that he referreth all his punishment to the hand of the Lord. He speaketh not of the mariners by whose meanes it was done much lesse doth he reuile them as in our time wicked offending persons oft do to the magistrates or Iudges or other officers who do but see that to be done which iust law layeth vpon thē and they wilfully haue deserued But Ionas passing by the instrument and meanes whereby God wrought seeketh vnto the fountaine and originall of the deede He acknowledgeth that his maker was he who was offended that his hand had corrected him that his wrath must be satisfied but by all other he passeth That euill Ioram did not so when his citie of Samaria was oppressed with a famine so grieuous that the mother did eate her owne child which extremity it is likely that the Prophet Elizaeus did foretell should fall vpon them for the greatnesse of their sin But then he in stead of looking vpward to God whom he should haue sought vnto by fasting and by prayer turneth his anger on the Prophet the minister of the Almightie and voweth himselfe to much euill if innocent Elizaeus were not put to death that day Blind man who could not looke higher and see whose messenger the Prophet was How much better was Iobs behauiour for when newes was brought vnto him that the Sabees and Chaldeans by violence and strong hand had taken away his Oxen and robbed him of his Camels he did not straight way curse those sinners and wish much euill on them but not so much as naming them did fasten his thoughts on God and imputed all vnto him saying most patiently The Lord hath giuen and the Lord hath taken it blessed be the name of the Lord. I would that men in our time could carry his resolution When ought amisse doth befall them to haue recourse to the Highest and to suppose that either he doth trie them or doth punish thē for their sinnes or hath some other good purpose But we rather run to any thing then that which most doth vrge vs oft surmising that which is not and suspecting those that be innocents And if we can find the meanes whereby all is brought about we double our force on that this witch hath killed my beasts this wicked man hath vndone me this mightie man hath crossed me I would he were in his graue or some mischiefe else were on him Indeed I do not deny but that the euill are oftentimes the rods of God to chasten good men withall but yet thinke thou euermore that his hand is it which effecteth all that his stroke is in the action Fasten thy eyes on him and with sighing and true repentance seeke to appease his wrath and thē the meanes shall not touch thee no wicked thing shall haue power ouer thee But let this be thy song to vtter foorth with the Prophet thou hadst cast me into the water thou hast layed this crosse vpon me 22 The third circumstance now remaining is that God did heare his prayer I cryed in mine affliction and thou heardest me and againe O Lord thou heardst my voice You see that his woe was exceeding and after the common course of sorrow it droue him vnto his maker it enforced him to pray Where behold the comfort is that he did not loose his labour the Lord did heare his voice This euermore is his propertie to attend to those who sollicite him to respect those who call on him I called on the Lord in trouble saith Dauid and the Lord heard me at large So by Ieremie his seruant God promiseth to the Iewes and in them to all his Saints you shall cry to me and shall go and pray to me and I will heare you And you shall seeke and find me So respectiue is the Lord to those who fly to him which sheweth his great prerogatiue aboue all heathen idols who may be derided with Baal that either they are busie in following of their enemies or asleepe and must be awaked but surely they cannot heare But especially to vs it is comfort in extremity that if sicknesse or pinching pouertie or malice of any man nay if pangs of death do hurt vs or if in the soule which is our better part temptation ouercharge vs and Satans darts hardly driue at vs if we call vnto that Lord who can bind and loose and hath the keyes of hell and of death he can rid vs and deliuer vs. Yea he so yeeldeth to our prayers that they shall not returne in vaine but comfort at the least and patience in our miseries shall be bestowed vpon vs. It is a good speech in Cyprian if that tract be his De caena Domini In the presence of Christ our teares which are neuer superfluous do beg a pardon for vs neither euer doth the sacrifice of a contrite heart take repulse As often as in Gods sight I see thee to be sighing I doubt not but the holy Ghost doth breath vpō thee when I see thee weeping then I perceiue him pardoning This should be a great instigation that when any thing doth oppresse vs be it inward or be it outward we should runne vnto the Lord. So may also be that of Austen The prayer of the righteous is the key of heauen Prayer ascendeth vp and Gods mercie descendeth down Although the earth be low and the heauen high the Lord doth heare the tong of man if he haue a cleane conscience It speaketh with feeling if it be but onely our sigh A showre of the eyes is sufficient for his eares he doth sooner here our weeping then our speaking 23 I doubt not but all the faithfull do find this easily in thēselues that when they do lay open their soules before the Lord as Ezechias did the letters of Sennacherib when they do earnestly pray a deaw of consolation of most blessed consolation is distilled downe vpon them whereby they are assured that they haue to deale with a father who seeth their fraile infirmities and hath compassion on them Yea as a father doth pitie his children so hath the Lord compassion on all that do feare him for he knoweth wherof we be made he remembreth that we are but dust He knoweth vs to be most ignorant most foolish and vnfit for all goodnesse very impotent and vnable to keepe off wrong from our selues He knoweth this considereth it as euermore he supporteth vs keepeth vs to himself as the apple of his eye giuing when we demand not more then we thinke on so if we lift vp our voyces powre out our complaints before him he will neuer faile vs seeking him Onely this he claimeth of vs that we aske that which is fit not vanities or impieties or to bestow vpon our lustes for he denyeth these things to vs and our faith hath no warrant to aske such requests of the Lord. And againe that in those things which are lawfull we
sorrow shall not vpbraide vs that wee haue feared men more then the eternall God that we haue for the pleasure of any made shippe-wracke of a good conscience or very farre aduentured toward it Take heede then by the Prophet that in seeking to flye such harme as is but imaginarie or little in comparison we do not runne our selues by offending of the Lord into daunger which is ineuitable Now goe we a little forward Yet thou hast brought my life from the pit 16 The common translation hath in the future tense thou wilt lift vp my life The Septuagint let my life ascend from corruption The Chaldee Paraphrase it is readie or but a small thing vnto thee to bring me from corruption The best do translate it by the time that is past thou hast brought my life from the pit or corruption He ascribeth all to God as moouing in him and liuing in him and in him hauing his being So the faithfull do euermore I wayted saith Dauid patiently for the Lord and he enclined vnto me and heard my crye He brought me also out of the horrible pitte out of the mire and clay and set my feete vpon the rocke and ordered my goings A gracious God who can strike vs and can heale vs can foile vs can raise vs. He whippeth vs by number scourgeth vs by measure and when we turne vnto him he will quicken vs and reuiue vs from death and the gates of hell Ionas sinning is punished Ionas crying is helped While stubburnnesse is on him downe must his proud heart but when feare and faith possesse him he is hoyssed vp againe Let vs then chaunge our heart and God will change his hand in the middest of his roughnesse toward vs. Saint Austen in those eight questions which were proposed to him by Dulcitius speaketh fitly to this matter When the woman came to Christ from Syro Phaenicia he said vnto her the childrens bread is not to be throwne to dogges but afterward not O dogge great is thy faith but O woman great is thy faith He chaungeth his word because he saw her affection chaunged and he vnderstood that the same reproofe of his was growne vp to good fruite So it is with this patient when his faith once breaketh foorth he shall come from corruption 17 But what may be the matter that he so much reioyceth that he should liue againe The words which go before from the beginning of the chapter do shew a fast hold to be layed on Gods fauour by faith howsoeuer for some little time it was dismayed a remission of sinnes and a hope of life eternal although he had very much transgressed Then since his life was sealed vp against another world why should he desire to be here againe Why should he so reioyce that he should be deliuered Very shame might haue enforced him to hate the light The report of the mariners who would freely speake wheresoeuer they came might spread the name of him as of a most infamous person He might be poynted at with the finger by children and vile folkes as he went in the streete Howsoeuer Gods children should thirst to be aboue should long to be dissolued and be at home with their father So did Saint Paule in the new Testament when he desired to be loosed so did Elias in the old when he cryed It is now enough ô Lord take my soule for I am no better then my fathers And who would be in his pilgrimage when he might be in his countrey who would be in the sea when he might be in the hauen who would be warring when a crowne might then be giuen him for his victorie who would be in the way when he might be at home in rest It seemeth then at the first sight that the Prophet doth take ioy in his losse and desireth that for a benefite which was a harme vnto him But when all these things are scanned as they should bee it will appeare farre otherwise 18 Now it was no time to feare the shame of the world he was rather to seeke to please one and that was his old maister yea if he displeased all other by it It was a good resolution of him who did write the eigth of those Epistles which be in the end of Saint Hieromes workes Let euerie one say what himselfe will In the meane time according to my small vnderstanding I haue iudged it better for my selfe to blush before sinners vpon earth then before the holy Angels in heauen or wheresoeuer the Lord will shew his iudgement And to wish as Elias wished were but to be impatient wherein Ionas is not behind as appeareth in the fourth chapter And his case was not like Saint Paules who might yeeld vp his soule in quietnesse of conscience as hauing in his heart a testimonie of the Lords good accepatnce of his labours in this world Now he who is setled in such an opinion neede not feare to depart from this transitorie habitation nay he may well long to dye But with Ionas it is otherwise he standeth yet in a mammering and knoweth not which way to turne him Yet he is not quite exempted from that conflict of his betweene hope and despaire yet although his faith be not extinguished he is not assured how the Lord will take his sinne at his hands This maketh him wish for more time to testifie his obedience to make a recompence if it might be for his sinfull rebellion or at the least to wash away his iniquitie with many teares And hauing this purpose in him to aske pardon with sighes and sobbes he ioyeth with all his heart that time is permitted him to performe the vowes of his soule and to remooue away from the Church of God that scandale which he had offered 19 Moreouer if he had dyed in the sea and the belly of the fish his departure had bene violent and layed vpon him for his sinne as a grieuous punishment for vngodlinesse and such a kind of death the faithfull seruants of the Lord haue no desire to dye It may well be gathered out of the thirtieth Psalme that the sicknesse of Dauid there insinuated for that Psalme may best be vnderstoode of sickenesse was layed vpon him for one fault or other perhaps for presumption he thought that he was too strong But when for that cause he felt the hand of the Lord sharpely chastising him he beggeth that he might not in such a sort go downe to the graue What profite is there in my bloud vvhen I goe downe to the pit shall the dust giue thankes vnto thee or shall it declare thy truth For some one reason or other which the Spirit of God hath concealed Hezechias was not readie when the Prophet Esay came vnto him and told him that he must dye This did make him turne himselfe to the wall and weepe and pray to the Lord that if it might stand with his good pleasure that sentence might
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
affections Yea we may see many more things to pricke vs on to sollicite the Lord of all importunely The dearth which doth now raigne in many parts of this land which doth little good to the rich but maketh the poore to pinch for hunger and the children to cry in the streetes not knowing where to haue bread And if the Lord do not stay his hand the dearth may be yet much more In like sort the safety of Gods Church which in England and in Ireland yea in many parts else of Christendome as Scotland Fraunce and Flaunders much dependeth vnder God on the good estate of her Maiesty the hand maide of Christ Iesus whose life we see to be aimed at by the cursed brood of Sathan vnnaturall home-bred English And were it not that his eye who doth neuer slumber nor sleep did watch ouer her for our good it had oft bin beyond mans reason that their plots shold haue bene preuented The spoiles of the Turke in Hungary and his threats to the rest of Christendome should wring from vs this consideration that he is to be called on who can put a hooke in his nostrels and turne him another way as he once did by Sennacherib There should be in vs a sympathy and fellow-feeling with our brethren These things in generall to all and in particular to each should remember vs to breake forthinto inuocation with the Prophet It is that which God loueth in vs it is that which Christ with his precept and example hath taught vnto vs. He prayed oft to his father and continued whole nights in praier and as Saint Cyprian doth well gather if he did so who sinned not what should we do who sinne so deepely He prayed to the Lord his God 8 The next circumstance in this preface is to whom the Prophet prayed He prayed to the Lord his God where this note may specially be giuen that this offending soule doth yet dare by his faith to make so neare application as that the Lord is his God Which point because it is plainer in the sixth verse of this Chapter where he saith ô Lord my God I will deferre it thither My generall obseruation here is that he prayed to the Lord. And as his case required this because none else could helpe him and he was to be sought vnto by submission and humility who before was by sinne offended so doth the Lord appropriate this honor to himselfe and will not haue any other to be serued with this sacrifice He is a ielous God and will not impart his honor to any of his creatures But he accounteth that the greatest argument of duty which is in man to be sought to and solicited by the sighes of the heart and by the grones of the mind Call on me in the day of trouble saith himself by Dauid and I wil heare thee and thou shalt praise me And Christ citeth this as a matter appertaining vnto all Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serue But in this inuocation is the Maiesty of his seruice And if we did want other to be called on or prayed to it should argue that our God either could not or would not heare vs. The one denieth his Omnipotency the other doth clip his mercy But we acknowledge both The Lord is neare vnto all that call vpon him yea all such as call on him in truth Then we neede no intercessours but him who is the mediator of the New Testament Iesus Christ. We embrace the faith of the martyrs we loue the loue of the Apostles so farre foorth as we may we imitate the obedience of the good Angels in heauen and we thanke God for proposing such holy examples to vs but we dare not call on these least we should be accounted guilty of robbery to their maister Whose meaning if it had bene to bestow any of his honour or a portion of his glory on any of his creatures he surely would haue let vs knowne it But through all the Old and New Testament is no commandement no example no reason why we should do it 9 Nay we haue much to the contrary As first that it may be sayd that God alone is there called on which in the whole Bible is sounded out vnto vs. And secōdly we may know that howsoeuer in general the Saints which raigne triūphing in heauē do pray for the cōsūmatiō of Gods grace on their brethrē who are militant vpon earth which may not amisse be gathered frō the soules vnder the altar from the 8. of the Reuelation the reformed Churches in no sort do deny this yet we are not to beleeue that in particular maner they know the deeds of one man or heare the vowes of another but specially vnderstand the secret thoughts of the hart which in praiers do most preuaile We find otherwise in Iob that a dead man doth not know if his sons shall be honorable neither doth he vnderstand concerning them vvhether they shall be of low degree The speech is of all dead generally He knoweth not of his owne children much lesse of other men whether that they be in honour which is an outward occurrent and sensible to the eye much lesse what they thinke in heart which is proper to the Almighty That place in Iob made Aquinas to acknowledge that the soules of those which are departed hence do ex se of themselues know nothing done vpon earth but sayth he those which are in blessednesse do take knowledge of our deedes by reuelation from God But neither he nor any of the Papists do prooue out of the Scripture that God reuealeth such things to the blessed which are in heauen That remaineth to be confirmed We may ioyne to that of Iob the confession of the people Doubtlesse thou art our father though Abraham be ignorant of vs and Israel know vs not yet thou ô Lord art our father and our redeemer and thy name is for euer Then the Patriarkes did not know and wherefore should they now For that then they were in Limbus is an vntrue faithlesse fable without any ground of Gods word Yet it is maruell to see how stifly the Church of Rome doth maintaine in Saints and the Virgin Mary the hearing of those which pray and their intercession for vs. He that shall looke into their reformed Breuiary for in the old many things were worse shall see that they are much called on nay that God himselfe is requested that by the merits of them and by their mediation we may attaine saluation There the Virgin Mary is called porta coeli peruia the gate to passe through to heauen and she is prayed vnto that she herselfe will take pity vpon offending men And as they say if these things be not in the Scripture yet our duty and the complements which we owe vnto Christ himselfe do require it at our hands and all Antiquity
