MOSES and AARON OR THE AFFINITY OF Civil and Ecclesiastic power. A SERMON INTENDED for the Parliament held at Oxon, August. 7. 1625. But by reason of the sudden and unhappy dissolution, then, not preached, but since upon occasion, was; at St. MARIES in Oxford, the 26. of February. 1625. BY Humphrey Sydenham Mr. of Arts, and Fellow of WADHAM College in OXFORD. LONDON, Printed for JOHN PARKER. 1626. TO MY MUCH DESERVING FRIEND AND BROTHER, FRANCIS GODOLPHIN, Esquire, This. MY DEAR SIR; Whilst others declaim (too justly) against the dull charities of the times, and the coldness of affection in their Allies, and blood, I cannot but magnify their worth, in you, where I have met a virtue, scarce exampled by a second, friendship in a brother. I thought it a high injustice to smother such a miracle, and therefore have here set it upon record; that, as the age may blush at her other prodigies, so glory here, that she hath (at length) brought forth one who hath not lost either his Nature to his alliance, or piety to his Country. A goodness seldom paralleled in these days of ours, these degenerate days of ours, when we may find a more natural correspondence, a livelier heat of affection, amongst those of savage and barbarous condition, than in the bosom of our own Tribe and Nation. But I may not tax, when I am to salute, 'tis out of the road of gratulation; this is intended so, A mere declaration of my thankfulness for all those your noble Offices of a real brotherhood, which though I have not power (as yet) to satisfy, I shall have ever will to acknowledge, and in that loyalty I persist, Your most respectfully engaged, HUM: SYDENHAM. Moses and Aaron OR The affinity of Civil and Ecclesiastic power. EXOD. 4.12. Go, and I will be in thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. HOw strangely God compasses what he projects for his, by the hands of an obscure Agent? Cap. 3. v. 9.10. Israel hath been long enough under the groans of Egypt, it shall be now unyoakt from that heavy servitude; and this must be done by no trodden means, or ordinary instrument, Cap. 3.8. But one that Israel and Egypt too shall stand amazed at to see in such a power of substitution, A shepherd. Moses a feeding his father's flock, not fare from Horeb, the mounraine of the Lord, Cap. 3.1. Cap. 3.4. when suddenly a voice doth at once astonish and invite him, Moses, Moses. IT should seem the affairs were both of necessity and dispatch, when the person to be employed was thus pressed by a double summons: Cap. 4.18. what shall he do now? His flock must be left with jethro in Midian, and he shall to Court, there to ransom an engaged and captived Nation, from the shackles of a Tyrant; Cap. 2.17. A simple design for one seasoned in the course conditions of an Hebrew and a Midianite: Men known more by the largeness of their folds, than any eminence for matters of state, most of them being herdsmen, or shepherds. But see how God will extract wonders out of improbabilities, and miracles out of both: Moses shall first see one, Cap. 3.2. Cap. 3.3. & then, do many. Behold an Angel of the Lord in a flaming fire in a bush, the bush burned (saith the Text) and the Bush was not consumed. A vision as strange as the project he is now set upon, and doth not so much take, as stagger him. That it burned and consumed not, ranishes his eyes only, how it should burn & not consume, his intellectuals; So that he is now doubly entranced, in the sense, & in the thought. But there is more of mystery inuoled here than the Prophet yet dreams of or discovers. God in his affairs requires both heat, and constancy: men of cold and languishing resolution are not fit subjects for his employments, but those which can withstand the shock of many a fiery trial; they whose zeal can burn cheerfully in the services of their God and not consume. Moses, therefore shall now to Pharaoh, with as many terrors as messages. Cap. 5. vers. 6, 7, 8, 9 Ten times he must bid the Tyrant let Israel go: every Injunction shall found a repulse, every repulse, a plague, and every plague, a wonder. Somewhat a harsh embassy to a King, and cannot be welcomed but with a storm, whose disposition is as impatient of rebuke, as not inur'd to't. Those ears which have been sleekt hitherto with the suppling dialect of the Court, (that oil of Sycophants and temporizers) will not be roug'ht now with the course phrase of a reproof, much less, of menacing. There's no dallying with the eye of a cock atrice; I am sure none, with the paw of a Lion; Ruin sits on the brow of offended Sovereignty, each look sparkles indignation, and that indignation, death. Moses is now startled at the employment, Cap. 3.11. Cap. 4.10. and gins both to expostulate and repined.— Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh? I am not eloquent, but of slow speech and of a slow tongue—? Good Lord! In a Prophet what a piece of modesty with distrust? will God employ any whom he will not accommodate? He hath now thrice persuaded Moses to this great undertaking. The other as often manifests his unwillingness by excuse, as if he would either dispute God's providence, or question his supply. We found therefore this diffidence checked with a new insinuation of rectifying all defects. Cap. 4.10. — Who hath made man's mouth, or who makes the dumb or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind, have not I the Lord? Why should any further scruple or doubt assail thee? I that am the God of the Hebrews will protect thee; let no waverings of Israel, or terrors of Egypt any way dismay thee: particular infirmities in thine own person I will mould anew to perfection, or if those vacillations and stuttering of the tongue yet dishearten thee, Cap. 14.14. Lo Aaron the Levite is thy brother, I know that he can speak well, take him with thee, and this rod too, wherewith thou shalt do wonders as dreadful as vnpatterned. Deliver Pharaoh roundly my commands, if he will not undeafe his care upon their first Alarm, I will boar it with my thunder. Why standest thou then any longer so divided? Go now, and I will be in thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say—. Moses, is dispatched now, hath his commission sealed, each particle of his message punctually delivered him, wherein (as in all saecular and subordinate Embassies) we find A command, Division. A direction, and a Promise. The command, Go; The Promise, I will be in thy mouth; The Direction, teach thee what thou shalt say. So he that is singled out to any service of his God for the advantage of his Israel, must not give back or waver, Go—. If a willing obedience second this command, God promises to assist, I will be in thy mouth; if there, be not dashed at the slowness or unprovidedness of thy speech, I will teach thee what thou shalt say. Once more is there a retired worth, which desires to sit down to obscurity, and seems unwilling to the public services of his God, hearest thou not this proficiscere from heaven? Go. But hast thou once undertook them? be not discouraged, here's an— aperiam, too—. I will be in thy mouth; but am I welcomed there with reverence, and awe? speak boldly then, for, Ego instruam, I will teach thee what thou shalt say—, Go then. But let's first clear the passage. 