such factes if they will Let Calanus and his wise Indians hate to dye a naturall death but end their dayes by burning themselues in the fire Let the scholers of that Philosopher Egesias Cyrenaicus so far beleeue their maister disputing of the immortality of the soule that to the end that they might be depriued of life and enioy that spoken of immortality they go home and kill themselues Let Vibius Virius in Capua professe that he hath poyson for himselfe and all his friends which is able to free thē from the Romanes from punishment and from shame and let him drinke and dye Yea let the younger Cato a man held to be admirably wise be a butcher to himselfe rather then endure to see Caesar who was then become a Conquerer Yea let Seneca himselfe try the maner of Cato his death although in another sort after that himself a Philosopher a mirrour of heathen wisedome had so often and so highly commended that deed of Cato that it was not bloud but honour which gushed out of his side Yea let ten thousand more with Dido and Lucretia be recorded in Gentile stories yet all these are no warrāts for Christians we haue a better maister who hath taught vs a better lesson That aduersity and bitter afflictiō must be born with patience that we must expect Gods end in misery calamity and not hasten the issue in our selues that true fortitude is in bearing the sorrowes which are assigned allotted out for our portion that to fly from thē fearefully is cowardise Where is valure but in sustaining the greatest crosses with constancie and where is timiditie but in this to kill thy selfe that thou mayest be freed from that which doth not like thee What daunting force saith S. Austen had those euils which cōstrained Cato a wise man as they accounted of him to take that away from himselfe that he was a man whereas men say that truly that it is after a sort the first and greatest speech of nature that a man should be reconciled to himselfe and therefore naturally flye death so be a friend to himselfe as that earnestly he should desire to be a liuing creature and to continue in this coniunction of the body and soule He did not resist and stand strong against his euils but indeede fainted as a coward he sunke vnder his burthen I may conclude of him and of all that do treade his steps with that learned man who wrote the treatise De duplici Martyrio which is commōly called Cyprians If we reade that any haue killed themselues valiantly it was either weaknesse which by death did seeke an end of sorrowes or ambition or madnesse So farre in truth are they off from any iust commendation in Christianitie and Diuinitie 22 Nay what if it were held a thing vnlawfull among the very Gentiles See the Poet Virgils iudgement of it When Aeneas came downe to hell as the Poet there doth deuise he seeth in a seuerall and disiunct place such as had made away themselues He maketh their estate to bee so wofull as that gladly they would do any thing to be aliue againe quà m vellent aethere in alto Nunc pauperiem duros perferre labores How gladly now would they be content to endure pouertie and take hard paines in the world See the iudgement of Tully concerning this in his Somnium Scipionis When Scipio vpon the tale of his father being growne into admiration of the glorie of men which are dead asked What do I then vpon earth why hasten I not to dye his father maketh him answere with a very diuine speech although he were but a heathen man No son thou mayest not haue any passage hither but when that God whose temple all that thou seest is shall free thee out of this body For men are borne to that purpose and haue soules giuen them to that end to rest themselues on this earth which soules they must keepe safely within the ward of their bodies And they are not to flit from this life without his commaundement least they should seeme to flye that dutye of a man which is assigned them by God I might adde to these the iudgement of Aristotle in his Ethicks where he saith that to kill a mans selfe for the auoyding of infamie or pouertie is not the part of a valiant man but of a coward But I leue these forraine testimonies 23 Some among the Christians haue thought that maydens for sauing and preseruing their virginitie inuiolate might kill themselues An opinion voyde of any shadow of warrant out of Gods word For ought we to do euill that good may come therby Shall we aduenture the greater sinne for the auoyding of a lesse euill Nay is it a fault in a virgin at all that she is defloured by force Was Tamar to be condemned because Amnon did defile her It is consent that maketh iniquitie Tarquinius and Lucretia were two bodies saith Saint Austen but there vvas but one adulterer I adde no more of that matter The Donatistes and furious Circumcellions in old time because they were restrained by the ciuill sword of the Magistrate from the exercise of their heresies and keeping of their Conuenticles would cast themselues from the rockes and breake their neckes by the fall they would drowne and kill themselues Thereupon Theodoret hath a very pretie narration concerning them Many of them on a time met a young man on the way and giuing him a sword commaunded him to wound them and threatned him that if he would not they would kill him for refusing The young man being put vnto his shifts told them that he durst not do it because he had iust cause to feare that whē some of thē should see their fellowes slaine the rest would turne on him for doing it and murther him But if they would first suffer him to bind thē all fast and sure he would tell thē another tale They liked well of this motion in their sencelesse stupiditie yeelding to be bound the yong man got good store of rods shrewdly swinged them all so went his wayes and left them They imagined that God did well accept of their murtherings in this or the like kind caried an opinion that now they were become martyrs of Iesus Christ. Gaudentius their Bishop writeth in defence of the deedes of these Donatistes in behalf therof vrgeth the exāple of Razias in the Machabees who when he should be slaine in maintenance of the religiō of the Iewes to saue himself frō the infidels first ran vpō his sword And whē that would not serue the turne he threw himselfe from a wall and when all this could not kill him he ranne to the top of a rocke and there plucked out his bowels and threw them among the people That holy man Saint Austen the most iudicious of all the fathers comming to
giuen ouer to heare any thing of my prayers Among the old Romane historians which haue written who was wiser then Cornelius Tacitus men do now study him for policy Yet in the first of his history recounting those great grieuances which befell Rome by the ciuill warres vnder Galba and Vitellius he vseth this desperate speech Neuer by greater slaughters on the Romane people or by more iust iudgements vvas it approoued vnto vs that the Gods do not at all respect our safety and security but to take vengeance on vs they are ready inough Here policy hath forgotten the very first grounds of piety which are patience and humility Liuie a graue writer although otherwise superstitious inough as appeareth by his Prodigia and yearely monsters yet tasteth of these dregs when in his fourth booke he writeth thus Here followeth a yeare which for slaughters and ciuill vprores and famine was very famous Onely forreine warre was vvanting wherewithall if our state had bene laded things could hardly haue bene stayed by the helpe of all the Gods but that they had run to ruine 9. Thus the wisedome of this world is nothing else but foolishnesse nothing but doting folly when it commeth indeed to the crosse or to the fiery triall The knowledge of God is wanting or at least the laying hold aright by faith is wanting And where faith is not to be found there is neither hope nor patience which are two infallible notes of a iust and Christian man There is nothing sayth Saint Cyprian which putteth more difference betweene the iust and the vniust then this that the euill man in his aduersity doth complaine and impatiently blaspheme but the good doth suffer quietly The iust hath trust in his Sauior but the other hath no part in him What maruell then is it if the wicked do fret and rage without comfort since he hath no share in him who is the God of comfort What maruell is it if he perish Plutarch telleth that this is the quality of Tigres that if drums or tabours sound about them they will grow madde and then they teare their owne flesh and rent themselues in peeces If the vnbeleeuing reprobate do heare the noyse of affliction he is ready to rent himselfe but by cursing and by swearing he will teare the body of Christ from top to toe in peeces As Ionas did remember God so the reprobate will not forget him but it is not to pray vnto him not to beleeue vpon him for he harh not so much grace but to ban him and blaspheme him I could wish that such prophanenesse as this might neuer be heard off in earnest or in play in the life or death of any man We should thinke of him with a reuerence we should mind him with a feare in prosperity with a trembling in aduersity with a hope There should be no fretting against his prouidence no grudging against his punishment When my soule did faint within me I remembred the Lord sayth Ionas I remembred him to beseech him I remembred him to intreate him I remembred him to embrace him to trust in him as a deliuerer to beleeue in him as a father I called to him and doubted not and he afterward heard my voyce 10 Saint Hierome doth giue this note vpon this place taking it out of the Septuagint That because he thought vpon the Lord when his soule did faint and he was ready to dye we by his example should aboue all things mind our maker when we are in the fits and pangs of death A very needefull doctrine if any thing may be needefull that when we must dislodge and be remooued hence when our glasse is so farre runne that immediatly a change must follow and that not to a trifle or toye which is to bee contemned but either to heauen or hell either to perpetuall ioy or to euerlasting torment we haue him in our meditations who is to see our iudge who is to scanne our actions and to peruse our conscience and giue the last sentence on vs that then with our best remembrance we thinke vpon his mercy and contemplate on his great loue in the redemption of his sonne and desire him for his blouds sake to take vs into his fauour That this lesson might the better be taught vnto vs Iesus the sonne of God and fore-runner of our faith when he was ready to yeeld vp his spirit did commend his vnspotted soule to his most righteous father Father into thy hands I commend my spirit Good Steuen the eldest martyr did tread these steps right after him when at the time of his death he cried Lord Iesus receiue my spirit And euery Christian man should struggle and striue to do so to shake off as much as may be the heauinesse of his sicknesse and as hauing that one prize that last great prize to play should stirre vp his spirit in him and should then pray to God to comfort him to conduct him vnto heauen to leade him along to glorie It is a good thing to liue well but because death is the vp-shot which maketh or marreth the rest it is the best thing to dye well He who hath begun aright hath halfe that whereat he aimeth but to begin is our hurt it shall bee a witnesse against our conscience vnlesse we do perseuere The man who shall bee blessed must continue to the ende 11 Then may the dangerous state of such be iustly deplored who in their life time haue so fondly doated vpon the world that when death which is Gods baylife doth summon them to appeare before the iudgement seate they do least of all other things know wherewith he should be furnished who commeth there but as before in the time of their health so in their despaired sicknesse do thinke only vpon their Mammon admiring it and embracing it and kissing it in their thought as if they were wedded to it But neither of themselues nor by the instigation of the Minister who is a remembrancer for the Lord can they be any way vrged to speake of celestiall things to call on God for mercy or to professe their faith and confidence in their Sauiour And this wordly imagination first ministreth hope of life they not dreaming that death will take them till on the sudden both body and soule do eternally dye together Next if they do conceiue that it must be so and there is no way with them but the graue then is their heart oppressed with sorrow and a huge waight of griefe that there must be a separation from their beloued treasure And lastly if their memory do serue there must be an vnsetled and vnresolued disposing with disquietnesse and much vexing of that which hath bene ill gotten to this child or to that friend and much stirre there must be about the pompe of a funerall by which meanes all good motions are so stifled and choaked that there is scant one word of him who made all
pleasure to be so detained there but when he began to stirre it felt it selfe ouercharged and could last out no longer And in my iudgement the Metaphore which is vsed here in the type doth expresse this in Christ Iesus for the Originall hath it Vajake eth-Ionah which Vajake comming of Ko with Aleph in the end signifying Vomere is as much as if it were said the fish did vomite vp Ionas the qualitie of which word Vomite doth imply that which I haue spoken For when the stomake of any liuing thing hath receiued that which either for the weaknesse of it selfe or by reason of the strength of the meat it hath no power to digest it doth cast it vp and vomite The hardnesse for digestion of that which is the ingredient or the weaknesse of the part receiuing more then it ought doth cause that euacuation The case was so with death and the graue when they receiued Christ. 8 It was no common meat which it had taken into it but that which it was impossible should be concocted by it not an ordinarie man but one who had no fellowes His body was but a bait to entise the graue to swallow him but vnderneath was the hooke of eternitie and that Godhead which caught both graue and death and made them glad to put vp such a one out of their bowels Faine they were to be rid of him because he did ouerbeare them The Godhead raised him vp loosed the sorrowes of death because it was impossible that he should be holden by them When Samson was disposed he brake the cordes and ropes wherewith he was tyed they fittered and dissolued euen as the flaxe which is burnt with the fire he rent off the gates of Azzah and postes and barres and all and putting them on his shoulders he caried them whither he pleased So when Christ was disposed be shooke off the graue-clothes from him and bore vp all before him the rocke which was about him and the stone which was vpon him resigned their strength vnto him and he commeth foorth victorious as a Champion who had slept or a Giaunt refreshed with wine As a tamed Lyon he had suffered death and Satan and the infernall spirits for a time to play with him and disgrace him and haue some hand vpon him but when it seemed good vnto him he rowzed vp his bodie and roaring in his might this he renteth and that he teareth he knappeth their chaines in sunder and maketh them glad to fly happie he who could get farthest The whale was not so glad to part here with our Ionas as the earth was with our Iesus Here the drowned man is restored there the dead man is reuiued being the first fruite of the resurrection 9 As he dyed so we shall dy and as he rose againe so we also need not doubt but we shall rise againe Onely he did it by his owne power but we not by our owne force but by the power of him The head is gone before the members shall follow after Many of them that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall awake some to euerlasting life and some to shame and perpetuall contempt Gods children shall be translated into a better state recouering the same puritie which was giuen to Adam in Paradise where he was after the image of God in innocencie and integritie But first by death they must be beate in sunder and knocked in peeces that so they may be remoulded and new cast by the workeman not onely to their old figure but to a better forme in the day of the resurrection But as their captaine was so must they first by death be dissolued and separated that their bodies may be refined and made a great deale better When we plucke downe a house this is Saint Chrysostomes comparison meaning to build it new or repaire the ruines of it we withdraw such from the house as inhabited it before lest they should be soyled with the dust or offended with the noise and bid them for a time to rest in some other place but when we haue new trimmed and dressed it wee bring them backe againe to a better habitation So God when he ouer-turneth the rotten roome of our flesh calleth out the soule for a little and lodgeth it with himselfe in some corner of his kingdome but repaireth the brackes of our bodie against the resurrection and then hauing made it decent yea glorions and incorruptible hee doth put the soule backe againe into her acquainted mansion He hath determined this concerning vs that dust shall recouer breath and rottennesse shall haue life against all Atheists and Epicures there shall be a resurrection But I pursue this no farther because in the end of the first Chapter I handled it at large 10 If in another sence we will turne the present example to the benefite of our selues this giueth great consolation to the deiected conscience which groneth vnder the waight of her sinnes Such things as are written are written for our learning This wretched suffering man had displeased the Lord most grieuously For the haynousnesse of his fault wrath was gone out against him The Lord would not be satisfied but with drowning and deuouring in the belly of such a monster where the feare of death and almost the paines of hell were vpon him The passions of his heart had bene desperate and distrustfull if faith had not come to the rescue Yet we see that he did not perish but when his woe was passed ouer him he came to good againe God did but giue signification as small a thing as might be as if a man should nodde or winke vpon another and his sorrowes are shaked off from him he is set aliue on the land If griefe do assault our minds that we thinke our hearts will breake if temptation haue so rent vs that we suppose wee are all to shiuers if pangs of desperation with remembraunce of sinnes past haue beate faith so out of countenance that wee see no way but our soules must be a pray to Sathan yet there is hope with God and mercie with the Highest He bringeth men to the doore of death but he doth not turne them in Or he putteth them into the pit that they are halfe way downe to the bottome but his hand goeth along with them and suddenly in a trice he draweth them backe againe If we be within the iawes of Sathan he putteth a gagge in his mouth that it shall not close vpon vs. It is neuer too late for him to helpe while life and soule hang together He who bid the dust become Adam and Adam was made of dust he who spake to the graue and bad Lazarus come foorth from it and Lazarus came out of the graue he who commaunded the fish to loose Ionas and Ionas was loosed in a moment This Lord if he speake to hell or diuell or all the feends of darknesse they shall not dare once to
wherein they shall heare that sentence and that is in the resurrection There were in former times many figures of that matter euen before the light of the Gospell as when Enoch and Elias were assumed vp into heauen and translated to immortalitie to shew that other after them should haue the same vncorruptnesse although by another change and to make proofe of a life which is elsewhere for our bodies but shall not be reuealed vntill that generall rising In like sort when there were shewed vnto the Prophet Ezechiel great heapes of scattered bones which the Lord yet put together and laid sinewes vpon them and made flesh grow thereon and then couered both with skinne and afterward breathed life into them In Iob is an euident testimonie I am sure that my Redeemer liueth and he shall stand the last on the earth And although after my skinne the wormes destroy this bodie yet shall I see God in my flesh So in the end of Daniel Many of them that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall avvake some to euerlasting life and some to shame and perpetuall contempt But how euident is this in the new Testament When the Sonne of man commeth in his glorie and all the holy Angels with him then shall he sit vpon the throne of his glorie And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepheard separateth the sheepe from the goates And in the second to the Corinthians that vve must all appeare before the iudgement seate of Christ that euerie man may receiue the things done in his bodie according as he hath done vvhether it be good or euill But most manifest of all other is that of Iohn in his Reuelation I saw a great white throne and one that sate on it from whose face fled away both the earth and heauen and their place vvas no more found And I saw the dead both great and small stand before God and the bookes vvere opened Then foorthwith And the sea gaue vp her dead which vvere in her and death and hell deliuered vp the dead which vvere in them So oftentimes and so plainely doth God foretell vnto vs this generall resurrection In so much that it is as certaine as that the Lord sitteth in heauen that this shall one day bee 16 As there is in all the faithful an assenting to this doctrine the like might be in very Ethnicks sauing that their eies are closed therfore they cānot see as a sound to a deaf eare is nothing which yet is discerned by another man so the miscreants of all ages belly-gods and beast-like men can in no sort endure it Indeede they haue little reason for that the portion is very small which shall then be allowed vnto them Such were those swinish Epicures falsely termed Philosophers who luxuriating in voluptuousnesse and thinking that to be felicitie to bath themselues in delight did enioy the present with the Asse but vtterly denied the immortalitie of the soule and by a consequent that the bodie shall euer be repaired Like to them was Sardanapalus who had this Epitaph on his graue Drinke and play our life is mortall and our time is short vpon earth but our death is euerlasting if a man once be come to it Pliny the elder was a man most worthy praise for his labours which were inestimable yet that speech of his was impious and vnbeseeming those good partes which were otherwise in Plinie To all men from their last day is the same state as was before their first day neither is there after death any more feeling in the bodie or the soule then was before the birthday Certainely the Saduces were in this beleefe of whom the Euangelist witnesseth that they denied the resurrection And you may put them in this number who in Saint Paules time did vse this by-word Let vs eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye as intending that in death should be a finall end and we should be no more heard of The persecuting Gentiles were plainely of this opinion of some of whom in Fraunce Eusebius witnesseth that they in scorne of the resurrection which the Christians do beleeue did burne many of the Martyrs and afterward threw their ashes into the riuer Rhodanus with this foolish exprobration Let vs see now if their God be able to reuiue them In a word most of the Pagans in all ages of the world and all Atheists among Christians a thing in our time too well knowne do oppugne this truth beyond measure At whose liues I do not maruell if they be like their profession that is such some few ciuill respects excepted as are fit for those men who feare neither God nor Diuell I could wish that since it must needes be that Gods wrath is oftentimes by these plucked downe vpon our land the sword of the ciuill magistrate would with seueritie prouide some remedie for them that there might not be in Israel a man who should once dare to blaspheme the name of the Lord. I remember it is recorded of the Atheniens that in the respect which they caried to their false and fained Gods they so detested Diagoras for talking against their heathenish religion that he standing in feare of his life was glad to flye the countrie But herewith the other not contented did put foorth a proclamation that whosoeuer it were that would kill that Diagoras should haue an honourable reward that was a talent of siluer for his labour 17 But to leaue these lawes vnto the Christian magistrate and to proceed as a Minister the arguments of all these and a thousand more of that sute are but vanitie of all vanities when they come once to be weighed in the ballāce of the Sanctuary and are counterpoised onely with the high Gods omnipotencie For why should we tye his power vnto our foolish wit Suppose that there be dying vpon dying and deuouring vpon deuouring that a man be slaine and his members consumed some by birdes some by beastes some by fishes and imagine that those creatures be taken and eaten againe by men and those men be then burnt and their ashes throwne into the water and if we can go farther let there be as many mutations more what is all this to plunge his abilitie who can do euerie thing whatsoeuer himselfe shall please He can do euery thing and therefore raise this man If nature cannot conceiue it learne to looke a little higher to grace and faith beyond nature Plato an heathen man did much reprooue Anaxagoras because tying himselfe too farre to naturall causes and reasons he omitted to thinke on the efficient cause of all things which is surely God the first moouer This is a monstrous errour of vs also But will we allow that to God the like wherof we do allow vnto men If an image should be made of lead to the proportion of a man and the workman
separated from the bodie and that it commeth to an account and if it haue so deserued suffereth punishment and great torment yea he mentioneth such a iudgement as wherein the good are set on the right hand and the euill on the left as if he had perused the bookes of the sacred Bible The French Prophets those Druides as Pomponius Mela noteth did both beleeue and teach the immortalitie of the soule which was a good inducement to inferre the resurrection For when they held this vndoubtedly that the better part doth not die and by a consequent that the soules of them which had done well for their good life in this place should come vnto felicitie they might haue easily bene perswaded that by a good congruitie the instrument and copartner and sister of the soule I meane this flesh of ours being ioyned in all actions should in vprightnesse of iustice be ioyned in the reward whether it be good or euill 20 How much to blame are the Atheists and Epicures of our time who come not so farre as this but as they depriue our bodies of all future reuiuing so they teach that our soules in nothing are different from the beasts but that in the dissolution the spirit shall be dissolued as well as the exteriour man in which thoughts they shew thēselues to be worse then many Ethnicks They little conceiue the dignity and simplicity of that spirit the single in compoundnesse of that self-moouing soule for so I may well call it in comparison of the flesh For as Chrysostome maketh his argument If the soule can giue such life and beautie vnto the bodie with what a life and fairenesse doth it liue in it selfe And if it can hold together the bodie which is so stinking and so deformed a carcasse as appeareth euidently after death how much more shall it conserue and preserue it selfe in his owne being So pregnant is this reason that an infidell may conceiue it and very well apprehend it but we which are Christian men may remember a farther lesson That our Sauiour hath dyed for vs and payed a price very great his owne most precious bloud For whom or what was this for our body which liueth and dieth and rotteth and neuer returneth againe for our soule which is here this day and too morrow spilt and corrupted How vnworthy were this of him to endure so much for so little Shall we thinke him so vnwise or repute him so vnaduised No he knew that this soule of ours must stand before his throne and this rottennesse must come foorth by a fearefull resurrection And if this should not be so if there should be no accompt no recompence for ill deedes no retribution for the good to what end should men serue the Lord or what difference should there be betweene the iust and the vniust the holy and the profane nay betweene man the best creature that mooueth vpon the ground and the basest and vilest beast which hath little sence and no reason Because it were impiety to think this of our iust Lord that so slenderly he disposeth things let vs with an assured faith conceiue our immortality and the hope of a resurrection 21 As this hath bene deduced from the example of our Prophet by this or the like sort Ionas was in the fishes belly so was Christ in the graue Ionas came forth from thence so did Christ rise againe his rising doth bring our rising his resurrection ours because he was the first fruits of all those that do sleep So to cōclude this doctrine by making vse of it very briefly if this be determined ouer vs the houre shal one day come that all that is in the graue shall arise heare Gods voice neither the mountains nor the rocks can couer vs frō the presence of the Lambe what ones then how perfect shold we study to be how shold we prepare our selues against that day of reckning that our iudg may acknowledge vs to be his friends his brethren vnspotted vndefiled that so we might not trēble to see him heare his iudgement But alas how far are we from it indeed frō thinking of it For as Chrysostome speaketh some do say that they beleeue that there shal be a resurrectiō a recōpēce to come But I listen not to thy words but rather to that which is done euery day For if thou expect the resurrectiō a recōpence why art thou so giuē to the glory of this present life why doest thou daily vexe thy self gathering more mony then the sand I may go a little farther applying it to our time why do we bath our selues in folly as in the water why do we drinke in iniquitie bitternesse in such measure why hunt we after gifts and thirst after rewards why seeke we more to please men then labour to please the Lord Briefly why doth security in inward sort so possesse vs as if with Hyminaeus Philetus we did think the resurrection past Why do we as that man of whome Saint Bernard speaketh that is eate and drinke and sleepe carelesse as if we had now escaped the day of death and iudgement and the very torments of hell So play and laugh and delight as if we had passed the pikes and vvere now in Gods kingdome Who seeth not this to be so although he could wish it to be farre otherwise 22 The remembrance of this accompt should be as a snaffle to vs or as a bridle to keepe vs backward from profanenesse enormitie And in these euils let them take their portiō who are incredulous and vnbeleeuers of whome it is no maruell that they do hotely embrace them and egerly follow after them For take away an opinion of rising vnto iudgement and all obseruance of pietie falleth presently to the ground and men will striue to be filthie in impietie and in sinne But because we professe Christ Iesus and the hope of immortalitie let vs liue as men that expect it And since that it is appointed that all men shall die once and after it commeth the iudgement and since the day of death is as vncertaine to vs as it euer was to Isaac let vs furnish our selues before hand that with the oyle of faith and of good life in our lampes we may go to meete the bridegroome If Christ as our head be risen from the dead let vs arise from the vanities and follies of this earth which are not worth the comparing with eternitie in the heauens If he as the chiefe of his Church be ascended and gone before let vs who wish to be members wrestle to follow after him Let it be enough that hitherto with Ionas we haue fled from our dutie which we owe to our maker and that we haue lyen not dayes but yeares oft three times and three ouer not in the fishes belly but in the belly of sin And let vs beseech the Lord that since
