not so and bring her Doves to the Altar who was more innocent and harmless than those Doves she brought too faint an Emblem of her own spotless Purity as the Lamb was of his who knew no sin though he was content to be made sin for us 4. There is one Lesson more behind and that is of Gratitude which though in the general may concern all persons to pay their solemn Thanks to God in the Congregation especially after any signal and notable Deliverance which is one great Reason of this day's Festival among the Jews yet in the particular instance of legal Purification it may seem only to point to Mothers and oblige them publickly to express their gratefull acknowledgment of God's mercy to them in preserving them from the great peril of Child-birth We see the first appearance of the Mother of our Lord was in the Temple to present the Lord with a burnt-offering as well as a sin-offering That as a Sacrifice of Praise This as a Confession of her natural Impurity Which Jewish custom no doubt as it gave just ground so good warrant for that Office our Church prescribes for the Churching of Women and though there had been reason enough to justifie the Equity of her Commands in the very Nature of the thing its self yet sure the Authority of the ancient Church of God is here of great force and a leading president For although the Political and Ceremonial Laws of the Jews are in the Particulars abrogated yet not in the General it is indeed so in the Circumstance but not in the Substance The Moral of that Rite will still remain a debt as long as such a Deliverance continues a Blessing which none can deny it to be but they perhaps who never were acquainted with the danger from which Women in that case are rescued or think there is no such thing as Gratitude due for any deliverance though to an Almighty Deliverer Let the Example of the Blessed Virgin teach them to be more thankfull for Blessings who was no sooner either able or allow'd to walk abroad but she travels to Jerusalem she goes not to her own House at Nazareth but to God's House there to offer up her Thanks and Praises If Purifyng were a Shadow yet Thanksgiving is a Substance Those whom God hath blessed with fruit of Body and safety of Deliverance if they make not their first Journey to the Temple of God have little reason to expect a second Preservation since they can as soon forget the first as they usually doe their Pains such Women partake more of the Unthankfulness of Eve than of Mary's Devotion But then as that Devotion appears in the early Tribute of her Thankfulness so that Thankfulness by more than verbal Expressions She would not appear before the Lord empty and although her Appearance was in formâ pauperis yet something she would bring to the Altar We are all willing enough to serve God of that which costs us nothing such cheap Votaries are as frequent now-a-days as to pray for fashion or fast for frugality Here is a present mean indeed in its self but sutable to the Offerer's ability and far more acceptable to God than the Widows two Mites Mark 12. Her Poverty could not furnish her with any other Present but two Doves she was not rich enough to provide such a Lamb as the Law required but she could bring that Lamb which that legal one did typifie and without which that other would not purifie a Lamb which gave Vertue and Merit to her Offering as it did to all precedent Sacrifices of the Law an Offering greater than the Temple its self and which sanctify'd that and the Altar too even the Lord of the Temple whom she presents to the Lord the next thing to be considered The Blessed Virgin had more business in the Temple than her own she came thither as to purifie her self so to present her Son having nothing so pretious as himself to make Oblation of to God And this also the Law of Moses requir'd Exod. 12. and 13. 2. And the reason of that Rite God himself is pleas'd to give Numb 8. 17. why the Israelites should consecrate their first-born to him to mind them of their great Deliverance when he smote the first-born in Egypt to be a Memorial or standing Record of God's particular favour and mercy to that People in that their miraculous Preservation from the destroying Angel and withall a Type of Christ the true Paschal Lamb whose Bloud should save all Mankind from a worse Destroyer and free us from the Bondage not of Egypt but of Hell And indeed the Anti-type here does in all points answer its Type for Christ was both the Lamb and the first-born too the only begotten Son of God as well as the first-born Son of the Blessed Virgin who bare none before or after him whatever Heliadians dreamt And therefore St. Paul calls him the first-born among many Brethren Rom. 8. 29. A style justly belonging to him both upon the account of Grace as by whom we are born a-new and made new Creatures Ephes. 5. 2. So of Power too as being the first-fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15. 20. and the first-born of the dead Coloss. 1. 18. Upon all which accounts he belong'd unto God not only as the Son of God by eternal Generation before time and by miraculous Conception in time but also by the common course of nature But though he might have pleaded an Exemption from that Law whereof he was the Author yet as good Princes use to observe those Laws themselves make he was most willingly subject to this Rite of Presentation upon the same grounds his Holy Mother was to that of her Purification to teach us the same Lessons of a most exemplary Obedience Humility and Charity when we see that he who was free from the common condition of our Birth would not yet since the Mosaical Law requir'd it deliver himself from those ordinary Rites which imply'd the weakness and blemishes of Humanity And indeed as it became him to countenance his own Institution so did our Necessities and his own Justice require his Obedience to it 1. Our Necessity did so that by submitting himself to this Mosaical Rite as to that of Circumcision and so making himself a debtor to the Law he might redeem us who were under the obligation and curse of it 2dly His Justice to make that full satisfaction to that Law which we had broken and himself had obliged himself for our sakes to fulfill For although He was the Most Holy and the Just One and as such out of the reach of any Law which as St. Paul tells us is not made for the righteous Man and much less for him who was Righteousness its self yet was He in some sense the greatest of Sinners namely by Imputation being charg'd with the Sins of the whole World and consequently obnoxious to the Law
