A Century of Sermons

Now to conclude all. To say that this Wilderness-full of people had as much as they could eat out of two or three Omers of corn, out of a little that a poor Lad perhaps had gleaned, it is marvelous in our ears. Yet take all, and it goes much beyond this, for the Fragments which remained did fill twelve Baskets. Yea, says the common Gloss, there are Speculations of Divinity, with secret Traditions which the rude unlearned people cannot digest, these the Apostles and their Successors keep close in their own baskets, it may be this note is of that kind, therefore I pass it over and let them reserve it to themselves. The plain truth is, that was done, 1. Ad miraculi evidentiam; it could not have been evident that all were filled, unless somewhat had been left. 2. It was done ad miraculi claritatem, to make it exceed above anything that could be compared. It was beyond Manna, that would not keep if any of it were laid up, this did. It was beyond the meat which the Ravens brought to Elias, he had but a morsel at once to serve necessity. It was beyond the Widows meal, and her oil, they increased no more after the rain fell, but here was an increase after an universal satu • ity. 3. When this miraculous Feast was done a great deal superabounded, to admonish them they must not think to live always upon Miracles 4. As the beginning of this noble work was a lesson against covetousness, and thrust us on to distribute, so the end of it is a lesson against Prodigality, and bids us lay up that which remains. 5. Let them to whom it belongs do the due work of Evangelists, and though they earn but little here, the remainder will be great which comes hereafter, God will give to each Apostle a Basket full, nay, a Barnful in the Kingdom of Heaven. Both Cedrenus and Nicephorus, take them as they be, relate what precious Monuments these baskets were in after Ages, it is thus. Constantine, intending the splendor of his own City, brought from Rome the largest Pillar of Porphyrite stone. Upon the top he set an Image of Brass, praised for the best Piece in the world, it was the Statue of Apollo in old Troy; In a Vault under the Base he laid up as his choicest Relics an Axe with which Noah made the Ark, and these twelve Baskets in which the Fragments were carried away of the Loaves and Fishes. Why these more than any other Relics? Nicephorus says nothing to it; you shall have my conjecture, He chose the Relique belonging to the Ark rather than any other to preserve the City, standing upon the Sea, from Inundation: He chose these twelve Baskets as a deprecation against Famine. I will dispatch. Other mysteries I could enumerate upon this which was over and above all that was eaten. One thing I must not omit, which hath busied divers to no great purpose, that when five thousand eat of five Loaves and two Fishes twelve Baskets remained, when four thousand eat of seven Loaves and a few Fishes but seven Baskets remained. What is this to us, if Christ would show the riches of his Liberality unequally where he pleased? But what if it cannot be decided for all this at which Feast most was remaining? The twelve Baskets are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they were such as you might dandle in your hand, the Jews carried them under their arm in the days of Juvenal the Poet. The seven Baskets are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as big as Paniers. There is a large difference between Amos his little basket of Summer fruit and the basket wherein St. Paul escaped out of a Window at Damascus, that is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Acts. Now you see that seven Dossars may come to more than twelve Hand-baskets. But I determine nothing, mighty was the power of our Lord Jesus in both, and his Liberality never to be forgotten. Nay, the increase which he gives us year by year is so plentiful (as our latest harvest can testify) that no memory so short but will remember it, no heart so ingrate but accepts it with all thankfulness, no tongue so slow but will praise him. AMEN.

A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL UPON S ^t LUKE'S DAY.

S Aint Luke, the Penman of this Book of Scripture, hath a threefold interest in this Text, in every principal word of it an interest. He was a Disciple by calling, whether one of the 70, is a disputable question: an Antiochian by birth, and a Christian by his Title. Then who could better put these three together than himself? that the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. It is not expedient, doubtless, to glory; but if we should glory we should speak the truth, that the Congregation of the Church hath reaped more honor by this Record, than all the Grandees of the Earth can show for themselves in their best Charters and Monuments. Civil Histories will confess, that earthly things of what pomp and splendor soever, they receive little grace from their first original: for either the evidences of their beginning are obscure, consisting upon such weak proofs as cannot command us to believe them. The Inscription of an old piece of money coined, who knows why? And the Characters of a broken Stone digged up, who knows where? These are the Models that Cities and Kingdoms do greedily embrace, and thrust upon you for your best Memorials. If the Evidences be more authentical, then ten to one but their novelty will disparage them: for what is it to reckon upon one or two Ages past? a thing may be quickly famous, but it must ask longer time to be venerable. Finally, if Antiquity and clear Evidence do both concur, quando haec rara avis est, which lights but seldom, what mean and contemptible beginnings shall you find of those Nations and Republiques, upon whose glory the Heavens have shined with most propitious influence. The Persian Dynastie, once so rich and puissant, look back to the Founder, and it was a Child exposed in the Woods, taken up by the charity of a Shepherd, and fostered a while by his poverty. They that laid the foundation of Rome's greatness, and had the heart afterward to think how to conquer the whole Earth, were at first but a Crue of Thieves. I will not displease to call to mind upon what slight, and almost ridiculous occasions, Titles of brave estimation did first grow into credit: it holds in them all, that Almighty God willing to advance Religious honor above Secular, hath blurred the Secular honor with one of these three diminutions, vel novitate, vel obscuritate, vel parvitate, either it hath no glorious beginning, for it is new; or it cannot show it, for it is obscure; or it dare not show it, for it is course and mean. Now the glory which we have by Christ is amplified through these Comparisons. For first, Our Society began not obscurely, but at Antioch the Metropolis of Syria, one of the most populous and fairest Seats of the World in those days. 2. The Records of it are without all exception, in this indubitable sacred History. 3. Neither is it a Mushrome of the field lately sprung up, but it began in that Age when the Apostles of our Lord were living. 4. Neither did we purchase our appellation from base and unworthy offices, as by adoring the fortunes of men, or by worshipping vain God's, but from the unanimity and accord which both Gentiles and Jews that believed did profess in serving the true only God, and his Son, by whom he made the World, Jesus Christ. No more then can be said then to these three Points. Here are our Progenitors of worthy memory, the Disciples; their Title of honor and distinction, they were called Christians, and the place where they received it, Antioch, to make more of that which is so full in three parts, were to make it less. But of these in their order.

To begin with the Disciples, and a little searching into them and their condition, will make them known to be a noble and a numerous Society. I must premise, that two things had gone before, which filled the Church with infinite increase of Believers. First, the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, whereupon all that addicted themselves that way fled from Jerusalem, and were strangely scattered abroad in most remoted places. St. James from thenceforth calls them the twelve Tribes of the Dispersion, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , St. Peter comes to some particularities, and greets them by the name of Strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bythinia: yet these were but a few of them in one Walk (as I may say) for such as write of the Conversion of Nations give a probable demonstrance, that some of those dispersed Jews had crept into evety Kingdom that was habitable under the Sun. And I instance in one thing especially, because Baronius quotes an old English Manuscript, contained in the Vatican Library, for his Author, that the chief adherents to Christ, namely Joseph of Arimathaea, Lazarus with his Sisters, Mary and Martha, were despitefully committed to the Seas in a Barque which had neither Oar nor Sail, but God's providence and the winds brought it safe to Marseils in France, where they all landed, and Joseph, the Apostle of this Kingdom, made a further journey into our Island. And do not marvel that there should be enow to replenish all the World upon this dispersion: for before our Savior's Ascension he was seen of five hundred Brethren; St. Peter's first Sermon after the coming of the Holy Ghost gained three thousand souls more. The number of five thousand more were added to them by the power of his next Sermon preached in Solomon's Porch, Acts iv. And after this St. Luke never counts how many were converted, they were past his reckoning: he relates the Blessing thus in the gross, The number of the Disciples multiplied greatly, and a great company of the Priests were obedient to the Truth, Acts vi. 7. You see what store of laborers here were, which were all cast out of Jerusalem, upon the Persecution which was raised at the death of Stephen: Non dispersi, sed seminati, non imbecillitate disjecti, sed fidei gratiâ divisi, says St. Athanasius, they were not turned abroad at random, but sown like seed in every quarter of the earth; it was not fear and infirmity, but the Grace of God which divided them. Well, the next thing that made the Spirit of God blow like the wind, in all places where it listeth, was the Conversion and Baptizing of Cornelius, the Italian Captain, about the seventh year after the Ascension of our Savior. The baptizing of the Eunuch by Philip, though he were a more honorable person than Cornelius, the great Treasurer to Queen Candace, yet it made no noise at all, for the Eunuch, though an Ethiopian, and so a Gentile, yet he was a Proselyte of the Jewish Religion, and so no Gentile. Cornelius and his Household were the first of mere Gentiles that received the Holy Ghost, and were baptized in the Name of the Lord. The tidings hereof did quickly arrive among the Brethren in all places, and the Disciples knew by that token, that they might spend their labors not upon the Jews only, but upon the Gentiles also.

You see the means by which the Evangelical Truth was advanced: so did Antioch grow to be a famous Church, partly by their labors who fled from Jerusalem when St. Stephen was stoned ver. 19. partly by attracting great numbers of Grecians to the faith of the Lord Jesus. ver. 20. and these now compounded together in one Body, the faithful of the Circumcision, and the faithful of the Uncircumcision, these are Disciples recorded in my Text. This will put it likewise from your conceit, that the twelve Apostles are not meant here by the attribute of Disciples; they come far short of that exceeding number of Saints that were so, entitled; nor yet those seventy sent by two and two to preach, and to cure diseases, Luk. x. for distinction sake they began to be called old Disciples in these days, as Mnason of Cyprus is called an old Disciple, Act. xxi. 16. But according to the largest courtesy of the word, those that embraced the Doctrine of eternal life, and this is done with our Savior's good leave, as it is Joh. viii. 31. If you continue in my word, then are you my Disciples indeed. Sectaries and profane Heretics spread their errors abroad: woe unto those that give ear unto them. The great Dictators of natural Sciences ground their conclusions upon Principles of reason, and would attain felicity, not by faith, but by arguments. Miserable were all those that affected to be so wise that they could not be saved, they are not these Disciples. But, leaving these pudled fountains, blessed were the true Scholars of Grace that drew their waters from the Cisterns of Christ. Truth went before them as a light, and Sanctity did guide them by the hand, these are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , taught of God, as the word is in St. Paul. And this is consolation enough to sweeten all other misery: so the Prophet cherisheth the distressed Church, that it was her glory, that her Children should be the Disciples of that Truth which came down from Heaven, O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, I will lay thy foundations with Sapphires, &c. and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, Isa. liv. 13. How much did the Pharisees honor the poor man that was born blind, when they meant to spit defiance in his face, saying, Thou art his Disciple. Was that the worst they could say? slander us so and spare not, says St. Austin upon it, maledictio sit super nos, & super nostros liberos, let that reproach fall upon us, and our Children forever.

But if any Age were more in jeopardy than another, to wrest the word Disciple to an ill sense, I am persuaded 'tis ours. For if a Disciple be a learner of the Divine Testimonies, there are many that affect to be Discipulissimi, by their good will there is no day of the week, but they would sit at the feet of their own Gamaliel's; the pretence of learning is so great in these our days, that I am sure all former times come short of this double diligence. And were they such Disciples that were first called Christians? Certainly the word of God was very precious unto them; and as St. James bids it be so, they were swift to hear. Seek the Lord while he may be found, seek his face evermore; quaeramus inveniendum, quaeramus inventum, seek him for He is glorious, seek him evermore, for He is infinite. And that Heathen saying was to good purpose, when we have one foot in the Grave be still willing to learn. But these Disciples gathered their heavenly Manna by moderate measure, in a fit proportion to digest it; not like our open-ear'd people, in a numberless quantity to make them loath it: Always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, says the great Doctor, 1 Thes. iv. always walking, and never going home; not desiring to have instruction fall down in sweet drops, to make the seed of the Word fructify, but with an Inundation to make it putrefy, and continually gaping for somewhat that tends to the curiosity of knowledge, rarher than the conscience of practice. And where have they got this use, but from outlandish fashions? where there is no decent face of a Church, no air of Devotion, no solemn Liturgy to employ the time in, whereby they must needs make up that which is wanting with continual preaching. But you will say, if this ravening after Sermons, as I may call it, be a fault, it flows from the zeal of them that mean well, and charity may construe it to the best. There's more in it than so, as I conceive. First, it is too manifest to conceal it, or deny it, that superfluity of hearing is a cloak of dissimulation, and hath bred a consumption of practicing; and scire est propter ire, say the old Friers, we know the way that we may go the way. 2. Let any one descend skillfully into the nature of man, and he shall see, that it is our humor to grow too familiar with that which is told too often: a decent distance and intermission would breed more reverence and attention. 3. Whom doth it not afflict that hath a right sense of piety, to see so much havoc and loss of that which is so precious? A Carpenter may hew off large chips from a Block, but a Lapidary will make no waste of a Diamond when he pares it. It was not the itching ear then, which thinks it can never hear enough, that made a Disciple in the Primitive Church: they did not heap to themselves vain Teachers, that everyone of the common sort might prove a Doctor rather than a Learner, and control the best, as if they were Masters rather than Disciples: yet their heart was bent with meekness to receive the Word, as St. James says, they discharged their duty in good sort to hear and learn, for hearing is the Key of knowledge; but they did not turn the Key continually in the Lock, and never open the door; they were wise builders that heard the truth and did if, and their desire was set to incarnate the written Word in their Souls by doing it, as the blessed Virgin gave flesh to the Eternal Word by bearing it. In a word, they were such Disciples as gave the tongue of praise just occasion to call them Christians; I will recite but a little of that which antiquity hath witnessed for their sakes. Their Vessel was kept so chaste and clean that every day, if persecutions dispersed them not, they partaked of the body and blood of their Savior; their temperance so great, their fasting so constant, that one says, The Constitution of Lent began not till such time as their perpetual sobriety began to be unimitated. Their Charity drew this admiration out of their forest enemies, See how they love one another. Even their Tormentors, while their bodies lay bleeding under their hands, were converted to believe, and suffer with them by their Patience and Fortitude. Finally, Their contempt of the world was testified in this, That no man said that ought which he had was his own, but they had all their possessions in common. Angelica respublica nihil dicere proprium, says St. Chrysostom; That made it no less than a Society of Angels to renounce their part in any proper possession. It was not therefore hearing upon hearing that denominated them Disciples, these were the Elements of which their Piety consisted, and then they proceeded to be called Christians.

Yet before I come to the birth of this new title, which is the chief corner-stone of my Text, it will suit well to speak a little of the privation or cessation of their old names, by which in former times they were known. And they are of two sorts: Such as the Church claimed to herself, and delighted in; or such wherewith flanderous tongues did think to wound her. And they may be equally divided into three of the one sort, and of the other. First, you meet it everywhere in the Epistles of the New Testament, that such as professed to obey the Gospel were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the brethren. One is the Mother of us all in our natural being, the earth: One Mother of our spiritual Connection the Church; one common Father of our flesh, the first man Adam; one Father of our Regeneration, the Holy Ghost. But certainly Charity was the special scope in this appellation; for no relation of love is so complete in all points as between Brother and Brother. The love between Husband and Wife is not born with them. The love between Father and Son is not level and reciprocal, because it is not between persons that are equal; the love between Friend and Friend is of our own choice, nor of necessary duty; only the love of Brothers is from the Womb, from instinct of nature, stands upon equal conditions, and is underpropt with all circumstances that ingender affection. And to give Charity the pre-eminence, this was the first precious ointment that was poured upon our head, we were called brethren. And secondly, Saints, to the Saints that are at Ephesus, to the Saints at Colossi. And many of the Saints did I shut up in prison, says St. Paul before King Agrippa, Acts xxvi. 10. And this Attribute was given to our famous Predecessors from the Sacramental Seal of Baptism, as it is, 1 Cor. vi. 11. But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified. In that sacred Laver we are sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and so made Saints, Sancti quasi sanguine tincti, it is a blood which purifieth from uncleanness, for of old they that desired to be purified did dip some part of their body in the blood of the Sacrifice; Baptism is Pactum vitae purioris cum Deo; a Covenant with God to lead a pure and unspotted life, a sequestration of that which is holy from all profane abuses, it is jus gentium, says Tully, a national and received Law throughout all the world, Ut ne mortals, quod Deorum immortalium cultui consecratum est usu capere possint; that no man usurp that for common uses, which was consecrated to the service of the immortal God's, so that a Saint is as much as one that is washed and made clean in Christ, and engaged unto holiness all the days of his life. 3. For the confession of the true doctrines sake, which flesh and blood could not reveal unto us but our Father which is in heaven, our reward was to be called the faithful, the faithful of the circumcision, Acts x. 45. and in many places beside. This continued our note of distinction more than any other in ancient Liturgies, and so remains in some of our own Collects, as grant we beseech thee merciful Lord to thy faithful people pardon and peace. And it stuck more close to the Church than any title in St. Cyprians days as appears by these words, Quid Christiana plebs faceret, cui de fide nomen est? What should Christian people do in this case, whose name is given them from the Faith? So I have represented to you that in the earliest days of the Gospel the Disciples were called Brethen from their sincerity of love; Saints from the purification of Baptism; Faithful from that Orrhodox truth which they professed, and hope in Christ, which St. Paul hath put all together in one verse, To the Saints and faithful Brethren in Christ which are at Colossae, chap. i. ver. 2.

