understand by the present instance; for it means no more but that all outward services and oblations are made acceptable by the prior presentation of an inward sacrifice. If we have first presented ourselves, then our gift is pleasant, as coming but to express the truth of the first sacrifice; but if our persons be not first made a holocaust to God, the lesser oblations of outward presents are like sacrifices without salt and fire, nothing to make them pleasant or religious. For all other senses of this proposition charge upon God the distinguishing and acceptation of persons, against which He solemnly protests: God regards no man's person, but according to the doing of his duty; but then God is said first to accept the person, and then the gift, when the person is first sanctified and given to God by the vows and habits of a holy life; and then all the actions of his religion are homogeneal to their principle, and accepted by the acceptation of the man. 11. These magi presented to the holy babe, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, protesting their faith of three articles by the symbolical oblation by gold, that He was a king; by incense, that He was a God; by myrrh, that He was a man. And the presents also were representative of interior virtues: the myrrh signifying faith, mortification, chastity, compunction, and all the actions of the purgative way of spiritual life; the incense signifying hope, prayer, obedience, good intention, and all the actions and devotions of the illuminative; the giving the gold representing love to God and our neighbours, the contempt of riches, poverty of spirit, and all the eminencies and spiritual riches of the unitive life. And these oblations if we present to the holy Jesus, both our persons and our gifts shall be accepted, our sins shall be purged, our understandings enlightened, and our wills united to this holy Child, and entitled to a communion of all His glories. 12. And thus, in one view and two instances, God hath drawn all the world to Himself by His Son Jesus, in the instance of the shepherds and the Arabian magi, Jews and gentiles, learned and unlearned, rich and poor, noble and ignoble; that in Him all nations, and all conditions, and all families, and all persons, might be blessed; having called all by one star or other, by natural reason, or by the secrets of philosophy; by the revelations of the gospel, or by the ministry of angels; by the illuminations of the Spirit, or by the sermons and dictates of spiritual fathers: and hath consigned this lesson to us, that we must never appear before the Lord empty; offering gifts to Him, by the expenses or by the affections of charity; either the worshipping or the oblations of religion, either the riches of the world 4 Nam simul terris animisque duri, Mos ubi quondam fuerat ferarum, Nunc ibi ritus viget angelorum, S. Paulinus in reditu Nicetæ. or the love of the soul: for if we cannot bring gold with the rich Arabians, we may, with the poor shepherds, come and "kiss the Son, lest He be angry;" and in all cases come and "serve Him with fear and reverence" and spiritual rejoicings. THE PRAYER. Most holy Jesu, Thou art the glory of Thy people Israel, and a light to the gentiles, and wert pleased to call the gentiles to the adoration and knowledge of Thy sacred person and laws, communicating the inestimable riches of Thy holy discipline to all, with an universal undistinguishing love; give unto us spirits docible, pious, prudent, and ductile, that no motion or invitation of grace be ineffectual, but may produce excellent effects upon us, and the secret whispers of Thy Spirit may prevail upon our affections, in order to piety and obedience, as certainly as the loudest and most clamorous sermons of the gospel. Create in us such excellencies as are fit to be presented to Thy glorious majesty; accept of the oblation of myself, and my entire services: but be Thou pleased to verify my offering, and secure the possession to Thyself, that the enemy may not pollute the sacrifice, or divide the gift, or question the title, but that I may be wholly Thine, and for ever; clarify my understanding, sanctify my will, replenish my memory with arguments of piety; then shall I present to Thee an oblation rich and precious as the treble gift of the Levantine princes. Lord, I am Thine, reject me not from Thy favour, exclude me not from Thy presence; then shall I serve Thee all the days of my life, and partake of the glories of Thy kingdom, in which Thou reignest gloriously and eternally. Amen. SECTION V. Of the circumcision of Jesus, and His presentation in the temple. 1. AND now the blessed Saviour of the world began to do the work of His mission and our redemption: and because man had prevaricated all the divine commandments, to which all human nature respectively to the persons of several capacities was obliged, and therefore the whole nature was obnoxious to the just rewards of its demerits; first Christ was to put that nature He had assumed into a saveable condition, by fulfilling His Father's preceptive will, and then to reconcile it actually by suffering the just deservings of its prevarications. He therefore addresses Himself to all the parts of an active obedience; "and when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child," He exposed His tender body to the sharpness of the circumcising stone, and shed His blood in drops, giving an earnest of those rivers which He did afterwards pour out for the cleansing all human nature, and extinguishing the wrath of God. 2. He that had no sin, nor was conceived by natural generation, could have no adherences to His soul or body which needed to be pared away by a rite and cleansed by a mystery; neither indeed do we find it expressed that circumcision was ordained for abolition or pardon of original sin; it is indeed presumed so; but it was instituted to be a seal of a covenant between God and Abraham and Abraham's posterity, "a seal of the righteousness of faith," and therefore was not improper for Him to suffer who was the child of Abraham, and who was the prince of the covenant, and "the author and finisher of that faith" which was consigned to Abraham in circumcision. But so mysterious were all the actions of Jesus, that this one served many ends: for first, it gave demonstration of the verity of human nature; secondly, so He began to fulfil the law; thirdly, and took from Himself the scandal of uncircumcision, which would eternally have prejudiced the Jews against His entertainment and communion; fourthly, and then He took upon Him that name, which declared Him to be the Saviour of the world; which, as it was consummate in the blood of the cross, so was it inaugurated in the blood of circumcision for "when the eight days were accomplished for circumcising of the child, His name was called Jesus." 