Works

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise, March 29. 1663.

I T is well they might so, and had warrant of promise so to do, otherwise where had their expectation been? The verses immediately before speak nothing but devastation and ruin of Heaven and Earth, and if there had been nothing beyond that to be looked after, their hopes and expectancy had been ruined also: but we, says our Apostle, look for new Heavens and a new Earth.

But of what nature they, is all the question. I doubt some men construe these words of the Apostle as far distant from his sense almost, as the Earth is distant from the Heavens: whilst they conceive from hence, that after the dissolution of all things yet there shall be a renewing of Heaven and Earth, and they shall be as before, as to their substance and form, only their quality changed. To this they apply, Rom. VIII. 19, 20. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God, &c.

They would make our Apostle say Sibboleth whether he will or no: whereas he speaks Shibboleth plain enough to a far differing sense.

For the discovery of his meaning, have patience a little, whilst I make this observation clear unto you, which may be useful to you in reading several places of Scripture▪

That the ruin and destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish commonwealth and economy, is set forth in Scripture in such expressions, as if it were the destruction and dissolution of the whole world. Moses beginneth this style in Deut. XXXII. 22. where he is speaking of that vengeance. For a fire is kindled in mine anger and it shall burn to the lowest hell, and it shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Would you not think that the dissolution of all things were in mention? Look upon the context and you find it to mean no other than the destruction of that Nation. Jeremy yet higher, Chap. IV. 23. I beheld the earth, and • o, it was without form and void: and the heavens, and they had no light: You would think all the world were returning there to her old chaos again. Add yet further, I beheld the mountains, and lo they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. You would think that the whole universe were dissolving, but look but in the 27 verse. and it speaks no other than the dissolution of that people, For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate.

Our Savior yet higher, Matth. XXIV. 29. The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man, &c. who would not conclude that these expressions mean no other thing in the world, than the last dissolution of the World and Christ's coming to Judgment: yet look well upon the context and it speaketh plainly that the meaning is only of the dissolving of the Jews City and State: and Christ speaks it out most plainly at verse. 34. where he afferts, that that present generation should not pass till all those things were fulfilled.

The beloved Disciple follows his Masters style upon the very same subject in the sixth of his Revelation, where after he had described the means of the destruction of this wretched people under the opening of certain seals, by Sword, Famine and Plague; he comes at last in verse. 12, 13, 14. to speak their final dissolution itself in the very like terms. The Sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the Moon became as blood. And the Stars of Heaven fell unto the Earth, and the Heavens departed as a scroll that is rolled together and every mountain and Island were removed out of their places. One would think the final dissolution of all the world were spoken of: but look in the 16th verse and you find the very same words that our Savior applies to the destruction of that people, Luke XXIII. 30. They said unto the mountains fall on us, and hide us, &c. Our Apostle Peters meaning is no other in the expression before my Text, where when he speaks of the Heavens being dissolved by fire, the Earth and the works therein burnt up, and the elements melting with fervent heat, he intends no other thing, then the dissolving of their Church and economy by firy vengeance, the consumption of their State by the flame of God's indignation, and the ruin of their elements of Religion by God's fury. Not the Elements in Aristotle's sense, of Fire, Air, Earth and Water, but the Elements in his brother Paul's sense whom he mentions presently after my Text, the carnal and beggarly Elements of their Mosaic rites and traditionary institutions.

By this time you plainly see in what sense The new Heavens and the new Earth is to be taken in the Text: but for the fuller and clearer understanding of these things still, give me yet a little further patience to show you, that as the destruction of that old World of the Jewish people and economy is uttered by such expressions, as if it were the destruction of the whole universe; so the times going near before, and concurrents going along with that destruction, are phrased by expressions also suitable. And this I shall observe to you in four heads.

I. There is much mention of the last days in Scripture, which in most places is not to be understood of the last days of the World, as some take them, and so mistake, but of the last days of Jerusalem and the Jewish State. And indeed the greatest mercies that were promised to that people were promised to occur in those last days, as Esa. II. 2. Hos. III. 5. Jo • l II. 28. as he is cited by this our Apostle, Act. II. 17. these things are not to be allotted to the last days of the World, but to the last days of that City; as Peters very allegation out of Joel makes it plain, if there were no more proof. Now, saith he, is fulfilled that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel, In the last days I will pour out, &c. These are the last days, there intended, and now the thing hath received its accomplishment. For how improper is it to construe him in such a sense as some do, This is that which Joel foretold should come to pass in the last days of the world two or three thousand years hence?

And so on the contrary the worst of men and times are foretold to be in those last days of Jerusalem, because they did not improve those mercies, I Tim. IV. 4. and II Tim. III. 1. and our Apostle in the third verse of this Chapter; let the Apostle John explain all, I Joh. II. 18. Little children, it is the last time, and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time.

II. In such a sense are such Phrases as these to be understood, I Cor. X. 11. Upon whom the ends of the World are come. Not the very best times of the World, for the World hath lasted sixteen hundred years since Paul spake that; and how long yet it may last, who knoweth: but the end of that old World of the Jewish State, which then hasted on very fast. In the same sense are the words of our Apostle in his first Epistle, Chap. IV. 7. The end of all things is at hand; Not the end the World but of that City, Nation and economy: the like is that James V. 9. Behold the Judge standeth before the door; and divers other of the like nature.

III. The vengeance of Christ upon that people in that final destruction, is set out and called, his coming, his coming in his Kingdom, and in clouds, and with power and great glory. His coming. Joh. XXI. 22. In his Kingdom, Matth. XVI. ult. In power and glory, Matth. XXIV. 30. Nor is this any figure, for observe, verse. 34. This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled. Accordingly the day of that vengeance is called The day of the Lord.

IV. The state of the Church and Gospel after that dissolution, of that old World, is called sometimes the World to come, Heb. II. 5. sometimes new Heavens and new Earth, as in the Text; sometimes all things new, as II Cor. V. 17. Old things are past away, behold, all things are become new.

So that by this time you see plainly the meaning of our Apostle at this place. In the verses before he speaks of the dissolution of the Jewish Church and State in such terms as the Scripture useth to express it by, as if it were the dissolution of the whole World: And in the words of the Text, of the new face and state of the Church and World, upon the dissolution when a new people and new economy took place: We according to his promise.

The promise is in Esa. LXV. 17. For behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth. Where if you look into the context before, you shall find the sense justified that I put upon the words, and these new Heavens and new Earth, created after the Jews casting off and destruction. It is a strange opinion that would persuade you that the most glorious things that are foretold by the Prophets should come to pass when the Jews are called, which calling is yet expected: whereas those glorious things are plainly enough intimated to come to pass at the Jews casting off. I might name many places: I shall not expatiate upon that subject here: this very Chapter speaks enough to justify what I say. In the second verse God complains, I have spread out my hands all the day long to a rebellious people. This the Apostle in the tenth of the Romans and the last, applies unto that people. But to Israel he saith, All the day long have I stretched forth my hand to a disobedient and gainsaying people.

The Prophet along the Chapter telleth what shall become of that people. At verse. 6. I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their basom, Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together (saith the Lord) which have burnt incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills, therefore, &c. At verse. 12. I will number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter. At verse. 13. Behold my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, &c. At verse. 15. You shall leave your name for a curse to my chosen. And then follows the promise that is related to in the Text, For behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth.

Though you are gone yet all the World shall not be gone with you. For though I destroy my old people, the old Heavens and Earth, of the old economy, yet I shall provide myself a new people of the Gentiles, when the Jews shall be a people no more: and when that old World is destroyed, I will create new Heavens and a new Earth.

Such another passage is that of our Savior, Matth. XXIV. 31. where when he had described the ruin of the Jewish Nation in the terms we have spoken of before; and it might be questioned, what then shall become of a Church, and where shall it be? The Son of man, saith he, shall send his Angels or Ministers, with the sound of the trumpet, of the Gospel, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of the Heaven to the other, among all Nations.

Thus had Peter read this great promise in Isaiah the Evangelical Prophet, thus had he heard it from the mouth of the great Prophet, his sacred Master; and therefore it is no wonder, if when it is confirmed by the mouth of two such witnesses, he undoubtedly look for new Heavens and a new Earth according to such a promise. But what is meant by righteousness in this place?

• 1. Not God's primitive or distributive righteousness or justice: for that was ever, Gen. XVIII. The Judge of all the World did right ever since the World was: In the old World, in all the World, and the same for this yesterday and today and forever.
• 2. Not that men were more righteous toward the latter end of the World, than before, as some dream of such glorious things yet to come: for there is no such promise in all the Scripture. True indeed that promise of such glorious things was in the last days of Jerusalem; but where is any promise of any such things in the last days of the World?
• 3. Nor doth it mean the glorified estate, for where do you find righteousness applied to that estate? It is commonly applied to the state of believers here.
• 4. Therefore it means justification of sinners, or that righteousness by which they are justified.

The righteousness of God, which is witnessed by the Law and the Prophets: Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, as the Apostle most divinely doth expound it.

This is the righteousness that is so gloriously spoken of throughout all the Scriptures, Dan. IX. 24. To bring in everlasting righteousness; Esa. LVI. 1. My righteousness is near to be revealed; to which that is agreeable, Rom. I. 17. In the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Why? Was not the righteousness of God revealed in all times before? Was not his justice revealed in the Law? Yea his condemning justice, but his justifying justice in the Gospel.

This the meaning of the Apostle here: That as God had promised to Create new Heavens and a new Earth, a new Church and People and economy among the Gentiles, when the old Judaic one should be destroyed: so in this new created World, justifying righteousness should dwell most evidently and appear most glorious, when such abominable ones as the Gentiles had been should be justified. Justifying righteousness had shown itself in the World in all generations from Adam and righteous Abel, upon all that believed; but upon the believing Gentiles most especially both because of the multitude that were justified, and men that before had been so far from righteousness.

You may see a picture of what is intended in this Text, in the fourth of the Revelation, where there is a scheme of this new World that our Apostle speaketh of from the promise in the Prophet. There is a scene fashioned of Christ sitting in the midst of the Gospel Church, platformed according to the form of God's dwelling in the midst of the people of Israel in his Tabernacle, and upon the mercy seat. His throne is said to be in Heaven, in the second verse, but it means in his Church: for so Heaven is taken in most places in the Revelation: And observe before his Throne in Heaven is a Sea of glass, verse. 6. as the molten Sea was before the Temple: there is an Altar before the Throne, and offering of Incense, Chap. VIII. 3. as there was at the Temple: nay there is the Temple itself filled with smoke, Chap. XV. 8. as the Tabernacle and Temple were at their Dedication.

About his Throne were, First, four living Creatures on the four sides of it, as the four squadrons of Priests and Levites pitched on the four sides of the Tabernacle betwixt God and the people. On the outside of them sat four and twenty Elders, the representative of the whole Church, as the squadrons of the people pitched on the one side of the squadron of the Priests and Levites. And it is said these four and twenty Elders were clothed in white; which speaks the very things we are speaking of; for so doth the Holy Ghost himself explain it, in the XIX. Chap. verse. 8. The fine linen is the righteousness of the Saints. And in Chap. VII. 14. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Strange washing, washed them white in blood? You would think that should make them of another color: but the whiteness that we are speaking of is the pure white of Justification, and nothing can purify to that die but the blood of Christ.

And here let me also crave your patience a little to speak to another Text of Scripture, which speaketh fully to the matter we are upon, but which is not so clearly rendered to its proper purpose, but that it hath produced no little controversy. And that is these words in Rom. IV. 11. Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised. Generally all Translations run in the same tenor: whereas these words which he had yet are not at all in the Original, as you that cannot read the Original may see by that that they are written in a different character. The Greek hath it thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . verbatim to be rendered thus, He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith, in the uncircumcision: And not to be understood of the righteousness of faith which Abraham had in his uncircumcision: though it is true he had it, but a seal of the righteousness by faith which was to be in the uncircumcision, or in the believing Gentiles. And that this sense is most agreeable to the intent of the Apostle in that place, needs no more proof then the serious observing of the nature of his discourse from those words forward. And that it is most agreeable to the end of the institution of circumcision, needs no more proof than the serious observing of the story of its institution.

That you have in Gen. XVII. where this promise is given to Abraham, Thou shalt be the father of many Nations. In what sense the father of many Nations, the Apostle clears in the words next following those that we are upon. That he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also. So that this was the Covenant that God makes with Abraham there, that the uncircumcision should believe and become the sons of Abraham embracing his faith.

This Covenant and promise God confirms with a double seal. 1. With the change of his name from Abram to Abraham: from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a high father to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the father of a great multitude: and 2. With the seal of Circumcision; A seal of the righteousness by faith which should be in the uncircumcision, or in the Gentiles that should believe.

Ponder the words and the context, and the story of the institution of Circumcision well, and you will find this to be the main aim and end of it. Not a seal of the righteousness by faith which Abraham had being uncircumcised, but of the righteousness by faith that the uncircumcision should have, when they came to believe. And it speaks the very same thing with the Text, that when God should create the new Heavens and the new Earth of the Gentile Church, when the Jewish should be cast off, that righteousness or justification by faith should dwell and shine in it.

I have been something long in the explanation of the words, but the necessity of the thing may plead my excuse. And now they being thus explained, they offer three most noble Themes for discourse before us.

• I. Here is mention of a new World.
• II. Of God's Promise.
• III. Of Justification or Righteousness.

And upon which of these shall I fix? Any of the three would take up the time that is allotted: therefore I will lay my right hand upon Ephraim's head which is the youngest.

The word righteousness you see is last born in the Text, and yet indeed the birthright is due unto it. It is the first aim of our Apostle that he looketh at, and the other two are but appendices to it in his aim. Follow his eye with yours and see where he sixeth. Righteousness is the thing he looketh after, the new Heavens and the new Earth are the state and place where he looketh for it; and the promise is the prospective through which he looked at it.

I shall therefore pitch upon that as the main subject of the Text, and from the eye of the Apostle so intent upon it; Observe,

Me thinks Peter speaks here concerning this righteousness, much like the tenor that the Psalmist doth concerning God, in Psal. LXXIII. 25. Their is nothing in the new Heaven but thee, and nothing in the new Earth, that I look after besides thee. His brother Paul is of the same mind and song, Phil. III. 8, 9. I do count all things but dung that I may win Christ. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith. Offer him as Satan once did to our Savior, and try him with haec omnia tibi dabo, Paul, choose through all the World what thou wilt have, honors, riches, pleasures, profits, take what thou wilt and have. Lord, let me have the righteousness which is of God by faith. All things in the World are but dung to it. His great Master had taught him, and teacheth us all that this is the thing so desirable and to be longed after, Matth. V. 6. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.

How shall I speak upon this subject? A theme fit to be discoursed on by the Tongue of an Angel, or by the Tongue of a Saint in glory. If a Lazarus should come out of Heaven to preach on Earth, as the rich man would have had him in that parable, how would he upon his own experience of the excellency of it, magnify this righteousness? Nay if a Dives could return from Hell to preach to his brethren, and advise them that they should not come into the place of torment, he would tell them that all things in the world are but dung, and there is but unum necessarium, to get that righteousness which is of God by faith.

Lazarus, how camest thou to Heaven? Why, I was justified, Rom. VIII. 30. Whom he justified, them he also glorified. Dives, how camest thou to be damned? Because I was not justified.

I shall not enter into any of the various and nice disputes about Justification, I shall only speak something of the incomparable excellency of it, that if it may be, I may warm your hearts a little, in the desire and longing after it, which is so desirable and to be longed after.

And this I shall do by considering the nature of it, and the effects, and I need to look no further: Its like the Ark of the Covenant, overlaid with gold within and without. It is all glorious within in its own nature, and all glorious without in its fruits and effects.

For the first, the nature of justification: How shall I define or describe it? As the Apostle doth Faith, Heb. XI. 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen; not so exactly desining it to speak out its whole nature, but as best applicable to his present discourse: So I of this, to speak of it according to the theme proposed, as it is desirable and to be longed after, let me say, Justification is a man's being interested in all Christ's righteousness: and if anything be to be longed after, sure that is, To be interested in all Christ's righteousness.

Laban spake high, when he said, All these things thou seest are mine, these Children are my Children, &c. XXXI. Gen. 43. But how high and glorious is that that may be said of a justified person? All thou hearest of Christ is thine, his life is thine, his death is thine, his obedience, merit, righteous spirit, all is thine. The Jews speak much when they say all the six hundred and thirteen precepts are comprehended in Justus ex fide vivet, The just shall live by faith. But they are far from construing the thing aright, when they look for justification by their own works: and it is a monster of Doctrine in their ears, that men are to be justified by the righteousness of another and by the obedience of another.

