Fifty Sermons

Sermons preached at Mariages.

Sermon I.
• Preached at the Earl of Bridgwaters house in London, on
• MATTH. 22. 30. For, in the Resurrection, they neither mary nor are given in Marriage, but are as the Angels of God in heaven. p. 1.

Serm'. II.
• GEN. 2. 18. And the Lord God said, It is not good, that the man should be alone; I will make him a Help, meet for him. p. 9.

Serm. III.
• HOSEA 2. 19. And I will mary thee unto me forever. p. 15

Sermons preached at Christnings.

Serm. IV.
• REVEL. 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne, shall govern them, and shall lead them unto the lively fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. p. 23

Serm. V.
• EPHES. 5. 25, 26, 27. Husbands love your wives, even at Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it, and cleanse it, by the washing of water, through the Word: That he might make it unto himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blame. p. 31

Serm. VI.
• 1 JOH. 5. 7, 8. For there are three which bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one: And there are three which bear record in the Earth; The Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. p. 39

Serm. VII.
• GAL. 3. 27. For, all ye that are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. p. 50.

Sermons preached at Churchings.

Serm. VIII.
• CANT. 5. 3. I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? p. 59.

Serm. IX.
• MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart, for this is not your rest. p. 67.

Serm. X.
• A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 74.

Sermons preached at Lincolns-Inn.

Serm. XI.
• GEN. 28. 16, 17. Then Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware. And he was afraid, and said, How fearful is this place! This is none other but the House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven. p. 83

Serm. XII.
• JOH. 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son. p. 94.

Serm. XIII.
• JOH. 8. 15. I judge no man. p. 101.

Serm. XIIII.
• JOB 19. 26. And though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. p. 106.

Serm. XV.
• 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. p. 118.

Serm. XVI.
• COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his bodies sake which is the Church. p. 128.

Serm. XVII.
• MAT. 18. 7. Woe unto the world, because of offenses. p. 136.

Serm. XVIII.
• A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 142

Serm. XIX.
• PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. p. 158.

Serm. XX.
• PSA. 38. 3. There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. p. 162.

Serm. XXI.
• PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. p. 174.

Serm. XXII.
• A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 186.

Serm. XXIII.
• A third Serm. on the same Text. p. 192.

Sermons preached at White-Hall.

Serm. XXIV.
• EZEK, 34. 19. And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. 199.

Serm. XXV.
• A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 208.

Serm. XXVI.
• ESAI. 65. 20. For the child shall die a hundred years old, but the sinner being a hundred years old, shall be accursed. p. 218

Serm. XXVII.
• MARK 4. 24. Take heed what you hear. p. 228

Serm. XXVIII.
• GEN. 1. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our own Image, after our likeness. p. 239.

Serm. XXIX.
• A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 250

Sermons preached to the Nobility.

Serm. XXX.
• JOB 13. 15. Loe, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. p. 262.

Serm. XXXI.
• JOB 36. 25. Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. p. 271.

Serm. XXXII.
• APOC. 7, 9. After this, I beheld, and loe, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and Palms in their hands. p. 279.

Serm. XXXIII.
• CANT. 3. 11. Go forth ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon, with the Crown, wherewith his mother crowned him, in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart. p. 288.

Serm. XXXIIII.
• LUKE 23. 34. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. p. 304.

Serm. XXXV.
• MAT. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken; but on whosoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. p. 311.

Sermons preached at S. Paul's.

Sermon XXXVI.
• JOH. 1. 8. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. p. 320.

Serm. XXXVII.
• A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 334.

Serm. XXXVIII.
• A third Ser. on the the same Text. p. 343.

Serm. XXXIX.
• PHIL. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision. p. 356.

Serm. XL.
• 2 COR. 5. 20. We pray ye in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to God. p. 364.

XLI.
• HOSEA 3. 4. For, the Children of Israel shall abide many days, without a King, and without a Prince, and without a Sacrifice, and without an Image, and without an Ephod, and without Teraphim. p. 375.

Serm. XLII.
• PROV. 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker, but he that honoreth him, hath mercy on the 〈◊〉 . p. 385.

Serm. XLIII.
• LAMENT. 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils, the Anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits. p. 396.

Serm. XLIV.
• MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. p. 411.

Sermons preached at S. Dunstans.

Serm. XLV.
• DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the Wife of the dead shall not marry without, unto a stranger: her husbands brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husbands brother unto her. p. 422.

Serm. XLVI.
• PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children, Hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. p. 430.

Ser. XLVII.
• GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. p. 439.

Ser. XLVIII.
• LAMENT. 3. 1. I am the man, that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath. p. 445.

Serm. XLIX.
• GEN. 7. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine years old, when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised. p. 456.

Serm. L.
• 1 THES. 5. 16. Rejoice evermore. p. 466.

The Prayer before the Sermon.

O Eternal, and most gracious God, who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people, when they pray towards thy house, though they be absent from it, work more effectually upon us, who are personally met in this thy house, in this place consecrated to thy worship. Enable us, O Lord, so to see thee, in all thy Glasses, in all thy representations of thyself to us here, as that hereafter we may see thee face to face, and as thou art in thyself, in thy kingdom of glory. Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee, Thee in thine Unity, as thou art One God; Thee in thy Plurality, as thou art More Persons, we receive this thy Institution of Marriage to be one. In thy first work, the Creation, the last seal of thy whole work was a Marriage. In thy Sons great work, the Redemption, the first seal of that whole work, was a miracle at a Marriage. In the work of thy blessed Spirit, our Sanctification, he refreshes to us, that promise in one Prophet, That thou wilt mary thy self to us forever: and more in another, That thou hast married thyself unto us from the beginning. Thou hast married Mercy and Justice in thyself, married God and Man in thy Son, married Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost, mary in us also, O Lord, a Love and a Fear of thee. And as thou hast married in us two natures, mortal and immortal, mary in us also, the knowledge, and the practice of all duties belonging to both conditions, that so this world may be our Gallery to the next; And mary in us, the Spirit of Thankfulness, for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us, and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance, and enlargement of them. Continue, and enlarge them, O'God, upon thine universal Church, &c.

SERM. I.

OF all Commentaries upon the Scriptures, Good Examples are the best and the livelyest; and of all Examples those that are nearest, and most present, and most familiar unto us; and our most familiar Examples, are those of our own families; and in families, the Masters of families, the fathers of families, are most conspicuous, most appliable, most considerable. Now, in exercises upon such occasions as this, ordinarily, the instruction is to be directed especially upon those persons, who especially give the occasion of the exercise; that is, upon the persons to be united in holy wedlock: for, as that's a difference between Sermons and Lectures, that a Sermon intends Exhortation principally and Edification, and a holy stirring of religious affections, and then matters of Doctrine, and points of Divinity, occasionally, secondarily, as the words of the text may invite them; But Lectures intend principally Doctrinal points, and matter of Divinity, and matter of Exhortation but occasionally, and as in a second place: so that's a difference between Christening sermons, and Marriage sermons, that the first, at Christnings, are especially directed upon the Congregation, and not upon the persons who are to be christened; and these, at marriages, especially upon the parties that are to be united; and upon the congregation, but by reflection. When therefore to these persons of noble extraction, I am to say something of the Duties, and something of the Blessing, of Marriage, what God Commands, and what God promises in that state, in his Scriptures, I lay open to them, the best exposition, the best Commentaries upon those Scriptures, that is, Example, and the nearest example, that is, example in their own family, when, with the Prophet Isaiah, I direct them, To look upon the Rock, from whence they are hewn, to propose to themselves their own parents, and to consider there the performance of the duties of marriage imposed by God in S. Paul, and the blessings proposed by God in David, Thy Wife shall be a fruitful Vine by the sides of thy House, The children like olive plants round about the table; For, to this purpose of edifying children by example, such as are truly religious fathers in families, are therein truly learned fathers of the Church; A good father at home, is a S • ugustin, and a S. Ambrose in himself; and such a Thomas may have governed a 〈◊〉 , as shall, by way of example, teach children, and children's children more to this purpose, then any Thomas Aquinas can. Since therefore these noble persons have so good a glass to dress themselves in, the useful, as the powerful example of Parents, I shall the less need to apply myself to them, for their particular instructions, but may have leave to extend myself upon considerations more general, and such as may be appliable to all, who have, or shall embrace that honorable state, or shall any way assist at the solemnizing thereof; that they may all make this union of Marriage, a Type, or a remembrancer of their union with God in Heaven. That as our Genesis is our Exodus, (our proceeding into the world, is a step out of the world) so every Gospel may be a Revelation unto us: All good tidings (which is the name of Gospel) all that ministers any joy to us here, may reveal, and manifest to us, an Interest in the joy and glory of heaven, and that our admission to a Marriage here, may be our invitation to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb there, where in the Resurrection, we shall neither mary, nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the Angels of God in heaven.

These words our blessed Savior spake to the Sadducees; who not believing the Resurrection of the Dead, put him a Case, that one woman hath had seven husbands, and then whose wife, of those seven should she be in the Resurrection? they would needs suppose, and prefume, that there could be no Resurrection of the body, but that there must be to all purposes, a Bodily use of the Body too, and then the question had been pertinent, whose wife of the seven shall she be? But Christ shows them their error, in the weakness of the foundation, she shall be none of their wives, for, In the Resurrection, they neither mary, &c. The words give us this latitude, when Christ says, In the Resurrection they mary not, &c. The words give us this latitude, when Christ says, In the Resurrection they mary not, &c. from thence flows out this concession, this proposition too; Till the Resurrection they shall mary, and be given in marriage; no inhibition to be laid upon persons, no imputation, no aspersion upon the state of marriage. And when Christ says, Then they are as the Angels of God in heaven, from this flows this concession, this proposition also, Till then we must not look for this Angelical state, but, as in all other states and conditions of life, so in all marriages there will be some encumbrances, betwixt all married persons, there will arise some unkindnesses, some mis-interpretations; or some too quick interpretations may sometimes sprinkle a little sournesse, and spread a little, a thin, a dilute and washy cloud upon them; Then they mary not, till then they may; then their state shall be perfect as the Angels, till then it shall not; These are our branches, and the fruits that grow upon them, we shall pull in passing, and present them as we gather them.

First then, Christ establishes a Resurrection, A Resurrection there shall be, for, that makes up God's circle. The Body of Man was the first point that the foot of God's Compass was upon: First, he created the body of Adam: and then he carries his Compass round, and shuts up where he began, he ends with the Body of man again in the glorification thereof in the Resurrection. God is Alpha and Omega, first, and last: And his Alpha and Omega, his first, and last work is the Body of man too. Of the Immortality of the soul, there is not an express article of the Creed: for, that last article of The life everlasting, is rather de proemio, & poena, what the soul shall suffer, or what the soul shall enjoy, being presumed to be Immortal, then that it is said to be Immortal in that article; That article may, and does presuppose an Immortality, but it does not constitute an Immortality in our soul, for there would be a life everlasting in heaven, and we were bound to believe it, as we were bound to believe a God in heaven, though our souls were not immortal. There are so many evidences of the immortality of the soul, even to a natural man's reason, that it required not an Article of the Creed, to fix this notion of the Immortality of the soul. But the Resurrection of the Body is discernible by no other light, but that of Faith, nor could be fixed by any less assurance then an Article of the Creed. Where be all the splinters of that Bone, which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the Air? Where be all the Atoms of that flesh, which a Corrasive hath eat away, or a Consumption hath breathed, and exhal'd away from our arms, and other Limbs? In what wrinkle, in what furrow, in what bowel of the earth, lie all the grains of the ashes of a body burnt a thousand years since? In what corner, in what ventricle of the sea, lies all the jelly of a Body drowned in the general flood? What cohaerence, what sympathy, what dependence maintains any relation, any correspondence, between that arm that was lost in Europe, and that leg that was lost in Afrique or Asia, scores of years between? One humor of our dead body produces worms, and those worms suck and exhaust all other humor, and then all dies, and all dries, and molders into dust, and that dust is blown into the River, & that puddled water tumbled into the sea, and that ebs and flows in infinite revolutions, and still, still God knows in what Cabinet every seed-Pearl lies, in what part of the world every grain of every man's dust lies; and, sibilat populum suum, (as his Prophet speaks in another case) he whispers, he hisses, he beckons for the 〈◊〉 of his Saints, and in the twinkling of an eye, that body that was fcattered over all the elements, is sat down at the right hand of God, in a glorious resurrection. A D • opsie hath extended me to an enormous corpulency, and unwieldinesse; a Consumption hath attenuated me to a feeble macilency and leanness, and God raises me a body, such as it should have been, if these infirmities had not interven'd and deformed it. David could go no further in his book of Psalms, but to that, Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord; ye, says he, ye that have breath, praise ye the Lord, and that ends the book: But, that my Dead body should come to praise the Lord, this is that New Song, which I shall learn, and sing in heaven; when, not only my soul shall magnify the Lord, and my Spirit rejoice in God my Savior; but I shall have mine old eyes, and ears, and tongue, and knees, and receive such glory in my body my self, as that, in that body, so glorified by God, I also shall glorify him. So very a body, so perfectly a body shall we have there, as that Mahomet, and his followers, could not consist in those heavenly functions of the body, in glorifying God, but mis-imagine a feasting and banqueting, and all carnal pleasures of the body in heaven too. But there Christ stops; A Resurrection there shall be, but, in the Resurrection we shall not mary, &c.

They shall not mary, because they shall have none of the uses of marriage; not as marriage is physic against inordinate affections; for, every soul shall be a Consort in itself, and never out of tune: not as marriage is ordained for mutual help of one another; for God himself shall be entirely in every soul; And what can that soul lack, that hath all God? Not as marriage is a second and a suppletory eternity, in the continuation and propagation of Children; for they shall have the first Eternity, individual eternity in themselves. Therefore does S. Luke assign that reason why they shall not mary, Because they cannot dy. Because they have an eternity in themselves, they need not supply any defect, by a propagation of children.

But yet, though Christ exclude that, of which there is clearly no use in Heaven, Marriage, (because they need no physic, no mutual help, no supply of children, yet he excludes, not our knowing, or our loving of one another upon former knowledge in this world, in the next; Christ does not say expressly we shall, yet neither does he say, that we shall not, know one another there. Neither can we say, we shall not, because we know not how we should. Adam, who was asleep when Eve was made, and neither saw, nor felt anything that God had done, knew Eve upon the very first sight, to be bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. By what light knew he this? And in the transfiguration of Christ, Peter, and James, and John knew Moses and Elias, and by what light knew they them, whom they had never seen? Nor can we, or they, or any, be imagined to have any degree of knowledge of persons, or actions, though but occasionally, and transeuntly, in this life, which we shall not have inherently, and permanently in the next. In the Types of the general Resurrection, which were particular Resuscitations of the dead in this world, the Dead were restored to the knowledge of their friends: when Christ raised the son of the widow of Naim, he delivered him to his Mother; when Peter raised Tabitha, he called the Saints and the Widows, and presented her alive unto them. So God says to Abraham, Ibis ad patres, thou shalt go to thy fathers; he should know that they were his fathers: so to Moses, Iungeris populis tuis, Thou shalt dy, and be gathered to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died, and was gathered to his people. John the Baptist had a knowledge of Christ, though they were both in their mothers wombs; and Dives of Lazarus, though in Hell; and it is not easily told, by what light these saw these. Whatsoever conduces to God's glory, or our happiness, we shall certainly know in heaven: And he that in a rectifyed conscience believes that it does so, may piously believe that he shall know them there. In things of this nature, where no direct place of Scripture binds up thy faith, believe so, as most exalts thine own Devotion; yet with this Caution too, not to condemn uncharitably, and peremptorily, those that believe otherwise. A Resurrection there shall be: In the Resurrection there shall be no Marriage, because it conduces to no end; but, if it conduce to God's glory, and my happiness, (as it may piously be believed it does) to know them there, whom I knew here, I shall know them.