But as St. Paul says, By honor and dishonor, by evil report and by good report, we approve ourselves the Ministers of Chrisft. And they that scoffed at the way of salvation did load us with contumelious taunts, that they might soil our Profession. The first bitter arrow that our Enemies shot forth was to call us Nazarens. Tertullus the spruce Orator was aware of that, and charged St. Paul, that he was a ring leader of the Sect of the Nazarens, Act. xxiv. 5. Surely they delighted the more in this Nickname, because of that opprobrious by word, can there any good come out of Nazareth. St. Jerome says that the spiteful Jews had no other term for the Christians in his days, and how in that term they cursed us thrice every day in their Synagogues. Now when they thought to gall us both with their curse, and their venomous scorn, Epiphanius says that the Apostles liked it well enough to be called Nazarens, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , their intention was to put the name of Nazareth upon him, where the Angel Gabriel saluted the Blessed Virgin, and where she conceived Christ, and they were contented. It seems so, for because they held it no disgrace, Julian the Emperor would not call them Nazarens, but Galilaeans, and proclaimed it, says Nazianzen, that they should plead, or be empleaded by no other name throughout all his Dominions: the name of Christian, says the same Father, it grated his ear; some Divine Majesty was in the syllables, that it put horror into his conscience; but for his own quiet, and their wrongs, he thought it better to call them Galilaeans: his slanderous intention was all that was ill in it, for the appellation itself was not slanderous; an Angel of God directed his Message to them in that form; Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? Act. i. 11. But here was the secret gibe, one Judas of Galilee, a Firebrand of sedition, had lodged an ill opinion in many of the Jews who were born in that Region, that such as paid Tithes to God were not to pay Tribute to Caesar, neither ought they to call any one their Lord, but him that created Heaven and Earth. In plain meaning he and his Consorts of Galilee were errant Rebels; and though none were so far from faction and disobedience as these modest Disciples, yet to persuade the World that they had an Anti-monarchichal grudge in their bosom, this Apostate called them Galilaeans. Lastly, because the Orthodox Champions of the Church confounded the obstinate Gentiles with certain verses cited out of the Books of the Sibyls; therefore in despite they invented the name Sibyllistae, and pointed at us for the Disciples of those Prophetesses the Sibyls, whereas it was their own doing to make us urge them with those proofs, since they would not believe the Old Testament and the Prophets of the Lord. I cannot forget how Albertus Pighius played such a wise part or rather a far worse, being the first that called our Reformed Divines Scripturarios, Scripture-men, because they grounded all their Doctrine upon the written word of the holy Scriptures: yet in my judgment Sibyllist was not so ill a scoff as Scripturarian. Now you know from that which hath been spoken what good Titles adorned the Primitive Saints, and how their Enemies drew their name with a black coal in terms of scurrillity; the bad appellations vanished away by the brightness of their virtue, the good ones were like a scanty Robe too short to cover all their excellency; they bore the Cross of Christ gladly and triumphantly; wherefore this eximious Inscription was given them which is here in my Text, all other names were but as a trail of golden beams to beautify this which includes them all, Christian.

'It is very much that no Author is mentioned here, who was so lucky to impose this name, which will be glorious, no doubt, in all the World, as long as the Sun and Moon endure. Carthusian hath his opinion, that Infidels were the Inventers, in disdain at Christ, whom that pious Generation worshipped; Comestor imputes it to the converted Greeks and Gentiles, to the end that they and the believing Jews might have one common cognizance. There are more than enough that think it may proceed from St. Peter, whose first Episcopal See was at Antioch, and then they think they have engrossed all Christians to be under the Pastoral charge of him and his Successors, his Successors at Rome they mean, and not at Antioch. Turrian the Jesuit is far more reasonable, sayi •• that the Nomenclator is not known, but that the name was ratified by a Synod of Apostles, for he mentions a Synod held at Antioch, in which these three Canons passed. 1. That none should be circumcised, for Baptism was the true Circumcision made without hands. 2. That all Nations that believed might be collected into the Catholic Church. 3. That such as were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus should be called Christians. I could acquiesce in this conjecture, if it ascended higher, that the Synod Apostolical confirmed it because it came from God. I confess I have neither read nor heard, that either Christ did leave the Tradition, that it should be so with some of his Disciples, or that an Angel proclaimed out of the clouds from Heaven, or that it was imparted either by dream or revelation sent to any of the Prophets; but since no man can challenge that he was the Founder of it, I think it surp • sseth mortal Authority, and therefore I leave the original of it to God. It was only in the right of the Father in those times to give a name to his Child. Zacharias the Priest, when he could not speak, called for Writing-tables to give the name to John the Baptist, and Christ himself having no Father on earth, his Father gave him a name from Heaven: Then why should not the Father of all that is called Father give that universal Name which belongs to his Children, whom he hath regenerated by the Holy Ghost? Put the Prophet Isaiah's authority to this reason, and who can gainsay it? Isa. lxii. 2. his scope is to extol Zion, or the Church Evangelical, says he, The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all Kings thy glory, and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. It were endless to rehearse how many Authors apply this to the Nomenclature of Christian. And again, Isa. xliii. 1. I have redeemed thee, (certainly that's the voice of Christ) I have called thee by my name, thou art mine. Who will doubt now but that I have reduced our Title to the true original? Our Godfather is the Lord above.

Let me reduce it likewise to the exact time when it began; it will be no lost labor. This is granted at all hands: it did not happen so soon as ever Christ ascended up, we were not crowned in our Cradle. Pamelius takes advantage at a place in Tertullian, to hold that the word Christian began to spread abroad in the fifth year after our Savior's Ascension, that is in the very latter end of the Reign of Tiberius: but I had rather say that his Author Tertullian mentions it too early, for this will quite confound the History of the Scripture. The Centurion Cornelius was not converted till two years of that, there must be a competent space of time for those tidings to come to Antioch, and for the work of the Ministry after that to gain a great number of the Gentiles, for Barnabas to be sent for to undertake for a better increase; it follows after all this the most successful St. Paul was brought thither, and he and Barnabas assembled themselves a whole year with the Church: this is plain in the Context before, and then the Disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. I like not Pamelius his supputation then, he is too forward. Genebrard in his Chronology runs as much backward, and allows sixteen years to be run out since the death of our Lord before the faithful had the honor to get this memorable Title: he takes his aim at the Synod which Turrian speaks of, that the Apostles could be assembled no sooner in a sacred Council at Antioch; whereas Turrian claims no more for his Synod, but that the Apostles established that which was illustrious long before, during the pains that Paul and Barnabas did spend at Antioch. Therefore I suppose that the most judicious Baronius is but a little under or over, that it fell out in the tenth year after the Ascension, the Believers at Antioch being Decimae Domini, the Tithe of the Lord, those that were gained to the Faith in the tenth year, being a selected Portion, and a peculiar Benediction fell upon them. Yet I am content to let that pass, rather than you should think that there is some necessary efficacy in the number; I look more stead fastly upon another great occurrency in those days, which made this tenth year the fullness of time, and the Disciples so ripe to receive this name, that it could not well be deferred any longer. For when the Gentiles were made partakers of the common salvation as well as the Jews, who had been strangers together so many Ages before, there was still a distance between them, or at least no perfect conjunction: and it grew an hard Task to piece them, because the Jews either out of weakness did still affect the Ceremonies of Moses, or having been so long familiar with them, did desire to dismiss them reverently at their parting, but the Gentiles loved all inoffensive liberty, which was not contrary to nature, and chiefly could not endure to refrain from meats which in themselves were lawful. This quarrel was not decided, till the Apostles at a full Council took a course with it, in the fifteenth chapter of this Book: Nay Clemens in the 7. lib. Const. c. 48. says, That they of the Circumcision had one Bishop over them, to wit Evodius in this very City of Antioch, they of the Uncircumcision in the same place, at the same time, another Bishop over them, Ignatius; this is his report, though Ignatius himself say no such matter, but gives the preeminence to Evodius alone, next after the Apostles: some variance and unkindness there was, that's certain; and the first means to unite both sides in a perfect peace, was that the one should not have this name, and the other that name, but to denominate them all from our Savior, and to call them Christians.

Quis nominum reatus? quae accusatio vocabulorum? says Tertullian, names are guilty of no crime, you cannot accuse them of any harm. With the pardon of that Holy Father, it is far otherwise; for it is never seen but that men are stiff in opposition, and almost irreconcilable, when they please themselves to be distinguished from others by the names of those Doctors, whose opinions they cleave unto: If it once grow to a difference of Titles, that which was but friendly disquisition of argument at first, it turns to Emulation, Emulations improve to be Factions, and Factions that would soon have broke up like a mist, many Ages cannot dissolve them. If you know any that have men's persons in admiration, and love to be denominated from them as the Captains of the Lord's Host, they are no better than Felons in Divinity, that have set fire on the Becons to put all in tumult and combustion, whereas, except themselves, there are no Enemies in arms within the Church of God. That impartiality and indifferency to truth which this happy Church of England hath maintained, not turning the Scale either this way or that way, for Luther or Calvin's sake, or whomsoever else, it hath given us the advantage to be most comely in Discipline, most retentive of good antiquity, most certain of fundamental truth, and of all Churches in the World to have least disagreement with all Christian Churches throughout the World. We write ourselves Christians, and nothing else. The name of Protestant, as it was ever harmless, so properly it concerned but the pleading of some grievances upon one day, when a Diet of the Princes was held at Spire: and when Sects were sprung up among Christians, to be a Protestant was no more than to be a good Christian: If our ill-willers call us by any other by-word the sin is theirs, we have not the tongues of wicked men in a string, that they shall give us no attributes, but such as are worthy of us: Non sumus Pauliani, non sumus Petriani, sumus Christiani. Pastors must beget Children to Christ, and not unto themselves; therefore we are neither of Paul or Cephas, but the Off-spring of Christ, say the Divines of Douay, and I would their deeds were suitable to their Annotation. More smartly St. Jerome, if you take the name of Marcionite or Valentinian, you cease to be a Christian. Not so, will some say, I can take the name of some excellent man upon me, as a subordinate Servant to Christ. But Ignatius goes on, if you do take the name of man upon you, you do lose the name of the Lord. A whole hour is not enough for all that can be said upon this point, but this is enough for them that will learn, how the faithful of the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision were in danger to be divided, therefore they were both enclosed in the identity of one blessed name: And, &c.

So I have shewn what my Text speaks of fell out in a ripe season, and a profitable opportunity; now all times are capable of that which follows, what this name imports, and what it imposeth. Our dear Redeemer having wedded the Church unto himself, and having given it an interest in his precious blood here, and a lively hope to possess his glory hereafter, it was meet that his Spouse should be called by his name, and then either from Jesus, or from Christ. Jesus He was called for his Divinity, for He that is Man could not save us from our sins, unless He were the offended Party as well as the Ransom, God and Man. Christ he was called from being Man, for he was anointed to execute the Offices of his Mediatorship in his human nature: Now judge in yourselves, whether we that are partakers of flesh and blood should have our nomination from his Godhead, or from his Manhood rather? only the Jesuit, some Divine creature, I warrant you, is not contented with the common name of Christian, but after much opposition of Courts of Parliament in France, or Consistories in Rome, he calls himself by the dear remembrance of the Epithet, in which our salvation is sealed unto us: But save us good Lord from such Savior's. What will suffice them whom the Roialty to be called a Christian will not suffice? In quo omnium sublimium nominum communionem adipiscimur, says Nyssen, whereby we have our share in all Titles that have sublimity in them, as he that holds the fastening links of a Chain in his finger draws on all the rest, to use the same Fathers Similitude. The Heathen that looked for the signification of the word in their own learning, and not in the Scriptures, surnamed us Chrestiani, à 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as you would say benign and gentle. So Tertullian: Cum perperam Chrestianus a vobis pronunciatur, de suavitate, vel benignitate compositum est, when you miss our right name, and pronounce us Chrestians, it imports sweetness and benignity. It seems there was a placidness and facility of nature in the Disciples, which was far from giving just offense, and won itself the affections of others. And is not much better than a jarring harshness, which is prone to discords and contentions? The spirit of wisdom it courteous and human, Wisd. vii. 23. Yet this fell short of the true notation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , who knows it not? is unctus The Anointed; not every Anointed, but The Anointed, as if it were written in capital letters, whom the Old Testament in the same sense calls the Messiah, and the Hellenists 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; but Caninius says that the wrathful Jews, who will not own him for their Messias, call him not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not unctum, but delibutum, as you would say, not anointed, but stained and besmeared: To whom I rejoin videbunt quem transfixerunt, they shall see him whom they have pierced with their blasphemies.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Anointed of the Lord, He is our Chief, from whom we derive our nomination; He was a King, as the Psalms style him, Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion, and so anointed. He was a Priest, a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek, and so anointed. He was a Prophet, that Prophet whom God promised to raise up to Israel among their Brethren, Deutr. xviii. and so anointed. Ter Christus, a triple anointed, a triple Christ, that sacred one to whom God giveth not the Spirit by measure, but he is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, and so is an infinite Christ: from his superabundant unction we are replenished, of his fullness we have all received, some drops have trickled down from the head to the skirts, nay to the feet and ankles, to the lowest parts of the body: and by the power of his Christhood we are transformed to be Christian. Aptly hath St. Bernard ratified all this from that of Solomon, Cant. ii. 3. Oleum effusum nomen tuum, Thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the Virgins love thee. Christianus then, to put good Greek into bad Latin, is all one with Uunctianus, anointed with the sprinkling of water in Baptism for the remission of sins, and therefore Crism or Oil hath been applied as a significant Ceremony to the Infant baptized, not only abroad, but in our own Church, I mean since it was reformed. After this of Baptism follows the Unction of true Doctrine: Ye have an unction from the holy one, and ye know all things, 1 Joh. ii. 20. To these is added the Unction of Grace, that we may be a sweet savor of life unto life: and above all these, the blood of Christ is anointed upon the posts of our doors, that the Destroyer may pass by and spare us: and all these Lines meet in this one Center, to call us Christian. Is it not a grievous case, that this Name, so musical to the ear, so melodious to the heart, should be almost obscured to bring in another? Catholic, a word to be very well approved of, it finds more acceptance with some than Christian. These words of St. Luke in my Text are not more authentic with them, hardly so much, as those of Pacianus, Christianus mihi nomen est, Catholicus cognomen; illud me nuncupat, istud ostendit; Christian is my name, Catholic my surname; the indignity is to distort this saying, as if Christian were general to every Schismatic and Sectary, and Catholic were appropriated to the Orthodox, abiding in the bosom of the true Church: Nay, some are so senseless to make the Apostles the Authors of such childish counsel, that because good and bad would invade the name of Christian, therefore the Disciples should call themselves Catholics for distinction sake: Why, list I pray you, he that can falsely say Christian is my name, can he not with as much impudency and falsehood say, that Catholic is my surname? the word becomes the Creed most divinely, the holy Catholic Church? for what Church shall I adhere to? That which is for Time universal, from the preaching of Christ unto these days; that which is for Place universal, dispersed wheresoever the Faith of the Elect is received; that which is for Truth universal, believing all that the Prophets and Apostles have delivered, and whatsoever the Church hath ratified by its continual interpretation. But our fine Italian Wits have spun out another notion, that particular Church is Catholic which hath retained the pure Truth in all Ages since Christ, and never failed, from whence hath resulted that proud inclosure of Roman Catholic, an error not to be argued me thinks, but to be whooped at. I am sure Catholic, in their sense, is neither name nor surname of them that seek for peace. They pour it on as Vinegar, to make the wounds of the Church smart: The Name of Christian is the Sanctuary of Unity, and Oil to heal the wound; let that be our Badge then, which was the good Disciples, &c.

But if you wear this Livery of Christ, what service will you do him? do you consider it unto what holiness you are engaged, if your Title be derived from so pure a Fountain? Now I am at the top of the spire, at that point of my Text which is nearer to Heaven than any other. It is well that we were Infants when we were first enrolled to be Christians; in those sucking days we did not feel the weight that was laid upon our shoulders: if we came with ripe years to Baptism, and with premeditated understanding, it would make us sink down when we put our foot into the waters, and tremble all over to bethink us, what heavenly part a Christian is to act upon the Earth, as if he were an Angel incarnate. Alexander Severus the Emperor, whose Mother Mammaea was a Christian, was saluted in the name of Antoninus by the Romans, a name which had been most auspicious in that Republic, By no means, says the Emperor, do not engage me to the necessity of that expectation, Nomina insignia onerosa sunt, illustrious names are burdensome, and I cannot satisfy that which is looked for from them: Alas but a trifle was looked for from an Antoninus, in comparison of that is looked for from a Christian: A few sins were esteemed no blemish in one of them; one sin, and unrepented of, shall be an everlasting woe to one of us: The similitude of a few Virtues made up a gallant Heathen, the defect of one Virtue degrades a Christian. In whom there is not meekness and mercies there's no print of Christ; in whom there is not humility there's no color of Christ; in whom there is not perfect charity there is no agreement with Christ, non potest esse concors cum Christo qui est discors cum Christiano; he that doth not abrenuntiate, and deny himself, he hath no part in Christ; for he that thinks his good works are estimable with Heaven, and looks to be saved by his own merits, est latro insultans cruci Domini, says St. Austin, he is the wicked Thief that insults over the Cross of Christ. He that hath Christ always in his eye to follow him, in his heart to love him, in his faith to trust in him, in his works to glorify him, he is co Christus, he shall communicate of his name here, and he shall be cohaeres, Co-heir with him in his Fathers Kingdom hereafter. St. Austin calls us Heirs in this World, by the usurpation of this Name, sicut sunt haeredes nominis, ita sunt imitatores sanctitatis, Christian thou art Heir of his Name, thou shalt do well therefore to be Executor of his Sanctity.