'Tis not my intent to show you Moses here in the storms and troubles of the Court and State, but of the Church. I may not be too busy with the riddles and Labyrinth's of the two first; the times are both rough and touchy, I will only show you a fare off, how this Proteus and that Chameleon vary both their shape and colour. Moses was indeed forty years a Courtier, and the better part of his life a Statesman, yet he was a Priest too (and so I follow him) if you dare take the authority of Saint Augustine, who though on his second book on Exod. 10. quast. gives Moses barely Principatum, Aug. lib. 2. in Exod. quaest. 10. and Aaron ministerium, yet in his Commentaries on the 98 Psalms, he thus interrogates, Si Moses Sacordos non erat, Aug. in Psal. 98. quid erat? numquid maior Sacerdote? and the sweet singer of Israel, put's Samuel among them that call upon God's Name, and Moses and Aaron amongst the Priests, Psal. 99.6.— I have now removed all rubs and obstacles, the way is smooth and passable, what should then hinder Moses any longer, Go,—. Command and obedience are the body and soul of humane society, the head and foot of an established Empire, Pars 1. Command sits as Sovereign and hath three Sceptres, by which it rules, Authority, Courage, Sufficiency. Obedience, as ' ewere the subject, and bears up its allegiance with three pillars, necessity, profit, willingness. Sometimes command grows impetuous and rough, and then 'tis no more Soneraigntie but Tyranny—. Again, Obedience, upon distaste, is apt to murmur, and grows mutinous, and so 'tis no more a subject, but a Rebel; where they kiss mutually, there is both strength and safety; but where they scold and jar, all grows to ruin and combustion. And this holds not only in matters Civil, but in those more sacred. Command from heaven presupposes in us an obedience no less of necessity, than will, and in God, insallibilitie both of power, and encouragement. Faintness of resolution, or excuse, in his high designments, are but the Teltales of a perfunctory zeal, however they pretend to bashfulness, or humility. jer. 1. I cannot speak Lord, or, I am unworthy, were but course apologies of those that used them, when God had either matter for their employment, or time; And the Quis ego Domine? Rom. 1. Exod. 3. of Moses, here, finds so little of approbation, that it meets a check; the Text will tell you in what heat and tumult, with an— Accensus furor jehonae the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and it should seem, Cap. 4.4. in such violence, that Abulensis, after much traverse, Tost. in cap. 4. Exod. and dispute makes that tergiversation of his little less than a mortal sin, & some of the Hebrews have strangely punished it, with the loss of Canaan, persuading us, the main reason why he came not thither, was his backwardness in obeying this— proficiscere, Go. Perer. in Exod. But that's a Thalmudicall and wild fancy, fit for such giddy enrolements than the ears of a learned throng. And as Moses may not but obey when God lays his command on him, so he must not go without it. Matthew must be called from his receipt of custom; Mat. 9 9 Gal. 1.5. & he is not honoured with a true Apostleship, who wants his— vocatus sicut Aaron. That of God to the Pseudo-prophets, was a fearful Irony,— I sent them not, jer. 14. but they ran—, voluntaries (it should seem) found here neither countenance, nor entertain meant, but whom God hath pressed and sealed to this great warfare; yet the other, notwithstanding, in the field, and seasoned once in battle, the retreat is more dangerous, than the adventure. We find Esay more active and forward than any of the Prophets, Esay cap. 6. & yet that spontaneousnesse not chid; who (as if he would anticipate the care and choice of God in his own affairs) makes a hasty tender of his service, Esay cap. 5 with an— Ecce ego, Esay cap. 8 mitte me; yet, he had his former convulsions, and pangs too of fear, and diffidence; Woe is me, Esay cap. 5 for I am a man of polluted lips. But see how God hammers and works what he intends to file, either in person, Esay cap. 7 or by substitute? an Altar must be the Forge, and a Seraphin the workman, who with his tongs ready, and his coal burning, shall both touch those iniquities, and purge them, and then, and not till then, here am I, Lord, sand me. As therefore to stand still, when God sends out his proficiscere, argues a rusty and sullen laziness, so to run when he sends not, arrogancy, and presumption. That zeal is best qualified, which hath the patience to expect God's summons, and then the boldness to do his errand. The Schooleman in his 2a. 2ae. 185. question, Aqui. 2 a. 2ae. qu. 185. art. 1. being to deal of religious persons, strains not the Mitre from his discourse, but moderates the quaere by dividing it, and thinks to take away all scruple by making two, whether it be lawful to desire Ecclesiastical honour (Episcopal he Epithets) or to refuse it being enjoined? Greg. de Val. in loc. Aqui. dist. 10. q. 3. par. 2. Gregory de Valentia (his Amanuensis here) turns the perspective from the object upon the Agent, viewing as well the party desiring as the thing desired, where, though he descry height of sufficiency in personal endowments: Quaer. 