A Century of Sermons

All have their part in this Ensign, the banner of our Victory, Christ exalted, that will seek unto him. Crux Christi mundi est ara non templi, says Leo; The Cross of Christ was an Altar, yet not a private one belonging to the Temple: but public blessing to the whole world. That is the reason that he suffered not within Jerusalem but without it, to the end that all men that purify their hearts by faith may claim a property in his Oblation. Jesus that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the Gate, Heb. xiii. 11. Therefore let us go forth unto him without the Camp bearing his reproach. First, Let us go forth unto him, and seek him out as stranger that have no abiding City, but as Travelers that live in Tabernacles, and are passing to our own Country through a Wilderness. They that have set their rest upon earth, and say, here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein, they shall never find out the comfort of the Cross: but use this World as a Pilgrim, that would make haste with good speed out of it, and you shall find your Savior by the way. He is not in the secret Chamber, or in the Closet, or in the Palace, in none of these permanent and enduring habitations, but in the trac of the wayfaring men, that is in the Wilderness. And then the Cross of Christ stands upon such ground, where there is neither gain nor pleasure, no more than is to be looked for in a Wilderness: Therefore St. Paul makes this further use of it, let us go forth unto him without the Camp bearing his reproaching. Extra castra, & extra mundum ejusque splendida exeamus, says Theophylact; Leave the pomp, and beauty, and jingling of these vain things; if you stick to them you must perish with them, for they all shall perish. If you will remain in Sodom, you must be destroyed in Sodom. Is it not better to go into a Desert where there is nothing to eat, than to live among belly-gods where there is nothing but Gluttony? Is it not better to repent in Sackcloth than to be profane in Purple? Is it not better to want and seek God, than to abound and forget him? Serpens, sitis, ardor, arenae dulcia virtuti. A well disciplined Christian praiseth God for all imcumbrances of adversity, for the Serpents that fly about him with the stings of malice and infamy, for sickness and languor, for pain and weariness; he did not look for kinder, or more placid entertainment in a Wilderness: But he that looks steadfastly to the Serpent that is lifted up in the Wilderness, to Christ Jesus that suffered for the mitigation of our sorrows, for the cure of our wounds, for the accomplishment of our joys, for our victory over death, and for our entrance into life everlasting. AMEN.

THE FIFTH SERMON UPON THE PASSION.

C Hrist was crucified between two Thieves, the one a Blasphemer, the other a Penitent; an unfit place for Jesus the righteous, very incongruous to sort him among Thieves, though both had been penitent. But lo St. Peter exhibits him in my Text in another posture; on the one hand he sets before the Jews the demonstration of all his holy ways while He lived in humility, on the other hand his victorious resurrection, when he began to step into glory. The verse before my Text is the sum of his admirable, innocent, and best deserving conversation before he was betrayed into the hands of men, Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God among you by Miracles, Wonders and Signs, which God did by him in the midst of you: the verse behind my Text is the blazoning of his eternal life after He had destroyed death, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. In the first He lets them see their malice that they killed an Innocent, in the second He lets them know the impotency and weakness of their malice, that He was revived again, and exalted into Glory: the goodness and miracles which were conspicuous in him should have bred him reverence from his friends, and that the hand of violence should not touch him: but his loosening the pains of death, and breaking the bars of Hell asunder, must obtain him homage and worship from those that were his enemies. By the former description, that He was so approved, so well known for doing signs and wonders, their conscience would confess that He was a man sent from God: by the latter description, that he shook off the sleep of death, as Samson shook off his fetters after he awoke, their faith ought to confess, that He was God that came down to man. Thus stands my Text supported between the double honor of our Savior, on the one side his Noble Acts, how He lived in righteousness among men, on the other side, or on the reverse, his Resurrection, how He lives again in Power and great Majesty above the Angels.

This is the right way to consider his Death and Passion, and then you shall have no scandal at his Cross: have you not seen him pictured hanging on the Tree, with his Mother on the right hand, and the Disciple whom he loved on the left? if you have that figure in mind, you cannot forget the order which St. Peter observes in these three verses (the Breviary of the whole Gospel) whereof my Text is the Center; behold the sufferance of Christ, that's the middle, the love knot, the band of all; then the same of him that went before his death, like Mary that bore him in her womb, and the fame that went after his death, like John the Evangelist, who was the faithful Witness of his Resurrection. And so I have told you how the Text stands among its neighbor verses, but in itself, and in its own contents, it is the most proper work of that Meditation which is due to this time of Lent; it is a calling of sins to remembrance, a provocation to repentance, and both these through the consideration of the bloody Passion of our Lord and Savior. Now that shedding of the blood of Christ, which both accuseth us of sin, and cleanseth us from all our sins, is referred here to two causes that brought it to pass, two most several causes, and out of most divers ends; to God and to man. First, He was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; it did not happen, as a mischief that could not be avoided, by the sudden exclamation of the people, or by the inconstancy of Pilate, no the Council of the Holy Trinity had sat upon it, and concluded it before all time. Secondly, as the ordination of his death was to a good end, and from God; so the execution came from the Devil and his Instruments out of most malignant respects: that is, ye Jews that brought him to the Judgment-hall and urged against him, and did not leave till ye had murdered him, your hands were wicked that took him, and crucified him, and slew the Lord of Life.

Begin we with that Cause which was a Cause before all time, and then with that Cause which was a Cause in time: Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. What is this determinate counsel? what is this foreknowledge? how was Christ delivered through those means? these are the first Doctrines to be opened. Counsel or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 says Aristotle is to canvass and to consider doubts discreetly and providently before some action is to be effected, and to conclude out of those doubts well weighed what is best to be done, that is it which is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or understanding: 'tis very true, this is the way and progress of man's wit, to run through uncertain objections, and at last to come to clear determinations: and counsel among us is a rational remedy against rash and precipitate proceedings: beware to think that these rules do conclude Almighty God: there is counsel in God, not by way of deliberation and discourse, but because his infinite wisdom hath decreed all things, both which way they shall tend, and the bounds which they shall not pass, and that's the event of counsel: Concilium dicitur non propter inquisitionem, sed propter certitudinem cognitionis, says Aquinas, that is, counsel is attributed to God, not because He doth advise and demur, much less because He doth require the suffrages and opinions of others: but forasmuch as He hath established all things, how they should be effected in the fullness of time, therefore that Order and Decree, which is the upshot of counsel, among men is called to help the infirmness of our capacity, counsel in the Most High. Damascene was so scrupulous in this, that he chose words on purpose to destinguish between God and Man: In Deo est 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , non 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a resolution, as you would say, not a consultation; for all things are manifest to him at once, both of things that are, and things that shall be, nay of things that are only possible in themselves, and never shall be. But St. Paul prevented Damascene, and avoids that distinction, by putting those words together to make up one sense, Ephes. 1.11. Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Will and Counsel, are united in the operations of God; when you hear of his counsel, conceive the wonderful and mysterious wisdom of God; when you hear his will is joined unto it, observe his free power and authority: it was of old the description of a Tyrant, that his will was law, sic volo, sic jubeo, he managed all things according to the decree of his will; but if you looked for counsel, you should find nothing but rashness, and for the most part injustice; but in all the Statutes and Ordinances of God there is counsel in his will, summa ratio, verity and judgment in all things that he hath appointed: yet summa libertas nothing impels God to any Decree but his own free will and election, tempering all things with wisdom and justice; God doth decree both the means and the end of all things, and hath set them a Law, as David says, that they shall not pass.

In the next place some light must be given to this other term in the Text, the Foreknowledg of God: to foresee a thing before it be actually effected comes to pass in a threefold manner, either by the insight of natural causes: So Artists can foretell at what day and hour Eclipses of the Sun and Moon will happen; or by rational sagacity, as a prudent man can espy how affairs will succeed when a good foundation is laid; or by Divine inspiration, when the Lord from above doth give a spirit to his Prophets to behold things to come, as if they were present before their eyes. These three are thus laid down after the measure of our own understanding, but when we speak of God's foreknowledge it is of another fadom: for first all things that were, that are, that shall be, are present to him at one instant, those successions of time, past, present, and to come, which are differences to us, are none at all to God, his knowledge, which is eternal, reacheth with one simple act even to the producing of effects in time without all variation, and therefore is called Prescience very improperly, and with much dissimilitude from human ways of prescience. 2. Our foresight is bare foreknowledge, not able to put forward a good event, and as unable to prevent a calamity. Abraham could truly presage that Israel should come out of Egyptian bondage, but he could not hasten the time of their return: Isaiah could foretell that Judah should be led away into captivity, but he could not mitigate their bondage: but God's foreknowledge hath his hand and power always annexed unto it: for whereas my Text says Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; St. Peter says Acts iv. 28. that Herod and Pilate and the Gentiles were gathered together against Christ, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. He doth not only foresee good how like it is unto himself, and evil per dissimilitudinem sui, how unlike it is unto himself, but his providence intervenes, and manageth that evil which he foresees will arise out of the corrupt and depraved will of the creature to his own glory. It were an Epicuraean dream to imagine there is such a dull barren knowledge of things to come in God, as should not interpose, but leave all things to their own course and swing: therefore Stapleton had no such just cause to declaim against Beza, for rendering 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in this place not Praescience, but Providence. God did not provide, that is, decree it antecedently, that Judas should sin and betray Christ, but since the Creature will decline from good, consequently the Lord decrees the evil man shall not be restrained, but shall be suffered to heap vengeance upon his own head. Let Stapleton chafe at Estius, a great Doctor of their own, that says Prescience in this place stands for Predestination, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and predestination of God. Now Providence is the ordaining of all things to a good end, but Predestination is the ordaining of God's chosen Portion to a blessed end. I am sure Tremellius for Foreknowledg doth translate it Providence out of the Syrian Paraphrast: and do but mark the scope of this place, and you will find that Prescience here is annexed with Providence. For whereas the Jews thought that Christ had fallen into their hands through unability of defending himself from his Enemies, St. Peter beats down that error, that God's determinate Counsel and Providence was in the fact; but that had been a very weak Apology to say, that God foresaw it long before. And so much concerning these simple terms, to wit the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

Now that the righteous God, in whom such counsel, and such foreknowledge do reside, should deliver up his most innocent Son and our dear Savior unto death, that's a mystery to be weighed with modesty; the Text says positively God did deliver him, yet we know there is no injustice in the Most High, therefore this scruple is worth the scanning: First of all it is an harsh and offensive speech that some use, who perhaps mean well, that God did appoint and preordain Judas to betray his Lord, and the Jews to crucify him; and the reasons which they use to excuse the Phrase, as if God thereby were not made the Author of sin, seem to me to want sufficiency. Zwingli says, justo non est lex posita, you can set God no Law, therefore whatsoever you attribute unto him is no sin, because sin is the violation of a Law. Beloved, there are some things which cannot consist with God's glory, and that's an eternal Law as we may call it, observed by God to do nothing against his glory: He cannot lie, He cannot deny himself: thus the scripture speaketh. And Abraham talking face to face with God, says he, God forbid that the Judge of all the world should do unjustly: Would thou punish the righteous with the wicked? as who should say, that were to thwart the eternal Law which must not be infringed. This lays the opinion of Zwinglius flat. There is another pretence from very venerable Authors, that God purposeth and ordaineth the same act which man executeth; but man hath an evil end in it, so it becomes iniquity to him, whereas God intends a pious end, and therefore concurs not to man's iniquity; and they give a fair instance of their meaning out of my Text. Christ was delivered of his Father to save the World, that was the merciful and gracious work which was God's destination; but he was delivered of the Devil to make the Jews guilty of his death, of Judas for lucre sake, of the Priests and Pharisees for envy, of Pilate for fear: the scope of Pilate, of the Jews, of Judas was extremely distorted, so they became guilty of a mighty sin in the same work wherein God was righteous. This will not down with me I confess for safe Divinity; for first it favors that opinion of some Libertines too much, that it is no crime, but praise-worthy to do evil that good may come of it. Secondly, it cannot be shifted according to this opinion methinks, but that God ordains man to fall into that act, wherein he cannot choose but have a bad intention, and most diverse from the good purpose of God. And it is but a lame leg to hold up an halting cause to interpose, that God can work good out of evil, and bring light out of darkness; therefore though He preordains evil, He will wind it up well to his own glory: for surely they do not think of God as they ought, that He is all pure and holy, that think sin must be referred to God either as an efficient cause of it, or predestinately as a deficient cause, to declare his honor. Why, God stands not in need of our good works to set forth his praise, O my God my goods are nothing unto thee, says the Psalmist, much less doth he want our sins and our transgressions to make him glorious.

Thus I have premised that they have not my consent that say, that God ordained or decreed that Judas should betray our Lord, and that the Jews should blaspheme him, and despitefully entreat him: thus rather I would propound it to you in a far safer way, as I conceive, God did not decree those criminous actions of Judas, Herod, Pilate, &c. but He did decree the Passion of Christ, and did settle it in his sixth and eternal counsel, that he should shed his blood as a Propitiation for the World: actio displicuit, passio grata suit. I am led along with the judgment of Leo the Great in this point. Thus he. Did the iniquity of them that persecuted Christ arise out of God's Counsel and Decree, and that heinous treason worse than all villainy? Did the hand of Divine preparation arm them to it? this must not once be imagined of that supreme justice that governs all things: Multum diversum, multumque contrarium est id quod in Judaeorum malignitate est praecognitum, & quod in Christi passion est dispositum; that is, there is great dissimilitude between these two, how God foresaw the malignancy of the Jews, but it was his own disposing and ordination that Christ should suffer: therefore it comes to this sense, He was delivered to death simply, without addition of a death procured by sin, through the determinate counsel of his Father: but the conspiracy, and envy, and bloody outcries that concur'd in his death, the foreknowledge of God did apprehend it would be carried with that violence, and decreed to suffer it: Non inde processit voluntas interficiendi unde moriendi, says the same Father, God did not will after the same manner to have his Son die, and to have him barbarously crucified. To allot him unto death was very just, because that Lamb of God did take upon him the iniquity of us all; and Leo adds that God could have commanded some holy Prophet to have sacrificed Christ before him, even as He commanded Abraham to offer up his only Son Isaac, and the Lord of life and death might have permitted Abraham to strike the stroke without impiety, but to allot him to such a death, wherein factious Enemies delighted themselves in his pains, that cannot consist with such a God as hates the least impurity.

But my Text you will say declines it not, but that both his death, and his deliverance into the hands of the Jews, that is the manner of his death, both of them were ordained of God: and so they were, but with this correction of the proposition, omnia vel ordinata sunt à Deo ut fiunt, vel ordinatum non impedire, quo minus fiant, all that is good is ordained of God that it shall be, and all beside that is evil is ordained of God that it shall be suffered to be, and in those things which are to be referred to permission, I mean all the works of the Devil, I do not exclude the determinate counsel of God, nay it must necessarily be present at it: Quicquid permittit Deus consulto & volens permittit; there is Justice, and Wisdom, and Counsel from above employed about those things, wherein God is highly displeased: For first, no sinner in the world can say he was so permitted to enter into sin, that no impediments were cast in his way to avert him, some illumination he had, some instruction to draw him back, some remorse of conscience, though not in such measure as did infallibly prevail upon his crooked will. Even Judas himself was deterred from his Satanical proceedings, by the prediction of his Masters mouth, one of you shall betray me; by the warning of the sop; by rebuke and confusion, Judas betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss? though the treachery was permitted, yet these were impediments, though not such as would take place with a Reprobate. Secondly, God is no idle Spectator upon the actions of men whether good or bad; where he permits the Devil to draw us into temptation, his hand is not quite taken off from our sins, but that he moderates our offenses, and that many ways, as stopping our sins at such a quantity and excess, that they shall go no further; they that had power given them to kill Christ, had not power to break his legs, a bone of him could not be broken: and the Lord sets other moments of time than the sinner casts about for himself: as no man could lay hands on Christ (yet the Pharisees fingers itcht at him) because his hour was not yet come. Therefore thirdly it must hang together with that which goes before, that God disappoints a wicked man of that which he intends in his naughtiness, and brings it about to his own glorious ends. As Joseph said to his Brethren, Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, Gen. l. 20. Deus cogitavit id ipsum in bonum convertere, Junius adds that unto it. God did provide to convert it unto good. Neither is our faith endangered hereupon to suspect God as the cause of sin, because he draws his own ends out of evil; that He may do, and yet be no Author of sin, but abhor it, because He is Lord of those Creatures that sin and rebel against him; and the Creature can no more exempt itself from his dominion, because it is sinful, then because it is sinful it will escape his Law, or dissolve itself to nothing.

