hope was not vain to work in these Gergesens a discontentment at Christ an unwillingness to entertain him a desire of his absence he meant to turn them into Swine by the loss of their Swine It was not the rafters or stones of the house of Job's children that he bore the grudge to but to the owners nor to the lives of the Children so much as the Soul of their Father There is no affliction wherein he doth not strike at the Heart which whilst it holds free all other dammages are light but a wounded spirit whether with sin or sorrow who can bear Whatever becomes of goods or lims happy are we if like wise souldiers we guard the vital parts Whilst the Soul is kept sound from impatience from distrust our Enemy may afflict us he cannot hurt us They sue for a sufferance not daring other then to grant that without the permission of Christ they could not hurt a very Swine If it be fearfull to think how great things evil Spirits can doe with permission it is comfortable to think how nothing they can doe without permission We know they want not malice to destroy the whole frame of God's work but of all Man of all men Christians But if without leave they cannot set upon an Hog what can they doe to the living Images of their Creatour They cannot offer us so much as a suggestion without the permission of our Saviour And can he that would give his own most precious bloud for us to save us from evil wilfully give us over to evil It is no news that wicked spirits wish to doe mischief it is news that they are allowed it If the Owner of all things should stand upon his absolute command who can challenge him for what he thinks fit to doe with his creature The first Fole of the Ass is commanded under the Law to have his neck broken what is that to us The creatures doe that they were made for if they may serve any way to the glory of their Maker But seldome ever doth God leave his actions unfurnished with such reasons as our weakness may reach unto There were Sects amongst these Jews that denied Spirits they could not be more evidently more powerfully convinced then by this event Now shall the Gadarens see from what a multitude of Devils they were delivered and how easie it had been for the same power to have allowed these Spirits to seize upon their Persons as well as on their Swine Neither did God this without a just purpose of their castigation His Judgments are righteous where they are most secret Though we cannot accuse these inhabitants of ought yet he could and thought good thus to mulct them And if they had not wanted grace to acknowledge it it was no small favour of God that he would punish them in their Swine for that which he might have avenged upon their Bodies and Souls Our Goods are farthest off us If but in these we smart we must confess we find mercy Sometimes it pleaseth God to grant the suits of wicked men and spirits in no favour to the suitours He grants an ill suit and withholds a good He grants an ill suit in judgment and holds back a good one in mercy The Israelites ask meat he gives Quails to their mouths and leanness to their souls The chosen Vessel wishes Satan taken off and hears onely My grace is sufficient for thee We may not evermore measure favours by condescent These Devils doubtless receive more punishment for that harmfull act wherein they are heard If we ask what is either unfit to receive or unlawfull to beg it is a great favour of our God to be denied Those Spirits which would go into the Swine by permission go out of the Man by command they had stayed long and are ejected suddenly The immediate works of God are perfect in an instant and do not require the aid of time for their maturation No sooner are they cast out of the Man then they are in the Swine They will lose no time but pass without intermission from one mischief to another If they hold it a pain not to be doing evil why is it not our delight to be ever doing good The impetuousness was no less then the speed The Herd was carried with violence from a steep-down place into the lake and was choaked It is no small force that could doe this but if the Swine had been so many mountains these Spirits upon God's permission had thus transported them How easily can they carry those Souls which are under their power to destruction Unclean beasts that wallow in the mire of sensuality brutish drunkards transforming themselves by excess even they are the Swine whom the Legion carries headlong to the pit of perdition The wicked Spirits have their wish the Swine are choaked in the waves What ease is this to them Good God that there should be any creature that seeks contentment in destroying in tormenting the good creatures of his Maker This is the diet of Hell Those Fiends feed upon spight towards Man so much more as he doth more resemble his Creatour towards all other living substances so much more as they may be more usefull to man The Swine ran down violently what marvell is it if their Keepers fled That miraculous work which should have drawn them to Christ drives them from him They run with the news the country comes in with clamour The whole multitude of the country about besought him to depart The multitude is a beast of many heads every head hath a several mouth and every mouth a several tongue and every tongue a several accent every head hath a several brain and every brain thoughts of their own So as it is hard to find a multitude without some division at least Seldome ever hath a good motion found a perfect accordance it is not so infrequent for a multitude to conspire in evil Generality of assent is no warrant for any act Common errour carries away many who inquire not into the reason of ought but the practice The way to Hell is a beaten road through the many feet that tread it When Vice grows into fashion Singularity is a Vertue There was not a Gadaren found that either dehorted their fellows or opposed the motion It is a sign of people given up to judgment when no man makes head against projects of evil Alas what can one strong man doe against a whole throng of wickedness Yet this good comes of an unprevailing resistence that God forbears to plague where he finds but a sprinkling of Faith Happy are they who like unto the celestial bodies which being carried about with the sway of the highest sphere yet creep on their own ways keep on the courses of their own holiness against the swindge of common corruptions They shall both deliver their own souls and help to withhold judgment from others The Gadarens sue to Christ for his departure It is too much favour to
and sovereign wound by which our Souls are healed Into this cleft of the rock let my Dove fly and enter and there safely hide her self from the talons of all the Birds of prey It could not be but that the death of Christ contrived and acted at Jerusalem in so solemn a Festivall must needs draw a world of beholders The Romans the Centurion and his band were there as actours as supervisours of the Execution Those strangers were no otherwise engaged then as they that would hold fair correspondence with the Citizens where they were engarisoned their freedome from prejudice rendred them more capable of an ingenuous construction of all events Now when the Centurion and they that were with him that watched Jesus saw the Earthquake and the things that were done they feared greatly and glorified God and said Truly this was the Son of God What a marvellous concurrence is here of strong and irrefragable convictions Meekness in suffering Prayer for his murtherers a faithfull resignation of his Soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father the Sun eclipsed the Heavens darkned the earth trembling the graves open the rocks rent the veil of the Temple torn who could goe less then this Truly this was the Son of God He suffers patiently this is through the power of Grace many good men have done so through his enabling The frame of Nature suffers with him this is proper to the God of Nature the Son of God I wonder not that these men confessed thus I wonder that any Spectatour confessed it not these proofs were enough to fetch all the world upon their knees and to have made all mankind a Convert But all hearts are not alike no means can work upon the wilfully-obdured Even after this the Souldier pierced that Blessed Side and whilst Pagans relented Jews continued impenitent Yet even of that Nation those beholders whom envy and partiality had not interessed in this slaughter were stricken with just astonishment and smote their breasts and shook their heads and by passionate gesture spake what their tongues durst not How many must there needs be in this universall concourse of them whom he had healed of diseases or freed from Devils or miraculously fed or some way obliged in their persons or friends These as they were deeply affected with the mortall indignities which were offered to their acknowledged Messiah so they could not but be ravished with wonder at those powerfull demonstrations of the Deity of him in whom they believed and strangely distracted in their thoughts whilst they compared those Sufferings with that Omnipotence As yet their Faith and Knowledge was but in the bud or in the blade How could they chuse but think Were he not the Son of God how could these things be and if he were the Son of God how could he die His Resurrection his Ascension should soon after perfect their belief but in the mean time their hearts could not but be conflicted with thoughts hard to be reconciled Howsoever they glorify God and stand amazed at the expectation of the issue But above all other O thou Blessed Virgin the Holy Mother of our Lord how many swords pierced thy Soul whilst standing close by his Cross thou sawest thy dear Son and Saviour thus indignly used thus stripped thus stretched thus nailed thus bleeding thus dying thus pierced How did thy troubled heart now recount what the Angel Gabriel had reported to thee from God in the message of thy blessed Conception of that Son of God How didst thou think of the miraculous formation of that thy Divine burthen by the power of the Holy Ghost How didst thou recall those prophecies of Anna and Simeon concerning him and all those supernaturall works of his the irrefragable proofs of his Godhead and laying all these together with the miserable infirmities of his Passion how wert thou crucified with him The care that he took for thee in the extremity of his torments could not chuse but melt thy heart into sorrow But oh when in the height of his pain and misery thou heardst him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me what a cold horrour possessed thy Soul I cannot now wonder at thy qualms and swounings I could rather wonder that thou survivedst so sad an hour But when recollecting thy self thou sawest the Heavens to bear a part with thee in thy mourning and feltest the Earth to tremble no less then thy self and foundest that the dreadfull concussion of the whole frame of Nature proclaimed the Deity of him that would thus suffer and die and remembredst his frequent predictions of drinking this bitter cup and of being baptized thus in Bloud thou beganst to take heart and to comfort thy self with the assured expectation of the glorious issue More then once had he foretold thee his victorious Resurrection He who had openly professed Jonas for his type and had fore-promised in three days to raise up the ruined Temple of his Body had doubtless given more full intimation unto thee who hadst so great a share in that sacred Body of his The just shall live by Faith Lo that Faith of thine in his ensuing Resurrection and in his triumph over death gives thee life and chears up thy drouping Soul and bids it in an holy confidence to triumph over all thy fears and sorrows and him whom thou now seest dead and despised represents unto thee living immortall glorious L. The Resurrection GRace doth not ever make show where it is There is much secret riches both in the earth and sea which never eye saw I never heard any news till now of Joseph of Arimathaea yet was he eminently both rich and wise and good a worthy though close Disciple of our Saviour True Faith may be wisely reserved but will not be cowardly Now he puts forth himself and dares beg the Body of Jesus Dearth is wont to end all quarrells Pilate's heart tells him he hath done too much already in sentencing an innocent to death no doubt that Centurion had related unto him the miraculous symptoms of that Passion He that so unwillingly condemned Innocence could rather have wished that just man alive then have denied him dead The Body is yielded and taken down and now that which hung naked upon the Cross is wrapped in fine linen that which was soiled with sweat and bloud is curiously washed and embalmed Now even Nicodemus comes in for a part and fears not the envy of a good profession Death hath let that man loose whom the Law formerly over-awed with restraint He hates to be a night-bird any longer but boldly flies forth and looks upon the face of the Sun and will be now as liberall in his Odours as he was before niggardly in his Confession O Saviour the earth was thine and the fulness of it yet as thou hadst not an house of thine own whilst thou livedst so thou hadst not a grave when thou wert dead Joseph that rich Councillour lent thee his lent it
hath so graciously abated thee and could be but so low dejected before thee as thou hast stooped low unto us that we could be but as lowly subjects of thy Goodness as we are unworthy O admirable return of humility Christ will goe down to visit the sick Servant The Master of that Servant says Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof The Jewish Elders that went before to mediate for him could say He is worthy that thou shouldst doe this for him but the Centurion when he comes to speak for himself I am not worthy They said he was worthy of Christ's Miracle he says he is unworthy of Christ's Presence There is great difference betwixt others valuations and our own Sometimes the world under-rates him that finds reason to set an high price upon himself Sometimes again it over-values a man that knows just cause of his own humiliation If others mistake us this can be no warrant for our errour We cannot be wise unless we receive the knowledge of our selves by direct beams not by reflexion unless we have learned to contemn unjust applauses and scorning the flattery of the World to frown upon our own vileness Lord I am not worthy Many a one if he had been in the Centurion's coat would have thought well of it A Captain a man of good ability and command a founder of a Synagogue a Patron of Religion yet he overlooks all these and when he casts his eye upon the Divine worth of Christ and his own weakness he says I am not worthy Alas Lord I am a Gentile an Alien a man of bloud thou art Holy thou art Omnipotent True Humility will teach us to find out the best of another and the worst piece of our selves Pride contrarily shews us nothing but matter of admiration in our selves in others of contempt Whilst he confest himself unworthy of any favour he approved himself worthy of all Had not Christ been before in his heart he could not have thought himself unworthy to entertain that Guest within his house Under the low roof of an humble breast doth God ever delight to dwell The state of his Palace may not be measured by the height but by the depth Brags and bold faces do ofttimes carry it away with men nothing prevails with God but our voluntary dejections It is fit the foundation should be laid deep where the building is high The Centurion's Humility was not more low then his Faith was lofty That reaches up into Heaven and in the face of humane weakness descries Omnipotence Onely say the word and my Servant shall be whole Had the Centurion's roof been Heaven it self it could not have been worthy to be come under of him whose Word was Almighty and who was the Almighty Word of his Father Such is Christ confessed by him that says Onely say the word None but a Divine power is unlimited neither hath Faith any other bounds then God himself There needs no footing to remove Mountains or Devils but a word Do but say the word O Saviour my Sin shall be remitted my Soul shall be healed my Body shall be raised from dust both Soul and Body shall be glorious Whereupon then was the steddy confidence of the good Centurion He saw how powerfull his own word was with those that were under his command though himself were under the command of another the force whereof extended even to absent performances well therefore might he argue that a free and unbounded power might give infallible commands and that the most obstinate Disease must therefore needs yield to the beck of the God of Nature Weakness may shew us what is in strength By one drop of water we may see what is in the main Ocean I marvell not if the Centurion were kind to his Servants for they were dutifull to him he can but say Doe this and it is done These mutuall respects draw on each other Chearfull and diligent service in the one calls for a due and favourable care in the other They that neglect to please cannot complain to be neglected Oh that I could be but such a Servant to mine heavenly Master Alas every of his Commands says Doe this and I doe it not every of his Inhibitions says Doe it not and I doe it He says Goe from the World I run to it he says Come to me I run from him Woe is me this is not service but enmity How can I look for favour whilst I return rebellion It is a gracious Master whom we serve there can be no Duty of ours that he sees not that he acknowledges not that he crowns not We could not but be happy if we could be officious What can be more marvellous then to see Christ marvell All marvelling supposes an ignorance going before and a knowledge following some accident unexpected Now who wrought this Faith in the Centurion but he that wondred at it He knew well what he wrought because he wrought what he would yet he wondred at what he both wrought and knew to teach us much more to admire that which he at once knows and holds admirable He wrought this Faith as God he wondred at it as Man God wrought and Man admired he that was both did both to teach us where to bestow our wonder I never find Christ wondring at gold or silver at the costly and curious works of humane skill or industry yea when the Disciples wondred at the magnificence of the Temple he rebuked them rather I find him not wondring at the frame of Heaven and Earth nor at the orderly disposition of all creatures and events the familiarity of these things intercepts the admiration But when he sees the grace or acts of Faith he so approves them that he is ravished with wonder He that rejoyced in the view of his Creation to see that of nothing he had made all things good rejoyces no less in the reformation of his Creature to see that he had made good of evill Behold thou art fair my Love behold thou art fair and there is no spot in thee My Sister my Spouse thou hast wounded my heart thou hast wounded my heart with one of thine eyes Our Wealth Beauty Wit Learning Honour may make us accepted of men but it is our Faith onely that shall make God in love with us And why are we of any other save God's diet to be more affected with the least measure of Grace in any man then with all the outward glories of the World There are Great men whom we justly pity we can admire none but the Gracious Neither was that plant more worthy of wonder in it self then that it grew in such a soil with so little help of rain and Sun The weakness of means addes to the praise and acceptation of our proficiency To doe good upon a little is the commendation of thrift it is small thank to be full-handed in a large estate As contrarily the strength of means doubles the revenge
attribute this to their modesty as if they held themselves unworthy of so Divine a guest Why then did they fall upon this suit in a time of their loss Why did they not tax themselves and intimate a secret desire of that which they durst not beg It is too much rigour to attribute it to the love of their Hogs and an anger at their loss then they had not intreated but expelled him It was their fear that moved this harsh suit a servile fear of danger to their persons to their goods lest he that could so absolutely command the Devils should have set these tormentours upon them lest their other Demoniacks should be dispossessed with like loss I cannot blame these Gadarens that they feared this power was worthy of trembling at Their fear was unjust They should have argued This man hath power over men beasts devils it is good having him to our friend his presence is our safety and protection Now they contrarily mis-inferre Thus powerfull is he it is good he were farther off What miserable and pernicious misconstructions do men make of God of Divine attributes and actions God is omnipotent able to take infinite vengeance of sin Oh that he were not He is provident I may be careless He is mercifull I may sin He is holy let him depart from me for I am a sinfull man How witty sophisters are natural men to deceive their own souls to rob themselves of a God O Saviour how worthy are they to want thee that wish to be rid of thee Thou hast just cause to be weary of us even whilst we sue to hold thee but when once our wretched unthankfulness grows weary of thee who can pity us to be punished with thy departure Who can say it is other then righteous that thou shouldst retort one day upon us Depart from me ye wicked XVIII The faithfull Canaanite IT was our Saviour's trade to doe good therefore he came down from heaven to earth therefore he changed one station of earth for another Nothing more commends goodness then generality and diffusion whereas reservedness and close-handed restraint blemish the glory of it The Sun stands not still in one point of heaven but walks his daily round that all the inferiour world may share of his influences both in heat and light Thy bounty O Saviour did not affect the praise of fixedness but motion One while I find thee at Jerusalem then at Capernaum soon after in the utmost verge of Galilee never but doing good But as the Sun though he daily compass the world yet never walks from under his line never goes beyond the turning points of the longest and shortest day so neither didst thou O Saviour pass the bounds of thine own peculiar people thou wouldst move but not wildly not out of thine own sphear Wherein thy glorified estate exceeds thine humbled as far as Heaven is above Earth Now thou art lift up thou drawest all men unto thee there are now no lists no limits of thy gracious visitations but as the whole Earth is equidistant from Heaven so all the nations of the world lie equally open to thy bounty Neither yet didst thou want outward occasions of thy removall Perhaps the very importunity of the Scribes and Pharisees in obtruding their Traditions drave thee thence perhaps their unjust offence at thy Doctrine There is no readier way to lose Christ then to clog him with humane Ordinances then to spurn at his heavenly Instructions He doth not always subduce his Spirit with his visible presence but his very outward withdrawing is worthy of our sighs worthy of our tears Many a one may say Lord if thou hadst been here my Soul had not died Thou art now with us O Saviour thou art with us in a free and plentifull fashion how long thou knowest we know our deservings and fear O teach us how happy we are in such a Guest and give us grace to keep thee Hadst thou walked within the Phoenician borders we could have told how to have made glad constructions of thy mercy in turning to the Gentiles thou that couldst touch the Lepers without uncleanness couldst not be defiled with aliens but we know the partition-wall was not yet broken down and thou that didst charge thy Disciples not to walk into the way of the Gentiles wouldst not transgress thine own rule Once we are sure thou camest to the utmost point of the bounds of Galilee as not ever confined to the heart of Jewry thou wouldst sometimes bless the outer skirts with thy presence No angle is too obscure for the Gospel The land of Zabulon and the land of Napthali by the way of the Sea beyond Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles the people which sate in darkness saw great light The Sun is not scornfull but looks with the same face upon every plot of earth not onely the stately palaces and pleasant gardens are visited by his beams but mean cottages but neglected bogs and moors God's Word is like himself no accepter of persons the wild Kern the rude Scythian the savage Indian are alike to it The mercy of God will be sure to find out those that belong to his election in the most secret corners of the world like as his judgments will fetch his enemies from under the hills and rocks The good Shepherd walks the wilderness to seek one sheep strayed from many If there be but one Syrophoenician Soul to be gained to the Church Christ goes to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon to fetch her Why are we weary to doe good when our Saviour underwent this perpetual toil in healing Bodies and winning Souls There is no life happy but that which is spent in a continual drudging for edification It is long since we heard of the name or nation of Canaanites all the country was once so styled that people was now forgotten yet because this woman was of the bloud of those Phoenicians which were anciently ejected out of Canaan that title is revived to her God keeps account of pedigrees after our oblivion that he may magnifie his mercies by continuing them to thousands of the generations of the just and by renewing favours upon the unjust No nation carried such brands and scars of a Curse as Canaan To the shame of those careless Jews even a faithfull Canaanite is a suppliant to Christ whilst they neglect so great salvation She doth not speak but cry need and desire have raised her voice to an importunate clamour The God of mercy is light of hearing yet he loves a loud and vehement solicitation not to make himself inclinable to grant but to make us capable to receive blessings They are words and not prayers which fall from careless lips If we felt our want or wanted not desire we could speak to God in no tune but cries If we would prevail with God we must wrastle and if we would wrastle happily with God we must wrastle first with our own dulness Nothing but cries can
and gives glory where she would have relief Who now can expect other then a fair and yielding answer to so humble so faithfull so patient a suppliant What can speed well if a prayer of faith from the knees of humility succeed not And yet behold the farther she goes the worse she fares her discouragement is doubled with her suit It is not good to take the childrens bread and to cast it to dogs First his silence implied a contempt then his answer defended his silence now his speech expresses and defends his contempt Lo he hath turned her from a woman to a dog and as it were spurns her from his feet with an harsh repulse What shall we say is the Lamb of God turned Lion doth that clear fountain of mercy run bloud O Saviour did ever so hard a word fall from those mild lips Thou calledst Herod Fox most worthily he was crafty and wicked the Scribes and Pharisees a generation of vipers they were venomous and cruel Judas a Devil he was both covetous and treacherous But here was a Woman in distress and distress challenges mercy a good woman a faithfull suppliant a Canaanitish disciple a Christian Canaanite yet rated and whipt out for a dog by thee who wert all goodness and mercy How different are thy ways from ours Even thy severity argues favour The trial had not been so sharp if thou hadst not found the faith so strong if thou hadst not meant the issue so happy Thou hadst not driven her away as a Dog if thou hadst not intended to admit her for a Saint and to advance her so much for a pattern of Faith as thou depressedst her for a spectacle of contempt The time was when the Jews were Children and the Gentiles Dogs now the case is happily altered the Jews are the Dogs so their dear and Divine countryman calls the Concision we Gentiles are the Children What certainty is there in an external profession that gives us onely to seem not to be at least the being that it gives is doubtfull and temporary we may be Children to day and Dogs to morrow The true assurance of our condition is in the Decree and Covenant of God on his part in our Faith and Obedience on ours How they of Children became Dogs it is not hard to say their presumption their unbelief transformed them and to perfect their brutishness they set their fangs upon the Lord of life How we of Dogs become Children I know no reason but Oh the depth That which at the first singled them out from the nations of the world hath at last singled us out from the world and them It is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that hath mercy Lord how should we bless thy goodness that we of Dogs are Children how should we fear thy justice since they of Children are Dogs O let not us be high-minded but tremble If they were cut off who crucified thee in thine humbled estate what may we expect who crucifie thee daily in thy glory Now what ordinary patience would not have been overstrained with so contemptuous a repulse How few but would have faln into intemperate passions into passionate expostulations Art thou the Prophet of God that so disdainfully entertainest poor suppliants Is this the comfort that thou dealest to the distressed Is this the fruit of my humble adoration of my faithfull profession Did I snarl or bark at thee when I called thee the Son of David Did I fly upon thee otherwise then with my prayers and tears And if this term were fit for my vileness yet doth it become thy lips Is it not sorrow enough to me that I am afflicted with my Daughter's misery but that thou of whom I hoped for relief must adde to mine affliction in an unkind reproach But here is none of all this Contrarily her humility grants all her patience overcomes all and she meekly answers Truth Lord yet the dogs eat of the crums which fall from their master's table The reply is not more witty then faithfull O Lord thou art Truth it self thy words can be no other then truth thou hast call'd me a Dog and a Dog I am give me therefore the favour and privilege of a Dog that I may gather up some crums of mercy from under that table whereat thy Children sit This blessing though great to me yet to the infiniteness of thy power and mercy is but as a crum to a feast I presume not to press to the board but to creep under it deny me not those small offalls which else would be swept away in the dust After this stripe give me but a crum and I shall fawn upon thee and depart satisfied O woman say I great is thine humility great is thy patience but O woman saith my Saviour great is thy faith He sees the root we the stock Nothing but Faith could thus temper the heart thus strengthen the soul thus charm the tongue O precious Faith O acceptable Perseverance It is no marvell if that chiding end in favour Be it to thee even as thou wilt Never did such grace go away uncrowned The beneficence had been streight if thou hadst not carried away more then thou suedst for Lo thou that camest a Dog goest away a Child thou that wouldst but creep under the Childrens feet art set at their elbow thou that wouldst have taken up with a crum art feasted with full dishes The way to speed well at God's hand is to be humbled in his eyes and in our own It is quite otherwise with God and with men With men we are so accounted of as we account of our selves he shall be sure to be vile in the sight of others which is vile in his own With God nothing is got by vain ostentation nothing is lost by abasement O God when we look down to our own weakness and cast up our eyes to thine infiniteness thine omnipotence what poor things we are but when we look down upon our sins and wickedness how shall we express our shame None of all thy creatures except Devils are capable of so foul a quality As we have thus made our selves worse then beasts so let us in a sincere humbleness of mind acknowledge it to thee who canst pity forgive redress it So setting our selves down at the lower end of the table of thy creatures thou the great Master of the Feast maist be pleased to advance us to the height of glory XIX The Deaf and Dumb man cured OUR Saviour's entrance into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon was not without a Miracle neither was his regress as the Sun neither rises nor sets without light In his entrance he delivers the Daughter of the faithfull Syrophoenician in his egress he cures the Deaf and Dumb. He can no more want work then that work can want success Whether the Patient were naturally deaf and perfectly dumb or imperfectly dumb and accidentally deaf I labour not Sure I am that
