in the huge Ocean That if a man would haue wished to be followed as with a furie he should do as Ionas did When Plinie the elder was choked in going to see Vesuuius a hill which burned in Campania as Aetna oftentimes doth in Sicilia the sight thereof was so terrible that the beholders were all amazed at it But there were saith the younger Plinie among them some who were so afrayd of death that they vvished themselues to be dead They so feared that which they feared that they wished for that which they feared If our Prophet did desire to escape away from the Lord he did iust as these other for to flie away from Gods presence he runneth into Gods presence 19 Therefore we will not imagine that Ionas was so ignorant to thinke thus to get from the Lord but his going from Gods presence doth signifie in this place a departing from his dutie and from the execution of his office For they are said in the Scripture to be in the Lords presence or to stand before the Lord who do execute their ministery or functiō as they should So the Lord separated the tribe of Leui to beare the Arke of the couenant of the Lord and to stand before the Lord which is expounded there to minister vnto him and to blesse in his name to this day So as the Lord God of Israel liueth saith Elias before whom I do stand that is whom faithfully I do serue there shall be neither deaw nor raine these yeares but according to my word The verie selfe same phrase doth Elizeus vse in another place to Naaman the Syrian The contrarie of which speech is vttered by that wicked Cain who did neuer serue God From thy face I shall be hid And afterward Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. He was not in his grace he would not be in his seruice Such was our Prophets flight from the presence of the Lord. When he should haue performed his calling vpon occasions continually haue taken direction from the voyce of God speaking to him he did forsake his charge and could haue bene wel contented if God would neuer more haue spoken to him But his maister will not leaue him so This is an excellent comfort to the Ministers of the Gospell that as long as they do their duties they stand before the Lord who doth protect and preserue them from the rage of bloudie tyrants from the tempests of the world from the mischiefe of cruell enemies Neither can the rage of Sathan lay anie thing more vpon them then God giueth them grace to beare And againe in as much as in this life they are spectacles to men in preaching and in liuing they are spectacles to Angels they are spectacles to God they are warned that they discharge their function with sinceritie remembring this good lesson that they be not as many who make marchandise of the word of God but as of sinceritie but as of God in the sight of God speaking in Christ. 20 In these most perillous times wherein Satan fretteth and rageth wherein Papisme is litle weakned but Atheisme waxeth strong and the sinnes of men do crie but on the other side pitie waxeth thin and charitie groweth cold This should be a liuely motion to stirre vp the Spirit of God in vs that with alacritie we may go forward to the building vp of Gods house and not to be wearied in well doing or withdraw our selues frō the work In the fifteenth of the Actes although Barnabas were more mild and did not take the matter so hainously yet Paule did so dislike it in Iohn Marke at Pamphylia that he would not go with them about the Lords seruice that he refused his companie afterward Surely God looketh for much of them whom he hath singled out to be the messengers of his glorie If with Ionas we should leaue him and turne away from his presence when he hath vse for vs in the field let vs feare least a greater iudgement befall vs then did vnto Ionas Which what it was in the next by Gods grace I shall shew In the meane time Iesus send vs due consideration of our calling that not following wordly reasons which often draw men to Tharsus when they should go to Niniue but attending Gods commaundement we may with ioy run our course and so possesse that inestimable crowne of iustice which the righteous Lord hath layed vp for all those that loue his comming To this God be praise for euer THE III. LECTVRE The chiefe points 2. The punishment of the Prophet may well fright other from sinne 4. All tempests depend of God 6. Yet Satan and his instruments by
or milder torment Ionas comming from vnder the hatches where he slept but a little before like Lazarus from his graue is beset among these mariners with a multitude of such questions What is the cause that this storme is in this sort vpon vs felow whence doest thou come what countreyman art thou sirra what is thine occupation 4 Thus the place must be vnderstood if we respect the egernesse of men in such perplexitie or the hast which daunger breedeth or the manners of common mariners But in verie deede I see more in it Here may be noted to vs a proceeding much more sober and iudgement with discretion That which goeth before will well beare it that which foloweth will more enforce it The fearefulnesse whereunto they were growne by hazard of a shipwracke was of force to allay their heate it made them amated with it their deuotion to their Gods did put them from their choler the maister is supposed to be a man wise and careful as not long since you haue heard the casting of their lots doth intend a slaking stay their milde intreating of Ionas when the crime appeared to them their referring of all to him the desire which they had to saue him the griefe which they had to drowne him are presumptiōs of much sobrietie These circūstances import a iust kind of inquirie which was vsed vpon the Prophet so to wring out by cōiectures or by plaine declaratiō what was this grieuous crime which plucked such a tempest downe from heauen how Gods wrath was to be satisfied what punishment should be taken if punishment must be taken It were much to be suspected that if this case which is here among these Gentiles should come to triall among many Christians the man should find hard iustice For now vpon how light occasions are many inflamed to wrath what bitternesse what reuiling what blasphemie euen to God with swearing and with tearing if for anothers sake mens liues should be indaungered if they should be inforced as these were here to throw their wealth and substaunce with their owne hands into the sea Call to minde that if any negligence haue raised a fire in a towne and harme be done to their building how little it is remembed that it is a crosse from God sent on them for their sinnes or to teach them patience or to make trial of their faith but the next immediate cause that presently is looked too seethe villanie of this boy see the cursednesse of this wenche see the diuellishnesse of this felow that should haue taken care of this fire if he had his desert how oft should he dye for it 5 But if it were a straunger an outlandish man as Ionas was who brought this scathe vpon them how many Crucifiges should he haue tumbling on him A French man as I take it although some other men be of another opinion euen greeuing in his soule at the vnkindnesse of our nation I meane in the cōmon sort hath by occasion of the hādling of their last great Massacre noted it to posteritie that by a most inhospitall kinde of phrase our Englishmen vse to terme them no better then French dogs that fled hither for Religion and their conscience sake Vnto this ioyne the many conspiracies which by some of the meaner people in one Citie of our land haue bene oftentimes intended against outlandish folkes the disposition of men in this point will well appeare Those which are wise and godly make vse of those aliaunts as of brethren considering their distresses with a liuely felow-feeling holding it an vnspeakable blessednesse that this little Iland of ours should not onely be a tēple to serue God in for our selues but an harbour