A Century of Sermons
It is this Covenant of Faith that turneth away the captivity of Jacob. Now under the Discipline of Faith the Spirit attracts us by love and meek persuasions, it doth not threaten and bend the fist at us as the Law did; and that's the third part of bondage which our Jerusalem hath escaped, it is not awed with compulsion and fear, but it follows the direction of the Spirit with gladness, which is the next step to the state of Angels. It is not good for a Child to be too much scared by Praeceptors and Governors; such nipping weather is an enemy to a flourishing Spring. Then imagine what a shivering Ague it was to the Israelites (Sons of God, but not yet come to age, as St. Paul describes them) to struggle with so many austere Statutes as Moses gave them. Scourgings, loss of eyes, loss of limbs, burning, stoning, forfeiting the life of a man for the trespass of a beast, losing the right hand for a casualty, a moral man, that knew not the strictness of God's Judgments would say for a trifle. Add unto these so many pollutions circumstantial, natural that could not be helped, to be expiated with continual cost and labor; add above all these that noise of Malediction, louder than thunder, Cursed is he that doth not continue in all the words of this Law to do them; amidst these terrors that came so thick, as they were good to bridle stubbornness, so, many generous resolutions of the mind, that would have put forth, must needs be suffocated. The Angel of God, when he came with a message from heaven, and would have it intelligently received, likely he began with this Preface, Fear not. Nay, God did deliver this People from the fear of Pharaoh and his Host, before ever he would give them a Law to serve him. Men that are held to their Tasque by minacies, Magis aguntur, quàm agunt. He that doth a thing out of love is carried to it by an internal complacency, he is a self mover, and the action is his own: he that goes forward to his Tasque, because the scourge is behind him, the action is not his own, raptatur ad obsequium, his will rows against the stream, but the Tide is so strong that it carries him with it by Coaction. And that harvest of obedience which is reaped with the Sickle of stern dominion and threatening, when all is done it is not worth the bringing into the barn. For it keeps a man that he dares not break out into a scandalous transgression of the Law. Is not that all? The External Act is smooth and conformable to justice. But what reformation is there all that while in the heart? It is not fear but love which takes upon it to cure the concupiscence which is in the mind. If there be no better School-master than fear, the body may worship God alone, and the mind remain an Idolater. A longer declaration of this there needs not. We all know that a Palsy of fear will shake Judgment out of the wit. The Orator that pleaded upon peril of his life, Lugdunensem rhetor dicturus ad aram; he would pronounce but badly, and surely much of the imperfections of the Jews may be imputed to this, that the Law did subject them to the Spirit of Bondage.
It is the Spirit of the New Testament which turns us about, and sets us free from the superciliousness of the Law, and it would have us please the Lord for his mercies sake, and out of the sense of his goodness it exhorts us that our service should grow out of his favors, and our duty out of his bounty and benefits, so shall there be alacrity and readiness in the soul to all manner of virtue, as well as passive obsequiousness in the body. The Schoolmen observe it rightly, that filial fear, which is the freedom and ingenuity of obedience riseth out of the love of God; but servile fear, which is a plain captivity of Spirit, riseth out of the love of ourselves. The Servant who goes through his Tasque that he may not suffer correction, would do as much as may keep his skin whole, that is for love of himself: A Son that honoreth his Father, and rejoiceth to hear his voice, seeks his Fathers glory that he may receive of his glory, and this is purely out of the love of God. No wonder therefore if this hath redounded to far more fruits than ever the tree of the Law did bear, which was pelted and beaten. For, as one hath noted it well, God's Church hath increased more by the love of God than by the terror which he sent in the old time; but when persecutions were rife, it increased more by the terrors of men than by their love. The use of it is, that we serve God, as those that are past the Spirit of bondage, reverently with fear, and cheerfully without fear. Faith is the great promoter of reverential fear, and breeds in us an awe of God's Majesty, and a dread of his glory, as the Cherubims do cover their faces with their wings before him. This is clean and pure, refined in the flame of love, caused neither by sin nor punishment, but it reflects upon the baseness of our own substance, the Creature compares its own vileness with the infinite excellency of the Creator, and so approacheth with all due distance of humility. But Faith again cools the inflammation of servile fear with the water of Baptism, wherein we were sprinkled with the blood of Christ. It teacheth us to decline offenses with all care and study, not to escape punishment, but out of gratitude to him who hath done so great things for us. It engenders an ardent sollicitousness to be unblameable, not because the wrath of the Lord is terrible when he is displeased, but because his Mercy and Redemption deserve to be recompensed with all manner of obedience. Labor for that integrity which is expected from one that is free from sin, but a servant to righteousness. Such a one would do no unjust thing though he saw his Pardon sealed with his fleshly eyes, and were as surely confirmed in state of Salvation as an Angel of light. Justus non est sub lege, sed voluntas ejus est in lege, says St. Austin; He alludes to the Latin reading of the first Psalm, a just man is not under the Law, that is a strain of servitude: but his will is in the Law, there he finds equity and sincerity, he loves them for themselves: The minacles and castigations of it are without Law, of which he takes no notice, because his will is within. Vopiscus says, that after the death of Aurelian for six months there was an Interregnum, no new Elect was agreed upon, the People had no Prince to curb them, no Tribune of whom they stood in awe, yet there was no outrage committed, Nam quod est in vit â optimum se quisque timebat; Every man was afraid to offend himself, and his own conscience. These are voces libero homine dignae, these are the Praises of more ingenuous men than ever Heathens could be: It may be an Impreza for a perfect Christian, he doth no evil out of this generous resolution, for that he loves God within him, not because he fears the world without him. Out of Evangelical assurance, though the second coming of Christ shall be with such a strange concussion that Heaven and Earth will stagger and burn for it, yet a well-armed Christian hath digested the dread, and wisheth for that day when the whole Creature shall be delivered from bondage; it is his Exclamation, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Consider in what an agony the whole Camp of the Israelites was when the Law was proclaimed with Thunder and Tempests upon Mount Sinah; it will be strange to one of those to hear a good Disciple call earnestly for that day which will be so full of darkness and gloominess. This is indeed the principal Crisis that we have shaken off the Spirit of bondage. Non probatur perfecta caritas, nisi cum ceperit ill dies desiderari; There is no perfect love, and by consequent no plenary excussion of servitude till we are earnest in that wish, that the day of Christ were near at hand. If not that terror, no, not that doth pinch us, then Jerusalem above is free.
Yet stay for one qualification more, which will make the Angels to congratulate us our freedom if we observe that Proviso in our Charter; nay, which will please God so well, that he will not only make us Citizens, who were Bondmen before, but Rulers over ten Cities, as it is in the Parable, that is, account not of the good of this world as the Jew did, but commit your Heart and your Treasure to the Inheritance which is above: They that run far into the thought to prosper in the increment of this earth, they cannot decline from being servants to the times, to occasions, to ignobleness, to the manners of iniquity. Lift up your hearts unto the Lord with an evangelical abrenunciation of the world, and fling these fetters away, for there is no such thralldom as that of base affections. To serve a sin is worse than to serve a man, by how much a man is better than a sin. There are some of our Interpreters who have stated this Point not without injury to the Synagogue, and the modern Jews have cause to disavow the imputation of mere carnal men, as if God did set before them no more than the recompense of this life's prosperity. The Anabaptists teach that the Faithful before Christ did only taste of the sweetness of temporal blessings, without any hope of eternal happiness; a Censure fitter for beasts that are well pastured, than for a man, whose soul doth naturally heave him up to immortality; chiefly it is an opinion most derogatory to such men whose Fathers did talk with God face to face. Besides these, Aquinas and his Scholars methinks lay out our difference but rudely, Temporalia promittuntur in Veteri Testamento, spiritualia in Novo; The Old Testament proffers Temporal blessings, and the New Testament Spiritual. That were, I confess, the right livery at which a Bondman did stand, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says the heathen Proverb; Give the Servant that grinds at the Mill an allowance of food to sustain him, and you owe him no more. But if the Text of the Old Testament do move only in the circumference of this world, and of this life, it would scarce make good Philosophy, how much less would it never pass for the Touchstone of pure Divinity? Therefore without scandal to the old Jerusalem, or partiality to the New, the odds between us are these. The Commonwealth of Israel had the sure promise made unto them of heavenly joy, together with a pleasant portion upon earth, if they served the Lord. The same Kingdom of heaven is more clearly promised to us, but with afflictions and persecutions upon earth. Their Jerusalem was in bondage, because it kept the Law upon carnal Articles, that it might flourish, and be free. Our Jerusalem is free because it will confess Christ, though the more it confess him the more it should be in danger of bondage and imprisonment. They were for present delight, and heaven hereafter: we are for present misery, and heaven forever.
The Apostles found it an hard matter to send the Church of Christ from Jewish Ceremonies, they could not make a bank in their days, but that some broke over, as in the Church of Galatia. No marvel, since the dregs thereof are not purged out to this day. Circumcision is still retained among the Abyssines, says Damianus Goez. Aaron's supreme Pontifical Authority is but transmigrated into the Papacy: Some have been scrupulous in choice of meats but lately, as if Moses did yet predominate. Many are more strict than wise in numbering and keeping the hours of Sabbatical rest. We that are here I hope are all very ready to condemn this Judaism; and yet God knows the most of us are Jews in a greater concernment than we are aware of. If we serve for heaven it is well, but I am sure we are the more servile that it may be well with us upon earth. We ask for the dew of heaven, but we make earnest postulations for the fatness of the earth; we are content to be shod with the preparation of the Gospel, but not so well contented as if it be our fortune to wear the spurs of dignity. These are the tricks of a Jew, of an uncircumcised Jew, his heart is not circumcised from ambition and vanity. This is Gehazi 's Leprosy which cleaves to base minds, my Master is in heavenly raptures, and contemns riches, As the Lord lives I will run after him, and take somewhat. Run, and let the Devil scorn you for your pains. Doth Job serve God for naught? To be Sanctified, to be Justified, to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to receive spiritual Consolation, to be the friends of God, this is the portion which comes unto us, and for which our Covenant is called the Gospel of glory. For tribulations (which did not accord with the Jewish Economy) if they be not above our strength, we must not only expect them, but rather invite them, then avoid them. Ure, seca, hic ne parcas Domine, ut in aeternum parcas. Prove me, chastise me, bruize me like sweet Gum, till thou beest pleased with my savor, pity me not in these momentary afflictions, that thou mayest spare me forever. As the soul is free from the prison of the body when it is dissolved in death, so it is most free from the faeces and earthiness of the body, when it is not wedded to the desire of transitory things, Mushrooms that have no savor, when we have enjoyed them but a day. Briefly, Jewish servility is an unbeliever like St. Thomas, Nisi mittam digitum; Let me touch, let me feel, let me grasp my handful or it is in vain to obey the Lord; Christian liberty is ingenuous, and heroical, it hath swum out of this dead Sea, in whose mud the unregenerate do stick, and if the Lord will give us himself, let Ziba take all. The greater is our freedom because we know we need not the aids of fortune. I have heard that a Cardinal being elected to be Pope, his former State is rifled, because his new dignity will supply him in abundance: Just so when the Spirit comforts us that we are called to a Crown of glory, (pardon the similitude, it is no worse than as Christ hath compared himself to a Thief that comes in the night) but our confidence of our new Election to that Inheritance, makes us easy to part with that, which others keep for a while, and leave it in a moment. And thus when freedom hath struck inward to our affections, pardon us if we speak despicably of the Jews, for our Jerusalem alone is free.
The whole Charter of Jerusalem's freedom is dispatched. Though the hour were to begin again, I would not stick at the next question, how we came by it? We all know the procurer, and what he did to gain it for us, it is a flower that grew out of the blood of Christ. We were not protected, as Joshuas Spies were, by a common woman, nor set at large, as Samaria was, by the tidings of Lepers, our Deliverer is more honorable to us than our freedom, the Son of God was made a Servant, that we Servants might become Sons. As God made nothing in nature but by his Son, by him he made the Worlds, so he did nothing for the restauration of the World without him. He is all in all. He hath freed us from the bondage of shadows by taking a body: From the Covenant of Works by satisfying his Fathers Justice: From the dread of fear by the sweetness of his Mercy: From the sordid desire of earthly things by the operation of his holy Spirit. The purchase of our Freedom was carried in this sort, so that the Jesuit à Lapide borrowed a fit name to call it by, you know from whom, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . the gift of a King, of David our King. Imagine by a Prosopopaea that you saw the Devil, and Sin, and death defying us in the same words that Goliath did the Camp of Israel, If you be able to fight with us, and to kill us, we will be your Servants, but if we prevail against you, then you shall be our servants, and serve us. Then David our Champion slew these Giants of Gath in our quarrel, and from thenceforth we are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , his purchased people, as St. Peter says. St. Austin says, that by nature we were Pharaohs bondmen, that is, Satan's, and when we forsook him, and fled away to serve God in the Wilderness, he followed after us, but no further than the Red Sea. Quid est mare rubrum? Usque ad fontem Christi cruce & sanguine consecratum. What is the Red Sea that divided us from him? The Fountain of Baptism consecrated to save us by the Cross and Blood of Christ. Bernard alludes to the words of Jacob, and says that the Church is that portion which Christ won from the Amorite with his Sword, and with his Bow, Gladio praedicationis, arcu incarnationis; With the Sword of his Doctrine, with the Bow of his incarnation, where the shaft and the string make but one Instrument, as his Godhead and Manhood make but one Person. Thus he hath snatched us from our Enemies that were made Lord's over us, and from the hard bondage wherein we were made to serve Isa. xiv. 3.
Having seen the Copy of our Freedom, and knowing how we got it, it is a Lesson fit to conclude with, that every man's memory may carry that away at the least how we should use it. No blessing hath been more abused than this. Under color hereof the Galileans would be free from Tribute, the Nicolaitans from the bond of Marriage, the Gnostics from all Justice and Temperance, the Clerks of the Roman Church from the Courts of the Civil Magistrate, and the Anabaptists from all Moral Duties. No, says St. Peter to all these, As free, but not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. It was St. Austin's by-word, Dilige Deum, & fac quod vis; You are free, therefore love God, and do what you will. If ye love him keep his Commandments: We are not so soon loosed but we are tied again, both freed and bound at once. Liberando servos nos facit, says the same Father in Joh. viii. We must recompense his goodness with our imperfect obedience, it is the Law of Gratitude, it is the Bond of Nature. As we commonly say, that nothing is more dearly bought, than that which comes by gift, so we owe the greater service to him of whom we got our freedom. Nay, we are bound to endure all for his sake, Neque hoc facit stupor sed amor; nec deest dolor, sed contemnitur, says Bernard. We feel the pain as much as they that curse and rage in their sufferings, but our love unto Christ doth overcome it. A Free-man, that will thrive, follows his Trade as close as any Apprentice, though not by austere compulsion: So our Freedom will not make our hands slack from working, if we mean to lay up a treasure in heaven. Every piece of Land, they say, holds of some Lord, so every man retains to some Lord, either we serve God, or sin and Satan. If we count it Freedom to take our swing in all voluptuousness, pity their frenzy, that can stir nowhere but as their intemperate appetite commands them, and yet mistake themselves to live without control, who are the Vassals of the Devil. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, 2 Pet. i. 19. Tully objects to Clodius that he set up the Picture of Liberty in his house in the habit of a Strumpet. Says that approved Senator against him, Qui meretricibus & voluptatibus inservit non liber est, sed servus; To be under pleasure is to be under tyranny, and therefore the Statue of a Strumpet did better resemble servitude. But happy are thy servants O Lord that stand before thee. Deo parere libertas est, you may think that Seneca had conferred with St. Paul when he learnt that Lesson that the service of God is perfect freedom; who hath made us a Royal Priesthood, and holy Nation. Says Leo in the second Anniversary Sermon upon his own Assumption to the Papacy, nothing so Kingly as a mind subject to God, and Ruler of his own passions, nothing so Priestly as to offer up the sacrifice of a pure conscience, and the oblation of a broken heart. There were ancient Ceremonies in Baptism, as if the party to be baptized came to be inaugurated to a Kingdom, when he professed himself a Disciple of the Gospel. For it appears in some Rituals that they put a Crown of flowers upon the head of the Neophyte, to which the Collect then used doth testify, We beseech thee O King of heaven for this dissoluble Crown, to give him a Crown of justice and good works. The same was figured by these Ceremonies in confirmation, that is by the unction of their forehead, and by the fascia, which bound about their temples as a Diadem. All these customs do border upon this phrase, that our Jerusalem is everywhere in the Gospel called the Kingdom of heaven. God is such a King whom none but Kings do serve, none but Melchizedek's, who are free from sin, and at once both Servants of righteousness and Kings of righteousness. Dignitate Domini honorata sit conditio servi. He is so great a Lord that it is a Lordship, nay a Kingdom to serve him. In a word, remember that our freedom is a strict obligation to all excellent virtue, that being delivered from the hands of our enemies we may serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life. Lord keep thy Jerusalem free from the bondage of sin, that we may not be cast into the prison of utter darkness. AMEN.
