A Century of Sermons

that his gift is not more spacious than it is unjust. He presents before Christ the whole earth and the fullness thereof, and our Savior looked upon all those things not with the eye of concupiscence, but as a Physician looks upon a disease, without any passion of infirmity: But Satan would be his very gracious Benefactor, and put all into his hands. Would he undertake it? But what should become of that portion and possession in which every man was estated? The poor man that had but one Ewe Lamb, should he lose that? Naboth, that had but one field of his Fathers Inheritance, should he be turned out of that? Should the very Nervs of all Justice be cracked in sunder, Meum and tuum be banished out of the world to make up this Donative? This is like the condition which Saul required of David, he would make David his Son-in-Law if he would give him two hundred fore-skins of the Philistines. David must not only provide him that which was none of his own, but be the destruction of two hundred men to give Saul a Present: So Satan would rob the whole world to make up an excessive liberality; A Legerdemain which he devised from the beginning, to give that which was none of his own, as when he gave Eve the forbidden fruit which God had both planted and reserved. And this is the most tyrannical and unconscionable injustice in the world to wring and extort from one, and to cast it away as wastefully and profusely upon another. This was the familiar sport which the ancient Comaedians made, (it was sport with them that knew not God ) for a lustful young man to cozen his own Father, and lavish it all upon some sumptuous Harlot. This is the most remorseless prodigality of our own times, to steal with one hand, and to scatter it away most excessively with the other. How many ungodly borrowers take up upon credit, that which they can never restore, and leave the Lender in the lurch to his utter undoing; and this wicked shift is made, not through necessity to satisfy nature, but to be bountiful to such Ravens as pick from him upon his Creditors cost. An incloser of Commons, that draws out his sin the longer by depopulating the whole Village, turns forth a swarm of poor People to the mercy of the wide world, by whose ruins he advanceth his own Posterity. Aristotle says, that a Prodigal that gives away nothing but his own, and draws himself dry by such neglectful spending is rather a fool than a vicious person: but that Prodigal abounds as much with viciousness as the other doth with folly, that cares not from whom he takes, that he may be giving 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 'It is vicious indeed; for 'tis the Devils vein of giving, says my Text; he considers not this man's right, or that man's in his goods and chattels, or what belongs to the Widow or Orphan, absolutely all these things will I give thee.

Ina and Offa, and some other Saxon Kings that reigned in this Island; but they especially were the greatest Patrons to this Church of England that ever it enjoyed either before or since their days: perhaps it would pose any Histories in the world to show the like. Yet I must tell you, that the Bishop of Rome hath been a great giver to Religious Maintenances in this Kingdom, and which is very strange, it cost him nothing, he was never the poorer: For he gave away the greatest part of the Tythes in the Kingdom from the Parsonages and preaching Ministry, to maintain contemplative men, as they called them, in Abbeys and Monasteries. This was the first spawn of Impropriations: now this is giving drawn by the copy of the Devils Charters, impoverishing the right owner to give a stranger: not robbing Peter, as we say, to pay Paul, but robbing knowledge to pay ignorance; robbing the Pulpit to feed lazy Lubbers: in a word, it was to pluck the fleece from the Sheeps back to keep the Wolf warm. Antonius de Rosellis, a Canonist of Naples defends this Position, that the Pope, as he is Christ's Vicar on earth, hath a right to all things in this world, and may take from one whatsoever he will, and give it to another, without fraud or injury. This Book is licensed in Italy, and never found fault with by the Inquisition. I shall meet with this business more aptly, when I come to open the next point, where Satan boasts, that he would give the Son of God all the Kingdoms of the World: yet in the mean time is it not worth an objection, that this power and privilege to give all things cannot belong to the Devil, since another hath claimed it in print, and Antonius de Rosellis proves it for his Client out of this Text, Henceforth will I make you Fishers of men? The scurvy luck of it is, that those words were not spoken to Peter only, for then it seems to be a Fisher of men had received this gloss, to sweep all into his Net, that the whole Generation of mankind doth enjoy upon the face of the earth. But this is apparent, here are two that lay claim, they can give all these things to any man; who shall carry it? but perhaps there is no jealousy between them, and they will agree among themselves. Some man would imagine so from this Text: the Dragon hath given to the Beast with seven heads, all his power, his seat, and authority, Revel. xiii. 2. And so much for that observation.

Somewhat else must be in it, that Satan unaskt, and unsought to, is so ready to part with all that he can give. God is very liberal, and opens his hand, and fills all things living with plenteousness, but says the Apostle, dives est in omnes qui invocant eum, he is rich unto all that call upon him: We must ask, and seek, and pray unto him (good reason for it) and then he will give us a blessing. And is this greater dealer of riches in my Text the Devil more forward in liberality than God? for he past his word voluntarily unpetitioned; all these things will I give thee. There is some guile in this you may be sure, it cannot be otherwise. Beloved, the Lord God defers not to be gracious, he stakes down, and puts us in possession of his benefits, and no good thing doth he withhold from them that lead a godly life. But the Devil makes his adherents stay, and look for reversions when they fall, he dodges and deludes men with vain hopes of the time to come, he will give all things: let such as Ephraim take his word, that fill their belly with the East wind, for he doth give nothing. He called Christ the Son of God in the two former Tentations; do you think if he had riches or honors to dispose, the Sons of God should be the better for his liberality? never a whit. A poor Philosopher that could get nothing among hard-hearted rich men, said they were like trees hanging over the side of a rock, which had fruit in great abundance, but Vultures and unclean birds eat it up, no man could come at it to gather it. So whosoever fares the better for Nabols wealth, David shall be sure to go without if he ask him anything: but it may be they shall have a fair promise, if they can keep life with that; like this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , this future tense in my Text, he is not furnished for the present, but dabo, I will give thee; Why are his Chariot wheels so long a-coming? says the Mother of Sisera, when she looked for her Son that was slain and dead. So, with much vexation to be deluded shall the wicked say, where is my hire which the Tempter promised? when shall I receive my wages: Oh it will come anon, says this delayer, stay for it and you shall speed at last. Doth God deal so deceitfully with those that trust in him? no, says David, I have been young, and now am old, yet I never saw the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. For although the plentiful reward of the faithful is not on earth, but in heaven, yet they have a testimony of his liberality in this life that he doth deposit somewhat in earnest, and lets us not build only upon promises, carnalis populus si parva non acciperet magna non crederet: We are flesh and frailty, and must have a little in hand, that we may the better believe we shall receive an hundred fold hereafter. Mark now the unequal ways of the wicked, who grumble at God, as the Apostle says, for delaying his second coming, and that the glorification of the resurrection is not revealed, whereas all things else which the Prophets have foretold in Scripture are exactly fulfilled, and nothing but Christ's second appearance remains to be revealed: and yet these worldlings will believe the Devil without repining, and yet among all his promises from nequaquam moriemini downward he hath performed nothing.

The first time that ever he pawn'd his word to mankind in three particulars, he broke it every title: 1. Ye shall not die, yet we are all become tenants to the grave, and no man can escape death. 2. Ye shall be as God's; far otherwise we are become as beasts. 3. Ye shall know good and evil, but alas we are blind and ignorant, that refuse the good and take the evil. And are not these promises as faithless, all things will I give thee? yes undoubtedly, he would take away all that we have, and all that we hope for, and gives that satisfaction which Caesar Borgia did, when he drew many of the noble family of the Ursin together, upon pretense of good will, and then slew them; says this arch-Hypocrite, it was their fault that believed me. St. Chrysostom had no faith in the Devils asseveration, but speaks thus upon my Text, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , when he makes show that he will give much to man, his intent is to rob him of all. Will you reap this fruit from the observation before I leave it, be faithful of your word, and huddle not out promises, you care not what, which you never purpose to perform: that's the Devil's dealing. If you separate your word from your meaning, you separate your honesty from your conscience: It is the common sin that follows buying and selling; God be merciful to you, your • ords fall from you like leaves in Autumn, the owner cares not which way the wind blows them. The first thing that you break is your word, and many times the whole estate breaks after it. David asks, who shall dwell in the holy tabernacle of the most High, and he answers three times in that Psalm, they that are just and faithful in their sayings; he that speaks the truth from his heart, v. 2. he that hath used no deceit in his tongue, v. 3. he that sweareth to his neighbor, and disappointeth him not, though it were to his own hindrance, v. 5. David desired to know by some sign whether he should come into the presence of Saul, or fly from him. Why Jonathan kept his word with David: Jonathan desired that David would be merciful to his Posterity after him, David sware unto him, and kept his word with Jonathan. But be you just in your promises to your brother, and God will make good unto you the promise of eternal life: the Lord is faithful in all his sayings, and holy in all his works.

The next collection from hence shall be this, that the Devil would not offer less than all he had to win a Soul: he would not offer a trifle for that which he knew was the most precious thing upon earth. And it is a little excuse, though far from a good answer, when a man is fetched into a sin for a great bewitching recompense: pretio octuplicis stipendii illectus, as that famous Renego pleaded for himself, that he was enticed back to the Church of Rome, with a stipend eight times greater than he had in England; but to be enticed from our heavenly Father, like a Child with toys of no estimation, it accuseth us that we do not value our own soul at so good a rate as the Devil doth. What a narrow mean reward was that for which the lying Prophets did change the service of God? Ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley, and for pieces of bread, Ezek. xiii. 19. What will you give me, says Judas, and I will betray him? And you do not find that he did drive the Market with the Priests and Elders, but took the first sum that they appointed him. Anima lucri cupida etiam pro exiguo perire non metuit, says Leo. A greedy covetous mind will damn both body and soul for a little money. What could Esau have taken less than a mess of pottage, especially made of lentiles; the meanest pittance of relief that a beggar looks for at every door? and what had Esau in this world to exchange for it so precious and valuable as his Birthright? the Law shows the dignity thereof, that all the first-born were peculiarly consecrated and given unto God, Exod. xxii. 29. they were next in honor to their Parents; they had a double portion of their Fathers goods. Until the Law was given the first-born administered the Priesthood in the Family, that was a sacred thing: and yet more sacred, he was a type of Christ, for Christ is called the first-born among many brethren, Rom. viii. 29. Moreover and above, it was a type of our adoption, and being heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven. See what a vile exchange Esau did make for all this heavenly dignity, that the Holy Ghost for good cause calls him a profane person, who for one meals meat (and for such a course meal) sold his birthright, Heb. xii. 16. If we will prostitute ourselves so cheaply to the Prince of darkness, and ask less than for shame he can offer, to put ourselves into the bondage of iniquity: mark what will follow, the Lord will debase us, as we have debased ourselves; thou sellest thy people for naught, and takest no money for them, says the sweet Singer of Israel: or as Moses told the Israelites, if they sold themselves to commit iniquity, they should be sold for slaves, and no man would buy them, Deut. xxviii. 68.

But for all this, I must give you to know in my next admonition, though Satan offered all that is in this world, yet he did not offer enough for that which he would gain, namely to win a soul: everything under the Sun comes short of that appretiation; much more in this case it is to be considered, that if our Lord Jesus could have been supplanted (which was impossible) all mankind had perished: for upon his righteousness, and upon his perfect obedience did depend our Crown and our Salvation: if therefore one soul is worth the whole world and more, what could be valued against all the souls in the world? But I will instance upon this for our use; there is nothing so valuable that should bribe a man to commit the least sin against our Heavenly Father. You will smile at the Indian Savages, that part with gold, and spices, and amber, for glass beads, and saffron brouches; yet whosoever sins for the mammons of iniquity, barters for a far more unequal merchandise; you change immortality for death, eternal joy for continual care, a certain treasure for uncertain riches, the most happy fruition of the Creator for less than the felicity of a dream: aut transeunt nobis viventibus, aut dimittuntur nobis dormientibus; the living may lose all they have got by injustice, but for certain the dead cannot keep it. What is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? Luke ix. 25. if he lose himself, the word following is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the vulgar read it, detrimentum sui faciat: from whence a good Expositor says, there is no comparison in the purchasing of earthly things: non solùm cum damnatione aeternâ, sed etiam cum jacturâ gratiae Dei, though damnation and hell fire were not incur'd, to suffer the loss of the Holy Spirit, and of the Grace of God. Wherefore all that Satan could show, and let him show as many worlds as Alexander could wish, all is not worth such a cringe as he would have the Son of God to make, to bow down, and commit Idolatry. We read of one Apostle so abounding in charity to his own Nation, that he could be content to lose his part of heaven, cupio anathema esse pro fratribus; it was St. Paul who was willing to be anathema for his brethren, that God might be glorified in all the people of Israel, but he would not exchange the least degree of his sanctity, and faith in Christ for all the muck in the world. Joseph had rather lose that was comfortable to him in this life, liberty, good name; yea the garments from his back then be defiled with lust. I have no instance fit to come after that of Moses, Hebr. xi. 24. who by faith refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Philo says of him, that Thermut the only child and daughter of Pharaoh, being long married, and quite barren, wanting issue to succeed, feigned herself big, and at last to be delivered of Moses, whom she found in an ark of bulrushes exposed to be drowned, him she brought up for her adopted child, to inherit all the Kingdoms of Egypt. But because Idolatry reigned in that place, he could not worship the Lord there with pure and undefiled service, he wandered away from this regal fortune to keep sheep in the Wilderness. O most magnanimous servant of God, that had rather keep sheep with a pure conscience, than be a King among Idolaters! for how much wiser is it to purchase eternal felicity with a little misery, than to heap up eternal misery by enjoying a little felicity. There are things to come far more precious than these which the tempter extols: but alas he did offer nothing to speak of to countervail the loss of a soul, when he mouthed these words as a donative which could not be refused, all these things will I give thee.

Finally, to go but one deliberation further, though Satan was incredulous, and would not be persuaded, that Christ was the eternal Son of God consubstantial with the Father, that had taken our flesh in the Virgins womb to redeem us, yet he could not but observe how holy and zealous He was in all his ways, endowed with sanctity beyond all the Prophets that ever lived, therefore this Tentation must needs be ill placed, and most unseasonable: for God is all manner of riches to those that serve him unfeignedly, and with an upright heart: Plenitudo deliciarum, & sufficientia divitiarum Deus est, no strong line, but a sweet and most emphatical meditation of St. Austin's. Where God abides, there goes with him the alacrity of all delight, and the inheritance of all riches. Where was St. Paul's Exchequer think you? in what corner of the world did his rents lie? that he wrote to the Philippians, I have all, and abound, Philip, iv. 18. Satan cannot be so shameless to offer anything to him that hath all already: there's work for an Auditor, let him cast up those sums if he can, and make them even, 2 Cor. vi. 10. as having nothing, and yet possessing all things; such Apostolical spirits (those few that are) measure themselves wealthy, not by the weight of silver and gold, but by the grace of God which inhabits in them, and doth enable them to refuse more than Satan can pretend to give. There was somewhat else which St. Peter looked for that was not in the Inventory of all this baggage, which the tempter would impart to Christ; these are his words: Lo we have left all, and followed thee, what shall we have? Mark. x. 28. this is odd, you will say, to leave all, and then to fall a demanding, and looking for more: but first he looked for the promise of the coming of the Holy Ghost, which David prayed for; Incline my heart unto thy law, and not to covetousness: rather a dram of virtue, than a talent of fortune. Secondly he looked for the glorification of body and soul, where Satan shall no more stand at our right hand to tempt us, where the spirit shall be ready, and the flesh as willing to fall down and worship the Lord for evermore. Amen.

THE SIXTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Savior's Tentation.

