of Discipline and Society opportunities of Perfection Privacy is the best for Devotion and the Publick for Charity In both God hath many Saints and Servants and from both the Devil hath had some 8. His Sermon was an Exhortation to Repentance and an Holy life He gave particular schedules of Duty to several states of persons sharply reproved the 〈◊〉 for their Hypocrisie and Impiety it being worse in them because contrary to their rule their profession and institution gently guided others into the ways of Righteousness calling them the streight ways of the Lord that is the direct and shortest way to the Kingdom for of all Lines the streight is the shortest and as every Angle is a turning out of the way so every Sin is an obliquity and interrupts the journey By such 〈◊〉 and a Baptism he disposed the spirits of men for the entertaining the 〈◊〉 and the Homilies of the Gospel For John's Doctrine was to the Sermons of Jesus as a Preface to a Discourse and his Baptism was to the new Institution and Discipline of the Kingdom as the Vigils to a Holy-day of the same kind in a less degree But the whole Oeconomy of it represents to us that Repentance is the first intromission into the Sanctities of Christian Religion The Lord treads upon no paths that are not hallowed and made smooth by the sorrows and cares of Contrition and the impediments of sin cleared by dereliction and the succeeding fruits of emendation But as it related to the Jews his Baptism did signifie by a cognation to their usual Rites and Ceremonies of Ablution and washing Gentile Proselytes that the Jews had so far receded from their duty and that Holiness which God required of them by the Law that they were in the state of strangers no better than Heathens and therefore were to be treated as themselves received Gentile Proselytes by a Baptism and a new state of life before they could be fit for the reception of the 〈◊〉 or be admitted to his Kingdom 9. It was an excellent sweetness of Religion that had entirely 〈◊〉 the Soul of the Baptist that in so great reputation of Sanctity so mighty concourse of people such great multitudes of Disciples and confidents and such throngs of admirers he was humble without mixtures of vanity and confirmed in his temper and Piety against the strength of the most impetuous temptation And he was tried to some purpose for when he was tempted to confess himself to be the CHRIST he refused it or to be Elias or to be accounted that Prophet he refused all such great appellatives and confessed himself only to be a Voice the lowest of Entities whose being depends upon the Speaker just as himself did upon the pleasure of God receiving form and publication and imployment wholly by the will of his Lord in order to the manifestation of the Word eternal It were 〈◊〉 that the spirits of men would not arrogate more than their own though they did not lessen their own just dues It may concern some end of Piety or Prudence that our reputation be preserved by all just means but never that we assume the dues of others or grow vain by the spoils of an undeserved dignity Honours are the rewards of Vertue or engagement upon Offices of trouble and publick use but then they must suppose a preceding worth or a fair imployment But he that is a Plagiary of others titles or offices and dresses himself with their beauties hath no more solid worth or reputation than he should have nutriment if he ate only with their mouth and slept their slumbers himself being open and unbound in all the Regions of his Senses The PRAYER O Holy and most glorious God who before the publication of thy eternal Son the Prince of Peace didst send thy Servant John Baptist by the examples of Mortification and the rude Austerities of a penitential life and by the Sermons of Penance to remove all the impediments of sin that the ways of his Lord and ours might be made clear ready and expedite be pleased to let thy Holy Spirit lead me in the streight paths of Sanctity without deslections to either hand and without the interruption of deadly sin that I may with facility Zeal 〈◊〉 and a persevering diligence walk in the ways of the Lord. Be pleased that the Axe may be laid to the root of Sin that the whole body of it may be cut down in me that no fruit of Sodom may grow up to thy displeasure Throughly purge the floor and 〈◊〉 of my heart with thy Fan with the breath of thy Diviner Spirit that it may be a holy repository of Graces and full of benediction and Sanctity that when our Lord shall come I may at all times be prepared for the entertainment of so Divine a Guest apt to lodge him and to feast him that he may for ever delight to dwell with me And make me also to dwell with him sometimes retiring into his recesses and private rooms by Contemplation and admiring of his Beauties and beholding the Secrets of his Kingdom and at all other times walking in the Courts of the Lord's House by the diligences and labours of Repentance and an Holy life till thou shalt please to call me to a nearer communication of thy Excellencies which then grant when by thy gracious assistances I shall have done thy works and glorified thy holy Name by the strict and never-failing purposes and proportionable endeavours of Religion and Holiness through the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ. Amen DISCOURSE IV. Of Mortification and corporal Austerities 1. FRom the days of John the Baptist the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force said our Blessed Saviour For now that the new Covenant was to be made with Man Repentance which is so great a part of it being in very many actions a punitive duty afflictive and vindicative from the days of the Baptist who first by office and solemnity of design published this Doctrine violence was done to the inclinations and dispositions of Man and by such violences we were to be possessed of the Kingdom And his Example was the best 〈◊〉 upon his Text he did violence to himself he lived a life in which the rudenesses of Camel's hair and the lowest nutriment of Flies and Honey of the Desart his life of singularity his retirement from the sweetnesses of Society his resisting the greatest of Tentations and despising to assume false honours were instances of that violence and explications of the Doctrine of Self-denial and Mortification which are the Pedestal of the Cross and the Supporters of Christianity as it distinguishes from all Laws Religions and Institutions of the World 2. Mortification is the one half of Christianity it is a dying to the World it is a denying of the Will and all its natural desires An abstinence from pleasure and sensual complacencies that the 〈◊〉 being subdued to the spirit both may joyn in the
little irregularities and so many great imperfections that it will appear the more necessary to repair the breaches and lesser ruines by such acts of Piety and Religion because every Communication is intended to be a nearer approach to God a 〈◊〉 step in Grace a progress towards glory and an instrument of perfection and therefore upon the stock of our spiritual interests for the purchase of a greater hope and the advantages of a growing Charity ought to be frequently received I end with the words of a pious and learned person It is a vain fear and an imprudent 〈◊〉 that procrastinates and desers going to the Lord that calls them they deny to go to the fire pretending they are cold and refuse Physick because they need it The PRAYER O Blessed and Eternal Jesus who gavest thy self a Sacrifice for our sins thy Body for our spiritual food thy 〈◊〉 to nourish our spirits and to quench the flames of Hell and Lust who didst so love us who were thine enemies that thou desiredst to reconcile us to thee and becamest all one with us that we may live the same life think the same thoughts love the same love and be partakers of thy Resurrection and Immortality open every window of my Soul that I may be full of light and may see the excellency of thy Love the merits of thy Sacrifice the bitterness of thy Passion the glories and virtues of the mysterious Sacrament Lord let me ever hunger and thirst after this instrument of Righteousness let me have no gust or relish of the unsatisfying delights of things below but let my Soul dwell in thee let me for ever receive thee spiritually and very frequently communicate with thee sacramentally and imitate thy Vertues pionsly and strictly and dwell in the pleasures of thy house eternally Lord thou hast prepared a table for me against them that trouble me let that holy Sacrament of the Eucharist be to me a defence and shield a nourishment and medicine life and health a means of sanctification and spiritual growth that I receiving the body of my dearest Lord may be one with his mystical body and of the same spirit united with indissoluble bonds of a strong Faith and a holy Hope and a never-failing Charity that from this veil I may pass into the visions of eternal clarity from eating thy Body to beholding thy face in the glories of thy everlasting Kingdom O Blessed and Eternal Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Accidents happening on the Vespers of the Passion The Prayer in the Garden Luk 22. 41. And he was withdrawn from them about a stones cast kneeled down prayed 42 Saying Father if thou be willing remove this Cup from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done 43 And there appeared an Angel from heaven strengthening him Iudas betrayeth Christ Mat 26. 47. And while he yet spake Lo. Iudas one of the twelue came and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief Preists Elders of the people 48. Now he that be trayed him gave them a sign saying whomsoever I shall kiss that same is he hold him fast 49. And forthwith he came to Iesus and said Haile Master and kissed him 1. WHen Jesus had supped and sang a Hymn and prayed and exhorted and comforted his Disciples with a Farewell-Sermon in which he repeated 〈◊〉 of his former Precepts which were now apposite to the present condition and re-inforced them with proper and pertinent arguments he went over the brook Cedron and entred into a Garden and into the prologue of his Passion chusing that place for his Agony and satisfactory pains in which the first scene of humane misery was represented and where he might best attend the offices of Devotion preparatory to his Death Besides this he therefore departed from the house that he might give opportunity to his Enemies surprise and yet not incommodate the good man by whose hospitality they had eaten the Paschal Lamb so that he went like a Lamb to the slaughter to the Garden as to a prison as if by an agreement with his persecutors he had expected their arrest and stayed there to prevent their farther enquiry For so great was his desire to pay our Ransom that himself did assist by a forward patience and active opportunity towards the persecution teaching us that by an active zeal and a ready spirit we assist the designs of God's glory though in our own sufferings and secular infelicities 2. When he entred the Garden he left his Disciples at the entrance of it calling with him only Peter James and John he withdrew himself from the rest about a stone 's cast and began to be exceeding heavy He was not sad till he had called them for his sorrow began when he pleased which sorrow he also chose to represent to those three who had seen his Transfiguration the earnest of his future Glory that they might see of how great glory for our sakes he disrobed himself and that they also might by the confronting those contradictory accidents observe that God uses to dispense his comforts the irradiations and emissions of his glory to be preparatives to those sorrows with which our life must be allayed and seasoned that none should refuse to partake of the sufferings of Christ if either they have already felt his comforts or hope hereafter to wear his crown And it is not ill observed that S. Peter being the chief of the Apostles and Doctor of the Circumcision S. John being a Virgin and S. James the first of the Apostles that was martyred were admitted to Christ's greatest retirements and mysterious secrecies as being persons of so singular and eminent dispositions to whom according to the pious opinion of the Church especially Coronets are prepared in Heaven besides the great Crown of rightcousness which in common shall beautifie the heads of all the Saints meaning this that Doctors Virgins and Martyrs shall receive even for their very state of life and accidental Graces more eminent degrees of accidental Glory like as the Sun reflecting upon a limpid fountain receives its rays doubled without any increment of its proper and natural light 3. Jesus began to be exceeding sorrowful to be sore amazed and sad even to death And because he was now to suffer the pains of our sins there began his Passion whence our sins spring From an evil heart and a prevaricating spirit all our sins arise and in the spirit of Christ began his sorrow where he truly felt the full value and demerit of Sin which we think not worthy of a tear or a hearty sigh but he groaned and fell under the burthen But therefore he took upon him this sadness that our imperfect sorrow and contrition might be heightned in his example and accepted in its union and consederacy with his And Jesus still designed a farther mercy for us for he sanctified the passion of Fear and hallowed natural sadnesses that we might not
