lift up his Rod over the Sea and promised the Sea should be divided Exod. 14.16 so that the children of Israel might go on dry ground through the midst of the Sea and so likewise when he commanded him to smite the Rock of stone and promised that the waters should flow thereout which had no possibility with all the power of nature to be done yet Moses never doubted of Gods Promise but presently did what God commanded both in the one and the other Even so when God commands us to do any thing and promiseth we shall have such and such blessings by doing it as to have our sins remitted by being baptized in a little water and by the worthy receiving of a little Sacramental Bread and Wine to injoy all the benefits of the body and bloud of Christ and by a stedfast faith in the death of Christ to be assured of eternal life how unlikely soever they may seem to be we ought with Abraham and Moses and the rest of Gods faithful Servants most readily do what God biddeth us and undoubtedly believe what he promiseth And though it may seem a strange wonder that cannot sink into worldly mens heads that Christ his death should procure to us eternal life and therefore the preaching of this doctrine is to the Jews that looked for such a Christ that should abide alive for ever a stumbling-block and to the Grecians that gloried only in their eloquence and ascribed all things with Aristotle to their natural causes meer foolishness 1 Cor. 1.23 as the Apostle testifieth Yet if you truly weigh this doctrine of our deliverance from eternal death How just it is that the death of Christ should free all men that believe in him from eternal death and obtaining of everlasting life by the death of Christ we shall find it very consonant to just reason and no wayes to be doubted of and that in a twofold respect 1. Because that although we for our sins deserved most justly to die the death that is to suffer the eternal wrath of God whom we have and do so highly offend yet seeing it Reason 1 pleased Christ out of his great pity to our miserable condition and his infinite love to mankind to become our Surety and to die and so satisfie the wrath of God for us Is it not agreeable to reason that Christ paying our debt and suffering for our sins as the Prophet testifieth he hath done we should be discharged and have our lives spared For so when the Officers came to apprehend Christ and to arrest him and he asked them Whom seek ye And they answered Jesus of Nazareth And he said I am he and if you seek me then let these that are my Disciples and do believe in me go their way It is apparent by these words that Christ held it agreeable to all reason that if he paid the debt the debtor should be free and if he suffered death for us we should be delivered from that death which we deserved Reason 2 2. Because that although the death of Christ was but the death of one man and we that sinned and deserved death are many thousand millions of men even all the posterity of Adam yet the death of this one man Propter unionem hypostaticam by reason of the hypostatical union of the Godhead with the manhood in the person of that one man whereby he is not only man but also God himself his death being the death of God must needs be of sufficient worth and value to satisfie God and be more satisfactory to his justice then the death of all Men on Earth and all the Angels in Heaven in as much as the death of the Creator is of more infinite value then the death of all creatures And therefore well might Christ say and happy are we that he said it That the Son of man must be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And I if I be lifted up or being lifted up will draw all men unto me that is all which will believe in me And so you have seen what was typified in the Wilderness unto the Jews by the brazen Serpent was presented and performed to us by Jesus Christ to whom for his infinite love and favour towards us and his bitter Passion and death when he was lifted up and crucified for us to deliver us from eternal death be all honour and glory and thanks and praise for ever and ever Amen A SERMON PREACHED AT THE PUBLICK FAST The eighth of March in St MARIES OXFORD Before The Great Assembly of the Members Of the HONOURABLE HOUSE OF COMMONS There Assembled By GRYFFITH WILLIAMS L. Bishop of OSSORY And Published by their Special Command JOHN 14.6 I am the way the truth and the life London Printed by J. Hayes 1664. Die Sabbati nono Martii 1643. ORdered that Mr. Bodvell and Mr. Watkins give the Bishop of Ossory thanks and desire him to Print his Sermon Noah Bridges THE ONLY VVAY TO PRESERVE LIFE Amos 5.6 Seeke the Lord and you shall live LIght is the first born of all the distinguished Creatures The excellency of the light the first word that the Eternal Word after so many ages of silence uttered forth was Let there be light Gen. 1.3 light that giveth life to all Colours that is the mother of all beauties which hath no positive contrary in nature which maketh all things manifest to the detestation of all evil and the crowning of every good and which is a creature so beloved of the Creator that he calleth himself by this name saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 John 1.5 and he makes it the most worthy associate of Truth when he saith Send forth thy light and thy truth therefore Light is a Jewel Psal 43.3 not to be valued by the judgment of man And yet the sight by which we partake of all the benefits of the light and without which the light will avail us nothing nor yield us any comfort as good old Toby sheweth saying Quale gaudium est mihi qui in tenebris sedeo is but one sense and but scarce the fifth part of the happiness of the sensitive Creature a small thing in respect of that most invaluable good which is termed Life Life how precious and which is of more worth to every living creature then is all the world for the Father of Lies spake Truth herein though to a lying end That Skin for Skin and all that ever a man hath Job 2.4 he will give for his life Therefore as the greatest threatning that God laid upon Adam to deter him from Rebellion and to detain him within the Compass of his Obedience Gen. 2.17 was In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death so the greatest Blessing that he promiseth to any man for all his Service is Life or to live â—s The just shall live by faith Hab.
testifie what pains they took so much that it made the Emperour Maximinus to wonder to see how sedulous they were in doing good and propagating the Gospel of God 3. In the third age of the Church 3. Age. and this last Century of years they are said to have faces like men because that now since the time of Wiclef Luther Melancton and the rest of our protestant Writers the people and divers of the Priests that formerly by reason of the Latine Liturgy understood no more what they prayed or what was said unto them then Balaams Asse understood her own voice were now made to become like men so rational that they understand both the Sermons and the Service of the Church 4. In the last age of the Church 4. Age. the Ministers of the fifth Monarchy so much dreamed of by the Phanatick Sectaries of our time are expounded by them to be here understood by this flying Eagle because that by reason of their swift extemporary and undigested sudden Meditations and Sermons they will most speedily pour out their words into all Lands as Lucilius did his Verses Horat. Serm. l. 1. p. 212. And send forth their voices to the ends of the World for the converting of the dispersed Jewes and all other Pagans and worldlings to the faith of Christ and to bring them back again out of Scythia into Palestina which is easier said then done and is far enough from the meaning of the Holy Ghost in this place as I have fully and amply shewed the vanity of this fiction in the sixth Book of my true Church Therefore to proceed 3. Exposition I find the third exposition to be of some of the best Protestant writers whereof notwithstanding each several one hath his several exposition as some interpret them to signifie the four Elements others the four special faculties of the soul others as Bullinger interprets them to signifie the four great Monarchies of the world and others Bullinger in Loc. as Baconthorp and Albertus apud Balaum by these foure Beasts do understand the foure great Prophets Esay Jeremiah Ezekiel and Daniel But Aretius and Maier do with Rupertus interpret them to signifie the four greatest Mysteries of our Christian Religion As I. The Incarnation II. The Passion III. 1. Incarnation The Resurrection And IV. The Ascension of our Saviour Christ and it cannot be contradicted but that these things are thereby signified As I His Incarnation which is the assuming of the nature of man unto the person of God and that as Nazianzen speaketh Fermanendo quod erat assumendo quod non erat by still remaining what he was and taking upon him what he was not is here understood by him that had his face like a man 2. The Passion II His Passion is signified by the Calf because all the Sacrifices that were offered unto God were either 1. Zebach which they properly termed Sacrifices or 2. Mincha which they called Oblations And the first sort was of living Creatures and the second sort was of dead things as the first fruits of Corn Wine Oyl and the like And the first sort also was either 1. Of the Heards or 2. Of the Flocks And of the Herds were offered 1. Oxen. 2. Cows 3. Calves and of these The Calves were most usually offered both among the Jews and Gentiles Heb. 9.19 Virgil. Eclog 3. for Moses took the bloud of calves and sprinkled both the book and the people and Virgil saith Cum faciam vitula pro frugibus ipse venito And therefore Christ being to offer up himself a sweet-smelling Sacrifice for our sins his Death and Passion could not be better signified by any thing then by the Calf 3. The Resurrection III His Resurrection is understood by the Lion because that he Qui agnus extiterat in passione Bern. De resurrectione factus est leo in resurrectione For though by Esay's Prophesie he should be led as a sheep to the slaughter yet by Jacob's Prophesie he should come from the spoil like a Lions whelp and so declare himself mightily to be the son of God by his resurrection from the dead Rom. 1.4 IV His Ascension is understood by the flying Eagle IV The Ascension which mounteth up on high according as the Prophet saith of Christ Thou art gon up on high thou hast led Captivity captive and received gifts for men The fourth Exposition is of the ancient Fathers as Irenaeus 4. Exposition Venerable Bede St. Hierome St. Augustine St. Gregory Lyra and almost all of them did agree Iren. l. 3. c. 1. that by these four Beasts are understood the four Evangelists St. Matthew St. Mark St. Luke and St. John Beda in hunc loc But to reconcile all or most of these Interpreters I say that 1. The reconciling of the Interpreters Primarily we may and ought to understand the four Evangelists by these four Beasts 2. All the Magistrates of the Common-wealth and all the Ministers of the Church and Preachers of God's word 3. And lastly All Christians whatsoever they be ought to be like unto these four Beasts both in their description and in their practice First then I say that by these four Beasts we are to understand the four Evangelists 1. Saint Matthew by the Lion though Saint Gregory would have Saint Mark understood by it 2. Saint Luke by the Calf 3. Saint Mark by him that had the face of a man 4. Saint John by the flying Eagle For I finde two special things that may well confirm and make good this Exposition as first the manner of their description and secondly the general practice of the four For if you mark it they are described two manner of wayes 1. Generally 2. Particularly And first in their general and common description they are all alike for they had all six wings about them and they were all full of eyes And secondly in their Practice they all sung the same song saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was which is and which is to come But in their particular or proper description each one of them differeth from the other as you see The first was like a lion the second like a calf c. So the four Evangelists in general aimed at the same thing to set forth the life and death of the Messiah and to bring us all to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God the Saviour of the world and that in believing on him we shall have eternal life But if we look into their more special end and aim we shall finde that each one of them differeth very much from the others For 1. St. Matthew proves Christ to be a King 1. St. Matthew seemeth principally to aim at the declaration of the Regal or Kingrick office of Christ and to prove him to be that Lion of Judah which the Jews long expected for to come to be their King to sit upon the
none was healed from the stinging of the fiery Serpents but they only that looked up on the Brasen Serpent so it is impossible for any man to be healed from the poyson of sin but by a lively quick-sighted Faith in Jesus Christ and him crucified because Christ tells us plainly that none cometh to the father but by him Joh. 14.6 4 Resemblance 4. As all that were bitten by the fiery Serpents were cured by looking upon the Brasen Serpent whether they were before it or behind it on the right hand or the left if they turned their eys to the Brasen Serpent they were healed so all that went before Christ as Adam Enoch Noah Abraham Moses David and the rest of the holy men of the Old Testament and all that lived from the beginning of the world before he was lifted up and all we that now live long after his lifting up and all the men that were since or that now are in the East or in the West in the North or in the South if with the eys of Faith they look to Christ and believe in this lifted up Son of Man that is their Crucified Saviour they shall be saved from all their sins for so Christ himself here testifieth to Nicodemus that he was to be lifted up that is to be Crucified and like this Serpent fastened to his Cross Joh. 3.15 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life And therefore away with them that do abridg and abbreviate the great mercie and favour of God towards his people as if he were a respecter of persons and sent his Son to die for some chosen men that he pleaseth to elect out of all the rest of the relapsed posterity of Adam No no beloved God is no such niggard of his Graces but as he openeth his hands and filleth all things living with plenteousness Ps 145.16 and here caused the Brasen Serpent to be lifted up on high in the open Wilderness and not in a secret corner where all and not a few might look up unto it so he gave his Son to be born in the Stable of a publick Inne where all travellers may boldly and justly challenge a room to lodg in and he was lifted up and Crucified not in the walled City where the enemies as we were all enemies unto God may not enter but without the gates as the Apostle noteth it and upon Mount Calvarie where every man might come and see him and so he calleth all men to come unto him and never denied or refused any man that came as he ought to come unto him And therefore if any man receives not the grace of Christ culpa non est vocantis sed renuentis the fault is in