PART II.

7 Dio Hist.

Rom. lib. 55.

And Jesus returning to Capernaum received the address of a faithful centurion of the legion called the iron legion (which usually quartered in Judea) in behalf of his servant, whom he loved, and who was grievously afflicted with the palsy, and healed him as a reward and honour to his faith. And from thence going into the city Nain, he raised to life the only son of a widow whom the mourners followed in the street, bearing the corpse sadly to his funeral. Upon the fame of these and divers other miracles, John the Baptist who was still in prison (for he was not put to death till the latter end of this year) sent two of his disciples to him by divine providence, or else by John's designation, to minister occasion of his greater publication, inquiring if he was the Messias. To whom Jesus returned no answer, but a demonstration taken from the nature of the thing, and the glory of the miracles, saying, Return to John, and tell him what ye see; Isa. xxxv. 5,6. for The deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the lepers are cleansed, and to the poor the gospel

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is preached; which were the characteristic notes of the Messias according to the predictions of the holy prophets.

When John's disciples were gone with this answer, Jesus began to speak concerning John, of the austerity and holiness of his person, the greatness of his function, the divinity of his commission, saying that he was greater than a prophet, a burning and shining light, the Elias that was to come, and the consummation, or ending of the old prophets; adding withal, that the perverseness of that age was most notorious in the entertainment of himself and the Baptist; for neither could the Baptist, who came neither eating nor drinking (that by his austerity and mortified deportment he might invade the judgment and affections of the people,) nor Jesus, who came both eating and drinking, (that by a moderate and an affable life framed to the compliance and common use of men he might sweetly insinuate into the affections of the multitude) could obtain belief amongst them. They could object against every thing, but nothing could please them. But wisdom and righteousness had a theatre in its own family, and is justified of all her children. Then he proceeds to a more applied reprehension of Capernaum, and Chorazin, and Bethsaida for being pertinacious in their sins and infidelity, in defiance and reproof of all the mighty works, which had been wrought in them; but these things were not revealed to all dispositions;

the wise and the mighty of the world were not subjects pre- PART III. pared for the simplicity and softer impresses of the gospel, and the downright severity of its sanctions. And therefore Jesus glorified God for the magnifying of his mercy, in that these things which were hid from the great ones, were revealed to babes; and concludes this sermon with an invitation of all wearied, and disconsolate persons loaded with sin and misery, to come to him, promising ease to their burdens, and refreshment to their weariness, and to exchange their heavy pressures into an easy yoke and a light burden.

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When Jesus had ended this sermon, one of the pharisees named Simon invited him to eat with him, into whose house, when he was entered, a certain woman that was a sinner, abiding there in the city, heard of it, her name was Mary; she had been married to a noble personage, a native of the town and castle of Magdal, from whence she had her name of Magdalen, though she herself was born in Bethany; a widow she was, and prompted by her wealth, liberty, and youth to an intemperate life, and too free entertainments. She came to Jesus into the pharisee's house; not (as did the staring multitude) to glut her eyes with the sight of a miraculous and glorious person; nor (as did the centurion, or the Syrophoenician, or the ruler of the synagogue) for the cure of her sickness, or in behalf of her friend, or child, or servant, but (the only example of so coming) she came in remorse and regret for her sins, she came to Jesus to lay her burden at his feet, and to present him with a broken heart, and a weeping eye, and great affection, and a box of nard pistic salutary and precious. For she came trembling and fell down before him, weeping bitterly for her sins, pouring out a flood great enough to wash the feet of the blessed Jesus, and wiping them with the hairs of her head; after which she brake the box and anointed his feet with ointment, which expression was so great an ecstasy of love, sorrow, and adoration, that to anoint the feet even of the greatest monarch was long unknown, and in all the pomps and greatnesses of the Roman prodigality it was not used till Plin. Natur. Otho taught it to Nero, in whose instance it was by Pliny reckoned for a prodigy of unnecessary profusion, and in itself without the circumstance of so free a dispensation, it was a present for a prince, and an alabaster box of nard pistic was sent as a present from Cambyses to the king of Ethiopia. When Simon observed this sinner so busy in the expresses

Hist. lib. 13.

c. 3.

Vide Athenæ. Deipnosoph. 12. c. 30.

1.

Herodotus in
Thalia.

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PART III. of her religion and veneration to Jesus, he thought with himself that this was no prophet, that did not know her to be a sinner, or no just person that would suffer her to touch him. For although the Jews' religion did permit harlots of their own nation to live, and enjoy the privileges of the nation, save that their oblations were refused; yet the pharisees, who pretended to a greater degree of sanctity than others, would not admit them to civil usages, or the benefits of ordinary society; and thought religion itself and the honour of a prophet was concerned in the interests of the same superciliousness, and therefore made an objection within himself; which Jesus knowing (for he understood his thoughts as well as his words) made her apology and his own, in a civil question expressed in a parable of two debtors, to whom a greater and a less debt respectively was forgiven, both of them concluding, that they would love their merciful creditor in proportion for his mercy and donative; and this was the case of Mary Magdalen, to whom because much was forgiven she loved much, and expressed it in characters so large, that the pharisee might read his own incivilities, and inhospitable entertainment of the master, when it stood confronted with the magnificency of Mary Magdalen's penance and charity.