Theater of the World not content with the Conscience of them unless as the Pharisees dealt their Alms and said their Prayers they may do them so as to be seen of men And hence it is that many belye themselves in Sin usurp Vice and steal the glorious Reputation of exceeding Sinfulness as if the Impiety were meritorious and the shame of doing ill the only thing to be ashamed of St. Augustine in his Confessions complains of himself that in his younger Days he did so that in compliance with some of this shameless humour he did often boast of imaginary Vices and attributed Sins to himself he never had committed being more afraid of displeasing his vile Companions than his God And doubtless many to avoid the Imputation of Temperance and the Scandal of a singular and affected Sobriety labour all they can to be thought more wicked than sometimes they are Nor is it enough for such to wear out all the Impressions of the Law written in their own Hearts and wholly to subdue their own Consciences unless they may shame and baffle all Goodness out of those of other men by setting off Vice with all Lustre and Advantage that possibly may recommend it to their esteem while on the other side they labour as much to put Vertue out of countenance and render it unfashionable and ridiculous by the antick Dress they give it cloathing it as the Jews did our Lord in a Fool 's Coat to move Laughter and Contempt the Business of every drolling Buffoon who thinks he cannot better disparage Vertue than by representing it as a melancholy and pedantick thing an Enemy to good Manners and civil Conversation a Contradiction to Nature and a restraint on that Liberty and those Appetites it gives us Now if this be not to cast off all discriminating Notions of Good and Evil if this be not to expose Nature Travesty and by a perverse kind of Heraldry to set Evil before Good 't is hard to say what it is Doubtless of all other men these best deserve the Prophet's Character here and fall directly within the Compass of his Curse The last thing to be considered The Law of Nature of which Morality is the most considerable part is so unchangeable that some how warrantably I know not do affirm 't is not in the Power of God himself to alter it 'T is hard to say that he that has Power to make a Law cannot alter it since in some Instances we find he has done so but they are indeed more rare than his miraculous Dispensings with the ordinary Course of Nature And as God is pleas'd sometimes to vary that to show himself Lord of Nature so has he sometimes changed this to let us know He is that one Lawgiver St. James speaks of who can prescribe to the Conscience To endeavour then to alter the property of moral Good and Evil is to entrench upon the Almighty's Prerogative and to call Evil Good to stamp our Impression on his Bullion is the worst sort of Coinage and no less than flat Rebellion against the Supreme Majesty of Heaven Job expresly calls it a rebelling against the light the Light of Nature ch 24. ver 13. A Sin in some measure against the Holy Ghost too all natural as well as revealed Light being from Him especially when it is done out of that reprobate or injudicious mind Heathens were given up to who held the truth in unrighteousness i. e. did by their wicked lives and conversations so imprison those common notices of God and Morality which naturally shined in their Understandings that they could no more appear or come forth than men that are shut up close Prisoners in a dark Dungeon This was the great Crime of the Heathen World and for this Cause God gave them up to vile Affections to be directed by such a crooked Rule as they had framed to themselves and be led by the Wisp of their false Imaginations over Boggs and Precipices into ruine 'T is usual with God as to make one Sin the punishment of another so to suit Punishments to Crimes Thus when Heathens abused natural Light he suffered them so far to be besotted as not only to worship Stocks and Stones but Vices and Sins Thus while some Jews abused revealed Light he threatens them with putting out their Light in obscure Darkness as he does Christians who go against the Light of the Gospel to remove their Candlestick and send them strong Delusions to believe a Lye take Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness And if the Light that is in Man be Darkness how great must that Darkness be Surely by so much the greater by how much their Light was so And therefore Christians who besides the Natural and Mosaical have the glorious Light of the Gospel to direct them as to the Measure of Good and Evil must needs be much more inexcusable if they shall err in their choice and in what they know naturally as brute Beasts in those very things corrupt themselves and so have nothing left to distinguish them from Heathens but a better Name and worse Practices For how many Heathens were there who if they should now appear on the Stage of the World would shame most Christians of it What Justice Temperance Frugality Conscience of Oaths and Promises Severity and Strictness of Life among them and what Injustice Intemperance Prodigality Falseness and Universal Depravation of Manners among these Certainly if our Righteousness exceed not theirs We shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven But if our Unrighteousness shall exceed theirs what Hell will be deep or dark enough for us Shall not Uncircumcision which is by Nature if it fulfill the Law judge thee who by the Letter and Circumcision dost transgress the Law said St. Paul to the Jews Let every Christian make particular Application to himself and see whether with the Advantage of a far clearer Revelation he does not come short of Jews nay whether he makes any Conscience of doing those things which the bare Light of natural Reason taught Heathens to abhor and yet while he damns them for their moral Vertues he can absolve himself though guilty of their foulest ones It were to be wisht that many Christians were but as good as some Heathens were that they would at least follow Nature the Dictates of natural Reason their Errours would be fewer and their Accompt less and were they faithful in this smaller Talent God would then entrust them with a greater The common Notices of Good and Evil are the natural Man's Book as Papists say Images are Lay-mens and he that well studies this Book and is learned in it may not despair of taking a higher Degree of perfection in the School of Christ Christianity being nothing else but Nature refined and exalted and all the Laws of Christ concerning moral Actions the very Law of Nature but in a clearer Character and more correct Impression Indeed the
