A Key Opening Mysterious Texts of Scripture

THE SECOND BORDER: OR, THE RIGHTEOUS MAMMON.

THose things which are most necessary in their use, are most dangerous in their miscarriage. And therefore nothing is more necessary for a Christian, than to be rectified in the managing of a prosperous estate, and to learn so to manage his happiness here, that he may be happier hereafter: which this text undertakes to teach, where Timothy is set as it were upon the Bench to give the charge: Charge. A charge, to whom? To the rich. Of what?

• 1 What they must avoid:
  • 1 High-mindedness; because their wealth is in this world.
  • 2 Trust in wealth; because their riches are uncertain.
• 2 What they must endeavor and labor for:
  • 1 Confidence in God; because he is a living and liberal God.
  • 2 Beneficence to men; because by this they lay up to themselves a sure foundation.

Here, said the Preacher, is work enough for my discourse and your practice: I fear more than enough for my rehearsing. The God of heaven, who blessed it in his hands, bless it now in mine, who have it but at the second hand.

Charge. Charge, Janus-like, hath a double aspect; the one that looks up to Saint Paul, the other that looks down to Timothy, and from him to the rich. In the first there is Apostolical superiority, in the second Episcopal power, and Evangelical sufficiency. For the first, charge thou, refers to, I charge thee, ver. 13. so Paul chargeth Timothy to charge the rich. The first foundation of the Church was laid in an inequality, and hath ever since so continued. There can be no harmony where all the strings and voices are of one tenor: he that giveth the charge, if he be not the chief of the Bench, yet he is greater than the Jury: the rich are commonly great: Nobility in the account of God is joined with wealth. Curse not the King in thy thought, nor the rich in thy bed chamber, saith Solomon. So Dives, at whose gates Lazarus lay, is by some (no mean ones) guessed to be Herod, or some other King; and so are Jobs friends termed by the Seventie. Yea, the rich is not only a little King among his neighbors; but dives, quasi divus, as a petty god to his underlings: yet Timothy hath authority to charge and command such rich. That foolish shaveling soared too high a pitch, when in his imperious Bull he commanded the Angels: but we may safely say all powers below the Angels are liable to our spiritual charge, and the power of the keys which Christ hath given us. But what now becometh of them? that I may not say in some of our hands they are suffered to rust for want of use, in others, as the Pontificians, the wards are altered, so as they can neither open nor shut: Sure I am the power of them is lost in the hearts of many, they have secret pickelockes of their own making, presumption and security; whereby they can open heaven gates, though double locked by our censures, and shut the gates of hell at pleasure, which their own sins have opened wide to receive them. What use then is there of us but in our chair? and there but to be heard and seen? Even in this sense spectaculo facti sumus, we are to gaze on, and not to imply. Yet it was well noted by one, that the good father of the Prodigal, though he might himself have brought forth the prime robe, or have led his son into the wardrobe to take it, yet he commands his servants to bring it forth, because he would have his son to be beholden to his servants for his glory. He that can save you without us, will not save you but by us.

Hitherto the power implied in the charge: the sufficiency follows. This Evangelicus must be Parangelicus: Like as the forerunner of Christ had a charge for all sorts, so hath Timothy in this epistle a charge for wives, for husbands, for Bishops, for Deacons, for Widows, for Servants, and here for the rich. And I am persuaded that no Nation under heaven ever had more sufficient Timothies, to instruct all sorts of men in the ways of salvation, than this our Land: so that what Jerome spake sometime of Britain, is now most true, comparing it with Jerusalem as it had been; De Hierosolymis & de Britannia equaliter patet aula coelestis. For the Northern parts, since his sacred Majesty in his last journey (as if the Sun did out of compassion go beyond his tropicke line to give heat to that climate) visited them, are better provided of Preachers, and maintenance for Preachers, and both Pastors and people profess themselves mutually blessed in each other, and bless God and their King for their blessedness. And as for the Southerne, when I behold them me thinks I see the Firmament in a clear night bespangled with goodly Stars of all magnitudes, that yield a pleasant diversity of light unto the earth; but above all, this City is rich in this spiritual provision. Other Cities may exceed you in the glory of outward structure, in the largeness of extent, in the uniform proportion of streets, or ornaments of Temples: but your pulpits are past theirs; and if preaching can lift up Citizens to heaven, ye are not upon earth. Hear this, O ye Citizens, and be not proud, but thankful unto God.

I add also to your Preachers, no vice more hateful to God and man than ingratitude, no ingratitude more abominable than to parents, no parents ought to be dearer unto you than those who have begot you through the Gospel in Christ.

Charge them: But whom? The rich.

The rich. Who are rich? According to Moralitie and Christianity, they that have enough with content: so saith the Apostle, Godliness is great gain, if a man be content with that which he hath. St. Jerome saith, victus & vestitus divitiae Christianorum. According to the vulgar use of the word, they are rich who have more than is necessary. Now there is a double necessity, of nature, of estate: that is necessary to nature, without which we cannot live; that is necessary to estate which is superfluous to nature, and that which were superfluous to nature, is not so much as necessary to estate: nature goes single, and bears little breadth; estate goes ever with a train: the necessity of nature admits little difference, especially for quantity; the necessity of estate requires as many diversities, as there are several degrees of human conditions, and several circumstances in those degrees. Thus understanding what is meant by the word, come we now to the matter. Man that came naked out of the womb of the earth, was even then so rich, that all things were his: heaven was his roof, or canopie, the earth his floor, the Sea his pond, the Sun and Moon his torches, all creatures his vassals: and if he lost the fullness of this Lordship by being a slave to sin, yet we have still dominium gratificum, as Gerson termeth it. In this sense every son of Abraham is heir of the world: but to make up the true reputation of wealth (for thus we may be, as having all things and possessing nothing) another right is required besides spiritual, which is a civil and human right: wherein I doubt not but our learned Wycliffe, and Armacanus, and Gerson, have had much wrong, whilst they are accused to teach that men in these earthly things have no tenure but grace, no title but charity; which questionless they intended in foro interiori, in the consistory of God, not in the common pleas of men; in the court of conscience, not in the courts of Law. For it is certain that besides this spiritual right there is a civil right in earthly things: and the Scripture speaking secundum jus gentium, whereon the division of these earthly possessions is grounded, calleth some poor, some rich. The Apostle saith not, charge men that they be not rich, but, charge the rich that they be not high minded. The rich. In this one word, and as it were with one grasp, the Apostle crusheth the heads of two heresies, the ancient Apostolici, who denied the lawfulness of earthly proprieties; and our late Popish votaries, who place holiness in want and poverty. Did these men never hear that the blessing of God maketh rich? that the wise man's wealth is his strong City? If Lazarus was poor, yet Abraham was rich: & pium pauperem suscepit sinus divitis, in divitiis cupiditatem reprehendit, non facultatem, saith Augustine. Bona est substantia si non sit peccatum in conscientia, substance doth well in the hand, if there be no evil in the heart. Let the rich take heed how he became so: that God which can allow you to be rich, will not allow you all ways to your wealth: he hath set up a golden goal to which he allows you all to run, but you must keep the beaten rode of honesty, justice, charity and truth. If you will leave this path, and by crossing over a shorter cut through by-ways of your own, you may be rich with a vengeance. The heathen Poet Menander could observe 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which Solomon may seem to translate, saying, He that makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent. It were envious and infinite to arraign all sorts of fraud, usury, and extortion, whereby many become oversoone rich: let me shut up all together in that fearful sentence of Solomon, The gathering of treasures by a deceitful tongue is a vanity, tossed to and fro of them that seek death; and the robbery of the wicked shall destroy them. Search your chests, search your hearts, all ye that hear me this day; and if any of you find any of this adulterine gold among your heaps, away with it, as you love yourselves away with it; else know that (as Chrysostom saith wittily) ye have locked up a thief in your counting house, which will carry away all; and, if you look not to it the sooner, your soul with it. Have a care of this ye that are rich

In the world. As Saint John distinguisheth between being in the Church, and of the Church, so St. Paul of rich in the world, and of the world. Those are the rich of the world which are worldlings in heart as well as in estate; those are rich in the world whose estate is below, though their hearts may be above: the rich of the world are in it, but the rich in the world are not necessarily of it. If Timothy or St. Paul should have charged the rich of the world, he had charmed a deaf adder; yea perhaps, even with this charge, like a rusty or ill wrought piece, they had recoyled in his face with those Athenians, What will this babbler say? To the other sort therefore, whose hearts are not in their bags, Timothies charge and my speech is directed. Let these hear, first, their condition; secondly, their duty: their condition, they are rich; but in this world. This clause serves,

1 For distinction. As St. Augustine distinguisheth of pauper in animo, and pauper in sacculo, so may we of spiritual wealth, and secular, and worldly. This latter is valued by pieces of earth, and one mouthfull of earth maketh an end of all: that which the worldly man dotes and dreams of is but even Nebuchadnezzar's Image, a composition of metal, and the foot of all is clay. Earthly men tread upon their felicity, and yet have not the wit to contemn it, and to seek a better, which is the spiritual wealth; the cabbinet whereof is the soul, and the treasure in it God himself. O happy resolution of that blessed Father, Omnis mihi copia quae Deus meus non est, egestas est.

2 This serves for limitation. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as it is absolutely taken, quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifieth eternity, but restrained with a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 it is scarce a time; yet this is the utmost extent of worldly wealth, the short space of human life. All our crowns, and soveraines, and pieces, and half pieces, and duckats, and double duckats are currant but to the brim of the grave, there they cease: and we justly laugh at the folly of those eastern Pagans, who put coin into a dead man's hand for his provision in another world. What should we do therefore, if we will be provident Travelers, but make over our money here, to receive it by exchange in the world to come? It is our Savior's counsel, Make you friends of unrighteous mammon, &c. And as an ancient Father saith sweetly, If you will be wise Merchants, thrifty and happy Usurers, part with that which you cannot keep, that you may gain that which you cannot lose. Which that you may do, hearken to the duties which God lays upon you: the first whereof is the remover of evil;

That you be not high minded. It is strange to see how this earthly dross, which is of it self heavy, and therefore naturally sinks downward, should raise up the heart of man; yet it commonly carries a man up even to a double pitch of pride, one above others, the other above himself: above others in contempt, above himself in over-weening. The man with a gold ring (in Saint James) looketh to sit highest. And not to cast back your eyes, do we not see it thus in our times? If a man be but worth a footecloth, how big he looketh on the inferior passengers? and if he hath purchased a little more land and title, you shall see it in his garb: whatsoever he doth he is not as he was, nor as the Pharisee says, like other men: he looks upon vulgar men as if they were made to serve him, and should think themselves happy to be commanded by him: and if he be crossed a little he swells like the Sea in a storm. Neither doth this pride raise a man more above others than above himself; and what wonder if he will not know his poor neighbors, who hath forgot himself? As Saul was changed into another man presently upon his anointing; so is it with them upon their advancement, now it may not be taken as it hath been. Other carriage, other fashions are fitter for them, their attire, fare, retinue, houses, furniture displease them, new must be had, together with coaches and lackies, and all the equipage of greatness. These things I dislike not simply, they are fit for those that are fit for them: charity is not strait-laced, but yields much latitude to the lawful use of things indifferent: but it is the heart that makes all these things evil, when it is puffed up with these windy vanities, and hath learned to borrow that part of the Devils speech, All these things are mine: and can say with him that was turned into a beast, Is not this great Babel which I have built? If there be here any of these empty bladders that are puffed up with the wind of conceit, give me leave to prick them a little. And

First, let me tell them that they may have much, and be never the better. The chimney overlookes all the rest of the house; is it not for all that the very basest piece of the building? The heathen man could observe, that God gives many a man wealth for the greater mischief; as the Israelites were rich in Quails, but their sauce was such, that famine had been better. Haman was proud that he alone was called to the honor of Queen Hesters feast, this advancement raised him fifty cubits higher to a stately gibbet. If your wealth be to any of you an occasion of falling, if your gold be turned into fetters, it had been better for you to have lived beggars.

Secondly, let me tell them that they are proud of that which is none of theirs. For Philo 's observation is most true, That God only by a propriety is styled the possessor of heaven and earth by Melchizedek in his speech to Abraham: we are only tenants, and that at the will of the Lord. We have but jus ad rem, not dominion in rem; a right only of favor from the proprietarie and Lord in heaven, and that liable to account. Do we not laugh at the Groome that is proud of his masters horse? Or some vain Whifler that is proud of a borrowed chain? So ridiculous are we to be puffed up with that whereof we must needs say with the poor man of the hatchet, Alas master it is but borrowed. Therefore if God have laden any of you with these earthly riches, be you like unto the full ear of corn, hang down your heads in true humility towards the earth, from which we came.

Hitherto of the high-mindedness that follows wealth: now where our pride is, there will be our confidence; which is forbidden in the next place.

And trust not in uncertain riches. To trust in riches is to set our heart on them, to place our joy and contentment in them; in a word, to make them our best friend, our patron, our idol, our God. This the true and jealous God will not abide, and yet nothing is more ordinary. The rich man's wealth is his strong City, saith Solomon: and where should a man think himself safe but in his fort? Silver answereth to all, saith Solomon; that we grant, although we would be loath it should answer to truth, to justice, to judgment: but yet mammon vants to conquer all, according to the old Greek verse, fight with silverlances, and you cannot fail of victory: to pacify all, (for a gift in the bosom appeases wrath) to procure all secular offices, titles and dignities, I would I might not say claves altaria Christum. And let me tell you indeed what mammon can do; He can unbarre the gates of hell to the unconscionable soul, and help his followers to damnation: this he can do: but for other things, howsoever with us men the foolish silver-smithes may shout out, Great is mammon of the worldlings; yet if we weigh his power aright, we shall conclude of mammon as Paracelsus doth of the Devil, that he is a base and beggarly Spirit. For what I beseech you can he do? Can he make a man honest, or wise, or healthy? Can he give a man to live more merrily, feed more heartily, sleep more quietly? Can he buy off the gout, cares, death, much less the pains of another world? Riches avail not in the day of wrath: if we lean upon this reed it shall break, and run into our hands. He that trusteth in riches shall fall, Prov. 11.28. Take heed therefore, as you love your souls, how you bestow your trust upon riches: you may use them, and serve yourselves of them: yea, ye may enjoy them in a Christian moderation; God will allow it. That praise which the Jesuits College in Granado gives of their Sanchez, that though he lived where they had a very sweet garden, yet he was never seen to touch a flower; and that he would rather die than eat salt, or pepper, or ought that might give relish to his meat; like to that of some other Monks, that they would not see the Sun, nor shift their clothes, nor cleanse their teeth; carries in it more superstition and slavery than wit or grace. Wherefore hath God made these creatures but for use? This niggardliness is injurious to the bounty of their Maker. We may use them, we may not trust in them: we may serve ourselves of them, we may not serve them: we may enjoy them, we may not over joy in them. We must be so affected to our goods as Theodorick the good King of Aquitaine was with his play, in bonis jactibus tacet, in malis ridet, in neutris irascitur, in utrisque philosophatur. But if we will be making our wealth a rivall unto God, the jealousy of God shall burn like fire against us. Now as the disdainful rivall will be sure to cast reproaches upon his base competitor, so doth God upon riches, he calleth them uncertain, yea uncertainty it self. Trust not in

Uncertaine riches. Were our wealth tied to our life it were uncertain enough: for what is that but a flower, a vapor, a tale, a shadow, a dream of a shadow, a thought, a nothing? Yet our riches are more uncertain than life it self: our life flies hastily away, but many times our riches have longer wings, and out fly it. It was a witty observation of Basil, in Psal. 61. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. that wealth rowles along by a man like as a heady stream glides by the banks: time will molder away the very bank it washeth, but the current stays not for that, but speeds from one elbow of earth to another: so doth wealth, even whilst we stay it is gone. Our life is as the tree, our wealth is as the leaves or fruit; the tree stands still when the leaves are fallen. Yea, many one is like the Pine tree, which, they say, if his bark be pulled off lasteth long, else it rots. If therefore life and wealth strive together whether is more uncertain, wealth will sure carry it away. Job was yesterday the richest man in the East, today he is so needy, that he is gone into a Proverb, As poor as Job. Belisarius the great and famous Commander, to whom Rome owed her life twice at least, came to date obolum Belisario, give one half penny to Belisarius. O miserable uncertainty of this earthly pelf, that stands upon so many hazards, yea, that falls under them! who would trust it? who can dote upon it? what madness is it in those men which (as Menot says) like unto hunters, that kill an horse of price in the pursuit of an hare worth nothing, endanger, yea cast away their souls upon this worthless and fickle trash. Glasses are pleasing vessels, yet because of their brittleness who esteems them precious? nor flowers, though beautiful, because they are fading? No wise man bestows much cost in painting mud walls: what mean we (my beloved) to spend our lives and hearts upon these perishing treasures? It was a wise meditation of Nazianzen to his Asterius, that good is to no purpose, if it continue not: yea, there is no pleasant thing in the world, saith he, that hath so much joy in the welcome, as it hath sorrow in the farewell. Look therefore upon these heaps, O ye wise hearted Citizens, with careless eyes, as those things whose parting is certain, whose stay is uncertain; and say with the worthy Father, By all my wealth, and glory, and greatness, this alone have I gained, that I had something to which I might prefer my Savior; with whose words I conclude this point. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and thieves break thorough and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.

