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he says all this; There is one among you; you need seek no farther; all the promises, and prophecies (the semen mulieris, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head; the appropriation to Abraham, In semine tuo, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed: the fixation upon David, Donec Shiloh, till Shiloh come; Esay's Virgo concipiet, Behold a virgin shall conceive; Micah's et tu Bethlem, that Bethlem should be the place, Daniel's seventy hebdomades, that that should be the time), all promises, all prophecies, all computations are at an end, the Messias is come.

Is he come, and amongst you, and do you not know him? What will make you know him? You believe you need a Messias; you cannot restore yourself. You believe this Messias must come at a certain time, specified by certain marks; were all these marks upon any other? Or lacks there any of these in him? Do you thus magnify me, and neglect a person, whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to loose? John Baptist was a prophet, more than a prophet, the greatest of the sons of women: Who could be so much greater than he, and not the Messias? We must necessarily enwrap all these three in one another, and into one another they do easily and naturally fall: he testifies that he was not the man (he preaches not himself), he testifies that that man is come (future expectations are frivolous); and he testifies, that the characters and marks of the expected Messias, can fall upon none but this man, and therefore he delivers him over to them with that confidence, Ecce agnus Dei, Behold the Lamb of God, there you may see him; and this is his testimony.

These three, we, we to whom John Baptist's commission is continued, testify too. First, we tell you, what is not Christ; austerity of life, and outward sanctity is not he; John Baptist had them abundantly, but yet permitted not, that they should have that opinion of him. But yet, much less is chambering and wantonness, and persevering in sin, that Christ, or the way to him. We tell you, stetit in medio, he hath been amongst you, you have heard him preached in your ears; yea, ye have heard him knock at your hearts, and for all that, we tell you that you have not known him. Which, though it be the discomfortablest

thing in the world, (not to have known Christ in those approaches) yet we tell it you somewhat to your comfort, and to your excuse, for, had you known it, you would not have crucified the Lord of glory33, as we do all, by our daily sins. And though God have winked at these times of ignorance, (pretermitted your former inconsiderations) now, he commandeth all men everywhere to repent. And therefore, that thou mayest know, even thou, (as Christ iterates it) at least in this thy days, the things which belong to thy peace, we tell you who he is, and where he is; Ecce agnus Dei, Behold the Lamb of God, Here, here in this his ordinance he supplicates you, when the minister, how mean soever, prays you, in his stead, be ye reconciled to God. Here he proclaims, and cries to you, Venite omnes, Come all that are weary and heavy laden. Here he bleeds in the Sacrament, here he takes away the sins of the world, in deriving a jurisdiction upon us, to bind and loose upon earth, that which he will bind and loose in heaven. This we testify to you; do you but receive this testimony. Till you hear that voice of consummation in heaven, Venite benedicti, come ye blessed, you shall never hear a more comfortable Gospel than this, which was preached by Christ himself, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the acceptable year of the Lord: for this was not a deliverance from their brickmaking in Egypt, not from their scorns and contempts in Babylon, but a deliverance from that unexpressible, that unconceivable bondage of sin, and death, not by the hand of a Moses, but a Messias. Optat dare qui præcipit petere, he that commands us to ask, would fain give: Cupit largiri, qui desiderat postulari, he that desires us to pray to him, hath that ready, and a readiness to give that, that he bids us pray for. If the king give a general pardon, will any man be so suspiciously treacherous in his own behalf, as to say, for all this large extent of his mercy, he meant not me, and therefore I will sue out no pardon? If the king cast a donative, at his coronation, will any man lie still and say, he meant none of that money to me? When the master of the feast sent his servants for guests,

