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Of these three Particulars let us speak severally; and first of the first, Upon thy breast shalt thou go. In the Hebrew it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which some turn, Upon thy belly: which interpretation hath been one great cause of the difficulty to understand the meaning of this Malediction. For if the shape of the Serpent were after the fashion it is now, it is not possible to imagine how it could ever have gone otherwise than upon the belly; for to think that ever it went an-end, were a conceit more worthy to be derided than to be believed. By which means there appeared no other way to evade this difficulty, but to affirm that the Serpent indeed went upon his belly from the beginning; but either that it was not so toilsome to him, or not for a curse unto him till now: which, for my part, it being so far from the letter of the Text, I could never yet believe. I had much rather in this follow the Vulgar or Jerome's Translation, which reads, super pectus tuum gradiêris, upon thy breast shalt thou go; for upon thy belly I believe the Serpent went from the first Creation, but not upon the breast until this present malediction. The breast of the Serpent I call the upper part of the Serpent's body, from the navel up to the head; The belly, the other part or the other half downward, with which though at the first he walked prone to and upon the earth, yet was the other part, his breast and head, reared up and advanced, until for having been abused to the ruin of mankind, he was now with his whole body to creep groveling upon the earth. And perhaps thus much the Septuagint meant to insinuate by their Translation, which is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , upon thy breast and thy belly; where it may seem that they rendered two words for one in the Text for illustration, and for intimation of this, That whereas the Serpent before went only upon his belly, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , now he should from henceforth walk 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , upon his breast and belly too.
As for the Hebrew 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 here used, there is no necessity at all to translate it the belly, but rather some probability of the contrary in the Etymology of the word. For though in the Hebrew the Theme be not used, yet in the Chaldee 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 • which signifies incurvatus • uit, to bow downward, seems to mean the inclination of the head and breast, or upper part of the body, to the earth; as may be gathered from that of Elijah, 1 Kings 18. 42. where it is said, that Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, & pronum se abjecit in terram, and cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees: for here the Targum useth this word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 • the Radix of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Again Mark. 1. 7. in those words of John the Baptist, There is one cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose; here for the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 • stoop down, the Syriac hath 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 • of as near a kin to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as is the Syriac to the Chaldee. The word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 itself is of rare use in the Bible besides in this place, and therefore we can receive no great help from the comparing of places. It is read again Levite. 11. 42. and that in a singular mark, as the Masorites have observed; for the Vau cholem in the last syllable is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a great Vau, and exactly the middlemost letter of all the Law of Moses, if their Arithmetic failed them not. But no particularity of signification can from that place be gathered, the speech being of creeping things, which go as well upon the breast as the belly, and the belly as the breast.
Since therefore the word here used neither hindereth our opinion, nor much furthereth it, we will come to such other grounds as may prove our assertion, for the Serpent's going with breast advanced afore the Fall of man, and not groveling till his Malediction. And first let it be considered there is no impossibility of it in regard of the frame of the Serpent; which appears both by their advancing themselves when they assault a man, (which the Painters express in their Pictures) and also when they swim through the water, which is with their head and some part of their breast raised above water, even as a Swan holdeth up her neck; as I have heard affirmed by such as have been eye-witnesses: and lastly, Pliny and Solinus report of the Basilisk, that the Basilisk walks so still; as I shown a little before. And it may be, as when the Giant-like stature of mankind was diminished after the Flood in a manner throughout the world, and for many ages, yet was there by God's disposition still a race of Giants left even till the time of David, for a monument and witness of the truth of a far bigger stature, in former times, which else could not so easily have been believed or imagined; (Such were the Zanzummims in Abraham's time, the sons of Anak in Moses's, and Goliath in the time of David; and it may be there are yet some in some part of the world to be sound) as, I say, these seem to have been preserved by God, as a memorial unto men that they were not now as at the first: So it may be it was the will of God and is, amongst so many kinds of Serpents to preserve this one, that it should not as the rest go groveling upon the earth, but might be as a monument of the truth of the malediction of the rest to all posterity. Thus much of the possibility, which would be far greater, if we should with S. Basil, Ephrem Syrus, Moses Bar-Cephas, and many others, affirm that the Serpent had feet, namely, some short ones beneath the navel: For feet are not essential to the nature of a thing, as appears by the lame, who can live without them, and by others sometimes by the defect of nature born without them. And those who can believe the wonderful change of Man by his fall, of an immortal creature to become mortal; of one to have been born with all glorious endowments both of body and soul, now to be brought into the world the most unfurnished of all the creatures; those who believe the great alteration of the Earth itself when it was accursed for man's sin, the diminution of the time of man's life and of his stature ever since the flood; can any who believe these things, think it so incredible for the Serpent once to have had some small feet, and afterward to have had none, being a creature wherein God intended to leave a monument forever? But of this I will determine nothing, neither doth my assertion simply depend upon it, but may well enough consist without it.
But because possibility is not sufficient of itself alone to infer a probability, I have therefore one thing to add more thereto, namely, the reason and cause even in nature (supposing still God's abasing of the Serpent's first creation) of this alteration of the posture of the Serpent's gate from that it was at the beginning.
First, We know the more excellent and sublime the nature of a creature is, the more it raiseth itself upward; the more ignoble and base, the more it falls downward. This we see in the Elements themselves: the Fire, the most excellent and operative of the four, raiseth itself above the rest; the Earth, the basest and most unactive of all, is also of all the most dejected.
Secondly, As there is this difference in the Elements, so there is in the mixed bodies; some consisting of a more sublime and excellent temper, others of a more base and ignoble mixture; and that as in other, so amongst such creatures as live and move upon the earth.
Thirdly, This their nobleness within discovereth itself in the Body without, by advancing them naturally in their gate and gesture: whence Man, being of all creatures living upon the earth of the most excellent temper and sublimed condition of nature, is therefore of all other the most advanced in body;
If therefore the Serpent were of so sublime a nature at the first, as thereby it was more subtle than any beast of the field which God had made; how could so excellent a temper, the ground of so much sagacity, but advance the body thereof as far as the frame and shape thereof could admit? On the contrary, if afterward the Serpent became the most abased and accursed of all the beasts of the field, how should not this alteration of his former temper and disposition of nature make the gesture of his body also suitable, by stooping and groveling upon the earth? Who knows not that the natural position of Man is erected agreeable to his excellency above other creatures having life and motion? and yet notwithstanding so much hath the dejection of his primitive nature for sin weakened in him this propension, that were it not for education, it is supposed, yea and by experience confirmed, that he would walk upon all four like a beast. And shall we wonder that the malediction of the Serpent, exceeding that of Man's, should produce as much as this?
So then to conclude this first particular of the Serpent's curse; I understand it, from the ground aforesaid, as insinuating the cause by the outward and sensible effect, according to the manner of the Scripture; namely, the abasement and fall of the Serpent's whole nature from his primitive perfection, discovered by the fall of his once advanced body, thenceforth to go groveling upon the earth: even as the despoiling of the nature of Man of the inward endowments of perfection, is by the same sacred Trope insinuated by his outward nakedness; that is, the obscuration of that glorious and celestial beauty which he had before his sin: The difference whereof was so great, that he could not endure afterward to behold himself anymore; but sought for a covering, even to hide himself from himself.
And now I come to the second particular, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. The coarsest diet that any living creature hath allowed him. None of the Beasts of the field with whom he is compared are thus poorly provided for; nay not any other, unless the base Earthworm, not worthy to be named among the creatures. Even with this vilest of creatures is now ranked that once so noble a creature, the Serpent. Which yet is not so to be understood, as though the Serpent did not sometime eat something else, for they sometime devour birds, frogs, and such like; but that this is the ordinary fare which God hath provided him, and if at any time he getteth any other, he goeth beyond his limits. Whence Isaiah 65. 25. among the blessings of the new Jerusalem this is reckoned for one, that the Serpent should eat dust; that is, be made to be contented with the diet God had appointed him, and not to encroach upon the food appointed for others.
But why did God appoint him this Food? I answer, Even to continue him in that accursed and vile condition to which he had dejected him: For Food is for the repairing and preservation of nature, and the goodness or badness thereof doth make the temper of the body better or worse. Hence according to the degrees of excellency in the creatures, their Food is finer or courser: Plants suck the moisture of the earth; Beasts live most upon plants; but Man of the flesh of cattle, fowl, and fishes. Since therefore the Serpent was to have no better fare than the dust of the earth; as it argues the baseness of his nature which can with such food be nourished, so doth it necessarily imply his continuance in that his dejection and vileness: whereas otherwise it were not impossible, because his nature for the essence is still the same it was, if his diet were as it had been, for him to improve himself more near to his primitive temper than now he is. But God, who had decreed he should ever remain under this malediction, appointed also the means to retain him therein.
DISCOURSE XLII.
GENESIS 3. 15.
THE third and last particular remains to be treated of; I will put enmity between thee and the woman, &c. This no doubt intendeth in some things more directly the spiritual Serpent than the brute; yet for the general it may and ought, as well as the rest, to be expounded of the brute Serpent, as a Glass wherein to behold the malice and destiny of the other, the Devil. It containeth two parts; The Enmity, and the Event and Managing thereof. For the Enmity, how it is verified concerning the brute Serpent experience telleth. It is some part of the happiness of the creature to be the Favorite of Man who is the Lord thereof; what honor could betide it greater than this? But between the Serpent and Man is the most deadly enmity, and the strongest antipathy that is amongst the Beasts of the field; such an one as discovereth itself both in the natural and sensitive faculties of them both. For the first, Their humors are poison each to other: the gall of a Serpent is Man's deadly poison; and so is the spittle of a Man affirmed to poison the Serpent. For the sensitive antipathy, it appears in that the one doth so much abhor the sight of presence of the other. Man's nature is at nothing so much astonished as at the sight of a Serpent; and like enough the Serpent is in like manner affected at the sight of Man; and that more especially, as the Naturalists affirm, of a naked man than otherwise. As though his instinct even remembered the time of his malediction, when he and naked man stood before God to receive this sentence of everlasting enmity.
And whereas the words of the Text do in special point out the Woman in this sentence of enmity; the Naturalists do observe, that is greater and more vehement with that sex than with the male of mankind: Insomuch that Rupertus affirmeth, That if but the naked foot of a Woman doth never so little press the head of a Serpent before he can sting her, both the head and body presently dieth; which no cudgel or other weapon will cause, but that some life and motion will still remain behind. Hoc (saith he) ita esse, ipsorum qui per industriam exploraverunt fidâ relatione comperimus. Lib. 3. de Trin. c. 20. You know my Author, who affirms that he had this from the faithful report of such as had purposely bestowed their pains to find out the truth thereof.
The remaining words of my Text do express the Managing and Event of this enmity, which is far more dangerous and unlucky on the Serpent's part than on Man's: for Man is able to reach the Serpent's head, where his life chiefly resideth, and where a blow is deadly; but as for the Serpent, he shall not be able to prevail against Man otherwise than privily and unawares, and that but in the lowest part, namely, when he shall pass him unseen, to sting him by the heel. And that this is the nature of a Serpent it appeareth in the words of Dan's blessing, Gen. 49. 17. Dan shall be a Serpent by the way, an Adder in the path; that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. And to make an end of this discourse also, it is a thing to be observed in the nature of a Serpent, that as soon as he perceiveth man ready to throw or strike at him, he will presently roll his body for a buckler to save his head; even as though he had some impression of that doctrine which God here read him in my Text, Ipse conteret tibi caput, He shall bruise thy Head; Beware thy head.
AND thus hitherto I have considered these words as they are the curse of the brute Serpent: Now I am to go over with them again, to show how they are propounded unto us by God as a Glass wherein to behold the Devil's malediction; the Serpent being made now the discovery of his vileness, which once he abused for a mask to hide it from the woman. As therefore the Serpent is the most accursed of all the cattle and beasts of the field; so is the Devil the most accursed Spirit amongst all orders and degrees of Spirits: namely, of the highest of Angels become the abjectest of Spirits; more base and accursed than the most cursed damned Soul; having little or nothing left him of that good which was suitable to a spiritual condition: and this is the state of the Devil for the general, answerable to that of the Serpent.
Now for the particulars. The first is, Upon thy breast shalt thou go. How doth this befit the Devil? The Devil hath no bodily breast to go upon: But as I shown in the Serpent, that this groveling signified the abasement of his whole nature from its primitive excellency; so in the Devil it signifies his stooping down and falling from his most sublime and glorious condition. A wonderful stoop this was, when that which had been advanced as high as heaven, was made to fall down as low, yea lower than the earth itself. This is the Devil's going upon his breast, this the groveling of that once so highly reared posture: according to that description of Jude ver. 6. who calls them the Angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation; agreeable to that of S. Peter 2 Ep. 2. 4. God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell.
The second particular is, The dust of the earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. The food wherewith Spirits are fed is analogical, spiritual and not corporal; we must therefore here seek out that which in them hath the fittest resemblance with corporal food. The life of Angels consists in the continual contemplation of the excellent Greatness, wonderful Goodness, and glorious Beauty of the Essence of God, both as it is in itself, and as it is communicated unto his creatures. This is that which our Savior intimates, Matth. 18. 10. Their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. The food of Angels, whereby this their Intellectual life and vegetation is strengthened and continued, is that unspeakable joy and delight which accompanies their contemplation of God, and which they find in the beholding of whatsoever else hath any conformity and suitableness with him, his Power, his Wisdom, his Glory, his Goodness: according to that in the Gospel, There is joy in heaven, and in the presence of the Angels of God, for one sinner that repenteth. This is that Manna which feeds the blessed Angels, and which makes them unweariable and insatiable in their contemplation and imitation of God, as corporal food enableth the body for the continuance of corporal actions and works.
And such as this had been the Devil's fare, had he not fallen from his first estate by sin: whereas now instead of that Manna, he is fain with the Serpent to feed on a food as course and as base as the dust of the earth. For as of a glorious Angel he is fallen to be a damned Spirit; so is his diet answerable to continue him in that damnable estate; namely, a food clean contrary to that of the blessed Angels, and a very earth to their heaven; a most execrable joy and a malicious delight in whatsoever is opposite to the Power, the Wisdom, the Goodness, the Glory of God his Creator: this is that he hungereth and hunteth after, and nothing but this. If there were no sin, no confusion, no misery of creatures in the world, the Devil would be so • starved; for this is that he preys after, this is that carrion he seeks for, when he goeth about (as S. Peter saith) like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour. I have read of a people of America that will eat no flesh before it be stinking rotten, and then it seems to them most tender and delicate: These are of a diet like unto the Devil, for nothing but garbage and carrion are his dainties; the more rotten with sin, the more pleasing to his palate; that which stinks most in God's nostrils, that smells the sweetest in his. Thus much of the second part of this Curse.
The last part remains, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed, &c. In which we will first consider The parties who are to be at this deadly seud: Secondly, The event and success they have one against the other.
