Now in this kind of sacrifice also Christ was preached, with the effect and power of his death and passion; and in it was shewed the whole manner and order of giving thanks to God for his good benefits. There are sundry sorts of benefits. If a man received a good turn, if an ill turn had not befallen him, if he had recovered his health or had escaped some misfortune, he offered a sacrifice to the Lord. There are also other ancient benefits common to all men; as, that God [1 in cardines mundi, Lat.]
[2 FR, α heave-offering. m0”, waving, shaking of sacrifices before Jehovah, a particular rite in offering. Gesenius, Heb. and Eng. Lex. in voe.]
[3 Tim, Heb. confession, praise.]
[4 common to all men, not in Lat.]
hath made the world and all that is therein; and that through Christ he hath redeemed all the faithful: there are daily benefits; yea finally, all things are full of God’s good benefits. For all which benefits we must offer our sacrifice to God alone, and not to any creatures which he hath made: yea, we must offer to him with all our hearts; all our affections must be hallowed to the Lord. For out of the beasts which were sacrificed to the Lord for thanksgiving, those parts were chosen and given to the Lord in which the especial power of life consisteth. For in the kidneys is the power of generation; in the blood the vital spirit; in the liver the spring of all the blood, &c. Now we must give thanks by a sacrifice, that is, by Christ, for we are saved for Christ his sake; and all good things are bestowed on us by God, not for our own sakes, nor for any creatures’ sakes, but for Christ his sake, our only Saviour and Redeemer. To them which offered was allowed a sober and merry banquet, because the felicity of those that are not unthankful is for the most part augmented two-fold double. And the knowledge of Christ is a delicate banquet and a continual feast.
With the sacrifices of thanksgiving those offerings do much agree which are called vows and free-will-offerings. The free-will-offering was that which proceeded of mere good will and devotion of the mind, without necessity or compulsion of any law or ordinance; as when a servant giveth to his master the thing that he oweth him not, for a declaration only of the good will that he beareth unto him. But herein the free-will-offerings do differ from the sacrifice of thanksgiving; because in the sacrifice of thanksgiving charge was given, that whatsoever was left, which was not spent the first day, should not be eaten on the morrow, but be burnt with fire: on the other side, in the free-will-offerings it was lawful for them to eat the remnant upon the second day, and” to burn their leavings upon the third day. Now the vowed sacrifices were those which were offered by covenant to the Lord; as for example, a man, being in peril, doth vow to make a sacrifice to God, if he be delivered out of that imminent danger: it falleth out that he is delivered, and he
[ἵν [6 porro, Lat.; further.] [6 72, ἃ vow, mam, a voluntary offering. ] [7 jubebantur, Lat.; they were commanded. ]]
for his delivery doth offer up the sacrifice: the thing that is so offered is called a vowed sacrifice. The ceremonies of the twain! did wholly agree with the sacrifice of thanksgiving. More of them is to be seen in the seventh chapter of Leviticus.
The meaning of these sacrifices was, that all good benefits are bestowed upon us for Christ his sake; and? with those benefits we receive the very good will which we have to serve the Lord.
Thus much have I hitherto said touching the sacrifices of the people of God: not that I have touched every point, but so many only as are of most importance. In these sacrifices, as in a lively action, were set forth Christ our Lord, his passion, and the effectual merit of his death: so that we may call the holy actions of the sacrifices sermons upon the passion of Christ, and instructions of our redemption by our Lord and Saviour.
Now, for because we have already spoken hitherto of vowed sacrifices, we must here consequently borrow leave, for a digression, to say somewhat of their usual vows. For vows belong to the Jewish ceremonies. Of the making, performing, and redeeming of vows there is a large discourse in the law of God, but especially in the twenty-seventh of Leviticus, To vow is to promise any thing with an oath solemnly, either for our own or another’s welfare. And therefore a vow was an action referred to God alone, and that too in an holy and lawful thing. But in vows there was a difference; because vowed things were divided into four kinds: for sometimes they vowed men, sometimes they vowed other living things, sometimes houses, and sometimes lands or other immoveable substance. Again, there was a difference in men according to their ages, and after their ages they might be redeemed. For clean living creatures there was no redemption permitted at all. It was free either to leave their houses to the use of the ministery, or else to redeem them with such a sum as the priest should
[1 of the twain, not in Lat.) [2 atque adeo, Lat.; and so too.] [8 catecheses, Lat.] [ Deo, Lat.; unto God.] [δ res inanimes, Lat.; lifeless things. ] [6 juxta, Lat.; according to.]]
