How graciously doth Jesus still prevent | There must be no more haste than good the publican, as in his sight, notice, com- speed in our performances: we may offend pellation, so in his invitation too! That as well in our heady acceleration, as in our other publican, Levi, bade Christ to his delay. Moses ran so fast down the hill, house, but it was after Christ had bidden that he stumbled spiritually, and brake the him to his discipleship. Christ had never tables of God: we may so fast follow after been called to his feast, if Levi had not justice, that we outrun charity. It is an been called into his family. He loved us unsafe obedience that is not discreetly and first, he must first call us; for he calls us leisurely speedful. out of love. As in the general calling of Christianity, if he did not say, "Seek ye my face," we could never say, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek:" so, in the specialities of our main benefits or employments, Christ must begin to us. If we invite ourselves to him, before he invite himself to us, the undertaking is presumptuous, the success unhappy. If Nathanael, when Christ named him, and gave him the memorial-token of his being under the fig-tree, could say, "Thou art the son of God;" how could Zaccheus do less in hearing himself upon this wild fig-tree named by the same lips? How must he needs think, if he knew not all things, he could not know me; and if he knew not the hearts of men, he could not have known my secret desires to entertain him? He is a God that knows me, and a merciful God that invites himself to me: no marvel, therefore, if, upon this thought, Zaccheus came down in haste. Our Saviour said not, Take thy leisure, Zaccheus, but, "I will abide at thine own house today." Neither did Zaccheus, upon this intimation, sit still and say, When the press is over, when I have done some errands of my office; but he hastes down to receive Jesus. The notice of such a guest would have quickened his speed without a command: God loves not slack and lazy executions. The angels of God are described with wings, and we pray to do his will with their forwardness: yea, even to Judas, Christ saith, "What thou dost, do quickly." O Saviour, there is no day wherein thou dost not call us by the voice of thy gospel. What do we still lingering in the sycamore? How unkindly must thou needs take the delays of our conversion! Certainly, had Zaccheus staid still in the tree, thou hadst baulked his house as unworthy of thee. What construction canst thou make of our wilful dilations, but as a stubborn contempt? how canst thou but come to us in vengeance, if we come not down to entertain thee in a thankful obedience? Yet do I not hear thee say, Zaccheus, cast thyself down for haste (this was the counsel of the tempter to thee), but, "Come down in haste," and he did accordingly. The speed of his descent was not more than the alacrity of his entertainment: "He made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully." The life of hospitality is cheerfulness: let our cheer be never so great, if we do not read our welcome in our friend's face, as well as in his dishes, we take no pleasure in it. Can we marvel that Zaccheus received Christ joyfully? Who would not have been glad to have his house, yea, himself, made happy with such a guest? Had we been in the stead of this publican, how would our hearts have leaped within us for joy of such a presence? How many thousand miles are measured by some devout Christians, only to see the place where his feet stood? how much happier must he needs think himself, that owns the roof that receives him? But, O the incomparable happiness, then, of that man whose heart receives him, not for a day, not for years of days, not for millions of years, but for eternity! This may be our condition, if we be not straitened in our own bowels. O Saviour, do thou welcome thyself to these houses of clay, that we may receive a joyful welcome to thee in those everlasting habitations. Zaccheus was not more glad of Christ, than the Jews were discontented. Four vices met here at once; envy, scrupulousness, ignorance, pride: their eye was evil, because Christ's was good. I do not hear any of them invite Christ to his home, yet they snarl at the honour of this unworthy host: they thought it too much happiness for a sinner, which themselves willingly neglected to sue for. Wretched men! they cannot see the mercy of Christ, for being bleared with the happiness of Zaccheus ; yea, that very mercy which they see torments them. If that viper be the deadliest which feeds the sweetest, how poisonous must this disposition needs be, that feeds upon grace! What a contrariety there is betwixt good angels and evil men! the angels rejoice at that whereat men pout and stomach; men are ready