A Century of Sermons

before the Jews, and say nothing at the Bar of Pilate.

I have prosecuted my method thus far, to avouch the integrity of our Savior against scandalous accusations, when his lips were closed: but as a Rest in Music is not the close of the Song, but a seasonable stop to make the next relish more graceful and harmonious; so after the pause of silence which our Savior made, you shall now see the better how false and malicious the crimes of indictment were. Before Cajaphas the High Priest (as I told you) this only was objected, that he threatened to destroy the Temple. Three other capital crimes are laid against him, Luke xxiii. 2. that he perverted the Nation, that he denied Tribute unto Caesar, that he made himself the King of the Jews. Here are two great sins against the Ecclesiastical Weal, to pluck down the Temple, and to pervert the Religion; and two outrages against civil peace, to pay no Tribute, and to encroach upon the Title of the Kingdom; let him be crucified a God's name, that pleads guilty to such abominations; but if no more can be said against Jesus, and we can show in every particular, that all this was forgery, then let Pilate wash his hands, and protest before them all, that the life which they would take away, is the blood of a just person.

We heard him say He would destroy the Temple: Never was such a syllable spoken: Is not this the Temple wherein He bestowed his first blould at Circumcision? a pair of Turtle Doves for a Sacrifice at his Mothers Purification? Did He not shed his tears over this House of God in that pathetical lamentation? O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! did He not spend his disputations with the Doctors, his Sermons among the People, his Prayer unto the Father, and all under that holy Roof? And now is his zeal turned to his reproach, that He would pluck down the Sanctuary? a while before did He not scourge the profane Merchants, and cleanse the Temple? and now is He suspected for laying waste the dwelling place of the Most high? Nay, let them offer Swines flesh there, let them change money, and sell Doves, I would rather bear with Superstition, with Prophanation, than with extreme Sacrilege. O beware Beloved to open the lead of the Roof, or to rent the walls of that Habitation where God's Altar was enclosed; He shall offend less that throws down any Mansion House in the World, than he that cuts up but the Bramble-bush, if he knew it, wherein the glory of the Lord appeared. 'It is pity that the stony hearts of men should suffer holy Buildings to molder and crumble away into desolation; I see a compassionate example before mine eyes. O ye rich men of the World, who is your God that you do not repair it? But those Sons of Belial who prevent these ruins, which time would bring upon the Houses of God, 'tis more pity they should see the grey hairs of age in peace. Surely as the Heavens, which are the upper Court of God's House, shall melt away and be dissolved only by the power of God; so Churches and Oratories here below, which are the nether Courts of his Sanctuary, should never be defaced in this World by any arm of flesh, till the whole earth shall pass away, and God's own finger deface these Monuments of glory.

See but the hypocrisy of these Jews and Herodians, they that are so careful a Temple should not be destroyed, are furious to destroy the body of a man which is the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Like the Popish Inquisitors, most bold and zealous to curse those hotspurrs in our Kingdom, who threw down a Church in their wrath, and broke down the walls in their blind affection; yet they themselves made havoc of holy Prelates, and did persecute their lives unto death, and this was called Justice and Catholigue Religion: to conclude this Accusation. And why do they impeach our Savior that He would destroy a Temple: no such matter God knows. Solvite templum hoc, what means that? why, the Temple of his Body: Why then, who but they themselves do destroy the Temple which He spake of? meaning the Temple of his Body. The crime then, you may perceive, as it was objected against our Savior it was slanderous; but take this to the advantage of your instruction, what judgment will God pour upon them who rob the Altar, and spoil the Patrimony of the Church, since these unconscionable Jews do confess, that whosoever would destroy a Temple deserves to be crucified.

Yet Pilate was a Gentile, and perchance would not heed the eracing of God's House, therefore to make the Romans look about them, they have a second Objection in store, That He would pervert the Nation: Not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as some read it, the Nation of the Romans, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , our Nation. Forsooth they fain an Accusation, that he taught contrary to the Law of Moses, and if new Doctrine be published, let the Rulers look to it; for this is as apparent as the light of the day, that new Religion is ever new Rebellion; but I do not say so of old Doctrine renewed. It is a strange stupidity which the Devil puts into some men's heads, you cannot persuade them to change for the better. Simonides would rather learn the art of Forgetfulness, than the art of Memory. Velleius the Epicuraean was afraid of nothing more than to have learned Problems cast into his head, which might rouse him out of ignorance. Gryllus was so well in a Hogsty, that he was unwilling to leave his swinish life, and turn man again.

So the Jews had rather be ever kept under the Paedagogie of the Law, than be perfect men, and cast off the yoke of Ceremonies, and live in the liberties of the Gospel: Nisi cessassent ceremoniae, non discernere licuisset hodie quorsum essent institutae, says our learned Calvin: had not those Shadows and Figures ceased in their due time, when Christ brought a body into the world, they had seemed impertinent, we had never known for what they were instituted. The Levitical Ceremonies were so obnoxious to alteration, that the Schoolmen have set down their state in no less than five Conclusions. 1. They were ever mortals, the Covenant of these Observations was to fade away, and not to endure forever. 2. From the time of John the Baptist to the Burial of our Savior, they were moriturae, inclining to dissolution. 3. Upon the Commission which the Apostles had to preach the Gospel at the Feast of Pentecost, they were mortuae, quite dead and expired. 4. As the Corps of a great Personage is not interred but in a decent time after his departure, so till the weakness of the Jews was well instructed, they were sepeliendae, laid out to be buried. But lastly, when the faith of Jesus Christ was preached unto all Nations, they were mortiferae, not only dead, but deadly unto him who should distrust in Christ, and make himself a debtor to the Law of Ceremonies. Wherefore says St. Austin, Sicut hyemi aestas succedit sensim addito calore, &c. As Summer doth succeed Winter, and brings heat to thaw the Ice which went before, and gives light also to clear the darkness of the short days, so the Messias was presented to the world, to set on fire the frozen hearts of them who were but half believers, and did also enlighten those mystical observations.

But whosoever shall scan our Savior's Sermon in the Mount, Matth. v. Let him report if such a Teacher do deserve ill of the Law of Moses, if such an Interpreter could pervert the Nation. Every Text thereof was so mis-expounded, that, like the Pool of Bethesda, there was no virtue remaining in it, unless the Angel of the Covenant, Christ Jesus himself had troubled it. Touching then the perverting of the Nation, you see the report is malicious: Yet take this for your instruction, that those Romish Emissaries, Priests and Jesuits, who shall lurk in thievish corners to pervert Religion, where Scripture is in every tittle received, and God's Laws unviolated, they that privily teach a Doctrine against Allegeance and Fidelity, should be sharply chastised, since the very Jews did think that man that did pervert the Law of Moses deserved to be crucified.

In the third impeachment envy is cast upon our Savior, that he forbad to give Tribute unto Caesar. What? neither allow God his Temple, nor the King his Tribute? These are faults indeed, if they could be proved. Alas nothing less. Could he be an enemy to Tribute, who was a friend to Publicans? Especially in such a Commonwealth where they were Vassals by War, not only Subjects by Allegeance. Can he deny that which was due, whose Discipline was so famous, to part with our Coat also, if our Cloak were taken from us? First reconcile these contradictions and then accuse him. I will give Pilate no Bribe to absolve him, but only the Penny upon which he preached, Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's. But because Christ would not have such witness as might speak for him, he borrowed the money of a fish, wherewith he paid the Tole-gatherers, the dumbest creature of all that are sensible. In the days of Alexander the Great, says Josephus, the Jews were so forward to pay Tribute, that when Alexander took great delight in the Prophecy of Daniel, which was applied to his own Conquests, he promised any favor to the Jews which they should request. They asked no more than to be exempted from the seventh years Tribute, because they sowed no Lands in that year, nor reaped any Harvest: But for the other six years, the heart of the people was as the heart of one man to pay a portion of their yearly increase. Why was the memory of that Age so soon forgotten? Covetousness encroached every day, they paid their Tribute but with a single hand, and cursed with a double heart▪ and no man was so filthy in their eyes as a Tole-gatherer, and a Publican.

Beloved, the Treasury of the Prince is the vena porta which conveys blood and life to all the veins of the body of the Realm. The justice which protects you at home, it is the Kings expense; the peace which you have abroad with foreign Nations, the burden lies upon his Revenue. The Magnificence of the Kingdom, the maintenance of the Navy, the relief of noble Families decayed, the rewards of good Subjects, all these are an exhausting of his Treasury. Our common happiness might unhappily be dissolved if these were not publicly maintained. I will but name the Fable, and leave the Application to yourselves: The Mule was overladen, and the Horse that stalked refused to ease him of the superfluity of his burden, till at length the Mule sunk down dead, and then the Horse was fain to carry home both the burden, and the Corps of the Mule. We are to impart Subsidies, says St. Austin, not so much in the name of Kings, as in the name of Fathers of our Country. Gratius est nomen pietatis quàm potestatis; and God forbid but we should relieve out Fathers. The Athenians says Plutarch, for private virtues were the best of all men: But in public virtues the Lacedaemonians carried away the glory. And who had not rather see a Kingdom flourish than a Family? When Constantius, the Father of Constantine, was upbraided by Ambassadors of Asia for his poverty; his Subjects, to take away that defamation, piled him up such an Exchequer in three days, that the world had not a more plentiful. A good man, says Seneca, accounts himself rich because he hath the Air to breath in, the Sea to sail upon. Neque quicquam magis esse suum judicat, quàm cujus illi cum humano genere consortium. That blessing wherein all men did partake, he did esteem his own most properly. If I would proceed in this Argument I might be copious in the praise of our own Nation, especially of this most illustrious and magnificent City, wherein there have been at all times so many cheerful givers; and who would be guilty of such a crime, which the Jews did think worthy to be crucified?

The last accusation pretended was not against the Coffers, but against the Crown of Caesar, that he made himself a King. A cunning piece of villainy. For as Joseph was accused for an Adulterer by Potiphar's Wife because he would not be an Adulterer: So Christ is accused for making himself a King, because he would not be a King when all the people sought to cast that honor upon his shoulders, Joh. vi. My Kingdom is not of this world, says Christ. Why, what a God's name is his fault then? Had Caesar any Land in another world? In hoc mundo regnum habet, non de hoc mundo, says St. Austin; He had infinite power and authority in this world, but it was not of this world, but of an eternal Kingdom. True Prophets and true Priests have been always the trustiest servants to Kings, and religious Kings have been always the advancers of Priests and Prophets. See their interchangable affection in doing mutual honor one to another in holy Scripture. The Prophets have entitled their Books the Books of the Kings, and King Solomon hath called his divine Book the Book of the Preacher. And would Christ who was the Chief Priest, and the anointed Prophet cast any indignity upon Caesar? Kings are the Images of God, and the highest powers, says Nazianzen, do resemble Images drawn to the feet, the middle sort of Rulers are likened to Pictures drawn but to the waste, the lowest in authority are like Pictures drawn but to the neck and shoulders, but all in some sort are the Image of God. And would Christ deface his own Image? By reason indeed of the Omnipotency of his Divinity there was some Regal Majesty glittering upon earth in Christ's humanity. Augustus Domini appellationem sicut maledictum exhorruit, says Su • tonius. Augustus took it for a scoff to be called a Lord, as if his soul did divine there was a greater upon earth. The Reed put into Christ's hand, the Crown upon his head, the bowing of the Knee, the Title upon the Cross, these were calumnies and revilings on the Jews part, but on God's part, secret mysteries of his Spirit to make his enemies afford him the Ensigns of a Kingdom. Nay, ipsa crux tribunal fi • it, says Origen; Upon his very Cross whereon he hanged he stood like a Judge between the nocent and the innocent. All this was nothing to Caesar, to challenge the chief place among malefactors.

One thing is worth your adnotation, that because Pilate and the Roman Empire did give wrong sentence of death against Christ, who did not make himself a King, therefore the self same Roman Empire doth endure this malediction from God that it should endure the pride of a Bishop unto this day, who calls himself the Vicar of Christ, and sets himself in a Throne above their Emperor. The fault was cast upon Christ, but the Pope commits it. To end this Point, If the Jews thought him worthy of death who made himself a King, they that have a Doctrine to unmake a King as they please, to sport with their Crowns, what do they deserve? And let the Jews be Judge, and not the Jesuits. Callisthenes was asked how a man might be most famous, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , let him kill the most famous. A fit answer for our Roman Parricides, who above other Christians are rebaptized in baptismo sanguinis, in the blood of Princes. Speak Pilate, and you outrageous murderers of the Jews, do they not deserve to be crucified?

So now to recapitulate these false crimes objected, the Temple was unviolate for anything Christ had done; the people unperverted; Tribute granted; Caesar honored. Venit Princeps mundi, & in me non habet quicquam; let Pilate speak if he were not a just person. How should a man be avenged of his enemies? Plutarch answers, by being so good, that they cannot reproach his honest conversation: So did our Savior, and surely it would pity any heart in the world, that such a Savior, such an innocent Lamb should be slain. But such a Sacrifice it behooved us to have, which was holy, unblameable, and undefiled. And, to conclude this second general part of my Text, be careful, my brethren, to keep a good conscience, that when you shall crucify this mortal body, and the affections thereof; as you must do daily, you may endeavor to be a just person, to walk in all the Statutes of the Lord, that you may offer up a clean Sacrifice to God your Creator and Redeemer. And so much for Pilate's true Testimony that Jesus was a just person. I am innocent, &c.

And now I betake my meditations to the last Point of all, Vos videbitis, you shall see to it. The depravation of his own nature made him forge a lie in the first words, I am innocent. Conscience extorted truth in the second, that his Prisoner was a just person. A strange instinct brings forth this last part, Vos videbitis, you shall see to it. Marvel no more at Caiaphas, that he could Prophesy, One man must die for all the people, but rather marvel how Pilate should Prophesy, that all the people must die for the blood of one man. As Salust said of the desperate times of Rome, that men were so ill affected, Ut intenta mala quasi fulmen optarent, se quisque ne attingat; That they wished mischiefs might fall down like a thunderbolt, only every man was so careful as to pray for his own head. So Pilate calls for a curse upon all Jury, but first he shields his own head, he is innocent. You never knew a Fortune-teller skillful either in Palmistry, curious Metaposcopie, or of the Devils secret counsel in judicious Astrology, that could read ought in his own destiny; as Seneca said of the Soothsayers of Rome, that undertook to tell Prodigies by the entrails of beasts, Plus sapiunt in alieno jecore quam in suo; That they had a better insight into the entrails of other things than into their own: So we are all very cunning in vos videbitis, to denounce those judgments which will befall other men, but we ever misinterpret what will betide ourselves. Harsh judges we are of other men's faults for the most part, but worse Prophets; not so charitable as Elizaeus his bones, to bring the dead unto life, but like Micaiah unto Ahab, always portending some disastrous thing to come to bring the living unto death. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as the Grecian General said to Chryses, when will we leave this ominous Prediction, to be chanting some deadly Prophesy against our brethren? Like Pilate against the Jews, Vos videbitis, You shall see to it.

Many Jews had Prophesied against the Abominations, and Idolatry of the Gentiles. Pilate is the first Gentile in Scripture that Prophesied against the Jews. Alas then if the wrath of God be kindled, yea, but a little, what is it that can save us from indignation? Vos videbitis? shall Israel be lost? Shall Judah, the first-born of God, be wiped out of his mercies? Is there no title for the protection of a sinner? Joab is fled to the Altar, what shall become of him? Ask Benaiah when he cuts his thread. The Altar yet is an eternal refuge for others; Shall it not stand forever? Ask the Prophet who made it shake with fear, as with an Earthquake, that it should be thrown down. The Temple is an everlasting habitation, shall it not last as long as the Sun and Moon endureth? Ask our Savior if one stone shall be left upon another. The people of the Land are the Sons of Abraham and Isaac; is not their Covenant to endure forever? Ask St. Paul if the natural branches be not cut off and withered. The Land howsoever is that plentiful Canaan, fruitful, by the report of Caleb and Joshua, more fruitful than report could make it. Shall it not always be the Lady of the earth? Ask Titus and the Romans, if it be not a nest for Screech-owls, and an hissing to all that shall live in the world. How is the destiny of all things turned about? Neither security remaining to fly unto the Altar, nor the Altar remaining in the Temple, nor the Temple in the City, nor Inhabitants remaining in the Country; but City and Country defaced unto all Posterity. See, Beloved, how no privilege upon earth will keep conditions with us, except we keep conditions with heaven. As Tertullian said of the Devils, Pluvias quas jam sentiunt repromittunt. When they perceive much moisture in the Air by their natural sagacity, then the Soothsayers tell us we shall have rain, so Satan knowing that judgment was begun already in Judea, Pilate begins to Prophesy, Vos, &c. The murder of our Savior should be their endless calamity.

The Passions of Christ were so innumerous, so spiteful, that to draw them unto certain heads if all were reckoned up, I would confess it impossible, but to instance in the principal parts I will divide them into four quarters, that you may see how the punishment of the Jews is proportionable to the injuries which they did unto out Lord: 1. He was bound like a Malefactor, and are not the Jews made Bond-slaves and Captives forever? 2. He was blinded that he might be buffeted; and what is so blind as the heart of that Nation? 3. He was spat upon, and reviled; they hated him without a cause. And no people under the Sun everywhere more hated, and disaffected. Lastly, He was murdered with the death of the Cross, the death of malediction. And according to their stubbornness and infidelity, we can scarce say less in charity, than that the death of malediction is fallen upon them. As the Prophet Amos said, For three transgressions, and for four I will not turn away my punishments from Israel: because they sold the righteous for Silver, and the poor for a pair of Shooes. To be enthralled without Liberty; to be blind without Light; to be hated without Love; to be condemned without Mercy; thus I have quartered out the dismal sorrows of that Nation which spilled his blood, and speaking a word briefly of each part I will conclude this exercise.