There are three things, as the same Father hath filed them together, with which our Christendom holds a secret antipathy, in his short book of true Religion, Neque in confusion Paganorum, neque in caecitate Judaeorum, neque in purgamentis Hae • eticorum quaerenda est; it is neither to be found in the confusion of Pagans, nor in the blindness of the Jews, nor in the filthiness of Heretics. Justin Martyr is well rejected by the great Annalist, for condescending to call all the Heathen Christians, qui 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 vixerunt, who from the beginning of the World had instituted themselves by well guided reason. This can never be concocted with truth; for Christianity in the very essence is an explicit knowledge of the Son of God, that died for our sins, and rose again for our justification. Beside, Gentilism doth incorporate in it the worshipping of vain God's, and how abhorrent is that to this Name? When the Roman Deputy urged Polycarpus to swear by the Genius of Caesar, his answer was no more but I am a Christian, a Negative to all Idolatry in that Affirmative. Secondly, Where there is Judaism there is no Christianism. He that hath relished the honey of the Gospel, says St. Austin, cannot endure the bitter waters of the Law; Circumcision hath a bitter acrimony in it to offend his taste, nec hostiarum ferre cruorem valet, nec Sabbati observantiam custodire; he will not offer the blood of Sacrifices, he will not keep the observation of the Sabbath. Let them note that who strive to have the entire fourth Commandment to be moral and perpetual. A strange refractariness in some men, that cannot endure to be Christians in Ceremonies, and yet are content to fall back to those beggarly Elements of Moses, and to be Jews in Ceremonies. Thirdly, The filthiness of Heretics, either in Doctrine, or Life, it draws a dash through the Name of Christian, and blots it out. No lie is of the truth, and he that denies that Jesus is the Christ, he is a liar, and an Antichrist. Jesus is the name of the Person of our Lord, Christ is the name of his Office; how every Heresy clasheth either against his Person or his Office; and such a one doth so little merit to pass for a Christian, that he is published for an Antichrist. Or be it that you are undepraved in the truth, but most depraved in manners, there again you forfeit your interest in this spotless Name: For why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say, Luk. vi. 46. Cum impiis homines sumus, sed non cum impiis Christiani sumu •• I do not yield clearly to that, but rather thus. If we live as wicked men do, we are scarce men, but rather beasts; and they that are scarce men by reason of their sins, they are utterly lost, I am sure, for being Christians. O if you have not Christ within you, let your forehead blush that was sealed w • th his Cross without you.

How much better would it be for Hypocrites, that they had been Pagans that never abused this Name, than to have been outside Disciples, no further than the name, dealbati nomine Christiano, says St. Austin, not anointed with the oil of Christ, the unction of the Spirit, but parjeted over with the name of Christian, like whited walls. The Athenians forbad that any Bondman should be called by the name of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, men that had jeoparded their lives to free their Country from servitude; they held it dishonorable that those names that were devoted to the public liberty should be polluted with servile contagion. Domitian, who was tyrannical in all his actions, put one Metius, a man of good condition, to death, for calling an inferior Vassal of his by the victorious name of Hannibal. The Title of Philosopher, O how the true Philosophers would storm when Caterpillars usurped it, that had no affinity with true Philosophy? it is a sickness, and a very fever to me, says one of them, quod istiusmodi spurca animalia nomen usurpent sanctissimum, that these unclean animals should steal such a sacred appellation. If these men were so tender to preserve Civil and Academical honors from defamation, will not God be much more incensed at pseudo-Christians, and say why dost thou take the name of my well-beloved Son upon thee to pollute it? Quid est dignitas in indigno nisi ornamentum in luctu? says Salvian; this glory with which you invest yourselves shall be your utter shame: you blot this Name with whoredoms and oppressions here, therefore shall your names be blotted out of the book of life. My invention will not serve me to conclude this point better than St. Austin hath done, Ut nomen Christianum non ad judicium sed ad remedium habeamus, convertamus nos ad bona opera, that we may assume this name as a sovereign remedy against the Devil, and not unto condemnation, let us bring forth works worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose sake we are called Christians.

And thou Antioch in the Land of Syria, art not the least among those places that were holy ground; thou wert like a new Jerusalem to us that are called Gentiles, for in thee the sound was first heard which filled the earth with thy Majesty; And the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. A place, not long after the first foundation of it, bruited abroad for much infelicity, so frequently was it shattered with strong Earthquakes; a place polluted with no small Idolatry, for Apollo had his Shrine, and Diana had hers within the Circuit of it. Of a sudden, when she was scandalous and forlorn, those evils and calamities were redressed, because God had a delight in a new Off-spring which was grown up within her walls, and all the Inhabitants of the Earth did look upon her, as a Star that was shot from Heaven. Now began all the honors, that the times would permit, to be heaped upon it. Some say, that this being the best City wherein the Gospel had got ground, St. Peter the chief Apostle was made the Bishop of it. To make no brable of it, lest I go beyond the allowance of my time, this is all I will say; if St. Peter were the Bishop of it, then Ignatius was but a bad remembrancer, that wrote so many Epistles, and never spake of it; then St. Chrysostom likewise, who was a famous Pulpit-man in that City, and made the best Sermons in Antioch that ever he made, he were much overseen that he should never call it to mind, in so many commemorations which he made concerning their dignity. This is surely upon Record, St. Peter afforded it his blessed presence, and so did St. Paul his likewise, a brave building of faith was erected there, when the Covering was laid upon two such Pillars. And a Bishopric was founded there by those two great Apostles, whose succession was happy in painful Prelates, and constant Martyrs; all Syria was subject to it as the Metropolis; the Arabic Canons, which Turrian hath set forth as constituted by the great Council of Nice, say, that all the Churches in Persia obeyed it as a Patriarchical See. Justinian the Emperor, because we had our best name imposed there, gave it a better name, and called it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which is, being interpreted, the City of God. You may be sure their brave Presbyter St. Chrysostom hath often run over this string, and made music upon it. In one place thus, If any contention for priority ariseth, you Antiochians may claim it before all the World, illo scilicet privilegio vobis blandientes, bearing up yourselves upon that privilege, that you were the first fruits of them that are called Christians, this is your victory over your enemies, this is your Diadem above your friends.

What a pudder some would have made of it if they could have boasted of this Prerogative! O how the chief Pontif of Rome would have been hoisted up for an Oecumeniacal Bishop! And out of the word Christian what a flourish Cardinal Bellarmine would have made for an Antichristian Supremacy! God hath provided better things for us, than that we should not be pelted with such a paper Bullet. The Antiochians behaved themselves reverently and modestly, and did not abuse the Grace of God unto wantonness. They were not called Christianissimi, more Christian than their Brethren for this verbal priority. They did not arrogate 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the chief Patriarchical Primacy before all other Prelates, but were contented with the third rank to follow rome and Alexandria. And in my slender opinion Baronius is never more to be commended in anything, than for rendering the true reason 〈◊〉 . Says he in giving honorable place to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, regard was had to follow the steps of the Roman Magistrate, and to settle Ecclesiastical Precedency just as he did distribute his principal Civil Dignities. Now among all the Oriental Praefectures the Proconsul of Antioch was the most chief and honorable; hence Antioch was established to be the Oriental Metropolis. But because the temporal glory of Alexandria was greater, and the chief Roman Praefecture of all others, called Augustalis praefectura, therefore though it was the younger Church in order of time, yet her Patriarch preceded Antioch in order of dignity. And if he had not willfully shut his eyes against the light, would he not have subscribed, that this was the very cause that the Praelacy of Rome was preposed before them both; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Chrysostom, we yield it priority, because it is the chief Imperial City, or in Baronius his own language, Ut ex politica dignitate auctior illustrior que fieret Ecclesiastica, that the Ecclesiastical Dignity may become more ample and illustrious in the right of the Political. Well, to end all, Antioch had once the day, renowned for Orthodox Believers, for constant Martyrs, for innumerous Disciples; she contained 366 Parish Churches, says Volateranus; now her material buildings are for the most part eraced down, her spiruual building quite vanished, and her streets are possessed with Mohammedans. You see that the Church is a removing Tabernacle, rolling about from Sea to Sea, from Land to Land. That Truth which shall never fail upon Earth, may fail in any particular Kingdom. The Antiochians, that were the first Christians, are become the last; God knows how the mystery of his vocation will work, that the last shall be first. Be not high-minded but fear, that fearing we may work with diligence, and believe with stedfastness, and suffer with patience, that we may be partakers of the first Resurrection in newness of life, and of the second Resurrection in the glorification of Soul and Body. AMEN.

A Commencement Sermon AT CAMBRIDGE.

IF the Cesarea was so attentive to hear King Herod's Eloquence, and how he did exalt himself above God: What is your alacrity, may I presume (Dearly Beloved) to give ear to this story and to God's vengeance how he did exalt himself above Herod? It might be suspected that Cesarea the Region which was called by the name of Caesar, would be chiefly for the honor of the King, but now we are in the house of the Lord, and in his Temple doth every man speak of his honor, says the Prophet David. St. Luke hath occasioned the mention of two Angels in this Chapter, and they are both strikers. The first Angel is in the seventh verse, that smote St. Peter on the side, and roused him up from sleep; I wish that a good Spirit sent from God may now stir up your attentions. The second Angel is in my Text, that smote King Herod in the inward bowels: and believe it, such as was the sin of Herod, a presumptuous speaker, such is the sin of every carless and unprofitable hearer, that serves the vanity of his own imaginations in this holy place, and gives not God the glory. Is the Lord asleep think you because ye are drowsy? Are not his Angels heedful of their charge because your thoughts are wandering? Are you sure to come often to Church hereafter if you leave your affections at home today? Nay, but though the present business be confined to an hour, so is not the vengeance of the Lord; for immediately the Angel smote him, because he gave not God the glory.

Every religious exercise should be too long by a Preface, I come therefore to set the Text in order, that I may proceed to the explication of the parts, and they are two: First, That Herod would not glorify God, indeed that is the bitter root out of which grew all these worms, he gave not God the glory. Secondly, That God was glorified in Herod, he was smitten of an Angel, eaten of Vermin, and gave up the Ghost. Herod, says St. Chrysostom, gave not God the glory two ways: 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . his mouth spake proud things before the people. 2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he suffered the people to speak proud things as if he were equal with God, and did not rebuke them. Wherefore God was glorified in Herod four ways: 1. That tantus periit, the Ruler, the Prince of the people, he was smitten. 2. A tanto periit, no less than a mighty Angel smote him. 3. Tantus tam repent, immediately he was smitten. 4. Tantus tam luctuose, he was eaten of worms, and gave up the Ghost. Did not the Lord show great glory in plucking down the mighty? He was smitten. Is not his arm exalted, when the Angels are his Ministers? An Angel smote him. Shall not his wrath be terrible when it consumes in the twinkling of an eye? Immediately he was smitten. Lastly, How weak is man in his sight, even as a bulrush in the field? All the beasts are his Army, and the vilest creatures, if he send them forth, are strong as Lions; the Worms did eat up this Galilaean, and he gave up the Ghost. As the man said in the Gospel, Mat. xvii. That his child fell often into the water, and often into the fire, two merciless Elements, and very dangerous. So Herod in the first part of the Text fell in aquas tumoris, into the swelling waters of pride; and in the second part in ignem terroris, into the fire of vengeance and castigation.

The offense is to be offered to the first consideration, he gave not God the glory. There is a satiety of all things, and to exceed a just proportion, even in that which is good, it is blameful and vicious, too much justice is rigor, too much temperance is diseaseful, too much love is troublesome: But to give God the glory, it is a duty unto which we are bound with an infinite devotion, if it were possible, even as He is infinite, so that we cannot fill up the measure, much less are we able to exceed it. Wherefore if God gave Children by seventies, as he did to Ahab, he asked but the first born, who was consecrated to his service: every hour of time that we live is his benevolence, yet the Law is our remembrancer only to keep the Sabbath day; the Earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is, and yet his portion is but the tenth of the field: but of his glory he hath parted no stakes to the Sons of men; it is his own entirely, non dabo, never ask him for a share, he will not part with it. As his Ark did never thrive at Ashdod, nor at Ekron, but only when it was returned to Israel; so let not the strength of the mighty, nor the wisdom of the prudent be magnified; glory will never thrive but when it is returned to the God of Israel, and Dagon shall fall down before the Ark of his Majesty. Themistocles, demanding Tribute of the men of Andria, told them that he had brought two powerful Advocates to plead his cause, Suadam & Vim; Perswasion if they pleased, Violence if they refused. The self-same two Apparitors go before the glory of the most high, Exhortation, and Confusion. Doth it like you to bless his name? So God is glorified by the devotion of his Creature; Doth it like you to exalt yourself with Ero similis altissimo? Then you shall be brought down, and he will be honored in your confusion. He that swells to the greatest in this world shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven, Et fortasse ideo non erit in regno coelorum ubi nisi magni esse non possunt, says St, Austin. And to be threatened to be little in God's Kingdom is to loose it forever, whereas everyone must be great who shall be rewarded with that immortality.

When the Heathen traduced the Christians, that they debased their Emperor, and made him less than the God of heaven. Know you not, says Tertullian, that this is the eminency of your Emperor to be less than God? Imperator ideo magnus est, quia coelo minor est. And as the Orator persuaded Caesar, Dum Pompeii statuas ornat, suas erigit; While he took care to adorn Pompey's Statues he did advance his own; so we build ourselves a Throne by falling down low before the foor stool of the Lord, and the hands which are lifted up to praise him shall one day stand at the right hand of his Majestly. Somewhat was in it, but the Heathen knew not what it was, they called it abusively, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that everything which grew too tall was thunder-blasted, and that great fortunes when they came to excess, did end in some shameful ruin. Wherefore the wise Historian said of Poppaeus Sabinus, that when divers Senators were cut short, he lived secure in the reign of three Tyrants, Quod par negotiis neque supra habebatur, he was fit for the business he undertook, and not too great for it. St. Chrysostom observes it among St. Paul's Salutations to the Romans, that no man was saluted by the name of honor, as Lord and Master, and the like, but Andronicus his fellow-prisoner, Amplias his beloved, Epaenetus his well beloved, these were Titles in which the Saints delighted, expressing their glory to be the union of charity in the holy Spirit.

As Virgil says of his Bees, that they are full of stomach and revenge, and that one Hive will fight cruelly against another, Atque haec certamina tanta pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt; Cast a little dust into the air and the fray is parted: So when the pride of man hath set up sails, and swells with vain opinion, Pulveris exigui jactu, methinks the casting of a little dust should pluck down our stomach, the base mould of which our flesh is made. Tolle jactantiam, & quid sunt homines nisi homines? says St. Austin; Set aside this corrupt leaven of ostentation, and all men are but men, as naked in their pomp as when they were born, or when they shall be buried. It was pride that dethroned the bad Angels, and it is that makes man stubborn against the Law, and refractory against faith: hence it passeth currently to be the root of evil: Yet Covetousness also, as if there were emulation among Vices, is taxed by St. Paul for the root of all evil, setting the soul to be a Vassal to the love of the world and deceitful riches. This Controversy coming before the Schoolmen to be decided, this is the judgment of Aquinas. These two parts are in the nature of sin, Aversio à bono incommutabili, a departure from the love of the Creator, and Conversio ad bonum commutabile, an inclination to the love of the Creature. In the inclination to the transitory good, Covetousness is the root of all evil, in the departure from the chief good, Pride is the root and matter of all evil; that as the Egyptians at the burial of the dead were wont to tear out the dead man's belly, and to cry over it, Thou wert it that killedst this man: so if we would dissect out Pride from the rest of our vices, we might more justly make that invective over it, Thou wert the fall of Man, and the ruin of evil Angels. The Devil would lead our Savior into the Wilderness; little manners to go before his Maker. Sequitur superbos ulton, says the Poet, but it is with punishment. The Adulterer is a sinner in secret, the Covetous commits Idolatry iu his Cabinet, the Slanderer is like Pestilence that flieth by night; alia vitia fugiunt à Deo, sola superbia se opponit, other vices are afraid and keep out of the way, only Pride spurs on like Balaam upon his Ass when God and his angry Angel stand before him.

Now there are four ways, as the Schoolmen make the account, whereby this daring vice of Pride doth diminish from that which should be given to God's glory. 1. Cum homo existimat à se habere bonum quod habet: A sin no less ungrateful than presumptuous, to enjoy wit, and art, and memory, and the blessings of the best Portion, but the founders name to he quite lost, and God forgotten: when the Romans began to insult over the world, well, says one, if every Country had their own, which they have seized upon by violence and robbery, ad casas reducerentur, they would have nothing left them but their Shepherds Cottages. But should God have all his own restored unto him which we have received, what should I fay? Ad casas reduceremur? our strength, our honor, wisdom and eloquence, all must be returned; nay, we should not have so much left as the Cottage of our Body: for we had it from the Lord: everything that renowns us, that feeds us, that preserves us, is but mica sub mensa, a crumb that falls from our Masters Table. Did not the Egyptians make themselves fools in their Phitosophy, that thought their Country was not the clearer for the Sun and Stars, but that the Sun and the Stars sucked up sweet vapors from their Rivers, and were the clearer for their Country; so abominable are they in the pride of their hearts, who think they did not receive the spirit of Prayer, and the gift of Faith, and the peace of a good conscience from Heaven, but that they do pay Prayers, and Alms, and Charity to Heaven which they never received.

