This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the Most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universal the latter words would impugn the former for whilst he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the Most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear in respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil Spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whilst thou vexest a Servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from Knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldness enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny Or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack For the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour Or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a farther degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are Tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by sense have easily granted the Body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a Spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire but as all matters of faith though they cannot be proved by reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a real For as in Blessedness the good Spirits find themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves settled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive meer and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the sky and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of God's justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that Supreme and Righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgment of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal spirits of living men may be held in a loathed or painfull body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name Who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil Spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they expect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed term of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgment should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say before the time Even the very evil spirits confess and fearfully attend a set day of universal Sessions They believe less then Devils that either doubt of or deny that Day of final retribution O the wonderfull mercy of our God that both to wicked men
weakness When the Spouse misses him whom her Soul loveth every watchman hath a buffet for her O Saviour if thou be never so little stept aside we are sure to be assaulted with powerfull Temptations They that durst say nothing to the Master so soon as his back is turned fall foul upon his weakest Disciples Even at the first hatching the Serpent was thus crafty to begin at the weaker vessell experience and time hath not abated his wit If he still work upon silly Women laden with divers lusts upon rude and ungrounded Ignorants it is no other then his old wont Our Saviour upon the skirts of the hill knew well what was done in the plain and therefore hasts down to the rescue of his Disciples The clouds and vapours do not sooner scatter upon the Sun's breaking forth then these cavils vanish at the presence of Christ in stead of opposition they are straight upon their knees here are now no quarrels but humble salutations and if Christ's question did not force theirs the Scribes had found no tongue Doubtless there were many eager Patients in this throng none made so much noise as the father of the Demoniack Belike upon his occasion it was that the Scribes held contestation with the Disciples If they wrangled he sues and that from his knees Whom will not need make both humble and eloquent The case was wofull and accordingly expressed A son is a dear name but this was his onely son Were his grief ordinary yet the sorrow were the less but he is a fearfull spectacle of judgment for he is Lunatick Were this Lunacy yet merely from a naturall distemper it were more tolerable but this is aggravated by the possession of a cruell spirit that handles him in a most grievous manner Yet were he but in the rank of other Demoniacks the discomfort were more easy but lo this spirit is worse then all other his fellows others are usually dispossessed by the Disciples this is beyond their power I besought thy Disciples to cast him out but they could not therefore Lord have thou mercy on my Son The despair of all other helps sends us importunately to the God of power Here was his refuge the strong man had gotten possession it was onely the stronger then he that can eject him O God spirituall wickednesses have naturally seized upon our Souls all humane helps are too weak onely thy Mercy shall improve thy Power to our deliverance What bowels could chuse but yearn at the distress of this poor young man Frenzy had taken his brain that Disease was but health in comparison of the tyrannicall possession of that evill spirit wherewith it was seconded Out of Hell there could not be a greater misery his senses are either bereft or else left to torment him he is torn and racked so as he foams and gnashes he pines and languishes he is cast sometimes into the fire sometimes into the water How that malicious Tyrant rejoyces in the mischief done to the creature of God Had earth had any thing more pernicious then fire and water thither had he been thrown though rather for torture then dispatch It was too much favour to die at once O God with how deadly enemies hast thou matched us Abate thou their power since their malice will not be abated How many think of this case with pity and horrour and in the mean time are insensible of their own fearfuller condition It is but oftentimes that the Devil would cast this young man into a temporary fire he would cast the sinner into an eternall fire whose everlasting burnings have no intermissions No fire comes amiss to him the fire of Affliction the fire of Lust the fire of Hell O God make us apprehensive of the danger of our sin and secure from the fearfull issue of sin All these very same effects follow his spiritual possession How doth he tear and rack them whom he vexes and distracts with inordinate cares and sorrows How do they foam and gnash whom he hath drawn to an impatient repining at God's afflictive hand How do they pine away who hourly decay and languish in Grace Oh the lamentable condition of sinfull souls so much more dangerous by how much less felt But all this while what part hath the Moon in this man's misery How comes the name of that goodly Planet in question Certainly these diseases of the brain follow much the course of this queen of moisture That power which she hath in humours is drawn to the advantage of the malicious spirit her predominancy is abused to his despight whether it were for the better opportunity of his vexation or whether for the drawing of envy and discredit upon so noble a creature It is no news with that subtle enemy to fasten his effects upon those secondary causes which he usurps to his own purposes What-ever be the means he is the tormentour Much wisedom needs to distinguish betwixt the evil spirit abusing the good creature and the good creature abused by the evil spirit He that knew all things asks questions How long hath he been so Not to inform himself That Devil could have done nothing without the knowledge without the leave of the God of Spirits but that by the confession of the Parent he might lay forth the wofull condition of the Child that the thank and glory of the Cure might be so much greater as the complaint was more grievous He answered From a child O God how I adore the depth of thy wise and just and powerfull dispensation Thou that couldst say I have loved Jacob and Esau have I hated ere the children had done good or evil thoughtest also good ere this Child could be capable of good or evil to yield him over to the power of that Evil one What need I ask for any other reason then that which is the rule of all Justice thy Will Yet even these weak eyes can see the just grounds of thine actions That child though an Israelite was conceived and born in that sin which both could and did give Satan an interest in him Besides the actual sins of the Parents deserved this revenge upon that piece of themselves Rather O God let me magnifie thy Mercy that we and ours escape this Judgment then question thy Justice that some escape not How just might it have been with thee that we who have given way to Satan in our sins should have way and scope given to Satan over us in our punishments It is thy praise that any of us are free it is no quarrell that some suffer Do I wonder to see Satan's bodily possession of this young man from a child when I see his spiritual possession of every son of Adam from a longer date not from a child but from the womb yea in it Why should not Satan possess his own we are all by nature the sons of wrath It is time for us to renounce him in Baptism whose we are till we be regenerate He hath right
his right must not stand upon scrupulous fears Are we naturally timorous Why do we not fear the deniall the exclusion of the Almighty Without shall be the fearfull Her humble prostration is seconded by a lamentable complaint Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died The Sisters are both in one mind both in one speech and both of them in one speech bewray both strength and infirmity strength of Faith in ascribing so much power to Christ that his presence could preserve from death Infirmity in supposing the necessity of a presence for this purpose Why Mary could not thine Omnipotent Saviour as well in absence have commanded Lazarus to live Is his hand so short that he can doe nothing but by contaction If his Power were finite how could he have forbidden the seizure of death if infinite how could it be limited to place or hindred by distance It is a weakness of Faith to measure success by means and means by presence and to tie effects to both when we deal with an Almighty agent Finite causes work within their own sphere all places are equally near and all effects equally easy to the infinite O Saviour whilst thou now sittest gloriously in Heaven thou dost no less impart thy self unto us then if thou stoodest visibly by us then if we stood locally by thee no place can make difference of thy virtue and aid This was Mary's moan no motion no request sounded from her to her Saviour Her silent suit is returned with a mute answer no notice is taken of her errour Oh that marvellous mercy that connives at our faulty infirmities All the reply that I hear of is a compassionate groan within himself O Blessed Jesu thou that wert free from all sin wouldst not be free even from strong affections Wisedom and Holiness should want much work if even vehement passions might not be quitted from offence Mary wept her tears drew on tears from her friends all their tears united drew groans from thee Even in thine Heaven thou dost no less pity our sorrows thy Glory is free from groans but abounds with compassion and mercy if we be not sparing of our tears thou canst not be insensible of our sorrows How shall we imitate thee if like our looking-glass we do not answer tears and weep on them that weep upon us Lord thou knewest in absence that Lazarus was dead and dost thou not know where he was buried Surely thou wert farther off when thou sawest and reportedst his death then thou wert from the grave thou inquiredst of thou that knewest all things yet askest what thou knowest Where have ye laid him Not out of need but out of will that as in thy sorrow so in thy question thou mightst depress thy self in the opinion of the beholders for the time that the glory of thine instant Miracle might be the greater the less it was expected It had been all one to thy Omnipotence to have made a new Lazarus out of nothing or in that remoteness to have commanded Lazarus wheresoever he was to come forth but thou wert neither willing to work more miracle then was requisite nor yet unwilling to fix the minds of the people upon the expectation of some marvellous thing that thou meantest to work and therefore askest Where have you laid him They are not more glad of the question then ready for the answer Come and see It was the manner of the Jews as likewise of those Aegyptians among whom they had sojourned to lay up the dead bodies of their friends with great respect more cost was wont to be bestowed on some of their graves then on their houses as neither ashamed then nor unwilling to shew the decency of their sepulture they say Come and see More was hoped for from Christ then a mere view they meant and expected that his eye should draw him on to some farther action O Saviour whilst we desire our spirituall resuscitation how should we labour to bring thee to our grave how should we lay open our deadness before thee and bewray to thee our impotence and senselesness Come Lord and see what a miserable carkass I am and by the power of thy mercy raise me from the state of my corruption Never was our Saviour more submissly dejected then now immediately before he would approve and exalt the majesty of his Godhead To his groans and inward grief he adds his tears Anon they shall confess him a God these expressions of Passions shall onwards evince him to be a Man The Jews construe this well See how he loved him Never did any thing but love fetch tears from Christ But they do foully misconstrue Christ in the other Could not he that opened the eyes of him that was born blind have caused that even this man should not have died Yes know ye O vain and importune questionists that he could have done it with ease To open the eyes of a man born blind was more then to keep a sick man from dying this were but to uphold and maintain Nature from decaying that were to create a new sense and to restore a deficiency in Nature To make an eye was no whit less difficult then to make a man he that could doe the greater might well have done the less Ye shall soon see this was not for want of power Had ye said Why would he not Why did he not the question had been fairer and the answer no less easy For his own greater glory Little do ye know the drift whether of God's acts or delays and ye know as much as you are worthy Let it be sufficient for you to understand that he who can doe all things will doe that which shall be most for his own honour It is not improbable that Jesus who before groaned in himself for compassion of their tears now groaned for their incredulity Nothing could so much afflict the Saviour of men as the sins of men Could their externall wrongs to his body have been separated from offence against his Divine person their scornfull indignities had not so much affected him No injury goes so deep as our spirituall provocations of our God Wretched men why should we grieve the good Spirit of God in us why should we make him groan for us that died to redeem us With these groans O Saviour thou camest to the grave of Lazarus The door of that house of Death was strong and impenetrable Thy first word was Take away the stone O weak beginning of a mighty Miracle If thou meantest to raise the dead how much more easy had it been for thee to remove the grave-stone One grain of Faith in thy very Disciples was enough to remove mountains and dost thou say Take away the stone I wis there was a greater weight that lay upon the body of Lazarus then the stone of his Tomb the weight of Death and Corruption a thousand rocks and hills were not so heavy a load as this alone why then dost thou
Virgin carried in it any taint of Adam that was scoured away by sanctification in the womb and yet the Son would be circumcised and the Mother purified He that came to be sin for us would in our persons be legally unclean that by satisfying the Law he might take away our uncleanness Though he were exempted from the common condition of our birth yet he would not deliver himself from those ordinary rites that implied the weaknesse and blemishes of Humanity He would fulfill one Law to abrogate it another to satisfie it He that was above the Law would come under the Law to free us from the Law Not a day would be changed either in the Circumcision of Christ or the Purification of Mary Here was neither convenience of place nor of necessaries for so painfull a work in the Stable of Bethlehem yet he that made and gave the Law will rather keep it with difficulty then transgresse it with ease Why wouldest thou O Blessed Saviour suffer that sacred Foreskin to be cut off but that by the power of thy Circumcision the same might be done to our Souls that was done to thy Body We cannot be therefore thine if our hearts be uncircumcised Doe thou that in us which was done to thee for us cut off the superfluitie of our maliciousnesse that we may be holy in and by thee which for us wert content to be legally impure There was shame in thy Birth there was pain in thy Circumcision After a contemptible welcome into the world that a sharp Rasour should passe through thy skin for our sakes which can hardly endure to bleed for our own it was the praise of thy wonderfull mercy in so early Humiliation What pain or contempt should we refuse for thee that hast made no spare of thy self for us Now is Bethlehem left with too much honour there is Christ born adored circumcised No sooner is the Blessed Virgin either able or allowed to walk then she travels to Jerusalem to perform her holy Rites for her self for her Son to purifie her self to present her Son She goes not to her own house at Nazareth she goes to God's House at Jerusalem If Purifying were a shadow yet Thanksgiving is a substance Those whom God hath blessed with fruit of body and safety of deliverance if they make not their first journey to the Temple of God they partake more of the Unthankfullnesse of Eve then Marie's Devotion Her forty days therefore were no sooner out then Mary comes up to the holy City The rumour of a new King born at Bethlehem was yet fresh at Jerusalem since the report of the Wise men and what good news had this been for any pick-thank to carry to the Court Here is the Babe whom the Star signified whom the Sages inquired for whom the Angels proclaimed whom the Shepherds talkt of whom the Scribes and High priests notified whom Herod seeks after Yet unto that Jerusalem