to cry and burst for anger, at that which makes music in heaven. O wicked and foolish elder brother, that feeds on hunger and his own heart without doors, because his younger brother is feasting on the fat calf within! so did they note Zaccheus for a sinner, as if themselves had been none; his sins were written in his forehead, theirs in their breast: the presumption of their secrecy makes them insult upon his notoriousness. The smoke of pride still flies upward, and, in the mounting, vanisheth: contrition beats it down, and fetches tears from the tender eyes. There are stage sins, and there are closet sins: these may not upbraid the other; they may be more heinous, though less manifest. It is a dangerous vanity to look outward at other men's sins with scorn, when we have more need to cast our eyes inward to see our own with humiliation. Thus they stumbled, and fell; but Zaccheus stood: all their malicious murmur could not dishearten his piety and joy in the entertaining of Christ. Before, Zac Besides envy, they stand scrupulously upon the terms of traditions. These sons of the earth might not be conversed with; their threshold was unclean: "Touch me not, for I am holier than thou." That he, therefore, who went for a prophet, should go to the house of a publican and sinner, must needs be a great eyesore. They that might not go in to a sinner, cared not what sins entered into themselves; the true cousins of those hypocrites, who held it a pollution to go into the judgment hall, no pollution to murder the Lord of life. There cannot be a greater argument of, a false heart, than to stumble at these straws, and to leap over the blocks of gross impiety. Well did our Saviour know how heinously offensive it would be to turn in to this pub-cheus lay down as a sinner; now, he stands lican; he knows, and regards it not: a soul is to be won; what cares he for idle misconstruction? Morally good actions must not be suspended upon danger of causeless scandal. In things indifferent and arbitrary, it is fit to be overruled by fear of offence; but if men will stumble on the plain ground of good, let them fall without our regard, not without their own peril. I know not if it were not David's weakness to "abstain from good words while the wicked were in place." Let justice be done in spite of the world, and, in spite of hell, mercy. Ignorance was in part guilty of these scruples: they thought Christ either too holy to go to a sinner, or in going made unholy. Foolish men! to whom came he? to you righteous? let himself speak: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Whether should the physician go but to the sick; "the whole need him not." Love is the best attractive of us; and "he to whom much is forgiven loves much." O Saviour, the glittering palaces of proud justiciaries are not for thee; thou lovest the lowly and ragged cottage of a contrite heart. Neither could here be any danger of thy pollution: thy sun could cast his beams upon the impurest dunghill, and not be tainted. It was free and safe for the leper and bloody-fluxed to touch thee: thou couldst heal them; they could not infect thee. Neither is it otherwise in this moral contagion. We, who are obnoxious to evil, may be insensibly defiled: thy purity was enough to remedy that which might mar a world: thou canst help us; we cannot hurt thee. O let thy presence ever bless us, and let us ever bless thee for thy presence! Pride was an attendant of this ignorance: up as a convert. Sinning is falling, conti- This hand sowed not sparingly: here must needs be much of his own that was well gotten, whether left by patrimony, or saved by parsimony, or gained by honest improvement; for when he had restored four-fold to every one whom he had oppressed, yet there remained a whole half for pious uses; and this he so distributes. that every word commends his bounty: "I give ;" and what is more free than gift? In alms we may neither sell, nor return, nor cast away. We sell, if we part with them for importunity, for vain glory, for retribution; we return them, if we give with respect to former offices; this is to pay, not to bestow: we cast away, if in our beneficence we neither regard order nor discretion. Zaccheus did neither cast away, nor return, nor sell, but give: “I do give;" not I will. The prorogation of good makes it thankless; the alms that smell of the hand lose the praise; it is twice given, that is given quickly. Those that defer their gifts till their deathbed, do as good as say, Lord, I will give thee something, when I can keep it no longer. Happy is the man that is his own executor: "I give my goods," not another's. It is a thankless vanity to be liberal of another man's purse: whoso gives of that which he hath taken away from the owner, doth more wrong in giving than