and simony, and chambering and wantonness practised from Monday to Saturday. Do not think it to be so with the spiritual man, as with the natural: in a natural body, a great proportion of choler will rectify a cold, or old, or phlegmatic man; he is the better, for having so much choler; but a vehement zeal on Sunday, doth not rectify the six days' sinner: to cry out then, I am starved for want of an afternoon sermon, and to fast all the week long, so as never to taste how sweet the Lord is, in thy cleansing thy heart, and withdrawing thy hand from sin, this is no good diet; not only upon your allegiance to God, but upon your allegiance to the king, be good: no prince can have a better guard, than subjects truly religious. Quantus murus patriæ est vir justus, is St. Ambrose's holy exclamation, What a wall to a city, what a sea, what a navy to an island, is a holy man! The sins of former times, the sins and provocations of Manasseh, lay heavy upon Josiah, as well as God loved him. The sins of our days, our sins, may open any prince to God's anger. This is the first way of preserving our Josiah, to turn away the wrath of God, by our abstinence from future sins, after our repentance of former.

A second is, to uphold his honour and estimation with other men; especially amongst strangers that live with us, who for the most part, value princes so, as they find their subjects to value them. Ambassadors have ever been sacred persons, and partakers of great privileges. A prince, that lives as ours, in the eye of many ambassadors, is not as the children of Israel, in the midst of Canaanites, and Jebusites, and Ammonites, who all watched the destruction of Israel; but he is in the midst of tutelar angels, national angels, who study (by God's grace, and as it becomes us to hope) the peace and welfare of the Christian state. But then all strangers in the land, are not noble, and candid, and ingenuous ambassadors; and even ambassadors themselves may be misled to an undervalue of the prince, by rumours, and by disloyal, and by negligent speeches, from the subject; we have not yet felt Solomon's whips; but our whinings and repinings, and discontents may bring us to Rehoboam's scorpions". This way hath a part, in the king's safety, and in our safety, to 38 2 Kings xxiii. 26. 39 1 Kings xii. 11.

hold in ourselves, and to convey to strangers, a good estimation of that happy government, which is truly good in itself.

And then a third, and very important way towards his preservation, is, a cheerful disposition, to supply, and to support and to assist him, with such things as are necessary for his outward dignity. When God himself was the immediate King of the Israelites, and governed them, by himself, he took it ill, that they would depart from him, who needed nothing of theirs, for there could be no other king, but must necessarily be supplied by them: and yet, consider, beloved, what God, who needed nothing, took : the sacrifices of the Jews, were such, as would have kept divers royal houses: take a bill of them, but in one passover, that Josiah kept, and compare that and other the like, with the smallness of the land, that they possessed, and you will see, that that they gave, was a very great proportion. Now, it is the service of God, to contribute to the king, as well as to the priest: he that gives to a prophet, shall have a prophet's reward; he that gives to the king, shall have a king's reward, a crown: in those cases, where to give to your king, is to give to God, that is, where the peace of the state, and the glory of God in his Gospel depends much, upon the sustentation of the estimation, and outward honour and splendour of the king: preserve him so, and he shall the less be subject to these dangers, of such falling into their pits.

But lastly, and especially, let us preserve him, by preserving God amongst us, in the true, and sincere profession of our religion. Let not a mis-grounded, and disloyal imagination of coolness in him, cool you, in your own families. Omnis Spiritus, qui solvit Jesum", says the apostle, in the Vulgate, Every spirit that dissolves Jesus, that embraces not Jesus entirely, all Jesus, and all his, all his truth, and all that suffer for that truth, is not of God. Do not say, I will hold as much of Jesus, as shall be necessary, so much as shall distinguish me from a Turk, or a Jew, but if I may be the better, for parting with some of the rest, why should I not? Do not say, I will hold all, myself, but let my wife, or my son, or one of my sons, go the other way, as though Protestant, and Papist were two several callings; and, as you would make one son a lawyer, another a merchant, you will

40 2 Chron. XXXV.

41 1 John iv. 3.

make one son a Papist, another a Protestant. Excuse not your own levity, with so high a dishonour to the prince; when have you heard, that ever he thanked any man, for becoming a papist? Leave his doors to himself; the doors into his kingdom, the ports, and the doors in his kingdom, the prisons; let him open and shut his doors, as God shall put into his mind: look thou seriously to thine own doors, to thine own family, and keep all right there. A thief that is let out of Newgate is not therefore let into thy house; a priest that is let out of 'prison, is not therefore let into thy house neither: still it may be felony, to harbour him, though there were mercy in letting him out. Cities are built of families, and so are churches too; every man keeps his own family, and then every pastor shall keep his flock, and so the church shall be free from schism, and the state from sedition, and our Josiah preserved, prophetically for ever, as he was historically this day, from them, in whose pits, the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken. Amen.