as to thinke that his shape was of such a strange kind of making Yet we must go a litle farther he doth adde that in that countrey he saw men which had but one eye that in the middest of their fore-heads The foole had heard or read in Herodotus or in Pliny or some one of the auncient that some such things were talked of Acephali men without heads Cynocephali men with heads like to dogs Arimaspi men with one eye in the middle of their fore-head and other of monstrous shape all which were imagined to be in the hoate countries within the Zona Torrida or in the cold coasts of Scythia whither very few in old time did offer at all to trauell either by land or sea for the great heate of the Southerne parts and the great cold of the Northerne Yea many in ancient time did thinke those quarters of the earth to be vtterly inhabitable by men of common proportion neither in the most ciuill countries of Asia and of Europe where learning and knowledge abounded was the contrary receiued vntill that the late discoueries of the Portingales the Spaniards toward the hoter climates of the English toward the colder by sea and some other few by land haue let men know the contrary And indeed vntill very late times the opinion so preuailed of people of such strange figures that Authors of good reckening receiued it for a truth and left it so in their writings For that conceit was continued frō hand to hand which at the first did arise from this imagination that in countries so strange from the ordinary temperature must be people as farre differing from ordinary men which ground being once layd downe it was no hard thing for fancy to frame very many shapes which beleeued once by the simple and being sometimes talked of for the commonnesse of the fame were reported by some learned which were in ancient times yet doubtfully and otherwise then their successours entertained them but such as did come after them tooke them vp for a truth well ratified so did set thē downe Now this honest man who gladly wold shrowd so vaine a tale vnder Saint Austens name in kindnesse good nature to the Friers in his Couent very soberly aduisedly professeth that he had seene thē And you know that one eye-witnesse is better then ten other who speake only by report Very many such bastard broods are fastned vpō the Fathers besides here there whole pages sentences shuffled in notes that were in the margēt put afterward in the text by this Frier that Mōke when their Nouices were appointed to transcribe their ancient copies He that would see more of this let him looke Lodouicus Viues in his bookes De causis corruptarum Artium Now in these forged writings are many of those plaine places for prayers to any creature and especially in Saint Austen as in the booke De spiritu anima in his Meditations and in his Sermons De sanctis al which are expunged by the learned and shut out from his true workes as may be seene in the censures on them 13 Yea but in their vndoubted works there are many things to that purpose Indeed I do not deny this but yet take this withall that if we looke through their writings we shall find that they set it downe so waueringly and doubtfully that a sober man would be fearefull to build his faith vpon it In the eight Tome of Saint Hierome are foure Homilies on the Canticles supposed to be Origens and translated by Saint Hierome In the third of them I find this All the Saints which are departed out of this life hauing yet a loue toward those which are in this vvorld if they should be sayd to take care of their safety or saluation and to helpe them with their prayers and intercession to God it shall not be inconuenient How cold a speech is this It shall not be inconuenient That great clerke Gregory Nazianzene doth make a kind of prayer both to the Virgin Mary and vnto Athanasius yet see whether in some other places it be not as a scruple vnsatisfied in his mind whether that the Saints did know and take care of the affaires of their friends remaining on earth when speaking of Basile lately dead he vseth these words But novv is Basile in heauen there as I do thinke offreth sacrifices for vs powreth prayers out for the people He did not know it but thought it But speaking of Gorgonia his owne sister departed he expresseth his doubt more plainly And if thou do take care of the honouring of vs and if this reward be giuen by God vnto holy soules that they shall perceiue these things then receiue my prayer If besides other mens opinions he had bene resolued in it what needed this If and this doubting But Saint Austen whom I honour aboue all the old for his iudgement when he canuasseth this question disputing it of purpose and not slightly or by the way whether the soules departed hence do know what is done here how vncertaine is he in it and rather propendeth to the Negatiue Let euery man saith he take as himselfe will that which I shall say so seeming to crosse the streame of that which was thē receiued Then he inferreth three reasons The first was that if the dead did know our deedes he certainely was perswaded that his mother Monica who loued him so well while she liued would sometimes haue appeared to him and taught him something for his good For God forbid saith he that she being now in a life of more felicity should be growne cruell toward me But he found that neither by dreame nor vision nor any apparition she had euer bene present with him and therfore he much suspected that she had no knowledge of him Secondly he citeth the place out of the Prophet Esay that Abraham is ignorant of vs and Israel doth not know vs. And therefore not other men Thirdly that Iosias was taken away that he might not see the euill which was to come vpon the lād which if afterward he did see in soule in the heauens his remoouing had bene in vaine Thus doth he dispute against it and doth not answer his owne reasons otherwise then that it may be said that the departed may be enformed what is done here on earth by men by the soules of other which dye from hence or by the Angels So far off is this holie father when he thinketh of the thing aduisedly from pronouncing of any certaintie which vnfallibly and vndoubtedly will maintaine this suspected doctrine 14 Next to suppose that many of the Auncient directly and conclusiuely did iumpe in the consent hereof which cannot be found as I haue shewed yet were this a sure rule of truth What when the word of God doth giue no warrant for it nay doth teach vs the contrarie as before hath bene mentioned Haue
He is not as Baal was whose seruants might crye and launce themselues with kniues and all for his honour yet himselfe be neuer the wiser The Niniuites fasted and put on sackcloth and prayed vpon the newes of the Prophets preaching and with lamentable behauiour did labour to shew their sorrow that they should be reputed iustly so vile in Gods eyes They acknowledge themselues to be ashes and dust they stand as the stubble now ready for the flame How the heauen might helpe they know not but from the earth is like to come no consolation The Lord whose drift it was to bring them to that passe and had no other end of the sending of Ionas so farre from his owne countrey but to worke them hereunto sitteth aboue in the heauen and beholding it is much pleased A fauourable Iudge who will turne his eyes of iealousie into a gracious aspect and will endure as much to saue men as he will to spill them As the crying sinnes of Niniue and of Sodome and like places had accesse vnto his cares and so did call for vengeance so the repentance of the Niniuites had accesse vnto his seate and did pleade hard for a pardon Yea to shew that he delighteth to helpe rather then to hurt to spare rather then to punish he who would not receiue the cryes of the great sinnes of the Sodomites vntill he came downe to prooue whether it were so or no taketh the sorrowes of the city euen at the first rebound and not standing to examine them in the strictnesse of his seuerity is by and by appeased He who is slow to anger is quickeâ— sighted at repentance and when his sonne is comming home he beholdeth him a great way off and meeteth with him and falleth on him and kisseth him and with much loue embraceth him 10 He saw that which they did But marke God saw their vvorkes That which they ouâ—wardly did was a token of their mind and a fruite of their faith which faith had entred into their heart and in some measure purified that which of it selfe was corrupt But he beheld their workes not their speech but their deedes not their tongue but their hands not that afterward they would do better but that alreadie they had left their filthinesse And this fruite is it which God requireth to testifie whether the roote be good If words would haue serued the turne the Prophet needed not haue gone to the Gentiles in Assyria the Israelites and Iewes could haue furnished him well inough who made no spare to say that they would serue the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord was euer in their mouthes and afterward We haue Abraham to our father but they did nothing which was sutable but cleane contrarie to their speaking The Pharisees who succeeded long after our Prophets time had by this reckening bene very holy for they could pray in the streetes and disguise their faces with fasting yet Christ brandeth them for hypocrites and speaketh to all in generall Not euery one that saith vnto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdome of heauen but he that doth the will of my father which is in heauen Saint Basile vpoÌ„ these words of the Prophet Esay And if they multiply their prayers I will not heare them doth declare what the mind of God is toward such as thinke religion to be in words They who in this life do no worke which is worthy the name of vertue but only for the lengths sake of their prayers do hold themselues to be righteous let them heare these vvords vvith attentiue eares For prayers are not a helpe vvhen they are powred out in any sort vvhatsoeuer but if they be vttered vvith earnest and feruent affection For the Pharisee did multiplie prayers in shew but vvhat sayth the Scripture The Pharisee standing did pray thus vvith himselfe But it vvas not with the Lord. For all of it returned to the good opinion of himselfe for he still remained in the sinne of pride That man who would not be taken for such a Pharisee and so consequently be refused of the Lord must thinke that there is something else in the seruice of the Highest then to say or seeme to be holy For that is a matter common to reprobates to idolaters to dissemblers and deceiptfull men which yet escape not his eyes who trieth the hearts and reynes and rewardeth men accordingly Saint Bernard obserueth that the two Kings Saule and Dauid when they were reprooued by the two Prophets Samuel and Nathan cried peccaui both alike and yet Saule heard that sentence the Lord hath taken thy kingdome from thee and will giue it to thy seruant and Dauid heard that comfort The Lord hath remooued away thy sinne and thou shalt not dye for it What was this sayth Saint Bernard but that Saule had not that in his heart which he had in his mouth but with Dauid it was otherwise 11 Then he who hath gone astray and by that meanes hath offended God and desireth to returne at last after a thousand prouocations into the Iudges fauour let him first depart from euill and purge himselfe of all poyson as the serpent doth going to drinke and let him neuer againe resume it but secondly therewithall let him do that which good His light must shine before men that they may see his good workes his life must shine before God in purity and integrity Of which how little all sorts of men do thinke now a dayes experience too much witnesseth For who is he almost that intendeth to that which he should I speake not of the Atheist who is an enemy to God the father I speake not of the Papist who is no friend to Christ the sonne many points of their doctrine crossing the life of his redemption but of those who seeme to be somewhat The Pastours which are learned are almost like the vnlearned The one cannot the other will not but neither of them do preach They thinke it is inough to be able to de somewhat when they shall see occasion that to censure the workes of other this was well or this was ill is a great part of learning but worke they will not themselues neither God nor men see their labours The gentlemen in the countrey I meane very manie of them thinke it is inough if they like not any thing which commeth from Rome but if they can declaime in the greatest assemblies against the errours of the Clergie or spie a fault in their gouernement they are more then common men yea but if they come so farre as to haue prayers in their houses which is a very holy sacrifice if other things accordingly be ioyned they thinke that there is no more needfull to heauen But as for any works of mercie or charitable pitie they are not oftentimes to be found They yeeld small comfort to the poore who perish before their faces Little helpe vnto the Minister who may
absolute speech is broken for farre be that from the Lord but onely a comminatorie word hath obtained that which it would haue God sent vnto Ezechiah and bad him set his house in order for he should dye and not liue This seemed to be an absolute speech yet it contained in it this condition if Ezechiah did not make his peace by teares and repentance but when that once was accomplished Ezechiah liued and dyed not Yet because such fearefull words are deliuered from the Lord as firmely resolued by him and men know not the contrary but that he meaneth to strike he forbearing is sayd to change that which indeede he neuer decreed and this supposed change he calleth a repenting therein framing his words to our dulnesse who are men to be taught and learne best when we heare our owne phrases 15 I thinke it yet not amisse to mention thus much farther That there be some of the ancient who thinke that God fulfilled his threatnings vpon Niniue so that Niniue was destroyed that is the sinfull Citie did cease now to be sinfull so that the euill of it was ouerturned not the men not the walles not the houses and this way God performed whatsoeuer himselfe did threaten And this is the opinion of Saint Austen The wals sayth he standing vp the city was ouerthrowne in the euill manners of it and so albeit not simply Niniue yet sinfull Niniue perished Hierome on the fourth of Daniel subscribeth to this doctrine but it is in other words The Lord doth change his sentence but that is not on the men but on the workes which were changed For God was not displeased against the men but against their vices which when they were not in the men God doth not punish that which now was ceased to be He thinketh that sinne being abated the city might stand vpright and yet God keepe his word also Thus we see that God and good men agree that it was that penance which they layed on themselues nay which they layed on their sinnes which kept them from the Lords punishment For either God or they were to chastise their euill wayes All iniquitie great or small must of necessity haue punishment either from man repenting or from the Lord reuenging But he who repenteth layeth a chastisement on himselfe Then the vpshot of all is on the part of these Assyrians that with their teares and cryes so affectionate and so passionate so harty and sincere the Lord who had strong reason to deale with them as with Sodome to root out their memoriall from the earth and from vnder heauen hath changed that doome which of likelihood was to be pronounced against them His anger is appeased his fury is dissolued the city standeth as it did no ruine no destruction 16 This is a great comfort to vs that if the Eternall father did deale thus with these Ethnickes that whē they turned to him he turned also to thē nay he first sēt one to turne thē we may assure our selues a faire deale more of his mercy if after our transgressions very many infirmities we run fly to him with a beleeuing sorrow For if he did take such cōpassiō vnder the law what wil he do vnder the Gospel If he did so shew forth his kindnesse to barbarous heathen men what will he do to Christians If he shewed that he did loue thē by sending one Prophet to thē to preach his word once among them what care doth he take of vs to whom he hath giuen his word and his Sacraments in so great abundance by so many of his messengers and for so many yeares together It seemeth that he wooeth vs with a iealosy and sueth vnto vs that we would be his owne Let vs not take heart thereby to abuse his kind affection let vs not prouoke his iustice with wilfull prouocations He loueth to spare but such as are willing to be spared not those who offend vpon malicious wickednesse He ouerthroweth the proud Oke which will not stoupe at his blasts but he cherisheth the bending reede He receiueth them to grace who are grieued to grieue him who by their good will would not fall but being fallen do mourne at it Thē let the heauy cōscience lift vs his head at last He who could find a pardon for so many thousand bad ones will neuer sticke at one who commeth trembling before him Yea all who feele themselues to be weary and heauy laden if they come to him or his sonne he hath promised to helpe them God enrich vs so with his grace that with the Niniuites we fall not into crying transgressions but since we are oftentimes downe he so raise vs vp with his Spirit that his anger and displeasure may still be remooued from vs that our sinnes may be washed away in the bloud of Christ who is the true obiect of our repentance that so after this life we may follow the Lambe wheresoeuer he goeth into that kingdome of blessednesse to the which the Father bring vs for his Sonne Christ his sake to both whom and the holy Spirit be glory for euermore THE XXIIII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 2. Ionas should haue reioyced at their conuersion 3. The verity of the Scriptures appeareth because the writers accuse themselues 4. Many arguments of the excellency of the word of God 5. Other writers magnifie themselues 6. The best do fall and the vse which is to be made thereof 9. What was the cause of griefe in Ionas 13. Especially his owne credit 14. or a preposterous care of Gods glory 15. When we haue laboured let vs leaue the successe to God Ionah 4.1 Therefore it displeased Ionah exceedingly and he was argry BEing now come to this fourth Chapter which is the last of this Prophecy and remembring with my selfe how long it is since I first began this worke I partly imagine it to be fatall to the businesse which is handled in this booke to be done very slowly For the Prophet was very long before he would begin and could not be haled to it till it might not be auoyded sometimes he goeth backward and other times slowly forward and what with flying to the sea and lying there in the whale and going afterward to preach and staying when he had done he is long about a little And God hath so disposed of me that I haue bene much slower in opening to you how farre he is from speede Before that I can come to this fourth Chapter the fourth yeare is now expired in which time a quicke discourser might deliberately haue gone ouer a good part of the Scripture if either this place had called him oftener to it or other occasiōs had not elsewhere diuerted him But be it as it may be Gods will must be done and perhaps he may be pleased to affoord so much grace that he who hath attained to the end of three may complete the fourth also that so although slowly for ouerrunning my Prophet yet surely