So then the antecedent Doctrine is sum'd up into this Thesis. If you ask in these terms, what was the cause of Christ's death, the answer is, it was God's Decree, and eternal Statute, for as much as He loved us with an everlasting love, and would not spare his own Son to pull us out of destruction. Again, if you ask who was the cause that Christ was buffeted, spot upon, crowned with thorns, crucified, the answer is, the Devil and his Instruments; but when the Lord foresaw how their cruelty and blasphemy would abound, his Counsel did direct, moderate, confine their sin; and his loving kindness towards us, that He might show us plenteous redemption did permit it. The ancient Fathers of the Church thought this the truest and most inoffensive conclusion, to refer the injurious slaughter of Christ not to God's ordination, but to his permission. You heard Leo 's judgment before, to whom St. Austin agrees. The Jews enacted a sin which the righteous Lord did not compel them to do, for no sin doth please him, sed facturos esse praevidit, quem nihil latuit, but this was foreseen of him to whom nothing is concealed. Yet St. Chrysostom more clearly, that the scope of this part of St. Peters Sermon to the Jews is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it was not their rage and violence which could have prevailed against Christ, if God had not permitted it; for as He did not command the evil Spirit to seduce Ahab and his flattering Prophets, but the Devil offering himself, and being most desirous to do that mischief, God gave him leave, and would not inhibit him; so the Jews were not authorized, or ordained or stirred up from God to show that prodigious hatred to his Son, but He yielded him up to their fury, and did not deliver him: therefore Christ did not say, Father why hast thou given me up into their hands? but my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Surely this is the scope of my Text, and I believe they shoot wide from the mark, that collect from hence, that St. Peters meaning was either to excuse their heinous trespass, or else to comfort their wounded conscience, because Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God: no all the comfort which was administered is verse. 38. Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. There is no comfort under the Sun, no balm in the world for a miserable sinner, but repent, and believe that there is abundant mercy in the satisfaction of Christ Jesus: and for excuse, that little extenuation of their fact which could be made, is chap. iii. ver. 17. Ye desired a Murderer and killed the Prince of Life, but I wote that through ignorance you did it, as did also your Rulers: these are plain and divine Allegations, and there is no color to help the greatness of their sin either from the determinate counsel, or from the foreknowledge of God; not from the determinate counsel, for they had not an eye in the crucifying of Christ to comply with God's counsel, but to satiate their own spleen and hatred; for impious men may execute that which God is content should come to pass, and yet they do nothing less than obey God; for obedience is not grounded upon the thing done, but upon the readiness and duty of the will in doing: beside, was there any Law that commanded the High-Priests to crucify our Savior? for God doth ever reveal his will in some Law. No such Law I am sure, therefore no obedience in this bloody work of the Jews. For no man can be said to obey that doth not know the will of the Lord, neither doth direct his actions by the Rule of any Commandment; And what had they to do with God's secret counsel? They had not the least glimpse of it; Therefore my Text chargeth them home, Ye have taken him, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain him. It is an error to amaze a man, that reads it in the Popes Canon Law, that because it was the counsel of the holy Trinity, and the obedience of Christ to humble himself unto death, even unto the death of the Cross, therefore the Jews had sinned deadly if they had not crucified him. It was well rejoin'd by one, that he wondered how the dumb and dead Paper did not stand up, refusing to take that ink wherewith such an abominable blasphemy should be printed, whereby the immaculate Lamb of God, in whom there was no sin, is affirmed to be justly and worthily condemned.

But will the fore-knowledge of God, and that permission which followed it, plead any part of their pardon? Nothing less; his fore-knowledge compels no man into the way of perdition. God fore-sees iniquity in us because we will be evil, but we are not made evil because he foresees it. There have been always some in the world whom the Devil hath blinded with pernicious error, making them dream of inevitable Fate and Destiny, chiefly knitting this fallacy to fool themselves, that God's fore-sight cannot be deceived, therefore such sins as he foresaw they would fall into are not to be declined. St. Austin reprehended one of his College or religious house for this saying, Qualiscunque nunc sim, talis ero qualem me Deus praescivit; Whatsoever I am now, at last I shall be no other than just as God foresaw I should be: Whereas, says the holy Father, his saying had been better on this wise, God foresaw I should be such a one, either as I would make myself by sin, or by his grace and piety. If I can I will clear that which makes the Objection seem to be difficult. No man can be condemned for actual sins unless he do commit them through his own willfulness. But nothing is willfully done which is inevitably and necessarily done; and freedom is quite taken away unless you take away all kind of necessity. But God's prevision from all eternity infers a necessity through the supposition of it that nothig can alter from the way, wherein before all time he saw all things lie naked and open before him. This is the Objection, and the Answer is most solid and punctual, though not so clear and easy to common understandings as the Objection. But thus: That which God foresees shall be but presupposing that God saw the effect in its causes that it would be: Therefore it is all one to say, that God sees it that it is, and it is impossible but whatsoever is, when it • s must be even so as it is. Yet a little nearer to perspicuity, you may consider an action either in the putting forth and the doing, or when it is past and done. In the doing God foresaw man had power either to do, or not to do, and therein foresaw he was left to his freedom, and the liberty of his own counsel; thus God saw from all eternity that man was not put upon evil or destruction necessarily; then consider that action as foreseen of God to be done and committed, so it is necessary: But no otherwise, than as we know it was necessary that Lot was drunken, because that which is past and gone cannot be recalled. You see an Archer drawing his Bow, you see he may choose whether he will let the Arrow fly from him or not, but when it is gone out of the Bow, it is not in his will and power to resume it. So God did foresee the thoughts of the Jews, and when they were shooting out their Arrows, even bitter words, yet after the liberty of their own will they might have stopped and refrained; then he saw that they took to the worst, and chose death rather than life, so he let them walk in their own inventions, which made them stumble and fall. Perhaps you will yet plead against God, and say, the Lord knew the ways of wicked men, and he is Almighty, and could have stinted their iniquity, that such hellish effects should never have been wrought. I sweep away this cavil with a word. God was not wanting to put impediments, and very great ones, in the ways of Christ's enemies, that they might have desisted and been wise; but if these were made insufficient, know that he is not bound to use Omnipotent means to repress impiety. It is his great pleasure to put his Creature to the trial of obedience, therefore it had not stood with his wisdom either to have made such a Law as man could not break, or to endue him with such abilities as he could not transgress. He will hedge in the way of sin to some, on whom he casts his best good liking, he will remove the objects and occasions of lewdness far from them, they shall not come within the grasp of fearful temptations. He would not let Paul kick against the pricks, nor hale men and women, that acknowledge Christ, before unrighteous Judges; but all men are not Paul's in God's dearest love and purpose. Some are given over, as these Jews were, to a reprobate sense, but according to their own wish, their blood be upon their own heads, for God was innocent.

Now it is time to draw this Point into a Conclusion, and in this form and use; Let no calamities or malignities of this world offend us, though the Church of Saints goes by the worst oftentimes, let it not provoke our soul to say in its bitterness, is there any Providence above? Is there any knowledge in the most High? Quis putat esse Deos? He that will cut a man off, when he begins to narrate a matter, and not hear his tale out, will quite misconceive him, and lose the sense of his Narration: So it happens to them that look rashly upon some miserable events in the world, and search no further; the uppermost part of those things which they see is Satan reigning, Sin increasing, Justice declining, Religion mourning: But the bottom and the nethermost part of this tragical spectacle is Profundum justitiae & sapientiae; eternal Justice revenging these injuries, coelestial and inscrutable wisdom drawing peace out of contention, repentance out of sins, content out of poverty, and an innumerous increase of faithful men and women out of bonds, and captivities, and persecutions. They have not the patience to hear God tell out his tale, they will not lend their eyes so long to see him bring his work to consummation, that do not discern into his holy counsels, that at last he will wind up all those things that appear most disproportionable to his honor, to the high advancement of his glory. Was ever the name of God defied in anything so much as in the shameful death of Christ? Ah thou that buildest the Temple in three days, come down from the Cross and save thyself. And again, He trusted in God, let him deliver him if he will have him. And yet this that seemed such a blur to God's renown, was converted into such a good use, that all the blessings that ever we received in this world were not so fruitful, so beneficial to us, as the death of Jesus. Look not upon the superficies of his sufferings, as some do, and no more, a Picture in a glass-window will read you that Lesson; but look into the inward sanctuary, into the bosom of this mystery, that he was delivered by the determinate counsel, and foreknowledge of God.

You have hitherto attended to the first part of my Text, that the ordination of Christ's death was from God, and to a good end and purpose; the latter part, which I will but snatch at and away, is, that the execution of his death came from the Devil and his Instruments out of most malignant respects, Him ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. Ye have taken, this is no backbiting, no defiance at a distance, where the Jews did not hear him, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , withstanding them to their face; as St. Paul calls it. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom. O how boldly the man of God speaks being compassed about with those murderers? Some are fallen in our days into a most ridiculous way of reproof and exhortation if it be compared with this. They will discourse very earnestly what obedience the people owe in the audience of the King; and again, they will preach how the King is tied to justice and equity far from Court in the audience of the People: Inveigh against ingrossers of Grain in the City, and against false Merchandise in the Country. This is a most preposterous course, and no way intended to edify their Auditors. So St. Peter might have tax'd the Idolatry of the Gentiles in the hearing of the Jews, and the sin of the Jews that they killed Christ in the hearing of the Gentiles; but that partition had been very ill divided. For it were like that Paradox in Chirurgery, called Unguentum armarium, to cure a man without application of the remedy at an hundred miles distance. No, St. Peter had no such Quacksalver tricks in Divinity, but directs his reprehension to them that were before him, Ye have taken, &c.

And all the Jews were rightly thus accused, (except those few of men and women that were his Disciples and followed him) for if they were not such as accused him falsely, yet they were such as suborned Catives to betray him. If they were not in the plot of betraying, they were in the sin of delivering up to Pilate; if not among those that delivered him up to judgment, yet among those that cried out Crucify him in the time of judgment. Nay, though they did not cry out, nor so much as in their hearts consent to his unjust trial, yet they held their peace, they suffered wrong to prevail and did not resist it. They did not put off the Roman Soldiers, and stay their fatal hands; in one respect or other they were all as guilty as St. Peter chargeth them, By wicked hands ye have crucified and slain him. Some of the Jewish Rabines slout at these words of St. Peters to this day, saying, the Christians are quite mistaken to impute unto them the crucifying of Christ, for they had no such kind of death in their Law, and they did all things à punto according to their Law, they crucified no man. They had but four capital punishments for Malefactors, says Maimonides, after the tradition of Moses, killing with the Sword, stoning to death, hanging on a tree by the neck, and burning. But the infliction of crucifying was unheard of to their Nation. Thus they. And whereas Cardinal Baronius, Cardinal Sigonius, Justus Lipsius, and some other learned men, contradict the Rabbin's in this, I think they did amiss not to believe their great Doctors in their own Laws and Customs, wherein they were most expert.

The true retortion is, that in the days of Christ the power of life and death was taken out of the hands of the Jews by their Lord's the Romans that reigned over them; therefore they implore the Roman Magistrate that he would condemn and execute their Prisoner after the Roman Laws, and the Romans did deal with him after the rigor of their Laws, which sentenced all those that were convicted of sedition and raising tumults to the bitter death of the Cross. So Christ foretold to his Disciples anon before he entered into Jerusalem, That the Son of man should be betrayed unto the chief Priests and Scribes, and they shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him, Mat. xx. 19. It was not the custom in Israel to strike nails through the feet or hands of any that were hanged up, says Maimonides, Nay, the most accurate Casaubon says, that there is not one word in all the Hebrew tongue for being nailed to the Cross, so little were they acquainted with the punishment. This 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in my Text, affigentes, which the Vulgar Latin most ignorantly reads affligentes, is heathen Language, and unknown to the Jews. The Rabbin's, in contempt of our Savior, call him in their Tongue sometimes as you would say 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he that was hanged; but their Tongue could not furnish them with a word to say, he that was fastened to a tree. There may be divers ways of hanging on a tree beside crucifying; and the Old Testament useth ever the general phrase, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a Tree. The only place in the Old Law which hath respect particularly to the death of the Cross, is Psal. xxi. 17. They pierced my hands and my feet. Therefore the Rabbin's have endeavored to corrupt that place more than any other in all the Bible. But the Psalmist alludes to that which the Jews should procure, and the Romans execute. One only place selected out of Sozomen by Casaubon avails much to prove that crucifying was not a Jewish but a Roman fashion: For Constantine thought that no Malefactor was worthy to die on a Cross, because our Lord had so suffered, the just for the unjust, therefore he took away that penalty of crucifying used before by the Romans, says Sozomen.

Therefore the vulgar Latin Translation mistakes the words of my Text, but hits the sense very well, for it hath not Per manus impias, by wicked hands, but Per manus impiorum, by the hands of the wicked; as if it were in Greek 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with an Article, which would make it personal. But then the meaning is, ye Jews have taken him, and by the hands of the wicked, that is, of the Gentiles, have crucified him and slain him. So Christ foretold, The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of sinners, that is, into the hands of the Gentiles. We that are by nature Jews, and not sinners of the Gentiles, says St. Paul, Gal. ii. St. Chrysostom understands it two ways, either by the hands of Judas, or by the hands of the Soldiers. It is all one; for consider it well, and it is rather the worse on their side than the better: They suborned Judas, they importuned Pilate, they stirred up the Soldiers. St. Peter passeth over these instrumental, accidental coadjutors, and directs his invectives against them that had the chief finger in the murder, that set all the wheels a going; Ye have taken him, and crucified him. If David could discern the hand of Joab in the woman of Tekoahs Parable, then be sure the Lord doth espy the chief Actors and Complotters of all mischief, and rebellion, though others appear in the fact, whom they have exposed to censure and dangers. Statists love to bring about odious projects by the hands of underlings, as the Ape in the Fable would take the Chesnut out of the hot Embers with the Cats foot. But God will send his Angels to gather up the Tares in bundles, all that were Complices in the same sin shall make one bundle both Jew and Gentile. For there is no connivence in God's justice, no ignorance in his wisdom, no partiality in his sentence, To him therefore be glory forever. AMEN.

NINE SERMONS UPON THE RESURRECTION OF OUR SAVIOUR.

THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION.

A Resurrection Text out of the first Sermon that ever the Apostles Preached upon the Resurrection, preached in their full vigor of sanctification, immediately after they had received the Holy Ghost, to let us know that Whitsunday was principally ordained for this end, to make Easter-day famous over all the world: for when God filled Peter, and all that were gathered together with that new wine of the Spirit which is mentioned in the beginning of the Chapter; what did it produce in the first instant? what effect did immediately flow from it as an essential property? read and mark from my Text onward to the end of ver. 36. this is the nail altogether struck upon; this is the Theme gone over and over, that God had raised up Jesus; the Book of the Psalms did prove it, and the Disciples were witnesses of it. O mystery of mysteries, and wonder of Miracles! the first lesson of faith, the Corner-stone of the Building, the most necessary Pillar of the Gospel, indeed the bloody passion of our Savior which was delivered us in the former verse, and the victory over death after that bloody Passion, which I shall instance upon in this verse; these two are the supporters of all Christianity, take away these two Pillars, as Samson broke down those that held up the Theatre of the Philistines, and you ruinate the whole Tower of Faith, and demolish it to nothing. Very fit it was therefore that all the tongues wherewith the Holy Ghost had endowed the Apostles with utterance to speak, should concur in this one point, and go no further in their first days labor, namely that Christ was become the first fruits of them that slept, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. And because this Sermon of St. Peters in the forenamed respects is such an illustrious testimony of our Lord's resurrection; therefore both Eastern and Western Churches have selected this Chapter of old to be the second Lesson for the Evening Prayer of this great Festival; so our Liturgy reteins it, which never recedes from good antiquity: and where our Church hath gone before me in her judgment, I thought it meet to follow her at this time in my duty, and to parcel out my Text from that great variety which the Chapter affords upon this occasion in these words, &c.

The division that I will give you upon this verse shall be easy to conceive, and that will help out some things which are a little difficult in the handling of the parts. First here is the Resurrection of our Savior barely and positively affirmed, whom God hath raised up. Secondly the complement of it, God loosed withal the pains of death. Thirdly the necessity of it, for it was not possible that He should be holden of death. He humbled himself, and became obedient to death, therefore He was raised up: He undertook the death of the Cross, being fast bound in misery and iron; but as fast as they bound him God loosed him from those pains: neither were these things arbitrary, accidental, obnoxious to any human impediment, but contrived and fixed by God's inevitable Decree, ought not Christ to suffer, and so to enter into his glory, says the mouth of truth and wisdom? There is an oportuit upon both, he must suffer, and he must overcome those sufferings. Oportuit, the former must be, and it was impossible he should fail of the latter. Or you compose this Text with the Points of the former Text, immediately connected with it, and see the amends made by God's mercy for the Jews fury. Ye have slain that holy one, says the Apostle; but what follows? God hath raised him up. Ye have taken and crucified him, but see the alteration, God hath loosened all the pains and pangs of death: He must not escape your hands, it was permitted unto you from above, he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God: And he must escape all his ghostly enemies, sin, and death, and hell, for it was impossible he should be holden of them.

Whom God hath raised up. Since the world began there was never anything opposed so much as this, that Christ rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. For what shall we think of others, when the Apostles of our Lord did not only suspend their belief when tidings were brought of it, but with some disdain rejected it? For when Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the Mother of James did tell the Eleven what the Angel had testified, their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not, Luc. xxiv. 11. Nay, when Christ had appeared to ten of that company, Thomas only being out of the way, they could not all persuade him that they had seen the Lord alive. Was ever any Tenet of faith so difficultly received even into the hearts of the best men? Then you may be sure that when this good seed fell into worse soil it was miserably choked with thorns. A sudden and a strong Faction combined against it instantly after it began to sound abroad, Acts iv. 2. The Priests, and the Captain of the Temple, and the Sadducees were grieved at no other part of their doctrine but this, That they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection of the dead. Josephus says, that as long as the Sadducees continued, till they were all destroyed, they became as horrid, and savage as beasts in cruelty, raging against those that affirmed the immortality of soul and body. When that Doctrine spread itself abroad, and came to the Philosophers of Athens, Some censured Paul for a babbler, some for a setter forth of strange God's, Acts xvii. 18. And St. Chrysostom says upon it, that Anastasia, which signifies the Resurrection, was accounted a God which the Christians only worshipped. The same Paul opening the knowledge of the Gospel before Festus and King Agrippa, that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead; Festus broke out in reviling at that passage, Paul thou art beside thyself, much learning doth make thee mad. I would the opposition had gone no further, but St. Austin and Epiphanius in their Catalogues of Heretics rehearse more Adversaries against the Resurrection of Christ than any other doctrinal Point that concerns our Salvation. Simon Magus wrote many books against it. Basilides, a venomous Dogmatist, taught that Christ as he was led to be crucified vanished away by Art and Praestigiation, and that Simon of Cyrene, who bore his Cross some part of the way, was put to death in his stead, but that Jesus did never die, and therefore was never raised from the dead. The dross of so many Heresies was stained through these wicked wits, that the Church might enjoy truth more triumphantly after such great resistance.

