Antiquitates christianæ, or, The history of the life and death of the holy Jesus as also the lives acts and martyrdoms of his Apostles : in two parts.

Ad SECT. XV. Considerations of some preparatory Accidents before the entrance of JESVS into his Passion.

[illustration]

Christ riding in triumph.

Matth. 21. 7. And they brought y^e Ass. & put on their clothes, & set him thereon; and a very great multitude spread their garments, others cut down branches from y^e trees, & strawed them in y^e way. And the multitude y^t went before, and y^t followed after, cried; Hosannah, etc.

[illustration]

Mary pouring ointment on Christ's head.

Mark. 14. 3. As he sat at meat in the house of Simon y^e leper, there came a woman having an Alabaster-box of ointment very pretious, & poured it on his head. And Jesus said, let hir alone she is come aforehand to anoint my body to y^e burying.

1. HE that hath observed the Story of the Life of Jesus, cannot but see it all the way to be strewed with thorns and sharp-pointed stones; and although by the kisses of his feet they became precious and salutary, yet they procured to him sorrow and disease: it was meat and drink to him to do his Father's will, but it was bread of affli∣ction, and rivers of tears to drink; and for these he thirsted like the earth after the cool stream. For so great was his Perfection, so exact the conformity of his Will, so abso∣lute the subordination of his inferiour Faculties to the infinite love of God, which sate Regent in the Court of his Will and Understanding, that in this election of accidents he never considered the taste, but the goodness, never distinguished sweet from bitter, but Duty and Piety always prepared his table. And therefore now knowing that his time determined by the Father was nigh, he hastened up to Jerusalem; he went before his Disciples, saith S. Mark, and they followed him trembling and amazed; and yet be∣fore that, even then when his brethren observed he had a design of publication of him∣self, he suffered them to go before him, and went up as it were in secret. For so we are in∣vited to Martyrdom, and suffering in a Christian cause by so great an example: the Ho∣ly Jesus is gone before us, and it were a holy contention to strive whose zeal were for∣wardest in the designs of Humiliation and Self-denial; but it were also well, if in do∣ing our selves secular advantage, and promoting our worldly interest, we should fol∣low him, who was ever more distant from receiving honours than from receiving a painful death. Those affections which dwell in sadness, and are married to grief, and lie at the foot of the Cross, and trace the sad steps of Jesus, have the wisdom of recol∣lection,

the tempers of sobriety, and are the best imitations of Jesus, and securities against the levity of a dispersed and a vain spirit. This was intimated by many of the Disciples of Jesus in the days of the Spirit, and when they had tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come; for then we find many ambitious of Martyr∣dom, and that have laid stratagems and designs by unusual deaths to get a Crown. The Soul of S. Laurence was so scorched with ardent desires of dying for his Lord, that he accounted the coals of his Gridiron but as a Julip or the aspersion of cold water to refresh his Soul; they were chill as the Alpine snows in respect of the heats of his diviner flames. And if these lesser Stars shine so brightly and burn so warmly, what heat of love may we suppose to have been in the Sun of Righteousness? If they went fast to∣ward the Crown of Martyrdom, yet we know that the Holy Jesus went before them all: no wonder that he cometh forth as a Eridegroom from his chamber, and rejoyceth as a giant to run his course.