v. 1. THE CEREMONIAL LAWS OF GOD. 207 value them at”. In lands, redemption was sometimes admitted, and sometimes not admitted. And in the thirtieth chapter of the book of Numbers there is a precise commandment given touching the votaries, when their vows are of force, and when of small effect; where it is diligently beaten into their heads, that vows lawfully made to God are not to be called back again, but straitly kept and throughly performed. - Rash or unlawful vows the Lord did never like of nor receive.
Of the lawful vows, and such as are made to the true and only God, the prophet speaketh, where he saith, “Make vows, and pay them.” We read not that any of the godly sort did make any vows to any saints or any other creatures; neither that they vowed any thing that was not in their power to vow, nor that which was contrary to the will of God to whom they vowed it, nor that which was to their neighbour’s hinderance, nor the thing that had not in it some evident commodity. And verily, these kinds of vows were for none other cause permitted to the Israelites till the time of amendment, but that they should remain in the worship of one true God, and not make their vows to any other strange God.
To the treatise of vows belongeth the discipline and order of the Nazarites; of which there is a large discourse in the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers. The Nazarites were those who, because they would the more freely, without let, attend upon God’s service, or else because they had heretofore lived too licentiously, did of their own accord and will take upon them a more strict and severe trade of life than the common people used, and kept it for a discipline, to make other men to follow their example of virtue and honest living. Whereupon it cometh to pass, that some do take the Nazarites to have their name of separation, because Nazir among the Hebrews signifieth a separation; and that the Nazarites, separating themselves from the common trade of life that other men did lead, did give themselves to a peculiar form of living for God and godliness’ sake, That severe and strict discipline did continue in some by the length of all their lifetime, as in Samson and Samuel.
Moreover, such as did wholly give themselves to the
[7 eestimatione sequa, Lat.; fair valuation.)
208 THE THIRD DECADE. [sErM. fAmorii. 1; study of the scriptures were, by the prophets Amos and Jeremy, because of their most temperate life (which is required of students), and because they were wholly dedicated to the ministry of God, called Nazarites. Sometimes also it did endure but for the space of certain days or months. These Nazarites did abstain, according to the commandment of the law, from certain things, from which they were not barred by any other law, and which were not unlawful for other men to use which were without the necessity of that vow. First of all they abstained from wine, from all things that the vine brought forth, and whatsoever else did make men drunken. But it is manifest, that as wine is the good creature of God, so no drink is forbidden by the law. Yet for because the Nazarites were consecrated to the Lord, and sanctified by a certain peculiar kind of living; and for because wine is the means that leadeth to drunkenness, which is the gulf of all sin and filthiness; therefore did the Nazarites not without a cause abstain from wine. They did also take heed of idleness, the mother of mischief, and utterly despised all worldly pleasures. Furthermore, so long as the time of their vow endured, they did not clip their hair, but let their locks grow out a length. And thereupon, as some do think, they took their names, and were called Nazarites: for insomuch as Nazer signifieth hair, they suppose that they were called Nazarites, as who should say, long-locked or shaggy-haired people!. But the apostle Paul biddeth the woman to pray, or to come into the congregation to hear a sermon, with her head covered, for none other cause, but for that she is not in her own power, but subject to another, that is, to her husband. And therefore the Nazarites did let their hair grow, because by the vow which they had made to God they were no longer in their own power, but were wholly yielded into the power of God. And the head, which is the tower of the body and the most excellent part thereof, being covered? with a bush of. hair, was a token that the whole man was by vow given to the Lord, to whom alone he ought to have an eye, and upon whom alone he ought wholly to depend. Moreover it
[1 M1), consecration. Hence meton. the consecrated head (of a Naza-]
[rite);—and even (the primary idea being neglected), the long, unshorn]
[hair (of a woman). Gesenius, Heb. and Eng. Lex. in voc.) [2 veluti obvelata, Lat.; covered as with a veil.]]
was required at the hands of the Nazarite, that he should not defile himself with the contagious company of wicked and naughty persons. Whereunto also belongeth the commandment, which charged the Nazarite not to be present at the death or burial of his parents, or children, or wife, or brethren, or sisters. For he ought to settle the eyes of his mind upon God alone, and in comparison of him to set light by and loathe the things which were most dear and precious unto him. if it so fell out, that? at unawares he were defiled by seeing of a dead body, he was not therefore acquitted of his vow, as one whose former life had been sufficient for the performance of the same: for he was commanded to sanctify himself the seventh day, and then to undertake the keeping of his vow again.