face even an Herod long'd for this and was never the better Onely this I find that this curiosity of the eye through the mercy of God gave occasion to the belief of the heart He that desires to see Jesus is in the way to injoy him there is not so much as a remote possibility in the man that cares not to behold him The eye were ill bestowed if it were onely to betray our Souls there are no less beneficial glaunces of it We are not worthy of this usefull casement of the heart if we do not thence send forth beams of holy desires and thereby re-convey profitable and saving objects I cannot marvell if Zacchaeus were desirous to see Jesus all the world was not worth this sight Old Simeon thought it best to have his eyes closed up with this spectacle as if he held it pity and disparagement to see ought after it The father of the faithfull rejoyced to see him though at nineteen hundred years distance and the great Doctour of the Gentiles stands upon this as his highest stair Have I not seen the Lord Jesus And yet O Saviour many a one saw thee here that shall never see thy face above yea that shall call to the hills to hide them from thy sight And if we had once known thee according to the flesh henceforth know we thee so no more What an happiness shall it be so to see thee glorious that in seeing thee we shall partake of thy glory O blessed vision to which all others are but penal and despicable Let me go into the Mint-house and see heaps of gold I am never the richer let me go to the Picturers I see goodly faces and am never the fairer let me go to the Court I see state and magnificence and am never the greater But O Saviour I cannot see thee and not be blessed I can see thee here though in a glass If the eye of my Faith be dim yet it is sure O let me be unquiet till I do now see thee through the veil of Heaven ere I shall see thee as I am seen Fain would Zacchaeus see Jesus but he could not It were strange if a man should not find some lett in good desires somewhat will be still in the way betwixt us and Christ Here are two hinderances met the one internal the other external the stature of the man the press of the multitude the greatness of the press the smalness of the stature There was great thronging in the streets of Jericho to see Jesus the doors the windows the bulks were all full Here are many beholders few disciples If gazing if profession were godliness Christ could not want clients now amongst all these wonderers there is but one Zacchaeus In vain should we boast of our forwardness to see and hear Christ in our streets if we receive him not into our hearts This croud hides Christ from Zacchaeus Alas how common a thing is it by the interposition of the throng of the world to be kept from the sight of our Jesus Here a carnal Fashionist says Away with this austere scrupulousness let me doe as the most The throng keeps this man from Christ There a superstitious Mis-believer says What tell you me of an handfull of reformed The whole world is ours This man is kept from Christ by the throng The covetous Mammonist says Let them that have leisure be devout my imployments are many my affairs great This man cannot see Christ for the throng There is no perfect view of Christ but in an holy secession The Spouse found not her Beloved till she was past the company then she found him whom her soul loved Whoso never seeks Christ but in the croud shall never find comfort in finding him the benefit of our publick view must be enjoyed in retiredness If in a press we see a man's face that is all when we have him alone every lim may be viewed O Saviour I would be loth not to see thee in thine Assemblies but I would be more loth not to see thee in my Closet Yet had Zacchaeus been but of the common pitch he might perhaps have seen Christ's face over his fellows shoulders now his stature adds to the disadvantage his body did not answer to his mind his desires were high whilst his body was low The best is however smalness of stature was disadvantageous in a level yet it is not so at height A little man if his eye be clear may look as high though not as far as the tallest The least Pigmy may from the lowest valley see the Sun or Stars as fully as a Giant upon the highest mountain O Saviour thou art now in Heaven the smalness of our person or of our condition cannot lett us from beholding thee The Soul hath no stature neither is Heaven to be had with reaching Onely clear thou the eyes of my Faith and I am high enough I regard not the Body the Soul is the man It is to small purpose that the Body is a Giant if the Soul be a Dwarf We have to doe with a God that measures us by our desires and not by our statures All the streets of Jericho however he seemed to the eye had not so tall a man as Zacchaeus The witty Publican easily finds both his hinderances and the ways of their redress His remedy for the press is to run before the multitude his remedy for his stature is to climb up into the Sycomore he imploys his feet in the one his hands and feet in the other In vain shall he hope to see Christ that doth not out-goe the common throng of the world The multitude is clustred together and moves too close to move fast we must be nimbler then they if ever we desire or expect to see Christ It is the charge of God Thou shalt not follow a multitude to doe evil we doe evil if we lag in good It is held commonly both wit and state for a man to keep his pace and that man escapes not censure who would be forwarder then his fellows Indeed for a man to run alone in ways of indifferency or to set an hypocritical face of out-running all others in a zealous profession when the heart lingers behind both these are justly hatefull but in an holy emulation to strive truly and really to out-strip others in degrees of Grace and a conscionable care of obedience this is truly Christian and worthy of him that would hope to be blessed with the sight of a Saviour Tell me ye fashionable Christians that stand upon terms of equality and will not go a foot before your neighbours in holy zeal and aidfull charity in conscionable sincerity tell me who hath made other mens progress a measure for yours Which of you says I will be no richer no greater no fairer no wiser no happier then my fellows Why should you then say I will be no holier Our life is but a Race every good End that a man proposes to
as if they had the charge of their Bellies not of their Souls if they have open Cellars it matters not whether their Mouths be open If they be sociable in their carriage favourable and indulgent to their recreations full in their chear how easily doth the world dispense with either their negligence or enormities As if the Souls of these men lay in their weasand in their gut But surely they have reason to expect from their Teachers a due proportion of Hospitality An unmeet parsimony is here not more odious then it is sinfull And where ability wants yet care may not be wanting Those Preachers which are so intent upon their spiritual work that in the mean time they over-strain the weaknesses of their people holding them in their Devotions longer then humane frailty will permit forget not themselves more then their pattern and must be sent to school to these compassionate Disciples who when evening was come sue to Christ for the people's dismission The place was desart the time evening Doubtless our Saviour made choice of both these that there might be both more use and more note of his Miracle Had it been in the morning their stomack had not been up their feeding had been unnecessary Had it been in the Village provision either might have been made or at least would have seemed made by themselves But now that it was both desart and evening there was good ground for the Disciples to move and for Christ to work their sustentation Then onely may we expect and crave help from God when we find our need Superfluous aid can neither be heartily desired nor earnestly lookt for nor thankfully received from the hands of mercy Cast thy burthen upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee If it be not a burthen it is no casting it upon God Hence it is that Divine aid comes ever in the very upshot and exigence of our trialls when we have been exercised and almost tired with long hopes yea with despairs of success that it may be both more longed for ere it come and when it comes more welcome Oh the Faith and Zeal of these clients of Christ They not onely follow him from the City into the Desart from delicacy to want from frequence to solitude but forget their Bodies in pursuit of the food of their Souls Nothing is more hard for an healthfull man to forget then his belly within few hours this will be sure to solicit him and will take no denials Yet such sweetness did these hearers find in the spiritual repast that they thought not on the bodily the Disciples pitied them they had no mercy on themselves By how much more a man's mind is taken up with Heavenly things so much less shall he care for earthly What shall Earth be to us when we are all Spirit And in the mean time according to the degrees of our intellectual elevations shall be our neglect of bodily contentments The Disciples think they move well Send them away that they may buy victuals Here was a strong Charity but a weak Faith A strong Charity in that they would have the people relieved a weak Faith in that they supposed they could not otherwise be so well relieved As a man when he sees many ways lie before him takes that which he thinks both fairest and nearest so do they this way of relief lay openest to their view and promised most Well might they have thought It is as easie for our Master to feed them as to heal them there is an equal facility in all things to a supernatural power yet they say Send them away In all our projects and suits we are still ready to move for that which is most obvious most likely when sometimes that is less agreeable to the will of God The All-wise and Almighty Arbiter of all things hath a thousand secret means to honour himself in his proceedings with us It is not for us to carve boldly for our selves but we must humbly depend on the disposal of his Wisedom and Mercy Our Saviour's answer gives a strange check to their motion They need not depart Not need They had no victuals they must have there was none to be had What more need could be He knew the supply which he intended though they knew it not His command was therefore more strange then his assertion Give ye them to eat Nothing gives what it hath not Had they had victuals they had not called for a dismission and not having how should they give It was thy wisedom O Saviour thus to prepare thy Disciples for the intended Miracle Thou wouldst not doe it abruptly without an intimation both of the purpose of it and the necessity And how modestly dost thou undertake it without noise without ostentation I hear thee not say I will give them to eat no but Give ye as if it should be their act not thine Thus sometimes it pleaseth thee to require of us what we are not able to perform either that thou mayest shew us what we cannot doe and so humble us or that thou mayest erect us to a dependence upon thee which canst doe it for us As when the Mother bids the Infant come to her which hath not yet the steddy use of his legs it is that he may cling the faster to her hand or coat for supportation Thou bidst us impotent wretches to keep thy royal Law Alas what can we Sinners doe there is not one letter of those thy Ten words that we are able to keep This charge of thine intends to shew us not our strength but our weakness Thus thou wouldst turn our eyes both back to what we might have done to what we could have done and upwards to thee in whom we have done it in whom we can doe it He wrongs thy Goodness and Justice that misconstrues these thy commands as if they were of the same nature with those of the Aegyptian task-masters requiring the brick and not giving the straw But in bidding us doe what we cannot thou inablest us to doe what the â—â—â—dest Thy Precepts under the Gospel have not 〈…〉 of our duty but an habilitation of 〈…〉 when thou badest the Disciples to give to the multitude thou meantest to supply unto them what thou commandedst to give Our Saviour hath what he would an acknowledgement of their insufficiency We have here but five loaves and two fishes A poor provision for the family of the Lord of the whole earth Five loaves and those barley two fishes and those little ones We well know O Saviour that the beasts were thine on a thousand mountains all the corn thine that covered the whole surface of the earth all the fowls of the air thine it was thou that providedst those drifts of Quails that fell among the tents of thy rebellious Israelites that rainedst down those showrs of Manna round about their camp and dost thou take up for thy self and thy meiny with five barley loaves and two little fishes Certainly
Jewess and therefore well knew that her touch was in this case no better then a pollution as hers perhaps but not of him For on the one side Necessity is under no positive law on the other the Son of God was not capable of impurity Those may be defiled with a touch that cannot heal with a touch he that was above Law is not comprised in the Law Be we never so unclean he may heal us we cannot infect him O Saviour my Soul is sick and foul enough with the Spirituall impurities of sin let me by the hand of Faith lay hold but upon the hem of thy garment thy Righteousness is thy garment it shall be both clean and whole Who would not think but a man might lade up a dish of water out of the Sea unmissed Yet that water though much is finite those drops are within number that Art which hath reckoned how many corns of sand would make up a World could more easily compute how many drops of water would make up an Ocean Whereas the mercies of God are absolutely infinite and beyond all possibility of proportion And yet this bashfull soul cannot steal one drop of mercy from this endless boundless bottomless Sea of Divine bounty but it is felt and questioned And Jesus said Who touched me Who can now say that he is a poor man that reckons his store when that God who is rich in mercy doth so He knows all his own Blessings and keeps just tallies of our receits delivered so much Honour to this man to that so much Wealth so much Knowledge to one to another so much Strength How carefully frugal should we be in the notice account usage of God's several favours since his bounty sets all his gifts upon the file Even the worst servant in the Gospel confest his Talents though he imployed them not We are worse then the worst if either we misknow or dissemble or forget them Who now can forbear the Disciples reply Who touched thee O Lord the multitude Dost thou ask of one when thou art pressed by many In the midst of a throng dost thou ask Who touched me Yea but yet some one touched me All thronged me but one touched me How riddle-like soever it may seem to sound they that thronged me touched me not she onely touched me that thronged me not yea that touched me not Even so O Saviour others touched thy body with theirs she touched thy hem with her hand thy Divine power with her Soul Those two parts whereof we consist the bodily the spiritual do in a sort partake of each other The Soul is the Man and hath those parts senses actions which are challenged as proper to the Body This spiritual part hath both an hand and a touch it is by the hand of Faith that the Soul toucheth yea this alone both is and acts all the spiritual senses of that immaterial and Divine part this sees hears tasteth toucheth God and without this the Soul doeth none of these All the multitude then pressed Christ he took not that for a touch since Faith was away onely she touched him that believed to receive virtue by his touch Outward fashionableness comes into no account with God that is onely done which the Soul doeth It is no hoping that virtue should go forth from Christ to us when no hearty desires go forth from us to him He that is a Spirit looks to the deportment of that part which resembleth himself as without it the body is dead so without the actions thereof bodily Devotions are but carkasses What reason had our Saviour to challenge this touch Some body touch'd me The multitude in one extreme denied any touch at all Peter in another extreme affirmed an over-touching of the multitude Betwixt both he who felt it can say Some body touched me Not all as Peter not none as the multitude but some body How then O Saviour how doth it appear that some body touch'd thee For I perceive virtue is gone out from me The effect proves the act virtue gone out evinces the touch These two are in thee convertible virtue cannot go out of thee but by a touch and no touch can be of thee without virtue going out from thee That which is a Rule in Nature That every Agent works by a contact holds spiritually too Then dost thou O God work upon our Souls when thou touchest our hearts by thy Spirit then do we re-act upon thee when we touch thee by the hand of our Faith and confidence in thee and in both these virtue goes out from thee to us Yet goes not so out as that there is less in thee In all bodily emanations whose powers are but finite it must needs follow that the more is sent forth the less is reserved but as it is in the Sun which gives us light yet loseth none ever the more the luminosity of it being no whit impaired by that perpetual emission of lightsome beams so much more is it in thee the Father of lights Virtue could not go out of thee without thy knowledge without thy sending Neither was it in a dislike or in a grudging exprobration that thou saidst Virtue is gone out from me Nothing could please thee better then to feel virtue fetch'd out from thee by the Faith of the receiver It is the nature and praise of good to be communicative none of us would be other then liberal of our little if we did not fear it would be lessened by imparting Thou that knowest thy store so infinite that participation doth onely glorifie and not diminish it canst not but be more willing to give then we to receive If we take but one drop of water from the Sea or one corn of sand from the shore there is so much though insensibly less but were we capable of Worlds of virtue and benediction from that munificent hand our inriching could no whit impoverish thee Thou which wert wont to hold it much better to give then to receive canst not but give gladly Fear not O my Soul to lade plentifully at this Well this Ocean of Mercy which the more thou takest overflows the more But why then O Saviour why didst thou thus inquire thus expostulate Was it for thy own sake that the glory of the Miracle might thus come to light which otherwise had been smothered in silence Was it for Jairus his sake that his depressed heart might be raised to a confidence in thee whose mighty Power he saw proved by this Cure whose Omniscience he saw proved by the knowledge of the Cure Or was it chiefly for the Woman's sake for the praise of her Faith for the securing of her Conscience It was within her self that she said If I may but touch none could hear this voice of the heart but he that made it It was within her self that the Cure was wrought none of the beholders knew her complaint much less her recovery none noted her touch none knew the occasion of her
both lose our labour and thy cost The Parable is of two Debtours to one Creditour the one owed a lesser sum the other a greater both are forgiven It was not the purpose of him that propounded it that we should stick in the bark God is our Creditour our sins our Debts we are all Debtours but one more deep then another No man can pay this Debt alone satisfaction is not possible onely remission can discharge us God doth in mercy forgive as well the greatest as the least sins Our love to God is proportionable to the sense of our remission So then the Pharisee cannot chuse but confess that the more and greater the sin is the greater mercy in the forgiveness and the more mercy in the forgiver the greater obligation and more love in the forgiven Truth from whose mouth soever it falls is worth taking up Our Saviour praises the true judgment of a Pharisee It is an injurious indiscretion in those who are so prejudiced against the persons that they reject the truth He that would not quench the smoaking flax incourages even the least good As the carefull Chirurgion stroaks the arm ere he strikes the vein so did Christ here ere he convinces the Pharisee of his want of love he graceth him with a fair approbation of his judgment Yet the while turning both his face and his speech to the poor Penitent as one that cared more for a true humiliation for sin then for a false pretence of respect and innocence With what a dejected and abashed countenance with what earth-fixed eyes do we imagine the poor woman stood when she saw her Saviour direct his face and words to her She that durst but stand behind him and steal the falling of some tears upon his feet with what a blushing astonishment doth she behold his sidereall countenance cast upon her Whilst his eye was turned towards this Penitent his speech was turned to the Pharisee concerning that Penitent by him mistaken Seest thou this Woman He who before had said If this man were a Prophet he would have known what manner of Woman this is now hears Seest thou this Woman Simon saw but her outside Jesus lets him see that he saw her heart and will thus convince the Pharisee that he is more then a Prophet who knew not her conversation onely but her Soul The Pharisee that went all by appearance shall by her deportment see the proof of her good disposition it shall happily shame him to hear the comparison of the wants of his own entertainments with the abundance of hers It is strange that any of this formall Sect should be defective in their Lotions Simon had not given water to so great a Guest she washes his feet with her tears By how much the water of the eye was more precious then the water of the earth so much was the respect and courtesie of this Penitent above the neglected office of the Pharisee What use was there of a Towell where was no water She that made a fountain of her eyes made precious napary of her hair that better flax shamed the linen in the Pharisee's chest A kiss of the cheek had wont to be pledge of the welcome of their guests Simon neglects to make himself thus happy she redoubles the kisses of her humble thankfulness upon the blessed feet of her Saviour The Pharisee omits ordinary oyl for the head she supplies the most precious and fragrant oyl to his feet Now the Pharisee reads his own taxation in her praise and begins to envy where he had scorned It is our fault O Saviour if we mistake thee We are ready to think so thou have the substance of good usage thou regardest not the complements and ceremonies whereas now we see thee to have both meat and welcome in the Pharisee's house and yet hear thee glance at his neglect of washing kissing anointing Doubtless omission of due circumstances in thy Entertainment may deserve to lose our thanks Do we pray to thee do we hear thee preach to us now we make thee good chear in our house but if we perform not these things with the fit decency of our outward carriages we give thee not thy water thy kisses thy oyl Even meet ritual observances are requisite for thy full welcome Yet how little had these things been regarded if they had not argued the woman's thankfull love to thee and the ground of that love sense of her remission and the Pharisee's default in both Love and action do necessarily evince each other True love cannot lurk long unexpressed it will be looking out at the eyes creeping out of the mouth breaking out at the fingers ends in some actions of dearness especially those wherein there is pain and difficulty to the agent profit or pleasure to the affected O Lord in vain shall we profess to love thee if we doe nothing for thee Since our goodness cannot reach up unto thee who art our glorious Head O let us bestow upon thy Feet thy poor Members here below our tears our hands our oyntment and whatever our gifts or endeavours may testifie our thankfulness and love to thee in them O happy word Her sins which are many are forgiven her Methinks I see how this poor Penitent revived with this breath how new life comes into her eyes new bloud into her cheeks new spirits into her countenance like unto our Mother Earth when in that first confusion God said Let the earth bring forth grass the herb that beareth seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit all runs out into flowers and blossoms and leaves and fruit Her former tears said Who shall deliver me from this body of death Now her chearfull smiles say I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Seldome ever do we meet with so perfect a Penitent seldome do we find so gracious a dismission What can be wished of any mortall creature but Remission Safety Faith Peace All these are here met to make a contrite Soul happy Remission the ground of her Safety Faith the ground of her Peace Safety and Salvation the issue of her Remission Peace the blessed fruit of her Faith O Woman the perfume that thou broughtest is poor and base in comparison of those sweet savours of rest and happiness that are returned to thee Well was that ointment bestowed wherewith thy Soul is sweetned to all Eternity XXXIV Martha and Mary WE may reade long enough ere we find Christ in an house of his own The foxes have holes and the birds have nests he that had all possessed nothing One while I see him in a Publican's house then in a Pharisee's now I find him at Martha's His last entertainment was with some neglect this with too much solicitude Our Saviour was now in his way the Sun might as soon stand still as he The more we move the liker we are to Heaven and to this God that made it His progress was to Jerusalem for some holy Feast He whose
Contemplations UPON THE REMARKABLE PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF THE HOLY JESUS By JOSEPH HALL late Lord Bishop of EXCESTER LONDON Printed by E. Flesher and are to be sold by Jacob Tonson at the Judge's Head in Chancery Lane near Fleet-street 1679. THE CONTENTS THE Angel and Zachary Pag. 1 The Annunciation of CHRIST Pag. 11 The Birth of CHRIST Pag. 19 The Sages and the Star Pag. 25 The Purification Pag. 32 Herod and the Infants Pag. 38 CHRIST among the Doctours Pag. 46 CHRIST's Baptism Pag. 54 CHRIST Tempted Pag. 61 Simon called Pag. 76 The Marriage in Cana. Pag. 82 The good Centurion Pag. 89 The Widow's Son raised Pag. 97 The Ruler's Son cured Pag. 102 The Dumb Devil ejected Pag. 107 Matthew called Pag. 117 CHRIST among the Gergesens or Legion and the Gadarene Herd Pag. 123 The faithfull Canaanite Pag. 145 The Deaf and Dumb man cured Pag. 158 Zacchaeus Pag. 165 John Baptist beheaded Pag. 184 The five Loaves and two Fishes Pag. 202 The Walk upon the Waters Pag. 216 The Bloudy issue healed Pag. 231 Jairus and his Daughter Pag. 243 The Motion of the two fiery Disciples repelled Pag. 248 The Ten Lepers Pag. 256 The Pool of Bethesda Pag. 267 The Transfiguration of CHRIST Pag. 280 291 The Prosecution of the Transfiguration Pag. 305 The Woman taken in Adultery Pag. 309 The Thankfull Penitent Pag. 321 Martha and Mary Pag. 336 The Beggar that was born blind cured Pag. 344 The stubborn Devil ejected Pag. 353 The Widow's Mites Pag. 361 The Ambition of the two Sons of Zebedee Pag. 364 The Tribute-money pay'd Pag. 373 Lazarus Dead Pag. 377 Lazarus Raised Pag. 388 CHRIST's Procession to the Temple Pag. 403 The Fig-tree cursed Pag. 413 CHRIST Betrayed Pag. 417 The Agony Pag. 426 Peter and Malchus or CHRIST Apprehended Pag. 432 CHRIST before Caiaphas Pag. 438 CHRIST before Pilate Pag. 444 The Crucifixion Pag. 457 The Resurrection Pag. 476 The Ascension Pag. 500 Contemplations Upon the NEW TESTAMENT I. The Angel and Zacharie WHen things are at worst then God begins a Change The state of the Jewish Church was extremely corrupted immediately before the news of the Gospell yet as bad as it was not onely the Priesthood but the Courses of attendence continued even from David's time till Christ's It is a desperately-depraved condition of a Church where no good Orders are left Judaea passed many Troubles many Alterations yet this orderly Combination endured about eleven hundred years A settled Good will not easily be defeated but in the change of persons will remain unchanged and if it be forced to give way leaves memorable footsteps behind it If David foresaw the perpetuation of this holy Ordinance how much did he rejoyce in the knowledge of it Who would not be glad to doe good on condition that it may so long out-live him The successive Turns of the Legall ministration held on in a Line never interrupted Even in a forlorn and miserable Church there may be a personall Succession How little were the Jews better for this when they had lost the Urim and Thummim Sincerity of Doctrine and Manners This stayed with them even whilst they and their Sons crucified Christ What is more ordinary then wicked Sons of holy Parents It is the Succession of Truth and Holiness that makes or institutes a Church whatever becomes of the Persons Never times were so barren as not to yield some good The greatest Dearth affords some few good Ears to the Gleaners Christ would not have come into the World but he would have some faithfull to entertain him He that had the disposing of all Times and Men would cast some Holy ones into his own Times There had been no equality that all should either over-run or follow him and none attend him Zachary and Elizabeth are just both of Aaron's Bloud and John Baptist of theirs Whence should an holy Seed spring if not of the Loins of Levi It is not in the power of Parents to traduce Holiness to their Children It is the blessing of God that feoffs them in the Vertues of their Parents as they feoffe them in their Sins There is no certainty but there is likelihood of an holy Generation when the Parents are such Elizabeth was just as well as Zachary that the Fore-runner of a Saviour might be holy on both sides If the Stock and the Graffe be not both good there is much danger of the Fruit. It is an happy Match when the Husband and the Wife are one not onely in themselves but in God not more in flesh then in the spirit Grace makes no difference of Sexes rather the weaker carries away the more honour because it hath had less helps It is easie to observe that the New Testament affordeth more store of good Women then the Old Elizabeth led the ring of this mercy whose Barrenness ended in a miraculous Fruit both of her body and of her time This religious pair made no less progress in Vertue then in Age and yet their Vertue could not make their best Age fruitfull Elizabeth was barren A just soul and a barren womb may well agree together Amongst the Jews Barrenness was not a defect onely but a reproach yet while this good woman was fruitfull of holy Obedience she was barren of Children As John who was miraculously conceived by man was a fit Fore-runner of him that was conceived by the Holy Ghost so a barren Matron was meet to make way for a Virgin None but a son of Aaron might offer Incense to God in the Temple and not every son of Aaron and not any one at all seasons God is a God of Order and hates Confusion no less then Irreligion Albeit he hath not so streightned himself under the Gospell as to tie his service to Persons or Places yet his choice is now no less curious because it is more large He allows none but the authorized he authorizeth none but the worthy The Incense doth ever smell of the hand that offers it I doubt not but that Perfume was sweeter which ascended up from the hand of a just Zachary The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to God There were Courses of ministration in the Legall services God never purposed to burthen any of his creatures with Devotion How vain is the ambition of any soul that would load it self with the universall charge of all men How thankless is their labour that do wilfully over-spend themselves in their ordinary vocations As Zachary had a Course in God's House so he carefully observed it The favour of these respites doubled his diligence The more high and sacred our Calling is the more dangerous is Neglect It is our honour that we may be allowed to wait upon the God of heaven in these immediate services Woe be to us if we slacken those Duties wherein God honours us more then we can honour him Many sons of Aaron yea of the same Family served at once in the Temple according to the variety of imployments To