up the Law of Nature each Pagan may confute an Infidel and each Sinner himself That there is a God to be worshipped is founded in that natural Dependence Rational Creatures have on their Creator and that Good and Evil are different things is the Voice and Dictate of Natural Reason too which he that contradicts unmans himself and is to be lookt on as a Monster in Nature Such there have been in all times and which is strange even in those of Divine Revelation for we find the Jews themselves upbraided here with this Impiety which was so much the grosser in them because besides the unwritten they had withall a written Law to instruct them better Both in effect the same the same Precepts in stone and in the heart The Mosaical Law being nothing else but a Digest of that of Nature where the only difference is in the Clearness of the Character For Moses did but display and enlarge the Phylacteries of Nature This was still the Text and all his Precepts but so many Commentaries on it He did but trim up that Candle of the Lord natural Reason which before burnt dim set off Vertue with a better Lustre and expose Vice in its proper shape and hue giving That all its natural Advantage to charm the Eye and painting out This in such lively Colours as might represent it in its utmost Deformity Yet such was the perverse blindness of some that they could see no difference here at all no distinction between an Angel of Light and a Fiend Good and Evil were to them both alike or rather not alike for they preferred Evil to Good did not only confound the Names and Nature of these things but in a cross manner misplace them putting Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness like those Antipodes to mankind who by their strange way of living turn Day into Night and Night into Day This is that abomination the Text takes notice of which drew this severe Imprecation from the Almighty uttered by the mouth of his Prophet Wo unto them that call Evil good c. Which words seem to point to the Jews but are indeed directly levelled at all those who remove the natural Land-marks and Boundaries of Moral Good and Evil and they present us with these three Observations 1. That there is a Real and Natural difference between Vertue and Vice called here Good and Evil. 2. That there always have been and still are such as labour to take away this Difference Men that call Good Evil and Evil Good 3. That to do so To endeavour to alter the Nature and Property of Moral Good and Evil is such a heinous provocation as will inevitably bring a Curse upon it Of these in their Order And 1. That there is a real and natural Difference between Vertue and Vice called here Good and Evil. It seems the Academician and Epicurean Sects were rife in the Prophet Esay's Days who being a loose sort of men and impatient of all natural and moral Restraints would fain perswade themselves and all others That nothing was in it self good or bad that there was no such distinction in Nature but only in the opinion of men who were pleased to make an inclosure where God and Nature had laid all in common Nec natura potest justo secernere iniquum was their fundamental Principle A Principle which because I find taken up and improved by some of the like depraved Judgment and it is the very Source and Fountain of much of that Corruption that is in the World deserves to be considered and the direct way to disprove it will be to make out a real and natural Difference between moral Good and Evil which I shall endeavour to do 1. From the Nature of a Divine Being 2. From our own Make and Constitution 3. From the natural Beauty of Good and Deformity of Evil whereof every Man's Reason is the proper Measure and Judge 4. From such contrary Effects as must of necessity argue a Contrariety in their Causes 1. The first proof of this Truth I shall fetch from God Himself in whose very Nature and Being the difference between Good and Evil is conspicuous For 't is evident that there is something simply Good and something simply Evil even to Divine Being something which God is by the Necessity of his Nature and something which by the same Necessity He cannot be For should I ask Epicurean Christians whether God can be other than what He now is or the Scripture represents Him They must needs resolve the question in the Negative unless they will deny Him to be God or which is the same thing grant him mutable Immutability being so essential to him that what he now is he ever was and what he ever was he ever shall be and cannot chuse but be so Now God from all Eternity was just mercifull good and true 'T is the Description he gives of Himself Exodus 34. 6. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth And were not these his essential and unalterable Properties the Reverse of that Description might as well befit him which were the highest Blasphemy imaginable and the Manichees needed not to have invented two distinct Principles of Good and Evil when by the Epicurean Doctrine these so contrary things might well enough be reconciled to one and the same Divine Being whereas the Scripture tells us that some things are impossible for God to do As to lye and to be unjust And surely what He cannot Man ought not What is good or bad to Him must be so to us too and what is contrary to the divine can never be a part of humane Perfection If God cannot be other than good mercifull and just Man who was created after his Image must of necessity resemble his Creator and the Copy to be complete in all points answer its Original 2. As indeed it does For upon this account of a natural resemblance 't is that we are said to be Partakers of the divine Nature and God has so wrought and woven his Image into the very frame of our being that like Phidias his Picture in Minerva's Shield it can never be totally defaced without the ruine of that frame And herein also the differences of Good and Evil are apparent For our Passions Fear and Shame especially do manifestly betray them Omne malum aut timore aut pudore persudit natura Nature saith Tertullian hath dasht every Vice with Fear or Shame As for the first of these Fear The continual Frights the pale Countenances and broken Sleeps of wicked Men do plainly argue the inward dissatisfactions of natural Conscience when they doe amiss the guilt of the heart usually spreading it self over the face As on the other side Innocence is ever quiet and bold and they who act by the rules of right reason always calm and serene Of which so apparent contrary effects no better account can be given than