Secondly, Violence is done to God's glory, cum desuper datum credunt, sed pro suis se accepisse meritis; when conscience will acknowledge that God doth give all, but arrogancy will infer that man deserves all. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the free Gift of God the Father, the Unction of the Holy Spirit are turned quite aside like a river from his own true channel, when it falls into such a Soil that thinks it deserves it. As the Jews said unto our Savior on the other side of Gehezareth, Rabbi, quà huc venisti? Master, how camest thou hither; so let us say Sanctification, quà huc venisti? We did not show the way with Palms, neither did we lift up the Gates, there was no entrance which our merits could prepare for sactification, not by our ears which are profane, not by our mouths which are blasphemous; and as our Savior said, If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee, so in another sense I may say, if thy right eye do not offend thee, if any part of thy body usurps that it is not sinful, cut it off, and cast it from thee. When good works sue to be called merits, they are like the ambitious men of the World, that spend their whole Revenue to buy some gaudy Title of Honor, and when they have it, they want substance to maintain it. Vitia Caetera in peccatis, superbia etiam in recte factis estimanda est, says St. Austin; Compute your vices amongst sins which do transgress the Law; compute Pride to be the mischief which doth transgress against your virtue. As Eleazar in the Maccabees slew the Elephant, and was renowned for his valor; but the Carkass of the beast fell upon him, and oppressed him to death; so the very virtues which proud men commit crush themselves into ruin, like the corps of the Elephant: and be assured, that he who subscribes merit to the Gifts of God, is not the man that gives God the glory.

The third Transgression is, cum despectis caeteris singulariter appetunt videri quod habent, a lofty stomach that will seem to be no less than inter vtburna cupressus, to be conspicuous and have no equals, and like Saul higher by the head than any other Israelite. Upon the Prayer of the Prophet David, Deliver me from the horns of the Unicorns, in Unicornibus superbi intelliguntur, says St. Austin, qui soli cupiunt eminere. The proud man is deciphered by that single horn of the Unicorn, who would be solitary in all God's Graces, and without a Companion: Whereas the Congregation of the Militant Church is compared to a Field of Wheat, where all the ears of the Field are of an equal growth, and if any stalk over-top the rest it is lank and without fructification. Brethren, they that are not contented to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , equal with the common condition of men, shall never be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 equal with the glorious condition of Angels, and he that despiseth the Gifts of God in his fellow Servants, be assured he is not the man that gives God the glory.

Fourthly, There is one feather more in the tail of pride, and full as long as the rest, cum jactant se habere quod non habent, when they arrogate to themselves that which indeed they have not. Christ hath said we cannot add one cubit to our stature, no nor make one hair of our head black or white: Why do ye practice it then, O ye gaudy Beauties, to bring that about which Christ told you was impossible? Why did God say we are but dust, if we attempt to outface his judgment, and make ourselves as beautiful as the Pearls of the Sea, or the Gold of the Mountains can set us out? Why did the Prophet say we do all speak vanity to our neighbor, if it be death unto our neighbor to call us liars? I have seen books of Meditations whose subject was to let all men know that they are vain, and sinful, and ignorant, and yet the very Title should confute all the Doctrine of the Book, a flattering Preface to some great man of most virtuous, and most religious. Presume not to take false Titles upon you, as Herod encroached upon the name of God himself, you are puffed up, you are canonized, yet we give not God the glory.

But that we may strike upon him a little, whom the Angel hath smote before us, upon the pride of Herod, it is a Monster that riseth up into two heads by St. Chrysostom's observation; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the tongue actively, in the ear passively, 1. a tongue full of vain and insolent speech. 2. an ear obnoxious to the flattery of the people. Of both them in their order, and for your edification.

It was Epaminondas his praise, that he seldom met with a man that knew more than himself, or spake less: and so the least doers inch out their poor works with much talk, and publication. We have stories, and we have conjectures, that Herod's Oration did chiefly tend to put the terror of his Majesty upon the popr fearful men of Cesarea, and to amplify his own clemency, when he had received them into favor. Did this deserve to be blown with a trumpet in a public Solemnity? As the artificial prospective to the eye, so is the tongue unto the ear, an hollow instrument to make everything seem bigger and fairer than it is. The Beasts, the Birds, the Serpents may be sooner tamed, says St. James, than the tongue of man. Some are said in Scripture to whet their tongues like a sword, they are the Apostles Beasts: some have exalted their tongues above heaven, they are unclean birds: some have the poison of Asps under their lips, and they are Serpents. Yea but worse than these head-strong creatures is the tongue of man; bestiis ferocitate, volucribus levitate, serpentibus virulentiâ praecellit; fiercer than the Beasts, more flitting than the Birds, more poisonous than the Serpents: It is a member of the body that can taste everything but itself, and knows how all things relish, but its own pride and bitterness. How often trips it in swearing? in boasting above measure, in pride most lofty, in anger furious, in perjuries blasphemous, in curses bitter, in vain talking never quiet, as glib as honey in hypocrisy, suttle in lying, smooth in deceiving, impudent in flattery. How will you excuse all this, Beloved, before the judgment of God? Can you say that these things come from the wickedness of your flesh? Or from the Law of our Members that cannot be resisted? God will never be answered with this excuse: Heaven knows that all these iniquities of a slippery tongue come from nothing but evil custom. Nothing was so scorched in Hell as the proud tongue of Dives, which had insulted over Lazarus, and like an uncharitable member it spake only for itself to be cooled with water.

And as we are taught from hence to set a watch before our lips, not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the hedge of our teeth; but to empale it about with lowliness and humility: so in the second place let us learn from Herod's example to circumcise our ears, to renounce the flatteries of evil men, for he suffered them to beatify his eloquence, to cry out it was the voice of God, and he perished miserably that gave not God the glory. The Tyrians and Sidonians had done a trespass against Herod before, and all this Solemnity was kept that they might be reconciled to his mercy: but what offense could they commit before so great as this open flattery? And shall Herod be pacified with them for adding a greater evil to their former injury? It is a policy of evil Magistrates, says Pliny, that they take delight to make evil Subjects, patientiores servitutis arbitrantur, quos non deceret esse nisi servos, for such men will submit themselves to all baseness, who deserve no better life by their condition than slavery: here were such exclamations, such outcries in the praise of Herod, that we had never known his insolencies and his faults, unless St. Luke by the motion of the Holy Ghost, had made a true relation of the story: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but though all men dissembled with their double tongue, here's one Michaiah left, one Evangelist that will defame him, and deal plainly, that he gave not God the glory.

The French Proverb says, that the boiling pot doth discover the little pea which is in the bottom of it, and the applause of a little vain glory doth discover the disposition of the mind of man, more than any other passion; tum qualis quisque sit scies si quemadmodum laudetur aspexeris, the gravity or fickleness of man's spirit may easily be guest at, as you shall see him digest some public praise and acclamation: as you may see in Herod, he came into Cesarea with the Majesty of a King, the People gave him the Divinity of a God, but the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the itch of praise made him lower than a Servant: Nocet laus si non rerum cupiditatem facit sed sui, says Seneca, glory is the fire that kindles virtue, when it provokes virtue to good atchievments, but when glory begets nothing but the desire of glory, it is but childish popularity: Therefore of tame Beasts none rends so much, or makes such a waste in a well-affected mind as a Flatterer. Si gulam & ventrem ab inquinamentis liberamus quanto magis augustiora nostra, oculos & aures, says Tertullian: a pretty absurdity indeed, not to suffer a crumb in our drink, or a mite in our meat to go down our throat, and so into the very droff, as Christ calls it: but if an immodest spectacle, if a dangerous flattery be presented, our more curious senses are never watched, but our eyes wink not, and our ears are opened.

All flattery is the corruption of true glory, but to flatter any man in his vices is a sacrilege against virtue. Plato spent but few words in the praise of any man while he was living; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 for by nature we are prone to change from better to worse; there was more reason in his Philosophy than in their Christianity that lick the deformities of other men's actions, and feature their unshapen whelps as if they were beautiful. It is a note of a Reprobate, that he speaketh good of the covetous whom God abhorreth. How can this man be good, says Licurgus of Charilaus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , who is not rough and sharp with those that are vicious? Such glozing tongues, says St. Austin, that commend other men's faults, are like the dogs that lapped in Lazarus his sores. But if flattery tickle the tongue of the Sycophant that it cannot keep in, have the young Courtiers none to infect but Rehoboam? If Uriah the Priest have a fancy to Idolatry, is there none to be corrupted but Ahaz the King of Judah? If men have such levity that praise and glory will transport them, was there none to be abused but Herod? A Democrcay is not a greater enemy to the honor, nor a Jesuit to the life of a King, than is a Flatterer to his prosperity; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 says Plutarch, as we use to say, that the Gout is the rich man's disease, so Flattery is the corruption of the Great and Honorable. As by the Ordinance of our Church we give one day to the Honor of a Saints Name, and no more; so the Romans to claw their Governors, styled a whole Month by the name of an Emperor, as if one proud Pagan had been worth thirty humble Christians: Like Asahel, it pursues none but Abner the Captain of the Host, Volscentem petit, in solo Volscente moratur, turn to the right hand, or to the left, says Abner, & apprehend unum de adolescentibus, fasten upon any of my Servants, and take his spoils. But that would not serve, Abner is the mark he shot at. Qui fontem corrumpunt, non ab acervo sed à semente furantur, ungracious practicers, while they corrupt the fountain, the Prince of the People, they do not filch from our Stack, or from our Barns, but from our Seed Corn itself, which is double thievery.

Flattery, you see, is the adulterating of virtue itself, to flatter vice is to promote Satan's Kingdom, to flatter Princes is to destroy their Kingdoms, to flatter Princes, as the Sidonians did Herod, Voces Dei non hominis, the voice of God and not of man, is to pluck down God's Kingdom: as David said of the raging of the Sea, that it lifted up the Ship to heaven, to bring it down again unto the deep; so such blasphemous flattery lifts you up like the top of Chorazin unto heaven, to cast you headlong into hell. The Athenians who were but Gentiles at the wisest, could not endure such injury to be offered Deo ignoto, to the God whom they knew not, but put Timagoras their Ambassador to death, quod regem Persarum tanquam Deum sa • utasset, because he adored the King of Persia like a God. I pray you what mark of a God was in Herod, that he was thus exalted? He was nothing less than a God for speaking eloquently; the holy Scripture is written stylo piscatorio, in the humble style of Fishermen: nothing less than a God for suffering Blastus of his Chamber, to be corrupted and bribed by the Sidonians to win his favor: nothing less than a God for being so gracious with the multitude: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , alas, put it to the hair-brained multitude to make a God, and the first that ever they made was a Calf in Horeb: and I cannot perceive that they made any better of Herod. Finally, nothing less than a God, that could not discern how unworthy they were to be reconciled to man, who were sacrilegious against God.

Constantius the Emperor pretending that he would lessen the Train that followed him, offered this condition; they that would stay with him should forsake Christianity, and worship Idols, and let the rest depart. But upon the trial what did the Emperor? discard all those that sacrificed to Idols, and retained those that did not shrink from the true Religion, supposing that they would prove most disloyal to him, who had abandoned their faith to God. And as Constantius punished his Servants, so Canutus, one of our own Princes, punished himself, to expiate the flattery of his followers. Upon some good success, no voice was heard among his People, but that he was a God; and that shall be tried presently, says Canutus, and sitting by the Sea-shore commanded that the waves should not touch him; but the water coming to the soles of his feet, Fie, says the King, how you have abused me, the man whom yon call a God cannot keep his feet dry upon the Sea-shore: so turning to the Palace of Winchester, took off his Crown of Gold, and putting it upon our Savior's Image, never wore it more upon his own head. I have said ye are God's. Mark, Beloved, I have said it to honor you, but you must not say so to honor yourselves, no nor suffer your hangers-on to say so for you.

I will shut up this point with Rupertus his Meditation; what an easy thing it is to dazzle the eyes of men with outward appearances: If there were, says he, such a shout given to Herod being clad in a Royal Robe, what applause will be given to Antichrist being clad in Gold and Silver, and shining with Miracles? We know the applause too well: we hear what Titles the Romanists have given to their mighty Prelate, whose height is sixty cubits above the Church, and his breadth six cubits broader than the Kings that are under him. Our ears tingle at the Acclamations. What is it to say the Pope cannot err? Is not that the voice of God, and not of Man? What is it to say his power to forgive sins is more than instrumental? Is not that the voice of God, and not of Man? What is it to say that his Excommunication can dethrone the Lord's Anointed? Is not that the voice of God, and not of Man? who said Eritis sicut Dii, you shall be like unto God's! the Devil do ye think? Gen. iii. Well guest, but it is a Canonist that saluteth John the XXII. as the Devil did Adam and Eve, Our Lord God the Pope, as you may find in the Extravagancies: I will not name him, the man is known, whose Essay in the Popes defense is very famous, that he desired to be at Rome to see him, who is said to exalt himself above God, cast down in confession at the feet of a poor Penitentiary: very good. I have seen Wrestlers crouch to the ground, that they might throw their adversaries beneath them, and get the glory; so this great Colossus coucheth himself at the feet of his Confessor, that he may trip up all the World, and make them Vassals to Confession. So much may be said of their Pride, which the whole World begins to hiss at, that, without violence done to charity, we may rightly suspect their humility. Awake for shame, and remember how lowly he was▪ that St. Peter, whom you glory to be the top of your Succession. Brethren, he that will be more than a Man, may not we suspect him to be St. Johns Beast? He that will be more than a sinful Man, may we not justly tax him to be the Man of Sin? And so I pass from the first general part, how Herod gave not God the glory, and come to show you how God did get himself glory out of Herod. Immediately the Angel, &c.

He was smitten, I told you that was the first Emphasis of the four. For since Herod would be as great as God, I will give him precedency so far that his Destruction shall be handled first, and then the Vengeance of the Angel. He was smitten. Aliud est facere quod lex jubet, aliud pati quod lex jubet, says St. Austin: The obedience of the Law was violated, but the castigation of the Law cannot be avoided. Matchiavel among his irreligious Principles, says that all the credit of great Enterprises depends upon success, for if Caesar had miscarried in his Civil Wars, his infamy had been more odious than Catalines: Potentes potenter cadunt, mighty sinners run into mighty destructions: and such conspicuous offenders as Herod was, leave themselves as an Ensign on a Hill, and as a Beacon upon the top of a Mountain, says the Prophet Isaiah. Where is his Eloquence now? Where is his costly Garment to make him gorgeous to be gazed upon in his public Oration? Where is the outcry of the Sidonians that Canonized his Tongue for the Voice of a God? The Jealousy of the Lord was kindled like a pile of Brimstone which would not suffer a petty God to stand before him. As Tertullian said of the Idolatrous Tragaedians in his time who dedicated their sports to the God's of the Heathen, Do not now flock unto them, Christian Brethren, says the Father, you shall hear them hereafter tear their voice in Hell, when you shall sit in the joys of Paradise. Tunc magis tragaedi audiendi, magis scilicet vocales in suâ propriâ calamitate. So we shall hear this rare speaker hereafter, whether he can persuade Father Abraham to give him a drop of water to cool hid tongue.

One thought he had given good counsel to the Athenians when Alexander the Great, stomach'd at there City for denying him the title of a God, Cavete ne dum coelos custodiatis terram amittatis; Take heed least you forfeit your own possession of the earth for denying him the possession of heaven. But the Sidonians gave Herod so much of heaven, that they lost him all the earth, but a Grave, little more than a span long, for his burial. St. Chrysostom his question is very material upon this place, why the people giving the first offense, yet Herod is punished, and the principal Malefactors, to see to, acquitted. The reasons are so many, that I must lay them down without much enlargement.

First, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Josephus gives the reason, He should have reproved and abhorred, he should have stopped his ears at their flatteries. He should have thrown off his Crown, and cast dust upon his head; he should have rent his spangled Garment, as St. Paul did at Lystra, when they provided Garlands, and Sacrifices, and God -like entertainment. Woe will be to thousands in our Church, especially to Magistrates and Prelates, that suffer so many unsavory words to fly about their ears and not reprove them. Why should your silken perfumed sinner talk ribauldry fit for brothels and I forbear to chide him? Why should I suffer pestilent men to profane the Scripture, and I a Minister of Christ stand by as if I were chop-fallen? A Swearer, if his greatness be not in the reach of my tongue, shall see in my face that he hath no place in my heart. Be wise then O ye Rulers of the earth. You must either be nursing Fathers to God's Church, or else Enemies, there is no mean. Out of the strong came sweetness, as it is in Samsons Riddle, Honey out of the belly of the Lion; that is, the happiness of the Church issued from the protection of godly Princes. The Jesuits that say their charge is only to look to the Second Table, and not to exceed negotiation of temporal affairs, wish them no better death than Herod had, who reproved not the People, and immediately the Angel, &c.

Secondly, God will take a more exact account of great men's actions than of the Vulgar multitude, because their lives are conspicuous and exemplary, and as it was said of his Anointed Christ, So we may say of his Anointed Kings, He that is lifted up draws all men after him. Woe be to the Governors who mislead the people that are under them. As the Flood of waters in the time of Noah was fifteen Cubits higher than the tallest Mountains, so the wrath of the Lord doth especially overtop the Mountains, and his voice delighteth to shake the Cedars of Libanus. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. says Plutarch. Among Mariners not one that dies a quiet death among ten, but among evil Kings not one among ten thousand. As their life is infectious unto many, so is their doom dreadful unto many, and that is the second reason why he was smitten.

