How was this Baptist was a credible person amongst them. credit acquired? It seemeth John Baptist did no miracles; whether he did or no, is not a clear case; for that which is said, (John Baptist did no miracles®) is said not by the Evangelist himself; St. John doth not say, that John Baptist did no miracles; but those that resorted to him at that place, said that (He doth no miracles') for they had seen none. If he did none, that reason may be good enough, ne æqualis Christo putaretur, it was forborne in him, that he might appear to be inferior to Christ. And, if he did none, yet there were miracles done by him. The reformation of manners, and bringing men to repentance, is a miracle. It is a less miracle to raise a man from a sick bed, than to hold a man from a wanton bed, a licentious bed; less to overcome and quench his fever, than to quench his lust. Joseph that refused his mistress was a greater miracle than Lazarus raised from the dead. Of these resurrections, we have divers examples, Joseph's case (I think) is singular. There were miracles done so, by John Baptist preaching to others; and there were miracles done upon himself; and early; for his springing in his mother's womb, was a miracle; and a miracle done for others; Significatio rei à majoribus cognoscendæ, non à minori cognita1; The child catechised his elders, in that which himself understood not; that is, the presence of his Saviour, in the virgin then present, Divinitus in infante, non humanitus ab infante, says the same father; It was not a joy, and exultation in the child, but an institution, an instruction to the rest. But miracle or no miracle is not our issue; witnesses for Christ, require not wonder, but belief; we pretend not miracles, but propose God's ordinary means; we look not for admiration, but assent. And therefore forbear your acclamations and expectations of wonderful good preachers, and admirable good sermons. It was enough for John Baptist that even they confessed, that all that he said was true. Content thyself with truths, evident truths, fundamental truths, let matter of wonder and admiration alone. He was a witness competent to them for his truth, and integrity, and he was so also for the outward holiness of his life; which, for the present, we consider only in the strict and austere 'Aquinas. 10 Augustine. 8 John x. 41. manner of living, that he embraced. For, certainly, he that uses no fasting, no discipline, no mortification, exposes himself to many dangers in himself, and to a cheap and vulgar estimation amongst others. Caro mea jumentum meum, says St. Augustine, My body is the horse I ride; iter ago in Jerusalem, my business lies at Jerusalem; thither I should ride; de via conatur excutere, my horse over-pampered casts me upon the way, or carries me out of the way; non cohibebo jejunio, says he; must not that be my way, to bring him to a gentle riding, and more command, by lessening his proportions of provender? St. Augustine means the same that St. Paul preached, I beat down my body, says he, and bring it in subjection"; and, (as Paulinus reads that place) Lividum reddo, I make my body black and blue; white and red were not St. Paul's colours. St. Paul was at this time departed, (in outward profession) from the sect of the Pharisees, and from their ostentations of doing their disciplines in the sight and for the praise of man; but yet, being become a Christian he left not his austerity; and it is possible for us, to leave the leaven of the Papist, the opinion of merit, and supererogation, and doing more than we are bound to do in the ways of godliness, and yet nourish our souls, with that wholesome bread of taming our bodies. St. Paul had his disciplines, his mortifications; he tells us so, but he does not tell us what they were; lest perchance a reverence to his person, and example, might bind misdevout men, to do punctually as St. Paul did. The same rule cannot serve all; but the same reason may. The institution of friars under a certain rule, that all of them, just at this time, shall do just thus, cannot be a rule of justice; but the general doctrine, that everybody needs at some times, some helps, some means, is certainly true. Shall the riotous, the voluptuous man stay till this something be a surfeit or a fever? It is true, this surfeit and this fever, will subdue the body, but then thou doest it not. Shall a lascivious wanton stay, till a consumption, or such contagious diseases as shall make him unsociable, and so, unable to exercise his sin, subdue his body? These can do it, but this is perimere, non subjugare12, not a subduing of the body alone, but a destroying of body and soul together. Moderate disciplines subdue the body, as under the government of a king, a father of his people, that governs them by a law. But when the body comes to be subdued, by pains, and anguish, and loathsome diseases, this becomes a tyranny, a conquest; and he that comes in by conquest, imposes what laws he will; so that these subduings of the body brought in by sin, may work in us, an obduration; we shall feel them, but not discern the hand of God in them; or, if his hand, yet not his hand to that purpose, to relieve us, but to seal our condemnation to us. Beloved, because our adversaries of the Roman heresy, have erroneously made a pattern for their eremitical and monastical life in John Baptist, and coloured their idleness, by his example; some of the Reformation have bent a little too far the other way, and denied, that there was any such austerity in the life of St. John, as is ordinarily conceived: they say that his conversation in the desert, may well be understood to have been but a withdrawing of himself from public and civil businesses, home to his father's house; for his father dwelt in that desert, and thither went Mary to salute Elizabeth 13. And Joab had his house