our selves and not in God that desires not the death of a sinner not taketh any pleasure in the miseries of his creatures but tells us plainly Perditio tua ex te because we will not look up to him 5. As this Brasen Serpent was first moulded and made 5. Resemblance and then hung up and fastened on a pole and exposed to all winds and weathers not for its own good nor any evil that it had don but for the good and benefit that redounded to others and for the evil that others had committed and could no other way be helped but by looking up to this harmless and innocent Serpent so the Son of man was contented to be made Man and then to be lifted up and Crucified or fastened to his Cross not for any benefit unto himself who was in the form of God equal to his Father from all eternity nor for any evil that he had done who by the confession of his enemies was a just man and did all things well but exinanivit se ipsum he emptied himself of all his Glory and was made Man for us and for our benefit as the prophet Esay sheweth Esai 9 5. Vnto us a Son is born and unto us a Son is given Dan. 9 76. and he underwent that shameful death and suffered those bitter paines not for himself saith Daniel but for our sins saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.21 that we by his stripes might be healed and our sinful souls cleansed by his blood which could not otherwise be redeemed with a thousand Rams and ten thousand rivers of Oyl And yet I must tell you how unlikely in the judgment of the world both the one and the other was this way to be effected For It is affirmed by some Naturalists that if one be poysoned with the Sting and Venom of a Serpent the very looking upon shining Brass is present death unto him that is stinged and how then should it be likely to be believed that the looking upon the brazen Serpent should or could be the only means to save these peoples lives from the venom of the fiery Serpents Even so when Christ told the Jews that If he were lifted up from the earth John 12.32 he would draw all men unto him that is if he were put to death his death should give life or at least be sufficient to give life to all men the people answered We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever and how sayest thou That the Son of man must be lifted up and so by his death restore life unto the world This is a riddle to us not possible to be believed that thy death should preserve our life Esay 55.8 But you must know That Gods wayes are not as our wayes nor his thoughts as our thoughts for we say with the Philosopher that Ex nihilo nihil fit but God made heaven and earth and all the things that are therein out of nothing and he drew the light out of darkness and the beauty and well-composed frame of this universal World out of a rude unshapen Chaos And therefore when God hath appointed and commanded any thing to be done and promised it should produce such and such effect it is not for us to doubt or to examine whether such a cause can bring forth such effect or to consider whether it be likely or unlikely to do the same but we ought to do what God commandeth us whatsoever it be and to believe whatsoever he saith and be sure of whatsoever he promiseth how unlikely soever it be to be effected for so when God said unto Abraham that Sarah should have a Son that is Isaac and that she should be the mother of nations and Kings of people should be of her which should spring from Isaac and afterward bad Abraham to sacrifice his Son Isaac which made the former promise very unlikely and in mans judgment altogether impossible that he should be sacrificed and killed and yet be the father of so many Nations yet seeing God commanded him to do it Abraham neither doubted of Gods promise nor disobeyed his command but presently carried him to Mount Moriah to be sacrificed So when God commanded Moses to
vengeance in his anger so when the Jews were grown incorrigible he saith Jer. 21.7 He will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their life and they shall smite them with the edge of the sword and shall not spare them nor have pity nor have mercy upon them and such a sin is murder and the shedding of innocent bloud whereof the Lord saith Deut. 19.13 21 Et vide Ezek. 8.17 18. Thine eye shall not pity him but life shall go for life And such a sin is the sin of Rebellion which is as the sin of Witchcraft and spreadeth it self like a Gangrene and infecteth many millions of men and therefore the resisting of authority deserveth more severity and less clemency than any sin as you may see it in the punishment of Corah Dathan and Abiram who in the judgement of God himself deserved no less than to be consumed with fire from Heaven Rebellion how horrible a sin or to be sent down quick to Hell which in the judgment of Optatus is so fearful and unparallel'd a vengeance shewing the transcendent odiousness of rebellion that the like cannot be found since the creation of the world because rebelling against lawful Authority is no less than fighting against the divine Majesty and therefore the most holy Saints of the Primitive Church that were most innocent in all their lives would notwithstanding suffer the most cruel death rather than they would resist this ordinance of God or otherwise if they had so impudently reviled their Heathen Judges and so rebelliously resisted their persecuting Kings as you see many have done of late against the most gracious Princes the Church had never canonized them for godly Martyrs but had registred them among the most wicked Malefactors 3. Contempt of the Priest was the last The third sin of the Israelites Ver. 10. but not the least sin whereby the Israelites lost the Lord when they hated him that rebuked in the gate and abhorred him that spake uprightly that is the Prophet or Preacher saith Cornelius à Lapide because the Jews had their Tribunals and Judgements in the gates of their Cities as Moses sheweth and therefore Jeremy Amos Deut. 21.10 and the rest of Gods servants sate also in the Gates as you may see * Jer. 17 19. Esdras l. 2. c. 8. to rebuke the wrong Judgements as St. Hierom and Lyra note and to speak uprightly that is Perfectum sanctum sermonem a perfect and a just Judgement as the Septuagint and Symmachus render it and this the people hated and abhorred which is the height of all iniquity to reject the Prophet and to exclude his counsel from our judgements Sinners that reject their Teachers and Pastors are incurable for as the Gout is the shame of the Physitian because he cannot cure it so this is the plague of the soul and a sin that is incurable for though a man commits many and great sins and leads a very dissolute life yet if he will dutifully hearken unto counsel and patiently bear with his rebukes there is great hope of his amendment but as the diseased that is deadly sick and yet like Harpaste that would not be perswaded that she was blind though she could see no more than a milstone will not believe that he is sick and cannot indure the sight of his Physitian runs on a pace to death without any hope of life so the Judges that hate the Prophets company and abhor the assistance of the Priests in their judgements as the Israelites now did and that sinner who doth hate his Teacher and shuns the society of him that seeks to save his soul have little sign of grace and as little hope of eternal life and therefore the Scripture describing the deadly estate of the most desperate sinners such as with Ahab had sold themselves to work wickedness saith they are like those that contend with their Priests Hos 4.4 of whom there is little hope and less good to be expected any waies for is it possible that a blind man should find his way when he beats away his Leader Or that a child should thrive when he bites and beats away his nurse that gives him suck So it is impossible that they should do well which hate the light or that they should ever learn any good which abhor the Teachers of all godliness Gem. de coelo l. 1 c. 22. Job 9 9. The Preachers like the Hyades Geminianus tells us thâ—t the Ministers of Gods word are like the Hyades whereof Job speaketh 1. Because the Hyades or Pleiades as we translate them are watry stars so called from their effects the word Hyades of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying nothing else but rain So the Preâ—chers pour Respect 1 out the showers of heavenly doctrine upon the barren ground of our souls to make them fruitful even as Moses saith My doctrine shall drop as the rain Deut. 32 2. and my speech shall distill as the dew Respect 2 2. Because that as when the Pleiades do arise the daies lengthen the Sun is hotter and the Earth produceth more plentiful fruits so by the preaching of Gods word the light of truth is increased the heat of Christian love and charity is kindled and the holy fruit of all good works is increased Therefore if the Preachers be as the rain to make us fruitful as the light to direct our waies as our Fathers to instruct us and as the Angels of God to bring us into heaven as the Scripture testifieth that they are then I beseech you tell me what holy fruiâ— what heavenly light or what Christian good can be in them that despise their Teachers and expell their fathers from their societies Yet this was the sin of the Israelites and I fear we cannot free our selves from it for how have they been used since the beginning of this Parliament Was not he most cried up that cried most against the Church and Church-men And men of no note became famous in the House by making invective speeches against the Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 4.13 Heb. 11.38 and 37. and he was deemed most eloquent that was most bitter against them and how hâ—ve they been handled ever since Voted out of all their means and not any thing left them to buy them bread graviora morte and being thus made as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things unto this day as the Apostle speaketh they are either cast with Joseph into the dungeon or driven to wander in desarts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth being destitute afflicted tormented And I may say of some of them with Jeremy Jer. 5.9 they that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets they that were clad in scarlet embrace dunghils they sigh and seek bread and have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve their souls Lam. 4 5. 1.11 And shall I not
there is one supreme cause which is God not tied to the pressure and incombrance of a body and fourty seven spirits subordinate to that supreme Cause according to the number of the motions which he observed in the celestial orbes of Heaven and Merc. Trismegistus as Aquinas cites him is of the same mind and denieth that there are any other spirits excepting those that wheel about the heavens for they thought that those heavenly bodies could not so ordinarily move except they were animated and quickned thereunto by some spirits of life which is very true and seems agreeable to what Ezekiel speaketh of the celestial bodies which he calleth wheels that the Spirit of life was in the wheels but they might have considered that if those spirits were necessary for the uniform uncessant motions of the celestial sphears which were created for the service of man then was it much more convenient that the first and supreme cause which iâ— God should have many more infinite numbers for his use and service and so Daniel saith that thousand thousands ministred to him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him Daniel 7. Vide Job 25. v. 3. and holy Job demands Is there any number of his armies and Rabbi Moses the Egyptian l. 2. c. 7. saith That they be as many as be the vertues of the heavens the Stars and all other inferiour things and the Platonicks say that they are so many that they are indefinite And if there be as it is most true so many good Angels waiting always upon God to do him service and to praise him and magnifie him for ever then questionless it is most certain that the number of the Devils is very very great and in all likelihood far greater then the number of the good Angels for as among men Magna plenitudo hominum sed magna solitudo bonorum the worser part is by far the greater part and the number of Reprobates is far more then the number of them that shall be saved as our Saviour testifieth so it is verisimile that the case is so betwixt the good and the bad Angels that more fell then stood for it is asserted by all the Schools that they fell from all the orders of Angels and Archangels principalities dominations virtues and powers Cherubims Seraphims and Thrones and it is most certain that quoad nos their number is infinite beyond number Mark 5.15 Luke 8.30 for a Legion of them which consisted of some thousands had entred into one man which made me oftentimes to wonder how many Legions of them were in the members of the long Parliament and how many indeed are in all the wicked men of the world when they could spare a Legion to reside in one man And therefore well might Saint Anthony see the whole world filled with Devils and covering the same with Nets and Snares which they have laid in every place and in every thing as snares in our meat snares in our drink snares in our cloaths and snares in every thing we do and in every path we walk and all to the end that they may catch us and catching us to destroy us And therefore how warily should we walk upon thorns and among snares and continually pray to God to give his good Angels charge over us to preserve us in all our ways from these wicked Spirits that otherwise will do worse then dash our heads against the stones when they destroy both our bodies and our souls in hell And so you have seen the nature the names and the number of the ingredients and now 2. The Ingression of the devils into men and women 2. The next point is their ingression or Entrance into the bodies of men and women to possess them and this is so plain when the subjects are fitted for them by their sins and wicked course of life and God in justice for the neglect of his Service or dishonour to his Name gives them leave so to do that more need not be spoken of it but as the fellow that fell into a Pit and his friend that saw him there began to question him How long he had been there and how he fell in and the like the poor man in the Pit answered I pray thee take care how to help me out and not to question how I came in so when we see so many men and women as we have seen of late while the long Parliament lasted possessed with such and so many Devils as they were the best course that we can take is speedily to use the best means to dispossess them and that is saith our Saviour by prayer and fasting which is the third Point that I am to treat of But before I could finish the handling of these two rare Graces and most powerfull Weapons to drive out these Devils I know not by what machination or by whose fascination I cannot tell onely Credo aliquis Daemon magna me facinat ira Percussitque senem dum sanguis rivulo fluxit I do verily believe some of these Devils followed me with great wrath and with a full intent to destroy me and it had not failed but he had done it had not the great Jehovah my continual Deliverer commanded his Angels to preserve me for as I was coming from Oxford to London at Wickham after Dinner the man of the house holding my Horse at the block side for â—e to get up and I ascending the steps to the top of the block as soon as ever I laid my foot upon the third step I found the same loose and lifted up and I was so forcibly suddenly and so strangely thrown down upon the pavement of Flint-stones that cut such a huge gash in my forehead that the bloud exceedingly gushed out upon the pavement and was able to dash out my brains and my whole thigh from my hip to my knee was so bruised that being lifted up I was not able to stand but was carried in betwixt two and recovered twice as they say with strong Waters when I fainted untill I was laid upon my bed * By the good man of the house and honest Master Parsons that rode in my company and was very carefull of me All which in so strange a manner as I found it done I do conceive and do verily believe could never accidentally be done but that some evil Spirit the Devil and Satanas did it purposely to end my life that I might no more oppose his dear limbs and adherents But as God had prepared a Whale to save Jonas as soon as ever he was cast into the Sea so God provided a Surgeon for me presently and he washed my wounds and did help me Blessed be God for it and God I beseech him to give me his grace never to forget this and all other his goodness and mercies and loving favours towards me but to serve him and praise him and magnifie him for ever through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the