But trust in God. Man cannot be without a stay, and therefore the same breath that withdraws one refuge from us, substitutes a better: even as a good Carpenter instead of a rotten groundsill lays a sound. The same trust then must we give to God, which we must not give to riches him must we esteem above all things, look up to him in all things, depend upon him for all things. This is to trust in God, which the Psalmist in his sweet dittie saith is a good thing: good in respect of God; for our trust in him is one of the best pieces of his glory: ( Joseph holds Potiphar's trust a great honor.) 2. For us; for what safety, what unspeakable comfort is therein trusting to God? Our Savior in his farewell Sermon, John 16. persuading to confidence, saith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a word signifying boldness: and what is there in all the world that can work the heart to so comfortable and unconquerable resolution, as our reposall upon God? The Lord is my trust, whom then can I fear? They that put their trust in the Lord, are as mount Zion that cannot be moved. Oh cast yourselves therefore into those almighty hands, seek him in whom you shall find true rest and happiness, honor him with your substance that hath honored you with it: trust not in riches, but trust in God. Riches are but for this world, the true God is Lord of the other; therefore trust in him: riches are uncertain, the true God is Amen, ever like himself; ergo trust in him: riches are mere passive, they cannot bestow so much as themselves, much less ought besides themselves; the true God gives you all things to enjoy: riches are but a lifeless and senseless metal, God is

The living God. Life is an ancient and usual title of God; he for the most part swears by it. When Moses asked his name, he described himself by I am: He is, he liveth; and nothing is, and nothing lives absolutely but he: all other things by participation from him. In all other things their life and they are two, but God is his own life: and therefore (as Aquinas acutely disputeth against the Gentiles) must needs be eternal, because being cannot be severed from itself. Howbeit, not only the life he hath in himself, but the life which he giveth to his creatures, challengeth a part in this title. A glimpse whereof the heathen had when they called Jupiter 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Those creatures which have life we esteem beyond those that have it not, how noble soever other ways those things be. Therefore he that hath the perfectest life must needs be the best. God therefore who is life itself, & fountain of all that life which is in the world, is most worthy of all: the adoration, joy, love and confidence of our hearts, and the best improvement of that life which he hath given us. Trust therefore in the living God, not in riches; that is idolatry, yea madness. What greater madness can there be than to bestow that life which we have from God, upon a creature that hath no life in it self, nor price but from men? Let me then persuade every soul that hears me this day as Jacob did his household; Put away the strange gods that are among you: or as St. Paul did his Lystrians; O turn away from these vanities to the living God, who gives us richly

All things to enjoy. Every word would require, not a several hour, but a life to meditate upon; and the tongues, not of men, but of Angels to express it. God not only hath all in himself, but he gives to us; and gives us not somewhat, but all things; and not a little of all, but richly: and all this not to look on, but to enjoy. (Here the Preacher said it should content him to top the sheaves only, because he could not stand to thresh them out: it shall content me with the Apostles to rub some few ears, because I cannot stand to top the sheaves) Whither can you turn your eyes to look besides the bounty of God? If you look upwards, his mercy reacheth to the heavens; if downwards, the earth is full of his goodness; and so is the broad sea: if you look about you, what is it that he hath not given us? air to breathe in, fire to warm us, water to cool us, clothes to cover us, food to nourish us, fruits to refresh us, yea, delicates to please us, beasts to serve us, Angels to attend us, heaven to receive us, and (which is above all) his son to redeem us. Lastly, if we look into ourselves, hath he not given us a soul rarely furnished with the faculties of understanding, will, memory and judgment? a body wonderfully accommodated to execute the charge of the soul? and an estate that yields due conveniencies for both? moreover, seasonable times, peace, competency, if not plenty of all commodities, good laws, religious, wise, just Governors, happy and flourishing days, and above all the liberty of the Gospel? More particularly, cast up your Books, O ye Citizens, and sum up your receipts; I am deceived if he that hath least shall not confess his obligation to be infinite. There are three things especially wherein ye are beyond others, and must acknowledge yourselves deeper in the books of God than the rest of the world.

First, for your deliverance from that woeful judgment ef the Pestilence. O remember those sorrowful times, when every month swept away thousands from among you, when a man could not set forth his foot but into the jaws of death, when piles of carcasses were carried to their pits, as dung to the fields, when it was cruelty in the sick to admit visitation, and love was little better than murderous.

Secondly, for your wonderful plenty of all provisions spiritual and bodily. Ye are like the Sea, all the Rivers of the land run into you; nay, sea and land conspire to enrich you.

Thirdly, for the privilege of your government: your charters, as they are large and strong, so your form of administration is excellent, and the execution of justice exemplary. For all these you have reason to ask with David, Quid retribuam? and to trust in God who hath been so gracious unto you. And thus from the duty we owe to God in our confidence, and his beneficence to us, we descend to the beneficence which we owe to men, expressed in the variety of four epithetes to one sense.

To do good, to be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate: all is but beneficence. This heap of words shows the vehement intention of his desire of good works, and the important necessity of the performance; and the manner of this expression enforceth no less: Charge the rich, &c. Hearken then, ye rich men of the world, it is not left arbitrary to you, that you may do good if you will; but it is laid upon you as your charge and duty: the same necessity there is of trusting in God, is of doing good to men.

Let me fling this stone at the brazen forehead of our Romish Adversaries, whom their shameless challenges of our religion, dare tell the world, that we are all for faith, and that we hold works to salvation as a parenthesis to a sentence. Heaven and earth shall witness the injustice of this calumniation, and your consciences shall be our compurgatours this day, which shall testify to you, both now and on your death-bed, that we have taught you there is no less necessity of good works, than if you should be saved by them: and that though you cannot be saved by them, as the meritorious causes of your glory, yet that you cannot be saved without them, as the necessary effects of that grace which brings glory. Indeed we do not hover over your expiring souls at your death beds, as Ravens over a carcass; we do not beg for a covent, nor fright you with Purgatory, nor chaffer with you for that invisible treasure of the Church, whereof there is but one key keeper at Rome: but we tell you, that the making of friends with this Mammon of unrighteousness is the way to eternal habitations. They say of Cyrus, that he was wont to say, He laid up treasure for himself when he made his friends rich: but we say to you, that you lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, whilst you make the poor your friends on earth. He shall never be God's heir in heaven, who lendeth him nothing on earth. As the witty Poet said of extreme tall men, that they were like Cypress trees, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , so may I say of a straithanded rich man: and these Cypresses are not for the Garden of Paradise. None shall be ever planted there but the fruitful: and if the first Paradise had any trees in it only for pleasure, I am sure the second, which is in the midst of the new Jerusalem, shall have no tree that bears not twelve fruits; yea, whose very leaves are not beneficial. Do good therefore, O ye rich, and show your wealth to be (not in having, but) in doing good: and so do it, that we may thank you (not your death-bed) for it. Late beneficence is better than none, but so much as early beneficence is better than late. He that gives not till he dies, shows that he would not give if he could keep it. That which you give thus, you give it by your testament, I can scarce say you give it by your will. The good man's praise is dispersit, dedit, he disperses his goods, not he left them behind him: and his distribution is seconded with the retribution of God, His righteousness endureth forever, Psal. 112.9. Our Savior tells us, that our good works are our light: Let your light so shine, that men may see your good works. Which of you lets his light go behind him, and hath it not rather carried before him, that he may see which way it goes, and which way himself goes by it? Do good therefore in your life, that you may have comfort in your death, and a crown of life after death.

Here the Preacher filled up his border with the gifts of this City, as it were so many precious stones: instead whereof, because I am not appointed to rehearse your deeds, but the Preachers Sermon, I will fill it up with the praises of the Speaker. His sentences were vere lineae aureae, (according to Junius his translation of my text ) cum punctis argenteis; the latter whereof interlaced his whole discourse. It remaineth that as I have done in the former, so I work the emblem of the giver in his gift. The Image shall be Marcus Callidius, the Motto or words the words of Tully, De claris Oratoribus. Orator non unus e multis, sed inter multos singularis; reconditas exquisitasque sententias mollis & perlucens vestiebat oratio. Nihil tam tenerum quam illius comprehensio verborum, quae ita pura erat, ut nihil liquidius; ita libere fluebat, ut nusquam adhaeresceret; nullum nisi in loco positum, & tanquam emblemate vermiculato verbum structum videres: accedebat ordo rerum plenus artis, actio liberalis, totum{que} dicendi genus placidum & sanum.

THE THIRD BORDER: OR HORTUS DELICIARUM.

THis Scripture containeth in it seven particulars: of which by God's assistance in order.

• 1 Who took: The Lord God.
• 2 Whom: The man Adam.
• 3 What he did with him: He placed him in Paradise.
• 4 To what end: To dress and keep it.
• 5 God his large permission to the man: To eat of all other trees.
• 6 His restraint from the tree of knowledge.
• 7 His punishment if he refrain it not: Thou shalt die the death.

The Lord God, Jehovah, Elohim. In Jehovah note the Unity, Elohim the Trinity of persons. Jehovah signifieth that he is of himself, and giveth to all other to be: for he is, as Damascene teacheth, the being of them that be, the life of all that live. Elohim signifieth which ruleth and disposeth all. Of this Almighty Maker and Disposer of all, the more we speak, the more we have to speak; the more we think of him, the more we find him greater than our thoughts: and therefore with silence admiring that majesty, which neither tongue of men nor Angels can express, I pass to the second particular:

The Man. Man consisteth of a body and a soul: his body was made of the earth, his soul was inspired by God, not propagated by generation. The soul doth neither beget, nor is begotten, saith Chrysostom, but is infused by God, who is said by the Preacher to give the soul, The Spirit shall return to God that gave it: and in this respect is called by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, The Father of Spirits. Upon which words S ^t . Jerome inferreth, Ridendi sunt qui putant animas cum corporibus seri: and S ^t . Augustine refelleth that opinion by Adams words concerning Eve, This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; (he saith not, soul of my soul. ) In this part of man, man is said to be made according to God's own Image, (for the Audians heresy, which attributed the corporal lineaments of man to God, is long ago exploded) and that in a threefold respect:

1. In respect of the faculties of the soul;

• 1. Understanding.
• 2. Will.

2. In regard of the qualities of the soul;

• 1. Lightsome knowledge.
• 2. Perfect holiness.

3. In regard of the rule that God gave him over all creatures. So St. Basil expoundeth those words, Let us make man after our image, adding, imperiale animal es O homo, quid servis affectibus? to whom Chrysostom, Athanasius, Aquinas, and all the School-men assent. And let this suffice to be spoken of the man: in the third place followeth

Put him into the Garden of Eden. Of this Garden two questions are disputed on by Divines:

• 1. Whether this Garden were a real place in the earth.
• 2. Whether Paradise yet remain.

To the first I answer, that questionless Paradise was a true and real Garden, as S. Jerome and Chrysostom affirm against Origen. Origines sic allegorizat ut historiae tollit veritatem; non licet nobis ita nugari, & simpliciorum auribus imponere, dicendo nullum fuisse in terris hor tum, quem vocant Paradisum: and Bellarmine proves it sufficiently against the fancy of Franciscus Georgius.

To the second I answer, That the place of the earth remaineth in substance, though it is not now a Paradise, or hortus deliciarum: for the beauty of it is gone. The curse of the whole earth, to bear thorns and thistles, is come upon it. As for the Paradise mentioned in Saint Luke, and in the Apocalypse, it was celestial: and Saint Paul maketh it plain, where having said he was wrapped up into the third heaven, by and by he nameth the place, Paradise. Upon which words Saint Ambrose thus commenteth, Paradisum intelligit coelestem, de quo Dominus dixit latroni, hodie mecum eris in Paradiso. You have heard where the Lord placed him: it remaineth that we inquire in the fourth place

To dress and keep the garden. God had not yet cursed the earth, neither were the wholesome herbs degenerated into weeds. Every plant and herb brought forth fruit according to their kind, & God that made them good, could have preserved them in that state of goodness: but man had need of some employment, and therefore God enjoined him to dress this garden of pleasure in this place, to make use of his gifts, and by his reason and industry to model it into some delightful form: yet was his labor without all pain, nay, it was full of pleasure. But why is it added, to keep it? Surely (saith St. Augustine) no invading neighbor was feared to put him out of possession, nor thief to rob him of his choicest plants; but God would have him therefore to keep it to himself, ne inde projiciatur. This is wittily inferred by him: but it seems the natural meaning of the place is this, that he should not only dress it, as at the first, but with continual care keep it. God would not have man idle, no not in Paradise. Thus briefly of his dressing and keeping: now we are to consider in the fifth place

That he might eat of every tree in the Garden. Behold God's bounty: there was not only the delicacy of all fruits, but variety; and Adam was not limited to some few, he might eat of every tree: neither was he for a short time to have enjoyed this, if he had harkened to the command of his Lord. For in the midst grew the tree of life, of which he might eat at his pleasure: the other trees (saith S. Augustine ) were given to him to satisfy his hunger and thirst, but this to give vigor to him, and keep him from infirmity, age, and death: yet this grant was not so general, but that it had annexed unto it a restraint, which we are to consider of in the sixth place:

From the t • ee of knowledge. It was not so called (as Josephus dreamed) because it had a virtue in it to sharpen the understanding, that man might know God the better. (For it was as the other trees of the Garden, without sense or knowledge:) but it was entitled so in a double respect:

1. Because joined to the commandment, it was an outward sign, showing what was good, viz. what God commanded; and what was evil, viz. what God forbad.

2. In respect of the event. As the waters of Meribah or strife were so called, because Israel there contended: so was this tree called the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because hereby Adam knew experimentally what good there was in obeying, and what evil in disobeying; what good in innocence, and what evil in iniquity; what good within the bounds of Paradise, and what evil in the accursed world. St. Augustine thus openeth the matter, Do not touch this tree. Why? What is this tree? If it be good, why should I not touch it? If it be evil, what maketh it in Paradise? Doubtless it was good; why then may be not touch it? That father answereth sweetly, quia obedientem te volo, non contradicentem; serve, prius audi domini jussum, & tunc jubentis disce consilium. God, like a good Physician, shown Adam what was hurtful; Adam like an intemperate patient, would not refrain it.

In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die. The same day thou forsakest me in thy disobedience, I will forsake thee in my justice: thou shalt die, first, the death of the body, and after, the death of the soul, if thou believe not in the promised seed: and not thou only in thy person, but all thy children stand and fall in thee: they stand in thy obedience, and in thy disobedience they fall: and in the truth of this let all confess to the glory of God, Iniquum est ut been sit desertori boni, it was sin in Adam to forsake his Maker, it was justice in God to punish him that in this manner had forsaken him.

Thus much for the opening of the Text. Let us now apply it to this honorable assembly.

1 This Garden of Eden may well be compared to our mother the Church.

2 This man, to our spiritual and temporal Rulers.

3 This placing man in Paradise, to their calling, that is, of God.

4 This dressing and keeping it, to their labors in their charge.

5 The eating of every tree, to their reward.

6 Their restraint from the tree of knowledge, to that which is forbidden them.

7 This threatened death, to the punishment of all transgressors.

1 Touching our Church, and her resemblances to Paradise.

• 1 As Paradise was separated from other parts of the earth, so this Land: the Poet calleth us, Toto divisos orbe Britannos.
• 2 As Paradise was beautified with the lights of nature: so our Church with gifts of grace above nature.
• 3 As Paradise was beset with fair trees, that hare pleasant fruits: so our Church with many Pastors, whose lives are fair to behold, and the fruits of their lips sweet to taste.
• 4 In the midst of Paradise was the tree of life, in our Church Christ crucified: on whom whosoever feedeth by faith shall live forever. So that what Jacob spake of the place where he was, may be said of our Church; This is no other than the house of God. For albeit there be many plants in this Garden which the Lord hath not planted; many wild branches that need pruning, many dead, not enlived by Christ, many poisonous weeds, many flowers fair in show, but of a stinking savor; and no marvel: (for in the Ark there was a Cham, in Abraham's house an Ishmael, in Jacob's family a Reuben, in David's Court an Absalom, in the number of Christ's Disciples a Judas, nay, in heaven a Lucifer. ) Yet since our Church striveth to pluck up these weeds, and unsavourie or unfruitful plants, and desires to be freed of them, it may truly be called the Garden of God. For as St. Augustine saith, The Goats must feed with the sheep till the chief shepherd come. Ille nobis imperavit congregationem, sibi reservavit separationem: ill dabit separare qui nescit errare.

