A Century of Sermons
After this hear the words which our Savior spake to the women. St. Paul heard his voice from heaven, but did not at first see him. St. Stephen saw him stand at the right hand of God, but did not hear him speak, these persons had the blessedness both to hear him and see him, and his tunable voice gave them this salutation before they spake to him, all hail. It is no question but Christ spake unto them in the Syrian or in the Hebrew tongue, and their word of love and courtesy to one another when they met, was shalom, or peace. And so the Syrian Paraphrast renders these words of my Text, pax vobis, peace be unto you. But the Evangelist hath kept the Greek form of salutation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 rejoice. The Latin tongue useth that word which was usual in the mouth of the Romans, when they gave the wishes of a good day unto any, avete, an old Latian word, whose meaning themselves did not know. The Poet Martial was a good Critick that confessed it. Exprimere Rufe fidicula licet cogant Ave latinum, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 non potes Gracum. Now at last to descend to our language, we express it as you read it, all hail, which is a Saxon ideom for all health. The optative form of the Hebrews was Peace, of the Greeks Joy (they were merry Greeks ) of us English health. The common custom was, that friends should meet friends with auspicious words, with congratulation of happiness one to another, whensoever they came together upon appointment, or incidentary occasions. Among the Heathen Humanity, and Civility, among us Christians Brotherly love is the original to salute one another with a Prayer when we meet. But who is he among an hundred that thinks the name of God, and a Prayer is in his mouth, when he bids a Good morrow, or a Good even to his Neighbor; he hath no perceivance of his all hail, or of those charitable words that come from him. He doth not bless his Brother after the meaning of the phrase, but he talks by rote like a Parrot. And as it is most supine negligence to mean no good in our salutation, and will fall into the condemnation of idle words, so it is most devilish to give the outward salute of good words, and to have war in our heart. As Joab spake peaceably to Abner, that is saluted him, and then smote him that he died: as Judas gave all hail to his Master, and betrayed him with a signal of a courtesy. A familiar thing in this wicked world, to bid God save, and God speed to them whose destruction we covet, and to think of cursing in our heart at the same instant when the form of blessing is in our mouth. Shame be to our dissimulation that it is but a form. It began to be so odious among the Heathen to salute out of wanton fashion, when they meant no kindness, that it grew in use among them to confirm their Greetings with an oath. In one of Terence his Comedies this passage is between two Servants, Salve mecastor Parmeno, & tu aedipol Syra, they swore they did verily mean them all the good wherewith they saluted them. But this would not mend the matter in our dissembling age, for we have many that will salute, and swear, and yet intend mischief to their neighbor, and so will mix malice with perjury. I leave them to the bitterness of their own sins, and to have their portion with Hypocrites. I am sure the salutation of our Savior did really bring peace, and joy, and health to them that were saluted. Gaudere ease jubet, quae condemnatae erant ad habendum merorem, says Euthymius, womenkind in Eve was condemned to sorrow, Gen. iii. Now Christ bids them rejoice, and obliterates the handwriting of sorrow that was against them. Avete, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; now be merry and joyful, now that you have seen with your eyes that Christ is the resurrection and the life: the Heavens and all the powers therein, Archangels and Angels, Patriarchs and Prophets, all Saints must be glad at those news; all hail to this day, for all the Feasts and Sundays of the year borrow their festivity from Easterday. This is the day which the Lord hath made, &c.
It is an easy thing to make us break out into carnal and voluptuous joy, but it is not easy to make us apprehend spiritual joy. Christ spake the good word unto the women all hail, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , rejoice, There is somewhat in original sin which makes us great misdeemers: it is not one 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that will set us right: though Christ himself pronounced it there were some signs which betrayed these parties that they were sore affrighted, they said nothing for ought appears, and therefore it is likely they were stricken dumb with the astonishment: their countenance I suppose changed, and every joint of them shaked when they held him by the feet, and therefore the gracious Lord adds be not afraid. We may put it at large thus, I come as a friend, I have saluted you with peace and joy, therefore be not afraid of me as if I were an enemy. So Josephs Brethren being mistrustful of some great evil were enheartned by Josephs Steward, Peace be unto you, fear not, Gen. xliii. 23. The comfort of the salutation was reinforced by this consolation, that there was no cause to fear. When reason hath repulsed the fallacies of our passions by good arguments, fear will diminish by little and little. But here's a case wherein reason could afford no succor; for what could reason conceive touching the resurrection of the dead? It is a dreadful thing to man's wit, let it be never so dispassionated, to see one come alive out of the Grave: for it is a most natural thing for a man to tremble when he sees an accident far above nature; therefore the exhortation must proceed from Christ, and supernatural grace in such an instance as this: Fear not. The Angels said as much unto them before in the same syllables, he is risen, and be not afraid. Comfortable speeches indeed, yet they did not take; it required a greater Doctor than they to inculcate that Lesson. Christ preacheth it, and it took effect, they did remit of their fear; for the Angels spake unto the ear, and Christ unto the heart. And when the conscience is enlightened by grace, it cannot choose but see, that the greatest avoider of fear is to know that Christ is risen from the dead. Death is called the King of terrors by Job, as being the strongest of earthly fears, and yet this is quite assuaged in them that have an assured hope of joyful resurrection. Wy boastest thou thyself thou Tyrant, that thou canst kill the body, death is not extinction, but an intermission of life: My bones shall be covered again, when worms have eat my flesh, and with mine eyes I shall see my Savior. It is the Whetstone of fortitude in battle, and in all dangers, scelus est rediturae parcere vitae: who but a base mind will dastardly preserve that life which shall return again? An application of the Holy Spirit will make a good Christian as stout as a Lion, setting the most valiant object of the Resurrection before him. Though the Pharisees would hate them to death that should testify how Christ was raised in power; though the Scouts of the High Priest were abroad to note them in the black book that travel'd about that errand; though the Soldiers were grim and cruel, and would spare none that should refute their falsehood, that the Disciples had taken away the Body while they slept, yet these weak women dare do anything to confront the evil world, since Christ had said unto them, be not afraid.
After this they have a Commission to dispatch and depart, Go tell my Brethren: they must not stay and dispute it, Lord whither should we go, thou hast the words of eternal life, send us not away from thee, for in thy presence there is the fullness of joy. If the Blessed Virgin was not happy that her paps gave him suck, but that she heard the word of God and kept it, then it was no happiness to see Christ, or to touch his feet, but to do his will and obey it. It was not a time to feed still upon this gladness, and to stay with him, but go and impart it. There was a season when Mary Magdalene was commended for sitting still at his feet, and choosing the better part, but now blessed are the feet that stir and walk upon this errand to bring glad tidings of salvation. As the Samaritan Woman did well not to stay with Christ, but it was better to go into the City, and to tell her kindred that she had found the Messias. Beside, their Commission was a special dignity to go from him, and to bring a Message to the Disciples: neither did they pretext as Moses did, we are ignorant women, (slow of speech, let Aaron rather be sent) unfit for the preaching of these mysteries. Christ knew what sufficiency and aptitude was in them better than themselves, and therefore they must undertake to go to the chief Princes of the Church, to them that succeeded Aaron in his Bishopric. The Apostles lurkt at home for fear, so that Christ was fain to find out new Apostles to preach him, these Daughters of Jerusalem. And as their Commission had dignity in it, so it was very pleasing, and full of sweet address to those that sat disconsolate: Go tell my Brethren: they that run away from him, and forsook him, did not look, it may be, for so sweet a Title: No doubt their hearts did catch at it as soon as ever they heard it, like those that came from the King of Syria, thy Brother Benhadad. The Angels did not give them this style, but plainly thus, Go tell his Disciples; and it was well, considering their fault, that they did not lose the name of Disciples; but Christ exceeds the Angels in loving kindness, and is not ashamed to call them Brethren, Hebr. ii. 11. But the more he advanceth his Servants in title, the more ought they to depress themselves; the more he calls us Brethren, the more let us cast ourselves down before him as Servants to the Mighty Lord. This also they learnt into the advantage, that now Christ was risen in immortality, he had not put on another body, or changed his nature: he is still as we are in his fleshly substance, and therefore calls his Disciples Brethren. And this we are taught likewise, that he doth acknowledge them for his Brethren, after he appeared in glory: even as Joseph claimed kindred of his Brethren in the top of his honor. Haughty men will forget their old acquaintance when they rise unto promotion; but in true morality, amicitia non dissolvitur per fortunae accessionem, a true friend will persist a friend, though he ascend to a noble accession of fortune. Christ being made the greatest that ever was upon earth calls these Fishermen his Brethren.
Lastly, as their Commission had dignity, and sweetness in it, so they were sent with profitable tidings, to tell the Disciples they must go into Galilee, and there they should see the Lord. What ailed them, I may say, that they were not already gone into Galilee? for Christ had told them, Mat. xxvi. 22. When I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee. Nay albeit the Women repeated this unto them they did not stir. What? though they would not go with him to his Cross, would not they remove into Galilee when they were warned by Christ, and now readmonished by the Women? What might it be that hindered them? shall I tell you what I think? they had forgotten what Christ said; and the tidings of the women made them keep closer to that place where they were. Can it be that these women saw him in Jerusalem? then surely say they the Lord will appear unto us in this City, though we do not travel into Galilee. But why did the Lord appoint the great intercourse between him and his Disciples in Galilee? First it was remote from Jerusalem, where much danger was, there he might discourse with his Disciples with more privacy and security. Secondly the Apostles were all Galileans, and for their sakes he did this honor to their Country. Thirdly, to eject Satan out of his possession, for it was a place of much sin, called a place of darkness, and the land of the shadow of death, Isa. ix. 2. Fourthly, there were many Disciples in Galilee, and Christ had intended a famous meeting to appear to them all at once, as some say on Mount Thabor, where he was transfigur'd; and that here it was where he was seen of more than five hundred Brethren at once. Be it as it would be, he promiseth they should see him there; and he was better than his promise, for upon this day at Even they saw him at Jerusalem. Here is nothing that savors of any old grudge or displeasure, no repealing of the former promise, because they had forsaken him in the Garden, but a confirmation of all loving kindness passed, and an exceeding favor superadded: that their souls might not be tortured with that long procrastination, not to see him till they went into Galilee, he prevented the time, and appeared to them in their own Chamber before they slept. To this Christ who is faithful in promises, and gracious in loving kindness be all glory. AMEN.
THE NINTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION.
MAT. xxviii. 13.
Say ye, his Disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.
I N the Parable where the King made a Marriage for his Son (and I may truly apply it, this day was the glorious Nuptial of the Son of God ) but in that Parable, the Servants went out for Guests into the high ways, and gathered together all, as many as they found, good and bad. So the Evangelists have filled up the story of our Savior's Resurrection, with all kind of Circumstances of Saints and Reprobates, truth and fictions, good and bad. It is agreed by them who have exactly wrote an harmony of the Gospels, that Christ made five Apparitions, and no fewer, all of them upon this triumphant day, after he was risen from the dead, to the devoutest of all others, men and women, that loved the Lord. The first, to Mary Magdalene; The second, to the other Women that were going from the Sepulcher to tell the Disciples what the Angels had said unto them; The third, to Peter, Luc. xxiv. 34. The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. 1 Cor. xv. 5. Seen of Cephas, then of the Twelve; The fourth, to Cleophas and the other Disciple toward the setting of the Sun, to whom he was known in the breaking of bread. The fifth, to the Disciples late that night. Whereas they had received a Message to go into Galilee, and there they should see the Lord, yet out of fear and incredulity they moved not out of doors. Therefore on the same day at Evening, being the first day of the Week, when the doors were shut where the Disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst of them, and said, Peace be unto you. And howsoever some of those portions of Scripture are read for the Gospel tomorrow, some for next Sunday, yet all those five Apparitions happened upon this one day. He appeared so often to the best of those that loved him, but the relation of his Resurrection was made also on this day to the worst of those that hated him. The Angels spake it to the Women in the hearing of the Soldiers that he was risen to life; the news went from bad to worse, the Soldiers tell the High Priests and Elders what they had heard and seen; the High Priests again sophisticate the news, and tell them fraudulently to Pilate for the Soldiers safety; then Pilate and the High Priests agreeing together fill the whole Nation of the Jews by their cunning with incredulity.
Look not therefore to hear me speak at this time of those good Saints, to whom the mystery of Christ's Resurrection was the savor of life unto life, but of those wicked Infidels, who by their own impiety made it unto themselves the savor of death unto death. There is not one good person within the compass of the story, whereof my Text is a part. It is Manipulus zizaniorum; If ever, according to the Parable, God sent his Angel to gather the worst Tares in one bundle by themselves, here they are. The High Priests prevaricating with God and his Angels, the Soldiers corrupted, Pilate the Governor misperswaded, the people wholly seduced, bad is the best: Yet St. Matthew, and no other Evangelist, hath interserted this piece of treachery among the other sweet Narrations of this most happy day. And for these causes, if St. Chrysostom hit it right, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , truth will have the better audience, when it passeth through the mouths of most contrary Authors, say not that his Disciples, and such Women as had Christ in admiration, spread these things abroad, for the malignant Soldiers speak the same. 2. That we may see that very hour, when God did first smite the Jews with that vertiginous spirit to hearken to Cabalistical Legends, to the doting dreams of the Rabbin's, as they do at this day, that is in St. Paul's Phrase, to profane and old Wives Fables. For indeed this Text is a mere Romancy, as arrant a Jewish Fable as ever was told: A Conspiracy so full of rotten Fictions, that nothing is true in it all, but that it is a Conspiracy, and that it is a Fiction. 1. Then we must bolt out the Confederates, Gebal and Ammon join together the High Priests, the Elders, and the Soldiers. 2. The way of Confederacy is by putting a forged Tale in the Soldiers mouths, they must avouch anything that the Priests suborn, Ye shall say. 3. The Plot is collaterally against the Disciples for being 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , breakers up of Graves, and robbers of the dead, Say ye his Disciples came by night. 4. The main intended contrivance was to discredit the true Doctrine of our Savior's Resurrection, Say ye his Disciples came by night and stole him away. 5. In the last place I will handle the improbability of all, of what contradictions the Plot consists, never to be pieced together, for all this, if it like you, must be done while they slept. Say ye, &c.
The Text being part of a Confabulation of some that laid their heads together to do mischief, in the first place it will be most proper to speak of these Confederates. On the one part, to see that men of the best gifts and qualities are the most wicked Sons of Belial when they are left to themselves, they are of no worse credit and calling than High Priests and Elders. The selected Tribe of God to burn Incense to his name, and offer Sacrifice continually, the eyes of the people for counsel, and their tongue to pray for them: So blessed by Jacob, and by Moses in the name of their Father Levi, that nothing but such an horrid sin as a conspiracy against Christ could unbless them again. Every house thought itself happy to receive one of that order, so Micah of Mount Ephraim; every Lot of Israel took them for innocent and unsuspected, as it is 1 Mach. vii. 14. One that is a Priest of the Seed of Aaron is come, and he will do us no harm. Marcus dixit, ita est, their word was Law, and their righteousness unquestioned. All this credit they had, that now the Devil might use them the better to suppress a manifest truth. When one did highly commend Julian the Cardinal the Popes Legate at the Council of Basil, Sigismund the Emperor answers, Tamen Romanus est; for all your great commendation this man is a Roman; So the High Priests sat in Moses Chair, were zealous of the Law, fasted, looked sowerly, pretended much affection to the Temple of the Lord, Tamen sunt Pharisaici, for all this praise they tasted deeply of the Leaven of the Pharisees, and envied it that God himself should send his own Son to have more authority among the people, or to be greater in estimation than they; such as loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. That was a mild character of our Savior's; but the meaning of it is, they had rather conjure with Hell to maintain their Error, than retract it with open repentance, and incur a little shame for their former obstinacy. When Lazarus was raised from the dead, and all the people wondered at it, presently the High Priests warn their Council to meet, (for upon every good deed they fell a conspiring) and the matter propounded to the Council was, What do we? For this man doth many Miracles. O fools, and slow of heart! If he do many Miracles, what should ye do? But confess him to be the Son of God, and fall down and worship him. "Is Lazarus revived to their knowledge? And doth it not say unto "them, why will ye perish and not believe? Nay, God invited them thus far, that those mighty sinners, the Authors that put Christ to death, heard of his Resurrection on this day within a little while after he was risen, and by their own Ministers, such as were of their own Faction, that watched the Sepulcher, those told them very certain tidings, that an Angel of God had said to certain devout women, He is risen, he is not here. They saw it, they heard it, they quak'd for fear and felt it, they could not be mistaken. O God what abundant means were these, to let them know the truth and be saved? For all this they are at their old santez, What do we? This man is risen from the dead, let us cast a mist before men's eyes, that they may never believe it. Thus that which should have begot Faith in them begot madness; and that heart will never be well softened which is hardened with the very grace of God. Was Pharaoh ever religiously mollified that wax'd stubborn after so many Messages which Moses brought, after so many Plagues on Earth, so many Wonders from Heaven? He never had a true relenting heart that dodg'd the grace of God so often. Beloved, that Pharaoh, and these High Priests, let them be your examples, what a fearful thing it is to make ill use of those good means which are ordained for your salvation.
