particular case, thou hast an ephod in thyself; God is not departed from thee; thou knowest by thyself, it is a vain complaint that Plutarch makes, de defectu oraculorum; that oracles are ceased; there is no defect of oracles in thine own bosom; as soon as thou askest thyself, How may I corrupt the integrity of such a judge, undermine the strength of such a great person, shake the chastity of such a woman, thou hast an answer quickly, It must be done by bribing, it must be done by swearing, it must be done by calumniating. Here is no defectus oraculorum, no ceasing of oracles, there is a present answer from the devil. There is no defect of the urim, and thummim of God neither, if thou wilt look into it, for as it is well said of the moral man, Sua cuique providentia Deus, Every man's diligence, and discretion, is a God to himself so it is well said, of the Christian father Augustine, Recta ratio verbum Dei, A rectified conscience is the word of God. Applica ephod, bring thine actions to the question of the ephod, to the debatement of thy conscience rectified, and thou still shalt hear, Jubentem Dominum or Dominum revocantem, God will bid thee stop, or God will bid thee go forwards in that way.

*

But herein had Jacob another degree of happiness, that the commandment of God, was pursued with the testimony of angels. Not that the voice of God needs strength; teste me ipso, witness myself, was always witness enough; and quia os Domini locutum. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it: was always seal enough. But that hath been God's abundant, and overflowing goodness, ever to succour the infirmity of man, with sensible and visible things; with the pillars in the wilderness; with the tabernacle after; and with the temple and all the mysterious, and significative furniture thereof after all. So God leaves not Jacob to the general knowledge, that the angels of God protect God's children, but he manifested those angels unto him, occurrerunt ei, the angels of God met him. The word of God is an infallible guide to thee, but God hath provided thee also visible, and manifest assistants, the pillar, his church, and the angels, his ministers in the church. The Scripture is thine

• Where I have placed this second Dominum, the folio edition has "duni," arising, I suppose, from the contraction dām. Duo has twice before in this sermon been printed in the folio edition for Domino.-ED.

only ephod, but applica ephod, apply it to thee by his church, and by his visible angels, and not by thine own private interpretation.

This was Jacob's nunc; now, when he was returned, returned upon God's commandments; upon God's commandment pursued, and testified by angels; and angels visibly manifested, now, he could take a comfort in the contemplation of his fortune, of his estate, to see, that he was two bands. Here is a great change; we see his vow; and we see how far his wishes extended at his going out; If God will give me bread to eat, and clothes to put on, so that I come again unto my father's house in safety, then shall the Lord be my God. In which vow is included all the service that he could exhibit, or retribute to God. Now his staff is become a sword; a strong army; his one staff now is multiplied; his wives are given for staves to assist him; and his children given also for staves to his age. His own staff is become the greatest, and best part of Laban's wealth; in such plenty, as that he could spare a present to Esau, of at least five hundred head of cattle. The fathers make moral expositions of this; that his two bands are his temporal blessings and his spiritual. And St. Augustine finds a typical allusion in it of Christ, Baculo crucis Christus apprehendit mundum, et cum duabus turmis, duobus populis, ad patrem rediit, Christ by his staff, his cross, musters two bands, that is, Jews and Gentiles, we find enough for our purpose in taking it literally; as we see it in the text; that he divided all his company, and all his cattle into two troops, that if Esau come, and smite one, the other might escape. For then only is a fortune full, when there is something for leakage, for waste; when a man, though he may justly fear, that this shall be taken from him, yet he may justly presume, that this shall be left to him; though he lose much, yet he shall have enough. And this was Jacob's increase and height; and from this lowness; from one staff, to two bands. And therefore, since in God we can consider but one state, semper idem, immutable; since in the devil, we can consider but two states, quomodo cecidit filius orientis, that he was the son of the morning, but is, and shall ever be for ever the child of everlasting death; since in Jacob

25 Gen. xxviii. 20.

and in ourselves we can consider first, that God made man righteous, secondly that man betook himself to his one staff, and his own staff, the imaginations of his own heart, thirdly, that by the word of God manifested by his angels, he returns with two bands, body and soul, to his heavenly Father again, let us attribute all to his goodness, and confess to him and the world, That we are not worthy of the least of all his mercies, and of all the truth which he hath showed unto his servant, for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.

SERMON CXLIV.

PREACHED AT WHITEHALL, APRIL 19, 1618.

1 TIMOTHY i. 15.

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of which I am the chiefest.