2 Touching our Rulers and Governors resemblance to the man. Adam, whom God appointed Ruler over all the creatures, was furnished with gifts agreeable. God made greater lights to rule the day and night: so should they be great in wisdom, and great in goodness that are to enlighten others. I am not to flatter you, nor to reprove you: happy is that Church whose Rulers are so qualified.

3 Touching the comparison of Adams placing in Paradise with our calling.

• 1 I note, that God was not wooed with friendship, nor won with money, nor swayed with affection, to place Adam in Paradise; but of his own voluntary motion he placed him there. Let us tread in the steps of our heavenly Father. When Clement the fifth Bishop of Rome was importuned by his kindred, and offered money to confer a benefice upon an unworthy man, he answered, Nolo obtemperare sanguini, sed Deo: let us take on us the like resolution. For what an uncomely thing is it to set a leaden head upon a golden body? to make fools rulers of wise men?
• 2 I note, that Adam did not ambitiously affect this place, nor by indirect means sought to wind himself into it; but God took him by the hand, and placed him there: but now I fear St. Jeromes speech is true of divers, Presbyteratus humilitate despectâ festinamus episcopatum auro redimere.
• 3 I note, Adam was not created in Paradise, but by his maker placed in it. Let me apply this to you the right worshipful Governors of this City: You were not born, but brought by God to this rule and government; though as clouds you soar aloft, yet were you but vapors drawn from the earth: it is God that hath lifted up your heads, as he raised David from the sheepfold, and Joseph from the dungeon. Wherefore in acknowledgment of your own unworthiness, and God's goodness to you, say you with Jacob, With my staff passed I over this Jordan. Say you with David, Quis ego sum? aut quae est cognatio mea? Ascribe the glory of your wealth and honor to God, kiss the blessed hand that hath lifted you up, and consider with me in the next place why God placed you here.

4 Touching Adams dressing and keeping Paradise, and your charge. St. Ambrose well observeth, that though Paradise needed no dressing, yet God would have Adam to dress it, that his example might be a law to his posterity to dress and keep the place of their charges. It is not enough for you to be good men, ye must be good rulers. He that hath an office must attend upon his office: it is opus oneris, as well as opus honoris. Ye must not be like antickes in great buildings, which seem to bear much, but indeed sustain nothing: neither must ye lay the whole burden upon other men's shoulders, since the key of government is laid on yours. Now in dressing the Garden, three duties are especially to be required:

• 1 To cast and model the Garden into a comely form: Of which I need to speak nothing. Your form of government may be a president to other Cities of this kingdom: strangers have written in praise of it.
• 2 To root up and cast out stinking weeds. Among which I would commend two to your special care;
  • 1 Papism.
  • 2 Puritanism.

I deny not but that it belongeth to the special care of our Bishops to pluck up these weeds: yet as Judas said to Simon, Help thou me in my lot, and I will help thee in thine; so ought both Spiritual and Temporal Governors join hands in rooting out these weeds.

1 Of Papism. In the days of Jehoshaphat that good King, it is recorded, that the high places were not taken away, because the people did not set their heart to seek the God of their Fathers. The Papists seek to their God of Rome the Pope, as the Canonists style him, not to the God of heaven, nor the God of their Fathers. Did their Forefathers in the Primitive Church equal traditions with Scripture? consecrate oratories to Saints? pray in an unknown tongue? mutilate the Sacrament? adore the wafer, and call it their maker? did they sell indulgences to free men from Purgatory? Saint Peter taught us to be subject to every human ordinance: St. Paul commandeth every soul to be subject to the higher powers. The Primitive Christians in Tertullian's time, though they were cruelly persecuted by the heathen Emperors, and had power and strength enough to revenge themselves; yet they never lifted up their hands against any of those bloody Tyrants. Hear their profession in Tertullian, Nos nec Nigriani, nec Cassiani sumus, we are no Nigrians, no Cassians, no Rebels, no Traitors; we fill all your Cities, Islands, Towns, yea, your Palace and Senate: What were we not able to do, if it were not more agreeable to our Religion to be killed, than upon any pretence to kill? On the contrary, the Papists teach that it is not only lawful, but a meritorious act, to lay hands upon the Lord's anointed, if he favor not their Idolatries and Superstitions; witness Cardinal Como his instructions to Parry, and Sixtus his oration in defense of the Jacobine that murdered Henry the third. Had the Apostles preached this faith to the world, should they have converted the world? Was this the practice of the Primitive Church? Is this Religion to make murder spiritual resolution, to eat their God upon a bargain of blood? Cannot God propagate his truth but by these wicked and damnable means? Origen writeth that some unskillful Emperickes dealt with their Patients not to consult with learned Physicians, lest by them their ignorance should be descried: even so the leaders of Papists deal with them, they will not suffer them to hear our Sermons, or consult with our Divines, not for love to their followers, lest they should be ensnared by us; but lest their falsehood should be discovered.

2 Of Puritanism. By Puritans the Preacher professed that he understood not those who are usually branded with that name, but a sect of impure Catharists or Donatists, styled The Brethren of the Separation, who refuse to partake with us in our Prayers and Sacraments, whose God is their fancy, and Religion the dream of their own heart; who seek to build a Babel of confusion among us: but the God of heaven confound their tongues. Was not the Church of Corinth more corrupted in Doctrine and Manners than they pretend ours to be? yet Saint Paul calleth it a Church. Doth not Christ call it his field where there grew many tares? Did not Christ suffer Judas, whom he knew to be a Thief and a Traitour, to partake of the Sacrament with his Disciples? Yet these pure Sectaries will none of our Communion, for that some unclean persons presume to come thither. To whom we answer as Saint Augustine doth to Cresconius, These evils are displeasing to the good; we forbid and restrain them what we can, what we cannot we suffer: but we do not for the tares sake forsake the field, for the chaff leave the floor of Christ, for the evil fish break the net, for the Goats sake refuse the fold of Christ. When Religion was partly corrupted, partly contemned in Israel, and the Prophets cried, Go out from them, and touch no unclean thing, did they then sever themselves from them? I find no such thing (saith Saint Augustine) yet doubtless they did themselves what they willed others to do. Hoc ergo est exire ore non parcere, hoc immundum non tangere, voluntate non consentire: liber in conspectu Dei est, cui nec Deus sua peccata imputat quae non fecit, neque aliena quae non approbavit, ne{que} negligentiam, quia non tacuit, ne{que} superbiam, quia ab unitate Ecclesiae non recessit.

3 To nourish the tender and feeble plants, that is, to show mercy on them that are in need. When I call to mind your Alms-houses for the poor, your Hospitals for the maimed, your houses of correction for idle persons; I cannot but commend your care in this behalf: this City may be a president for all other places: the Garden of Eden never smelt so sweet in the nostrils of Adam, as the remembrance of these your works of mercy in the nostrils of Almighty God. Nunquam veterascet haec manus. Cast thy bread upon the waters, and after many days thou shalt find it; but see thou cast the bread thou hast justly gotten: Quicquid enim (saith St. Gregory) ex scelere in Dei sacrificio affertur, non placat Dei iracundiam, sed irritat. Secondly, Cave ne rem pauperum non pauperibus tribuas, & liberalitas liberalitate pereat. Thirdly, give that thou intendest whilst thou livest. For thou knowest not how thy Will will be performed. Hear what St. Basil saith: When thou shalt have no name among the living, thou sayest, I will be liberal: Is not this to say in effect, I would live always, and enjoy my substance? but if I die then I give: We may thank thy death for thy bounty, not thee. Be not deceived, God would have a living (not a dead) sacrifice. Lastly, you must continue in good order the several places of your charge: the cursed earth will still bring forth weeds, wherewith your garden for want of care will be soon over-grown. Remember Saint Paul's cursum consummavi: non cepisse sed perfecisse virtutis est, nec inchoantibus sed perseverantibus datur proemium. And so I fall upon my fifth point.

5 Touching the reward. Ye shall not dress Paradise in vain, God will be unto you as unto Abraham, a buckler and exceeding great reward: he will build up your house, and bless you in all your ways; yea, he will give you to feed on the tree of life in the midst of the Paradise of God.

6 Touching the prohibition. Since God is so bountiful to permit you to eat of all other trees, eat not of the tree of knowledge: you shall not be as God's, though the Devil tell it you, nor gain heaven by it, but lose Paradise. Naboth 's vineyard, Uriah 's wife, Achan 's golden wedge, Belshazzar 's quaffing bowles, Gehazi 's bribes were forbidden fruit, sweet in the taste, but death in the stomach.

7 Touching the punishment. Although corporal death seizeth not forthwith upon offenders, yet the sentence is passed against them: the life of grace is departed from them, and except by repentance they seek to have part in the first resurrection, they shall be cast into the lake of fire without redemption. To conclude all, let us that are desirous to walk with God, as our callings require, seek to dress and keep the garden, our mother Church and Country: let us not make ourselves like briars to scratch her, or thorns to prick her, or weeds to annoy her; but as blessed plants let us bear plentiful fruits to comfort and nourish her.

Thus this Speaker, as if he had tasted of the tree of life, which, as Josephus writeth, prohibuit senium & mortem; this aged Paul discoursed unto you of the Garden of Eden in a flourishing style: he, as the former two, presented the Spouse with a precious border, wherein I am now to work his emblem, consisting, as the former, of an Image and a Motto; the Image is Triarius, the Motto the words of Tully, de claris Oratoribus. Me delectabat Triarii in illa aetate plena literatae senectutis oratio: quanta severitas in vultu? quantum pondus in verbis? quam nihil non consideratum exibat ex ore? I was much taken with the learned oration of Triarius that ancient Orator: what gravity was in his countenance? what weight in his speech? how did he ponder every word that proceeded out of his mouth?

THE FOURTH BORDER: OR, THE SACRIFICE OF RIGHTEOUSNES.

GOd hath made us a feast of many days: that we be not unthankful unto him, let us offer him a sacrifice, especially that which is prescribed in the words of my text. Wherein you have a double precept,

• 1 Of righteousness. Wherein observe
  • 1 The act, Offer.
  • 2 The matter, a sacrifice.
• 2 Of hope and confidence. Wherein observe
  • 1 The act, Trust.
  • 2 The object, in the Lord.

1 Of the act, Offer. To offer is to exhibit and show forth such works before God, as please him, and testify his power and goodness; and we are said herein to offer unto him in regard of our intention herein to perform acceptable service unto him, and our desire to glorify him: not as if God received any things at our hands: for our goodness reacheth not to him. If thou be righteous it is nothing to him, what receiveth he at thine hand? Obsequio nostro non indiget Deus, sed nos illius indigemus imperio. And albeit the Scripture attribute hands to God, yet it is to give, not to receive anything from us. (O that our Demi-gods, Judges and Magistrates, had but such hands! O that they were like unto Artaxerxes Longimanus, not to take bribes, nor extort, but to reach justice!) What doth the Sun receive from the eye which it enlighteneth? or the fountain from the mouth which it refresheth and cooleth? or the anchor from the ship which it foundeth and establisheth? Notwithstanding, though God receive nothing from us, as any accession to his infinite perfection, and his simplicity excludeth any addition thereunto; yet he requireth our sacrifices as his rent and fee, and we are continually to offer them unto him; and that in a threefold respect:

1 Of God. Cui omne altum inclinat, cui omnes debent 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , cui omne debemus quod sumus, quod possumus; from whom we receive all things.

2 In respect of our own condition, who are God's workmanship, and therefore ought to be serviceable to him; his field, and therefore ought to bear fruit unto him, his royal Priests, and therefore ought to offer spiritual sacrifices unto him.

3 In respect of the benefit which redoundeth to us by these spiritual sacrifices. Cast up anything towards heaven, it falls down back again: even so if we send up the savor of good works to heaven, it will distill down again like sweet waters upon our heads: as on the contrary, the sins of Sodom sent up a steam to heaven, which congealed in the air, and turned into a storm of sulphur, and rained down upon their heads. To offer unto God, what is it else than to scatter seed on earth, that we may receive fruit in heaven? to open our laps and bosom, that God's treasure may fall into it? to lay the sure foundation of a building not made with hands? to stoop and kneel down before God, that he may put upon us a Crown of glory, as Noblemen when they receive a Coronet from the King? Herein note the difference between those things which are offered to God, and those that are offered to the world: those that are offered to God are preserved, and returned back upon us; but those things that are offered to the world perish themselves, and destroy us; as a talent of lead sinks it self, and drowns him on whom it is cast. Pereat ergo mundi lucrum, ne fiat animae damnum. There was never heard of such a bankrupt as the world, which breaketh every week, nay, every day, and undoeth thousands: it useth the worldling as Vespasian did his catchpole officers, who, when they had filled themselves with rapines and spoils, picked some occasions to squieze them like sponges, and crush out all that they had gathered, and draw them dry.

[Use.] 1 Whence we may learn how wise and happy they were, who have been benefactors to Hospitals, Colleges, and the like places; who, whilst they lived, offered sacrifices of righteousness to God. For their gifts are doubly restored unto them in a name among men; so long as one stone shall lie upon another in these buildings, their praise shall be read: secondly, in an immarcessible crown in heaven. As on the contrary, you may discover their folly, who offered all their wealth and means to the world, to pride, to lust, to riot: whose reward is vanity whilst they live, rottenness when they die, shame and confusion when they arise.

2 This may serve to stir us up to exhibit willingly our offerings to God. Offer of yourselves; God loveth a cheerful giver. How cheerfully doth the husbandman go out to sow his seed? yet after he hath sown it, it is subject to many casualties. How easily do fruitful trees part with their ripe fruit? A full and frontie ear sheds of himself; but on the contrary, a withered and blasted ear, crush it and beat it never so much, it will yield nothing but chaff and dust: a perfect emblem of a greedy griper, a sordid churl; hammer him how you will, strain him, squieze him, thump him, yet you shall get nothing from him but that which is sordid and illiberal, like himself.

3 This may serve to reprove those qui non afferunt, sed auferunt, that are so far from offering unto God, that they take away from him, either his glory and worship, as the Papists and all Idolaters do; or his tithes and oblations, as our sacrilegious harpies; of whom we may truly say, Nihil tam sacrum quod non inveniat sacrilegum. But let these Church-robbers remember that they swallow a golden hook which shall be raked out of their bellies, as Job speaketh. Some part offerings between God and Mammon, as S. Austin speaketh of Cain, Sua Deo, sibi seipsum dedit. In sum, there is a threefold abuse in things offered to God:

1 Extreme niggardnesse and deceit, which God accurseth.

2 Bribery and corruption in ordering & disposing of things offered unto God, in conferring Benefices upon Church-men, or bestowing places in Hospitals; not upon the fittest for such offices and places, but such as by their purse can make best friends.

3 Diversion of things consecrated unto God, to maintain lust and pride. A lamentable thing that Hospitals erected for the maintenance of the poor, should not be free from oppression: one Bell-wether carrieth away all the wool and the fat, and rangeth whither he pleaseth, when the poor Bedesman is kept to his mathematical line, a small pittance God wot, a penny a week, or a morsel of bread a day. Thus much of our first observation.

2 The second observation from the act is, that the word in the original signifieth mactando offerre, to offer as it were by slaughter; which intimateth that we must use a kind of violence to ourselves in the performances of these duties. For we have many lusts and affections in us, as envy, contention, pride, covetousness, which are more clamorous than any beggars, and like horse-leaches suck out all our estate and means: besides, we have many worldly occasions; the belly craves, the back craves, yea, and braves it too, the wife claims, yea, and exclaims, children ask, and friends challenge a great part; that even in an ample state little or nothing remains for God: so that unless a man put a sacrificing knife to the throat of his concupiscence, and cut the wind-pipe of his worldly desires, and bind himself as it were with cords to the horns of the Altar, the flesh and the world will devour all, and nothing will be left for charity to bestow, but a few scraps cast into the alms-basket.