Now from this, In the Resurrection they mary not, flows this also, Till the Resurrection they do, they may, they shall mary. Nay, in God's first purpose and institution, They must: For God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. Every man is a natural body, every congregation is a politik body; The whole world is a Catholik, an universal body. For the sustentation and aliment of the natural body, Man, God hath given Meat; for the Politik, for societies, God hath given Industry, and several callings; and for the Catholik body, for the sustentation, and reparation of the world, God hath given Marriage. They that scatter themselves in various lusts, commit wast, and shall undergo at last, a heavy condemnation upon that Action of wast in their souls, as they shall feel it before in their bodies which they have wasted. They that mary not, do not keep the world in reparation; And the common law, the law of nature, and the general law of God binds man in general to that reparation of the world, to Marriage: for Continency is Privilegtum, a Privilege; that is, Privata lex; when it is given, it becomes a law too; for he to whom God gives the gift of Continency, is bound by it: it is Privata lex, a Law, an Obligation upon that particular man; And then Privilegium, is Privatio Legis, it is a dispensation upon that Law, which without that privilege, and dispensation would bind him; so that all those, who have not this privilege, this dispensation, this continency, by immediate gift from God, or other medicinal Disciplines, and Mortifications, (which Disciplines and Mortifications, every state and condition of life is not bound to exercise, because such Mortifications as would overcome their Concupiscences, would also overcome all their natural strength, and make them unable to do the works of their callings) all such are bound by the general law to mary. For, from Nature, and her Law, we have that voice, ut gignamus geniti; Man is borne into the world, that others might be born from him: And from God's general Law, we have that voice, Crescite & Multiplicamini: Therefore God placed man here, that he might repair and furnish the world. He is gone at Common Law, that maries not: Not but that he may have relief; but it is only in Conscience, and by way of Equity, and as in Chancery; that is, If in a rectified Conscience he know, that he should be the less disposed to religious Offices, for marriage, he does well to abstain: otherwise he must remember that the world is one Body, and Marriage the aliment, that the world is one Building, and Marriage the Reparation. Therefore the Emperor Augustus did not only increase the rewards, and privileges which former Laws had given to married persons, but he laid particular penalties upon them, that lived unmaryed. And though that State seem to have countenanced single life, because they afforded dignities to certain Vestall Virgins, yet the number of those Vestals was small, not above six, and then the dignities and privileges, which those Vestals had, were no other, but that they were made equal in the state to married Wives; They were preferred before all that lived unmaryed, but not before married persons.

This fortification and rampart of the World, Marriage, hath the Devil battered with most artillery, opposed with most instruments: for, as an Army composed of many Nations, more sects of Heretiks have concur'd in the condemning of Marriage, then in any one Heresy. The Adamites, the Tatians, and those whom Irenaeus calls the Encratites; all within two thousand years after Christ; and more after. And yet God kept such a hook in the nostril of this Leviathan, such a bridle in the jaws of these sects of Heretiks, as that never any of them so opposed Marriage, as that they justified Incontinency, or various lust, or Indifferency, or Community in that kind. Now as in the Pelagian Heresy, those that came to modify and mollify that Heresy, and to be Semi-Pelagians, were in some points worse then those that were full Pelagians, (as truly, in many Cases, the half-papist may do more harm, and be more dangerous, then the whole Papist that declares himself) so the Semi-Adamites, the Semi-Tatians, and Semi-Encratites of the Roman Church, who, though they do not as those whole Heretiks did, condemn marriage entirely, yet they condemn it in Certain persons, and in so many as constitute a great part of the Body of mankind, that is, in all their Clergy, exceed those very heretics, in favor of incontinency, and fornication, and various lusts, which those Heretiks who absolutely condemned Marriage, condemned too, as absolutely; whereas in the Roman Church a Jesuit tells us; that there are divers Catholics of that opinion, That it is not Heresy to say, that Fornication is no deadly sin: And yet it is Heresy to say, that Marriage in some persons, (only disabled by their Canons) is not deadly sin. And when they erect and justify their Academies of Incontinency, and various lust, (various even in the sex) if some Authors among themselves have not injured them) when they maintain public stews, and maintain their dignity by them, and make that a part of the Revenue of the Church, what Advocate of theirs can deny, but that these Semi-Adamites, Semi-Tatians, Semi-Encratites, are worse then those Heretiks themselves, that did absolutely oppose Marriage? We depart absolutely from those old Heretiks, who did absolutely condemn Marriage; and from those latter men, who though they be but Semi-Heretiks in respect of them, because they limit their forbidding of Marriage, to certain persons, yet they are sequi-Heretiks in this, that they countenance Incontinency, and Fornication, which those very heretics abhorred; And we must have leave too, (which we are always loath to do) to depart from the rigidness of some of those blessed Fathers of the Primitive Church, who found some necessities in their times, to speak so very highly in praise of Continency and Chastity, as reflected somewhat upon marriage it self, and may seem to emply some under-valuation of that. Many such things were so said by Tertullian, many by S. Jerome, as being crudely, and nudely taken, not decocted and boil'd up with the circumstances of those times, not invested with the knowledge of those persons, to whom they were written, might diminish and dishonor marriage. But Tertullian in his most vehement persuasion of Continency, writes to his own wife, and S. Jerome, for the most part, to those Ladies, whom he had taken into his own discipline, and with one of which, he had so near a conversation, as that (as himself says) the world was scandalized with it. and that the world thought him fit to have been made Pope, but for that misconstruction which had been made of that his conversation with that Lady. Tertullian writing to his Wife, S. Jerome to those Ladies, may either have had particular reasons of this vehement proceeding of theirs in advancing Continency, or they may have conceived that way of persuasion of continency to those persons, to have been a fit way to convey down to posterity the love thereof. As Dionysius the Areopagite says, That the Church in those times at funerals, did convey their thanks to God, for the party deceased, by way of Prayer: they seemed to pray that those dead persons might be saved; and, indeed, they did but praise God, that they were saved. So Tertullian and S. Jerome, when they seem to persuade Continency to those persons, they do but tell us, how continent those persons were. But howsoever it be for that, no such magnifying of Virginity before, as should diminish the honor and dignity of Marriage, no such magnifying of Continency after, as should frustrate the purpose of Marriage after, or the returning to a second Marriage after a true dissolution of the first, can subvert, or contract the Apostles Nubant in Domino, Let them mary in the Lord; where the In Domino, in the Lord, is not to mary for matter of Title and place; nor, In Domino, In the Lord, is not to mary for matter of Lordships, and possessions, and worldly preferment; nor, In Domino, In the Lord, is not in hope to exercise a Dominion and a Lordship over the other party: but In the Lord, is in the fear of the Lord, In the love of the Lord, In the Law, that is, in the true Religion of the Lord; for this is that that makes the marriages of Christians, Contracts of another kind, then the marriages of other people are; with all people of the world, marriage is as fully the same Real, and Civil, and Moral Contract, as with us Christians. The same Obligations of mutual help, of fidelity and loyalty to one another, and of communication of all their possessions, lies upon marriage in Turkey, or China, as with us. But for Marriage amongst Christians, Sacramentum hoc magnum est, says the Apostle, This is a great secret, a great mystery. Not that it is therefore a Sacrament, as Baptism, and the Lord's Supper are Sacraments. For, if they will make marriage such a sacrament, because it is expressed there in that word, Magnum sacramentum, they may come to give us an eight sacrament after their seven; They may translate that name which is upon the mother of Harlots, and abominations of the earth, sacrament, if they will, for it is the same word, in that place of the Revelation, which they translate Sacrament in the other place to the Ephesians; And in the next verse but one, they do translate it so there; I will tell thee, says the Angel, Sacramentum mulieris, the Sacrament of Babylon. Now if all the mysteries and secrets of Antichrist, all the confused practices of that Babylon, all the emergent and occasional articles of that Church, and that State-religion, shall become Sacraments, we shall have a Sacrament of Equivocation, a Sacrament of Invasion, a Sacrament of Powder, a Sacrament of dissolving allegiance, sacraments in the Element of Baptism, in the water, in navies, and Sacraments in the Elements of the Eucharist, in Blood, in the sacred blood of Kings. But Marriage amongst Christians, is herein Magnum mysterium, A Sacrament in such a sense; a mysterious signification of the union of the soul with Christ, when both persons profess the Christian Religion, in general, there arises some signification of that spiritual union: But when they both profess Christ in one form, in one Church, in one Religion, and that, the right; then, as by the Civil Contract, there is an union of their estates, and persons, so, as that they two are made one, so by this Sacramental, this mysterious union, these two, thus made one, between themselves, are also made one with Christ himself; by the Civil union, common to all people, they are made Eadem caro; The same flesh with one another, By this mysterious, this Sacramental, this significative union, they are made Idem Spiritus cum Domino; The same Spirit with the Lord. And therefore, though in the Resurrection, they shall not mary, because then all the several uses of marriage cease, yet till the Resurrection; that is, as long as this world lasts, for the sustentation of the world, which is one Body, and Marriage the food, and aliment thereof; for the reparation of the world, which is one Building, and Marriage the supply thereof, to maintain a second eternity, in the succession of children, and to illustrate this union of our souls to Christ; we may, and in some Cases, must marry.

We are come, in our order proposed at first, to our second Part, Erimus sicut Angeli, we shall be as the Angels of God in heaven; where we consider, first, what we are compared to, those Angels; And then in what that Comparison lies, wherein we shall be like those Angels; And lastly, the Proposition that flows out of this proposition, In the Resurrection we shall be like them, Till the Resurrection we shall not, and therefore, in the mean time, we must not look for Angelical perfections, but bear with one another's infirmities. Now when we would tell you, what those Angels of God in heaven, to which we are compared, are, we can come no nearer telling you that, then by telling you, we cannot tell. The Angels may be content with that Negative expressing, since we can express God himself in no clearer terms, nor in terms expressing more Dignity, then in saying we cannot express him. Only the Angels themselves know one another; and, one good point, in which we shall be like them then, shall be, that then we shall know what they are; we know they are Spirits in Nature, but what the nature of a spirit is, we know not: we know they are Angels in office, appointed to execute God's will upon us; but, How a spirit should execute those bodily actions, that Angels do, in their own motion, and in the transportation of other things, we know not: we know they are Creatures; but whether created with this world, (as all our later men incline to think) or long before, (as all the Greek, and some of the Latin Fathers thought) we know not: we know that for their number • and for their faculties also, there may be one Angel for every man; but whether there be so, or no, because not only amongst the Fathers, but even in the Reformed Churches, in both sub-divisions, Lutheran, and Calvinist, great men deny it, and as great affirm it, we know not: we know the Angels know, they understand, but whether by that way, which we call in the School, Cognitionem Matutinam, by seeing all in God, or that which we call Verspertinam, by a clearer manifestation of the species of things to them, then to us, we know not: we know they are distinguished into Orders; the Apostle tells us so: but what, or how many their Orders are, (since S. Gregory, and S. Bernard differ from that Design of their nine orders, which S. Denis the Areopagite had given before, in placing of those nine, and Athanasius adds more to those nine,) we know not; But we are content to say with S. Augustine, Esse firmissime credo, quaenam sint nescio; that there are distinct orders of Angels, assuredly I believe; but what they are, I cannot tell; Dicant qui possunt; si tamen probare possunt quod dicunt, says that Father, Let them tell you that can, so they be able to prove, that they tell you true. They are Creatures, that have not so much of a Body as flesh is, as froth is, as a vapor is, as a sigh is, and yet with a touch they shall molder a rock into less Atoms, then the sand that it stands upon; and a millstone into smaller flower, then it grinds. They are Creatures made, and yet not a minute elder now, then when they were first made, if they were made before all measure of time began; nor, if they were made in the beginning of Time, and be now six thousand years old, have they one wrinkle of Age in their face, or one sobbe of weariness in their lungs. They are primogeniti Dei, God's eldest sons; They are superelementary meteors, they hang between the nature of God, and the nature of man, and are of middle Condition; And, (if we may offencelessely express it so) they are anigmata Divina, The Riddles of Heaven, and the perplexities of speculation. But this is but till the Resurrection; Then we shall be like them, and know them by that assimilation. We end this branch with this consideration, If by being like the Angels, we shall know the Angels, we are more then like ourselves, we are ourselves, why do we not know ourselves? Why did not Adam know, that he had a Body, that might have been preserved in an immortality, and yet submitted his body, and mine, and thine, and theirs, who by this union are to be made one, and all, that by God's goodness shall be derived from them, to certain, to inevitable Death? Why do not we know our own Immortality, that dwells in us still, for all Adams fall, and ours in him; that immortality which we cannot devest, but must live forever, whether we will or no? To know this immortality, is to make this immortality, which otherwise is the heaviest part of our Curse, a Blessing unto us, by providing to live in Immortal happiness: whereas now, we do so little know ourselves, as that if my soul could ask one of those Wormes which my dead body shall produce, Will you change with me? that worm would say, No; for you are like to live eternally in torment; for my part, I can live no longer, then the putrid moisture of your body will give me leave, and therefore I will not change; nay, would the Devil himself change with a damned soul? I cannot tell; As we argue conveniently, that the Devil is tormented more then man, because the Devil fell from God, without any other Tempter, then himself, but man had a Tempter, so may it be not inconveniently argued too, that man may be more tormented then he, because man continued and relapsed, in his rebellions to God, after so many pardons offered and accepted, which the Devil never had. Howsoever, otherwise their torments may be equal, as the Devil is a Spirit, and a condemned soul a spirit, yet that soul shall have a Body too, to be tormented with it, which the Devil shall not. How little we know ourselves, which is the end of all knowledge! But we hast to the next branch, In the Resurrection we shall be like to the Angels of God in Heaven; But in what lies this likeness?

In how many other things soever this likeness may lie, yet in this Text, and in our present purpose, it lies only in this, Non nubent, In the Resurrection they shall not mary. But did Angels never mary, or, as good, or, at least, as ill, as mary? How many of the ancients take those words, That the sons of God saw the daughters of Men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose, to be intended of Angels? They offer to tell us how many these married Angels were; Origen says, sixty, or seventy. They offer to tell us some of their names; Aza, was one of these married Angels, and Azael was another. But then all those, who do understand these words, The sons of God, to be intended of Angels, who being sent down, to protect Men, fell in love with Women, and married them, all, I say, agree, that those Angels that did so, never returned to God again, but fell, with the first fallen, under everlasting Condemnation. So that still, the Angels of God in Heaven, those Angels to whom we shall be like in the Resurrection, do not mary, not so much as in any such mistaking; they do not, because they need not; they need not, because they need no second Eternity, by the continuation of children; for, says S. Luke, they cannot die. Adams first immortality was but this, Posse non mori, that he needed not to have died, he should not have died; The Angels immortality, and ours, when we shall be like them, in the Resurrection, is, Non posse mori, that we cannot die, for, whosoever dies, is Homicida sui, says Tertullian; he kills himself, and sin is his sword: In heaven there shall no such sword be drawn; we need not say, that the Angels in heaven have, that we when we shall be like them, in the Resurrection, shall so invest an immortality in our nature, as that God could not inflict Death upon them, or us there, if we sinned: But because no sin shall enter there, no Death shall enter there neither, for, Death is the wages of sin. Not that no sin could enter there, if we were left to ourselves; for, in that place, Angels did sin; (And, fatendum est Angelos natura mutabiles, says S. Augustine, Howsoever Angels be changed in their Condition, they retain still the same nature, and by nature they are mutable) But that God hath added another prerogative, by way of Confirmation, to that state; so, as that that Grace which he gives us here, which is, that nothing shall put a necessity of sinning upon us, or that we must needs sin, God multiplies upon us so there, as that we can conceive no inclination to sin. Therein we shall be like the Angels, that we cannot die; And the nearer we come to that state in this life, the liker we are to those Angels here. Now, beloved, only he that is Dead already, cannot die. He that in a holy mortification is Dead the Death of the righteous, dead to sin, he lives, (shall we dare to say so? yes, we may) he lives a blessed Death, for such a Death is true life: And by such a heavenly Death, Death of the righteous, Death to sin, he is in possession of a heavenly life here, in an inchoation, though the consummation, and perfection be reserved for the next world; which is our last circumstance, and the Conclusion of all, At the Resurrection we shall be like the Angels; Till then we shall not; and therefore must not look for Angelical perfections here, but bear one another's infirmities.