SERMON CXXV.

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S CROSS, NOVEMBER 22, 1629.

MATTHEW Xi. 6.

And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

THESE are words spoken by our blessed Saviour, to two disciples, sent by John Baptist, then a prisoner, to inform themselves of some particulars concerning Christ. Christ, who read hearts, better than we do faces, and heard thoughts clearer than we do words, saw in the thoughts, and hearts of these men, a certain perverseness, an obliquity, an irregularity towards him, a jealousy and suspicion of him, and according to that indisposition of theirs he speaks to them, and tells them, This, and this only is true blessedness, not to be scandalized in me, not to be offended in me; I see you are; but, as you love blessedness, (and there is no

other object of true love, but blessedness) establish yourselves in me, maintain in yourselves a submission, and an acquiescence to me, in my Gospel, suspect not me, be not jealous of me, nor press farther upon me, than I open and declare myself unto you, for, blessed is he, whosoever is not scandalized, not offended in me.

The words have in them an injunction, and a remuneration; a precept, and a promise; the way, and the end of a Christian. The injunction, the precept, the way is, As you love blessedness, be not offended in me, be satisfied with me, and mine ordinances; it is an acquiescence in the Gospel of Christ Jesus: and the remuneration, the promise, the end, is blessedness; that, which, in itself, hath no end, that, in respect of which, all other things are to no end, blessedness, everlasting blessedness, blessed is he, whosoever is not scandalized, not offended in me. In the first, Christ gives them first, if not an increpation, yet an intimation of our facility in falling into the passive scandal, the mis-interpreting of the words or actions of other men, which is that which our Saviour intends, by being offended in another; and blessed are they, in general, who are not apt to fall into this passive scandal, not subject to this facility of mis-interpreting other men. In a second branch in this first part, Christ appropriates this to himself, Blessed is he, whosoever is not scandalized, not offended in me; in which branch, we shall see, that the general scandal, and offence that the world took at Christ, and his Gospel, was, that he induced a religion that opposed the honours, and the pleasures, and the profit of this world: and these three being the triangle within our circle, the three corners, into which Satan, that compasses the world, leads us, (all is honour, or pleasure, or profit) because the Christian religion seemed to the world to withdraw men's affections from these, the world was scandalized, offended in Christ. But then, in a third consideration, we shall see, that Christ discerned in these two persons, these disciples of John, a passive scandal of another kind; not that Christ's Gospel, and the religion that he induced, was too low, too base, too contemptible, as the world thought, but that it was not low enough, not humble enough, and therefore John's disciples would do more than Christ's disciples, and bind themselves to a greater strictness and austerity of life, than Christ in his Gospel required.

In

which third branch, we shall take knowledge of some disciples of John's disciples, in the world yet; and, (as for the most part it falls out in sectaries) of divers kinds and ways; for, we shall find some, who in an over-valuation of their own purity, condemn, and contemn other men, as unpardonable reprobates; and these are scandalized, and offended in Christ, that is, not satisfied with his Gospel, in that they will not see, that it is as well a part of the Gospel of Christ, to rely upon his mercy, if I have departed from that purity, which his Gospel enjoined me, as it is, to have endeavoured to have preserved that purity; and a part of his Gospel, as well to assist with my prayers, and my counsel, and with all mildness, that poor soul that hath strayed from that purity, as it is to love the communion of those saints, that have in a better measure preserved it; not to believe the mercy of God in Christ, after a sin, to be a part of the Gospel, as well as the grace of God for prevention before, not to give favourable constructions, and conceive charitable hopes of him, who is fallen into some sin, which I may have escaped, this is to be scandalized, to be offended in Christ, not to be satisfied with his Gospel; and this is one sect of the offspring of John's disciples. And the other is this, that other men thinking the Gospel of Christ to be too large a Gospel, a religion of too much liberty, will needs undertake to do more, than Christ, or his disciples practised, or his Gospel prescribed: for, this is to be offended in Christ, not to believe the means of salvation ordained by him, to be sufficient for that end, which they were ordained to, that is, salvation. And then, after all this, in a fourth branch we shall see, the way, which our Saviour takes to reclaim them, and to divest them of this passive scandal, which hindered their blessedness, which was, to call them to the contemplation of his good works, and of good works in the highest kind, his miracles; for, in the verse immediately before the text, (which verse induces the text) he says to them, You see the blind receive their sight, the lame go, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life. Christ does not propose, at least, he does not put all, upon that external purity, and austerity of life, in which, these disciples of John pretended to exceed all others, but upon doing good to others, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk. Which miracles, and great works of his,