Discourses on Divers Texts of Scripture, Discourses 2 · Sermon 9
JOEL 2. 17.Ioel 2. 17.
Let the Priests, the Ministers of the Lord, weep between the Porch and the Altar, and say, Spare thy people, ô Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach.
THese words are part of a description of a Fast, as the Context before and after will tell you; and they contain a Rite or Custome wont to be used in such solemne deprecations, namely, for the Priests of the Lord, (who are to be the Intercessors and Mouth of the Congregation) not then, as at other times, to enter into the Temple, to offer and sanctifie with Incense the prayers of the people at the Golden Altar before the vail, but to prostrate themselves without the door, between the Porch and the Altar of burnt-offering, as unworthy to approach the Throne of the Divine Majesty, or come over his Threshold, and therefore keeping a distance; as it is said also of the Publicane in the Gospel, that when he Luk. 18. 13came into the Temple or Courts thereof to pray, he stood, foreign, afarre off, saying, God be mercifull to me a sinner. For ye are to know, that the great or brasen Altar, called the Altar of burnt-offering, whereon the sacrifices were offered, stood not within or under the roof of the Temple, but sub dio, over against the door or Porch thereof in the middle of the Priests 2 Chr. 15. 8 Ezek. 8. 16.Court. For at the entrance into the Temple or House of God, Solomon built a large vestibulum, or Porch, on each side whereof stood those two famous Pillars of brasse, the one called Iachin, and the other Boaz: Between this Porch and the great brazen Altar (which stood without it) the Priests the Ministers of the Lord are here commanded to weep, and say, Spare thy people, ô Lord, and give not thine heritage to Reproach.
This Rite of humiliation, we finde mentioned in two other places of the Book of Scripture: As first, in that humiliation of Ezra for the peoples marrying of strange wives, Ezra 9. & Chap. 10. 1. where having rent his garment and mantle, he cast himself down (saith the Text) before the House of the Lord, (viz. before the door or Porch thereof;) weeping, and confessing, and said, Lord, I am ashamed to lift up my face to thee my God, for our iniquities are encreased over our head, and our trespasse is grown up unto the heavens. Another mention we have thereof in 1 Mac. 7. 38. when Nicanor proudly threatned, that unlesse Iudas Maccabeus and his host were delivered into his hand, if ever he returned in safety, he would burn up the House of God: Then the Priests, saith the Text, entred in (namely, into the Courts of Gods House) and stood between the Altar and the Temple, weeping and praying. Which passage the Greek Interpreter of that Book, did not well understand, when he rendred it, foreign, before the Altar and the Temple. For Ioseph Ben Gorion hath expresly in the Hebrew, foreign, the very words of Ioel in my Text, between the Porch and the Altar.
A like custome whereunto, and as is probable taken up in imitation thereof, is that of ours, To read the Letany (or our Parce Domine, parce populo tuo) kneeling at a low desk in the body of the Church before the Chancell door, (as was ordered by the first Injunctions of our Reformation when Procession was taken away) or at the bottome of the steps or ascent unto the Altar, as is used in the Cathedrall and Collegiate Churches.
And this may suffice for explication of the Rite which the Prophet here describeth: Now the Lesson we are to learn from hence is, That the nature of a right and religious Fast consists in an humble demission and abjection of our selves before Almighty God, out of the apprehension of the greatnesse of his Majesty, and our unworthinesse to finde any favour at his hands, whom we have so much provoked by our sins. For this to have been the meaning of that Ceremony, besides the naturall signification of the deportment it self, appeareth by the Exordium I but now quoted of Ezra's confession, when he thus cast himself down before the Porch of the House of the Lord, weeping; Lord, I am ashamed (saith he) and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: For our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespasse is grown up to the heavens. Besides, thus to humble and bring us down, is the end why God sendeth his judgements of Plague, Famine, or the like, for the aversion whereof these solemne supplications and assemblies are ordained. And therefore rightly at the beginning of our publique worship of God are we admonished to be humble, by some of the first words we are to utter; O come let us humble our selves, and fall down before the Lord with reverence and fear. Hence fasting and humbling a mans self go in Scripture for equipollent terms: My cloathing was sackcloth, (saith David, Psal. 35. 13.) I humbled my self with fasting. So Ahab humbled himself, and thereby deferred his judgement, 1 King. 21. 29. Hezekiah humbled himself, both he and all the Inhabitants of Jerusalem, 2 Chron. 32. 26. Manasseh is said likewise to have besought the Lord and humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers, 2 Chr. 33.
