A

SERMO N,

&c. &c.

But when James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?-Luke, ix. 54.

I SHALL not need to strain much to bring my text and the day together. Here is 'fire' in the text, 'consuming fire,' like that whose 'Antevorta' we do this day commemorate. This fire called for by the disciples of Christ; so was ours too, by Christ's disciples at least, and some of them entitled to our great Master by the compellation of his holy name of Jesus.

I would say the parallel holds thus far, but that the persons of my text, however Boanerges, - sons of thunder' and of a reprovable spirit, yet are no way considerable in the proportion of malice with the persons of the day. For if I consider the cause that moved James and John to so inconsiderate a wrath, it bears a fair excuse: the men of Samaria turned their Lord and Master out of doors, denying to give a night's lodging to the Lord of heaven and earth. It would have disturbed an excellent patience to see him, whom but just before they beheld transfigured, and in a glorious epiphany upon the mount, to be so neglected by a company of hated Samaritans, as to be forced to keep his vigils where nothing but the welkin should have been his roof, not any thing to shelter his precious head from the descending dew of heaven.

Temperet? b

Quis talia fando

It had been the greater wonder if they had not been angry.

a Ver. 53.

VOL. VI.

b Æn. ii.

P P

But now if we should level our progress by the same line, and guess that in the present affair there was an equal cause, because a greater fire was intended,—we shall too much betray the ingenuity of apparent truth, and the blessing of this anniversary. They had not half such a case for an excuse to a far greater malice, it will prove they had none at all; and, therefore, their malice was so much the more malicious, because causeless and totally inexcusable.

However, I shall endeavour to join their consideration in as near a parallel as I can; which, if it be not exact,— as certainly it cannot, where we have already discovered so much. difference in degrees of malice, yet, by laying them together, we may better take their estimate, though it be only by seeing their disproportion.

The words, as they lay in their own order, point out, 1. The persons that asked the question. 2. The cause that moved them. 3. The person to whom they propounded it. 4. The question itself. 5. And the predecent they urged to move a grant, drawn from a very fallible topic, a singular example, in a special and different case. The persons here were Christ's disciples, and so they are in our case, designed to us by that glorious surname of Christianity: they will be called catholics; but if our discovery perhaps rise higher, and that the see apostolic prove sometimes guilty of so reprovable a spirit, then we are very near to a parallel of the persons, for they were disciples of Christ and apostles. 2. The cause was the denying of toleration of abode upon the grudge of an old schism; religion was made the instrument. That which should have taught the apostles to be charitable, and the Samaritans hospitable, was made a pretence to justify the unhospitableness of the one, and the uncharitableness of the other. Thus far we are right: for the malice of this present treason stood upon the same base. 3. Although neither side much doubted of the lawfulness of their proceedings, yet St. James and St. John were so discreet as not to think themselves infallible, therefore they asked their Lord so did the persons of the day ask the question too, but not of Christ, for he was not in all their thoughts; but yet they asked of Christ's delegates, who, therefore, should have given their answer ex eodem tripode,' from the same spirit. They were the fathers confessors who were asked.

Τὰ

4. The question is of both sides concerning a consumptive sacrifice, the destruction of a town there, of a whole kingdom here, but differing in the circumstance of place whence they would fetch their fire. The apostles would have had it from heaven, but these men's conversation was not there. xάrev,-things from beneath,' from an artificial hell, but breathed from the natural and proper, were in all their thoughts. 5. The example, which is the last particular, I fear I must leave quite out; and when you have considered all, perhaps you will look for no example.

First of the persons; they were disciples of Christ and apostles: "But when James and John saw this." When first I considered they were apostles, I wondered they should be so intemperately angry; but when I perceived they were so angry, I wondered not that they sinned. Not the privilege of an apostolical spirit, not the nature of angels, not the condition of immortality, can guard from the danger of sin; but if we be overruled by passion, we almost subject ourselves to its necessity. It was not, therefore, without reason altogether, that the Stoics affirmed wise men to be void of passions; for sure I am, the inordination of any passion is the first step to folly. And although of them, as of waters of a muddy residence, we may make good use, and quench our thirst, if we do not trouble them; yet upon any ungentle disturbance we drink down mud instead of a clear stream, and the issues of sin and sorrow, certain consequences of temerarious or inordinate anger. And, therefore, when the apostle had given us leave to be angry,' as knowing the condition of human nature, he quickly enters a caveat that we sin not;' he knew sin was very likely to be handmaid where anger did domineer, and this was the reason why St. James and St. John are the men here pointed at; for the Scripture notes them for Boanerges,-sons of thunder,' men of an angry temper," et quid mirum est filios tonitru fulgurâsse voluisse?" said St. Ambrose. But there was more in it than thus. Their spirits of themselves hot enough, yet met with their education under the law, whose first tradition was in fire and thunder, whose precepts were just, but not so merciful; and this inflamed their distemper to the height of a revenge. It is the doctrine of St. Jerome and Titus