But let me go on with the Apostles question, Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the Dead? He that created the soul and body of nothing, doth it not appear much easier to him to join them together again in one substance when they are separated? Finemque potentia coeli non habet, & superi quicquid voluere peractum est. To expound that Heathen Poet by our Heavenly Poet, Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all deep places. He that will consider how every day is renewed after the night hath overcast it by the dawning of a new morning; how every year is renewed, after the cold and darkness of Winter, by the return and advancement of the Sun; how the naked Trees reflourish by the Vegetative virtue of the Spring; how Flies, and Moths, and the brood of the Silk-worm have no motion, no quickness, no token of life in them for many months together, and yet instantly quicken again when the warmth of the Sun beams do cherish them: Finally, to end in that chief instance, for the Scripture hath made it so, how the seed of Corn falls into the ground and dies, and then revives again, and brings forth much fruit; he that puts all this together rationally will more easily consent, that it is not improbable that God will show more wonderful signs of his workmanship in man, being next under the Angels the beauty of all his Creatures. An unwise man doth not mark this, as the Psalmist said, and a fool doth not understand it. St. Austin says that Tully in his 3. lib. de Repub. disputed against the reuniting of soul and body. His Argument was, To what end? Where should they remain together? For a body cannot be assumed into heaven. I believe God caused those famous monuments of his Wit to perish, because of such impious opinions wherewith they were farced. But to his slender Argument, the body raised up shall have shaken off all malignancy of flesh and blood, which made it unfit for heaven. And when it is become a glorious body, why not a body inhabit heaven as well as a spiritual coelestial soul converse upon earth? But Plato was more Theological than Tully, and he taught very truly, that souls could not remain separated forever without their bodies. And though he put not a reason to his opinion, there is a very sufficient one, Posse perficere materiam est animae hominis essentiale. It is the essential difference, for ought we know, between the Spirit of a man and an Angel who is a spiritual substance, that man's soul hath an aptitude, a desire, a natural reference to inform, and actuate a body, and so hath not an Angel. Therefore it cannot be that this natural aptitude to dwell in flesh should be in it unto all eternity, when it is separated from the body, and never be satisfied.

Perhaps some will think that this labor may be spared to show the possibility of a body to be raised from the dead, for here is that power in act, it is done, it is manifested in Christ, it cannot be controlled, Whom God hath raised up. Some have wondered at our Savior for his Birth, his obedience to his Parents, his Poverty, his Passion, that he should humble himself so far; but no man can take hold of any occasion to wonder why he should be raised from the dead, and glorified so far! It was conformable to the eternal justice of his Father to exalt him that had humbled himself so much; Lowliness shall not always be left in the dust to be despised. Therefore some of the ancient Writers make those words by Analogy to suit with Christ, Psal cxxxix. 2. Thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine up-rising. And that of Micah in the same Key, Chap. vii. 8. Rejoice not against me O mine enemy, when I fall I shall arise. Obedience and patience shall not be forgotten at last. Every Valley that subjecteth itself under the mighty hand of God shall be exalted. Jesus Christ though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God, 2 Cor. xiii. 4. Secondly, Satan must make this restitution for the wrong that he had done to an innocent. Death had dominion no further than sin did reign, so that it was a most unjust usurpation in death to seize upon him who knew no sin; the Devil set on his Instruments to kill our Lord, and prevailed, but Hell and the Grave must needs regorge that which they had so unjustly received. That eternal Law which hath destined most several retributions to the pure and impure, would not suffer that he should continue in death, whose soul was pure, and his body undefiled. The Resurrection of us sinners is out of grace and mercy, the Resurrection of Christ is out of merit and justice. Both shall arise alike, as St. Austin says, Similiter surgent corpora, quae dissimiliter orta sunt, Christi, Adami, nostrum. Bodies that were diversely framed and made as Christ's, and Adams, and ours, shall not rise after a divers manner, but have the same kind of Resurrection. Yet the excellency of the head is above the members, (for though the head and members are conformable in nature, yet they are not in virtue.) Therefore I bring it home to my second reason that God is pleased in his loving kindness that we should overcome death, but he consented to his own justice that Christ should overcome death for Satan must make restitution again because he had slain an innocent. That is the second reason upon the main, whom God hath raised up.

Thirdly, As God hath turned the sting of death to our benefit, so, much more out of the Resurrection of his Son he hath given us a salve of consolation. For if his humility and reproach were our blessing, how much more his glory? Death is two ways abolished, first, by the pardoning of our sins, for it is now become the passage to heaven for all penitent sinners, which before was the gate of hell for all transgressors. Secondly, It is much more abolished by the Resurrection, evacuating all that mortality had caused by the restauration of soul and body into an integral composition. We have three grand enemies combined together against us, Sin, and Death, and Hell: But through the happy victory of Christ of all these Enemies Death doth least harm, and therefore of all our Enemies he is last destroyed. Among the Heathen death was their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the most amating terror that could be set before a man, the reason, for they knew neither how that loss should ever be repaired, nor what entertainment their Spirit should find in another world when it was departed. But God hath provided better things for us, not to let us fluctuate in these fears and uncertainties: Nay, we are enlightened to know, that the malediction which was in death is extinguished, how that which was at first inflicted as an entrance into perpetual pain is now a rest from all our labors, Rev. xiv. Furthermore, that it is a rest from sin, for while we draw in our breath we suck in iniquity, grace doth mitigate our pronity to evil, nothing but death will quite stop and repress sin in us, the wisdom of God providing, that as sin brought death into the world, so death should utterly abolish sin out of the world. So death dissolves the works of the Devil, but the Resurrection dissolves the works of death. It is the last thing that the Saints desire of God to be clothed again. With that request being heard they leave wishing, and the end of all desires must be the crown and top of all felicity. Finally, to bring it home to the Person of Christ, whom God raised up, much was our benefit by his Death, but much more by his Resurrection. For lay these two in comparison together, to be eased of misery, and to be brought into a state of joy and gladness: Is not the addition of some good thing more thanks-worthy than the taking away of some evil? Why, thus it stands with those two blessings which our Savior obtained for us, they are the words of St. Austin I think, Sicut humiliatus est moriendo ut nos liberaret à malis, ita glorificatus est resurgendo ut nos promoveret ad bona. As he was humbled unto death to deliver us from the evil of death, so he was glorified by rising again that he might bring us to happiness and glory.

And of this great work of raising up enough at this once, this being the tenth of these Easter Festivals wherein I have spoken upon the same Argument and occasion before you. Yet I have a little to add before I leave this first Point touching the Agent, and the Patient. God was the Author of this great work, and Christ in his own body returned again to life, whom God raised up. May not the Power and Majesty of Christ seem to suffer in this, that St. Peter says, God raised him up? For our Savior did often give the Jews to know, that he would raise himself again from the dead on the third day, Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it up again in three days, Joh. ii. 19. And without any Parabolical speech, Joh. x. 18. No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. Why then doth not the Apostle clearly attribute unto him, that he was the Author of his own Resurrection? Because he spake of his Human Nature first impotently obnoxious to Passion, and then powerfully restored to life. The Omnipotent virtue to revoke the soul into the body again was in the Divinity of Christ, not in his Human Nature. Therefore Christ declareth in those words of St. John, that it is not in the power of man to reserve the soul in the body when the pangs of death are upon it; but for his own part, though deadly wounds should be gashed in his body, yet he had power through the union of his Godhead to stay his life, and not to lay it down. Likewise it is far from the ability of man to re-unite his Spirit to his Flesh when it is separated, but the Divinity of our Savior kept personal union with the body in the Grave, and with the soul when it is flown away, therefore he could bring them together again to remain in incorruption; the ancient similitude was, As a man that draws a Sword out of a Scabbard holds the Sword in one hand, and the Scabbard in another: So the Soul was unsheathed from the body, but the Divine Nature held personal union with them both. And as the Weapon is fit to be put into the Case that held it, yet it cannot sheath itself without the hand of the Ownor thrust it in: So the Soul of Christ was restored again to the body, not by any virtue, or activity in the human soul, but by the Power of God. Christ was made like unto other men in all things, sin only excepted, and re-made, or raised up like other men. Si homo non vicisset inimicum hominis, non juste victus esset, says Irenaeus; The Enemy of man was overcome by a man, else he would have clamoured that he was overcome by Power and not by Justice. Therefore St. Paul, to let us know that Christ was left in death as man to be raised up, says he, As by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

Him God raised up, him, that man Christ Jesus that was crucified, the self-same body, let me touch upon that, and then I will go on to new matter. The Resurrection of our Lord is the Samplar of ours, that very same material Flesh that died was revived again in him, and so it shall be in us. The impious Socinians, the last and one of the worst and most pestilent Sects that ever was in the Church, teach that we are not bound to believe it as an Article of Faith that we shall rise again in our own bodies. Why then the same dead shall not rise again, for if they want one essential part, and the matter is one essential part of our composition, it is not the same man. Matter is the principle of individuation, or numerical distinction say the Metaphysics. And the old Pythagoraeans could not deny in their Paradox of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , if one man's soul came by many transmigrations into another man's body, it was another man. But leave we the help of human reason, though that be strong on our side, and come to Divinity. All the Ensamples or Preludiums of the Resurrection both in Old and New Testament were of such as had life restored to them in their own body, the Shunamites Child, the Widows Son, Lazarus the Brother of Mary and Martha, the Saints that came out of their Graves in the holy City, and Christ himself that came out of the Sepulcher. And let any equal Auditor judge if Job were not an Anti-Socinian, Job xix. 26. Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall behold for myself, and mine eyes shall see, and not another. And is it not equity, that the righteous in the same body wherein they have worshipped God they shall be glorified, that the wicked in the same body wherein they have lusted after evil things they shall be punished? I will name no Fathers to Patronize this cause, for all concur with one voice, that as God raised up Christ, so he will raise us up in our own bodies.

With the Resurrection of our Savior, which I have handled hitherto in the first part of my Text, there is adjoined in the next place the Complement of his Resurrection, the full weight and excellency of it, having loosed the pains of death. Solutis doloribus inferni, having loosed the pains of hell, so the vulgar Latin; and I will now go over the divers interpretations of both readings. The first, which is the reading of our Translation is the right and best, therefore I will begin with that. First, St. Chrysostom's judgment upon it is, that when Christ came out of the Grave death itself was delivered from pain and anxiety, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , death knew it held him captive whom it ought not to have seized upon, and therefore it suffered torments like a woman in travel, till it had given him up again. Thus he. But the Scripture elsewhere testifies that death was put to sorrow, because it had lost its sting, rather than released from sorrow by our Savior's Resurrection. Secondly, Cajetan understands by the loosening of the pains of death, the undoing or taking off those penalties which he suffered in triduo mortis, in those three days while he lay asleep in the Sepulcher. But what penalties are those in his construction? Why one thing irksome unto him was that the body and soul should be divided in sunder, the other that the very place of hell, to which his soul descended is in itself ordained for torment? Et mora in inferno erat paena infamiae, as another said, any stay or delay in hell was a derogation to his honor: and for the body resting in the Grave, though then it have no sense of smart, yet for that while it is sub mortis victoriâ & imperio, under the charge and Empire of death. There is somewhat near to truth in this Exposition, as I will manifest by and by, and somewhat clean mistaken. For all the sorrow and punishment of Christ was finished in his death, that was the consummation of all his penal sufferings. Wherefore his body was not kept in the Grave, much less his soul made progress to Hell, to bear any penalty, revenge, or sorrow for our sakes, or to satisfy for our sins, but to fulfill all righteousness, to confirm our faith that he was truly dead, and to captivate the Devil. Therefore his Resurrection did not cut off or mitigate any sorrows which he sustained in death, I cannot consent to Cajetan if he mean the contrary. But if he take not sorrows in a proper signification, but Metaphorically for the bands of death, as the Syrian Paraphrast reads it, Solvens funes mortis, loosening the cords or twists of death, so I think it to be the very marrow and true sense of the Text, that God raised up his Son, not Christ, but God, the sense continuing in the same person, having loosened or unbound him from that death wherein he was detained three days.

But if it agree to the Person of Christ, that he loosed the pains of death, though it be a little violence to Grammar, me thinks then thirdly it comes to this interpretation, that Christ had paid, (you know that is solvere too) he had undergone, he had satisfied the pains of death, or a most painful death. So Beza says it may be taken here, Dolores mortis pro morte dolorum; The pains of death, for a death full of pains, even all that spite and malice could wreck upon him, Andradius likewise in his defense of the Tridentine Faith agrees with Beza, that Christ after he had given up the Ghost, and paid the debt of Nature upon the Cross, was acquitted or exempted from the sorrows of death, that is, from a death full of sorrows, sorrows that were not only deeply impressed into the body, as far as whips, and thorns, and nails could reach, but exceeding anguish and pain of mind, sighs and horrors that we cannot conceive: Thus far only we may peep into it, that God was represented to him most • ngry at our sins, that He felt the malediction of his wrath lying upon him for our sakes, especially that He was troubled to shed his blood for so many ungrateful wretches that had no regard of it; these were the sorrows of death that compassed him about; but that He should put on the horror of our guiltiness so far, and suppose himself to stand in our person at his Fathers Tribunal, even to the forgetting of himself, to the confusion of his reason, to the pangs of desperation, as if He felt hell about him, whatsoever a grave and worthy Author says to this point upon my Text, and in other places, I draw my consent from it. Exceeding sorrows both of body and mind gat hold of him, but they were loosened and finished upon the Cross. But will some man say, why doth St. Luke speak of these in order after his Resurrection? I answer, that Christ satisfied the wrath of God to the full upon the Cross, and paid that debt for which He was our surety, to the utmost farthing: Thereby He loosed the deadly sorrows, yet it did not appear so well that He had loosed those sorrows, till the time He rose from the dead, therefore the victory over those sorrows being estated as it were in his rising again, St. Luke ascribes it to his resurrection. I have not spared you see to open this third and most common opinion unto you; yet I rather satisfy myself in this Interpretation, that as it was God's work to raise up Christ, so it was his act to loose the pains of death, solvere i. e. irritum reddere, all that the pains and sharpness of death could do was to divorce his Soul from his Body, and God did frustrate and dissolve all that by uniting them again in the Resurrection.

And according to this true reading of the words which I have hitherto beaten upon the Expositions are easy and full of consolation; full of consolation I say; for neither could the Scripture say that the sorrows of death were all paid, neither had it been possible for Christ to have got out of the Grave, if there had been any one sin, though the least in the world unsatisfied. The other reading is strange to the Original, yet admitted by all them that are bound even to the errors of the vulgar Latin Translation, and often quoted and cited for great authority in some Controversies, solvens dolores inferni, having loosed the pains of Hell. 'It is true that Irenaeus and some others of good credit of old do use the same; and our Critics tell us of one ancient Greek Copy that concurs with them; and a learned Bishop of our own Church reconciles the seeming difference on this wise, that by death in that place is meant, not the first but the second Death; the second Death you know is eternal punishment in Hell fire, and in his opinion it comes all to one pass to say, having loosed the sorrows of death, and having loosed the sorrows of hell. This will be examined by and by: but first I will premise how some have blundered themselves in this reading.

St. Austin in that famous Epistle of his to Evodius, propounds it, though very faintly, that it is not improbable that the Soul of Christ went into Hell in triduo mortis, and carried away with him some that were there tormented; and if none other were released, yet at least Adam was: If the Father can be expounded to mean that Christ blotted out the hand-writing against us, harrowed Hell, and took away all power from it against penitent sinners, and so preserved Adam and other just men from that place of torment, his Judgment is right; but if his Sentence be flat for the other meaning, that any of the damned were redeemed of those pains, that so he loosed the sorrows of Hell, then we forbear to give him credit. But you shall hear him in the right anon. Secondly there are more than many that think they have found their so much contended for fire of Purgatory in my Text: for neither the Schoolmen, nor almost any other of the Church of Rome do take the word Hell in the Creed properly and literally as they ought, for the Hell of the Damned, it is their Doctrine that Christ went virtually thither, but not locally; no in their common Tenent he descended but to the Limbus of the Fathers, or to the place of temporal sorrows, where some were detained for a while for the satisfaction of some venial sins. Therefore Bellarmine having laid his conclusion at first that Christ descended to the nethermost Hell, afterward went from it, and held with their common way, that in his substantial presence he went at the most no further than Purgatory. This Pill being commonly swallowed among men, it purgeth this fancy out of divers of their Authors, that Christ redeemed not the damned out of Hell, but He released many by a Plenary Indulgence out of Purgatory. This is nothing else but to make the Scriptures chime according to that idle conceit that runs in their brains. And thirdly Aquinas shuts this opinion out of doors to take in another, to wit, that to loose the pains of Hell, was to loose the pains of the Patriarchs and Fathers, who were sequestered in a Receptacle of ease, but not admitted into any joys of Heaven till Christ had first ascended: but what pains had these that were to be mitigated, if they lived in quiet refreshment, and in no pain at all? he answers that they were full of sadness and affliction of mind, because their deliverance was so long stopped, and Christ staid so long before He came in the flesh to release them. But I rejoin, if they were in such a state as they describe, dato non concesso, they might be full of desire and expectation, but without any molestation or anxiety. All these opinions which I have rankt foremost, as they miss the meaning of the Text, so neither are they right according to analogy of faith.

