1.

[Ps. 15.7.]

SERM. is to be seen in Ezra and Nehemiah. Yea, saith the devil, hath God "anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows?" I will see if I can anoint Him with the oil of sadness above His fellows. Hath He been baptized of water and the Holy Ghost? I will provide another baptism for Him, namely of fire. Hath God sent down the Holy Ghost upon Him in likeness of a dove? I will cause tribulation, and a crown of thorns to light upon His head. Hath a voice come down from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son ?" I will provide a voice for Him that shall ascend from the foot, that shall say, "If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross."

[Mat. 3.

17.]

[Mat. 27.

40.]

VI. The sixth is the place, the lists, to wit, the wilderness, that so He might be alone, and that there might be no fellowworker with Him in the matter of our salvation, that He Isa. 63. 3. alone might have the treading of the "wine-press." So in the Lu. 9. 36. transfiguration in the Mount He "was found alone," so in the garden in His great agony He was in effect alone, for Hist Mat. 26.40. disciples slept all the while, that unto Him might be ascribed all the praise.

Gen.19.17.

Secondly, we will note here, that there is no place privileged from temptations. As there be some that think there be certain places to be exempt from God's presence-as was noted in the dream of Jacob-so the monks and hermits thought that by avoiding company they should be free from temptations: which is not so. For although Christ were alone in the wilderness and fasting too, yet was He tempted we see. And yet it is true, that he that will live well must shun the company of the wicked.

When the Angels had brought Lot and his family out of the doors, they charged them not to tarry, nor to stand still, nor once to look back. So after the cock had crowed, and put Mat.26.75. Peter in mind of his fall, he went out of the doors and “·

"wept

bitterly;" his solitariness was a cause to make his repentance the more earnest, and helped to increase his tears and company is commonly a hindrance to the receiving of any good grace, and to the exercising and confirming us in any good purpose. But as true it is that temptations are, and may as well be, in the deserts as in public places: not only in the

! Ilis A.

valleys but in the mountains; and not only in the country but Mat. 4. 8. even in "the holy city;" yea, and sometimes full, and sometimes Mat. 4. 5. fasting; yea, in paradise, and in heaven itself, for thither doth the devil come and accuse us before God. We are therefore always to stand upon our guard; for in Luke the eleventh chapter, verse the twenty-fourth, he is said to "walk through dry places," lest haply some might be escaped from him thither; and though we could go whither he could not come, we should not be free, for we carry ever a tempter about with us. And when we pray to be delivered from temptation, it is not only from the devil but from ourselves; we carry fire within us. Nazianzen and Basil were of that mind once, that by change of the place a man might go from temptation; but afterward they recanted it, affirming that it was impossible to avoid temptation, yea though he went out of the world, except he left his heart behind him also.

SEVEN SERMONS

UPON THE

TEMPTATION OF CHRIST IN THE
WILDERNESS.

SERMON II.

SERM.

II.

MATTHEW iv. 2.

And when He had fasted forty days, and forty nights, He was afterward hungry.

[Et cum jejunasset quadraginta diebus, et quadraginta noctibus, postea esuriit. Lat. Vulg.]

[And when He had fasted forty days, and forty nights, He was afterward an hungred. Eng. Trans.]

Now come we to the seventh and last circumstance. It may seem strange that being about to present Himself to the world as Prince, Priest, and Prophet, that He would make His progress into the wilderness, and begin with a fast; for this was clean contrary to the course and fashion of the world, which useth when any great matter is in hand to make a preface or præludium with some great solemnity. As when Solomon came first to his crown he went to the chief city and gathered a solemn convent, so Christ should rather first have gone to Jerusalem the holy city, and there should have been some solemn banquet. But Christ from His baptism began His calling, and fasted forty days and forty nights. This His fast by late writers is called the entrance into His calling; by the ancient" writers it is called the entrance into His conflict.