2. When the Disciples had overtaken Jesus, he begins to them a sad Homily upon the old Text of Suffering, which he had well nigh for a year together preached upon; but because it was an unpleasing Lesson, so contradictory to those interests upon the hopes of which they had entertained themselves, and spent all their desires, they could by no means understand it: for an understanding prepossessed with a fancy, or an un∣handsome principle, construes all other notions to the sence of the first; and whatso∣ever contradicts it, we think it an objection, and that we are bound to answer it. But now that it concerned Christ to speak so plainly, that his Disciples by what was to hap∣pen within five or six days might not be scandalized, or believe it happened to Jesus without his knowledge and voluntary entertainment, he tells them of his Sufferings to be accomplished in this journey to Jerusalem. And here the Disciples shewed them∣selves to be but men, full of passion and indiscreet affection; and the bold Galilean, S. Peter, took the boldness to dehort his Master from so great an infelicity; and met with a reprehension so great, that neither the Scribes, nor the Pharisees, nor Herod himself ever met with its parallel: Jesus called him Satan; meaning, that no greater contradiction can be offered to the designs of God and his Holy Son, than to disswade us from Suffering. And if we understood how great are the advantages of a suffering condition, we should think all our Daggers gilt, and our pavements strewed with Ro∣ses, and our Halters silken, and the Rack an instrument of pleasure, and be most impa∣tient of those temptations which seduce us into ease, and divorce us from the Cross, as being opposite to our greatest hopes and most perfect desires. But still this humour of S. Peter's imperfection abides amongst us: He that breaks off the yoak of Obedience, and unties the bands of Discipline, and preaches a cheap Religion, and presents Hea∣ven in the midst of flowers, and strews Carpets softer than the Asian luxury in the way, and sets the songs of Sion to the tunes of Persian and lighter airs, and offers great liberty of living, and bondage under affection and sins, and reconciles Eternity with the pre∣sent enjoyment, he shall have his Schools filled with Disciples; but he that preaches the Cross, and the severities of Christianity, and the strictnesses of a holy life, shall have the lot of his Blessed Lord, he shall be thought ill of, and deserted.

3. Our Blessed Lord, five days before his Passion, sent his Disciples to a village to borrow an Asse, that he might ride in triumph to Jerusalem; he had none of his own, but yet he who was so dear to God could not want what was to supply his needs. It may be God hath laid up our portion in the repositories of other men, and means to fur∣nish us from their tables, to feed us from their granaries, and that their wardrobe shall cloath us; for it is all one to him to make a Fish bring us money, or a Crow to bring us meat, or the stable of our neighbour to furnish our needs of Beasts: if he brings it to thy need as thou wantest it, thou hast all the good in the use of the Creature which the owners can receive; and the horse which is lent me in charity does me as much ease, and the bread which is given me in alms feeds me as well, as the other part of it, which the good man that gave me a portion reserved for his own eating, could do to him. And if we would give God leave to make provisions for us in the ways of his own chusing, and not estimate our wants by our manner of receiving, being contented that God by any of his own ways will minister it to us, we should find our cares eased, and our con∣tent encreased, and our thankfulness engaged, and all our moderate desires contented by the satisfaction of our needs. For if God is pleased to feed me by my neighbour's charity, there is no other difference, but that God makes me an occasion of his ghostly good, as he is made the occasion of my temporal; and if we think it disparagement, we may remember that God conveys more good to him by me, than to me by him: and it is a proud impatience to refuse or to be angry with God's provisions, because he hath not observed my circumstances and ceremonies of election.

4. And now begins that great Triumph in which the Holy Jesus was pleased to ex∣alt his Office, and to abase his Person. He rode like a poor man upon an Asse, a beast of burthen and the lowest value, and yet it was not his own; and in that equipage he received the acclamations due to a mighty Prince, to the Son of the eternal King: tel∣ling us, that the smallness of fortune, and the rudeness of exteriour habiliments, and a rough wall, are sometimes the outsides of a great glory; and that when God means to glorifie or do honour to a person, he needs no help from secular advantages. He hides great Riches in Renunciation of the World, and makes great Honour break forth from the clouds of Humility, and Victory to arise from Yielding and the modesty of departing from our interest, and Peace to be the reward of him that suffers all the Ho∣stilities of men and Devils. For Jesus in this great Humility of his gives a great proba∣tion that he was the Messias, and the King of Sion, because no other King entred into those gates riding upon an Asse, and received the honour of Hosannah in that unlikeli∣hood and contradiction of unequal circumstances.