It is as yet but in Petition, fiat voluntas, Thy will be done in Earth, as it is in Heaven: And as long as there is an Earth it will be but in Petition; His will will not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven; when all is Heaven, to his Saints, all will be well; but not all till then. In the mean time, remember all, (especially you, whose Sacramental, that is, Mysterious, and significative union now is a Type of your union with God in as near, and as fast a band, as that of Angels, for, you shall be as the Angels of God in Heaven ) That the office of the Angels in this world, is to Assist, and to supply Defects. You are both of noble extraction; there's no defect in that; you need not supply one another with Honor: you are both of religious Education; there's no defect in that; you need not supply one another with fundamental instructions. Both have your parts in that testimony which S. Gregory gave of your Nation, at Rome, Angli Angeli, you have a loveliness fit for one another. But, though I cannot Name, no nor Think anything, wherein I should wish that Angelical disposition of supporting, or supplying defects, yet, when I consider, that even he that said Ego & pater unum sumus, I and the Father are one, yet had a time to say, utquid dereliquisti? My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? I consider thereby, that no two can be so made one in this world, but that that unity may be, though not Dissolved, no nor Rent, no nor Endangered, yet shaked sometimes by domestic occasions, by Matrimoniall encumbrances, by perverseness of servants, by impertinencies of Children, by private whisperings, and calumnies of Strangers. And therefore, to speak not Prophetically, that any such thing shall fall, but Provisionally, if any such thing should fall, my love, and my duty, and my Text, bids me tell you, that perfect happiness is to be staid for, till you be as the Angels of God in heaven; here, it is a fair portion of that Angelical happiness, if you be always ready to support, and supply one another in any such occasional weaknesses. The God of Heaven multiply the present joy of your parents, by that way, of making you joyful parents also; and recompense your obedience to parents, by that way, of giving you obedient Children too. The God of heaven so join you now, as that you may be glad of one another all your life; and when he who hath joined you, shall separate you again, establish you with an assurance, that he hath but borrowed one of you, for a time, to make both your joys the more perfect in the Resurrection. The God of Heaven make you always of one will, and that will always conformable to his; conserve you in the sincere truth of his Religion; feast you with the best feast, Peace of conscience; and carry you through the good opinion, and love of his Saints in this world, to the association of his Saints, and Angels, and one another, in the Resurrection, and everlasting possession of that kingdom, which his Son, our Savior, Christ Jesus hath purchased for us, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible Blood, Amen.

SERMON II.

Preached at a Marriage.

I N the Creation of the world, when God stocked the Earth, and the Sea, with those creatures, which were to be the seminary, and foundation and root of all that should ever be propagated in either of those elements, and when he had made man, to rule over them, he •• oke to man, and to other creatures, in one and the same phrase, and form of speech, Crescite, & Multiplicamini, Be fruitful and multiply; and thereby imprinted in man, and in other creatures, a natural desire to conserve, and propagate their kind by way of Generation. But after God had thus imprinted in man, the same natural desire of propagation, which he had infused into other creatures too, after he had communicated to him that blessing, (for so it is said, God blessed them, and said, Be fruitful, and multiply ) till an ability and a desire of propagating their kind, was infused into the creature, there is no mention of any blessing in the creation; after God had made men partakers of that blessing, that natural desire of propagation, he takes a farther care of man, in giving him a proper and peculiar blessing, in contracting and limiting that natural desire of his: He leaves all other creatures to the • general use and execution of that Commission, Crescite et multiplicamini, the Male was to take the Female when and where their natural desire provoked them; but, for man, Add • xit Deus ad Adam; God left not them to go to one another, but God brought the woman to the man: and so this conjunction, this desire of propagation, though it be natural in man, as in other creatures, by his creation, yet it is limited by God himself, to be exercised only between such persons, as God hath brought together in marriage, according to his Institution, and Ordinance. Though then societies of men do grow up, and spread themselves into Towns, and into Cities, and into Kingdoms, yet the root of all societies is in families, in the relation between man and wife, parents and children, masters and servants: so though the state of the children of God, in this world be dignified by the name of a Kingdom, (for, so we pray by Christ's own institution, Thy kingdom come, and so Christ says, Ecce Regnum, The kingdom of God is amongst you ) and though the state of God's children here, be called a City, a new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, and in David, Glorious things are spoken of thee, O City of God, yet for all these glorious titles of City and Kingdom, we must remember, that it is called a family too • The Household of the faithful: And so the Apostle says, in preferring Christ before Moses, That Christ as the son was over God's house, whose house we are. So that, both of Civil and of Spiritual societies, the first root is a family; and of families, the first root is Marriage; and of marriage, the first root, that grows out into words, is in this Text; And the Lord God said, It is not good &c.

If we should employ this exercise only upon these two general considerations, first, that God puts even his care and his study to find out what is good for man, and secondly, that God doth provide and furnish whatsoever he finds to be necessary, faciam, I will make him a Helper, though they be common places we are bound to thank God that they are so; that it is a common place to good, that he ever does it towards us, that it is a common place to us, that we ever acknowledge it in him. But you may be pleased to admit a more particular distribution. For, upon the first, will be grounded this consideration, that in regard of the public good, God pretermits private, and particular respects; for, God doth not say, Non bonum homini, it is not good for man to be alone, man might have done well enough so; nor God does not say, non bonum hunc hominem, it is not good for this, or that particular man to be alone; but non bonum, Hominem, it is not good in the general, for the whole frame of the world, that man should be alone, because then both God's purposes had been frustrated, of being glorified by man here, in this world, and of glorifying man, in the world to come; for neither of these could have been done, without a succession, and propagation of man; and therefore, non bonum hominem, it was not good, that man should be alone. And then upon the second consideration, will arise these branches; first, that whatsoever the defect be, there is no remedy, but from God; for it is, faciam, I will do it. Secondly, that even the works of God, are not equally excellent; this is but faciam, it is not faciamus; in the creation • f man, there is intimated a Consultation, a Deliberation of the whole Trinity; in the making of women, it is not expressed so; it is but faciam. And then, that that is made here, is but Adjutorium, but an accessory, not a principal; but a Helper • First the wife must be so much, she must Help; and then she must be no more, she must not Governe. But she cannot be that, except she have that quality, which God intended in the first woman, Adjutoriam simile sibi, a helper fit for him: for otherwise he will ever return, to the bonum esse solum, it had been better for him, to have been alone, then in the likeness of a Helper, to have had a wife unfit for him.

First then, that in regard of the public good, God pretermits private respects, if we take examples upon that stage, upon that scene, the face of Nature, we see that for the conservation of the whole, God hath imprinted in the particulars, a disposition to depart from their own nature: water will clamber up hills, and air will sink down into vaults, rather then admit Vacuity. But take the example nearer, in God's bosom, and there we see, that for the public, for the redemption of the whole world, God hath (shall we say, pretermitted?) derelicted, forsaken, abandoned, his own, and only Son. Do you so too? Regnum Dei intra nos; the kingdom of God is within you; planted in your election; watered in your Baptism; fatned with the blood of Christ Jesus, ploughed up with many calamities, and tribulations; weeded with often repentances of particular sins; The kingdom of God is within you; and will ye not depart from private affections, from Ambition and Covetousness, from Excess, and voluptuousness, from chambering and wantonness, in which the kingdom of God doth not consist, for the conservation of this kingdom? will ye not pray for this kigdome, in your private, and public devotions? will ye not fast for this kingdom, in cutting off superfluities? will ye not fight for this kingdom, in resisting suggestions? will ye not take Counsaile for this kingdom, in consulting with religious friends? will ye not give subsidies for this kingdom, in relieving their necessities, for whom God hath made you his stewards? weigh and measure yourselves, and spend that, be negligent of that, which is least, and worst in you. Is your soul less then your body, because it is in it? How easily lies a letter in a Box, which if it were unfolded, would cover that Box? unfold your soul, and you shall see, that it reaches to heaven; from thence it came, and thither it should pretend; whereas the body is but from that earth, and for that earth, upon which it is now; which is but a short, and an inglorious progress. To contract this, the soul is larger then the body, and the glory, and the joys of heaven, larger then the honors, and the pleasures of this world: what are seventy years, to that latitude, of continuing as long as the Ancient of days? what is it, to have spent our time, with the great ones of this time; when, when the Angels shall come and say, that Time shall be no more, we shall have no being with him, who is yesterday, and today, and the same forever? we see how ordinarily ships go many leagues out of their direct way, to fetch the wind. Spiritus spirat ubi vult, says Christ; the spirit blows where he will; and, as the Angel took Habakk • k by the hair, and placed him where he would, this wind, the spirit of God, can take thee at last, by thy gray hairs, and place thee in a good station then. Spirat ubi vult, he blows where he will, and spirat ubi vis, he blows where thou wilt too, if thou beest appliable to his inspirations. They are but hollow places that return Ecchoes; last syllables: It is but a hollowness of heart, to answer God at last. Be but as liberal of thy body in thy mortifications as in thy excess, and licentiousness, and thou shalt in some measure, have followed God's example, for the public to pretermit the private, for the larger, and better, to leave the narrower, and worser respects.

To proceed, when we made that observation, that God pretermitted the private for the public, we noted, that God did not say, non bonum Homini, It was not good for man to be alone; man might have done well enough in that state, so, as his solitariness might have been supplied with a farther creation of more men. In making the inventaries of those goods which man possesseth in the world, we see a great Author says, In possessionibus sunt amici, & inimici, not only our friends, but even our enemies, are part of our goods, and we may raise as much profit from these, as from those, It may be as good a lesson to a man's son, Study that enemy, as Observe that friend. As David says, propitius fuisti, & ulciscens, Thou heardest them ô Lord our God, and wast favor able unto them, and didst punish all their inventions: it was part of his mercy, part of his favor, that he did correct them. So we may say to our enemy, I owe you my watchfulness upon myself, and you have given me all the goodness that I have; for you have calumniated all my indifferent actions, and that kept me; from committing enormous ill ones. And if then our enemies be in possessionibus, to be inventaried amongst our goods, might not man have been abundantly rich in friends, without this addition of a woman? Quanto congruentius, says S. Augustine; how much more conveniently might two friends live together, then a man and a woman?

God doth not then say, non bonum homini, man got not so much by the bargain, (especially if we consider how that wife carried her self towards him) but that for his particular, he had been better alone • nor he does not say now, non bonum hunc hominem esse solum, It is not good for any man to be alone; for, Qui potest capere capiat, says Christ: he that is able to receive it, let him receive it. What? That some make themselves Eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven: that is, the better to un-entangle themselves from those impediments, which hinder them in the way to heaven, they abstain from marriage; and let them that can receive it, receive it. Now certainly few try whether they can receive this, or no. Few strive, few fast, few pray for the gift of continency; few are content with that incontinency which they have, but are sorry they can express no more incontinency. There is a use of marriage now, which God never thought of in the first institution of marriage; that it is a remedy against burning. The two main uses of marriage, which are propagation of Children, and mutual assistance, were intended by God, at the present, at first; but the third, is a remedy against that, which was not then; for then there was no inordinateness, no irregularity in the affections of man. And experience hath taught us now, that those climates which are in reputation, hottest, are not uninhabitable; they may be dwelt in for all their heat. Even now, in the corruption of our nature, the clime is not so hot, as that everyone must of necessity, mary. There may be fire in the house, and yet the house not on fire: there may be a distemper of heat, and yet no necessity to let blood. The Roman Church injures us, when they say, that we prefer marriage before virginity: and they injure the whole state of Christianity, when they oppose marriage and chastity, as though they were incompatible, and might not consist together. They may; for marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled; and therefore it may be so. S. Augustine observes in marriage, Bonuam fidei, a trial of one another's truth; and that's good; And bonum prolis, a lawful means of propagation; and that's good; and bonum Sacramenti, a mystical representation of that union of two natures in Christ, and of him to us, and to his Church; and that's good too. So that there are divers degrees of good in marriage. But yet for all these goodnesses, God does not say, non bonum, it is not good for any man to be alone, but Qui capere potest capiat; according to Christ's comment, upon his Fathers text, He that can contain and continue alone, let him do so.

But though God do not say, non homini, It is not good for the man, that he be alone, nor quemvis hominem, it is not good for every man to be alone, yet, considering his general purpose upon all the world, by man, he says non bonum; for that end, it is not good, that man should be alone, because those purposes of God could not consist with that solitude of man. In that production, and in that survey, which God made of all that he had made, still he gives the testimony, that he saw all was good, excepting only in his Second days work, and in his making of Man. He forbore it in the making of the firmament, because the firmament was to divide between waters and waters; it was an emblem of division, of disunion. He forbore it also in the making of man, because though man was to be an emblem of God's union to his Church, yet because this emblem, and this representation, could not be in man alone, till the woman were made too, God does not pronounce upon the making of man, that the work was good: but upon God's contemplation, that it was not good, that man should be alone, there arose a goodness, in having a companion. And from that time, if we seek bonum, quia licitum, if we will call that good, which is lawful, marriage is that, If thou takest a wife thou sinnest not, says God by the Apostle. If we seek bonum, quia bonus autor, if we call that good whose author is good, marriage is that; Adduxit ad Adam, God brought her to man. If we seek such a goodness, as hath good witness, good testimony, marriage is that; Christ was present at a marriage, and honored it with his first miracle. If we seek such a goodness, as is a constant, and not a temporary, an occasional goodness, Christ hath put such a cement upon marriage, What God hath joined, let no man put as under. If we seek such a goodness, as no man, (that is, no sort nor degree of men) is the worse for having accepted, we see the holiecst of all, the High Priest, in the Old Testament is only limited, what woman he shall not mary, but not that he shall not mary; and the Bishop in the New Testament what kind of husband he must have been, but not that he must have been no husband. To contract this, as marriage in good, in having the best author, God, the best witness, Christ, the logest term, Life, the largest extent, even to the highest persons, Priests, and Bishops; as it is, all these ways, Positively good, so it is good in Comparison of that, which justly seems the best state, that is, Virginity, in S. Augustine's opinion, Non impar meritum Johannes & Abrahae: If we could consider merit in man, the merit of Abraham, the father of nations, and the merit of John, who was no father at all, is equal. But that wherein we consider the goodness of it here, is, that God proposed this way, to receive glory from the sons of men here upon earth, and to give glory to the sons of men in heaven.

But what glory can God receive from man, that he should be so careful of his propagation? what glory more from man, then from the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, which have no propagation? why this, that S. Augustine observes; Musca Soli praeferenda, quia vivit, A Fly is a nobler creature then the Sun, because a fly hath life, and the Sun hath not; for the degrees of dignity in the creature are esse, vivere, and intelligere: to have a being, to have life, and to have understanding: and therefore man, who hath all three, is much more able to glorify God, then any other creature is, because he only can choose whether he will glorify God or no; the glory that the others give, they must give, but man is able to offer to God a reasonable sacrifice. When ye were Gentiles, says the Apostle, ye were carried away unto dumb Idols, even as ye were led. This is reasonable service, out of Reason to understand, and out of our willingness to do God service. Now, when God had spent infinite millions of millions of generations, from all un-imaginable eternity, in contemplating one another in the Trinity, and then (to speak humanly of God, which God in his Scriptures abhors not) out of a satiety in that contemplation would create a world for his glory, and when he had wrought the first day, and created all the matter, and substance of the future creatures, and wrought four days after, and a great part of the sixth, and yet nothing produced, which could give him any glory (for glory is rationabile obsequium, reasonable service; and nothing could give that but a creature that understood it, and would give it,) at last, as the knot of all, created man; then, to perpetuate his glory, he must perpetuate man: and to that purpose, non bonum, it was not good for man to be alone; as without man God could not have been glorified, so without woman man could not have been propagated.