First, They bound the Messias, and they themselves are Captives. That Caesar whom they stood so much for before Pilate, even he did pervert the Nation, and destroy the Temple. In Mount Olivet they did first lay hands upon Christ, in Mount Olivet, says Josephus the Roman Soldiers did first entrench themselves to besiege Jerusalem. The unutterable misery of their City how it was taken and defaced is so common a story that I will not spend the time to rehearse it. As the punishment of the Deluge was fifteen Cubits higher than the tallest Mountains of the earth, so the punishment of that City was fifteen times greater than that mighty City. Within the Walls the Famine was so great, that it parched their bodies, and dried up their living moisture, that Children had not tears to weep over their dead Parents. Nay, the living had not strength enough to dig a grave to bury the dead. Without the Walls their Prisoners were so paid with the same coin, which they dealt unto our Savior, Ut spatium crucibus deesset, & corporibus cruces; That the field did not afford room enough to set up so many Crosses; or had there been space in the field, there was not wood in the Mountains to make so many. And do they not think the Cross of Christ did work in this affliction? As Tertullian said to the Heathen, you have sent offerings heretofore to the Temple, you have bestowed gifts upon Jerusalem, Nunquam nunc dominaturi nisi Deo in Christum deliquissent. Nay, says Josephus, if the Sword of Titus had not cut them short, their crimes were so unnatural and so desperate, that the wrath of Sodom and Gomorrhah had rained down upon them. When that desolation shall come, says the great Prophet, whom they hanged on a tree, you will call upon the Hills to cover you, and the Mountains to fall upon you. Sic in cavernis & collibus se abscondiderunt, says Beda; they did lurk in Groats and Caves of the Rocks to avoid the Romans, and so fulfilled the Prophesy ever since that black day, O populus natus ad servitutem. They have lost the remembrance of liberty. They cannot say of any parcel of ground in the earth, this is our field and our possession. Of all the men upon the earth, they are the only Nation under heaven, that have neither portion in earth nor in heaven. When the City was lost, Adrian would never suffer them to return to see it, unless it were to mourn and sorrow, and then they must pay for it. Sic qui sanguinem Christi vendunt, jam suas lachrymas emunt; They bargained for Christ's blood, and they pay for their own tears. Non est tutus Judaeus ad Ecclesiam confugiens, says the Canon Law. They only have no safety, though they betake them to the protection of a Church. Other men are Lord's of that wealth which God hath bestowed upon them, but they are Tributaries ad placitum, spung'd every year as the necessity of the Prince requires. Money can never prosper with them since they bought our Lord. Indeed Judas sold him, the Jews did buy him, and they gave him to Pilate, and so the Gentile hath purchased him. Other men can be avenged of the insolencies of their Adversaries, and so every man lives in peace under his own Vine, and under his own Fig-tree, but they are never quiet for violence and outrages committed against their person. Ideo Judaei pacem habere non possunt, quia seditionum principem eligere maluerunt, says Isidor. How can they hope for rest who refused the Prince of peace, and chose Barabbas the Prince of seditions?

The next Viol of vengeance is the gross darkness of their heart ever since they blinded our Savior. If Samson be blinded and put to scorn, shall he not pluck down the Theater upon the Princes and upon the People? If Elisha be scoffed at, shall he not call for Bears to devour the Children? The Disciples forsook Christ, and ran away at midnight, this night you shall be offended at me. In nocte scandalizantur, says Origen; and Peter plunged himself into that fearful denial ante gallicinium, before the crowing of the Cock, this betokened that they sinned out of ignorance, and therefore were received into favor upon repentance: But for the High Priests and Elders, Mane facto consilium capiunt, when it was morning they took counsel against Jesus, Hoc est scientes peccant in lumine, says that Author; They sinned by broad daylight as it were, against their own conscience; and they that did so much abuse the light are cast into a long darkness forever. The miraculous Eclipse of the Sun, says St. Jerome, an Emblem of that blindness which should possess them, was not over the whole Hemisphere of the world, but only in Jury: For neither Graecian Astronomer, nor Arabian do speak of it. Wanderers they were in the Wilderness about forty years, wanderers they have been in their vain imaginations almost two thousand. Then they were directed as the clouds went before them, now they are guided by Vapours and Pillars of smoke. After our Savior's Ascension eight years were spent when St. Matthew wrote his Gospel, and yet even to that day they did report and believe that his Disciples stole him away by night. What, when the Soldiers slept? If they were broad awake, says St. Austin, why would they suffer the body to be so conveyed? If they were fast asleep, which way came they to know the conveyance? Beda takes this to be not a story, but a Prophesy in the Gospel, that the Jews shall be so hardened in unbelief, that they shall give credence to that report forever.

This it is to curse themselves, with such an everlasting curse, His blood be upon us, and upon our Children. Sanguis ill veniat super nos, sed in ablutionem; Let his blood come upon us all, I beseech God, but to wash away our sins in the Laver of Regeneration. But upon whom it comes for vengeance it must needs put out their eyes, and make them stark blind. A bloodshed eye can never see well. A man never fares worse than when he is his own carver. No greater infelicity can betide us than when we have our own wishes. Inter vota imprecantium senescimus, says Seneca. No marvel if we do not thrive in this world. What by our own prayers, what by the prayers of our friends, who shoot wide of the true good, we spend our age in imprecations. The Jews here did ask such a thing, that they never had the reason more to ask anything that was good. They see no more than if a beam were in their eyes, a beam as big as the tree of the Cross of Christ. And so much for the second punishment, the blindness of the Nation.

But thirdly, A just reward is fallen upon these murderers, that the haters of the Lord should be despised in the eyes of all men, Canes facti sunt filii, & filii facti sunt canes, says Theodoret long since. Those who were called dogs in the person of the Syrophaenician woman are beloved like the Children; and those that were Children are spurned at like Dogs under the Table. If we meet a Jew, our fancy makes us believe that we see our enemy. Nay, the most part of men presage no better luck after their sight than if some dismal beast had been in the way which our superstition is afraid of. Truly we may say of their dejected countenance, and that malignant Mark of Cain in their face, as Caesar did of Cassius, Quid Cassius sibi vult? mihi pallor ejus non placet. Cassius did dart treason in his eyes, and they dart murder. I will not report it upon tradition, because fame is but the Post-master to carry lies, that the savor of death is in their bodies to this day, or that their Children are born with knots of blood in their hands. This I may be bold to say, it is an heavy vengeance, and the great judgment of God, if these things be true: But true or false, the anger of God is broke out upon them, that the whole world with one consent should speak such things unto their infamy, as their Conquerors thought them not worthy to be Freemen. So as if they had been worse than beasts, and not fit to make good bondslaves, thirty of them have been sold at a baser price, than an Ass head was sold in Samaria, or than they sold our Savior. Alas, they that find none to love, to regard, to pity them, to prize them at an honest rate, they are in Hell already, but God forbid that I should teach you to hate a Jew. Every living soul, for which Christ died, is the object of a Christians charity. This is the very day wherein we offer up our prayers, both at Morning and Evening Sacrifice, for the salvation of Jews and Paynims, according to our Church Liturgy. I come now to end this long discourse with the fourth malediction, to wit, that we may well fear that they and their Children die an accursed death who crucified our Savior.

They that were so nice as to deny to come into Pilate's house in the days of the Passover, lest they should be defiled with blood. What will become of their poor souls when they shall be thrust into the Valley of Hinnon? Into the Tophet of damnation? Timent contaminari habitaculo alieno, non timent contaminari scelere proprio, says the Gloss. It was a perilous thing to set foot in Pilate's doors, that would defile them. But what destruction will it be to take the mystical house of Pilate, I mean the Kingdom of darkness over their head forever? They that ignominiously bad our Savior come down from the Cross, the greatest Cross in the world is come down upon them, says Nazianzen. Forty years did the Lord prove them in the Wilderness, seventy years in Babylon. But as Christ said unto Peter, Thou shalt forgive thy brother unto seventy times seven times: Even just so many years were there by true computation between the return from Babylon and the destruction of the Temple. Now they have endured almost one thousand seven hundred years of desolation. O that the anger of the Lord would go no further, then they might sing a Jubilee forever. But the Prophet Isaiah doth threaten them, Though you lift up your hands I will not hear your Prayers, because they are defiled with blood. Their Mothers were fruitful for nothing, but to bring forth abundance of them who might be slaughtered. Beside the number, as great as the sand upon the Sea-shore that perished under Titus, in the Wars of Adrian, when they gathered themselves under Barcosdau, their Pseudomessias, twice as many, say our Histories, were slain with the Sword as came out of Egypt. Assyria and Babylon have known their Captivity; Vespasian drove them into Italy; Adrian from thence into Spain; They have been cast out into Brittany and cashiered; Into France and banished; Out of Spain by Immanuel and Ferdinand expulsed. O where shall they rest at last? But where there is no rest for ease, no Christ for Redemption, no pity for consolation.

Yet, believe it Brethren, (the Lord hasten the day of his merciful visitation) the time will come when a Remnant shall be saved. The Holy Ghost did dip the Pen of St. Paul into Prophesy, and he cannot deceive us. Wherefore one glosseth thus upon my Text, Vestrum peccatum, vestra poena, vestra ut & omnium redemptio. Your sin it is O Israel, your punishment it must be, and see to it further, for if his Persecutors do repent, your redemption it shall be. But to construe the words of the Prophets touching a visible Kingdom of the Jews to come, a new Jerusalem, another Temple, a potent Monarchy over all the World; Let this fancy prevail with other men, for my part I will say to it as one did in the like case, His victoribus herbam porrigo, sed elleborum. Two things, says St. Jerome, are of great obscurity in the New Testament, the Kingdom of Antichrist, and the restauration of the Jews. We know all about what hour Christ gave up the Ghost, so we shall be able in some conjecture to trace the steps of Antichrist; but at what hour Christ arose from the dead we cannot tell, Ita majus est mysterium quando Judaei restituentur, quia est quaedam resurrectio, says the Father? So it is a more intricate mystery when the Jews shall be restored, because it is a kind of resurrection.

THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE PASSION.

W E cannot meddle with any part of our Savior's Body this day but we shall touch a wound; and the greatest of them all without controversy is this in my Text. Thomas might put a finger in where the nails had entered; but where the Spear had opened his side Christ bad him thrust in his hand. Of Evils be sure to choose the least, as David did; but of Blessings, such were all the wounds of Christ's Passion, wisdom without art will lead our meditations to the greatest: And as Lot chose the Plain of Jordan to dwell there before all the Land of Canaan besides, because it had variety of Springs of waters: so this wound was the moistest, and had the most plentiful issue of all the five, it gushed out into two streams of blood and water. I have not found such a passage in the Meditations of the Ancients, that they came to drink at the hands or feet of Christ, although the blood trickled down from them also. But it is usual with them in their Allegories to speak unto their Soul, as if they laid their mouth unto the side of our Lord, and did draw at it for the Fountain of everlasting life. Did they suppose, said I, that they laid their lips there? Nay Bernard could not satisfy his desire, till he found a way to lay his heart upon the place; and at length thus he hit upon it: he believed as he had received, that this Soldiers Spear entered at the right side of our Savior. Now says he, that Elisha stretched his living Body upon the dead Corps of the Child to raise it again to life: it is a figure that Christ should apply his Body to our body, which is dead in sin, that it might live unto God; his mouth which bled with buffeting, upon our mouth that hath been full of deceit and bitterness; his brows enameld with the pricks of thorns, upon our heads which have contrived mischief and malice; his hands which were riveted with nails, upon ours, that they may be washed in innocence; his feet upon ours, that have trod in the crooked ways of the Serpent: then the Orifice of this Wound, laying his right side to our left, shall lie directly upon our heart, and cure that part which disperseth iniquity to all the body.

The other three Evangelists, exact in most circumstances of the Passion, have all omitted this violence done to the dead Body of Christ.

John says in the next verse, that he saw it done, and that he knows he speaks the truth. Amatus, & amans vulnera Domini, the beloved Disciple that loved the wounds of his Master, and would not let one of them be unrecorded: this is the last wound that the Son of God received, and therefore it is recorded by the last Evangelist. The whole Story is comprised in this one verse, and it will yield us these two points; the malice of the living, and the blessing that came from the dead. The malicious action contains four circumstances. 1. Who was that evil person who did offer ignominy to the Body of Christ, one of the Soldiers. 2. What was the violence he offered, he pierced him with a spear. 3. Upon what part of his Body this fury did light, upon his side. 4. When he smote him: you shall find by the thirtieth verse when he had given up the ghost. In the second general branch, which is the blessing that came from the dead, there is the mystical opening of the Fountain of life, wherein I consider first the two streams severally, Blood and Water. 2. Their Conjunction, Blood and Water together. 3. Their Order, first Blood and then Water. 4. The Readiness of the Fountain that gushed out, the stream could not be stopped, no not for a minute, forthwith there came out Blood and Water. Of these in their order.

Unus militum, one of the Soldiers did a despiteful fact upon the Body of Christ. The Romans having the whole Nation of the Jews under their subjection at this time, did gratify them notwithstanding in many things to prevent rebellion; and to satisfy their Law, which forbids their dead to hang upon a tree after Sun-set, lest the Land should be defiled. Pilate gave them leave to take away the Bodies this day crucified from the Cross. Wherefore to dispatch the Malefactors, that they might be taken down, two Thieves had their legs broken, in whom there was life remaining. It seems the chief Centurion would not be more rigid than the Law, to do any further despite to Christ when he was dead already; (yet the cracking of his bones to splinters was the chief thing the Jews intended) but one of the Soldiers 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , certainly says the Father for a fee to please the people, thrust a spear into his side. I doubt me that those who delighted in war bore no good will unto our Savior. His birth was destinated by providence unto the days of peace: his Name was the Prince of Peace, his Doctrine was utterly against the Sword, qui gladium sumpserit gladio ferietur; now see what comes of it when he is fallen into the hands of Soldiers. Joab and the mighty men of the Camp were all for Adonijah, and all against Solomon. Adonijah was like to live in the field as his Father David had done, but Solomon 's hand must spill no blood, that it may build up a Temple. The Emperor Probus let a word of meekness slip from him, equus nascetur ad pacem, he hoped to have horses brought up to do service in peace, and not in war, and the Captains of the Host cut short his days: and so it far'd with the great Preacher of Peace. Christ had as good be guarded by one of the Pharisees, as by one of the Soldiers: As Aristotle said of Bees and Swallows, Nec feri sunt generis, nec mansueti; they were neither reckoned among those creatures that were wild, nor those that were tame, but of a middle sort: Such was the condition of these Spear-men, somewhat ruder than civil men, somewhat tamer than Savages, but violent in their disposition as they are pleased or provoked.

Yet I am not of Tertullian 's mind, to fall out with the whole Profession of Chivalry for one Miscreants sake that pierced my Savior's side, or for four at the most, as some say, that scourged him. Quis requiescet super lonco, quo perfossum est Christi latus? for by that reason we should fall out with the Priests and High-Priests too, who were deeper interested in the business than the Soldiers: The Sons of Aaron were his first Enemies: as you would say Heretics and corrupt Teachers, that sow Tares among the Wheat, were the first Adversaries against the Church of Christ. The Military men were his last Enemies, they that wounded him in my Text, and belied the truth of his Resurrection afterward, watching at the Sepulcher. So the Battels of usurping Princes put on pestilently to be the last ruin of the Church; Caesaris milites, Caesar 's Soldiers, such as these were his Soldiers that would be an Universal Monarch, the Caesar over all the Princes of the earth. Some Expositors out of their respects to the honor of a Martial life, would have this person to be ne unus militum, no Soldier at all rightly called, but by abuse and usurpation: and I think you will say they speak reason when I tell you why. When Hannibal was Master of the field against the Romans, a People of Italy called Brutiani revolted to the Conquerors side: But fortune turned, and the time came that the Romans had cleared the Coast of the Carthaginians, and could take revenge of their Enemies at home, then they neither would let those Brutiani live so happily as in Peace, nor so honourably as to bear Arms in War, but took them along with their Camp, and made them Lictores & Lorarii, that is base Instruments for correction and execution of Malefactors: so that by good conjecture this was but unus e Brutianis, an Executioner, and not a Soldier, but as he lived in the Camp. Now where villainy was bred in the bone, and the condition of the man was to be like Satanas emissus ad vexandum orbem, appointed to vex all that came into his hands, what could be expected, but that he should thrust his Spear into the bowels of an Innocent. As it was said of Maximinus the Tyrant, who was born a Barbarian both by Father and Mother: in quo fuit conscientia degeneris animi; he did not apply himself to good, because his conscience always told him that his original was base and degenerous.

Let him be as bad as we would have him, or as good as the Text calls him, he was as we are in one thing, a Gentile, and not a Jew, a Gentile that did malice Christ. The divisions of both those two great Houses did concur to these cruel and dolorous sufferings; that both in their Posterity to the worlds end might think themselves indebted to expiate so great an offense: both had an interest in these bloody passions, prosecuting our Savior's death; ut qui pro persecutoribus oraret, Gentiles non excluderet, says Origen, That since he prayed for his Persecutors, the Gentiles, who were at one end of his Persecutions might be partakers of his Prayers. And the counterfeit Gospel of Nicodemus tells us what success this Gentile had upon our Savior's most potent Intercession and Prayer for his Enemies. For this Longinus, that name his new Godfathers have given him, having lost the use of one eye long before a little sprinkling of this blood did light upon it, and restore it again. The miracles and the grace of God made him a Christian, and finally a constant profession of him that was crucified made him a glorious Martyr: Whether the Story be true or false I dispute not; this Author knew that there was a possibility we might believe it: For 'tis true that St. Jerome said upon the conversion of many Publicans and Harlots, Christus est succinum ad congregandas sibi stipulas & paleas; many who had copious vices were drawn unto Christ, as the Coral and the Jet draw chaff and straws, and things of the least moment about them.

Men and Brethren, to this day Christ is crucified, to this day Armed men and Soldiers bend their fury against the Church of Christ, are about his Cross. For as the Philosopher said that an ill man was the worst of all Beasts, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for he was armed with wit and reason to do injustice. So every sinner is not so strong as a Soldier to hurt, nor furnished with ability to be so bad as he would be, he wants a spear to thrust Christ into the side: as Isaiah said of the Army of Sennacherib, which threatened sore against the Temple of the Lord, but fell short of their purpose. The Children are come to the birth, and are not able to bring forth. But when I see Power and Authority make the worst use of it to oppress: when I see a pregnant Wit set itself to scoff and libel: when I hear Eloquence whet her tongue to plead against the innocent, alas, say I, this is robusta iniquitas, this impiety is armed with a Spear, the weapons of malice are girt about it, my Savior and his poor Members are sure to smart for it: Says the Prophet Ezekiel chap. xxxii. they shall go down to Hell with their Weapons of War, that is with their violent and powerful sins. Transgressors we may be, Soldiers that fight against Heaven I hope we will never be. Cast away the weapons of Satan, and put on the armor of light. I have done with the Person, I come to the Violence offered, lanceâ fodit, he pierced him with a Spear.