5. The Blessed Jesus had never but two days of triumph in his life; the one was on his 〈◊〉〈◊〉 upon mount Tabor, the other, this his riding into the Holy City. But that it may appear how little were his joys and present exteriour complacencies; in the day of his Transfiguration Moses & Elias appeared to him, telling him what great things he was to suffer; and in this day of his riding to Jerusalem he wet the Palms with a dew sweeter than the moistures upon mount Hermon or the drops of Manna: for, to allay the little warmth of a springing joy, he let down a shower of tears, weep∣ing over undone Jerusalem in the day of his triumph, leaving it disputable whether he felt more joy or sorrow in the acts of love; for he triumphed to consider that the Re∣demption of the world was so near, and wept bitterly that men would not be redeem∣ed; his joy was great to consider that himself was to suffer so great sadness for our good, and his sorrow was very great to consider that we would not entertain that Good that he brought and laid before us by his Passion. He was in figure, as his servant S. 〈◊〉〈◊〉 was afterwards in letter and true story, crucified upon Palms: which indeed was* 1.1 the emblem of a Victory; but yet such as had leaves sharp, poinant, and vexatious. However, he entred into Jerusalem dressed in gayeties, which yet he placed under his feet; but with such pomps and solemnities each Family, according to its proportion, was accustomed to bring the Paschal Lamb to be slain for the Passeover: and it was not an undecent ceremony, that the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world should be brought to his slaughter with the acknowledgments of a religious solemnity, because now that real good was to be exhibited to the world which those little Paschal Lambs did but signifie and represent in shadow: and that was the true cause of all the little joy he had.

6. And if we consider what followed, it might seem also to be a design to heighten the dolorousness of his Passion: for to descend from the greatest of worldly honours, from the adoration of a GOD, and the acclamations to a King, to the death of a Slave, and the torments of a Cross, and the dishonours of a condemned Criminal, were so great stoopings and vast changes that they gave height and sense and excellency to each other. This then seemed an excellent glory, but indeed was but an art and instrument of grief: for such is the nature of all our Felicities, they end in sadness, and increase the sting of sorrows, and add moment to them, and cause impatience and uncomfort∣able remembrances; but the griefs of a Christian, whether they be instances of Re∣pentance, or parts of Persecution, or exercises of Patience, end in joy and endless comfort. Thus Jesus, like a Rainbow, half made of the glories of light, and half of the moisture of a cloud, half triumph, and half sorrow, entred into that Town where he had done much good to others, and to himself received nothing but affronts: yet his tenderness encreased upon him, and that very journey, which was Christ's last solemn visit for their recovery, he doubled all the instruments of his Mercy and their Conver∣sion: He rode in triumph, the 〈◊〉〈◊〉 sang Hosannah to him, he cured many diseased persons, he wept for them, and pitied them, and sighed out the intimations of a Pray∣er, and did penance for their ingratitude, and stayed all day there, looking about him towards evening, and no man would invite him home, but he was forced to go to Be∣thany, where he was sure of an hospitable entertainment. I think no Christian that reads this but will be full of indignation at the whole City, who for malice or for fear would not or durst not receive their Saviour into their houses; and yet we do worse: for now that he is become our Lord with mightier demonstrations of his eternal power, we suffer him to look round about upon us for months and years together, and possibly never entertain him, till our house is ready to rush upon our heads, and we are going to

unusual and stranger habitations. And yet in the midst of a populous and mutinous City this great King had some good subjects, persons that threw away their own gar∣ments, and laid them at the feet of our Lord; that being devested of their own, they might be re-invested with a robe of his Righteousness, wearing that till it were chang∣ed into a stole of glory: the very ceremony of their reception of the Lord became sym∣bolical to them, and expressive of all our duties.

7. But I consider that the Blessed Jesus had affections not less than infinite towards all mankind; and he who wept upon Jerusalem, who had done so great despight to him, and within five days were to fill up the measure of their iniquities, and do an act which all Ages of the world could never repeat in the same instance, did also in the number of his tears reckon our sins as sad considerations and incentives of his sorrow. And it would well become us to consider what great evil we do, when our actions are such as for which our Blessed Lord did weep. He who was seated in the bosom of Feli∣city, yet he moistened his 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Lawrels upon the day of his Triumph with tears of love and bitter allay. His day of Triumph was a day of Sorrow: and if we would weep for our sins, that instance of sorrow would be a day of triumph and 〈◊〉〈◊〉.