mightie proud of his trees and fruits and shadowes very likely that doating on them he would not so soone haue parted with thē as Adam did Yes possibly much sooner if possibly that might be when he shewed himselfe so fantasticall any toy would soone haue turned him who was vp and downe with such trifles 10 Hereafter do not maruell that the Lord forbiddeth men to glorie in greater matters Let not the wise man glorie in his wisedome nor the strong man glorie in his strength neither the rich man glorie in his riches but let him that glorieth glorie in this that he vnderstandeth and knoweth me when a Prophet shall be pleased in such silly shadowes as if it were in some celestiall ioy For the emphasis of the word doth intend that he was very highly pleased And yet it is a thing much vaine to set too great affection on strength or wit or wealth or any terrestriall matter For do we not a wrong to God and much spoile him of his honour that when we are to loue him with all our heart and all our soule to thinke of him to rest in him to make him our meditation and to vse all other creatures but as his gifts and blessings by a million of degrees subordinate to himselfe and only to be employed to the setting forward of his seruice we will dreame of them and thinke of them sleeping and waking in company and alone Do not parents thus oftentimes set their hearts vpon their children and make almost Gods of them at euery word my sonne or my boy or little girle and when they grow somewhat bigger there are no children like their children the wind may scant blow on them the very ground is the better that they do go vpon the sleepe is neuer too much broken nor the belly too much pinched to heape vp trash for these children Yea from whom will they not pull euen the widow and the fatherlesse to enrich this their delight Do they not grieue to part with a peny to the vse of the most holy businesses because it may diminish their portions This made Saint Austen say For whom do they keepe their riches for their children he aunswereth and they againe for their children and the third descent for theirs But what is here for Christ what is here for thy soule Is euery whit for thy children Among their sonnes on earth let them thinke vpon one brother aboue in heauen on whome they should bestow all or at the least deuide with him But Christ and God shall stand backe when it commeth to these daintie children Now to speake plainly was this the end wherefore thou beggedst children at the hand of thy maker to delight thy soule with them Was this the cause wherefore God gaue them that they might thrust him out from the habitation of thy heart Thou doest vse his blessings fairely to ioy more of the gift then thou doest of the giuer not to thinke who sent the tree but to ioy onely in the shadow It is oddes of many to one but that thy wantons afterward will worke thee as much ioy as Elies children did to their doting father that is bring a curse on thee or them or as Dauids sonnes did to him when Amnon rauished Thamar and Absolon slue Amnon 11 Looke what is here said of children is as true also of beautie God doth giue to some the countenance of a Ioseph or a Hester of purpose to remember them that as their bodies exceed so their soules should go beyond their fellowes in deuotion in sanctitie and all vertue else the out-side will be faire and the in-side will be foule it will be but a painted sheath it will be but a whited sepulcher But it falleth out oftentimes that in steed of thankfulnesse and humilitie there groweth such an ouer-liking of this fraile and brittle shew that God is displeased therewith Heathen men haue thought vpon the fading of this flowe◠Forma bonum fragile est Beautie is but a brittle good thing O formose puer nimium ne crede colori O faire boy do not trust too much to thy colour Both Salomon and his mother although she were a woman and certainly very faire yet haue recorded this for euer that fauour is deceitfull and beautie is but vanity Yet do we not know that some take more pleasure in this then Ionas did in his shadow For he did this onely for a day but they do it all the prime of their youth and that with such affectation such earnestnesse and such labour as indeede pride is painfull that in the morning and euening their cogitations are set on their clothing and kemming yea perhaps on Iezabels art and it may be that in their sleepe they dreame of it too If that Pambo of whome Socrates doth write were now aliue he might haue worke many times For he once beholding a woman most curiously trimmed and exquisitly tifted vp broke foorth into bitter teares and being asked the reason he assigned two causes of it one was that she should take such paines to helpe forward the destruction of her owne soule and the other was that she was more carefull of her face to entise men vnto lust then she was of pleasing God I thinke now he might much sooner find examples of such things then Diogenes could find a man But for the male sexe are there not which take more care of their slicking and of their platting then of the kingdome of heauen Did Ionas more set his heart on the shadow of his head then they do on their haire He chode with God for the one they will stand to the vttermost with Gods officers his vice-gerents vpon earth for the other yea be thrust from a societie or be clapped vp in prison rather then part with that fleece There were such in the dayes of Seneca whose words if they be too bitter lay the fault vpon him and imagine that I do but cite them How are they angry saith he if ought be cut off from this mane if ought be out of order if euery thing fall not into those round rings or hoopes Which of these had not much leifer that all the state should be troubled then his haire be displotted who is not much more carefull of the grace of his head then of his health who maketh not more account to be compt then to be honest Will you thinke that these men are idle who haue so much worke as they haue betweene the combe and the glasse If this speech do seeme somewhat hard the fault must lye vpō Seneca but surely he saw some as proud and glad of their tricknesse as Ionas was of his shadow Saint Austen was not so Stoicall but a more sociable man let vs rather therefore heare him Thou art not well powled saith a graue man vnto a wanton youth it doth not become thee to go with such feakes and lockes But he
more then conuenient to the bodie which receiueth it doth more hurt and destroy then cherish and preserue In this fitly resembling the prosperitie of the world which so long as it is so moderate as that mens minds can weild it it incourageth vnto good and stayeth from many fals which necessitie would enforce but when it is heaped vpon vs with such a waight as is beyond our supportation we sinke vnder the burthen of plenty and abundance The wise man saw this well when he made request to God Giue me neither riches nor pouertie but feede me with conuenient food lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord or lest I be poore and steale and take Gods name in vaine Then it is ordinarie that as too much heate doth faint vs so too much wealth doth choke vs while the Lord doth not giue to euery man the mind of Iob or of Abraham or of Salomon while he stoode vpright that is with thankfulnesse and tēperance to dispose of great things well Oftentimes great wealth giueth great spirits and so puffeth the possessours vp to pride maketh men despise their maker and contemne their brethren it bringeth also much idlenesse and so inflameth the lust and maketh a God of the belly it bringeth great store of care and worldly perturbations and so doth choake the seede of the word What brought Haman to the height of his arrogancie and folly but the plentie which he had What brought him in the Gospell to yeeld his soule to securitie but that his ground brought foorth much fruite Of prosperitie saith Lactantius cometh luxurie of luxurie grow all vices yea impietie against God So Hierome writing on the Prophet Ieremie Plentie breedeth securitie and securitie neglect and neglect breedeth contempt The heathen Poet Horace alludeth to this by naming his Eutrapelus who when he meant to do hurt to any would giue him gay clothes for together with them he knew that he would alter his counsels and his hopes from the better to the worse as there he doth exemplifie I would that this were not true in very many other men that as their state encreaseth so doth encrease their sinne 7 This hath made some dispute I say not that a competent measure but penurie and necessitie and aduersitie and the crosse are rather preseruers of pietie and dutie then plentie and prosperitie illustrating their intent by that Parable in Plutarke so well knowne to euery man of the Sunne and the wind who were at strife whether of them two should sooner put a man beside the cloke which he had vpon him While the wind blew he held it the harder but the Sunne with the strength of his beames made him throw it from him Prosperitie maketh many lay aside that cleane vesture of puritie and innocencie which they buckled hard to them while they were duly exercised in carying the crosse Peraduenture this point hath too often bene verified in the Church They who in the auncient persecutions loued one another fell to discord and dissentions and shameful stirres each with other when the Emperours once grew to be Christians peace shined in the world Hath it not bene too true that some who in the time of bloudie persecutors haue liued admired liues in exile beyond the seas yet haue scant retained their first loue and kept their auncient zeale but haue thought that to be fence enough to shield off some not commendable actions that they might say that the time was when for Christs sake they left their countrey How fitly may men in such a like case be compared to the ice which hangeth downe from the house in frosty weather which is able to endure the sharpe blast of the Northrē wind but when the Sunne once breaketh foorth it melteth and falleth away Againe were there neuer such who when in this place they were maisters but of small things the greatest part of their maintenance so depended vpon Gods prouidence that in the beginning of the yeare they could not make account to reape one halfe of that which would satisfie and yet God sent it in vnto them were then studious and diligent and laborious in their calling but afterward when they came to more eminent and noted preferments in the Church and common-wealth haue bene dumbe as the fish and go the Church as it will go neither toung nor pen shall once mooue to ruinate the forts of Antichrist or to build one foot for Christ. Shall I say that they haue left the net because they haue that for which they fished Or shall I rather liken them to the Adamant stone although peraduenture you will say that that is too seuere whome no cold nor hammer can dissolue yet as Solinus writeth a warm thing maketh it yeeld and flye in peeces But that is the bloud of a goate and these men touch not bloud I could wish that bloud did not touch them and that the bloud of better things then goates Their idlenesse in aboundance and aboundance in their idlenesse is stained with the bloud of the sheepe of Gods pasture who perish for want of foode How much better had it bene for these persons to haue liued still priuate men to haue pleased God by consecrating their little to Christ Iesus which doubtlesse they would haue done if they had risen no higher thē to haue so much as by their vsage of it extinguisheth both the fire and sparkes of deuotion Shall God the more he sendeth vs be the lesse honoured for it Shall we in our small wealth pay him much and flie off from him in the greater It was a fault both noted and condemned in the Carthaginians that whereas they were sprung from Tyrus and vsed yearely to send the tenth or tith of their incomes to Hercules the peculiar God of the Tyrians which custome they obserued while their commodities were small they neglected afterward when they grew to be maisters and possessours of greater matters to send at all and so by little and little came to contemne that Hercules In the seruice of the true God let this neuer be said of Christians of learned men and Ministers that they so forget themselues Whē we thinke that we are at the highest let vs not then indeede be lowest most knowledge and best place may do the Lord best seruice But no man while he is on earth is at the highest of his desires there remaineth yet one steppe to heauen before the obtaining of which if any settle his thoughts it is no better then in the depth of folly My conclusion of this point is that we should take heede of prosperitie as a most entising thing it was too much heate that brought Ionas to his last enormous crime Let vs know who it is that sendeth all and let vs still be thankfull vnto him let vs know that worldy felicitie must be reckened for in the day of great account in the height thereof let
fiftie furlongs the two shorter sides had each of them ninetie which arising in the whole number to foure hundred and foure score furlongs the compasse of the Citie did amount to thirtie French leagues or threescore Italian miles The walles sayth Diodorus were in height an hundred foote the bredth of the walles that three cartes might go together the towers which were about it were one thousand and fiue hundred the height of the towers was two hundred foote in each This Citie being built to shew the magnificence and royalty of the founder was without doubt populous for the proportion the country yeelding food to sustaine so great a multitude and they hauing water at wil by the nearenesse of the riuer The fertilitie of the soile was such in old time about this place although not for other things in like measure yet for corne that Herodotus writing of it doth speake of his owne knowledge that the ordinary fields did returne the seed sowne in them two hundred fold the better places three hundred three hundred bushels for one or at least three hundred graines of one corne 16 Our Ionas is to go by Gods commandement to this Citie which if any will denie to be good yet he must confesse to be great as once it was said of the Gracchi in Rome He needed not to find fault that he had nothing to do who had Niniue for his charge and whose businesse was to preach to such an auditorie where were so many and so mightie If he stood vpon his credit as it seemeth that he did too much which hereafter may be shewed here was a place of reputation for him if any were vpon earth Tullie was no great warriour for ought that I can reade and I thinke that himselfe thought so yet in one of his Epistles he telleth that he did besiege a litle towne Pindinessus he calleth it with such egernesse that there was nothing wanting to him of the top and height of glory for his good seruice there but the name of the towne His towne did want a name He meaneth that it was but base and not knowne to men in Rome Our Prophet in his preaching need find no such fault his charge hath a name it is Niniue that great Citie which ruled ouer the earth the seat of the Empire the Ladie of the East the Queene of nations the riches of the world where more people did inhabit then are now in some one kingdome I do reade in Seneca that there was once a man of a turbulēt wit called Senecio who wold speake none but great words wold haue none but great things His seruants were all great his siluer vessels plate were great Nay beleeue me saith Seneca his folly grew so great that his shoes were still too big for him he would not eate figs but Mariscas a kind of grosse great figs. He had a concubine of a huge and mighty stature He had all things so bigge that the sirname cognomen or rather cognomentum as Messala did terme it was set vpon him of Senecio Grandio If this Grandio had bene sent on such a message as Ionas was it may be supposed that he wold haue bene a proud man But our Prophet was not so as in the next verse hereafter we shall find 17 Well God goeth forward with him Arise and cry against it The Lord telleth him all the circumstances which must be done in this message least he should be to seeke and so do somewhat amisse and againe to make him more carefull in performing of that wherin God himself was so desirous to informe him in particular He must crie against Niniue not whisper in the eare as if it were to one not speake softly as to a few but cry as vnto all this is a general proclamation This word Cry is vsed in Scripture when men are fast asleepe and lulled in their sinnes and awake not with a litle so that as Eliah sayd to the Baalites that they were to cry alowd because Baal might be sleeping and must be awaked so the Minister must crie aloud that men may be raised from their drowsinesse in sinne When the iniquities of Israel transgressions of Iacob began to grow great the Prophet Esay is called vpon to crie alowd and not to spare yea to lift vp his voyce as if it were a trumpet In like maner when as it should seeme men being drowned in securitie did forget their owne mortalitie A voyce sayd Cry The Prophet asketh what shall I cry All flesh is grasse and the beauty thereof as the floure of the field So the voyce of Iohn the Baptist who bad men repent because the kingdome of heauen was neare is called the voyce of a cryer Againe this word Cry is some other time vsed when some thing else crieth first and maketh such a noise in the eares of the Lord that it calleth for vengeance of him and in the eares of the committers that they cannot heare any thing vnlesse it be lowd In such cases men are not moued at all with low words as the whistling of the winde is not perceiued at all in the blowing of trumpets or the ringing of belles Those things which are violent must be driuen foorth with such other things as are violent It is sayd of bloud that it cannot be satisfied but with bloud It is knowne of loue that it cannot be recompenced or requited but with loue Euen so the crie of sinne cannot be stopped but by crying out against sinne and condemning it openly But that sins do crie we reade oft in the Scripture Abels bloud did crie that is indeed the murther of Cain did call to God for vengeance The crie of Sodome and Gomorrha was great The detaining of wages from the laborer hired seruant doth yeeld foorth a crie And here in this place the wickednesse of Niniue cometh vp before God with what but with a cry As if he shold say that it was now grown so great that the earth was no longer able to hold it but both the aire and the heauen too did ring of the same Exceeding force of sin which wil thus call for vengeance This was it which once plucked downe fire and brimstone from heauen vpon Sodome and Gomorrha This was it which caused that vniuersall floud in the dayes of Noe. This made Corah and his company to be swallowed vp by the earth go down quick into the graue This brought an incredible destruction vpon Ierusalē which somtimes was Gods own Citie Nay this very place Niniue although now it were spared vpon their apparāt repentance yet when afterward they returned to their malice as a dog to his vomit it was destroyed as Nahum the Prophet had foretold Those other Monarchies of the old Babylonians of the Medes the Persians of the Greeks and Romanes did speed after like sort Their sinne ascending vpward rebounded againe vpon them with a