THE THIRD SERMON UPON
GAL. iv. 26.
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother of us all.
GAL. iv. 26.
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother of us all.
H Aving drawn out the description of the Church in sundry lines of beauty, that it is a Jerusalem, a visible and glorious City for the external Communion, a Jerusalem from above, for her internal Graces, a Jerusalem that is free, for her Redemption through the blood of Christ: every man I suppose will attest thus unto it, nihil addi potest huic bono nisi ut sit perpetuum; O that it would last thus unto the worlds end by continual propagation, for nothing can be added unto that which is so completely good, but that it should be perpetual. Lo I shall land you now upon that Shore, and represent the Church unto you as a Mother that brings forth, and is never barren, whose fruitfulness continues her praise and happiness forever: she is the Mother of us all, and of all those Generations after us, that live by the faith of the Son of God, as long as the World endures. We are not in the condition of Xerxes, who had as goodly a Train of Soldiers as ever marched into the Field, but it drew tears from his eyes, to think that in less than the space of an hundred years not one of all those thousands should remain alive: They had not a Mother which brought forth incessantly to repair their mortality. That good which will not continue breeds great discomfort upon certain expectation of mutability. But our Jerusalem shall never wain nor consume, it is sown with the seeds of immortality. If we were all included in one Isaac, and he were slain upon the Altar for a Sacrifice, yet Abraham were sure that God would restore him again being dead. Jacob might faint and fear lest his Sons should miscarry one after another, and he remain childless; his despair was grounded upon the sadness of human events, if I be bereaved of my Children I am bereaved, Gen. xliii. 14. But the Church shall see her Children's Children grow up by succession without end of days. Christ should be put to death again, and rise no more (which is most impossible) if she should quite disappear. The root of the Tree of Life should die (which cannot be imagined) if her branches should all wither. But this is a Lamp which is nourished with fresh oil from Heaven, and shall never be put out; it is the chiefest of all that is called good upon Earth, and a constant perpetual good. Therefore let the Children rise up and call this Mother blessed.
And as the Church hath taken upon it the proper name of Jerusalem, yet without any Contract to the local and material building of Jerusalem, so she hath taken up the appellation of a Mother, yet without any respect to nature, no way bending to natural causes, or natural affections. For not only our Parents in the flesh, but the whole World hath quite lost us in this word. As Moses remembered the great devotion of Levi, that he said of his Father and Mother, I have not seen them, or I respect them not, and of his Brethren, I do not acknowledge them, Deut. xxxiii. 9. So by deriving ourselves from this Mother, we cast our fleshly Parentage aside, and we say to her, who did give us to suck from her Breasts, as our Savior did to the Blessed Virgin; Mulier, quid mihi tecum? Woman, what have I to do with thee? Jerusalem is ours, and we are hers. Jerusalem which is above is free, &c. This remainder of the verse, which is the dispatch of the whole Text, requires our inspection into three particulars. First, To know our Mother, that we may not be ignorant either of her fruitfulness, or our own obedience. He is a wise Son, says Telemachus in Homer that knows his Father, but he is a foolish Son that doth not know his Mother. Secondly, Note the unity and indivision of the Children of this Mother, They are a cluster of Grapes hanging upon one Stalk, a Brood of Chickens clockt under the wings of one Hen, there is but one Ste • and one Progeny, one Nostrum in relation to this Parent, Mater nostrum the Mother of us. The third and last part puts us to observe, that the note of Universality was large in Paul's days, but now much more amplified than in those times, mater nostrum omnium, the Mother of us all.
First, A Mother gives a being to those whom she brings forth, and that which is brought forth owes a great duty to the Mother, upon these two hinges this main part of the Text is turned: the one is the Fruitfulness of the Mother, the other is the Obedience of the Children. And what being is that which Jerusalem above doth contribute unto us, that she is called our Mother? It challengeth no part in our specifical essence, or the being of our nature▪ and yet I will tell you, a vicious filthy sinner doth so ill become the name of a man, that there is far more congruity between him and a Beast; he is more Swine, or Tiger, or Fox, or locust than man: he is not four-footed, but he is brutish hearted: in his inward parts he hath put off humanity. But if repentance shall restore him out of this bestial conversation, if God shall set good men at his right hand, that by strength of reason, force of persuasion, timeliness of admonition, yea or by sharpness of correction, shall make him feel and know the beauty of an honest life, he is redintegrated in the powers and faculties of a man, which he had quite lost: So that our being in the austerity of Philosophy is connected with our well-being. No good man, and by consequent no not a man, till he be governed by the Principality of reason, civil Education, and the conditement of Virtue is such a Parent as reposeth a vile person, a transformed Monster into the proper line of his own Praedicament, it makes him Man.
Not to flutter in the air, as it were, any longer with Paradoxes, impious Catives I confess, shall stand for men, for they shall suffer the curses and punishment of men in Hell-fire. What is it therefore which Jerusalem adds unto us, that she is called our Mother? why, the renovation of the mind, or the new man, created after God in righteousness and true holiness. And as the Birthright which Jacob obtained from Esau was instead of another birth unto Jacob, so when such as were vessels of wrath became Heirs of the Promise by Baptism and the Ministry of the Church, is not this a Mother that gives them a better life than they had before? The Love of God is our life, Faith conceives us, Hope brings us forth, Charity feeds us with her breasts, Obedience wraps us in swaddling bands, and knowledge brings us up. God doth inhabit our mind and understanding as the Soul doth inspire the Body. As Abram was turned into Abraham, and Simon into Peter, when they pleased the Lord; so take any one that is regenerate and changed from his vain conversation, though his shape and substance continue as it was before, yet the Angels that rejoice at the conversion of a sinner, behold him with their celestial eyes not as the same, but as another Creature. And no wonder if he become another object in the sight of Heaven: the reasonable Soul is that which constitutes the natural man, but Faith being superadded a better spirit possesseth him, and Christ is the form of a Christian. It is St. Paul 's Phrase, ver. 19. of this Chapter, My little children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed in you. As Ananias traveled, and earned for a Child, till Christ was formed in Paul, so Paul traveled, and had the sorrows of a Mother when • he brings forth in the anxiousness of his heart till Christ was formed in the Galatians. First the Church brought him forth, then he labored abundantly, and assisted the Church to bring forth others. The true solution of the old Riddle, Mater me genuit, eadem mox gignitur ex me, the Son of Grace is begotten of this Mother, and afterward filling up a place in the Communion of Saints, he is reckoned into the collective Body, which is called Jerusalem our Mother.
But a late Writer puts in his judgment very well, I think, how far the Motherhood of the Church intends to make us Children of Adoption, it travels in birth, that by her work Christ may be formed in us. The Members of our fleshly body are formed in our Mothers Womb by her natural faculties, she can go further for the absolution of the work, that is, the inhabitation of the Soul is the act of God: so the Church doth the part of a Mother, it propounds repentance, discloseth the mysteries of faith, persuades us with the expectation of a great reward in Heaven, offers us the use of both the salutiferous Sacraments; thus a new fashion, a new Creature, even the form of Christ doth creep upon us, but the life by which we live it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 it comes from without, from above, from the inspiration of the spirit of Christ. But without that efformation, or effigeation in the Womb of the Mother, never expect the vivification or information of the Holy Ghost: a Doctrine best known in those trivial words of St. Austin, he cannot have God for his Father, that will not have the Church for his Mother. Ascribe the top of the blessing to him, from whom every good gift, especially those which are supernatural, descends. Of his own good will He begat us with the word of truth, Jam. 1.18. His good will moved him to pity us: his virtue and power went out from him to beget us; and his truth, which shined in our hearts, was the instrumental cause to convert us. Carry it along with you therefore, that the invisible Father that is in Heaven works by the visible Mother the Church that is on Earth. As Eve was the Mother of all living, so she is the Mother of all believing; Crescite & multiplicamini is spoken to one as well as to the other, both were ordained in their several sorts for that blessing increase and multiply. Therefore St. James hath conjoined the Word of Truth to the Will of God, both are mixed together to regenerate a pious people. And although some have been too nice in expounding the Phrase, Of his own will he begat us with the word of truth, not with the words of truth in the plural, as if our salvation were effected by pronouncing one word, as when first we were made Members of Christ by saying I baptize thee, and when we have sinned and return again to the Lord by saying I absolve thee; yet be it briefly or largely, it is the word spoken and preached by the Church, which gives us this heavenly feature to be the holy ones of God: Briefly, the Mother that doth beget us is the Church Militant, but the Mother to whose filliation and inheritance we aspire is the Church Triumphant.
It is true, that in relation to Christ the Church is his Body, and all we are his Members; and in that reference it doth not make the Elect Servants of God, but rather it is compounded of those Servants: for properly the Body is not the Mother of the Members, the Members are not the effect of the Body, but they constitute the Body as integral parts. And so Solomon hath more aptly given it honor in those delicious Metaphors of a Bundle of Myrrh, a Cluster of Grapes, and a Pomegranat, which I think is the best resemblance: a Pomgranat contains many kernels under one Coat, so, many thousands of Disciples are under the covering of Christ. 2. As many kernels are in the small Pomegranat as in the great; so the Graces of Christ are in the little Churches as in the more spacious. 3. As the old Greek Proverb goes, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as in every Pomgranat there are some corrupt kernels, so there are some wicked ones in every Church. 4. As the seeds of the Pomegranat are of a bloody color, so the Robes of the Apostles and others, the best kernels of the Church, were red in the blood of Martyrdom, but made white in the blood of the Lamb. The sum is in the whole Pomgranat, in the lump we are the Body of Christ; but take us one by one, and consider us as sometimes we were darkness, and now light in the Lord: and that this fire was kindled in us all from the Altar of Christ Jesus, and by them that minister at it; so Jerusalem which is above is the Mother of us all. For the most proper work of a Mother is to bring forth Children, and the most proper work of a good Mother is to bring them up. And because of these two Solomon in the same Canticle hath used this appellation which my Text doth, I will bring thee into the House of my Mother, that is the Church.
And though he were the greatest King one of them that ever the Earth saw, yet it is no disparagement to him to call that his Mother, which God calls his Spouse. I will betroth thee unto me forever, yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and faithfulness, Hos. ii. 19. The Bridegroom hath taken this Bride unto him, and their Offspring are multiplied; and happy are those, and none but they, who are the legitimate Children of this sacred Marriage. The Font of Baptism is the Womb of the Church, the Spirit that moves upon the waters to sanctify them is the Father, and from these two are brought forth the Sons of the Most High, that shall dwell in glory for evermore. And because of this indissoluble connection between the Holy Ghost and this Spouse▪ who is always present with it▪ St. Austin notes that she must not only be a fruitful Mother in abundance of issue, but also a pure Virgin, because she knows none other Husband. Ecclesia virgo est, & parit, Mariam imitatur quae Dominum peperit; the Church is both a Virgin and a Mother, like the Mother of our Lord, although a Mother, yet of unquestioned virginity. St. Ambrose runs more division upon the same string on this sort, Sancta Ecclesia immaculata coit • , foecunda part • , virgo est castitate, mater prole; the holy Catholic Church keeps her Bed immaculate, and yet her Offspring is innumerous: a Mother by perpetual propagation, and yet a Virgin by perpetual chastity: Parit nos non dolore membrorum, sed gaudio Angelorum: nutrit nos non corporis lacte sed Apostolorum; she is delivered of us with no pain or sorrow, but with the joy of the Angels in Heaven: she feeds us not with the breasts of a woman, but the Milk of the Apostles, which is better than Nectar to the Soul, and the Manna that comes down from Heaven. It is yet more admirable, what God hath wrought upon this Jerusalem by demonstration of the Spirit and of power. We are the dispersions of the Gentiles that are now the People of the Lord, we were as a Strumpet that went a whoring after Idols, and God hath betrothed this Church unto him, and made it an unpolluted Virgin; I deny not, but lament it, that there are some Christian stations affected towards Idolatry, which renews the infamy of our ancient whoredoms. But whatsoever our Mother is now, our Grandmother was chaste and pure in Hegesippus days. Take it in that sincerity of practice and Doctrine, and then you may see the mighty works of Christ to turn an Harlot into a Virgin, and a Virgin into a Mother. Magna est sponsae, & singularis dignitas, meretricem invenit, virginem fecit, says St. Austin, this is the great and singular dignity of the Bride, which hath prepared herself to meet the Bridegroom that comes from Heaven, he hath changed her whoredom into virginity, and multiplied her virginity into foecundity, that she is the Mother of us all.
You see the Mother through whose Ministry every Christian is born again of water, and of the Holy Spirt; neque parcit unigenito pro sic genito? the Father did not spare his only begotten Son, that we might be thus begotten. But is there no more that belongs to a Mother than to bring forth? yes, says Clemens Alexandrinus, and I quote him because he speaks of the Church, everything that brings forth is obliged by nature to supply nourishment unto that which it brings forth. I am not so rigid, but I will grant that in cases of weakness, and divers accidental indispositions, that which nature doth ordinarily urge and provide for may be dispensed; but this rule is born with every Female, that which is so fruitful as to be a Mother should be so careful as to be a Nurse. And so is the Church. Not only Moses the Law-giver carried the People of Promise as a nursing Father carrieth his Child, Num. xi. 12. by tenderness, by ordering their steps, by breeding them in good Precepts and Laws: but the Apostles were much more laborious to feed the Christian Proselytes with the Word of life, that they might grow up from grace to grace unto the stature of perfect righteousness. I have fed you with Milk says St. Paul to the newly converted Corinthians, 1 Cor. iii. 2. and he suppeditated stronger meat to them that could digest it. And for all manner of sweetness and forbearance, he behaved himself gently among the Thessalonians, as a Nurse cherisheth her Children, 1 Thes. ii. 7. Every Rule and Doctrine which is delivered sincerely and in truth is Milk to those that thirst to drink of the Well of salvation. Honey and Milk are under thy tongue, says Solomon, speaking of this Mother and Nurse. Cant. iv. xi. Milk is a pleasant food so is the Gospel to them that have a spiritual taste: there is no Aloes or bitterness in it, but to them that have a carnal palate. It is Antalcidas his answer in Plutarch, to one that asked, how he might speak that which might be accepted, says he, Si loquaris jucundissima, praestes utilissima, if you will deliver that which is most pleasant, and season it with that which is most profitable: so that which is sucked from the Breasts of this Parent arrides the taste with sweetness, and it is as profitable as sweet, and called Milk, because it is a most growing nourishment; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 among the Naturalists, as they were accounted plain and innocent above all other People, so they did excel for health and magnitude of body. Be admonished therefore, that such Christians as wax not better and better, take some other thing for their nourishment than the Milk of the Church, which doth not prosper in them. If you do not grow, and add virtue to virtue, you have chosen a Nurse with dry breasts, and whose complexion is diverse from your holy Mothers. Lacte gypsum miscet, as the old Proverb is, the World is a Stepmother whose Milk is infected with poison: no redress for such, but as it was said of the Shunamites Child, when he complained of his head, Take the Child unto his Mother; as St. Peter exhorts, desire the sincere Milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby: the end of it is to grow and increase, not to stand at a stay: true Piety never thinks so well of itself as if it needed no augmentation; that's Pharisaical hypocrisy. He that gets nothing loseth much, he that doth not add to his talent will forfeit it and lose it. Says Bernard, did not all the Angels which Jacob saw upon the Ladder that reached up to Heaven either ascend or descend? Inter ascensum & descensum, inter profectum & defectum nullum est medium; There is no medium between proficiency & deficiency, between going backward or forward. Either you are continually mending in all parts of Religion by the fatness of this milk: or you will consume away like a shriveled Changeling. But the Nurse will not be wanting in suppeditating milk, if you are not wanting to yourself in the wholesome concoction. And now to end this Point, I pronounce unto you, that you can expect no greater miricle from God than to have such a Mother, and such a Nurse. First, Were you not dead in Adam, and then this Mother took you into her womb, and brought you forth alive most stupendous? Nay, must you not die unto sin, and be crucified to the world, before you could be born again? Quid difficilius cognition quàm ut homo nascatur moriendo, says St. Austin. And what is the effect of her nourishment but continually to draw you from death to life? Et amplius est suscitare semper victurum, quàm suscitare iterum moriturum, says he; Was it miraculous in Elias, or in the Apostles to raise the dead unto life that should die again? How much greater is it to raise them unto life that shall never? This benefit begins with the Church as our Mother, and continues with us through her Ministry as our Nurse. This is that Jerusalem whis is the Mother of us all.