have found out a platform of Government among the fallen Angels who though their Principles be crooked yet being obey'd by Wills as crooked observe an irregular Rule and a perverse Order even in Hell so Sin rules in us too by Principles For there is saith St. Paul a Law of Sin But then 't is such a Law as if it should be Treason for any Subject not to Murther his Natural Prince or Adultery not to Ravish or Blasphemy not to take God's Name in vain 'T is such a Law as if two Anti-Tables should be written which should make it Sin not to break the Commandments Lastly Let the Apostle tell you what Law it is 'T is a Law of the Members warring against the Law of the Mind and not only warring but bringing it into Captivity Rom. 7. 23. Sin herein far exceeding the Author of it For he only aspir'd to be like the Highest but Sin hath made an inversion in the Soul advancing Sense into the Chair of Reason and placing the Beast above the Man And though it may leave us to a natural liberty in moral actions for 't is harsh to think that Justice and Temperance are but guilded Sins yet for actions of Grace it has so glewed and settered the Soul that it cannot possibly mount up to Heaven 2. Next for Death Men have made a Covenant with that saith the Scripture and if Contract be not enough we reade Wisd. 1. v. 14. of a Kingdom of Death so that Christ did not only find us Captives but Captives slain Teneo à primordio homicidam culpam says Tertullian Adam's Throat was our open Sepulchre who in that fatal Apple did not only murther his Children like Saturn but like Thyestes in the Tragedy did eat them After that Transgression there pass'd an Act upon us It is appointed for all Men once to dye Nay it were a degree of happiness to dye but once if nothing remained for punishment for nothing can suffer nothing But we were to be raised to another Death and like drowsie Malefactors that had lain down with their Sentence were to be awakened out of sleep to be put upon the Rack 3. The Scripture almost every-where styles the Devil the Prince of this World His Kingdom had enlarg'd its self from that place about which the Schools dispute to every rebellion and disorder of the Soul where as in a conquer'd Province per cupiditates regnavit saith St. Augustine He reigned by his Proconsul Sins There also making himself the Prince of Darkness by our ignorance and the Prince of the Air by raising Tempests through all the Regions of Man and exercising an universal and absolute Power over him For such was his power in the World when the Saviour of it came into it There was then a general defection from God Satan's Synagogue had in a manner swallowed up God's Church who had but one corner of the World left him and therein for a long time but a moving Tabernacle and when a fix'd habitation but one house wherein a very few to serve him while the Devil's Temples were every-where crowded with Priests and Sacrifices and his Altars smoak'd in all places with Incense so that the Earth and the fulness thereof seem'd now his and he though cast out of Heaven to have reveng'd himself in some sort of God by thus dispossessing him as it were of the Earth Nor was the Devil's power more Universal than 't was Absolute over men's Bodies and over their Souls too Their Bodies he possest and tormented at pleasure insomuch that his very Priests might have receiv'd Death with as much ease as they did his Oracles entring into Men as he did into the Hoggs hurrying them violently into perdition commanding Parents to make their Sons and Daughters pass through the fire to him tearing and bruising those he had got into and casting them sometimes into the water and sometimes into the fire Nor did he tyrannize less over Men's souls than bodies blinding their understanding putting out the light of natural reason in them first corrupting their Judgments and then their Manners from Error in judgment the passage being natural and easie to Error in practice and accordingly St. Paul tells us how vain men became in their imaginations even to worship the Creature instead of the Creator to change the glory of the uncorruptible God into Images made like to corruptible Men and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things which made God give them up to all manner of uncleanness as you may reade at large Rom. 1. 21 c. In such slavery had the Devil not only Heathens his own people as I may call them but even the Jews themselves God's chosen people who after so many Miracles of Power and Mercies so many excellent Statutes and Ordinances to direct them in the true manner of his Worship as had not been delivered to any Nation besides did not for all this fall short of the worst of Heathens either in matter of erroneous judgment or vitious practices The profane Sadducee had corrupted all good Manners and the hypocritical Pharisee perverted the Law by his false Glosses and Comments on it so that when our Saviour appeared on Earth an universal deluge of Wickedness had over-spread the face of it And thus all Mankind being the Devil 's by right of Conquest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken by him as it were in War the true import of that word and bound fast to him with his Chains of darkness of gross error and vitiousness 't was high time for the Son of God to come down to rescue miserable Men from these several Captivities which he did three manner of ways 1. By Commutation 2. By Conquest and 3. By way of Ransome or Purchase 1. By Commutation For when we were prisoners to Death by sin God made an exchange delivered his Son over to it for us became our Scape-goat like the Ram substituted in the place of Isaac and as the Apostle speaks tasted death for every man that we might not be devoured and swallowed up by it 2. By Conquest as it referrs to Power and thus our Lord offered violence to Hell snatcht us as brands out of its fire and rescued us as so many preys out of the teeth of the roaring Lion delivering us from the power of darkness and translating us into his kingdom vanquishing death and him that had the power of death the Devil and treading him under our feet And not content with that he spoiled principalities and powers making a shew or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports an example of them openly and triumph'd over them in himself or in his Cross. 3. By way of Purchase or Ransome as it referrs to Justice Thus Christ made a perfect satisfaction to God by laying down a price for us and paying the very utmost farthing of our debt and so came not only to give us an Example as Socinians