But the last Paraphrase of the words, though it rove from the meaning of the Text, yet it is sound according to analogy of faith, 'tis thus that Christ loosed the sorrows of Hell, not as if ever He had felt the sorrows of Hell in himself, and shook them off, but He subdued Satan for our sakes, and delivered us from those pains, with which we should have been held and captivated. And herein St. Austin speaks to this point most intelligently, that it is easy to understand how these sorrows were loosed to set us free, quemadmodum solvi possunt laquei venantium ne teneant, non quia tenuerunt; as the snares of Hunters may be untied, not to redeem that which is caught, but that they may never catch anything. No man will ever deny but that we may be as well delivered from that torment which is deserved, as from that which is inflicted, and to prevent the Devil that he should not tyrannize over us, is to loose and break in sunder the fetters that he had prepared for us, and enough to make us confess with David, Thou hast brought my soul out of hell, thou hast kept my life from them that go down into the pit. The three headed Monster that fights against us is the strength of Sin, and Death, and Hell put together: Sin must not reign, Death must no more sever Soul and Body, Hell must have no power to receive and torment us, all these must be vanquished, or else Satan's Kingdom is not quite destroyed: and Christ subdued them all: but the greatest and most perfect Conquest that He made, whereof we most triumph in this life is, that He overcame Hell, or loosened the sorrows of Hell: For Sin doth remain in us here, though the force be broken; Death also prevails against our body, though it shall be but for a time; but here is the fullness of our Redemption, and of Christ's Victory, that Hell is absolutely conquered, and shall never lay hold of them that believe.

And I must go one step further with them that follow this interpretation, wherein my judgment favors them for true Doctrine, that Christ did locally go down into Hell, when He loosed the sorrows of Hell for his Elects sake. Christus inferos adiit ne nos adiremus, says Tertullian; Christ went into Hell that we might never come thither: and Fulgentius is a great light to this Article of the Creed. It was fit that the Son of God being without sin should descend as far as man had fallen by sin, and so He freed all the faithful of the world from the beginning to the end, that they should never come thither. I will fill the Scale with no more authorities than St. Austin 's, this is his Sentence, it was convenient that Christ should descend into Hell to procure us freedom from Hell; as it behooved him to die, and to rise again the third day, that we might not die forever, but rise from death. Some that affect not this way of Christ's local descending into Hell, rejoin thus, that no man denies but Christ delivered us from the power of darkness, and that He spoiled Principalities and Powers, and made a show of them openly; but it is not certain by what means this was done, by his Divinity, or by his Humanity, or both; by the virtue of his Sufferings, Death, Burial, Resurrection, or by the real Descending of his Soul in that place: nay one Lutheran Confession is not averse to think that He went thither both in Body and Soul in the very moment of his Resurrection. I believe by the penetration of the gross body of the Earth they would bring in some succor to help forward their Consubstantiation. The most equal way to try this is the express Letter of the Scripture, the clearest exposition of the Apostles Creed, and the greatest consonancy of reason.

The Testimonies of Scripture most firmly to be insisted on is Ephes. iv. 9. That he ascended, what is it but that he first descended into the lowest parts of the earth I know this may well be expounded, that Christ was humbled to be a man upon earth in the form of a Servant But if the learned and pious Fathers that were of old may be the Judges of the interpretation: And who fitter? the lowest parts of the earth are the nethermost Hell. Beza hath cited a parallel place out of the Psalms to make these words of the Apostle agree unto the Incarnation of our Lord, Psal. cxxxix. 15. My substance was hidden from thee, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth: But St. Paul doth not use to obscure plain Doctrine with strange Poetical Phrases: and Estius hath requited Beza with another place out of the Psalms to confirm my Doctrine, Psal. lxiii. 9. Those that seek my Soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth; that is, the enemies of the innocent should go into the place of the damned: The other Testimony of Scripture, for I will press no more, is Psal. xvi. 10. and rehearsed by St. Peter in this Chapter, Thou shalt not leave my Soul in hell, &c. What pains some men have taken, to no fruitful end that I know, to make these words bear any sense rather than that which is literal; no man that marks their diligence must deny, but the Soul in divers Authors is taken for the Body, and Hell for the Grave, and so they patch it up, Thou wilt not leave my life in the Sepulcher: but why should literal Scripture be so eluded? St. Austin's rule is, that when the literal sense of the Text sounds somewhat that is sinful or impossible, then discreet and learned Interpretations must mollify the letter: but it is not to be suffered, where good divinity is contained in the letter, as there is in this: the meaning is, as no flesh in the Sepulcher was ever free from corruption but only Christ's, so no Soul in Hell was ever supported and assisted by God, and not forsaken, but only Christ's. So Fulgentius most divinely, anima immunis à peccato non erat subdenda supplicio, & carnem sine peccato non debuit vitiare corruptio: Christ's Soul knowing no sin, went not to Hell to pay any debt of punishment, for an innocent could not be obnoxious to those flames and torments; and his Body never executing any evil act, could not be tainted with corruption and putrefaction. Is it not therefore consonant to reason to stick to the letter of Scripture, when it bears an Orthodox exposition of faith: and whether we say that Christ being free among the dead, to walk whither he would, his Soul being separated in death first shown itself to the Saints in Joy to their exceeding comfort, then to the Unbelievers in Hell to their woe and confusion; or whether we say He descended, that such as believed may never be thrust into that infernal Prison, or rather that He brought his triumph over death with him before the face of Hell, and brought those unruly spirits under his yoke, entered upon the strong man's house, and spoiled his house, as it is in the Parable Matth. xii. All these ways are agreeable to God's word, and to be admitted without contention.

Thus far upon Scripture attended by reason. Indeed Stapleton says, that two Articles of the Creed are not to be found in Scripture, this of Christ's descent in to Hell, the other of the Catholic Church. I confess in his sense they are not to be found in Scripture, but in ours they are. But last of all attend what light the very Creed itself will give to the confirmation of this Doctrine. The ground that a learned Father of our own Church lays I take to be most rational. Thus take these words properly and not figuratively, as it is fit in a short abstract of faith; next let them have a sense different in matter from all other Articles, or else they were a superfluous repetition; then let every Article keep a true consequent order of time one after another, or else it would make a strange confusion, and all other Expositions will give place. Some of the Romish and some of our own part have taught, that when Christ was crucified he sustained the pains of Hell: but observe against them how this Article should come in most preposterously after his death and burial, which was in time before. Others make this sense of it, that he was dead, and detained in death; others to be no more but that he was buried; but according to these opinions there shall neither be property of phrase, nor difference of matter in this Article from them that went before. To be dead and buried are as plain speeches as be in all the Creed, and should these be explained by an enigmatical Phrase to descend into Hell, rather to obscure than to explain the former. Observe how our Church of England hath differenced it from death and burial, art. 3. As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also it is believed (mark, that's another point) that He went down into Hell. And the thirtieth Article of the Church of Ireland doth not satisfy me, that this line is in one comma, I know not whether by the negligence of the Printer, He was buried and descended into Hell.

I cannot come to the third part of my Text, and I have done as much as the time will permit upon the second; only let me add, let weak capacities be no ways discomforted, though they cannot explicitly understand the meaning of this controverted Article of the Creed, Christ's descending into Hell: they must believe that Christ vanquished the Devil for our sakes, that's necessary both for their comfort and salvation. And all Articles of Faith are not equally necessary and fundamental. Gregory Valenza, and many others, I think not imprudently, hold that the main and necessary points for unlearned simple people to believe, are the great works of God remembered in the principal Feasts of the year, Christ's Nativity, his Passion, Resurrection, Ascension into Heaven, and the coming of the Holy Ghost. And though this Article of the Descent into Hell contain an excellent mystery of Faith, yet it comes not near the excellent knowledge and use of the former. Suarez the Jesuit writes confidently, that if by an Article of Faith we understand a Truth which all faithful people are bound explicitly to believe, so he did not think it necessary to reckon it among the Articles of Faith. The Nicene Creed in our Common-prayer Book hath left it out. Ruffinus says that after 400 years it came into the Latin Church, and like enough, for St. Austin expounds the Creed five times, and Chrysologus of Ravenna, ann. 440. six times and never glance it. For that Creed called the Apostles, was not so drawn up by the Apostles, for ought we can find in good antiquity, but called so because it contains the sum of all Apostolical Doctrine: one part of it was laid too after another, and this I believe was the last addition of all. Therefore it is a main arm of faith, that Christ loosed the sorrows of death, and a Truth it is no doubt, though not of such prime consequence, that He descended into Hell to loose those sorrows for our liberty: but the main Pillar of Faith is the first Comma of my Text, that God raised up Jesus from death, and it was impossible He should be holden of it. AMEN.

THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION.

A Mong all the miracles that our Savior wrought this suscitation of Lazarus, or raising him up from the dead, it was his true Benoni, or Son of sorrow. None came off with so much anxiety, none cost him so dear in all the Gospel. Twice he groaned in Spirit, and once he wept, his Passions were as variable as the life and death of Lazarus. Look back to the fifteenth verse, and you shall see it wrought comfortably, I am glad for your sakes that Lazarus is dead. Look unto the 35 verse and you shall see it wrought bitterly, Jesus wept. What alterations are there, says St. Austin? Gaudebat propter discipulos, flebat propter Judeos; horum fides confirmabatur, horum incredulitas augebatur. It joyed him for the Disciples sake, that their faith would be confirmed and revived: It grieved him for the Jews sake, whose hearts were hardened. The preparation then of this Miracle was not without sorrow, but the event and sequel was worst of all. For although the Counsel of the High Priests stomach'd at our Savior long before, yet they wisht his life no hurt till he had wrought this wonder which all the world were amazed at. From that time Caiaphas began to talk like a Wizard, That one man must die for the people, and Christ must suffer. Now you see good cause why our Lord might groan and weep, Israel shall pass over into Canaan, but Moses must die upon Mount Nebo, the birth of Benjamin shall be Rachel's funeral, Lazarus shall be revived, and Jesus crucified.

Yet I can tell you one thing, Beloved, how the Son of God shall neither groan nor weep for Lazarus, but rejoice in Spirit and be glad, even at this day be glad, as he stands at the right hand of God, and it lies upon you to do it. Did he then groan for the infidelity of the Pharisees? Then sure he will now rejoice if we believe in his works, and have faith in the Resurrection. Did he then weep because his own death was contrived for doing good? Then he will now be comforted if you take heed that you do not again crucify the Lord of life. T • llite lapidem, as it is in verse 39, remove the stone, the hardness of your heart, and joy will follow in heaven for the conversion of a sinner. Do you consider that the days past were a time of mourning and sad contrition? Why, here is a Text which was not preached without Christ's mourning and lamentation. Do you remember his Passion but the other day? Why, this is the Text which was an occasion to bring him to his Cross and Passion. What do you meditate upon this day but our Savior's issuing out of the Grave? Why, here is Lazarus broke out of the Tomb, Lazarus come forth.

Which words, as I have read them, rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon. You shall perceive that the business in my Text is a work of great dignity, that is one part, and a work of great Divinity, that is the other part. The dignity consists in these two Points: 1. In that which Christ had spoken before, when he had said thus; And what was that? He prayed unto his Father; wherefore it is dignum oratione, a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation. 2. It is Dignum proclamatione, it was cried with a loud voice, and fit to be published to all the world. The Divinity appears in these three circumstances: 1. Exeat mortuus, that a dead man is summoned to appear. 2. Exeat Lazarus, Lazarus after four days departure comes forth. 3. Exeat ligatus, one who was bound hand and foot with Grave-clothes walks upon his feet. O strange Divinity! the Monuments which were shut did open, for Christ did call who had the Key of David. The dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue, for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds bring forth young ones, and called Adam from the dust of the earth. The body which lay putrefied four days gave no offense in the smell. Christ was at hand, who is a sweet savor for us unto God. The feet which were bound with Grave-clothes could walk before him, for in him we live, and move, and have our being. Was not this excellent work worthy of a Prayer? So far we have gone this day in our morning Sacrifice. Was it not worthy of the proclamation of a loud voice, fit to be preached that the world may hear of it, and believe, and be saved? And that is the business which doth now take up your attentions. With these two circumstances of the Miracle I must first begin, the preparation of our Savior's Prayer, and the promulgation of his loud voice or preaching, And when he had thus said, &c.

That is, when he had prayed unto the Father. Dimidium facti qui been caepit habet; And he that begins his work with Prayer, as Christ did, hath half dispatched it. Vox clamantis, the voice of a Crier was the fore-runner of Christ when he came upon the earth: Vox orantis, the voice of Prayer must be the fore-runner of our necessities when we look for anything from heaven. As the people shouted when the foundation of the Temple was laid, grace grace be unto the first stone of the building, so let the foundation of everything be laid with shouting and strong Ejaculations to our God, that he may say upon the moving of the first stone, Grace be to the building. In Gen. xii. Abraham removed three times to several quarters, and still before he pitched his Tent he built an Altar to Jehovah; remove not, stir not, enter upon no new task before you have built an Altar. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom; wheresoever you are pray, and your own heart is a Temple, or the Alter of Jehovah. Religion is the Bow, and the heart is the String, but Prayer is that which bends the Bow, Religion is unbent as it were, and the Shafts cannot fly until Prayer dispatch them.

Well might Peter, who was prompt of tongue, and ready to speak upon all occasions, be counted a chief Apostle; for Prayer, which is the tongue of Religion, and our Consciences Orator, is the chief of all our virtues. Debilem facito manu, debilem coxâ, pede; no matter for infirmities in the feet, for diseases in the hands, so the dumb Devil be not in our tongues. The penitent Thief had no hands to hold up, they were nailed to the Cross, no knees to bend, for his legs were broken, he had a tongue to say, Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom, and it did him service enough to open Paradise. O the delusions of the Devil! For all this that I have said, you shall sooner make ignorants and vain people believe that Diseases are curable by unsignificant Charms, by unhallowed mutterings, than by godly Prayers: As if the Devil could go further with Non-sense than a good Christian with Faith and Prayer. One Talent in the Gospel could do no good, for it was but one Talent upon the return, but one single Petition will fructify like a grain of Wheat into stalks and handfuls. For as it is said of the nine Muses, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , call but upon one by name, and all her Sisters beside will assist the invocation; so call but for one blessing piously, and though you ask but for a drop, much abundance of waters of comfort will gush out when the spout is opened. Fear not Zacharias, says Gabriel, when he came to tell him of the birth of John, for thy prayers are heard, Luk. i. 13. Why surely, says St. Austin, he prayed for the whole Congregation at that time, and not for Children. Not for Children, for his Wife was old and barren, he despaired of Issue. What of that? He prayed for the public good, and God gave him joy in particular, he prayed for the Congregation, as it was fit for the Father of a Flock, and God made him the Father of a Son.

Such notice was taken of this solemn Prayer which our Savior made for Lazarus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom; a Church was built from the ground in that place, where the Monument of Lazarus had been before. For who would not flock to pray in that place where Jesus had prayed unto his Father? It was na Oratory whereby the Prelates of the highest state might learn to officiate by Christ's example, and execute in their place. Alas of too much contempt to pray in the Congregation. The proud Emperors of Rome did so persuade themselves, Ut sibi viderentur Principes esse desinere, si quid facerent tanquam Senatores; They thought it did derogate from the Magnificence of a Prince, to employ their pains toward the public good like Senators. So to mutter Mass once a year is enough for the Roman Bishop, to bless the people with so much breath as to pray for them by the Book; O it is too mean a Function for a dignified person. What? And was it a disparagement to the Son of God, to pray among the people, when he raised Lazarus?

The Arians indeed did object against Christ's Divinity in this place, for making a Petition in the behalf of Lazarus. Where was the virtue of his own Godhead? Where was his Omnipotency? Say those graceless Heretics, is it not a token of infirmity to ask that of another which we are not able to do by our own efficacy? And doth this offend them that Christ should pray that he might conjoin with us in our infirmities? But to give a larger resolution to the doubt. Says Martha in the 21, 22 verses before, Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had not died, but I know even now whatsoever thou dost ask of God, God will give it thee. Christ then had no need to pray for Lazarus to support his own power, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to satisfy the desire and weakness of Martha he betook him to a prayer. Says the Centurion, Lord, only say the word and my servant shall be healed. Be it so, says Christ, and he went no further. O says another, Come and heal my daughter, vouchsafe your presence to the sick person; Why, Christ came and healed her. Could they ask anymore? Not only the diseases were remedied, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it was done in what fashion or circumstance they pleased: Will Martha have her brother raised with a formal supplication before? She hath her will, and Jesus prayed unto the Father. It was not done then for Lazarus his sake, it needed not: not for Martha's sake only, but for the people that stood by; nay, that's not all, not for them alone, but for us, and for as many as shall hear the Gospel preached to the ends of the world.

For as the beating of the wings, and the crowing of the Cock raised up Peter when he was buried in the sins of the High Priests Hall, so the knocking of the breast, and the voice which cries unto the Lord before the morning watch is that which must raise us up from the luxurious beds of sensuality. Some Orders of Mendicant Friers wander about, and present themselves to the eyes of men, but say not a word for an Alms to make themselves known to the ear of the charitable. This is rather sharking than begging for benevolence. Let them bear the badge of St. Francis, but we the badge of Christ, ask and pray for a quickening spirit if you would be raised up to newness of life. Hezekiah having emptied his heart of some words which were well disgusted out, an as if he had opened a vein in each eye to let out tears, by that means saw fifteen years more after a desperate sickness. Ahaziah's Child perchance had gained twice fifteen years, if the Father had done as much, but it lived not fifteen hours after the King had sent for Physic to the God of Ekron. Like Coriolanus, whom the people thought worthy of any favor, if his proud heart would have stooped and asked for favor. Not long before the destruction of Jerusalem, the great Gate toward the East, fast bar'd and locked, opened of its own accord, says Eusebius. This is good luck said the more confident Priests, Deus aperuit nobis portam bonorum; God hath opened unto us a gate of good fortune of his own accord. Nay, said the more wise, Hostibus introitum patefecit; He hath opened a gap for the enemy to come in, and that proved to be the truest Divination. Dearly Beloved, if a blessing fall into your lap, when you were dissolute, irreligious, and never thought of God to give it, the gates of your heart being bar'd and fastened, do you dream, like the foolish people of Jerusalem, that a gate of good fortune is opened of its own accord? No, no, beware the after-clap. It may be pleasant, it may be rich which comes without a Prayer to usher it into the world, but, like a base-born child, it is seldom prosperous. Me thinks I should be very much afraid if God had sent me any blessing, for which, either in special, or in general I had not earnestly prayed. Whatsoever good thing you possess, and never prayed for it, I pity your title, you came to it by robbery.

