and little Zacheus who climed the Tree to looke downe vpon him that was higher then the skie Then the Wise men of the East were not worthy of that name who came so farre to see him Saint Ierome might haue made a better wish then aboue all things to haue seene Christ in the flesh But our Sauiour himselfe condemnes these men when he saith the Queene of Saba shall rise vp in iudgement against this Generation for shee came farre to heare the wisedome of Salomon and behold a greater then Salomon is heere And Luke 10.25 Blessed are the eyes that haue seene what you see for I say vnto you many Prophets haue desired to see that which you see and could not see it Which is ment of seeing Christ Iesus in his mortall estate Foelix qui potuit fontem boni visero lucidum To apply that speech vnto this sence If the eye of a man were suddenly made able to behold the Heauens the Sun and Moone and Starres in their iust splendure and bignesse Or to see the whole earth with all the creatures in it at once Vuo distincto intuitu How would his mind bee rapt with admiration But the sight of God manifested in the flesh was a farre more admirable obiect the extasie of men and Angels and as I may say the proper end why the eye was created Of which fight if the senselesse creatures had beene made capable How thinke you would the Sunne haue desired to shine continually in that climate where Hee breathed And the other parts of the earth haue contended that they also might haue receiued the impression of His sacred feete enuying the felicity of Canaan Then let all true Christians honour the happy memories of those blessed Saints who were ordained to see that Iust One and to bee eye-witnesses of that Mysterie into which the immateriall Angels do delight to pry And as for vs wee that had not that prerogatiue to see him in the flesh yet for increase of our deuotion let vs euer beare Him in our fancies and vse all meanes that wee may seeme to see him that with a readier passage wee may feele him and beare him in our hearts This is the recompence of absence and onely solace vnto true loue by imagination to fill vp the distance of time and place and transforme things past into things present Quem vidistis pastores whom saw yee shepheards tell vs tell vs. We saw the Omnipotent infant and Angels worship him But where and when and how tell mee some circumstance that I may seeme to see him Vidimus Deum parvulum pannis inuolutum matrem vbera admouentem Wee saw God a little one swadled and lying in a cribbe and his mother giuing him suck O happy sight O vnspeakeable mysterie O gratissimi vagitus per quos eternos ploratus euasimus O foelices pannim quibus peccatorum sordes abstersimus O praesepe splendidum vbi iacuit panis angelorum Lacta Maria creatorem tuum lacta virgo gloriesa O foelicia oscula lactentis labijs impressa It is S. Austens meditation Sapientia si oculis cerneretur quantos amores excitaret sui Wisedome saith Plato if it could be seene with bodily eyes how would it stirre vp men to loue it But the wisedome of God became visible and manifested in the flesh and how should it stirre vp men to loue it This did so inflame the beloued Disciple him which dranke wisedome our of the bosome of our Lord that his Epistle which is wholly precepts of loue hee beginnes with mention of seeing Christ and repeates the same word againe and againe That which wee haue seene with our eyes which wee haue looked vpon and our hands haue handled of the word of life For the life appeared and we haue seene it and it appeared that I say which wee haue seene and heard declare wee vnto you And the whole number of the twelue when after his last farewell hee ascended how stood they gazing on him as being loth to loose the last minute of his visible presence And no maruell for the very sight no doubt conueighed vnto the faithfull a benigne influence prefigured in the old Testament where to looke stedfastly vpon the brasen Serpent was soueraigne against the poysonfull sting of fierie Serpents What deuout Christian now liuing would not giue the whole world if he had it for to see him To see him either in his childe-hood or in in his youth in his humilitie or in his maiestie When it pleased him sometimes to make his glorious deitie shine through his man-hood as Saint Ierome thinkes he did when he called S. Peter S. Andrew who therefore presently laid away and followed him Heare the meditation of the blessed Father S. Austen vpon this poynt Hei mihi quia videre non potui Dominum angelorum heu quod tam inaestimabili pietati presens obstupescere non merui And further Cur ô anima c. Wherfore ô my soule wast thou not present that thou mightst haue beene pierced through with sharpest griefe when thy Sauiours side was pierced with a speare where thou couldst not haue endured to haue seene the hands and feet of thy maker rent with nailes that thou mightst haue swounded to haue seene the bloud of thy redeemer spilt that thou mightest haue condoled with the blessed virgin O gracious good Lady what streames of teares may I thinke flowed out of thy most chaste eyes when thou beheldedst thy innocent thy onely son bound scourged murdered flesh of thy flesh bone of thy bone so cruelly cut mangled And further vtinā cum felice Iosepho dominum meū de cruce deposuissem cur non fui