long felt the sweetnesse of the Lords distilling grace prosperitie peace and plentie which maketh men forget the authour of their felicitie They with the Oxe haue tasted the fodder that lieth before thē but they haue not thought of the giuer Oh the blockishnesse of our nature who returne to God little loue for his great loue vnto vs. Our neighbours of Fraunce and Flaunders haue drunke of another cuppe and haue taken another course Some yeares now past religion and true faith hath bene oppugned in France Edicts haue bene made that the Protestants or Huguenots as they call them should get them out of that countrie within such a time or such a space vnder perill of their liues Thousands of them haue fled and left their natiue countrie but not the care of their countrie for although they were elsewhere wishing still good to Sion they haue harkened after the aduentures of that Church and commonwealth and haue found both to be in hazard Many inuasions and great slaughters and ciuill warres in that land wherein those that haue bene the pillars of religion in that countrey haue bene oftentimes shrewdly shaken This hath caused them as London doth well know to assemble thēselues together in their Churches with solemne fasts and prayers which of likelyhood they had not done but that they saw themselues to be fallen into most perillous times These assemblies and these fasts being many more then we haue had did argue that more affliction was on them then on vs which made them so to cry I would that we might learne by their example to be wise before that we be stricken But if peace do lull vs asleepe the rod it is which can awake vs. That we find by our Prophets case in whome the next thing which I obserued is the greatnesse of his calamitie The greatnesse of his misery 19 In the last place I haue noted that misery mindeth God vnto vs. Then the greater our miserie is the more is our mind on our maker If this be true our Ionas might well cry to the Lord for great and exceeding troubles were at this time shewed vnto him He saith that he was in hell yea in the belly and midst of hell and in the third verse plainer that he was throwne into the bottome in the very heart of the sea for so it is in the Hebrew that all the flouds had passed ouer him all the surges and all the waues What can be expressed more horrible then this was vnto Ionas The word which is vsed here is Sheol which sometimes doth note the graue vnto vs and other some times hell and that double signification together with the like in some few other words doth cause that question so oft handled of the manner of Christs descending into hell But partly because I loue not to extrauagate from my text although occasion be here well offered by the nature of the word bearing so plaine a difference but especially in a desire of vnitie in our Church least some by contradiction should gainesay whatsoeuer is vttered in this argument so apt are we to be iarring which I wish were otherwise I passe ouer that point in silence onely obseruing vnto the weake that we all do hold the Article of Christs descense into hell but the disagreement is in the manner of his descending and how that should be expounded The Prophets words here import that he was in the fishes belly as a mā might be in his graue without light without sight in darknesse and discomfort neuer hoping more to liue then a man who was dead and buried Or else that he felt in himselfe such anguish of his conscience because Gods wrath did follow him and because he knew that himselfe had deserued euerlasting torment that now he was so tortured with an Hyperbole speaking of it as if he had bin in hell The Chaldee Paraphrase here hath a word signifying a bottomelesse pit which intendeth to vs that the sea was very deepe wherein he was as if he had bene drowned And this may be an argument that the sea was very deep there that the whale which deuoured him was there whose greatnesse was such and so huge that it would require much water The whale swimmeth not in the shallowes neither can remaine in the foords 20 The greatnesse of this danger so amplified by the Prophet in many parts of his song first could not chuse but much dismay him and fright him home for the present for what could he thinke of himselfe that drowned he was and not drowned eaten vp and not deuoured and yet for euery moment in case to come to his end besides the pangs of his soulefearing eternall death Secondly when afterward he had by the mercie of God escaped from destruction it might be a great remembrance and testimonie to him of the fauour of the Lord. For the greater was his daunger the greater was his deliuerance Neither doth that man euer know what it is to be freed from miserie who was neuer like to feele it To be brought to the pits brinke and then and there to be stayed nay to be in the midst of death and there to be kept from dying must needes vrge in the patient a meditation of thankfulnesse That consideration of Ammianus Marcellinus in his storie is very good that although it be a matter exceedingly to be wished for that fortune would continue in flourishing state vnto vs yet that quality of life hath not that feeling with it as whē frō a desperate very hard estate we are recalled to a better fortune We better know what health is when sicknesse hath much broken vs. We know what it is to haue store of clothing and competent foode if hunger and thirst and nakednesse do for a time assaile vs. It is a prety reason although the practise thereof were bad which Herodotus saith that the Samian tyrant Polycrates did vse to make He very much exercised piracie and robberie as well by land as sea and his custome was to spoile his friends as much as his enemies whereof he assigned that cause that when he shold vnderstand afterward that his friend was robbed of any thing he might gratifie that friend more in restoring what he had lost then if he had taken nothing from him I do not commend his thieuing but his reason had wit meaning God knoweth that whē himselfe taketh from vs such things as are not ours we are but his disposers or as tenants at will vnto him he maketh vs so much the more embrace his mercie who hath sent grace in wretchednesse and present comfort in extremitie Our Prophet in his suffering had good experience of these things which maketh him the rather breake forth into a song of thankesgiuing 21 Thou hadst cast me into the bottome in the very midst of the sea as if he should haue said now it is otherwise and the more am I beholding to thee Where also obserue his speech
man and the loftinesse which he conceiueth should not be the ruine of manie What is the cause saith Saint Bernard of such fury many times Nothing else saith he but this that the diuision of the Angels doth not please mortall men For they say Glorie to God on high and peace to men but vvhile men do seeke the glorie they do disturbe the peace The Prophet in this place is sicke of this disease Let Niniue and ten Niniues sincke burne or do what it will he had leifer haue his minde satisfied then all the world besides Whereof because he feareth that he shall faile he will take such a course as in the end proueth little to his owne ease He ariseth as God bad him and away he goeth with haste but better that he had halted so it had bene in the right way then to run with speed in a wrong way And thus now hauing heard the reasons which are by anie supposed to put him besides his dutie let vs see the course which he taketh He went downe to Iapho c. 12 The Septuagint translate it he went vp to Iapho but Hierome doth dislike it being moued thereto both by the Hebrew word and by his owne experience For liuing long as he did in the holy land as we commonly call it he saw that Iapho did stand low and therefore to be more fit for descending then ascending It is a hauen towne in Palestina standing vpon the Mediterrane sea and it is the same which is called Ioppa in the tenth of the Actes whither Cornelius sent for Peter This is one of those townes which the Christians sometimes in their voyage to the holy land did recouer from Saladine the great king of Egypt and it had afterward bene regained by him but that Richard the first then king of this land being returning on his iourney for England did bring backe his armie and succour it at need as Neubringensis writeth From this Iapho our Prophet would go vnto Tarshish which some haue thought to be the old citie Carthage and Hierome himselfe though not in this place yet in the seuen and twentieth of Ezechiel doth reade Carthaginiens where as we reade men of Tarshish Yet because we are not sure that Carthage was then built for this Prophecie is auncient and Salomons time more auncient when Tarshish was right famous which I thinke Carthage was not I therefore followe them who take it for Tarsus a towne of Cilicia in Asia the lesser which was nearer to the Iewes and well knowne among them as may be gathered by Pauls speech saying that he was borne there and calling it a famous citie in Cilicia I am the more induced hereunto because Iosephus reciting this storie saith expresly that Ionas meant to flie to Tarsus in Cilicia And I suppose this to be the place whither Salomon did send for things of pleasure and of profit when it is said that he sent vnto Tarshish for gold and siluer and iuorie and Apes and peacockes 13 This Citie then being a place of great traffike whither marchants did frequent to buy and sell wares doth yeeld probable coniecture although no necessarie inference that Ionas not liking his message to Niniue wold now for worldly respects leaue his calling and become a marchant It would wel haue becommed him to renounce his vocation and fallen to merchandising His sanctified gifts would haue well serued to that purpose That calling in it self is certainly not vnlawfull but yet not lawfull to euerie man There are in it as by men it is commonly vsed great occasions of abuses and those so great that Syracides saith of it A marchant cannot lightly keepe him from vvrong And As a naile in the wall sticketh fast betweene the ioynts of the stones so doth sinne sticke betweene the selling and buying Cyrus the king of Persia did note great fraud and deceipt to be in the Greeks when he could say of them that he feared not such men as had a place emptie in the midst of their citie to the which they gathering euery day beguiled one another with othes and swearing These wordes saith Herodotus did Cyrus cast foorth against all the Greekes because they had large market places wherin they vsed their traffiking as among vs might be a Bource or Exchange Let this rather be a fault of the persons then of the things since God hath ordained that trade to his glorie to the vse of nauigation to the discouerie of countreys to the communicating of cōmodities in one nation to another to the bringing in of such things as are comfortable to man yea seruiceable in religion as wine to vs Northerne people to be vsed in the Sacrament as the best representation of the bloud of Christ Iesus But howsoeuer for a Prophet to leaue his preaching in the name of the Lord and fall to marchandising if we will take it so was a fault in the highest degree to run from God to men from heauen vnto earth 14 I find in the new Testament that from towl-gatherers and fishers men came to be Apostles and I know that after their sanctifying for a need they did vse their occupations as the Apostles went a fishing and Saint Paule did make tents but these things were but as hand-maidens to the studie of Diuinitie and to the Mistresse the word but that preaching was left for anie of these I thinke a man may turne the whole Bible ouer and ouer againe and find no such example Onely this it was small praise to Demas as here it is to Ionas that he left S. Paule and embraced this present world In our time let mē take heed whō God hath blessed with verie good gifts that it be not layd vnto their charge that they with Ionas haue chosen to do something else as to be farmors or graziers or husbandmē in the country rather then to preach the word whereunto in former time they were in shew selected I speake not in bitternesse but rather do grieue at it The Church hath had a wound by it If when they did teach before they preached and were not called that were a grieuous fault to run not be sent If they formerly were called then who hath now recalled thē Those things about which they faint and fall are not of that moment as is the preaching of the word I do not yet find any thing either expresly or by consequent directly to be drawne throughout the whole booke of God for the leauing or refusing of this or of that garment so of other circumstances which somtimes were in question but I am sure that I find this plainely wo is vnto me if I preach not the Gospel I do iudge no mans consciēce but leaue that to the Lord. Yet to speake mine opinion I do feare that it cā be but smal cōfort to the heart of a true Christian in so glorious a time of the Gospel as we haue
were set free from all redeemed by his body and ransomed by his bloud admitted into the couenant and incorporated into himselfe so that now we are made free denizons of the city which is aboue What can be a greater blessing When ignorance and barbarisme were growne ouer the world and the darknesse of superstition as thicke as that of Egypt had possessed the shew of all Christendome that maine Antichrist dominering and triumphing at his pleasure so that few were to be found without the marke of the beast God did dispell that darknesse by sending vs light from heauen and causing the Sunne of righteousnesse to shine out by his word he cleered that filthy mist that the nations of the earth may now fully behold the purity of the Gospell That which was denied to great ones hath bene reuealed to vs. As Moses had more liberty to see the Lord then the people had so we see more then our ancestours But what thankes do we yeeld for that celestiall comfort Do we magnifie his mighty name and sing and speake out the honour of him who hath done such things for men Where is that Glory to God on high and blessed be our strong Redeemer 11 We who liue in this land haue sate as at the well head for many yeares together We haue had a most gracious Princesse a mother to our countrey and a nource vnto Gods Church vnder the shadow of whose wings next after the eternall Lord we haue enioyed much peace prosperity and abundance Our neighbours who grone vnder the burthen of heauinesse and oppression of persecution and ciuill warres do very much admire it Learning hath flourished with vs and manuall artes encreased nauigation hath bene aduanced and trafficke entred with many to the enriching of our people and the honour of our nation I doubt that we are not so thankfull as all this hath deserued Yea it hath come so fast on vs and continued without interruption that our hearts are fatted with it and we as full and glutted haue fallen a sleepe in security so that we vnderstand not the sweete things which are on vs much lesse do we with heart and soule and all the powers which are in vs extoll the author who hath done such things for vs. Conspiracies haue bene made to depriue our land of her gouernesse and to bring it into the thraldom of a proud and bloudy nation yet by the Lords strong prouidence they all haue bene preuented The great fleete which meant to haue made such hauocke hath bene confounded when men did not much to helpe vs the winds and waues did fight for vs. Truth it is that as the Romanes did giue thankes to their Gods when Hannibal was remooued who had oppressed and troubled Italy for sixteene yeares together so by the highest authority in the most famous place of our land and by the noblest persons and in most solemne manner Gods prayse was sounded foorth which was a most holy action and worthy of a Christan kingdome but see whether since that time the common sort of men do study to remember it Our thoughts within are so curious and our eares without are so itching that we loath to heare the Preacher to name this in the pulpit we imagine that this neuer commeth but for want of other matter being a crambe oftentimes sodde It seemeth that we are litle mooued whē we thinke so lightly of that which to the naturall inhabitants of this land was so great a deliuerance as our eyes neuer saw We haue reason to feare that God lately hath brought the same enemy so neare our land to quicken vs and to stirre vs to a remembrance of the former mercy by shaking his rod ouer the sea vnto vs. The acts which God did in Egypt of the which I spake before and his victories by the conduct of Iosuah were commaunded to be proclaimed to all succeeding ages and were bidden to be spoken off I do maruell why no man in that time obiected What shall we neuer haue done of hearing these old matters No their thankfull mind did vse it otherwise and recorded that matter and recounted it as the fairest floure in their garland and their honour with all the earth We should make such reckening of all Gods mercies towards vs but most of all of the greatest The enioying of apparant good things or the escaping of fearefull and dreadfull euils doth deserue thanksgiuing with vs. Ionas had felt the bitternesse being in hazard of destruction of body and soule together but by compassion of his maister he is like to passe through this daunger and therefore he maketh a promise that he will sacrifice to the Highest in spirituall manner by giuing him praise and glory And thus you haue the first point of that which he vndertooke now let vs come to the second I vvill pay that which I haue vowed 12 The making of vowes was a solemne custome among the children of Israel that when any good thing was graunted vnto them but especially if they earnestly desired to haue any thing they would bind themselues by promise or peraduenture by an oath to be kept without violating that this they would performe or that they would abstaine from as it might be drinke no wine or not cut their haire as the vse of the Nazarites was or dedicate their children to an attendance in Gods tabernacle or offer such and such offerings Wherein the care of those who were faithfull was first that they vowed nothing but that which was lawfull and secondly that they performed the thing which they vowed So the Israelites did vow that if the Lord would giue them victory they would raze downe and destroy the cities of Canaan A matter which was lawfull nay which God required of them Barren Hanna did vow that if the Lord would so respect her as to send her a sonne she would giue him to God all the dayes of his life She spake it and she performed it in Samuel her child Thou shalt render thy vowes saith Eliphaz to Iob. My vowes will I performe before all that do feare him saith Dauid of himselfe They knew that God did expect it precisely had enioyned it by a speciall law It is a peremptory place in the three and twentieth of Deuteronomy When thou shalt vow a vow vnto the Lord thy God thou shalt not be slacke to pay it for the Lord thy God vvill surely require it of thee and it should be sinne vnto thee he meaneth if thou performe it not but when thou abstainest from vowing it shall be no sinne vnto thee He would not haue men beare themselues so carelesly toward him as foolishly to promise and falsely to breake promise 13 This made men vnder the law to be very well aduised what it was whereunto they tied themselues by vow that what they vndertooke should still be to Gods glory and withall their promise was for such things as should be