But, as there is a place cited by S. Paul out of David, which hath some perplexity in it, we cannot tell, whether Christ be said to have received gifts from men, or for men; or to have given gifts to men, (for so S. Paul hath it) so it is not easse for us to discern, whether God had a care to propagate man, that he might receive glory from man, or that he might give glory to man. When God had taken it into his purpose to people heaven again, depopulated in the fall of Angels, by the substitution of man in their places, when God had a purpose to spend as much time with man in heaven after, as he had done with himself before, (for our perpetuity after the Resurrection, shall no more have an end, then his Eternity before the Creation had a beginning:) And when God to prevent that time of the Resurrection, as it were to make sure of man before, would send down his own Son to assume our nature here; and, as not sure enough so, would take us up to him, and set us, in his Son, at his own right hand, whereas he never did, nor shall say to any of the Angels, Sit thou there: That God might not be frustrated of this great, and gracious, and glorious purpose of his, non bonum, it was not good that man should be alone; for without man God could not give this glory, and without woman there could be no propagation of man. And so, though it might have been Bonum homini, man might have done well enough alone; and Bonum hunc hominem, some men may do better alone, yet God, whoever, for our example, prefers the public before the private, because it conduced not to his general end, of Having, and of Giving glory, saw, and said, Non bonum hominem, it was not good that man should be alone. And so we have done with the branches of our first part.

We are come now to our second general part: In which, as we saw in the former, that God studies man, and all things necessary for man, we shall also see, that wherein soever man is defective, his only supply, and reparation is from God, Faciam, I will do it. Saul wanted counsel, he was in a perplexity, and he sought to the Witch of Endor, and not to God; and what is the issue? he Hears of his own, and of his son Jonathan's death the next day. Asa wants health, and he seeks to the Physician, and not to God, and what is the issue? He dies. Do not say, says S. Chrysost. Quaero necessaria, I desire nothing but that which is necessary for my birth, necessary for my place: Quod non dat Deus, non est necessarium: God hath made himself thy Steward, thy Bailiff; and whatsoever God provides not for thee, is not necessary to thee. It was the poor way that Mahomet found out in his Quran, that in the next life all women should have eyes of one bigness, and a stature of one size; he could find no means to avoid contention, but to make them all alike: But that is thy complexion, that is thy proportion which God hath given thee. It may be true that S. Jerome notes, who had so much conversation amongst women, that it did him harm, Mult as insognis pudicitiae, quamvis nulli virorum, sibi scimus ornari; I know, says he, as honest women as are in the world, that take a delight in making themselves handsomely ready, though for no other bodies sake but for their own. That may be; but, manus Deo inferunt, they take the pencil out of God's hand, who go about to mend anything of his making. Quod nascitur Dei est, quod mutatur Diaboli, says the same Father; God made us according to his image, and shall he be put to say to any of us, Non imago mea, this picture was not taken by the life, not by me, but is a Copy of the present distemper of the time? All good remedies are of God; none but he would ever have conceived such an invention as the Ark, without that model, for the reparation of the world; and he hath provided that means for the conservation of the world, marriage, the association of one to one: Plures costae Adae, nec fatig at a manus Dei: Adam had more ribs then one, neither were God's hands wearied with making one; and yet he made no more. For him who first exceeded that, Lamech, who had two wives, the first was Adah, and Adah signifies Coetum, congregationem; there is company enough, society enough in a wife: His other wife was but Zillah, and Zillah is but umbra, but a shadow, but a ghost, that will terrify at last.

To proceed; Though God always provide remedies, and supplies of defects, it is not always in the greatest measure, nor in the presentest manner, that we conceive to our selves. So much may be intimated even in this, that in this remedy of God's provision, the woman, God proceeded not, as he did in the making of man; it is not Faciamus, with such a counsel, such a deliberation as was used in that case. When the Creation of all the substance of the whole world is expressed, it is Creavit Dit, God's created, as though more God's were employed; and in the making of him, who was the abridgement of all, of man, it is faciamus, let us make him, as though more persons were employed: it is not so in the woman, for though the first Translation of the Bible that ever were and the Translation of the Roman Church have it in the plural, yet it is not so in the Original; it is but faci • m. I press no more upon this, but one lesson to our selves, That if God exercise us with temporal afflictions, narrowness in our fortunes, infirmities in our constitutions, or with spiritual afflictions, ignorance in our understandings, scruples in our conscience, if God come not altogether in his faciamus, to pour down with both hands abundance of his worldly • reafures, or of his spiritual light and clearness, let us content ourselves with one hand from him, with that manner and that measure that he gives, and that time and that leisure which he takes. And then one lesson also to the other sex, That they will be content, even by this form and change of phrase, to be remembered, that they are the weaker vessel, and that Adam was not deceived but the woman was. For whether you will ease that with Theodorets exposition, Adam was not deceived first, but the woman was first deceived; Or with Chrys • st • ms exposition, Adam was not deceived by a Serpent, a creature loathsome, & unacceptable, but by a lovely person, with whom he was transported: Or with Oecumenius his exposition; Adam was not deceived, because there is no charge laid upon him in the Scriptures, no mention that he was deceived in them, as it is said, that Melchizedek had no Father nor Mother, because there is no record of his pedigree in the Scriptures: Or in Ambr • se his exposition; That Adam was not deceived in praevaricationem, not so deceived as that he deceived anybody else: Take it any way, and it implies a weakness in the woman, and an occasion of soupling her to that just estimation of herself, That she will be • ntent to learn in sitence with all subjection • That as she is not a servant, but a Mother in the house, so she is but a Daughter, and not a Mother of the Chur • h.

This is presented more fully in the next, that • he is but Adjutorium, but a Help: and nobody values his staff, as he does his legs • . It is not an ordinary disease now, to be • xori •• s that needs no great disuasion. But if any one man in a congregation be obnoxious to any one infirmity, one note is not • ill spent: And let S. Jerome give this note, Sapi • ns judicio am • t, non affectu, Discretion is the weight of love in a wise man's hand, and not affection. S. Hier ••• cannot stay there; he adds thus much more, Nihil foedius, quàm uxorem amare 〈◊◊〉 adulteram, There is not a more uncomely, a poorer thing, then to love a wife lik • a Mistress. S. Augustine makes that comparison, That whensoever the Apostles preached, they were glad when their auditory liked their preaching, Non avidita • e consequendae laudis, sed charitate seminande virtutis; not that they affected the praise of the people, but that thereby they saw, that they had done more good upon the people. And in another place he makes that comparison, That a righteous man desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, & yet this righteous man dines, and sups, takes ordinary refections and ordinary recreations: So, for marriage, says he, in temperate men, officiosum, non libidinesum, it is to pay a debt, not to satisfy appetite; lest otherwise she prove in Ruinam, who was given in Adjutorium, and he be put to the first man's plea, Mulier quam dedisti, The woman whom thou gavest me, gave me my death.

So much then she should be, A Helper; for, for that she was made. She is not so, if she remember not those duties which are intimated in the stipulation and contract which she hath made. Call it Conjugium, and that is derived a Iuge, it is an equal patience in bearing the incommodities of this life. Call it Nuptias, and that is derived à Nube, a veil, a covering; and that is an estranging, a withdrawing herself from all such conversation as may violate his peace, or her honor. Call it Matrimonium, and that is derived from a Mother, and that implies a religious education of her children. De latere sumpta, nor-discedat à latere, says A • g. Since she was taken out of his side, let her not depart from his side, but show herself so much as she was made for, Adjutorium, a Helper.

But she must be no more; If she think herself more then a Helper, she is not so much. He is a miserable creature, whose Creator is his Wife. God did not stay to join her in Commission with Adam, so far as to give names to the creatures; much less to give essence; essence to the man, essence to her husband. When the wife thinks her husband owes her all his fortune, all his discretion, all his reputation, God help that man himself, for he hath given him no helper yet. I know there are some glasses stronger then some earthen vessels, and some earthen vessels stronger then some wooden dishes; some of the weaker sex, stronger in fortune, and in counsel too, then they to whom God hath given them, but yet let them not impute that in the eye nor ear of the world, nor repeat it to their own hearts, with such a dignifying of themselves, as exceeds the quality of a Helper. S. Jerome shall be her Remembrancer, She was not taken out of the fo • t; to be trodden upon, nor out of the head, to be an overseer of him; but out of his side, where she weakens him enough, and therefore should do all she can, to be a Helper.

To be so, so much, and no more, she must be as God made Eve, fimilis ei, meet and fit for her husband. She is fit for any if she have those virtues, which always make the person that hath them good; as chastity, sobriety, taciturnity, verity, and such; for, for such virtues as may be had, and yet the possessor not the better for them, as wit; learning, eloquence, music, memory, cunning, and such, these make her never the fitter. There is a Harmony of dispositions, and that requires particular consideration upon emergent occasions; but the fitness that goes through all, is a sober continency; for without that, Matrimonium jurata fornicatio, Marriage is but a continual fornication, sealed with an oath: And marriage was not instituted to prostitute the chastity of the woman to one man, but to preserve her chastity from the temptations of more men. Bathsheba was a little too fit for David, when he had tried her so far before; for there is no fitness where there is not continency. To end all, there is a Moral fitness, consisting in those moral virtues, of which we have spoke enough; And there is a Civil fitness, consisting in Discretion, and accommodating herself to him; And there is a Spiritual fitness, in the unanimity of Religion, that they be not of repugnant professions that way. Of which, since we are well assured in both these, who are to be joined now, I am not sorry, if either the hour, or the present occasion call me from speaking anything at all, because it is a subject too mis-interpretable, and unseasonable to admit an enlarging in at this time. At this time therefore, this be enough, for the explication and application of these words.

SERMON III.

Preached at a Marriage.

T HE word which is the hinge upon which all this Text turns, is Erash, and Erash signifies not only a betrothing, as our later Translation hath it, but a marriage; And so it is used by David, Deliver me my wife Michal whom I married; and so our former Translation had it, and so we accept it, and so shall handle it, I will mary thee unto me forever.

The first marriage that was made, God made, and he made it in Paradise: And of that marriage I have had the like occasion as this to speak before, in the presence of many honorable persons in this company. The last marriage which shall be made, God shall make too, and in Paradise too; in the Kingdom of heaven: and at that marriage, I hope in him that shall make it, to meet, not some, but all this company. The marriage in this Text hath relation to both those marriages: It is itself the spiritual and mystical marriage of Christ Jesus to the Church, and to every mariageable soul in the Church: And it hath a retrospect, it looks back to the first marriage; for to that the first word carries us, because from thence God takes his metaphor, and comparison, sponsabo, I will mary; And then it hath a prospect to the last marriage, for to that we are carried in the last word, in aeternum, I will mary thee unto me forever. Be pleased therefore to give me leave in this exercise, to shift the scene thrice, and to present to your religious considerations three objects, three subjects: first, a secular marriage in Paradise; secondly, a spiritual marriage in the Church; and thirdly, an eternal marriage in heaven. And in each of these three we shall present three circumstances; first the Persons, Me and Tibi, I will mary thee; And then the Action, Sponsabo, I will mary thee; And lastly the Term, In aeternam, I will mary thee to me forever.

In the first acceptation then, in the first, the secular marriage in Paradise, the persons were Adam and Eve: Ever since they are he and she, man and woman: At first, by reason of necessity, without any such limitation, as now: And now without any other limitation, then such as are expressed in the Law of God: As the Apostles say in the first general Council, We lay nothing upon you but things necessary, so we call nothing necessary but that which is commanded by God. If in heaven I may have the place of a man that hath performed the Commandments of God, I will not change with him that thinks he hath done more then the Commandments of God enjoined him. The rule of marriage for degrees and distance in blood, is the Law of God; but for conditions of men, there is no Rule given at all. When God had made Adam and Eve in Paradise, God did not place Adam in a Monastery on one side, and Eve in a Nunnery on the other, and so a River between them. They that built walls and cloisters to frustrate God's institution of marriage, advance the Doctrine of Devils in forbidding marriage. The Devil hath advantages enow against us, in bringing men and women together: It was a strange and super-devilish invention, to give him a new advantage against us, by keeping men and women asunder, by forbidding marriage. Between the heresy of the Nicolaitans, that induced a community of women, any might take any; and the heresy of the Tatians that forbad all, none might take any, was a fair latitude. Between the opinion of the Manichean heretics, that thought women to be made by the Devil, and your Colliridian heretics that sacrificed to a women, as to God, there is a fair distance. Between the denying of them souls, which S. Ambrose is charged to have done, and giving them such souls, as that they may be Priests, as your Pepution heretics did, is a fair way for a moderate man to walk in. To make them God's is ungodly, and to make them Devils is devilish; To make them Mistresses is unmanly, and to make them servants is unnoble; To make them as God made them, wives, is godly and manly too. When in your Roman Church they dissolved marriage in natural kindred, in degrees where God forbids it not, when they dissolve marriage upon spitituall kindred, because my Grandfather Christened that woman's Father; when they dissolve marriage upon legal kindred, because my Grandfather adopted that woman's Father: they separate those whom God hath joined so, as to give leave to join in lawful marriage. When men have made vows to abstain from marriage, I would they would they would be content to try a little longer then they do, whether they could keep that vow or no: And when men have consecrated themselves to the service of God in his Church, I would they would be content to try a little farther then they do, whether they could abstain or no: But to dissolve marriage made after such a Vow, or after Orders, is still to separate those whom God hath not separated. The Persons are he and she, man and woman; they must be so much; he must be a man, she must be a woman; And they must be no more; not a brother and a sister, not an unckle and aneece; Adduxit od eum, was the cause between Adam and Eve, God brought them together; God will not bring me a precontracted person, he will not have me defraud another; nor God will not bring me a mis-believing, a superstitious person, he will not have me drawn from himself: But let them be persons that God hath made, man and woman, and persons that God hath brought together, that is, not put asounder by any Law of his, and all such persons are capable of this first, this secular marriage.

In which our second Consideration is the Action, Sponsabe; where the Active is a kind of Passive, I will mary thee, is, I will be married unto thee, for we mary not ourselves. They are somewhat hard driven in the Roman Church, when making marriage a Sacrament, and being pressed by us with this question, If it be a Sacrament, who administers it, who is the Priest? They are fain to answer, the Bridegroom and the Bride, he and she are the Priest in that Sacrament. As marriage is a civil Contract, it must be done so in public, as that it may have the testimony of men; As marriage is a religious Contract, it must be so done, as that it may have the benediction of the Priest: In a marriage without testimony of men they cannot claim any benefit of the Law; In a marriage without the benediction of the Priest they cannot claim any benefit of the Church: for how Matrimonially foever such persons as have married themselves may pretend to love, and live together, yet all that love, and all that life is but a regulated Adultery, it is not marriage.