for the weather-beaten a sanctuarie to the straunger wherein he may honour the true Lord remembring the precise charge which God gaue to the Israelites to deale well with all straungers because the time once was when themselues were straungers in that cruell land of Egypt not forgetting that other nations to their immortall praise were a refuge to the English in their last bloudie persecution in Queene Maries dayes and in briefe recounting that by a mutuall vicissitude of Gods chastisements their case may be our case which day the Lord long keepe from vs. These mariners with that humanitie which beseemeth all men of reason reproch it not to the Prophet that he an outlandish aliaunt should bring such trouble on them should put them to such losse or thrust them into such daunger but in verie good course of iustice they desire to be informed and take notice of his cause The presentnesse of the perill or the hast which they had to be satisfied could not stay them from doing iustice they will attend his aunswere 6 Such persons as through whose hands the liues of others passe be they Iudges or be they iusticers yea be they but common Iurours may hearken to these heathen and the maner of their proceeding and learne so much as that they shall not dare rashly to destroy or take away the life of their Christian brother Life is a most precious thing it cannot be made by men but it may be marred in a moment And if it be once marred there is no benefite on earth whereby it may be requited as Alexander once told his owne mother Olympias when she desired him to execute an innocent harmelesse man and that she might the more preuaile with him remembred him that her selfe for the space of nine monethes had caried him in her wombe and for that reason he must not say her nay Aske saith he my good mother some other gift of me for the life of a man can be recompenced by no good turne that can be done Before that death be inflicted let truth appeare if it may be Stay the asking of many questions and the scanning out of all doubts ere the last sentence come Certainely God knew the wickednesse of Sodome and Gomorrha as he sat aboue in heauen yet meaning to destroy them he saith I vvill go downe now and see vvhether they haue done altogether according to that crie vvhich is come vnto me and if not that I may knovv thereby teaching all gouernours that they passe not otherwise to the death of any but with verie mature aduisement It is a wise law in the meane time which Munster reporteth to be put in practise in a towne called Clagea belonging to Carinthia where if any be taken suspicious of theft he is by and by hanged vp and some two or three dayes afterward enquirie is made vpon him wherein if he be found giltie he is let to hang till he rot away peece-meale but if he be found innocent then he is taken downe and buried with some solemnitie This is contrarie to the common rules of humanitie but much more repugnant to diuinitie In cases of lesse importaunce then life and death all Magistrats ought to affoord that measure to their people which these
do imagine but onely it is a course proportioned out by the will of God to runne and hold on in the creatures And so much can a naturall man informe vnto them I meane Seneca who with a better spirite speaketh on this manner Thou sayest Nature doth yeeld these things vnto me Vnderstandest thou not that when thou speakest this thou doest but chaunge the name of God for what other thing is Nature then God and an order from his Godhead inserted into the vvorld and all the parts of the same Now that there is such a Godhead although they do not see it I may answere them in this manner His substance is inuisible his nature is insensible because he is a spirite And yet we see him and feele him know him by his effects If we looke on the heauen aboue vs or behold the earth below vs the standing fast of the one the running round of the other the concord of things in discord their orderly interruption interrupted order euery creature doth cry proclaime that there is a God That worthy maÌ„ Athanasius doth very well vrge this argumeÌ„t As if thou shouldst see a citie consisting of many seuerall men great small rich poore old young male and female to be gouerned with good order straight discipline and those who liue there although they be differeÌ„t amoÌ„g theselues yet to agree in minde so that neither the richer do bend against the poore nor the great against the small nor the yong against the old but all of them do maintaine peace with an equality of right If we should see these things it cannot be but we must imagine that by the presence of the Prince there this concord is cherished although he do not come abroad to be seene because disorderlinesse is a signe that the common vvealth is vvithout an head but order on the other side doth shew the care and gouernement of the Prince And as vvhen vve see in the bodie an agreement of the members among themselues and that the eyes do not vvrangle vvith the eares nor the handes make a mutinie against the feete but euerie one doth his owne businesse vvithout brawling vve do immediatly thereupon conceiue that there is a soule in that bodie vvhich doth so direct and dispose all things although that soule be not visible to the eye So in this order and harmonie of the vvhole vvorld it must needes be that vve consider that there is a God vvho is the Prince and gouernour of all and that but one God and no more Now if thou be such a one as that this do not suffice thee by reason of the stubburnesse of thy heart but thou must be like Saint Thomas that is see or else thou wilt not beleeue then let me aske of thee as AusteÌ„ doth of one Hast thou a soule or no and by a consequent art thou aliue Canst thou see thy soule or feele it If not theÌ„ by thine own reason thou hast no soule therefore thou art dead I pray thee why art thou not buried If because thou wouldst not be buried thou wilt say that by signes tokens thou conceiuest that there is a soule in thee because thou seest speakest and mouest vp downe which a dead corps cannot do then hast thou answered for me for so it is with thy Creator the heauens declare his glorie the firmament sheweth his worke thou seest him in his creatures Many arguments might be drawne from the bowels of very reasoÌ„ to shew this point in question as that euery thing which moueth must haue something to moue it which is verus primus motor but the heauen is euer in motion as that lesser things haue a gouernour the bees and heards of cattaile and fishes in the sea therefore there must much more be a gouernour to this mighty frame of the world But who so doubteth of these things or of any such matter now in question let him either reade Saint Austen De ciuitate Dei or Lodouicus Viues de veritate fidei or Philip Mornay that noble Frenchman discussing those points largely And vnto those may be added the workes of some of our owne countreymen who also are not to be defrauded of their due commendation 23 If I should farther say any thing it should be in this briefe manner If now any do rule all things it intendeth that he is Almightie if Almightie then a Creator But many things are so done as whereof no reason can be giuen saue onely the prouidence of a God Almightie and our maker For first I would demaund what reason can be assigned that vpon so weake a foundation as it seemeth to flesh and bloud Christianitie is so growne that all the coastes of the earth haue heard the fame of that doctrine If honour or wealth or pleasure had by the Sauiour bene promised to those which should be his followers it might haue allured men after him yea if he had bene but a deceiuer although perhaps this would haue held but for a while But the lesson that he teacheth is If any man will folow me let him forsake himselfe and take vp his crosse and folow me And all that will liue godly in Christ Iesus shall suffer