Proseucha's or houses of Prayer usually uncovered and standing in the fields the Jews had in several places wherein our Lord continued all night not in one continued and intire act of devotion but probably by intervals and repeated returns of duty 2. EARLY the next morning his Disciples came to him out of whom he made choice of Twelve to be his Apostles that they might be the constant attendants upon his person to hear his Discourses and be Eye-witnesses of his Miracles to be always conversant with him while he was upon Earth and afterwards to be sent abroad up and down the World to carry on that work which he himself had begun whom therefore he invested with the power of working Miracles which was more completely conferr'd upon them after his Ascension into Heaven Passing by the several fancies and conjectures of the Ancients why our Saviour pitch'd upon the just number of Twelve whereof before it may deserve to be considered whether our Lord being now to appoint the Supreme Officers and Governours of his Church which the Apostle styles the Commonwealth of Israel might not herein have a more peculiar allusion to the twelve Patriarchs as founders of their several Tribes or to the constant Heads and Rulers of those twelve Tribes of which the body of the Jewish Nation did consist Especially since he himself seems elsewhere to give countenance to it when he tells the Apostles that when the Son of man shall sit on the Throne of his Glory that is be gone back to Heaven and have taken full possession of his Evangelical Kingdom which principally commenc'd from his Resurrection that then they also should sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel that is they should have great powers and authorities in the Church such as the power of the Keys and other Rights of Spiritual Judicature and Sovereignty answerable in some proportion to the power and dignity which the Heads and Rulers of the twelve Tribes of Israel did enjoy 3. IN the enumeration of these twelve Apostles all the Evangelists constantly place S. Peter in the front and S. Matthew expresly tells us that he was the first that is he was the first that was called to be an Apostle his Age also and the gravity of his person more particularly qualifying him for a Primacy of Order amongst the rest of the Apostles as that without which no society of men can be managed or maintained 〈◊〉 than this as none will deny him so more than this neither Scripture nor 〈◊〉 antiquity do allow him And now it was that our Lord actually conferr'd that 〈◊〉 upon him which before he had promised him Simon he surnamed Peter It 〈◊〉 here be enquired when and by whom the Apostles were baptized That they were is unquestionable being themselves appointed to confer it upon others but when or how the Scripture is altogether silent Nicephorus from no worse an Author as he pretends than Euodius next 〈◊〉 S. Peter's immediate successor in the 〈◊〉 of Autioch tells us That of all the Apostles Christ baptized none but Peter with his own hands that Peter baptized Andrew and the two sons of 〈◊〉 and they the rest of the Apostles This if so would greatly make for the honour of S. Peter But alas his authority is not only suspicious but 〈◊〉 in a manner deserted by S. Peter's best friends and the strongest champions of his cause Baronius himself however 〈◊〉 willing to make use of him elsewhere confessing that this Epistle of 〈◊〉 is altogether unknown to any of the Ancients As for the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus which to the same purpose he quotes out of Sophronius though not Sophronius but Johannes Moschus as is notoriously known be the Author of that Book besides that it is delivered upon an uncertain report pretended to have been alledged in a discourse between one Dionysius Bishop of Ascalon and his Clergy out of a Book of Clemens not now extant his Authors are much alike that is of no great value and authority 4. AMONGST these Apostles our Lord chose a Triumvirate Peter and the two sons of Zebedee to be his more intimate companions whom he admitted more familiarly than the rest unto all the more secret passages and transactions of his Life The first instance of which was on this occasion Jairus a Ruler of the Synagogue had a daughter desperately sick whose disease having baffled all the arts of Physick was 〈◊〉 curable by the immediate agency of the God of Nature He therefore in all humility addresses himself to our Saviour which he had no sooner done but servants 〈◊〉 post to tell him that it was in vain to trouble our Lord for that his daughter was dead Christ bids him not despond if his Faith held out there was no danger And 〈◊〉 none to follow him but Peter James and John goes along with him to the house where he was derided by the sorrowful friends and neighbours for telling them that she was not perfectly dead But our Lord entering in with the commanding efficacy of two words restor'd her at once both to life and perfect health 5. OUR Lord after this preached many Sermons and wrought many Miracles amongst which none more remarkable than his feeding a multitude of five thousand men besides women and children with but five Loaves and two Fishes of which nevertheless twelve Baskets of sragments were taken up Which being done and the multitude dismissed he commanded the Apostles to take Ship it being now near night and to cross over to Capernaum whilest he himself as his manner was retired to a neighbouring mountain to dispose himself to Prayer and Contemplation The Apostles were 〈◊〉 got into the middle of the Sea when on a sudden a violent Storm and Tempest began to arise whereby they were brought into present danger of their lives Our Saviour who knew how the case stood with them and how much they laboured under infinite pains and fears having himself caused this Tempest for the greater trial of their Faith a little before morning for so long they remained in this imminent danger immediately conveyed himself upon the Sea where the Waves received him being proud to carry their Master He who refused to 〈◊〉 the Devil when tempting him to throw himself down from the Pinnacle of the Temple did here commit himself to a boisterous instable Element and that in a violent Storm walking upon the water as if it had been dry ground But that infinite power that made and supports the World as it gave rules to all particular beings so can when it please countermand the Laws of their Creation and make them act contrary to their natural inclinations If God say the word the Sun will stand still in the middle of the Heavens if Go back 't will retrocede as upon the Dial of Ahaz if he command it the Heavens will become as Brass and the Earth as
exercised their Religious and mysterious Rites that hence they fetched their denomination either from 〈◊〉 as the Ancients generally thought or more probably from the old Cetlic word Deru both signifying an Oake and which the Welch the Descendants of the Ancient Brittains still call Derw at this day But of this enough 9. FROM the place where we proceed to the times when they usually paid their Devotions And seeing Order is necessary in all undertakings and much more in the actions of Religion we cannot think that Mankind was left at a roving uncertainty in a matter of so great importance but that they had their stated and solemn times of Worship especially when we find among all Nations even the most rude and unpolished Heathens times peculiarly set apart for the honour of their gods and the publick solemnities of Religion And so no question it was in the more early Ages of the World they had fix'd and appropriate Seasons when they met together to do homage unto God and to offer up their joynt-acknowledgments to Heaven Thus we read of Cain that he brought his oblation in process of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the end of days at one of those fixed and periodical returns when they used to meet in the Religious Assemblies the word 〈◊〉 denoting not simply an end but a determinate and an appointed end I know many with great zeal and eagerness contend that the Sabbath or Seventh Day from the Creation was set apart and universally observed as the time of Publick Worship and that from the beginning of the World But alas the foundation upon which this opinion is built is very weak and sandy having nothing to rely on but one place where it is said that God resting on the Seventh Day from all his Works blessed the Seventh Day and sanctified it Which words are reasonably thought to have been set down by Moses by way of Prolepsis as it was in his time if they relate at all to the 〈◊〉 and are not rather to be understood of God's blessing and sanctifying the Seventh Day as having compleated all his Works in the creating of Man and in whom as in the crown and glory of the Creation he would sanctifie himself For that it should be meant of a Weekly Sabbath hath as little countenance from this Text as it hath from the practice of those times there being no foot-steps or shadow of any such Sabbath kept through all the Patriarchal periods of the Church till the times of Moses which besides the evidence of the story is universally owned by the Ancient Jewes and very many of the Fathers do expresly assert it 10. THE last circumstance concerns the Persons by whom the Publick Worship was administred Impossible it is that any Society should be regularly managed where there are not some peculiar Persons to 〈◊〉 direct and govern the affairs of it And God who in all other things is a God of Order is much more so in matters of Religion and therefore no doubt from the beginning appointed those whose care and business it should be to discharge the publick parts of Piety and Devotion in the name of the rest Now the Priesthood in those times was vested in the Heads of Tribes and in the first-born of every Family To the Patriarch or Head of every Tribe it belonged to bless the Family to offer Sacrifice to intercede for them by Prayer and to minister in other solemn acts of Religion And this Office hereditarily descended to the first-born who had power to discharge it during the life of his Father for it was not necessary that he who was Priest by vertue of his primogeniture should be also the eldest of the House Jacob who succeeded in his Brother 's right offered Sacrifices in the life of his Father Isaac and Abraham was a Priest though Sem the Head of the Family and ten degrees removed from him in a direct line was then alive yea survived Abraham near Forty Years Every first-born had three great Prerogatives a double portion of the Paternal inheritance a Lordship and Principality over his Brethren and a right to the Priesthood to instruct them in the knowledge of Divine things and to manage the common Offices of Religion So that in those times there was a particular Priesthood in every Family the administration whereof was usually appropriate to the first born Thus Noah Abraham and Isaac offered Sacrifices and Job who lived about that time or not long after both for his Children and his Friends Thus 〈◊〉 was a Priest by his primogeniture and that goodly Raiment of her Son Esau which Rebeccah put upon Jacob when he went in to his Father is by many not improbably understood of the Sacerdotal Vestments wherein as first-born he was wont to execute his Office Of these Priests we are to understand that Place Let the Priests which come near to the Lord sanctifie themselves This could not be meant of the Levitical Priests the Aaronical Order not being yet instituted and therefore must be understood of the Priesthood of the first-born and so Solomon farchis gloss expounds it Thus when Moses had built an Altar at the foot of the Mountain he sent young men of the children of Israel which offered burnt-offerings and sacrificed peace-offerings unto the Lord. Where for young men the Chaldee Paraphrase and the Hierusalem Targum have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first-born of the children of Israel so has that of Jonathan who expresly adds this reason for unto that very Hour the worship remained among the first-born the Tabernacle of the Covenant not being yet made nor the Aaronical Priesthood set up So when Jacob bequeathed his blessing to Reuben Reuben thou art my first-born my might and the beginning of my strength the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power the same Jewish Paraphrasts tell us that there were three things in this blessing conveyed and confirmed to Reuben the Birth-right the Kingdom and the Priesthood but that for his enormous and unnatural sin they were transferred to others the primogeniture to Joseph the Kingdom to Judah and the Priesthood to Levi. But though the Sacerdotal function ordinarily belonged to the first-born yet was it not so wholly invested in them but that it might in some cases be exercised by younger Brothers especially when passing into other Families and themselves becoming Heads of Tribes and Families Abraham we know was not a first-born and it 's highly probable that Sem himself was not Noah's eldest Son Moses was a Priest yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jewes call him the Priest of Priests and yet was but 〈◊〉 second Son and Aaron's younger Brother So that the case in short seemed to lye thus The Patriarch or surviving Head of every Tribe was a kind of High Priest over all the Families that were descended from him the first-born in every Family was the ordinary Priest who might officiate in his Father's stead
