A Key Opening Mysterious Texts of Scripture

THE TREE OF LIFE SPRINGING OUT OF THE GRAVE: OR Primitiae Sepulchri. A Spitall Sermon preached on Monday in Easter week, April 22. THE THIRTEENTH SERMON.

PLiny the younger writeth of Egypt, that she was wont to boast how she owed nothing to the clouds, or any foreign streams for her fertility, being abundantly watered by the sole inundation of her own river Nylus. A like or greater privilege (it must be confessed) this renowned City hath for a long time enjoyed, in that she hath not been indebted to any wandering clouds; nor needeth she to fetch the water of life from any foreign river, or neighbor spring, being richly stored by the overflowing industry and learning of her most able and painful Preachers within her self; filling not only the lesser cisterns of private congregations, but the greater also of these most celebrious and solemn assemblies. And for mine own part, so let the life blasts of the spirit refresh me in the sweat of my holy labors, and the dew of heavenly benediction fall upon your religious ears, as I never sought this place, nor am come hither to make ostentation of any so much as conceived gifts in me, nor to broach any new opinions of mine, or any other, nor to set before you any forbidden fruit though never so sweet, and to a well conditioned stomach wholesome; nor to smooth or level the uneven ways of any, who plow in the Lord's field with an ox and an asse, much less to gain vulgar applause, or spring an hidden vein of unknown contribution, by traducing the public proceedings in the State or Church; but only in obedience to the call of lawful authority, to build you in your most holy faith, and elevate your devotion to the due celebration of this high feast of our Lord's resurrection; and by crying as loud as I am able to awake those that sleep in sinful security, that they may stand up from the dead, and Christ may give them and us all light of knowledge, joy, and comfort. Which that I may be enabled to perform, I humbly entreat the concurrence of your patience, with your prayers to God for his assistance in opening the scripture now read in your ears.

But now Christ is risen, &c. This is no sterill or barren text, you hear of fruits in it; and although the harvest thereof hath been reaped by many Laborers before me, yet there remain good gleanings for me also, and those that shall leaze after me, even till the Angels shall thrust their sickle into the large field of the ripe world, and reap the reapers themselves. The fruit is of two sorts:

• 1 Christ's prerogative.
• 2 The deceased Saints privilege, who in their degree participate with him.

He is above them, yet with them; he is the first-fruits, and they are the rest of the heap: and if the first fruits be holy, the whole heap is holy. The ground which beareth this fruit, is the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead, which the Apostle like a provident husbandman first fenceth and maketh sure, and after breaketh and layeth it down. He fenceth it from the beginning of this chapter to the 35. verse, by invincible arguments confirming the truth of the resurrection: afterwards, to the end of the chapter he layeth it down, by apt and lively similitudes declaring the manner thereof.

And this he doth with much vehemency and contention of arguments, his zeal being kindled through blasts of contradiction by some in the Church of Corinth, who directly denied the former, verse 12. and obliquely carped at the latter, verse 35. Neither did these alone at Corinth (as much as in them lay) subvert this main article of our faith, but Hymenaeus and Philetus, with others at Ephesus perverted the sense of it, saying that the resurrection was past already.

[Obser. 1] Whence I first observe against Bellarmine, Parsons, and other Papists, that the Devil tied not himself (as they have surmized) to any rule of method, in laying his batteries against the articles of the Creed in order. For the resurrection of the flesh is the last article save one, yet heretical impiety (as you have heard) first ventured on it. Howbeit the Cardinal, that he might more conveniently tie all whom he supposeth Heretics in one chain, and thrust us into the lowest place, beareth his Reader in hand, that the enemy of mankind, albeit in other things he be a disturber of order, yet in impeaching the Apostles creed hath kept a kind of order. 1 For within 200. years after Christ he assaulted the first article, concerning God the Father almighty maker of heaven and earth, by the Simonians, Menandrians, Basilidians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Manichees, and several kind of Gnostickes.

2 After 200. years he set upon the second article, concerning the divine nature of Christ by the Praxeans, Noetians, Sabellians, and Samosetanians.

3 In the next age he opposed the divine person of our Savior, by the Photineans, Arians, and Eunomians.

4 From 400. to 800. he impugned the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, concerning the incarnation, passion, resurrection, ascension of our Lord, and his coming to judgment, by the Nestorians, Theodorians, Eutychians, Acephali, Sergians, and Paulians.

5 From the year 800. to 1000. he bid battle to the eighth article, concerning the holy Ghost, by the schism and heresy of the Grecians.

6 Lastly, from the 1000. year to this present age he hath oppugned the ninth and tenth articles, concerning the catholic Church and remission of sins, by the Berengarians, Petrobrusians, Waldenses, Albigenses, Wicklefists, Hussites, Lutherans, Zwinglians, Confessionists, Hugonites, and Anabaptists.

Were these calculations exact, and observations true, the Cardinal deserved to be made Master of ceremonies amongst heretics, for so well ranking them. But upon examination of particulars it will appear, that his skill in history is no better than his divinity. To begin where he endeth. First, he most falsely and wrongfully chargeth the worthy standard-bearers of the reformed religion before Luther, with the impeaching the ninth and tenth articles of the creed. They impeach neither of them, nor any other; nay, they will sooner part with the best limb of their body, than any article of their creed: whereas on the contrary side, the Romanists, as they impeach the article of Christ's incarnation of the Virgin Mary, by teaching that his flesh is made daily by the Priests in the Mass; not of her blood, but of bread; and of his ascension, and sitting at the right hand of the Father, till he come to judge the quick and the dead, by teaching that his body is at once in a Million of places on earth, even wheresoever Masses are said: so they most manifestly overthrow the articles he instanceth in, viz.

1 The ninth & tenth. The ninth by turning 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 into 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , universal into particular, and empaling the whole Church within the jurisdiction of Rome, as the Donatists did of old within the Provinces of Africa. The tenth by branding them with the marks of heretics who believe the remission of their own sins by special faith.

2 As the Cardinal is foully mistaken in the point of divinity, so also in the matter of history both of former ages, and this present wherein we live. For who knoweth not that other articles besides the ninth and tenth, are at this day oppugned by the Servetians, Antitrinitarians, Sosinians, Vorstians, Anabaptists, Libertines, and Familists, whose heresies strike at the sovereign attributes of God, the Trinity of persons, deity of Christ, his incarnation, satisfaction, second coming, and life everlasting?

3 Neither were these two articles (instanced in) first impugned in our age, or since the 1000. year, as he accounteth; but long before in the third and fourth ages, by the Novatians, Donatists, Luciferians, Meletians, and Pelagians.

4 Neither was Satan so long in setting heretics on work to undermine all the articles of the creed. If you peruse the bedroll of heresies in Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Philastrius, and Augustine, you shall find that within the space of 400. years the Devil so bestirred himself, that he left no article of the Apostles creed untouched by them.

5 And lastly, neither had the enemy of mankind any care at all of order in employing heretics to overthrow our Christian belief, more than an enraged enemy, all set upon spoil in demolishing an house, thinketh of pulling down every stone in order; for to what end serveth order when nothing but present confusion is sought? Therefore against the rule of method set down by Bellarmine, Satan in the second age called in question the last article of the creed, by Papius, and the Millenaries. In the third age he called in question the eighth article concerning the holy Ghost, by the Macedonians and Pneumatomachi. In the first age he called in question the second article concerning the divinity of Christ, by the Ebionites and Cerinthians: as also the eleventh by the Ephesians, and those Corinthians whom the Apostle taketh to task in this chapter, and confuteth in my text.

[Obser. 2] My second observation from the occasion, is, that some heresies, as namely this of the Corinthians concerning the resurrection, against which the Apostle bendeth all his forces, have been very ancient, and some heretics contemporaries to the Apostles. As God is styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (that is, Auncient of days, or rather Auncient to days, as God speaketh of himself, Before the day was I am: ) so the Devil is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the old Serpent; whose spawn are all heresies, as well old as new. No truth at the first delivery thereof could be ancient, nor can any error after it hath long passed from hand to hand, be new. Time is without the essence of those things that are measured by it; and consequently cannot make that which is in it self evil, good; nor that which is good, evil. Antiquity can no more prescribe for falsehood, than novelty prejudice the truth. Bare antiquity therefore is but a weak plea in matter of religion ( quodcunque contra veritatem sapit haeresis est, etiam vetus consuetudo) whatsoever savoreth not of truth, or is against it, is heresy, yea although it be ancient, and plead custom. 1 It was the Samaritans plea against the Jews, Our Father worshipped in this mount, &c. But it was rejected by our Savior, saying, you worship you know not what.

2 It was the plea of the heretics called Aquarii against the Catholics, but disproved by Saint Cyprian, saying, Custom without truth is no better than inveterate error.

3 It was the plea of Guitmundus against the practice of the Roman Church in Gregory the great his days, but disparaged by him, saying, custom ought to give place to truth and right: for Christ said not, Ego sum consuetudo, I am custom or prescription, but, Ego sum veritas, I am truth.

Nay, it was the very plea of the Paynims against the Christians, and long ago disabled by the ancient Fathers, Saint Ignatius, Arnobius, Ambrose, and Augustine. Ignatius thus puts it by, Some say they will not believe the truth of the Gospel, if we produce not ancient records for it; to whom my answer is, Christ is my antiquity, his words are to me instead, or as good as all ancient records. Arnobius gravely determines the point, the authority, saith he, of Religion is to be weighed, not by time, but by the divine author thereof; that which is true is not to be traduced as late or too new. Saint Ambrose seconds Arnobius, saying to the heathen, do you find fault with our Christian religion, because it is later than your heathenish superstition? you may by the same reason pick a quarrel with harvest, because it comes not till the end of summer, and with the vintage because it falls late in the year, and with the olive because he beareth fruit after other trees. Lastly, Saint Augustine returns them a smart answer for this absurd plea, They say that that religion which is elder cannot be false, as if antiquity or custom could do the truth any prejudice at all; 'tis a devilish custom to vent falsehood under the title of antiquity. Whereunto may be added, that in propriety of speech that is not antiquity which is so esteemed: the age wherein we live is indeed the eldest, because nearest to the end of the world; and those times which we reverence as elder, are by so much the younger by how much they were nearer to the beginning of the world, and the birth of time it self. The Catholic Christian Church was never so ancient as now she is. For she was made so at Christ's death, cum e terra sublatus fuero, omnes ad me traham: like Eve she was formed out of the second Adams side, whence issued the two Christian Sacraments, the water of baptism, and the blood of the holy Eucharist. At the first she was fed with the sincere milk of the word in the Apostles time, came to her perfect growth, strength, and full dimensions in the Fathers days, when she valiantly encountered all persecutors abroad, and heretics at home. After 600. years she began apparently to break, and in every latter age decayed more and more, and now in most parts of the Christian world (except only where by reformation her age is renewed ) she is become decrepit, dim in the sight of heavenly things, deaf in the hearing God's word, stiff in the knees of true devotion, disfigured in the face of order, weak in the sinews of faith, cold in the heart of love, and stouping (after the manner of bowed old age) to graven Images. Wherefore it may be doubted that Cardinal Bellarmine was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , participated somewhat of the infirmities of old age in his books of the notes of the Church, where he would have antiquity to be a proper mark of the true Church. He might as well have assigned old age to be the proper note of a man, which neither agreeth to all men, nor to man alone, nor to any man at all times: no more doth antiquity to the Church. What need I add anymore, since the truth himself hath dashed through this mark again and again? Matth. 5.21.27.31.33.38.43. teaching us that the essays of the ancients are not the touch-stone of truth, but his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , I say, you have heard that it was said by them of old time, &c. But I say unto you, &c.

Yea, but say our adversaries of Rome, Christ himself elsewhere argueth from antiquity: both affirmatively, He which made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and negatively, From the beginning it was not so. And Saint John also, This is the message which ye heard from the beginning. And Tertullian, That is true which is first, that is counterfeit which is latter. And Saint Cyprian, saying, If the pipe which before yielded water abundantly fail suddenly, do we not run to the spring? And the council of Calcedon crying with one voice, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , let the ancient rites and customs prevail: and before them the Prophet Jeremy, ask for the old paths, and walk therein.

All which allegations make strongly for the prime and original antiquity, not for any of later standing. The old paths which the Prophet Jeremy speaketh of, are the paths of God's commandments laid down by Moses and the Prophets; there we are to ask where is the good way, and to walk in it, not because it is the old way, but because it is the good way. For there are old ways which are not good ways, which God forbids us to walk in: Walk not in the statutes of your Fathers, nor observe their judgments; And David forewarnes us of, He shall follow the generation of his Fathers, and shall never see light. A fit poesie to be written upon the door of every obstinate recusant among us. The council of Calcedon crieth up ancient customs and ordinances, and so do we, such as are descended from the Apostles, or at least are not repugnant to their doctrine, and practice.

Saint Cyprians advice is good, If water fail in the pipe or conduit, or run muddily, to have recourse to the spring; but what spring doth he there point unto? fontem dominicae traditionis, the fountain of the Lord's tradition, that is, the scriptures. Tertullian's observation is true, 'It is good coin that's first stamped, and afterward that which is counterfeited: the husbandman first sowed good seed, and then the envious man sowed tares. Let the Romanists prove their Trent doctrine to be Dominica, and to have in it the Kings stamp, we will admit it for currant. After Christ and his Apostles had sown the good seed, which we yet retain pure in our reformed Churches, they by their additions have sown upon it tares. Saint John draweth an argument from the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel; and Christ from the beginning, that is, the first promulgation of the law in Paradise. Let the Romanists fetch an argument from antiquity so high, and we will soon join issue with them.

And to this antiquity we might strictly tie our adversaries, as Saint Cyprian doth his opposites. We must not respect, saith he, what any hath done before us (in the matter about which we contend) but what Christ did which was before all. When they pleaded ancient tradition, he demands whence is that tradition? is it derived from the Gospel, or Acts of the Apostles, or their Epistles? then let such a holy tradition be religiously kept. And Saint Augustine standeth at this ward against the Donatists: whether concerning Christ, or concerning his Church, or concerning anything that pertaineth to our faith and life, we will not say, if we, but as he going forward addeth, if an Angel from heaven shall preach unto you but what you have received in the Scriptures of the Law and Gospel, let him be accursed. Yet we give them a larger scope, even till the beginning of the seventh age, wherein Mahumetanisme began to spread in the East, and Antichristianism in the West. For the first six hundred years they cannot find any Kingdom, Commonwealth, Country, Province, City, Village, or Hamlet under the cope of heaven professing their present Trent Faith. Wherefore as Phasis, while he was highly extolling the Emperors proclamation for placing men of quality in the Theater according to their rank, was by that very edict thrust out of the place he had got there by Lectius the Marshall:

So if the plea of antiquity should simply be admitted in point of faith, our adversaries undoubtedly would be cast by it. For although they father bastard-treatises upon ancient writers, and by an unnatural and prodigious generation beget Fathers at their pleasure: yet they are not able to produce any Record, express and direct testimony, canon of Council, or Ecclesiastical constitution,

1 For their burning lights in the Church at noon day, before the decree of Pope Sabinianus in the year of our Lord 605.

2 Nor for Rome to be the head of all Churches before Pope Boniface the third in the year 606.

3 Nor for the invocation of Saints in their public liturgy, before Boniface the fifth in the year 618.

4 Nor for their Latin service thrust upon all Churches, before Pope Vitalian in the year 666. which is the very number of the name of the beast.

5 Nor for the cutting of the Hoste into three parts, and offering one part for the souls in Purgatory before Pope Sergius in the year 688.

6 Nor for setting up images in Churches generally, and worshipping them, before Pope Adrian the first, and the second Council of Nice, in the year 787.