that he referreth all his punishment to the hand of the Lord. He speaketh not of the mariners by whose meanes it was done much lesse doth he reuile them as in our time wicked offending persons oft do to the magistrates or Iudges or other officers who do but see that to be done which iust law layeth vpon thē and they wilfully haue deserued But Ionas passing by the instrument and meanes whereby God wrought seeketh vnto the fountaine and originall of the deede He acknowledgeth that his maker was he who was offended that his hand had corrected him that his wrath must be satisfied but by all other he passeth That euill Ioram did not so when his citie of Samaria was oppressed with a famine so grieuous that the mother did eate her owne child which extremity it is likely that the Prophet Elizaeus did foretell should fall vpon them for the greatnesse of their sin But then he in stead of looking vpward to God whom he should haue sought vnto by fasting and by prayer turneth his anger on the Prophet the minister of the Almightie and voweth himselfe to much euill if innocent Elizaeus were not put to death that day Blind man who could not looke higher and see whose messenger the Prophet was How much better was Iobs behauiour for when newes was brought vnto him that the Sabees and Chaldeans by violence and strong hand had taken away his Oxen and robbed him of his Camels he did not straight way curse those sinners and wish much euill on them but not so much as naming them did fasten his thoughts on God and imputed all vnto him saying most patiently The Lord hath giuen and the Lord hath taken it blessed be the name of the Lord. I would that men in our time could carry his resolution When ought amisse doth befall them to haue recourse to the Highest and to suppose that either he doth trie them or doth punish thē for their sinnes or hath some other good purpose But we rather run to any thing then that which most doth vrge vs oft surmising that which is not and suspecting those that be innocents And if we can find the meanes whereby all is brought about we double our force on that this witch hath killed my beasts this wicked man hath vndone me this mightie man hath crossed me I would he were in his graue or some mischiefe else were on him Indeed I do not deny but that the euill are oftentimes the rods of God to chasten good men withall but yet thinke thou euermore that his hand is it which effecteth all that his stroke is in the action Fasten thy eyes on him and with sighing and true repentance seeke to appease his wrath and thē the meanes shall not touch thee no wicked thing shall haue power ouer thee But let this be thy song to vtter foorth with the Prophet thou hadst cast me into the water thou hast layed this crosse vpon me 22 The third circumstance now remaining is that God did heare his prayer I cryed in mine affliction and thou heardest me and againe O Lord thou heardst my voice You see that his woe was exceeding and after the common course of sorrow it droue him vnto his maker it enforced him to pray Where behold the comfort is that he did not loose his labour the Lord did heare his voice This euermore is his propertie to attend to those who sollicite him to respect those who call on him I called on the Lord in trouble saith Dauid and the Lord heard me at large So by Ieremie his seruant God promiseth to the Iewes and in them to all his Saints you shall cry to me and shall go and pray to me and I will heare you And you shall seeke and find me So respectiue is the Lord to those who fly to him which sheweth his great prerogatiue aboue all heathen idols who may be derided with Baal that either they are busie in following of their enemies or asleepe and must be awaked but surely they cannot heare But especially to vs it is comfort in extremity that if sicknesse or pinching pouertie or malice of any man nay if pangs of death do hurt vs or if in the soule which is our better part temptation ouercharge vs and Satans darts hardly driue at vs if we call vnto that Lord who can bind and loose and hath the keyes of hell and of death he can rid vs and deliuer vs. Yea he so yeeldeth to our prayers that they shall not returne in vaine but comfort at the least and patience in our miseries shall be bestowed vpon vs. It is a good speech in Cyprian if that tract be his De caena Domini In the presence of Christ our teares which are neuer superfluous do beg a pardon for vs neither euer doth the sacrifice of a contrite heart take repulse As often as in Gods sight I see thee to be sighing I doubt not but the holy Ghost doth breath vpō thee when I see thee weeping then I perceiue him pardoning This should be a great instigation that when any thing doth oppresse vs be it inward or be it outward we should runne vnto the Lord. So may also be that of Austen The prayer of the righteous is the key of heauen Prayer ascendeth vp and Gods mercie descendeth down Although the earth be low and the heauen high the Lord doth heare the tong of man if he haue a cleane conscience It speaketh with feeling if it be but onely our sigh A showre of the eyes is sufficient for his eares he doth sooner here our weeping then our speaking 23 I doubt not but all the faithfull do find this easily in thēselues that when they do lay open their soules before the Lord as Ezechias did the letters of Sennacherib when they do earnestly pray a deaw of consolation of most blessed consolation is distilled downe vpon them whereby they are assured that they haue to deale with a father who seeth their fraile infirmities and hath compassion on them Yea as a father doth pitie his children so hath the Lord compassion on all that do feare him for he knoweth wherof we be made he remembreth that we are but dust He knoweth vs to be most ignorant most foolish and vnfit for all goodnesse very impotent and vnable to keepe off wrong from our selues He knoweth this considereth it as euermore he supporteth vs keepeth vs to himself as the apple of his eye giuing when we demand not more then we thinke on so if we lift vp our voyces powre out our complaints before him he will neuer faile vs seeking him Onely this he claimeth of vs that we aske that which is fit not vanities or impieties or to bestow vpon our lustes for he denyeth these things to vs and our faith hath no warrant to aske such requests of the Lord. And againe that in those things which are lawfull we
watereth the earth and maketh it to bring foorth and bud that it may giue seede to the sower and bread to him that eateth so shall the word be that goeth out of Gods mouth it shall not returne voyd but accomplish that which God will and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto he sendeth it It is the very power of saluation to all those that do beleeue a lanthorne to our feete and a light vnto our pathes and therefore as at other times he vseth this to saue men so he doth in this place teaching the Niniuites by that word which commeth from the mouth of the Prophets by his preaching and crying and to that purpose also sending his word to Ionas as a warrant in what sort he should crie The word must be the meanes and he the man that must bring it 11 This is a sure seale vnto him of his calling and vocation The mind of God in particular concerning this or that is reuealed and made knowne to him not after a common maner as euery one in the Scripture is informed of his dutie and what the Lords will is but in a speciall sort as to one singled out as the Prophets were to choyse places And to signifie that no man can of himselfe be a Prophet but by Gods disposing of him vnto it the word of the Lord commeth to him he doth not go vnto it but it is imposed on him So that he who would be a Prophet or a foreteller as all those holy ones were who were called by that name before the comming of Christ must peculiarly be raised vp by his God vnto that office and haue diuine and supernaturall reuelations from him I was saith Amos no Prophet neither was I a Prophets sonne but I was a heardman and a gatherer of wild figs and the Lord tooke me as I followed the flocke and the Lord sayd vnto me go prophecie vnto my people Israel Now he who lacketh this commission is a lyer and deceiuer Such a one was that filthie Mahomet the authour of the Alcoran and of the Turkish religion who would needes be a Prophet but had no word for the same Yet to blind the eyes of the people as our Christians do write of him when the falling sicknesse came on him wherewith he was much troubled he would say when he came againe to himselfe that he was rapt into some reuelation and in his soule had some conference with the Almightie maker Let such false Prophets as these be perish with that in the Reuelation for whom as well as for the beast that fire and brimstone is prepared which is the second death 12 The true foretelling Prophets are ceassed now long agone The Prophets of the new Testament are the Preachers and expounders of the word vnto the people as Saint Paule to the Corinthians doth take Prophets for Preachers But although a motion euen from the Spirit of God and an inward calling be needfull for vs whereby we may be assured that we are sequestred out and ordained vnto this vocation yet the word of God may not properly be said to come to vs but it is rather our part to go to the word of God and to haue recourse to the Scripture and therein to see what the Lord doth teach vnto vs. And when we are furnished and well stored with things both old and new we ought as the good Scribe to bring them out of our treasurie Which if all those did respect who do enter into this function we should not haue such base ones stand before the altar If we had not men so good as those holy inspired ones were yet we should not haue them so bad as euery where abound men who neuer imagined what an inward calling meaneth they know not of any such matter such as neither the word commeth to them nor they come to the word the meanest of the flocke yet be guides to the flocke neither learned nor apt to learne the refuse of the people a dishonour vnto God and a great disgrace to our Church after so long a peace It were the lesse if they only made themselues to be guiltie but they slay the souls of other Their case is vnnaturall against the rules of nature that any should be teachers who neuer learned or preachers who cannot speake or men to diuide the word who know not how to diuide it But I leaue them and this verse and come to my second part Arise and go to Niniue that great citie 13 As hitherto you haue heard in a kind of generalitie that the Prophet once againe by Gods word so directing him was to go and preach at Niniue so now the charge which the Lord gaue vnto him is in precise termes plainly set downe vnto vs. Arise In the beginning of this Prophecie the very same word is vsed and in both places intendeth that Ionas was not readie but as it were sitting or lying downe so that he did need a spurre to quicken him and reuiue him In the second of Ezechiel God speaketh thus vnto his seruant Sonne of man stand vp vpon thy feete and I will speake vnto thee It sheweth that he was not readie and therefore he biddeth him stand vp Our man when preaching at first to the people of Israel he thought that he had done no good but vtterly lost his labour of likelyhood being discontented did set him downe and vexe Then did the Lord put life into him and bid him arise and be stirring he would send him elsewhere But now it is rather to be supposed that being deiected in his spirit for his greeuous disobedience and troubled in his soule for his so great offence he sate musing and pondering as not hauing yet digested the sorrow through which he did runne And to say the truth he had bene insensible and without all kind of feeling if he had so soone shaken off the remembrance of his sinne and his punishment for the same He that hath sustained bitternesse and felt it to the full shall after his deliuerance in a melancholike pang starkle and be affrighted as if he were yet troubled yea be perplexed in his dreames as if there were yet a continuance of misery vpon him How much more might Ionas be yet quiuering and trembling whose body was in the mouth yea the belly of the graue and whose soule did feele that anguish which the feare of Gods displeasure and his casting away from his presence could possibly lay vpon him Now to the end that he might not wast himselfe with sorrowing beyond measure and so be swallowed vp with griefe he is rowzed out of his passions and busied otherwise yet more to his owne hearts ease and his maisters better seruice 14 It is a thing worthie obseruance in very many men although in some more in some lesse that in the greatest pensiuenesse of mind which befalleth them God by some new occasion doth set them vp and reuiue them The
sort of things which be they or be they not it maketh not any matter A conceipt which is very earthie and dull as is the clay and in no sort beseeming a reasonable soule who should carry his face vpright to God and to the heauens and thinke himselfe to be made for somewhat to glorifie the Almightie to be a part of the Church to helpe to adorne the world to be doing honest actions while he is here in this life and not to go poring forward as a beast which looketh onely downeward Is it nothing that he hath giuen thee speech and reason which he denieth to euery thing but man Is it nothing that his sonne redeemed thee with his bloud and payd such a raunsome for thee Or to note what my text doth note is it nothing that thy life is dayed and houred and inched out by a fearefull God and a terrible who among so many motions and directions and disposings and altering transmutations of heauen and earth and water yet hath thee so in his reckening and beareth such an eye vpon thee on thy in-going and thy out-going of thy lying owne thy rising of thy sicknesse and thy health of thy liuing and thy dying as if onely he did intend vnto thy selfe in speciall Do not thou esteeme that to be vile which he reckeneth of so much worth let that soule be precious to thee which he accounteth of so great price do not hang downe thy head but with industrie adorne thy soule and with diligence in his seruice thinking it a shame to see that actiue nimble and stirring substance to be ouergrowne with mossinesse and rust of such neglect as hitherto hath possessed it 6 Now as it is not vnproper to obserue this in glauncing sort because the Prophet giueth that attribute to the Lord that it is his prerogatiue to take away life so from this there euidently ariseth as a doctrine to be thought of in the next place that it is a great fault and a transgression not excusable to thrust our selues into that which belongeth vnto our maker and so by an vsurpation to depriue God of that singular priuiledge which is proper to himselfe of taking away life from man I do not here speake of the Magistrates who carry the sword as from God and are bound not to acquit or excuse the guiltie To them the charge is giuen against murtherers and manquellers that he vvho sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed Moses stoned the blasphemer Iosuah did so by Achan and Salomon in his vprightnesse tooke away the life of Ioab But I speake here of that case which might touch our Prophet nearer that is that although he did pretend that he willingly would be dead yet he doth not take a course violently to lay hands on himselfe and his owne bodie but prayeth the Lord to dissolue him Wherein it appeareth that although he were peruerse and discontent yet he was not come to that height of iniquity and impietie as to destroy himselfe A sinne of the most straunge nature that any is in the world that whereas all other sinnes are to preserue the body indeed or in a fancie in circumstance or in substance this is to ouerthrow it Yea to ouerthrow it with God and ouerthrow it with man in this world and the next without hope and all recouerie vnlesse the Lords mercie which cannot be limited do that whereof is no warrant His commandement is in generall Thou shalt commit no murther If no murther vpon other then much lesse on thy selfe For thou must loue thy neighbour but as thou louest thy selfe and the patterne of all dutie to be extended in him is taken from thine owne person Then when the Lord hath created thee and put thee into the world and bid thee there to keepe as in a standing place as in a watch or ward from whence thou mayest not mooue till he come to discharge thee wilt thou dare to leaue thy ground and forsake that which he hath enioyned thee When thy soule shall come before his iust and fearefulll countenance how must it needes be dismayed when that speech shall come from his mouth what doest thou in this place who sent for thee who dismissed thee As thou with violence hast cut thy selfe from thy bodie so with violence I do cut thee from all hope of participation in my glorie 7 What a trembling may this sentence procure vpon this soule what mountaines may it not cry to or what hils to fall vpon it to be freed from such a doome It is good therefore that euerie Christian who desireth to haue his part in the holie resurrection should flie from this as the way to euerlasting damnation This is a pranke for such as despairing Saule was to fall vpon his owne sword or of cursed craftie Ahitophell to go home and hang himselfe or of Iudas to go foorth and worke himselfe to his end How many are the miseries and vexations which a Christian should suffer all his life time here before that he should once thinke of this With what earnestnesse of prayer should he resist this tentation Should I say that Iosephus a Iew with full reasons refuted that which was vrged for this vngodly fact at such time as he was pressed vnto it by his bloudy minded fellowes Yea heathen men haue taught this as Plato in Phaedone from whom we find that Macrobius hath collected seauen reasons why we should not dare to attempt this But the speech of Tully is excellent in that Somnium Scipionis whereupon Macrobius there commenteth For when Scipio had said If true life be onely in heauen vvhy stay I then vpon earth vvhy hast I not to come to you No it is not so sayth his father for vnlesse that God vvhose Temple all this is that thou seest free thee from the fetters of thy body thou canst not haue an entrance thither For men are begotten and bred vpon that condition that they should maintaine that round thing vvhich thou seest in the middest of that Temple and vvhich is called the earth And there is giuen vnto them a soule of those euerlasting fires vvhich you call starres and planets Wherefore ô Publius both thy soule and the soules of all good men is to be kept by them in the safe custodie of thy body neither vvithout his commandement by vvhom it is giuen vnto you are you to leaue this life lest you should seeme to flye this duty assigned by God If a heathen man by the light of nature could go so farre it were a thing very admirable that bare reason should be able to teach so much But we may very well imagine that this came from the Diuinitie of the lewes For Tully in that place deriueth his position from Plato which Macrobius plainely noteth and Platoes diuine Philosophy was by hearing or reading sucked from the bookes of Moses which thing Eusebius in his booke De
sorowes and afflictions which fall on vs or because by one or other we are thwarted in our designements then in wishing for death we prooue plainely to be offenders for want of submitting our will vnto the Lords will for lacke of waiting with patience and attending the leysure of the Almightie If Elias that powerfull Prophet be ouertaken thus to cry novv it is enough O Lord take away my soule for I am no better then my fathers because Iezabel pursued him to destroy him if she could take him he may not be excused 12 But for our man it is euident that he was in this bracke it was no earnest motion to be with God which did stirre him for now he was angrie with him neither was it because he loathed sinne for he heaped that as fast on him as possibly he could but because in a testie peeuishnesse and vnbeseeming curstnesse he could not see that effected which he so hotely desired that was to see all Niniue brought to vtter desolation And in this fury the man would be nothing else but dead He had neuer bin dead before and therefore did not know what it was to come vnprouided and vnfurnished yea indeed clothed with frowardnesse before so high a Iudge If it then had bene remooued when it was in that fury with what comfort could his soule approch before the tribunall Whereby it appeareth how mercifully the Eternall dealeth with vs who oftentimes in his loue denieth to vs those things for which we wish which if we should euermore enioy we were better be without them Theseus as Tully saith by obtaining the thing which he desired gained this that his only sonne Hippolytus was lost and torne in peeces The same which that fable reporteth of those wishes which Neptune graunted to him that they did hurt and not helpe Theseus is true of Gods part toward vs if he should euermore graunt that which we wish on our selues or other it would ouerturne our bodies and make our soules to perish Do we not many times vnaduisedly wish our selues in our graue as Ionas did in this place when I wis we little thinke it And if then there should come any who would take vs at our word should we not make twentie pauses yea a hundred exceptions before we would be readie It is but Aesopsfable but the morall thereof is true that a poore and desolate old man turning home from the wood with a burthen of stickes vpon him threw them downe and in remembrance of the miserie which he sustained called oftentimes for death to come to him as if he would liue no longer But when Death came to him in earnest and asked what he should do the old man presently chaunged his mind and sayd that his request vnto him was that he would helpe him vp with his wood This most commonly is our case we would find some other businesse to set Death about if he should come to vs when vainly we haue wished for him And it is not much vnlikely that our Prophet in this place would haue played such a pranke when he prayed to God with such vehemency to take away his soule But be that as it will be let this stand good betweene vs that with anger and with chasing at that which the Lord decreed and with wishing death in his rage the Prophet highly offended Which being so largely discoursed now come we in the second place to see how the Lord taketh this which I shall passe as briefly ouer as I haue bene long in the former And the Lord sayd Doest thou vvell to be angry 13 That which Ionas had witnessed in the second verse of this Chapter that the Lord is very mercifull and slow to anger is in this place experimented for when the pot-sheard so grossely had ouerseene it selfe to grudge against the potter the creature against his maker the hote spirite of man would easily haue imagined that he to whom the wrong was done to the end that he might preserue his greatnesse entire would haue let him knowne his owne and receiued all roughnesse from him How would a land-lord here haue ruffled vp his tenaunt but the Prince would haue rung such a lesson to his subiect that he should well haue remembred with whom he had to deale Nay may we not iustly thinke that the mighty Iehoua who is couered with the thunder and clothed with the lightening who speaketh and the earth doth tremble who mooueth and the heauen doth quake who blasted Nadab and Abihu dead in the instant who stroke Vzzah in a moment that he neuer spake againe who made the body of Gehazi and the face of King Vzziah to be couered with a leaprosie who so disgraced Herode that in the ruffe of his maiestie he was eaten vp with wormes would haue shaken vp Ionas so with tauntings and reproches that he should neuer haue forgotten it But the Lord to giue a token of his infinite moderation and vnconceiuable softnesse maketh no answer but this Doest thou vvell to be angry Wherein as he doth shew that Ionas was to blame and therein ouerturneth the excuse of Saint Hierome who most willingly would couer all as if there were no fault and therefore goeth not right since the text is to the contrarie so he beareth with the infirmity of the distracted Prophet and doth rather warne him kindly then intreate him very roughly Doest thou vvell to be angry as if he should haue sayd Thou frettest when thou shouldest not wilt thou be the Iudge Ionas to decide what is most for my glorie thou takest on thee to preiudice my wisedome or my will that either my discretion is not such as it should be or when I know the best yet I will follow the contrary This is not aright Ionas for if any haue occasiō to be angrie it is I who must be ruled now and not rule be directed and not gouerne This mild increpation would haue mooued any man but him who was steeped in anger as Ionas was I do not here any farther pursue Gods patience in his owne person because I haue oftentimes touched it 14 My lesson which I gather here is rather for our selues that when we haue to do with passionate persons that is to say brethren which are weake but not desperately euill and see them ouertaken with affections of anger of sorrow or displeasure we by our mild behauiour seeke to win them from that fault When rage is repelled with rage it increaseth farther fury and so oyle is put to flame and contention to strife A soft answer appeaseth vvrath but grieuous vvords stirre vp anger Although to equals this may fitly be applied and to superiours yet the saying is generall and hath place toward inferiours also The bending yeelding spirit is most likely to preuaile with the most robustious persons but a good man will haue an eye that he yeeld not in things vnlawfull The Apostle dealeth thus with the Corinthians I