For the first, The parties are on one side said to be the Serpent and his seed; on the other side, The woman and her seed. By the Serpent we are to understand Satan the Prince of darkness and Father of Devils. The Serpent's seed in the first place are the whole crew of Devils and damned spirits, who are fallen from their first estate and condition. These are the Serpent's first-born, begotten by him not by corporal generation, nor as they are Spirits, but by spiritual deformation, as they are Devils. For it is the opinion of Divines, That Satan fell first himself, and afterward propagated his Apostasy by drawing others after him, over whom therefore he worthily deserveth to have the principality and chiefdom; in which respect also, were there no other, yet he might be called their Father, and they his sons or seed, as we know the use of the Scripture is to call Princes Fathers, and Subjects Sons. The latter offspring of the Devil, being a second brood, are the whole company of wicked and reprobate worldlings: for that such as these are the spawn of that foul Fiend, it appears clearly by the words of our Savior to the Pharisees, John. 8. 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil, and the lusts of your Father ye will do. And again, 1 John 3. 10. The children of God are opposed to the children of the Devil. Therefore Christ calls Judas a Devil, John 6. 70. And Paul Acts 13. 10. calls Elymas the Sorcerer a child of the Devil. The case is plain: And as the Vanguard consisted of the first crew, so these latter are the Rear of Satan's Army.
Now on the other side, against this Army of Hell-hounds stand The Woman and the Woman's seed. The Woman though only named, excludes not the Man, who was to be at enmity with the Devil as well as the Woman: But the reason of this unusual Trope, which call • the Kind by the name of the weaker and inferior Sex, is because o • the words following [of the seed] wherein is contained the great Mystery of Christ's Incarnation, under whose colors and in whose power alone this Army is both to march and overcome. For this great Captain was to be, as you know, the seed of the Woman only, and not of the Man; A Virgin should conceive a Son, whose name is called Emmanuel. Whence it comes to pass, that some by seed will have no other seed to be understood but the person of Christ only: both because he is alone that seed of the woman, which is not the seed of man; and because S. Paul, Gal. 3. 16. on those words (v. 8.) In thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed, expoundeth seed singularly and individually of Christ himself alone. But if it be well observed, the case here is not the like; for the seed of the Woman is opposed to the seed of the Serpent, which seed cannot choose but be taken collectively for Satan and all his regiments of Devils and Hell-hounds. And why should not also the seed of the Woman be understood of Christ mystical, that is, of Christ the Head with all his members, who are incorporate into him by Faith into one mystical body? For although they are naturally the seed of Man as well as of the Woman, yet spiritually by this incorporation they are the seed of the Woman only, as is their Head with whom they are one. And this it is which makes them of the party against the Serpent; for till they once became the seed of the woman only, there was no enmity betwixt them.
The seed therefore of the Woman I expound to be Christ and his Members: He 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the seed of the woman by nature; they 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by their spiritual engrafment into him. Hence appears the difference of these two Armies. First, In Satan's Army all march under their Father who begot them; but Christ's Army sighteth under the Colours of their elder brother, the first-begotten seed of the woman. Secondly, In their ranging, Christ and his Army are as one body informed by one Spirit; the Devil's is far more disunited. Thirdly, In their fighting: for in Satan's Army every Soldier useth his own strength, and fights with his own weapons; but in Christ's Army the whole strength lies in Christ their General: all our armor is on his back, and our weapons guided by the power of his hand. So we may learn out of S. Paul, Ephes. 6. 11, 12. Put on (saith he) the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Thus then having seen the marshalling of these two Armies which are at so deadly an enmity, let us at last see The success of their skirmishes and of the stratagems which they practice one against the other. These are described on the Devil's part very terrible, that his head should be mauled; but on Christ's side the loss should be very small, the Devil prevailing but to the wounding or bruising of his heel.
But what is this Head of the Serpent? and what the Heel of the Woman's seed? Those who understand The seed of the woman singularly, of the person of Christ only, make his Head to be the Godhead, against which the Serpent could prevail nothing; but his heel to be the Manhood, which the Serpent so bruised at his Passion, that the grave became his bed for three days together. This indeed is true, and no marvel, for the Head is as it were the whole Body's Epitome. But we who have expounded The seed of the woman collectively, of Christ and his Members, must also in this mystical Body find a mystical Head and a mystical Heel; and so in like manner for the Serpent and his seed.
The Head therefore, or, if you had rather, Headship, is nothing else but Sovereignty: The Serpent's head is the Devil's Sovereignty, which is called Principatus mortis, the Sovereignty of death, namely, both objective and effective; that is, such a Sovereignty as under which are only such as are liable to Death both temporal and eternal; and such a Sovereignty whose power consists not in saving and giving of life, but in destroying, and bringing unto Death both of body and soul. Under the name also of Death understand, as the Scripture doth, all other miseries of mankind, which are the companions of this double Death I speak of. This is that damnable Head of the Serpent, the Devillish Sovereignty of Satan. Now the Sword whereby this Sovereignty was obtained, the Sceptre whereby it is maintained, or, as S. Paul speaks, the Sting of this Serpent's head, is Sin: This is that which got him this Kingdom at the first, and this is still the right whereby he holds the greatest part thereof. Imperium iisdem artibus conserva • ur quibus acquiritur, By the same arts and methods is an Empire conserved by the which it was at first obtained.
This Sovereignty of the Devil, which once overwhelmed • igh all the world, the Woman's seed should break in pieces and destroy; which (according to this Prophecy) we see already performed in a great measure, and the grounds laid long ago for the destruction of all that remaineth. As saith S. John Ep. 1. c. 3. v. 8. The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, that he might destroy the works of the Devil. And Christ himself said, that the time was come that the Prince of this world should be cast out; and bade his Disciples be of good cheer, for he had overcome the world. If you would see what a wonderful victory he hath long ago gotten of the Serpent, when after a terrible battle he overcame and destroyed the Sovereignty of the Serpent in the Roman Empire, see it described in the 12. of the Revelation, v. 7, 8. where Michael (that is, Christ) and his Angels fought against the great Dragon and his Angels, till the Dragon with all his Army was discomfited, and their place found no more in heaven, that is, he utterly lost his Sovereignty in that state; whence there was a voice in heaven, v. 10. Now is come salvation, strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. And what he will at the length do with the remainder yet of the Devil's Sovereignty, you may find in the 19. and 20. chapters of the Revelation: For he must reign, as S. Paul saith, until he hath put all his enemies under his feet, until he hath destroyed all power, rule, and authority adverse unto him: And then last of all destroying Death by giving immortality to our raised bodies, shall surrender up his Kingdom unto his Father, as it is 1 Cor. 15. 25, &c.
But Satan, saith my Text, shall prevail something against him, for the Serpent shall bruise his heel. What is this Heel? Those who understood the seed of the woman singularly, as I told you, made it Christ's Manhood: But now we expound the seed Christ's Mystical Body, what shall we make the Heel thereof? I could say that by it were only meant a light wound, or the Devil's assaulting the Body of Christ ex insidiis, at unawares; for that is his fashion since the great overthrow which our Michael gave him, to work his feats underhand, and to undermine our Lord in his members. But this, though true, is not full enough. It may seem therefore the fittest to make hypocritical Christians, who profess Christ outwardly, but inwardly are not his, to make these the heel of his Mystical Body: for against such the Devil we know prevaileth somewhat, and by them annoyeth the rest of the Body with his venom, though he be far enough yet from impeaching our Lord's Headship and Sovereignty. But will you give me leave to utter another conceit? If the Blessed souls in heaven be the upper part of Christ's mystical Body, the Saints on earth the lower part of the same; may not the Bodies of the Saints deceased which lie in the earth be accounted for the heel? For I cannot believe but they have relation to this mystical Body, though their Souls be severed from them, and yet must that relation be as of the lowest and most postick members of all. If you will admit this, then it will appear presently what was this hurt upon the heel, when Christ had once mauled the Devil's head; for the Text seems to intimate that the Devil should give this wound after his head was broken.
I will hold you in suspense no longer. Read the 13. of the Revelation, and see what follows upon Michael's Victory over the Dragon, what the Devil did when he was down: He forms a new Instrument of the wounded Roman Empire, by whose means, under a pretence of the Honor given to the precious Relics of the Saints and Martyrs, he conveyed the poison of Saint-worship and Saint-invocation into the Kingdom of Christ; with which wound of the heel, the Devil coming on the blind side, the true Church had been long annoyed, and limpeth still.
DISCOURSE XLIII.
2 PETER 2. 1.
MANY are the Prophesies in Scripture wherein the Holy Ghost forewarns us of a great and solemn Defection and Corruption of Faith, which should one day overspread the visible Face of the Catholic Church of Christ, and eclipse the light of Christian Verity and Belief. S. Paul (2 Thes. 2. 3.) foretells us, that there should be an Apostasy or Falling away of Christians, and the Man of sin be revealed, before the coming of the day of the Lord. The same Apostle (1 Tim. 4. 1.) tells us, that though the great Mystery of Godliness (spoken of chap. 3. 16.) were then preached among the Gentiles, and believed on in the world; yet the Spirit spake expressly, that in the latter times some should depart from the Faith, giving heed to seducing Spirits and doctrines of Devils (or Daemons. ) S. John tells us ( Rev. 17. 5.) that the Christian Rome, of the Spouse of Christ should become a Babylonish strumpet and the Mother of the fornications and abominations of the Earth. At the same mark aimeth this Prophecy of my Text, though perhaps less taken notice of than the rest: The evidence whereof I hope you will confess with me, when I have unfolded the same.
Understand therefore that the Words I have read are A prediction of a Corruption of Faith which should one day surprise and overcloud the visible Church, or that company of men upon whom the name of Christ was called, and who outwardly professed him to be their Lord and Redeemer. This Corruption is here set, First, generally, both for the matter and the manner: For the matter, There shall be false Teachers among you, who shall bring in damnable Heresies; For the manner, it should be done privily, Who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies. Secondly, The Apostle also specially informs us of what kind and sort these damnable Heresies should be, that so we might not only know that Heresies should be, but be forewarned also what they should be; and that by a double mark and description. For first, They should be like unto those which we read have befallen the people and Church of Israel: There were false Prophets also among the people ; (i.e. the Jews,) even as there shall be false Teachers among you. The second mark is, That these Heresies should be of such a kind, as men who openly professed themselves Christians and servants of Christ should yet deny Christ to be their Lord and Master: for, saith our Apostle, They shall deny the Lord that bought them; that is, professing themselves to be of that number of men whom Christ had purchased with his blood, or the bought servants of Christ, they should nevertheless deny their Lord who bought them. The last thing he tells us is, the Doom which should befall such as had interest in these Heresies; They should bring upon themselves swift destruction.
To begin with the general description of the matter, There shall be false Teachers among you, which shall bring in damnable Heresies. The time should be when the Doctors of the Church should teach falsely, and the people with them believe damnably. For we must understand that these false Teachers should not be a few, only here and there one, nor these Heresies scattered only in some few places; but that this Corruption was to be such a one as should cover and overwhelm the face of the visible Church. For the Great Defection was to be a general and solemn one, such a one as should stain the whole body with the soul name of Whore of Babylon, Rev. 17. 5. Such a one as whereby the Court of the Temple of God should not only be profaned, but even trodden down by Gentilism, Rev. 11. 2. Such a one as the World is said to wonder after the Beast, and worship him, Rev. 13. 3, 4. Such a one as should not only make War with the true Saints, but overcome them, Rev. 13. 7. Otherwise if S. John and S. Paul should mean no more but the errors of particular men, and their trouble from the Church; they should make no Prophecy at all, or a needless one. For who knows not that in S. Paul's, S. John's and the Apostles own times were divers Heresies and Heretics, here and there dispersed and grown up as Weeds in the wheat-field of Christ? but the wheat yet overtopped them, and the known body of the visible Church disclaimed them. Of such as these therefore they could not mean, when they foretell of a corruption to come in after-times, or (as Paul speaks, 1 Tim. 4. 1.) in the latter times; for no man uses to foretell of things which are already, as if they were to come. Nor would the Apostles foretell of Heresies as it were special to the after and latter times. if they were but such and in such manner as was but usual and no novelty in their own time. The corruption and desection therefore so much prophesied of was another manner of one, such a kind of one as before neither had been in the Church nor was to be; namely, such a one as should not be disclaimed by the body of the Church, but should surprise, eclipse and overwhelm, and as it were overcloud the visible Church itself; which should be as when the Heavens are overcast, so as the bright Firmament with the stars and lights therein can no more be seen.
If this be so; then may we hence observe how vain and idle that challenge of our Adversaries is, when they bid us show our Church to have been always visi •• e, and to give them the names of those who have been of our Belief in all Ages since Christ and his Apostles times. What? may they not have been, although we cannot name them? This is as unreasonable a demand, as to require a man to show him and point him where the Sun is, when the whole face of Heaven is overcast with Clouds: would you not believe the Sun were in the Firmament and risen in a cloudy day, though no man could point and show you with his finger where she is? yes, I am sure you would, and say too, that there may be other signs thereof, though a man cannot see her; as namely Day-light, which never is without the Sun; yea and now and then we may have a glimpse of her through a thinner cloud, which assures us thereof. Even so when the great Defection as a Cloud overspread the face of the Christian Firmament, the visible Church of Christ, for divers Ages together, though the Cloud be for a great part so thick as it will not suffer us to discern the company of those who still kept entire the true and unstained Faith of the Gospel, yet we rest assured that it was under the Cloud, because some Day-light of Christianity still appeared; which argued the Sun was in the Firmament, though the great Cloud overshadowed her; yea and now and then we can show and spy some glimpse of her, as often as any breach happened in the Cloud which overcast her.
I might also make use of that Parable of our Savior, where the Church or Kingdom of God (for both is one) is compared to a Field, where the Master sowed good seed; but while men slept, the Enemy, that wicked one, came and sowed tares among the Wheat. If the tares once grow so many and so high that they quite overshadow the wheat, whereof there is but little left, can a man who stands a good way off show the wheat from the tares with his finger? I think not; though, if the wheat overmasters the tares, he easily might. This is the very case of the true Church so long as the Apostasy prevailed: And we who live now are something far off; if we had been nearer, as those were who lived then, we might have discerned the wheat a great deal better.
But if you would yet be more fully informed how the true company of Believers could live under this woeful state of the visible body, and not be extinguished, and by what Signs and Arguments we may fully conclude it was there all that time; though I have given some taste of this last already, yet you shall hear more of them both anon, as my Text will give me occasion.
In the mean time I must tell you, That there needed not all this stir about Visibility, if our Adversaries were ingenuous: For the difference between them and us is not so much about the point of Visibility, as about the point of Time. They hold the glorious Visibility of the true Church to have continued from the beginning until this present; and the overshadowing of the light, and eclipsing of the glory thereof under Antichrist, to be a thing yet to come; and when it comes, they and the Fathers too say as much of the eclipsing of the Church as we do for our hearts. For then they say the use of the Sacraments should cease, no Eucharist, no Mass, no public Assemblies, yea all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction should be extinguished. Is not here enough? Now on the contrary, we hold the Clouding of the Church's Visibility to have been already, and a great part of the Glory thereof to be yet to come. Both agreeing in this, that in that fatal Apostasy the Church's Visibility and Glory should cease: But we say, that time hath been already; they say, it is yet to come: we say, that that time was to last many Ages; they say, when it comes, it shall be but three single years and a half.
