A century of sermons upon several remarkable subjects preached by the Right Reverend Father in God, John Hacket, late Lord Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry ; published by Thomas Plume ...

THE FOURTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation. (Book 4)

MAT. iv. 1, 2.

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.

And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterwards an hungry.

MAny things were rightly applied by him, that compared the suc∣cess of the Children of Israel, upon their entrance into the Land of Canaan, with the circumstances of this combate be∣tween Christ and Satan. 1. the Israelites were miraculously brought through the Red Sea; so the first glorious Apparition of our Saviour, which went immediately before this business, was the Baptism which he received of John in Jordan. 2. The Israelites pass from the Red Sea into a great and solitary Wil∣derness: So our Saviour was led after his Baptism into the greatest Wilderness of Judaea, a place uninhabited by man, for he was with the wild beasts, Mar. i. 13. Then the Israelites were in great distress for foot, hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them: And Christ had nothing to eat in that place, he fasted forty days, and forty nights, and was afterward an hungry. 4. As the Israelites were pined with hunger, so they had bloudy Wars with all the Nations of Ca∣naan, many a time have they fought against me might Israel then say: So many a time did the Legions of Hell attempt me, might our Lord and Saviour say, yea, ma∣ny times did the powers of darkness compass me about, but they have not pre∣vailed against me. On the one side here was first the Red Sea, then a journey into the Wilderness, then scarcity of Food, then War and fighting: So on the other side, here was first a Baptism, then a sequestring into the Wilderness, then a long Fast, and then a long conflict with the Prince of Devils.

Moreover, the men of Israel did appear in that forlorn and despicable fashion be∣fore the Canaanites, that they were much scorn'd and vilified (so God provided) we seemed in their sight but as Grashoppers said, Caleb and Josuah; this drew the Kings of Canaan forth to beat them back, and so were overwhelmed in their own pride and cruelty. Thus in all points did our Saviour deal with Satan, the Eternal wis∣dom against the wisdom of the Serpent. He flies into the Wilderness as one aban∣doned of the World, there he continues in great necessity, as one whom none would succour; not a morsel of food supplied him by God or man; Adversarium non virtutis jactatione, sed infirmitatis ostentione provocat; thus he provokes, and draws Sa∣tan out against himself, not by a boasting challenge, but by the appearance of much infirmity. No mans counsel at hand to comfort him, for he was in the Wilderness; nothing to strengthen his feebless, for he was fasting and hungry, much abated in the vigour of his body. Christus non solùm provocat, sed velut arma ministrat hosti, says

St. Austin, this might seem as if he did lend his enemie weapons to overcome him. But what the Apostle said of himself through the grace of Christ, Christ might more truly say of himself by his own power, When I am weak I am strong, as will appear in the sequel. This is premised, to let you know, that the present mat∣ter which I have in hand consists herein, to unfold with what outward infirmity Christ addressed himself to this terrible bickering with the Devil; and that in four Points: 1. From the place, it was the Wilderness; the greater solitude, the more dangerous the tentation. 2. He was fasting; the more feeble the body, the more flat and dull are the operations of the Spirits. 3. The continuance of the fasting was as great as ever was read, Forty days and forty nights; a large while to get no∣thing for bodily sustenance. 4. The consequent is, he was afterwards an hungry: Though the divine power had underpropt nature a long time, yet nature was now left to it self, still the more advantage for the enemy.

This Wilderness, whatsoever it was for a barren desolate place, it deserves my labour to survey it, because it received this guest for forty days, our Lord and Savi∣our. A worthless, and therefore a nameless piece of ground, unprofitable to bring store into the Barn, but profitable to yield some pious meditations. Some devout Christians who lov'd to visit those Countries and Regions, which Christ fre∣quented, have given it a name, which it holds in Cosmographical descriptions to this day, Quarantena, quaranta implying no more than Christs continuance there for forty days. There are other small Desarts in Palestina, the Desart of Maon, the Desart of Ziph, the Desart of Judaea, this was distinguished from all these by be∣ing called the great Desart, where there was no habitation. They that retired thi∣ther, unless they brought their provision, must resolve to keep a fast. At this day our faithful relators say, nothing grows upon the ground but a few Dates, and Christ was there at such a time when the trees did bear nothing. His Baptism at Jordan is calculated to fall out at Twelfth-tide, and his departure into the Wilder∣ness being next after his Baptism, those forty days were in the Months of January and February, when, above all other seasons, the Trees of the field, a few excepted, have not so much as Leaves to hang upon them. The Devil could not have offered the first tentation in the Cities, or Villages, or in the fruitful grounds neighbouring to any habitation, a bare Heath, that yielded nothing but Flints, did occasion this Proposition, Command that these stones be made bread.