7 Nor for canonization of Saints departed, before Leo the third, about the year 800.

8 Nor for the oral manducation of Christ's body in the Sacrament, before Pope Nicolas the second in the year 1053.

9 Nor for the entire number of seven sacraments, before Peter Lombard in the year 1140.

10 Nor for Indulgences before Eugenius the third in the year 1145.

11 Nor for transubstantiation of the bread into Christ's body before the fourth Council of Lateran in the year 1215.

12 Nor for the elevation of the Hoste that the people might adore it, before Honorius the third, in the year 1216.

13 Nor for any Jubile before Pope Boniface the eighth, in the year 1300.

14 Nor for the carrying the Sacrament in procession under a canopy, before Pope Urban the fifth, in the year 1262.

15 Nor for the dry and half Communion before the Council at Constance, in the year 1416.

16 Nor for the suspending the efficacy of Sacramental consecration upon the Priests intention, before the Council at Florence, in the year 1439.

17 Nor for the Popes superiority to general Councils, before the sixth Council at Lateran under Leo the tenth, in the year 1517.

18 Nor for the Vulgar Latin translation to be held for authentical, and upon no pretended cause whatsoever to be rejected, before the fourth Session of the Council at Trent, in the year 1546.

19 Nor for the second book of the Maccabees, and the apocryphal additions to Hester and Daniel, with the history of Bel and the Dragon, which Saint Jerome termeth a fable, to be received for Canonical Scripture, before the said Session, in the year above named.

20 Nor for the twelve new articles which Pope Pius the fourth enjoined all professors to swear unto, before the end of the Conventicle held at Trent, in the year 1564.

Thus by occasion of the occasion of my text, the old heresy sprang up in Corinth, against the eleventh article of our creed, I have cast a bone or two to those of the Synagogue of Rome to gnaw upon, who usually creep into these great assemblies to catch at our doctrine, and snarl at God's Minister: and now I wholly address myself to give the children of the Church their bread, made of the first fruits in my text.

But now. The verse immedately going before is to this in hand as a dark foil to a bright & precious stone, and thus it setteth it off.

But the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or (but) is remarkable; for it turneth the stream of the Apostles discourse towards Paradise, which before, like Jordan, was running apace into mare mortuum. If no resurrection, we of all men most miserable, But because there is a resurrection, we most happy. The sky is darkest immediately before the break of day; such was the face of the Church before the rising of the sun of righteousness. All the stars save one were overcast, or rather darkened: In memory whereof the Church of Rome on Easter Eeve puts out all the lights save one, to signify that faith then remained only in the blessed virgin; in all other, as well Apostles as Disciples, it was eclipsed for the time. The life of their hope died with their Master, and all the hope of their life was buried in his grave. Which when they saw guarded, and a great stone rolled to the mouth of it, their hearts were as cold as a stone. But in the proper season of this now in my text, the Angel removed that stone from the sepulcher (and this from their heart) and sitting upon that, made it (as Chrysologus speaketh) a chair of celestial doctrine, and out of it preached the first part of my text, Christ is risen from the dead, upon which the Apostle paraphrasing, saith, is become the first fruits of them that slept: Christ is risen from the dead, there is the letter of our Creed, and is become the first fruits of them that slept, there is, as it were, the flourishing about it, or if musical terms sound sweeter in your ears, here is

• 1 Planus cantus, or the ground, Christ.
• 2 Discantus, or the division, is become the first fruits of them that slept.

The notes in the descant must answer those in the planus cantus, so they do here:

• The first fruits to Christ:
• Is become to is risen:
• Them that slept to the dead.

The ditty hath three parts or sentences:

• 1 The doctrine of resurrection is certain, for Christ is risen.
• 2 The prerogative of Christ is singular, is become the first fruits.
• 3 The condition of the dead is happy, they are them that slept, and rest now from their labors.

Now seemeth here to have more of the Conjunction than of the Adverb, and to be rather a particle of connection, than a note of time. For Christ was not newly risen when Saint Paul wrote this Epistle, but many years before. The proper and precise (Now) of Christ's resurrection, when he might have been said to be now or new risen, was the third day after his passion, being the first day of the week. Whence I observe the agreement of the time with the truth, not in substance only, but in circumstance also. The types were the Paschal Lamb, and the first fruits. Now as Christ our passover was slain the very day in which the Paschal Lamb was to be killed, so he being also the first fruits (ver. 23.) rose again the very day in which the first fruits were by the law to be offered. Saint Bernard a little varieth the note, yet maketh good harmony. On the sixth day on which he made man he redeemed him; the next day, being the Jewish Sabbath, he kept his Sabbath rest in the grave; the third day, which was the first of the week-days, he appeared, The first fruits of them that slept. Of which day I need say no more to kindle your devotions, and stir up your religious affections, than Maximus Taurinensis hath long ago in his meditations piously ejaculated. A blessed day, first discovering unto us the light, not of this world but of the world to come; far happier than that day in which man first saw the light of the sun. For on that day man was made to travel, on this day to rest; on that day he was sentenced to death, on this day freed from fear of death; on that day the sun arose upon the just and unjust, this day the sun of righteousness rose only upon the just; (illius diei splendor etiam sepulchra illuminate) that day shined only upon the living, this also upon the dead, as it is written, Awake thou that sleepest, and stand up from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

Christ, Lactantius interpreteth the King, Unctus nomen est imperii, anointed is the name of sovereign majesty. Saint Augustine expoundeth it a Priest, others a Prophet; for Prophets were also anointed. Saint Bernard alluding to this name, maketh Christ a tender Chirurgian, curing our wounds, non ustione sed unctione, not by lancing or searing, but by anointing and plastering. The Heathen in Tertullian's time expounded it, bonum & benignum, good and bountiful, & ne sic quidem male, and not amiss, saith he, if we regard the sense and application of that attribute to our Savior. For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is indeed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 kind, and gracious, and profitable to man, because in life and death advantage: but amiss if we respect the derivation. For Christ is derived from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ungo, and answereth to the Hebrew Messias, of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifying to anoint, and peculiarly it designeth the Son of God and Savior of the world. For albeit others were anointed besides Christ, and called the Lord's anointed, yet Christ alone was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Christ:

• 1 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . In verity.
• 2 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . After a singular manner.

1 In verity or truth: for all Kings & Priests that were anointed before him were but types of him, and that in part, how holy soever they were; he is the only true Christ anointed and appointed by God to save lost man.

2 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , According to excellency, or after a singular manner, he is the Christ: 1 Others were anointed by men, he immediately by God. God even thy God hath anointed thee. 2 They with a less measure of graces, he with a greater, incomparably greater, with oil of gladness above thy fellows. 3 They to bear one office, or two at the most, he to bear three. Melchizedek was a King and a Priest, but no Prophet: Samuel a Prophet and a Priest, but no King: David a King and a Prophet, but no Priest: Christ was all three, a Priestly King, as Melchizedek, a Kingly Prophet, as David, and a Prophetical Priest, as Samuel. I conceive the Apostle here made choice of this name Christ above others, because it best fitted his purpose, and implied some cause of his resurrection. For as anointing or embalming dead corpses keeps them from putrefying; so Christ by the divine unction was preserved from corrupting in the grave: because there was no corruption in his soul, his body could not corrupt, or at least God would not suffer it, as the Prophet speaketh, thou wilt not suffer thy holy One to see corruption. Now if his body must not be left, nor corrupt in the grave, because it was impossible for him to be held with the sorrows of death, he must undoubtedly have risen again, as it followeth:

Is risen. In the original it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 raised (viz.) by the right hand of his Father; elsewhere 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 he is risen of himself: neither is there yet any contradiction. For the Father and the Son are one in nature, and consequently the power of the Father who is God, is the power of the Son, who is one God with him. Id resurgit quod prius cecidit, that is properly said to be raised, or rise again, which before fell, and that is the body, which is therefore called in Hebrew 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Greek 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in latin cadaver a cado.

Christ's resurrection then, or resuscitation from the dead, must be the enliving his dead corps, and lifting it up, and bringing it up out of the dark sepulcher into the light, which is a kind of second birth, and not unlike to his first. For as that was his proceeding out of the Virgins womb; so this was out of a Virgin tomb; the difference was only in this, as Chrysologus acutely hath observed, the womb of the virgin conceived Christ quick, and accordingly brought him forth alive; the womb of the earth conceived him dead, but brought him forth quick: uteri nova forma concepit mortuum, parit vivum.

As we may behold the feature of a man's face either in the countenance it self, or in a glass set before it, or in a picture drawn by it: so we may contemplate the resurrection, either in the prophecies and types of the old law, as in glasses, or in the history of the new, as it were in the face it self, or in our spiritual resurrection from dead works, as in the picture. A glass showeth the lineaments and proportion of a man, but at a distance; so we may see Christ in the predictions, visions, and figures of the Old Testament, as so many glasses, but at a distance, according to the words of that Seer, I shall see him, but not near. So Hosea saw him insulting over death and hell, and menacing them; O death I will be thy death: so Isaiah saw him risen from the dead, and speaking to him said, Thy dead shall live, with my body shall they rise: awake and sing ye that sit in dust.

So David in the Spirit saw the day of the resurrection, and exceedingly rejoiced at it, saying, my heart was glad, my glory rejoiced, my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thy holy One to see corruption. So Adam saw him conquering death, and triumphing over him that had the power of death, to wit, the Devil (though more obscurely, because at the farthest distance) in the promise, it shall break thy head, and thou shalt break his heel, the death and resurrection of Christ are mystically involved. As the Poets fabled that Achilles after his Mother Thetis held him by the heel, and dipt the rest of his body into the sea, could be hurt in no part but his heel: so in a divine sense it may be said of our Savior, that he could be wounded by Satan nowhere but in his heel, that is, in the lowest part of his human nature, his flesh. This the serpent stung at his death, but in his resurrection he bruised the head thereof. The Devil, saith Nyssen, in his sermon upon the resurrection, going about to catch, was caught; for catching at the bait of Christ's flesh, he was caught fast himself, and wounded by the hook of his divine nature. Besides these predictions and promises, we have in the Old Testament the figure of our Lord's resurrection in Adam, a type in the scape goat, a sign or emblem in Jonas, and a vision in Ezekiel. The figure may be thus expounded, As Adam rose out of his dead sleep in which Eve was formed out of his rib; so Christ after his slumber of death on the cross, in which his spouse the Church was formed out of his side (as hath been said) awoke again. The type may be thus exemplified: as the scapegoate came near to death, being within the cast of a lot to it, and yet avoiding it, was presented alive to God to make an atonement; so Christ who seemed to have been conquered by death, and swallowed up of the grave, lying there three days and three nights, yet escaped it, and was presented on Easter day to his Father alive, to make an atonement for all his brethren. To the emblem of Jonas Christ himself giveth the word or Motto: As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whales belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. After three days Jonas came out of the bowels of the whale, Christ out of the heart of the earth. The vision of Ezekiel is so clear, that he that runneth may see in it a praeludium of the resurrection.

The Prophet saw in a valley a number of dry bones moving one to the other; and suddenly they were tied with sinews, and covered with flesh, and the wind breathed into them the breath of life, and they stood up like an army.

We have viewed the resurrection in the prophecies and figures of the Old Testament, as so many several glasses: let us now contemplate it in the history of the New, as it were in the face it self.

1 Early in the morning, while it was yet dark, the Angel removed the stone, that so Mary and the Apostles might look into the sepulcher: and unless the angel of the covenant remove the stone from our hearts, we can never look into Christ's sepulcher with an eye of faith, nor undoubtedly believe the resurrection.

2 Peter and John made hast to the sepulcher, but they stayed not there; Mary abideth there, she therefore seeth a vision of Angels, the one standing at the head, the other at the feet where Jesus had lain: either to signify that the Angels of God attend as well on Christ's feet, the lowest members of his mystical body, as on his head, that is, the chiefest in the Church: or that the angels smell a sweet savor from our works of charity, and therefore the one sat at the head, the other at the feet where Mary had anointed our Lord.

3 A third Angel, whereof mention is made in the Gospel of Saint Mark, sitting on the right side appeared like a young man, to signify that in the resurrection our age shall be renewed, and our bodies shall be in their full strenghth and vigor: his raiment shined like lightning, to represent the clarity and splendor of our bodies, that after death shall be made conformable to Christ's glorious body.

4 Mary Magdalene hath the honor first to see our Savior, and to be the first Preacher of the resurrection, to the everlasting comfort of all true Penitents: and as by the woman death came first, so the first news of life from death was brought by a woman.

5 Till Christ called Mary by name she knew him not, but supposed him to have been the Gardener (who indeed is the Planter of the celestial Paradise:) neither can we know Christ, till by a special and particular vocation he make himself known to us.

6 Christ appeared first to single witnesses, as Mary apart, and Peter apart, and James apart; then to double, Cleophas and that other disciple; afterwards to the eleven Apostles; and last of all to more than 500. brethren at once. If Mary's testimony might be excepted at because she was but a woman, what can they say to Saint Peter? what to Saint James, to whom Christ vouchsafed to show himself in particular? If they except against them as single witnesses, what will they say to Cleophas and Saint Luke, two contests of one and the self same apparition? If their paucity be cavilled at, what will they say to the eleven Apostles? or to more than five hundred brethren that saw him all at one time? nay, what to more than five millions of Confessors and Martyrs, signing the truth of it with their blood, and showing the power of it as well by the wonders which they wrought in his name, as the invincible patience wherewith they endured all sorts of torments, and death it self for his name? I might produce the testimony of Josephus the learned Jew, and tell you of Paschasinus his holy Well, that fills of his own accord every Easter day; and the annual rising of certain bodies of Martyrs in the sands of Egypt, and likewise of a Phoenix in the days of Tiberius, much about the time of our Lord's resurrection, rising out of her own ashes.

But because the authors of these relations and observations are not beyond exception, I will rather conclude this point with an argument of Saint Augustine's, to which our own undoubted experience gives much strength. The same Spirit of God, saith he, which foretold the resurrection of Christ, foretold also that the doctrine thereof should be publicly professed and believed in the world; and the one was altogether as unlikely as the other. But the latter we see in all ages since Christ's death, and at this day accomplished in the celebration of this feast; why then should any man doubt of the former? The Apostles saw the head living, but not the mystical body the Catholic Church of all places and ages. We have read in the histories of all ages since Christ, and at this day see the Catholic Church spread over the whole face of the earth, which is Christ's body, how can we then but believe the head to be living which conveyeth life to all the members? I have set before you the glass of the resurrection in the figures of predictions of the Old Testament, and the face it self in the history of the New: may it please you now to cast a glance of your eye upon the Image or picture thereof, in our rising from the death of sin to the life of grace. All Christ's actions and passions, as they are meritorious for us, so they are some way exemplary unto us: and as none can be assured of the benefit of Christ's birth unless he be borne again by water and the Spirit, nor of his death unless he be dead to sin, nor of his burial unless he have buried his old Adam; so neither of his resurrection unless he be risen from dead works, and continually walketh in newness of life. See you how the material colors in a glass window, when the sun-beams pass through it, produce the like colors, but less material (and therefore called by the Philosophers intentionales & spiritales ) on the next wall? no otherwise doth the corporal resurrection of Christ produce in all true believers a representation thereof in their spiritual, which Saint John calleth the first resurrection: Saint Paul, repentance from dead works. Sins, especially heinous and grievous, proceeding from an evil habit, are called dead works, and such sinners dead men, because they are deprived of the life of God, have no sense of true Religion, they see not God's works, they hear not his Word, they savor not the things of God, they feel no prick of conscience, they breath not out holy prayers to God, nor move towards heaven in their desires, but lie rotting in their own filthiness and corruption. The causes which moved the Jews so much to abhor dead corpses, ought to be more prevalent with us carefully to shun and avoid those that are spiritually dead in sins and transgressions: they were four;

• 1 Pollution.
• 2 Horrour.
• 3 Stench.
• 4 Haunting with evil spirits.

1 Pollution. That which touched a dead corpse was by the law unclean; neither can any come nigh these men, much less embrace them in their bosom, without moral pollution, and taking infection in their souls from them.