By all this we may plainly perceive what and how great the sin of Samson was, who was ἃ Nazarite to the Lord. For because he did not only lurk in the brothel-house with the harlot, but did also bewray the secret of God unto her, and cast behind him the covenant made with God, whereof his hair was a sure testimony; therefore did the Lord forsake him, and that wonderful strength which he had from heaven was clean taken from him. For the strength of Samson lay not in his hair, so that by the cutting off his hair his strength was cut away also; but it lay in the Spirit of the Lord, which was given him from God above. And therefore do we find this sentence so often in the scripture, And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson.” Therefore when the Spirit of God departed, his strength departed also: but it departed from him, when he, being wholly joined unto the harlot, was made one soul with her, and did prefer her before God and his commandment, so that he suffered his hair to be polled, and utterly revolted from the ordinance of the Lord: for by that means did the Spirit of God forsake him. Whereupon immediately after he was brought into the hands of his enemies the Philistines; where when he was miserably vexed, and when he heard the name of God evil spoken οἵδ᾽ and blasphemed because of his captivity, he repented heartily, and
[8 vel, Lat.; even at.] [3 super mortuo, Lat.; by a dead body. Seeing of; not in Lat.] [5 Rather, and when on his account the name of God (male audiret,]
[Lat.) was evil spoken of. ] 14 [BULLINGER, 11]]
called upon the name of the Lord: whereby it came to pass, that, when his hair grew forth again, his strength returned; that is, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him again, being brought unto him, not by the growing of his hairs, but by his repentance and earnest calling upon the Lord. Neither did Samson desire to revenge his own private injury so much as to suppress the blasphemous mouths, and to deliver the people of God! from fear and slavery. The strength of God, therefore, returned again, wherewith he bending the pillars of the theatre was himself slain with the fall of the palace, and at his death slew many mo than he had killed in all his life time before.
But now we return again to the purpose, to add the other ceremonies that do belong to the exposition of the vow of the Nazarites.
When the time was expired, therefore, which the Nazarite had taken upon him for to observe, he came to the tabernacle of the Lord, and offered the sacrifices that are prescribed in the law: whereby he testified that he was a sinner, and plainly confessed that all goodness and virtue? that was to be found in him, was given and bestowed from God above. And therefore he polled his head, and cast his hair into the fire3, wherein the peace-offering was a burning. At last, when all this was in this manner accomplished, it was lawful for the Nazarite, as one loosed of his bonds, to return unto his old life again. Thus much hitherto touching the discipline of the Nazarites.
Now touching the clean and unclean, there is a long discourse in the law of Moses. I in my former treatise did lightly touch and pass over some certain things; but now at the last (for here I mean to make an end to speak of ceremonial laws) I will add somewhat touching the choice of meats, I mean, of clean and unclean meats.
God, verily, in the beginning created all things; and he so created them, that, as the Creator is good, even so all his creatures even at this day are good also: neither doth he gainsay himself now, when he forbiddeth certain meats, as
[1 ad quos vocatus fuerat, Lat. omitted; unto whom he had been]
[called.] [2 id est, si quid virtutis, Lat.; that is, whatever virtue. ] [3 craticulam, Lat.; gridiron.]]
though somewhat of itself were unclean. There are other mysteries, that lie hidden under this doctrine of the choice of meats.