Y OU heard before what vast sums of wealth the great Prince of the riches of this World did commend out of his most abundant, but deceitful liberality to our Savior: all these things will I give thee. Solomon had a mighty Tribute, 666 talents of gold yearly, and silver as the stones of the street: all his vessels were of pure gold, silver was not anything accounted of in the days of Solomon. Yet the whole revenue of Solomon was but beggary to those comings in which Satan promised in this place, haec omnia, whatsoever the globe of the earth contains without exception, or deduction. But as if the Tempter would exceed himself, and rise above all expectation, his mouth speaks greater things by far in that which follows now to be handled, than in those particulars which I opened before, for he will engage to make our Savior Lord of all the Kingdoms in the World, all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, he should have that into the bargain. Pompey the great, saith Livy, made the Romans Lord's of so much land by his successful victories, that unless he had taken so many captives, as he did, the land could not have been tilled and occupied: and again he made them Lord's of so many captives, that unless he had seized upon so much land, the captives could not have been received and harbor'd. So the Devil offered our Savior so much wealth, that unless he had promised to give him all the honor of the world, it could not have been spent; and again he offered him so much honor, that unless he had promised him all the wealth in the world it could not have been maintain'd.

But what will all this come to? here's a shower of wealth and glory poured down, what thunderbolt comes after it? timeo Daneos, & dona ferentes, shut the gift out of doors till ye know the condition, why it should be received: a wise man will be as careful lest anything should be basely given him, as he will be circumspect that nothing be unjustly taken from him: for many times the intent of pernicious liberality is to make a man incur the foulest sins in the world to avoid ingratitude. The woman had a cup of gold in her hand, but it was full of abomination, Rev. 17.14. so the purpose of this great gift is to take the Devils Damm with a Dowry, to be raised up on high above all the Dominions of the Earth, ut lapsu graviore ruat, then to fall down from that height, and to commit Idolatry. What were the several particulars which I charged upon the whole Text the last time, it will be fit for me to repeat, and for you to hear. First, wherein the forcible enticement of this last Tentation consists in giving a speeding word I told you, and very provocative, dabo I will give thee. Secondly what, and how much he would give, and that's twofold: First, as a Mammon of iniquity, all riches and possessions that the eye could see, and, as a Lucifer of pride, the power of all the Kingdoms of the World, and the glory of them. Thirdly, he shows Christ his evidences, quo jure, by what right and authority he can make over all this unto him, in those words for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will give it. Fourthly and lastly, every bait hath his hook under it, this promise hath a most impious condition annexed unto it, if Christ will fall down and worship him.

I have spoken of the former part of the gift which this insolent Braggart made ostentation to bestow, he would put all the riches of the world into one donative, and confer it upon our Savior. I will look back no farther upon that which I have delivered already: but the other half of his gift, to which now I must proceed, smells more rank of boasting; for if it please you, he will turn all the Kingdoms of the world into one Monarchy, and settle it upon Christ, all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them. This will bring his ends to pass indeed, or nothing: he that will not be bought with honors, no not with great advancements, no not with Princely Royalties to swerve from righteousness, you may turn him loose against all the enticements of Hell, for a Christian that is unvanquishable. But the Tempter hath sound out by long experience, that such pure matter is rarely to be found in the dross of this world: he sees that men do seldom deny him anything, if he can accomplish the desires of their aspiring thoughts: He makes good bargains of his petty promotions, how much more of his greatest? There are enough, and too many, that for a little command, a vulgar title, for a mean remove will turn their backs to God, and their faces to Satan. There are undergrowing ambitions, which shall not need to be carried to the top of a mountain, and have Kingdoms shewn unto them; let them be lifted but to the lowest Steeple in a Diocese, and they will commit Simony, and forswear it: To be a Ruler over thousands will shake an ambitious man's honesty very far to compass it, nay to be a Ruler over ten, which is the lag end of all honor, some will violate their conscience rather than go without it: what if it were to be but Doeg, the chief Heardsman of Saul, to have the greatest superiority over beasts; Why Doeg was both a promoter and a blood-sucker for that contemptible promotion. The twelve Disciples, Christ himself walking just before them, fell out among themselves into hot words and contention, quis esset major, which of them should be the greater. If one had been the greatest, as in very good sense they were all equal, what should he have got by it? to be the chief over eleven, that had left all, and were worth nothing. If the Tempter be aware of this, as our infirmities are not hid from him, that men will tread virtue underfoot, to crawl up to a petty advancement, then he would easily think this provocation in my Text were irresistable; all this power and glory will I give thee, and all the Kingdoms of the world.

If Balak will say to some, I will promote you to great honor, as he did to Balaam, all the Angels of heaven should not hinder them from going to it: ambitious persons will break through the hedge of all honesty for a title of high preeminence, and when their indirect courses carry them down to the deep, their fancy flatters them, that they go up like Elias in a whirl-wind to heaven. There was nothing hanging with Christ upon his Cross, except a title over his head, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews. And why a great title crucified with him? though he deserved that Inscription, and a far greater than Pilate or all the world could invent, yet above all the sins of men, ambition, and great titles, which too often are obtained by crooked courses, they deserve to be crucified. Mans thoughts fly upward like the sparks from the fire. Core and Dathan cannot endure to be less than the greatest. Every man would be a Moses in the Common-wealth, every man an Aaron in the Church. Brethren forget brethren in way of Sovereignty, as Joseph 's brethren did consent to kill him, or sell him away, rather than bow unto him. Absalom, a Son and Subject, abjures his duty to his Father, and his Prince. Athaliah defrauds her own child, to get the supreme authority in her own hand. This struggling for greatness, especially for a Crown and Scepter, hath occasioned more iniquity, more flagrant sins, than any one storm that ever was raised. Si violandum est jus, regni causâ violandum, says C. Caesar: he would do nobody wrong for less than to gain a Kingdom: but he thought it impossible for a man to temper himself in that temptation, that had opportunity.

And why should the appetite of supreme honor bewitch a man sooner than anything else from the fear of God, and draw him from it? because power and glory are two such specious and attractive things, which are intrinsical to the dignity of Princes: and Satan, I warrant you, did not forget to cast those two words in Christ's way, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them. There is power in Princes as well to advance where they like, as to punish offenders; and reason good they should be served with all humble reverence, and have the highest glory on earth ascribed unto them, because they are set over us for our good to maintain public peace and true religion. The power which Pharaoh had, oh how it pleaseth an haughty spirit! he tells Joseph what he would do for him in this phrase, without thee shall no man lift up his hand, or his foot in all Egypt, Gen. xli. 44. or that majestical terror which Nebuchadonosor put upon all that were under him, nothing more greedily sought for. Says Daniel to Belsbazzar, The most high God gave Nebuchadonosor thy Father a Kingdom, and glory, and honor: whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down, Dan. v. 19. Satan knew that to manage such power as this is a whetstone able to set akeen edge upon any mortal appetite. But if any one love to govern with a soft hand, and affect not the execution of that awful power, to put terror upon inferiors, yet the glory with which Sovereignty is bespangled, will rob a man of his heart, and steal it from him. Who would refuse to be a Solomon? his Palace was beyond all buildings; his Throne so costly, that there was not the like made in any Kingdom: the Meat of his Table, the Attendance of his Ministers, and their Apparel, the Queen of Sheba had never seen or heard of the like. Such pomp as this would make a man believe he had built his nest in the stars. Satan thought his temptation struck home, when he promised such glory as this unto our Savior. How much more was this motion most persuasive when he beleaguered him with this offer, to pluck the fairest feather out of every Monarchy, and invest him with it? where there was any power, or any glory fit for his wish, it should be cast upon him. David had a Kingdom of much power, yet of little glory; for his reign was full of trouble and rebellion. Hezekiah had a Kingdom of much glory; great treasures, great magnificence in his house; yet it was of small power, for he was an Homager and a Tributary to the King of Assyria; and he sent him word, that which thou puttest upon me I will bear. But the Tempter says, none of these defects should trouble Christ, he would cull out for him all the choice and desirable things, the power and the glory: as the Poet said of his Stilicho, the good things which were scattered and divided in many hands, in te juncta fluent, they should all meet in him, as in their center.

Though the spiders web be made on the top of the house, yet it is quickly swept away: so all ambitious thoughts which scale up upon the Devils ladder are quickly dismounted, if you will remember, that no man can subsist on high who hath the plummet of iniquity to weigh him down: though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet he shall perish forever like his own dung, he shall fly away as a dream, yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night, Job. xx. 8. When Herod sat in his Majesty, but was exalted against God in the pride of his heart, an Owl presented itself before him on the top of his Throne, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Homer calls it, a bird of fatal prediction, and Herod himself took it for a presage of some sudden and miserable death; and so it came to pass. Methinks everyone that hath hoisted himself into advancement by impiety, should often see some such dismal Owl before him, an infallible presager of great misfortune; for God will be glorified in their ruin, that did not account his service before all things to be their glory, and the glory of the world. O what an happy thing it is, when God shall call a dignified and an honorable person his friend! as it is in the Parable, friend set up higher: but I will never clamber up by base and sinful arts, that God shall say, art thou ascended higher O mine enemy? God hath taught us to pray, My will be done, and mine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory: in the Devils Academy the lesson goes thus, worship me, and let my will be done, and thine shall be the Kingdom, the power, and the glory. Satan cares not to whom he passeth away that Doxology, that chain of praise and honor, which belongeth to God, Kingdom, power, and glory; for he pointed to the Kingdoms of the world, they were included in the gift, and said, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, as who should say, if Christ would make a God of him, he would make a God of Christ: ka me and ka thee: fall down and worship me, as if I were a God upon earth, and thou shalt have Kingdom, power, and glory, as if thou wert God in heaven. This Satan spake not of himself, but like Caiaphas, he prophefied he knew not what. I must not forget where one good turn hath deserved another, much after this example. The Conclave of Cardinals, that know the Pope to be justly no more than a Bishop of one Diocese in Italy, enstile him above Caesar, and all free Monarchs that are anointed Kings: and the Pope to requite it, knowing the Cardinals in their original to be but Parish-Priests of Rome, hath given them precedency above all Princes, mulus mulum scabit. This is my Text directly borrowed to make that match, if you will fall down and worship me, ye shall have power and glory.

But to return: Get thee hence Satan, says our Savior in the next verse, or as He chides in St. Luke, Get thee behind me Satan: He is behind all the servants of God, in many degrees worse than the meanest Christian: it cannot be in the capacity of such an underling to be the Patron of honor: Medice cura teipsum; why doth he not recover the glory which himself hath lost, if he be an advancer? beside, such an ambitious spirit, if he had anything to give, would never part with his Royalty; or if he had ends to communicate and impart, for certain he would pass over David, Hezekiah, Josiah, that brake down Groves and Images, and used all hostility against his Idols. Away with such a giver. He that seeketh honor and a blessing with it, let him seek it of the Lord, and look upon himself with that comfort that David did, when God had brought him from following the Ewes great with young, to set him with the Princes of his People; David sings it merrily, Psal. iii. 3. Thou art my worship, and the lifter up of my head. As for Simon Magus that grew great with Nero by Sorcery; and Urijah the Priest, who wonn King Ahaz favor for profaning the Altar of the Lord, and Rhehoboams young Courtiers that swayed all by flattery, and giving evil counsel; every dignity that such men get shall be an evil destiny unto them; for God is a jealous God, and will deface that Coat of honor, where the Devil was the Herald, that sold it for iniquity. And whereas the wickedly advanced takes it upon Satan's word, that power and glory shall be the supporters of his Escutcheon, it shall be much otherwise in the proof. Is it power they look for? God wot it shall be thralldom. Falsam spondet potentiam. Qui facit peccatum servus est peccati, says St. Austin. There is no such servitude in the world as to be sold over to sin; and his servants ye are to whom you obey. Is it glory they hunt for? but it will fall out to be their description which the Apostle makes to the Philippians, whose glory is their shame: Either their memorial shall perish with them, or their infamy shall be depainted in some better history to after ages. To conclude this point, stop your ears at such promises as kingdom, and power, and glory, and pay such sacrifices of praise to him that owes them. I will magnify thee O Lord my King, said David, Psal. cxlv. and at the 12 verse, he speaks it open, that thy power, thy glory, and mightiness of thy Kingdom might be known unto men.

Thus far I have proceeded to show, that promotion, especially to the noblest, honors, to power and glory, is a fiery dart so dangerous to speed, that Satan seldom casts it in vain. Then imagine how far he hoped to prevail, when he drew his arrow to the head, and solicited Christ with the promise of all the Kingdoms of the world? All this power will I give thee, and all the glory of them. A magnanimous lie, and he that would study for such a thing could not tell a louder. Though by prestigiation, or some hidden art, he could show all the Kingdoms of the world in the twinkling of an eye, yet it is not so easy a task, with his leave, to give all the Kingdoms of the world in the twinkling of an eye: he must have a strong stomach, and a most robustious belief, that could concoct this opinion, that all the Rulers of the earth, even the mighty Roman Monarchs, the greatest of all Princes in that age, would submit their Crowns, and take law from another at the first asking, and never draw sword for it, nor give battle to resist it. It was a short Motto which Pompey gave touching his speedy victories in Asia, yet the work was longer a doing than so; Veni, vidi, vici, he came towards them, and looked them in the face, and vanquished them. Yet Satan pretended to make briefer work than this Motto; execrable spirit, he dares to assume that which is proper to the Almighty, to speak the word, and the whole World should have a new face of government; and that he could remove Kings, as Christ said his Disciples by faith should remove mountains, be thou cast into the sea, and it should be gone. Perhaps he remembers how suddenly himself was deposed from glory; I saw Satan fall like lightning, says our Savior, which flasheth through the air, and is out before you could think of it: and when God pleaseth all the Kingdoms of the Earth shall have as sudden a transmutation, when he shall come in glory, and take all power and dominion into his own hand, to judge both the quick and the dead. But in the mean time the Thrones of Kings are established in Heaven, the powers that are they are from God, and it is not in the strength of Satan to confuse those Governments which God hath put in order; therefore he is a liar with an hyperbole of impudency, to say, all this power will I give thee, &c.

Yet by these words Ambition is accused to be an unstinted sin, for why should Satan offer all, but that he knows it to be an unlimited passion, which is not satiated with one Crown, but would subject every corner of the world unto itself. The Sun can endure the Moon to partake with it in giving light unto the earth, the Sun to govern the Day, and the Moon to govern the Night, but amongst these proud imperious Spirits, some can endure no Superior, and some no equal. Everyone that is not their Vassal is held their Enemy. Fire is a raging Element, and would turn all other Elements into itself if God should not temper and asswage it: So if God should not raise up Adversaries to oppose some men's Ambition, they would bruise the four quarters of the world with a rod of Iron. Is it not enough to write this word under a terrestrial Sphere for an Empreza of large Dominions? Sol mihi semper lucet, it is always day in some of his Realms, if the Sun set in one of his Kingdoms, it is shining in another; Is not this enough I say? But further to betray a mind that aims at all, these Letters were engraven upon a Gate at Rome at a solemn time of Triumph, Unus Deus, unus Papa, unus rex catholicus. I will not interpret them out of Latin, for I hope they shall never be turned into English; I think if God should create a new earth, which never was made before, some would lay claim to it. As Fr. Victoria, and sundry other Divines stretched their learning to prove it out of the Gospel that the whole Tract of America, possessed before by millions of Owners, but newly discovered to Europe, did every whit belong to the King their Master. The cares, the anxieties, the watchings that a good Ruler suffers, to keep a small part of the earth, which God hath given him, in Justice, and the love of true Religion: The Eagerness, the Fury, the Frensy that the Ambitious hath to clasp and compass all that God hath made here beneath, which is more wide and ample by far than it is possible for one man's forcast and providence to keep in order. None shall be more willing than Satan to make one man Lord of all, for that is the ready way to mar all: And when that enemy of our peace hath stolen away our content, he cares, not what we compass, though it were all the power and glory in the world; for without it we shall seem losers to ourselves, and such as are always wanting. When Eve was Lady and Mistress of the whole world without a Competitor, yet because there was a Godship higher than that estate she was not satisfied with her portion, but would try conclusions to be like unto God knowing good and evil. But to contract this Point, I give it this minatory farewell: He that extends his Ambition to get all power and all glory, he that knows no top in that honor that he would mount to, shall be cast down into misery that hath no bottom, into the bottomless pit.