to consider others as well as our selves and many times to abridge our selves of our own freedom to comply with their infirmities and part with our dearest liberty for their satisfaction It was this no doubt which made the Blessed Virgin to do so where the dispensing with her self for the observation of this Ceremony must needs have given the Jews no small occasion of scandal For when she brought her Son into the Temple they who were wholly strangers to the great Mystery of the Incarnation who neither knew Her to be the Mother nor Christ to be the Son of God but lookt upon them with an indifferent eye as persons within the verge and compass of the Mosaical Law and equally ty'd up to a strict observance of all its Ordinances must needs have taken great offence at the omission of any the least of them All such neglect would have been construed a breach of the divine Institution which no Man's innocence or dignity could in their judgment have warranted But as it is the property of true Charity not to seek her own so did this Blessed Mother of God chuse to depart from her private right rather than prejudice the common good or violate the peace of the Church and rather draw an inconvenience on her self than yield the least occasion of offence to God's People Thus did she abstain from all appearance of Evil not from that only which was really so but which had the face of and lookt like it avoiding as all crime so all suspition thereof and having an eye as well to her Reputation as her Innocence A Temper scarce to be met with in this vitious and offensive Age where Men are not content to be wicked if they may not withall be scandalous corrupt others as well as themselves by putting stumbling-blocks in the way of their weak and blind Brethren So far are they from yielding Obedience to those Laws they may have some colourable pretence to avoid that they make it their great care and study wilfully to break those they are necessarily obliged to All things are lawfull for such persons and all things expedient too Law and Honour Reason and Conscience they can as easily shake off as Sampson his withen Bands defie the Magistrate and the Church cry up Christian Liberty to the ruine of Christian Obedience without any regard either to other Men or themselves Let them learn another lesson from the Mother of God who would rather lose her own right than give others a seeming offence and let her Example teach us Obedience though to the prejudice of our just Liberty And let us not on the other side rashly censure them as Law-breakers who sometimes perhaps may omit a few little Punctilio's of the Law not out of any Contumacy or Spirit of Opposition but to gratifie the humour of a tender though erroneous Conscience 2. A second Example we have here of Obedience A Vertue few have who yet pretend much to all others but a Vertue without which all the rest signifie little and which is the best of Sacrifices Had the Blessed Virgin presented her Son to God and not her self too even That very Offering would have little availed her There she indeed offered up his Person Here her own Will which we can for the most part more hardly part with than with our dearest and most beloved Children But this Blessed Mother most willingly parts with both to God as freely resigns up her self to Him here as when she first received the happy news from the Angel that God had design'd her to be that Person of whom he should take flesh with an Ecce Ancilla Behold the Handmaid of the Lord She quarrels not with the Law but observes every Iota and Tittle of it The due time when the days of her Purification were accomplished the due place the Temple the due Oblation too a pair of Turtle Doves so officious was she in the Ceremony as to admit of no excuse in any the least circumstance of her Obedience and so defective are most of us even in the main Duties of Morality Surely that Soul is not fit for the Spiritual conception of Christ that is not conscionably scrupulous in observing all God's Laws 'T is not in our own power to make choice of some part where God requires an entire submission to the whole His Commands exact our strict Obedience even to to those things which seem to us of little importance Our Measures here are not to be taken from the Nature of the things themselves but from the Authority of that God which imposes them whose Will not our Reason is to determine us and there may be as great contempt of his Will in neglecting or refusing to obey it in lesser as in greater instances nay many times much greater where the things are of a more easie observation as the greatest Sin that ever Man committed was but the eating of an Apple The instance of the Blessed Virgin 's Obedience here was in that which many now-a-days would think very trivial 't was but in a ceremonial part the Mint and Cummin not the weightier matters of the Law yet since God required so punctual an observance of that and the Blessed Virgin so exactly paid it there will be little excuse left for Schismaticks who despise the decent Ceremonies of the Church out of Piety and Devotion thinking thereby to doe God good service and less for them who wilfully disobey the more substantial important Precepts of the Gospel If the Holy Virgin had such respect to the Law of Bondage and Severity then surely ought we to pay a far greater to the Law of Liberty and Grace and if she so religiously observ'd a Ceremony which to her was but indifferent with what care ought we to keep those Moral duties of the Gospel which require our Obedience not out of Love only but Necessity 3. A third Lesson we may learn here from the Example of the Mother of God and that is Humility which was as signal here as her Obedience and the cause of that Obedience For all Obedience proceeds from Humility which is as ready to take Laws from others as Pride can be to give them 'T was this which submitted Christ to the Rite of Presentation as it did the Blessed Virgin to that of her Purification though his Innocence might well have exempted him from appearing in the crowd of Sinners and her Purity from being rankt amongst the Unclean It was no small derogation to her Honour to submit to such a Rite whose very designment was to upbraid their guilt who observ'd it They who are truly humble are even ambitious of Contempt catch at all opportunities which may debase them and boast of that dishonour which turns to God's glory as David danc'd on before the Ark notwithstanding Michal's taunts And his Language there is that of every humble spirit I will yet be viler Thus would the Mother of God own her self legally unclean who morally was