The first emergent observation from hence is noted in the interlineal gloss, Tunc maximè instat Diabolus ad tentandum, cum viderit solitarios; The Adversary doth espe∣cially take hold of a man to tempt him upon a melancholy solitariness; beware of those sad oppressing thoughts, which a man loves to keep to himself alone; take advise of them, whose judgment can direct you, and whose charity can comfort you. When you feel instigations of iniquity grow upon you, the chief thing which Satan desires is▪ that you would smother them, and not reveal them, that you would break off conversation from all your friends, and avoid Society. He knows his advantages, when he gets a man into a wilderness, I mean, a melancholy re∣tirement. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, says Euripides; one hand can fight but weakly. As a Dear that is struck knows by instinct what a danger it is to be single, and therefore will heard himself if he can; so do not separate your self from the face of men upon tentation, that is the way to betray your soul, but unite your force against the Tempter by mixing your self with good men, and praise the Lord, as David said, in the great Congregation. Quae facilitas? Quae securitas?* 1.1 Quae jucunditas est habere cum quo aequè audeas loqui ut tibi? As I read it in a certain work that carries St. Austins name; What felicity? What security? What hearts ease it is to talk to another with as good confidence as thou wouldst unto thy self? Two are better than one, as Solomon shews it in a threefold similitude: 1.* 1.2 If one fall dangerously in∣to a pit, a good companion will lend him his hand to raise him; he that is alone hath not another to help him up. 2. If two lie together they have heat, St. Hierom makes an Allegory of it between David and Abisag, Frigidiores ferventiorum societate in virtute incalescent; They that are colder in Piety will be warmed by their Society that are more fervent in charity. 3. If one prevail against one, two shall help him; united force is a strong safegard, 2 Sam. x. 11. Joab divided the battel between him and Abishai his brother. Says Joab to Abishai, If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me; but if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will help thee. Thus judgment will order the battel in our spiritual warfare, I will not trust to my self alone, lest tentation press me sore, but I will have succours at

need. We are not like Eagles, which never flie in a flush, but one by one, because no bird is so strong that it can prey upon it: But we are compared to sheep, that must be led to the Pastures in a flock, and take heed of stragling.

This Doctrine is no way repugnant to that which I shall deliver by and by, that it is profitable to abandon the contagion of the wicked world: neither do I dis∣respect those tractates of the Fathers, which extol the benefit, that some have found, by retiring for a while in to an Hermitage, or the Cell of an Anchorite. A few examples of some admirable men, that have sped well in that fortune, ought not to be a leading Card, that it should be a condition of life to which weak ones should be exhorted. What was good in a very few, in times past, says one with a good distinction, it was Secundum preeminentiam gratiae, non secundum congruentiam na∣turae; It sorted well with the pre-eminence of the extraordinary grace which they had, but it was not agreeable to the ordinary complexion of humane nature. A man sequestred into a Desart and Solitude, as he cannot always have his affections intent upon Prayer, and divine Meditations, so his vacant idle hours, which must be very many, will proffer him innumerable imaginations of the worst condition. Grant, says Chrysologus, that for many hours he think of God, yet for almost as many he hath nothing to think of but himself, Si nihil excellens in seipso reperit, trista∣tur de seipso cogitando; when he finds little good in himself worth his cogitations, it will put a discomfortable sadness into his mind to offend the soul: But I could re∣tort in this Argument as Tully did in such another case; says he to some Idolaters, who defended the Deity of Neptune, you say many sea-men came safe to Land that called upon Neptune, but let me see how many were drown'd for all their calling up∣on Neptune. So some have made a Catalogue of those good despisers of the world, that served God excellently in the solitary Wilderness: But let me see all their names that took the Hermites Staff and Weeds upon them, and fell into a remedi∣less melancholy, and lost their wits, and their comfort with the delusions of the Devil. It may do well with some for a while, it is not to be continued, if they fan∣cy strange Apparitions to themselves, and have hard strugling with the Tempter. Aristotle could say,* 1.3 a man that is evil is not fit company for himself. Some strong working fancies, though they could retire where the Devil could not find them out, yet they carry their own Tempter about them, they carry fire within them, therefore it is not solitude that will help such, but a commerce with wise and dis∣creet men, and such stirring negotiations as will scarce give their fancy leave to be vacant to it self, and to be idle. Bonaventure hath one distinction full of good mat∣ter:* 1.4 Mala est solitudo per inopiam dilectionis, misera per defectum consolationis, honesta per quietem contemplationis; To eschew Society for want of brotherly love and charity is very wicked: To eschew Society for want of comfort in Christ is very misera∣ble; but to take up a solitary retirement sometimes for quiet contemplation is ho∣ly and delectable. But he that knows himself obnoxious to tentations, and affects solitude and privateness, is Daemon solitarius, as Aquinas calls a Monk that goes abroad without his Mate, and his infirmity is much too weak to encounter that great Ad∣versary, who sought out Christ in the Wilderness.