receive Honour but to seek it for desigus of pride and complacency or to make it rest in our hearts But when the hand of Vertue receives the honour and transmits it to God from our own head the desires of Nature are sufficiently satisfied and nothing of Religion contradicted And it is certain by all the experience of the world that in every state and order of men he that is most humble in proportion to that state is if all things else be symbolical the most honoured person For it is very observable that when God designed man to a good and happy life as the natural end of his creation to verifie this God was pleased to give him objects sufficient and apt to satisfie every appetite I say to satisfie it naturally not to satisfie those extravagancies which might be accidental and procured by the irregularity either of Will or Understanding not to answer him in all that his desires could extend to but to satisfie the necessity of every appetite all the desires that God made not all that man should make For we see even in those appetites which are common to men and beasts all the needs of Nature and all the ends of creation are served by the taking such proportions of their objects which are ordinate to their end and which in man we call Temperance not as much as they naturally can such as are mixtures of sexes merely for production of their kind eating and drinking for needs and hunger And yet God permitted our appetites to be able to extend beyond the limits of the mere natural design that God by restraining them and putting the setters of Laws upon them might turn natural desires into Sobriety and Sobriety into Religion they becoming servants of the Commandment And now we must not call all those swellings of appetites Natural inclination nor the satisfaction of such tumours and excrescencies any part of natural felicities but that which does just cooperate to those ends which perfect humane Nature in order to its proper End For the appetites of meat and drink and pleasures are but intermedial and instrumental to the End and are not made for themselves but first for the End and then to serve God in the instances of Obedience And just so is the natural desire of Honour intended to be a spur to Vertue for to Vertue only it is naturally consequent or to natural and political Superiority but to desire it beyond or besides the limit is the swelling and the disease of the desire And we can take no rule for its perfect value but by the strict limits of the natural End or the superinduced End of Religion in positive restraints 35. According to this discourse we may best understand that even the severest precepts of the Christian Law are very consonant to Nature and the first Laws of mankind Such is the Precept of Self-denial which is nothing else but a confining the Appetites within the limits of Nature for there they are permitted except when some greater purpose is to be served than the present answering the particular desire and whatsoever is beyond it is not in the natural order to Felicity it is no better than an itch which must be scratched and satisfied but it is unnatural But for Martyrdom it self quitting our goods losing lands or any temporal interest they are now become as reasonable in the present constitution of the world as taking unpleasant potions and suffering a member to be cauterized in sickness or disease And we see that death is naturally a less evil than a continual torment and by some not so resented as a great disgrace and some persons have chosen it for sanctuary and remedy And therefore much rather shall it be accounted prudent and reasonable and agreeable to the most perfect desires of Nature to exchange a House for a Hundred a Friend for a Patron a short Affliction for a lasting Joy and a temporal Death for an eternal Life For so the question is stated to us by him that understands it best True it is that the suffering of losses afflictions and death is naturally an evil and therefore no part of a natural Precept or prime injunction But when God having commanded instances of Religion Man will not suffer us to obey God or will not suffer us to live then the question is Which is most agreeable to the most perfect and reasonable desires of Nature to obey God or to obey man to fear God or to fear man to preserve our bodies or to preserve our Souls to secure a few years of uncertain and troublesome duration or an eternity of a very glorious condition Some men reasonably enough chuse to die for considerations lower than that of a happy Eternity therefore Death is not such an evil but that it may in some cases be desired and reasonably chosen and in some be recompensed at the highest rate of a natural value And if by accident we happen into an estate in which of necessity one evil or another must be suffered certainly nothing is more naturally reasonable and eligible than to chuse the least evil and when there are two good things propounded to our choice both which cannot be possessed nothing is more certainly the object of a prudent choice than the greater good And therefore when once we understand the question of Suffering and Self-denial and Martyrdom to this sence as all Christians do and all wise men do and all Sects of men do in their several perswasions it is but remembring that to live happily after this life is more intended to us by God and is more perfective of humane nature than to live here with all the prosperity which this state affords and it will evidently follow that when violent men will not let us enter into that condition by the ways of Nature and prime intendment that is of natural Religion Justice and Sobriety it is made in that case and upon that supposition certainly naturally and infallibly reasonable to secure the perfective and principal design of our Felicity though it be by such instruments which are as unpleasant to our senses as are the instruments of our restitution to Health since both one and the other in the present conjunction and state of affairs are most proportionable to Reason because they are so to the present necessity not primarily intended to us by God but superinduced by evil accidents and the violence of men And we not only find that Socrates suffered death in attestation of a God though he flattered and discoursed himself into the belief of an immortal reward De industria consultae aequanimitatis non de fiducia compertae veritatis as Tertullian says of him but we also find that all men that believed the Immortality of the Soul firmly and unmoveably made no scruple of exchanging their life for the preservation of Vertue with the interest of their great hope for Honour sometimes and oftentimes for their Countrey 36. Thus the
certainly take away thy need or satisfie it he will feed thee himself as he did the Israelites or take away thy hunger as he did to Moses or send ravens to feed thee as he did to Elias or make charitable people minister to thee as the Widow to Elisha or give thee his own portion as he maintained the Levites or make thine enemies to pity thee as the Assyrians did the captive Jews For whatsoever the World hath and whatsoever can be conveyed by wonder or by providence all that is thy security for provisions so long as thou doest the work of God And remember that the assurance of Blessing and Health and Salvation is not made by doing what we list or being where we desire but by doing God's will and being in the place of his appointment we may be safe in Egypt if we be there in obedience to God and we may perish among the Babes of Bethlehem if we be there by our own election 4. Joseph and Mary did not argue against the Angel's message because they had a confidence of their charge who with the breath of his mouth could have destroyed Herod though he had been abetted with all the Legions marching under the Roman Eagles but they like the two Cherubims about the Propitiatory took the Child between them and fled giving way to the fury of Persecution which possibly when the materials are withdrawn might expire and die like fire which else would rage for ever Jesus fled undertook a sad Journey in which the roughness of the ways his own tenderness the youth of his Mother the old age of his supposed Father the smalness of their viaticum and accommodation for their voyage the no-kindred they were to go to hopeless of comsorts and exteriour supplies were so many circumstances of Poverty and lesser strokes of the Persecution things that himself did chuse to remonstrate the verity of his Nature the infirmity of his Person the humility of his spirit the austerity of his undertaking the burthen of his charge and by which he did teach us the same vertues he then expressed and also consign'd this permission to all his Disciples in future Ages that they also may fly from their persecutors when the case is so that their work is not done that is they may glorifie God with their lives more than with their death And of this they are ascertained by the arguments of prudent account For sometimes we are called to glorisie God by dying and the interest of the Church and the Faith of many may be concerned in it then we must abide by it In other cases it is true that Demosthenes said in apology for his own escaping from a lost field A man that runs away may fight again And S. Paul made use of a guard of Souldiers to rescue him from the treachery of the Jewish Rulers and of a basket to escape from the Inquisition of the Governour of Damascus and the Primitive Christians of Grotts and subterraneous retirements and S. Athanasius of a fair Ladie 's House and others of desarts and graves as knowing it was no shame to fly when their Master himself had fled that his time and his work might be fulfilled and when it was he then laid his life down 5. It is hard to set down particular Rules that may indefinitely guide all persons in the stating of their own case because all things that depend upon circumstances are alterable unto infinite But as God's glory and the good of the Church are the great considerations to be carried before us all the way and in proportions to them we are to determine and judge our Questions so also our infirmities are allowable in the scrutiny for I doubt not but God intended it a mercy and a compliance with humane weakness when he gave us this permission as well as it was a design to secure the opportunities of his service and the consummation of his own work by us And since our fears and the incommodities of flight and the sadness of exile and the insecurities and inconveniences of a strange and new abode are part of the Persecution provided that God's glory be not certainly and apparently neglected nor the Church evidently scandalized by our 〈◊〉 all interpretations of the question in favour of our selves and the declension of that part which may tempt us to apostasie or