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aμþórepa ev: Jews and Gentiles, whole hoofs and cloven, dwell now both under a roof. Moses branded some creatures with uncleanness: He, that redeemed his children from moral impurity, redeemed his creatures from legal. What should St. Peter's great sheet let down by four corners teach us, but that all creatures through the four corners of the world, are clean and holy? St. Paul proclaims the sum of Peter's vision; Omnia Munda Mundis.

It is an injurious scrupulousness, to make differences of creatures; injurious to God, to the creature, to ourselves: to God, while we will not let him serve himself of his own; to the creature, while we pour that shame upon it which God never did; to ourselves, while we bring ourselves into bondage, where God hath enlarged us. When Julian had poisoned the wells, and shambles, and fields, with his heathenish Lustrations, the Christians, saith Theodoret, ate freely of all, by virtue of Paul's, Quicquid in macello.

To let pass the idle curiousness of our Semi-Anabaptists, of the separation; at whose folly, if any man be disposed to make himself sport, let him read the tragicomical relation of the Troubles and Excommunication of the English at Amsterdam. There shall he see such wars waged betwixt brothers, for but a busk, or whalebone, or lace, or cork-shoe, as if all Law and Gospel stood upon this point; as if heaven and earth were little enough to be mingled in this quarrel; Nec gemino bellum Trojanum.

To pass over all other lighter niceness of this kind; who can chuse but be ashamed of the Church of Rome: which is here in a double extremity, both gross in denying, wiping out holiness, where God hath written it; and in writing it, where God hath not written it.

In the first how do they drive out devils out of good creatures, by foolish exorcisms! I would he were no more in themselves. How do they forbid meats, drinks, days, marriage which God hath written holy! He, that reads Navar's "Manual," shall find choleric blasphemy, a venial sin; p. 91: some theft, venial; p. 140: common lying, venial; p. 191: cursing of parents, if not malicious, venial; p. 100: and yet, in the same author, (chap. xxi. nu. 11. p. 209,) to eat of a forbidden dish, or an allowed dish more than once on a forbidden day, is a mortal sin. And now these venials, saith Frances à Victoria, by a pater-noster, or sprinkling of holy water, or knock of the breast, are cleared; but that mortal eater is voxos Tn Kpiores, guilty of judgment, yea, of hell itself: Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites; which prate of Peter's chair, but will never take out Peter's lesson, That, which God hath sanctified, pollute thou not.

In the other what holiness do they write in religious cowls, altars, reliques, ashes, candles, oils, salts, waters, ensigns, roses, words, grains, Agnus Dei, medals, and a world of such trash! so much, that they have left none in themselves. Let me have no

faith, if ever playbook were more ridiculous, than their Pontifical, and Book of Holy Ceremonies. It is well, that Jerome reads these words, super frænum, not super tintinnabulum: else, what a rule should we have had; though he had said equorum, not templorum! What comparisons would have been! If Holiness to the Lord must be written on the Bells of Horses, much more on the Bells of Churches. What a colour would this have been for the washing, anointing, blessing, christening of them! What a warrant for driving away devils, chasing of ghosts, stilling of tempests, staying of thunders, yea, delivering from temptations, which the Pontifical ascribes to them! By whose account, there should be more virtue in this piece of metal, than in their Holy Father himself; yea, than in any Angel of Heaven. But their Vulgate bridles them in this, which reads it, super frænum ; which some superstitious man would say were fulfilled in Constantine's snaffle, made of the nails that pierced Christ.

How worthy are they, in the mean time, of the whip, not of men only but of God, which thus, in a ridiculous presumption, write holiness, where God would have a blank; and wipe out holiness, where God hath written it!