And now I turn to another inquiry, why Christ abode in the Wilderness, and [ 1] at this time, so immediately before he did first preach the Gospel in Judaea? The time was now expired of his subjection to his Parents, and it could be no way con∣venient he should return unto them again, when he was now to begin the work of him that sent him, to preach the kingdom of heaven throughout all Judaea. But had he entred into any City or Village, his enemies would have said his message was devised by men, some subtil conspiracy had set him on, therefore the furthest [ 2] from all suspicion was to sequester his Person into the Wilderness. Moses was forty days in the Mount alone before he brought the Tables from God. John the Baptist had abandoned the company of men, and lived many years in uncouth places almost like a Savage before he preacht the doctrine of repentance. A new form of Religion came forth with more admiration from those unknown solitudes, and [ 3] would be more steadily believed that it came from God, and not from man. And it is not a thing to be attributed to the blind chance of fortune, but to the wisest providence of God, that Christ was in solitudine, disparted from all other company, and left to himself alone, when he fought our battels against the Adversary of our Salvation. I have trodden the Wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me, Isa. lxiii. 3. In his Transfiguration Moses and Elias did appear in glory with him, but shortly they vanisht, and he was left alone. In his Agony in the

Garden he went up to pray apart by himself; Peter, James, and John, that were with him were so heavie that they could not choose but sleep: And well might they sleep for any thing they had to do in that business, the whole work of the Mediatorship lay only upon his shoulders; neither Angel, nor Saint could sustain the lest part to be his Coadjutor. This was a conflict in a place which none frequented, that it might [ 4] be said of some of his noble works, all shall believe, yet none did see. Singulariter inspectorem, adjutoremque Deum volunt habere haec certamina, says St. Cyprian; None but God must behold him, none but God did assist him in this Duel. There are some works of Christ, say the Schoolmen, which are not necessary to be seen of all,* 1.5 yet it was expedient that some witnesses should be present at them, because they were done to make the World believe in him; and himself said, The works which I do openly, they testifie of me. Those Miracles which did demonstrate his power had ever some Spectators; some saw how he gave up the Ghost upon the Cross, how he was risen from the dead, how he ascended into heaven; therefore St. Luke says,* 1.6 he received his Gospel from them that were eye-witnesses of the Word. But there are things, which especially tend to Moral Doctrine and Instruction, as that he prayed all night alone, that he was tempted alone in the Wilderness, and fasted forty days, it concerned not such things to be seen of any, but to be barely re∣lated by the Evangelists, that we might believe them, and use them to the informa∣tion of our life upon fit occasion. But I reduce all to this Head, The solitude of the Wilderness did best befit him in this work, because he began, continued, and ended the work of the Mediatorship by himself, and by no other assistance.

Where some of the Fathers have given Christs Humility large praise, to banish himself as it were for a time into the Wilderness, I will follow them likewise in their observation. The immediate Miracle which went before was the descending [ 5] of the Holy Ghost upon him in the shape of a Dove, and the voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son; If Christ would have prosecuted the honour which the people would have given him upon these wonderful Signs, he might have rode to Jerusalem in triumph, and been received with an universal admiration; but he chose rather [ 6] to decline the Exclamations and Hosanna's of the City, and retired into the Wil∣derness. Adam in horto superbus, Christus in deserto humilis; Much better it is to be humble with Christ in a barren Desart, than to be proud with Adam in a delicious Paradise. This miserable solitude was not capable of the provocations of those sins that Eden was; this was a Land of penury, where Satan was overcome; that was a garden of abundance, where he got the victory. And by how much that Pa∣radise [ 7] was too glorious a dwelling for the Sons of men, therefore they were driven out: So this desolate Wilderness was too mean a receptacle for the Son of God; for St. Mark debaseth it with this description, That the wild beasts frequented it. And perchance the tamer, and more tractable company than the Scribes and Pharisees, and the Rulers of the People; those beasts proved more innocent and harmless to him, and at last he was fain to tell the men of the Land, that they were metamorphosed into beasts, and into the worst kind of all, O ye Generations of vipers, &c. Son of man, says God to Ezekil, thou dwellest among Scorpions: But Son of God thou didst die, and wert crucified among Scorpions; he changed for the worser company when he came from the beasts in the champion fields to the Pharisees in Jerusalem. But to what a di∣minution of his excellency did Christ descend? To what a low fall from that glory which was due unto him? To be cast out from among the company of Angels, into a desart to be a companion of beasts. He, before whom thousand thousands are said to minister, and ten thousand thousands are said to stand before him, Dan. vii. 10. Instead of this Royal Train, none but the savage cattel compass him round about. His humi∣lity is the expiation of our pride, he consorts with beasts that we may have fellow∣ship with Angels; He lives peaceably with Wolves and Tygers, to obtain grace for us, through the merit of his obedience, that our brutish affections may be sub∣ject to reason, and to the Law of God. So St. Hierom made me bold with this Allegory, Tunc bestiae nobiscum sunt, cum caro non concupiscit adversus spiritum; Then we and the beasts live quietly together, when the Flesh doth not covet against the Spirit.