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When Jesus had dined he was presented with the sad sight of a poor demoniac, possessed with a blind and a dumb devil, in whose behalf his friends entreated Jesus that he would cast the devil out, which he did immediately, and the blind man saw, and the dumb spake, so much to the amazement of the people, that they ran in so prodigious companies after him, and so scandalized the pharisees, who thought that by means of this prophet their reputation would be lessened, and their schools empty, that first a rumour was scattered up and down from an uncertain principle, but communicated with tumult and apparent noises, that Jesus was beside himself. Upon which rumour his friends and kindred came together to see, and to make provisions accordingly, and the holy virgin-mother came herself, but without any apprehensions of any such horrid accident. The words and things she had from the beginning laid up in her heart would furnish her with principles exclusive of all apparitions of such fancies; but she came to see what that persecution was, which under that colour it was likely the pharisees might commence.

When the mother of Jesus and his kindred came, they

found him in a house encircled with people full of wonder PART III. and admiration; and there the holy virgin mother might hear part of her own prophecy verified, that the generations of the earth should call her blessed; for a woman worshipping Jesus cried out, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and

the paps that gave thee suck. To this Jesus replied, not de

nying her to be highly blessed who had received the honour of being the mother of the Messias, but advancing the dignities of spiritual excellencies far above this greatest temporal honour in the world, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and do it. For in respect of the issues of spiritual perfections and their proportionable benedictions, all immunities and temporal honours are empty and hollow blessings, and all relations of kindred disband and empty themselves into the greater channels and floods of divinity.

For when Jesus being in the house, they told him his mother and his brethren staid for him without, he told them those relations were less than the ties of duty and religion; for those dear names of mother and brethren, which are hallowed by the laws of God and the endearments of nature, are made far more sacred when a spiritual cognation does supervene, when the relations are subjected in persons religious and holy; but if they be abstract and separate, the conjunction of persons in spiritual bands, in the same faith, and the same hope, and the union of them in the same mystical head, is an adunation nearer to identity than those distances between parents and children, which are only cemented by the actions of nature, as it is of distinct consideration from the spirit; for Jesus, pointing to his disciples, said, Behold my mother and my brethren ; for whosoever doth the will of my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.

But the Pharisees upon the occasion of the miracles renewed the old quarrel, he cast out devils by Beelzebub; which senseless and illiterate objection Christ having confuted, charged them highly upon the guilt of an unpardonable crime, telling them that the so charging those actions of his, done in the virtue of the Divine Spirit, is a sin against the Holy Ghost; and however they might be bold with the Son of Man, and prevarications against his words, or injuries to his person might upon repentance and baptism find a pardon, yet it was a matter of greater consideration to sin against

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PART III. the Holy Ghost, that would find no pardon here nor hereafter. But taking occasion upon this discourse, he by an ingenious and mysterious parable gives the world great caution of recidivation and backsliding after repentance. For if the devil returns into a house once swept and garnished, he bringeth seven spirits more impure than himself, and the last estate of that man is worse than the first.

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After this, Jesus went from the house of the Pharisee, and coming to the sea of Tiberias or Genesareth, (for it was called Tiberias from a town on the banks of the lake,) taught the people upon the shore, himself sitting in the ship, but he taught them by parables, under which were hid mysterious senses, which shined through their veil like a bright sun through an eye closed with a thin eyelid: it being light enough to shew their infidelity, but not to dispel those thick Egyptian darknesses which they had contracted by their habitual indispositions and pertinacious aversations. By the parable of the sower scattering his seed by the way side, and some on stony, some on thorny, some on good ground, he intimated the several capacities or indispositions of men's hearts; the carelessness of some, the frowardness and levity of others, the easiness and softness of a third, and how they are spoiled with worldliness and cares, and how many ways there are to miscarry, and that but one sort of men receive the word, and bring forth the fruits of a holy life. By the parable of tares permitted to grow amongst the wheat, he intimates the toleration of dissenting opinions not destructive of piety or civil societies. By the three parables of the seed growing insensibly, of the grain of mustard seed swelling up to a tree, of a little leaven qualifying the whole lump, he signified the increment of the Gospel, and the blessings upon the Apostolical sermons.

Which parables, when he had privately to his Apostles rendered into their proper senses, he added to them two parables concerning the dignity of the Gospel, comparing it to treasure hid in a field, and a jewel of great price, for the purchase of which every good merchant must quit all that he hath rather than miss it; telling them withal, that however purity and spiritual perfections were intended by the Gospel, yet it would not be acquired by every person; but the public professors of Christianity should be a mixed multitude, like a net enclosing fishes good and bad. After which