Epist. ad Algas.

d

Bostrensis, the law had been their schoolmaster, and taught them the rules of justice, both punitive and vindictive; but Christ was the first that taught it to be a sin to retaliate evil with evil; it was a doctrine they could not read in the killing letter of the law. There they might meet with precedents of revenge and anger of a high severity, 'an eye for an eye,' and a tooth for a tooth,' and 'let him be cut off from his people:' but forgiving injuries, praying for our persecutors, loving our enemies, and relieving them, were doctrines of such high and absolute integrity, as were to be reserved for the best and most perfect lawgiver, the bringer of the best promises, to which the most perfect actions have the best proportion, and this was to be when Shiloh came. Now then the spirit of Elias is out of date,

Jam ferrea primum

Desinit, ac toto surgit gens aurea mundo.

And, therefore, our blessed Master reproveth them of ignorance, not of the law, but of his Spirit, which had they but known, or could but have guessed at the end of his coming, they had not been such abecedarii in the school of mercy.

And now we shall not need to look far for persons, disciples professing at least in Christ's school, yet as great strangers to the merciful spirit of our Saviour, as if they had been sons of the law, or foster-brothers to Romulus, and sucked a wolf; and they are Romanists too: this day's solemnity presents them to us, πηλὸς αἵματι πεφυρμένος; and yet were that washed off, underneath they write Christian and Jesuit.

One would have expected that such men, set forth to the world's acceptance with so merciful a 'cognomentum,' should have put a hand to support the ruinous fabric of the world's charity, and not have pulled the frame of heaven and earth about our ears. But yet-Ne credite, Teucri!' Give me leave first to make an inquisition after this antichristian pravity, and try who is of our side, and who loves the king, by pointing at those whose sermons do blast loyalty, breathing forth treason, slaughters, and cruelty, the greatest imaginable, contrary to the spirit and doctrine of our dear Master. So we shall quickly find out more than a pareil for St. James and St. John, the Boanerges of my text.

d In Lucam.

e Sueton. Tib. 57. B. Crus. t. i. p. 454.

"It is an act of faith, by faith to conquer the enemies of God and holy Church," saith Sanders, our countryman. Hitherto nothing but well; if James and John had offered to do no more than what they could have done with 'the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith,' they might have been inculpable, and so had he if he had said no more; but the blood boils higher, the manner spoils all. "For it is not well done, unless a warlike captain be appointed by Christ's vicar to bear a crusade in a field of blood." And if the other apostles did not proceed such an angry way as James and John, it was only discretion that detained them, not religion. "For so they might, and it were no way unlawful for them to bear arms to propagate religion, had they not wanted an opportunity;" if you believe the same author: "for fighting is proper for St. Peter and his successors, therefore, because Christ gave him commission to feed his Lambs." A strange reason!

I had thought Christ would have his lambs fed with the sincere milk of his world, not like to cannibals,

solitisque cruentum

Lac potare Getis, et pocula tingere venis.

To mingle blood in their sacrifices (as Herod to the Galileans), and quaff it off for an auspicium' to the propagation of the Christian faith. Methinks here is already too much clashing of armour, and effusion of blood, for a Christian cause; but this were not altogether so unchristian-like, if the sheep, though with blood, yet were not to be fed with the blood of their shepherd Cyrus-I mean their princes. But I find many such nutritii' in the nurseries of Rome, driving their lambs from their folds, unless they will be taught to worry the lion.

Emanuel Sà, in his "Aphorisms," affirms it lawful to kill a king; indeed, not every king, but such a one as rules with tyranny; and not then, unless the pope hath sentenced him to death, but then he may, though he be his lawful prince."

f Sanderus de Clave David, lib. ii. c. 15.

g Ibid. c. 14.

h Tyrannicè gubernans justè acquisitum dominium non potest spoliari sine publico judicio. Latâ verò sententiâ, quisque potest fieri executor. Potest autem à populo etiam qui juravit ei obedientiam, si monitus, non vult corrigi.— Verb. Tyrannus.