None of these descants, which I have drawn from the best antiquity, upon [ 8] Christs removing into the Wilderness, but were fit to be noted. I have my own share to cast in, that herein Christ was a lively exhibition of the Type of the Scape Goat, of which you shall read a strange Ceremony, Lev. xvi. 20. The High Priest was not to come at all times into the holy place within the Vail, no more than once a

year. First, he was to offer a Bullock for a sin-offering for himself; then he was to present two Kids of the Goats before the Lord at the door of the Tabernacle, according as the lot fell, the one Goat was slain, and his bloud sprinkled within the Vail: As for the other, this Ceremony was appointed; Aaron put both his hands upon the head of the live Goat, and did confess all the iniquities of the chil∣dren of Israel over him, and did put them upon the head of the Goat; and the Goat did bear away their Iniquities into a Land not inhabited, and he was let go into the Wilderness. The Learned in their best conjectures do expound it after this sort in an Allegory: By the Goat which was slain and sacrificed they under∣stand the Humane Nature of Christ, (for Christ suffered only in his flesh:) By the Scape-goat they understand his Divine Nature, (for according to his Divinity he could not die, he could not be crucified) and yet it was the infinite value of that nature that bore away all our Iniquities: For as God could not suffer for sin, so man alone could not satisfie for sin. Thus by very good Analogy our Saviour Christ is the Scape-goat, upon whose head we laid all our sins. And the better to give light to this Mystery, he was really sent into the Wilderness, in my Text, to put us in mind, that the Goat which was sent away into a Land uninhabited was a Type of him; and therefore St. Mark speaks of a violent expulsion, Expulit eum in desertum; The Spirit did drive him into the Wilderness.

A little spoken concerning these Typical shadows will quickly rise to enough. I come to that Doctrine, which is aptest to conclude the first general part of my Text, how Christ made himself often a stranger to this world, and shewed it by retiring unto unfrequented places;* 1.7 Quasi in mundo extra mundum ageret, says one, as if he minded another world much more when he lived in this. His flesh was not ill pampered, or fatned for sin, and yet he fasted: His integrity was untaintable, ill examples could not seduce him, the viciousness of the age could not infect him, yet he drew back sometimes from those scandalous contagions, as if he had said to one of us, or to every one of us, give thy soul such respite sometimes, that it may abandon all earthly cares for a time, and have leisure to talk with God. As Christ invites his Church from the empestring of multitudes of people, and secular businesses, Come my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the Villages. Cant. vii. 11. We had need of longer Vacations than Terms, more rest to serve God than stirring days to enrich our selves; that we may ask God forgiveness at leisure for the sins which we did commit in our business. Come ye apart into a desart place, and rest awhile, says our Saviour to his Disciples, Mar. vi. 31. All can∣not receive this saying, you will say, all have not the way and opportunity to re∣tire themselves bodily from the conflux of the world; but there is a way for every man that his mind may pluck it self out of the throng, and adhere to God. So St. Cyprian bears off all objections from this exhortation, Etsi omnes diversorium non excipiat loci, animi tamen omnino necessaria est solitudo; All men cannot cast the World behind their back, and go alone into remote places, but it is necessary for the heart of every man to say often, my God and I am alone together, I am solitary with him often in the midst of troubles.

God hath made man a sociable creature, if the contagion of the world doth not make him unsociable. Who can live with patience or comfort, where he sees the Creator of Heaven and Earth dishonoured daily? No reverence in the lips of chil∣dren, but swearing and prophanation: No faithfulness in mens words, but deceit and guile: The trust of Guardians turn'd to supplantation; the league of Friend∣ship turn'd to treachery; the bond of Wedlock so impiously, so often wronged in Adultery. Whom can the Living trust for righteous dealing? Whom can the dy∣ing trust for an upright Executor? What good man doth not feel the passions of Lot within himself at the recital of these things? His soul vext with the filthy conver∣sation of the Sodomites, and therefore from thence he was glad to fly, and retire to Zo∣ar. This made the Prophet Jeremy complain, O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the Cities and dwell in the Rock, Chap. xlviii. 28. Fuge seculi mare, & naufragium non timebis, says St. Ambrose; Sail away into some little streams, and leave that Ocean of ungodli∣ness, which is in the most frequented places, and ye shall not fear Shipwrack. St. Basil extols it in the height of Gorgias the Martyr his praise, that he left his na∣tive soil, and all society, and made the desolate woods his habitation. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, he detested the buyers and sellers; the forswearers and liars. I told you before that Eremitical solitariness was much in danger of tentation, but one answers it, better fight single against Satan, one to