hazard our confidence and the chusing the lesser part of the Persecution is not against the rule of Faith and always hath in it less glory but oftentimes more security 6. But thus far Herod's Ambition transported him even to resolutions of murther of the highest person the most glorious and the most innocent upon earth and it represents that Passion to be the most troublesome and vexatious thing that can afflict the sons of men Vertue hath not half so much trouble in it it sleeps quietly without startings and affrighting fancies it looks chearfully smiles with much 〈◊〉 and though it laughs not often yet it is ever delightful in the apprehensions of some faculty it fears no man nor no thing nor is it discomposed and hath no concernments in the great alterations of the World and entertains Death like a Friend and reckons the issues of it as the greatest of its hopes but Ambition is full of distractions it teems with stratagems as Rebecca with strugling twins and is swelled with expectation as with a tympany and sleeps sometimes as the wind in a storm still and quiet for a minute that it may burst out into an impetuous blast till the cordage of his heart-strings crack fears when none is 〈◊〉 and prevents things which never had intention and falls under the inevitability of such accidents which either could not be foreseen or not prevented It is an infinite labour to make a man's self miserable and the utmost acquist is so goodly a purchase that he makes his days full of sorrow to enjoy the troubles of a three years reign for Herod lived but three years or five at the most after the flight of Jesus into Egypt And therefore there is no greater unreasonableness in the world than in the designs of Ambition for it makes the present certainly miserable unsatisfied troublesome and discontent for the uncertain acquist of an honour which nothing can secure and besides a thousand possibilities of miscarrying it relies upon no greater certainty than our life and when we are dead all the world sees who was the fool But it is a strange caitiveness and baseness of disposition of men so furiously and unsatiably to run after perishing and uncertain interests in defiance of all the Reason and Religion of the world and yet to have no appetite to such excellencies which satisfie Reason and content the spirit and create great hopes and ennoble our expectation and are advantages to Communities of men and publick Societies and which all wise men teach and all Religion commands 7. And it is not amiss to observe how Herod vexed
of Religion And beside that the Presence of God serves to all this it hath also especial influence in the disimprovement of Temptations because it hath in it many things contrariant to the nature and efficacy of Temptations such as are Consideration Reverence Spiritual thoughts and the Fear of God for where-ever this consideration is actual there either God is highly despised or certainly feared In this case we are made to declare for our purposes are concealed only in an incuriousness and inconsideration but whoever considers God as present will in all reason be as religious as in a Temple the Reverence of which place Custom or Religion hath imprinted in the spirits of most men so that as Ahasuerus said of Haman Will he ravish the Queen in my own house aggravating the crime by the incivility of the circumstance God may well say to us whose Religion compells us to believe God every-where present since the Divine Presence hath made all places holy and every place hath a Numen in it even the Eternal God we unhallow the place and desecrate the ground whereon we stand supported by the arm of God placed in his heart and enlightned by his eye when we sin in so sacred a Presence 34. The second great instrument against Temptation is Meditation of Death Raderus reports that a certain Virgin to restrain the inordination of intemperate desires which were like thorns in her flesh and disturbed her spiritual peace shut her self up in a Sepulchre and for twelve years dwelt in that Scene of death It were good we did so too making Tombs and Coffins presential to us by frequent meditation For God hath given us all a definitive arrest in Adam and from it there lies no appeal but it is infallibly and unalterably 〈◊〉 for all men once to die or to be changed to pass from hence to a condition of Eternity good or bad Now because this law is certain and the time and the manner of its execution is uncertain and from this moment Eternity depends and that after this life the final sentence is irrevocable that all the pleasures here are sudden transient and unsatisfying and vain he must needs be a 〈◊〉 that knows not to distinguish moments from Eternity and since it is a condition of necessity established by Divine decrees and fixt by the indispensable Laws of Nature that we shall after a very little duration pass on to a condition strange not understood then unalterable and yet of great mutation from this even of greater distance from 〈◊〉 in which we are here than this is from the state of Beasts this when it is considered must in all reason make the same impression upon our understandings and affections which naturally all strange things and all great considerations are apt to do that is create resolutions and results passing through the heart of man such as are reasonable and prudent in order to our own 〈◊〉 that we neglect the vanities of the present Temptation and secure our future condition which will till Eternity it self expires remain such as we make it to be by our deportment in this short transition and passage through the World 35. And that this Discourse is reasonable I am therefore confirmed because I find it to be to the same purpose used by the Spirit of God and the wisest personages in the world My soul is always in my hand therefore do I keep thy Commandments said David he looked upon himself as a dying person and that restrained all his inordinations and so he prayed Lord teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom And therefore the AEgyptians used to serve up a Skeleton to their Feasts that the dissolutions and vapours of wine might be restrained with that bunch of myrrh and the vanities of their eyes chastised by that sad object for they thought it unlikely a man should be transported far with any thing low or vicious that looked long and often into the hollow eye-pits of a Death's head or dwelt in a charnel-Charnel-house And such considerations make all the importunity and violence of sensual desires to disband For when a man stands perpetually at the door of Eternity and as did John the Almoner every day is building of his Sepulchre and every night one day of our life is gone and passed into the possession of death it will concern us to take care that the door leading to Hell do not open upon us that we be not crusht to ruine by the stones of our grave and that our death become not a consignation to us to a sad Eternity For all the pleasures of the whole world and in all its duration cannot make recompence for one hour's torment in Hell and yet if wicked persons were to 〈◊〉 in Hell for ever without any change of posture or variety of torment beyond that session it were unsufferable beyond the indurance of nature and therefore where little less than infinite misery in an infinite duration shall punish the pleasures of sudden and transient crimes the gain of pleasure and the exchange of banks here for a condition of eternal and miserable death is a permutation 〈◊〉 to be made by none but fools and desperate persons who made no use of a reasonable Soul but that they in their perishing might be convinced of unreasonableness and die by their own fault 36. The use that wise men have made when they reduced this consideration to practice is to believe every day to be the last of their life for so it may be and for ought we know it will and then think what you would avoid or what you would do if you were dying or were to day to suffer death by sentence and conviction and that in all reason and in proportion to the strength of your consideration you will do every day For that is the sublimity of Wisdom to do those things living which are to be desired and chosen by dying persons An alarm of death every day renewed and pressed earnestly will watch a man so tame and soft that the precepts of Religion will dwell deep in his spirit But they that make a covenant with the grave and put the 〈◊〉 day far 〈◊〉 them they are the men that eat spiders and toads for meat greedily and a Temptation to them is as welcome as joy and they seldom dispute the point in behalf of Piety or Mortification for they that look upon Death at distance apprehend it not but in such general lines and great representments that describe it only as future and possible but nothing of its terrors or 〈◊〉 or circumstances of advantage are discernible by such an eye that disturbs its 〈◊〉 and discomposes the posture that the object may seem another thing than what it is truly and really S. Austin with his Mother Monica was led one day by a Roman Prator to 〈◊〉 the tomb of Caesar. Himself thus describes the Corps
with Water and then with Bloud and afterwards built it up by the hands of the Spirit Himself enter'd at that door by which his Disciples for ever after were to follow him for therefore he went in at the door of Baptism that he might hallow the entrance which himself made to the House he was now building 2. As it was in the old so it is in the new Creation out of the waters God produced every living creature and when at first the Spirit moved upon the waters and gave life it was the type of what was designed in the Renovation Every thing that lives now is born of Water and the Spirit and Christ who is our Creator and Redeemer in the New birth opened the fountains and hallowed the stream Christ who is our Life went down into the waters of Baptism and we who descend thither find the effects of life it is living Water of which whose drinks needs not to drink of it again for it shall be in him a Well of water springing up to life eternal 3. But because every thing is resolved into the same principles from whence they are taken the old World which by the power of God came from the Waters by their own sin fell into the Waters again and were all drowned and only eight persons were saved by an Ark and the World renewed upon the stock and reserves of that mercy consigned the Sacrament of Baptism in another figure for then God gave his sign from Heaven that by water the World should never again perish but he meant that they should be saved by water for Baptism which is a figure like to this doth also now save us by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 4. After this the Jews report that the World took up the doctrine of Baptisms in remembrance that the iniquity of the old world was purged by water and they washed all that came to the service of the true God and by that Baptism bound them to the observation of the Precepts which God gave to Noah 5. But when God separated a Family for his own special service he gave them a Sacrament of Initiation but it was a Sacrament of bloud the Covenant of Circumcision and this was the fore-runner of Baptism but not a Type when that was abrogated this came into the place of it and that consigned the same Faith which this professes But it could not properly be a Type whose nature is by a likeness of matter or ceremony to represent the same Mystery Neither is a Ceremony as Baptism truly is properly capable of having a Type it self is but a Type of a greater mysteriousness And the nature of Types is in shadow to describe by dark lines a future substance so that although Circumcision might be a Type of the effects and graces bestowed in Baptism yet of the Baptism or Ablution it self it cannot be properly because of the unlikeness of the symbols and configurations and because they are both equally distant from substances which Types are to consign and represent The first Bishops of Jerusalem and all the Christian Jews for many years retained Circumcision together with Baptism and Christ himself who was circumcised was also baptized and therefore it is not so proper to call Circumcision a Type of Baptism it was rather a Seal and Sign of the same Covenant to Abraham and the Fathers and to all Israel as Baptism is to all Ages of the Christian Church 6. And because this Rite could not be administred to all persons and was not at all times after its institution God was pleased by a proper and specifick Type to consign this Rite of Baptism which he intended to all and