thou art first bound as farre as thou canst to search out the Truth to receive thy informations attentively and seriously before thou goest out and then laying all by-respects a side to deliver thy conscience clearely and plainely For it is you who have a great stroake in making this Veile of Equity which is to cover the Face of the Magistrate He can but examine the Witnesses heare the testimonies inquests and arguings and afterwards give you an Information of all this T is you who are Vitae necis tam potentes Causarum in whose power the life and death of Causes doe chiefly consist The Magistrate or Iudge like the hand in a dyall may often times poynt to the wrong houre and yet no fault in him but in some of the wheeles which are out of Frame For it is his part to proceed and give sentence secundum probata tantum according to the Testimonies and Allegations onely 4. The next in order is the Councellor or Pleader and these is the Iudge upon the Bench is called a God may in some sort be called little Gods too But I wish I could not call a great part of this Tribe too truly the deities of Nilus the Gods of the Aegyptians Garlick and Onyons whose chiefest vertues are to force teares from the Eyes of theyr votaries O Sanctas Gentes quibus nascuntur in hortis Numina But I forgot my selfe I should have left out the first part of the verse for such are the abhominable corruptions which many of them use now adayes that we may call them the holyest and the happiest Nations who have no such Gods at all grow in their Gardens I do not speake against all mistake me not there be honest and worthy Lawyers amongst us Nor doe I go about any way to disparage the calling For the true use of it is honourable being to defend the oppressed to maintaine or else recover the right of such as have beene troden downe by theyr too potent Adversaries Put when Rhetorick I wrong the Science I must not call it so rheumaticke and obstreperous noise goes about to make the guilty innocent and the innocent guilty to Carusse ore the Blackamoore and to prove the Leopard to have no spots when a little bold wild and Sophisticate language is able to make head against Truth and overcome it and the cause Ad mensuram pulmonis Advocati aut Hares aut non flourisheth or languisheth according to the strength of the Advocates lungs and boldnesse or rather to the depth of the Clients purse and opennesse I doe not onely accuse these times this disease was ever rise amongst the ancient Romanes nay it has beene in use ever since Iupiter had a beard In Saturnes raigne peradventure it was otherwise Aut sub Iove nondum barbato But the Antiquity of it proves not the lawfulnesse yee have a saying in the Law Nullum tempus occurrit Regi No custome can prescribe against the King and by the favour of Law this is as true in Divinity no prescription against GOD the King of Heaven and Earth Hee brings but a weake argument who concludes what ought to be from what has beene Such a colour Murder might have for it selfe who is able to derive its pedigree as farre as Cain It is to no purpose for mee to lay open the sacred thirst of Gold that is in these men I might as well tell yee that there is a Sun or a Heaven which we all aknowledge nor can I hope if I should repeate it to be heard the Masculine delicious and charming harmony which the gold makes in the Bag I know would out-musicke me would sound sweetlier and lowder in theyr eares then all that I could utter The second branch of St. PAVLS distinction of Tongues would out-cry the first the Tongue of Angels would bee lowder then the Tongue of Men. But yet for the discharge of my duty I must let such men know but surely this is a very fruitfull place for controversie I see few of them at Church if they had nothing to doe it is likely they would be here who make the sacred place of Iustice no better then the Stage of a Mountebanke having received their Fee who leave the cause many times where peradventure the whole estate of the Clyent lyes at stake and fall upon theyr Brother pleader or upon the person of the man whose cause is in hand or upon the cloaths and behaviour of some of the witnesses or parties hunting after crude and indigested impertinances which walke like apparitions or ghosts in the shape of Iests thereby as I suppose to catch the easie care of the circumstant Iurer or Country Gentleman who will reserve them for his holy-day reports amongst his admiring neighbours that however these Musitians of Pythagoras these Angels who play upon the Spheares may for a time delight them and they may dance after theyr musick too yet at the latter end they shall have but a harsh close they shall end in a discord 5 And so for the Officer who by bribes taken in secret is corrupted to foyst in or take out what he please let him know also that there is an other which is a generall Assizes to come hereafter when he shall be put out of his office when the Bookes of his owne conscience shall be layd open before that great Iudge the Lord of Heaven and earth in which booke there shal be no enterlining no blotting out no putting in but all his actions shall appeare faire and in a full Character All these five sorts of men have a hand in the framing and making this Veyle which is to be put upon the Face of the Civill Magistrate but yet not altogether so but that the Iudge has the overseeing of this theyr Worke. If hee perceives that the Accuser brings materials unfitting and which will not conduce to the making of the Covering of Equitie he may so canvase the businesse eyther by examination or if that will not doe by delay so that at the last the Truth may bee found out For he does ill purchase