in stealing: God expects our gifts, not our spoils. I fear there is too many a school and hospital, every stone whereof may be challenged. Had Zaccheus meant to give of his extortions, he had not been so careful of his restitution now he restores to others, that he may give of his own: "I give half my goods." The publican's heart was as large as his estate; he was not more rich in goods than in bounty. Were this example binding, who should be rich to give? who should be poor to receive? In the strait beginnings of the church, those beneficences were requisite, which afterwards, in the larger elbow-room thereof, would have caused much confusion. If the first Christians laid down all at the apostle's feet, yet ere long it was enough for the believing Corinthians, every first day of the week, to lay aside some pittance for charitable purposes. We are no disciples, if we do not imitate Zaccheus so far as to give liberally, according to the proportion of our estate. Giving is sowing; the larger seeding, the greater crop giving to the poor is feneration to God: the greater bank, the more interest. Who can fear to be too wealthy? Time was when men faulted in excess. Proclamations were fain to restrain the Jews; statutes were fain to restrain our ancestors now there needs none of this; men know how to shut their hands alone: charity is in more danger of freezing than of burning. How happy were it for the church, if men were only close-handed to hold, and not lime-fingered to take. "To the poor," not to rich heirs: God gives to him that hath, we to him that wants. Some want because they would, whether out of prodigality or idleness: some want because they must; these are the fit subjects of our beneficence, not those other. A poverty of our own making deserves no pity: he that sustains the lewd, feeds not his belly, but his vice. So then this living legacy of Zaccheus is free, "I give ;" present, "I do give;" just, "my goods;" large, "half my goods;" fit, "to the poor." Neither is he more bountiful in his gift, than just in his restitution: "If I have taken aught from any man by false accusation, I restore it four-fold." It was proper for a publican to pill and poll the subject, by devising complaints and raising causeless vexations, that his mouth might be stopt with fees, either for silence or composition: this had Zaccheus often done. Neither is this “if” a note of doubt, but of assertion: he is sure of the fact, he is not sure of the persons; their challenge must help to further his justice. The true penitence of this holy convert expresses itself in confession, in satisfaction: his confession is free, full, open. What cares he to shame himself, that he may give glory to God? Woe be to that bashfulness that ends in confusion of face! O God, let me blush before men, rather than be confounded before thee, thy saints and angels! His satisfaction is no less liberal than his gift. Had not Zaccheus been careful to pay the debts of his fraud, all had gone to the poor: he would have done that voluntarily, which the young man in the gospel was bidden to do, and refusing went away sorrowful. Now he knew that his misgotten gain was not for God's Corban; therefore he spares half, not to keep, but to restore: this was the best dish in Zaccheus's good cheer. In vain had he feasted Christ, given to the poor, confessed his extortions, if he had not made restitution. Woe is me for the paucity of true converts! there is much stolen goods, little brought home. Men's hands are like the fisher's flew; yea, like hell itself, which admits of no return. O God! we can never satisfy thee; our score is too great, our abilities too little; but if we make not even with men, in vain shall we look for mercy from thee. To each his own, had been well; but four for one was munificent. In our transactions of commerce, we do well to beat the bargain to the lowest; but in cases of moral or spiritual payments to God or men now, there must be a measure pressed, shaken, running over. In good offices and due retributions, we may not be pinching and niggardly. It argues an earthly and ignoble mind, where we have apparently wronged, to higgle and dodge in the amends. O mercy and justice well repaid! "This day is salvation come to thine house." Lo, Zaccheus, that which thou givest to the poor, is nothing to that which thy Saviour gives to thee. If thou restorest four for one, here is more than thousands of millions for nothing: were every of thy pence a world, they could hold no comparison with this bounty. It is but dross that thou givest, it is salvation that thou receivest. 