Thirdly, The people were not altogether free from chastisement, I am sure not free from terror in Herod's castigation. Look now upon him that was your Idol, look ye Sidonians upon the empty cloud which you did blow into the air, nay, above the heavens with the breath of your mouth. How is it vanished, and come to nothing? Imagine Beloved with what astonishment the whole Assembly was dissolved, if their Consciences were not as full of Worms as Herod 's body.

Fourthly, Says St. Chrysostom, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . To enlarge the Fathers meaning, Clemency and Justice when they meet together attend how they may punish few, and save many, Ut poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniret. Wherefore judge in your own reason, if Herod had been spared, and a great Assembly punished, they all were sure to perish, he perchance might be amended; but if Herod suffer the Malediction, one man feels the smart, and the whole Assembly may repent and be saved.

Fifthly and lastly, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ▪ says the same Father. Let the Rabble go home in peace for this time, they were not all white for harvest upon that day, but behold the end. Where is Cesarea now? Or who almost knows the Sidonian? They have learnt to know by dear experience that Thunder and Judgment is the Voice of God, and not an Eloquent Oration.

The Sum and Doctrine of this Point is thus much. First, It is dangerous for a Magistrate; it is certain Judgment for men whom God hath blessed with honorable and plentiful fortunes to defile themselves with scandalous vices. You have Plenty in your Houses: What need you to be unjust? Your State is able to subsist by itself: What need you to flatter? You may have Families, and Wives, and Children: Why should you be Adulterers? Your Provision is not scanty: Why do you eat and drink in excess, as if they were things which you had not daily? It is not for Princes to drink Wine, that is, not unto Drunkenness, says the Prophesy of Lemuel which his Mother taught him. A nullo periculo fortuna principum longiùs abest quàm ab humilitate. The worst thing which happens to a magnificent life is that it is not obnoxious unto humility. Secondly, It is no less dangerous when a whole Kingdom, and City, or any collected multitude set their face against heaven; Judgment may seem to have forgot them, as these Sidonians departed safely in my Text, but in time the Lord will root out such a Nation. Well then, when the flattering Assembly had deserved a vengeance, Herod only carries it to his grave. What shall I say? As the Child that threw a stick at the dog, which barked at him, and hit his Mother-in-law who had long afflicted him, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , I meant the Dog, but it is well as it is, says the Child; so that Princes may see they have no privilege to be flattered, whatsoever the People deserved, God's judgment fell not amiss upon Herod, and he was smitten, Tantus periit, the second thing follows, Tantus à tanto, he was smitten by an Angel of the Lord.

If these men says Moses concerning Core, Dathan, and Abiram, If these men die the common death of all men, if they be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me. Strange Wickednesses procure strange kinds of Death. If the Earth will not avenge them, the Angel of the Lord will come down and fight. Do the Trees of Paradise deserve to have a Cherubin set before them with a flaming Sword? And shall not all the Host of heaven stand about the Majesty of the Most High, and see the honor of his name preserved? But there is a controversy, whether this Angel were not one of the evil Spirits now commanded to inflict a disease upon Herod's bowels: For say they, it were as great a torture for the Devil to punish Herod for Pride, as for Herod to suffer it, because it calls their own sin to remembrance, for which they are fettered in chains of darkness▪ And Josephus gave the occasion to this opinion, augmenting the story of Herod's death with this circumstance, that an Owl at this very moment perched upon the silken strings of his Canopy, which the King took to be a Presage of his death, and was no doubt a tenor substituted by Satan. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , As Homer says, a Bird of fatal Praediction; and such a one is said to have affronted Innocent the Third as he was declaring his own Title in the Council of Lateran. For my part I am not averse to believe Josephus in this part of the Story, because in all other points he doth follow the Evangelist. And the sight of some uncouth Creature is able to put an evil Conscience into a perplexity worse than death. Every thing is dismal to a guilty mind, like Archimedes his Engines, dreadful to the Romans, if a Timber-log, or Cable-rope did but show itself upon the Walls of Syracusa. But though the relation of the Owl be true, the Spirit of God would not mention it in holy Scripture, lest it should increase our ignorance, who are superstitions, to be afraid of the crossings and apparitions of beasts, and such other casualties.

Let it be then that this evil Vision affrighted Herod, yet it is more likely that the Angel was one of the blessed which smote him that he died. For although the good Angels are sometimes called evil ones ab effectu, as the Psalmist says of the Israelites, that God sent evil Angels among them, yet the unclean Spirits are never styled by this honorable compellation, to be called the Angels of the Lord. And give me leave to please myself a little in this conjecture, God would not permit vengeance of death to be executed against a King by any power inferior to an Angel of light. It is the privilege of their Unction, their immediate subjection to God alone, which exempts them from the hand of all other authority, yea, from the fury of infernal Spirits. Wherefore the Jesuits own tender conscience, which is as soft as Flint, dare not say that a King is obnoxious to death, till some unnatural Sentence of deposition go before. Which resembles methinks the very first passage in Aristophanes, You dare not strike me, says Charion the Servant, having a Crown upon my head; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says his Master, I will first take your Crown from you; so first the Jesuits lay down rules of Arts to depose Princes, and then their Devil ships say that you may use them as you will. Well, though Herod deserved the worst of all the Royal Order, yet neither the hand of man, nor the fury of Satan could do him hurt, but immediately the Angel, &c.

Brethren, you see my Text speaks of a smiting Angel. An Angel smote the first-born of Pharaoh; an Angel made an exceeding slaughter in the Host of Sennacharib. An Angel brandished a Sword before David when seventy thousand died of the Pestilence. Conceive not of these things as if an Angel had a Sword of Steel, or offered any visible violence per contactum, but as Abulensis says, the Angel did apply some pestilent noisomeness to the air, which in a moment entered into their bowels, and destroyed their Vitals. Beloved, the holy Angels seem as it were desirous, and ambitious to avenge God's glory against the pride of Herod. Indeed, there is so little zeal in his cause nowadays, so few do stir in it, as if to this hour we left all to them, and expected Angels. Nay, rather as if we thought of neither God nor Angel. Where is the Courage of Phinehas? Where is the Zeal of Elias? Where is the Voice of John the Baptist? Where is the Sword that is not lent in vain unto the Magistrate? The lean Cattle it may be shall go to the Shambles, but Amalek and the fat ones are your prey, and your Sacrifice. Ecquid tinnit Dolobella? Then no man cuts him off though he give not God the glory. The world is grown as unconscionable as that heathen man, who said, He had rather heaven should lose a Star from the Firmament than himself to lose an heifer from his flocks of Cattle: So we are more tender of our own reputation, than to maintain his glory by whom Kings reign, and by whom we hope to reign as Kings in glory. The Noble Descent of our Ancestors, the Antiquity of our House, the Dignity of our Place, the Gravity of our Years, Praecedere quatuor annis, these are things that our blood will rise at if they be called in question; but the profanation of the name of Jesus, the alienation of holy things, the demolishment of Churches, irreverent carriage at Divine Prayers, and the holy Communions, are as little our care as matters of Religion did pertain to Gallio.

I must again recall you to the practice of the Angels. For when the Sadducees did so much dishonor them, that they said there were no Angels at all, yet we do not read in all the Scripture that these Angels did avenge themselves of the Sadducees in their own behalf; but in another quarrel, in God's cause they are as quick and hot as a flaming fire. Nay, for fear lest somebody should step in before them to do the deed, as soon as ever the word was out of Herod's mouth, that he was magnified as a God, immediately he is apprehended. And that is the third part, Tantus tam repent, without pause, without time of revocation, immediately, &c.

The Judgments of the Lord are so sudden, so accustomed to tread upon the heels of sin, that all the comparisons of nimble motion are borrowed to express it. The Flying Arrow, Psal. xci. The noisesome Pestilence that cleaves to the flesh in a moment, in the same place. The coming of a Bridegroom whose longing desires use not to be tardy, Mat. xxv. The Thief in the night that gives no warning; The gliding of the Lightning from the East unto the West; The blast of a Trumpet; The crowing of a Cock that breaks our sleep; What can be said more, that God's Angel doth immediately strike the insolent? Nazianzen, speaking of those Scoffers that abused S. Basil, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , It is marvel that Thunderbolts are not stirring upon such a trespass. St. Jerome, in his Commentary upon the Prophet Habakkuk, relates, That Julian the Apostate, reading this story of Herod's downfall, cavilled against the Christians for saying their God was patient and of long suffering, Nihil iracundius, nihil hoc furore praesentius, says he, ne modico spatio indignationem distulit; Nothing more angry, nothing more sudden, he did not defer his indignation no not for an hour. It is true indeed, sin and death are Acus & filum; iniquity draws on judgment, as the Needle draws the thread, immediately after it: For such as are vessels of dishonor, when they first jussel against God's Commandments they begin to crack in the very moment, although they break not in pieces till the fullness of time, when the Milstone shall fall upon them and grind them to powder. In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die, says God to Adam, that is, thou shalt grow mortal, and decline every minute more and more to the grave.

But there is a chosen Generation (yet let them not presume upon grace) that shall be pardoned seventy seven times. Whereupon, says St. Austin, Commemoratione hujus numeri omnia peccata sunt dimissa, quando ipse per quem omnia peccata remissa sunt, septuagessimâ septimâ generatione secundum Lucam natus est; That is, if sins be remitted seventy seven times to the Elect, then all their sins shall be remitted; for he, in whom all sins are remitted, Christ Jesus, was born by a mystery in the seventy seventh Generation from God the Eternal Father according to St. Luke. Immediately he was smitten, in such Splendour of Attire, in such Celebrity of Attendants, before the face of Strangers, among those who in their hearts were no better than his enemies; never did he come out of that Chair of the Scorner, from that Throne wherein he was Canonized, till he was stripped of all Dignity, and deprived of that Title by the Angel of the Lord. Had he been struck with sickness in any other place, I know how it would have been excused, the fault would have been laid upon his long journey from Galilee to Cesarea, perchance the Sidonians had been charged to poison him, such suspicions are very rife, as if it were impossible for Princes to come to their end by natural infirmities; but now no such rumour could be broached, Immediately, &c.

Beloved, It is the most dreadful thing upon earth to be suddenly apprehended by judgment. What will not our strict Reformers cavil at, who demand to have the Prayer against sudden death to be put out of the Litany? It is well if they themselves be so well prepared for the hour of Judgment, come it never so unexpected. Indeed, it should be so. But let the Christian, whom I would instruct, pray every Morning as if he should see the Sun rise no more: Pray every Evening as if he should see the Sun set no more; be ready to meet the Bridegroom at Midnight, and yet despise not that Supplication, From sudden death good Lord deliver us. He that promiseth God repentance hereafter, pays him in the mean time with iniquity. Ab hôc loco, hoc ipso tempore Deo servire statui, it is St. Austin's Meditation. If your heart be touched at any Sermon, do not consult with your Almanac what day will be most convenient to begin your Reformation: from the moment wherein you heard the Word taught, in that place that then you stand, slip off the old Serpents skin and renew your youth, become a new Creature. No man would sin so fast, but he that thinks his Age runs away but slowly; no man would be an unrepentant sinner today, but that he hopes for tomorrow. And why tomorrow? Nemo non suo die moritur; My day to die was every day since I had an hour to live. And I was a sinner before the first minute of that hour expired, therefore why should not my heart smite me, and contrition humble me, lest Judgment should begin as soon as this word is spoken. It is the Devils muttering, and not a Christians, to say, Art thou come to torment us before thy time? Of three things Cato did repent of more than the rest this is one, Quod unum diem mansisset intestatus; A day past over his head wherein his Will was not made, he might have died intestate. If a Heathen were so solicitous that upon every day the things of this life might be duly ordered, what care ought to be taken, that we suffer not our eyes to flumber until all things be accorded for the peace of our conscience, for our reconciliation in Christ Jesus against the world to come? Sickness, and Death, and Judgment, who knows whether they be not as near to us as the avenging Angel was unto Herod, who did immediately smite him, that he was eaten, &c.

Now I am fallen in the last place upon the true castigation of Herod's pride, Tantus tam luctuose, that such a Potentate should die so miserably, eaten up of Worms for five days, says Josephus, after he was smitten, and then gave up the Ghost. Lest he should glory that he was smitten by no less than an Angel, Aeneae magni dextrâ, behold the meanest of all Creatures, the Worms are made his Executioners. And lest he should domineer, as Eusebius said he did, that he died not sordidly, in the rank of a mean man, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with the dignity of a King, which is the much admired happiness, therefore the loathsomeness of his Disease, the ignobleness of the Scourge, the irrecoverableness of the Mischief, all are conjoin'd to debase his Spirit. O torture little dreamt of at this time! Had he not the Physicians of Arabia about him? How could he feel mortality? Was he not in perfect strength to make Orations to the People? What could be doubted of his health? Was not his body kept sweet and clean like the body of a King? Who would have suspected the putrefaction of Worms?

But remember that Manna bred Worms and stank though it came from heaven, when it was too long preserved against God's Commandment. So though the Sovereignty of a King do come from heaven, yet if it offend the Lord it will consume and putrefy. He that humbled himself to be vermis non homo, a worm and no man, he is exalted above men to the right hand of God: He that would have been Deus non homo, a God and not a man, is dejected below a man, and made a worm. See what contrariety of Instruments God did use to make his death the stranger, an Angel, and a Worm. An Angel, that he might say, with the Philistines, Who is able to endure these mighty God's? A Worm, that he might say, Et tu Brute, the meanest of Creatures can conquer a King by God's ordination. An Angel, for his sake who was the Judge, to show his mightiness: A Worm, for his sake that was judged, to show his baseness. An Angel, to show how a sinner cannot look upon heaven, for it is full of wrath: A Worm, to show he cannot tread safely upon the earth, for it is full of vengeance. An Angel is an immortal Creature, to threaten such pain unto the soul: A Worm is a most corruptible creature, to show the fading of the body.

As St. Paul said of his Widows which were busy-bodies, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 She that is wanton is dead while she is alive, because she is dead to Faith and good Works: So I may say of Herod, that he died while he was alive, for Worms which feed sweetly upon the dead, as Job says, fed upon him in his life-time, as if he had been buried, after he had solemnly made his own Funeral Oration. As the Poet spake of a poisonous death, which wasted the body first, and separated the soul afterward, Eripiunt omnes animam, tu sola cadaver: So I may say of this Phthiriasis, First, it did eat up the body, and so left no room for the soul to inhabit in the members. Expertes opes ignaros quid vulnera vellent, says Lucretius; When anguish doth tear their heart, skill cannot afford recovery, when their whole body is but one sore, they know not where they are wounded.

This disease is more observed in Histories to be the Arrow of the Lord against sinners of high presumption than any other. Thus Sylla died; thus Antiochus Epiphanes; thus Herod the Great; thus Arnulphus, that spoiled the Churches of the Christians; thus Phericides, that gloried he never offered Sacrifice, and yet lived as prosperously, Quàm qui heccatombas immolant. What do we talk of Blazing-stars, that they are only fatal and ominous to the life of Noble Personages, a few Worms have often bereaved them of their soul as easily as the little Worm smote the Gourd of Jonas. But will some man say, Do you make this disease an infallible sign of God's especial indignation? Brethren, God forbid. For Judgments fall promiscuously in this life upon the good and bad: Seest thou a man rent with as many torments of infirmities, as there be members in his body, to receive them, let your first Meditation be, Acerrimum est praelium in viâ, magnus erit triumphus in patriâ; He suffers much in this life, his triumph will be the greater in the world to come. And let your second consideration be the dreadfulness of God's anger. Says Tertullian to the Roman Lord's, the tortures of your Bondslaves are Fetters, your reward is a Cap of Liberty; but we are servants of the most high, Cujus judicium in suos, non in compede aut pileo vertitur, sed in aeternitate poenae aut salutis. Whose judgment gives sentence either of Hell, or Everlasting salvation.

To answer you more copiously. One circumstance alone had bred no ill opinion of Herod's death: Many circumstances raise a suspicion that his Life was Criminal, and his Death Exemplary. 1. To be smitten in a sin immediately upon the fact, to be smitten by an Angel, to be gnawn to death with Worms, the divine hand was over this Sentence, and no natural cause. Unless, as Tertullian said of their lascivious Theaters, that resounded with scurrility, Ipse aer qui desuper incubat scelestis vocibus constupratur; So, that Sacrilegious shout which the people gave against the honor of God did infect the air, and provoke this immediate putrefaction in Herod's bowels.

Beloved, We do all hold up our hands, and bless ourselves from such a vengeance as fell upon him, that the very flesh should putrefy in his body, and breed stink and loathsomeness, yet our lustful Gallants will take no warning, but incur a more odious disease, a more putrefying corruption of the body by their uncleanness and fornication than ever Herod had. It is very strange to see how one Country will shift off the name of that disease to another (which for reverence to your ears I will not mention.) The Indian will not own it: The Naopolitan shuns the disgrace to have it pinn'd upon him; the French translates it upon another People, whole Kingdoms were ever ashamed of the infamy, and yet this man, and that man, and the other that haunts Stews, incurs it, knows of it, professeth it. Beloved, is such a putrefied Carkass fit to make a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in, or rather fit to make a Hog for Satan to enter in, and run him headlong to his ruin. O you are sure all shall be cured by Baths, and Surgeons, when the Angel of the Lord may strike you immediately that you give up the Ghost.