But I am not yet off from the main Point, the Priests are one part of this wicked combination, and they invited the Soldiers to join with them in the Plot against Christ's Resurrection, and undertake for another Plot, to make Pilate wink at all passages, and be pleased, Davos Davos omnia, these are the wits that carry the whole stratagem before them. For what Impostures will not pass for fair dealing when they are recommended upon the credit of the Chief Priests? Iis qui occaecantur authoritate sacerdotali facile pro veritate obtruditur mendacium. When well meaning men have the persons of some great Clerks in reverence, and think the Spirit of God is among them; how easy it is to fall into great errors upon that trust? That it is no wonder if many stick obstinately to Popish superstition, whose eyes are dazzled with Pontifical Authority. Woe be to them who are rotten in their own foundation, and yet inveigle others to build upon their conscience. And mark who those others were, whom the High Priests made their Confederates, some of those Soldiers that watched the Sepulcher. So the Fox and the Lion are yoked together, Vulpina pellis & leomna; force and policy, wit and violence. The Sword of Paul, as Pope Julian the Second said, with the Keys of Peter.
Some of the Watch came into the City, and shown the High Priests all things that were done, ver. 11. At first they told the certainty of Christ's Resurrection, and gave God the glory; and made a just Apology for themselves, that they were charged indeed to look to the Tomb, that the body which was in it might be kept safe, and unremoved; but some dreadful Powers from above came down, and broke open the Sepulcher; who could blame them therefore that they did not fight against Heaven? If they might have been let alone to themselves, they had said no more, and gone away well excused. But the High Priests, more unjust by far than these Heathen, make them unsay every word, which they had spoken true, and scandalize God's name among the Heathen, by teaching them to blaspheme. A very hard case, that in all likelihood these had been far more honest and sincere if they had never consulted with those that by their Duty and Office were their Teachers. But a little matter, alas, draws men into the high-way of iniquity, and the Priests could no sooner propound treachery, but the Soldiers are in the knot. First, they carry more reverence to man than unto God, and conjoined to betray the greatest Article of truth in all the Gospel to do their friends a favor. Secondly, See how soon the wicked forget into what great fear they were put, it was but even now that they quaked, and became as dead men at the Apparition of an Angel, their sin was before their eyes, that they should watch his Sepulcher, of whom the Prophet had said, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption; the guiltiness of this took all their courage from them, yet within two hours after at the most they are deeper in the same wickedness than ever they were before, as if the terrible admonition they had early in the Morning had been seven years since, or before man's remembrance. So let the Plague, or Famine, or Sword of the Enemy be removed from a Nation, in one year, nay, in one month you shall see the sins of wont and custom as high and as rise, as if that People had never been beaten with such calamity. When Moses had interceded to God to rid away some sore judgment from Pharaoh, after a little pause he was never the better: But when Pharaoh saw there was respite, he hardened his heart, Exod. viii. 15. So the Soldiers seeing there was respite, and that the revenging Angel did not follow them at the heels, fall immediately in a little space into a fouler service than before. Thirdly, As the saying is very true, Facinus, quos inquinat, aequat; great men lose much of their superiority and power when they match themselves with their underlings in a bad deed; the basest servants are their equals when they have made them consorts in their iniquity. The High Priests lost all their veneration in the esteem of these Soldiers when they were guilty one to another of a mutual Confederacy. They should and would have been as fearful to do any wicked thing in the presence of the High Priests as in the presence of an Angel; but now they carry no awe at all to them who had forgot their reverence to their God.
Fourthly, We read at verse 11. they were but some of the Watch that concurred in this devilish stratagem against Christ, and his Disciples, but the Chief Priests are indefinitely named, not some of them, but the whole Fraternity, for none are excepted. So divers Synods of Christian Priests and Bishops have with one mouth protested against the Faith, with one Pen subscribed to Heresy, so that the unity of Priests, let some say what they will, is not always a token of God's Spirit upon them, but sometimes of Satanical Confederacy. Of the Soldiers, who watched the Sepulcher, but one part only came into the City, and of that part it may be but a few of the chief sticklers consented to evil, the rest, perhaps, were like those two hundred in Jerusalem, who were called by Absalom to Hebron, of whom the Scripture witnesseth, That they went in their simplicity, knowing nothing. Among this Band of Soldiers, and among those that were tempted to tell the forgery, he that writes the Calendar of the Greek Saints, Simeon Metaphrastes, nominates one Longinus, and brings him in for a Saint on the Fifteenth of March, the next day after Christ was crucified. Metaphrastes hath patched together this Legend of him, that it was he who pierced our Savior's side with a Spear, and that a drop of the blood which streamed out fell upon the eye of Longinus, whereof he had lost the sight before by some mischance, and this drop of blood restored him to the sight, yea, and to the eyes of his mind, presently to confess Christ and believe. How will the next story hang with this? That for all his conversion and belief, he was by appointment of Pilate one of them that watched the Sepulcher of Christ; surely, all those were evil instruments, and the Angel handled them accordingly, by striking a fear into them like dead men. But proceed we, for Metaphrastes says, that Longinus, and two more with him, refused the evil ways of the High Priests, stiffly avouched the truth of the Resurrection, for which he incurred the great hatred of Pilate, and the Jews, and when they despited him for it he gave up his Soldiers Cassock, and Belt, would serve the Romans no more, went into Cappadocia to preach the Gospel, and became a Martyr. But that you may know Metaphrastes is no sure Author for Canonizing of Saints, Baronius at the end of this, and another story I shall tell you anon, bids the Reader beware, says he, As Paul admonisheth, prove all things, hold that which is good.
But before I leave this first Point of my Text, mark that, which is most apparent, how the Chief Priests and Soldiers pieced together, why the Elders and the Council gave large money to the Soldiers, like Claudius his Witnesses, of whom Tully says, they knew him to be a man of no faith, for they would not speak one word of his side till their hire was in their Pocket. Emitur à custodibus argento resurrectionis silentium; The Jews gave money to the Soldiers to keep the truth of the Resurrection in silence, and by so much the more is the Resurrection of Christ grown so famous, because this Bribery is so infamous, (they offer a little Silver to them that will conceal it, God doth infinitely out-bid them, and offers the Kingdom of Heaven to them that preach it, and publish it.) For the Pharisees, who, no doubt, were the principal in this action, were most greedy of gain, and loath to part with their substance, especially by the lump, wherefore they would never have given 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , large money, much more than they covenanted for, when they hired a Cohort to watch the Sepulcher, I say, they would never have given so much to the Soldiers to stop their mouth if there had been any probability left to out-face the truth; no certainly, if it had been possible, they would have brought them in for carelessness, or treachery, but the matter was clear, it could not be answered so; they must poison the whole Band with money, or the truth would come out to their shame and infamy. O what folly there is in the wisdom of the wicked? What prudent man would ever hope that a Multitude would keep counsel? That among so many Witnesses none would blab it out in a corner? That no Scoffer in the ranks would take their money, and laugh at them for their impiety? Or that God would not raise up some other faithful Witnesses though all these did continue in Perjury? It was a Proverb once in the Christian Church, that it had Golden Priests when it had Woodden Chalices, that is, a brave Clergy in the times of poverty and persecution; but when Riches flowed in, that they had Golden Chalices, they had for a great part but Woodden Priests. I find this most true in the Synagogue of the Jews, that in this Age they had more wealth than they knew how to use well, for in these three last Chapters of St. Matthew, four times, and no less, they did most grossly abuse that Talent which the Lord had given them: 1. They gave Judas thirty Pieces of Silver to betray his Master. 2. They were at charges to bribe a Multitude with swords and staves to take our Savior in the Garden. 3. They set a Watch to look to the Sepulcher, expense was drawn from them for that use. And 4. They gave large money to have the Soldiers say, as it is in my Text, His Disciples came, and stole him away by night. Pecuniam quae in usus templi data fuerat, vertunt in redemptionem mendacii, says St. Jerome; which I would English, They took a part of God's portion to see the Devil. One says, that this is a note of the Antichrist, Proditur venturus armatus pecuntis; a Tradition goes that he shall be full of money, able to bribe abundance to take his part, so that they shall maintain falsehoods and errors against their own conscience. Not unlikely to be true, and I am sure the mystery of Antichrist began betimes, even on this very day, and let us all take notice of it, to whom the Resurrection of our Savior is sweet and precious, what an horrid and Antichristian sin Bribery is, both in the Giver, and in the Taker, that the Devil did fly to that sin rather than any other, thereby to subvert the glory of God, and the dearest consolation of all Christians, the Resurrection of Jesus. As Brimstone will smell in Wollen, so all sorts of Bribery, intended to the prejudice of truth and innocence, smell of that abominable corruption which put the Chief Priests and the Soldiers into this deep confederacy, that shall be succinctly handled, now I have made the rest that follows more easy to be understood by opening the condition of the persons that carried the plot between them.
The way of the Confederacy follows, by putting a forged Tale in the Soldiers mouths, they must say anything that the Priests suborn, Say ye. There is a threefold lie, says St. Austin: 1. Vain Fiction, which doth neither harm nor good, Quod fit merâ mentiendi libidine, a mere trick of scurvy custom without any bad intention, yet this is a sin. 2. There is a lie which hurts one party to help another, and that is a greater sin than the first. 3. Tale est quod nulli prodest & obest alicui; there is a lie which is pernicious to some, and beneficial to none, that is worst of all; such stuff was this that was persuaded to the Soldiers. Roman Soldiers were wont to be commended for their fidelity above all Military men in the world, In Rom. militibus raro fides suit desiderata; They were very trusty and true in the praise of all Histories, and God gave them grace to bring truth with them as far as from the Sepulcher to the Council Chamber of the High Priests, but there they lost it, there they were bought out of it, and to this day the Jews, if they could, would make us unsay all the truth that we tell them. O beware of such as turn away their ears from the truth, and give heed unto Fables; especially, note those for the enemies of Christ, like these in my Text, that will hire others to forge, to dissemble, to forswear; these are they that drive the Devils Market, and they must look for the reward from him, he is their father, the father of lies and liars. But what reward shall be given thee thou false tongue? Even mighty and sharp Arrows, with hot burning coals.
We detest Baudes and Pandars very justly, the wicked dealers for other men's filthy Lusts: Ought not they to be as much detested (I think they ought) that are other men's hirelings and Instruments to vent their falsehoods and dissimulations. Anthimus, Bishop of Nicomedia, was inquired after to be put to death for being a Christian, and being found had the courtesy offered him by the Serjeants, that they would tell the Tyrant that sent them they could not find him, they were resolved to be so kind, and Anthimus had his leave to make an escape; but the thing wrought in his conscience, and rather than they should tell a lie for his sake, he went after them, and offered himself to suffer death. But Sisera was not so straight-laced, as we use to say, he would have been content, nay, he desired Jael, If any of the Persuers, asked for such a man, to say no man was there. This is the case which of all others may seem most plausible, whether one might be entreated to tell an untruth lawfully to save the life of another, that is followed by an enemy. St. Austin quickly resolves it, you must not do a wicked thing to save your own life, much less doth it urge you to corrupt your own soul to save another man's body. So he doth extol Firmus Bishop of Tagastum, Firmus nomine, firmior voluntate; into whose house a fearful person fled for fear of Assassinates, and being asked for him, Respondit nec mentiri se posse, nec hominem prodere; he answered, he must not lie, and he would not betray a man to them that thirsted for his blood, and from this answer he would not be beaten with many wounds. O take not away from me thy truth, says David; not Eloquence, nor a shrill voice like a Symbal, nor a musical warbling as sweet as a Syren, none of these are the honor of a man's lips, truth goes beyond them all. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Synesius; A word truly spoken is nobly born, falsehood and lies are beggarly begotten, that is, either out of foolish easiness, or out of fear, or out of base reward, as when the Soldiers had the Bribe in their hand, they must say anything that was put into their mouths, Say ye.
Say ye: Why let such as they are talk their pleasure; But who would believe them? A lie hath a kind of croaking harshness in it at any time, especially from such reporters as these. I am induced to suppose that the High Priests were half jealous of them, that all was not Gospel which they related about the Angels appearing, and the body risen, and would they have the people trust them more than they did? But here was God's judgment upon that stiff-necked Nation, though these were heathen men, without God in the world, vile Mercenarie witnesses, of no credit, yet their tale was received of the Jews as if Moses had brought it; and it is reported commonly to this day, says St. Matthew. If St. Matthew meant at that day when he wrote his Gospel, that was eight years after, says Theophylact. Justin Martyr says, that in his days, more than an hundred years after, it was taken up among the Jews for a true story, and that they wrote Letters to their Countrymen over all the world, to assure them it was so, and no otherwise. But in holy Scripture that phrase, to this day, notes the durance, and long continuance of a thing, the twelve stones which Joshua set up on the banks of Jordan are there to this day; after Dagon fell on the Threshold, the Priests of Baal tread not on the Threshold to this day, so this figment was commonly reported among the Jews long after, that is, unto this day. See what Prophets were their Instructors, after they had set their heart to resist the truth; Testimonium Martyrum nolunt audire ut vivant, & testimonium dormientium receperunt ut pereant; They stop their ears at the Doctrine of the holy Martyrs that invite them to eternal life, and receive the witness of Soldiers, that belie themselves, saying, they slept and did not; and belie Christ and his victory over the Grave, saying, that such men, as I think, they knew not, His Disciples came and stole him away by night. Attend potiùs eum qui emit te, non eum qui mendacium emit tibi. Listen unto Christ, and learn of him who hath bought thee with a price, with the price of his own blood to inherit eternal life; listen not to them that gave a price of money to buy a lie, whereby thou shalt be swallowed up of eternal death. And beware to be either active or passive in false subornations, either the giver or the taker. Beware of lying lips, and a deceitful tongue, all these are most odious for their sakes that would have undermined the credit of our Savior's Resurrection. Wherefore putting away all lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Buy the truth, and sell it not, Prov. xxiii. 23.
Now the Jews have rigg'd their Witnesses, and set them forth so well greazed in the hand that they dare say anything; We are come in the third place to that which they must say: First, They must lop at the branches, and strike at the root afterward, the Disciples must be first drawn into danger; that they are breakers open of graves, and robbers of the dead, his Disciples came by night. Poor souls, they thought they had taken the safest way that the wit of man could invent to escape both envy and danger, they were shut up, stir'd not abroad, meddled with nothing; but let a man live as private as he can, as retired as he can, if malice mean him an ill turn it shall fall upon him; Christ was private enough in Mount Olivet, yet there he was attached. And it is an argument unto us, that many times they fared better through God's providence, who adventured themselves abroad in ill times, and contested for the name of Christ, rather than they that out of human providence would hide themselves and their gifts for fear like a Candle under a Bushel. But whether in a private or in a public life the Disciple is not better than his Master. If Christ's Doctrine and Miracles were so ill entertained by the Pharisees, that they hated him to the death, yea, and beyond death; his Ministers shall feel their anger before the storm be ended; the very name of a Disciple was grown a taunt and reproach. The Synagogue thought it had called the blind man all to naught, when they said of him in their passion, Thou art his Disciple, Joh. ix. This is an infallible character of a base and ignoble spleen to grudge at all those that depend upon such as they persecute, to despite the poor Disciples for Christ's sake. As Zedekiah commanded not only Jeremiah the Prophet to be laid up in Prison, but Baruch his Scribe to be apprehended, Jer. xxxvi. 26. And the Jews, when they could not tear Paul in pieces, nor come at him, they beat Sosthenes his Companion, whom he had converted to the faith, Act. xviii. The old devilish State rule was, leave no whelps living of the brood of a Lion: so the Pharisees would destroy all those whom Christ had gathered about him, if these were made away they thought there was not a tongue left that would wag to offend them with this truth, that Christ was risen from the dead.