alone was deprehended in the excommunicate thing he alone did steale the gold he alone had touched the siluer and Babylonish garment Yet for the wicked fact of Achan there were sixe and thirtie of the Israelites slaine by the men of Ai. These did perish in their owne sinne although they perished with his fault His crime stirred vp a vengeance which they had deserued before but receiued now in his companie Afterward his sonnes and daughters his oxen and his asses were burnt or stoned to death This is no example for the Magistrate to follow to punish one for another this was Gods owne immediate deed who himself is perfect iustice and therfore cannot erre But obserue withall his hatred to iniquity which is so farre off from sparing the man grosly offending that he destroyeth all that are neare him because they will keepe companie with so stained a person Many of the Israelites had felt this another time if they had not fled from the tents of Dathan and Abiron The companions of Ionas were sure that they tasted of it And it seemeth that either by the light of nature or by some sea-obseruation they thought that they had one or other whose roome might be far better then his coÌ„pany was vnto them when they fell to casting lots to see for whose sake it was that all this came vpon theÌ„ That such things are thought on at sea and that by natural men let Horace be my witnesse who can say this for himselfe Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum Vulgarit arcanae sub â—sdem Sit trabibus fragilémque mecum Soluat Phaselum I will forbid that man vvho hath reuealed the mysteries of the Goddesse Ceres which heathen men thought to be a very hainous sinne to come vnder the same beames or saile in the same ship with me The speech of Iuno in another Poet doth giue some light hereunto Pallásne exurere classem Argirûm atque ipsos potuit submergere ponto Vniuâ— ob noxam furias Aiacis Oilei Could Pallas burâ—â— a whole fleete of the Greekes and drowne the men in the sea and that for one mans fault and the furie of Aiax Oileus The infidels and Ethnickes haue thought these things at sea either noting them by experience or borowing them by tradition froÌ„ the Iewes as they did many other matters which hereafter I may obserue He that would see more of this let him reade what Tully hath written of that Atheist Diagoras 13 This matter is true at land as well as it is at sea Our God is Lord of both Thereupon it is a good warning to all that they looke with whom they sort For as the pestilent person doth send forth infected poison to such as do come neare him to the killing of their bodies so doth a grieuous sinner bring wrath on his companions to the ruine of their soules A good lesson for yong gentlemen that they flie a blasphemous swearer A good lesson for all Christians that they auoyd an infamous hereticke When Cerinthus came into the bath Iohn the Euangelist got him out and called to his fellowes that they should come away with hast froÌ„ the company of the heretick left the house should fall vpon them He thought that house might be guiltie which receiued a man that was guiltie and that the place was in danger which receiued a man in perill Here let them looke about them who not onely without all care do sort them selues with all comers not fearing the faults of others but when they do know their wickednesse they are glad that they haue such companions and do assent to their euils if they see a thiefe they run vvith him and are partakers with the adulterers If anie man teach a tricke of fraud they will learne that of him if anie vse vncleane speech that filthinesse is for them If to be with the naught bee naught what is it then to bee naught If companie do bring daunger as you see it did by Ionas how fearefull is consent It is better to feare too much then to presume but a litle Our God is of fearefull maiestie You shall discouer that by the tempest which he sendeth vpon the Prophet and those which be in the ship There was a mightie tempest 14 To such as vse nauigation it is a veritie vndoubted that there be at sea many tokens and prognosticates of great teÌ„pests gathered from the Sunne and Moone and waues and windes and clouds and other things the vse whereof our Sauiour Christ himselfe disliketh not so that men go not too farre or be not too peremptorie in them When it is euening you say faire weather for the skie is red And in the morning you say To day shall be a tempest for the skie is red and lowring Such tokens of the weather are not hastily bred neither do they breake in a moment The cloud which appeared to Elias his seruant was first but as a mans hand yet afterward there followed much raine My text telleth of no token that appeared here to the mariners it commeth vpon the sodaine and therfore this storme is supernaturall besides it commeth with such violence that it seemeth that they had seene few like it The Prophet spareth no words to describe the rod which now did beate him The Lord sent foorth a wind not a litle one but a great one Vnà Eurúsque Notúsque ruunt The East and South wind blow together as it is in the Poet. A tempest followeth after which he calleth a mightie tempest As men that liue in the middle of a great continent scant know whether there be anie Ocean as learned men do obserue so we that liue still at land scant conceiue their stormes at sea They mount vp to the heauen and descend to the deepe so that their soule melteth for trouble They are tossed to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and all their cunning is gone The ship was almost broken The keele be it neuer so strong the ribs be they neuer so stiffe the cleets and clamps of iron be they neuer so fast set on are like to flie in peeces If a ioint cracke all is hazarded if a planke shoot vp all is gone This maketh the mariners quake who are not moued with a litle now they stand for their liues now they are readie for that choise either to sinke or swimme But alas what swinning was there in such a storme The ship shaketh at euerie blast as if it would into shiuers euerie waue doth so affright them as if still they were dying It maketh them fall to praying who in likelihood prayed not often It maketh them thinke of their Gods for there was no helpe now froÌ„ men helpe heauen for sea and winds and waues are all against vs. Yea more because their hands should go as fast as their tongues they will not lye still and crie but the cariage of the ship shall out into the
no reason for the contrarie and they will not beleeue the Scripture 18 Lodouicus Viues hath well obserued that Iudaisme and Mahometismeâ— and all other whatsoeuer superstitions or deuotions are but like to the glasse but on the other side the Christian faith by vs may be compared to the gold The glasse is bright but brittle it cannot endure the hammer The gold is another kinde of mettall do you melt it or do you rubbe it or do you beate it and it shineth still the more orient So it is with our faith so it is with this doctrine of the creation of the world It doth not feare the touchstone We are taught in the very first words of Genesis that in the beginning God made the heauen the earth that all before was as nothing vnfigured vnformed This is affirmed by Moses it may be a Machiauel doth deny this Now whether of these two shall we beleeue Either Machiauel an Italian and therefore by the abundance of his wit most fit for euill if God do withdraw his grace a Secretary to the state of Florence a professed politician whose preceptes closely couched haue filled the world with the deuill who made no kinde of conscience of any thing which he taught who liued in this present age within one hundred yeares or Moses who is of the standing of three thousand and in all that time hath bene famous among both Iewes and Gentiles of whom Iustine giueth testimony although it be obscured with some heathen minglings and Iuuenal the Poet when he sayth of the Iewes Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges Iudaicum ediscunt â—c seruant ac metuunt ius Tradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moses They being accustomed to neglect the Romane lawes do learne and keepe the Iewish and stand in feare of that law which Moses hath deliuered downe in his secret bookes And Iustinus Martyr nameth many Ethnicke mens workes which being extant in his time did mention both that Moses and the bringing of the children of Israel out of Egypt by him as was to be seene in the writings of Polemon and of Apion the sonne of Possidonius of Ptolomoeus Mendesius of Hellanicus and Philochorus who wrote the Athenien story as also of Castor and Thallus and Alexander Polyhistor besides the two renoumed Iewes Iosephus and Philo. This Moses was he whose bookes were so accompted of by Ptolomee the great king of Egypt a man of so much antiquity a man of such loue to learning who to his mighty charges did cause those volumes to be translated by seauenty and two of the Israelites into the Greeke and layd vp in his famous library This was he whose sacrifices to the true Lord were the sole and onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is first patterne to all the seruices of the heathen toward their idoll Gods whose books haue bene preserued through so many generatioÌ„s whose writings are brought to vs not by our friends but by our enemies the Iewes who do detest vs. To compare these two together this Moses and that Machiauel will seeme to men that be indifferent a very vnequall match But what equality or equity should we looke for of such men as these be who are so farre from all reason that as Cyprian writeth of the like they vvill beleeue men against God vvho vvill not beleeue God against men so they would haue vs to beleeue them speaking against the Lord but we must not beleeue the Lord though with such power and euidence of the spirit he demonstrate against them But let vs come to the issue 19 Set aside the Hebrew stories and the writers of holie Scripture and what reason can they assigne for these men do all by reason sauing that euermore the truth shall and must and will preuaile that such as knew not God were haters of the Iewes and neuer heard of the Christians yet by an vniforme consent and by a good conspiracie should acknowledge the creation of the world How is it that Hesiodus so ancient a Poet doth lay it so plainly downe Looke on the beginning of Ouids Metamorphosis where he hath the very wordes Primáque ab origine mundi from the first beginning of the vvorld and see whether that his chaos which I thinke he boroweth from Hesiode be not like to that in Genesis his forging vnto Gods framing They do agree in substance Yet remember that those are Poets and that the drift of their booke is but a friuolous fable Plato was a Philosopher and therefore of more iudgement and he in a tale describeth the making of mankind Lucretius is accounted both a Philosopher and a Poet yet a Philosopher of the Epicures and therefore so much the worse and yet he impugneth the perpetuity of the world giuing this reason of his opinion Praetereá si nulla fuit generalis origo Terrarum caeli sempérque aeterna fuere Cur supra bellum Thebanum funera Troia Non alias alij quo queres cecinere Poetae If there were no generall beginning of the earth and heauen but that they haue bene from euerlasting why then haue not the Poets mentioned any thing more ancient then the warre of Thebes and the sacking of Troye The world did begin in time because nothing is recorded in the writings of any authors but for a litle time The same argument is vsed by Macrobius a graue heathen man who speaketh in this sort who may not hereupon thinke that the world once did begin that the antiquity of it is not very great since there is no story in the Greeke of the admirable memory of things beyond two thousand yeares For beyond Ninus of whoÌ„ some thinke that Semiramis vvas borne there is no exellent thing set downe in writing And as these haue aimed at the beginning of the world so there haue bene other who haue spoken of the end One of the Sibyls for I take the words to be hers doth foretell the dissolution of all things and that they shall perish with the fire both heauen and earth and all which while Ouide in the middle of his ignorance did not truly vnderstand he applieth it to the fire of Phaeton Esse quoque in fat is reminiscitur affore tempus Quo mare quo tellus conuexáque regia caeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laboret He remembreth that by destiny it is appointed that there shall come a time wherein both sea and earth and heauen shall burne and the whole frame of the vvorld shall be indangered The Poet Lucane did more then gesse at this when speaking of those whom Caesar left vnburied at the battell of Pharsalia he bringeth in this Placido Natura receptat Cuncta sinu finémque sui sibi corpora debent Hos Caesar populos si nunc non vsserit ignis Vret cum terris vret cum gurgite ponti Communis mundo superest rogus ossibus astra Nisturus Nature receiueth
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
grieued for it vnfainedly and in earnest but his griefe should haue bene before Yet better late then neuer but the best sorrow which men can haue is that they grieue to do euill 11 There should be a fellow-feeling and sympathy in mens minds a compassion in a ruler wishing that there were no cause of punishment to be suffered And this not for a fashion and because they are words of course but in sincerity and simplicity not with the teaâ—es of a Crocodile or with the sighs of an hypocrite but truly and in heart Else it is but a Pontius Pilates tricke who pronounced that Christ was innocent and that he was loath to giue sentence but yet he did condemne him Although the Iewes were not Iudges yet they had learned that lesson when they would not come into the iudgement hall least they should be defiled with bloud and yet they neuer ceased to cry out that Christ might be crucified The Euangelistes do all declare that Annas and Cayphas who were the Priestes had a finger also in that worke As it seemeth they left a patterne for Popish Bishops their successours to follow when they were dead For they are not behind their old maisters in hypocriticall carying of things as they do most liuely shew in their Degradations of heretikes as they call them For when the Ordinary or Deputy of the Bishop doth take off such attire as Priestes or Bishops or men of degree in schooles were clothed with in their formality and committeth them to the secular power as they tearme it they seeme to make an earnest request that no violence may be offered to their bodies or liues when their full purpose and intent is no otherwise but that they shold be burnt at a stake This is filthy dissimulation and not vnfit for them who being wolues and foxes yet will shrowd themselues in sheepes cloathing Bloud thirstinesse would gladly couer it selfe with mildnesse but it is but a rotten cloake If I should adde any thing farther by occasion of this desire to saue Ionahs life it might be to warriours who should not be preassing into the field for euery light cause The old Heathen men had that care that their warres should be iust as the lawes and orders of the Feciales those Romane Heralds shew Christians should be more carefull that they offer not to draw the sword in battell vnlesse it be for God or for religion or in their owne defence or for some important reason And when the Lord shall send a victory in the iustest cause mercy beseemeth a man and the sparing of all that may be spared It carieth some meaning with it that God would not giue Dauid leaue to build a Temple vnto him although he fought not but the Lords battels and earnestly did desire to accomplish that worke himselfe The reason thereof is assigned to be because he was a warriour and consequently had shed much bloud Which conceipt or the like as it should seeme was in the mind of Constantine that blessed Emperour who being enforced to fight against infidels and idolaters the enemies of his God yet gaue charge that as few as might be should be slaine in the warres nay did propose rewards to those that tooke men aliue His predecessor Titus the Romane Emperour was so gentle of disposition that Saint Austen thinketh it not vnfit to call him a most sweete Prince and Iosephus doth acknowledge that he sorowed most bitterly when he saw the great store of dead carcasses which perished at Hierusalem It is therefore likely that he would haue caried a milder hand vpon the Iewes his prisoners after the sacking of that City then to cast so many thousands of them to the Lions and other beasts to be deuoured as he did on the birth-day of his brother Domitian and some other times besides but that the heauy curse of God which boyled against the nation did vrge his gentle and calme nature to bring them to destruction But this is no example for other men they haue no such commission It is not in our time as it was in the dayes of Ieremy that Cursed is he that keepeth backe his sword from bloud but blessed is he that spareth and blessed is he that saueth 13 If the curse now light on any it is on the murthering hand which I would that they in our dayes would remember out of warre who either as wicked robbers destroy life for a pray or else as brauing minds for so they esteeme themselues do make no kind of conscience to destroy the liues of others vnder pretence of reuengement of indignities disgraces offered to them Is hell prepared for murtherers and is it sayd that such shall be without that is secluded from heauen and from the new Hierusalem and wilt thou for shewing of thy manhood thrust thy selfe into this hell The reuenge which is taken is more vpon thy soule then on the body of thine enemy Let not piety be so dead nor nature so extinguished nor thy conscience be so seared and burnt euery whit away as to kill any wilfully Rather learne of these mariners to beare losse and suffer danger to spare where might be spilling then to spill where should be sparing Ionas had done them wrong by comming into their ship putting them to that trouble and a verdict was gone out froÌ„ God against him that he must be drowned yet notwithstaÌ„ding if it were in their power to do it they wold returne him good for euill they euen quake and tremble at it that they were wished to drowne him And thus haue you their auersenesse and vnwillingnesse to shed bloud Now let vs go a little farther They rowed to bring it to the land but they could not 14 Since they may not be at sea they striue and they labor to returne to the land but this may not be neither Here is more against them then if all the world were for them Man will but God will not man roweth and God bloweth the armes go for the one but the winds go for the other Whether of these is like to speed God would not haue the Prophet escape away so with the shot Since his fault is so great it shall not be vnpunished least the creature should learne to insult ouer the Creator and flesh and bloud should counterpoise his will against the Almighty Therefore to teach obedience and that nothing on earth must be ballanced with his ordinance for the execution of iustice he stirreth vp the sea to resist the rowing of these silly men The sea vvrought and vvas troublous How much is here against how little The Ocean with his fury against one woodden vessell Great waues against small strokes This is it whereof Dauid can say that they who make triall of it do see the workes of the Lord and his wonders in the deepe This is it which if it were not restrained would returne to couer the face