It is but late that I told you in a former Sermon upon this Text, that when the Tempter made an overture to Christ of all the Riches in the Universe, that the gift was not more spacious than unjust: for it cannot be supposed how one man should be seized of all that is in the world by his proper right, but by ejecting all Possessors in the world, and respectively every private man, from that Inheritance which he held before. And that the wicked one may be constant to himself, at all times alike stark naught, he deals worse in this half of his liberality than in the former; for if he intend to make Christ the Catholic Monarch of the world, and give him all the power and glory of it, it must need fall in that all the Kings and Princes of the world must be deposed from their Sovereignty, and strike sail to the new erected. A discovery not to be passed in silence; It hath been defended by many Pens of late, that Gregory the Seventh was the first that ever broach'd the Doctrine and Practice together, that the Anointed of the Lord might be unking'd, and stripped of all their Royalty by the effulminations of the Romans Pontife. Loe you now that the learned of the Protestants should be so much over-seen in Antiquity, for here is a Classical Author in my Text that holds that opinion about a thousand years, a little over or under, before Hildebrand had his honor. For that Gregory the Seventh flourished much about a thousand years after Christ, that very time which the Spirit of God said should be fulfilled, and then Satan should be let loose after that one thousand years for a little season. But, as I said, Hildebrand was not the first broacher of that disloyal Paradox, here is his chief in my Text; and to confirm what I say, Matthew Paris, our own Historian of great fame, avers, that the said Pope at his death (which was in banishment) cried out of his own wicked ways, and treacherous Principles against his Lord the Emperor, and confessed that the Devil set him on to disturb the whole world with mutiny.

Yet how little the Successors in the Papacy have profited by his repentance I will tell you by that which is disputed daily in the School of one Tyrannus, that I may allude to that of St. Luke, Acts xix 9. Those Dogmatists are divided three several ways: Some conscientious Romanists have taught that the Pope may not at all intermeddle with the disposition of earthly Kingdoms, either to restrain or depose Princes though tyrannical, or heretical, or blasphemous: Their conversion is to be zealously prayed for, in the mean time their yoke is to be born with patience, and we must kiss the scourge of God. The Sorbon Divines of Paris do generally carry this badge, and the Protestant Churches unanimously speak this Language. The second Tenent is that the Temporal Sovereignty of the whole world is inherent in the Office of Christ's Vicar, as they call him, to give, change, alter, or confirm the Titles of particular Princes, as his infallible judgment shall lead him. Let every brain that is not distempered judge what a Doctrine this is. Non sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes. The third Tenent which Cardinal Bellarmine and the Jesuitical Pack maintain, is a modification of the former. The Pope hath no temporal Sovereignty at all annexed by virtue of the Papacy; but Indirecte & in ordine ad spiritualia; indirectly, and to remove the impediments of the common good, especially of the Church, he might send to the people by his Briefs that they owe no subjection to a wicked King; that he could take off their Oath of Fealty, and free them from Perjury, that he hath power to excommunicate such Princes, and translate their Kingdoms from them to such as he shall adjudge to be more Catholic. Whether he will arm the Son against Father, the Brother against the Brother, a Rebel against his true King (all these have been done) why it lies In scrinio pectoris, he may collate the Dominions of such Princes on whom it liketh him. Pray you how much doth this opinion differ from the second? You may easily find, it is but white money turned into Gold, and comes all to one payment. For the Bishop of Rome is made the Judge himself when a Kingdom wants a fit Governor for the good of the Church, for the wholesome administration of Justice; since therefore all Regal Authority hangs upon Papal discretion, it comes all to one pass with that most impudent second opinion, which says, the Power and glory of the Kingdoms in the world are absolutely in his donation.

It is no toying in so main a cause as this, which concerns the Crowns and Scepters of all Sacred Princes therefore I will demonstrate that I plead against them according to the charge of their own Bill. Thus Baronius, to begin with him, who speaks his mind in these words for his holy Father, whom our Lord Jesus Christ the King of glory hath constituted a Prince over all the Kingdoms of the world. Augustinus Triumphus, All Power and Royalty is subdelegated from the Pope to other Princes. No man can give him any Sovereignty which he had not by right before. Nec Constantine dedit quicquam Sylvestro, quod non prius erat suum, says he; The Canonists talk of Constantine's donation to Sylvester, giving him the temporal Principality of Romania, he gave him nothing but that which was his own before, that, and all beside, was St. Peters Patrimony. And some of them stake Scripture to prove it, but most untowardly; as, that all power is from God, therefore all power Regal and Imperial from Christ's Vicar. Yet more sinistrously from those words, If I be lifted up I will draw all men after me; that is, if I had an Army strong enough I would recover all the Seigniories of the earth into mine own hand. Practice is a plainer Argument than Book-words; I will satisfy you then in that. Alexander the Sixth (a giver that will do but small credit to the gift) but such as he is, take him with all his faults, he bestowed the whole West-Indies upon Ferdinand King of Spain, Ex merâ liberalitate & motu proprio, as the Patent ran. Their own Histories say, that Athabaliba, King of Peru, maintained his Royalty by fighting against that Grant till he was taken Prisoner in Battle, and then cried out, that Pope could have no virtue, or reverence to the God of heaven that gave away another man's Dominions from him: but I will bring the case home. That Bull which Pius the Fifth signed with his own Seal, wherein he excommunicated the most blessed Queen Elizabeth, hath this Line in it touching his own authority to use that incomparable Lady so unchristianly, Hunc unum super omnes gentes, & omnia regna principem constituit; God had constituted him over all Nations, and over all Kingdoms. O what vaulting spirits are these which run in the Veins of wretched man? This forgetful Prelate, grant him his own asking, from whence his original came, and it is from a most humble Apostle, whose actions being all of them recorded, not any one do lean toward Sovereignty or Principality: Yet his Successor in challenge exalted above all that is called God will be a parallel Line, and side with him in my Text, who makes nothing to dispose of all the Regal Dignities in the world, All this power will I give thee, &c.

Let this be enough which I have said, to have been discoursed upon the immensity of that honor which Satan challenged to be in his Jurisdiction; I proceed to show upon whose shoulders he would be content to lay it, upon our Lord and Savior, Tibi universam hanc potestatem. As for the thing itself, he wisht that Christ had it in good earnest, I make no doubt of it, namely, that his fortune had been to be an earthly King, to be a Caesar Caesarum, the Conqueror of all the Dominions in the world, rather than such a one he suspected him for, that Messias that came to redeem his People, and to invite the Nations far and wide over all the earth to the fear of the Lord. Let him be all in all in a temporal Kingdom, rather than Savior, that came to erect the spiritual Kingdom of faith, to the subversion of the powers of darkness. Conceive now unto yourselves as if he had spoken more largely on this wise, to Christ: I find you hungry and forlorn in this Wilderness, neither train to attend you, nor food to cherish you. Alas that such a one as you should be thus negglected 'tis pity; you are not honored enough according to the great gifts of sanctity that are in you. Why, you are worthy to be Lord of the whole world, if promotions went by desert. And will you live in Famine, and Scorn, and Humility, and at last be crowned with thorns, and crucified? Nay, follow my directions, and you shall be crowned with Gold, and sway the whole Universe with a Scepter, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them. It came to pass with our Savior after this Proposition as it befell chaste Joseph in the house of Potiphar: He would not be incontinent, yet upon defamation of incontinency he was clapt up in Irons: So Christ would no such Kingdom as Satan offered, yet upon suspicion that he went about to make himself a King, his death was contrived, and his accusation laid before Pilate, he that maketh himself a King is not Caesars friend. I have often both read it, and seen it, that Pride, Vain-glory, Faction, and I know not what, have been laid to the charge of the Innocent by some uncharitable mouths, who have spread it so far, that for all their innocence they could never wipe off the stain: Many times the more they decline those crimes, the more occasion is taken to accuse them. Every thing that Paul could say, or do to purge himself, wrought him envy and misreport, that he was turbulent, and a mover of sedition. He could never shake it off with all his meekness and modesty. Well, if mischief and defamation must have their course, the remedy is easy, though it be desperate, commend your innocence to God. The Lord of life himself was haunted with a wrong opinion, from the time that Satan made this motion to his death, that he had a purpose to be a Monarch, and to display his Banner against Caesar in the quarrel of the Jews for their ancient liberty. The people would have made him a King, Joh. vi, and he hid himself out of the way; yet that would not acquit him; his very Disciples not seldom, but even till after his Resurrection, till they saw him taken away to heaven, looked for honorable command, and superiority under him. It cost the sweet Babes of Bethlehem their lives that the Wisemen of the East called him a King. It lost him his own life (as I touched upon it before) that the children of Jerusalem entertained him with that acclamation, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord, Luk. xix. 38.

That question was and is scandalous to the Jews, was and is a stumbling-block to some Gentiles, what manner of Kingdom belonged to Christ as he was man. Before ever the Magi of the East said, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? The Angel upon the first tidings of his Incarnation told the blessed Virgin his Mother, The Lord shall give unto him the Throne of his Father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there shall be no end, Luk. i. 32. From hence some Papalins (whom I formerly refuted) style him a Temporal King, who bequeathed all his Dominions to his chief Apostle St. Peter, and he to one that is his Successor, if it please God, in all but his Sanctity. Then the perfidious Jews object, since the Prophets say, that the Messias shall be a King, and sit upon the Throne of David, the Messias is not yet come, because Christ did not triumph and exercise Lordly authority upon the Throne of David. To draw out truth against both these at once like a two edged Sword, I lay down these three things: 1. That neither the Prophets, nor St. Luke do teach that Christ had a Temporal Kingdom. 2. That he had Dominion given to him by his Father over all earthly things, but not by way of ruling all things like a King in his Kingdom. 3. In most proper and safe construction we must say, his was a spiritual Kingdom.

I will be brief in all these, especially in the former: To make much ado that Christ had no temporal Kingdom, were to light a Candle at Noon-day. The case is clear; for I hope we will believe him rather than his enemies. These are his words, Joh. xviii. 36. My Kingdom is not of this world, if it were, my servants would fight for me, that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but my Kingdom is not from hence. He meant, say some Papalins, that the world gave him no Kingdom, neither chose him a King, yet he doth not deny but he received an earthly Kingdom from God. A most empty Objection: For Pilate sat his Judge to examine if he made himself a King to injure Caesar. The same Pilate liked his answer so well, that he told the Jews he found no fault with him: But would Pilate have put it up, if he had answered no better? That he claimed a Kingdom indeed by a right and title derived from heaven, frivolous, and the Cavil of the Jews comes to nothing, that God would set the Messias upon the Seat of his Father David. Stretch not the Phrase too far, and the meaning is: 1. The Messias should come out of David's Loins. 2. And be a King as David was. 3. Not after that way, an earthly Potentate, but after a more noble, glorious, perfect way than ever David governed. And I pray you how could it be, that he should be a King over Judah and Israel as David was, when that Kingdom was taken away from David's house before Christ was born; and a Prophesy denounced it should never return to that house again. So it was foretold to Jeconiah, Jer. xxii. 30. Write this man barren, there shall be no man of his Seed to sit upon the Throne of David, and to have power anymore in Judah. In a word, Scripture elsewhere shows, that to sit upon David's Seat, was to have the Jews subject unto him, not after a carnal way, but to be worshipped of them in spirit, and to enjoin them to keep his Laws and Commandments for their salvation. So it is, Hos. iii. 5. They shall seek the Lord their God, and David their King, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.

Secondly, I said, Christ had Dominion given to him by his Father over all earthly things, but not by way of ruling all things like a King in his Kingdom, for by uniting the Human Nature to the Godhead, through the admirable influence of that Hypostatical Union: So the very Manhood was made Lord over all things, according to those places, Mat. xi. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: And in these last days he spake unto us by his Son, whom he made Heir of all things, Heb. i. 2. And that you doubt not, how he had power over all things as being man united with God, he whose name was called the Word of God, had a name written on his thigh King of Kings, and Lord of Lord's, Rev. xix. 16. Super femur; mark that, Upon his thigh, that is, upon his Human Nature. Now this in him was of a more eminent and sublimed condition than all Regal Authority on the earth. It came to him the most glorious way that ever was, by the Hypostatical Union; not by Conquest, Inheritance, Election, Donation, or any earthly sort. 2. His power reacheth not only to command the outward actions, but the very thoughts and conscience. 3. He is over things sensible and insensible, Men and Angels, quick and dead, heaven and earth and the very Regions of darkness. 4. When men die their glory perisheth with them, but of this man's Kingdom it is often testified there is no end: Yea, after his death he rose again, and then began his Dominion to be most absolute by many exterior works. It was his pleasure oftentimes to exercise this power, and privilege, even while he debased himself in all humility. Did he not consent to the destruction of the Gadarenes Swine, and curse the barren Fig tree? Because his jurisdiction extended to anything in the world. Did he not send for the Ass and the Colt with absolute command? saying no more, but the Lord hath need of them. Did he not charge the Soldiers to let his Disciples alone? And no man touched them. All these are Arguments of indefinite authority.

But this Government, which is most ample, perfect, eternal, was not after a Regal way, as David and Solomon were Kings in Israel. It was not contrary to the Rulers of the earth, usurping any power, to thwart and control theirs, but a transcendent exaltation above them, and above all things visible and invisible, yet withal he was most obedient and subject unto them, paying Tribute unto Caesar, and meddling with no Human Laws, to divide their Inheritance that were contentious. If he had professed himself an earthly King, it had hindered the work which he had in hand, to persuade men to the contempt of honor and glory: Yet having all power given him of his Father it argued the more humility, that he made himself subject to most vile men, therefore it is put into the Creed, that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, meaning that he took his death with patience under the authority of a most unjust Governor. Therefore St. Austin endites these words as from our Savior's mouth; Hear me Jews and Gentiles, hear me Circumcision and Uncircumcision, hear me all ye Judges of the world, Non impedio dominationem vestram in hôc mundo; Enjoy the Principalities of this world unto yourselves; I do not hinder them.

In the third Conclusion I determined, how in most proper and safe construction we must say, that Christ's Kingdom was a spiritual Kingdom. I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion, Psal. ii. 6. The Psalm speaks of a spiritual Zion, as St. Austin notes, because it is termed an holy Zion, therefore it must be understood of a spiritual King. His Unction, was not that Celestial, and not Corporeal? With my holy oil have I anointed him, with the grace of Unction. Such as the Unction is, such must be the Kingdom, a spiritual Kingdom; His Priesthood was not carnal, such as Aaron's was; but spiritual, such as Melchizedek's was: Like as was his Priesthood, so was his Kingdom. Those whom God had given him, What were they? His Disciples, that never forsook him, those that were born again of the Spirit. His Subjects were Spiritual, therefore his Kingdom could not be Terrestrial. The Law of Moses was carnal, so it was esteemed imperfect, and is disannulled; the Law of Christ, which is set up instead of it, is the Gospel, which prescribes a reasonable and an holy service: Where the Law of Christ is spiritual, his Kingdom must needs be within us, it is a Ghostly Kingdom. Finally, all the good things thereof concern the Spirit, grace, peace of conscience, remission of sins and eternal life. Says Fulgentius, the Gold which the wise men of the East offered him in his Cradle shown him to be a King, but not such a King as will have his Image and Superscription in the Coin, but such a one as seeketh his Image in the hearts of the Sons of men. After the Angel had said, The Lord would give him the Throne of his Father David. Mark how divinely the words are qualified in the next verse, And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there shall be no end. He shall reign, and did reign here, not in regno sed in domo, in no Monarchy, but in a Family, in the house of Jacob, that is, in the household of the Faithful; for alas they are but a Family to the potent multitudes of Unbelievers. One question before I shut up the Point. Christ was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Principally to Abraham. What means the Angel then to omit Abraham and Isaac, and to speak of one and no more, that he shall reign in the house of Jacob? Why, the house of Abraham had Ishmael as well as Isaac, but Ishmael was the Seed of the bondwoman, which figured those that pertained not to the freedom of the Spirit. The house of Isaac had Esau as well as Jacob, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. He reigned not in all the house of Isaac. But all the twelve Sons of Jacob were Circumcised, all blessed, all represented the Church, all heirs of the Promise; and because Christ's Kingdom was totally spiritual in the Faithful and Elect; the Angel very properly delivered his Errand, that He should reign in the house of Jacob.

