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Two Sermons upon Part of St Jude - Dedication

1585-160010 min read

— To the Worshipful M. George Summaster, Principal of Broad-Gates Hall, in Oxford, Henry Jackson wisheth all happiness.

YOUR kind acceptance of a former testification of that respect I owe you, hath made me venture to shew the world these godly sermons under your name. In which, as every point is worth observation, so some especially are to be noted. The first, that as the spirit of prophecy is from God himself, who doth inwardly heat and enlighten the hearts and minds of his holy penmen, (which if some would diligently consider, they would not puzzle themselves with the contentions of Scot and Thomas, Whether God only, or his ministering spirits, do infuse into men’s minds prophetical revelations “per species intelligibiles,”) so God framed their words also. Whence the holy father St. Augustine religiously observeth1, “That all those which understand the sacred writers, will also perceive that they ought not to use other words than they did, in expressing those heavenly mysteries which their hearts ‘conceived,’ as the blessed Virgin did our Saviour, ‘by the Holy Ghost.’ ” The greater is Castellio’s2 offence,3 who hath laboured to teach the Prophets to speak otherwise than they have already. Much like to that impious king of Spain, Alphonsus the Tenth4, who found fault with God’s works5, “Si,” inquit, “creationi affuissem, mundum melius ordinassem;” If he had been with God at the creation of the world, the world had gone better than now it doth. As this man found fault with God’s works, so did the other with God’s words; but, because “we have a most sure word of the Prophets6,” to which we must “take heed,” I will let his words pass with the wind, having elsewhere7 spoken to you more largely of his errors, whom, notwithstanding, for his other excellent parts, I much respect.

You shall moreover from hence understand, how Christianity consists not in formal and seeming “purity,” (under which who knows not notorious villainy to mask?) but in the heart-root. Whence the author truly teacheth, that mockers, which use religion as a cloak, to put off and on as the weather serveth, are worse than pagans and infidels. Where I cannot omit to shew how justly this kind of men hath been reproved by that renowned martyr of Jesus Christ, Bishop Latimer; both because it will be apposite to this purpose, and also free that Christian worthy from the slanderous reproaches of him8, who was, if ever any, a “mocker” of God, religion, and all good men. But first I must desire you, and in you all readers, not to think lightly of that excellent man, for using9 this and the like witty similitudes in his sermons. For whosoever will call to mind with what riff-raff God’s people were fed in those days, when their priests, “10whose lips should have preserved knowledge,” preached nothing else but dreams and false miracles of counterfeit saints, enrolled in that sottish Legend11, coined and amplified by a drowsy head between sleeping and waking: he that will consider this, and also how the people were delighted with such toys, (God sending them strong delusions that they should believe lies,) and how hard it would have been for any man wholly, and upon the sudden, to draw their minds to another bent, will easily perceive, both how necessary it was to use symbolical discourse, and how wisely and moderately it was applied by that religious father, to the end he might lead their understanding so far, till it were so convinced, informed, and settled, that it might forget the means and way by which it was led, and think only of that it had acquired. For in all such mystical speeches, who knows not that the end for which they are used is only to be thought upon?

This then being first considered, let us hear the story, as it is related by Master12 Fox13: “Master12 Latimer,” saith he, “in his sermon [sermons], gave the people certain cards out of the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Saint Matthew. For the chief triumph in the cards he limited the heart, as the principal thing that they should serve God withal, whereby he quite overthrew all hypocritical and external ceremonies, not tending to the necessary furtherance of God’s holy word and sacraments.” By this “he exhorted all men to serve the Lord with inward heart and true affection, and not with outward ceremonies; adding moreover to the praise of that triumph, that though it were never so small, yet it would take up the best coat-card beside in the bunch, yea, though it were the king of clubs, &c., meaning thereby, how the Lord would be worshipped and served in simplicity of the heart, and verity, wherein consisteth true Christian religion,” &c. Thus Master12 Fox.

By which it appears, that the holy man’s intention was to lift up the people’s hearts to God, and not that he made “a sermon of playing at cards, and taught them how to play at triumph, and played” (himself) “at cards in the pulpit,” as that base companion 14Parsons reports the matter in his wonted scurrilous vein of railing, whence he calleth it15 a Christmas sermon. Now he that will think ill of such allusions, may out of the abundance of his folly jest at 16Demosthenes for his story of the sheep, wolves, and dogs; and at Menenius, for his fiction of the belly17. But, hinc illæ lacrymæ, the good bishop meant that the Romish religion came not from the heart, but consisted in outward ceremonies: which sorely grieved Parsons, who never had the least warmth or spark of honesty. Whether Bishop Latimer compared the bishops to the knaves of clubs, as the fellow interprets him, I know not: I am sure Parsons, of all others, deserved those colours; and so I leave him.

We see then, what inward purity is required of all Christians, which if they have, then in prayer, and all other Christian duties, they shall lift up pure hands, as the Apostle18 speaks, not as 19Baronius would have it, “washed from sins with holy water;” but pure, that is, holy, free from the pollution of sin, as the Greek word ὁσίους doth signify.

You may see also here refuted those calumnies of the papists, that we abandon all religious rites and godly duties; as also the confirmation of our doctrine touching certainty of faith, (and so of salvation,) which is so strongly denied by some of that faction, that they have told the world, “20St. Paul himself was uncertain of his own salvation.” What then shall we say, but pronounce a woe to the most strict observers of St. Francis’ rule and his canonical discipline, (though they make him even21 equal with Christ,) and the most meritorious monk that ever was registered in their

calendar of saints? But we for our comfort are otherwise taught out of the Holy Scripture, and therefore exhorted to build ourselves in our most holy faith, that so, “when our earthly house of this tabernacle shall be destroyed, we may have a building given of God, a house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens22.”