8. From hence the Holy Jesus went to Pethany, where he had another manner of re∣ception than at the Holy City. There he supped; for his goodly day of Triumph had been with him a fasting-day. And Mary Magdalen, who had spent one box of Nard pistick upon our Lord's feet as a sacrifice of Eucharist for her Conversion, now bestowed another in thankfulness for the restitution of her Brother Lazarus to life, and consigned her Lord unto his Burial. And here she met with an evil interpreter: 〈◊〉〈◊〉, an Apostle one of the Lord's own Family, pretended it had been a better Religion to have given it to the poor; but it was Malice, and the spirit either of Envy or Avarice, in him that passed that sentence; for he that sees a pious action well done, and seeks to undervalue it by telling how it might have been better, reproves nothing but his own spirit. For a man may do very well, and God would accept it; though to say he might have done better, is to say only that action was not the most perfect and absolute in its kind: but to be angry at a religious person, and without any other pretence but that he might have done better, is spiritual Envy; for a pious person would have nourished up that infant action by love and praise, till it had grown to the most perfect and intel∣ligent Piety. But the event of that man gave the interpretation of his present purpose; and at the best it could be no other than a rash judgment of the action and intention of a religious, thankful, and holy person. But she found her Lord, who was her 〈◊〉〈◊〉 in this, become her Patron and her Advocate. And hereafter, when we shall find the Devil, the great Accuser of God's Saints, object against the Piety and Religion of holy persons; a cup of cold water shall be accepted unto reward, and a good intention heightned to the value of an exteriour expression, and a piece of gum to the equality of a 〈◊〉〈◊〉, and an action done with great zeal and an intense love be acquitted from all its adherent imperfections; Christ receiving them into himself, and being like the Altar of incense, hallowing the very smoak, and raising it into a flame, and enter∣taining it into the embraces of the firmament and the bosom of Heaven. Christ himself, who is the Judge of our actions, is also the entertainer and object of our Charity and Duty, and the Advocate of our persons.

9. Judas, who declaimed against the woman, made tacite reflexions upon his Lord for suffering it: and indeed every obloquy against any of Christ's servants is looked on as an arrow shot into the heart of Christ himself. And now a Persecution being begun against the Lord within his own Family, another was raised against him from without. For the chief Priests took crafty counsel against Jesus and called a Consistory to contrive how they might destroy him: and here was the greatest representment of the goodness of God and the ingratitude of man that could be practised or understood. How often had Jesus poured forth tears for them? how many sleepless nights had he awaked to do them advantage? how many days had he spent in Homilies and admirable visitations of Mercy and Charity, in casting out Devils, in curing their sick, in correcting their delinquencies, in reducing them to the ways of security and peace, and, that we may use the greatest expression in the world, that is, his own in gathering them as a Hen ga∣thereth her Chickens under her wings, to give them strength, and warmth, and life, and ghostly nourishment? And the chief Priests together with their faction use all arts and watch all opportunities to get Christ, not that they might possess him, but to de∣stroy him; little considering that they extinguish their own eyes, and destroy that spring of life which was intended to them for a blissful immortality.

10. And here it was that the Devil shewed his promptness to furnish every evil-in∣tended person with apt instruments to act the very worst of his intentions: the Devil knew their purposes, and the aptness and proclivity of Judas; and by bringing these together he served their present design, and his own great intendment. The Devil never fails to promote every evil purpose; and, except where God's restaining grace does in∣tervene and interrupt the opportunity, by interposition of different and cross accidents to serve other ends of Providence, no man easily is fond of wickedness, but he shall re∣ceive enough to ruine him. Indeed Nero and Julian, both witty men and powerfull, desired to have been Magicians, and could not: and although possibly the Devil would have corresponded with them, who yet were already his own in all degrees of security; yet God permitted not that, lest they might have understood new ways of doing de∣spight to Martyrs and 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Christians. And it concerns us not to tempt God, or in∣vite a forward enemy: for as we are sure the Devil is ready to promote all vicious de∣sires, and bring them out to execution; so we are not sure that God will not permit him; and he that desires to be undone, and cares not to be prevented by God's restraining grace, shall finde his ruine in the folly of his own desires, and become wretched by his own election. Judas, hearing of this Congregation of the Priests, went and offer∣ed to betray his Lord, and made a Covenant, the Price of which was Thirty Pieces of Silver, and he returned.