This last part of my Sermon was very necessary to be insisted upon, that our Lord Christ invested himself with no such honor as Satan tendered to him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them. Yet he had a Kingly Office, adjoined both with Priestly and Prophetical Offices. Those are holy Functions, the Devil likes not them, he never spoke of them. Nay, let us have the Priesthood to serve God, or let us take nothing without it. St. Peter tells us, we shall be Regale Sacerdotium, a Royal Priesthood. We shall have a Kingdom and a Priesthood combined together, far exceeding all the power and glory which mortal men do manage. Run fervently to the end of the Race, and you shall have the prize. Deus vult omnes suos athletas coronari, says St. Jerome, God will have all that try Masteries for his sake receive the Laurel, and the Crown of Victory. Every Saint hath his Kingdom, who is clothed with immortality, and honor to live with the Lamb of God for evermore. But you will say, What, Abraham a King? Moses a King? Peter and Paul Kings? Where are the Nations which they govern? Where are their Subjects? Regnum est ubi nulli inimico subjicimur, non quia populus nobis subjicitur. A full answer, it is a Kingdom because all our enemies are trodden under our feet, not because any of the Blessed are Liege-men and Vassals unto other. In the fruition of that Kingdom a main part of the Sovereignty will be, that he shall be trodden under our feet, who is so impudent and audacious in my Text to offer all the Kingdoms in the world. God replenish us with the Kingdom of his grace in this life, and exalt us to his Kingdom of glory hereafter. AMEN.

THE SEVENTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Savior's Tentation.

O UR natural Philosophers say very truly, that a Serpent lays not her eggs one by one, but they come from her in a cluster, like a rope of beads, and hang one at another in a string. Satan deserves no better comparison than a Serpent; the sins which he suggests no better comparison than the eggs of the Serpent; and nothing can be truer than the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or application, that one sin is never hatched alone, especially if it be a great one, but it hath a train to follow it. God challenged his people that they had broken the bond of marriage between him and their soul, not with one adultery and no more, but the Prophet chargeth Jerusalem, fornicata es cum multis amatoribus, thou hast committed fornication with many lovers, that is with many sensual pleasures. Upon this consideration virtue is compared to salt (have salt in ourselves, says Christ to his Disciples ) of which you cannot take up one corn alone upon your knifes point, but many grains will cleave together: and upon the same respect wickedness is compared to the sands of the sea, one mote is very rarely severed by itself; sand is a Noun Collective, which supposeth many motes of dust; for there is not any sin but respectively to divers parts of disobedience it may be called by divers names. David emplung'd himself into many crimes, what with Bathsheba, what with Uriah, what with Joab, whom he made his evil instrument. Peter fell into three denials one after another. He that will praise the Lord as he ought, in the uprightness of his life, must honor him upon a ten-stringed Lute, upon all the Commandments; and he that willfully fails in one instance will put every string out of tune; for he that committeth one sin is guilty of the whole law.

These funiculi peccatorum, cords of vanity, sins entwisted one within another come into my mind from this third Tentation in my Text: so that Tertullian is justified in his saying by this practice, multiplicia spiritus incitamenta jaculantis, the rebellious spirit hath more than one shaft for his bow, a quiver full at least, as it is Psal. xi. 2. For lo the ungodly bend their bow, and make ready their arrows within their quiver: For what sin hath not the Devil committed in these words, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me: furtum, perduellio, mendacium, blasphemia, they are all here in the height of their offense: Furtum, the largest theft that ever was committed, he would give all the substance in the world to Christ, but then he must rob the right owners. Perduellio, a most foul attempt of treason, he would give him all Kingdoms and honor; but then he must depose all just and lawful Princes. Mendacium, not a plain lie, but a very monster of untruth, as St. Luke hath it in large, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will give it, Lastly, Blasphemia, a blasphemy that vies beyond all the rest, if thou therefore wilt worship me all shall be thine. Now I have added to make up my Text at this time, how easily God doth cut off all these heads of Hydra at once with his revenge and justice: for this short rebuke of Christ is enough to control the Devil with all his sins about him, Get thee hence Satan, or as St. Luke, Get thee behind me Satan. The words then which I have read amount to four parts, the Gift (which I have entirely dispatched,) the Giver, the Condition, the Repulse: The Gift furtum, both to rob private men of their peculiar, and Kings of their Royalty: The Giver mendacium, a lie without all shame, that all the honors of the world were at his dispose: The Condition blasphemia, he bargains that Christ should earn all this by falling down to worship him: But the Repulse is justitia, God's vindicative justice; Get thee hence Satan, words of anger and revenge, as I will show anon: but first I will disclose what a great giver Satan would make himself, All these things will I, &c.

Twice, as it appears in the two former Tentations, the Devil used all his cunning to discover if Christ were the Son of God: and since our Savior would not reveal what He was, Satan is the more bold to make himself the Son of God, as if he were that holy one to whom the Father had committed all power in Heaven and in Earth; All these things will I give thee. This will be the easiest way to sift this saying, wherein the wicked one usurps to himself that he advanceth to all honors, to consider what likelihood of truth there is in those words by accident, and secondly what great unlikelihood.

Marvel not that I give it for a conclusion granted, that there is some color and likelihood for Satan to say, this is delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will give it: for he is the Prince of the power of the air, that spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, and whosoever is successful in promotion by iniquity, the Devil did sway the event so far, that he calls himself their Benefactor. Abimelech and Zimri got Kingdoms by treachery: Joab wrought himself into Abner's honor to be Captain of King David's Host by murder: Jason and Menelaus in the book of Maccabees strived one against another for the High Priest-hood by Simony: there are not so many names of honor as there are sins, crying sins, sins died in scarlet that have purchased them: The infelicity of it is so general, of such long continuance, and so desperate against all hope of redress, that Satan speaks as if he had forgot that this power was ever out of his hand. For upon the event, we may lament it, but cannot deny it, he brings the basest instruments into private favor with mighty men, he bestows offices, he presents to Churches: Difficile est Satyram non scribere, no abuse in the world will provoke a suffering spirit sooner than this, to be satyrical: nostrâ miseriâ magnus factus es, we may be ashamed, and our ambition blush for it, that the most hateful of all God's creatures should have cause to boast, that all manner of dignities and titles depend on his beneficence: yet the world is not so bad, but that he is a shameless slanderer in that saying; far be it from us to number the righteous with the wicked, to bestain all dignified persons with an evil reproach, as he doth, to condemn all the worthies of David, that wickedness was their original, because sometimes Satan hath a predominant faction among them. He was a great Prince indeed in the Emperor Tiberius his Court, scarce any advancement escapt him, but went through his hands; ad Consulatum non nisi per Sejanum aditus, neque Sejani voluntas nisi scelere quaerebatur; Everyone that would be Consul used Sejanus for his preferment, and everyone that would have preferment, Sejanus used him for some criminous villainy. Thus the eloquence of the Historian exaggerates the naughtiness of the times: yet a little after, when things grew much worse, rather than mended, in the reign of Nero, Paul had many friends, and Christ had many faithful servants even in Caesar's Household.

The Spirit of God in the holy Scripture doth but very rarely amplify the numbers of the Saints, nay rather it speaks of them with the least; many are called, but few are chosen: and fear not little flock, it is your fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom. But Satan thinks to have credit from his multitudes, and pretends to the whole retinue of them that have power and glory in the world, whereas divers carry the true virtue of nobility in their heart, as well as the title of nobility in their name, and owe no service to him. God doth permit the wicked sometimes elsewhere to reign for the sins of the people; his antecedent will is upon all men, especially upon the most renowned, that are next and immediately under him, Be ye holy as I am holy; but he permits Ahab and Manasseh to take their turn in the Kingdom of Israel, to scourge the people for their sins, and therein the adversary prevails against God's velleity and complacency: now that inch which God gives, Satan calls it an ell, and boasts that all the Princes of the Earth do hold in fee of him. What, says he to Christ, do you think to sit upon the seat of your Father David by fasting and prayer, and by retiring for the discipline of your soul into the Wilderness? no, if you will rise, and be some great one, you must come to it by me, frame yourself to the fashion of the world; the disposing of all Royalties and Honors are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will give them. Omne mendacium est in aliquo vero, (that's the ground of this first point which I handle) every falsehood leans upon some truth, that it may appear not to halt lamely, but to go upright. To that end doth the Tempter cogg in this word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for that is delivered unto me: fatetur tradentem, he doth acknowledge by that word, that there is one above him, who gives the Letters Patents of all honor and glory, he is only entrusted as a Minister to deliver it. Well, this will not serve his turn: like those conjuring Oracles, which abused the Heathen of old, which had always an ambiguous meaning; so the Devil in every proposition he makes, as in this particularly, hath some concealed equivocation. This is delivered unto me: but by whom? let us discover his pol-foot, which he would conceal; not by God, he durst not bely his Maker so much, but by the custom and practice of the world, and custom is the strength and soul of a Law; we have corrupted the pure stream of honor with flattery, with gratuities, with slavish services, with Simony; they that bid for advancement by such crooked means trust the Devil to keep stakes, and if you will have them, you must ask him to deliver them. We have put the conveyance of many promotions into his power, by the sinful practice of ambition, as if he were our great Feoffee in trust, as King Darius in the story of Esdras yielded himself up, and all the power of his Majesty to Apame his Concubine; she might take his Crown from his head, and put it upon her own, and he waited her courtesy to receive it again. In such a sense it is true, Satan hath a great share of honors to bestow, but he received no such authority in God's name, as his words darkly conveyed do seem to challenge it, for that is delivered unto me, and unto whomsoever I will give it. Some there are that make this climax or gradation to cast another shadow of truth upon his meaning, Man was created Lord of the whole world, and God bestowed the dominion of all things upon him which this Globe of creatures contains; afterward by transgression man became the captive of sin and Satan, for his servants ye are to whom ye obey, that's Gospel: so that the Devil having Lordship over him, who was Lord of all, the whole world and the pomp thereof became to be his fee, in our title that were captivated to him. But I list not to stretch so many conclusions to make him speak truth, who was a liar from the beginning. This shall suffice for that deceitful likelihood of truth, which is in this motion: it will be more glory to God, and more benefit to ourselves to examine the unlikelihood.

The Devils Ministers have dared to contest with those Powers that were ordained of God: the contentious Hebrew asked Moses, Who made thee a Prince or a Judge? The Pharisees maundred at Christ, By what authority dost thou these things, and who gave thee this authority? and doth the Devil suppose it shall go unaskt, when this imperial sway was put into his hands, to deliver all Kingdoms to whomsoever he will give them? Promotion, says the Psalmist cometh not per spiritum ventorum, it cometh neither from the East, nor from the West, nor from the South: no nor per spiritus infernorum, it ascends not up from the pit with the spirits of damnation; for why? God is Judge of the Earth, he setteth up one, and plucketh down another, Psal. lxxv. 6. This excessive claim of Satan, to impute unto himself that all Kings hold their Scepters of him, calls his whole faith in question: that Charter cannot stand with Solomon's Verdict which he hath given upon that title, for thus he speaks for the Lord, Prov. viii. 15. By me Kings reign, and Princes decree justice; by me Princes rule, and Nobles, even all the Judges of the earth. In true and exact propriety rendered: the learned in the original tongue render the word, not by me Kings reign, but in me Kings reign. God reigns in them as his Deputies, they reign in God as their Author and Authoriser: wherefore it is elegantly noted by one of our own Writers, that Melchizedek is the first King spoken of in Scripture, and he is brought in without Father, without Mother upon earth, to show that Kings are God's generation, who only his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , none can declare his Generation. St. Chrysostom says very well, that this is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the especial dignity of Kingly estate, that it comes from God; and therefore Popes (who now assume most unchristianly, if not anti-christianly, to depose anointed Princes, and translate their Kingdoms to their enemies) they were wont to write to Kings with all lowliness of style, wishing them health and long happiness in eo per quem Reges regnant, in him by whom Kings reign, that is in God, under whom in their own Dominions they are next and immediately supreme Governors. David sware by the Lord unto Bathsheba, that Solomon his Son sh • uld reign in his stead: an Oath is the strongest proof of human faith; so that by an Oath God and man have put it out of all doubt, that the Most High alone doth appoint who shall sit upon the Throne of David: but huic injurato crederem, we would sooner believe David, though he had not sworn, that the Power and Principality of Kings depends upon God, than Satan with all his promises and protestations, that he hath the Monopoly of Scepters and Diadems at his command: All these things will I give thee.

And before whom could he have told this tale, to be taken in a lie so soon, as by driving this bargain with Christ? as if a thief should steal Plate, and offer to sell it to the owner: or a Plagiary, filtch a great deal out of a book, and rehearse it for his own before the Author; so the Tempter had robbed Christ of that Honor and Majesty which was most properly his own, (I mean he robbed him of it by the blasphemy, and falsehood of his tongue) and then brings it to Christ to barter it away for other merchandise: Autori quae autoris sunt repromittit: What theft more palpable than this? the Father gives all things by the Son, by him He made the worlds, by him He hears the prayers and supplications of the Church, by him He gives us health and salvation, by him He gives Rulers and Princes to go in and out before his People; and yet Satan intrudes, as if he were our Mediator in part at least in settling Thrones and Monarchies, he was the means for those things: and it was his hap, I say, the more to discredit his impudency, to tell this tale to our Savior, from whom truly and indeed the Kings of the Earth do hold their Royalty: Utrobique regnatur per Christum, he sets the Crown on their heads that wear them, both in this world, and in the world to come. Observe it, that He rides upon the white horse with many Crowns upon his head, Revel. xix. 12. This is a Vision, and this is the interpretation of it, that those that honor him He will honor, he settles the Royalty on whom He pleaseth; not one or two Kingdoms, and bequeatheth the rest to the fortune of war, to the free choice of popular elections; much less is any such good thing delivered up to our adversary the Devil. Christ had many Crowns on his head, for the whole earth shall stand in awe of him; he lifteth up whom he pleaseth, and setteth him with the Princes of his people. When Wisdom proclameth that of Solomon, which I laid for my first ground in this point, by me Kings reign, indefinitely it is to be understood of God, but restrictively of Christ the second person in Trinity; he is appropriatively the wisdom of the Father; he is meritoriously, and by way of an Impetrator, the conduit pipe of all benefits to high and low, rich and poor; therefore we endear all our prayers to God with this conclusion, per Christum Dominum nostrum, through Christ our Lord.