But the Gospel, as the Apostle tells us, Reveals that great mystery; For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: Rom. I. 17. Here are two scruples, 1. Did not the Law reveal the righteousness of God? How then is it ascribed to the Gospel, that it reveals it? And 2. How doth it reveal it from faith to faith?

True indeed the Law revealed God's condemning righteousness, but the Gospel his justifying righteousness; the righteousness of God in a more singular excellency. Glorious is the righteousness of God in all its actings, his condemning justice, his rewarding justice, but most singularly glorious is his justifying justice; and this most especially is exalted in Scripture as the righteousness of God, of the choicest eminency.

And, secondly, this Righteousness is revealed in the Gospel from faith to faith. How, is that? I cannot take it only from one degree of faith to another, but from one kind of faith to another. The Jews that expected justifying by their own works, yet had they a faith in God, they believed in him, looked for good from him, but they knew not what faith in God through Christ was, they looked for justifying from God, and had a faith or belief they should observe it; but were utter strangers to justifying through faith in Christ, this therefore the Gospel reveals as the great mystery of salvation. The righteousness of God justifying a sinner, and this from immediate believing in God, to believing in him through Christ Jesus, and expecting justifying from by our own righteousness, to expecting justifying by the righteousness of Christ.

The Apostle in Rom. V. from verse. 12. forward, confirms that that I propose, that justification is by imputation of Christ's righteousness; and the comparison that he there useth, clears the matter fully. He to open that great point of justification by the righteousness of Christ, takes a parallel, from the imputation of Adams sin, and you may see how all along he sets the one against the other: let us speak a little to that parallel.

1. Does not the matter of imputation in his discourse there, and in deed in itself argue some descending relation, as I may tell it? Imputation is upon relation of descention.

He speaks of Adams sin imputed: to whom? To them that are in relation to him in descent, all his posterity. The Angels sin is not imputed to him, nor his to Angels, nor Angels to Angels, but Adams to all his posterity, because of their relation to him. The sin in violating the command given him, is imputed to all his posterity, because his posterity: for they all were in him, and enclosed in the Covenant, for it was made not with Adam as one man, but with all human nature included in him: and so his guilt descended to them upon that relation.

So the righteousness of Christ is imputed: to whom? To those that are related to him, his seed such as are born of him. The comparison of the Apostle must run parallel; Adams sin imputed to his seed, Christ's righteousness to his.

2. All the seed of Adam are made sinful alike by his sin, so all the seed of Christ are justified a like by his obedience.

Original sin hath not magis & minus, but all originally sinful alike; though all not actually sinful alike. So Justification hath not magis & minus, but all that are justified are justified alike. Sanctification hath its degrees. Adams righteousness and holiness were equally perfect, but the righteousness and holiness of Saints not so: for they are justified by an infinite righteousness, but they are not sanctified by an infinite holiness.

3. All the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him. Not one Saint one part, another another, but everyone all. As anima tota in toto & tota in qualibet parte. So all the righteousness of Christ is to all believers, and all to everyone. As a million of men are in the Sun, and one partakes not one of one part of his light and beams, and another of another, but everyone of all. So here as the first inhancement of the desirableness of justification, it makes us partakers of Christ's righteousness: Oh what a treasure is this!

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise, March 17. 1664.

E VEN so be it with all that deal in falsehood, as these persons do, that are spoken of by the Text. So be it with everyone who at this time and occasion when Conscience should be stirring, and doing its just work toward the forwarding the execution of Justice, can find in his heart to hinder it, or to persuade it to the contrary: Any one that can swallow down and choke his Conscience with a false Oath, any one that shall intend a false Testimony, lay in a false accusation, or maintain a wrong cause. Awake Conscience, awake, and do thy duty, fly in his face and make him blush and be ashamed; admonish, chastise, correct and hinder him that he being convinced of his own Conscience, may either get him out, or at least it may get him off from being so injurious to others, or to his own soul.

There is hardly any Commentator upon the Gospel or this Chapter, but he will tell you that this story of the adulterous woman was wanting and left out of some Greek Testaments in ancient time, as appears by this, that some of the Fathers setting themselves to expound this Gospel make no mention at all of any part of this story. So Nonnus turning all this Gospel into Greek verse hath utterly left out this whole story, and so hath the Syriac New Testament first printed in Europe; and so Jerome tells us did some old Latin translations. When I cast with myself whence this omission should proceed, I cannot but think of two passages in Eusebius.

The one is in his third Book of Ecclesiastical History, the very last clause in that Book, where he relates that one Papias, an old Tradition-monger, as he characters him, did first bring in this Story of the adulterous woman, out of a book called the Gospel according to the Hebrews. For so is that passage of Eusebius commonly understood.

The other is in his fourth Book of the Life of Constantine, Chap. 36, 37. Where he relates, That Constantine enjoined him, and committed to his trust, to get transcribed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which the last Translation renders fifty Copies of such parts of Scripture, as he thought might be most useful for the Churches of Constantinople: But his Greek expression seems rather to mean fifty Copies of the Gospel compacted into one body by way of Harmonizing them together: which I am the rather induced to believe, partly, because of those Canones Eusebiani, which are so famous, and were in tendency to such a purpose: partly because he relates that he finished the work according to the Emperors command, and sent him the books 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 by ternions & quaternions: which seems to mean three or four Evangelists compacted together according as they jointly related the story.

Now if Eusebius believed that this story was introduced by Papias, as he seems to do, you may well conclude, that he would be sure to leave out this story in all his fifty Copies, which he thought unfit to be compiled with the Evangelical Story, as having no better authority, than the introduction of it by such a man. Or if the ages before Eusebius were of the same belief with him in this matter, you may see why this story might also be wanting in those times.

But I shall not trouble you about this matter, which is now past all dispute. For I believe it is hardly possible in all the World to find now a printed New Testament, either in the Original Greek, or in any other language, either Eastern or Western, wherein this story is not inserted without any question. Nor had the thing been ever disputed, if the story itself had be searched to the botom, for then of itself it would have vindicated its own authority, to be Evangelical and Divine.

It tells of a Woman taken in adultery in the very Act, I could easily be persuaded to say, And in the very Temple too. For as our Savior saith, They had made that House of prayer a den of Thieves, so I doubt, they made it sometimes a nest of Whores. And at this time there was offered an extraordinary occasion and opportunity for such a lewdness. For as the Chapter preceding tells you at verse. 37. That the day next before this occurrence was the great and last of the Feast of Tabernacles; so the Jews Records will tell you, that that night, as also others of the same Feast, was spent by the chief men in the Nation in dancing, singing, sporting, and even revelling in the Temple-Court, vast companies of men and women looking on. Now if such night-work as that did produce such a deed of darkness as this, it was no wonder. But I leave this as not asserted.

The Scribes and Pharisees bring this woman to Christ as he sat teaching in the Temple, to have his sentence upon her, as it is like she was first brought to them to have theirs. If I should construe the Scribes and Pharisees here for the Members of the Sanhedrin, or bench of Judicature, it might plead the warrant of the words of our Savior, Matth. XXIII. 2. where he useth the same expression in the same sense. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses chair, i. e. the Sanhedrin sit in Moses Legislative Magistratical seat. As also the warrant of his words in this very story, where asking the woman, Hath no man condemned thee, he seems to intimate, that those that accused her had also power to judge and condemn her. However it is well known, that Scribes and Pharisees in Scripture language speak the men of the most eminency and dignity in the Nation.

They propose the case to Christ as a point of Scruple, though they intend something worse in it. This woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now Moses in the Law commanded us, that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? And indeed there were two scruples in the case.

One was as to a point in their Civil Law, viz. whether a woman taken in the very act of Adultery, might not have the benefit of Divorce, as well as a woman deprehended an Adulteress by some other discovery: since that permission of divorce was to mitigate the sharpness of the Law of putting her to death.

The second was as to a point of Civil Policy, which you may pick out of their words to Pilate, Joh. XVIII. 31. The Jews said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. It is very generally understood, as if they meant, that the Romans had taken away from them the power of Capital punishments. But the Jews more truly give the reason of it, viz. That Murderers and Malefactors were grown so numerous, and headstrong, and so strong a party, that the Sanhedrin could not, durst not execute justice upon them. And let me add one other Record of theirs, which suits with the thing, we are upon, namely, they say, That Adulterers grew so common, so in numerable, that they were glad to lay aside that practice by trying the adulterous wife by giving her to drink the bitter waters prescribed by God in the fifth of Numbers. And that Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai, who I doubt not was of the Sanhedrin at this very time, caused it to be laid aside, alleging that saying of the Prophet Hosea, I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery, Hos. IV. 14.

Now take it either way, whether the Romans had taken away the power of Capital punishments out of their hands, or Malefactors had overpowered it, that it durst not act, a just scruple arose in this case, what to do with this woman?

But these men come not for resolution of questions, but for catching advantages, which Christ well knoweth, and therefore gives them no answer, but stooping down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. Our English hath added as though he heard them not, which is rarely to be found in any Greek Testaments. Some few indeed have 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as not regarding: which might very well have been spared, since Christ, when he had shown that he heard and regarded, by saying to them; Whosoever is without sin, let him cast the first stone, yet he stoops down and writes on the ground again.

An action and gesture that seems so strange to Beza, that he plainly professeth that for this very passage, he had a suspicion of the whole story, that it is not Gospel. It may be it seemed to him too like the gesture of David, scrabbling on the walls and doors in a dissembled frantickness. But if he had turned the other end of his Perspective, it would have looked more like God's writing with his finger on the two tables of stone, for the Temple-floor was stone also.

Some on the other hand as confident, as he was suspicious, will tell you verbatim what it was that Christ wrote: who let enjoy their confidence and fancy. It is enough for us, if we can discover why he wrote, and what his intent was in this gesture. To the discovery of which let me observe these things to you.

I. That as the trial of an adulterous wife is the thing that is in transaction, so Christ acteth in some conformity to the trial of the adulterous wife prescribed by God, in the fifth of Numbers. And much like, if I mistake not, did Moses act in the trial of Spiritual adultery, the Idolatry with the Golden Calf. In Exod. XXXII. 27. He saith to the Sons of Levi, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the Camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. Now how could they know among so many thousands who were guilty? Why, as the adulterous wife drinking the water mixed with the dust of the Sanctuary floor, gave evidence of her guilt by her belly swelling; so Moses by God's direction beats the Calf to powder, strews the powder upon the water of the brook that descended out of the Mount, Deut. IX. 21. causes the people to drink of it, and probably God caused some like token to appear upon the faulty.

II. The Jews have a Maxim in reference to the trial of the suspected wife, most agreeable to sense and reason, viz. That her trial proved of no effect, unless her husband that accused and tried her, were himself free from unchastity. Though she indeed had played the whore, and though she drank the bitter waters, and the Priest denounced the curse appointed to be denounced, yet that all had no effect upon her to make her belly to swell, and her thigh to rot, if her husband were an adulterer too, or a defiled person.

Our Savior acts here directly according to the equity of this Maxim, and sets himself purposely to try these accusers, who accused the woman, and brought her to be tried. As if he had thus spoken out unto them, You have brought this woman to me for me to sentence her, as a Judge, but who made me a Judge or a Magistrate among you? But let me act this once as personating the Priest that was to try the suspected wife, and let me go by the equity of your own rule: you say the trial of an adulterous wife proved to no effect upon her to bring her to condign punishment, if her husband were guilty of the like crime. You accuse this woman and put her upon my trial, are you yourselves free from the like fault? If you be, stone her. He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone. But if you be not, expect not that this her trial should be of effect to her condign punishment, because you the accusers are guilty of the like fault, or of some such notorious fault yourselves.

If we should strictly understand the words, He that is without sin, for he that is without the guilt of this same sin of uncharity, among you, it were but agreeable to the construction of the phrase, Luke VII. 37. a Woman in the City that was a sinner; which is commonly understood a Common strumpet. And it were agreeable to that title that Christ once and again puts upon that generation, calling it a wicked and adulterous generation. And it were but agreeable to the lascivious temper of the Nation, as I observed before. But take it to mean some other notorious crimes, you see our Savior's dealing is exactly according to the equity of that Maxim mentioned, viz. No trial of the adulterous wife to condemn her, if the husband that accused her be an Adulterer himself.

III. Whereas the Priest in the trial of the suspected wife, was to stoop down and take of the dust of the Sanctuary, to make her drink it; and he was to write the curses he denounced against her in a book; the gesture of our Savior here remembers both. His stooping down, and making the pavement of the Temple as his book, and writing in the dust there something most likely bitter and grievous against them he tried.

VI. The trying Priest wrote the curses in the book, and as soon as he had done he blotted them out with the bitter waters again: because the matter was doubtful, that he was upon, whether the woman was guilty or no: if the were guilty then there were curses written, if she were not, then they were blotted out: But here Christ is sure of the guilt of the persons he puts to trial, and therefore he writes not, and blots out again, but he writes and he writes again. And herein he imitates the acting of the trying Priest again. For he, as the Jews expound his acting, first denounced the curses, then made the Woman drink the bitter waters, and then he denounces the same curses again. So Christ stoops down, and writes some such thing, it is like, of the same nature, and then potions these whom he tries with that draught, that went down so bitter with them, He that is without sin, &c. and then stoops down and writes again; which while he is doing, They being convinced by their own consciences, went out one by one, &c.

I have been the longer upon the whole story, partly to unfold these things that are most material in it, which, it may be, every eye doth not observe in reading of it, and partly to vindicate it to its native and genuine authority of Evangelical and Divine. And now to speak of the words and passage in the Text.

The first gloss we may make upon them may be in silence and wonder. For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , you hear of strange things in it.

• 1. That the Consciences of such men as these should be brought to any conviction at all, men sworn to mischief and to be unconscionable.
• 2. That so many such Consciences should be convinced all alike, and altogether and all at one stroke. For the very words intimate, that they were some number, and that conviction seized upon the whole number.
• 3. That they should be convinced with these few words, He that is without sin, &c: when they had taken no thoughts of any such thing before.
• 4. That they should be so overpowered by conviction, as to their own shame before the multitude to proclaim their guilt by departing away and not standing to it.

But, by way of Doctrine hence,

And this is that I shall insist upon out of the words; which ariseth very pregnantly out of them, and lieth very plain in them to be observed: That little is any man able to stand before, or to stand against the Conviction of his own Conscience, when Christ sets it on.

Think you that if the poor guilty Delinquent, that stood now at the bar, had spoken the very same words to them that our Savior doth, that they would have had the same effect upon them? Had she said, He that is witho • sin among you let him • ast the first stone at me; do you think they would have parted with Conviction of Conscience as they did? Their answer to another poor person, that was innocent, that went about a little to instruct them; Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou go about to teach us, in the next Chapter, may give you a guess what their answer would have been, if she had gone about thus to try them; Thou a whore just now taken in the act of adultery and dost thou go about to reprove us? But it is Christ that speaks the words, and Christ resolved to set conviction home upon them, to shame them before the company, and to confound them in their own Conscience: and therefore he sends Thunder with his Lightning, adds his Power to his Word; and with these two edges of the Sword of his mouth he cuts so keen, that they are neither able to avoid the stroke nor to abide it. So little is any man able to stand before or to stand against the Conviction of his own Conscience, when Christ is resolved to set it on.

For the proof and attestation of this truth, I might call for all the mourning men and mourning women, that ever were in the World, either under the torture of horror of Conscience, or under the pangs of Remorse. I might call even Heaven and Hell to bear witness to it; either the Saints in glory, that have been here so convinced of their duty, that they were not able, nay not so much as to be willing to stand against it: or the damned in Hell, eternally so convinced of their guilt and condition, that they are utterly unable to stand before it.

But as he once that had received an unjust sentence of death against himself from a wicked Judicature, cited all his sentencers within such a time to answer God and him; so let me make such a challenge, what Conscience soever is here, or in all the World, that is most unconscionable, that can swear and forswear, lie and oppress, whore and drink, or commit any sin without remorse or feeling: Whosoever is come or shall come to this present meeting and occasion with intent to take a false Oath, to bear false Witness, to lay in a false Plea, or to maintain a wrong Cause; I challenge every such a Person, every such a Conscience at one time or other, either in this life, or within a moment after he is departed out of it, to bear witness and to subscribe to this truth, That little is any one able to stand before or against the conviction of his own Conscience, &c.