and the Lord make vs thankful for it to say that in England he is persecuted for preaching of the Gospell Lesse comfort to be said truly to be a cause to himselfe of stopping his mouth from preaching of the Gospell But least of all with Ionas to go from Niniue to Tarsus from being a Prophet to be a marchant or follow some other calling Ionas by it sped but il let thē looke to themselues I desire that all should be wel He found a ship going to Tarshish 15 God doth manie times suffer those things to be ready by the which we may fall that we may learne that in our selues there is no measure of iniquitie if God once do giue vs ouer or leaue vs for a time Whereupon we haue need to pray not only as some pray that he wil not suffer vs to be led into temptation but that he will not leade vs into temptation by causing vs to see enticements and if he do that then he will deliuer vs from euill That is if he trie vs that he will not suffer vs to fall if he lay a burthen on vs that he will giue vs grace to beare it But that is another matter He findeth a ship readie and like a man that meant to trauell hauing money in his purse so the Prophet is not thread-bare he hath money in his purse he payeth the fare of her He may be thought in this to be a man of good conscience that such as laboured for him should haue the price of their paines A lesson worth the learning for those which haue to do with labourers and poore workemen that they do not detaine their wages The labourer saith our Sauiour is worthy of his hire God hath diuerse sayings in his Law that the wages of such persons as are hired should not be detained from them least in anguish of their soule the men crie vnto the Lord and he take it not well The rich men that do this are bidden by Saint Iames to weepe and howle for the miseries that shall come vpon them And it is added Your gold and siluer is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witnesse against you and shall eate your flesh as it were fire The Prophet howsoeuer in other things he deale carelesly yet in this he will not offend He will rather breake with God then cracke his credit with men If they worke they shall haue money 16 But may we not rather collect something here which maketh against the Prophet that so firily he is set and so hotely enflamed to run from his dutie that rather then faile his purse shall go for his passage Here is earnestnesse with a witnesse he careth not for his companie be they Gentiles or infidels or idolaters as they were for that will appeare by it which followeth he careth not so that he may be gone So that he may do amisse he will not spare his money See the corruptnesse of our nature They who are otherwise straight-handed inough in promoting that which is good will spare no cost at all to further that which is euill I do not finde that the Priests were verie liberall to the poore especially out of the common treasurie yet that Christ may be betrayed Iudas shall haue for his part thirtie peeces of siluer Let Ioseph of Arimathea bestow cost if he wil on burying Christ crucified the rulers will none but so that it may be rumoured that his Disciples came by night and stole him away the souldiers shal haue large pay The Apostata Iulian was eger inough to get money from the Christians by exactions and oppressions but when he bad the Iewes build the Temple at Ierusalem in spite of Iesus Christ who had told before that it neuer should be reedified it is certaine that his purse as well as his tongue did go in that bargaine Our age hath too manie of such men as these be Such as be of good place if they be solicited by their honest neighbours to helpe forward a Lecture for the teaching of the people of God their owne children and seruants yea perhaps themselues too who are most ignorant of all or to maintaine an able Minister they haue not a penie their charge is so great and so many wayes they are burthened but to disturbe their Preacher or call him in question or make him stand in law for his tithes and due maintenaunce they haue money inough For the vsing of Gods gifts to the honour of his name they haue other businesse but to vse them against God or anie of his good children they haue store and will inough 17 He payeth that he may be gone and he telleth the other circumstances that he may confesse his sinne to be more grieuous before God But twise in this verse it is named that he would fly from the presence of the Lord. In the beginning in the end But might that be done Ionas Can anie withdraw himself from the sight of the Lord Is not he ruler as well of the sea as of the land Can a man see himselfe anie where where God can not see him He who framed the eye shal not he see or he who made the eare shall he not heare Surely Ionas could not be ignorant that this was not the matter We will not do such wrong to him as to thinke that a Prophet had not read Dauids Psalmes And if he had done that then he well might remember that excellent Psalme of Dauid Thou compassest my pathes and my lying downe and art accustomed to all my wayes There is not a word in my tongue but lo thou knowest it wholly ô Lord. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I fly from thy presence If I ascend into heauen thou art there if I lye downe in hell thou art there Let me take the wings of the morning and dwell in the vttermost parts of the sea yet thither shall thy hand leade me and thy right hand shall hold me Then the caues of the earth the secretes of walles the darkenesse of the night the distance of the place either by land or sea cannot detaine from Gods presence Perhaps Adam and his wife for want of experience for they had neuer fallen before might thinke that by running among the trees of Paradise they might hide thēselues But when God had once found them which was not long to do they might be out of that opinion Their posteritie which came after them had read the Scriptures might be resolued for that matter For in God we moue and liue and haue our being And therefore wheresoeuer we do moue or wheresoeuer we do liue or wheresoeuer we haue our being there God is by his power there God is by his presence It shall be then but a bad shift for the miscreants of the earth to crie in the day of vengeance to the mountaines and the rockes fall on vs
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
or other shall declare it Some letter perhaps or writing The adulterer who doth thinke himselfe safely concealed in the darke or by the close and hidden walles yet cannot escape his sight whose eyes are said to be ten thousand times brighter then the Sunne He that wisheth ill to his brother is well knowne to that maiestie which trieth the hearts and reines In one word what can escape him who hath such prerogatiue of power as to sit so vpon a throne that heauen and earth flie before him the graues giue vp their dead and the sea doth yeeld vp hers that the bookes shall be layed open and mens consciences be detected and the mountaines cannot couer them nor the rockes cannot keepe them from him It is a good meditation to feare his angrie iudgement It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the liuing God If we serue him he will loue vs if we fall from him he will find vs. Lord direct vs so with thy Spirit that if we should fall with Ionas we sleepe not in sinne with Ionas but as the carefull ship-maister looking in all sinceritie through the corners of our hearts we may raise vp our selues and call to thee the true God to helpe vs in all extremities to stand by vs in all temptations that the lot fall not on vs to be cast away from thy fauour but that we may raigne with thee in thy most blessed kingdome to the which bring vs ô good father for thine owne sonne Christ his sake to whom with thee and thy Spirit be glorie for euermore THE V. LECTVRE The chiefe points 2 Many questions import egernesse to know 4.6 In doing iustice due examination should go before 5 Mens hard hearts to strangers 7 Some trades vsed are odious to God 8 As vsurie 10 It is not fit to come in all places 11 Some people are not acceptable to God 12 Confession of a fault 14 What is meant by fearing 15 Two sorts of feare 16 The horror of sin 17.22 The power and being of God shewed against the Atheist 19 Authorities of heathen men and reasons prouing the creation 23 Foure questions to the Atheist IONAH 1.8.9 Then sayd they vnto him Tell vs for whose cause this euill is vpon vs what is thine occupation and whence comest thou which is thy countrey and of what people art thou And he answered them I am an Hebrew and I feare the Lord God of heauen which hath made the sea and the dry land BEcause our Ionas hath a great deale more minde to go to Tarshish by sea then to Niniue by land rather about his owne pleasure then the businesse of his maister he is so well preferred as of a Prophet to become a prisoner first arrested by a tempest then discouered by a lot to be a malefactour in what place or cause it doth not yet appeare but allow time onely and that shall be reuealed In this my text he is brought to his examination not in a court of magistrates but a companie of mariners must be his Inquisitours Being arraigned he is conuicted and by his owne mouth condemned but by them afterward he is brought to execution I am here to looke into the manner of inquirie which is made vpon him and that is layed downe vnto vs in the former verse and in the next place to handle his personall answer which is in the latter verse both of them yeelding to vs verie good instruction if I be not deceiued as may appeare in order 2 Saint Hierome doth obserue the maner of the words that there should be within so small a compasse so many questions and those so significant and effectuall And as he was a miracle of the world for learning and that for humanitie as well as Diuinitie so it putteth him to remember the excellent concisenesse of the Poet Virgil who in a maner right compendious is accustomed to inclose many questions in verie fewe words He citeth that one place Iuuenes quae causa subegit Ignot as tentare vias quo tendit is inquit Qui genus vnde domo pacémne huc fertis an arma Young men what cause hath brought you into these vnknowne wayes whither go you of what kindred are you vvhere do you dvvell bring you hither vvarre or peace But the matter of the wordes is rather the ground whereon we are to stand euerie question including some thing of importance to this present purpose These mariners being followed with so strange a tempest as made them quake for daunger of their liues and crie with importunitie to their heathen Gods and disburden their ship of such wares as were in it and cast lots for their liues who should die for all his fellowes may iustly be supposed to be in such a fright that if anie thing extraordinarie should appeare vnto them what might be the reason of their daunger or how they were to be eased and put away from their â—eare he by whom or in whom it might be coniectured to be should be plucked and tugged and haled by one and by another as a Beare that were to be bayted to know what was the reason of this terrible daunger or what secret he could open What art thou whither wilt thou whence comest thou what doest thou how cometh all this about 3 For men in such extremities can not satisfie them selues but either in strange newes or any mightie perill will so runne question vpon question that it is scant in mans wit to make a readie answer When the Romanes had sustained that deadly ouerthrow at Cannae by Hannibal the Carthaginian and their Citie was growne into that perplexitie as it neuer was in almost before that wise Fabius Maximus causeth scoutes to be sent foorth with demaunds vpon demaunds to such as they should meete in what case the armies were in what estate were the Consuls what the Gods had left remaining to the Romanes where the remnant of their armie did abide whither Hanniball was now gone what he intended what he did what he purposed to attempt Thus daunger affrighteth the wisest and maketh the simpler sort oftentimes to runne toung before the wit In the sixteenth of Luke the rich maÌ„ is brought in making request to Abraham that he would send Lazarus to his fathers house to giue warning to his fiue brethreÌ„ that they by the wickednesse retchlesnesse of their liues came not into those torments which he then with much paine endured If that should haue bene in deede which is there but in a parable described and he who had come from the dead should haue had but some few houres allotted him to stay imagine you for this is but a supposall among a multitude what preassing there would haue bene about him what plucking by one elbow and holding by another what doubled interrogations how doth such a one or such a one my father or my friend is he in heauen or hell in lesser or greater ioy in more
or milder torment Ionas comming from vnder the hatches where he slept but a little before like Lazarus from his graue is beset among these mariners with a multitude of such questions What is the cause that this storme is in this sort vpon vs felow whence doest thou come what countreyman art thou sirra what is thine occupation 4 Thus the place must be vnderstood if we respect the egernesse of men in such perplexitie or the hast which daunger breedeth or the manners of common mariners But in verie deede I see more in it Here may be noted to vs a proceeding much more sober and iudgement with discretion That which goeth before will well beare it that which foloweth will more enforce it The fearefulnesse whereunto they were growne by hazard of a shipwracke was of force to allay their heate it made them amated with it their deuotion to their Gods did put them from their choler the maister is supposed to be a man wise and careful as not long since you haue heard the casting of their lots doth intend a slaking stay their milde intreating of Ionas when the crime appeared to them their referring of all to him the desire which they had to saue him the griefe which they had to drowne him are presumptiōs of much sobrietie These circūstances import a iust kind of inquirie which was vsed vpon the Prophet so to wring out by cōiectures or by plaine declaratiō what was this grieuous crime which plucked such a tempest downe from heauen how Gods wrath was to be satisfied what punishment should be taken if punishment must be taken It were much to be suspected that if this case which is here among these Gentiles should come to triall among many Christians the man should find hard iustice For now vpon how light occasions are many inflamed to wrath what bitternesse what reuiling what blasphemie euen to God with swearing and with tearing if for anothers sake mens liues should be indaungered if they should be inforced as these were here to throw their wealth and substaunce with their owne hands into the sea Call to minde that if any negligence haue raised a fire in a towne and harme be done to their building how little it is remembed that it is a crosse from God sent on them for their sinnes or to teach them patience or to make trial of their faith but the next immediate cause that presently is looked too seethe villanie of this boy see the cursednesse of this wenche see the diuellishnesse of this felow that should haue taken care of this fire if he had his desert how oft should he dye for it 5 But if it were a straunger an outlandish man as Ionas was who brought this scathe vpon them how many Crucifiges should he haue tumbling on him A French man as I take it although some other men be of another opinion euen greeuing in his soule at the vnkindnesse of our nation I meane in the cōmon sort hath by occasion of the hādling of their last great Massacre noted it to posteritie that by a most inhospitall kinde of phrase our Englishmen vse to terme them no better then French dogs that fled hither for Religion and their conscience sake Vnto this ioyne the many conspiracies which by some of the meaner people in one Citie of our land haue bene oftentimes intended against outlandish folkes the disposition of men in this point will well appeare Those which are wise and godly make vse of those aliaunts as of brethren considering their distresses with a liuely felow-feeling holding it an vnspeakable blessednesse that this little Iland of ours should not onely be a tēple to serue God in for our selues but an harbour for the weather-beaten a sanctuarie to the straunger wherein he may honour the true Lord remembring the precise charge which God gaue to the Israelites to deale well with all straungers because the time once was when themselues were straungers in that cruell land of Egypt not forgetting that other nations to their immortall praise were a refuge to the English in their last bloudie persecution in Queene Maries dayes and in briefe recounting that by a mutuall vicissitude of Gods chastisements their case may be our case which day the Lord long keepe from vs. These mariners with that humanitie which beseemeth all men of reason reproch it not to the Prophet that he an outlandish aliaunt should bring such trouble on them should put them to such losse or thrust them into such daunger but in verie good course of iustice they desire to be informed and take notice of his cause The presentnesse of the perill or the hast which they had to be satisfied could not stay them from doing iustice they will attend his aunswere 6 Such persons as through whose hands the liues of others passe be they Iudges or be they iusticers yea be they but common Iurours may hearken to these heathen and the maner of their proceeding and learne so much as that they shall not dare rashly to destroy or take away the life of their Christian brother Life is a most precious thing it cannot be made by men but it may be marred in a moment And if it be once marred there is no benefite on earth whereby it may be requited as Alexander once told his owne mother Olympias when she desired him to execute an innocent harmelesse man and that she might the more preuaile with him remembred him that her selfe for the space of nine monethes had caried him in her wombe and for that reason he must not say her nay Aske saith he my good mother some other gift of me for the life of a man can be recompenced by no good turne that can be done Before that death be inflicted let truth appeare if it may be Stay the asking of many questions and the scanning out of all doubts ere the last sentence come Certainely God knew the wickednesse of Sodome and Gomorrha as he sat aboue in heauen yet meaning to destroy them he saith I vvill go downe now and see vvhether they haue done altogether according to that crie vvhich is come vnto me and if not that I may knovv thereby teaching all gouernours that they passe not otherwise to the death of any but with verie mature aduisement It is a wise law in the meane time which Munster reporteth to be put in practise in a towne called Clagea belonging to Carinthia where if any be taken suspicious of theft he is by and by hanged vp and some two or three dayes afterward enquirie is made vpon him wherein if he be found giltie he is let to hang till he rot away peece-meale but if he be found innocent then he is taken downe and buried with some solemnitie This is contrarie to the common rules of humanitie but much more repugnant to diuinitie In cases of lesse importaunce then life and death all Magistrats ought to affoord that measure to their people which these