His Disciples came by night; did they, will you stand to it? then call the Disciples and the Soldiers face to face, and examine them before Pilate: reus ore proprio respondere debet, it is the Law of Nations and Nature, that the accused in all Courts of the world must speak for themselves against their accusers, this is most indifferent justice it cannot be denied, to believe a tale against a man without suffering him to say what he can for his innocence, is barbarous and inhumane proceeding. He that came to the Marriage Chamber not having on a Wedding Garment, was not cast forth till he became speechless, and could not answer: But the Disciples have no shadow of law or trial permitted unto them, but are impleaded and condemned behind their backs, his Disciples came by night. Since they were not permitted to say ought to clear themselves, I will anticipate a little of the last point, and say one thing for them, how improbable this defamation was, with little partiality to their person. They that ran away in the Garden from their Master when he was alive, because a few Bandogs of the High Priests had him in their teeth, how durst they adventure against an whole Cohort of Soldiers to come near his Sepulcher when he was dead? though one of them drew a sword, and smote a Servant of the High Priests, it was before Christ was griped in their clutches; but since they saw him dead, nil iste nec ausus, nec potuit, their hearts fainted, they shut themselves close, and durst not be known where they were, are these likely to rescue their Masters Body from a Roman Garrison? Loquere verisimilia, speak likelihoods, though they be falsehoods. Good wits says one love to make discoveries of treasons where there are none, it makes their own perspicacy and discerning admired, but they do it upon seeming and strong conjectures, but here is no scent in this tale to follow it to any probability. The truth is a knavish wit might have found out many more colorable evasions, but with this fiction, if it took, the High Priests set forth themselves not only for wise men, but to have Prophesy and Divination in their spirit; for in the former chapter, verse 64. they request Pilate, that he would command the Sepulcher should be made sure, lest his Disciples come by night and steal him away: No better excuse therefore to advance their credit to be Divine and Prophetical, than to charge the Disciples with the same fact, even as they had foretold it a day before. Nonne sex totos menses priùs olfecissem? says old Demea: So these were such cunning men, that they had the Disciples plot in the wind, before ever it was intended. Silly fellows, God wot, for all this cunning, fifty days full had not run on after Christ rose from the dead, but St. Peter and his Associates filled all Jerusalem with their Doctrine, that Jesus was risen from the dead, and that He whom they had crucified was both Lord and God. Where were their wits to foresee this and prevent it? and when the fame of it was openly begun, how will they mend it? lay not night works to the Disciples charge, as if they durst not avouch the Resurrection but in darkness, dies diei eructat verbum, one day certifieth another, and one night telleth another, that Christ rose by his own virtue, and by no fraud of the Disciples to turn the nights of ignorance into manifest light, and to bring us from the night of Hell and the Grave into everlasting day.
But the malignance of the High Priests against the Disciples was a less crime than their envy against the glory of Christ, that's the fourth point of my division, and their main drift to discredit the true Doctrine of his Resurrection, Say ye his Disciples came by night and stole him away. Virtutem magistri faciunt esse discipulorum crimen; these are rotten Jewish Fables, for Christ rose by his own virtue, and was not surreptitiously conveyed away, but they make this Divine virtue in Christ to be an hellish vice in the Disciples; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , breakers up of Monuments of the dead, a most infamous crime, in the judgment of all Laws, Heathen and Christian, accounted among the Enditements of Sacrilege, not only because the Corps is laid up in a place, but because the body of a Christian is sacrum depositum, interred in an assured hope of the Resurrection. It was hateful in the very Beasts to root up the Carkasses of the dead; Aristotle imputes it to the ravening Hyaena, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to long for the flesh of man, and therefore to turn up his Grave to devour him; and Pliny adds to it, that it is commonly believed, ab hôc uno animali sepulchra erui inquisitione mortuorum, that no brutish creature but that Hyaena is so brutish, to despoil the dead in their Sepulchers: but if any men or women did trespass in this kind, as more savage than beasts, either they were accounted Witches, that ransacked for somewhat to make incantations, or the most odious kind of Thieves, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , such as stripped the dead for their Winding-sheet. Pope Sergius found out another way, neither of the former, but for a worse end, if worse might be than Witchcraft; for after his Predecessor Pope Formosus was dead, he caused his body to be taken up, arraigned it at the Bar, cut off an hand or some fingers from it in disgrace, and then threw him into Tybris. But the Disciples are charged with an Enterprize more scandalous and wicked than all these, to steal their Master out of his Monument, and then to preach a new Religion to the World, that He was risen from the dead.
The Cretans are always liars, says Paul, Tit. i. 12. not as they were Cretans, as if that were a National vice, St. Paul did not revile the whole Nation, but because they gave heed to Jewish Fables. This one Jewish Fable, if they had no more falsehoods, is so contagious that it envenoms the whole truth of Christianity: For if Christ be not risen from the dead, then is all our faith in vain, 1 Cor. xv. but the vanity was the High Priests, vanitas vendens vanitatem, in St. Austin's words: For although they might color this Allegation, that the Disciples undertook this cozenage for the honor of Christ, who had foretold, that if the Temple of his body were destroyed he would raise it up again in three days, yet would they have been imprisoned and scourged, yea and died for the testification of the Resurrection, if they had been guilty of such false play, that this was nothing so, but that they had stolen away the body? It makes much for the confirmation of our faith, that the Soldiers and the Jews complain Christ's body was not in the Sepulcher on the third day. Hereupon S. Chrysostom framed this Logical dilemma against their infidelity: The body of Jesus which was deposed in the Grave, in that Grave on which you rolled a great stone, and sealed it with a Seal; how comes it to be missing? either it is risen, or stolen away: how could it be stolen away, when you set it to be watched with a Band of Soldiers: the theft might have been suspected if you had not hired so many to watch and look to it, but your own suspicion and policy hath shut you out from that excuse; therefore it must be that the third day he rose again from the dead: Aut mortuum nobis reddant Judaei, cujus custodiam susceperunt, aut vivum adorent; since the Jews took the care and custody of his body, either let them bring him forth dead, or worship him, as we do, that lives for evermore, and is the Fountain of Life. Gregorius Turonensis tells a story (but Baronius says you shall choose whether you will believe it) yet he avers he took it out of those Letters which Pilate wrote to Tiberias the Emperor, how the Pharisees and Rulers were most offended at Joseph of Arimathaea for begging the Body of Jesus to bury it, and committed him to a Prison which had no doors, but letting him in at the Seiling, and closed it up again, but an Angel of God made the walls to open and shut again, and brought him out. Afterwards the Priests being angry at the Soldiers upon the first report that the Body of Christ was gone, the Soldiers contested with them, reddite vos Joseph, & nos reddemus Christum; do you tell us what is become of Joseph whom you kept, and we will tell you what is become of Christ whom we kept. Every figment and device of the High Priests was retorted upon them, but the Devil had emboldened them to say anything, or to do anything against the Resurrection. St. Bernard makes an elegant allusion upon it thus, Senior frater occisum nobis saginatum vitulum indignatur, foris stat, omnino non acquiescit intrare, as the elder Son in the Parable was offended that the fatted Calf was killed for his younger brother, he would not come in a-doors, he refused to mix with his fathers Family; so the Jews are displeased that Christ is sacrificed for us Gentiles, they come not to our Churches, they despise our Congregations. O says the Father, if his Cross doth scandalize you, let his Resurrection confirm you: you say let him come down from the Cross, and we will believe him, si non creditis resurgenti, utique nec credidissetis descendenti, if you will not believe in him now he is risen to life again, you would never have believed in him though he had delivered himself from death. The rich man said in Hell, if one came from the dead his Brethren would believe, therefore they of the High Priests Faction made themselves unfit to receive any article of faith, because they streined their wits to bely the Resurrection.
Now in the last place I come to handle the improbability of this formal Tale and Fiction, of what contradictions the Plot consists never to be pieced together; for all this, if it like you, must be done while they stepped. Say ye, &c. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; it was a Proverb in Greece, if a man talked idly, that he told a tale, as if he crept out of a Tomb. I am sure this story about our Savior stolen out of his Tomb is as doting a Dream as ever was told out of a Tomb, no part hanging together with congruity to another. Certainly it was with them, as God said He would deal with them that built Babel, Go to, let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one what another says. The error of those Jews was affected, and very willful, they knew that Christ was risen, and they would not know it, and voluntary errors are ever punished with great blindness, they that will believe a lie shall fall into strong delusions.
First, why would the Soldiers (say they slept?) why would they be brought to put themselves into such infamy and danger: Infamy, that such a crew of them would be talked of to have slept and snorted on the ground about the Sepulcher like Swine in their drunkenness: but danger also; admit the High Priests for all their fair promises could not have pacified the Governor? where had they been? according to the Laws of some Countries, they that were to watch the Corpses of Malefactors executed, were to answer Body for Body. When Herod sought for Peter and found him not, he commanded the Keepers should be put to death, yet they could not help it; will these Soldiers say they lost the Body by negligence, which they should have kept, and do they look to be rewarded? ill crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema. This forgery would have cost them dear if Pilate had been a just Magistrate: But the High Priests knew what a notable, Ruler should sit upon the cause, they could tell the Soldiers before hand how he should shuffle up all, and pronounce as they would have him; but it had been justice they should have suffered for this fault, which they never committed, I mean for sleeping in the time of their charge: as David killed the Amalekite, who made a formal tale that he slew King Saul when indeed he did not. One wonders at it, and for very good reason, that all of the conspiracy were not afraid, lest in the very moment that they began to publish their fiction Christ should have appeared and stood before them, and convinced them for their forgery. As when Athanasius was accused at a Council for breaking of Arsenius his Readers arm in his rage, just at the nick Arsenius came in presence of the Council, and it appeared upon his body that he had suffered no such violence.
But such cautions were so little in their thoughts at that time, that they considered nothing at all, a thick darkness which might be felt was fallen upon them: for who would ever produce witnesses that were a sleep? would their testimony be ever taken unless the Judge were asleep too? and if the body was stolen away while they slept, which way did they come by the spirit of Prophecy to know the Disciples did it rather than other men? or why did they not follow them and take it from them? or why did they not crave Pilate's Warrant to search for it where they had conveyed it? durst they not abuse Pilate's Authority so far? and durst they mock God? Into what confusions, and inextricable errors a man falls that sins against his own conscience? I could waken them with many questions more, but I will not be tedious. But who will believe them, that in such a great Court of Guard, as no doubt this was, all the Band slept at once, and not one of them so careful as some say a Flock of Cranes are by nature, to watch by course? or how could they all sleep, when that which they had in charge was of so much rumour and expectation; or is it possible such a deep Lethargy was fallen upon them, the air being so sharp, that anon before they had a fire of coals within doors, that none of them should waken, either when the Disciples went in, or came out of the Sepulcher; the creaking which the stone would make when it was rolled off from the door must needs be heard a far off. Answerable to this too the linen clothes which were about the Body were in the Sepulcher by themselves: Had they such leisure to strip those off, and stay longer by far than they needed? had it not been a better concealment for the Body to bear it away wrapped than naked: Beside Myrrh and Alloes which were cast about Christ's Body were most glutinous things, and would stick to the flesh so fast, that they could not be taken off without much cunning, and long patience. Unless witnesses which were asleep may say anything, these things were impossible to be reconciled. And his observation was right true that made it, that the Priests might have spread this rumour with far more safety and likelihood, if they had never trusted the Soldiers to tell the lie for them. But God would not let them see their way, that all Ages might be astonished at their folly. For this Guard of Soldiers was not begged of Pilate to compass the Sepulcher about till Christ had lain one night in the Grave, till the day after he was crucified. If they had said his Disciples stole him away the first night before the Watch was set the lie had been the stronger; but with far less cunning they impute the loss of the Body to the Soldiers negligence, not looking well to their charge the second night, Say ye his Disciples came and stole him away while we slept. A sleepy Project; Nec fide constantes, nec in perfidiâ, men of no faith, and of most foolish infidelity. I reduce the Use of it to that notable Memorandum; Where men are averse from hearing truth, God dazzles their mind with gross and senseless deceits; yea though they be High Priests, as we know who they are that entangle themselves with a thousand absurd questions about the Sacrament, because they will not be driven from their idolatrous practice to adore the Elements. But let us approach unto it with simplicity of heart, setting aside all contention and frowardness, let us believe in Christ in this breaking of bread that our eyes may be opened, let us drink of the fruit of the Vine in remembrance of his blood-shedding here, that we may eat and drink with him in his Kingdom. Finally, as being risen with Christ, let us seek those things which are above. AMEN.
FIVE SERMONS UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost.
THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost.
ACTS ii. 1.
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
I N this Book of the Acts of the Apostles you have the Evidences and most ancient Records of the Primitive Church. Christ in the four Evangelists taught us what an absolute Church should be, and St. Luke practically hath given us an exemplar what an absolute Church was and flourished in the time of the holy Apostles. In the first Chapter of this Book you may note what a thin company, and small Society was first entrusted with the Gospel of Christ. How the number of the Twelve was made complete again after the loss of Judas by the election of Matthias, and these together with some other Disciples made up 120 names, ver. 15. Pusillus Grex, a very little flock indeed, as many as conveniently met in one dining room or upper Chamber, and these to deal with all the world, not half so many as Gideon selected out of thirty thousand to save and deliver Israel from the Midianites. Though it was a most stately Altitude in the Roof of Solomon's Temple, that the height of it was 120 Cubits, yet it was but a narrow scantling for the Primitive Church of our Savior to have but 120 Disciples. Could these few, would flesh and blood say, be heard over the face of the whole earth? Well, says King Ahaz, it is all one unto the Lord to save with many, or with few: And as if the Lord had thought these too many to propagate the Christian faith. Salmeron says, (I know not from whom he had it) that fourteen of those 120 proved arch Heretics, and sowers of false Doctrine, and then that little number of faithful ones was more than the tenth part diminished.
But put this second Chapter in the balance against the first, and you will say there were laborers enough for God's Harvest though half of them had been spared. Consider what excellent, unutterable, and even God-like gifts they had given to them at this Feast of Pentecost, so that all Nations and Languages that dwelt round about were astonished in this Chapter at the grace that came out of their lips. One of them was able to deal with many thousands of natural men, that were not illuminated, and to confound them in their wisdom. And now I purpose to adjoin myself, God willing, to that Treatise, what 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , what wonderful works these were which God poured upon those that expected the influence of his grace at this season, how many and manifold gifts were given upon this day in one gift, the gift of the Holy Ghost. At this time I will go as far in that subject as my Text will lead me in these Points. First, Here is the time of the Holy Ghost 's coming, the day of Pentecost. Secondly, The company that received the Holy Ghost, all of them, a multitude, with whom anon we shall be better acquainted. Thirdly and principally it is to be noted, how they were prepared to receive the Holy Spirit. Which I draw to two Heads, they were Una, and Unanimes, they were all in one place, no strangeness or separation one from another, and they were Unanimes of one accord, which is divided into two blessings, though they were not divided, for they were in vinculo pacis, and in vinculo spei; they were knit in the bond of peace by concord, and all knit in the bond of hope by patience and expectation that the Holy Ghost would come upon them. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, &c.
That Doctrine which our Savior preached to his Apostles in the seventh verse of the former Chapter is fit to begin the first Point, The Father keeps the times and seasons in his own power, and all his good fruits he brings forth in such due seasons, that the season is as fertile of observation as the fruit itself; so it will fall out to ingender copious observations, that the Holy Ghost was given now unto the Apostles just at this Feast, and not until this day, the Feast of Pentecost. Let us have recourse to the Law of Moses, that we may make ourselves perfect in this mystery. God spake unto Pharaoh to let the Children of Israel go, that they might hold a feast unto the Lord in the Wilderness, Exod. v. 1. Therefore when they were brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and a stretched out arm, they did perform what the Lord intended, they did hold a Feast, not presently, but after they were out of the dread of the Egyptians, just fifty days after the Passover that Pharaoh was content to send them away. And from thence the Greek 72 Translators put it into one word, and called it Pentecost. The Hebrew Doctors all say that the first Pentecost was celebrated on the sixth day of the third month; so reckoning after their Tradition from the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, which was the sixteenth day of the first month, it made a complete number of a Pentecost, or fifty days, and was called therefore the Feast of Weeks, because they were to number exactly by days and weeks, and not to miss the day which the Lord had appointed. God was very curious and exact in his Commandment.
Well, this Feast was first solemnized at Mount Sinah after they had cast Egypt at their back fifty days, what were the conditions and reasons for which it was instituted? Let me resolve that, and you will understand all. First, In remembrance how joyful and thankful they were that they came out of Captivity. Oleaster notes very truly, though one of the Jesuits carp at him for it, that the remembrance of their long Captivity was one end of this Feast; it is so expressly, Deut. xvi. 12. Thou shalt keep the Feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God, and thou shalt remember thou wast a bondman in Egypt. Secondly, On the same fiftieth day that they came out of Egypt the Law was delivered upon Mount Sinah, or Horeb, for Horeb is but a part of Mount Sinah, and the memorial thereof was ever after celebrated upon this yearly Feast. So St. Jerome says in an Epistle to Fabiola, Dedicatio legis est Pentecoste; The Pentecost is the dedication of the Law. Thirdly, It had another respect to make it holy, for it was called festum messis or primitiarum, the Feast of Harvest, or the Feast of First-fruits; for as soon as they put in their Sickle into the Wheat harvest, they baked two Loaves leavened made of fine flower of the first fruits, and waved them before the Lord, and offered them up with many bloody Sacrifices. Now this was not put in ure at the present, but it was a festival Ceremony not to be omitted, to celebrate God's mercies for the fruitfulness of the earth when they came into the Land of Canaan. It is true that the Feasts of the Passover, and of Tabernacles were observed in an holy wise seven days together, at the feast of Weeks or Pentecost they kept but that one day sacred to the Lord, because it was the beginning of Harvest, and God put no decrees upon them to make them loiter from their daily necessary labor, but it was an high solemnity as fell out in all the year, Dies celeberrimus, & sanctissimus, as the Vulgar Latin reads it, Lev. xxiii. 21. where we read that then they should proclaim and call an holy Convocation. So I have summed up the three occasions of this Feast in the Old Law, first to give thanks for their deliverance from bondage; Secondly, to honor the day wherein first they received the Law at Mount Sinah; and thirdly, to offer up the first fruits of their Harvest; will you see now how aptly the gift of the Holy Ghost was distributed at the same time, When the day of Pentecost, &c.