Why then are they not ashamed to offer to choke us with this Argument of Visibility and Glory, when themselves confess there is a time to come when the same Argument would be as well used against their supposed Catholic Church as it is now alleged against ours? This is too great partiality. Seeing therefore the whole Controversy lies in this, Whether the Church's fatal Apostasy be already past or yet to come, it is a great deal the quicker course for them and us not to wrangle about Visibility, but to examine the condition and quality of both Religions by the Scripture; where we have (as S. Peter speaks in the foregoing Chapter) a most sure word of prophecy, whereunto we shall do well if we take heed, as to a light shining in a dark place. And this shall suffice to have observed concerning the matter in general, A General Defection or Corruption of the Church by false Teachers and damnable Heresies.
NOW I come to the Circumstance of this general description of the Church's Apostasy, namely, The manner how these false Doctors should bring in these damnable Heresies; which is not Openly, but Privily. For so the word here used for bringing in signifies, who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies: Not so that it should be observed and espied at the first; but so by degrees, and with such a mask of plausible pretences and good meaning, that the Church was overwhelmed before it knew what it ailed: Even as some diseases steal so upon a man, that he never knew he was sick until he see himself past recovery; and then perhaps he will begin to call to mind, though too late, at what time and by what means this sickness grew upon him.
This Observation therefore will furnish us with an Answer to another Objection of our Adversaries. For if (say they) the Catholic visible Church altered so much from the Primitive sincerity of Faith and Christian worship as we say it did; how comes it then to pass that it was no more observed and opposed by those who then lived? For it is strange so great an alteration should find admittance with the general consent of all. I answer out of my Text, That it came in privily, and so was not observed nor opposed till it was too late, and that the Apostate Faction was grown too strong for the sound. A fire, we know, if it be espied at the first, may be easily smothered and quenched; but if the cry rise not till all be on a flame, no man then dare come near to help it: So was the case here.
And yet in some Corruptions somewhat sooner espied than the rest; as Worshipping of Images, Transubstantiation, the Pope's Godlike Supremacy, the establishing of these was not without great opposition, even to the changing of States and Kingdoms. But here also the opposers came too late; for these Heresies also were at the first brought in so privily, that the Faction was not espied till it was grown too strong to be over-mastered by opposition.
THUS having seen the General part of this description, both for the matter, false Teachers and damnable Heresies, and also for the manner, they should be privily brought into the visible Church; I come now to the Special part of the Prophecy, which tells us in particular What kind of Heresies these should be, of what sort, which should so generally over-cloud the Church of Christ. And this our Apostle here sets forth by a twofold mark. First, They should be such as we read to have been amongst the Jewish people under the Old Testament: There were (saith he) false Prophets among the people, even as there shall be false Teachers among you. This is a good ear-mark, having so infallible history as is the story of the Bible to know it by: For if this of Christendom were of the same stamp with that of Israel, it cannot lie long hid from us; which that it may not, let us confine our discovery to these two heads. First, Let us learn what Heresies were those which the false Prophets of Israel brought in amongst them, as we find it recorded in the Scripture; for thither our Apostle sends us . In the second place, We will examine whether the Heresies of Christendom, brought in by the false Doctors of Babylon, be not exactly like them.
To begin with the first, I cannot find in the Old Testament any other Heresies there recorded as brought in by false Prophets, but only Idolatry and the worshipping of other God's besides the true and living God: I doubt not but the Jews had other Errors, but this is that which so great a part of the Bible is taken up in forewarning of, in relating of, and in declaiming against it. This is that we are sure the false Prophets had a hand in; of the rest nothing that way is recorded. This is that Moses forewarned the people of Israel of, Deut. 13. 1. If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and give thee a sign or a wonder, 2. And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, (which thou hast not known) and let us serve them; 3. Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet, &c. Here you hear of the false Prophets, and what should be their Doctrine, viz. Let us go serve other gods and worship them.
But if you ask whether there were any such in that people, Elijah shall tell you, 1 Kings 18. 22. I only (saith Elijah) remain a Prophet of the Lord, but Baal's Prophets are four hundred and fifty men. And, 2 Kings 10. 19. Jehu made a foul fray amongst them when he said, Call unto me all the Prophets of Baal, and all his servants, and all his Priests, let none be wanting; for I have a great sacrifice to do unto Baal: but he served them in their kind. And of this kind of Prophets were those of which Elisha bade Ieroham the King ask counsel, 2 Kings 3. 13. when being in distress in his march against Moab, he had sent to him for advice what to do, Get thee ( saith he) to the Prophets of thy Father, and the Prophets of thy Mother, that is, the Prophets of Ahab and Jezebel.
And you may know these Prophets taught the people the same Religion of Idols which themselves followed. Hear what the Lord saith, Ier. 2. 8. The Priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the Law, knew me not; the Pastors also transgressed against me, and the Prophets prophesied by Baal, (or, for Baal) and walked after things that profit not. And after, verse 26, 27. As the Thief is ashamed when he is found; so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their Kings, their Princes, their Priests, and their Prophets; Saying to a stock, Thou art my Father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth, &c. And chap. 8. 1. At that time (saith the Lord) (i.e. when the Jews shall be carried captive) they shall bring out the bones of the Kings of Judah, and the bones of his Princes, and the bones of the Priests, and the bones of the Prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their graves: verse 2. And they shall spread them before the Sun and the Moon and all the Host of Heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and whom they have worshipped. Chap. 23. 13. I have seen folly in the Prophets of Samaria, they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. —verse 15. For from the Prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land. verse 26, 27. How long shall it be in the hearts of the Prophets that prophesy lies?—which think to cause my people to forget my Name by their dreams they tell every man to his neighbor, as their Fathers have forgotten my Name, for Baal.
You know by this time what kind of false Prophets were among the people; where I would desire you to take notice of one thing more, That for all this, these Prophets prophesied these things in Jehovah's name: For so it is said of those I last quoted in the verse immediately before the words I quoted— the Prophets that prophesy lies in my name. So also shall you read, 1 Kings 22. of Ahab's Prophets, who being Prophets of Baal, yet prophesy in the name of Jehovah the true God, Thus saith Jehovah: which being foreseen by the Lord himself before it came to pass, seems to be the ground of the Law, Deut. 18. 20. But the Prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, and which shall speak in the name of other gods, even that Prophet shall die.
Seeing therefore we find these to have been the false Prophets among the people of the Church of Israel, and their Heresies to have been the Doctrines of Idols, of worshipping the Host of Heaven, of Baalim, of God's of wood and stone; of these undoubtedly S. Peter means, when he saith, As there were false Prophets among the people, so shall there be false Teachers among you, which shall bring in the like damnable Heresies.
HAVING therefore brought the matter thus far, let us now see whether S. Peter's Prophecy be fall • out true or not; whether the Apostasy whereunto false Teachers have brought the Christian Churches be not like that almost in every respect whereunto the false Prophets once brought the Church of Israel. But first I must instruct you a little in the old Idolaters and the Heathens Divinity, both concerning the sorting of their God's; and secondly, for the way and manner to worship them.
For their God's, the Heathen and those who followed their fashions had two sorts of them: First, Sovereign and Supreme God's, which the Scripture calls The Host of Heaven; Secondly, Under-gods, or, if you will, Godlings, which the Greeks call Daemon-gods, the Scripture calls them Baalim, that is, Lord's.
Now the Sovereign God's, or the Host of Heaven, were such as they supposed to remain always in the Heavens, yea to dwell in the Heavenly lights, in the Sun, Moon and Stars, as it were Souls in bodies, and there to keep their stations immovably without change of place or presence. Which Celestial and Heavenly God's as they were Eternal, without beginning or ending; so they supposed them so sublime and pure, as they might not be profaned with the approach of earthly things, or with the care and managing of mortal men's businesses.
And therefore they bring in that second Order of God's, called Daemons or B • alims, as a middle sort of Divine Powers between the Sovereign God's and mortal men, whose office is to be as Mediators and Agents between them, and, as Plato speaks, reporters and comers from men to the God's and from the God's to men; without whom there could be no commerce and intercourse between the God's and men: For they say, it beseems not the Majesty of the Sovereign God's to manage these things of themselves. And therefore though all things come by their Will, Power and Authority, yet is it by the mediation and ministry of these Daemons in Scripture called Baalim. I could prove you this at large out of the Heathen Philosophers, but I shall not need .
Thus therefore having seen the Heathen Doctors conceit of their God's, now let us see briefly the other point I promised to speak of, viz. The manner how to worship them, and as it were to bring them to the lure of men, when they had occasion of devotion with them; and this was done by sacring of Images. You shall hear it from an ancient Author, and passing skillful in these mysteries, even Hermes Trismegistus, who in his As • lepius speaketh in English thus; It is a wonder beyond all wonders, that man should find out a way to make God's, (that is, Images, ) &c.
Another way to worship them was in Religious graves and sepulchers, for there they hoped to find their Ghost-gods especially; as we yet suppose that Spirits frequent Church-yards and places of the dead.
THESE were the Mysteries and conceits of the Ancient Idolaters, which the false Prophets of Israel brought in amongst the people of God, and made them also (as the Scripture speaks) to provoke the living God to jealousy with the abominations of the Heathen round about them. Now then judge impartially, whether this Prophesy in my Text be not long ago fulfilled amongst us Christians, the new people of God. There were false Prophets among the people of Israel, even so (saith my Text) were there to be false Teachers among Christians, who should bring in damnable Heresies.
Which that you may the better do, Know first, that the Israelites did at no time altogether renounce the true and living God, not in their worst times; but in their conceit and profession they acknowledged him still, and were called his people, and he their God, though they worshipped others besides him. So Christians in their Apostasy neither did nor were to make an absolute Apostasy from God the Father and Christ their Redeemer; but in outward profession still to acknowledge him, and to be called Christians.
Secondly, There are two main Apostasies of Israel recorded in Scripture. The First is styled The sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, as a principal establisher thereof: And this was to worship the true God himself under an Image; For he set up Calves at Dan and Bethel, and consecrated them in this manner, Behold, Israel, the God's which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. For those are Calves indeed which here think he took the Calves themselves to be God's. The truth was, Because he would not have the people go to the Temple of Jerusalem, where the Ark, the pledge of God's presence, was; therefore he made these Calves instead thereof, supposing, as the Gentiles did of their God's, that the true God would have yielded his presence to an Image made in honor of him: And therefore they used, when they came to make vows or oaths at the Calf, to swear Jehovah liveth; as Hosea 4. 15. When therefore our Papists worship God the Creator under an Image, and Christ their Redeemer in a Cross, Crucifix, or in a piece of Bread; this is the very same Apostasy with that of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin: And as false Prophets taught Israel that, so have false Teachers brought into Christendom the very same as you see was prophesied.
The Second main Apostasy of Israel is called The way of Ahab, not because he was the first bringer in, but the chief establisher thereof. And this was not only to worship the true God idolatrously in an Image, as Jeroboam did, but to worship other God's besides him, namely Baal-gods or Baalim; supposing either by these to have easier access unto the Lord of Hosts the Sovereign God, or that these he might resort unto at all times, and for all matters, as being nearer at hand, and not of so high a Dignity; whereas the Sovereign God, Jehovah the God of Israel, either managed not smaller and ordinary matters, or might not be troubled with them: For such, as I told you, was the conceit of the Heathen, as that the Souls of some great ones after death had the honor to be as Agents betwixt the Sovereign and Superior God's and men, as being of a middle nature between them; which in Greek are called Daemons, in the Scriptures Baalim. When therefore those who are called Christians, and have given their faith to Christ Jesus, to be their only Mediator and royal Agent between them and his Father; when these do worship and invocate Saints or Angels, whether with Images or without, to be as under-Mediators with God for them, or of themselves to bestow some favor upon them; those who do this (as you know who do) are fallen into the Apostasy of Ahab, and are worshippers of Baalim: For the Idolatry of Saints is altogether the same with that of Baalim.
HAVING therefore thus seen the verity of S. Peter's Prophecy for the first mark to know of what kind of Heresy should be the Christian Apostasy, even like unto that of Israel; now let me tell you what use to make of S. Peter's comparison and thus coupling the one by the other.
First, That wheresoever you read in Scripture of the Idolatry of Jeroboam's Calves and of Ahab's Baalim, you think of what I have told you; and know that whatsoever God speaks against those things there, the same he speaks of the Apostate Christians under Rome, whose case is in all respects the same. If therefore other points be hard and such as you cannot understand, yet this of Idolatry is an easy mark for you to know the true Church from the false by; and almost every leaf in the Scripture will help you. Bless the Lord therefore, and never cease to bless him, who hath delivered us from those woeful abominations and Idolatries wherewith the Church was so long overwhelmed, and hath restored unto us the sincerity of his Gospel.
Secondly, Seeing the Holy Ghost hath taught us here to compare the Christian's Apostasy with that of Israel, we may hereby learn also what was the state and condition of true Christian Believers under the Apostasy of Antichrist, namely, the same with the true Israelites under the Apostasy of Israel.
Where was the true Church in Ahab's time? was it not covered so under the Apostate Israelites, that Elias himself, who was one of it, could scarce find it? 1 Kings 19. 10. Where was the company of true worshippers in Manasseh time, the worst time of all? or had the Lord no Church at all? Yes he had a Church even then, even hidden in the body of that Idolatrous Nation; yea a strong party, though not seen; as appeared presently upon Manasseh death, when Iosiab came to reign, who at eight years of age, a very child, yet was able to reform all again. When therefore the Papists shall ask us where our Church was before Luther, let us answer, She was, as the true Israelites were then, buried under the Apostate body of Christendom; she was even there whence God in his good time called her out, viz. she was in the Spiritual Babylon. If Rome now be Babylon, and your Mother-Church that ancient Spouse of Christ, which hath been so long an abominable Strumpet committing Fornication with strange God's, as we are sure she is; we cannot choose but know where ours was in the mean time, until it pleased God to call her thence; even amongst you she was then; and where she is now you know, and shall one day feel, until you bite your tongues for pain.
But how could the faithful company of Christ live in the midst of Idolaters, and have means of Salvation? I answer, Even as the true Israelites lived in the midst of the Apostasy of Israel.
But you may ask further; When the face of the Church and the whole visible worship therein was so universally stained with abominable Idolatries, how and whereby should a man gather that there were any such sincerer company amongst them who had not defiled their garments? I might tell you that Histories, though written by our enemies, do mention many such discovered at several times: But I will give you another sign to know it, namely, The light of God's word, and some other Divine Truths still remaining: For it was not so much for the Apostate Faction, as for the sake of some chosen ones, that this blessing was continued. Had there been nothing but Egyptians there, darkness should wholly have surprised them; but for Goshen's sake, for a few righteous in Sodom, God would not take this blessing from them. He that espies any day-light, will conclude the Sun is in our Heaven, though for the clouds he see her not. If we should see a candle hang up in a room, and see it full of blind men; yet would we say, surely there is some amongst them can see, why else hangs the candle there? So must we reason from the day-light and candle-light of Divine Truths still appearing and hung up in the Church. For, as S. Paul said, What if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Rom. 3. 3. And Rom. 9. 4, &c. when the body of the Jewish Nation refused Christ, yet he reckons their privileges as many as Rome could ever challenge; Whose is (saith he) the Adoption, and the Glory, and the Covenants, and the giving of the Law, the service of God, and the promises; whose are the Fathers, &c. Not as though (saith he) the word of God had taken none effect: For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, &c.