Fear as all Passions disquiets the heart and makes it for the time unfit to receive the messages of God Soon hath the Angel cleared these troublesome mists of Passions and sent out the beams of heavenly Consolation into the remotest corner of her Soul by the glad news of her Saviour How can Joy but enter into her heart out of whose womb shall come Salvation What room can Fear find in that breast that is assured of Favour Fear not Mary for thou hast found favour with God Let those fear who know they are in displeasure or know not they are gracious Thine happy estate calls for Confidence and that Confidence for Joy What should what can they fear who are favoured of him at whom the Devils tremble Not the Presence of the good Angels but the Temptations of the evill strike many terrours into our weakness we could not be dismaied with them if we did not forget our condition We have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again but the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father If that Spirit O God witness with our spirits that we are thine how can we fear any of those spirituall wickednesses Give us assurance of thy Favour and let the powers of Hell doe their worst It was no ordinary favour that the Virgin found in Heaven No mortall Creature was ever thus graced that he should take part of her nature that was the God of Nature that he who made all things should make his humane Body of hers that her Womb should yield that Flesh which was personally united to the Godhead that she should bear him that upholds the World Loe thou shalt conceive and bear a Son and shalt call his name JESVS It is a question whether there be more wonder in the Conception or in the Fruit the Conception of the Virgin or Jesus conceived Both are marvellous but the former doth not more exceed all other Wonders then the latter exceedeth it For the child of a Virgin is the improvement of that power which created the world but that God should be incarnate of a Virgin was an abasement of his Majesty and an exaltation of the Creature beyond all example Well was that Child worthy to make the Mother blessed Here was a double Conception one in the womb of her Body the other of the Soul If that were more miraculous this was more beneficiall that was her Privilege this was her Happiness If that were singular to her this is common to all his chosen There is no renewed Heart wherein thou O Saviour art not formed again Blessed be thou that hast herein made us blessed For what womb can conceive thee and not partake of thee who can partake of thee and not be happy Doubtless the Virgin understood the Angel as he meant of a present Conception which made her so much more inquisitive into the manner and means of this event How shall this be since I know not a man That she should conceive a Son by the knowledge of Man after her Marriage consummate could have been no wonder But how then should that Son of hers be the Son of God This demand was higher How her present Virginity should be instantly fruitfull might be well worthy of admiration of inquiry Here was desire of information not doubts of infidelity yea rather this question argues Faith it takes for granted that which an unbelieving heart would have stuck at She says not Who and whence art thou what Kingdome is this where and when shall it be erected but smoothly supposing all those strange things would be done she insists onely in that which did necessarily require a farther intimation and doth not distrust but demand neither doth she say This cannot be nor How can this be but How shall this be So doth the Angel answer as one that knew he needed not to satisfie Curiosity but to inform Judgment and uphold Faith He doth not therefore tell her of the manner but of the Authour of this act The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most high shall over-shadow thee It is enough to know who is the Undertaker and what he will doe O God what do we seek a clear Light where thou wilt have a Shadow No Mother knows the manner of her naturall Conception what presumption shall it be for flesh and bloud to search how the Son of God took flesh and bloud of his Creature It is for none but the Almighty to know those works which he doeth immediately concerning himself those that concern us he hath revealed Secrets to God things revealed to us The Answer was not so full but that a thousand difficulties might arise out of the particularities of so strange a Message yet after the Angel's Solution we hear of no more Objections no more Interrogations The faithfull Heart when it once understands the good pleasure of God argues no more but sweetly rests it self in a quiet expectation Behold the Servant of the Lord be it to me according to thy Word There is not a more noble proof of our Faith then to captivate all the powers of our Understanding and Will to our Creatour and without all sciscitations to goe blindfold whither he will lead us All Disputations with God after his will known arise from Infidelity Great is the Mystery of Godliness and if we will give Nature leave to cavill we cannot be Christians O God thou art faithfull thou art powerfull It is enough that thou hast said it in the humility of our obedience we resign our selves over to thee Behold the Servants of the Lord be it unto us according to thy word How fit was her Womb to conceive the Flesh of the Son of God by the power of the Spirit of God whose Breast had so soon by the power of the same Spirit conceived an assent to the will of God And now of an Handmaid of God she is advanced to the Mother of God No sooner hath she said Be it done then it is done the Holy Ghost overshadows her and forms her Saviour in her own Body This very Angel that talks with the Blessed Virgin could scarce have been able to express the Joy of her heart in the sense of this Divine Burthen Never any mortal creature had so much cause of Exultation How could she that was full of God be other then full of Joy in that God Grief grows greater by concealing Joy by expression The Holy Virgin had understood by the Angel how her Cousin Elizabeth was no less of kin to her in condition the fruitfulness of whose Age did somewhat suit the fruitfulness of her Virginity Happiness communicated doubles it self Here is no straining of courtesie The Blessed Maid whom vigour of Age had more fitted for the way hastens her journey into the Hill-country to visit that gracious Matron whom God had made a sign of her miraculous Conception Onely the meeting of Saints in Heaven can parallel the meeting of these two Cousins
rights Questionless this gracious Saint would not for all the world have willingly preferred her own attendence to that of her God through heedlesness she doeth so Her Son and Saviour is her monitour out of his Divine love reforming her natural How is it that ye sought me Know ye not that I must go about my Fathers business Immediately before the Blessed Virgin had said Thy Father I sought thee with heavy hearts Wherein both according to the supposition of the world she calleth Joseph the Father of Christ and according to the fashion of a dutifull wife she names her Joseph before her self She well knew that Joseph had nothing but a name in this business she knew how God had dignified her beyond him yet she says Thy Father and I sought thee The Son of God stands not upon contradiction to his mother but leading her thoughts from his supposed Father to his true from earth to heaven he answers Knew ye not that I must go about my Fathers business It was honour enough to her that he had vouchsafed to take flesh of her It was his eternall Honour that he was God of God the everlasting Son of the heavenly Father Good reason therefore was it that the respects to flesh should give place to the God of Spirits How well contented was Holy Mary with so just an answer how doth she now again in her heart renew her answer to the Angel Behold the servant of the Lord be it according to thy word We are all the Sons of God in another kind Nature and the World think we should attend them We are not worthy to say we have a Father in Heaven if we cannot steal away from these earthly distractions and imploy our selves in the services of our God VIII Christ's Baptism JOhn did every way forerun Christ not so much in the time of his Birth as in his Office neither was there more unlikeliness in their disposition and carriage then similitude in their function Both did preach and baptize onely John baptized by himself our Saviour by his Disciples Our Saviour wrought miracles by himself by his Disciples John wrought none by either Wherein Christ meant to shew himself a Lord and John a Servant and John meant to approve himself a true Servant to him whose Harbinger he was He that leapt in the womb of his mother when his Saviour then newly conceived came in presence bestir'd himself when he was brought forth into the light of the Church to the honour and service of his Saviour He did the same before Christ which Christ charged his Disciples to doe after him preach and baptize The Gospel ran always in one tenour and was never but like it self So it became the Word of him in whom there is no shadow by turning and whose Word it is I am Jehova I change not It was fit that he which had the Prophets the Star the Angel to foretell his coming into the world should have his Usher to go before him when he would notifie himself to the world John was the Voice of a Cryer Christ was the Word of his Father It was fit this Voice should make a noise to the world ere the Word of the Father should speak to it John's note was still Repentance the Axe to the root the Fan to the floor the Chaffe to the fire as his Raiment was rough so was his Tongue and if his Food were wild Hony his Speech was stinging Locusts Thus must the way be made for Christ in every heart Plausibility is no fit preface to Regeneration If the heart of man had continued upright God might have been entertained without contradiction but now violence must be offered to our corruption ere we can have room for Grace If the great Way-maker do not cast down hills and raise up valleys in the bosomes of men there is no passage for Christ Never will Christ come into that Soul where the Herald of Repentance hath not been before him That Saviour of ours who from eternity lay hid in the Counsel of God who in the fulness of time so came that he lay hid in the womb of his mother for the space of forty weeks after he was come thought fit to lie hid in Nazareth for the space of thirty years now at last begins to shew himself to the world and comes from Galilee to Jordan He that was God always and might have been perfect Man in an instant would by degrees rise to the perfection both of his Manhood and execution of his Mediatourship to teach us the necessity of leisure in spiritual proceedings that many Suns and successions of seasons and means must be stayed for ere we can attain our maturity and that when we are ripe for the imployments of God we should no less willingly leave our obscurity then we took the benefit of it for our preparation He that was formerly circumcised would now be baptized What is Baptism but an Evangelical Circumcision What was Circumcision but a legal Baptism One both supplied and succeeded the other yet the Authour of both will undergo both He would be circumcised to sanctifie his Church that was and baptized to sanctifie his Church that should be that so in both Testaments he might open a way into Heaven There was in him neither filthiness nor foreskin of corruption that should need either knife or water He came not to be a Saviour for himself but for us We are all uncleanness and uncircumcision He would therefore have that done to his most pure Body which should be of force to clear our impure Souls thus making himself sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him His Baptism gives virtue to ours His last action or rather passion was his Baptizing with bloud his first was his Baptization with water both of them wash the world from their sins Yea this latter did not onely wash the souls of men but washeth that very water by which we are washed from hence is that made both clean and holy and can both cleanse and hallow us And if the very Handkerchief which touched his Apostles had power of cure how much more that Water which the sacred body of Christ touched Christ comes far to seek his Baptism to teach us for whose sake he was baptized to wait upon the Ordinances of God and to sue for the favour of spiritual blessings They are worthless commodities that are not worth seeking for It is rarely seen that God is found of any man unsought for That desire which onely makes us capable of good things cannot stand with neglect John durst not baptize unbidden his Master sent him to do this service and behold the Master comes to his Servant to call for the participation of that priviledge which he himself had instituted and injoyned How willingly should we come to our spiritual Superious for our part in those mysteries which God hath left in their keeping yea how gladly should we come to
Christ carried up so high but for prospect If the Kingdoms of the earth and their glory were onely to be presented to his Imagination the Valley would have served if to the outward Sense no Hill could suffice Circular bodies though small cannot be seen at once This show was made to both divers Kingdoms lying round about Judaea were represented to the Eye the glory of them to the Imagination Satan meant the Eye could tempt the Fancy no less then the Fancy could tempt the Will How many thousand souls have died of the wound of the Eye If we do not let in sin at the window of the Eye or the door of the Ear it cannot enter into our Hearts If there be any pomp majesty pleasure bravery in the world where should it be but in the Courts of Princes whom God hath made his Images his Deputies on earth There is soft raiment sumptuous feasts rich jewels honourable attendence glorious triumphs royal state These Satan lays out to the fairest show But oh the craft of that old Serpent Many a Care attends Greatness No Crown is without Thorns High seats are never but uneasie All those infinite discontentments which are the shadow of earthly Sovereignty he hides out of the way nothing may be seen but what may both please and allure Satan is still and ever like himself If Temptations might be but turn'd about and shewn on both sides the Kingdom of darkness would not be so populous Now whensoever the Tempter sets upon any poor Soul all sting of conscience wrath judgment torment is concealed as if they were not Nothing may appear to the eye but pleasure profit and a seeming happiness in the enjoying our desires Those other wofull objects are reserved for the farewell of sin that our misery may be seen and felt at once When we are once sure Satan is a Tyrant till then he is a Parasite There can be no safety if we do not view as well the back as the face of Temptations But oh presumption and impudence that Hell it self may be ashamed of The Devil dares say to Christ All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me That beggarly Spirit that hath not an inch of Earth can offer the whole World to the Maker to the Owner of it The Slave of God would be adored of his Creatour How can we hope he should be sparing of false boasts and of unreasonable promises unto us when he dares offer Kingdoms to him by whom Kings reign Temptations on the right hand are most dangerous How many that have been hardned with Fear have melted with Honour There is no doubt of that Soul that will not bite at the golden hook False Liars and vain-glorious Boasters see the top of their pedigree if I may not rather say that Satan doth borrow the use of their tongues for a time Whereas faithfull is he that hath promised who will also doe it Fidelity and Truth is the issue of Heaven If Idolatry were not a dear sin to Satan he would not be so importunate to compass it It is miserable to see how he draws the world insensibly into this sin which they profess to detest Those that would rather hazzard the furnace then worship Gold in a Statue yet do adore it in the stamp and find no fault with themselves If our hearts be drawn to stoop unto an over-high respect of any creature we are Idolaters O God it is no marvel if thy jealousie be kindled at the admission of any of thine own works into a competition of honour with their Creatour Never did our Saviour say Avoid Satan till now It is a just indignation that is conceived at the motion of a rivality with God Neither yet did Christ exercise his Divine power in this command but by the necessary force of Scripture drives away that impure Tempter It is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve The rest of our Saviour's answers were more full and direct then that they could admit of a reply but this was so flat and absolute that it utterly daunted the courage of Satan and put him to a shamefull flight and made him for the time weary of his trade The way to be rid of the troublesome solicitations of that Wicked one is continued resistence He that forcibly drove the Tempter from himself takes him off from us and will not abide his assaults perpetual It is our exercise and trial that he intends not our confusion X. Simon called AS the Sun in his first rising draws all eyes to it so did this Sun of righteousness when he first shone forth into the world His miraculous Cures drew Patients his Divine Doctrine drew Auditours both together drew the admiring multitude by troops after him And why do we not still follow thee O Saviour through desarts and mountains over land and seas that we may be both healed and taught It was thy word that when thou wert lift up thou wouldst draw all men unto thee Behold thou art lift up long since both to the Tree of shame and to the Throne of heavenly Glory Draw us and we shall run after thee Thy Word is still the same though proclaimed by men thy Virtue is still the same though exercised upon the spirits of men Oh give us to hunger after both that by both our souls may be satisfied I see the people not onely following Christ but pressing upon him Even very Unmannerliness finds here both excuse and acceptation They did not keep their distances in an awe to the Majesty of the Speaker whilst they were ravished with the power of the Speech yet did not our Saviour check their unreverent thronging but rather incourages their forwardness We cannot offend thee O God with the importunity of our desires It likes thee well that the Kingdom of heaven should suffer violence Our slackness doth ever displease thee never our vehemency The throng of Auditours forced Christ to leave the shore and to make Peter's Ship his Pulpit Never were there such nets cast out of that fisher-boat before Whilst he was upon the land he healed the sick bodies by his touch now that he was upon the Sea he cured the sick souls by his doctrine and is purposely severed from the multitude that he may unite them to him He that made both Sea and Land causeth both of them to conspire to the opportunities of doing good Simon was busie washing his nets Even those nets that caught nothing must be washed no less then if they had sped well The night's toil doth not excuse his day's work Little did Simon think of leaving those nets which he so carefully washed and now Christ interrupts him with the favour and blessing of his gracious presence Labour in our calling how homely soever makes us capable of Divine benediction The honest Fisher-man when he saw the people flock after Christ and heard him speak with such power could not
to his God Christ hath left many a soul for froward and unkind usage never any for the disparagement of it self and intreaties of humility Simon could not devise how to hold Christ faster then by thus suing to him to be gone then by thus pleading his Unworthiness O my soul be not weary of complaining of thine own wretchedness disgrace thy self to him that knows thy vileness be astonished at those mercies which have shamed thine ill deservings Thy Saviour hath no power to go away from a prostrate heart He that resists the proud heartens the lowly Fear not for I will make thee henceforth a Fisher of men Loe this Humility is rewarded with an Apostleship What had the Earth ever more glorious then a Legacy from Heaven He that bade Christ go from him shall have the honour to go first on this happy errand This was a Trade that Simon had no skill of it could not but be enough to him that Christ said I will make thee the Miracle shewed him able to make good his word He that hath power to command the Fishes to be taken can easily inable the hands to take them What is this Divine Trade of ours then but a spiritual Piscation The World is a Sea Souls like Fishes swim at liberty in this Deep the Nets of wholsome Doctrine draw up some to the shore of Grace and Glory How much skill and toil and patience is requisite in this Art Who is sufficient for these things This Sea these Nets the Fishers the Fish the Vessels are all thine O God doe what thou wilt in us and by us Give us ability and grace to take give men will and grace to be taken and take thou Glory by that which thou hast given XI The Marriage in Cana. WAS this then thy first Miracle O Saviour that thou wroughtest in Cana of Galilee And could there be a greater Miracle then this that having been thirty years upon earth thou didst no Miracle till now that thy Divinity did hide it self thus long in Flesh that so long thou wouldst lie obscure in a corner of Galilee unknown to that World thou camest to redeem that so long thou wouldst strain the patient expectation of those who ever since thy Star waited upon the revelation of a Messias We silly wretches if we have but a dram of Vertue are ready to set it out to the best show Thou who receivedst not the Spirit by measure wouldst content thy self with a willing obscurity and concealedst that Power that made the World in the roof of an Humane breast in a Cottage of Nazareth O Saviour none of thy Miracles is more worthy of astonishment then thy not doing of Miracles What thou didst in private thy wisedom thought fit for secrecy but if thy Blessed Mother had not been acquainted with some domestical Wonders she had not now expected a Miracle abroad The Stars are not seen by day the Sun it self is not seen by night As it is no small art to hide Art so is it no small glory to conceal Glory Thy first publick Miracle graceth a Marriage It is an ancient and laudable institution that the Rites of Matrimony should not want a solemn celebration When are Feasts in season if not at the recovery of our lost Rib if not at this main change of our estate wherein the joy of obtaining meets with the hope of farther comforts The Son of the Virgin and the Mother of that Son are both at a Wedding It was in all likelihood some of their Kindred to whose nuptiall feast they were invited so far yet was it more the honour of the act then of the person that Christ intended He that made the first Marriage in Paradise bestows his first Miracle upon a Galilaean Marriage He that was the Authour of Matrimony and sanctified it doth by his Holy presence honour the resemblance of his eternall union with his Church How boldly may we spit in the faces of all the impure Adversaries of Wedlock when the Son of God pleases to honour it The glorious Bridegroom of the Church knew well how ready men would be to place shame even in the most lawfull conjunctions and therefore his first work shall be to countenance his own Ordinance Happy is that Wedding where Christ is a Guest O Saviour those that marry in thee cannot marry without thee There is no holy Marriage whereat thou art not however invisible yet truly present by thy Spirit by thy gracious Benediction Thou makest Marriages in Heaven thou blessest them from Heaven O thou that hast betrothed us to thy self in Truth and Righteousness do thou consummate that happy Marriage of ours in the highest Heavens It was no rich or sumptuous Bridal to which Christ with his Mother and Disciples vouchsafed to come from the farther parts of Galilee I find him not at the magnificent feasts or triumphs of the Great The proud pomp of the World did not agree with the state of a Servant This poor needy Bridegroom wants drink for his guests The Blessed Virgin though a stranger to the house out of a charitable compassion and a friendly desire to maintain the decency of an hospitall entertainment inquires into the wants of her Host pities them bemoans them where there was power of redress When the wine failed the mother of Jesus said unto him They have no wine How well doth it beseem the eyes of piety and Christian love to look into the necessities of others She that conceived the God of mercies both in her heart and in her womb doth not fix her eyes upon her own Trencher but searcheth into the penury of a poor Israelite and feels those wants whereof he complains not They are made for themselves whose thoughts are onely taken up with their own store or indigence There was wine enough for a meal though not for a feast and if there were not wine enough there was enough water yet the Holy Virgin complains of the want of wine and is troubled with the very lack of superfluity The bounty of our God reaches not to our life onely but to our contentment neither hath he thought good to allow us onely the bread of sufficiency but sometimes of pleasure One while that is but necessary which some other time were superfluous It is a scrupulous injustice to scant our selves where God hath been liberal To whom should we complain of any want but to the Maker and Giver of all things The Blessed Virgin knew to whom she sued She had good reason to know the Divine nature and power of her Son Perhaps the Bridegroom was not so needy but if not by his purse yet by his credit he might have supplied that want or it were hard if some of the neighbour-guests had they been duely solicited might not have furnished him with so much wine as might suffice for the last service of a dinner But Blessed Mary knew a nearer way she did not think best to lade at the shallow Chanel but runs
performance meets him one half of the way and he that believed somewhat ere he came and more when he went grew to more Faith in the way and when he came home inlarged his Faith to all the skirts of his Family A weak Faith may be true but a true Faith is growing He that boasts of a full stature in the first moment of his assent may presume but doth not believe Great men cannot want clients their example sways some their authority more they cannot go to either of the other worlds alone In vain do they pretend power over others who labour not to draw their families unto God XV. The Dumb Devil ejected THat the Prince of our Peace might approve his victories perfect wheresoever he met with the Prince of darkness he foiled him he ejected him He found him in Heaven thence did he throw him headlong and verified his Prophet I have cast thee out of mine holy mountain And if the Devils left their first habitation it was because being Devils they could not keep it Their estate indeed they might have kept and did not their habitation they would have kept and might not How art thou faln from heaven O Lucifer He found him in the Heart of man for in that closet of God did the evill Spirit after his exile from Heaven shrowd himself Sin gave him possession which he kept with a willing violence thence he casts him by his Word and Spirit He found him tyrannizing in the Bodies of some possessed men and with power commands the unclean Spirits to depart This act is for no hand but his When a strong man keeps possession none but a stronger can remove it In voluntary things the strongest may yield to the weakest Sampson to a Dalilah but in violent ever the mightiest carries it A spirituall nature must needs be in rank above a bodily neither can any power be above a Spirit but the God of Spirits No otherwise is it in the mentall possession Where ever Sin is there Satan is As on the contrary whosoever is born of God the seed of God remains in him That Evill one not onely is but rules in the sons of disobedience in vain shall we try to eject him but by the Divine power of the Redeemer For this cause the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devill Do we find our selves haunted with the familiar Devills of Pride Self-love Sensuall desires Unbelief None but thou O Son of the ever-living God can free our bosoms of these hellish guests O cleanse thou me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me O Saviour it is no Paradox to say that thou castest out more Devils now then thou didst whilst thou wert upon earth It was thy word When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me Satan weighs down at the feet thou pullest at the head yea at the heart In every conversion which thou workest there is a dispossession Convert me O Lord and I shall be converted I know thy means are now no other then ordinary If we expect to be dispossessed by miracle it would be a miracle if ever we were dispossessed O let thy Gospell have the perfect work in me so onely shall I be delivered from the powers of darkness Nothing can be said to be dumb but what naturally speaks nothing can speak naturally but what hath the instruments of speech which because spirits want they can no otherwise speak vocally then as they take voices to themselves in taking bodies This Devill was not therefore dumb in his nature but in his effect The man was dumb by the operation of that Devill which possessed him and now the action is attributed to the spirit which was subjectively in the man It is not you that speak saith our Saviour but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you As it is in bodily diseases that they do not infect us alike some seize upon the humours others upon the spirits some assault the brain others the heart or lungs so in bodily and spirituall possessions in some the evill spirit takes away their senses in some their lims in some their inward faculties like as spiritually they affect to move us unto severall sins one to Lust another to Covetousness or Ambition another to Cruelty and their names have distinguished them according to these various effects This was a dumb Devill which yet had possessed not the tongue onely of this man but his ear nor that onely but as it seems his eyes too O subtle and tyrannous spirit that obstructs all ways to the Soul that keeps out all means of grace both from the door and windows of the Heart yea that stops up all passages whether of ingress or egress of ingress at the Eye or Ear of egress at the Mouth that there might be no capacity of redress What holy use is there of our Tongue but to praise our Maker to confess our sins to inform our brethren How rise is this dumb Devill every-where whilst he stops the mouths of Christians from these usefull and necessary duties For what end hath man those two privileges above his fellow-creatures Reason and Speech but that as by the one he may conceive of the great works of his Maker which the rest cannot so by the other he may express what he conceives to the honour of the Creatour both of them and himself And why are all other creatures said to praise God and bidden to praise him but because they doe it by the apprehension by the expression of man If the heavens declare the glory of God how doe they it but to the eyes and by the tongue of that man for whom they were made It is no small honour whereof the envious Spirit shall rob his Maker if he can close up the mouth of his onely rationall and vocall creature and turn the best of his workmanship into a dumb Idol that hath a mouth and speaks not Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Praise is not more necessary then complaint praise of God then complaint of our selves whether to God or men The onely amends we can make to God when we have not had the grace to avoid sin is to confess the sin we have not avoided This is the sponge that wipes out all the blots and blurs of our lives If we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness That cunning Man-slayer knows there is no way to purge the sick soul but upward by casting out the vicious humour wherewith it is clogged and therefore holds the lips close that the heart may not dis-burthen it self by so wholsome evacuation When I kept silence my bones consumed For day and night thy hand O Lord was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer O let me confess against my self my wickedness unto
Principalities and Powers and Governours and Princes of the darkness of this World design other then several ranks of evil Angels There can be no being without some kind of order there can be no order in parity If we look up into Heaven there is the King of Gods the Lord of Lords higher then the highest If to the Earth there are Monarchs Kings Princes Peers People If we look down to Hell there is the Prince of Devils They labour for confusion that call for parity What should the Church doe with such a form as is not exemplified in Heaven in Earth in Hell One Devil according to their supposition may be used to cast out another How far the command of one spirit over another may extend it is a secret of infernal state too deep for the inquiry of men The thing it self is apparent upon compact and precontracted composition one gives way to other for the common advantage As we see in the Commonwealth of Cheaters and Cutpurses one doeth the fact another is feed to bring it out and to procure restitution both are of the trade both conspire to the fraud the actour falls not out with the revealer but divides with him that cunning spoil One malicious miscreant sets the Devil on work to the inflicting of disease or death another upon agreement for a farther spiritual gain takes him off There is a Devil in both And if there seem more bodily favour there is no less spiritual danger in the latter In the one Satan wins the agent the suitour in the other It will be no cause of discord in Hell that one Devil gives ease to the body which another tormented that both may triumph in the gain of a soul Oh God that any creature which bears thine Image should not abhor to be beholden to the powers of hell for aid for advice Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that men go to inquire of the God of Ekron Can men be so sottish to think that the vowed enemy of their souls can offer them a bait without an hook What evil is there in the City which the Lord hath not done what is there which he cannot as easily redress He wounds he heals again And if he will not it is the Lord let him doe what seems good in his eyes If he do not deliver us he will crown our faithfulness in a patient perseverance The wounds of God are better then are the salves of Satan Was it possible that the wit of Envy could devise so high a Slander Beelzebub was a God of the heathen therefore herein they accuse him for an Idolater Beelzebub was a Devil to the Jews therefore they accuse him for a Conjurer Beelzebub was the chief of Devils therefore they accuse him for an Arch-exorcist for the worst kind of Magician Some professours of this black Art though their work be devillish yet they pretend to doe it in the name of Jesus and will presumptuously seem to doe that by command which is secretly transacted by agreement The Scribes accuse Christ of a direct compact with the Devil and suppose both a league and familiarity which by the Law of Moses in the very hand of a Saul was no other then deadly Yea so deep doth this wound reach that our Saviour searching it to the bottom finds no less in it then the sin against the Holy Ghost inferring hereupon that dreadfull sentence of the irremissibleness of that sin unto death And if this horrible crimination were cast upon thee O Saviour in whom the Prince of this world found nothing what wonder is it if we thy sinfull Servants be branded on all sides with evil tongues Yea which is yet more how plain is it that these men forced their tongue to speak this slander against their own heart Else this Blasphemy had been onely against the Son of man not against the Holy Ghost but now that the Searcher of hearts finds it to be no less then against the Blessed Spirit of God the spight must needs be obstinate their malice doth wilfully cross their conscience Envy never regards how true but how mischievous So it may gall or kill it cares little whether with truth or falshood For us Blessed are we when men revile us and say all manner of evil of us for the name of Christ For them What reward shall be given to thee thou false tongue Even sharp arrows with hot burning coals yea those very coals of hell from which thou wert enkindled There was yet a third sort that went a mid way betwixt wonder and censure These were not so malicious as to impute the Miracle to a Satanical operation they confess it good but not enough and therefore urge Christ to a farther proof Though thou hast cast out this dumb Devil yet this is no sufficient argument of thy Divine power We have yet seen nothing from thee like those ancient Miracles of the times of our forefathers Joshua caused the Sun to stand still Elias brought fire down from heaven Samuel astonisht the people with thunder and rain in the midst of harvest If thou wouldst command our belief doe somewhat like to these The casting out of a Devil shews thee to have some power over Hell shew us now that thou hast no less power over Heaven There is a kind of unreasonableness of desire and insatiableness in Infidelity it never knows when it hath evidence enough This which the Jews over-looked was a more irrefragable demonstration of Divinity then that which they desired A Devil was more then a Meteor or a parcel of an element to cast out a Devil by command more then to command fire from heaven Infidelity ever loves to be her own carver No son can be more like a father then these Jews to their progenitors in the desart That there might be no fear of degenerating into good they also of old tempted God in the Wilderness First they are weary of the Egyptian bondage and are ready to fall out with God and Moses for their stay in those furnaces By ten miraculous Plagues they are freed and going out of those confines the Egyptians follow them the Sea is before them now they are more afflicted with their liberty then their servitude The Sea yields way the Egyptians are drowned and now that they are safe on the other shore they tempt the providence of God for water The Rock yields it them then no less for bread and meat God sends them Manna and Quails they cry out of the food of Angels Their present enemies in the way are vanquished they whine at the men of measures in the heart of Canaan Nothing from God but mercy nothing from them but temptations Their true brood both in nature and in sin had abundant proofs of the Messiah if curing the blind lame diseased deaf dumb ejecting Devils over-ruling the elements raising the dead could have been sufficient yet still they must have a sign from Heaven and shut up in