To speak of Conviction of Conscience at such a time and meeting as this, is to speak of an Assise in the Soul at the Assise of the County, of Conviction of Conscience at a time when Conscience and Conviction had need to be stirring in a special manner: A subject for discourse very agreeable to the occasion, could I but frame a discourse adequate to the subject. But I must crave your help and assistance for such a work; that as I am to speak of Conscience and Conviction, so your Consciences would go along, and speak also to it, and make out in the discourse of your own Conscience what I speak too short concerning Conscience or Conviction. That whereas all that I can speak will be but as a very short note in the Index, you would turn into the book of your hearts, and see how largely you can read it there.

You see thereby three things plainly before us to speak unto, Conviction of Conscience, and Christ's setting it on, and man unable to withstand such setting on. No one of which but might take up more time in discourse than is allotted; and therefore I shall twist all together in these considerations.

I. First, Being to speak of Conviction of Conscience, I may begin much after that oenigmatical style, that the Apocalyptic useth in speaking of the eighth beast in Revel. XVII. 8. where he saith, That he was and is not, and yet he is. So there is Conviction of Conscience, that is not Conviction, and yet it is. As there are too many in the World, that have no Conscience at all, and yet have a Conscience. As Absolom's long hair signified he was a Nazarite, and under a vow: but Nazarism in an Absalom signified as good as nothing, and yet as to his condemning it signified something.

There is Conviction of Conscience, if we may call it Conviction of Conscience, that is a thing without life, without feeling, without fruit, like Pharaohs thin ears of corn, that sprang up like ears of corn, but are blasted as soon as sprung up, and are empty and come to nothing. Conscience and Memory are so lodged together in the faculty of the Understanding, as two infants laid together in one and the same cradle, that Conscience cannot but receive some jogging, some motion, some touch from its cradle-fellow, and its cradle.

The profanest wretch that is, cannot but sometimes be told by his own heart, that he hath done evil, and that he doth not well: he cannot but remember, that he hath committed such and such abominable actions: he cannot but be convinced he hath done what he should not, that he hath incurred guilt and danger in so doing: he cannot but be convinced he should do otherwise; and yet all this while he hath no impression upon his heart, no remorse, no amending, but doth the same things still and still. Here is a spark of Conviction struck out between the flint and steel, between his memory and understanding, and it lights into the tinder of his Conscience: but this is damp and dead, that it takes no fire, and the spark presently goes out and dies. A blasted Conviction, like Pharaohs thin ears; an abortive Conviction, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Apostles language though in another case, a thing born out of due form, Conviction born dead, and not shaped or formed to the feature of a due conviction. I may compare it to letters written in paper with the juice of a Lemmon, out of which you cannot spell either sentence or sense without bringing it to the fire: and fire in time will make these letters legible, to him that now will see nothing in them.

II. Secondly, There is a Conviction of Conscience, that brings with it some overpowering, some more, some less, some for one end, some for another. I say, some overpowering. In that dispute about the resistibility or irresistibility of grace, as far as I can see into the dispute, this distinction might be useful and advantageous toward the determining of it, viz. to consider what the Spirit of God doth to the heart by way of trying it, and what it doth with intent and resolution to overpower it. The former part of the distinction you have in Exod. XX. 20. Fear not, for the Lord is come to prove, or try, you. The latter in Esa. XXVI. 11. They will not see, but they shall see and be ashamed. The former in Revel. III. 17. Christ stands at the door and knocks, to try whether he shall be entertained. The latter in Ezek. XXII. 14. How can thy heart endure, and thy hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee, when I break in resolved to overpower thee? As in that blasted conviction I spake of before, there was a trying but no over powering, so there is some over powering conviction also, that is but for trial.

There was some overpowering Conviction upon the Consciences of those men in the Text, and that in a very great degree, when it packed them out of the room and company, but this was far from overpowering them to the utmost end of Conviction; but it was only by way of trial, how they would improve this Conviction to that utmost end. So that was a very overpowering Conviction upon the Conscience of Herod, that made him reverence John the Baptist, and to hear him gladly and to do many things according to his doctrine, but it was far from attaining the utmost end of Conviction: it was only by way of trial, whither he would come up to the utmost end or no. This Conviction neither they in the Text, nor Herod could resist, for Conviction brake in, whether they would or no, but the ultimate operation of Conviction they resisted; because in this Conviction the Spirit of God did only try them, not resolved to overpower them to the utmost fruit and effect of Conviction.

III. Thirdly, Now the ultimate effect of Conviction is double and divers, according to the duplicity and diversity of the matter of Conviction itself; namely, when the Conscience is convinced of its condition, or when it is convinced of its duty. The former so, that it is awaked like Jonah with a storm, and not able to stand before the Conviction, but is broke all to pieces by terror and torture: the latter, that it is not able to stand against the Conviction, but is overcome and overpowered to close with its duty.

I shall illustrate the former, by comparing the case with a known story, and the latter by speaking to a case of Conscience worth the knowing.

For the first, it is well known how God tried the Hearts and Consciences of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, by Moses words and miracles, and how again and again he in some degree did over-power them; but still they resisted, and came not up to the proper and ultimate effect of Conviction, to own and to do their duty. At last he brings them into the horror of three days darkness: and in that darkness they are haunted with dreadful and horrid Apparitions of Fiends and Devils. For observe in Psal. LXXVIII. 49. when the Holy Ghost is reckoning up the Plagues of Egypt; and instead of mentioning the Plague of darkness in express terms, he mentions that that was the very quintessence of that Plague, He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath and indignation and trouble, by sending evil Angels among them. What Conviction, think ye, these men's Consciences were struck withal, in the sense of their condition, when they are so overborn with it, and even crushed all to pieces with horror, and are brought even into the suburbs of Hell? They felt the fierceness of the anger, wrath and indignation of the Lord; they saw his dreadful executioners about them, Fiends and Devils: and they are all the while chained up in fetters of darkness, that they cannot out-run their horror: they cannot abide the horrid confutation of Conscience they are under, nor can they avoid it. Ah! woe, woe, woe to the people, to the person is in such a case.

And to such a case doth God sometimes bring the Consciences of men even in this life, though not exactly in the very same kind of execution. Who hath read the story of Spira? Does he not see him and his Conscience in as dreary a condition as these men, though not in the very same way of tormenting? What ails Lamec to howl so horribly, Gen. IV. 23, 24 that he had slain young and old, and undone the World by the cursed example of his Polygamy; that he is in seventy and sevenfold more cursed condition than Cain, who had slain only one Abel. Lamec, what is the matter? Oh Conviction, Conviction of Conscience, set on with such horror, that it grinds his soul even to powder, and he cannot stand before it, he cannot stand under it. What ails thee, Judas, to confess thy fact against thyself with so much sadness and confusion of spirit? Why to east down thy thirty pieces of Silver, which thou hadst got so notoriously, and bought so duly? Oh! Conviction of mine own Conscience, which bears me down, and lies heavier on my Soul, than a thousand thousand millstones. They shall say to the Rocks fall on us, and to the Hills cover us. And those weights seem lighter, than the burden of Conscience, that lies upon them.

Here is Conviction of Conscience overpowering ad ultimum quod sic, as far as possible in that kind, and as far as possible in this World: a man so thoroughly convinced of his lost, undone, damnable condition, that his Conviction is his Hell already, and he cannot suffer, or feel more of Hell till he come there. But

Secondly, There is a Conviction of Conscience overpowering to the utmost effect of Conviction, that is smoother like Jacob, and not such a rough thing as this Esau: a child of the freewoman, and of the promise, and not of this spirit of horror and bondage: and that is when a man is so convinced in Conscience concerning his duty, that he cannot but with all earnestness set to it and keep to it. As in Jer. XX. 9. The word of the Lord was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, that I was weary of forbearing and could not stay. This I shall illustrate to you by looking into a case or state of Conscience, referring something to the Conviction spoken of last before, and also to this we are speaking of now.

Many a dear child of God walks in darkness, and sees no light from the time of his new birth to his grave; he walks in brokenness of Heart and dejection of Spirit, and never sees good day. His example may be instance enough for all others, in Psal. LXXXVIII. 15, 16, 17. I am afflicted and ready to die even from my youth up, I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me, and thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like waters, they compassed me about together. Now what is that that bears such a Soul up that it does not sink under despondency and despair? It is a wonder that such a one can live▪ and what is it that he lives upon? Upon the strong and overpowering Conviction and sense of his duty. Every child of God that is born to God by the new birth is in Rebecca's case, with a Jacob and Esau struggling in her, but the younger overcoms the elder. He hath a twofold overpowering of Conscience in him, namely, concerning his lost condition, and concerning his duty, and the latter overcoms the former. He hath those pangs and anguishes of Conscience through the sight of his sins, and sense of God's displeasure, that it brings him to the very brink of Hell, and of the gulf of dispair, but he hath withal so strong an impression of his duty, that that keeps him from sinking or falling in.

A travailer towards Heaven walks upon two legs, Hope and Sence of his duty. Now many and many a time his hope like Jacob's thigh is sinnew-shrunk and lame, and hath no strength at all in it; yet he makes shift to bear upon his other leg, the sense of his duty, that Jacob -like at last he limps out to his journeys end. The hope of a good Soul may be in the dark, that he cannot see the glimmering of the least spark of it, but the sense of his duty is always in his s • ght, that he cannot but look on it, and walk after it.

The case of Jonah in the Whales belly, Jon. II. 4. I said, I am •• t off from the light. Why Jonah, then thy case is desperate, and there is no hope. But I will yet look toward thy holy Temple. That is my duty, and I must not give out from it. That good man in Psal. LXXXVIII. thou seest, thou hast waited, and prayed, and labored for comfort all thy time, and no comfort comes, there is no hope, strive no longer. I, but it is my duty to wait, and pray, and labor, and I must hold to that, and not give out. Job dost thou not see thy hopeless case, dost thou still hold thine integrity, blessing God and dying? Ah! thou speakest like a fool, saith he, though God kill me, yet will I trust in him, I will wait on him, this is my duty, and I must do it.

Oh! This is worth your laying to heart. If ever your case come to despond in hopes and comforts, yet to • ear up with this, Though I cannot see it is the Will of God to show me comfort, yet I am sure it is his Will that I should hold out in doing my duty. I long for assurance of pardon of my sins, and cannot find it. I pray, and wait, and labor for grace, and hope, and comfort, and cannot feel it. My heart is as sad as ever, as dull, as slippery, as encumbered as ever, yet come what will I must not leave my hold, I must pray, and wait, and labor still, it is my Duty. Thus hath many a sad Soul been born up under despondencies, that have seen no light, hope nor comfort; that it hath been a wonder how they have holden up: yet have lived upon a hidden manna: as in Revel. II. 17. have been born up upon this crutch, the overpowering Conviction of their Conscience concerning their Duty.

IV. Fourthly, Every Conscience in the World must at one time or other come to such ultimate Conviction, in the one kind or other, either to confusion and horror, or to conversion and setting to his duty. Cain, if thou do well, shalt thou not be accepted, but if thou do not well, sin lies at the door, Gen. IV. 7. The word in the Original ••••• fies sin, but more commonly a sin-offering, and that laid at the door. And that I take to be the meaning of the place, and this to be the first doctrine of Repentance in the Bible. Though thou do not well, yet there is a sin-offering to make thy peace: repent and thou shalt be pardoned, but if thou do not repent, sin and vengeance lies at the door, ready to seize upon thee. Sinner, if thou improvest trying Conviction, as thou oughtest to do, thou mayest come to the kindly overpowering Conviction to set thee to thy duty for thy everlasting comfort; but if not, expect overpowering Conviction at one time or other to thy eternal horror: And to this sense could I easily be induced to believe those borrowed expressions of Daniel mean, Dan. XII. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, and everlasting contempt: A resurrection of dead Consciences, as well as dead bodies. Conscience of itself is one of the sleepiest things in the World, if God would let it sleep, but he will suffer no Conscience to sleep forever. But up sluggard, Jonah why sleepest thou, either call upon thy God or betake thyself to thy duty, or into the Sea of horror and confusion, and sink and be drowned.

And so much be spoken, or rather so little of much that might be spoken, concerning the first thing that lay before us to be spoken to, viz. Conviction of Conscience.

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise Time, July 16. 1665.

T HE words are the words of our Savior, and much mistaken (if I am not much mistaken) by many as to the time when they were spoken, and by many as to their sense which they intend. The first verse of the thirteenth Chapter, and the last verse of this, state the time of their speaking, and the consideration of the case of the persons to whom they were spoken must state their meaning.

Very many conceive that the story of the foregoing Chapter was at the Passover-supper: that it was at the Passover-supper, when Christ washed his Disciples feet, gave Judas the • op, and foretold Peter of his denial: whereas the very first words in that Chapter do plainly tell it was before the Feast of the Passover came; and the nine and twentieth verse of it tells us, that when our Savior said to Judas, what thou doest do quick, the Disciples thought he meant, Buy those things that we have need of against the Feast, which was not yet come.

Matthew and Mark resolve us both of the time and place, namely, that it was not at the Passover, but two days before; and that it was not at Jerusalem, but at Bethany, two miles off, Matth. XXVI. 2. 6. Mark XIV. 1. 3. Two days therefore before the Passover, at Bethany, at a common supper, Christ's head is anointed, he washeth the Disciples feet, Judas receives the sop, and the Devil with it, goes in the night to Jerusalem, and plo •• for the betraying of his Master against the Passover come. And after his departure Christ speaks of his own departure from them, and tells Peter, The Cock shall not crow, till thou have denied me thrice.

That very passage hath bred that mistake about the time, as if it were on the Passover night, and that no Cock should crow till Peter had so denied him. Whereas it is apparent that he denied him but once before the Cock crew, Mark XIV. 68. and forward; and that he denied him twice after the Cock had once crowed. But our Savior's meaning is, that he should deny him thrice in the time of Cock crowing.

This matter is the more material for consideration, because of that assertion of some, That Judas received the sop at the Passover-supper, but that he stayed not till the administration of the Lord's Supper, but went out; whereas indeed he had received the sop two nights before the Passover-supper came.

At the same place at Bethany, though not exactly at the same time with the story before, Christ utters his discourse of this Chapter: and you see how he concludes his discourse at the last verse of the Chapter, Arise, let us go hence, that is from Bethany to Jerusalem on the Pass-over day.

He begins his discourse of this Chapter with Let not your hearts be troubled, &c. and presently comes on with the words of the Text, In my Fathers house are many mansions. About the juncture of which words there is some scruple. Some apply them thus, though I go alone, yet there is room for you also where I go. Others thus, That whereas he had said to Peter, Chap. XIII. 36. Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards, he saith now to the rest, let not your hearts be troubled, there are many mansions in my Fathers house; There is room for you as well as for Peter. Some understand many mansions so, for much room: some for divers degrees of glory.

But we shall the better discover the bent of his words, if we observe the three stays that he gives to their troubled minds in the three first verses. We must take notice withal of the three things that might especially trouble their minds. The three stays are, Believe in me: In my Fathers house: I will come to take you. And of the discomfiture that troubled their minds.

I. The first and not the least was that he had told them that he was going from them, and that could not but go very near their hearts: so loving, so divine a Master to be taken away from their heads. They had forsaken all to follow him, and he now to forsake them, that they can follow him no more: they no more to enjoy the sweet delight of his company, the saving and favoury flavor of his discourses, and rare example of his life and converse. Of all this they were very sensible, but most of all, that he should be taken from them in such a manner: As the Children of the Prophets said to Elisha, Knowest thou that thy Master this day will be taken from thine head? Disciples, know ye that your Master will presently be taken from you? Yes, we know it, he hath told us so. But do you apprehend that he is to be taken from you by such a shameful, cruel, horrid death? That he was to be taken away from them at all, how might it justly trouble their hearts; but overwhelm their hearts, if they knew the manner how?

Against this sadness he cheers them with all the arguments and comforts that we meet with in the Text and Context: ye will not see me anymore, yet believe in me: I go from you, but I go to prepare a place for you. Though I leave you, yet I do not forsake you, for I will come and take you to myself. But besides this,

There was a twofold trouble and discomforture might lie upon their hearts by looking upon themselves with reflection upon two common and received opinions and tenets of the Nation; in which they themselves had been trained up even from their infancy, till they met with their Master.