2 Horrour. Nothing so ghastly as the sight of a dead corpse, the representation whereof ofttimes in the Theater appalleth not only the spectators but also the actours: and yet this sight is not so dreadful to the carnal man, as the sight of those that are spiritually dead (I speak of foul, notorious, and scandalous offenders) to them that fear God. Saint John would not stay in the same bath with Cerinthus; and certainly 'tis a most fearful thing to be under the same roof with blasphemous heretics, and profane persons who have no fear of God before their eyes.

3 Stench. The smell of a carcass is not so offensive to the nostrils, as the stench of gluttony, drunkenness, and uncleanness, in which wicked men wallow, is loathsome to God and all good men.

4 Haunting with evil spirits. We read in scriptures that the men that were possessed of the devil came out of the tombs and graves: and we find by daily experience the like of these, rather carcasses than men, that the devil hankereth about them, and entereth into their heart, as he did into Judas, filling them with all wickedness and uncleanness. After they have exhausted their bodies with incontinency, their estate with riotous living; and have lost, first their conscience, and after their credit, they fall into the deepest melancholy, upon which Satan works, and puts them into desperate courses. O how suddenly do they consume, perish, and come to a fearful end! Me thinks I hear some say, we heard of places haunted by evil spirits in time of popery, are there now any such? not such as then were, solitary houses, ruined palaces or Churches, in which fearful noises are said to have been heard, and walking spirits to have been met. For at the thunder of the Gospel Satan fell like lightning from heaven, and hath left those his old holds; but places of a contrary condition, such where is the greatest concourse of people, I mean profane Theaters, disorderly Taverns, Ale-houses, places of gaming and lewdness, yea prisons also which were intended for the restraint of wickedness, and punishment of vice, are made refuges of Malefactors, and schools of all impiety and wickedness:

As in the hot sands of Africa, where wild beasts of divers sorts meet to drink, strange monsters are begotten, which gave occasion to that proverb, Semper Africa aliquid apportat novi, &c. so in the places of moist meetings monstrous sins are begotten, monstrous oaths, monstrous blasphemies, monstrous murders, monstrous uncleanness; here Popery is familiarly broached, nay Atheism freely vented, God's creatures abused, his Sabbath profaned, the actions of the State censured, the watchful Magigistrates, and the zealous Ministers of the Gospel, and all that make profession of Religion nick-named, jeered, and made a parable of reproach: here profane Music and impure Songs are played and sung, even in time of divine Service; here's no difference of days holy or common, nay no difference of day or night, I had almost said nay nor of Sexes. If the hands of the religious Magistrates be not strengthened, and their zeal stirred up to take some course to abate the incredible number, and reform the unsufferable abuses of these sinks of all impurity, especially about the skirts and suburbs of the city, we have cause to fear a worse fire than that which lately affrighted us, falling in that place where it might be as a dreadful beacon to warn both City, Borough, and Suburbs; I mean such a fire as fell upon Sodom and Gomorrhah. Polycritus writeth of a Lake of troubled water in Sicily, quam si quis ingrediatur in latum extenditur, into which the deeper a man wadeth the larger it doth extend it self. Such a lake my discourse is fallen into, the water is foul and troubled, and the deeper I sink into it, the more it enlargeth it self: and lest it should overflow the banks of the allotted time, I will suddenly leap out of it into my second part, which is Christ's prerogative, whereby he is become the first fruits of them that slept.

We have surveyed the ground, let us now take a sample of the fruits; in the spreading whereof abroad I must handle two things:

• 1 The reference.
• 2 The inference.

1 The reference is to Leviticus 23.10. When you reap the harvest, you shall bring in a sheaf of the first fruits of the harvest unto the Priest (ver. 7.) and he shall wave it. And to Exod. 34.22. You shall observe the feast of weeks, the feast of the first fruits of wheat harvest. Now let us set the truth to the type. As the first fruits were reaped in the harvest, when the corn was ripe, so Christ was cut off by death in his ripe age.

2 As the sheaf that was offered was shaken before; so there was an earthquake at Christ's lifting out of the grave.

3 As the sheaf was offered, the morrow after the Sabbath; so Christ the first day of the week after the Sabbath was presented alive to his Father at his resurrection. Lastly, as there was a distance of time between the first fruits which were offered on Easter day, & those that were offered at the day of Pentecost; so there is a distance of time between Christ's rising from the dead, which was 1600. years ago, & ours which shall be at the last day. Thus much for the reference; now to the inference, which is twofold:

• 1 Christ's prerogative, in that he is the first fruits.
• 2 The Saints communion with him, in that they are of the heap.

1 Christ's prerogative, He that is in heaven is above all, for to him is given all power in heaven and earth, and a name above all names, he is the head of the Church, and Savior of the body, he is the first begotten of the Father, first borne of his Mother, the first begotten of the dead, first borne of every creature. Therefore as Quiros strongly concludes in every order, both of creation and regeneration, of nature and grace, of things visible and invisible, he hath the preeminence among all: let him have the precedency in our love and affections, let us not set anything above him on earth, who hath the first place in heaven. If he be the head of men and Angels, let the knees of all in heaven, in earth, & under the earth, bow to him: if he be the bright morning star, let the eye of our faith be early upon him: if he be Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, let him be first in our thoughts, and last in our memory; let us begin our prayers in his name, and end them in his merits.

If he be the first fruits, Reshith bicorre, the first fruits of the first fruits, let all the sheaves do homage to him, let us sanctify him in our minds, let us offer him the first fruits of our hearts, the first fruits of our lips, the first fruits of our hands, the first fruits of the earth, the first fruits of our thoughts, the first fruits of our desires, the first fruits of our prayers, the first fruits of our labors, the first fruits of our substance, so will he esteem us the first fruits of his creatures, and we shall receive the first fruits of the spirit here in our regeneration, and the whole harvest hereafter in our glorification, as our holy brethren that are fallen asleep, in soul have received already; who rest from their labors, and their works follow them, and here you may see them. I may say of them as Isaac said of Jacob, Gen. 27. The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed. And behold here as in a corn field, blew flowers intermingled.

[Here the Preacher read the Catalogue printed, of all the poor relieved in the Hospitals of the City, which followeth.]

I have made an end of the Catalogue, but you must not make an end of your good works: I have set before you a fair copy, you must write after it, or else this schedule will prove a hand-writing against you at the day of judgment, who have had not only many most forcible exhortations to good works in this place, but such noble and royal presidents as you see, and yet have not been bettered by them. You cannot want pitiful objects of mercy: your pious charity hath daily Orators, the tears of orphans, the sighs of widows, the groans of the sick, and the lamentable cries of prisoners and captives. Neither is it sufficient for you now and then to drop upon the dry and thirsty ground, you must stillare pluviam liberalissimam, you must pour down golden showers to refresh God's inheritance. To whom much is given, much shall be required of him. In other seizements you give as you are in the Kings books; but contrariwise, you are in God's books, and he valueth you as you give to pious and charitable uses. And let me entreat you for the love of your Redeemer from everlasting thralldom, to open your hands towards the redemption of many hundreds of our country-men, whose bodies are in captivity under Turks and Infidels, their wives and children in misery at home, and it is to be feared, their souls in worse case. Next to the redemption of these spiritual Temples of the holy Ghost, I commend unto you the reparation and beautifying of his material Temple: you have most decently and beautifully adorned and trimmed the daughters of Zion, the lesser and later built Churches in this City, let not your piety be less to the Mother-Church, dedicated to the most public and solemn worship of God, where you are fed with the finest flower of wheat, and drink of the purest juice of the grape, and in the fullest manner partake of the communion of Saints; which was the second inference I made from the attribute of Christ in my text, whereby he is styled Primitiae dormientium, The first fruits of them that slept.

2 The second inference from the attribute here mentioned ( the first fruits of, &c.) is the communion of the faithful with Christ, both in sanctification and glorification; for the further manifestation whereof it will be requisite to specify whereof Christ is the first fruits, viz.

• 1 Coeli, for he is the first begotten of his Father.
• 2 Uteri, for he was the Virgins first borne.
• 3 Sepulchri, for he is the first fruits of them that slept.

In all three the faithful partake with him after a sort.

1 In that he is Primitiae coeli, the first fruits of heaven. For as he is the natural son of God, so are we the adopted sons of God, and by his spirit made partakers of the divine nature: as he is the first borne of heaven, so we are also of the general assembly and Church of the first borne which are written in heaven.

2 In that he is Primitiae uteri virginei, the first fruits of a virgins womb. For as Christ was borne of a virgin Mother, so the Christian Church our Mother is continually in child-bearing, and yet remaineth still a virgin.

3 Most properly do we partake with him in that he is Primitiae sepulchri; for he is that corn of wheat Saint John speaketh of, which was sown at his death, digged deep into the earth at his burial, sprang up again at his resurrection, and now is become the first fruits of them that slept: in like manner we are sown at our death, digged deep into the earth at our burial, and shall spring up again at the last resurrection, and be offered as first fruits unto God and the Lamb. Where the first fruits are taken out, there must needs be a lump or heap out of which they are taken. In primitiis totius anni proventus consecrabatur, in the first fruits the whole crop of the year was hallowed; so in Christ, who is our first fruits, all true believers are sanctified, as those words of our Savior in that most divine prayer to his Father recorded import, for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

If Christ sanctified himself for us, shall not we endeavor as he enableth us by his grace, to sanctify ourselves also for him? If he impart this his dignity to us, and maketh us the first fruits of his creatures, let us dedicate ourselves unto him: let us be given to him, as Samuel was, all the days of our lives. He hath chosen us to be (mark I beseech you what) fruits, not blossoms, not leaves; fruits I say, not stalkes, not empty ears, like those who make a bare profession of the truth, and all their religion is in their ears, bearing no fruit at all, or in no degree answerable to their holiest profession. If God hath made us fruits, let us not make ourselves rank weeds by heresy, or filthy dung by a corrupt life. After the first fruits are carried away out of the field, the rest of the shockes or sheafes follow of course; primitias universa massa sequitur: Christ the first fruits is carried away long since out of the field of this world, into the celestial barn. A barn far more stately, beautiful, and glorious than any Princes palace upon earth; and when the harvest shall come, which is the end of the world, we shall be carried thither also everyone in his own order: the first fruits is Christ, after they that are Christ's at his coming, ver. 23.

Before I can proceed, according to my desire and your expectation, to the period of my discourse, and end of all men's course, viz. death, called here sleep, I must remove six rubs that lie in my way. For we read of three dead men raised in the Old Testament, and as many in the New, before Christ himself rose: how then is he the first fruits of them that slept?

1 I will offer to your consideration many solutions of this doubt, that you may take your choice. Saint Jerome gives but a touch at it, yet because it is upon the right string 'tis worth your hearing: Christus primus surrexit in incorruptione; the rest before they were raised began at least to corrupt; it is said of Lazarus expressly, that he stank, but God suffered not his holy One to see corruption: they rose in their natural and corruptible bodies, Christ in an incorruptible, and as the Apostle calleth it, a spiritual body, ver 44.

2 That which Cornelius A lapide answereth is considerable, that though Christ were not primus tempore, the first that rose in time, yet that he was primus in intention Dei, the first in God's intention.

3 Aquinas comes yet nearer the matter, Christus primus sua virtute resurrexit, Christ was the first that rose himself by his own power; they before Christ were raised by others. If anything be yet lacking, S. Bernard and Beza will supply it; alii suscitati sunt mortui, sed iterum morituri; other dead were raised, but died again, like drowned men which rise up twice or thrice from under water, but sink again to the bottom: Christus simul resurrexit, & aeternam beatam{que} vitam recepit, Christ at once rose, and obtained an eternal and blessed life. Christ being risen from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more power over him.

Whereunto 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 may be added, that others rose as private men, Christ as a public person, and the cause of all other men's rising, either univocall, as of all the Elect, who rise as he did to happy eternity; or equivocal, as of the reprobates, who are raised to eternal misery. They who rose before Christ were either singular types of him, or as common sheafes of the heap; Christ was the first that ever rose in the nature and quality of the first fruits, to sanctify the whole harvest of the dead in him, who are here called, Them that slept.

Aristotle writeth of certain serpents in Mesopotamia, which do great mischief to strangers, but do no hurt at all to the inhabitants: such is death, it hath power to sting those that are strangers and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, it hurteth not at all the natural Israelites, which are fellow-citizens with the Saints of the household of faith. Those which are without God in the world, and without Christ, though within the visible Church, have cause to fear death; because, like the Phalangium in Strabo, it stings them to death in such sort, that they die either laughing or mad; that is, either making a jest of judgment, and hell, and the life to come, or distracted in some fearful fit of desperation. And as Diogenes when he felt himself falling into a slumber a little before his death, said pleasantly, Frater me mox est traditurus fratri suo; one brother is now delivering me to the other (he meant sleep to death:) so it is most true of these scoffers at God and all religion, dying impenitently, that their temporal death delivers them over to eternal death; the elder death to the younger (but longer liver,) the first death to the second: but upon those who are in Christ, and have part in the first resurrection, the second death hath no power, and in that regard the first death is not terrible unto them: nay, so far is it from being terrible, that even lying on their death-beds they insult both upon death and the grave with holy sarcasmes. O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

The immortal entered into a single combat with death on the cross, and gave death a death wound, even by his death: and now death is no more death to the godly, but a sleep; The damsel is not dead, but asleep; our friend Lazarus is but asleep. Stephen though he came to his end by a violent means, yet it is said of him that he fell asleep. And I would not have you ignorant brethren, saith S. Paul, concerning them which are asleep: and so in my text, they who before were called the dead, now after the mention of Christ's resurrection, are termed, Them that slept.

Which words are not so to be understood, as if their souls slept with their bodies till the day of judgment. That is a drowsy heresy, out of which Calvin shaketh some in his time, whom he calleth by the right name Psychopamychistas: but in three other respects,

1 Because they rest from their toilsome labors, as those that sleep we say are at their ease.

2 Because they neither mind, nor at all meddle with any affairs of this life either good or bad, as those that are fast asleep, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for the time, neither think nor often so much as dream of anything in the world.

3 Because they shall certainly be awaked by the shrill sound of the last Trumpet; as those that sleep at night are awaked again in the morning by the Weytes your City music.

Do you believe all these things? I know you do. Why do you then take on in such grievous manner when your friends are taken away from you by corporal death? Why do you make their death-beds swim with your tears? non amisistis, sed praemisistis; you have not lost them, but sent them to bed before you: they are but asleep, they shall awake again; they are but as seed sown in the earth, they shall rise out of it again.

I know that where hearts have been knit together, they cannot be rent asunder without exceeding great pain and inexpressible grief: neither do I find fault with natural affection; much less condemn the Christian compassion of those who weep with them that weep. It is for a Stoic, or rather a stock, to be without all sympathy of others sorrow, or sense of his own loss: eam animi duritiam sicut corporis, quod cum uritur non sentit, stuporem potius quam virtutem puto. Our Lord and Master reads us another lesson, who himself wept for Lazarus: and whosoever reads (if yet for tears he be able) David's lamentation for Jonathan; Saint Ambroses for Satyrus; Nyssens for Saint Basil; Nazianzens for Gorgonia; Augustine's for Nebridius; and Bernard's for Gervasius, will find that the heat of love is contrary to all other. For all other drieth, but this the greater it is in the heart the moister the eyes are. Yet love must not exceed proportion, nor tears measure; grandis in suos pietas impietas est apud Deum. What Seneca speaks of words, may be a good rule in these tears, still are volo non currere; let them drop like precious water out of a Lymbecke, not run like common water out of a spout:

Demang in Hebrew, signifying a tear, hath great affinity with Demama, signifying silence, to teach us that our tears ought to be silent, not querulous or clamorous. Let nature have her course, but let religion set bounds to it.

Let us water our plants, but not drown them, as those that mourn without hope. Joseph loved his Father Jacob better than the Egyptians, yet his tears were but the tithes of theirs; for he mourned but seven days, but they seventy. Rachel, though otherwise a good woman, yet in this was too womanish and wayward, that she would not be comforted; neither is her reason good nor true, if we take it as the words sound, because they are not; for we know they are, and living too, all live to God: we know where they are that die in the Lord, with Christ in Paradise; we know what manner of dwellings they have, tabernacles not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; we know of what congregation they are, of the congregation of the first borne, and the spirits of just men made perfect: we know what they do, they follow the lamb wheresoever he goeth; we know what they say also, they cease not to cry day and night, Holy, holy, holy, &c. lastly, we know what they sing, Hallelujah.