1 one Cap-A-Pe, in all points canonical. yet he allows not a bait for his eager appetite to feed on; a disopinioned undervalved man may not desire it for the dignity, nor he that's fortunetroden for the revenue. Be the person otherwise ne'er so completely accommodated, yet the irregularity in his appetite strangles his other eminencies, and so he is (at once) unworthy, and uncapable. Reason and conscience, will betrothe Honours to desert, which yet they divorce from the immodesty and heat of the desire; for, if superintendencie be in the appetite more than the office, 'tis presumption. Aquinas doth censured so, a common practice of the Gentiles, reproved in the Disciples; Aquinas ut sup. Ye know their Prince's love to domineer, Mat. 20. if the honour be superior, 'tis ambition, and so merely pharisaical,— They love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and chief seats at Synagogues, Matth. 23. If the revenue, it allies to covetousness, Matth. 23. and differs from the sin of Simon Magus thus, he proffered money for the gifts, these covet the gifts for the money. On the other side, to reject the Ephod wherewith authority would invest thee, checks doubly the refuser, Quaer. 2 in ways of charity, humility. Charity seeks no more her own, Aquin. & Greg. ut sup. than her neighbours good; now the charity we own unto ourselves, prompts us to search out— Otium sanctum (as Augustine phrases it) a holy vacancy from these public cures, but that to the Church binds us to undergo.— Negotium iustum, the imposition of any just employment, Aug. 19 de Civil. Dei cap. 19 — quam sarcinam si nullus imponit, intuendae vacandum est veritati, si autem imponitur, sustinenda est propter charitatis necessitatem, the Father in his 19 the Civil. Dei. cap. 19 Again, humility ties us in obedience to Superiors, so that as often as we disobey them we do oppugneit, and this (in respect of God) is not meekness, but pertinacy,— Tunc ante Dei oculos vera est humilitas, cum ad respuendum hoc quod utiliter subire praecipitur, Magn Gregor. 1. pa●s Past. cap. 6. pertinax non est—, Gregory 1. part of his Pastorals 6. Chapter. To avoid then all occasions of public service for the Church, under a pretence of humility or reclusenesse, speaks (too broadly) the delinquent, refractory. Your Anchoret that digs his grave in speculation merely, and your Mole that is earthed wholly in an affected solitariness, are not liable so properly to obscurity, as death; such elaboratnes tends not to perfection, but disease; & we find an Apoplexy, and sleep, no less on their endeavours than in their name; all knowledge is dusted with them, and 'tis no more a nursery of virtues, but a Tomb. And (indeed) such Silkworms spin themselves into Flies, disanimate, heartless Flies, life neither for Church, nor Commonwealth. The Laurel and honour of all secular designs is the execution, and the happiness of those sacred ones is not entailed barely to the knowledge of them, but to the fac & vines. And that, not at home only, in thy particular intendments, but abroad also in thy services for the Church; so that he that retraits at any Alarm or summons of his God, for the common affairs of the Church, to hug and enjoy himself in his solitary ends, runs himself on the shelves of a rough censure, that of the Father to his Dracontius, Athan. in Epist. ad Drac. Episc. fugient. pars 2. editio ultima. — Vereor ne dum propter te fugis, propter alios sis in periculo apud Dominum. To stand by, and give aim only, whilst others shoot, and thou thyself no marksman, proclaims thy laziness, if not thy impotency. What a nothing is thy arm? thy bow? thy shaft? if not practised, not bend, not drawn up? or if so glorious a mark, the Church? why not levelled at? either she must be unworthy of thy travel, or thine of her. If therefore this thy Mother implore thy aid (so Augustine counsels his Eudoxius) on the one side, August. Epist. 81. hand not with ambition; on the other, lean not to a lazy refusal, weigh not thine own idleness with the necessities and greatness of her burdens, to which (whiles she is in travel) if no good men will administer their help, Certè quomodo nasecremini non inveniretis; God must then invent new ways for our new birth: the Father in his 81. Epistle ad Edoxium. You see then our Moses may not hastily thrust himself upon those weighty designs without authority and commission from his God, and yet once summoned, not recoil; but thus having his Congedeleere and warrant from above, we must now accounted him in the place of God, God indeed, with a— sicut— the Text tells us so, thrice tells us so, God to Aaron, God to Israel, God to Pharaoh. Exod. 3.4, 5. 'Twere then too high a sacrilege to rob him of any title or prerogative, which should wait on the greatness of such a person. Let's give him (what all ages have) Eminency of place, Office, their attendants, Honour, Revenue. I shall devil my hour with the two first, with the latter only, in Transitu, and upon the by, they being involved in the two former. And that I may punctually go on, I will touch first (where I should) with the Eminency— Go.— Which as it was sacred in the first instaulement, Eminen. 1. par. so in the propagation most honourable to the times of Heathens. For Tertullian (speaking of the magnificence and pomp which attended their superstitions) tells us, Tert. de Coron. militis cap. 10. that their doors, and Hosts, and Altars, and dead, and (what glorifies all) their Priests were crowned: in his Corona militis cap. 10. And the first crown which the Romans used, was their spicea Corona, given as a religious ensign in honour of their Priests,— Honosque is, non nisi vita finitur, Plin. lib. 3. cap. 2. & exules etiam, captosque comitatur— says my Histostorian, naught but death could terminate this honour, which was their companion both in exile, and captinity. They wore the name of Aruales Sacerdotes, Alex. ab. Alex. lib. 1. cap. 26. first instituted by Romulus, and Acca Laurentia, his Nurse, who, of her twelve Sons having lost one, he himself made up the number with that title. But here's not all,— Terminorum sacrorum, & finium, iurgijs terminandis praeerant, & interueniebant, they were the peacemakers of the time, and sat as Arbitrators in matters of contestation between man and man, Plin. ut sup. as the great Naturalist in the 18. book of his History, 2. chapter. And who fit for such a moral office than the Priest? an honour which these worst of times allow him, though with some turbulence, and indignation: Numb. 16.3. Moses and Aaron, you take too much upon you, was the cry of a jew once, so 'tis now, who would manacle and confine them only to an Ecclesiastic power, and divest them quite of any civil authority, though Moses here had both. But 'twas not without some show of mystery, that in the robes of Aaron (I instance now in him, jest perchance they should cavil with his brother Moses) there was a crown set upon the Mitre, Exod. 29.6. moralising a possible conjunction at lest of Minister and Magistrate in one person. And Chytraeus hath a pathetical observation from the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— divide aright, 2 Tim. 2. Chyt. de ordin. minist. pag. 506. that the Metaphor was first taken from the manner of cutting or deuiding the members of the host, Levit. 