The hand of Jereboam which was stretched out against the man of God dried up, and withered: the hand of the Emperor Valens shook with an extreme Palsy, and could not subscribe to the Banishment of Basil the Great, says Theodoret; but the hand of the Persecutor, which aimed at the Body of Christ himself, that was steadfast, no infirmity in it, no sinew shrunk. Let these go their way, says Christ of his Disciples, when they were all taken together in the Garden; let not these be apprehended: the Shepherd rather than the Sheep, the Master than the Servants; In me convertite ferrum; whosoever escapes, his own flesh shall never flinch at torment. St. Austin asks why his dearest flesh was pierced, and despitefully mangled, but according to the Scriptures, not a bone of him was broken; quia ossa sunt electi, & eorum virtutes, his flesh was the Sacrifice which must be offered upon the Altar of the Cross; but his Elect and their Virtues are understood by his bones, and whatsoever betides himself; yet his Elect, that is his bones, must not be broken. In the Similitude of the Vine, whereunto our Savior is compared more than once, Bernard hath thus continued the Allegory; that in Circumcision he was vitis praecisa, a Vine that was pruned; and though a little cut, yet no substantial part was wounded. In the captious questions of the Pharisees when they felt his mind, whether he held it lawful to give Tribute unto Caesar, or not, and the like; there he was Vitis circumfossa, a Vine which was under-digged. But when subtle questions proved too weak to undermine his Wisdom, then he was Vitis perfossa, the last malice was to bore the Vine quite through the heart, that it might utterly wither away, and reflourish no more. Weak inventions, and the devices of them that knew not the Scripture, nor the power of God, for it was impossible that he should be held of death. He laugheth at the shaking of a Spear, as Job says of Leviathan.

The vulgar Translation reads my Text miles aperuit, that the Soldier opened his side, as if the gate of Paradise was now set open, which was shut before against the Sons of men. We read not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he opened, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 he pierced him. He made a Schism in the body of Christ, and divided one part of it from the other. O labor for the unity of the Church, decline Faction, as you would shun a Serpent in the path. Every division pierceth through the skin of my Savior, through the side into the heart. For the divisions of Reuben are great thoughts of heart. But Fodit lanceâ, so St. Jerome reads. He digged into him with a Spear, a word of Husbandry and fructification. The Plowers plowed upon my back, and made long furrows, meaning the scourging that he suffered. Sputis sicut fimo impinguatus. His face was laid over with Spittle as tilth is spread to fatten the Land. He was drenched in blood like a field that is watered with wholesome springs. They dig'd into his body like as the ground is turned up to make it fruitful. They digged, and there they found a Treasury which had been long hid, the salvation of the Gentiles, says the Father. That you may see Abner a great Prince in Israel in the hands of Joab, who smote him into the fifth rib, here is Christ wounded with the same kind of cruelty, his side was pierced with a Spear.

I have told you what it is to be a Soldier in Arms against God, and what it is to open and divide the flesh of the Son of God, but what sins are their Spears that are bent against his breast? Producta peccata, sins of long custom and continuance, extensive impieties, such as St. Paul calls the old man, when a sin waxeth upon us like the gray hairs of our age, that is a long Spear in Satan's Artillery. When Saul did first malign at David he cast a Javelin at him, Jaculum Saulis, that was but short and a hasty fit of anger, but when he would never cease to persecute the man of God's right hand, then you shall read of Hasta Saulis, a Spear which David took from the head of Saul. Inveterate malice which will not be reconciled, it is Homers 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , I may say a Spear of such a length that one end is above ground, and the point in Hell. one fit of Intemperance in Noah, one Oath in Joseph, one Superstision in John when he fell down before the Angel, these have their turn, and they return no more. Happy Saints which dashed the Babylonish Children against the wall. But there is a sin which doubles in the mouth of the sinner like that of the Edomites against Zion, Down with it, down with it unto the ground. Like Crucifige, crucifige, Crucify, crucify him, as if once would not serve the turn. And there is a treble sin like St. Peters denial three times over. And there is iniquity of four links as Amos said, For three transgressions, and for four I will not turn away my wrath from Damascus, saith the Lord. Seven Devils went out of Mary Magdalene. Ten times the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. Our Savior puts the case, if one man offend another, Septuagies septies, Seventy times seven times. There are sins like the staff of Goliath 's Spear, as big as a Weavers Beam. I will tell you what other sins Leo likens unto Spears, and so I will finish this Point. In vain, says he, did the Jews keep their own hands from violence, in vain do they think that they made not the wound, because a Soldier digged his side. Qui venenata vocum spicula, & letalia verborum tela jaciebant; Their teeth were Spears and Arrows, and their tongue a sharp Sword. They shot reproachful speeches like shafts of death as out of a well drawn bow; all blasphemers that revile the Saints are as guilty of this wound as the Soldier that pierced his side with a Spear.

I must now speak of that part of his body whereon the Spear did light; and to use the Fathers Elegancy, Venimus ad cor dulcissimum Jesus, & bonum est nobis esse hic; We are come even unto the place where the heart of Jesus lies, and it is good for us to be here. O sacred Passion! O dearest wound! This is a breach for the righteous to enter in, This is none other, as Jacob said, but the gate of heaven. Why did the Watchmen smite thee, as the Spouse said? What did direct their arm to touch that place? How durst an uncircumcised Soldier dare to enter upon thy heart, even upon the Holy of Holies? Literally all this was done lest they had not finished their work of damnation. For no mortal wound had been given to our Savior before, as some think, and therefore when Joseph came to beg the body for burial, Pilate marvelled if he were dead already; the Jews mistrusted some delusion, and to be sure to dispatch him, a Soldier was suborned to thrust a Spear into his side. As who should say, he talked when he was alive of going to his Father, and that from thenceforth we should see him in power and great glory; no matter whither he go so we be rid of him, as Bassianus said of his brother Geta, Sit divus frater meus, dum non sit vivus. Strike him to the heart, and then let God deliver him if he will have him. Delilah inquired diligently of Samson where his strength lay, that she might maim that part of the body, and leave him weak like another man: So these implacable enemies ransacked every part of the body to let out life. If life be in the blood of man, the blood was exhausted many ways. If life be in the brains, as others say, the Crown of thorns was sufficint to offend them; If life be in the heart, there it should have no refuge, for one of the Soldiers pierced his side with a Spear.

Now you that are babes in Christ, like young ones in the nest, implumes pulli, hatched under the wings of Christ, until you be fledg'd with feathers of Gold; Behold the tender affection of a true Pelican, hath drawn most precious blood from his breast to revive his young ones. And all you that will enter into the Ark, and be saved from the wrath to come, behold a door is opened in the side that you may enter in. You that want, and have anything to wish, this is the beautiful gate of the Temple, lie down here, and ask your Alms. One said of our Savior's hands, Non possunt claudi ad beneficia, quia in cruce fixae & apertae sunt; Benefits must drop from them, they cannot keep close because they were opened upon the Cross: So in his side a gate is made that will never be closed against thee. Thomas found it open, and so shall I. You have heard of the Marriage of the Lamb, and that his Beloved hath made herself ready. Behold the time when he made a Wife unto himself, and when the Marriage was celebrated. For as Adam was cast into an heavy sleep, and then God opened his side, and made woman out of the man while he slept. So, says St. Austin, Christ bowed down his head, as if he did but nod, and sleep upon the Cross; the side of the Bridegroom was then opened, that with blood and water he might make a Spouse unto himself, which is the body of his Church. Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister, my Spouse, says Christ, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 thou hast ravished my heart; as if we had not robbed him of his blood, but of his very heart, so infinitely is he enamored upon the salvation of his Saints. Vulnerasti cor meum, that interpretation goes current with the Fathers, thou hast wounded my heart my Sister, my Spouse, thou hast wounded my heart. Twice wounded you see: His enemies did wound him, and so did his Beloved. There is a carnal wound, which was done by the violence of the Soldier, there is a spiritual wound which he suffers for compassion of his Elect. Woe worth their malice that rent the wound in his flesh; blessed be his own mercies which made a spiritual wound of love in his heart.

Why was thy side wounded, O mirror of sufferance, when head, and feet, and hands, and every part of thy body had suffered before? Me thinks He answers, because he would teach us thoroughly to crucify the old man in our sinful flesh. It is not enough to look to thy feet, and thy paths: It is not enough to set a watch before thy lips, to make a Covenant with thine eyes. Open thy heart, dive into the depth of it, there thou shalt find the root of evil and concupiscence. St. Basil reasons seriously, why our Savior in his Sermon on the Mount, Mat. v. was more earnest to repress the inward corruption of concupiscence in the heart than the outward disordered actions. As for outward sin, says the Father, it cannot be done without attendance of circumstances, opportunity, and time of execution, and yoke-fellows to draw on iniquity with Cartropes, and bodily labor. But the evil thought of the heart is still born without noise, it is conceived with less labor than breathing, it is fruitful at all seasons, it betrays not a demure look; then it boots not to crucify, and afflict, and subdue the whole body, unless the grace of God pierce into the bottom of our heart. But let me ask again, (and it is sweet to question it) Why was thy side wounded O blessed Jesus? Was it not to show that thou didst not love us in tongue, and in word only, but at the very heart? John the Disciple did but lean upon his breast, and yet he carries the title away from them all, Discipulus amatus, the Disciple whom he loved. The breast was shut when John did lean upon it; now his side is opened, his Elect may go into his very bowels; and see how he loved them. The Use is proper for the place we are in, for the world slanders the Court much, or else there is more protestation of good will than sound affection among you. Court holy water is an ancient by-word, your consciences know best whether you deserve it, God and his Christ have given you a most notable example to amend it: It was not enough for our Savior to stretch out his hands, as if he would embrace us; nor yet to pray earnestly, and forgive us, but to show what the love of a Christian should be to a Christian, he suffered the precious Casket to be broken open, and let us see his heart.

Yea, I will ask but this once, why was thy side pierced and opened O sweet Redeemer? Was it to set up a mark for our devotion? That we may lay our mouth spiritually at it, and suck at the fountain of eternal life? Thomas touched it with his hand, and it proved to him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ▪ a demonstration for belief: O taste and try how sweet the Lord is. Let us be called dogs, such dogs as the Canaanitish woman was, full of faith, so we may lick these wounds as the dogs did the sores of Lazarus. Constantine the Emperor kissed the hollow pit of Paphnusius eye, kissed it often, which had been plucked out for the profession of the Gospel. The Jailor washed the stripes of Paul and Silas. The wounds of them that suffer for the name of Christ are the wounds of Christ himself; let them be more honorable to us than the most unspotted beauty in the world. To end this Point. We read of blessed souls under the throne of God, there they are safe and happy; we read of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, there he found refreshment. But I, even I, says Bernard, will direct my soul unto this gaping wound, thither it shall fly, I will take my aim at it; Hora mortis meus slatus intret Jesus tuum latus. A door it is, but a narrow door, cast away the superfluity of sin, and the immoderate care for things of this world. These are great burdens upon our back, and a Camel cannot enter in at the side of Christ; but especially, they that look to pass through a raw and a tender part, must not have the thorns of malice about them lest they tear and offend the wound of Christ. It is a wound of love, and by antipathy would bleed afresh if the malicious should approach unto it.

The fourth and last circumstance of the Soldiers violence is now to be scanned that pierced ejus latus, Christ's side when he had given up the Ghost. A carkess bereft of life is no more a man, but the image of a man. Now, as some have expressed their malice against their enemies Image, when his person was out of their reach, as the Antiochians brake the Statues of the Empress Pulcheria for anger: So the Soldier runs his Spear at an Image, at a shadow, at the cold body of him who was stiff and dead. A stout Soldier I wiss, such a one as Aristophanes gibed at, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he dare kill none but him that is slain already. For with whom doth this Champion fight? The divine nature of Christ is uncapable of a wound negatively, unless he confounded the natures of our Savior with Eutyches, and thought the Son of God to be passive, to have been scourged and crucified. Which opinion when one of his Sectaries would have propounded to Philarchus an Orthodox man: Philarchus did thus ingeniously put him off, and told him that he had haste of other business and could not intend him, for even hard before he had received Letters that Michael the Archangel was dead. That is a Fable, replies the Eutychian, an Archangel is not subject to frailty and mortality. Is not an Angel, replies Philarchus? And would you persuade me that the Deity of Christ is mutable and obnoxious to change? Ejus latus then did not concern the nature of God; and for the nature of man the part being bereaft of a soul, as well he might have smote his Spear upon the trunk of the Cross.

Well might Isaiah say that he was a Lamb dumb before the Shearers, could any Lamb be more dumb? His teeth were set, his mouth closed up, as the world thought, forever, and yet is Christ in the hands of the Shearer. I will scourge him, says Pilate, and let him go. What Pilate? Think you that such Adversaries will be answered with a scourging? Though you crucify him they will not let him go. Who knows what immanity had been shewn if Joseph had not hasted to take down the body? The living, it was wont to be said, the living are they at whom malice shoots, and not the dead, Livor post fata quiescit. Nay such as could never obtain a good report from the world, while they lived among us, fame hath renowned them when they were laid in their graves: As Theodoret said of St. Chrysostom, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 He was more desired after his death than when he daily lived among them. Our Savior was not so lucky; his Persecutors are the same first and last, both while he breaths, and when his Soul was departed: in his Examination they change his Raiment, and put a Reed in his hand, and then they mock him. As he was drawing on, and at the last gasp of life, they say he called upon Elias, as if he had prayed to Saints, and then they mocked him: and when he bowed down his head like fruit which is mellow ripe, and dropping off from the Tree, then a Soldier thrust a Spear into his side. Most savage men, they sport themselves with that flesh which is the eternal glory of our nature.

And what cause was in it that Christ would suffer this after passion? what fruit was there of such a Wound? for the School-men say, the Church was not redeemed with the blood which came out of this Wound, neither was it washed clean with this water, quia post mortem non est locus meriti; after the Epilogue of his bloody Agony, that he cried out all was finished, no part of his Passion, say they, was meritorious. What need we subscribe to so much curiosity? but the fruit even of this Wound was threefold. First to show that Christ doth compassionate, and hath a fellow-feeling with the Members of his Church unto the ends of the World. Think you that he never was wounded since he was taken down from the Cross; yes, he was a Lamb slain from the beginning of the World, and is a Lamb that will be wounded unto the ends of the World. Why did you not feed me, and clothe me you uncharitable? Matth. xxv. Why do you persecute me Saul? Acts ix. he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye, Zach. ii. O what a tender thing it is, not only to be in the body, but in the very eye of Christ, in the apple of his eye? are not the bowels as tender as the eye; perchance more tender. Therefore a Christian Poet said of Savanorola the Martyr, that Christ did beg to have his own Bowels saved, that they might not be consumed with fire. Parcite, sunt isto viscera nostra rogo. 2. If they have called the Master Beelzebub, what will they call the Servants? if they have ignominiously abused the dead Body of Christ, then certainly Tyrants will dishonor the dead Bodies of his Servants. But what were Wicklif, or Bucer, or Fagius, the worse for it? We that live feel the indignity done unto them says St. Austin, but they have no feeling of it themselves: no passion affecteth the dead for this disgrace: but we are they that are affected with compassion. Lysimachus in Tully threatened Theodorus to crucify him, and to let his body rot upon the Tree; meâ nihil refert, humi ne an sublimis putrescam, says Theodorus; a poor revenge, what is it to me, whether my body rot under ground, or above ground? If Heathen men were so resolute, that accounted the body quite lost, then will we be much more courageous, whose Savior was so despitefully handled in times past, and who have hope of the Resurrection in times to come. 3. The art of patience and sufferance it is instar omnium, none so useful as it to them who must take up the Cross: would you be ready for the fiery Trial as Paul was, when he was wrapped up into the third Heavens; whether in the body, or out of the body he knew not? would you pass by your torment in the flesh, as Christ did this wound which he never felt: Consepeliamur cum Christo, let us die with Christ, let us be buried with Christ, Colos. ii. 12. If two sleep together they have heat, says Solomon, but how can he be warm that is alone. True, says St. Ambrose, si duo dormiant, if you sleep with Christ, your faith will be warm, your courage warm: Frigidus est qui non moritur cum Christo, he shall be bitten with frost, he shall be nipped with every storm that doth not sleep, that doth not die with Christ. Give me any other reason if you can, why the Martyrs went oftener to death with Psalms in their mouths, than with tears in their eyes, but because they were dead unto the World. And what is it to them that are dead, though a Soldier thrust a Spear into their side?

I have done with the first general Part containing four Circumstances of the Malice of the living. Now let us lay our mouth to the sacred Stream, the blessing which issued from the dead, forthwith came thereout blood and water. This is the Honey-comb that came out of the Carkass of Samson 's Lion▪ this is it, even the price of our sins, which is the blood of the Lamb. At Evening you say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red, as you shall find it prognosticated, Matth. xvi. How is it made red? or how doth the day grow clear? rubet coelum Christi sanguine, says St. Austin, our Redeemer hath dipt his blood upon the Sky, as upon the door posts, Exod. xii. and then the day is clear, the Sun of consolation shines upon us. When an Offering for sin was offered up, the Priest was commanded to dip his finger in blood, and to sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, septies sanguis, no less would serve the turn: and think you that Christ did fail in this perfect number? no not once, if you will count it. 1. He was circumcised, and there was blood. 2. He sweat in the Garden not without drops of blood. 3. He was buffeted upon the mouth, that must needs draw blood: Then the scourgings upon his back, the thorns platted upon his head, the nails driven into his feet and hands; those three likewise could not be without great effusion of blood. At the seventh and last time a Soldier thrust a Spear into his side, and then came forth a stream of blood. The heart of man hath entangled itself with seven deadly sins, like the Woman of Samaria, seven had taken her to wife: according to the number of the capital sins, seven times did Christ lay down the price of a Ransom, seven times the blood was sprinkled before the Lord: but when I say seven, I do not exclude many more, it is numerus finitus pro infinito. The rich man in the Gospel besought Father Abraham, that he would send Lazarus with his finger dipt in water to cool his tongue. There was a foul mistake in the Petition, to ask for water, why not rather for blood? 'tis blood that quencheth the fire, which without it is unquenchable.

And yet there is some use of water. O the use of it is excellent and invaluable, therefore water also came from the side of Jesus. It is a wonder that this dolorous Passion of our Lord did not call for fire to rain upon Jerusalem, as it fell down upon Sodom and Gomorrah; which lest it should be, here was a pipe of water opened to quench the wrath of God. Four great Rivers were little enough to water the Garden of Eden, this little Spout is enough to water all the World: for when all other Interpretations fail us, the Stream that bubbled out of the side of Christ is the water above the Heavens; all Israel drank of the Rock in the Wilderness, every Soul which was a thirst drank. What a copious deflux was that? So all the Israel of God may drink of the spiritual Rock, his Spring is no less abundant, and that spiritual Rock is Christ: A spiritual Rock did Paul say? he was used no better than if he had been a very Rock of Stone. As Moses struck the Rock with his Staff, so was the Body of Christ with a Spear, and water gushed out apace. Now at several times there was a threefold passage of water in our Savior, sudoris, lacrymarum, lateris, the one when he sweat in the Garden; the second was the distillation of tears, and the third was this Fountain which was opened in his side. Put the seven Issues of blood, and the three Issues of water together, and here are ten Drink-offerings according to the number of the Ten Commandments which we have broken.