The sacrifices of righteousness. In these words I note four particulars:

• 1 Rem, Sacrifice.
• 2 Numerum, Sacrifices.
• 3 Qualitatem, of righteousness.
• 4 Effectum, and trust in the Lord.

Rem, Sacrific • . Sacrificium (as Augustine defines it) est omne opus bonum quod agitur ut sanctâ societate inhaereamus Deo, relatum ad illum finem boni quo veraciter beati esse possimus. Sacrifices are either,

• 1 Legal: and these of three sorts,
  • 1 Burnt-offerings.
  • 2 Sin-offerings.
  • 3 Peace-offerings.
• 2 Evangelical: and these may be divided, as the schools speak, into
  • 1 Sacrificium redemptionis, seu universalis sanctificationis.
  • 2 Sacrificia specialis sanctificationis.

For the Legal, they were umbrae futurorum; viz.

1 Of Christ's sacrifice. In which respect Nazianzen calleth them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; St. Augustine termeth them praedicamenta unius veri sacrificii: and St. Cyril saith, Parturiebant veritatem sacrificii.

2 Of the spiritual sacrifice of Christians, that is, holy offices of Religion and charity. So saith St. Augustine, Quaecun{que} in mysterio tabernaculi & de sacrificiis leguntur, ad Dei & proximi dilectionem referuntur: and Justin Martyr, Figurae eorum quae vel praedestinati ad Christum, vel Christus ipse gesturus erat. Now as the shadow vanisheth in the presence of the body, so these after Christ's oblation upon the Cross, Tunc (as Tertullian speaketh elegantly) compendiatum est Novum Testamentum, & legis laciniosis operibus expeditum: As those that cast metals, saith Cyril of Alexandria, first make a mold, after the fashion of the bell, vessel, or image which they cast; but after the metal hath run, and the vessel is cast, or the work finished, they lay aside their mold of earth: so after the work of our redemption was finished, the types and molds of the law were cast away. This Origen after his manner expresseth by an excellent allegory: Til Isaac was born & weaned, Hagar & Ishmael remained in Abraham's house, but afterwards they were turned out of doors: so til Christ the true Isaac was born and weaned, the bondwoman & her son, the Old Testament and types thereof, remained in the Church: but after his birth and ascension they were forever cashiered.

For Evangelical sacrifices, they are of two sorts:

• 1 The prime and sovereign.
• 2 Subordinate and secundarie.

1 The prime and sovereign is of Christ himself, who offered his body for our redemption, and by his blood entered into the holy place: of which St. Augustine excellently noteth, Unum manebat cum illo cui offerebat, unum se fecit iis pro quibus offerebat, unus ipse erat qui offerebat & offerebatur.

2 Subordinate sacrifice: to this are referred

1 The sacrifice of commemoration, or the commemoration of Christ's bloody sacrifice in the Sacrament of our Lord's supper, quo opimitate dominici corporis vescimur, & anima de Deo saginatur, which in this respect Chrysostom calleth coeleste, simul{que} venerandum sacrificium; and Irenaeus, novi testamenti novam oblationem.

2 The works of charity, which are called sacrifices; and we must still offer them, if we believe Tertullian; Spiritualibus modo hostiis litandum Deo: and Cyril, Crasso ministerio relicto mentalis fragrantiâ oblationis. And these we are to offer the rather, because we are eased of the burden of the other. The difference between us and those under the law is not in the duty of offering, but in the kind of sacrifice: oblationes hic, oblationes illic. Quippe cum jam nona servis sed a liberis offerantur, omnes justi sacerdotalem habent ordinem: not to distribute the mysteries of salvation, but to offer spiritual sacrifices to God.

2 Numerum, Sacrifices in the plural number: plural in specie and in individuo. For we are to offer divers kinds of sacrifices, and we are often to offer them. There are ordinary sacrifices and extraordinary, morning and evening; sacrifices of the soul, and sacrifices of the body; internal and external; whereunto St. Cyril applieth that description of Solomon's Queen, Psal. 45. All glorious within, in inward devotion, & in a vesture embroidered with gold, in respect of her outward oblations. It is not enough to offer to God inward sacrifices, we must offer also outward. First, because God requireth them. Secondly, because we receive from him outward blessings. Thirdly, because we sin in outward things, and therefore ought to seek to pacify and appease his wrath by our outward sacrifices. Of these there are divers kinds: I will note three.

1. Of alms and charitable deeds, whereunto the Apostle exhorteth: Of these three the greatest is charity: haec est Regina virtutum, saith S. Chrysostom; it is as the purple robe which in ancient time was proper to Princes. If thou seest this purple robe of charity upon any, say certainly he is the child of God, he is an heir of the kingdom of heaven.

2. Of mortification, whereunto the Apostle exhorteth. Hereby we express the dying of the Lord Jesu in our bodies;

• 1. By temperance in our diet, which is not more salubrious to the body, than healthful to the soul.
• 2. By fasting, which without doubt is an act tending to religion, and helping it. For so we read, Anna served God with fasting and prayer: and Christ promiseth a reward unto it; and the Fathers generally make fasting and alms-deeds the two wings, carrying our prayers to heaven.
• 3. By Christian modesty in apparel, habit and deportment: cura corporis, incuria animae. The pride and luxury of this age in this kind exhausteth men's estates, and eats up all their holy oblations. What shall I speak of our plastered faced Jezebels, who are worse than those Idols which we have cast out of our Churches? Those are but dead Idols, these are living, and rank themselves with our gravest Matrons: all bounds of modesty are broken, and marks of honesty confounded.

3. Of obedience, whereunto the Apostle exhorteth. If obedience be better than sacrifice, the sacrifice of obedience must needs be the best sacrifice. Yet so hath the Devil blinded many, that they place the greatest Religion in disobedience. God accepted not Corah his sacrifice, because he sacrificed in schism: nor will he of their outward religious acts, who stand in opposition to the Churches authority. Government is as necessary in the Church as in the Commonwealth.

3. Qualitatem sacrificiorum, sacrifices of righteousness, that is, sacrifices rightly offered. Chrysostom showeth the manner; the sanctified will (saith he) is the altar, charity the fire, the sword of the Spirit the knife, the hand faith.

4. Effectum, the effect of these sacrifices. As good works partake in the name, so have they the effect and virtue of sacrifices. In a good construction they may be said to appease God's wrath, and to procure unto us spiritual and temporal blessings: they may be said to appease God's wrath three ways;

1. By taking away the fuel thereof, viz. sins. For as light expelleth darkness, so the sacrifice of righteousness expelleth impiety and iniquity, which provoke God's wrath.

2. By brightning the Image of God in us, and making it more conspicuous: this 〈…〉 enflame God's love to us in his beloved Christ Jesus. Certainly as 〈◊〉 •• aments & jewels make a Spouse more amiable in the eyes of her hus • 〈◊〉 good works, when their imperfections are covered with the robes of 〈◊〉 righteousness, make the soul more amiable in the sight of God and men.

3. By making us capable of a greater measure of God's love and favor. For though they are no way meritorious causes of God's blessings spiritual or temporal, yet are they as precious dispositions and conditions in the subject: and as these appease God's wrath, so they may be said to impetrate of God spiritual and temporal blessings.

In this argument this grave and learned Divine expatiated, alleging many remarkable passages out of the ancient Fathers: namely, out of Saint Chrysostom, in Heb. hom. 33. Talibus sacrificiis placatur Deus: S. Ambrose de penit. l. 2. c. 4. Qui agit poenitentiam non solum diluere lachrymis debet peccatum suum, sed etiam emendatioribus factis operire, & tegere delicta superiora, ut non ei imputetur peccatum: Gelas. cont. Pelag. council. Tom. 2. Tam jugi supplicatione, quam eleemosynis, caeterisque bonis actionibus expiandum est peccatum: August. ep. 54. Misericordiae operibus expiatur peccatum: Fulgent. ep. 2. Agnoscamus opera bona locum orationis habere apud Deum: Hilar. in Matth. can. 4. Charitas errorum nostrorum ad Deum ambitiosa est patrona: Tertull. de patient. c. 13. Mortificatio aures Christi aperit, severitatem dispergit, clementiam illicit: Greg. moral. 9. c. 14. Verba nostra ad Deum sunt opera quae exhibemus: Et in Psal. 7. poenit. Quid est manibus Deum exquirere, nisi sanctis operibus invocare Salvatorem? Cyp. ep. 8. Admoneo religiosam solicitudinem vestram ut ad placandum atque exorandum Dominum, non voice solâ, sed & jejuniis & lachrymis, & omni genere deprecationis ingemiscamus: Chrysost. 2. Cor. hom. 20. Spiritum vocas non verbis, sed factis opus clamat, & fit sacrificium.

And now that I have set before you the gift of the fourth Speaker, viz. a border of gold with studs of silver; it remaineth that I work in it, as in the three former, his emblem, consisting of an Image and a Motto: the Image is Cotta, the Motto the words of Cicero, de claris Oratoribus: Inveniebat acute Cotta, dicebat pure, nihil erat in ejus oratione nisi siccum & sanum. Cotta his invention was acute, his elocution was pure, and there was nothing in his Sermon which was not solid and sound.

THE REHEARSERS CONCLUSION, OR THE FASTENING THE BORDERS TO THE SPOUSE HER NECKE AND BREAST.

PLiny writeth of an Echo sounding from the Tomb of Metella, which repeated the same sentence five several times: this five-fold Echo I am now become in your ears, eandem sententiam quinquies regerens, rehearsing now my Text five times, four in repetition and application to the four Preachers, and now the fifth time in the conclusion and application to myself. Vary the translation as you please, yet the collation will still hold; if you stand to the last, and read the words, we will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver, the collation is already made: for the four borders are the four methodical discourses, beautified with variety of art and learning, which I have imperfectly rendered; and nothing remaineth, but that (as it were) with a silk string or ribbon I gather the rouse of pearl, and all the borders of gold together (which before I took off, that we might more particularly view them) and fasten them all to the Spouse her neck & breast by drawing towards an end, and pressing close my exhortation to the heart of this great assembly. If you follow learned Junius his translation, Faciemus tibi aureas lineas cum punctis argenteis, you may be pleased to interpret the four lines of gold drawn at length, to be the four Texts handled and unfolded at large by the Preachers: and the puncta argentea, or the points of silver, special notes of observation upon them, placed as points or pricks in a line, some in the beginning, some in the middle, and some in the end. The points beginning and continuing we have already passed, and are now come to puncta terminantia, the closing points; or rather period and full poin of all. But if you prefer the Seventies translation before either, and will have the Text rendered thus, Faciemus tibi similitudines auri cum punctis argenteis, We will make thee similitudes or resemblances of gold with points of silver; my application shall be in the words of Origen, Nos tibi aurea ornamenta facere non possumus, non tam divites sumus ut Sponsus, qui aureum tibi monile largietur; nos similitudines auri faciemus. And indeed what are the imperfect notes which I have imparted to you, but similitudines, obscure resemblances of those borders of gold I spake but now of? In which respect, as when Marcellus in his Pageant brought in golden Statues or Images of the Cities he had taken, and afterwards Fabius brought in the same carved in wood; Chrysippus said wittily, Has illarum thecas esse; so it may be truly said, that the Sermons which I have repeated were but illorum thecae, covers, or at the best tables and indexes of theirs: the blame whereof lieth not wholly upon the broken vessel of my memory, or my noters: for though the vessel be sound, and set direct under the spouts mouth, it is not possible▪ but that some drops should fall besides, and others be blown away with the wind. The heavenly doctrine of the Preachers poured down in great abundance like great showers of rain from heaven, they themselves were as golden spouts, at whose mouth though I set my pitchers as close and steady as I could, yet many silver drops went besides them; notwithstanding you see they are full and run over. Take you yet another similitude, that you may have similitudines, according to the letter of my Text, as the Seventy read it. The four Sermons were like four Garlands crowning the Spouse of Christ, out of which I have culled some of the chiefest flowers; and howsoever in the plucking of them and sorting them many leaves are shattered, and some flowers lost, yet there are more left than can be contained within the handful of the time allotted. Wherefore now I will leave gathering, and fall to making up my Posy, winding up all the flowers orationis meae filo, with the remainder of the thread of my discourse upon the Text.

We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver. As out of the branches of trees there shoot first buds, then blossoms, and last of all fruit; so out of Texts of Scripture, which are [ 1] branches of the tree of life, issueth first the literal sense, which because it groweth immediately out of the bark and stock of the letter, resembleth the [ 2] bud: and then the spiritual, which because it is most pleasant and beautiful to the eye of the soul, may be likened to the [ 3] blossom: and thirdly the moral sense, which because it is most fruitful, and immediately profitable for our instruction, may be termed the fruit. To illustrate this by the words of my Text, or rather the words of my Text by it. The literal sense is of Solomon his Queen, richly decked; the spiritual is of Christ his Church, rarely furnished; the moral is of sacred vows religiously to be performed. You see

• 1 The bud of the literal,
• 2 The blossom of the spiritual,
• 3 The fruit of the moral sense.

But herein you are to observe a remarkable difference between the tree of life and other trees: for their buds are but a degree to the blossoms, and the blossoms to their fruit, neither bud nor blossom bear fruit; but in the tree of life both the bud, which I compared to the literal, and the blossom, which I called the spiritual, and the fruit, which I termed the moral, bear several and distinct fruits. For instance, the bud yields this fruit, That it is lawful for noble and honorable women, especially Kings wives & daughters, to wear rich attire and costly ornaments. The blossom yields this fruit, That as God's goodness hath abounded to the Church under the Gospel, so all Christians ought to abound in love and thankfulness to him. Lastly, the moral sense, which I termed the fruit, yieldeth over and above this fruit, That what the friends of the Spouse here promise, all godly pastors and people ought to perform, that is, these out of the riches of their learning, they out of their worldly wealth ought to adorn and beautify the Church, and in different kinds make for the Spouse of Christ borders of gold with studs of silver.

To gather first the fruit of the bud, or literal sense. If costly apparel and precious attire were an abomination to the Lord; if cloth of gold and silver, and borders of pearl and precious stones were as great a deformity to the mind as they are an ornament to the body, the Scripture would not set out Rebecca in bracelets and abiliments of gold, nor Ezekiel in the person of God upbraid the Synagogue as he doth: I decked thee with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thine hands, and a chain on thy neck, and I put a jewel on thy fore-head, and ear-rings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head; thus wast thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk: nor Solomon described his Queen in a vesture of gold of Ophir: neither the Prophet Isaiah have compared the Spouse of Christ clothed with the garments of salvation, and covered with the robes of righteousness, to a Bride adorned with jewels. And therefore howsoever Saint Paul, and Saint Peter forbid women to array themselves with gold, or pearls, or costly array: and Saint Cyprian is yet severer against costly apparel, saying, Nullarum fere pretiosior cultus est, quàm quarum pudor vilis est: and, Serico & purpurâ indutae Christum induere non possunt, auro & margaritis, & monilibus ornatae ornamenta pectoris perdiderunt (which I spare to English in favor of that sex): yet, as I conceive, the holy Apostles & the devout Father in these & the like wholesome and necessary admonitions, condemn not simply God's servants for the use, but rather profane persons for the abuse of these beautiful creatures of God; they seek to abase the pride of the heart, not abate the price of these merchandizes. They tax, and that most justly, three vices too common in these luxurious times,

• 1 Vanity in the garish form of apparel.
• 2 Excess in the costly matter or stuff.
• 3 Indecency and immodesty in both, or either.

Or they speak comparatively, that women should not so much desire to adorn their outside with resplendent pearls, as their inward parts with jewels of virtue and grace.

We have gathered the fruit of the bud: come we now to the blossom, that is, the beautiful allegory or spiritual sense; which containeth in it a gracious promise made to the Church, either of larger bounds and limits, likened to the borders of gold, or of a greater measure of knowledge in holy Scriptures, quae sensibus aureae sunt eloquii nitore argenteae, or abundance of the gifts of the spirit, which no otherwise adorn the Church with their variety, than a golden chain or border wrought about with studs or specks of silver. Now if God hath made good these his promises to us, shall we make frustrate our holy vows to him? the better he hath been to us, the worse shall we prove to him? hath he made more of us than any Nation upon the earth, and shall we make less of him? No, the more we have received at his hands, the more let us lift up our hearts and hands unto him, or else for our unthankfulness he will take the chains and borders of gold from our Church, and put them on some other, that will more thankfully accept them. O let us resemble these resemblances in my Text, the borders of gold with studs of silver, which, as they receive luster from the Sun-beams, so they gild them, and reflect them back with clearer light, and greater heat. Sacrilege hath already picked out, and plucked away many Oe's and Spangles of silver from our Church, Heresy begins to corrupt her gold, God grant for our ungratitude and security in time we lose not both.