Thus far I have drawn out before you the blessing of the Mother upon those whom she brings forth; now while this benefit is fresh in our memory, it is good time to show what obedience the Children do owe to this Mother: That is, to her Laws, to her Censures, to her Determinations. To her Laws of outward Order, to her Censures of Discipline, to her Determinations of Faith. For the first, to tread lightly in their steps that have gone before me, Prudence and Reason find out what is fit for the well reigling and comely demeanour of them that are knit together in anybody. And when authority is joined unto it, and imposeth it, it is a Law. There must be an Order agreed upon touching our manner of union and living together in Commonwealths. And grave and well-governed men are most nice to see those fashions of order inviolably observed. And is not this equally to be heeded, nay, much more in our Ecclesiastical Economy? For the persons to whom we associate ourselves in the Church are not only holy men, but God and Angels. Shall we not have Laws of agreement to go all one way, and to do the same thing in Rites and Ceremonies? Can there be such that would not be ashamed to see distraction and confusion in the holy Sanctuary? Is there any possibility of drawing a Congregation together without Rules and Advertisements to proceed thus and thus in the administration of the Lord's Service? And for those Rites which are in force among us, hath not this Church proceeded with most sanctified moderation, to ease Christian people of that superfluity, whereof they complained at the extirpation of Popery, and to retain such only as were most expedient, and carry no shadow of scandal, but to them that are hot and contentious. Since we must have Orders of Decency, (his wits are broken that thinks otherwise) why not these which are established, and to which your consent is included by reason of them that were Agents in your behalf, and present at their confirmation, for we were alive in our Predecessors, and our Successors shall live in us. It skills not what Utopia some have framed in their own heads. In positive Laws men's private fancies must give way to the higher judgment of the Church, which is in authority a Mother over them. And do not say you are an obedient Child, since you do that which your heavenly Father requires, why not also what your spiritual Mother requires? Since the one bids nothing repugnant to the other. I hope there is none in this Climate but explodes the Anabaptists opinion, that all Christian Liberty is lost, if any Laws be imposed upon the people, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Beside, what is required for order and good carriage in the Church, God hath given the power to settle it. What is done is done by his leave, and by that light of Nature and Reason given to frame such Constitutions, and therefore do not prevaricate, as if God were not disobeyed in that obstinacy which conforms not. It is commendable and necessary for every man single to profess the substance of true Religion contained in the Scriptures: But it is also required at their hands to observe the Circumstances and Decencies of it comprehended in positive Laws, when they are in society with others. It was in a Circumstance and a Ceremony that St. Paul checks the Corinthians; What, despise ye the Church of God? 1 Cor. xi. 22. You cannot call Jerusalem your Mother with a sober reverence if you decline her Piety and Authority in Constitutions indifferent.
Secondly, The power and the wisdom of the Church meeting together must use the rod, though unwillingly, towards them that must be made examples to others by shame and punishment: For such as will not be softened with love, and the Spirit of meekness, Shall I come to you with a rod, says the Apostle? Dread the anger of your Mother, provoke not her displeasure to smite you with Abstentions, Anathemaes, Excommunications. Remember how the incestuous person was swallowed up with desperation when her Censure was upon him. If Esau lift up his voice and wept when he had not the blessing of his Father, what sorrow will it beget in a Child, that is not past feeling or leadenly stupid to have the curse of his Mother? The ancient forms of humble Penants used by the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 are so disused, that their custom will seem strange to be repeated. When they were sequestered from the Prayers and Sacraments of the holy Church, for scandalous and flagitious actions, they cast themselves down before the entrance of the Church, groveled upon the ground full of tears and lamentations, and besought every Christian that passed by upon their bare knees, to procure them that happiness to be readmitted into the union of the body of Christ. Rowl those words in your conscience which Christ spake to the Apostles, Whatsoever ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and it would gripe you, as if the knot were tied about your Heart, to be shut out of the Fold of Christ's Flock by the Sentence Ecclesiastical. They that are set over your soul have not the use of the material Sword, but the words of Discipline that proceed out of their mouth are sharper than any two-edged Sword. Having in readiness to revenge all disobedience, says St. Paul, 2 Cor. x. 13. In promptu habentes. What so ready upon all occasions as the Tongue? If this Mother be offended by the impenitency and contumacy of her degenerous Sons, she will suddenly smite them with such a wound as nothing can heal but her own forgiveness and the grace of God. But a Mother is soon entreated, if the Child seek her with tears and lowliness. It is a gentle caution which Bernard gives to them that sway the authority in spiritual censures, Discite subditorum matres vos esse non Dominos, studete magis amari quàm metui, & si interdum severitate opus sit, materna sit non tyrannica; Let not your severity be tyrannical, but with the compassion of a Mother.
Thirdly, Forasmuch as the Church is our Mother, we must carry that venerable duty towards her, that great heed must be had to her determinations of Faith, not as if it were the rule of truth, that is the prerogative of Sacred Scripture, but because it holds out the rule of truth, and the Ministry thereof is the condition subordinate under God to find out truth. My Son forsake not the teaching of thy Mother, says Solomon, Prov. vi. 10. Means he our natural Parent only? Nay, says Mercer, Potes ad Ecclesiam si velis refer; You may refer it to the Church if you will. And a good reason why, that not only it may be, but most aptly it should be applied to our mystical or spiritual Mother; for the blessings reckoned up in that place, to those that will be taught by the wisdom of their Mother, are so many, as they are not like to be the fruits of obedience to a natural mother only. To make myself way the sooner out of this vast Point by distinctive conclusions.
First, If we call that Jerusalem, that Church our Mother which St. Paul doth here, the most Primitive Church which includes the Apostles, Evangelists, it is bootless to dispute in a thing so evident, that it is to explain the sense, and decide the meaning of all Articles of Faith, for the Apostles spake as God did give them utterance, who is the Author of all hidden and heavenly truths, and we are to rest in him as the fountain of all illumination. Secondly, Excluding the Apostles, Evangelists, and others conversant with them who were immediately inspired to know all truth, which makes a perfect Christian, in their own person, take the Universal Church from their days unto this time, and I conceive that the uniform practice and general judgment of all God's servants that went before us, is a certain and undoubted explication of all those Points contained in Scripture, that concern our salvation. We are taught in the Articles of our Creed, that this Church is a witness which we ought to listen unto, I believe the holy Catholic Church. It hath the promise, that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Also Isa. lix. 21. This is my Covenant with them, saith the Lord, my Spirit which is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy Seed, nor out of the mouth of thy Seeds Seed, from henceforth and forever. This is a Promise that the Church dispersed in all places, and continued in all times shall keep the trust of saving truth inviolably. So Tertullian, so Vincentius Lir. upon this subject, Quod apud multos unum est, non est erratum sed traditum, says the former. That which is uniformly taught by many, (much more by all) is no lie, but a truth delivered by that Church, to which God hath entailed his blessing, that it shall not forsake it. I do not say yet that this Universal Church is absolutely free from error, but from such error only as would shake the stability of faith. Some things that may be unknown without prejudice were ever concealed. But the whole Church, that is, and was, is so free from error and ignorance, that it knows and possesseth all the truth which Christ hath revealed. The Churches are the Golden Candlesticks in the midst whereof the Son of God did walk, Rev. i. 12.
Thirdly, take the Church for all those Christians that are now presently living in the world, and among those there will ever be some whom God will preserve from pernicious Error, yet those some are not necessarily and always such as are in place of Authority, or palpably notorious that we may have recourse unto them. In a populous Congregation I have heard a Psalm sung quite out of tune by the greater part, and those few that sung tunably could not be heard for a long time, till at last their good harmony gained a considerable number to listen unto them, and to imitate them. So false Doctrine may spread far, and the soundest judgments be silenced in the Plurality of opposition. If their tunable Notes beget good Music in others, it is the working of God which is stronger than the violence of men. But from hence I collect, that there is no man living, nor any Society of men living which hath such indubitable authority from God, that they may pronounce a judicial definitive Sentence to oblige and convince the Consciences of others in Controversies of Religion. To rely upon one man's Oracle, it were a ready way indeed if it were a certain. But that man whom we mean, is of such little credit with those that cry him up, that he cannot make his Partisans submit unanimously to him in his own cause. And for general Councils, the great Army of Jesus Christ, his pitched battle, since the former may be corrected by the later, and have been corrected, their judgment is so awful as may quel the resistance of private men, but not so irrefragable upon their decision as to tie their Conscience. You will say then, hath God provided no certain and external judicial authority to Umpire differences of Religion in this or that present Age? I answer, First, he hath given the complete and perfect Rule of Faith in holy Scripture, which hath spoken so plainly in things necessary to be believed, that it needs no Gloss to make it plainer. As Aristotle says, That Laws which are pen'd with the best wisdom do leave but little to the will of the Expounder. Secondly, We are not Brutes that know not our right hand from our left, but God hath given the judgment of discretion to all Christians of mature age, let them mark what the Scriptures say in clear and literal Positions. Thirdly, The judgment of direction is committed to Pastors and Teachers that are set over your souls, And judge ye what we say, says the Apostle, and the Lord give you understanding. Fourthly, There is the judgment of Jurisdiction proper to them who are in places of pre-eminency, and these may determine Controversies of Faith according to plain and evident Scripture; but because they may exceed the bounds of truth, it is pernicious to say, that men are bound to obey those determinations with as great affections of Piety as the inerrable Word of God. That place so much debated, that the Church is the House of God, the ground and Pillar of Truth, will bear no more, but that it is so by Office and Calling, as every King is the Minister of Justice, though some have failed in the execution of it. And the Note of Cameron upon it is very witty and learned, that the Jews were wont to prefix these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he proves it out of Maimonides, before the grand Points of Religion, and so may make a Preface to the succeeding Verse, The pillar and ground of truth, great is the mystery of Godliness, &c. It is an Interpretation to better Analogy of Faith, than that which his Adversaries press out of the words. The sum is, our Faith is not built upon the Authority and Infallibility of the present Church, if it control an higher authority than itself, the holy Scripture, what remains but declines her judgment, as our Savior did his Parents, Wist you not that I must go about my Fathers business. And as Asa did depose his Mother Maacha, though she were his Mother for erecting an Idol: So we may reject the Mother which should command a relative adoration of Images, of Stocks and Stones, and appeal to our Grandmother which was free from such scandals. Judicate matrem vestram, says Hosea to the Jews, when the Synagogue was corrupt, Plead against your Mother. Yet so says Waldensis most prudently, that the humble and obedient Children of the Church may not insolently insult upon them, from whom they are forced to dissent but with a reverent, childlike, and respectful shamefac'dness. Especially, it is a naughty inference to argue, the Church may err, and doth trip in some errors, therefore it is not to be obeyed. You will not deal so I hope with your fleshly Parents, avoid their errors, but conserve the bond of obedience entire in all things; the name of Mother charms us not to deride her nakedness, and to conform to her prudent opinions with all submissive willingness. I draw up the Point to this Brief. Hearken to the Laws of the Church in things indifferent, wherein she must not be burdensome. Submit unto her Censures, wherein she must not be tyrannous. Hearken to her determinations of faith, wherein she must not be peremptory, Non dominantes fidei. It hath no dominion over our faith. This is the reciprocal League between the Mother and the Children: between that Jerusalem and us, which is the Mother of us all.
And as this obedience may challenge a blessing, as confidently as Nazianzen is said to claim it of his Father, Habes obedientem, benedictionem repende; I have been obedient, I claim a benediction from you: so the next thing to be considered, our unity shall bring us blessing upon blessing. Our Mother is one, and though we are many, yet in a spiritual Connection we all make but one. All the faithful in the world are drawn up into one Pronoun, the Mother of Us. As Jacob did divide his company and substance when he came from Padan Aram into Canaan: One Band of men, and one Flock of Cattle was with Leah, another with the Handmaids, a third with Rachel, but all were Jacob's. So God hath scattered his Churches, some in Europe, some in Asia, some in Africa, &c. but all are Christ's. And these are all united to him in his Spirit, in his Word, and in his Sacraments, as Wax that is melted incorporates itself with Wax. My Dove, my undefiled is but one, Cant. vi. 9. Therefore let us preserve one bond of Peace, and one Charity, even as hereafter we look for one glory, and one felicity. Says St. Chrysostom, The Ceremony of old was to eat the Paschal Lamb in one house, and to carry nothing out, Significans unam esse domum quae in Christo salutem consequitur; Portending that they shall have no part in the Sacrifice of Christ, who are divided by contentious separation from that one Family of Christ, wherein only the Lamb of Salvation is made ready to be eaten. There is nothing that our Savior did sooner suppress than the least emergent division that did arise among the Apostles: The Apostles themselves did condescend in many things, which might bear an harsh construction with a rash Judge, to prevent a rupture, as if, when they were put to that Dilemma, better that Truth should suffer a little than Unity. O it is the ground of all other mysteries, the Son of God, who is one with his Father, is made one with us, that we might be one as he is one, both with him, and among ourselves. As Christ hath but one truth, so he can have but one Society, one Communion of Saints to profess it; as there is but one Shepherd, so there can be but one Sheepfold, Joh. x. 16. Nay, to straiten it yet more, in the phrase of the Holy Ghost, the whole body of the Faithful is, as it were, no more than one man. So we read, Ephes. ii. 15. He abolished in himself the enmity, meaning that which was between the Jews and Gentiles, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. As who should say, They of the old Leaven make a great number in their discords and diversities, but they that spring from one root of Faith, from Hope, from one Baptism in Christ Jesus they make but one new man. But what if Heretics and Schismatics will not suffer this unity entire and unviolated? The issue is quickly cast up, the unity of Jerusalem is the greater for their departure. The scandal, I confess, is contagious to those that are without, but the sounder part is the more sound for the evacuation of those bad humors. Avolet quantùm volet palea levis fidei, eo purior massa frumenti in horreum Domini reponetur. Yet let her that calls herself the Mother take heed that she put not her Children from her for every jar and error, nay, nor for a Capital error, unless it be joined with an irrecoverable pertinency. Who were worse than the Galatians at the time when St. Paul wrote this Epistle? What a venomous corruption was in their Churches, mingling the Ceremonies of the Old Law and faith in Christ Jesus together, which could never be compounded, and yet the Apostle accounts these Galatians in the common Brotherhood, mater nostrum, the Mother of us? Bad Christians, and weak Christians, and Christians misled into Errors are still Christians retaining to the common Mother, till they lose their legitimation by damnable Heresies accompanied with obstinacy. But there must be a forbearing one another in love, if we endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, Eph. iv. 3.
Now here I might end, having no further to go in the Text, if I did follow the Vulgar Latin Translation, whose reading is, Jerusalem quae sursum, est libera, quae est mater nostra; Being content to say that Jerusalem is our Mother, and not annexing that it is the Mother of us all. But the Universality of the Church must not so slip from us. It is the reading of the Greek Copies, of the Syriac, of St. Jerome, and therefore to be preferred before the Vulgar Latin, which hath curtail'd the verse. Nay, in reference to this omnium, that Jerusalem is the Mother of such a multitude, of us all, it follows in the next words, Rejoice thou barren that bearest not, the desolate hath many more Children than she that hath an husband. A most remarkable thing in the power of God, to fill the world with such an omnium in a short space out of Twelve Apostles. It is all one to Christ to be glorified in many, or in few; and truth must not be carried by the number, but by the dignity and weight of witnesses. It is no ill passage in Pope Nicholas I. his Epistle to Michael the Emperor, Numerus pusillus nec obest ubi abundat pietas, nec multiplex prodest ubi regnat impietas. But let the World choose whether they like a cause which is countenanced by many, or by few, we can refer ourselves to either, I mean to the greater, or to the lesser number. Says St. Austin, we are a little flock, as Lambs in the midst of Wolves, and yet again it is true, many shall come from the East and West, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the Kingdom of God. Multi & pauci: pauci in comparatione perditorum, multi in societate Angelorum. We are few, and we are many. We are few in proportion to them that are rejected, and yet we shall make a mighty train to follow the Lamb, being joined to innumerous Societies of Angels. The Citizens of this Jerusalem are all the Saints that have been, and are now, and shall be hereafter, and surely these surpass the Stars of heaven for multitude. We admire nothing more for multiplicity than the drops of rain, or the drops of dew, and therefore David prophesied that the Children of the Church should exceed by Millions and Thousands like the dew that overspreads the earth. From the womb of the morning is the dew of thy youth, Psal. cx. That is the sense of the Learned, take Cajetan for all the rest, the Generation of the faithful shall not be as a Mother brings forth two or three children, but as the Morning that yields innumerous drops of dew. Bucanan turned his most elegant verse to this strain, Non roris imber ante lucem argenteis tot vestit arva gemmulis; And he is imitated and emulated in our English by a Poet of our own, he says, the Servants of Christ shall be arrayed in Ephods, not so few as the pearls of morning dew hanging on the herbs and flowers. And if the family of Christ hath not many names added daily unto it, the sin lies at our own doors. Jerusalem is the Mother of all, and it is her part to invite all to take their share in the coelestial inheritance, and to apply the Promise to every man, as far as the sound of the Gospel can reach, Christ died to redeem thy soul if thou wilt repent and believe. I end with Solomon's Prayer, O that thou wert my brother that sucked the breast of my Mother! O that ye were all such as I am, says St. Paul, except these bonds! O that all and every person on earth would learn the way of eternal life! Jerusalem hath amplitude to receive them, she is the Mother of us all. And heaven hath amplitude to receive them, which is the City to which we tend, forever. AMEN.