infinitely stronger then the strong one in possession Else where powers are matcht though with some inequality they tug for the victory and without a resistence yield nothing There are no fewer sorts of dealing with Satan then with men Some have dealt with him by suit as the old Satanian Hereticks and the present Indian Savages sacrificing to him that he hurt not others by covenant conditioning their service upon his assistence as Witches and Magicians others by insinuation of implicit compact as Charmers and Figure-casters others by adjuration as the sons of Scaeva and modern Exorcists unwarrantably charging him by an higher name then their own None ever offered to deal with Satan by a direct and primary command but the God of Spirits The great Archangel when the strife was about the body of Moses commanded not but imprecated rather The Lord rebuke thee Satan It is onely the God that made this Spirit an Angel of light that can command him now that he hath made himself the Prince of darkness If any created power dare to usurp a word of command he laughs at their presumption and knows them his Vassals whom he dissembles to fear as his Lords It is thou onely O Saviour at whose beck those stubborn Principalities of hell yield and tremble No wicked man can be so much a slave to Satan as Satan is to thee the interposition of thy grace may defeat that dominion of Satan thy rule is absolute and capable of no lett What need we to fear whilst we are under so omnipotent a Commander The waves of the deep rage horribly yet the Lord is stronger then they Let those Principalities and Powers doe their worst Those mighty adversaries are under the command of him who loved us so well as to bleed for us What can we now doubt of his power or his will How can we profess him a God and doubt of his power How can we profess him a Saviour and doubt of his will He both can and will command those infernall powers We are no less safe then they are malicious The Devill saw Jesus by the eyes of the Demoniack For the same saw that spake but it was the ill Spirit that said I beseech thee torment me not It was sore against his will that he saw so dreadfull an object The over-ruling power of Christ dragged the foul Spirit into his presence Guiltiness would fain keep out of sight The Lims of so wofull an Head shall once call on the Hills and Rocks to hide them from the face of the Lamb such Lion-like terrour is in that mild face when it looks upon wickedness Neither shall it be one day the least part of the torment of the damned to see the most lovely spectacle that Heaven can afford He from whom they fled in his offers of grace shall be so much more terrible as he was and is more gracious I marvel not therefore that the Devill when he saw Jesus cried out I could marvell that he fell down that he worshipped him That which the proud Spirit would have had Christ to have done to him in his great Duell the same he now doeth unto Christ fearfully servilely forcedly Who shall henceforth brag of the externall homage he performs to the Son of God when he sees Satan himself fall down and worship What comfort can there be in that which is common to us with Devils who as they believe and tremble so they tremble and worship The outward bowing is the body of the action the disposition of the Soul is the soul of it therein lies the difference from the counterfeit stoopings of wicked men and spirits The religious heart serves the Lord in fear and rejoyces in him with trembling What it doeth is in way of service in service to his Lord whose sovereignty is his comfort and protection in the fear of a son not of a slave in fear tempered with joy in a joy but allayed with trembling Whereas the prostration of wicked men and Devils is onely an act of form or of force as to their Judge as to their Tormentour not as to their Lord in meer servility not in reverence in an uncomfortable dulness without all delight in a perfect horrour without capacity of joy These worship without thanks because they fall down without the true affections of worship Whoso marvels to see the Devill upon his knees would much more marvel to hear what came from his mouth Jesus the Son of the Most high God A confession which if we should hear without the name of the Authour we should ask from what Saint it came Behold the same name given to Christ by the Devil which was formerly given him by the Angel Thou shalt call his name JESUS That awfull Name whereat every knee shall bow in heaven in earth and under the earth is called upon by this prostrate Devil And lest that should not import enough since others have been honoured by this name in Type he adds for full distinction the Son of the Most high God The good Syrophoenician and blind Bartimaeus could say the Son of David it was well to acknowledge the true descent of his pedigree according to the flesh But this infernal Spirit looks aloft and fetcheth his line out of the highest Heavens the Son of the Most high God The famous confession of the prime Apostle which honoured him with a new name to immortality was no other then Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God and what other do I hear from the lips of a Fiend No more Divine words could fall from the highest Saint Nothing hinders but that the veriest miscreant on earth yea the foulest Devil in Hell may speak holily It is no passing of judgment upon loose sentences So Peter should have been cast for a Satan in denying forswearing cursing and the Devil should have been set up for a Saint in confessing Jesus the Son of the Most high God Fond hypocrite that pleasest thy self in talking well hear this Devil and when thou canst speak better then he look to fare better but in the mean time know that a smooth tongue and a foul heart carrie away double judgments Let curious heads dispute whether the Devil knew Christ to be God In this I dare believe himself though in nothing else He knew what he believed what he believed that he confessed Jesus the Son of the Most high God To the confusion of those Semi-Christians that have either held doubtfully or ignorantly mis-known or blasphemously denied what the very Devils have professed How little can a bare speculation avail us in these cases of Divinity So far this Devil hath attained to no ease no comfort Knowledge alone doth but puffe up it is our Love that edifies If there be not a sense of our sure interest in this Jesus a power to apply his merits and obedience we are no whit the safer no whit the better onely we are so much the wiser to understand who shall condemn us
This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the Most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universal the latter words would impugn the former for whilst he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the Most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear in respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil Spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whilst thou vexest a Servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from Knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldness enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny Or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack For the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour Or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a farther degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are Tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by sense have easily granted the Body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a Spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire but as all matters of faith though they cannot be proved by reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a real For as in Blessedness the good Spirits find themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves settled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive meer and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the sky and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of God's justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that Supreme and Righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgment of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal spirits of living men may be held in a loathed or painfull body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name Who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil Spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they expect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed term of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgment should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say before the time Even the very evil spirits confess and fearfully attend a set day of universal Sessions They believe less then Devils that either doubt of or deny that Day of final retribution O the wonderfull mercy of our God that both to wicked men
pierce Heaven Neither doth her vehemence so much argue her Faith as doth her compellation O Lord thou Son of David What Proselyte what Disciple could have said more O blessed Syrophoenician who taught thee this abstract of Divinity What can we Christians confess more then the Deity the Humanity and the Messiahship of our glorious Saviour his Deity as Lord his Humanity as a Son his Messiahship as the Son of David Of all the famous progenitours of Christ two are singled out by an eminence David and Abraham a King a Patriarch And though the Patriarch were first in time yet the King is first in place not so much for the dignity of the person as the excellence of the promise which as it was both later and fresher in memory so more honourable To Abraham was promised multitude and blessing of seed to David perpetuity of dominion So as when God promiseth not to destroy his people it is for Abraham's sake when not to extinguish the Kingdome it is for David's sake Had she said the Son of Abraham she had not come home to this acknowledgment Abraham is the father of the faithfull David of the Kings of Juda and Israel There are many faithfull there is but one King So as in this title she doth proclaim him the perpetual King of his Church the Rod or Flower which should come from the root of Jesse the true and onely Saviour of the world Whoso would come unto Christ to purpose must come in the right style apprehending a true God a true Man a true God and Man any of these severed from other makes Christ an Idol and our prayers sin Being thus acknowledged what suit is so fit for him as mercy Have mercy on me It was her Daughter that was tormented yet she says Have mercy on me Perhaps her possessed child was senseless of her misery the parent feels both her sorrow and her own As she was a good woman so a good mother Grace and good nature have taught her to appropriate the afflictions of this divided part of her own flesh It is not in the power of another skin to sever the interest of our own loins or womb We find some Fowls that burn themselves whilst they endeavour to blow out the fire from their young And even Serpents can receive their brood into their mouth to shield them from danger No creature is so unnatural as the reasonable that hath put off affection On me therefore in mine for my daughter is grievously vexed with a Devil It was this that sent her to Christ It was this that must incline Christ to her I doubt whether she had inquired after Christ if she had not been vexed with her Daughter's spirit Our afflictions are as Benhadad's best counsellours that sent him with a cord about his neck to the mercifull King of Israel These are the files and whetstones that set an edge on our Devotions without which they grow dull and ineffectual Neither are they stronger motives to our suit then to Christ's mercy We cannot have a better spokesman unto God then our own misery that alone sues and pleads and importunes for us This which sets off men whose compassion is finite attracts God to us Who can plead discouragements in his access to the throne of grace when our wants are our forcible advocates All our worthiness is in a capable misery All Israel could not example the faith of this Canaanite yet she was thus tormented in her Daughter It is not the truth or strength of our Faith that can secure us from the outward and bodily vexations of Satan against the inward and spiritual that can and will prevail It is no more antidote against the other then against fevers and dropsies How should it when as it may fall out that these sufferings may be profitable and why should we expect that the love of our God shall yield to fore-lay any benefit to the Soul He is an ill patient that cannot distinguish betwixt an affliction and the evil of affliction When the messenger of Satan buffets us it is enough that God hath said My grace is sufficient for thee Millions were in Tyre and Sidon whose persons whose children were untouched with that tormenting hand I hear none but this faithfull Woman say My daughter is grievously vexed of the Devil The worst of bodily afflictions are an insufficient proof of Divine displeasure She that hath most grace complains of most discomfort Who would now expect any other then a kind answer to so pious and faithfull a petition And behold he answered her not a word O Holy Saviour we have oft found cause to wonder at thy words never till now at thy silence A miserable suppliant cries and sues whilst the God of mercies is speechless He that comforts the afflicted adds affliction to the comfortless by a willing disrespect What shall we say then is the fountain of mercy dried up O Saviour couldst thou but hear She did not murmur not whisper but cry out couldst thou but pity but regard her that was as good as she was miserable If thy ears were open could thy bowels be shut Certainly it was thou that didst put it into the heart into the mouth of this woman to ask and to ask thus of thy self She could never have said O Lord thou Son of David but from thee but by thee None calleth Jesus the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Much more therefore didst thou hear the words of thine own making and well wert thou pleased to hear what thou thoughtest good to forbear to answer It was thine own grace that sealed up thy lips Whether for the trial of her patience and perseverance for silence carried a semblance of neglect and a willing neglect lays strong siege to the best fort of the Soul Even calm tempers when they have been stirred have bewrayed impetuousness of passion If there be any dregs in the bottom of the glass when the water is shaken they will be soon seen Or whether for the more sharpning of her desires and raising of her zealous importunity Our holy longings are increased with delays It whets our appetite to be held fasting Or whether for the more sweetning of the blessing by the difficulty or stay of obtaining The benefit that comes with ease is easily contemned Long and eager pursuit endears any favour Or whether for the ingaging of his Disciples in so charitable a suit Or whether for the wise avoidance of exception from the captious Jews Or lastly for the drawing on of an holy and imitable pattern of faithfull perseverance and to teach us not to measure God's hearing of our suit by his present answer or his present answer by our own sense Whilst our weakness expects thy words thy wisedom resolves upon thy silence Never wert thou better pleased to hear the acclamation of Angels then to hear this woman say O Lord thou Son of David yet silence is thy answer When we have made our prayers it is
rectified The ordination of Marriage is one for one They twain shall be one flesh There cannot be two heads to one body nor two bodies to one head Herod was her Adulterer he was not her Husband she was Herod's Harlot Philip's Wife Yet how doth Herod dote on her that for her sake he loads John with irons Whether will not the fury of inordinate Lust transport a man Certainly John was of late in Herod's favour That rough-hewn Preacher was for a Wilderness not for a Court Herod's invitation drew him thither his reverence and respects incouraged him there Now the love of his Lust hath carried him into an hate of God's Messenger That man can have no hold of himself or care of others who hath given the reins to his unruly Concupiscence He that hath once fixed his heart upon the face of an Harlot and hath beslaved himself to a bewitching Beauty casts off at once all fear of God respect to Laws shame of the world regard of his estate care of wife children friends reputation patrimony body Soul So violent is this beastly passion where it takes neither ever leaves till it hath hurried him into the chambers of death Herodias her self had first plotted to kill the Baptist her murtherers were suborned her ambushes laid The success failed and now she works with Herod for his durance O marvellous hand of the Almighty John was a mean man for estate solitary guardless unarmed impotent Herodias a Queen so great that she swayed Herod himself and not more great then subtle and not more great or subtle then malicious yet Herodias laid to kill John and could not What an invisible and yet sure guard there is about the poor servants of God that seem helpless and despicable in themselves There is over them an hand of Divine protection which can be no more opposed then seen Malice is not so strong in the hand as in the heart The Devil is stronger then a world of men a legion of Devils stronger then fewer spirits yet a legion of Devils cannot hurt one Swine without a permission What can bands of enemies or gates of Hell doe against God's secret ones It is better to trust in the Lord then to trust in Princes It is not more clear who was the Authour then what was the motive of this imprisonment the free reproof of Herod's Incest It is not lawfull c. Both the offenders were nettled with this bold reprehension Herod knew the reputation that John carried his Conscience could not but suggest the foulness of his own fact neither could he but see how odious it would seem to persecute a Prophet for so just a reproof For the colour therefore of so tyrannical an act he brands John with Sedition these presumptuous taxations are a disgrace and disparagement to Authority It is no news with wicked Tyrants to cloak their Cruelty with pretences of Justice Never was it other then the lot of God's faithfull servants to be loaded with unjust reproaches in the conscionable performance of their duties They should speed too well in the opinion of men if they might but appear in their true shape The fact of Herod was horrible and prodigious to rob his own Brother of the partner of his bed to tear away part of his flesh yea his body from his head So as here was at once in one act Adultery Incest Violence Adultery that he took another's wife Incest that he took his Brother's Violence that he thus took her in spite of her Husband Justly therefore might John say It is not lawfull for thee He balked not one of Herod's sins but reproved him of all the evils that he had done though more eminently of this as that which more filled the eye of the world It was not the Crown or awfull Scepter of Herod that could daunt the homely but faithfull messenger of God as one that came in the spirit of Elias he fears no faces spares no wickedness There must meet in God's ministers Courage and Impartiality Impartiality not to make difference of persons Courage not to make spare of the sins of the greatest It is an hard condition that the necessity of our Calling casts upon us in some cases to run upon the pikes of displeasure Prophecies were no Burthens if they did not expose us to these dangers We must connive at no evil Every sin unreproved becomes ours Hatred is the daughter of Truth Herod is inwardly vexed with so peremptory a reprehension and now he seeks to kill the authour And why did he not He feared the people The time was when he feared John no less then now he hates him he once reverenced him as a just and holy man whom now he heart-burns as an enemy neither was it any counterfeit respect sure the man was then in earnest What shall we say then was it that his inconstant heart was now fetcht off by Herodias and wrought to a disaffection or was it with Herod as with Salomon's Sluggard that at once would and would not His thoughts are distracted with a mixt voluntary contradiction of purposes as an holy man and honoured of the people he would not kill John he would kill him as an enemy to his Lust The worse part prevaileth Appetite oversways Reason and Conscience and now were it not for fear of the people John should be murthered What a self-conflicting and prodigious creature is a wicked man left over to his own thoughts whilst on the one side he is urged by his Conscience on the other by his lustfull desires and by the importunity of Satan There is no peace saith my God to the wicked and after all his inward broils he falls upon the worst so as his yieldance is worse then his fight When God sees fit Herod's tyranny shall effect that which the wise Providence of the Almighty hath decreed for his Servant's glory In the mean while rubs shall be cast in his way and this for one He feared the people What an absurd and sottish thing is Hypocrisy Herod fears the people he fears not God Tell me then Herod what could the people doe at the worst Perhaps mutiny against thee raise arms and tumults disturb the Government it may be shake it off What could God doe yea what not stir up all his creatures to plague thee and when he hath done tumble thee down to Hell and there torment thee everlastingly O fond Herod that fearest where no fear was and fearest not where there is nothing but terrour How God fits lewd men with restraints If they be so godless as to regard his creature above himself he hath externall buggs to affright them withall if bashfull he hath shame if covetous losses if proud disgrace and by this means the most wise Providence keeps the world in order We cannot better judge of our hearts then by what we most fear No man is so great as to be utterly exempted from fear The Jews feared Herod Herod feared the Jews the
this was thy will not thy need to teach us that this body must be fed not pampered Our belly may not be our master much less our God or if it be the next word is whose glory is their shame whose end damnation It is noted as the crime of the rich glutton that he fared deliciously every day I never find that Christ entertained any guests but twice and that was onely with loaves and fishes I find him sometimes feasted by others more liberally But his domesticall fare how simple how homely it is The end of food is to sustain Nature Meat was ordained for the belly the belly for the body the body for the Soul the Soul for God we must still look through the subordinate Ends to the highest To rest in the pleasure of the meat is for those creatures which have no Souls Oh the extreme delicacy of these times What conquisition is here of all sorts of curious dishes from the farthest seas and lands to make up one hour's meal what broken cookery what devised mixtures what nice sauces what feasting not of the tast onely but of the sent Are we the Disciples of him that took up with the loaves and fishes or the scholars of a Philoxenus or an Apitius or Vitellius or those other monsters of the palate the true sons of those first Parents that killed themselves with their teeth Neither was the quality of these victuals more course then the quantity small They make a But of five loaves and two fishes and well they might in respect of so many thousand mouths A little food to an hungry stomack doth rather stir up appetite then satisfy it as a little rain upon a droughty soil doth rather help to scorch then refresh it When we look with the eye of Sense or Reason upon any Object we shall see an impossibility of those effects which Faith can easily apprehend and Divine power more easily produce Carnall minds are ready to measure all our hopes by humane possibilities and when they fail to despair of success where true Faith measures them by Divine power and therefore can never be disheartned This Grace is for things not seen and whether beyond hope or against it The virtue is not in the means but in the agent Bring them hither to me How much more easie had it been for our Saviour to fetch the loaves to him then to multiply them The hands of the Disciples shall bring them that they might more fully witness both the Authour and manner of the instant Miracle Had the loaves and fishes been multiplied without this bringing perhaps they might have seemed to have come by the secret provision of the guests now there can be no question either of the act or of the agent As God takes pleasure in doing wonders for men so he loves to be acknowledged in the great works that he doeth He hath no reason to part with his own glory that is too precious for him to lose or for his creature to embezell And how justly didst thou O Saviour in this mean to teach thy Disciples that it was thou onely who feedest the world and upon whom both themselves and all their fellow-creatures must depend for their nourishment and provision and that if it came not through thy hands it could not come to theirs There need no more words I do not hear the Disciples stand upon the terms of their own necessity Alas Sir it is too little for our selves whence shall we then relieve our own hunger Give leave to our Charity to begin at home But they willingly yield to the command of their Master and put themselves upon his Providence for the sequel When we have a charge from God it is not for us to stand upon self-respects in this case there is no such sure liberty as in a self-contempt O God when thou callest to us for our five loaves we must forget our own interest otherwise if we be more thrifty then obedient our good turns evil and much better had it been for us to have wanted that which we withhold from the owner He that is the Master of the Feast marshals the guests He commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass They obey and expect O marvellous Faith So many thousands sit down and address themselves to a meal when they saw nothing but five poor barly loaves and two small fishes None of them say Sit down to what Here are the mouths but where is the meat We can soon be set but whence shall we be served Ere we draw our knives let us see our chear But they meekly and obediently dispose themselves to their places and look up to Christ for a miraculous purveyance It is for all that would be Christ's followers to lead the life of Faith and even where means appear not to wait upon that mercifull hand Nothing is more easy then to trust God when our barns and coffers are full and to say Give us our daily bread when we have it in our cupboard But when we have nothing when we know not how or whence to get any thing then to depend upon an invisible bounty this is a true and noble act of Faith To cast away our own that we may immediately live upon Divine Providence I know no warrant But when the necessity is of God's making we see our refuge and happy are we if our confidence can fly to it and rest in it Yea fulness should be a Curse if it should debar us from this dependence at our best we must look up to this great housholder of the world and cannot but need his provision If we have meat perhaps not appetite if appetite it may be not digestion or if that not health and freedom from pain or if that perhaps from other occurrents not life The guests are set full of expectation He that could have multiplied the bread in absence in silence takes it and blesses it that he might at once shew them the Authour and the means of this increase It is thy blessing O God that maketh rich What a difference do we see in mens estates Some languish under great means and injoy not either their substance or themselves others are chearfull and happy in a little Second causes may not be denied their work but the over-ruling power is above The subordinateness of the Creature doth not take away from the right from the thank of the First Mover He could as well have multiplied the loaves whole why would he rather doe it in the breaking Was it to teach us that in the distribution of our goods we should expect his blessing not in their intireness and reservation There is that scattereth and yet increaseth saith Solomon Yea there is no man but increaseth by scattering It is the grain thrown into the several furrows of the earth which yields the rich interest unto the Husbandman that which is tied up in his sack or heaped in his granary decreaseth by keeping He that soweth