Wherefore as Xenophon when news was brought him (as he was sacrificing) of his sons death, put off the crown he had on his head, and gave vent to his sorrows at his eyes; but after he understood that he died valiantly, and worthy such a Father, put on his crown again, and finished his sacrifice: so when news shall be brought unto us of the death of our dearest friends, let us first put off our crown of joy, and let nature and love melt us into tears; but when we hear again that they died penitently and religiously, with hope full of immortality: let us put on our crown again, and comfort ourselves, and finish our Christian course with joy, as those religious people did, of whom Saint Augustine speaketh, putting himself among them; Contristamur in nostrorum mortibus necessitate amittendi, sed cum spe recipiendi, inde angimur, hinc consolamur, inde infirmitas afficit, hinc fides reficit, inde dolet humana conditio, hinc sanat divina promissio: the consideration of the loss of our friends cutteth us, but the hope of receiving them again healeth us.

And now at the length to release your long captivated attention, I will speak but one word of admonition to you concerning your own end, and so an end. Is death nothing but a sleep? why then are you so much scared at the mention or thought of it? When the Prophets of God, or some other your dearest friends deal faithfully with you, telling you there is no way but one, and advising you to set your house in order, for you must die and cannot live; why do you fetch many a deep sigh, turn to the wall and mourn like a dove, or chatter like a crane? why do you not rather struggle with your own infirmity, and with resolute Hilarion, even chide out your souls hankering at the door of your lips: Egredere, quid times? egredere anima mea, quid dubitas? sexaginta prope annis servisti Christo, & mortem times? Go out my soul, why art thou afraid? go out, why makest thou any difficulty? thou hast served Christ well nigh sixty years, and dost thou now fear death? You will hardly find any little child, much less man, that is afraid to go to bed; nay travellers after a tedious journey in bitter weather, are not content to pull off their clothes, they tear them for haste to get into their soft and warm beds: When our day is spent, and we are come to our journeys end, why do we not, as it were, pull off our clothes, by stripping ourselves of worldly cares and businesses, and settle ourselves to sleep in Jesus, and breathe out our souls between his arms? Plato when he died had the book of Sophronius the Musician under his pillow. When we lie on our death bed let us have under our pillow to support us, not the book of Sophronius the Musician, but the books of the sweet singers of Israel, David and Solomon, and the rest of the inspired Writers: so shall we be sure that God will make our beds in our sickness, and we shall sweetly fall into our last sleep, as did the most religious Matron Paula, who when some about her, as she was now drawing on, read to her the second of Canticles; so soon as she heard the Bridegroom calling, Surge speciosa mea, surge columba mea, veni: Arise my Love, arise my Dove, arise my Faire one, and come away, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone: she answered as it there followeth; the flowers appear in the earth, the time of pruning, or (as it is in our translation) the time of singing is at hand. With which word she made an end of her life, and I will of my Sermon; committing you, as she did her soul, to God; beseeching him who hath taught us the doctrine of the resurrection by his word, to accomplish it in us by his Spirit, that having part in the grace of the first resurrection here, we may hereafter participate in the glory of the second through JESUS CHRIST. Cui, &c.

THE TRUE ZEALOT. A Sermon preached at the Archbishops visitation in Saint Dunstans. THE FOURTEENTH SERMON.

THe parcel of Scripture whence I have taken my text is a sacred sculpture or Hieroglyphic, consisting of

• 1 An emblem or imprese:
• 2 A motto or word.

The emblem presenteth to us the Temple with a kind of Faire in it; and a man (which is the son of man) with a scourge of small cords, driving out all the buyers and sellers, and pouring down their money, and overthrowing their tables and stalls. The motto, word or sentence, is that which I have already spoken in your hearing, viz. The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. The exemplification of the emblem I commend to him, to whom our Savior hath left his whip to void, & cleanse this temple, and to discipline all sorts of bad merchants in it. The motto or word belongeth properly to them to publish & proclaim it, whose style is vox clamantium, the voice of cryers; not the sweet voice of singers to lull men asleep in security, with melodious streines of time-serving & ear-pleasing Madrigals and Fancies: but the strong and loud voice of Criers, to call all men into the Court, and summon them to the bar of Christ's judgment: he that promiseth his Apostles and their successors to give them a mouth, hath given me at this time both the mouth and the Motto, the Motto of the emblem, viz. the words of my text, Zelus domus tuae devoravit me. In the uttering whereof if ever, now I need to pray that the Lord would touch my tongue with a coal from his altar; with a coal, that I may speak warmely of zeal; with a coal from the altar, that I may discourse holily of his Temple. Saint Bernard made the like prayer upon the like occasion: O, saith he, that there were given unto me from the altar above, not one coal, but rather a fiery globe, a heap of coals, to scorch the abuses of the time, and burn out the inveterate rust of vicious customs. By the light of these coals you may behold in this Scripture,

• 1 In David as the type, Christ,
• 2 In Christ, as the mirror of perfection, zeal,
• 3 In zeal as a fire,
  • 1 The flame,
  • 2 The fuel.

The flame, vehement, consuming, or devouring, devoravit.

The fuel sacred, me, me.

No divine virtues or graces like to Christ's affection:

No affection in him like to his zeal:

No zeal like to that which he bare, or rather wherewith he was transported to his Fathers house, which even eat him up; and may deservedly take up this golden moment of our most precious time. May it please you therefore, Right, &c. to suffer your religious ears to be bored at this present with these sacred nails, or points, which I humbly pray the holy Spirit to fasten in your hearts:

• 1 The virtue or affection it self, zeal.
• 2 The object of this affection, thy house.
• 3 The effect of this object, hath eaten up.
• 4 The subject of this effect, me.

• 1 In figure, David.
• 2 In truth, Christ.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; and who is sufficient for these things? or able worthily to treat of

• 1 An affection most ardent, zeal.
• 2 A place most sacred, thine house.
• 3 An effect most powerful, hath eaten up.
• 4 A person most divine, me?

Zeal is derived from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to burn, or hizze, as water cast on metal melted, and it signifieth a hot or burning desire, an ardent affection: and sometimes it is taken

1 For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or emulation, which is a commendable desire of attaining unto another's virtue or fame.

2 For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , envy, which is a vicious affection, repining at another's fame or fortune.

3 For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 jealousy, which is an irksome passion arising from love wronged, at least in opinion. And no other fire we find on natures forge, or the Philosophers hearth; but on God's altar there burneth another manner of fire, fed with pure fuel, which like a wax light or taper, yieldeth both a clear flame and a sweet fume; and this is holy zeal. All things that are cast into the fire make a smell; but the burning of sweet odors only makes a perfume: so the hot and fervent

• 1 Desire of,
• 2 Intention in,
• 3 Affection to the best things only, is zeal.

Fire is the noblest of all the elements, and seated next to the heavens: so zeal sparkling in the soul is the chief and most heavenly of all spiritual affections. Some define it to be the fervor, intention, excellency, or improvement of them all.

Heat

• 1 In devotion, if it exceed becometh zeal.
• 2 In affection, if it be improved groweth to be zeal.
• 3 In desire of spiritual gifts, if it be ardent is zeal.
• 4 In indignation, or revenge of ourselves, if it be vehement, is called by the Apostle zeal.

Fervent devotion, ardent love, earnest desire, vehement indignation, all are zeal, or rather are all zeal: for there is a

• 1 Zeal of good things, which maketh us zealous of God's gifts.
• 2 Zeal in good things, which maketh us zealous in God's service.
• 3 Zeal for good things, which maketh us zealous for God's glory.

And answerable to the three operations of fire, which are, to heat, to burn, to consume:

• 1 The first heateth us, by kindling a desire of grace.
• 2 The second burneth, by enflaming our hearts with the love of God.
• 3 The third consumeth, by drying up the heart, absuming the spirits with grief, and hazzarding our persons and estates in removing scandals, and reforming abuses and profanations of God his name, house, or worship, as also revenging wrongs done to his household and servants.

In sum, zeal is a divine grace grounded upon the knowledge of God's word, which according to the direction of spiritual wisdom, quickeneth and inflameth all the desires and affections of the soul in the right worship of the true God; and vehemently and constantly stirreth them up to the preserving, advancing, and vindicating his honor by all lawful means within the compass of our calling. Rectum sui est judex & obliqui: If you set a straight line or rule to a crooked figure or body, it will discover all the obliquities in it. Hang up an artificial pattern by an unskillful draught, and it will show all the disproportions and deformities in it. Wherefore Aristotle giveth this for a certain 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or character of a true definition, to notify and discover all the errors that are, or may be devised about the nature of the thing defined; which are in this present subject we treat of, sundry and manifold. For as when there is public notice given of a ring found, with a rich stone set in it, everyone almost that ever was owner of a ring like unto it, especially if his own be lost, challengeth it for his: so all in whose temper, affections or actions, any natural or spiritual, divine or diabolical, heavenly, earthly or hellish fire gloweth, challengeth the precious coal or carbuncle of zeal to be theirs. The Cholericke and furious, the quarrelsome and contentious, the malicious and envious, the jealous and suspicious, the Idolatrous and superstitious, the indiscreet and preposterous, the proud self-admirer, the sacrilegious Church-robber, the presumptuous and exorbitant zealot, nay the seditious boutefieu and incendiary, all pretend to zeal. But all these claimers and many more besides, are disproved and disclaimed by the true definition of zeal: which is, first, a grace, and that distinct from other; not more graces, or a compound of love and anger, as some teach; or of love and indignation, as others: for the graces of the spirit, and virtues of the mind are incoincident. As where divers candles or torches in a room concur to enlighten the place, the light of them remaineth impermixt, as the Optickes demonstrate by their several shadows: so all the divine graces conjoin their luster and virtue to adorn, and beautify the inward man; yet their nature remains distinct, as their special effects make it evident to a single and sharp-sighted eye. God was in the bush that burned and consumed not, yet God was not the bush. The holy Ghost was in the fiery cloven tongues, yet the holy Ghost was not the tongues. The spirits run along in the arteries with the purer and refined blood, yet the spirits are not the blood. The fire insinuateth it self into all the parts of melted metal, and to the eye nothing appeareth but a torrent of fire, yet the fire is not the metal: in like manner zeal shineth and flameth in devotion, love, godly jealousy, indignation, and other sanctified desires and affections, it inflameth them as fire doth metal, it stirreth and quickeneth them as the spirits do the blood, yet zeal is not those passions, neither are all, or any of them zeal; howsoever the schools, rather out of zeal of knowledge than knowledge of zeal, have determined the contrary.

2 Secondly, zeal is defined to be, not a moral virtue, but a divine gift or grace of the Spirit: the Spirit of God is the efficient cause, and the Spirit of man is the subject; which the Apostle intimates in that phrase, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , being fervent or zealous in Spirit. This fire, like that of the Vestals, is kindled from heaven by the beams of the Sun of righteousness, not from any kitchen on earth, much less from hell. They therefore qui irae suae stimulum zelum putant, they who imagine the flashes of natural choler are flames of spiritual zeal, toto coelo errant, are as far from the mark as heaven is distant from the earth. No natural or moral temper, much less any unnatural and vicious distemper, can commend us or our best actions to God and men as zeal doth. The fire of zeal like the fire that consumed Solomon's sacrifice, cometh down from heaven; and true zealots are not those Salamanders or Pyrausts that always live in the fire of hatred and contention; but Seraphims, burning with the spiritual fire of divine love, who, as Saint Bernard well noteth, kept their rank and station in heaven, when the other Angels of Lucifers band, that have their names from light, fell from theirs. Lucifer cecidit, Seraphim stant, to teach us that zeal is a more excellent grace than knowledge, even in Angels that excel in both. Howbeit though zeal as far surpass knowledge as the sun-beam doth a glow-worm, yet zeal must not be without knowledge. Wherefore God commandeth the Priest when he lighteth the lamps to burn incense: though the fire be quick, and the incense sweet, yet God accepteth not of the burning it to him in the dark. The Jews had a zeal, as the Apostle acknowledgeth; and the Apostle himself before his conversion, yet because it wanted knowledge, it did them and the Church of God great hurt. No man can be ignorant of the direful effects of blind zeal: when an unskillful Phaeton takes upon him to drive the chariot of the sun, he sets the whole world in a combustion. What a mettled horse is without a bridle, or a hot-spurred rider without an eye, or a ship in a high wind and swelling sails without a rudder, that is zeal without knowledge; which is like the eye in the rider to choose the way, or like the bridle in the hand to moderate the pace, or like the rudder in the ship to steer safely the course thereof. Saint Bernard hits full on this point: Discretion without zeal is slow paced, and zeal without discretion is heady; let therefore zeal spurr on discretion, and discretion reyne zeal; fervor discretionem erigat, & discretio fervorem regat. Discretion must guide zeal, as it is guided by spiritual wisdom, not worldly policy: and therefore

Thirdly, I add in the definition of zeal, that it quickeneth and inflameth all our holy desires and affections according to the direction of spiritual wisdom. For wisdom must prescribe zeal, when, and where, and how far, and in what order to proceed in reforming all abuses in Church and State, and performing all duties of religious piety, and eminent charity. What Isocrates spake sometime of valor or strength, is as true of zeal, viz. that zeal and resolution with wisdom doth much good, but without, it doth much mischief to ourselves and others; like granadoes and other fire-works, which if they be not well looked to, and ordered when they break, do more hurt to them that cast them than to the enemy. Yet that we be not deceived in mistaking worldly policy for wisdom, I add spiritual, to difference it from carnal, moral, or civil wisdom; for they are too great coolers, they will never let zeal exceed the middle temper of that Statesman in Tiberius Court, who was noted to be a wise and grave Counselor, of a fair carriage, and untainted reputation; but he would never strike a stroke against the stream, he would never own any man's quarrel, he would be sure to save one. Such is the worldly wise man, he will move no stone, though never so needful to be removed, if he apprehend the least fear that any part of the wall will fall upon himself. The Roman Consul, and incomparable Orator shall be no president for him; who employed all his force and strength to keep off those waves from the great vessel of the State, which rebounded back again, and had near drowned the cock-boat of his private fortune. He will never engage himself so far in any hot service, no not though God's honor and the safety of the Church lie at stake, but that he will be sure to come off without hazard of his life or estate. He hath his conscience in that awe that it shall not clamour against him for not stickling in any business that may peradventure reflect upon his state, honor, or security. In a word, peradventure he may be brought with much ado to do something for God, but never to suffer anything for him. This luke-warm Laodicean disposition, the less offensive it is to men, the more odious it is to God, who is a jealous God, and affecteth none but those that are zealous for his glory; he loveth none but those that will be content to expose themselves to the hatred of all men for his names sake. He accurseth all those in the name of Meros that refuse to come in their best equipage to aide the Lord against the mighty. Anastasius the Emperor for his lukewarmness in the Catholic cause, and endeavoring to reconcile the Arians and Orthodox, or at least silence those differences, was stricken to death with a hot thunder-bolt. No Sacrifice is acceptable to God that is not salted with the fire of zeal, which guided by wisdom quickeneth and inflameth all the inward desires as well as the outward actions, that appertain to religion: for the chief seat of zeal is the fountain of heat, and that is the heart; there it bubbled in David, there it burned in the disciples, it consumed and dried up the very substance of the heart in Christ. If our zeal burn not inwardly as well as outwardly, as well upwards towards God, as downwards towards the world; if it enflame not our charity as well as incense our piety; if the heat of it be cooled by age, or slacked by opposition, or extinguished even by floods of bloody persecution, it is no true Vestall fire, nor such as becometh God's altar: for that might never, this did never go out; sincerity it self is not so opposite to hypocrisy, as zeal. Sincerity without zeal is a true, but a cold and faint-hearted, zeal is an eager, fierce, hot, and courageous enemy of all hypocrites, whom she brandeth with an eternal note of infamy. But because all fires are in a manner alike to the eye, how should we know holy fire from profane, heavenly from earthly, that is, zeal from enraged hypocrisy; pretending with Jehu, that he is zealous for the Lord of hosts? I answer, as a precious Diamond is valued, by three things:

• 1 Inward luster:
• 2 Number of caracts:
• 3 Solidity of substance.

and thereby is distinguished both from counterfeit gems, and those that are of less value: so true zeal is distinguished from hypocritical by

• 1 Sincerity,
• 2 Integrity,
• 3 Constancy: all which notes are discernible in holy David's zeal.