NOW I come to the second mark here laid down in my Text, to know what manner of Heresies should be in the great Apostasy of the Christian Faith; Even denying the Lord that bought them. They should give up their names as Christ's servants, as his purchase; and yet deny their Lord and Master: For Servants in times past used to be bought with a price, and so were as their Masters proper possession; Christ buys his servants with his blood. The meaning therefore is, they should profess themselves his servants, and yet deny him to be their Master. What Heresies should these be? Even the very same the first mark told us of, Christian Idolatry. For as a Wife who hath given her faith to one Husband, if she commit adultery with others, denies him to be that she calls him, though she call him Husband never so much: So the Church, the Spouse of Christ, having given her faith to him alone, to be her only Lord and Mediator, in whom and through whom alone she would approach the Throne of Majesty in Heaven; if she bows down herself to other Mediators, whether Saints or Angels, if she invocates and worships the Father in any other thing save Christ alone, the only Image we must worship, (the Image of the Father) and the only Agent we must employ to God before the Throne in Heaven; she commits Spiritual Adultery, that is, Idolatry, and denies the Lord which bought her. That this should be the meaning here, let this one reason serve the turn, That that is always the meaning of the like Phrase in the Old Testament, where instead of the Lord that bought, we have the Lord that brought them out of the land of Egypt. Let us compare them; I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, Thou shalt have none other God's but me: In the New Testament thus saith Christ, I am Christ the Lord which bought thee, Thou shalt have no other Christ but me. Are not these alike? So when the Israelites fell to Idolatry, and to worship Idols and strange God's, hear how the Lord speaks then, Deut. 32. 15, 16. Ieshurun waxed fat, forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation; they provoked him to jealousy with strange gods. So may we say, the Christian Mother waxed fat, forsook God which redeemed her, &c. Judges 2. 12, 13. They forsook the Lord God of their Fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt; and followed other gods, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. and this expression is frequent, Psal. 81. 10, 11. 1 Kings 9. 9. 2 Kings 17. 7. Just so might the Lord speak of Christians; They forsook the Lord which brought them out of the Spiritual Egypt, and worshipped Saints and Angels.
I meant to have spoken much more of this, but the time will not suffer me. I desire we may observe from this twofold mark of the Christian Apostasy, What that is, among so many Corruptions both now and heretofore overwhelming the Church of Christ, wherein the Holy Ghost placeth the essence, and which he accounteth as the Soul of the great Apostasy under the man of sin, and would have us to make the Polestar of our discovery thereof: Not every Error, not every Heresy how gross soever, but Idolatry and Spiritual Fornication. As for other Heresies, though accompanying this, yet are they but accidental, and not of the essence of the great Apostasy which was to come. Even as Whores are seldom without other foul faults, which yet are no parts of Whoredom: so hath the Spiritual Whore many other Heresies, but her Whoredom is Idolatry. Idolatry is the only Character and Note whereby the great Apostasy of the visible Church is discovered and distinguished from all other Blasphemies, Seditions and Heresies of what age or time soever. Which is the reason why Babylon is entitled in the Revelation of S. John, not the Liar of Babylon, nor the Tyrant of Babylon, nor the Heretic of Babylon, nor the Murtheress of Babylon, (though she be all these) but the Whore of Babylon; yea the Great Whore, and the Mother of the Fornications and Abominations of the Earth, Chap. 17.
DISCOURSE XLIV.
1 COR. 10. 3, 4.
THE first part of this Chapter is a Comparison of some Sacramental Types in the old Law with the two Sacraments of the new, and that in two respects; namely, 1. For the same nature or substance of the Mysteries in both, and 2. For the same condition of the Receivers, if either they abuse them or walk unworthy of them. The words which I have now chosen are in special an agreement of some of the foresaid Types of the Law with the Eucharist or Lord's Supper: First, in substance of the Mystery; And they (that is, the Fathers in the Wilderness) all ate the same Spiritual meat, and all drank the same Spiritual drink: Secondly, in the dangerous condition of unworthy Receivers either of this or the other Sacrament, in these words; But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the Wilderness.
And first I will speak of the first of these, which you may see is also double; first, concerning our Spiritual meat, and secondly, concerning our Spiritual drink; in both which the Apostle affirms those of the old Fathers to have been the same with ours. For the understanding whereof, we will first speak of the Spiritual meat, (as the words lie) and then of the Spiritual drink; and in both, first what is required to be known for Explication, either of the words, or of what is contained in them; and after come to such Observations as will follow and be gathered therefrom.
For Explication therefore, three things are to be inquired of.
- 1. Of what Meat and of what Rock the Apostle speaketh.
- 2. Wherein both the one and the other were Spiritual or Sacramental.
- 3. In what sense those Sacraments are said to be the same with ours.
For the first, The Meat here spoken of most certainly was Manna; for it appears in [unspec I] the fifth verse, as also in the beginning, that he means of the time they were in the Wilderness, where the only Food was Manna, sent from Heaven. The word Manna either signifies a Portion, it was their dimensum or daily allowance given by God; or Food made ready, because God prepared it, without any labor or industry of theirs: and this is thought to be the truest reason of the name. For as for that of S. Jerome, who thinks it had the name Man from the question asked upon the first sight thereof, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 what is it, and so they called it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Chaldee, being the same with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Hebrew; this opinion, though the Seventy have translated so, yet is found unlikely by some learned in those Languages. 1. Because no reason can be given why the Israelites should then speak Chaldee. 2. Because in Chaldee the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is a question of persons, not of things; and signifies Quis Who, not Quid What; being the same with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Hebrew, which always asketh of persons, but never of things.
But to leave the name, and speak something of the nature: we must know that this Manna was not that which Dioscorides and Galen so call, namely, certain fragments of Frankincense: nor was it that which the Arabians call Manna, though it somewhat resembleth it; For they call by this name a certain 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or honey-dew falling on some mountains of Syria; and it seems they gave this name unto it by allusion unto the Sacred story. But this Manna wherewith God fed the Israelites was a miraculous thing, the Corn of Heaven and Bread of Angels, as David calls it; it fell only in the Wilderness of Sinai, it rained all times and days of the year saving the Sabbath; it was so hard that it might be ground in a Mill, beaten in a Mortar, or baked in an Oven; it melted in the Sun, and putrefied with one night's keeping; lastly, it was Food, and not Physic: not one of all these properties agreeing to the Apothecary's Manna or Manna of the Arabians.
Come we now to the Rock, whereof the Apostle saith our Fathers drank: which speech any man may see is not proper, and therefore some say it is a Metonymy, Rock, for the water which came out of the Rock: perhaps it will be more easy to say here is an Ellipsis of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or drink, to be supplied out of the words next before, and so to be construed thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . For they drank the drink of that Spiritual Rock. Now for the Rock, there are two Rocks mentioned in Scripture out of which the Lord gave water unto the Israelites; one at Rephidim, two years after their coming out of Egypt, Exod. 17. another at Kadesh, almost thirty eight years after, Numb. 20. It is doubtful which of these our Apostle meaneth. We may safely say he meaneth them both, the story of both being so like, as the places of both had one name Meribah, of the murmuring and contending of the people. But if he meaneth only the one, I would say it is the former; the miracle whereof was presently upon the raining of Manna.
But here is one word yet needs to be explained; for our Apostle adds unto Rock 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Rock following, or, which followed them: which some would have spoken of Christ, being the Rock which accompanied the Israelites, (for so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifies) or the Rock which was to come and follow in after-times: others more truly expound it literally of the Rock in the wilderness, thinking it reasonable that the Apostle who spake literally of Manna which was truly eaten, should also in the same sense speak of the water of that Rock which was as truly drunken. And therefore they say the Apostle adds the word [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 following, ] to intimate that when the Rock was smitten, a stream gushed therefrom, which followed the Israelites many years as they journeyed in the wilderness: and therefore our Translation with others for explicationsake adds the word [ them] which is not in the Greek; and so the Syriac likewise translates the words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that Spiritual Rock which went with them.
But against this some object two things. 1. That it is not like the Apostle would affirm anything as History which is nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament, where it is like so miraculous a thing would not have been concealed. 2. That the thing itself is otherwise unlikely, even by reasons out of Moses story. For they say, If it be meant of the first Rock at Rephidim, how came they to want water at Kadesh, if a river from the first Rock had followed them? And if we say it is spoken of the second Rock at Kadesh, how comes it to pass that they offered to buy water at a price of the Edomites, if water followed them at the heels?
But unto the first it may be answered, That it may be elsewhere shewn in the New Testament, something to be alleged for Story which is not expressed in the Old Testament, especially when there is • ome ground whence some such thing may be drawn by good consequence; and then I think we ought to believe the Illation of the Holy Ghost. And that this thing we now speak of may be inferred from the Story of Moses, it will appear thus: For seeing it was about two years after their coming out of Egypt, when the first Rock was smitten to give them water, and that in all their change of Stations for almost thirty eight years after we never find the least mention of any want thereof, though they travelled further in a dry and unwatered Wilderness: It will follow from hence, That either they stored themselves with water for so many years, which is impossible; or else the water of the Rock ran after them; and it may be their journeys were so ordered by the lower grounds, that it might naturally do so, so long as the miraculous Fountain lasted.
As for the other Objection, How they came again to want water at Kadesh, it is casily answered: For God might, for a new trial of his people, make the first Miracle cease when it pleased him; and seeing at that Station they had taken a clean contrary way unto the former; it may be the position of the Earth hindered it, God so ordering their journeys of purpose. And as for their buying water of the Edomites presently upon the smiting of the second Rock at Kadesh; it may be said that this Rock was not like the former; and so our Apostle by the word [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] did imply he spake of the first only: or howsoever, those words of buying water of the Edomites are spoken in case they passed through the Edomites land, where it was not like the Miracle should have followed them, it being a watered Country.
Thus much I thought good to speak in defense of that Exposition which our Translation seems to approve by adding the word [ them, ] unto which (you see) we may without difficulty yield our assent: Otherwise it were easy yet to add, among such a variety, a fourth Exposition diverse from all the former, namely, That by leaving out the word [ them ] the word [ Following ] should be expounded not of following in regard of place, but of time and story, and that with relation unto Manna, because in order of time the smiting of the Rock followed presently upon the raining of Manna; and so the Apostle's sense, saying, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of the Spiritual Rock following, should be understood as following upon the raining of Manna, the mystery of drink following the Miracle of heavenly bread, as the giving of the Cup is to follow the breaking of Bread in the Lord's Supper. But this you may esteem as you please.
NOW I come to the second thing I propounded, wherein this Manna and this Rock were Spiritual, that is, Sacramental; and this was in regard they were Signs signifying Christ, and Pledges assuring the faithful Receivers of their enjoying him with all his Benefits. For a Sacrament is not a naked or a single Sign, but a Sign assuring, that is, a Seal or a Pledge of the thing signified, a signifying Pledge, or an assuring, Sign. Now these Seals do always suppose, and are in some sort grounded upon, a resemblance which the Sign hath with the thing signified. For as Plato in Cratylus says, That the wisdom of the first imposers and inventers of the names of things was such in their choice, that they made the letters and syllables to agree with and to express the qualities of the things called by them, expressing soft things with soft sounds, harsh with harsh, &c. and so forth: So God in the Sacraments, which are as visible words, hath chosen such Signs as carry in them the Character and very Image of the things they are Pledges of. For a warrant therefore that this Manna and this Rock were such Sacraments and such Spiritual things as our Apostle speaketh of, let us consider a while how they carried in them the marks of Christ whom they signified.
1. Then, to begin with Manna. As Manna was a meat provided of God without the labor and industry of the Israelites: So is Christ given unto men, not out of any work or merits of theirs, but of the free gift and goodness of God. 2. As Manna came from Heaven besides the ordinary course of nature: So Christ's birth was wonderful, and not as the birth of other men: For his Divine nature he fetched from above, and his Human body was not begotten of mortal seed, but by the influence of the Holy Ghost from Heaven. 3. Manna was distributed unto all alike; one had not more and another less, but all an equal share: Even so Christ communicates himself unto all alike without acception of persons; For in him is neither male nor female, bond nor free; the Beggar hath as great a part in Christ as he who sits upon the Throne. 4. Manna when it came first was an unknown thing, for the Israelites (saith the Text) knew not what it was; no, they knew not whence it came, nor that it was the food the Lord had sent them: So Christ when he came into the world was unknown; For if they had known, (saith S. Paul) they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. 5. Manna was Food, and a plentiful Food, there was enough for everybody: So is Christ the Food and Bread of our Souls, and sufficient to feed many, yea even the whole World. 6. Manna was of a most sweet and pleasing taste: And so is Christ unto that Soul which can truly relish him; My yoke (saith he) is most sweet and easy, and my burden light; And most true of him is that which the Psalmist writes, O taste and see, for the Lord is sweet. 7. Manna was of a white color; even as our Savior also was white and pure, as being free from all stain of sin: for (as it is 1 Pet. 2. 22.) He did no sin, neither was there any guile found in his mouth. 8. Also Manna, before it was eaten, was brayed in a Mortar or broken in a Mill: So was Christ our heavenly Manna broken upon the Cross, that he might become the Spiritual Food wherewith our Souls are fed unto everlasting life. 9. As Manna was given only in the Wilderness, and ceased as soon as they came into the land of Promise: So is Christ our Spiritual Food in the Eucharist, so long as we travel in the Wilderness of this world; but when we shall arrive in the heavenly Canaan, we shall have no more need of Sacraments; for there we shall have Christ present with us, and shall no longer understand in part as now we do, but we shall see God as he is.
Thus much shall suffice to have spoken of Manna: and so we come unto the Rock, which our Apostle affirms to have been Christ, that is, a Sign of him. Neither is this the only place where he is so called, but it was a name given him in the days of old. In the 32. of Deut. he is four several times called by that name. ver. 15. Ieshurun forsook the God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation: and v. 18. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee: and v. 30, 31. Again, in Dan. 2. 34, 35. he is expressed by a Stone cut out without hands, which became a great Mountain and filled the whole earth. Let us therefore see what resemblance of Christ is in a Rock; first generally, and then specially in This Rock whereof our Apostle treateth.
First then, As a Rock is the surest Foundation to build upon; so is Christ the immovable Foundation whereupon his Church is reared: whatsoever is built upon him, no storms, no floods, no winds can shake or move. And that in this very respect Christ is called a Rock, it appears out of Isaiah 28. 16. quoted in part by S. Paul Rom. 9. 33. & S. Pet. 1 Ep. 2. 6. Behold, I lay in Zion a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth on him, shall not be confounded nor ashamed. 2. A Rock is a strong Fortress against the assaults of an Enemy; and so is our Savior an impregnable Bulwark unto his Elect against the hottest assaults of Sin, Satan and Death; all the Cannons of Hell can never hurt him who hath gotten this Rock to shield him. 3. A Rock is a place of stumbling unto those who look not well to their feet; and so was this Spiritual Rock of our salvation unto the proud high-looking Jew, a stumbling-block, a Rock of offense, according unto the Prophecy in the 8. of Isaiah 14, 15. quoted also by our Apostle Rom. 9. and S. Peter 1 Ep. 2. A stone of stumbling, and for a Rock of offense unto both the houses of Israel: And many among them shall stumble and fall, &c.