touch What a pattern of powerfull Faith had we lost if our Saviour had not called this act to triall As her modesty hid her disease so it would have hid her vertue Christ will not suffer this secrecy Oh the marvellous but free dispensation of Christ One while he injoyns a silence to his cured Patients and is troubled with their divulgation of his favour another while as here he will not lose the honour of a secret mercy but fetches it out by his Inquisition by his profession Who hath touched me for I perceive virtue is gone out from me As we see in the great work of his Creation he hath placed some Stars in the midst of Heaven where they may be most conspicuous others he hath set in the Southern obscurity obvious to but few eyes in the Earth he hath planted some flowers and trees in the famous gardens of the World others no less beautifull in untracked Woods or wild Desarts where they are either not seen or not regarded O God if thou have intended to glorifie thy self by thy Graces in us thou wilt find means to fetch them forth into the notice of the World otherwise our very privacy shall content us and praise thee Yet even this great Faith wanted not some weakness It was a poor conceit in this Woman that she thought she might receive so sovereign a remedy from Christ without his heed without his knowledge Now that she might see she had trusted to a power which was not more bountifull then sensible and whose goodness did not exceed his apprehension but one that knew what he parted with and willingly parted with that which he knew beneficial to so faithfull a receiver he can say Some body hath touched me for I perceive virtue is gone out from me As there was an errour in her thought so in our Saviour's words there was a correction His mercy will not let her run away with that secret offence It is a great favour of God to take us in the manner and to shame our closeness We scour off the rust from a Weapon that we esteem and prune the Vine we care for O God do thou ever find me out in my Sin and do not pass over my least infirmities without a feeling controlment Neither doubt I but that herein O Saviour thou didst graciously forecast the securing of the Conscience of this faithfull though over-seen Patient which might well have afterwards raised some just scruples for the filching of a Cure for Unthahkfulness to the Authour of her Cure the continuance whereof she might have good reason to misdoubt being surreptitiously gotten ingratefully concealed For prevention of all these dangers and the full quieting of her troubled heart how fitly how mercifully didst thou bring forth this close business to the light and clear it to the bottom It is thy great mercy to foresee our perils and to remove them ere we can apprehend the fear of them as some skilfull Physician who perceiving a Fever or Phrensy coming which the distempered Patient little misdoubts by seasonable applications anticipates that grievous malady so as the sick man knows his safety ere he can suspect his danger Well might the Woman think He who can thus cure and thus know his cure can as well know my name and descry my person and shame and punish my ingratitude With a pale face therefore and a trembling foot she comes and falls down before him and humbly acknowledges what she had done what she had obtained But the Woman finding she was not hid c. Could she have perceived that she might have slily gone away with the Cure she had not confessed it So had she made God a loser of Glory and her self an unthankfull receiver of so great a Benefit Might we have our own wills we should be injurious both to God and our selves Nature lays such plots as would be sure to befool us and is witty in nothing but deceiving her self The onely way to bring us home is to find we are found and to be convinced of the discovery of all our evasions As some unskilfull Thief that finds the owner's eye was upon him in his pilfering laies down his stoln commodity with shame Contrarily when a man is possessed with a conceit of secrecy and cleanly escape he is emboldened in his leudness The Adulterer chuses the twilight and says No eye shall see me and joys in the sweetness of his stoln waters O God in the deepest darkness in my most inward retiredness when none sees me when I see not my self yet let me then see thine all-seeing eye upon me and if ever mine eyes shall be shut or held with a prevailing Temptation check me with a speedy reproof that with this abashed Patient I may come in and confess my errour and implore thy mercy It is no unusual thing for kindness to look sternly for the time that it may indear it self more when it lists to be discovered With a severe countenance did our Saviour look about him and ask Who touched me When the woman comes in trembling and confessing both her act and success he clears up his brows and speaks comfortably to her Daughter be of good chear thy faith hath made thee whole go in peace O sweet and seasonable word fit for those mercifull and Divine lips able to secure any heart to dispell any fears Still O Saviour thou doest thus to us when we fall down before thee in an awfull dejectedness thou rearest us up with a chearfull and compassionate incouragement when thou findest us bold and presumptuous thou lovest to take us down when humbled it is enough to have prostrated us Like as that Lion of Bethel worries the disobedient Prophet guards the poor Ass that stood quaking before him Or like some mighty wind that bears over a tall Elme or Cedar with the same breath that it raiseth a stooping Reed Or like some good Physician who finding the body obstructed and surcharged with ill humours evacuates it and when it is sufficiently pulled down raises it up with sovereign Cordials And still doe thou so to my Soul if at any time thou perceivest me stiff and rebellious ready to face out my sin against thee spare me not let me smart till I relent But a broken and contrite heart thou wilt not O Lord O Lord do not reject It is onely thy Word which gives what it requires comfort and confidence Had any other shaken her by the shoulder and cheared her up against those oppressive passions it had been but waste wind No voice but his who hath power to remit sin can secure the heart from the conscience of sin from the pangs of Conscience In the midst of the sorrows of my heart thy comforts O Lord thy comforts onely have power to refresh my soul Her cure was Christ's act yet he gives the praise of it to her Thy faith hath made thee whole He had said before Virtue is gone out from me now he
acknowledges a virtue inherent in her It was his virtue that cured her yet he graciously casts this work upon her Faith Not that her Faith did it by way of merit by way of efficiency but by way of impetration So much did our Saviour regard that Faith which he had wrought in her that he will honour it with the success of her Cure Such and the same is still the remedy of our spiritual diseases our sins By faith we are justified by faith we are saved Thou onely O Saviour canst heal us thou wilt not heal us but by our Faith not as it issues from us but as it appropriates thee The sickness is ours the remedy is ours the sickness is our own by nature the remedy ours by thy grace both working and accepting it Our Faith is no less from thee then thy Cure is from our Faith O happy dismission Go in peace How unquiet had this poor Soul formerly been She had no outward peace with her Neighbours they shunned and abhorred her presence in this condition yea they must doe so She had no peace in Body that was pained and vexed with so long and foul a disease Much less had she peace in her Mind which was grievously disquieted with sorrow for her sickness with anger and discontentment at her torturing Physicians with fear of the continuance of so bad a guest Her Soul for the present had no peace from the sense of her guiltiness in the carriage of this business from the conceived displeasure of him to whom she came for comfort and redress At once now doth our Saviour calm all these storms and in one word and act restores to her peace with her Neighbours peace in her Self peace in Body in Mind in Soul Goe in peace Even so Lord it was for thee onely who art the Prince of Peace to bestow thy peace where thou pleasest Our body mind Soul estate is thine whether to afflict or ease It is a wonder if all of us do not ail somewhat In vain shall we speak peace to our selves in vain shall the world speak peace to us except thou say to us as thou didst to this distressed soul Goe in peace XXV Jairus and his Daughter HOW troublesome did the people's importunity seem to Jairus That great man came to sue unto Jesus for his dying Daughter the throng of the multitude intercepted him Every man is most sensible of his own necessity It is no straining courtesy in the challenge of our interest in Christ there is no unmannerliness in our strife for the greatest share in his presence and benediction That onely Child of this Ruler lay a dying when he came to solicit Christ's aid and was dead whilst he solicited it There was hope in her sickness in her extremity there was fear in her death despair and impossibility as they thought of help Thy daughter is dead trouble not the Master When we have to doe with a mere finite power this word were but just He was a Prophet no less then a King that said Whilst the child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live But now he is dead wherefore should I fast Can I bring him back again I shall goe to him but he shall not return to me But since thou hast to doe with an omnipotent agent know now O thou faithless messenger that death can be no bar to his power How well would it have become thee to have said Thy daughter is dead but who can tell whether thy God and Saviour will not be gracious to thee that the child may revive Cannot he in whose hands are the issues of death bring her back again Here were more Manners then Faith Trouble not the Master Infidelity is all for ease and thinks every good work tedious That which Nature accounts troublesome is pleasing and delightfull to Grace Is it any pain for an hungry man to eat O Saviour it was thy meat and drink to doe thy Father's will and his will was that thou shouldst bear our griefs and take away our sorrows It cannot be thy trouble which is our happiness that we may still sue to thee The messenger could not so whisper his ill news but Jesus heard it Jairus hears that he feared and was now heartless with so sad tidings He that resolved not to trouble the Master meant to take so much more trouble to himself and would now yield to a hopeless sorrow He whose work it is to comfort the afflicted rouzeth up the dejected heart of that pensive father Fear not believe onely and she shall be made whole The word was not more chearfull then difficult Fear not Who can be insensible of so great an evil Where death hath once seized who can but doubt he will keep his hold No less hard was it not to grieve for the loss of an onely Child then not to fear the continuance of the cause of that grief In a perfect Faith there is no Fear by how much more we fear by so much less we believe Well are these two then coupled Fear not believe onely O Saviour if thou didst not command us somewhat beyond Nature it were no thank to us to obey thee While the Child was alive to believe that it might recover it was no hard task but now that she was fully dead to believe she should live again was a work not easy for Jairus to apprehend though easy for thee to effect yet must that be believed else there is no capacity of so great a Mercy As Love so Faith is stronger then death making those bonds no other then as Sampson did his withes like threds of tow How much natural impossibility is there in the return of these Bodies from the dust of their Earth into which through many degrees of corruption they are at the last mouldred Fear not O my Soul believe onely it must it shall be done The sum of Jairus his first suit was for the Health not for the Resuscitation of his Daughter now that she was dead he would if he durst have been glad to have asked her Life And now behold our Saviour bids him expect both her Life and her Health Thy daughter shall be made whole alive from her death whole from her disease Thou didst not O Jairus thou daredst not ask so much as thou receivest How glad wouldst thou have been since this last news to have had thy Daughter alive though weak and sickly Now thou shalt receive her not living onely but sound and vigorous Thou dost not O Saviour measure thy gifts by our petitions but by our wants and thine own mercies This work might have been as easily done by an absent command the Power of Christ was there whilst himself was away but he will go personally to the place that he might be confessed the Authour of so great a Miracle O Saviour thou lovest to go to the house of
mourning thy chief pleasure is the comfort of the afflicted What a confusion there is in worldly sorrow The mother shreeks the servants cry out the people make lamentation the minstrells howl and strike dolefully so as the ear might question whether the Ditty or the Instrument were more heavy If ever expressions of sorrow sound well it is when Death leads the quire Soon doth our Saviour charm this noise and turns these unseasonable mourners whether formal or serious out of doors Not that he dislikes Musick whether to condole or comfort but that he had life in his eye and would have them know that he held these Funeral ceremonies to be too early and long before their time Give place for the maid is not dead but sleepeth Had she been dead she had but slept now she was not dead but asleep because he meant this nap of death should be so short and her awakening so speedy Death and Sleep are alike to him who can cast whom he will into the sleep of Death and awake when and whom he pleaseth out of that deadly sleep Before the people and domesticks of Jairus held Jesus for a Prophet now they took him for a Dreamer Not dead but asleep They that came to mourn cannot now forbear to laugh Have we piped at so many Funerals and seen and lamented so many Corpses and cannot we distinguish betwixt Sleep and Death The eyes are set the breath is gone the lims are stiff and cold Who ever died if she do but sleep How easily may our Reason or Sense befool us in Divine matters Those that are competent Judges in natural things are ready to laugh God to scorn when he speaks beyond their compass and are by him justly laughed to scorn for their unbelief Vain and faithless men as if that unlimited power of the Almighty could not make good his own word and turn either Sleep into Death or Death into Sleep at pleasure Ere many minutes they shall be ashamed of their errour and incredulity There were witnesses enough of her death there shall not be many of her restoring Three choice Disciples and the two Parents are onely admitted to the view and testimony of this miraculous work The eyes of those incredulous scoffers were not worthy of this honour Our infidelity makes us incapable of the secret favours and the highest counsels of the Almighty What did these scorners think and say when they saw him putting the minstrels and people out of doors Doubtless the maid is but asleep the man fears lest the noise shall awake her we must speak and tread softly that we disquiet her not What will he and his Disciples doe the while Is it not to be feared they will startle her out of her rest Those that are shut out from the participation of God's counsells think all his words and projects no better then foolishness But art thou O Saviour ever the more discouraged by the derision and censure of these scornfull unbelievers Because fools jear thee dost thou forbear thy work Surely I do not perceive that thou heedest them save for contempt or carest more for their words then their silence It is enough that thine act shall soon honour thee and convince them He took her by the hand and called saying Maid arise and her spirit came again and she arose straightway How could that touch that Call be other then effectual He who made that hand touched it and he who shall once say Arise ye dead said now Maid arise Death cannot but obey him who is the Lord of life The Soul is ever equally in his hand who is the God of Spirits it cannot but go and come at his command When he says Maid arise the now-dissolved spirit knows his office his place and instantly re-assumes that room which by his appointment it had left O Saviour if thou do but bid my Soul to arise from the death of Sin it cannot lie still if thou bid my Body to arise from the grave my Soul cannot but glance down from her Heaven and animate it In vain shall my sin or my grave offer to withhold me from thee The Maid revives not now to languish for a time upon her sick-bed and by some faint degrees to gather an insensible strength but at once she arises from her death and from her couch at once she puts off her fever with her dissolution she finds her life and her feet at once at once she finds her feet and her stomack He commanded to give her meat Omnipotency doth not use to go the pace of Nature All God's immediate works are like himself perfect He that raised her supernaturally could have so fed her It was never the purpose of his Power to put ordinary Means out of office XXVI The Motion of the two fiery Disciples repelled THE time drew now on wherein Jesus must be received up He must take death in his way Calvary is in his passage to mount Olivet He must be lift up to the Cross thence to climb into his Heaven Yet this comes not into mention as if all the thought of Death were swallowed up in this Victory over Death Neither O Saviour is it otherwise with us the weak members of thy mystical body We must die we shall be glorified What if Death stand before us we look beyond him at that transcendent Glory How should we be dismay'd with that pain which is attended with a blessed Immortality The strongest receit against Death is the happy estate that follows it next to that is the fore-expectation of it and resolution against it He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem Jerusalem the nest of his enemies the Amphitheater of his conflicts the fatall place of his death Well did he know the plots and ambushes that were there laid for him and the bloudy issue of those designs yet he will go and goes resolved for the worst It is a sure and wise way to send our thoughts before us to grapple with those evils which we know must be incountred The enemy is half overcome that is well prepared for The strongest mischief may be outfaced with a seasonable fore-resolution There can be no greater disadvantage then the suddenness of a surprisall O God what I have not the power to avoid let me have the wisedom to expect The way from Galilee to Judaea lay through the Region of Samaria if not through the City Christ now towards the end of his Preaching could not but be attended with a multitude of followers It was necessary there should be purveyours and harbingers to procure lodgings and provision for so large a troup Some of his own retinue are addressed to this service they seek not for palaces and delicates but for house-room and victuals It was He whose the earth was and the fulness thereof whos 's the Heavens are and the mansions therein yet He who could have commanded Angels sues to Samaritans He that filled and comprehended Heaven sendeth for shelter in a
Samaritan Cottage It was thy choice O Saviour to take upon thee the shape not of a Prince but of a Servant How can we either neglect means or despise homeliness when thou the God of all the World wouldst stoop to the suit of so poor a provision We know well in what terms the Samaritans stood with the Jews so much more hostile as they did more symbolize in matter of Religion no Nations were mutually so hatefull to each other A Samaritan's bread was no better then Swines-flesh their very fire and water was not more grudged then infectious The looking towards Jerusalem was here cause enough of repulse No enmity is so desperate as that which arises from matter of Religion Agreement in some points when there are differences in the main doth but advance hatred the more It is not more strange to hear the Son of God sue for a lodging then to hear him repelled Upon so churlish a deniall the two angry Disciples return to their Master on a fiery errand Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them as Elias did The Sons of Thunder would be lightning straight their zeal whether as kinsmen or Disciples could not brook so harsh a refusal As they were naturally more hot then their fellows so now they thought their Piety bade them be impatient Yet they dare not but begin with leave Master wilt thou His will must lead theirs their choler cannot drive their wills before his all their motion is from him onely True Disciples are like those artificiall engines which goe no otherwise then they are set or like little Children that speak nothing but what they are taught O Saviour if we have wills of our own we are not thine Do thou set me as thou wouldst have me goe do thou teach me what thou wouldst have me say or doe A mannerly preface leads in a faulty suit Master wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them Faulty both in presumption and in desire of private revenge I do not hear them say Master will it please thee who art the sole Lord of the Heavens and the Elements to command fire from Heaven upon these men but Wilt thou that we command As if because they had power given them over diseases and unclean spirits therefore Heaven and Earth were in their managing How easily might they be mistaken Their large commission had the just limits Subjects that have munificent grants from their Princes can challenge nothing beyond the words of their Patent And if the fetching down fire from Heaven were less then the dispossessing of Devils since the Devil shall inable the Beast to doe thus much yet how possible is it to doe the greater and stick at the less where both depend upon a delegated power The Magicians of Aegypt could bring forth Frogs and Bloud they could not bring Lice ordinary Corruption can doe that which they could not It is the fashion of our bold Nature upon an inch given to challenge an ell and where we find our selves graced with some abilities to flatter our selves with the faculty of more I grant Faith hath done as great things as ever Presumption undertook but there is great difference in the enterprises of both The one hath a warrant either by instinct or express command the other none at all Indeed had these two Disciples either meant or said Master if it be thy pleasure to command us to call down fire from Heaven we know thy word shall enable us to doe what thou requirest if the words be ours the power shall be thine this had been but holy modest faithfull but if they supposed there needed nothing save a leave onely and that might they be but let loose they could go alone they presumed they offended Yet had they thus overshot themselves in some pious and charitable motion the fault had been the less now the act had in it both cruelty and private revenge Their zeal was not worthy of more praise then their fury of censure That fire should fall down from Heaven upon men is a fearfull thing to think of and that which hath not been often done It was done in the case of Sodome when those five unclean Cities burned with the unnatural fire of hellish Lust it was done two severall times at the suit of Elijah it was done in an height of triall to that great pattern of Patience I find it no more and tremble at these I find But besides the dreadfulness of the judgment it self who can but quake at the thought of the suddenness of this destruction which sweeps away both Body and Soul in a state of unpreparation of unrepentance so as this fire should but begin a worse this Heavenly flame should but kindle that of Hell Thus unconceivably heavy was the revenge but what was the offence We have learned not to think any indignity light that is offered to the Son of God but we know these spiritual affronts are capable of degrees Had these Samaritans reviled Christ and his train had they violently assaulted him had they followed him with stones in their hands and blasphemies in their mouths it had been a just provocation of so horrible a vengeance Now the wrong was onely negative they received him not And that not out of any particular quarrel or dislike of his Person but of his Nation onely the men had been welcome had not their Country distasted All the charge that I hear our Saviour give to his Disciples in case of their rejection is If they receive you not shake off the dust of your feet Yet this was amongst their own and when they went on that sacred errand of publishing the Gospel of Peace These were strangers from the commonwealth of Israel This measure was not to Preachers but to Travellers onely a meer inhospitality to misliked guests Yet no less revenge will serve them then fire from Heaven I dare say for you ye holy sons of Zebedee it was not your spleen but your zeal that was guilty of so bloudy a suggestion your indignation could not but be stirred to see the great Prophet and Saviour of the world so unkindly repelled yet all this will not excuse you from a rash Cruelty from an inordinate Rage Even the best heart may easily be miscarried with a well-meant Zeal No affection is either more necessary or better accepted Love to any Object cannot be severed from hatred of the contrary whence it is that all creatures which have the concupiscible part have also the irascible adjoyned unto it Anger and displeasure is not so much an enemy as a guardian and champion of Love Whoever therefore is rightly affected to his Saviour cannot but find much regret at his wrongs O gracious and divine Zeal the kindly warmth and vital temper of Piety whither hast thou withdrawn thy self from the cold hearts of men Or is this according to the just constitution of the old
Priests What can their eyes doe They can judge whether it be cured which we see yet it is not they cannot cure it This is not now to doe We have been seen enough and loathed What can their eyes see more then our own We had well hoped that Jesus would have vouchsafed to call us to him and to lay his hands upon us and to have healed us These thoughts had kept them Lepers still Now shall their Faith and Obedience be proved by their submission both to this sudden command and that Divine ordination That former Leper was charged to shew himself to the chief Priest these to the Priests either would serve the original command runs either to Aaron or to one of his Sons But why to them Leprosy was a bodily sickness what is this to spiritual persons Wherefore serve Physicians if the Priests must meddle with diseases We never shall find those Sacred persons to pass their judgement upon Fevers Dropsies Palsies or any other bodily distemper neither should they on this were it not that this affection of the body is joyned with a Legall uncleanness Not as a sickness but as an impurity must it come under their cognisance neither this without a farther implication Who but the successours of the Legall Priesthood are proper to judge of the uncleannesses of the Soul Whether an act be sinfull or in what degree it is such what grounds are sufficient for the comfortable assurance of Repentance of forgiveness what courses are fittest to avoid the danger of relapses who is so like to know so meet to judge as our Teachers Would we in these cases consult ofter with our spiritual Guides and depend upon their faithfull advices and well-grounded absolutions it were safer it were happier for us Oh the dangerous extremity of our wisedome Our hood-wink'd Progenitours would have no eyes but in the heads of their ghostly Fathers We think our selves so quick-sighted that we pity the blindness of our able Teachers none but our selves are fit to judge of our own Leprosie Neither was it onely the peculiar judgement of the Priest that was here intended but the thankfulness of the Patient that by the sacrifice which he should bring with him he might give God the glory of his sanation O God whomsoever thou curest of this spiritual Leprosie it is reason he should present thee with the true Evangelical sacrifices not of his praises onely but of himself which are reasonable and living We are still leprous if we do not first see our selves foul and then find our selves thankfully serviceable The Lepers did not would not go of themselves but are sent by Christ Goe and shew your selves And why sent by him Was it in obedience to the Law was it out of respect to the Priesthood was it for prevention of cavills was it for conviction of gain-sayers or was it for confirmation of the Miracle Christ that was above the Law would not transgress it he knew this was his charge by Moses How justly might he have dispensed with his own but he will not though the Law doth not bind the Maker he will voluntarily bind himself He was within the ken of his Consummatum est yet would not anticipate that approaching end but holds the Law on foot till his last pace This was but a branch of the Ceremonial yet would he not slight it but in his own person gives example of a studious observation How carefully should we submit our selves to the Royall laws of our Creatour to the wholsome laws of our Superiours whilst the Son of God would not but be so punctual in a Ceremony Whilst I look to the Persons of those Priests I see nothing but corruption nothing but professed hostility to the true Messiah All this cannot make thee O Saviour to remit any point of the observance due to their places Their Function was sacred whatever their Persons were though they have not the grace to give thee thy due thou wilt not fail to give them theirs How justly dost thou expect all due regard to thine Evangelicall Priesthood who gavest so curious respect to the Legall It were shame the Synagogue should be above the Church or that Priesthood which thou meantest speedily to abrogate should have more honour then that which thou meantest to establish and perpetuate Had this duty been neglected what clamours had been raised by his emulous adversaries what scandalls though the fault had been the Patient's not the Physician 's But they that watched Christ so narrowly and were apt to take so poor exceptions at his Sabbath-cures at the unwashen hands of his Disciples how much more would they have calumniated him if by his neglect the Law of Leprosie had been palpably transgressed Not onely evil must be avoided but offence and that not on our parts but on others That offence is ours which we might have remedied What a noble and irrefragable testimony was this to the power to the truth of the Messiah How can these Jews but either believe or be made inexcusable in not believing When they shall see so many Lepers come at once to the Temple all cured by a secret will without word or touch how can they chuse but say This work is supernatural no limited power could doe this How is he not God if his power be infinite Their own eyes shall be witnesses and judges of their own conviction The Cure is done by Christ more exquisitely then by Art or Nature yet it is not publickly assured and acknowledged till according to the Mosaicall Law certain subsequent rites be performed There is no admittance into the Congregation but by sprinkling of bloud O Saviour we can never be ascertained of our cleansing from that spirituall Leprosie wherewith our Souls are tainted but by the sprinkling of thy most precious bloud wash us with that and we shall be whiter then snow This act of shewing to the Priest was not more required by the Law then pre-required of those Lepers by our Saviour for the triall of their Obedience Had they now stood upon terms with Christ and said We will first see what cause there will be to shew our selves to the Priests they need not see our Leprie we shall be glad they should see our Cure do thou work that which we shall shew and bid us shew what thou hast wrought till then excuse us it is our grief and shame to be seen too much they had been still Lepers It hath been ever God's wont by small Precepts to prove mens dispositions Obedience is as well tried in a trifle as in the most important charge yea so much more as the thing required is less for oft-times those who would be carefull in main affairs think they may neglect the smallest What command soever we receive from God or our Superiours we must not scan the weight of the thing but the authority of the commander Either difficulty or slightness are vain pretences for Disobedience These Lepers are wiser they obeyed
Pride another of the Tentigo of Lust another of the Vertigo of Inconstancy another of the choaking Squinancy of Curses and Blasphemies one of the Boulimy of Gluttony another of the Pleuritical stitches of Envy one of the contracting Cramp of Covetousness another of the Atrophie of Unproficiency one is hide-bound with Pride another is consumed with Emulation another rotten with Corrupt desires and we are so much the sicker if we feel not these distempers Oh that we could wait at the Bethesda of God attend diligently upon his Ordinances we could no more fail of cure then now we can hope for cure We wait hard and endure much for the Body Quantis laboribus agitur ut longiore tempore laboretur Multi cruciatus suscipiuntur certi ut pauci dies adjiciantur incerti What toil do we take that we may toil yet longer We endure many certain pains for the addition of a few uncertain days saith Austin Why will we not doe thus for the Soul Without waiting it will not be The Cripple Act. 3.4 was bidden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Look up to us He look'd up It was cold comfort that he heard Silver and Gold have I none but the next clause made amends for all Surge ambula Rise and walk and this was because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he attended expecting verse 5. Would we be cured It is not for us to snatch at Bethesda as a Dog at Nilus nor to draw water and away as Rebecca nor to set us a while upon the banks as the Israelites by the rivers of Babylon but we must dwell in God's House wait at Bethesda But what shall I say to you Courtiers but even as Saint Paul to his Corinthians Ye are full ye are rich ye are strong without us Many of you come to this place not as to Bethel the House of God or Bethesda the house of effusion but as to Bethaven the house of vanity If ye have not lost your old wont there are more words spoken in the outer Closet by the hearers then in the Chappel by the Preacher as if it were Closet quasi close-set in an Exchange like communication of News What do ye think of Sermons as matters of formality as very Superfluities as your own idle Complements which either ye hear not or believe not What do ye think of your selves Have ye onely a postern to go to Heaven by your selves where-through ye can go besides the foolishness of Preaching or do ye sing that old Pelagian note Quid nunc mihi opus est Deo What need have I of God What should I say to this but Increpa Domine As for our houshold Sermons our Auditours are like the fruit of a tree in an unseasonable year or like a wood new felled that hath some few spires left for standers some poles distance or like the tithe sheaves in a field when the corn is gone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as he said It is true ye have more Sermons and more excellent then all the Courts under Heaven put together but as Austin said well Quid mihi proderit bona res non utenti bene What am I the better for a good thing if I use it not well Let me tell you all these forcible means not well used will set you the farther off from Heaven If the Chappel were the Bethesda of promotion what thronging would there be into it Yea if it were but some mask-house wherein a glorious though momentany show were to be presented neither white staves nor halberts could keep you out Behold here ye are offered the honour to be by this seed of regeneration the Sons of God The Kingdom of Heaven the Crown of Glory the Scepter of Majesty in one word Eternall Life is here offered and performed to you O let us not so far forget our selves as in the Ordinances of God to contemn our own Happiness But let us know the time of our visitation let us wait reverently and intentively upon this Bethesda of God that when the Angel shall descend and move the Water our Souls may be cured and through all the degrees of Grace may be carried to the full height of their Glory XXIX The Transfiguration of CHRIST THere is not in all Divinity an higher speculation then this of Christ transfigured Suffer me therefore to lead you up by the hand into mount Tabor for nearer to Heaven ye cannot come while ye are upon earth that you may see him glorious upon Earth the Region of his shame and abasement who is now glorious in Heaven the Throne of his Majesty He that would not have his transfiguration spoken of till he were raised would have it spoken of all the world over now that he is raised and ascended that by this momentany glory we may judge of the eternall The Circumstances shall be to us as the skirts of the Hill which we will climbe up lightly the Time Place Attendents Company The Time after six days the Place an high hill apart the Attendents Peter James John the Company Moses and Elias which when we have passed on the top of the hill shall appear to us that sight which shall once make us glorious and in the mean time make us happy All three Evangelists accord in the Terminus à quo that it was immediately after those words There be some of them that stand here which shall not tast of death till they have seen the Son of Man come in his Kingdom Wherein methinks the act comments upon the words Peter James and John were these some they tasted not of death till they saw this Heavenly image of the Royalty of Christ glorified But the Terminus quò disagrees a little Matthew and Mark say after six Luke post ferè octo which as they are easily reconciled by the usuall distinction of inclusivè and exclusivè necessary for all computations and Luke's about eight so methinks seems to intimate God's seventh day the Sabbath why should there be else so precise mention of six days after and about eight but to imply that day which was betwixt the sixth and eighth God's day was fittest for so Divine a work and well might that day which imported God's rest and man's glory be used for the clear representation of the rest and glory of God and man But in this conjecture for ought I know I goe alone I dare not be too resolute Certainly it was the seventh whether it were that seventh the seventh after the promise of the glory of his Kingdom exhibited and this perhaps not without a mystery God teacheth both by words and acts saith Hilary that after six Ages of the world should be Christ 's glorious appearance and our transfiguration with him But I know what our Saviour's farewell was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not for us to know But if we may not know we may conjecture yet not above that we ought saith S. Paul we may not super sapere as Tertullian's phrase