No disposition fit so and apt for devotion as humility; no more powerfull means to prevail with God and appease his wrath, then this abjection of our selves; Satis est prostrasse Leoni; Let me with reverence apply it unto the Majesty of God.
For all Eminency is worshipped with humility, reverence, and submission, that is, as we are wont and rightly to speak, by keeping a distance. Therefore the soveraign or supreme Excellency of God must be adored with the lowest demission and greatest stoop the soul can make. We finde by experience that that disposition of the eye, which fitteth us to behold the visible Sun, maketh a man blinde when he looketh down upon himself: So here, the apprehension of the transcendent excellency of God, ten thousand times brighter then the Sun, if truly admitted into our hearts, will darken all our overweening conceit of any worthinesse in our selves. The greater we would apprehend his power, the more sensible must we be of our own weaknesse; The greater we acknowledge his goodnesse, the lesse goodnesse must we see in our selves: The more we would apprehend his wisedome, the lesse we are to be puffed up with our own knowledge: As in a pair of skales, the higher we would raise one skale, the lower we pull down the other; so the higher we raise God in our hearts, the lower we must depresse our selves.
Hence we find the humblest natures, and the most humbled condition, to be the fittest for devotion; I say, the humblest natures are the most pliable and aptest to Religion: whereas those which the world is wont to commend for brave spirits, of all others buckle the worst thereto: But let the world fancy what it will, God seeth not as man seeth; It is not the tallest Eliab, but the humblest David who is the man after Gods own heart; He that humbleth himself as a little childe, the same is the tallest and goodliest soul for the Kingdome of God: The Stars in the Firmament howsoever they here seem small to us, yet are bigger then the earth; so he that is despicable and small here in the eyes of men, is there a great one in the eyes of God. Let those therefore that think all worth resides in a lofty and brave spirit, remember, that the Devil was a braver fellow then any of them all, and that his high and lofty spirit, was the cause of his downfall and Apostasie from his Creator, and so of that damnation to everlasting fire prepared for him and his Angels.
And as the humblest nature, so the humblest or most humbled state and condition, is the fittest also for the exercise of devotion, as the poor and mean, rather then the rich and full. Wherefore Agur desired of God, not to give him more then food convenient for him, lest being full he should deny him, and say, Who is the Lord? Such likewise is the state of adversity and affliction, whence it is that God useth this discipline of his corrections and judgements, to make us crouch and bow down unto him, when he seeth us ready to forget him. Whence David, Psal. 94. 12. pronounceth the man blessed whom the Lord chastiseth; and Psal. 119. ver. 67, 71. Before I was afflicted, saith he, I went astray, but now I have kept thy word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. For diseases, say the Physitians, must be cured by contraries: It was pride that caused the disloialty and rebellion both of men and Angels against their God and Maker; Whence it is that Syracides saith, Ecclus. 10. 12. The beginning of pride is when one departeth from God, and his heart is turned away from his Maker. 13. For pride is the beginning of sin, and he that hath it, shall pour out abomination. If pride be the beginning of our rebellion against God, then must lowlinesse be the proper disposition of those who fear and worship him; And so Tanto quisque est vilior Deo, quanto est pretiosior sibi.
Now then to return to our Argument of Fasting; we may observe beside the ceremony specified in my Text, that all other Rites or Ceremonies used by the Ancients in this solemne devotion, or yet continued by us, imply nothing else but lowlinesse and humility, partly to work and beget it, partly to expresse and signifie it. They are reducible to three heads: 1. of habit; 2. of gesture; 3. of diet. For habit, it was anciently sackcloth and ashes, by the coursenesse of the sackcloth they ranked themselves, as it were, amongst the meanest and lowest condition of men; by ashes, and sometimes earth upon their heads, they made themselves lower then the lowest of the creatures of God: For the lowest of the elements is the earth, then which we use to say a man cannot fall lower, Qui jacet in terra, non habet unde cadat. For gesture, they sate or lay upon the ground, which in the Primitive Church was called, foreign, humicubatio; a naturall ceremony both to expresse, and ingenerate or encrease this disposition of lowlinesse and abjection of our selves; and as frequently practised by our devout Fore-fathers, as it is seldome or never used amongst us. It were a thing most comely, and undoubtedly most profitable, if either these ceremonies, or some other answerable to them, were revived amongst us at such times as these. If we were all of us this day attired, if not in sackcloth, (which perhaps sutes not so well with the custome of our Nation) yet in the dolefullest habit of mourners; if we lay all groveling upon the ground; would not such a rufull spectacle, would not the very sight of so uncouth an assembly, much afflict and move us? The mournfull hue of Funerall solemnities, we know by experience, will often make them to weep, who otherwise have no particular cause of sorrow; how much more when they have?