that for ever and God when the family of his Church grew separate notorious numerous and distinct sent them into their own Countrey by a Baptism through which the whole Nation pass'd for all the Fathers were under the Cloud and all passed through the Sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea so by a double figure foretelling that as they were initiated to Moses's Law by the Cloud above and the Sea beneath so should all the persons of the Church men women and children be initiated unto Christ by the Spirit from above and the Water below for it was the design of the Apostle in that discourse to represent that the Fathers and we were equal as to the priviledges of the Covenant he proved that we do not exceed them and it ought therefore to be certain that they do not exceed us nor their children ours 7. But after this something was to remain which might not only consign the Covenant which God made with Abraham but be as a passage from the Fathers through the Synagogue to the Church from Abraham by Moses to Christ and that was Circumcision which was a Rite which God chose to be a mark to the posterity of Abraham to distinguish them from the Nations which were not within the Covenant of Grace and to be a Seal of the righteousness of Faith which God made to be the spirit and life of the Covenant 8. But because Circumcision although it was ministred to all the males yet it was not to the females although they and all the Nation were baptized and initiated into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea therefore the Children of Israel by imitation of the Patriarchs the posterity of Noah used also Ceremonial Baptisms to their Women and to their Proselytes and to all that were circumcised and the Jews deliver That Sarah and Rebecca when they were adopted into the family of the Church that is of Abraham and Isaac were baptized and so were all strangers that were married to the sons of Israel And that we may think this to be typical of Christian Baptism the Doctors of the Jews had a Tradition that when the Messias would come there should be so many Proselytes that they could not be circumcised but should be baptized The Tradition proved true but not for their reason But that this Rite of admitting into Mysteries and Institutions and Offices of Religion by Baptisms was used by the posterity of Noah or at least very early among the Jews besides the testimonies of their own Doctors I am the rather induced to believe because the Heathens had the same Rite in many places and in several Religions so they initiated disciples into the Secrets of Mithra and the Priests of 〈◊〉 were called 〈◊〉 because by Baptism they were admitted into the Religion and they thought Muther Incest Rapes and the worst of crimes were purged by dipping in the Sea or fresh Springs and a Proselyte is called in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Baptized person 9. But this Ceremony of Baptizing was so certain and usual among the Jews in their admitting Proselytes and adopting into Institutions that to baptize and to make Disciples are all one and when John the Baptist by an order from Heaven went to
God as holy Places of Religion must rise highest in this account I mean higher than any other places And this is besides the honour which God hath put upon them by his presence his title to them w ch in all Religions he hath signified to us 4. Indeed among the Jews as God had confined his Church and the rites of Religion to be used only in communion and participation with the Nation so also he had limited his Presence and was more sparing of it than in the time of the Gospel his Son declared he would be It was said of old that at Jerusalem men ought to worship that is by a solemn publick and great address in the capital expresses of Religion in the distinguishing rites of Liturgy for else it had been no new thing For in ordinary Prayers God was then and long before pleased to hear Jeremy in the dungeon Manasses in prison Daniel in the Lion's den Jonas in the belly of the deep and in the offices yet more solemn in the Proseuchae in the houses of prayer which the Jews had not only in their dispersion but even in Palestine for their diurnal and nocturnal offices But when the Holy Jesus had broken down the partition-wall then the most solemn Offices of Religion were as unlimited as their private Devotions were before for where-ever a Temple should be built thither God would come if he were worshipped spirituallly and in truth that is according to the rites of Christ who is Grace and Truth and the dictate of the Spirit and analogy of the Gospel All places were now alike to build Churches in or Memorials for God God's houses And that our Blessed Saviour discourses of places of publick Worship to the woman of Samaria is notorious because the whole question was concerning the great addresses of Moses's rites whether at Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim which were the places of the right and the 〈◊〉 Temple the 〈◊〉 of the whole Religion and in antithesis Jesus said Nor here nor there shall be the solemnities of address to God but in all places you may build a Temple and God will dwell in it 5. And this hath descended from the first beginnings of Religion down to the consummation of it in the perfections of the Gospel For the Apostles of our Lord carried the Offices of the Gospel into the Temple of Jerusalem there they preached and prayed and payed Vows but never that we read of offered Sacrifice which 〈◊〉 that the Offices purely Evangelical were proper to be done in any of God's proper places and that thither they went not in compliance with Moses's Rites but merely for Gospel-duties or for such Offices which were common to Moses and Christ such as were Prayers and Vows While the Temple was yet standing they had peculiar places for the Assemblies of the faithful where either by accident or observation or Religion or choice they met regularly And I instance in the house of John surnamed Mark which as Alexander reports in the life of S. Barnabas was consecrated by many actions of Religion by our Blessed Saviour's eating the 〈◊〉 his Institution of the holy Eucharist his Farewell-Sermon and the Apostles met there in the Octaves of Easter whither Christ came again and hallowed it with his presence and there to make up the relative Sanctification complete the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and this was erected into a fair 〈◊〉 and is mentioned as a famous Church by S. Jerome and V. Bede in which as 〈◊〉 adds S. Peter preached that 〈◊〉 which was miraculoasly prosperous in the Conversion of three thousand there S. James Brother of our Lord was 〈◊〉 first Bishop of Jerusalem S. Stephen and the other six were there ordained Deacons there the Apostles kept their first Council and 〈◊〉 their Creed by these actions and their frequent conventions shewing the same reason order and prudence of Religion in 〈◊〉 of special places of Divine service which were ever observed by all the Nations and Religions and wise men of the world And it were a strange imagination to 〈◊〉 that in Christian Religion there is any principle contrary to that wisdom or God and all the world which for order for necessity for convenience for the solemnity of Worship hath set apart Places for God and for Religion Private Prayer had always an unlimited residence and relation even under Moses's Law but the publick solemn Prayer of 〈◊〉 in the Law of Moses was restrained to one Temple In the Law of Nature it was not confined to one but yet determined to publick and solemn places and when the Holy Jesus disparked the inclosures of Moses we all returned to the permissions and liberty of the Natural Law in which although the publick and solemn Prayers were confined to a Temple yet the Temple was not consined to a place but they might be any-where so they were at all instruments of order conveniences of assembling residences of Religion and God who always loved order and was apt to hear all holy and prudent Prayers and therefore also the Prayers of Consecration hath often declared that he loves such Places that he will dwell in them not that they are advantages to him but that he is pleased to make them so to us And therefore all Nations of the world built publick Houses for Religion and since all Ages of the Church did so too it had need be a strong and a convincing argument that must shew they were deceived And if any man list to be 〈◊〉 he must be answered with S. Paul's reproof We have no such custom nor the Churches of God 6. Thus S. Paul reproved the Corinthians for despising the Church of God by such uses which were therefore unsit for God's because they were proper for their own that is for common houses And although they were at first and in the descending Ages so afflicted by the tyranny of enemies that they could not build many Churches yet some they did and the Churches themselves suffered part of the persecution For so 〈◊〉 reports that when under Severus and Gordianus 〈◊〉 and Galienus the Christian affairs were in a tolerable condition they built Churches in great number and expence But when the Persecution waxed hot under Diocletian down went the Churches upon a design to extinguish or disadvantage the Religion Maximinus gave leave to re-build them Upon which Rescript saith the story the Christians were overjoyed and raised them up to an incredible height and incomparable beauty This was Christian Religion then and so it hath continued-ever since and unless we should have new reason and new revelation it must continue so till our Churches are exchanged for Thrones and our Chappels for seats placed before the Lamb in the eternal Temple of celestial Jerusalem 7. And to this purpose it is observed that the Holy Jesus first ejected the Beasts of Sacrifice out of the Temple and then proclaimed the Place
the Holy Jesus that he framed all his Laws in compliance to that design He that returns good for evil a soft answer to the asperity of his enemy kindness to injuries lessons the contention always and sometimes gets a friend and when he does not he shames his enemy Every little accident in a family to peevish and angry persons is the matter of a quarrel and every quarrel discomposes the peace of the house and sets it on fire and no man can tell how far that may burn it may be to a dissolution of the whole fabrick But whosoever obeys the Laws of Jesus bears with the infirmities of his relatives and society seeks with sweetness to remedy what is ill and to prevent what it may produce and throws water upon a spark and lives sweetly with his wife affectionately with his children providently and discreetly with his servants and they all love the Major-domo and look upon him as their Parent their Guardian their Friend their Patron their Proveditore But look upon a person angry peaceless and disturbed when he enters upon his threshold it gives an alarm to his house and puts them to flight or upon their defence and the Wife reckons the joy of her day is done when he returns and the Children enquire into their Father's age and think his life tedious and the Servants curse privately and do their service as slaves do only when they dare not do otherwise and they serve him as they serve a Lion they obey his strength and fear his cruelty and despise his manners and hate his person No man enjoys content in his family but he that is peaceful and charitable just and loving forbearing and forgiving careful and provident He that is not so his house may be his Castle but it is manned by enemies his house is built not upon the sand but upon the waves and upon a tempest the foundation is uncertain but his ruine is not so 8. And if we extend the relations of the man beyond his own walls he that does his duty to his Neighbour that is all offices of kindness gentleness and humanity nothing of injury and affront is certain never to meet with a wrong so great as is the inconvenience of a Law-suit or the contention of neighbours and all the consequent dangers and inconvenience Kindness will create and invite kindness an injury provokes an injury And since the love of Neighbours is one of those beauties which Solomon did admire and that this beauty is within the combination of precious things which adorn and reward a peaceable charitable disposition he that is in love with spiritual excellencies with intellectual rectitudes with peace and with blessings of society knows they grow amongst rose bushes of Vertue and holy obedience to the Laws of Jesus And for a good man some will even dare to die and a sweet