now being more incensed with ire through this Frantique fear he put to death his own wise Mariamne his mother Alexandra and fourty of his chiefest noble men of the tribe of Juda and he slew all the great Sanhedâ—im that is the 72 Senators of the Jews and fourteen thousand infants in and about Bethlehem as some do think and among the rest he slew his own infant born of a Jewish woman as Philo writeth which made Augustus say Philo Judaeus in l. de tempore That he had rather be his pig then his son And all this he did in hope to root out and destroy all the royal bloud of Juda least this King and Lion of Juda should deprive him of his Kingdom And what insanable incurable madness is this and how vain is the thought For this King which is now born Iunaniter ergo invidendo timuisti successorem quem credendo debuisti quarere Sâ—lvatorem Fulgeni Serm. de Epiph. fol. 652. doth not come saith Fulgentius reges pugnando superare sed moriendo mirabiliter subjugare not to overcome them by fighting but wonderfully to subdue them by dying and therefore he is not born ut tibi succedat sed ut in eum mundus fideliter credat That he should succeed thee but that thou and all the World should believe in him and so be saved by him And therefore it was but a vain thing for Herod to fear where no fear was and to foster fear where he should have faith but this fire of anger and this fear of heart doth sufficiently shew that Herod knew the Messias should be a King though he understood not what manner of King he should be and so Saint Matthew setteth down this his fear and cruelty for the third argument to prove the kingrick office of Christ and Christ to be a King 4 Argument From Chists riding to Hierusalem upon the asse The fourth argument that Saint Matthew useth to prove Christ to be a King is from his riding to Hierusalem upon an asse and he tells us plainly that Christ did this to shew that he was the King of the Jews for he saith that all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying Tell yee the daughter of Sion behold thy King cometh unto thee meek and sitting upon an asse Matth. 21.4 5. Chrysost hom 67. in Matt. and ask the Jews saith Saint Chrysostom quis naâ— regum asina vectus Hierosolymam intravit which of all their Kings entred Hierusalem upon an asse and they shall never be able to name any other besides Christ For the other Kings rode in Chariots to shew their pompe and this King onely rode upon an asse to shew his humility Beda lib. 5. in Luc. and yet neque amittit divinitatem nec regiam dignitatem cum nos docet humilitatem by teaching us humility he neither looseth his divinity nor abateth any thing of his royal dignity when as clemency and humility in Majesty do shine like a precious diamond well set in the purest gold And Saint Ambrose saith that when Christ rode to Hierusalem upon an ass the people that followed him What the people did did three speciall things 1. They repeated the Prophecie to shew that they were not deceived 2. They acknowledged his Deity in saying Hosanna Salvum fac save Lord. 3. They called him their King because he was the Son of David And all was to shew that this meek and humble King was the promised Messias the glory of Israel and the expectation of the Gentiles The fifth Argument that Saint Matthew useth to prove Christ to be a King is from the marriage of the kings son 5 Argument Matth. 22.1 2. From the marriage of the kings son for venerable Bede demandeth who is the Kings son but he of whom the Prophet speaketh homo est quis cognoscit eum And the marriage of this son is the union and joyning together of the God-head with our humane nature in uno supposito in one person The servants that he sent to invite the guests were the Prophets and Preachers of the Gospel Beda super Luc. l 4. those that were first invited were the Jews the three sorts of refusers are I. Rich Worldlings that say villam emi Who weâ—e the refusers to come to the Weddingâ— and do love the things of this World better then the things of God II. Sensual men that have 5 yoke of Oxen and doe follow the lusts of their 5 Senses the lusts of the eyes and pride of life III. Lascivious wanton men that cry uxorem duxi and are led away with carnal pleasures Or as Saint Ambrose saith we may understand I. The Gentiles by him that said villam emi I bought a farme II. The Jews by him that said I bought 5 yoke of Oxen because they were under the heavy yoke of the Law and the 5 books of Moses that were such a yoke as that neither they nor their fathers could bear it and therefore they cryed out Psal 2. dirumpamus vincula let us break these bonds asunder and cast away these cords from us And III. The Heretiques Schismaticks and the like Fanatique Sectaries that are wedded to their own obstinate and foolish opinions which like Eva tempteth them and as another Dalilah destroyeth them may be understood by him that had married a wife and therefore neither could nor would obey the truth and so come unto the marriage of this King which is h re shewed unto us by the Evangelist but tell us flatly they neither can nor will do it their wife which is their obstinate opinion will not suffer them The sixth Argument that Saint Matthew produceth to prove Christ to be a King 6 Argument is from the inscription of Pilate Jesus of Nazareth Beda in Lâ—c King of the Jews Whereupon Beda saith that because he was both King and Priest together when he offered up that invaluable sacrifice of his flesh upon the Altar of his cross unto God his Father he fitly challenged and it was rightly given unto him the title of his royalty which did belong and was so due unto him and that title was written in Hebrew Greek and Latine which were and are the three most special languages of the World that all the World might read it and believe it that Christ by his cross non perdiderat sed potius confirmavit corroboravit imperium hath not lost but rather strengthened his right unto his kingdome So that although God suffered them to take away his life yet they could not take away his kingdom from him but when he was dead upon the cross yet still the title remained that he was Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews And it was written in Hebrew in respect of the Jews that gloryed in their Law and in Greek in respect of the Gentiles that boasted of their wisdom and in Latine in respect of the Romans which then ruled
They should be content with their wages but they should therefore have their wages and how should they have their wages if the Superiour officers defraud the inferiour Souldiers or the close-handed people detain their taxes I know not where the fault is if there be any but I know his Majesty and his Immediate Governours would have all things done with uprightness and according to the Dictate of right reason But to leave these and the like unreasonable men that do these and the like things without reason 4. They should be endued with the properties of the Eagle 4. We should all be like the flying Eagle and the chiefest properties of the Eagle are 1. A sharp sight 2. A lofty flight And both these are expressed in the Book of the Righteous Job 39.32 where the Lord demandeth of Job Doth the Eagle mount up at thy command and make her nest on high She dwelleth and abideth en the Rock 1 The sharp sight of the Eagle upon the crag of the Rock and the strong place there is her lofty flight then he proceedeth and saith From thence she seeketh the prey and her eyes behold afar off there is her sharp sight and of this sharpness of sight Saint Augustine saith How sharp our sight should be in spiritual things that being aloft in the clouds she can discern Sub frutice leporem sub fluctibus piscem Under the shrubs an hare and under the waves a fish Even so should we that profess Religion especially we that are the Ministers of God should have Eagles eyes to see the Majesty of God in a bramble-bush Exod. 3.2 like Moses to discern the presence of Christ with us in the fiery furnace Dan. 3.25 like Abednego to behold an Army of Angels ready to defend us in our straightest siege 2 Reg. 6.17 like Elizaus and to consider the assistance of God to help us when we are molested and compassed with the greatest heaps of afflictions Rom. 8.18 like the holy Apostle St. Paul The worldly mans quick sight But this the children of this Generation cannot doe for though the understanding of the worldly man which Nazianzen calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eyes and lamp of reason be piâ—rcing sharp and cunning enough to make a large shekel and a small Epha Amos 8.5 Luke 12.56 and very well able to discern the alterations of the skyes as our Saviour witnesseth yea and to enter like Aristotle into the secrets of nature and the deepness of Satan to finde out the plots and practices of his craftyest instruments yet being but a meer natural man he cannot perceive the things that be of God 1 Cor. 2.14 as the Apostle sheweth neither can his understanding reach any further then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such things as may be manifested by demonstration as St. Clement saith For If you talk of Christ's conception in the wombe of a pure Virgin without the help of a man then the Heathen His dimness and blindeness in spiritual things like Sarah laugheth at it and the wise Philosopher as being in darkness stumbleth at it and cannot conceive how this thing can be If you talk of Christ's death and say that our God should dye and by his death procure to us eternal life then the Jews will storm at our folly and the Grecians count it a meer madness and a great reproach to our Religion And if you talk of his glory and power that being dead and buryed he should raise himself again and now reign as a King of Kings in Heaven then the children of infidelity deem it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a feigned thing The reason of the worldly mans blindeness And the reason thereof is rendred by St. Augustine that as the eye of man if it be either blinde or purblinde cannot thereby discern the clearest object even so saith he animus pollutus aut mens turbata a soul defiled with sin or a minde disturbed with worldly cares can neither see God that is present with him nor understand the things of God that belong unto him Yet the spiritual man that hath the Eagles eyes The spiritual mans quick sight which Philo calleth fidem oculatam faith enlightened by Gods spirit can discern all the deep things of God even the most excellent mystery of godliness which is as the Apostle saith God manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels 1 Tim. 3.16 preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into glory For in the unspeakable birth of Christ the Eagles eye doth behold a divine miracle in his accursed death it seeth a glorious victory and in his return from death it conceiveth an assured hope of everlasting life 2. The lofty flight of the Eagle 2. The next Property of the Eagle is her lofty flight for the Poets feign that the Eagle fled up to Heaven and laid there her eggs in Jupiter's lap and the Prophet Esay alludeth to her lofty flight when he saith that those which wait upon God shall renew their strength Esay 40. ult and shall lift up their wings as the Eagles Jerem. 49.16 but Jeremiah goeth on further and saith that the Eagles do build their nests on high and yet Ezechiel goeth beyond them both for he saith that the great Eagle with great wings long-winged full of feathers which had diverse colours came unto Lebanon Ezech. 17.3 and took the highest branch of the Cedar where you see she takes first the highest tree and then the highest branch of that tree I know it was a Vision that shewed the state of Jerusalem but yet you may see thereby the lofty flight of the Eagle So St. John flew as high as Heaven to begin his Gospel and so we considere debemus in coelis ought to have our mindes set not on the fooleries and vanities of this world Ephes 2.6 but on heavenly things and heavenly places that Esay 58.14 being mounted up super altitudines terrae above all the high places of the earth as the Prophet speaketh we may behold all the things of this world to be tanquam muscas but as gnats and flyes or like the spiders web that though it be never so curiously woven yet will it make no garment for us and so all the titles of honour to be but folia venti the windy blasts of a fleshly pair of bellows too weak an air to carry up a noble Eagle How to deem of all worldly things all the pleasures of this world to be but lilia agri like the lilies of the field that are more delectable in shew then durable for continuance and all the allectives under heaven to be but vanity of vanities and altogether vanities For thus by a contemplation and continual consideration of heavenly things it would appear unto us quam abjecta sunt que jam alta videntur how base are all the