away from God in Adam and his shame has ever since made us hide our heads Our Lord by wiping off that disgrace and regaining our lost innocence and honour has by his appearing in the sight of God for us given us boldness now to come into and stand in his Presence These were the reasons of Christ's Presentation in the Temple and surely it was never more glorious than when the Owner thereof was within the Walls of it For now was the hour and guest come in regard whereof the second Temple should surpass the first Now that Prophecy of Haggai received its full accomplishment when our Lord first appear'd in it For that it could not be otherwise understood 't is evident because if we consider the Wealth the Majesty the external Pomp and Structure of the first Temple the second was not in these respects any wise comparable to it But 't was the Presence of Christ in the flesh that made the latter so far out-shine the former the Prophet so interpreting himself v. 7. The desire of Nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory saith the Lord of Hosts and then it follows ver 9. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former So that that prediction could not be applicable to any other glory but that wherewith our Lord fill'd the Temple this day and the rather for that this Prophecy was not made till after the destruction of Solomon's Temple an Argument sufficient to silence the most contradicting Jew and force him to acknowledge whether he he will or no that this Prophecy was never fulfilled till Christ was presented in the Temple But our Lord who foresaw that that gain-saying People would not be satisfied for their farther Conviction provided two such Witnesses as were beyond all exception and such as might bear down all opposition to the truth of this prediction Simeon and Anna both of a reverend Age and disciples of Moses of a holy and unblameable Life that waited for the consolation of Israel and were led by the Spirit into the Temple on purpose to meet the Lord of the Temple whom at this time they there expected and found In all which respects these two persons were most proper credible Witnesses of this truth though there was something more to recommend Simeon's testimony if the conjecture of many learned Men may here be of any force and credit who make him the Son of Rabbi Hillel the Master of Gamalael St. Pauls Instructer in the Law and withall a Priest as in all probability he was and 't is not obscurely intimated by some Priestly Offices done by him in the Temple as the taking of Christ in his Armes and the blessing of the People in the behalf of God acts peculiar to the Priest And thus much may serve concerning the place where our Saviour was presented it remains now that I speak something of the Persons that presented him the third and last Thing 3. They brought him to Jerusalem They i. e. his Parents The Law required this too and they were as willing to perform this good Office as the Law to exact it That which God gives us we should return to him our Children especially Children and the fruit of the Womb are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord says the Psalmist Psal. 127. 4. and we are to present them to him whose portion they are and from whom we received them And as they are not so much ours that beget as his that bestows them so should it be our endeavour to make them more his than our own Nor is it enough that we suffer our little ones to come to God but we must bring them when of themselves they cannot come and as soon as we receive them The care of Parents ought to supply the natural defects of their Children by a timely Consecration of them to him not only in their Baptism which yet some scarce baptized persons will not allow though Christ's Circumcision which was in effect our Baptism and his early Presentation in the Temple directly confute their Opinion and Practice but in their future Education too by bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and teaching them to bear his yoke in their youth which is Solomon's counsel too Prov. 22. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will never depart from it Those characters of Piety which are imprinted in these smooth unfullied Tables will not easily be raz'd out They will be both fairer and more lasting and these unstain'd Vessels will constantly retain a smack and tincture of that devotion which first seasons them 'T was St. Jerom's delight to hear Children balbutire Christum smatter of Christ before they could well speak of him and Basil bragg'd of Macrina his Nurse a disciple of Gregorius Neocaesariensis who by often repeating to him what she had learnt from her Master made him suck Vertue from her with her Milk They who first give up their Children to the World and then to God are as bad as those Israelites who devoted them to Moloch This Law we see requir'd the first-fruits of Persons as well as of Things then surely there is reason we should give him the Flower of our Childrens age not the Bran. Such Morality we may learn from this Constitution of God that the best of all kinds is fittest to be Consecrated to the Lord of all and that every thing we have is too good for us if we think any thing we have too good for him Happy are those Children who derive a spiritual as well as a natural Life from their Parents and as happy those Parents who beget them more to God than to themselves and with those of Christ bring them to the Temple before they can walk to it God will make those obedient to such Parents who have been so carefull to make them so soon subject to himself bless them mutually for each others sake both here and hereafter But while I speak of the Mystery let me not forget to mind you of the Duty it exacts from us Every Circumstance here is Symbolical If the Blessed Mother presented the Child to God then must we present him too as our Saviour and Mediator and with him our selves to be a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable to him For unless we first present him 't is to no purpose to present our selves to God If he go not first to the Temple we had as good stay at home God seems to speak to us here as the Prophet did of Jehoshaphat to the King of Israel 2 Kings 3. 24. Surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat King of Judah I would not look toward thee nor see thee If it were not for Christ God would not regard either our Persons or our Gifts All our Offerings and Devotions then must be united to this Holy Present