• 1 Sincerity; I have loved thy testimonies with my heart, yea my whole heart.
• 2 Integrity; I have had respect unto all thy commandments: all false ways I abhor.
• 3 Constancy; I have kept thy laws unto the end.

When the face and hands and outward parts burn, as in a fever, the heart is so cold that it quaketh and shivereth: so it is with the hypocrite, his tongue always, and his hands too sometimes burn,

If you could put your hand into his bowels, you should find his heart like Nabal's, as cold as a stone. True zeal if it be transported, it is in private devotion to God (si insanimus Deo insanimus) in outward carriage towards men it proceeds resolutely indeed and undauntedly, but yet deliberately and discreetly; it burneth within most ardently, it scarce ever flameth or sparkleth outwardly; like those bathes in the Pythecusian Islands, whereof Aristotle writeth, that they are hot above measure, and of a fiery nature, yet send forth no flame.

Secondly, as insincerity discries the hypocrite, so also want of integrity. Take the hypocrite that maketh the fairest offer to zeal, though he outstrippe some it may be in some works of piety, and duties of the first Table, you shall take him tardy in most acts of charity, and duties of the second Table. Peradventure he will slay smaller sins with the sword of the Spirit, like the meanest of the Amalekites, but he will spare Agag and the principal, his gainful sins of simony, sacrilege, usury, and oppression; he is never

Go he as upright as he can you shall perceive him to limpe and halt with God, or man, or both. If the point of controversy in the Church no way touch his free-hold, he takes it no more to heart than Gallio did the uproar about Saint Paul's preaching; then difference about articles of faith, are but contentions about words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : but if it rub upon his profit or credit with his own faction, then he never leaveth crying out, great is Diana of the Ephesians. You may find an hypocrite zealous against Idolatry, but you shall find him very moderate against sacrilege: if he have a months mind to Rome he will stickle for the authority of the Church; but the scripture is very cheap to him, he will deliver prayers by tale to God, the blessed Virgin and Saints: but for Sermons, he holds it a kind of merit to hear few of those of his own sect, and none of any other. On the contrary, if he hath been brought up at the feet of Cartwright or Brown, then he is all for Scriptures, and nothing at all for the Church; all for preaching, and nothing for prayer, unless it be an abortive issue of hi • own brain, an extemporary, indigested, incomposed, inconsequent ejaculation, in which he is never out because he is never in. As for the premeditated, penned, advised, and sanctified form of Service appointed by the Church, it is to him like the white of an egg that hath no taste in it. But the most certain and infallible character of an hypocrite and his zeal, is the soon cooling and abating thereof, and in the end evaporating into air; like a blazing star he glareth for a time, but in a short space plays least in sight; like fire-works of danke powder, he never leaves shooting off on these and the like watch-towers whilst his matter lasteth, but when that is spent goeth out in a fume or stench. True beauty beareth off all weathers, but paint is washed off with a shower, or discovered by the fire. Saint Basil's emblem was columna ignea, a fiery pillar; fiery, there's his zeal; a pillar, there's his constancy. I doubt whether nature can present such a stone as the name Asbestus in the original signifieth, that is, a stone of fire that nothing can extinguish: but I am sure grace can, and that is this jewel of zeal I have been so long in describing; for it burneth always in the heart and can never be quenched. I would be loath to be thought to go about to quench the smoking flax, or discourage any man in whom there is a spark of this fire covered with ashes; yet I should deceive them, or suffer them to be misled with an ignis fatuus, if I should not tell them that if this their zeal like a lamp or candle arise not up in the socket, and make the greatest blaze at the last, it is no true zeal. Pliny writeth that the Chrysolamp is of a pale color in the day, but of a fiery in the night: and in like manner he reporteth of the fountain of the sun, springing in the country of the Troglodites, that at mid-day it is extreme cold, but extreme hot at midnight; and Solinus the like of a Well by Debris. I wish I did not see in these fountains, or the color of the Chrysolampis, the picture of our nations zeal. In the dark of ignorance, or mid-night of Popery was not our zeal for God's truth exceeding hot and fiery? but now in the sun-shine of the Gospel is it not of a cool temper, like fons solis, the fountain of the sun, and of a pale color like the Chrysolamp in the day? There was a time when like the Galatians the people of this City and Kingdom would have plucked out their very eyes for the Ministers of the Gospel, and have chosen rather to have lost the lights of their body than of their soul: but now many care not how little they see us upon these or the like watch-towers. May not God complain of our zeal as he did of the righteousness of Ephraim, that it is like the morning dew, when the sun groweth hot not a drop to be seen on the grass? It was the reproach of our neighbor nation, That in their first assault they were more than men, in the second less than women. I pray God we justify them not in our fight against sin and Satan, and conflicts with temptation, in which we are not so valiant at the first as we are cowardly at the last. May we not daily observe many, who at their first entry into the ministry are so zealous, so frequent, so diligent in their preaching, that a man durst engage himself deeply for them, that they would prove true Juels, die standing in the Pulpet: and yet shortly after, great preferments coming upon them, they verify that Proverb, leves curae loquuntur, ingentes stupent? Have we not Guardians of our Churches, that in their first year present more abuses than a zealous Nehemiah can reform in seven; yet afterwards when they are made of the Cabin-Council, and become leaders in our Vestries, and have learned that Demosthenes received a greater reward for silence than Aeschines for speaking, they erect a Court of Faculties in their own breast, and dispence with themselves for perjury: videntes vident & non discernunt, & audientes audiunt & non intelligent; in seeing they see scores, nay hundreds receiving the Communion standing, or sitting at their best ease: they see, especially in the suburbs, not only on other holy-days, but also on the Lord's-day, Ale-houses and Taverns full, and Churches empty: in the City seeing they see but will not discern many a reverend Paul, and hopeful Timothy forsaken of the better part of their auditory, who run a gadding after some new schismatical Lecturer, whose name is up; who resembleth our late and new found Wels, that work wonders for a Summer, and multitudes of people flock to them, but afterwards all their virtue is gone? As in seeing they see these things and discern them not, so in hearing they hear and understand not: they hear old heresy new varnished, refined popery, yea sometimes direct and gross, and yet they either do not, or will not understand it: they hear Popish Priests and Jesuits at their next door mumbling Masses, and yet understand it not: they hear in the Pulpet our reverend Prelates, most worthy double honor, our zealous Nehemiah's, our Christian Courts, our sacred Canons, our decent Ceremonies jeered at or sighed against in a pang of Amsterdamian zeal, and yet they understand it not. What should I speak of the people in general, who when a Chrysostom first openeth his golden mouth amongst them, throng and crowd at the Church doors, and not only fill all the seats, but climb into the windows, and hang upon iron bars, and contribute so freely to his maintenance, that they need to be restrained by law, as the Israelites were in Moses time; but after a year or two they follow Mandrabulus his steps, who finding great treasure, as he conceived, by direction of Juno of Samos, offered to her the first year a Statue of gold, the next year of silver, the third year of brass? So at the first they offer gold in abundance, afterwards they turn their gold into silver, and then their silver into brass tokens, and last of all these into air. As a temporary faith justifieth us not before God, so neither temporary charity before men; true zeal is not a flash, or a blaze, but a lasting fire that burneth always: it is good, saith Saint Paul, to be zealous in a good matter always.

By the marks I have now set upon the hypocrite, you may descry him, and sever him from a zealous Christian: & by those which follow in the definition of zeal, Enflaming all the desires and affections in the true worship of the true God, the holy fire of the sanctuary is distinguished from all such strange fire as our Nadabs and Abihu's, superstitious, idolatrous, seditious, or presumptuous zealots offer.

1 The lay Papist is a kind of zealot; for his zeal eats up his time and his estate too: yet he is not zealous, because his zeal is not employed and exercised in the true worship of God, according to his word, but according to man's will and invention; viz. in praying to Saints, in worshipping images, in suffrages for the dead, in seeing Masses, and adoring the host, and telling out a fet number of Pater-nosters, and Ave-Mary's upon hallowed beads, in making superstitious vows, and going in pilgrimage, and abstaining from certain meats, and wearing hair-cloth, and whipping themselves, and creeping on all four to a crucifix, and the like: of all which we demand as God doth of the Jews by the Prophet Isaiah, Who required these things?

2 The idolatrous heathen is a kind of zealot: for he is not content to offer beasts only to God, with the Jew, but men also to their gods. For in some places they sacrifice their children, as among the Moabites: in others their fathers, as among the Triballi: elsewhere their princes or priests, as among the Indians: and in some countries themselves, as among the Americans: yet for all this their throwing themselves into, or causing others to pass through the fire to their Moloch, or Saturn, or Abaddon, they are not to be accounted zealously affected in religion, because what they do in this kind, is not done by God's commandment, nor intended to his honor; but in obedience, and to the honor of an Idol, or Devil, whom they worship instead of the true God.

3 The Jesuit, or Jesuited Romanist is a kind of zealot: for he will compass sea and land to make a proselyte, he will stick at nothing for the advantage of the catholic cause, no not the sticking or stabbing of Kings and Princes: his zeal is so hot, that it will kindle a fire to blow up whole Parliaments for an Holocaust to the Roman Moloch; yet is he not zealous, because he is hot and fervent, not for Christ, but for Antichrist; and he useth not sanctified, but execrable and damnable means to promote the catholic cause (as he termeth it) and enlarge the territories of the Man of sin.

The last condition of true zeal is, that it keep within the walk of men's special calling, which they who confound, for the most part bring confusion upon themselves, as did King Uzziah, who would be thought out of zeal to burn incense unto the Lord; but because he took upon him to do that which appertained not to him, but to the Priests of the Lord the sons of Aaron, that were consecrated thereunto, his incense stank in the nostrils of God, and himself also: for a leprosy rose up in his forehead before the Priests in the house of the Lord, from beside the incense altar; and Azariah the chief Priest thrust him out of the Temple, yea himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him. Nothing is more necessary or useful than fire, if it be kept within the furnace, oven, or tunnel of the chimney, yea or within the barrel of the piece, and from thence orderly issue out; but nothing so dangerous if it be not contained within the hearth, or break out of it self, and fly abroad: so nothing is more commendable or profitable than well guided, nothing more incommodious and perilous than exorbitant zeal; when the Prince meddleth with the censer, or the Priest with the scepter: when private men take the sword out of the Magistrates hand, or the Magistrate mis-applieth the public sword of justice to revenge his private wrongs.

Thus have I at length defined zeal, and confined it within the limits of every man's lawful and special calling. Which limits shall be the bounds of my speech and your attention at this present. The best balsamum and most sovereign, is that which is biting in the taste, and burning in the mouth: such have been the observations upon this text, biting in the taste, and hot in the mouth. God grant that like true balsamum they may prove a savor of life unto life to all that have heard me this day. I am come with our Savior's Commission, to put fire among you; and what is my desire, but that forthwith it be kindled, to purge out all your dross, to purify the sons of Levi like silver, to burn up all hay and stubble built upon the foundation of our most holy faith, and lastly, to consume all our spiritual sacrifices? But non opis est nostrae, non opus est nostrum; alas it is not my breath will do it, it must be the blast of God's holy Spirit, that can first kindle, and after keep this sacred fire in the hearth of our hearts. To him therefore who descended in the similitude of fiery cloven tongues, let us lift up our hearts, hands, and voices, beseeching him to tind and preserve this spiritual fire in our

• 1 Hearts,
• 2 Ears,
• 3 Tongues,
• 4 Hands; that we may be zealously affected to Godward, in meditating on him, in hearing from him, in praying to him, in doing and suffering for him. To knit up all in a word, His grace make us sincerely, entirely, discreetly, and constantly zealous,
  • 1 Of his gifts,
  • 2 In his service,
  • 3 For his honor: to whom be ascribed all honor, glory, &c.

THE SEASONING OF ALL SPIRITUALL SACRIFICES: OR The Salters Text. A Sermon preached before the Company of the Salters at S. Mary's Church in Bread-street. THE FIFTEENTH SERMON.

THat I may not entertain your religious attention with a cold or unseasonable discourse, I have made choice of a text, wherein I find both fire and salt; fire to heat it, and salt to season it. And if any parcel of Scripture may be appropriated to any of the Worshipful Societies or Companies of this Honorable City, certainly you may challenge a peculiar interest in this. For here is both salt and salting (from whence you take your name ) both of men & sacrifices. The best of all creatures on earth are men, and the best of all gifts of men are sacrifices, & both are made savory and acceptable to God by seasoning; they with fire, these with salt. In relation to the former, me thinks as Christ said to Andrew and Peter, Follow me & I will make you fishers of men; so I hear the holy spirit say to me, Observe this text well and apply it, and I will make thee a salter of men; for every man must be salted with fire, and, as it followeth, Every sacrifice must be salted with salt. With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt, saith Moses from God: Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt, saith Christ from Moses; whose drift in this place is somewhat obscure, because the sense is covered under the veil of an Allegory, which we cannot draw without looking up higher into the chapter, and touching upon the precedent verses. Wherein our Lord threateneth unquenchable fire, and an immortal worm to all that for want of the fire of zeal grow cold in religion; and for lack of the salt of grace putrefy in their sins. If, saith he, that person or thing that causes thee to offend, either in want of courage for God, or of zeal and Christian resolution against thy bosom sins and natural corruptions, be as dear to thee as thine eye, or as necessary as thy right hand, part with them thou must; if it be an eye, pluck it out; if an hand, cut it off, and cast it away from thee; better see thyself in heaven with one eye, than to see thyself in hell with both; better hoppe into life with one leg, than run to eternal death with both; better without a right hand to be set with the sheep at God's right hand, than having a right hand to be set at God's left hand, and afterwards with both thine hands be bound to be cast into hell fire, where the worm never dieth, and the fire is not quenched, and again, and a third time, where the worm never dieth, and the fire is not quenched. At the mention whereof, it being the burden of his doleful Sonnet, our Savior perceiving the ears of his auditors to tingle, in the words of my text he yieldeth a reason of that his so smart and biting admonition, saying, For everyone shall be salted, &c. and withal he showeth them a means to escape that unquenchable fire which they so much dreaded, and to kill the immortal worm which even now began to bite them. The means to escape the one, is to be salted here with fire; and the means to kill the other, is to be salted here with salt; for salt preserveth from that putrefaction which breedeth that worm. He who now is salted with the fire of zeal, or heart-burning sorrow for his sins, shall never hereafter be salted with the fire of hell: this fire will keep out that, as Jupiter's fire drove out Phaetons: and he who macerateth here his fleshly members with the salt of God's uncorrupt word, and the cleansing grace of his spirit, shall never putrefy in his sins, nor feel the torment of the never dying worm.

The Philosophers make three partitions, as it were, in the soul of man: the first they call the reasonable, or seat of judgment; the second, the irascible, or seat of affections; the third, the concupiscible, or the seat of desires and lusts. In the reasonable part they who knew nothing of the fall of man, and original corruption, find little amiss; but in the concupiscible they note 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , something like superfluous moisture inclining to luxury; in the irascible, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , something like cold or rawnesse inclining to fear: behold in my text a remedy for both; fire for the one, and salt for the other. And that we may not lose a spark of this holy fire, or a grain of this salt so sovereign, let us in a more exact division observe,

• 1 Two kinds of seasoning:
  • 1 With fire:
  • 2 With salt.
• 2 Two sorts of things to be seasoned:
  • 1 Men without limitation, Every:
  • 2 Sacrifices without exception, All.