A SERMON UPON
REVEL. vi. 9.
I saw under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the Testimony which they held.
REVEL. vi. 9.
I saw under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the Testimony which they held.
I Ntending to speak somewhat, according to the subject of the Day, about the Church Triumphant in Heaven, this Book is the most proper place to seek a Text out for that occasion; surely it is so. For that is the reason that the Epistle for the Day is selected out of St. John 's Revelation rather than any other Scripture. A door was opened in Heaven, and he was carried thither in Spirit to peep into the Cabinet Counsels of the Most High: Concerning therefore the things above, and that little which is revealed to this World beneath, how can we satisfy ourselves better than out of his illumination? As in the Parabolical Story of Lazarus and the Rich man, Christ hath, as it were, unlocked Hell to let us see what the damned Spirits do; so in this Book, and in this Text above all other Sections of this Book, he hath opened the Curtains of Heaven, to let us see what the blessed Saints do. But to go on soft and fair to the matter which I am to handle, I confess it is no season yet to make hast, because I am stopped with two objections: First, the Contents of this Prophesy have such an abstruse and mystical sense, that the best Clerks in all Ages, that have known most, are commended for their moderation, that they have said least unto it. Whom would it not deter to meddle with it? If he consider that the parcels of this Prophesy are all belonging to that Book with the seven Seals in the fifth Chapter, And no man in heaven or in earth was able to open the Book; no man able to read in it, or to look into it. There is but one thing that can help me out of the tanglings of this difficulty, and that one thing will do it: Namely, that the whole Loom is not spun with one thread. Among the hard and inexplicable passages, there are some interlinings to refresh the Reader with facility. In which sort my Text hath been ranked by the most Writers. And reason good: For at the opening of the first Seal in this Chapter, (will you mark it?) one of the Beasts invited St. John to the attention of some profound matter, saying, Come and see: At the opening of the Second Seal, because mystery upon mystery succeeded, another Beast gave him warning to be very considerative, saying, come and see. So at the opening of the third and fourth Seal, all alike. But when the Lamb doth open the fifth Seal, in the exordium to my Text, the voice did bid him no longer come and see, there needed no such Prologue; for both the Vision which he saw, and the words which he heard, though they deserve an Interpreter, yet they are much more obvious to the capacity than the Antecedent Predictions. If I had put it into my tasque, to speak of the opening of the fifth Seal, which begins the verse, then I must have embarqued myself in a great controversy, about the precise Age when such things fell out, and what distance of Ages the several Seals do include. But I undertake not to foretell events, that were to Prophesy out of my own brain, I apply nothing which St. John saw either to the Empire, or to the Church, below, I deal no further than the prospective of these words doth carry me, that is the Theatre of the Church Triumphant.
The Church Triumphant? That puts another objection upon me: For who is sufficient to handle that Subject, Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what God hath done for his Saints in those glorious places. I submit unto it, and will not touch their inscrutable glory with my unwashen hands. Upon two things we may taste, without surfeiting of curiosity, and I will set no more before you. They are these: Let us neither think that the Saints are extinguished in death, for St. John saw the Souls under the Altar, of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the Testimony which they held. Nor let us think that their enemies are forgotten, for those Souls cry night and day, saying, &c. To contract it into short terms, for the more apt division, here are two parts, what the Apostle saw in the Church Triumphant, and what he heard. But of no more than the first of these at one time: Wherein first I must speak a little de modo videndi, after what manner he saw this Theory, I saw. 2. Quid vidit, what he saw, he saw Souls. 3. Quales vidit, what kind of Souls they were, Souls of them which were slain for the Word of God, and for the Testimony which they held. 4. Ubi vidit, where and in what place he saw them, Under the Altar.
When St. John relates how he did comprehend this wonderful object, he says he saw it. With what eye doth he mean? No bodily Instrument, you may be sure; not such an eye as every birds dung can put forth, not these foggy lights in our head, that wax dim with Age, and at last will spend themselves quite out in their Sockets. these cannot attain to behold the Spirits of Saints. Tertullian mistook a Parabolical passage for a real branch of a story, where the Rich man in hell is said to see Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, from whence he ascribed effigiation and color to a soul, and would not endure Critolaus and the Peripatetics, that said it was a quintessence and nobody; no error more visible than this, that the Souls in heaven are visible, and have corporality. The eye of man shall be endued with virtue to see the Angels, nay, to see the very Essence of God, when this flesh shall be clarified, and refined in the Resurrection. In virtutem ipsius mentis quodammodo convertentur oculi, says St. Austin; This bodily eye shall then be transformed into an intellectual Faculty: But as yet it can discern nothing but that which is earthy like itself. Search we out therefore for some other way how John saw the souls under the Altar.
It lies in those words which we meet twice before in this Book, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it was in the Spirit: That is, as I take it, a Prophetical Revelation was infused into him through imaginary forms, joined with an abstraction from the senses. Blame me not if this desription be somewhat difficult; for who can tell what a divine Rapture is, unless himself had been in a rapture? I call it a Revelation (it is the title of the Book) for this reas • n; Pharaoh and Nebuchadonosor had Visions, and understood not what they meant, but when the intelligence of the thing is opened, as it was to Joseph and Daniel, it became a Revelation. So St. Austin observes, Maxim propheta est qui in utroque excellit, ut videat in spiritu corporalium rerum similitudines, & ease vivacitate mentis intelligat; He is an eminent Prophet both ways, who sees in the Spirit certain Figures and Similitudes of things to come, and knows them by illumination. So did this Apostle no question, for all Scripture was opened to the Apostles, much more was this Scripture opened to the Apostle who wrote it from the mouth of God. 2. I blazon'd it for a Prophetical Revelation; for the Angels have all things revealed unto them in the Vision of the Divine Essence, but that is no Prophesy to them, because, as the Schoolmen speak, it is Sine omnibus creatis adminiculis, they have it put into them neither by word, nor by deed, nor by dream, nor by figurative presentation, but this being communicated to St. John by imaginary species; it was no Angelical way of seeing, but a Prophetical Revelation. 3. I add, infused by the holy Spirit. For when Moses saw the bush burn, and not consume, it was a Prophetical Revelatio, yet without inward infusion, because he beheld it with his eyes. This was not so, but he saw it through abundant inspiration. He was in the Spirit, which is in effect to say that he became very Scriptural. As Camerarius fits the phrase out of the Poet Euripides, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , are very learned men most intimate with the Muses; so this phrase denotes, that the Holy Ghost had the dominion in John, for the Spirit was not in him, but he was in the Spirit. 4. This must go with the rest, that the Spirit infused this Revelation into him through imaginary forms, supplying his fancy with the fashion of an Altar, of a Throne, a Lamb newly slain, a Sea of Crystal, and a thousand things more. Many times new species and forms are created in the fancy of him that is illuminated; many times that light which God gives doth shine upon those notions and conceptions which were in the mind before. So we see that Isaiah and Amos, this Apostle, and other Prophets do utter their Prophesies through the similitudes known unto them in their former conversation. 5. The utmost of all is, that this Revelation was accompanied in him with a Rapture, or abstraction from the senses. So Beza interprets that phrase, he was in the Spirit, Correptus spiritu, he was swallowed up of the Majesty of God, so that his mind was taken away from the body. Ezekiel says in one place, that the Spirit entered into him, Chap. ii. 2. In another place, that he was carried away in the Spirit, Chap. xxxvii. 1. There is great odds between these two, the one was by ordinary inspiration, the other by ecstacy, and so was this of our Prophet, when he saw the souls under the Altar, he was so enwrapt in Celestial Visions, that he could take no notice for the present that he lived, or had a body, but his Spirit was quite abstracted from the senses, and lifted up to converse with supernatural speculations. Now to sum up this Point, touching the modus how John saw the souls of the blessed, you shall hear how St. Austin made no scruple of the like case. The Angel appeared to Joseph in a dream. How did Joseph see an Angel, when his eyes were shut? Nay, rather, says the Father, how could he have seen an Angel if his eyes had been open? So the more the senses of this Prophet were bound up, the less communication he had with his mortal nature, the more capable he was to see the secrets of God.
It were no digression at all to tell you at large in this place, that St. John was not everybody when he saw the Mysteries of the Ages to come in an holy trance. Examine him from the time that he was the beloved Disciple, while his Master Jesus Christ was upon the earth; behold him in his other cognizances, that he was an unspotted Virgin, a patient Confessor, An Evangelist that sored higher than his fellows, an Eagle in his Gospel, but a Dove in his Epistles, where every line is enchased with Jewels of love, the aged Patriarch who had long survived all the Apostles, the Oracle that resolved all the Churches in their Controversies. Finally, that supereminent man that left not his like behind him, and since his days his equal did never rise up after him: Put all this together, and mark what a sanctified Vessel this was to see the souls under the Altar, and all those things which the Angel told him should come to pass in the days to come. What wretch can think himself so prepared as he was to receive these Prophetical graces of God? With how many favors of God is a Vision qualified to make it a perfect illumination? Let it deter any one that is not possessed with the spirit of Arrogance, to think that he is possessed with the spirit of Divination. Quia videre non possumus audiamus, says St. Austin. There is no hope that we vile sinners should see such Visions, it is our blessedness that we hear of them. What laughter doth it give our Adversaries, that this caution is not observed among us? we had proof of it lately, and almost year by year, every hair-brained Schismatic, that out of pride thinks himself more holy than others, fancies that he is a Prophet. These filthy dreamers presume they have learnt all that the Scriptures can teach them, and therefore like apt Scholars they must be promoted to an higher Form to learn supernal Revelations. As the Romanists are excessive in forging lies for their Saints sakes, so these are excessive in forging lies for their own sakes, both are liars, both are Legendaries. It was a gift which St. Austin says his Mother Monica had, that she could distinguish inter Deum revelantem, & animam somniantem; she knew when God gave her a supernatural inspiration in her sleep, and when it was but a common dream; By what mark or token could she do this? Nay, none at all, Nescio quo sapore, quem verbis explicare non poterat; she could not express by what relish of the soul she made a difference between them. Of whom have our modern Wizards, (it is too good a name if I do not put frentique to it) I say, of whom have these phrentique persons learnt the trick of Divination? Since they that were Prophets upon earth could not teach another how to be a Prophet; If St. John knew how he saw this Theory in heaven, it was his privilege alone, or with some very few more. But God doth not carve a Prophet out of every Christian. And so much de modo videndi, which is the first Point.
Take the object now to your attention which he saw; an object too subtle to be discerned by a bodily creature, but disclosed to this Apostle in his Rapture, in the excellency of Revelation, he saw the souls of the blessed in heaven. It could not out of Tertullian's mind, as I told you before, but that he thought the soul, when it was separated from the body, had some bodily figure and dimension in it. Those polite heathen men indeed, whom he had perused, did speak grossly in the point, as if the Soul after it left this world did flit about the Elysian fields in the form of a thin cloud, witness that fancy of the best Poets, Infelix simulacrum, atque ipsius umbra Creüsae. And it is no injustice to excuse such Authors, for though the substance of the Soul be incorporeal, yet it is impossible for one of us to conceive a Spirit, or an Angel but by the help of some corporeal Idea; it is a true Metaphysical rule, Nihil intelligimus in hôc statu sine verbo materiali in intellectu; we understand everything in this life by some material expression within ourselves; yet we are able by the undeniable proofs of Art, to transcend the narrowness of our own fancy, and to affirm, that the soul cannot choose but be immaterial, that it is not circumscriptive in any place, though it have a determined and defined subsistence. But this is no time to Philosophize; and our Savior's words will carry it clear without the help of Human Arguments: Handle me and see, a Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have, Luk. xxiv. 39; which is thus in effect, there is no corporeity in a Spirit. And the Sixth general Council held against the Monothelites hath these weighty words, Nascitur Deus humano corpore animam rationalem & incorpoream habens; The Son of God had an human body, with a reasonable and incorporeal soul.
I dismiss that Point, it shall not hold you longer. There are those that doubt it in their heart, or at least they live as if they doubted it, whether their soul hath a second state in reversion after this life. Can there be any exception against such a Witness as St. John, that was taken up into heaven, to relate the truth to all Generations upon earth? Why, he saw the souls of the Saints in a triumphant and immortal condition after they were unclothed of the body. There cannot be an Apparition of that which had ceased to be, that were a delusion. Not one natural Writer that had a sound brain, but maintained that the soul did survive the body, and that it was at best liberty when it was released from the prison of the flesh. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Aristotle; that the Mind or Spirit can subsist by itself, not mixed with any composition, not affected with passions. They could not search far enough why it should be so, they never discovered that the dissolution of the soul from the body was brought into the world after Adam was created for the punishment of sin, but their dim Candle gave them light to see, that the soul was apt to be separated. I suppose an Epicure may lose his conscience in a mist for a little while and dispute it like a Galenist that the soul is nothing else but the temperature of the first qualities, and so in death extinguished; but can you imagine that the Spirit itself doth not often give him the lie, and say within his breast, you do me wrong. I am immortal. Verily I believe, that they that put it off doubtingly, and would be uncontrolled in their voluptuousness, it may be it is not so, are often tormented with the other part of the opinion, it may be it is so. If you will hear this truth upheld out of holy Scripture there is no resistance, or cavillation against it. Because I will not tie myself to every Text which chimes that way, I will choose compendiously, where others have made choice before me. The Sadducees being stiff opposers against the separated existence of the Spirit, and yet commending themselves in the Holy Patriarchs from whose Loins they descended, our Savior selected that Scripture above all other to convict them which would catch them in their own net, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, God is not the God of the dead but of the living. How was God the God of Abraham unless he lived? And in what did Abraham live but in his soul which was divorced from the body? Irenaeus admires that any one should doubt of the souls perseverance after death, since the enarration is so • lear, that the rich man saw Lazarus in joys when himself was tormented. St. Jerome sets his rest upon those words, Mat. x. 22. Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. St. Austin recommends the words of Stephen to nick the Point without all contradiction, Lord Jesus receive my Spirit. Si animus moriturus esset, causae nihil foret cur animum potiùs quàm corpus commendaret. Aquinas against the Gentiles lays his strength upon that place of St. Paul, 2 Cor. v. 8. We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with God. One quotation were enough, then how forcible are all these together? He must be a beast in understanding, that knows not that the souls of good men are Angels in reversion.
There are others that profess so much faith, that the soul hath a state of happiness in reversion, to those that die in the favor of God. But that it comes not to any gust of this happiness till the end of the World: For the soul, say they, falls asleep when the body perisheth, that is, it dies together with the body, and when the flesh shall be quickened again, and gathered out of the dust, then the soul shall live again, when both it and the body shall be exalted in the Resurrection. I do not create Monsters to fight with all: St. Austin found such Heretics in his days, he calls them Arabians, who taught it everywhere, that the Soul had no being after death, till in the consummation of the World they both obtained together a joyful Resurrection. Nay, these Tares were sown long before St. Austin lived. Irenaeus took the pains to root them up in his Age, and he confutes them out of my Text, says he, how did St. John see the souls of the Martyrs, who had been slain for the Testimony of Christ, if the Soul should cease to be till the final Resurrection? And if a Caviller shall say, it doth not cease to be, but it lies quiet and senseless in a trance; Irenaeus blunts the point of that objection, because in the next verse, they desire vengeance for their blood that was shed; but principally because in the eleventh verse they are clad in white garments, which are cognizances of their joy and glory, and doubtless they wear them not sleeping but waking. And do not think that I rake in the ashes of ancient Heresies, that are quite forgotten: For the Anabaptists in their Theses Printed at Cracovia, Anno 1568, have this position; We deny that any Soul hath a separated being after death, that was a devise invented by the Papists to maintain Invocation of Saints and Purgatory; this is Popery trimly reformed, and according to that Proverb of the Jews, they cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils. And even at this day, a new Generation of Vipers, risen up at Racovia in Polonia, do pledge the Anabaptists in the same cup, namely, that there is a futurition of glory for the soul, when the whole Fabric of man shall be redintegrated again in the Resurrection, but they profess they cannot tell whether in the mean time there be any such thing extant as a separated soul, yet St. Paul says, he desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ: And yet Christ told the good Thief, that day he should be with him in Paradise. And yet the Souls of just men departed do follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes, Rev. xiv. 4. These instances are more persuasive, I am sure, than that which they pretend, that the Just do rest from their labors. What rest in God's name do they dream of? They are not in a profound trance without motion or action, as Adam was cast into a deep sleep, when Eve was taken out of his side, but it is a rest when the Spirit doth acquiesce in the Vision of God, as David said, Turn again unto thy rest O my soul, for the Lord hath rewarded thee. There are some, that I must afford a little Patronage, who are accused to lean to the Anabaptists in their opinion, that do nothing less. It was allowed for 1400 years as a Problem, wherein Christians without breach of charity might have Latitude to dissent, granting that the soul after the dissolution from the body was received into the joys of heaven, whether it be not sequestered in some distance from the highest heaven, where the invisible God doth chiefly reign in Power and Majesty, till the whole Body of the Saints be accomplished. It is well known what way St. Bernard took, Nec sancti sine plebe, nec spiritus sine carne; That such as die before us shall not see the Beatifical Vision of the holy Trinity without us, nor without their own body, and that an integral Beatitude is not given but to an integral person. And Calvin hath taken his freedom to be of the same mind, says he, Christ himself only is entered into the supreme Sanctuary of Heaven, Et solus populi eminus in atrio residentis vota ad Deum defert; and he alone commends the Petitions of the Saints to his Father, whose Spirits attend in the outward Courts. Those over-awing Fathers of the Florentine and Tridentine Councils have defined it indeed as an irrefragable Article of Faith, that the Saints enjoy the most perfect Vision of God immediately after death. What is that to us, who will not lose our moderation in indifferent points for their sakes? But Cornelius à Lapide, the Jesuit, puts the infamy of an Anabaptist upon Calvin, as if he had taught that the soul departed had no sense or taste at all of the glory of God. Why did he not censure Ambrose and Bernard? Why did he not spit his venom upon Pope John the XXII. There was good reason for that, if we may believe Gerson, a most grave Author of their own part. But Calvin was the first that ever I met withal, who writ a voluminous Treatise, to prove that the souls of good men after this life have their quartering and Mansion in Heaven, that they are not insensible of their state, or benumbed in sleep, or fettered with darkness, but that they praise the Lord continually, and Christ that redeemed them, which is consonant to this Point of my Text, that John saw the souls under the Altar.