design and management thereof did at his Examination confess That his principal motive to this villanous attempt was an Excommunication thundred out at first by Pius Quintus against Queen Elizabeth and kept still on foot by Sixtus Quintus which sticking on King James oblig'd him in conscience to attempt the murthering of his Sovereign in obedience to that Bull. And how did he excuse that Fact Was it not by his pious intention to promote God's glory and the good of the Catholick Church A fit cover for such a foul fact but commonly made use of by such as himself was in justification of the like wicked practices St. Paul we see hath expresly doom'd all those that doe so to no less than eternal Damnation But those men and he are not agreed in this point For should his doctrine be good what would then become of all their Piae Fraudes Feigned Legends and Miracles Indices Expurgatorii Equivocations and mental Reservations Allowance of common Stews for the preventing unnatural Lusts that is of one Sin to hinder another For which and the like the Catholick defence is the Catholick cause and men's pious Intentions which in case they should prove never so faulty yet a little rectifying of them will rectifie all that is amiss in them A piece of spiritual Chymistry this of late Invention which can extract the finest gold out of the basest metal to guild over all the Villanies which the heart of man can devise or his hand execute I know not whether any can really think that by such vile artifices they can doe God any service But I am apt to believe that they rather think to doe themselves one and that 't is the same humane policy not to give it a worse name and not Religion that acts such men which did these persons in the Text. But if any men do in good earnest think they doe God any service thereby It is such a one as our Lord Himself here flatly tells them neither his Father nor He will ever thank them for But since it will be in vain for me to tell them so who will not take Christ's own word for it I shall turn my discourse to you who now hear me and for the preventing any such dangerous errour in you leave some few Rules of caution and direction with you and so conclude 1. And the first shall be concerning your Zeal That you be as carefull and industrious to employ it in a good as some do theirs in a bad cause but with this proviso That your Zeal be a right and well-temper'd one A right one it will be if it be alway in a good thing And well-temper'd if it be according to knowledge Rom. 10. 2. St. Paul's rules both If your Zeal be not in a good thing it will doe the same mischief that fire does out of its proper place the hearth And if it have not light to see its way by it will prove very dangerous company in the dark and lead you into bogs and precipices There is nothing so pernicious to man as a blind frantick zeal which instead of eating them up who are possess'd with it eates up God's people as if they were bread Nor is there any thing so injurious to God it being common for people in their indiscreet and furious zeal for God to run farthest from Him and either to break the two Tables of his Law with Moses or at least to dash them one against the other And can we think they should ever doe God service who know not what they doe themselves May not he say to such Zealots what King Achish did of David 1 Sam. 21. 15. Have I need of mad men And does not too much ignorant zeal much more than too much learning make men so Surely there is no madness to the religious one which like the Devil in the possessed man in the Gospel casts them sometimes into the fire and sometimes into the water that is into contrary excesses and extravagances scattering mischief where-ever it goes turning the World into a Chaos and the Church into an Acheldama while Melancholy is made the seat of Religion by some and Frenzy by others what can follow thence but confusion And therefore we ought to have a special care that our Zeal be guided by knowledge and discretion lest we over-shoot our selves with these men here and when we put Christ's servants out of our Synagogues and kill them too into the bargain we become so foolish as with them also to think we shall thereby doe God service 2. Our next caution must be that we be well assured of the soundness of the Principles we act by What a dangerous thing it is to be herein mistaken our Saviour tells us Matt. 6. 23. If the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness that is If thy mind and conscience be defiled if thy Judgment be corrupt how great and dangerous will those mistakes prove that mislead thee For the farther thou shalt go on in thy wrong way the more shalt thou be out of the right one And when thou art once out it will be impossible for thee to get into it again so long as those false Guides which are as so many Satans standing at thy right-hand still prompting and tempting thee to evil shall remain in thee He that commits a sin by principles hath nothing to retrieve him from his errour while he retains such principles and as long as he is under the power and guidance of ill ones they will not only dangerously expose but highly encourage him to evil by turning the greatest crimes into merit and making him hope to gain Heaven by such practices as directly lead him to Hell The Physicians maxime That an error in the first concoction is never to be mended holds as true in Religion as in Nature And therefore it highly concerns us that our first choice here be right lest we set out amiss and offend God most even there where we think most to please Him 3. The last Use I shall draw from my Text is an Use of Direction or Tryal how to judge of the Truth and Goodness of a Religion and that is by the Mildness and Harmlesness thereof This is the proper Chraracter of true Christian Religion It has all of the Dove and nothing of the Vulture in it That which breathes nothing but Curses and Slaughters to be sure is not of God the Father nor of His Son I think there is no true Member of our Church that understands his Religion well and the nature of it but would be willing to submit it to this Test But I can scarce believe that they who talk so much of the Cruelty of ours would be content to put the Truth of their Religion upon this issue We need but compare Q. Mary and Queen Elizabeth's Reigns to see which of the two Religions they were of was the mildest No fire and faggot to be