First, Whereas the Jews did celebrate at the Feast of Pentecost their enfranchisement from the house of bondage, so the benefit of liberty was augmented this day much more than ever it was before. This Satan knew well enough, and therefore the longest thing wherein he held the Church in ignorance was about the sending of the Holy Ghost, long after the name of Christ, and his power was received, whole Cities and Societies confessed they had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost or not. Ignorance in those Points which are necessary to salvation is the greatest thralldom and captivity in the world. False Prophets, says S. Paul, do lead captive silly women laden with sins, 2 Tim. iii. 6. I spake not only of such as sat in the darkness of death and were lost; these were like Samson in fetters, having their eyes put out, but the Disciples, the flower of Christ's train saw nothing in holy mysteries as they ought to see, till the influence of this glorious day cleared there eye-sight, their eyes were held, their hearts were held, they knew not which way their Redemption was brought about, and how Israel was restored. Our Savior took out but one Text in all the New Testament, it is out of Isaiah, and it is to this very purpose that the Spirit of God redeemed us out of the captivity of ignorance; the place is extant, Luk. iv. 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. This comes home to the matter I am sure. Yet moreover, this is a day of restitution unto liberty, because it dissolved the Church from the tie and yoke of Levitical Ceremonies, from those multitude of Statutes which overwhelmed the people with observation. As Pharaoh was drowned in the red Sea, so the tenure of Mosaical Ceremonies was drowned in the blood of Christ which was shed upon the Cross, and on this Feast we received the Seal of the Spirit that we were rid of them all. So far I have demonstrated that at this time we shook off the bondage of Ignorance and Ceremonies, which makes it a feast of Pentecost to us Christians, as well as it was to the Jews.
Secondly, You shall find the other correspondency marvelously kept between the Law and the Gospel. Christ at his death was slain not only as the Paschal Lamb, but even when the Lamb was slain on the Feast of Passover. Now from the Feast of Passover, or rather from the second day of sweet bread, reckoning fifty days, the Children of Israel came to Mount Sinah, and there received the Law, which was kept ever after with a most sacred memorial; so fifty days after Christ rose from the dead the Apostles and the Church received the Spirit of Sanctification. And I am sure we have much more cause to renown our Pentecost than the Jews had to honor theirs. If the Law, which was the ministration of death, was so thankfully remembered, how much more the dedication of the Gospel? For this day, as the Fathers say very well, was the first dedication of Christ's Catholic Church upon earth. They were made the Sons of the bondwoman by the Law, we are made the Sons of the free-woman by the Spirit. We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption, Rom. viii. 15. A sinner could have no comfort in the Pentecost of the Jews, they had the Law, and that condemned them, this was miserable comfort. We have gladsome tidings this day, not from Sinah, but out of Zion, which bids us live by faith in Christ. In no other Feast of the Jews might Leaven be eaten, it was an heinous transgression, but the two loaves of the first fruits were to be baked with Leaven which were dedicated to God at this Feast, Lev. xxiii. 17. Expositors say no more to it but thus, Leaven was put into the dough of new corn, Ut panes sapidiores essent, to make it more savory; certainly so vulgar an interpretation is much under the meaning of the Holy Ghost. I would rather say it had a mystical construction, that Leaven was allowed at this Feast to intimate that the Holy Spirit would bear with the leaven of our nature, with our sins of frailty and infirmity. And it is observable that this is the number of the Jubilee, every fiftieth year was the Jubilee year, which was a time with the Jews to restore all men to their Lands, which were sold away by ill-husbandry, and a general forgiving of all debts: So this day was a true Jubilee for remission of Trespasses, it was at this time that Peter preached remission of sins to all that did repent and believe, to all without exception, for, says he, the Promise is to you, and to your Children, and to all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call. So I have shown that we received the divine Spirit of grace at Zion at the same time that they received the terrible Law at Sinah, which makes it a greater Feast of Pentecost to us Christians than it was unto the Jews.
Thirdly, We agree no less with them in the next similitude for keeping this day. The Israelites, according to the early maturity of corn in that climate, began to put their Sickle at this time into Wheat Harvest; so the Apostles from this day forward went forth to reap that which the Prophets had sown, gathering much fruit unto eternal life, and bringing the Wheat of God into his Garner, unto the everlasting praise of the glory of his grace. Their Barly Harvest, such was the condition of their Soil and Husbandry, begun at Easter, their Wheat was begun to be cut down seven weeks after at Whitsuntide, and the latter was called Tempus primitiarum, the Time or Festival of First-fruits which were presented to the Lord. So God breathed his spirit into man at the creation of Adam, that was the first Harvest; which spirit being choked by him, and coming to nothing, this day there was a second emission of the spirit into man, fully to restore and renew him again. Now the two Loaves of First-fruits, which at this time by the Levitical Sanctions were waved to the Lord are rendered after the spiritual gloss of our Church, to be amor Dei & proximi, the love of God, and the love of our Neighbor; and these must be weaved or heaved up after their manner: what's that; why our integrity and piety must shine before men, that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father that is in heaven. Beloved, here's the difference, they gave first-fruits of earthly things this day unto God, but this day we celebrate the memorial how God gave First-fruits of heavenly things unto man. In Rom. viii. 23. St. Paul speaks of the first-fruits of the spirit in a diminutive sense, as the inchoation of grace, the enlightening of faith, the hope of better things, that what he hath begun in us he will perfect; but the first-fruits of the spirit which the Church reaped this day was that which sanctified the whole lump forever after; for this last correspondency, and for the other forenamed, the Apostles in a most acceptable time expected the Holy Ghost, when the day, &c.
A most delicious gift poured out from God in the very strength and deliciousness of the year: A festival time it was you have heard, and such a Festival as brought a Concourse of many Nations to Jerusalem; so it appears in this chapter. I have my authority from St. Ambrose, that the Lord had this time much in mind to do it honor many years before, for some Jewish Tradition hath encouraged him to say that the certain season when the Angel came down to the Pool of Bethesda to trouble the water, that whosoever stepped in first might be made whole of his disease; it was but once a year, and that once was the Feast of Pentecost. Mark how the Lord designed out that day for his Angelical Miracle. I will not engage myself into that Chronological question, whether our first Whitsunday when the Holy Ghost appeared in firy tongues was the very Pentecost of the Jews, or rather the day after: To the latter opinion many incline, upon that slight reason, because St. Luke writ this Story of the Acts 28 years after Christ's ascension into heaven, and then the Jews Pentecost was abolished: the doubt is much uncertain, wherefore I let it pass. But I can assure you that in very ancient times of the Christian Faith, yea in the most ancient, if Clement his Constitutions were warrantable, this day was kept with as high honor and devotion as the zeal of our Forefathers could excogitate. Says Eusebius lamenting that his Master Constantine the Emperor died at the same time; if I should call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Holiday of Holidays, we should not err. He adds, that it was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it had honor done it seven weeks together. This in my apprehension refers us to three things. First the Church was wont to sing that cheerful Anthem of Alleluia every Sunday from Easter to Whitsuntide, an arbitrary Ceremony at the discretion of every particular Church, and our Church of England since the Reformation continued the custom according to the first Liturgies set forth in Edward the sixth his Reign to sing or say alleluia from Easter to Whitsuntide at Morning Prayer. 2. By the ancient Prescript no Fasts were bidden all those seven weeks, nothing but joy and exultation was heard and practiced. 3. During all that space they did not kneel at time of Prayer, but stand upright looking towards Heaven, from whence the Holy Ghost descended, Nefas erat de geniculis adorare, in Tertullian 's time; these were ancient Rites and Prescriptions to magnify this day in the beauty of holiness. But whereas Eusebius adds that Christ ascended into Heaven the very same day the Holy Ghost descended; this was his oversight, though not his alone, who would not pick the right sense. Act. i. 3. that Christ was seen of his Disciples but forty days, speaking of the things of the Kingdom of Heaven; therefore on the fortieth day he was taken from them into Heaven; and ten days after the plentiful showers of grace did rain down upon the Church, the time is so precisely noted says Isidor Palcusiot, to refute that proud Heretic Montanus, who said the great promise of the Holy Spirit was not fulfilled at the Feast of Pentecost, but long after in his days. This is the glorious day which the Lord hath made, wherein he sum'd up the complement of all his benefits, as the sixth day was the complement of the Creation. All other preceding mercies were but words to this, the Holy Ghost is the Seal or Signature of those words, to make the deed the stronger, in quo signati estis, Eph. iv. 30. in whom ye are sealed unto the day of Redemption. Rejoice in this day, and keep it holy before the Lord, not in decking the body▪ in full diet, in sport, in idleness; but in thankfulness, in purity of mind, in spiritual consolations, in the feast of a good conscience, and ever set before you at such seasons what Gregory said, Quid prodest interesse festis hominum, si contingat deesse festis Angelorum; What profit is it to keep holiday with men, if we should be excluded from keeping holiday with Angels for evermore.
So much for the time of the Holy Ghosts coming; I repent me not that I have been long in it, for it was most material. The persons that received this power from on high are next in the way of my discourse, omnes, all of them. Many there are that understand this note of Universality collective, not as meant of all that were present, but of all the Apostles. The whole Church was gathered together for the Election of a new Apostle, that's apparent in the former chapter, and the lot fell upon Matthias. The number of names together were about an hundred and twenty. Among these there were divers women, Mary the Mother of our Lord is expressly mentioned for one of them; these continued together in prayer and supplication even until the time that the Holy Ghost did fill the Room. Now I would put the case into this distinction, whether the spirit came down upon them all? upon them all in some great measure no question, but not upon them all with the same virtue, and power, and illumination. Many talents of rare perfections were distributed among all the Believers that were present men and women, for else Peter had not applied the place of the Prophet Joel so pertinently ver. 17. of this chap. In the last days I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. St. Jerome leans to this side, and says that the mighty gift of grace was given to all that believed, even as God took the spirit of Moses, and gave it to the 70 Elders, and it came to pass when the spirit rested upon them they prophesied, and did not cease, Num. xi. 25. Elegantly St. Austin to favor this opinion, Christ warned his Apostles not to stir from Jirusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, and that not many days thence, that is 10 days after his Ascension they should receive the Holy Ghost: But says the Father Christ gave this spirit not only to them, but to ten times as many as the Twelve, to sixscore in all, Ea est fidelitas, imo liberalitas Christi docens nos pauca promittere, sed decuplo plura praestare, this is the just dealing, nay the liberality of Christ, which bids us promise no more than we will perform, but rather perform ten times more than you promise. But whether the cloven tongues which looked as if they had been of fire did descend upon the whole Congregation, men and women, may a little be doubted, for they were Types and Figures that the Lord would send forth of his Servants to be bold and fervent Preachers in all Nations, and women were interdicted from the public ministry of Preaching, though in the beginning they were employed in some private labors of the Word. And if the women had the gift of tongues they did not utter them in this Chapter; for when all were amazed to hear such diversity of languages from illiterate ones, and such as never travelled, some mocked and said, these men are full of new wine 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the masculine gender. And 'tis not to be despised for an observation, that ver. 4. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all are said to be full of the Holy Ghost, and ver. 3. the firy tongues are said to sit not upon all, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , upon each of them, meaning I conjecture upon each of the Apostles, but I will not strive for it.
In the old Missals, I am sure, I have not perused the latter, it reads the Epistle thus, omnes discipuli, all the Disciples were with one accord in one place, and Beza says in two ancient Greek Copies, he had found 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all the Apostles, and none other mentioned. Certainly they were primarily intended to reap the benefit of the day: For it is well noted by the first Writers, that there were four things proper and peculiar to the Apostles, given them for the gathering together of the Saints, which were not communicable to any other Servant of Christ. The first was immediate vocation from Heaven; St. Paul demonstrated, he was not inferior to the best of the Apostles, because of that property. The second was infallibility of judgment in the necessary points of faith. 3. A Generality of Commission to have the care of the whole world committed to everyone of them, to exercise their power in all places, towards all persons. 4. To speak in all the tongues and languages of the world, to confirm their Doctrine by signs and miracles, and by the imposition of their hands to give the like miraculous gifts of the spirit to others. For although the having of miraculous gifts, and the power to work miracles was not simply proper to the Apostles, yet to have them in a sort, as by the imposition of their hands to give the spirit unto others, and to enable such as they thought fit to do signs and wonders through the finger of God, this was a benediction upon the heads of the Apostles from the great day of Pentecost, and only upon them. Simon Magus, that Mammonist, you may remember, would have bought it of them, but had a curse instead of a blessing. Nay when Philip the Deacon had baptized some at Samaria, the Apostles went to confirm those whom he had baptized by imposition of hands, that they might receive some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost. And as these graces were reserved only for the Apostolical honor in their time, so were they never since passed over to any by succession. Instead of immediate calling, God be praised, we can show our Vocation derived by succession from the Apostles: Instead of infallibility of judgment we have the direction of the Scriptures to guide us in finding out the truth: instead of general Commission over the whole World we have particular assignment of several Churches, and parts of Christ's Flock to feed: instead of their miraculous gifts, and power to confer them to others, we have that faith which was confirmed by the Apostles miracles. And so I have declared that many, even all the Believers that met together shared in the blessings of this day, but the Apostles had an excellency and preeminency above them all for the government of the Church, not disputing what particular irradiations and sanctifications the Blessed Virgin had, which we may suppose to be incomparable beyond all others, such as were fit for her to receive, but they are not here revealed.
But of the persons hitherto, I can spare no more time for that; for it is worth much observation how they were prepared to receive the Holy Ghost, which I handle in this order, howsoever the words lie, first that they were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , then 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , first unà, then unanimes, they were all in one place. To be altogether in one City, in Jerusalem, and not to stir from thence till they had received the Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth; to that purpose Christ laid his command upon them: but they were met together not only in one City, but in one house; not only in one Vineyard, but like Grapes they hung together in one cluster. Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity? In public they consorted together, Luke v. ult. they were continually in the Temple praising and blessing God together: in private they held fast the same friendship and amity: by this, says our Savior, shall they know you to be my Disciples, if you love one another. Whether it were the time of praying, or hearing the Word, or breaking of bread, mark it in several places of this Chapter, they did it with cheerfulness and mutual friendship, they were never asunder. Unity in matter of circumstance, in matter of place carries blessing and edification with it, that we are Brethren: it is the Lord's doing to make men to be of one mind, to dwell in one house, Psal. lxviii. 6. We read it in our last Translation he setteth the solitary in Families; that is he reduceth the dispersed into unity, and outward conformity. I told you, and pressed it earnestly about this time the last year, what an acceptable thing it was to God, that when Noah and his Sons and Daughters were all the living of men and women that were left in the World, that these should all praise the Lord together in outward unity with one voice, and with one Sacrifice; this was called a sweet smelling savor: so much it delighted God this day to see the Church met together, those 120 names, that after Ages might know how well compacted the Primitive Church was, that there were no divisions or distractions in their Body. God be praised for the multiplication of his Saints now over all the world; we cannot meet now under one Roof as these did, nor sit down in rows in one Field together, as those 5000 did, whom our Savior fed in the Desert; the bounds of all the Land of Canaan are not able to hold us; God be glorified for the increase. Our unity of place is to meet in those public Assemblies, which are allotted to particular Churches, at those appointed times which are enjoined us: In no wise to slack our presence here on the Lord's day, to flock together on other festival days, at Morning Prayer on week days to be much more diligent than we have been; (fie upon our tardiness and excuses in that duty!) do we look that God shall bless us in our Persons and Calling, to take a Benediction away with us to serve us the whole week, and come no oftener? is not he the God that makes men to be of one mind to come to the Temple together, and there to receive the Holy Ghost? Chiefly I wish heartily in Christ that they would consort together with us, who take no offense at our Doctrine established, but make a separation and strangeness both from us, and among themselves for matter of Ceremonies and things indifferent. They that are baptized into Christ, and one Faith, why should they not come together with one accord in one place? I must not be prolix. I will say no more to it, but let us say with St. Paul, Hebr. x. 39. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , We are not of them who separate or draw back unto perdition. Unto perdition, let that be noted.