eternally possessed the glory of his Father without any witnesses in time the Angels were blessed with that sight and after that two bodily yet Heavenly witnesses were allowed Enoch and Elias Now in his humanity he was invested with glory he takes but three witnesses and those earthly and weak Peter James John And why these We may be too curious Peter because the eldest John because the dearest James because next Peter the zealousest Peter because he loved Christ most John because Christ most loved him James because next to both he loved and was loved most I had rather to have no reason but quia complacuit because it so pleased him Why may we not as well ask why he chose these twelve from others as why he chose these three out of the twelve If any Romanists will raise from hence any privilege to Peter which we could be well content to yield if that would make them ever the honester men they must remember that they must take company with them which these Pompeian spirits cannot abide As good no privilege as any partners And withall they must see him more taxed for his errour in this act then honoured by his presence at the act whereas the Beloved Disciple saw and erred not These same three which were witnesses of his Transfiguration in the mount were witnesses of his Agony in the garden all three and these three alone were present at both but both times sleeping These were arietes gregis the Bell-weathers of the flock as Austin calls them Oh weak devotion of three great Disciples These were Paul's three pillars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 2.9 Christ takes them up twice once to be witnesses of his greatest Glory once of his greatest Extremity they sleep both times The other was in the night more tolerable this by day yea in a light above day Chrysostome would fain excuse it to be an amazedness not a sleep not considering that they slept both at that Glory and after in the Agony To see that Master praying one would have thought should have fetcht them on their knees especially to see those Heavenly affections look out at his Eyes to see his Soul lifted up in his Hands in that transported fashion to Heaven But now the hill hath wearied their lims their body clogs their Soul and they fall asleep Whilst Christ saw Divine visions they dreamed dreams whilst he was in another world ravished with the sight of his Father's Glory yea of his own they were in another world a world of fancies surprized with the cousin of death sleep Besides so gracious an example their own necessity quia incessanter pecco because I continually sin Bernard's reason might have moved them to pray rather then their Master and behold in stead of fixing their eyes upon Heaven they shut them in stead of lifting up their hearts their heads fall down upon their shoulders and shortly here was snorting in stead of sighs and prayers This was not Abraham's or Elihu's ecstatical sleep Job 33. not the sleep of the Church a waking sleep but the plain sleep of the eyes and that not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a slumbring sleep which David denies to himself Psal 132. but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sound sleep which Solomon forbids Prov. 6.4 yea rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the dead sleep of Adam or Jonas and as Bernard had wont to say when he heard a Monk snort they did carnaliter seu seculariter dormire Prayer is an ordinary receit for sleep How prone are we to it when we should mind Divine things Adam slept in Paradise and lost a Rib but this sleep was of God's giving and this rib was of God's taking The good Husband slept and found tares Eutychus slept and fell Whilst Satan lulls us asleep as he doth always rock the cradle when we sleep in our devotions he ever takes some good from us or puts some evil in us or indangers us a deadly fall Away with this spiritual Lethargy Bernard had wont to say that those which sleep are dead to men those that are dead are asleep to God But I say those that sleep at Church are dead to God so we preach their Funeral Sermons in stead of hortatory And as he was wont to say he lost no time so much as that wherein he slept so let me adde there is no loss of time so desperate as of holy time Think that Christ saith to thee at every Sermon as he did to Peter Etiam Petre dormis Sleepest thou Peter couldst thou not wake with me one hour A slumbring and a drowzy heart do not become the business and presence of him that keepeth Israel and slumbers not These were the Attendents see the Companions of Christ As our glory is not consummate without society no more would Christ have his therefore his Transfiguration hath two Companions Moses Elias As Saint Paul says of himself Whether in the body or out of the body I know not God knows so say I of these two Of Eliah there may seem less doubt since we know that his body was assumed to Heaven and might as well come down for Christ's glory as go up for his own although some grave Authours as Calvin Oecolampadius Bale Fulk have held his body with Enoch's resolved into their elements sed ego non credulus illis Enoch translatus est in carne Elias carneus raptus est in coelum c. Enoch was translated in the flesh and Elias being yet in the flesh was taken into Heaven saith Hierome in his Epistle ad Pammachium And for Moses though it be rare and singular and Austin makes much scruple of it yet why might not he after death return in his body to the glory of Christ's Transfiguration as well as afterwards many of the Saints did to the glory of his Resurrection I cannot therefore with the Gloss think there is any reason why Moses should take another a borrowed body rather then his own Heaven could not give two fitter companions more admirable to the Jews for their Miracles more gracious with God for their Faith and Holiness Both of them admitted to the conference with God in Horeb both of them Types of Christ both of them fasted forty days both of them for the glory of God suffered many perils both divided the waters both the messengers of God to Kings both of them marvellous as in their life so in their end A chariot of Angels took away Elias he was sought by the Prophets and not found Michael strove with the Devil for the body of Moses he was sought for by the Jews and not found and now both of them are found here together on Tabor This Elias shews himself to the Royall Prophet of his Church this Moses shews himself to the true Michael Moses the publisher of the Law Elias the chief of the Prophets shew themselves to the God of the Law and Prophets Alter populi informator aliquando alter reformator
either of the presence of God or of the mention of his sins O fools if ye could run away from God it were somewhat but whilst ye move in him what doe ye whither go ye Ye may run from his Mercy ye cannot but run upon his Judgement Christ is left alone Alone in respect of these complainants not alone in respect of the multitude there yet stands the mournfull Adulteress She might have gone forth with them no body constrained her stay but that which sent them away stayed her Conscience She knew her guiltiness was publickly accused and durst not be by herself denied as one that was therefore fastened there by her own guilty heart she stirs not till she may receive a dismission Our Saviour was not so busie in writing but that he read the while the guilt and absence of those accusers he that knew what they had done knew no less what they did what they would doe Yet as if the matter had been strange to him he lifts up himself and says Woman where are thy accusers How well was this sinner to be left there Could she be in a safer place then before the Tribunall of a Saviour Might she have chosen her refuge whither should she rather have fled O happy we if when we are convinced in our selves of our sins we can set our selves before that Judge who is our Surety our Advocate our Redeemer our ransome our peace Doubtless she stood doubtfull betwixt hope and fear Hope in that she saw her accusers gone Fear in that she knew what she had deserved and now whilst she trembles in expectation of a sentence she hears Woman where are thy accusers Wherein our Saviour intends the satisfaction of all the hearers of all the beholders that they might apprehend the guiltiness and therefore the unfitness of the accusers and might well see there was no warrantable ground of his farther proceeding against her Two things are necessary for the execution of a Malefactour Evidence Sentence the one from Witnesses the other from the Judge Our Saviour asks for both The accusation and proof must draw on the sentence the sentence must proceed upon the evidence of the proof Where are thy accusers hath no man condemned thee Had sentence passed legally upon the Adulteress doubtless our Saviour would not have acquitted her For as he would not intrude upon others offices so he would not cross or violate the justice done by others But now finding the coast clear he says Neither do I condemn thee What Lord dost thou then shew favour to foul offenders Art thou rather pleased that gross sins should be blanched and sent away with a gentle connivency Far far be this from the perfection of thy Justice He that hence argues Adulteries not punishable by death let him argue the unlawfulness of dividing of inheritances because in the case of the two wrangling brethren thou saidst Who made me a divider of inheritances Thou declinedst the office thou didst not dislike the act either of parting lands or punishing offenders Neither was here any absolution of the woman from a sentence of death but a dismission of her from thy sentence which thou knewest not proper for thee to pronounce Herein hadst thou respect to thy calling and to the main purpose of thy coming into the world which was neither to be an arbiter of Civil Causes nor a judge of Criminal but a Saviour of mankind not to destroy the Body but to save the Soul And this was thy care in this miserable Offender Goe and sin no more How much more doth it concern us to keep within the bounds of our vocation and not to dare to trench upon the functions of others How can we ever enough magnifie thy Mercy who takest no pleasure in the death of a sinner who so camest to save that thou challengest us of unkindness for being miserable Why will ye die O house of Israel But O Son of God though thou wouldst not then be a Judge yet thou wilt once be Thou wouldst not in thy first coming judge the sins of men thou wilt come to judge them in thy second The time shall come when upon that just and glorious Tribunall thou shalt judge every man according to his works That we may not one day hear thee say Goe ye cursed let us now hear thee say Goe sin no more XXXIII The Thankfull Penitent ONE while I find Christ invited by a Publican now by a Pharisee Where-ever he went he made better chear then he found in an happy exchange of spirituall repast for bodily Who knows not the Pharisees to have been the proud enemies of Christ men over-conceited of themselves contemptuous of others severe in shew Hypocrites in deed strict Sectaries insolent Justiciaries Yet here one of them invites Christ and that in good earnest The man was not like his fellows captious not ceremonious had he been of their stamp the omission of washing the feet had been mortall No profession hath not yielded some good Nicodemus and Gamaliel were of the same strain Neither is it for nothing that the Evangelist having branded this Sect for despising the counsell of God against themselves presently subjoyns this history of Simon the Pharisee as an exempt man O Saviour thou canst find out good Pharisees good Publicans yea a good Thief upon the Cross and that thou maist find thou canst make them so At the best yet he was a Pharisee whose table thou here refusedst not So didst thou in wisedom and mercy attemper thy self as to become all things to all men that thou mightest win some Thy Harbenger was rough as in cloaths so in disposition professedly harsh and austere thy self wert milde and sociable So it was fit for both He was a preacher of Penance thou the authour of comfort and Salvation He made way for Grace thou gavest it Thou hast bidden us to follow thy self not thy Fore-runner That then which Politicks and time-servers doe for earthly advantages we will doe for spirituall frame our selves to all companies not in evil but in good yea in indifferent things What wonder is it that thou who camest down from Heaven to frame thy self to our nature shouldst whilst thou wert on earth frame thy self to the severall dispositions of men Catch not at this O ye licentious Hypocrites men of all hours that can eat with gluttons drink with drunkards sing with ribalds scoffe with profane scorners and yet talk holily with the religious as if ye had hence any colour for your changeable conformity to all fashions Our Saviour never sinn'd for any man's sake though for our sakes he was sociable that he might keep us from sinning Can ye so converse with leud good-fellows as that ye repress their sins redress their exorbitances win them to God now ye walk in the steps of him that stuck not to sit down in the Pharisee's house There sate the Saviour and Behold a woman in the City that was a sinner I marvell not
whether in prison or in exile or at the stake we do not hasten thither to injoy thee The Place was not more unfit then the Time a Pharisee's house was not more unproper for a sinner then a Feast was for humiliation Tears at a Banquet are as Jiggs at a Funeral There is a season for all things Musick had been more apt for a Feast then mourning The heart that hath once felt the sting of sin and the sweetness of remission hath no power to delay the expressions of what it feels and cannot be confined to terms of circumstance Whence then was this zeal of her access Doubtless she had heard from the mouth of Christ in those heavenly Sermons of his many gracious invitations of all troubled and labouring Souls she had observed how he vouchsafed to come under the roofs of despised Publicans of professed enemies she had noted all the passages of his power and mercy and now deep remorse wrought upon her heart for her former viciousness The pool of her Conscience was troubled by the descending Angel and now she steps in for a cure The arrow stuck fast in her Soul which she could not shake out and now she comes to this sovereign Dittany to expell it Had not the Spirit of God wrought upon her ere she came and wrought her to come she had never either sought or found Christ Now she comes in and finds that Saviour whom she sought she comes in but not empty-handed though debauched she was a Jewess She could not but have heard that she ought not to appear before the Lord empty What then brings she It was not possible she could bring to Christ a better present then her own Penitent Soul yet to testifie that she brings another delicate both for the vessell and the contents a box of Alabaster a solid hard pure clear marble fit for the receit of so precious an ointment the ointment pleasant and costly a composition of many fragrant Odours not for medicine but delight The Soul that is truly touched with the sense of its own sin can think nothing too good too dear for Christ The remorsed sinner begins first with the tender of burnt-offerings and calves of a year old thence he ascends to Hecatombs thousands of rams and above that yet to ten thousand rivers of oyl and yet higher could be content to give the first-fruit of his body to expiate the sin of his Soul Any thing every thing is too small a price for peace O Saviour since we have tasted how sweet thou art lo we bring thee the daintiest and costliest perfumes of our humble Obediences yea if so much of our bloud as this woman brought oyntment may be usefull or pleasing to thy name we do most chearfully consecrate it unto thee If we would not have thee think Heaven too good for us why should we stick at any earthly retribution to thee in lieu of thy great mercies Yet here I see more then the price This odoriferous perfume was that wherewith she had wont to make her self pleasing to her wanton Lovers and now she comes purposely to offer it up to her Saviour As her Love was turned another way from sensuall to Divine so shall her Ointment also be altered in the use that which was abused to Luxury shall now be consecrated to Devotion There is no other effect in whatsoever true Conversion As we have given our members servants to iniquity to commit iniquity so shall we now give our members servants unto righteousness in holiness If the dames of Israel that thought nothing more worth looking on then their own faces have spent too much time in their glasses now they shall cast in those metalls to make a Laver for the washing of their uncleannesses If I have spent the prime of my strength the strength of my wit upon my self and vanity I have bestowed my Alabaster-box amiss O now teach me my God and Saviour to improve all my time all my abilities to thy glory This is all the poor recompence can be made thee for those shamefull dishonours thou hast received from me The Woman is come in and now she doth not boldly face Christ but as unworthy of his presence she stands behind How could she in that site wash his feet with her tears Was it that our Saviour did not sit at the Feast after our fashion but according to the then Jewish and Roman fashion lay on the one side Or was it that this phrase doth not so much import posture as presence Doubtless it was bashfulness and shame arising from the conscience of her own former wickedness that placed her thus How well is the case altered She had wont to look boldly in the face of her Lovers now she dares not behold the awfull countenance of her Saviour She had wont to send her alluring beams forth into the eyes of her wanton paramours now she casts her dejected eyes to the earth and dares not so much as raise them up to see those eyes from which she desired commiseration It was a true inference of the Prophet Thou hast an whore's forehead thou canst not blush there cannot be a greater sign of whorishness then impudence This woman can now blush she hath put off the Harlot and is turned true Penitent Bashfulness is both a sign and effect of Grace O God could we but bethink how wretched we are in nature how vile through our sins how glorious holy and powerfull a God thou art before whom the brightest Angels hide their faces we could not come but with a trembling awfulness into thy presence Together with shame here is sorrow a sorrow testified by tears and tears in such abundance that she washes the feet of our Saviour with those streams of penitence She began to wash his feet with tears We hear when she began we hear not when she ended When the grapes are pressed the juice runs forth so when the mind is pressed tears distill the true juice of penitence and sorrow These eyes were not used to such clouds or to such showrs there was nothing in them formerly but sun-shine of pleasure beams of Lust Now they are resolved into the drops of grief and contrition Whence was this change but from the secret working of God's Spirit He caused his wind to blow and the waters flowed he smote the rock and the waters gushed out O God smite thou this rocky Heart of mine and the waters of Repentance shall burst forth in abundance Never were thy feet O Saviour bedewed with more precious liquour then this of remorsefull tears These cannot be so spent but that thou keepest them in thy bottle yea thou returnest them back with interest of true comfort They that sow in tears shall reap in joy Blessed are they that mourn Lo this wet seed-time shall be followed with an harvest of happiness and glory That this service might be complete as her Eyes were the Ewre so her Hair was the Towell for the feet
from the just blame of this bold subincusation Lord dost thou not care How ready is our weakness upon every slight discontentment to quarrell with our best friend yea with our good God and the more we are put to it to think our selves the more neglected and to challenge God for our neglect Do we groan on the bed of our sickness and languishing in pain complain of long hours and weary sides straight we think Lord dost thou not care that we suffer Doth God's poor Church goe to wreck whilst the ploughers ploughing on her back make long furrows Lord dost thou not care But know thou O thou feeble and distrustfull Soul the more thou doest the more thou sufferest the more thou art cared for neither is God ever so tender over his Church as when it is most exercised Every pang and stitch and gird is first felt of him that sends it O God thou knowest our works and our labour and our patience we may be ignorant and diffident thou canst not but be gracious It could not but trouble devout Mary to hear her Sister 's impatient complaint a complaint of her self to Christ with such vehemence of passion as if there had been such strangeness betwixt the two Sisters that the one would doe nothing for the other without an externall compulsion from a Superiour How can she chuse but think If I have offended why was I not secretly taxed for it in a sisterly familiarity What if there have been some little omission must the whole house ring of it before my Lord and all his Disciples Is this carriage beseeming a Sister Is my Devotion worthy of a quarrell Lord dost thou not care that I am injuriously censured Yet I hear not a word of reply from that modest mouth O holy Mary I admire thy patient silence Thy Sister blames thee for thy Piety the Disciples afterwards blame thee for thy Bounty and cost not a word falls from thee in a just vindication of thine honour and innocence but in an humble taciturnity thou leavest thine answer to thy Saviour How should we learn of thee when we are complained of for well-doing to seal up our lips and to expect our righting from above And how sure how ready art thou O Saviour to speak in the cause of the dumb Martha Martha thou art carefull and troubled about many things but one thing is needfull and Mary hath chosen the better part What needed Mary to speak for her self when she had such an Advocate Doubtless Martha was as it were divided from her self with the multiplicity of her carefull thoughts our Saviour therefore doubles her name in his compellation that in such distraction he may both find and fix her heart The good woman made full account that Christ would have sent away her Sister with a check and her self with thanks but now her hopes fail her and though she be not directly reproved yet she hears her Sister more approved then she Martha Martha thou art carefull and troubled about many things Our Saviour received courtesie from her in her diligent and costly entertainment yet he would not blanch her errour and smooth her up in her weak misprision No obligations may so enthrall us as that our tongues should not be free to reprove faults where we find them They are base and servile spirits that will have their tongue tied to their teeth This glance towards a reproof implies an opposition of the condition of the two Sisters Themselves were not more near in Nature then their present humour and estate differed One is opposed to many necessary to superfluous solicitude to quietness Thou art carefull and troubled about many things one thing is necessary How far then may our care reach to these earthly things On the one side O Saviour thou hast charged us to take no thought what to eat drink put on on the other thy chosen Vessel hath told us that he that provides not for his family hath denied the faith and is worse then an Infidel We may we must care for many things so that our care be for good and well For good both in kind and measure well so as our care be free from distraction from distrust From distraction that it hinder us not from the necessary duties of our general Calling from distrust that we misdoubt not God's Providence whilst we imploy our own We cannot care for thee unless we thus care for our selves for ours Alas how much care do I see every-where but how few Martha's Her care was for her Saviour's entertainment ours for our selves One finds perplexities in his Estate which he desires to extricate another beats his brains for the raising of his House One busies his thoughts about the doubtfull condition as he thinks of the Times and casts in his anxious head the imaginary events of all things opposing his hopes to his fears another studies how to avoid the cross blows of an Adversary Martha Martha thou art carefull and troubled about many things Foolish men why do we set our hearts upon the rack and need not why will we endure to bend under that burthen which more able shoulders have offered to undertake for our ease Thou hast bidden us O God to cast our cares upon thee with promise to care for us We do gladly unload our selves upon thee O let our care be to depend on thee as thine is to provide for us Whether Martha be pitied or taxed for her sedulity I am sure Mary is praised for her devotion One thing is necessary Not by way of negation as if nothing were necessary but this but by way of comparison as that nothing is so necessary as this Earthly occasions must vail to spiritual Of those three main grounds of all our actions Necessity Convenience Pleasure each transcends other Convenience carries it away from Pleasure Necessity from Convenience and one degree of Necessity from another The degrees are according to the conditions of the things necessary The condition of these earthly necessaries is that without them we cannot live temporally the condition of the spiritual that without them we cannot live eternally So much difference then as there is betwixt temporary and eternal so much there must needs be betwixt the necessity of these bodily actions and those spiritual Both are necessary in their kinds neither must here be an opposition but a subordination The Body and Soul must be friends not rivals we may not so plie the Christian that we neglect the man Oh the vanity of those men who neglecting that one thing necessary affect many things superfluous Nothing is needless with worldly minds but this one which is onely necessary the care of their Souls How justly do they lose that they care not for whilst they over-care for that which is neither worthy nor possible to be kept Neither is Mary's business more allowed then her self She hath chosen the good part It was not forced upon her but taken up by her election
this to shew thy liberty or thy power Liberty in that thou canst at pleasure use variety of means not being tied to any Power in that thou couldst make use of contraries Hadst thou pull'd out a box and applied some medicinall ointment to the eyes something had been ascribed to thy skill more to the naturall power of thy receit now thou mad'st use of clay which had been enough to stop up the eyes of the seeing the virtue must be all in thee none in the means The utter disproportion of this help to the Cure adds glory to the worker How clearly didst thou hence evince to the world that thou who of clay couldst make eyes wert the same who of clay hadst made man since there is no part of the body that hath so little analogy to clay as the eye this clearness is contrary to that opacity Had not the Jews been more blind then the man whom thou curedst and more hard and stiff then the clay which thou mollifiedst they had in this one work both seen and acknowledged thy Deity What could the clay have done without thy tempering It was thy spittle that made the clay effectuall it was that Sacred mouth of thine that made the spittle medicinall the water of Siloe shall but wash off that clay which this inward moisture made powerfull The clay thus tempered must be applied by the hand that made it else it avails nothing What must the blind man needs think when he felt the cold clay upon the holes of his eyes or since he could not conceive what an eye was what must the beholders needs think to see that hollowness thus filled up Is this the way to give either eyes or sight Why did not the earth see with this clay as well as the man What is there to hinder the fight if this make it Yet with these contrarieties must the Faith be exercised where God intends the blessing of a Cure It was never meant that this clay should dwell upon those pits of the eyes it is onely put on to be washed off and that not by every water none shall doe it but that of Siloam which signifies Sent and if the man had not been sent to Siloam he had been still blind All things receive their virtue from Divine institution How else should a piece of wheaten bread nourish the Soul How should spring-water wash off spirituall filthiness How should the foolishness of preaching save Souls How should the absolution of God's Minister be more effectuall then the breath of an ordinary Christian Thou O God hast set apart these Ordinances thy Blessing is annexed to them hence is the ground of all our use and their efficacy Hadst thou so instituted Jordan would as well have healed Blindness and Siloam Leprosy That the man might be capable of such a Miracle his Faith is set on work he must be led with his eyes daubed up to the pool of Siloam He washes and sees Lord what did this man think when his eyes were now first given him what a new world did he find himself now come into how did he wonder at Heaven and earth and the faces and shapes of all creatures the goodly varieties of colours the chearfulness of the light the lively beams of the Sun the vast expansion of the air the pleasant transparence of the water at the glorious piles of the Temple and stately palaces of Jerusalem Every thing did not more please then astonish him Lo thus shall we be affected and more when the scales of our mortality being done away we shall see as we are seen when we shall behold the blessedness of that other world the glory of the Saints and Angels the infinite Majesty of the Son of God the incomprehensible brightness of the all-glorious Deity O my Soul that thou couldst be taken up before-hand with the admiration of that which thou canst not as yet be capable of fore-seeing It could not be but that many eyes had been witnesses of this man's want of eyes He sate begging at one of the Temple-gates not onely all the City but all the Country must needs know him thrice a year did they come up to Jerusalem neither could they come to the Temple and not see him His very blindness made him noted Deformities and infirmities of body do more easily both draw and fix the eye then an ordinary symmetry of parts Besides his Blindness his Trade made him remarkable the importunity of his begging drew the eyes of the passengers But of all other the Place most notified him Had he sate in some obscure village of Judaea or in some blind lane of Jerusalem perhaps he had not been heeded of many but now that he took up his seat in the heart in the head of the chief City whither all resorted from all parts what Jew can there be that knows not the blind beggar at the Temple-gate Purposely did our Saviour make choice of such a Subject for his Miracle a man so poor and so publick the glory of the work could not have reach'd so far if it had been done to the wealthiest Citizen of Jerusalem Neither was it for nothing that the act and the man is doubted of and inquired into by the beholders Is not this he that sate begging Some said It is he others said It is like him No truths have received so full proofs as those that have been questioned The want or the sudden presence of an eye much more of both must needs make a great change in the face those little balls of light which no doubt were more clear then Nature could have made them could not but give a new life to the countenance I marvell not if the neighbours who had wont to see this dark visage led by a guide and guided by a staffe seeing him now walking confidently alone out of his own inward light and looking them chearfully in the face doubted whether this were he The miraculous cures of God work a sensible alteration in men not more in their own apprehension then in the judgement of others Thus in the redress of the Spiritual blindness the whole habit of the man is changed Where before his Face looked dull and earthly now there is a sprightfull chearfulness in it through the comfortable knowledge of God and Heavenly things Whereas before his Heart was set upon worldly things now he uses them but injoys them not and that use is because he must not because he would Where before his fears and griefs were onely for pains of body or loss of estate or reputation now they are onely spent upon the displeasure of his God and the peril of his Soul So as now the neighbours can say Is this the man others It is like him it is not he The late-blind man hears and now sees himself questioned and soon resolves the doubt I am he He that now saw the light of the Sun would not hide the light of Truth from others It is an