they have the publick Seal upon them shall be as good and binding as the best that ever were established in the opinion of these Promoters of a moral Indifferency whereas in the Judgment of all Learned men humane Laws are then void and null when they do in the least swerve from that of Nature And 't is a great Error to think that men's Laws do make things morally good or bad whereas they do but declare them to be so supposing them to be such in their own Natures and deriving all their Vertue from that very supposition They take it for granted that there are such things as Vertue and Vice and add Rewards and Punishments to invite or deterr us from what naturally we are prone or averse to but would not so readily embrace or decline without these External motives or restraints All they do here is to graft on Natures stocks to cherish and nurse up those Seeds of Vertue which are already in our very Being and Constitution For before there were any positive Laws of men there were Natural certain moral Principles of Good and Evil which Reason obliged all men to As To do as we would be done to to worship God obey and honour Parents The latter so congenial to us that Moses and other Legislators have thought it superfluous to order any Punishment for parricide imagining none could be so unnatural as to commit it Such natural Obligations are antecedent to any humane Constitutions and in the Judgment of Aristotle as fixt and determined as any physical Beings So that as there will be Colours though there were no Eye to view them there will be such a thing as Virtue and Vice though there were no Law either for or against it Nor can any pretence of publick Interest alter their Property Utilitas prope justi mater aequi though in some sense very commendable for all Laws should aim at the publick good without which they should be no better than Snares and Traps yet in that wherein some take it 't is in no wise tolerable Their meaning by it being in short this that there is no Interest but what is merely secular that Vertue and Vice are in themselves insignificant things to be taken up or laid down as they are subservient to politick Ends As if God and Nature were to stoop to Mammon or that the distance between Honestum and Utile were so irreconcileable that 't were impossible for them to meet together An Error as old as Tully's Days which he complains of and confutes which excellently serves the turns of loose men who cannot better defame and exterminate Morality than by persuading the World 't is an useless thing as indeed it is to them that desire not to be bound up by it and therefore decry it in all others especially them who are to make Laws and see them executed who if they should be vertuous must of necessity shame and punish all those who resolve to be vitious But could these men once persuade Legislators that just and unjust were things indifferent and alterable at their pleasure they would no doubt at last as easily persuade themselves too that obedience and disobedience to them were as arbitrary and indifferent What disorder and confusion this one Principle would introduce into the World that Vertue and Vice were founded only in humane Constitutions and politick Interest and not in the Nature of the things themselves is easie to judge by putting this one Supposition Suppose the reverse of all we now call Vertue were solemnly enacted and the Practice of Fraud Perjury and Falseness to a man's word and all manner of Vice and Wickedness were established by a Law I ask now if the cafe between Vertue and Vice were thus altered would that we call Vice in process of time gain the reputation of Vertue and that which we call Vertue grow odious and contemptible to humane Nature If it would not then there is something in the Nature of Good and Evil of Vertue and Vice which does not depend upon the pleasure of Authority nor is subject to any Arbitrary Constitution But that it would not be thus is most certain because no Government could subsist upon such Terms For the very enjoyning of Fraud and Rapine Perjury and breach of Trust doth apparently destroy the greatest End of Government which is to preserve men in their Rights against the Encroachments of Fraud and Violence And this End being destroyed humane Societies would immediately fly in pieces and men would necessarily fall into a state of War Which plainly shows that Vertue and Vice are not Arbitrary things but that there is a natural immutable and eternal Reason for that we call moral Good and against that we call moral Evil. God has established these things upon as firm and solid a Basis as he has done the Earth which none can remove And therefore what Tertullian Ironically said of the Roman Senate that would not allow Christ a Room among their Gods at the Instance and recommendation of Tiberius Nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit is applicable to all those who make the Wills of Legislators the Measure of Good and Evil Vertue must not be Vertue nor Vice Vice without men's Consent and Approbation 2. But besides these there is another sort of men who not content to make Good and Evil indifferent are so wickedly partial as to prefer Evil to Good These are all practical Epicureans who set up Anti-tables in opposition to those of God and Nature live as if they aimed at being scandalous as well as vitious and loved the Guilt as well as the Pleasures of Sin that give all the reputation they can to Vice which is the natural Reward of Vertue decry all Goodness in themselves and others and stamp God's Image on Satan's Dross Such are all they who as St. Paul says glory in their shame Quorum novissima voluptus infamia est the Character which the Roman Historian gives of a prodigious Impiety that boast of their Infamy one of his Atheism another of the Trophies of his Drunkenness and a third of the Variety of his Uncleanness Pride compasseth them about like a Chain Psal. 73. 6. They deck themselves with it as with a Robe of Honour wear it as their Ornament and bring it forth into open view like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with much Pomp and State glorying as much in the Scars they receive in Satan's service as ever St. Paul did in the Marks of the Lord Jesus and have not so much as the Religion of Hypocrisie Sin is called the Work of Darkness because they who commit it usually hate the Light and therefore They that are drunk are drunk in the Night says the Apostle This was wont to be the Custom Vice durst not show its ugly Face by day But how many turn the Works of Darkness into Works of Light and produce them on the