I will close up your stomach, and my discourse, with the fruits of the moral sense of this Text. For the tree of life herein resembleth the Persian Pomecitrine, which (as Theophrastus and Pliny write) Simul frondescit, florescit, & fructificat; at the same time hath buds, blossoms, and fruits on it: and which is more strange in this than in that, each of these bear their several fruits. You have tasted the fruits of the bud or literal sense, and of the blossom and spiritual; let us now pluck the fruits of the moral.

We. Who speak here? The three persons, say three of our prime late Divines, Junius, Mercer and Whitaker: nay rather, saith Rosetus out of Origen and Jerome, the friends of the Bride, or her companions. For this Song is a kind of divine Pastoral, or Marriage play, consisting of divers acts and scenes; or a sacred Dialogue with many interlocutory passages. First, the Bride comes in and saith, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his lips: then the Bridegroom, I have compared thee, O my love, to a troupe of horses in Pharaoh's chariots; thy cheeks are comely with rouse of stones, and thy neck with chains. After which words he withdraweth himself, and sitteth at his repast, Ver. 12. and leaveth the Bride with her companions, as it were alone on the Stage; who thus speak to her, We will make thee, &c. The words in the original being indifferent to either Interpretation, I will rather be an Electicke, than a Criticke, choose out of both, than censure either. Admitting then the friends of the Bride to parley with her, what say they? We will. Which we? we of the Clergy, or you of the Laity? We of the Clergy, saith Aquinas, Rupertus, Sanctius, and Isidorus Hispalensis. For by the borders of gold are meant the holy Scriptures, which shine inwardly with the gold of spiritual senses, and outwardly with the silver of heavenly elocution. Nay, rather ye of the Laity, will others say: for we of the Clergy may say truly with Peter, Aurum & argentum non habemus, we have no gold to make borders of, nor silver to make studs of. If it be lawful for me to interpose my sentence, I would say questionless both: for both are retainers to this Queen, both are friends and servants of this Spouse, bothy owe homage unto her, both must offer unto her gold, silver, and precious stones: we out of the treasury of our knowledge, you of your wealth and substance. Our borders of gold are methodical and elaborate Sermons and Treatises; yours are charitable deeds: we make the Spouse borders of gold by sacred collections out of Scripture; you by liberal collections, according to Scripture: we by setting forth learned works tending to devotion; you by showing forth noble works of bounty & magnificency, proceeding from devotion, first of our works, and then of yours.

1 First, I observe it is said we will make thee borders, in the plural number, not a border of gold, with studs of silver, in the singular. It is not sufficient to make the Spouse one border, be it never so rich; we must make her many borders. Christ his threefold pasce enjoineth at least a double diligence in preaching: pasce after pasce teacheth us that we must draw line upon line, urge precept upon precept, lay link upon link, and join pearl to pearl, to make the Spouse a border. Peradventure you will say better one excellent Sermon than many mean and ordinary, Nardi parvus onyx eliciet vini cadum: one border of true pearl is more worth than a thousand of glass or sophisticate stones; one picture drawn with true and rich colors stands in more than many slubbered over with sleight wash colors. I grant it; and it were to be wished that they who preach seldomer did it always more accurately, that the defect in the number might be supplied in the weight of their Sermons: but certainly experience showeth, that the water corrupteth in the conduits, that are so stopped that they either run not at all, or but sparingly: and that the golden spouts which adorn the Temple, and run more frequently and fully, yield the sweetest and most wholesome water: and St. Basil observes the like of Wells, that they grow the better the more water is drawn out of them. Howsoever, considering the dullness of hearing, and mean capacity of the ordinary hearer, and brittleness of memory in all, I wish those that are of most eminent gifts to dispense the mysteries of salvation more frequently than they usually do, under pretence of more accurate preparation: because it is most true which Cato said in his defense for distributing pieces of silver amongst his soldiers, whereas other Captains bestowed gold on them: Melius est ut plures argentum quam pauci aurum referant, it is better that many should bear away silver than a few only gold; or to clothe my allegory with the words of my text, that many, if not all, receive from them studs of silver, than a few, or perhaps someone, a border of gold.

2 Secondly, I observe that it is here said borders of gold: the matter of the borders or chains must be gold, the matter of our Sermons must be the pure word of God, which is compared in Scripture to the purest gold. If any man speak (saith St. Peter) let him speak as the Oracles of God: not Popish legends, not scholastical subtleties, not moral essays, no nor sentences of holy Fathers, as the ground-work of their building; but as buttresses or ornaments only. For as Origen rightly inferreth, Sicut omne aurum quod fuit extra templum non est sanctificatum, ita omnis sensus qui reperitur extra divinam Scripturam, etsi admirabilis, non est sanctus; as no gold without the Temple was sanctified, so no sense or sentence is holy, though it seem never so admirable, if it be without the Scripture, that is, neither expressed therein, nor deduced by good consequence from thence.

3 Thirdly, I observe that it is said borders of gold, with studs of silver: this gold must be wrought into borders, our observations and meditations upon Scripture must be digested into order; and they may be illustrated also with variety of human learning, and choice observations and sentences of other eminent writers, as it were studs of silver: such as we find not only in St. Jeromes epistles, and St. Augustine's books of the City of God, and Eusebius his tractates De praeparatione, & demonstratione Evangelii, and Clemens Alexandrinus his Stromata; but also in the divinely inspired writings of St. Paul.

4 Fourthly, I observe that it is said borders of gold, with studs or spangs of silver, not borders of gold and silver, much less borders of silver, with studs of gold: the borders of gold were not made to set out the studs of silver, but contrariwise, the studs of silver to beautify and illustrate the borders of gold. We must not apply divinity to art, but art to divinity, lest we deservedly incur the censure of St. Basil upon some preachers in his days, They preach art and wit, and not Christ crucified. We must not make our Scripture texts serve to vent our secular learning, but contrariwise, modestly, and moderately use secular learning to explicate and illustrate texts of Scripture: sentences of Fathers, and other Authors, may be scattered in Sermons, as spangs of silver about the Spouse her border, the border must not be made of them. A fair jewel in the hat, or pendants at the ear, or a chain of gold or strings of pearl about the neck, become the parts well: but to be all hung about with four hundred distinct jewels as Lollia Paulina was, and not only to bore the ears with rings, but also to dig holes in the cheeks, chin and lips, and there stick precious stones after the manner of the Peruvians, were vain folly, if not madness. I have done with our task, I come now to yours.

Although it properly appertains to our skillful Bezaleels and Aholiabs to make borders and chains for the Spouse, yet you are to contribute at least to the making of them: it is your duty to bring into her wardrobe jewels of gold, and jewels of silver, and jewels of raiment. It is not enough to love God with your strength, you must honor him also with your substance. It is not only required that you communicate with your Pastors in the Word and Sacraments, but also that you communicate to him that teacheth in all good things: you have not well acquitted you of your devotion when you have given Christ your ears, you must farther give ear-rings to his Spouse: it will not excuse you to write Christ his words in the palms of your hands, if you make not bracelets for her arms: you have not done all when you have bowed your neck to his yoke, you must farther decke her neck with chains: there is something more required of you than to put on the Lord Jesus, you must clothe his Queen in a vesture of gold. Where can you better bestow your wealth than upon the Church which receiveth of you glass, but returneth you pearl; receiveth from you carnal things, returneth to you spiritual; receiveth from you common bread, returneth to you sacramental; receiveth from you covers of shame, returneth to you robes of glory: in a word, receiveth from you earthly trash, returneth to you heavenly treasure? When God commanded the people to bring offerings to the Lord, they brought them in so freely, that there needed a Proclamation to restrain their bounty. And Livy reporteth of the Romans, that when the Tribunes complained that they wanted gold in the treasury to offer to Apollo, the Matrons of Rome plucked off their bracelets, chains and rings, and gave them unto the Priests to supply that defect. And who knoweth not that our Forefathers in the days of ignorance placed all Religion in a manner in building religious Houses, and setting them forth most gorgeously? O let not the Jews exceed us Christians, let not Heresy, Idolatry and Superstition out-strip true Religion in sacred bounty. If their devotion needed bridles, let not ours need spurs: If they built Temples upon the ruins of private families, let not us build private houses upon the ruin of Temples: If they turned the Instruments of luxury into ornaments of piety, let not us turn ornaments of piety into instruments of luxury. As nothing is better given than to God, so nothing is worse taken than from his Church. Will God, think you, enrich them, who spoil him? will he build their houses, who pull down his? will he increase their store, who rob his wardrobe? will he clothe them with his long white robe, who strip his Spouse of her attire and comely ornaments? Nay rather, as Aeneas, though before he had purposed with himself to spare the life of Turnus, yet when he espied Pallas girdle about him,

he changed his mind, and turned the point of his sword to his heart, saying, so our blessed Redeemer, when he seeth his Priests garments upon sacrilegious persons, and the chains and borders of his dearest Spouse upon their minions necks, will say, shalt thou escape judgment, who hast robbed me thy Judge? shall I spare thee, whom I find with mine own goods about thee? shalt thou get out of my hands, who quaffest like Belshazzar in the bowles of my Sanctuary, and bravest it in my Spouse attire?

Now, as the special operations of the soul reflect upon themselves; and, as definition defines, and division divides, and order digesteth, so also repetition may and ought to repeat it self. For the close of all then I will recapitulate my recapitulation, and rehearse myself, as I have done the four Preachers.

Of this parcel of Scripture, Faciemus, &c. I have made a threefold explication, and likewise a threefold application; the first explication was of the rich attire of Solomon's Queen; the second of the glorious types of the Jewish Church under the Law; the third of the rich endowments, large borders, and flourishing estate of the Church under the Gospel. My application was first to the Clergy; secondly, to the Laity; thirdly, to this present exercise. The friends that here promise to adorn the Spouse with rich borders, I compared to the four Preachers, their Sermons to the four borders, both in respect of the matter and the form: their matter was Scripture doctrine, like pure gold; their form exquisite art beautifying their Scripture doctrine with variety of human learning, and sentences of the ancient Fathers, like spangles or studs of silver. In the borders of Solomon's Queen, there was the representation of a Dove, whence they are called Torim, which some translate Turtures aureas; and their preaching was not in the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the evidence of the spirit, which descended in the likeness of a Dove. The borders were joined together, and in their Sermons there was good coherence: for whereas there are two parts of Divinity,

• 1. The first de Dei beneficiis erga homines.
• 2. The second de officiis hominis erga Deum.

The former were handled in the two former Sermons, and the later in the two later.

The benefits of God are either

• 1. Spiritual, as Redemption, of which the first discoursed.
• 2. Or Temporal, as the wealth of the world, of which the second.

The duties of man to God are either

1. Proper to certain men in regard of their special place or calling, as Magistrates or Ministers, of which the third.

2. Common to all Christians, as to offer sacrifices of righteousness to God, of which the fourth.

The first, as a Herald, proclaimed hostility, Awake, O sword, &c.

The second, as a Steward of a Court, gave the charge, Charge the rich, &c.

The third, as a Judge, pronounced a dreadful sentence, In the day thou eatest thou shalt die the death.

The fourth, as a Prophet, gave holy counsel and heavenly advice, Offer, &c. That we may be free from, and out of the danger of the blow of the first, and the charge of the second, and sentence of the third, we must follow the advice of the fourth. All four may be likened to four builders,

The first fitted and laid the corner stone.

The second built a house, whose foundation was laid in humility, Charge the rich that they be not high minded: The walls raised up in hope, to lay hold on eternal life: The roof was covered with charity, that they be rich in good works.

The third beautified it with a garden of pleasure, and he fenced it with the Discipline of the Church, as it were with a strong wall.

The fourth built an Altar to offer sacrifice.

The first made according to the last Translation borders of gold: his special grace was in the order and composition.

The second, according to Junius his version, Lineas aureas, golden lines: his grace was in frequent sentences and golden lines.

The third, according to the Seventies interpretation, made Similitudines aureas, golden similitudes, comparing our Church to Paradise.

The fourth (as Brightman rendereth the words) made turtures aureas, golden turtles, gilding over, if I may so speak, our spiritual offerings with a ric • discourse of his own. Pliny writeth of the Opall stone, that it represented the colors of divers precious stones; by name the Ruby or Carbuncle, the Amethyst, the Emrald, and the Margarite or Pearl. In like manner I have represented unto you in this Rehearsall the beautiful colors of divers precious stones: in the first the color of the Ruby; for he discoursed of the bloody passion of Christ. In the second the purple color of the Amethyst; for he treated of riches and purple robes, and the equipage of honor. In the third the green color of the Emrald; for he described the green and flourishing garden of Eden. In the fourth, the clear or white color of the Crystal or Pearl; for he illustrated unto us the sacrifices of righteousness, which are called white, in opposition to the red and bloody sacrifices of the Law. The Opall representeth the colors of the abovenamed precious stones, incredibili mysturâ lucentes, shining by an incredible misture: a glimpse whereof you may have in this brief concatenation of them all. God hath given us his Son the man, that is, his fellow, to be sacrificed for us, as the first taught; and with him hath given us all things richly to enjoy, as the second sh • wed: not only all things for necessity and profit, but even for lawful delight and contentment, placing us as it were in Paradise, as the third declared. Let us therefore offer unto him the sacrifice of righteousness, as the fourth exhorted. Ye whom God hath enriched with store of learning, open your treasures, and say to the Spouse of Christ, out of these we will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver. Ye of God's people, whom he hath blessed with worldly wealth, open your treasures, and say to the Spouse of Christ, out of these we will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver: and then be ye assured, God will open the treasures of his bounty, and the three persons in Trinity will say, We will make you borders of gold with studs of silver; and not only borders for your breasts, and chains for your necks, but also ear-rings for your ears, and bracelets for your hands, and frontlets for your faces, and a crown for your heads: we will enrich you with invaluable jewels of grace here, and an incorruptible crown of glory hereafter.

To whom, &c.

THE ANGEL OF THYATIRA ENDITED. A Sermon preached at the Cross, Anno 1614. THE XXXIII. SERMON.

IF the seven golden Candlesticks which Saint John saw, were illustrious types and glorious emblems of all succeeding Christian Churches, as many learned Commentatours upon this mysterious prophesy conceive, and the seven Letters written to the seven Churches of Asia immediately represented by them, as well appertain to us in the autumn, for whom, as to those prime-roses that appeared in the spring of Christian piety and religion, to whom they were directed: we may without scruple seize on this indorsed to the Angel of the Church of Thyatira, break open the seals, and peruse the contents thereof, which seem better to sort with the present state of our Church, than of any that at this day bears the name of Christian. Wherefore I make bold to unfold it, and altering a word only in the superscription, thus I read and expound it in your ears, and pray God to seal it up in your hearts.

In this Letter observe we

• 1. The superscription mysterious, Ver. 18.
• 2. The contents various, presenting to our religious thoughts
  • 1. A sweet insinuation, Ver. 19.
  • 2. A sharp reprehension, Ver. 20, 21.
  • 3. A fearful commination, Ver. 22, 23.
  • 4. A comfortable conclusion, Ver. 24.

In the superscription we have an admirable description of the glorified body of our Redeemer, which shineth more brightly than a flame of fire, or the finest metal glowing in the furnace: Secondly, an eminent title attributed to the Bishop or Super-intendent of the Church in Thyatira: The Angel.

To the Angel in Thyatira, saith the Son of God, who hath eyes like a flame of fire, to enlighten the godly, and burn up the ungodly: and feet like brass, to support his Church, and bruise the enemies thereof, I know thy works, proceeding from thy love, and thy love testified by thy service, and thy service approved by thy faith, and thy faith tried by thy patience; and that the silver springs of thy bounty have more overflowed at the last, than at the first. Thus far the sweet insinuation, which afterwards falls into a sharp reprehension, like as the sweet river Hypanis into the bitter fountain Exampeus. Notwithstanding I have an action against thee, that thou sufferest the filthy Strumpet Jezebel to corrupt the bodies and souls of my servants, by permitting corporal fornication to them, and committing spiritual with them, whose judgment sleepeth not, no not in her bed, but even there shall surprise her. For behold, I will cast her into a bed: where she hath cast her self in wantonness, I will cast her in great weakness, and will make her bed of pleasure a rack to torment her: Ubi peccavit punietur, where she swilled in her stolen waters that relished so sweet in her mouth, she shall take down her bitter potion; Ubi oblectamentum ibi tormentum. Of which plagues of Jezebel, when God shall open the vials mouth: at this time I purpose to gather some few observations from the two former branches of this Scripture; but to insist wholly upon the third: in the explication whereof, when I have proved by invincible arguments that Jezebel is not to be tolerated; in the application I will demonstrate that the Pseudo-catholic Roman Church, otherwise called the Whore of Babylon, is Jezebel, or worse, if worse may be: as God shall assist me with his Spirit, and endue me with power from above, for which I beseech you all to join with me in prayer.