So indeed our Savior himself is said to give up the Ghost, but with much difference from Herod in the very original phrase. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. John. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Luke and St. Mark. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Matthew, still there is mention of the Spirit in all the four Evangelists, because Christ was full of the Holy Ghost. But 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says my Text of Herod, he breathed out his soul, no mention of the Spirit, for he was homo 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . as St. Paul says, Efflavit animam, he disgusted out his soul, which no doubt did loath the body.

To conclude all: If you ask me what became of Herod after these words, He gave up the Ghost, I have no Commission from the Scripture to search into it, he had much cause to give God thanks if he were saved, who gave him five days repentance, after he was struck, to be sorry for his sin. If he were condemned, we have cause to give God thanks, who hath made Herod an example unto us, and might have made us, had we been created sooner, an example unto Herod. Like David's Arrows about Jonathan, so are God's Judgments about us, on this side, and beyond, round about our eyes, his name be blessed for evermore that we are not the mark of his indignation. Which mercy that he may continue towards us, we beg for the merits of Jesus Christ, To whom, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, &c.

THE FIRST SERMON UPON

GAL. iv. 26.

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother of us all.

A N odd conceit that came into the head of the Cosmographer, who said, that if two Eagles equally strong in flight should be chosen out, the one being set at the furthest part of the East in Asia, the other at the furthest part of the West in Europe; if these two should take the wing just in the same moment, and not rest till they came together, they would meet both at Jerusalem, as if it were the Navel of the habitable World. I rehearse it as a Dream, and I give it this Interpretation. The Synagogue under the Law of Moses was the Occidental Eagle; the Gospel of Grace the Oriental Eagle, which did rise with Salvation in its wings; why these two holy Professions which soared aloft, when all other Religions crept upon the ground, I say these two, when St. Paul wrote this Epistle to the Churches of Galatia, did conspicuously meet in Jerusalem, as in that Theater whereon they did act their most principal part. There was the Chair of the Scribes and Pharisees advanced, that taught the exactest way of the Law: there was the Temple, wherein the Rites and Ceremonies were performed daily, which Moses commanded. And likewise from thence began the Gospel to go forth into all the Earth, and had gained more ground there than in any other place. You have filled Jerusalem with your Doctrine, say the High Priests. Lo this is the Rendezvouz of the Cosmographers two Eagles, and this is the Explication of his Fable. You know they continued there a short while, for about the space of forty years, like Twins struggling in one Womb. And though at first the Propugners of the Law would in no wise consent that the College of the Apostles, the Preachers of the new Covenant of Grace, should have any room in their Principality; yet in a short time the Devil saw it best for his purpose to let them share together: Nec meum, nec tuum, sed dividatur, let it neither be Moses alone, nor Christ alone, but let them mix together. This was the bane of sincere truth: for every Metal that is mixed with gold embaseth it. And yet it was entertained as a motion sent from Heaven to make peace and amity, in all the Churches of Galatia, till the Lord stirred up the spirit of St. Paul to dissolve this Combination, which he performs with most approved success in this Chapter. And because Similitudes and Figures will hold faster in the memory of the unlearned, who are the greater number, than powerful Arguments; after weighty Reasons premised, the Apostle concludes, with an Allegory at the end of his Disputation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as a Banquet after a Meal of solid meat. And thus it runs, that they who sought righteousness by the Law were no better than Ishmael the Son of Hagar, they that sought righteousness by Faith were as Isaac, the Heir of his Father. That the Law came from Sinah, which was seated in Arabia, a Mountain quite out of the Confines of the Land of Promise; the Gospel began at Zion, or Jerusalem, which was the heart of the Holy Land. Or let Jerusalem be compared with itself, and it was under servitude and malection by the Profession of the Law, but it gained honor and a beautiful Portion by the Profession of the Gospel. Jerusalem which now is in bondage with her Children, but Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother of us all.

Out of this contention between St. Paul and the Galatians, those suspensive men, those neutrals, that would be half Jew, half Christian, and so were rightly neither Jews nor Christians, I say from hence the legitimate Church, which is the undefiled Spouse of Christ, hath purchased this description, which I have read unto you, wherein divers of her Privileges are collected together: I do not say all; for under the Title of the Kings Daughter, she is described circumamicta varietate, Psal. xlv. clothed with as much embroidering and varieties as could be rehearsed in a long Psalm. In this little Abstract of the excellency thereof, six Portions of its glory are contained in six words. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . 1. She is a Jerusalem, a visible fair City, that's her external Communion. 2. A Jerusalem above, that's her internal Sanctity. 3. A Jerusalem that is free, which is her supernal Redemption. 4. A Mother, that's her Fruitfulness. 5. The Mother of us, which comprehends her Unity. 6. The Mother of us all, which expresseth the Universality. Somewhat upon each of these, as God shall assist me, that the hour may be profitable to the hearers.

Jerusalem is the Substantive or fundamental word that bears up the whole Text, and it is as musical a word as most that run upon syllables; but it offers more pleasantness to the understanding than to the ear; full of happy signification; a name given 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as the Philosopher Plato was wont to say, to accommodate to the Church Apostolical, that unless God had foreseen that his saving truth should first grow up within the walls thereof, it had never been called Jerusalem. The first mention of it is to be required from Josh. x. i. where we read that Adonizedek, King of Jerusalem, was afraid of Joshua, when he had taken the strong City of Ai: Yet I will not say that it was called Jerusalem in those days when Adoni-zedek lived. It had two names before; and the best Antiquaries of the Jews confess, it is not spoken of by their Wise-men which name preceded. The Rulers thereof, whose mention is of the oldest time, are Melchi-zedek, and Adoni-zedek, that is the King of Justice, and the Lord of Justice: so that the City was formerly called Zedek, or Justice, that without controversy: but because, through the corruption of our manners, Justice may set men's teeth on edge, when it is too severe and inflexible; therefore it was also called Salem, or the Border of Peace: Melchizedek kept his chief Court there, and he was King of Salem, and Priest of the most high God. And thus in the times fore-gone augusto augurio, for a more fortunate Auspice, it was known by the names of Zedek and Salem, Justice and Peace, both which were fulfilled in Christ our Lord, who suffered there to satisfy his Fathers Justice, and made our peace by the Propitiation in his blood. Things by-past so long ago, for the most part are all uncertain, and it is not known whether it were David, the renowned Conqueror of that City, or some other holy Prophet, that enlarged the short word Salem, and made it Jerusalem: Whosoever it was, if our Doctors hit him right, he had an excellent reason for it. In this place the mighty Hill was called Mount Moriah in the days of Abraham. Thither he brought his only Son Isaac to sacrifice him as the Lord commanded; but when the Ram caught by the horns did excuse his Son, he called that high place Jehovah Jireth, the Lord will be seen in the Mount. This Jireth prefixed before Salem makes it Jerusalem, as who should say this City, the Church, will bring you to the vision of peace: Or thus, let her be comforted in her persecutions. Deus providebit pacem, God will provide peace. So that Justice, Peace, and Providence are the flowers that spring out of her names, a sign that some great Blessing was hatching within her Circuit, which was brought forth, when the first Flock of Christ the great Shepherd, was folded there, who were sent from thence to baptize all Nations.

Neither have we of the New Testament encroached upon this Name without leave: the Psalms the Prophets, all that went before have given us authority for it. To cite one for all, those words of Jeremy come next to my mind; At that time they shall call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord, and all the Nations shall be gathered unto it. We are the Parties spoken of, and we are that Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord. Not to rob them of it, that first possessed the Name, but that both of us might be marked with one stamp, as with a Seal of Unity. It was Jerusalem before unto them of the Circumcision, and still it is Jerusalem unto us of the Uncircumcision. The Law and the Gospel are at no discord, unless they be perversely mistaken: the one was Christ veiled, the other is Christ reviled; they make not two Churches, no more than an Infant, and one of full age make two diverse men: it is the same bough that bears the flower and the fruit, they are both Jerusalem. No conjunction in the World was intended by God to be more amicable, than between us two, that we should be one People, one Body, one Sheepfold, one City, one Jerusalem, anything what you will which was of multitude, and will hold fast together, and become the same. How often is our Peace-maker called a Corner-stone, that he might grow with us both into one frame of building, he stretched him to both Walls, that both might rest in him? Yet for all this none under Heaven are worse agreed than we, through the envy of the Devil. Socrus Synagoga divisa est contra nurum Ecclesiam, says St. Austin. It is as our Savior foretold, the Mother-in-law the Synagogue is divided against the Daughter-in-law the Church, and the Daughter-in-law the Church is divided against the Mother-in-law the Synagogue. But the scandal of the rupture is theirs, and the curse of it is upon them, which will never escape them that affect schismatical separations, and to be holy after their own cut. It were lamentable to tell you what the Polity of the Jews is at this time, a spiritual Sodom is an harsh word, but we that march after the Standard of Christ are an holy Jerusalem.

Which word must needs gather up our mind into many notions, wherein Jerusalem of old, and the Catholic Church do symbolize; both of them the Seats of the Oracles of God, both of them the Thrones of the Priesthood, both of them sown with the blood of Martyrs, both of them illuminated by Prophets immediately sent from God: there the Lepers that were cleansed, after due Rites performed, were received into the Congregation; here contrite sinners, after due penance performed, receive their absolution: to that Kings brought Presents, and Proselytes came from far; to this the most glorious Monarchs have afforded their bounty and protection. In the one Christ was sacrificed for the sins of the World, but the new Jerusalem, and none but it, doth partake the merit of his Sacrifice. If fancy will take scope these Analogies are without number, therefore I pass them by. And I refer myself to two things especially, how the Name descended upon the Church. First, While the old Tabernacle stood, Jerusalem was the chief place wherein men called upon the Name of the Lord. Secondly, Out of the same Zion went forth the New Law, and Jerusalem was the Mother of the first born in Christ. For the first, as you would call a School of good letters Athens, a place of good Military Education Lacedaemon, and a Country of intemperance and luxury Babylon; so because the Worship of God was performed after the best form and exactness within the Precincts of this City; therefore those that emulate the Jews in an holy way, to magnify the Lord Jesus, and to advance his Name in their reasonable service, they carry this good report to be called the Jerusalem of God. Obadiah 's Cave contained most Orthodox Prophets, Capernaum had a Synagogue to preach in, perhaps as good Sermons delivered there as in all Judea; Joppa had many devout people in it; Bethany afforded a Family which exceeded all others in love to our Savior; but if you will shape unto yourselves the beautiful Churches of Christ, you must pass by these, reserving much praise unto them all for that wherein they did very well, and you must extend your thoughts to the flourishing Profession of God's Name at Jerusalem. Thither the Tribes went up, that they might worship together in their most populous Assemblies: not like some in our days, that keep at home when the Convocations of the Lord require their presence, and flatter themselves with their own sufficiency, as if they needed no Prayers to commend them to Heaven but their own. But one Simon Stylita, mounted up in his Pillar by himself, is not an whole Jerusalem. To keep Religion in life there is nothing more needful, than that such as are of the Visible Church have communion and society one with another. Beside, in this Metropolis of the Land of Canaan the degrees of the holy Priesthood were conspicuous from the chief Pontif to the meanest Levite: Not all fellows, as Core would have it: And why not everyone as good as Aaron? This would make Babel and not Salem; Demetrius his concourse for all the World, Act. xxix. no man was tied to say by your leave to his Companion; for every man was a Master of the Mutiny. Let not the pride of them that cannot get preeminence cry down the Authority of them, who have commanded from the Apostles to this Age: And remember that St. Jude hath pointed out some who were Spots in the Church, not in the Synagogue, that perished in the gainsaying of Core? Now Core 's gainsaying, if you will expound it to the Letter, can be nothing else but a seditious attempt against Ecclesiastical Dignity. Beside, the sound of Jerusalem brings to our remembrance all Divine Offices that were done in the Temple, to celebrate his glory, who is wonderful above all, wherein we succeed them either in the same, or by clothing their Figures with a Substance. They had appointed hours of Prayer day by day in the Public Congregation, for their sakes that will find out a little time between Morning and Evening to step out of the affairs of the World into the Courts of Heaven; they had the Law preached and expounded with uncessant diligence: there were no less than 460 Synagogues within the Circuit of that City in the days of Josephus: so many Pulpits to inculcate Doctrine into the People. It seems they had a form of Catechizing by that Conference which was held between our Savior and the Doctors; they had Psalmody according to the most skillful Music of David and Asaph; they had Incense to learn us devotion; they had Sacrifices to teach us mortification. The exercise of all which indeed was much kept down under captivity, and during Antiochus his Persecution: But in the days of peace and liberty it had this external face of holiness. And that our solemn and outward Profession of God's worship should be suitable to this decency and splendor, and not shuffled up as if we took our Platform from such an obscure Village as Bethphage or Emmaus, it is incited to do all things after a sacred comeliness and magnificence by the name of Jerusalem.

So it is: and yet these Mosaical fashions are passed away. But it is an indelible Character belonging to that place, from whence the Church rejoiceth to take its name, that the first foundations of Christianity were laid in Jerusalem: for as Seneca said of the Heavens, dignum & idoneum spectaculum si tantum praeteriret, it was a gay and a goodly sight, though it did no more but move above our head and pass away; how much better was it to us by the virtue of its light and influence! So Jerusalem is famous for that Levitical Worship of God which is passed away and vanished, but much more glorious for the influence dispersed from thence over all the World by the Apostolical preaching; for out of Zion went the Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, Isa. ii. 3. Let us do it all favor, says the Emperor Justin the Elder, to Pope Hormisda, for it is Mater Christiani nominis, the Mother, the Foundress of our Christian Profession. We may take leave I think, to discourse a little upon the wisdom of God's good pleasure, why this was the Brood-nest wherein the first Assembly was hatched that taught the Gospel. First, says Leo, Ut ubi passus est [ 1] Christus ignominiam, ibi subiret gloriam, Christ chose Bethlehem for his Nativity, but populous Jerusalem for his Passion, where many might behold his opprobrious Death. Lo in that soil where he became a scorn and dirision to them that were round about him, he ascended into Heaven (for Mount Olivet browed upon Jerusalem ) there he sent down the Holy Ghost, there Faith and Repentance began to be preached in his Name, there St. Peter made his first Sermon among devout men that were gathered together of every Nation under Heaven. As there had been the Golgotha of his Humility, so there he advanced the Standard of his Glory. 2. Since our [ 2] Savior began to take his Kingdom upon him, where should he proclaim himself first but in his Royal City? there was the Court of David and of Solomon, and meet it was that His Court should be there who was to sit upon the Seat of his Father David. And it jumps well, that he did not take possession of Jerusalem presently after he was baptized, no not till he was crucified: He did not actually reign in full Majesty till he triumphed over Death in his Resurrection. From thenceforth the Royal Robe of Immortality was upon him, and his Scepter in his hand to crush his Enemies, and this was made known in the chief place of God's Worship, in the Gates of Jerusalem. 3. Had the Gospel been preached in the beginning near about [ 3] us in Europe, or in Africa, or elsewhere far from that Country where Christ preached, and suffered, and rose again, the news would have been strange, and Unbelievers would have replied, who are your Witnesses of these things? But, in the first utterance of Christian Faith, to preach of his Passion within sight of Calvary, of his Doctrine within the Temple, of his Resurrection hard by Joseph of Arimathaea 's Garden. This was a demonstration of truth, that it vented itself where it was best known. Much unlike unto them who tell us in these parts what Miracles their Disciples do in India, and tell them in India what Miracles they produce in Europe. When their Wonders are done so far from home, it is a sign they would be trusted, but not hazard examination. 4. Where the Holy Ghost came down from [ 4] Heaven, it was fit that the Soil just under that Zenith should be the Cradle of the Church to receive its infancy. Christ commanded his Disciples to tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from above, Act. i. 4. He would not send his Soldiers abroad unarm'd to fight his Battels, the Spirit of Grace is medulla Ecclesiae, the Pith the Marrow of it: Our strength without it is but like that of dead bones, where it descends plentifully there riseth up a Church to Christ. And here the Apostles had it not inchoative, but cumulative, they were abundantly filled with it because they were to empty it out to all Nations.