Now this institution of marriage had three objects: first, In ustionem, it was given for a remedy against burning; And then, In prolem, for propagation, for children; And lastly, In adjutorium, for mutual help. As we consider it the first way, In ustionem, every heating is not a burning; every natural concupiscence does not require a marriage; may every flaming is not a burning; though a man continue under the flame of carnal temptation, as long as S. Paul did; yet it needs not come presently to a Sponsabo, I will mary. God gave S. Paul other Physic, Gratia mea sufficit, grace to stand under that temptation; And S. Paul gave himself other Physic, Contundo corpus, convenient disciplines to tame his body. These will keepa man from burning; for Vriest desideriis vinci, desideria pati, illustris est, & perfecti; To be overcome by our concupiscences, that is to burn, but to quench the fire by religious ways, that is a noble, that is a perfect work. When God at the first institution of marriage had this first use of marriage in his contemplation, that it should be a remedy against burning, God gave man the remedy, before he had the disease; for marriage was instituted in the state of innocence, when there was no inordinateness in the affections of man, and so no burning. But as God created Reubarb in the world, whose quality is to purge choler, before there was any choler to purge, so God according to his abundant forwardness to do us good, created a remedy before the disease, which he foresaw coming, was come upon us. Let him then that takes a wife in this first and lowest sense, In medicinam, but as his Physic, yet make her his cordial Physic, take her to his heart, and fill his heart with her, let her dwell there, and dwell there alone, and so they will be mutual Antidotes and Preservatives one to another, against all foreign temptations. And with this blessing, bless thou, ô Lord, these whom thou hast brought hither for this blessing: make all the days of their life like this day unto them; and as thy mercies are new every morning, make them so to one another; And if they may not die together, sustain thou the survivor of them in that sad hour with this comfort, That he that died for them both, will bring them together again in his everlastingness.

The second use of marriage was In prolificationem, for children: And therefore as S. August. puts the case, To contract before, that they will have no children, makes it no marriage but an adultery: To deny themselves to another, is as much against marriage as to give themselves to another. To hinder it by Physic, or any other practice; nay to hinder it so far, as by a deliberate wish, or prayer against children, consists not well with this second use of marriage. And yet in this second use, we do not so much consider generation as regeneration; not so much procreation as education, nor propagation as transportation of children. For this world might be filled full enough of children, though there were no marriage; but heaven could not be filled, nor the places of the fallen Angels supplied, without that care of children's religious education, which from Parents in lawful marriage they are likeliest to receive. How infinite, and how miserable a circle of sin do we make, if as we sinned in our Parents loins before we were born, so we sin in our children's actions when we are dead, by having given them, either example, or liberty of sinning. We have a fearful commination from God upon a good man, upon Eli, for his not restraining the licentiousness of his sons; I will do a thing in Israel, says God there, at which every man's ears that hears it shall single: And it was executed, Eli fell down and broke his neck. We have also a consolation to women for children, She shall be saved in Child-bearing, says the Apostle; but as Chrysostom and others of the Ancients observe and interpret that place (which interpretation arises out of the very letter) it is, Si permanserint, not if she, but if they, if the children continue in faith, in charity, in holiness, and sobriety: The salvation of the Parents hath so much relation to the children's goodness, as that if they be ill by the Parents example, or indulgence, the Parents are as guilty as the children. Art thou afraid thy child should be stung with a Snake, and wilt thou let him play with the old Serpent, in opening himself to all temptations? Art thou afraid to let him walk in an ill air, and art thou content to let him stand in that pestilent air that is made of nothing but oaths, and execrations of blasphemous mouths round about him? It is S. Chrysostom's complaint, Perditionem magno pretio emunt; Salutem nec done accipere volunt; we pay dear for our children's damnation, by paying at first for all their childish vanities, and then for their sinful insolencies at any rate; and we might have them saved, and ourselves to the bargain, (which were a frugal way, and a debt well hedged in) for much less then ours, and their damnation stands us in. If you have a desire, says that blessed Father, to leave them certainly rich, Deumiis relinque Debitorem, Do some such thing for God's service, as you may leave God in their debt. He cannot break; his estate is inexhaustible; he will not break promise, nor break day; He will show mercy unto thousands in them that love him and keep his Commandments. And here also may another shower of his benedictions fall upon them whom he hath prepared and presented here; Let the wife be as a fruitful Vine, and their children like Olive plants: To thy glory, let the Parents express the love of Parents, and the children, to thy glory, the obedience of children, till they both loose that secular name of Parents and Children, and meet all alike, in one new name, all Saints in thy Kingdom, and fellow servants there.

The third and last use in this institution of secular marriage, was, In adjutorium, for mutual help. There is no state, no man in any state, that needs not the help of others. Subjects need Kings, and if Kings do not need their Subjects, they need alliances abroad, and they need Counsel at home. Even in Paradise, where the earth produced all things for life without labor, and the beasts submitted themselves to man, so that he had no outward enemy; And in the state of innocence in Paradise, where in man all the affections submitted themselves to reason, so that he had no inward enemy, yet God in this abundant Paradise, and in this secure innocence of Paradise, even in the survey of his own work, saw, that though all that he had made was good, yet he had not made all good; he found thus much defect in his own work, that man lacked a helper. Every body needs the help of others; and every good body does give some kind of help to others. Even into the Ark itself, where God blessed them all with a powerful and an immediate protection, God admitted only such as were fitted to help one another, couples. In the Ark, which was the Type of our best condition in this life, there was not a single person. Christ saved once one thief at the last gasp, to show that there may be late repentances; but in the Ark he saved none but married persons, to show, that he eases himself in making them helpers to one another. And therefore when we come to the P • sui Deum adjutorium meum, to rely upon God primarily for our Help, God comes to the faciam tibi adjutorium, I will make thee a help like thyself: not always like in complexion, nor like in years, nor like in fortune, nor like in birth, but like in mind, like in disposition, like in the love of God, and of one another or else there is no helper. It was no kind of help that David's wife gave him, when she spoke by way of counsel, but in truth, in scorn and derision, to draw him from a religious act, as the dancing before the Ark, at that time was: It is no help for any respect, to slacken the husband in his Religion. It was but a poor help that Nabal's wife was fain to give him by telling David, Al as my husband is but a fool, like his name, and what will you look for at a fools hand? It is the worst help of all to raise a husband by dejecting herself, to help her husband forward in this world, by forfeiting sinfully, and dishonourably her own interest in the next. The husband in the Helper in the nature of a foundation, to sustain and uphold all; The wife in the nature of the roof, to cover imperfections and weaknesses: The husband in the nature of the head from whom all the sinews flow; The wife in the nature of the hands into which those sinews flow, and enable them to do their offices. The husband helps as legs to her, she moves by his motion; The wife helps as a staff to him, he moves the better by her assistance. And let this mutual help be a part of our present benediction too; In all the ways of fortune let his industry help her, and in all the crosses of fortune let her patience help him; and in all emergent occasions and dangers spiritual, or temporal, O God make speed to save them, O Lord, make haste to help them.

We have spoken of the persons, man and woman, him and her; And of the action, first as it is Physic, but cordial Physic; and then for children, but children to be made the children of God; and lastly for help, but true help and mutual help; There remains yet in this secular marriage, the Term, how long, forever, I will mary thee for ever. Now though there be properly no eternity in this secular marriage, nor in any thing in this world, (for eternity is that only which never had • eginning, nor ever shall have end) yet we may consider a kind of eternity, a kind of circle without beginning, without end, even in this secular marriage: for first, marriage should have no beginning before marriage; no half-marriage, no lending away of the mind, in conditional precontracts before, no lending away of the body in unchaste wantonness before. The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost; and when two bodies, by marriage are to be made one temple, the wife is not as the Chancel, reserved and shut up, and the man as the walks below, indifferent and at liberty for every passenger. God in his Temple looks for first fruits from both, that so on both sides, marriage should have such a degree of eternity, as to have had no beginning of marriage before marriage. It should have this degree of eternity too, this quality of a circle to have no interruption, no breaking in the way by unjust suspicions and jealousies. Where there is Spiritus immunditei, as S. Paul calls it, a spirit of uncleanness, there will necessarily be Spiritus zelotypiae, as Moses calls it, a spirit of jealousy. But to raise the Devil in the power of the Devil, to call up one spirit by another spirit, by the spirit of jealousy and suspicion, to induce the spirit of uncleanness where it was not, if a man conjure up a Devil so, God knows who shall conjure it down again, As jealousy is a care and not a suspicion, God is not ashamed to protest of himself that he is a jealous God. God commands that no idolatry be committed, Thou shalt not bow down to a graven Image; and before he accuses any man to have bowed down to a graven Image, before any Idolatry was committed, he tells them that he is a jealous God; God is jealous before there is any harm done. And God presents it as a curse, when he says, My jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and no more angry; that is, I will heave thee to thyself, and take no more care of thee. Jealousy that implies care, and honor, and counsel, and tenderness, is rooted in God, for God is a jealous God, and his servants are jealous servants, as S. Paul professes of himself, I am jealous over you with a gedly jealousy. But jealousy that implies diffidence and suspicion, and accusation, is rooted in the Devil, for he is the Accuser of the brethren.

So then, this secular marriage should be in aeternum, eternal, forever, as to have no beginning before, and so too, as to have no jealous interruption by the way; for it is so eternal, as that it can have no end in this life: Those whom God hath joined, no man, no Devil, can separate so, as that it shall not remain a marriage so far, as that if those separated persons will live together again, yet they shall not be new married; so far, certainly, the band of marriage continues still. The Devil makes no marriages; He may have a hand in drawing conveyances; in the temporal conditios there may be practice, but the marriage is made by God in heaven. The Devil can break no marriages neither, though he can by sin break off all the good uses, and take away all the comforts of marriage. I pronounce not now whether Adultery dissolves marriage or no; It is S. Augustine's wisdom to say, Where the Scripture is silent, let me be silent too: And I may go lower then he, and say, Where the Church is silent, let me be silent too; and our Church is so far silent in this, as that it hath not said, That Adultery dissolves marriage. Perchance then it is not the death of marriage, but surely it is a deadly wound. We have Authors in the Romanc Church that think fornicationem non vagam, that such an incontinent life as is limited to one certain person, is no deadly sin, But there is none even amongst them that diminish the crime of Adultery. Habere quasi non haberes, is Christ's counsel, To have a wife as though thou hadst none, that is continency, and temperance, and forbearance and abstinency upon some occasions; But non habere quasi haberes, is not so; not to have a wife, and yet have her, to have her, that is another's, that is the Devils counsel. That falutation of the Angle to the blessed Virgin Mary, Blessed art thou amongst memen, we may make even this interpretation, not only that she was blessed amongst women, that is, above women, but that she was Benedicta, blessed amongst women, that all women blest her, that no woman had occasion to curse her: And this is the eternity of this secular marriage as far as this world admits any eternity; that it should have no beginning before, no interruption of jealousy in the way, no such approach towards dissolution, as that incontinency, in all opinions, and in all Churches is agreed to be. And here also without any scruple of fear, or of suspicion of the contrary, there is place for this benediction, upon this couple; Build, ô Lord, upon thine own foundations, in these two, and establish thy former graces with future; that no person ever complain of either of them, nor either of them of one another, and so he and she are married in aeternum forever.

We are now come in our order proposed at first, to our second Part; for all is said that I intended of the secular marriage. And of this second, the spiritual marriage, much needs not to be said: There is another Priest that contracts that, another Preacher that celebrates that, the Spirit of God to our spirit. And for the third marriage, the eternal marriage, it is a boldness to speak anything of a thing so inexpressible as the joys of heaven; it is a diminution of them to go about to heighten them; it is a shadowing of them to go about to lay any colors or light upon them. But yet your patience may perchance last to a word of each of these three Circumstances, The Persons, the Action, the Term, both in this spiritual, and in the eternal marriage.

First then, as in the former Part, the secular marriage, for the persons there, we considered first Adam and Eve, and after every man and woman, and this couple in particular; so in this spiritual marriage we consider first Christ and his Church, for the Persons, and more particularly Christ and my soul. And can these persons meet? in such a distance, and in such a disparagement can these persons meet? the Son of God and the son of man? When I consider Christ to be Germen Iehovae, the bud and blossom, the fruit and offspring of Jehovah, Jehovah himself, and myself before he took me in hand, to be, not a Potters vessel of earth, but that earth of which the Potter might make a vessel if he would, and break it if he would when he had made it: When I consider Christ to have been from before all beginnings, and to be still the Image of the Father, the same stamp upon the same metal, and myself a piece of rusty copper, in which those lines of the Image of God which were imprinted in me in my Creation are defaced and worn, and washed and burnt, and ground away, by my many, and many, and many fins: When I consider Christ in his Circle, in glory with his Father, before he came into this world, establishing a glorious Church when he was in this world, and glorifying that Church with that glory which himself had before, when he went out of this world; and then consider myself in my circle, I came into this world washed in my own tears, and either out of compunction for myself or compassion for others, I pass through this world as through a valley of tears, where tears settle and swell, and when I pass out of this world I leave their eyes whose hands close mine, full of tears too, can these persons, this Image of God, this God himself, this glorious God, and this vessel of earth, this earth itself, this inglorious worm of the earth, meet without disparagement?

They do meet and make a marriage; because I am not a body only, but a body and s,oul there is a marriage, and Christ maries me. As by the Law a man might mary a captive woman in the Wars, if he shaved her head, and pared her nails, and changed her clothes: so my Savior having fought for my soul, fought to blood, to death, to the death of the Cross for her, having studied my soul so much, as to write all those Epistles which are in the New Testament to my soul, having presented my soul with his own picture, that I can see his face in all his temporal blessings, having shaved her head in abating her pride, and pared her nails in contracting her greedy desires, and changed her clothes not to fashion herself after this world, my soul being thus fitted by himself, Christ Jesus hath married my soul, married her to all the three intendments mentioned in the secular marriage; first, in ustionem, against burning; That whether I burn myself in the fires of temptation, by exposing myself to occasions of temptation, or be reserved to be burnt by others in the fires of persecution and martyrdom, whether the fires of ambition, or envy, or lust, or the everlasting fires of hell offer at me in an apprehension of the judgments of God, yet as the Spirit of God shall wipe all tears from mine eyes, so the tears of Christ Jesus shall extinguish all fires in my heart, and so it is a marriage, In ustionem, a remedy against burning.

It is so too, In prolificationem, for children; first, vae soli, woe unto that single soul that is not married to Christ; that is not come into the way of having issue by him, that is not incorporated in the Christian Church, and in the true Church, but is yet in the wilderness of Idolatry amongst the Gentiles, or in the Labyrinth of superstition amongst the Papists, vae soli, woe unto that single man that is not married unto Christ in the Sacraments of the Church; and vae sterili, woe unto them that are barren after this spiritual marriage, for that is a great curse in the Prophet Jeremiah, Scribe virum istum sterilem, write this man childless, that implied all calamities upon him; And as soon as Christ had laid that curse upon the Fig-tree, Let no fruit grow upon thee forever, presently the whole tree withered; no fruit, no leafes neither, nor body left. To be incorporated in the body of Christ Jesus, and bring forth no fruits worthy of that profession, is a woeful state too. Vae soli, woe unto the Gentiles not married unto Christ; and vae sterili, woe unto inconsiderate Christians, that think not upon their calling, that conceive not by Christ; but there is a vae praegnanti too, woe unto them that are with child, and are never delivered; that have good conceptions, religious dispositions, holy desires to the advancement of God's truth, but for some collateral respects dare not utter them, nor bring them to their birth, to any effect. The purpose of his marriage to us, is to have children by us: and this is his abundant and his present fecundity, that working now, by me in you, in one instant he hath children in me, and grand children by me. He hath married me, in ustionem, and in prolem, against burning, and for children; but can he have any use of me, in adjutorium, for a helper? Surely, if I be able to feed him, and clothe him, and harbor him, (and Christ would not condemn men at the last day for not doing these, if man could not do them) I am able to help him too. Great persons can help him over sea, convey the name of Christ where it hath not been preached yet; and they can help him home again; restore his name, and his truth where superstition with violence hath disseised him: And they can help him at home, defend his truth there against all machinations to displant and dispossess him. Great men can help him thus; and every man can help him to a better place in his own heart, and his own actions, then he hath had there; and to be so helped in me and helped by me, to have his glory thereby advanced, Christ hath married my soul: And he hath married it in aeternum, forever; which is the third and last Circumstance in this spiritual, as it was in the secular marriage.