11. It is not intimated in the History of the Life of Jesus, that Judas had any Malice against the Person of Christ; for when afterwards he saw the matter was to end in the death of his Lord, he repented: but a base and unworthy spirit of Covetousness posses∣sed him; and the reliques of 〈◊〉〈◊〉 for missing the Price of the Ointment which the holy Magdalen had poured upon his feet burnt in his bowels with a secret dark me∣lancholick 〈◊〉〈◊〉 and made an eruption into an act which all ages of the world could ne∣ver parallel. They appointed him for hire thirty pieces, and some say that every piece did in value equal ten ordinary current Deniers; and so Judas was satisfied by receiving the worth of the three hundred pence at which he valued the Nard pistick. But here∣after let no Christian be ashamed to be despised and undervalued; for he will hardly meet so great a reproach as to have so disproportioned a price set upon his life as was up∣on the Holy Jesus. S. Mary 〈◊〉〈◊〉 thought it not good enough to aneal his sacred feet, Judas thought it a sufficient price for his head: for Covetousness aims at base and low purchaces, whilest holy Love is great and comprehensive as the bosome of Heaven, and aims at nothing that is less than infinite. The love of God is a holy fountain, limpid and pure, sweet and salutary, lasting and eternal: the love of Mony is a vertiginous pool sucking all into it to destroy it; it is troubled and uneven, giddy and unsafe, serving no end but its own, and that also in a restless and uneasie motion. The love of God spends it self upon him, to receive again the reflexions of grace and benediction: the love of Mo∣ney spends all its desires upon it sell, to purchase nothing but unsatisfying instruments of exchange, or supernumerary provisions, and ends in dissatisfaction, and emptiness of spi∣rit, and a bitter curse. S. Mary Magdalen was defended by her Lord against calumny, and rewarded with an honourable mention to all Ages of the Church; besides the unction from above, which she shortly after received to consign her to crowns and sceptres: but Judas was described in the Scripture, the Book of life, with the black character of death, he was disgraced to eternal Ages, and presently after acted his own tragedy with a sad and ignoble death.

12. Now, all things being fitted, our Blessed Lord sends two Disciples to prepare the Passeover, that he might fulfill the Law of Moses, and pass from thence to institutions Evangelical, and then fulfill his Sufferings. Christ gave them a sign to guide them to the house, a man bearing a pitcher of water; by which some, that delight in mystical signi∣fications, say was typified the Sacrament of Baptism: meaning, that although by occa∣sion of the Paschal solemnity the holy Eucharist was first instituted, yet it was after∣wards to be applied to practice according to the sence of this accident; only baptized persons were apt suscipients of the other more perfective Rite, as the taking nutriment supposes persons born into the world, and within the common conditions of humane na∣ture. But in the letter it was an instance of the Divine omniscience, who could pro∣nounce concerning accidents at distance as if they were present: and yet also, like the provision of the Colt to ride on, it was an instance of Providence, and security of all God's sons for their portion of temporals. Jesus had not a Lamb of his own, and possi∣bly no money in the bags to buy one: and yet Providence was his guide, and the cha∣rity of a good man was his Proveditore, and he found excellent conveniences in the en∣tertainments of a hospitable good man, as if he had dwelt in Ahab's Ivory-house, and had had the riches of Solomon, and the meat of his houshold.

Notes

• * 1.1

  〈◊◊〉〈◊◊〉 vi∣ctorum, palmae 〈◊◊〉〈◊◊〉 es; ergd Laetus obi, quoniam 〈◊〉〈◊〉 nisi victor 〈◊〉〈◊〉.