arose such mightie and incredible tempests as that the like were neuer seene or heard of in that countrey There may be some other reason hereof for such things are secret to all but onely to God yet it is no sin to suppose fitly to this present questioÌ„ as some theÌ„ did coÌ„ceiue that foule spirits stirred them vp to shew their detestation to the name of Christ grieuing that to those brutish creatures who had long liued in ignoraÌ„ce he should in some sort be preached although not yet so well as he ought that the Gospell of the kingdome might be taught through all the world If it were thus yet neither doth this exaÌ„ple nor that forenamed in Iob impeach our first coÌ„cluded doctrine that God doth send the thunder that he is Lord of the winds that he sendeth down the haile and raine for he doth these things of his absolute power by the singlenesse of his own will by the sufficiencie of his nature without reference to any other But Satan and his factours worke their exploits by limitation and by leaue for they depend on the Lord and as if they were tyed in a chaine they cannot exceede one hairebredth of that which is graunted vnto them And therefore we are not to thinke that so oftentimes as men will report it such tempests are caused by meanes of ill members in any common wealth for then it should be verie often our common sort herein erre and are verie credulous or light of beleefe but sometimes this is done by them both at sea at land not vniuersally but in such special places and causes too as the Lord wil permit And some learned men say that these stormes of their raising may be easily distinguished from naturall tempests arising froÌ„ meteors both because they begin most sodainly and violently because they endure but a verie litle time Againe we are not to imagine that these things fall out so often as the diuell and his agents do desire for they are wondrous ful of mischief but theÌ„ they are wheÌ„ it pleaseth God in some measure to graunt the dispensation of them either to crosse the godly as to vexe them in their bodies or disquiet them in their minds or afflict them in their substance but neuer to touch their soules for that is not within their compasse or else to plague the reprobates and the infidels in their bodies their soules to their euerlasting perditioÌ„ He that wold see more exaÌ„ples of the working of sorcerers in this kind let him reade some places of Olaus Magnus And so I leaue this questioÌ„ 10 Not Satan in this place but God sendeth the storme on Ionas the circumstances afterward do make proofe to the ful that it was a verie great one It is termed a mighty tempest the ship was almost broken the mariners are afrayd they cry euerie man to his God they throw the wares into the sea which I shall touch more largely anon In the meane time the note here is that Ionas is the sinner but all the ship smarteth for it the mariners the maister who were not at all accessarie to this foule deede of the Prophet yet are pursued as well as he What had these poore men sinned who after the custome of their trade did let him in for his money as a passenger but medled not with his message they vnderstood not of his prophecying yea it may be that they had neuer so much as heard of Niniue Shall many smart thus for one the mariners for a straunger Here is now another question But learne here Gods hate to sin learne here his deepe and endlesse wisedome His wisedome shineth in this that oftentimes with one man he striketh a many for reasons which in themselues are very different being euermore wel knowne to his Maiestie but secret vnto vs. The partie principall he doth punish to the next he doth teach obedience the patience of the third he will haue to be tried and so forward in the rest in all he seeketh his glorie his honor in the wicked his true feare in the good If all these be whipped at once he doth no wrong to anie He that hath not sinned with Ionas yet hath sinned in somewhat else For what man is he that drinketh not in iniquitie as the water and is not found so to do if he be once brought to his triall before God All the difference then is this that their faults haue seuerall places but their punishment shall haue one Theeues are brought out of diuerse quarters at sundrie times they haue trespassed and in causes verâ—e contrarie yet they are imprisoned in one iayle and punished in one day and suffer all on one tree I doubt not for these sea-men but if all of them had bene drowned they had sufficiently deserued it although they had neuer heard of Ionas God neede not be vniust in his punishments toward man he need not seeke occasion or picke a quarrell against him 11 Piso one of the Romane Generals as Seneca De ira writeth to shew the bloudie humour which was in him commanded that a souldier should be put to death for returning without his fellow with whom he went from the campe saying that he had killed him The Captaine who had the charge to execute this poore souldier when he saw his fellow coming which had bene missed before did spare the first mans life Vpon this Piso found matter to take away the liues of all three Heare his worthie reason for it You are a man condemned saith he vnto the first my sentence was passed on you and therefore you shall die Then turning him to the second You were the cause quoth he wherefore your fellow was condemned vnto death therfore you must die And to the third You Centurion because you haue not learned to obey the voice of your Generall for companie shall die also He deuised saith Seneca how he might make three faults because he found not one The iust iudge of the skie need not deale so with vs neither needed he with these sea-men No beating of his braines to inuent an accusation our thoughts and words and deedes do yeeld him cause enough His wisedome it is to strike many for many ends In one place and with some one who is notorious for a crime to punish those whose faults haue bin in diuerse places His iustice goeth with his wisdome for he neuer doth wrong to any althogh our dul eyes do not see it For the saying is verie true that Gods iudgements although many times they be secret yet euermore they are iust 12 And here appeareth his hatred vnto a grieuous sinne Sometimes for one mans fault who is harboured by another or carelesly entertained without iust inquisition without due examination God calleth the sinnes of other to an apparant reckening to a sensible remembrance which before he seemed to forget Let Achan be the man who serueth here for an example He
alone was deprehended in the excommunicate thing he alone did steale the gold he alone had touched the siluer and Babylonish garment Yet for the wicked fact of Achan there were sixe and thirtie of the Israelites slaine by the men of Ai. These did perish in their owne sinne although they perished with his fault His crime stirred vp a vengeance which they had deserued before but receiued now in his companie Afterward his sonnes and daughters his oxen and his asses were burnt or stoned to death This is no example for the Magistrate to follow to punish one for another this was Gods owne immediate deed who himself is perfect iustice and therfore cannot erre But obserue withall his hatred to iniquity which is so farre off from sparing the man grosly offending that he destroyeth all that are neare him because they will keepe companie with so stained a person Many of the Israelites had felt this another time if they had not fled from the tents of Dathan and Abiron The companions of Ionas were sure that they tasted of it And it seemeth that either by the light of nature or by some sea-obseruation they thought that they had one or other whose roome might be far better then his coÌ„pany was vnto them when they fell to casting lots to see for whose sake it was that all this came vpon theÌ„ That such things are thought on at sea and that by natural men let Horace be my witnesse who can say this for himselfe Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum Vulgarit arcanae sub â—sdem Sit trabibus fragilémque mecum Soluat Phaselum I will forbid that man vvho hath reuealed the mysteries of the Goddesse Ceres which heathen men thought to be a very hainous sinne to come vnder the same beames or saile in the same ship with me The speech of Iuno in another Poet doth giue some light hereunto Pallásne exurere classem Argirûm atque ipsos potuit submergere ponto Vniuâ— ob noxam furias Aiacis Oilei Could Pallas burâ—â— a whole fleete of the Greekes and drowne the men in the sea and that for one mans fault and the furie of Aiax Oileus The infidels and Ethnickes haue thought these things at sea either noting them by experience or borowing them by tradition froÌ„ the Iewes as they did many other matters which hereafter I may obserue He that would see more of this let him reade what Tully hath written of that Atheist Diagoras 13 This matter is true at land as well as it is at sea Our God is Lord of both Thereupon it is a good warning to all that they looke with whom they sort For as the pestilent person doth send forth infected poison to such as do come neare him to the killing of their bodies so doth a grieuous sinner bring wrath on his companions to the ruine of their soules A good lesson for yong gentlemen that they flie a blasphemous swearer A good lesson for all Christians that they auoyd an infamous hereticke When Cerinthus came into the bath Iohn the Euangelist got him out and called to his fellowes that they should come away with hast froÌ„ the company of the heretick left the house should fall vpon them He thought that house might be guiltie which receiued a man that was guiltie and that the place was in danger which receiued a man in perill Here let them looke about them who not onely without all care do sort them selues with all comers not fearing the faults of others but when they do know their wickednesse they are glad that they haue such companions and do assent to their euils if they see a thiefe they run vvith him and are partakers with the adulterers If anie man teach a tricke of fraud they will learne that of him if anie vse vncleane speech that filthinesse is for them If to be with the naught bee naught what is it then to bee naught If companie do bring daunger as you see it did by Ionas how fearefull is consent It is better to feare too much then to presume but a litle Our God is of fearefull maiestie You shall discouer that by the tempest which he sendeth vpon the Prophet and those which be in the ship There was a mightie tempest 14 To such as vse nauigation it is a veritie vndoubted that there be at sea many tokens and prognosticates of great teÌ„pests gathered from the Sunne and Moone and waues and windes and clouds and other things the vse whereof our Sauiour Christ himselfe disliketh not so that men go not too farre or be not too peremptorie in them When it is euening you say faire weather for the skie is red And in the morning you say To day shall be a tempest for the skie is red and lowring Such tokens of the weather are not hastily bred neither do they breake in a moment The cloud which appeared to Elias his seruant was first but as a mans hand yet afterward there followed much raine My text telleth of no token that appeared here to the mariners it commeth vpon the sodaine and therfore this storme is supernaturall besides it commeth with such violence that it seemeth that they had seene few like it The Prophet spareth no words to describe the rod which now did beate him The Lord sent foorth a wind not a litle one but a great one Vnà Eurúsque Notúsque ruunt The East and South wind blow together as it is in the Poet. A tempest followeth after which he calleth a mightie tempest As men that liue in the middle of a great continent scant know whether there be anie Ocean as learned men do obserue so we that liue still at land scant conceiue their stormes at sea They mount vp to the heauen and descend to the deepe so that their soule melteth for trouble They are tossed to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and all their cunning is gone The ship was almost broken The keele be it neuer so strong the ribs be they neuer so stiffe the cleets and clamps of iron be they neuer so fast set on are like to flie in peeces If a ioint cracke all is hazarded if a planke shoot vp all is gone This maketh the mariners quake who are not moued with a litle now they stand for their liues now they are readie for that choise either to sinke or swimme But alas what swinning was there in such a storme The ship shaketh at euerie blast as if it would into shiuers euerie waue doth so affright them as if still they were dying It maketh them fall to praying who in likelihood prayed not often It maketh them thinke of their Gods for there was no helpe now froÌ„ men helpe heauen for sea and winds and waues are all against vs. Yea more because their hands should go as fast as their tongues they will not lye still and crie but the cariage of the ship shall out into the
to strike vs because otherwise he cannot awake vs but let vs watch to him that his anger may sleepe to vs. 21 If our Ionas haue offended by wilfull disobedience let vs dread to do the like if he were punished for that then let not vs presume to sinne by his example if God sent a tempest against him he can vse his rods against vs if Satan be sometimes the instrument of Gods iustice let vs feare to come in his fingers if the Lord so hateth iniquitie that the companions of the wicked are oft punished for their sakes let vs hate sinne as a serpent and flie from the profane if heathen men preferre their liues before their wares let not vs aduenture our soules to get temporall trash on earth if idolaters serue their Gods once when they be in daunger let vs serue our God euer to keepe vs free from daunger if they pray when they haue neede let vs pray euerie day because euerie day we neede Lord guide vs still with thy grace and bring vs vnto thy kingdome To thy name be prayse for euer THE IIII. LECTVRE The chiefe points 1. The drowsinesse of Ionas in his daunger 2 Sinne breedeth sinne 4 Satan is desirous to make vs secure 6 A superuising diligence should be in all that haue charge 10 The ship-maister teacheth the Prophet 11 Idolaters had many Gods and their vsage toward them 14 One man is more acceptable to God thē another 15 Danger of praying to many Gods 16 Heathē men know there is a God 17 In crosses it is good to suspect that there is some sin 18 The vse of lots and diuerse circumstances in them 23 Sinne will be discouered IONAH 1.5.6.7 But Ionah was gone down into the sides of the ship he lay down and was fast a sleepe So the ship-maister came vnto him and said vnto him what meanest thou ô sleeper Arise call vpon thy God if so be that God vvill thinke vpon vs that vve perish not And they said euery man to his felow Come let vs cast lots that we may know for whose cause this euill is vpon vs. So they cast lots and the lot fell vpon Ionah WHen Alexander the Great with his happy temeritie as a Philosopher doth call it but by the prouidence of God as Daniel doth describe it had proceeded so farre as that after one great ouerthrow giuen to Darius in person in the straights of Cilicia he was now a second time in the fields neare Arbela or as the best writers haue in the fields neare Gaugamela to ioyne battell against him whereas many things should haue inforced him to looke about him as the smalnesse of his armie the strength of his aduersarie the widenesse of the field where he had none aduauntage his distaunce from his owne home and no place to flie vnto yet when it was farre day that verie morning when the battell was to be tried and by that time his armie should haue bene ordered and raunged into aray the enemie comming forward the Generall Alexander who otherwise did stirre with the formost was fast asleepe in his tent Parmenio and his Nobles who for no cause of their owne but for his sake and his honour there aduentured their liues were troubled aboue measure they were in a sea of cares and scant knew which way to turne them onely he whom all concerned and whose making or marring depended on that dayes triall and for whom and whose sole sake they endured all things which they were then to sustaine as a man that knew not of it or one that tooke no care which end went forward lay in his bed soundly sleeping The Prophet in this place shall be no whit behind him but rather much beyond him He hath listes to enter with the verie wrath of God his life doth lye vpon it and his soule too if his God should not deale kindly with him the ayre is now disturbed and yeeldeth a mightie tempest the waues they froath and roare the windes they beate and blow the sea is moued exceedingly the ship is almost broken the sea-men are afrayde happie man that can pray fastest the burthen of the ship be it costly or be it necessarie it must out into the water and all for Ionahs sake his cake it is that is baking the euent concerneth him onely and he alone as the man who of all other did know least and was a straunger to the action doth seeke a secret corner the inner sides of the ship where he may lye rest Oh Ionas thou who shouldst be a mā beyond a many euen the Prophet of the highest thou art now short of a mā thou art now below thy selfe sleeping snorting then when all the powers of thy spirits were too few to looke about thee 2 If the man had not liked of Niniue for reasons which once I named but yet wold still haue kept his calling and wold haue held on his preaching his sin had weighed the lighter he might haue bestowed his talent at Tarshish when he came there and done some good on the marchants by the way going thither he might haue giuen exhortatiō to his fellow trauellers to serue the true God of Israel If he had not had so many auditours as were in Niniue or so many as S. Peter had when at one sermon he won three thousand soules to Christ yet he should haue had some hearers if it had bene but one Plato to haue attended Socrates he had not vtterly lost his labour he who hath conuerted one sinner from going astray out of his way shall saue a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes which either the conuerted or conuerter hath committed But it is not for this cause that our Ionas goeth to the sea his preaching is turned to sleeping Let the world go how it wil he is got away from his maister will thinke no more of the matter See what the best man on earth is if God withdraw his Spirit eclipse his grace but a moment We are desperate to all wickednesse but beetles and blocks to goodnesse Here is an obdurate sinner a hard brawne is ouer his heart a thicke skin and insensible let the sea roare and the mariners crie and tumble out their packs our Ionas taketh a nap in verie supine securitie and maketh no more of it Oh the stubburnnesse of iniquitie and mans auersenesse from his maker But when we haue once passed the lines of duty obedience and grosse sinnes haue taken hold vpon vs then we must iustifie our actions we will run we care not whither from the shoes vp to the shoulders yea sometimes ouer head and eares 3 Sin stealeth on vs by degrees but cōmonly the last step is the deepest Dauid being idle had spied out Bethsabe there idlenesse was the beginning then did his eye as the window of his mind let in concupiscence into his hart Of idlenesse cometh cōcupiscence Therof foloweth
do imagine but onely it is a course proportioned out by the will of God to runne and hold on in the creatures And so much can a naturall man informe vnto them I meane Seneca who with a better spirite speaketh on this manner Thou sayest Nature doth yeeld these things vnto me Vnderstandest thou not that when thou speakest this thou doest but chaunge the name of God for what other thing is Nature then God and an order from his Godhead inserted into the vvorld and all the parts of the same Now that there is such a Godhead although they do not see it I may answere them in this manner His substance is inuisible his nature is insensible because he is a spirite And yet we see him and feele him know him by his effects If we looke on the heauen aboue vs or behold the earth below vs the standing fast of the one the running round of the other the concord of things in discord their orderly interruption interrupted order euery creature doth cry proclaime that there is a God That worthy maÌ„ Athanasius doth very well vrge this argumeÌ„t As if thou shouldst see a citie consisting of many seuerall men great small rich poore old young male and female to be gouerned with good order straight discipline and those who liue there although they be differeÌ„t amoÌ„g theselues yet to agree in minde so that neither the richer do bend against the poore nor the great against the small nor the yong against the old but all of them do maintaine peace with an equality of right If we should see these things it cannot be but we must imagine that by the presence of the Prince there this concord is cherished although he do not come abroad to be seene because disorderlinesse is a signe that the common vvealth is vvithout an head but order on the other side doth shew the care and gouernement of the Prince And as vvhen vve see in the bodie an agreement of the members among themselues and that the eyes do not vvrangle vvith the eares nor the handes make a mutinie against the feete but euerie one doth his owne businesse vvithout brawling vve do immediatly thereupon conceiue that there is a soule in that bodie vvhich doth so direct and dispose all things although that soule be not visible to the eye So in this order and harmonie of the vvhole vvorld it must needes be that vve consider that there is a God vvho is the Prince and gouernour of all and that but one God and no more Now if thou be such a one as that this do not suffice thee by reason of the stubburnesse of thy heart but thou must be like Saint Thomas that is see or else thou wilt not beleeue then let me aske of thee as AusteÌ„ doth of one Hast thou a soule or no and by a consequent art thou aliue Canst thou see thy soule or feele it If not theÌ„ by thine own reason thou hast no soule therefore thou art dead I pray thee why art thou not buried If because thou wouldst not be buried thou wilt say that by signes tokens thou conceiuest that there is a soule in thee because thou seest speakest and mouest vp downe which a dead corps cannot do then hast thou answered for me for so it is with thy Creator the heauens declare his glorie the firmament sheweth his worke thou seest him in his creatures Many arguments might be drawne from the bowels of very reasoÌ„ to shew this point in question as that euery thing which moueth must haue something to moue it which is verus primus motor but the heauen is euer in motion as that lesser things haue a gouernour the bees and heards of cattaile and fishes in the sea therefore there must much more be a gouernour to this mighty frame of the world But who so doubteth of these things or of any such matter now in question let him either reade Saint Austen De ciuitate Dei or Lodouicus Viues de veritate fidei or Philip Mornay that noble Frenchman discussing those points largely And vnto those may be added the workes of some of our owne countreymen who also are not to be defrauded of their due commendation 23 If I should farther say any thing it should be in this briefe manner If now any do rule all things it intendeth that he is Almightie if Almightie then a Creator But many things are so done as whereof no reason can be giuen saue onely the prouidence of a God Almightie and our maker For first I would demaund what reason can be assigned that vpon so weake a foundation as it seemeth to flesh and bloud Christianitie is so growne that all the coastes of the earth haue heard the fame of that doctrine If honour or wealth or pleasure had by the Sauiour bene promised to those which should be his followers it might haue allured men after him yea if he had bene but a deceiuer although perhaps this would haue held but for a while But the lesson that he teacheth is If any man will folow me let him forsake himselfe and take vp his crosse and folow me And all that will liue godly in Christ Iesus shall suffer persecution In this case what reason can be giuen why men of great vnderstanding not blockes and fooles like the Saracens and Turkes who haue no learning and may not so much as dispute of any point of their Religion and so do beleeue on their Mahomet most grossely and stupidiously but Philosophers and rare scholers men completed with all good knowledge should put their trust in one who was crucified yea should dye for him who was before dead and put into a graue Secondly what reason is there that Luther no great man helped onely with the bare countenance of the Saxon should in the time of deepe ignoraunce be able by preaching alone and writing to reuiue againe the Gospell in despite of Priestes and Princes and so to set it on foote as that all Christendome now ringeth of it Thirdly I would demaunde what naturall reason there is that our most gracious Queene whom God euermore preserue a woman in a small countrey at her first comming to the crowne should dare to reforme Religion and professe so farre for the truth things being as they then were when she came first to her scepter verie little sound at home verie much amisse abroad in the knowne hate of the Pope in the secret hate of the Spaniard in the neutralitie of the French to speake most mildly of it in the ticklenesse of the Scot in the â—icklenesse of the Irish. Yet that still she should go forward and maintaine her Church and estate in great pompe and high maiestie verie louely to her friends verie dreadfull to her foes I might vrge her perpetuall happinesse and those many daungers which by Gods blessing she hath escaped Fourthly what
in the parable of the gourd I do deferre it thither But the mercie of these men here is enforced to turne to iustice They are compelled to leaue him whome they willingly would keepe Ionas goeth ouer shipboord where behold appeareth a miracle the sea ceasseth from her furie That which roared so before was so disquieted with winds which wrought and was so troublous which so becalmed them with a storm that forward they might not get backward they could not go that ceasseth vpon the sudden The disturbance was not naturall nor the quieting is not naturall because it commeth in a moment It was not by degrees not one step after another as in tempests which are ordinarie but in that very instant when he was throwne into the water So miraculous is Gods power to haue the mightiest creatures to mooue and rest at his becke If he commaund the world to be drowned with water the Ocean shall breake foorth the fresh springs shall gush out the very floud-gates of heauen shall be opened with a word and so all the earth shall perish If he bid his seruant Moses but stretchfoorth his hand the red sea shall part in two and stand vp as a wall on the right side and as a wall on the left This is a great comfort to the faithfull that they serue such a maister who so commaundeth all the frame of heauenly and earthly bodies that he turneth them and windeth them as with a hooke in their nostrels and leadeth them so vp and downe that nothing shall assault them without Gods speciall pleasure It is he that made the sea here to cease from her raging and boyling with such violence 9 But the reason why it then stayed was because it had effected the thing which it desired The fugitiue being taken the pursuer is now quiet It is punishment inflicted on the sinner which in temporall causes allayeth the Lords anger When Achan had his hire the Israelites did proceede in their conquest as before Saules crueltie to the Gibeonites did procure three yeares of dearth to be sent vpon the land in the time of Dauid but when once the posteritie of the offending sinner was hanged vp by the wronged parties Gods indignation toward the land was appeased Princes and Iudges haue here a pathway laid out readie to them wherein they ought to walke If God do awaken a land with a rod of his displeasure be it famine or be it pestilence or be it the sword of the enemie after a view taken of the actions and ouersights of their people let theÌ„ purge their land from iniquitie by cutting off malefactors and breaking the backe of sinne and wilfull transgression There is no sacrifice more pleasing in the eyes of the Lord of hostes then that those who dishonour him should be suppressed by iustice He did whippe vs not long since with a rod of pestilent sickenesse this yeare he threateneth otherwise with some feare of a pinching famine Very likely it is that if grosse faultes were remooued from amongst our nation his wrath would cease with the cleansing as the sea did with receiuing our Ionas If the vserie of the citie the oppression of the Landlord the symonie of the Cleargie the extortion of the Patrone the idlenesse in the Minister the want of loue in the Communaltie and securitie in all sortes did but so much decay or so fast diminish as it hath increased lately Gods wrath would turne to fauour and we shold more feele his blessings 10 But here in the ceassing of the tempest by the drowning of the Prophet we are notably put in mind of him of whome our Ionas is a figure in this case It hath bene mentioned before out of the twelfth of Mathew that his lying in the whales belly was a signe of the death of Christ by the witnesse of Christ himselfe as his casting vp againe was a signe of his resurrection The dying of Ionas alone for all doth signifie the same thing as was taught out of the twelfth verse of this present chapter which I now handle But nothing in plainer sorte doth expresse vnto vs the force of the suffering of our Sauiour then rhe ceassing of the storme at the drowning of the Prophet euen as Gods wrath was appeased by the death of the vnspotted lambe By the fall of our first parents wee all were fallen from grace Wee had chaunged not a Niniue for a Tharsus but a Paradise for a torment and a heauen for a hell The coldnesse of our disobedience was followed with heate of iustice not windes and waues did make after vs to take vengeance on our bodies but a waight of angry furie of purpose to destroy our soules Not one shippe but a world was endaungered in this hazard The Gentile and the Iewe the ciuill man and Barbarian were euerie moment readie to be drowned in desperation In this state of extremitie God pitieth forlorne man and sendeth a better ghest then Ionas was among those who are passengers thorough this vale of miserie And although this ghest was clothed with humanity like an ordinarie passenger yet in this he differed from Ionas that our Prophet alone had sinned when all his fellowes were free but Christ alone was innocent when all his fellowes pleaded guiltie 11 We can neuer sufficiently admire the effectuall force of him who quieted this great rage Iustice called for a death take my death quoth the Sauiour let one dye for the peopâ—e the head for all his members An Oracle had once answered that either the king of the Atheniens or else their army must perish Codrus who was then king neuer stoode or staggered at it but gaue his life for his citizens to saue them from destruction The king of men and Angels had this choise put vnto him that either himselfe or his the mysticall head or bodie should vndergo a death He tooke the turne on himselfe so wrought a reconcilement from his Father toward his Church So by his stripes we are healed The chastisement of our peace was vpon him So he being the Lambe of God hath taken away the sinnes of the world He hath freed vs and deliuered vs from the wrath to come His bloud speaketh better things then that crying bloud of Abell that cryed vengeance from the earth this from the crosse cryeth redemption reconcilement and atonement So he hath by his bloud bought a spouse vnto himselfe whome else he had not had By the dying of Christ the Church is made as Eue was made by Adams sleeping which is Saint Austens comparison The Adamant is so hard a stone that it can be softened with nothing but the bloud of a goate Mans heart was grown so hard mans case was growne so hard that it could be lenified by nothing but by the bloud of him whome the skape-goate in Leuiticus so liuely did represent 12 But to procure our peace he plucked warres on himselfe