Out of these Premises I proceed to the Conclusion. Jerusalem was Ecclesia Primitivorum, The Church of the First-born, the Apostles, the eldest Sons of their Mother, did teach the first Alphabet of Christianity there, and therefore by way of gratitude to so great a Benefactress the Catholic Church by way of Metonymy, Causa pro causato will never be ashamed to be called Jerusalem. Every Kingdom upon due right must bear a reverend respect to them from whom they received their happy conversion. Some had the first knowledge of Salvation from Rome, some from Constantinople, some from Antioch, some from France, some from England, but all from Jerusalem. And yet none of these are to domineer over the faith of their Brethren. They that have begotten us in Christ may teach another Gospel in the revolution of Ages than the Gospel of Christ, and then are we bound, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to labor to reduce them into the right way above all others, who were the Parents of Religion. It is a blessing sorted out to some whereof David speaks, Thou hast made me wiser than my Teachers, Jerusalem that drank the luke-warm blood from Christ's side, and had the Prerogative of pure Doctrine without all mixture of insincerity, it had a Bishop in the whirl of times, John the Predecessor of Prailius, who was an Origenist, and a suspected Pelagian; another of its Pastors was Gerontius, a confessed Eutychian, and divers others it had, that were leavened with heretical contagion. None would concur with these unless they would put out their eyes to wander for company, because they were the chief Fathers of the City of God. Imagine therefore that Alcasar the Jesuit had all t • at he could ask, that the new Jerusalem that came from heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband was the Church of Rome (yet his Reader must be very courteous that will admit that Exposition) give them this moreover that Isaiah meant it, Chap. lx. 3. The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and Kings to the brightness of thy rising. No proper name is specified there. But what if it were Rome? Although the seventy two, and their own Vulgar Latin have added the word Jerusalem unto it. Above all, suppose it were possible to consist with my Text, that it were the Roman Church which was opposed to Hagar the Bond-woman, that these were her Epithets, to be above, and free, and the Mother of us all, (which had it been, Tu es Petrus had never been planted in the fore-front of their argument, nor had it been their Dromedary ridden and jaded upon all Controversies) this had been their Achilles, in which they had boasted themselves invincible. But if all this garnish had been the true beauty of that Church, it would afford us no more than to meditate upon the Prophets question with wonder and commiseration, How is the faithful City become an harlot? The true Church upon earth is a Tabernacle, portable hither and thither, easily devolved from place to place. When Abraham looked for a City that had foundations, he expected it in heaven and not in earth, Heb. xi.

I know what is ready to be caught hold of from hence by some, and much good do them with it, that the Church is compared here to no ignoble handful of people, which a man must grope for in the dark, but to an illustrious Commonweal, famously known, and conspicuous in a glorious manner to all the world. Yet, with their leave, this Jerusalem which St. Paul prefers, was in those days like a Pearl in the shell, orient in itself, but hidden from the world, overspread with a multitude of gainsayers, ten thousand Adversaries, and ten thousand more to one Orthodox believer. As the Historian says of C. Marius, brought so low in his fortune, that he hid himself from pursuers of Sylla in the flags of a fenny ditch, Quis eum fuisse tum consulem aut futurum credere? Who would have thought he had been Consul, or should ever live to be Consul again? So when the Apostles, and a few persons more, met in an upper Chamber at the feast of Pentecost, who would have took them to be the Kingdom of God upon earth, and none but they? Or who would have divined, that such as they begot in the truth should spread into all quarters as the Stars for multitude? It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Mountain of the Lord hath been notorious, and a clear object unto innumerous eyes upon the top of the Mountains. But is there any such promise, that her outward splendor should be constant, and her felicity perpetual? Nay, rather are we not threatened with such times, when it shall be rare to find faith upon the earth, with large Apostacies, with flying away into the Wilderness, with the Saints dispersed into private Corners? Grant that this should be for one hard brunt and no more (Dato non concesso,) ) yet if the small number of right Believers may be compelled at any time to exercise their Religion in private, the reason falls which some do pertinaciously allege, that the Church must be always well known over the greatest part of the Earth, because her Doctrines and Traditions must be fair and open to all them that will come unto her to seek salvation, or else such as continue in ignorance are excusable: if sometimes it may be obscured by misery, their mouth is stopped for making that objection; and we are assured that the conversion of Unbelievers is not so plentifully brought to pass, by the populous association of men professing faith and godliness, as by the inward impulsion of the spirit, where the Laborers pains do hit successfully by the hidden will of God. But if the quarrel went no further, than that the Church is a Jerusalem always well known and visible in some measure of manifestation, it might quickly be compounded; a Congregation there hath been ever since the Apostles, whose report might come to the ears of natural men, though their profession of supernatural verities was known only to spiritual men; in this latitude we may believe upon historical faith, that the City upon an hill was never hid, but shown its manifest luster, I say was never hid, yet nothing repugns to the nature of a true Church, but it might disappear and be enclouded from the sight of most men in mists and storms of Heresies and Persecutions. Let not the Antagonists dissemble, and they know the discord is at another point, namely, whether the main Principles of saving truth, being retained and taught famously in a Church, which is otherwise very corrupt in divers Doctrines, whether those that distaste, and in heart renounce such over-added Superstitions, are always distinct and culled out from the rest, so that nominately they may be discerned from the more potent Faction? We affirm, and are sure of what we affirm by uncontroleable experience, that the Israel of God do not always profess their Faith and Religion in Congregations apart, but many times they continue in the external Fellowship and common Society of corrupt Believers: and these have been so suppressed by the tyranny and subtlety of great ones, who have labored to obscure them, that as for the present they have been little set by, so they have had small or no reputation in History, to commend their name to after Ages. Much might be said, and invincibly formed for this out of Ecclesiastical Annals. I appeal to one Instance above their Monuments (which beget nothing but human faith.) The Master Builders of Jerusalem, about the time of our Savior's Incarnation, retained the sum of the Law, but admixt with it most impure Divinity, and partly by their cunning, and partly by their supercilious Authority, there was no open distinct Assembly of the People, which concurred not with them. Joseph, and Simeon, and Zacharias, men not carried away with their fraud, were but here a berry and there a berry upon the top of a bough: and if it happened thus to Jerusalem below; where lies the odds? who can tell, that it may not sometimes be the condition of the Christian Church, which is Jerusalem from above?

Now, far be it from this Remonstrance of the paucity and obscurity of the sincere Church, as if it inclined to a schismatical disjunction: Nay Simeon and Zacharias had rather hold communion with the Synagogue of their times, which was much departed from the Truth: but then they were not compelled to subscribe to the prevailing errors of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jerusalem is not Jerusalem if it be not a building well compacted together of them that hold society, as much as in them lies, with all those that have received the Mark of Christ in their forehead. We are called a spiritual Building, and living Stones, 1 Pet. ii. 5. Stones that lie scattered are troublesome to the Passenger, and dangerous to stumble at; join them to others for the erection of a Building, and then you have employed them to their most physical property: As in a Wall one stone supports another, so when we cleave fast together, and bear one another's burdens, God will dwell within us. Where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them. Says Ignatius in his Epistle to the Ephesians, we are Stones squared by the Line of the Holy Ghost, and raised up by Charity from Earth to Heaven: And when the Holy Ghost doth dispose us to supply our fit place in the Structure, then we are living stones; Lapides mortui nihil possunt per se nisi cadere, says Jerome to that of St. Peter, a dead stone hath no motion of itself but to drop out of the Wall of the House, and to fall down, as who should say, there is nothing but decay and death in division; as on the contrary, there is prosperity and life in unity. But as Pliny tells of Theophrastus, that he taught in his Philosophy, that there were some stones, that by nature brought forth other stones, as it is in Plants and Trees; so the stones that build the Walls of this Jerusalem must bring forth that which is fit for the ornament of the Building, but if they do very wicked things, fitter for the Tower of Babel than for the Temple of Christ, they they shall be plucked out of the Building like accursed stones upon which the spot of leprosy appeared, and the Priest shall cast them into an unclean place without the City, Levite. xiv. 40. Jerusalem consists in external communion, but they are not worthy of it. And so ends the first point.

It was not enough in St. Paul's Judgment to denominate the Spouse of Christ from the best Habitation (for earth is but earth be it never so much a selected portion) therefore he carries her aloft in his praise, and adds, that it is Jerusalem which is above, an heavenly City, Heb. xii. 22. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as if it had not its original here, but fell down from the starry Firmament. A notion fit for the most oratorious style of the Prophet Isaiah; says he, It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's House shall be established on the top of the Mountains. To which the Rabbins give a childish interpretation, that toward the time when God shall finish all things Mountains shall be piled upon Mountains, Thabor upon Sinah, Sinah upon Carmel, and Zion upon them all: as the Poets feign that the Giants threw Pindus and Pelion on the top of Ossa: how low they creep in their understanding, that do not stretch that description to Heaven! Let such Blind-worms lick the dust, as the Psalmist says: but we must find out certain Raptures rather than Expositions, how the Seat of Christ 's Kingdom, where his Servants do him homage in praise and holiness, is not beneath, but above. First, because Christ our Head is ascended into Heaven, and governs all things beneath from thence, sitting at the right hand of his Father. As a King, upon whose safety the weal of the Kingdom depends, is said to carry the lives of his people with him, when he adventures his person into danger; so our Souls do hang upon Christ our Redeemer, in him we live and move, wheresoever he goes he draws us after him; if he be lifted up on high, so are we also by virtue of concommitancy, it is his will, and we have his word for it, that where he is, there should we be also. When we pray unto him, if our spirit do not issue out from us, and prostrate itself before him in Heaven, that Petition sollicits faintly, and is not like to speed, because it comes not nearer to him who is our Advocate with the Father. When we come to his holy Supper, unless we carry up our heart unto him by strong devotion, and presume that we see that very Body which was crucified for us before our eyes, we pollute the Sacrament for want of faith. There are such joints and bands which knit the body unto the head, as mortal reason cannot express: but through faith and love we are often with him by invisible ascensions: but most assured be we that there he intercedes for us, from thence he assists his Sacraments, sanctifieth his Ministry, gives grace unto his Word: And if they did not escape, who refused him that spake on Earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn from him that speaketh from Heaven.

Secondly, Our Jerusalem is above not only in the Head, but in the Members. I do not say in all the Members: for the Church is that great House in which are Vessels of honor and dishonor. Terms of Excellency though indistinctly attributed to the whole, are agreeing oftentimes only to the chiefer or more refined part. Some there are in this Body, whom though we salute not by the proud word of their Sublimity, yet in true possession, which shall never be taken from them, they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , those that are above. Witness that the Angels make up one Church with us, being the chief Citizens that are reckoned in the triumphant part: fellow Servants with us under one Lord; adopted Sons under one Father; Elect under one Christ. This is the language of the Scripture, and surely Members of one Mystical Body, for the same Jesus is the Head of all Principality and Power, Colos. ii. 10. Of this Family also are the Saints departed, even all those holy Spirits that obey God in heavenly places, and do not imitate the Devil and his Angels. This is that Church which hath neither spot nor wrinkle; for when I speak of such a Church, says St. Austin in his retractations, I mean none but those in Heaven. After these that make the front and first File of our March, there are many among us, I trust, who have their part in this description, Jerusalem which is above, the Elect of God, the Church invisible; invisible, I say, not for their persons, but for their qualites; for who can see who hath an internal union with Christ the Head? Who can tell whether this or that may be filled with his Grace, and quickened with his Spirit? Cusanus says very well, that there is no certain judgment to be made by the outward fruits, who are living Members of the Church, but in Infants that are newly baptized. With the mouth we confess the truth, but with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and only God can see the heart. But these, whose integrity their Master knows and loves, no matter in what base condition they wander here, they are greater by far than the ungodly that over-peer them in promotion, they are above indeed, for they are as high as the pinnacle of blessedness, and their names are written in the Book of Life: for their sakes God hath dropt down the beautiful style of Jerusalem upon the Household of Christ; but without these no name were so fit for it as Sodom or Samaria. Such as will wrangle where no occasion is offered, have carped at this, as if we removed all from the Church, but such as are Israel in occulto, and have their sins forgiven in Christ: It was never our meaning, neither can we help it, but that we must keep communion with all those that profess the common Faith. But if the Church had known Hypocrites it had not admitted them into the Portion of the Lord, or else it had excluded them. Et quid prodest non ejici coetu piorum si mereris ejici, says St. Cyprian; What the better is it for an Hypocrite that he is not cast out of the Congregation, since he deserves to be cast out? he may abide with us in the outward Society of them that call upon Christ, praesumptive non veraciter, as Spalatensis says, because we presume he is faithful, though indeed he is the Child of the Devil: numero, non merito, he makes up one of the Multitude that go in the broad way, he is none of the few that strive to enter in at the steight gate; he keeps the formality of a Christian with others beneath, he perteins not to Jerusalem which is above.

Thirdly, We have obtained this dignity, to be ranked as them that are above, because our calling is very holy: He hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, 2 Tim. i. 9. called to Doctrine which is above, which flesh and blood did not reveal, but the Father that giveth wisdom plentifully: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Theophilact upon my Text, God did preach the Gospel from on high with his own voice; for take a Breviary of it, and it is no more but that which he said from Heaven, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. We are called to obey the truth by illumination from above, from thence is sent the spirit of them that are baptized, the spirit of the Apostles and Martyrs, the spirit of Bishops and Doctors, the spirit of all those that have lived in the Truth, and shed their blood for the Truth's sake. We are called to that Religion which consists in celestial Functions; in Faith and Hope, in Prayer and Charity; not in a Religion which presseth them down that observe it with an insupportable weight of Shadows and Ceremonies; but the hour is come when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. Beware of those of the Concision, says St. Paul, and among bad marks which they carry, this is the conclusion, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they mind earthly things, that is, they are pleased with carnal Ordinances, with these low and beggarly Observations of the Levitical Priesthood, but immediately turning himself to the Fundamentals of the Gospel, and the practice thereof, says he nostra politeia, our way of serving God, our manner of worship is in Heaven. So Bernard says, that the Synagogue moved in a low Orb. But Solomon, speaking of the New Testament, says, Quae est ista quae ascendit? Cant. iii. 3. Who is she that cometh up from the Wilderness, perfumed with mirrh and frankincense, with all the powders of the Merchant? Above all, we are called to holy actions, which savor not of man's passions and purposes, but are qualified from above. Our fortitude is heavenly fortitude, our temperance heavenly temperance, our liberality to the poor heavenly liberality; but the moral deeds of the Heathen, living out of the Church, that had the best gloss upon them, were smutcht with some bad vapor below, and every grane of virtue that grew out of their stalks did abound with the chaff of vanity. And what exceeds all that I have said, beside to make our calling heavenly and holy, God is so gracious to those things which are done in the Church in the name of his Son, that where an unfit instrument may seem to mar all by his extravagant profaneness, by his impenitent conscience, nay by his heretical pravity, yet Christ's presence and assistance are not wanting to his Word and Sacraments, but their efficacy is free and current to the people, though they be performed by a crooked and an adulterous Generation. As the Posterity of Jacob's Handmaid had a Princedom among their Brethren in the Land of Canaan, though they came of Bond-women, Bildah and Zilpah, Non illis obfuerunt natales ancillarum, sed praevaluit semen paternum, says St. Austin, it did predominate in the advancement of their fortune, that such a Father did beget them, though their Mothers were Servants. So it prevails in the holy things of the Gospel, that the Father of Grace is above that blesseth them, though they be delivered to you immediately by him that is a bond-man to iniquity: the impediments that are underfoot here be no impediments, because our Jerusalem is from above.

Fourthly, This holy City of God is above, because it pursues not the things beneath, but it seeks those things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, it is above in its affections. The delights of the Synagogue were victory over their Enemies, length of days, a Land of Wine and Olives, and flowing with Milk and Honey, poor accessories of a transitory happiness. This was tolerated unto them, when the first Rudiments of the fear of God were taught; but grandescenti puerilia excutiuntur, these are too childish for us to look after. In as much as long continuance of time hath taught us to choose the better part. Jerusalem facit amor Dei, Babyloniam facit amor seculi, says St. Austin, he refers all the World to belong to two Cities, which he calls Jerusalem for the sound part, Babylon for the wicked. The whorish Babylon is built up with the love of transitory things, the Virgin the Daughter of Zion is built upon the love of God. Our Predecessors that lived near to the Apostles days, did give such reputation to the Christian Name in the holiness of their conversation, that all that they did or desired, savor'd, even in the nostrils of their Enemies, of that which was above: ask them what they would have? The Kingdom of Glory; And why they spent the day and night in fasting and weeping? For the Kingdom of Glory; And why they exposed their lives to ovethrow the Idols of the Heathen? To get the Kingdom of Glory. What need we more witnesses said the Judges that examined them, their heads are forfeit, for by their own confession they seek the Kingdom. Alas poor souls trained up by Fishermen, who had learned that one lesson from the mouth of their Teacher, Behold we have left all. No delights under the sky which they forsook not, that they might not be forsaken of God; took no more but bare necessaries for life out of all the store which the Earth afforded, but filled up the wide chinks of their heart with the contemplation of that which is above. In the ancientest Irish Synod, held under St. Petricius, there is a polite passage for those Times and that Climate: Use these outward things moderately, non sumit lucerna nisi quo alitur, all is superfluous in a candle but that which the snuff sucks up to maintain the light. Some came after these that were renowned for the contempt of transitory things, and the sweet elevation of their spirit, among whom was Gregory the Great, says our Bede, praising him for our sakes, animo illius labentia cuncta subter esse, as water runs under a Bridge, so all the fluxive things of fortune flowed beneath his mind. But all latter Ages have justly deplored the decay of sanctity of manners; as the virtues of Miracles were withdrawn, so that admirable sanctity in the Church which bred both envy and amazement in the Heathen, came to a much meaner perfection. I know not how the baits of honors and voluptuousness are grown to be stronger temptations now than in those days, when our Progenitors were squeaz'd between persecution and poverty; for where is he that doth his duty now-a-days, and looks not for some part of his payment in hand, and to reap a crop out of these transitory possessions? As Manna desisted to fall when the people eat of the fruits of the land, so the sweetness of heavenly joy is not perceived any longer, when our appetite rageth for these vile things, for a dividend of dust and clay. Recall your Soul, and lure it higher, when it stoops to this bait below; when it extends its desires to things that are worse than its own substance (so is everything that we behold with our bodily eye) it must needs return home less unto itself, and be justly despised of God, whom we talk to in our Prayer, as if we were persuaded he was in Heaven, and yet so busy we are in action beneath, as if we sought our God upon Earth. In a word, by penetrating so far into these corruptible objects you have excommunicated your own Soul from the Church of Saints, for that Jerusalem is above.