For us, there is a double holiness; for Use, for Virtue: all things are holy to us for use; nothing is holy for virtue of sanctification, but those things which God hath sanctified to this virtue; his Word, his Sacraments. We may use the other, and put no holiness in them; we must use these, and expect holiness from them: ovdèv KOLòv, Nothing is unclean, is Peter's rule; but with Paul's explication, munda mundis. All things are clean in themselves; to thee they are not clean, unless thou be clean. Mine own clothes shall make me filthy, saith Job; ix. 31. Many a one may say so, more justly. The proud man's gay coat, the wanton woman's beastly fashions, both show them to be unclean, and make them so. But the lewd man makes his own clothes, filthy: his meats, drinks, sports, garments, are unclean to him; because he is unclean to God: they are cursed to him; because he is cursed of God: God hath written on the outside of his creatures, "Holy to the Lord :" we write on the inside, "Unholy to men : because our outside, and inside, is unholy to God: yea, we do not only deface this inscription of holiness in other creatures to us, but we will not let God write it upon us, for himself.

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O our misery and shame! All things else are holy; Men, Christians are unholy. There is no impurity, but where is reason and faith, the grounds of holiness. How oft would God have written this title upon our foreheads! and, ere he can have written one full word, we blot out all. One swears it away, another drinks it away, a third scoffs it away, a fourth riots it away, a fifth swaggers it away; and, I would to God it were uncharitable to say, that there is as much holiness in the bridles of the horses, as in some of their riders. O holiness, the riches of the Saints,

the beauty of the Angels, the delight of God, whither hast thou withdrawn thyself? where should we find thee, if not among Christians? and yet how can we be, or be named Christians, without thee? I see some, that are afraid to be too holy: and I see but some, that fear to be too profane.

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We are all Saints; KAŋTo άyio, 1 Cor. i. 2: all, by calling; and some, but by calling; by calling of men, not of God: as the Church of Rome has some Saints, which are questioned whether ever they were in nature; others, whether they be not in hell; burning tapers to them on earth, to whom perhaps the fiends light firebrands below. As Cæsarius, the monk, brings in Petrus Cantor and Roger the Norman disputing the case of Becket; so we have many titular Saints, few real; many, which are written in red letters in the calendar of the world, "Holy to the Lord," whom God never canonizes in heaven, and shall once entertain with a Nescio, I know you not. These men yet have holiness written upon them; and are like, as Lucian compares his Grecians, to a fair, gilt, bossed book: look within, there is the Tragedy of Thyestes, or perhaps Arrius's Thalia; the name of a muse, the matter heresy; or Conradus Vorstius's late monster, that hath De Deo in the front, and atheism and blasphemy in the text. As St. Paul says to his Corinthians, Would God ye could suffer me a little ye cannot want praisers, ye may want reprovers; and yet ye have not so much need of panegyrics, as of reprehensions. These, by how much more rare they are, by so much more necessary. Nec censura deest quæ increpet, nec medicina que sanet, saith Cyprian. "A false praise grieves, and a true praise shames," saith Anastasius. As kings are by God himself called Gods (for there are Dii, nuncupative, and not essentialiter, as Gregory distinguishes) because of their resemblance of God; so their courts should be like to heaven, and their attendants like saints and angels: Decet domum tuam sanctitudo, agrees to both.

Thus you should be: but, alas, I see some care to be gallant, others care to be great, few care to be holy. Yea, I know not what devil hath possessed the hearts of many great ones of our time, in both sexes, with this conceit, That they cannot be gallant enough, unless they be godless. Holiness is for Divines, or men of mean spirits; for grave, subdued, mortified, retired minds; not for them, that stand upon the terms of honour, height of place and spirit, noble humours: hence are our oaths, duels, profanenesses. Alas, that we should be so besotted, as to think that our shame, which is our only glory! It is reason, that makes us men; but it is holiness, that makes us Christians. And woe to us, that we are men, if we be not Christians! Think as basely of it as ye will, you shall one day find, that one dram of holiness is worth a whole world of greatness: yea, that there is no greatness, but in holiness. For God's sake, therefore, do

not send Holiness to colleges or hospitals for her lodging; but entertain her willingly into the Court, as a most happy guest. Think it a shame and danger, to go in fine clothes, while you have foul hearts; and know, that in vain shall you be honoured of men, if you be not holy to the Lord. Your goodly outsides may admit you into the Courts on Earth; but you shall never look within the gates of the Court of Heaven without holiness: without Holiness no man shall see God. O God, without holiness we shall never see thee; and without thee, we shall never see holiness write thou upon these flinty hearts of ours, Holiness to thyself: make us holy to thee, that we may be glorious with thee, and all thy saints and angels.