The manner of the Church hath always been, that at the first institution or undertaking of any great and weighty matter there hath been extraordinary fasting. So Moses, Deu. 9. 9. when he entered into his calling at the receiving of the Law, fasted forty days. So Elias, at the restoring of the same 1 Kings 19. Law, did the like. And so when they went about the reedifying of the Temple, as appeareth from Ezra, the eighth chapter and twenty-first verse. So in the New Testament,

8.

And, as Jerome Acts 13.3.

[Commen. sup. Mat.

at the separation of Paul and Barnabas. reporteth, St. John would not undertake to write the divine work of his Gospel, until the whole Church by fasting had Pref. ad recommended the same unto God.

Euseb.]

20. 3.

So likewise, at the entrance into a conflict, for the obtaining of some victory, as Jehoshaphat did when he overcame 2 Chron. the Amorites. So did Esther when she went about the deliverance of the Jews; as in Esther, the fourth chapter, and sixteenth verse. And Eusebius reporteth that when Peter [Vid. S. was to enter disputation with Simon Magus, there was fasting 36. 21. ad throughout the whole Church generally.

Aug. Ep.
Casulan.]

Whether at the entrance into a calling, or to resist the devil, St. Peter's rule, mentioned in his first Epistle and [1 Pet. 5. 8, 9.] fifth chapter, ought to take place, we must use prayer and fasting.

And as at all times we are to use watchfulness and carefulness, so then especially, when we look that the devil will be most busy; and the rather, for that in some cases there is no dealing without fasting, as Mark, the ninth chapter, and twenty-ninth verse, there is a kind of devil that will not be cast out without “ prayer and fasting."

As for the number of days wherein he fasted, just forty, curiosity may find itself work enough; but it is dangerous to make conclusions when no certainty appeareth.

Some say there is a correspondency between these forty days and the forty days wherein the world was destroyed by the deluge. But it is better to say, as Moses fasted forty days at the institution of the law, and Elias forty at the restoration, so Christ here. And because He came but in the shape of a servant, He would not take upon Him above His fellowservants. Contrary to our times, wherein a man is accounted nobody except he can have a quirk above his fellows. But it

II.

SERM. is more material to see how it concerneth us. It is a thing rather to be adored by admiration, than to be followed by apish imitation.

Acts 10. 9. 30.

This fast here was not the fast of a day, as that of Peter and of Cornelius, but such as Luke the fourth chapter, and second verse describeth, "IIe did eat nothing all that time." St. John the Baptist, though his life were very strict, "did eat Mat. 3. 4. locusts and wild honey." Ours is not properly a fast, but a provocation of meats, and therefore there can be no proportion between them. But as it is, what is to be thought of it?

[Socrat. lib. v. 22.]

Socrates and Irenæus record that at the first the Church did use to celebrate but one day in remembrance of Christ's fast, Ense, lib. till after, the Montanists-a certain sect of heretics, who therev. 24.]

[Apud

upon are called Encratita-raised it to fourteen days. The zeal of the clergy after increased it to forty, after to fifty; the monks brought it to sixty, the friars to seventy; and if the Pope had not there stayed it, they would have brought it to eighty, and so have doubled Christ's fasting.

When the Primitive Church saw the heretics by this outward show go about to disgrace the Christians by this counterfeit show of holiness, they used it also; but, saith Augustine and Chrysostom, they held it only a positive law, which was in the Church to use or take away, and not as any exercise of godliness.

Only a doubt resteth now, because of the hardness of men's hearts, whether it were better left or kept. Some would have abstinence used, and one day kept for the sabbath, but left to every man's liberty what time and day, and tied to no certainty; but that were, upon the matter, to have none kept at all.

Notwithstanding, the reformed Churches, as that of France, have used their liberty in removing of it, for that they saw an inclination in their people to superstition, who would think Lu. 18. 12. themselves holier for such fasting, like the Pharisees. The Church wherein we live useth her liberty in retaining it, and that upon good reasons: for since God hath created the fishes of the sea for man, and giveth him an interest in them also as Gen. 9. 2. well as in the beasts; since the death of fish was a plague wherewith God plagued Pharaoh, and so contrariwise the increase of fish is a blessing; God will have fish to be