The observation of this point gains thus much more out of St. Austin. As all the Tribes of Israel were gathered together about Mount Sinah to hear in what manner the Law was proclaimed, so here was an agreement of all persons to join together to receive the Holy Ghost; but in that admirable similitude there is this dissimilitude, that the people were prohibited with many terrors to come near the place where the Law was delivered, but at this time the Holy Ghost was sent unto them, who expecting the promise, were all with one accord in one place. And Calvin conjects much unto this note, that the minds of the faithful were exceedingly encouraged and changed for the better, the stoutest Champions of them all had no manlike fortitude in them before, the Shepherd was smitten, and instantly they were scattered, and ran away for fear: now the very women had hardened themselves against all danger, they mix themselves together in one place with that holy company, and fear no evil that can happen unto them. A resolved constant mind, an heroic heart to take up the Cross of Christ, and to suffer unto the death for righteousness sake is a sign of much grace in the soul, and an admirable preparation to receive the greatest measure of the Holy Ghost. And that you may not think this Apostolical Society had crept into a dark corner where no espials could find them out. Many Authors that have labored to understand where it was, say it was a spacious goodly Room of as much note as any private House in all Jerusalem, and frequented so often by the Apostles, that their haunt was known through all the City. All that I have met withal conclude it was the same upper Chamber where our Savior celebrated his last Supper, and so consecrated the place. Nicephorus and Cedrenus say it was the House of John the Evangelist, for he took the Blessed Virgin to his own home, and she was now among them; a slender guess, God wot, and repugnant to many circumstances of Scripture. Theophylact says it was the House of Simon the Leper; how can that be, when his House was in Bethany, Matth. xxvi. 6. Euthymius says it was the House of Joseph of Arimathea an honorable Counselor, and had goodly Rooms to receive them. Baronius goes with the most voices, all are but conjectures, that it was the House of Mary the Mother of John, whose surname was Mark. To this Adrichomius consents, and says this was the place where 3000 Jews were converted by Peter and baptized: thither Peter betook himself when the Angel brought him out of prison, there Stephen and others were made Deacons, there James the Brother of our Lord so called was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem; there the first Council of the Apostles was held, Acts xv. All ancient Authors conclude it was about where the Tower of Zion stood, and this is certain, that Helen the Mother of Constantine did build a goodly Temple upon the same place to honor that holy ground. It was a Figure of the whole Church of Christ, so much the more to be remembered, and the Church is a Figure of the Kingdom of Heaven, where all the Saints, and I trust all we, shall praise the Lord with one accord in one place for evermore.
It follows now, as the outward Bond of Peace was with this Society, so they were claspt together faster with the inward Bond of Agreement, with the unity of the same spirit, they were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 with one accord. There cannot be a more proper, true, and certain disposition to make us meet for the Holy Ghost than unanimity: As the Halcyon, so our Naturalists say, never appears but against fair weather, so the Spirit comes either not at all, or not very plentifully unto us, until he find concord among us without jars, and tranquility without bitterness. The unity of the Apostles is called by the Fathers parasceue spiritus, the way-making to receive the grace of God; and if the Patient be prepared aright, the Agent will do his work the sooner and the better. No gifts of benediction are given to strive, and oppose, to fight one against another, but for charity and edification; therefore it was the beginning of our Collect three Sundays past, Almighty God which dost make the minds of all faithful men to be of one will; and it is a principal part of our Gospel for this day, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. That peace which Christ left among the Apostles was as it were an earnest penny put into their hands, that they should have the full donative of the Comforter from above. Our Savior was born in the days of Caesar Augustus, when a still Peace was over all the world, now He pours out his holy spirit upon them that were of one accord, and of one heart: the one was his first act upon earth, the other is his last, then he was clothed with our flesh, now we are invested with his spirit.
This remarkable amity and Saint-like brotherhood among the Members of the Church, which had no ruptures, was well prefigur'd in the old Feast of Pentecost, which was kept by the Jews. For Levite. xxiii. 19. upon the day of Pentecost among other Burnt-offerings, the Priests were appointed in the name of the whole Congregation to offer up two Lambs of the first year for a Sacrifice of Peace-offerings. You will say that's no strange matter to present a Peace-offering to the Lord; true indeed, particular persons did it often in their own behalf, but Maimonides observes it, that the public Body, the Universal Church of the Jews never offered any Peace-offering but at the Feast of Pentecost. O who will work this work for the Militant Catholic Church, that we may say of all the parts of it omnes unanimiter, they conclude all for the Orthodox Faith with one accord? Some strange salvation must drop out of the clouds, we know not how, to work this Atonement, yet on both sides let every man take heed he make not the rent bigger with more obstinacy, and greater separation? sweetly did a meek Moses of our own Church write, there will come a time when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive a far more blessed reward than three thousand Volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit. It may seem a wonderful and unanswerable scruple, that many in the former Ages of the Church did so much transcend us in these days for gifts of Miracles, gifts of Devotion and Learning, for Watchings and Fastings, for Industry and assiduous diligence, for most prosperous success in winning many Souls to the Kingdom of Heaven: but the true cause is that their unanimity and pious agreement opened a wide gate to admit sanctification into their breast, and our discords exclude it. No spirit can give life to Members dismembered, unless they be first united and compact together. Ezekiel knew not how scattered bones could live; but the bones came together, bone to his bone, and then the breath of the Lord came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, Ezekiel xxxvii. 10. The Scribes and Elders of the Jews, in few years after our Savior was crucified were like broken bones scattered and divided, like as one breaketh and heweth wood, every year by bribery or calumniations the High Priest lost his dignity, and a new one was substituted. Josephus most impartially hath related that there was no care of Religion, no zeal for the Law among them, because there was nothing but bandings and factions in their Synagogues. Here was no accord, and therefore no Holy Spirit came down into their habitations. Against the Congregation of the famous first Nicene Council, the Fathers that met together, it is not to be concealed, forgot themselves so far, that they put up innumerous Bills of complaints one against another before the Emperor Constantine. The Emperor knew this was a most repugnant beginning to the good work they had in hand, to enter into the consideration of Christ's business with distracted enmities, therefore he threw all their bills and brables into the fire, and then bad them proceed in the name of Christ, and in the grace of his Holy Spirit. Their heart is divided, now shall they be found faulty, says the Prophet Hosea, chap. x. 2. A contentious stickler, that loves to be the head of a Faction, and to disjoynt things out of peace and quietness, I wonder whether ever he thinks how the Apostles were composed and prepared, when they received the Holy Ghost. Fuerunt omnes eâdem animatione simul in unam; so St. Austin reads, they had one heart, and one mind, and one inclination to advance the Kingdom of Christ, they were all with one accord in one place.
I enter now upon the last part of all that I may find the way out of my Text, and conclude, it is the other Preparation for the coming of the Holy Ghost, as all the Disciples were knit in vinculo pacis in the bond of peace and concord, so they were united together in vinculo spei in the bond of hope by patience and expectation; they were ejusdem unanimitatis, and ejusdem longanimitatis, they kept together for the promise of the Holy Ghost till fifty days were fulfilled. God made the Israelites number fifty days after their coming out of Egypt before the Law was delivered, ut adventus sui desiderium accenderet, to make their hearts burn within them with longing for his coming: so he put off the coming of the Holy Ghost for the same space of time, to make them think of his promise with eager expectation. The Jews called it the Feast of fifty days, and the Feast of weeks, for whether we reckon by days, or weeks, or years, we must wait the Lord's leisure, and say expectans expectavi, Psal. xl. 1. I have waited patiently for the Lord; and say with our Savior, not my will but thy will be done, that is, not my time, but thy time be fulfilled. Where is the faith, where is the humility of those rash spirits, that will not tarry the fullness of time, but have all things at their whistle by and by, or quarrel with God, as if he had forgot them? They received this blessing of wonderful grace that were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , long abiders, in the 13. verse of the former chapter, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or perseverantes, ver. 14. such as continue till the day of promise was fully come. He that believeth let him not make haste, says the Prophet Isaiah; God will do all things by his own leisure and maturity, if he happen to stay stay for him, Habak. ii. 3. for at last he that cometh will come, and then he is no flitter, his gifts are without repentance, and he will abide with us forever. AMEN.
THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost.
ACTS ii. 2.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and filled all the house where they were sitting.
T HE Feast of Christ's Resurrection, and the Feast of Whitsunday or coming of the Holy Ghost are distant one from another fifty days in space of time, but are as near to themselves as the bark unto the tree in real substance, and in spiritual conjunction. In the Resurrection the strength of Hell was weakened for us: In the descending of the Holy Ghost the virtue of Heaven was made powerful in us. In the first the doors of the Grave were unlock'd, that we might not be held in death: In the other the windows of heaven were opened, that we might be partakers of the life to come. The Resurrection reduceth the soul into the body again, which was dissolved by the sin of Adam: The coming of the Holy Ghost doth again reduce grace into the Soul when original Justice had been taken from it by the same man's transgression. These are parallel'd in primo gradu, and the comparison may reach a little further to our present business, that there was a great noise caused at Christ's rising, For behold there was an Earthquake, Mat. xxviii. 2. And loe as great a noise from above at the coming of the Holy Ghost, for behold there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind. These two honorable Feasts having such near relation, I have found out most principal Texts for them both this year out of the same Chapter for Easter day, Ver. 24. whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: For Whitsunday in that notable portion of the story which I have read unto you. And I told you upon the last great solemnity, that Whitsunday was principally ordained for this end, to make Easter day famous over all the world.
But the principal fruits of this day are three, if we may comprehend an Ocean of graces in so small a number. In the zeal of our Prayers we passed them over in the Morning Collect; and that Collect extracted them from the Epistle and Gospel appointed. Thus you may perceive that the Service of the Church of England is the treasure of my observations. The Collect runs upon these three Points, Teaching, Illumination, Consolation. God which upon this day hath taught the hearts of thy faithful people, for heavenly Doctrine began to be made common to all the world from this day. Yet many hear the Word, but most unprofitably; therefore it follows, that God hath sent us the light of his holy Spirit to have a right judgment in all things. And many have the benefit of true Doctrine, and the help of Illumination, but with much sorrow and persecution, therefore the Holy Ghost came down also, that we might rejoice in his holy comfort. Thus far the contents of that short Prayer have helped me. The Gospel for the day runs altogether upon the last branch, upon Consolation, I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter. The Epistle falls upon the two former, upon Doctrine and Illumination, and that in two sensible miracles. For Doctrine, that a sound came from heaven as of a mighty wind, to foreshow, that the sound of the Word should go forth into all Lands; for Illumination, that cloven tongues appeared, and sat upon them as it were of fire. The noise was as a Trumpet to wake the World; the firy Tongues as so many lights to let them see their visitation. Thus the Holy Ghost is presented to both the senses, to the Ear, as to the sense of faith; to the Eye, as to the sense of love. The Ear is the ground of the Word and Doctrine, and that gives the first admittance to Faith; and therefore the Holy Ghost began his operation there, according to my Text, and that in these particulars to be considered: 1. That God caused a sound to be heard upon the descending of the Holy Spirit. 2. The manner of the sound is resembled to a Wind. 3. To a sudden wind. 4. To a rushing mighty wind. 5. It was from heaven. 6. It filled all the house where they were sitting. All these particulars are worthy of my labor, and your attention.
That there came a sound from heaven at the mission of the Holy Ghost is the first thing remarkable. A sound first to call in them that were without. Secondly, To demonstrate the Office of them that were within. As the chiming of Bells calls us together to Church, so an audible sound from heaven was a warning to the Jews to flock to that place where the Apostles were gathered together. The Master of the Feast in the Gospel sent forth his Servants, and invited the Guests, and bad them be told what preparation he had made for their coming; so the men of Jerusalem had as sensible an invitation to draw them to the great Feast of the Gospel, as if a Canon had been discharged in their Ear. Or if they were yet unprepared to taste of such Manna as fell from heaven into their lap, yet the Lord's doings were so palpable before them, that their consciences must be extremely stupefied with malice, if they made an ill interpretation of others that were then filled from above with the great power of God. And indeed Oecumenius says that the sound did pierce the ears of all that were in the City, that such as were curious to know the reason might come and see, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that the open manifestation of the miracle might preserve it from calumny. But you will say, it did not gain the good opinion of the Jews; for all the gift of Tongues had such a forerunner, not vox clamantis, but sonus intonantis, not the voice of a Crier, but a peal of thunder to bring it into the world, yet the people did disgrace it with a vile imputation of drunkenness. True, it proved as ill as could be expected; but says St. Chrysostom, if they said the Apostles were full of new Wine, when these signs concurred, what would they have said without them? The most graceful and melodious sounds in the world are lost to deaf men; and though a clamour, and a cry from heaven were come down, as it is in my Text, yet it moved not those that, like the deaf Adder, had stopped their ears. The Serpent in that place is called in the Greek 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by Antiphrasis, or the contrary, because it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 an unperswaded Creature, all Art and Charming is spent in vain, it will not listen, it will not mitigate its venomous wrath; and so the Translator Apollinarius says upon it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that when the Adder is mischievously angry, for the time of his violent anger, and while that lasts, he is stark deaf, though he can hear by nature. So such as are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Tit. i. 16. Disobedient, and reprobate to every good work, though they have the sense of hearing by nature, yet when they are violently set upon infidelity and stubbornness, they give no more attention to the sound that comes from heaven than do the stones of the Temple. When Stephen preached so divinely to the Jews, that the heavens opened in the time of his Sermon, Acts vii. 56. as if way had been made for the Angels and Saints to be his Auditors; even then, when the gates of heaven stood wide open at the grace of his words, they, that should have given him best attention, stopped their ears and ran upon him. But the sin of them that will not hear let it lie upon their own head; they cannot say but there hath been a Trumpet among them to awake them from the sleep of sin. The sound which God hath sent forth is shrill and loud to call in those that are without, And he that hath ears, &c.
But secondly, the Spirit came in a very audible sound, to declare what a door of utterance should be opened from thenceforth to the Messengers of Christ, That their sound should go out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the World, Rom. x. 18. The Gospel preached to every creature under heaven, Col. i. 23. How many were in that lamentable condition like the Disciples at Ephesus, that had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost? Angels themselves began to be Preachers, when a door of entrance was opened, that the Word should run swiftly throughout all the world, when good tidings were diffusive, great joy unto all people. The sound came flying upon the wings of the wind, that there was neither Speech nor Language upon the earth but their voices were heard among them. The Law made a great din when it was published, there came thunder with it, and the noise of a Trumpet louder and louder. Yet this noise was spread in the Desert of Sinai, in a desolate and uninhabited Region: But this sound, which happened when the Gospel was authorized to be preached in every Nation, it had audience in the most populous place of all Judea, in the City of Jerusalem: As who should say, it was a communicable sound which should be received into the Imperial Cities of all Kingdoms. I draw this only observation from it to your holy practice, that the Lord loveth fragorem vocis, not a whispering silence, but an exalted voice, a loud exclamation to praise him. Open confession of God's name is an effect individually connex'd with a true lively faith, so says David, Psal. cxvi. I believed, and therefore I spake. There are three things hateful to God which jar against it: 1. Hypocritical profession, when the protestation of the mouth is not rooted in the heart. 2. Abnegation of the Faith, whether they deny the truth for fear, or for resolved Apostasy. 3. There is another way to sin against the confession of the Faith, and that is, malum silentium, not to glorify God openly in our profession, when it concerns his honor; in whose person the Psalmist speaks, I kept silence, yea, even from good words, but it was pain; nay, it will be pain and grief unto them. St. Paul complains of those Christians that were of Rome in his days, that none would openly declare themselves of his side in the time of persecution, At my first answer none stood with me, but all forsook me, I pray God it may not be laid to their charge, 1 Tim. iv. 16. The Lord would not have it lurk only in the secrets of our breast, that we are Christ's Disciples, but that it should resound abroad to his glory, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And let God's service be performed on all sides, on the Priests part, and on the people's, with fervor and strength of voice, like the sound of many waters. You may pray tacitly in the heart, but sure the holy Spirit came not from heaven like a vehement sound, to teach you to fumble in the mouth, and scarce to open your lips when you are in Prayer. Prayer is a calling upon God, Call upon me in the time of trouble, Psal. l. Nay, a roaring for very disquietness of heart, says the same Prophet in another place. Our humble Petitions are called Vituli labiorum, Heb. xiii. Their lips will offer their sacrifice aloud, if the true incense of zeal do burn within; for our Savior says, Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A troubled soul, I grant it, sometimes cannot utter itself; sometimes a dumbborn Prayer is very powerful, as Hannah the Mother of Samuel is the great instance of it; but in the ordinary way, assuredly the more strength of voice we put to our Supplications, the more we shake off the drowsiness of the flesh, the more we stir up the grace of the holy Spirit, which loves that the Echo and cheerful sounds of the voice should ascend up to heaven.
But the Scripture doth not leave at this, that there came a sound from heaven, it goes further, and tells us the manner of the sound, that it was like unto that noise which is caused by a vehement wind. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as if the wind had blown, but it was but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as if it were; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Oecumenius, that you might not imagine the holy Spirit to be a corporeal breathing, like the vaporous substance of the wind, therefore the quasi is very significant, that it had but the similitude of the wind. Yet it is very inquirable, why like that more than anything else? If we had been left to guess what sound it was, why might not we have imagined it to be the purling of some soft streams? Or the humming of Bees about their Hive? Or the voice of harpers playing with their harps, Rev. xiv. 2. None of those it was, but as the fragor of the wind. And when God declares his virtue in some sensible object, you must persuade your reason there is some great relation between the sign and the thing signified. Did not our Savior illustrate unto Nicodemus our Regeneration, or new Birth from the blasts of the air? Joh. iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, and knowest not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Yet more feelingly; when he did infuse into his Apostles the power of the Holy Ghost, bequeathing them that great Sacerdotal privilege, Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained; Was it not conveyed by blowing upon them like the wind, by insufflation? Joh. xx. 22. He breathed on them, and saith unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost. Now I will tell you together where both the mystery, and the use of it do consist.