All this only for thy Christ's sake; unto whom, &c.

SERMON IV.

THE IMPRESS OF GOD

PART II.

ZECHARIAH XIV. 20.

It is well near a year ago, since, in this Gracious Presence, we entered upon this mystical yet pertinent text. You then heard what This Day is; what these Bells or Bridles; what this Inscription; what these Pots and Bowls: And out of That Day you heard the PROFICIENCY of the Church; out of Holiness written on the Bells, the SANCTIFICATION of the Church: You shall now hear, out of these Bells or Bridles of warlike horses, thus inscribed, the change of the holy war, and PEACE of the Church; out of these Pots, advanced to the likeness of the bowls of the altars, the degrees of the Church's PERFECTION, and acceptation: All which crave your gracious and honourable attention.

III. That conceit, which yet is graced with the name of some Fathers, that takes this in the literal sense of Constantine's bridle, we pass; as more worthy of smiles, than confutation. Questionless, the sense is spiritual; and, it is a sure rule, That, as the historical sense is fetched from signification of words, so the spiritual from the signification of those things which are signified by the words.

For this Inscription then, it shall not be upon the bells, for their own sakes, but for the horses; not as bells, but as bells of the horses and on the horses, not for their own sakes, but

as they serve for their riders: the horse, a military creature; there is no other mention of him in Scripture, no other use of him of old. When the eyes of Elisha's servant were open, he saw the hill full of horses; 2 Kings vi. 17. Even the celestial warfare is not expressed without them. Hence you shall ever find them matched with chariots in the Scripture: And the poet, Nunc tempus equos, nunc poscere currus. He rusheth into the battle, saith Jeremiah and he is made for it; for he hath both strength and nimbleness. He is strong: there is fortitudo equi; Psalm exlvii. 10; and God himself acknowledges it: Hast thou given the horse his strength? Job xxxix. 19. He is swift, saith Jeremiah; iv. 13: yea, as eagles, or leopards, saith Habakkuk.

We must take these horses then, either as continuing themselves, or as altered.

1. If the first the very wars under the Gospel shall be holy; and God shall much glorify himself by them. He saith not, There shall be no horses, or those horses shall have no bells, or those bells no inscription; but those horses, and their use, which is war, and their ornaments, which are bells, shall have a title of Holiness.

While Cornelius Agrippa writes of the Vanity of Sciences, we may well wonder at the vanity of his opinion, that all war was forbidden under the Gospel. But let Agrippa be vain in this, as a mere humanist; and the Anabaptists grossly false, as being frantic heretics: it is marvel how Erasmus, so great a scholar, and Ferus, so great a textman, could miscarry in this Manichean conceit. Alphonsus à Castro would fain have our Oecolampadius to keep them company, but Bellarmin himself can hardly believe him No marvel, when he sees Zuinglius die in the field, though as a pastor, not as a soldier; and when our swords have so well taught them, besides our tongues, that the heretics are as good friends to war, as enemies to them.

It is God's everlasting title, Dominus Exercituum. To speak nothing of the Old Testament; what can Cornelius Agrippa say to Cornelius the Centurion? I fear no man would give that title to him that opposed war, which God's Spirit gives to this agent in war; a just man, and fearing God: "His warfare," saith Chrysostom," hurt him not." Did not Christ himself bid (even he, that said, Whoso smites with the sword, shall perish with the sword, in case of private revenge), Qui non habet gladium, vendat tunicam, emat gladium?

The angels themselves are heavenly soldiers. Every Christian is a soldier: as he is a Christian, he fights not against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers; as he is a Christian soldier, he fights both against flesh and blood, and principalities; all the wars of God: so that, contrary to St. Martin, who said, a Christian, I may not fight;" he must say, "I am a Christian, I must fight." And why may he not? God, when he makes us

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