And the first was, that if a Jew forsook his Judaism he should have no part in the World to come. A sour sauce, that no doubt the unbelieving Jews would lay in the dish of the Disciples, and all other of the Nation, that were turned Christians. Oh! ye have forsaken your Religion, and what will become of you? The Apostles discourse seems directly to face such a reproach, in I Thes. IV. 13, 14. I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that sleep, that ye sorrow not as others that have no hope. What were they Sadducees, that denied any Resurrection? And did they account them that were dead to be dissolved into nothing, and quite lost and gone? Or acknowledging the Resurrection, did they think their fellow Christians that were dead were gone to perdition, and were in a damned estate? Or was not this old Jewish Maxim rather cast in their teeth: (for the first foundation of this Thessalonian Church was of Jews ). You and your Sect have turned your back upon your Judaism, and forsaken your Religion; and where are they that are dead, and what will become of you, when you die? When as you have been taught from your child-hood, He that forsaketh his Judaism shall have no part in the World to come. You forsook to follow a certain Jesus, have forsaken the Religion of your Fathers, and what will you do in the latter end, when ye come to die? Why, saith the Apostle, Doubt not, but as many as sleep in Jesus, Jesus will bring with him, and raise them even as God raised Jesus.

Now this might trouble the minds of the Apostles. They had forsaken their Judaism, and turned their backs upon the Religion, they had been trained up in from their cradle, to follow the new doctrine, and precepts of their Master: and now their Master is going from them; and what have they to comfort themselves against that dagger-doctrine, He that forsakes his Judaism, &c. why, Let not your hearts be troubled, ye believe in God, be not afraid to believe also in me on the terms that I have told you, even to the forsaking of your Judaism, and to the embracing of my new way of administration. For in my Fathers house are many mansions: Mansions for you that believe in me, as well as for them that under Judaism believe in the Father; mansions for them under the Gospel administration under which I have brought you, as well as for them, that are under Legal administrations, which you have left. If it were not so I would have told you, and will not deceive you.

III. It was a common and received doctrine and opinion of the Nation, that Messias should have a pompous Kingdom; that he should give splendid entertainment to his followers upon earth, feasting, banqueting, great state and bravery. And the Apostles themselves, were not yet cleared of that opinion, as appears by the request of Zebedees sons, that one of them might sit on his right hand, and the other on his left in his Kingdom: and by that question of the Disciples, Act. I. 6. &c. Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel? &c.

Now these poor men took Jesus indeed for the Messias, but as yet they have seen no such entertainment at all. They poor and their Master poor too. He so far from giving any such treatment, that he had not where himself to lay his own head; and they so far from finding any such entertainment, that they had met with nothing but poverty, danger, contempt and obloquy. And now their Master is going from them, and what is become now of their expectation of that bravery and Kingdom? Why, Let not your hearts be troubled, I have noble entertainment for you, but that is not to be here, but in my Fathers house; and thither I am going to prepare it and a place for you: and I will come again and take you to myself to treat you there.

So that reading the words with the foil and set off of those two opinions, which help to illustrate the sense by reflection, you may observe in them these Two things.

• I. That Christ's entertainment of his people is in Heaven.
• II. That there they all meet in that blessed entertainment, though here they were under various and different administrations.

Many mansions in the Text speaks not several and divided places in Heaven, as the several Cabbins in Noah's Ark, but it reflects upon the many administrations they were severally under upon earth: though under various and different, and almost contrary administrations on earth, yet all meet in his Fathers house, for there are many mansions, and there is the place of his entertaining them.

I shall not need to prove that by his Fathers house he meaneth Heaven, the very words following, I go to prepare, &c. make that plain enough. But I shall speak to both the Propositions before us as it were twistedly together in the method in which Christ acteth as to the things spoken of. And first this,

I. Christ saw it good to bring his Church through various administrations of the matters of Religion, and of the way of Salvation. I say not through various Religions and ways of Salvations, but through various administrations of the matters of Religion and of the way of Salvation, before the Law, under the Law, and under the Gospel.

I shall not need to clear this in particulars; it is so conspicuous, and so well known to all, that it were but expense of time to insist upon the proof of it. Only let me say this upon it, that God used these various administrations to his Church according to the diversity of the age of that mystical body, Child-hood, nonage and consistency. And this the Apostle speaks plainly for me, Gal. IV. at the beginning, where he tells us, that as the heir in nonage differs nothing from a Servant, but is under Tutors and Governors, and subjection; so we when we were Children, that is, while Christ's body was under age, were in bonduge under the rudiments of the World, till the fullness of time come. Before the Law, the Church was in its child-hood, small and little, confined within the compass of one or few families: and then God brought it up upon his own knees, documenting it, (as a mother does her child beford she send it to School) with his own lively Voice, in Visions, Revelations, or his own Words spoken from Heaven.

When it grew bigger and so very numerous in Egypt, God then set it forth to School, under the written Law, a School-Master, as the Apostle calls it, and a sharp one too: and it was no more than needed, that it should be put under the lash and ferule of so severe a discipline. For now the youth began to wax wanton, and to forsake God that had so tenderly brought it up, and to betake itself to the Idols of Egypt, as Ezekiel tells you in his twentieth Chapter. Therefore to School, child, to School, under the lash of a seveer Law to keep under that youthfulness, that was so ready to grow exorbitant.

And in this School the Church yet under age, was under a twofold administration, viz. under the Law with Prophets and Revelations under the first Temple, and under the Law without Prophets and Revelations under the second.

At last comes in the Gospel; and the Church is taken from School, and put to the University, and how it comes up to perfect manliness; the Gentiles are called in, and that makes up the complete body. It might be an Inquiry, why the Church was to grow up towards consistency three thousand nine hundred twenty eight years, viz. ere Christ came?

That is, the perfect man and the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, which the Apostle speaks of, Ephes. IV. 13. which some conceive to mean the stature of the bodies of the Saints when they shall rise from the dead, just proportionated to the stature of Christ's body when he died; which is as far from the meaning of the Apostle, as it is from hence to the Resurrection: but he means the perfect growth and full stature of Christ's mystical body, the Church, which was growing up from generation to generation, and now, when the Gentiles came in their full conflux, was come to its full consistency and manhood.

And of the same body is his meaning in that obscure and much mistaken place, Rom. VIII. 23. And not only they, i. e. the whole creation, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , every creature, which means no other thing than the Gentile or Heathen World: not only they groan to come into the Evangelical liberty of the children of God, but we also of the Jewish Nation, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the redemption, to wit, the adoption of our body: we wait for the redeeming and adopting of the Gentiles to make up our mystical body.

To the same sense is the meaning of the same Apostle in that also mistaken place, Heb. XI. ult. That they without us should not be perfect. He little means, that they that believed before the coming of Christ were not perfectly saved; as the Papists from thence would prove their Limbo: But his meaning is, they without us were not the perfect body of Christ; but we under the Gospel came in to make that up: nor they so perfect in the Doctrine of Salvation, as under the revealing of the Gospel at our coming in. So that this is the first thing, That Christ saw good to bring his Church through various administrations.

II. Secondly, Though the manner of administration were thus various, yet the way of Salvation in them all but one and the same, viz. by Faith in Christ: as the Apostle plainly evidenceth in the Chapter just now cited, Heb. XI. As the brazen Oxen under the Laver, their faces looked several ways, but their hinder parts met in one center under the Laver, so these Administrations indeed looked divers ways, without Law, with Law, with Prophets, without Prophets, without Gospel, with Gospel, yet agreed in all one and the same center, Faith in Jesus Christ. I have a large field before me, to show that all the holy ones, that lived and died before Christ were saved by believing in Christ. But I shall confine myself to observe this by a rule of contraries, namely thus.

It is something to be wondered at, that in our reckoning the various administrations under which Christ brought his Church to glory, we may not number the firstborn administration that was in the World, and which one would think was the likeliest way to have brought to Heaven, and that was the state of innocence. But this we must except from the general rule, and leave it quite out. He that will observe shall find that Christ descended most of younger brothers: and answerably Salvation descended not from this elder brother in God's administration, that state of innocence, but something else had the birth-right: Reuben lost it, and it descended to Joseph.

It was never God's intent to bring men to Salvation by the way of innocence, in which Adam was created. This appears plain enough by the Issue. Nay, did God bring the holy Angels to Salvation by the way of the perfection of their nature, in which they were created? Meerly being in Heaven doth not denominate Salvation. The Angels that fell were there, and it proved but little Heaven to them. And merely beholding God face to face doth not denominate Salvation: for we have no cause to think, but the Angels that fell, had beheld his face, as well as they that stood: but this is Salvation to behold him as he is, and to be like unto him, I Joh. III. 2. Like him, not in infinity, omnipotency, ubiquity, but like him in holiness, holy as he is holy. Now though Adam was like unto him by Creation, being formed in his Image, and the Angels like unto him by Creation, as eminently also carrying the same Image; yet herein both come short, of that Image that doth consummate the Saints and Angels in glory, viz. that though they were perfectly holy by Creation, yet they were not unchangeably holy: for unchangeableness was not to be found in created nature. And what the holy Man in the book of Job saith concerning Wisdom, we may say concerning immutability: Where is unchangeableness to be found, and where is the place of immutability? The Sea saith it is not in me, and the Earth saith it is not in me. Men say it is not in us, the Angels say it is not in us, but the Truth saith it is only in God.

Therefore to bring Men and Angels into the Estate of Glory, that, set Infinity aside, they should be like unto God, perfectly holy and unchangeably holy as God is holy, eternally holy as God is holy; it was needful not to leave them bottomed only upon the excellency of their created natures, be that never so excellent, but to engraff, and as I may say, incorporate them even into the unchangeable God himself, the Lord Christ. The Saints in glory are unchangeable, how? Both in nature and affection, their estate unchangeable, yea their very thoughts which were so unfixed and fluid, become unchangeable. They are so infinitely ravished with the beauty and love of God in beholding him as he is, that they cannot turn the least thought away or aside from him. And they are so engraffed and united into Christ, that the corruptibleness of them being now laid aside, they are become unchangeable, as Christ himself is unchangeable. The Angels that fell wanted this uniting, so that though they beheld the face of God, yet their hearts turned away from him: because they had no other uniting to God, then what lay in their own created holiness, which was changeable and soon changed.

So that, I say, God never intended to bring man to Salvation by the way of created innocence, because he intends to glorify grace and not nature, and to bottom all that were to be saved upon Christ, and not on themselves. It may seem strange, that Adam, when his wife had brought in sin and death into the World, should name her Eve, life, whereas before he had only named her Woman. Call me not Naomi, but call me Marah, might she very well have said unto him; Call me not life, but call me death and misery, for I have been the unhappy introducer of both. But Adam had now heard of Christ, he had received his promise, and laid hold on it, and found a better life now by him than before.

And to this refers that in Joh. 1. 4. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. In the verse next before he had said, All things were made by him, and without him was nothing made that was. Then had all living things that were created their life from him. What need he then to add, in him was life? Namely because he intends that life in Christ, that we are speaking of. Which life, he saith, was the light of men. And the light shone in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Life in Christ held out in the promise to Adam, was the light that all holy men from Adam forward looked after and walked by. And that light shone in the darkness of man's now sinful and undone condition. That light shone in the darkness before the Law, when their was no light of a Law, but what was written in the heart of man. That light shone in the darkness of the Types and Figures that were in the Law, when the Law was given. And that light shone in the darkness and obscurities of the cloudy Prophesies of the Prophets. And at last it shone out fully without any darkness at his coming in the Gospel, and that, at verse the ninth, was the true light that enlighteneth every man that came into the world, that enlighteneth the Gentiles, even all the World.

So that all along even from the first day of Adam, under the various administrations, in which it pleased God to carry on this Light, this was the life and light of men, None but Christ, none but Christ. They that went before him, before the Law, and under the Law; and they that come after, under the Gospel, crying Hosanna to him, expecting and finding Salvation from him.

III. And this leads me to the third thing we are to speak of, viz. Christ's entertaining all his, that thus under these several Administrations believed in him, in his Fathers house, in Salvation and Eternity.

I, at the last he did so, will the Romanist say, but first, by your leave, were all the believers before Christ came entertained in Limbo? Truly very course entertainment, when the good men had served God all the day, and at night should have received their wages, there was yet none for them, but they must to Limbo, and wait yet (it may be) two or three thousand years, and then they shall be paid. Poor Abel served his Master faithfully and truly all his time, dies in his Masters service, and for his Masters sake, and when he comes to expect his reward in Heaven; no, Abel, thou must to Limbo, and there stay till Christ come and fetch thee out, about three thousand five hundred years after thou comest thither. Very hard payment. And a strange business, that Abraham whilst he lived should converse with God as a friend, and walk and talk with him, and entertain God at his Table; and when he is dead, he is become a mere stranger to God, thrust into a hole in Limbo, where no light of God, no communion with him at all, but God and Abraham are now mere strangers.

Such mad absurdities doth the limiting of the Spirit and operation of Christ to the bodily presence of Christ produce and bring into the World. Such is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, and such this of Limbo. Transubstantiation that maintains that there is no receiving Christ virtually in the Sacrament, unless we receive him bodily, his very flesh and blood. And this of Limbo, that none went to Heaven, till Christ went in his real presence to Limbo, after his Death, to fetch them thence, and bring them to Glory.

I had thought Abraham had been in glory before. For when Christ before his death doth propose that parable of Abraham in joys, and Lazarus in his bosom, certainly he is proposed not as being in Limbo, but in Heaven. And when Moses appears to Christ in Glory, Luke IX. 31. do you think he came out of Limbo in that glory? But what need I trouble you with the confutation of such absurdities? If it be the Spirit and Power of Christ, that operates for man's Salvation, and not his bodily presence: if it be the fruit and effect of Faith to unite to Christ, and to bring into the enjoyment of all the benefits of Christ, grace and glory: and if all the holy ones under those various administrations, before the Law, under the Law, and under the Gospel, had such faith in Christ, what doubt can be made of their Salvation, when they died, and that they were received and entertained by Christ in the Mansions of his Fathers house?

The last word You in the Text, I suppose, is that where the Emphasis especially lies. I go to prepare a place for you, as I have prepared place for others before you: for Enoch, Abraham, &c. before the Law; for Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, &c. under the Law; I am now going also to prepare a place for you; and there is place for you, that are come under an administration, clean different from all theirs. For in my Fathers house are many mansions.

Being then to speak of Christ's entertaining all his in Heaven, let me begin my discourse with sursum Corda, Christians, lift up your hearts; that that you have to look after is above. It is the Voice of my beloved, I am going to prepare for you in my Fathers house. O my soul, look not after any lower preparation. The husks and draff of this World is not the provision, that Christ makes for his. And why should I feed upon Onyions and Garlic, when if I will seek after it, there is Manna enough for me, the food of Angels. I am going to prepare a place for you in my Fathers house, is a word that might make a Soul never to be quiet till it come there, and that might make it to scorn and slight all this trash here below, in reaching out and breathing after the provisions that are there.

Lift up your heads and hearts, ye afflicted and dejected, and despised servants of the Lord Jesus; though your bread here be bread of affliction, and you mingle your drink with weeping, though ye walk in hunger and poverty, under derision and persecution and trouble, though oppressed, afflicted, tormented, yet here is enough to make amends in the end for all. I go to prepare for you. Be content with your dinner of bitter herbs, and sower sauce, apud superos coenaturi, there is a supper provided for you in eternal mansions.

What entertainment Jew and Millenary look for in Christ's personal reign upon Earth, let them enjoy when they can meet with it, but if you be risen with Christ seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, preparing for you. Let us begin at the lowest step of Jacob's ladder, and climb up gradatim to the top of it, where it is lodged in Heaven.

First, This World is not a place for Christ's entertaining of His; as it proved but a course Entertainment of Christ, when he was here. My Kingdom, saith he, is not of this World, nor indeed can it be, let Jew and Millenary conceit what they please. For observe that passage in III. Gen. 17. where as soon as Adam is fallen, the Earth is cursed, Cursed be the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it. Did I say, as soon as he was fallen, the Earth is cursed, I should rather say, as soon as Christ is promised, the Earth is cursed: for there is as proper a connection between those two as between his fall and that curse. Christ is promised and the Earth is cursed, that Adam and all the Saints of God might not look for blessedness upon the Earth but in Christ; nor for Christ nor his Kingdom upon this cursed Earth, but in Heaven.

O Jew the Earth is cursed, where canst thou find a place upon it for Messias blessed Kingdom? All is but as Meshek and the Tents of Kedar to him, he finds not a place here to lay his head. I may say the title over Christ's head was and is a stumbling block under the Jews feet; where it was written Jesus of Nazareth, and they looked for Messias of Bethlehem; King of the Jews, and they saw nothing in him but poverty and contempt.

