Paxton Hood on Puritan Adams 4

It was an absurd fashion of speech, here are two illustrations of this most singular mode; from both sermons I leave out, as too long, the more ludicrous of similar passages from the text “Take thou thy son," etc.

Not to preface away any more tyme, please yew to call to mind these four generalls observable in the text.

1. Victima, the Hoast or Sacrifice; described here by a double name. 1. Proper, Isaak. 2. Appellative, or a name of relation, Sonne; which likewise is further illustrated by two other attributes; the one taken ab electione divina, the other ab afleclione humana. 1. Unigcnitus, his onely sonne; there's God’s inscrutable election. 2. Dilectus, his beloved sonne; there's Abraham’s deerest affection.

2. Sacerdos, the Priest which was to ofl'er up this sacrifice. The person not exprest, but in the word Tolle, Take thow. God speakes to Abraham: The Father must bee the Priest and Butcher of his own sonne. .

3. Altare, the Altar or Place where this was to be offered; set downe 1, Generally, the land of Moryah. 2, Specially super uno montium, one particular mountayne in that land.

4. Ritus, the Rite and Manner of sacrificinge, or the kind and quality of the sacrifice: Holocaustum, it must bee an whole burnt ofl'ringe.

Again, from the text, “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them,” &tc.

In which Prayer and Supplication of his these six thinges are observable.
l. Quando, the tyme when. When hee was hanginge now on r. the Crosse, and ready to yield up the Ghost; Tune, then Jesus sayd.
2. Quis, the party prayinge. Dixz't Jesus, it was Christ Jesus.
3. Cui or ad Quem, the object to whome his prayer is directed; and that is God his Father.
4. Quid, the matter and subject, or thinge for what he prayed; which is Pardon and Forgivenes.
5. Pro quibus, for whome hee prayeth; Illis, them, his Enemyes.
6. Quare, the ground and reason of his petition; which was theyr Ignorance; for they know not what they doe.
The Tyme, when: the Persons, who; the Person, to whome; the Persons for whome; the Thinge, for what; and the Cause, wherefore.

In a state of transition from the times which produced these curious formularies was the age when Thomas Adams began to preach. He must have been contemporary with Bishop Andrewes and Dr. Donne. I love Bishop Andrewes, but his style, almost through every line of it, abounds with strange readings and words, thus, “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel ? Let Him be arrayed in scarlet, it is His due. His “Doctor’s weed”

On the birth of Christ at Ephrata

Even so, Lord, saith our Saviour, for so is thy pleasure. And since it is His pleasure so to deal, it is His further pleasure (and it is our lesson out of this Bethlehem minima). Even this, ne minima minimi, that we set not little by that which is little, unless we will so set by Bethlehem and by Christ and all. He will not have little places villified, little Zoar will save the body, little Bethlehem the soul, nor have, saith Zacherie, (dies parvus - little times - despised, unless we despise this day, the Feast of Humility. Nor have one of these little ones offended. Why? for, Ephrata may make amends for, parvula, ex te for in.

How quaint and singular reads the following: - 

Will ye now to this inglorious Signe heare a glorious Song; to this cratch of humilitie, a hymne of caelestiall harmonie? If the Signe mislike you, ye cannot but like the Song, and the Queer (choir) that sing it. The song I shall not be able to reach to, will ye but see the Queer?and that shall serve for this time: For, by all meanes, before I end, I would deal with somewhat that might ballance this Signe of His low estate. This the Evangelists never faile to doe; Ever, they look to this point carefully: If they mention ought, that may offend, to wipe it away streight, and the Scandall of it, by some other high regard. See you a sort of poore Shepherds? Stay, and ye shall see a troope of God's Angels. Heare ye one say, layed in the crotch below? abide, and ye shall heare many sing, Glorie on high, in honour of Him that lyeth in it.
Vidisti vilia (saith St. Ambrose) audi mirisiea: Were the things meane you have seen?
Wonderful shall they be, ye now shall heare and see both. Vilescit praesepe, ecce Angelivis cantibus honoratur: Is the Cratch meane? Meane as it is, it is honoured with the musike of Angels, it hath the whole Queer of Heaven to sing about it. This also will prove a signe, if it be well looked into; a counter-signs to the other: That, of His humilities,- this of His glorie.

Lancelot Andrewes illustrates the monastic method in a Protestant Church, listen to him intently, bring to his words what you will certainly meet in them, a spirit of prayerful devotion; forgive the quaintness of the preacher for the holiness which shines through all his words, and you will not listen in vain. His sermons will bear modern adaptation, if the mind adapting them and using them be itself informed and filled with ardent and seraphic reverence for the great truth of the Incarnation ; for indeed there is the glow of a seraph about him - quaint as he is the aureola of a saint shines over him; cloistral and monastic, his sermons are wholly free from the wider inspirations of thought and worldly knowledge, they are narrow in their range but they are intense; the live coal from off the altar has given to all his faculties a pure flame; but even as a coal presents strange and grotesque faces in the fires, so with the ardours of his style, they are as grotesque as they are holy; fancies in words took him captive, often it must be admitted very pleasantly. Thus Christ the Conqueror coming from Edom and from the grave.

And comming backe thus, from the debellation (defeat) of the spiritual Edam, and the breaking up of the true Bozra indeed, it is wondered, Who it should be. Note this that nobody knew Christ at His rising; neither Mary Magdalen nor they that went to Emmaus. No more doth the Prophet here.
Now there was reason to aske this question, for none would ever think it to be Christ. There is great oddes; it cannot be He.
1. Not He: He was put to death and put into His grave and a great stone upon Him not three days since. This Fame is alive and alives like. His Ghost it cannot be: He glides not (as Ghosts, they say, doe) but paces the ground very strongly.
Not He: He had His apparell shared amongst the souldiers; was left all naked. This Partie hath gotten Him on glorious apparell, rich scarlet.
Not He: if He come, He must come in white, in the linnen He was lapped in, and laid in his grave. This Partie comes in quite another colour, all in red. So the colours suit not. To be short, not He; He was put to a foile - to a foule foilc - as ever was any : they did to Him even what they listed; scorned and insulted upon Him. It was then the houre and power of darknesse. This Partie, whatsoever He is, hath got the upper hand, won the field  marches stately, Conquerour-like. His the day sure.

The following little extract illustrates the refreshing way Andrewes had of pressing out comfortable truth in his barbarous Latinities.

There was then a new begetting this day. And if a new begetting, a new Paternitie and Fraternitie, both. By the hodié genuite of Christmas, how soone Hee was borne of the Virgin's wombe. Hee became our brother (sinne, except) subject to all our infirmities ; so to mortalitie and even to death it selfe. And by death that brotherhood had beene dissolved, but for this dayes rising. By the hodie genuite of Easter, as soon as Hee was borne again of the wombe of the grave, Hee begins a new brother-hood, founds a new fraternitie straight; adopts us (wee see) anew againe, by His fratres meos; and thereby, Hee that was primogenitus ad mortius, becomes primogenitus inter multos fratres: when the first begotten from the dead, then the first begotten in this respect, among many brethren. Before Hee was ours : now wee are His. That was by the mother's side ; so, Hee ours. This is by Patrem vestrum, the Father's side; So wee His. But halfe-brothers before; Never of whole bloud, till now. Now, by Father and Mother both, Fratres germanie, Fratres fraterrimi, we cannot be more.