persecution In this case what reason can be giuen why men of great vnderstanding not blockes and fooles like the Saracens and Turkes who haue no learning and may not so much as dispute of any point of their Religion and so do beleeue on their Mahomet most grossely and stupidiously but Philosophers and rare scholers men completed with all good knowledge should put their trust in one who was crucified yea should dye for him who was before dead and put into a graue Secondly what reason is there that Luther no great man helped onely with the bare countenance of the Saxon should in the time of deepe ignoraunce be able by preaching alone and writing to reuiue againe the Gospell in despite of Priestes and Princes and so to set it on foote as that all Christendome now ringeth of it Thirdly I would demaunde what naturall reason there is that our most gracious Queene whom God euermore preserue a woman in a small countrey at her first comming to the crowne should dare to reforme Religion and professe so farre for the truth things being as they then were when she came first to her scepter verie little sound at home verie much amisse abroad in the knowne hate of the Pope in the secret hate of the Spaniard in the neutralitie of the French to speake most mildly of it in the ticklenesse of the Scot in the â—icklenesse of the Irish. Yet that still she should go forward and maintaine her Church and estate in great pompe and high maiestie verie louely to her friends verie dreadfull to her foes I might vrge her perpetuall happinesse and those many daungers which by Gods blessing she hath escaped Fourthly what
disease shew the remedie how to cure it A little before he hath this also That great was he who fled but greater was he that followed They dare not deliuer him they know not how to conceale him So there is as it seemeth a great wrastling in the minds of these poore men what they should do or should not do They now know that he was a Prophet a man reuerend in his calling and therefore they were loath to lay any violent hands vpon him They would rather suppose that he who was so contrite and had made such an acknowledgement of the fault which he committed would proceede to let them know the meanes to escape from drowning 14 Many gracelesse ones in our dayes would haue taken another course A runne-away so pursued a fugitiue so made after we will soone ease our selues of the feare we will quickely free our shippe from the daunger what should so vile a person be roosting in our vessell Perhaps without many wordes he might haue gone ouer boord he might haue diued vnder water they would neuer haue stood to aske what they should do vnto him So much doth the inciuilitie and barbarous behauiour of our age passe the manners of rude men in old time But they had a good remembrancer to keepe them in moderation euen their reuerence vnto God whose hand they did find vpon them as knocking at the doore On the one side how could they tell least by sufferance and impunitie toward Ionas they should incurre the displeasure of the Almightie And on the other side how could they tell least in punishing and taking away his life the reward which belonged to murtherers might be layd vpon them Ionas for his refusing to go to preach at Niniue was chased with wrath from heauen Then what vengeance might befall them in a greater fault as in crueltie and in shedding of his bloud who neuer had offended them Thus they feare to spill his life although they see shew of very fit occasion They aske aduise of him The maine note from this place is the care which men should haue to destroy the life of none that they should be auerse from bloud which because it is the full subiect of those verses which follow next after my text I do deferre it thither And so I come to the aunswere of Ionas which is my second part And he sayd vnto them Take me and cast me into the sea c. 15 It seemeth that the Prophet is now as farre in his penaunce as possibly he can go He knew that he had sinned and Gods wrath must be satisfied with some temporall punishment and therefore he yeeldeth himselfe with patience to the very death Better drowne then dye eternally better loose his life here then loose his life elsewhere He is therefore content to sustaine the vttermost extremitie He knew that God was glorifyed in the execution of iustice as well as in mercie A lesson which Iosuah did once teach Achan when he willed him to confesse and giue God the glorie and by a consequent endure his death with patience An instruction which we can neuer too much teach to prisoners and such as are to suffer by iugdement of law that they should beare with mildnesse and quietnesse of behauiour that which they wilfully haue deserued The conscience of their sinne the astonishment at their iudgement the feare of violent death the shame of such a suffering is inough to amaze their thoughtes and ouerwhelme resolution Whereas on the other side the putting of them in remembrance that at one time or another they must be content to dy and the vrging that God doth lay such temporall punishments vpon malefactors for the sauing of their soules the recounting of that benefite which ariseth from Christs passion to wit a pleading before his father to get pardon for all that be repentaunt doth settle the disquieted and affrighted mind right well I would to God that our English were as backeward to transgresse as in this case they are forward to satisfie euen with their liues the extremitie of the lawe and that in a peaceable resolued sort I impute it to nothing but to the ordinarie passage of the word of God among vs which is euerie way able to quiet and settle the penitent sinners heart Other nations do admire it in our men as the Italians most of all and the French as we may see it obserued in the defence of Henry Stephanus for Herodotus It sheweth a right firme constancie and sure hope in Christ Iesus And as those two brought the theefe which dyed with Christ into Paradise so no doubt but that many with vs go by execution into heauen who if they were not recalled by violence and by lawe would prooue firebrands of hell 16 I remember the patience of our countrey-men by the quietnesse of Ionas here who alone desireth to dye because he alone had offended in the sinne which now is in question He would not that other innocent men should perish by his means This is the course of Gods children to haue remorse vpon other and not to intangle them in their plagues It is I saith Dauid that haue offended not these sheepe alas what haue they done But contrariwise the reprobate if destruction must befall them would haue all other to take part in that their iudgement that themselues might not be singular They would haue company to hell If they needes must from hence they care not if all the world come to ruine together with their fall They earnestly desire that other men should be partakers of their smart The name of Herode the great is very odious in this respect who layd a plot that when he dyed many other might dye with him And gaue expresse commaundement that one of euery noble family in his kingdome should be slaine that by that meanes his death might of necessitie be lamented if not for loue of him which the tyrant had no reason to expect yet for the losse of others Such are the vnnaturall passions of cruell and bloudie miscreants But the blessed sons of God be of another spirit they would rather purchase peace to others by their losses then hurt others by their errours Ionas would dye alone because he alone had offended 17 Here now is it worth the discoursing why the Prophet in this manner should vrge and hasten himselfe to death Was it as Arias Montanus thinketh because yet he is so obstinate that in no case he will to Niniue but rather dye in a frowardnesse then teach them who afterward should worke harme to his people No his confession before handled doth keepe me from that opinion I hold him now very carefull to commit no farther sinne He feeleth the weight of the former inough too much on him Is it then for a fretting indignation which he beareth vnto himself or for hatred of his life because his consciēce did now pricke him as the conscience of