But more especially, This Rock which our Apostle speaks of resembles Christ in three things.
1. As that Rock gave no water before it was smitten with the Rod of Moses; so was Christ smitten upon the Cross, that out of him might flow that sovereign stream, which he who drinketh of shall never thirst anymore. 2. As the Rock was smitten with the Rod of Moses, so was Christ our Redeemer with the Rod of the Law, all the curses and penalties due by the same being laid upon him for our sakes. For he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. 3. Lastly, As this Rock is said to have yielded water not only to those who were then present at the place where the Rock stood, but followed them in all their Stations in the Wilderness, unto the utmost ends thereof: So that water which gushed out from our smitten Savior, neither served nor stayed with those alone who were present at the time and place of his suffering, but it ran and spread into all places of the world where the sons of men had any abiding, and followeth them all the days of their Pilgrimage in this Wilderness, even from the day of his Passion unto this very hour. Ho (saith the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah) everyone that thirsteth, come ye unto the waters, (yea even) he that hath no money; come ye—yea come buy Wine and Milk without money and without price. In what part of the earth soever thou art, in what time of the world soever thou livest, Christ our Rock is ever with thee, and his water streameth after thee; which whosoever drinketh, it shall be in him a Well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Add, who knoweth whether the cleaving of the Rocks when he yielded up the Ghost, were not for a Sign of the accomplishment of the mystery?
[unspec III] AND thus much for the second point. Now we come unto the third, In what sense those Sacraments are said to be the same with ours. For the understanding whereof, we must chiefly consider two things in every Sacrament, the visible sign, and the invisible thing thereby signified and confirmed: which invisible thing is always double; first, the Root or Fountain; secondly, the gracious blessings and promises which spring and flow from it. The Root and Fountain is he through whom and by whom we receive all the blessings and benefits we enjoy from God our Father, and without whom he vouchsafes us nothing, And therefore as God confers no manner of blessing upon us but through Christ: so the manner and nature of a Sacrament is to assure and confirm unto us whatsoever it assures us only through him. For all Sacramental signs both old and new carry in them the Image and marks of Christ: hereby showing, that by signifying him they seal and convey the Promises in and through him. For example sake: In the Passover the favor and benefit which God would therein seal and assure was, that he would spare and pass by the Israelites when he smote the Egyptians: and yet the Sign ordained expressed nothing either of passing by or sparing, but of him only in whom and through whom God passed and spared them, namely, that immaculate Lamb slain before the foundation of the world; whose blood when God beholds upon the posts of their houses, he will spare and not destroy them. The like we shall find in all their Sacraments and Sacrifices; that is their manner, by signing the Root and Fountain, to assure and convey the Promises which come through it.
Out of this therefore which hath been spoken we may easily assoil the Question of the agreement of sameness of the Jews Sacraments with ours. For it is apparent that the Signs differed, and in most they were of a clean differing kind from ours; I mean divers kinds of things, the bloody signs of slaughtered beasts: and where the Signs of both had more affinity, yet was there some apparent difference, as appears in the examples our Apostle bringeth here. For howsoever a cloud hath some affinity with water, yet is it not the same with water we use in Baptism; neither was Manna the same thing with bread, though instead thereof; nor the water of the Rock the same with wine in the Eucharist. It is plain therefore out of our Apostle's own words, that he means not they were the same in Signs. It follows then, they should be the same in the Spiritual thing signified, which is as the Soul and spirit of a Sacrament. And this is plain, in that he saith not simply, they are the same Meat and same Drink, but, the same Spiritual Meat and the same Spiritual Drink: and it is past all doubt, when he saith the Rock was Christ, that is, a Sacrament of him, which 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is to be understood of all the rest, the Cloud, the Sea, the Manna; all were Sacraments of Christ as well as ours, and Seals of the same Spiritual promises whereof ours are; all aimed at the same twofold invisible gift, the same Fountain through whom, Christ Jesus, and the same Rivers of Spiritual graces, Reconciliation with God, Remission of sins, and Life eternal, through him alone.
And yet for all this agreement we must know there was some difference even here also: For howsoever the things (as ye have heard) were the same signified in both, yet was the manner and fashion of them different; they beheld not their Signs the same that ours do. For as for the Root of blessings, Christ, he was signified as future and yet to come; which in their ordinary Sacraments was stamped upon the very Sign; I mean, the Signs had some badge in them, whereby might be known that what they signified was future.
As for example; In Circumcision was signified the taking away of the superfluity of sin in and through him who was yet in the loins of his Ancestors, as the place circumcised sufficiently implies. And this is the reason why S. Paul saith, if ye are circumcised, Christ profits you nothing: Because, namely, he that received Circumcision did as much as affirm that Christ was not yet come, but still hoped for.
The like we may see in their Sacrifices, some whereof, as the Eucharistical, were justly answerable to our Eucharist, as I shall have occasion to show hereafter. In the mean time I speak generally of them, and say, They carried a badge in them that Christ was not yet come and offered for sin. A ground whereof I have from the story of Abraham going about to sacrifice his son: For there Abraham being ready at God's Commandment to sacrifice the promised son, his dear and only son Isaac; the Angel of God stayed his hand, and shown him a Ram in a bush to sacrifice instead of his son; thereby implying, That while God deferred the offering of that Blessed one which should be a Son of Abraham, be would accept as instead thereof the offerings of Bulls and Rams for the expiation of sin; and therefore he that offered this offering instead, did therein acknowledge that the offering of the Blessed seed of Abraham was yet deferred. A second mark of this may be also in the slaying of the Sacrifice offered: For in that they were as often as they offered, to slay their Sacrifice, it appeared that the Son of Abraham was not yet slain for sin.
And thus have we seen how Christ the ground of all Spiritual blessings was otherwise signified under the Sacraments of the Law than now in those of the Gospel. Now we must also show a differing manner and fashion in the Spiritual Promises themselves, which were given through him. For these were not open as now they are, but involved and wrapped up in Temporal benefits: For all the Promises under the Law in a manner were for the outside Temporal; their Redemption was their deliverance from the Egyptian thralldom, their forgiveness and remission was the escaping of Temporal plagues and bodily death, their favor with God was worldly Prosperity, their place of blessed rest was the earthly Canaan, and immortality, long life and fullness of days in the land which the Lord had given them. This is so apparent, that there was a Sect amongst them about Christ's time which maintained there were no other Promises to be looked for; and some Christians even of note have almost affirmed that the Jews had no Spiritual Promises, but only Temporal. But we must know that under these Outward things were veiled the Spiritual and Eternal Promises Not that these Temporal were only Shadows of the Eternal, and were not literally to be understood; but that the enjoying of these outward things, unto the Jew was a pledge of the Spiritual as it were inwrapped in them: For it pleased God, occording to the • economy of that time, to convey his Spiritual benefits under and with the Temporal; as he also ordained the loss of the one to be as an evident mark of losing the other, unless God were extraordinarily merciful unto them. The knowledge of this made the Jew so highly to esteem of worldly prosperities, and of those who enjoyed them, as of God's special Favorites; and on the contrary, to be so cast down with earthly adversities, as if those who fell into them were quite deprived of the favor of God. This made them so loath to forgo the Earthly Canaan, as though with it also they had forgone all interest in the Heavenly.
And was it not strange that the Roman Empire, which carried no other Nation captive, yet should cast the Jew out of his own country? unless God, according to his wonted rule with this people, would have it a woeful evidence that he had quite cast them off from having any longer right or claim unto the Kingdom of Heaven. But since Christ was revealed, these Spiritual and Eternal Promises are no longer veiled and covered in this sort, but are laid out to open view, and they are no longer so linked with Temporal, but severed one from the other; For the veil upon Moses face is done array, and we all with an open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, 2 Cor. 3. 14, 18.
Thus you see how the Sacraments of the Law, howsoever they sealed the same Promises with ours, yet not so immediately as ours do, but in the covers of outward blessings. Now I will answer some Objections concerning this discourse.
And first, Some will say that this is unlikely, in that the Jews seemed to apprehend no such thing as we speak of, specially in these extraordinary Sacraments which our Apostle treats of. I answer, That without doubt the Patriarchs and Prophets had a more clear sight of these things; as for the rest, they were in general taught this Principle, That in such things God did convey some unseen blessings unto them, especially if they were so extraordinary as this of Manna and the Rock; and howsoever they knew not expressly what these secret things should be, yet they believed they were far more glorious than what they saw. Those who require more than this, forget how Moses was veiled, and that the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God were exceedingly obscure in the times of the Law. And that the Jew could not but conceive more in them than the outside, it appears in that they had a great expectation of the Messiah, at whom all these aimed; as we know the speech of Nathanael, We have found the Messias, of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote. Besides, the Prophets often reprehension of those who thought God was pleased with the outward offering of Bulls and Rams, must needs make them apprehend there was a faith of some unseen thing required.
But S. Paul (will some say) calls them Gal. 4. 9. weak and beggarly Elements, whereby it should seem they were empty of all Spiritual meaning. I answer, such they were become indeed when Christ was once come, of which time S. Paul speaketh; when the grace signified in them was brought out in the light, when the inwrapped Promises were unfolded and revealed, they were then as empty shells, whose kernels were taken out, and like carcasses whose Soul is gone. So long as a shell contains a kernel unseen, so long it is full; when the kernel comes forth to outward view, then the shell is empty: even so is it with the Elements of the Law. Again, as long as the Soul is buried in the Body and covered with flesh, the Body lives; but when the Soul separates from flesh and subsists by itself, then the Body proves a stinking carcass: So is it with the Elements of the Law, whose Soul was these Spiritual things, now severed from such fleshly Elements, and offered unto us without such covers as heretofore they were.
DISCOURSE XLV.
1 COR. 10. 3, 4.
HAVING spoken at large of the Three things which I inquired of for Explication of these words, viz. 1. Of what Meat and of what Drink the Apostle speaketh, namely, of the food of Manna, and the water of the Rock, wherewith God sustained the Israelites in the Wilderness; 2. Wherein both the one and the other were Spiritual or Sacramental, namely, in being Signs resembling and assuring Christ with the Spiritual Blessings through him; 3. In what sense these Sacraments are said to be the same with ours, to wit, not in the Signs, but in the Spiritual thing signified, which is the Soul and Essence of a Sacrament: We come now to such Observations as these Words and Explications will afford us.
The first whereof is, That if the Seals and Sacraments under the Law were the same with ours, then must they also have the same Covenant of Grace with us; for the Sacraments are Seals of the Covenant: If the Seals then were the same, as our Apostle affirmeth, how should not the Covenant also be the same? and seeing their Sacraments were differing in the Signs from ours, how could they be any way the same with ours, but only in what they sealed and signified? The Fathers therefore were saved by Grace and through Christ as well as we: So true is that the Apostle says Acts 4. 12. There is no other name under Heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. For Jesus Christ (as it is Heb. 13. 8.) is the same yesterday, and today, and forever; that is, He was a Savior of old, is still, and shall be forever hereafter. This is that which S. Peter yet more expressly affirmeth, Acts 3. 25. saying, Ye are the children of the Prophets, and of the Covenant which God made with our Fathers, saying to Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed. Yea not only from Abraham, but even from that time when God said, The seed of the Woman shall break the Serpent's head, was this Covenant made with men, and at length diversely shadowed in the Types and Sacrifices of the Law, until Christ himself was revealed in the flesh.
For the better understanding of this, we must know what a Covenant is, and what are the kinds thereof. A Covenant is as it were a Bargain between God and man, wherein God promises some Spiritual good to us, so we perform some duty unto him: if not, then to incur everlasting punishment. This Covenant is of two sorts; the one is called The Covenant of Works, the other The Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of Works is, wherein God on his part makes us a promise of Eternal life, if we on our part shall perform exact obedience unto his Law; otherwise to be everlastingly condemned, if we fail. The Covenant of Grace or of the Gospel is, wherein God on his part promises us sinners Christ to be our Savior and Redeemer, if we on our part shall believe on him with a lively and obedient faith; otherwise to be condemned. The Covenant of Works God made with man at his Creation, when he was able to have kept the conditions he required; but he through his disobedience broke it, and so became liable to death, doth Corporal and Spiritual. And though the Covenant of Grace then took place, (as we have said) yet was the former Covenant of Works still in force, until Christ who was promised should come in the flesh. And therefore was this Covenant renewed under Moses with the Israelites, when the Law was given in Horeb; as Moses says, Deut. 5. 2. The Lord God made a Covenant with us in Horeb. For all the time under the Law the open and apparent Covenant was the Covenant of Works; to make them the more to see their own misery and condemnation, and so to long after Christ who was yet to come, and at whose coming this obligation should be quite cancelled: Yet nevertheless, together with this open Covenant there was a secret and hidden Covenant, which was the Covenant of Grace; that they might not be altogether without the means of Salvation whilst Christ yet tarried.
This truth is plain, Gal. 3. 17, &c. where the Apostle affirms, That the Covenant of Grace in Christ was four hundred and thirty years afore the Law was given, and that therefore the Law could not disannul it or make it of none effect; but that the Law (so he calls the Covenant of Works) was only added to it because of transgressions, until the blessed Seed should come, v. 19. and that it might be a Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, v. 24. For in the Moral Law of God, under whose curse they stood bound, they might as in a Glass see their sin, their guilt, their want of Righteousness; and in their Ceremonies and Sacrifices they might again, as in Shadows of Heavenly things, behold the means of their Reconciliation, through his blood who was to be slain and offered to God for them.
Now though this Covenant of Grace afore Christ be the same for substance with that under which we are now since his coming; yet the circumstances and outward fashion thereof are so varied, that the Scripture for this regard makes of this one Covenant two Covenants, calling one the Old Covenant for the old manner thereof under the Law, and the other a New Covenant for the new manner thereof now the Gospel is revealed.
Having therefore already seen the agreement and on • ness of them for the inward part, let us now behold their differences for the outward fashion: and so we shall see that as the Fathers ate the same Spiritual meat and drank the same Spiritual drink, and yet there was some difference in them; so the Fathers were under the same Covenant of Grace with us, and yet after a different fashion.
This difference S. Paul, Gal. 4. 1. &c. setteth forth thus by a similitude; The heir as long as he is a child, &c. i. e. The difference of the condition of those afore Christ and since, is but as the condition of Heirs when they are under age, and when they come to full years. They are Heirs and Lord's of all in both conditions, as well in one as the other; only the difference is, that in the one condition they are in the state of Servants under Tutors and Governors, in the other they enjoy the freedom of Sons: So the faithful in the Law enjoyed the same Covenant of Grace with us, but under the bondage of worldly Elements; but we now have the same in a state of freedom, as not held under such burthensome Elements and Pedagogies as they were.