In Joh. XVII. 24. Father I will, that those whom thou hast given me, be with me, where I am. Where I am, where is that? Not here, wherein is poverty, contempt and dishonor, as he experienced when he was here, but to see my glory: there where he is glorified. Alas! What treatment can he provide for them here? Can he spread a table for their full satisfaction in this Wilderness; where he found none for himself? The dish he sets before them is, In this world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, there is better cheer provided for you in my Fathers house. This is but a Wilderness, you are passing through, Canaan is the land provided for the flowing with milk and honey. In my Fathers house there are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 many abiding places, here you are flitting from place to place and no abiding; but I have prepared a Rest for the people of God.

An unfit place here, where there is nothing but changes and vicissitudes, and where in a moment Amnons mirth and feasting may be turned into mourning and misery. All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change cometh, saith Job. Why he met with changes enough; but he means his great change, when he should be changed no more, than that that he looks for and trusts in. An unfit place this, when the house may be blown down, whilst we are feasting in it, as it happened to Jobs children. This World then is no fit place for Christ to entertain his people in.

Secondly, A believer in this World is not yet capable of the Entertainment that Christ has to give him; therefore that is reserved for him in his Fathers house. As Christ tells his Disciples, I have many things to speak to you, but you cannot bear them. So I say in our present case, Christ hath many excellent treatments to entertain them withal, but here they are not fit for them; while we are in this corruptible flesh, we want the wedding garment. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. So corruptible bodies are not garments fit for these divine entertainments.

1. The Soul in these bodies does not act to the utmost extent its nature is capable of. It is like a bird, that let out enjoys a whole World of liberty, but not before. There is a kind of immensity in the Soul, and this is one part of God's image. Any one Soul among us could hold as much wisdom, goodness, &c. as God in its degree and capacity, but it is straitened in these bodies, that it cannot act to such an extensiveness. As the River is straitened within its banks till it fall into the Ocean; so the Soul here is straitened by ignorance, infirmities, pressures, but at death it slips into the Ocean of Eternity, where there is no more straitness.

2. How impossible is it in these mortal bodies to see God, as he is? How hard through the fogs of flesh to see the things of God? How impossible to behold God in his essence? In the mount will the Lord be seen, and not in the low valleys of mortality and corruption. Oh! I cannot but with rapture consider of the strange and blessed change, that blessed Souls find, as soon as ever departed. Here we are groping after him, and much ado we have to discern a little of him; here one cloud or other is interposing twixt our contemplation, and that Sun. But as soon as we are got out of the body we behold that incomprehensible light, as he is. Oh! what rapture of Soul will it be, to see all clouds dispelled, and to look with open full eye upon the Sun. Oh! this is our God, we have groped, we have waited for him. What the Apostle saith II Cor. III. ult. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory: This is of transcendent comfort for believers, it being their happiness here to behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and to be changed into the same image. What ravishment of Joy will it be to find it effected to the utmost in Eternity?

3. How impossible is it to keep the heart fixed on God here? While flesh hangs on it, that will be making it to flag aside.

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise, April 6. 1666.

A ND it is a deadly sin indeed that outvies and excludes the charity of this Apostle. A man as his Writings evidence of him, and as Ecclesiastical History testifies concerning him, composed altogether of Charity. His Epistles evidence to you how urgent he is for love one to another; and Ecclesiastical History will tell you that his common salutation to all he met, was, Let us love one another: But here he hath met with a wretch to whom he cannot find in his heart to say God speed. A deadly sin and a deadly sinner, to whom he cannot allow the Christian, the Common, the needful Charity of his own or other men's prayers. O no, It is a sin unto death.

The uttering of the first clause, There is a sin unto death, may not undeservedly nor impertinently move such another inquiry in the Congregation, as the uttering of those words of our Savior, One of you shall betray me, did move at his Table everyone then to say, Is it I, and everyone here to say, is the sin mine? As it was time for everyone of Israel to look about him lest the thing should fall to his share, when Joshua proclaimed among them, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee O Israel, Josh VII. 13. So when the Holy Ghost proclaimeth in the words of the Text, There is a sin unto death, is it not time, is it not pertinent for everyone that is within hearing to look about and take heed lest this dead Concubine do lie at the threshold of his door as she did in Gibeah, Judge. XIX. And what hath any notorious sinner to say for himself, why the Law of the Text should not proceed against him and condemn his profaneness, uncleanness, wickedness, unconscionableness under the name and title of a sin unto death: seeing it seemeth a great deal more currant that there is sin unto death, than that there should be any sin that is not unto death, as our Apostle saith there is in the words immediately going before these that I have chosen.

In these that I have chosen you see there are two clauses, and out of either of them arise two Questions.

Out of the former, I. What sin it is the Apostle means? And II. Why he titles it by such a name. A sin unto death?

Out of the latter, I. Why he forbiddeth to pray for it? And, II. Why he forbiddeth not to pray for it? ▪I mean, why he speaketh not out in down right terms, I say, that he should not pray for it, but says only, I say not that he should.

The Rhemists Popish Expositors upon the place will answer you even all these questions with a breath, if you will but take their words, and little more than their bare word must you expect for the proof and confirmation of what they tell you.

• 1. They will tell you, that the sin our Apostle means is any sin whatsoever, that any one lives in unrepentant all his time.
• 2. They will tell you, that it is titled A sin unto death, because he lives in it till his death, and so dies in it.
• 3. They will tell you, that the Apostle by not praying for him, means not praying for him, when he is dead: but he that sins not a sin unto death, that is, that lives not in his sin till he die, but repents of it before, for him you must pray after his death.

For that the place is most properly or only meant of praying for the departed, say they, this convinced that neither the Church, nor any man is debarred here from praying for any sinner while living, nor for remission of any sin in this life. And so they go on.

When I read these men's Annotations on this Scripture, they often mind me of Benhadad's servants with ropes about their necks, catching at any word that fell from the King of Israel's mouth, that might be for any advantage to their forlorn and lost cause and condition. These men's Popish cause hath had the rope about its neck now a long time, and been in a lost and forlorn case, and I cannot tell, whether I should laugh or frown, to see what pitiful shift, and shameful scrambling they make for it, by catching at any word or syllable in the Scripture or Fathers, and wresting, and twisting, and twining it to any seeming or colorable advantage to their condemned cause to save it from execution.

Certainly they are at a very hard pinch for proof of praying for the dead, when they make such a scraping in this portion of Scripture to rake it out thence: whereas the words are as far from meaning the living praying for the dead, as the dead praying for the living.

And at the very same game they be in their notes upon our Savior's words concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost, that it shall never be forgiven in this World, nor in the World to come, Matth. XII. 32. Their note is, that some sins may be remitted in the next life, and consequently this proves Purgatory. As the poor frantic distracted wretch at Athens, that fed and pleased himself with this fancy, that every ship that came into the Port was his ship, that all the goods that came into the Town were his goods, whilst he himself in the mean time was miserably poor, naked, and ready to famish: so these men think every verse in Scripture brings in something to their stock, every saying of the Fathers something to their bank; whilst in the mean while, their pitiful cause walks starven, and poor, and blind, and naked, and stands in need of all things.

The sin against the Holy Ghost indeed is distinct and something different from this sin unto death, that our Apostle speaketh of; yet since there is such a particular sin against the Holy Ghost, that is so deadly, why should not these men think, that sin in the Text, that carries so deadly a name, is a particular sin likewise?

It is true indeed that a sin in which a man continues unrepenting until his death and in which he dies, may very justly be called A sin to death, that is, a sin until his death, and it will prove A sin to death eternal, but that the Apostle means here a particular sin, and that he estimates it, not by its length but by its weight, not by how long the party continues in it, but by how grievous the sin is in itself will appear as we go along, partly by discovery of the reason of the title he puts upon it, and partly by discovery of the very sin itself that is here intended.

But before we begin with the discovery of the reason of the title, let us a little look first into the meaning of those words of our Savior, Joh. XX. 22. He breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. Do not the Apostles here receive a new power, or privilege, or gift which Christ had not imparted to them before? Else why such an action as he had never used toward them before, so breathing on them?

The common acceptation of these words, whose soever sins ye remit or retain are remitted or retained, is to make them to mean the same thing, with what ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, &c. But besides that the expressions are of a vast difference, why if Christ had given them the very same power in those words, that he doth in these, why should he repeat it, especially why should he use such a solemn and unusual rite toward them to breath upon them?

He had given them power of miracles, and healing, and casting out Devils before without breathing upon them: He had given them power of binding and loosing, that is of establishing or abolishing the rites and Laws of Moses, for so the Phrase in the common acceptation of the Nation did only signify; and this he did without breathing upon them. Therefore certainly in this his new action and these his new words, as I may call them, he gives them some new power, and that in two kinds.

1. In his breathing upon them and bidding them receive the Holy Ghost, he gives the Holy Ghost, to give again, or he gives them power by the imposition of their hands to bestow the Holy Ghost as the sacred Story tells you, the Apostle did, and none but the Apostles could do.

And 2. In his words, whose soever sins ye remit or retain, he gives them a punitive or executive double power, viz. To strike desperate or incorrigible and horrid transgressors with some corporal punishment or stroke, or else to give them up to Satan to be tortured and scourged in body, and vexed and disquieted in mind. Where had Peter his warrant to strike Ananias and Sapphira with death, but from these words? And Paul to strike Elymas with blindness, and to deliver Hymenaeus and Alexander unto Satan, but from that Apostolic power which Christ granted to the Apostles in these words?

Well: might not these sins very well be called sins unto death, that were overtaken with such deadly and dreadful penalties?

Was not that sin a sin unto death, that was to be retained, as retaining is set in di rectopposition to remitting? Thus may we bring the subjectum quaestionis into a farnarrower compass than the Rhemists bring it, who do bewray their ignorance one way, that they may serve their own turn another: their ignorance of the proper original of the Phrase sin unto death, that they may serve their turn about praying for the dead.

The greatest difficulties of the Scripture lie in the Language: for unlock the Language and Phrases, and the difficulty is gone. And therefore they that take upon them to preach by the spirit, and to expound the Scripture by the spirit, let them either unlock to me the Hebrew Phrases in the Old Testament, and the Greek in the New, that are difficult and obscure, or else they do nothing. Now to attain to the meaning of such dark and doubtful Phrases, the way is not so proper to put on them a sense of our own, as to consider what sense they might take them in, to whom, and among whom, the things were spoken and written in their common Speech.

If it were well considered how the Jewish Nation understood binding and loosing in their Schools and in their common Speech, we should never need to mint such senses of our own to put upon the Phrase, it would so be done to our hands.

Such an obscure Phrase is that of our Savior's, about the sin against the Holy Ghost, that it shall never be forgiven neither in this life, nor, &c. And the collection that the Rhemists make upon it, may seem very Logical, for in that he saith, that sin shall not be forgiven in the World to come, doth it not argue that some other sins are then forgiven? But this is their own sense and Logic, it is not our Savior's.

Now how should we know our Savior's sense? By considering how they would understand it to whom the words were spoken, in their common acceptation and Language, viz. they would soon understand it to be a direct facing and confuting of their foolish opinion concerning forgiveness of blasphemy against God; which was, that repentance and the day of expiation expiated a third part of the sin, corporal punishment inflicted by the Magistrate expiated another third part, but death did quite wipe it clean out: for say they, it is written, This sin shall not be purged from you till you die, which argues, that it was purged by death. No saith our Savior, neither in this life either by repentance, nor day of expiation, nor corporal punishment, nor pardon in the life to come, by the purging and wiping out of death.

Such an obscure Phrase is this before us. A sin unto de • th, and it seems a fair sense which the Rhemists have put upon it of their own, viz. that it should mean A sin a man li • es in till he die. But this is their own sense, it is not the Apostles: Now how should we know the Apostles sense? By considering how they understood this Phrase in their common Language to whom he wrote: And how was that? Take it up by this Observation.

That in the Jewish Schools, and Nation, and Language, this was a most frequent and ordinary saying, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 If a man do such or such a thing as should not be done, ignorantly, he is to bring a sin offering and that attones for him. But 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 if he do it willfully, he is bound over to cutting off.

And in this they speak but the words of the Law, in Numb. XV. 27, 28. If any soul sin through ignorance, he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering. And the Priest shall make an atonement for him that sinneth ignorantly. But the soul that doth ought presumptuously; whether he be born in the Land, or a Stranger, the same hath reproached the Lord: That soul shall be cut off from among his people.

Now what is meant by cutting off? If you ask some they will put a sense of their own upon the Phrase, and tell you it means a cutting off or separating a person from the Congregation and public Assemblies by Excommunication. But ask the Jews to and among whom the thing was spoken, what it means in their common speech and acceptation, and they will tell you, cutting off means 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Death by the hand of Heaven. Death or destruction by the hand of God. Interpreting the matter to this purpose, that if a person sinned willfully and presumptuously, there was no sin offering allowed in that case, but the party so offending fell immediately under liableness to divine vengeance, to be destroyed or cut off by the hand of Heaven.

And this interpretation of the Phrase of cutting off, the Apostle Paul doth justify in that passage, Heb. X. 26. If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin; but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, &c. That Text of Moses lots out the family of the Achan that we are speaking of, the sin unto death: and this Text of the Apostle takes him by the poll, and tells what sin it is.

It tells you what sin it is, viz. Sinning willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth: It limits to you, why it is called a sin unto death; because there is no other way upon the committing of it, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation. And it gives you some intimation why no praying for it, because no sacrifice for it.

Before we come to speak upon the words, we have some cause to muse and mourn over them. As it is said, Origen wept over that passage of the Psalmist that after his Apostasy stung him, in Psal. L. 16, 17. But unto the wicked God said what hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction and casteth my words behind thee.

If there be no sacrifice for sin but a fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation when we have sinned willfully, after we have once received the knowledge of the truth: Men and brethren, what shall we do? Take the truth in the sense that may help most to favor us, for the Gospel, as it means there indeed. And take sinning willfully for as exclusive a term as you can, to shut and exclude us out of the guilt here intended; yet who can say but he hath sinned willfully since he received the knowledge of the Gospel over and over?

If I should take Jeremiah's course in his fifth Chapter and verse. 4. and forward, sending first to the poor or inferior rank and ask them, Have you not sinned willfully since you received the knowledge of the Gospel in your private deportment? Or go to the great ones or to them in power, dignity and estate, and ask them have you not sinned willfully since you received the knowledge of the truth in your public employment? I cannot say what everyone, or any one, may answer: but I am sure the fairest way, and upon the justest reason for everyone to answer, were as tis Job VII. 20. I have sinned, what shall I do to thee, O preserver of men? I have sinned willfully what shall I do to thee, O thou giver of the Gospel?

The word the Apostle useth here is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which in the best and nearest propriety signifies willingly, and so it shreds a lapful of gourds the more into the pot of pottage, to make it the more bitter. For though some conscience may contend to secure itself against the accusation of sinning willfully, yet who can say but he hath sinned willingly since he received the knowledge of the Gospel, and that many a time over?

The allay shall I say, or the smartness of this word is best to be judged by the contrary word, which the Greek Interpreters used in the case of Moses, we have alleged. What he speaks of sinning ignorantly, they render 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 sinning unwillingly, and so they oppose unwilling sinning and p • esumptuous sinning one against the other. And answerably the Apostle using the word, but doth most directly oppose unwilling, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that doth most directly oppose 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he showeth plainly that he takes it in the same direct opposition, namely to signify sinning willfully or presumptuously.

But what is this particular sin that he doth intend? What is that sinning willfully with him, that with our Apostle is a sin unto death? Guess it by the story of those times, which shows it plain enough, that I may not spend more time than is needful about the discovery of it. Our Savior in the end of his parable of the unclean spirit cast out of a man, and walking in dry places, and because he could find no rest there, returning to the place whence he came out, with seven other spirits worse than himself, and dwelling there, hath this sad cadence, Even so shall it be also to this wicked generation, Matth. XII. 45. Ah! unhappy generation, the Devil cast out and returning again, absent a while himself, but returning with seven other Devils worse than himself: how great, how sad an apostasy doth this intimate in the Jewish Nation, from the Gospel, which had cast out the unclean spirit for a while from among them?

Such an Apostasy very deadly and general, from the Gospel after they had received the knowledge of it, and so evidently recorded in the Apostles Epistles, that I need not to recite it: and so copiously, that I should but tire you with citing places. Take but these two or three.