a moment of time he hath them very readily attending wheresoeuer he pleaseth It is he who alone may say as he doth speake in Iob All vnder heauen is mine The people say of him truly Our God is in heauen he doth whatsoeuer he will There is not any creature in the heauen or earth or sea be it body or be it spirit which is not at his deuotion and waiteth not at his becke The greatest do him homage the smallest do him seruice For he is greater then the mightiest by whole millions of degrees and his ouer-seeing prouidence taketh knowledge of the meanest Not a sparow which lighteth on the ground not an haire which falleth from the head but he is interested in it 2 What is greater then the heauen yet if Iosuah pray vnto him for one whole day this euer-wheeling body shal cease his swift diurnall motion The Sunne shall stand still in Gibeon and the Moone in the vale of Aialon That which commeth forth as a Giant and reioyceth to runne his course yet to satisfie Ezechias and to confirme his faith shall flye backe as a coward for ten degrees at once as then it appeared by the diall of Ahaz What is ruder or more vnfit to be dealt with then the earth Yet at his pleasure he shaketh both earth and sea What is more excellent or of a more pure and single nature then the Angels Yet he hath bound vp foure of them in the riuer Euphrates and although they be prepared at an houre and at a day and at a moneth at a yere to slay the third part of men yet these Angels cannot stirre vntill that they be loosed by his precise commandement And such is his soueraigne power that when he findeth occasion they are freed all in a moment In like sort to effect his purposes he needeth not the posts of Persia whoÌ„ Haman sometimes vsed nor the dromedaries of Egypt nor the swift runners of other nations to go from place to place and giue notice of his will but in the very instant he either doth touch the mind of him who is to be the doer or he raiseth vp some thing else which shall declare his meaning God sendeth forth his commandement and his word runneth very swiftly The day is his and the night the open place and the secret fish and birdes and beastes and all the very wings of the wind to cary his precept on them Vnconceiuable is his Maiesty vnestimable is his power the highest things and the lowest the greatest and the weakest are euer at his commandement he hath the keyes of heauen nay of hell and of death This his power so vncontrollable most eminently appeareth in punishing the wicked and preseruing his owne children 3 Ammianus Marcellinus reporteth that in Mesopotamia among the reedes and bushes growing neare to the riuer Euphrates are euermore great store of Lions which vse to remaine there being much delighted with the great calmenesâ—e and pleasure of that climate The danger arising from these both vnto men and beasts would be perpetuall but that God hath prouided a remedy to slacke the fury of them and that is in admirable maner There are alwayes in that coast infinite swarmes of gnats which gather much about those Lions and to nothing in them so desirously as to their eyes whom we know to be bright and shining members But sitting fast on the eye-lids they do so pricke and sting them that the raging Lions are forced to scratch with their nailes as if they would remooue the gnats but indeede they claw out their owne eyes so that many of them by this meanes growing blind do drowne themselues in the great riuers or otherwise become lesse terrible This is an argument of Gods wisedome who delighteth in such variety of these inferiour bodies And yet withall it is an argument of his puissance who by so weake a matter can ouerthrow such a great one a Lion by a gnat and hath those little ones so attendant as that euery man may see that they are prepared by their maker to ouer-rule the other to chase them and pursue them and vexe them vnto destruction The tyrants of the earth are â—earefull vnto the poore as the Lion is to the lambe Their might giueth them abilitie and their minde doth yeeld them will to treade downe their inferiours Now for the punishment of these bitter ones God hath prepared as small things as the gnats to maister them in their fury Let Pharao be one man and Herod be another who shall demonstrate this The violence of the former and his cruell oppression toward the sonnes of God was insolent and outragious But how doth the graund ruler of the heauen trample vpon him and make him cry peccaui with the basest of those bodies which mankind euer seeth The hand of his seruant Aaron was but stretched out on the waters and frogs came in such store as made him loath himselfe and euery thing about him So the swarmes of flies did force him to be humbled for a time What hostes were there of grashoppers and of deuouring caterpillers which came forth at one call as if they had bene reserued before by the Lord to shew his mighty hand and his power which is not limited Nay to testifie Gods owne finger there was an army of lice then whom nothing is more vile yet prepared they were at an instant to plague where the Lord commanded The other that proud Herod who vpon a glosing flattering speech of the people assumed to himselfe that glory which of right appertained to his maker was stricken with Gods Angell and so died consumed with wormes In such manner hath the Almighty euery creature for his messenger and executing seruant close standing at his elbow to vexe and plague and torture the enemies of his Maiesty or the oppugners of his glory 4 And is he strong to hurt and is he not so to helpe To defend and to offend are they not alike vnto him protection and correction His sweete mercy triumpheth ouer his bitter iustice and his power attendeth his mercy and the world attendeth his power and so doth euery thing which is in it In the twelfth of the Reuelation this is well shadowed to vs. The woman which is the Church here militant vpon earth is followed hard by the Dragon there are found two Egles wings by the which she doth escape Behold there is one deliuerance and one not looked for remedy The Dragon yet doth not leaue her but since he cannot come he thinketh to send home after her he casteth out of his mouth a water like to a riuer thinking thereby to drowne her See another helpe in a moment The earth openeth herselfe and swalloweth vp that water which the Dragon had cast forth To the same effect with this parable or vision were the Israelites reskued by the red sea the waters flying a sunder and