And so much for the first dignity of this work, it had the preparation of a Prayer. Jesus first cast up his eyes, and opened his lips to heaven before he stooped to the Corps beneath, and opened the Monument, before he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth. He cried with a loud voice, and that is the dignity of the publication.

When our Savior issued out of the Grave the third day, it was done early in the morning, the stone was rolled away, and no noise was heard, that which was done, was done with wonderful silence. Why doth Lazarus come out with a loud voice? Nay, why shall the Angel at the Great Day call the dead out of the earth with the blast of a Trumpet? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Paul, meaning, no doubt, some shrill clamour, because the Son of God would have his Resurrection an Article of the Creed, and Faith is of things not seen. Yea, because he did meditate nothing but to abase and obscure himself, and to do us honor. O glorious voice which summoned Fishermen from their Ships, Publicans from their trade, Matthew from the Custom-house, Paul from the bloody City of Damascus, and Lazarus from the Tomb. To hear him pray, there was Rhetoric in that to incline every heart unto Piety: To see Lazarus revived there was Logic in that, a demonstration of his Divinity: To hear him cry aloud there was Music in that, no note was ever so sweet, no tune of such a relish as the voice of our Savior. In Demosthenis scriptis, magna abest pars Demosthenis; It is said, that much of Demosthenes is lost in his Writings, because the matter was set forth with such a graceful utterance. And surely, unless we supply it with faith, much of our Savior's Miracles is lost to us for want of living in that Age, when we might hear that loud voice which commanded the Miracle.

It is not a superfluous phrase, when we read it often, that Jesus opened his mouth, and saith; Aperuit os suum, qui in veteri lege aperire solebat ora Prophetarum; God did open the Prophets mouths in the old world, but he opened his own mouth, and told his own tale in the Gospel. O what contention of spirit? What earnestness our Savior did use when he did watch a good turn for any of his poor Members? He would venter to break his own sides rather than not to break the gates of death which did lock up Lazarus whom he loved; as Antigonus rent his Lungs, and so died, with encouraging his Soldiers. Duritia vincenda est non suadenda, says Tertullian; you must not use fair means and persuasions to them who are in a Lethargy of sin: Like old Eli to Hophni and Phinehas, What my Sons? I hear an evil report. Qui timide rogat negare docet; he that asketh anything faintly teacheth you how to deny him; Qui timide redarguit peccare docet, and he that chides faintly teacheth you to despise him, and puts on audacity to sin the more. Where is the courage of Elias? Where is the tongue of St. Chrysostom, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , His life was like a flash of lightning, and his doctrine like a clap of thunder. As fast as the Pharisees could throw stones at St. Stephen, he threw darts of rebuke at them. Stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart, despisers of the Law; this was to speak against sin like a Commander and a Magistrate, not like a Petitioner. This was to cry with a loud voice, to speak as it were under correction against Sacrilege, usury, corruption and the like, to touch them as if you were loath to be understood, God will say it is not Preaching but Libelling.

What labor? What contention was this? The softest whisper had it not been enough to command Satan, and Hell, and the Grave? As Pompey said of his own power in Italy, Si tellurem pede pulsavero copiae militum prodibunt; So soon as he did but tread upon the earth it would serve him with a puissant army: So Christ if He had but trod upon the Serpents head, upon the Grave stone, would it not have sufficed to have ransomed Lazarus, and all the bodies that were buried? Yes it had sufficed. But this is dignum proclamatione, fit for a loud voice to proclaim it. Prayer, like a good Angel, went before it: Publication, like the Trumpet of Fame, comes behind it. You know it well, says Paul to Agrippa, speaking of the Resurrection, it was not done in a corner. Two Angels appeared in the Tomb where Christ rose from the dead. Angelus nuncius Dei & resurrectio erat annuncianda; Angels are the Messengers of heaven, and this is the prime and principal message, Go tell Peter, go tell my brethren. How solicitous was Christ to have it told? Everyone he met was sent to publish it. And they that nestle in their Cells and forget this office, summon them like dead men to come out of their Monuments, Lazarus come forth.

This was matter for a loud voice then, and business for the Pulpit now, the suscitation of Lazarus, but do you not disgrace the dignity of a Preacher, when every petty vain occasion doth challenge the honor of a Sermon before it? If ever there were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a good work mar'd for being done unseasonably. Now it is when grace before meat will not serve the turn, but every luxurious feast must have the Benediction of a Preachers pains before it. Quis te ferat caenantem ut Lucullus, concionantem ut Cato? Much less is it to be endured, that somebody must make a Sermon, because Lucullus hath made a Supper. It is such a flout upon our Calling me thinks, as the Chaldeans put upon the Jews in their Captivity, they in the height of their jollity must have one of the Songs of Zion.

I have done with the Dignity of this work, I proceed now to the Divinity thereof, which is brancht out into these three powerful circumstances, Mortuus excitatur, a dead man is raised. 2. Lazarus four days dead is raised. 3. Lazarus who was bound is raised, and comes forth. Mortuus excitatur, behold that principally, a dead man is raised.

It is noted in Jerusalem, that she was implacable against the Prophets of the Lord, for twice our Savior called upon her, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee; and yet her anger would not cease, no not for a double Admonition. It is noted of St. Paul, that his mind was most bitter against the Saints, for Christ was fain to toll on both sides, once and a second time to summon him by his name, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? The persecuting Rage of Jerusalem was invincible, the Malice of Saul was hardly bridled, both more headstrong than Death itself: Non sustinuit mors secundas voces Domini, says St. Austin; Death was obedient at the first Command, our Savior called but once and no more, Lazarus, come forth. Could you blame St. Peter, whose heart earned and was sorrowful, that Christ said the third time, Peter, lovest thou me? One word is enough to make Hell itself fly open. O Lord, are our Hearts more hard than Hell, that thou hast so often spoken, and still they are shut up?

Lewis the 11 th of France was wont to say that he passed away his time in making or marring of men: an honest confession: for whether they be Kings or meaner persons, their power is prone as well to root up as to plant, as well to pluck down as to set up a Building. But Christ hath not only passed away time, but meditated from all eternity how to make the World and Man especially, how to remake him and restore him again, being consumed to ashes. And therefore says Beda very well, Mirati sunt discipuli de exiccatione arboris, quia omnia ejus miracula antehàc erant ad bonum; the Disciples did marvel exceedingly to see the Fig tree cursed and wither away; our Savior did never meddle with anything before, but it was the better for him. The Jews talked of their privilege to have one Prisoner let loose against the Feast, and that was a sweet one, the seditious Barabbas: the true King of the Jews did let loose a Prisoner indeed against the Feast, and that was holy Lazarus: for this Miracle was wrought not long before the dolorous day of his Passion, as you may see by the sequel of the Gospel: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom; as who should say this was but an introduction to make the world believe in that great sign which followed the resurrection of the dead. Non est admirationi una arbor cum tota sylva in eandem altitudinem excrescit, says Seneca: no notice is taken of one tall Cedar, when all Lebanon is full of the like; so we do not spend much admiration now upon the raising up of Lazarus, because many dead bodies arose, and appeared in the holy City, yet upon the first delivery of this man from the Goal of death, having been four days dead, it was a thing not heard of, and a matchless Miracle.

Demetrius, as he was a most devilish Statesman, so this was one of his Maxims as bad as any, whosoever they be that stand in your way cut them off: it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , like those things which must be granted in the Art of Geometry, before they can proceed any further. The High-Priests and Pharisees had got this godly Lesson from their Father the Devil; and because all the world did stare upon Lazarus as upon the great work of Christ, needs must they consult how to kill him. Was there ever a more foolish Senate? when they saw Christ could raise him again as oft as he pleased, yet the Projectors of the Sanhedrim set their wits and their cunning how to put Lazarus to death. O happy man if he do fall into their hands, if Christ will give them leave to cut him off. Four days together hath he been dead, that God and his blessed Son may be glorified in his suscitation; once already did he loose his life for the honor of his Savior; let him be tormented, be imprisoned, be crucified the second time for Christ's sake, and who was ever so happy as Lazarus to make one poor life serve for a couple of Martyrdoms, indeed it were an hard case, as St. Austin sets it down, ut idem homo semel nasceretur & bis moreretur, to be born once, and to die twice; and therefore St. Chrysostom would mollify the matter, that at this time of four days sleep 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he was rather reposed in his Mothers Womb, than in a Sepulcher, but his condition in very deed was not pitiful but very fortunate, to be born but once, and to die twice for God's honor.

But here is one question first, and more will follow. Was Lazarus stone dead, as we say, the Soul quite separated from the Body, and the spirit departed? or was it anima sopita, but a Soul laid a sleep, the functions being discharged from working for a time, and no more: If it were not so, yet it is able to pose a man, why Christ should say unto Mary and Martha, non est infirmitas ad mortem, this sickness is not unto death, in the 4. verse of this Chapter; to the Question afterwards, to the Text in the first place. The Scripture would be satisfied, and so it shall: Mors non imminebat ad mortem, sed ad miraculum, says Lira very well; how shall I expound it to you? the languishment of his sickness did not encroach upon him, that death might close up his eyes forever, but to disclose a Miracle. As Aristotle said he would have death called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the termination of life, but not the end; as if we lived only to die: so this infirmity was not unto death, as you would say, to make it the end of the work, but that God and his Son might be glorified. To the Question then: Totus Lazarus de monumento exit, qui totus ibi non erat, says St. Austin; dead he was then, and his Soul undoubtedly departed; his Sisters that had tried their best for his recovery, would not send him forth rashly to his Grave, but that all conclusions, whether any breath remained were first examined. Nay should you take a living man and bind him with grave Cloths head and foot, enough to smother him, and lay him in a cold Rock of Stone so long in such sharp weather, (when after this time the High Priests had a Fire within doors in their Hall,) enough to starve him, and let him want food four days, enough to famish him; I say, though he had been laid in quick, you would never more have heard of him till the general Resurrection; and therefore Jesus said unto the Disciples plainly in verse 14. Lazarus is dead. No Parable, no figurative speech, alas it was too true, our Lord himself wept, his friend Lazarus was departed, Jesus said plainly, Lazarus is dead: Profunde mortuus, sed altus est Christus in misericordiâ, Christ's mercy was deeper than the grave, or he had never seen the day more. Do not graceless Sinners, the accursed seed of Cham, do they not tremble at this, says St. Austin? Si amicus Christi moritur, inimicus quid patiatur? He is descended into the Grave whom our Savior loved, whither shall they go, into what Bottom shall they be cast (if there be a bottom) whom he hates and refuses?

There is yet another Problem riseth up in this Text as well as Lazarus, What say you to the Disciples that caught the words from our Savior's mouth as if Lazarus had been cast into a slumber, our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go to wake him. I go to wake him? What, so far as Judea? It is strange to think that the Disciples would believe a man went so far to raise up one that slept: And yet when Christ spoke like a Divine they answered him like Physicians, If he sleep he shall do well. Utrumque verum Christus dixit, Lazarus mortuus, Lazarus dormit, mortuus vobis, dormit mihi; all was true that Christ said, both ways he spake good Divinity. Lazarus is dead: he was so; dead to them that could not recover him. Lazarus is asleep: he was so; no more than in a sleep to him that could restore him. Do you not a little marvel that the Apostles should so misinterpret Christ's meaning, and take his words in at the left ear? Why were they so slow to understand, that to awake from sleep was to rescue from the power of the Grave? Blessed are these days, Beloved, to whom much is given: the Book is unclasped, the Mysteries are open, we are now as well instructed that the dead shall rise again, as that the Trees shall put forth in the Spring, which stood upon the ground like withered trunks in the Winter: Or that the day shall break in the Morning, when it is but the first crowing of the Cock, and darkness upon the face of the earth; but until Christ was risen, and ascended, and that the Holy Ghost had filled them with an Evangelical Spirit, the Resurrection from the dead was a language they understood not. The ancient Church had a Ceremony to light but one Candle on the Altar on Easter Eve, all the rest standing by it were put out, to signify that the whole faith of the Resurrection of the Son of God, for that time was only in the Virgin Mary, and in no other Apostle. Fides explicita resurrectionis in solâ virgins remansit, was a common opinion; and surely the Resurrection from the dead was one of the latest Articles which was explicitly believed. And at this time they were but ill prepared to make good Believers; no face is well seen in a troubled water, and no mystery of faith can sink in deep when the mind is fearful. Alas, say they, Master, spare thyself, it is death for you and us to go into Judea, let Lazarus sleep, his Sisters will be careful to awake him. Fear is but an evil Counselor. There was resolution in our Savior, such as you might expect from the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. And as when Syracusa was oppressed Dion bethought himself how he might safely attempt to succor them, at length most generously broke off that demur, Me de meipso consulere non decet pereuntibus Syracusanis; It was too late to consult how he might save himself when his dear Countrymen the Syracusians perished: So it was out of time to tell our Savior of sparing himself when Martha was discomforted, Mary wept, Lazarus dead and gone, let them take up stones to cast at him, but first tollite lapidem, take away the Grave stone, that his friend may live again. Like Homers bird that fed her young ones and was herself an hungry, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , So Christ, like the loving Dam, will hatch the young ones in the Shell, yea, in the Tomb, though himself be taken. Though it is sure they will shortly cry out, let him be crucified, yet will he come to Judea and cry with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth.

But as the stone is in the Plum, so the most difficult question is inmost, and now to be handled. Four days the body of Lazarus lay without life and sense, the soul was parted: But where did the soul rest in quatriduo mortis? What place had it to rest in for four days, until it returned to the ancient habitation? St Paul was wrapped into the third heavens, there all knowledge is to be had, all mysteries to be expounded, and yet he knew not how he came thither, whether in the body, or out of the body, he leaves it altogether uncertain. And shall I tell you, but a worm upon earth, what became of another man, when Paul in heaven knew not what became of himself? Look among the bold conjectures of the Schoolmen, and as the old man said of his Advocates, who did rather puzzle him than instruct him in his cause, Incertior sum multo quàm dudum; The farther you go on with their Problems, the further you are from resolution. And so many places have they allotted to receive souls, that Adrian may well make a doubt, Animula vagula, blandula quae nunc abibis in loca; it is hard to say by their rules, at which end of the Town a soul should go out to take a journey.

Origen would say, that all souls were created fzrom the beginning of the world, and are sent in their turns to take bodies upon them as God disposeth. That the soul of Lazarus when it flitted out, being to be presently united to the flesh again, returned to the place where souls expected to be committed into bodies, as if it were a new birth, not a Resurrection. This favors of Plato rather than of the Scripture, and therefore I rather dismiss it as a Fable. And yet it helps not much to say his soul was translated to the place where Enoch was first reserved, and then Elias. Enoch's translation was not as they imagine, in a solitary Tabernacle, where he was reserved by himself in the outward Courts of heaven, for then was Adam in a better estate in Paradise. God did make him an helper to keep him company. Surely, if Enoch were not among the blessed that did see God face to face, he was more happy upon earth when he walked with God, Gen. v. wherefore there was no such thing as recessus Enoch if these conjectures fail not.

What other Closet have they thought upon to hold the soul of Lazarus? Why, Infants which die unbaptized, mark the argumentation, who are charged with no fault but Original sin, which in their Divinity is but the privation of grace that should have been conferred, are allotted to a place called Limbus infantum, where they are not in torment, but are excluded from seeing the glory of God, a punishment like unto their sin, not of sense, but of loss and privation. Yea, but how know you that Lazarus was unbaptized? One of an holy Family, much endeared to the love of Christ, it were strange if he had neither gone out to John into the Wilderness to partake of the Baptism of Repentance, nor could be so much beholding to the Apostles to give him the Baptism of Christ. Shall I press it further? The foreskin of his flesh was circumcised after the manner of the Jews: and the Circumcised were in the Covenant as well as the Baptized. What say you now? Doth not Limbus Infantum smell of a forgery?

But what think you of the commodity of Purgatory, thither run many of the later Expositors, and say that the soul of Lazarus went before them. Like the Quadrature of a Circle, so is this cleansing Lake, a thing of much discourse and no appearance. As Geographers, when they do not know what inhabitants possess a Country, they fill the empty place with the Pictures of Lions and Tigers and wild beasts, so the Papists not knowing what kind of coast this Purgatory is replenish it with hideous Ghosts, and tormented Spirits. But surely, if Lazarus had been removed among those souls of little ease, would Christ have delayed his coming to the fourth day? Since the Schoolmen grant that the pains of Hell are no greater than those of Purgatory, only that there is more comfort in these, because they shall have a determinate ending. Nay, Martha was an unkind Sister, and so was Mary, that never spake for his deliverance from pain, if these pains be so unsufferable. Some of the Fathers, I do confess, speak ambiguously, as if his soul had retired ad inferos, which is no other than Hell itself, although they speak of no dolor or calamity going with it. Some place of darkness there may be, say they which expound them, where pain is not heard of: And to little purpose is that fancy of Poetry cited out of Prudentius,

where there is no desperation nor worm of conscience there is no Hell, those are worse than fire and brimstone. Desperation and an evil conscience were far from this man, and therefore no unknown dark corner of Hell could be a retiring place for the soul of Lazarus.

Now as the servants of Elisha would needs go look for Elias whether he were fallen upon the Mountains or the Valleys, all this while Elias was ascended up into heaven. So to seek out the Spirit of Lazarus either with Enoch, or in Limbo, or in Purgatory, or in Hell, it is but lost labor; for the Spirit of one whom Jesus loved so dearly, why was it not all this while, as well as the soul of the repentant thief, in the joys of Paradise? Nay, but, say the Adversaries of this opinion, once a comprehender of the joys of heaven is a comprehender forever, and never more turned out to be a weary Pilgrim in the state of misery. When the soul is once ravished with that unspeakable joy of the Beatifical Vision, it is impossible to draw it back from that object. Angeli non sic foras exeunt ut vision Dei priventur; The Angels when they came upon messages to the Sons of men were at the same instant possessed of the Vision of the divine glory in heaven, at the same instant that they did officiate upon earth. So that the Spirit of Lazarus if it were once in Paradise it would never yield to return to mortal flesh, but to a glorified body which stands always before the face of God. I answer, The eternal Godhead of the holy Trinity, which makes the beholders so happy, it is not speculum natural, but voluntarium; man doth not see into it what he would see in the vehemency of his own desire but what it pleaseth God to reveal, and so far forth as he doth enflame the heart of man to desire it. Why might not God lay his hand upon him as he did upon Moses, and cover his face, deferring the felicity of the highest degree until the more full times of refreshment were accomplished.