Gal. I. 6. The Apostle intimates that they were removed, and soon removed, from him that called them into the grace of Christ. II Tim. I. 15. All Asia which once had been all for Paul, were now departed from him. II Pet. II. 22. It was happened to some according to the Proverb: The Dog is returned to his vomit.

Such instances are numerous. But this was not all: The cast out Devil did not only return, but seven worse Devils returned with him. They did not only Apostatise from the Gospel they had professed, but became bitter enemies and persecutors of the Gospel from which they Apostatized. This cursed root of gall and wormwood did sprout forth into Hell, as cursed branches, fruits of Sodom; direct revolting to their old Judaism, or downright falling, into Nicolaitisme: the one gainsaying liberty of the Gospel, the other turning it into Libertinism. The one an enemy to the Gospel because of its Spiritualness, the other because of its Holiness.

The Jewish Nation were so doting upon their Ceremonies and formal manner of Religion and Worship, that as you find all along the story of those times in the Acts of the Apostles, and their Epistles; the unbelieving Jews cried down the Gospel, and were bitter enemies to it, because it cried down their Ceremonies. And many and many of those that had believed, Apostatized from it, upon the same dotage, and became as bitter, nay if possible, more bitter enemies against them than the other.

The Nicolaitans stumbled at another block, interpreting the liberty of the Gospel, and they fell into all looseness and uncleanness, to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit Fornication: and they became as horrid enemies to the Gospel as the other, because it taught and persuaded a better course. These things lie so clear in Scripture to be observed, that I should do but a needless work to insist on them.

Thus whereas that was a happy wonder of Paul, Gal. I. 23. That he now preached the Gospel, which he once destroyed: the contrary is an unhappy monster with these men, they now destroy the Gospel which they once professed: and it is not unlikely, what some of them preached. Instances of this are little less copious than the other. I shall offer you but two: the one foretelling that such a thing should be, and the other telling that such a thing was come to pass.

Act. XX. 29, 30. This I know that after my departure shall grievous Wolves enter in among you, spoiling the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things, &c. To which this echoes, I Joh. II. 18. Little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist should come, even so now are their many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, &c. They went out from us: There is their Apostasy from the Gospel: They are Antichrists, there is their enmity against it.

And by the way learn from the Apostle there how to construe the last times; which Phrase occurs so frequently, viz. for the last times of the Jewish State and City.

And I must crave leave to understand that passage concerning the man of sin, in II Thes. II. of these very persons, and of those very times. I read the Romish Antichrist in the Revelations in great Letters, but truly I can read none but the Jewish Antichrist in this place.

This then more peculiarly is the sin our Apostle meaneth here, and the Apostle Paul in that place of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that I cited; as might be shown out of that and this Epistle, if it were needful; but I suppose that is not much needful, since the thing speaks itself; and it is so plain, that there could not be a more deadly sin, and there was not a more horrid sin in those times, than such horrid Apostasy, and such horrid enmity.

Every presumptuous sin in the Text was cited in Moses, was a sin unto death, in the sense that the Jewish Nation understood a sin unto death, viz. that brought to an immediate liableness to cutting off by divine vengeance. Now this was a sin of presumption, and despising the Word of God, as Moses explains what that presumptuous sinning is, in a high degree, which as the Apostle tells in the same Chapter, that it was a treading underfoot the Son of God, &c. Therefore it is no wonder, if with Paul, there be no Sacrifice for it, and with this Apostle, no praying for it.

But why does not this our Apostle speak out, and say, I say he should not pray for it, but says only, I do not say that he should.

Let me lay to this expression that passage of our Savior, Matth. XVIII. 17. If he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican. By which our Savior doth not excommunicate such a one out of the Church, for he saith, not let him be to the Church but thee as a Heathen. But he dischargeth and acquitteth the party injured from those duties and offices which he ought otherwise to him as a brother.

Our Apostles expression is much like to the same tenor: He takes care of the Consciences of the people of God, as well as he showeth the two conditions of the sinner he speaketh of. There were some that might be in a strait what to do in this case. They were commanded by their Lord and Master to pray for their enemies: these enemies of theirs were become so like their Father the Devil, that it might pose their Consciences whethe • they should pray for them or no. Therefore this divine Apostle useth a happy temper: that he will lay no charge on them, that are so pinched, to pray for them: nor indeed forbid those to pray for them that are more enlarged: for undoubtedly the indifferent expression of the Apostle as I may call it, seems plainly to carry with it such a consideration.

Ye see here in the Text a deadly wounded wretch, like Amasa, II Sam. XX. wallowing in his own blood: if you call in Moses and Paul to give their Coroners verdict concerning the manner and cause of his death from those Texts of theirs that we have cited, they will tell you that he is felo de se, that he destroyed himself; and they will tell you, that it was by willful sinning after the knowledge of the truth, willful sinning against the Word of God.

That sin is the more desperately deadly, by how much it is the more desperately willful: Hos. V. 11. Ephraim is oppressed, and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the Commandment. One would think it should be, because he did not willingly walk after the Commandment: but by Commandment is meant the idolatrous Commandment of Jeroboam, the Statutes of Omri; and Ephraim was broken in pieces, because he walked after them, and broke the more, because he walked after them willingly. If the motions of sin which are by the Law, do work in them to bring forth fruit unto death, as the Apostle says, Rom. VII. 5. much more the motions of sin, which are clean against the Law. I must confess I do not understand the irritating or provoking power of the Law, which some collect from this place: for to me it is without doubt that the meaning of the Apostle is, The motions of sin that were by the Law mistaken, not efficiently; for such was the Judgment of the Jews concerning the Law, viz. That it did restrain only the outward action, but regarded not the internal motion: and so the Apostle seems to give some hint of his own mistake a while of the Law about the point of lust. Now if the fruit of those motions of sin which are by the mistake of the Law be so deadly, how must the actings of sin which are against the known Law willfully committed be much more deadly?

Among the grains (shall I call them?) or the talent weights that are cast into the scales to make sin weigh exceeding sinful, this adds not the least aggravation, if it do not indeed the greatest, that it was done knowingly and willfully. And therefore in that cozen german sin to this we are speaking of, (for to me they are clearly distinct) the sin against the Holy Ghost; the grievousness of it in comparison of sinning against the Son, lies not in regard of the persons sinned against, as if the Holy Ghost were a nobler person than the Son: but in regard of the manner of sinning: the Son they knew not in so much humility, and so blasphemed him out of ignorance; but they saw the apparent evidence of the Holy Ghost in the miracles they saw and yet blasphemed him willfully.

This dies the sins of wicked men of so deep a die above the sins of the Saints of God: because those sin with whole propensity of mind, these of infirmity and against their wills. And I cannot but remember the determination of St. Austin in a point of this nature; About chaste Christian matrons and virgins that were ravished by the enemy when he broke into the City: he determines well that they were not defiled though they were defiled; their minds pure, though the body polluted: and he concludes, Duo fuerunt, ast unus adulterium commisit; there were two in the action, but one of them in the adultery. And that here one sinned willfully, the other had no mind to the sin at all.

This then if there were nothing else doth sufficiently aggravate the grievousness of willful sinning, that it carries the very image and superscription of the sin of the Devil: it is as it were flesh and bone of his bone, and sin of his sin, very Devil of very Devil.

Does any ask me, what was that sin of the Devil? It has been conceived by many that it was such a Pride, as made him aspire to be equal with God, or above him, to set his Throne even with God, or to unthrone him: and to this purpose have those words been applied, Esa. XIV. 12, 13. How art thou fallen, from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, &c. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, &c. I will be like the most High. Which words indeed mean only the arrogance and haughtiness of the proud King of Babylon. Does any one then ask me what was the sin of the Devil? I should answer, desperate malicing the honor and happiness of man, in which God had placed him, and desperate despising and scorning of that charge and command that God had laid upon Angels concerning man, that they should attend him and keep him in all his ways. And both these desperately willful, for he could sin at no lower rate: for he could not sin of ignorance being an Angel: and an Angel could have no tempter to sin but himself.

I shall not go about to define or circumscribe exactly the bounds wherein to conclude willful sinning: I shall not confine this evil spirit with any circle: because I would have everyone to look well about, lest the case be his own, and not I but every man's own Conscience to judge whether he be guilty of willful sinning or no. What thinks the Conscience of a false witness, of a forsworn deponent, that knowingly and resolvedly takes a false oath, perverse justice, and seeks the injury of his neighbor: doth not this man know his sins willfully? What thinks the common swearer, the common profaner of the Lord's day, the unclean person, the riotous and wanton, the deceiver, oppresser, scoffer of the power of godliness, does he not know or think that he sins willfully? If they will not know it, nor think so, but be more willful still in willful shutting their eyes against conviction; let me leave that saying of the Lord himself written as it were upon these walls for a witness against them (shall I say?) or as a doom upon them, which you have Esa. XXVI. 11. They will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people, yea and the fire of God's enemies shall devour them. The Apostle Ecchoes the last words in that passage we cited, expectation of fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.

I might show the deadliness of such willful sinning especially by two Observations.

I. That it is a most deadly symptom, when the actus primus voluntatis, when the will is so desperately poisoned at the bottom. The acting of any sin is deadly enough of itself, but when it is committed by the full bent of the first act of the will, it is as poisoning the bullet to make it the more deadly, which was killing enough of itself before. Chistian, how readest thou? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and withal thy heart. But willful sinner, how actest thou? To oppose the counsel and command of the Lord with all the heart, and mind, and soul. To love and follow and commit wickedness with all the heart, and mind, and soul. If this be not a deadly wound under the fifth rib, a mortal Plague at the bottom of the Will, what can you call the Plague of the Heart?

II. Such sinning doth not only proceed from such a deadly principle, but it adds more deadliness to that principle. Every willful sinning doth add more hardness and more willfulness of sinning to the Heart still. A hard Heart doth harden by sinning: and the more the sin is willful, the more the Heart gathers hardness.

The Jews fein this the creeping on of the tempter to Eve, that the Serpent asked the Woman, why not eat of this Tree? She answered, Because God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. First, he drew nigh to it, and said, Thou seest I am nigh it and yet do not die: then she touched it, and then eat of it. So do willful sinnings draw on one another, and from one the Heart is emboldened to another. If such sinners would but find time with an impartial candle of self examination to look into their own Hearts, they would find the too sad experience of this truth written there in black letters indeed.

But because few such will read their own Hearts, let me leave that verse of the Apostle with them, to read and to see what construction they can make of it, to save their own stake. If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise, March 27. 1669.

O Ccasional meditations, are Samsons honey gathered out of a dead carcase: Heavenly thoughts taken up from Earthly occurrences: the Sun and Heaven seen in looking downward into the Water: from the Earthly objects that man meets with here below, the Heart raising meditation upon them to some Heavenly purpose. The true Philosophers stone indeed that turns what a man meets withal into some golden meditation. And this divine Elizir our Savior used very much. From the occasion of the Samaritan Woman's fetching water he raiseth his discourse and her thoughts, to consider of the water of his Grace, Joh. IV. And upon the occasion of the people's following him for loaves, he would raise their minds to think of the meat that perished not, but endureth to Eternal Life, Joh. VI. And in all his parables which were so exceeding frequent with him, wherein he was still teaching some Spiritual and Heavenly things, by some Earthly resemblance, whatsoever the particular intent of every several parable was, yet this intimation went in general with them all, That there was to be an improvement of the observation of Earthly things and occurrences to Heavenly thoughts and meditations: As he in the story that looked toward the Earth, and pointed toward the Earth, and yet cried O C • lum.

Methinks such a noble and remarkable occasion as we now meet withal, should not be let pass without some elevated meditation. And when we see our Assizes, Judges, Trials, Sentencings, methinks a sursum corda may do very well in thoughts taken of the great and dreadful Judgment. As Esa. XXXIII. 17, 18. Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; Thy heart shall meditate terrors.

A right occasional meditation. The right of an Earthly King in his royalty, may justly move and stir up the heart to meditate the terrors of the King of glory. The sight of a Judge in his authority and honor, and the sight of the day and of the passages of an Assise, may very properly and should indeed stir up the heart to meditate the terrors of that great day which the Lord hath appointed, wherein he will judge the World in righteousness, by the man which he hath ordained, of which, &c.

Such a reflection caused me to choose these words to discourse upon at this time: at the Assise of our County to stir up the remembrance of the greatest Assise of all the World, a meditation that can never be but useful, and more especially at such a time as this, that gives some specimen and Idea in little of the thing, and does as it were in landskip lay the thing before us.

The Apostle in this place is discoursing to the University men of Athens, It is said, verse. 21. That the Athenians spent their time in nothing, but to tell or hear some new thing. And here was strange business for them to purpose. Strange news to them to hear such a Sermon against their Idolatry, to hear speak concerning the Resurrection of the dead, and an universal Judgment of all the World, and all the World to be judged by a man that God had ordained. Such riddles to flesh and blood, and to the wisdom of this World, are the great matters and mysteries of the Gospel and of Salvation.

The Judgment to come that he speaks of in this verse, he characters or pictures in divers colors or circumstances.

• I. The object of it. He shall judge the World.
• II. The manner, He shall judge it in Righteousness.
• III. The time, At a day which he hath appointed.
• IV. The agent to be employed in it, The man whom he hath ordained.
• V. And lastly, the certainty of it, He hath given assurance thereof, &c.

There is some controversy about the translating of that clause, He hath given assurance. In the Greek it is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which will admit a double construction. The Vulgar Latin and the Syriac gives one, our English and the French another.

The Vulgar Latin renders it, Fidem praebens omnibus. Which I should have supposed might freely have been rendered in the sense our English gives, Giving assurance to all; but that I find some expositions constrain him another way, viz. Affording faith to all, and the Syrian inclines the same way, for it renders Restoring every man to his faith, or to faith in him: As if the meaning were, that God by the Resurrection of Christ did restore the World to faith and believing, from that ignorance and infidelity, which it lay under before; which is a real and a very noble truth, but I question whether that be the Apostles meaning in this place.

For he is showing, That God had appointed an universal Judgment, and hath ordained Christ to be Judge: and for proof and confirmation of both, especially of the latter, he saith as our English well renders, he hath given assurance; and as the French, he hath given certainty in that he hath raised: and the Greek very clearly bears such a sense. And this to be the sense that is intended, is yet further clear, by observing the argumentation of the Apostle in this place. Read the verse before, The times of their ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth every man to repent. Because he hath appointed a day, &c. Why? Was not this day appointed before that time that Christ was risen? The Jews will tell you that Heaven and Hell were created before the World: then certainly the Judgment that was to deem to Heaven or Hell was appointed before. But our Savior in the sentence that he shall pronounce at that Judgment, Matth. XXV. Come ye blessed of my Father, receive the Kingdom prepared for you, &c. shows that the appointing of the day of Judgment was of old time, long and long ago before Christ's Resurrection: but the Apostle tells that he had never given such assurance of it before as he did then, by raising him that should be Judge.

The Apostle at this portion of Scripture doth plainly show three things. First, He lays down a doctrine. Secondly, He proves it. And thirdly, He makes application. His doctrine is, That God hath appointed a day wherein he will Judge the World in Righteousness. His proof, From God's own real vouchment, He hath given assurance in that he raised Christ from the dead. His application therefore, Let all men in every place repent.

I should deserve a just censure, if I should refuse the Apostles method to take another: and not tread in the steps of that Logical proceeding that he had printed before. Yet I shall decline to insist much upon the confirmation of the doctrine, as a particular head by itself, since the taking up the second thing, the proof of it is the doing the same thing. Only I shall call out as the Prophet Isaiah doth in the place cited, who as soon as he had said, Thy heart shall meditate terrors, presently subjoins, where is the Scribe, &c. So while our heart is meditating of terrors, of the thing we are speaking, this day, which God hath appointed wherein he will Judge the World, &c. Where is the Sadducee, where the Atheist, where the Disputer of this World? What say they to this thing?

I. The Sadducee, will tell you, That there is no Resurrection, neither Angel nor Spirit. Act. XXIII. 8. And would persuade us, that Moses was of the same opinion, because he speaks not of any such things in terminis in all his book.

It is a common received opinion among the Learned, that the Sadducees refused all the Books of the Old Testament, but only the five Books of Moses: If they mean it absolutely, I must confess my small reading hath not taught so far as to be satisfied in that: But if they mean it with some qualification, then I believe the thing is very true. In such a qualified sense, as to say the rest of the Jews refused the third part of the Bible, which they call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Christians render the word Hegiographa: that is they refused to have it read in the Synagogue. The Law and Prophets they read there every Sabbath, Act. XIII. 15. but admitted not the reading of Job, Psalms, Solmons books, Daniel, Lamentations, Chronicles, Ezra, &c. not so much out of the undervaluation of those books, but because they accounted the other were sufficient. So if you say the Sadducees admitted no other Books of the Old Testament to be read in their Synagogues, on the Sabbath, but only the books of Moses, I doubt not but you speak very true: but that they utterly rejected and made nothing of the rest of that Sacred Volume, I am yet to seek for satisfaction. And I suppose something may be said out of the ancient records of the Jews that might countenance the contrary: but it is not now time and place to enter into such a discourse.