was hindered from assembling within those courts of the Lord that he witnesseth for his owne part that neuer heart did so bray to find the brooke of water as his hart and conscience did thirst for that place yea his teares did trickle downe to thinke that he might not come there And elsewhere he complaineth that the sparrow and the swallow were happy being compared to him for they might come to the Altar to make their nest neare about it but leaue to do that was denied vnto him But afterward when Salomon had erected his famous house to the Lord that had many extraordinarie blessings granted to it at the time of the dedication when God witnessed by his presence that he heard the requests of Salomon among which these were some that if famine or plague or any other affliction did vexe the hearts of the Israelites and they theÌ„ came into that Temple and there prayed to be deliuered from that crosse the Lord would remooue it from them Yea if they were out of their owne land either going against their enemies or captiues in other countries if they turning their faces about to the coastward of this house should either pray for victorie or for release from their captiuitie their God would graunt it vnto them The Iewes afterward obserued this euermore in the earnestnesse of their prayer in what land soeuer they were turning them toward the Temple not tying superstitiously the power of God to that place but knowing that the same house was not erected in vaine And witnessing withall their obedience vnto the Lord and to men the constancie of their profession who held that place as the seale of the Lords assured protection ouer them So when Daniel in Chaldaea would pray he set his windowes open toward Hierusalem to the hazard of his life And truely the maiestie and great fame of the place was such that when the second Temple which was a farre meaner matter was raised vp the Princes of the earth which were of the very Gentiles did repute it and esteeme it a thing most holy The regard which was borne to that sanctuarie by Alexander the great sometimes king of the Macedonians by Ptolomeus Philadelphus by Pompey the great Romane some wherof did there offer sacrifice as it is testified by Iosephus and the coming vp of the Eunuch of Candace the Queene of Aethiopia who resorted thither of purpose for to worship do make this very plaine vnto vs. Then our man who sometimes had bene a Prophet and of likely hood had gone vp to Hierusalem to do his deuotions contrarie to the custome of the Israelites in his time had great reason to bethinke himselfe of this place 11 The doctrine to be deriued vnto vs from hence is this that since in substance we are inheritours of that faith which the Israelites and Iewes did holde and in steade of their Temple haue the Churches of the Christans which are places seuered to Gods seruice for the assembly of his Saints and the gathering together of his people that we therefore should beare the like affection to these as they did to that house and this so much the rather because the substance is here when there was but the shadow there the figure but here the truth there sacrifices made of beasts here the true Lambe Iesus Christ. We should therfore resort to these Sanctuaries with greedinesse euen as to the type of heauen we should ioy to be there and see all other there whom we loue and a Christian man loueth euery man Christ did frequent the Temple he called it an house of praier Anna that widow so much coÌ„mended liued in the TeÌ„ple the Apostles came to this and after that Christ was ascended the holy men who were in the time of the Primitiue Church did reioyce to see the Oratories and places of deuotion which were built in honour of Christ. They knew that if the priuate prayers or lifting vp of the hands of one man were acceptable to the Lord theÌ„ the voyce of a multitude making their requests ioyâ—tly together would more sound in the eares of God If the Sauior hath made a promise to be in the middle of them where two or three are gathered together with what an eye of coÌ„passion is he present to looke vpon hundreds or thousands of his assembled into one place Then let vs account it our happinesse that we may ioyne our prayers vnto a great congregation which God denieth to his best children in the time of persecution and of banishment great sicknesse and let vs presse to this place as to that where bread is broken which is the very food of life For herein God giueth a most approoued argument of his loue that we are not forced to runne from this sea to another from this land vnto that so to enioy this blessing but we need no more but euen step out of doores it is so brought home vnto vs. And let vs each man exhort that brother of his who yet wanteth vnderstanding to hasten vnto this banket for it is a good token of more grace which is afterward to follow when men come to this place although it be for other purposes God catcheth them vpon the sudden the hooke is fastened in them before themselues be aware Austen came with another mind to heare Saint Ambrose preach it was to obserue his words and his eloquence and the manner of his gracious deliuery for Ambrose was an eloquent and sweete man but at length the matter of his Sermons tooke him and made him a good Christian. So mighty Gods word is and hearing is the meanes to bring men vnto faith by which faith they are saued and this is the place of hearing If any man sayth Chrysostome vpon Iohn do sit neare to a perfumer or a perfumers shop euen against his will he shall receiue some sauour from it much more shall he who frequenteth the Church receiue some goodnesse from it 12 Then they are much to be blamed who do willingly and of purpose absent themselues from this place be they either the stiffe and stubburne recusants whose fancy and refractary will is called by the name of conscience who being inuited to the Supper of the Lambe yet keepe themselues away and therefore according to Christs parable are well compelled by the Magistrate to come in It is a most blessed compulsion for a man to be driuen to truth for a woman to be forced to heauen Or be it the idle person who preferreth his rest and sleepe before his owne soules saluation In which case he is worse then the Iew of whom as Ambrose well obserueth the Prophet sayth that he honoureth God with his lips although his heart be farre from him The Iew did yeeld his speech and the Iew did yeeld his presence seemed to giue some countenance to the word but this slouthfull man commeth not so farre Or
giuen ouer to heare any thing of my prayers Among the old Romane historians which haue written who was wiser then Cornelius Tacitus men do now study him for policy Yet in the first of his history recounting those great grieuances which befell Rome by the ciuill warres vnder Galba and Vitellius he vseth this desperate speech Neuer by greater slaughters on the Romane people or by more iust iudgements vvas it approoued vnto vs that the Gods do not at all respect our safety and security but to take vengeance on vs they are ready inough Here policy hath forgotten the very first grounds of piety which are patience and humility Liuie a graue writer although otherwise superstitious inough as appeareth by his Prodigia and yearely monsters yet tasteth of these dregs when in his fourth booke he writeth thus Here followeth a yeare which for slaughters and ciuill vprores and famine was very famous Onely forreine warre was vvanting wherewithall if our state had bene laded things could hardly haue bene stayed by the helpe of all the Gods but that they had run to ruine 9. Thus the wisedome of this world is nothing else but foolishnesse nothing but doting folly when it commeth indeed to the crosse or to the fiery triall The knowledge of God is wanting or at least the laying hold aright by faith is wanting And where faith is not to be found there is neither hope nor patience which are two infallible notes of a iust and Christian man There is nothing sayth Saint Cyprian which putteth more difference betweene the iust and the vniust then this that the euill man in his aduersity doth complaine and impatiently blaspheme but the good doth suffer quietly The iust hath trust in his Sauior but the other hath no part in him What maruell then is it if the wicked do fret and rage without comfort since he hath no share in him who is the God of comfort What maruell is it if he perish Plutarch telleth that this is the quality of Tigres that if drums or tabours sound about them they will grow madde and then they teare their owne flesh and rent themselues in peeces If the vnbeleeuing reprobate do heare the noyse of affliction he is ready to rent himselfe but by cursing and by swearing he will teare the body of Christ from top to toe in peeces As Ionas did remember God so the reprobate will not forget him but it is not to pray vnto him not to beleeue vpon him for he harh not so much grace but to ban him and blaspheme him I could wish that such prophanenesse as this might neuer be heard off in earnest or