in the parable of the gourd I do deferre it thither But the mercie of these men here is enforced to turne to iustice They are compelled to leaue him whome they willingly would keepe Ionas goeth ouer shipboord where behold appeareth a miracle the sea ceasseth from her furie That which roared so before was so disquieted with winds which wrought and was so troublous which so becalmed them with a storm that forward they might not get backward they could not go that ceasseth vpon the sudden The disturbance was not naturall nor the quieting is not naturall because it commeth in a moment It was not by degrees not one step after another as in tempests which are ordinarie but in that very instant when he was throwne into the water So miraculous is Gods power to haue the mightiest creatures to mooue and rest at his becke If he commaund the world to be drowned with water the Ocean shall breake foorth the fresh springs shall gush out the very floud-gates of heauen shall be opened with a word and so all the earth shall perish If he bid his seruant Moses but stretchfoorth his hand the red sea shall part in two and stand vp as a wall on the right side and as a wall on the left This is a great comfort to the faithfull that they serue such a maister who so commaundeth all the frame of heauenly and earthly bodies that he turneth them and windeth them as with a hooke in their nostrels and leadeth them so vp and downe that nothing shall assault them without Gods speciall pleasure It is he that made the sea here to cease from her raging and boyling with such violence 9 But the reason why it then stayed was because it had effected the thing which it desired The fugitiue being taken the pursuer is now quiet It is punishment inflicted on the sinner which in temporall causes allayeth the Lords anger When Achan had his hire the Israelites did proceede in their conquest as before Saules crueltie to the Gibeonites did procure three yeares of dearth to be sent vpon the land in the time of Dauid but when once the posteritie of the offending sinner was hanged vp by the wronged parties Gods indignation toward the land was appeased Princes and Iudges haue here a pathway laid out readie to them wherein they ought to walke If God do awaken a land with a rod of his displeasure be it famine or be it pestilence or be it the sword of the enemie after a view taken of the actions and ouersights of their people let theÌ„ purge their land from iniquitie by cutting off malefactors and breaking the backe of sinne and wilfull transgression There is no sacrifice more pleasing in the eyes of the Lord of hostes then that those who dishonour him should be suppressed by iustice He did whippe vs not long since with a rod of pestilent sickenesse this yeare he threateneth otherwise with some feare of a pinching famine Very likely it is that if grosse faultes were remooued from amongst our nation his wrath would cease with the cleansing as the sea did with receiuing our Ionas If the vserie of the citie the oppression of the Landlord the symonie of the Cleargie the extortion of the Patrone the idlenesse in the Minister the want of loue in the Communaltie and securitie in all sortes did but so much decay or so fast diminish as it hath increased lately Gods wrath would turne to fauour and we shold more feele his blessings 10 But here in the ceassing of the tempest by the drowning of the Prophet we are notably put in mind of him of whome our Ionas is a figure in this case It hath bene mentioned before out of the twelfth of Mathew that his lying in the whales belly was a signe of the death of Christ by the witnesse of Christ himselfe as his casting vp againe was a signe of his resurrection The dying of Ionas alone for all doth signifie the same thing as was taught out of the twelfth verse of this present chapter which I now handle But nothing in plainer sorte doth expresse vnto vs the force of the suffering of our Sauiour then rhe ceassing of the storme at the drowning of the Prophet euen as Gods wrath was appeased by the death of the vnspotted lambe By the fall of our first parents wee all were fallen from grace Wee had chaunged not a Niniue for a Tharsus but a Paradise for a torment and a heauen for a hell The coldnesse of our disobedience was followed with heate of iustice not windes and waues did make after vs to take vengeance on our bodies but a waight of angry furie of purpose to destroy our soules Not one shippe but a world was endaungered in this hazard The Gentile and the Iewe the ciuill man and Barbarian were euerie moment readie to be drowned in desperation In this state of extremitie God pitieth forlorne man and sendeth a better ghest then Ionas was among those who are passengers thorough this vale of miserie And although this ghest was clothed with humanity like an ordinarie passenger yet in this he differed from Ionas that our Prophet alone had sinned when all his fellowes were free but Christ alone was innocent when all his fellowes pleaded guiltie 11 We can neuer sufficiently admire the effectuall force of him who quieted this great rage Iustice called for a death take my death quoth the Sauiour let one dye for the peopâ—e the head for all his members An Oracle had once answered that either the king of the Atheniens or else their army must perish Codrus who was then king neuer stoode or staggered at it but gaue his life for his citizens to saue them from destruction The king of men and Angels had this choise put vnto him that either himselfe or his the mysticall head or bodie should vndergo a death He tooke the turne on himselfe so wrought a reconcilement from his Father toward his Church So by his stripes we are healed The chastisement of our peace was vpon him So he being the Lambe of God hath taken away the sinnes of the world He hath freed vs and deliuered vs from the wrath to come His bloud speaketh better things then that crying bloud of Abell that cryed vengeance from the earth this from the crosse cryeth redemption reconcilement and atonement So he hath by his bloud bought a spouse vnto himselfe whome else he had not had By the dying of Christ the Church is made as Eue was made by Adams sleeping which is Saint Austens comparison The Adamant is so hard a stone that it can be softened with nothing but the bloud of a goate Mans heart was grown so hard mans case was growne so hard that it could be lenified by nothing but by the bloud of him whome the skape-goate in Leuiticus so liuely did represent 12 But to procure our peace he plucked warres on himselfe
Christ then dyed at the ninth houre that is at three of the clock after noone on a friday as we call it and before that the euening was in on the day of the Preparation which was that selfe same Friday his body was layd in graue That little time before euening is by the figure Synecdoche which taketh a part for the whole reputed for a whole day and a night that is the day and night before going The night then which did follow the setting of the Sunne and the day which was their Easter but by vs is called Saterday is reckened for the second And indeed this was complete both for the day and the night Then followeth the next night wherein Iesus arose very earely in the morning at or before the dawning of the day and the opening of the light and this is to be numbred for the third both day and night the part taken for the whole by the figure as before This kind of computation as with ease it may be gathered from the narration of the Euangelistes so Saint Austen doth approoue it and the late Diuines so accept it And it should not seeme strange since in other things we do vse it The Phisitians call that feauer a Tertian or third Ague which skippeth but one day onely The Termes of our Vniuersitie are reckened in that manner The last day of a Terme is reputed for a Terme and the first day of another is taken for another Terme so that according to our vse in some cases one Terme and two daies are taken for three Termes Thus was Christ in his graue by the space of three daies and three nights either in part or in whole like to which it is very probable that the staying of the Prophet in the whale was abridged and abbreuiated for some part of the time that there might be a full resemblance betweene the one and the other the seruant and the maister But herein I will not be contentious Concerning the Resurrection 13 But to say no more thereof the maine note from this place requireth full vnderstanding because there is hence deduced a mysterie of our faith I meane the Resurrection which Christ Iesus himselfe expoundeth to be here very liuely signified Ionas was in the fishes belly for three daies there nights so shall the Sonne of man be for that time in the graue It must follow thereupon by a necessarie consequent But as Ionas was then deliuered so shall the Sonne of man then come forth with a sensible resurrection Christ foretold that he would do this Do you destroy this temple intending thereby his body and in three daies I will raise it and set it vp againe This was also foretold by Dauid although in the person of our Sauiour Thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell nor suffer thy holy one to see corruption which text Saint Peter citeth to aduouch Christs resurrection That he did rise againe the Euangelists all do cry the Apostles all do confirme it How plentifull is Saint Paule in discoursing this argument that he did appeare oftentimes one while but to a few another while to the Twelue but afterward to more then fiue hundred brethen at once By the vertue of his Godhead Christ had a soueraigne power to loose himselfe from death it was a thing vnpossible that he should be holden of it If his life had bene taken from him vnwillingly and by violence then very likely it is that the selfe same violence might haue still detained him prisoner But his dying was voluntarie he yeelded vp the Ghost and being contented to put himselfe amidst those anguishes and horrours he abode there at his pleasure on the crosse and in the graue and from death he returned with the selfe same pleasure as hauing conquered all and triumphing in great glorie And then he who came from heauen to disquiet himselfe on earth so to purchase mans redemption left death and graue and earth and with captiuitie captiue ascended againe to heauen where he â—ate him downe in his maiestie on the right hand of his Father 14 And by his resurrection our hope is to be saued herein doth rest the anchor of our happinesse and true blessednesse For in vaine had bene his debasing and in vaine his incarnation if he had not liued amongst vs. And in vaine had bene his life and in vaine had bene his preaching if his death had not followed after For his life was giuen for our raunsome his bloud it was which did wash vs his death it was which did quicken vs. But in vaine had bene his death also if he had not shaken off mortalitie from him and borne vp his graue before him and thereby winning his prizes had not maistered all which resisted So that we apprehend his resurrection as the stay and substance of our saluation as the vp-shot of our blessednesse from the which if we should fall we do plunge into vtter ruine Therefore in the Articles of our faith this is put for one that dying he rose againe the third day from the dead Not that onely he died for the Iewes beleeue so much and the Gentiles beleeue so farre but that he was quickened againe For as Saint Austen hath obserued the Paganes do admit this for a truth that Christ did dye but that he rose againe is the proper faith of the Christians and imparted to no other Now we hold Christ for the head and our selues to be the members what he hath done before we trust that we shall do afterward So that by his rising againe is inferred the resurrection of other and that of all as well the iust as the vniust and the vniust as the iust the one sort to raigne with their Sauiour on whome they haue beleeued the other to suffer torments because they haue contemned So that both great and small shall stand vpon their feete in the generall day of iudgement and appearing before the throne shall then receiue their last doome of miserie or of mercie And if we did not expect this the followers of Christ Iesus were most wretched men of all other who for this hope sealed vnto them do endure such strong vexations such grieuances and perplexities All the Martyrs were most foolish who loose their liues in this world for the maintenance of Christs glorie which were absurd stupiditie as Chrysostome hath well noted if they held not themselues assured that he were come from the dead neuer dye for him who liueth not and againe if they beleeued not that in recompence of their sufferings they should see a better life and receiue a firme inheritance in the day of last proceeding 15 Their warrant is sealed vnto them by him who cannot lye both that their holy seruice shall be rewarded by him who shall pronounce that comfort Come you blessed of my Father inherite eternall life and that there shall be a day
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
separated from the bodie and that it commeth to an account and if it haue so deserued suffereth punishment and great torment yea he mentioneth such a iudgement as wherein the good are set on the right hand and the euill on the left as if he had perused the bookes of the sacred Bible The French Prophets those Druides as Pomponius Mela noteth did both beleeue and teach the immortalitie of the soule which was a good inducement to inferre the resurrection For when they held this vndoubtedly that the better part doth not die and by a consequent that the soules of them which had done well for their good life in this place should come vnto felicitie they might haue easily bene perswaded that by a good congruitie the instrument and copartner and sister of the soule I meane this flesh of ours being ioyned in all actions should in vprightnesse of iustice be ioyned in the reward whether it be good or euill 20 How much to blame are the Atheists and Epicures of our time who come not so farre as this but as they depriue our bodies of all future reuiuing so they teach that our soules in nothing are different from the beasts but that in the dissolution the spirit shall be dissolued as well as the exteriour man in which thoughts they shew thēselues to be worse then many Ethnicks They little conceiue the dignity and simplicity of that spirit the single in compoundnesse of that self-moouing soule for so I may well call it in comparison of the flesh For as Chrysostome maketh his argument If the soule can giue such life and beautie vnto the bodie with what a life and fairenesse doth it liue in it selfe And if it can hold together the bodie which is so stinking and so deformed a carcasse as appeareth euidently after death how much more shall it conserue and preserue it selfe in his owne being So pregnant is this reason that an infidell may conceiue it and very well apprehend it but we which are Christian men may remember a farther lesson That our Sauiour hath dyed for vs and payed a price very great his owne most precious bloud For whom or what was this for our body which liueth and dieth and rotteth and neuer returneth againe for our soule which is here this day and too morrow spilt and corrupted How vnworthy were this of him to endure so much for so little Shall we thinke him so vnwise or repute him so vnaduised No he knew that this soule of ours must stand before his throne and this rottennesse must come foorth by a fearefull resurrection And if this should not be so if there should be no accompt no recompence for ill deedes no retribution for the good to what end should men serue the Lord or what difference should there be betweene the iust and the vniust the holy and the profane nay betweene man the best creature that mooueth vpon the ground and the basest and vilest beast which hath little sence and no reason Because it were impiety to think this of our iust Lord that so slenderly he disposeth things let vs with an assured faith conceiue our immortality and the hope of a resurrection 21 As this hath bene deduced from the example of our Prophet by this or the like sort Ionas was in the fishes belly so was Christ in the graue Ionas came forth from thence so did Christ rise againe his rising doth bring our rising his resurrection ours because he was the first fruits of all those that do sleep So to cōclude this doctrine by making vse of it very briefly if this be determined ouer vs the houre shal one day come that all that is in the graue shall arise heare Gods voice neither the mountains nor the rocks can couer vs frō the presence of the Lambe what ones then how perfect shold we study to be how shold we prepare our selues against that day of reckning that our iudg may acknowledge vs to be his friends his brethren vnspotted vndefiled that so we might not trēble to see him heare his iudgement But alas how far are we from it indeed frō thinking of it For as Chrysostome speaketh some do say that they beleeue that there shal be a resurrectiō a recōpēce to come But I listen not to thy words but rather to that which is done euery day For if thou expect the resurrectiō a recōpence why art thou so giuē to the glory of this present life why doest thou daily vexe thy self gathering more mony then the sand I may go a little farther applying it to our time why do we bath our selues in folly as in the water why do we drinke in iniquitie bitternesse in such measure why hunt we after gifts and thirst after rewards why seeke we more to please men then labour to please the Lord Briefly why doth security in inward sort so possesse vs as if with Hyminaeus Philetus we did think the resurrection past Why do we as that man of whome Saint Bernard speaketh that is eate and drinke and sleepe carelesse as if we had now escaped the day of death and iudgement and the very torments of hell So play and laugh and delight as if we had passed the pikes and vvere now in Gods kingdome Who seeth not this to be so although he could wish it to be farre otherwise 22 The remembrance of this accompt should be as a snaffle to vs or as a bridle to keepe vs backward from profanenesse enormitie And in these euils let them take their portiō who are incredulous and vnbeleeuers of whome it is no maruell that they do hotely embrace them and egerly follow after them For take away an opinion of rising vnto iudgement and all obseruance of pietie falleth presently to the ground and men will striue to be filthie in impietie and in sinne But because we professe Christ Iesus and the hope of immortalitie let vs liue as men that expect it And since that it is appointed that all men shall die once and after it commeth the iudgement and since the day of death is as vncertaine to vs as it euer was to Isaac let vs furnish our selues before hand that with the oyle of faith and of good life in our lampes we may go to meete the bridegroome If Christ as our head be risen from the dead let vs arise from the vanities and follies of this earth which are not worth the comparing with eternitie in the heauens If he as the chiefe of his Church be ascended and gone before let vs who wish to be members wrestle to follow after him Let it be enough that hitherto with Ionas we haue fled from our dutie which we owe to our maker and that we haue lyen not dayes but yeares oft three times and three ouer not in the fishes belly but in the belly of sin And let vs beseech the Lord that since
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