First, As the breath which we send forth comes from the warmth of our Lungs, and of our bowels within, so the Spirit proceedeth from the substantial love of the Father, and of the Son. What was the meaning then of that sensible expiration? But that as the breath which he vented out came from his Human Nature, so the Holy Ghost which he breathed on his Disciples came from his Divine Nature. And this must follow, to give it you by the way, that Christ is very God, for who but God can communicate the Holy Ghost? For it was God's Promise, that He, and none but He, would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, Isa. xliv. And it stands as well proved that the Holy Ghost is God, for the prime and supreme power to remit sins is the Holy Ghosts he was given to the Disciples for that end, and none can forgive sins but God alone. Secondly, Christ communicated his spiritual gifts by breathing; to show that he, even the same Lord, was the Author both of our temporal and eternal life. For in the Creation the Lord breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, Gen. ii. 7. But this life shall pass away, and the body shall crumble into dust. Why, behold the breath of the Lord will go forth again to cause a joyful Resurrection, as it is in the Prophets vision of the dry bones, Ezek. xxxvil. 5. Thus saith the Lord unto these bones, Behold I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live. Yet if this body, wherein sin reigns, and inclines it only to dead works, were not quickened by grace, better it might be for us that we had never been born, therefore the life of Sanctification was begun in the Church, as it were with a gentle gust of wind, when Christ breathed on his own, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. So you see this outward sign of insufflation was constantly used, at our Creation, at our Resurrection, at our Sanctification, to show how it is the same God that worketh all in all. Yet St. Ambrose comes in with a third Meditation upon it: Says he, God did give man a living soul at first by breathing or inspiration, to let him see he did not only give him a temporal or carnal vivification, but grace and sanctity to live forever. But when man had lost this primitive grace and original righteousness, it was fit to let us know that such losses could be repaired by none but Christ, therefore Christ breathed again upon man, to demonstrate that he was the restorer of those immortal blessings, which exceed our merits, and pass all understanding.
But when Christ was ascended up on high, the Spirit could not be infused immediately from the breath of his mouth, but, in Analogy to it, it came into the place where the Apostles were gathered together like the murmuring wind, or the breath of heaven. As Solomon fore-told it in his Poetical Ode, Cant. iv. 16. Awake O North wind, and come thou South, blow upon my Garden, that the Spices thereof may flow out. And here again I shall pass through some human Comparisons to the illustration of most divine Mysteries. First, of all Elementary Creatures the Wind is the most active thing in the world, nothing so quick and active as it, Usque adeo agit ut nisi agat non sit; when it is not active it is not at all, no stirring of the air no wind. So it is with the Spirit of faith and love, the very being of it consists in being operative. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 says St. Chrysostom, it impels the heart to be never out of motion in some spiritual exercise. Either the Tongue is praying, or the Ear is hearing, or the Heart is meditating, or the Hand is giving, or the Soul is thirsting for remission of sins. When the Spirit beats not in the Pulses, there is no spirit in the body, it is a dead Carkass; and in whomsoever there is a cessation from all good works, you may say it justly that there the Holy Ghost is extinguished; there is no difference between a standing Puddle, and a dead Sea. And cozen not yourselves with a vain confidence, that albeit you be altogether barren and unprofitable, no fruit of Sanctification budding from you, yet Semen Dei manet, the sap may be in the root, the virtue in the Seed-corn, though it do not put out. These may-bees are pitiful Anchors of hope, and miserable comforters. Will you say the wind is up when there is a still Serena, no puff of air moving? Then think as little that God dwells in that breast where there are no tokens of Sanctification. Secondly, I have it from St. Austin, Flatus ill à carnali palea corda mundabit; The Wind is the advantage of the Husbandman to winnow Chaff from Wheat, and where the Spirit blows upon the conscience it will purge it from all dead works. The cares of this world, the thought of getting Riches, anxieties for honors and advancements, these overspread the life of a natural man left to the ways of carnal reason; but as soon as ever we begin to sift and discuss these cogitations by the doctrine of the Spirit, they vanish and disperse, Tradam protervis in mare Creticum portare ventis; they are light and empty of true goodness, and so are blown away to the Father of errors and delusions, to the Devil himself from whence they came. Thirdly, Says St. Chrysostom, Suppose a Ship be well appointed with Pilot, Mariners, Sails, Cables, Anchors, and all convenient appurtenances, to what use will all this serve if the winds stir not? So let there be profound Judgment, quick Invention, neat Eloquence, and all the graces of Art in a man, these will not bring a man one whit onward in his Voyage, to the haven of happiness, to the kingdom of glory, unless the sweet gales of the Spirit carry him forward, those are the wings of the Dove upon which the Soul shall fly away and be at rest. Another Author, taken for St. Chrysostom, writing upon St. Matthew, composeth it thus, As the ground doth not fructify by rain alone, but there is a prolificous virtue in the winds, which blows upon the fields, and makes the Spring to sprout: So it is not our Doctrine alone which converts your Souls, though it distill like the soft drops of rain upon the earth, but benediction of inward grace that goes with the word breaths salvation upon our heart. The Letter may kill, but the Spirit quickeneth, and in our Evangelical Priesthood we are Ministers, not of the Letter alone, but of the Spirit also. Qui instat praecepto praecurrit auxilio; the words of Leo, which I take to be solid truth in this Point; when God presseth us with the outward instruction of his Word. He impresseth the secret operation of his Spirit to make it fructify.
And now to come to another portion of the Text, it agrees very accurately with the nature of that supernal gift which God infuseth into his Saints, that the Spirit came with a sudden flaw of wind. And I am very willing to make that collection of it, which divers have done before me, Datur haec gratia ex improviso, & sine meritis; Grace is a blessing that comes unlook'd for, unawares, nay, it is impossible for an unconverted man to say, now I am prepared for it, now I expect it, now my heart is ready to receive it; for there is no good preparation for grace in the soul of man till some portion of it have entered before. Natural dispositions cannot attain to bring in supernatural grace. Therefore the first influx and admission of it must needs be sudden and unawares. As you can make no rules for the Wind, why it should blow South today, and North tomorrow, why from this Point of heaven at such a season rather than from another: So there is no aim to be taken how this or that man was first partaker of the heavenly light, which is thus couched in our Savior's words, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say loe here, or loe there, for the Kingdom of God is within you, Luk. xvii. 20. For what observation can we make, or through what tokens can we collect, that God will begin to draw a sinner unto him? Will you say he lives justly, and chastely? If they were Christian justice and chastity the seed of the Spirit was in his heart before: If they be but moral conformities, he is still the Child of wrath, and those laudable actions were but sins, or imperfections with a good gloss. Will you say they desire and pray for the holy Spirit, and therefore this illumination comes not suddenly, but with invitation? O but says the Arausican Council, which handled this Point of the grace of God more copiously and Orthodoxly than ever any Council did, the utterance, nay, the very thought of every good Prayer, it is instilled by the divine irradiation of God's help, and the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Prayer; and if any man say, that the grace of God is bestowed upon our Prayer and Invocation, and that grace did not first enable us to make that Prayer, he contradicts the Prophet Isaiah, and the Apostle Paul, who both have these same words, I am sought of them that asked not for me, I am found of them that sought me not. Thus that Council, whereby you hear, that we, whose nature is rank corruption, do not prepare and dispose the way to attract the blessing of heaven upon us by little and little, upon congruity of God's favor; it comes suddenly and unawares, when we least deserve it.
It must not be let alone without this addition to it, which is S. Ambrose his descant on it, Nescit tarda molimina spiritus sancti gratia; the spirit of purity and renovation is quick and sudden in the work of conversion, he doth not linger, and mature his good effects by soft leisure; he doth not creep like a snail, or as a Father of our own Church says, like a Serpent, Serpentis est repere. Commonly motions that come from the old Serpent the Devil creep upon us, and men grow bold in iniquity by degrees, Nemo repent fit pessimus was the old Proverb, but where the Lord loveth, the man whom he chooseth, he doth in an instant take away his stony heart, and give him an heart of flesh: And as the Resurrection of the dead shall be in an instant, so in an instant he translates him from death to life. It is done with such dispatch and celerity, that the gift of Prophesy, nay, of Sanctification is called but the touch of the lips. Says the Angel to Isaiah upon the living coal which he brought from the Altar, This hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged, Isa. vi, 7. The loyal Israelites that feared God and the King are called a band of men whose hearts God had touched, 1 Sam. x. 26. O admirable workman, says Gregory, Mox ut tetigeret mentem docet solùmque tetigisse est docuisse; He doth but touch and teach, and the mind is reformed in a moment, as soon as ever the finger of his Spirit is laid upon it. An Apostolical Spirit came suddenly upon St. Matthew, penitent restitution upon Zacchaeus, confession and grace upon the Thief on the Cross. The Eunuch made haste to believe, and as soon as he believed, he would be baptized of Philip at the next water he came to, and go no further. Men must not neglect present motions of grace, though suddenly rising in them. Now the Lord moves my heart, and now at the first touch I will obey the Spirit. This is a brave and a pious resolution: But if you let the grace of God knock at door once and twice and do not open, it is to be feared that you will grow deaf after a while, and never hear it. Modo & modo non habebant modum; Anon, and tomorrow, and hereafter at more leisure, and as Festus said to Paul, Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season I will call for thee; these are not words of good manners to so great a King as the King of heaven. Can Impenitancy, or continuance in evil be good at any time? Then break it off at the first pang and throw that the Conscience suffers for it. The Spirit is a sudden wind, he deceives his own soul that continues in a long consumption of any sin, and thinks to be helped out of it by a lingering remedy.
The description of the suddenness hath not been unuseful you see, and we shall collect as much from that which follows, that it was Flatus veniens, & vehemens, a rushing mighty wind. Methinks I see the Spirit of God set out here in his manifold strength and efficacy. Is there anything in itself so thin and poor as a puff of Air? It is neither Iron, nor Brass, nor Bones, and yet what strange effects it works? Turns up Oaks and Cedars by the roots, breaks the Ships of the Sea in pieces, casts down Bulwarks and Fortresses; so Epiphanius received it from some good hand, that God overthrew the Tower of Babel with a violent wind. So the principles of the Spirit seem to be very mean and foolishness to flesh and blood; the Instruments in which it wrought homely illiterate Fishermen; yet the learning of five Synagogues, putting their wits together, was not able to resist the wisdom, and the Spirit by which Stephen spake, Acts vi. 10. It brings down strong Holds and high Imaginations; it brings into Captivity every exalting thought to the obedience of Christ; Wisdom, Learning, Might, Majesty, all have stooped before it. As the Scripture says often that the Spirit came mightily upon Samson, and then his Foes were sure to fall before him; so it rusheth upon some holy men with a gallant heroic zeal, and then all the subtleties of Satan are not able to make a part against it. No Fear can dismay them, no Persecution can make them hide their head, no Favor. or Reward make them swerve from a good conscience, no Discipline so strict that they will not undertake for the love of Christ. The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force, Mat. xi. 12. The Kingdom of heaven was among the Jews, but Rapuit regnum coelorum Centurio; The Centurion did as it were invade it, and take it from them, for upon his confession our Savior said, I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.
Neither is it only expedient to make it manifest that the Spirit is strong and mighty, like a stiff vehement wind in actu exercito, in the power of it which the Saints of God have to exercise to others, but also in actu primo informante, when it enters into the heart of them whom God converts, it comes with a mighty force, and will not be gainsaid with the opposition of our rebellious nature. Neque resistor ultra potest, cui velle resistor sublatum est, says a Reverend Father of our own Church; that is, neither shall our vicious nature resist the mighty working of God's converting grace, since the first thing that such grace works is to conquer our perverseness in resisting. I do not say but our will hath always a liberty and indifferency in it to do, or not do: To choose or refuse; but the act to resist is suspended for that time by the grace of God, and though resistency be never taken away in this life, but is ever smothered and couchant in the bitter root of our corruption, yet according to the efficacious and sweet motion of grace, God disposeth that it shall not come out into act. It is not therefore the power to resist which is taken away, for then the will were violenced, and nature quite transformed, whereas grace is the perfection, not the abolition or destruction of nature; It is only the actual resistency which is stopped. Most excellently Prosper, Hanc abundantiorem gratiam ita credimus potentem, ut negemus violentam; There is a special abundant grace which is the Lot of that remnant which shall be saved, and this we believe that it hath powerful success upon the will, but makes no violent, that is irresistible, entrance. But it carries all the affections with it with a most urgent, undeniable, persuasive force; it ravisheth a man from himself, he feels himself as it were compelled in spite of Tyrants, in spite of death to confess the truth, We cannot but speak the things which we have heard and seen, Acts iv. 20. Nihil imperiosius side. The Spirit of God hath a most imperious authority over the soul where it will dwell, a smooth tongue in an eloquent man will win much upon his hearers, and draw them far, but the Spirit of God is a commanding principle; a rushing mighty wind, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Oecumenius, this is a sign of abundance of vehemence, it is the breath of God whose might is invincible.
But thirdly there is another way that some conjecture at the vehemency of the Wind, and that was to strike terror. Into whom you will say? In some sort, says Calvin, into the Disciples themselves that received the Holy Ghost. Thus he most judiciously, Nunquam ad recipiendam Dei gratiam rite sumus comparati, nisi domitâ priùs carnis confidentiâ; That is, we are never fitly disposed to receive the grace of God, until our carnal pride and security be beaten down, and humbled. Some roaring terrible wind of judgment, and the expectation of hell fire, if we repent not, must shake us soundly. Or else we will fall asleep in our sins, and wallow in wantonness with the slumbering soft noise of mercy. As the Spring of the year, wherein all things grow, begins roughly with March, and ends sweetly with May, so Renovation and New-birth it begins austerely with the angry Pedagogie and Discipline of the Law, with consternation in a troubled Spirit, then begin the fruits of the Spirit to spring up, but it proceeds to gladness and rejoicing, and to peace in Christ. First, the strong Wind passed by Elias, that rent the Mountains, and brake the Rocks in pieces, then an Earthquake, and a fire, and after the fire a still small voice. The Angels coming to the Blessed Virgin had first fear and astonishment in it, then greeting and salutation. So the Wind that came at the Feast of Whitsuntide did first roar and terrify them that were gathered together, afterwards it was as Oil that comforted, and as new Wine that maketh glad the heart. So says Bernard upon the conclusion of it, Tranquillus Deus tranquillat omnia, & quietum aspicere quiescere est. God is peace, and sets all at peace, and to behold him in whom our soul rests is to rest forever. But others say, for all the mightiness of the Wind it is not expressed that any fear did fall upon the Apostles, the vehemency of the sound was to corroberate the Apostles, and to let them know there were blasts in store to cast down their enemies. Such as repelled the Darts of Maximinus the Tirant into his own face, when he gave battle to the Christians: Such as hath dispersed the invincible Navies of our Enemies, Et conjurati veniunt in classica venti. Christ descended gently as the rain into the Fleece of Wool, in the days of his exinanition. He shall not cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street, Isa. xlii. 2. But now he is exalted into glory, and hath the rule put into his hand, he will thunder and break forth in strong violence against his enemies.
Thus far you have heard that the Holy Ghost came sensibly and audibly to the Ear like a sound, the similitude of that sound was the noise of the Wind, the Attributes of it two, sudden and mighty, and yet these two Points are undispatcht, the terminus à quo, it came from heaven; and the terminus ad quem, it filled the house where they were sitting. But briefly. The first of these moves much to one thing that is handled before, that there is vehement strength in the grace of God because it comes from heaven; says the great Counselor Gamaliel, If this work be of men it will come to naught, but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it. The Winds naturally arise out of the Caves of the earth, they steam from beneath, and blow laterally from one Coast to another: So are worldly graceless devices, all unsanctified counsels, they blow from beneath, from the Forge of Satan, the principles are drawn from Ambition, Hatred, Emulation, Treachery, and have an oblique collateral motion, which is profound dissimulation: But the root of grace is above in heaven, and grows down to the earth; it fetcheth all its drifts from Peace, from Religion, from Charity, from the Sanctuary, from the Glory of God. Strip all your politick projects from their fair pretences, and see the ground and foundation upon which they rest, and you will find them to be hollow and putrefied vapors. Again, slight not the harmless ways and simplicity of good men, for if you could discover their conscience as God doth, you would find their scope and aim to be celestial. And nothing comes from heaven but with this purpose, to convert our earthly inclinations into heavenly directions.