But the principall ceremony, and which we still retain, is abstinence from meat and drink, whence this kinde of supplication hath the name of Fasting: the end thereof being as to bring down our bodies, thereby the better to humble our souls, so to expresse and testifie the same. Mores animi sequuntur temper amentum corporis: If the body be full and lusty, the minde will be lofty and refractory, and most unfit and uncomposed to approach the Divine Majesty with reverence and fear. How uncomposed is that heart to sue to God for mercy, and aversion of his judgements, which is fraught with rebellious, unclean and lustfull thoughts, like so many dogges barking within it? But these are all ingendred and cherished by full feeding, and cannot be easily quelled unlesse they be starved: When I fed Israel to the full (saith the Lord Ier. 5. 7, 8.) then they committed adultery and assembled by troups in harlots houses, &c. Ieshurun (saith Moses in his Propheticall song Deut. 32. 15.) waxed fat and kicked, and forsook the Lord that made him, and lightly esteemed of the Rock of his salvation.
Wherefore S. Paul was fain to pinch his body, and bring it down with Fasting; I keep under my body (saith he 1 Cor. 9. ult.) and bring it into subjection, l…st that by any means when I have preached unto others, I my self should be a cast-away. Hilarion a religious young man, when after much abstinence and course diet he felt his flesh still unruly and rebellious; Ego, inquit, Aselle, faciam ut non Calcitres, nec te hordeo a…am, sed paleis, Fame & siti te conficiam: such is the danger of a pampered body, and such the necessity of keeping it under.
But as Fasting is a Physicall means (if it be used to purpose) to take down the loftinesse of our minds and affections, by subtracting the fuell and foment of our lusts, which is full feeding; so is it a ceremony chosen for that naturall effect it hath to signifie and testifie, that by reflection upon our vilenesse and unworthinesse, we strike the sail of our high flying affections, and humble our selves before the Majesty of Almighty God upon such occasions as these. For as we use feasting not only to beget, but also to expresse and testifie our erection and chearfulnesse of heart in times of joyfulnesse, (whence in the Old Testament, to rejoyce before the Lord, is put for to feast before him;) So is fasting, when we would intend our devotions, used, not only as a means to further, but also as a ceremony; whereby we testifie our sorrowfull dejection and humiliation of minde before God.
Well then, you see what is the chief end we are to aim at in this our solemne abstinence, namely, to take down our proud hearts, and bring them to a state of lowlinesse and humility, a disposition so acceptable and prevailing with God; to check our high-mounting passions, and allay the smoaking flames of our unruly lusts; which as it is at all times requisite in some measure, whensoever we approach the Majesty of God to sue for mercy and forgivenesse; so then especially, and in a more then usuall manner, when God shakes the rod of his judgements over our heads, and biddeth us down and prostrate both soul and body before him, lest his wrath break us in pieces if we will not bow.
He that hath attained this, hath fasted well; he that hath not, may hereby know, he hath not done enough, or not as he should do. If the boiling of our lusts be cooled and calmed; if the swelling conceits of worth in our selves be taken down, with a true and feeling apprehension of our vilenesse and wretchednesse through sin, which maketh us the most unworthy creatures in the world; if those ramping weeds of contempt and despising of others, be cropped and withered, (and these I can tell you will quite spoil a garden where many good flowers grow;) If after this manner we be affected, then are we humbled. If not, we are not sufficiently taken down; all our service is hypocrisie, nor will our devotions be accepted of that all-seeing Majesty who resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.