one in the Wilderness, than fight against Satan and wicked men, who will entice you to sin as fast as Satan. Therefore let them take out my Lesson, and eschew the frequent Societies of populous places, who find the Contagion of pestilent multi∣tudes rub some rust upon them, and infect their integrity. It is not the place, but the corruptions of the place, which the meditations of the Fathers gathered out of my Text, do lead you to abandon; therefore the words of our Saviour shall stand in the last place to shut up this Point, Joh. xvii. 15. I pray not that thou shouldst take them, that is the Disciples, out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil. So much for the circumstance of the place.

My Sermon thus far hath been upon the Wilderness; against the handling of the next Point it is fit to ask, What went we forth into the Wilderness to see? Why, to be∣hold Christ fasting before he fought with the Devil: Though that is not all he did there, (for there is much more behind) yet this is enough to make it worth our la∣bour, Esurivit panis, sicut defecit via, sicut vulnerata est sanitas, sicut mortua est vita,* 1.8 says St. Austin; By the same wonderful dispensation that the way of life was weary, health it self was wounded, life it self died, by the same dispensation the bread of life fasted, and was afterwards an hungry. A sanctified fast hath two religious ends in it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as St. Paul says, 1. To chastise our own body, and to take revenge upon it. 2. To put it into a good temperature for the minds sake. Neither of these causes could be set before Christ in this long fast, for his Flesh had never rebelled against the Spirit; neither was there any inordinateness in his natural con∣stitution which could be corrected by temperance.* 1.9 Some therefore hold an opinion that Christ went not into the Wilderness to fast, that fell out so indeed, and was a necessary accessory, because there was no food to be had. You know the people ran after Christ into these spacious fields to hear Christ preach, and not to fast with him, yet there they continued three days fasting, and had nothing to eat, until four thousands were fed miraculously with five loaves, and two fishes. In like man∣ner Moses went not up into the Mount to fast, but to receive the Tables: and truly this opinion is not to be contemned; for St. Mark remembers that he was in the Wilderness tempted of Satan, and quite omits his fasting. This is prest the more zealously by some, and with sufficient probability, to shew upon what weak foundation they build, who fetch it from hence, that Christ observed the fast of forty days, on purpose to constitute a yearly Lent in the Church for ever, or a Qua∣dragesimal fast, for if it were by accident that Christ fasted here, that can be no constitution of his intendment. Nor indeed did he appoint any such thing, as I will shew in just time. Yet I concur not in the main sentence with those Authors; for it seems to me, this was purposed by Christ to go into the Desart and spend his time in Prayer and Fasting: Now was the conflict at hand, now was the first institution and undertaking of the greatest matter in the world, the salvation of mankind, and could not begin with a better Praeludium than an extraordinary Fast. In this I will be directed by the interlineal gloss, Jejunat ut tentetur, tentatur quia jejunat; He did fast that he might provoke tentations against himself, and he did provoke tentations because he fasted.

For the better explication of the causes why he was pleased to fast, I will lay down the distinction of Christs will, as I find it considered in the School three ways: Sicut ratio est unibilis corpori, sicut est omnino conformis Deitati, & ratione membrorum. 1. The soul is united to the body, and for that union sake the will desireth the good of the whole man. 2. God and man were united in Christ into one person, therefore his will was subject in all things to the divine Law and pleasure. 3. He was the head of the body, which is the Church, and therefore his will did graciously affect the prosperity of his members. In these three respects there are so many causes of moment why Jesus fasted: 1. Because it is profitable to conserve the whole man against tentations. 2. It was the divine pleasure to provoke the Devil to give the on∣set, by macerating and enfeebling his body, and Satans foil was the greater, because he was the challenger. 3. He had regard unto his members, to avenge himself on the Tempter by the victory of temperance, who brought sin into the world through our first Parents by the sin of Gluttony. Other causes I leave behind for refutation.