7. where the fat and kidneys were burnt as a sacrifice to God, but the breast and the shoulder were given to the Priests: the Allegory carries with it both weight and majesty, here's a breast for counsel, and a shoulder for supportation in matters of government. And no doubt in times of old (even these of the Fathers) the Sacerdotal power, was at a great height, in equal scale with that of their honour, Si Regum fulgori & principum Diademati inserius est quam si plumbi metallum ad auri fulgorem compares, Ambr. ibid. which was so eminent, that Saint Ambrose ranks not the Mitre with the Diadem, but in a zealous Hyperbole (pardon the Epithet) prefers it, and makes this comparatively to the other as a sparkle to a flame, or dull Lead to burnished Gold, in his de dignitate Sacerdotali cap. 2. I may not follow the Father in his priestly Panegiricke, 'tis too high, and borders too much on the discipline of the triple crown, such a crown as ne'er yet girt the temples of King or Priest, but of him that tramples on the neck of both; let such insolence invade the right of Potentates, and spurn their Crowns and Sceptres in the dust, whilst we seat our Aaron at the beck of Moses, but the people too at that of Aaron: Let the Priesthood do obeisance, and kiss the feet of Sovereignty; but let not the Laity turn the heel, and kick against the sacredness of Priesthood. S. Augustine upon these words of God to Moses,— Tu eris illi in ijs quae ad Deum.— He shall be to thee in stead of a mouth, Exod. 4.16. and thou shalt be to him in stead of God, seems entranced awhile, and bringing them to the balance, and weighing precisely every scruple, cries out, Aug. lib. 2. Exod. 10. quaest. Magnum Sacramentum cuius figuram gerat, as if Moses were a medium between God and Aaron, and Aaron between Moses and the people. The moral is plain, Sovereignty stands between God and the Priesthood, and the Priesthood between Sovereignty and the people. However the Ceremonies due to either heretofore, in matters of Instaulement, stood not at such enmity as we can say they differed, they were both anointed, and both crowned; and though the authority were unequal in respect of place, yet not of employment, Ye are full of power by the spirit of the Lord, Micah. 3.8. And Elisha could once tell the King, He should know there was a Prophet in Israel, 2 King. 5.8. And in matters of preservation God was as zealous for the safety of these as them,— Touch not mine anointed, and do my Prophets no harm, Psal. 105. But let not my zeal to the Priest dispriviledge my allegiance to my King. I speak not this to set up Moses in competition with Pharaoh, or rival the dignity of the Priesthood with that of Sovereignty; but to mind you in what lustre it sometimes shined, & how the times now conspire to cloud that glory. The days have been, when the Laicke was ambitious, not only of the title of a Priest, but the office: for Eusebius examples in many of them, who thrusting upon Bishops of primitive times, Statim concionandi munus obierunt, in his lib. 6. cap. 15. And Tertullian (speaking of the insolences and taunts which the Laity then put upon the Priesthood) tells us that they justified their malice & injuries to the Priest, by usurping the name, or profaning rather, Te●t. lib. de Monog. cap. 12. — Quum extollimur & inflamur adversus clerum, tunc omnes Sacerdotes, quia Sacerdotes nos Deo, & Patri fecit, quum ad peraequationem disciplinae Sacerdotalis provocamur, deponimus infulas, & pares sumus; in his book de Monogamia, cap. 12. It should seem then the office and name passed honourably through all ages, even those of Infidels, though the person were sometimes exposed to the persecutions of the time, and suffered under the blasphemies of tongues; but now the very title grows barbarous, and he thinks he hath wittily discountenanced the greatness of the calling, that can baffle the professor with the name of Priest. But these, whilst they intent to wound, they honour us, and we accounted them no scars, but glories. Let such children mock on the Prophet, the event (I believe) will prove as horrid as that of old, will you tremble to hear it spoken? you may read it then, and look pale too, in 2 King. 2.24. May it please you now, Office 2. turn your eyes from the dignity, and reflect upon the office. The office, a task indeed, such a one as should rather provoke our endeavours, than appetites. If any man desire the office of a Bishop (let's awhile leave the word Priest, and fasten upon this, the authority may bear it out the better) desires a good work, 1 Tim. 3.1. 1 Tim. 3.1. Lib. 19 Civit. Dei cap. 19 Quia nomen operis est, non honoris (as Augustine glosses it) 'tis a name of work, not honour; a work no less fearful, than laborious, no where better figured than by Moses, here, to Pharaoh, repriuing Israel from Egypt, from which 'tis scarce any way differenced, but in the difficulty, and therein it exceeds the type; difficulty worthy the travels of the best, were not those labours shouldered and thrust on by vainglory. Greg. de Val. in 2 a. 2ae. disp. 10. q. 3. part. 2. Istaec cathedra cupientem se, & audacter expetentem, non requirit, sed ornatum, sed eruditum—. So Valentia upon Aquine.