584 Nothing can prevail over true Faith. mises of God concerning our stability, think you, make it a matter indifferent for us to use, or not to use, the means whereby to attend, or not to attend, to reading? to pray, or not to pray, that we "fall not into temptations?" Surely, if we look to stand in the faith of the sons of God, we must hourly, continually, be providing and setting ourselves to strive. It was not the meaning of our Lord and Saviour in saying, [John xvii. "Father, keep them in thy name," that we should be careless 11.] to keep ourselves. To our own safety, our own sedulity is required. And then blessed for ever and ever be that mother's child, whose faith hath made him the child of God. The earth may shake, the pillars of the world may tremble under us, the countenance of the heaven may be appalled, the sun may lose his light, the moon her beauty, the stars their glory; but concerning the man that trusteth in God, if the fire have proclaimed itself unable as much as to singe a hair of his head, if lions, beasts ravenous by nature, and keen with hunger, being set to devour, have as it were religiously adored the very flesh of the faithful man; what is there in the world that shall change his heart, overthrow his faith, alter his affection towards God, or the affection of God to him? If I be of this note, Rom. viii. who shall make a separation between me and my God? "shall 35, 38, 39. tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No; I am persuaded, that neither tribulation, nor anguish, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword, nor death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall ever prevail so far over me." "I know in whom I have believed;" I am not ignorant whose precious blood hath been shed for me; I have a Shepherd full of kindness, full of care, and full of power, unto him I commit myself; his own finger hath engraven this sentence in the tables of my heart, "Satan hath desired to winnow thee as wheat, but I have prayed that thy faith fail not:" therefore the assurance of my hope I will labour to keep, as a jewel, unto the end; and by labour, through the gracious mediation of his prayer, I shall keep it. DEDICATION. To the Worshipful Mr. GEORGE SUMMASTER, Principal of Broad-Gates Hall, in Oxford, HENRY JACKSON wisheth all happiness. I SIR, YOUR kind acceptance of a former testification of that respect owe you, hath made me venture to shew the world these godly sermons under your name. In which, as every point is worth observation, so some especially are to be noted: the first, that as the spirit of prophecy is from God himself, who doth inwardly heat and enlighten the hearts and minds of his holy penmen (which if some would diligently consider, they would not puzzle themselves with the contentions of Scot and Thomas, Whether God only, or his ministering spirits, do infuse into men's minds prophetical revelations "per species intelligibiles"), so God framed their words also. Whence the holy father St. Augustine religiously observeth, "That all Lib. iv. those who understand the sacred writers, will also perceive de Doct. that they ought not to use other words than they did, in ex- Chr. pressing those heavenly mysteries which their hearts conceived, as the blessed Virgin did our Saviour, by the Holy Ghost." The greater is Castellio's offence, who hath laboured to teach the Prophets to speak otherwise than they have already. Much like to that impious king of Spain, Alphonsus the Tenth, who found fault with God's works. "Si (inquit) Rob. creationi affuissem, mundum melius ordinassem;" If he had been with God at the creation of the world, the world had gone better than now it doth. As this man found fault with God's works, so did the other with God's words; but because c. 6. Tolet. ... 5. l. iv. c. Præf. in Rainold. we have a most sure word of the Prophets," to which we 2 Pet. i. 19. must take heed, I will let his words pass with the wind, Orat. D. having elsewhere spoken to you more largely of his errors, whom, notwithstanding, for his other excellent parts, I much respect. 3. convers. You shall moreover from hence understand, how Christianity consists not in formal and seeming purity, (under which who knows not notorious villany to mask?) but in the heart-root. Whence the author truly teacheth, that mockers, which use religion as a cloak, to put off and on, as the weather serveth, are worse than pagans and infidels. Where I cannot omit to shew how justly this kind of men hath been reproved by that renowned martyr of Jesus Christ, bishop Latimer, both because it will be apposite to this purpose, and also free that Parsons in Christian worthy from the slanderous reproaches of him, who was, if ever any, a mocker of God, religion, and all good men. But first I must desire you, and in you all readers, not to think light of that excellent man, for using this and the like witty similitudes in his sermons. For whosoever will call to mind with what riff-raff God's people were fed in those days, Mal ii. 7. when their priests, whose "lips should have preserved knowledge,” preached nothing else but dreams and false miracles of counterfeit saints, enrolled in that sottish