for his Truth we do but suffer with him with whom we shall once reign However the Disciples pleaded for their Master's safety yet they aimed at their own they well knew their danger was inwrapped in his It is but a cleanly colour that they put upon their own fear This is held but a weak and base Passion each one would be glad to put off the opinion of it from himself and to set the best face upon his own impotency Thus white-livered men that shrink and shift from the Cross will not want fair pretences to evade it One pleads the perill of many dependents another the disfurnishing the Church of succeeding abettours each will have some plausible excuse for his sound skin What errour did not our Saviour rectifie in his followers Even that fear which they would have dissembled is graciously dispelled by the just consideration of a sure and inevitable Providence Are there not twelve hours in the day which are duely set and proceed regularly for the direction of all the motions and actions of men So in this course of mine which I must run on earth there is a set and determined time wherein I must work and doe my Father's will The Sun that guides these hours is the determinate counsell of my Father and his calling to the execution of my charge whilst I follow that I cannot miscarry no more then a man can miss his known way at high noon this while in vain are either your disswasions or the attempts of enemies they cannot hurt ye cannot divert me The journey then holds to Judaea his attendents shall be made acquainted with the occasion He that had formerly denied the deadliness of Lazarus his sickness would not suddenly confess his death neither yet would he altogether conceal it so will he therefore confess it as that he will shadow it out in a borrowed expression Lazarus our friend sleepeth What a sweet title is here both of death and of Lazarus Death is a sleep Lazarus is our friend Lo he says not my friend but ours to draw them first into a gracious familiarity and communion of friendship with himself for what doth this import but Ye are my friends and Lazarus is both my friend and yours Our friend O meek and mercifull Saviour that disdainest not to stoop so low as that whilst thou thoughtest it no robbery to be equall unto God thou thoughtest it no disparagement to match thy self with weak and wretched men Our friend Lazarus There is a kind of parity in Friendship There may be Love where is the most inequality but friendship supposes pairs yet the Son of God says of the sons of men Our friend Lazarus Oh what an high and happy condition is this for mortal men to aspire unto that the God of Heaven should not be ashamed to own them for friends Neither saith he now abruptly Lazarus our friend is dead but Lazarus our friend sleepeth O Saviour none can know the estate of life or death so well as thou that art the Lord of both It is enough that thou tellest us death is no other then sleep that which was wont to pass for the cousin of death is now it self All this while we have mistaken the case of our dissolution we took it for an enemy it proves a friend there is pleasure in that wherein we supposed horrour Who is afraid after the weary toils of the day to take his rest by night or what is more refreshing to the spent traveller then a sweet sleep It is our infidelity our impreparation that makes death any other then advantage Even so Lord when thou seest I have toiled enough let me sleep in peace and when thou seest I have slept enough awake me as thou didst thy Lazarus But I go to awake him Thou saidst not Let us go to awake him those whom thou wilt allow companions of thy way thou wilt not allow partners of thy work they may be witnesses they cannot be actours None can awake Lazarus out of this sleep but he that made Lazarus Every mouse or gnat can raise us up from that other sleep none but an Omnipotent power from this This sleep is not without a dissolution Who can command the Soul to come down and meet the body or command the body to piece with it self and rise up to the Soul but the God that created both It is our comfort and assurance O Lord against the terrours of death and tenacity of the grave that our Resurrection depends upon none but thine Omnipotence Who can blame the Disciples if they were loth to return to Judaea Their last entertainment was such as might justly dishearten them Were this as literally taken all the reason of our Saviour's purpose of so perillous a voiage they argued not amiss If he sleep he shall doe well Sleep in sickness is a good sign of recovery For extremity of pain bars our rest when Nature therefore finds so much respiration she justly hopes for better terms Yet it doth not always follow If he sleep he shall doe well How many have died in lethargies how many have lost in sleep what they would not have forgone waking Adam slept and lost his rib Sampson slept and lost his strength Saul slept and lost his weapon Ishbosheth and Holofernes slept and lost their heads In ordinary course it holds well here they mistook and erred The misconstruction of the words of Christ led them into an unseasonable and erroneous suggestion Nothing can be more dangerous then to take the speeches of Christ according to the sound of the letter one errour will be sure to draw on more and if the first be never so slight the last may be important Wherefore are words but to express meanings why do we speak but to be understood Since then our Saviour saw himself not rightly construed he delivers himself plainly Lazarus is dead Such is thy manner O thou eternall Word of thy Father in all thy sacred expressions Thine own mouth is thy best commentary what thou hast more obscurely said in one passage thou interpretest more clearly in another Thou art the Sun which givest us that light whereby we see thy self But how modestly dost thou discover thy Deity to thy Disciples Not upon the first mention of Lazarus his death instantly professing thy Power and will of his resuscitation but contenting thy self onely to intimate thy Omniscience in that thou couldst in that absence and distance know and report his departure they shall gather the rest and cannot chuse but think we serve a Master that knows all things and he that knows all things can doe all things The absence of our Saviour from the death-bed of Lazarus was not casuall but voluntary yea he is not onely willing with it but glad of it I am glad for your sakes that I was not there How contrary may the affections of Christ and ours be and yet be both good The two worthy Sisters were much grieved at our Saviour's
Serpent then of the Dove There is a time when we must preach Christ on the house-top there is a time when we must speak him in the ear and as it were with our lips shut Secrecy hath no less use then divulgation She said enough The Master is come and calleth for thee What an happy word was this which was here spoken what an high favour is this that is done that the Lord of Life should personally come and call for Mary yet such as is not appropriated to her Thou comest to us still O Saviour if not in thy bodily presence yet in thy spiritual thou callest us still if not in thy personal voice yet in thine Ordinances It is our fault if we doe not as this good woman arise quickly and come to thee Her friends were there about her who came purposely to condole with her her heart was full of heaviness yet so soon as she hears mention of Christ she forgets friends Brother grief cares thoughts and hasts to his presence Still was Jesus standing in the place where Martha left him Whether it be noted to express Mary's speed or his own wise and gracious resolutions his presence in the Village had perhaps invited danger and set off the intended witnesses of the work or it may be to set forth his zealous desire to dispatch the errand he came for that as Abraham's faithfull servant would not receive any courtesie from the house of Bethuel till he had done his Master's business concerning Rebeccah so thou O Saviour wouldst not so much as enter into the house of these two Sisters in Bethany till thou hadst effected this glorious work which occasioned thee thither It was thy meat and drink to doe the will of thy Father thy best entertainment was within thy self How do we follow thee if we suffer either pleasures or profits to take the wall of thy services So good women were well worthy of kind friends No doubt Bethany being not two miles distant from Jerusalem could not but be furnished with good acquaintance from the City these knowing the dearness and hearing of the death of Lazarus came over to comfort the sad Sisters Charity together with the common practice of that Nation calls them to this duty All our distresses expect these good offices from those that love us but of all others Death as that which is the extremest of evils and makes the most fearfull havock in families cities kingdoms worlds The complaint was grievous I look'd for some to comfort me but there was none It is some kind of ease to sorrow to have partners as a burthen is lightned by many shoulders or as clouds scattered into many drops easily vent their moisture into air Yea the very presence of friends abates grief The perill that arises to the heart from Passion is the fixedness of it when like a corrosiving plaister it eats in into the sore Some kind of remedy it is that it may breath out in good society These friendly neighbours seeing Mary hasten forth make haste to follow her Martha went forth before I saw none goe after her Mary stirs they are at her heels Was it for that Martha being the elder Sister and the huswife of the family might stir about with less observation or was it that Mary was the more passionate and needed the more heedy attendence However their care and intentiveness is truely commendable they came to comfort her they doe what they came for It contents them not to sit still and chat within doors but they wait on her at all turns Perturbations of Mind are diseases good keepers do not onely tend the Patient in bed but when he sits up when he tries to walk all his motions have their carefull assistence We are no true friends if our endeavours of the redress of distempers in them we love be not assiduous and unweariable It was but a loving suspicion She is gone to the grave to weep there They well knew how apt passionate minds are to take all occasions to renew their sorrow every Object affects them When she saw but the Chamber of her dead Brother straight she thinks There was Lazarus wont to lie and then she wept afresh when the Table There Lazarus was wont to sit and then new tears arise when the Garden There Lazarus had wont to walk and now again she weeps How much more do these friends suppose the Passions would be stirred with the sight of the Grave when she must needs think There is Lazarus O Saviour if the place of the very dead corps of our friend have power to draw our hearts thither and to affect us more deeply how should our hearts be drawn to and affected with Heaven where thou sittest at the right hand of thy Father There O thou which wert dead and art alive is thy Body and thy Soul present and united to thy glorious Deity Thither O thither let our access be not to mourn there where is no place for sorrow but to rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious and more and more to long for that thy beatificall presence Their indulgent love mistook Mary's errand their thoughts how kind soever were much too low whilst they supposed she went to a dead Brother she went to a living Saviour The world hath other conceits of the actions and carriage of the regenerate then are truly intended setting such constructions upon them as their own carnall reason suggests they think them dying when behold they live sorrowfull when they are alwaies rejoycing poor whilst they make many rich How justly do we appeal from them as incompetent Judges and pity those mis-interpretations which we cannot avoid Both the Sisters met Christ not both in one posture Mary is still noted as for more Passion so for more Devotion she that before sate at the feet of Jesus now falls at his feet That presence had wont to be familiar to her and not without some outward homeliness now it fetches her upon her knees in an awfull veneration whether out of a reverent acknowledgment of the secret excellency and power of Christ or out of a dumb intimation of that suit concerning her dead Brother which she was afraid to utter The very gesture it self was supplicatory What position of body can be so fit for us when we make our address to our Saviour It is an irreligious unmannerliness for us to goe less Where the heart is affected with an awfull acknowledgment of Majesty the body cannot but bow Even before all her neighbours of Jerusalem doth Mary thus fall down at the feet of Jesus so many witnesses as she had so many spies she had of that forbidden observance It was no less then Excommunication for any body to confess him yet good Mary not fearing the informations that might be given by those Jewish Gossips adores him and in her silent gesture says as much as her Sister had spoken before Thou art the Christ the Son of God Those that would give Christ
didst we have reason to be patient thou enduredst what we do we have reason to be thankfull But what shall we say to this thine early hunger The morning as it is privileged from excess so from need the stomack is not wont to rise with the body Surely as thine occasions were no season was exempted from thy want thou hadst spent the day before in the holy labour of thy Reformation after a supperless departure thou spentest the night in Prayer no meal refreshed thy toil What do we think much to forbear a morsell or to break a sleep for thee who didst thus neglect thy self for us As if meat were no part of thy care as if any thing would serve to stop the mouth of hunger thy breakfast is expected from the next Tree A Fig-tree grew by the way side full grown well spred thick leaved and such as might promise enough to a remote eye thither thou camest to seek that which thou foundest not and not finding what thou soughtest as displeased with thy disappointment cursedst that plant which deluded thy hopes Thy breath instantly blasted that deceitfull tree it did no otherwise then the whole world must needs doe wither and die with thy Curse O Saviour I had rather wonder at thine actions then discuss them If I should say that as man thou either knewest not or consideredst not of this fruitlesness it could no way prejudice thy Divine Omniscience this infirmity were no worse then thy weariness or hunger It was no more disparagement to thee to grow in Knowledge then in Stature neither was it any more disgrace to thy perfect Humanity that thou as man knewest not all things at once then that thou wert not in thy childhood at thy full growth But herein I doubt not to say it is more likely thou camest purposely to this Tree knowing the barrenness of it answerable to the season and fore-resolving the event that thou mightest hence ground the occasion of so instructive a Miracle like as thou knewest Lazarus was dying was dead yet wouldst not seem to take notice of his dissolution that thou mightest the more glorifie thy Power in his resuscitation It was thy willing and determined disappointment for a greater purpose But why didst thou curse a poor Tree for the want of that fruit which the season yielded not If it pleased thee to call for that which it could not give the Plant was innocent and if innocent why cursed O Saviour it is fitter for us to adore then to examine We may be sawcy in inquiring after thee and fond in answering for thee If that season were not for a ripe fruit yet for some fruit it was Who knows not the nature of the Fig-tree to be always bearing That plant if not altogether barren yields a continuall succession of increase whilst one fig iâ— ripe another is green the same bough can content both our tast and our hope This tree was defective in both yielding nothing but an empty shade to the mis-hoping traveller Besides that I have learn'd that thou O Saviour wert wont not to speak onely but to work Parables And what was this other then a reall Parable of thine All this while hadst thou been in the world thou hadst given many proofs of thy Mercy the earth was full of thy Goodness none of thy Judgments now immediately before thy Passion thou thoughtest fit to give this double demonstration of thy just austerity How else should the world have seen thou canst be severe as well as meek and mercifull And why mightest not thou who madest all things take liberty to destroy a plant for thine own Glory Wherefore serve thy best creatures but for the praise of thy Mercy and Justice What great matter was it if thou who once saidst Let the earth bring forth the herb yielding seed and the tree yielding the fruit of its own kind shalt now say Let this fruitless tree wither All this yet was done in figure In this act of thine I see both an Embleme and a Prophecy How didst thou herein mean to teach thy Disciples how much thou hatest an unfruitfull profession and what judgments thou meantest to bring upon that barren generation Once before hadst thou compared the Jewish Nation to a Fig-tree in the midst of thy vineyard which after three years expectation and culture yielding no fruit was by thee the Owner doomed to a speedy excision now thou actest what thou then saidst No tree abounds more with leaf and shade no Nation abounded more with Ceremoniall observations and semblances of Piety Outward profession where there is want of inward truth and reall practice doth but help to draw on and aggravate judgment Had this Fig-tree been utterly bare and leafless it had perhaps escaped the Curse Hear this ye vain Hypocrites that care onely to shew well never caring for the sincere truth of a conscionable Obedience your fair outside shall be sure to help you to a Curse That which was the fault of this Tree is the punishment of it fruitlesness Let no fruit grow on thee hence-forward for ever Had the boughs been appointed to be torn down and the body split in pieces the doom had been more easie that juicy plant might yet have recovered and have lived to recompense this deficiency now it shall be what it was fruitless Woe be to that Church or Soul that is punished with her own Sin Outward plagues are but favours in comparison of Spirituall judgments That Curse might well have stood with a long continuance the Tree might have lived long though fruitless but no sooner is the word passed then the leaves flag and turn yellow the branches wrinkle and shrink the bark discolours the root dries the plant withers O God what creature is able to abide the blasting of the breath of thy displeasure Even the most great and glorious Angels of Heaven could not stand one moment before thine anger but perish'd under thy wrath everlastingly How irresistible is thy Power how dreadfull are thy Judgements Lord chastise my fruitlesness but punish it not at least punish it but curse it not lest I wither and be consumed XLIV CHRIST Betrayed SUch an eye-sore was Christ that raised Lazarus and Lazarus whom Christ raised to the envious Priests Scribes Elders of the Jews that they consult to murther both Whilst either of them lives neither can the glory of that Miracle die nor the shame of the oppugners Those malicious heads are laid together in the Parlour of Caiaphas Happy had it been for them if they had spent but half those thoughts upon their own Salvation which they misimployed upon the destruction of the innocent At last this results that Force is not their way Subtlety and Treachery must doe that which should be vainly attempted by Power Who is so fit to work this feat against Christ as one of his own There can be no Treason where is not some Trust Who so fit among the domesticks as he that bare
Blessed Mother that a sword should pierce through her Soul but alas how many swords at once pierce thine Every one of these words is both sharp and edged My Soul is exceeding sorrowfull even unto death What humane Soul is capable of the conceit of the least of those sorrows that oppressed thine It was not thy Body that suffered now the pain of body is but as the body of pain the anguish of the Soul is as the soul of anguish That and in that thou sufferedst Where are they that dare so far disparage thy Sorrow as to say thy Soul suffered onely in sympathy with thy Body not immediately but by participation not in its self but in its partner Thou best knewest what thou feltest and thou that feltest thine own pain canst cry out of thy Soul Neither didst thou say My Soul is troubled so it often was even to tears but My Soul is sorrowfull as if it had been before assaulted now possessed with grief Nor yet this in any tolerable moderation changes of Passion are incident to every humane Soul but Exceeding sorrowfull Yet there are degrees in the very extremities of evils those that are most vehement may yet be capable of a remedy at least a relaxations thine was past these hopes Exceeding sorrowfull unto death What was it what could it be O Saviour that lay thus heavy upon thy Divine Soul Was it the fear of Death was it the fore-felt pain shame torment of thine ensuing Crucifixion Oh poor and base thoughts of the narrow hearts of cowardly and impotent mortality How many thousands of thy blessed Martyrs have welcomed no less tortures with smiles and gratulations and have made a sport of those exquisite cruelties which their very Tyrants thought unsufferable Whence had they this strength but from thee If their weakness were thus undaunted and prevalent what was thy power No no It was the sad weight of the Sin of mankind it was the heavy burthen of thy Father's wrath for our sin that thus pressed thy Soul and wrung from thee these bitter expressions What can it avail thee O Saviour to tell thy grief to men who can ease thee but he of whom thou saidst My Father is greater then I Lo to him thou turnest O Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me Was not this that prayer O dear Christ which in the days of thy flesh thou offeredst up with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save thee from death Surely this was it Never was cry so strong never was God thus solicited How could Heaven chuse but shake at such a Prayer from the Power that made it How can my heart but tremble to hear this suit from the Captain of our Salvation O thou that saidst I and my Father are one dost thou suffer ought from thy Father but what thou wouldst what thou determinedst was this Cup of thine either casuall or forced wouldst thou wish for what thou knewest thou wouldst not have possible Far far be these mis-raised thoughts of our ignorance and frailty Thou camest to suffer and thou wouldst doe what thou camest for yet since thou wouldst be a man thou wouldst take all of man save sin it is but humane and not sinfull to be loth to suffer what we may avoid In this velleity of thine thou wouldst shew what that Nature of ours which thou hadst assumed could incline to wish but in thy resolution thou wouldst shew us what thy victorious thoughts raised and assisted by thy Divine power had determinately pitched upon Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt As man thou hadst a Will of thine own no humane Soul can be perfect without that main faculty That will which naturally could be content to incline towards an exemption from miseries gladly vails to that Divine will whereby thou art designed to the chastisements of our peace Those pains which in themselves were grievous thou embracest as decreed so as thy fear hath given place to thy love and obedience How should we have known these evils so formidable if thou hadst not in half a thought inclined to deprecate them How could we have avoided so formidable and deadly evils if thou hadst not willingly undergone them We acknowledge thine holy fear we adore thy Divine fortitude Whilst thy Mind was in this fearfull agitation it is no marvell if thy Feet were not fixed Thy place is more changed then thy thoughts One while thou walkest to thy drouzy Attendents and stirrest up their needfull vigilancy then thou returnest to thy passionate Devotions thou fallest again upon thy face If thy Body be humbled down to the earth thy Soul is yet lower thy prayers are so much more vehement as thy pangs are And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of bloud falling down to the ground O my Saviour what an agony am I in whilst I think of thine What pain what fear what strife what horrour was in thy Sacred breast How didst thou struggle under the weight of our sins that thou thus sweatest that thou thus bleedest All was peace with thee thou wert one with thy coeternal and coessential Father all the Angels worshipp'd thee all the powers of Heaven and earth awfully acknowledged thine Infiniteness It was our person that feoffed thee in this misery and torment in that thou sustainedst thy Father's wrath and our curse If eternal death be unsufferable if every sin deserve eternal death what O what was it for thy Soul in this short time of thy bitter Passion to answer those millions of eternal deaths which all the sins of all mankind had deserved from the just hand of thy Godhead I marvell not if thou bleedest a sweat if thou sweatest bloud If the moisture of that Sweat be from the Body the tincture of it is from the Soul As there never was such another Sweat so neither can there be ever such a Suffering It is no wonder if the Sweat were more then natural when the Suffering was more then humane O Saviour so willing was that precious bloud of thine to be let forth for us that it was ready to prevent thy Persecutours and issued forth in those pores before thy wounds were opened by thy Tormentours Oh that my heart could bleed unto thee with true inward compunction for those sins of mine which are guilty of this thine Agony and have drawn bloud of thee both in the Garden and on the Cross Woe is me I had been in Hell if thou hadst not been in thine Agony I had scorched if thou hadst not sweat Oh let me abhor my own wickedness and admire and bless thy Mercy But O ye blessed Spirits which came to comfort my conflicted Saviour how did ye look upon this Son of God when ye saw him labouring for life under these violent temptations with what astonishment did ye behold him bleeding whom ye adored In the Wilderness after his Duell with Satan ye
and Spirit yours materiall His rule is over the Conscience yours over bodies and lives He punishes with Hell ye with temporall death or torture Yea so far is he from opposing your Government that by him ye Kings reign Your Scepters are his but to maintain not to wield not to resist O the unjust fears of vain men He takes not away your earthly Kingdoms who gives you Heavenly he discrowns not the Body who crowns the Soul his intention is not to make you less great but more happy The charge is so fully answered that Pilate acquits the prisoner The Jewish Masters stand still without their very malice dares not venture their pollution in going in to prosecute their accusation Pilate hath examined him within and now comes forth to these eager complainants with a cold answer to their over-hot expectation I find in him no fault at all O noble testimony of Christ's Innocence from that mouth which afterwards doomed him to death What a difference there is betwixt a man as he is himself and as he is the servant of others wills It is Pilate's tongue that says I find in him no fault at all It is the Jews tongue in Pilate's mouth that says Let him be crucified That cruel sentence cannot blot him whom this attestation cleareth Neither doth he say I find him not guilty in that whereof he is accused but gives an universall acquittance of the whole carriage of Christ I find in him no fault at all In spite of Malice Innocence shall find abettours Rather then Christ shall want witnesses the mouth of Pilate shall be opened to his justification How did these Jewish bloud-suckers stand thunder-stricken with so unexpected a word His absolution was their death his acquitall their conviction No fault when we have found Crimes no fault at all when we have condemned him for capitall offences How palpably doth Pilate give us the lie How shamefully doth he affront our authority and disparage our justice So ingenuous a testimony doubtless exasperated the fury of these Jews the fire of their indignation was seven-fold more intended with the sense of their repulse I tremble to think how just Pilate as yet was and how soon after depraved yea how mercifull together with that Justice How fain would he have freed Jesus whom he found faultless Corrupt custome in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage allowed to gratify the Jews with the free delivery of some one prisoner Tradition would be incroaching the Paschall Lamb was monument enough of that happy rescue men affect to have something of their own Pilate was willing to take this advantage of dismissing Jesus That he might be the more likely to prevail he proposeth him with the choice and nomination of so notorious a Malefactour as he might justly think uncapable of all mercy Barabbas a Thief a Murtherer a Seditionary infamous for all odious to all Had he propounded some other innocent prisoner he might have feared the election would be doubtfull he cannot misdoubt the competition of so prodigious a Malefactour Then they all cried again Not him but Barabbas O Malice beyond all example shameless and bloudy Who can but blush to think that an Heathen should see Jews so impetuously unjust so savagely cruell He knew there was no Fault to be found in Jesus he knew there was no Crime that was not to be found in Barabbas yet he hears and blushes to hear them say Not him but Barabbas Was not this think we out of similitude of condition Every thing affects the like to it self every thing affects the preservation of that it liketh What wonder is it then if ye Jews who profess your selves the murtherers of that Just One favour a Barabbas O Saviour what a killing indignity was this for thee to hear from thine own Nation Hast thou refused all Glory to put on shame and misery for their sakes Hast thou disregarded thy Blessed self to save them and do they refuse thee for Barabbas Hast thou said Not Heaven but Earth not Sovereignty but Service not the Gentile but the Jew and do they say Not him but Barabbas Do ye thus requite the Lord O ye foolish people and unjust Thus were thine ears and thine eyes first crucified and through them was thy Soul wounded even to death before thy death whilst thou sawest their rage and heardst their noise of Crucify crucify Pilate would have chastised thee Even that had been a cruel mercy from him for what evil hadst thou done But that cruelty had been true mercy to this of the Jews whom no bloud would satisfy but that of thy heart He calls for thy Fault they call for thy Punishment as proclaiming thy Crucifixion is not intended to satisfy Justice but Malice They cried the more Crucify him Crucify him As their clamour grew so the President 's Justice declined Those Graces that lie loose and ungrounded are easily washt away with the first tide of Popularity Thrice had that man proclaimed the Innocence of him whom he now inclines to condemn willing to content the people Oh the foolish aims of Ambition Not God not his Conscience come into any regard but the People What a base Idol doth the proud man adore even the Vulgar which a base man despiseth What is their applause but an idle wind what is their anger but a painted fire O Pilate where now is thy self and thy people whereas a good conscience would have stuck by thee for ever and have given thee boldness before the face of that God which thou and thy people shall never have the Happiness to behold The Jews have play'd their first part the Gentiles must now act theirs Cruell Pilate who knew Jesus was delivered for envy accused falsly maliciously pursued hath turned his profered chastisement into scourging Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him Woe is me dear Saviour I feel thy lashes I shrink under thy painfull whippings thy nakedness covers me with shame and confusion That tender and precious body of thine is galled and torn with cords Thou that didst of late water the garden of Gethsemani with the drops of thy bloudy sweat dost now bedew the pavement of Pilate's Hall with the showrs of thy bloud How fully hast thou made good thy word I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting How can I be enough sensible of my own stripes these blows are mine both my sins have given them and they give remedies to my sins He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes are we healed O Blessed Jesu why should I think strange to be scourged with tongue or hand when I see thee bleeding what lashes can I fear either from Heaven or earth since thy scourges have been born for me and have sanctified them to me Now dear Jesu what a world of