to himselfe the title of a man of Expedition and Dispatch who hastens causes and ends them before they be ripe If he findes a palpable malice and confederacie in the Witnesse who is here in the second ranke of workmen it is in his power I take it for my want of experience in these matters will not suffer mee to be confident to deny him his Oath If hee perceives ignorance supinitie and negligence in the Iurer he may impannell new ones If Sophistry Cavelling or Meram Superbientem lasciviam verborum an unnecessary trifling and wantonnesse of of words in the Advocate his wisedome sharpe insight and experience peradventure hee himselfe once being a Pleader and so knowing the way of them the better may looke through that Veyle of forc'd language and view the realities and after those direct his sentence If in his Officer he finds Bribery and Corruption as the best Princes and Magistrates in the world sometimes cannot bee without bad Officers 't is in his power to rectifie that too But these things yee know better farre I confesse then I am able to direct yee yet it is not a bare knowledge of them that will benefit yee in the last day but Happy are yee if yee doe them It it not the knowledge that swims above in the braine but that which sinkes downe into the heart takes root in the affections and brings forth fruit in actions that will then profit thee For to whom much is given of him much shal be required not onely the Principall which was trusted to the understanding and Theorye but also the interest which is expected from the Practick part There is another kinde of Veyle too which is to be put upon the Face of MOSES which is the same that our Hieroglyphicks in the embleme put before the Face of Iustice whom they picture out by a woman having a Covering before her eyes and a payre of ballance in her hand and this is to denote unto us the impartiality that should be in a judge he should be blinded not his understanding for that cannot be too quick-sighted but to show us that there should be no respect of persons in him Exod. 23.3 Thou shalt not countenance no not a poore man in his Cause And if not a poore mâ—n much lesse does it become him to put off his Veyle that his Eyes may let in the greatnesse the favour the Friendship of the rich and potent For if the person of any man should be accepted certainly in all equity it is the person of the Poore but yee see here is a strict command against this Doe therefore all things as beeing assured that you your selves one day shall be ungodded againe for he who has sayd yee are Gods has also sayd that yee shall dye like men For the time shall come when a poore Vrne shall hold your Ashes all that little all which shall remaine of your voluminous greatnesse when that Eternall Iustice shall poize the ballance with an equall hand wicked AHAB shall then answer for NABOTHS Vineyard and IEZEBELL for the bloud of the Prophets Have but this therefore in your mindes and the God of all Iustice and mercy direct your actions labour to goe up into the Mountaine with MOSES and consult with the Lord 1 Be just and righteous let your faces reflect those cornua lucis those beams of light yee shall there receive from God and with MOSES your faces shall shine amongst the people yee shall be honour'd and reverenc'd ride on then and good lucke have yee with your honour and having past a glorious life here below the end of the Text shall be the end of your dayes Yee shall goe up againe and speake with God where your discourse shall never be interrupted so long as there is Eternity For if with MOSES yee live in the Mountaine and converse with GOD that is be imploy'd in his service and doe Iustice yee shall also with MOSES at the length heare that invitation of GOD to him in the 32. of Deutr. 50. verse Goe up into the Mountaine and dye yee shall depart this life in the favour of the Highest FINIS
the strange people 2 Iuda was his Sanctuary and Israel his dominion 3 The Sea saw that and fled Iordan was driven back 4 The Mountaines skipped like rammes and the little Hâ—lls like young sheepe And from thence hee proceeds unto the Question What aileth thee O thou Sea that thou fleddest c. And the Psalmist in the next verse seemes to render an Answere to his owne Question For although our English Translations give it in the Imperative Mood and say Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord yet the best Translations amongst the Latins render it The earth was moved in the Indicative Mood which positively sets downe a Thing or done or not done A facie Domini mota est terra a facie Dei Iacob The old Psalter St. Augustine and Prosper reade it Commotae which signifies motus cum motu a motion with a motion i. violently the Earth was violently or exceedingly moved St. Ierome reades it contremiscit the Earth trembled And the reason of this diversity of Moods amongst Translators I doe conceive to be the divers apprehending of the letter Iod in the Hebrew word for as they know who are growen to any proficiencie in the sacred Tongue the word Chuli doth properly command Tremble thou or be thou moved or be thou moved in griefe yet by reason that the letter Iod is sometimes added to a word meerely for Ornament and the greater grace of the sound therefore Saint Ierome Saint Augustine Prosper and others have rather chose the Indicative moode and say The Earth was moved or did tremble And so Lorinus the Iesuite Quae vox saith hee proprie refert formaâ— imperativi modi interdum tamen litera Jod additur ornatus tantum causâ Genebrardus will have this motion of the Earth here to be a Metaphor taken or borrowed from the paines of a Woman while shee is in Travaile Quae