O but you will say, had he been but in the Cliff of the Rock with Moses, and suffered there to see nothing but the hinder parts of God, yet who would not rather still abide in the Cliff of the Rock than be translated into the throne of a Monarch? Grant him but a door-keepers place, the worst share in heaven, grant him but a good passage out of this vexatious world, and what benefit can it be to return again? Were he no higher than the Orbe of the Moon, yet he were better there than in Canaan, a Land flowing with milk and honey. Quis non exhorreat & mori eligat, si rursus ei proponatur aut mors perpetienda, aut rursus infant • a. Who would not rather choose to die, says St. Austin, than live again but the age of infancy, wherein we remember not any evil we received. But when Lazarus was passed the danger of Tentations, quit from storms, put safe into the Haven, was it not an injury to be brought back again to try the danger of the Seas? When Monicha was drawing to her end, What should I stay for here any longer my Son, says she? There was one thing that made me desirous to live, to see you a Catholic Christian, this I have seen, now I desire to be dissolved: So might Lazarus say, I desired mine eyes might see my Redeemer, and I have seen him; to be beloved by my Lord, and he hath called me friend; to see him entertained in our poor Cottage, and my Sisters have received him; it is but loss to me to stay. Yea, shortly my Savior is to be crucified, shortly to ascend into heaven, and should I return to earth to lose him? Nay, what good to be done in such a place, where there will be nothing but the envy of the Pharisees, and the blasphemy of the High Priests against my Savior?

Dearly Beloved, I can quickly dispatch an answer to this, and show that the soul of Lazarus was happy to recoil again from heaven into the body. There are degrees in the habitations of heaven one above another, and one Star differs from another in glory; put case that the righteous Abel was the first Saint dying in God's favor. But John the Baptist was the greatest that was born of a woman; and the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of our Lord, was a most glorified Vessel, which all generations shall call blessed. These living and dying four thousand years after Abel came later into the Kingdom of heaven, yet as late as they came, both being crowned with a more excellent Crown than Abel was, which of them obtained the more desirable felicity? Without question the Blessed Virgins Lot was the better; for what are four thousand years reckoned in the time before to such an increase of joy forever and ever. Here is Lazarus his case. Few days had he seen, three years were the most that he had resorted to our Savior, perchance he had suffered not so much as ignominy for the name of Christ, to blood I am sure he had not ventred or resisted, yet his eyes being closed according to the measure of his faith he is received into Abraham's bosom. Let him there abide you will say, if Christ love him truly let him return no more to mortality. Nay, not so, Lazarus come forth, see the days of thy Savior's Passion and be not offended; confess his name and be scourged, take your possessions once more into your hands and spend them upon the poor; preach the Gospel as if the Angels had sent you back to bring more souls to bear them company, die not in your bed the second time, but upon the Cross as your Redeemer did, then return the way which you know so well to the fellowship of Saints, and bless the mouth which said Lazarus come forth, for the second life I may well assure myself hath gained joy of a thousand fold increase in the life everlasting. The first voyage was short and safe, but not of the greatest profit; the last was long and dangerous, but as if you went for Gold to India.

Thus I have shown that Lazarus was verily dead, the soul quite flitted from the body, that no other place but heaven did receive it, that it was no miserable fortune to assume flesh again upon earth, but an occasion to promote him to a far abundant exceeding weight of glory. Now a word of the power of Christ which coupled again those parts divorced the soul and body, not by breathing a new life into the body, but by breathing out a loud voice, Lazarus come forth.

Such as had been but banished their Country in the days of Caesar the Dictator, and were restored again by the grace of Augustus and Antony, were called Charonitae, as if they had been wasted back again into this world, when they were quite extinguished. Those Roman Potentates would be esteemed God's of another world, that could unlock a man from the fetters of banishment; needs then must he be greater than the Kings of the earth, whose authority can break the bars of death, and bring the Prisoners forth from the captivity of corruption. The Scythians, says Lucian, swear by these two Idols as the God's of the world, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by the Wind, and by the Sword. Hic spirandi est autor & ill mortis; The one gives breath to live, the other takes life away. Now that which gives life, and that which takes away life can be no less than a God, say the very Scythians. These heathen knew no more of God's power than to give life, and to take away life: Had they known what it was to restore life again, that would have been the chief power of divinity even in their estimation. Majus est restituere quàm dare, quanto miserius est perdidisse, quàm omnino non accepisse, It is more admirable to restore the soul again than to create it at the first, because it is more miserable for the body to have lost a soul, than never to have received it. The great Clerks the Athenians could not tell what to make of the infinite power of the Resurrection. It is pretty that St. Chrysostom observes upon them, Acts xvii. when Paul preached unto them, and mentioned 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or the Resurrection of the dead, they thought this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 had been a God, the unknown God, at whose Altar they did worship.

Evil men can abuse that which is good. God can make good employment of that which is evil. Death upon the first sin was named to be a punishment: It is Meritoria in Martyribus, and I may say, Gloriosa in resurgentibus; it is made an instrument of great reward unto the Martyrs, and the passage to an Article of faith to believe in the Resurrection. We call them that are dead in the Lord, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; alas there are no such now, Abraham dissolved into dust is no longer Abraham, the soul cannot be called Abraham, only the whole man both soul and body, but so stead fastly do we trust the dead shall rise again, Quod defunctorum animas nominibus suppositi appellamus, says Thomas; We speak of the dead as if they were now alive, because they shall live again, even as Christ spake to the corps of Lazarus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not as to a Corps, but as to one living, not as to one that was dead, but as to ears that could hear, Lazarus come forth. And it is well, says the Father, that among all the Corpses in the dust Christ picked him out by name; as who should say, now I will have none but Lazarus to come forth, others shall appear in their time, otherwise all the Legions of the dead had come to light, and stood thick upon the earth from the East unto the West. Indeed the souls under the Altar cry our, Quousque Domine; fain would they stand before him like Enoch and Elias, so eager they are and vehement instantly to have tongues to speak, and hands to hold up, and knees and heads to bow, as if they were not contented that their days to come for those things were days of eternity. We shall meet together all in the same Livery, clothed with bodies of youth according to the measure of our Savior's Age, Eph. iv. Alexander out of a surly Magnificence, Soli Antipatro & Phocioni salutem scripsit in Epistolis, never wrote in the top of his Letters I wish you long life and prosperity but only to Phocion and Antipater. But God will direct his voice to every member of his Church, one summon shall call forth Abraham and Isaac, and all the world, which at this time begins for a relish of faith, but with this person alone, Lazarus come forth.

And thus much for the first thing wherein the power of his Divinity appeared, Mortuus excitatur, a dead Man was raised. Now that Lazarus after four days was raised, that he which was bound came forth of the Grave is discourse for some other time. Thus much only in a word upon the present occasion. The next thing that you shall read concerning Lazarus after he was raised is this, he sat at Supper with our Savior in the second verse of the next Chapter. Why, behold the Supper of the Lord, there is the next place where you are to meet with Christ after you are risen from your sins, and the preparation of this Table to replenish your hungry souls with grace is as great a testimony of our Savior's Divinity as to raise up Lazarus. Tu das epulis accumbere Divum; it is the highest power of God which he confers to his Church upon earth, to give them leave to meet together before the food of Angels. As Manna melted away with the Sun-rising, and new store fell upon earth the next morning which is a kind of Resurrection; so you that have quenched God's Spirit, that have melted away his grace, and let it putrefy for want of good employment, this is the Morning, this is the Season to gather a new Omer full, that you may cherish and increase your faith. Which that you may do, &c.

THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION.

T His is an Easterday Text, notwithstanding that the party entreated of is Lazarus; for as John the Baptist was born a little before the birth of Christ, and John was the Forerunner of his Nativity: so Lazarus rose from death but a little before Christ rose, and was the Forerunner of his Resurrection. The Jews Passover was nigh at hand, so you shall read in the 55. verse of this Chapter: certainly it was not long before Christ the true Paschal Lamb was offered upon the Cross, that this Miracle was done, Feriâ sextâ ante Dominicam de Passione, says one, the Friday before Passion Sunday, which is nine days past. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom; he put them into admiration with this work, before this great day of admiration came.

Nor have we a Praeludium only how our Savior should conquer death, in this Chapter: but you shall resent, and perceive some resurrection wrought upon every person that had interest in this story. First the news of Lazarus death was brought unto Christ beyond Jordan, his Disciples being with him. What did this advantage them? why, Mors Lazari cum Lazaro, & discipulorum fides surgit cum sepulto, says Chrysologus. Lazarus was translated from death to life, and this did increase the Disciples faith, which lay half dead before. 2. Martha sollicits for her Brother: and 'tis strange that Christ came to Bethany on purpose for Lazarus sake, and yet spent more time with Martha than with them all. The case is plain, says Theophylact, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , alas her belief was near unto death, almost quite gone, and Christ came especially to quicken her with his grace, that was Martha's resurrection. 3. Her Sister Mary was a woeful woman, and she falls down in compassion about out Savior's feet; St. Austin takes her to be the very same Mary that was the public sinner, which washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, Luke 7. whereupon he infers, Maria peccatrix magis resuscitabatur quàm Lazarus, Mary the Sinner was more revived when she was made a penitent Saint, than Lazarus was when he was made a living man; that was Marries resurrection. 4. Here were divers Jews that came to comfort the two Sisters, they were witnesses of this work, and did glorify God and believe; Christ thanked his Father for it. Whereupon says St. Ambrose, Non unum Lazarum, sed fidem omnium suscitavit; it was a Resurrection day not for Lazarus alone, but for the faith of all the multitude that were present, whether they were the Disciples, or Martha, or Mary, or the multitude of the Jews, they had not been as they were, if Christ had not made one in every part of the Miracle: wherefore let us make a difference between them that came to gaze, and them that came to believe a Miracle, from the twelfth of this Gospel, and the ninth verse: The Jews came not only for Jesus sake, but to see Lazarus also: We come not together this day so much to see Lazarus revived, as to see the strength of Jesus above the power of death.

I have entered once before into this verse and the former, both which rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon. First it is a work of great Dignity, that's one part, and a work of great Divinity, that's the other part. The Dignity consists in these two points: First in that which Christ had spoken before, when he had thus said: and what was that? he prayed unto his Father, wherefore it is dignum oratione, a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation. Secondly, it is dignum proclamatione, it was cried with a loud voice, and fit to be published to all the world. The Divinity appears in these three Circumstances. 1. Exeat mortuus, that a dead man was summoned to appear. 2. Exeat quatriduanus, Lazarus after four days departure comes forth. 3. Exeat ligatus, he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-clothes, and his face with a Napkin, he comes forth of the Monument. O strange Divinity! the Sepulchers which were shut did open, for Christ did call, who had the key of David: the dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue, for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds to bring forth young ones: the Body which lay putrefied four days gave no offense in the smell, Christ was at hand, who is a sweet favor for us unto God; the feet which were bound with Grave-clothes could walk before him, for in him we live and move and have our being. Was not this work worthy of a Prayer? was it not worthy of a Proclamation? so far I have gone already, as likewise into the first Circumstance of the Divinity, that a dead man was raised up. As Aelian says of the Sybarites, that they invite their Guests to a Feast a just year before the day of the Feast, so long is it since I promised you the dispatch of this Text, and now I am come to perform it: you see what remains for this hours employment, the two latter Circumstances: Quatriduanus excitatur, Lazarus is raised up, after he had been four days in the Grave, and 2 ligatus excitatur, it was he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-clothes, and his face with a Napkin: two strange parts of his resurrection, not lightly to be passed over: for to speak of a Miracle suddenly, and in a word, non dat lucem videntibus, sed pavorem, it is like lightning says one, the flash that glides by of a sudden, it may terrify the eye but not enlighten it.

First of ill quatriduanus, he came forth alive, who had been four days asleep in the Monument. It is hard to persuade death to part with anything it hath gotten. The Devil strove with the Angel about the Body of Moses, think you that Death would not strive with Christ much more about the Soul of Lazarus? what, a Guest of four days continuance, and let him go? I may say to the Grave as the Prophet said to Ahab, for letting Benhadad escape? Why hast thou let a man go out of thy hand, who was appointed to utter destruction? Wherefore St. Chrysostom brings in Death to complain of this fact for a sore grievance on this wise. Elias raised up a Child whose soul was departed for a time; Elisha did as much likewise; this I took for a violence done to nature 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but here's a Conqueror that's more violent than them both, he takes a dead man out of my chaws, who stinks, and hath been four days in the Sepulcher. The same Father replies again, this is a small thing to raise up one from burial after four days, do you complain of that? what if he were putrefied? what if he were dry bones? what if he were dust and clay? yea what if that dust were converted into other creatures? Adam shall be clothed again with flesh; Noah hath lived in two Worlds, he shall live again in a third: And according to the Basil Edition of the 72. Job was one of those that rose and appeared in the holy City unto many, Matth. 27. Si attendamus quis fecit, delectari debemus, potiùs quàm mirari, says St. Austin: If we do but attend who it is that doth all these things, we shall rather break out into a passion of Joy than into Admiration. For Christ that died for us, and rose again for our Justification; he hath the Keys of Life and Death, and therefore we shall not see corruption forever. Martha had a faith that God could raise up her Brother again, and that He would do it if Christ would pray unto him; I know even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. O Woman, says Chrysologus, thou art yet but of little faith, Judex ipse est quem tu postulas Advocatum. Wouldest thou make Christ thine Advocate to plead thy Cause? Nay, Comfort is nearer at hand, he is the Judge whom thou wouldst make an Advocate; It is in his own power to raise up thy Brother after four days.

Two days our Savior abode beyond Jordan after Lazarus was dead, and after he set forward to Bethany, he made two days Journey of it before he came to the place; all this while the Prisoner was fast locked up under the Gates of Death. Belike Lazarus could not be released till Christ came unto the Cave where he was laid: No such necessity, Beloved, Ubicunque Christus steterat, patebant inferi. Hell must open her mouth in any place where Christ did set his foot; nay in any place where he should but say unto the Grave, I will, be thou opened. Therefore another Reason must be given why Lazarus staid until the fourth day for his Enlargement. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom; Jonas and Lazarus both were Servants, they must not jump with Christ in the same Privileges in everything, then the Servant should be equal with his Master. Jonas came out of the Whales Belly the third day, so did Christ out of the Tomb; but Jonas was alive, and Christ was dead, there was the Difference between the Servant and the Master. Christ rose from the dead, and so did Lazarus; but Christ the third day, and Lazarus the fourth; there's the Difference between the Master and the Servant. The Resurrection of the dead is an Article of the Creed engendered in the heart by a very strong Faith, 'tis mirabilium mirificentia, as one says, The astonishment of all admiration; and when it shall be reported by the Women, that an Angel told them it, the best of them all will doubt, Thomas and many more will flatly deny it. What deny that Christ could quicken himself the third day, when he raised up Lazarus the fourth?

Lazarus was unto Christ, as Aaron's Rod was unto Aaron: The Sedition of Dathan and Abiram opposed Aaron, and would not acknowledge him to be the High Priest; That shall be tried, says the Lord, and Aaron's Rod, which was a dry stick, budded buds and bloomed blossoms, as if it had been living, more than all the other Rods of the Tribes of Israel: So Lazarus was laid up in the Cave, like the Rod of Aaron in the Tabernacle; and when his life was restored the fourth day, it proved that Christ could build up the Temple again in three days, which they had plucked down before. What shall we say then? That the Resurrection was more wonderful in Lazarus by one day, than in Christ himself? Nothing less. For Christ was raised up by his own power, and Lazarus by the power of Christ. Christ's death was violent, his very heart, as some think, was dig'd through with the Soldiers Spear. Lazarus his death was natural, and no principal part of his body was wounded, or impaired. Si aliud videtur vobis mortuus, aliud videtur & occisus; if it be one thing to die in the peace of nature, and another thing to be made away by violence, Ecce Dominus utrumque fecit, here are examples of both that returned to life, Christ the third day from the death of violence, Lazarus the fourth day from the death of nature: both are from the Lord.

As a Servant said of an unlucky day wherein all things went cross, huic diei oculos eruere vellem, he vished the Sun had never shined upon it. So this fourth day hath not a little troubled Satan: Upon the fourth day, Gen. i. 14. God set lights in the Firmament: to what end? to divide the day from the night, and the light from the darkness. Periisti Satana, this is a fatal day with the Devil, who would have mingled night with day, and darkness with light; but now his works are discovered: The fourth year hath been as climacterical unto him, and as much out of his way in the 13. of St. Luke and the 7. verse. These three years, says the Lord of the Vineyard, I have looked for fruit, and find none, now I will cut down the Vine: nay says the Dresser of the Vineyard, stay but this year also, and the fourth there are hopes it will bring forth grapes and please the Lord. To say thus much for our Evangelist St. John, the fourth Evangelist gave the shrewdest blow to the stratagems of Satan, and hath so proved the Divinity of Christ, almost in every verse, that Ebion and Cerinthus were confounded, and Heresy is proved a liar to her face forever. Even so was this number critical unto death in the Resurrection of Lazarus, three days he was given for lost, and upon the fourth day Christ cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth.