But what dullness was in the Manichaeans to fall upon such Texts as this, and to build upon them, that the God of Heaven made all invisible blessings, and that Satan had divisum imperium cum Jove, he was Lord of all visible and material things? What? are any of these the sooner his, because he said they were delivered to him, and to whomsoever he would he gave them? Why, it was as cheap in his mouth, and he could have said it with the same labor that he could help whom he pleased to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the Most High that ruleth in the Kingdom of men, and he appointeth over it whom he will, Dan. v. 21. The cause of preservation is the cause of constitution; God rules the hearts of the Subjects to obey, and gives them commandment for allegiance and fidelity; if any commotion be like to rise, the Lord stilleth the raging of the sea, and the madness of the people: from God is the power of sovereignty, and through his good spirit the duty of obedience: but Satan stirs up seditions, jealousies, and cross humors in people never to submit; therefore he plucks down the Kingdoms of the world, and obscures the glory of them: he is not the founder of order, but of confusion. O but says the Manichaean, if Satan have not the total managing of these Powers beneath, yet a share cannot be denied him. They that govern by tyranny and injustice, they that lift up themselves in their pride against heaven, shall we not yield that these are of his ordination? No, why the Prophet Hosea says chap. viii. 5. Ipsi regnaverunt, sed non ex me, they have set up Kings, but not by me, they have made Princes and I knew it not. In my opinion the literal and textual answer to that place is, that they chose unto themselves Heathen Idols, God's of silver and gold, and forsook the Lord: Howsoever this distinction giveth unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's. Regnaverunt non ex me quoad viam, sed quoad potestatem: that evil way which they chose to follow, that perverse manner by which they reigned and troubled all was not from God; but he gave power to Manasseh, to Rehoboam, to Ahab, as well as unto David, unto Josiah, and to the best Kings that ruled with righteousness. Or as another limits it, a Deo bono sunt potestates, a malo Angelo potestatis ambitio; the Power on earth is God's, the ambition to usurp that Power is the Devils: Take that which is thine Satan, and leave the rest to Christ. When occasion is given to speak of a wicked Magistrate, the Phrase is Hos. xiii. 11. I gave them a King in my anger, angry I was when I gave him, but I gave him though, and that which He gives, we must take it, and keep it, be it scourge, be it blessing: it is most foul rebellion to say the Lord shall not fasten evil upon us, we will not keep that which the Lord hath given us. And so much for the claim of the Giver in my Text, whom we have found to have no right or title to deliver unto any one the Kingdoms of the World, and the glory of them. Indefinitely all Kings reign by Christ, good and bad, but the justice of the good more peculiarly is from the grace of God, the tyranny and ambition of the worst is from the suggestion of Satan; and nothing about them is his but that which is worse than nothing, the iniquity of Princes.

Now I proceed: The gift was furtum, theft in the highest degree; that which he profer'd was not his to bestow: the giver mendacium, he falsified his evidencies, and laid title to that which was only God's to bestow. The condition now follows to be handled, which is fire and sulphur mixed together, blasphemy and idolatry, he requires that Christ should fall down and worship him. Let me begin upon this point, as Solomon said, when Adonijah asked Abishag to wife, Let him ask the Kingdom also. Satan himself was not able to speak such another word, I think, for horror and impiety: it exceeds that sin, for ought we know, by far, which provoked the Lord at first to cast him out of Heaven into chains of eternal darkness. For Isaiah tells us in the Parable of the King of Babylon, chap. xiii. the insolency of that sin consisted in these rebellious terms, ero similis altissimo, I will be like the most high: but this is more superlative a great deal; let the Son of God fall down and worship me, I will be a God above the Most High. I do not wonder that some Expositors go about to mollify the meaning of the words a little, as it were impossible there could be a literal sense of such an horrid proposition: But their endeavor, methinks, thrives not. To adore Satan, says one, is any way to obey him, and be subject unto him: Adoratio Diaboli subjectionis est, non devotionis. He did not ask to be adored, as if he were an eternal divine essence, unto whose person the devotion of religion was to be directed, but he would have Christ stoop and bow unto him, and to acknowledge by that gesture, that the honors and riches of the world depended on him: or as another lays his meaning forth on this wise, you are the Son of God that come to take my Kingdom from me, do me homage for it, and you shall have it without striving: these are all the odds in the pretended interpretations, these think he required of Christ civil reverence and subjection; such as great Emperors have from petty Princes, that hold somewhat in homage and service under them.

Others much more congruously to the Scripture, teach, that he made a flat and plain demand to have religious adoration done unto him, as to the God of this World; whether he would have it done after St. Matthews phrase, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that his own person should be the object worshipped; or whether in St. Luke's phrase, word for word, if thou wilt worship before me, that is, worship God above in me, who am his Vicegerent to communicate riches and honor; these two ways drive at one aim, and do not differ, for certain he would have no less than religious service done unto him: for our Savior's answer questionless was ad oppositum, and He controuls the Devil for asking that religious honor which was due to God, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. He had stepped thus high before the coming of Christ, to be supplicated by the Heathen Romans in their Idol Vejovis, that he should not hurt the fruits of the earth. Before Christ dissolved the works of the Devil he was sought to, and consulted with in the Oracles of the Greeks: in those days too he was worshipped in all the Idols of the Nations, the ancient godly men of the Church say, that the wicked fiend lurkt substantially in all graven Images which were set up; and when Idolaters bowed to stocks and stones, he had their homage done unto him: Nay, he had purchased sacrifice to himself, and of the dearest and most beloved things, They sacrificed their Sons and Daughters unto Devils, Psal. cvi. 37. Satan having been puffed up so long with the Devotions and Ceremonies of a bewitched people, he would not go less, but demands more than ever he had before, when even now he was upon the time to lose all; If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

What though Satan be incorrigible? And the labor is lost to review and reform that blasphemy which he hath spoken, for he will never retract it, and confess his fault: Yet some things may fall to our profit out of this wicked saying, and those things which are written for his condemnation are written for our instruction. I will follow St. Ambrose for my Leader, who hath noted two things remarkable from hence for our use: First, that the beginning of this temptation is Covetousness, All these things will I give the; and the end of it is Idolatry, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Who would think that these two sins Covetousness and Idolatry had such great affinity between them? Idolatry averts the heart of man more than any sin from the Creator: The stain of Covetousness is, that it converts the heart more than any other sin to the immoderate love of the creature: Great sins both, and yet it appears by this they differ toto genere in their formalities. They do so, and so, many Rivers which rise not from the same Spring-head, flow for many miles in several Channels, and at last close into one stream: Thus Idolatry which riseth out of the sins of the first Table, and Covetousness which is opposite to the Commandments of the Second Table, yet both these glue together after a while, as if they were inseparable. St. Paul binds them both like tares in one bundle, Eph. v. 5. No covetous man, who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of God and of Christ. And as Pharaohs Dream was doubled twice, because the thing was surely established: So the Apostle doubles the same Lesson again, because it was most true, and most remarkable. Col. iii. 5. mortify your members upon earth, Fornication, Uncleanness, &c. and Covetousness which is Idolatry. It is an Alchymy, wherein Satan is skillful, to turn Gold into Idolatry, and Idolatry into Gold. He put Nebuchadonosor to great cost, and much expense of Gold, to advance Idolatry: But he is at fee with them that are poorer, to give them Gold if they will turn Idolaters. So the love of money begets the love of Idols; and he lays his train in that order in my text to buy himself worship with his money, All these things will I, &c.

For Idolatry the Lord rooted out the Canaanites from the Land of their Fathers, and when the Covetous shall know what affinity he hath with an Idolater, it will reclaim him, I hope, lest he be rooted out, like an accursed Canaanite from the Land of the Living. Divine Expositors do sundry ways testify to the truth of this Proposition, that Covetousness is Idolatry; several heads have their several opinions, yet every opinion hath some sting and Acrimony in it. Clemens of Alexandria begins, Every man's last end he puts for is his happiness; every man's happiness is his God. And a money-scraper projects more for that than he doth for the grace of God. Coelum apertum est, & Deum non quaerit, aurum absconditum est, & terrae viscera recludit; The heaven shuts not itself against them that call for grace, that is easy, he looks not after it: the Ore is hidden in the dark veins of the earth, and he will dig to Hell to find it. St. Chrysostom says, Id est cuique Deus quod maxim amat, à quo vitam & necessaria expectat. He is an Idolater without an Hyperbole that will sin against God's honor rather than offend his own heart in seeking profit; from whom doth he expect relief, help, comfort in the time of trouble? If he thinks the lining of his Purse is best able to administer these things; he hath said unto his Riches, you are my trust and my assurance; he should have said so to God. The same Father considering in another place, that Christ admonisheth what a base Treasure that is which Thieves may break in and steal, breaks out, that a covetous man so defrauded, may cry out as Laban did, Who hath stolen away my God's? Tales sunt Dii tui, ut quis eos furari queat? Are your God's such trash, that they cannot keep themselves from stealing? Then let him be your God alone who is the watchman of Israel, that keepeth all in safety? I allege St Jerome next, and no man interprets St. Paul more literally that Covetousness is Idolatry; Imaginem sive sculpturam nummi colit; His eye is taken with the very Picture and Stamp upon the Coin, and he shows it more reverence than becomes a Christian to do to a corruptible thing. St. Austin's suffrage is of moment with the best. Fruitur nummo & utitur Deo, quoniam non nummum propter Deum impendit, sed Deum propter nummum colit; A covetous man makes use of God to set his stay upon his unrighteous Mammon, for he doth not bestow his riches for God's sake, but he loves God for his riches sake.

I had rather troul over the rest than be tedious. Gregory distinguisheth that the Covetous is an Idolater, Non exhibitione ceremoniarum, sed oblation concupiscentiarum: Which is thus worded in one of the School-men, Non ex compacto sed obsequio; Not by an outward ceremonious Adoration (for which St. Jerome in some part accuseth him) but by offering up his heart. And perhaps Aquinas would be so understood in his distinction, that the love of money is Idolatry, Non secundum speciem sed similitudinem; Not that it hath the very Essence of Idolatry, but a great likeness and similitude. As a Lover may be said to Idolize a Mistress, to whom he is too obsequious: So a man may be said to Idolize his Substance when he puts himself upon all servile baseness to obtain it. And so Theophylact concludes it, or rather inverts it from the words of David. David says, that the Idols of the Heathen are Silver and Gold: Theophylact turns it, that Silver and Gold are the Idols of those Christians that put their trust in uncertain riches. I have almost panelled a Jury upon this Point; yet if that will not serve, he, that is wiser than the wisest of men, hath spoken enough to bewray that Covetousness is Idolatry, Mat. vi. 24. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. He serveth Mammon as he serveth God, and parts stakes between them, and that is gross Idolatry. Or if it be true that Plutarch says, Malice will teach a man more sometimes for nothing than a sweet Friend with all his good counsel; learn it from our Adversary, from the Devil, that he makes one of these sins reach unto the other, and to clasp fast in one, he begins in Covetousness, and ends in Idolatry, All these, &c.

I promised you two observations out of St. Ambrose upon the Point, this makes the second, that Satan indents to raise up our Savior to all the Kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them upon these Premises, that he must fall down and worship: Now this must make him bold to demand it, that Pride will undergo any servile Office to win Promotion. Ambitio ut dominetur servit, & curvatur obsequio ut honor donetur. Machiavel may write his pleasure, that Christian humility dejects the spirits, and embaseth a good courage: I cross his opinion utterly, and say, that the truly humble Christian hath the most generous and lofty stomach of all others, which defies Flattery, and fawning, and Court-crowching, and stands upon resolute terms to be beholding to none but to God and integrity for exaltation. Is not his Spirit more dull and narrow that makes his Fortune out of bowing, and scraping legs, and diseasing themselves to be the shadows of great men to attend them at all times and hours? Certainly so. What bondman could put up more than Aristippus did? He wiped off the spittle very patiently which a great man had thrown in his face, and excused it, that a Fisherman would endure to be wet all over to catch a few Smelts, why not he then suffer so little moisture to catch a Whale? Such scorns the Ambitious must suffer, that are high Projectors, Serviet aeternum qui parvo nesciet uti, says the wise Poet. No servant shall drudge more, or endure more than he that will not be contented with a little. They that bear the proudest head, you may perceive that they study to follow new observancies, and new Vassallage, throwing themselves down beneath the feet of them that will raise them up. Their vote and suffrage must go with them, of whom they have their dependencies, be the matter never so imprudent, and unequal, as if they had changed not their consciences, for there is nothing cheaper with them than that; but even reason which makes a man that they may be in the rank of great and glorious; yet baseness becomes them best, 'tis pity their fortune should be mended, Absalom when he aimed at no less than a Kingdom by treachery, could persuade himself to complement to the ground with every Peasant to win the hearts of the people. They that look to be advanced by Jezebel did stoop to Baal. You see such as hunt for honor take it in good part to be thrown to the ground like Balls, that they may rebound the higher. Sixtus Quintus was the most crowching Frier in all his Cloister, the most yielding observant Cardinal in all the Conclave, but the most imperious haughty Pope that ever governed. The heat of the Sun lifts up a vapor from the Dunghil, and in time it becomes Thunder. This is enough to show that the dignity which the ambitious attains unto is mixed with much baseness and servitude. Satan did presuppose it, when he called for so much homage and bowing down, before he would part with all the Kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. I will conclude it with this deduction from it. Can you endure the waitings, the comes again, Superba fastidia, the commands, the disdains which a great man puts upon you in hope of his liberality at last? O then take up the Cross of Christ, suffer affliction for a season, sit down a little in the lowest room; worship, and fall down, and kneel before the Lord your Maker that he may say unto thee, Friend sit up higher in the Kingdom of heaven.

I have handled before you the shameless lying of Satan, that challenged unto himself power to give all the Kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them: and then his horrid Blasphemy, demanding that Christ would fall down and worship him: Now follows our Savior's justice, the repulse which he gave the Tempter, and the vengeance which he took of his enemy; Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence Satan: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a word of anger and imprecation often in that language, as you would say, Abi in malam rem; Get you gone with a mischief. St. Luke puts more to it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , get thee behind me Satan; which confutes those Expositors that consulted no further than St. Matthew, and have made quiddetts upon it, that Christ did not reprehend St. Peter, Mat. xvi. with the same chiding that the Devil hath here. Yes, even the very same, because Peter suggested most carnal counsel from the evil one, he suffered this reprehension, Get thee behind me Satan. But I leave to touch that any further, it is not in the Verge of my Text. This is the first time throughout all the three Tentations that Christ calls him by name Satan. And surely Cajetan says well upon it, Quia manifestavit se esse principem mundi, Christus non ei amplius respondit ut homini; Because he manifested himself to be the Prince of this world, Christ communes not with him now in the former key, as if he were a man. And unless he had revealed himself perhaps our Savior would have forborne to detect him, that himself might have remained undiscovered to be the Son of God. Well, though the Tempter borrowed shapes before to hide himself, notice is taken now what he was, and with much passion our Lord shook him up, Get thee hence Satan. Our Savior passed over the two former Tentations mildly, but purposes of Idolatry deserve no meek answer: The irreverent usage of God's House when it was defiled with money-changers, and the most irreverent abuse of God's glory in this Text stirred up fire in Christ, more than in all other cases, and made him hot and vehement. Moses the meekest man on earth, that would resent no injuries against himself, when God was dishonored in the Calf which the Children of Israel worshipped, his anger was so kindled, that he threw stones at the Idolaters, and broke the Tables which he had in his hand, as who should say, the Law is broken: Let not God's quarrel want a Patron in you, and you shall not want an Advocate with the Father in Christ.

But what did Satan suffer upon this rebuke? What was he the worse for it? You can scarce imagine how to conceive more punishment out of so few words than some contemplative men have collected from these.

First, If the High Priests servants were terrified, and fell backward, when no more was said unto them but Ego sum, I am he, then what amazement must this reproof strike? Get thee hence, get thee far from me thou presumptuous Spirit. This did not only cast him to the ground, but even bruize him under our Savior's feet, Rom. xvi. 20. The least check from the Lord is able to make the stoutest stomach look pale as death. When thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin, thou makest his beauty to consume away. O if that dreadful Judge speak one word of anger, who is able to abide it?

Secondly, To be commanded away by one that appeared a man of weakness and infirmity, what a great fall was this from that high opinion which even now the Devil had of himself? He went away, says Chrysologus, and was fain to give glory to him of whom he asked adoration. He boasted of giving a Kingdom to Christ, and Christ gives Law to him, and he must obey it. Before, he would be Christ's Leader, he lead him to the Mountain, he took him, nay, carried him to the Pinacle of the Temple; now he is compelled to change places, and come after, Get thee behind me Satan. Yet I do not say he hath the dignity to come immediately next after Christ, Solo Deo minor, that is the title of anointed Kings upon earth: Nay, this reproachful word, Get thee behind me, deposeth him under all the servants of God. Non retro Christum solùm, sed post omnes qui spiritum Christi habent ire cogitur; He is not only set beneath the Son of God, but is an underling far after all those in the Church that have the spirit of Adoption.