And let this superficial inspection satisfy for the term and place whence the sound came, it came from heaven. The end of our work is the consideration of the place where it staid and lighted, It filled all the house where they were sitting. If you expect to have it treated of how the blast of the Spirit did fill the house, I must put you off to the fourth verse of this Chapter, where it is recorded of the Apostles, that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and better speak of it touching men than touching the Room of an house, that Christ is the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Moreover, if you look for any touch upon the House itself, remember I told you such Traditions for it last year as I found in Antiquity, but with this modest conclusion, that the Point was not material, and all human Records are uncertain. This we may, and must build upon, that it was an upper Room of some dwelling in Jerusalem, Acts i. 13. and of large capacity we are sure to contain at least one hundred and twenty persons, ver. 15. Perhaps also of sufficient bigness to hold those three thousand that were converted, ver. 41. of this Chapter. To that other Circumstance also, that the men and women are said to be sitting in the house when this blessing came down upon them. I have little to add, I love reverence of gesture with all my soul; yet I love not to be so nice as some, that hold it so necessary for the Apostles to be humbled on their knees, when the grace of God fell on them, that they say the meaning of the Text is not sitting but kneeling, howsoever the words go, and that to sit signifies not the posture of their body, but their habitation. I confess and believe, if they had looked for the Comforter at that moment, they would have cast themselves down upon the ground when the Majesty of God was in the place, and I persuade myself they did instantly kneel and give thanks, as soon as they perceived what mighty work God had wrought upon them: But remember they were taken suddenly, and unawares, in some honest communication no doubt. And being so unprovided, why might not Christ begin this Miracle while they were sitting, as well as Christ appear from heaven to Paul as he was riding, or God appear unto Moses while he was keeping sheep? Excellently Cajetan, Non horreo sessionem corporalem, cum nihil indecens inducat; I am not scrupulous or troubled at their sitting, as long as it was done with no obstinate, irreverent, disobedient affection. O but the Roman Missal for this day hath this Hymn, Orantibus Discipulis Deum venisse nunciat. While they were at their prayers, they mean kneeling, the sound gave them warning that the Holy Ghost was come. Well, this case is quickly resolved, their Hymn is mistaken, and let them mend their Missal and not mend the Scripture.
Is there anything more to be extracted out of this last Point? One thing, and that is all. It is a remarkable note of a most acute Father of our own Church. Thus: This Wind filled not all the Country, or all Jerusalem, but that house where they sat. Nay, says he, and very truly, that Room only of the house where they were assembled. One Room for an whole house is a frequent Synecdoche. Natural Winds breath over many places at once, but this Wind blew elective, by choice and discretion. The Spirit blows upon certain places where it will, and upon certain persons, and they shall plainly feel it, and others about them not a whit. It is a peculiar wind, appropriate to the place where the Apostles are, that is the Church, else where to seek it is but folly, the place it bloweth in is Zion. This is the Divinity of that great Scholar Bishop Andrew's, that the Spirit hath not cast an universal diffusion over all the world, but it blows by election and choice, that is at God's good will and pleasure, upon that place only where Christ hath his Church. For what use can they make, or have they ever made of the Spirit, to whom the name of Christ and salvation in his blood was never revealed? The purpose of giving the Holy Ghost is to make the Seed of the Word fruitful in our hearts, that we may believe the Gospel, that we may live holily according to the profession of our Faith, and that through faith, which must work by love if it be true faith, we may be saved. AMEN.
THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost.
ACTS ii. 3.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
O F all Mysteries, of all Visions, of all Revelations which the Church ever had, this that is contained in my Text hath one peculiar blessing, that it is most easy to be understood. I can give no reason for it but this, that as natural light makes all colors visible to our eyes, and itself most visible: so the Holy Ghost causeth all celestial Doctrine that concerns eternal salvation to be revealed to the knowledge of faith, and makes himself to be most apparent and intelligible. Therefore I cannot but observe it unto you, that some Angel or some Saint departed did always interpose their presence at the other mighty works of the Gospel, only they forbore to show themselves at this Feast of Pentecost upon the sending of the Holy Ghost. I will spread this before you in a trice, and my conjecture upon it. At the Nativity of our Savior, many Angels were employed to divulge it: At his Transfiguration, Moses and Elias appeared to ratify it: At his Agony in the Garden, an Angel waited there to strengthen him: At his Resurrection, two Angels in white appeared in his Sepulcher to glorify him: And lastly, at his Ascension, two others clad in as white apparel as they, did testify of him. But upon the descending of the Holy Ghost the Angels did quite withdraw themselves, I am sure they came not in any bodily shape into the place where the Apostles were gathered together, for that were as the Proverb says facem soli praeferre, to light a candle before the Sun at noon day: and that illustrates all things, can be illustrated by nothing but by himself. This is the comfort then of my Text, that we have light on every side to walk in: this is the great latitude of the benefit contained in it, that it gives us vocem & scientiam, linguam & ignem; both tongue and fire, both science and elocution, sapere & fari quae sentiat, to conceive clearly that which is fit to be learnt, and to utter distinctly that which is wisely conceived: And therefore in one word we owe unto this blessed day, both completely to be made happy, and completely to know our happiness.
No marvel if the Old Church, many hundred years since, which was most prudent in appointing Festivals, did constitute, that between Easter and Whitsuntide all the fifty days should be destinated to joy and gladness that all the people should sing haleluja with a loud voice, so often as they met in their holy Assemblies; that there should be no fasting days, no mourning, no not so much as the dejection of kneeling on the ground, but to stand and pray all that space of time, these Fathers were exceeding full of ceremony to express the gladness which they had for the gift of the Holy Ghost. And therefore Bernard calls the Lenten strictness that goes before Easter, Quadragesimam luctus & paenitentiae, the forty days of godly sorrow and repentance: but he calls the time following to Whitsuntide, Quinquagesimam gaudii, the fifty days of Exaltation (for our joy doth surpass our sorrow). At Easter we are assured by Christ's Resurrection that the body shall rise from corruption: at Whitsuntide these firy tongues do manifest that the Soul shall rise from darkness and ignorance, and be partaker of the marvelous light. And because this mighty miracle was communicated to the Apostles in most sensible objects, therefore I told you the last year that the third person of Trinity disclosed his glory and power openly two ways, to their ear and to their eye; by a sound unto the ear, by a lightsome brightness to the eye: to the ear as to the sense of faith, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, &c. to the eye as to the sense of love, and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, &c. Whereupon I will enlarge myself unto you at this time in these particulars. 1. That the Holy Ghost presented himself to the Primitive Church in a visible object. 2. For the principal substance of the apparition, it was a Tongue. 3. Lingua dispertita vel sectilis, it was a Cloven Tongue. 4. Quasi ignis, it was a firy Tongue. 5. It was lingua, or ignis, or spiritus insidens, this Tongue, or this Fire, or this Spirit, take which you will, it is all one, but it rested or sat upon each of them.
We begin with an Apparition representing not some Angel or other glorious creature putting on a sensible shape, but the third Person of Trinity, the Eternal Spirit consubstantial with the Father and the Son, He offered himself as this day in a visible Figure, to the Apostles, and divers other believers that were gathered together in Jerusalem. St. Austin in his third Book of the Trinity maintains that all the Persons of Trinity did appear in visible shapes to the Patriarchs of the Old Testament, one or two upon one occasion, and a third upon another occasion. Tertullian and Epiphanius are stout in their opinion, that none but God the Son, called the Angel of the New Covenant, did lay aside his invisible glory in the old times, and appeared to men; I will not engage myself in that quarrel, but for one thing I am at certainty, that when the Law was delivered at Mount Sinai, the Godhead did not condescend to any apparition at all, the people were forbidden so much as to imagine they saw any resemblance of the Most High, says Moses, Ye saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice, Deut. iv. 12. But the Lord grew more friendly and familiar with us that profess the Gospel. We have seen, we have heard, our hands have handled the word of life: this day the new Law began at Mount Zion, and we did not only hear a voice, as it is in the former verse, but according to my Text they saw a similitude, that which was wrapped up in dark Parables to the Fathers, we see that truth as clearly as it were the Sun at noon day. They had the Veil before their eyes, says the Apostle, we behold the fair beauty of God, and the Veil taken away, and rent asunder; they did dishonur God by worshipping visible things instead of the Invisible Creator, and therefore they might not see any resemblance of him for fear of transgressions; and if we worship vain things that are not God's in this world, we shall utterly be deprived of seeing his glory, and lose our reward hereafter. But the special intent of this apparition was to comfort the Apostles for all the tribulations that they were to sustain; for as their faith was corroborated with some vision of God here, so it assured them that the same faith should be rewarded with a perfect vision hereafter in the life to come. He that believeth doth as it were shut his eyes, and takes all upon trust that he believes, yet upon such trust as cannot deceive him, the trust of Divine Revelation: so that he sees God, as I may say, though he do not see him, as it is Hebr. xi. 27. By faith Moses endured the wrath of Pharaoh as seeing him who is invisible: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to see him that is invisible is contrary to reason, but reconciled by Divinity: but if at any time the most renowned Servants of God had some glimpse of his Majesty in an apparition, as it was at this time, then it seals that promise unto them which they have made, Matth. v. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God: they shall, I say, for all their consolation is de futuro, in hope, but not in act, whether this Vision of the Holy Ghost, or any other before it, they saw nothing to speak of in comparison of that which shall be revealed. Says Epiphanius he that looks through the funnel of a Chimney may truly say that he sees the Heaven, but what doth he see? neither the heighth, nor the breadth, nor the vastness of it; so he that sees some resemblance of the Holy Trinity, sees somewhat of God darkly as in a Glass, but he sees not so much of the immensity of his glory, as he that sees the Heavens above but through the eye of a Needle. To close this point, what doth the Lord require from hence? but that our eyes should be chaste and pure, and sanctified to his service; because He let the benediction of his Spirit shine upon them? and that amends might be made chiefly in that bodily instrument, through which we have dishonored him with wantonness and concupiscence. What is created more wicked than an eye, says the Son of Sirach? and therefore it weepeth upon every occasion, Ecclus. xxxi. 13. God hath placed our eyes in the uppermost part of man, to be Centenels in our Watch-Tower, and to give us warning of those things that may hurt us: but quis custodiet ipsos custodes, unless we set a Watch upon this Watch we shall be betrayed to the sins of the flesh. We live like Laban's Sheep, every man conceives folly, as his eye beholds vain things and party coloured. Seleucus King of Locrine enacted a Law to have the unchaste eyes of Adulterers pulled out, to punish the trespass in the fountain of the sin: and Democritus the Philosopher pulled out his to prevent the danger. We have had an evil eye, Matth. x. eyes full of adultery, and then as Sal • ucus said, or rather as our Savior said, oculus eruendus, an eye good for nothing, but pull it out and cast it from you: but as the whole man shall be made a new lump through the reformation of inward grace, so that the same work may be wonderful also in our eyes, the Holy Ghost cast his beams upon them at this Feast of Whitsuntide, and there appeared unto them, &c.
Hitherto I have made a general survey of the Text, that it contains an Apparition sent from Heaven: in making access to particulars the first thing notorious in the Apparition is, that the matter, and, as it were, the substance of it is a tongue. The whole world was mad against the truth, crying out distractedly like those of Ephesus, Acts xix. Then there was need of the voice of a charmer to make them still and attentive with some heavenly incantation. The Church was going forth in a militant order to fight the Lord's Battels, therefore the Lord gave a Trumpet to his Ministers to utter forth a certain sound that they might prepare themselves for the skirmish, 1 Cor. xiv. 8. Briefly the Gospel was now to launch forth, and to flote upon the waves of many trials and persecutions, and therefore it had need of a Helm to turn it about whithersoever the Governor listeth; and that little Helm is the tongue, Jam. iii. 4. I told you even now that the wantonness of the eye had a gracious vision to amend it; so here came a remedy from Heaven to correct the iniquity of our mouth, which is the very forge of Hell, and a tongue descended from above to sanctify it. As the Devil can put no worse thing into us than an evil tongue, and then it becomes the worst member that we have, Jam. iii. 6. so God can send us no better thing from the store of his mercies than a tongue to praise him: and then David calls it in the old Translation of our Psalms, the best member that we have. Psal. cviii. 1. We had need to let that Prayer come in often among our earnest supplications, that God would touch our lips with a coal from his altar, as he sent a Seraphin with that blessing to the Prophet Isaiah. It is very meet that we consider in our vote with the Psalmist, Set a watch before my mouth, pone ostium circumstantiae, as the vulgar Latin hath it, make such a door for my mouth, that I may look to every circumstance of every syllable that passeth out: Oret lingua ut dometur lingua, Says St. Austin, O let the tongue pray for itself that it may be ruled: how often trips it in swearing? how often doth it murmur in discontent? in boasting above measure, in pride lofty, in anger furious, in perjuries blasphemous, in curses bitter, in vain talking never quiet; glib as honey in hypocrisy, subtle in lying, smooth in deceiving, impudent in flattery. What a happy thing it is to have a fence about the lips, that no such evil spirits as these may come in or out? and notwithstanding all these exorbitancies of the mouth to which we are so obnoxious, God can purify our speech, and season it with salt that it shall not corrupt: For if man by wit and industry can tame wild beasts which he hath not made, cannot the Lord much more tame the tongue which he hath made? a Watch can suppress and curb those in, that would break out of their holds, and the Lord can make such a door for our lips as shall inhibit all the petulancy of vain breath, and shut and open for his own glory? Ostium aperitur & clauditur, says Gregory unto it, a door is made to let our friends and familiars in, but to keep out theevs and robbers; so the tongue must be open to confess our sins, and shut if hypocrisy shall attempt to excuse them: the mouth must be open unto the praise of God, and barred against our own commendation; it must be open to teach the humble, but shut and silent if the obstinate will not learn, for answer not a fool in his folly says Solomon: He that openeth and no man shutteth, he that shutteth and no man openeth can give us this power from above to speak unto his praise, and to be silent unto evil; therefore the Holy Ghost descended in the apparition of a tongue.
To pierce further, as far as observation will give me leave upon this point, as the tongue naturally is an instrument of two functions, of speaking, and of tasting; so these extraordinary tongues were destined for two properties, to preach the Gospel, and to discern spiritual things in their true gust and sapor. The first intent was to give the Apostles a door of utterance, to proclaim salvation to all that were prepared to hear, and that all men should confess with boldness that Jesus is the Christ. The Spirit came in the former verse like a rushing mighty wind, that was for inspiration, for the Apostles own sakes, to sanctify themselves, but the gift of tongues was for elocution, to impart the benefit to more than themselves. This is the ancient gloss of the Fathers upon my Text, especially Gregory 's, and that in two places, Pastores primos in linguarum specie spiritus sanctus insedit, quia quos repleverit de se protinus loquentes facit; the Holy Ghost sat upon the first Pastors of the Church in the shape of a tongue, for whomsoever of that rank the Divine Spirit fills, he opens their lips to preach the Lord Jesus. In both of St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy one of his Injunctions upon a Bishop is that he should be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , apt to teach. In his admonitions to Titus the same lesson again, A Bishop must be able by sound doctrine to exhort, and convince gainsayers, Tit. i. 9. and St. Jerome says very truly how that character is more appropriated to a Bishop than all the rest: the rest ought generally to be found in all holy Christians not to be given to filthy lucre, nor to quaffing of wine, to be the Husband of one Wife, to be hospital, just, unblameable; but this is intrinsical first to Episcopal, then to Priestly vocation to be cymbolum mundi, the loud Cymbals of the world, the tongues of the Church, to be apt and painful to teach. And therefore Espencaeus, though of the Roman party, exclaims much against the Pontifician Bishops for giving Monks and Friars license to preach, who are no Successors of the Apostles, and therefore never received an Evangelical tongue in their Predecessors; but says he, the Prelates that ought to do that work themselves will not, and therefore they grant license to those to teach the Gospel who ought not: but he cries out unto them to live according to St. Paul's Canons charged upon those two famous Bishops, Timothy and Titus, and then eant Episcopy, & se a docendi necessitate, si possint, excusent; mark that, Reverend Fathers, says he, and excuse yourselves if you can from the necessity of preaching. No, there is no excuse, for these tongues descended now after a mighty rushing wind, quasi exeuntes e loco tonitrui, as if they had been bolts after a clap of thunder, to signify that these are the Trumpets which God sends forth to call us to repentance before the day of Judgment: Ante adventum judicis ipsi clamando gradiantur, says Gregory. And howsoever some may justly attain to such place in the Church as to sway the Staff of Government in their hand, yet they must remember that they are never released of this duty, that their tongue must edify. In the old Book of Ordination in this Church as well as in the Church of Rome, the Bishop Elect at his Consecration had the Bible given him in one hand to teach, and the Pastoral Staff in the other hand to govern the Flock. It was never meant he should let fall the Book out of one hand, and hold the Staff in both: nay beware he be not beaten with the Staff that lets go the Book. Latratu & baculo rabies luporum deterrenda est, says St. Jerome, that is, if the Wolf come near the Sheepfold, he must not only be threatened with the Staff, but the Dogs must bark at him likewise, and then he will leave his Prey, and take him to his heels. St. Austin presseth the same Doctrine out of St. Paul. Ephes. iv. 11. He gave some Apostles, and some Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers. Says he I collect from hence that every Pastor, that is every Bishop must be a Teacher; for it is not said he gave some Pastors and some Teachers, as it went before, some Apostles and some Prophets, but Pastors and Teachers are put together without a distinctive member, ut intelligerent Pastores ad officium suum pertinere doctrinam, that Pastors may know how teaching is included in their duty, and cannot be separated from it. This then was the principal intent of giving the tongue at the Feast of Whitsuntide, as it is Isa. l.4. The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season. First then negligent silence in Pastors is a stifling the grace of God: Quantùm vitae merito aedificat tantùm destruit silentio. Secondly, affected silence is affronting the grace of God, as those Orders of Friars that bind themselves by vow and institution of life not to utter a word excepting one day, or it may be one hour in the week, sometimes not so often. Agatho the Anchorite is commended in the lives of the Fathers that he never spake: what is this but as it were to advow not to receive the benediction of the Holy Ghost. Finally to be preproperous and over-hasty to teach the Gospel is to prevent the Spirit, or rather not to wait for the grace of God. For Christ had first rooted the knowledge of the Word and Scripture in the Apostles, and then endued them with a tongue; but they that start up Teachers before they be grounded in the Word, speak with their own tongue before they have received the tongue of the Holy Ghost.