deosculatus loca vulnerum c. Thus holy men were wont to incense their loue and their deuotion to cleanse their imaginations from the idols of carnall beautie which hauing entred at the eyes haunt the disquiet fancies of poore youth and cannot be spelled nor expelled but with the image of God incarnate For this cause our venerable ancestors from all clymates of the Christian world haue resorted to the holy Cittie that although they could not see their Sauiour yet they might see and worship where his feete had trode or walked where he wept and swet and bled and died There was the price of our redemption numbred that earth and that heauens shal witnesse that there the summe was tendered and that innocent heart-bloud powred out which none can powre into his breast againe This made good Paula and her daughter Eustochium Romane Ladies of the honourable family of the Grachi remoue with all their substance to Bethleem and there they liued and there they died with S. Ierom. This made S. Helen honour of our English nation the happy mother of great Constantioe so deuoutly to visite euery place where our Lord conuersed and euery where to erect so many famous memories so many goodly Churches This caused S. Ierom to spend the greatest part of his life there There hee
euery strange thing hee heares of and to haue euery costly thing which he sees how can this loue of Christ bo in him He which hateth his brother whom he daily sees how can hee loue his Sauiour whom hee neuer saw When the concupiscence of the eye is waxen dimme and the faire forbidden fruit is faded Alas how will yee wish that yee had seene lesse and lesse loued that yee saw and more loued him whom yee neuer saw Behold him in his members behold him in his poore distressed membes behold him harbourlesse and naked behold him hungry and thirsty Cloth him lodge him feed him if you loue him that when you shall see him comming in the Clouds with glory yee may heare Come yee blessed for when I was hungry you fed mee when I was naked you clothed mee Which happinesse Hee grant vs that liueth and raigneth with the Father and Holy Ghost to whom bee all praise and glory euermore Amen The end of the third Sermon THE FOVRTH SERMON Of the frailty of Man 1. PET. 1.24 All flesh is as grasse and all the glory of man as the flower of grasse THIS is the echo of a cry in the fortieth chapter of Esay the sixth verse rebounding from the solidity of Peter The voice said cry Because all flesh the whole world must heare And because the whole world is so ingurgitate in the dulnesse of flesh that without a cry they cannot heare It seemes then that God will haue this cry to bee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à resonance in our eares which no melodie of pleasure should take away The Heathen man caused one to cry daily vnto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remember thou art a man And there are two maine cries in the Scripture The one puts vs in minde of our immortality which S. Ierom saith hee heard alwaies sounding in his eares Arise you dead and come to iudgement The second of our mortality and is of necessity precedent to the former proclaimed by this Harbinger Omnis caro foenum All flesh is grasse and all the glory of man Wherefore hee that hath eares to heare let him heare 1. the common meannesse of his nature al flesh is grasse All there is the community Flesh that is the name of his nature thirdly Grasse there is the meanenesse of his nature In the second part the meanenesse of the excellency of his nature The glory of man that is the execllency The flower of grasse there is the frailty of his excellence Lastly without exception all all the glory of man is as the flower of the grasse All flesh is grasse For God hauing made all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one bloud although they haue variety of distinction yet they all meete in this ground that they are grasse I am no better then my fathers saith Elias And the Apostles make themselues leuell in the same vaile of miserie with the common people of Iconium that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subiects of the same sufferings For this cause the Holy Ghost calles the poore mans body the flesh of the rich Despise not thou thine owne flesh Now the second poynt is the name of our nature which is here called flesh The body is our worse halfe and flesh the worse of the worse for it is tender and subiect to change and losse Further the flesh lusteth against the spirit Therfore S. Gregori cals it with coÌ„tempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this enuious little flesh By this name the Scripture calling the body or the whole man and vsing the part for the whole yet would not haue the part to bee the whole for then we should bee like the Cretians who were nothing but belly and beast or as the Israelites who seeking to fat their flesh the Psalmist saith that God sent leanesse into their soules Howsoeuer then you interpret the word flesh either of the body or of the nature and estate of man which confisteth much of things bodily or of carnalitie which is perishing of the soule in fauour of the body Of all these the Prophet cries aloud Omnis caro foenum all flesh is grasse To enter then vpon this argument which is the grassie substance of our nature