and seal, he may be confirmed in the evident right of his succession,-can hardly yet so much as imagine the honour he shall enjoy, nor any more see the gold and lustre of his crown in the print of the wax that confirms it, than a man that never saw the sun, can conceive that brightness which dwelleth in it, by its picture drawn in some dark colours. "We are a royal people '; heirs, yea coheirs with Christ";' but we are in a far country, " and absent from the Lord" in houses ruinous and made of clay,' in a region of darkness,' in a shadow of death,' in a valley of tears.' Though compassed in with a wall of fire, yet do the waves of ungodly men break in upon us: though shipped in a safe ark, the temple of God, yet often tossed almost unto shipwreck, and ready, with Jonah, to be swallowed up of a great Leviathan though protected with a guard of holy angels, which pitch their tents about us, so that the enemy without cannot enter, yet enticed often out, and led privily, but voluntarily, away by the enchanting lusts, the Dalilahs of our own bosom. The kingdom and inheritance we expect, is hid from us ; and we know no more of it, but only this, that it passeth knowledge. Only the assurance of it is confirmed by an infallible patent, God's own promise, and that made firm by a seal, coloured with that blood, and stamped with the image of that body, which was the price that bought it. What remains then, but that where the body is, thither the eagles fly; where the treasure is, there the heart be also; that we groan after the revelation of the sons of God, when the veil of our mortality shall be rent; the mud wall of the flesh made spiritual and transparent; the shadows and resemblances of the sacraments abolished; the glass of the creature removed; the riddle of our salvation unfolded; the vapours of corruption dispelled; the patience of our expectation rewarded; and from the power of the Spirit within, and the presence of Christ without, shall be diffused on the whole man a double lustre of exceeding abundant glory? The hope and assurance of this is it which, in those holy mysteries of Christ's supper, we receive; which if received without dependence and relation on that glory which they

11 Peter ii. 9. Eph. iii. 9.

m Rom. vii. 17.

n 2 Cor. v. 6.

• Jam. i. 11.

foreshadow, and on that body which with all the merits of it they obsignate, doth no more good than the seal of a king, without any grant or patent whereunto it should be joined; in which there is no profit beyond the bare wax, and much danger in trifling with so sacred a thing.

CHAPTER IV.

Whence Sacraments derive their value and being, namely, from the Author that instituted them.

BUT why are not the instruments more glorious, where the effects are so admirable? Whence is it that there should lie so much power in the narrow room of so small and common elements? It had been worth the creating of a new creature, to be made the pledge of a new covenant. The first fruits are of the same nature with their crop; and earnest useth to be paid in coin of the same quality with the whole after-sum. If, then, sacraments are the earnests of our glory, why are not the faithful, instead of eating a morsel of bread, taken up, with St. Paul, into the third Heavens? Why are they not, instead of drinking a sip of wine, transformed with their Saviour; and have, with Stephen, a vision of him at the right hand of the Father? How discursive is foolish pride, when it would prescribe unto God! Vain man, who undertakest to instruct thy Maker, instead of praising him; to censure his benefits, when thou shouldest enjoy them; wilt thou not receive salvation without thine own counsel? or art thou so foolish as to conceive nothing precious without pomp? And to judge of the thing conveyed, by the value and quality of the instrument that conveys it? Tell me then, why it is, that water, a vulgar element, is held in a cistern of lead,-and thy wine, a more costly liquor, but in a vessel of wood? Tell me the reason why that wax, which in the shop haply was not priced at a penny, should, by cleaving unto a small parcel of parchment, be valuable unto a million of money? Tell me, why should that clay, which while it lay under foot, was vile and disho

• John ix. 6.

nourable dirt,-when it was applied by Christ unto the eyes of a blind man, be advanced unto the condition of a precious and supernatural salve? Is not, even in works of art, the skill of the workman more eminent in the narrowest and unfittest subjects? Are not the Iliads of Homer more admirable in a nutshell than in a volume"? Do not limners set the highest value on their smallest draughts? And is there not matter of admiration and astonishment in the meanest and most vulgar objects? And what madness is it, then, by those reasons to undervalue faith, which are the arguments to confirm it! As if the power of an agent were not there greatest, where the subject on which he worketh, doth confer least; as if the weakness of the element, did not add unto the wonder of the sacrament. If it were an argument of Christ's miraculous power, to feed five thousand with so few loaves; why should not the miracle of his sacrament be equal, which feeds the whole church with so slender elements? Certainly, they who any way disesteem the seeming meanness and emptiness of the sacrament, entertaining but low and vulgar conceits thereof,-stumble at the same stone of foolishness, by which the Gentiles fell from their salvation. But wilt thou needs know both the reason why we use no other sacraments, and why these carry with them so much virtue? One answer resolves both :-it is the majesty of the same king that coins his money, and that values it: he that frames a private mint, or imposeth another rate, is in both equally a traitor; in the former by stealing the king's authority, in the other by altering it. The same author did both institute the sacrament and value it; from the same power did it receive the necessity of its being, and the efficacy of its working. In covenants or conveyances, the articles and instruments may be haply drawn by some lawyer; but the confirmations of them by hand and seal, are odinarily performed by the men themselves who are interested in them. A secretary may write the letter; but his lord will himself subscribe and seal it.