But you will say, If they had them in their closets though not in their Synagogues, If they read them, though not there, If they believed them, how could they be ignorant of the resurrection, Judgment to come and World to come, of which there is so plain declaration in the rest of the Old Testament, though not in Moses?

The answer is easy: Because they had this principle, that nothing is to be believed as a fundamental Article of Faith, but what may be grounded in Moses.

The very Pharisees themselves did not far differ from them in this principle: and I could produce a Pharisee in their own writings, saying, That if a man believed the Resurrection, &c. yet believed not that it was taught and grounded in the Law of Moses, he should not be Orthodox. Now why Moses did so obscurely intimate these great fundamentals, in comparison of other parts of the Bible, I shall not trouble you with discussing, though very acceptable reasons may be given of it. We find the Resurrection asserted by our Savior out of Moses, by one argument; and we find it asserted by many arguments, by the Pharisees against the Sadducees in the Jews own Pandect: and so we leave the Sadducees to take his answer and confutation there. But

II. Behold a worse then a Sadducee is here; and that is a Christian Atheist. Oh! give me that word Christian again, that I speak not contradictions. And yet there are too many in our times, O! that I might not say in our Nation, that were Baptiz'd into the Christian Faith, that live in a Christian Church, and would go under a Christian Name, and yet that deny these great points of Christian Religion, and greater too if there may be greater.

There are too many of Atheistical principles nowadays, that say what you can for the assuring that there is an Eternal Judgment, yet you never assure them. Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris, You cannot persuade them, though you do persuade. They will make but a puff at such a Doctrine, and tell you that Religion and such Doctrines preached, are but as bugbears of policy, to keep men in awe and order. I need not to enlarge their sayings to this purpose, they are but too large and broad in themselves. I have only this to say to them at this time.

Let me mind you of that passage, Zech. XI. 8. where the Prophet speaking in the person of Christ hath these words, Three Shepherds also I cut off in one month: and my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. The three Shepherds that he means were the Pharisee, Sadducee and Essean, the ringleaders and the wrongleaders of the Jewish Nation. Shepherds that caused the unfortunate sheep to go a stray, and there fed them not but did destroy them. Now how can it be said that Christ cut them off, and especially now in one month? When it is most apparent, that these three Sects and Heresies continued many years, many scores of years after our Savior was ascended into Heaven. Nay Pharisaism is alive among all the Jewis. Nation unto this day.

The meaning is this, that Christ delivered a Truth and Doctrine, enough and enough, again to confound and destroy those cursed Heresies, and to direct into the way of Truth: but if those Heretics will not be convinced and embrace that Doctrine and Truth, that Doctrine and Truth in time will confound, condemn and destroy them. The World that I speak, saith Christ, shall judge you at the last day.

God gives his Word, and whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, it is and will be the Word of God forever. And if men will not believe it, God will not be beholden to them to believe it: let them believe it at their own peril. A Papist will not believe the Divine Authority of the Scriptures for themselves, God and the Scripture will never be beholden to him to believe it: they need not to beg his believing of it, but let him look to it if he do not believe it.

If God have given such demonstrations of the Judgment to come, as may assure all the World of the certainty of it, and an Atheist, an Epicure, a Fool will not believe it; if he will not believe what a Felix believed and trembled at, if he will not believe what Devils believe and tremble at, God will never come crouching to him to beg of him that he will believe it, but let him disbelieve it at his own peril, and take what comes.

When God gave the Scriptures he never intended they should stand at the courtesy of every curious carping Atheist, whether they should be of Authority and be believed or no: but God gives them in their Divine Authority and Majesty: and laid them a sure foundation in Zion, elect, precious and glorious, that he that will build upon them may build and prosper: but if any cross, or quarelsom, or willfully blind Bayard, will stumble at them, where he might walk plain; let him take his own hazard, and stumble, and fall, and be broken, and snared, and taken: while in the mean while, the foundation of God remaineth sure, and the Divine Scriptures will be the Divine Scriptures, and retain their Truth and Author, when such a wretch is dashed all to pieces.

III. There cometh the Disputer of this World, such as these Scholers of Athens that Paul was now discoursing with, that will have nothing believed but what may be grasped by human reason, and he will tell that it is very unlikely there should be an universal judgment; because it is very unlikely there should be a Resurrection. That bodies in the grave, that have been dust these thousand thousand years, should live and rise again the same; Oh! how many arguments he frames to show you that it is against all Logic, Philosophy, nature, reason.

I shall first reply to him as Paul to Agrippa, King Agrippa, believest thou the Scriptures, I know that thou believest. Oh! thou disputer, believest thou there is a God? I hope thou believest. If not, I shall give thee the answer much like that I gave the Atheist before, God will be God whether thou wilt or no: as Scripture will be Scripture whether thou believest it or no. But if thou believest that God is, and that he is what he is, then why doest thou go about to measure the great things of God, by the pitiful scant measure of poor human reason?

I remember the check in the story of him that went about such a thing. He was deeply studying upon the mystery of the Trinity, and went about to fadom it by reason and to suit it to reason: as he was thus studying at the Sea side, he saw a child that was about to empty the ocean into a ditch, with a spoon, and when he told him how simple and vain a thing he went about; Even so dost thou, saith the child, or an Angel in likness of a child, when thou goest about to draw out the profound and bottomless mystery of the Sacred Trinity by thy silly reason.

What? Must we then believe things that are clear contrary to reason? I Answer, There are no points in all the mysteries of Divinity contrary to reason, if we resolve them into the right Principle; that is, if we resolve them into the power, will and working of God. That this vast Universe should be created of nothing in a moment, that God should become man, that dead bodies should be raised again, that this mortal should put on immortality, are high mysteries, many regions above natural reason, but not a whit contrary to reason • if you resolve them, as I said before, into the Power, Will and Working of God.

Let Philosophy and human reason therefore cavil, as much as they can, against the Resurrection, as a thing unlikely, incredible, impossible, I shall only answer in the tune of them that when they saw a thing as unlikely and incredible, yet brought to pass by Divine Power, viz. Elias pouring water on and about the Altar and bringing fire, they fell on their faces and cried, The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God.

And if the Lord he be God, the Lord be God, he can raise all the dead in a moment and bring them to Judgment, as he Created the World in a moment by the Word of his Power: If it be but his Will so to do. And that it is his Will so to do, he hath given assurance, in that he hath appointed a day wherein to judge the world in righteousness, by the man that he hath ordained. And of that appointment and ordaining, he hath given assurance, in that he raised him from the dead.

And so we are come to the second part of our task, or the second thing that I named to be spoken, viz. the assurance that God hath given of the Judgment to come, and more particularly, of that whereby he hath assured that Christ shall be Judge, viz. in that he raised from dead. The assurance God hath given of the Judgment to come we may distinguish into verbal and real. Assurance that he hath given in his Word, and in his Providential dispensation.

I need not to insist upon his verbal assurances, of the certainness that he hath given of such a thing in Word, for he that runs may read them. Such as these, Eccles. XI, 9. & XII. ult. II Cor. V. 10. and multitudes of passages to the same purpose. So that the Apostle reckons Eternal Judgment for one of the fundamental Articles of our Christian Faith, and that it is so clearly asserted that he finds he needs not to insist much upon the proving of it, Heb. VI. 2.

And as the verbal assurances that God hath given of this in Scripture are so very many, so the real ones that he hath given in his dispensations are not few. I shall but mention some, and pitch only upon this mentioned in the Text, Christ's Resurrection.

• I. Was not the Judgment of all the World by Water in the days of Noah, a prognostication and assurance of the Judgment to come at the end of the World? Certainly they must need conclude so, that thinks that Peter speaks of the last Judgment, in II Epistle III. 6, 7. where he hath these words, The World that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the Heaven and Earth that now are, are kept in store reserved unto fire.
• II. Was not the Judgment and sad conflagration of Jerusalem, and destruction of the Jewish Church and Nation, an assurance of the Judgment to come; when the expressions whereby it is described are such, as you think they meant nothing else but that final Judgment? As Christ's coming: coming in clouds, in his glory, in his Kingdom. The day of the Lord, the great and terrible day of the Lord: The end of the World, the end of all things: The Sun darkened, the Moon not giving light: The Stars falling from Heaven, and the powers of Heaven shaken: The sign of the Son of man appearing in Heaven, Heaven departing as a scroll rolled together, and every mountain and hill removed out of its place, &c. You would think they meant nothing but the last and universal Judgment, whereas their meaning indeed is Christ's coming in Judgment and vengeance against the Jewish City and Nation; but a fore signification also of the last Judgment.
• III. I might speak of particular fearful judgments upon persons and places. Are not they assurances of the Judgment to come? I am sure the Apostle Peter raiseth them to such a signification in his second Epistle and second Chapter, where when he had mentioned the Judgment of the Angels that fell: of the Judgment of the old World by water, and of Sodom by fire, he makes this conclusion, verse. 9. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the ungodly to the day of Judgment to be punished.
• IV. Are not the Tribunals and Judicatures that God hath set up on Earth, assurances that he hath given of a final Judgment to come? Upon which we may take up the style of the Psalmist, in Psal. XCIV. 9. He that planted the car shall he not hear? So he that hath erected Judicatures shall not he Judge?
• V. Is not the Judicature that he hath set up in every man's soul an undoubted assurance of the Judgment coming? Where the Conscience, as one very well defines it, is Praejudicum judicii, A foretaste, a Preface to the Judgment to come?
• VI. And lastly, The very prospering of the wicked in this World, and the affliction of the righteous is an undoubted assurance that the day is coming, when both the one and other is to be judged according to their works, and receives a reward according to their works. And with this very Argument, Will. Tyrius, in his bello sacro, relates that he satisfied Amalrich King of Jerusalem, when he desired him to give him some proof of this very point. So that that very prosperity in this World, that de •• ives Atheistical men to think, there shall be no Judgment, is continually a growing argument that there shall.

Upon all these things I might have spoken very largely, but I hasten to that assurance that is in the Text, viz. The Resurrection of Christ, may give assurance to all the World of his coming to Judgment. It is worth your observing these two things about the Jews asking a sign from our Savior.

1. That he ever denies to give them a sign, Matth. XII. 39. He wrought signs and wonders among them above number, but he would never work that that should be a mere sign. His healing diseases, &c. were not mere signs, but were benefits by miracle wrought for the People: as the Plagues on Egypt were not mere signs, but punishments wrought by miracle.

2. That he still when they asked a sign referred them to his Resurrection, Joh. II. when he whips the buyers and sellers out of the Temple, and they ask him, what sign showest thou seeing thou doest these things: He refers them thither, verse. 19. Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up: speaking of the Temple of my body. So Matth. XII. 39. when the Scribes and Pharisees are at it, Master we would see a sign from thee, he still refers to his Resurrection: No sign shall be given but the sign of the Prophet Jonas. As Jonah was three days and three night buried in the Whales belly, but rose again and was cast alive on shore, so shall the Son of man be buried and rise again. And why thus refer them still to his Resurrection? Because that was the great sign and demonstration that he was the Missias, the Son of God, Rom. I. 4. Declared to be the Son of God with power by his Resurrection from the dead. And

Observe that allegation of the Apostle, Act. XIII. 33. God hath raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Was this Resurrection day the day of the Lord's begetting him, was that the first day that he was the Son of God? It was the day that he was first declared in full power, and that it was manifest that he was the Son of God. It was the day of his Victory and putting on his Kingdom, the day of his Trophea and Triumph, and the sign that he was the Son of God, the true Messias. And the Jews that would not believe that, no sign would serve to make them believe. That indeed you will say gave assurance to all men that he was the Son of God, the true Messias; but how did that give assurance that there should be an universal Judgment, and he the Judge? Truly he that knows what the true Messias means, needs no more proof and demonstration of that than his very Character. He is heir of the World, he is Prince and Savior, he is King in Zion, he is set up above all Principality and power, as the Scripture speaks these and divers other things of him: and doth any man need more evidence of his being judge of all the World?

But our question is how that is inferred or argued from his Resurrection?

The Resurrection of Christ did beget and effectuate a double Resurrection, for you have mention of a twofold Resurrection in Scripture.

First, There is mention of the first Resurrection, Rev. XX. 5. The Millenary not able to clear the notion whereof, nor to spell out the meaning, hath bewildered himself in those wild conceptions, as he hath done. The first Resurrection began and took place presently after our Savior's own Resurrection: for it means no other than the raising the Heathen from their death in sin, blindness and Idolatry, to the life, light and obedience of the Gospel. And so the Apostle titles their estate, writing to the Ephesians, which had been some of them, Ephes. II. 1. You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. And to that very tenor are those words of the Prophet, Isaiah XXVI. 19. Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. The Gentiles to be raised from their spiritual death presently upon his raising from his bodily. And who so shall well weigh those words of our Savior, Joh. V. 25. The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live: will clearly find them to mean nothing else. So that the Resurrection of Christ had first influence and virtue to cause this spiritual Resurrection; the Resurrection of souls, the raising up of the Gentiles from the death of sin: And whence it had this influence, it is easy to read, viz. because by his Resurrection he had conquered the Devil, who had so long kept the poor Heathen under that spiritual death.

Will you have a Commentary upon that passage, in Psal. CX. 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. First, His Resurrection day of power, Rom. I. 4. Then look into the story of the Acts of Apostles, the history of the times next following his Resurrection. You may wonder there to see people coming in by flocks and thousands, to the acknowledgment and entertaining of the Gospel, three thousand at one Sermon, Chap. II. five thousand at another, Chap. III. and further in that book, in a little time, the Gospel running through the World, and embraced and entertained of all Nations. Oh! It was the day of his power; and thy people shall be willing in day of thy power. He had now Conquered Hell and Satan by his death and rising again, whose captives those poor heathen had been two and twenty hundred years, and now he said to the captives, Go free; and to the prisoners, Go forth, and so they did.

And upon the very like account, his Resurrection hath influence to the causing and effectuating the general Resurrection at the last day. For though it might be a little too long, to hold that the wicked shall be raised by the very same virtue of Christ's Resurrection that the godly shall, yet it is not too large to hold, that they shall be raised by some virtue of his Resurrection, viz. as his Resurrection had conquered death, and brought him to those articles, that he must in time give up and restore all prisoners and dead, that they may come and give account to him that conquered him. I have the keys of the grave and death, faith he in the Revelations, he had wrung the keys out of the jaylors hand, and opened the prison doors, that the prisoners should come out when he calls.

Very observable to the purpose we are upon, viz. that Christ's Resurrection did assure that judgment and that he should be judge, is that in. Phil. II. 8. 9. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore also God hath highly exalted him. Obedience was that debt that was to be paid to God. Whereas much stress is laid upon the torments that Christ suffered; it is very true, that he suffered as much as, I may say, God could lay upon him short of his own wrath, and as much as the Devil could withal his wrath: but that was not the debt that was due and to be paid to God. Wrath, and torment, and damnation was rather the debt that was to be paid to man. But the debt was obedience. For easy is it to observe, how Satan had got the day of God, as with reverence I may speak it, when he had brought the chief creature of God's creation, and in him all mankind, to disobey God and to be obedient to him; and had carried it forever, had not an obedience been paid again to God that outvied that disobedience. How might Satan triumph, Man that is the darling creature to the Creator, and that is set up Lord and Ruler of all Creatures, and to whom even the Angels are appointed to be ministering Spirits; I have brought this brave Gallant, to forsake his Creator and to follow and obey me. But forth steps this noble Champion of God, and in the form of a servant encounters this triumpher, and mauger all his spite and power and vexatiousness; he pays God an obedience incomparably beyond the obedience that Adam should have paid; incomparably outweighing the disobedience that Adam shown. He paid an obedience that should answer for the disobedience of all his people. An obedience that should be a stock for all his people. Nay he paid an obedience that outvied all the disobediences of all men and Devils. For he paid an obedience that was infinite.

Now his Resurrection did demonstrate that he had made full payment, or else Satan and Death might have kept him still in the grave, their prison, if a farthing had been yet unpaid.