mariners did to Ionas that is to sift out the whole truth by demaunds before that they giue any iudgement Moses could say of himselfe to the Israelites I charged your Iudges the same time saying Heare betweene your brethren and iudge righteously betweene euerie man and his brother and the straunger that is with him First heare and then iudge Iob professeth thus of himselfe I vvas a father vnto the poore and vvhen I knew not the cause I sought it out diligently The speech of Nicodemus to the Pharisies was good Doth our law iudge a man before it heare him and know what he hath done So Felix could tell Saint Paule that he would not iudge his cause before that he had heard it perfectly Otherwise the accused person should haue a hard bargaine by it for as Iulian the Apostata once aunswered verie wittily If it be sufficient to accuse shall any man be an innocent The Poet therefore said well Qui statuit aliquid parte inaudita altera Aequum licet statuerit hand aquus fuit He who determineth any thing not hauing heard both the parties speake although he haue decreed the right yet himselfe hath not bene iust that is he hath done it wrongfully because he should heare both And this is the generall doctrine which may be deriued here from the examination of these mariners ouer Ionas Let vs gather a little nearer to the particular wordes Tell vs for whose cause this euill is vpon vs what is thine occupation whence commest thou 7 I haue in part before touched that these men imagined that some sinne plucked this wrath vpon them But when the lot fell vpon Ionas they gessed him to be the sinner Now to know the particulars they asked him of his trade for good men they little dreamed of a Prophet they demaunde of him for his countrey and the place from whence he came For both Rhetorike and experience and diuinitie most of all do shew that good coniectures and presumptions for any thing in question may be drawne from the life which in former time hath bene led from the companie and familiaritie which hath bene entertained from the countrey and habitation where any hath abode Then what is thine occupation and the course of life which thou vsest wherein doest thou spend thy time If thou be a robber or a rouer no maruell if some straunge punishment do pursue thee at the heeles If a sorcerer or a necromancer the same may be thy doome If a stewes-maister or a broaker for vncleannesse of the bodie it is verie likely that wrath may follow thee If a flattering hungrie iester who waytest vpon a trencher and makest no kinde of conscience to taunte any man that displeaseth thee vengeance may droppe vpon thee So these simple men did perceiue that there was some kinde of life vnlawfull and vngodly which because it was contrarie and aduerse either vnto pietie or humane charitie it might well offende that power which ruleth all mortall creatures 8 I maruell what the vsurer could haue aunswered in this case who liueth on the sweat of others and maketh a gayne of their losses It was no shame for Iacobs sonnes to tell the king of Egypt that their father and his children were shepheardes Neither was it any disgrace to Amos to say that he was a heardman and a gatherer of wild figges but to say I am an vsurer one who liue vpon my money is but a blushing speech Dauid asketh a question and aunswereth himselfe Lord vvho shall dwell in thy Tabernacle who shall rest in thy holie mountaine He that giueth not his money vnto vsurie Ye in some places of this land for I must not imagine that any interest is to be found in Oxford we haue scant money for our necessities such as haue their hands polluted with extortion in this kinde will come into the tabernacle and sit them downe in the Temple be at Church as soone as any and be as intent and earnest vpon the preacher as if there were no such matter If speech be of the inheritaunce which is on Gods holie hill they will vrge as farre as the farthest How can this hang together the breaking of Gods commaundements in a wilfull professed sort and the true feare of the Lord But this were a greater wo if it should be found in the Leuites and the Priests euen such as serue in the Tabernacle Thou that preachest a man should not steale doest thou steale saith Saint Paule doest thou spoyle It was the speech of Apollonius in Eusebius against the Montanist Prophets doth a Prophet colour his haire or annoynt his eyes vvith stibium doth a Prophet put money to vsurie If it be thy portion which was giuen thee by thy father or some money which thou hast gotten or a stocke left in thy trust for the widow or for the fatherlesse which thou art loth should be idle this or that or whatsoeuer doubtlesse it is not well since no carnall pretence â—an serue to violate the euerlasting law of God and men should haue tender consciences fearing to exercise that which by so many places of Scripture the iudgement of all the auncient fathers the Canon and ciuill lawes the constitutions of most good common-wealthes the reasons of heathen Philosophers the consent of the schoolemen and opinion of the greatest part of our late Diuines is condemned as an vncharitable and most vnchristian practise All those things which may be obiected that thy case is not common that there be many sortes of interest a biting and not biting vsurie that learned men of great fame in some causes do permit it that the lawes of our land winke at it that now it is much frequented and many good men do vse it great gentlemen in the countrey as well as Citizens and marchants that thou mayst do good to another and he shall gaine by it as much as thou nay a thousand excuses more cannot aunswere that one place Thou shall not giue to vsurie to thy brother as vsurie of money vsury of meate vsury of any thing that is put to vsurie And whereas thou wouldst shrowd thy factes vnder the skirts of some few reuerend mens writings if thou loue them and the Religion which they professed then couer that their ouersight proceeding from humane infirmity do not as wicked Cham discouer the nakednesse of those who were fathers in the faith to many in this last age Do not wrastle against thy conscience With Mathew leaue to be a Publican with Zacheus to gather tribute it is not for a Christian to be of this occupation relinquish it to the Iewes 9 If I be not deceiued this question for the trade of life insinuating that some artes are not pleasing to the Lord should stumble a great many men If in the lawfulnesse of a calling Gods immediate glorie and the benefite of his Church or at least the good
may be the reason that whereas within the yeare each seuennight cut off a thousand yea sometimes a great many more in one Citie of our land by the infection of the plague since that time the note hath returned not one or so few that it is as if it were nothing Remember that the spring was verie vnkinde by meanes of the abundance of rayne which fell our Iulie hath bene like to a Februarie our Iune euen as an Aprill so that the ayre must needes be corrupted God amend it in his mercie and stay this plague of waters But yet the pestilence is now ceased I hold it a thing impossible out of the groundes of Machiauell to aunswere to these questions in simplicitie and synceritie as beseemeth reasonable men and not with cauilling and quarrelling which is for boyes and brabblers But out of the groundes of true diuinitie these and a thousand more are aunswered in one word This was the Lordes doing and it is maruellous in our eyes He who as Ionas saith is God of heauen aboue and made the sea and the dry land he decreeth it he continueth it Then let vs carie this minde toward him what we know in him to loue what we know not to admire as men amased with his Maiestie rather to thinke our selues most weake and basâ— in vnderstanding then once to suspect his power in creating or his prouidence in gouerning To him be praise and honour and maiestie now and euer THE VI. LECTVRE The chiefe points 3. Confession of a fact satisfieth men that are doubtfull 4. Idolaters scoffe at their Idols 5. We should informe and reforme our selues by the suffering of others 9 Sinne is most greeuous in them who haue had most teaching 10. Blind guides displayed 11. It is a shame to be iustly reproued by a multitude of inferiours 13. The mariners are vnwilling to shead bloud 15. Malefactours are to yeeld themselues to death with patience 16. Good men would not haue other punished with them 17. The question is handled whether any man may lawfully kill himselfe Ionah 1.10.11.12 Then were the men exceedingly afrayd and sayd vnto him vvhy hast thou done this for the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them Then said they vnto him vvhat shall vve do vnto thee that the sea may be calme vnto vs for the sea wrought and was troublous And he sayd vnto them Take me and cast me into the sea so shall the sea-be calme vnto you for I know that for my sake this great tempest is vpon you THe aunswere of the Prophet to those manifold questions which were proposed by the mariners doth include a confession of errour and wilfull disobedience in himselfe whereof if there should be made a doubt by any man it is put out of controuersie by that which now followeth that the men knew he fled from the presence of the Lord because himselfe had told them This telling was confessing this affirming to them was informing against himselfe These wordes although they be not so placed yet by order of the narration are the first wordes of my text that being set before by an Hysteron Proteron which should follow after and that comming after which should be before He said that he was an Hebrew and feared the God of heauen as it is in the ninth verse but yet notwithstanding that he was fled from his presence as it is in this tenth verse which when the men had knowne because himselfe told them they were exceedingly afrayd and asked him why didst thou so And this I propose as the order of connexion in these wordes To shew that he did confesse were now a needlesse labour The violence of the tempest the discouerie by a lot the examination of the mariners did wring it out from the Prophet I haue opened that already And to tell what he did confesse may in as few wordes be ended that he fled away from Gods presence that is did neglect his seruice of going to preach at Niniue I haue also handled that in the third verse of this chapter The mariners they giue credit to the tale which they had heard and accordingly do proceed And so also must I. 2 Some things are verie slightly attended by men some things hardly beleeued therefore precept vpon precept and line after line here a little and there a little must be doubled and ingeminated to an obstinate people that as drop after drop doth pierce the hardest stone so teaching after teaching may sound the hardest heart euen of the most flintie nature To some men saith Seneca remedies are onely to be shewed it is inough to point them out to some other they are to be inculcated and many times repeated The ignorant do yeeld apparant proofe of this when they can verie hardly be reclaimed from their customes no perswasions can remoue them So although not euer yet oftentimes the children of such who liue in Popish darkenesse do confirme this doctrine to vs who heare and will not heare who giue no kinde of credit to oft repeated truthes out of the booke of God Besides a supine carelesnesse is generall in all men so that many things wisely vttered do breed but small effect because they are little regarded But here is such a seale set vpon the companie of Ionas as which taketh such impression that it needeth not to be oft doubled The wind which blew aboue the sea which wrought below did put them past peraduenture that some thing was amisse that some great sinne waamsong them The lot shewed Ionas to be the man whom iudgement did pursue and vengeance did so follow It needed not to be told them oft that this party had offended 3 But when the words of the Prophet had passed against himselfe and aboue all other signes which might affoord coniecture his confession was come foorth to accuse and condemne himselfe then his hearers had great reason to know what the matter was For in such cases as are doubtfull if any one do speake for himselfe and vrge his owne condemnation wisedome and sound aduise biddeth the auditour make a pause before that lightly he do beleeue it For who is he whom nature hath not taught that lesson to say the best for himselfe Againe in cases of complaint if another man should accuse iustice and Christian charity biddeth the hearer make a stay and not giue credit hastily For if euery thing should be true which euery one reporteth what man should not be a diuell shall not Christ himselfe be a Beelzebub But when presumptions great and many shall go before and withall the offending person shall open himselfe then sence and reason do teach that of likelyhood he is guilty When Micah brought the siluer which was stolen away from his mother and sayd plainly that he had taken it his mother had great reason to thinke that he was the man When Rechab and Baanah brought
his willingnes to dy besides such stubburne qualities as of likelyhood were fast rooted in mariners and idolaters and yet how by no meanes they would take his life away from him I cannot but obserue their maruellous of-wardnesse and vnwillingnesse in very high sort to the shedding of bloud which affection of theirs is amplifyed in all my text Because he should not dy they wold go back to land and when they see that there must be no nay but God would haue them to throw him into the sea they cry forth with great vehemency that in as much as it was the Lords owne doing and not any desire of theirs they were but as his instruments ministers of his iustice the bloud of this dying passenger might not be imputed to theÌ„ Although I be not before Iudges and lurours who haue to do with mens deaths nor before any Martiall warriours whose speare sometimes eateth flesh and whose sword oftentimes drinketh bloud yet because I speake to men whome this cannot but concerne for life belongeth vnto all because my text doth inforce it giue me leaue men brethren to discourse this argument vnto you in the first place that afterward I may go forward to some other doctrine 4 Then I feare not to say that the lawes of God and men of nature and of nations of Gentiles and of Iewes of ciuill men and Barbarians haue commaunded that a great regard should be borne to the life of a man the most excellent of all Gods creatures that go vpon the ground the beauty of the world the glory of the workman the coÌ„fluence of all honor which mortality can afford the resemblaÌ„ce of the Sauiour while he liued vpoÌ„ the earth the image of God himselfe vntill that time that Adam lost it to whose absolute frame nothing wanteth but onely a consideration that God hath so graced him as that nothing is wanting to him I neede not speake to all these but vrge that which is the greatest The Lord hath said I wil require your bloud wherein your liues are at the hand of euery beast will I require it and at the hand of man euen at the hand of a mans brother will I require the life of man Who so sheadeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed for in the image of God hath he made man The often ingemination of requiring and requiring doth inforce the greater charge He that smiteth a maÌ„ he dye shal dye the death Doth not the bloud of Abell cry for vengeance vnto the Lord How doth God take the shedding of Vriah his bloud at Dauids hand How doth he threaten a punishment and that in bitter sort vnto the men of Babylon for their murthering of many persons The killing of a maÌ„ the murthering of thy neighbor is such a matter as for the which can be made no satisfaction A kingdome can make no ransome for it the whole world cannot make a recompence if we will take things aright It is in one to marre it but it is not in all Gods creatures to make the life of a man The Creatour himselfe doth giue it he willeth vs to preserue it that none should dare to destroy it either in our selues or other 5 How doth he seeme to tender it when he expressely commandeth the Israelies to set battelmeÌ„ts vpon the roofes of their houses whereupon they vsed oftentimes to walke because they were flat least if any should fall downe from thence bloud should lye vpon the house In like sort when he giueth charge else-where that the beast which killeth any should be stoned to death with stones How doth he detest bloud-spilling in wilfull sort when Christ giueth to the diuell the title of a murtherer as being most fit for him So that they who are killers and manquellers do seeme to fight vnder the diuels banner to haue put off humane nature which should excell for mildnesse and to be turned into beasts nay to grow into the quality of foule and loathsome spirites The impression of this thought both that it is vnseemely among men and odious before God as it hath possessed the heart of Scythians and Barbarians of Egyptians Greekes and Romanes so these ship-men doubt not of it but with all their power they do flye from it as froÌ„ the gates of hell They row they cry they pray rather any thing then be guilty of the sheading of Ionas his bloud Nay the more they see him yeeld the more their heart doth melt their affection giueth vpon him They know it to be naturall to spare the life of a suppliant to saue the life of a man No custome against that ground no prescription against that principle Life should be deare if any thing It neuer can be recouered 6 They then are monsters in nature and not only irreligious and impious toward God but verily inhumane who do cut off the life of other either in superstition or in any bloud-thirsty humour Be they the Carthaginians who did vse to offer men in sacrifice to their Gods Or be it the king of Moab who being distressed in battell did take his eldest son who should haue raigned in his stead and made a burnt offering of him vpon the top of the wal before the face of the Israelites by that meanes thinking to appease the wrath of his idols For thus some vnderstand it although there be that take it of the son of the king of Edom which is also bad inough Or be they among other or aboue other if you will the people of God himselfe who as Dauid doth say of them if that be Dauids Psalme were so besotted on their follies and so doated on their idolatry that they offered vp their sonnes and daughters vnto diuels This was it which the Scripture calleth the making of their children to go through the fâ—re as did Ahaz the king of Israel Vnto this the story of Iosias alludeth where he speaketh of the valley of Hinnom in which their little ones were enforced as the Hebrewes themselues do write to walke betweene great fires vntil that they sunke down dead with the heate their parents or the consecrators looking on but not hearing the pitifull skreeches and squealings of their children by reason of the great noyse of tabrets and other instruments of musicke which did dull their eares that they might not heare the sound Blind men who supposed that they had done great seruice to the Lord when in truth they did that which was execrable and abhominable in his eyes So farre off they were from the rules of religion that they also slipped from the very grounds of common reason 7 The like may be said of such who not for any superstitious deuotion or idolatrous opinion but in a wooluish rauennousnesse would see the bloud of many shed Be it Haman who to ease his stomacke vpon Mardocheus did cast plots and deuises how to haue the whole people of the