God had respect unto Abel and his sacrifice; first to Abel, and then to his offering: he accepteth not the man for his sacrifice, but the sacrifice for the man's sake. First therefore of men and their salting with fire; and after of sacrifices and their salting with salt.

Everyone shall be salted with fire. Saint Jerome was much taken with this speech of our Savior: it is, saith he, an admirable saying; That which is seasoned with salt is preserved from corruption of vermin; that which is salted with fire loseth some of the substance; with both the sacrifices of the old Law were seasoned: such a sacrifice in the Gospel is he, who cleansing his body and soul from vice, by love consecrateth himself to God; who then it not only sprinkled with salt, but also consumed with fire, when not only the contagion of sin is driven away, but also all delight of this present life is taken away; and we sigh with our whole soul after our future conversation, which shall be with God and his Angels in heaven. It is news to hear of salting of men, especially with fire: an uncouth expression, yet used by our Savior to strike a deeper impression into the minds of his hearers: and verily the Metaphor is not so hard and strained, as the duty required is harsh and difficult to our nature. It went much against flesh and blood to hear of plucking out an eye, or cutting off an hand or foot, yet that is nothing in comparison to salting with fire: salt draweth out the corrupt blood, and superfluous moisture out of flesh, but fire taketh away much of the substance thereof, if not all. For the fattest and best parts of all sacrifices were devoured by the flame, of such things as were offered to God by fire. If such a salting be requisite, we must then not only part with an eye, or a hand, or a foot, but even with heart, and head, and whole body to be burned for the testimony of the Gospel; if so the case stand that either we must leave our body behind us, or we leave Christ. Such a salting is here prescribed by our high Priest, as draweth out not only corrupt moisture, but consumeth much of the flesh also, yea sometimes all; (that is) not only bereaveth us of superfluous vanities, and sinful pleasures, but even of our chief comforts of life it self, our friends, our estates, our honors, yea sometimes our very bodies. So hot is this fire, so quick is this salt. Those that are redeemed by Christ's blood, must think nothing too dear for him who paid so dear for them: rather than forfeit their faith, and renounce the truth, they must willingly lay all at stake for his sake, who pawned not only his human body and soul, but after a sort his divine person also, to satisfy the justice of God for us.

Everyone. How far this Everyone extends, and what this salting with fire signifieth, the best Interpreters, ancient and latter, are not fully agreed. Some restrain everyone to the reprobate only, and by fire understand hell-fire: others to the elect only, and by fire understand the fire of God's spirit, or grace, burning out, as it were, and consuming our natural corruptions. They who stand for the former interpretation, conceive that Christ in these words yieldeth a reason why he said that hell-fire shall never be quenched; for everyone (that is say they) of the damned in hell shall be salted with that fire; the fire shall be to their bodies as salt is to flesh, which keepeth it from putrefying.

Here, as Saint Augustine acutely observeth, we can never be said properly dying, but either alive or dead; for to the moment of giving up the ghost, we are alive, and after that dead; whereas on the contrary, the damned in hell can never be said to be alive or dead, but continually dying: not dead, because they have most quick sense of pain; not alive, because they are in the pangs of the second death. Yea, but shall all be salted with this fire, the fire of hell? God forbid. Doth Christ say of this salt, not of the earth but of hell, that it is good? (ver. 50.) is this the meaning of his exhortation, have salt in you; that is, procure the salt of hell fire to keep you alive in the torments of eternal death, to preserve you to everlasting perdition? By no means. Maldonado therefore and Barradius, and all that are for this first interpretation are justly to be blamed, because they had an eye to the antecedents, but not to the consequents of my text. On the other side, those who adhere to the second interpretation are not free from just exception, because they had an eye to the consequents, and not to the antecedents. For we ought to give such an interpretation of these words as may hold good correspondence both with the antecedents and consequents, and either give light to both, or receive it from them. The elect, to whom these latter restrain the word All, have nothing to do with the unquenchable fire of hell, mentioned ver. 48. neither have the reprobate, to whom the former interpreters appropriate these words, anything to do with the good salt, ver. 50. yet both have to do with some kind of salting, and with some kind of fire. For everyone shall be salted one way or other, either here with the fire of the spirit seasoning our nature and preserving it from corruption; or hereafter with the fire of hell. There is no means to escape the never dying worm of an evil conscience, but by having salt in us, nor to prevent the unquenchable fire of hell, but by fire from heaven, I mean, heart-burning sorrow for our sins:

That we may not be hereafter salted with the fire of hell, we must be here salted with a threefold fire: of

• 1 The word:
• 2 The spirit:
• 3 Affliction, or persecution.

First, with the fire of the word: the word is a fire; Is not my word like a fire, saith the Lord? It hath the three properties of fire:

• 1 To give light:
• 2 To burn:
• 3 To search.

First, it giveth light; therefore Psal. 119. it is called a lanthorn to our steps, and a light to our paths. Secondly, it burneth,

• 1 In the ear:
• 2 In the mouth:
• 3 In the heart.

First, in the ear: Whosoever heareth my words, saith God, his ears shall tingle. Secondly it burneth in the mouth, I will make my words fire in the mouth. Thirdly, it burneth in the heart, Did not our heart burn within us when he opened to us the scriptures?

Lastly, it searcheth, pierceth, and trieth like fire, The word of God is mighty in operation, and sharper than a two-edged sword, &c.

Secondly, with the fire of the spirit; the spirit is a fire, You shall be baptized with the holy Ghost and with fire. Water will wash out filthy spots and blots on the skin only; but fire is more powerful, it will burn out rotten flesh and corrupt matter under the skin. This fire of the holy Ghost enlighteneth the understanding with knowledge, inflameth the will and affections with the love of God, and zeal for his glory, and purgeth out all our drossy corruptions.

Thirdly, with the fire of persecution and affliction. Persecution is called a fiery trial; and all kind of afflictions and temptations, wherewith God's Saints are tried, in Saint Augustine's judgment, are the fire whereof Saint Paul speaketh; He shall be saved, as it were through fire. And of a truth, whatsoever the meaning of that text be, certain it is that the purest vessels of God's sanctuary, first in the Heathen, next in the Arian, and last of all in the Antichristian persecution, have been purified and made glorious like gold tried in the fire. There is no torment can be devised by man or devil whereof experiments have not been made on the bodies of Christ's martyrs: yet the greater part of them, especially in these later times, have been offered to God by fire, as the Holocausts under the law. Bloody persecutors of God's Saints, set on fire with hell, of all torments most employed the fiery, because they are most dreadful to the eye of the beholders, most painful to the body of the sufferers, and they leave nothing of the burned martyr, save ashes, which sometimes the adversaries ma • ice outlasting the flames of fire, cast into the river. And many of God's servants in this land, as well as in other parts, in the memory of our fathers have been salted with this fire; call you it whether you please, either the fire of martyrdom, or martyrdom of fire. And howsoever this fire in the days of Queen Mary was quenched especially by the blood of the slain for the testimony of Jesus Christ, as the fire in the city of the Astapani (as Livy observeth) when no water could lave it our, was extinguished with the blood of the citizens: yet we know not but that it may be kindled again, unless we blow out the coals of wrath against us with the breath of our prayers, or dead them with our tears. Admit that that fire should never be kindled again, yet God hath many other fires to salt us withal, burning fevers, fiery serpents, thunder and lightning, heart-burning griefs and sorrows, loss of dearest friends, wrack of our estates, infamy, disgrace, vexations, oppressions, indignation at the prosperity of the wicked, terrors of conscience, and spiritual derelictions. And God grant that either by the fire of the Word, or of the Spirit, or seasonable afflictions, our fleshly corruptions may be so burned out in this life, that we be not salted hereafter with the fire of hell; which burneth, but lighteth not; scorcheth, but yet consumeth not; worketh without end both upon soul and body, yet maketh an end of neither. O that they who are frozen in their sins were sometimes singed and thawed with the consideration of this infernal and eternal fire! If they did but mind it, they could not but fear it; and if they feared it, they would in time seek means to escape it; and if they sought them in time, they might find them in my text. And so I pass from the salting of men with fire, to the seasoning of sacrifices with salt.

Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. There was nothing but death and barrenness in the waters of Jericho till Elisha cast salt in the springs. In these waters Saint Isidore descryeth a type of our natural estate, wherein we were dead in sins, and barren of good works, till the true Elisha, Christ Jesus, cast salt in the springs, I mean, our hearts, whence are the issues of life. Salt hath three most known properties;

• 1 To powder:
• 2 To season:
• 3 To cleanse.

It powdereth flesh, and keepeth it from putrefaction: it seasoneth meats and drinks: and it cleanseth wounds, fretting and eating out the corrupt matter in them. And answerable hereunto there are three effects of the word mixed with faith;

• 1 It powdereth the heart:
• 2 It seasoneth the speech:
• 3 It cleanseth the sores of wounded consciences.

Material salt is not more necessary in our houses, than this spiritual salt in the house of God; for without it no taste of goodness, no relish of holiness, no sapour pleasing to God. In some sacrifices of the old law, flesh, in some wine, in some oil, in some meal; but in all and with all salt was offered. These sacrifices were not only shadows of the body, which was Christ's sacrifice on the cross; but also types of our spiritual sacrifices: the meat offerings of our alms deeds, whereby we feed the hungry; the drink offerings of our penitent tears; the peace offerings of our praise and thanksgiving; the heave offerings of our elevated desires and affections; the whole burnt offering or holocaust of martyrdom for the testimony of the Gospel. And as the legal sacrifices were seasoned with salt, and consumed with fire; so all our spiritual sacrifices must be seasoned with the salt of discretion, and consumed with the fire of zeal. And because the zeal is in the man, and the discretion is seen in his offering, it is said, Every man shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. To begin with the holocaust, or whole burnt-offering. When a servant of Christ overcometh the violence of fire by his faith, and remains as unmoved in the torment thereof, as the stake at which he is burnt: in this sacrifice salt is most necessary, I mean, the salt of spiritual wisdom and religious discretion. For a man must not offer himself to the merciless flames; but being adjudged to them, and by the secular arm brought to them, patiently and cheerfully suffer them, rather than deny the Lord that bought him. No man must seal the truth of the Gospel with his blood, unless he be called in as a witness, and required to depose: and then he must not only depose in a free profession of his faith, but also deposit his life for the further confirmation of his Christian profession. He that is called to suffer, must in the first place consider for what he suffereth; for all are not blessed that suffer, but those that suffer for righteousness. Blessed, indeed most blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake; not those who are executed as malefactors, for murder, felony, blasphemy, schism, obstinacy or fancy. None dieth a Martyr but he who dieth for the faith by which the just liveth. If a Jew be scourged to death for the abrogated rites of the ceremonial law: or a Jesuited Papist hanged, drawn, and quartered, according to the penal statutes of this kingdom, for treason against the Prince, in the Popes quarrel: or if an Anabaptist be burned to ashes for his fanatical and fantastical revelations; he dieth the Popes, or his own Martyr, not Christ's. His suffering, as Cyprian the blessed Martyr determineth the point against all heretics, is, Poena perfidiae, non corona fidei, a punishment for his heresy or perfidiousness, not a crown of faith or a wreath of glory.

Another sacrifice of the whole man, is when a devout Christian giveth up his members as servants unto righteousness, and his whole body as a living sacrifice unto God: in this likewise the salt of spiritual wisdom and discretion is most requisite. For we must so devote ourselves to the service of God, that we altogether forget not our duty to man: we must so follow the things that are above, that we neglect not our affairs below, quit not our calling on earth, much less in aspiring to angelical perfection, cast ourselves down beneath Heathens and Infidels, by casting away all care of provision for our family. There was never any sect had a more plausible pretext for their heresy than the Euchites, who nothing but prayed continually: yet because they distinguished not between time and season, mis-understanding the precept of the Apostle, pray continually; which requireth that we pray upon every occasion, and at all seasons, that is, fit hours for prayer, not simply, at all times which are allotted us by God for every purpose under heaven; but especially because they jusled out all other duties of piety and Christian charity for it, they were themselves by the ancient Fathers driven out of the Church, and deservedly excommunicated, who communicated nothing to the public, but were all for their private devotion.

Undoubtedly, as when the fattest and best of the sacrifice was consumed, the Priests might take the rest for their use; so after we have given God the flower and best of our time, the rest we may, nay we must employ in the works of our special calling for our own and others behoove.

Next to the sacrifice of the whole man is the sacrifice of the hidden man, of the heart, I mean, a broken spirit, and contrite heart. In this sacrifice the salt of discretion is as necessary as in the former. For even godly sorrow must not exceed, the rivers of Paradise must be kept within their banks. A man may prick his heart for his sin, nay wound it, but he must not kill it. He may dive deep into the waters of Mara, but not stay so long under the water till he be drowned. He that hath grievously wronged God's justice by presumption, let him take heed that he do not more wrong his mercy by desperation: his sins can be but finite, but God's mercy, and Christ's merits are infinite.

There remains yet two other sacrifices, the sacrifice of the tongue, and the sacrifice of the hand, Prayer, and Alms-deeds: Prayers are termed Vituli labiorum, the Calves of the lips; and Alms-deeds are graced with the title of sacrifices by the Apostle; and Saint Augustine yieldeth a good reason for it; because God accepteth these pro sacrificiis, or prae sacrificiis, for, or before all sacrifices. With both these salt must be offered, the salt of discretion with the one, and of admonition with the other: spiritual wisdom must guide both the lifting up of our hands to God, and the stretching them out to our brethren.

First for prayer. No unsavory prayers proceeding from a corrupt heart are pleasing to God; no words sound well in his ears but such as are consonant to his word, and minister grace to the hearers. Let my prayer, saith the Psalmist, be directed to thee as incense; prayer must be directed, not suddenly thrown up, as it were at all adventures. Wisdom and intention must direct it, not to Saints and Angels, but to God. As it must be directed, and that to God; so in the third place it must be directed as incense from a burning censer, that is, a zealous heart; or, to use the phrase of my text, it must be seasoned with salt, the salt of discretion, and salted with fire, the fire of zeal. Is this to pray & praise God, to draw near to him with our lips, when our hearts are far from him? to lift up our eyes and hands to heaven when our minds are on earthly things? is this to pray unto, or praise God, to vent out our unhallowed desires and indigested thoughts in broken words, without any premeditation, order, or connection? No surely, this is not to offer to God Vitulos labiorum, the calves of our lips, but labia vitulorum, the lips of calves.

You hear how needful salt is in the sacrifice of the tongue: as necessary it is in the sacrifice of the hands. Blessed is he, saith the Kingly Prophet, qui intelligit super egenum, who considereth the poor and needy; that is, first taketh notice of their condition and quality, and accordingly relieveth them, lest otherwise he contribute to idleness, and not to necessity. Some want work to their will, others will to work: some are impotent indeed, others are counterfeit: to the one a gift is an alms-deed, to the other the best alms is to give them a sharp admonition, or send them with their errand to the House of correction. The Philosopher might say when he bestowed an alms upon a lewd rogue, Non homini dedised humanitati, Not to the man but to manhood; not to his person, but to his nature; not to his ill conditions, but to his miserable condition: but he that feareth God must take heed that he cast not seed upon accursed earth, lest it bring forth the fruits of Gomorrhah; or it prove like the seed sown by Cadmus, whence grew up on the sudden armed men, I mean an army of sturdy beggars, armed against us in the high-ways. He must make a conscience both what he giveth, and out of what, and in what manner, and to what end. First, what; he must not give the children's bread to dogs: secondly, out of what; he must not give to God of that which he hath stolen from man, or got by any indirect courses, for this were to make God accessory to his stolen goods: thirdly, in what manner; manu serendum, non corbe, he must cast seed out thriftily by the hand, not carelessly throw it out of the basket; he must so draw out that the spring of bounty be not exhausted: fourthly, to what end; to glorify God, not to receive praise from men; to relieve want, not to maintain vice. Though his left hand must not know what his right hand doth, yet his right eye must know and direct his right hand to pour the oil into the wounds of the Samaritan, and not to spill it upon the sound flesh. As eye-salve laid to the foot profiteth not at all; and a plaster or poultess made for the feet, if it be applied to the eye endangereth the sight: so bounty misplaced doth more hurt than good, benefacta male locata, malefacta arbitror.