This is that, which is most piously and feelingly taught in these few leaves, so that you shall read nothing here, but what, I persuade myself, you have long practised in the constant course of your life. It remaineth only, that you accept of these labours tendered to you by him, who wisheth you the long joys of this world, and the eternal of that which is to come.

Oxon. from Corp. Christi college, this 13 of January, 1613.

← A Remedy against Sorrow and Fear · Contents · Two Sermons upon St Jude 1 →

Footnotes

  1. Lib. iv. c. 6. de Doct. Chr. [“Audeo dicere, omnes qui recte intelligunt quod illi loquuntur, simul intelligere non eos aliter loqui debuisse.” iii. 67. The rest of the sentence (though printed by Jackson as a quotation) does not appear in St. Augustine.] ↩

  2. a Castellio his, 1614, 1618, 1622. ↩

  3. [In his translation, published at Basle, 1546, and severely censured by Beza in the notes to his own version of the New Testament, 1556, for sacrificing accuracy and propriety to grammatical purity.] ↩

  4. b Alphonsus X, 1614. ↩

  5. Rod. Tolet. lib. iv. c. 5. [ap. Script. Rer. Hispan. t. i. p. 377. Francof. 1579.] ↩

  6. 2 Pet. i. 19. ↩

  7. Præf. in Orat. D. Rainold. ↩

  8. Parsons in 3 Convers. [“The third part of a Treatise entitled, ‘of Three Conversions of England;’ containing an Examen of the Calendar or Catalogue of Protestant Saints, Martyrs and Confessors, devised by Fox, and prefixed before his huge volume of Acts and Monuments; with a parallel or comparison thereof to the Catholic Roman Calendar, and Saints therein contained. The last six months.” 1604. p. 215.] ↩

  9. c using of, 1614, 1618, 1622. ↩

  10. Mal. ii. 7. ↩

  11. Canus, Locor. lib. xi. c. 6. [“Nec ego … auctorem excuso … historiæ ejus, quæ Legenda Aurea nominatur … Hanc homo scripsit ferrei oris, plumbei cordis, animi certe parum severi ac prudentis.” p. 658. Lovan. 1569.] Vives, lib. ii. de corrupt. Art. [De Causis corruptarum Artium, ii. t. i. 371. Opera, Basil. 1555. “Quam indigna est divis et hominibus Christianis illa Sanctorum historia, quæ Legenda Aurea nominatur, &c.”] Hard. lib. iv. [“A Detection of sundry foul Errors, Lies, Slanders, &c. uttered and practised by M. Jewel, in ‘A Defence of the Apology,’ &c. By Tho. Harding, D.D. Lovan. 1568.” b. 4. fol. 251. “There is an old moth-eaten book, wherein saints’ lives are said to be contained. Sometimes it is called Legenda Aurea, sometimes Speculum Sanctorum, &c… . It shall not greatly skill who was the author of it: certain it is that among some true stories there be many vain fables written.”] ↩

  12. d Mr. 1614. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. Pag. 1903. edit. 1570. [p. 1731. ed. 1583.] ↩

  14. In the third part of the Three Conversions of England: in the Examination of Fox’s Saints, c. 14. sect. 53, 54. p. 215. ↩

  15. Sect. 55. ↩

  16. Plutarch. in Demosthen. [c. 23.] ↩

  17. Liv. Dec. i. lib. ii. an. U. C. 60. [c. 32.] ↩

  18. 1 Tim. ii. 8. ↩

  19. Annal. tom. i. an. 57. n. 109, 110. et tom. ii. an. 132. n. 5. ↩

  20. “S. Paulus de sua salute incertus;” Richeom. Jesuit. lib. ii.c. 12. Idololat. Huguenot. p. 119. in Marg. edit. Lat. Mogunt. 1613. interpret. Marcel. Bomper. Jesuita. [“S. Paul craint de n’estre pas sauvé.” Œuvres du R. Pere Louis Richeome, Provençale Religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus. Paris, 1628. t. i. p. 627.] ↩

  21. Witness the verses of Horatius, a Jesuit, recited by Possev. Biblioth. Select. part. 2. lib. xvii. c. 19. [27. p. 449. Colon. 1607.]Exue Franciscum tunica laceroque cucullo:Qui Franciscus erat, jam tibi Christus erit.Francisci exuviis (si qua licet) indue Christum:Jam Franciscus erit, qui modo Christus erat.[Horatius Torsellinus was the author of this epigram: which is entitled, “De S. Francisci Stigmatibus;” and concludes with the following couplet:“Quid cœlestis amor non audes? fingis amantesArte nova, effigies ut sit amantis amans.”]The like hath Bencius, another Jesuit. [Francisci Bencii, e soc. Jesu, Carm. lib. iv. 25. Ad Effigiem S. Francisci.“Tene ego Francisce aspicio vel Christe? tabellaUna tuam effigiem reddit, et una tuam.Quod si Francisci, nostræ monumenta salutisVulnera cur palmas, corda, pedesque premunt?Si Christus; quid vult onerosa lacerna, nec altamDulce crucem pondus pendula membra gravant?Induit, ut video, Christi Franciscus, et illeFrancisci vultus: alter utrumque refert.Quid non mortales cogat divinus? in unum,Non animos tantum, corpora conflat amor.”P. 203. Ingoldstadt. 1599.] ↩

  22. [2 Cor. v. 1.] ↩

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