There is a moral sense besides that whereof I have spoken, and that is like fine flower boulted out of the Letter, and it yields like the bread which our Savior broke to the multitude, and will satisfy thousands. Death was the reward of sin. In that Lazarus was dead and buried, I read the Parable of a sinner upon his Sepulcher: In that he was four days dead he must be magnus peccator, says St. Austin, no small offender can be meant by that, but a grievous sinner. Where have you laid him says Christ? O what a dreadful question is that? Lord know me for one of thy children; but know me for a sinner, rather than not know me at all. Let it not be said unto me, Depart from me, I know you not. Projectus sum à facie oculorum tuorum, says David in the person of a castaway, I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes. Perditum nescit ubi sit, it is God's language, he pretends he sees not them, he knows not them that were lost. Adam where art thou says God. O Adam, that question had confounded thee, if Christ had not answered for thee, Loe I come. Where are the other nine says Christ of the Lepers, de ingratis quasi ignotis loquitur, ungrateful men were not in Christ's Book, he knows not what becomes of them, nor whither they wander; so to inquire of Lazarus, as if he knew not where he was laid, is to set him forth as the similitude of a great sinner; ubi posuistis? where have you laid him? nay but this agrees not perchance with his Sisters message, He whom thou lovest is sick; and again, See how he loved him. Yes it agrees full well. Si peccatores non amaret, Deus de coelo non descenderet, it was out of a most compassionate love that God descended from heaven to save sinners. Behold he loved him: and yet Lazarus stands for the Parable of a sinner.

That foundation is laid, and then you shall know the better what is meant by lying four days in the Sepulcher. First we are all dead born; man as soon as he sees the light his heart is in darkness, he brings the seeds of original sin with his frail flesh into the world, and then he is dead one day. 2. Nature hath dictated a Law unto us. The Gentiles are a Law unto themselves sais St. Paul: and when we do those things which Nature herself is ashamed at, and blusheth, then we are dead the second day. 3. God gave us a Law by Moses, for the spark which he had kindled in nature was almost put out, and it was time to dig that into stone which was worn out in flesh, and he that violates the Law of Moses is dead the third day. 4. Sin is grown strong by the Law, Precept upon Precept made us the worse; corruption in the soul is like an ill affected body, it desires that most which is forbidden: And therefore Christ gave us Legem Evangelii, a short Lesson, Repent and believe, which is called the Law of the Gospel; and if we violate that Law, it is the fourth day of death, and we begin to stink in the Sepulcher. What an hard task hath Christ? what a troublesome work have we put him to? to diminish the power of original sin, to rectify the impairs and decays of Nature, to satisfy for the Law, but above all to mollify a stony heart that will not believe, to quicken an unrepentant heart, this is dignus vindice nodus. Martha and Mary sent to Christ when their Brother was sick to come and help, now he had more need of Christ, quatriduanus est, this is the Parable of a sinner that will not believe the Gospel. Help Lord, and raise us up, for who else can do it but the Lord?

Five Miracles you shall meet with in this Gospel of St. John, four of which are recorded by no other Evangelist, everyone is greater than another, but this is the Master-piece. The first was turning of Water into Wine at Cana in Galilee. Christ at the first conversion makes us quite other men than we were before, cold water becomes warm and cheerful wine. 2. Follows the scourging of the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple, that signifies contrition and compunction of the heart, when thievish fancies, such as steal away our soul, are cashiered from the holy place. 3. A man was healed at Bethesda that had been sick of an infirmity 38 years. Custom in sin, and want of devotion is a sore languishing sickness, it is more to cure them, than to cast the den of thieves out of the Temple. 4. A man born blind was restored to his sight; he that languished 38 years had enjoyed health before, but he that was born blind was never better, and it exceeded all the rest to dispel ignorance, and blindness, quando synteresis extincta est, when the light of the conscience was quite put out. But fifthly, what talk we of sickness or blindness, the dead man, the Graves Tenant for four days, dead by original sin, dead by imperfection of nature, dead by disobedience to the Law, dead by unbelief and want of faith in Christ, dead four days is raised up. Tollite lapidem, says Christ, away with the stone, removete legis pondus, & gratiam predicate, away with the burden that lies heavy upon him, preach grace, and remission of sins unto him, and he shall live.

Behold another Moral of the same Authors in the Sermons de tempore, if they be St. Austin's. Sin when it is made very sinful, grows up by four degrees, titillatione, consensu, facto, consuetudine. 1. By delighting in the suggestions of sin (not but that suggestions of sin are sin; but I speak of the growth of sin, and not the root.) 2. By consenting to those delights. 3. By committing the evil whereunto we consented. 4. By continuing in the custom of delight, and consent, and committing evil. Delight is the rotting of the seed in the ground, Consent is the blade, Commission of evil is the grown fruit, Custom is the root that fastens it to the ground: the seed may quickly be picked up, the blade may be blasted, the fruit may be cut down, but the root lies deep hidden, you must plow, and turn up the earth, and dig deep before you can get it out. In the 3 former parts the waves of ungodliness are coming up, but custom is the inundation of iniquity, the stream that goes over our head. It was said of one Mandrabulus, that the Oracle of Apollo pronounced against him that he grew worse and worse. For out of a thankful mind for all his happiness received, the first year he offered up a Gold Cup; he repented him of his cost, and the next year it was a Cup of Silver; yet he thought he was too bountiful, and the third year it was a Boul of Wood; the fourth year he thought he had been thankful enough, and gave just nothing. Now, says Apollo, is Mandrabulus as bad as He can be. So the heart which pleaseth itself with vicious cogitations is much corrupted, yet God may still have the better part. The heart that makes a bargain with Satan to do injustice is half the Devil's, yet the Body is not defiled with the act. The body also may be an instrument of uncleanness, then the heart is even lost and gone, yet it may detest the fact, and return unto the Lord. But when custom hath as it were sealed the Covenant to the Devil, and delivered up the Deed, the case is very desperate, all the heart is in the enemies hand. Lazarus is under a Grave-stone four days. Difficile surgit quem moles malae consuetudinis premit, he will hardly swim above water again that is cast into the bottom of the Gulf with a Milstone of evil custom about his neck. Yet Christ can quicken him, as he did Lazarus, I do not deny it: but let no man treasure up sin, as it were to prepare himself to repent of such a mass of iniquities: but let no man dispair of that repentance if frailty have overtaken him. If you feel yourself incline to presume of repentance, says St. Austin, oppose against it the uncertain hour of death: if you feel yourself incline to despair of repentance, oppose against it the abundance of grace. Moderation is the best. When sin doth post from delight to consent, from consent to act, from act to custom, yet after four days, says Christ, Lazarus come forth.

So much of that circumstance, Lazarus quatriduanus, that being four days dead he was raised up to life. It follows to be considered, Lazarus ligatus, he was bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face with a Napkin. He was laid like a pledge in the grave, and bound for security. Christ was willing to release him, some bonds he cancelled himself, and some he left to be untied by others. As for the bonds of death God did bind them, and unloose them; as for the bonds of the grave-clothes let them unknit them that made the knot, God did untie that which God bound, let men untie their own work, and then they are sure there can be no deceit. As if our Savior had said, I know you will say of Lazarus as you did of the man born blind, This is not he. Will you deny it? But here is your own bond, can you deny that? Is not this Lazarus? See but what infirmity Christ pretended in the beginning of this work, and how powerfully it ended. Jesus wept in the 35 verse, as if it were a pitiful case indeed, but he could not help it. He asked where they had laid him? Lord, dost thou ask for the grave which was hard by, and yet knowest thine own self, no man told thee, being two days journey from Bethany that Lazarus was dead? Then he asked for help to take away the stone, Debile initium miraculi; a weak beginning, God knows, how should we expect that he should open the gates of Hell, that with a word doth not command the Sepulchers to open. Doth this offend you? What and if you see not only a dead man after four days raised to life, but also to walk before you, when his feet and hands were bound? As if he moved like an Angel, rather by the will of his own Spirit than by bodily instruments. This was the conclusion of the Miracle, and whatsoever the beginning was, the end was admirable. As Samson went away with the Pin and the Web, Judge. xvi. 14. which were tied to his hair, whatsoever Delilah bound him with still he walked: So Lazarus went away with his bonds, as if he had triumphed over death, and carried the Ensigns away, that is the grave-clothes with him.

Peters Chains fell off from his hands, and so he avoided the imprisonment of Herod. Peter thought so strangely of this to walk when his fetters were off, that a great while he wist not it was true that was done, but thought he saw a vision. What did Peter think of Lazarus then? For he was one that stood by. His eyes were blindfold that he could not see his way; the hands are the blind man's Candle, and serve to feel out the way, and they had Manicles. The feet had Shackles that should tread the way: Yet as if he had flown out of the Grave rather than walked, Lazarus came forth, he was in the Sepulcher, shortly to be brought forth as if he had been hatching in his mothers womb rather than in a Cave of interred men. He was, says St. Chrysostom, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , like a babe new born wrapped in swaddling clouts, rather than like one in a winding sheet. But when he walked without the use of feet or hands, he was like Paul wrapped up into the third heavens, whether in the body, or out of the body he knew not.

It is a great comfort unto us, says Irenaeus, that Lazarus came forth cap-a-pe the same man that he was laid in the Grave, nothing altered about him, Igitur eâdem animâ, eodem corpore sumus resurrecturi; it shall be our own body, it shall be our own soul in the Resurrection, no substances newly created. Lazarus could best speak for the soul that it must be his own, because his former fancy and remembrance still remained: And his Sisters could speak for the body, they knew what they had foulded up, and what they found when they had unfoulded it. And therefore some think that it was unto Martha and Mary that Christ spake in the end of this verse, Loose him and let him go. When Elias raised up the Son of the Widow of Sarepta to life, he gave him to his Mother; when Elisha restored the Shunamites Child to life, he gave him to his Mother; when Christ raised up Lazarus from the Grave, he puts him into the hands of his Sisters, that they may untie what they had bound before; nay, when he rose from death himself, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. What is the reason that at every turn the women had the Resurrection first declared unto them? Because they did first occasion death, therefore to show that by faith they were excusable of the fault, they had the first news of the life of them that rose again. Lord, says Martha, if thou hadst been here my brother had not died. She put all the fault upon the absence of Christ. Nay, woman, says Chrysologus, Nisi tu fuisses in paradiso; If thou hadst not been in Paradise thy brother had not died. But Lazarus is bound that you may untie him, and give him breath, who first did stop his breath by eating the forbidden fruit.

Exiit ligatus, he came forth bound. Lazarus was not glorified in body by this Miracle as the Saints shall be, yet here you shall see one of the properties of a glorified body; and they are reckoned up to be four by the Schoolmen, Claritas, incorruptibilitas, spiritualitas, motus agilitas. 1. There shall be an exceeding brightness in those bodies, as our Savior's body shined so white at the Transfiguration, that no Fuller could make a thing so white. 2. They shall be incorruptible. Summer and Winter, Fire and Sword could do them no violence, as Christ said unto Mary, Touch me not. 3. They shall not be gross like our bodies, and sustained with meat. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 4. It shall be nimble in motion like an Angel, flying as Philip did from Gaza in the Desert to Azotus suddenly, gliding upon the wings of the wind, not depending upon feet as we do, and to prefigure this property in a glorified body hereafter, Lazarus came forth bound.

The vulgar Translation puts in a word to make the Miracle more strange, Statim exiit, that Lazarus came instantly forth without delay, though his feet and hands were bound, and his face with a Napkin. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Nonnus, he came not out like one that was shackled, and halted because of his impediments, he ran swiftly before them all. For Christ useth not to do his work lamely, and by halves. St. Chrysostom makes this comparison: As a horse and his Rider listen at the Race when the word shall be given, and take it at the first syllable to be gone. So says he, as soon as Christ had but said, Lazarus come forth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 he started out like the horse at his game, and came on with speed and cheerfulness; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , like one that watched the Sepulcher rather than the Corps. Chrysologus brings in the Devil who is the Jailor of death wonderfully amazed, that our Savior called for a dead Corps, and makes him to speak thus: Let him have the man he calls for, let him have him bound hand and foot if he will; let us not stay so long as to untie the knots, make no delay, Ne dum tardius unum referimus, omnes cogeremur afferre, lest while we prolong the time to restore one dead man he should call unto the Graves to restore them all. As Luther called upon the Pope at first to have but one error amended concerning indulgences, and while he trifled, and hung off to do that, Luther cried so loud, that he caused divers Churches most happily to mend twenty more: So death hastened away Lazarus being bound, lest if he staid more would follow him. As the Egyptians hasted away the Israelites at midnight to be gone; let them go with their Jewels and Riches which they had borrowed, for if they staid they were afraid to lose lives and all. Thus much of the literal sense, that Lazarus came forth bound, and that instantly says the Latin vulgar Translation.

Now for the Moral which is the Use of this Point, wherein thus I will proceed: 1. What it is to come forth. 2. What it is to be bound. 3. Concerning the binding of the feet and hands. 4. Concerning the binding of his face with a Napkin. Briefly of these, that we may make such haste from the Text as Lazarus did from the Tomb.

What is it to come forth? Do we first question that? Poenitet, & surgit: Confitetur & prodit, says Burgensis; To repent of sin is to rise from it, to come forth is to confess it which was hid before. When Jonathan and his Armor bearer appeared to the Philistines, the Philistines derided them, saying, See how the Hebrews come out of the holes where they hid themselves. So, profane men will laugh at you if you betray yourself so much unto any man as to confess your sins and imperfections; but God is well pleased when you do not disguise yourself in hypocrisy. When the Publican smote his breast, Arguebat aliquid quod latebat in pectore, says St. Austin; He pierced his own heart, and gave it vent to draw out that acknowledgment, God be merciful to me a sinner. Why hast thou eaten of the tree that I forbad thee, says God to Adam? What is this that thou hast done, says he again to Eve? He calls both them to an account, that they may make an humble confession, and be pardoned. Serpens persuasor qui non erat revocandus ad veniam, non est de culpâ requisitus, says Gregory; but the Serpent was never questioned. It was bootless for him to confess, and give an answer, because God never thought to pardon him. To accuse ourselves of great disobedience what is it but to magnify his mercies who remits our sins? Si nos accusemus, & Deum laudemus, bis Deum laudamus, says St. Austin, Then if we condemn ourselves, and praise him, what is it but to give double praise unto his name?

As gall and bitter humors come off from the stomach with great distaste unto the mouth: So, it doth not please our Palat, it offends our tongue to bewray those vices which our heart would fain conceal. I, but all this while Lazarus is in the Tomb, he is close kept, and stinks, said Martha. While you would not be known of that which is past, Non te Domino, sed dominum abscondis tibi; You do not keep yourself close from God, but you keep God from yourself: You take a course, a woeful course, that you may not see his face that sees all things in the world; but you cannot bring it about, that he who sees all things in the world may not see you. I have not covered my transgression, says Job, as Adam did, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom; a testimony of a sound conscience howsoever his body was diseased. Vir iste magnus in virtutibus suis, mihi certe etiam sublimis apparet in peccatis, says Gregory. Job was a man of eminence in his virtues but I renown him in his very sins, because he opened them to him that will have mercy.

The confession that we speak of is thus amplified further in my Text, that Lazarus came forth when another called him. Many take a pride to descend to so much humility as to impeach themselves, but if another condemn them, and provoke them to acknowledge their faults, they deny it with indignation. You must not say that he is a Swearer, though himself comfesseth he is a Blasphemer: You must not say he is Intemperate, though he confess himself to be Luxurious. You must not say that he is uncharitable, though himself confess that he hates his enemies; thus while we arrogantly defend ourselves against reproof, it is manifest that we did accuse ourselves but out of arrogance, or for fashion sake, or out of hypocrisy. In this vicious Age I admire Chastity, and Justice, and charitable works, but considering the stubborn imaginations of men's hearts, I do not so much wonder at those virtues, as I do admire the humble confession of a sinner, when he is chid and reproved by him that hath the charge of his soul It is not so hard to shun some sins before they are committed, as to cry guilty when they are committed. And therefore to teach us to come out of the close dens of sin by confession, Christ says Gregory, did not say to this man revivisce, but prodi foras, not Lazarus live again, but Lazarus come forth.

Secondly, Let us learn what it is to be bound; it is to be plunged in sin like Simon the Sorcerer, who was in obligatione iniquitatis; In the bond of iniquity, Acts viii. 23. As debtors are in bonds to pay what they owe, or else to yield their bodies to imprisonment. Wherefore our trespasses are called our debts in the Lord's Prayer, Mat. vi. Lex a ligando. It is good to keep the Law of God, there is no greater freedom in the world, but they that take freedom to have their own swing, and to do what they list, are held unto the greatest slavery in the world. Man is born like a wild Asses Colt, says Job. The wild Ass is not bridled, and he taketh his pastime where he will in the Wilderness; but such beasts as are of use and service must be tied unto the Yoke: So the natural man gives his lusts and desires what they ask, no command controuls him, but he is held with the cords of his own sins, saith Solomon, Prov. v. And who is such a Vassal as he that can deny the lust of his own concupiscence nothing? Herod was bound by promise to Herodias, and so he could not save the head of John the Baptist, who might have cut off the head of Herodias had he been a free man. Judas had taken Press-money of the Devil, and he must betray his Master. More than forty men had bound themselves by oath to kill St. Paul. O what a Tyrant is Satan! He binds Kings in chains, and Nobles with links of Iron. And when the hand of one Ruffian might have killed a silly weak Apostle, he knits above forty men with one knot to eat nothing till they had dispatched him, as who should say, You shall starve if you will not be Murderers.

God hath set bounds unto the Ocean Sea, and hath said unto it, Hither thou shalt go, and no further. Can any man say so to his own lusts, thus far I will sin, and no more? You fools that gaze upon beauties, and put your feet into unchaste doors, and say that you will go no further into wantonness. You doting Covetous, that think it nothing to corrupt yourselves with one base reward, and say you will leave at that. Idem facis, ac qui e monte se praecipitans velit sistere. says Tully; You are unwise as he that did cast himself headlong from a steepy rock, and thought he could stop before he lost his breath. Sin hath no moderation. Qui facit peccatum est servus peccati; He that commits sin is the servant of sin, you cannot play fast and loose with the Devil. If you be once bound, it will ask you plenty of tears, and many groans of repentance that Christ may make you free. Sin is not like the green withs that tied Samson, and brake like a thread of Tow; but like the fetters cast upon poor Joseph, The Iron entered into his soul, says David. It is such a long captivity as the Jews suffered in Babylon, it trusseth you up, as the tares were bound in bundles for everlasting fire, Mat. xiii. Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Or the Leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil, Jer. xiii. 23.