Yet I like not their way, who are so careful to teach the people that the souls deceased do not sleep, that they keep themselves waking with a thousand Fictions and Impostures; there is scarce one leaf written of any Saint in the Church of Rome, especially of the modern ones, but you shall meet with two or three sprinklings in it, how his soul appeared in this or that manner to his friends upon earth; their posthumous miracles after their death, exceed the number of those which they did when they were living. And if anything be out of order, it is straightway rectified with an apparition. And from whence think you the Elf or Goblin comes that appears? From a place where I am sure this good Apostle saw no souls; from the correction house of Purgatory. Their Larvae, or night-walking souls are their best Doctors for the confirmation of that opinion. Ask Gregory the Great else, who could urge little beside to gain credit to his opinion for the temporary chastisements of the faithful after this life, but as the dead came and made relation to their surviving acquaintance. Some silly men were first affrighted out of their wits with a gastly Vision, and then guess you who it was that taught them points of Religion. But four ages ran out after Gregory's time before this cozenage grew trivial and common. Gregory the Fourth, in the year 835. decreed that a Solemn Feast should be held over all the Church to the memory of all the Saints in heaven, that whatsoever was not fully performed in the Feasts and Vigils of particular Saints, might be consummated on that day; this was nothing to the puling souls detained in the prison of temporary castigation. But almost two hundred years after, Odilo the Abot of Cluni, in commiseration to them that were departed in his own Monastery, dedicated a day for the relief of their souls not yet admitted into heaven. And Pope Jo. XVIII. anno 1007, taking light from Odilo commanded the Feast of all Souls to be general in all places. The Devil wanted nothing but the opening of this door, to beat down all opposites with apparitions. And let the Readers mark it, that from that Age not a Book was written, not a Chapter of a Book, but it relates what Nocturnal Mercuries appeared to bring tidings from Purgatory. Some Jangler will catch at this, and say, Belike you reject all Apparitions of the dead for lies, or Demoniacal Impostures. If I should, I had Tertullian to abet me, Omnem mortuorum exhibitionem incorporalem praestigias judices; All incorporeal Phantosms of the dead are jugglings and delusions. And if any point of doctrine depend upon the sleeveless Errands that the souls departed bring, I do renounce them for delusions. We have Moses and the Prophets, and we are certain their Spirits are ever to be preferred before any Spirit that comes from the dead. For the living to go to the dead, says the Prophet Isaiah, none of that, but to the Law and to the Testimony, Isa. viii. 19. Rabbi Maimon says, that some superstitious Jews would burn Incense among the graves, that the dead might come and talk with them. And therefore God said, that man should be cut off from among the people, that sought the truth among the dead, Deut. xviii. 11. Yet I deny it not, but that the divine power hath sometimes presented the Saints departed, to communicate with the living, as they that appeared in the holy City to testify our Savior's Resurrection, Mat. xxvii. Likewise in the 2. of Mach. Chap. ult. Onius, who once had been High Priest, he was exhibited being dead to Judas Machabaeus, that is another instance, if you have any stomach to that Historian. But the upshot is, that Souls have been seen in heaven, that was the Vision of St. John; so Souls may be sent from Heaven, but not from Purgatory. Through fire, I confess, these souls had passed which the Apostle saw, yet not through that subterraneous fire which they imagine, but through the fire of Martyrdom and persecution, He saw the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the Testimony which they held.
And if it be true, as none of the worst Expositors conjecture, that the computation of the fifth Seal opened immediately before the words of my Text, is rightly calculated at what time Dioclesian did cease to make havoc in the Church, it was a very fit time to see souls in heaven slain for the Word of God, it was thwackt with Martyrs like an hive with Bees. For burning of Churches, for massacring of Christians, for Proscription of Innocents, no Persecution was ever like it. It lasted ten whole years without ceasing, and in the first year of his Reign in Egypt only, an hundred forty and four thousand Christians were put to death, beside seventy thousand that were banished, insomuch, says Scaliger, that the Epocha of Dioclesian is called the Epocha of the Martyrs in Chronology. Who would have thought that the Posterity of Cham, a Generation branded with dark and unlovely visages, should have afforded so many sacrifices to be offered up unto the glory of Jesus Christ? Well might the Church of Ethiopia sing the Canticle of Solomon, I am black, but comely, O ye Daughters of Jerusalem. And not only these, but exceeding great numbers of Bishops, Priests, and People in all quarters of the habitable world: a long bedroll of faithful men and women in this Island, did taste of the bitter Cup under the same Tyrant. Fathers lost their Children, Children lack'd their Parents, the Wife missed her Husband, and one friend another, whom St. John hath found altogether, making up one Chorus of blessed Spirits; and while Rachel, the Church below, mourneth for her Children, Jerusalem which is above, the Mother of us all, rejoiceth for them. Martyrdom is the way to sublimate death into a Cordial, which was a poison, the means to make that a blessing which was a curse upon our nature. A Traffick proper to none but to the Citizens of the supernal City, to secure our whole adventure, not by assuring, but by losing their life. It is not only the greatest probation of faith, but it changeth faith into another species of Religion than it was before. St. Austin speaks to some holy people that were ready to die for the testimony which they held, Mox aurei eritis, nunc argentei estis. Now you are Silver, that is, you are clean and sanctified, but if you be tried in the Furnace of Martyrdom, ye shall become Gold: And as Gold is deposited in the best place of a man's Treasury, so those golden Saints, I mean those that are slain for the Word, they are received into the most precious and costly Cabinets of the Kingdom of God. Upon those words of the Psalm xxvii. 5. He shall hide me in the secret of his Tabernacle, says Bernard, Christ is a Tabernacle of protection for all his servants, but he reserves the Altar for the Martyrs, which is the principal part of the Tabernacle. In acknowledgment that they had won the chief Garland which was propounded to them that run the race, the bones of the Martyrs anciently were wont to be buried in no common place of the Church, but under the Altar. So St. Ambrose of the bones of Protasius and Gervasius buried in his Church of Milan under the Altar, says he, Let these triumphal Sacrifices be brought to that place where Christ is sacrificed. I had destined that plot of ground for mine own burial. It is meet that the Priest should sleep in peace, where he was wont to offer up the Peace-offering, Sed cedo sacris victimis dexteram portionem, locus ill martyribus debebatur; but I resign the right hand of the Altar to them, it is due to the Martyrs. How their names were read at solemn times out of the Diptyches to renoun their passions, how their requests which they made to the Church before they died were granted for the pardon of any delinquent, how their relics were held precious, though not exposed superstitiously to veneration, these and much to that effect were too long to recite, it is measure heaped and running over; that Stephen the Captain of the bloody Army saw the Heavens opened to immortalize his sufferings, and that in the first File of all that are blessed St. John saw those that were slain for the Word of God.
Yet this service is so rough unto our tender nature, to part with life for the custody of the truth, that all men had rather owe it to God, than pay it him. O but it is a good thing to put yourself to the question secretly between God and yourself, and do it not easily or hypocritically, admit I had supplied the room of Stephen, of James, of Justin, Laurence, Cyprian, quanta nomina? Should I have stood it out to the shedding of my blood? Or should I have fainted? If you stick at it, and cannot make a constant resolution, go to a new scrutiny; and that the flesh may not say that you deceive it with a superficial examination, make the most that you can of the pains which you shall be put to under the hand of the torturer, yet put all things in a right Scale, that the pains to be endured are over in a pair of hours at longest, for the most part in a pair of minutes, that the truth which you defend is ten thousand times dearer than a corruptible body; that the passions of this life are not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed; solicit yourself often with these meditations, till you have concluded with a mature judgment, as St. Paul did, I count not my life dear unto myself, so I may finish my course with joy. And then I will pronounce you a Martyr in extraordinary, for God accepteth the will for the deed. But howsoever the preconsiderations of many be stout, I fear they would grow effeminate upon the trial. You cannot discharge a strict Lenten Fast, how would your delicate bodies digest the hunger of an Inquisition? The ground is too hard for your knees to pray upon, what hope is there that you would hold out to lie upon the bare ground of a prison? A throng in hot weather stifles you, that you cannot endure the Church, how would your flesh endure a flaming fire? I believe you think this deaths-head hath been set too long before you. And is there no smoother way to be a Martyr than by being slain? Yes St. Paul says there is a living Sacrifice as well as a dead. And St. Austin, Pervenitur non solùm occasu, sed contemptu carnis ad coronam. You may receive the Crown prepared for them that fight lawfully, not only by extinguishing, but by mortifying the flesh. Mine eyes do persecute my chastity, ambition doth persecute my humility, revengeful malice doth persecute my charity, concupiscence is always persecuting my soul, which way can I turn myself but that everything is a Martyrdom to a Religious Christian? But if I mortify the deeds of the flesh, if I abandon covetousness, if I repress lust, if I bridle malice, if I trample upon the world, whereas I was a Martyr in affliction before, and sin did reign over me, I have expulsed it by another Martyrdom, by renovation, and by crucifying the old man.
But alas for pity how many Martyrs have we, if they may be believed upon their own testimony? How many whining passages in by-corners, and Satyrical Sermons, touching the persecution of the Saints? God shield, that Saints should suffer in so Orthodox, and so mild a Church. Sure they are mistaken. Nay, but they exclaim over and over that they suffer for their conscience. For their conscience? That is another thing. Do they suffer for the Word of God, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as the Complutensian Bibles read my Text? I love not to insult over misery with many words, let them sift their own case, and it will prove they are suppressed for contemning Authority. But there are others far more obstreperous against our state. If Pictures, and Almanacs, and Martyrologies, and Beatifications of Traitors will condemn us, we are up to the ears in these Certificates, for savage cruelty in killing the Saints. Do they not mean Jesuits and Seminaries, that were forbidden upon forfeiture of their head not to enter into his Majesty's Dominions? It is as clear as the light of the Sun then, that they were executed for breaking the Statute -Law, and not for the Word of God, or for the Testimony which they held. Every Malefactor will pretend that he dies in a good cause, to make his judgment odious in men's nostrils. Such as serve in the Gallies, will never be known what crimes they are in for, but complain that they wear their Chain for Faith and Religion. Alas say their Abettors that canonize them, that Statute is violated but by accident, they come to instruct their own Proselytes, and to execute the Function of their Priesthood, therefore by consequent they are slain for the Word of God. I will match their case with a full place of St. Cyprian, and so answer them. The Proconsul, that served under Decius the Emperor in Africa, banished hundreds of Christians out of Africa, threatening death unto them if they returned. Divers of them did creep in secretly, giving reason that they came to comfort their Brethren, and to strengthen them in the faith. St. Cyprian writes to them out of Prison, to exile themselves again, and to return no more, else if they suffered, they should be reputed not for Martyrs, but for Malefactors. I will not load them with envy, though it be true, that many of their Tenebrioes crept into England with damnable intentions, make the best they can of their own actions. St. Cyprian says, if banished men will enter into a Realm against the Law, they shall die as Malefactors. It is the Cause and not the Punishment that makes a Martyr. What more trivial? If a Virgin choose to die rather than to be ravished, she is slain for the Word of. If a good man be ruined rather than give his assistance to the ruin of an innocent, it is for the Word of God, &c. But if he be brought to the Stake for confessing there are no God's made with hands, and that Jesus Christ God and man is the Savior of all that believe, if he stand to it, and will not flinch for any terror, that is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to hold his Testimony, then he is slain for the Word of God, and for the Testimony of the Lamb, as the Dragon fought with them that kept the Commandments of God, and had the Testimony of Jesus Christ; meaning such as were holy and faithful, very godly in their works, very Orthodox in their belief. This is that mixture of sweet Spices, in whose exhalation, a Martyr becomes an odour of a sweet savor unto the Lord. They were victimae altaris, and thymiamata altaris, Sacrifices slain upon the Altar of burnt-offerings, and therefore became sweet Spices offered up upon the Altar of Incense, which shall be the conclusion of this Point, and the beginning of the next, where the Apostle did behold those Saints that had exchanged their lives to glorify God under the Altar.
And where doth St. John mean? Where about is that? Every curious itching ear will be more attentive to it, than to any instruction that can be raised out of the Text: A Traveler that asks his way, if many of the Country Folk be present at his question, it is ten to one but they will diversify in their opinions, and set him in so many ways, that he shall never be wiser for their direction. So I have consulted with more than a few Expositors, to learn where I may find this Altar, and not miss of it; one points this way, another that way, Et incertior sum multo quàm dudum. Among their variety of directions I know not which way to move. Cosmography is a very easy part of learning to design the confines or distances of City from City, Kingdom from Kingdom. But it is one of the most difficult tasks in Divinity to understand the several quarterings, and Mansion-places of heaven. I confess I have no skill in Ouranography. But to cut off all Proem, I will be brief in my relation what is said to it, and more brief in my determination. The discordious opinions may be drawn to three heads, some mean by the Altar an allotted place, some relate it to the condition of their body, some refer it to the state and condition of their Spirit. Whosoever give the words a local meaning, that the Souls were under the Altar, they all agree in this, that it imports that the Saints are kept back awhile from the uppermost part of Heaven, where the Angels do offer up Praises continually upon the Altar of Incense, which is next to the Holy of Holies, and they that have not the nearest access to the Vision of God, in form of Prophetical speech may be said to be under the Altar. Some who pitched upon this Interpretation had such fumes in their heads, that they did not see the light. Tertullian conceived that their Mansion was an earthly Paradise, whither Enoch and Elias are translated. Origen you may be sure hath some roaving excursion, it is thus, that the souls of the Faithful are put to School in some secret places, before they go to heaven, where they are purified from ignorance by degrees, and then exalted. Victorinus Afer, a better Rhetorician than a Divine, thinks that to be under the Altar, is as if the souls were under the earth in some ample and pleasant regions like the Elysian Fields. All these are human Phantasies, and I slip them aside. But the most beaten rode to this purpose is, that the souls of the Martyrs have a remuneration for their labors and sufferings past, but not a consummation of that glory which shall be revealed unto them, a share in Heaven, but not a possession in the highest Heaven. In atriis non in domo. They are kept a loof off from the perfect Vision of God, in the fullness of time they shall see him face to face. Which is Bernard's meaning, when he says, the blessed that are under the Altar, because they are admitted to see the Human Nature of Christ, and not the Divine. Not so as if totally they did see nothing of the Divine Nature, but because they see it with less perspicacity than they shall hereafter, so St. Ambrose and St. Hilary close with him. And St. Chrysostom upon the Eleventh to the Hebrews, Praeveniunt nos in certaminibus, non praevenient in coronis; they have fought a good fight before us, but they shall not be crowned before us; not because our Resurrection shall be at once, the words will not bear it; and the body is but the Robe which we shall put on, the glory with which we shall be filled brim full, that is the Crown which we shall wear in our Fathers Kingdom. I know this is much distasteful to the Prelates of the Florentine and Tridentine Councils, who have defined, that the pure Souls in heaven enjoy the clearest Vision of God before the day of Judgment, and want nothing to their integral happiness but the resuscitation of their bodies. It may be so as they will have it. But I am contented to say, their state is Heaven, and will go no further. Neither can I see cause, why the Churches of Christ should dissent, if one say without pervicacious obstinacy the Spirits of righteous men are in the highest Heaven, and another will say nothing peremptorily, but that they are in Heaven indeed, and do live with the Lord. Malo timidus esse quàm temerarius. The Conclusion now is thus much, That if this be granted for a Local Posture that the Souls are under the Altar, there is nothing against Analogy of Faith to say, they are in the outward Rooms of Heaven, and stay there in expectation of more abundant glory.