Divinity is nothing else but a Tractate of admiration; and lo a Miracle, the last of Christ's Miracles before he was buried: as the first Miracle which he wrought was by the Element of Water at Cana in Galilee, so his last Miracle was in Water which came out of his side: for that this was no natural Issue they know full well that have tried Dissections and Anatomies. And where did you ever read that an Apostle urged the truth of that which he recited so far, that he knew his record was true, and that the thing was done that we might believe; I say where did you ever meet with such a Protestation in the Bible, if the thing entreated of were not a Miracle? The sweat was miraculous in the Garden, the blood was miraculous which streamed afresh from the dead body, so was this gush of water from his side most supernatural: whether some inward part of Christ was resolved into this Element of a sudden, or whether it was newly created for the purpose, let them dispute it, who love to seek that which they can never find. But I am sure the water was miraculous; and far be it from us to think that it was not water, as some have doubted, but a spumeous phlegmatic humor. As Christ himself is truth, and not appearance, so this humor had not the name and appearance only, but the essence of water. There are three that bear record on earth, says St. John, the Spirit, the Water, and Blood; the Spirit which he gave up when he groaned his last, and that was a true Spirit; the Blood that drill'd down from him, and that was true Blood; the Water that leakt out of his side, and that was very Water. So much of the two Streams severally considered; now I come to the Conjunction, Blood and Water.

For his love could bring forth no less than Twins, sanguis & aqua: if he would undergo the Law, was it not sufficient that he was circumcised and wounded in the flesh? but he was baptized also in Jordan, there was satisfaction both by Blood and Water. When he suffered the sharp Agony in the Garden, water alone had been a sign of a terrible conflict with his Father, but there trickled from him blood and water. When the whip did tear his flesh, and the thorns enter into the quick, many do modestly suppose that He mingled tears with blood; and then at every passion there was blood and water. John the Baptist was the Forerunner of the Bridegroom, he came only in water; the Martyrs were the friends of the Bridegroom, they came in blood: Christ is the Bridegroom himself, and he came in blood and water. When the Spouse was asked what a one her Well-beloved was, Cantic. 4. she answered he was white and ruddy; white in water, and ruddy in blood: not by water alone, says our Apostle, Ep. 1. chap. 5. that had made but half a Mediator; but by water and blood. Sanguis ejus super nos was the cry of the miscreant people, they condemned him in blood. Pilate pronounced the Sentence, but washed his hands at it; he condemned him in water. Let them behold whom they have pierced, says Zacharias: let his Judge and Accusers behold their fact in one, in blood and water.

I told you of the Miracle before; now I will tell you of the Mystery of this work, or rather of the Mysteries, for they are more than one: aperuit ostium miles unde Sacramenta Ecclesiae manârunt, that's St. Austin's observation; the door was opened, and the Sacraments of the Church issued out: What all of them? it seems he knew of no more: the Sacraments of the Church came forth with Blood and Water: For as the Romanists make Bread serve the people by a Synecdoche for the whole Supper of the Lord, so Blood by a Synecdoche in this place stands for all that Sacrament. There was Divinity even in the cold stream that flowed from the side of Christ, and it speaks like the blood of Abel; as if he had said, away with your Paschal Lamb, cease hereafter the circumcision of the flesh; blood and water shall take place now, I deliver them to be your Sacraments: you shall be born again by water, and you shall be fed with that Cup which is the New Testament in my blood: but why blood? and wherefore water says St. Ambrose? this question will bring on a second Mystery, aqua ut emundaret, sanguis ut redimeret: wretched Babes we were brought forth into this world, as Elisha brought the Aramites blind into the midst of Samaria among their Enemies. Shall I smite them, my Father? shall I smite them, says the King of Israel? O no, says Elisha, use them friendly, and set bread and water before them. Thus I say we were born obstinati ad peccatum, destinati ad judicium, polluted with iniquity, bound over to condemnation. Shall I smite them says Justice now I have them here? shall I consume them at once? O no says our blessed Master, I will wash away their pollutions with water, and make them white as snow: I will redeem them from condemnation, and lay down blood for blood. Here is a strain of courtesy far higher than that of Elisha's, not bread and water, but water and blood. Moses was sent to deliver Israel out of captivity, he was tractus ex aquis, as his name tells us, saved out of a River where he was cast to be drowned; he came by water: but the deliverance stuck a long time, and could not go forward, Moses's Miracles, Aaron's Eloquence, the Plagues upon Pharaoh, all could do no good, until the door-posts were smitten with the blood of the Lamb. First Moses in water, and then the Lamb in blood: their Redemption was made perfect in blood and water. And these two streams at the last cast were enough to drown an Heresy, which Christ knew would spring up like a Tare among the Wheat. That's the third Mystery. Marcion he foresaw would doubt of the truth of his body, whether his substance was flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, or but an airy phantastique I know not what: Nay surely it had an elementary composition, for here was water; and it had the composition of the humors, for here was blood: so Aquinas and the School Divines consider it, even for this cause as a fountain of providence, that for conviction of Heresy his side was pierced, and &c.

But while I consider these two Blessings as they are Miracles and Mysteries, so they are extra nos, coming from Christ, but not coming to us: but upon some application you shall find them intra nos, lying at every man's conscience: First, that which was blood and water in Christ must be tears of much anguish for your sins in you, and true compunction of heart. I do not ask for a sullen grief in Nabal, which smothers the heart in desperation, and cannot vent itself in a weeping eye. I do not ask for the weeping eye of a Crocodile, which is not commanded by the compunction of the heart: that were like Gideon's Fleece, which was wet when the Floor was dry; but I ask for Mary Magdalens eye melting into tears, and for David's sinful heart melting in his breast like wax; the one is the root, and the other the fruit of repentance, blood and water: Quicquid Christus in corpore, mater sustinuit in cord, every stroke that did fall upon the body of Christ did light upon the heart of the blessed Virgin Mary. So who can think upon that which she did suffer, but must suffer as much as she did think? my pride, my gluttony, my wantonness, my blasphemy, my oppression, my prophanness; what have you done? do you know whom you have killed? O no, Father forgive them. My sins knew not what they did: now they weep for it, now they are pricked in heart, and that's my blood and water.

Secondly that which was blood and water in Christ, what is it more in us? amor erga Deum caritas erga proximum; it shall be in me a provocation toward the fulfilling of the whole Law, to love God and my Neighbor. St. Paul speaks of a resistance unto blood; and who is he that is dearer unto me than my blood but my Redeemer Christ? Our Savior speaks of giving my Alms away; or if I have nothing else in store, let me give but a Cup of cold water, for his names sake, and it shall not lose a reward. And who are they that must have my water, my alms, yea a plentiful gift from my hands? it is my Brother, my Neighbor; or if you will love him better for God's sake than for your own sake, he is one of the Members of Christ: Martyrdom is welcome for Christ's sake, my love shall express itself in any good office for my Brothers sake, Martyrdom and Charity are my blood and water.

Thirdly, and so you shall have your full doses of these two streams: sanguis valet contra iram, aqua contra libidinem. Remember this last Application: all our sensual and brutish affections are drawn into two heads by Philosophy, the irascible part, which is rectified by patience and endurance of evil, and the concupiscible part which is rectified by abstaining from that which is an apparent, and a deceitful good: if your stomach fret within you, and malign at tribulation when the Cross of Christ is laid upon you, prick the angry vein to save the Soul, let out the blood of an impatient heart: if your appetite be intemperate, your concupiscence effeminate, dry up the body by fasting, parch it even like a Bottle that is hung in the smoke. Venus orta mari; drain out those superfluous streams that surcharge the body: sufferance of evil, and abstinence from the baits of pleasures, these are my blood and water. And so much touching the Conjunction of these two streams. Now I come in a word to the Order, first blood, and then water.

Some may say to the blood here, as the Midwife did to Pharez, who striv'd to come into the world before Zarah his Brother, Why didst thou make a breach? why art thou the first? Malice, Beloved is ever full of confusion, it heeds not where it begins, nor how it proceeds to vengeance: but blessings are like fruit taken in their season, they descend in their order, as in this place by blood and water. For do but consider how these two were applied even now to the several virtues of a Christian, and you shall find that blood hath the preeminence, and deserves the first place: for is not compunction of heart better than sorrowful tears? is not martyrdom for God's sake better than charity to our Neighbor? is it not a greater conquest to suffer evil patiently, than to abstain from deceitful good? aquâ vocati, sanguine electi; is not Election better than Vocation? If all these Comparisons hold, as I think they do, blood is preeminent in way of blessing above water. 2. Here were the great Legacies paid unto the World, the two Testaments upon the death of the Testator. The Covenant of the Old Testament was continued by Sacrifice, renewed by Circumcision, altogether confirmed by effusion of blood. Well, the Covenant of the New Testament is established in Baptism, in the Pool of water. O what a comely thing is Order! God kept it in his very death, the Old Law was first drawn dry in the Blood, and the New Law succeeds it in the stream of Water: and I like his Meditation well that said, our Savior had first uttered out every drop of blood from his veins, ut nos ad bibendum de aquâ aeternae vitae invitaret, to invite us from thenceforth to drink of the water of everlasting life.

Our Romish Adversaries stand much upon that which I handle now; for say they, if the two Sacraments had been precisely out of Christ's side, then St. John would have made his Relation thus, A Soldier pierced his side, and there came out Water and Blood: for Baptism is our beginning in the Church, our first milk, and after that, when we know how to examine ourselves, as St. Paul says, then we come to the Supper of the Lord; just so as they would have it. Aquinas, a sure man of their own side, compares the Sacraments in this wise: Baptism is a Sacrament of the greatest necessity of the twain, the Supper of the Lord is of more perfection, though not of so much necessity. Well then, since we must aim at perfection, as the Apostle says, why might not Christ give the first place to that which makes us perfect, and the second place to that which is first in time, but lag in perfection? nay rather than we should make use of this Text for no more than a yoke of Sacraments, they will allow it to be a Figure of none but of the Supper of the Lord; for their wine is dashed with water in their Chalice, and this Text is the Authority for it, blood and water. I am sure the letter of the Scripture is on our side, that use pure wine in the Eucharist, de fructu geniminis; I do not read that Christ gave his Disciples ought but wine to drink: I deny not but some of the ancient Fathers concur with them; but it is apparent I can make no better excuse: they forsake the Letter, and build upon an Allegory. He that feeds upon the Letter of the Text feeds upon Manna; he that lives by the Allegory, feeds upon licious Quails. Israel may desire such curious food, but God was better pleased when they were contented with Manna. I have done with the Order

The period of all in a word is the readiness of the Fountain, which could not be stopped for a moment: Forthwith came thereout blood and water. Love is no delaier, no protractor of time, ready to do good, speedy in execution: good deeds did not hang in our Savior's fingers, as they do with many of us; our hands unclasp to part with anything, like a lock that's rusty, and goes hard, you can scarce open it. Abraham's forwardness in entertaining the Angels, and the dispatch that he made, is as much commended as his hospitality, Gen. xviii. Abraham, says the Text, hastened to the Tent to Sarah. 2. Sarah made ready quickly three measures of fine meal. 3. Abraham ran to the Herd for a tender Calf. 4. Abraham's young man did hast to dress it; nemo piger est in domo caritatis, not a slothful person, not a protractor of time in all the House of Charity. Such expedition did our Savior make to express his love to the World; he yields up his body in the flower of his age, not a wrinkle in his brow, not a grey hair in his head, he made haste to suffer. Judas, says he, what thou doest do it quickly; as who should say, I know thy heart is against me, and that thou wouldest sell me into mine enemies hand, yet for old acquaintance sake do me the courtesy to protract no time, what thou doest do it quickly. There past but a little time from midnight to midday betwixt his Attachment, his Arraignment, and his Execution. This was a Paschal Lamb eaten in haste, as God gave Moses in charge, for the Lord will hasten you out of Egypt. And to come to the instance in my Text, his joints were stiff and cold, the moisture of his body congealed, long it would be, I should have thought, before a few drops of liquor could come forth, with much violence and chafing the flesh. O but the Testator was dead, his Sacraments are the Seals of his mercy, wherewith he assures his Promises unto us, and he would not have the World stay one whit for their Legacies, capiat qui capere potest, out it gusheth like a torrent, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.

All you that thirst for the living God be as ready to drink, as he was to give, else we are magis mortui quàm mortuus, as dead as death itself, and past recovery. Repent you, but instantly; make restitution of all things wrongfully gotten, but instantly; be reconciled to your enemies, stick not at it, but instantly; instantly I say, but continue those instants unto your lives end. Our Savior compared his love towards Jerusalem to a Hen that gathers her Chickens under her wings: let this Comparison be the Pattern of our love to Christ: You know the Hen must not sit for a spurt, and be gone, then her eggs addle, and the Brood is spoiled. Take the application unto your conscience: nourish the good motions of God's spirit in your heart, sit upon them as the Hen doth upon her Brood, that they may quicken in you by a lively faith. We had need to do it; for as Christ was sudden and made haste to express his love, so he is sudden and will make haste to judgment. Surely I come quickly, they are the close of our Bible. Even so come Lord Jesus, and prepare us for thy second coming, that we who drink at thy mystical Wound here, may be satisfied with thy goodness as out of a River in thy Kingdom of glory. AMEN.

THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE PASSION.

T He place where this memorable Sacrifice was offered up had a name given unto it by Abraham in the next verse to that which I have read, Deus in monte videbatur, or Deus in monte apparuit; which is interpreted, God is seen, or God did appear in the Mount; from which name Origen raiseth this Meditation, Nihil hic corporeum sentias, sed quae Scripta sunt in spiritu videas. Do not think in the story of this Sacrifice that you see a Ram, or that you see Isaac, you must apprehend it in Spirit, and believe that you see nothing but the Oblation of the Son of God upon the Cross. To this end our Church hath made this Chapter one of the Lessons for this day, the first that was read in Morning Service, and I have warrant that the practice was ancient, because I find it was so in St. Austin's days, for excusing himself that he had not expounded this Scripture to his Auditors all the time of Lent. He gives this reason In Vigiliis Paschae propter Sacramentum dominicae passionis reservatur; it was ordained to be handled upon a Good Friday, because of the mystery of our Savior's Passion.

There is a Text, John viii. 56. which Christ alledgeth to the Pharisees, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. Which of his days? Or when did he see it? It is not mentioned, I confess, and that makes a variance among Expositors. St. Austin glosseth upon it, that Abraham and all the Prophets had a Revelation of the Incarnation. St. Jerome conceives it to be that day when the mystery of the Trinity was opened unto him, Gen. xviii. Tres vidit & unum adoravit; He saw three Angels, and worshipped but one. But divers whom I could name, especially St. Ambrose, that wrote whole Books upon the story of Abraham, say, that my Text was the glass wherein he saw that joyful day. Vidit diem immolationis in Ariete; He saw the day wherein Christ was crucified for our Redemption in this Ram that was burnt upon the wood instead of Isaac; and shall not the Children of Abraham look so far into this Type to see the Oblation for our sins which is past and gone already, when Father Abraham so many years before did discern the day to come? Elevemus oculos, as it is specified of him in my Text; let us lift up our eyes, and look about, and we shall find it plainly dividing the whole Text into these three parts: 1. Here is Studium sollicitum, a careful and a solicitous heart upon the matter, Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked. 2. Here is Presens auxilium, help at an instant, in the best opportunity, behold, behind him a Ram caught in a Thicket by his horns. 3. Here is Sacrificium succedaneum, one Sacrifice answering for another, or coming in the place of another, as it is in the words following, and Abraham went and took the Ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his Son. Everyone of these shall be subdivided, as we handle them in order, the leading part of the three is Studium sollicitum, the carefulness and sollicitousness of Abraham, That he lifted up his eyes and looked.

Isaac was not nearer to be slaughtered, when the Sacrificing knife was at his throat, than we were to be condemned, when God was wrath with all the Posterity of Adam for the disobedience of that one man, but the timely voice of mercy was heard from heaven, the Angel of the Covenant appeared, as if he had said, Miserebor cujus miserebor; the remnant of the Election are appointed to be spared. Isaac shall live; God hath spoken it, and he shall not see destruction, then at the instant when the Angel bad, Save the Child, and lay no violent hands upon him, then Abraham lifted up his eyes: So that the first emergent observation is this, It was Gestus benedicentis, The gesture of him that blessed the Lord because his mercy was revealed. Indeed, if God had not said that Isaac, and in him the promised seed should live, our countenances would look like death, and be cast down as Cain's was, guiltiness would not let the sinner look towards heaven, for corruption cannot enter into these incorruptible places; our transgressing Parents withdrew from the Lord into the thicket of the Garden, and could not abide to appear. Nuditatem non audebant ostendere talibus oculis, quae displicebat & suis; They durst not show their shame and nakedness to such glorious eyes which was irksome to themselves. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall when his doom was told him, that he must die and not live. And our Savior doth insert that passage into the story of the Publican, surely afflicted for his sins, that he would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, all did not please him that he saw there, be it never so glorious a body. As St Basil spake like an eloquent Orator in his Homily concerning Paradise, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A Rose was a delightful flower, but it made him ashamed to use it, because that thorns and pricks grew upon it, God's curse for the sin of man. So the firmament of heaven showeth the chief handy-work of the Maker, yet to some it is a dreadful sight, because the God of vengeance will show himself from thence when he comes to judge the earth. As David said to Absalom, the Son of his displeasure, let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face: So the severity of God said unto man, In terram reverteris, turn again into your own place, from whence you came, into dust and clay, but you shall not lift up your head to stand before me in the Kingdom of my glory. O but mercy beg'd the life of Isaac, Et levavit oculos, And Abraham lifted up his eyes. Anatomists say, that there is one Nerve more descending from the brain to the eye of man than in any beast, that it may turn up it seems with greater readiness and facility. Now to stand gazing up into heaven, a thing which the Angel reproved in the Disciples, Acts i. 11. but as if the voice of the tongue, and the affection of the heart were encircled in the eye, to laud and magnify his name that remitted vengeance, and spared our soul from death. I appove the old Philosophy, Visus fit intramittendo species; but allowing this divinity, Visus fit extramittendo gratias; if nothing else, yet an eflux of thanks goes out of the eye when we look up to heaven. At the cxx Psalm begin those Psalms of David which are called the Songs of degree. And see by what steps he marcheth up in those degrees to the Mercy Seat of God. In the cxx Psal. I cried unto the Lord in my distress, there his voice ascended. In the cxxi. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, there his eye ascended. cxxii. Our feet shall stand in the gates of Jerusalem, there his feet ascended. cxxiii. Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens, at every other step or degree his eyes are cast up; for Christ hath not only opened the Kingdom of heaven, but also opened our eyes, and put courage into all believers to look up unto the Kingdom of heaven, and therefore as I said, it is gestus benedicentis, the gesture of him that blesseth the name of the Lord.