And here the aeternum is enlarged; in the secular marriage it was an eternity considered only in this life; but this eternity is not begun in this world, but from all eternity in the Book of life, in God's eternal Decree for my election, there Christ was married to my soul. Christ was never in minority, never under years; there was never any time when he was not as ancient as the Ancient of Days, as old as his Father. But when my soul was in a strange minority, infinite millions of millions of generations, before my soul was a soul, did Christ mary my soul in his eternal Decree. So it was eternal, it had no beginning. Neither doth he interrupt • his by giving me any occasion of jealousy by the way, but loves my soul as though there were no other soul, and would have done and suffered all that he did for me alone, if there had been no name but mine in the Book of life. And as he hath married me to him, in aeternum, forever, before all beginnings, and in aeternum, forever, without any interruptions, so I know, that whom he loves he loves to the end, and that he hath given me, not a presumptuous impossibility, but a modest infallibility, that no sin of mine shall divorce or separate me from him, for, that which ends the secular marriage, ends not the spiritual: not death, for my death does not take me from that husband, but that husband being by his Father prefer'd to higher titles, and greater glory in another state, I do but go by death where he is become a King, to have my part in that glory, and in those additions which he hath received there. And this hath led us to our third and last marriage, our eternal marriage in the triumphant Church.

And in this third marriage, the persons are, the Lamb and my soul; The marriage of the Lamb is come, and blessed are they that are called to the marriage Supper of the Lamb, says S. John speaking of our state in the general Resurrection. That Lamb that was brought to the slaughter and opened not his mouth, and I who have opened my mouth and poured out imprecations and curses upon men, and execrations and blasphemies against God upon every occasion; That Lamb who was slain from the beginning, and was slain by him who was a murderer from the beginning; That Lamb which took away the sins of the world, and I who brought more sins into the world, then any sacrifice but the blood of this Lamb could take away: This Lamb and I (these are the Persons) shall meet and mary; there is the Action.

This is not a clandestine marriage, not the private seal of Christ in the obsignation of his Spirit; and yet such a clandestine marriage is a good marriage: Nor it is not such a Parish marriage, as when Christ married me to himself at my Baptism, in a Church here • and yet that marriage of a Christian soul to Christ in that Sacrament is a blessed marriage: But this is a marriage in that great and glorious Congregation, where all my fins shall be laid open to the eyes of all the world, where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleanness, and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations, and all the Consessors see all my double dealings in God's cause; where Abraham shall see my faithlesnesse in God's promises; and Job my impatience in God's corrections; and Lazarus my hardness of heart in distributing God's blessings to the poor; and those Virgins, and Martyrs, and Confessors, and Abraham, and Job, and Lazarus, and all that Congregation, shall look upon the Lamb and upon me, and upon one another, as though they would all forbid those banes, and say to one another, Will this Lamb have any thing to do with this soul? and yet there and then this Lamb shall mary me, In aeternum, forever, which is our last circumstance.

It is not well done to call it a circumstance, for the eternity is a great part of the essence of that marriage. Consider then how poor and needy a thing, all the riches of this world, how flat and tastlesse a thing, all the pleasures of this world, how pallid, and faint, and dilute a thing, all the honors of this world are, when the very Treasure, and Joy, and glory of heaven itself were imperfect, if it were not eternal, and my marriage shall be too, In aeternum, forever.

The Angels were not married so; they incur'd an irreparable Divorce from God, and are separated forever, and I shall be married to him, in aeternum, forever. The Angels fell in love, when there was no object presented, before anything was created; when there was nothing but God and themselves, they fell in love with themselves, and neglected God, and so fell in aeternum, forever. I shall see all the beauty, and all the glory of all the Saints of God, and love them all, and know that the Lamb loves them too, without jealousy, on his part, or theirs, or mine, and so be married in aeternum, forever, without interruption, or diminution, or change of affections. I shall see the Sun black as sackcloth of hair, and the Moon become as blood, and the Stars fall as a Fig-tree casts her untimely Figs, and the heavens rolled up together as a Scroll. I shall see a divorce between Princes and their Prerogatives, between nature and all her elements, between the spheres, and all their intelligences; between matter itself, and all her forms, and my marriage shall be, in aeternum, for ever. I shall see an end of faith, nothing to be believed that I do not know; and an end of hope, nothing to be wisht that I do not enjoy, but no end of that love in which I am married to the Lamb forever. Yea, I shall see an end of some of the offices of the Lamb himself; Christ himself shall be no longer a Mediator, an Intercessor, an Advocate, and yet shall continue a Husband to my soul forever. Where I shall be rich enough without Jointure, for my Husband cannot die; and wise enough without experience, for no new thing can happen there; and healthy enough without Physic, for no sickness can enter; and (which is by much the highest of all) safe enough without grace, for no temptation that need particular grace, can attempt me. There, where the Angels, which cannot die, could not live, this very body which cannot choose but die, shall live, and live as long as that God of life that made it. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, ô Lord, that in thy light we may see light: Illustrate our understandings, kindle our affections, pour oil to our zeal, that we may come to the marriage of this Lamb, and that this Lamb may come quickly to this marriage: And in the mean time bless these thy servants, with making this secular marriage a type of the spiritual, and the spiritual an earnest of that eternal, which they and we, by thy mercy, shall have in the Kingdom which thy Son our Savior hath purchased with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. To whom, &c.

SERMON IV.

Preached at a Christening.

I F our conversation be in heaven, as the Apostle says his was, and if that conversation be, (as Testullian reads that place) Municipatus noster, our City, our dwelling, the place from whence only we receive our Laws, to which only we direct our services, in which only we are capable of honors, and offices, where even the office of a door-keeper was the subject of a great Kings ambition; if our conversation be there, even there, there cannot be better company met, then we may see and converse withal in this Chapter. Upon those words, doth the Eagle mount up at the Cominandement, or make his nest on high; S. Gregory says, Videamus aquilam, nidum sibi, in arduis construentem; Then we say an Eagle make his nest on high, when we heard S. Petter say so, Our conversation is in heaven; and then doth an Eagle mount up at our commandment, when our soul, our devotion, by such a conversation in heaven, associates itself with all this blessed company that are met in this Chapter, that our fellow ship may be with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, and with all the Court and Choir of the Triumphant Church. If you go to feasts, if you go to Comedies, fometimes only to meet company, nay if you come to Church sometimes only upon that errand, to meet company, (as though the House of God, were but as the presence of an earthly Prince, which upon solemn Festival days must be filled and furnished, though they that come, come to do no service there) command year Eagle to mount up, and to build his nest on high, command your souls to have their conversation in heaven by meditation of this Scripture, and you shall meet company, which no stranger shall interrupt, for they are all of a knot, and such a knot as nothing shall untie, as inseparably united to one another, as that God, with whom they are made one Spirit, is inseparable in himself.

Here you shall see the Angel that comes from the East, (yea, that Angel which is the East, from whence all beams of grace and glory arise, for so the Prophet calls Christ Jesus himself, (as S. Jerome reads that place) Eccevir, Oriens nomen ejus, Behold him, whose name is the East ) you shall see him come with the seal of the living God, and hold back those Angels which had power given them to hurt the Sea, and the Earth, and you shall her him say, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in the forecheads. And as you shall see him forward, so you shall see him large, and bountiful in imprinting that Seal, you shall see an hundred and forty four thousand of the Tribes of the Children of Israel, and you shall see a great multitude, which no man can number, of all Nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stand before the Throne, and before the Lamb, and cry out, and say, Salvation cometh of our God, that sitteth upon the Throne, and of the Lamb: and you shall see all the Angels stand round about the Throne, and about the Elders, and the four Beasts, all falling upon their faces, and worshipping God, saying, Amen, praise, and glory, and wisdom, and thanks, and honor, and power, and might be unto our God, for evermore, Amen. And this is good company, and good Musique.

And lest you should lose any of the Joy of this conversation, of this society, by ignorance what they were, one of the Elders prevents you; and (as the Text says) answers you, saying, what are these that are araid in white? he answers by a question, which is some what strange; but he answers before any question, which is more strange: but God fees questions in our hearts before he hears them from our lips; and as soon as our hearts conceive a desire to be informed, he gives a full and a present satisfaction; he answers before we ask; but yet he answers by a question, that thereby he may give us occasion of farther discourse, of farther questioning with him. There, this Elder shall tell thee, that those are they which are come out of the Tribulations of this world, and have made their Robes white in the blood of the Lamb, that therefore they are in the presence of the Throne of God, that they serve him day and night in the Temple, that they shall hunger no more, thrist no more, nor be offended with heat, or Sun; That is, as many as are appointed to receive this Seal of the living God upon their foreheads, though they be not actually delivered from all the incommodities of this life, yet nothing in this life shall deprive them of the next. For as you see the Seal given in this Chapter, and the promise of all these blessings annexed to it, so you see in this Text the reason of all this, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall govern them, and shall lead them unto the lively fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

In which words, we shall consider for order and distincton, first the matter, and then the form: by the matter we mean the purpose and intention of the Holy Ghost in these words; and by the form, the declaring, the proving, the illustrating, and the heightening of that purpose of his. For the matter; we take this imprinting or the Seal of the living God in the forehead of the Elect, and this washing in the blood of the Lamb, to be intended of the Sacrament of Baptism: In that which we call the form, which is the illustrating of this, we shall first look upon the great benefits and blessings which these servants of God so sealed, and so washed, are made partakers of; for those blessings which are mentioned in the verses before, are rooted and enwrapped in this particular of this Text, Quoniam, for; they are blessed; for the Lamb shall do this and this for them; And then we shall consider what that is which this Lamb will do for them; first, Reget illos, He shall govern them, take them into his care, make them heirs of the Covenant, breed them in a visible Church: secondly, Deducet eos, He shall lead them to the lively fountains of waters; give them outward and visible means of Sanctification; thirdly, Absterget omnem lachtymam, He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; even in this life he shall settle and establish a heavenly joy in the faithful appreliension of the joys of heaven here.

First then to speak of the matter, that is of the purpose and intention of these words, it is true, they are diversely understood: They have been understood of the state of the Martyrs, which are now come to the possesion of their Crown in heaven, because they are said to have made their long Robes white in the blood of the Lamb; And so S. August. and S. Gregory (when, by occasion of the subject which they were then in hand with, they were full of the contemplation of Martyrdom, and encouragements to that) do seem to understand these words, of Martyrs. But since it is not said, that they washed their robes in their own blood, which is proper to Martyrs, but in the blood of the Lamb, which is communicated to all that participate of the merit of Christ, the words seem larger then so, and not to be restrained only to Martyrs. Others have enlarged them farther then so, beyond Martyrs: but yet limit them to the Triumphant Church; that because it is said, that they are come out of great tribulation, and that they are in the presence of the Throne of God, and that they shall hunger no more, they see no way of admitting these perfections, in this life. But S. Paul saw a way, when he said of the Elect, even in this life, God which is rich in mercy, Convivificavit, conresuscitavit, consider fecit, he hath quickened us, he hath raised us, he hath made us fit together in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: That is, as he is our Head, and is there himself, and we with Christ Jesus, as we are his Members; we are with him there too. In the same place where the Apostle says, That we look for our Savior from heaven, (there is our future, our expectation) he says also, our conversation is in heaven, there is our present, our actual possession. That is it which S. Augustine intends, Dilexisti me Domine plusquam te; Lord thou hast loved me more then thou hast loved thyself: Not only that thou gavest thyself for me, that thou didst neglect thyself to consider me, but whereas thou hadst a glory with the Father, before the world was made, thou didst admit a cloud, and a slumber upon that glory, and staiedst for thy glory till thy death, yet thou givest us, (naturally inglorious, and miserable creatures) a real possession of glory, and of inseparablenesse from thee, in this life. This is that Copiosa redemptio, there is with the Lord plentiful redemption; though that were Matura redemptio, a seasonable redemption, if it should meet me upon my deathbed, and that the Angels then should receive my soul, to lay it in Abraham's bosom, yet this is my Savior's plentiful redemption, that my soul is in Abraham's bosom now whilst it is in this body, and that I am already in the presence of his Throne, now when I am in your sight, and that I serve him already day and night in his Temple, now when I meditate, or execute his Commission, in this service, in this particular Congregation.

Those words are not then necessarily restrained to Martyrs, they are not restrained to the state of the Triumphant Church, they are spoken to all the Children of righteousness, and of godliness; and godliness hath the promises of the life present, and that, that is to come. That which involves all these promises, that which is the kernel, and seed, and marrow of all, the last clause of the text, God shall wipe all tears from their eyes, those words, that clause, is thrice repeated entirely in the Scriptures: When it is spoken here, when it is spoken in the one and twentieth Chapter of the Revelation, and at the fourth verse, in both places, it is derived from the Prophet Isaiah, which is an Eacharisticall chapter, a Chapter of thanksgiving for God's deliverance of his children, even in this world, from the afflictions, and tribulations thereof, and therefore this text belongs also to this world.

This imprinting then of the seal in the forehead, this washing of the robes in the blood of the Lamb, S. Ambrose places conveniently to be accomplished in the Sacrament of Baptism: for this is Copiosissima Redemptio, this is the most plentiful redemption, that that be applied to us, not only at last in Heaven, nor at my last step towards heaven, at my death, nor in all the steps that I make in the course of my life, but in my first step into the Church, nay before I can make any step, when I was carried in another's arms thither, even in the beginning of this life; and so do divers of the later Men, and of those whom we call ours, understand all this, of baptism; because if we consider this washing away of tears, as Saint Cyprian says, young children do most of all need this mercy of God and this assistance of Man, because as soon as they come into this world Plorantes, ac flentes, nihil aliud faciunt, quam deprecantur, they beg with tears something at our hands, and therefore need this abstersion, this wiping. For though they cannot tell us, what they aile, though (if we will enter into curiosities) we cannot tell them what they aile, that is, we cannot tell them what properly, and exactly Original sin is, yet they aile something, which naturally disposes them, to weep, and beg, that something might be done, for the wiping away of tears from their eyes. And therefore though the other errors of the Anabaptist be ancient, 1000. year old, yet the denying of baptism to children, was never heard of till within 100. years, and less. The Arians, and the Donatists did rebapsize those who were baptized by the true Christians, whom they counted Heretics; but yet they refused not to baptize children: The Pelegians denied original sin in children; but yet they baptized them. All Churches, Greek, and Russian, and Ethiopique, howsoever they differ in the body of the Church, yet they meet, they agree in the porch, in Limine Ecclesiae, in the Sacrament of baptism, and acknowledge that it is communicable to all children, and to all Men; from the child new borne to the decrepit old Man, from him that is come out of one mothers womb, to him that is going into another, into his grave, Sicut nullus prohibendus à baptism, it a nullus est qui non peccate moritur in baptismo, As baptism is to be denied to none, so neither is it to be denied, that all, that are rightly baptized, are washed from sin. Let him that will contentiously say, that there are some children, that take no profit by baptism, show me which is one of them, and qui testator de scientia, testetur de mode scientiae; If he say he knows it, let him tell us how he knows that which the Church of God doth not know.