Secondly, Some relate this to the condition of their bodies. And the Jesuits Ribera and à Lapide will have no denial, but that they have brought the Point to the true Touchstone. I quoated somewhat out of St. Ambrose before, that the bodies of some, who gave up their life for the Faith, were interred in the Church under the Lord's Table, which with reference to the representation of the Sacrifice of Christ Crucified, is figuratively called an Altar. St. Austin confirms it, There let their dead corpses be interred, where the death of our Lord is continually celebrated. And in later years, when they studied for increase of Ceremonies, every principal Church under the Pontifician command, hath a Vault under the Altar, where the supposed Relics of the Martyrs, or the Relics of supposed Martyrs are reserved. Out of these Ritual Forms the Jesuits interpret St. John, that he saw the Souls of them that were slain for the word, whose bodies lay encombed under the Altar, and whose Relics were kept there in custody. They had need of a long Figure to bring these ends together. Neither shall they ever persuade me, that St. John bends his aim at a Custom of Sepulture, which began above two hundred years after he wrote his Prophesy. No toleration can be found for the burial of the Martyrs in those holy places, till the Pacificous Reign of Constantine the Great. And how did the Church understand this Scripture in the mean time? A Modern Writer of our own handles it much more learnedly to the same relation. He notes it very acutely, that the Theater, wherein St. John saw all his Visions, hath a resemblance in every part to the Camp of Israel, and to the Tabernacle of Moses in the Wilderness; it is enough to have named it. Now the Apostle being acquainted by the Spirit what innumerous Troops of Martyrs should be slaughtered, he saw as it were the Altar of burnt-offerings belonging to the Tabernacle, and the Saints, that were sacrificed to God, were under it not as ashes are underneath, that fall through a grate, but they lay like beasts newly slain at the foot of the Altar, that is, sprauling upon the ground before the Altar. The Soul then is taken by Synecdoche here for the whole man, or according to the usual style of Scripture for the body of the man. The conjecture, I think, may pass for probable and judicious. There is but one thing to disparage it, it is but one man's conjecture.
But if you will hear that which hath judgment to commend it, and multitude of Authors, it is likely to be found among them that in the third place refer this figuratively to the condition of their Spirits. Yet I mean not him that says, the Ark and the Covering thereof did represent God's Mercy Seat, but the Altar did represent his Justice, for it was the place of fire and bloodshed, and that these souls were under the Altar, that is, under the Justice of God to be avenged of their Adversaries. It is nothing so, for as it appears by them that fled unto it for refuge, the Altar was a place of Propitiation. The Altar here, by the greatest number of votes, is He that mitigates the stern Justice of his Father, Jesus Christus Agnus propter mactationem, Altare propter propitiationem. He is all by whatsoever we are reconciled to God, the Altar, the Priest, and the Sacrifice. St. Gregory proves it, that the Altars of the Levitical Service were express Types of him, for either they were to be made of rude earth, Temeraria de sespite altaria, in Tertullian's words, or of rough and unpolisht stones, Exod. xx. Wherefore of earth, but to betoken the Incarnation of our Lord? Quicquid offerimus Deo in altari terreo, i. e. in fide Dominicae incarnationis solidamus; Whatsoever we bring unto God, lay it upon the earthen Altar, upon this faith, that Christ was incarnate, to save his people from their sins. When the Altar was made of stone, it was rough and unpolisht, and in those materials likewise we shall meet with Christ. For he was the Living Stone in Daniel, cut out of the Mountain without hands, neither was he polished by Art, by Education, or by anything that man can put into him, as he came from the Quarry, from the Womb of his Mother, he was full of Grace and Truth. This standing is firm, that the term of Altar agrees well with our Savior, many reasons may be easily rendered, why the souls of the Blessed were under the Altar: 1. Says Estius, a little too slightly, They have not yet attained to be like the glorious body of Christ, they have not resumed their Carkasses, as He is risen from the dead; they are yet below His dignity, and so under the Altar. 2. The Just that died in the Lord in the Old Law, are said to be in Abraham's bosom, because they professed the Faith of Abraham; so they that died in the Faith of the Gospel, that Christ is the Altar, upon whom all our works that please God are to be offered up, their Souls are under that Altar. 3. As Lazarus the poor man full of Piety is said to be in Abraham's bosom; as if he were placed in heaven next to Abraham, so the godly Martyrs are next to the Altar, for dignity of glorification next to Christ himself, and wheresoever the Carkass is thither will the Eagles be gathered together, Luk. xvii. Lastly, Which takes me most, the persecuted Saints had no shelter on earth to defend them, now their souls are at rest, disquieted with no fear, under the protection and custody of Christ. Under him we are in safety upon earth, and no man can take his sheep out of his hand, and under his Wings we shall be safe in Heaven forever; yea, and though we have the faith of Martyrs, to spend our life for the love of God, yet our hope is not in ourselves, but to be covered with the Altar, to run to Christ as to our Shield and Buckler, without his Merits to assoil us from our sins, Martyrs cannot appear before the face of God. O prepare your selves to come unto this holy Sanctuary: He that comes with an hypocritical Conscience to partake of the Altar of the Lord's Table, he shall find no place for his Soul under that Altar which is above. And take heed of high imaginations and exalted thoughts. Our state in Heaven is subter, and not super: And all subters in this World are not worth a good man's thought to reflect upon them. Let me be an underling, let me be abased, let me go down to the lowest Room, let my Spirit aim at nothing but to be Templum sub altari, the Temple of God here, that hereafter I may rest under the Altar in life everlasting. AMEN.
A SERMON UPON
REVEL. vi. 10.
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth?
REVEL. vi. 10.
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth?
N Othing may seem more out of order than these words are at the first reading, but their true scope is, to put that in frame, which the wise men of the world did think most out of order. Some will say in their first cogitations upon my Text, Are these the Souls of the First-born in Heaven, that make such a clamour against their Persecutors? Can they indeed be so eager of revenge? Tantae ne animis coelestibus irae? Besides, Are they so passionately addicted to their own desires, that they will not stay the prefixed time which God hath set, but challenge him for slackness? Usque quo? How long dost thou put us off? Again, What imperfection is this which they pretend, as if they knew not how long it were, till Christ would take the Kingdom into his hand, and judge the proud after their deserving? How do they know as they are known, if they be kept so short of divine revelation? But to stifle these Cavillations, take special notice, that you lose the whole Chain of this Prophesy, if you hold not fast by this Link, that St. John was in a rapture, and taken up to the Heaven in the Spirit, where the passages which he met withal were not really transacted, but he seemed to see the souls which were slain, and he seemed to hear the moans which they made, which is nothing else but a Prosopopaea, where the Spirits of the Martyrs are imaginarily brought in, as if they demanded the suppression of violent men, that had spilled their blood, which doth not evince that any infirmities, or disorderly affections are in them, which may rashly be supposed, but to set two things straight in our opinion, which many Philosophizing heads did champ upon, as if they were crooked in the Divine Providence.
First, The righteous are taken away, and no man regardeth it, as the Prophet says. Their days are cut short by violence and cruelty, and yet their Persecutors live and are mighty. What did the Heathen say to this, who had good report for their Moral Conversation? Is there no Justice in heaven? Or doth it set no price upon the blood of Just men? Yes, here is the best assurance that can be demanded, a Scene as it were acted in heaven, wherein is represented that the wrongs of the Saints are fresh in memory, and shall never be forgotten. Yet this is not all. As this Scale is hoised up, so there is another that must down as fast, and that is principally aimed at in this Text. An Oppressor, whose hand hath been very heavy upon another, he is always jealous that in the turn of the Wheel his malice may be requited: For none so miserable, but in the Revolutions of Fortune may call his injuries to an account, if he live. What is the Method therefore of them that are profound Graduates in Malice? Why mortui non mordent. Let not thine Adversary live, if you love to be secure, dispatch him. As Bassianus insulted over his Brother Geta, when he had killed him. Sit Divus frater meus, modo ne sit vivus, as long as my Brother lives not, I care not though he be among the God's. Or as Jezebel cheered up Ahab, that the worst was past, Arise, eat, and take possession, Naboth is not alive, but dead. This is a Maxim then in the Devils Politicks, if you hunt for the destruction of any man, your safety is in his utter extirpation. This is as false as God is holy and true. It is palpable that my Text labors especially with this Doctrine, That the poor oppressed is more likely to obtain redress against his enemy when he is dead, than when he was alive. His Soul is then most precious to the Lord, his Prayer most flagrant, he is so near to Christ that he is next to the Altar; his understanding is so enlightened, that he knows what to ask and never fail. Do their Oppressors think that these can do no harm, because their bones lie scattered before the pit? I would not be in Ahab's case, though Naboth be dead and not alive, for no worldly good would I provoke the clamours of such as these, for they cry with a loud voice, &c.
Here you have a Petition then put up to a mighty King by some persons that had sustained injury, and after that garb I will divide it. First, As it useth to be in such petitory Writs, consider we to whom the Supplication is preferred, to one from whom there lies no appeal, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lord's. And the words are so laid together that the Souls under the Altar do beseech him by his three mighty Attributes, Per potentiam, per bonitatem, per trigam gloriae. He is the Lord, therefore they implore him by that power which can do all things. He is Holy, therefore they solicit him by that goodness which detests Oppressions. He is Truth, and therefore they urge him by those Promises made, which he cannot but accomplish. It is the Lord, holy, and true, into his hands they commend their Petition. Secondly, The manner of Petitioning is with vehemency, and importunity. With vehemency, for they cried with a loud voice. With importunity, for they expostulate that it is not yet done, How long Lord, &c. Thirdly, Their asking and request, is for no petty injury, but for their blood, to judge and avenge their blood. Lastly, The parties against whom they complain are expressed by contempt of their condition, They dwell upon earth. And now tell me if the Eagle hath not cause to fear, though he hath torn these innocent Doves to pieces in his talons? In what peril do those Grantortoes live that have slain the poor Servants of Christ heaps upon heaps? When such a God is besought by the souls of such dear servants, with such zeal and vehemency, upon so great an injury, and against such worldlings whose best project is to live upon the earth, what will this come to in the end? But the restauration of the afflicted, the destruction of their Persecutors; unto these tears for their joy in the nethermost Hell, unto the others joy for their tears in the Kingdom everlasting.
Having thus distributed the Text into portions, I go back to that which I put in the first rank, the Petition is preferred to the Lord, to the Lord that is holy and true. And those words are both an invocation of praise, and an obtestation by those sacred properties of the Divine Nature, that their desire might be effected. He that makes his address to God, let him begin with his praise, let him commemorate his excellent greatness, let him delight to rehearse his Titles of Majesty, without these your Petition is headless, it hath no Exordium to induct it into the Court of grace; extol him in his noble Attributes, before you begin to exhibit your desires, and the everlasting doors will be lifted up to let you in, for the Lord cannot refuse his own glory. As David bears you up to it in the last Psalm, the Trumpet, the Harp, the Cymbal, the Organ, all Instruments of Music are in the Tongue of him that doth praise the Lord. They were no babies therefore, whatsoever the refractory think, that filled our Liturgy with Te Deums, with Magnificats, with Doxologies; Methinks Prayer were but a drowsy thing without them. When we ask anything that we need, we speak in the Dialect of men; but when we send forth acclamations to the honor of Jesus Christ, we speak with the tongues of Seraphims. In our Petitions we may exceed, and ask too much, in our Doxologies we cannot exceed. It agrees well to the true only God, which Plato ascribed to his Idols, heap what Epithets you will upon the God's, you cannot flatter them. Perhaps some are of the mind of that Heathen, that asked a Rhetorician, to what purpose he pen'd an Oration in praise of Hercules, for who did ever discommend Hercules? Or if Blasphemers should detract from God his excellency, it is not made less: So all the invocations and Halleluja's of the Saints cannot add on Cubit, not one Inch to the stature of his Majesty, it is uncapable of increase, and can never grow greater. But will you be content to open your lips unto the praise of the Celestial goodness, if it bring yourself to honor, though it be no amplification to the glory of God? Agreed then; no man can ascribe much praise to God, but out of a large capacity of faith, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. No man can say, that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. No man can speak of the King of Heaven according to his due honor, but it will procreate devotion and reverence; no man doth advance the name of God in the preface of his Prayer, but it is a tacit Confession, that he prefers the glory of his Maker before his own Necessity. Behold now, though God's honor be in the state that it was before, yet your soul is in a better state by Prayer, and Invocation; for a spiritual gift in this life is a degree to a reward in the life to come.
Let me not defer it any longer to speak of the ditty of that praise which the Souls under the Altar did give unto the most High: And the words when they are laid together, are Triga divinae gloriae, as it is called, a Chariot drawn by the three transcendent Attributes of the Divine Nature. Who doth excel in Power, but the Lord? Who doth excel in goodness, but the Holy of Holies? And He that brings to pass whatsoever he hath spoken, he must excel in truth. Power belongs unto the Father, for all things are by him: Truth belongs unto the Son, for all the shadows of the Old Law are fulfilled in him: Goodness belongs to the Holy Ghost, for he is the Sanctification that is diffused in our hearts. Therefore more praise cannot be couched in three words than in these, Lord, Holy, and True. We wretched and ignorant sinners, that utter these words with polluted lips, we cannot apprehend, as the Martyrs in Heaven do, what an eternal weight of glory is in everyone of these Syllables. Yet we know that he is Lord whose authority admits no equal, the Idea of all goodness, whose sanctity admits no question: A Truth which is the measure of all truth, whose words and statutes admit no contradiction. His Dominion is so strong that it cannot be resisted, his Holiness is so sincere that it cannot sin, and his Truth is so firmly coupled to his Holiness, that he cannot lie. There is no Power but in Him, for all the Foundations of the Earth are weak. There is no Holiness but in him, for there is none that doth good, no not one: There is no verity but in him, for God is true, and every man a liar. As for all the God's of the Heathen, there was infirmity in their protection, for they had no strength. Viciousness in their Sanctions, for they had no sanctity; Delusions in their Oracles, for they were nothing but vanity. To contract a world of variety, which may be morallized out of this Triple Crown of God, it is not to be over-passed, that these are the Titles upon which the Church depends for all its blessings, the Hills unto which we lift up our eyes for help, Solium gubernandi, altare sanctificandi, cathedra docendi; The Throne of his Kingdom, the Altar of his Priesthood, the Chair of his Prophetical Wisdom; which afford unto the Church Might to protect it, Grace to purify it, and Truth to direct it in all things. Or observe it how the Enemies of the Church are over-matched and trodden down by these Attributes. We all know they are in three Ranks Tyrants, Hypocrites, and Heretics: To suppress Tyrants, he is the mighty Lord; for the detestation of Hypocrites, he is the Holy One of Israel; for the conviction of Heretics, Truth hath flourished out of the Earth, and Righteousness hath looked down from Heaven. But if these be the Flowers of Christ's honor, if the Martyrs, as some Expositors say, meant of him only, they are Lines, which will easily, I am sure, meet in that Center: Though once he was compassed with our infirmities, yet now what Power so great as his, to whom the Father hath committed all judgment? What Holiness so perfect as his, which challenged the censure of his Enemies, Which of you can reprove me of sin? Or what Truth so praepotent as out of his mouth, which made his Adversaries confess, Never man spake like him? Not to leave this Subject without some utility to our life; Are these Titles of our Father no way hereditary to us by Adoption of Sons? Yes surely, after the model of our earthen Vessel, the compellation of Lord, which is so awful and to be adored in the Supreme Majesty, it claims veneration, and submissive obedience to those Powers upon earth, to whom God hath committed the execution of his governance: The other two Attributes are not so restrictive, but are the Urim and Thummim of every Christian, or like the two eyes in our head, we know not which is dearest, Holiness and Truth. Truth is the illumination of our understanding in all points to be believed: Holiness is the reformation of our will in all cases of practice. Which of these can you spare and live, your brains, or your heart? If Holiness be true, there will be no Hypocrisy: If Truth be holy, there will be no contention. If Holiness be true, Zeal shall be joined to Knowledge: If Truth be holy, Knowledge shall be joined to action. Where Truth is not holy, Herod, for the engagement of his Oath, will cut off the head of John the Baptist: Where holiness is not true, the Pharisees in defense of the Law will Crucify our Savior. Wherefore put on the new man which is created after God, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the holiness of truth, or in true holiness, Eph. iv. 24.