Thirdly, You know that this word, Get thee behind me, was a word of hostility in Jehu 's mouth, What hast thou to do with peace? Get thee behind me: So this rebuke proclaims the Devil an enemy, whom God drives away, and puts him out of his view and sight, like an antipathy to the Godhead. Ejicitur à facie Dei, as one says; he was cast behind, God hid his face from him, he should never more see the beams of that comfort.

Fourthly, It is not expressed, whither Christ did banish him, when he charged him with his Vade, Get thee hence; to some woeful banishment, that is certain, but to what degree of woe is most uncertain. The Devils, not long after this story, in spite of their infidelity acknowledged him, and trembled for fear which way he would send them: Therefore they besought him that he would not send them into the depth, In abyssum, into that inestimable depth of woe in the nethermost Hell, Luk. viii. 31. And some do so interpret, Get thee hence, as if Satan before these Tentations were cast out of heaven into the earth, but from this time that Christ rebuked him, and bid him avant further, he was cast from the earth into the lowest darkness. They are questions not to be heeded which some move, whether the Prince of the air were bound fast by these words, that he should hurt the earth no more by his own person, but by his instruments: Or rather whether not until anon before our Savior's Passion, at those words, Now shall the Prince of this world be cast forth: Or whether the binding is to be accounted from some other time, Apoc. xx. Tyrannis vivit, tyrannus occidit. Whether the great dragon, so called, be chained up or not, God knows; his tyranny and mischief lives in the power of other instruments, all the Church of God knows that by experience.

Fifthly, These words, Get thee behind me Satan, are our Savior's epinicium, or Song of triumph, that he hath conquered the Adversary both for his own peace and kingdoms sake, and for the members of his body. So many gross sins were reformed throughout all the world from this time forward, especially in the redress of Idolatry, that some say the malicious weapons of Satan are rebated, and their edge taken off. Indeed, if it be meant with this distinction that follows, the doctrine is acceptable; the Devil hath less power since Christ came unto us in the flesh; then he had before, Non quod demonum sit imminuta virtus, sed quod fidelibus per Christum abundantior concessa est gratia. The Devils are as malicious, as instant, as operative, as cunning as ever they were, but since the holy Ghost hath put upon us the Armor of light, since grace hath abounded through Christ, we are better able to resist our Ghostly Enemies.

To conclude all, whosoever is tempted of his own evil concupiscence; let him spend no time to please himself with the first motions of sin, but let him rebuke his own heart instantly in these words, Apage Satana, get thee hence away, depart from me Satan. Conjure the wicked Spirit out of thy breast by speaking hatefully and reproachfully to the old man within thee, and to his corruptions. The rod of the wicked shall not rest in the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put forth their hands to wickedness, Psal. cxxv. 5. And though in many things we sin all, and who can say he hath not offended? Yet take heed ye commit not sin with greediness as if you delighted in the servitude of iniquity; nay, as if you did it with that full resolution, that you saw hell fire before you, and yet you will not be reformed: This is to gaze the Devil in the face, and to have no remorse of conscience. But if frailty steals upon us, yet extinguish not the ardour of zeal, which would fain be delivered from that captivity, let it cry out, I am carried away with the violence of my depraved nature, and the evil which I would not, that I do. This is to commit sin, but with such a delight as is mixed with great unwillingness: The love of God still abideth in us, and we cry out against the Tempter, Get thee behind me Satan. Though a good man be carried back sometime in his pious endeavors, yet he looks towards God's glory, he minds that chiefly, and he will not cast his eye off. He moves not willingly toward the Devil, though the Devil tread upon his heel behind him, and sometimes prevails to pluck him back from God. But remember how David composed himself, and with that I end, I have set God always before me, therefore I shall not fall. AMEN.

THE EIGHTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Savior's Tentation.

T HE Lacedaemonians had this Lesson in the private Instructions of their State, and observed it as far as they could, ut nunquâm cum eôdem host ter confligerent, by no means to give battle three several times to the same Enemy; for that Enemy encountering them so often, might learn to overcome them by their own ways and stratagems. Why, Satan hath this advantage to try masteries the third time with our Savior; neither did Christ vary one jot from his usual manner of defense; he fights with the same sling, and with a stone taken out of the same brook as before, scriptum est, for it is written: the written word is all the refuge that our Lord did seek: Satan knows full well at what guard He will lie; doth then the adversary speed ever the better for this? can he improve that knowledge to help himself? Nay, but far otherwise: Christ is so surely fixed upon one true ground, so constant to that rock of the Divine Law, which is stronger than all the waves of the sea that some against it, that his adversary discerned at last the longer he strove the more unable he was to maintain the quarrel: If the tempted entrench himself within the Scriptures, indignation shall vex the tempter, but he shall never prevail.

The Devil believes and trembles at it, that all the Law is irresistable, and shall triumph over the enemies of the Lord: but this Text (after which no more was said, as if more could not be spoken (it contains a more strict and high command than any other portion of the Law: it extends not only to transgressors to hedge them in their duty, that they may not start from it, but to the blessed Angels that are confirmed in grace, to the damned Devils that are incorrigible in sin, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , worship and adoration is looked for at all these and every particular, whether they be such as are comforted under mercy, or such as are tormented under the Judges fury, or such as sing praises forever before the King of glory, all must bend and do him homage. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, both in the highest region of souls, in the middle region of the Militant Church, or in the lowest region of Hell, at that name every knee shall bow both of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. Therefore Justin Martyr called upon all the Heathen, with whom he disputed, to receive this charge which my Text gives: This, says he, is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the greatest, that is the most spacious Commandment of all other, a Charter between God and all his Creatures. That upon which David speaks on this manner, thy Commandment is exceeding broad, Psal. cxix. 96. this is a chain to which all the works of the Lord are fastened, and therefore our Savior was sure it would bend his opposite with whom he disputed, that he should not reply, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Where the Text is so clear I will not make it hard to be understood with dividing it. The specials to be spoken of are these: First, the Lord God is to be worshipped: Secondly, the Lord God is to be served: Thirdly, He only to be worshipped and served: therefore fourthly, whatsoever things they are beside to which men do offer religious worship and service, let them mince and excuse it with what distinctions they please, they run into flat Idolatry.

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God: let this be first the query upon the first point: tu adorabis, is there any emphasis in the Pronoun, thou shalt worship? Is the Commandment directed to the Tempter? for that doubt I find in St. Chrisost. whether it be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Precept, or a Repulse; a Doctrine, or a Defiance, Thou shalt worship? I answer it in several conclusions: First, the outward act of worship and adoration is enjoined continually even to the spirits of damnation, and they must perform it. God hath put all things under Christ's feet, the Grave, and Death, and Hell: Who is meant by Hell but Satan and his Camrades, that are sunk into that place of sorrow? wherefore he was bound to pay worship himself where he called for worship: and let all the Angels of God worship him, Heb. i. 6. yea and the Devil forceth himself sometimes to pay this tribute unto Christ, though much against his will and content; but sometimes he doth outwardly worship him, that he may not fall into greater torments. For as a Servant that hath run away, and is taken, falls down at his Masters feet, that he may not be beaten, so this unclean spirit having entered into a man that lived in tombs in the Country of the Gaderens, when Christ came into those coasts, the Devil did not keep the man close out of sight, but came forth to meet Christ, and worshipped our Savior, Mark v. 10. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the very word in my Text, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Luke vii. 28. he fell down in that body, into which he had entered, before him; and he besought him very much that he would not send him away out of the Country. Indeed it is seen by the sequel, that Christ scorned his homage, and bad him come out of the man, and he durst not but obey him: you see then this Commandment stretcheth even to things beneath the earth, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God. Secondly I put this to my answer, that for the other clause, to serve God only, the Tempter's malice is irremediable, he hath turned away from obedience so stubbornly, that he is wholly possessed to defy the Kingdom of Heaven, yet God may call upon him, to serve him only, from time to time, requiring that reasonable service which he might have discharged by those faculties wherewith he was created, before he mar'd them. A Servant that hath money given him to buy necessaries for his Master's use, may be urged to make good those things, though he hath negligently lost, or lavishingly consumed the whole sum which was put into his hand, and utterly disabled himself to take up the merchandise: so there is no injustice in God to claim fidelity and service continually from those apostate evil spirits, although they are incorrgible, and can afford no better submission than murmuring and blasphemy. Yet after both those full satisfactions, I had rather say, nothing was Satan 's, in these words, but the Repulse, and the Commandment is wholly ours, and for our instruction; for where the Law is given it is given to be a School-master to bring them unto Christ: and none but we men, whose nature he took, have purchase in Christ, and a lively hope in the redemption of his most precious blood.

No devotion or duty to God is expected from Satan (though it may be commanded): my Text requires but that which Christ calls an easy yoke, and a light burden, and all the Sons of the Free-woman are made to bear it, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. The Holy Ghost speaks to us men, and to no other: if we know these things, happy are we if we do them. First then let us beat upon the knowledge of the Commandment, which requires, you hear, worship and service: service, that is to have a general care to be obsequious and pliant to all God's holy will; and worship, which is all external veneration, which becomes the creature towards such a Lord, who is of an infinite Majesty: or if you will observe these two titles in my Text, Lord and God, and divide these two parts of Religion between them: O God we will bow and kneel, and fall down before thee; can a man be too reverent to his God? and O Lord, all that thou command'st us we will endeavor to do: can a man be servant enough to such a Master, who is King of Kings, and Lord of Lord's? But Dominum Deum tuum adorabis, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God: of that by itself in the first order, which is that point of Religion that is principally opposed to the Devils temptation. And upon this it is to be noted, that Christ hath rather expounded the Law of Moses than kept the very word of it: the words are thus extant Deuteron. vi. 13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him. And is that rendered to the true sense, will some object, thou shalt worship the Lord? are fear and worship so much the same, that they may be called by the same name? even so beloved; for it is but an easy Metonymy to take the effect for the cause; especially such a proper effect as flows naturally from the cause, and cannot be parted: for as St. Paul said, Shew me thy faith by thy works; so do I say, show me your fear by the fruits, if it be not a dead fear, you will fall down and worship. The Servant that feared fell down, and besought his Master, Matth. xviii. 16. they that fear the Lord will be humble: they that are humble will worship often on their knees toward his Holy Place. And I never knew any Sectaries busy the Church with objections, why they would have license not to prostrate themselves in lowly gesture at some offices of divine service, but they drew their argument from this, that then at such an occasion it was not meet to express fear, but boldness and confidence. They that speak against due reverence cannot choose but speak irreverently: For thus some stand stoutly upon it, that they would not kneel when they receive the consecrated elements of the holy Communion, because kneeling is a gesture of inferiority, and abasement; now in that Sacrament we are to act the parts of Christ's Guests, in imitation to resemble our co-heirship with him in his Kingdom, therefore they will not lose their right of fellowship with Christ by kneeling, but take the benefit of their fortune and sit down. I pity weak ones that are so seduced in conscience; but it is a most foul oversight in the seducers that have learning and knowledge to thrust out humility at that time, when they know how that sacred Supper is the most absolute type of Christ's wonderful humiliation. This comes of it when they will imagine any part of Religion disjoined from the fear of God: for when they have blasted fear, presently they say, we will not worship. That Woman Luke vii. who was a sinner sometimes, but had her sins forgiven, and was now a co-heir with Christ, yet still she stood behind him, fearing to be too bold, and kist his feet, and bowed down to the ground in token of adoration: The Text says moreover she loved much, to poise that other Text of St. John 1 Ep. iv. 18. Perfect love casteth out fear: but love is never perfect till we reign with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I will yet be a little larger, how the fear of God and the outward worship of God are knit together: it must be so, because our Savior in my Text hath so interpreted Moses. The common distinction rightly understood will be the best help to this doctrine. There is a finer and a courser fear; the courser is called a servile fear, as when servants do their work lest they should be chastised, and were it not for the rod that hangs over them, perhaps they would let it alone: yet this is it which David commends (that you may not think it utterly disgraced by being called servile) Stand in awe and sin not; this was in the ancient Israelites, and it made their Prophets, and their Prophets Children obedient, and because it produced a good effect, search, and you shall find it came from God, Rom. viii. 15. You have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear; therefore the fear which imports bondage comes from the spirit of God: as Paul said which way soever Christ be preached it is well, so which way soever God be served, it doth well: and it is a pleasant thing to pass to Heaven by much fear, even by the gates of Hell. Carni opus est timore, spiritui fiduciâ, the flesh must be dejected with fear, and the spirit must be raised up with hope and confidence. Happy is the man that feareth always, but he that hardeneth his heart falleth into mischief, Prov. xxviii. 14. Now there is a fear of a finer thread, which is timor filiorum, this ariseth out of the love of God, when we take care not to displease, because He hath made us, and poured all his benefits upon us; because it is the best of all things to enjoy his favor: Nothing so much to be loved as God, therefore nothing so much to be feared, that He be not offended; they that love most abound with it: This is a joyful fear, which outlasts all the fears of this life. The fear of the Lord is clean, and endureth forever, Psal. xix. 9. This reverential fear is in the Angels: the Cherubims standing before God cover their faces with their wings, awing his glorious Majesty, the Elders before the throne fall down prostrate, and cover their faces with their wings. As the New Testament calls God charity, God is love, saith St. John; so the Old Testament calls him fear, Jacob swears by the fear of his father Isaac, that is by God himself, Gen. xxxi. 43. Fear therefore is a vein that runs through all Religion, and whatsoever buds out of Religion may be called fear; it is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of all piety, the first and the last▪ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, Prov. i. 7. and the end of all is fear God and keep his Commandments, Eccl. xxi. 13. The Lord threatens to the end we should be dejected, that's worship annexed to servile fear: and the Lord multiplies his blessings upon us, to the end we should bow down and be thankful; that's worship annexed to filial fear. True fear doth continually worship our Redeemer; desperate fear, like the impenitent Thief doth blaspheme him: and these two differ as much as sharp sauce that gives an appetite to the stomach, and poison that destroys the vitals.

So far that the word fear in the Law is changed into worship in the Gospel: for so it was fit to refute the Devil, who said, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. And the worship of God is that Theme, which without more circumstance now it befalls me to handle. What is it to worship God? what is required unto it? every man knows that's the first question to be asked: and I will make you a very satisfactory answer out of a devout example, which is thus: St. Matthew says there came a Leper and worshipped Christ saying, Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Math. vi • i. 2. that's the word of my Text. You shall meet with this party again Mark i. 40. What find we there? there came a Leper to him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , beseeching him, and kneeling down to him: yet another Evangelist says more to make it clearer, Luke v. 12. Behold a man full of leprosy fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean. The collection from hence is this, when these scattered members are put together, that to worship the Lord is to kneel down unto him, to fall down on our face before him, and to beseech him by earnest prayer. Be advertised in one thing, that to worship, to kneel before, to bow down unto in reverence are media vocabula, as we say, terms for civil respects between man and man, as well as for religious offices between God and Man: a great confusion falls out thereby in the handling of this doctrine, and it cannot be avoided. Saies St. Austin, in linguâ latinâ non habemus ullum vocabulum quod solùm dicatur de cultu Dei, there is not any word betokening the worship of God in the latin tongue, so proper to it, that it may not be communicated to man: all tongues are alike in that poverty of expression. In the New Testament the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is constantly kept for the outward worship of God, saving that Matth. xviii. the Servant who feared to be sold away, he and all he had, is said 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the Parable speaks of an earthly Master, though the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Epiparabola come home to God: in the English tongue the nearest word that is meant only of divine honor, and a little too high for civil reverence is adoration: If you say you adore an earthly man in our language, we almost esteem it flattery: But they are not words or outward gestures which can decide, what it is which properly constitutes the essence of that worship which God claims. The word adore I said might have a religious meaning with us, but in no tongue else. Saies Valla very well adorare includit orare & supplicare, voice uti, & plicare genu: the word adore doth import the humble petition of the tongue, and the supplication of the knee: but these are things common and promiscuous to civil and holy uses. All the reverent deportments of the body, which piety ascribes to God, civility without offense performs sometimes to Magistrates and Superiors. It may be some Nations had their Customs, to keep certain peculiar venerations of the body for God alone: as the Athenians put Timagoras their Embassador to death, quod Regem Persarum tanquam Deum salutasset, because he did obeisance to the King of Persia as to a God: I know not what peculiar bendings of the body they appropriated to their God's, it was a national custom of their own (and for my part I will not say a bad one) but nature hath no such ground to limit the most humble gestures of the body to God alone. Prophets in holy Scripture have fallen on their face before Kings, and great men have fallen on their face before Prophets.