Secondly, It is gestus admirantis, an expression of wonder and astonishment, Abraham's heart was full, so overcome with the loving kindness of the Lord, that he stood dumb, and knew not what to say, but in admiration of his mercy lift up his eyes to heaven, as if these thoughts did rise up in Abraham's fancy, Sarah the Mother of my Son did muse how a Child could be born unto her, in her old age, but she did ill to laugh because the Lord had spoke it; then give me leave to ponder how this Child can live anymore when the mouth of God hath spoken that he must be sacrificed for a burnt offering? Nay, O Lord, Non unum redimis sed unitatem; In this act thou dost not so much redeem this one from death, as the unity of all the faithful in this one; all those Nations that shall be blessed in my name, wilt thou spare them all as thou sparest Isaac? What are our merits? What justice is in us? What is man that thou wilt not visit him with indignation? Thus the soul of Abraham was in an ecstacy to consider the mercy of God, wonder had possessed him, we see it in this cast of his eye, that he looked up to heaven. When the Lord turned the Captivity of Zion then we were like unto them that dream, says the Prophet. The deliverance was so fortunate, so much it did out-strip their hope, that they did receive it at first, not as that which was done indeed, but as a delightful dream. As Livy, relating how the Grecians were strangely stricken with sudden joy, upon the day when the Romans sent them unexpected liberty, says he, Mirabundi velut somni speciem arbitrabantur; they thought it was a pleasing vision in their sleep, and not the happiness of them that were broad awake: So when God did really make good that Promise which the Devil pretended, that he would bring about, Non moriemini; You shall not die. The faithful Patriarch knew not how to apprehend it at the first, but his eye did testify that his soul was ravished with the mercies of the Lord. The wicked shall not end half his days, the seed of the ungodly shall be rooted out, eternal fire is prepared hereafter for them that shall be turned over to the Devil, and his Angels, there shall be much wrath and vengeance everywhere among the dwelling places of the unrighteous, but as for Isaac, and they that are born according to the Spirit, Noli tangere, says the Angel, the hand of violence shall not come near them; as the Poet in his Eclogue brings in Melibaeus wondering at the clemency of Caesar to his fellow-shepherd, when all the neighbor-Cottages were burnt and wasted, Undique totis usque adeo turbatur agris: So when God shall work so much destruction in the world, redemption is an admirable thing where it lights. John the Baptist, as we read it in the vulgar Latin, blazeth out with two notes of astonishment, one upon another, Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi: Behold the Lamb of God, I and again, Behold him that taketh away the sins of the world. In two respects it is to be wondered at, without any prejudice to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or fullness of our faith, as I will show by the examples of two memorable women in holy Scripture. Whence is it that the mother of my Lord comes unto me, says Elizabeth? Why did she marvel at it? Quia non sui meriti, sed divini fatetur esse muneris, says Beda; because it was a favor of mere grace, and not a recompense of merit. And again, the blessed mother of our Savior astonished at the Angels message, that she should conceive and bear a Son; Quomodo, says she? How shall these things come to pass? Tanquam certa de facto querit de modo fiendi, as it is the common answer, She was sure it should be so, she marvelled how it should be so, and that was a blameless admiration. Both these passions did Abraham suffer, he knew there was no worth in man, that God should release him from condemnation, he knew not the manner what should be paid for his ransom, his eye did fix itself upon the throne of God to find the mystery out, and so you see it was Gestus admirantis, the expression of wonder and astonishment, that Abraham lifted up his eyes.

Thirdly, It is Gestus inquirentis, besides that he lifted up his eyes, he looked about him from the tops of Moriah, it is the demeanour of him that did seek out for a Sacrifice to be offered up unto the Lord. Reges Parthes non potest quisquam salutare sine munere, says he; No man was admitted to salute the Parthian Kings, unless he brought some Present in his hands, so because Abraham came to this Mountain to worship before the Angel of the Lord, he looked, and inquired for some Oblation, that he might not turn back until he had laid a gift upon the Altar. Many will lift up their eyes, but they list not to seek an Offering for the Lord. Such are best pleased with devotion when it comes off with as little cost as may be. Nay, says David, when Araunah would have born his charges, I will not sacrifice to God of that which shall cost me nothing. An Objection is framed in the School, that the Piety of the Jews was more acceptable to God than the piety of Christians, because they in their daily Service were at great expense to provide beasts for the Altar, we are at no such charge in our Spiritual Worship, it is enough if we offer up a broken heart in mortification, a thankful heart in Praise, and a devout heart in Prayer: But this puts not our Purse to any trial like the Oblations of the Jews. To cancel and wipe out this opposition it is answered, that we supply that charge of the Sacrifice of beasts, In Sacrificio Eleemosynarum, in the Sacrifice of Alms to the poor. The hand must look about it where to give, as well as the eye look upward where to be thankful. A distribution to the wants of the needy it is Pro sacrificio, and prae sacrificio, in place of sacrifice, and to be preferred before all sacrifices. Mercy is a better Oblation than a Beast that is slain [this day] you know how much was paid for the price of your redemption, but not the price of corruptible things, as Silver and Gold. Spare, O spare some portion of that which you spend profusely in the consumption of vanity at this solemn time of redemption, to redeem the distressed in Prisons that are fast bound in misery and iron. Look about you as Abraham did and you shall find I assure you Arietes prehensos in Vepribus. Rams shall I say? Nay, they have scarce any fleece upon their back, but they are catched fast poor Souls by the horns in the Thicket, thence they cannot stir unl • ss Abraham will take them, and offer them up for an Oblation to the Lord. Above all other casts of the eye this same Gestus inquirentis pleaseth me best to look about that we may present some gift upon the Altar; to frame a collocution with our own soul, as David did, What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits? And so you have the first part, Abraham's care and solicitous heart, He lifted up his eyes and looked.

It follows, here is presens auxilium, his necessities are supplied at an instant, behold behind him a Ram caught in a thicket by his horns. In holy Scripture Verba and res both words and things are considerable one with another: So it is here, the word is Ecce, a note of attention bestowed upon the Text, the thing is Aries, a Ram bestowed upon Abraham. And that you may know him from all the Flocks in the world, there are two Marks set upon him. The one more obscure, that he is Aries post eum, a Ram that was behind him; such a one as was without a figure to be offered up long after Abraham's days, in another Age: By the other Mark he is easy to be guessed at. For whose arms were nailed to the Cross? Whose head was dimpled with thorns? You know the man. That was he that was caught by the horns in a Thicket. I address myself to the four particulars, Ecce, behold, it is a note of attention bestowed upon the Text.

A strange sight indeed to be just in the way at the instant when Isaac should be redeemed at the instant when Abraham looked about him for such a thing. 1. But let the Eunuch read, and God will send an Interpreter, let Cornelius pray, and God will provide an Apostle to bless him. Mean well to the Worship of God, and himself will administer, and suppeditate necessaries for the execution of the work. Abraham would fain present an Oblation, why, Ecce, behold his wish; and it pleaseth me very well that Interpreters confess that they do not know which way this Ram came into a Thicket in the Mountain of Moriah; perchance, says one, he was productus in vepribus, created at that instant in the bush. Perchance, says another, he was Adductus ab Angelo, the Angel conveyed him thither from some other Flock feeding about the place; and, as the most say, perchance he was a stray that of himself came wandering to this place as God would have it, and stopped there at the nick and opportunity, when the Lord had need of it. St. Austin runs over all these opinions, and gives his Reader leave to take which he will, why thus it should be, let Interpreters wonder still, let them all say Ecce Aries, behold a Ram, but never know how he came thither; for believe the Gospel and this was Christ's own case, Joh. ix. 29. The Pharisees cry out, as for this fellow we know not from whence he is. And all the people say, Joh. vii. 27. When Christ cometh no man knoweth whence he is. Such was Melchizedek, a perfect shadow of our Savior, before this Ram was heard of, without Father, without Mother, without Genealogy. Strange is the Apparision of the Ram, strange the descent of Melchizedek, stranger than both the coming of Christ into the world, Quis enarrabit. The Prophet confesseth that all men are posed, and none can declare his Generation. Yet that the Ram was of new created in the Thicket, the guess is Theological, he that created all things in the beginning, his arm is not shortened to this day. That it was picked out of some other Flock, and brought thither by an Angel, the interpretation may be admitted, it skills not what Shepherd was the owner, as our Savior sent his Commission for the Ass and the Colt, Loose them and bring them with you, if the Owner ask you what you do, Dicite Dominus opus habet, say the Lord hath need of them, so the Angel might enter upon any fold, and take his choice, for the Lord hath need of a Ram, all things are his possession; Christ did exercise this propriety when he cursed another man's Fig-tree, and made it wither, when the Gargasens took their Swine to be their own, but the very Devils confessed they were his, and asked his leave to go into them. And as Elias eat his Cake and the flesh made ready upon the coals, from whomsoever the Ravens brought it, for it was God's appointment: So Abraham burnt the Ram upon the wood from whomsoever the Angel brought it, for it was God's provision. Again, that it was Aries fortuitus, a Ram that straggled thither by fortune, it is not an opinion to be misliked. O quantum est subitis casibus ingenium! things that seem to be done accidentally, there is many times much observation in them; that which is casualty according to the second causes is deep providence in the divine wisdom. Our ignorance hath made fortune, nay, it is not quite made, but only painted, Et tam facile deleri potest quam fingi, says Tully, refer all to the abstruse reach of Providence, and you may blot out the name of Fortune as easily as you have invented it. Thus you see that this note of attention behold puts us to wonder at the apparition of the Ram, and now let us come indeed to see and behold him.

Ecce Aries, behold a Ram, that is the thing bestowed upon Abraham, and at this Point I may say my Text is like the clean beasts in the Law, it divides the hoof, two ways the sense is divided, and both belong unto Christ. Isaac, says Origen, was first presented to be slain, but he was drawn back from the slaughter, and the Ram was burnt in his stead: So Christ both God and man was arraigned before Pilate, condemned and brought to Golgotha to be crucified. But his Divinity was uncapable of corruption and passion, only the Manhood, like the Ram, was offered up, the stream of Writers goes the other way. In Isaac the whole communion of Saints is shadowed, in Isaac are all the Nations of the earth comprehended that shall be called blessed, it was no easy matter no not for these to escape death, so maliciously had our sins beset us round about, but the Lord took his Elect out of the jaws of death, As a Shepherd, says Amos, taketh a Leg or an Ear out of the mouth of a Lion; but the poor Ram bore our griefs, the chastisement of our peace fell upon our blessed Redeemer, and with his death we are made alive, Man being in honor had no understanding, but is compared to the beasts that perish; we indeed deserve no better comparisons, but Christ the excellency of his Fathers glory, Non solum per hominem sed etiam per pecudem, est figuratus, says St. Austin. His honor is figured disguised, I may say not only in the names of men, but in the names of beasts; not one of them which the Priest did slay in the Temple to make an atonement for sin but in some resemblance or other it was Christ, In tauro videas fortitudinem, in hirco similitudinem peccati, in ariete principatum, in agno innocentium; In the Oxen that were brought to the Altar, you see the strength and mightiness of his power, in the Goats that he bore the similitude of sinful flesh, in the Ram his Principality, that he governed the Flock; in the Lamb his meekness and innocence, but before the Law this in my Text is the first by name which the Fathers took notice of as a type of the Sacrifice upon the Cross, Quis in ariete figuratus nisi Christus spinis Judaicis coronatus, of this Type St. Austin is bold to say this Ram in the Thicket was but a relish and pregustation of him that was compelled to wear a Crown of thorns.

It is the first praise that Pliny gives to this harmless Creature, Magna huic pecori gratia in placamentis Deorum, among other attonements, it was very gracious to please and pacify the divine powers how could Idolaters confess so much, unless with Caiaphas they prophesied and knew not what they said. Indeed, we can say omnis huic pecori gratia in placamentis Domini; All our atonement, all our reconciliation, all our pardon it rests upon the head of this Oblation, the principal of the Flock; Who can think upon the innocence of the Sheep and not remember this spotless Sacrifice without sin? Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, 1 Pet. ii. 22. Non Petrus erat qui haec dixit adulatus Magistro, sed Isaiah praedixit, says Cyril; Peter did not say this of himself, to flatter his Master, he had it from an Evangelical Prophet, Isaiah foretold it under the name of an innocent sheep led unto the slaughter. The Pharisees called him Carpenter in disgrace, but they could not call him Sinner; Clamant, habet damonium, non Clamant, habet peccatum; they cry out he had a Devil, and yet their tongue would not let them say there was a fault in him. Our Savior proclaims it, Quis vestrum, Which amongst you doth accuse me of sin? Again, who can think upon the meekness of the sheep and not remember this Sacrifice that was led dumb before the Shearer? Moses was meek, yet he commanded that the Adulteress should be put to death; Christ was meeker, his sentence was clemency every jot, Joh. viii. Go and sin no more. Moses was meek, yet he brought Mandatum lapideum, a stony Law to the People: Christ was meeker, and turned those stones into bread at his last Supper, he set before them Mandatum triticeum, Take and eat in remembrance of me. At his Baptism a Dove sat upon his head, Columba super agnum, a Dove upon a Lamb, meekness upon meekness. What heart could be more intenerated and mollified than that which prayed for his Persecutors? Yet once more let me speak; who can think upon the profitableness of the Sheep, and not remember this Sacrifice, that did yield commodity both in life and death? He lived in innocence of life for our imitation, he suffered in the bitterness of death for our redemption, ut afferret remedium in passion mortis, ut praeberet exemplum in innoecntiâ vitae, says Leo; Innoceny, Meekness, Utility, all do correspond that the Angel should take one of the Flock rather than any other Beast to prefigure the Sufferings of Christ.

And we must not omit that among all the Flock the Ram was culled out to be substituted for Isaac, propter masculam virtutem, never was there more need of a masculine courage, and a spirit heroic, than to tolerate and endure so much as our Savior did this day, stripes and strokes, blasphemies and buffetings, thorns and nails, to drink up all the bitterness of the Cup, to fight with God himself and his wrath in that Agony in the Garden; every vein of the body vented blood, quia de toto corpore, id est de Ecclesiâ emanaturae sunt passions martyrum, says Prosper, because the Martyrs should suffer in every part of his Body, which is the Church. Such a Samson we had need of, that could break the green withs, and snap the cords in sunder. Such a Lion we had need of sprung from the Tribe of Judah: and it falls out, I know not whether by art or by arbitrary imposition, that the Latin word Aries for a Ram comes from the Hebrew word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which signifies a Lion come to his growth and vigor. I am sure he that is the Ram in my Text is likewise the strong Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Very appertinent is that which I find related in Ortelius concerning the Christian King of the Abyssens, that he gives for his Crest a Lion holding a Cross in his paw, notifying that Christ stuck to his Passion and his Cross, with that power and fortitude like a Lion, that no temptation, nor Devil, nor infirmity could pluck him from it: An Angel came to strengthen him says St. Luke. I pray you, did the Ram give back then? was the Lion frighted? did weakness creep upon him? not so, but because in the very gall of affliction he had strength and courage; therefore he did merit to be strengthened by the ministry of Angels. For example, in this Militant state of the Church, they that courageously endure their trial, at length shall not want Divine consolation. This Exposition likes me best which ascribes all masculine courage to the Ram which was caught in the Thicket. Ecce aries, behold a Ram! why John the Baptist makes him younger above a thousand years after, Ecce Agnus Dei, behold the Lamb of God. Nay in one mystical verse, Gen. xlix. 9. Judah is called a Lions Whelp, and a strong Lion, and an old Lion; great diversity of age in so few words. I must say of these places as St. Austin did, reconciling the Prophesies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, To us a Child is born, says Isaiah, Mulier circumdabit virum, says Jeremiah, A woman shall compass a man, and both speak of Christ. Why? time says the Father doth not make him older than he was before the beginning of the world, sed insinuant ei nunquam defuisse virtutem, but if the Child be called a man, it is to insinuate that full strength and perfection was always in him. Now you have seen the thing which was bestowed upon Abraham. The Wife of Manoah could say, if the Lord were pleased to kill them, he would not accept a Burnt-offering at their hands, neither would he have told them of a Son to be born; much more may I say, if the Lord were not pleased with Abraham and his Seed, he would not have given us a Burnt-offering, nor told us of him that was to come in the ends of the World, as it is in the first mark which is upon this Ram, He is Aries post eum, Abraham saw a Ram behind him.

For long it was indeed, long after Abraham's days, that the manifestation of this Shadow was revealed in the death of Christ. My father, says Isaac in the 7. verse of this Chapter, behold the Fire and the Wood, but where is the Lamb? Isaac spake of no more than the present time; why, God will provide himself a Lamb says Abraham. He was more cunning in the mysteries of faith: futura respondet filio de presentibus requirenti, says Origen, he put off his Son to the future age, to the times to come, then there would be a propitiatory Oblation worth all the blood beside which was spilled in the world. This was Abraham's Prophesy of Christ, he saw a Ram behind him: And I will tell you why it likes me to expound post eum, behind him, rather to time than place, rather post seculum, than post tergum; for St. Austin tells it for news upon St. Jerome's credit, that the Jews with whom St. Jerome spake in Palestine confessed unto him, Ubi immolatus est Aries, ibi postea crucifixus est Christus, that by infallible tokens they know that Christ was crucified in the very plot of ground where the Ram was offered for a Burnt-offering: as for the place then Abraham stood by the Pile of Wood, and looked upon it; but it is a mystery in time that the Oblation for Isaac, and for all the Elect, was bound unto the Cross in after ages. Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem; Mercy was sudden, and ready to promise, that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents head; but the Divine Wisdom for the exercise of faith made the World look many a long look before the thing was accomplisht. It was afternoon says Irenaeus, as we read the cool of the day, when the Gospel was preached to Adam, that there should be a Savior, Quod adventus redemptoris ad mundi vesperam factus sit, because time was far spent, and the Evening of the World approached, before the Advent of the Redeemer; the Dove came in the Evening with an Olive branch in his mouth to the Ark of Noah: Simeon was grown old at the very brink of the Grave: Anna was far stricken in years before the Light of Israel did shine upon them in the Temple, the revolutions of Heaven had had their courses for many ages before the Star appeared at Bethlehem. But because the case is altered in our days, and the Ram is as much before our times, as it was behind the time of Abraham. Let this Mark pass as an obscure one, the next is printed and engraven in him, by which he may easily be known, for he was caught in a thicket by his horns.