Fifthly, The Church Evangelical is Jerusalem above in respect of the Jewish Hagar, propter sublime pactum, the Covenant that is made with us is sublime and magnificent; not the dreadful Law of Works, but the mild and gentle Covenant of Faith in the blood of Christ. Now this is nothing else but the very next point in effect, the freedom or eternal redemption of Jerusalem, which requiring a more spacious part of time to handle it, I conclude all that hath been spoken for the present in the name of the Lord. AMEN.

THE SECOND SERMON UPON

GAL. iv. 26.

Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother of us all.

S T. Paul in his Apology, which he made against those that did detract from him at Corinth, confessed that he was rude in speech. And St. Jerome says, Paulum nequaquam de humilitate, sed de conscientiae veritate dixisse; That is, he wrote it in the earnestness of truth, and not in the submission of humility. St. Austin says, he did but grant his obtrectators their own false opinion in that saying, for he had the genius of a most persuasive Orator, and spake with the tongue of an Angel. These passages may be reconciled. For verily he did for the most part go the beaten way of the Spirit of God, and handled heavenly things in a plain style. For the Gentiles sought after wisdom, but since by wisdom they knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believe. Yet St. Austin had his eyes open, that he did espy very elegant and most graceful amplifications here and there in his Epistles, as occasion did demand that he should dip his Quill in Eloquence. We are at home for an instance in this Text. An Allegory (of all other Tropes in Rhetoric ) is no little Bud, but the fairest flower, and most blown in their Garden. This Figure the Apostle makes use of, as he professeth, verse. 24. and runs upon it very copiously to set the Synagogue and the Christian Church, the Old and New Testament in comparison one against another. He carries it before him from the situation of two Mountains, Sinah in the Desert of Arabia, Zion in the Holy Land, which two Hills became very famous by accident, Sinah for the Law, Zion for the Gospel. He prosecutes the Trope from Ishmael the Son of the Bondwoman, who was aliened from his Fathers house, and from Isaac the Son of Sarah, who was the Heir of the Promise. And all this is curious and inlac'd like Mosaic work, with most artificial correspondencies. Thus Solomon delivered the Institutions of an honest life in plain and concise Proverbs, but when he wrote upon the beauty of the Church he altered his style into a polite and mystical Song. And our Apostle doth frequently utter the things belonging to Justice and Temperance in lowly and vulgar forms of speech, but when he goes about to describe the rights and graces of the Church, then Paulo majora, he is quite another man, and handles that subject with many gradations of eloquence.

Witness my Text, as in part I have unfolded it already, which is a flower growing upon the stalk of this Allegory, which I discuss the oftener to keep the Precept which David gives, Psal. xlviii. Walk about Zion, and go round about her, tell the Towers thereof, mark well her Bulwarks, and consider her Palaces. The Zion in that Psalm is the Jerusalem in my Text, which consists of no ordinary Bays of building, but all of sumptuous Architecture. There is never a word in this Text but is either a Tower, a Bulwark, or a Palace of Jerusalem. Mark them well, go round about them, says the Psalmist. Her Towers rise up in state, for Jerusalem is above, she hath Bulwarks of safety, for we are made free therein by the blood of Christ. Her Palaces are of large containment, for she is the Mother of us all. Out of six words in the verse, I formerly considered six attributes of honor that belong to that Church which Christ hath purchased with his blood, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . 1. She is a Jerusalem, a visible fair City, there is her external Communion. 2. A Jerusalem above, that is its internal Sanctity. 3. A Jerusalem that is free, which is her most proper Christian Badge, and supernal Redemption. 4. A Mother, that is her fruitfulness. 5. The Mother of us, which imports a Brotherly Unity. 6. The Mother of us all, which expresseth the universality. I have told and numbered the Towers of it, and in a former day I proceeded to Jerusalem above; Now I will mark her Bulwarks, and consider her Palaces, that she is free, and the mother of us all.

Jerusalem which is above is free. The precedent praise of the Church adheres unto this word for the consummation thereof. If there be any that take upon them to belong to the New Jerusalem, and to the City which is above, let them show the Copy of their Freedom, that they are not led by the Spirit of Bondage, but by the Spirit of Adoption. There may be a plausible conversation of life in them that are out of the Pale of Jerusalem. For Moral Virtues do not belong to Christian men as Christians; but they pertain to them as men, says Hooker. There may be fair manifests of sanctity and the contempt of the world in their outward carriage, whose heart is not above. The sower morosity of the Pharisees would make you believe they renounced all vanities. Pestilent Heretics have exceeded (that I may not say excelled) in works of mortification. Pelagius was of a demure honesty, Vir ut audio non parvo profectu Christianus, says St. Austin. Severus Sulpitius says of Priscillian, he was noted for many laudable parts of mind and body, in fasting, in humility, in contentation. So Anthimus, and others. Doth not this show as if it were all for the world above? And yet they had neither part nor lot in that matter. The Reason, because they had some bondage in them, they were under a Captivity which they had not shaken off. They had not liberale ingenium, so that the last enquiry, who belong to that Jerusalem above, is upon this question, Whether the truth hath made them free? Joh. viii. 52. For Jerusalem that is above is free. It is a word that comprehends in it much favor, and much duty. And it shall pass under my hand with this examination: 1. What this freedom is? 2. How we got it. 3. How we must use it.

Our freedom consists in a manumission from a four fold servitude: 1. We are delivered from the Yoke of Ceremonies, called the bondage of the Elements of this World, in this Chapter, verse 4. 2. We are most free for the New Covenants sake, which is made with us. For salvation is not offered us through the Works of the Law, but through the Promise of grace. We Brethren, as Isaac was, are Children of promise, verse 28. 3. We have not received the Spirit of Bondage to fear, but the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father, Rom. viii. 25. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Theophylact upon my Text, the Gospel exhorts us gently, it doth not affright us tyrannously. 4. The rewards of the New Testament are not momentary things, such as the Law propounded, but heavenly. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 says the same Author, we are not servants that do our duty for visible wages. And all these together make the copy of a perfect freedom. He that is under rudiments, is under age: he that is bound to the works of the Law, is under condemnation: He that is curbed by threatenings, is under thralldom: He that looks for momentary things from God, is under base afflictions: From all these Christ hath exempted us by the Gospel, which is called the perfect Law of liberty, Jam. i. in this complete sort our Jerusalem which is above is free.

First, To be exempted from the incumbrance of well nigh a Million of Levitical Ceremonies will not appear so gracious a benefit as it is, unless we take a great deal of leisure to mark it. Never was any people so Paedagogically handled as the Jews were. The observation of the greatest part of their days was calculated, their meats were stinted, their bread was prescribed. They had Ordinances upon their Garments, precise rules for the fruits that grew in the field, directions for their building, appointment for their Apparel: Not so much but the very cutting of their hair was subject to a Commandment. What strict Orders against Pollution? What nice receipts to cleanse pollution? What tedious Traditions in their Oblations and Sacrifices? What Punctilioes to be nicely kept in all the discharges of their Religion? In Secular affairs they could do nothing wherein their soul delighted: In Sacred affairs it was impossible for them to perform everything which Moses enjoined. God knew how much addicted they were to their own inventions, therefore he leaves them nothing either holy or profane to be managed by their own discretion, but are quite rejected as unworthy to judge of the smallest matters; and they had their hands full of these petty duties, to leave no room to extraneous Superstitions. Tertulliam adds, Et Deus operosis officiis dedolaret; God did plain and smooth the ruggedness of their nature with many trials of obedience. Yet though their number was so great and cumbersome, their weight had been more easy, if they had been plain and perspicuous; but the people underwent much gear, and I think not one among an hundred did know the signification. The substance of Religion was so darkly involved in the Types, that happy was that Prophet, or Prophets Son that could crack the shel to eat the kernel. Who of the Vulgar rank could penetrate into the moral signification of those vices which were forbidden in the unclean Creatures? Ut homines mundarentur pecora culpatu sunt, says Tertullian; The Law did seem to loath some beasts, that we might know what God did love. Was not the Salvation in Christ propounded to them in Signs? And his death resembled in a Bullock slain at the Altar? And what small comfort was there in that Pardon which was not intelligible to the poor Offendor? Luther says well upon my Text, that man's knowledge is unshackled, it is at liberty, when he discerns the naked truth in itself. Cognitio est ancilla quando subjecta est velaminibus figurarum; Our Wisdom is made a bondwoman, subject to the captivity of Ignorance, when it sees nothing but in the dark Glass of typical Obumbrations. Thanks be to God that we are Scholars of the New Testament. We are called to the manifestation of faith and love in Christ, that we do not grope in darkness, but walk in light, for the Gospel is like a Glade which is cut through the grove of ancient Ceremonies. Let me speak to this point once more: Beside their excess in number, and their cloudy obscurity, there were unpleasing remembrances in them, some that seemed to be mysteries of grace, were likewise mystical Exprobrations, and therefore referred by good Expositors to the hand-writing of Ordinances which is against us, Col. ii. 14. For Ceremonies, take them not as Sacraments, or Circumstances of Evangelical Service, but as Yokes of the Law, Nihil aliud erant quàm miseriae humanae publica professio; They were imprints of human misery, not Expiations, but Confessions of our iniquity. Circumcision it accused the Israelites that they were born in sin: Their frequent washings did testify that there was filthiness in the Object: The life of the Sacrifice spilled upon the ground pronounced him guilty of death that brought it to the Lord. I go no further, because I would be compendious; and I have said enough for this discovery, that the Law of Ordinances was our Adversary. But thanks be to that Savior who blotted out the hand-writing, paid the grand debt which we did owe, and discharged the interest likewise, when he evacuated the Levitical Ceremonies, which is the first mark of the freedom of Jerusalem.

Yet be advised that we do not claim more immunity by this Chatter than is granted, (for that is ordinary to stretch out the name of liberty, like cheveril Leather, to what length we please) some have assumed that they have good ground to blow up all our Modern Ceremonies with this Mine, because Jerusalem is free from the yoke of Ordinances. It is true, our Jerusalem is free, and therefore we are free, (for partus sequitur ventrem ) the Church appoints her own Orders of decency now, and is not appointed, nothing is imposed upon it with bond of necessary and perpetual observation, the principality is upon her shoulders to make her Children submit to her prudent Constitutions. But if particular men might challenge interest in this freedom, as if they had scope to serve God with what order and comeliness they pleased, this were an uproar and not a freedom, and a looseness like that of mad men when they have broke their Chains. Certainly, the liberty which God hath granted in setting our feet at large from these things with which the Priesthood of Aaron was charged, it was to accommodate us with great grace and favor, but if this should repel the bringing in of those Ceremonies, which are means to beget the greater veneration of Religion, the bounty of God, which cannot be, would turn to a prejudice, his blessing to a cross, and such as love the welfare of Zion might cry out, O Lord we are oppressed with liberty. Touching the substance of divine Worship it is written with God's own finger in holy Scripture, we must not add unto it. Only God is pleased to try our judgment, how we will administer it in the particular fashion. His Worship is the Bread of Life sent down from heaven, and not invented upon earth, but for the manner of his Worship, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as Clemens says of human Philosophy, it is like the sauce in which the bread is dipt to make it savoury, to this conditement Jerusalem is allowed to put her skil, providing for comeliness and honesty as a wise dispenser of the mysteries of God. Was ever anything of moment transacted without some graceful solemnity? Or is man so governed by the Spirit, that he can lift himself up to Heaven sufficiently by interior Meditation? I forget not that some will say, yea the Body also serveth God by the tongue. And I allow it for an excellent way to warm our zeal with the loud voice of prayer. But this warmth will quickly cool, unless some devout actions concur together: and deeds are far more durable in the fancy than the memory of speech; either to teach the understanding somewhat which it ought to consider, or to move the heart to due reverence and regard, which it ought to have in the performance of sacred matters. Here let the new Jerusalem act her part, this is her liberty, to enjoin such Ceremonies for the eye, as may prepare the heart the better to feel the power of the grace of God, and to prescribe such visible signs, as will leave a deeper print behind them than bare exhortation. I will add that by this power bequeathed to the Church, some Jewish Ceremonies may be retained, as far as the state of the things will bear, if they be followed only for outward order, and not returning to that obstinately which must be disannulled, because Christ is come in the flesh. I confess that Spiritual Worship is best, for it is most correspondent to his nature whom we worship, God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit. This is the reason that he says he hates Incense, and effusion of blood at his Altar, such kind of service hath no assimilation with him who is incorporeal, give him the Sacrifices of righteousness, of prayers and mercy, and thanksgiving, qui corpus non est umbram non habet. Approach not to him with shadows, for he is a Spirit, and not a Body; yet in respect of us, though not of himself, he entertains the lowliness of bodily Worship, as it hath a conveniency and conjunction with our nature. The Lord is a Spirit, and he even he alone gives law how he will be worshipped in spirit; but we that worship him are bodily creatures, and Jerusalem our Mother hath indulgence to appoint all external administrations of holiness.

It is no small ease, as I have shown it, to be disengaged from the incumbrance of the old Ceremonies, but that which comes next in order is so essential to our happiness, that from thence we may say truly, and from nothing else, the Lord turned the captivity of Zion. The time is past when salvation was offered to them turned the captivity of Zion. The time is past when salvation was offered to them that did the works of the Law (O those were days of bitterness and desperation!) the Covenant is renewed unto us in another form through the promise of mercy to them that believe in Jesus Christ. Now Sin, that great Tyrant, shall have no dominion over us, for we are not under the Law, but under Grace, Rom. vi 14. Mark the two Covenants, and the severe exaction in the one, and the mild temperature of the other: the one comes blustering like the whirlwind, and breaks down Mountains before it; the other is the still voice which beats sweetly upon the ear of Elias; the one hath nothing but days of trouble and reproach, the other is a continual Jubilee of rest and peace. The Law may be compared to those wretched men that work at the Oar in a Gally, they strain their sinews and their strength to plow the waves, and yet they meet with such strong tempests, that they cannot recover the Haven: but the Gospel is a Ship whose sails are spread with faith and hope and the winds of mercy blow them fairly on, that the Passengers are carried as in a dream to the Port with speed and tranquility. Hear them both speak Rom. x. 5. for that's the clearest Scripture, I take it, for their distinction. The righteousness of the Law saith, the man that doth these things shall live by them, but the righteousness which is by faith speaketh on this wise, if thou shalt confess the Lord Jesus thou shalt be saved. The man that doth these things shall live; but the Lord looked down from Heaven, and found no such man upon all the earth. Be the imperfections in our manners that are not scandalously culpable, yet the law hath not pardon for them: that which must be weighed in God's Balance it must not want a scruple. Correct the wandering of your eye, bridle your tongue, watch your heart, • r servant in prayer, be vigilant against temptations, yet there is that repugnancy to the Law, that unruliness in this body of death, that the evil which you would not you shall do, and then the Law turns to be that Adversary in St. Matthew which delivers you over to the Tormentor, till you have paid the utmost farthing. This was not only a bondage under a churlish Nabal, that would not be satisfied with such diligence as a Servant could perform, but the condition of a beast, whose qualities cannot excuse him totally, but that sometimes he shall be spurred and beaten: Yet none were ever born that can impeach the Law of rigor, no not in the equity of human reason, if you will examine them from first to last; it will come but into the Margent of our Enditement, that our actions have not been so pure, and holy, and fervent, as the bounty of the Divine goodness towards us requires; turpitudes of life, abominable desires of the heart, brutish intemperance, scalding malice, unclean passions will fill up our accusations. O what a perturbation, what unquietness of consciences, what a hell of fear it is, to know that our Arraignment is just, and to have nothing but the Law, that inexorable letter of condemnation to comfort us? Imus, imus praecipites, we should feel ourselves tumbling down, and see no bottom. Sin is so ponderous, that if the Ship had not been lightened of Jonas it had sunk: the Heaven could not hold the Devil and his Angels from falling; the Earth could not support Core and Dathan: but it is more massy and leaden upon the conscience than in all the Elements. What need I to tell you that God did give the Law in an angry form upon Mount Horeb, or that he delivered it to Moses a Servant to bring to note the bondage of the Letter. I have looked back enough to this, let me bring you from this Ergastulum, this Prison of Works, into the Courts of God's House, into Jerusalem above which is free.

Jerusalem at the time when this Epistle was written to the Galatians was in bondage two ways, in Civil servitude under the Romans, in Legal servitude under Moses. a miserable case that they should not feel the oppression they were in under Moses, cared not for a Deliverer; nay did as much as in them lay to curse their Deliverer: Christ that came to set them free they used him as a Servant, in crucem servus, they crucified him, which was a most servile punishment. Thus their stupidness in their bondage did make for our freedom, and thereby was consummated the Covenant of Faith, that we might believe in him who died to be a propitiation for our sins. O what a pleasant condition it is, what a free, what a Princely state of life, to wait upon God's mercy, and to be subject to the Ordinance of Faith. Upon it depend Pardon, Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Grace, Adoption of Saints, the Inheritance, the Kingdom, the Promise of everlasting life. With how much diffidence did the Lawgiver intercede in the behalf of Israel, Forgive the sin of the people, if not, blot me out of the book of life. To supplicate forgiveness is a message sent from Faith, but the Law plucks it back with this distrustful Omen, if not, if there be no hope, then is my confusion before me forever. This is noted in the Generation of