of the earth whose waues do roare lowder then all the Lions of the forrest whose gulfes do sup vp some whose sandes do sinke downe other whose rockes haue splitted in peeces the hugest mightiest Carickes that euer came on the water Here is Scylla and Charybdis and those Symplegades which are so much feared This is it in which one short tempest hath dashed whole fleetes and nauies the one ship against the other which sometimes by inundation hath ouer-runne whole countreyes as might be shewed at large This is one of those two vnbridled elements with whom there is no mercy for so we say of fire and water 15 This worketh against our Prophet and what helpe can there be against the fury of it If the multitudes of mankind were assembled vpon the land if the whole world were put together yet these are not able to abate this violence If Pharao and all the horsemen which belong vnto him although he be the great king of Egypt come but into a corner of it for so the red sea may well be named they are licked vp as if they had beene no better then the grashoppers and throwne dead on the shore Xerxes the king of Persia was a man of passing wit in the meane while who as Herodotus writeth of him vnderstanding that the bridge which he had made ouer the Hellespont was broken by the great violence of the waues and water caused three hundred stripes to be giuen to the Ocean sea in reuengement of the wrong done vnto him and to teach it a better lesson against another time There is no wrastling for sober men with the sea and for drunken men much lesse If he with all his army had bene close at hand to helpe the poore Prophet now in this storme he must haue bene contented to haue left him in that case as he found him Gods charge was vpon the waues not to giue ouer from pursuing vntill they had drowned him And he who could plague all Egypt with flies and frogges and lice the basest kinde of vermine could easily giue ability to the sea to drench on Ionas 16 Then it is no maruell if they could not bring him backe vnto the land since they had both windes and waues and God himselfe against them And against them he will be so long as that party who is the offending sinner shall rest with them In mine opinion a most excellent point of doctrine is here affoorded Men oftentimes do striue and vehemently labour with oares and sailes and euery thing euen with all the powers of their mind and with all the strength of their bodie to attaine to their desire of riches and contentednesse and the more they do beate their braines the farther they are still from it Early rising faring hard much deuising and contriuing counsell and helpe from others and yet it will not be Some other with halfe the labour do attaine to greater happinesse But as these mariners striue and cannot come at the land they can neither get forward nor backward so it is with the desires of the other God bloweth vpon their money it is put into a broken bagge or as the Prouerbe is Ocnus he wreatheth a rope and an asse standeth by and croppeth it off Their best meanes come to nothing the good intent of their friends proueth as if there were no such matter Now what shall be sayd in this case Surely we must not rashly censure this state of other men For God many times doth crosse the actions of such as be deere vnto him either to trye their patience or to confirme their faith or to teach them obedience or to make them loath the world or for some other reason best knowne vnto himselfe So that we may not proudly or peremptorily iudge Then the conscience of each man who will not be wilfully blinded is the best triall in this behalfe Descend thou then into thy soule and sift thy selfe throughly what may be the reason of it 17 If thou be not as other men and very little do prosper with thee yea although diligence be not wanting see whether that some Ionas be not within thy house some leud or vngodly man some drunkard or some Atheist that draweth a curse vpon thee See whether that some Ionas be not within thy heart who lyeth heauy vpon thee as the lead that thou canst not arise The Ionas of disobedience the Ionas of discontentednesse the Ionas of want of faith or perhaps some more noted sinne As long as he hath his abode with thee do thou rowe and thy mariners do thou striue and thy friends but thou shalt not come to the land But cast once this Ionas out the Ionas of adultery the Ionas of fornication vpon whom beggery waiteth many a time the sinne of a wanton mind the fault of a railing tongue against God and his Ministers the sinne of an enuious eye against those whom the Lord blesseth the rooâ—e of cruell bitternesse in inuenting lies and slaunders Let the Ionas of these faults be once throwne ouer ship-boord and thy ship shall go like other the Lord will blesse thy studies he will prosper thy endeuors and it shall appeare vnto thee how much he doth respect thee Otherwise the sea shall be troublesome and saile thou till thy heart do ake thou shalt not come to the shore Aulus Gellius in the third booke of his Noctes Atticae doth tell of a goodly horse which belonged to one Seius and thereof had his name to be called Equus Seianus This horse was neuer possessed by any one but both himselfe and his family did come to vtter ruine So Seius his first maister did speede and then Dolabella who bought the horse for much money dranke of the selfe same cup. Then Cassius was his owner and after that Antonius and the end of both these was destruction Vnderstand that sin and wickednesse oftentimes doth carry this fortune with it that it fretteth the goods of the owner and maketh little or nothing to prooue Therfore if it be as pleasant to the flesh and to thy fancy as the horse of Seius was comely to the eye better it is to leaue it then to haue it he is best that is farthest from it And so now I come to the second verse Wherefore they cried vnto the Lord and sayd 18 When these men see by al meanes that the Prophet must go out that there was no striuing against so strong a streame although it went against the haire nay although heart soule and all did go against the deede yet they resolue to do it but it is with feare and trembling It cannot be auoided necessity hath no law they must do it or do worse Then since God ruled the rost and all was at his pleasure they runne poore soules to him It is sayd they cried vnto him which noteth their earnest vehemency in vttering of their prayers They whisper not but so loud as their best breath can
externall points of religion can go as farre as the faithfull or the best child of God as these here can offer sacrifice and make vowes to the Lord. So Simon Magus will be baptised and Iudas come to the supper and heretikes can preach Christ and Herodians heare his word and Pharisees pay their tith and Iesuites fast and pray so that ceremonies and the shew which is outward do not euer import verity of religion Sathan transformeth himselfe into an Angell of light Wolues come forth in sheepes clothing There be that cry Lord Lord and yet Christ doth not know them Whereupon that speech is true that we may more easily know who is an vngodly man then who is truly godly For hypocrisie may with a shadow make a disguised shew of the one but foule and wicked deeds will necessarily discouer the other Where an irreligious life is lead and grosse sinnes are committed it is an euident proofe that the true feare of God is not yet resident in that person Therefore it concerneth vs to be wary that we leane not on any one but as he leaneth on Christ for as we must take heed that we iudge not other men in particular without charity so we must hold this in generall that all is not gold that glistereth 20 A second lesson is that we all looke to our selues that we satisfie not our soules with any externall action neither that we apprehend grace by fits or feags as we are vrged by any present thing that hangeth on vs but that we labour euermore to retaine the good which is offered to vs that we quench not the Spirite of God but stirre it vp in our selues It is a thing violent to our nature to haue a minde vnto holinesse we saile as if it were against the streame As then in a violent water if the boate-men slacke a few strokes in a moment he is caried more downeward then in a good time before he hath gained by his labour so we must know that in loosing the hold which we haue of Gods Spirite we may loose more in one yeare nay perhaps more in one houre then we haue gained in many It is not inough to weepe when we feele the rod vpon vs to pray when we are in sicknesse to cry when we are in danger but in wel-fare and prosperity God must be thought vpon as well as in aduersity We must not hold our duty to be then discharged to the full when in a moment of some great matter we feare the Lord exceedingly and sacrifice and vowe and do all that we can deuise and straight way prooue like a feuer haue a cold bowte for a heate and so fall away from grace but we must follow that veine and pursue it to the end 21 Saint Bernard in his time found men rebukeable for this errour For writing of the two Disciples which went vnto Emaus he speaketh fitly to this purpose You shall sometimes see a man verie deuout in his prayers vvhose eyes vvill seeme to stand like the pooles of Hesbon for the multitude of his teares and yet this man refuseth to beare the yoake of obedience He bewaileth his pride while he is at his prayers but the houre of compunction being once past and gone he is as proud as before I would that ourage were free from this vnstayed repentance But I feare that it is otherwise When we sit and heare a Sermon a word or two well set on doth bruise vs much for a momēt Vpō solemne dayes as at our anniuersary thanksgiuing for the loue of God so farre extended to vs in the enioying of her Maiesty or vpon other the like occasions our hearts and eyes and all shall testifie our great feeling So when we come to the Sacrament we are very repentant persons but is it not true of vs that like vnto the bul rush we hang downe our heads for a day that drinking with the serpent we resume againe our poyson of malice and peruersenesse When we are in the Church we intend to leaue our bribe-taking but with the Church we forget it when our night-thoughts haue well troubled vs we vow to leaue our vncharitablenesse and to plucke vp the roote of bitternesse but rising we returne vnto our ancient euill In the fields we can protest against our owne oppression our slandering and reuiling but when we come home we yeeld our selues vnto the tempting Angell This is to dally with God and to heape wrath on our selues The most wicked men and idolaters as Ionas his fellowes here can thinke on goodnesse for a little and feare the Lord exceedingly and yet not be the better for it Sincerity and simplicity and perseuerance and performance beseeme the child of God I haue troubled you ouer long Lord enrich vs so with thy spirit that as we haue begun so we may end in thee that thy true feare still possessing vs we may be brought to thy kingdome there to raigne by the merite of thy Sonne to whom with thee and thy Spirite be laud and praise for euer THE IX LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 1. All creatures are at Gods becke 3. either to punish the wicked 4. or to preserue the good 6. Of the greatnesse of fishes 8. That Ionas might liue in the belly of the whale 12. How the three dayes and three nights are to be taken in the lying of Christ in the graue 13. Christ rose againe 14. And so shall all other men 16. Some deny the Resurrection 17. Reasons and examples proouing it 21. That we should prepare our selues against the time of Resurrection Ionah 1.17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow vp Ionah and Ionah was in the belly of the fish three dayes and three nights BY this time you may see a very great difference of the seuerall estates wherein our Prophet hath bene for first he was at land and there he could not keep him afterward he was on shipboord and there he might not keepe him but now he is in the sea in the belly of a fish and there he shall not chuse but keepe him vntill that himselfe be most weary of it God hath a certaine fish in a readinesse for to receiue him which for the space of one three dayes must lodge him In discoursing whereof I thinke it not necessary to dispute that question which hath bene mooued in this argument by very learned men that is whether that the preparing of this fish for the Prophet were the new creating of that which was not before which must intend that at the same instant of time a creature of purpose should be made to swallow him and deuoure him There needed no such matter for there were in the sea fishes inough to serue the turne and the Lord had one of those at hand to fulfill his designement Much rather the power of the Creator is here to be noted whose authority ouer his creatures is such and so absolute that in
yeelding them dry footing as if it had bene on the land when they were so pursued and made after by the chariots and horsemen of the Egyptians How fitly vnto my purpose was the daughter of king Pharao brought forth and put in mind to pity poore drowning Moses How was the iaw-bone of the asse made ready to be as a sword for Samson wherewith he slue so many Philistines and how was one of the teeth thereof prepared to yeeld him drinke when he fainted So admirable is the Lord in the assistance of his Saints that one thing or another shall be borne to do them good in their bitter extremitie as if it were made onely for that purpose There be few which haue liued many yeares and in Christian meditation contemplated in themselues on the kindnesse of their God who know not this ouer and ouer Such comforts and such stayes arising by such meanes as themselues could not conceiue of vntill they see things done Oh the loue of God inestimable oh his straunge wayes for our good The wicked on the one side may feare his hand who can raise such meanes to perplexe them and the faithfull on the other side may embrace his mercy who hath such helpes at need and both of them may stand amased and wonder at his power who hath his instruments euermore so ready 5 I know not whether in our Prophet is more to be respected Gods punishment or his protection If we thinke vpon his drowning he doth fauour him since he had at hand a great fish to receiue him so that he did not perish If we thinke of the time and place where he lay and how long that is in the dungeon of that fishes belly for three dayes and three nights it doth double and often multiply Gods angry wrath vpon him The euent doth giue this testimony that since Ionas howsoeuer at the first he fell was appointed and predestinated to good and not to euill his deliuerance was as readie as his chastisement was for him one hand to cast him downe another to helpe him vp when the ship might not any longer containe him the fishes bellie was in steede of a sea-vessell to bring him on toward Niniue But in the meane while his lying was such in so many dreades and horrours and anguishes for his life nay for doubte of the life eternall because wrath was vpon him which endangered his best part euen his inward man and his soule that many deaths had bene easier then a languishing in that prison where now he had his best repose So sowre a thing is sinne and disobedience to the Lord. It may be sweete in the mouth but it is bitter in the belly like a cup of deadly poyson Certainely it is a daughter of those Locustes which haue faces faire as men but killing stings in their tailes It is pleasure with too much paine sweete meate with too sharpe sauce And therefore it may well be likened to that herbe Sardonia in Sardinia of the which Solinus writeth that it maketh the eaters thereof to looke as if they laughed but in their laughing they dye Thus Ionas is preserued but to testifie Gods displeasure in the meanes of his preseruation he endureth full many sorowes Let vs now see if you please what that was whereby God so wrought for him The Lord prepared a great fish to swallow 6 In the Hebrew it is a great fish but it is not added of what kinde or species this fish was Our Sauiour Christ doth briefly touch this storie and there the Euangelist in the Greeke doth vse the word Ketos which although sometimes like to the Latine Cete it be applied to diuerse sorts of great fishes yet properly it noteth that one who is the king of fishes and ruler of the sea Balaena the great whale and it is euermore so Englished in that text A fish which in diuerse seas is of seuerall shapes and fashions as in the Indian Oceane in the red sea neare Arabia in the Northren waters toward Island and in our English Oceane but euery where verie huge and euery where very mighty And so this had neede to be who had so wide a mouth as to receiue the Prophet who had so large a throate as to swallow him and not hurt him who had so vaste a paunch as to lodge him there and not stifle him A matter to some men incredible that among all liuing creatures should be any so capacious but so vndoubtedly a knowne truth to men that liue neare the sea or that haue trauelled much by ship and a verity so confirmed so consented vpon by all who haue read the writers either olde or new vpon that argument that he were a man much absurde who would make question of it They all agree that at sea there are fishes farre exceeding the greatest beast on land And thereof particularly Olaus Magnus doth assigne these reasons the abundance of the moysture which is fit to dilate and increase any liuing creature and the very great depth vvhere is both store of foode and safe meanes to escape such other fishes as are ready to hurt them They farther adde that the Elephant is but little when he is compared with these water-monsters That the bellies and mouthes and throtes of some fishes are so spacious that a man may well be receiued in by them Gulielmus Rondeletius who hath taken great paines in displaying the proportions and qualities of fishes as appeareth in that excellent worke of Gesner De Aquatilibus for those two are oft ioyned together reporteth of a little small fish in comparison of a whale which he calleth by the name of Lamia that in the Mediterrane sea some of those haue oftentimes bene found hauing a whole man swallowed into each of their bellies Yea he telleth that neare vnto Marseilles an auncient city oâ— Fraunce there haue bene found of them which haue had within them virum loricatum a man in some kind of armour So huge-bellied is this fish which commeth not neare to the great ones 7 But for the whale it selfe if any list to reade of the bignesse of it and should esteeme that too much Pliny speaketh positiuely that in the Indian seas there are some of two hundred cubites in length and the same Pliny out of the bookes of Iuba that in the seas neare Arabia haue bene seene some of foure hundred cubites for so much is sixe hundred feete which also Munster deliuereth to vs in the fifth of his Cosmography then let him heare what Dion a good Historien doth lay downe of certainty in his fifty and fourth booke and that is that in the dayes of Augustus sometimes Emperour of Rome a whale leaped to the land out of the Germane Ocean full twenty foote in breadth and threescore foote in length This was so bigge a body as might well receiue the Prophet But adde to this what I find in Gesner taken
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
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