O most gracious God, &c.

And to the Angel of the Church in Thyatira, write, &c. The Naturalists observe, that the thickest and best honey is that which is squeezed last out of the comb: and usually the daintiest dish is served in at the last course; and Musicians reserve the sweetest strain for their close: and Rhetoricians take special care of their peroration. The last speech of a dying friend leaves a deep impression in our hearts; and art, imitating nature, holdeth out the last note of the dying sound in the organ or voice: which consideration should stir up our religious thoughts and affections to entertain with greatest alacrity and singular respect the admonitions and prophecies delivered in this book, as being the last words of our Lord's last will and testament, and the last breath as it were of the Spirit of God. If that of the Poet be true, that the beams of the Sun shine most pleasantly at his setting, how pleasant and dear ought the light of this Prophetical book be unto us, which is the last irradiation and glissoning of the Sun of righteousness? In it discern we may

• 1. Counsels, chapt. 2.3.
• 2. Predictions of the state of the Church.
  • 1. Militant, from the 4 ^th to the 21.
  • 2. Triumphant, from the 21. to the end.

The manner of delivery of both to Saint John, was by special revelation; which you will better conceive, if you be pleased to take notice of the means, whereby all knowledge divine and human is conveyed into the soul. As all water ariseth either from Springs below, or falleth from the Clouds above; so all knowledge is either gathered from the creatures by natural reason, grounded upon experience, or immediately descendeth from the Father of lights, and is attained unto by supernatural illumination.

Supernatural illumination is either

• 1. By ordinary inspiration, common to all the Pen-men of the holy Ghost, who wrote the dictates of the Spirit, and were so assisted by him, that they could not set down anything amiss.
• 2. By extraordinary revelation; which may be either
  • 1. Of things past, whereof there remain no records, monuments, or memorials to furnish the writer of them: such was the story of Genesis before the Flood, whereof Moses could be no otherwise infallibly informed, than by God's revealing them unto him.
  • 2. Of things to come, which is properly termed prophecy; and this may be either
    • 1. By instinct, when men or women fore-tell things to come, not knowing the certainty, or being fully persuaded of the things themselves.
    • 2. Per raptum, or ravishing of Spirit, when they fore-tell such things, whereof they are infallibly assured, either
      • 1. By voice, as Moses was.
      • 2. By dream, as Daniel.
      • 3. By vision, as Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and other Prophets.

By instinct I am easily induced to believe, that many, especially before their death, may fore-tell many things that come to pass shortly after; and I deny not but some also may per raptum, as I am persuaded John Hus did before his martyrdom in those words, which are stamped in the coin of those days yet to be seen: Centum revolutis annis respondebitis Deo & mihi, after a hundred years you shall be called to an accompt for these things: about which time they were openly challenged for them by Martin Luther, and other zealous Reformers. Yet are we not to build our Christian faith upon any prophesies, save those only which holy men have set down in Scripture, as they were guided by the holy Ghost. Among which this is to be ranked, which Saint John received not from man or Angel, but from Jesus Christ; not per instinctum, but per raptum, as himself testifieth: I John, which also am your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the Isle of Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice as of a Trumpet. Note we herein, that Saint John received this revelation in his exile or banishment, to teach us, that God's servants may be banished out of their native soil, and the Court of Princes, but not out of the Catholic Church, or the presence of God. Secondly, Saint John received this prophesy as he was in the spirit, to intimate unto us, that this book is of a spiritual interpretation. Thirdly, he received it on the Lord's day, to lesson us, that God most blesseth our meditations on this day; and that they must be at peace with him, and free from worldly cares and business, who expect revelations from him.

For the title of the book of Apocalypse, or Revelation, it is taken either from the manner whereby it came to Saint John before mentioned, or from the matter herein contained, which is mystical, hidden, and for the most part of things future, very obscure before the event and issue manifest them, not from Saint Johns manner of expressing them: for that for the most part is very intricate. For, as Plato sometimes spake of an obscure example, Exemplum, O hospes, eget exemplo, You had need to illustrate your example by another example; so of all the books in Scripture the book of Revelation most needs a revelation and clear exposition: in which, as Saint Jerome hath observed, Quot verba, tot Sacramenta, there are near as many mysteries and figures, and aenigmaticall expressions, as words: for this is the book spoken of in this book, sealed with seven seals, answerable to the seven letters enclosed in it, directed to the seven Churches of Asia, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, Pergamos, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Thyatira, which names are as it were a small table and short draught of the lineaments of these Churches. As Irenaeus his peaceable temper, and Lactantius his milky vein, and Eusebius his piety, and Chrysostom's golden mouth; and contrariwise Jacob's subtlety, and Edom's cruelty, and Nabal's folly, and Seneca his end, and Protesilaus his destiny were written in their names:

so the special and most noted virtues and vices in these Churches may be read by the learned in the Greek tongue in their names. I dare not affirm, that the holy Ghost either imposed or made choice of these names, to intimate any such thing; especially, because these names were given to these Cities, before they gave their names to Christ. Neither do we read, that these names at the first were put upon these Towns by men endued with a Prophetical spirit; but by their Heathen Founders or Governors: yet is the correspondency between these names, and the condition of these Churches at the time when Saint John, as Christ his amanuensis, wrote these letters to them, very remarkable: and they may serve the learned as places in artificial memory, to fixe the character of these Churches in them.

1. By the name Ephesus, so termed, quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifying remission or slacking, they may be put in mind of slacking or backsliding, wherewith the Spirit upbraideth this Church, Thou hast left thy first love: remember whence thou art fallen, and repent.

2. By the name Smyrna, signifying lacrymam myrrhae, the dropping or tears of myrrh, they may be put in mind of the cup of tears, which this Angel was to drink: Ye shall have great tribulation for ten days.

3. By the name Pergamos, quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifying beyond, or out of the bounds of marriage, they may be put in mind of the Nicolaitans abounding in this Church, who were great abusers of marriage: Thou hast them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

4. By the name Sardis, quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifying fleshly, they may be put in mind of many in this Church that were fleshly given: for, as we read, This Angel had but a few names which had not defiled their garments.

5. By the name Philadelphia, signifying brotherly love, they may be put in mind of this virtue, whose proper work it is, to cover multitude of sins; which because it was eminent in many of this Church, the Spirit covereth all her infirmities, and rebuketh her openly for nothing; but contrariwise commendeth her, and promiseth, because she had kept the word of his patience, to keep her from the hour of temptation.

6. By the name Laodicea, quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifying the righteousness or customs of the people, they may be put in mind of the condition of the common sort in this Church and else-where, who are well conceited of themselves, though (God knows) for little cause: they imagine that they are very forward in the way that leads to eternal life, that they are rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, when indeed (in their spiritual estate) they are wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked: Wherefore the Spirit counselleth them to buy of him gold tried in the fire, that they may be rich; and white raiment, that they may be clothed, and that the shame of their nakedness do not appear: And, to anoint their eyes with eye-salve, that they may see.

7. Lastly, by the name Thyatira, so called, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifying to run mad after, and spend ones self, they may be put in mind of those in Thyatira, who ran awhoring after Jezebel, and spent their estates upon her, and committed filthiness with her: which because the Angel winked at, the Spirit sharply reproveth him.

And to the Angel of the Church in Thyatira, write, I know thy works, &c. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, &c. These Verses resemble the branches of the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits.

1. The first I gather from them is the dignity of the Ministers of the Gospel, to whom the Son of God writeth, styling them Angels. To the Angel of Ephesus, of Smyrna, &c.

2. The second, the difference of degrees in the Ministry: for the Son of God endorseth his letter not to the inferior Ministers, which were many in each of these Churches, but to the Angel, in the singular number, the Bishop or Super-intendent of the place, to whom the government of the Church, and ordering Ecclesiastical affairs chiefly, if not only, appertained.

3. The third is the glorious majesty and divinity of our Savior, who was before styled the Son of man, but is here called the Son of God, and described with eyes like a flame of fire, piercing through the thickest darkness; and with feet like fine brass, walking through the midst of all the Churches, and yet no way defiled, according to the words of the Prophet, the ways of the Lord are undefiled.

4. The fourth is mildness in just reproof: the physician of our souls, who hath cured all our wounds with the smart of his, prescribeth the weak Angel of Thyatira but one pill, and that a gentle one; yet see how he rowles it in sugar; I know thy works, and thy love, &c. Of many faults he mentioneth but a few, and of those few insisteth but upon one.

5. The fifth is the condition of good works, to which four things are required; faith, love, service, and patience: they must be done in faith, proceed from the love of God, with a desire to do him service thereby; and lastly, the performers of them must be constant in them, and resolve patiently to endure all crosses and oppositions from men or Satan, who seek to stay them in their godly proceedings.

6. The sixth is growth in grace, or proficiency in godliness: those who were ever good are best at the last; I know thy works, that they are more as the last than at the first.

7. The seventh is the state and condition of the Church Militant, which at the best is like the Moon at the full, in which we may discern some black spots. The sweetest Pomegranet hath some rotten grain, the fairest beauty hath a freckle or wrinkle, the most orient Ruby a cloud, and the most reformed Church in the Christian world hath some deformity in her: In many things we offend all, and many in all: they are but a few against whom the Son of God hath but a few things. Notwithstanding I have a few things.

8. The eighth is the duty of a Magistrate, who like a good Gardener is to pluck up noisome weeds by the roots. It is not sufficient for him to do no evil; he must not suffer it: the Angel is not here blamed for any sin of commission or omission in himself, but for the bare permission of evil in others: I have somewhat against thee, because thou sufferest.

9. The ninth is a caution to look to the weaker sex: for often the Devil maketh of them strong instruments, to dispread the poison of heresy. Simon Magus had his Helena, Marcion his female fore-runner, Apelles his Philumena, Montanus his Maximilla, Donatus his Lucillia, Elpidius his Agape, Priscillian his Galla, Arius the Prince his sister, Nicolaus Antiochenus his feminine troupes and quires, and all Arch-heretics some strumpets or other, to serve them for midwives when they were in travel with monstrous and misshapen heresies: Thou sufferest the woman Jezebel. Yet to do the sex right, I willingly acknowledge with Flacius Illyricus, that as the Devil hath used bad women in all times, as Brokers to utter his deceitful and dangerous wares; so God hath made choice of many good women, to be conduits of saving grace, and great instruments of his glory. Not to go out of this City of Thyatira for instance, we can produce a Lydia for a Jezebel; where the Devil now vented poison by the impure mouth of Jezebel, God poured out before the sweet ointment of the Gospel by the mouth of Lydia, whose heart he opened, that she attended to those things which were spoken of Paul.

10. The tenth is an observation concerning the nature of Heresy, which fretteth like a canker; and if it be not looked to, corrupteth the sound members of Christ: Thou sufferest the woman Jezebel to seduce my servants.

11. The eleventh is a consideration of the odious filthiness of Idolatry, which the Scripture termeth the souls naughtiness, and spiritual fornication: To commit fornication.

12. The last is a wholesome doctrine concerning the contagion of Idolatry, which not only infecteth our bodies and souls, but our meats and drinks also, and turneth the food of the body into the poison of the soul to such as familiarly converse and table with Idolaters, and feed upon the relics of Idols sacrifices: And to eat things offered unto Idols.

And to the Angel of the Church in Thyatira. Glorious things are spoken of you, O ye Ministers of the Word and Sacraments: Ye are styled Ambassadors of the King of Heaven, Stewards of the household of faith, Interpreters of the Oracles of God, Dispensers of the mysteries of salvation, Keepers of the Seals of grace: Ye are the Salt of the earth, the Light of the world, the Stars of the sky, nay, the Angels of Heaven: To the Angel. The Ministers of the Gospel resemble Angels in many things:

1. Angels are ministering spirits, and the Preachers of the Gospel are spiritual Ministers.

2. Angels, according to the derivation of their name in Greek, are messengers of God, and the Ministers of the Gospel are messengers of Christ.

3. The dwelling of Angels is in Heaven, and there is or ought to be the conversation of the Ministers of the Gospel.

4. The life of Angels is a continual beholding the face of God; and what is the life of a good Minister, but a continual contemplation of the divine nature, attributes and works?

5. The Angels gather the Elect from the four winds, and the Ministers of the Gospel gather the Church from all corners of the earth.

6. The Angels pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth, and the Ministers are appointed to denounce God's judgments and plagues to the wicked world.

7. The Angels sound Trumpets at the last resurrection, and the Ministers of the Gospel at the first.

8. When Christ was in an agony, there appeared an Angel strengthening him; and when God's children are in greatest extremity, God sendeth the Ministers of the Gospel to comfort them.

9. The Angels carry the souls of them that die in the Lord into Abraham's bosom (Luke 16.22.) and the Ministers of the Gospel give them their pass, and furnish them with their last viaticum.

Now, if it be demanded why God so highly advanceth the dignity of the Ministry; I answer, to advance his glory: He lifteth up the silver Trumpets of Zion on high, that the sound of his praise may be heard the further. As the visible Sun casteth a more radiant and bright beam upon Pearl and Glass, which reflecteth them again, than upon gross and obscure bodies that dead the rays thereof; even so the Sun of righteousness casteth the fairest luster upon that calling, which most of all illustrateth his glory. To other vocations God calleth us, but this calleth us unto God: all other lawful callings are of God, but of this God himself was: and if it be a great honor to the noblest orders of Knighthood on earth, to have Kings and Princes installed into them; how can we think too worthily of that sacred order, into which the Son of God was solemnly invested by his Father? I speak nothing to impeach the dignity of any lawful profession; make much of the Physicians of your body, yet not more than of the Physicians of your soul: yield honor and due respect to those that are skillful in the civil and municipal Laws; yet under-value them not, who expound unto you the Laws of God. At least take not pride in disgracing them, who are God's instruments to convey grace into your souls: grieve not them with your accursed speeches, who daily bless you: load them not with slanders and calumnies, who by their absolution and ghostly comfort ease you of the heavy burden of your sins: go not about to thrust them out of their temporal estate, who labor by their Ministry to procure you an eternal. It is not desire of popular applause, or a sinister respect to our own profit, but the zeal of God's glory, which extorteth from us these and the like complaints against you. For if Religion might be advanced by our fall, and the Gospel gain by our losses, and God get glory by our dis-esteem, we should desire nothing rather than to be accounted the off-scouring of all things on the earth, that so we might shine hereafter like precious stones in the foundation of the celestial Jerusalem. But if the Preachers and the Gospel, the Word and Sacraments, and the Ministers thereof: Religion and Priests, the Church and Church-men are so near allies, that the dis-reputation of the one, is a great prejudice to the other, and the disgrace of the one, the despising of the other; if the truth we profess, if our Religion, if the Gospel, if Christ, if God suffer in the disgraces that are put upon our calling, and the manifold wrongs that are done to it, we must adjure you for your own good, and deeply charge you in God's cause, that as you look to receive any good from him, so you take nothing sacrilegiously from the Church; as you hope to be saved by the Ministry, preserve the dignity and estimation thereof; be not cursed Chams in discovering the nakedness of your ghostly fathers. Alexander thought that he could not lay too much cost upon the deske, in which Homers Poems lay; and we daily see how those who take delight in music, beautify and adorn the instrument they play upon with varnish, purfle, gilt painting, and rich lace: in like manner, if you were so affected as you should be at the hearing of the Word, if you were ravished with the sweet strains of the songs of Zion, ye would make better reckoning of the Instruments and Organs of the holy Spirit, by which God maketh melody in your hearts: ye would not stain with impure breath the silver trumpets of Zion, blown not with wind, but with the breath of God himself: ye would not trample underfoot those Canes that yield you such store of Sugar, or rather of Manna.