right of the Church and I resolved and vowed that whatsoever I recovered I would by the grace of God wholly bestow it upon the reparation of the Church so that recovering it I should be not one penny the richer and loosing it not one penny the poorer And I desired nothing but what I conceived to be the right of the Church because I know God loves not to be honoured with unjustly gotten goods But now finding that as the Prophet saith I have laboured in vain and I have spent my strength for nought and seeing the partiality and injustice of men I will with patience submit my self to that strength which is beyond my ability to oppose and study to serve my God another way because I see that as David saith the sons of Zervia are too strong for me because we that were faithfull to our King were fleec'd and bareshorne and left poor and beggarly and they that served the Beast and adheared to the long Parliament and were arrant rebels against our late good King have got all our Lands and our Monies to make friends withall and to keep us still under hatches and so though nos fuimus Troes yet now they are the men and without envy let then enjoy their prosperity so they forsake their iniquity and repent them of their former impiety And so desiring you to bear with this my just defence I shall proceed in this discourse for none other end but to discharge mine own duty and for the good of your souls to avoid the just wrath of God for a sin so highly displeasing unto God and to that purpose I shal desire you to read the 2 Mac. c. 3. where you shall finde how that when Simon the mutinous traitor both to God and his Country had informed Seleucus King of Asia of the riches and the treasure of the Church of Hierusalem and incited him to seize upon it and he had sent Heliodorus his treasurer to fetch it and Heliodorus came like a Fox pretending it was to visit and to reform the disorders of Phoenice and Caelosyria but Onias the high Priest perceiving that the goods of the Church was his errand his countenance was quite cast down and the people not enduring sacriledge ran some to the Temple some to the City Gates and some gadded up and down the streets as frantick men like Bacchus froes and all lifted up their hands and eyes and voices unto God for the defence of his Church and God heard their cry and did help them For Heliodorus was no sooner entred into the treasury to take away the spoile but there appeared to him a terrible man in compleat armour of gold mounted upon a barbed horse that ran very fiercely at the Kings Treasurer and trampled him under-foot and withall there appeared two other men of most excellent beauty and strength whipping him so that he was carried out of the place speechless and without any hope of life untill God restored him upon the earnest prayer of the Priest and people And to let you see how dangerous a sin is sacriledge to rob the Church Act. 5.5 the end of Ananias and Sapphira can bear witness for though their death was the punishment of their lying yet all must grant they were drawn to that sin by the cord of sacriledge And if a greedy desire of with-holding that from the Church which themselves had given was sufficient to open such a window unto the Devil that he came presently to cast them as a prey to the Jaws of Hell how many foule sins do they commit and how many greivous plagues may they fear to fall upon their heads which take away from the Church that which they never gave Gen. 47.22 v. 26. And you may remember that when Egypt in the time of Joseph felt so extreme a famine that the fift part of the Land was sold to releive the Land yet the Patriarch in all the care that he had both of the Country and of the King to succour the one and to enrich the other never attempted the sale of the Lands of the Priests nor once to diminish any jot thereof And if the holy man in so great an extremity never ventured to take away the possessions of the Idolatrous Priests though it were to the releif of a whole Kingdome I wonder with what face dares any man in the world curtal the maintenance of Gods Church and take away those Lands and houses that by religious Princes and other pious men have been consecrated to Gods service But Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum You might be happy if you would cast your eyes behinde you and by the examples of Gods judgments upon other sacrilegious persons learn to escape the punishments of sacriledge because they are all written for our instruction And we read that Celce the Constable of Gertrund King of Burgundy having under the authority of the King his Master enriched himself and enlarged his Territories with the Goods and Lands of the Church and being one day in the Church at his Devotion and hearing the words of the Prophet that proclaimed a woe to them that joyn house to house and land to land he suddainly shricked in the Congregation and cried out This is spoken to me and this curse is upon me and upon my Posterity and so afterwards died most miserably And we read in the Annals of France that although Lewis the Sixt surnâ—med the Great was once the Protectour of the Church and had caused the Count de Claremont the Lord de Roussi and other great men that had pillaged the Bishopricks to restore their robberies unto the Church again yet in his old age when he began to pull the Church he was sufficiently punished for it by the suddain death of his Eldest Son which was indeed the very staffe of his age though he was urged unto it with extreme necessity They that would see more examples of this kinde let them look into my Declaration against Sacriledge and Doctor Saravia's vindiciae sacrae translated into English by James Martyn And if for all this men will needs have the portion of Gods Church let them eat it with that sauce which God hath prescribed in Psal 83. and which like the Ieprosie of Gehezi wil stick to them and their Posterity for evermore 3. 3. Why these beasts were full of eyes before As you heard that these Beasts were full of eyes within and behinde so they were full of eyes before and so should we be And that is to behold and see 1. Praesentia the things that are present 2. Futura the things that are to come and must come 1. 1. To behold the things that are present As 1. The vanity of all things For the present things I shall onely leave to your consideration 1. The vanities of this life And 2. The uncertainty of our state And touching the first Saint Augustine saith most truly Si quid arrisisset prosperum
taedebat apprehendere quia priusquam pene teneretur avolabat if any prosperous thing in this world did seem to smile and offer it self unto me I was loath to take it because that before I could scarce enjoy it it was presently snatched from me For 1. Friends are like the waters of Tenia sliding away and turning as the wheele of your fortune turneth 2. Riches saith the wise man betake themselves to their wings as an Eagle and the sea can drown it fire consume it servants waste it and thieves bereave us of it Prov. 23.5 3. Honour is but Vertues shadow a winde that maketh fooles to swell but cannot satisfie any wise man 4. Beauty is such a thing as the Daughters of Vanity can tell you that the Sun will tanne it a scarr will blemish it sickness waste it and age consume it away as we read fair Helen wept when she saw the wrinckles of her old face which all your black patches cannot make young 5. And for our Health which is the greatest happiness in this life we see mans body is subject to a thousand diseases fraught with frailties within wrapped in miseries without uncertain of life and sure of death And so all the things of this world are but like the Apples of Sodome pleasant to the eyes and provoking to the appetite but vanishing into smoak when they are touched with the teeth And therefore our whole life is but painted over as some Ladies do their faces with vain semblances of Beauty and Pleasure and it is attended on the one side with whole troopes of sorrows sicknesses wants and discontents and on the other side with uncertainty of continuance and certainty of dissolution And 2. The uncertainty of our state Rom. 9.21 2. For our state all is in the hand of God as the clay is in the hand of the Potter who can of the same lumpe make one vessel to honour and another to dishonour and the Heathens conceived all was at the disposing of fortune which they according to their ignorance took for God and said Te facimus fortuna Deam When they saw that as the Poet saith Vna eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit The same hand that hath cast us down can raise us up and the same God that raised us to honour can bring us down to the dust and can either prolong our dayes or cut them off at his pleasure And who then would not serve such a Master and be affraid to offend such a Lord as hath our life our wealth and our woe in his own hands and at his own disposing O consider this all you that forget God and think of it lest he take you away and tear you all to pieces or if this cannot move you to fear God Then 2. Cast your eyes before you 2. To look unto the things that are to come to look unto the things that are to come and must fall upon the world and they are many but especially and inevitably these four 1. Death 2. Judgement 3. Heaven 4. Hell And these are quatuor novissima terribilissima the four last things and the most terrible things that can be to all wicked men to think of them and they may serve as four excellent Preachers to disswade and terrifie all men from evil and to call them continually to the service of God For the Son of Syrach saith Whatsoever thou takest in hand Eccles 7.36 remember the end and thou shalt never do amisse And 1. Death makes an end of our life 1. Of death and before it shuts the eyes of our bodies it commonly openeth the eyes of our consciences And then every man shall see his owne state though he seldome or never thought of the same before For 1. The state of the wicked Revel 12.12 1. The wicked man shall see all his sins set before his face and Satan will now bestir himself to gain his soul for he knoweth that his turn is short and therefore he will tell him that if he would have entred into life Rom. 2.13 he should have kept the commandments that not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified that if the just shall scarce be saved where shall he being such a wicked wretch as he is appear when as the Apostle tells him plainly that neither adulterer nor fornicator nor covetous person nor the like Traytor Rebel Perjurer 1 Cor. 6.9 10. or such other shall inherit the kingdome of God and so what the Preachers of God now cannot beat into the thoughts of these careless men this damned spirit will then irremovably settle in their deepest considerations O then what agonies and perplexities will tear the wofull hearts of these wicked men In that day saith the Lord I will cause the Sun to go down at noon Amos 8.9 10. and I will darken the earth in the clear day I will turn their feasts into mournings and their songs into lamentations that is I will make all those things that were wont most sweetly to delight them now most of all to torment them for now that pleasure which they had of sin shall turn to be as bitter as gall when they do see that as the Father saith transit jucunditas non reditura manet anxietas non peritura and now they must die and live they can no longer and Satan whose will they did and whose wayes they followed all their life will not forsake them at their death but will say Me you have served and from me you must expect your wages For so we read that the Devil assailed some of the best Saints as Saint Martin Saint Bernard Ignatius Eusebius and others and if these things be done in a green tree what shall be done in a withered saith our Saviour If he be so busie about the Saints what will he do to sinners And this is the state of a wicked man at his dying day 2. The state of the godly But 2. In the death of the godly it is not so for having served God all his life he hath hope in his death and he knoweth not whom he needs to fear Prov. 14.32 2 Tim. 1.12 because he knoweth whom he hath believed and when his body is weakest his faith is strongest and therefore with Saint Paul he desires to be dissolved and he longs for death that he may be with him which was dead and is alive and liveth for evermore and he is well contented that his body shall go to the grave that his soul may go to glory and that his flesh shall sleep in the dust that his spirit may rejoyce in heaven And this is the state of the godly man at the day of his death And therefore if men would seriously consider this before they come to this then certainly the fear of the most fearful death of the wicked and the love of the most comfortable death of the godly would make them to have
acervus auri Aegroto domini deducunt corpore febres They can neither deliver us from death nor preserve us in health nor yet keep us out of prison when God delivereth us into the hands of our enemies And therefore the wise man saith That when the rich mens eyes are opened they themselves will cry out Sap. 5.8 What hath pride profited us Or what hath the pomp of riches availed us Just nothing because they are but like the Spiders web that as the Prophet saith will make no garment for us 3. They are all deceitful 3. All the things of this world are deceitful and do deceive most of those men that love them and rely upon them for so our Saviour in the Parable of the Sower saith The seed which fell among thorns Matth. 13.22 is like unto him that heareth the Word of God and presently the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choak the Work for rich men and all other worldlings are like unto him that in his sleep dreameth he feasteth and is at a pleasant banquet filled with all dainty fare but when he awaketh behold his belly is empty and his soul is hungry And so the Prophet David saith The rich men have slept their sleep and when they awaked they found nothing in their hands And so now they are asleep and dream that themselves are the most happy men in the world and the dejected Servants of God to be the most miserable but when death openeth their eyes and their souls are once out of their bodies they do see that now all worldly things have forsaken them and they must go naked of all wealth and disrobed of all honour before the seat of Judgment to give a strict account of their Stewardship how they have gotten and how they have imployed all their wealth and then they will confess as you see they do in the fifth of Wisdom Sap. 5. What the worldlings at last do confess O how were we deceived for these are they Quos habebamus in risum whom we derided and had in a parable of reproach we fools thought their life madness and their end without honour and our selves only happy but now they are among the Sons of God and their lot among the Saints Sâ—p 5.3 â— 5. and we have erred from the way of truth and the light of understanding hath not shined unto us Et sic decipimur specie recti and thus in all these things we do but as Ixion did imbrace a Cloud for Juno and so deceive our selves with the shadow of things 4. The things of this world as riches honours 4. They are hurtful and the like are not only deceitful but also hurtful and so hurtful that the Apostle saith They that will be rich do fall into temptations and a snare and into many hurtful and foolish lusts 1 Tim. 6.9 which drown men in destruction and perdition For as the Vipers do gnaw out the bowels of their own Dams so the riches honours authorities and the like things of this world do many times prove the only bane and poyson that destroy their owners both in this world and in the world to come As witnesseth the story of that rich Roman Citizen who having done nothing against the Commonwealth nor any man else that he knew of yet being desirous to see the proscribed he finds himself with the first in the Proscription and then he cries out How vanities and vain desires have destroyed many men That it was his fair house at Nola and not any thing that ever he did had undone him and caused him to be proscribed So Plotius Plancus the brother of Minutius Plancus Consul and Censor of Rome was so rich and lived so