pleasure to be so detained there but when he began to stirre it felt it selfe ouercharged and could last out no longer And in my iudgement the Metaphore which is vsed here in the type doth expresse this in Christ Iesus for the Originall hath it Vajake eth-Ionah which Vajake comming of Ko with Aleph in the end signifying Vomere is as much as if it were said the fish did vomite vp Ionas the qualitie of which word Vomite doth imply that which I haue spoken For when the stomake of any liuing thing hath receiued that which either for the weaknesse of it selfe or by reason of the strength of the meat it hath no power to digest it doth cast it vp and vomite The hardnesse for digestion of that which is the ingredient or the weaknesse of the part receiuing more then it ought doth cause that euacuation The case was so with death and the graue when they receiued Christ. 8 It was no common meat which it had taken into it but that which it was impossible should be concocted by it not an ordinarie man but one who had no fellowes His body was but a bait to entise the graue to swallow him but vnderneath was the hooke of eternitie and that Godhead which caught both graue and death and made them glad to put vp such a one out of their bowels Faine they were to be rid of him because he did ouerbeare them The Godhead raised him vp loosed the sorrowes of death because it was impossible that he should be holden by them When Samson was disposed he brake the cordes and ropes wherewith he was tyed they fittered and dissolued euen as the flaxe which is burnt with the fire he rent off the gates of Azzah and postes and barres and all and putting them on his shoulders he caried them whither he pleased So when Christ was disposed be shooke off the graue-clothes from him and bore vp all before him the rocke which was about him and the stone which was vpon him resigned their strength vnto him and he commeth foorth victorious as a Champion who had slept or a Giaunt refreshed with wine As a tamed Lyon he had suffered death and Satan and the infernall spirits for a time to play with him and disgrace him and haue some hand vpon him but when it seemed good vnto him he rowzed vp his bodie and roaring in his might this he renteth and that he teareth he knappeth their chaines in sunder and maketh them glad to fly happie he who could get farthest The whale was not so glad to part here with our Ionas as the earth was with our Iesus Here the drowned man is restored there the dead man is reuiued being the first fruite of the resurrection 9 As he dyed so we shall dy and as he rose againe so we also need not doubt but we shall rise againe Onely he did it by his owne power but we not by our owne force but by the power of him The head is gone before the members shall follow after Many of them that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall awake some to euerlasting life and some to shame and perpetuall contempt Gods children shall be translated into a better state recouering the same puritie which was giuen to Adam in Paradise where he was after the image of God in innocencie and integritie But first by death they must be beate in sunder and knocked in peeces that so they may be remoulded and new cast by the workeman not onely to their old figure but to a better forme in the day of the resurrection But as their captaine was so must they first by death be dissolued and separated that their bodies may be refined and made a great deale better When we plucke downe a house this is Saint Chrysostomes comparison meaning to build it new or repaire the ruines of it we withdraw such from the house as inhabited it before lest they should be soyled with the dust or offended with the noise and bid them for a time to rest in some other place but when we haue new trimmed and dressed it wee bring them backe againe to a better habitation So God when he ouer-turneth the rotten roome of our flesh calleth out the soule for a little and lodgeth it with himselfe in some corner of his kingdome but repaireth the brackes of our bodie against the resurrection and then hauing made it decent yea glorions and incorruptible hee doth put the soule backe againe into her acquainted mansion He hath determined this concerning vs that dust shall recouer breath and rottennesse shall haue life against all Atheists and Epicures there shall be a resurrection But I pursue this no farther because in the end of the first Chapter I handled it at large 10 If in another sence we will turne the present example to the benefite of our selues this giueth great consolation to the deiected conscience which groneth vnder the waight of her sinnes Such things as are written are written for our learning This wretched suffering man had displeased the Lord most grieuously For the haynousnesse of his fault wrath was gone out against him The Lord would not be satisfied but with drowning and deuouring in the belly of such a monster where the feare of death and almost the paines of hell were vpon him The passions of his heart had bene desperate and distrustfull if faith had not come to the rescue Yet we see that he did not perish but when his woe was passed ouer him he came to good againe God did but giue signification as small a thing as might be as if a man should nodde or winke vpon another and his sorrowes are shaked off from him he is set aliue on the land If griefe do assault our minds that we thinke our hearts will breake if temptation haue so rent vs that we suppose wee are all to shiuers if pangs of desperation with remembraunce of sinnes past haue beate faith so out of countenance that wee see no way but our soules must be a pray to Sathan yet there is hope with God and mercie with the Highest He bringeth men to the doore of death but he doth not turne them in Or he putteth them into the pit that they are halfe way downe to the bottome but his hand goeth along with them and suddenly in a trice he draweth them backe againe If we be within the iawes of Sathan he putteth a gagge in his mouth that it shall not close vpon vs. It is neuer too late for him to helpe while life and soule hang together He who bid the dust become Adam and Adam was made of dust he who spake to the graue and bad Lazarus come foorth from it and Lazarus came out of the graue he who commaunded the fish to loose Ionas and Ionas was loosed in a moment This Lord if he speake to hell or diuell or all the feends of darknesse they shall not dare once to
touch thee but thou shalt escape from their clutches as a bird from the snare How much lesse shall mortall man oppresse thee or triumph ouer thee if it be he that doth vexe thee God doth but cast an eye vpon thee and the mist before the Sunne can not be dispersed so suddenly as thy sorrow and heauinesse In steed of sadnesse ioy and mirth shall compasse thee embrace thee If once his refreshing spirit cast but an aspect vpon thee thou art as safe as thy selfe wouldest euer desire to be Onely to win God hereunto be thou sorie for thy transgression and grieue at thine owne iniquitie If thou haue fallen with Dauid spare not to sing with Dauid a Psalme of Miserere if thou haue offended with Peter with Peter go thou foorth and cease not to weepe bitterly With Ionas pray and call and thou shalt be deliuered A comparison betweene the Prophet and Arion 11 Looke what hath bene spoken hitherto may manifestly be gathered by the plaine words of my text and therefore as you haue seene I haue passed it very briefly But pondering farther on this Scripture and looking nearer into it yea withall comparing it with some things of the Gentiles it seemeth vnto me to offer a farther doctrine For thinking with my selfe how strangely those mariners who in the Chapter before threw him into the sea and made account they had drowned him would looke vpon him if they met him any where afterward as that was no impossible matter maruelling how he should liue whom they left in the sea and how he should be at land whom they cast into the water and there relinquished him remedilesse and past hope I called to mind the narration of Arion in Herodotus who being said to be throwne into the Ocean by mariners and supposed by them to be drowned was afterward seene at Corinth in the court of Periander to the great amazement of them who before had consented to his death And I thought of this the rather because Saint Austen in his first booke De ciuitate Dei doth compare this storie of Ionas vnto that of Arion reproching the Gentiles that whereas they would not beleeue this which was written of our Prophet yet they would giue credite to that which their Poets and other writers reported of Arion Whereupon conferring yet farther the likenesse of these two matters although not in euery circumstance yet in the mainest points I could not but suspect that the Greeke tale of the one meant the Hebrew truth of the other And therein I imagined that the Musitian of the Gentiles was the Israelite mentioned here although the storie were peeced vp with another narration after the custome of the Heathens in dealing with the Scriptures And moreouer the note of a learned interpreter writing vpon this place did further this opinion who nameth our Ionas here Arion Christianus the Arion of the Christians I find also that this report is very auncient among the Greekes and therefore might well sort with the antiquitie of the Prophet Now as if we will allow this to be true it doth yeeld vs fruitfull doctrine fit to be handled in this place before so learned and iudicious an auditorie so being otherwise that is vntrue and false it is also worthie of our consideration and therefore giue me leaue to speake a little vnto it You shall see anon to what end 12 Herodotus in his Clio hath a narration to this purpose that Arion a skilfull harper going from Greece his owne countrey into Italy there and in Sicilia by the excellencie of his musicke had gained a great deale of money Being now desirous with his wealth to returne againe to Corinth to his old Prince Periander he found a vessell at Tarentum which belonged to certaine ship-men of Corinth who were returning home and with them he agreeth for his fare When they had him at sea being men of ill conditions and desirous of his money they intended to drowne him He now in this perill maketh request for his life but when nothing would serue those hard-hearted persons but that such must be his doome he begged this fauour of them that yet before he died he might cloth himselfe with his best clothes which being done he taketh his harpe and singing and playing to it a most melodious song then threw himselfe into the sea There a Dolphin a kind of fish delighted as it seemeth with the musicke doth vndertake him and ceassed not to beare him on her backe till it landed him safe at Taenarus whence he going to Periander the tyrant then raigning at Corinth so apparelled as he was when he came out of the water informeth him of all the matter who beleeued it not till at length sending for the selfe same mariners who were arriued in his countrey and shewing them Arion who vpon the sight of him were exceedingly amazed as indeed they had great cause he learned that all was so This saith Herodotus is reported at Lesbos and at Corinth and at Taenarus there is a very great image made of brasse which is a man sitting on a Dolphin and that image was set vp there by Arion This tale with all his circumstaunces is so common among the auncient that Plinie and Plutarke and Ouid and Gellius both do report it at large and Plinie giueth other examples that Dolphines couching downe their pinnas their sinnes which as he seemeth to say go all along their backes haue caried diuerse other ouer the water and so saued them 13 If I shall giue my iudgement concerning this I do not at all doubt but that it is a fable The diuersitie of the report which is among the auncient doth argue the vncertaintie For although the most record it to be one Dolphines doing one that caried him all the while yet Plutarke hath it otherwise that they were diuerse Dolphines which caried him in the sea meaning belike by turnes or many at once supporting him So they agree not in the manner But whether it were one or many why did not the mariners see it that it was so straunge a thing vnto them when they met him on the land If he went aboue the water they of likelyhood might haue spied him and so made some shift to vnhorse him if it were vnder the water how came it about that he was not drowned in all that time The auncient full well saw that this was but a fained thing That made Suidas in Arion to say nothing of the fish nor his escape from drowning although he haue other things of him Strabo in his thirteenth booke saith plainely it is a fable The late writers thinke no otherwise and hold these tales of Plinie to be but fained matters and they giue this reason for it because the nature of Dolphines and of all other fishes as also of all other creatures is the same in our dayes which it was in ages long agone but since those auncient
times we heare not of any Dolphine which delighted in Musicke or saued any man in the sea or caried any ouer the water Besides that Rondeletius whose worke is many times ioyned with Gesners denieth that a Dolphine hath any such sinnes as they in old time did describe him to haue for that saith he there is onely one in his backe and it is not all along him which may be thought vnfit to beare a man But imagine that it were true which Plinie hath concerning them yet his speech is that they were brought to that custome by much practise and feeding them with bread which agreeth with the qualities of that straunge fish Matum which the Historian Peter Martyr reporteth to haue bene in the West Indies But how could this acquaintance with men and feeding by hand happen to this fish of Arion who was found at al-aduenture in the midst of the Mediterrane sea 14 Neither doth the report at Lesbos any whit confirme this tale For who knoweth not that euery countrie hath straunge reports of it selfe which by the common sort are reputed for great truths If we looke on our owne land how many things haue bene said of King Arthure and of the Prophet Merlin who although they may haue in them some ground of truth which I will not stand to dispute yet questionlesse much vanitie is mixed there withall We need no better example then the selfe same Herodotus who although in his positiue declarations he be held a good Historian and therefore is named by Tully Historiae pater the father of storie yet in his by-digressions by heare-saies and reports he hath so many vntruths that by other men he is termed with a censure too too gauling mendaciorum pater the father of lyes That such fames haue gone for currant euen among Christians the words of Paule to Timothie and Titus may shew where he speaketh of fables and Iewish fables and of old wiues fables also Now for the picture or image of the Dolphin and the man sitting vpon it that doth make a great deale lesse for inuentions and wrong deuises are wrought as well as truthes by painters and image-makers Saint Austen telleth how the Gentiles reported that Christ was a sorcerer and that he did his workes by Magicke and because they had seene Iesus in windowes painted with Peter and Paule standing by him they gaue out that hee wrote vnto them some things concerning Magicke not knowing saith Saint Austen that Paule was conuerted to the faith somewhat after Christs death But he maketh this conclusion vpon them Thus haue they deserued to erre who haue sought Christ and his Apostles not in holy bookes but in painted wals and windowes That which he iudged in a matter of farre greater importance that I may say of this A picture or image is not an argument of an approoued truth although Maister Campian do call such in church windowes for witnesses of the veritie of his cause So the song which is now extant and said to be Arions is as weake a proofe as any for why might not another man beleeuing the tale to be true put it out in his name Yea peraduenture if hee did not beleeue it as in Poets we haue many speeches fayned on other mens persons Then we may gather that either the narration is altogether fabulous or if he were so throwne by any into the water that another shippe intercepted him the badge whereof was a Dolphin as in the Actes of the Apostles the badge of that shippe wherein Paule sayled was Castor and Pollux And thereupon together with the inuention of Antiquitie grew the fable as some other haue imagined 15 To apply this somewhat nearer to my bresent purpose and to a true vse in Diuinitie if there were any such matter of the Dolphin and Arion as I in no sort do beleeue it we must hold it for a miracle wrought by the Diuell who by the Lords permission hath false wonders of his as God hath true of his Christ saith that false Christes and false Prophets shall shew great signes and wonders so that if it were possible they should deceiue the very elect The beast in the Reuelation doth bring fire downe from heauen When Moses was in Egypt the sorcerers had their sleights wrought by the finger of Sathan Eusebius speaketh of straunge deedes done by the Diuell and by Magicke Saint Austen in his tenth booke De ciuitate Dei doth attribute such credite to the stories of the Romanes that he thinketh that the Troiane Penates which were a kind of images did go from place to place and that Tarquine with a razor Liuie saith it was Actius Nauius did cut a whetstone in peeces and other such like things named there but he addeth that these were done by the power of infernall spirits So in his booke De Vnitate Ecclesiae speaking of miraculous matters he maketh this diuision of them Let these things be set aside being either fained inuentions of lying men or monstrous actes of cousining spirits supposing that some strange reports were fained and inuented by men and some other things were indeed brought about and effected by the Diuell If we would hold this of the Musitian in Herodotus for a truth then it teacheth vs this doctrine that as an Ape is the imitatour of man in his acts and gestures so is Sathan the Ape of God to follow him in his powerfull workes But how farre doth he come short of the originall which he looketh at He followeth him indeed but it is non passibus aequis with very vnequall steppes He seeth that God is mightily glorified in doing such straunge and rare deedes as he pleaseth and he will study to do the like that himselfe also may be glorified among the sonnes of darkenesse As the Lord shall haue his Ionas to be spoken of euery where so he will haue his Arion both of them throwne downe into the sea and both saued by a fish 16 Hence it is that we haue so many arguments of his suttle imitation God hath appeared like an Angell and Satan transformeth himselfe into an Angell of light God rayned stones on the enemies of Iosuah when they fled before him from the battell and Liuie writeth of credit that in the time of the Romane wars with Hannibal it rained stones for two dayes together on the hill called Mons Albanus So Hirtius that great welwiller of Iulius Caesar doth write that when Caesar was personally present in his wars in Africa very stones fell on the armie as it vseth to haile God rayned Manna from heauen and fire and brimstone vpon Sodome the one to helpe the other to hurt So the stories of the Romanes do mention that it rayned bloud and rayned flesh and wooll too saith Orosius in the dayes of the Emperour Valentinian and milke other such stuffe which as the learned do gather were