But elsewhere he shows this difference more expressly both on God's part and our part. First, On our part, Heb. 8. and elsewhere, thus; The Old Covenant, which required so many external services, is called a carnal Covenant; the New, wherein no such are required, but works of the Spirit only, is a Spiritual Covenant, whereof God means when he saith, v. 10. I will put my Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and so he will be their God, and they shall be his people. For in the Old Covenant he wrote a Law as it were upon their hands and fleshly members, in that he required so many fleshly washings and sprinklings and sacrifices for expiation and cleansing of sin: whereas in the New he writes his Law only upon the Soul and Spirit; in that he now stipulates only the service of Faith, which is an action of the inward man, and not of the outward: not of the hand or bodily members, but of the Soul within. For by Law here I suppose is meant the condition which God stipulates in the Covenant, and through which he makes good his promise unto us. Not as though this spiritual condition was not also required under the Law in the Covenant of Grace then; but because it was not only, nor so openly, therefore is it made as a formal difference of the New Covenant and the Old.
Secondly, On God's part the Scripture shows the difference of the Covenants thus: The Old Covenant was a Covenant of worser promises, the New a Covenant of better Promises, and so a better Covenant, Heb. 8. 6. Indeed they in the Old Covenant had the same Spiritual Promises we have, and so it was one and the same Covenant; but they had them not open and uncovered as we have, and so our Covenant is not the same, but a better Covenant. So S. Paul makes his comparison in the same argument, 2 Cor. 3. 11. If that (saith he) which is done away was so glorious, much more that which remaineth. As if he had said, If the Cover seemed so glorious, much more shall the Jewel within so seem, when the cover is taken from it, as now it is. For all the open Promises in the Old Covenant seem to be no other than Temporal blessings; as for Spiritual, they had them only as enwrapped in them; so that they could look for them no otherwise but in and through the Temporal, which they had as Pledges of the Spiritual veiled under them: But in the New these are all revealed and no longer hid from us by such curtains; the veil is taken from the face of Moses, and we behold with open face the glory of the Lord, as the Apostle speaketh 2 Cor. 3. 14, 18. Remission of sins, Reconciliation with God, Everlasting life, these are our Promises; not deliverance from Temporal enemies, worldly prosperity, nor the land of Canaan, or long life in the land the Lord hath given us. So the case here is quite altered: For then Earthly blessings were as Pledges of Spiritual; but now unto us, Spiritual are Pledges of Temporal, so far as God sees good for us; For the tenor of the Gospel now is, Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.
And it is now time we should say with S. Paul, Rom. 11. 33. O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! and with David, Psal. 40. 5. Many, O Lord my God are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: and Psal. 92. 5. O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.
THUS I come to a second Observation which these words afford us; namely, If the Fathers ate the same Spiritual Meat and drank the same Spiritual Drink which we do, then eat we not the real Body nor drink the real Blood of Christ: For the Manna they ate was the same Manna still, though a Sacrament of Christ; the Water of the Rock was verily Water still, though a Sacrament of his Blood: If then we eat the same Spiritual Bread; we eat Bread still, though Spiritual Bread; If we drink the same Spiritual Drink, our Drink is Wine still, though Spiritual Wine. Yea S. Paul himself calls them as they are, 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Bread we break is the communion of the Body of Christ; Ergo, That which is the communion of the Body of Christ is Bread still. And unless it should be so, how could there be a Sacrament, which must consist of a Sign and a thing signified, of an Earthly thing and a Heavenly thing? For if the Sign once becomes the thing signified, it is no more a Sign, and so then is no more a Sacrament.
If it be urged, That Christ himself says plainly of the Bread, Hoc est corpus meum, This is my Body; of the Wine, Hic est sanguis meus, This is my Blood: I answer. He says also I am the Door; and in my Text is as expressly said, The Rock was Christ. If therefore it be absurd from hence to infer the Rock left being a Rock, and was made the real Person of Christ; so will it be of our Spiritual Bread and Wine. For the manner of these speeches is nothing but a Figure of certainty or assurance: He that receiveth the Bread, as assuredly receiveth Christ: Body as if the Bread were his Body; He that receiveth the Wine, as assuredly enjoyeth the Blood of Christ as if this Wine were his very Blood indeed. A predication in casu recto is a predication of sameness, and therefore is used properly in things which are in a manner the same, as Genus and Species, Homo est animal; but in things which are disparate and of several natures we speak usually in concreto or obliquo: and from h •• ce arises a Scheme or Figure of speech, when we would express a most near union of things even different, yet to speak them in casu recto, which is the predication of sameness, as it were to express they were as nearly linked together as if they were the very same. So we are wont to say, a man is Virtue or Piety itself, meaning, they are thoroughly linked unto him. And because of all other things the things in the Sacraments are so assuredly and thoroughly linked together, the Holy Ghost used this Scheme for a Sacramental speech, Hoc est corpus meum, and Hic est sanguis meus, that is, a Sign so sure as if it were the very same.
AND so I will come to a third Observation; The Fathers (saith my Text) ate the same Spiritual Meat and drank the same Spiritual Drink, therefore is our Sacrament also to be eaten and drunk of us, and not only offered for us: Except we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, we have no life in us. And very fitly: For as our Bodies are nourished by eating of corporal meats, so our Souls are nourished by the Spiritual feeding upon Christ.
This condemns that lurching Sacrifice of the Mass, where the Bread and Wine are offered as a Sacrifice for the people, but they receive no one jot thereof; they are invited to a Banquet, but eat never a bit: Even like the unbelieving Ruler spoken of 2 Kings 7. 19. who saw all the plenty foretold by Elisha, but ate no whit thereof. And what is it but, as Christ said, to light a Candle and put it under a Bushel? Matt. 5. 15.
They think it is enough if the Priest eats all himself, though he gives nobody else any with him: But it is no less absurd to affirm that another should receive good by the Priest's receiving, than to hold one may be fed by the meat another man eats, or be saved by another man's Faith: Which were most ridiculous; for a man is nourished by his own meat, and the just must live by his own Faith.
Many strong Reasons might be alleged against this so soul a corruption, but I will comprise all in three.
- 1. It is against the express commandment of Christ, whose words are, Eat ye all of this, and, Drink ye all of this. Had the Church of Rome been the true Spouse of Christ, she would never have presumed to abolish what he hath ordained, and to establish what herself hath devised, not only in this, but in many other actions; which is no less than to advance herself in Wisdom and Authority above the Son of God.
- 2. It is against the nature of a Sacrament, which consists in receiving: For the main difference between a Sacrifice and a Sacrament is, that in the one we give to God, in the other God gives to us, and we receive of him.
- 3. It abolishes the Mystery of our consolation, and that whereby our Faith is strengthened in the use of these Holy Signs, that mankind might have an interest in Christ and what he should do on our behalf. We know it was required he should be incarnate and take our nature upon him, which now he hath done. Everyone of us can believe that what he hath done is for the behoof of mankind; and so some men shall be the better for it, since our whole kind by reason of his Incarnation is capable of the benefits of his Passion and the whole work of Redemption. But in that though Christ became man, yet he took not upon him the nature of every several man, hence no man from his Incarnation could apply these Benefits unto himself in special: For he might say, indeed Christ was made man, and so man may be the better for him, and have some interest in him; but since he was not incarnate into me, how should I apply this unto myself? Why therefore the All-wise God, who knew our weakness, hath so ordained in the Mystery of this Holy Sacrament, that it is a Mystical Incarnation of Christ into everyone who receives it. Whence Gregory Nazianzen defines the Eucharist, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Communion of the Incarnation of God. For in that he affirms the Bread to be his Body, and the Wine to be his Blood; by receiving this Body and Blood of Christ, and so changing it into the substance of our Body and into our Blood by way of nourishment, the Body of Christ becomes our Body, and his Blood is made our Blood, and we become in a Mystical manner flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. And as in his conception of the Holy Virgin, he took upon him the nature of Man, that he might save Man; so in his Holy Sacrament he takes upon him the nature of every man in singular, that he might save every man who becomes him in the Divine Sacrament of his Body and Blood. His real Incarnation was only in one, but his Mystical Incarnation in many: and hence comes this Sacrament to be an Instrument whereby Christ is conveyed unto us, his Benefits applied, and so our Faith confirmed.
How then do they abolish this Holy Mystery, this comfortable Analogy, where Christ is offered; but those for whom he is offered receive him not, but stand as gazing Spectators, whilst the Priest alone is the Actor? But let us, who are so happy above them, who come hither as Receivers, and not as Gazers, let us, I say, consider how great a Gift it is which God gives us. Zacchaeus gave a great Gift, half his Goods unto the Poor: Herod promised a greater unto the dancing Damsel: but the greatest of all is that which the prodigal giver offered our Savior, even all the Kingdoms of the World. But all these Gifts are fallen short, and of infinite less value than this transcendent Gift which God gives unto us; which makes S. John, when he speaks of it, to express it with an Emphasis, So God loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Lo here the greatest Gift that Heaven can yield, or the Earth can receive. Let us therefore stir up Hearts and Hands to give thanks and praise unto him of whom we receive so wonderful a Gift, saying, with the Prophet David, What shall we render unto the Lord for this admirable benefit?
AND thus I come to a fourth Observation which these words will lend us; namely, That the Apostle warrants here by his Example the Illustration of things in the Gospel by the Types of the Law. For if the Apostle uses an Example where one would scarce suspect there was a Tppe, much more doth he approve an application where a Type is plain and evident; and besides, seems to insinuate thus much unto us, That all the extraordinary actions of God toward his ancient People had in them some Mystery of some things to come, as this of Manna in the Wilderness. And I make no question but the searching and suiting of Allegories in these two kinds were allowable and profitable: But this is the error of Allegorizers, They seek Allegories where they are not, but where they are they seldom look for them: For although the body and verity be of itself more clear and evident than the shadow, yet always a Comparison affords more light than a single contemplation.
Now because the Apostle hath led the way of this practice in the matter of the Eucharist, let me have leave to second him in another Instance of the same Argument, almost out of himself in the Chapter, not in so sublime a kind, but in a plain and vulgar Type. Amongst all the Sacrifice of the Law, there is none either for name or nature comes so near the Sacrament of the Supper as the Eucharistical. The Passover was a special kind hereof, where it is so well known that the Fathers ate the same Spiritual Meat we do, that I shall not need say anything of it; only it shall suffice to show the same in the whole kind of Eucharistical Offerings, which is not so much observed.
An Eucharistical Sacrifice or a Peace-offering was a Sacrifice of fire, or expiatory; a part whereof was burnt upon the Altar, as in other Sacrifices; but the remainder and greater part was eaten by the faithful people who brought it; that so their Sacrifice being turned into their body's nourishment might be a Sign of their incorporation into Christ to come, who was the true Sacrifice for Sin. So, whereas other Sacrifices were only Sacrifices, this was also a Sacrament; the rest were only for Expiation, but this also for application, being a Communion of that Sacrifice which was offered. Rightly therefore was it added to all other Sacrifices: for what profit was there of expiation of Sin, unless it were applied? Well might it then be called a Sacrifice of Peace, as containing in it a Communion of Peace, and Communion with Jesus Christ, and through him with God the Father. The Greeks call it sometimes 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or a saving Sacrifice, but commonly 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for the same reason we call our Sacrament of Peace 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; both being to be celebrated with thank • giving to God, both oral and real: For with this Sacrifice they used to offer their Heave-offering; and of this was the Commandment, That none should appear before the Lord empty, when they came to solemnize their peace-making and reconciliation with God.
For in place of this Eucharistical Sacrifice, whereof the Passover was a special kind, hath Christ ordained our 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , wherein, as they in theirs had a communion with him who was to come, so have we a Communion with him who is already come. And of this kind were the ordinary Sacrifices of the Gentiles, of which the Christians were forbidden to eat, because they might have no peace and Communion with Devils. And therefore our Apostle in the rest of this Chapter compares these Three together; 1. The Peace-offering of the Jews, wherein they were partakers with the Altar or Sacrifice which figured Christ to come; 2. The Sacrifice of the Greeks , wherein they had Communion with Devils; and 3. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ; and so concludes, Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of Devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's Table, and of the Table of Devils, verse 21.
DISCOURSE XLVI.
1 COR. 10. 5.
THIS verse consists of two parts. 1. The condition under which the unworthy eaters of Manna and drinkers of the Rock Spiritual were; and consequently of the unworthy receivers of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ: forasmuch as they ate the same Spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink which we do. This their condition is said to be Of those with whom God is not well-pleased: For with many of them (saith my Text) God was not well-pleased. 2. The second thing here is, The danger of those unworthy receivers in regard of the punishment which followed them; For they were overthrown (saith our Apostle) in the Wilderness.
To speak of the first; I will consider the words first in general, and after in special, as they specially concern the receivers of the holy Seals of God. In general therefore it is to be observed, That it is the greatest degree and measure of unhappiness and misery in the world to be out of the favor of God, or to be one of those with whom God is not well pleased: For our Apostle here intending no other thing but to express a wretched and unhappy condition, utters it in this Phrase, of being such with whom God is not well pleased. This comprehends in it so much misery, that the very naming of it he thought was sufficient to make the Corinthians fear and tremble, when they should consider of that Spiritual Table, of that tremendum Mysterium, as the Fathers call it; and not to handle it with rash and unholy hands at the first, or to diet themselves afterward, upon so heavenly a receipt, with • usting after evil things.
How vain therefore is the opinion and practice of worldlings, who esteem the favor of men and worldly reputation the highest pitch of Blessedness; who are ambitious of no other Happiness but this; and lastly, who spend their time, their care, their means, nay lose (at least hazard) the favor of God itself, to compass the favor and esteem of men; who admire none but those who have gotten this! But alas! there is no happiness at all but to be of those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in whom God is well pleased, to be in esteem and reputation with God through Jesus Christ, in whom alone he is well pleased. All Happiness without this is no better than extreme misery: Nay this supposed and so much desired happiness of being in reputation with the world is so far from making the owner happy, that the earnest seeking and desire thereof is incompatible with the state of true Happiness indeed. For so I think our Apostle would be understood, Gal. 1. 10. If I pleased men (saith he,) I should not be the servant of Christ. Hence 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , men-pleasers, in our Apostle's style, are opposed elsewhere unto 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the servants of Christ, (Ephes. 6. 6. Not as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ; ) and to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 those that fear God, Col. 3. 22. as though 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , men-pleasers and God-pleasers, could not stand together, according to that our Savior also saith John 5. 44. How can ye believe (saith our Savior) which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?
All this notwithstanding, I suppose is to be understood of high prising of the favor of men, with a neglect of the favor of God in regard thereof: which though it may seem at the first sight a most unreasonable sin, and such as no man should be guilty of; yet is it so common and so usual, that it hath gotten to be enthroned in Wisdom's chair; and many Aaron's there be which worship this C ••• ; many who would seem wise, which are over head and ears in this folly: For it is no unusual thing to hear men excuse their neglect of pleasing God, by alleging that otherwise they must have fallen into the displeasure and disesteem of men.
Otherwise, who knows not that there are things wherein men may be lawfully pleased, such as are things indifferent, especially if it may work a further good? And therefore in these S. Paul will confess that himself had studied to please all men; and willeth others to do the like, Rom. 15. 2. Let everyone of us please his Neighbor for his good to edification; and in this Chapter, Give no offense, neither to the Jews, not to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God. But we are not so much sick of this as of a worse disease; we deal as is reported of him in the Fable, who offered his God the shells, and kept the kernels unto himself: in trifles and things of small moment we vouchsafe God our service and obedience; but as for main matters, because they concern us so deeply and nearly, here God must be content to want our duty; whilst we apply ourselves in all our words and actions as may most likely gain us the favor and good opinion of men, though hereby we earnestly run into this incomparable misery to be one of those with whom God is not well pleased.