which was troubled at the report of his Birth is Christ come and all tongues are so lockt up that he which sent from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to seek him finds him not who as to countermine Herod is come from Bethlehem to Jerusalem Dangers that are aloof off and but possible may not hinder us from the duty of our Devotion God saw it not yet time to let loose the fury of his adversaries whom he holds up like some eager mastives and then onely lets goe when they shall most shame themselves and glorifie him Well might the Blessed Virgin have wrangled with the Law and challenged an immunity from all ceremonies of Purification What should I need purging which did not conceive in sin This is for those mothers whose births are unclean mine is from God which is purity it self The Law of Moses reaches onely to those women which have conceived seed I conceived not this seed but the Holy Ghost in me The Law extends to the mothers of those sons which are under the Law mine is above it But as one that cared more for her peace then her privilege and more desired to be free from offence then from labour and charge she dutifully fulfills the Law of that God whom she carried in her womb and in her arms like the Mother of him who though he knew the children of the Kingdome free yet would pay tribute unto Caesar like the Mother of him whom it behoved to fulfill all righteousnesse And if she were so officious in Ceremonies as not to admit of any excuse in the very Circumstance of her Obedience how much more strict was she in the main Duties of morality That Soul is fit for the Spirituall conception of Christ that is conscioanbly scrupulous in observing all God's Commandments whereas he hates all alliance to a negligent or froward Heart The Law of Purification proclaims our Uncleannesse The mother is not allowed after her child-birth to come unto the Sanctuary or to touch any hallowed thing till her set time be expired What are we whose very birth infects the mother that bears us At last she comes to the Temple but with Sacrifices either a Lamb and a Pigeon or Turtle or in the meaner estate two Turtle-doves or young Pigeons whereof one is for a Burnt-offering the other for a Sin-offering the one for Thanksgiving the other for Expiation for expiation of a double sin of the mother that conceived of the child that was conceived We are all born sinners and it is a just question whether we do more infect the world or the world us They are grosse flatterers of nature that tell her she is clean If our lives had no sin we bring enough with us the very infant that lives not to sin as Adam yet sinned in Adam and is sinfull in himself But oh the unspeakable mercy of our God! we provide the Sin he provides the Remedy Behold an Expiation well-near as early as our Sin the bloud of a young Lamb or Dove yea rather the bloud of Him whose innocence was represented by both cleanseth us presently from our filthinesse First went Circumcision then came the Sacrifice that by two holy acts that which was naturally unholy might be hallowed unto God Under the Gospell our Baptism hath the force of both it does away our corruption by the Water of the Spirit it applies to us the Sacrifice of Christ's Bloud whereby we are cleansed Oh that we could magnifie this goodnesse of our God which hath not left our very infancy without redresse but hath provided helps whereby we may be delivered from the danger of our hereditary evils Such is the favourable respect of our wise God that he would not have us undoe our selves with Devotion the service he requires of us is ruled by our abilities Every poor mother was not able to bring a Lamb for her offering there was none so poor but might procure a pair of Turtles or Pigeons These doth God both prescribe and accept from poorer hands no lesse then the beasts of a thousand
rather to the Well-head where she may dip and fill the Firkins at once with ease It may be she saw that the Train of Christ which unbidden followed unto that Feast and unexpectedly added to the number of the guests might help forward that defect and therefore she justly solicits her Son Jesus for a supply Whether we want Bread or Water or Wine Necessaries or Comforts whither should we run O Saviour but to that infinite munificence of thine which neither denieth nor upbraideth any thing We cannot want we cannot abound but from thee Give us what thou wilt so thou give us Contentment with what thou givest But what is this I hear A sharp answer to the suit of a Mother O woman what have I to doe with thee He whose sweet mildness and mercy never sent away any suppliant discontented doth he onely frown upon her that bare him He that commands us to honour Father and Mother doth he disdain her whose flesh he took God forbid Love and Duty doth not exempt Parents from due admonition She solicited Christ as a Mother he answers her as a Woman If she were the Mother of his Flesh his Deity was eternal She might not so remember her self to be a Mother that she should forget she was a Woman nor so look upon him as a Son that she should not regard him as a God He was so obedient to her as a Mother that withall she must obey him as her God That part which he took from her shall observe her She must observe that nature which came from above and made her both a Woman and a Mother Matter of miracle concerned the Godhead onely Supernatural things were above the sphere of fleshly relation If now the Blessed Virgin will be prescribing either time or form unto Divine acts O woman what have I to doe with thee my hour is not come In all bodily actions his style was O Mother in spiritual and heavenly O Woman Neither is it for us in the holy affairs of God to know any faces yea if we have known Christ heretofore according to the flesh henceforth know we him so no more O Blessed Virgin if in that heavenly Glory wherein thou art thou canst take notice of these earthly things with what indignation dost thou look upon the presumptuous Superstition of vain men whose suits make thee more then a Solicitour of Divine Favours Thy Humanity is not lost in thy Motherhood nor in thy Glory The respects of Nature reach not so high as Heaven It is far from thee to abide that Honour which is stoln from thy Redeemer There is a Marriage whereto we are invited yea wherein we are already interessed not as the Guests onely but as the Bride in which there shall be no want of the Wine of gladness It is marvel if in these earthly Banquets there be not some lack In thy presence O Saviour there is fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Blessed are they that are called to the Marriage-supper of the Lamb. Even in that rough Answer doth the Blessed Virgin descry cause of hope If his hour were not yet come it was therefore coming When the expectation of the guests and the necessity of the occasion had made fit room for the Miracle it shall come forth and challenge their wonder Faithfully therefore and observantly doth she turn her speech from her Son to the Waiters Whatsoever he saith unto you doe it How well doth it beseem the Mother of Christ to agree with his Father in Heaven whose voice from Heaven said This is my wel-beloved Son hear him She that said of her self Be it unto me according to thy word says unto others Whatsoever he saith unto you doe it This is the way to have Miracles wrought in us Obedience to his Word The power of Christ did not stand upon their Officiousness he could have wrought wonders in spite of them but their perverse refusal of his commands might have made them uncapable of the favour of a miraculous action He that can when he will convince the obstinate will not grace the disobedient He that could work without us or against us will not work for us but by us This very poor House was furnished with many and large Vessels for outward purification As if Sin had dwelt upon the skin that superstitious people sought holiness in frequent Washings Even this rinsing fouled them with the uncleanness of a traditional will-worship It is the Soul which needs scowring and nothing can wash that but the Bloud which they desperately wished upon themselves and their children for guilt not for expiation Purge thou us O Lord with hyssop and we shall be clean wash us and we shall be whiter then snow The Waiters could not but think strange of so unseasonable a command Fill the water-pots It is Wine that we want what do we go to fetch Water Doth this Holy man mean thus to quench our feast and cool our stomacks If there be no remedy we could have sought this supply unbidden Yet so far hath the charge of Christ's Mother prevailed that in stead of carrying flagons of Wine to the Table they go to fetch pails-full of Water from the Cisterns It is no pleading of unlikelihoods against the command of an Almighty power He that could have created Wine immediately in those vessels will rather turn Water into Wine In all the course of his Miracles I do never find him making ought of nothing all his great works are grounded upon former existences He multiplied the Bread he changed the Water he restored the withered Lims he raised the Dead and still wrought upon that which was and did not make that which was not What doeth he in the ordinary way of nature but turn the watery juice that arises up from the root into wine He will onely doe this now suddenly and at once which he doeth usually by sensible degrees It is ever duly observed by the Son of God not to doe more Miracles then he needs How liberal are the provisions of Christ If he had turned but one of those vessels it had been a just proof of his power and perhaps that quantity had served the present necessity now he furnisheth them with so much wine as would have served an hundred and fifty guests for an intire feast Even the measure magnifies at once both his power and mercy The munificent hand of God regards not our need onely but our honest affluence It is our sin and our shame if we turn his favour into wantonness There must be first a filling ere there be a drawing out Thus in our vessels the first care must be of our receit the next of our expence God would have us Cisterns not Chanels Our Saviour would not be his own taster but he sends the first draught to the Governour of the feast He knew his own power they did not Neither would he bear witness of himself but fetch it out of
others mouths They that knew not the original of that wine yet praised the taste Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine and when men have well drunk then that which is worse but thou hast kept the good wine untill now The same bounty that expressed it self in the quantity of the wine shews it self no less in the excellence Nothing can fall from that Divine hand not exquisite That liberality hated to provide Crab-wine for his guests It was fit that the miraculous effects of Christ which came from his immediate hand should be more perfect then the natural O Blessed Saviour how delicate is that new Wine which we shall one day drink with thee in thy Father's Kingdom Thou shalt turn this Water of our earthly affliction into that Wine of gladness wherewith our souls shall be satiate for ever Make haste O my Beloved and be thou like to a Roe or to a young Hart upon the mountain of spices XII The good Centurion EVen the bloudy trade of War yielded worthy Clients to Christ This Roman Captain had learned to believe in that Jesus whom many Jews despised No Nation no Trade can shut out a good heart from God If he were a forreiner for birth yet he was a domestick in heart He could not change his bloud he could over-rule his affections He loved that Nation which was chosen of God and if he were not of the Synagogue yet he built a Synagogue where he might not be a party he would be a Benefactour Next to being good is a favouring of Goodness We could not love Religion if we utterly wanted it How many true Jews were not so zealous Either will or ability lacked in them whom duty more obliged Good affections do many times more then supply nature Neither doth God regard whence but what we are I do not see this Centurion come to Christ as the Israelitish Captain came to Elias in Carmel but with his cap in his hand with much suit much submission by others by himself He sends first the Elders of the Jews whom he might hope their Nation and Place might make gracious then left the imployment of others might argue neglect he seconds them in person Cold and fruitless are the motions of friends where we do wilfully shut up our own lips Importunity cannot but speed well in both Could we but speak for our selves as this Captain did for his servant what could we possibly want What marvell is it if God be not forward to give where we care not to ask or ask as if we cared not to receive Shall we yet call this a suit or a complaint I hear no one word of intreaty The less is said the more is concealed It is enough to lay open his want He knew well that he had to deal with so wise and mercifull a Physician as that the opening of the maladie was a craving of cure If our spirituall miseries be but confessed they cannot fail of redress Great variety of Suitours resorted to Christ One comes to him for a Son another comes for a Daughter a third for Himself I see none come for his Servant but this one Centurion Neither was he a better man then a Master His Servant is sick he doth not drive him out of doors but lays him at home neither doth he stand gazing by his bed-side but seeks forth He seeks forth not to Witches or Charmers but to Christ He seeks to Christ not with a fashionable relation but with a vehement aggravation of the disease Had the Master been sick the faithfullest Servant could have done no more He is unworthy to be well served that will not sometimes wait upon his followers Conceits of inferiority may not breed in us a neglect of charitable offices So must we look down upon our Servants here on earth as that we must still look up to our Master which is in Heaven But why didst thou not O Centurion rather bring thy Servant to Christ for cure then sue for him absent There was a Paralytick whom Faith and Charity brought to our Saviour and let down through the uncovered roof in his Bed why was not thine so carried so presented Was it out of the strength of thy Faith which assured thee thou neededst not shew thy Servant to him who saw all things One and the same grace may yield contrary effects They because they believed brought the Patient to Christ thou broughtest not thine to him because thou believedst Their act argued no less desire thine more confidence Thy labour was less because thy faith was more Oh that I could come thus to my Saviour and make such moan to him for my self Lord my Soul is sick of Unbelief sick of Self-love sick of inordinate Desires I should not need to say more Thy mercy O Saviour would not then stay by for my suit but would prevent me as here with a gracious ingagement I will come and heal thee I do not hear the Centurion say Either come or heal him The one he meant though he said it not the other he neither said nor meant Christ over-gives both his words and intentions It is the manner of that Divine munificence where he meets with a faithfull Suitour to give more then is requested to give when he is not requested The very insinuations of our necessities are no less violent then successfull We think the measure of humane bounty runs over when we obtain but what we ask with importunity that infinite Goodness keeps within bounds when it overflows the desires of our hearts As he said so he did The word of Christ either is his act or concurs with it He did not stand still when he said I will come but he went as he spake When the Ruler intreated him for his Son Come down ere he die our Saviour stirr'd not a foot The Centurion did but complain of the sickness of his Servant and Christ unasked says I will come and heal him That he might be far from so much as seeming to honour wealth and despise meanness he that came in the shape of a Servant would goe down to the sick Servant's Pallet would not goe to the Bed of the rich Ruler's Son It is the basest motive of respect that ariseth meerly from outward Greatness Either more Grace or more need may justly challenge our favourable regards no less then private Obligations Even so O Saviour that which thou offeredst to doe for the Centurion's Servant hast thou done for us We were sick unto death so far had the dead palsie of Sin overtaken us that there was no life of Grace left in us when thou wert not content to sit still in Heaven and say I will cure them but addedst also I will come and cure them Thy self camest down accordingly to this miserable World and hast personally healed us so as now we shall not die but live and declare thy works O Lord. And oh that we could enough praise that love and mercy which