find leisure to bestow our commiseration on those who need it perhaps less then our selves Even now O Saviour when thou wert within the view of thy Calvary thou canst foresee and pity the vastation of thy Jerusalem and givest a sad Prophecy of the imminent destruction of that City which lately had cost thee tears and now shall cost thee bloud It is not all the indign cruelty of men that can rob thee of thy Mercy Jerusalem could not want Malefactours though Barabbas was dismissed That all this execution might seem to be done out of the zeal of Justice two capital offenders adjudged to their Gibbet shall accompany thee O Saviour both to thy death and in it They are led manicled after thee as less criminous no stripes had disabled them from bearing their own Crosses Long agoe was this unmeet society foretold by thine Evangelical Seer He was taken from prison and from judgment He was cut out of the land of the living He made his grave with the Wicked O Blessed Jesu it had been disparagement enough to thee to be sorted with the best of men since there is much sin in the perfectest and there could be no sin in thee but to be matched with the scum of mankind whom vengeance would not let to live is such an indignity as confounds my thoughts Surely there is no Angel in Heaven but would have been proud to attend thee and what could the earth afford worthy of thy train yet malice hath suited thee with company next to Hell that their viciousness might reflect upon thee and their sin might stain thine Innocence Ye are deceived O ye fond Judges This is the way to grace your dying malefactours this is not the way to disgrace him whose guiltlesness and perfection triumph'd over your injustice his presence was able to make your Thieves happy their presence could no more blemish him then your own Thus guarded thus attended thus accompanied art thou Blessed Jesu led to that loathsome and infamous hill which now thy last bloud shall make Sacred now thou settest thy foot upon that rising ground which shall prevent thine Olivet whence thy Soul shall first ascend into thy Glory There whilst thou art dressing thy self for thy last Act thou art presented with that bitter and farewell-potion wherewith dying Malefactours were wont to have their senses stupified that they might not feel the torments of their execution It was but the common mercy of men to alleviate the death of Offenders since the intent of their last doom is not so much pain as dissolution That draught O Saviour was not more welcome to the guilty then hatefull unto thee In the vigour of all thine inward and outward senses thou wouldst incounter the most violent assaults of death and scornedst to abate the least touch of thy quickest apprehension Thou well knewest that the work thou wentest about would require the use of all thy powers it was not thine ease that thou soughtest but our Redemption neither meantest thou to yield to thy last enemy but to resist and to overcome him which that thou mightest doe the more gloriously thou challengedst him to doe his worst and in the mean time wouldst not disfurnish thy self of any of thy powerfull faculties This greatest combat that ever was shall be fought on even hand neither wouldst thou steal that Victory which thou now atchievedst over Death and Hell Thou didst but touch at this cup it is a far bitterer then this that thou art now drinking up to the dregs thou refusedst that which was offered thee by men but that which was mixed by thine eternal Father though mere Gall and Wormwood thou didst drink up to the last drop And therein O Blessed Jesu lies all our health and salvation I know not whether I do more suffer in thy pain or joy in the issue of thy Suffering Now even now O Saviour art thou entring into those dreadfull lists and now thou art grappling with thy last enemy as if thou hadst not suffered till now now thy bloudy Passion begins a cruell expoliation begins that violence Again do these grim and merciless Souldiers lay their rude hands upon thee and strip thee naked again are those bleeding wales lay'd open to all eyes again must thy Sacred Body undergoe the shame of an abhorred nakedness Lo thou that cloathest man with raiment beasts with hides fishes with scales and shells earth with flowers Heaven with Stars art despoiled of cloaths and standest exposed to the scorn of all beholders As the First Adam entred into his Paradise so dost thou the Second Adam into thine naked and as the First Adam was cloathed with Innocence when he had no cloaths so wert thou the Second too and more then so thy nakedness O Saviour cloaths our Souls not with Innocence onely but with Beauty Hadst not thou been naked we had been cloathed with confusion O happy nakedness whereby we are covered from shame O happy shame whereby we are invested with glory All the beholders stand wrapped with warm garments thou onely art stripped to tread the wine-press alone How did thy Blessed Mother now wish her veil upon thy shoulders and that Disciple who lately ran from thee naked wish'd in vain that his loving pity might doe that for thee which fear forced him to for himself Shame is succeeded with Pain Oh the torment of the Cross Methinks I see and feel how having fastned the transverse to the body of that fatal Tree and laid it upon the ground they racked and strained thy tender and sacred Lims to fit the extent of their fore-appointed measure and having tentered out thine arms beyond their natural reach how they fastned them with cords till those strong iron nails which were driven up to the head through the palms of thy Blessed hands had not more firmly then painfully fixed thee to the Gibbet The tree is raised up and now not without a vehement concussion settled in the mortise Woe is me how are thy joynts and sinews torn and stretched till they crack again by this torturing distension how doth thine own weight torment thee whilst thy whole body rests upon this forced and dolorous hold till thy nailed feet bear their part in a no-less-afflictive supportation How did the rough iron pierce thy Soul whilst passing through those tender and sensible parts it carried thy flesh before it and as it were rivetted it to that shamefull Tree There now O dear Jesu there thou hangest between Heaven and earth naked bleeding forlorn despicable the spectacle of miseries the scorn of men Be abashed O ye Heavens and earth and all ye creatures wrap up your selves in horrour and confusion to see the shame and pain and curse of your most pure and Omnipotent Creatour How could ye subsist whilst he thus suffers in whom ye are O Saviour didst thou take flesh for our Redemption to be thus indignly used thus mangled thus tortured Was this measure fit to be offered to that Sacred
or hands or feet It could not but goe deep into thy Soul to hear these bitter and girding reproaches from them thou camest to save But alas what flea-bitings were these in comparison of those inward torments which thy Soul felt in the sense and apprehension of thy Father's wrath for the sins of the whole world which now lay heavy upon thee for satisfaction This oh this was it that pressed thy Soul as it were to the neathermost Hell Whilst thine Eternall Father look'd lovingly upon thee what didst thou what neededst thou to care for the frowns of men or Devils but when he once turn'd his face from thee or bent his brows upon thee this this was worse then death It is no marvell now if darkness were upon the face of the whole earth when thy Father's Face was eclipsed from thee by the interposition of our sins How should there be light in the world without when the God of the world the Father of lights complains of the want of light within That word of thine O Saviour was enough to fetch the Sun down out of Heaven and to dissolve the whole frame of Nature when thou criedst My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh what pangs were these dear Jesu that drew from thee this complaint Thou well knewest nothing could be more cordiall to thine enemies then to hear this sad language from thee they could see but the outside of thy sufferings never could they have conceived so deep an anguish of thy Soul if thy own lips had not expressed it Yet as not regarding their triumph thou thus pourest out thy sorrow and when so much is uttered who can conceive what is felt How is it then with thee O Saviour that thou thus astonishest men and Angels with so wofull a quiritation Had thy God left thee Thou not long since saidst I and my Father are one Are ye now severed Let this thought be as far from my Soul as my Soul from Hell No more can thy Blessed Father be separated from thee then from his own Essence His Union with thee is eternall his Vision was intercepted He could not withdraw his Presence he would withdraw the influence of his comfort Thou the Second Adam stoodst for mankind upon this Tree of the Cross as the First Adam stood and fell for mankind under the Tree of offence Thou barest our sins thy Father saw us in thee and would punish us in thee thee for us how could he but withhold comfort where he intended chastisement Herein therefore he seems to forsake thee for the present in that he would not deliver thee from that bitter Passion which thou wouldst undergoe for us O Saviour hadst thou not been thus forsaken we had perished thy dereliction is our safety and however our narrow Souls are not capable of the conceit of thy pain and horrour yet we know there can be no danger in the forsaking whilst thou canst say My God He is so thy God as he cannot be ours all our right is by Adoption thine by Nature thou art one with him in eternall Essence we come in by Grace and mercifull election yet whilst thou shalt enable me to say My God I shall hope never to sink under thy desertions But whilst I am transported with the sense of thy Sufferings O Saviour let me not forget to admire those sweet Mercies of thine which thou pouredst out upon thy Persecutours They rejoyce in thy death and triumph in thy misery and scoff at thee in both In stead of calling down fire from Heaven upon them thou heapest coals of fire upon their heads Father forgive them for they know not what they doe They blaspheme thee thou prayest for them they scorn thou pitiest they sin against thee thou prayest for their forgiveness they profess their malice thou pleadest their ignorance O compassion without example without measure fit for the Son of God the Saviour of men Wicked and foolish Jews ye would be miserable he will not let you ye would fain pull upon your selves the guilt of his bloud he deprecates it ye kill he sues for your remission and life His tongue cries louder then his bloud Father forgive them O Saviour thou couldst not but be heard Those who out of ignorance and simplicity thus persecuted thee find the happy issue of thine intercession Now I see whence it was that three thousand souls were converted soon after at one Sermon It was not Peter's speech it was thy prayer that was thus effectuall Now they have grace to know and confess whence they have both forgiveness and salvation and can recompense their blasphemies with thanksgiving What sin is there Lord whereof I can despair of the remission or what offence can I be unwilling to remit when thou prayest for the forgiveness of thy murtherers and blasphemers There is no day so long but hath his evening At last O Blessed Saviour thou art drawing to an end of these painfull Sufferings when spent with toil and torment thou criest out I thirst How shouldst thou doe other O dear Jesu how shouldst thou doe other then thirst The night thou hadst spent in watching in prayer in agony in thy conveyance from the Garden to Jerusalem from Annas to Caiaphas from Caiaphas to Pilate in thy restless answers in buffetings and stripes the day in arraignments in haling from place to place in scourgings in stripping in robing and disrobing in bleeding in tugging under thy Cross in woundings and distension in pain and passion No marvell if thou thirstedst Although there was more in this drought then thy need It was no less requisite thou shouldst thirst then that thou shouldst die Both were upon the same predetermination both upon the same prediction How else should that word be verified Psal 22.14 15. All my bones are out of joynt my heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of death Had it not been to make up that word whereof one jot cannot pass though thou hadst felt this thirst yet thou hadst not bewrayed it Alas what could it avail to bemoan thy wants to insulting enemies whose sport was thy misery How should they pity thy thirst that pitied not thy bloudshed It was not their favour that thou expectedst herein but their conviction O Saviour how can we thy sinfull servants think much to be exercised with hunger and thirst when we hear thee thus plain Thou that not long since proclaimedst in the Temple If any man thirst let him come to me and drink He that believeth in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters now thy self thirstest Thou in whom we believe complainest to want some drops thou hadst the command of all the waters both above the firmament and below it yet thou wouldst thirst Even so Lord thou that wouldst die for us wouldst thirst for
hurt me it may refresh me to carry this cool Snake in my bosome O then my dear Saviour I bless thee for thy Death but I bless thee more for thy Resurrection That was a work of wonderfull Humility of infinite Mercy this was a work of infinite Power In that was humane Weakness in this Divine Omnipotence In that thou didst die for our sins in this thou didst rise again for our Justification And now how am I conformable to thee if when thou art risen I lie still in the grave of my Corruptions How am I a lim of thy body if whilst thou hast that perfect dominion over death death hath dominion over me if whilst thou art alive and glorious I lie rotting in the dust of death I know the locomotive faculty is in the Head by the power of the Resurrection of thee our Head all we thy Members cannot but be raised As the earth cannot hold my Body from thee in the day of the Second Resurrection so cannot sin withhold my Soul from thee in the First How am I thine if I be not risen and if I be risen with thee why do I not seek the things above where thou sittest at the right hand of God The Vault or Cave which Joseph had hewn out of the rock was large capable of no less then ten persons upon the mouth of it Eastward was that great stone rolled within it at the right hand in the North part of the Cave was hewn out a receptacle for the body three handfulls high from the pavement and a stone was accordingly fitted for the cover of that Grave Into this Cave the good Women finding the stone rolled away descended to seek the body of Christ and in it saw the Angels This was the Goal to which Peter and John ran finding the spoils of death the grave-cloaths wrapped up and the napkin that was about the head folded up together and laid in a place by it self and as they came in haste so they return'd with wonder I marvell not at your speed O ye blessed Disciples if upon the report of the Women ye ran yea flew upon the wings of zeal to see what was become of your Master Ye had wont to walk familiarly together in the attendence of your Lord now society is forgotten and as for a wager each tries the speed of his legs and with neglect of other vies who shall be first at the Tomb. Who would not but have tried masteries with you in this case and have made light touches of the earth to have held paces with you Your desire was equall but John is the younger his lims are more nimble his breath more free he first looks into the Sepulcher but Peter goes down first O happy competition who shall be more zealous in the enquiry after Christ Ye saw enough to amaze you not enough to settle your Faith How well might you have thought Our Master is not subduced but risen Had he been taken away by others hands this fine linen had not been left behind Had he not himself risen from this bed of earth he had not thus wrapped up his night-cloaths and laid them sorted by themselves What can we doubt when he foretold us he would rise O Blessed Jesu how wilt thou pardon our errours how should we pardon and pity the errours of each other in lesser occasions when as yet thy prime and dearest Disciples after so much Divine instruction knew not the Scriptures that thou must rise again from the dead They went away more astonished then confident more full of wonder as yet then of belief There is more strength of zeal where it takes in the weaker Sex Those holy Women as they came first so they staid last especially devout Mary Magdalene stands still at the mouth of the Cave weeping Well might those tears have been spared if her Knowledge had been answerable to her Affection her Faith to her Fervour Withall as our eye will be where we love she stoops and looks down into that dear Sepulcher Holy desires never but speed well There she sees two glorious Angels the one sitting at the head the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain Their shining brightness shew'd them to be no mortall creatures besides that Peter and John had but newly come out of the Sepulcher and both found and left it empty in her sight which was now suddenly filled with those celestiall guests That white linen wherewith Joseph had shrouded the Sacred Body of Jesus was now shamed with a brighter whiteness Yet do I not find the good Woman ought appalled with that inexpected glory So was her heart taken up with the thought for her Saviour that she seemed not sensible of whatsoever other Objects Those tears which she did let drop into the Sepulcher send up back to her the voice of those Angels Woman why weepest thou God and his Angels take notice of every tear of our Devotion The sudden wonder hath not dried her eyes nor charmed her tongue She freely confesseth the cause of her grief to be the missing of her Saviour They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him Alas good Mary how dost thou lose thy tears of whom dost thou complain but of thy best friend who hath removed thy Lord but himself who but his own Deity hath taken away that humane body out of that region of death Neither is he now laid any more he stands by thee whose removall thou complainest of Thus many a tender and humbled Soul afflicts it self with the want of that Saviour whom it hath and feeleth not Sense may be no judge of the bewailed absence of Christ Do but turn back thine eye O thou Religious Soul and see Jesus standing by thee though thou knewest not that it was Jesus His habit was not his own Sometimes it pleases our Saviour to appear unto his not like himself his holy disguises are our trialls Sometimes he will seem a Stranger sometimes an Enemy sometimes he offers himself to us in the shape of a poor man sometimes of a distressed captive Happy is he that can discern his Saviour in all forms Mary took him for a Gardener Devout Magdalene thou art not much mistaken As it was the trade of the First Adam to dress the Garden of Eden so was it the trade of the Second to tend the Garden of his Church He digs up the soil by seasonable afflictions he sows in it the seeds of Grace he plants it with gracious motions he waters it with his Word yea with his own Bloud he weeds it by wholsome censures O Blessed Saviour what is it that thou neglectest to doe for this selected inclosure of thy Church As in some respect thou art the true Vine and thy Father the Husbandman so also in some other we are the Vine and thou art the Husbandman Oh be thou such to me as thou appearedst unto Magdalene break up the fallows of my Nature
Women the first witnesses of the Resurrection as also of the two Disciples walking to Emmaus whose hearts burning within them had set their tongues on fire in a zealous relation of those happy occurrences with the assured reports of the rising and re-appearance of many Saints in attendence of the Lord and giver of life yet still he struggles with his own distrust and stiffly suspends his belief to that truth whereof he cannot deny himself enough convinced As all bodies are not equally apt to be wrought upon by the same Medicine so are not all Souls by the same means of Faith one is refractory whilst others are pliable O Saviour how justly mightest thou have left this man to his own pertinacy whom could he have thank'd if he had perished in his unbelief But O thou good Shepherd of Israel that couldst be content to leave the ninety and nine to go fetch one stray in the wilderness how carefull wert thou to reduce this straggler to his fellows Right so were thy Disciples re-assembled such was the season the place the same so were the doors shut up when that unbelieving Disciple being now present with the rest thou so camest in so stoodst in the midst so shewedst thy hands and feet and singling out thy incredulous client invitest his eyes to see and his fingers to handle thine hands and his hand to be thrust into thy side that he might not be faithless but faithfull Blessed Jesu how thou pitiest the errours and infirmities of thy servants Even when we are froward in our misconceits and worthy of nothing but desertion how thou followest us and overtakest us with mercy and in thine abundant compassion wilt reclaim and save us when either we meant not or would not By how much more unworthy those eyes and hands were to see and touch that immortall and glorious Body by so much more wonderfull was thy Goodness in condescending to satisfy that curious Infidelity Neither do I hear thee so much as to chide that weak obstinacy It was not long since thou didst sharply take up the two Disciples that walk'd to Emmaus O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken but this was under the disguise of an unknown traveller upon the way when they were alone Now thou speakest with thine own tongue before all thy Disciples in stead of rebuking thou onely exhortest Be not faithless but faithfull Behold thy Mercy no less then thy Power hath melted the congealed heart of thy unbelieving follower Then Thomas answered and said unto him My Lord and my God I do not hear that when it came to the issue Thomas imployed his hands in this triall his eyes were now sufficient assurance the sense of his Master's Omniscience in this particular challenge of him spared perhaps the labour of a farther disquisition And now how happily was that doubt bestowed which brought forth so faithfull a confession My Lord my God I hear not such a word from those that believed It was well for us it was well for thee O Thomas that thou distrustedst else neither had the world received so perfect an evidence of that Resurrection whereon all our Salvation dependeth neither hadst thou yielded so pregnant and divine an astipulation to thy Blessed Saviour Now thou dost not onely profess his Resurrection but his Godhead too and thy happy interest in both And now if they be blessed that have not seen and yet believed blessed art thou also who having seen hast thus believed and blessed be thou O God who knowest how to make advantage of the infirmities of thy chosen for the promoting of their Salvation the confirmation of thy Church the glory of thine own Name Amen LI. The Ascension IT stood not with thy purpose O Saviour to ascend immediately from thy grave into Heaven thou meantest to take the earth in thy way not for a sudden passage but for a leisurely conversation Upon thine Easter-day thou spakest of thine Ascension but thou wouldst have forty days interposed Hadst thou meerly respected thine own Glory thou hadst instantly changed thy grave for thy Paradise for so much the sooner hadst thou been possessed of thy Father's joy we would not continue in a Dungeon when we might be in a Palace but thou who for our sakes vouchsafedst to descend from Heaven to earth wouldst now in the upshot have a gracious regard to us in thy return Thy Death had troubled the hearts of many Disciples who thought that condition too mean to be compatible with the glory of the Messiah and thoughts of diffidence were apt to seize upon the holiest breasts So long therefore wouldst thou hold footing upon earth till the world were fully convinced of the infallible evidences of thy Resurrection of all which time thou onely canst give an account it was not for flesh and bloud to trace the ways of Immortality neither was our frail corruptible sinfull nature a meet companion for thy now-glorified Humanity the glorious Angels of Heaven were now thy fittest attendents But yet how oft did it please thee graciously to impart thy self this while unto men and not onely to appear unto thy Disciples but to renew unto them the familiar forms of thy wonted conversation in conferring walking eating with them And now when thou drewest near to thy last parting thou who hadst many times shewed thy self before to thy severall Disciples thoughtest meet to assemble them all together for an universall valediction Who can be too rigorous in censuring the ignorances of well-meaning Christians when he sees the domestick Followers of Christ even after his Resurrection mistake the main End of his coming in the flesh Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel They saw their Master now out of the reach of all Jewish envy they saw his power illimited and irresistible they saw him stay so long upon earth that they might imagine he meant to fix his abode there and what should he doe there but reign and wherefore should they be now assembled but for the choice and distribution of Offices and for the ordering of the affairs of that state which was now to be vindicated Oh weak thoughts of well-instructed Disciples What should an Heavenly body doe in an earthly throne How should a spirituall life be imployed in secular cares How poor a business is the Temporall Kingdom of Israel for the King of Heaven And even yet O Blessed Saviour I do not hear thee sharply controll this erroneous conceit of thy mistaken Followers thy mild correction insists rather upon the time then the misconceived substance of that restauration It was thy gracious purpose that thy Spirit should by degrees rectify their judgments and illuminate them with thy Divine truths in the mean time it was sufficient to raise up their hearts to an expectation of that Holy Ghost which should shortly lead them into all needfull and requisite verities And now with a gracious promise of that Spirit of thine
means to fill Hell lothness to displease A good heart will rather fall out with all the world then with God then with his Conscience The mis-grounded sorrow of worldly hearts doth not withhold them from their intended sins It is enough to vex not enough to restrain them Herod was sorry but he sends the Executioner for John's head One act hath made Herod a Tyrant and John a Martyr Herod a Tyrant in that without all legall proceedings without so much as false witnesses he takes off the head of a man of a Prophet It was Lust that carried Herod into Murther The proceedings of sin are more hardly avoided then the entrance Whoso gives himself leave to be wicked knows not where he shall stay John a Martyr in dying for bearing witness to the Truth Truth in life in judgment in doctrine It was the holy purpose of God that he which had baptized with water should now be baptized with bloud Never did God mean that his best children should dwell always upon earth should they stay here wherefore hath he provided Glory above Now would God have John delivered from a double prison of his own of Herod's and placed in the glorious liberty of his sons His head shall be taken off that it may be crowned with glory Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints O happy birth-day not of Herod but of the Baptist Now doth John enter into his joy and in his name is this day ever celebrated of the Church This blessed Fore-runner of Christ said of himself I must decrease He is decreased indeed and now grown shorter by the head but he is not so much decreased in stature as increased in glory For one minute's pain he is possessed of endless joy and as he came before his Saviour into the world so is he gone before him into Heaven The Head is brought in a Charger What a dish was here for a Feast How prodigiously insatiable is the cruelty of a wicked heart O blessed service fit for the table of Heaven It is not for thee O wicked Herod nor for thee malicious and wanton Herodias it is a dish precious and pleasing to the God of Heaven to the blessed Angels who look'd upon that Head with more delight in his constant fidelity then the beholders saw it with horrour and Herodias with contentment of revenge It is brought to Salome as the reward of her dance she presents it to her Mother as the dainty she had longed for Methinks I see how that chast and holy countenance was tossed by impure and filthy hands that true and faithfull tongue those sacred lips those pure eyes those mortified cheeks are now insultingly handled by an incestuous Harlot and made a scorn to the drunken eyes of Herod's guests Oh the wondrous judgments and incomprehensible dispositions of the holy wise Almighty God! He that was sanctified in the womb born and conceived with so much note and miracle What manner of child shall this be lived with so much reverence and observation is now at midnight obscurely murthered in a close prison and his head brought forth to the insultation and irrision of Harlots and Ruffians O God thou knowest what thou hast to doe with thine own Thus thou sufferest thine to be misused and slaughtered here below that thou mayest crown them above It should not be thus if thou didst not mean that their glory should be answerable to their depression XXII The five Loaves and two Fishes WHat flocking there was after Christ which way soever he went How did the Kingdom of Heaven suffer an holy violence in these his followers Their importunity drave him from the land to the sea When he was upon the sea of Tiberias they followed him with their eyes and when they saw which way he bent they followed him so fast on foot that they prevented his landing Whether it were that our Saviour staid some while upon the water as that which yielded him more quietness and freedom of respiration or whether the foot-passage as it oft falls out were the shorter cut by reason of the compasses of the water and the many elbows of the land I inquire not sure I am the wind did not so swiftly drive on the ship as desire and zeal drave on these eager clients Well did Christ see them all the way well did he know their steps and guided them and now he purposely goes to meet them whom he seemed to fly Nothing can please God more then our importunity in seeking him when he withdraws himself it is that he may be more earnestly inquired for Now then he comes to find them whom he made shew to decline and seeing a great multitude he passes from the ship to the shore That which brought him from Heaven to earth brought him also from the sea to land his compassion on their Souls that he might teach them compassion on their Bodies that he might heal and feed them Judaea was not large but populous it could not be but there must be amongst so many men many diseased it is no marvel if the report of so miraculous and universal sanations drew customers They found three advantages of cure above the power and performance of any earthly Physician Certainty Bounty Ease Certainty in that all comers were cured without fail Bounty in that they were cured without charge Ease in that they were cured without pain Far be it from us O Saviour to think that thy Glory hath abated of thy Mercy still and ever thou art our assured bountifull and perfect Physician who healest all our diseases and takest away all our infirmities O that we could have our faithfull recourse to thee in all our spiritual maladies it were as impossible we should want help as that thou shouldst want power and mercy That our Saviour might approve himself every way beneficent he that had filled the Souls of his Auditours with spiritual repast will now fill their Bodies with temporal and he that had approved himself the universal Physician of his Church will now be known to be the great housholder of the world by whose liberal provision mankind is maintained He did not more miraculously heal then he feeds miraculously The Disciples having well noted the diligent and importune attendence of the multitude now towards evening come to their Master in a care of their repast and discharge This is a desart place and the time is now past Send the multitude away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves victuals How well it becomes even spiritual guides to regard the bodily necessities of God's people This is not directly in our charge neither may we leave our sacred ministration to serve Tables But yet as the bodily father must take care for the Soul of his child so must the spiritual have respect to the Body This is all that the world commonly looks after measuring their Pastours more by their dishes then by their doctrine or conversation