yeelding them dry footing as if it had bene on the land when they were so pursued and made after by the chariots and horsemen of the Egyptians How fitly vnto my purpose was the daughter of king Pharao brought forth and put in mind to pity poore drowning Moses How was the iaw-bone of the asse made ready to be as a sword for Samson wherewith he slue so many Philistines and how was one of the teeth thereof prepared to yeeld him drinke when he fainted So admirable is the Lord in the assistance of his Saints that one thing or another shall be borne to do them good in their bitter extremitie as if it were made onely for that purpose There be few which haue liued many yeares and in Christian meditation contemplated in themselues on the kindnesse of their God who know not this ouer and ouer Such comforts and such stayes arising by such meanes as themselues could not conceiue of vntill they see things done Oh the loue of God inestimable oh his straunge wayes for our good The wicked on the one side may feare his hand who can raise such meanes to perplexe them and the faithfull on the other side may embrace his mercy who hath such helpes at need and both of them may stand amased and wonder at his power who hath his instruments euermore so ready 5 I know not whether in our Prophet is more to be respected Gods punishment or his protection If we thinke vpon his drowning he doth fauour him since he had at hand a great fish to receiue him so that he did not perish If we thinke of the time and place where he lay and how long that is in the dungeon of that fishes belly for three dayes and three nights it doth double and often multiply Gods angry wrath vpon him The euent doth giue this testimony that since Ionas howsoeuer at the first he fell was appointed and predestinated to good and not to euill his deliuerance was as readie as his chastisement was for him one hand to cast him downe another to helpe him vp when the ship might not any longer containe him the fishes bellie was in steede of a sea-vessell to bring him on toward Niniue But in the meane while his lying was such in so many dreades and horrours and anguishes for his life nay for doubte of the life eternall because wrath was vpon him which endangered his best part euen his inward man and his soule that many deaths had bene easier then a languishing in that prison where now he had his best repose So sowre a thing is sinne and disobedience to the Lord. It may be sweete in the mouth but it is bitter in the belly like a cup of deadly poyson Certainely it is a daughter of those Locustes which haue faces faire as men but killing stings in their tailes It is pleasure with too much paine sweete meate with too sharpe sauce And therefore it may well be likened to that herbe Sardonia in Sardinia of the which Solinus writeth that it maketh the eaters thereof to looke as if they laughed but in their laughing they dye Thus Ionas is preserued but to testifie Gods displeasure in the meanes of his preseruation he endureth full many sorowes Let vs now see if you please what that was whereby God so wrought for him The Lord prepared a great fish to swallow 6 In the Hebrew it is a great fish but it is not added of what kinde or species this fish was Our Sauiour Christ doth briefly touch this storie and there the Euangelist in the Greeke doth vse the word Ketos which although sometimes like to the Latine Cete it be applied to diuerse sorts of great fishes yet properly it noteth that one who is the king of fishes and ruler of the sea Balaena the great whale and it is euermore so Englished in that text A fish which in diuerse seas is of seuerall shapes and fashions as in the Indian Oceane in the red sea neare Arabia in the Northren waters toward Island and in our English Oceane but euery where verie huge and euery where very mighty And so this had neede to be who had so wide a mouth as to receiue the Prophet who had so large a throate as to swallow him and not hurt him who had so vaste a paunch as to lodge him there and not stifle him A matter to some men incredible that among all liuing creatures should be any so capacious but so vndoubtedly a knowne truth to men that liue neare the sea or that haue trauelled much by ship and a verity so confirmed so consented vpon by all who haue read the writers either olde or new vpon that argument that he were a man much absurde who would make question of it They all agree that at sea there are fishes farre exceeding the greatest beast on land And thereof particularly Olaus Magnus doth assigne these reasons the abundance of the moysture which is fit to dilate and increase any liuing creature and the very great depth vvhere is both store of foode and safe meanes to escape such other fishes as are ready to hurt them They farther adde that the Elephant is but little when he is compared with these water-monsters That the bellies and mouthes and throtes of some fishes are so spacious that a man may well be receiued in by them Gulielmus Rondeletius who hath taken great paines in displaying the proportions and qualities of fishes as appeareth in that excellent worke of Gesner De Aquatilibus for those two are oft ioyned together reporteth of a little small fish in comparison of a whale which he calleth by the name of Lamia that in the Mediterrane sea some of those haue oftentimes bene found hauing a whole man swallowed into each of their bellies Yea he telleth that neare vnto Marseilles an auncient city oâ— Fraunce there haue bene found of them which haue had within them virum loricatum a man in some kind of armour So huge-bellied is this fish which commeth not neare to the great ones 7 But for the whale it selfe if any list to reade of the bignesse of it and should esteeme that too much Pliny speaketh positiuely that in the Indian seas there are some of two hundred cubites in length and the same Pliny out of the bookes of Iuba that in the seas neare Arabia haue bene seene some of foure hundred cubites for so much is sixe hundred feete which also Munster deliuereth to vs in the fifth of his Cosmography then let him heare what Dion a good Historien doth lay downe of certainty in his fifty and fourth booke and that is that in the dayes of Augustus sometimes Emperour of Rome a whale leaped to the land out of the Germane Ocean full twenty foote in breadth and threescore foote in length This was so bigge a body as might well receiue the Prophet But adde to this what I find in Gesner taken
Christ then dyed at the ninth houre that is at three of the clock after noone on a friday as we call it and before that the euening was in on the day of the Preparation which was that selfe same Friday his body was layd in graue That little time before euening is by the figure Synecdoche which taketh a part for the whole reputed for a whole day and a night that is the day and night before going The night then which did follow the setting of the Sunne and the day which was their Easter but by vs is called Saterday is reckened for the second And indeed this was complete both for the day and the night Then followeth the next night wherein Iesus arose very earely in the morning at or before the dawning of the day and the opening of the light and this is to be numbred for the third both day and night the part taken for the whole by the figure as before This kind of computation as with ease it may be gathered from the narration of the Euangelistes so Saint Austen doth approoue it and the late Diuines so accept it And it should not seeme strange since in other things we do vse it The Phisitians call that feauer a Tertian or third Ague which skippeth but one day onely The Termes of our Vniuersitie are reckened in that manner The last day of a Terme is reputed for a Terme and the first day of another is taken for another Terme so that according to our vse in some cases one Terme and two daies are taken for three Termes Thus was Christ in his graue by the space of three daies and three nights either in part or in whole like to which it is very probable that the staying of the Prophet in the whale was abridged and abbreuiated for some part of the time that there might be a full resemblance betweene the one and the other the seruant and the maister But herein I will not be contentious Concerning the Resurrection 13 But to say no more thereof the maine note from this place requireth full vnderstanding because there is hence deduced a mysterie of our faith I meane the Resurrection which Christ Iesus himselfe expoundeth to be here very liuely signified Ionas was in the fishes belly for three daies there nights so shall the Sonne of man be for that time in the graue It must follow thereupon by a necessarie consequent But as Ionas was then deliuered so shall the Sonne of man then come forth with a sensible resurrection Christ foretold that he would do this Do you destroy this temple intending thereby his body and in three daies I will raise it and set it vp againe This was also foretold by Dauid although in the person of our Sauiour Thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell nor suffer thy holy one to see corruption which text Saint Peter citeth to aduouch Christs resurrection That he did rise againe the Euangelists all do cry the Apostles all do confirme it How plentifull is Saint Paule in discoursing this argument that he did appeare oftentimes one while but to a few another while to the Twelue but afterward to more then fiue hundred brethen at once By the vertue of his Godhead Christ had a soueraigne power to loose himselfe from death it was a thing vnpossible that he should be holden of it If his life had bene taken from him vnwillingly and by violence then very likely it is that the selfe same violence might haue still detained him prisoner But his dying was voluntarie he yeelded vp the Ghost and being contented to put himselfe amidst those anguishes and horrours he abode there at his pleasure on the crosse and in the graue and from death he returned with the selfe same pleasure as hauing conquered all and triumphing in great glorie And then he who came from heauen to disquiet himselfe on earth so to purchase mans redemption left death and graue and earth and with captiuitie captiue ascended againe to heauen where he â—ate him downe in his maiestie on the right hand of his Father 14 And by his resurrection our hope is to be saued herein doth rest the anchor of our happinesse and true blessednesse For in vaine had bene his debasing and in vaine his incarnation if he had not liued amongst vs. And in vaine had bene his life and in vaine had bene his preaching if his death had not followed after For his life was giuen for our raunsome his bloud it was which did wash vs his death it was which did quicken vs. But in vaine had bene his death also if he had not shaken off mortalitie from him and borne vp his graue before him and thereby winning his prizes had not maistered all which resisted So that we apprehend his resurrection as the stay and substance of our saluation as the vp-shot of our blessednesse from the which if we should fall we do plunge into vtter ruine Therefore in the Articles of our faith this is put for one that dying he rose againe the third day from the dead Not that onely he died for the Iewes beleeue so much and the Gentiles beleeue so farre but that he was quickened againe For as Saint Austen hath obserued the Paganes do admit this for a truth that Christ did dye but that he rose againe is the proper faith of the Christians and imparted to no other Now we hold Christ for the head and our selues to be the members what he hath done before we trust that we shall do afterward So that by his rising againe is inferred the resurrection of other and that of all as well the iust as the vniust and the vniust as the iust the one sort to raigne with their Sauiour on whome they haue beleeued the other to suffer torments because they haue contemned So that both great and small shall stand vpon their feete in the generall day of iudgement and appearing before the throne shall then receiue their last doome of miserie or of mercie And if we did not expect this the followers of Christ Iesus were most wretched men of all other who for this hope sealed vnto them do endure such strong vexations such grieuances and perplexities All the Martyrs were most foolish who loose their liues in this world for the maintenance of Christs glorie which were absurd stupiditie as Chrysostome hath well noted if they held not themselues assured that he were come from the dead neuer dye for him who liueth not and againe if they beleeued not that in recompence of their sufferings they should see a better life and receiue a firme inheritance in the day of last proceeding 15 Their warrant is sealed vnto them by him who cannot lye both that their holy seruice shall be rewarded by him who shall pronounce that comfort Come you blessed of my Father inherite eternall life and that there shall be a day
which did make it remaining still aliue should retaine the mould or remember the fashion of it with his best obseruation although this image were now broken into peeces and some of the lead thereof did perchance in a wall ioyne some stones vnto other or iron to stones in windows or if some were framed into bullets or put to other vses be they neuer so different yet afterward the artificer hauing these fragments brought together can refound them and renew the image in that resemblance wherein they were before That which man can do in his trade can mans maker do much more in new framing man himselfe 18 I haue borowed this reason from the maister of the Sentences whereunto if anie reply that the comparison is much different because here the substance remaineth in the selfe same nature as before whereas it is oftentimes altered in the corruption of the flesh and bones in man I might answere that it is recompenced by the greatnesse and the power and the skilfulnesse of this framer which so farre doth exceede the abilitie of all workers But I rather will strengthen it with that argumēt of Tertullian who speaketh to this purpose We were alreadie once made of nothing when our matter went not before and is it not as easie that we should be againe made when we haue bene before If after our corruption our substance should be little yea very nothing at all yet can we thinke it lesse then it was before our breeding The authour of the first can as well do the latter This reason seemed strong vnto Gregory the great where he speaketh in this sort If a man who hath bene dead shold be raised vp all men breake foorth into admiration and yet daily is man borne who neuer was before and no man wondreth at that whereas without doubt it may appeare vnto all men that it is a greater worke when that is made which neuer was then when that shall be but repaired and new made which was before To follow this a little farther which of vs doth remember what we were before that we were borne where was our forme or our matter Yet we are growne to this quantitie and come vp to this fashion If we will speake as Philosophers the sonne is said to be in potentia of the father so of the grandfather and great grandfather although much more remooued If we will speake as the Spirite of God doth speake Leui the sonne of Iacob who was the sonne of Isaac who was the heire of Abraham is said to be in the loines of Abraham his great grandfather The line by this proportiō may be reached a great deale higher Now how many alterations corruptions dissolutions in nutriment and in food within men and without of necessitie must there be within ten generations before that he be produced who is the tenth successor Where shall we say was the seed or what shall we thinke was the matter from whence he was deriued Yet God hath so disposed that by order of propagation it should be so and no otherwise and a thousand alterations cannot hinder the course thereof and a million of corruptions shall not crosse his purpose afterward but that from earth and sea and stones and rockes and ashes chaunged ouer and ouer againe he can rowze vs and reuiue vs. The perpetuated order of his actions here among vs doth shew that he can doe things which are as farre vnlikely To adde somewhat more of man of how small a thing doth he make him euen that which hath no proportion how doth he bring out the limmes and members of the infant where were his bones and his sinewes his arteryes and his veynes where was his head and his feete his countenance and his visage how were these things distinguished in his first generation We may haue the same consideration of the kernell of any fruite which being small in quantitie and in resemblance very different from that whereunto it spreadeth is put into the ground From this there groweth a roote with many things sprowting from it from thence a stemme ariseth a barke percase without a pith perhaps within here a branch and there a bough here a blossome and there a fruit A graine of wheat is put by the husbandman into the ground and then it is but a small thing and in respect as nothing Yet from thence commeth roote and blade and stalke and eare and corne yea when the originall of all was dead and euen dissolued From these things God each day doth raise such sensible matters and maketh the earth and raine whereof much commeth from the sea to depart with their owne nature and to be turned into them Why then should it be impossible or why should it be straunge that he should bring this to passe in man the best of his creatures that is to fetch him out of the dust or from the middest of the water Why not one daye that in generall when this in speciall euery daye why not all which to each Reuolue these things aduisedly and ioyne faith with thy sence and thy externall feeling and we shall haue a resurrection 19 Remember how that euerie winter the glorie of the trees and all woods is decayed their leaues lye in the dust their cheerefull greene is but blacknesse the sap and life is hid in the roote within the ground all the tree doth seeme as dead But when the Sunne commeth forward with his warming aspect they resume their former beautie So it is with the medowes so it is with the floures and most delightfull gardens Their winter is as our death their spring like our resurrection The putting of our clothes off should remember vs of mortalitie that we must put our flesh off and yeeld it to corruption When we put them on in the morning and go forth as before we represent to our selues the receiuing of our flesh againe in the day of iudgement What is our bed but a graue what is our sleepe but a death wherein we are to our selues as if we had neuer bene without sence and in darknesse what is our hastie awaking at the sound of bell or other noise but as our starting vp at the sound of the last trumpet to appeare before Christs throne Herein indeed is the difference that the graue doth hold vs longer the bed a lesser while Thus hath the Lord euery way put remembrancers in our actions daily obseruations that certainly we shall dy certainly rise againe certainly be then iudged The veritie of which matter euen by the light of nature hath appeared vnto some who neuer did know the Lord. The heathen man Zoroastres did fore-prophecie of a time wherein there should be a rising of all that euer had liued They were not farre from this who beleeued an immortalitie of our souls after death So did Plato aboue all other of the auncient Philosophers who both saith that the soule liueth
Sathan is more desirous to swallow vs into hell then the whale was to deuour the Prophet that he will free vs from that enemie and bring vs into his kingdome there to raigne with his owne Sonne to both whome and the holy Spirite be laud and praise immortall Amen THE X. LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 2. The anguish of Ionas in the whale 3. The vse and force of prayer 6. Our negligence herein 8. Inuocation is to be vsed to God onely 10. Some things in the Fathers fauouring inuocation of Saints 11. Those places discussed 14. Some of the ancient are against praying to Saints 15. Afflictiō stirreth vs vp to piety 19. The great miserie of the Prophet 21. We are to repute God the authour of our afflictions 22. God heareth our prayers 23. There are circumstances to be obserued in prayer Ionah 2.1.2.3 Then Ionah prayed vnto the Lord his God out of the fishes belly And said I cried in my affliction to the Lord and he heard me out of the belly of hell cried I and thou heardest my voice For thou hadst cast me into the bottome in the midst of the sea and the flouds compassed me about all thy surges and all thy waues passed ouer me WHen Ionas was in the sea being cast out by the mariners and was now of all likelyhood ready to be drowned God had a fish prepared as before you haue heard to swallow vp the Prophet And in the belly thereof he lay three daies and three nights after such a manner as was neuer heard of before but no doubt much tormented between hope and distrust almost quite in dispaire yet by faith againe comforted This faith of his when at length it had preuailed he breaketh forth euen there in prison into good meditations and after his deliuerie when he wrote this prophecie he digested them into a prayer which is here set downe in a kind of Hebrew verse not much vnlike to the Lyrikes of the Greek or Latin Poets Those words which I haue read vnto you are some part of this prayer and that which followeth after is another part in both which if something sound as from him being in danger and some thing againe as from him being escaped impute the one vnto the time wherein he did write it and the other to those conflicts which he sustained while he lay in the belly of the whale where his bitter meditations and troubled thoughts did answere vnto that which is here proposed vnto vs. 2 For the space of those three dayes he did not lye asleepe as a man in a traunce or one vnsensible amated for right happie he had bene if that might haue be fallen him but boiling in the extremitie of anguish and great sorrow as he that had on him a burthen so vnsupportable by his shoulders that he knew not how to turne him or to manage himselfe He felt the wrath of God perpetuated on him without intermission which wrath was not contented to haue him ouer ship-boord and so once to drowne him but dying he must liue and liuing he must dy in a torturous execution so terribly and vncomfortably that the like had bene neuer heard of The horror of death still present yet prolōged stil in the middle of the sea in the belly of a whale a prison and monstrous dungeon did vrge him oft to tremble but the feeling of Gods displeasure vpon his soule for sinne and the very great expectatiō of eternall pains in hell what thoughts did these now raise in him Now the soure of his disobedience is fully tasted by him he may tumble it and reuolue it and chew it againe againe Now if Niniue had bene distant as farre as the Easterne Indies or the South part of Aethiopia there he had bene sure to be murthered and massacred by the tyrannie of the gouernour or ruler of that countrie he could haue bene wel cōtented to haue gone thither euen bare-footed thanked God on his knees who had brought him to such a bargaine For it is better to trace ouer all the world then once to go to hell better to suffer many sorrowes in body then in soule to die eternally With which thoughts being so perplexed as neuer was man before him not knowing what else to do with a faith tried in out ouer ouer again he falleth at length to prayer the effect wherof is in this second chapter by it selfe laid downe vnto vs. But because this prayer is so lōg as that at many seueral times it must be handled for distinction and orders sake I thinke good first to deuide it into a Preface and a Prayer The Preface is in the first verse the Prayer in that which followeth And there what subdiuisions are afterward to be made it shall in his place appeare The Preface noteth these two things what he did that is pray and to whome vnto the Lord his God Then Ionah prayed 3 Many are the temptations and spirituall inuasions which in this life do befall vs while the enemie of mankind doth often assaile vs by himselfe and by the world and by our owne flesh that domesticall foe and many are the afflictions which the great God in his wisedome and our good Father in his loue doth lay sharply vpon vs to punish vs for our sinnes to make triall of our patience to strengthen vs in the faith to make vs loath the world to teach vs true humilitie to inure vs to a suffering of greater things for his sake for so many are the ends wherfore he sendeth his crosse to those whom he best fauoreth In respect whereof our life is by Iob well called a warfare wherin we are to fight wrastle against great matters to the which Saint Paule alluding saith that he had fought a good fight being exercised all his time against powers and principalities against anguishes and great grieuances much within more without The onely stay of all which perplexities in the very best of Gods children is earnest and heartie prayer to him who sitteth aboue who plucketh downe and setteth vp who ouerturneth and raiseth who striketh and then maketh whole who correcteth and then comforteth who bringeth to the pit of euill and then doth not cast in who tempteth not aboue our strength but in the midst of temptation doth giue an issue that we may be able to beare it The sacrificing of our souls vnto this blessed Father the bēding of our knees the bedeawing of our cheeks the lifting vp of our hands the beating of our brest but withall and aboue all the compunction of our hearts and the earnestnesse of our spirites are the altar that we must flye to are the anchor that wee must trust to This is that chaine whereof one end is tyed to the eare of God and the other end to our toung if we plucke he will listen if we call he will hearken 4 Then it is for our good that so often in the
him which things oftentimes befall some of the little ones of Christ Iesus no one matter in this Prophecie is more apparantly fruitfull or more worthie consideration then that which I haue now read For what can be more wholesome then Phisicke to the sicke or remedie to him that is readie to perish And who is more like to perish then he who feeleth no rest either inwardly or outwardly in bodie or in mind but as it were gasping for breath doth daily long for comfort in the middest of great distresses his case being this that sinne egerly insulteth Satan fiercely impugneth and his conscience beareth witnesse against his owne soule that in right iustice should destroy it To the reliefe of which tender ones as I could wish that our speech were oftner directed for it is a needfull argument to be handled and blessed is that speech which bindeth vp the broken and giueth life to the dying so the example of my Ionas doth fitly remember me to speake to this purpose because he is as a glasse for all such to looke in and thereby to see themselues and in his case to helpe themselues with the good assistance of that Spirit who herein is all in all 2 For in this man may be seene a most vehement and forcible conflict betweene faith and feare betweene hope and despaire betweene sinne and grace on this hand the flesh sinking with distrustfulnesse into the bottome of hell being like to acknowledge it selfe a forlorne creature a cast-away from God a reprobate from the promises as if it were some Cain or some Iudas but on the other hand the spirit foorthwith mounting into the bosome of the Sauiour and there apprehending mercie by remission of all iniquities and forgiuenesse of all transgressions In the meane while amidst the one raising vp and the other hanging downe is a combat of such bitternesse as maketh the endurer of it in the heate of the fishes stomacke oft times to quake for cold and in the cold of the sea oft times to sweate for heate Manie feuers and agues cannot shake him as his owne heart doth now shake him his boiling is like the fire his torture is like the hell How many crownes and kingdomes what thousands of gold and siluer what heapes of precious stones how many lands and seas and whole worlds would he giue if they were now in his power to be freed from such a torment as forced him with extremitie to say as here he said I am cast away from thy sight I am but a damned reprobate A very fearefull thought yet recouered again by confidence in Gods mercie which faileth not his at need so that thereby he is encouraged to hope that he shall see Hierusalem the sanctuarie of the Lord and his temple once againe Which recouerie of his shold make vs much admire Gods mercie and yet withal teach vs to worke out our saluation in great feare and great trembling But because this text doth note vnto vs some doctrine besides this and the illustration of that doth make a way for my purpose I will first touch the other obseruing in the generall words these three things to be handled First the deiection of our Prophet I am cast out of thine eyes Secondly his arising vp from that motion and new assurednesse of Gods fauour Yet I will looke againe toward thy holy temple And thirdly by a comparing of the one of these with the other the great conflict in his conscience I am cast away out of thy sight 3 The Antithesis put betweene the casting away from the sight of his God and the beholding of his temple is not to be taken coldly as if it intended barely that now he did not see the temple indeede but he should see it againe that now he had lost his countrey but after his deliuerance the time should come that he should returne thither as if he had made this accompt and no more that for a while he was depriued of some temporall fauours or terrestriall benedictions but should be restored for this had bene little and in comparison as nothing But it signifieth a suspition and mistrust of the losse of all Gods loue a putting out of his protection a reiecting or casting off to wrath and eternall damnation For the eyes of God being taken in good part in the Scripture do still import his fauour and in his fauour is life and happinesse and felicitie spirituall and celestiall Moses saith of the land of Canaan that it was not as the land of Egypt from vvhence they came that is a place hatefull to him inhabited with idolaters but the eyes of the Lord God are alwaies vpon this that is to say his gracious loue from the beginning of the yeare euen vnto the end of the yeare So God promiseth to Salomon in behalfe of the Temple at Ierusalē I haue hallowed this house which thou hast built to put my name there for euer and mine eyes and my hart shal be there perpetually that is my most kind blessing the presence of my grace So Dauid I said in my hast I am cast out of thy sight that is I am depriued of thy sweete assistance And in another place The eyes of the Lord are vpon the righteous As much as he doth tender them and cherish them with his prouidence It is the feare of our Prophet lest the kindnesse of his maker wherewith he had embraced him should be vtterly taken from him and now nothing but hell fire and brimstone should remaine for him to plague him in another world 4 The heauinesse of the hand of God which had followed after him with that rigour the multiplicitie of his punishment by a tempest while he was in the ship by drowning in the sea and by imprisonment in the whale the horrour of his transgression and disobedience toward his God the remembraunce of that grace before from which he was now fallen of a Prophet to become a runnagate do so amate his heart that when he thinketh of himselfe he resolueth as a despairing abiect that he hath no fellowship in the inheritance of Gods Saints but that as an outlaw he was quite to be secluded from the couenant So that now either he supposeth that he belongeth not to Gods election and that he had neuer bene booked in the register of those Saints which were appointed vnto life or that the Lord as a man doth varie and repent and had altered his purpose concerning him The first was against himselfe to thinke himselfe to be a reprobate appointed and predestinated before hand vnto euill And how wofull a thought was that to perswade his soule that nothing belonged vnto him but damnation The second was against the Highest that his counsels should depend vpon our mutabilitie as if his eternall purpose and decree which is from euerlasting were tyed to our well doing and did not much rather dispose vs and inable vs to do well Whomsoeuer he