in this desert"; and in this desert are reckoned five or six good towns"; so that indeed it was no such savage solitude as they fancy. But yet, for a son of such parents, an only son, so miraculously afforded them, to pass on with that apparel, and that diet, is certainly remarkable, and an evidence of an extraordinary austerity, and an argument of an extraordinary sanctity. Especially to the Jews it was so; amongst them this austerity of life, and abstaining from those things which other men embraced, procured ordinarily a great estimation; we know that amongst them, the Essæi, a severe sect, had a high reverence": they did not marry, they did not eat flesh, they did not ease themselves by servants, but did all their own work, they used no propriety, they possessed nothing, called nothing their own; Vicatim habitant, et urbes fugiunt, they forsake all great towns, and dwell in villages; and yet, flying the world, they drew the world so much after them, as that it is noted with wonder, per sæculorum millia gens æterna, in qua nemo nascitur 18; that there 13 Luc. i. 40. 16 Joseph. 141 Kings ii. 23. 17 Philo Jud. 15 Jos. xv. 61. was an eternal nation, that had lasted many generations, and yet never born amongst them; Jam fæcunda illis aliorum vita pænitentia, for, every man that was crossed or wearied in his own course of life, applied himself to their sect and manner of living, as the only way to heaven. And Josephus writing his own life and forwardness, and pregnancy, (perchance a little too favourably or gloriously in his own behalf, to be thoroughly believed; for he saith, that when he was but fourteen years old, the greatest doctors of the law, came to him to learn penitiorem sensum juris, the secretest mysteries of the law; and their law, was divinity) thought himself unperfect till he had spent some time, in the strictness of all the three sects of the Jews; and after he had done all that, he spent three years more, with one Bannus an hermit, who lived in the wilderness, upon herbs and roots, John Baptist's austerity of life made him a competent and credible witness to them, who had such austerity in estimation. And truly, he that will any way be a witness for Christ, that is, glorify him, he must endeavour, even by this outward holiness of life, to be acceptable to good men. Vox populi, vox Dei, the general voice is seldom false; so also Oculi populi, oculi Dei, in this case God looketh upon man, as man doth; Singuli decipi et decipere possunt, one man may deceive another, and be deceived by another; Nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellerunt, no man ever deceived all the world, nor did all the world ever join to deceive one man. The general opinion, the general voice, is for the most part, good evidence, with, or against a man. Every one of us is ashamed of the praise and attestation of one, whom all the world besides, taketh to be dishonest; so will Christ be ashamed of that witness, that seeketh not the good opinion of good men. When I see a Jesuit solicit the chastity of a daughter of the house, where he is harboured, and after knowledge taken by the parents, upon her complaint, excuse it with saying, that he did it but to try her, and to be the better assured of her religious constancy; when I see a Jesuit conceal and foment a powder treason, and say he had it but in confession, and then see these men to proclaim themselves to be martyrs, witnesses for Christ in the highest degree; I say still, the devil may be a witness, but I ground not my faith upon that testimony: a competent witness must be an honest man. This competency John Baptist had, the good opinion of good men; and then, he had the seal of all, Missus est, he had his commission, he was sent to bear witness of that light. Though this word missus est, he was sent, be not literally in the text here, yet it is necessarily implied, and therefore providently supplied by the translators in this verse, and before in the sixth verse, it is literally expressed, There was a man sent from God, whose name was John, The law saith, concerning witnesses, Qui se ingerunt et offerunt suspecti habentur, Those that offer their testimony before they be cited, are suspicious witnesses. Therefore they must have a mission, a sending. For, by St. Paul's rule, How can they preach except they be sent ? Preach they may; but how? with what success, what effect, what blessing? So that the good success of John Baptist's preaching, (for, the multitudes, The people came to him; and not light people carried about with every wind of rumour and noise, and novelty, but Pharisees, and Sadducees", men of learning, of sadness and gravity; and not only scholars affected with subtleties, but, publicans too22, men intent upon the world; and other men, whose very profession submits them to many occasions of departing from the strict rules, which regularly bind other men, and therefore may be in some things, (which taste of injustice) more excusable than other men; The soldiers likewise came to him, and said, What shall we do? This his working upon all sorts of men, the blessing that accompanied his labours, was a subsequent argument of his mission, that he was sent by God, God himself argues against them, that were not sent, so, They were not sent, for they have done no good. I have not sent those prophets, saith the Lord, yet they ran, I have not spoken to them, and yet they prophesied; but, if they had stood in my counsel, then they should hove turned the people from their evil ways, and from the wickedness of their inventions. This note God lays upon them, to whom he affords this vocation of his internal spirit, that though others which come without any calling, may gather men in corners, and in conventicles, and work upon their affections and 21 Matt. iii. 7. 23 Jer. xxiii. 21. 19 Rom. x. 15. 20 Luc. iii. 7. |