Forget not, I pray, that I said, these Epithets were not only an Invocation, but an obtestation also, as if the Martyrs had said, As thou art the Lord, as thou art holy, as thou art true, avenge our blood of them that dwell on the earth. Haec commemoratio est quaedam necessitas exaudiendi. How can this great King, to whom they supplicate, choose but grant them their asking, when his own Attributes intercede in their behalf? How can their Enemies choose but fall before them, when they sound out these awful names of God as with the blast of a Trumpet? As a Christian Poet says of Satan, who was cast out of the Possessed in the name of Jesus, Nec fulmina verbi ferre potest; that blessed word was like Thunder in his ears, he could not endure the noise of it: So when the men of the earth have exalted themselves. To run over the Attributes of God against them, is as it were to give fire to a peal of Ordnance, and their Pride will totter before them. Religion hath its name à religando, it binds man to God, and it binds God to man. The Martyrs were bound by their Vow in Baptism to stand to their Faith to the death, and the Lord hath bound himself by his Truth and Holiness to avenge his Saints that cry day and night unto him. With much confidence may we appeal unto him in the name of the Lord. Magnum nomen sub quo nemini desperandum, says St. Austin. Who can be discouraged that can recite that word with a true feeling in the Preface of his Prayer? It is in effect to say, Rise up thou arm of the most High, Isa. li. 9. Stir up thy strength, and come and help us, Psal. lxxx. 2. Let all the Kingdoms of the earth know that thou art the Lord, Isa. xxxvii. 20. It is to challenge protection from the relation which can never be dissolved; as who should say, Thou art our King, and we are thy Subjects; therefore we claim our Copy, that thou shouldst guard and defend us, at least that thou shouldst pluck down the arrogance of those that have offended us. But what passionate Advocates are the other two sacred terms that go together with it? Holy and True. Which is in effect to plead, Thou hast made us holy as thou art holy, thou hast kept us in the truth, even as thou art truth, thou hast given us such gifts as are in thine own Titles, therefore we are sure thou dost love us with an everlasting love, thou that art holy and true, wilt pluck thine arm out of thy bosom, to avenge them that are holy and true against their oppressors. The Holiness of God calls upon him to hate the ungodly, that have devoured Jacob, and laid wast his dwelling place. His Truth calls upon him to put them to confusion, because he hath promised to recompense them for the evil which they have done unto his Servants. He that is holy cannot favor their part that are ambitious, blood-suckers, invaders of the Possessions of the Innocent. He that is truth itself cannot support them that are dissemblers, truce-breakers, full of fraud and equivocation. The Holy One will be sanctified, the True One will be justified, the Lord will be glorified.
I will hold you no longer in the Porch of the Text, for the Invocation is no more: I come to the Prayer itself, the Souls under the Altar cry out unto the Lord to judge and avenge their blood. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Verb to judge, may belong to the sifting of the Cause; the other Verb to avenge, may import the dispatch of the sentence against the Delinquents, but I take them both to be an amplification of one thing urged, that vengeance may fall upon the head of them that have spilled the blood of the Saints, a Prayer that a mild man perhaps will stand amazed at. His Lesson is, Bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. Whence comes it that the Saints in Heaven take the liberty to perform Christ's will not so charitably as the poor Disciples on earth? But good words; and all grace and piety be ascribed to the Spirits which are in the bosom of God. We cannot say to them as our Savior did to the Sons of Zebedee, You know not what ye ask. This is a voice which came not from Earth, but from Heaven, and therefore we must maintain it. And it is as easy a task as a man can put his Pen to, because it will admit such variety of Apology.
First of all, Vengeance being not usurped by the hand of a private man, but prosecuted under the shelter of lawful authority, like Usque quo Domine? In this place it is not unlawful. It is pars justitiae punitivae, a stirring up of that part of justice which distributes punishments to them that deserve them, and to demand it in a regular way, is in no wise rugged to the Law of charity. The Schoolmen comprize the right use and the abuse of it in one short distinction, Velle vindictam ad odium saturandum pessimum est, ex amore justitiae bonum; It is honest sometimes to claim revenge for wrongs out of the love of Justice, it is abominable when we aim at nothing, but to glut our spleen and hatred with the ruin of our enemy. St. Austin puts it better home with two exceptions. Revenge is strictly repressed in the Gospel, Non ut correctionem hominum negligamus, sed ne alieno malo animum pasceres; not quite repressed, so that offenders must not be called to account to be corrected, but when a rankerous mind would be fed and fatted with the penalty of another. Again, says he, Non ut praeterita vindicemus, sed in futurum consulamus; The injuries that are past and done might be friendly put up, but recompense must be required sometimes, that the times to come may be more peaceably ordered. Many stumbled at this Doctrine, because they made not a clear difference between the affections of malice and justice. Origen against Celsus disputes, that if is not lawful for Christians to go to war, yet David praiseth God for teaching his hands to war, and his fingers to fight. The Manichaeans brooked not Moses for those words, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; yet he saith, Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, Lev. xix. Julian charged the Christians that they were enemies to Civil Courts, and all Political Orders, for they held that no wrong was to be called in question. And they that replied unto him, defended it coldly, that it was a thing adiaphorous, and better let alone. St. Austin in one place says, that the Old Law did license the Jews to commence suits against their Enemies, but it was a permission to the hardness of their hearts; this mistake came upon a slip of memory, for he thought there had been such words in the Text of the Old Law, Thou shalt hate thine enemy. Hugo taught that the Precepts of strict charity, which Christ taught, agreed to the suffering times of the Primitive Church, but were now expired. Some of the School Divines would have the Prayer for our Persecutors to be a Counsel, and not a Precept. Some would have all going to Law to be a repining against the will of God, and impatiency against his scourge, when he takes anything from us; by the same tenure, a sickness being a scourge, from God, we must not seek to the Physician to cure it. Finally, The Anabaptists think that the Gospel hath so quite cut the Nerves of revenge, that they abhor the Magistrate who is the conservator of peace and justice, and repute him to be God's instrument no otherwise than as Nebuchadonozor or the Devil. This is a large field of Tares to be cut down, and all with one Sickle, revenge may be prosecuted for the correction of sin, for the peace of the Church, for the demonstration of God's justice. So doth our Church in the Collect used in the time of War, Asswage the malice of our Enemies, abate their pride, confound their devices: So do the Souls of the Martyrs in heaven, Avenge our blood, &c.
I confess it is an hard matter to hit of this way which I speak of, and among those that pray for revenge, not one among a thousand, I am persuaded, but tread awry. Howsoever the pure love to Justice may stir us up to those devotions, yet our frailty can scarcely perform it without some vindicative passions. It is a common error to miscall our Spleen by the name of Zeal, and to take that hot affection to be a Coal from the Altar, which is a firebrand from the infernal Pit.
But it is a second Conclusion, that the Spirits of good men departed may cry out, to have judgment pass upon Tyrants, for the effusion of their blood, because they can ask nothing inordinately, they that are confirmed in grace, and cannot sin, they cannot make a Petition that is over-balanced with the least grain of rancor or partiality. Beside, as Rabshakeh said to the men of Judah, how untruly let him answer it, Am I now come up without the Lord against this Land to destroy it? Yea, the Lord said unto me, Go up against this Land and destroy it: So may the Saints say without prevarication, Do we pray for vengeance against our Persecutors without the Lord? Yea, the Lord hath said unto us, Pray unto me for vengeance against your Enemies; their Will moves by his inspiration, and they can wish for nothing without it. Ab ipso bibunt quodcunque sitiunt, St. Austin speaks it upon my Text; when they thirst for anything, they drink it first from the Fountain of his pleasure. Wherefore there is this disparity in our case and theirs. We are ignorant what may become of our Persecutors: Stubborn sinners are often called to repentance. Paul was converted in that minute, when he imagined most mischief against the Faith. O then let us overcome evil with good, praying that they may turn unto the Lord and be saved. This is a fair Christian revenge indeed, to pray against their sins, Hoc ipsum in illis vindicatur, quod periit iniquitas. Now the Saints in glory, as many of the best Divines hold, are not at such uncertainty as we are, but it is revealed unto them that their Persecutors are in a lost condition, that they will die in their impenitency, therefore in conformity to that judgment, which God hath reserved for them, they pour out their Imprecations, that destruction may take them unawares. They that know how unalterable the Decrees of the Lord are, and by special impartment, are acquainted with the execution of his Decrees; it is impossible that the Saints in Heaven should solicit him for the salvation of Reprobates, they pray for nothing, but for that which they obtain; they pray for none, but for whom they may be heard. Some of us ask and have not, St. James tells us why, Because we ask amiss. The drift of this Conclusion is, we ask good things of God for our Enemies, because for ought we know they may become his friends. The Martyrs cry aloud against their Enemies, because they know they shall be Fiends of Hell. We are restrained from cursing our ill-willers, because malice will inject itself into such Prayers; the Citizens which dwell above are liable to no such prohibition, because there can be no defect in their charity.
The third Conclusion is so cautious to give no scandal, so circumspect not to open the least window to malice and hatred, that it resents the word Revenge in this place to be of an improper signification; and that which the Souls departed sue for is not revenge, but deliverance. Deliverance? Of what? Not of themselves, who are out of harms-way, in Abraham's bosom: But of their Brethren afflicted and tormented here beneath. As who should say, How long, O Lord, wilt thou not deliver the blood of our Brethren, the poor Members of the Militant Church, from them that rage upon the Earth? They that are dead in the Lord have not only an existence after this life, but a memory to call to mind what garboyls were in this world when they breathed in it, as the Parabolical History of the Rich man and Lazarus may confirm it. This being presupposed as the opinion of others (I press it not as irrefragable) it must go along with it, that they have a most compassionate desire, that the poor Sheep, whom they left in the midst of Wolves, may have an end of their misery. And no marvel if their Communion which they had, and shall have again, make them clamour, as if they petition for themselves. How long O Lord, &c. For as young Scholars talk Proverbially of the breaking of Priscians head, when a Solacism is committed, though he be rotten in his grave; so unmerciful proceedings against them that suffer under the Cross of Christ, seem to fetch blood from the Saints in Heaven. You will think, I suppose, that this Interpretation sticks at a knot: To deliver is a softer, and a more innocent word than to revenge; how will that stubborn word to revenge bear so mild a signification? The Critics will readily help us in that. David pleading his integrity before Saul, yet mistrusting that his displeasure was unreasonable and implacable, says he, Ulciscatur me de te Jehovah; The Lord avenge me of thee. As the Letter sounds, this had been most disloyal, and most dangerous to have cursed Saul to his face, therefore the Phrase must be understood in this manner, The Lord deliver me from thy vengeance. Again, 1 Mach. xiii. 6. I will avenge my Nation, and the Sanctuary, and our Wives, and Children, for the heathen are gathered to destroy us. What is meant then by avenging the Sanctuary, but delivering it from profanation? To uphold it with another Authority, the Widow invokes the unjust Judge to avenge her of her adversary, Luk. xviii. 3. Camerarius says, it is jus exequere, do me right against him: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Juris consulti vocant defensores; that is, they that defend and maintain the cause of the poor, are called their avengers. It cannot utterly be gainsaid therefore, but that the Grammatical words will bear this sense, that the Souls under the Altar pray for deliverance, rather than revenge. For the deliverance of their Brethren that suffer, not for the confusion of those Malefactors that spill their blood. I confess, if you take Revenge in the usual way, for a cankered desire to see the hurt of another, this construction were the safer. And for Analogy of Faith it agrees well with that, that the holy Ones in the sight of God pray, that their Brethren may be plucked out of the jaws of their Tormentors, and fill up their Society in Heaven. So St. Cyprian, Illic copiosa turba nos desiderat, de suâ immortalitate secura, adhuc de nostra solicita; An innumerous company of holy ones in Heaven desire our coming, resting secure in their own peace and glory, but solicitous for ours. And Bernard very vehemently, Unde tibi hoc ô caro foetida! How comes this to pass, O filthy and sinful flesh of man, that they in whom God's Image is repaired, should long for thy fellowship, in whom it is defaced? That they who are made white with the blood of the Lamb, should wish for thee that art polluted? So I leave this Point with a probable assent, but no more, that the Saints desire not the vengeance of the ungodly, but the deliverance of the righteous.
It is drawn up more solidly in the fourth Conclusion, That vengeance indeed is no part of their Petition in Heaven, it was their love and forgiveness of their Enemies which God accepted, when he exalted them thither; and surely their Charity is increased, and not diminished. But how then will St. Johns Vision and their Charity hold together? Well enough; directly they pray for that which is fit for the voice of Saints, but because no good thing is good to them that hate the Church, obliquely it brings vengeance upon them. Cajetan is the great abettor of this Interpretation. I shall find another Author for it, they are our Savior's words, Luk. xviii. 7. Shall not God avenge his own Elect, that cry day and night unto him? Says he, The assiduous cry of the Elect tends formally to this, that the Kingdom of God would come, and that he would accomplish all things; but forasmuch as when this Kingdom is come, and the Elect are gathered together from the four Winds, the wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the people that imagined evil against his Sanctuary, therefore virtually and indirectly they invocate God that his Foes may be swept away with the Beesom of destruction. Affectu orant pro persecutoribus, effectu pro vindictâ; Their affections are sweet and tender, that all Infidels, who defy the Gospel of Christ, may be converted, but the effect which follows their Prayers shall not be their Salvation, but their Subversion forever. The Casuists express this after a pretty manner, that the Will of any man is Mother to some effects, and Grandmother to other some. Such things as it wisheth for expressly, it is the Mother of those desires; when many things fall out consequently upon these desires, and quite beside the intention of the wish, they are not the Children of our own Will, but our Daughters Daughters as it were, and our Will is but Grandmother unto them. I desire fair weather merely for mine own delight, my fancy covets nothing else; but this may hinder the Seeds-man in the Field, or burn up his Flowers that hath planted a Garden, those effects are not begot by my Will, their relation is that they came to pass out of that which I desired, they are my Children's Children, and so remotely they are mine. Or as a Ward wisheth that he were come to Age, and had sued out his Livery, his aim is to be seized of his own Inheritance, yet that desire cannot be accomplished in some instances, without wringing his Estate out of the hand of his Guardian, and leaving him poor and succourless. So says Gregory the Great to this case in my Text, Sancti petunt mundi consummationem, atque indui corporibus; These blessed Souls call for the consummation of the World, for a joyful Resurrection, and to be clothed with their bodies. But woe unto violent men, that have insulted upon the Righteous, when that shall come to pass, then shall their cruelty begin to be requited. The Saints do praise God day and night, and the Incense of their Prayers is lifted up unto him for a greater amplification of their triumph, yet since their honor must be the ruin of many, this must necessarily be derived out of their Petitions, that the Lord would judge and avenge their blood on them that dwell on the Earth. But you will say, I have not yet made it to appear, that the primary and direct Petition of the Saints is, that God will reveal his utmost glory in the end of all things, and in the Resurrection of their bodies. I refer you for that to the verse which follows my Text; for why had each of them his white Robe given? Or why is it said, That they should rest for a little season, and till all were fulfilled? This is no answer to the words of my Text, but an answer to their uncessant Prayer for the future Resurrection, that the pittance of glory which they had must satisfy them, and in due time, when the whole body was gathered together, there should be an accomplishment of their blessedness. I do not say, That the time deferred is irksome to them, for their heart is so devoted to everything that God pleaseth to have done, that it is sweeter to them, since the Lord will have it so, to have the time adjourned, when they shall be clothed with their house which is from Heaven, than if it were now at hand. Yet the Spirit hath such a thirst to resume the Flesh again, that it spends their affections in part upon the object, which otherwise would freely and entirely, without deducting any share, be consecrated to the praise of the Eternal Majesty. To dispatch this Conclusion now, if I look right upon it, it is sound, and hath no flaw; namely, that the proper ingredients of the prayer of the Saints departed, are for the hastening of Christ's Kingdom, and for a speedy Resurrection, but to the terror of them that are destructive and unmerciful, that heavenly supplication devoves them by consequent to the nethermost Hell.