I wish it were so in the ministering physic for the soul, as it is in the physic for the body, where the Physician prescribeth, and the Apothecary ministereth: the Physician maketh, or appointeth the making of the salve, and leaves it to the Apothecary to apply it. For of all texts this needs most warily to be applied, because there is in it both fire and salt; and fire if it be laid close will scorch, and salt if it be rubbed into a wound will make it smart. Howbeit the best is, that rule in corporal physic holdeth also in this; Nulla medicamenta tam faciunt dolorem quam quae sunt salutaria, The more bitter the potion for the most part the more effectual; and the more smarting the plaster the more wholesome. To apply therefore in a word. In the setting forth of any banquet or service, fire and salt must be at hand; fire to dress the meat, and salt to season it. Likewise in the sacrifices of the old law neither fire nor salt could be wanting; salt to prepare the sacrifices for the altar, and fire to consume them upon it. Neither can there be any spiritual sacrifice, or evangelical service acceptable unto God, without the fire of zeal, and salt of discretion. Zealous discretion, and discreet zeal is a rare composition, not of art but of grace, which maketh both our persons and our offering agreeable unto God. No cold service, nor unsavory dish is for his taste: without heat of zeal the sacrifice we offer is the sacrifice of dead men; and without salt of discretion the sacrifice we offer is a sacrifice of fools. Prophanenesse and worldliness cold in the true worship of God, offereth a dead sacrifice; and idolatry and superstition hot in the false worship, offereth a foolish sacrifice; religion in the middle, being zealous in the true service of a God, offereth a holy, living, and reasonable sacrifice unto him; by zealous discretion pleasing God; and by discreet zeal men. Some offer unto God fire, but want salt, they are zealous without discretion: some have salt, but want fire, they are discreet but without zeal. The Papists have fire, fervent zeal, but they want salt, direction from God's word, and judgment to discern between reasonable service and will-worship; and for want of this salt their devotions are tainted with much superstition. The conformable Protestant hath store of salt, wholesome directions from God's word to season his spiritual sacrifices, but doth he not want fire? is he as zealous for Christ as the other is for Anti-christ? doth he contribute as freely to the pure worship of God, as the other doth to the garish service of the Mass? are his eyes as often fixed on Christ in heaven, as the others are on his crucifix? doth he keep the Lord's day as strictly as the other doth our Ladies, and other Saints? Although the Papist hath no command for hallowing any day to Saints, especially such as we find in the Roman Kalendar: we have both the command of God, and the injunctions of the Church to devote this day wholly to the service of God; yet how many Clients on this day besiege your doors, when you and we all should be Clients only unto God? Should God deal so with us in our portion of time on the week-days, as we deal with him in his; should he restrain the light of the sun, and take away so many hours from every day in the week, as we defaulk from his service on this day, what darkness, what out-cries, what horror, what confusion would be in all the world? When Cyrus was young, Sacas was appointed by his Grandfather to be his moderatour, both in his diet, recreations, and all expense of time; but when he grew riper in years he became a Sacas to himself, and took not so much liberty as Sacas would have given him. Where the law seemeth too lax, there every man ought to be a Sacas to himself, and for the health of his soul forbear something that is permitted to the recreation of his body. Again, those who are of the stricter and preciser sort have fire in their invectives against Popery, in their reproof of sin, and their voluntary and extemporary devotions; but they want many a grain of salt, and therefore offer often times, with Nadab and Abihu, strange fire upon God's altar: they distinguish not between Episcopal Hierarchy and Papal tyranny; superstitious rites and comely ceremonies; decent ornaments and meretricious painting of Christ's spouse. They are always Boanerges, and seldom or never Barnabasses; always Sons of thunder, and seldom or never Sons of consolation. And when they are Sons of thunder, and cast forth their lightning, it is not like the lightning whereof Pliny writeth, which killed Martia's child in her womb, but hurt not her at all; that is, destroy sin in the conscience, but no way hurt the person in his reputation: but contrariwise, they blast the person, but kill not the sin. Their prayers are all fiery indeed, burning with zeal, and therein commendable; but for want of salt of discretion they make all things fuel for this sacred fire; like fire their devotion keeps within no bounds. As the ringing, so the praying now adays in request is all upon the changes, the round of a set form is utterly despised; and as ringers in the changes, so these in their extemporary orisons, go up and down, backward and forward, are often at a stand, use vain repetitions prohibited by our Savior, and by clashing phrases, as the Apostle speaketh, make vain janglings. Suffer, I beseech you, yet one word of exhortation, it shall be but a Monosyllable, sal: we live in a most corrupt age, and therefore never more need of salt than now, Et vos est is sal, you are the salt of the commonwealth, as we of the Church, si sal infatuatus fuerit, if the salt grow unsavory through the corruption of heresy, bribery, simony, or vicious living, quo salietur? wherewith shall it be seasoned? I hope it is not so, I pray God it be never so, but that we may be always like pure and wholesome salt, preserving ourselves and others from corruption. The good will of him who appeared in the fiery bush, salt our persons with the fire of the Word, Spirit, and seasonable Afflictions, and season our sacrifices with the salt of faith and discretion, that God may have always respect to us and our sacrifice for the merits of Christ's infinite sacrifice offered on the Altar of the Cross. To whom, &c.

THE SPIRITUALL BETHESDA. A Sermon preached at a Christening in Lambeth Church, the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Duke of Buckingham being God-Fathers, October 29. Anno Dom. 1619. THE SIXTEENTH SERMON.

BEing to treat of a subject agreeable to the occasion of our present meeting, I have made choice of this Scripture, representing unto us the baptism and (if I may so speak) the christening of Christ himself.

1 Because the baptism of Christ here related by the Evangelist cleansed the holy Font, and sanctified the river Jordan, and other waters, to the spiritual ablution of the soul, and fetching out of stains and spots out of the conscience, not by the infusion of any supernatural quality into the water, but by annexing a gracious promise to the religious use of the element, according to his ordinance. For to this end especially (as Saint Augustine observeth) our Savior would be baptized, To sanctify the Font in himself, not to cleanse himself in the Font. In which respect we may rightly term Christ his baptism, baptisma baptismatis, the christening of baptism it self, in as much as our Lord by the descending into the water, raised it above it's own pitch, and of a corporal Bath made it a spiritual Laver, of an earthly Element an heavenly Sacrament; and this I take to be the riches which that holy Father saith Christ put into the river Jordan, in like manner as the Geographers report, that the Indians yearly throw in a great mass of gold and silver into the river Ganges. Christ's body, saith he, was washed, and the stream thereby was enriched; the body received not virtue from the water, but the water from his body.

2 Because Christ was not baptized for himself, but for us, to wash away that filth and corruption which we draw from the loins of our parents. As the cause of his baptism was in us, so the effect was for us; he was baptized corporally in his natural body, that we might be baptized spiritually in his mystical. As for himself, his immaculate conception preserved him from original corruption; and therefore the remedy of baptism, to him in respect of himself, was needless, on whom the disease neither had nor could fasten: but as for us he had been before circumcised, so for us was he now baptized, who believe and are baptized in his name. So himself testifieth. As our superfluities were pared off with his knife in circumcision, so our spots were washed away with water in baptism: by his baptism of water we are cleansed from original, and by his baptism of blood in the garden and on the cross, from all our actual sin. When he went down into the river, he carried our old man with him, and drowned him there in Jordan. To which point Saint Ambrose speaketh as fully as elegantly; One dived into the water, but he washed all; one descended that we might all ascend; one took upon him the sins of all, that he might destroy the sins of all in himself.

3 Because Christ's baptism was the perfect sampler and pattern of ours. For as Christ was washed with water, so is a Christian. As when Christ was baptized the three persons in the Trinity manifested themselves, the Father by a voice from heaven, the Son by the water, the holy Ghost by the dove; so likewise in our baptism the three persons are expressly mentioned, In the name of the Father, &c. Lastly, as at Christ's baptism the heavens were opened, and the holy Spirit descended on our Savior in the similitude of a dove, so at the christening of the children of the faithful, who are innocent like doves, the heavens are opened, and the grace of the holy Spirit descendeth upon them: and after this their new birth by Water and the Spirit, God acknowledgeth them for his Sons. Thus far you hear a perfect concord between Christ's baptism and ours: but in one circumstance, which I am now to touch upon, there seemeth a discord: for Christ was baptized in his perfect age, we in our infancy or nonage. In those days, saith my Evangelist, about the beginning of Johns baptism, which was in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age. At which circumstance of time the Anabaptists greedily catch, as men that are in danger of drowning lay hold on flagges, and rotten stakes by the bank side that are not able to support them. For though Christ were not baptized till he came to his perfect age, it doth not thence ensue that we ought 〈…〉 our baptism so long, or that if we were christened in our infancy, we ought to be baptized again in our perfect age, when we can give a good account of the hope that is in us, after the manner of the Anabaptists. For neither was Christ rebaptized, neither is Christ's case and ours alike. Not therefore to lay much stress upon Aquinas his resolution, that Christ was baptized in his perfect age, to show that baptism maketh a man perfect, which is in effect to say, that this delay of baptism in Christ was of a mystical signification, not for our necessary imitation. I answer that Christ his example in this case ought to be no president for us; and that for many reasons:

1 Our Savior in his infancy received circumcision, which then was instead of baptism, it being the authentical seal of God's covenant: and it was not requisite that two broad seals, if I may so call them, of the King of heaven should be put to the same deed, at the same time, both being entire. Neither was it convenient that the figure and the verity, the type and the antitype, the sacrament of the old and of the new should meet at the same period; but that there should be a good distance of time between them.

2 Christ needed not baptism at all for himself, being conceived and borne without sin, and therefore there could be no danger in deferring his baptism in that regard: but we are conceived and borne in sin, and have no remedy to heal the leprous contagion of our birrh, but by being washed in this Jordan, which Christ sanctified by his baptism. Wherefore it is no way safe for us to put off this sacrament, the only cure of this malady, lest God take us out of this world whilst our filthy scurfe and sores are upon us.

3 Christ desired not to be baptized of John, to be cleansed thereby, but either (as I shown before) to sanctify baptism it self, or to receive a testimony from the Father and from John, and to declare himself to the world; in which regard he deferred his baptism till the time was come when he should take off the veil from his face, and suffer the rays of divine majesty to break forth.

4 Our Font is always open, or ready to be opened, and the Minister attends to receive the children of the faithful, and dip them in that sacred Laver: but in Christ's infancy there was neither Baptist nor baptism. Before our Savior was thirty years of age, either Saint John had not his Commission to baptize, or at least began not to execute it: but as soon as he took upon him that holy office, and unsealed the sacred Font, and multitudes came to him from all parts; In those days came Jesus from Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.

Having spoken of the substance, Christ's baptism, let us now poise the circumstances, which are all weighty, and bear down the scale of Christ's humility to the ground.

1 That Christ in his perfect age should take, if I may so speak, the festraw into his hand, and be entered in his Primer, and receive the token of the first admittance into his own school.

2 That he should not expect John to come and tender his service to him, but should take a long journey to meet with the Baptist.

3 That he should deign to let him lay his hands on his head, who was not worthy to untie his shoe; that the fountain of all christianity, in whose name we are all baptized, should receive his Christendom, as we speak, from another, and be baptized in the open and common river Jordan. Each of these considerations addeth a degree of descent to our Savior's humility, and consequently a degree of ascent to his glory. For there is nothing more glorious than for highest majesty to humble himself in the lowest and lowliest manner. The tree that is at the highest pitch can no otherwise grow than downward. 1 If Christ would be baptized, why not in his infancy? why in his perfect age would he stoop to the children's Font, or, to speak more properly, the spiritual Lazars bath, in those days when he was about thirty years of age? 2 If in that age he would be baptized, to grace and countenance Johns baptism, why yet did he not send for John to come to him? why did he take a voyage to John? why did he seek after, and run to his forerunner? Jesus came from Galilee. 3 If he would take such a journey to be baptized, having no need of baptism for himself, to fulfill all righteousness for us, why would he not be baptized by an Angel, who first named him Jesus, but by John his servant? Was baptized of John. 4 If he would be baptized by a man, the rather to prove his manhood, or countenance the ministry of man, why gave he not order for some Font of gold to be made for him, in a princely palace? why would he uncloath himself in the open air, and go down into the common river Jordan, to be washed there as an ordinary man? Why all this, but to exalt his glory by humility, and to teach us to stoop low, when we enter in at the gate of Christ's school?

In those days, &c. Perfection it self in his full age taketh the remedy of our imperfections; Jesus receiveth baptism. The way it self taketh along and tedious journey; Jesus came from Nazareth to Galilee. The fountain of all purity is washed, And was baptized. The Lord and author of baptism receiveth his own badge and cognizance from his servant, Of John. The boundless ocean descendeth into the river, In Jordan. Well might, saith Barradius, the heavens be opened, that the Angels might behold this wonderful sight. A strange and wonderful baptism indeed, in which he that was washed was purer than the Font it self, in which the person is not sanctified by the Sacrament, but the Sacrament by the person. A strange and wonderful baptism, in which he is baptized with water, who baptizeth with the holy Ghost and with fire. A strange and wonderful baptism, in which the person baptized is the Son of God, and the two witnesses the Father and the holy Spirit. A strange and wonderful baptism, in which not the Church door but heaven gates were opened, and instead of a Sermon from the mouth of a mortal man, there was heard a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Observe, I beseech you, in this and other strains of the sweet harmony of the Evangelists, how the Bases and Trebles answer one the other; how where they depress our Savior most in his humanity, there they raise him highest in his divinity. In the passages of one and the self same story, where you find most pregnant proofs of his infirmity and humility as man, there you have also most evident demonstration of his majesty and glory as God. What greater humility than to lie for many months in the dark prison of the Virgins womb, and to be borne of a poor handmaid? this showeth him to be a true man; yet what greater glory than to be conceived of the holy Ghost, and to have a regiment of heavenly Soldiers, to guard him as it were into the world, and a quire of Angels to sing at his birth? this demonstrateth him to be God. What greater argument of his humility than to be borne in an Inn, lodged in a Stable, and laid in a Manger? this showeth him to be virum dolorum, a man in distress and great necessity; yet what greater glory than to be manifested by a star, and presented by the Heathen Sages with Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh? this demonstrateth him to be God. What greater humility than to be carried up and down from place to place by Satan, and to be tempted by that foul fiend? this showeth him to be a man; yet what greater glory than to be attended on, and ministered unto by Angels in the desert? this demonstrateth him to be God. What greater humility than to suffer himself to be taken by the high Priests servants armed with swords and staves against him, as if he had been a Malefactor? this showeth him to be a man, and that of little or no reputation among the Rulers; yet what greater glory than with the breath of his mouth to cast down those that assaulted him, and make them fall backward to the ground, in such sort that he might have trampled them under his feet? this demonstrateth him to be God. What greater humility than to be nailed to the cross, and to die in torments? this showeth him to be a mortal man; yet what greater glory than at his death to eclipse the sun, and obscure the heavens, and move the earth, and cleave the rocks, and rend the veil of the Temple from the top to the bottom, and open graves? this demonstrateth him to be God In like manner here in my text, what greater testimony of humility, than to descend into the river, and suffer himself to be baptized by John? yet what greater glory than at his baptism to have the heavens opened, and the holy Ghost in a visible shape to descend upon him, and God the Father from heaven to acknowledge him for his Son? this demonstrateth him to be God. But to bound myself within the eclipticke line of my text, where it followeth, Jesus came from