3. But this holy family, who had laid up their joys in the eyes and heart of God, longed till they might be permitted an address to the temple, that there they might present the holy babe unto His Father; and indeed that He, who had no other, might be brought to His own house. For although while He was a child He did differ nothing from a servant, yet He was the lord of the place: it was His Father's house, and He was "the Lord of all:" and therefore "when the days of the purification were accomplished, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord," to whom He was holy, as being the first-born; the "first-born of His mother," the "only-begotten Son of His Father," and "the first-born of every creature:" and they "did with Him according to the law of Moses, offering a pair of turtle doves" for His redemption. 4. But there was no public act about this holy child but it was attended by something miraculous and extraordinary; and at this instant the Spirit of God directed a holy person into the temple, that he might feel the fulfilling of a prophecy made to himself, that he might before his death "behold the Lord's Christ," and embrace "the glory and consolation of Israel, and the light of the gentiles," in his arms for old "Simeon came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, then took he Ĥim : • Ος ποθ' ἑῆς πάτρης ἐξήγαγε δῖον Ἀβραὰμ, Euseb. Præp. evang. [lib. ix. cap. 22. p. 248.] up in his arms, and blessed God," and prophesied, and spake glorious things of that child, and things sad and glorious concerning His mother; that the "child was set for the rising and falling of many in Israel, for a sign that should be spoken against:" and the bitterness of that contradiction should pierce the heart of the holy Virgin-mother like a sword, that her joy at the present accidents might be tempered with present revelation of her future trouble, and the excellent favour of being the mother of God might be crowned with the reward of martyrdom, and a mother's love be raised up to an excellency great enough to make her suffer the bitterness of being transfixed with His love and sorrow, as with a sword. 5. But old Anna the prophetess came also in, full of years and joy, and found the reward of her long prayers and fasting in the temple: the long looked-for redemption of Israel was now in the temple, and she saw with her eyes the light of the world, the heir of heaven, the long looked-for Messias, whom the nations had desired and expected till their hearts were faint and their eyes dim with looking farther and apprehending greater distances. She also prophesied, "and gave thanks unto the Lord. But Joseph and His mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of Him." Ad SECTION V. Considerations upon the circumcision of the holy child Jesus. 1. WHEN eight days were come, the holy Jesus was circumcised, and shed the first fruits of His blood; offering them to God like the prelibation of a sacrifice, and earnest of the great seas of effusion designed for His passion, not for the expiation of any stain Himself had contracted; for He was spotless as the face of the sun, and had contracted no wrinkle from the aged and polluted brow of Adam: but it was an act of obedience, and yet of choice and voluntary susception, to which no obligation had passed upon Him in the condition of His own person. For as He was included in the verge of Abraham's posterity, and had put on the common outside of His nation, His parents had intimation enough to pass upon Him the sacrament of the national covenant, and it became an act of excellent obedience: but because He was a person extraordinary, and exempt from the reasons of circumcision, and Himself in person was to give period to the rite, therefore it was an act of choice in Him, and in both the capacities becomes a precedent of duty to us; in the first, of obedience; in the second, of humility. 2. But it is considerable, that the holy Jesus, who might have pleaded His exemption, especially in a matter of pain and dishonour, yet chose that way which was more severe and regular; so teaching us to be strict in our duties, and sparing in the rights of privilege and dispensation. We pretend every indisposition of body to excuse us from penal duties, from fasting, from going to church; and instantly we satisfy ourselves with saying, "God will have mercy, and not sacrifice" so making ourselves judges of our own privileges, in which commonly we are parties against God, and therefore likely to pass unequal sentence. It is not an easy argument that will bring us to the severities and rigours of duty; but we snatch at occasions of dispensation, and therefore possibly may mistake the justice of the opportunities by the importunities of our desires. However, if this too much easiness be in any case excusable from sin, yet in all cases it is an argument of infirmity, and the regular observation of the commandment is the surer way to perfection. For not every inconvenience of body is fit to be pleaded against the inconvenience of losing spiritual advantages, but only such which upon prudent account does intrench upon the laws of charity; or such whose consequent is likely to be impediment of a duty in a greater degree of loss than the present omission. For the spirit being in many perfections more eminent than the body, all spiritual improvements have the same proportions; so that if we were just estimators of things, it ought not to be less than a great incommodity to the body which we mean to prevent by the loss of a spiritual benefit, or the omission of a duty: he were very improvident who would lose a finger for the good husbandry of saving a ducat; and it would be an unhandsome excuse from the duties of repentance, to pretend care of the body. The proportions and degrees of this are so nice and of so difficult determination, that men are more apt to untie the girdle of discipline with the loose hands of dispensation and excuse, than to strain her too hard by the strictures and bindings of severity; but the error were the surer on this side. 3. The blessed Jesus refused not the signature of this bloody covenant, though it were the character of a sinner; and did sacramentally rescind the impure reliques of Adam, and the contractions of evil customs; which was the greatest descent of humility that is imaginable, that He should put Himself to pain to be reckoned amongst sinners, and to have their sacraments and their protestations, though His innocence was purer than the flames of cherubim. But we use arts to seem more righteous than we are, desiring rather to be counted holy than to be so, as thinking the vanity of reputation more useful to us than the happiness of a remote and far distant eternity. But if (as it is said) circumcision was ordained, besides the signing of the covenant, to abolish the guilt of original sin, we are willing to confess that; it being no act of humiliation to confess a crime that all the world is equally guilty of, that could not be avoided by our timeliest industry, and that serves us for so many ends in the excuse and minoration of our actual impieties: so that, as Diogenes trampled upon Plato's pride with a greater fastuousness and humorous ostentation; so we do with original sin, declaim |