and charitable disposition is received with fondness and all the endearments of the Neighbourhood He that observes how many families are ruined by contention and how many spirits are broken by the care and contumely and fear and spite which are entertained as advocates to promote a Suit of Law will soon confess that a great loss and peaceable quitting of a considerable interest is a purchace and a gain in respect of a long Suit and a vexatious quarrel And still if the proportion rises higher the reason swells and grows more necessary and determinate For if we would live according to the Discipline of Christian Religion one of the great plagues which vex the world would be no more That there should be no wars was one of the designs of Christianity and the living according to that Institution which is able to prevent all wars and to establish an universal and eternal peace when it is obeyed is the using an infallible instrument toward that part of our political happiness which consists in Peace This world would be an image of Heaven if all men were charitable peaceable just and loving To this excellency all those precepts of Christ which consist in forbearance and forgiveness do cooperate 9. But the next instance of the reward of holy Obedience and conformity to Christ's Laws is it self a Duty and needs no more but a mere repetition of it We must be content in every state and because Christianity teaches us this lesson it teaches us to be happy for nothing from without can make us 〈◊〉 unless we joyn our own consents to it and apprehend it such and entertain it in our sad and melancholick retirements A Prison is but a retirement and opportunity of serious thoughts to a person whose spirit is confined and apt to sit still and desires no enlargement beyond the cancels of the body till the state of Separation calls it forth into a fair liberty But every retirement is a prison to a loose and wandring fancy for whose wildness no 〈◊〉 are restraint no band of duty is consinement who when he hath broken the first hedge of duty can never after endure any enclosure so much as in a Symbol But this Precept is so necessary that it is not more a duty than a rule of prudence and in many accidents of our lives it is the only cure of sadness for it is certain that no providence less than divine can prevent evil and cross accidents but that is an excellent remedy to the evil that receives the accident within its power and takes out the sting paring the nails and drawing the teeth of the wild beast that it may be tame or harmless and medicinal For all Content consists in the proportion of the object to the appetite and because external accidents are not in our power and it were nothing excellent that things happened to us according to our first desires God hath by his grace put it into our own power to make the happiness by making our desires descend to the event and comply with the chance and combine with all the issues of Divine Providence And then we are noble persons when we borrow not our content from things below us but make our satisfactions from within And it may be considered that every little care may disquiet us and may increase it self by reflexion upon its own acts and every discontent may discompose our spirits and put an edge and make afflictions poynant but cannot take off one from us but makes every one to be two But Content removes not the accident but complies with it it takes away the sharpness and displeasure of it and by stooping down makes the lowest equal proportionable and commensurate Impatience makes an Ague to be a Fever and every Fever to be a Calenture and that Calenture may expire in Madness But a quiet spirit is a great disposition to health and for the present does alleviate the sickness And this also is notorious in the instance of Covetousness The love of money is the root of all evil which while some
upon whom no such visible signatures have been imprinted The purpose of such chances is that we should repent lest we perish in the like judgment 28. About this time a certain Ruler of a Synagogue renewed the old Question about the observation of the Sabbath repining at Jesus that he cured a woman that was crooked loosing her from her infirmity with which she had been afflicted eighteen years But Jesus made the man ashamed by an argument from their own practice who themselves loose an oxe from the stall on the Sabbath and lead him to watering And by the same argument he also stopt the mouths of the Scribes and Pharisees which were open upon him for curing an Hydropick person upon the Sabbath For Jesus that he might draw off and separate Christianity from the yoke of Ceremonies by abolishing and taking off the strictest Mosaical Rites chose to do very many of his Miracles upon the Sabbath that he might do the work of abrogation and institution both at once not much unlike the Sabbatical Pool in Judaea which was dry six days but gushed out in a full stream upon the Sabbath For though upon all days Christ was operative and miraculous yet many reasons did concur and determine him to a more frequent working upon those days of publick ceremony and convention But going forth from thence he went up and down the Cities of Galilee re-enforcing the same Doctrine he had formerly taught them and daily adding new Precepts and cautions and prudent insinuations advertising of the multitudes of them that perish and the paucity of them that shall be saved and that we should strive to enter in at the strait gate that the way to destruction is broad and plausible the way to Heaven nice and austere and few there be that find it teaches them modesty at Feasts and entertainments of the poor discourses of the many excuses and unwillingnesses of persons who were invited to the feast of the Kingdom the refreshments of the Gospel and tacitly insinuates the rejection of the Jews who were the first invited and the calling of the Gentiles who were the persons called in from the high ways and hedges He reprehends Herod for his subtilty and design to kill him prophesies that he should die at Jerusalem and intimates great sadnesses future to them for neglecting this their day of visitation and for killing the Prophets and the Messengers sent from God 29. It now grew towards Winter and the Jews feast of Dedication was at hand therefore Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the Feast where he preached in Solomon's Porch which part of the Temple stood intire from the first ruines and the end of his Sermon was that the Jews had like to have stoned him But retiring from thence he went beyond Jordan where he taught the people in a most elegant and perswasive Parable concerning the mercy of God in accepting Penitents in the Parable of the Prodigal son returning discourses of the design of the Messias coming into the world to recover erring persons from their sin and danger in the Apologues of the Lost sheep and Goat and under the representment of an Unjust but prudent Steward he taught us so to employ our present opportunities and estates by laying them out in acts of Mercy and Religion that when our Souls shall be dismissed from the stewardship and custody of our body we may be entertained in everlasting habitations He instructeth the Pharisees in the question of Divorces limiting the permissions of Separations to the only cause of Fornication preferreth holy Coelibate before the estate of Marriage in them to whom the gift of Continency is given in order to the Kingdom of Heaven He telleth a Story or a Parable for which is uncertain of a Rich man whom Euthymius out of the tradition of the Hebrews nameth Nymensis and Lazarus the first a voluptuous person and uncharitable the other pious afflicted sick and a begger the first died and went to Hell the second to Abraham's bosome God so ordering the dispensation of good things that we cannot easily enjoy two Heavens nor shall the infelicities of our lives if we be pious end otherwise than in a beatified condition The Epilogue of which story discovered this truth also That the ordinary means of Salvation are the express revelations of Scripture and the ministeries of God's appointment and whosoever neglects these shall not be supplied with means extraordinary or if he were they would be totally ineffectual 30. And still the people drew water from the fountains of our Saviour which streamed out in a full and continual emanation For adding wave to wave line to line precept upon precept he reproved the Fastidiousness of the Pharisee that came with Eucharist to God and contempt to his brother and commended the Humility of the Publican's address who came deploring his sins and with modesty and penance and importunity begged and obtained a mercy Then he laid hands upon certain young children and gave them benediction charging his Apostles to admit infants to him because to them in person and to such in embleme and signification the Kingdom of Heaven does appertain He instructs a young man in the ways and counsels of perfection besides the observation of Precepts by heroical Renunciations and acts of munificent Charity Which discourse because it alighted upon an indisposed and an unfortunate subject for the young man was very rich Jesus discourses how hard it is for a rich man to be saved but he expounds himself to mean they that trust in riches and however it is a matter of so great temptation that it is almost impossible to escape yet with God nothing is impossible But when the Apostles heard the Master bidding the young man sell all and give to the poor and follow him and for his reward promised him a heavenly treasure Peter in the name of the rest began to think that this was their case and the promise also might concern them but they asked the Question What shall we have who have forsaken all and followed thee Jesus answered that they should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel 31. And Jesus extended this mercy to every Disciple that should forsake either house or wife or children or any thing for his sake and the Gospel's and that they should receive a hundred fold in this life by way of comfort and equivalency and in the world to come thousands of glories and possessions in fruition and redundancy For they that are last shall be first and the first shall be last and the despised people of this world shall reign like Kings and contempt it self shall swell up into glory and poverty into an eternal satisfaction And these rewards shall not be accounted according to the priviledges of Nations or priority of vocation but readiness of mind and obedience and sedulity of operation after calling which Jesus taught his Disciples in the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard to whom the