Principalities and Powers and Governours and Princes of the darkness of this World design other then several ranks of evil Angels There can be no being without some kind of order there can be no order in parity If we look up into Heaven there is the King of Gods the Lord of Lords higher then the highest If to the Earth there are Monarchs Kings Princes Peers People If we look down to Hell there is the Prince of Devils They labour for confusion that call for parity What should the Church doe with such a form as is not exemplified in Heaven in Earth in Hell One Devil according to their supposition may be used to cast out another How far the command of one spirit over another may extend it is a secret of infernal state too deep for the inquiry of men The thing it self is apparent upon compact and precontracted composition one gives way to other for the common advantage As we see in the Commonwealth of Cheaters and Cutpurses one doeth the fact another is feed to bring it out and to procure restitution both are of the trade both conspire to the fraud the actour falls not out with the revealer but divides with him that cunning spoil One malicious miscreant sets the Devil on work to the inflicting of disease or death another upon agreement for a farther spiritual gain takes him off There is a Devil in both And if there seem more bodily favour there is no less spiritual danger in the latter In the one Satan wins the agent the suitour in the other It will be no cause of discord in Hell that one Devil gives ease to the body which another tormented that both may triumph in the gain of a soul Oh God that any creature which bears thine Image should not abhor to be beholden to the powers of hell for aid for advice Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that men go to inquire of the God of Ekron Can men be so sottish to think that the vowed enemy of their souls can offer them a bait without an hook What evil is there in the City which the Lord hath not done what is there which he cannot as easily redress He wounds he heals again And if he will not it is the Lord let him doe what seems good in his eyes If he do not deliver us he will crown our faithfulness in a patient perseverance The wounds of God are better then are the salves of Satan Was it possible that the wit of Envy could devise so high a Slander Beelzebub was a God of the heathen therefore herein they accuse him for an Idolater Beelzebub was a Devil to the Jews therefore they accuse him for a Conjurer Beelzebub was the chief of Devils therefore they accuse him for an Arch-exorcist for the worst kind of Magician Some professours of this black Art though their work be devillish yet they pretend to doe it in the name of Jesus and will presumptuously seem to doe that by command which is secretly transacted by agreement The Scribes accuse Christ of a direct compact with the Devil and suppose both a league and familiarity which by the Law of Moses in the very hand of a Saul was no other then deadly Yea so deep doth this wound reach that our Saviour searching it to the bottom finds no less in it then the sin against the Holy Ghost inferring hereupon that dreadfull sentence of the irremissibleness of that sin unto death And if this horrible crimination were cast upon thee O Saviour in whom the Prince of this world found nothing what wonder is it if we thy sinfull Servants be branded on all sides with evil tongues Yea which is yet more how plain is it that these men forced their tongue to speak this slander against their own heart Else this Blasphemy had been onely against the Son of man not against the Holy Ghost but now that the Searcher of hearts finds it to be no less then against the Blessed Spirit of God the spight must needs be obstinate their malice doth wilfully cross their conscience Envy never regards how true but how mischievous So it may gall or kill it cares little whether with truth or falshood For us Blessed are we when men revile us and say all manner of evil of us for the name of Christ For them What reward shall be given to thee thou false tongue Even sharp arrows with hot burning coals yea those very coals of hell from which thou wert enkindled There was yet a third sort that went a mid way betwixt wonder and censure These were not so malicious as to impute the Miracle to a Satanical operation they confess it good but not enough and therefore urge Christ to a farther proof Though thou hast cast out this dumb Devil yet this is no sufficient argument of thy Divine power We have yet seen nothing from thee like those ancient Miracles of the times of our forefathers Joshua caused the Sun to stand still Elias brought fire down from heaven Samuel astonisht the people with thunder and rain in the midst of harvest If thou wouldst command our belief doe somewhat like to these The casting out of a Devil shews thee to have some power over Hell shew us now that thou hast no less power over Heaven There is a kind of unreasonableness of desire and insatiableness in Infidelity it never knows when it hath evidence enough This which the Jews over-looked was a more irrefragable demonstration of Divinity then that which they desired A Devil was more then a Meteor or a parcel of an element to cast out a Devil by command more then to command fire from heaven Infidelity ever loves to be her own carver No son can be more like a father then these Jews to their progenitors in the desart That there might be no fear of degenerating into good they also of old tempted God in the Wilderness First they are weary of the Egyptian bondage and are ready to fall out with God and Moses for their stay in those furnaces By ten miraculous Plagues they are freed and going out of those confines the Egyptians follow them the Sea is before them now they are more afflicted with their liberty then their servitude The Sea yields way the Egyptians are drowned and now that they are safe on the other shore they tempt the providence of God for water The Rock yields it them then no less for bread and meat God sends them Manna and Quails they cry out of the food of Angels Their present enemies in the way are vanquished they whine at the men of measures in the heart of Canaan Nothing from God but mercy nothing from them but temptations Their true brood both in nature and in sin had abundant proofs of the Messiah if curing the blind lame diseased deaf dumb ejecting Devils over-ruling the elements raising the dead could have been sufficient yet still they must have a sign from Heaven and shut up in
Pharisee entertains him and hath his table honoured with the publick remission of a penitent sinner with the heavenly doctrine of remission Zacchaeus entertains him salvation came that day to his house with the Authour of it That presence made the Publican a son of Abraham Matthew is recompensed for his feast with an Apostleship Martha and Mary entertain him and besides Divine instruction receive their brother from the dead O Saviour whether thou feast us or we feast thee in both of them is blessedness Where a Publican is the Feast-master it is no marvel if the guests be Publicans and Sinners Whether they came alone out of the hope of that mercy which they saw their fellow had found or whether Matthew invited them to be partners of that plentifull grace whereof he had tasted I inquire not Publicans and Sinners will flock together the one hatefull for their trade the other for their vicious life Common contempt hath wrought them to an unanimity and sends them to seek mutual comfort in that society which all others held loathsome and contagious Moderate correction humbleth and shameth the offender whereas a cruel severity makes men desperate and drives them to those courses whereby they are more dangerously infected How many have gone into the prison faulty and returned flagitious If Publicans were not Sinners they were no whit beholden to their neighbours What a table-full was here The Son of God beset with Publicans and Sinners O happy Publicans and Sinners that had found out their Saviour O mercifull Saviour that disdained not Publicans and Sinners What sinner can fear to kneel before thee when he sees Publicans and Sinners sit with thee Who can fear to be despised of thy meekness and mercy which didst not abhor to converse with the outcasts of men Thou didst not despise the Thief confessing upon the Cross nor the Sinner weeping upon thy feet nor the Canaanite crying to thee in the way nor the blushing Adulteress nor the odious Publican nor the forswearing Disciple nor the persecutour of Disciples nor thine own Executioners How can we be unwelcome to thee if we come with tears in our eyes faith in our hearts restitution in our hands O Saviour our breasts are too oft shut upon thee thy bosome is ever open to us We are as great sinners as the consorts of these Publicans why should we despair of a room at thy Table The squint-eyed Pharisees look a-cross at all the actions of Christ where they should have admired his mercy they cavil at his holiness They said to his Disciples Why eateth your Master with Publicans and Sinners They durst not say thus to the Master whose answer they knew would soon have convinced them This wind they hoped might shake the weak faith of the Disciples They speak where they may be most likely to hurt All the crue of Satanical instruments have learnt this craft of their old Tutour in Paradise We cannot reverence that man whom we think unholy Christ had lost the hearts of his followers if they had entertained the least suspicion of his impurity which the murmur of these envious Pharisees would fain insinuate He cannot be worthy to be followed that is unclean He cannot but be unclean that eateth with Publicans and Sinners Proud and foolish Pharisees Ye fast whilst Christ eateth ye fast in your houses whilst Christ eateth in other mens ye fast with your own whilst Christ feasts with sinners But if ye fast in pride whilst Christ eats in humility if ye fast at home for merit or popularity whilst Christ feasts with sinners for compassion for edification for conversion your fast is unclean his feast is holy ye shall have your portion with hypocrites when those Publicans and Sinners shall be glorious When these censurers thought the Disciples had offended they speak not to them but to their Master Why doe thy Disciples that which is not lawfull now when they thought Christ offended they speak not to him but to the Disciples Thus like true make-bates they go about to make a breach in the family of Christ by setting off the one from the other The quick eye of our Saviour hath soon espied the pack of their fraud and therefore he takes the words out of the mouths of his Disciples into his own They had spoke of Christ to the Disciples Christ answers for the Disciples concerning himself The whole need not the Physician but the sick According to the two qualities of pride scorn and over-weening these insolent Pharisees over-rated their own holiness contemned the noted unholiness of others as if themselves were not tainted with secret sins as if others could not be cleansed by repentance The searcher of hearts meets with their arrogance and finds those Justiciaries sinfull those Sinners just The spiritual Physician finds the sickness of those Sinners wholsome the health of those Pharisees desperate that wholsome because it calls for the help of the Physician this desperate because it needs not Every soul is sick those most that feel it not Those that feel it complain those that complain have cure those that feel it not shall find themselves dying ere they can with to recover O blessed Physician by whose stripes we are healed by whose death we live happy are they that are under thy hands sick as of sin so of sorrow for sin It is as unpossible they should die as it is unpossible for thee to want either skill or power or mercy Sin hath made us sick unto death make thou us but as sick of our sins we are as safe as thou art gracious XVII Christ among the Gergesens or Legion and the Gadarene Herd I Do not any-where find so furious a Demoniack as amongst the Gergesens Satan is most tyrannous where he is obeyed most Christ no sooner sailed over the lake then he was met by two possessed Gadarenes The extreme rage of the one hath drowned the mention of the other Yet in the midst of all that cruelty of the evil Spirit there was sometimes a remission if not an intermission of vexation If oft-times Satan caught him then sometimes in the same violence he caught him not It was no thank to that malignant one who as he was indefatigable in his executions so unmeasurable in his malice but to the mercifull over-ruling of God who in a gracious respect to the weakness of his poor creatures limits the spightfull attempts of that immortal Enemy and takes off this Mastive whilst we may take breath He who in his justice gives way to some onsets of Satan in his mercy restrains them so regarding our deservings that withall he regards our strength If way should be given to that malicious spirit we could not subsist no violent thing can endure and if Satan might have his will we should no moment be free He can be no more weary of doing evil to us then God is of doing good Are we therefore preserved from the malignity of these powers of darkness Blessed
and gives glory where she would have relief Who now can expect other then a fair and yielding answer to so humble so faithfull so patient a suppliant What can speed well if a prayer of faith from the knees of humility succeed not And yet behold the farther she goes the worse she fares her discouragement is doubled with her suit It is not good to take the childrens bread and to cast it to dogs First his silence implied a contempt then his answer defended his silence now his speech expresses and defends his contempt Lo he hath turned her from a woman to a dog and as it were spurns her from his feet with an harsh repulse What shall we say is the Lamb of God turned Lion doth that clear fountain of mercy run bloud O Saviour did ever so hard a word fall from those mild lips Thou calledst Herod Fox most worthily he was crafty and wicked the Scribes and Pharisees a generation of vipers they were venomous and cruel Judas a Devil he was both covetous and treacherous But here was a Woman in distress and distress challenges mercy a good woman a faithfull suppliant a Canaanitish disciple a Christian Canaanite yet rated and whipt out for a dog by thee who wert all goodness and mercy How different are thy ways from ours Even thy severity argues favour The trial had not been so sharp if thou hadst not found the faith so strong if thou hadst not meant the issue so happy Thou hadst not driven her away as a Dog if thou hadst not intended to admit her for a Saint and to advance her so much for a pattern of Faith as thou depressedst her for a spectacle of contempt The time was when the Jews were Children and the Gentiles Dogs now the case is happily altered the Jews are the Dogs so their dear and Divine countryman calls the Concision we Gentiles are the Children What certainty is there in an external profession that gives us onely to seem not to be at least the being that it gives is doubtfull and temporary we may be Children to day and Dogs to morrow The true assurance of our condition is in the Decree and Covenant of God on his part in our Faith and Obedience on ours How they of Children became Dogs it is not hard to say their presumption their unbelief transformed them and to perfect their brutishness they set their fangs upon the Lord of life How we of Dogs become Children I know no reason but Oh the depth That which at the first singled them out from the nations of the world hath at last singled us out from the world and them It is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that hath mercy Lord how should we bless thy goodness that we of Dogs are Children how should we fear thy justice since they of Children are Dogs O let not us be high-minded but tremble If they were cut off who crucified thee in thine humbled estate what may we expect who crucifie thee daily in thy glory Now what ordinary patience would not have been overstrained with so contemptuous a repulse How few but would have faln into intemperate passions into passionate expostulations Art thou the Prophet of God that so disdainfully entertainest poor suppliants Is this the comfort that thou dealest to the distressed Is this the fruit of my humble adoration of my faithfull profession Did I snarl or bark at thee when I called thee the Son of David Did I fly upon thee otherwise then with my prayers and tears And if this term were fit for my vileness yet doth it become thy lips Is it not sorrow enough to me that I am afflicted with my Daughter's misery but that thou of whom I hoped for relief must adde to mine affliction in an unkind reproach But here is none of all this Contrarily her humility grants all her patience overcomes all and she meekly answers Truth Lord yet the dogs eat of the crums which fall from their master's table The reply is not more witty then faithfull O Lord thou art Truth it self thy words can be no other then truth thou hast call'd me a Dog and a Dog I am give me therefore the favour and privilege of a Dog that I may gather up some crums of mercy from under that table whereat thy Children sit This blessing though great to me yet to the infiniteness of thy power and mercy is but as a crum to a feast I presume not to press to the board but to creep under it deny me not those small offalls which else would be swept away in the dust After this stripe give me but a crum and I shall fawn upon thee and depart satisfied O woman say I great is thine humility great is thy patience but O woman saith my Saviour great is thy faith He sees the root we the stock Nothing but Faith could thus temper the heart thus strengthen the soul thus charm the tongue O precious Faith O acceptable Perseverance It is no marvell if that chiding end in favour Be it to thee even as thou wilt Never did such grace go away uncrowned The beneficence had been streight if thou hadst not carried away more then thou suedst for Lo thou that camest a Dog goest away a Child thou that wouldst but creep under the Childrens feet art set at their elbow thou that wouldst have taken up with a crum art feasted with full dishes The way to speed well at God's hand is to be humbled in his eyes and in our own It is quite otherwise with God and with men With men we are so accounted of as we account of our selves he shall be sure to be vile in the sight of others which is vile in his own With God nothing is got by vain ostentation nothing is lost by abasement O God when we look down to our own weakness and cast up our eyes to thine infiniteness thine omnipotence what poor things we are but when we look down upon our sins and wickedness how shall we express our shame None of all thy creatures except Devils are capable of so foul a quality As we have thus made our selves worse then beasts so let us in a sincere humbleness of mind acknowledge it to thee who canst pity forgive redress it So setting our selves down at the lower end of the table of thy creatures thou the great Master of the Feast maist be pleased to advance us to the height of glory XIX The Deaf and Dumb man cured OUR Saviour's entrance into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon was not without a Miracle neither was his regress as the Sun neither rises nor sets without light In his entrance he delivers the Daughter of the faithfull Syrophoenician in his egress he cures the Deaf and Dumb. He can no more want work then that work can want success Whether the Patient were naturally deaf and perfectly dumb or imperfectly dumb and accidentally deaf I labour not Sure I am that