The laws, which are given touching meats and victuals, seem to be small and of little value; but it pleased the Lord in a small thing to admonish us what we have to do in a greater, and that even in the smallest things the authority of his Godhead ought to be regarded. For the authority of the law dependeth upon God: God is the lawgiver, and the law is his invention. This suppresseth the malapertness of mortal men, which maketh, undoeth, and every day deviseth new laws and ordinances. Therefore God in these kind of laws doth commend to his people faithful obedience to be shewed unto him: even as, in the beginning, he commanded Adam not to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, requiring thereby faithful obedience to be shewed unto him. Verily, the obedience and faith, which was in the Maccabees, in old Eleazar, and in certain other godly men, that stood against king Antiochus, even to the shedding of their blood and suffering of most bitter death, did please the Lord exceedingly. Other more abstained from swine’s flesh, whereby they obtained neither praise nor glory among wicked men. When the word of God saith that a thing is holy, it is holy indeed; and that, because he is holy that commandeth it. When God saith that any thing is unclean, it is unclean indeed, so that to eat any thing against the word of God is to defile the eater. “Ye now,” saith the Lord in the Gospel, “are clean because of the word which I said unto you.” It is needful, therefore, that we believe the word of Godand that obedience go before faith; and then it cannot be but that the deed or work that is of faith, as Eleazar’s was, who would not taste the swine’s flesh, must needs be acceptable unto God, with whom whatsoever is not of faith is sin and wickedness.
Moreover, the Lord in these laws of his touching the abstaining from the flesh of certain living creatures had a great respect unto the health and soundness of mortal men’s
[i [4 among wicked men, not in Lat.]]
[5 et preecedat obedientia fidei, Lat.; the obedience of faith go]
[before. ] [6 in quibusdam, Lat.; in some οἵ, 14—2]
212 THE THIRD DECADE. [serm. bodies. For some of those which he forbiddeth to be eaten are by physicians! scarcely thought to be wholesome for our bodies. And thereupon the saints do gather this syllogism: If God hath care for the health of our bodies, he is far more careful verily for the preservation of our souls. What may be thought of this, that many nations have tempered? themselves from the eating and touching of some living creatures? Therefore, that the people of Israel, who of themselves were sufficiently superstitious and curious enough, should not be their own carvers, and invent such toys as they thought best, God gave them such laws for choice of their meat as did contain hidden mysteries in them, thereby to draw them from their own devices, and to sever them from all other nations; as Moses testifieth in the fourteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, saying: Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord thy God hath chosen thee from among all the nations upon the face of the whole earth, to be a peculiar people unto himself.” To St Peter? in the Acts of the Apostles, a vision is shewed, wherein by the unclean beasts are meant the Gentiles. Lastly, God would have the nature and disposition of the beasts, that he forbad to be eaten, to be throughly scanned. For in their diet at the table he did by figures lay before their eyes the heavenly philosophy, giving them occasion, even in their meat, to think and speak of the true holiness of the mind, to the end that men should not be filthy, impudent, foul, unclean. And therefore is this clause so many times 23 repeated, “1 the Lord your God am holy;” as if he should yourselves to holiness. Wherefore in those figures he taught say: All these ceremonies tend to this end, that ye may give the godly what to follow, and what to fly from.
Now in the law of the clean and unclean he doth first of all put certain generalities; then he descendeth by specialities, and doth in a beadrow reckon up certain particular things in a very natural course and order. The place is at the full set out in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus and the fourteenth of Deuteronomy. Those beasts were allowed
[1 et a medicis, Lat. ] [2 sibi temperarunt, Lat.; have abstained.] i [3 certe, Lat.; without a doubt.] [ per catalogum, Lat.]. ἶ]
to be eaten, which cleave the hoof, and chaw the cud. Here are two things set down, in which the duty of a good man is notably contained: for if we will be clean, we must divide the hoof, and also chaw the cud. Our affection is the foot of our minds, which affection must not be followed. We must have discretion in all things to judge betwixt affections. And as in a cleft there be two parts or sides, the right and the left; so a good man chooseth the good, and flieth from the evil. Chawing of the cud is our judgment. For we must not admit everything which we hear and see, but those things only which we have examined exactly, and found to be contrary neither to God nor to his law.