Now he having by his Resurrection consummated the payment of so great obedience, and vindicated the honor and quarrel of God against his enemies; In all justice and equity the Lord exalted him above all, that all should be subject and homagers to him, and that he might take account, and reward accordingly, those that obey him, and that obey him not. And so the Lord hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by him, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he raised him from the dead.

And are you assured that there will be such a day and such a Judgment, and such a Judge, and you, and you, and you: then Men and Brethren, what have we to do? Let me first propose this supposal.

Suppose this very day were the day that God hath appointed to Judge all the World; and that this Assise of our County should be turned into the universal Assizes of all the World. Suppose that instead of the sounding of the High Sheriff • trumpets, we should have the great trump sound and call, Arise ye dead, and away you living, and come to Judgment. Art thou prepared to meet thy God O Israel? Art thou prepared to meet that Judgment O Israel? How many or rather how few of us are able to say, My heart is ready, my heart is ready, come Lord Jesus, come and welcome? Such a call will undoubtedly once come, and we cannot tell how soon: and when it comes, it will not be at that lenity that Festus used with Paul, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem and be judged before me of these things: but, For all these things God will bring thee to Judgment, whether thou wilt or no.

Oh! what shrugging and unwillingness and drawing back would there be, with too many. Oh! a little more time, a little more respite, a little more space of repentance and making ready. No, Time must be no more, no way else but thou must away and go to judgment. How wholesome therefore is that Counsel, and oh! that there were such a heart in this people as to take the lesson out, II Pet. III. 11, 14. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? And seeing beloved, that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless.

How large a discourse might be made for the setting on of this exhortation from the several particulars in the Text: that the day is certainly appointed, that the Judgment will be of all the world, that it will be in righteousness, that it will be by Christ. Another hour would be too little, a whole day would be little enough and the meditation of it may well take up our whole lives.

The same Apostle that speaks the words here, hath epitomized them all into two words in the place I cited before, Heb. VI. 2. Eternal Judgment. Bonarges, two was of thunder, Judgment and that Eternal, words of a dreadful sound, and yet I know not a fitter motto to be written over all our occasions. Eternal Judgment, a very fit sentence to be written over a bench of Judgment, over a Jury's chamber door, in all our chambers, over all our doors, in all our hearts: that looking upon and remembering always Eterternal Judgment, we may learn righteousness.

Every Assise is a picture in little of this great Assise that is to be of all the World. And that that draweth the truest lineaments of it and most to life is Righteous and impartial dealing. I say Righteous and impartial dealing, rather than Righteous and impartial Judging; because there may be Righteous and impartial judging, where there is unrighteous and partial dealing.

You will say this is a paradox, or rather a contradiction: and you will say the like or rather much more, if I should say, That there may be righteous Judging, when there is not righteous Judgment: and yet if you weigh these things in your thoughts you will find that they are the words of Truth and soberness.

A worthy upright good Judge, he judgeth according to the evidence that is given in, and the testimony that is laid before him: here his Judging is right and righteous, because he judgeth according to his Conscience, and according to his evidence; but it proves that the evidence was false, and the testimony deceiving: here the Judgment is not right, because not according to the very truth of the case, although the judging of the Judge be righteous, because according to his Conscience and sincerity of his heart.

And herein indeed our Assizes seem short of picturing the great Assise to the full proportion [as the thing signifying commonly comes short of the thing signified] because there can be no surprisal of the Judge Eternal by any false information, here the best and wisest Judge may be so surprised. And so was once as good and as wise a Judge as any we have upon record, and that was David, being deceived by the false information of wretched Ziba, to pass a most unjust sentence against innocent Mephibosheth, and to give away all his land to the cheating informer.

Therefore if I should apply myself to give direction to those that have to do in this great business that lies before you, I should not be so arrogant as to offer to do it to you, my Honoured Lord's, who know your works far better than myself: No, I shall not so much as offer to give you a caution that you be not surprised by false information, your own wisdom and grave prudence prevents all need of such exhortation. I should rather apply myself to Witnesses and Juries, which it may be are not many of them here, to admonish them to deal in the fear of the Lord, and in remembrance of the Eternal Judgment: that they go not about to deceive the Lord's and the Kings Vicegerents by any false colors or dissimulation, that they bring not double and redoubled guilt upon their own heads: that there be no cose • ing Ziba among them, that for base or by ends of their own shall go about to wrong an innocent Mephibosheth, or to abuse a good David by fair but false suggestions, to induce him to do contrary to right and equity.

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise, August 6. 1669.

A Strange Assise is the Evangelist recording in his story here: the Judge of all the World judged and condemned: and he before whose tribunal all sinners must once stand, standing and falling before a sinful tribunal: such a person sentenced, such injustice in that sentence, that the World never did, never must see its parallel.

But who is he, and where is he that durst presume in his heart to do such a thing? As Ahasuerus once in a far lesser matter? And the answer may be given in the words of Esther, that immediately follow [the name only changed] The adversary and the enemy is this wicked Pilate: The adversaries and the enemies are these wicked Jews, whom you have discoursing in the words of the Text; and whom you have acting all along this Tragedy.

Whose persons, Logical method calls upon us first to consider, and then to consider of their words and discourse.

Pilate said, and the Jews answered. Persons, if you look wistly upon them you may see more than their bare persons. For you may read the Roman power and tyranny in the one, and the Jews malice and mischievousness in the other: and upon the full view the Roman and the Jew conspiring together and becoming guilty of this horridest fact that ever was committed under the Sun, the murthering of the Lord of life and glory.

Let us begin first with Pilate, who stands first in mention in the Text, as he stands representative of Rome, whose authority he carried, and whose Tyranny in this case he exercised. Methinks there is hardly a more remarkable passage in the whole book of the Revelations, then that Chap. XIII. 2. The Dragon gave his power, and seat, and great authority unto the Beast. Which in plain English is this, The Devil gave his power, and seat, and great authority to Rome. For that by the Dragon is meant the Devil, there is none but grant, and that by the Beast is meant Rome, even Romanists themselves do not deny. When you read that passage in S. Luke IV. 5, 6. that the Devil shown our Savior all the Kingdoms of the World, and the glory of them; do you not presently conceive, that he shown him Rome her Empire and Glory? For then where was the pomp and glory of the World, but within that City and Empire? And when you read that he said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, do you not presently conceive that he offered to make him Caesar, or Lord of that vast Empire, if he would fall down and worship him? And how pat do these words of his, for that is delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will, I give them, agree with these in the Revelations, The Dragon gave his power and seat and great authority unto the beast?

It neither is, nor indeed could be said so of the other Monarchies or Empires that had gone before. It is not said the Dragon gave his power to the Babylonian Empire, nor to the Persian nor Grecian nor Syrogrecian: nor indeed could it be so truly and pertinently said so concerning them, as concerning Rome. For the Dragon had a business for Rome to do, which the other neither did nor could do for him, which was to put the Lord of life to death. The old Serpent knew from of old, that he was to bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, that he was to compass the death of Messias, and it was reserved to Rome and her power and tyranny to be the instrument of such an action, and the Dragon gave his power, seat, and authority to that City for that purpose, that it might do his business in murthering Christ, and his members after him.

Pilate, who carried with him the authority and commission of that City, confessed him innocent, and yet condemned him, pleaded for him that he was not guilty, and yet crucified him; and that mainly upon the account of Rome, and for her sake, because forsooth there must be no King but Caesar, or who was set up or kinged by Caesar.

In Revel. XI. 8. where mention is made of slaying the two witnesses, it is said, their dead carcasses shall lie in the streets of that great City, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. The last clause, where also our Lord was crucified. may seem to direct your eyes to Jerusalem, but the title, The great City, which Chap. XVII. ult. is defined, The great City, which ruleth over the Kings of the Earth, calls them back again to look at Rome, as our Lord's crucifier, by whom, that work must be done, or not done at all, for to such a tenor do the Jews tell Pilate in the Text, when they say, It is not lawful for us.

Before ever I should turn Romanist, I must be satisfied in this scruple and question. How comes the Jew and Jerusalem, so cursed a Place and Nation for the murder of our Lord, and the Romanist and Rome, so blessed, as to be the holy mother Church of all the World, when that City and Nation had as deep and bloody a hand in the murder of the Savior of the World, as the other, if not deeper?

I remember the story of one of the Grand Seigniors, that when he had received a foul and base foil before a poor and contemptible Town, Scodra, if I mistake not the name, for very rancor and vexation, and that he might be whetting on himself continually to revenge, he commanded him that waited nearest on him, to be minding him continually with these words, Remember Scodra. May I be so bold as to hint such a memorandum to you against Rome. As oft as you read, or rehearse, or hear rehearsed that article in our Creed, He suffered under Pontius Pilate, Remember Rome, and that under that it was our Savior suffered: and the article minds you of so much: and if it were not intended for such a memorandum, had it not been enough to have said He suffered, without any mention of Pontius Pilate at all? Let us reason with the Romanist a little after the manner of his own Logic. He argues thus, Peter was at Rome and sat Bishop there, and suffered martyrdom and died there; Ergo, Rome is the mother Church, and head of all Churches. We argue in like manner, Pilate was at Jerusalem, sat Judge there, condemned and crucified the Lord of life there, and that by the Power and Authority of Rome; Ergo, let Rome look to it, how she clears herself of that fact and guiltiness. And so I have done with the first party in mention in the Text, Pilate, and he invested with the Roman authority.

The other party are the Jews, more peculiarly the Sanhedrin invested also wi •• the Jewish power, and Representatives of the whole Nation. How busy and active the Jews were in this bloody business needs no illustration of mine, the Sacred pens of the Evangelists have done that abundantly.

Only I might speak to this circumstance, and not impertinent question, whether the Jews did not indeed think him to be the Messias, and yet murdered him?

Pilate condemned him, though he knew him innocent, and did not they murder him though they knew him to be the very Christ?

Methinks that passage in the Parable of the husbandmen in the Vineyard speaks very fairly for the Affirmative, Matth. XXI. 38. When the husband men saw the Son, they said, this is the heir, come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. They knew him to be the heir, and yet they kill him, nay they kill him because they know him to be the heir, and that by killing him they shall get the inheritance. It is said indeed, they knew him not, Act. XIII. 27. which if you interpret, that they knew not the dignity of his person, and that he was God as well as man [the Jews will not be persuaded of the Godhead of Messias to this day] that does not deny, but that they might take him for the Messias howsoever. But I shall not dispute this case. If they took him for Messias, they thought he was not a Messias for their turn, nor that he was likely to answer their expectation, in what their wretched traditions had taught them to look for from Messias. For,

• I. From Messias they expected Pomp and Stateliness, a royal and victorious Kingdom: they see him appear in a low condition, and contemptible poverty.
• II. From Messias they expected an advancing and heightening the rites of Moses: they saw that he began to take them down.
• III. By the Messias they expected to be redeemed and delivered from their subjection to the Roman yoke. He taught them to give Caesar his due, and to submit to the government God had set over them.
• IV. By the Messias they expected, that the Gentiles should be subdued, trod under their feet and destroyed. He taught that they should be called, converted and become the Church.

So that if they took him for Messias, they thought he was a Messias that would mar all, and was far unlike the Messias their traditions had taught them to look for. And therefore be he Messias or no, they will rather kill the heir, than they themselves lose the inheritance, which they thought they should have done, if he should have liyed.

It were worth the labor, if that were the task that were before us, to trace these two Nations, Jew and Roman, after this fact; as I may say, by the blood, and to consider, as they made themselves yoke-fellows, like Simeon and Levi, in this guilt and evil, so whether God yoked not them also together under the like curse and vengeance.

Yokefellows indeed are the Jew and Romanist above all the people of the World, in a deluded fancying their own bravery and privilege above all the World besides. He that comes to read the Jewish Writings, especially those that are of the nature of Sermons, will find this to be the main stuffing of them, almost in every leaf and page, How choice a people is Israel, how dearly God is in love with Israel, what a happy thing it is to be the seed of Abraham, how blessed the Nation of the Jews above all Nations, and such stuff as this all along: And is not the style of the Romanist to the very same tune? How holy the Church of Rome, how glorious the Religion of the Church of Rome, what superiority and preeminence hath the Church above all Churches; and all the men in the World are Heretics and Apostates and Castaways, if they be not Romanists. Whereas if both the Nations would but impartially look upon themselves, they would see that there are such brands upon them two, as are upon no Nation under Heaven, now extant; I shall but glance at these few particulars.

I Is not the Jew Antichrist, viz. Thes. II? Examine the place seriously, and compare it with 1 Joh. II. 18. and with II. Joh. 7. and other places in the Epistles, and you may see it plain. And is not Rome Antichrist in the Revelations? Rome herself doth not deny it, if you allow her but her distinction of Heathen and Christian.

II. Have you not observed a horrid Apostasy in the Apostles time in the Church of the Jews, of those who had embraced the Gospel? Evidences are abundant in the New Testament, I shall name but two, 2 Tim. I. 15. All Asia is fallen away, and departed from Paul at one clap. This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia are turned away from me. And in XII. Matth. 49. our Savior compares that generation to one that had the Devil cast out of him, but he returns again into him with seven worse Devils, so shall it be, saith he, to this wicked generation.

And who also hath not observed a horrid Apostasy in the Church of Rome, (They themselves only excepted, who will not see) from that Faith and Religion, for which that City was once renowned through the whole World, I. Rom. 8? And that direful Apostasy in the Christian Church of the Jews, was never so matched and paralleled in the World as by the Apostasy in the Church of Rome.

III. Were there ever two Nations, two Churches under Heaven so besotted with Traditions and the Doctrines of Men, as the Jew and Roman? Weigh them well together, and is not that as true of the Roman to every tittle, that our Savior speaks of the Jew, XV. Matth. 3, 9. That they had made the Commandment of God of none effect by their traditions, and that they taught for Doctrines the Commandments of men?

He that shall seriously compare their Doctrines together, about Opus operatum, Sin venial, the merit of Works, Purgatory, Freewil, the point of Justification, and multitudes of other points in Religion and Divine Worship, will see the Romanist has gone to School to the Jew, and indeed the Scholar is not a whit behind the Master.

IV. And to spare more, Is not the Jew doomed to a perpetual curse in that passage, Isaiah LXV. 15. Ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen? And in other passages of like nature, that might be produced, not a few:

And is not Rome doomed to perpetual perdition in that passage, Numb. XXIV. 24. Ships shall come from the coast of Chittim, and shall afflict Assar, and shall afflict Eber, and he [Chittim] shall perish forever. Where Chittim is Rome or Italy by the consent both of Jews and Christians, both of Protestants, and even Romanists themselves.

And thus much concerning the persons before us. Pilate and the Jews, Representatives of the Jewish and Roman Nation, Actors of the Jewish malice and Roman tyranny.

And now let us consider their words, the handling of which will bring our discourse nearer the present occasion.

Pilate said, Take him, &c. for he very well knew they might do so▪ for any restraints the Romans, who were their Lord's, had put upon them in that case. Josephus tells us the Romans suffered them to live by their own Laws and Religion; and he records a speech that Titus their Conqueror made to them, while he besieged their City, to persuade them to yield, in which he useth this argumentation. The Romans have always permitted you to live by your own Laws, and why then should you rebel against them? And he also records a speech that himself made to them to the same purpose, to persuade them to yield, in which he useth the very same argument. And certainly Pilate did not speak it in a way of jeering of them; when he bid them Take him, &c. as knowing they were restrained by the Romans.

They, though such a restraint were not upon them, yet answer, It is not lawful, &c. It is not lawful, i. e. we cannot, we may not, it is not in our power; for such a construction will the Greek expression very well bear; and if they used their own Jerusalem language, I doubt not but their words were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which is an expression very obvious and frequent in the writers in that Language, and signifies in that latitude, as to mean, we have not liberty, power, privilege.

Now how or when, or whereupon, did they lose this power? If the Romans had taken it away from them, how then did they afterwards arraign and condemn and execute S. Stephen, and would have done no less without all doubt to S. Paul, if they might have had their own way? And their own stories tell us of their judging and condemning to the fire, after this, a Priests daughter for playing the whore in her fathers house, and execution was done accordingly. And yet, they say, they cannot judicially put any man to death, which power indeed if they had lost, they lost it more like fools, than like slaves, and it was not at all taken from them by the Romans, but they let it drop from them by their own folly.

Their own Writers and Records do tell us at what pass it was with them at this time, in this manner.

Forty years, say they, before the destruction of the Temple, did the great Sanhedrin, or chief Court or Council rise, and depart out of the room