himself is a several Goal Did ever any man that ran for a prize say I will keep up with the rest Doth he not know that if he be not foremost he loseth We had as good to have sate still as not so to run that we may obtain We obtain not if we out-run not the multitude So far did Zacchaeus over-run the stream of the people that he might have space to climb the Sycomore ere Jesus could pass by I examine not the kind the nature the quality of this Plant what Tree soever it had been Zacchaeus would have tried to scale it for the advantage of this prospect He hath found out this help for his stature and takes pains to use it It is the best improvement of our wit to seek out the aptest furtherances for our Souls Do you see a weak and studious Christian that being unable to inform himself in the matters of God goes to the cabinet of Heaven the Priests lips which shall preserve knowledge there is Zacchaeus in the Sycomore It is the truest wisedom that helps forward our Salvation How witty we are to supply all the deficiencies of Nature If we be low we can adde cubits to our stature if ill-coloured we can borrow complexion if hairless perukes if dim-sighted glasses if lame crutches and shall we be conscious of our spiritual wants and be wilfully regardless of the remedy Surely had Zacchaeus stood still on the ground he had never seen Christ had he not climbed the Sycomore he had never climbed into Heaven O Saviour I have not height enough of my own to see thee give me what Sycomore thou wilt give me grace to use it give me an happy use of that grace The more I look at the mercy of Christ the more cause I see of astonishment Zacchaeus climbes up into the Sycomore to see Jesus Jesus first sees him preventing his eyes with a former view Little did Zacchaeus look that Jesus would have cast up his eyes to him Well might he think the boys in the street would spy him out and shout at his stature trade ambition but that Jesus should throw up his eyes into the Sycomore and take notice of that small despised morsell of flesh ere Zacchaeus could find space to distinguish His face from the rest was utterly beyond his thought or expectation All his hope is to see and now he is seen To be seen and acknowledged is much more then to see Upon any solemn occasion many thousands see the Prince whom he sees not and if he please to single out any one whether by his eye or by his tongue amongst the press it passes for an high favour Zacchaeus would have thought it too much boldness to have asked what was given him As Jonathan did to David so doeth God to us he shoots beyond us Did he not prevent us with mercy we might climbe into the Sycomore in vain If he give Grace to him that doeth his best it is the praise of the giver not the earning of the receiver How can we doe or will without him If he sees us first we live and if we desire to see him we shall be seen of him Who ever took pains to climbe the Sycomore and came down disappointed O Lord what was there in Zacchaeus that thou shouldst look up at him a Publican a Sinner an Arch-extortioner a Dwarf in stature but a Giant in oppression a little man but a great Sycophant if rich in coin more rich in sins and treasures of wrath Yet it is enough that he desires to see thee all these disadvantages cannot hide him from thee Be we never so sinfull if our desires towards thee be hearty and fervent all the broad leaves of the Sycomore cannot keep off thine eye from us If we look at thee with the eye of Faith thou wilt look at us with the eye of mercy The eye of the Lord is upon the just and he is just that would be so if not in himself yet in thee O Saviour when Zacchaeus was above and thou wert below thou didst look up at him now thou art above and we below thou lookest down upon us thy mercy turns thine eyes every way towards our necessities Look down upon us that are not worthy to look up unto thee and find us out that we may seek thee It was much to note Zacchaeus it was more to name him Methinks I see how Zacchaeus startled at this to hear the sound of his own name from the mouth of Christ neither can he but think Doth Jesus know me Is it his voice or some other 's in the throng Lo this is the first blink that ever I had of him I have heard the fame of his wonderfull works and held it happiness enough for me to have seen his face and doth he take notice of my person of my name Surely the more that Zacchaeus knew himself the more doth he wonder that Christ should know him It was slander enough for a man to be a friend to a Publican yet Christ gives this friendly compellation to the chief of Publicans and honours him with this argument of a sudden intireness The favour is great but not singular Every elect of God is thus graced The Father knows the child's name as he calls the stars of heaven by their names so doth he his Saints the stars on earth and it is his own rule to his Israel I have called thee by thy name thou art mine As God's children do not content themselves with a confused knowledge of him but aspire to a particular appprehension and sensible application so doeth God again to them it is not enough that he knows them as in the croud wherein we see many persons none distinctly but he takes single and severall knowledge of their qualities conditions motions events What care we that our names are obscure or contemned amongst men whilst they are regarded by God that they are raked up in the dust of Earth whilst they are recorded in Heaven Had our Saviour said no more but Zacchaeus come down the poor man would have thought himself taxed for his boldness and curiosity it were better to be unknown then noted for miscarriage But now the next words comfort him For I must this day abide at thine house What a sweet familiarity was here as if Christ had been many years acquainted with Zacchaeus whom he now first saw Besides our use the Host is invited by the Guest and called to an unexpected entertainment Well did our Saviour hear Zacchaeus his heart inviting him though his mouth did not Desires are the language of the Soul those are heard by him that is the God of spirits We dare not doe thus to each other save where we have eaten much salt we scarce go where we are invited though the face be friendly and the entertainment great yet the heart may be hollow But here he that saw the heart and foreknew his welcome can boldly say I must this day
be bidden to walk unto Christ he thought of the waters Bid me to come to thee on the waters he thought not on the winds which raged on those waters or if he thought of a stiff gale yet that tempestuous and sudden gust was out of his account and expectation Those evils that we are prepared for have not such power over us as those that surprise us A good water-man sees a dangerous billow coming towards him and cuts it and mounts over it with ease the unheedy is overwhelmed O Saviour let my haste to thee be zealous but not improvident ere I set my foot out of the ship let me foresee the Tempest when I have cast the worst I cannot either miscarry or complain So soon as he began to fear he began to sink whilst he believed the Sea was brass when once he began to distrust those waves were water He cannot sink whilst he trusts the power of his Master he cannot but sink when he misdoubts it Our Faith gives us as courage and boldness so success too our Infidelity lays us open to all dangers to all mischiefs It was Peter's improvidence not to foresee it was his weakness to fear it was the effect of his fear to sink it was his Faith that recollects it self and breaks through his Infidelity and in sinking could say Lord save me His foot could not be so swift in sinking as his heart in imploring he knew who could uphold him from sinking and being sunk deliver him and therefore he says Lord save me It is a notable both sign and effect of true Faith in sudden extremities to ejaculate holy desires and with the wings of our first thoughts to fly up instantly to the throne of Grace for present succour Upon deliberation it is possible for a man that hath been careless and profane by good means to be drawn to holy dispositions but on the sudden a man will appear as he is what-ever is most rife in the heart will come forth at the mouth It is good to observe how our surprisals find us the rest is but forced this is natural Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh O Saviour no evil can be swifter then my thought my thought shall be upon thee ere I can be seized upon by the speediest mischief at least if I over-run not evils I shall overtake them It was Christ his Lord whom Peter had offended in distrusting it is Christ his Lord to whom he sues for deliverance His weakness doth not discourage him from his refuge O God when we have displeased thee when we have sunk in thy displeasure whither should we fly for aid but to thee whom we have provoked Against thee onely is our sin in thee onely is our help In vain shall all the powers of Heaven and Earth conspire to relieve us if thou withhold from our succour As we offend thy Justice daily by our sins so let us continually rely upon thy Mercy by the strength of our Faith Lord save us The mercy of Christ is at once sought and found Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him He doth not say Hadst thou trusted me I would have safely preserved thee but since thou wilt needs wrong my power and care with a cowardly diffidence sink and drown but rather as pitying the infirmity of his fearfull Disciple he puts out the hand for his relief That hand hath been stretch'd forth for the aid of many a one that hath never ask'd it never any ask'd it to whose succour it hath not been stretched With what speed with what confidence should we fly to that sovereign bounty from which never any suitour was sent away empty Jesus gave Peter his hand but withall he gave him a check O thou of little faith why doubtedst thou As Peter's Faith was not pure but mixed with some distrust so our Saviour's help was not clear and absolute but mixed with some reproof A reproof wherein there was both a censure and an expostulation a censure of his Faith an expostulation for his Doubt both of them sore and heavy By how much more excellent and usefull a grace Faith is by so much more shamefull is the defect of it and by how much more reason here was of confidence by so much more blame-worthy was the Doubt Now Peter had a double reason of his confidence the command of Christ the power of Christ the one in bidding him to come the other in sustaining him whilst he came To misdoubt him whose will he knew whose power he felt was well worth a reprehension When I saw Peter stepping forth upon the waters I could not but wonder at his great Faith yet behold ere he can have measured many paces the Judge of hearts taxes him for little Faith Our mountains are but moats to God Would my heart have served me to dare the doing of this that Peter did Durst I have set my foot where he did O Saviour if thou foundest cause to censure the weakness and poverty of his Faith what mayest thou well say to mine They mistake that think thou wilt take up with any thing Thou lookest for firmitude and vigour in those Graces which thou wilt allow in thy best Disciples no less then truth The first steps were confident there was fear in the next Oh the sudden alteration of our affections of our dispositions One pace varies our spiritual condition What hold is there of so fickle creatures if we be left never so little to our selves As this lower world wherein we are is the region of mutability so are we the living pieces of it subject to a perpetual change It is for the blessed Saints and Angels above to be fixed in good Whilst we are here there can be no constancy expected from us but in variableness As well as our Saviour loves Peter yet he chides him It is the fruit of his favour and mercy that we escape judgment not that we escape reproof Had not Peter found grace with his Master he had been suffered to sink in silence now he is saved with a check There may be more love in frowns then in smiles Whom he loves he chastises What is chiding but a verbal castigation and what is chastisement but a real chiding Correct me O Lord yet in thy judgment not in thy fury O let the righteous God smite me when I offend with his gracious reproofs these shall be a precious oyl that shall not break my head XXIV The Bloudy issue healed THE time was O Saviour when a worthy woman offered to touch thee and was forbidden now a meaner touches thee with approbation and â—ncouragement Yet as there was much difference in that body of thine which was the Object of that touch being now mortal and passible then impassible and immortal so there was in the Agents this a stranger that a familiar this obscure that famous The same actions vary with time and other circumstances and accordingly receive their dislike or
that she is led in with a note of wonder wonder both on her part and on Christ's That any sinner that a sensuall sinner obdured in a notorious trade of evil should voluntarily out of a true remorse for her leudness seek to a Saviour it is worthy of an accent of admiration The noise of the Gospel is common but where is the power of it it hath store of hearers but few converts Yet were there no wonder in her if it were not with reference to the power and mercy of Christ his power that thus drew the sinner his mercy that received her O Saviour I wonder at her but I bless thee for her by whose onely Grace she was both moved and accepted A sinner Alas who was not who is not so Not onely in many things we sin all but in all things we all let fall many sins Had there been a woman not a sinner it had been beyond wonder One man there was that was not a sinner even he that was more then man that God and Man who was the refuge of this sinner but never woman that sinned not Yet he said not a Woman that had sinned but that was a sinner An action doth not give denomination but a trade Even the wise Charity of Christians much more the mercy of God can distinguish between sins of infirmity and practice of sin and esteem us not by a transient act but by a permanent condition The woman was noted for a luxurious and incontinent life What a deal of variety there is of sins That which faileth cannot be numbred Every sin continued deserves to brand the Soul with this style Here one is pickt out from the rest she is not noted for Murther for Theft for Idolatry onely her Lust makes her a woman that was a sinner Other Vices use not to give the owner this title although they should be more hainous then it Wantons may flatter themselves in the indifferency or slightness of this offence their Souls shall need no other conveiance to Hell then this which cannot be so pleasing to Nature as it is hatefull to God who so speaks of it as if there were no sins but it a Woman that was a sinner She was a sinner now she is not her very presence argues her change Had she been still in her old trade she would no more have endured the sight of Christ then that Devil did which cried out Art thou come to torment me Her eyes had been lamps and fires of Lust not fountains of tears her hairs had been nets to catch foolish lovers not a towell for her Saviour's feet yet still she carries the name of what she was a scar still remains after the wound healed Simon will be ever the Leper and Matthew the Publican How carefully should we avoid those actions which may ever stain us What a difference there is betwixt the carriage and proceedings of God and men The mercy of God as it calleth those things that are not as if they were so it calleth those things that were as if they were not I will remember your iniquities no more As some skilfull Chirurgion so sets the bone or heals the sore that it cannot be seen where the complaint was Man's word is that which is done cannot be undone but the omnipotent goodness of God doth as it were undoe our once-committed sins Take away my iniquity and thou shalt find none What we were in our selves we are not to him since he hath changed us from our selves O God why should we be niggardly where thou art liberal why should we be reading those lines which thou hast not onely crossed but quite blotted yea wiped out It is a good word She was a sinner To be wicked is odious to God Angels Saints men to have been so is blessed and glorious I rejoyce to look back and see my Egyptians lying dead upon the shore that I may praise the Authour of my deliverance and victory Else it matters not what they were what I was O God thou whose title is I am regardest the present He befriends and honours us that says Such ye were but ye are washed The Place adds to the hainousness of the sin In the City The more publick the fact is the greater is the scandall Sin is sin though in a desart Others eyes do not make the act more vile in it self but the offence is multiplied by the number of beholders I hear no Name of either the City or the Woman she was too well known in her time How much better is it to be obscure then infamous Herein I doubt not God meant to spare the reputation of a penitent Convert He who hates not the person but the sin cares onely to mention the sin not the person It is justice to prosecute the Vice it is mercy to spare the Offender How injurious a presumption is it for any man to name her whom God would have concealed and to cast this aspersion on those whom God hath noted for holiness The worst of this woman is past She was a sinner the best is to come She sought out Jesus Where In the house of a Pharisee It was the most inconvenient place in the world for a noted sinner to seek Christ in No men stood so much upon the terms of their own Righteousness no men so scornfully disdained an infamous person The touch of an ordinary though honest Jew was their pollution how much more the presence of a Strumpet What a sight was a known sinner to him to whom his holiest neighbour was a sinner How doth he though a better Pharisee look awry to see such a piece in his house whilst he dares think If this man were a Prophet he would surely know what manner of woman this is Neither could she fore-imagine less when she ventured to press over the threshold of a Pharisee Yet not the known austerity of the man and her mis-welcome to the place could affright her from seeking her Saviour even there No disadvantage can defer the Penitent Soul from a speedy recourse to Christ She says not If Jesus were in the street or in the field or in the house of some humble Publican or any-where save with a Pharisee I would come to him now I will rather defer my access then seek him where I shall find scorn and censure but as not fearing the frowns of that overly Host she thrusts her self into Simon 's house to find Jesus It is not for the distressed to be bashfull it is not for a believer to be timorous O Saviour if thy Spouse miss thee she will seek thee through the streets the blows of the watch shall not daunt her If thou be on the other side of the water a Peter will leap into the Sea and swim to thee if on the other side of the fire thy blessed Martyrs will run through those flames to thee We are not worthy of the comfort of thy presence if wheresoever we know thou art