First, I say, it gives us a lesson to fast, and withdraw the ordinary sustenance from the body, when we perceive our selves in likelihood to encounter some tem∣ptation. King Jehosaphat had a great battle to fight with the Ammonites, and before the conflict he set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a Fast throughout all Judah, 2 Chron. xx. 3. So did Esther when she undertook the great danger to go

in to Ahasuerus against the Law, to intercede for the deliverance of the whole Na∣tion of the Jews, she would not venture upon so great a peril unless all the Jews would fast three whole days before the Lord, and neither eat nor drink, Est. iv. 16. What should I say more out of many examples? Ezra suspecting what great opposition he should find to re-edifie the Temple of the Lord, he proclaimed a Fast, that all the People might afflict themselves before God, Ezra viii. 21. And St. Basil, a great Practiser of this doctrine, as any was in the world, which is better than a Teacher, bid all his Scholars take it upon his word, that Sobriety was the best Antidote in the world to expel the venom of the Devil. This holy Father was so good a spiri∣tual Physician, that the Church had not a better since his time, I think, to prescribe a good diet for the soul. Adam went out of Paradise with a full stomack, poor La∣zarus went fasting to heaven, scarce fraught with the crums of the rich mans Ta∣ble. Moses did fast upon Sinah for forty days when he talked with God: But the People, who in the mean time did commit Idolatry, sate down to eat, and to drink, and rose up to play. Daniel refused the meat and drink allowed him from the Kings Table, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to honour his temperance and fasting, the very Li∣ons, into whose Den he was cast, were taught to fast and hunger, and not to eat up Daniel, who was thrown before them to be a prey unto their teeth. Thus far he.

If you ask me wherein we honour God, in what part it may be referred to his glo∣rie, to deny all manner of sustenance to our selves for a time. Beloved, thus it stands, that we acknowledge our selves in fact, not in word only, to be unworthy of all those good gifts, with which he hath replenisht the earth, that we deserve no longer to be fed with his liberality, and so we humble our selves before Almighty God, confessing we deserve not, with the little Whelps, to pick up the crums under his Table; and desiring that they who deject themselves under his mighty power, may not be trodden down by Satan and his Ministers of perdition. Moreover, take away Oyl from the Lamp, and the flame will go out by little and little; and sure∣ly hunger and thirst, and afflicting the body, joyned with prayer and repentance, shall obtain this mercy, that the violence of Voluptuousness and Luxury shall be abated in our sinful flesh. Not that a Fast is acceptable to God of it self, without other good offices of Religion, but being well accompanied with Prayer and godly sorrow (for as the Apostle speaketh, Bodily exercise profiteth nothing of it self;) it dis∣poseth and inclineth us to mortification and chastity. In times of old, abstinence and fasting more than ordinary were held a special part of their praise that did practice them. It is the character of Anna, the religious widow, how she con∣tinued in prayers and fastings, Luk. ii. And our Saviour himself teacheth how to fast, and proposeth a reward to them that did it well, and not for ostentation and hypocrisie, Mat. 6. There Christ taught it, and here he did it; this is the true de∣monstration of the Spirit, Cum dixit quid faciendum sit, probat faciendo. As the old bird will fly forth sometimes, not upon necessity, but to teach her young ones to fly after: So Christ fasted in the Wilderness, not to gather strength by that means in his own person against the Devil, but to teach his young ones as well as they could to fly, or flutter after him, and he tells us there is a kind of Devil which will not be cast out but by prayer and fasting, Mar. ix. 29. If any man put in a cross, saying, How can Fasting have a defensive force in it against temptation, since al∣most all Writers say upon weighty considerations, Christ had not been tempted but that he fasted? I answer, Our case and this are far unlike: Satan durst not as∣sail Christ so long as he doubted him to be the eternal Son of God, but upon his fasting and hunger he took boldness to joyn issue with him, because he falsly collected from those signs he was but the Son of man. Neither do I deliver unto you, that he will not tempt such as fast and pray, (for I have taught already how envy drives him on, that where there is abundance of sanctity, there will be abundance of tenta∣tion) but I do deliver, that Fasting and Prayer shall have prosperous success to overcome temptations. So Aquinas, Si non profuit jejunium ut non tenteris, tamen profuit ut à tentationibus non vincaris. I do not promise you peace from tentations, though you fast often religiously before God, but I promise you victory.

The second part of Christs will and pleasure in this Fast is ratione membrorum, to do our humane nature honour by temperance, for the reproach which it suffered by intemperance, and to triumph over the Devil upon the same conditions that he overcame our first Parents. There was the First Adam, here was the Second; there was a Paradise where the first man had store of all things, here was a Wilderness