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had it become those poor, and maimed, and halt, and blind, to have stood and disputed with the steward, and said, Surely, sir, you mistook your master, your master did not mean us? Why should any man think that God means not him? When he offers grace, and salvation to all, why not to him? Should God exclude him as a man? Why, God made him good, and, as a man and his creature, he is good still. But, non Deus Esau hominem odit, sed odit Esau peccatorem"? God did not hate Esau, as he was a man, but as he was a sinner. Should he exclude him as a sinner? Why then he should receive none, for we are all so; and he came for none but such, but sinners1o. Perfectiorum est nihil in peccatore odiisse præter peccata", To hate nothing in a sinner, but his sin, is a great degree of perfection; God is that perfection; he hates nothing in thee but thy sin; and that sin he hath taken upon himself, and sees it not in thee. Should he exclude thee because thou art impenitent, because thou hast not repented? Do it now. Peccasti, pœnitere1, Hast thou sinned? repent. Millies peccasti? millies pœnitere? Hast thou multiplied thy sins by thousands? multiply thy penitent tears so too. Should he exclude thee, because thou art impenitible, thou canst not repent; how knowest thou thou canst not repent? Dost thou try, dost thou endeavour, dost thou strive? why, this, this holy contention of thine is repentance. Discredit not God's evidence; he offers thee testimonium ab homine, the testimony of man, of the man of God, the minister, that the promises of the Gospel belong to thee. Judge not against that evidence; confess that there is no other name given under heaven, to be saved, but the name of Jesus, and that that is. And then, when thou hast thus admitted his witnesses to thee, that his preaching hath wrought upon thee, be thou his witness to others, by thy exemplary life, and holy conversation. In this chapter, in the calling of the apostles some such thing is intimated, when of those two disciples, which, upon John's testimony, followed Christ, one is named, (Andrew") and the other is not named. No doubt, but the other is also written in the book of life, and long since enjoys the blessed fruit of that his forward

39 Augustine.
42 Chrysostom.

40 Mar. ii. 17.'

43 Acts iv. 12.

Augustine.

4 John i, 40,

ness. But in the testimony of the Gospel, written for posterity, only Andrew is named, who sought out his brother Simon, and drew him in, and so propagated the church, and spread the glory of God. They who testify their faith by works, give us the better comfort, and posterity the better example. It will be but Christ's first question at the last day, What hast thou done for me? If we can answer that, he will ask, What hast thou suffered for me? and if we can answer that, he will ask at last, Whom hast thou won to me, what soul hast thou added to my kingdom? Our thoughts, our words, our doings, our sufferings, if they bring but ourselves to heaven, they are not witnesses; our example brings others; and that is the purpose, and the end of all we have said, John Baptist was a witness to us, we are so to you, be you so to one another.

SERMON CXX.

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S.

PHILIP. iii. 2.

Beware of the concision.

THIS is one of those places of Scripture, which afford an argument for that, which I find often occasion to say, that there are not so eloquent books in the world, as the Scriptures. For there is not only that non refugit, which Calvin speaketh of in this place, (Non refugit in organis suis Spiritus Sanctus leporem et facetias, the Holy Ghost in his instruments, in those whose tongues or pens he makes use of) doth not forbid, nor decline elegant and cheerful, and delightful expression; but as God gave his children a bread of manna, that tasted to every man like that that he liked best, so hath God given us Scriptures, in which the plain and simple man may hear God speaking to him in his own plain and familiar language, and men of larger capacity, and more curiosity, may hear God in that music that they love best, in a curious, in an harmonious style, unparalleled by any. For, that also Calvin

adds in that place, that there is no secular author, Qui jucundis rocum allusionibus, et figuris magis abundat, which doth more abound with persuasive figures of rhetoric, nor with musical cadences and allusions, and assimilations, and conformity, and correspondency of words to one another, than some of the secretaries of the Holy Ghost, some of the authors of some books of the Bible do. Of this rule, this text is an example. These Philippians, amongst whom St. Paul had planted the Gospel in all sincerity, and impermixt, had admitted [certain new men, that preached traditional, and additional doctrines, the law with the Gospel, Moses with Christ, circumcision with baptism. To these new convertites, these new doctors inculcated often that charm, You are the circumcision, you are they whom God hath sealed to himself by the seal of circumcision; they whom God hath distinguished from all nations, by the mark of circumcision; they in whom God hath imprinted, (and that in so high a way, as by a Sacrament) an internal circumcision, in an external; and will you break this seal of circumcision? will you deface this mark of circumcision? will you depart from this Sacrament of circumcision? you are the circumcision. Now St. Paul meets with these men upon their haunt; and even in the sound of that word which they so often pressed; he says they press upon you circumcision, but beware of concision, of tearing the church of God, of schisms, and separations from the church of God, of aspersions and imputations upon the church of God, either by imaginary superfluities, or imaginary defectiveness, in that church: for, saith the apostle, We are the circumcision, we who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. If therefore they will set up another circumcision beyond this circumcision, if they will continue a significative, a relative, a preparative figure, after the substance, the body, Christ Jesus is manifested to us, a legal circumcision in the flesh, after the spiritual circumcision in the heart is established by the Gospel, their end is not circumcision, but concision: they pretend reformation, but they intend destruction, a tearing, a rending, a wounding in the body, and frame, and peace of the church, and by all means, and in all cases Videte concisionem, Beware of concision.

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