of that learned man I hold it to be very lawfull to obserue those seuen and twelue for the one and for the other So he saith that the veile in the Tabernacle of blew silke and purple and scarlet and fine linnen did intend the foure elements and he giueth good reason for that And the same is also the opinion of Saint Hierome Here to compare foure and foure hath a naturall vse in discoursing of the elements the good creatures of God Nay it will not do amisse if by a farther allusion we shall make application thus that as we reade in Exodus that the veyle made of those foure things did hang betweene the holy place whither the Priests did come to offer and the Sanctum Sanctorum the Holy of Holyes where the presence of God was so that they who stoode in the one could not behold the other vntill the veyle which was betweene them were rent or remooued So the holyest man that is euen the very Priest at the altar cannot see God as he should in the high abode of his holinesse vntill that his flesh and bodie which are made of those foure elements be torne off and remooued away by death and by the graue This or the like about numbers may be thought to be naturall and not strayned so that I dare not determine against it as also against nothing else which apparantly hath true and proper vse of doctrine or due application But I leaue to your consideration whether the authour of the booke De Spiritu sancto who sometimes but not rightly is supposed to be Saint Cyprian or other like to him do keepe close within these bounds when he especially magnifieth the number of seuen aboue other because it consisteth of three and foure where saith he three shew the three persons of the Trinitie and foure noteth the foure elements which intendeth that God who is signified in the mysterie of the Trinitie is caried with a loue ouer his creatures who are figured in the compasse of the foure elements A man may go too farre And this I haue obserued by reason of Saint Hieromes note vpon this place concerning fortie which I hold to be not vnfit for this auditorie because it is few times touched But now for the benefite of the vnlearned I come to doctrine which is more morall 8 When God giueth the Niniuites fortie dayes to bethinke themselues it implyeth his exceeding mercie who as he was very louing to them when he sent them warning of their destruction so is his loue more abundant when he giueth them space of repentance that they might turne away his wrath which was to breake out against them The prayer of the Leuites is true Thou art a God of mercies gracious and full of compassion of long suffering and of great mercie And so is that of Dauid The Lord is full of compassion and mercie slow to anger and of great kindnesse We can neuer sufficiently admire his bearing patience That citie which for the manifold euill of it had deserued to haue perished in one day shall haue a day and a day and fortie dayes of grace to purge it selfe if it will The tree which bore no fruit shall haue this yeare of probation and the next yeare of expectation and shall be pruned and dounged before it be cut downe So that Lord who is iealous in his anger is yet a mild God in his suffering It is obserued in men that they are long in making any thing but very quicke in marring of it A house built in a yeare may be plucked downe in a moneth A castle which hath bene long in setting vp by mining and powder may be blowne vp in a moment A citie whom many ages haue but brought to her beautie is consumed in a little time by fire put to it of the enemie Onely God is quicke in making but pawseth vpon destroying he commeth not but by steppe after steppe and when he should strike he stayeth and turneth and looketh away and will not roote vp till iustice can no longer endure He made the heauen in a day and might haue done in a moment but Niniue that one citie shall haue fortie dayes to breath in before her ruine come The Sunne and Moone and starres had but one day for their creation but man had warning for a hundred and twentie yeares before the comming of the floud in the time of Noe and Hierusalem shall haue admonishment by the Scriptures before the appearaunce of Christ by Iohn the Baptist afterward by our Sauiour personally and when they haue killed that iust one yet fortie yeares shall passe ouer before that it be quite destroyed Sixe dayes made the whole world but almost sixe thousand yeares haue beene affoorded to it before that the end ouertake it Thus iustice in many cases is if not swallowed and deuouted vp yet much shadowed by mercie which sometimes ouer-weigheth it and other times ouer-layeth it when it is readie to rise preuenting it and holding it downe And there be few of vs who may not feele this proposition true in our selues 9 If we looke vpon our own land how may we breake out and say that pitie and compassion haue abounded on vs from him See whether he hath not lent vs as many yeares to repent as he did dayes to Niniue when the infinit prouocations wherwith we haue prouoked him in hypocrisie in luke-warmnesse in gluttony and in wantonnesse in securitie and vnthankfulnes haue called on him for a shorter time Seueritie might haue said Fortie yeares I haue bene grieued or contended with this generation yet clemeÌ„cie stayeth that speech He lent not so much time to our fathers next before vs his mercie did straine it selfe to affoord sixe yeares to them of free passage of his word vâ—der his gracious instrument King Edward whose memorie liâ—e for euer and yet that was encombred with seditions of the subiect and tumults of the Commons as also with much hurrying and banding of the Nobilitie But concerning our time the question may be whether is more to be admired the greatnesse or the goodnesse the length which is very memorable or the varietie of those blessings which we do little conceiue because we most enioy them euen as no man noteth the benefit of the ayre whereon we breath because we haue store of it and yet nothing is more precious then it or nearer to life it selfe So in a common generalitie God doth beare with vs all But farther if each man will take the paines to looke on himselfe in priuate he may say that he hath had his fortie dayes oft-times told together with Niniue our citie here Saint Bernard in one of his Sermons shall speake that which I do meane The mercie and expectation of the Lord is great toward thee for when the Angell had offended he stayed not at all for him but threw him downe to hell and when Adam transgressed
the same fountaine of sorrow teares that with many grones of heart and much weeping of the eyes and many hands lift vp the long suffering God might be mooued to compassion And if this did not suffice then his farther desire was that the emptinesse of the reasonable creatures and hunger of the vnreasonable ones euen the oxen and sheepe and cattell which should breake foorth into bellowing bleating and out-crying might extort and wring foorth commiseration For I may well vse that speech in the same sence that the kingdome of heauen is said to suffer violence And therefore taking counsell of his most honorable Nobles and Princes and Senatours he putteth foorth an Edict and most solemne Proclamation through the streetes of the citie that euery mothers child be it male or be it female young or old or bond or free should enter into abstinence and put on sackcloth and pray but especially with a hatred should turne away from sinne And to make the stronger out-cry in the eares of the Almightie reuenger the brute beastes should be vrged by the pinching of their bellies to make a rufull noyse that these conioyned complaints might preuaile and work out mercie A good consideration of a heathen man which as a glasse may be set before vs who be Christians by profession and may also teach vs something which is very well worth the learning Which that we may vnderstand with better facilitie may it please you to consider with me first the induction to the Proclamation which is here proposed by the Spirit of God that is by a double circumstance one that he proclaimed through Niniue the other that he did it by consent of his Nobles And secondly the Edict or Proclamation it selfe These I am now to lay open to you as the Lord shall inable me He proclaymed 3 It is for no small matters that Princes and mightie rulers are set ouer people and countries and cities not alone to braue it in pompous apparell or by externall helpes to make shew of maiestie for the most coward the veriest foole yea an image may in great sort performe this But there is required of them a superuising care and diligent respect that their people should do well By doing well I meane haue welfare and prosperitiâ— and be free from plagues and punishments So Moyses being in the wildernesse did exceedingly desire that the Lords blessing might abound vpon his people and so also did Dauid when in the time of the deuouring pestilence he said vnto his maker I haue sinned yeâ— I haue done wickedly but these sheepe what haue â—hey done But principally I vnderstand by doing well that they should do their dutie walke in feare of their maker serue him with their heart be informed in true religion pursue that which is vertuous flye from idolatrie and sinne See how great the care of Iosuah was that the children of Israel euen after his death should sticke fast to the Lord and not do as the Gentiles but keepe their faith entirely So Dauid by his owne example stirreth vp his subiects to offer part of their riches to the building of the Temple yea calleth on them by plaine words and when he seeth it willingly done he taketh much comfort in it And which is most of all he prayeth the God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel still to keepe that deuotion in the minds of his people and to prepare their hearts vnto him In another place the deuout mind of Iehosaphat is liuely expressed who sent abrode his Princes and his Leuites ioyned with them that first they might teach the men of Iuda the law of Moyses and the Scripture that so they might know the way to walke vprightly and holily and then afterward his Iudges to see whether they liued according to their knowledge And there was neuer King who was commended in the Scripture or by iust and true desert in Christian common-wealth but he did take such a course They who failed in this may be thought to faile in all for this is the very scope wherefore Kings are ordained 4 It is no question in holy Writ but that the Lord requireth â—hat euery man should embrace and frame himselfe to his commaundement but he hath solemnely appointed the Monarkes of the earth to see this to be done He hath committed the charge of their inferiours to them and doth expect from theÌ„ such executions and accomplishments as may bring the neckes of their subiects vnder the yoke of Christ. Therfore he hath armed them with the highest authoritie therefore he hath giuen them the helpe of wise aduisers therefore oftentimes he enricheth theÌ„ with graces extraordinarie partly being carefully infused by education and partly immediatly inspired by his goodnessed that so they may be able to foresee with wisedome what the common sort do not thinke of and to discerne with iudgement and to preuent with diligence and with violence to restraine from enormities and obliquities And to remember them thereof he giueth them titles accordingly as rulers that they may rule them with a faithfull and true heart which cannot be done but by teaching them obedience to the highest ruler So fathers of the people that as parents are bound to traine vp their children in the feare of the Lord and by naturall affection to worke them all happinesse that may be and intend them all good so these should do to their subiects who are placed vnder their gouernment In like sort they are called shepheards â—o watch ouer them to keepe them from the wolues and foxes of heresie of idolatrie and schisme of Satanicall resolutions and to better their pasture as conueniencie may yeeld The heathen Poet did vse this name to Agamemnon his King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Agamemnon the shepheard of the people But they are put in mind of their duâ—ie by nothing more significantly then by calling them heads whereby he letteth them know not so much that they are placed vppermost in the bodie but how they are placed why they are placed that is with eares to heare what is good for all the bodie with smelling and tasting to choose what is wholesome with the toung to speake what will helpe or what will hurt but especially with the eyes to see a great way off which way the feete should walke the stomacke should be releeued the bodie should be cherished and euer to thinke that the rest of the parts are so vnited to it that all make but one in the coniunction of the whole God doth require this of the heads of lands and nations that in the middest of daunger they should not be winking with drowsie eyes but see what is comming and withdrawing themselues withdraw their people also And there is no one thing which he will so seuerely exact of them in the day of iudgement as an accompt for this For albeit there must be a reckening for the actions of themselues
not beate the ayre nor spend our spirits in vaine but although our selues be weake yet we shall make others strong and although we our selues be poore yet we shall make others rich We shall raze the forts of ignorance and ouerturne the holds of sinne we shall bring persons and places as stubborne and as stoute as euer was mightie Niniue to compunction and remorse to fasting and lamentation For the force of that word is great which commeth from the most high maiestie of the Almightie and especially when it is vttered with a zeale which is mixed with sober discretion and when Gods honour is principally shot at by the speaker and his omnipotencie is throughly sollicited with frequent and holy prayer to giue a blessing to the labour And what a ioy is it to be an instrument not contemptible in sauing the soules of men to haue had a peece of a finger in completing that for which Christ Iesus came from heauen Lord send vs thy best direction that we may make conscience of our calling that nothing do abash vs or detaine vs in the exercise of our vocation but that with an vpright foote we may crosse the way of this pilgrimage that so we may be admitted to raigne with thy Sonne Christ Iesus to whom with thee and the euerlasting Spirit be glory and praise eternall Soli Deo honor To the Reader CHRISTIAN Reader hauing learned this lesson that a Minister of the Gospell is to do good in and to the Church of Christ so farrefoorth as possibly he may while he liueth in this world I do not refuse to publish to the view of many men these small labours of mine that either learned or vnlearned may reape some profite from them And if in the perusing of them thou do find either directly or by circumstance that mention is made of some things which were done or suffered now some yeares past vnderstand it for a truth that I first aduentured on the handling of this Prophecie in the yeare 1594 and brought it to an end in 99. For it is the manner of our Vniuersitie that no one man doth continually keepe and reade our English Lectures or Sermons as it is in diuerse other charges in this Realme but in as much as there be among vs many who are furnished with great gifts and graces from aboue our exercises here are supplied by sundry persons who when they haue perfourmed any of these solemne ones are not immediatly called againe but haue a conuenient space left to employ their talent in other Churches of the citie or countrie adioyning or in their priuate Colledges or where else it pleaseth God to offer them oportunitie But among other the most holy religious and fruitfull exercises in our assembly there is none in my opinion more honorable to the Almightie nor more profitable to our brethren among vs then those Lectures which with solemnitie are kept both winter and sommer on the thursday mornings early where sometimes before day-light the praises of God are by preaching sounded out in the great congregation For there euen on the working dayes not only our youth which are sent hither for good education from most places of this land are trained vp in the knowledge of godlinesse which maketh them afterward the more deuoutly able to do seruice and performe a dutie in Church and common-wealth but the elder and strongest sort by fresh and various remembrances are quickened to go forward in the way of righteousnesse the weak are comforted the straying are recalled the obstinate are conuinced and all kinds of men which will repaire thither are duly instructed It were great pittie therefore but that the reuerend godly Vice-chauncellers and chiefe gouernours of this body shold from time to time take faithfull care to perpetuate this holy seruice and businesse by stirring vp the spirits of many of their brethren with alacritie and chearefulnesse to continue this free-will offering to the Lord which he himselfe certainly will requite and alreadie in his mercie hath not left vnrewarded in many of them who haue taken paines this way There is no man that in the end loseth but gaineth by the true seruice of our Almightie maker In the turnes of this voluntarie Lecture haue the most part of these Sermons vpon Ionas bene preached which hath bene the cause that I haue bene forced to be so long in perfecting and consummating this worke But yet now that I am resolued to communicate it farther I thinke it not vnfit therein to recount those things which vpon speciall occasions of the times had their first and most direct vse before in as much as I haue warrant thereof by examples of holy Scripture where there be plentifully recorded to vs matters past and in the Sermons and Homilies of the auncient Fathers of the Primitiue Church we at this day reade mētion made of famines or pestilences or warres or vnseasonable weather or such other like occurrents from which great vtilitie may now be reaped as to teach the people for their comfort in miserie or warning in prosperitie that God dealeth by men in this age as in former times and the Minister that he shold not be blind but quick-sighted to make application to his auditorie of such benefites or punishments as are sensibly represented to his congregation The same or the like vse we may make of hearing that good or euill which lately before befell our selues or our brethren that so by things which are past as well as by the present Gods name may be glorified and our consciences religiously edified As for the most part of matters handled here be they either exhortations or applications or doctrines or refutations of any opinions Popish or otherwise erronious they haue their perpetuall commoditie and somewhat may euermore be sucked out of them In the reuoluing whereof if any man shall take profite I shall be right glad and account it a blessing of God on me that he maketh my weaknesse the meanes and instrument to build any thing be it but little in his spirituall house The Lord direct vs aright in our knowledge and vnderstanding the Lord guide our waies that we may euermore walke in his feare that passing ouer the dayes of this pilgrimage with comfort we may in the end dwell in ioyfull and euerlasting habitations Amen FINIS Hieron ad Paulinum Breues pariter longas breues in verbis longas in sententijs Luk. 11.32 Math. 12.40 Hieron in Ion. 1.3 Ionas propheta non absque periculo interpretantis totus referri ad Dominum poterit 2. Reg. 14.25 1. Reg. 17.17 Lyra in Ion. 1. Isidor in 7. Etimolog Epiphan de vitis Prophe Hieron in Praefat. in lib. Ion. In vulgata editione Iosuah 19.13 Luk. 4.25.27 1. Reg. 17 9. Ioseph Anti. lib. 8.9 Iosua 19 28. 1. Reg. 17.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Hieron in Proaemio commētarij in Ionam Epiphanius Haeresi 29. Lodou Viues de Veritate fidei lib. 3. Lyra in Ion. 1.