delicately that being sought for by the Souldiers during the Proscription of the Triumvirate Valer. Maxim l. 6. c. 18. to be put to death and being hid in a very sure place by the faithfulness of his Servants he was betrayed and discovered only by the smell of his perfumes as was also Mulcasses King of Tunis discovered in like manner Jovius hist l. 47. as Paulus Jovius recordeth whereupon the Poet saith So many men whom vertue might have saved Are by fond pleasures of their lives bereaved And so many Women too For Demonica a Maid of the City of Ephesus promised to Brennus that besieged the same City to deliver up the Town unto him if for a recompence he would give her all the golden Chains and Bracelets of the Gaules to which Brennus yielded and after he got the City he caused all his people to cast all the golden Jewels they wore about them into the lap of this covetous Maid and she being opprest with the weight of so much gold yielded her life under it And Titus Livius relateth the like story of the daughter of Sp. Tarpeius But to search no further for ancient examples to confirm this point How many men have we seen searched after imprisoned and killed for being rich and of great possessions and being in honour and authority which perhaps had never been looked after if they had been poor and of no command and had neither place nor wealth to lose and their persecutors to gain nothing thereby For you know the old saying Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator The poor traveller that hath never a penny to lose never fears the thief when the rich Merchant oftentimes loseth both his life and his treasure And Dives the rich Glutton will tell you that the riches and treasures of this world do not only prejudice their possessors in this life but most of all in the life to come And therefore well doth bur Saviour advise us and say Labour not for the food that perisheth that is John 6.27 labour not so much for any thing that vanisheth and is of no certain continuance but labour for that which endureth for ever and which will bring us to eternal life And well doth he here perswade us not to be too careful for the things of this world especially because they are all so vain so fruitless so perfidious and so pernicious unto their possessors that too greedily do hunt after them And so much shall serve to be spoken for the Negative part of this Text that teacheth us What we should not do 2. In the Affirmative part Christ setteth down 2. The Affirmative part What we should do that is Seek the Kingdom of God c. In which words you may observe these two parts 1. A Precept 2. A Promise Or else 1. A Work 2. A Reward And 1. In the Work or Precept you have three things to be observed 1. In the work three things to be considered 1. An act to be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seek ye 2. The things that are to be sought and they are two things 1. The Kingdom of God 2. His Righteousness 3. The time when we are to seek them first
that is himself upon Earth and Camerarius saith that this is a perpetual custom in the race of the Ottomans and Turkish Souldans to put all that pretend to succession unto death Neither is it only a Turkish custom to do so but it is the practice of most of them that are bewitched with this inordinate desire to rule as Kings to do the like for Plutarch writeth that Deiotarus having many Sons and being desirous that only one of them should reign slew all the rest with his own hands and Justin saith that Phrahartes the Son of Horodes King of the Parthians killed his own Father and after that massacred all his Bretheren that he might reign and rule alone And the Sacred Storie sheweth that the very people of God the Sons of Israel were not free from this fault Judges 9. but were pestered with this disease for Abimelech the Son of Gedeon slew seventy of his Bretheren in one day and played many other Tragical parts that he might make himself a King and the furious ambition of Absolon did let him on to play the Parricide 2 Sam. 15 16. and to end his Fathers days that he might reign in his place And not to go from our own home did not Henry the Fourth put by Richard the Second his own King and Cozen German that himself might be the King And did not Richard the Third cause the true King and his own Nephews the Sons of his own Brother Edward the Fourth to be done to death that he himself might be King And did not that arch-Rebel and Traytor now of late amongst our selves play the like Tragical parts that he might gain the rule of these Kingdoms And so did many others in many other Kingdoms for there is not any thing so Sacred which the great men of this world that desire to be made greater will not violate and spare neither King Father Brother or Friend to bring themselves unto advancement and to be the rulers of the People and to have the command and power over their Goods and Lives as the proof hereof is seen in Antoninus Caracalla who when he had murthered his own Brother Geta in his Mothers lap and betwixt her arms and being advised by some of his friends to Canonize him among the Heroes and to place him among the Gods to mitigate the thought of so execrable a fact answered like a wretch sit divus modo non sit vivus let him be a God among the dead so he be not alive among Men Camerar quo supra so great an enemy is the inordinate desire of bearing rule to all Piety and right saith mine Author Therefore our Saviour doth not stop when he had said seek a Kingdom which he knew most men would be ready enough and some too ready to do without bidding but he addeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kingdom of God and not the Kingdom of this world nor the Kingdom of the Antichrist nor of sin but the Kingdom of God And the Kingdom of God is taken many waies but especially The Kingdom of God three fold 1. For the Kingdom of Nature 2. For the Kingdom of Grace 3. For the Kingdom of Glory 1. The Kingdom of nature The first is all the world Heaven Hell Sea and Earth and all men good and bad are the subjects of this his Kingdom for he is Rex universae terrae super omnes nationes mundi whom he ruleth with his mighty power and by his wisedom disposeth all things sweetly even when he permitteth the wicked to flourish and chasteneth his own children every morning our King doing herein as the Husband-man doth with his Oxen mactandus liber ibit ad pascua servandus jugo premitur that which is appointed for the slaughter shall freely run to the best Pasture but that which is to be preserved shall be pressed under the Yoak 2. The Kingdom of Grace 2. The Kingdom of Grace comprehendeth not all creatures nor all men but the elect only that is the good and godly men in whose hearts this King writeth his holy Laws and ruleth them by his Spirit that guideth and directeth them to observe his Laws 3. The Kingdom of Glory 3. The Kingdom of Glory is that which the Apostle describeth whose joyes passeth all understanding whose subjects are the Saints and Angels and whose King is Jesus Christ the King of kings The first of these was established by power when the Almighty God created all things by his powerful Word or the Word of his power which is Jesus Christ but it shall be finished through its weakness when languishing Nature that still groweth weaker and weaker can hold out no longer The second was begun in weakness when Christ the Son of God began the same in the the infirmity of our flesh and to gather his Church by the preaching of a few Fisher-men but it shall end in power when after he hath put all his enemies under his feet he shall by the power of his Deity absolve the same and deliver it as the Apostle sheweth 1 Cor. 15. unto God his Father but The third shall begin in power and continue in power without ending when as the Poet saith Gloriosum Imperium siue fine dabit Cui nec metas rerum nec tempora ponit God shall give us a glorious Kingdom without ending and eternal happiness unto his Saints where there shall be no fight because they have no enemie no tears because they can recieve no hurt no fear because there is no danger and no grief because there is no evil but all peace all joy all felicity because God will be all in all And of these three Kingdoms we ought to submit our selves with all contentedness unto the first and with all care and diligence to seek the second that so to our everlasting comfort we may attain unto the third Which kingdom we shall never come unto unless we seek the second which is the kingdome of grace as we ought to do for as among the Romans none came to the Temple of Honour but by the Temple of Virtue so none shall come to the Kingom of glory but the Subjects of the Kingdom of grace and therefore we must seek for that as we ought to do and that is 1. Generally that the Church of Christ may be enlarged by the preaching of the Gospel and by all other ways that we can to convert men to the faith of Christ and not to pervert them by wicked errours or the evil examples of an ungodly conversation 2. Particularly that the Spirit of God and not the Spirit of Satan the grace of Christ and not our fleshly lusts or any other sin might reign in us and rule our hearts to do all things according to Gods Laws that so we our selves might be members of his Church and subjects of this kingdom And as I told you before our seeking for this kingdom must not be as children seek for their
learning coldly and carelesly as indifferent whether they get little or much but as the woman that lost her groat lighted a Candle and swept the house and sought diligently for it till she found it so must we seek for this kingdom with all diligence and never leave seeking till we find it for Non mollis est via ad astra the way to heaven is not easie nor strewed over with sweet flowers but we must through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of Heaven How easie a matter it is to slide into hell Indeed the Poet can tell you that facilis descensus averni the way to hell is very easie and you may soone slide thither by any sin Sed revocare gradus superasque evadere ad auras Hic labor hoc opus est but to climb up to heaven requires labour and pains and they that think otherwise do but deceive themselves because there are many hindrances and rubs and obstacles in our way to keep us back from this kingdom as this present world that made Demas careless of the world to come How difficult to climb to heaven and our own flesh that like Dalilah lyeth in our bosome and is more dangerous than the world and the old Serpent the Devil that goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour And therefore seeing it is so hard a matter to pass through the Pikes of these enemies Abjicienda est omnis desidia ignavia Chrysost hom 3. in Johan We must cast away all sloth and idleness saith Saint Chrysostom quia angusta via robustâ animâ opus est and because our enemies are so mighty we must be strong and of good courage that we may overcome the world subdue the flesh and resist the Devil who is Leo inter formicas a Lion among those that fear him but formica inter Leones a coward among Lions running away like Thyrsites before Achilles James 4.7 for if you resist the Devil he will flie from you saith the Apostle 2 Chron. 9.18 Six especial steps to the kingdom of heaven And if you strive to pass through these dangers and desire to know the way to Gods Kingdom you shall understand that as the ascent to Solomons Throne was Per sex gradus by six stairs so we have six special steps to ascend to the Throne of grace 1. Regeneration The first is by Regeneration Quia nascimur ad laborem renascimur ad salutem because we are born the children of wrath to labour and to miseries and therefore we must be born again that is by the washing of water and the working of Gods Spirit if you would walk towards this kingdom for Except you be born of Water and of the Spirit John 3. you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven saith our Saviour The second is by Outward profession that is 2. Outward profession Cant. 1.8 as Solomon saith by following the steps of the fleck unto the tents of the Shepherds and as they do to profess the Faith and never to be ashamed of the Cross of Christ The third is by Hearing Gods Word 3. Hearing Gods Word i. e. the truth of the holy Scripture and not the dreams and traditions of men for my Sheep hear my voyce saith Christ and if you hear his voyce your souls shall live saith the Prophet Isaiah Jer. 23.16 and c. 12.6 Deut. 13.3 John 10.5 Matt. 7.15 but the hearing of old newly revived Heresies is not the way to this kingdom but the way from it and therefore we are flatly forbidden to hear the doctrine of all such deceitfull teachers The fourth is by Believing Gods Word 4. Believing Gods word and giving credit unto his sayings even as Abraham credidit Deo believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness for otherwise if we believe not what we hear our hearing of it will avail us nothing but rather be a witness against us and yet as the Prophet Isaiah demands Isai 53.1 Who hath believed our report So I fear that of many which come to hear Gods word there be but few that believe what we say when as we have too many men like those whereof Tertullian speaketh Qui credebant Scripturis ut crederent adversus Scripturas i. e. to believe what they pleased out of the Scripture and many more that do lead their lives so lewdly and so dissolutely and follow after the vanities of the world so eagerly as if they believed there were neither heaven nor hell The fifth is By continual Prayers 5. By continual prayer and constant invocation upon God that he would open our ears that we might hear and so work in our hearts that we might believe the truth of God for so our Saviour biddeth us Ask and you shall have seek and you shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you and S. Augustine saith If any man would find out the truth agant orando et quaerendo et bene vivendo ut inveniant Let them pray to God and study hard and live holily and God will help them to understand the truth The sixth and last step of this Ladder that reacheth up to the Kingdom of Heaven is by doing the will of God and leading our lives according to Gods Laws for so the Apostle tells us Rom. 2.13 Not the hearers of the Law but the doers of the Law shall be justified And Christ saith Not every one that saith Lord Matth. 7.21 Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven So that to hear Sermons to understand Gods Word and to pray to God is all in vain unless we do study and strive withall to do our best endeavours to live according to Gods will And therefore 2. Our Saviour desirous to shew unto us the readiest way to come to this Kingdom of God Matth. 6.33 saith Seek ye the Kingdom of God and his righteousness that is the righteousness which is acceptable in his sight and that is as St. Paul saith To follow peace with all men Heb. 12.14 and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord And you must observe that righteousness here is to be referred to God and not to the Kingdom because as Cajetan well observeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of the feminine Gender and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the masculine Cajetan in loc and therefore must be referred ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto God and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kingdom of God The which thing together with infinite such other doubtful and obscure places of Scripture doth sufficiently shew unto you that ignorant unlearned men that have neither Arts nor Language neither Greek nor Latine but do run to teach others before they have learnt any things themselves like those in the Canticles who watched over others but kept not their own flock are but blind