in play in the life or death of any man We should thinke of him with a reuerence we should mind him with a feare in prosperity with a trembling in aduersity with a hope There should be no fretting against his prouidence no grudging against his punishment When my soule did faint within me I remembred the Lord sayth Ionas I remembred him to beseech him I remembred him to intreate him I remembred him to embrace him to trust in him as a deliuerer to beleeue in him as a father I called to him and doubted not and he afterward heard my voyce 10 Saint Hierome doth giue this note vpon this place taking it out of the Septuagint That because he thought vpon the Lord when his soule did faint and he was ready to dye we by his example should aboue all things mind our maker when we are in the fits and pangs of death A very needefull doctrine if any thing may be needefull that when we must dislodge and be remooued hence when our glasse is so farre runne that immediatly a change must follow and that not to a trifle or toye which is to bee contemned but either to heauen or hell either to perpetuall ioy or to euerlasting torment we haue him in our meditations who is to see our iudge who is to scanne our actions and to peruse our conscience and giue the last sentence on vs that then with our best remembrance we thinke vpon his mercy and contemplate on his great loue in the redemption of his sonne and desire him for his blouds sake to take vs into his fauour That this lesson might the better be taught vnto vs Iesus the sonne of God and fore-runner of our faith when he was ready to yeeld vp his spirit did commend his vnspotted soule to his most righteous father Father into thy hands I commend my spirit Good Steuen the eldest martyr did tread these steps right after him when at the time of his death he cried Lord Iesus receiue my spirit And euery Christian man should struggle and striue to do so to shake off as much as may be the heauinesse of his sicknesse and as hauing that one prize that last great prize to play should stirre vp his spirit in him and should then pray to God to comfort him to conduct him vnto heauen to leade him along to glorie It is a good thing to liue well but because death is the vp-shot which maketh or marreth the rest it is the best thing to dye well He who hath begun aright hath halfe that whereat he aimeth but to begin is our hurt it shall bee a witnesse against our conscience vnlesse we do perseuere The man who shall bee blessed must continue to the ende 11 Then may the dangerous state of such be iustly deplored who in their life time haue so fondly doated vpon the world that when death which is Gods baylife doth summon them to appeare before the iudgement seate they do least of all other things know wherewith he should be furnished who commeth there but as before in the time of their health so in their despaired sicknesse do thinke only vpon their Mammon admiring it and embracing it and kissing it in their thought as if they were wedded to it But neither of themselues nor by the instigation of the Minister who is a remembrancer for the Lord can they be any way vrged to speake of celestiall things to call on God for mercy or to professe their faith and confidence in their Sauiour And this wordly imagination first ministreth hope of life they not dreaming that death will take them till on the sudden both body and soule do eternally dye together Next if they do conceiue that it must be so and there is no way with them but the graue then is their heart oppressed with sorrow and a huge waight of griefe that there must be a separation from their beloued treasure And lastly if their memory do serue there must be an vnsetled and vnresolued disposing with disquietnesse and much vexing of that which hath bene ill gotten to this child or to that friend and much stirre there must be about the pompe of a funerall by which meanes all good motions are so stifled and choaked that there is scant one word of him who made all
bodie If the bodie stand vpright the shadow is vpright also But maruell not if the shadow do double if the body be first crooked Thy fals draw other on with them For thy callings sake and for his sake whose marke is stamped in thy forehead haue an eye vnto thy wayes But aboue all follow him in this He sitteth on high in the heauen there is no earthinesse with him let not thy celestiall spirit be fixed vpon the earth and lye groueling on the ground Thy outward man and thy inward man and all thy conuersation must be aboue in heauen not in scraping or in scratching as if thou hadst a perpetuall habitation in this world How shall other by thy example learne to contemne that world which thou with greedinesse doest embrace and shewest thy selfe as if thou hadst lost much time at thy studie in the Vniuersitie and wast now to recouer it with a preposterous emulation of the fiercest hungriest worldlings There is nothing farther from heauen then this there is nothing more vnlike to thy maker It is noted that those creatures which are nearest the earth take most care to get store those which are more remote are lesse busied but those who liue next the heauen haue their hearts least set vpon it What hoordeth like the Emet or pismire which is an earthy thing and dwelling thereupon But the birds of the ayre who flye next to the heauen as Christ himselfe doth teach do neither sow nor reape nor carie into the barne Let thy meditations cary thee much higher then their wings that although thou liue with men yet thy loue may be with God So thy celestiall contemplation thy pastourlike conuersation thy knowledge fit for a teacher may shew that thou art one of them by whom the Lord doth speake and that title shall be giuen thee And so much for the Minister 9 But the people are also taught from hence to yeeld an vnfained reuerence to their pastors and preachers yea although they be such as haue their infirmities For who had more then Ionas and yet his speech is called Gods speech the beleeuing of his words the beleeuing of the Lord. The profite which is brought by the true Pastours to their congregations their maister who doth send them and the message which they bring do deserue to be well regarded It is more then men do accompt it to seeke out what goeth astray to comfort the broken hearted to leade in the way of peace to feede that with spirituall foode which otherwise would perish To ouerturne the strong holds of Satan and of sinne is that which is worth the receiuing But as Origene once said as the wals of Hierico fell downe by nothing but by the trumpets of the Priests so be the strong holds of Satan ouerthrowne by nothing but by the doctrine of good teachers These come from the immortall Lord who is a iealous God and a terrible and doth hold the disgrace done to his Ministers as a disgrace offered to himselfe and punisheth it accordingly A Christian captaine could once say to Valens the Emperour that he lost a victorie for abusing of Gods ministers and they saith he who fight against the Lord do prosper in nothing Moreouer the message which they bring is the true peace of conscience and ioy in the holy Ghost A treasure beyond all treasures and although they be but earthen vessels and therefore brittle who bring it yet for the treasures sake they should be well intreated How do they keepe this lesson who accompt it part of their happinesse if with facilitie they may abuse and with promptnesse depraue those whom in truth they shold honour for so the Apostle speaketh and yet they will be Christians and men knowne for religion Thou who so doest art an vnhappie man thou wrongest thy self and knowest it not Heare what Saint Cyprian saith vnto thee Thou art angrie with him who laboureth to turne away the wrath of God from thee thou threatnest him who intreateth the mercie of God for thee who feeleth that wound of thine which thou thy selfe doest not feele who powreth