Sidius and wisheth him that by Art Magike he would procure down some raine or at least suffer it so to be professing that him selfe had oftentimes made triall thereof and had neuer failed in his attempt This was done and immediatly such store of rayne did folow thereupon as both releeued his men and frighted his enemies as if heauen it selfe had now conspired against them I might adde more examples of graue and learned writers who thinke that such meteors come oftentimes by such meanes 7 Iouianus Pontanus in the fifth booke of the Actes of his time hath a Narration to this purpose but a iudgement to the contrarie In that mightie quarrell betweene the kings of Arragon and the house of Aniou in Fraunce for the kingdome of Naples Ferdinandus king of Arragon did besiege Mont-dragon a towne and castle in old Campania where because the towne stood high on the top of a rocke and the season was exceeding dry he hoped that ere lōg for want of water he should winne it to his pleasure Now the inhabitants thereof being almost dead for thirst being aduised therunto by certaine Priests most wicked and vngodly persons did trie this conclusion then the which there haue bene few more irreligious or impious Stealing downe in the darke of the night through the watch which was set by the enemie they crept along the rockes euen to the sea side and all the way drew with them a Crucifixe the resemblance of Christ crucified and hanging on the crosse which first they cursed and banned with manie inchanted speeches but afterward with most execrable wordes they threw it into the sea vsing imprecations against the heauen and earth and water so to wring from them a tempest In the meane time the Priests being as wicked men as liued to satisfie the souldiers who set them on worke brought an Asse to the church doore and sung a Dirge to him as to a man now dying then they put into his mouth their Sacrament of the Altar so with funerall hymnes did burie the Asse aliue before the church doore This vngodly solemnitie was scant ended but the aire was full of clouds the sea was stirred with the wind the heauen did roare with thunder the earth did flash with lightening trees were plucked vp by the rootes the stones did rent in peeces there fell such abundance of raine that from the top of the rock whole streames did runne of water So the king missed of his purpose The Author which writeth this confessing the whole matter and describing it as I haue done doth thinke that their Magicke did not cause the raine but that it came naturally so much wet falling after so long a drowth His reason is that for such villany and blasphemie as was then vsed toward himselfe God would not send a benefite vnto men to helpe them at their need but would rather suffer them to fall into destruction 8 But that reason is not sufficient for God oftentimes doth suffer the reprobate to haue worldly things at their pleasure to harden them the more and that the delusions of Satan may be so much the stronger in them to their finall confusion It is therefore most probable that their wickednesse did so extraordinarily stirre vp that raine For when Satan hath libertie frō the Lord to do things either to blind the reprobate or to chastise the elect being fallen into sinne or to trie the faith of the best he imparteth his power with his ministers speciall instruments of his glorie these necromancers coniurers and other such like The sorcerers who shewed such sights to Pharao in Egypt do proue both these grounds to be true first that Satan oftentimes yeeldeth his power vnto his seruaunts and secondlie that God suffereth the wicked to haue their desire in many things to their greater ouerthrow To turne a rod into a serpent and riuers into bloud and to make the fish to dye for that may be collected because the text saith that the enchaunters did likewise so to bring vp frogs on the sodaine were these in truth or in shew do shew the great power of Satan which he to delude the wicked cōmunicateth with his folowers He who had leaue for the one may somtimes haue leaue for the other In the 2. to the Ephesiās Satan by the Apostle is called the prince that now ruleth in the ayre which name although it may note to vs some other thing besides yet it doth also intēd as all that write of this argumēt do vse to expound that place that in winds raine and thunder he beareth sway in the aire whē God will giue him licence But for the point of the question this is put out of controuersie by that which we reade in Iob where it is set downe that by the hand of Satan whether by witch or no I stand not to dispute for the text doth not reueale it Gods leaue going before a fire fell out of the ayre and burnt vp Iobs sheepe and seruaunts and such a wind came from the wildernesse as at one time striking all the corners of the house destroyed Iobs sonnes and daughters He hath not read the chapter or litle hath considered it who maketh doubt whether Satan there did such things or no. Gregorie vpon that place positiuelie layeth it down that the deuill hauing once receiued power of the Lord that is leaue being giuen him to the bringing about of his naughtinesse is able to stirre the elements by which word he meaneth the mouing of the fire or disturbing of the ayre And elsewhere interpreting that Behemoth spokē of in Iob to be Satan he hath these words This Behemoth who is the beginning of the waies of God whē he had leaue to tempt that holie man meaning Iob stirred vp people against him tooke away his heards of cattell fetched downe fire from heauen troubling the ayre stirred vp vvinds shaking the house ouerthrew it And that is the iudgemēt of Saint Austen writing on these wordes of the seuentie and eight Psalme He cast vpon them the fiercenesse of his anger indignation and vvrath and vexation by the sending out of euill Angels He there saith that Satan was he who sent downe the fire on Iobs cattell and more generallie telleth vs that both good and euill Angels by the permission of God may vse these visible elements to their purposes Yea Brentius himselfe in the Sermon which I named before yeeldeth such things to be done by the Diuell saying that God is the authour and gouernour of the haile and yet that for our sins it is permitted to the diuell that he may raise haile What he did in former times and especiallie to Iob he can do now also if he haue commission for it 9 When Columbus and the Christians with him arriued first in the Westerne Indies and began to plant themselues in Hispaniola and the Ilands as the authours do agree Peter Martyr Benzo and other there
arose such mightie and incredible tempests as that the like were neuer seene or heard of in that countrey There may be some other reason hereof for such things are secret to all but onely to God yet it is no sin to suppose fitly to this present questioÌ„ as some theÌ„ did coÌ„ceiue that foule spirits stirred them vp to shew their detestation to the name of Christ grieuing that to those brutish creatures who had long liued in ignoraÌ„ce he should in some sort be preached although not yet so well as he ought that the Gospell of the kingdome might be taught through all the world If it were thus yet neither doth this exaÌ„ple nor that forenamed in Iob impeach our first coÌ„cluded doctrine that God doth send the thunder that he is Lord of the winds that he sendeth down the haile and raine for he doth these things of his absolute power by the singlenesse of his own will by the sufficiencie of his nature without reference to any other But Satan and his factours worke their exploits by limitation and by leaue for they depend on the Lord and as if they were tyed in a chaine they cannot exceede one hairebredth of that which is graunted vnto them And therefore we are not to thinke that so oftentimes as men will report it such tempests are caused by meanes of ill members in any common wealth for then it should be verie often our common sort herein erre and are verie credulous or light of beleefe but sometimes this is done by them both at sea at land not vniuersally but in such special places and causes too as the Lord wil permit And some learned men say that these stormes of their raising may be easily distinguished from naturall tempests arising froÌ„ meteors both because they begin most sodainly and violently because they endure but a verie litle time Againe we are not to imagine that these things fall out so often as the diuell and his agents do desire for they are wondrous ful of mischief but theÌ„ they are wheÌ„ it pleaseth God in some measure to graunt the dispensation of them either to crosse the godly as to vexe them in their bodies or disquiet them in their minds or afflict them in their substance but neuer to touch their soules for that is not within their compasse or else to plague the reprobates and the infidels in their bodies their soules to their euerlasting perditioÌ„ He that wold see more exaÌ„ples of the working of sorcerers in this kind let him reade some places of Olaus Magnus And so I leaue this questioÌ„ 10 Not Satan in this place but God sendeth the storme on Ionas the circumstances afterward do make proofe to the ful that it was a verie great one It is termed a mighty tempest the ship was almost broken the mariners are afrayd they cry euerie man to his God they throw the wares into the sea which I shall touch more largely anon In the meane time the note here is that Ionas is the sinner but all the ship smarteth for it the mariners the maister who were not at all accessarie to this foule deede of the Prophet yet are pursued as well as he What had these poore men sinned who after the custome of their trade did let him in for his money as a passenger but medled not with his message they vnderstood not of his prophecying yea it may be that they had neuer so much as heard of Niniue Shall many smart thus for one the mariners for a straunger Here is now another question But learne here Gods hate to sin learne here his deepe and endlesse wisedome His wisedome shineth in this that oftentimes with one man he striketh a many for reasons which in themselues are very different being euermore wel knowne to his Maiestie but secret vnto vs. The partie principall he doth punish to the next he doth teach obedience the patience of the third he will haue to be tried and so forward in the rest in all he seeketh his glorie his honor in the wicked his true feare in the good If all these be whipped at once he doth no wrong to anie He that hath not sinned with Ionas yet hath sinned in somewhat else For what man is he that drinketh not in iniquitie as the water and is not found so to do if he be once brought to his triall before God All the difference then is this that their faults haue seuerall places but their punishment shall haue one Theeues are brought out of diuerse quarters at sundrie times they haue trespassed and in causes verâ—e contrarie yet they are imprisoned in one iayle and punished in one day and suffer all on one tree I doubt not for these sea-men but if all of them had bene drowned they had sufficiently deserued it although they had neuer heard of Ionas God neede not be vniust in his punishments toward man he need not seeke occasion or picke a quarrell against him 11 Piso one of the Romane Generals as Seneca De ira writeth to shew the bloudie humour which was in him commanded that a souldier should be put to death for returning without his fellow with whom he went from the campe saying that he had killed him The Captaine who had the charge to execute this poore souldier when he saw his fellow coming which had bene missed before did spare the first mans life Vpon this Piso found matter to take away the liues of all three Heare his worthie reason for it You are a man condemned saith he vnto the first my sentence was passed on you and therefore you shall die Then turning him to the second You were the cause quoth he wherefore your fellow was condemned vnto death therfore you must die And to the third You Centurion because you haue not learned to obey the voice of your Generall for companie shall die also He deuised saith Seneca how he might make three faults because he found not one The iust iudge of the skie need not deale so with vs neither needed he with these sea-men No beating of his braines to inuent an accusation our thoughts and words and deedes do yeeld him cause enough His wisedome it is to strike many for many ends In one place and with some one who is notorious for a crime to punish those whose faults haue bin in diuerse places His iustice goeth with his wisdome for he neuer doth wrong to any althogh our dul eyes do not see it For the saying is verie true that Gods iudgements although many times they be secret yet euermore they are iust 12 And here appeareth his hatred vnto a grieuous sinne Sometimes for one mans fault who is harboured by another or carelesly entertained without iust inquisition without due examination God calleth the sinnes of other to an apparant reckening to a sensible remembrance which before he seemed to forget Let Achan be the man who serueth here for an example He
seruice of the coÌ„mon wealth in humane societie be euermore to be respected what comfort can such persons who indeede are but a burthen to a land or the Citie where they dwell take to go on forward to their graues in in that which to speake of it most moderately is but doubtfull I can hardly be perswaded that the consciences of such men do alwayes conteÌ„t and satisfie themseluâ—â— I am sure that according to the proportion of their calling with his they are not able to say as the Apostle Paule sayd a little before his death I haue fought a good fight or as Beza readeth it I haue fought that excellent fight I haue finished my course and so take ioy in their calling Such men who make a life of playing vpon a stage may bethinke themselues in this reckening If you will put vnto these our common dauncing-maisters and others of like sort Mistake me not in these wordes as if I did condemne all honest recreation I dare not to do so I know the priuilege and prerogatiue is great which men aboue all the creatures of God haue if we do not abuse our libertie but it is one thing for one man after his honest labour in that trade wherein the Lord hath placed him to vse fit and moderate recreation and other thing for another to haue no other kinde of life but to make of such exercises an occupation Many kindes of businesse are warranted both by the lawes of God and men apparantly but these at least may come vnder question 10 The next demaunde here made to our Prophet is from what place he did come presuming that a maÌ„ may draw froÌ„ some places such a staine as caÌ„not be washed off but with veÌ„geance He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled vvith it Holy Ioseph being among the Aegyptians had learned new deuised oathes he could sweare by the life of Pharao Lots wife did so well like the companie which she had in Sodome that she longed to be there againe although for her labour it cost her the turning into a pillar of salt Some places are hatefull to God his people must out of Babylon The companions of the wicked are supposed to be wicked It may well be feared that the young man was a sinner of whom Salomon telleth that he went to the house of the harlot entring in thither at the twilight and comming out perhaps at the midnight It could be no great credit for Demosthenes to be seene to come from the house of Lais. It is a case well knowne that there be at Rome whole streetes of Curtisans Onely Surius to extenuate the filthinesse of the matter saith they be but the baser streets and lanes of lesse account where these honest folkes do inhabite And he holdeth it for a great praise to Pope Pius the fifth that hee brought it to that passe This multitude must haue money to maintaine theÌ„ in their abuses whereby it may be collected that many and that frequently resort vnto them Now if Christ should aske of those who returne from those places whence come you where haue you beene they might right well quake with Ionas feare his heauie iudgemeÌ„t But if it be but his holinesse the Vicar or vicegerent of Christ vpon earth the successour of Saint Peter as he merily termeth himselfe there needeth no great dread for the matter From a knowne place of your Citie from that which yeeldeth you money which you permit for tribute Rome how rightly wast thou termed by