both lose our labour and thy cost The Parable is of two Debtours to one Creditour the one owed a lesser sum the other a greater both are forgiven It was not the purpose of him that propounded it that we should stick in the bark God is our Creditour our sins our Debts we are all Debtours but one more deep then another No man can pay this Debt alone satisfaction is not possible onely remission can discharge us God doth in mercy forgive as well the greatest as the least sins Our love to God is proportionable to the sense of our remission So then the Pharisee cannot chuse but confess that the more and greater the sin is the greater mercy in the forgiveness and the more mercy in the forgiver the greater obligation and more love in the forgiven Truth from whose mouth soever it falls is worth taking up Our Saviour praises the true judgment of a Pharisee It is an injurious indiscretion in those who are so prejudiced against the persons that they reject the truth He that would not quench the smoaking flax incourages even the least good As the carefull Chirurgion stroaks the arm ere he strikes the vein so did Christ here ere he convinces the Pharisee of his want of love he graceth him with a fair approbation of his judgment Yet the while turning both his face and his speech to the poor Penitent as one that cared more for a true humiliation for sin then for a false pretence of respect and innocence With what a dejected and abashed countenance with what earth-fixed eyes do we imagine the poor woman stood when she saw her Saviour direct his face and words to her She that durst but stand behind him and steal the falling of some tears upon his feet with what a blushing astonishment doth she behold his sidereall countenance cast upon her Whilst his eye was turned towards this Penitent his speech was turned to the Pharisee concerning that Penitent by him mistaken Seest thou this Woman He who before had said If this man were a Prophet he would have known what manner of Woman this is now hears Seest thou this Woman Simon saw but her outside Jesus lets him see that he saw her heart and will thus convince the Pharisee that he is more then a Prophet who knew not her conversation onely but her Soul The Pharisee that went all by appearance shall by her deportment see the proof of her good disposition it shall happily shame him to hear the comparison of the wants of his own entertainments with the abundance of hers It is strange that any of this formall Sect should be defective in their Lotions Simon had not given water to so great a Guest she washes his feet with her tears By how much the water of the eye was more precious then the water of the earth so much was the respect and courtesie of this Penitent above the neglected office of the Pharisee What use was there of a Towell where was no water She that made a fountain of her eyes made precious napary of her hair that better flax shamed the linen in the Pharisee's chest A kiss of the cheek had wont to be pledge of the welcome of their guests Simon neglects to make himself thus happy she redoubles the kisses of her humble thankfulness upon the blessed feet of her Saviour The Pharisee omits ordinary oyl for the head she supplies the most precious and fragrant oyl to his feet Now the Pharisee reads his own taxation in her praise and begins to envy where he had scorned It is our fault O Saviour if we mistake thee We are ready to think so thou have the substance of good usage thou regardest not the complements and ceremonies whereas now we see thee to have both meat and welcome in the Pharisee's house and yet hear thee glance at his neglect of washing kissing anointing Doubtless omission of due circumstances in thy Entertainment may deserve to lose our thanks Do we pray to thee do we hear thee preach to us now we make thee good chear in our house but if we perform not these things with the fit decency of our outward carriages we give thee not thy water thy kisses thy oyl Even meet ritual observances are requisite for thy full welcome Yet how little had these things been regarded if they had not argued the woman's thankfull love to thee and the ground of that love sense of her remission and the Pharisee's default in both Love and action do necessarily evince each other True love cannot lurk long unexpressed it will be looking out at the eyes creeping out of the mouth breaking out at the fingers ends in some actions of dearness especially those wherein there is pain and difficulty to the agent profit or pleasure to the affected O Lord in vain shall we profess to love thee if we doe nothing for thee Since our goodness cannot reach up unto thee who art our glorious Head O let us bestow upon thy Feet thy poor Members here below our tears our hands our oyntment and whatever our gifts or endeavours may testifie our thankfulness and love to thee in them O happy word Her sins which are many are forgiven her Methinks I see how this poor Penitent revived with this breath how new life comes into her eyes new bloud into her cheeks new spirits into her countenance like unto our Mother Earth when in that first confusion God said Let the earth bring forth grass the herb that beareth seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit all runs out into flowers and blossoms and leaves and fruit Her former tears said Who shall deliver me from this body of death Now her chearfull smiles say I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Seldome ever do we meet with so perfect a Penitent seldome do we find so gracious a dismission What can be wished of any mortall creature but Remission Safety Faith Peace All these are here met to make a contrite Soul happy Remission the ground of her Safety Faith the ground of her Peace Safety and Salvation the issue of her Remission Peace the blessed fruit of her Faith O Woman the perfume that thou broughtest is poor and base in comparison of those sweet savours of rest and happiness that are returned to thee Well was that ointment bestowed wherewith thy Soul is sweetned to all Eternity XXXIV Martha and Mary WE may reade long enough ere we find Christ in an house of his own The foxes have holes and the birds have nests he that had all possessed nothing One while I see him in a Publican's house then in a Pharisee's now I find him at Martha's His last entertainment was with some neglect this with too much solicitude Our Saviour was now in his way the Sun might as soon stand still as he The more we move the liker we are to Heaven and to this God that made it His progress was to Jerusalem for some holy Feast He whose
the strength of that evil spirit This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting Weaker spirits were wont to be ejected by a command this Devil was more sturdy and boisterous As there are degrees of statures in men so there are degrees of strength and rebellion in spirituall wickednesses Here bidding will not serve they must pray and praying will not serve without fasting They must pray to God that they may prevail they must fast to make their prayer more fervent more effectuall We cannot now command we can fast and pray How good is our God to us that whilst he hath not thought fit to continue to us those means which are less powerfull for the dispossessing of the powers of darkness yet he hath given us the greater Whilst we can fast and pray God will command for us Satan cannot prevail against us XXXVII The Widow's Mites THE sacred wealth of the Temple was either in stuff or in coin For the one the Jews had an house for the other a chest At the concourse of all the males to the Temple thrice a year upon occasion of the solemn Feasts the oblations of both kinds were liberall Our Saviour as taking pleasure in the prospect sets himself to view those Offerings whether for holy uses or charitable Those things we delight in we love to behold The eye and the heart will goe together And can we think O Saviour that thy Glory hath diminished ought of thy gracious respects to our beneficence or that thine acceptance of our Charity was confined to the earth Even now that thou sittest at the right hand of thy Father's glory thou seest every hand that is stretched out to the relief of thy poor Saints here below And if vanity have power to stir up our Liberality out of a conceit to be seen of men how shall Faith encourage our Bounty in knowing that we are seen of thee and accepted by thee Alas what are we the better for the notice of those perishing and impotent eyes which can onely view the outside of our actions or for that waste wind of applause which vanisheth in the lips of the speaker Thine eye O Lord is piercing and retributive As to see thee is perfect Happiness so to be seen of thee is true contentment and glory And dost thou O God see what we give thee and not see what we take away from thee Are our Offerings more noted then our Sacrileges Surely thy Mercy is not more quick-sighted then thy Justice In both kinds our actions are viewed our account is kept and we are sure to receive Rewards for what we have given and Vengeance for what we have defalked With thine eye of Knowledge thou seest all we doe but what we doe well thou seest with thine eye of Approbation So didst thou now behold these pious and charitable Oblations How well wert thou pleased with this variety Thou sawest many rich men give much and one poor Widow give more then they in lesser room The Jews were now under the Roman pressure they were all tributaries yet many of them rich and those rich men were liberal to the common chest Hadst thou seen those many rich give little we had heard of thy censure thou expectest a proportion betwixt the giver and the gift betwixt the gift and the receit where that fails the blame is just That Nation though otherwise faulty enough was in this commendable How bounteously open were their hands to the house of God Time was when their liberality was fain to be restrained by Proclamation and now it needed no incitement the rich gave much the poorest gave more He saw a poor Widow casting in two mites It was misery enough that she was a Widow The married woman is under the carefull provision of an Husband if she spend he earns in that estate four hands work for her in her viduity but two Poverty added to the sorrow of her widowhood The loss of some Husbands is supplied by a rich joynture it is some allay to the grief that the hand is left full though the bed be empty this woman was not more desolate then needy Yet this poor widow gives And what gives she An offering like her self two mites or in our language two half-farthing-tokens Alas good woman who was poorer then thy self wherefore was that Corban but for the relief of such as thou who should receive if such give Thy mites were something to thee nothing to the Treasury How ill is that gift bestowed which dis-furnisheth thee and adds nothing to the common stock Some thrifty neighbour might perhaps have suggested this probable discouragement Jesus publishes and applauds her bounty He called his Disciples and said unto them Verily I say unto you this woman hath cast in more then they all Whilst the rich put in their offerings I see no Disciples called it was enough that Christ noted their gifts alone but when the Widow comes with her two mites now the domesticks of Christ are summoned to assemble and taught to admire this munificence a solemn preface makes way to her praise and her Mites are made more precious then the others Talents She gave more then they all More not onely in respect of the Mind of the giver but of the proportion of the gift as hers A mite to her was more then pounds to them Pounds were little to them two mites were all to her They gave out of their abundance she out of her necessity That which they gave left the heap less yet an heap still she gives all at once and leaves her self nothing So as she gave not more then any but more then they all God doth not so much regard what is taken out as what is left O Father of mercies thou lookest at once into the bottom of her heart and the bottom of her purse and esteemest her gift according to both As thou seest not as man so thou valuest not as man Man judgeth by the worth of the gift thou judgest by the mind of the giver and the proportion of the remainder It were wide with us if thou shouldst goe by quantities Alas what have we but mites and those of thine own lending It is the comfort of our meanness that our affections are valued and not our presents neither hast thou said God loves a liberal giver but a chearfull If I had more O God thou shouldst have it had I less thou wouldst not despise it who acceptest the gift according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not Yea Lord what have I but two mites a Soul and a Body mere mites yea not so much to thine Infiniteness Oh that I could perfectly offer them up unto thee according to thine own right in them and not according to mine How graciously wouldst thou be sure to accept them how happy shall I be in thine acceptation XXXVIII The Ambition of the two Sons Zebedee HE who had his own time and ours in his hand foreknew
I said this for their sakes that they might believe Mercifull Saviour how can we enough admire thy goodness who makest our belief the scope and drift of thy doctrine and actions Alas what wert thou the better if they believed thee sent from God what wert thou the worse if they believed it not Thy perfection and glory stands not upon the slippery terms of our approbation or dislike but is reall in thy self and that infinite without possibility of our increase or diminution We we onely are they that have either the gain or loss in thy receit or rejection yet so dost thou affect our belief as if it were more thine advantage then ours O Saviour whilst thou spak'st to thy Father thou liftedst up thine eyes now thou wert to speak unto dead Lazarus thou liftedst up thy voice and criedst aloud Lazarus come forth Was it that the strength of the voice might answer to the strength of the affection since we faintly require what we care not to obtain and vehemently utter what we earnestly desire Was it that the greatness of the voice might answer to the greatness of the work Was it that the hearers might be witnesses of what words were used in so miraculous an act no magicall incantations but authoritative and Divine commands Was it to signifie that Lazarus his Soul was called from far the speech must be loud that shall be heard in another world Was it in relation to the estate of the body of Lazarus whom thou hadst reported to sleep since those that are in a deep and dead sleep cannot be awaked without a loud call Or was it in a representation of that loud voice of the last Trumpet which shall sound into all graves and raise all flesh from their dust Even so still Lord when thou wouldst raise a Soul from the death of sin and grave of corruption no easie voice will serve Thy strongest commands thy loudest denunciations of Judgments the shrillest and sweetest promulgations of thy Mercies are but enough How familiar a word is this Lazarus come forth no other then he was wont to use whilst they lived together Neither doth he say Lazarus revive but as if he supposed him already living Lazarus come forth To let them know that those who are dead to us are to and with him alive yea in a more entire and feeling society then whilst they carried their clay about them Why do I fear that separation which shall more unite me to my Saviour Neither was the word more familiar then commanding Lazarus come forth Here is no suit to his Father no adjuration to the deceased but a flat and absolute injunction Come forth O Saviour that is the voice that I shall once hear sounding into the bottom of my grave and raising me up out of my dust that is the voice that shall pierce the rocks and divide the mountains and fetch up the dead out of the lowest deeps Thy word made all thy word shall repair all Hence all ye diffident fears he whom I trust is Omnipotent It was the Jewish fashion to enwrap the corps in linen to tie the hands and feet and to cover the face of the dead The Fall of man besides weakness brought shame upon him ever since even whilst he lives the whole Body is covered but the Face because some sparks of that extinct Majesty remain there is wont to be left open In death all those poor remainders being gone and leaving deformity and gastliness in the room of them the Face is covered also There lies Lazarus bound in double fetters One Almighty word hath loosed both and now he that was bound came forth He whose power could not be hindred by the chains of death cannot be hindred by linen bonds He that gave life gave motion gave direction He that guided the Soul of Lazarus into the body guided the body of Lazarus without his eyes moved the feet without the full liberty of his regular paces No doubt the same power slackned those swathing-bands of death that the feet might have some little scope to move though not with that freedome that followed after Thou didst not onely O Saviour raise the body of Lazarus but the Faith of the beholders They cannot deny him dead whom they saw rising they see the signs of death with the proofs of life Those very swathes convinced him to be the man that was raised Thy less Miracle confirms the greater both confirm the Faith of the beholders O clear and irrefragable example of our resuscitation Say now ye shameless Sadducees with what face can ye deny the Resurrection of the body when ye see Lazarus after four-days death rising up out of his grave And if Lazarus did thus start up at the bleating of this Lamb of God that was now every day preparing for the slaughter-house how shall the dead be rouzed up out of their graves by the roaring of that glorious and immortall Lion whose voice shall shake the powers of Heaven and move the very foundations of the earth With what strange amazedness do we think that Martha and Mary the Jews and the Disciples look'd to see Lazarus come forth in his winding-sheet shackled with his linen fetters and walk towards them Doubtless fear and horrour strove in them whether should be for the time more predominant We love our friends dearly but to see them again after their known death and that in the very robes of the grave must needs set up the hair in a kind of uncouth rigour And now though it had been most easy for him that brake the adamantine fetters of death to have broke in pieces those linen ligaments wherewith his raised Lazarus was encumbred yet he will not doe it but by their hands He that said Remove the stone said Loose Lazarus He will not have us expect his immediate help in that we can doe for our selves It is both a laziness and a presumptuous tempting of God to look for an extraordinary and supernaturall help from God where he hath enabled us with common aid What strange salutations do we think there were betwixt Lazarus and Christ that had raised him betwixt Lazarus and his Sisters and neighbours and friends what amazed looks what unusuall complements For Lazarus was himself at once here was no leisure of degrees to reduce him to his wonted perfection neither did he stay to rub his eyes and stretch his benummed lims nor take time to put off that dead sleep wherewith he had been seized but instantly he is both alive and fresh and vigorous if they do but let him goe he walks so as if he had ailed nothing and receives and gives mutuall gratulations I leave them entertaining each other with glad embraces with discourses of reciprocall admiration with praises and adorations of that God and Saviour that had fetched him into life XLII CHRIST's Procession to the Temple NEver did our Saviour take so much state upon him as now that he was going towards his
