a knee, these were goodly cares for them that professed gravity, humility, mortification. Let me boldly say, Jerusalem never yielded so very Pharisees as Rome. These old disciples of Sammai and Hillel were not Pharisees in comparison of our Jesuits. * From Judgment, you see, I am descended to Practice; wherein it is no less easily made good, that these are more kindly Pharisees than the ancient. A poor widow's cottage filled the paunch of an old Pharisee: how many fair patrimonies of devout young gentlemen Druryed by them, (pardon the word, it is their own; the thing I know and can witness) have gone down the throat of these Loyolists, let their own Quodlibet and Catechism report. What speak I of secular inheritances? these eyes have seen no mean houses of devotion and charity swallowed up by them. As for their ambitious insinuations, not only all their own religious enviously cry down, but the whole world sees and rings of. What oar of State can stir, without their rowing? What kingdom either stands or falls, without their intermeddling? What noble family complains not of their prowling and stealth? And all this with a face of sad piety and stern mortification. Yea, what other is their great Master, but the king of Pharisees? who, under a pretence of simple piety, challenges without shame to have devoured the whole Christian world, the natural inheritances of secular princes, by the foisted name of Peter's Patrimony; and now, in most infamous and shameless ambition, calls great Emperors to his stirrup, yea to his footstool t. But what wander we so far from home? Væ nobis miseris, saith St. Jerome, ad quos Pharisæorum, vitia transierunt! "Woe to us wretched men, to whom the Pharisees' vices are derived!" The great Doctor of the Gentiles long ago said, All seek their own and not the things of God; and is the world mended with age?? Would God we did not find it a sure rule; that, as it is in this little world, the older it grows, the more diseased, the more covetous ! We are all too much the true sons of our great-grandmother; and have each of us an Eve's sweet tooth in our heads. We would be more * A word which the Seminaries report, in their Quodlibet, usual amongst them, to signify beguiled, and wiped of their inheritance; from the example of M. Henry Drury, of Lawshull, in Suffolk, so defeated by the Jesuits. As at Winnoxberg, in Flanders, near Dunkirk; where a rich legacy, given by a charitable lady for the building of an hospital, was cunningly turned to the maintenance of Jesuits. + Sacr. Cerem. 1. i. de Cons. Benedict. et Coron. Pontif. Postea Imperator, si præsens est, stapham equi Papalis tenet, et dein ducit equum par frænum aliquantulum. And afterward: Dum Imperator hæc officia præstat, debet Papa modeste recusare: tandem cum aliquibus bonis verbis recipiendo permittit, aliquantulum progredi, &c. That is, "While the emperor doth these services to the Pope, of holding his stirrup, and leading his horse by the bridle, the Pope ought modestly to refuse: but at last with some good words, he suffers him to go on a while; and then at last stays himself," &c. than we are and every man would be either rìs, or ó*: either the man, or somebody. If a number of your consciences were ripped, O ye that would be Christian Gentlemen, Lawyers, Citizens, what do we think would be found in your maws? Here, the devoured patrimony of poor orphans; there, the commons of whole townships: here, the impropriate goods of the Church; there, piles of usury: here, bribes and unlawful fees; there, the raw and indigested gobbets of simony: yea, would God I might not say, but I must say it with fear, with sorrow, even of our sacred and divine profession, that which our Saviour of his twelve, Ye are clean, but not all! The multitude of our unregarded charges, and souls dying and starved for want of spiritual provision, while they give us bodily, would condemn my silence for too partial. In all conditions of men, for particulars are subject to envy and exception, the daughters of the horseleech had never such a fruitful generation: they cry still, Give, Give; not Give alone, that is, the bread of Sufficiency; but Give, Give, that is, more than enough. But what is more than enough? What is but enough? What is not too little for the insatiable gulf of human desires? Every man would engross the whole world to himself; and, with that ambitious conqueror, fears it will be too little. And how few Agurs + are there, that pray against too much! From hence it is, that ye, Courtiers, grate upon poor trades with hard monopolies. Hence ye, Merchants, load them with deep and unreasonable prices, and make them pay dear for days. Hence ye, Great Men, wring the poor sponges of the commonalty into your private purses; for the maintenance of pride and excess. Hence ye, Cormorant Cornmongers, hatch up a dearth in the time of plenty. God sends grain, but many times the Devil sends garners. The earth hath been no niggard in yielding; but you have been lavish in transporting, and close in concealing. Never talk of our extreme frosts; we see God's hand, and kiss the rod; but if your hearts, your charity were not more frozen, than ever the earth was, mean housekeepers should not need to beg, nor the meanest to starve for want of bread. Hence, lastly, our loud oppressions of all sorts cry to heaven, and are answered with threats; yea, with variety of vengeances. Take this with thee yet, O thou Worldling, which hast the greedy worm under thy tongue with Isaiah's dogs, and never hast enough: thou shalt meet with two things, as unsatiable as thyself; the Grave, and Hell: and thou, whom all the world could not satisfy, there be two things whereof thou shalt have enough; Enough mould in the grave, enough fire in hell. I love not to end with a judgment; and, as it were, to let my sun set in a cloud. We are all Christians, we should know the * Τὶς μέγας. Acts viii. 9. αὐτος δ. + Give me not poverty nor riches. Prov. xxx. 8. world, what it is; how vain, how transitory, how worthless. We know where there are better things, which we profess ourselves made for, and aspiring to. Let us use the world like itself; and leave this importunate wooing of it to Heathens and Infidels, that knew no other heaven, no other God. Or, if you like that counsel better, "Be covetous :" "be ambitious." Covet spiritual gifts. 