But the tongue supplies another office in nature, and that's to taste: The ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meats, Job xxxiv. 3. so the Spirit makes us feel and know the good things of God that are in us, even as the tongue makes us relish that which is sweet upon the palate, and will be delectable for nourishment: Nay we do not only taste the things of heaven slightly, and as we say upon the tip of the tongue, but the same Spirit makes us to ruminate upon them, and chew the cudd, my heart is always musing of thy testimonies, says David. O 'tis a comfortable thing to have a taste of Heaven in our Soul, to have some persuasive Experiment that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in us, especially to have it proceed to that most pleasing Sapor, when the Spirit shall testify to our Spirit, that we are the Sons of God: but in all that are meetly disposed to Eternal Life, there is some perceivance, in others more, in others less, there's some Taste, some Consolation, that Christ is in them and works in them by Faith and Love; and the more you taste it, the more sweetness you shall find to breed an Appetite. The Natural Man perceives not the things that are of God, he counts the Doctrine of Christ and him crucified to be Madness and Foolishness, he thinks they that kill his Apostles do God good service; he puts bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter, Isa. 5.20. there's all the Taste that he hath, he wants a Tongue to dijudicate of the Manna that comes from Heaven, which no man knows but he that receiveth it. Rev. ii. 17. He to whom it is given to know what is the height, breadth and depth of the Love of our Lord Jesus and his Redemption; he accepts of all things in a diverse manner from him to whom the mind of the Lord is not revealed; he interprets the Poverty of Christ to be the Riches of the World, his Ignominy to be the Triumph of the Saints; Tribulation for the truth is a Refreshing to his body, Mortification and pious Sorrow a dainty Lenitive to his soul; he receives the Doctrine of our Ministry not as the Word of Man, but as it is indeed, the Word of God; he cannot but speak the Truth, though his life lie at the stake for it, negare Dei verbum non valeo, quia spiritus sancti linguam habeo, it is Gregory's, I cannot deny the word of God, because the Holy Ghost hath given me a tongue to speak it. To conclude this point, no man can have a smack of the Kingdom of Heaven, but through the relish of this tongue, no man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost, 1 Cor. xii. 3. as we are born children of wrath, in our unregenerate estate we have bitterness in our throat, and the poison of Asps under our lips, how can we savor the things that are of God? but the Spirit makes us a new creature, and takes away all this sourness, and ill relished acrimony, and then his fruit will be sweet unto our mouth, Cantic. ii. 3.
Having delivered unto you the substance of this Vision, which is a tongue it follows to speak of the Figure and Form of it. It was cloven, that's truly called the Figure; and like as of fire, that's truly called the Form. A Tongue was a Commission, and an enabling of the Apostles to preach, but a Cloven Tongue was their hability to preach unto many. The Syrian language was all that they could speak before, and in that they faultered too, and mouthed it rudely and unelegantly, a silly Damosel quipt even St. Peter with it, Thou art a Galilaean, and thy speech betrayeth, yet such a tongue as it was they were unlettered men, and could speak no more, all the world beside were Barbarians to them, and they Barbarians to all the world. But the Lord knew that they had need of many tongues to pay that great debt which they owed his Church; ite, predicate universae creaturae, go and teach all Nations from Jerusalem and Samaria, even unto the ends of the world. I would a little satisfy my Auditors before I go any further, that would know how the tongues did resemble a cloven figure that sat upon the Apostles. If you look upon such types of it as Picture-drawers have framed, remember that there is no heed to be given to their Pencil, for they will extremely abuse your ignorance; they usually represent the Apparition, as if every Apostle, and the Blessed Virgin sitting in the midst of them, had a little lamp of fire, like the flame of a small Torchet blazing upon their head, and so would thrust this belief upon the rash gazer, that God sent down a show of many firy tongues into the place where this holy Society was gathered together; and that there was singularis flammula, a little flame proportioned somewhat like a Tongue, sitting upon each of them. Now this is nothing suitable to that which immediately ensued, and was prefigured in this Miracle, namely, the speaking with divers Tongues to the fit intelligence of all Nations. The most probable conceit that I can frame of it is, to imagine how fire disparts itself into flames, especially, a celestial irradiation, like the light of the Sun, that was but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , like as of fire. Fire, you know, will cast out many flames in sharp and Pyramidal points, or as the Sun lays his beams forth in many ejaculations, nothing fits it righter than the expansion of the fingers of the hand, so this fire did glister like several beams in proportion to the Tongue when it is rather pickant and sharp than broad, and in that sort, as I fancy it, as is above the skill of any Limner in the world to paint it (for the Holy Ghost perhaps intended not to be set forth in Workmans Art and Imagery) and so it multiplied into the show of several disparted Tongues, as many of them seemed to sit upon every several Apostle.
My drift is to make this conceit of it enter into you, that from one Language the Apostles grew expert of a sudden to speak many, their Harp now wherewith they praised the Lord was not only ten stringed, but ten times ten stringed to make a more cheerful melody to the God of Jacob. The Tongue which was confined before to a little corner of the world in Palestine, and there only to bless the Creator that made us is now set at liberty, that in all Languages it may glorify the Savior that redeemed us. And as the Fathers do very well show it, this is a plain reversing of the curse of Babel by the blessing that came out of Zion. For as God pulled down that proud Tower which those insolent Builders intended by the confusion of many Tongues, so he built up the new Jerusalem in an instant by the gift of many Tongues; and as diversity of Tongues was a punishment to scatter Rebels for their pride, so diversity of Tongues was made the only means to reduce Infidels that had not heard of God into the unity of the Faith. And they that advanced themselves against heaven, says Gregory, lost the communion of that one tongue which they had, but they which submitted themselves to the good will and pleasure of Christ obtained the communion of all Tongues which they had not. Sic humilitas unitatem meruit, & superbia confusionem. And all this was done visibly upon this one day, that we may believe the Church shall never want God's invisible grace, that is, though not in this kind, yet in some other benefit. A miracle in the same kind, they that are the common minters of Miracles, dare not urge or pretend. And although nothing be more expedient for the settling of the Gospel in an unknown world, such as America was within one hundred and forty years, then the gift of Tongues to be able to speak to those Savages to their own understanding, yet the Jesuits have never arrogated that any of their Order who visited those parts, could speak new Languages by inspiration; only Turcellinus, a man of no forehead, nor modesty, says, that Xaverius the Jesuit spake but his mother tongue to the Indians of Goa, and that all those heathenish people did understand him as if it had been their native Dialect; an impudent forgery confirmed by none, disavowed by Acosta of his own Society, and quite contrary to the nature of a Miracle, that Infidels and Pagans should be inspired to understand, and the Christian that converted them should have no extraordinary inspiration to speak. Therefore as I said before, we have no kind of invisible grace in the same kind that the Apostles had cloven tongues, that is a faculty to speak by instinct with all Nations, but the Lord did never give to any Age more blessing in the learning of the Tongues than he hath done to this, furnishing men with rare skill to be able to communicate in speech with those of the world beneath us, which is a sign to me that he is gathering the World unto him by the calling of all Nations, and hastening his Kingdom.
But now I gather in further upon this Miracle, Can anything be more Diametrically opposite to the good intention of it than public Prayers recited in a Tongue unknown to the ignorant people, to which they cannot understandingly say Amen? Why hath God sent down this Vision of Cloven Tongues, but that the Lips of all Nations and Languages may as well publicly as privately resound his glory? If Beasts and Birds could speak they would utter nothing but that which they understand; and shall reasonable men be tied through the tyranny of Churchmen to fumble words by roat like Beasts? It is against Nature, which gave us a Tongue to be the interpreter of the mind to those that listen to us. It is against Reason to make the Laiques say Amen to the Priests, when for their part they are uncertain whether he blessed them, or cursed them. It is against Scripture, 1 Cor. xiv. If you speak in an unknown tongue, how can he that supplies the place of the Ideot say Amen? And Lyra says upon it, If the People understood the Priests they would serve God better, be converted sooner, answer much more devoutly to the Contents of the Liturgy. It is against the Scope of the Holy Ghost, who enabled the Apostles to speak with divers Tongues, that all people might hear and know, and know and believe to eternal life. It is against all possibility of Edification: For where knowledge enters not first, how can zeal and desire be kindled? Ignoti nulla cupido. And it is an impious derision of one of the Romish to say, that although the Priest stand at the Altar so far distant from the people, that they neither hear nor understand, yet the people may be taught by Signs and Ceremonies. It is quite against the old Imperial Laws; Justinian the Emperor strictly commanding all Priests so to officiate in the Church, that their voice might come distinct and intelligible to all the people present, that they may answer again, as is their duty. Finally, it is most utterly against the ancient use of the Church, one example for many. St. Jerome says that at the Funerals of Paula the people sang Psalms, some in Hebrew, some in Greek, some in Latin, and Syriac, all in their several Dialects to praise the Lord for her happy departure. So I have delivered what is most opposite to the gift of Cloven Tongues; one thing more for a caution, that a double tongue is a gift of the Devil, as a cloven tongue is the gift of God. The cloven Tongue was the dispersion of many beams out of one flame, of many Tongues out of one root, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Oecumenius, so that there is unity in the root, and distinction in the stalks; but the double tongue (which St. Paul bids Deacons take heed of, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 1 Tim. iii. 8.) that is, Lying, Equivocation, Flattery, sowing dissention, double mindedness, Jam. i. 8. ( Omnis 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) he that hath a double tongue hath a double mind, an heart and a heart. He praiseth that to one Faction, which he defies before the other. He commends a man to his face, backbites him behind his back, he confesseth Christ where it is advantage, and denies him where it is advantage. Cum tristibus severe, cum remissis jucunde, as the Orator said of Cataline, he can curse and bless with the same breath, out of the same Fountain come forth sweet waters and bitter; these, and many more than these are the jugglings of a double tongue, but the Lord will say unto them, double unto them double, according to their iniquities, and divide them in twain, that they may have their portion with hypocrites.
I have been copious, as the time would give me leave, upon the Figure of these Tongues, that they were Cloven, next you must mark their Form, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as it were fire, cloven tongues as it were fire, and let a certain learned Interpreter have his judgment to himself, that it is an Hypallage, for there appeared fire as it had been Cloven Tongues, yet still it is but appearing, and as it were; the sound was a real sound that came from heaven, all beside was but Similitude and Apparition. Very fire was not needful, nay, it would have been offensive, and have scorched the part upon which it sat; But it was such fire as appeared to Moses in the Bush, Exod. iii. The bush burnt with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Such as the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah did foresee, Isa. xliii. 2. When thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. To be inspired in a moment to speak all sort of Tongues the Apostles did never dream of, Christ did not foretell them anything which sounded that way. But they had prediction of this part of the Miracle both from John the Baptist, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, Mat. iii. 11. and from Christ's own mouth, I am come to send fire into the earth, Luk. xii. 49. Which the Fathers, for the most part, interpret of that which came down at this Feast of Pentecost. All the Plagues of the Old World, as if the Elements had spate out their venom, became blessings under the Kingdom of Christ. The Old World was drowned with Water, the New World is saved by Baptism; and as I said but lately, God pulled down the Tower of Babel by the confusion of Tongues, now he built up the New Jerusalem, by the multiplicity of tongues: So he sent down fire upon Sodom to consume it, here he sent down fire upon his Church to save it.
But because all the Apparitions which the most wise God doth send are full of Signification and Doctrine, it concerns the Text to have it diligently inquired wherefore the Holy Ghost did descend in fire?
First, Look back to the Mosaical Law delivered at Mount Sinai, at the promulgation of it there came smoke, and thunder, and flashes of fire, therefore, says Isidor, Ut unus Deus in utroque testamento agnosceretur; that you may know that the same Lord is Lord of both the two Testaments, in the first settling of the Gospel likewise there came down fire from heaven. The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, in his right hand was a firy Law, Exod. xxxiii. 1. Whereupon the Chaldee Paraphrast says, that his right hand wrote the Law out of the midst of the fire, so the holy Spirit doth write the Law of Christ in our hearts as it were with an hot Iron Mark, making such a stamp as will never be got out.
Secondly, And I mean principally likewise, the brightness of fire concurred in the Tongues to import that boldness, and fervor, and efficacy which goes along with them, where the Lord doth give the mouth utterance to speak. Tongues of flesh, and words of air will not serve the turn to convert souls, there must be fire put into the Tongue, somewhat above natural force and power that must bring it to pass. Says the Son of Sirach concernig that renowned Prophet that awed all Israel with his Preaching, then stood up the Prophet Elias like fire, and his word burned as a lamp, Ecclus. xlviii. 1. There is a burning vigor in the Word of God when it is luckily applied to the conscience of a sinner. As Cleophas and the other Disciple said of the communication of our Savior, Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and opened unto us the Scriptures? Luk. xxiv. 32. And we must be warm, and fervent ourselves in our Message, that we may warm others with it. Ardeat orator si judicem velit accendere, says Tully, that was his craftsmaster in that kind. Let the Orator be fervent if he means to heat the Judge in his cause, so the Ambassadors of God must be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Rom. xii. 11. Fervent in spirit, if they mean to thaw the frozen hearts of their Auditors. So says Gregory upon this very occasion of the firy Tongues, Otiosus est sermo doctoris, si praebere non valeat incendium amoris; Our Preaching is frivolous if it do not kindle the fire of divine love in our Disciples. Therefore St. Paul writes thus to Timothy, 2 Epist. i 6. To stir up the gift of God that is in him, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to quicken and kindle the fire of the gift of God that is in him. Ut sopitum ignitum suscites, to rake up the fire together, and make it flame that it go not out. The gift of God is a lively flame kindled in our hearts, which the Devil and the flesh would put out, and that monition quench not the spirit is the watch word against it, and we must labor, as much as we can, to foster it, and keep it burning. But he that is a lukewarm Christian, neither hot, nor cold, indifferent to serve God, or to disobey him, he is a loathed morsel which God cannot digest, and because he wants fervor it is a manifest sign that the Spirit is departed from him.
Thirdly, The Spirit came at several times in the shape of a Dove and in fire to show what mixture out of them both is most pleasing in a Christian, Quia ne que placere Deo simplicitas sine zelo, neque zelus potest sine simplicitate; the Dove, is the Emblem of gentleness and simplicity; the Fire, of zeal; neither is zeal good without meekness, nor meekness without zeal. We must not lose our fervor in tameness, nor with preposterous zeal forget gentleness. And well doth Gregory hunt this Parallel further, that the Spirit did descend upon Christ in the similitude of a Dove, upon the Apostles in the similitude of fire, for God will be mild as a Dove toward us, if we will be hot as fire against ourselves. That he may spare us with his mercy, let us be angry at ourselves with godly revenge. And so they that made no bones of lies and fictions have renowned St. Dunstan in his Legend, that a Dove descended from heaven upon him, Et remigia alarm scintillantis ignis splendorem prae se ferebant, says Capgrave. And the wings of it, when they were stretched out, did sparkle like fire. Their meaning is in this Fable, as I call it, to set him forth as most full of the Holy Ghost, upon whom both the Dove and fire descended.
Fourthly, says St. Austin, where God causeth the Tongue to speak the truth, fire, that is sorrow and trouble, will follow, Ignis portendit tribulationem, quam propter linguas erunt perpessuri; The fire imports that tribulation which the Apostles must undergo by preaching the Gospel. The Devil did rage against those that were the Pillars of the Church, and of true Doctrine, and blew the coals of many a fire to consume them.
Fifthly, and to shut up that Point, the Tongue being left to itself is full of much corruption as I have amplified already, and it had need of a purging fire to cleanse it, and refine it. In all the old Sacrifices of the Grecians Homer says, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they threw the tongue of the beast into the fire, whereupon says Coelius Rhodoginus, Comburendo linguas perperam dictorum labes expurgabant; They made expiation thereby in the flames of fire for all words that had been spoken offensively. St. James says the Tongue is a fire, Chap. iii. 6. meaning a fire of discord and mischief, and that fire had need to be corrected by another fire from heaven, or else the torments of hell-fire would be the end of it.
And now we will rest at last in that Point which is the resting and settling of these Tongues, There appeared unto them, &c. and it sat upon each of them. It sat?