thou Christ who it is that smote thee O dear Jesu what a beginning is here of a Passion There thou standst bound condemned spat upon buffetted derided by malicious sinners Thou art bound who camest to loose the bands of death thou art condemned whose sentence must acquit the world thou art spat upon that art fairer then the sons of men thou art buffeted in whose mouth was no guile thou art derided who art cloathed with Glory and Majesty In the mean while how can I enough wonder at thy infinite Mercy who in the midst of all these wofull indignities couldst find a time to cast thine eyes back upon thy frail and ingratefull Disciple and in whose gracious ear Peter's Cock sounded louder then all these reproaches O Saviour thou who in thine apprehension couldst forget all thy danger to correct and heal his over-lashing now in the heat of thy arraignment and condemnation canst forget thy own misery to reclaim his errour and by that seasonable glance of thine eye to strike his heart with a needfull remorse He that was lately so valiant to fight for thee now the next morning is so cowardly as to deny thee He shrinks at the voice of a Maid who was not daunted with the sight of a Band. O Peter had thy slip been sudden thy fall had been more easy Premonition aggravates thy offence that stone was foreshew'd thee whereat thou stumbledst neither did thy warning more adde to thy guilt then thine own fore-resolution How didst thou vow though thou shouldst die with thy Master not to deny him Hadst thou said nothing but answered with a trembling silence thy shame had been the less Good purposes when they are not held do so far turn enemies to the entertainer of them as that they help to double both his sin and punishment Yet a single denial had been but easie thine I fear to speak it was lined with swearing and execration Whence then oh whence was this so vehement and peremptory disclamation of so gracious a Master What such danger had attended thy profession of his attendence One of thy fellows was known to the High priest for a Follower of Jesus yet he not onely came himself into that open Hall in view of the Bench but treated with the Maid that kept the door to let thee in also She knew him what he was and could therefore speak to thee as brought in by his mediation Art not thou also one of this man's Disciples Thou also supposes the first acknowledged such yet what crime what danger was urged upon that noted Disciple What could have been more to thee Was it that thy heart misgave thee thou mightest be called to account for Malchus It was no thank to thee that that ear was healed neither did there want those that would think how near that ear was to the head Doubtless that busie fellow himself was not far off and his fellows and kinsmen would have been apt enough to follow thee besides thy Discipleship upon a bloudshed a riot a rescue Thy conscience hath made thee thus unduly timorous and now to be sure to avoid the imputation of that affray thou renouncest all knowledge of him in whose cause thou foughtest Howsoever the sin was hainous I tremble at such a Fall of so great an Apostle It was thou O Peter that buffetedst thy Master more then those Jews it was to thee that he turned the cheek from them as to view him by whom he most smarted he felt thee afar off and answered thee with a look such a look as was able to kill and revive at once Thou hast wounded me maist thou now say O my Saviour thou hast wounded my heart with one of thine eyes that one Eye of thy Mercy hath wounded my heart with a deep remorse for my grievous sin with an indignation at my unthankfulness that one glance of thine hath resolved me into the tears of sorrow and contrition Oh that mine eyes were fountains and my cheeks chanels that shall never be dried And Peter went out and wept bitterly XLVIII CHRIST before Pilate WELL worthy were these Jews to be tributary they had cast off the yoke of their God and had justly earned this Roman servitude Tiberius had befriended them too well with so favourable a Governour as Pilate Had they had the power of life and death in their hands they had not been beholden to an Heathen for a Legall murther I know not whether they more repine at this slavery or please themselves to think how cleanly they can shift off this bloud into another's hand These great Masters of Israel flock from their own Consistory to Pilate's Judgment-hall The Sentence had been theirs the Execution must be his and now they hope to bear down Jesus with the stream of that frequent confluence But what ails you O ye Rulers of Israel that ye stand thus thronging at the door why do ye not go into that publick room of Judicature to call for that Justice ye came for Was it for that ye would not defile your selves with the contagion of an Heathen roof Holy men your Consciences would not suffer you to yield to so impure an act your Passeover must be kept your persons must be clean whilst ye expect Justice from the man ye abhor the pollution of the place Woe to you Priests Scribes Elders Hypocrites can there be any roof so unclean as that of your own breasts Not Pilate's walls but your hearts are impure Is Murther your errand and do you stick at a locall infection God shall smite you ye whited walls Do ye long to be stained with bloud with the bloud of God and do ye fear to be defiled with the touch of Pilate's pavement Doth so small a Gnat stick in your throats whilst ye swallow such a Camel of flagitious wickedness Go out of your selves ye false dissemblers if ye would not be unclean Pilate onwards hath more cause to fear lest his walls should be defiled with the presence of so prodigious Monsters of Impiety That plausible Governour condescends to humour their Superstition They dare not come in to him he yields to go forth to them Even Pilate begins justly What accusation bring you against this man It is no judging of Religion by the outward demeanour of men there is more Justice amongst Romans then amongst Jews These malicious Rabbi's thought it enough that they had sentenced Jesus no more was now expected but a speedy execution If he were not a malefactour we would not have delivered him up unto thee Civill Justice must be their hangman It is enough conviction that he is delivered up to the secular powers Themselves have judg'd these other must kill Pilate and Caiaphas have changed places this Pagan speaks that Law and Justice which that High priest should have done and that High priest speaks those murthering incongruities which would better have beseemed the mouth of a Pagan What needs any new triall Dost thou know Pilate who we are
and Spirit yours materiall His rule is over the Conscience yours over bodies and lives He punishes with Hell ye with temporall death or torture Yea so far is he from opposing your Government that by him ye Kings reign Your Scepters are his but to maintain not to wield not to resist O the unjust fears of vain men He takes not away your earthly Kingdoms who gives you Heavenly he discrowns not the Body who crowns the Soul his intention is not to make you less great but more happy The charge is so fully answered that Pilate acquits the prisoner The Jewish Masters stand still without their very malice dares not venture their pollution in going in to prosecute their accusation Pilate hath examined him within and now comes forth to these eager complainants with a cold answer to their over-hot expectation I find in him no fault at all O noble testimony of Christ's Innocence from that mouth which afterwards doomed him to death What a difference there is betwixt a man as he is himself and as he is the servant of others wills It is Pilate's tongue that says I find in him no fault at all It is the Jews tongue in Pilate's mouth that says Let him be crucified That cruel sentence cannot blot him whom this attestation cleareth Neither doth he say I find him not guilty in that whereof he is accused but gives an universall acquittance of the whole carriage of Christ I find in him no fault at all In spite of Malice Innocence shall find abettours Rather then Christ shall want witnesses the mouth of Pilate shall be opened to his justification How did these Jewish bloud-suckers stand thunder-stricken with so unexpected a word His absolution was their death his acquitall their conviction No fault when we have found Crimes no fault at all when we have condemned him for capitall offences How palpably doth Pilate give us the lie How shamefully doth he affront our authority and disparage our justice So ingenuous a testimony doubtless exasperated the fury of these Jews the fire of their indignation was seven-fold more intended with the sense of their repulse I tremble to think how just Pilate as yet was and how soon after depraved yea how mercifull together with that Justice How fain would he have freed Jesus whom he found faultless Corrupt custome in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage allowed to gratify the Jews with the free delivery of some one prisoner Tradition would be incroaching the Paschall Lamb was monument enough of that happy rescue men affect to have something of their own Pilate was willing to take this advantage of dismissing Jesus That he might be the more likely to prevail he proposeth him with the choice and nomination of so notorious a Malefactour as he might justly think uncapable of all mercy Barabbas a Thief a Murtherer a Seditionary infamous for all odious to all Had he propounded some other innocent prisoner he might have feared the election would be doubtfull he cannot misdoubt the competition of so prodigious a Malefactour Then they all cried again Not him but Barabbas O Malice beyond all example shameless and bloudy Who can but blush to think that an Heathen should see Jews so impetuously unjust so savagely cruell He knew there was no Fault to be found in Jesus he knew there was no Crime that was not to be found in Barabbas yet he hears and blushes to hear them say Not him but Barabbas Was not this think we out of similitude of condition Every thing affects the like to it self every thing affects the preservation of that it liketh What wonder is it then if ye Jews who profess your selves the murtherers of that Just One favour a Barabbas O Saviour what a killing indignity was this for thee to hear from thine own Nation Hast thou refused all Glory to put on shame and misery for their sakes Hast thou disregarded thy Blessed self to save them and do they refuse thee for Barabbas Hast thou said Not Heaven but Earth not Sovereignty but Service not the Gentile but the Jew and do they say Not him but Barabbas Do ye thus requite the Lord O ye foolish people and unjust Thus were thine ears and thine eyes first crucified and through them was thy Soul wounded even to death before thy death whilst thou sawest their rage and heardst their noise of Crucify crucify Pilate would have chastised thee Even that had been a cruel mercy from him for what evil hadst thou done But that cruelty had been true mercy to this of the Jews whom no bloud would satisfy but that of thy heart He calls for thy Fault they call for thy Punishment as proclaiming thy Crucifixion is not intended to satisfy Justice but Malice They cried the more Crucify him Crucify him As their clamour grew so the President 's Justice declined Those Graces that lie loose and ungrounded are easily washt away with the first tide of Popularity Thrice had that man proclaimed the Innocence of him whom he now inclines to condemn willing to content the people Oh the foolish aims of Ambition Not God not his Conscience come into any regard but the People What a base Idol doth the proud man adore even the Vulgar which a base man despiseth What is their applause but an idle wind what is their anger but a painted fire O Pilate where now is thy self and thy people whereas a good conscience would have stuck by thee for ever and have given thee boldness before the face of that God which thou and thy people shall never have the Happiness to behold The Jews have play'd their first part the Gentiles must now act theirs Cruell Pilate who knew Jesus was delivered for envy accused falsly maliciously pursued hath turned his profered chastisement into scourging Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him Woe is me dear Saviour I feel thy lashes I shrink under thy painfull whippings thy nakedness covers me with shame and confusion That tender and precious body of thine is galled and torn with cords Thou that didst of late water the garden of Gethsemani with the drops of thy bloudy sweat dost now bedew the pavement of Pilate's Hall with the showrs of thy bloud How fully hast thou made good thy word I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting How can I be enough sensible of my own stripes these blows are mine both my sins have given them and they give remedies to my sins He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes are we healed O Blessed Jesu why should I think strange to be scourged with tongue or hand when I see thee bleeding what lashes can I fear either from Heaven or earth since thy scourges have been born for me and have sanctified them to me Now dear Jesu what a world of