sese agitat prae dolore And of this mind is Aquila who therefore translates the Hebrew word Chul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Parturivit the Earth was in travaile or did bring forth with griefe And to countenance this Exposition that place of the Prophet Habacuck is very pregnant 3.10 Viderunt te et doluerunt montes The mountaines saw thee and they were in paine or feare Some of our English reades it The mountaines saw thee and they trembled and the difference is not great for in the Latine it is presented to us in the inward cause or perturbation which was paine or feare and in the English according to the outward expression or effect of that feare which is trembling But being that the slaverie of Israell in Egypt under the cruell Taskmasters was but a type of the servitude of man under sinne and the devill and the freedome of them from that bondage did but typifie out unto us our deliverance from the bondage of Sinne Hell and the Grave which worke as upon this day was fully perfected Christ having overcome Death which was the last of his Enemies he had to subdue this Text may be nay it is understood also in a sense farther off and Spiritual lof the resurrection of our Saviour when as upon this day having broke the bonds of death in sunder as Samson the seaven greene cords wherewith the Philistimes bound him He triumphed over the Grave And this second and allegoricall sense is either in the Figure or in the mysterie In the Figure and it is a kinde of Prosopopaeia attributing the actions of joy and leaping unto the mountaines and hills which are onely proper to men and other living creatures and least of all to the ponderous mountaines This Figure is very frequent in holy Scripture and not onely there but also among the Heathen Poets and Orators So Tully in his Oration Pro Marcello Ipsi Parietes curiae Caesari gratias agere gestiunt The very walls saith hee of the Senate-house are ambitious to give thanks to Caesar And Virgil in his 5. Eclog Ipsi laetitiâ voces ad sydera jactant Intonsi montes The unshorne Mountaines themselves doe lift up their voyces in joy and if so then the aime of David in this Scripture is to set out unto us the greatnes of that joy which the resurrectioÌ„ of our Saviour did beget in the world which made the weighty mountaines forget their nature and for joy to skip about like Rammes for I am not of their opinion who would understand this motion of the hills in tristiorem partem to be ob terrorem faciei domini for the feare and terrour of the presence of God although they be no meane Authours such as Cajetane Iansenius Genebrardus Peregrinus Herus Philippus de Portes Bellarmine but I doe rather encline unto that other sentence of Lorinus others who will have the cause to be nova laetitiae voluptas and of this opinion are many if not the whole current of the Greeke Authors who interpret it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an hyperbole or excesse of joy and to countenance this I have no lesse witnesses then the testimony of the word exultandi in the Latine then the word gestiendi in the Romane Psalter Saint Augustine and Prosper the word subsiliendi in St. Ieromes translation Nor doe I stay here but I am also able to produce the testimony of the Originall it selfe and the Greeke Rakad and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as my Author tells mee never signifying any thing else quaÌ„ saltare subsilire exilire prae laetitia but to skip or leape about for joy And so here exultaverunt montes The mountaines did leape out of themselves as it were for joy as the word signifies In the mysterie and then it signifies the joy of Angells and men covered under the names of Mountaines and Rams Hills and young Sheepe But give me leave to look back a little upon the literall meaning of the Text as it points at the comming of Israell from Aegypt The Opinions are divers I wil but touch them Titelman by these Mountaines and Hills would faine understand those rockes uneven places and precipices which while the red Sea was in his naturall course were covered by the waters but when the Children of Israell were in their passage through it by the retiring of the waves began to lift up their heads and appeare to the people Others understand it verbally of the Mount Sinai which was mightily shaken at the presence of the Lord when the Law was given that Mountaine being so bigge that the greater parts of it might be called so many severall Mountaines Agellius would understand this figuratively of the neighbouring Kings and Princes who at the report of this new and strange passage of the Hebrewes through the Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians were possest with trembling amazement as Moses sings in the 15 of Exod. 15. Then the Dukes of Edom shall be afraid and trembling shall come upon the great men of Moab Rabbi Isaack and some other of the Hebrew Writers affirme