— This chair of Moses is no seat of ambition, but desert, it hates either an intruder, or pursuer; He that gains it by covetousness, or bold desire, doth not possess, but invade it, and 'tis not so much his by right of inheritance, as usurpation. These honours sawn only upon humble worths, men clad & harnessed with double eminency, of life, of learning, those whose virtues have advanced them above the ordinary level and pitch of popularity. Yet to these neither without this proficiscere— to Moses, Go. Clemens in his first Epistle, will persuade you: 'tis the conclusion of Saint Peter. Augustine goes farther, Lib. 19 de Civit. Dei, cap. 19 — Locus superior sine quo populus regi non potest, etsi administretur ut decet, tamen indecenter appetitur—. Suppose the man worthy of this place of Eminency, & comes home in matters of administration, yet he is to blame in those of appetite, Greg. de Val. ut supra. for the desire lays open his unworthiness, and the Schoolman will not flatter him, but concludes it plainly for a mortal sin. And if we may guess at the child by the patent, it best countenanceth levity, or arrogance, never read to be the proper seeds of any virtue. Notwithstanding this desire (sometimes) comes not within the compass of presumption, if the work be the object of our appetite, and not the honour, or, if the honour, not the revenue, Part. 1. Pastor. cap. 8. — Appetere calsitudinem Episcopalem, non est semper praesumptio, sed appetere Episcopatum, ratione celsitudinis. appetit enim celsitudinem, supra dignitatem— Gregory will have it so. However, if it please you to glance on my former quotation from the Apostle, 1 Tim 3.1. 'twill not so much whet your appetite, as gravel it; for first Beza limits the desire, If any man desire? Beza in licum. and 'tis not meant— de ambitu— of the appetite, or ambition to get the See, but de animo, of the earnest desire to benefit the Church, or admit the words will carry that interpretation, yet the commendation which is annexed truces with the work, not the desire,— Bonum opus desider at—, not— benè desiderat—, though it be good what he desires, yet he doth not well to desire it. Men unworthy of what they sue for, only because they sue for it. And this in Primitive times hath occasioned in many no less a modesty than unwillingness in those sacred undertake, when the Fathers, with a kind of reluctancy and fear, were towed on to these high employments. Nay some, whether through majesty of the place, or roughness of the times, or guilt of their own weakness, have panted and breathed short in their desires to this great enterprise, and at length exchanged the honour for an exile. Greg. Naz in praesat. Apol. Athan. in epist. ad Dracont. Epist. fug. ut Gloss. in prim. Euan. Marc. Nazianzen flies into Pontus; Dracontius, into the skirts of Alexandria: and it is traditioned me by Aquinas. (and he quotes Saint Jerome for it) that Saint Mark cut off his thumb, Sacerdotio reprobus haberetur— They are the Schoolemans own words in his 2a. 2ae. quaest. 185. Artic. 1. But 'twill not be amiss here to take Saint Ambrose— quamnis notandum— with us; that these things were done in the Churches great extremities, when he that was— primus in presbyterio, Part. 2. past. c. 3. was— primus in Martyrio. 'Twould require the temper of a brave resolution, and a better zeal, to desire this Bonum opus, when 'twas made the touchstone and furnace of men's faith and constancy, not only in leading others to the stake, but their own suffering where they were to be a voluntary Holocaust, and sacrifice to the Church, there to remain a monument of their Religion, and others tyranny. 'Tis true, Histories have furnished us with examples of some which have renounced an Empire, and (which is strange) a Popedom; Dioclesian did one, and Celestinus, t'other. The times (we may suppose) were blustering, and the revenues thin at Rome, when the honour of the chair, was at once not desired and scorned. No project now unsifted, no stratagem vndiged for; no reach of policy unfathomed for the compassing of that great See, though by sinister, though by devilish attempt, nay, that's the chief engine by which it works. Tiberius could once tell a Prince of the Celts, that Rome had a sword for her conquest, not an Apothecary's shop; now they are both too little; Sword, and poison, and massacre, and Pistol, and knife, and powder, for the purchase (or at lest the strengthening) of the triple crown. And I would Machiavelli had rendeuouzed only in jesuited Territories, and not knocked at the gates of Protestant Dominions; 'tis to be feared he hath Factors nearer home, those which not only know the backdoores to the Staff, and Myter, but are acquainted with the lock, which if they cannot force or pick by the finger of policy or greatness, they turn with that golden key which at once opens a way to a purchased honour, and a ruin. Ambition whither wilt thou? nay, where wilt thou not? to the pinnacle of the Temple for the glory of the world, though thou tumble for it to thy eternal ruin. The Greek Philosopher will beg of the gods, that he may behold the Sun so near, as to comprehend the form, Eudoxus. beauty, greatness of it, and afterwards he cares not if he burn, as if there were no such Martyrdom, as what Ambition fires. Occidar modò imperet—, Tacit. Annals. was the resolution of Agrippina for her Nero; but lo, how the event crownes the unsatiatenesse of her desires? He gains the kingdom, and first digged out those bowels which had fostered him, and then that heart which was the throne of such an aspiring thought; cruelty shall I call it, or justice, when the vainglory of the mother was penanced with the unnaturalness of the son. Thus lofty minds (furnished with a strong hope of the success of their designs) have embarked themselves into great actions, and proposing humane ends, as scales to their high thoughts, have been wafted into strange promotions, but after they have (a while) spangled in that their firmament of honour, they become falling stars, and so the success proves as inglorious as the enterprise was bold, and desperate. We have seldom met with any eminency that was sudden and permanent: Those which in their dawn of Fortune break so gloriously, meet with a storm at noon, or else a cloud at night. The Sun that rises in a grey and sullen morn, sets clearest; and indeed ambition is too hasty, and is hurried violently to the end it aims at without cautelousness and circumspection to the mean; but humility hath a calm and temperate pace, and stoops it along in a gentle posture, yet at length attains her mark, but slowly, as if it went unwilling to honour, and slighted those proffers which others sue for. I envy Scipio Africanus, and Marcus Portius (you know whose 'tis, Traianus to Plutarch) more for contempt of offices. than the victories they have won, because a conqueror for the most part is in Fortune's power, but the contempt of offices lived in prudence. Will you hear the paraphrase? Tacitus give's it, Sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima. exuitur—. Wisemen are so little in the drift of honour that they loathe the sent, 'tis the vanity, they last put off, and there was a time when a modest refusal of them, was no by-way to them; for this shadow once followed, fly's, but fled, Chrys. Hom. 35. in Matth. follows— primatus fugientem desiderat, desideratum borret, says the Father. 