Daemons so as they should never return again and adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That this Art was still in force among the Jews Instances whereof he tells us he himself had seen having beheld one Eleazar a Jew in the presence of 〈◊〉 his Sons and the great Officers of his Army curing Daemoniacks by holding a ring to their nose under whose Seal was hid the root of a certain Plant prescribed by Solomon at the scent whereof the Daemon presently took leave and was gone the Patient falling to the ground while the Exorcist by mentioning Solomon and reciting some Charms made by him stood over him and charged the evil Spirit never to return And to let them see that he was really gone he commanded the Daemon as he went out to overturn a cup full of water which he had caused to be set in the room before them In the number of these Conjurers now at Ephesus there were the seven Sons of 〈◊〉 one of the chief heads of the Families of the Priests who seeing what great things were done by calling over Daemoniacks the name of Christ attempted themselves to do the like Conjuring the evil Spirit in the name of that Jesus whom Paul preached to depart But the stubborn Laemon would not obey the warrant telling them he knew who Jesus and Paul were but did not understand what authority they had to use his name And not content with this forced the Daemoniack violently to fall upon them to tear their clothes and wound their bodies scarce suffering them to escape with the safety of their lives An accident that begot great terror in the minds of men and became the occasion of converting many to the Faith who came to the Apostle and confessed the former course and manner of their lives Several also who had traded in curious Arts and the mysterious methods of Spells and Charms freely brought their Books of Magick Rites whose price had they been to be sold according to the rates which men who dealt in those cursed mysteries put upon them would have amounted to the value of above One thousand Five hundred pounds and openly burnt them before the people themselves adjudging them to those flames to which they were condemned by the Laws of the Empire For so we find the Roman Laws prohibiting any to keep Books of Magick Arts and that where any such were found their Goods should be forfeited the Books publickly burned the persons banished and if of a meaner rank beheaded These Books the penitent converts did of their own accord 〈◊〉 to the fire not tempted to spare them either by their former love to them or the present price and value of them With so mighty an efficacy did the Gospel prevail over the minds of men 6. ABOUT this time it was that the Apostle writ his Epistle to the Galatians For he had heard that since his departure corrupt opinions had got in amongst them about the necessary observation of the legal Rites and that several Impostors were crept into that Church who knew no better way to undermine the Doctrine he had planted there than by vilifying his person slighting him as an Apostle only at the second hand not to be compared with Peter James and John who had familiarly conversed with Christ in the days of his flesh 〈◊〉 been immediately deputed by him In this Epistle therefore he reproves them with some necessary smartness and severity that they had been so soon led out of that right way wherein he had set them and had so easily suffered themselves to be imposed upon by the crasty artifices of seducers He vindicates the honour of his Apostolate and the immediate receiving his Commission from Christ wherein he shews that he came not behind the very best of those Apostles He largely refutes those Judaical opinions that had tainted and infected them and in the conclusion instructs them in the rules and duties of an holy life While the Apostle thus staid at Ephesus he resolved with himself to pass through 〈◊〉 and Achaia thence to Jerusalem and so to Rome But for the present altered his resolution and continued still at Ephesus 7. DURING his stay in this place an accident happened that involved him in great trouble and danger 〈◊〉 above all the Cities of the East was renowned for the famous Temple of Diana one of the stateliest Temples of the World It was as Pliny tells us the very wonder of magnificence built at the common charges of all Asia properly 〈◊〉 called 220 Years elsewhere he says 400 in building which we are to understand of its successive rebuildings and reparations being often wasted and destroyed It was 425 Foot long 220 broad supported by 127 Pillars 60 Foot high for its antiquity it was in some degree before the times of Bacchus equal to the Reign of the Amazons by whom it is generally said to have been first built as the Ephesian Embassadors told Tiberius till by degrees it grew up into that greatness and splendor that it was generally reckoned one of the seven wonders of the World But that which gave the greatest same and reputation to it was an Image of Diana kept there made of no very costly materials but which the crasty Priests perswaded the People was beyond any humane artifice or contrivement and that it was immediately formed by Jupiter and dropt down from Heaven having first killed or banished the Artists that made it as Suidas informs us that the cheat might not be discovered by which means they drew not Ephesus only but the whole World into a mighty veneration of it Besides there were within this Temple multitudes of Silver Cabinets or Chappelets little Shrines made in fashion of the Temple wherein was placed the Image of Diana For the making of these holy shrines great numbers of Silver-smiths were imployed and maintained among whom one Demetrius was a Leading-man who foreseeing that if the Christian Religion still got ground their gainful Trade would soon come to nothing presently called together the Men of his Profession especially those whom he himself set on work told them that now their welfare and livelihood were concerned and that the fortunes of their Wives and Children lay at stake that it was plain that this Paul had perverted City and Country and perswaded the People that the Images which they made and worshipped were no real Gods by which means their Trade was not only like to fall to the ground but also the honour and magnificence of the great Goddess Diana whom not Asia only but the whole Word did worship and adore Inraged with this discourse they cryed out with one voice that Great was Diana of the 〈◊〉 The whole City was presently in an uproar and seising upon two of S. Paul's Companions hurried them into the Theatre probably with a design to have cast them to the wild Beasts S. Paul hearing of their danger would have ventured himself among them had
life The imposition of a new name at his election to the Apostleship He and his Brother stiled Boanerges and why The Zeal and activity of their temper Their ambition to sit on Christ's right and left hand in his Kingdom and confident promise of suffering This ill resented by the rest Our Lord's discourse concerning the nature of the Evangelical state Where he preached after Christ's Ascension The story of his going into Spain exploded Herod Agrippa in favour with the Roman Emperors The character of his temper His zeal for the Law of Moses His condemning S. James to death The sudden conversion of his Accuser as he was led to Martyrdom Their being beheaded The Divine Justice that pursued Herod His grandeur and arrogance at Caesarea His miserable death The story of the Translation of S. James his Corps to Compostella in Spain and the Miracles said to be done there 1. SAINT James surnamed the Great either because of his Age being much elder than the other or for some peculiar honours and favours which our Lord conferred upon him was by Country a Galilean born probably either at Gapernaum or Bethsaida being one of Simon Peter's Partners in the Trade of Fishing He was the Son of Zebdai or Zebedee and probably the same whom the Jews mention in their Talmud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rabbi James or Jacob the Son of Zebedee a Fisherman and the many servants which he kept for that imployment a circumstance not taken notice of in any other speak him a man of some more considerable note in that Trade and way of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nicephorus notes His Mother's name was Mary surnamed Salome called first Taviphilja says an ancient Arabick writer the Daughter as is most probable not Wife of Cleopas Sister to Mary the Mother of our Lord not her own Sister properly so called the Blessed Virgin being in all likelihood an only Daughter but Cousin-german stiled her Sister according to the mode and custom of the Jews who were wont to call all such near relations by the names of Brothers and Sisters and in this respect he had the honour of a near relation to our Lord himself His education was in the Trade of Fishing no imployment is base that 's honest and industrious nor can it be thought mean and dishonourable to him when it is remembred that our Lord himself the Son of God stoop'd so low as not only to become the reputed Son of a Carpenter but during the retirements of his private life to work himself at his Father's Trade not devoting himself merely to contemplations nor withdrawing from all useful society with the World and hiding himself in the solitudes of an Anchoret but busying himself in an active course of life working at the Trade of a Carpenter and particularly as one of the Ancients tells us making Ploughs and Yokes And this the sacred History does not only plainly intimate but it is generally asserted by the Ancient writers of the Church A thing so notorious that the Heathens used to object it as a reproach to Christianity Thence that smart and acute reparteé which a Christian School-master made to Libanius the famous Orator at Antioch when upon Julian's expedition into Persia where he was killed he asked in scorn what the Carpenters Son was now a doing The Christian replied with salt enough That the great Artificer of the World whom he scoffingly called the Carpenter's Son was making a coffin for his Master Julian the news of whose death was brought soon after But this only by the way 2. S. JAMES applied himself to his Father's Trade not discouraged with the meanness not sinking under the difficulties of it and as usually the blessings of Heaven meet men in the way of an honest and industrious diligence it was in the exercise of this calling when our Saviour passing by the Sea of Galilee saw him and his brother in the Ship and called them to be his Disciples A Divine power went along with the word which they no sooner heard but chearfully complied with it immediately leaving all to follow him They did not stay to dispute his commands to argue the probability of his promise solicitously to enquire into the minute consequences of the undertaking what troubles and hazards might attend this new employment but readily delivered up themselves to whatever services he should appoint them And the chearfulness of their obedience is yet further considerable that they left their aged Father in the Ship behind them For elsewhere we find others excusing themselves from an immediate attendance upon Christ upon pretence that they must go bury their Father or take their leave of their kindred at home No such slight and trivial pretences could stop the resolution of our Apostles who broke through these considerations and quitted their present interests and relations Say not it was unnaturally done of them to desert their Father an aged person and in some measure unable to help himself For besides that they left servants with him to attend him it is not cruelty to our Earthly but obedience to our Heavenly Father to leave the one that we may comply with the call and summons of the other It was the triumph of Abraham's Faith when God called him to leave his kindred and his Father's house to go out and sojourn in a foreign Country not knowing whither he went Nor can we doubt but that Zebedee himself would have gone along with them had not his Age given him a Supersedeas from such an active and ambulatory course of life But though they left him at this time it 's very reasonable to suppose that they took care to instruct him in the doctrine of the Messiah and to acquaint him with the glad tidings of Salvation especially since we find their Mother Salome so hearty a friend to so constant a follower of our Saviour But this if we may believe the account which one gives of it was after her Husbands decease who próbably lived not long after dying before the time of our Saviour's Passion 3. IT was not long after this that he was called from the station of an ordinary Disciple to the Apostolical Office and not only so but honoured with some peculiar acts of favour beyond most of the Apostles being one of the three whom our Lord usually made choice of to admit to the more intimate transactions of his life from which the others were excluded Thus with Peter and his Brother John he was taken to the miraculous raising of Jairus his Daughter admitted to Christ's glorious transfiguration upon the Mount and the discourses that there passed between him and the two great Ministers of Heaven taken along with him into the Garden to be a Spectator of those bitter Agonies which the Holy Jesus was to undergo as the preparatory sufferings to his Passion What were the reasons of our Lord 's admitting these three Apostles to