Though this doctrine be most true, yet Cardinal Bellarmine did not pick out Abraham so luckily to make him the example of it. He says that Abraham prostrated himself alike to God, to Angels, and to the Honorable men of the Sons of Heth. I say, and will manifest it, that the Scripture says, he made a difference in his congees to them all. Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, Gen. xvii. 3. When he went to meet the Angels, he bowed himself toward the ground, Gen. xviii. 2. When he spake to the children of Heth, Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people, Gen. xxiii. 7. You hear he fell on his face to God, he bowed himself to the ground to the Angels, and he bowed himself, without more addition to the people of Heth. But this distinction is not kept by other holy men, who walked perfectly before the Lord: therefore I stand upon my former ground, that neither by simple terms, nor by postures and bowings of the body can it be resolved what worship is proper to the Lord; for my part I could never make an intelligible interpretation of that distinction in Aquinas, so well accepted by some, that there are so many forms of adoration as there are kinds of excellency: for honor and worship are done to the person for the excellency which is in it. Now excellency is either divine and infinite in God, which deserves that adoration called by him latria; or human excellency which is grounded, or in men's honors, or in their virtues, and so deserves civil and political reverence; or it is an excellency less than divine, yet more then human, which is in the Angels and souls of holy men departed; and that claims the worship of dulia unto itself. Put this into plain meaning he that can, and show me how these three are distinguished in outward or bodily adoration. I will agree that in those things we worship, we do apprehend excellency three manner of ways. First there is cultus sacrosanctae religions, the religious and pious worship which we give to God for his omnipotent and most glorious excellency. Secondly, there is cultus civilis subjectionis, the worship which we give to our superiors in authority, as we live in political subjection, because they are set over us for our good. Thirdly, there is cultus moralis reverentiae, the worship of moral respect and reverence, which we give to some for their good gifts and qualities, although we are not under them in any political ordination. All these worships are performed upon several excellencies apprehended in the persons worshipped; but the act of worship itself, as concerning that which the head, the knee, the hand, or any part of the body doth execute, may be the same: for the distinguishing of one and another must be in the heart and mind, as I proceed now to show at large unto you.

The definition of divine worship must be thus framed, adoratio est talis veneratio exterior quae ex cord pio & religioso procedit: that's the adoration due to God, and to him alone, which with the exterior veneration of the body proceeds out of the pious and religious intentions of the heart. If you yield any token of outward obeisance, and mean it to honor him who hath made you, redeemed you, sanctified you, and conferred all other benefits upon you, then it is raised up from civil homage and duty, and is become divine worship; a distinction will help the memory of them that can conceive it a little further. There are three things which concur to that virtue which we call the worship of God. First the act of the understanding must put forth itself to apprehend and know the glorious excellency of God, that he made the whole world out of nothing, and susteins all things by the word of his power. Then secondly, the act of the will comes in, wherein we assent and apply ourselves to adore his excellency, to magnify him, and devote our hearts unto him. Thirdly, these two joined together do urge and command the exterior act of worship which is performed by the body: tanti est adorare, all these must be in it, if it be true adoration. S. Paul speaks of some that have the forms of godliness, but deny the power thereof. The formal cringing and bending are but like a part played upon a Stage, if they be severed from the power of godliness, from the knowledge of the understanding what glory belongs to God, and from the will and purpose of the heart, to exalt his holy name both privately and in his holy Temple.

Well, I can but call upon you to prepare your hearts, and you will everyone say, I am sure my heart is fixed O God, my heart is fixed. The Lord knows, but we that are your instructors do not, whether that internal part of worship be well discharged by you: therefore I come to that quarter of the virtue, whereof men may be witnesses if it be carefully executed; unto outward adoration (it was upon the quarrel of outward worship that Christ here disputed with Satan) God had respect to Abel and to his offering, Gen. iv. 4. to Abel, that is to his internal piety; to his offering, that is to his external worship: Abel had been unrespected at that time if he had not been good at both. And as a plaster of cordial ingredients laid to the stomach, or an unction well slickt upon the skin comforts the spirits within, and makes them execute their vital functions cheerfully, so outward reverence helps us greatly against our dullness and drowsy infirmities. The lifting up the hands and eyes make a man crave more passionately; the knocking of the breast whets our repentance with indignation against ourselves, bowing down the head and knee imprints into us the great distance which is between God and us: the uncovering the head makes that needful thought sink into our heart in whose presence we stand. Glorify God with your body, 1 Cor. vi. 20. Tertullian and S. Cyprian read it, Portate Deum in corpore vestro, Carry God in your body, in every joint and member of it. It may be they met with some Greek Copy that read 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Our Religion is compared to a Marriage, there is a contract between God and our soul; and this is gained from the similitude, that the Wife is the Husbands as well in body as in affection; and so are we the Lord's. As Man and Wife are but one flesh, so Christ the Bridegroom of the Church did assume the whole man body and soul into the unity of his person. He hath conjoin'd them both unto God, and let us conjoin them both to the worship of God. A Sermon cannot be spent upon a subject which doth more deserve our exhortation. The Lord created a Star on purpose only to bring the Magi of the East to worship Christ, and they did so, even when He lay in most despicable manner before them in the Manger of a Stable, and shall we be slacker to kneel before his footstool, when he reigns triumphantly in the highest Heavens? the Heaven and Earth, the Stars and Prophets, all lead us to the worship of God. Scriptura & mundus ad hoc sunt ut colatur qui creavit, & adoretur qui inspiravit; so St. Cyprian. The Scripture and the world are to this end, that He that created the one, and inspired the other might be worshipped. It is no mean duty which made those wise men of the East take so tedious and long a journey, to post in twelve days from the mountains of the East to Bethlehem; and that other Traveler Acts viii. the Treasure of the Queen Candace came from the uttermost parts of Ethiopia to Jerusalem, and all for no other end but this, to worship. The Scripture says so expressly; and when they had done that, they went home again.

We had need carry a very true heart to God in these days; for many of us put him off all together with the zeal of our heart, and think it will excuse us if we neither honor him with our body, nor with our substance. He shall have neither our goods, nor our knee, but likely we put it off He shall have our soul; why, this is only to give God his thirds, as a reverend Father says; to compound like Bankrupts, and give him two parts less than we owe him, and yet we look for ten thousand times more than He owes us. We have some that are to be suspected for a kind of Sadducees among us, that believe no resurrection of the body, else they would never palter with discipline, but be more forward in the prostration and worship of the body, than the Church could be to command them, Some have given a great blow to this duty, by harping upon the bare words of S. John, and not digesting the true meaning of his Text, Joh. iv. 23. The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Mark the occasion why this was spoken, and the words precedent. The woman of Samaria moved a doubt, whether God was to be worshipped at Jerusalem, as the Jews taught, or at Mount Girizin, as the Samaritans taught: Now the Samaritans worshipped God falsely, they worshipped they knew not what, says Christ. The Jews held strictly to Moses Law, and observed figures and shadows of things to come, which were all to give place and vanish upon the incarnation of our Lord. Now it is easy to discern the substance of our Savior's answer, what it is to serve God in spirit and truth. Truth is opposed to the false superstition of the Samaritans; Spirit is opposed to the Jewish figures and sacrifices: And Christ tells the woman God will neither be served anymore after the Samaritan way or Jewish way, but after the newness of the Gospel: The hour cometh, and now is, when ye shall neither worship the Father in this Mountain, nor at Jerusalem, but they shall worship him in spirit and truth. Do these words exempt the worship of the body? nothing less: The word spirit is not taken there for the soul divided from the body, signifying only an internal act of the spirit, but for all manner of virtuous actions, as well external as internal, which proceed from the grace of the Holy Spirit, being acceptable to God, because the Holy Spirit brings them forth, not because they are figures of things to come. I will sing with the spirit, says St. Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. 15. and yet singing is a bodily action. He did worship in spirit, when he said, For this cause bow I my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus, Ephes. iii. to come to a point. Remember therefore how we adore God in spirit, when we adore him with those outward gestures of the body, to which we are stirred up by the Spirit of truth. And so much of the first member of my Text, which I laid out to be handled by itself, the Lord God is to be worshipped.

The next duty is the other Pillar of Religion which upholds the Church of the Elect, the Lord God is to be served. By worship, you know already, we understand all humble outward devotion and reverence. Now by service you must conceive the inward conformity of the heart to all duty and obedience. The will of the Lord is revealed to us two manner of ways: Either as he doth promise us blessings and benefits, and assures us great rewards in the Kingdom of heaven: Or as he doth stipulate and covenant with us what we shall do to obtain his favor. In the former respect as he hath given us the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth most liberally, and as he doth promise greater fruits of his mercy most graciously, we fall down and worship him for his benefits: but as he doth condition with us to do somewhat for his sake, that he may leave a blessing with us, we serve him faithfully, and bind our inward faculties, our soul and our mind, to be prompt and ready to execute all obedience. That you may the better compose your hearts to attend God's will in all things, and to serve him, I will supply your knowledge with these few motives following.

First, There is no other Lord beside our God properly called, 1 Cor. viii. Though there be that are called God's, (as there be God's many, and Lord's many, that is by opinion and nuncupation) but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. And again, Eph. v. 4. One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; one God who is above all, and through all, and in you all. Super omnes dominio, per omnes providentiâ, in omnibus justification; Above all by his Dominion, through all by his Providence, in all by sanctifying us with his grace, and justifying us from sin. He that is subject to none, inferior to none, independent of himself in all his power, He may well be called a Lord, and such a Lord deserves to be served: Petty Magistrates hold of Princes favors, and Kings hold their tenure under God. Therefore some of the Roman Emperors having the perceivance, that they could command nothing absolutely, if he that sat above the heavens did stop it; they would not be called Domini, because themselves were servants in relation to the King of Kings, and Lord of Lord's, therefore their circumscribed power did not answer the title. When the Scripture brings in the most High, the saying is, Haec dicit Dominus; Thus saith the Lord. If we would examine this after the style of man, you would say Lord of what? Why universal Lord without any particular designment? Specifications to be Lord's of this or that are earthly phrases, are notes of minority. Attalus the Martyr was asked, what name that Lord had whom he served? Says he, Qui plures sunt nominibus discernuntur, qui autem unus est non indiget nomine; Where there are many Lord's they must be distinguished by their properties; but what need that Lord a name for distinction, who is the only Ruler by himself, without any equal, or partner in his dominion? now since we must serve (for sin hath brought servitude into the world) whom would a man choose to serve, but that only Lord, to whose sheave all other sheaves do bend, and who only hath authority?

Secondly, In all service you will consider in what state and place it puts you. Do so in this and spare not. But let St. Peter be the Judge, 1 Epist. ii. 9. Ye are a chosen generation, a royal Priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people. There is royalty in the very service, Cui servire est regnare; To do him service is a Kingly Ministry. Nay, there is more in one of our Church Collects in one Line of it than in the most Augustious title of a King. God whose service is perfect freedom. A King may be so much subject to naughty passions as he shall be in vile thralldom to his own sensualities, and so he is made a greater vassal than the poorest of his Subjects: themselves are the servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of the same he is brought in bondage, 2 Pet. ii. 19. What appearance of sovereignty was in the voluptuous Licinius? Of whom Tacitus says, Tanta torpedo invaserat animum, ut si principem eum fuisse caeteri non meminissent, ipse oblivisceretur. Such a stupidness had possessed his mind, that unless others had been mindful towards him that he was a Prince, himself would have forgot it. You see then there is no freedom but by killing the strength of sin, and living unto God in new obedience; if by one offense death reigned by one, they that receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ, Rom. v. 17. Sin holds the sinner under tyranny, grace makes the righteous man reign in this life, it is the Apostles phrase. Therefore Christ, who gives us freedom, despised not to be called a servant to his Father, Thou art my servant O Israel, in whom I will be glorified, Isa. xlix. 3.

Thirdly, That fawning heathen did humor his Patron for this reason, Et habet quod det, & dat nemo largius. So the Lord hath all manner of riches in store, and he withholdeth no good thing from those that serve him, No Master in the world is so munificent to reward his Ministers. Let me borrow it from the Queen of Sheba's mouth, what she said of Solomon's attendants, to apply it to those of God's household, that perform the task he sets them: Happy are these thy servants that stand continually before thee, being now made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life, Rom. vi. 22. The poor bondman among the heathen had no more wages than food for all his drudgery, the more hard-hearted they. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Aristotle; give a bond-slave provender like a beast, and he is paid for his labor. Did God ever use any of his retinue that serve him so hardly? They have all their meat in due season, and plenteously: says he in the Parable, How many hired servants are there in my Fathers house that have meat enough? Yet this is nothing I may say to the remainder, this is but the Alms-basket of his liberality. What say you to this? That he gave his only Son to redeem his servant, and that the Servant might be spared even that most beloved Son did undergo the most bitter death of the Cross; and all this, that such servants as forgot the Lord, who had done so great things for them, and rebelled against him, might be co-heirs with Christ in his Kingdom. Who would not serve such a Master? If he say go, who would not make speed to follow? If he say do this, who would not do it? He hath given us such hire, more than all the world beside can lay down, that we will worship the Lord our God, and he only shall be served.

I should wrong the matter I handle if this question were not moved, How we should feel the comfort in ourselves that we serve the Lord? I answer by a Negative by an Affirmative examination. Negatively, when we think that we have never labored enough in our Lord's Vineyard to earn our penny: Or as it is elsewhere very clearly set down to take away all boasting from our works, when we have done all we can, say we are unprofitable servants. The Affirmative Collection may be best drawn from a saying of Christ's, Mat. vi. 24. No man can serve two Masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will cleave to the one, and despise the other. Here I gather, that the two notes of a good servant are deligere, adhaerere; to love and to cleave fast to his Master. Those Servants that loved King David, such as Hushai, and Ittai, and Ahimaaz would take part with him to the death in Absalom's rebellion, those were good Servants: It was love that made Jacob such a diligent Shepherd under Laban to suffer heat and frost. Laban never had the like to tend his flocks. A servant that takes a delight to please, you may trust him with anything both for Faith and Diligence. Nemo meliùs obtemperat, quàm qui ex caritate obsequitur, says St. Ambrose; no man will obey God better, or go further to discharge his Law, then he that is roused up by the zeal of love and charity. But he that doth the Lord's work without pleasure and delight doth it with unwillingness, unwillingness breeds sloth, and between these all their service is left-handedly performed as if it were never intended. Si quid invitus facis, fit de te, magis quàm id facis, says Prosper; Whatsoever you did grudgingly without love, it was drawn from you, but never done by you, and as if you had not been the doer, you shall never be rewarded. Beside deligere I said there was adhaerere, a good servant was no flincher, but stuck close; not a Fugitive, as Jonas was; not an Apostate, as Demas was; not one that began in the Spirit, and ended in the Flesh, the Galatians were thought to be bewitched that did so. The Bond-man in the Old Law that loved his Master, though the time of his releasement was come about, would be bored through the ear for a ceremony that he would never part from him. St. Paul was the fast man above all we read of that was glued unto the service of the Gospel; Neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor things present, nor things to come, &c. shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yet I will end this Point in the words of one of our own Prelates, a faithful Minister of God bestirs himself with respect to that one Master to whom he cleaves in all the works of his Vocation, Ac si nihil aliud esset in hôc mundo praeter illum, ac Deum. As if there was none in the world but himself and God, himself to obey, and God to be served with all possible diligence.