complicatus a twisted and decompound wickedness consisting of these four special branches that do most commonly walk together 1. Ingratitude 2. Inconstancie 3. Impatience 4. Injustice For 1. 1. Ingratitude They had received from the hands of God the greatest blessings that ever Nation received from a handful of hunger-starved people no more then threescore and fifteen souls to be multiplied and increased Acts 7.14 Exod. 12.37 within the space of two hundred and fifty years to the number of about six hundred thousand men besides women and children And then being cruelly opprest and tyrannized over by Pharaoh King of Egypt to be so wonderfully and miraculously delivered out of his hands so fully and opulently with silver and gold and Jewels and abundance of all manner of wealth and for God himself to guide them and to feed them with the bread of Heaven and the food of Angels What a monstrous ingratitude was it for such a people to murmur against God and to complain against Moses as if God had purposely brought them and Moses maliciously drawn them out of Egypt to be destroyed in the Wilderness of Arabia petrosa the most uncomfortable place of all the earth And is this the thanks that they render unto God for the wonders that he wrought for them in Egypt and the fearful things that he did by the Red Sea where they exceedingly rejoyced for their deliverance and sang that excellent Song of thankfulness unto God saying That he had triumphed gloriously and thrown the horse and his rider into the Sea Exod. 15.1 But 2. They had now changed their thoughts 2. Their inconstancy and their levity and inconstancy is shewed unto the world and so they continued alwayes a fickle and giddy headed people never constant in any thing but in inconstancy for though Moses brought them out of bondage and eased their shoulders from their burdens and their hands from making the pots yet when he had been but forty dayes absent from them they will needs make golden Calves and cry out These be thy gods O Israel that brought thee out of the land of Egypt And though King David subdued all their enemies the Philistines 1 Chron. 18. and the Moabites and Hadarezer King of Zobah and the Syrians and the Edomites and the Ammonites and had given them rest on every side and Solomon his Son had brought them peace all his dayes 2 Chron. 1.15 and made silver and gold at Hierusalem as plenteous as stones and built them such a glorious Temple for the service of their God as had not the like in all the world yet when his son Rehoboam did but a little discontent them they presently cry out 2 Chron. 10.16 What portion have we in David And w have no inheritance in the son of Jesse And so though Jesus Christ healed their sick raised their dead cast out their devils and by their own confession did all things well and therefore as it were to day spread their garments under his feet and cried Hosanna yet as it were to morrow they had no other note then Crucifie him crucifie him And such was the inconstancy of this people that though at first they joyfully received admired and loved the celestial Manna yet now they say in plain terms Our souls loatheth this light bread Numb 21.6 3. Their impatiencie 3. Though the Heathen man Menander could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the part of a wise man to bear all calamities and misfortunes patiently because as Horatius saith Levius fit patientia Quicquid corrigere est nefas When as another saith Dat spatium quo se crimine purget homo Patience yields a man a time and space to purge himself from that sin which hath brought his calamities upon him Yet this people for this their travel which they thought too tedious betwixt Egypt and Canaan grew weary of it and fell into such impatiency that they could not contain themselves but they must secretly murmur and then publiquely with open mouths complain against God himself and against his Servant Moses as if they had dealt too cruelly and too maliciously with them But 4. Their Injustice Amos 3.2 4. How unjustly they do this it is apparent to all the world for God professeth You only have I chosen that is for his own inheritance and his own people of all the nations of the earth And Moses continually ventured his life spent himself wholly to do them good to provide them food to procure them flesh Numb 11.12 to draw water for them out of the Rock and to carry them in his bosome as a nursing father beareth his sucking child yet so palpable was their injustice thus falsly to accuse both God and man And this was the sin of Israel The sin of England just like the sin of the Israelites and this was the sin of England in a far greater measure and a much higher strain then they did For When God much more merciful to us then he was to them had more abundantly shewed his wonders and his favours to us then he did to any other Nation under Heaven as in our deliverance by Jesus Christ from sin and Satan whereof their deliverance from Egypt and Pharaoh was but the shadow and sending to us such pious Princes so stout a Protestant as Queen Elizabeth so wise so learned and so peaceable a King as King James and so milde a man so religious and every way so excellent and surmounting all other men in all piety and goodness as King Charles the first to bring us out of the Egyptian darkness of errors and superstition and to preserve the pure light of the Gospel amongst us which no Nation under Heaven had the like yet we did not only murmur and complain against God and against his Annointed but we raged and railed we rebelled and murdered the best of Kings and our own most gracious Governour that like an Angel Pellican gave his own bloud to give life unto his children so fa◠did we exceed these sinful Jews in all wickedness But 2. Having seen their sin 2. Their punishment what followeth but their punishment which is alwayes at hand even at the heels of sin for God having heard their murmuring the Lord sent fiery Serpents among the people and they bit the people Numb 21.5 so that many of them died where you may observe how just and how proportionable their punishment is unto their sin for as the people like unto Serpents spitted out their poyson against God and his Servants so God sent these fiery Serpents to disgorge their venom against this people And you may observe further that if God did thus severely punish the murmuring and the words of this people for the Text saith no more But that they were discouraged because 〈…〉 the way and therefore spake against God and against Moses saying Wherefore have you brought us out of Egypt to die in
find out the deepest Mysteries of Gods secrets in his absolute decrees and unsearchable waies of Election and Reprobation and the like but of those lighter heads that bestow their search about things of nothing as the Graecians did beat their brains to find out how many rowers Ulysses ship had and whether the Iliads or the Odysses were first written so we must know whether the ancient Monks wore their Cloaks short like the French or down to the heels like the Spaniards or whether Saint Augustine wore a white garment upon his black cloaths or a black cheimer upon a lawn surplice and a thousand such like points and ceremonies that are like the spiders web which will make no garment for them or like the banquet of a sick mans dream that will not satisfie their hungry souls and are raised up by the Devil to this only end that while we seek after these fruitless things that may hurt us much but avail us little that may best be spared and ought least to be disputed we might leave off to seek the Lord and those things that do necessarily pertain unto salvation But in universalibus later error What it is to seek the Lord general things are often dark and every one saith that he seeks the Lord but that either he mâ—keth darkness his secret place Ver. 14. his pavilion round about him with dark waters and thick clouds to cover him or else dwelleth in the light that no man can attain unto it Psal 37 27. otherwise God forbid that you should imagine saith every man that we do not seek the Lord. Therefore to take away this curtain to unvail this glorious face and to let you see that few of us do seek the Lord whatsoever we say the Prophet tells us plainly that to seek the Lord is to seek good and not evil or as he explaine h it further in the immediate Verse 15. it is to hate the evil and love the good and to establish judgement in the gate and this the Prophet David said long before eschew evil and do good and dwell for evermore Besides God is truth and God is justice therefore you must seek the truth and you must do justice for When truth shall flourish out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven Psa 85.11 12. then the Lord will shew loving kindness he will speak peace unto his people and our Land shall give her increase but while our Land flows with Lies and the father of lies rewards the Liers and spreads them abroad to uphold robberies oppressions and rebellions the Lord will not speak peace unto us because righteousness and peace have kissed each other and therefore though we should be never so desirous of peace and to procure peace be contented it should be done upon unrighteous terms it may be with the ruine of the Church yet it cannot be None can make peace but God Jer. 25.29 Psal 46.9 because it is not in the power of any man no not of the King himself to conclude a peace when God proclaimeth war for as he calleth for a sword upon the Inhabitants of a Land so it is he and he alone that maketh wars to cease in all the world he breaketh the bow and knappeth the spear in sunder and burneth the Chariots in the fire and without him it cannot be done as you may see in Ier. 47.6 And I fear and I pray God it be but my fear that as the wrath of God was never appeased for the innocent bloud of the Gibeonites that Saul most unjustly spilt untill it was revenged by bloud upon the house of Saul so the innocent bloud that hath been spilt in this Kingdom can never be expiated untill an attonement be made by bloud because that without bloud there is no remission that is of bloud unless they do with Manasses wipe away the streams of bloud with the streams of most penitent tears for he that sheddeth mans bloud that is illegally by man shall his bloud be shed that is judiciarily by the Magistrate saith God in the Old Testament and all they that take the sword that is without due authority shall perish by the sword that is by just authority saith our Saviour Christ in the New Testament and therefore if your peace may not be had with truth and according unto Justice gird you with your swords upon your thighs O you mighty men of valour and let the right hand of the most highest teach you terrible things untill as our Prophet speaketh Ver. 24. judgement shall run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream that is smoothly without any manner of opposition as Montanus and Vatablus render it Set God and his truth alwaies before your eyes and labour for that peace which may stand with the peace of Conscience and with your peace with God or otherwise you may purchase a worldly peace at too dear a rate it may be with the loss of your souls when God shall say unto you as he doth unto the Jews Shall not I visit for these things as if he said you indeed for your peace and prosperities sake for fear of danger and in hope of rest may be contented to wink at all these sins that have provoked me to wrath and perhaps to sell my truth and suffer my service to be abused and my servants to be destroyed that you may live in peace but do you think that I am such an one as your selves or that I will suffer all these things to go unrevenged No no saith the Prophet The Lord is known to execute judgement and he will be Judge himself he will kindle the fire and none shall quench it And therefore noble and religious Gentlemen that love your God better than the World and his eternal honour better than your own temporal happiness love peace and ensue it but let it be with the truth and with justice let the story of the worthy Maccabees be set before your eyes that rather than they would change their Religion or suffer the service of God any waies to be impaired and their Ecclesiastical government to be in any thing changed they sold their peace with the loss of their lives which is their everlasting praise and here I do profess I do most heartily wish for peace and would think my self most happy to see peace established as of old but rather than I should see it with the ruine of the Church with a Presbyterian Discipline that new-sprung out-landish weed of mans invention and no plant of Gods plantation I beseech Almighty God that I may beg my bread and seâ—k it in desolate places that my bloud may be poured like water upon the ground and the remainder of my years may be cut off from the Land of the Living so much do I desire to imbrace mine own misery rather than to see the Churches infelicity and the service of God so much vilified And I am confident