S. Austin writing upon the Prophecy of David concerning Christ, I will open my mouth in Parables, Psal. 78. meditates thus upon it, there would be no perplexity in it, Si sicut os suum aperuit in parabolis, ita aperiret etiam ipsas parabolas; if he had opened the sense of the Parable, as he did open his mouth in Parables; but the sense of this mystery which I have read stands so direct before us, as the Angel did in Balaam's way, that we cannot turn aside and miss it. If there be any variance it lies in a word, and in the upshot that will make no variance at all. The Septuagint and all the Fathers that follow the Translation read it. Video arietem prehensum in arbore Sabec, he saw a Ram entangled by the horns in a tree, which is called Sabec: the Interpreter forbore to give the Tree any other name but Sabec, as it is in the Hebrew: and since the whole Ram was held fast in a Tree, well might St. Chrysostom say 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , see the Lamb of God fastened by the two hands to the Tree of the Cross; upon that accursed Tree his arms were plucked out at length, as if you might have seen him beckning with his hands to both ends of the World, to the furthermost places of the Earth to come unto him, and to be Members of his Church which He had watered with his blood. When the left hand, as the Tradition goes, when that hand which is next his heart was first driven through with a nail unto the Beam, then you might have seen nature shrinking at it for pain, and the body contracting itself; when you might have seen the other hand reached too far, and plucked out with violence, here we must conceive the immensity of his griefs; the veins bleeding, the nerves racked and distented, the bones disjointed, the wounds of the stripes made wider, the wood of the Tree unsquared, and the rough bark upon it chafing the tender flesh, the weight of his body oppressing him downward as he hung, and the harmony of all the ribs about his breast dissolved: In a word, as Tully said of Milo the Wrestler, that his arms were detained so fast in the cleft of a tree, that there he remained to be eaten up by the Wolves of the Forest: so my Savior hung by the arms upon the Cross while the Wolvish Jews gaped upon him with odious revilings, and at length devoured him. One thing I cannot omit; what kind of death more like unto this in all the Scripture, than the death of Absalom caught fast by the head, in the arms of an Oak tree, thrust through the heart with Joab's darts, as Christ's side was pierced with the Soldiers Spear? is Absalom therefore justified? is it enough to boast of likeness of punishment without likeness of innocence? Martyrem causa facit non poena, they are not Martyrs that dy for errors in Religion, not the sufferance of death, but the sufferance for a good cause that makes a Martyr.

But this Thicket, as Aquila reads it, and as all the later Writers do follow it, is no Tree properly, but spinarum perplexitas, an intricate Hedg of thorns, wherein the Ram was entangled; retentus in rete cornibus, as Symmachus hath it, as if he were catched like a Bird in a Snare among the bushes; it is as much in a Parable, as the Gospel speaks directly, that they platted a Crown of thorns upon his head, who is our strength our might, the horn also of our salvation, and our refuge. Victimae coronabantur, as Pliny says, Sacrifices were brought to the Altar with Crowns of flowers, and Garlands upon their heads. The Priest of Jupiter brought out Oxen and Garlands, Acts xiv. 12. and therefore it came to pass that the Ram had his Garland upon his head, before he was burnt upon the wood, but it was a twist of thorns. Let us insist upon it a little, that we may gather grapes from these thorns which pricked our Savior, that we may see the good will of him that dwelt in the Bush.

First, no measure of affliction should seem too much for a Christian, sorrows if they be without number should not be accounted too grievous a chastisement, since Christ was pricked with as many thorns as his head could bear, Vidit haerentem in spinis says my Text, Abraham saw the Ram sticking in the thorns, not the thorns sticking in him, Qualis est haec praedicatio? what manner of saying is this? but an expression, that there were more wounds in his body, than sound flesh, that was not mangled; Et fuit in toto corpore sculptus amor, says a Christian Poet: the thorns of the field catch the Fleece, and tear off locks sometimes, that is more the Shepherds loss than the Sheep; but Blessed Jesus thou wert stripped of thy Garments, and the skin was flaid off, and then the thorns were dinted into the flesh; the least touch of pain was too much for thee, but let not thy Cup seem too sower to thy Children, the greatest dose that can be given is not too much for us.

Secondly, as Tertullian said, abstulit omnes aculeos mortis dominici capitis tolerantia, there will be tribulations, there will be sorrows in the world, but the mortal sting is gone, the thorns of all our persecutions and vexations are stuck in the Temples of our Savior, his sufferance hath blunted their sharp points, that they shall not run in so far as to our heart, to make our spirit sad and heavy within us: quite contrary to Synesius his Art of Gardening: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he would have strong and unsavory roots planted near to Rose-trees, that the neglected root might draw the ill sap and venom of the earth into itself, and save the Rose-trees harmless; but here the Rose of Sharon did save the Garlic and the wild Roots harmless, and drunk up the bitter juice into itself, lest God should come and root us out of his Vineyard.

Thirdly, we read of a purple Robe put upon the back of Christ, of bowing and bending to him, of a Reed in his hand, of a Crown upon his head, alas it was thorns: all these Ensigns of Majesty were put upon him in scorn. What doth this mockery express? Quod regnum Christi in hoc mundo ludibrio futurum sit, because the Kingdom of Heaven in this world, that is the Kingdom of Christ in his Church should be made a taunt and a by-word to them that sit in the Chair of the scorner: the Power Ecclesiastical, and the Hierarchical Dignity of it is flouted at by them, that would neither allow the Head of it a Crown, nor the supreme Priests their Miters, but trample all Rule and Order under their feet.

Fourthly and lastly to end this part, the place where the Ram is caught is a Thicket of thorns, but what place was this afterward? Quantum mutatus ab illo? as I told you before from St. Jerome, that the Cross was set up upon the very plot of ground where the Ram was sacrificed; so upon the next part of this Hill of Moriah Solomon built the Temple, for so it is 2 Chron. iii. 1. Then Solomon began to build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, and why may it not be that the Jebusites who inhabited that Hill, are called thorns in the eyes of Israel, why may not that be their Nick-name, because thorns had overgrown their Habitation? certainly in the Thickets of thorns there are the Walls of the Church reared up; such a choice was made, as the famous Antiquary of this Island hath wrote for the foundation of the Abbey which is the next to this place, the ground was sometime called Thornega. Thus you see we must lay our foundation in thorns, we must sow in tears; the higher we build from earth, the further from the briars, then our sorrows will be trampled down, and we shall reap in joy; and though thorns were a curse which was laid upon the vast World, yet to plant in thorns shall be a blessing to the Church, whose faith shall be refined in affliction, as Gold is tried in the furnace. Remember how St. Paul stilled himself to Philemon, Vinctum Christi, a Prisoner of Christ, not the Jews Prisoner, not Festus his Prisoner, not Caesar's Prisoner, but rejoicing in his Bonds for the Gospel, a Prisoner of Jesus Christ. And so far of the second General Part, praesens auxilium, Abraham's necessities were supplied at an instant. Behold behind him a Ram caught in a Thicket by his horns.

In the handling of the last Part I must obey the time; I called it Sacrificium succedaneum, one Sacrifice answering for another, or coming in the place of another. And Abraham went and took the Ram, and offered him up for a Burnt-offering in the stead of his Son. 1. Abraham went and took the Ram; so to apprehend and lay hold upon Christ, that's our duty. 2. And offered him up, that's only consonant to God the Father. 3. For a Burnt-offering, there comes in Christ's part. 4. Instead of his Son, there's the redemption of the Elect, I hope there comes in our part. The hand of faith; the good will of God the Father; the full satisfaction of God the Son; The full redemption of all that shall be saved. With these four Points briefly we will end. And Abraham went and took the Ram. It was the comfortablest hand that ever Peter felt, when upon the danger to sink and perish in the Sea, Christ stretched forth his hand and caught him. So it was the most comfortable thing that ever Abraham caught hold of, to apprehend this Ram in the Thicket, partly out of natural affection, partly supernatural: the life of Isaac lay at the stake just before, all the Sons of promise that he had, and if he be cut off, call him no more Abraham, call him Abram again, for how can he be the Father of many Nations? or if that be made good in Ishmael, yet shall Isaac die, the joy and laughter of his Father, as his name goes; quasi nusquam alibi gaudium ei restaret, as if there were no joy without him. Once Abraham had fought valiantly against five Kings when He was young, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom; what a hard thing was it for him in his old age to fight against nature. O had not his natural affections a brave occasion of joy to work upon when a Ram was put into his hands instead of Isaac, and all this sorrow prevented? but the Spirit's comfort is the eye-sight of the Spirit into supernatural blessings; hereby there was the gladness as Jacob laid hold of an Angel; so did Abraham of this Ram, the principal of the Flock, the Leader of all the Sheep in the Pasture, he was sure of a blessing before he parted with him. Joab's hands may be plucked from the Altar of refuge, Saul's hand may be rent from the Garment of Samuel, the Children of Bethlehem may be plucked from the arms of their own Mothers, and slain before their eyes; but who so apprehendeth the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ, he that doubteth not as Thomas did, and yet approacheth by faith so near as to put his hand into his wounds, as if he would bury his sins in that Grave; he shall lie safe in that Harbor, and never be removed from the love of God in Christ. Gaius Caesar his foot slipped, landing upon Africa, and the palm of his hand fell upon the ground, verso in meliùs omine teneo te inquit Africa, turning it to the best luck, then I have thee Africa says he, and I will hold thee. What man is it whose feet have not slipped? whose sins are not so burdensome as to cast him down? the turning of the luck is where our hand lights, God send our lot fall in a fair ground, that we may say teneo te redemptor meus, teneo te Domine; I have laid hold on thee, O Lord, I caught thee fast my Redeemer. So did the Father of the Faithful, he went and took the Ram, he took him and offered him; for so it follows, the same which he received, the same he gave back again. Quippe Dominum sui ipsius dono honorat, says one, he did as much as the best in the world can do, that is, to honor God with no other gift but with the same that God himself did give before: but in this word Abraham acts another person than Abraham, obtulit, he offered up the Ram; and who did of • er up the Son but God the Father. When Abraham went out of his own Country, and grew rich in a strange place, who was he then in the resemblance but Christ the second person of Trinity, says St. Austin, Qui relictâ Judaeâ ubi natus est apud gentes prevalet, who leaving the faithless Country of Jury, where he was born, purchased to himself an Inheritance among the Gentiles: but when his name was interpreted Pater multarum gentium, a Father of many Nations; and when this Priestly Office in my Text lay upon him, obtulit, that he offered up the Ram, there we see the first Person in Trinity of him; in this we see how God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who so believed in him should not perish but have life everlasting. Deus liberalitatem cum hominibus certavit, says Origen, he makes God in this place to contend with Man in liberality. Abraham spared not his Son whom he loved, no more did God: this was his only Son, so was he God's; but his Son was mortal, and must die once; God's Son was immortal, and his Father made him, that he might unmake him; he made him flesh that he might bring him to the Grave; his Son should die for his own sins, Christ died for ours; his Son had been chopped off at once, without sense of dying, God's Son was tented, and beaten, and bruised, and wounded from midnight that he was taken in the Garden to this hour of the day, wherein we speak of it, which was turned for sadness into the first hour of the night. In the Levitical Law the Priest laid his hand upon the head of the Sacrifice when it was to be killed. Quia patris voluntate suscepit nostra peccata filius, says one, because the Son was an Expiation for our sins by the will of the Father; so Luke xv. 23. Bring the fat Calf and kill him, says the relenting Father, that he might bid welcome home to his Prodigal Son. But you will say, how did the Father offer up the Son? Let the blame lie upon Judas, and Pilate, and the Soldiers: but what did God? you shall hear the Schoolmen answer it appertinently. 1. Praeordinando, who but the Father preordain'd it before the foundation of the World. 2. Voluntatem patiendi humanam naturam infundendo, it was he that did infuse an obedient affection into the Soul of the Manhood, and did persuade it to be willing to suffer. 3. Non protegendo a persecutoribus, he that did not deliver him out of the hands of his Persecutors: when he might have sent an hundred Legions of Angels to scatter his Enemies, it was his charity towards us to offer him up for a Burnt-offering.

At this word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Burnt-offering, there comes in Christ's part; a Burnt-offering is that where all the flesh of the Sacrifice is quite consumed with fire, grant us therefore both the active and passive obedience of Christ for our justification, grant us the merit of his humility, with the merit of his death, or else it is not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , some part was sacrificed for us, but it was not an whole Burnt-offering. Consider that every vein of his body had evacuated blood, that every inch of his flesh was gashed with wounds, as the Firmament stands thick with stars, consider that every faculty of his Soul was sad and sick with agony and distress, and then tell me if he was not a Sacrifice 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in every part, when Christ himself concluded with consummatum est, as who should say, all the bitterness of anguish is past upon me that can be imagined; then the Sacrifice was quite burnt out, and the Passion ended. Yet listen to one word which our Savior uttered, and then we will not stick at a scruple that may be made, how his death was shadowed in a Ram that was burnt, when his body suffered no corruption, nor incineration, but was crucified upon the Cross? We must weigh this doubt in the Balance of that heavy Speech, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me; it was not, it could not be the out-cry of his own Soul that was in desperation because itself was forsaken; it was the voice of him that sustained the punishment of those who were plunged into despair and condemnation, Non suscepit opera, sed stipendia peccatorum, our sins did not properly lie upon him, but the wages of our sins. Now will you see a Burnt-offering indeed? now will you see a fire of brimstone flaming more violently than if a Mountain did burn from the top to the bottom? Flammae inferni in animo Christi insufflantur, says Brenz; let us speak warily, the pains of Hell had not got hold upon him, but he saw the fire of vengeance which was prepared for us; it scorched I may say the very compassion of his heart: when he saw that his Fathers justice would kindle it for the sins of the world, not a spark could take hold on him; Sed tu quod facies hoc mihi Pete dolet, it set him all on fire, as if he were a Burnt-offering, for fear that we should suffer it: the darkness which was over the face of the earth, non solum incurrerunt in oculos, sed etiam in animam Christi, says Brenz, it did not only appear like night to the eye of his Body, but his Soul for our sakes did see and dread the utter darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. A little before, when he said in the Garden, My soul is heavy unto death, there he did grapple with the horror of death, and conquered it; but when he lifted up his voice upon the Cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? there he did struggle with infernal fire, there he did grapple with the horror of Hell, and conquered it. Tell me I beseech you, are you not affected with these things, like Cleophas and the other Disciple? do not your hearts burn within you to hear them? if you feel such a spark of fire blow it and kindle the whole man to be a perfect Oblation, an whole Burnt-offering to be presented to God. Immolata sacrificia sunt perfecta studia virtutum, says Origen, an whole Burnt-offering is he that hath quite renounced the world, consumed the root of concupiscence, denies himself all unlawful desires, crucifies the old man, suffers zeal even to eat and devour him, increaseth charity so far to enflame his heart, as if his frail flesh could scarce subsist because of the love of God. For such a one the Son of God became, a Burnt-offering, that He might not perish in everlasting fire: this is the full satisfaction of Christ to purchase the full of redemption of them that shall be saved in the last part. Abraham offered up the Ram in holocaustum pro filio, instead of his Son.

The Jews, as their own Rabbies testify, did so much rejoice in after ages for the deliverance of Isaac, that in the Feast of Tabernacles they sounded the praise of God with Rams horns, as if they had been Trumpets, because a Ram was substituted to death instead of their Patriarch: Alas for pity the spilling of Isaac's blood it is of no price for the redemption of a Soul, it is not a sufficient Pawn for his own head, much less for the sins of the World; Meliorem animam pro morte Daretis persolvo, as Entellus said, when he offered up an Heifer instead of Daris; so the Ram in my Text, the Lord of the Flock, an Atonement of infinite value must bear the Curse, and the Cross of our iniquities, and lay down his life for his Sheep: a strange Sacrifice consisting of two Natures in the Personal Union of God and Man must satisfy God for the absolution of Man, such a one as suffered not for himself, but was offered instead of Isaac, & pro semine Electorum, and for the Seed of all the Elect that shall reign in glory. The Heathen had a glimpse of some such thing in their superstitious manner of Expiation; for if ruin did threaten any State or Kingdom, they thought it possible to remove the public vengeance upon one or a few more that would willingly undertake it, whom they called Piaculares homines, men that took upon them the punishment or calamity due to all the people; and Caiaphas did seem to allude to this, when he told his fellow Priests, that one man must suffer for the whole Nation; Caritas in patriam, impietas in Christum, his charity towards his Country was laudable, his impiety against Christ was damnable. One man must suffer indeed, unum pro multis dabitur caput, as he said of Palinurus, so this was the true Pilot of the Ship, that guides his Church in the tempestuous waves of temptation, and the Pilot only was cast away in the storm, that Isaac and the Sons of Promise might come safe to the Haven of eternal happiness.

To end all, let us all conceive, and let our hearts be strongly possessed with the credulity that we are going with Abraham to Mount Moriah, to the Hill of Divine Worship and Adoration; take Isaac along with you, that is all your laughter, your joy, the strength of your pleasure in this world, to offer it up unto the Lord; then trust and be assured Isaac shall be spared, and the Ram shall die. Thus Bernard unfolds the Allegory, Non peribit tibi laetitia, sed contumacia Domino vives, sed crucifixus mundo, you shall not lose your joy, nor your hearts solace; wantonness, lasciviousness, rebellion of the flesh, these shall be offered up and consumed, you shall live unto God, but be crucified unto the World. Cum laetus accesseris ad Deum iterum tibi reddet quod obtuleris, a sweet Meditation of Origen 's, when it is gladness and delight unto you to come unto God, when you bring Isaac for a Sacrifice, you shall not lose your Offering, but again it shall be restored unto you, as he that multiplied his Talents by good husbandry, they were his own for his labor, and more to boot, take the single Talent and give it to him that hath ten Talents saith the Lord. You that live in excess of pleasure and jollity, you that think Abraham hath lost his Isaac, that a religious and a devout life, obstinately averse from the sweetness of your time-consuming mirth and sport, is but sadness and melancholy, and mistaken. As no man heard the Music of Heaven but Pythagoras, so such as have lost the exulting bravery of the world in appearance are the only men to whose soul the harmonious joy of Heaven doth reveal itself. Like young Abishag in David's bosom; so Isaac and the fruit of joy and gladness is always before the eyes of Abraham: Your heart shall rejoice, and no man shall take it from you, says our Savior. Almighty God grant that we may esteem it the greatest treasure of our joy and felicity, that Jesus Christ, a Sacrifice well pleasing to his Father, hath died for us, and that his blood hath washed away our sins, and purchased us an Inheritance immortal with the Saints. AMEN.

THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE PASSION.

T Hough King Hezekiah destroyed the substance of the brazen Serpent to avoid peril of Idolatry, yet Christ hath renewed the memory of it in this Text. Neither was it fit that the remembrance of it should die, because it represented the death of him by whom we live forever. The Disciple to whom our Savior directed these words was Nicodemus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Ruler, a primary man, ver. 1. the best in quality of all the Jews that had yet come to Christ to be taught. The Text, I am sure, is not grown less than it was, but still it is fit to be preached of before a Ruler. Rulers are illustrious in their outward splendor and Titles: Let them use them nobly, and he that is greater than they will make them greater. But Christ calls Nicodemus to a new way of honor, to be all glorious within, and tells him copiously that this is to be achieved two ways. First, By regeneration of holiness, he must become a new man, he must be born again, he must be born of the Spirit, or he cannot see the Kingdom of God, ver. 4, 5. Secondly, By Justification, through Remission of sins in the blood of a Savior, and of this my Text speaks magnificently, as Moses, &c. So that Nicodemus the Ruler hath no readier way to amplify his honor than to be acquainted with the Passion of our Lord: And no way more direct to understand that salutiferous Passion than to possess his imagination with the figure of the Serpent which was erected in the Wilderness.