'Tis a trick of primacy to fawn where 'tis not croocht too, but look coy where it's over courted, like some weathercocks which in a constant and churlish wind beak fairly towards us, but in a wanton blast, turn tail. Hence it is that in matters of authority, and pre-eminence, pride hath for the most part the foil, humility the conquest, that stoops basely to the title, or the profit, and loses either, This in a modest distance keeps a loof, till worth invite it, and at length gains both; so that it is in ways of promotion, as in some water-works, where one Engine raises it to make it fall more violently, another beats it down that it might mount higher. 1 Pet. 5.6. The advice then of S. Peter comes seasonably here,— Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. The words are not without their strength of emphasis, here is an— humiliamini— erowned with an— ut exaltet, humble yourselves, that he may exalt, as if humility were so necessary a disposition to preferment, that without it God might not exalt. But soft, Impostor; Thou which iugleft both with God and with the times, I call not that bumility which is typed in the downfall of the look, or the affected cringe and posture of the body; but the knee of the inward man, which the Wiseman of old called the character of an holy soul, leading noble hearts slowly to the feasts of friends, but speedily to their succour in calamities; So that true meekness is retinued with a double worth, charity, resolution; Plato in Timaeo. And the Philosopher will tell you, 'tis Avertue belongs to the courageous part of the soul, seated between two base extremes, Pusillanimity, Arrogance, Not Buffone, and yet no Bafler, supporting sometimes injuries, not our of cowardice, but Patience, allaying all tumults and instigations of the soul to revenge or choler, not exposed to any violence of passion, but as temperate in disposition, as settled; no wave in her design, nor tempest in her thought; she is all calm, not a wind so rough as to move a storm either in her mind or action. But there is a squint-eiea humility, which casts one way, and points another; the look is dejected, still grovelling towards the earth, and with such a dress of mortification, as if it desired no more of it, than would serve it for a grave; when the thought measures out a Diocese, or labours on some greater project, which gained the countenance is cheered, the body droops not, and he can now safely icst it with that old Abbot, Quaerebam prius claues monasterij, Quibus inventis, nunc rectus incedo. And this subtle Navigator never steers as be sets his compass; the look (haply) poines you to a formal meekness, but the thought still coasts upon Ambition; yet this gluttonous desire seldom anchors any where, but goes on still with a full sail, till 't'ath compassed the cape 'tis bound for, Sen●ca. — Habet boc vitium omnis ambitio, non respicit, The thirst of Eminency is headstrong, and runs with a lose bridle. 'Tis to see much below satiety, that it still desires, nay 'tis hungry even in surfeit, and is sharpened with the fruition of that it covered; so that the birth of this title is but the conception of another, one honour rooms not the greatness of his thought, our Aaron is not contented with an Ephod, the rod of Moses, would do well too; Authority is slighted, discipline fall'n, and corruption crept strangely into the times, but — O fortunatam me consul, Iwers. Sat. 1. Romam. What should a merciful worth do with a Consulship? 'tis a place for thunder, not clemency, one that can strike dead exorbitancy with the furrows of the brow, and quell all vice with the tempest of a look, one that can both unsheathe the sword of authority, and brandish it, if not to reformation, yet to ruin; Thus he would make government the stolen both of his pride and Tyranny, his projects are loftily-cruell, so are his actions too, yet still in a hot sent of promotion, which (if they want a trumpet for others commendation) shall borrow one from his own, and so at once applaud his designs, and justify them. And indeed this titillation and itch of honour, if it once find in the bosom of the receiver a fair admittance, doth smoothly insinuate and cheat upon the powers of Reason. But when 'tis throughly seated and enthroned there, 'tis no more a guest but a Tyrant, and leaves the possessor, not a master, but a captive, and in this case, I know not whether Saint Augustine will pity his Aurelius, or excuse him, Aug. Eoist. 64. ad Aurel. — Ersi cuiquam facile sit gloriam non cupere dum negatur, difficile est ea non delectari cum offertur— in his 64 Epistle. Howener the Father seems there to plead only for the delight in glories offered, not in the unjust prosecution of those denied. But our humble-arrogant walks not to his temple of honour by that of virtue, but invasion; and of some of his colleagues, the Fathers complained of old, Qui nequaquam divinitus vocati, Greg. part. 1. past. cap. 2. sed sua cupiditate accensi, culmen regiminr. rapiunt potiùs, quàm assequuntur 'Tis Saint Gregory's line, and a strong one too, such a one as the Prophet once lashed judah with, Hos. 8.4. Ho. 8.4. They have set up a King but not by me, they would make a Ruler, I knew it not. Mat. 23. Would you have a more punctual character, that of the Pharisees is most apposite: They love greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi, Matth. 