and must iudge all See what it is in our life time to thirst after this trash to repose our full contentment and blessednesse in this drosse When the heart should be lifted vp to celestiall contemplation this hangeth so about it that it cannot but lye groueling vpon the the rotten ground 12 Vaine glory or any sinister passion which doth possesse the mind hath the same effect and so hath ignorance of the true God which ignorance and vaine glory as I suppose were the reasons wherfore Titus the Romaine Emperor who was amōg the heathen a mirrour of men was so loath to depart from this earth when knowing that he must dye being caried as he was in his horse-litter he looketh vp toward heauen most bitterly maketh complaint that his life should so be taken away from him not deseruing so ill How vaine are all the shewes of vertue without the knowledge of Christ Iesus Yet the end of Saint Ambrose was in a more holy maner when he being spoke vnto by his friends to pray that yet he might not dye made his answer as he lay at the very dore of death I haue not liued so ill among you that I am ashamed to liue any longer neither am I afraid to dye because we haue a good Lord vpon whom he then did trust There can be no better meditation to any man at that time of departure then to thinke on that good Lord. It causeth a willing and safe leauing of this world a perfecting and completing of all that hath bene here begun which is more to be desired then all the land or treasure which euer the Sunne did see When the time of receiuing the reward commeth it is good to be ready It is best to be aduised of our standing but most of all of our falling He that for a long time runneth nimbly but stumbleth immediatly before the marke hath lost his former labour and is depriued of the price If at any time then at that time when our soule doth faint within vs and is leauing her habitation together with our Prophet let vs thinke vpon our God Now let vs come to the next circumstance and that is how he did speed And my prayer came vnto thee into thy holy Temple 13 Ionas in great misery and expectation of his end hath his mind vpon his maister with faith he remembred him and he remembred him to pray to him Now his prayer was not vnfruitfull as that which is made to idols or vnto hard hearted men but by the fauour of the Iudge it hath audience to the full It came to God in his Temple which is not to be intended as taken of the heauen the chiefe seate of his maiesty and residence of his power although in generall all the prayers of his elect and chosen do ascend and go vp thither but in more speciall manner it is meant of the Temple which Salomon did erect where together with the Arke of the couenant and the Cherubims and the mercy-seate the presence of Gods grace was in most peculiar sort And this house was to the Iewes a visible signe and Sacrament thereof so that according to the request which Salomon made to God they repaired thither when any thing did oppresse them as appeareth by Hezechias who layd open the letter of Senacherib in the Temple before the Lord. Yea when soeuer the Israelites were in a strange land in bondage or captiuity and called vpon the Lord earnestly they did turne themselues to that coast which way this house did stand as I then made plaine vnto you by the example of Daniel when I handled the fourth verse of this present Chapter Then to say no more of that point his prayer was directed to him who sate in this Temple 14 But obserue withall with what reuerence he speaketh here of Gods house the Temple of thy holinesse for so it is in the Hebrew or into thy holy Temple as we commonly do translate it If we referre the appellation of holinesse to the Lord who is so holy as he whose sacred goodnesse and sanctitie doth exceede the thought of all creatures In Leuiticus he speaketh thus be you holy for I the Lord your God am holy So in Exodus it was written in that plate which was in Aarons forehead Holinesse to the Lord. If we take it of the Temple this also was a holy place consecrated vnto piety and dedicated to religion whose inner part by an excellencie was called Sanctum Sanctorum the holy of holies as implying that the rest was also of good qualitie From hence all profaned persons and polluted things were precisely bid to be kept The violating of this house did much offend the Lord as may be seene many times in the Prophets and Iosephus is of opinion that nothing sooner brought destruction to Ierusalem then the execrable deedes committed in the Temple The place was made for all kind of goodnesse and deuotion to the Lord but it was so farre abused as any thing which is most filthie These are warnings to vs that since in our age Churches are as much to the Christians as that Temple was to the Israelites or at least they are sequestred houses to serue God truely in that we vse them with all reuerence for his sake to whom they belong that as we repute them to be consecrated matters so in truth we do vse them as Gods most holie Temple Which whether men do or no let the chopping and the changing in symoniacall sort the buying and the selling of these Churches as of most profane things witnesse vnto the world If we should be silent yet let the preassing in of the vilest right Ieroboams Priests proclaime the truth herein Let the carelesnesse of those Pastours whom God hath blessed with skill make open declaration who do mind that field or barne whence corne or wooll commeth to them oftener in one moneth then the pulpit in a yeare They can enquire for a Curate where one may be had best cheape not respecting whether he be able to teach or what payments be to the Prince or impositions to the state but how the people shall be instructed they do not regard at all And on the other side let the generall behauiour of men throughout the land speake whether those that be of the congregation do vse these houses as sanctified things or no. Looke into their cold coming on the weeke daies in such places where Lectures are continued their talking and gazing about when their soule should be instructed their reuoluing of their worldly businesse their obseruing rather of eloquence in the minister or preacher or in some what may be carped at then how their owne life may be bettered or their conscience informed their perfunctorie praying and formall inuocation of him who requireth the heart These matters shew that it is made vnholy by vs which in it selfe is ordained to be holy Of likelyhood the temple at
fellowes do with open mouth most bitterly inueigh yet they neuer can be able by sound truth to condemne them Their choyse was hard that either their vow must be broken by them or else they must beare about a dayly sinne in their bodies They aduentured on the lesser fault I doubt not but asking pardon for the rash and vnaduised oath which they had taken And God doth forgiue vs such things when we call to him by repentance as may very well be gathered from the fifth Chapter of Leuiticus where was appointed an offering as a kind of satisfaction for him who had vowed any thing which he afterward doth find out not to be in his powor to accomplish Charitie doth bid me thinke that those fathers in the Gospell and excellent men in the faith did enter into wedlocke with all labour to satisfie a good conscience towards God And therein their owne hearts might be the best witnesse and direction to themselues Yet the person who hath so vowed and in so doing hath not done well let him feare to breake that vow causelesse by a licentious libertie and if God do giue the gift of chastitie let him liue in continency if he can as otherwise for the honour giuen to virginitie in the Scripture so for his vowes sake also And so much I thought good to teach concerning vowes by occasion of the words of the Prophet Ionas wherein if I haue bene ouer-long let this excuse the matter that this doctrine is few times handled and now the text did minister opportunitie That second part which now followeth I will ouerrunne most briefly Saluation is of the Lord. 19 Many of the old interpreters and Hierome among other not obseruing such a distinction or point which ought to be in the sentence haue ioyned these words with the former and so caused the sence of all to be troubled The Hebrew hath it thus Saluation is to the Lord which the most carefull expositours do plainely expresse by Saluation is from the Lord. Tremelius doth interprete it All manner of saluation or sauetie is to Iehouah So that here the Prophet gathering by a constant faith that after his great feares in the sea and in the whale he should be freed from all perill and enioy his life once againe ascribeth all to God and with this Epiphonema maketh conclusion of his prayer acknowledging that whatsoeuer came vnto him well was from the Almightie For to whom should he impute it but onely vnto him whose inconceiuable power he had felt before to the full who to punish and chastise him had the ayre and water at his commaundement and had for three dayes kept him aliue in the fishes bellie Now if he should bring him to libertie out of bondage and desolation and should pardon his sinne and transgression he had great reason to magnifie his mercie and goodnesse ouer him Mine ayde commeth not from me I cannot helpe my selfe it cometh not from fortune or blind chaunce there is no such thing in nature not from any lying vanitie of idoll or heathen God but from the all-sufficient Lord who can helpe when he pleaseth and raise vp when he lifteth he putteth downe and setteth vp he doth what himselfe will If I haue hope of any thing it is deriued from him 20 Yea vnder this generall speech he remembreth vnto all that euery of their escapes from daunger are onely from the Lord. If the Israelites be deliuered from the bondage of the Egyptians if Dauid get from Saul if Elias be freed from Iezabel this good doth come from that father who sitteth aboue in heauen Or if any one of vs being layd for by the malice of cruell and wicked men be not made a pray to their power or deceiuing pollicy it is not of our wit neither is any flesh our arme but this safety is of the Lord. And if we will looke higher the deliuery of our soules from the chaynes and bands of Satan the sauing of vs from the violence of all our ghostlie enemies the redeeming of vs from sinne the incorporating of vs into his owne Sonnes body the bringing of vs to that glorious liberty of the sonnes of God is the worke of the Almighty Not vnto vs ô Lord not vnto vs but vnto thy name giue the glorie We may say as the Elders say in the Reuelation of Iohn to Christ the Lambe of God Thou art vvorthy to take the booke and to open the seales thereof because thou vvast killed and hast redeemed vs to God by thy bloud out of euery kinred and tongue and poeple and nation and hast made vs vnto our God kings and priests and vve shall raigne on the earth nay we shall raigne in the heauen But the whole worke of our ransome onely belongeth to the Trinitie As Ionas concludeth that prayer of his which hath bene so full of passion so do I end at this time saluation is to the Lord. Let vs pray to him to blesse vs still that by grace giuen vnto vs we may be sonnes of adoption and at last be brought to saluation which himselfe graunt vnto vs for his blessed Christs sake to both whom with the holy Spirite be maiesty power and glory both now and euermore Amen THE XV. LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 1. Gods fatherly affection toward sinners 4. He commandeth his creatures at his pleasure 6. Ionas is cast on land 7. A figure of Christs resurrection 9. We also shall rise againe 10. Comfort to the heauy heart 11. A comparison betweene Ionas and Arion 13. The whole narration of Arion is a fable 15. Some wonders are wrought by the Diuell 16. who doth much imitate God 17. and seeketh to discredit Gods word by his fables 19. How the Scriptures might be obscurely knowne by the old Poets and Philosophers 20. But they corrupt the diuine stories 21. Humane learning is fit for a Minister Ionah 2.10 And the Lord spake vnto the fish and it cast vp Ionas vnto the drye land IT is not without cause that so oftentimes in the Scriptures God is compared to a father and called by that name as Our father vvhich art in heauen and Ye shall therefore be perfect as your father vvhich is in heauen is perfect And as a father hath compassion on his children so hath the Lord compassion on them that feare him for he beareth a verie father-like and naturall affection to all those who are chosen to be his If they be led by weakenesse into diuerse temptations or by infirmity of their flesh be stained with great transgressions he looketh angrily for a time and with a terrible countenance seuerely frowneth on them but yet in the middle of his iustice he remembreth mercy and doth not vtterly reiect them nor cast them away It may be that he doth chastise them with parent-like correction according to the measure and qualitie of their crime yea he layeth smart blowes on them not sparing to strike them till he
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
that Iosephus himselfe could say that their wickednesse was so monstrous that he thought in his conscience if the Romanes had not inuaded them that the very earth would haue opened and deuoured them vp as it did Corah Dathan and Abiron or a speciall flould haue drowned them as a generall one in Noahs time made a riddance of all the world or fire and brimstone from heauen haue consumed them as the Sodomites God will no longer endure it but will roote them vp and destroy them by misery which cannot be described And whereas I speake so much as this concerning Hierusalem what other sinfull place may not tremble For if those who are so neare him do so bitterly feele the smart what shall they suffer who are farther off If it be thus in the green tree what shall it be in the dry If those do not escape whom he hath once loued tenderly why should they hope for fauour extraordinary who were neuer otherwise vnto him then common men 13 If this do not sufficiently informe vs how haynous sin is in his sight let vs runne ouer all them who haue notoriously bin punished in the world and the examples of them are committed to solemne memory as Adam Cain and Saule or Antiochus or Ananias Saphyra or Iudas the traytor or Iulian the Apostata yea looke into the Babylonian Empire or the Persian or the Graecian yea particular cities Corinth Rome or Constantinople all these haue suffered ruine onely for their sinnes The future torments of hell are prepared onely for sinners All calamities which our neighbours endure or we sustaine here in our land do come to vs for sinne The speech which Cyprian vseth Contra Demetrianum is very fit in this place Thou maruellest or complainest in this stubburnnesse and contempt of yours if the raine do few times fall vpon the ground if the earth be vnsightly by the filthinesse of the dust if the barren turfe do yeeld hungry and pale grasse if the haile falling do spill the vine if the ouerturning whirle-wind do marre the oliue if drouth dry vp the springs if pestilent breathes do corrupt the ayre if diseases consume men when all these things come by sinnes prouoking and God is the more offended since such and so great things do no good at all Now by this we may remember to thinke that it is our sin which bringeth on vs that famine which is euery where so bitter Then if wickednesse be so forcible it is no maruell if on the one side Niniue were like therewith to perish in so short a time but on the other side let vs flye from all grosse sinnes and wilfull disobedience lest transgressing we so farre prouoke God as they did and so bring on our land that which perhaps we can be content with patience to heare of them but should rue to feele in our selues 14 The second thing here worth the noting in these words of our Prophet is that he letteth them know that they should be ouerthrowne but he doth not tell them how He himselfe did not know and therefore he could not speake it It was inough of their part and too much as they thought that the matter should be verified they needed not to enquire of the manner But this kept them in suspence and made them feare the more since they knew not what to preuent For if they had knowne the way their wits would haue bene busied to withstand the thing imagined That is the froward nature of man to turne away from the maine and to looke on some by-thing as in the like sort we see the man who is complained off to his superiour for his fault striueth not to amend his errour take heed of that by all meanes but laboureth to know who it was that complained that he may be quit with him If the Prophet here had sayd that some enemy should inuade them all their wits would haue bene employed if they had beleeued his message in mustering of their men in scowring of their armour in preparing of their munition in vniting of their forces Their citie must haue bene victualled their rampars haue bene repaired If mention had bene made of some inundation to follow here trenches and there ditches had bene cut to see whether art and labour might haue turned away the water And the like is to be sayd of any other set euill whatsoeuer they would haue bâ—ne busie in prouiding for it But now while they know nothing they stand in feare of euery thing They entertaine that opinion that it is God who doth threaten them and allowing him thereupon to be infinite and Almighty as amazed men they do feare what possibly may be dreaded He is of force to do what he pleaseth and they onely must be the sufferers Now as euery man will graunt that one skilfull at defence may rap a sillie child who hath neither strength nor knowledge and may strike him at his pleasure on this side and on that side and aboue and vnderneath because euery way he lyeth open so God if he see cause can lay a burthen of any kind of trouble on men or cities who must take what he offereth and in no sort can auoyde it 15 Then hath he wayes inough to ouerturne great Niniue He speaketh by his seruant Ezechiel of foure grieuous iudgements to chastise men withall that is the sword and famine and the noysome beast and the pestilence what hauocke would these make and cause cleane worke before them that what escapeth of the one might fall vpon the other and he whom the first doth not touch might be crushed with the last And if these foure would touch the people but do nothing to the Citie then remember the force of fire not onely rained from heauen as on Sodome and Gomorrha but being put to by men How came Corinth to destruction or Saguntuâ— to desolation but by fire which is one of those things which we truly say hath no mercy If all the world hereafter shall be destroyed with fire what maruell then if one city might perish with that element Remember the force of water which by inundation from sea within these hundred yeares hath deuoured great parts of Zeland and by the ouer-flowing of Tiber within these forty yeares hath cast downe very many houses in Rome and hath bene knowne in other places to haue ouerturned many mighty bridges Yea the generall deluge did drowne the whole world with water when they thought themselues as sure as Niniue now could be perhaps laughed at the newes which Noe brought to that purpose therefore a speciall deluge might quickly drowne one city if God should loose the water Remember the force of earth-quakes which destroy both men and buildings How did Lysimachia fall and Thessalonica sinke Constantinople in the time of Agathias was sore shaken and Antioch with a great part of Asia neare to Antioch was swallowed vp in Traianes time as Dion
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