cannot do any thing nor will any thing Isidorus l. 1. c. 10. Aug. de fide ad petrum c. 3. contrary to the Will of God as both Isidorus and Saint Augustine do most fully and excellently declare Error 2 2. For that a vail or covering cannot be sufficient to keep any thing from the sight of a Spirit who doth so perfectly penetrate into all inferiour objects as that he knoweth them quantum cognoscibilia sunt so far as they are knowable And therefore touching this first opinion of their fall and sin as this Inference is insufficient so the foundation of it is not firm Zanch. de operibus Dei l. 4. c. 2. and I will not say with Zanchius that this opinion is nimis stulta and the Authors of it nimis stupidi as Theodoret in his forty seventh Question upon Genesis because that should be sermo nimis durus The double reason against the error of this first opinion too rigorous a censure upon those worthy men that held it But I say they were mistaken in a double respect 1. Because that there is no mention in the Scripture of this sin of carnal Concupiscence or fleshly Lusts until almost a thousand years after the Creation of the World but it is Reason 1 most certain that there were many other sins both of the Angels and Men long before this sin For the â—cripture teacheth us saith Saint Chrysostome that before Adam was formed the Devil fell away from his dignity And the Wise man saith That by the envy of the devil death entred into the world Therefore he sinned before Adam sinned for otherwise if he fell not before man was made how could he remaining in so great a dignity in Heaven envy man here on Earth It is not likely but it is against all reason to think that an Angel incorporeal placed in the height of glory and in the sight of God should envy man that bare a body of earth about him and lived here on earth but he being cast down from Heaven and to be chained in extream ignominy and seeing man in such great dignity then his malice saith Saint Chrysostome Non potuit non graviter ferre aliorum foeâ—icitatem could not endure the sight of others happiness without envy 2. Because that the Lord God himself saith Gen. 6.3 My Spirit Reason 2 shall not alwayes strive with man for that he is but flesh yet his dayes shall be an hundred and twenty years At natura incorporea carnes non habet But the Spirits have no flesh neither have the Angels a life defined or determined by time Theodoret q. 47. in Gen. seeing they are immortal saith Theodoret. Therefore the sin of these foul Spirits could not be any carnal Lust 2. Opinion is of them which say 2. Opinion of their fall Eccles 10.13 That pride caused them to fall That the first sin of Satan was Pride according to that of Syracides Initium omnis peccati est superbia Pride is the beginning of sin and the beginning of pride is to depart from God when the heart turneth away from his Maker Whereupon Saint Augustine saith Aug. in vet Test That the Devil elatione inflatus puffed up with pride would needs be counted and so taken for God And so Saint Chrysostome saith Chrysostome in Isai ad hom 3. That Satan Per superbiam factus est Diabolus qui antea Diabolus non erat by his pride was made a Devil which before he became proud was no Devil A good Lesson for proud fantastical men to think on what their pride will bring them to which brought the Angels of Heaven to be Devils in Hell Hierom in c. 28. Ezek Ambros in Psal 118. Ser. 3. Nazian Orat. 1. de pace Fulgent ad Monimum l. 10. Esay 14.13 14. 1. Reason to prove pride to be their sin Job 41.34 Ezek. 28.2 14.15 And this was the opinion of St. Hierom and of St. Ambrose and of St. Nazianzen Fulgentius Athanasius Theodoret and many more And this their opinion may be confirmed both out of the Old and New Testament For 1. In the old Testament it is said Cogitavit apud semetipsum He thought with himself to exalt his throne above the stars of God and said I will ascend above the height of the clouds and I will be like the most High The like whereof we find in Job under the name of the Leviathan who is said to be the king over all the children of pride And the very like in Ezekiel under the title of the Prince of Tyrus whose heart was lifted up and he said I am a god and I sit in the seat of God and the Prophet in the person of God saith of him Thou art the annointed Cherub that covereth and I have sâ—t thee so thou wast upon the holy mountain of God thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire and thou wast perfect in thy wayes from the day that thou wast created until iniquity was found in thee For though I am not ignorant that the place of Esay is literally to be understood of the King of Babylon and that of Job of the Whale and the other place of Ezekiel is spoken of the King of Tyrus yet this can be no hinderance but that mystically these places may signifie the Devil who is the head and the grand Captain of all the children of pride Rupertus de victoria verbi Dei 2. Reason to prove it Luke 10.18 as Rupertus Tuitiensis doth most excellently declare 2. The same may be proved out of the new Testament where our blessed Saviour for the repressing of this detestable sin of pride alledgeth the fall of Satan saying I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven and therefore take heed of being proud that the foul Spirits are subject unto you lest you fall likewise even as he did And so Saint Paul sheweth That he which is puffed up with pride 1 Tim. 3.6 falleth into the snare and judgment or condemnation of the devil that for his pride was adjudged and condemned to hell And let all proud Gallants take heed of the like judgment and condemnation 3. Opinion is of them which say 3. Opinion of their fall That the first sin of the Devil was Envy when he saw man that was formed of the dust of the earth to be made in the Image of God and to confirm the same they alledge Athenagoras Petrus Alexandrinus and especially that place in the Book of Wisdom where the Wise man saith That Per invidiam Diaboli Sap. 2.24 mors intravit in mundum through the envy of the Devil death came into the world But this saith Zanchius crosseth not the truth of the former opinion but may well agree with it and proceed from his pride seeing as Aquinas saith Thom 12. q. 84. ar 20. 22. q. 77. art 5. Envy is a branch of pride Quando bonum
celerity moving into a thousand thousand places as it were in a moment And so in these two respects they have abundant and in a manner infinite knowledge and that not only about the Creatures and all the secrets of Nature and all the actions yea and sometimes the secret motions of all men but also concerning God himself and his divine Mysteries as they know that there is a God Aug. de regulis verae vitae Orphaeus apud Just Martyr Mark 1.24 Athâ—nas in vitae S. Antonii and they know him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one God of himself and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one God in all things and they know him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most high God and they know Christ to be the holy one of God and so they know the Scriptures for they alledge them unto Christ and oftentimes to St. Anthony as Athanasius writeth in his life And therefore it is not knowledge that many men abuse and maketh many men proud that can make any one happy unless they do rightly use their knowledge to the glory of God the edifying of their neighbours and the saving of their own souls for you see the Devils have more knowledge then any of us all and his knowledge doth but make him liable to the greater torments Quia corruptio optimi est pessima The abuse of the best things is the worst thing of all Respect 5 5. In respect of their power the Devil is called potestas aeris the power of the Air Principalities and Powers and the Prince of this world And that we might the better understand the greatness of his power 1 Pet. 5.8 Apoc. 12.9 Job 40.20 he is called the roaring Lion the great Dragon the great Leviathan and the like all names of power But yet here you must observe a twofold property of their power As And they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Zanch. de operibus Dei l. 4. c. 2. 1. That it is Potestas data concessa non propria atque innata a power given them of God and not their own proper innate power from themselves for all the power they have they have it given them from God and not from themselves And therefore as our Saviour saith of Pilate so I may say of them That they had had no power at all except it had been given them from above by God 2. That it is potestas limitata non absoluta a power limited Their natural power which they have from God from their creation is very exceeding great but now since they sinned it is abridged bridled and they said to be held in chains and not absolute for as God saith unto the Sea Hitherto shalt thou go and no further here shalt thou stay thy proud waves so he saith unto the Devils Thus far shall you molest oppress and persecute my servants but no further â—or as Saint Augustine saith si Diabolus tantum nocere posset quantum vellet aliquis justorum non remaneret If Satan might do what he would do not a righteous man should remain upon the face of the earth And therefore whatsoever he can do he can do the same but by the leave and permission of God for he is like a Bear in a Chain and without Gods leave he could not touch Job with the least of his fingers John 2.16 Matth 8 41. nor enter into the Swine without the permission of Christ and therefore much less can he enter into any man or woman and so possess them without the leave and licence from God But when God gives him leave and suffereth him without stop then his power extendeth it self to do very much upon the creatures And God gave him leave at Hickham to throw me down upon the pavement of Flint stones but not to destroy me as he caused the winds to meet together and to smite the four corners of the house of Job's Son and so to overthrow the same and so likewise with this leave and permission of God his power reacheth to the raysing of storms and tempests clouds and darkness and the sinking of Ships to the destruction of Men and Women as he threw down the house to destroy all the Children of Job and so he can enter into men or women and drive them as he did the swine to hang drown or do any other mischief unto themselves as here to cast the Possessed oft time into the fire Matth. 17.15 and oft into the waters For though he hath no power to work upon the Celestial bodies because an inferior substance or a lower cause vim nullam habet in superiora corpora have no power at all to work upon superior bodies as the Philosophers do affirm yet we see plainly that his power extendeth unto all sublunary and elementary creatures And therefore seeing the power of the Devil is so great What the former point of doctrine teacheth us as both his names and his doings do declare and yet that all his power can do just nothing not so much as to shake the leaf of an Aspen Tree without the leave and permission of God it should teach us 1. To pray to God 2. To relie on God 1. To pray to God to preserve us and to put a hook in his nostrills to stop him from his malice 2. Doing this to be as bold as Lions to do our duties without fear of all the Devils in hell for if God be with us what need I care what Men or Devils can do unto me quia non plus valet ad dejiciendum inferna poena quam ad erigendum divina tutela because all the power of darkeness is not so able to cast me down as the assistance of God is to hold me up or to raise me when I am fallen We read of other names of the Devil according to the distinct places and offices that they have among themselves to do mischief and to tempt wretched men to sin and to offend their God as Lucifer and Beelzebub that tempt the young Gallants unto pride and to murther each other in a single Combate rather then they will abate an inch of their reputation And Leviathan that is the arch Doctor of all Hereticks and filleth their heads with such itching curiosities as makes them leave the true light and fall away to erronious darkness and Asmodeus that inticeth young men and maids unto wantonness and fleshly lusts Judg. 8.33 and c. 9. 4. 3. Of the number of the Devils Arist Physicor l. 8. Metaph l. 12. Text 48. and Bal-bereth that we read of in the eighth and ninth of Judges and tempteth men to quarels and contentions and Baalim and Astaroth and many more too tedious to rehearse and which were the gods of the Gentiles but the names of Devils for dii gentium Demonia but 3. To pass from their Names unto their Number Aristotle is of opinion that
Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed all honour and glory for ever and ever Amen Jehovae Liberatori FINIS THE PERSECUTION AND OPPRESSION Which as Solomon saith is able to make a wise man mad OF JOHN BALE That was called to be Bishop of Ossory by the sole Election without any other mans Motion of that pious King Edw. 6. AND OF GRUFFITH WILLIAMS That was called after the same manner to the same Bishoprick by the sole Election without any other mans Motion of that most excellent pious King and glorious Martyr Charles I. Two Learned men and Right Reverend Bishops of Ossory LONDON Printed for the Author 1664. I. THis John Bale was a great Schollar and a Doctor of Divinity in the University of Oxford in the time of King Edward the sixth and he himself wrote a Book which the Right Worshipful and my much honoured Friend Sir James Ware lent me wherein he setteth down the vocation persecution and deliverance of himself and out of that Book I have drawn this Abstract of his life and persecution and expulsion from that very house from whence I was also expulsed and for which I am still oppressed and troubled 1. His Vocation was by the meer good will without any sollicitation of any other of that good King Edwards when he saw him in South-hampton he sent unto him by divers of his Nobility to bid him prepare himself to go to be the Bishop of Ossory which he obediently did and transported himself and his Family into Ireland and being consecrated at Dublin though with some opposition by reason of the Popish inclination of the Catholick Clergy he presently went to Kilkenny where 2. His Persecution did begin for he no sooner began to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ which he incessantly did but the most part of his Prebends and the Popish party opposed and contradicted him and within a very little while after the death of King Edw. 6. he was exceedingly persecuted by Barnaby Bolger and the Popish Priests and others that sought his death in his house this Bishops Court alias Holms Court Rich. Foster a Deacon Rich. Headly John Cage and the Maid where he saw five of his houshold Servants four men and a maid of sixteen years of age killed before his face and so had he been slain also had he not shut the Iron Grate of his Castle and kept the Kearnes out until the good suffereige of Kilkenny with a hundred horsemen and three hundred footmen brought him away in the night time and so delivered him out of their hands and forthwith sent him to Dublin from whence his life being there likewise hunted after he was conveyed away in a Marriners apparel and in his passage to Zealand was cruelly tossed by tempests and was taken at sea and carried to St. Ives in Cornwall where a wicked fellow named Walter accused our Bishop Bale of High Treason before the Justices there yet being not able to prove any thing against him the good God delivered him out of their hands And yet not long after one Martin an English Pirate did most falsly accuse him of many hainous crimes as the pâ—â—ting down of the Mass in England caused Doctor Gardiner Bishop of Winchester to be imprisoned and poysoned the King and many other hainous things which brought him abundance of troubles and vexations with the Captain of the ship wherein he passed towards Holland as himself relateth at large from fol. 38. of his Book of his persecution unto fol. 42. And because they are so fully exemplified and expressed by himself there together with the rest of his troubles and persecutions which he had in Ossory in Dublin and in his passage by Sea towards Germany in the Book that himself printed of his Vocation to the Bishoprick of Ossory and his persecution in the same I will set no more down here but refer my Reader to that Book II. GRiffith Williams born at Carnarvon at fourteen years old was sent to Oxford from whence by reason of the hard usage of him Junonis ob iram by an angry Juno that was his Unckles virago he was fain to betake himself within two years after alienas visere terras and failing to pass into France where he intended he was forced to retire into Cambridge where having no friends nor money a Country Gentleman of Harleton named Mr. Line having but one little Son about eight years old took affection unto me and entertained me into his house and table to tutor and teach that young Child and being there I got my self admitted into Jesus Colledge where as it came to my course I kept my Exercise and within two years after having gotten a Certificate from Christ-Church in Oxford of my study and good carriage there for two years before I had my degree Bachelour of Arts and within three years after I took my degree Master of Arts at 21 years of age and being admitted into the holy Orders of a Deacon by the Reverend Bishop of Rochester and of Priesthood by the Bishop of Ely after I had been a while Rector of Foscot in Buckingham-shire I became a Preacher and Lectorer in St. Peters the Proud in Cheapside and in the Cathedral Church of S. Paul For I found it so And then printed my first Book intituled The resolution of Pilate and my second Book intituled The delights of the Saints for the full space of five years I Lectored upon St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans and then began my persecution by the Puritans as they were then called and Fanaticks of those daies saving a little opposition that I formerly had by the same generation while I was Curate of Hanwel in Middlesex for now the more pains I took to study and to preach the truth boldly unto them as I ever did without fear the more mad they were against me and so mad that not only forty as they were against St. Paul but I believe above twice forty conspired together to work my death and most falsly accused me of such things as I never knew never did and never said yet they prosecuted the same so maliciously that I was bound over and they did their very best to hinder me to get any bayl to answer for my life at the Sessions house upon the Goal delivery of Newgate where I might demand tantenae animis terrestribus irae But he that dwelleth in the Heavens and knew mine Innocency and the cause of their malice laughed them to scorn and became to me as he is alwaies to them that fear him Deus in opportunitatibus a present help in trouble Who seeing that they would prefer no Bill against me quitted me and said they had forfeited and should pay their Recognizance as they well deserved to the King See the Epistle to the Reader before the seven Golden Candlesticks and delivered me with credit and honour out of the mouth of those Lions that were exceedingly blamed and checked by that worthy Judge