did not the first man spring out of the earth and though he grew amongst the delicious fruits of paradice and had no poyson in his roote yet he continued not in honour but being transplanted into that common where we grow spred his degenerous of-spring ouer the whole earth whose seed multiplying innumerable was nourished with no other food vntill the floud came and corrupted the vertue thereof Since which time although our diet bee changed and flesh be nourished with flesh yet the chiefe of that flesh is but grasse concocted and conuerted into flesh and the flesh of men and beasts are both resolued into one dust which dust by perpetuall reuolution in the same circuit sends forth againe that aliment which sustames both them and vs. Before that iust and vniversall deluge had discoloured the earth it seemeth probable that as the dayes of man were of a greater length so the vegerable verdure of the earth was of more continuance in all habitable elymates thereof But after that calamitie immediatly in the distinction which tho Almighty established a greater portioÌ„ was allotted to the harder times the sweet seasons of the yeare were contracted and decaying Autumne the aspetitie of barren Winter prolonged Agreeably whereunto the spaces of our life were measured The yong springall soone passeth through his greene hopes and ripe manhood being straightned in the middest encroching age extends the rest in trouble and tempest vntill death There is Cruda viridisque senoctus whom the Greekes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who through the indulgence of a milde Winter besides the venorable antiquitie of their gray haires which is the uncture of wifedome and sage experience haue also fresh vigour in their bloud and actinity in their wittes and vnderstandings But for the most part the strength of these yeares is labour and sorrow for it is soone cut downe and with one blast of Gods anger they flye away So the famous Champion sighed to see his â—ere and dead armes And Helen wept when shee sawe her withered beautie in the glasse So that the Philosophy of nature doth restraine our pride comprising the progresse and persection of our life within the period of one yeare Quale gonus foliorum tale est hominum There is a time of growing and a time of fading but no part of our time passeth out of this coÌ„passe Which affordeth matter of consideration For as plants depend vpon the planots and are more beholding to the Suimne their father then the Earth their mother so that which we liue although it be supplied by an inward cause like to that power where with the earth was first indued by the creating Word yet the fauour or displeasure of heauen conferreth more to this effect then either the natiue
and was disparaged in that Thorny Wrearh that pierced the sacred temples of our Lord. Roses and Lillies are the ensignes of this happy Kingdome long may they flourish For this is the peculiar honour of our state Not Salomon in all his royalty was clothed like one of those And though the Lillie withered is of no vse yet Roses retaine their sweetnesse after death If supreme Potentates and mighty Monarches of the earth had considered how transitorie is that felicity whereon they boasted then would they haue endeuored as they were flowers of ornament so to haue bin fruites of benefite to the Country where they grew but when their chiefe end was to shine in admiration and to draw the eyes of the world vpon the colour of their present glory Hee consumed their short daies in vanity and no more was spoken of them but that they had flourished As Iob cals them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yesterdaies men who like to Solstitinlis herba suddenly sprung vp and suddenly decayed When Nabuchadonosor out-braued God he was deposed from his throne he fed on grasse and the dew of heauen wet him like grasse to make him know by sensible experience what insimilitude he would not vnderstand Lord what is man that thou regardest him saith Dauid the poore sonne of Adam or the rich Sonne of Man Man that is borne of woman hath no long time to liue he commeth forth like a flower and is cut downe Take him in his beauty what is beauty but a brag of nature an illusion of desire exhaling into vanity a selfe adoring idoll the first baite of sin which breathing vpon the concupiscentiall eye of the woman hath euer since with her and by her continued the concubine of a doting soule This felicity of body saith Tertullian what is it but vrbana vestis a trimme suit vpon the soule which inuites the Thiefe and Murderer and is often extreme dangerous to them that weare it Witnesse the examples of Sara and Ioseph whose wanton Mistresse would haue stript him also of his chastity But in the lustre of those colours if the white of simplicity and the red of modesty bee away it may take the vulgar but the wise esteeme it no other then a garish garment on the backe of fooles Come on therefore let vs enioy the good things that are present and let no flower of the spring passe by vs. Let vs crowne our selues with Rose-buds before they bee withered let vs take our part of iollitie and leaue the signes of voluptuousnesse in all places Thus talke these wantons when they inuite their fellowes to repentance which being seasonable follies are more