the name of the vvhore of Babylon which sufferest such abuses in open professed sort and therby giuest incouragement to some to embrace that sinne For whereas in the dayes of our old forefathers the ignorant did account it a crime to keepe a concubine now when they see that euen at Rome in the verie eye of his holinesse in the chiefe Citie of residence for Christes Vicar such matters be maintained they may thinke that now to keepe two or three is a worke meritorious the more the more meritorious But to leaue them to their filthinesse if it do so much touch our Prophet to be asked from whence he came those of the yonger sort who come to this place for learning for vertue and good instruction may reuolue this ouer and ouer If any day in the euening when they should be at home in their beddes or else quiet in their studies or if vpon the Sabaoth in seruice time or while other are at the sermon a tauerne should be their rest which doth not well agree with a long gowne how farre should they be forgetfull or blush to heare that question whence come you where haue you bin or as God spake to our forefather in the bushes where art thou Adam If there should be any such as God be praised that custome is well left how will they hereafter lament that those good houres which should and might by the Lordes good blessing be well imployed are ill and fruitlessely spent that idlenesse and vnthriftinesse yea peraduenture drunkennesse also should be that whereunto they bend their studie when in the meane while knowledge and precious learning might adorne them Time foolishly wasted can neuer be recalled and it is hard to call backe our selues when we are once growne to a custome of any euill 11 The ship-maister and his fellowes yet haue not inough of Ionas some more questions for their money They aske him of his countrey and from what people he did come God sometimes is angry with a whole laÌ„d for the wickednesse of the inhabitants The goodly fields of Sodome do find that vnto this day This also is witnessed vnto vs by the barrennesse of Palestina which was sometimes the holie land somtimes the happie land flowing with milke and hony which now answereth in no measure to the fertilitie of auncient time When sinne hath ouergrown a countrey each inhabitant feeleth a wo euen the good in temporall punishments do smart as well as the wicked For the iniquitie of their nation both Daniel and the three children together with the rest of their countrimen were led into captiuitie Some kind of people euen almost in generall are displeasing to the Lord. The Ammonites and the Moabites were litle accepted of him But Amelechs name was so cursed that the Lord would haue the remembrance of them to be rooted out from vnder the heauen Aboue all the people who liue vpon the earth the Iewes do demonstrate this doctrine to vs whose children and childrens children haue for many ages bene blinded with the grosse and grieuous sinne of their fathers who put Christ cruelly to death Other nations had their faults and so might be hatefull to men who bordered neare vpon them and they might also prouoke wrath from God S. Paule did obserue out of the Poet Epimenides that the Cretians were great lyers Now least some such generall sinne of parentage or countrey should hang
hedges to enter into his house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compell them to come in out of which text Thomas of Aquine doth conclude and resolue that men are to be enforced vnto faith Theodosius tooke this course as we reade in Sozomen when he made most seuere lawes put foorth Proclamations against all those who crossed the streame of the Christian religion and yet many of those lawes were as the same authour obserueth but onely in terrorem And that so much the more argued his religious affection that he rather sought by frights and threats to winne them then by rigorous seueritie vnlesse against his will he should be constrained to chastise them by their obstinacie and intemperate behauiour Neuer any of the Fathers of the Primititiue Church did more ponderously consider of this question then Saint Austen did and accordingly without any scruple he giueth his opinion resoluing this doubt In one place The Kings of the earth may serue Christ in making lawes for Christ. And in another The Emperours when they commaund good it is none but Christ who commaundeth by them Againe God doth not looke for the helpe of worldly warfare when he rather bestoweth it as a benefit on kings when he inspireth into them that in their kingdome they should take order that the commaundement of their Lord should be done For vnto whom was it said And now you Kings vnderstand be learned ye that are Iudges of the world And when some disliked this position in another place he speaketh fully to them They do maruell because the Christian powers are stirred vp against the detestable dissipatours and scatterers of the Church But should they not be mooued And how should they yeeld an accompt of their gouernment to God Let your charitie obserue what I speake because this pertaineth to the Christian Kings of the world that they should be willing that in their times that Church their mother of whom they are spiritually borne should be peaceable I deny not but some of the auncient who liued a little before Saint Austens time and had not experience so much in this behalfe as he had were of a different opinion and therefore they spake otherwise As Lactantius There needeth no violence and iniurie because religion cannot be enforced the matter is rather to be dealt in by words then by stripes that so there may be a will So Athanasius speaking against the Atrians who by stripes and imprisonment did seeke to draw men to their opinion It is the propertie of holy religion not to enforce but to perswade For the Lord not enforcing but leauing libertie to the will said openly to all If any of you will come after me And to his Apostles will you also be gone And so Gregorie Nazianzen I do thinke it fitter to perswade then to compell This was the iudgement of them who liuing not in times altogether so setled as God sent afterward could not haue that in-sight into this case as Saint Austen who was purposely consulted in it and more industriously did â—ift it and discusse it And that causeth him to shew that many were drawne from the Circumcellians to be good Catholikes by violence which was offered them by the Magistrates But he there requireth that there should be teaching ioyned to terror and not most grieuous punishment to be inflicted without instruction But to my point He who bindeth a frantike man and rowzeth him vp who is sicke of a lethargie although he be troublesome to both yet he loueth both And elsewhere If any lawes be made against you speaking of the Donatistes who obiected that it was not in any man to enforce their wils to his religion you are not by them compelled to do well but you are forbidden to do ill For no man can do well vnlesse he choose to do so vnlesse he loue it which consisteth in free-will but the feare of punishments albeit yet it hath not the delight of a good conscience yet at the least it restraineth euill lustes within the closet of the thoughts And once more When God will stirre vp the Magistrates against heretikes against schismatikes against wasters of the Church against such as would blow off Christ against blasphemers of Baptisme let them not wonder because God raiseth them vp that Agar may be beaten by Sara If any man would yet see farther in this learned Father concerning that opinion he may find in his Retractations that wheras once himselfe had beene minded that it did not belong to the Magistrate to compell men to the communion of the Orthodoxe vpon sounder experience and more aduised consideration he doth plainly retract it VpoÌ„ all which we hold for an vndoubted truth that the Prince hath a power in commanding proclaiming for God Gods religioÌ„ all exercise of the same which as you haue heard I haue gathered from that act of the king of Niniue imposing vpon his a fast by open Proclamation 8 Then to returne to him in the next place it is said that the Edict which was made was by aduise of his Nobles As that which was said before doth import vnto vs his zeale so this implieth his wisedome that to direct himselfe he refuseth not good counsell to purchase the more authoritie he ioyned in his stile his counsellers and great officers And in ciuill affaires what can be more iudicious then to hearkeÌ„ to the wise then to listen vnto many Many eyes see more then one many eares heare more theÌ„ one many minds coÌ„ceiuing diuersly do vtter most of vnderstaÌ„ding where counsel is not saith SalomoÌ„ there the people shal fal but health is where are many counsellers And without counsell thoughts come to nothing but in multitude of counsellers there is stablenesse And againe Thoughts are strengthened by counsels and by counsels are warres to be taken in hand The impression of this matter hath wrought with all men of worth with Dauid with Salomon whose Nobles and great captaines were at hand with their instructions yea hath had place in all estates as the Ephori in Sparta the Areopagites in Athens the Senatours in Rome did make manifest in old time and in our age there is not the Russe but hath his solemne Senate not the Turke but hath his Bassas who at all turnes may informe him Now as that land is happie where the Princes eate in time for strength and not for drunkennesse that is are sober and temperate so blessed is that Prince who hath such men about him as may be right hands not left hands men faithfull and fearing God wise persons and hating couetousnesse otherwise himselfe and all doth easily run to ruine Ahaziah the king of Iuda had a mother and other kinsfolkes who were of the house of Ahab for his counsellers which turned in the end to his destructioÌ„ Ioas is ill aduised by the great men of his kingdome which
drew him to idolatrie brought sinne vpon him all the land besides Roboams case is well knowne what good greene heads did to him Few kings haue stoode vpright when they haue leaned on crooked proppes It sheweth that they are weake when they cannot find the deprauednesse or infirmitie of the other but if themselues were able men yet hauing none about them but silly or corrupted ones or carelesse or vnfaithfull persons many things must needes run to wracke if men reputed wise haue conceiued things aright Lampridius in the life of Alexander Seuerus citeth this out of the works of Marius Maximus as an approoued truth that the state is better a great deale safer wherin the Prince is naught if the Counsellers who be about him be good then that wherin the friends of the Prince be euill men although himself be good for one who is amisse may easily be corrected by many which are right but when many are depraued it is hard for one to rectifie thē Thē it is wel with that Prince who being for his own part vertuously minded hath other vertuous ones to assist him 9 I might amplifie this by the example of Iustinus the Emperour spoken of by Euagrius who being growne into much miserie imputeth the cause of it to his Magistrates and those great men who were about him but my purpose is rather to remember that the highest should much depend vpon good counsell and not thinking themselues to be disgraced thereby as not being selfe-sufficient but to repute it their greatest honour to heare as well as to speake That which the Romane Minutius said of himselfe and Fabius is very true that the best thing is to giue counsell and he is but next the best who can take it when other giue it but he is a most miserable man who can neither giue nor take He is not the most eminent whose weakenesse is such that he must onely follow other men but since none here can be absolute as it is the highest glorie to giue so to take it is no dishonour Who was euer among the Romans more gracious for his person or glorious for his actes then Scipio Africanus and yet as Plutarke writeth he so vsed his faithfull and true friend Laelius for his counseller that some spared not to say that Laelius was the Poet and penner of all the play and Scipio did but act it and present it vpon the stage True wisedome had taught that honorable Generall to be no way wanting to himselfe howsoeuer other men would talke their pleasure of it I could wish that in our age persons of high esteeme would so vse the help of their wise and faithfull friends that they might oftentimes runne into so happie an errour You see that he who commaunded Niniue did hold this rule and the Spirit of God doth record it to the instruction of our age and if we will so receiue it as I haue expounded it before to his exceeding commendation that in so waightie a cause he would take the aduise of his Nobles And yet to say what I thinke it may not vnfitly be gathered by those deedes which are reported of him in the former verse that he himselfe stirred vp his Princes and was as a spurre to them to giue assent to his Edict howbeit to shew his mind to be temperate and moderate and humble vnto men as well as deuout to God he ioyneth them with himselfe as not failing to grace them and honour them in their places The ambitious man and he who is desirous of much gaine agree in this one point that they loue to haue no fellowes The man who is greedie vpon money excluding from himselfe all other companions can in his priuate thought onely deuoure the greatest pray And the hawtie and proud heart being like to the iealous man in his iealousie loueth not to communicate to other the least part of that honour which gladly he would appropriate to his owne actions The more runneth to the boughes the more the stocke is lessened shred all the boughes saith Machiauell and the sap then going but one way the bodie of the tree will prooue the greater But is that the way to be honorable The mightiest that euer were haue found it the truest glorie that bearing the raines aright for that must euer be looked to they haue bene kings ouer kings and raigned not ouer beggers but ouer men of woorth And God is better pleased when good things shall be commaunded first by the highest in place and then after it shall be added by the Lords spirituall and temporall and by the assent of the commons And princes which are gracious do neuer grieue at this and wise men do loue that stile when all is not appropriated to one but there is a kind of parting Plutarke in his state-precepts telleth that when himselfe and another ioyned in office with him were sent foorth as Proconsuls in some businesses for Rome and occasion so fell out that his fellow stayed by the way so that all was done by himselfe whē being againe returned he was to make declaration of all things which he had done in his iourney his owne father lessoned him before that he shold not tell his tale in the singular number but speake still plurally not I went but we went and not I but we said assuring him that by this he should ease himselfe of much enuie and by his faire behauiour be very louely and amiable He was a wise father who taught thus and he was a son much to be esteemed who so inwardly embraced his good precept that he thought of it many yeares afterward recorded it to be remembred of others Now if it were wisedome and modestie in him so to do then what humilitie was it for the great king of Niniue to ioyne with him I do not say his fellowes for this great Monarke had none such but his subiects in his stile by the King and his Nobles And this I haue gathered hitherto frō the Preface or induction to this Proclamation now a little while let vs enter into the Edict it selfe Let neither man nor beast c. 10 It is good when an action is caried cleanly throughout to be well and coherent both in matter and manner Euen ceremonies and circumstances detract much from good causes if there be a failing in them but where is a shew of accidents and the substance shall be defectiue there all is but ridiculous Diodorus Siculus telleth that on a time Dionysius the great tyrant of Sicilie according to the custome vsed in those dayes by men of much honour did send to the games of Olympus diuerse singers and Poets who made so excellent musicke that euery one admired them and commended them beyond measure But afterward when the Poemes which were the matter of most expectance came to be rehearsed they were so base and barren that both they and their maister were