AND thus much for the general consideration of these words. The special (which now I come to) is, That the unworthy Receivers of the Sacraments are in the number of those men with whom God is not well pleased. Of unworthy Receiving and Receivers I make two; the one à parte ante, by undue preparation, the other à parte post, by unholy demeanour and conversation afterward. The former is unworthy to approach this Table at all, the other to have approached it. And of both these were the Fathers in the Wilderness guilty: For Manna being both their ordinary and sacred Food, their unholy and lustful demeanor upon the former eating made them continually unprepared Receivers for the future. And so it is with us, An unholy life upon the first receiving is a great part of our unworthiness for the second; yea more unworthy are we then made than we had been upon the like conversation at the beginning: For to have broken so solemn a Promise to God as we bound ourselves in at the first time, doubles our sin; and to have already abused so precious and gracious a gift which God then gave us, makes us doubly unworthy ever to find the like favor anymore. As in Physic for the body a Preparative is required before, and a good and careful diet to be observed after; so is it here: as also a distempered diet after Physic received will do more hurt than it would before; so is it here.
Now because it is Sin which makes us lose the favor of God, and it alone which makes him not well pleased with us; that we may behold how justly God's displeasure is kindled by this unworthy Receiving, let us a while consider wherein the Sin thereof consisteth: which will appear
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1. In the correspondence of the Receiver and the thing received. It is written Deut. 22. 9, 10. Thou shalt not sow thy Vineyard with diverse kinds of seeds; Thou shalt not plough with an Ox and an Ass together: Whereby it appears, That God Almighty loves not to have things unsuitable and incompatible joined together; it is an unpleasing spectacle unto him. But what fellowship hath light with darkness? what agreement between the holy Sacrament and a profane heart? who will put precious water into filthy vessels, or wholesome wine into foul casks? It is the ground of Joshua's speech ( Josh. 24. 19.) to the children of Israel, You cannot serve the Lord, (saith he) for he is a holy God; that is, whilst you are wicked, the Righteous Lord who loveth Righteousness will not accept of your services.
Again, Almighty God hath ever required a correspondence between his holy Ordinances and those who were to be partakers of them. Thus the Shew-bread was appointed only for Aaron and his Sons, because they were holy; the Trespass and Sin-offering must be eaten in the holy Place, because it was most holy. The same thing is implied by our Savior's proverbial precept, Give not that which is holy unto the Dogs. And which of us all would not be offended at a Dog, if we should see him devour the meat appointed for our Children's Diet? Even such in God's account, and no better, are wicked persons. Beware of Dogs, beware of Evil-workers, saith S. Paul, Phil. 3. 2. and Apocal. 22. 15. Without the City of God are Dogs, Sorcerers, Whoremongers, &c. Now we know ( Exod. 19. 13.) that no Beast might touch the Mountain when the Lord appeared on Mount Sinai: So none of those whom God accounts in the number of Beasts (as all who have beastly affections) may approach in Christ's presence, or come unto his Table.
Wherefore, as God saith, Be ye holy, because I am holy; so may it be said unto all communicants, Be ye holy, because the Sacrament is holy. Whence it was a worthy custom in the ancient Churches for the Bishop or Deacon to proclaim at the holy Communion 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Holy things for them that are holy, holding in his hand the holy Sacrament. And good reason why; For where this holiness is not, there, in stead of comfort, the Heart is more and more corrupted. Even as the Spider gets strength of poison from the sweetest herbs and flowers; so the profane Heart is strengthened in wickedness by receiving this holy and heavenly Food.
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2. The heinousness of this sin is aggravated in respect of the thing received: for our Apostle elsewhere saith, The unworthy receiver becomes guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ; that is, he is guilty of offering contumely, injury and indignity unto him. S. Paul, when he dissuades Husbands from misusing their Wives, gives this for a reason, No man ever yet hated his own flesh: And may not I reason thus, Let no man offer injury unto Christ, because he is flesh of our flesh? yea he is our Head, and a wound or maim given to the Head is more odious and dangerous than to another part. To offer violence to a common person, is a fault; to strike a Magistrate, a greater; but to wound a King, who is the Lord's Anointed, is a sin in the highest degree. O what a heinous sin is it then to offer violence to, and as much as in us lies to strike and wound the Son of God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Glory!
To be guilty of death and shedding of the blood of any innocent man, is a fearful sin; and this made David cry out, Deliver me, O Lord, from blood-guiltiness. How fearful is it then to be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ! Whose heart is not moved against the Jews, when he hears or reads their villainies and violence offered to our Blessed Savior? But Chrysostom gives us a good Take-heed, Take heed (saith he) lest thou be guilty in the like kind, by unworthy receiving of the blessed Sacrament: He that defiles the King's body, and he that tears it, offend both alike; The Jews tore it, thou defilest it. Here are (saith the same Father) diversa peccata, sed par contumelia; some difference of the sin, but none of the contumely therein offered.
Joseph and Nicodemus their pious devotion in begging and embalming the Body of Christ is worthily recorded and commended to all generations; Mary Magdalene in bestowing that box of precious ointment upon his holy head hath gained to her self endless honor, instead of her former infamy: So if receive and handle worthily this Mystical Body of Christ, our portion shall be with honorable Joseph and pious Mary Magdalene; our memories shall be as theirs, blessed, and our Souls as theirs, to receive unspeakable comfort: but if we come unworthily, we join with Judas and the Jews, and are guilty, as they were, of the Body and Blood of Christ.
[unspec II] AND thus much of the first thing I propounded, The state of unworthy Receivers of these holy Mysteries, that they are men in whom God hath no pleasure and therefore woeful and lamentable. The second thing now to be spoken of is, The danger of such unworthy Receivers in regard of the Punishment which followeth them: which as concerning the Fathers, my Text saith, was, That they fell, or were overthrown in the Wilderness. In the back or outside of which words appeareth only a Temporal Punishment, which kind seemeth not so appliable in the times of the Gospel as it was in time of the Law. Howsoever we see in the general, That it is true that the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain; Judgment shall self either here, or at least hereafter, upon all profaners and misreceivers of those Sacred pledges, upon which is called the Name of Christ our Savior and Redeemer.
But for the kinds of these punishments, whether Temporal only, or Eternal, or both; I answer, The Fathers under the Law had Temporal as well as Eternal; we in the Gospel chiefly Eternal, and yet sometimes Temporal.
That ours are chiefly eternal or of the life to come, the words of our Apostle elsewhere show evidently, Whosoever eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh his own damnation. This is certain, and this is more than all the torments, pains and miseries that this world hath, though Phalaris and his Craftsmaster were alive again to invent new ones. No tongue is able to express, no heart is able to conceive the woe and miseries which the damned Soul in Hell is subject unto, which are as endless as they are easeless. And though this be great enough, yet hath not (nor is) the unworthy Receiver always been freed from suffering something even in this life. We know the Apostle would have the Corinthians take notice of the Wrath of God upon divers of them, for receiving the Sacrament unworthily. For this cause (saith he) are many sick and weak amongst you, and many are fallen asleep. Indeed Fathers correct not their children at riper years after the same fashion they did when they were young and little: So hath God not the same Discipline under the Gospel which he had under the Pedagogi • of the Law, as Chrysostom saith; he doth not so often scourge offenders with the rods of Temporal chastisements, but rather reserves for them Eternal torments; yet who doubts but the hand of God is upon many unworthy Communicants, even by sorrow, sickness, death, and sundry other chastisements of this life?
But for the times under the Law, the words of my Text speaking of being overthrown in the Wilderness, would seem to imply there was no further thing which befell the unworthy eaters of Manna in the Wilderness, and so our Apostle's argument from hence should infer no more to us in the times of the Gospel.
For answer hereunto, I must call to mind something which I have spoken heretofore, namely, That under the Law Spiritual blessings were enwrapped in corporal, and conveyed under and with them as it were in pledges; which made the Jew so highly to esteem of worldly prosperities, and of those who enjoyed them, as accounting them God's special Favorites. So also were Spiritual and Everlasting plagues hidden under the curtains of Temporal judgments; which were to those upon whom they fell as woeful pledges of them, and therefore made the Jew account them accursed who were overwhelmed with worldly adversities. To come therefore to the words of my Text: Canaan was a Type and Pledge of the Heavenly habitation; The Wilderness signified our Pilgrimage in this wild, ragged, rocky and barren world; To fell in the Wilderness was a woeful sign of falling short of the Heavenly Canaan, and deprival of Eternal life; those who fell there, especially upon occasion of sin, being such as to whom God sware in his wrath, that they should not enter into his rest; as it is in the Psalm we say every morning. Thus we see how the unworthy eaters of the holy Mysteries in the Wilderness were not only liable to plagues in this life, but that those plagues served them as Seals of their condemnation in the world to come; and therefore if we also eat the same Spiritual meat, and drink the same Spiritual drink unworthily, we shall eat and drink our own condemnation.
Having thus seen the wretched condition and woeful danger of those who come unworthily to this Spiritual Table; the serious consideration hereof may stand up like the Angel with the flaming sword, to keep every Adam from eating of the tree of Life. It should make everyone tremble who approacheth the Lord's Table with unwashed hands, I mean, a foul conscience: whose hearts are full of wickedness, whose heads full of ungodly imaginations, and their hands defiled with wicked actions, how unworthy are they to come at this holy Banquet! As Jehu said to Jehoram, What hast thou to do with peace? So may I say here, What have those to do with the Sacrament, the Mystery of peace? Indeed the Sacrament is a Robe to cover the repenting sinner, but no cloak to a profane Receiver of it: such a one shall find it like the forbidden fruit of Paradise, the bane of the Eater; and like a fair bait swallowed with a deadly hook, the death of the Receiver.
Who being guilty, would drink of that cursed water ( Numb. 5. 22.) which made the thigh to rot and the belly to swell? and who being guilty of gross sin, will dare without Repentance to take that Sacrament which shall make him guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ, and become an occasion of his condemnation?
It is a pitiful thing when the Psalmist's curse befalls any, Let their Table be a snare: But that this holy Table should become a snare to a Christian soul, is more than lamentable. Our Savior said of Judas, It had been good for him if he had never been born; and so may we say of such, It had been better they had never been Receivers of this holy Sacrament, for, alas! they have eaten and drank their own damnation: they had better have eaten some venomous thing, or drank some deadly poison; for it would only have killed the body, but by eating and drinking the Sacrament unworthily they have damned and destroyed both soul and body forever.
Lastly, This danger may admonish everyone of us to come worthily unto this Sacrament: For as Manna was unto ev •• y man's taste according to his will, (as S. Austin will have it;) so is the Sacrament to everyone according to his worthiness. As therefore the Chamber was trimmed wherein our Savior kept his Passover, and ordained his holy Manna; so should be Chamber of every Christian soul be cleansed from wickedness and adorned with Grace that comes to receive Christ in this Sacrament. The washing of the Disciples feet afore Supper, what doth it else call for but a cleansing of our hearts before we communicate? We are unwilling that men should see us come to this Table with foul hands; and should we not be more careful lest God should see us come with foul hearts.
It will not be enough to say to our Savior with them in the Gospel, We have eaten and drank in thy company, we have been at thy Table: We must come thither as we should. For as corporal food doth rather hurt than nourish a body abounding with evil humors: So the Soul being fraught with vices, this heavenly food rather killeth than comforts it. As Adam in the state of his Integrity might freely take and taste of all the Trees in the Garden, (one only excepted,) but after his transgression he was justly restrained: So doth the Lord admit us unto his Table, if we come worthily; otherwise we are no welcome guests unto him. Therefore as it was said to Moses when he came near the presence of God, Pluck off thy shoes, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground: So let all of us put off the shoes of our corruptions, and then we may approach with comfort to the holy Table of the Lord.
DISCOURSE XLVII.
DEUTERONOMY 16. 16, 17.
THESE words are a commandment for the observation of the great and chiefest Festival times of the Law; not only here mentioned, but elsewhere enjoined in the Books of the Law; as I think in three several places, Exod. 23. 14. and again 34. 23. and also Levite. 23. The words I read consist of two parts: First, The Observation itself; 2. A special duty required thereat. The Observation itself comprehends four things. 1. The Work or Action commanded; which is, To appear before the Lord: 2. The Persons who, every Male; all thy Males: 3. The Place where; in a select place, in the place which the Lord shall choose: 4. The Time when; Three times in the year; In the Feast of Vnleavened bread, in the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles. The second part, A special duty required at this solemn service, and that is a duty of real thanksgiving, viz. a holy present or oblation to be given unto God, and that expressed First, in the kind, They shall not appear before the Lord empty; Secondly, in the measure, Everyone shall give as he is able, &c. Of these I am to speak in order, and first of the first, The Action enjoined, To appear before the Lord.
[unspec I] To appear before the Lord, is in an Holy Assembly to perform a Religious service unto him. For in every such Assembly and Service he is present after a special and peculiar manner, according to that of our Savior in the Gospel, Where two or three are gathered in my Name, there am I in the midst of them. And as when one man speaks unto another, or hears another speaking unto him, either is said to be in others presence: So he that comes to speak unto God in Confession, Prayer and Thanksgiving; and hath God likewise speaking unto him either in the publishing of the Law, in the promises of his Gospel, in the receiving of his Sacraments, and ministerial benediction, is truly said to appear or come into the presence of the Lord. To appear therefore in God's presence is to be assembled in his public Worship, where there is, as it were, a mutual intercourse between him and us; and in this it is differing from private Devotion, where the one part only is acted, and not the other. Every day is a day of private Devotion, yea every hour, if occasion serveth; but a Holyday's work is the public service of God in a Holy Convocation.
Seeing therefore as often as we come together for the Worship of God in the Holy Assembly of the Church, we appear in the presence of the Majesty of God himself, it may admonish us of the reverence we are to use in such Assemblies. If when we come into the presence of a Prince, we think an awful fear and a more than ordinary reverence doth best beseem us in whatsoever we speak or do: much more is this required of us when we approach the presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Hosts. No gesture we use, no word we speak, no action we do, but should be framed to express the awe and regard we owe unto so great and high a presence. If Order be any where required, it is here. If idle and vain words be in a far less presence taken as contemptuous; in this they cannot be less than merely blasphemous. If any unseemly or unsuitable gesture, if any neglectful or regardless demeanour be elsewhere culpable; here it is abominable, when we are in his presence who is the God of Order and Beauty, and gives us an express command to perform all points of his Service 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , according to order and with comeliness.