THE greatest part of the body of the Old Testament is prophecy, and that is especially of future things: the greatest part of the New Testament, if we number the pieces, is epistles, relations of things past, for instruction of the present. They err not much, that call the whole New Testament Epistle: for even the Gospels are evangelia, good messages, and that is proper to an epistle, and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles is superscribed, by St. Luke, to one person, to Theophilus, and that is proper to an epistle; and so is the last book, the Book of Revelation, to the several churches; and of the rest there is no question. An epistle is collocutio scripta, says St. Ambrose, though it be written far off, and sent, yet it is a conference, and separatos copulat, says he; by this means we overcome distances, we deceive absences, and we are together even then when we are asunder and therefore, in this kind of conveying spiritual comfort to their friends, have the ancient fathers been more exercised than in any other form, almost all of them have written epistles one of them, Isidorus, him whom we call Pelusiotes,

St. Chrysostom's scholar, is noted' to have written myriads, and in those epistles, to have interpreted the whole Scriptures: St. Paul gave them the example, he writ nothing but in this kind, and in this exceeded all his fellow apostles, et pateretur Paulus, quod Saulus fecerit, says St. Austin, that as he had asked letters of commission of the state to persecute Christians, so by these letters of consolation, he might recompense that church again, which he had so much damnified before: as the Hebrew rabbins say, That Rahab did let down Joshua's spies, out of her house, with the same cord, with which she had used formerly to draw up her adulterous lovers, into her house. Now the Holy Ghost was in all the authors, of all the books of the Bible, but in St. Paul's Epistles, there is, says Irenæus, Impetus Spiritus Sancti, The vehemence, the force of the Holy Ghost; and as that vehemence is in all his epistles, so Amplius habent, quæ è vinculis, (as St. Chrysostom makes the observation) those epistles which were written in prison, have most of his holy vehemence, and this (as that father notes also) is one of them; and of all them, we may justly conceive this to be the most vehement and forcible, in which he undertakes to instruct a bishop in his episcopal function, which is, to propagate the Gospel; for, he is but an il bishop that leaves Christ where he found him, in whose time the Gospel is yet no farther than it was; how much worse is he, in whose time the Gospel loses ground; who leaves not the Gospel in so good state as he found it. Now of this Gospel, here recommended by Paul to Timothy, this is the sum; That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, &c.

Here then we shall have these three parts; first radicem, the root of the Gospel, from whence it springs; it is, fidelis sermo a faithful word, which cannot err: and secondly, we have arborem, corpus; the tree, the body, the substance of the Gospel, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; and then lastly, fructum Evangelii, the fruit of the Gospel, humility, that it brings them who embrace it, to acknowledge themselves to be the greatest sinners. And in the first of these, the root itself, we shall pass by these steps: first, that it is sermo, the word; that the Gospel hath as good a ground as the law; the New Testament, 1 Nicephorus.

as well founded as the Old; it is the word of God: and then it is fidelis sermo, a faithful word: now both Old and New are so, and equally so; but in this, the Gospel is fidelior, the more faithful, and the more sure, because that word, the law, hath had a determination, an expiration, but the Gospel shall never have that. And again, it is sermo omni acceptatione dignus, worthy of all acceptation; not only worthy to be received by our faith, but even by our reason too; our reason cannot hold out against the proofs of Christians for their Gospel and as the word imports it deserves omnem acceptationem, and omnem approbationem, all approbation, and therefore, as we should not dispute against it, and so are bound to accept it, to receive it, not to speak against it; so neither should we do any thing against it; as we are bound to receive it by acknowledgment, so we are bound to approve it, by conforming ourselves unto it; our consent to it shows our acceptation, our life our approbation; and so much is in the first part, the root; This is a faithful word, and worthy of all acceptation. And in the second, the tree, the body, the substance of the Gospel; that Jesus Christ is come into the world to save sinners; first, here is an advent, a coming of a new person into the world who was not here before, venit in mundum, he came into the world; and secondly, he that came, is first Christ, a mixed person, God and man, and thereby capable of that office, able to reconcile God and man; and Christus so too, a person anointed, appointed, and sent for that purpose, to reconcile God and man; and then he is Jesus, one who did actually and really do the office of a Saviour, he did reconcile God and man; for there we see also the reason why he came; he came to save, and whom he came to save; to save sinners: and these will be the branches and limbs of this body. And then lastly, when we come to consider the fruit, which is indeed the seed, and kernel, and soul of all virtues, humility; then we shall meet the apostle confessing himself to be the greatest sinner, not only with a fui, that he was so whilst he was a persecutor, but with a present sum, that even now, after he had received the faithful word, the light of the Gospel, yet he was still the greatest sinner; of which (sinners) I (though an apostle) am (am still) the chiefest.

First then, the Gospel is founded and rooted in sermone, in