then a Lyon came and did as much and I killed that Lyon also Surely that Lord which saued his seruant from the paw of the Lyon and of the Beare will deliuer me also from this Philistine Bethinke thy selfe in the like Thy God hath euer fauoured thee euen from thy mothers wombe when thou wast not then he made thee when thou wast lost he redeemed thee when thou wentest astray he reclaimed thee whē thou wast naked he clothed thee when thou wast hungrie he fed thee he hath nourished thee and maintained thee whē thou wast ignorant he did teach thee and hath giuen thee some good measure of knowledge and will to serue him he hath admitted thee by baptisme into the fellowship of his Saints he hath sealed his affection toward thee by the Sacrament of his body and his bloud in great griefes he hath stood by thee in anguishes he hath blessed thee the pit hath bene open for thee but yet thou neuer didst fall in Satan hath gaped and roared but yet his fangs haue not touched thee in conflicts thou hast bene safe thou hast bene preserued in combats How fully should these sound experiments confirme thee in thy faith how should this liuely feeling for the delightfulnes of the ioy cōceiued therby as it were melt thee in kindnes toward thy God Why sholdest thou not say with Dauid what shall I render vnto the Lord for all his benefits toward me Or I will loue thee dearely ô Lord my strength I will honour thee I will embrace thee I want words to expresse it I will ioy in thee I will deuote my selfe wholly vnto thy seruice With thy fauour and louing countenance with thy hand and thy hart thou hast helped me kept me saued me thou hast strengthened me raised me blessed me and I know that thou wilt neuer leaue me For thou art the same God for euer and continuest thy goodnesse daily ouer me 18 He who hath learned these lessons maketh true vse of the battels betweene hope and despaire betweene the flesh and the spirit and the farther he goeth forward the more alwaies he doth conquer He recounteth thus with his owne heart God might haue suffered me to haue frozen in my dregs to runne on to all filthines vncleannesse with the worldlings to haue died before that I had vnderstood what belonged vnto his seruice and so to haue dropped downe to hell before that I knew what I did but he hath dealt better by me he hath afforded me more grace Now he bringeth this fire of temptation to warme me and resolue me but it is to good and not to euill I doubt not but I am his I shall not perish finally He slubbereth me to scoure me he rubbeth me to make me brighter he whetteth me to make me sharper If I were not pressed and vrged I should not know what he doth for me but to releeue me when I neede to helpe me when I am readie to drowne to saue me when I am sinking to quicken me when I am at deaths doore is an argument of such fauour as he can better giue then I can well conceiue And since I haue these testimonies of his assured fauour let the world allure and slily entice let the flesh insult while it will let Satan tempt and not spare let doubts and thoughts distrusts be eger and eger againe in life and death either day or night I know who it is that bought me and payed for me with his bloud and I know that he will not leaue me As Saint Austen saith A mightie man will not lose that which he hath bought for his monie and will Christ loose that which he hath bought vvith his bloud I doubt not but my Ionas in his troubled meditations did grow to these resolutions and by thinking thereon did shake off that his heauie passion that he should be cast away from Gods sight It was a liuely feeling of former mercies which made him to breake forth into so religious an insinuatiō as if he did bleed with tendernesse and softnesse calling vpon God ô Lord my God Wherin he shewed so sound an hope that although he should kill him as Iob saith of himselfe yet he would not leaue him but wold euermore trust in him although his sin did more then abound yet Gods grace did superabound 19 These words well vnderstood and applied vnto the cōscience may serue for euery soule which languisheth with griefe taken for euill motions But because euery tender spirit is not growne so farre in Gods schoole and where so hard a siege is laid by Satan there cannot be too many helpes therefore some other remedies may be added vnto this before named for the describing whereof I could wish more leisure to meditate vpon them and more time to vtter them but it shall now suffice to poynt at them Then first when any Christian shall feele himselfe hardly laid at let him haue recourse to Gods word and the comfortable writings of other wise and learned men There is better balme in the Scriptures then euer was in Gilead there is a refreshing riuer the very well of life which will giue strength to the fainting And therein no booke more profitable then be the Psalmes of Dauid Secondly let him resort vnto the temple where the word of God is taught Ionas did thinke of this before all other matters Here that is in the house of God Dauid did find wholesome instruction when he was so affretted with the prosperitie of the wicked that he had almost renounced the seruice of the Lord. How was he troubled with that conceit and could not be resolued vntill he went into the Sanctuarie God directeth the mouth of the preacher that when himselfe scant thinketh of that particular fruite he speaketh to the heart of some one man in this point of some other in another Thirdly let him pray to God both in publike and in priuate The Lord loueth to be sought to by vs and it pleaseth him to be called vpon and in the midst of our prayer if it be with vehement intention of our spirits he will distill downe a deaw of the sweet influence of his grace that we shall arise vp more setled Heartie and earnest prayer what cloudes doth it not pierce what heauens doth it not enter Fourthly let him not feare to impart his griefe to his friend but especially to the minister who is learned and feareth God They are made for such purposes and such things are not straunge vnto them Man is ordained for man to helpe him and to comfort him and more eyes do see better thē fewer and what a ioy to the mind is a word spoken in season But the faithfull minister of all other things doth hold this for his charge to hearken to such complaining to raise vp such mē lamenting He that conuerteth a sinner doth saue a soule from death and couereth a multitude of sinnes If that precept of Iude do
belong vnto any man it is vnto him haue compassion of some in putting difference and other saue with feare pulling them out of the fire This is to imitate Christ who will not breake a brused reede nor quench the smoking flaxe This is to seeke out the lost and to bind vp that which is broken Vnto these this may be added that it shall not a little helpe to haue conference with such who in former times haue bene exercised with the like temptations that out of their experience being plentifully powred out the distressed mind may be relieued None can speake more sufficiently and vnto better purpose then he that hath felt the same fire wherein this grieued soule is now burned And they who are in this cafe are not a little reuiued to know that any other hath bene troubled like themselues which they will hardly beleeue thinking that none did euer beare such a burthen as is vpon their shoulders Lastly as they ought rather to remember their former deliuerances then the griefe which presently is vpon them so they are rather to beleeue the speeches of other men I meane Gods children who come to yeeld comfort to thē then their own troubled thoughts which being perplexed and disquieted with frightfull imaginations can giue no setled iudgement This matter were worthie a longer speech but I am forced here to end Lord comfort those which are comfortlesse and strengthen thy weake children that they may not be so cast downe and plunged into perdition but that in their greatest temptation they may retaine thee still for their Sauiour that liuing in thy feare and dying in thy faith they may come to eternall glorie To the which ô Father bring vs for thine owne sonne Christ his sake to whom with thee and thy holy Spirit be glorie for euermore THE XII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 2 The circumstances aggrauating his daunger 6. which do the more shew Gods mercie toward him and other sinners 8. Why God suffereth his to be in miserie 9. Particular consideration doth most stirre vp our affection 14. By fearing small crossings in doing our duties we incurre other very great daungers 16. All helpe is to be ascribed to God 17. How a godly man may desire that his life may be prolonged 20. The faithfull ought particularly to apply Gods loue to themselues 22. which the Church of Rome doth not Ionah 2.5.6 The waters compassed me about vnto the soule the depth closed me round about and the weedes were wrapped about mine head I went downe to the bottome of the mountaines the earth with her barres was about me for euer yet hast thou brought vp my life from the pit ô Lord my God THe fearefull conflict which the Prophet sustained in the verse next before going hath bene made plaine vnto you A passion of little lesse then distrustfull despaire did vexe him and disquiet him for the time From the terrour and danger wherof being recouered by the effectuall apprehension of grace by a liuely faith he returneth to contemplate the perill of his body which as it was great in the middle of the sea in the belly of the whale which was irrecouerable in mans iudgement so he seeketh to expresse it by multitude of words repeating it and reuoluing it with varietie of phrase but all tending to one end yet with such copiousnesse especially being in so short a prayer that a man would wonder at first how the Spirit of God which vseth to speake pressely and briefly so that no one word may fitly be spared should so runne vpon one thing with difference of speech but in substance all agreeing Yet the vse of it is such as of words fully replenished with sanctitie and holinesse as shall appeare in his due place In the meane time that which he saith is this 2 First the waters did compasse me about vnto the soule to the death saith the Chaldee Paraphrase as intending that he was now likely to be drowned his life to depart from him his soule to be seuered from her carnall habitation Dauid also doth vse such vehemencie of words Saue me ô God for the waters are entred euen to my soule Neither is there any speech which more liuely discouereth the earnestnesse of that which is presently in hand be it prayer or perill or desire or detestation then the name of soule doth As the Hart brayeth for the riuers of water so panteth my soule after thee ô God My soule thirsteth for God This noteth an entire affection and earnest desire wherewith Dauid was mooued As the Lord liueth and as thy soule liueth I will not leaue thee saith Elizaeus to Elias A very passionate affirmation Iacob in Genesis giueth this censure of Simeon and Leui. The instruments of crueltie are in their habitations Into their secret let not my soule come This argueth a perfect detestation So the depth of danger is purported here when he speaketh thus the waters compassed me vnto the soule the enemie of my life the water which hath no mercie was aboue me and below me and round about me without me and within me that my being was death my hope was but destruction nothing possible vnto me but drowning as farre as mans wit might imagine Secondly the depth did close me round about I was not in the shallow as a man in a lake who lying downe may be stifled but standing may be safe but I was in the maine Ocean which is called for the hugenesse of it the gathering of waters and elsewhere Tehom a gulfe or bottomelesse pit I was in that vastnesse which sometimes cannot be sounded by very long lines I was in waters by multitudes and there not diuing or floating vp and downe but as closed and shut vp as included in a sepulcher or made fast in a prison this deepe pit this darke pit this vncōfortable dungeon had closed her mouth vpon me 3 Thirdly the weedes were wrapped about mine head The sea doth beare weedes as well as shallow water yea somewhere very straungely strangely I say that in such places as where the depth seemeth to be of incredible greatnesse weedes should be seene in abundance in the vpper superficies the very toppe of the water and that so plentifully that in nauigation the course of ships is stayed sometimes by them Experience hath confirmed this in the huge Atlantike sea as men saile to America whereout doth grow a very strange Dilemma or Diuision because either they be there without any rootes at all and that is very maruellous or because the rootes do go downe exceeding deepe in the water which is not otherwise affoorded by nature in thinne spindie bodies But that weedes do grow in the sea those of some price Solinus letteth vs know saying that shrubs and weedes in the Ligustike sea are those from whence our Corall commeth Such then being in the bottome are about the head of our Prophet he is wreathed and tangled in them
draw each of vs to a speciall consideration of that good or that euill which hath or doth fall vpon vs. It is a very dull age euen the dotage and last time of the world wherein we do now liue our memory is decayed by reason of the heauinesse of our spirits and the earthinesse of that corruptible carcasse which hangeth so fast vpon vs. Then we had neede be wakened with often and loud remembrances that as drop after drop doth pierce the hardest stone so thought after thought may make our dead heart to be plyable This is the course of our Prophet by manifold repetitions of the dangers wherein he was to acknowledge the Lords ayde to be so much the more ouer him and himselfe the more beholding the more bound and deuoted to such full mercies on him Great loue requireth a great measure of returning retribution if that possibly may be if not that yet of consideration and earnest contemplation and acknowledgement to the vttermost Take Ionas here for an example of behauiour in like daunger This was my case this my state this my forlorne hope of rising yet thou hast brought my life from the pit ô Lord my God This word yet commeth with an Emphasis which confesseth that his helpe came more welcome But before that I speake of his restoring one little note more from hence 14 The daunger whereinto Ionas was fallen being thus expressed by himselfe and that with so sensible a feeling might recall into his mind the vanitie and folly of his former feare which was that when by the Lord he was appoynted to go to Niniueh he would needes vnto Tarshish I shewed in the third verse of the first chapter that among some other reasons the feare of daunger might make him change his course It might haue bene that in Niniue he should haue bene much disgraced it might haue bene quite despised perhaps by the king imprisoned peraduenture put to death It was best for him to escape all this good sailing in the hauen good sleeping in a whole skinne The safest way were to make sure work and not to come there at all But what a chaunge did he make He feared a little hurt and now he hath a great deale He suspected that onely one thing might annoy him and now he hath found another Nay in truth for euery ten he doth receiue a thousand Before he did distrust that his body might haue smarted now body and soule pay for it Before he might haue had some man perhaps his enemie but God his friend assured now not so much as any man is his friend and God like to a furious enemie doth chase him and make after him In this sort such who in the Lords causes will not depend vpon him but in their imagination cast great perils to themselues thinking to auoid those by declining from their dutie in that their turning away do plunge themselues into greater daungers They thinke that they flye from a dogge and they turne them vpon a cockatrice They hope to escape a blow and receiue a deadly wound They imagine to saue a finger and are pierced to the heart Saule would not displease the people by killing the king of Amelek but he displeased the Lord which was a higher matter He was vnwilling to loose so much cattell but he lost his crowne and his life Pilate would not offend the Emperour what spare him who was said to be the king of the Iewes but he plucked on himselfe the anger of the great king and Emperour of the heauens This is a fault too common among the sonnes of men to dread that which is litle and to passe by that which is more to make a strayning at a gnat and to swallow vp a whole Camel It is an excellent saying which Chrysostome hath to this purpose It is a point of extreme madnesse to stand in feare of those things which are not to be feared but to laugh at such matters as in truth are dreadfull In this saith he men do differ from children that these as not hauing their vnderstanding perfect do feare vizards and men clothed with sackes but thinke that it is nothing to reuile their father or their mother and they leape into the fire or touch candles which are burning but they quake at some noyses which are not to be feared But men do care for none of all these things If we looke vpon our selues and sift our hearts as we ought we shall find our selues in the number of these babies and silly infants when we make much scruple of some trifles but respect not an higher dutie and so to escape the raine we runne our selues into the riuer 15 What is more common amongst vs then when we are in hope of preferment to feare this or that crosse the anger of this mightie man or of that noble woman If their names be but vsed or their letters be procured although vpon wrong information yet if they be induced to mooue something inconuenient or scandalous or amisse be it neuer so much against the will of the writer for that he wanteth true notice do we not more feare to faile their vniustly extorted motion then wee dread the Lords displeasure or the great account which one day we must yeeld for our selues when no Prince of the earth shall be able to protect vs Thus for mens sakes we leaue God for so it may be termed when we decline from iustice and that which should be done and when we thinke that we haue dealt most subtilly and most wisely Gods finger is vp against vs and ouerturneth all our pollicies Yea peraduenture he whom we haue serued or she whom we haue feared by the motion of the Spirit of the Lord is made a rodde to whip vs considering that we haue dishonoured them in making them the authors of vnfit actions or else that person for some worldy respect is drawne away from our purpose and so the hope of our labour is frustrated and made nothing And then this wound remaineth vpon our conscience that we haue done this and this which our heart did tell vs was vntoward and indirect or at the least to be doubted And what a griefe is it to vs to haue such a worme within vs fretting and gnawing on vs The way to preuent all this is euermore to looke on Gods feare and his precise commandement and not to swarue from that and then he whome we sincerely serue will either send vs the fruite of our desires or patience in the contrarie The kings heart is in the hand of the Lord as the riuers of waters he turneth it vvhither so euer it pleaseth him Then how much more the hearts of other inferiour persons If he thinke that it be fit for vs where-about we go he will send it vs but when he pleaseth if not his will be done Onely this is our comfort whether that come or not the bird is safe in the bosome
be reuersed Then it is not our best safetie at euery time and in euerie case to be remooued hence but vpon some occasion we may ioye with Ionas that longer time is affoorded vs to bethinke our selues This is his exceeding comfort that though the pangs of death were vpon him yet that God once againe brought his life from corruption O Lord my God 20 The onely thing now remaining is the confident appellation which he vseth to the Lord Iehouah ô my God This sheweth a faith beyond faith and a hope beyond hope when he knew that the Lord was angrie and extremely wrathfull at him yet to cling in so to his mercie as to appropriate to himselfe a portion in his maker For what greater insinuation of confidence can there be then by particular application to apprehend Gods mercie to lay hold vpon him as on a father and that not as we say with a reference to the Communion of Saints Our father vvhich art in heauen but my father and my God This hath bene the perfect trust of the faithfull in all ages which hath encouraged them to approch with boldnesse vnto the throne of grace My God my God saith Dauid And thou that art the God of my saluation And Iob I am sure that my Redeemer liueth My spirit saith the Virgin Marie doth reioyce in God my Sauiour My Lord and my God saith Thomas Paule saith of himselfe I liue by faith in the Sonne of God who hath loued me and giuen himselfe for me This true faith doth close with God and incorporateth it selfe into the bodie of the Redeemer 21 And this is it which bringeth comfort vnto the wounded soule and afflicted conscience not that Christ is a Sauiour for what am I the better for that but a Sauiour vnto me That I am one of the adoption reconciled and brought into fauour sealed vp against that day when the quicke and dead shall be iudged my portion is with the Highest mine inheritance with the Saints How could flesh and bloud euer beare the heate of strong temptation without this firme perswasion What is it to my belly that bread is prepared for other vnlesse I be assured that my part is therein What is it to my soule that Christ hath dyed for other vnlesse I know that my sins are washed away in his bloud It may be good for Moses it may be good for Paule or Peter or Iames or Stephen but what is it vnto me It is Meus then and Tuus as Luther did well teach it is my God and thy Sauiour which doth satisfie thirstie consciences There is the ioy of the Spirit when men come to that measure Then it is a blessed doctrine which instilleth that faith into vs and in that if in any thing doth appeare the fruit of the Gospell which is preached in our dayes that people sicke and dying being taught before in their health can giue most diuine words and right admirable speeches in this behalfe whereof I speake sayings full of holy trust and assurance which as it is a thing most comfortable to themselues beyond all gold and treasure which are but as dung and drosse to a man yeelding vp the ghost so it bringeth good meditations vnto the standers by in causing them to acknowledge very euident an plaine arguments of election in the other whom they see to be so possessed with ioy in the holy Ghost and so rapt vp as if they had alreadie one foote within the heauen 22 But it is otherwise with the ignorant they lye groueling vpon the ground and cannot mount vp with the Eagle So is it in that doctrine which the Church of Rome doth maintaine when their people are taught that they must beleeue in generall that some shall go to heauen that some belong to God but to say or thinke that themselues shall be certainely of that number or constantly to hope it that is boldnesse ouermuch that is ouer-weening presumption They are to wish and pray that it may be so with them but yet it appertaineth to thē euermore to doubt because they know not the worthinesse of their merits a most vncomfortable opinion which cannot chuse but distract the heart of a dying man that he must not dare to beleeue with confidence that he shall go to God that Iesus is his Sauiour the pardoner of his faults No maruell if the life and death of such who hearken vnto them be full of sighs and sobs grones and feares and doubts since quietnesse and setled rest cannot be in their hearts They haue a way to walke but what is the end they know not They are sure of their departure but whither they cannot tell A lamentable taking and wherein of necessitie must be small ioy How contrarie hereunto doth Saint Paule speak being iustified by faith we haue peace toward God through our Lord Iesus Christ. How contrarie to this doth Saint Iohn speake in the name of the faithfull we know that we are of God How doth deiected Ionas yet keepe him fast to this tackling when he crieth ô Lord my God 23 And this is the surest anker whereunto a Christian man may possibly know how to trust This is it which in the blastes of aduersity will keepe him fast at the roote which in the waues of temptation will hold him fast by the chinne which in the greatest discomforts and very pangs of death will bring him to life againe To ground himselfe vpon this as on a rocke assured that his God is his father that Iesus is his redeemer that the holy Ghost doth sanctifie him that although he sinne oft-times yet euermore he is forgiuen and albeit he do transgresse dayly yet it is still forgotten that whether he liue or dye yet euer he is the Lords Good father leade vs so by thy most blessed Spirite that we neuer do fall from this But although sinne hange vpon vs as it did vpon the Prophet yet raise vs so by thy loue that laying hold on thy promises and the sweetenesse of thy fauour we may reape eternall life to the which ô blessed Lord bring vs for thine owne Sonne Christ his sake to whom with thee and thy Spirit be laude for euermore THE XIII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 3. Gods election is sure 4. One argument thereof is to remember the Lord after affliction 6. That cogitation is very comfortable 7. The good and bad do differently remember God 8. The wicked do it with a murmuring 10. Especially in death God is to be thought on 11. Therefore it is good to thinke on him in health 12. Else we shall not be willing to dye 14. Churches are to be vsed reuerently 15. God heareth the prayers of his seruants 17. By vanity is signified euill 19 as Adams fall may therein be comprehended 20. or idolatry 21. or curious crafts and studies 22. or adultery and carnall sinne 23. and ill gotten goods 24. and ambition Ionah 2.7.8 When my soule fainted within