There are then repeated many living things particularly, which were not lawful to be eaten among the people of the Lord. Those were either four-footed beasts upon the earth, or fishes, or birds, or such as creep upon the ground. Of four-footed beasts four by name we are especially forbidden: the camel, whose long and lofty neck doth teach us, that pride and arrogancy must be eschewed?; the coney, or the mountain mouse; for God doth utterly mislike the men that are altogether overwhelmed, like coneys, in the earth, and never lift up their minds unto heaven’; the hare, a fearful beast, which doth warn us to shake off all cowardly fearfulness; even as also the hog doth put us in mind to avoid all uncleanness; for a hog is the very type and picture of nasty filthiness, and of it doth the byword rise, to call an uncleanly person a beastly swine. And of Circe the fable goeth, that she with her enchantments did turn Ulysses his men into a sort of loathly hogs?. Furthermore of fishes, so much was allowed for meat, as was found to have fins and scales upon them: if they lacked either of them, they were forbidden; as the eel, which though it hath fins yet lacketh it scales, and therefore was not to be eaten. For as the bodies of fishes are ruled with the fins, so must the whole man be governed by hope’. The scales are hard and cover the body: [5 modis omnibus, Lat.; by all τηθϑηβ.]
[6 ἸΞΨ, the jerboa. The name is probably derived from the animal’s burrowing. Lee’s Lex. in voe.]
[ἡ ο ΓΠ and never—heaven, not in Lat.]]
[8 qui et proverbiis locum dedit, is the Lat. of this sentence. ] [9 Hom. Od. Lib. x.] [19 spe firma, Lat.]]
.. et a ν. “Ὁ ἘΠ 214 THE THIRD DECADE, [sErM. and we, unless we be constant and patient in the Lord’s work, are worthy to be abhorred of the Lord our Maker. Of birds those are forbidden, which are the greatest raveners, devourers; which love and live by unclean meats; which fly abroad at owl-light, at midnight, and in the dark; and such as are crafty, unstable, and nothing cheerful’. Herein therefore is commended unto us well-doing, abstinence, temperance, simplicity, light, constancy, cheerfulness, soundness and pureness of living. Lastly, of such as creep by the ground no small number are noted: for men altogether wrapped in worldly muck do utterly displease the Lord.
I have of purpose not reckoned up all the names of the forbidden creatures, partly because it would have been too tedious unto you, and partly because the interpreters of the Bible do wonderfully stick? in the interpretation of their names: so that I can never marvel enough at the extreme blind stubbornness of the Jewish people, in keeping so strictly the choice of their meats, when their own rabbins do stick, and cannot tell certainly what creatures they be that the Lord did forbid them.
To this belongeth, that even before the law, in the time of Noah, God did forbid to eat the blood and the flesh with the blood of any thing torn by wild beasts, or strangled. is Before the deluge the fathers did eat the herbs and fruits of the earth. After the flood they had leave given to eat the flesh of living creatures; but so yet, that they should cut the throat off, and drain the blood out of the body. The place is extant in the ninth chapter of Genesis. Moreover, in the law the Lord with great severity saith: “Whatsoever man it be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood, I will set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.” Leviticus xvii. And the same law is repeated in the nineteenth chapter of the same book, and in the twelfth and fifteenth chapter of Deuteronomy. It is again rehearsed in the third and seventh chapter of Leviticus. Neither is it without very just and great causes, that he did so severely forbid the eating of blood. For first of all, after the words above rehearsed, he addeth immediately: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it unto you upon the altar, to [1 alacres, Lat.] [2 laborant ac variant, Lat. ]
vIL.] THE CEREMONIAL LAWS OF GOD. 215 make an atonement for your souls: for blood shall make an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Let no soul among you eat blood, &c.” Lo, in these words a most evident reason is given why it was not lawful to eat blood; because blood was the most excellent and precious thing, as that which was ordained for the sanctification of mankind. For God gave blood to be as the price, wherewith sins should be cleansed; to be, I say, the price of redemption, whereby men should be absolved of their sins. Blood also is the life, that is, the nourishment of life.
The blood, therefore, was a sign of the blood of Christ, that was to be shed upon the cross: by which, as by a most full and absolute atonement, the faithful are cleansed and thoroughly sanctified; and in which is the nourishment of the soul to life everlasting: and as it was not lawful to eat the flesh of the sacrifices, whose blood was carried into the sanctum? for sin, but to burn it without the host; so it was unlawful to eat the blood, which was the cleansing for their sins. He therefore did eat blood, which attributed to his own strength or works the atonement which was made by the blood of Christ, esteeming his blood to be profane, and not attributing unto it the full satisfaction for all sins, Again, he did not eat, but pour the blood down at the altar, who did ascribe the benefit of our redemption to the only merit of Christ, and did esteem it of so great value as it ought by right to be esteemed.