excusable but when age reuokes these fugitiue pleasures renewing youth with artificiall deuices as if they were ashamed of that season which brings them neerer vnto God deliuers them from the vnquiet perturbations of the flesh What argues it but that they are resolued to make the vtmost farthing of the good of this life and will forgoe no delight heere for hope of recompence in the life to come A painted flower in Summer who respects when they are produced by nature and in Winter which hath other fruitions it is vnseasonable and against Nature Now well doth the Apostle heere call this and whatsoeuer is amiable the flowre of grasse or the flower of the field For after that Adam was translated out of Paradice all his glory was but wild and common as best appeareth in the barbarous vast Regions of the earth where verus cultus the true worship is wanting where euery flower of beauty is the prey of violent and vnruled lust And yet these small parcels of ciuill States which are so fenced with Lawes and Religion where beauty is manured by education nourished by speciall care and cherished by best counsell according to that Quem mulcent aurae firmat sol educat imber Yet how seldome is it preserued and kept safe that the inuasion of forraine lust do not breake in and deflowre it But let these flowers fade the glory of wealth will not leaue vs. Saint Iames answereth As the flower of the grasse the rich passe away For the Sun is no sooner risen with a burning heate but it withereth the grasse and the flower thereof falleth and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth So also shall the rich man fade away in his waies Name mee any other excellence and yee shall find it but a choice flower of short continuance Wit and eloquence are but blossomes which falling off the fruit of wisedome succeedeth and vnderstanding To conclude whatsoeuer is desireable in the world whatsoeuer fawnes vpon the fancy of men whatsoeuer makes our wils idolatrous all is but a flower of grasse a thing of small vse but no fruition Yea the Diuine Maiesty hath so abbreuiated all earthly glory that those excellencies which spring from an immortall roote and are by nature not lyable to vanity and consumption yet they will not thriue vpon earth and though they bee illustrious for a time they are suddenly snatcht from vs. Piety and goodnesse and Diuine knowledge which perfume the sinfull world and send vp a sweet sauour of pacification into heauen how thinnely do they grow and how quickly are they exhaled Saluete flores martyrum quos lucis ipso in limine Christi insecutor sustulit ceu turbo nascentes rosas flores martyrum Innocent martyrs whose names Christ hath written red in letters of bloud in earth and of gold in heauen The Flower of Iesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether you will call him a Starre or a Flower the skill of neither languague can determine and the Holy Ghost I thinke left it ambiguous to signifie that Hee is the Off-spring of both both heauen and earth As flowers are starres on earth and starres are heauenly flowers This coelestiall Flower was no sooner sprung and declared by a Starre but the rude hand was ready to nip him off and Hee had not long adorned the earth with His glorious presence but in the latitude of his goodliest yeares Hee breathed out his sweete Soule And who can expresse the abrupt cruelty of His bitter ending he bowed downe his Head It is a circumstance which none but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Disciple of his bosome obserueth Inque humeros ceruìxcollapsa recumbit Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro Languescit moriens lassoue papauera collo Demisere eaput By this gesture hee might signifie that his triumphant Soule was now descending to the lowest parts of the earth Whence according to the deepe roote of his humiliation hee rose againe and ascended aboue the highest heauens and we with him For heere 's our comfort that being complanted in the similitude of his death wee shall bee made partakers of his resurrection All flesh is grasse there is mortality and depression all flesh shall see the saluation of God there is the spring and resurrection This is the true condition of our nature Although death reape a whole field leaue no flower nothing that is greene yet the roote remaining all flesh shall bee restored all glory shall be new coloured Yea and with aduantage Lucrodamno saith Tertullian with lucre-losse with honest vsury It heere growes in weakenesse it shall there rise in strength it is cut downe in dishonor it springs in honour here naturall there spirituall It is a Plant whose flower shal bee exasperate with no thorny care not greennesse be euerwithered What hurt what hurt then can death doe vs wee shall not laugh heere Nor shall wee weepe We shall not bee admired neither shall wee bee contemned But wee shall do no more good but the good we haue done shall follow vs But we shall not liue to lament sinne but the sinnes wee haue lamented shall bee forgiuen vs. Lastly as the day springs after night and the Sunne reuiues and flowers returne and the earth is refreshed Sic nos resurgere deuota mente credimus So wee beleeue to liue againe Which that wee may do with him he grant which liueth and raigneth c. The end of the fourth Sermon