23.7. Devout crnelty, Religious arrogance (the Father will make it out) Ob pietatem miseri, ob splendorem infalices, Greg. Naz. in praefat. Apol. edit. lat. in his Apology first Oration 44. pag. But I have followed Moses too long as a Magistrate, I must now a while as a Priest, and (what I exchanged him for) a Bishop. I shall not travel fare, c're I descry them both in a full career, not far from the road I left the Magistrate, Ambition, but in a more covert, and untrodden way; a way, however doubly obnoxious to the passenger, because unwarrantable, because forbidden; no authority for his progress, no Letters patents from heaven, no proficiscere from his God, Go, yet he ruunes, runs without command, nay against it, trebly against it, against that, non dominantes in clerum—, feed, 1 Pet. 5.3. jam. 3.1. But not as Lords over God's heritage, but ensamples, and against that nolite magistrs, be not masters, knowing you shall receive the greater condemnation; nay against the direct prohibition of Christ to his Disciples, Matth 20.27. — Will there be any great among you—, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, let him be your servant. 'Tis high time than this bladder were a little pricked, and this imposthume lanced. The body of the Church desire's it, cries for't, she is sick, sick even unto death, yet no Physician in Israel will administer, will? durst not; We are grown so emasculate, and palsie-strooken, in ways of reprehension, the times so censorious, and in a lust of novelty, that this mount of God which was wont to sand out lightnings and thunder to the Israelites below, is now grown a terror to the Moses that shall climb it. And whereas the Pulpit hath been formerly our Tribunal to judge and sentence the lapses and depravations of the people, they have made at length a bar for our own arraignment, & their doom or mercy passes on us, as we shall please, or not please, but the verdict runs much to the fancy of the censurer, which is commonly as barbarous and wild, as he that gives it. Discourses (and I am sorry I cannot call them Sermons) are so sleek, and wooing for applause, the ears of the times so coy, and picked for accurateness, that to be plain or home, entitles the speaker to rudeness or stoicism, each offered annotation is a barbarism, and every reproof a libel. The hewing down of a glorious vice, or the whipping of a sin in scarler, Praemunires him that doth it, and he grows a tributary and slave to the frowns and dishonours of the time, Iwen. Sat. 1. — Vnde illa priorum— scribendi quodcunque animo flagrante liberet— Simplieitas? IT should seem Antiquity had a privilege of venting any thing that proceeded from the simplicity and truth of an honest breast; But the thoughts of aftertimes were choked with a— non andeo dicere—, sincerity was turned bankrupt, and truth an exile, plain-dealing, pertinacy, and zeal, madness. But what, shall Moses here be tongue-tied, shall he stutter in the Messages of his God?— Quid refert dictis ignoscat Mutius anon? Iu. ibid. Pusillanimity and dejectedness of spirit in the employment of thy Maker, is the basest degree of cowardice; for my part, I have set up my resolution with that of S. Bernard: Ad Fulc. Epist. 2. Quid me loqui pudeat, quod illis non puduit facere? si pudeat audire quod impudenter egerunt, non pudeat emendare quod libenter non audiant. Let me tell however this child of vainglory, that no touch of malecontentednesse, or spirit of invection puts me on the justice of these complaints; But that which the devout Abbot calls, patiented anger, humble indignation— even that charity wherewith he carechized his ambitious pupil,— Quae tibi condolet, quamuis non dolenti quae tibs miseretur, licet non miserabils, & inde magis dolet, Bern. ad Fool: epist. 2. quod cum sis dolendus, non doles, & inde magis miseretur, quod cùm miser sis, miserabilis non es, vult tetuum scire dolorem, ut iam non habeas unde dolere, unlt te tuam scire miseriam, ut incipias miser non esse, in his 2 Epistle, Ad Fulconem—. I never yet envied the prosperity of any, I have sometimes wondered at their ways of advancement, and now have traced them, and find a double stair by which they ascend, zeal, policy,— (please you to translate the terms, you may, they will bear the christening) Faction, Simony—, one of the chief means to gain preferment, is, to cry down the way to it. And he that will have three livings, must first preach violently against two. Nonresidency must be a capital and indispensable crimes. Pluralities, damned, till they be either offered, or possessed, when the fish is caught, what makes the net here then? away with it; the question is stated on tother side. A double Benesice is but one living, and that swallowed with as little reluctation, as 'twas but now thundered against, with all the bitterness that the power of virulence could suggest; all's well now, the conscience is at peace, and (what is strange) the tongue too. E'er long, Nonresidency hangs not in the teeth, but that is easily put off, for the honour of Nicodemus,— To be a great Master in Israel,— Si violandum sit ius, regnandi causâ violandum, Sueton. — what matter's it for justice so we gain an Empire? or for equity so we may insult? The application needs no screw, 'twill come home of its own accord to the murmurings of the guilty bosom; In the mean time it much staggers me, to see the reconcilement of two virtuous friends with a base adversary? a Saint in the countenance, an Angel in the tongue, with an Hypocrite at the heart. Thus (beloved) upon easy enquiry we may as well descry an equivocation in the look, as in the word, and he that can art it handsomely in ways of dissimulation, hath not so much two tongues, as two faces; one looks towards the world, where demureness lays on her paint and colour, and this oftentimes deludes, shamefully deludes; the other towards heaven, and that's but coursely daubed in respect of it, for the eye of the Almighty cannot be dazzled, that will descry her furrows and deformities, and at length give her a reward answerable to the desert, her portion with the Hypocrite, and there I leave it. This fruitless and pernicious branch pruned, and lopped off, t'other buds, no less dangerous than that, and yet more flourishing, it sprouts now to such a breadth and height, that it hath almost overshadowed the body of the Church, insomuch, that the Fowls of the air lodge in the branches thereof. No Vulture or Raven (emblems of rapine and greediness) though they devour and havoc it (so they have a trick of merchandizing) but nests and perches there; nay scarce an Owl or Buzzard (now the metaphors of dulness and simplicity) but hoots and revel's there. Times more than calamitous, when the inheritance and patrimony of the Church shall be thus leased out to avarice and folly, when those her honours which she entails upon desert, shall be heaped upon a golden ignorant, who rudely treads on those sacred prerogatives, without any warranted prosiciscere from God or man. We found Moses trembling here, though encouraged both by the persuasion & command of the Almighty,— Et infirmus quisque ut honoris onus suscipiat, anhelat, Greg. par. 1. past. cap. 7. & qui ad casum valde urgetur ex proprijs, humerum libenter opprimenaū ponderibus submittit alienis—. 