and drowned in bloud to see your selves no Nation Was there ever people under Heaven that was made so famous a spectacle of misery and desolation Have ye yet enough of that bloud which ye called for upon your selves and your children Your former Cruelties Uncleannesses Idolatries cost you but some short Captivities God cannot but be just this Sin under which you now lie groaning and forlorn must needs be so much greater then these as your vastation is more and what can that be other then the murther of the Lord of Life Ye have what ye wisht be miserable till ye be penitent XLIX The Crucifixion THE sentence of Death is past and now who can with dry eyes behold the sad pomp of my Saviour's bloudy execution All the streets are full of gazing spectatours waiting for this ruefull sight At last O Saviour there thou comest out of Pilate's gate bearing that which shall soon bear thee To expect thy Cross was not torment enough thou must carry it All this while thou shalt not onely see but feel thy death before it come and must help to be an agent in thine own Passion It was not out of favour that those scornfull robes being stripped off thou art led to death in thine own cloaths So was thy face besmeared with bloud so swoln and discoloured with buffettings that thou couldst not have been known but by thy wonted habit Now thine insulting enemies are so much more imperiously cruell as they are more sure of their success Their merciless tormentings have made thee half dead already yet now as if they had done nothing they begin afresh and will force thy weakned and fainting nature to new tasks of pain The transverse of thy Cross at least is upon thy shoulder when thou canst scarce goe thou must carry One kicks thee with his foot another strikes thee with his staff another drags thee hastily by thy cord and more then one spur on thine unpitied weariness with angry commands of haste Oh true form and state of a servant All thy former actions O Saviour were though painfull yet free this as it is in it self servile so it is tyrannously inforced Inforced yet more upon thee by thy own Love to mankind then by their power and despight It was thy Father that laid upon thee the iniquity of us all It was thine own Mercy that caused thee to bear our sins upon the Cross and to bear the Cross with the curse annexed to it for our sins How much more voluntary must that needs be in thee which thou requirest to be voluntarily undertaken by us It was thy charge If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Thou didst not say Let him bear his cross as forceably imposed by another but Let him take up his cross as his free burthen free in respect of his heart not in respect of his hand so free that he shall willingly undergoe it when it is laid upon him not so free as that he shall lay it upon himself unrequired O Saviour thou didst not snatch the Cross out of the Souldiers hands and cast it upon thy shoulder but when they laid it on thy neck thou underwentest it The constraint was theirs the will was thine It was not so heavy to them or to Simon as it was to thee they felt nothing but the wood thou feltest it clogged with the load of the sins of the whole world No marvell if thou faintedst under that sad burthen thou that bearest up the whole earth by thy word didst sweat and pant and groan under this unsupportable carriage O Blessed Jesu how could I be confounded in my self to see thee after so much loss of bloud and over-toiledness of pain languishing under that fatal Tree And yet why should it more trouble me to see thee sinking under thy Cross now then to see thee anon hanging upon thy Cross In both thou wouldst render thy self weak and miserable that thou mightest so much the more glorify thy infinite mercy in suffering It is not out of any compassion of thy misery or care of thine ease that Simon of Cyrene is forced to be the porter of thy Cross it was out of their own eagerness of thy dispatch thy feeble paces were too slow for their purpose their thirst after thy bloud made them impatient of delay If thou have wearily struggled with the burthen of thy shame all along the streets of Jerusalem when thou comest once past the gates an helper shall be deputed to thee the expedition of thy death was more sweet to them then the pain of a lingring passage What thou saidst to Judas they say to the Executioner What thou doest doe quickly Whilst thou yet livest they cannot be quiet they cannot be safe to hasten thine end they lighten thy carriage Hadst thou done this out of choice which thou didst out of constraint how I should have envied thee O Simon of Cyrene as too happy in the honour to be the first man that bore that Cross of thy Saviour wherein millions of blessed Martyrs have since that time been ambitious to succeed thee Thus to bear thy Cross for thee O Saviour was more then to bear a Crown from thee Could I be worthy to be thus graced by thee I should pity all other glories Whilst thou thus passest O dear Jesu the streets and ways resound not all with one note If the malicious Jews and cruell Souldiers insulted upon thee and either haled or railed thee on with a bitter violence thy faithfull Followers were no less loud in their moans and ejulations neither would they endure that the noise of their cries and lamentations should be drowned with the clamour of those reproaches but especially thy Blessed Mother and those other zealous associates of her own sex were most passionate in their wailings And why should I think that all that devout multitude which so lately cried Hosanna in the streets did not also bear their part in these publick condolings Though it had not concerned thy self O Saviour thine ears had been still more open to the voice of grief then of malice and so thy lips also are open to the one shut to the other Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children Who would not have thought O Saviour that thou shouldst have been wholly taken up with thine own sorrows The expectation of so bitter a Death had been enough to have overwhelmed any Soul but thine yet even now can thy gracious eye find time to look beyond thine own miseries at theirs and to pity them who insensible of their own insuing condition mourned for thine now present They see thine extremity thou foreseest theirs they pour out their sorrow upon thee thou divertest it upon themselves We silly creatures walk blindfolded in this vale of tears and little know what evil is towards us onely what we feel we know and whilst we feel nothing can
attend thy rising O Saviour thou laiest down in weakness thou risest in power and glory thou laiest down like a man thou risest like a God What a lively image hast thou herein given me of the dreadfull majesty of the generall Resurrection and thy second appearance Then not the earth onely but the powers of Heaven shall be shaken not some few graves shall be open and some Saints appear but all the bars of death shall be broken and all that sleep in their graves shall awake and stand up from the dead before thee not some one Angel shall descend but thou the great Angel of the Covenant attended with thousand thousands of those mighty Spirits And if these stout Souldiers were so filled with terrour at the feeling of an Earthquake and the sight of an Angel that they had scarce breath left in them for the time to witness them alive where shall thine enemies appear O Lord in the day of thy terrible appearance when the earth shall reel and vanish and the elements shall be on a flame about their ears and the Heavens shall wrap up as a scroll O God thou mightest have removed this stone by the force of thine Earthquake as well as rive other rocks yet thou wouldst rather use the ministery of an Angel or thou that gavest thy self life and gavest being both to the stone and to the earth couldst more easily have removed the stone then moved the earth but it was thy pleasure to make use of an Angel's hand And now he that would ask why thou wouldst doe it rather by an Angel then by thy self may as well ask why thou didst not rather give thy Law by thine own immediate hand then by the ministration of Angels why by an Angel thou struckest the Israelites with plagues the Assyrians with the sword why an Angel appeared to comfort thee after thy Temptation and Agony when thou wert able to comfort thy self why thou usest the influences of Heaven to fruiten the earth why thou imployest Second causes in all events when thou couldst doe all things alone It is good reason thou shouldst serve thy self of thine own neither is there any ground to be required whether of their motion or rest besides thy will Thou didst raise thy self the Angels removed the stone They that could have no hand in thy Resurrection yet shall have an hand in removing outward impediments not because thou neededst but because thou wouldest like as thou alone didst raise Lazarus thou badest others let him loose Works of Omnipotency thou reservest to thine own immediate performance ordinary actions thou doest by subordinate means Although this act of the Angels was not merely with respect to thee but partly to those devout Women to ease them of their care to manifest unto them thy Resurrection So officious are those glorious Spirits not onely to thee their Maker but even to the meanest of thy servants especially in the furtherance of all their spirituall designs Let us bring our Odours they will be sure to roll away the stone Why do not we imitate them in our forwardness to promote each others Salvation We pray to doe thy will here as they doe in Heaven if we do not act our wishes we do but mock thee in our Devotions How glorious did this Angel of thine appear The terrified Souldiers saw his face like lightning both they and the Women saw his garments shining bright and white as snow such a presence became his errand It was fit that as in thy Passion the Sun was darkened and all creatures were clad with heaviness so in thy Resurrection the best of thy creatures should testifie their joy and exultation in the brightness of their habit that as we on Festivall-days put on our best cloaths so thine Angels should celebrate this blessed Festivity with a meet representation of Glory They could not but injoy our joy to see the work of man's Redemption thus fully finished and if there be mirth in Heaven at the conversion of one sinner how much more when a world of sinners is perfectly ransomed from death and restored to Salvation Certainly if but one or two appeared all rejoyced all triumphed Neither could they but be herein sensible of their own happy advantage who by thy mediation are confirmed in their glorious estate since thou by the bloud of thy Cross and power of thy Resurrection hast reconciled things not in earth onely but in Heaven But above all other the Love of thee their God and Saviour must needs heighten their joy and make thy Glory theirs It is their perpetuall work to praise thee how much more now when such an occasion was offered as never had been since the world began never could be after when thou the God of Spirits hadst vanquished all the spirituall powers of darkness when thou the Lord of Life hadst conquered death for thee and all thine so as they may now boldly insult over their last enemy O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Certainly if Heaven can be capable of an increase of joy and felicity never had those Blessed Spirits so great a cause of triumph and gratulation as in this day of thy glorious Resurrection How much more O dear Jesu should we men whose flesh thou didst assume unite revive for whose sake and in whose stead thou didst vouchsafe to suffer and die whose arrerages thou payedst in death and acquittedst in thy Resurrection whose Souls are discharged whose Bodies shall be raised by the power of thy rising how much more should we think we have cause to be overjoyed with the happy memory of this great work of thy Divine Power and unconceivable Mercy Lo now how weak soever I am in my self yet in the confidence of this victorious Resurrection of my Saviour I dare boldly challenge and defie you O all ye adverse Powers Doe the worst ye can to my Soul in despite of you it shall be safe Is it Sin that threats me Behold this Resurrection of my Redeemer publishes my discharge My Surety was arrested and cast into the prison of his Grave had not the utmost farthing of mine arrerages been paid he could not have come forth He is come forth the Sum is fully satisfied What danger can there be of a discharged Debt Is it the Wrath of God Wherefore is that but for sin If my sin be defrayed that quarrell is at an end and if my Saviour suffered it for me how can I fear to suffer it in my self That infinite Justice hates to be twice paid He is risen therefore he hath satisfied Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen Is it Death it self Lo my Saviour that overcame death by dying hath triumph'd over him in his Resurrection How can I now fear a conquered enemy What harm is there in the Serpent but for his sting The sting of death is sin that is pulled out by my powerfull Redeemer it cannot now
hurt me it may refresh me to carry this cool Snake in my bosome O then my dear Saviour I bless thee for thy Death but I bless thee more for thy Resurrection That was a work of wonderfull Humility of infinite Mercy this was a work of infinite Power In that was humane Weakness in this Divine Omnipotence In that thou didst die for our sins in this thou didst rise again for our Justification And now how am I conformable to thee if when thou art risen I lie still in the grave of my Corruptions How am I a lim of thy body if whilst thou hast that perfect dominion over death death hath dominion over me if whilst thou art alive and glorious I lie rotting in the dust of death I know the locomotive faculty is in the Head by the power of the Resurrection of thee our Head all we thy Members cannot but be raised As the earth cannot hold my Body from thee in the day of the Second Resurrection so cannot sin withhold my Soul from thee in the First How am I thine if I be not risen and if I be risen with thee why do I not seek the things above where thou sittest at the right hand of God The Vault or Cave which Joseph had hewn out of the rock was large capable of no less then ten persons upon the mouth of it Eastward was that great stone rolled within it at the right hand in the North part of the Cave was hewn out a receptacle for the body three handfulls high from the pavement and a stone was accordingly fitted for the cover of that Grave Into this Cave the good Women finding the stone rolled away descended to seek the body of Christ and in it saw the Angels This was the Goal to which Peter and John ran finding the spoils of death the grave-cloaths wrapped up and the napkin that was about the head folded up together and laid in a place by it self and as they came in haste so they return'd with wonder I marvell not at your speed O ye blessed Disciples if upon the report of the Women ye ran yea flew upon the wings of zeal to see what was become of your Master Ye had wont to walk familiarly together in the attendence of your Lord now society is forgotten and as for a wager each tries the speed of his legs and with neglect of other vies who shall be first at the Tomb. Who would not but have tried masteries with you in this case and have made light touches of the earth to have held paces with you Your desire was equall but John is the younger his lims are more nimble his breath more free he first looks into the Sepulcher but Peter goes down first O happy competition who shall be more zealous in the enquiry after Christ Ye saw enough to amaze you not enough to settle your Faith How well might you have thought Our Master is not subduced but risen Had he been taken away by others hands this fine linen had not been left behind Had he not himself risen from this bed of earth he had not thus wrapped up his night-cloaths and laid them sorted by themselves What can we doubt when he foretold us he would rise O Blessed Jesu how wilt thou pardon our errours how should we pardon and pity the errours of each other in lesser occasions when as yet thy prime and dearest Disciples after so much Divine instruction knew not the Scriptures that thou must rise again from the dead They went away more astonished then confident more full of wonder as yet then of belief There is more strength of zeal where it takes in the weaker Sex Those holy Women as they came first so they staid last especially devout Mary Magdalene stands still at the mouth of the Cave weeping Well might those tears have been spared if her Knowledge had been answerable to her Affection her Faith to her Fervour Withall as our eye will be where we love she stoops and looks down into that dear Sepulcher Holy desires never but speed well There she sees two glorious Angels the one sitting at the head the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain Their shining brightness shew'd them to be no mortall creatures besides that Peter and John had but newly come out of the Sepulcher and both found and left it empty in her sight which was now suddenly filled with those celestiall guests That white linen wherewith Joseph had shrouded the Sacred Body of Jesus was now shamed with a brighter whiteness Yet do I not find the good Woman ought appalled with that inexpected glory So was her heart taken up with the thought for her Saviour that she seemed not sensible of whatsoever other Objects Those tears which she did let drop into the Sepulcher send up back to her the voice of those Angels Woman why weepest thou God and his Angels take notice of every tear of our Devotion The sudden wonder hath not dried her eyes nor charmed her tongue She freely confesseth the cause of her grief to be the missing of her Saviour They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him Alas good Mary how dost thou lose thy tears of whom dost thou complain but of thy best friend who hath removed thy Lord but himself who but his own Deity hath taken away that humane body out of that region of death Neither is he now laid any more he stands by thee whose removall thou complainest of Thus many a tender and humbled Soul afflicts it self with the want of that Saviour whom it hath and feeleth not Sense may be no judge of the bewailed absence of Christ Do but turn back thine eye O thou Religious Soul and see Jesus standing by thee though thou knewest not that it was Jesus His habit was not his own Sometimes it pleases our Saviour to appear unto his not like himself his holy disguises are our trialls Sometimes he will seem a Stranger sometimes an Enemy sometimes he offers himself to us in the shape of a poor man sometimes of a distressed captive Happy is he that can discern his Saviour in all forms Mary took him for a Gardener Devout Magdalene thou art not much mistaken As it was the trade of the First Adam to dress the Garden of Eden so was it the trade of the Second to tend the Garden of his Church He digs up the soil by seasonable afflictions he sows in it the seeds of Grace he plants it with gracious motions he waters it with his Word yea with his own Bloud he weeds it by wholsome censures O Blessed Saviour what is it that thou neglectest to doe for this selected inclosure of thy Church As in some respect thou art the true Vine and thy Father the Husbandman so also in some other we are the Vine and thou art the Husbandman Oh be thou such to me as thou appearedst unto Magdalene break up the fallows of my Nature