Thus the patent of God's covenant hath been drawn out, for the benefit of God's church, by many selected and in

Seneca, Naturalium Quæst. August. ep. 3.-Ambros. Hexam. lib. 6. c. 6. -Chrysost. Hom. 12. ad Pop. Antioch.-Tertul. de Baptis, c. 2. & contra Marc. 1. 5. c. 5. ↑ Vide Ambros. de Sacrament. lib. 4. cap. 4.

spired instruments, unto whom God did dictate so much of his will by divine suggestion, as his pleasure was to acquaint and edify his church withal. But when he comes to confirm this gift by hand and seal, behold then an immediate presence of his own: then comes God's" own finger, that is, in the phrase of scripture, his spirit to write as a witness in the soul: and then doth God stretch out his own hand, and reach unto us that supper which is the seal to obsignate unto the senses, the infallible truth of those covenants, and our evident interest in those benefits, which were before proclaimed in the patent of his word. The apostle * delivered nothing as it were by a second hand to the Corinthians, but what he had formerly received from the Lord. Divine things are unto us deposited; we must first be receivers, before deliverers.

X

CHAPTER V.

Inferences of practice from the Author of this Sacrament.

HERE then we see, first, both the absurdity and the wickedness of a will-worship; when the same man who is to perform the obedience, shall dare to appoint the laws, implying a peremptory purpose of no farther observance, than may consist with the allowance of his own judgement: whereas true obedience' must be grounded on the majesty of that power that commands, not on the judgement of the subject, or benefit of the precept imposed. Divine laws require obedience, not so much from the quality of the things commanded (though they be ever holy and good"), as from the authority of him that institutes them. We are all the servants of God; and servants are but living instruments, whose property it is to be governed by the will of those, in whose possession they are. Will-worship, and services of

Matth. xii. 28. Luke xi. 20.

vi. 20.

b

x 1 Cor. xi. 23.

y 1 Tim. i. 11. and z Vid. Tertul. de Pœnitent. c. 4. & Aug. de Civit. Dei. l. i. c. 26. &

de Genes, ad lit. lib. 8. c. 12.

tarch de Superstitione.

a Rom. 7. 12.

Arist. Polit. lib. 1.-Plu

• Δεσπότου μέν ἐστι μόνον τὸ ἐπιτάττειν, δουλῶν δὲ

To weitestai. Chrys. in Rom. Hom. 2.

superstition, well they may flatter God, they do not please him. He that requires us to deny ourselves in his service, doth therein teach us, that his commands stand rather in fear than in need of us; in fear of our boldness, lest we abuse them; not in need of our judgements, to polish or alter them. The conquest of an enemy against the prescript of his general, cost a Roman gentleman his life, though his own father were the judge. The killing of a lion contrary to the established laws of the king's hunting,-though it were only to rescue the king himself, whose life was set upon,cost a poor Persian the loss of his head. The overwise industry of the architect, in bringing, not the same, but a fitter piece of timber than he was commanded, to the Roman consul, was rewarded with nothing but the bundle of rods f. So jealous and displeased are even men themselves, to have their own laws undervalued by the private judgements of those, who rather interpret than obey them. And therefore even those men who erected the fabricks of superstition and will-worship, have yet ever endeavoured to derive the original of them on some divine revelations". And that great Roman captain Scipio, ever before the undertaking of any business, was wont first to enter the Capitol, and pretend a consultation with the gods, touching their allowance of his intended designs, grounding all his attempts and governing all his actions by the unerring judgement of their deities. And generally in all the Roman sacrifices, the minister or servant was to attend a command, before he was to strike the beast that was offered. Horrible then, and more than heathenish, is the impiety of those, who mixing human inventions and ceremonies of their own unto the substance of these sacred mysteries, and imposing them as divine duties. with a necessity of absolute obedience,-do, by that means, wrench Christ's own divine prerogative out of his own hands, and make themselves, shall I say, confounders and joint authors of his sacraments; nay, rather, indeed, the destroyers of them since as he that receives otherwise than Christ requires, receives not Christ, but rather damnation; so he

A. Gell. 1. 1. c. 13. i Semper

k 1 Cor. xi.

d Liv. lib. 8. • Brisson. de Reg. Pers. lib. 1. Cyprian. cont. Demetrianum. Numa, apud Liv. lib. 1. agatne rogat: nec nisi justus agit. O id. Fast. lib. 2.