This makes him say to Moses when he appeared in the Bush, Pluck off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is Holy ground. Whence Solomon borrows his speech, Eccles. 5. 1. Keep thy foot (or, look unto thy feet) when thou enterest into the House of God. This being as much as if he had • aid, Behave thyself in God's presence reverently: Which in the words following he enlarges, saying, Be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of Fools —v. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in Heaven, and thou upon Earth, &c. And hither belongs that of S. Paul 1 Cor. 11. 4, 5, &c. requiring a seemly habit and gesture of men and women in the Holy Assemblies: the woman to pray covered, in token of her subjection; the man uncovered, as a sign of his head-ship and superiority over the woman, according to the use of those times and places. And it is specially to be observed which he speaketh in the 10. Verse, For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head, (that is, the ensign of power to which she is subject) because of the Angels; i.e. because of the presence of God attended with multitudes of Angels. For these are the Train of the Almighty, and as it were the Guard attending and ministering unto his presence; wheresoever he keeps his station, they pitch round about him. When Daniel saw him in the Vision, thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. Revel. 5. 11. I beheld saith S. John, and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the Throne, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. So when God appeared to Jacob going to Padan-Aram, he saw the Angels of God descending and ascending upon a Ladder. Whence it appears that wheresoever God keeps his Court, his Train is with him; and perhaps it were no error to affirm. That the peculiarity of God's presence in one place more than another did consist in no other thing but in the ministerial retinue of his Angels. Which if true, where should his Angels encamp rather than in the Assemblies of his Saints, in midst of whom he hath promised he would be? So will the speech of S. Paul have an evident meaning, That we ought to attire and demean ourselves with comeliness, because of the Angels, because of the presence of God in the ministry of his holy Angels.
Who can consider of this so great a presence, with so glorious a retinue, and not be stricken with a religious fear, with an holy reverence, as often as he is to appear before it? Let us then learn to say with Jacob, Gen. 28. 16. Surely the Lord is in this place, and be afraid as he was, and say, (v. 17.) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , How dreadful is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and the gate (or Court) of Heaven.
AND now I come to the second thing, The persons who were to appear at these solemn [unspec II] Feasts, Every Male; All thy Males shall appear. And here we are to inquire the reasons, Why the Females or Women had an exemption from this solemn duty: which (to omit that of a Type of the Messiah, which some bring) I take to be these three. 1. The weakness and infirmity of that sex, not able without much danger and trouble to endure so long a journey. 2. The danger of their chastity in such a concourse of people as was an Assembly of the whole Nation in one place. 3. The care of their tender infants and young children, and other house-affairs, which would have been wholly abandoned, if they as well as the Males should have been at the same time so far away and so long absent: neither can it otherwise be imagined how their houses could be looked unto, unless the one were to stay at home in the absence of the other. Again, it may be questioned whether all Males without respect were to appear; for it is not likely that young children should, or decrepit old men could appear. I answer therefore, That it is to be understood of all Males who were within the age and years of service, namely, between twenty and fifty; for at fifty it is apparent that all were emeriti, discharged from that duty, even the Priests and Levites served not after that age; but at what years they came to be capable of service, there is difference. The Priests might not serve in the Priests office afore thirty, Numb. 4. 3. nor the Levites in their office afore twenty five, Numb. 8. 24. but the Laity were capable of employment and serviceable at twenty; as appeareth out of the • of Numb. 2, 3. where God commands Moses to take the sum of all the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to War; so implying that from twenty years of age they were able for that service.
These things thus explained and supposed, we may observe, That the indulgence of God admits the case of infirmity, unavoidable inconvenience, and requisite employment, as allowable reasons of absence from holy Assemblies: For these we have seen to be the reasons of the exemption of Women from the annual and solemn Feasts. And no question but if the like cases might happen even for their ordinary and Sabbath-Assemblies, God would in like manner dispense. For weakness of body we have no reason to doubt; and for the other cases mentioned, the equity being the same with that which here dispensed with Women for the solemn Assemblies, it is not to be doubted but the indulgence of God should be the same, as well for other times as those, and as well for the other sex as for Women. And if in the time of that Law God was thus indulgent, when all these things were so severely and strictly exacted; much more in the liberty of the Gospel, Christ himself here loosing the strictness even of the Sabbath's rest, all • dging that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: For of the two duties required in the observation of an Holy day, the calling of an holy Assembly, and bodily rest from corporal labor, the Law seemed to exact this latter of rest more severely than the other, in regard it was a figure of things to come, which the other was not. If then that which was most strict be released; much more is the other, which was less, as free now as in former time. I speak not this against a Religious diligence, for that is required of all who have no just impediment and such a one as God himself shall allow; and therefore let no man deceive himself, for God (as the Apostle saith) is not mocked: But I speak against that more than Iudaical scrupulosity of some, who think it not lawful upon the Lord's day to leave any at home to keep house, or be employed in such businesses as conveniency cannot dispense with.
The second thing I observe here is, That to obey God in what he commandeth is as it were a protection (or a warrant of security) from those dangers which human reason would otherwise think unavoidable: or, Obedience unto God in what he commandeth is a greater security than all the cautions and preventions that human wisdom can procure us. For who would think when all the able and serviceable men of the whole land of Israel should thrice every year be gathered together at Jerusalem, but the whole land should be in great danger of invasion from their enemies, whom such an advantage could not but allure; and all their borders thus unfurnished, could not well prevent such a mischief? Nevertheless we find not in the whole Scripture that ever any such evil befell them upon this occasion: So good a protection was Obedience: But we find an express Promise to the contrary made by God himself, lest you might think this was but a surmised danger; For Exod. 34. 24. where this commandment is also mentioned, God saith, I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders; neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year. But for all this we know their last woeful destruction by the Romans was at the time of the Passover, one of these solemn times: and no marvel; for when God meant to cast them off from being anymore his people, he ordered even this (perhaps) to be a token that they were no longer under his wonted protection.
When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, though he knew not in reason how God could then make his Promise good unto him, To make his Seed by Isaac in number as the sand on the sea shore; yet he was obedient to the word of God, and beyond all hope secure of God's Promise, as placing his greatest security in his Obedience; as for the rest, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith he, Deus providebit, God will provide, Gen. 22. 8. and so he did indeed.
I shall need gather no more Examples. Let no man therefore be discouraged for fear of danger to do his duty in that calling and vocation wherein God hath set him. If God hath bid thee, hope thou likewi • e he will protect thee: But if thou neglect his commandment, so to avoid what thou fearest, be sure then that thou fearest or a worse will come upon thee; take heed thou goest not out of God's blessing into the warm Sun. Let Saul's example be our warning, who to prevent (as he thought) the scattering of the people from him, and the evil which longer delay might occasion, if he should stay for Samuel, presumed to offer Sacrifice himself; but he was called a fool for his labor, and made to know at length that Obedience was better than Sacrifice. And so shall everyone that makes so ungodly an experience, find his policy in the end plain foolery, and Obedience to God's Commandment better than all the Policy in the world.
[unspec III] AND thus I come to the third thing considerable, viz. The place where every Male was to appear, In the place the Lord shall choose, namely, in the place where the Ark and Tabernacle of God should be; which at the first was at Shiloh in the Country of Samaria and Tribe of Ephraim, afterwards at Jerusalem in the Tribe of Judah, where David first pitched a new Tabernacle for the Ark of the Covenant, after it had been taken by the Philistines, and returned home again; and in the same place his son Solomon built that glorious Temple which was the Beauty of the whole earth. Of these two places spake the Samaritan woman in the Gospel to our Savior, John 4. 20. Our Fathers (said she) worshipped in this Mountain; and ye say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. By Our Fathers she means the old Ephraimites, from whom the Samaritans falsely vaunted they were descended; upon which ground she likewise calls Jacob Our Father Jacob, v. 12. For they were indeed the offspring of those strange Nations which Shalmaneser transplanted into the Cities of Samaria, when he had carried Ephraim and the rest of Israel captives into Assyria; as we read 2 Kings 17. 24. By this Mountain she means Mount Ephraim where Shiloh was, and the Ark and Tabernacle of God in ancient time had been.
For when Manasseh the brother of Iaddus the High Priest was excommunicated and driven from the Priesthood because he had married the daughter of Sanball at the Horonite, (as it is in the last of Nehemiah v. 28.) he with his faction, to vex his own Nation, procured a Temple to be built in Gerizim on Mount Ephraim, whereof himself was the High Priest; and to draw a company of Transgressors like himself from the Temple at Jerusalem unto this, it was coloured as if this were the only place which the Lord had chosen, because the Tabernacle was first pitched at Shiloh in Mount Ephraim, and not at Zion on Mount Moriah: and this was the bone of everlasting division and capital hatred between the Jews and Samaritans.
Thus we have seen where This place was first and last which the Lord had chosen. Now let us further consider why it is thus called, The place which the Lord shall choose.
First therefore, these words imply That the place for holy Assemblies was a select [unspec 1] place; For they were not to assemble in every place as occasion and opportunity served, but to have a choice and select place for that purpose.
Secondly, This place for Legal worship was to be one only place, and no more; [unspec 2] and therefore here the singular number is used. I say, there was but one only place for Legal worship, meaning Sacrifices and the Service accompanying them; for otherwise they had many Synagogues for he • ing the Law read and expounded. Jerusalem itself had four hundred, and in those the Scribes bore rule, as the Priests did in the Temple. But the reason why there was but one Temple, and place of Sacrifice and Prayer, was, for a Type of that one only Mediator Jesus Christ, in whom alone our sins are expiated, and our prayers and thanksgivings accepted before God: So that in the time of the Law to build an holy Altar or offer Sacrifices anywhere but here, though it were unto the true God, was a Typical Idolatry, because it implied a multiplicity of Mediators, of whose Oneness the one only place of worship and the one Altar was a sign; which was the reason why it was so unlawful to sacrifice in the high places, though it were unto the Lord their God: And yet because it was but a ceremonial sin, God did in the confused times of that Church sometimes pass by it, as it were, because of the hardness of their hearts, as our Savior saith in another kind. But he that did dispense with an irregularity in figure because of the state of the times, will never allow Idolatry in deed, such as is that of the Church of Rome, who fulfil the very substance of that whereof the Jewish sin was but a Type, whose Mediators are so many that they are not easily numbered: and though they for excuse subordinate them all to Christ as the chief, and derive their Mediatorship from the virtue of his merits; yet is this but like unto that of the erring Church of the Law, which, notwithstanding God's commandment to the contrary, had a conceit that they might sacrifice in any high place, so it were unto the Lord their God only.
The third and last thing which these words imply is, That this select and only place [unspec 3] should be of the Lord's own choosing; The place he shall choose. But how should the Lord choose it? it seems, by giving some extraordinary sign of his allowance in accepting their Sacrifice; or it may be they did consult him in this case by the Oracle of Vrim and Thummim. For of the first place, in Shiloh, we have nothing expressed, but only read Joshua 18. 1. That the whole Congregation of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the Tabernacle of the Congregation there. But of the second place, in Mount Zion, we read, That the Angel of God commanded Gad to say to David, that he should set up an Altar in the threshing-floor of Ornan; and that when David offered thereon burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, the Lord answered him from heaven by fire upon the Altar of burnt-offering; and that David hereupon designed that place for the Tabernacle, and future Temple, saying, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the Altar of the burnt-offering for Israel, 1 Chron. 22. 1.
Now to make some application of this to the times of the Gospel. The two last circumstances of this place concern us not: For that of one place was a Type, and so is gone: the second, of God's immediate choice, seems to be so also, and to be a figure of that which the Angel Gabriel said to the blessed Virgin, Hail thou highly favored, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst Women: where God chooses the womb of Mary wherein to erect that pure Altar and Temple whereof the Legal were but shadows. Thus these two circumstances seem no ways to bind us. But the first, That there should be select places for holy Assemblies and the public worship of God, this is that which was before the Law was given, and yet remains in force now the Law is ended. As long as it is required of the Church to appear before the Lord in public Assemblies, so long is it also required to have chosen and select places for that purpose. Adam and his Sons had places whither to bring their Sacrifices; the Patriarchs used Altars, Mountains and Groves to the self-same purpose; from the very beginning of Christianity Christians have had their select Oratories. 1 Cor. 11. 22. S. Paul speaking of the Assemblies of the Church and some abuses therein, as eating and drinking, Have ye not (saith he) Houses to eat and drink in? or despise ye the Church of God? Here it appears that the place of holy Assemblies was not an ordinary place where men eat and drink, but a place select and set apart for holier purposes; which he yet more confirms when he addeth, v. 34. If any man hunger, let him eat at home: It follows hence, That the place of Holy Assemblies was no man's home, but a place hallowed unto God for the common use of the Church, howsoever these in the times of persecution so secret as not to be discovered by the Gentiles. What hath been the practice since in all Ages, he hath no eyes that sees not; and if there be any who cannot behold them without a desire to have them levelled, it were better their eyes were plucked out than so many monuments of our Forefathers piety should be thrown down and ruined, and God so unseemly and disorderly served, as he should be if (as Beggers do for lodging, so) his Assemblies were every week or month to seek a place of entertainment.
We are therefore as well as the Israelites to appear before the Lord in a chosen place. But here is the difference, that they were to have but one, we have liberty to have many; there God chose a place for himself, but we in the Gospel have liberty to choose a place for God where we will. Nevertheless it is to be observed, that the Leaders of the Primitive Church, howsoever they acknowledged this liberty, yet they used to select for their Assemblies such Places as God had any way dignified or honored either by some work of mercy, or the glorious sufferings of his Martyrs; whereupon the most ancient Monuments of the Christian Churches do mention the Assemblies of Christians In Coemeteriis Martyrum, at the Coemeteries and Monuments of their Martyrs. For howsoever God did not immediately select the place of his worship then, as he did in the time of the Law; yet they thought he had made these places of a choicer fitness than other, though none of necessary obligation: which I for my part would be loath to condemn as an error; seeing to follow the order of the Church of Israel by • way of direction and not obligation, is no abridgment to Christian liberty, so it be only so far and in those things only whereof Christianity is capable, as I think this we speak of was; though I know it was afterward an occasion of damnable Idolatry, use of erecting Temples unto Saints and Angels. But what is there which the corrupt nature of man will not make an occasion of sin? Even as an unclean body of the best nourishment will breed evil humors: So out of the most wholesome ordinances our wicked hearts will contrive superstition.
DISCOURSE XLVIII.
DEUTERONOMY 16. 16, 17.
IN these words being a commandment for the observation of the three solemn and principal Feasts of the Law, were Four things considerable. 1. The Work or action; To appear before the Lord: 2. The Persons who; All Males: 3. The Place where; In the place the Lord shall choose: 4. The Time when; Thrice in the Year: In the Feast of unleavened bread, In the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles. Of the three first, the Action, the Persons, and Place, I have spoken. Now therefore I come to speak of the Time, The Feast of unleavened bread, &c. [unspec IV]
The Feast of unleavened Bread is that which is otherwise called The Feast of the Passover, consisting of seven days, from the fifteenth of March until the twenty first. On the Even before this solemn Feast, the fourteenth day of the first month, was killed and eaten the Paschal Lamb; on the seven days following were offered the Paschal Sacrifices, and no other Bread but unleavened eaten; the first and last days being days of holy Assemblies or Convocations.
The Feast of Weeks was a Feast kept at the end of seven Weeks, or a Week of Weeks, after the second day of the Passover, or fifty days after the first day of the Feast of unleavened bread; and therefore called The Feast of Weeks, that is, a Feast to be kept a Week of Weeks after the Passover; and