me I remembred the Lord and my prayer came vnto thee in thy holy Temple They that waite vpon lying vanity forsake their owne mercy IT is euident vnto vs by the whole processe of the Chapter before going that the transgression of Ionas did seeme vnto the Lord a grieuous transgression And his fall may seeme to vs a very strange fault that a Prophet exercised before in Gods seruice among the Israelites acquainted with secrets and reuelations from aboue should so vary from the tenure of piety and obedience But great sinnes require great punishments straunge faults require straunge chastisements Our Ionas as I thinke may make his profession that it hath bene so with him A tempest did follow him which would not giue him ouer a lot did discouer him to be a malefactor and when he could aunswer to the euidence no one word but guilty which imported his confession the mariners will they nill they must cast him ouer ship-boord where after sinking downe to the bottome of the water after wrapping and intangling of his head within the weedes he is caught vp by a fish in whose belly he is lodged for three dayes and three nights Here how perplexed his state was who cannot imagine Without foode without light without company and comfort a man drowned and not drowned deuoured but not digested aliue but yet as dead in perpetuall expectation of the fearefull dissolution of his soule from his body Nay the torment was greater which he sustained in his heart that horrour in his conscience that conflict in his soule as if God had forsaken him and giuen sentence vpon him as on a reprobate cast-away a firebrand of hell an inheritor of damnation Woful sinner who for his fancies sake and vpon the suggestion of flesh and bloud would draw such a iudgement to himselfe as which a man well aduised would not haue sustained but the space of one day for any treasure on earth For it is a fearefull thing to grapple with the Highest or to wrastle with our maker 2 As this anguish hath bene largely before touched so to make it vp complete he addeth as the conclusion of his misery although not of his prayer that his soule fainted in him it doubled it selfe together as some men do translate it as the knees of a man dying do double it was as ouerwhelmed fainting as in a swound his life was at last cast euen ready now to go out as a consumed lampe the gaspes and grones and pangs of very death were vpon him Yea throbs of desperation did oppugne him with such violence that the hope of eternall life seemed for some moments to be exiled from him his forlorne soule was sinking in diffidence and distrust So the best are deiected when God doth eclypse his presence and comfortable aspect But that absence and forbearing maketh a more tender feeling of succour when it returneth a more aboundant thankfulnesse for it deserueth gratefulnesse in great measure to be brought from the depth of sorrow to the height of ioy to be saued from extremity Ionas yet striketh this string amplifying Gods mercy ouer him from the circumstance of the time when my ghost was giuing vp when all hope was past and gone Which argument because I fully handled in my last Lecture I would now leaue it and teach some other doctrine These two verses note two persons the former of them the Prophet the latter some other men who waite on lying vanities The actions of the one of them and the other are here specified and the fruite which both of them do reape Then these two persons yeeld two parts to be handled by Gods assistance In the former which concerneth the Prophet these circumstances are what he did and how he sped what he did in that he saith he remembred the Lord how he sped in that he addeth that his prayer came vnto God in his holy Temple I remembred the Lord 3 The purpose of Gods election in fore-appointing some vnto life eternall is a matter so immutable and vnchangeable in it selfe that nothing can impeach it The flesh with her frailty the world with his suttlety the multitudes and millions of infernall spirits cannot alter that decree There may be some shadowes and seemings to the contrary but the substance is kept inuiolable The very gates of hell preuaile not against him whose the determination is neither preuaile they against his No creature can crosse the intent of the Creator He can bring vs he can force vs from sin vnto sorrow and heauinesse for sinne from filthinesse vnto innocency from transgression to repentance from forsaking of goodnesse to embracing of grace He it is who can regenerate vs renew vs and reforme vs remould vs and reframe vs that naturall corruptions and actuall deprauations euen idolatry with Naaman or extortion with Zacheus or persecution with Paule or denying Christ with Peter or entertaining of seuen diuels with sinfull Mary Magdalene shall be to vs no preiudice no detayning of his fauour Where he appointeth saluation there euery thing in his time shall worke vnto saluation but it must be in his time He draweth the vnwilling to him the broken he bindeth vp the lost he seeketh out he toucheth that with remorse which was before as the Adamāt the hardest hart he doth mollifie He that ordaineth glory to any will giue him grace to attaine it He who is the life is the way leading to that life he who giueth the one graunteth the other Where he determineth the end there also he offereth the meanes to apprehend that end As before more at large 4 But there is no meane more direct to bring any to God then to teach him to know God who neuer knew him before and such a man as did know him and now is as if he were fallen away to bring him to remember him that he may once againe assume that confidence and resolution to himselfe that he who loued him before will returne his affection toward his soule if it do seeke vnto him Which fauour looke to whom God in his mercy graunteth it is an assured argument that he is not such a lost child as who finally shall perish For with his sweete remembrance for so I may well terme it when it commeth after bitter temptation and a grieuous fall doth go a faith of that nature that if it be once admitted to presence it will neuer out againe no iustice can dismay it no iudgement can affright it but although it creepe on his knees it will to the mercy seate from which albeit rigour should offer to repell it remooue it yet it clingeth clutcheth so fast that it will not out any more Then the best men who haue fallē by the infirmity of their flesh thinke their case very happy if that may be graunted to them to haue God in their mind and to haue recourse to him and they make much of that motion retaining it and pursuing it as the best
the Lord had not at all sent them The reason was for that the one foretold that he should be led to Babylon and the other had foresaid that he neuer should see Babylon Whereas both these things were true for his eyes were first put out and then he was caried prisoner thither The hereticall vnderstanding of Scripture is of this kind being nothing else but a lying vanitie and so is the faining of that to be Scripture which is not written by Gods Spirit and the grounding thereupon of such positions as touch pietie and saluation But because the consideration of this doctrine is very ample and good fruit is herein to be found let vs see some few examples of such as haue or do so fall away from their mercie 19 First our old parents in Paradise did obserue lying vanity God had expresly forbidden vnto them the touching of the tree of good and euill All other but none of that Satan commeth with his temptation and suggesteth another matter and that was this as Chrysostome writeth vpon Genesis What profit is it to be in Paradise and not to enioy such things as are in it Nay therefore your griefe is the greater that see these things you may but vse them you may not Or as Austen turning it another way supposeth thus God saith do not touch it what This tree And what I pray you is this tree if it be good why may not I touch it if it be bad what doth it in Paradise There is no hurt in the tree but God in his spitefull moode is loath that you should be graced so far foorth as himselfe You shall be Gods if you do it and able to discerne good and euill Thus was a lye inculcated in stead of a simple truth and Adam was induced to hearken to the vanitie of the deceiuing serpent whereby he lost that mercie which the Lord had appointed ouer him and plucked on himselfe and his posteritie after him that miserie that body and soule for euer had ioyntly perished by it if our Sauiour in compassion had not made restitution Other by his example may take heed and warning also what that thing shall be whereunto they presume to trust 20 Secondly idolatrous persons do come within this cōpasse who declining once from him who is the onely Lord do multiply to themselues filthie abominations and therein are so obsequious and scrupulous euery way that true pietie doth not come neare them in accomplishing that dutie which appertaineth to it When Balaam would curse the Israelites he goeth from place to place imagining as dicers do that one standing roome was more fortunate for his purpose or luckie then another But in euery place he must haue seuen altars to be erected and seuen bullocks and seuen rammes to be offered on them He held this number of seuen to besome holy number therfore would not breake it How did they tye themselues to idolatrous obseruations who had their idols standing vnder euery greene tree Or those of whom Saint Austen speaketh who had for euery thing a peculiar God or Goddesse When the corne was in the barne they had a Goddesse for that and when it was in the earth they had another for that when it began to blade and when it began to eare Tutelina and Segetia and Patulina and Volutina and how many I cannot tell How carefull think you were they to watch when the times did come to offer sacrifice vnto euery one of them in his kind How laborious is their folly who liue in Scandinauia in Biarmia or Scricfinnia which are Northren parts of Europe beyond Sweden who as Olaus Magnus reporteth do marke euery morning what liuing thing they do first see in the aire or earth or water and all that day vntill the euening they adore that creature for a God be it bird or beast or fish yea or creeping thing as a worme Iehoiakim who is mentioned in the booke of the Chronicles did much dote on his idols when he had found on him being dead marks and prints in his flesh which were made for their sakes for so the storie is expounded So Licinius was fond vpon his Gods whom he did serue many waies yea and vpon occasions vsed to change them also as he did when he fought against blessed Constantine But no man more then Iulian who did honour vnto his Idols with such and so many sacrifices as were against humane nature and decorum in a man as we find in the Ecclesiasticall stories Now see what can be more vaine then stocks and stones imaginarie supposed powers as these were what could be more lying and more fraudulent then such fond Gods as these And they who wholly intend such toyes haue renounced the true seruice of the Lord who is iealous of his honour and will not haue any creature robbe him of his glorie but such vain toyes least of all From this text they may feare iudgement who waite on he Saints and she Saints and serue God and the Virgin Marie with so many Pater Nosters and so many Aue Marias and Credoes vpon their beades All these are without the warrant of Gods booke and therefore lying vanities yet how carefull are superstitious persons to number them and accompt them and keepe true reckening of them as if therein lay all the vertue 21 Thirdly they are noted here who make an occupation of trying tricks and conclusions some wanton and some worse I speake not against good learning nor any honest experiment in it but rather against such lies as Albertus and Bartholomaeus Anglicus De proprietatibus rerum and other of that stampe do suggest to idle heads and young men which are too credulous Take the liuer or some other part of this bird or that beast such a stone or such an herbe at such a time of the Moone and you shall do this or that imagine go inuisibly or vnderstand birds languages or obtaine some euill purpose If any thing be a vanitie this is a lying vanitie and a mis-spending of that time which God hath giuen vnto vs not to abuse but to serue him and he will require a reckening of it at our hands when we do least thinke vpon it There fall within this number the auncient Aruspicia and Auguria of the Romanes that is the marking of the flights of birds or of the entrails of beastes or other things of that qualitie all which are foolish vanitie and yet much time was spent in them and some made profession to be very skilfull about them The wisest among the heathens although they did not know God yet held these things for cousinage It is a renowmed speech which is fathered vpon Cato that he would say that he wondred very much how one of their Aruspices could forbeare to laugh when he met with any of his fellowes to see how they deceiued men and made a great number of simple ones in the citie
lying vanities we may acknowledge thee in our life time to be the onely Lord and when our soule fainteth within vs and is departing hence we may onely thinke on thee that both our present prayers and spirits afterward may ascend into thy celestiall temple where thou raignest with thy most blessed Sonne to whom with thee and thy holy Spirit be laud and praise for euer THE XIIII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 1. Ionas prooueth thankfull for Gods mercie 3. The reason and order of sacrifices 5. They should be spiritually meant 7. How we should do in Gods seruice 8. Gods praise is publikely to be sounded out 9. Thankfulnesse is a sacrifice to be offered of all 11. We are forgetfull in it 12. The manner of vowes 14. What rules are to be obserued in them 17. Popish vowes examined 19. All helpe commeth from God Ionah 2.9 But I will sacrifice vnto thee with the voyce of thankesgiuing and will pay that that I haue vowed Saluation is of the Lord. IN the words before going the Prophet doth comfort himselfe exceedingly that he serueth such a maister as is best able to helpe him whē he most needeth and in his Temple attended to his heartie prayer when as his soule fainted within him whereas all other things be they idols or heathen Gods or any deuised refuges be nothing but lying vanitie and therefore those who wait and depend vpon them do forsake their owne mercie Where when he had found God so eminent and incomparably great in comparing him with those weake ones he esteemeth it a speciall point of dutie to yeeld to one so excellent a high measure of praise and most deserued thankes to him who in extremitie had so raised him from the pit And this is the drift of this present verse to acknowledge himselfe so bound and deuoted to God that all the powers of his mind and faculties of his soule should be employed in his seruice A conclusion well beseeming him who had receiued such fauour that he would not as beastes or as vnthankefull persons do onely take that which doth come and make no more adoo but with a respect vnto the giuer who beyond all expectation had raised him and relieued him would record it and repeate it and in his best meditation againe and againe reuolue it as not knowing how to returne enough for Gods great mercie 2 But in the meane while the words which he vseth are various and significant He doth mention thankesgiuing which declareth his gratefull mind and the better to expresse it he nameth the voyce of thankesgiuing as intending that he would aduaunce the honour of him who saued him not in secret onely but with manifest declaration to others and to both these he doth ad the act of offering sacrifice applying that to his thankes which was the most solemne seruice vsed in old time to God Neither doth he make his stand heere but whereas he had vowed some things vnto the Lord which he promised to performe if euer he did escape he saith he vvill pay those vowes and at the last for a conclusion he shutteth vp all with these words saluation is of the Lord. Where because as you see the circumstances in the text are manifold and all of them haue their vse for better order of instruction I thinke good to obserue two things First the dutie returned by Ionas and that consisted in a double deede one the sacrifice of thankesgiuing and the other the paying of his vowes Secondly that good which commeth from God not onely to the Prophet but to all those who do serue him Saluation is of the Lord. Among all which the word of sacrificing is first proposed vnto vs. I will sacrifice vnto thee 3 The only thing which God doth looke for at mans hands for creating him in so goodly a shape for enriching him with gifts so glorious in shew so gracious in deed for preseruing him and protecting him in such infinite varietie of dangerous occurrents for heaping daily vpon him such multiplied benefites is to be serued and feared by him Thou shalt vvorship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serue In this because he hath made all he doth require all our selues and all ours the bodie and the soule the inward and the outward the sensible and inuisible although especially the heart and immateriall soule yet ioyntly the hand and action from without yea and the wealth also that euery part may recommend a dutie to the authour And for these externall matters he hath giuen vnto man not onely members as in prayer his hands to be lifted vp his breast to be beaten on his knees to be bowed his eyes to be bedewed that so compunction in the mind may the more be stirred vp but also his other creatures either dum or dead things the fruites of the earth the birds of the aire the beasts of the field the mettals of the ground to be vsed to his glorie And this in old time was done in nothing more then in sacrifices which was in some to consecrate and dedicate them vnto him in some other to offer them in whole or in part consumed with fire to testifie their obedience and seeking vnto him Which manner of sacrificing was knowne vnto men from the first time of nature as good Abel and bad Cain the first heires of the world presented an oblation of such things as they had to him who had sent them Noe after the floud offered a sweet smelling sauour and Abraham by commaundement intended to sacrifice his onely sonne Isaac By all which it is euident that sacrificing was common before that any order for Gods seruice was settled 4 But when the people once were returned out of Egypt and God by the hand of Moses had ordained a ciuill pollicie for the gouernment of the laitie and a Hierarchie Ecclesiasticall for so I may well call it for guiding of his Clergie to the end that euery thing afterward might be practised with conformity he appointed first for the Tabernacle and after that for the Temple a tribe of Priests Leuites whose office was to attend to the offerings of the people And himselfe did name the matter and manner of euery sacrifice what bird or beast daily or on other occasion should be offered as the whole body of the Leuiticall law doth make knowne to vs. Thence grew the daily sacrifice which neuer was omitted the sinne-offerings and free-will-offerings and many sorts besides and when extra-ordinarie cause was giuen great store of beastes were slaine as when Salomon to consecrate the Temple at Hierusalem did offer in his magnificence two and twentie thousand Oxen and one hundred and twentie thousand sheepe such a sacrifice as I thinke the like was neuer seene And that time onely excepted when the Iewes were captiues in Babylon or when Antiochus did tyrannize at his pleasure the altars were still going till the very time of Christ and diuerse yeares afterward vntill that
the citie and the Temple were brought to desolation by the Romanes vnder Titus the Priests and people so precisely obseruing that when other sinnes and dishonours to God did abound that in the time of warre and close siege when they might not issue foorth to haue cattell for their offerings they would bargaine with the enemies at high price and great rates to serue the turne for their mony as we may reade in Iosephus In such manner was the succession of sacrificing for so many yeares together God both approouing it and commaunding it 5 Now these externall sacrifices as when they were rightly brought with true faith and obedience and vnderstanding knowledge they had their vse very good as to thanke God for his blessings to acknowledge that all benefits were deriued frō his goodnesse to testifie their obedience in perfourming his commaundements but aboue all to figure Iesus Christ the true Lambe who was one day to be offered on the altar of the crosse to redeeme the sinnes of the faithfull whereof in the meane time their offerings were a signe and seale vnto them so if they were brought by any as perfunctorie things formally and for a fashion as hypocrites and worldlings did come with them the Lord was so farre off from accepting them as his seruice that he hated them and detested them In the first chapter of Esay God speaketh to them by his Prophet What haue I to do with the multitude of your sacrifices sayth the Lord I am full of the burnt offerings of Rammes and of the fat of fed beastes and I desire not the bloud of bullockes nor of lambes nor of goates Bring no more oblations in vain incense is an abominatiō vnto me I cannot suffer your new moones Which agreed with that of Salomon The sacrifice of the vvicked is abomination to the Lord. God then required in them that besides the materiall gift there should be a true mind to serue him humilitie and liuely faith which should expresse and shew it selfe with charitie and good life and a killing of the euill affections which were in them To which purpose the Prophet Micah most excellently doth speake Wherewithall should I come before the Lord or bow my selfe before the high God shall I come before him with burnt-offerings and vvith calues of a yeare old Will the Lord be pleased vvith thousands of Rammes or vvith ten thousand riuers of oyle Shall I giue my first borne for my transgression euen the fruite of my bodie for the sinne of my soule No hee hath shevved thee ô man vvhat is good and vvhat the Lord requireth of thee surely to doe iustly and to loue mercie and to humble thy selfe to vvalke with thy God 6 Then it was the spirituall sacrifice at which God chiefly did aime the laying downe of their soules on the altar of his will the killing of euill thoughts the mortifying of the members the consecrating of themselues wholly vnto his honour which doctrine Paule vnto the Romanes doth plainely teach where he beseecheth them by the mercies of God to offer vp their bodies a liuing sacrifice holy and acceptable to God that is their reasonable seruice of God And this not onely vnder the Gospell was seene by the faithfull but was foreseene also vnder the Law Dauid can say in his fourth Psalme Offer the sacrifices of righteousnesse and in the one and fiftieth Psalme The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit So Osee in his sixt Chapter I desired mercie and not sacrifice and the knovvledge of God rather then any burnt-offerings It seemeth also by my text that our Prophet vnderstood this when he promiseth to sacrifice but with the voyce of thankesgiuing as knowing that to be it which God indeed preferred before all things And reason might well teach him that it was that which the Lord meant by the externall signe for what delight could he take in the bloud of brutish creatures a spirit in their bodies the impassible in such sauours as did arise from their altars What neede had he of an Oxe or ten Rammes of a man who is the owner and chiefe Lord of all the beastes of the field of all the birdes of the ayre If hee but speake they be if he but call they come he made them and he knoweth them and hath no want at all of them Then he respecteth the mind and the life and not the offering The veritie of which doctrine is of so assured a truth that Gentiles by the light of nature beleeued it and acknowledged it as aboue other Menander the Poet in one of his Comedies as Clemens Alexandrinus noteth in the fifth of his Stromata where he citeth his wordes to this purpose If any man offering sacrifice a multitude of goates or bulles or any thing wrought by art although of yuorie gold or pearle do thinke that God vvill therfore be mercifull vnto him he is deceiued exceedingly for the man vvhom God regardeth must be good and honest no deflowrer of vvomen no adulterer thiefe or murtherer And afrerward againe The iust man doth euery day offer sacrifice to his God but it is not with cleane clothes but vvith a shining heart 7 These are good lessons for vs who professe a seruice to the highest God that first we make no spare of externall things to honour the Lord withall when cause shall be offered Our cattell and our clothes our houses and our money yea our best and dearest friends should be employed in good seruices to the countenancing of the Minister to the spredding of the Gospell to the establishing of religion to the succouring of the innocent to the releeuing of the poore These things should be to vs as their substance was to the Iewes to bring it in sacrifice to the Highest but especially we should consecrate our bodies to his name our feete to approch his Courts our eares to heare his word our toung to sound out his praises our hands to fight his battels if Antichrist should oppugne And secondly together with our bodies and those things which we haue our spirit within should ioyne a true and entire affection a sound and grounded loue to him who is most louely the husband of our soules that hypocrisie and fayned dissimulation be not in vs but truth although in much infirmitie and weaknesse of the flesh And when our soule shall be deuoted to him in that sort he receiueth it embraceth it most kindly as his own more respecting the mind then any apparant thing The two mites of the poore widow came welcom into Gods treasurie because her heart was rich though her purse were very empty It is recorded of Aeschines that when he saw his fellow scholers giue great gifts to his maister Socrates he being poore and hauing nothing else to bestow did giue himselfe to Socrates as professing to be his in heart and good will and wholly at his deuotion And the Philosopher tooke this most
were set free from all redeemed by his body and ransomed by his bloud admitted into the couenant and incorporated into himselfe so that now we are made free denizons of the city which is aboue What can be a greater blessing When ignorance and barbarisme were growne ouer the world and the darknesse of superstition as thicke as that of Egypt had possessed the shew of all Christendome that maine Antichrist dominering and triumphing at his pleasure so that few were to be found without the marke of the beast God did dispell that darknesse by sending vs light from heauen and causing the Sunne of righteousnesse to shine out by his word he cleered that filthy mist that the nations of the earth may now fully behold the purity of the Gospell That which was denied to great ones hath bene reuealed to vs. As Moses had more liberty to see the Lord then the people had so we see more then our ancestours But what thankes do we yeeld for that celestiall comfort Do we magnifie his mighty name and sing and speake out the honour of him who hath done such things for men Where is that Glory to God on high and blessed be our strong Redeemer 11 We who liue in this land haue sate as at the well head for many yeares together We haue had a most gracious Princesse a mother to our countrey and a nource vnto Gods Church vnder the shadow of whose wings next after the eternall Lord we haue enioyed much peace prosperity and abundance Our neighbours who grone vnder the burthen of heauinesse and oppression of persecution and ciuill warres do very much admire it Learning hath flourished with vs and manuall artes encreased nauigation hath bene aduanced and trafficke entred with many to the enriching of our people and the honour of our nation I doubt that we are not so thankfull as all this hath deserued Yea it hath come so fast on vs and continued without interruption that our hearts are fatted with it and we as full and glutted haue fallen a sleepe in security so that we vnderstand not the sweete things which are on vs much lesse do we with heart and soule and all the powers which are in vs extoll the author who hath done such things for vs. Conspiracies haue bene made to depriue our land of her gouernesse and to bring it into the thraldom of a proud and bloudy nation yet by the Lords strong prouidence they all haue bene preuented The great fleete which meant to haue made such hauocke hath bene confounded when men did not much to helpe vs the winds and waues did fight for vs. Truth it is that as the Romanes did giue thankes to their Gods when Hannibal was remooued who had oppressed and troubled Italy for sixteene yeares together so by the highest authority in the most famous place of our land and by the noblest persons and in most solemne manner Gods prayse was sounded foorth which was a most holy action and worthy of a Christan kingdome but see whether since that time the common sort of men do study to remember it Our thoughts within are so curious and our eares without are so itching that we loath to heare the Preacher to name this in the pulpit we imagine that this neuer commeth but for want of other matter being a crambe oftentimes sodde It seemeth that we are litle mooued whē we thinke so lightly of that which to the naturall inhabitants of this land was so great a deliuerance as our eyes neuer saw We haue reason to feare that God lately hath brought the same enemy so neare our land to quicken vs and to stirre vs to a remembrance of the former mercy by shaking his rod ouer the sea vnto vs. The acts which God did in Egypt of the which I spake before and his victories by the conduct of Iosuah were commaunded to be proclaimed to all succeeding ages and were bidden to be spoken off I do maruell why no man in that time obiected What shall we neuer haue done of hearing these old matters No their thankfull mind did vse it otherwise and recorded that matter and recounted it as the fairest floure in their garland and their honour with all the earth We should make such reckening of all Gods mercies towards vs but most of all of the greatest The enioying of apparant good things or the escaping of fearefull and dreadfull euils doth deserue thanksgiuing with vs. Ionas had felt the bitternesse being in hazard of destruction of body and soule together but by compassion of his maister he is like to passe through this daunger and therefore he maketh a promise that he will sacrifice to the Highest in spirituall manner by giuing him praise and glory And thus you haue the first point of that which he vndertooke now let vs come to the second I vvill pay that which I haue vowed 12 The making of vowes was a solemne custome among the children of Israel that when any good thing was graunted vnto them but especially if they earnestly desired to haue any thing they would bind themselues by promise or peraduenture by an oath to be kept without violating that this they would performe or that they would abstaine from as it might be drinke no wine or not cut their haire as the vse of the Nazarites was or dedicate their children to an attendance in Gods tabernacle or offer such and such offerings Wherein the care of those who were faithfull was first that they vowed nothing but that which was lawfull and secondly that they performed the thing which they vowed So the Israelites did vow that if the Lord would giue them victory they would raze downe and destroy the cities of Canaan A matter which was lawfull nay which God required of them Barren Hanna did vow that if the Lord would so respect her as to send her a sonne she would giue him to God all the dayes of his life She spake it and she performed it in Samuel her child Thou shalt render thy vowes saith Eliphaz to Iob. My vowes will I performe before all that do feare him saith Dauid of himselfe They knew that God did expect it precisely had enioyned it by a speciall law It is a peremptory place in the three and twentieth of Deuteronomy When thou shalt vow a vow vnto the Lord thy God thou shalt not be slacke to pay it for the Lord thy God vvill surely require it of thee and it should be sinne vnto thee he meaneth if thou performe it not but when thou abstainest from vowing it shall be no sinne vnto thee He would not haue men beare themselues so carelesly toward him as foolishly to promise and falsely to breake promise 13 This made men vnder the law to be very well aduised what it was whereunto they tied themselues by vow that what they vndertooke should still be to Gods glory and withall their promise was for such things as should be