legend, coined and amplified by a drowsy head between sleeping and wakingahe that will consider this, and also how the people were delighted with such toys (God sending them strong delusions that they should believe lies), and how hard it would have been for any man wholly, and upon the sudden, to draw their minds to another bent, will easily perceive, both how necessary it was to shew symbolical discourse, and how wisely and moderately it was applied by the religious father, to the end he might lead their understanding so far, till it were so convinced, informed, and settled, that it might forget the means and way by which it was led, and think only of that it had acquired. For in all such mystical speeches, who knows not that the end for which they are used, is only to be thought upon? This then being first considered, let us hear the story, as it Pag. 1903. is related by Mr. Fox: "Mr. Latimer (saith he), in his sermon, edit. 1570. gave the people certain cards out of the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew. For the chief triumph in the cards he limited the heart, as the principal thing that they should serve God withal, whereby he quite overthrew all a Canus locor. 1. xi. c. 6. Vives, lib. ii, de corrupt. art. Hard. lib. iv. hypocritical and external ceremonies, not tending to the necessary furtherance of God's holy word and sacraments. By this he exhorted all men to serve the Lord with inward heart and true affection, and not with outward ceremonies; adding, moreover, to the praise of that triumph, that though it were never so small, yet it would take up the best coat-card beside in the bunch, yea, though it were the king of clubs, &c. meaning thereby, how the Lord would be worshipped and served in simplicity of the heart, and verity, wherein consisteth the true Christian religion," &c. Thus Mr. Fox. By which it appears, that the holy man's intention was to lift up the people's hearts to God, and not that he made a sermon of playing at cards, and taught them how to play at triumph, and played (himself) at cards in the pulpit, as that base companion "Parsons reports the matter in his wonted scurrilous vein of railing, whence he calleth it a Christmas sermon. Now he that will think ill of such allusions, may, Sect. 55. out of the abundance of his folly, jest at Demosthenes for his story of the sheep, wolves, and dogs; and Menenius, for his fiction of the belly. But, hinc illa lacrymæ, the good bishop meant that the Romish religion came not from the heart, but consisted in outward ceremonies: which sorely grieved Parsons, who never had the least warmth or spark of honesty. Whether bishop Latimer compared the bishops to the knave of clubs, as the fellow interprets him, I know not: I am sure Parsons, of all others, deserved those colours; and so I leave him. We see, then, what inward purity is required of all Christians, which if they have, then in prayer, and all other Christian duties, they shall lift up pure hands, as the Apostle speaks, not as "Baronius would have it, washed from sins with 1Tim.ii.8. holy water; but pure, that is, holy, free from the pollution of sin, as the Greek word dσíovs does signify. You may see also here refuted those calumnies of the papists, that we abandon all religious rites and godly duties; as also the confirmation of our doctrine, touching certainty of faith, (and so of salvation,) which is so strongly denied by a In the third part of the Three Conversions of England: in the Examination of Fox's Saints, c. 14. sect. 53, 54. p. 215. b Plutarch, in Demosthen. [c. 23.] e Liv. Dec. 1. 1. ii. an. U. C. 60. [c. 32.] a Annal. tom. i. an. 57. n. 109, 110. et tom. ii. an. 132. Num. a some of that faction, that they have told the world, St. Paul himself was uncertain of his own salvation. What then shall we say, but pronounce a woe to the most strict observers of St. Francis's rules and his canonical discipline, though they make him even "equal with Christ, and the most meritorious monk that ever was registered in their calendar of saints? But we, for our comfort, are otherwise taught out of the holy Scripture, and therefore exhorted to build ourselves in our 2 Cor. v. 1. most holy faith, that so, “When our earthly house of this tabernacle shall be destroyed, we may have a building given of God, a house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens.” This is that which is most piously and feelingly taught in these few leaves, so that you shall read nothing here, but what I persuade myself you have long practised in the constant course of your life. It remaineth only that you accept of these labours tendered to you by him, who wisheth you the long joys of this world, and the eternal of that which is to come. Oxon, from Corpus Christ College, this 13th of January, 1613. a S. Paulus de sua salute incertus; Kicheom Jesuit. lib. ii. c. 12. Indolat. Huguen. p. 119. in marg. edit. Lat. Mogunt. 113. interpret. Marcel. Bomper. Jesuita. b Witness the verses of Horatius, a Jesuit, recited by Posse, v. Biblioth. Select. part. 2. 1. xvii. c. 19. Exsue Franciscum tunica laceroque cucullo: Qui Franciscus erat, jam tibi Christus erit. The like hath Bencius, another Jesuit. |