beheaded at the same time Thus fell S. James the Apostolick Proto-Martyr the first of that number that gained the Crown chearfully taking that cup which he had long since told his Lord he was most ready to drink of 9. BUT the Divine vengeance that never sleeps suffered not the death of this innocent and righteous man to pass long unrevenged of which though S. Luke gives us but a short account yet Josephus who might himself remember it being a youth at that time of seven or eight years of age sets down the story with its particular circumstances agreeing almost exactly with the Sacred Historian Shortly after S. James his Martyrdom Herod removed to Caesarea being resolved to make war upon the neighbouring Tyrians and Sidonians While he was here he proclaimed solemn sights and Festival entertainments to be held in honour of Caesar to which there flocked a great confluence of all the Nobility thereabouts Early in the morning on the second day he came with great state into the Theatre to make an Oration to the people being clothed in a Robe all over curiously wrought with silver which encountring with the beams of the rising Sun reflected such a lustre upon the eyes of the people who make sensible appearances the only true measures of greatness as begot an equal wonder and veneration in them crying out prompted no doubt by flatterers who began the cry that it was some Deity which they beheld and that he who spake to them must be something above the ordinary standard of humanity This impious applause Herod received without any token of dislike or sense of that injury that was hereby done to the supreme Being of the World But a sudden accident changed the scene and turned the Gomick part into a black fatal Tragedy Looking up he espied an Owle sitting upon a rope over his head as probably also he did an Angel for so S. Luke mentions it which he presently beheld as the fatal messenger of his death as heretofore it had been of his prosperity and success An incurable melancholy immediately seised upon his mind as exquisite torments did upon his bowels caused without question by those 〈◊〉 S. Luke speaks of which immediately fed and preyed upon him Behold said he turning to those about him the Deity you admired and your selves evidently convinced of flattery and falshood see me here by the Laws of Fate condemned to die whom just now you stiled immortal Being removed into the Palace his pains still encreased upon him and though the people mourned and wept fasted and prayed for his life and health yet his acute torments got the upper hand and after five days put a period to his life But to return to S. James 10. BEING put to death his Body is said to have taken a second voyage into Spain where we are with confidence enough told it rests at this day Indeed I meet with a very formal account of its translation thither written says the Publisher above DC years since by a Monk of the Abby of La-Fleury in France The summ whereof is this The Apostles at Jerusalem designing Ctesiphon for Spain ordained him Bishop and others being joyned to his assistance they took the Body of S. James and went on board a Ship without Oars without a Pilot or any to steer and conduct their voyage trusting only to the merits of that Apostle whose remains they carried along with them In seven days they arrived at a Port in Spain where landing the Corps was suddenly taken from them and with great appearances of an extraordinary light from Heaven conveyed they knew not whither to the place of its interment The men you may imagine were exceedingly troubled that so great a treasure should be ravished from them but upon their prayers and tears they were conducted by an Angel to the place where the Apostle was buried twelve miles from the Sea Here they addressed themselves to a rich Noble Matron called Luparia who had a great Estate in those parts but a severe Idolatress begging of her that they might have leave to intomb the bones of the holy Apostle within her jurisdiction She entertained them with contempt and scorn with curses and execrations bidding them go and ask leave of the King of the Country They did so but were by him treated with all the instances of rage and fury and pursued by him till himself perished in the attempt They returned back to their Gallaecian Matron whom by many miracles and especially the destroying a Dragon that miserably infested those parts they at last made Convert to the Faith who thereupon commanded her Images to be broken the Altars to be demolished and her own Idol-Temple being cleansed and purged to be dedicated to the honour of S. James by which means Christianity mightily prevailed and triumphed over Idolatry in all those Countries This is the summ of the Account call it Romance or History which I do not desire to impose any further upon the Readers faith than he shall find himself disposed to believe it I add no more than that his Body was afterwards translated from Iria Flavia the place of its first repose to Compostella Though a Learned person will have it to have been but one and the same place and that after the story of S. James had gotten some footing in the belief of men it began to be called ad Jacobum Apostolum thence in after-times Giacomo 〈◊〉 which was at last jumbled into Compostella where it were to tire both the Reader and my self to tell him with what solemn veneration and incredible miracles reported to be done here this Apostle's reliques are worshipped at this day Whence Baronius calls it the great store-store-house of Miracles lying open to the whole World and wisely confesses it one of the best arguments to prove that his Body was translated thither And I should not scruple to be of his mind could I be assured that such Miracles were truly done there The End of the Life of S. James the Great THE LIFE OF S. JOHN S. IOHN Evangelist Having lived to a great age he died at Ephesus 68 years after our Lords Passion and was Buried neere that City Baron S t John put into a Cauldron of boyling oyl Joh. 21. 21 32. Peter sait Lord what shall this man do Jesus saith unto hun if I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee 1 Pet. 4. 12. Think it not strange concerning I fiery trial that is to try you as though some strange thing hapned to you His kindred and relations whether eminent for Nobility The peculiar favours conferred upon him by our Saviour His lying in our Lord's Bosom His attending at the crucifixion Our Lord 's committing the Blessed Virgin to his care The great intimacy between him and Peter How long he resided at Jerusalem Asia his Apostolical Province His planting Christianity there and in other parts of the East His being sent prisoner to
contend that his Reliques were brought to and are still preserved at Triers in Germany a controversie wherein I shall not concern my self His memory is celebrated in the Greek Church August the IX as appears not only from their Menologies but from a Novel constitution of Manuel Comuenus appointing what holy days should be kept in the Church while the Western Churches keep February XXIV sacred to his memory Among many other Apocryphal writings attributed to the Apostles there was a Gospel published under his name mentioned by Eusebius and the Ancients and condemned with the rest by Gelasius Bishop of Rome as it had been rejected by others before him Under his name also there were extant Traditions cited by Clemens of Alexandria from whence no question it was that the Nicolaitans borrowed that saying of his which they abused to so vile and beastly purposes as under the pretended patronage of his name and doctrines the Marcionites and Valentinians defended some of their most absurd and impious opinions The End of S. Matthias's Life THE LIFE OF S. MARK the Evangelist The Evangelist St. Mark He having been the Coädiutor of St. Paul St. Peter severally at Alexandria planted governd a Church and there by the violence of the Pagan multitude suffered Martyrdom AD. 64. Baron Centur St. Mark 's Martyrdom Hebr. 11. 35. Others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection Of whom the world was not worthy His Kindred and distinction from others of the same Name Whether one of the Seventy His Conversion His attendance upon Peter and Preaching the Gospel in Italy and at Rome His planting Christianity at Alexandria and great success there An account of the Therapeutae mentioned by Philo and their excellent manners rules and way of Life These proved not to have been Christians by several arguments The Original of the mistake whence S. Mark' s Preaching in the Parts of Africk His return to Alexandria and diligence in his Ministry The manner of his Martyrdom The time of it enquired into The description of his Person His Gospel when and where written and why said to be Peter's His great impartiality in his Relations In what Language written The Original whether extant at this Day 1. SAINT Mark though carrying something of Roman in his Name probably assumed by him upon some great change or accident of his Life or which was not unusual among the Jews when going into the European Provinces of the Roman Empire taken up at his going for Italy and Rome was doubtless born of Jewish Parents originally descended of the Tribe of Levi and the Line of the Priesthood and if Nicephorus say true Sister 's Son to Peter though by others against all reason confounded with John sirnamed Mark the Son of Mary and Mark Sisters Son to Barnabas By the Ancients he is generally thought to have been one of the Seventy Disciples and Epiphanius expresly tells us that he was one of those who taking exception at our Lord's discourse of cating his Flesh and drinking his Blood went back and walked no more with him but was seasonably reduced and reclaimed by Peter But no foundation appears either for the one or for the other nay Papias Bishop of Hierapolis who lived near those times positively affirms that he was no hearer nor follower of our Saviour He was converted by some of the Apostles and probably by S. Peter who is said to have been his undertaker at his Baptism if I understand 〈◊〉 aright for no other reason I suppose than because he calls him his Son Indeed he was his constant attendant in his Travails supplying the place of an Amanuensis and Interpreter for though the Apostles were divinely inspired and among other miraculous powers had the gift of Languages conferred upon them yet was the interpretation of Tongues a gift more peculiar to some than others This might probably be S. Mark' s Talent in expounding S. Peter's Discourses whether by word or writing to those who understood not the Language wherein they were delivered He accompanied him in his Apostolical progress Preached the Gospel in Italy and at Rome where at the request of the Christians of those Parts he composed and wrote his Gospel 2. BY Peter he was sent into Egypt to plant Christianity in those Parts fixing his main residence at Alexandria and the places thereabouts where so great says Eusebius was the success of his Ministry that he converted Multitudes both of Men and Women not only to the embracing of the Christian Religion but to a more than ordinarily strict profession of it insomuch that Philo wrote a Book of their peculiar Rites and way of Life the only reason why S. Hierom reckons him among the Writers of the Church Indeed Philo the Jew wrote a Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extant at this day wherein he speaks of a sort of Persons called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who in many parts of the World but especially in a pleasant place near the Maraeotick Lake in Egypt had formed themselves into Religious Societies and gives a large account of their Rites and Customes their strict philosophical and contemplative course of life He tells us of them that when they first enter upon this way they renounce all secular interests and imployments and leaving their Estates to their Relations retire into Groves and Gardens and Places devoted to solitude and contemplation that they had their Houses or Colledges not contiguous that so being free from noise and tumult they might the better minister to the designs of a contemplative life nor yet removed at too great a distance that they might maintain mutual society and be conveniently capable of helping and assisting one another In each of these Houses there was an Oratory call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein they discharged the more secret and solemn Rites of their Religion divided in the middle with a Partition wall three or four Cubits high the one apartment being for the Men and the other for the Women here they publickly met every Seventh day where being set according to their seniority and having composed themselves with great decency and reverence the most aged Person among them and best skilled in the Dogmata and Principles of their Institution came forth into the midst gravely and soberly discoursing what might make the deepest impression upon their minds the rest attending with a profound silence and only testifying their assent with the motion of their Eyes or Head Their discourses were usually my stical and allegorical seeking hidden sences under plain words and of such an allegorical Philosophy consisted the Books of their Religion left them by their Ancestors The Law they compared to an Animal the Letter of it resembling the Body while the Soul of it lay in those abstruse and recondite notions which the external veil and surface of the words concealed from vulgar understandings He tells