Ye will be apt enough, upon these and the like texts, to teach us our duty, that we ought, as Messengers of God, to deliver his message faithfully, and as near as we can in his own words; as Angels to give ourselves to divine contemplation, and endeavor to frame our lives to a heavenly conversation. Let it not then be offensive to you to hear your duty, which is as plain to be read as ours, in the style here attributed to the Pastor of Laodicea, the Angel. It is that you entertain your diligent and faithful Pastors, as the Galatians did St. Paul, and as Monica did St. Ambrose, tanquam Angelos Dei, as the Angels of God; receive them as Abraham and Lot did the Angels sent from God unto them, defend them according to your power from wrong, and make them partakers of the best things wherewith God hath blessed you.

Angelo, to the Angel, in the singular number, chief Pastor or Bishop of the Church. All Ministers, as I shown you before, may challenge the title of Angels; but especially Bishops, who watch over other Ministers, as Angels over men; who are to order the affairs of the Church, and govern the Clergy, as the Peripatetickes teach, that Angels direct and govern the motions of the celestial spheres: therefore Epiphanius, and St. Augustine, and most of the later Interpreters also, paraphrase Angelo by Episcopo illic constituto: and verily the manner of the superscription, and the contents of the letter, and the form of government settled in all Churches at this time, make for this interpretation. For supposing more Ministers in London of equal rank and dignity as there are, who would indorse a letter on this manner, To the Pastor of London, unless he meant the Bishop or chief Pastor? Now it is evident out of the twentieth chapter of the Acts, ver. 17. and all ancient stories, that there were divers Ministers or Presbyters in each of these seven Churches: He therefore, to whom the letter was addressed in particular, to the Angel, could be no other than the Bishop or Superintendent of the place; who is here blamed for suffering Jezebel to teach: which showeth that he had Episcopal power and authority to silence and suspend her, or any other erroneous Teacher within his Diocese. What should I add out of Irenaeus; Polycarpus ab Apostolis in ea quae est Smyrnae Ecclesiâ constitutus est Episcopus, quem nos vidimus in primâ aetate nostrâ; that the Angel of Smyrna was Bishop Polycarpus, ordained by the Apostles themselves, whom he himself saw in his younger years: Or out of Jerome, that to prevent schisms among Presbyters and Priests, Episcopal government was established through the whole world?

And let this suffice to be spoken of the office of this Angel: we will now consider of his charge, or that wherewith the Holy Ghost here burdeneth him, the toleration of heresy and idolatry. I have a few things against thee,

That thou sufferest. Diodorus Siculus reporteth that the ancient Kings of Egypt made a kind of medley of religion to serve their turn, that the people might thereby be distracted, and so disabled from attempting anything against the State. And we read likewise in Socrates, of Themistius, that he labored to persuade Valens the Emperor, that God was well pleased with variety of sects, dum it a pluribus modis colitur, because by this toleration of divers religions God is worshipped after divers manners. And Father Parsons, with whom Bodine the great Statesman of France, and Cardinal Allen, and William Bishop, Seminary Priest, join hearts and pens, spending the strength of their wit, and flower of their learning in this argument of toleration; taking upon them to prove, first, in Thesi, that Religions, differing in substantial points, and fundamental grounds, are comportable in the same Kingdom: and in Hypothesi, that it is not only lawful and expedient, but also honorable for the King of Great Britain to permit the public profession and practice of the Romish Religion within his Kingdoms. For the proof of their Thesis they allege but one text of Scripture, and that miserably wrested: Sinite utraque crescere in messem, let both grow until the harvest.

The great want of Scriptures they strive in some sort to supply by conjectures of reason, and examples of foreign States: but the fairest gloss they set upon their foul assertion, is from such plausible sentences of the ancient Fathers as these: Who is so proud as to forbid me to lift up my eyes to heaven? Who will impose a necessity upon me, either to worship that which I will not, or not to worship what I will? Nothing so much dependeth on the will as Religion, which is not Religion but Hypocrisy if the mind be averse from it. It is against Religion to enforce Religion, and contstrain men to dissemble with God. Verily the chiefest point of Religion consisteth in the inward sacrifice of the heart, and devotion of the will: and how is it possible to devote our will against our will? This reason against forcing Religion seemed so forcible to Theodoricus, that he forbad all Inquisitions and Tortures in case of Religion. For other things (saith he) we may, Religion we cannot command. Neither was he singular in this his opinion: for upon the like grounds to his, Theodosius and Leo, Catholic Emperors, permitted Churches to the Arian Heretics; as likewise Constantius and Valentinian, Arian Heretics, granted Oratories to Catholic Bishops. The Emperors of Germany tolerate Lutherans and Zwinglians, the French King Huguenots, the Grand-Seignior Christians, the Pope Jews in Rome; whereunto Bodin addeth the example of the ancient Romans, who permitted the free use of their Religion to all the Nations they conquered: and of the Emperor Alexander Severus, who kept in his closet the pictures of Abraham, Orpheus, Hercules and Christ, and privily worshipped them all.

These are the fairest pretences, and plausiblest arguments for toleration. How few in number? how light in weight? how easy and short in the answer?

First, for their text of Scripture (let both grow to the harvest) which Doctor Bishop setteth in the fore-front of his discourse. Can any man of learning and judgment once dream, that our Lord's meaning was thereby to inhibit all proceedings against Heretics and wicked livers? to enjoin all Magistrates to suffer virtue and vice, truth and heresy to grow together in the Church till the harvest, that is, the end of the world? Could Doctor Bishop or any other Papist persuade himself that our Savior commandeth that to be done, for which he here blameth the Angel of Thyatira, and before the Angel of Pergamos? Do not all Papists defend the Inquisition in Spain and Italy, and the Pope their Master his proceedings against Protestants, under the name of Heretics? Certainly if Christ in this parable absolutely commands a toleration of Heretics and Schismatikes, under the name of tares, the Popish Inquisition is a transgression of Christ's command, by their own inference from it: which if any Papist maintain, he will not be long out of the Inquisition: if he trust not to his heels he shall feel the gag soon in his mouth, and assay the man-bridle.

As for the meaning of the place of Scripture, it is clear in it self, and hath been long ago by the Ancients declared to be this, that God suffereth hypocrites and dissemblers to mingle themselves with godly Professors in the visible Church, whom because we cannot sufficiently discern and distinguish, who know not the hearts of men, he forbiddeth us to attempt an universal and utter extirpation of them, in this respect only, ne simul eradicemus triticum, lest together with cockle and darnel, or instead thereof, we pluck up good wheat. What maketh this for the toleration of open Idolators, and known Heretics, or scandalous livers, who if they be not weeded out by execution of penal Statutes or Ecclesiastical censures, will hinder the growth of all virtue and Religion? Wherefore the case being so clear, that this text of Scripture is shamefully wrested by the Adversarie, I leave the Patrons of toleration to be disciplined by the Jesuit Maldonado, who in his Comment upon this text, strikes them smartly with his feruler that abuse this place (as he saith) to prove that Heretics are not at all to be punished, or not to be punished with death.

I come to the ancient Fathers, who indeed justly tax the heathen for folly and cruelty, in forcing their idolatrous worship upon Christians by the sword, which they were never able, nor so much as once offered to maintain by argument. Against all such, who terrify and teach not, as St. Augustine speaketh, or begin with fire and faggot, or have no sharper weapons to defend the truth of their Religion than the edge of the axe, or point of the sword, Lactantius and Tertullian's exceptions are just, and their admonitions seasonable. Let the heathen draw the sword of their wits, and try it at the point of argument. They dislike not, after gentle remedies have proved ineffectual, to use severity against obstinate Heretics. For though Saint Bernard saith truly, Fides suadenda, non imponenda; faith is to be persuaded, not to be imposed upon a man: yet Tertullian affirmeth as truly in another case, Contumacie is to be dealt roughly withal, durities vincenda est, non suadenda, obstinacy is to be compelled, not persuaded.

Yea, but faith is the gift of God, and cannot be forced upon a man against his will. Neither can any moral virtue: and yet Drunkards, and Incontinent persons, and Thieves, and Murderers, are justly punished. And why not as well Miscreants, Idolators, and Heretics? Faith indeed is the gift of God, yet he neither giveth it, nor preserveth it in us without means, whereof one of the chief is the strict execution of Ecclesiastical discipline, and Imperial laws, whereby all the Diocese of Hippo was reclaimed from the heresy of the Donatists: Religion cannot be enforced. It is a true proposition, if it be rightly understood, but no way maketh for toleration of error, or against wholesome laws, for the preservation of the purity of Religion. For the acts of Religion are of two sorts:

1 Inward, as belief and affiance in God, hope and charity.

2 Outward, as to go to Church to hear Sermons, to be present at the administering of the Sacraments, to make open profession of our faith by word of mouth, or writing: to these men may be compelled by penal Statutes. Health cannot be forced upon a sick man, yet his mouth may be violently opened with a spoon, and that cordial water poured down his throat, which may be a good means under God to recover his health. To this purpose Saint Augustine speaketh appositely: He that by a smart blow rouseth a man in a Lethargy, or by main force binds a mad man, is troublesome to both, yet doth a good office to both.

Yea, but is it not cruelty to trouble men or women for their conscience? to compel people by violent means, to communicate with that service which in their heart they abhor? supposing it to be the true worship of God to which the State compelleth (though they that are forced to it deem otherwise) to enforce them in this case to it, is no persecution at all, but execution rather of God's Law: or, if they will needs have it termed a persecution, I distinguish with Saint Augustine of a double persecution.

1. A just, which the Church of God raiseth against the wicked for their impieties.

2. Unjust, which the wicked, when they are in place, raise against the godly for the truths sake.

The former proceeds from love and zeal, and intends instruction; the later from malice and cruelty, and intends destruction: the one wounds by injustice, the other heals by discipline; that lets out the corrupt, this spills the life blood. Now for the examples of toleration of divers Religions, they are either in such places where there are divers Regiments and Soveraignties; as in Germany, where each Prince maintains that Religion which he is persuaded in his conscience to be the right: or of Princes which could do no other, as things then stood with them; as Theodosius, who for a while bare with the Arians, but as soon as he had strength enough against them, prohibited them all meetings, deprived them of the benefit of making Wills, and forbad all disputing about the equality of the persons in the Trinity, as we may read in Sozomen and Theodoret: or they are of Heretics, Turks and Infidels, and so no good presidents for Orthodox Christians. In brief, they are all either impertinent or inconsequent, and are over-borne with stronger reasons, and more uncontrollable authorities on the contrary; which before I martial in their order, I will set down certain distinctions and cautions for the clearer manifestation of the truth.

1. First, by divers Religions, we understand Religions differing in main grounds and substantial points of faith, not in the outward form of discipline, much less in the habit or furniture of Rites and Ceremonies only. Diversities of Rites and Ceremonies have been always in the Catholic Church without breach of unity. The Spouse of Christ weareth a garment wrought about with divers colors: And the Musicians will tell us, that some discords in a lesson, binding wise (as they speak) and falling into a concord, much grace the music.

2. Secondly, we wish that all Magistrates Ecclesiastical and Civil, would first make proof of gentler remedies, and seek rather to win men by persuasions, than draw them to Church by compulsion; Monendo potiùs quàm minando, & verbis magis quàm verberibus, to use rather commonitions than comminations, words than blows, discourses than legal courses, arguments than torments.

3. Thirdly, in making and executing penal Statutes against Heretics and Idolaters, all Christian Princes and States must wash their hands from blood, and free themselves from all aspersion of cruelty. For no fish will come into the net which they see all bloody: and they who are too quick in plucking at those that differ from them in Religion, root up those ofttimes for tares, which if they had been permitted longer to grow, might have proved good corn.

4. Fourthly, they must put a great difference between those that are infected with Heretical opinions, whereof some are ring-leaders, some are followers, some are obstinate, others flexible, some are turbulent, others peaceable; on some they ought to have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

5. Lastly, nothing must be done herein by the intemperate zeal of the heady multitude, or any private motion; but after mature advice and deliberation be appointed by lawful authority.

To the particular instances brought from our neighbor Nations that are repugnant to this rule, we answer with Saint Bernard: We approve their zeal, yet we allow not of their proceedings.

These cautions observed, that religions differing in fundamental grounds are not to be tolerated in the same Kingdom, we prove

1. First, by the Law of Moses, which forbiddeth plowing with an Ox and an Ass together: or, to wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together. The moral of which Law, according to the interpretation of the best Expositors, hath a reference to diversities in Religions, and making a kind of medley of divers worships of God.

2. Secondly, by the grievous punishment of Idolaters appointed by God himself: If thy brother, or son of thy mother, or thine own son, or thy daughter, or the wife that lieth in thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, thine eye shall not pity him, neither shalt thou keep him secret, but thine hand shall be upon him, and then the hand of all the people to stone him to death: Solùm pietatis genus est hic esse crudelem, It is piety in this kind to show no pity. It is not in the power of Kings and Princes to reverse the decrees of Almighty God, or falsify his Oracles, who saith, No man can serve two masters. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? or what concord hath Christ with Belial? and what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols?

3. Thirdly, if these testimonies of everlasting truth persuade us not, that God, who is truth, must be worshipped in truth, and not with lies, and in a false manner; yet Christ his inditing the Angel of Thyatira for suffering Jezebel, and the Angel of Pergamos for not silencing false Teachers: I have a few things against thee (saith the Spirit) that thou hast there them that maintain the doctrine of Balaam. The Spirit chargeth not the Angel with allowing or countenancing, but tolerating only false doctrine: Therefore the toleration of Heresy and Idolatry is a sin which God will not tolerate in a Magistrate; which I further thus demonstrate:

4. Fourthly, God will not hold any Prince or State guiltless, which permitteth a pollution of his name; but the worship of a false god, or the false worship of the true God, is a pollution of his name, as himself declareth: Pollute my name no more with your gifts and your Idols. God is a jealous God, and will endure no corrival; if we divide our heart between him and any other, he will cut us off from the land of the living, as he threateneth: I will cut off the remnant of Baal, and them that worship the host of Heaven upon the house tops, and them that worship and swear by the Lord, and by Malcham.

5. Fifthly, what shall I add hereunto save this, that the bare permission of Idolatry was such a blur to Solomon, and most of the succeeding Kings of Judah, that it obscured the luster, and marred the gloss of all their other Princely endowments? For after the description of their virtues, this blot is cast upon their reputation; But the high places were not taken away. But thrice happy Hezekiah, who by demolishing the brazen Serpent which Moses had made (because the children of Israel burned incense to it) erected to himself an everlasting monument of praise. And yet more happy Josiah, after whom the Holy Ghost sendeth this testimony: Like unto him there was no King before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, neither after him arose there any like unto him. Why? what eminent virtues had Josiah above others? what noble acts did he, which the Spirit values at so high a rate? no other than those which we find recounted in the books of Kings and Chronicles: He brake down the Altars of Baalim, and cut down the Images that were on high upon them, he brake also the groves and the carved Images, and the molten Images, and stamped them to powder, and strewed it upon the graves of them that sacrificed to them; and he burned the bones of the Priests upon the Altar. He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Moloch: and he took away the horses that the Kings of Judah had given to the Sun, and the Altars that were on the top of the upper chambers of Ahaz, & the Altars which Manasseh had made in the two Courts of the house of the Lord, and the high places that were before Jerusalem, which Solomon had built, and so he took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and compelled all that were found in Israel to serve the Lord their God.

6. Sixthly, farther to teach Magistrates, that they ought sometimes to use violent and compulsive means, to bring men to the true service of God; our Savior delivereth a Parable of a certain man that made a great Supper, and when the guests that were bid came not in, the Master said to his servants, Go to the high ways and hedges, to compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. On which ground St. Augustine thus descanteth, What are the hedges here meant, but schisms and heresies, that make partitions and separations in the house of God? from which when the sheep of Christ are pulled, let them not find fault because they are hailed, but look whither they are hailed, into Christ's sheepfold. A prudent advice, and seriously to be thought upon by all that murmur and repine at the Church and States proceedings against obstinate Recusants, be they Papists or Brownists: they could not mislike that they are compelled, if they entered into a serious consideration whither they are compelled to go, to wit, to a marriage Supper, to partake of the Manna of the Word and Sacraments.