where Christ had nothing: that disobedient Son of God eat of that which was forbid∣den, this most obedient Son of God refrained from those things which were lawful. Adam did not eat for need, but for his lust, he was not an hungry: Christ was so abstinent that he would not satisfie necessity, for he was an hungry. By gluttony we lost our honour, and fell low to be compared to the beasts that perish: But here is one that continued and maintained sharp hunger against all tentations, who in the beginning of this story kept company with the beasts, but in the end was mini∣stred unto by Angels. Uno tanto jejunio universam Johannis abstinentiam superavit, says Cajetan; This one fast, and his constant continuance in it, mauger the devises of the old Serpent, did exceed all the abstinence of John the Baptist, who for many years fed upon Locusts and wild honey. For John was abstinent to himself, Christ fasted to bring us out of the thraldom of Satan,* 1.10 and for the expiation of our Glut∣tony. Quaelibet actio Christi fuit nobis meritoria, passio ejus & meritoria & satisfactoria, it is commonly said of the School Divines. The Death and Passion of Christ did both merit for us before Gods mercy, and satisfie for us before his justice; but every part of Christs obedience, as this fasting among the rest was meritorious for his mem∣bers. Such wits as delighted in holy ingenuity, have applied the several parts of Christs merit, and sufferance, and passion unto us in the notions of Physick and Chi∣rurgery. Curavit non per diaetam cum jejunavit; per electuarium, quando corpus & sangui∣nem dedit in coenâ discipulis, &c. He took upon him to cure us by the prescription of a diet when he fasted: By an Electuary, when he gave his body and bloud to his Disci∣ples in his last Supper: By a Sweat when drops of bloud trickled from him in the Garden: By an Emplaster, when his face was smeared with Spittle: By a bitter po∣tion, when he drank Vinegar upon the Cross: By cutting and lancination, when his feet and hands were pierced with nails, and his side with a Spear. There was no disease of sin whereof we were not sick, there was no kind of cure to be inven∣ted which was not practised to restore us. And so much for this exercise of fasting, as he made use of it for the members of his body.

Thirdly, As his will was always subject to his Father, according to that Prayer in the Garden, not my will, but thy will be done, so the Divine Nature did suggest a reason to his Humane Nature to fast, to put a fallacy upon Satan, that he might peremptorily conclude Christ was no more than a man, who suffered hunger, and sought for somewhat to eat in the Wilderness and was not replenished. As if a Lion should put on the skin of a silly sheep, to draw on a ravening Wolf to set upon him, and thereupon devour the Wolf who came to be the devourer: So our Saviour wal∣ked about the Desart in the person of a silly man half famish'd, the Tempter was in great suspense, and knew not what to think of him, and stood ambiguously in this Dilemma says St. Chrysostome: He hath fasted forty days and eat nothing, I dare not meddle with him, this is no man; but after forty days ended he is hun∣gry, and wants food, I will give him the onset, this is no God. So Jesus grazing about like a poor sheep that could find nothing but stones for fodder, the Wolf grins upon him, but he proved to be the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Impar congressus Achilli; and the wild beast of the Forest was repelled by him that led captivity cap∣tive; the more infirmity pretended on Christs part, the more glorious the victory. Fames Domini pia fraus est, ne caveat tentare Diabolus, says Bonaventure; This fast and hunger was a pious fraud or stratagem laid by God to draw on Satan to tempt his Lord and Maker, and so prove him guilty of a most foul rebellion.* 1.11 St. Austin doth so receive this opinion, that he rejects all others; it may be said, says he, that fast∣ing came after Baptism, even as a good diet is to be kept after health recovered for fear of a relapse, but that is impertinent, Illius causa jejunii non Jordanis tinctio, sed Diaboli tentatio fuit; This fast had no reference to the dipping in Jordan, but to cozen Satan, and make him rashly adventure upon the ensuing tentation. So St. Am∣brose likewise, and almost all the best Authors of the best antiquity. It is a fatal re∣quital upon some busie wits, that as they are sharp and sore deceivers, so when their own turn comes about, they are as sorrily deceived. Marcus Crassus was one of the cunningst flatterers that ever was; and yet no man so easily,* 1.12 and so notoriously gull'd with flattery. So Satan is the grand Impostor of mankind, and yet this grand Imposture was thrust upon him, to enter combate with Christ, who is invincible and omnipotent. And let cheaters and cunning practisers beware, that their own shot rebound not upon themselves. God hath a retorsion in store, a fallere fallentem, which will fall upon them in spight of subtilty and circumspection. They think they work closely, and no harm shall happen unto them, I am sure that David

prophesies how certainly they shall be stew'd in their own sawce, they are taken in the crafty wiliness that they imagined for others, in the same net that they hid privily is their foot taken. The ways of a Serpent are slippery, and trea∣chery shall be tript up with treachery: The Lord hath spoken it, and the Lord hath done it.

I have set these three reasons why Christ fasted in the formost rank, because they are warrantable. Brentius, I think, mistook when he interserted this for a reason: It is a great anxiety, or a great sickness which keeps a man from his meat for a few days; so, as he thought, the tentations of Christ were so violent and hor∣rible, that for forty days he eat nothing. I suppose, when I come to shew, at what time the Devil began his work, I shall make it appear, that no tentation was of∣fered to Christ until the fortieth day. Howsoever the Author took his aim amiss; for although we read that our Saviour endured a most violent conflict in the garden, when he sweat drops of bloud in his Prayer, the case is not the same in this conflict with the Devil. In the Garden he stood before his Father, representing himself not as the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased, but under the imputation and malediction of all our sins, and he struggled with his Fathers justice, that he might bear our iniquities in his own body upon the cross. This was a wrestling indeed to put all his strength and powers in a heat, and all his spirits in an agony. But to beat down the suggestions of the evil one it put him to no sollicitousness, or anxiety, never was victory got so easily. None of those poysoned darts could stick in him, this was the Lamb without spot that could commit no sin, but came to take away the sins of the world.