We come now to the second part; in which we consider first, this firstword, quoniam, for, which is verbum praegnans, a word that includes all those great blessings, which God hath ordained for them, whom in his eternal decree, he hath prepared for this sealing and this washing. Those blessings, which are immediately before the text, are, that in God's purpose, they are already come out of great tribulations, they have already received a whiteness by the blood of the Lamb, they are already in the presence of the threne of the Lamb, they have already overcome all hunger, and thirst, and heat. Those particular blessings we cannot insist upon; that requires rather a Comment upon the Chapter, then a Sermon upon the text. But in this word of inference, for, we only will observe this: That though all the promises of God in him, are Yea, and Amen, certain, and infallible in themselves, though his Name, that makes them be Amen, (Thus saith Amen, the faithful and true witness ) and therefore there needs no better security, then his word, for all those blessings, yet God is pleased to give that abundant satisfaction to Man, as that his reason shall have something to build upon, as well as his faith, he shall know why he should believe all these blessings to belong to them who are to have these Seals, and this washing. For God requires no such faith, nay he accepts, nay he excuses no such faith, as believes without reason; believes he knows not why. As faith witout fruit, witout works, is no faith; to faith without a roct, without reason, is no faith, but an opinion. All those blessings by the Sacrament of Baptism, & all God's other promises to his children, and all the mysteries of Christrian Religion, are therefore believed by us, becuase they are grounded in the Scriptures of God; we believe them for that reason; and then it is not a work of my faith primarily, but it is a work of my reason, that assures me, that these are the Scriptures, that these Scriptures are the word of God. I can answer other Men's reasons, that argue against it, I can convince other men by reason, that my reasons are true: and therefore it is a work of reason, that I believe these to be Scriptures.

To prove a beginning of the world, I need not the Scriptures, reason will evict it forceibly enough against all the world; but, when I come beyond all Philosophy, that for Adams fault six thousand year ago, I should be condemned now, because that fault is naturally in me, I must find reason, before I believe this, and my reason is, because I find it in the Scrpiture; Nascimur filii Irae, and therefore, nifi renatus, we are borne children of wrath, and therefore must be borne again. That a Messias should come to deliver Mankind from this sin, and all other fins, my reason is, the Semen mulieris, the seed of the woman, for the promise, and the Ecce agnus Dei, Behold the Lamb of God, for the performance. That he should come, I reft in that, The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head; And that he is come, I rest in this, that John the Baptist shown the Lambs of God that taketh away the sins of the world. That this merit of his should be applied to certain Men, my reason is in the Semini two, God's Covenant, to Abraham, and to his seed; That we are of that number, included in that Covenant to Abraham, my reason is, in spiritu adoptionis, the spirit of adoption hath engraffed us, inserted us into the same Covenant. When my reason tells me that the Seal of that Covenant, Circumcision is gone, (I am not circumcised, and therefore might doubt) my reason tells me too, that in the Scriptures, there is a new Seals, Baptism: when my reason tells me, that after that regeneration, I have degenerated again, I have fallen from those graces which I received in Baptism, my reason leads me again to those places of Scripture, where God hath established a Church for the remession and absolution of sins. If I have been negligent of all these helps, and now my reason begins to work to my prejudice, that I begin to gather and heap up all those places of the Law, and Prophets, and Gospel, which threaten certain condemnation unto such sinners, as I find myself to be, yet if my reason can see light at the Nolo mortem peccatoris, at the Quandocunque resipiscct; That God would not the death of any sinner, That no time is unseasonable for repentance: That scatters the clands of witnesses again; and to till my reason can tell me (which it can never do) that it hath found places in Scripture, of a measure, and finitenesse in God, (that his mercy can go no farther) and then of an infiniteness in Man (that his sin can go beyond God) my reason will defend me from desperation; I mean the reason, that is grounded upon the Scripture; still I shall find there, that Quia, which David delighted in so much, as that he repears it almost thirty times, in one Psalm, For his mercy endureth forever.

God leaves no way of satisfaction unperformed unto us; sometimes he works upon the fantasy of Man; as in those often • isions, which he presented to his Prophets in dreams; sometimes he works upon the senses, by preparing objects for them; So he filled the Mountain round about with horses, and chariots, in defense of Elisha; but always he works upon our reason; he bids us fear no judgment, he bids us hope for no mercy, except it have a Quia, a reason, a foundation, in the Scriptures. For God is Logos, speech and reason He declares his will by his Word, and he proved it, he confirms it, he is Logos, and he proceeds Logically. It is true, that we have a Sophistry, which as far as concerns our own destruction, frustrates his Logic; If Peter make a Quia, a reason why his fellows could not be drunk, Because it was but nine a Clock, we can find Men that can overthrow that reason, and rise drunk out of their beds; If Christ make a Quia, a reason against fashionall, and Circumstantiall Christians, that do sometimes some offices of religion, out of custom, or company, or neighborhood, or necessity, because no man peecethan old garment with new cloth, nor puts new wine into old vessels, yet since S. Augustine says well, Carnalitas vetustas, gratia novitas, our carnal delights, are our old garments, and those degrees and beams of grace, which are shed upon us, are the new, we do piece this old with this new, that is, long habits of sin, with short repentances; flames of concupiscence, with little sparks of remorse; and into old vessels, (our sin-worn bodies ) we put in once a year, some drops, of new wine, of the blood of our Savior Christ Jesus, in the Sacrament, (when we come to his table, as to a vintage, because of the season, and we receive by the Almanac, because it is Easter ) and this new wine so taken in, breaks the vessels, (as Christ speaks in that similitude) And his breaking shall be, as the breaking of a Potters pot, which is broken without pity, and in the breaking thereof is not found a shard, to take fire at the hearth, nor to take water out of the pit; No way in the Church of God, to repair that Man, because he hath made either a Mockery, or at best, but a Civil action of God's institution in the Church. To conclude this, all sin is but fallacy and Sophistry; Religion is reason and Logic; The devil hides, and deludes, Almighty God demonstrates and proves: That fashion of his goes through all his precepts, through all his promises, which is in Isaiah, Come now, and let us reason together; that which was in Job, is a bundantly in God, That he did not contemn the judgment of his servant, nor of his maid, when they did contend with him. Nec decet Dei judicium quicquid habere affine tyrannidi, we may not think that here is anything in God, like a Tyran; and it is a Tyrannicall proceeding, as to give no reason of his cruelties, so to give no assurance of his benefits; and therefore God seals his promises with a Quia, a reason, an assurance.

Now much of the strength of the assurance, consists in the person, whose seal it is; and therefore as Christ did, we ask next, Cujus inscriptio, whose Image, whose inscription is upon his seal, who gives this assurance? And it is the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne; If it werethe Lion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, is able to perform his promises: but there are more then Christ, out of this world, that bear the Lion; The devil is a Lion too, that seeketh whom he may devour: but he never seals with that Lamb, with any impression of humility; to a Lamb he is never compared; in the likeness of a lamb, he is never noted to have appeared, in all the Legends.

It is the Lamb, that is in the midst, thereby disposed to shed, and dispense his spiritual benefits on all sides; The Lamb is not immured in Rome, not coffined up in the ruins, and tubbidge of old walls, nor thrust into a corner in Conventicles. The Lamb is in the midst; & he is in the midst of the throne; though all his great, & glorious company be round about him, one hundred and forty four thousand Israelites, innumerable multitudes of all Nations, Angels, and Elders, yet it is the Lamb, that is in the midst of them, and not they that are about him, that sheds down these blessings upon us; And it is the Lamb, that is there still, in the midst of the throne; not kneaded into an Agnus Dei, of wax, or wafer here, not called down from heaven, to an Altar, by every Priests charm, to be a witness of secrecy in the Sacrament, for every bloody, and feditious enterprise, that they undertake; It is Agnus qui est in medio Throni, the Lamb that is there, and shall be so, till he come at last, as a Lion also, to devour them, who have made false opinions of him to serve their mischievous purposes here.

This is the person then, that gives the assurance, that all these blessings belong to them who are ordained to be so sealed, and so washed; this is he that assures us, and approves to us, that all this shall be, first, Quia reget, because he shall govern them, secondly, Quia deducet, because he shall lead them to the fountains of waters; thirdly, Quia absterget, because he shall wipe all tears from their eyes.

First, he shall govern them; he shall establish a spiritual Kingdom for them in this world; for to govern, which is the word, of the first translation, and to feed, which is in the second, is all one in Scriptures. Dominabitur gentium, he shall be Lord of the Gentiles; but Rex Israelis, he shall govern his people Israel, as a King, by a certain, and a clear law; So that, as we shall have interest in the Covenant, as well as the Israclites, so we shall have interest in that glorious acclamation of theirs; Unto what nation are their God's come so near unto them, as the Lord our God, is come near unto us; what nation hath Laws, and ordinances so righteous as we have? for in that Paul & Barnabas express the heaviest indignation of God upon the Gentiles, that God suffered the Gentiles to walk in their own ways; he shown them not his ways, he settled no church, no kingdom, amongst them, he did not govern them. Except one of those Eight persons whom God preserved in the Ark, were here to tell us, the inexpressible comfort, that he conceived in his safety, when he saw that flood wash away Princes from their thrones, misers from their bags, lovers from their embracements, Courtiers from their wardrobes, no man is able to express that true comfort, which a Christian is to take, even in this, That God hath taken him into his Church, and not left him in that desperate, and irremediable inundation of Idolatry, and paganisace that overflows all the world beside. For beloved, who can express, who can conceive that strange confusion, which shall overtake, and oppress those infinite multitudes of Souls, which shall be changed at the last day, and shall meet Christ Jesus in the clouds, and shall receive an irrevocable judgment, of everlasting condemnation, dut of his mouth, whose name they never heard of before, that must be condemned by a Judge, of whom they knew nothing before, and who never had before any apprehension of torments of Hell, till by that lamentable experience they began to learn it? What blessed means of preparation against that fearful day doth he afford us, even in this, that he governs us by his law, delivered in his Church.

The first thing, that the householder in the parable, is noted to have done for his Vineyard was, Sepe circumdedit, he hedged it in. That, God hath done for us, in making us his Church; he hath inlaid us, he hath hedged us in. But he that breaketh the hedge, a Serpent shall bite him, he that breaketh this hedge, the peace of the Church, by his Schism, the old Serpent hath bitten, and poisoned him, and shall bite worse hereafter: and if God, having thus severed us, and hedged us in, have expected grapes, and we bring none, though we break no hedge here amongst ourselves, that is, no Papist breaks in upon us, no Separatist breaks out from us, we enjoy security enough, yet even for our own barrenness, Godwill take away the hedge, and it shall be eaten up, he will break the wall, and it shall be trodden down. Surely, says the Prohet there, The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the Men of Indah are his pleasant plans: Surely we are the Church, which God hath hedged in; but yet if we answer not his expectation, certainly the confusion of the Gentiles, at the last day, (when they shall say to themselves of Christ Nescivi te, dost thou condemn us, and we know thee not? ) shall not be so great, as out confusion shall be, when we shall hear Christ say to us, whom he bred in his Church, Nesiciovos, I know not whence you are. Even this, that the ill use of this mercy of having been bred in his Church, shall aggravate our condemnation then, shows the great benefit, which we may receive now by this Quod regit nos, that he takes care of us in his Church; for how many in the world would have lived ten times more christianly then we do, if they had but half that knowledge of Christ, which we have?

When he hath then brought us into his kingdom, that we are his subjects, (for all the heathen are in the condition of slaves ) he brings us nearer, into his service; he gives us outward distinctions, liveries, badges, names, visible marks in Baptism: yea he incorporates us more inseparably to himself, then that which they imagine to be done in the Church of Rome, where their Canonists, say; that a Cardinal is to incorporated in the Pope, he is so made one flesh, and blood with him, as that he may not let blood without his leave, because he bleeds not his own, but the Popes blood: But of us it is true, that by this Sacramēs we are so incorporated into Christ, that in all our afflictions after we fulfill the sufferings of Christ in our flesh, and in all afflictions, which we lay upon any of our Christian brethren, our consciences hear Christ crying to us, Quid me persequerts? why persecutest thou me? Christ's body is wounded in us, when we suffer, Christ's body is wounded by us, when we violate the peace of the Church, or offend the particular members thereof.

First then deducet, he shall lead them, it is not he shall force them, he shall thrust them, he shall compel them; it implies a gentle, and yet an effectual way, he shall lead them. Those which come to Christianity, from Judaism, or Gentisme, when they are of years of discreation, he shall lead them by instruction, by Catechism, by preaching of his word, before they be baptized, for they that are of years & are baptized, without the word, that is, without understanding, or considering the institution, & virtue of baptisime, expressed in God's word, and so receive baptism only for temporal, and natural respects, they are not led to the waters, but they fall into them: and so, as a Man may be drowned in a wholesome bath, so such a Man, may perish eternally in baptism, if he take it, for satisfaction of the State, or any other by respect, to which that Sacrament is not ordained, in the word of God. He shall lead Men of years, by Instruction; and he shall lead young children in good company, and with a strong guard, he shall lead them by the faith of his Church, by the faith of their Parents, by the faith of their sureties and undertakers.

He shall lead them; and then, when he hath taken them into his government; for first it is Reget, he shall govern them, and then Deducet, that is, he shall lead them, in his Church; and therefore they that are led to baptism, any other way then by the Church, they are misled; nay they are miscarried, misdriven, Spiritu vertiginis, with the spirit of giddiness. They that join any in commission with the Trinity, though but as an asstsant, (for so they say in the Church of Rome, baptism may be administered, in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Ghost, and the virgin Mary ) they follow not, as Christ led in his Church, Non fuit sic ab initio, it was not so from the beginning: for quod extra hos tres est, totum Conservum est; though much dignity belong to the memory of the Saints of God, yet whosoever is none of the three Persons, Conservus est, he is our fellow-servant: though his service lie above stairs, and ours below, his in the triumphant, ours in the militant Church, Conservus est, yet he, or she, is in that respect, but our fellow-servant, and not Christ's fellow-redeemer. So also, if we be led to Marah, to the waters of bitterness, that we bring a bitter taste, of those institutions of the Church for the decency, and signification in Sacramental things, things belonging to Baptism, if we bring a misinterpretation of them, an indisposition to them, an averseness from them, and so nourish a bitterness, and uncharitableness towards one another, for these Ceremonies, if we had rather cross one another, and cross the Church, then, cross the child, as God shown Moses, a tree, which made those waters in the wilderness sweet, when it was cast in, so remember that there is the tree of life, the cross of Christ Jesus, and his Merits, in this water of baptism, & when we all agree in that, that all the virtue proceeds from the cross of Christ, the God of unity and peace and concord, let us admit any representation of Christ's cross, rather then admit the true cross of the devil, which is a bitter and schismatical crossing of Christ in his Church: for it is there in his Church, that he leads us to these waters.

Well then, they to whom these waters belong, have Christ in his Church to lead them; and therefore they need not stay, till they can come alone, till they be of age and years of discretion, as the Anabaptists say: for it is Deducet, and Deducet cos; generally, universally; all that are of this government, all that are appointed for the Seal, all the one hundred and forty four thousand, all the Innumerable multitudes of all Nations Christ leads them all. Be Baptized everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins; for the promise is made unto you, and your children. Now all promises of God, are sealed in the holy Ghost; To whom soever any promise of God belongs, he hath the holy Ghost; and therefore Nunquid aquam quis prohibere potest? Can any Man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which havereceived the holy Ghost, as well as we? says S. Peter. And therefore the Children of the Covenant which have the promise, have the holy Ghost, & all they are in this Regiment, Deducet cos, Christ shall lead them all.