out those teares for thee which thou thy selfe perhaps doest not powre out for thus the true Pastour doth I may adde Thou wicked heart why doest thou render him so ill thankes for his labour Commest thou not vnto his Church by that meanes thou debarrest thy selfe from the communion of Gods saints Doest thou come ioynest not with him in prayer and inuocation then thou secludest thy selfe from a multitude of men who call vpon the Lord and it is better that thou hadst beene absent for now thou condemnest thy selfe for coming and yet refusing But thou prayest ioyntly with thy Pastour then let Saint Chrysostome speake vnto thee when he saith peace be to you as we say in our Liturgie the Lord be with you thou answerest with thy spirit for in old time they replyed so also as we do now Thus thou sayest in the Church and as soone as thou art come out thou impugnest him thou despisest him thou reuilest him and priuily with a thousand reproches thou rentest him and tearest him what a peace is this to his spirit which thou doest wish vnto him Take heede and be aduised ô you sonnes of men lest despising those whom your God fauoureth you purchase his high displeasure Learne of the Gentiles of Niniue to thinke of God in his messengers and by the visible creature to remember the inuisible Lord and to respect them both the Eternall for himselfe the other with a reference because he commeth from him 10 Now to returne to my Prophet by him speaking from God and by God sending his word his louing moouing word faith is wrought in the Niniuites according to that of the Apostle Saint Paule that faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of God They by a terrour apprehend the conscience of their sinnes and imagine that without repentance destruction and vnauoidable desolation is at their doores See the straunge effect of one sermon and the doctrine of one day for so I do still take it among a forlorne people The stonie heart is made like waxe the flintie mind is made soft But how strange a worke is this where something was expected there nothing is to be found and where nothing was looked for there it commeth in great abundance There is more treasure in a wildernesse then in the treasure house He had long preached to the Israelites and Israel was not Israel but a disobedient nation Gods people were now become a Niniue or a Babylō in comparison of that which they should haue bene He commeth among the Niniuites and there he findeth more of Israel then he did in his own countrey The circumcision scorneth and the vncircumcised are made heires of the promises The children prooue to be rebels and the rebels are chaunged into children So in the time of our Sauiour the
at the last according to that power which God shall giue vnto me I may on to the end 2 Now then hitherto we are come that he who at first refused and could not be induced to it hath preached to the Niniuites as sharpe as sharpe may be yet fortie dayes and Niniue is like to be destroyed and his sermon hath so wrought that their beautie and pleasure and musicke and all mirth is turned out of doore and sackcloth and ashes and weeping and lamenting great signes of repentance are come in steede of them their heart is dismayed and their whole bodie shaken no helpe now nor comfort vnlesse it be from heauen But where mans means do faile there Gods mercie doth breake foorth he is mooued to pitie and in commiseration all past shall be pardoned Here a man would haue thought that in the meane while the messenger as sent from God and therefore full of all mild and louely behauiour would haue opened his heart with the largest ioy because the seede which he had sowed had fallen in so good ground that it had now brought foorth not thirtie not sixtie but many thousand fold That his toung had so farre beene the instrument of Gods glorie that his threates as the thunder shold so be trembled at that his mouth had in so high a degree beene the meanes of the Lords mercie that both Prince and people old and young should be quit of their transgressions and excused of their iniquitie But it falleth out cleane contrarie and he as the man who had onely learned that lesson to do nothing aright is growne into great anger and is so filled with choler that he fretteth and chafeth hand-smooth with the Lord that he had not razed downe the whole citie Niniue euen to the foundation That which should haue beene to him for his glory and his crown to haue helped so many prisoners from the dungeon of darknesse and the shadow of death is the greatest vexation and corrosiue that might be to him in his distemper which yeeldeth to vs a singular example of the infirmitie of man that such a one as he was on so light an occasion should be so farre offended and that with God himselfe The true cause whereof howsoeuer it seeme different and diuerse to diuerse yet by all is agreed on to be most blame worthie I cannot so fitly expound the manner of it as this historie requireth but that by degrees I must descend vnto it and so out of one thing winne the matter of another I thinke therefore best first to referre all things to these two heades a generall doctrine which may be gathered in grosse and a particular instruction which the words literally offer both fitly in my iudgement taken out of the text And both these do containe their seuerall considerations as by Gods assistance I shall make plaine vnto you But I begin with the generall The generall doctrine 3 When I looke into the narration which doth follow frō hencefoorth to the end of this Prophecie see how all runneth against Ionas himselfe and describeth him to be froward and testie and peeuish rebellious and ouerthwart euen brawling with the Lord and chopping word for word with him as if he were the wiser and better of the two Doest thou well to be angrie Yea to be angrie to the death such an answer as scant any man was euer knowne to make not a Iudas not a Cain I therin do admire the excellencie of the Scripture and rare wisedome of him whose glorie it most concerneth that he so ouerruleth the pens of the writers that they must depresse themselues to infamie and disgrace and for their follies and infirmities be offered as wonderments to all succeeding ages It declareth a singularitie in those bookes and writings that the glorie of God is the onely thing which is aimed at and that men who naturally are ambitious desirous to blaze their owne praises or if they haue fallen to extenuate their faults by Apologies and excuses are not left to their owne libertie in setting downe of that which he appointeth for the Canon to direct our liues by But that as Saint Peter speaketh no prophecie in the Scripture is of any priuate motion for the prophecie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were mooued by the holy Ghost They therefore who did well are commended for their well doing but if they did amisse their friends or their own writings paint them out to the full The fals of Noe and Lot are not concealed by him who honoured the memorie of Noe and of Lot Whether it were Baruch or Ieremie who wrote the Prophecie of Ieremie it is not much materiall but therein he himselfe is not forgotten for his vexing impatiencie Luke as all men may suppose loued Paule and Barnabas well yet recording their behauiour he sheweth that there was betweene them so hote a contention as becōmed not two such men But most do conceiue that Ionas in his owne person deliuered this Prophecie to the Church and there is no reason to the contrarie but yet from the beginning to the end thereof he telleth such a tale that if all his enemies should haue studied to lash him they could not haue matched that which his owne hand hath published not one word to his commendation but all to his dispraise That he fled from his charge and would haue gone to Tharshish that he slept in securitie and a heathen man did awake him and teach him his dutie