his Nobles his servants though yee have not yet I hope yee have fancies to conceive it And without all doubt wee shall account him the most honourable amongst his Princes whom wee behold the neerest to the person of the King and whom the King peradventure admits to goe in rancke with himselfe Now all the Fathers the Patriarches and Prophets of the old Testament did walke before Christ our great and eternall King who came in solemne Procession into the world a spectacle to men and Angels and all the rest of his Court of his Traine who have lived since his Incarnation have followed after him And therefore of Abraham who was one of the Pracurfores of the fore-runners of Christ saith the Lord in the 17. Gen. 17.7 of Gen. 1. I am God all-sufficient walke before me and be upright And Hezekiah praies unto the Lord Isay 38.3 and saith in the 38. of Isay ver 3. Remember I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth But concerning those in the new Testament we shall finde the phrase altered Sequimini me follow me To Peter and Andrew in the 4. of St. Matthew Follow me and I will make â—ee fishers of men To Matthew sitting at the receipt of Custome in the 9. of his Gospel Follow mee and he arose and followed him and to us all in the 9. of St. Luke ver 23. If any man will come after mee let him deny himselfe and take up his Crosse and follow me But the holy Baptist was neither of the company that went before nor that followed Hee was the end of the old Law and the beginning of the new All the Prophesies of Christ before his comming runne in this straine Veniet Rex ecce Dominus veniet the King will come behold the Lord will come So Isay David and the rest All they who have writ of him since say Venit Rex misit Deus Filium suum The King is already come God hath sent his Sonne into the world But St. Iohn the Baptist who was à latere regio waited upon the body of his Prince and was never found farre distant from him to shew the greatnesse and the honour which Christ vouchsafed him in permitting that neernesse to his owne Person his voice is neither with the Prophets hee will come nor with the Apostles hee is already come but like the Index in the margent of a booke holding out his finger hee points to him and saith Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi Behold the Lambe of GOD which taketh away the sinnes of the world Great hee was also in his death being a Martyr dying for the Testimony of the Truth and after all these greatnesses on earth for never was there man who had so many and so great Testimonies given him wee cannot choose surely but beleeve that he must needs be great also in his glory But I finde some small difference amongst Expositors concerning this greatnesse of Saint Iohn which they will have to be not a greatnesse or rather majority of Prophecy or revelation but of holinesse And it is occasioned by the doubtfulnesse of the exposition of those words of our Saviour in the 11. of St. Matthew named to yee before Mat. 11.11 I say unto yee that amongst them who are begotten of women arose there not a Greater then Iohn the Baptist The quarrell although it bee of no great moment is betwixt no meane Authors no lesse then St. Ierome and St. Chrysostome both ancient learned and religious Fathers and it is this St. Ierome by these words There hath not arose a greater then Iohn will by no meanes have it to follow that therefore Iohn was greater then all the sonnes of men but that which naturally followes from hence saith he is that none of the sonnes of men were greater then Iohn And so by his rule although none arose greater then Iohn yet there might be some who were his equalls But Saint Chrysostome in his 27. Homily in that which is called His imperfect worke upon Saint Matthew contends and mee thinks very subtlely and strongly to prove from hence that by naturall consequence St. Iohn the Baptist must needs be greater then all that were begotten of women To give yee his owne words Cum tanta sit Iustitiae altitudo ut in illa nemo possit esse perfectus nisi solus Deus c. Seeing that so great is the height of Justice or righteousnesse that it is a thing impossible for any but God to be perfect in it I thinke saith our Father that although according to the pâ—rblinde judgement of men wee may guesse at an equality in the sanctity of severall Saints yet in the all-discerning Eye of God in the Divine scrutiny and this is Gods censure of Iohn and not the opinion of men it is impossible but there should bee a difference in degrees of sanctity and righteousnesse From whence it followes saith Saint Chrysostome that if none arose amongst the sonnes of men who were greater then Iohn then Iohn must necessarily be the greatest of all the sonnes of men For we are to consider of the way to Heaven as of a narrow passage cut in the side of some steepe and rigid mountaine to the Top of which we are to travaile which passage is so strait Sâ— â—n hâ— Gâ—spel that it will not admit two a breast and therefore there can be no equality in ranke or line Narrow is the way that leadeth to life and fewe there be that finde it Say then of any one that travailes that strait way that there is none before him and this speech necessarily implies that he is before all and all behinde him And the reason is Non datur alia linea nisi sursum deorsum Because there is no right hand or left hand line given here but onely the line of upwards and downe-wards As it is in the faces of men Thou mayest travaile the whole world over ere thou finde two faces which answer one another directly in all parts I will not deny but thou mayst pick out one who may have a lippe or an eye or a cheeke or some particular grace of carriage like to an other but that two should agree so in all parts that a judicious eye should not distinguish was never yet heard of So it is in the soules of men they may in some graces in some peeces of Sanctity seeme to goe hand in hand but it is impossible they should be equall in all things And where there is a difference there must needes be degrees majority and minority And this is the ordinary excuse which they of the Church of Rome doe make for that Chorus which they commonly sing in their private Masses to any of their Saints Non est inventus similis illi qui conservaret legem Excelsi His like is not found who keepes the law of the most High And this they sing to any of their meaner Saints I will give