There is but one Conclusion more behind, the fifth and last, which stands upon this firm Basis, that if any man will be contentious, that revenge is every way to be exploded out of the Prayers of holy Martyrs, though his conscience receive scandal unjustly, where none is given: yet there is one interpretation left, which is obnoxious to no exception, namely, that these words are not Oratio personae, sed rei; the Martyrs themselves do not utter such a Prayer in the ears of God, but the wrongs and injuries which they sustained make interpellations before the face of God, that their hoary head may go down to the Grave in sorrow which afflicted his Servants. The Saints are so ravished with the splendor of the Beatifical Vision, that they have no leisure to think of the passions which they endured in this life, much less can they spare a minute to cast away a thought upon their Persecutors. As Plato replied stoutly to Dionysius of Syracusa, the Tyrant had entertained him in his Court, and was loath to let him return home, when Plato much desired it: After much importunity I would dismiss you, says the Tyrant, were it not that you would talk of me too much in your own Country. Nay, Sir, says Plato, I have somewhat else to do, when I am in Athens among the Academics, than to talk of Dionysius. So Stephen, and Peter, and James, stoop not so low as once to mention the Pharisees, or Herod, or Nero, but their Ashes in their Graves exclaim against them Parrisides that murdered those holy Fathers. Even as Abel being dead doth yet speak by faith, Heb. xi. 4. which is in the words of God himself, Thy Brothers blood crieth unto me from the ground, Gen. x. 4. Not thy Brother, but thy Brothers blood, that direful Act which thou hast committed in the effusion of it, that is it which pierceth mine ear, though his soul utter not a word to that effect, because it is never abstracted from Celestial Contemplations. It is a corrective manner of speaking, when we glance at the secret sins of another, to say, If such a Room, or such a Bed could speak, if the Doors or the Hangings could speak, they would tell foul Tales. Spare your suppositions, I beseech you, and go roundly to work; for every inanimate thing wherein we have committed any crime or injury, it hath a voice to impeach us, and we cannot escape the Accusation. Job says of an Oppressor, That his Land will cry against him, and the furrows of the field will complain of him, Job xxxi. 38. Habakkuk says of him that hath built his house by cutting off many people, I suppose he means Depopulators, that the Stone shall cry out of the Wall, and the Beam of the Timber shall answer it, Chap. ii. 9. So Judas Machabaeus implores God, that he would remember the wicked slaughter of harmless Infants, and hear the blood that cried unto him, 2 Mach. viii. 3. Take heed of wrong and rapine, take heed of cruelty, of murdering the Innocent, of beating your fellow-servants, Luk. xii. Every violence which you offer hath a tongue to accuse you, and the ear of the Lord is in every place. It is an easy thing by terrors to awe a poor simple man, that he shall suck in his spittle, and say nothing when he is ruined: It is no unlikely thing that he shall be brought to Mortification, to pray to the power above to forgive his Oppressors, but he is not able to muzzle the wrongs that have been done him, or to pluck out their tongue; when he is asleep in his Bed, when he is stiff in his Grave, they never sleep, they never die, they never end their clamour, and there is no such distance, but that the cry of the Innocent will knock against it. This is not meant to weaken the hand of Justice, which rewards the wicked after their deserving. Impenitent Caytives shall never come near the Altar in Heaven to moan themselves, never fear their out-cry, but beware to push at an innocent soul. No private man's Oppressions shall be unrepayed, how much more when whole Kingdoms and Principalities are devoured by the Invader? When whole Nations are wasted out of their Inheritance, when whole Rivers of blood lift up their voice, when the Scepters of Princes do plead for justice before his Throne that gave them their Throne and Dignity. The Sun will shine upon that day when they shall be filled with slaughter that have delighted in it. Forget not what Abner said to Joab, Shall the Sword devour forever? Knowst thou not that it will be bitterness in the End? And let this be the close of this second part of my Text, the Souls themselves under the Altar make no unquiet interpellations to be revenged, but the wounds, and stripes, and marks which they bore in their bodies for the Lord Jesus, they cry out day and night, how long Lord holy and good, &c.
The next Point is almost of the same piece, and very conjunct with the Petition itself, it is the manner of preferring it, which, to the greater terror of them that live by wrong hostility, is done with all vehemency and importunity, with a loud voice, and a solicitous iteration. The Heathen Poets fancied that the Souls in the Elysian Fields did utter their mind with audible and vocal sounds, but with a low whispering, as if Reeds were shaken with the wind. Sometimes they would strive to speak out, but all in vain, Inceptus clamor frustratur hiantes. This is Fiction, and not Philosophy: For separated souls speak not with corporeal Organs, but with their Wills and Affections. Animarum verba sunt ipsa desideria; Their words which they utter are their desires, which they send forth; and therefore David says. Thine ear hath heard the desire of their heart. There is no such thing therefore as a loud voice proceeding from the souls in Heaven; but flesh and blood must be spoken to as it may understand, and because the miseries are great which the Saints have suffered under the impotent rage of Tyrants, and the Martyrs while they lived were wont to roar out for disquietness of heart in those extremities, therefore by Prosopopea they are still said to call upon Heaven to judge their cause. So Theophilus Antiochanus, a most ancient Author, Secundum eos affectus quos anima aliquando pro necessitate corporis generat; such as were their affections in this life, by a figurative translation, such they are said to be in heaven. Then they cried aloud for help, and now they, or rather their blood and Martyrdom is said to cry aloud for vengeance. Not they indeed, but their injuries do so strongly plead against their Oppressors; but they and their injuries are confounded as if they were but one Plaintiff in Law. Therefore it is in Esdras, Behold the righteous and innocent blood crieth unto me, and the souls of the Just complain continually.
Having cleared the Doctrine, that this was no vocal clamour, but an imaginary, such as St. John encountered in a Vision, note these few things in it: First, That all those Expositors that dare make an exact calculation of those times, when the Seals in this mystical Book were opened, say, that the opening of the Fifth Seal, when the Souls cried out so strongly, was the instant deliverance from the Tenth, and the greatest Persecution. Observe from hence rather by experience than by rule, that when God is about to give anything unto us, he stirs up our hearts unto Prayer more than ordinary. Qui timide rogat negare docet; A saint Petitioner addresseth himself as if he meant to be denied: But when you find a robustiousness in your Spirit, that you are set to wrestle with God, to cry out, and not to give over, it is an enlightening that you shall prevail; but all the while that you are sluggish in asking, it is an ill Presage that the time of mercy is not come. Yet secondly, Though the Lord be but modestly, or rather remissly called upon for pardons and blessins, out of his indulgence he will meet with our desires, and crown them. Two of Johns Disciples said unto our Savior no more but this, Rabbi, where dwellest thou? They did scarce knock at door, and yet Christ invited them into his Train, he bad them come and see. But his sufferance and patience is so great, that yellings and clamours must awake him, before He be stirred up to vengeance. He forgives one injury, connives at another, bears with a third and fourth, it may be a year runs on, perhaps seven, perhaps an Age: and Oppressors slide away without a check, at last when their insolencies make a noise over all the Earth, and roar like Bulls of Basan, then the Avenger awakes out of sleep like a Giant that is refreshed with Wine. Thirdly, Oppression, and tyrannizing over the poor and helpless make the loudest clamours of any sins in the ears of God, they will follow the unjust Rulers of the world like an heard of Wolves howling and yelling, and tear up their Carkasses out of their very Graves. There are but four sins that are said to cry in all the Scripture, the blood of Abel, Gen. iv. and that was for Oppression. The bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, and that was for Oppression. The hire of the Labourer kept back by fraud, Jam. v. 4. And that was for Oppression. And the licenciousness of the Sodomites, Gen. xviii. who, among their other crimes, did most injuriously insult over Lot, because he was a stranger, and so you see that even their exorbitancy was not without Oppression. Do not the tears run down the Widows cheeks? And is not her cry against him that causeth them to fall? Eccl. xxxv. 15. You see that pious Author ascribes a crying and a clamour to the tears of the Widow, and that also is for Oppression: therefore I am sure it will be the Oppressors own turn to cry at the last, in the place where there is nothing but weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Cast your eye back now to the two former Points which I have handled, to bring on the next; the Souls of the righteous that have shed their blood for the Testimony of Christ, make Prayers that their slaughter may be revenged. Fatal tidings to their Murderers; the Martyrs cry out vehemently to have their Petition signed with a Fiat ut petitur, a dismal exclamation to their Persecutors. Nor is it one shriek and away, but cry upon cry, followed with instance and importunity. They will never give over till vengeance light at last on their Enemies. Witness this Usque quo? How long Lord? The Author of the Second Book of Esdras, Chap. iv. 35. alludes to these words on this manner: Did not the Souls of the righteous ask questions of these things in their Chambers? Saying, How long shall I hope in this fashion? When cometh the fruit of out reward? Surely he meant, that the Saints beg'd continually for the augmentation of their triumph, by the Resurrection of the body. Others suppose it to be a vehement efflagitation, that God would collect his Church into one body in Heaven, and reveal his glory; and that nothing doth hinder this but the destroying the man of sin, and his adherents, who have crushed the Servants of God with a rod of Iron, therefore they press it passionately, that those that let the second appearance of Christ in glory, may be taken out of the way. St. Austin in one place exhorts his Auditors to holiness of life with this persuasion, that the Saints in Heaven are hindered of their desires by our remissness in Piety. We must accomplish the number of our good works, before the end of all things come, Et dum nos retardamus sanguis martyrum inultus est. While we dispatch not apace to do our tasque, the wicked flourish in their pomp and power, and the blood of the Martyrs is unrevenged. All that draw this Line, you may note it, they apprehend that the words of my Text are the personal complaint of the Souls under the Altar, and not the interpellation of their injuries. I quarrel not the opinion, for it is modest and rational: But I will help it out of the briars of one scruple. No man is so censorious to impute it to the Society of the Blessed, as if they contended with God's Justice that he delayed them, they are cleared from all such impatiency, or expostulation, because they call him holy and true. But we may ask what they mean to solicit him with Usque quo 's? For they know that his Decrees are fixed, and that one minute of that time which he hath set shall not be broken, though all the Angels made intercession. The answer is to this and such case, Preces fidelium antecedenter se habent ad Dei decretum, non consequenter. The Servants of God pray for Mercies or Judgments to be hastened, abstracting from the Divine Decrees, for though the Decrees cannot be refixed, yet we are encouraged to beg for that which is conducible to our own necessities. But the readiest way to put off all objections is to hold to my Fifth Conclusion, that not the Martyrs themselves, but the wrongs which they endured exclaim against their Enemies, the atrocity of them doth seem to plead, that the Lord should send his swift thunderbolts against cruel men, they seem to cry out, a day is too much to let them breath any longer, they deserve not to be reprieved a minute till they go down to Hell. O well is it for them that have been nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers of the Church. They are secure among these vociferations for vengeance. O how happy will it be for Moses, and Samuel, and Daniel that they have hurt no man, that they have oppressed no man! O what quiet of conscience have they that are clear from the blood of all men! for it is but a little season, and the pride of Tyrants shall have a fall. God tells the Martyrs so in the next verse. Quod petendo esuriunt, praesciendo satiantur; They spake thirstingly to see the doom of their Enemies, and here they are satiated with this Prediction, that it will be after a little season; but a little season indeed in respect of Eternity, for Christ shall reign forever. Neither is God slack as men count slackness, for that which is done in a fit ordination, at the right minute, that is fruit taken in its season, and there is no tardiness at all. Let Zion rejoice, let the desolate be comforted; the Heavens move continually, the hours run apace, there is a swift Arrow in God's Bow, and if the Lord prolong the time a little, it is to bring on a greater revenge upon his foes, and to make the restauration of the Church more glorious.
A very little remains to conclude all; the parties that are delated to God in this complaint are those that dwell on the earth. Take it thus if you will, The earth is full of violence and oppression, where Justice playeth her part best, some human vices and affections will creep in, no man knows how, and put it out of order; in every Region, in every quarter of the World, whether it be misfortune or malice that is the cause, some that have integrity on their side come by the worst. But thy Power, O mighty God, stretcheth over all, from the rising of the Sun to the setting thereof, dissolve therefore the Pillars of this Universe, and shake it in pieces, avenge thy Saints at once of them that dwell on the Earth. Not amiss likewise in this Key. The very earth upon which they walk groans under the Arrogancy of Tyrants, they are fruitless Trees that cumber the ground, they are not worthy to breath in the same air with the Servants of Christ, therefore cut them off from the Land of the Living, and lay their honor in the dust. But best of all in this strain; Here is no Catalogue or recitation of them, that have bandied against the true in heart, for their number is infinite, but they are described by that wherein all their affections agree, that they dwell on the earth. It is no reviling Accusation, they are not called Vipers, or Wolves, or Sons of Belial, though these names had been no slanders, but Per mucterismum, they are quipt for their base affections, that they are terrae silii, clods of dirt, Sons of the Earth, whose belly, like the Serpent's, cleaveth to the ground; and when they tread the Saints under their feet, it is some earthy Concupiscence that rageth in them. A petty Cony-catcher strips the Fatherless of his right to join House to House, and Land to Land. A Nimrod, a mighty Robber, he would spread his Kingdom by usurpation, he knows not whither himself. An Oecumenical Bishop, that would be, struggles for indirect dominion in Temporals, In ordine ad spiritualia, all their insolencies jump in this, just as it likes their own ambition, they would dwell upon the earth. Indeed, who would reckon it among the flowers of his fortune that he can crush and break all those in pieces that resist him, but such a one as thinks of nothing but his short time upon earth, and never accounts of a world to come? These is nothing that can stop rancorous men in their malice, if they take their possession here, Tanquam mercedem, non tanquam arrham, as their full reward, and quit claim to all other demand. A miserable recompense, not so much as the value of two Sparrows, will follow the Owner to his Grave, Disdain these movable things bestowed upon the Sons of Keturah, and labor for the immovable inheritance, which fell to Isaac's share. The Reubenites, that chose their Lot in Gilead, on this side Jordan, and seated themselves there, they could challenge no part in the Land of Promise. What a good title did Peter pretend to a great share in Heaven, when he said, Behold we have left all and followed thee? Rather will I follow him for one drop of his blood, than retain to the greatest Potentate, for all that he can give upon earth. It is a blood that speaks better things than the blood of the Martyrs, or the blood of Abel, for it pleads for no revenge, unless it be trod underfoot. It is a blood that intercedes for the pardon of our sins, for grace to be given us in this life, for a Kingdom of happiness hereafter, &c. AMEN.
The Reader is desired to correct the following ERRATA, occasioned by the Publishers necessary absence from the Press.
| Page | line | |
| xxiv | 16 | for Tents r. Tenths |
| xxv | 30 | recte r. rectae |
| xxix | 23 | the r. He |
| xxx | 20 | not r. nor |
| xxxv | 22 | Shools r. Schools |
| 25 | the world will r. they will | |
| xxxvi | 3 | hath r. had |
| xxxix | 1 Tim. 15. r. 5.17 | |
| xl | 9 | r. Baronius 2d. T. in the Mar. |
| Page | line | |
| 3 | 1 | world r. word |
| 6 | 10 | effugeamus r. effugiamus |
| ib. | 34 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| ib. | 36 | Anak r. Anah |
| 10 | 36 | r. that circumstance |
| 11 | 3 | for heaven r. from heaven |
| ib. | 8 | r. where Jacob |
| 12 | 33 | bow r. bough |
| 20 | 16 | to place r. to a place |
| 21 | 45 | r. the commonly |
| 36 | 45 | That it is r. That is |
| 37 | 37 | paená r. culpâ |
| 41 | 59 | Rubanus r. Rabanus |
| 56 | 35 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| 66 | 10 | a Captain r. as Captain |
| 68 | 2 | our, dele the comma after our |
| 76 | 60 | demoni r. Daemoni |
| 79 | 33 | r. finished it |
| 81 | 11 | Olimpia r. Olympias |
| 83 | 2, 3 | r. out of Adam |
| ib. | 17 | reati r. damnati |
| 84 | 16 | r. those immoderate |
| 91 | 25 | propararet r. praepararet |
| ib. | 41 | set r. sed |
| 93 | 19 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| 103 | 15 | numbers r. number |
| 106 | 17 | r. we well deserved |
| 113 | 36 | r. almost all the |
| ib. | 43 | r. Kingdom of our Father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord |
| 117 | 26 | Ruth 18. r. Ruth 1.11. |
| ib. | 27 | Gomaras r. Gomarus |
| 120 | 61 | an man r. any man |
| 122 | 23 | r. judgments thought |
| ib. | 46 | Hasamonei r. Hasmonei |
| 126 | 26 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| 128 | 26 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| 137 | 28 | r. promised him |
| 139 | 49 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| 140 | 23 | low r. loe. |
| 143 | 3 | r. the Temple of the new Jerusalem |
| 154 | 35 | Act. 15. r. 1.5. |
| 160 | 16 | r. was ignorant |
| 161 | 3 | incition r. insition |
| 167 | 45 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| 169 | 57 | r. which were |
| 176 | 35 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| 188 | 61 | mere r. a mere |
| 194 | 59 | Quo ad r. Quoad |
| 201 | 17 | influens r. influxus |
| 207 | 40 | r. ought not to be |
| 211 | 6 | r. Naboth was first |
| ib. | 9 | here r. hear |
| 213 | 9 | stimulas r. stimulus |
| 214 | 6, 7 | into r. unto |
| 216 | 34 | 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 r. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 |
| ib. | 55 | well I r. will I |
| 222 | 37 | Curtius r. cursus |
| 234 | 11 | foot r. food |
| ib. | 30 | ostentione r. ostensione |
| ib. | 33 | feebless r. feeblness |
| 241 | 19 | non r. nos |
| 249 | 61 | Monacha r. Monica |
| 264 | 11 | of a God r. of God |
| 266 | 3, 4 | panem r. famem. famem r. panem |
| ib. | 18 | inemandibili r. inemendibili |
| 268 | 36 | this is r. there is |
| 271 | 39 | every may r. every man |
| 272 | 19 | mistruct r. mistrust |
| 273 | 35 | grounds r. grinds |
| 279 | 33 | Goatish r. Gothish |
| 283 | 3 | Dimittit r. |