that the lot fell vpon him as a noted malefactour that for his due desert after that a tempest had pursued him he was tumbled into the sea that there for three dayes he was iayled vp in a whales belly that all that while he was little better then in distrustfull despaire Nay moreouer that when he was out againe he preached indeeed but as a shrewd cow after that she hath giuen milke doth cast it downe with her heele so he marred all with his murmuring and furious displeasure And this was the case of Moses who without doubt wrote those fiue bookes which are called by his name there as he spared not his brother nor his sister that is Aaron and Miriam nor Tsippora his wife if she came in his way so he least fauoureth himselfe but relateth that the Lord had almost killed him for his negligence in not circumcising his child that in those prouocations wherewith the people prouoked God himselfe did fall to murmuring that the Lord was so displeased with him that therefore he debarred him from comming into Canaan Thus the inditing spirit doth rule the writers pen and as ouer-maistering the hand of a young learner maketh him to set downe what it will and not what the other fancieth This is one great argument of the finger of God and a supernaturall power that is in these bookes of holy writ that
not so farre in as he should nor so farre out as he might be if Gods grace had forsaken him Notwithstanding to testifie some thing for indeed it is but some thing he betaketh himselfe to his prayers he prayed vnto the Lord. 2 Then a generall obedience yet remaineth in this sinner wherein he could wish all well as hauing learned by his smart to stand in awe of that great Maiesty which had so followed him before and might recken with him afterward But as water which ariseth from the purest and cleanest fountaine if it come through a puddle channell will keepe still to be water but it will be troubled water by meanes of that which it toucheth so his intendment to pray springing certainely from deuotion is so mingled with dregges of wrath and vanity and excuse to quit himselfe and blame God that as good almost not at all as not to be better Some drammes and graines of gold appeare in him and his action but drosse is there by pounds Little wine but store of water some wheate but chaffe inough That he came to God it was good and that he came by prayer for that is the best sacrifice which the soule can send vp into heauen but that it was in such sort to expostulate not to begge to reason not to confesse to chide not to aske pardon is a many faults put together My meaning is not to exagitate this in Ionas otherwise then by looking particularly to the circumstance of the fact to see how good instructions we may gather from this his prayer to right our selues and straight our steps in that where he went amisse which I shall the better do if I propose vnto you these three things to be considered First the preface which here is vsed And he prayed vnto the Lord Secondlie the excuse which he maketh I pray thee vvas not this my saying vvhen I vvas yet in my countrey Therefore I preuented it to flye vnto Tharshish And thirdlie the reason whereon he grounded all because the Lord was mercifull In the first I shall speake of prayer in the second of our excusing and shifting sinne from our selues and in the third of that wherein must be all our comfort that the Lord is kind and long suffering And he prayed vnto the Lord. 3 That anguishes and perplexities do here waite vpon vs as companions more vnseparable then the shadow to the body is a matter by Scripture and experience so euident as is the light at noone day Many are the troubles of the righteous By many afflictions vve must enter into the kingdome of God And whosoeuer vvill liue godly in Christ Iesus must suffer persecution Persecution is of diuerse sorts it may be inward or outward in body or in mind in goods or in fame in sicknesse or in sorrow and the most holy haue abundantly tasted some one of these the Patriarkes and Prophets the Apostles and Martyrs Christ Iesus himselfe The weight of which burthen he is not well aduised who seeketh not to support by some firme vnder-lyer and that is faithfull inuocation vpon the name of God and flying to him by prayer For if there be any thing which may appease sorow ease the grieued hart oppressed with the feeling of temporall occurrents or wounded with the want of spirituall consolations it is to haue recourse to the throne of grace and there with watered eyes and cheekes be deawed with teares to lay open those grieuances which breed sorow vnto vs. I shall find trouble and heauinesse saith Dauid but I shall call vpon the name of the Lord. It is the counsell of Saint Iames Is any among you afflicted let him pray Hanna being vexed in her spirit did betake her selfe to this medicine she went to the Tabernacle and there she earnestly intreated The whole booke of Psalmes doth witnesse that this was the Altar whereunto Dauid when he was pursued did still retire himselfe This was the stay of Hezechiah when he turned him to the wall being in extreame anguish And Saint Paule being buffeted by the Angell of Satan ranne to this as a refuge I besought the Lord thrise sayth he that is many times And where can be comfort if it be not in this When worldly things do faile vs and there is helpe from no man when friends are few or weake or absent or perhaps growne vnfaithfull but foes are fierce and malicious when Sathan himselfe suggesteth all things to the worst when the thoughts within are much disquieted the conscience euen amazed and standing at the gaze scant knowing which way to walke then to powre foorth our complaints and discouer our miseries to him who doth know all because he is almightie to him who considereth all because he is our father and who both can and will take pity of the distressed The practise of this doth both expeditely and assuredly bring reliefe to him that trieth it that sigh which breatheth out sorow by a backe-breathing bringeth in ioy That hand which being thrust out doth reach a supplication vpward reacheth downe contentation deliuerance doth breake foorth or at least patience sitteth within yea now there may be ioy in suffering Thus mercie is powred downe and seasonable showers of sound and sure refreshing do fall vpon vs as vpon the thirsty land Were it not for this precious ointment the heart which is sometimes puffed and stretched with care would breake and rent in peeces but by praying it is suppled and mollified and stroaked till it returne vnto his setled nature 4 Then are not we to blame the while who hauing a remedie so faire so louely in it selfe for what is like speaking to God so profitable for vs for what doth so asswage our grife so acceptable to our maker for what doth he account a better sacrifice then this so readie at hand to vs for where or when may we not pray Yet in our manie molestations we rather seeke to ease our selues with any thing then with this and so indeed we disease our selues either presently heaping more euill vpon euill or if we thinke that we slacke our sorow it commeth foorthwith more vehementlie on vs as the feuer doth to him who drinketh cold water in his fit there may be a superficiall skin bred aboue but rankled festered dead flesh doth putrifie vnderneath If one mightie man do oppresse vs we seeke to backe our selues by another which is his equall if our neighbour agree not with vs the law shall end all betweene vs if we speede not there then more money shall be imployed to fetch it another way if that practise go not forward we will trye a farther conclusion of slander and defamation so to quit a friend in his kind If that way we cannot reach him yet we will haue our peny-worthes out in railing vpon him or at least in secret whispering inward we chafe and outward we act it with more then tragicall gesture And thus we do in those things