66 Thou gavest in present, thou dost not receive in hope; but, This day is salvation come to thine house." Thine ill-gotten metals were a strong bar to bolt heaven gates against thee; now that they are dissolved by a seasonable beneficence and restitution, those gates of glory fly open to thy soul. Where is that man that can challenge God to be in his debt? who can ever say, Lord, this favour I did to the least of thine, unrequited? Thrice-happy publican, that has climbed from thy sycamore to heaven, and by a few worthless bags of unrighteous mammon, hast purchased to thyself a kingdom incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away! CONTEMPLATION IV. JOHN BAPTIST BEHEADED. THREE of the evangelists have (with one pen) recorded the death of the great harbinger of Christ as most remarkable and useful. He was the forerunner of Christ, as into the world, so out of it; yea, he that made way for Christ into the world, made way for the name of Christ into the court of Herod. This Herod Antipas was son to that Herod who was, and is, ever infamous for the massacre at Bethlehem. Cruelty runs in a blood. The murderer of John, the forerunner of Christ, is well descended of him who would have murdered Christ, and, for his sake, murdered the infants. It was late ere this Herod heard the fame of Jesus; not till he had taken off the head of John Baptist. The father of this Herod inquired for Christ too soon, this too late. Great men should have the best intelligence. If they improve it to all other uses of either frivolous or civil affairs, with neglect of spiritual, their judgment shall be so much more, as their helps and means were greater. Whether this Herod was taken up with his Arabian wars against Arethas his father-in-law; or whether he was employed in his journey to Rome, I inquire not: but if he was at home, I must wonder how he could be so long without the noise of Christ. Certainly, it was a sign he had a very irreligious court, that none of his followers did so much as report to him the miracles of our Saviour; who doubtless told him many a vain tale the while. One tells him of his brother Philip's discontentment; another relates the news of the Roman court; another the angry threats of Arethas; another flatters him with the admiration of his new mistress, and disparagement of the old: no man so much as says, Sir, there is a prophet in your kingdom that doth wonders. There was not a man in his country that had not been astonished with the fame of Jesus; yea, all Syria, and the adjoining regions, rung of it; only Herod's court hears nothing. Miserable is that greatness which keeps men from the notice of Christ. How plain is it from thence, that our Saviour kept aloof from the court! The austere and eremetical harbinger of Christ, it seems, preached there oft, and was heard gladly, though at last, to his cost; while our Saviour, who was more sociable, came not there. He sent a message to that fox, whose den he would not approach. Whether it were that he purposely forbore, lest he should give that tyrant occasion to revive and pursue his father's suspicion; or whether for that he would not so much honour a place so infamously graceless and disordered; or whether, by his example, to teach us the avoidance of outward pomp and glory; surely Herod saw him not till his death, heard not of him till the death of John Baptist. And now his unintelligence was not more strange than his misconstruction: "This is John Baptist, whom I beheaded." First he doubted, then he resolved; he doubted upon other suggestions, upon his own apprehensions he resolved thus. And though he thought good to set a face on it to strangers, unto whom it was not safe to bewray his fear, yet to his domestics he freely discovered his thoughts: "This is John Baptist." The troubled conscience will many a time open that to familiars, which it hides from the eyes of others. Shame and fear meet together in guiltiness. How could he imagine this to be John? That common conceit of transanimation could have no place here: there could be no transmigration of souls into a grown and well-statured body. That received fancy of the Jews held only in the case of conception and birth, not of full age. What need we scan this point, when Herod himself professes, "He is risen from the dead?" He that was a Jew by profession, and knew the story of Elisha's bones, of the Sareptan's and Shunamite's son, and, in all likelihood, had now heard of our Saviour's miraculous resuscitation of others, might think this power reflected upon himself. — Even Herod, as bad as he was, believed a resurrection. Lewdness of life and practice may stand with orthodoxy in some main points of religion. Who can doubt of this when "the devils believe and tremble?" Where shall those men appear, whose faces are Christian, but their hearts Sadducees? O the terrors and tortures of a guilty heart! Herod's conscience told him he had offered an unjust and cruel violence to an innocent; and now he