But whither? unto the lively, (says our first edition) unto the living, (says our last edition) fountains of waters; In the original, unto the fountains of the water of life; now in the Scriptures nothing is more ordianry, then by the name of waters to design and mean tribulations: so, amongst many other, God says of the City of Tyre, that he would make it a desolate: City, and bring the deep upon it, and great waters should cover it. But then there is some such addition, as leads to that sense; either they are called Aqua multae, great waters, or Profunda aquarum, deep waters, or Absorbebit aqua, whirlepooles of waters, or Tempestas aquae, tempestuous waters, or Aqua Fellis, bitter water, (God bath mingled gall in our water: ) but we shall never read fontes aquarum, fountains of waters, but it hath a gracious sense, and presents God's benefits. So, they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters; So, the water, that I shall give, shall be in him, a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life; and so, everywhere else, when we are brought to the fountains, to this water, in the fountain, in the institution, howsover we puddle it with impertinent questions in disputation, however we soul it with our sins, and all conversation, the fountain is pure; Baptism presents, and offers grace, and remission of sins to all.

Nay not only, this fountain of water, but the greatest water of all, the flood it self, Saint Basil understands, and applies to Baptism, as the Apostle himself does, Baptism was a figure, of the flood, and the Ark, for upon that place, The Lord sitseth upon the flood, and the Lord doth remain King forever, he says, Baptismi gratiam Diluvium nominat, nam deles & purgat; David calls Baptism the flood, because it destroys all that was sinful in us; and so also he refers to Baptism, those words, (when David had confessed his sins) I thought I would confess against myself my wickedness, unto the Lord; and when it is added, Surely in the flood of great waters, they shall not come near him, peccato non appropinquabunt; says he, original sin shall not come near him, that is truly baptized; nay all the actual sins in his future life, shall be drowned in this baptism, as often, as he doth religiously, and repentantly consider, that in Baptism, when the merit of Christ was communicated to him, he received an Antidote against all poison, against all sin, if he applied them together, sin and the merit of Christ; for so also he says, of that place, God will subdue all our iniquities, and cast our sins into the bottom of the Sea, Hoc est, in mare Baptismi, says Basil, into the Sea of Baptism; There was a Brasen Sea in the Temple; and there is a golden Sea in the Church of Christ, which is Baptistrisum, the font, the Sea, into which God flings all their sins, who rightly, and effectually receive that Sacrament.

These fountains of waters then in the text, are the waters of baptisime: and if we should take them also, in that sense, that waters signify tribulations, and afflictions, it is true too, that in baptism, (that is, in the profession of Christ,) we are delivered over to many tribulations; The rule is general, Castigat omnes, he chastiseth all; The example, the precedent is peremptory, Opertuit pati, Christ ought to suffer, and so enter into glory: but howsoever waters be affictions, they are waters of life, too, says the text; Though baptism imprint a cross upon us, that we should not be ashamed of Christ cross, that we should not be afraid of our own crosses, yet by all these waters, by all these Cross ways, we go directly to the eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, for they are lively fountains, fountains of life.

And this is intended, and promised, in the last words, Absterget omnem Lachrymam, God shall wipe all tears from our eyes; God shall give us a joyful apprehension of heaven, here in his Church in this life. But is this a way to wipe tears from the childes face, to sprinkle water upon it. Is this a wiping away, to pour more on? It is the powerful, and wonderful way of his working; for as his red blood, makes our red souls, white, that his redness, gives our redness a candor, so his water, his baptisime, and the powerful effect thereof; shall dry up, and wipe away Omnem • achrymam, all tears from our Eyes, howsoever occasioned. This water shall dry them up; Christ had many occassion of tears; we have more; some of our own, which he had not: we must weep because we are not so good, as we should be: we cannot perform the law. We must weep, because we are not so good, as we could be; our free will is lost; but yet every Man finds, he might be better, if he would: but the sharpest, and saltest, and smartest occasion of our tears, is from this, that we must not be so good, as we would be; that the prosanenesse of the Libertine, the reproachful slanders, the contumelious scandals, the seornfull names, that the wicked lay upon those, who in their measure desire to express their zeal to God's glory, makes us afraid, to profess ourselves so religious as we could find in our hearts to be, and could truly be if we might. Christ went often in contemplation of others; foreseeing the calamities of Ierualem, he wept over the City. coming to the grave of Lazarus, he wept with them, but in his own Agony in the garden, it is not said that he weps; If we could stop the stood of tears, in our afflictions, yet there belongs an excessive grief to this, that the ungodly disposion of other Men, is slacking of our godliness, of our sanctification too. Christ Jesus for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross; we for the joy of this promise, that God will wipe all tears from our eyes; must suffer all this, whether they be tears of Compunction, or tears of Compassion, tears for ourselves, or tears for others; whether they be Magdalens tears, or Peters tears; tears for sins of infirmity of the flesh, or tears for weakness of our faith; whether they be tears for thy parents; because they are improvident towards thee, or tears for thy children, because they are disobedient to thee, whether they be tears for Church, because our Sermons, or our Censures pinch you, or tears for the State, that penal laws, pecuniary, or bloody, lie heavy upon you, Deus absterget omneni lachryman, here's your comfort; that as he hath promised inestimable blessings to them, that are sealed, and washed in him, so he hath given you security, that these blessings belong to you: for, if you find, that he hath govened you, (bred you in his visible Church) and led you to his fountain of the water of lifein baptism, you may be sure, that he will in his due time, wipe all tears from your eyes, establish the kingdom of heaven upon you, in this life, in a holy, and modest infallibility.

SERMON V.

Preached at a Christening.

A Lmighty God ever loved unity, but he never loved singularity; God was always alone in heaven, there were no other God's, but he; but he was never singular, there was never any time, when there were not three persons in heaven; Pater & ego unum summi; The father and I are one, says Christ: one in Esseuct, and one in Consent; our substance is the same, and our will is the same; but yet, Tecum fui ab initio, says Christ, in the person of Wisdom, I was with thee, disposing all things, at the Creation, As then God seems to have been eternally delighted, with this eternal generation, (with persons that had ever a relation to one another, Father, and Son ) so when he came to the Creation of this lower world, he came presently to those three relations, of which the whole frame of this world consists; of which, (because the principal foundation, and preservation of all States that are to continue, is power ) the first relation was between Prince and Subject, when God said to Man, Subjecite & dominamini, subdue and govern all Creatures; The second relation was between husband and wife, when Adam said, This now is house of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; And the third relation was between parents and children, when Eve said, that she had obtained a Man by the Lord, that by the plentiful favor of God, she had conceived and borne a son: from that time, to the dissolution of that frame, from that beginning to the end of the world, these three relations, of Master and Servant, Mans and Wife, Father and Children, have been, and ever shall be the materials, and the elements of all society, of families, and of Cities, and of Kingdoms. And therefore it is a large, and a subtle philosophy which S. Paul professes in this place, to show all the qualities, and properties of these several Elements, that is, all the duties of these several callings; but in this text, he handles only the mutual duties of the second couple, Man, and Wife, and in that consideration, shall we determine this exercise, because a great part of that concerns the education of Children, (which especially occasions our meeting now.)

The general duty, that goes through all these three relations, is expressed, Subditi estate invicevs, Submit yourselves to one another, in the fear of God; for God hath given no Master such imperiousnesse, no husband such a superiority, no father such a soverainty, but that there lies a burden upon them too, to consider with a compassionate sensibleness, the grievances, that oppress the other part, which is coupled to them. For if the servant, the wife, the son be oppressed, worn out, annihilated, there is no such thing left as a Master, or a husband, or a father; They depend upon one another, and therefore he that hath not care of his fellow, destroys himself.

The wife is to submit herself; and so is the husband too: They have a burden both, There is a greater subjection lies upon her, then upon the Man, in respect of her transgression towards her husband at first: Eyen before there was any Man in the world, to solicit, or tempt her chastity, she could find another way to be salfe and treacherous to her husband: both the husband, and the wife offended against God, but the husband offended not towards his wife, but rather eat the Apple, Ne contristaretur delicias suas, as S. Jerome assigns the cause, left by refusing to cate, when she had done so, he should deject her into a desperate sense of her sin. And for this fault of hers, her Subjection was so much aggravated, Thy desire shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee, But if she had not committed that fault, yet there would have been a mutual subjection between them; as there is even in Nature, between both the other couples; for if Man had continued in innocence, yet it is most probably thought, that as there would certainly have been Marriage, and so children, so also there would have been Magistracy, and propriety, and authority, and so a mutual submitting, a mutual assisting of one another, in all these three relations.

Now, that submitting, of which the Apostle speaks of here; is a submitting to one another, a bearing of one another's burdens: what this submission is on the wives part, is expressed in the two former verses; And I forbear that, because husbands at home, are likely enough to remember them of it; but in the duty, in the submitting of the husband, we shall consider first, what that submitting is, and that is love, Husbands love your wives; Even the love of the husband to the wife, is a burden, a submitting, a descent; and secondly, the pattern and example of this love, Even as Christ loved his Church.

In which second part, as sometimes the accessory is greater then the principal, the Symptom, the accident, is greater then the disease, so that from which the comparison is drawn in this place, is greater then that which is illustrated by it; the love of Christ to his Church requires more consideration, then the love of the husband to the wife; and therefore it will become us to spend most of our thoughts upon that; and to consider in that, Quod factum, and Quis sinis; what Christ did for his Church; and that was, a bounty, which could not be exceeded, seipsum tradidit, he gave, he delivered himself for it; And then, secondly, what he intended that should work; and that was, first, that he might make it to himself a glorious Church, and without spot and wrinkle, in the Triumphant state of the Church at last; And then, that whilst it continues in a Militant state upon Earth, it might have preparations to that glory, by being sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water, through his Word; he provides the Church means of sanctification here, by his Word, and Sacraments.

First then De Amoremaritali, of this contracting a Mans love to the person of a wife, of one woman, as we find an often exclamation in the Prophets, Onus visions, The burden of my prophecy upon Nineveh, and Onus verbi Domini, The burden of the word of God upon Israel, so there is Onus amoris, a burden of love, when a Man is appointed whom he shall love. When Onan was appointed by his father Judah, to go in to his brothers widow, and to do the office of a kinsman to her, he conceived such an unwillingness to do so, when he was bid, as that he came to that detestable act, for which God slew him. And therefore the Panegyrique, that raised his wit as high as he could, to praise the Emperor Constantine, and would express it, in praising his continence, and chastity, he expressed it by saying that he waried young; that as soon as his years endangered him, formavit animum maritalem, nihil de concessu atati voluptatibus admittens: he was content to be a husband, and accepted not that freedom of pleasure, which his years might have excused. He concludes it thus, Novum jam tum miraculum, Iuvenis • xorius; Behold a miracle, such a young Man, limiting his affections, in a wife. At first the heats and lusts of youth overflow all, as the waters overflowed all at the beginning; and when they did so, the Earth was not only barren, (there were no Creatures, no herbs produced in that ) but even the waters themselves, that did overflow all, were barren too; there were no fishes, no fowls produced out of that; as long as a Mans affections are scattered, there is nothing but accursed barrenness; but when God says, and is heard, and obeyed in it, Let the waters be gathered into one place, let all thy affections be settled upon one wife, then the earth and the waters became fruitful, then God gives us a type, and figure of the eternity of the joys of heaven, in the succession, and propagation of children here upon the earth. It is true, this contracting of our affections is a burden, it is a submitting of ourselves; All States that made Laws, and proposed rewards for married Men, conceived it so; that naturally they would be loath to do it. God married his first couple, as soon as he made them; he dignified the state of Marriage, by so many Allegories, and figures, to which he compares the uniting of Christ to his Church, and the uniting of our souls to Christ, and by directing the first Miracle of Christ, to be done at a Marriage. Many things must concur to the dignifying of Marriage, because in our corrupt nature, the apprehension is general, that it is burdenous, and a submitting, and a descending thing, to mary. And therefore Saint Jerome argues truly out of these words, Husbands love your Wifes, Audiant Episcopy, audiant presbyteri, audiant doctores, subjectis suis se esse subjectos, let Bishops, and Priests, and Doctors learn in this, that when they have married themselves to a charge, They are become subject to their Subjects. For by being a husband, I become subject, to that sex which is naturally subject to Man, though this subjection be no more in this place, but to love that one woman.

Love then, when it is limited by a law, is a subjection, but it is a subjection commanded by God; Nihil majus à te subjecti animo factum est, quam quod imper are coepisti • A Prince doth nothing so like a subject as when he puts himself to the pain to consider the profit, and the safety of his Subjects; and such a subjection is that of a Husband, who is bound to study his wife, and rectify all her infirmities; Her infirmities he must bear; but not her sins; if he bear them they become his own. The pattern, the example goes not so far; Christ married himself to our Nature, and he bare all our infirmities, hunger, and weariness, and sadness, and death, actually in his own person; but so, he contracted no sin in himself, nor encouraged us to proceed in sin. Christ was Salvator corporis, A Savior of his body, of the Church, to which he married himself, but it is a tyranny, and a devastation of the body, to whom we mary our selves, if we love them so much, as that we love their Sin too, suffer them to go on in that, or if we love them so little, as to make their sin our way to profit, or preferment, by prostituting them, and abandoning them to the solicitation of others. still we must love them so, as that this love be a subjection; not a neglecting, to let them do, what they will, nor a tyrannizing, to make them do what we will.

You must love them then, first, Quia vestrae, because they are yours; As we said at first, God loves Couples; He suffers not our body to be alone, nor our soul alone, but he maries them together; when that's done, to remedy the vae soli, left this Man should be alone, he maries him to a help meet for him • and to avoid fornication, (that is, if fornication cannot be avoided otherwise) Every Man is to have his wife, and every woman her own husband. When the love comes to exceed these bounds, that it departs à vestris, from a Mans own wife, and settles upon another, though he may think he discharges himself of some of his subjection which he was in before, yet he becomes much more subject, subject to household and foreign Iealousies, subject to ill grounded quarrels, subject to blasphemous protestations, to treacherous misuse of a confident friend, to ignoble an unworthy disguises, to base satisfactions; subject, lastly, either to a clamorous Conscience, or that which is worse slavery, to a sear'd and obdurate, and stupefied Conscience, and to that Curse, which is the heavier because it hath a kind of scorn in it, Be not deceived, (as though we were co • sened of our souls) Be not deceived, for no adulterer shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. All other things, that are ours, we may be the better for leaving; Vade & vende, which Christ said to the young Man, that seemed to desire perfection, reached to all his goods; Go and sell them says Christ, and thou shalt follow me the better. But there is no selling, nor giving, nor lending, nor borrowing of wives; we must love them Quia nostrae, because they are ours; and if that be not a ty, and obligation strong enough, that they are Nostrae, ours, we must love them Quia nos, because they are ourselves; for no man yet ever hated his own flesh.

We must love them then, Quia nostrae, because they are ours, those whom God hath given us, and Quia uxores, because they are our wives. Saint Paul does not bid us love them here, Quanquam uxores, but Quia, not though they be, but because they are our wives; Saint Paul never thought of that indisposition, of that disaffection, of that impotency, that a Man should come to hate her, whom he could love well enough, but that she is his wife. Were it not a strange distemper, if upon consideration of my soul, finding it to have some seeds of good dispositions in it, some compassion of the miseries of others, some inclination of the glory of God, some possibility, some interest in the kingdom of heaven, I should say of this soul, that I would fast, and pray, and give, and suffer anything for the salvation of this Soul if it were not mine own soul, if it were any bodies else, and now abandon it to eternal destruction, because it is mine own? If no Man have felt this barbarous inhumanity towards his own soul, I pray God no man have felt it towards his own wife neither, That he loves her the less, for being his own wife. For we must love them, not Quanquam, says Saint Paul, though she be so; That was a Caution, which the Apostle never thought he needed, but Quia, because in the sight of God, and all the Triumphant Church, we have bound ourselves, that we would do so. Here Mariages are sometimes clandestine, and witnesses die, and in that case no Man can bind me to love her • Quia ux • r, because she is my wife, because it lies not in proof, that she is so; Here sometimes things come to light, which were concealed before, and a Marriage proves no Marriage,