Christ could have taught him the mystery of his death in another Type, and a little more ancient, the immolation of the Paschal Lamb. But first Nicodemus took good liking to our Savior from his Miracles, No man can do these miracles that thou dost except God be with him, ver. 2. Now the mactation of the Paschal Lamb had nothing in it, but that which was ordinary in the external work; but the use of the brazen Serpent was a mighty miracle. Secondly, As many Lambs were killed as there were households to eat them, whereas there was but one Serpent made; which comes nearer to the just resemblance, that the Son of God by his one Oblation of himself once offered up, made a sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the world. Thirdly, The Lamb was presented as other Viands are in a dish: The Serpent was set up aloft as an Ensign, a clearer pattern of the exaltation of the Cross. Fourthly, In the consumption of the Lamb God did embalm the memory of his great mercy, and keep it fresh how he passed over the houses of the Israelites, and did not kill them, as he killed the Egyptians: But the Serpent was set up for the cure of those that were bitten with Serpents. In the former Type the people were sound and whole, in the latter Type they were stung and sick, and they that are whole do not perceive so well that they have need of the Physician as they that are sick. Lastly, He that did feed on the Paschal Lamb did eat by faith: And he that looked on the Serpent did see by faith. But though faith is the evidence of things not seen, yet the eye is more of kin to faith than the • aste, because it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a bodily mind, as the Heathen said, and our most heavenly sense. In a word, there were many other Figures of Christ's sufferings, but not any so plain as this for the use and application of it, that none but true believers can be saved by his sufferings.

To the full satisfaction therefore of that which is concerned upon this day, here you have Christ upon his Cross two ways, both in the Old and in the New Testament: For the Old Testament, in the best and most exact Figure; for the New Testament, in a direct and literal prediction. The figure contains these parts, first the symbolical thing, a Serpent. Secondly, The posture of it, it was lifted up. Thirdly, The place, in the Wilderness. Fourthly, The end for which, Sicut Moses, as Moses lifted it up. The Prediction of the New Testament is to fulfil the Figure: And that denotes 1. The Person, the Son of Man. 2. His inglorious glory, must be lifted up. 3. Here is a sic for the former sicut, a correspondence with the manner and the end of the Figure, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

First, Here is Christ crucified in the Old Testament in a symbolical sign, which is a Serpent. When his body hung upon the Cross it was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as St. Luke calls it, a sight for all the People to look upon that were present; for outwardly it was the deed of wicked men. But there was profundum crucis, as St. Austin observes, part of the accursed Tree was under ground for the stronger fastening; the end and use of it, which came from God, which is discovered to them that search by faith, is thus in a short sum, a remedy against that punishment which our sins had deserved; therefore to make a complete survey of this Serpent, first we must look upon it for our sins sake; secondly, for our punishment; and thirdly, for our remedy. And first by the object of the Serpent we see sin in the Author: Satan is traduced openly in this memorial for that Tempter that persuaded our first Parents to eat of the forbidden fruit. It is his contumely to see himself disguised in so base a creature; as God would not permit him to come in the form of a better creature, but in this vile shape to do the office of a murderer, so he is exposed to all Ages in the pourtract of that shape, that his pride may see itself in a vast distance of declension: an Angel in Creation, a despicable worm in his own mischievous Assumption. But as St. Athanasius doth well observe, there was a Serpent the Instrument, and there was the Devil the Ingeneer, two several natures compacted in some sort into one person, and joining in one stratagem to cast man out of Paradise; So God and man, two natures in one person, met together in our Redeemer to reduce us unto the favor of God, and to repossess us in a better Paradise. And as the Language of sin was first taught through the mouth of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden; so that it may never be forgotten, it is continued in the dumb show of a Serpent that was set up in the Wilderness. Secondly, By the object of the Serpent we see sin in the infection and contagion of it. It is the biting of an Adder, not perilous only to that part which is wounded, but dispreading all over, even to the vital parts of the body. Every drop of blood soaks in the malignity of that which is next unto it till there be no soundness remaining: So one part of our body being tainted with the poison of sin traduceth its corruption to another; if the ear be tickled with filthy talk, the loins will be unchaste: If the eye be wanton, the heart will suffer and wax impure: If the body pride it without, the soul cannot be humble within; every sense and faculty about us is a gangrene to another, and if you give up one member you give up all to be instruments of uncleanness. There is yet more contagion in the tooth of the Serpent, by committing one transgression you are at the brink of the pit to fall into another; the second offense makes the way smooth and slippery for the third. Peccatum quod per poenitentiam non deletur mox suo ponder ad aliud trahit, says Gregory; Every sin that meets not with the Antidote of Repentance hath an operative and a venomous nature to fetch in another evil spirit like unto itself. An high mind carries us to wrath, and wrath to revenge, and revenge to malice, and malice to murder. Thus it runs on like a spark in the stubble; and unless grace extinguisheth it, it is as unquenchable as the fire of hell. Beside, there is yet another Serpentine and pestilentious derivation in the works of darkness; one sinner is a thousand sinners more in the dangerousness of his Leprosy; one Absalom is an host of Rebels; one Ring-leader is a shole of Heretics; one Jeroboam is a Kingdom full of Idolaters; one incestuous person endangered the whole Church of Corinth with fornication, says St. Paul; and he was the occasion of his Proverb, That a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. A drop of Poison mars a glass of Nectar; Serpunt vitia, & in proximum quemque transiliunt, & contactu nocent, says Seneca. Stand far off from those that are impious, they have a catching disease about them, there is an infectious exhalation transpassant from man to man, because the first sin was the biting of a Serpent. Thirdly, By the object of the Serpent we not only see the Author of all sin, and the infectious venom of it, but likewise a cunning craftiness which Satan hath entailed to the mystery of iniquity, lying in wait whom he may deceive. There is nothing that will lurk more subtly to do an ill turn than some sort of Serpents, or steal an opportunity more warily. Then why should not all plots and mischievous arts of cunning be as hateful as an hissing Adder? Nay, why not as odious as Beelzebub himself the Prince of Devils? Some such there are, that have their sharpness of wit from no better founder than the old Dragon, that have no measure in their dissimulation, no trust in their word, no fidelity in their oath, no remorse, no distinction in conscience whom they ruin; and these are counted useful, and fit for employment. I do not altogether blame the Turks for reputing natural Idiots to be Saints. I am sure they are Saints in comparison with such cunning Merchants: But a true Christian is somewhat compounded out of the better part of them both, as it is Rom. xvi. 19. I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil. This is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Nazianzen inoffensiveness tempered with much intelligence. The simplicity of the Dove mitigating the subtlety of the Serpent. To say all in a little, Sin is supported by Stratagems, but Justice by grave knowledge. Therefore love wisdom because it comes from God: Practice innocence because it comes from Christ: Hate subtlety because it is the badge of the Serpent, abhor mischief, it is the work of the Devil.

This is for the general, we all see what sin is in the Image of the Serpent. More particularly, the Israelites saw their own sin in that spectacle wherewith they provoked the Lord, Num. xxi. 4. The people were not turned aside from the promised Land, but were wearied with a long journey, and in their bitterness they spake against God and Moses; They that serve God for temporal things will quickly murmur when they want rest and ease: If the ground be not soft under their feet they think it tedious though it should bring them to heaven. Beside, they loathed Manna; it was too light for their hot stomachs, and it did not satisfy. Somewhat else they would have, yet they could not tell what themselves: As they that are not contented with the bread that comes down from heaven shall be gnawn with the worm of superstition, that will never give them quiet, but these are the hints that provoked them to speak against God. A little painfulness was repined at as a great deal of misery; and a great benefit was repined at as but a little favor. Now they that whet their tongues like Serpents, was it not meet they should be stung with Serpents? They that spat Poison against their Maker, did they not deserve a poisonous castigation? Or will they dare to murmur anymore when they see their punishment cast in brass, and abiding for a durable monument? If we murmur against him whom we are bound to praise and love, is not that disloyalty? So did the Israelites. If we murmur at small evils that may be tolerated, is not that impatiency? So did the Israelites. If we murmur at good things, for which we should rather give thanks, if we murmur at Manna, the precious nourishment of the soul, is not that abominable ingratitude? So did the Israelites. And what should this sin be likened to but an Asp, or a Viper? No Serpent is so much a Serpent as a grumbling spirit, that is ever murmuring at God and Moses. And this is the first use of the Brazen Serpent, to turn unto it as a book wherein we read our sins. Peccatum peccati cognition curatur. For the first cure to be applied unto sin is to make a recognition of it with an humble and a contrite spirit, so did the truest Penitent and the greatest sinner King David, I know my transgressions, and my sin is always against me.

The next contemplation upon this brazen Image is not immediately to step from sin unto the remedy, for the vengeance due unto sin is to be considered between them both. Behold the bitter pain which Christ endured upon the Cross, and it accuseth us that the disobedience was monstrous, which must be expiated with so much sorrow. Quàm gravis sit peccati conditio prodit remedii magnitudo, says St. Austin; How great the guiltiness of sin was appears in the magnitude of the remedy. And no less it is apparent how insufferable that wrath was which we escaped, because he sustained so much wrath that bore it in our stead. Note the malediction which we had merited in the maledictive death which our Savior did undergo, and then it will be a pleasant thing to go to heaven as it were by the gates of hell: But there is nothing more dangerous than deliverance out of danger, if we forget the jeopardy. I will bring this clearly out of the matter we have in hand. The Creatures that annoyed the Israelites were Serpents: For a serpentine sin deserved a serpentine punishment: I will send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of the Serpents of the dust, Deut. xxxiii. 24. The teeth of other beasts might have procured a dismal slaughter, but because a Serpent was accursed above every beast of the field, the wounds that they made did superadd unto death the meditation of a curse, and that their judgment was compounded with malediction. And this was prosecuted in the figure, that the brazen Serpent was lifted upon a pole to keep in mind that sting of the Law, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Therefore you cannot deny that this is a looking-glass of Justice before we come to mercy. As Christ crucified is a type of condemnation to unbelievers, but a sacrifice of salvation to those that trust in his Redemption. Oleaster says that the first Epithet that God gave to this Figure was to call it a Fiery Serpent, Num. xxi. 8. because a fire of Coals did continually burn within it, that first it might strike dread and horror into all that saw it before it healed the impotent. The fire of hell was annexed to that grace and blessing which came from heaven, as if the sword of justice had been put up in the Scabbard of mercy, but they were never asunder. Lose not yourself in applying mercy, and nothing but mercy to your conscience lest it befall you as it doth with a Be that is drowned in its own honey: But correct presumption and confidence by converting to some remarkable objects of indignation. When Achan that troubled the Land was executed, They raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day, says the Holy Ghost, Josh. vii. 26. God doth not suffer grievous punishments to vanish as shadows, but he makes them continue as Pillars for Ages to come. Burial did not abolish the memorial of his trespass, as it was engraven upon the Monument of an Egyptian King that went down with much sorrow to his grave, because of his sacrilege, In me quis intuens pius esto; He that looks upon my Sepulcher let him learn to be religious. You read of Lots Wife in the same Gospel where you read of Mary Magdalene, of her Pillar of salt as well as of the others box of Ointment. There she stood congealed in the open field, and never went down to the dead that she might be always in the remembrance of the living: So the Brazen Serpent did exhibit those mortal Serpents which annoyed Israel in their journey. Like to like. And this the Lord's of the Philistines had heard of, and did imitate it, 1 Sam. vi. 4. For they sent home the Ark with a trespass-offering, five golden Emerods, the very figures of the diseases wherewith they were chastised. I know no pattern that could lead them into that fancy, but only this in my Text. The right use of it, whether the Philistines knew it or no I am uncertain, is this: That when a punishment is exemplified in a figure, and resembled to the life, it is a deprecation that God would with-hold it from us, and mitigate his wrath, but so that we cannot be ignorant that his Arrow is still in his Bow, and he hath not removed away his hand, but is ready to send his Army of Serpents again, if we return unto our sins.

And now according to the exact method of mortification, having done our duty to set our sins and our punishment before us, we may look towards the Serpent as a remedy: And it shall come to pass that everyone that looketh upon it shall live, Num. xxi. 8. A welcome sign to that poor People of the old Law; the delights of the Synagogue for which they lifted up their hands to Heaven were length of days, health, and sound habit of body, poor accessories of a transitory happiness; they rested in such favors more than in better things that concerned their Spirit and their Soul; wherein they succeed them that value the benefit of their Physician above the blessing of their Bishop. But God did time it with them according to their imperfection, and gave them a new Salve for a new Malady, that their flesh might rejoice in the living God. The Land by which they passed was full of noxious Vermin; Who led thee through the Wilderness, wherein were firy Serpents and Scorpions, Deutr. viii. 15. If God had kept them from the teeth of this venomous brood, • equid erit pretii, should he have gotten any thank for his protection? affliction unfelt is unregarded: It was better to have some sense of a wound, that they might know what a Deliverer was in the experience of a Cure. Or if Dictamnu • , and the secret virtue of other herbs had relieved them (as Moses was skilled in all that Science) the work of Nature, and not the God of Nature had been magnified. But Discorides says, that an hot venom, namely that of the Dipsas and Causon, are incurable, therefore in a desperate case, when all secondary causes were unprofitable, nothing but a Miracle made them whole that were diseased. And that which was most abhor'd, a Serpent was hanged up, as if it were not enough to be cured, but they triumphed over that which annoyed them: Out of their mischief came the mitigation of their pain, as cunning Leaches confect Treakle out of Vipers, and Oil of Scorpions out of Scorpions: a Serpent was the Instrument both of death and life; for it is God that kills and makes alive again; as a Whale devoured Jonas, and a Whale cast him alive upon the shore. Again here was no application per contactum, to the green Sore, which is the ordinary course of Chirurgery, not so much as an Unguent besmeared upon the substance of the Serpent, the new device of Unguentum armarium, not so much as the touch of Moses hand upon the part ill affected, as many of the Strumosi are touched this day by God in the finger of the King: No more was required of them that languisht, but to bestow the cast of their eye upon the Figure, that God only might have the glory in the Medicinal operation; For he that turned himself toward it was not saved by the thing which he saw, but by thee O God the Savior of all, Wisd. xvi. 6. Yet more strange, the Remedy having no congruity with the relief of the Disease, God did supply the efficacy; but this was like spittle and clay upon the eyes of the blind man, fitter to make him blind than to make him see. Rabbi Joseph says (I say it upon his credit) that to look upon polished Brass, is present death to him that is bitten with a firy Serpent. To reconcile these enmities in nature, to make antipathies afford friendship, to turn destruction to be preservative, to overcome one death by another, it doth not only lighten my thoughts to the incomprehensible power of our Creator, but it breaks me off from this object before I am aware, to consider Christ and his Passion, wherein these effects are gloriously conspicuous: he is the Serpent lifted up in the Wilderness.

A Similitude of great humiliation: Non solum per hominem, sed etiam per pecudem est figuratus, says St. Austin; the mighty one by whom the Worlds were made did not only take the form of a Man, but is disguised in the figure of a Beast; and among Beasts, if any be more filthy than another, we all know it is a Serpent: Yet thus much we must abate in him from the nature of that pestiferous brute, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Nazianzen, it had the shape, but not the poison of a Serpent: God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, but no more than in the likeness, and condemned sin in the flesh, because no iniquity was found in him: all that came out of his mouth was an antidote, and not a venom: His Maligners called him Carpenter in scorn, they could not call him Sinner; dicunt habet daemonium, non dicunt habet peccatum; they slandered him and said he had a Devil, but their tongues would not let them lie, nor permit them to say he was a Transgressor: a Dove was not more innocent than this Serpent. No Heresy methinks is more incredible, if St. Austin had not faithfully reported it, than that of the Ophitae, who kept a Serpent under the Altar, to creep out, and lick their Oblations which they brought to God, as if a noxious Dragon were a seemly imitation of this Image in my Text, that had no offense in it. What agreement was there between poison and no poison? Nay, between that which wounded, and that which healed? Between a Destroyer and a Savior? It must be harmless at least which stood in his stead that came not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. And indeed, the best that we can say of the Figure is, That it was harmless, and no very Serpent: But it were dotage to suppose that the material thing had any secret virtue of restauration, no more than the Figure of the Cross upon the post-fact is operative, a superstition which our Church hath justly disclaimed. He sent forth his word and he healed them, says David; it was God's Word and Promise that cured them, and not the brazen Element. But Christ contained remedy in himself, and in his all-sufficient Sacrifice; For the Son of righteousness did arise with healing in his wings, Mal. iv. 2. What hath he not healed if we will lay the plasters of his Passion to our sins? By his Poverty he hath condemned Covetousness; by his charitable Prayers for his enemies implacable malice; by the price for which the holy One was bought and sold Sacrilege; by his Crown of thorns Ambition; by the humility of his Cross Pride; by his Gall and Vinegar Luxury; by his Patience Impatience; by his infinite Love, Envy; all his torments were preservatives against poison, every part of him is sanity. And that not only because this Figure was unvenomed, but chiefly because it was a dead lump, and not a living Serpent, Mortuus serpens vivos superabat, says Macarius; The living Serpents were charmed by the dead one, that they had no power to kill. The blood of Christ purgeth us from our sins, and his death was our victory against death that we might live forever. It was well done of Nicodemus to spare no cost to imbalm his body: It was piously done of Mary Magdalene to pour her precious Ointment upon his head against the day of his burial; for therein we became the savor of life unto life, and his Funeral was our immortality. As Samson found his honey comb in the Carkass of the Lion, so the Church finds sweetness in the bitterness of his Passion. Caiaphas did not feel the vigor of his own Prophesy, it slipped from his tongue, and not from his heart, That it was expedient that one man should die for the sins of the people. His Successors contradict it obstinately to this day, and control it thus: How can he save us that is crucified? I return them an answer from my Text, How could a dead lump of Brass expel their poison that were wounded? If they depended upon a thing inanimate for the life of their body, wherefore do they not attend the mystery, that they must depend upon a Savior put to death for the life of their Soul? Attenditur serpens ut nihil valeat serpens, attenditur mors ut nihil valeat mors, says St. Austin. The Jews looked upon a Serpent to be freed from Serpents; and Christians look upon death to be delivered from death. There is one analogy more to be collected out of the unity of the Figure. One Serpent was lifted up for the general preservation of all the Camp of Israel. Not twelve distinct ones according to the number of their Tribes, and much less no uncertain multiplication according to the number of their Families. Nulla salus sine unitate; The hope of health and remedy is founded in unity. Our God's are not Plural, our Redeemers are not many; they that have divers Savior's have never a Savior. They that have tutelary Martyrs for almost every Church, and Patron Saints distinctly for every Kingdom, they have so many Serpents lifted up, and they look so many ways that their wounds stink, and are corrupt through their foolishness, and they prosper no way. We have one head to which the body is knit; one Shepherd to guide the Flock; one corner stone in the building; one Serpent in the Wilderness; One Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. An infinite virtue can admit of no co-partnership. I tremble at their infidelity that frame Scholastical Cases out of their own brain, how others are subservient to the Son of God in the work of our Redemption. But he says, I have trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me, Isa. lxiii. 3. Whether an Israelite chanced to be stung in the head, or in the face; whether upon the breast, or in the lower parts of the body; one Serpent upon the Pole was enough to heal all. So we have sins original and actual; of commission and omission; of ignorance, infirmity, and presumption; of thought, word, and deed; Undique morsus; we are stung from the crown of the head to the soul of the foot. But as all are dead, so one died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto him that died for us, and rose again.