1 Cor. xiv. 1. 1 Cor. xiv. 1. Never think you have grace enough desire more; seek for more: this alone is worth your affections, worth your cares. Be still poor in this, that you may be rich; be rich, that you may be full; be full, that you may be glorious. Be ambitious of favour, of honour, of a kingdom; of God's favour, of the honour of saints, of the kingdom of glory. Whither, He, that hath bought it for us, and redeemed us to it in his good time, safely and happily bring us! To that Blessed Saviour of ours, together with the Father, and his Good Spirit: the God of all the World, our Father, Redeemer, and Comforter, be given all praise, honour and glory, now and for ever. Amen. SERMON II. THE PASSION SERMON. PREACHED AT PAUL'S CROSS, ON GOOD-FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1609. TO THE ONLY HONOUR AND GLORY OF GOD, MY DEAR AND BLESSED SAVIOUR, WHICH HATH DONE AND SUFFERED ALL THESE THINGS FOR MY SOUL, HUMBLY DESIRES TO CONSECRATE HIMSELF AND HIS POOR BFSEECHING HIM TO ACCEPT, AND BLESS THEM TO THE PUBLIC GOOD, TO THE READER. I desire not to make any apology for the edition of this my Sermon. It is motive enough, that herein I affect a more public and more enduring good. Spiritual niceness is the next degree to unfaithfulness. This point cannot be too much urged either by the tongue or press. Religion and our souls depend upon it; yet are our thoughts too much beside it. The Church of Rome so fixes herself, in her adoration, upon the Cross of Christ, as if she forgat his glory many of us so conceive of him glorious, that we neglect the meditation of his Cross, the way to his glory and ours. If we would proceed right, we must pass from his Golgotha to the Mount of Olives, and from thence to heaven; and there seek and settle our rest. According to my weak ability, I have led this way in my speech; beseeching my readers to follow me with their hearts, that we may overtake him, which is entered into the true sanctuary, even the highest heavens, to appear now in the sight of God for us. : JOHN XIX. 30. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and bowing the head, he gave up the Ghost. THE bitter and yet victorious Passion of the Son of God, right honourable and beloved Christians, as it was the strangest thing that ever befel the earth, so is both of most sovereign use, and looks for the most frequent and careful meditation. It is one of those things which was once done, that it might be thought of for ever. Every day therefore must be the Good Friday of a Christian; who with that great Doctor of the Gentiles, must desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I. There is no branch or circumstance in this wonderful business, which yields not infinite matter of discourse. According to the solemnity of this time and place, I have chosen to commend unto your Christian attention, our Saviour's Farewell to Nature (for his reviving was above it) in his Last Word, in his Last Act. His LAST WORD, It is finished; his Last Act, He gave up the Ghost. That, which he said, he did. If there be any theme, that may challenge and command our ears and hearts, this is it: for, behold, the sweetest word that ever Christ spake, and the most meritorious act that ever he did, are met together, in this his last breath. In the one, ye shall see him triumphing; yielding, in the other; yet so as he overcomes. Imagine, therefore, that you saw Christ Jesus, in this day of his passion, who is every day here crucified before your eyes, advanced upon the Chariot of his Cross; and now, after a weary conflict, cheerfully overlooking the despight and shame of men, the wrath of his Father, the law, sin, death, hell; which all lie gasping at his foot: and then you shall conceive, with what spirit he saith, Consummatum est, It is finished. What is finished? shortly; all the Prophecies, that were of him; all Legal Observations, that prefigured him; his own Sufferings; our Salvation: THE PROPHECIES ARE ACCOMPLISHED, THE CEREMONIES ABOLISHED, HIS SUFFERINGS ENDED, OUR SALVATION WROUGHT, these four heads shall limit this first part of my speech; only let them find and leave you attentive. 1. Even this very word is prophesied of; All things that are written of me, have an end, saith Christ. What end? this, It is finished. This very end hath his end here. What therefore is finished? Not this prediction only of his last draught, as Augustin: that were too particular. Let our Saviour himself say, All things that are written of me by the prophets. It is a sure and convertible rule, "Nothing was done by Christ, which was not foretold nothing was ever foretold by the prophets of Christ, which was not done." It would take up a life to compare the Prophets and Evangelists, the predictions and the history, and largely to discourse how the one foretells and the other answers: let it suffice to look at them running. Of all the Evangelists, Saint Matthew hath been most studious, in making these references and correspondences; with whom, the burden or under song of every event, is still, ut impleretur, that it might be fulfilled. Thus hath he noted, if I have reckoned them aright, two and thirty several prophecies concerning Christ, fulfilled in his birth, life, death *. To which St. John adds many more. * Isaiah vii. 14. Micah v. 2. Matth. i. 23. Matth. ii. 6. Hosea xi. 1. Matth. ii. 15. |