and Spirits respites the utmost of their torment He might upon the first instant of the fall of Angels have inflicted on them the highest extremity of his vengeance he might upon the first sins of our youth yea of our nature have swept us away and given us our portion in that fiery lake He stays a time for both though with this difference of mercy to us men that here not onely is a delay but may be an utter prevention of punishment which to the evil Spirits is altogether impossible They do suffer they must suffer and though they have now deserved to suffer all they must yet they must once suffer more then they do Yet so doth this evil Spirit expostulate that he sues I beseech thee torment me not The world is well changed since Satan's first onset upon Christ Then he could say If thou be the Son of God now Jesus the Son of the Most high God then All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me now I beseech thee torment me not The same power when he lists can change the note of the Tempter to us How happy are we that have such a Redeemer as can command the Devils to their chains O consider this ye lawless sinners that have said Let us break his bands and cast his cords from us However the Almighty suffers you for a judgment to have free scope to evil and ye can now impotently resist the revealed will of your Creatour yet the time shall come when ye shall see the very masters whom ye have served the powers of darkness unable to avoid the revenges of God How much less shall man strive with his Maker Man whose breath is in his nostrils whose house is clay whose foundation is the dust Nature teaches every creature to wish a freedome from pain The foulest Spirits cannot but love themselves and this love must needs produce a deprecation of evil Yet what a thing is this to hear the Devil at his prayers I beseech thee torment me not Devotion is not guilty of this but fear There is no grace in the suit of Devils but nature no respect of glory to their Creatour but their own ease they cannot pray against sin but against torment for sin What news is it now to hear the profanest mouth in extremity imploring the Sacred Name of God when the Devils do so The worst of all creatures hates punishment and can say Lead me not into pain onely the good heart can say Lead me not into temptation If we can as heartily pray against sin for the avoiding of displeasure as against punishment when we have displeased there is true Grace in the soul Indeed if we could fervently pray against sin we should not need to pray against punishment which is no other then the inseparable shadow of that body but if we have not laboured against our sins in vain do we pray against punishment God must be just and the wages of sin is death It pleased our Holy Saviour not onely to let fall words of command upon this Spirit but to interchange some speeches with him All Christ's actions are not for example It was the errour of our Grandmother to hold chat with Satan That God who knows the craft of that old Serpent and our weak simplicity hath charged us not to enquire of an evil Spirit Surely if the Disciples returning to Jacob's Well wondred to see Christ talk with a woman well may we wonder to see him talking with an unclean Spirit Let it be no presumption O Saviour to ask upon what grounds thou didst this wherein we may not follow thee We know that sin was excepted in thy conformity of thy self to us we know there was no guile found in thy mouth no possibility of taint in thy nature in thine actions Neither is it hard to conceive how the same thing may be done by thee without sin which we cannot but sin in doing There is a vast difference in the Intention in the Agent For as on the one side thou didst not ask the name of the Spirit as one that knew not and would learn by enquiring but that by the confession of that mischief which thou pleasedst to suffer the grace of the cure might be the more conspicuous the more glorious so on the other God and Man might doe that safely which meer Man cannot doe without danger Thou mightest touch the leprosie and not be legally unclean because thou touchedst it to heal it didst not touch it with possibility of infection So mightest thou who by reason of the perfection of thy Divine nature wert uncapable of any stain by the interlocution with Satan safely confer with him whom corrupt Man predisposed to the danger of such a parly may not meddle with without sin because not without peril It is for none but God to hold discourse with Satan Our surest way is to have as little to doe with that Evil one as we may and if he shall offer to maintain conference with us by his secret temptations to turn our speech unto our God with the Archangel The Lord rebuke thee Satan It was the presupposition of him that knew it that not onely men but Spirits have names This then he asks not out of an ignorance or curiosity nothing could be hid from him who calleth the Stars and all the hoasts of Heaven by their names but out of a just respect to the glory of the Miracle he was working whereto the notice of the name would not a little avail For if without inquiry or confession our Saviour had ejected this evil Spirit it had passed for the single dispossession of one onely Devil whereas now it appears there was a combination and hellish champarty in these powers of darkness which were all forced to vail unto that almighty command Before the Devil had spoken singularly of himself What have I to doe with thee and I beseech thee torment me not yet our Saviour knowing that there was a multitude of Devils lurking in that breast who dissembled their presence wrests it out of the Spirit by this interrogation What is thy name Now can those wicked ones no longer hide themselves He that asked the question forced the answer My name is Legion The authour of discord hath borrowed a name of war from that military order of discipline by which the Jews were subdued doth the Devil fetch his denomination They were many yet they say My name not Our name though many they speak as one they act as one in this possession There is a marvellous accordance even betwixt evil Spirits That Kingdome is not divided for then it could not stand I wonder not that wicked men do so conspire in evil that there is such unanimity in the broachers and abetters of errours when I see those Devils which are many in substance are one in name action habitation Who can too much brag of unity when it is incident unto wicked Spirits All the
implant me with Grace prune me with meet corrections bedew me with the former and latter rain doe what thou wilt to make me fruitfull Still the good woman weeps and still complains and passionately enquires of thee O Saviour for thy self How apt are we if thou dost never so little vary from our apprehensions to mis-know thee and to wrong our selves by our mis-opinions All this while hast thou concealed thy self from thine affectionate client thou sawest her tears and heardest her importunities and inquiries at last as it was with Joseph that he could no longer contain himself from the notice of his brethren thy compassion causes thee to break forth into a clear expression of thy self by expressing her name unto her self Mary She was used as to the name so to the sound to the accent Thou spakest to her before but in the tone of a stranger now of a friend of a Master Like a good Shepherd thou callest thy sheep by their name and they know thy voice What was thy call of her but a clear pattern of our Vocation As her so thou callest us first familiarly effectually She could not begin with thee otherwise then in the compellation of a stranger it was thy mercy to begin with her That correction of thy Spirit is sweet and usefull Now after ye have known God or rather are known of him We do know thee O God but our active knowledge is after our passive first we are known of thee then we know thee that knewest us And as our Knowledge so is our Calling so is our Election thou beginnest to us in all and most justly saist You have not chosen me but I have chosen you When thou wouldst speak to this Devout client as a stranger thou spakest aloof Woman whom seekest thou now when thou wouldst be known to her thou callest her by her name Mary Generall invitations and common mercies are for us as men but where thou givest Grace as to thine elect thou comest close to the Soul and winnest us with dear and particular intimations That very name did as much as say Know him of whom thou art known and beloved and turns her about to thy view and acknowledgment She turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is to say Master Before her face was towards the Angels this word fetches her about and turns her face to thee from whom her misprision had averted it We do not rightly apprehend thee O Saviour if any creature in Heaven or earth can keep our eyes and our hearts from thee The Angels were bright and glorious thy appearance was homely thy habit mean yet when she heard thy voice she turns her back upon the Angels and salutes thee with a Rabboni and falls down before thee in a desire of an humble amplexation of those Sacred feet which she now rejoyces to see past the use of her Odours Where there was such familiarity in the mutuall compellation what means such strangeness in the charge Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Thou wert not wont O Saviour to make so dainty of being touched It is not long since these very same hands touched thee in thine anointing the Bloudy-fluxed woman touched thee the thankfull Penitent in Simon 's house touched thee What speak I of these The multitude touch'd thee the Executioners touch'd thee and even after thy Resurrection thou didst not stick to say to thy Disciples Touch me and see and to invite Thomas to put his fingers into thy side neither is it long after this before thou sufferest the three Maries to touch and hold thy feet How then saist thou Touch me not Was it in a mild taxation of her mistaking as if thou hadst said Thou knowest not that I have now an Immortal body but so demeanest thy self towards me as if I were still in my wonted condition know now that the case is altered howsoever indeed I have not yet ascended to my Father yet this Body of mine which thou seest to be reall and sensible is now impassible and qualified with immortality and therefore worthy of a more awfull veneration then heretofore Or was it a gentle reproof of her dwelling too long in this dear hold of thee and fixing her thoughts upon thy Bodily presence together with an implied direction of reserving the height of her affection for thy perfect Glorification in Heaven Or lastly was it a light touch of her too much haste and eagerness in touching thee as if she must use this speed in preventing thine Ascension or else be indangered to be disappointed of her hopes as if thou hadst said Be not so passionately forward avd sudden in laying hold of me as if I were instantly ascending but know that I shall stay some time with you upon earth before my going up to my Father O Saviour even our well-meant zeal in seeking and injoying thee may be faulty if we seek thee where we should not on earth how we should not unwarrantably There may be a kind of carnality in spiriuall actions If we have heretofore known thee after the flesh henceforth know we thee so no more That thou livedst here in this shape that colour this stature that habit I should be glad to know nothing that concerns thee can be unusefull Could I say here thou satest here thou layest here and thus thou wert crucified here buried here settest thy last foot I should with much contentment see and recount these memorialls of thy presence But if I shall so fasten my thoughts upon these as not to look higher to the spirituall part of thine atchievements to the power and issue of thy Resurrection I am never the better No sooner art thou risen then thou speakest of ascending as thou didst lie down to rise so didst thou rise to ascend that is the consummation of thy Glory and ours in thee Thou that forbadst her touch enjoynedst her errand Goe to my brethren and say I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God The annunciation of thy Resurrection and Ascension is more then a private fruition this is for the comfort of one that for the benefit of many To sit still and injoy is more sweet for the present but to goe and tell is more gainfull in the sequel That great Angel thought himself as he well might highly honoured in that he was appointed to carry the happy news unto the Blessed Virgin thy Holy Mother of her conception of thee her Saviour how honourable must it needs be to Mary Magdalene that she must be the messenger of thy second birth thy Resurrection and instant Ascension How beautifull do the feet of those deserve to be who bring the glad tidings of peace and Salvation What matter is it O Lord if men despise where thou wilt honour To whom then dost thou send her Goe tell my Brethren Blessed Jesu who are those were they not thy Followers yea were they not thy Forsakers yet still
thou stylest them thy Brethren O admirable Humility O infinite Mercy How dost thou raise their titles with thy self At first they were thy Servants then Disciples a little before thy death they were thy Friends now after thy Resurrection they were thy Brethren Thou that wert exalted infinitely higher from mortall to immortall descendest so much lower to call them Brethren who were before Friends Disciples Servants What do we stand upon the terms of our poor inequality when the Son of God stoops so low as to call us Brethren But oh Mercy without measure Why wilt thou how canst thou O Saviour call them Brethren whom in their last parting thou foundst fugitives Did they not run from thee did not one of them rather leave his inmost coat behind him then not be quit of thee did not another of them deny thee yea abjure thee and yet thou saist Goe tell my Brethren It is not in the power of the sins of our infirmity to unbrother us when we look at the acts themselves they are hainous when at the persons they are so much more faulty as more obliged but when we look at the mercy of thee who hast called us now Who shall separate us When we have sinned thy dearness hath reason to aggravate our sorrows but when we have sorrowed our Faith hath no less reason to uphold us from despairing Even yet we are Brethren Brethren in thee O Saviour who art ascending for us in thee who hast made thy Father ours thy God our God He is thy Father by eternall Generation our Father by his gracious Adoption thy God by Unity of Essence our God by his Grace and Election It is this propriety wherein our life and happiness consisteth They are weak comforts that can be raised from the apprehension of thy generall Mercies What were I the better O Saviour that God were thy Father if he be not mine Oh do thou give me a particular sense of my interest in thee and thy goodness to me Bring thou thy self home to me and let me find that I have a God and Saviour of my own It is fit I should mark thy order First my Father then yours Even so Lord He is first thine and in thine onely right ours It is in thee that we are adopted it is in thee that we are elected without thee God is not onely a stranger but an enemy to us Thou onely canst make us free thou onely canst make us Sons Let me be found in thee and I cannot fail of a Father in Heaven With what joy did Mary receive this errand with what joy did the Disciples welcome it from her Here was good news from a far Country even as far as the utmost regions of Death Those Disciples whose flight scattered them upon their Master's apprehension are now at night like a dispersed Covy met together by their mutuall call their assembly is secret when the light was shut in when the doors were shut up Still were they fearfull still were the Jews malicious The assured tidings of their Master's Resurrection and Life hath filled their hearts with joy and wonder Whilst their thoughts and speech are taken up with so happy a subject his miraculous and sudden presence bids their senses be witnesses of his reviving and their happiness When the doors were shut where the Disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews came Jesus and stood in the midst and said Peace be unto you O Saviour how thou camest in thither I wonder I inquire not I know not what a Glorified body can doe I know there is nothing that thou canst not doe Had not thine entrance been recorded for strange and supernaturall why was thy standing in the midst noted before thy passage into the room why were the doors said to be shut whilst thou earnest in why were thy Disciples amazed to see thee ere they heard thee Doubtless they that once before took thee for a Spirit when thou didst walk upon the waters could not but be astonished to see thee whilst the doors were barred without any noise of thine entrance to stand in the midst well might they think thou couldst not thus be there if thou wert not the God of Spirits There might seem more scruple of thy realty then of thy power and therefore after thy wonted greeting thou shewest them thy hands and thy feet stamped with the impressions of thy late sufferings Thy respiration shall argue the truth of thy life Thou breathest on them as a Man thou givest them thy Spirit as a God and as God and Man thou sendest them on the great errand of thy Gospel All the mists of their doubts are now dispelled the Sun breaks out clear They were glad when they had seen the Lord. Had they known thee for no other then a meer man this re-appearance could not but have affrighted them since till now by thine Almighty power this was never done that the long-since dead rose out of their graves and appeared unto many But when they recounted the miraculous works that thou hadst done and thought of Lazarus so lately raised thine approved Deity gave them confidence and thy presence joy We cannot but be losers by our absence from holy Assemblies Where wert thou O Thomas when the rest of that Sacred Family were met together Had thy fear put thee to so long a flight that as yet thou wert not returned to thy fellows or didst thou suffer other occasions to detain thee from this happiness Now for the time thou missedst that Divine breath which so comfortably inspired the rest now thou art suffered to fall into that weak distrust which thy presence had prevented They told thee We have seen the Lord was not this enough would no eyes serve thee but thy own were thy ears to no use for thy Faith Except I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side I will not believe Suspicious man who is the worse for that whose is the loss if thou believe not Is there no certainty but in thine own senses Why were not so many and so holy eyes and tongues as credible as thine own hands and eyes How little wert thou yet acquainted with the ways of Faith Faith comes by hearing These are the tongues that must win the whole world to an assent and durst thou the first man detrect to yield Why was that word so hard to pass Had not that thy Divine Master foretold thee with the rest that he must be crucified and the third day rise again Is any thing related to be done but that which was fore-promised any thing beyond the sphere of Divine Omnipotence Go then and please thy self in thine over-wise incredulity whilst thy fellows are happy in believing It is a whole week that Thomas rests in this sullen unbelief in all which time doubtless his ears were beaten with the many constant assertions of the holy