appeare in their staâ—elinesse of pompous apparell of rich and noble traine of gard and other matters which procure a kind of amazednesse in those who are not accustomed to it This as Herode Agrippa did vse do did Salomon and religious gouernours which exciteth from other toward them a fearefull reuerence yet withall a louely admiration But among all shewes there is nothing comparable to the throne that magnificent seate of iustice where much honour is accumulated and heaped vp together In a pallace large and spacious a rich seate to be set very eminent for the height conspicuous for the furniture of gold and cloth of estate compassed about with Nobles and great Peeres of a kingdome in Parliament-like attire attended with many trumpeters and heralds and other officers with a gard of strong and armed men enuironed with much people in a peaceable plentifull place What on earth representeth a maiesty if it be not in such an assembly The sight of this or the like in Iustinian the Emperour at CoÌ„stantinople made Athanaricus the king of the Gothes to breake foorth into these words The Emperour without doubt is a God vpon earth whosoeuer shall stirre his hand against him shal be guilty of his owne bloud But this phrase of sitting in the throne is vsed by the Spirit of God to point out vnto vs the highest honour among men Salomon was sayd to be set in the throne of his father Dauid The people pray that his throne that is to say his honour and magnificence may be aboue his fathers What a stately throne did the same Salomon make as one of his most glorious workes In Saint Iohns Reuelation where the Lord himselfe is described in inconceiuable glory the first thing named is a throne How the Gentiles respected this may appeare by that of Alexander who when a poore souldier of his owne who was as stupefied and amazed with cold and hunger was by himselfe set downe in his throne neare the fire told him that if he had so done to the royall seate of the Persians it wold haue cost him his life but this saith he shall saue thy life meaning that there he should be warmed and freed from his cold And it may be iudged also by that speech of Demaratus the Corinthian who seeing Alexander in his pompe at Susis did for ioy breake foorth into teares and sayd that those Greekes who were dead before that day had lost a great occasion of reioycing because they liued not to see Alexander sitting in the throne of Darius Then for the king of Niniue being set in open shew to arise from his pompous place is a signe of much humility to top himselfe to come downe with such a depressed diminishment so grieuous to flesh and bloud is a matter which is not common He who neuer tasted the sweet of soueraignty or ambition cannot iudge aright of this deed When the nedle touched with the load-stone shall beare it selfe toward the North in passing a great part of the earth or sea it is a great alteration when it comming vnder the Equinoctiall line must giue ouer that property wherein before it was excellent and might iustly haue caused no little admiration A proud mind cannot stoupe a lofty heart would not downe And yet the great king of Niniue being touched with repentance vnseateth himselfe vnthroneth himselfe and commeth as low as the meanest 11 As he did put himselfe from his place so he strippeth himselfe of his rayment It should seeme that it was some solemne time that he was sitting in his throne and adorned with his robe When Herode would shew himselfe in his magnificence he put on his royall apparell Otherwise the Easterne Princes went glorious in their attire and so at this day do all men who are of worth among them as trauellers do report They vse a stately kind of clothing By the witnesse of Christ himselfe they that weare soft or delicate rayment are in the Courts of Kings how then go the Kings themselues They thinke that common clothing maketh them seeme but as common men and they would that nothing should be wanting to them which might increase an opinion of estate We see that some inferour persons do pin their greatest felicity on the gaynesse of their backes There is more care to adorne the body with vanities and new-fangles then to beautifie the soule with sanctity and deuotion The worke of wormes shall not be refused to cloath a worme-eaten body Colours shall be brought from the sea and pearles taken out of fishes gold digged out of the earth Ethyopia and both the Indies shall be ransacked for new deuises and these things shall be put on with more greedinesse more carefulnesse and more orderlinesse then if it were to do that which most nearely appertaineth to the gaining of heauen Fashions shall be inuented so wide and spacious in hoopes and ruffes and supporters that there is great danger that the little gate which leadeth to eternall life and blisse is not wide inongh to receiue them And if it be a griefe and euen a death in comparison for such as are not the most honourable to part with these vanities for who would liue to lacke things handsome how might it straine the heart of a King to be vncased in such sort as to put off that which distinguished him from a common man I feare that there be many in our age who hardly would yeeld to this Yet the great ruler of Niniue doth make no stay thereat but at this time putteth away from him his robe of greatest dignitie as a hinderance to true piety Where is a liuely feeling indeed that we should be arayed with pure and fine linnen which is the righteousnesse of Saints there the most sumptuous clothing is vpon some speciall occasion but accounted as the doung and that which is most delectable is detested as a Scorpion Where a man is best clad within there the least care is for the outward 12 Well you see what this Prince hath left now heare what he taketh to him He putteth not off one braue gowne that he might put on another so to iet it in varietie whereupon the world standeth much but that he might betake himselfe to mourning weedes euen sordide sackcloth and earthie ashes Sackcloth was vsed to expresse sorrow as may be seene in Iacob the Patriarke who vpon the newes of the death of his sonne Ioseph rent his clothes and put sackcloth about his loynes and sorrowed a great season Ashes were vsed by men deiected to the lowest degree of misery as may be gathered by Iob who after all his grieuances so doubled vpon him went and sate him downe in ashes Mordecai in the booke of Esther giueth example of both for when the King had yeelded to the bloudy request of Haman for murthering all the Iewes he put on sackcloth and ashes and cried a great cry and a bitter
beasts if they prooued to be drunkards A sight so liuely in their eyes might be as a sharpe spurre in the consciences of the Niniuites to deplore their owne case with a most carefull contemplation of it vnlesse they were insensible so obdurate in heart as that no good thing could pierce them Diodorus Siculus writeth that in Ethiopia there is a people of that qualitie that they are not at all mooued with the speech of them who sayle by them or with the sight of straungers approching to them but onely looking vpon the earth they vse to stand vnmoueable as if their senses tooke knowledge of no man If any sayth he should strike them with a drawne sword they flye not but beare the stripes and iniuries neither is any of them mooued with the wound or hurt of another but oftentimes without any kind of passion they â—ehold their wiues and children slaine shewing no manner of token of anger or of pitie An insensible sort of people if there should be any such which in truth I beleeue not but these Niniuites should haue bene like to them if when they had beheld horrour and griefe and weeping and out-skreeking in euery thing attending them they would not be mooued to thinke that their part was in the bargaine And if it were so with that which wanted wit and reason and knowledge to do euill things how then should it stand with themselues who had all these and abused them Then the cattell serued in such manner might bee an instruction this way to their maisters 5 Secondly by the lawes of the graund Creatour there is such affinitie betweene man and the beastes which are subiected to his vse that the sorrowes of the better do easily touch the worser For God hath so coupled all creatures to mankind with a chayne of strong dependance that the being of them is much sutable to the flourishing or fading of the other It is a verie mysticall point which Saint Paule hath in the eight to the Romanes that the creature shall be deliuered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious libertie of the sonnes of God And that the creature groneth and trauelleth in payne vvith vs yet if we well weigh it that text shall argue thus much vnto vs that the heauen and earth and the other elements for I may not amisse name the heauens because Saint Peter telleth vs that they shall melt with heate by the fall of our first parents fell into grieuous bondage euen sinking in their excellencie when man did sinke to whose seruice next after God they were made And when in the day of iudgement there shall be a renewing and restoring of that image of God wherein man was first framed then shall they returne to that beautie wherein they at first were established so retaining still their substance howsoeuer they may melt in the fire like gold loosing their drosse and corruption If then these mightie masses the heauen and earth and the elements haue such a reference vnto man as being made to grace him the earth for him to walke on the ayre for him to breath on the water for him to feede on the heauen for him to looke on the Sunne to giue him light euerie thing to yeeld him comfort and when he standeth they stand and when he falleth they fall and when he is new moulded they also shall be recouered may we not much more imagine that sheepe and oxen and cattell yea and all the beasts of the field which as Hierome noteth were made for our vsing or for our eating are tyed and chayned vnto vs with a straighter bond of analogie or proportion that as we fare so in reason they should do either well or ill It is truth that man hath not that soueraignty in all degrees which he had that is one part of his punishment for as Chrysostome doth obserue God hath taken away from man a great portion of his power for he who at the beginning was made a fearefull Lord and maister ouer liuing bodies when like an vngratefull seruant he had offended a higher Lord was brought into contempt of those who were placed to be his seruants And thereupon as it is by one noted manie creatures are growne in their behauiour toward him as vndisciplinated things but most of all the greatest and the least Lyons Tygers and Panthers to say nothing of the whale fishes are very hardly brought to be tame but bees and gnats and flyes and such little ones not at all Thus mans dominion is scanted and drawne into a narrow roome 6 But these creatures are not so quitted but although they do lesse to man yet with man they suffer more For together with him who now is but as a young maister or a kind of quarter-maister to them they stand both generally and particularly in deepe disgrace They which otherwise would haue taken pleasure to do the will of their maister must now with blowes and stripes oftentimes be forced vnto it They which should onely haue bene vsed to good and to the glory of their maker by his fault who hath fallen are now applied to euill yea they be not in that esteeme with him who first created them As in earthlie kingdomes when a Nobleman who hath receiued many fauours and materiall benefits from his Prince doth requite him who aduanced and honoured him before with treason and rebellion then not onely his owne person which lyeth subiect to the law doth vnder-go the displeasure of his offended Soueraigne but euery man about him feeleth the smart of that rod yea euery thing that was his his familie is frowned on his followers are held suspect those which were preferred by him are turned out of their liuelihood and maintenance and moreouer his houses which were glorious before are let runne to decay their statelinesse soone droopeth their beautie mouldreth away his gardens and his orchards are ouer-growne with vncouthnesse his fish-ponds and other pleasures lye disorderly and neglected yea if there were any tame thing wherein he did delight for lacke of being handled it groweth wild and vntamed So when Adam in Paradise being in the highest degree of honour prooued a traytour to his God to whom he was beholding euen for his very selfe the earthly house where he dwelt grew out of fashion to him his pleasurable profits were turned to bryars and thistles the armes of his nobilitie were vtterly defaced but those who were his seruants to attend and wayte vpon him especially all domesticall kinds of cattell partaking the reproch which lay vpon their maister are subiected to much miserie And as in ciuill affaires the restoring againe of bloud and calling backe into fauour putteth life into all the adiacents and dependants of whom I spake before and maketh them resume some courage yea the hope of such a matter doth a little cheere their spirit but the greater the hope is the greater is their alacritie and yet
suffered to liue till with teares they wash away many folliâ—s But then apprehending Christ aright they blesse the eternall father who hath thought vpon them so kindly they blesse the day and the houre that euer their eyes were opened that their mist was remoued away that they haue chaunged the puddle of traditions and superstitions and will-worships and ignorances of customes and vaine inuentions into the bright delightfull water which streameth from him and his word who is the well of life 12 We who neuer dranke of those dregges yet may make the same confession for we feele Gods fauour euery day It is an argument of his loue that we haue so many things life and breath and foode and rayment that many such accidents do not ouertake vs as whereby other come to ruine sword and fire and hunger and pestilence and diuerse others occurrents which destroy many in this life that in so many prouocations for forty yeares together we haue enioyed such rest that the ages to come will heare it and scant beleeue it but neuer againe expect it the soule so fed and the body such honour and reputation in all the coasts of the earth vnder a womans conduct that we cannot chuse but confesse that the Lords aspect hath bene good ouer this blessed Iland But besides that generall sea of grace which lieth open to all that come how long suffering is the Lord to euerie one of vs Indeed he is singular in clemencie for when he found nothing in vs why his eye should be vppon vs then he preuented vs with grace and touched our heart with a feeling Since that time when we would slip from him he catcheth vs and holdeth vs fast when euerie toy would allure vs to sell God be gone he will not so part with vs if we be lost out he seeketh vs if we lye long he raiseth vs if we come not then he draweth vs in temptation he doth strengthen vs in strong despaire he releeueth vs. Who would euer haue to do with such a froward generation so slipperie and so tickle so giddie and so peruerse but onely he who is like himselfe who will loue because he will loue our inconstancie shall not hinder his firme and sure good pleasure The paines of the mother with the infant is a matter of various labour her sleepe his broken her businesse hindered her necessities euen neglected yet because she loueth she swalloweth all but she must come short of God who were it not that he is resolued to do it because he is full of mercy he would neuer so waite vpon vs and expect vs as he doth We reape the comfort of it and he reapeth the praise the honour and admiration For as euerie thing in him is worthy to to be wondered at so this is to be embraced with admiring amazednesse that he so respecteth man Hilary hath a sentence worthie to be recited here This is an especiall thing in God this is to be vvondered at in that mighty one not that he made the heauen because he is powerfull not that he setled the earth because he is strength not that he tempered or distinguished the yeare vvith the starres because is vvise not that he gaue man a soule because he is life not that he did mooue the sea into anebbing and a flowing because is a spirit but that he should be mercifull vvho is iust but that he should be pitifull vvho is a King but that he should beare vvith vs vvho is a God At this we may wonder but receiue it with great comfort for the haruest thereof is ours 13 But to returne to my Ionas Thou saidest when thou wast in thy countrey that God was so kind and gracious and would relent from the furie which he threatned to the Niniuites then wherefore doest thou now grieue at it Thou didst resolue before that the end and conclusion would be such therefore it is likely that God aduisedly performed that which he did since thou hadst thought so long of it Then why art thou now angrie at it Who would grieue that fire should burne or water should be moist that the earth should be dull and heauie that the Sunne should yeeld foorth light The creatures cannot so much challenge those properties as God doth challenge to himselfe the title of mercie Then so it is and thou thinkest so and saidest so long agone and yet thou grieuest that it is so Thou thoughtest it so in the Theorike but beleeuedst it not in the Practike He is gracious where thou listest but must not be so where he pleaseth To Ionas he is and may be but not so to the Niniuites But thou saidest that he would do it and yet thou chafest that he did it Now Ionas thou condemnest thy selfe thine owne mouth hath so taken thee that thou canst not auoide this straight For if God be iust and do punish this people then thou saidest ill that he would repent of the euill if he be kind and do not destroy them then thou frettest amisse that he who is grace and pity should shew himselfe in his kind Then thy collection for the iustifying of thine anger is most absurd and preposterous God is mercifull therefore I fret because he will shew mercy when it should haue bene cleane contrary God is mercifull therefore I should grieue if he should not shew mercie to them or he is slow to anger therefore he will forgiue them The maister in the parable would haue turned this answer on him Not thou euill but foolish seruant from thine owne mouth I condemne thee For what a speech is this did I not say that it would be so Yes but why then doest thou murmure that it is so Thou saidest that the Lord would deale thus with the Niniuites then when it had bene done thou shouldest not haue grumbled at it 14 It is a lesson to vs that still we submit our iudgement to the iudgement of the Lord that we seeke not with our owne wit to carrie that which is his besides the streames of his purposes but to looke to his reuealed will and with modestie and humilitie to submit our selues thereunto For if vpon any affection of discontent or enuie or ambition or gaine-saying we will varie from his designements he will let vs be as absurd and vnreasonable as Ionas was to please our selues in conclusions which manifestlie teach the contrarie to our opinion God is maruellous and vnsearchable in taking intangled man in the snares of his owne inuentions And if we be as Ionas that is Prophets will be foolish in things which touch his owne determinations he will most of all take and whip vs. In this case Gods counsels are deepe and oftentimes leaue a scarre of a mind vnsatisfied in it selfe or of iust reproofe with other when the crachets of our wit must ouer-rule his will and we will haue it our way when God hath sayd it otherwise What a dash of great reproch