This cleaving fast unto one Master, doth link itself in with the next Point, that the Lord God is only to be worshipped and served. Let it not start your patience, that I name it, now the time is past. I am not about to huddle it up at this time, being the most copious subject, and of the choicest variety, in my judgment, in all Divine Learning. But this Doctrine you shall, carry away with you at this time, It is no impediment for Servants to show all diligent duty to their Masters on earth, because one verse of the Gospel says, No man can serve two Masters; and because my Text says of our Lord in heaven, him only shalt thou serve. Him only indeed in Religious Service, in Divine Worship and Adoration; he is the only Master that we have 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 over our spirit and c • nscience, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , we must be diligent to attend our governors according to the flesh in Temporal and Civil Offices and Functions. Col. iii. 22. There St. Paul gives a Livery to all Servants to wear, not upon their back, but upon their heart: Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, as fearing God. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye receive the reward of the Inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. Mark those last words, we serve but one Master, though we have one in earth, and another in heaven, for we serve him on earth for his sake, and for his command that is in heaven. When a petty Magistrate bids you do this or that in the Kings Name, you obey not so much him that speaks unto you, as the Kings Authority which he lays upon you: So, that service which is performed to man by the ordination of Christ is performed to Christ himself. Servit Deo, qui propter Deum servit homini, as St. Jerome says upon that place of St. Paul; The Lord hath set you on work to serve a Master upon earth, it is his service, and not man's, do it diligently and faithfully, and as your Masters on earth must justly give the hireling his or her Wages, so over and above God will see it rewarded. Utilitas operis ad homines respicit, animus operantis ad Deum; The benefit of that outward work which a servant doth redounds materially to man: The intention of his heart that works justly and truly is bent in conscience to God. These Masters are not contrary one to another, but subordinate, and you shall be paid on both sides.

In as much as you did it to one of these you did it unto me. See how God is willing to engage himself to owe us for all our Ministerial labor. I know that Text was fitted by Christ to works of Charity, that he who gave a cup of cold water to one of his little ones for his names sake, gave it to himself; but it is a general Axiom, to be applied to all human Uses and Offices which we do one to another under God, In as much as you did it to one of these, you did it unto me. The Apostle goes so far in this Point, that though a Christian were a bondman to an Infidel, yet the Christian must do his task, and submit himself unto him, for temporal Authority and Dominion is not founded in grace; And if Infidelity do not cast a man out of his Government in a private Family, is there any show or appearance that Heresy or Infidelity should make a Prince uncapable any longer to hold his Kingdom, but lay him quite open to deposition from all his Dignity? Neither Infidelity nor Tyranny can exempt Subjects or Servants from that homage which they owe their Superiors on earth, because we are tied to subjection to these, not for their own sakes, but for God's sake, and he will not dispence with us. Let St. Peter teach his Pro-Peter that would be, 1 Ep. ii. 18. Servants be subject to your Masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. It follows, For this is thanksworthy towards God. Let me dispatch. You hear it not written, no man can have two Masters, he may have two that are subordinate, God's Service being ever preferred before man's: You hear indeed no man can serve two Masters, that would be equal, not subordinate, or Contraria praecipientes, such as call you contrary ways at once, or bid you do contrary things, for in that case one must be served, and the other neglected. They that are set over you on earth must command the same thing that Christ commends, and then with the same pains you content them both. But if the lesser power on earth shall say, hearken to me for this time, and to God at some other turn: Nay, said the mouth of the Apostles, Whether it be fitter to obey God or you, judge ye. Iniquum est ut illis pareatur contra Christum, quibus paretur propter Christum. Says the just man, we serve our Masters on earth for Christ's sake, otherwise all underlings would rise up, and cry out for Anarchy and license, which they wrongfully call liberty; but we submit unto you for Christ's sake, and would you be obeyed against Christ when you should never be obeyed but for Christ's sake? No, in all things lawful and honest I subject myself, so I make myself a Minister to God and man conjointly, but not divided. And thus Servants obey their Masters on earth, and yet observe my Text most religiously, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. AMEN.

THE NINETEENTH SERMON UPON Our Savior's Tentation.

A T the same time that our Savior alleged these words out of holy Scripture against the Devil, He bid him apage, get thee hence, as who should say, this was true doctrine, but no way for his turn. Even as Elisha said to the Noble-man of Samaria, there should be store of corn in the gates of Samaria, tu tamen non gustabis, but it shall do you no good, you shall never taste of it. Assuredly though Satan was sent away from this godly doctrine to his own place, and this sentence of Holy Writ was thrown after him, like a stone at a dog, to make him be gone the faster, yet it invites us to come about it, as Wisdom says in Solomon, Come near my children, not get you hence, hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. For that proposition in Logic is a direct teacher, which speaks positively, as they say categorically, what is to be done; so doth this, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God: and then it is very satisfactory, and leaves no question after it, for it hath an express sign or note in it, which every proposition should have, which will be clear to the understanding, and him Only shalt thou serve.

That particle of the Text is like the point of the Loadstone, referring to whom all religious honor constantly and unchangeably is to be performed. Do but imagine that word [only] were in another print from the rest, or in capital letters, as that which is the emphasis of the verse, and whereupon all divine duty doth lean, and there needs no more preface to prepare you for that which follows. Upon this word I will speak now according to its own property, that is, of nothing else at this time. That God is only to be worshipped and served, shall be my only Treatise; and I will go in hand with it two ways: 1. Building up the true doctrine affirmatively: 2. Beating down those wrong opinions that offend against it. For whatsoever things they are to which men do offer religious worship and service beside the Lord, let them distinguish that they do it improperly, with a less religious worship, with reference to Almighty God; let them slick it over with what gloss of wit they please, I am on the Lord's side, and in his behalf I plead, that they run into some kind of Idolatry. But first plainly and affirmatively, without rubbing against the adversary's errors, that God only is to be worshipped and served.

In the first place I must not conceal from you, this word upon which we stand so much (and good reason for it) but this word Only is not to be found in that verse, which is quoted by our Savior, Deut. vi. 13. the margent of your own Bible, and indeed all Expositors ancient and modern, hold that to be the very Scripture which Christ doth here apply, and thus you find, thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. I but 'tis not written there, thou shalt serve him only. Hath He added to the word? put case He should add to the word (as in this instance He did not;) but put case He should, it were free for him, but for none else to do it, He may do what He will with his own. After Moses had finished the Law, and the Lord had said thereupon, cursed is he that addeth unto it, yet the book of the Psalms and the Prophets were put to it, and after all these the Gospel, and the whole New Testament was added; yet none of those were the patches of man's wit, but the increase and supply which God himself gave to his own eternal Oracles. Yet I give not this answer, as if Christ had thrust one syllable into the Law to give it more sense and authority than it had before: He came to fulfil the Law, but not to overfil it: For first Christ said nothing but that which is written; if not here, yet in another Prophet, and one spirit is in all the Prophets: consult with Samuel, 1 lib. chap. 2. v. 3. Prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only: that's down right, as my Text hath it, I need not give it a grain to make up weight. Then there's for Satan; he cannot say but he was refuted with very Scripture. Secondly, let us keep unto those words of Deuteron. for surely those were intended, and the word only is there in effect, the next verse makes it good, that it could not be excepted. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him. Well, but will God admit any partner? otherwise we must serve him alone; just so: for it follows, ye shall not go after other God's, of the God's of the people that are round about: served him, and no other God whatsoever. Why, then it is a clear aequipollencie in Logic, thou shalt serve him only. The Devil is most perverse and litigious, yet he never denied it.

Thirdly, be satisfied yet further, that the 72 Translators, so called, having the right understanding of the Text, that God commandeth all glory, and worship, and divine service to himself without comperes or sharers, they render the Hebrew in those Greek words which our Savior quoted 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , him only shalt thou serve. Now all do yield that the five books of Moses were translated by those 72 Jews of great learning, whom Eleazar the High Priest sent to Ptolemy Philadelphus for that purpse: So much both Philo and Josephus acknowledge, though they speak of no more. Occasion is taken from hence by some to cry up that Greek Translation of the Old Testament, because our Savior alledgeth these words as those Septuagint have made them up, and not as they are in the pure original Hebrew. I will not stand upon this Theme any long time, but say much in brief. First, that St. Paul lays a firm ground how the Jews had the Oracles of God committed to them, it was one of their National Privileges; therefore their tongue is the matrix and fountain from whence we are to expound what the Holy Ghost hath delivered in the Old Testament. I deny not but the Jews themselves might use the Copies of the Greek Language, for there were many of them, and some conjecture, that where we read of certain Hellenistae, Greeks that came to our Savior in the Gospel, they were those Jews that rather used the Greek Translation than the Hebrew; perhaps being more easy to their capacities, for their common speech in those days was Syrian, and Hebrew was taught in Sholes as we teach Latin, therefore some suppose there was a Faction of Hellenists among them, they and the Scribes, who damned all Scripture which was not in their own Hebrew tongue, being upon all occasions at hot variance. So you find there was a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, Acts vi. 1. To return to my conclusion some Jews did not abhor to read their own Law in the Greek tongue, yet these were but a Faction; for when St. Paul says the Oracles of God were committed to them, and by way of high privilege, he must mean it of that idiom which their Fathers spake, wherein it was first wrote, and whereof their learned men for the present were the Doctors. Secondly, though the Hebrew was, and is the authentic language for that part of Scripture, yet there was a most venerable Translation of it into Greek, which our Savior, the Evangelists, and Apostles used: it kept the sense, yea the words of the Hebrew for the most part so exactly, that our Savior, who taught the Law according to it, did say, one jot or title of the Law should not perish. St. Jerome says, if that Translation had been purely extant, he would have spared his own pains, and not have undergone so laborious a task to turn the whole Old Testament out of Hebrew into Latin. Thirdly, that pure Greek Translation was used by our Savior (though not in Greek words but in Syriac ) not as preferring it, or matching it with the original authentic Hebrew, but partly because it was most frequent, and most known, for they all spake the Greek tongue in all the hither parts of Asia, after Alexander the great had exalted the Graecian Monarchy; partly to import, that a door of faith was now opened to the Gentiles, and that they should reap those heavenly things, since the Jews, thought themselves unworthy of them. Fourthly, this Greek Translation, which at this day goes under the name of the 72, is of far less value and authority than that which was so honor'd with our Savior's mouth: for I will believe St. Jerome in this case, being a most exact Linguist (rather than those Fathers that took languages upon trust) but thus He. Germana illa antiqua translatio corrupta est, & violata, ac pro varietate regionum diversa feruntur exempla. That old genuine Translation was corrupted and violated: and several Copies of it were shewn and used in several Kingdoms of the World. Enough of this, wherein I have laid down my mind briefly for the satisfaction of understanding Auditors, upon occasion that Christ cited these words, not barely as in the Hebrew, but with an addition, yet a clear and a natural addition, as it is in the Greek Translation; Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Now to the positive Doctrine. Him only: his name can stand with no other name, and no other name can stand Colleague or Partner in his worship: it is an embasing of gold to join any other metal with it; how much more to say this Sacrifice, or this Altar; this Temple, or this sacred Service; this Vow or this Prayer shall be divided between the true God and some other supposed Deity? Did not He make man Lord only of all the Creatures, and him only after his own image and similitude; Did He not take man's nature only upon him? nusquam Angelos, He was not of the nature of Angels, but of the Seed of Abraham? Did He not redeem us only, and not the evil spirits, when we were as far lost as they. Finally, are they not our bodies only which He will raise from incorruption, and not the beasts? What, all this for us, and for us only? and yet do we halt between him and other God's; as if we had some pious worship for him, and some for whom we think good beside: We are so free of our Religion forsooth, we cannot keep in bounds to him only. It would move our laughter to see a weak-brained man pay half his debt to his Creditor, and the other half to one where he never stood engaged: if this be ridiculous, then to pay our devotion to anything in heaven or earth, which we owe all and entire to the God of heaven and earth, is both scornful and idolatrous: ill mihi & non alteri, ego illi & non alteri: well concluded of Bernard. He hath made us Christians alone his chosen people, therefore He shall be my King, to whom alone I will pay worship, and honor, and adoration. The wise men of the East that came a long journey to worship Christ, and laid down the offering of their homage at his feet, never opened their treasures, that we read, to give any Present to Herod: if you give a religious tribute to any other King, but to this alone, He disdains your payment. All or none, like the true Mother of the Child: and better give him two mites, if two mites be all we have, than give him a talent with Ananias and Sapphira, if a talent be but half our inheritance. St. Austin asks why the Romans worshipped all kind of Idol God's they ever heard of, but never worshipped the true God? He answers, because the false God's, after the good fellowship of the world, loved company, and would permit any to be partners with them in adoration, the true God would be left out if there were any but himself: for it is against the nature of him that is infinite, almighty, incomprehensible to be equal'd or matched in anything.

Religious honor and service is that retribution which a reasonable creature makes for the blessing wherewith it is blessed: Who is it that blesseth us with all manner of store? is not that easily answered; and it is as quickly rejoin'd; then let him only be worshipped. If there be any other created power, to whom you impart religious veneration, let him help you if he can when you stand in need, and go to the God's whom you have chosen to seek for succor. Worship him all ye God's, says David, Psal. xcvii. 7. No creature so great that can be greater than the name of a God: and whatsoever excellency it hath, yea the rather because it is very excellent above its fellows, it must kneel and bow to the supreme Majesty; Worship him all ye God's. Why then infer, he that is to discharge divine honor, is not to be prosecuted with divine honor: religious worship belongs to him that owes service to none: nothing that we can suppose with a sound wit is like genus subalternum fit to worship, and fit to be worshipped; a thing that doth adore God, who is above him, and is adored of men that are beneath him: what perturbation were this in Religion? and Religion is as God himself is, pure order, and not confusion. There are some whom I glance at, who are not sound in this doctrine; yet think themselves as safe as under Ajax his Buckler with this distinction, that latria or the principal religious service is proper to God alone, but dulia a less principal religious service may be performed in good Christian sort to Angels and Saints, to their Relics, or to their Images, and they think there is such force in those words, that God must take that answer, for all it is written, him only shalt thou serve.

I will put some diligence to the examination of this distinction; as first, how it came in use; then if those two words have any proper difference in their signification, and then what meaning there can be in it, that God should have one kind of religions worship done unto him, and the Creatures another. The words are both of them Greek, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the first that attempted to distinguish them was St. Austin, whose praise is, that He was the most rational and intelligent writer for argument of all that lived in that flourishing age, but when he meddled with the tongues he was out of his Element. Erasmus cannot choose but smile at him sometimes in the margent, when he will forget himself, and tamper with Greek phrases, vide ut graecissat. Now this distinction must needs have weak hold, when a man of no skill was the inventor: tractent fabrilia fabri. Yet how was St. Austin put to it first to excogitate that way? I have searched it, and it was thus. Because there is some religious honor certainly due to God, which is incommunicable to any creature, the good Father labored for a word which should be proper to this worship, and given to nothing else, that equivocations and ambiguities might not trouble his Doctrine. This was judiciously thought of; yet I told you before that all languages are defective in this point, no word which stands for religious worship, but is also promiscuously applied by good Authors to civil devoir and reverence. Finding no help for this in the Latin tongue, he borrowed the word latria from the Greek tongue to make it Latin, that it might signify no other worship, but that which is due to God: as if it could have lost its proper signification in the Greek by becoming Latin. Says he, Latria est cultus Deo debitus, qui in latino uno vocabulo nuncupari non potest: Now the use of all good Authors will not permit this, as I will show by and by. But by their leave that say they borrow of St. Austin, where doth he say that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is another species of religious worship, which is divers from