was risen in Cheshire and was so near the time that I expected and foreshewed his Majesties restauration I took a young Philly that I had of three years old and in a very cold snow and frost in January I went soft and fair towards London hoping that now so many men looking after the coming in of our King and Collonel Monk expected to assist him I should have my Great Antichrist published yet still the Rump was so strong that it could not be therefore I was fain to retire towards Wales again and going from my house by Tocester where I had left my Mare some ten miles in a frosty morning a foot I afterwards went a horse-back but had not rid one quarter of a mile but my Mare whom all my Neighbours there said she was great with foal lay down under me and I fearing she would cast her Foale and so perhaps lose my Mare or forced to leave her behind me was resolved to lead her in my hand and so I did from that place which was Daintry to my house in Wales about seven score miles the way being somewhat fair in the latter end of March. Then having some occasions to go to Ireland being at Holy Head I had notice with the Post from London that the Parliament according as I found in Scripture had voted the coming in of the King and I landing in Dublin about seven of the Clock the next morning being Sunday preâ—ched at St. Brides and publickly prayed for the King I am sure the first man in the Kingdom of Ireland and the next morning went towards Kilkenny and going to Donmore to present my service to my Lady of Ormond I found her as she was ever the most honourable of all the Ladies that ever I knew and taking me aside informed me of the state of Kilkenny and of all things thereabouts so I went to Kilkenny and preached there and publickly prayed for his Majesty the next Sunday after I had done the like at Dublin and then hasted back to Dublin and from thence without stay to Holy Head and resting but one night in mine own house I rode as fast as I could to London and having left all the Lands that I had in Ireland in pawn for 100 li. which mine own self carried to London I agreed for the Printing of my Great Antichrist and immediately after his Majestiâ—s happy arrival in London having the same printed in three Printing-houses and my self paying for the printing of it with ready money I got it presently done and presented it to his Majesty who very graciously accepted thereof But one of my Countrymen had begg'd of his Majesty the Deanery of Bangor yet when I informed his Majesty that my good King and gracious Master his Father had conferred it upon me to hold it in commendum so firm as Law could make it his Majesty was most graciously pleased presently to send to Sir Edward Nicholas to recall the Grant that he had made to Mr. Lloyd but the same being past to the Great Seal my Lord Chancellour to whom I ever was very much obliged knowing my Faithfulness to my late King and best Master and my sufferings for him did most honourably stop it before I could come unto his Lordship and so by his Majesty and my Lord Chancellours goodness I still enjoyed my Masters favour Then things being somewhat setled I went to live upon my Bishoprick in Kilkenny where I found the Cathedral Church and the Bishops house all ruined and nothing standing but the bare walls without Roofs without Windows but the holes and without doors yet I resolved presently to mend and repair one Room and to live in the Bishops house and as I had vowed that if I should ever come to my Bishoprick I should wholly and fully bestow the first years profit for the reparation of the Church so my witness is in heaven that I have done it and have since bestowed more as forty pound the last Summer for repairing the Steeple of the Cathedral * And this Summer six score pounds for to make a Bell worth they say 200 l. and yet a thousand pounds more will not sufficiently repair that Church which I vowed to bestow If I recover the Bishops house and live to it and a great deal of cost more I laid out upon the Bishops house Yet now began my Oppression which grieves me much more than my Persecution because my persecution was personal and concerned my self alone but mine Oppression doth now reach to the dishonour of God and the robbing of Jesus Christ of his service and the destruction of his Servants when as the Church of Christ cannot be ruled without Governours nor instructed without Teachers and neither of them can subsist without maintenance And yet now Noblemen and Gentlemen Souldiers and Citizens and all think no Bread so sweet no Wine so pleasant as that which they snatch from the Altar and no Land so fertile as that which they hold from the Church and keep it by force from the Church-men and to give you a taste of this truth I have printed a Narrative and a true Relation of a Law proceeding betwixt my self and Sir George Ayskue a civil Gentleman I confess and one that hath been Vice-Admiral to the Long Parliament but now is very faithful to our present King and sorry for what he hath been as I verily believe and is a man of a very fair carriage and of very good parts yet bewitched with the disguised spirit of Sacriledge to hold fast in his hands the Lands of the Church and not only he but many others are sick of the same disease as appeareth by the subsequent of this relation A true Relation of a Law-proceeding betwixt the Right Reverend Father in God Griffith L. Bishop of Ossory and Sir George Ayskue Knight c. Sheweth THat the Lordship of Bishops Court alias upper Court belongs to the Bishop of Ossory And as I am informed Jo. Bale Bishop of Ossory dwelt in the Mannor house thereof and was from thence driven by the Tories in Queen Maries daies to flee to Geneva to save his life when he looking out at his Window saw his Steward that was with his Hâ—y-makers killed before his face and he being fled to Geneva Jo. Tonery was made Bishop of Ossory and he made away divers Lordships and among the rest this Bishops Court in Fee-farm as they pre end to one Rich. Shea Bishop Bale being yet alive and lived in Queen Elizabeths daies after Tonery came Bishop Gafney and Bishop Bale still alive and after Gafney came Bishop Walsh and he finding the invalidity of the Fee farmes made by the Popish Bishops while the right Bishop was alive petitioneth to Queen Elizabeth and had her Letters to the Lord Lieutenant and Council to hear the Cause and to relieve the Bishop according as they found the equity of his Cause but before he could have any redress he was killed by some Irish man to
their superimendents would not be negligent of my duty to do according to my Lords Grace his Order but I sent my Apparitor to all the particulars of my Clergy mentioned in the Schedule to come and make satisfaction for their Procurations or to expect what might succeed which they were better like wise men to prevent And they when they came unto me shewed me their Acquittances under Mr. Juxe his hand that they had already paid them So I thought this storm was over Yet within a while I heard that about some ten poor Parish Clarkes and five of the Clergy were cited to appear at Dublin a journey to some fifty or sixty miles in the short Winter daies and over waies as foul as any is in Ingland to answer Articles that should be objected against them Then divers of the Clerks came crying to me that they had rather leave their Clerkeship than to take such a journey to Dublin and one of the Clerks the Archdeacon Bulkley had given a Licence to and yet cited him to Dublin to shew his Licence the which when he shewed the Officers of the Court said they mistook it and dismist the cause and yet afterwards sent a Citation for the Fees And my Clergy entreated me to intercede for them that did not know wherein they had offended nor what could be objected against them and I answered them all that I would neither meddle nor make in their business but if they have done well then all would be well if otherwise let them suffer for it I would never excuse their negligence nor Patronize their offence then some of them appearing at Dublin expecting their Charge and desiring earnestly to be dispatcht Archdeacon Bulkley answered Your Bishop is writing of Books for he had some inkling of mine intent and will not apply himself to my Lords Grace to intercede for you Yet my Lord Archbishop very nobly and graciously willed the Archdeacon to take their answer and to dispatch them that they might go home and the Archdeacon Bulkley willed them to confess their faults and to submit unto the Court and they should be discharged and I hearing of this advice willed them to confess the truth but not of any guilt wherein they were innocent And therefore when they had their Articles ten or twelve read unto them for they had no Copy of them they saw they were but meer suggestions and not any thing in any of them that could any waies touch them or prejudice them in any thing and they presently made their answers unto them And when they had answered and confest no fault that they committed upon the payment of their Fees for the charges of the Court they were dismist Whereby it seems to me that if they were guiltless and nothing could be proved against them they might as well cite all the Clergy and all the men in Kilkenny and suggest Articles against them to bring them unto Dublin to pay Fees to enrich the Officers of the Court and that being done to send them home glad that they are dismist Then after this the Churchwardens of S. Maries in Kilkenny having very justly as I understand presented divers persons at the Archbishops Visitation Canon 65. and 67. they were contrary to the Canons cited to appear at Dublin forty seven miles to make good their Presentation as the Churchwardens informed me which was so ill resented that we could hardly get any that would take the Churchwardenship upon them for fear of the like troubles if they presented any man But when I demanded of the Archdeacon why the Churchwardens were cited to make good their Presentment He answered it was not so but they retained a Proctor to prosecute against those that refused to pay the Church taxes and they not following their suit they were sent unto either to come and prosecute or the Defendants should be dismist which if so I blame not the proceeding but let the Churchwardens suffer for their own errour when they sue out of my Court without a dismission or an appeal Yet out of all my former discourse it appeareth what an heavy burthen and an infinite charge this last triennial Visitation of the Archbishop hath been to the indigent Clergy of Ossory both in their threefold Procurations their manifold Sequestrations and long Winter journeys to procure their Relaxations and the manifold losses that they sustained by their Tenants that by reason of the Sequestrations were disappointed of those tythes that they had taken from the Incumbents which makes me think that we do not follow our Saviours Counsel and Precept to S. Peter To feed his flock nor what we learnt in the old Adage that saith Boni pastoris est pecus tondere non deglubere for certainly these foresaid things do seem deglubere pecus non tondere and to cause his shepwards to starve and not to enable them to feed his Lambs And therefore as the sin of Solomon moved God to raise up Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Son of Eliadah and Jeroboam the Son of Nebat to vex Solomon for the sins of Solomon 1 Kings 11.14 23 26. So I do not wonder that God suffereth the devil to stir up Presbyterians and Quakers Why God suffereth Sectaries to vex the Bishops and other Anabaptistical Sectaries to vex the Bishops for these and the like sins of the Bishops against God and his poor people when they suffer and countenance their Commissaries Registers and other Officers to be like a talent of lead upon the necks of Christ his Sheep But I do therefore demand if these things Whether the foresaid abuses ought not to be redressed and all the things I shewed to be amiss in this Treatise ought not to be reformed and amended I know some will say they ought not thus to be published to the World to discover the weakness and imperfections of our Brethren to make them more contemptible in the eyes of the scoffers of our Calling than they are and therefore will much blame me for this my publication of these things But as Caligula was so wicked and his life so beastly Reynolds in the life of Caligula fol. 31. that some Historiographers have been in doubt whether it were best to bury them in oblivion or commit them unto memory and it is answered by mine Author That seeing it is profitable to the Readers and to Posterity to know the evil doings of others and the disgrace they have thereby to make them affraid to do the like evils lest in like manner they should be published to their shame therefore it is far better to discover the faults of Governours and great men than to conceal them because it is done Why great mens faults ought to be discovered not with any desire of any evil to the doers of those evil deeds but out of an earnest endeavour to amend them and to prevent the like carriages in all others not to disgrace any but to prevent the disgrace of