to this day did light vpon Origene besides the feare of a farther danger when the spirit of his conceit must be taken for the marrow of the Scripture and looke what with trickes he deuised other men must straight beleeue His conclusions grew as inconsequent as euer this did of Ionas Because we also are Prophets let vs feare in like sort to force the word of God to any thing but to what he meant it or to broch any new deuises by singularitie of opinion For as the Lord both blesseth and graceth things done with a good mind although they haue their imperfections so when our purpose is but vanity or rarenesse or a fancy to sing a note beyond all men in that where soundnesse seasoned with care and industry is best God a little to bridle vs leaueth vs vnto our selues and in steed of praise more then common our spot is more then ordinary Concerning the matter of Gods businesse the best ground is the common way to teach as the Lord doth teach and as the words are naturally and then if all other good helpes be vsed it is not amisse but let no humane passion make vs vary from the substance because we will haue it one way when God will haue it another lest the Almighty be not so much honoured as otherwise he should and we our selues be discomforted God graunt that we may make vse of the examples in the Scriptures that in need we may seeke to him who is able to helpe vs that we may pray to him as we should in humility and obedience accusing our owne infirmities that so we may tast of that mercy wherein he is so plenteous especially in his Sonne to both whom and the holy Spirit be praise for euermore THE XXVI LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 1. Out of euill groweth euill 3. God is Lord of life and death 5. Man is to regard himselfe as an excellent creature 6. No man should lay violent hands on himselfe 8. nor do things tending thereto 10. Christians are not excused who killed themselues to auoide their persecutours 11. How a man may desire to be dead 12. God in mercy doth not graunt all our wishes 13. The Lords mildnesse in reproouing Ionas 14. Which should be imitated by all but especially by the Minister Ionah 4.3.4 Therefore now ô Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to dye then to liue Then sayd the Lord Doest thou well to be angrie IT is a speech true as well in Diuinitie as in Philosophy that graunt one absurditie and a many will follow which is more commonly seene in practise of life then in holding opinions For when we haue once gone aside from Gods law and from the rule of vertue one sinne draweth on another as the linkes of a chaine mooue their fellowes where the first plucketh on the second And as a stone which is cast into a poole or standing water maketh one circle where it falleth and that circle breedeth another and so forward successiuely till it come to the banke so euill groweth of euill and the first begetteth one farther and there it will not rest but on in infinitum vnlesse grace sent from heauen as a bridle of restraint do make stay in the soule When Adam had once yeelded to hearken to the woman more indulgently then he should credulity commeth on him that hatcheth out ambition thence floweth disobedience after that commeth excusing and posting all ouer to God When Saule by a foolish pity had spared the king of Amalec and by a greedy couetousnesse had saued the cattell aliue he despaireth vpon those threatnings which were denounced against him by Samuel then he grieueth to lose his kingdom afterward hearing that Dauid was the man who should succeed him he seeketh euery way to slay him After his hatred toward him he hated euerie man who in least sort entertained him he murthered the Lords Priests and then to the end that he might procure that from hell which would not come from heauen he consulteth with a witch and at last for the vp-shot he slaughtereth himselfe Ionas is not so farre left to his owne disposition as to marre all in the end Gods grace is more vpon him yet to shew how farre weaknesse in his calling had surprized him he maketh an ill gradation Being in vp to the shooes he will on to the shoulders and it was more by grace then by nature that he had not diued ouer head and all For first he had vnaduisedly resolued on the destruction of the city without any sparing and in his longing for it he was growne bloudy in mind then seeing that God would pardon them he is displeased at it and he prooueth angrie with the Lord himselfe His wrathfull mind breaketh foorth and excusing himselfe for all he layeth the fault on the Lord. Yet here he sitteth not downe but furious as he is in all hast he will be dead to be rid of all the trouble And although the Lord do interrupt him there yet he will be dead the second time as afterward it doth follow 2 In this place I am to handle the conclusion of his prayer wherein after that he had tendered his owne iustification as it is in the former verse and had vexed himselfe that he could not see that which he intended he requesteth that he might dye accounting his peeuish anguish to be a thing so intollerable as that a liuing man might not beare it Wherein he still continueth an example of humane frailtie which being led by affâ—ction and fancy-full opinion of some present incombrance forgetteth the rules of piety and very grounds of reason and speaketh it knoweth not what For how vnfit was that motion because other men must liue Ionas himselfe will dye Because he might not haue reuenge on those who hurt him not for their faults were against the Highest he would be reuenged on himselfe Thus dealt he at that time when as a man whose heart had bene seasoned with vnderstanding should haue taken such contentation at the conuersion of so many sinners that his ioy should haue bene the greater and his life should haue bene the sweeter to see such a metamorphosis that vnrepentant sinners should be now crying out for pardon But my text leadeth me to speake not what a one he should be but what a one he was and therein these two verses offer to vs seuerall matters the one the desire of Ionas that his life should be taken from him the other the increpation or rebuke which the Lord bestoweth on him And these two are the maine drift But the former doth braunch it selfe into a second sort of instructions as first that the Lord is he who taketh away life from man secondly that therefore to depriue our selues of our breath is against his holy ordinance and thirdly in what cases we may wish our selues to be dead and in what it is vnlawfull These three things
sorowes and afflictions which fall on vs or because by one or other we are thwarted in our designements then in wishing for death we prooue plainely to be offenders for want of submitting our will vnto the Lords will for lacke of waiting with patience and attending the leysure of the Almightie If Elias that powerfull Prophet be ouertaken thus to cry novv it is enough O Lord take away my soule for I am no better then my fathers because Iezabel pursued him to destroy him if she could take him he may not be excused 12 But for our man it is euident that he was in this bracke it was no earnest motion to be with God which did stirre him for now he was angrie with him neither was it because he loathed sinne for he heaped that as fast on him as possibly he could but because in a testie peeuishnesse and vnbeseeming curstnesse he could not see that effected which he so hotely desired that was to see all Niniue brought to vtter desolation And in this fury the man would be nothing else but dead He had neuer bin dead before and therefore did not know what it was to come vnprouided and vnfurnished yea indeed clothed with frowardnesse before so high a Iudge If it then had bene remooued when it was in that fury with what comfort could his soule approch before the tribunall Whereby it appeareth how mercifully the Eternall dealeth with vs who oftentimes in his loue denieth to vs those things for which we wish which if we should euermore enioy we were better be without them Theseus as Tully saith by obtaining the thing which he desired gained this that his only sonne Hippolytus was lost and torne in peeces The same which that fable reporteth of those wishes which Neptune graunted to him that they did hurt and not helpe Theseus is true of Gods part toward vs if he should euermore graunt that which we wish on our selues or other it would ouerturne our bodies and make our soules to perish Do we not many times vnaduisedly wish our selues in our graue as Ionas did in this place when I wis we little thinke it And if then there should come any who would take vs at our word should we not make twentie pauses yea a hundred exceptions before we would be readie It is but Aesopsfable but the morall thereof is true that a poore and desolate old man turning home from the wood with a burthen of stickes vpon him threw them downe and in remembrance of the miserie which he sustained called oftentimes for death to come to him as if he would liue no longer But when Death came to him in earnest and asked what he should do the old man presently chaunged his mind and sayd that his request vnto him was that he would helpe him vp with his wood This most commonly is our case we would find some other businesse to set Death about if he should come to vs when vainly we haue wished for him And it is not much vnlikely that our Prophet in this place would haue played such a pranke when he prayed to God with such vehemency to take away his soule But be that as it will be let this stand good betweene vs that with anger and with chasing at that which the Lord decreed and with wishing death in his rage the Prophet highly offended Which being so largely discoursed now come we in the second place to see how the Lord taketh this which I shall passe as briefly ouer as I haue bene long in the former And the Lord sayd Doest thou vvell to be angry 13 That which Ionas had witnessed in the second verse of this Chapter that the Lord is very mercifull and slow to anger is in this place experimented for when the pot-sheard so grossely had ouerseene it selfe to grudge against the potter the creature against his maker the hote spirite of man would easily haue imagined that he to whom the wrong was done to the end that he might preserue his greatnesse entire would haue let him knowne his owne and receiued all roughnesse from him How would a land-lord here haue ruffled vp his tenaunt but the Prince would haue rung such a lesson to his subiect that he should well haue remembred with whom he had to deale Nay may we not iustly thinke that the mighty Iehoua who is couered with the thunder and clothed with the lightening who speaketh and the earth doth tremble who mooueth and the heauen doth quake who blasted Nadab and Abihu dead in the instant who stroke Vzzah in a moment that he neuer spake againe who made the body of Gehazi and the face of King Vzziah to be couered with a leaprosie who so disgraced Herode that in the ruffe of his maiestie he was eaten vp with wormes would haue shaken vp Ionas so with tauntings and reproches that he should neuer haue forgotten it But the Lord to giue a token of his infinite moderation and vnconceiuable softnesse maketh no answer but this Doest thou vvell to be angry Wherein as he doth shew that Ionas was to blame and therein ouerturneth the excuse of Saint Hierome who most willingly would couer all as if there were no fault and therefore goeth not right since the text is to the contrarie so he beareth with the infirmity of the distracted Prophet and doth rather warne him kindly then intreate him very roughly Doest thou vvell to be angry as if he should haue sayd Thou frettest when thou shouldest not wilt thou be the Iudge Ionas to decide what is most for my glorie thou takest on thee to preiudice my wisedome or my will that either my discretion is not such as it should be or when I know the best yet I will follow the contrary This is not aright Ionas for if any haue occasiō to be angrie it is I who must be ruled now and not rule be directed and not gouerne This mild increpation would haue mooued any man but him who was steeped in anger as Ionas was I do not here any farther pursue Gods patience in his owne person because I haue oftentimes touched it 14 My lesson which I gather here is rather for our selues that when we haue to do with passionate persons that is to say brethren which are weake but not desperately euill and see them ouertaken with affections of anger of sorrow or displeasure we by our mild behauiour seeke to win them from that fault When rage is repelled with rage it increaseth farther fury and so oyle is put to flame and contention to strife A soft answer appeaseth vvrath but grieuous vvords stirre vp anger Although to equals this may fitly be applied and to superiours yet the saying is generall and hath place toward inferiours also The bending yeelding spirit is most likely to preuaile with the most robustious persons but a good man will haue an eye that he yeeld not in things vnlawfull The Apostle dealeth thus with the Corinthians I
out Kings make Samgar with an Oxe-goade destroy sixe hundred Philistines and Samson a thousand of them with the iaw-bone of an Asse What could more sound out his honour then the ouerturning of Hierico with trumpets made of rammes hornes and the victorie of Gedeon vpon the Madianites or the slaying of Goliah with a sling and a stone It had bene lesse fame to haue brought great things about with great and mightie meanes In like sort it demonstrateth his powerfull abilitie that he can so dispose of his creatures as that a Cocke should fright a Lion a mouse trouble an Elephant an Ichneumon a little serpent destroy a huge and bigge Crocodile Euen so in the course of the Gospell it declared Gods owne finger when fishers conuerted Oratours and poore men perswaded Kings And so it singeth out his saluation that sinners should bring home sinners and faultie persons men blame-worthie As it was answered to Paule complaining of his weaknesse My grace is sufficient for thee for my power is made perfect by weaknesse so where the grace and strength of God do accompanie the toungs of sinners in proclaiming forth his word they shall preuaile and prosper albeit not for the commers cause yet for the senders sake Though it be but an earthen vessell which containeth that which is brought yet because there is treasure in it some there be which shall receiue it This is no protection for sinne for all faults are worthie blame but especially in the Minister in whome all things are conspicuous like spots in the fairest garment If the eye be darke what shall see if the guide be blind who shall leade if he who should shine for puritie be impure beyond other men who shall profite by good example You are a citie set on an hill Yet this is a iust defence against our runagates Seminarie priests of Rome who take occasion by reason of some slippes in our Cleargie defects in our ministerie which yet may easily be demonstrated to be greater at this time in their Papacie and in the highest of their Hierarchie their owne stories resound them to haue bene exceeding filthie to vnder-mine any good opinion of our religion in the simple But this is practised most of all to the ignorant and to silly women into whose houses they creepe and leade them captiue being laden with sinnes and led with diuerse lustes In like sort it is an answere to Atheists and hypocrites liuing among vs who to couer their oppression their auarice and extortion pretend it to be no fault to detaine and hold away any thing from men so culpable by that meanes requiring that their brethren the Preachers of the word should be no lesse theÌ„ Saints when they themselues who require it are most farre off from all sanctified and good things God hath made his Pastours and Ministers of like mould with other men he expecteth it not neither can it be that they should liue here like Angels for this is the way and not the countrie yet by his Spirit he keepeth his seruants from delighting and persisting in grosse sinnes and he couereth their errours and imputeth them not vnto them But he pinneth not the veritie of his doctrine vpon men As Moses chaire was Moses chaire when the Pharisees did sit in as Christs faith was the assured faith although the traitour Iudas might preach it and the Prophecie was Gods message when weake Ionas did carie it so the Gospell is the Gospell when ignorant men and young men and sinfull men do deliuer it Blessed be the God of our hope who will not haue vs depend on flesh or bloud or man but on his assured truth and his ouer-ruling Spirit God guide vs so by his grace that by the good we may learne good and by the euill to flye from euill that so we may be fit members of that body whereof his Sonne is the true and liuing head to both whom and to the holy Ghost the Trinitie in Vnitie be honour for euermore THE XXX LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 3. Parables may be vsed 4. and all good eloquence by the Minister 6. Ionahs words returned vpon himselfe 7. The comparison betweene God and Ionah 8. The multitude of inhabitants in Niniue 9. with whom the gourd was not to be ballanced 10. God prouideth blessings for man without his labour 11. Gods care ouer infants and all beasts 12. Therefore parents should not be too carefull 13. Ionas at length yeeldeth 14. The conclusion of the Prophecie ioyned with exhortation Ionah 4.10.11 Then said the Lord thou hast had pittie on the gourd for the which thou hast not laboured neither madest it grow which came vp in a night and perished in a night And should not I spare Niniue that great city wherein are sixe score thousand persons that cannot discerne betweene their right hand and their left hand and also much cattâ—ll IN that which goeth before the intemperate furie and vnaduised rashnesse of the Prophet hath bene such that he is readie to take an occasion of chiding with the Lord vpon a most trifling cause euen the withering of a gourd And being reprooued for it not by his fellow seruant but by his maisters owne mouth he standeth on his owne iustification that he did well to be angry yea if it were to the death In which moode if he had departed his iudgement now was so peruerted that he would haue thought that he had had a great hand vpon God that he himselfe had bene in the right and the Lord had bene to blame because he had not fitted his fancie But the inconceiuable wisedome of the euerlasting Father doth so farre ouermatch him that where he expected victorie although it were but in words and thoughts he is taken at that aduantage that he is for euer put to silence in this matter For his owne speech is so fitly returned vpon himselfe and he is so caught and entangled in the words of his owne mouth that he is enforced to yeeld a greater thing then that whereof the present question was and that is concerning Niniue that since iustice was pleased to turne it selfe into mercie and seueritie into clemencie nothing was done vniustly or vnbeseeming him who is the rule of truth For that was it which the Prophets maister in this place especially did ayme at that his seruant shold be satisfied and thereby all the world be aduertised to the full that the holy one of Israel is delighted to shew pittie vpon the sonnes of men that where repentance ascendeth from the earth to the heauen there a pardon will come downe from the Highest vpon his creatures that Niniue it selfe whose sinnes did crye for vengeance vpon submission and conuersion should be spared from destruction So that mankind in generall taking notice of such grace and propensenesse vnto clemencie might confesse that the Lord is gracious and that his mercie endureth for euer 2 But to make this the more