which containeth thrise fiftie Psalmes the second our Ladies Psalter and containeth thrise fiftie Aues and the third is Iesus Psalter containing fifteene petitions which being ten times repeated do make in all thrise fiftie And indeede sutable hereunto there are fifteene Petitions where Iesu Iesu Iesu mercie is ten times word for word to be repeated in the beginnings of them And if you faile in the compt the deuotion is not perfect What is it to put superstition in numbers if this be not And where are the people kept in bondage and blindnesse of darkenesse and grosse errour if it be not in these toyes Iesus Christ open the heart of many of our nation but especially of that sex◠which is the weaker vessell that at the last they may shake off this yoke of vanitie and superstition 6 Of the third kind who offend rather in curiositie and do not deserue to be reprooued so sharply as those two other sorts are some that fault in Diuinitie and some other in other matters In Diuinitie such as if they can catch any nūber in a peece of Scripture which is to be intreated of their people aboue all things shall haue that for a note either in their preaching or writings as if there were more in that then in the best text of the Bible yea such mysteries and such secrets as that he is scant a Christian man who doth not vnderstand them or at the least he is but a simple fellow and fit to be despised As for example sake there is much in the number of seuen The seuenth day in the creation was the day wherein the Lord did rest the seuenth day was the Sabboth of the Iewes at Hiericho seuen Priests did take seuen trumpets of Rammes hornes and they went seuen dayes about and the seuenth day seuen times and the Deacons were seuen whom the Apostles chose and Iohn wrote to the seuen Churches where seuen starres and seuen candlesticks are mentioned in like manner And this is vrged without any reason which may imply fruit of doctrine or sound edification or without any necessitie of the place and yet is pursued and followed more then if it were an Article of the faith as if the whole lawe and the Prophets and the greatest meanes of comming to saluation consisted in such points as these and in the ripping vp of Genealogies It is good to be wise but yet be wise to sobrietie Not so much trickes of our owne wit and the glorifying of our selues is to be respected of vs as an vpright zeale to magnifie our eternall and fearefull maker But for the matter it selfe how many numbers be there which might be amplified in such sort As for two to say the two tables wrought by the finger of God the two Testaments old and new the two persons in Christ the Diuinitie and the manhood the two parts of a man the bodie and the soule For three the blessed Trinitie and the three who came to Abraham For foure the foure beastes in Daniel the foure wheeles in Ezechiel the foure Euangelistes in the new Testament For fiue the fiue bookes of Moses the fiue sences the fiue wise virgins This may be said for ten and twelue and thirtie and fiftie and many more whom I follow not lest I my selfe may iustly be reprooued in this my reproofe of other Yet I giue a tast by the way of the Non sequitur of the matter In cases of other nature those come within this compasse who do tye the euent of things to Pythagorean numbers as the chaunges of states and kingdomes to the ends of seuen yeares and of nine yeares being multiplied vp and downe Herein Bodine in his Methode of Historie is too free howsoeuer for other matters of inuention and good wit scant thought of before his time his industrie is praise-worthie Now if any should make a booke containing nothing else but examples of some one number and seruing in truth to no purpose that should neede no other censure but to be termed the fruite of an idle wit From which I would that our countreymen at last would keepe their hands cleane leauing iudgement and iudicious workes to our nation for which some Critickes will say that we are fit by the stayednesse of our constitution and robustiousnesse of nature but trickes to the Italians who suppose that their wits more abound Thus let numbers of curiositie of superstition and of sanctitie be quite remooued and separated from vs. 7 Yet being kept in measure they haue their good and profitable vse As first where the word of God doth apply them directly and apparantly to any purpose we may also do the like and amplifie them so farre as they serue naturally to expresse the text in question In the last of the Reuelation there is speech of the tree of life which is said to beare twelue fruites and to giue fruite euery moneth and that the leaues thereof do heale all kinds of diseases Here to speake of the twelue moneths of the yeare and of twelue fruites is fitly to the matter Yea to note that euery moneth in the yeare hath seuerall pleasures and that some things are more seasonable in one moneth then in another as some fishes are for speciall times and fruites in hotter countreys where the daintie orchards are are more kindly at set seasons And moreouer that many diseases do follow termes of the yeare but yet that by the tree of life there is prouision made for all these matters in the diuersitie of whose good things the various ioyes of heauen are painted out vnto vs and that nothing is conuenient for heauen but there it is to be had all this is consonant to the place and both for the matter and number it may be soberly discoursed Where there is an vse which is not forced and wrested there the Spirit of God is so farre off from forbidding vs to apply numbers and make ou◠benefite by them that it giueth vs the example In the beginning of Saint Matthewes Gospell in shewing the discent from Abraham to Christ are named fourteene generations and then fourteene generations and so againe the third time but that is partly to helpe memorie but most of all to note the times which were of fame as that of Dauid and the other of the captiuitie In such cases as are manifestly offered by the text which is in hand we may very well stand on numbers Secondly I do not thinke but we may also apply them when we vse some allusion which is consonant and agreeable to the analogie of faith or in which there is reason to thinke in the true feare of God that the Lord himselfe had a reference to such matters Iosephus doth expound the seuen candles which did burne in the Candlesticke in the Tabernacle to signifie the seuen planets and the twelue loaues of shew-bread to note the twelue signes of the Zodiacke Here if we beleeue the assertion
names sake and for his Churches sake our worke shall grow and prosper If the heart within be perfect and the externall powers be vowed to God as a sacrifice our lippes and tongue and mouth shall be instruments of his prayse to the great loue of the godly and wonderment of the wicked It is more then an ordinarie trust to be put in trust with such Oracles and that eye which neuer slumbreth doth follow and obserue those who haue this in their charge and if this trust be discharged he crowneth his seruants here in this life with much comfort For there is no ioye like to this ioye when a man doth tread the steppes of the Sauiour and Redeemer of the world and is a meanes vnder God to saue the soules of them for whom Christ came from heauen There is no comfort like to that comfort to stand in a congregation and turning this waie and that waie in humilitie to say vnto the Lord Behold here am I and the children vvhich God hath giuen mee 7 Hauing other things to discourse I feare that I stand too long on the force of the word of truth and therefore I steppe a little farther It hath extorted and wrung out from these Niniuites although they formerlie had bene stubburne a faith and beleeuing on it The people of Ninâ—ueh beleeued God But why is it not sayd that they beleeued the Prophet but that they beleeued God The authour is here named and the instrument is vnderstood Ionas did speake in Gods name and they receiued it as from God They respected not this mans weakenesse but thought vppon the maiestie of the sender And they are sayd to beleeue God who beleeue a man speaking by Gods word In Exodus the text hath the people feared the Lord and beleeued the Lord and his seruant Moses In that place both are named But commonly the messenger as being a person necessarily vnderstood is included within the mention of his maister the sender So the Prophets in old time did euermore vse Thus saith 〈◊〉 Lord and yet it is intended that they also did speake By this we may conceiue the regard which God doth beare to his seruants the ministers and preachers of the word that as he doth impart his name vnto Magistrates I haue said that you are Gods so he communicateth his spirituall actions with his pastours and doth giue to them as to a kind of fellow-workemen the credite of that which is his owne and so backe againe assumeth to himselfe their actions and their sufferings They haue not cast thee avvay but they haue cast me avvay that I should not raigne ouer them saith God vnto Samuel Thou and all thy company are gathered together against the Lord saith Moses to Corah and vvhat is Aaron that you murmure against him God doth attribute to Ieremie that which belongeth to himselfe Behold this day haue I set thee ouer nations and ouer the kingdomes to plucke vp and roote out and to destroy and throw dovvne to build and to plant It is a great warning to vs who stand before the altar that in regard of his holinesse and righteousnesse whose person we represent our cariage and behauiour should be framed to a resemblance of the immaculate Deitie that we liue if not like God for who can match that sanctitie which resideth in that pure essence yet like to men of God The titles which we beare the office which we sustaine the person which we present the neerenesse of our vocation to that absolute integritie which is onely in one great maiestie are remembrancers vnto vs of this Then we had need be aduised how we take this office on vs and how we vse it afterward 8 God is a God of knowledge and of inconceiuable puritie The Priest should treade those steppes The Vrim and the Thummim the light of knowledge and perfection should rest vpon his breast He should know how to put a difference betweene a sheepe and a sheepe to speake a woord in due season to bind vp that which is broken to beat downe that which is froward There is committed to him as Gregorie calleth it the art of all arts and science of sciences the regiment of mens soules Then he had need know how to handle them If one should haue in a viall or glasse the precious bloud which distilled from Christ on the crosse and were forced to remooue it and transport it from place to place how wise should this party be that he did handle it warily lest if the glasse should breake all should perish This were no charge for an ignorant or silly body But the Minister as Saint Bernard hath well obserued hath the keeping of those soules in his congregation whom Christ loued more then his bloud for he who was no vnwise merchant gaue that to redeeme them and therefore he who should haue to do with these should be no babie for knowledge and vnderstanding How fearefull should an ignorant and vnskilfull person be to runne when he is not called and to thrust himselfe into this businesse He will be in place of God who hath scant the sence of a man for I wish that in diuerse places there were not such as want those coÌ„mon complements which men of reason haue He to whom you would scant commit the meanest thing to be gouerned must rule that which is most precious Euery man should put to his hand to amend this errour which crept in while Poperie raigned and can hardly yet by so many good lawes be vtterly rooted out Let Patrons thinke on this who for gaining a little trash which is cursed by God and all goodnes as being a sacrilegious thing set such to guide their owne soules and the soules of their sonnes and daughters their seruants and their tenants to heauen and eternall blessednesse as a man of vnderstanding would scant set to guide his husbandry yea his cattell to the water A blind god among Christians is ridiculous and contemptible but a blockish god much more But he who is to thee in Gods place is apparantly blind and blockish How filthie a thing is it saith Gregorie that a man should be to learne when he is in place to teach As in knowledge so in life we should approch to Gods image aâ—d therfore we shold carefully estrange our selues from all notorious crimes It is farre from that Highest to be spotted or disorderly so it should be far from vs as much as mans frayltie may suffer A little staine in a white garment doth make a sensible blemish Such things as are conspicuous haue their faults seene most easily Cut off the haire but from one eye-brow and how disguisedly will the face looke there is little taken from the bodie but a great deale froÌ„ the beautie It is Saint Austens comparison Thou art in place to purge other therefore first purifie thy selfe Thy people are to thee as the shadow is to the
appeare in their staâ—elinesse of pompous apparell of rich and noble traine of gard and other matters which procure a kind of amazednesse in those who are not accustomed to it This as Herode Agrippa did vse do did Salomon and religious gouernours which exciteth from other toward them a fearefull reuerence yet withall a louely admiration But among all shewes there is nothing comparable to the throne that magnificent seate of iustice where much honour is accumulated and heaped vp together In a pallace large and spacious a rich seate to be set very eminent for the height conspicuous for the furniture of gold and cloth of estate compassed about with Nobles and great Peeres of a kingdome in Parliament-like attire attended with many trumpeters and heralds and other officers with a gard of strong and armed men enuironed with much people in a peaceable plentifull place What on earth representeth a maiesty if it be not in such an assembly The sight of this or the like in Iustinian the Emperour at CoÌ„stantinople made Athanaricus the king of the Gothes to breake foorth into these words The Emperour without doubt is a God vpon earth whosoeuer shall stirre his hand against him shal be guilty of his owne bloud But this phrase of sitting in the throne is vsed by the Spirit of God to point out vnto vs the highest honour among men Salomon was sayd to be set in the throne of his father Dauid The people pray that his throne that is to say his honour and magnificence may be aboue his fathers What a stately throne did the same Salomon make as one of his most glorious workes In Saint Iohns Reuelation where the Lord himselfe is described in inconceiuable glory the first thing named is a throne How the Gentiles respected this may appeare by that of Alexander who when a poore souldier of his owne who was as stupefied and amazed with cold and hunger was by himselfe set downe in his throne neare the fire told him that if he had so done to the royall seate of the Persians it wold haue cost him his life but this saith he shall saue thy life meaning that there he should be warmed and freed from his cold And it may be iudged also by that speech of Demaratus the Corinthian who seeing Alexander in his pompe at Susis did for ioy breake foorth into teares and sayd that those Greekes who were dead before that day had lost a great occasion of reioycing because they liued not to see Alexander sitting in the throne of Darius Then for the king of Niniue being set in open shew to arise from his pompous place is a signe of much humility to top himselfe to come downe with such a depressed diminishment so grieuous to flesh and bloud is a matter which is not common He who neuer tasted the sweet of soueraignty or ambition cannot iudge aright of this deed When the nedle touched with the load-stone shall beare it selfe toward the North in passing a great part of the earth or sea it is a great alteration when it comming vnder the Equinoctiall line must giue ouer that property wherein before it was excellent and might iustly haue caused no little admiration A proud mind cannot stoupe a lofty heart would not downe And yet the great king of Niniue being touched with repentance vnseateth himselfe vnthroneth himselfe and commeth as low as the meanest 11 As he did put himselfe from his place so he strippeth himselfe of his rayment It should seeme that it was some solemne time that he was sitting in his throne and adorned with his robe When Herode would shew himselfe in his magnificence he put on his royall apparell Otherwise the Easterne Princes went glorious in their attire and so at this day do all men who are of worth among them as trauellers do report They vse a stately kind of clothing By the witnesse of Christ himselfe they that weare soft or delicate rayment are in the Courts of Kings how then go the Kings themselues They thinke that common clothing maketh them seeme but as common men and they would that nothing should be wanting to them which might increase an opinion of estate We see that some inferour persons do pin their greatest felicity on the gaynesse of their backes There is more care to adorne the body with vanities and new-fangles then to beautifie the soule with sanctity and deuotion The worke of wormes shall not be refused to cloath a worme-eaten body Colours shall be brought from the sea and pearles taken out of fishes gold digged out of the earth Ethyopia and both the Indies shall be ransacked for new deuises and these things shall be put on with more greedinesse more carefulnesse and more orderlinesse then if it were to do that which most nearely appertaineth to the gaining of heauen Fashions shall be inuented so wide and spacious in hoopes and ruffes and supporters that there is great danger that the little gate which leadeth to eternall life and blisse is not wide inongh to receiue them And if it be a griefe and euen a death in comparison for such as are not the most honourable to part with these vanities for who would liue to lacke things handsome how might it straine the heart of a King to be vncased in such sort as to put off that which distinguished him from a common man I feare that there be many in our age who hardly would yeeld to this Yet the great ruler of Niniue doth make no stay thereat but at this time putteth away from him his robe of greatest dignitie as a hinderance to true piety Where is a liuely feeling indeed that we should be arayed with pure and fine linnen which is the righteousnesse of Saints there the most sumptuous clothing is vpon some speciall occasion but accounted as the doung and that which is most delectable is detested as a Scorpion Where a man is best clad within there the least care is for the outward 12 Well you see what this Prince hath left now heare what he taketh to him He putteth not off one braue gowne that he might put on another so to iet it in varietie whereupon the world standeth much but that he might betake himselfe to mourning weedes euen sordide sackcloth and earthie ashes Sackcloth was vsed to expresse sorrow as may be seene in Iacob the Patriarke who vpon the newes of the death of his sonne Ioseph rent his clothes and put sackcloth about his loynes and sorrowed a great season Ashes were vsed by men deiected to the lowest degree of misery as may be gathered by Iob who after all his grieuances so doubled vpon him went and sate him downe in ashes Mordecai in the booke of Esther giueth example of both for when the King had yeelded to the bloudy request of Haman for murthering all the Iewes he put on sackcloth and ashes and cried a great cry and a bitter
grosse and filthie that if it were not that custome from old time had so preuailed and diuerse of our countrimen did yet so hold it in their blindnesse and it is our dutie to seeke to win them I should thinke my self very idle and should partly be ashamed to speake of it in this place The fasts in Scripture are pure abstinence men eate nothing and drinke no water but here they may eate and drinke and be full and yet fast too This is one of the grossest Paradoxes which the blind beast of Rome that deceitfull whore of Babylon doth broach vnto her followers 13 And yet poore soules they see it not nor the fondnesse of that doctrine that such and such dayes should be fasted not for lawes sake and pollicie but for religion and deuotion I do maruell what sound warrant they can haue for that conclusion for no such thing can be deriued from any place of Scripture Heare S. Austens iudgement vpon that matter If you aske my opinion in this point I reuoluing it in my mind do find that in the writings of the Euangelists and the Apostles and in all that instrument which is called the new Testament fasting is commanded But what dayes we should not fast and what dayes we should I see it not defined by the precept of the Lord or the Apostles And in the auncient Church they had another custome then is kept at this day Origene vpon Leuiticus saith that they had the fourth sixth day of the weeke wherein they solemnely fasted Now to tye this or the alteration from it to be a case of religion is a seruitude of all seruitudes and a Babylonian bondage The time of Lent I confesse is a very auncient custome but so farre from being found a point of faith and saluation that the most approoued auncient histories tell how diuersely it was kept one day or two dayes or seuen dayes and by some for twenty dayes and by some other for fortie by some coniunctim by some diuisim some abstaining from this foode some from that but that the Apostles left it for so Socrates doth speake to the liberty of the Church nay to euery mans mind and will I would that our people vndestood this euery where that they might take things aâ—ight ciuill orders to ciuill orders and customes which were indifferent for nothing else but indifferent and not to put heauen and hell vpon superstitious obseruances True fasting is not of custome but vpon an especiall purpose by the good motion of the mind 14 Yet these are not the onely errours in the fasts of the Church of Rome but this may be added to them that commonly they respect the externall worke alone But the Apostle telleth vs that if there be nothing else bodily exercise profiteth little There must be a directing faith and an vnderstanding knowledge which must make all acceptable The end why it is done doth much make or marre the matter if it be to humble the body to worke in it more obedience so to practise spirituall things if it be to testifie true deuotion if to seeke to abate the Lords fury this sheweth that all is right but these other being for the most part ignorant do thinke the thing barely done to be a deseruing worke a meritorious action And this thought being once receiued multiplieth euill on it selfe so far that many in their superstition do not feare to spill their body that they may merite the more and so macerate the flesh that they make themselues vnfit to performe such Christian duties as otherwise they might do They procure diseases to themselues and impotency by reason of sicknesse whereby they make their body which is the house of their minde to sinke downe on their soule and to lade it ouer heauily Then that mind which with alacrity might many wayes haue serued God with impatiency peraduenture but assuredly with much griefe doth grone vnder the body And so in steed of increasing they diminish true deuotion Hierome as it is easie to be gathered alludeth to this when he sayth that a little meate and a belly vvhich is euer hungry is preferred before fasting three dayes And againe Do thou impose on thy selfe such a measure of fasting as thou art able to beare Let thy fasts be pure and chast and single and moderate and not superstitious And he addeth fully to that point which I mentioned a little before What doth it profit not to eate oyle and to seeke out such troubles and difficulties of meates carrets pepper nuts and dates fine cakes and honey and baked things So Fulgentius giueth an item for fasting moderatly A temperature is in such sort to be added to our fasts that neither saturity do stirre vp and prouoke our body nor immoderate abstinence vveaken it But some other of the auncient haue not only dehorted it but haue perstringed it with right seuere censures and written against it As namely Athanasius If thy enemy the Diuell do suggest into thy mind great exercises of deuotion that thou mayest make thy body vnprofitable and vveake do thou on the other side see that thy fasting haue a measure He reputeth it for no better then a temptation of the Diuell if it be excessiue Saint Basile speaketh to this matter most soundly and with much reason I do not so beate downe my body that I vveare it out vvith immoderate vvounds and make it vnprofitable for seruice but that is my onely cause of chastising my body that I may subdue it to seruice and make it rightly obedient to his maister But he vvho bringeth his seruant so vnder by hunger that not onely he is vnprofitable for the ministery of his maister but is not sufficient for himselfe vvhat else doth he then make himselfe a seruant to his seruant For it must needs be that the body being vnable to serue and by infirmitie vvaxing faint his maister must novv serue him vvhile he must stand amased about the curing of the infirmity of the other So farre Basile who esteemeth the mind as the maister and the body as the seruant Vnto these I will onely adde the iudgement of Saint Bernard who vttereth a most godly and sober doctrine Watchings fastings and such like do not hinder but helpe if they be done vvith reason and discretion Which things if by fault of indiscretion they be so done that either by the spirit fayling or the body faynting spirituall things be hindered he vvho so doth hath taken away from his body the effect of a good vvorke from the spirite a good affection from his neighbour a good example from God his honour he is a sacrilegious person and guilty of all these things toward God Not that according to the meaning of the Apostle this seemeth vnfit for a man and be not decent and iust that the head should sometimes ake in the seruice of God vvhich hath aked oft before in the