Now because sin is a bond, especially sin that is enormous and scandalous, not only Satan by inclining them to evil, but God in his justice holds them fast to it that they cannot get loose. For the Priest he casts another bond upon that, Quodcunque lig averitis, whatsoever you bind upon earth; they bind none but incorrigible and contumacious sinners that is one bond for another, and then the Lord's bond is thrown upon them both, whatsoever you bind upon earth it is bound in heaven, the bond of iniquity is upon the sinner, the bond of Ecclesiastical Censure is upon the bond of iniquity, the bond of God's judgment ratifies the bond of Ecclesiastical Censure. How can the planchers fly out when they are thus hoopt about? A threefold cord is not easily broken. Ligantur poenâ qui ligati fuerunt culpâ à bonis operibus, says Lira; They are bound over to eternal punishment in the life to come, who in this life bound themselves from doing good.

Thirdly, Let us understand what it is for a sinner to be bound hand and foot. Manus non extensae ad eleemosynam, pedes tardi ad bonum, so says the Gloss. Hands that were shut to the poor, and gave no Alms, feet that have not frequently walked to the house of God, these were bound in this life when they should have executed their Function, and then follows, Take him, and bind him hand and foot, and cast him into utter darkness, Mat. xxii. The hand is the principal Engine of all other instruments, and if it be bound, we may direct much perchance, yet can execute nothing. But there is no music in that eloquence, where the tongue persuades enough, but the hand is like the hand of Jeroboam, dried up and withered. He that takes upon him to teach, and direct, let his hands be loose, that he may give a demonstration of his Doctrine in his own works, and then it is powerful. Dux consilio, miles exemplo, as it was said of Caesar: He gave the counsel of a General, he did the work of a Common Soldier. The Sun under a Cloud looks as if his glorious beams were shut up and imprisoned: So it is a dark and a gloomy Profession of Piety to cast no beams abroad; let your light shine before men that they may see your good works. If your hands, I mean your good deeds, be bound up, the bonds are such as Lazarus had, and worse, the swaddling bonds of eternal death. Pedes sunt affectus sensuales qui terrae adhaerent, that is the usual Moral, by feet are understood our sensual Passions, and Affections, which cleave unto the earth. Indeed Lazarus will walk better with those feet, when they are obedient to reason, and bound to her Law than when they are loose, and run their own ways. Excellent Servants to be guided, but unruly Masters to command. O let your affections be set upon heaven above, and not fix themselves upon earth beneath, and then you may say with David, I will run the way of thy Commandments. So much for the binding of the hands and feet.

The last Point, and that which shuts up all, is to open this Mystery, that Lazarus his face was bound with a Napkin. Lazarus came forth with his winding-sheet about his body, with his Napkin about his face; here again is the Resurrection of Lazarus distinguished from the Resurrection of Christ. As for Christ's grave clothes Peter looked in, and saw them wrapped together, when his body was without. And what caused this difference Beloved? Why, first to answer a false rumour which belied both Christ and his Disciples at once, even for that cause our Savior's linen clothes were left behind in the Monument, You will say his Disciples came by night, and stole him away. But if they took out the body, why did they leave the linen clothes behind? Had desperate thieves such leisure to uncase him, and to fold up several parcels by themselves, when a guard of Soldiers were round about them? Now when as no such objection should be made against Lazarus, he came forth with his winding sheet knit about his hands and feet, and his face with a Napkin, 2. Lazarus rose out of the Grave, but to die again, he was virbius. One poor life served him to change it for two deaths; and therefore he came abroad like a mortal man, with his rags wrapped about him to cover his nakedness. But Christ's, says Nissen, rose to immortality, and therefore left those clouts in the grave which had been cast about him. That blessed life which we shall enjoy needs not garments to clothe the body. In the days of innocence Adam and Eve walked naked, and were not ashamed, they saw no uncomliness in it. Then shall apparel much less be an ornament to a glorified body. And therefore Elias mounting up to heaven in the fiery Chariot left his Mantle with Elisha: But he in our Text returned to the estate of frailty and corruption, his face was covered with a Napkin.

Thirdly, says St. Austin, Lazarus in the Tomb was the figure of a sinful man, Lazarus coming forth was the type of one that was born again, and is regenerate. But as touching a man new born and regenerate, still there remain in him, Vinculum peccati, & velumignorantiae; The entanglements of some sins, and the veil of ignorance. The bonds about the feet, and the Napkin about the face. But as for Christ's linen clothes in whom there was nor sin, nor ignorance, but a soul full of grace and truth, why should he carry away his Shrowd, or his Kercher? No, he bequeathed them to the earth, and left them to the Monument. Let us be wise unto salvation, and not too curious in searching these things, the Text doth admonish us. For why was Lazarus his face covered, though his Spirit was returned unto him again? St. Austin answers, Quod in hâc vitâ per speculum videmus in aenigmate, postea autem facie ad faciem; Because in this life we see darkly as in a glass, but hereafter we shall see God face to face. As concerning natural Causes and Effects, says Aristotle, we see into them, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with Owls eyes by day, that discern nothing clearly, but as concerning the Mysteries of Godliness, we look upon them as Moses did upon the Land of Canaan when Jordan was between; we are in one Country, and see afar off indistinctly the prospect of another. As Rebecca took away her veil when Isaac came toward her, that she might see his face, so this veil shall be taken from the Church, which is the Spouse of God, when he draws near unto it: Now Lazarus his Napkin is about our face. O that thou wouldst rent away this veil O Lord, that we might see thy glory! Behold, as the eyes of Servants look unto the hand of their Masters, and as the eyes of a Maiden unto the hand of her Mistress, even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have mercy upon us. AMEN.

THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION.

T His is the day which the Lord hath made; and thus begins the Gospel appointed for this great day of the Lord. A Gospel of which I may say it is full, even to the brims, of Divine Meditations. For here are those two Christian Pillars that uphold the Church of God, such as shall never be removed, Fides & Fidelis, the faith of the Elect, and relatively an elect Vessel that received the faith; a principal Article of our Creed, that Christ rose again the third day from the dead; and a very illustrious instance of Mary Magdalene, who was brought to believe in that Article. 1. The Faith which must be believed, to sanctify our contemplations; 2. The Faithful that did believe, to bring us to a godly practice. So the Spirit of God hath led Mary Magdalene to the Sepulcher, to see that Christ was risen from the dead; and the self-same Spirit hath led us, to see the love and piety of Mary Magdalene. And as this devout woman hath obtained a place of memorial for her name among the blessed of the New Testament, because the example of her zeal did shine before us; So our names shall find a place among those that are recorded in the Book of Life, such honor shall they have that follow after.

My Text begins a story concerning that first witness to whom our Lord and Savior's Resurrection was revealed. Now upon so much of the Story as is recorded in this verse five things shall be handled, First the Condition of that Witness before whom our Lord did first appear, after he came out of the Grave, Mary Magdalene. 2. You may note the Constancy of her love, that she remembered him after death, and came unto his Sepulcher. 3. It is to be ascribed to her Faith, that she chose the right season, the first day of the week. 4. The Expedition which she made, is a token of restless diligence, that she came early, when it was yet dark. 5. An Accident of admiration encounters her, that she seeth the stone taken away from the Sepulcher. No Witness more classical for God's use, than Mary Magdalene a repentant Sinner: No love more expressive, than to show affection even after death; no season so fit to be watched as the same which Christ foretold, how the third day he would rise, which fell out on the first day of the week: no fruit that doth better become Faith and Love than vigilant diligence without sloth; Repentance, Love, Faith, Diligence shall ever be thus requited, that God will show them a sign from Heaven beyond their expectation.

The condition of the person is the first thing that we encounter, Mary Magdalene, cometh unto the Sepulcher. She came not alone, but other Associates did bear her company, such as were devout women, and loved our Lord. But our Evangelist knew a reason that she alone was worth the mentioning, instead of all besides; and upon her name only his Narration runs, that Mary Magdalene came unto the Sepulcher. The Scripture hath not forgot some of those that were her Associates, in other Gospels; St. Matthew says, Mary Magdalene went forth as it began to dawn, and the other Mary; St. Mark names three, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the Mother of James, and Salome; St. Luke speaks of an indefinite number; but every Divine Writer begins with Mary Magdalene, she and Joanna, and Mary the Mother of James, and other Women that were with them. But this Woman in my Text was more fervent and passionate in the cause, she incited all the rest to go with her to the Sepulcher, wherefore she is remembered by our Evangelist in a kind of singularity above all the rest; John himself was the Disciple of Love, and was careful to eternize her name in this story, which did abound in Love above all her Fellows. Some ancient Writers knew not how so good a Work could be done, wherein many religious Women conspired together, without the most Blessed Mary the mother of our Lord. Rather than it should turn to her disesteem to stay behind, Sedulius, Nyssen and Nicephorus were willing, I think, to mistake, that the Woman whom St. Matthew calls the other Mary, was the Holy Virgin. The disadvantages which this Opinion brings with it were not thought upon, that another name should stand before hers, to be past over with such an easy mention as the other Mary, and not the mother of our Lord, a thing which especially St. Luke useth not to forget. And what an instance of moment were this, that among all others our Lord did first appear to Mary Magdalene, after he was risen from the dead? Surely his mother had been partaker of that sweet Vision as soon as any, if she had been in place to behold him. Bernard invents a reason to satisfy himself (though perhaps it will not satisfy all men) why the Blessed Virgin did willingly absent herself from coming to the Sepulcher the first day of the Week; because her Faith abounded more than all the rest. She was constantly persuaded that Christ was risen upon the third day, even as he had spoken before, and she would not go to the Sepulcher to seek the living among the dead. But if any man should cast a doubt, that the Holy Scriptures would not have concealed such a superexcellent strain of Faith in the Blessed Virgin, if she had believed the Mystery of the Resurrection, when the Disciples and all other were mistaken: besides that none of the Church did perfectly understand the Scriptures, until the Holy Ghost fell down upon them at the Feast of Pentecost; I say, if any should cast in such a doubt, I know not how it would be resolved. I have no Warrant to affirm anything in this point, neither doth the Scripture express when Christ did appear to his mother after his Resurrection, to show he was no accepter of persons in way of carnal Affinity. He did appear to more than five hundred brethren at once, doubtless she was one of them; he did appear to the eleven, and to them that were gathered together with them. Luk. xxiv. 33. I may suppose the Blessed Virgin was there, because she was John 's charge to take her with him: but certainly she was none of that Train, which came early in the morning with Mary Magdalene to the Sepulcher.

Then let us proceed and say from hence, that God hath done great honor to this Sex, to make them the first Instruments that should know and declare his Resurrection. Where were the Apostles at this time? Alas, they were terrified, and had •• ielded like Men to the Passions of the Flesh; they were shut up close for fear of the Jews, and durst not show their heads; only a few Women which had followed Christ, were more adventurous than all the rest; and as if it irked them to care for their Life any longer, since the Life of the World was put to death, una salus nullam sperare salutem, they step out boldly, let come what will. Wherefore to give you St. Austin's words, Munus Apostolicum viris creptum ad breve tempus eis resignat, the Apostolical Office was taken from the Disciples for a time, and it was given to them to preach that wonderful work of God, Christ risen from the dead. Audentes tu Christ juvas, you shall lose nothing to be courageous in a good cause: that great glory, to see the Son of God in a vision, now alive again, was given to them that did adventure to find him. Secondly, none wept so much for his death as these tenderhearted souls, the Daughters of Jerusalem, they were the first that mourned, and they are the first that be comforted, the greatest partakers of grief for his passion, are made the first partakers of joy for his Resurrection. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. And if there be any that repine much at their own daily misfortunes, who say they have bu • •• ttle joy in this world, let them strike their hand upon their breast, and say it is because they have taken but little grief. Jesus is our Passover that was sacrificed for us: but you heard the Ceremony read today, which God appointed; the Lamb must be eaten with sower herbs, or else you must not taste of the Passover. Christian, whosoever thou be, that art taught this day, what a victory thy Savior obtained against the Grave, and against the nethermost Hell, if thy heart be not replenished with joy upon the tidings, if it do not assure unto thee the seal of the Divine Promise, which is the earnest of thine inheritance, it is because thou hast not eaten sower herbs with the Passover. Thou hast not yet afflicted thy voluptuous heart sufficiently as Mary Magdalene did, and the other women before they came unto the Sepulcher.

Thirdly, women are the first witnesses in daily Childbirths how we are born into this world children of wrath, and God hath revealed to their knowledge in the first place, how we shall be made alive again, and become heirs of salvation. For Resurrection is the birth of the dust, and when the Grave had given up the dead body of Christ, these women came, as it were, unto the labor, much about the time that the Monument did groan, even when an Earthquake had gone just before it. Once it was their curse to have a woe pronounced upon them, In dolore paries, In sorrow shalt thou bring forth Children, Gen. iii. 16. Now they see another manner of travel, that God can quicken us to life again not miserably, but triumphantly; and the earth shall give up the dead with joy and gladness. Fourthly, we may well know him to be the same Christ who was crucified, and rose again the third day, because he chose no better witnesses than these were for so great a mystery. The world, it may be, will contemn such simplicity of the Spirit, but, because it so pleased our Savior, Mary Magdalene, and the women are most authentic witnesses; and beyond all exception. Shepherds address unto his cratch where he was born. Women unto his Tomb where he was risen from the dead, that you may see how Satan's method of deceiving is quite contrary to God's method of saving. The Devil dealt all by craft to tempt our first Parents in the shape of a Serpent, and Christ deals all by simplicity, and innocence, through the testimony of Shepherds, through the testimony of Women. If you be hard to believe the things which were very strange at his Nativity, and at his Resurrection, examine these persons and ye shall have plain truth without tricks and turnings. A righteous cause needs not a supportance by Art and subtlety; a piercing wit may find a way to make a bad action seem good, but when the action is without controversy good already, the devices of a sharp wit will never make it seem better, for truth is least suspected when it is not varnished over with Policy. Lastly, To end this Point, among all other women Mary Magdalene the great sinner is with the first that comes unto the Sepulcher, to refresh our conscience, which is oppressed with the fore burden of iniquity, that our Redeemer liveth, to gratify repentant sinners in especial wise that fly unto his mercy. If it were fit for Mary to bury her sins in that Grave, it will be fit likewise for thee, and me. Repentance may be described to be the Resurrection of the soul from the death of sin. And this Resurrection from sin, which I may call Metaphorical, hath a fast interest, none so sure as it, in Christ as he comes forth from the darkness of the grave, and shines upon the world. All men shall be restored to life, just and unjust; for the Son of God redeemed the whole nature of man from the corruption of the Grave; and the Devil did utterly lose jus mortis the whole dominion of death, because our Savior being an innocent was put to death, over whom he had no dominion: But the glory of our Savior's victory was to conquer two at once, Hell and Death: So the Prophet Hosea cries out in form of an Epinicium, O death where is thy sting? O hell where is thy victory? And from his own voice he declares his glory, Rev. i. 18. I am he that liveth, and was dead, behold I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of Hell and of Death. Therefore this great Festival is the penitent sinners holy day, for whose sakes both the Keys are turned, for whose sakes both the Gates are opened, that the soul may pass from the judgment of Hell, and the body from the rottenness of corruption. And thus it appears, why Christ was first seen of Women in his bodily manifestation after death. It was granted to their courageous attempt, that durst come unto the Sepulcher, it was for the consolation of their Antecedent grief. It was to show them a difference between their bringing forth a child to life, and God's resuscitating our dead bones. It was expedient to have a testimony from such harmless Witnesses. And Mary Magdalene is supereminently named above them all, for she was a most contrite penitent and Christ died for their sins, and rose again for their Justification.

It is my course now according to the Propositions of my Text, to remove forward to the meditation of her love, which was so constant, even after death, that she came unto the Sepulcher of our Lord. A faith, though it be never so weak, never so languishing, yet it will produce some effect which is worth the noting. For instance, as I cannot maintain but there was a defect in this woman's faith, so according to that little faith, no man shall deny but there was a great deal of love. As concerning faith, it is apparent that she mistook the Scriptures in two things: First, that she thought to find Christ's body in the Sepulcher, as if it were possible he could be held of death longer than the third day. The Angel gave an item to the women that their coming was a vain labor, Why seek ye the living among the dead? Remember what he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee. He did foretell it so expressively how he would rise from the Grave after three days, that all his enemies took notice of the saying, but those women were hard of belief, or else they had forgot it. Secondly, It was Mary's error, and common to all her Partners to bring Spices to anoint our Savior's body, the other Evangelists express that they came with such preparations, purposing to apply them to the Corps that it might not putrefy. It seems they understood not David, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy One to see corruption. It was not thought upon, as it fell out, that the flesh of Jesus was not like ours which is rank and sinful, his was pure and undefiled, which had never deserved to suffer rottenness and putrefaction: And they ignorantly come to the Sepulcher with Spices to embalm him, that his body might not be polluted. But is there no way to excuse this forgetful and deceived faith? It is a good mixture of praise and dispraise which a certain Author puts together. It was an error not to be defended to think that Christ was held of death, and lay still in the Sepulcher; but because the custom to anoint dead bodies was an assured hope that the flesh should rise again to immortality, therefore setting their particular error aside touching the person of Christ, in general their respect was full of faith, and honor, and devotion toward the Resurrection of the body, which general notion of so good an Article of faith won them pardon for this particular incredulity.

But I said before concerning this little faith, no man must deny but she shown a great deal of love. As Thomas