Nazareth of Galilee. Nazareth was a little town or village in Galilee, where our Savior dwelt with his parents for many years, and from his abode there took the appellation of Nazarene. This his country with his person was highly exalted upon the cross the Trophy of his victory over the world; as appeareth by that inscription, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews. Nazareth signifieth florem, or virgultum ejus, a flower, or a twig, derived from Natsar, to keep, or warily to look to, because flowers or tender plants need care, lest they be blown down with a wind, or otherwise wronged. Upon which grounds Saint Bernard thus pleasantly descanteth: The sweet flower of Jesse would be conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin, a most sweet and unblasted flower, planted in Nazareth the flower of Galilee, that he might bud and become a Nazarene, that is, a flourishing flower. I will add no more at this time of Nazareth, but that as it was said of Archelaus, that Euripides was not famous for his acquaintance with Archelaus, but Archelaus for his acquaintance with Euripides: so for ought I ever read, Christ was not ennobled by Nazareth, but Nazareth honored, nay rather eternized by Christ's dwelling in it. This Nazareth is situate in Galilee, where our Lord first preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, and declared the power of his Deity by many signs and wonders; and because his Country-men shown least respect to his person, and gave least credit to his doctrine, it fell out by the just judgment of God in the conquest of Palestine by the Romans, that the Galileans first smarted for their unbelief, the whole country being spoiled and laid waste by Vespasian. From Galilee we return with our Savior to Judea, where he met John, and was

Baptized of him. At the first mention of our Lord's baptism this objection offereth it self to every man's conceit. The whole need not the Physician, but they that are sick; the clean need not to be washed, but they that are foul; the innocent need not to ask or receive pardon, but the guilty; why then should the health and salvation of all mankind take this purge? why should the immaculate lamb be washed in the Font? why did he desire the seal of remission of sins, who knew no sin, neither was there guile found in his mouth? 1 S. Ambrose answereth, that our Lord was baptized, not that he might be cleansed by the water, but (as was touched before) intending thereby to cleanse and sanctify the water, that being washed by Christ's flesh, it might thereby be elevated to be an instrument of the holy Ghost in the spiritual washing of the soul. 2 Saint Augustine addeth that our Savior vouchsafed to be baptized, to draw all men to Christian baptism; for why should any refuse to come to the Lord's baptism, when the Lord himself daigned to come to the baptism of his servant? 3 Saint Jerome assigneth a third reason of Christ's receiving baptism from John, viz. that he might ratify, and give authority to Saint Johns baptism. 4 Calvin yieldeth a fourth reason, that the faithful might be more assured that they are engraffed into Christ, and are buried together with him in baptism, that they may rise up again with him in newness of life. But our Savior's reason must stand for all, thus it becometh to fulfill all righteousness: the righteousness of the law he had fulfilled in that behalf, in being circumcised the eighth day; and now he began to fulfill the righteousness of the Gospel. The ceremonial law was in force in Christ's infancy, which required circumcision; and now the Gospel began to be in force: after Johns baptism circumcision went out, and baptism came in with John: therefore it was now requisite that Christ should be baptized; But why should he be baptized of John?

Of John. It had been an office beseeming the first of the Angelical Hierarchy, to lay hands on the head of the Church: True; but Jesus now came in humility, and as he was in the form of a servant, so he vouchsafed to be baptized of a servant. The Lord cometh to do honor to his servant, the sun to be enlightened by a star, the fountain to be washed in his own stream, the root to receive sap and moisture from the branch, God to receive the Sacrament from man. This doth not more set forth our Lord's humility than add to Johns glory. And questionless a special reason that moved our Savior to receive baptism from Saint John was, to countenance Johns ministry, and to give authority to his fellow-laborer, and, if I may so speak, under-workman. For John brought stones to Jesus, and cut them for the building, and Jesus laid them in the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem, near himself the corner stone: John rough-hewed the Jews with the axe of God's judgments threatened against them, to cut them down and cast them into hell-fire, unless they repented; Christ smoothed and polished them with the doctrine of the Gospel, that they might be like the polished corners of the Temple; or like the Nazarites, whose polishing was of Sapphire: John washed the sores of wounded consciences with water, as the Jailer did Paul and Silas stripes of body; Christ healed them with the ointment of the spirit: John cleansed the inward rooms of the soul by the water of baptism and penitent tears; Christ strawed the swept rooms with the flowers of Paradise: John began, Christ finished; John baptized with water, Christ with the holy Ghost and with fire: Jesus and John resemble the Cherubims in the Ark, casting a gracious look one upon the other:

Jesus like the sun casteth light upon John, and John like a Crystal glass reflects it upon him. Jesus saith of John he was a burning and shining lamp, John saith of Jesus, This is the Son of God: Jesus testifieth of John, that he was Elias, John of Jesus that he was the Messias: Jesus pointeth to John, saying, Behold a Prophet, yea and more than a Prophet; John to Jesus, saying, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world: Jesus cometh to honor John in desiring his baptism; John by putting him back at the first, honoreth him the more, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? John saith of Jesus, I am not worthy to bear his shoes; Jesus saith of John in effect, I account him worthy to lay hands on my head.

I have gone down the four former steps and descents of our Savior's humility, I am now to descend to the fifth, which was Christ's descending into

Jordan, and his vouchsafing to accept of the water of that common river to consecrate baptism in his own body. The Ancients, who delighted much in Acrostickes, wrote for Christ, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, a Fish: for if you take the first letters of these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (Jesus Christ the son of God crucified) and join them together, they make the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . This 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or mystical Fish is taken by John in the river Jordan, and that head before which the Cherubims and Seraphim, and all Principalities in heaven bow, is bowed by John on earth, and dipped under the water in the river Jordan; this the particle 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 intimateth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is word for word, He was baptized into the river Jordan. Here if you demand with the curious School-Divines, why Jordan hath the honor and precedency of all other rivers? why Christ made not choice rather of the Red sea, to be baptized in it as he fled into Egypt, considering the Red sea was an evident type of baptism? For as Pharaoh and his host were drowned in the Red sea, so all our spiritual enemies are destroyed in the Red sea of Christ's blood, whereof the waters of baptism are a figure. We need not go far for answer, the words immediately going before may resolve the point in question: Jesus came to be baptized of John who baptized at this time in Jordan; Christ chose not John to baptize him for Jordans sake, but Jordan to be baptized in for Johns sake. Howbeit it if you will dive deeper into Jordan, you may find in it a more remarkable type of baptism than in the Red sea. For as Zeno the Bishop of Verona long ago observed, the Israelites after they had passed the Red sea came into the wilderness; but we pass through the Red sea of Christ's blood over into Paradise. The river Jordan was in the children of Israel's way to the land of promise, so is the water of baptism in ours to the celestial Canaan. Shall I add out of Saint Augustine, that as the waters of the river Jordan were turned back when the Israelites passed over it; so at this entry of Christ into Jordan the sins of all true believers were driven back, and the course of our nature turned another way? Or out of Aquinas, that as Elias after he had divided the waters of Jordan, was carried up into heaven in a fiery chariot; so after we have parted the waters of the Font in our baptism, through the fire of the holy Spirit we are carried up, by divine contemplation first, and after by real ascension into heaven? As I have sprinkled the waters of Jordan on you in the explication of my text, so give me leave in the application to rub and cleanse some sores in you with them.

1 Christ travelled over a great part of Palestine to Jordan to receive Johns baptism; where are they who will not stir out of doors to receive Christ's baptism? Jesus came himself to Jordan, they will have Jordan by a secret pipe conveyed into their private houses. Mistake me not, I beseech you beloved brethren, I go not about to straighten the bowels of our Mother the Church, which in great charity and compassion sendeth the water of life in baptism to infirm infants, and the bread of life in the other Sacrament to sick persons, who are not able to fetch them. But when the child is strong, the minister provided, the congregation assembled, if perchance there fall a drop of rain to wet their new set ruffe, or there lie any dirt in the street to foul their shoes, upon such or the like sleight occasions and frivolous pretences, to deprive God of his public worship, the congregation of the spiritual food, the infant of the benefit of the prayers of the whole assembly argueth a great neglect of the solemn worship of God, and an insufferable wrong to his Church. The Martyrs heretofore could not be kept from the Church and public ministry of the Word and Sacraments by fear of hail-shot or bullets; these are kept from it by a few drops of rain.

2 Jesus was baptized, who are they who slightly esteem baptism? If the immaculate Lamb were washed in the Font of baptism, how much more ought they to desire to be cleansed therein, who are fuller of spots than Leopards? If Christ, saith S. Ambrose, washed for us, nay rather washed us in his own body, how much more ought we to wash our own sins, original in the laver of our baptism, and actual in the baptism of tears?

3 Jesus vouchsafed to be baptized of John, a man though of admirable gifts, and eminent place in the Church, yet in comparison of our Savior he was not so much as a star of the sixth magnitude to the sun: where are they who refuse the holy Sacraments from the hands of any minister who is of inferior place, or of meaner gifts, at least in their account? Doth the potion work the less because the Physician that administereth it is himself crazy? doth the plaster less heal because it is applied by an Apothecary that hath a sore hand? doth not the lees or sope scour white which is received from the hand of a blackmore? is a piece of coin, be it an Angel, or Sovereign, or Jacobus, of less value if it be tendered by a beggar? They need to be better catechized, who know not that the effect of the Sacrament dependeth upon the power and promise of God, and right form of administering it according to his Word, and not upon the dignity of the minister.

4 Jesus was baptized in the open and common river Jordan: where are they who disdain the common Font? No Font will serve them but a Font of gold new made, or a silver bason with their arms on it. Saint Paul teacheth us that the way to heaven is a hard and rugged, a stony and thorny way, through many afflictions; these think to go to heaven treading all the way upon rich carpets, or rose leaves. By their reason Christ the Son of God, and Prince of heaven should have refused the common river Jordan, and not have received baptism in any river but such as Ganges or Pactolus, whose sands are said to be full of rich Ore. Do they think it is pleasant to God to keep state in their march towards heaven? to receive the Sacrament of Christian humility in pride? to profess the renouncing of the pomps and vanities of this world, and in the very profession thereof at the Font to show the pomp and vanity thereof? Calcare saeculi fastum majori fastu, for which Plato justly taxed Diogenes. But the time excludeth, and that whereof mine eyes are now witnesses, silenceth all such otherwise seasonable increpations. For we all see, and rejoice to see this infant presented by the parents to God in the Temple, and reverently and modestly brought, without displaying the ensigns of gentility, to holy baptism; the public ministry is not neglected, the common Font is not despised. Such an assembly, so honorable, so religious, so full, we rather pray for than hope for upon the like occasion in this place. Let the honor of it redound to God, the benefit to the infant to be baptized, that the Peers of this Kingdom, and other persons of eminent quality, have for a time absented themselves from the Kings court, and now present themselves in the Courts of the Lord's house to add a Lamb to Christ's flock. Such an illustrious constellation of so many stars, and some of the first magnitude, hath seldom appeared in this Horizon. What remaineth, but that we now proceed with joy and comfort from the Pulpet to the Font, from the Word to the Sacrament, from feeding our own souls to make a Christian soul? Solinus reporteth of a river in Baeotia that it turneth the color of the sheep that are washed in it, in such sort that if they were before black or dunne, they become presently as white as milk. That may be a fable, but this is Gospel, that such is the virtue of the consecrated waters of baptism, wherein Christ's lambes are usually washed through divine benediction upon this holy ordinance, that though they were never so black or foul before, yet after they come out of this laver they are most clean and white, and so continue till they plunge themselves into the mire of worldly desires and fleshly lusts. Glorious things may be spoken of thee thou Well of life. O sacred Font of God, O royal Bath of Christ, O heavenly Laver, O spiritual Bethesda, infinitely exceeding that wonderful pool in Jerusalem mentioned by Saint John. For that healed but bodily infirmities, this cureth spiritual maladies; that healed him only that was first let down into it after the Angel moved the water; this healeth all those that are dipped into it, or sprinkled with it, after the minister, who is God's Angel, stirreth this water: that received a medicinal virtue for the body, as Saint Jerome conceiveth, from the blood of the sacrifices that were washed in it; this receiveth a spiritual and divine virtue for the cure of the soul, from the blood of the immaculate lamb Christ Jesus. For his blood cleanseth us from all our sins. In other waters, as Zeno noteth, living creatures are cast in alive, and after they are held a good while under the water, or sink down of themselves, are taken out dead: but contrariwise, in the sacred Font children are dipped in dead, to wit, in trespasses and sins, but are taken out alive, alive to God, enlived by his spirit, quickened by his grace.

THE LIVING TEMPLE. A Sermon preached at the Readers Feast in the Temple Church. THE SEVENTEENTH SERMON.

COnsecrate your hearts to the service of God, and dedicate your ears to his holy Word, For ye are the Temple of the living God. If the heathen Orator making an Oration in aede Concordiae (a Temple consecrated to their goddess Concord) used the place for a Topic, and drew an argument from the house inscription where they met, to persuade peace and concord: and the Apostle himself took the advantage of the title of an Altar at Athens to declare unto them the true God, whom they ignorantly worshipped: and in his Epistle to Philemon alludeth to the name of his unthrifty servant Onesimus, assuring him that howsoever in former time he had been unprofitable, yet that he should now prove 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , according to his name Onesimus, profitable to both of them: I persuade myself it will not be offensive to you to hear a lecture read upon your name, and many holy duties enforced from the sacred appellation in my text, wherewith your honorable society is graced, that you may be indeed what you are called, The Temple of the living God.

This text of the Temple admitteth of a like division to the partition of the Temple of Solomon, which was into three rooms or spaces:

• 1 Atrium, the outward court.
• 2 Sanctum, the holy place.
• 3 Sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies.

• 1 In the outward court the people stood.
• 2 In the holy place the Priests offered their daily sacrifice.
• 3 In the holy of holies the high Priest appeared once a year.

• 1 Ye are, resembleth the outward court, where the people were.
• 2 Temple, the holy place.
• 3 The living God, the most holy. The Temple of God is holy, but the God of the Temple is infinitely more holy.

In passing through these spaces and partitions, let the eye of your religious observation fall upon

• 1 The proper title of the Elect, Temple.
• 2 The proper owner of the Temple, God.
• 3 The proper attribute of God, Living.

• 1 For expresseth and presseth a reason, What agreement, &c. For.
• 2 Ye specifieth the persons.
• 3 Are pointeth to the time.
• 4 The Temple is the title of God's children.
• 5 Of God is added for distinction of Temples.
• 6 Living is adjoined for distinction of God's.

• 1 There are many who deserve to be called cages of unclean birds, or rather styes of unclean beasts, than Temples, Ye are the Temple.
• 2 There are Temples of Idols, or rather Devils, not of God, Ye are the Temple of God.
• 3 There are gods not living, Ye are the Temple of thee living God.

Here is a sweet cluster of the grapes of the vine of Engaddi.

1 Press the first grape, and it will yield this liquor, That Christians may not communicate with Idolaters, nor consort with profane persons: For.

2 Press the next grape, and it will yield this juice, That holiness to God is the Imprese of the regenerate: Ye.

3 Press the third, it yieldeth this, That there are Saints upon earth, viz. in truth and sincerity, though not in perfection: Are.

4 Press the fourth, it yieldeth this, That the whole company of true believers make but one Holy Catholic Church; Temple not Temples: The Temple.

5. Press the fifth, it yieldeth this, That reverence is due to the servants of God, that sanctity is in them, and safety with them. Of God. The Temple of God carrieth with it all three: and to whom indeed is due more reverence, in whom shineth more sanctity, with whom is found more safety than God's secret ones, who as stones coupled together, and built upon the corner stone Christ Jesus, rise up towards heaven, and become a holy temple of God?

6. Press the last, and it yieldeth this, That the God whom we Christians serve is the only true living God, and source and fountain of all life; which he conveyeth to us in a threefold channel,

• 1 The broader of nature:
• 2 The narrower of grace:
• 3 The overflowing and everspringing of glory.

[Doctr. 1] First, this (For) perforce draweth us from all familiar company and intimate conversation with men of a lewd, dissolute or profane carriage; Have no fellowship with them,