that there should be prayers And thirdly a full conuersion and departing from sinne These are the points which at this time I stand vpon the good Spirit of God assisting me Let men and beasts put on sackcloth 2 That sackcloth in times past was vsed for a signe of sorrow I noted vpon the sixth verse and therefore if it should be taken here most literally for it selfe and nothing else it serueth fitly for our purpose that is to import great sorrow But if you list imagine that euery man in Niniue did not sute himselfe so suddenly neither yet his cattell in such attire then Metaphorically we may vnderstand thereby all sorowing mourning weede that is to say the basest apparell and most sordide kind of vesture that the men could put on and that the beasts were left rough and vncombed and vndressed and euery way vntrimmed in their kind And that it may be so expounded we haue warrant from that place where God sayth of himselfe I clothe the heauens vvith darkenesse and make a sacke their couering which must needs be taken Tropically for some vgly kind of appearance and not for a materiall sacke for how doth that agree with the heauen Then the beasts did want their ornaments or were couered with some vile substance and the men were rudely apparelled contrary to their custome It is sayd by the wise man that clothes are one of those things which shew what a man is And indeed it is true for so farre as externall things may witnesse of the inward monstrous clothes shew monstrous minds for the most part sober apparell sheweth a sober disposition But in the course of euery particular mans life a difference in his garments noteth a difference in other matters In solemne feasts or wheÌ„ the mind is filled with ioy gladnesse robes daintie attire are put about the body but when sorrow ouer-whelmeth oppresseth the inward man gaynesse is layd aside God being offended with the Israelites telleth them that indeed they should go into the land of Canaan but he himselfe would not go before them as he had done in former times but only would send his Angell At this the people so grieued because God would not go before them that it is sayd they sorowed and no man put on his best rayment There is no greater outward token of heauinesse and deiection of the mind then to go in verie mournefull clothing 3 The great Monarke of Niniue meaning to purchase his peace giueth commandement to his subiects that laying aside their glorious and luxurious attire they should be most meanely clothed thinking thereby to strike a horrour into the minds of his people For when their eyes should take knowledge of that which they saw without and as windowes should let their receipts in to their vnderstanding and whereas things seene do mooue most and nature not peruerted loueth cleanlinesse and decencie white garments and the head annoynted How could their heart chuse but humble and cast downe it selfe within to know that the limmes were compassed with most dolefull apparell and fine linnen and the best purple should be turned into ragges or course sackcloth or hairecloth And when such as they did meete should represent the like shew and so many witnesses of griefe should be as so many spurâ—es vnto groning it is very probable that a broken spirit and a contrite heart might grow from those visible things and that of all other is most acceptable to the Lord. So the maker and gouernour of all things might take notice of their melting for their sinne and draw backe his out-stretched rod. He who pitied that euill King Achab who had sold himselfe ouer vnto sinne when he once put sackcloth vpon him and fasted and went softly he might right well spare the great city Niniue when his eyes should as fully see their debasing of themselues as his eares plainely receiue the cryes which they sent vp vnto him So the people by their mourning attire might be bettered in workes and conuersation and Gods fauour might be procured when there was a witnesse both inwardly and outwardly of their repentance Now as this is worth the knowing concerning the reason of the changing of their clothes so the doubt may not vnfitly be mooued why the beasts are named here as if they had offended and why they should be so disguised The reason is very manifest wherefore it should be so with the men and women they had grieued the Lord by transgressions of all sorts and therefore it was fit that they should make amends Yea the very little infants and those who sucke the breasts as the Prophet Ioel speaketh might well tast of the bitternesse as being slips of an euill roote cut out from a rotten rocke come from a polluted fountaine in the very propagation stayned with originall sinne But it is not so plaine a matter why the dumme beasts should fast and bâ— barred of their foode for so it is in the former verse or why they should be couered with sackcloth and mourning weede who knew not what it is to offend 4 But one reason might be that the people might in those creatures see as in a glasse what was their owne state For when their eares should heare the bellowing of the oxen the braying of the asses the bleating of the sheepe the howling of the dogs making piteous exclamation for want of foode to their bellies and their eyes also should see the out-sides of them to be vgly and deformed like that ground which lyeth as ouer-growne they might foorthwith remember that themselues had deserued to be pined and starued to death and to be depriued of all pleasures and delights which they did enioy that from hencefoorth bearing on them many woes and lamentations they might finally be ouer taken with vnspeakable desolation God made such vse as this is of the cattell in the old Leuiticall sacrifices for when he for whom they were offered did see them to be slaine their bloud to be let out some of them to be burnt all of them to be vsed with much violence if not quartered and cut in peeces and mangled he might presently be striken at the heart to thinke of his owne deserts that if he had his demerites he should be martyred and mangled in his bodie here vpon earth and his soule should burne and frie in vnquenchable flames of hell It doth teach the Lyon obedience when he seeth that dogge whom he loueth and vseth as his play-fellow to be cudgeled and beaten before him And when for the young kings fault the garment which he weareth should be beaten with many stripes the Prince who had offended might learne what his errour was conceiuing himselfe blame-worthy by that representation The children of the Spartanes might make this vse when they beheld the bondslaues of their fathers lye tumbling in that filthinesse which drunkennesse caused to them as to thinke that they should be but lothsome
dead mens bones Thy speaking of good things or condemning that which is euill is but to condemne thy selfe who in word doest renounce it and yet in deede doest embrace it Tacitus reporteth that in the ciuill warre betweene Vitellius and Vespasian a souldier had killed his owne father who was of and in his enemies army This was bruted about the host and euery man complained and execrated that warre which caused such vnnaturalnesse And yet sayth Tacitus they neuer the lesse nor slower spoyled their neighbours and kinsmen and brethren who were slayne by them they cryed that naught vvas done and yet themselues still did it This is thy case who speakest against sinne and yet euerie day committest it Thy fasting and thy abstaining is so farre from being acceptable in the eyes of the most High that it is exceeding odious For as here the King of Niniue did ioyne vertue with his abstinence and a turning away from wickednesse with his fast so God doth still expect that it should be done in all fasts The mind must forbeare malice and iniurie and oppression as well as the belly doth meate See how plainely God speaketh to this purpose You fast to strife and debate and to strike vvith the fist of vvickednesse Is this the fast vvhich I haue chosen that a man should afflict his soule for a day and bovv downe his head like a bulrush and lye in sackcloth and ashes vvilt thou call this a fasting and an acceptable day to the Lord Is not this the fasting vvhich I haue chosen to loose the bands of vvickednesse to take off the heauie burthens and to let the oppressed go free and that yee breake euery yoke Is it not to deale thy bread to the hungrie and that thou bring the poore that vvander vnto thy house vvhen thou seest the naked that thou couer him Then it is the leauing of sinne which the Lord doth more respect then the emptinesse of the belly And of this the holy Saints of God haue alwayes thought As Ambrose This is the vvill of the Lord that vve should fast together from meats and from sinnes Let vs impose an abstinence on our bodies that vve may the more estrange our soules from vices For the body vvhen it is sucked dry is a bridle to the luxuriant soule And Origene Fast from all sinne do thou take no meate of malice neither any delights of pleasure And Gregory To sanctifie a fast is vvhen other good things are adioyned to shevv an abstinence of the flesh vvorthy of God Let anger cease let chidings be layd asleepe for the flesh is in vaine tired out if the mind be not refrained from his naughtie pleasures 14 I wish that such of our people as yet haue familiarity with that filthy harlot of Babylon wold thinke vpon this matter that it is not only ceremonie or bare performing of outward things which doth appease the Lord when he is offended no not if it be to macerate and pine the body to death vnlesse a sincere faith do purifie all within and an honest conuersation do make all cleare without It must be a liuely conuersion which God taketh for payment of vs. And we who professe religion may hold this for an assured ground that our faith is but a dead faith vnlesse it shine by loue that all our speaking and seeming is fraudulent and deceiptfull if our life be not ioyned to it Our repayting to the Church and professing of strict holinesse will be reiected as too light if we either oppresse our neighbour or grind the face of the poore or scratch we care not what be it neuer so vnlawfull or leade liues polluted with whoredome and adulterie If we make our selues rich with vsurie or briberie if we circumuent men in bargaining if we profane the Sabaoth or despise the ministerie we frustrate that which we do pretend And the verie King of Niniue who could learne with little teaching that amendment of life was the truest deuotion and that as a most necessarie clause must be ioyned with all ceremonies shall in the iudgement condemne vs who after the hearing of manie yeares vse to bring but halfe-repentance and would willingly be the Lords but we would be this worlds also And so wishing that this doctrine of amendment may euermore be remembred by vs I leaue you to Christ Iesus who multiplie all good graces in vs to the end and bring vs to his father to whom with himselfe and his Spirite the Vnitie in Trinitie and Trinitie in Vnitie be glorie for euermore THE XXIII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 1. It is not defined whether the faith of the Niniuites were onely temporall 3. 6. Sinne is not to be thought of lightly 5. The force of conscience in the guilt of sinne 7. Faith hopeth when there is little likelihood 8. We are to trust on Gods mercie 9. God respecteth repentance 10. Workes must follow faith 12. How the Lord is sayd to repent 14. His threatnings are conditionall 15. How Niniue may be sayd to be destroyed 16. Comfort to vs. Ionah 3.9.10 Who can tell if God vvill turne and repent and turne away from his fierce vvrath that we perish not And God savv their vvorkes that they turned from their euill vvayes and God repented of the euill that he had sayd that he vvould do vnto them and he did it not THe broken melting heart and contrite spirit of the king of Niniue hath bene signified vnto you in the words before going how as a good Prince he giueth his people a religious example and first by his deed comming off from his throne and putting sackcloth on him and afterward by his word and commanding Proclamation he stirreth his people vp to a rare humiliation Here it might be discussed of what sort their faith was by which they apprehended the feare of the Lord and how farre their repentance went either to be a permanent and iustifying faith a faith sauing eternally which could not be in them but by hearing of Christ Iesus the redeeming Messias for among men there is no name giuen vnder heauen whereby we must be saued but that name of Christ or whether their beleeuing was a temporarie assent to that which they heard and vnto nothing else of the destruction of their city which might strike a mighty horror into their minde for a time as the preaching of Elias did to that wicked King Ahab when he humbled himselfe and fasted yet they might relent afterward and returne to their vomit allured by the world or inueigled by such lusts as were vsuall in former time Howsoeuer it was if you allow it to the least but a short and particular faith it teacheth vs thus much that if they in â—heir ignorance arose to so high a measure then we in so much knowledge should arise to much more and so their example is not to vs in vaine But for the maine point since the Spirite of God is silent therein and doth not
6 My next obseruation in this generall compasse is that Ionas is here described to haue sinned once againe This plentifully appeareth in the first Chapter so it doth in this last chapter by the reproofe of God himselfe vsed toward him and the words of my text do necessarily include it for to be grieued at the Lords will and to be angry at his workes is a very high transgression And so much the higher because it is in a Prophet a sanctified seruant sequestred for Gods businesse and attendance on himselfe more enlightened then ordinarie and better acquainted with diuine mysteries then other men Then from this man it is euident as well as from Dauid from Salomon from Iosiah from Hezechiah from Peter that the greatest in this life fall and fall to the ground There is no man that sinneth not The iust man doth fall seauen times and ariseth againe In many things vve sinne all sayth the Apostle Saint Iames. And Saint Iohn doth second it If vve say we haue no sinne vve deceiue our selues and there is no truth in vs. Ionas being once freed and deliuered from his sinne by the mercy of the Lord which purged him by a suffering is a second time in and yet remaineth Gods seruant and a member of the Church cleane contrary to that heresie which the Nouatians held who denying repentance to sinnes after Baptisme and secluding offendours from acceptance into the congregatiō among the faithful much impeached Gods mercy and layd an intollerable burthen vpon mens consciences Why should the seruant be hard where the maister is easie and gentle Where the wise owner is well pleased why is the steward straight When he whom it most concerneth hath proclaimed by his Prophet that if a sinner repent be it once or be it often from the bottome of his hart God will put away his sins quite out of his remembrance Indeed from the falles of the old Patriarkes we should not learne to aduenture vpon iniquities with greedinesse and boldnesse lest presuming we come short of that which was granted vnto them For if we will prouoke God in hope of that which in likelyhood will neuer be giuen to vs because we would so prouoke him who can tell whether the Lord will turne and repent and abate his furie The end wherefore the examples of fals in the greatest men are proposed to our reading is not to incourage vs to ill for that were to abuse the kindnesse of God and out of a good flowre to sucke deadly poyson Yet it is a thing too common for Libertines and carnall men so to apply good to euill Many vvill fall with Dauid sayth Saint Austen and will not arise vvith Dauid There is not proposed to thee any example of falling but of arising when thou art fallen Take heed thou do not fall Let not the slip of the greater be the delight of the lesser but let the fall of the greater be a trembling to the lesser What he there sayth of Dauid may most fitly be applied to the rest of the Patriarkes and other Prophets that by any thing of theirs we must not be intised to disobedience 7 Saint Chrysostome taketh occasion by Dauid of whom Austen also spake to draw a threefold benefit from the example of his transgression which I thinke not amisse to be mentioned in this place Dauid sayth he for three reasons vvas suffered to go astray First that he might make the righteous man to looke more earnestly to his way He perhaps sayth to himselfe I am a religious man I am famous for many merites now I haue done those things which appertaine to the garland Deceiue not thy selfe sayth he thou hast done no more then Dauid His meaning is that if such captaines and leaders in the faith so gracious with the Highest so acceptable in Gods sight yet by humane infirmities haue fallen and fallen notoriously then no man shold be proud none senslesly secure no man confidently foolish because his turne may be next He should set a watch before his heart and a hatch before his lips that nothing may enter thither nothing may come out thence which is not weighed and ballanced And that this is one of the causes why the ouersights of the best are made knowne in the Scriptures Saint Austen also consenteth The sinnes of great men are vvritten to this purpose that the saying of the Apostle may euery vvhere be trembled at vvhere he sayth Let him that standeth take heede lest he fall The second reason in Saint Chrysostome is that it might appeare that Christ Iesus alone in mans body vvas pure from all offence For if the holiest creatures and most sanctified sonnes of women men vpright and fearing God men after the Lords owne heart the best men of famous memory yet bore about them a body which was heauy to the soule and were shamefully ouertaken with crimes which their inferiours knew to be enormous then the single prerogatiue and that priuiledge of innocency and vnspottednesse which is not to be communicated to any of Adams children appeareth to belong onely to Christ. He alone could say to the Iewes Which of you can rebuke me of sinne But all other haue this sinne on them although it raigne not in them The iust man must confesse that of Hierome to be very true that while vve dwell here in the tabernacle of this body and are compassed with fraile and brittle flesh we may moderate our affections and rule our perturbations but cut them off we cannot we cannot roote them out Then all arrogant merite-mongers may boast themselues while they will of meriting of saluation and Pelagius he may vaunt that he can keepe the law but we account those speeches to be cursed and hereticall and derogatory from the eminency of Christ. We say to thē as Orosius sometimes wrote to that heretike Pelagius Thou sayest that it is possible that a man should be without sin I repeate it againe oftentimes the mā which can do this is Christ the Son of God Either take that name vnto thee or lay aside thy boldnesse God hath giuen that but to one and that is he which is chiefe and first borne among many brethren Then other yea the Virgin Mary her selfe must renounce themselues and all their possibility and admire the vnspotted beauty of Iesus our Redeemer 8 The third reason in Chrysostome is a matter of more comfort The faults of others are vvritten that sinners may the lesse despaire of their owne errours but if any one haue offended let him daily confesse his sinnes yea if he haue sinned a thousand times yet let him go forward to confesse a thousand times Forthere is nothing vvorse then distrust or despaire This sentence of turning againe a thousand times to God was it whereof Socrates speaketh that Chrysostome did dare to teach this in that time which was so filled with the Nouatian heretikes And this
mightie proud of his trees and fruits and shadowes very likely that doating on them he would not so soone haue parted with thē as Adam did Yes possibly much sooner if possibly that might be when he shewed himselfe so fantasticall any toy would soone haue turned him who was vp and downe with such trifles 10 Hereafter do not maruell that the Lord forbiddeth men to glorie in greater matters Let not the wise man glorie in his wisedome nor the strong man glorie in his strength neither the rich man glorie in his riches but let him that glorieth glorie in this that he vnderstandeth and knoweth me when a Prophet shall be pleased in such silly shadowes as if it were in some celestiall ioy For the emphasis of the word doth intend that he was very highly pleased And yet it is a thing much vaine to set too great affection on strength or wit or wealth or any terrestriall matter For do we not a wrong to God and much spoile him of his honour that when we are to loue him with all our heart and all our soule to thinke of him to rest in him to make him our meditation and to vse all other creatures but as his gifts and blessings by a million of degrees subordinate to himselfe and only to be employed to the setting forward of his seruice we will dreame of them and thinke of them sleeping and waking in company and alone Do not parents thus oftentimes set their hearts vpon their children and make almost Gods of them at euery word my sonne or my boy or little girle and when they grow somewhat bigger there are no children like their children the wind may scant blow on them the very ground is the better that they do go vpon the sleepe is neuer too much broken nor the belly too much pinched to heape vp trash for these children Yea from whom will they not pull euen the widow and the fatherlesse to enrich this their delight Do they not grieue to part with a peny to the vse of the most holy businesses because it may diminish their portions This made Saint Austen say For whom do they keepe their riches for their children he aunswereth and they againe for their children and the third descent for theirs But what is here for Christ what is here for thy soule Is euery whit for thy children Among their sonnes on earth let them thinke vpon one brother aboue in heauen on whome they should bestow all or at the least deuide with him But Christ and God shall stand backe when it commeth to these daintie children Now to speake plainly was this the end wherefore thou beggedst children at the hand of thy maker to delight thy soule with them Was this the cause wherefore God gaue them that they might thrust him out from the habitation of thy heart Thou doest vse his blessings fairely to ioy more of the gift then thou doest of the giuer not to thinke who sent the tree but to ioy onely in the shadow It is oddes of many to one but that thy wantons afterward will worke thee as much ioy as Elies children did to their doting father that is bring a curse on thee or them or as Dauids sonnes did to him when Amnon rauished Thamar and Absolon slue Amnon 11 Looke what is here said of children is as true also of beautie God doth giue to some the countenance of a Ioseph or a Hester of purpose to remember them that as their bodies exceed so their soules should go beyond their fellowes in deuotion in sanctitie and all vertue else the out-side will be faire and the in-side will be foule it will be but a painted sheath it will be but a whited sepulcher But it falleth out oftentimes that in steed of thankfulnesse and humilitie there groweth such an ouer-liking of this fraile and brittle shew that God is displeased therewith Heathen men haue thought vpon the fading of this flowe◠Forma bonum fragile est Beautie is but a brittle good thing O formose puer nimium ne crede colori O faire boy do not trust too much to thy colour Both Salomon and his mother although she were a woman and certainly very faire yet haue recorded this for euer that fauour is deceitfull and beautie is but vanity Yet do we not know that some take more pleasure in this then Ionas did in his shadow For he did this onely for a day but they do it all the prime of their youth and that with such affectation such earnestnesse and such labour as indeede pride is painfull that in the morning and euening their cogitations are set on their clothing and kemming yea perhaps on Iezabels art and it may be that in their sleepe they dreame of it too If that Pambo of whome Socrates doth write were now aliue he might haue worke many times For he once beholding a woman most curiously trimmed and exquisitly tifted vp broke foorth into bitter teares and being asked the reason he assigned two causes of it one was that she should take such paines to helpe forward the destruction of her owne soule and the other was that she was more carefull of her face to entise men vnto lust then she was of pleasing God I thinke now he might much sooner find examples of such things then Diogenes could find a man But for the male sexe are there not which take more care of their slicking and of their platting then of the kingdome of heauen Did Ionas more set his heart on the shadow of his head then they do on their haire He chode with God for the one they will stand to the vttermost with Gods officers his vice-gerents vpon earth for the other yea be thrust from a societie or be clapped vp in prison rather then part with that fleece There were such in the dayes of Seneca whose words if they be too bitter lay the fault vpon him and imagine that I do but cite them How are they angry saith he if ought be cut off from this mane if ought be out of order if euery thing fall not into those round rings or hoopes Which of these had not much leifer that all the state should be troubled then his haire be displotted who is not much more carefull of the grace of his head then of his health who maketh not more account to be compt then to be honest Will you thinke that these men are idle who haue so much worke as they haue betweene the combe and the glasse If this speech do seeme somewhat hard the fault must lye vpō Seneca but surely he saw some as proud and glad of their tricknesse as Ionas was of his shadow Saint Austen was not so Stoicall but a more sociable man let vs rather therefore heare him Thou art not well powled saith a graue man vnto a wanton youth it doth not become thee to go with such feakes and lockes But he
be angrie to the death How do we fall without measure if Gods grace preuenting and following vs be not ouer vs and leade vs all the way when such a choise man as Ionas who was singled out for a Prophet shall be thus ouertaken We had need pray for assistance and diligently take heed that in all our deeds we yeeld not Sathan the least footing for if once we let him land and giue a consent vnto him to abide with vs although it be but in a corner he will certainly haue more When Dauid by the doore or window of his eye had let it into his heart that Bethsabe must be fancied it worketh him on to adulterie then to cousening of Vrias after that to make him drunke and lasâ— of all to slay him Ionas is first content to desire the death of the Niniuites then he is angrie to thinke that it should be otherwise afterward he who had no loue to a citie of that quantitie yet is in loue with a tree and more setteth his heart vpon it then a maÌ„ should on any creature then he grieueth because he had lost it and being rebuked for it he chideth hand-smooth with God So one sinne breedeth another whereas obedience at the first had marred all that rancke Let vs all take heede of too much delighting in any earthly thing in husband or wife or children oâ— any matter of like nature because sinne which groweth froâ— the losse of these will spreade it selfe farre as first to grieue 〈◊〉 Gentiles and heathens who haue no hope then impatiently 〈◊〉 murmure against the diuine dispensation and that is suted with like effects Perhaps chaunging of religion as if when the God of the mountaines being coldly serued would not helpe and saue from such perplexities they would to the God of the valleis peraduenture refusing to come to church as if they had bin holy too long yea perhaps fasting or soliâ—aâ—inesse till that the vnderstanding and memorie being â—razed almost past recouery giue such an entrance to Sathan that there is little power of nature or faith or grace left to resist fearefull temptations or to take comfort or counsell The enemie of our soules so windeth in by degrees that he is hardly expelled if at first wee yeeld vnto him to giue him place but a little I do well to be angrie vnto the death 13 What would he haue done to men who dealeth thus with God or how brauely wold he haue spoken if he had done some good deed who in so foule a matter his iudgement is so depraued by selfe-loue and selfe-opinion both excuseth and commendeth that which was in truth so outragious Dauid was very far gone but being once touched by NathaÌ„ he staÌ„deth not on his owne iustification but out he cryeth Peccaui I haue sinned against the Lord. Yea Cain when he was conuicted of murthering his brother tooke knowledge that he deserued much ill And concerning Iudas himselfe indeede I find that the Cainites who were a kind of heretikes as Epiphanius writeth did commend him that since he saw that Sathans force was to be diminished by the death of Christ he made all the meanes which he could to hasten him to his death but I do not find that Iudas for his owne part did so thinke of it but confessed that he had sinned in betraying innocent bloud But our man for want of good neighbours standeth in his owne commendations for it is more then an Apologie I do well to be angrie yea if I should do more it were so much the better euen to be angrie to the death How farre is he out of temper he who should haue bene a light to other is in darknesse and desperatnesse he who should haue bene mild to men is now cocking with God he who should be renoumed for patience is impatient in the highest degree he whom much should not mooue is vp-side downe with a little the Preacher worse then the people the Prophet more to seeke then any priuate man Paule writing to the Ephesians saith that they were built vpon the foundation of the Prophets and the Apostles Iesus Christ being the chiefe corner stone If our Prophet had bene taken now he had bene full vnfit to haue bene in this foundation yea in any part of Gods building for those who are therein must be wrought and squared stones But God knoweth he was not neare that for as Gregorie doth remember vs Whosoeuer in prosperitie is not puffed vp too high whosoeuer in aduersitie is not cast downe too low whosoeuer by perswasion is not drawne to euill whosoeuer by dispraise is not kept backe from good he is a squared stone Then was Ionas out of square who being proud of his gourd a matter farre from prosperitie and vexed with the losing of it and the heate beating vpon his head loued what he had too dearely and lost what he left too grudgingly 14 But we doubt not but he recouered this and grew to grace againe for the Spirit of the Lord was not extâ—nguished in him although now the fire thereof seemed to be raked vp vnder the ashes now the sappe of his election seemed to lye hid within the roote and not to flourish aboue the ground but although his heart did seeme frozen yet afterward it thaweth againe For as Saint Austen speaketh as when the water congealeth with too much cold and when the Sunne commeth on it it resolueth againe and the same Sunne againe departing it beginneth againe to be hard so with the frost of sinne the loue of many doth waxe cold he might haue said so of their obedience and they are hardened like the ice but when the heate of the Lords mercie commeth againe on them they are resolued and relent So doubtlesse it was with Ionas else he had neuer bene reckened among the Lords holy Prophets from the which as we see his grieuous fall did not seclude him But in the meane while here is a maruell neuer sufficiently wondered at that God who hath the choise of all things in the world will vse such brittle meanes to the ministerie of his word and building of his kingdome shall I say heardmen with Amos or fishermen with Andrew or shepheards as was Dauid or customers as was Mathew some vnlearned all of base calling nay men nore-able for their weaknesse and reprochable for their folly not onely Paule before his calling but Moses and Aaron who in their calling were oftentimes much to blame Ieremie who raged bitterly and Ionas who was made of fretting and impatiencie This sheweth how great God himselfe is omnipotent and Almightie who by weake confoundeth the strong by foolish confuteth the wise by base conuinceth the noble by men vnder exception doth things beyond exception and all because his name therein may be the more glorified 15 It was his greater praise that by grashoppers and flies he could make Pharao crouch by hornets driue