7 Seventhly, to these constraining arguments for compulsories against refractary persons, we may add infinite examples of zealous Princes, to counterpoize all the presidents brought before for connivancy at schism or heresy. I spake but even now of Josiah and Hezekiah, after whom may be ranked Asa, who deposed Maacath his mother from her Regencie, because she had made an Idol in a grove, which he brake down, and stamped to powder. And Nebuchadnezzar made a Decree, That every people, nation and language, which spake any blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Misach, and Abednego, should be drawn in pieces, and their houses made a jakes, Dan. 3.29. And that I may join Ecclesiastical stories with the inspired, I will relate some constitutions of the best Emperors which swayed the Roman Scepter. Constantine the Great appointed that all the Temples of Heretics should be pulled down, and that it should not be lawful for them to assemble together in public or private. And that Theodosius and later Emperors were as quick against them, it appears by the Code of Justinian; Let all heresies, forbidden by the law of God and Imperial sanctions, keep silence forever. And again, Let all Heretics understand, that all places of meeting, as well Churches as private houses, are to be taken away from them: let them be debarred from all service day and night, the Lord Deputy to be fined a hundredth pound if he permit any such thing. Will you hear yet sharper laws? Peruse the chapter of Manicheos. We prosecute the Manichees with most deserved severity; and first we determine that this heresy shall be held a public crime: because that which derogateth from the true worship of God, cannot but be many ways prejudicial to the State. These Manichees therefore we punish with confiscation of goods, we debar them from buying or selling, bequeathing goods or lands by will or otherwise, from recovering any legacies, or enjoying their fathers inheritance: and let them all be liable to the same penalties who keep and foster such persons in their houses.

8 Eighthly, for the mitigation of which laws, when the Heretics expected that S. Augustine should mediate with the Emperor, he falls thus foul upon them: Yes forsooth, what else? I shall gainsay the constitution of the Emperor, and interc • de that you lose not the things which you call yours, and you without fear spoil Christ of that which is his? A reasonable demand, is it not? that the Roman laws should permit you to make your last will and testament, whilst you with cavilling and sophistry go about to frustrate God's last will and Testament? that in buying and selling your contracts may be good, and you the whilst share among you that which Christ bought when he was sold? that you be not banished from the place of your abode, when you, as much as in you lieth, drive Christ from the Kingdom purchased with his blood? Tertullian is as peremptory in this point: We must deal roundly with Heretics, and overcome their obstinacy by more powerful Rhetoric than persuasive speeches. For that course must be thought the best which God himself hath taken. St. Cyprian pointeth to those texts of Scripture, wherein God alloweth of, yea, and expressly commandeth severe proceedings against Heretics and Idolators: with whom St. Gregory accords in his note upon those words, Catch the foxes that spoil the vines. Of the same mind are Jerome, Leo, and the Synod of Burdigala, who all approve of Maximus his proceedings against the Heretic Priscillian; and Epiphanius and Cyril, who, to strike a terror in the hearts of Heretics, relate the fleaing of Manes, the father of the Manichees, by the King of Persia. To fill up the rank: Optatus likeneth Macarius to Phineas and Elias, for making a quick dispatch with the Heretics of his time. Dioscorus Alexandrinus cries out in the Synod of Chalcedon, that Heresy is to be purged with fire, Haereticos flammâ dignos. Clemens Alexandrinus wisheth all happiness to the Scythian King, who hung a Citizen, and after commanded him to be shot through with arrows, for sacrificing to the mother of the gods, after the manner of the Grecians. Lastly, St. Bernard, after he had made mention of some private persons, who ran upon blasphemous Heretics, and tare them in pieces for rending the Church, interposeth his own judgment in this manner; They should have done better, to have delivered up those blasphemous Heretics into the hands of the Magistrate, who beareth not the sword of justice in vain.

9 Ninthly, if these pious resolutions of the ancient Fathers, and noble acts of religious Princes, serve not as matches to kindle the zeal of godly Magistrates against the enemies of our Religion, the heathen shall one day rise up against them; the ancient Romans, who had this law written among the rest, Let no man have a private Religion to himself: the Athenians, who banished Protagoras for that atheistical speech of his, de diis, Sintne, an non sint, nil habeo dicere; I can say nothing concerning the gods, whether there are any, or not; and put Socrates to death because he made question of the truth of that Religion which the State professed. In a word, all nations of the world shall condemn them, of whom Seneca writeth truly, that for the profaning, violating, or corrupting the worship of God there are divers punishments appointed in divers places, but in all Countries some or other. And not without cause: for if it be a scandal to a State to suffer thieves & murderers to go unpunished, are Heretics to be set free, who rob men of that pearl of truth which the rich merchant man sold all that he had to buy? who are guilty of spiritual homicide? wherewith St. Augustine directly chargeth them; You see what these miscreants do, and what they suffer; and have they, think you, any just cause to complain of the punishments that are inflicted on them? They kill the souls of men, and smart for it in their bodies: by their damnable doctrine they bring men to eternal death, and yet grudge that they suffer a temporal. Do not all wise men account Religion to be the foundation which beareth up the whole frame and fabric of State? And is it possible a building should stand upon two foundations? Religion is the soul which animateth the great body of the Common-wealth, and will it not prove a monster if it be informed with divers souls? The Church and Common-wealth have but one center; any new motion therefore in the one must needs make a commotion in the other. In which regard Mecoenas advised Augustus to punish severely all Innovators in matter of Religion, not only out of a regard of piety, but also for reason of State. What mutinies, what heart-burnings, what jealousies, what bloody frayes and massacres may there be feared, where Religion setteth an edge upon discontent? And all that die in these quarrels pretend to the Crown of Martyrdom. I forbear multiplicity of examples in this kind, our neighbor Countries have been for many years the stages whereon these tragedies for Religion have been acted, and God alone knows what the catastrophe will be. There was never so great mischief done at Rome by fire, as when it took the Temple of Vesta, and mingled it self with the sacred flame.

Even so if the wild-fire of contention mixe it self with the sacred fire of zeal, and both burn within the bowels of the same Church, it is not a river of blood that is like to quench the direful flame. Therefore Julian the Apostate, as S. Augustine reports, having a desire to set all Christendom in a combustion, cast a fire-ball of contention among them, by proclaiming liberty to all Heretics and Schismatics to set abroach their damnable doctrines, hoping thereby utterly to extinguish the name of Christians.

But to come near to our Adversaries, and turn their own ordnance upon them: Did Queen Mary in her short reign exempt the servants of God of any age or sex from the merciless flames of the fire? Do not Bellarmine, Allan, Parsons, Pammelius, Maldonado, and generally all Jesuits, set their wits upon the rack, and stretch and torture them, to maintain the racks and tortures of Popish Inquisition? Of what hard metal then are their foreheads made, who dare supplicate for a toleration in a Protestant state, able to suppress them? Why should they not be contented with their own measure, though all the world knoweth the sweet benignity and clemency of our gracious Sovereign abates them more than the half? Here me thinks I hear the souls of the slain under the Altar cry.

Cupio me patres conscripti clementem, non dissolutum videri (saith the wise Orator) I wish that mercy, to which all virtues (as Seneca observeth) willingly give the place and yield the garland, may be still the prime gemme in our Sovereigns Crown. I plead for mercy, which must be our best plea at Christ's Tribunal: but I desire it to be well thought upon, whether it be mercy or not rather cruelty to spare those who spare not your sons and daughters, but daily entice them, and by their agents convey them over beyond the Sea, to sacrifice, not their bodies, but their souls, their faith, their religion to the Moloch of Rome. Pliny writeth of certain people of the family of Anteus in Arcadia, who having put off their clothes, and swom over a deep standing pool, wander in the wilderness, run among Wolves, and are transformed into their shape, and after return back and do great mischief in their own country. I believe not that there is any such family in Arcadia; but I am sure we have a sort of men in England, who, putting off the habit of English men and Scholars, cross the narrow Seas, converse with Romish Wolves, and degenerate into their nature, and after they return back into their own country, make havoc of Christ's flock. Here I cannot but cry aloud with zealous Bullenger, What clemency call you this, to suffer the Lord's Vineyard to be spoiled and laid waste by cruel Monsters? What mercy to spare the Wolves, which spare not Christ's sheep redeemed with his precious blood? who plot treason against their natural Prince, scandalize the State, and stain with impure breath the gold and silver vessels of the Sanctuary, who turn religion into Statisme, or rather into Atheism. Let it be accounted mercy not to execute the rigor of penal Statutes upon silly seduced sheep; certainly it is cruelty to spare the Wolves which worry them.

If any, pricked at the heart at the consideration of these things, say with the Jews in the Acts, Quid faciemus? What shall we do? We have used all diligence to find out these Romish Wolves, and those that come within our reach we smite, at the rest we set our strongest Mastives, and fray them out of our coasts:

I answer, If this were sincerely done of all hands, if some shepherds were not seen by the Wolves before they spy them, and thereby lost their voices, according to the Proverb,

I say if the shepherds and the dogs bestirred themselves as they should, yet the wise man in Livy will tell them, All will be to no great purpose till the woods and thickets be cut down, to which they fly, & there hide themselves: Nunquam defuturi sunt lupi donec sylvae exscindantur: you shall never be rid of these Romish wolves so long as in all quarters of this Kingdom they have so many places of shelter to lurk in, I had almost said Sanctuaries of defense.

I am now come home to the point, I first thought upon when I was summoned to speak to this honorable assembly, consisting of so many noble and worthy members of the high Court of Parliament; and therefore here I will land my discourse, after I have given you but one memento out of the Psalmist, Remember the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground; or rather, Up with it, up with it to the trembling air. Blow up King, Queen, Prince, Parliament, Clergy, Laity, Nobility, Gentry, Commons, Laws, Statutes, Charters, Records, all in a cloud of fire, that there remain not so much as any cinders of them upon the earth, lest perhaps the Phoenix might revive out of her own ashes. But praised be the God of heaven, who discovered and defeated that plot of hell, our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare, the snare is broken, and we are delivered. I will close up all with those sweet strains of the hundred forty ninth Psalm.

To whom, &c.

JEZEBEL SET OUT IN HER COLOURS. A Sermon preached in Saint Paul's Church, Novemb. 20. Anno 1614. THE XXXIV. SERMON.

IN this letter, indicted by the Spirit, and penned by St. John, I observed heretofore,

• 1 Superscription: and therein
  • 1 The party from whom, with his eminent quality, the Son of God, &c.
  • 2 The party to whom it was sent, with the title of his dignity, the Angel of Thyatira.
• 2 The contents: which are so manifold, and of such importance, that if I had the tongue of an Angel I could hardly deliver them all in particular. I have heretofore presented you with twelve sorts of fruits answerable to the fruits of the tree of life described, all growing upon the two former branches of this Scripture, and this of my text; and yet I have not gathered the half. It resembleth that wonderful tree which Pliny saw at Tiburts, which bare all kind of delicious and wholesome fruits. Seneca his observation is true, that baser metals are found near the top, but the richer lie deep in the earth, affording great store of precious oar. Such is the Mine I have discovered in this passage of Scripture: into which that you may search deeper, with more profit and less danger, I will bear before you a clear light, made of all the expositions of the best learned Scribes in the house of God, who, to enrich our faith, bring forth out of their treasuries new things and old.

And to the Angel, that is, the Bishop or chief Pastor, as heretofore I proved at large unto you. In the Old Testament we read of the ministry of Angels; but here we find Angels of the ministry, to whom the Son of God himself kindly and familiarly writeth. Our usual form of sommoning your attention is, Hearken unto the word of God, as it is written; which here I must change, and say, Hearken unto the word of God, as it writeth. For to the Angel of Thyatira the second Person, which is the Word of God, thus writeth.

Write. It is a great honor to receive a letter from a noble Personage: how much more from the Son of God? St. Gregory excellently amplifieth upon this point in his epistle to Theodorus the Physician: If your excellency (saith he) were from the Court, and should receive a letter from the Emperor, you would never be quiet till you had opened it, you would never suffer your eyes to sleep, nor your eye lids to slumber, nor the temples of your head to take any rest, till you had read it over again and again. Behold, the Emperor of heaven, the Lord of men and Angels, hath sent you a letter for the good of your soul, and will you neglect to peruse it? Peruse it, my son study it, I pray thee, meditate upon it day and night. Where letters pass one from another, there is a kind of correspondency and society; and such honor have all God's Saints: they have fellowship with the Father and the Son. O let us not sleighten such a society, whereby we hold intelligence with heaven: let us with all reverence receive, and with all diligence peruse, and with all carefulness answer letters and messages sent from the Son of God, by returning sighs and prayers back to heaven, and making ourselves, in the Apostles phrase, commendatorie letters, written, not with ink, but with the Spirit.

Thus saith the Son of God. Not by spiritual regeneration, as all the children of promise are the sons of God, but by eternal generation: not by grace of adoption, but by nature.

Who hath eyes like a flame of fire, and feet like fine brass. Eyes like a flame of fire, piercing through the thickest darkness; feet like brass, to support his Church, and stamp to powder whatsoever riseth up against it; like fine brass, pure and no way defiled by walking through the midst of the golden candlesticks. Wheresoever he walks he maketh it holy ground.

There are three sorts of members in holy Scripture attributed to our head Christ Jesus:

• 1 Natural.
• 2 Mystical.
• 3 Metaphoricall.

Natural he hath, as perfect man.

Mystical, as head of the Church.

Metaphoricall, as God.

By these members we may divide all the learned Commentatours expositions. They who follow the natural or literal construction of the words, apply this description to the members of Christ's glorified body in Heaven, which shine like flaming fire, or metal glowing in a furnace. But Lyra and Carthusian have an eye to Christ his mystical eyes, viz. Bishops and Pastors, who are the over-seers of Christ his flock, resembling fire in the heat of their zeal and light of their knowledge, whereby they direct the feet of Christ, that is, in their understanding; his inferior members on earth likened to fine brass, to set forth the purity of their conversation; and described burning in a furnace, to express their fiery trial by martyrdom. Alcasar by the feet of fine brass understandeth the Preachers of the Word, whom Christ sendeth into all parts to carry the Gospel. Those feet which Isaiah calleth beautiful, Saint John here compareth to the finest brass; which Beda and Haimo will have to be copper, rendering the Greek 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 not the most resplendent brass, such as was digged out of Mount Libanus, but Orichalchum, that is, copper: and thus they work it to their purpose. As brass the matter of copper, by the force of fire and strong waters and powders receiveth the tincture of gold; so (say they) the Christians that shall stand last upon the earth, termed in that respect Christ's feet, shall by many exercises of their patience and fiery trials of their faith, be purified and refined, and changed into precious metal, and become golden members of a golden head.

I do not utterly reject this interpretation of the mystical eyes and feet of Christ, nor the former of the natural members of his glorified body, because they carry a fair show and goodly luster with them: yet I more incline to the third opinion, which referreth them to the attributes of God. For (me thinks) I see in the fiery eyes the perfection of Christ his knowledge, to which nothing can be dark or obscure; as also his vigilant zeal over his Church, and the fierceness of his wrath against the enemies thereof. Bullenger conceiveth our Savior to be portrayed by the Spirit with eyes like a flame of fire, because he enlighteneth the eyes of the godly: but Meyerus, because he suddenly consumeth the wicked; both the known properties of fire: for in flaming fire there is both clear light and intensive heat. The light is an emblem of his piercing sight, the heat of his burning wrath. Where the eye is lightsome, and the object exposed to it, the eye must needs apprehend it: but the Son of God's eyes are most lightsome, nay rather light it self, in which there is no darkness, and all things lie open and naked before him: yea, the heart and the reins which he searcheth. In Courts of human justice, thoughts and intentions and first motions to evil bear no actions, because they come not within the walk of man's justice; but it will not be so at Christ's Tribunal, where the secrets of all hearts shall be opened. Let no man then hope by power, or fraud, or bribes to smother the truth, or blear the eyes of the Judge of all flesh. For his eyes, like flames of fire, dispel all darkness, and carry a bright light before them. Let not the adulterer watch for the twilight, and when he hath met with his wanton Delilah, carry her into the inmost rooms, and lock door upon door, and then take his fill of love, saying, The shadow of the night, and the privacy of the room shall conceal me. For though none else be by, and all the lights be put out, yet he is seen, and the Son of God is by him with eyes like a flaming fire. Let not the Projector pretend the public good, when he intends nothing but to rob the rich, and cheat the poor. Let not the cunning Papist under color of decent ornaments of the Church, bring in Images and Idols; under color of commemoration of the deceased, bring in invocation of Saints departed; under color of extolling charity, bring in the merit of works; under color of an Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, endeavor by degrees to bring in Papal tyranny: for the Son of God with his eyes like flaming fire seeth the thin wire, and fine thread, by which he would draw in Popery.

Now, as the knowledge of our Lord and Savior shines, so his wrath sparkles in these