Lastly, God would have it deeply printed in the minds of men, that no man should shed another’s blood, nor live of the blood and bowels of other men: as mercenary soldiers, covetous persons, usurers, and cozeners do, in sucking out and shedding the blood of silly people with subtle sleights and open injury. And God, talking with Noah, did with terrible threats ὁ beat into all murderers an horrible fear, saying: If men be slack, I will take vengeance upon the shedding of blood.” For man was made to the image and likeness of God: how can God choose then but take the reproach as done to himself, which is done unto his image? For whosoever
[[ in sancta, Lat.; into the holy places. ] [4 blood, ποὺ the Ὀ]οοά.] [6 utpote, Lat.; inasmuch as it was. ]]
[ἢ [6 et rationibus, Lat.; and reasons.]]
casteth down the image of the king, he offendeth against the king, and is accused of treason.
But now touching strangled, this law was given: “Eat not xxii with blood.” And again, “Eat not of that which dieth of
96.1 itself, nor of that which is torn with wild beasts, &c.” But by strangled and carrion that dieth of itself are signified the dead works, from which he is bidden to purge himself!, whosoever desireth to get God’s favour. He therefore did eat strangled, whosoever did live in wickedness, without repentance, not regarding? the blood of Christ his Saviour.
ΝΟΥΣ also the touching of unclean things is set down in the law by these three notes; as if thou touchest an unclean thing, or if thou bear it, or if it fall by chance into some vessel or garment of thine. He verily is defiled by the falling of a thing, whosoever sinneth unwittingly. But he sinneth more heinously, whosoever sinneth? willingly and of a set and pretended purpose!. But he sinneth most grievously of all, that upholdeth wickedness, and compelleth other to commit the same.
But whereas in touching,-and in other places, it is said that the uncleanness shall abide till evening; that is an evident prophecy of Christ, to wit, that the Messiah should come at evening, that is, in the end of the world, to purge the sins of all the earth.
I have enough, and long enough, thus far by two whole sermons (I pray God it may be to your profit, dearly beloved) stayed in and stuck upon the ceremonial laws: therefore, that I may now come to an end, I will bring the chief points whereof I have spoken into a brief sum. I did divide the whole treatise of the ceremonial laws into three especial branches: for I spake of the holy persons, of the holy time and place, and of the holy things which the holy persons did exercise in the sacred place; I mean, the sacraments, the sacrifices, and other holy ceremonies. The holy persons are the priests: I shewed you their first beginning, their ordering, their mystical apparel, and their sundry offices. When I spake of the holy time and place, I did describe unto you the taber-
[1 per divinam gratiam, Lat.; by the grace of God.] [2 neque magnopere curabat, Lat. ] [ sciens, Lat. omitted; with knowledge.] [ dedita opera, Lat.] [6 defendit, Lat.]]
nacle, and noted unto you what was within the tabernacle; to wit, the ark of the covenant, the golden table, the golden candlestick, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt-sacrifices, and the brasen laver: the mysteries of all which I declared unto you. In the treatise of the holy time I touched all the kinds of holy-days and solemn feast-days, with all their certain and uncertain holy-days. Last of all, in our. discourse upon the holy things, I told you of the two sacraments of the old church, circumcision and the passover; and also of the sacrifices, whereof some were burnt-offerings, some meat-offerings, some peculiar, and some of thanksgiving: wherein we spake somewhat also touching free-will-offerings and vowed sacrifices: finally of vows, of the discipline of the Nazarites, of clean and unclean creatures, of the choice of meats, of blood and strangled, and of the touching of unclean things.
The Lord Jesus enlighten your hearts, that all this may tend to the glory of his name, and the health of your souls! Amen.
Of the Judicial Laws of God. The Seventh Sermon
← 31. Decade 3, Sermon 6, Part 1 · Contents · 33. Decade 3, Sermon 7. Of the Judicial →