Now for the material part out of which this Figure was carved, it was not wrought in stone. The Law was written in Tables of stone, but grace and mercy are of another complexion. It was not Silver or Gold (though they in some sort are most correspondent in nature with Serpents, for they are the bane of godliness and justice) but we were not redeemed with corruptible things, as Silver and Gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb undefiled. It was erected in the strong and durable substance of Brass: For one Generation passeth away, and another cometh, but the virtue of Christ's Cross is perpetual, and endures forever. It is not my excogitation, but Isidors, In serpent mortuus, in aere aeternus; Dead as the Serpent upon the Pole, but durable as the Brass, because the benefit of his death continues always. Therefore his blood is called, The blood of the everlasting Covenant, Heb. xiii. 20. Sooner shall all the brazen Pillars and Monuments upon earth be resolved into dust than one jot of this Covenant should be violated; the merit of his Passion makes intercession for us continually before his Father, and never ceaseth. Behold our Pardon is engraven in Brass, never to be blotted out, it is too strong to be dissolved. I look not upon that which is fluxive and changeable, but upon a propitiation in Brass: Yet not upon the Altar of Brass lest the Israelites should think that their own Sacrifices of Sheep and Oxen did help them, but upon the Serpent of Brass, to let them perceive that it was the Sacrifice of Christ that healed them. Beside, could a Statue of Brass endure more injuries than were laid upon the tender body of our Savior? Could an Anvil sustain more stripes and blows? When Job began to sink under the pressure of his afflictions, says he, Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass? He was a man that had the courage to suffer much, yet he had not a brazen body; infirmity made him sink, and wish for death; but Christ endured for our sakes as a man of brass. I pray God we have not hearts of steel that do not consider it. Above all the Prophets Isidore doth well to call Jeremy 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the most passive of them all; therefore God ordained him to be the dungeon of misery in these words, Behold I have made thee this day as an iron Pillar, and a brazen Wall, Jer. i. 18. So Christ endured the merciless wrath of his persecutors, as if he had been scourged and crucified not in flesh and blood, but in brass or iron. What a raging heat there is in a furnace of brass? So Christ complains in his Agony as if he had been a molten furnace, Lam. iii. 13. From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them. Therefore God appointed Moses to make a fiery Serpent, Num. xxi. 8. It seems the Serpent was like a Censor of brass, and the fire of Incense was put into it, that it might be a sweet savor unto the Lord, ascending up with the prayers of the Congregation. Or what is fitter to express the two natures of God and Man in one person than brass when it gloes with fire? The Human body without, and the fire of the Divinity within, these are the Ingredients of that Mediator who bruised the head of the old Serpent, took away our reproach, and abolished our Iniquities. Therefore the fire was as necessary for our use as the Brass, the Brass that is the Manhood to suffer, but the Fire that is the Godhead to make the sufferings of infinite price and inestimable value. But that which we translate, as the seventy two have guided us, a fiery Serpent, is Saraph in the Original, which if it signify fire it is Celestial fire, for from thence comes the word Seraphim the highest order of Angels, who are inflamed with the zeal of charity. O how much of that fire was in the Serpent that healed us? What a Grove of love was in his heart, which no eye nor thought can penetrate? Who could have passed through so many thorns, and nails, so many scoffs and derisions but that his love was like fire that could not be quenched. Lord, if thou hadst not loved me, thou hadst not been born for me: But if thou hadst not loved me more than thyself, thou hadst not died for me, thy humility bore all; thy patience overcame all; but love sat at the Helm of the Ship, and that commands all. O thou sweet Tyrant, says Nazianzen, how strong are thy fetters with which thou tiest the Son of God? And so I have done with the Serpent for his own frame and composition, for the present use of it, and for the Mystery. I come to the Posture, it was exaltation, for Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness.

For else how could six hundred thousand men and more have recurrence unto it in their necessity to look upon it if it had not been lifted up? Justin Martyr, who had reason to be skillful in these things being a Samaritan by birth, says that Moses having fastened the Serpent to along Pole, erected it upon the top of the Tabernacle, and then the remotest person might easily glance upon it; for every Tribe keeping the distance of two thousand Cubits, that is an English mile, from the Tabernacle, Josh. iii. 4. and the doors of all their Tents opening inwards towards the Tabernacle, their eye-lids could not open but they must see that object, which was the Mast of the Ship, or the Spire of the Steeple upon the Church of the Tabernacle. Others consider it as an Ensign, or Banner, as if God had prepared to fight for Israel against the spiritual wickednesses in high places. But if we fall into the slumber of Metaphors we shall meet with nothing but dreams. It was disposed by the most High, that the remedy to which the people were bidden to look should be exalted, that the interior thoughts of the heart might fly to God for succor, after the president of the exterior contemplation. Israel might stoop to the earth to gather Manna for the sustentation of their body; but they must look towards heaven for their preservation, and to be delivered from death and hell. I see nothing but corruption under me; salvation and immortality are on high above me.

Translate our meditations from the sign to the thing signified, and a Serpent elevated upon a Pole was Christ hanging upon the Cross. It is his own exposition, Joh. xii. 32. And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me. This he said signifying what death he should die. He calls not that most ruful death his ignominy, or his confusion, or his humiliation, but a lifting up, a promotion, an exaltation. Can you devise a more cheerful word for so sad a business? Three ways he was lifted up, Ut victima, ut victor, ut mediator. In the manner of his death as a Sacrifice; in the triumph over death, as a Conqueror; in his glorification, to sit at the right hand of God as a Mediator. First, The manner of his death was ordained that he should hang upon a tree, wherein pain, and reproach, and malediction might fall together like so many bitter waters in one torrent. The magnitude of the pain refers unto numberless considerations. Begin from hence, that his body was weak and enfeebled with Agonies, with watchings, with scourgings, with bearing his Cross; then this torn and bruised body was stripped naked, so that his raw wounds took air, and their smart was much augmented. After this began the execution, his feet and hands were pierced with nails, where the quickest sense of the body doth most resent offense; his Nerves and Arteries were cracked and distended; his body hanging upon its own weight; his arms were plucked out to his little ease, and great vexation, further than their natural longitude: But the further they were stretched the greater Emblem it was that he was ready to embrace us. His feet were plucked down, and fastened to a Pedestal, to let us know he will not go from us till we depart from him. The concurrence of so much torment parch'd the roof of his mouth, and made him thirst, and that thirst of his cannot be quenched but by our faith and repentance which is liquidated with tears: All these concurring forced his life from him that he gave up the Ghost. But tanto mirabilior resurrectio, quanto mors certior. Since his death was so certain, that none could choose but know; his Resurrection is more triumphant, that none can choose but admire it. And as the pain was excessive, so the ignominy of that death was superlative. Pone crucem servo; To hang on a Cross was a death for servants, not for Freemen and Citizens. Paul, a Citizen of Rome, was beheaded; Peter, one reputed a vile person, was crucified. It was the destiny of none but slaves, till Constantine in honor to our Savior did utterly forbid it to all Malefactors. Yet he whose service is perfect freedom endured it, that he might abrogate the thralldom of sin by the chastisement of bondage, and lead captivity captive. Add unto all this the malediction of that death, for cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Yet Christ avoided to be slain among the Infants of Bethlehem; he would not be cast down the steep Mountain in Galilee; nor be stoned by the Pharisees; but to expiate the first sin by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, he was exalted on a tree like the Serpent in the wilderness. And there is somewhat of observation in it, that he suffered in an elevation between heaven and earth, to purge the Region of the Air from the infestation of the Devil. Who was Damnatus ad acrem tanquam ad carcerem, says St. Austin, thrown out of heaven to remain in the air as in a prison, and therefore called by St. Paul, The Prince of the power of the air, Eph. ii. 2. Nay, Hesiod the Heathen Poet came to this knowledge (by what tradition I know not) that wicked spirits, enemies to mankind, were diffused over that Element. Therefore Jesus dying upon the Cross gave up the Ghost in the air that he might cleanse the air from those flying Serpents, that is from Diabolical infestations, says St. Athanasius.

Secondly, He was mounted upon his Cross as a Conqueror over that which was trodden down and trampled under feet; wherein he seemed to be condemned he condemned the world; wherein he took infirmity upon him, he shown invincible fortitude; wherein he suffered death he overcame the power of Death; From that fatal Tree which the Jews prepared for an indelible ignominy, Potentia redemptoris secit gradum ad gloriam, says Leo; The puissance of the Redeemer made it a degree unto glory. The Devil stirred up all sorts of men against him, his Disciples to deny him, the Jews to accuse him, the Soldiers to crucify him, the Passengers to blaspheme him. The more opposition the greater was the triumph. For the Psalmist makes it a Song of Jubilee, They came about me like bees, and are extinct as the fire among the thorns Let me give it a simile from another feast coincident this year upon the day of the Passion. The Patron entitled to the noble Order of the Garter sits victoriously on horse-back, and the Dragon is beaten under his feet, and cast upon his back: So our Champion rides in triumph upon the Cross, and his enemy fell before him: For Christ was visibly crucified, but the Devil invisibly, says Origen. When our Savior was transfigured, and appeared in glory, then Moses and Elias spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem, Luk. ix. 31. As if there were no fitter time to speak of his death than in that clarification, because his death was the purchase of glory, in that abasement he was exalted, and did exalt us that believe in him in that machine, and craned us up by his Cross to heaven. And therefore he promised unto the penitent Thief when he was upon the Cross the joys of Paradise, because his Cross did open Paradise to all believers. Two things are notorious marks, that this kind of death, so vile in appearance, was a constructive exaltation. First, that the imperial Ensign of the Roman Army in the days of Constantine the Great was cast into the figure of a Cross, known in ancient Authors by that obsolete word laborum, it was a victorious auspice to have the flag of the Cross, which was never overcome, to fly before them. Then it came to be extolled even to the top of the Crown of Kings: A locis suppliciorum fecit transitum ad coronas Imperatorum, says St. Austin. Once it was infamous for a sign of a servile death, now it is translated as it were from Golgotha unto the Crowns of Emperors. Fructus arborem exaltat, jam honor est non horror; The fruit that hung upon the tree hath taken away all ignominy from the tree, now the horror of it is changed into a Trophy of honor. As the Serpent was lifted up, so there was power, and exaltation, and victory in the sacrifice of our Savior.

Thirdly, As the Son of God was conquerant in death, so he was glorified after death. He humbled himself to death, even to the death of the Cross: wherefore God hath highly exalted him. By his Cross and Passion he hath entered into heaven, there to sit at the right hand of the Majesty forever. Now he is exalted in his Resurrection death hath no more dominion over him; now his name is blessed and hallowed, as the balm from which our salvation distilleth; now his Kingdom is enlarged from Sea to Sea, and the uttermost parts of the earth are his possession. Now his people are gathered unto him to magnify and praise him; all Kings shall fall down before him, all Nations shall do him service. These are the success and the consequents of his humiliation. Therefore as you would not envy his greatness in his Resurrection, so do not despise the meanness of his Passion. Non te pigeat videre serpentem in ligno pendentem, si vis videre regem in solio regnantem, says St. Austin; be not troubled to see him lifted up upon a Pole like the brazen Serpent, if you desire to see him sit upon his Throne as King of Kings, and Lord of Lord's. Ought not Christ to suffer these things, and so to enter into his glory? And let this confirm our faith, and make us willing to be conformable to his sufferings. The afflictive way, nay, the destructive way of persecution is the advancement of a Christian; to be plucked down is to be lifted up; Through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God, Acts xiv. 22. As some did swim to shore upon planks in that shipwreck wherein St. Paul was a companion, Acts xxvii. so being all of us in the common naufrage of sin, none are more safe than they that swim out upon the Cross which God hath laid upon them. If we must bid farewell to temporal prosperity, let us see what Pearls of patience and repentance we can find, as Job did, in the dunghill of sorrow and misery: If Tempests blow stronger and stronger let us strive, with Elias, to go up to heaven in the whirlwind, what we want in the Church Militant, continue steadfast in the truth and it will be supplied in the Church Triumphant. But in what estate soever you are, be lifted up from the earth, and let your affections be above. Let not Satan get the upper ground, and make advantage of it against us beneath. Is he in the air? Then shall my heart be in heaven. Is he upon an exceeding high mountain in his temptations? Then will I fly up to the Sanctuary of the Lord upon the wings of a Dove. For the Mountain of the Lord's house is established in the top of the mountains, Isa. ii. 2. Would he have me look upon the Kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them? No, I will look upon him who despised glory, and hath purchased honor by his opprobry, upon him who was lifted up like the Serpent in the wilderness.

Draw near now, and come unto that place where this miracle was acted. It was a waste in the borders of Edom, a nameless and a barren piece of ground, unprofitable to bring store into the barn, but profitable to yield some pious meditations, it is the wilderness. There was no place that received Israel where some memory or monument of God's mighty hand was not left behind, in Egypt, in the Red Sea, in Moab, in Basan, in the Wilderness. But this last put them to the greatest trial, it was ilium malorum; sorrows that met them single elsewhere, rusht all upon them in the Wilderness. There they suffered war and weariness; thirst and hunger; plagues and mortality. And though they called for redress they had none, only they had a cure for the biting of the fiery Serpents: So in this Pilgrimage upon earth all manner of offenses and afflictions are familiar unto us; and though we fast and pray they shall not be taken from us. No man must look for comfort, or plenty, or pleasure in a Wilderness. Let it suffice for all, that we have a remedy against the venom of the Serpent, against the deadly sting of sin. For if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is our propitiation; not that we should not be afflicted, but that we should not perish, but have everlasting life. I will make one question to the Point, that I may give many answers. Wherefore was so great a deliverance obscured in the Wilderness, where the world could take no notice of it? As the Disciples pressed our Savior to go into Judea that men might see his works. If thou do these things show thyself to the world, Joh. vii. 4. So had it not been better that the most frequented Cities had been spectators of this wonderful power of healing? And was not the Wilderness a little too secret for the fame and publication of it? I answer first, that is not the vogue and acclamation of the world that the God of sanctity aims at, but the faith of the Elect. The fewer that saw these wonders, the happier for them that believe and never saw them. Many works of the Lord are not necessary to be seen of all, but to be believed of all: and for the greatest mysteries all must believe though the eye did not, nay, though it cannot see them.

Secondly, Because the making of this Serpent by Moses had a typical drift in it to set forth Christ, we shall not see him more like himself than if we go forth to find him in the Wilderness, thither the Spirit led him forth to be tempted, and he fought against the Devil so strongly in those Lists, that he vanquished him by his innocence. Adam in horto superbus, Christus in deserto humilis; Adam was accommodated with too much pleasure, where the Serpent enticed him, therefore the second Adam pitched his battle in a Desert of a contrary condition. It was a Land uncomfortable for solitariness, neither fountains nor fruits in it, nothing but penury where Satan was overcome; but it was a garden dressed and delicate, filled with all manner of store, where he got the victory. But is it not better to be humble with Christ in a barren Desert, than to be proud with Adam in a delicious Paradise? Fight against the Tempter upon the same advantage that our Captain chose. Meet him not where pleasures abound: meet him not in the Garden, but in the Wilderness. Come my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the Villages, Cant. vii. 11. There is much contagion in the communication with the world, therefore the Beloved is invited rather to some harmless privacy. Fuge seculi mare, & naufragium non timebis, says St. Ambrose. Sail away into some little stream, leave the Ocean of ungodliness, which is in the most frequented places, and you shall not fear shipwreck. Our Savior made himself often a stranger unto this world, and retired into a Mountain alone, or into the Wilderness, Quasi in mundo extra mundum ageret; To teach us to live in this world as if we lived without it. When we find ourselves infected with the conversation of Court or City, it is the Wilderness we must fly to, a retiring to a private reckoning between God and ourselves, if we mean to be cured of Serpents. We had need of longer Vacations than Terms; more rest to pray and repent than stirring days to get wealth; that we may ask God forgiveness at leisure for those sins which we did commit in our business. Come ye apart into a desert place, and rest awhile, says our Savior to his Apostles, Mar. vi. 31. All cannot receive this saying, you will reply, all have not the opportunity to come out of the crowd, some there are whose worth and dignity keeps them always in action. To these I say, as our Savior prayed for his Disciples, I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil, Joh. xvii. 15. Says St. Cypriaen, Etsi omnes diversorium non capiat loci, animi tamen omnino necessaria est solitudo; All men cannot, must not cast off care, the Church and Republic cannot spare their company, that they should sequester themselves into remote places. O but let not the heart lose that happiness which is denied unto the body. I may be vacant to good meditation in the midst of troubles. I may stand before men, as my Calling requires, and be alone with God. Pious Meditation, which will not mix with any secular thing, is like an hermitage to the soul: Like a Wilderness wherein I have leisure to look steadfastly upon that Serpent who is the cure of Serpents, and the Balm of Gilead.

Lastly, (for the time breaks me off that I must conclude) there is no place more open or common in the world than a Wilderness. There the Image of the Serpent was fixed, as a public benefit, which was prohibited to none that would look upon it. They that stood nigh, they that were far off, it was indifferent to both if they beheld it steadfastly. So Christ crucified is alike unto all that believe, and call upon him; to Jew, and Gentile; to high and low; to Rich and Poor; to the generations that are passed, to us that are further off, and to the Generations that are yet to come. Let it not trouble you that the Brazen Serpent was lifted up in the midst of the Camp of Israel, as if it only served for the Latitude of that Meridian. It fell not to their lot in Canaan, or in Jerusalem, but in the Wilderness, which was every man's soil, and every man's possession. Therefore the root of Jesse is called an Ensign of the people to which the Gentiles shall seek, Isa. xi. 12. All have their part in this Ensign, the banner of our Victory, Christ exalted, that will seek unto him.