thinks that John's ghost haunts him. Had it not been for this guilt of his bosom, why might he not as well have thought that the same God, whose hand is not shortened, had conferred this power of miracles upon some other? Now it could be nobody but John that doth these wonders. And how can it be, thinks he, but that this revived prophet, who doth these strange things, will be revenged on me for his head? he, that could give himself life, can more easily take mine; how can I escape the hands of a now immortal and impassable avenger? A wicked man needs no other tormentor, especially for the sins of blood, than his own heart. Revel, O Herod, and feast, and frolic, and please thyself with dances, and triumphs, and pastimes: thy sin shall be as some fury that shall invisibly follow thee, and scourge thy guilty heart with secret lashes, and upon all occasions shall begin thine hell within thee. He wanted not other sins, that yet cried, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God!" What an honour was done to John in this misprision! While that man lived, the world was apt to think that John was the Christ now, that John is dead, Herod thinks Christ to be John. God gives to his poor conscionable servants a kind of reverence and high respect, even from those men that malign them most; so as they cannot but venerate whom they hate. Contrarily, no wit or power can shield a lewd man from contempt. John did no miracle in his life, yet now Herod thinks he did miracles in his resurrection; as supposing that a new supernatural life brought with it a supernatural power. Who can but wonder at the stupid partiality of Herod and these Jews? They can imagine and yield John risen from the dead, that never did miracle, and rose not; whereas Christ, who did infinite miracles, and rose from the dead by his almighty power, is not yielded by them to have risen. Their over-bountiful misconceit of the servant is not so injurious as their niggardly infidelity to the Master. Both of them shall convince and confound them before the face of God. But, O yet more biockish Herod thy conscience affrights thee with John's resurrection, and flies in thy face for the cruel murder of so great a saint: yet where is thy repentance for so foul a fact? who would not have expected that thou shouldst hereupon have humbled thy self for thy sin, and have laboured to make thy peace with God and him? The greater the fame and power was of him whom thou supposedst recovered from thy slaughter, the more should have been thy penitence. Impiety is wont to besot men, and turn them senseless of their own safety and welfare. One would have thought, that our first grandsire Adam, when he found his heart to strike him for his disobedience, should have run to meet God upon his knees, and sued for pardon of his offence: instead of that, he runs to hide his head among the bushes. The case is still ours: we inherit both his sin and his senselessness. Besides the infinite displeasure of God, wickedness makes the heart incapable of grace, and impregnable to the means of conversion. Even the very first act of Herod's cruelty was heinous. He was foul enough with other sins: " He added this above all, that he shut up John in prison." The violence offered to God's messengers is branded for notorious. The sanctity and austere carriage of the man won him honour justly from the multitude, and aggravated the sin: but whatever his person had been, his mission was sacred: "He shall send his messenger;" the wrong redounds to the God that sent him. It is the charge of God, "Touch not mine anointed, nor do my prophets any harm." The precept is perhaps one, for even prophets were anointed; but, at least, next to violation of majesty, is the wrong to a prophet. But what? do I not hear the Evangelist say, that "Herod heard John gladly?" How is it then? did John take the ear and heart of Herod, and doth Herod bind the hands and feet of John? doth he wilfully imprison whom he gladly heard? How inconsistent is a carnal heart to good resolutions! how little trust is to be given to the good motions of unregenerate persons! We have known when even mad dogs have fawned upon their master, yet he hath been too wise to trust them but in chains. true friend loves always, so a gracious heart always affects good, neither can be altered with change of occurrences. But the carnal man, like a hollow parasite or a fawning spaniel, flatters only for his own turn: if that be once either served or crossed, like a churlish cur, he is ready to snatch us by the fingers. Is there a worldly-minded man that lives in some known sin, yet makes much of the preacher, frequents the church, talks godly, looks demurely, carries fair? Trust him not: he will prove, after his pious fits, like some resty horse, whicn As a |