This error is easily put off, the next opinion is maintained more pertinaciously, that this fasting was part of that obedience, by which he merited exaltation of his Father, and in like manner the pennance of fasting is meritorious to the obedient members of his Church. Thus they. I will examine this strictly by several pieces. First, to enter into a tedious disputation how, or what Christ did merit by his obe∣dience, cannot consist with the time, and it doth not piece well with my Text. But take a little knowledge of it by this similitude; the Angels of heaven have a double operation,* 1.13 one that they stand always before the face of our Father which is in heaven, another that they are ministring Spirits, and do good offices to the Church upon earth; as they do always stand before God, so they must needs be com∣pletely blessed, having the substance of their reward, but as they assist and help us, so they have some kind of increase, or as it is called accidental addition to their reward: So Christ in the union of the two natures could not but ever behold the di∣vine glory, so that the fruition of that eternal happiness was ever conjoyned to him; but inasmuch as the dispensation of our redemption was his continual exer∣cise upon earth, so that deserved him some additions to his glory, in the glorifica∣tion of the sensible part of mans nature, the speedy resurrection of the body, his speedy ascension or exaltation into heaven, and as some do add, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow; or if so be these things were so in∣trinsecal to the hypostatical union, that they could not be parted from it, yet thus it may be well agreed, Mereri est de debito facere majus debitum; These things accrued to Christ meritoriously, because that which was due by the hypostatical union was made more due by his humiliation. I add secondly, that the great abstinence and sweet temperance of our Saviours life was part of his humiliation,* 1.14 but for the forty days wherein he fasted I concur with them that maintain this was no part of his abstinence. What abstinence could there be, says one, in this miraculous act, when all that while he had no provocation in his appe∣tite to long for meats, no more than the Angels have who taste no corruptible things? The faculties of nutrition call'd for no sustenance. God repressed the appe∣tite, says Cajetan, from feeling the provocations of hunger and thirst, even as he sup∣pressed the devouring quality of the fire, that it should not burn the three constant Saints that were cast into it.

I make it my third reply, though Christs obedience in his humiliation was meri∣torious, yet there is so much disparity between his obedience and ours, that men can take no measure of it. I do not only mean in this difference, which is so well known, that he did exactly fulfil all the Law of God, and for our part in many things we sin all. There is another thing which puts as wide a difference between us, Christ obeyed his Father because he would, we because we must; He obeyed without any terrour pronounced to compel him, we obey under the commination

of hell fire, if we be slack in our duty. We are servants commanded to our task, he did the works of him that sent him, as a Prince receives the dignity of a pro∣vince from his Father, to administer it to his honour, and if he had refused it, it could not turn to his prejudice; therefore both Angels and men owe as much obe∣dience for their own part as they can perform; but the dispensation of Christs hu∣mility was not imposed, but freely undertaken, and by that vertue and title me∣ritorious. In the last place therefore, all the effects of Gods will are pleasing unto him to be done, and so it is pleasing unto God to have us humble our souls some∣times before him with fasting and mourning, but a good duty is wronged when the more rigid defenders of merit of condignity say, that there is an equivalency and proportion between the studious keeping of some appointed Fasts with other voluntary afflictions, and the reward of eternal life. Is it not enough to say that our imperfect obedience pleaseth God, and shall be rewarded according to his own promise and free grace? Will it not satisfie us to go to heaven by mere mercy, and undeserved liberality? Beware to gild your works by the name of merit (why should the ungodly make such proud boasting?) Dip them in the name of free re∣mission of sins by the bloud of Jesus Christ, and God will give glory to us his adop∣ted Sons because we give all glory to the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. AMEN.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Lib. de ami∣cit.
• * 1.2

  Eccl. iv. 10.
• * 1.3

  Lib. 3. Pol. c. 7.
• * 1.4

  Lorinus in cap. 4. Eccles.
• * 1.5

  Abulen. in cap. 4. Mat. qu. 6.
• * 1.6

  Luk. i. 2.
• * 1.7

  Maldon.
• * 1.8

  August. in Evang. Job. Serm. 41.
• * 1.9

  Musculus in hunc locum.
• * 1.10

  Ales.
• * 1.11

  Serm. de Temp. 157.
• * 1.12

  Plut. in vitâ Crass.
• * 1.13

  Ales.
• * 1.14

  Calvinus.