'Tis Gregory's complaint in the 1. part of his Pastoral, chapter 7. Strange monument of weakness. he that reels under his own burden, stoops to be oppressed with the weight of others, and lot how he tumbles to a mortal sin (The Schoolmen doth style it so) directly opposite to a pair of virtues, justice, charity; unjust, that the revenues due to worth should be packed upon bulcklesse and unable persons, Greg. de Val. in 2 a. 2ae. Aqul. dist. 10. q. 3 punc. 2. and uncharitable for him to undertake the guidance and pasturing of a flock who was never trained up in the conditions of a shepherd. Neither is he an enemy only of a double virtue, but a companion of two such sins which seem to brave, and dare the Almighty to revenge on the profaner, Intrusion, perjury; first, in rushing on the profession not legitimately called, then in purchasing her honours. Yet there are which can say with the Disciple— Master we have left all and followed thee— our birthright for the Church; left did I say? sold it, exchanged the possessions of our Fathers (their vineyard) to purchase thine; and in stead of that penny which thou givest in lieu of a Crown and recompense to thy labourer, we have given thousands to be possessed one, and so, thou not hiring us, we have, it. But hear S. Bernard schooling his Eugenius, and do not so much blush as tremble,— Quis mihi det, Bern epist. 238. ad Euge. antequam moriar videre ecclesiam Dei sicut in diebus antiquis quandò Apostoli laxabant retia in capturam, non auri, sed animarum! quàm cupio te illius haer: ditare vocem cuius adeptus es sedem? Pecunia tua tecum in perditionem—. O vox tonitrui! The Abbot goes on devoutly in the 238. Epistle ad Eugenium. If that Father be too calm and modest in his reproof, and cannot rouse blood in the cheeks of the delinquent: S. Ambrose shall startle it, or else scare you with the vision of Simon Magus, or Gehazi,— Qui non timentes illud Petri, Amb. de dign. sacerd. cap. 5. aut Elizei, Sacerdotalem defamant honorem, sanctique Episcopatus gratiam pecunijs coemerunt, in his de dignitate Sacerdotali cap. 5. And indeed, in ways of sufficiency and worth, 'tis the— si nil attuleris— damp's the preferment; The age can instance, in some languishing and weak in their intellectuals, men without sap or kernel, who (having their store-house well fraught with that white and read earth) have stumbled on the glories of the time, as if fortune would make them happy in despite of virtue; when others of Christ's followers (were truly his Disciples) are sent abroad with their— ite & predicate— , without bag or scrip, but their Commission large— Omni creaturae— the wide world is their place of residence, no particular roof to shelter them, or place of retiredness to lay their head in. Nay some that have served a triple Apprenticeship to Arts and Sciences, and spent in these our Athens the strength of their time and patrimony, men throughly ballaced for those high designs, well kerned both in years and judgement, lie mouldering for non-employment, and dashed for slowness or promotion; when others of cheap and thin abilities, men without growth or bud of knowledge, have met with the honours of advancement, and trample on those dejected bookewormes which dissolve themselves into industry for the service of their Church, yet meet neither with her pomp, nor her revenue; nay, some that have wasted their Lamp, are burnt their Taper to an inch of years, have spent those fortunes in the travails of Divinity, which would largely have accommodated them for more secular courses, and enforced to retire themselves to the solitariness of some ten-pound Cure, and so spin out he hath suffered strangely in the consures of the world) somewhat windy, & tempestuous, but such as had authority only from the tongue, not the heart, and as soon o'erblown, as occasioned, naught else but a green leaf in a flame, cracked, sparkled, and so out. His rule of friendship the best, not popular, but choice, & there too, where it found truth, no gloss; there unshooke, nobly-constant, his, both in his heart, & in his purse; not in his purse, (as Seneca writes of Sicilius, where naught could be extracted but an hundred upon a hundred) or as your Hackney Mynt-men for the most part do, ten upon the same number, but that trebled, many times, for nothing, as the clemency of some unpersecuting scrolls can testify. His contribution, and benevolence in way of alms, rather poured out, than given, as if poverty had been the object of his profuseness, not of his relief; yet that without froth of ostentation, without reference to merit, on the grounds of a true charity. His Religion (wherein the world thought he had waved and tottered) upon his accounts to God, and his inlargements and declarations to his friends, on his deathbed, fast to the Church of England; which, (though in the last act) was beleaguered by some emasculate suggestions, yet, blessed be the circumspection of a careful Son, it stood unbattered, and in that loialty, and strength, he penitently gave up his soul into the hands of his Redeemer. And now he is gone, let his imperfections follow, and the memory of them rot, and moulder with his body; he had many, some prevalent; and (good Lord) which of us have not in a large proportion! But they are our earthy and dusty, and as●…y part, so they were his; let them then be buried with him; shovel them into his grave; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; let them spring no more, to the soiling and dishonour of his name, or our own uncharitableness, but let his ashes rest in peace; for he is now— Gone to his long home, and the mourners have walked for him about the streets. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Amen. FINIS.