VI.

capable of that vision, that peace, that fulness of sanctity SERM. and glory hereafter; which God of His infinite abyss of purity grant us all; to Whom, with the Son, that image of His Father's purity, and the holy, sanctifying, purifying Spirit, &c.

SERMON VII.

BEING A LENT SERMON AT oxford, a.d. 1643.

CHRIST AND BARABBAS.

SERM.

VII.

[Wisd. ii. 12, 14.]

JOHN Xviii. 40.

Not this Man, but Barabbas.

THIS passage of story not unagreeable to the time,—every day of Lent being a πрожаρаσkevǹ to the passion week,-hath much of the present humour of the world in it, whether we consider it as an act of censure, or as an act of choice: both these it is here in the Jews.

1. An act of popular censure, i. e. most perfect injustice, very favourable to the robber, and very severe to Christ; Barabbas may be released, the vilest wretch in the world, one that was attached for robbery and for insurrection, may become the people's favourite, be pitied and pleaded for, and absolutely pardoned: dat veniam corvis", the blackest devils in hell shall pass without any of our malice, our indignation, our animosities; but an innocent Christ, or any of His making, one that comes from heaven to us, upon errands of holiness, of reformation, that by authority of His doctrine and example would put vice out of countenance, discover our follies, or reproach our madnesses, and in the Wise Man's phrase, "upbraid our ways, and reprove our thoughts," He that hath no sins to qualify Him for our acquaintance, no oaths, no ribaldry to make him good company, none of the compliances or vices of the times to commend him to our friendship, at least to our pardon, none of that new kind of popularity of being as debauched and professedly vicious as other men, shall a [Juv. ii. 63.]

VII.

Wisd. ii. 15.

be suspected, and feared, and hated, the most odious, unpar- SERM. donable, unsufferable neighbour, "grievous unto us even to behold." Innocence is become the most uncomely degenerous quality, virtue the most envious, censorious thing; the not being so near hell as other men, the most ridiculous scrupulosity, and folly in the world. And the misery of it is, there is no discoursing, no reasoning this humour out of us, they had cried once before, and the crossing doth but more inflame them; the charm, that should have exorcised, doth but enrage the evil spirit, "Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas."

But besides this, I told you, these words might be taken in another notion, and under that it is that we are resolved to handle them, as an act of the Jews' choice, of their absolute unconditionate decree, their loving of Barabbas, and hating of Jesus, not before they had done either good or evil, but after [Rom. ix. one had done all the evil, the other all the good imaginable; 11, 13.] then hating the Jacob, and loving the Esau; electing the robber, and rejecting the Saviour; the Barabbas becomes a Barabbas indeed, according to the origination of the name, a son of a father, a beloved son in whom they are well pleased, a chosen vessel of their honour, and Christ the only refuse vessel of dishonour, the only unamiable, undesirable, formless, beautiless reprobate in the mass: Non hunc, sed Barabbam, "Not this man," &c.

In the words under the notion of the choice, you may please to take notice of these severals:

1. A competition precedaneous to this choice, presumed here, but expressed in St. Matthew, riva éλETE EK Tŵv [Matt. xxvii. 17.] Súo, "which of the two will ye," &c. δύο,

2. The competitors, Barabbas and Christ.

3. The choice itself, not only preferring one before the other, non hunc, sed, but 1. absolutely rejecting of one, non hunc, not this man; and then by way of necessary refuge pitching upon the other, Non hunc, sed Barabbam, " Not this man, but Barabbas."

And of these in this order.

And first, of the first, that there is a competition, before what the competitors are, or what the choice.

1. I say that there is a competition, a canvass, or plying,

VII.

SERM. before we come to choose any thing; this is a truth most constantly observable, in all which we are most concerned in, in that transcendent interest, the business of our souls. Were there but one object represented to the faculty, one Christ, one holiness, one salvation, the receiving Him would be any thing rather than choice; chance it might be, or necessity it might be; chance it might be, that such a thing had the luck to come first, to prepossess and forestal us, to get our favour when there was nobody else to sue for it; and indeed he that should be godly, or Christian on such a felicity as this, through ignorance only, or non-representation of the contrary, he that should give his voice unto Christ, because there was nobody else to canvass for it, that if Mahomet had plied him first, would have had as much faith for the Alcoran, as he hath now for the Bible, been as zealous for a carnal, sensual, as now for a pure spiritual paradise; he that if he had been born of heathen parents, or put out to nurse to an Indian, would have sucked in as much of Gentilism, as by this civil English education he hath attained to of the true religion, that hath no supersedeas, no fortification against worshipping of sun and moon, posting from one heathen shrine, as now from one sermon,-to another, but only that Christianity bespake him earliest, that idolatry was not at leisure to crave his favour, when Protestancy got it; is, I confess, a Christian, he may thank his stars for it, planetarius sanctus, a saint, but such an one as a Jew would have been, might he have been a changeling stolen into that cradle, or the most barbarous China infidel, had he had (as he of old, fortunam Cæsaris, so) fortunam Christiani, the Christian's fortune to have tutored him. And so for virtue and sinlessness also, he in whom it is not conscience, but bashfulness and ignorance of vice, that abstains only from uncreditable or unfashionable, from branded or disused sins, swears not, only because he hath not learnt the art of it, hath not yet gotten into the court, or into the army, the schools where that skill is taught, the shops where those reversed thunderbolts, so tempestuously shot against heaven, are forged; he that is no drunkard, no adulterer, no malicious person, only quia nemo, because he hath no company to debauch, no strength to maintain, no injury to provoke the uncommitted

VII.

sin; is all this while but a child of fate, born under a benign SERM. aspect, more lucky, but not more innocent, more fortunate, but not more virtuous than other men.

Again, if there were no competition, as it might be chance, so it might be necessity too; thou art fain to be virtuous, because thou canst be nothing else, goodness must go for thy refuge, but not thy choice, were there no rival sin, no competitor lust to pretend for thee.

It is therefore not only an act of wisdom, but of goodness too, observable in God's wonderful dispensation of things under the Gospel, to leave the Christian, év μelopía, in the confines of two most distant people, improvable into good, and capable of evil, like Erasmus' picture at Rome, or that vulgar lie of Mahomet's tomb at Aleppo betwixt two loadstones, ἀμφιςβήτημα θεοῦ καὶ δαιμόνων, as Synesius calls it, a stake between God on one side, and all the devils in hell on the other, made up of a Canaanite and an Israelite, a law in the members as well as a law in the mind, or as Antoninusb, teiσeis èv popíois, persuasions in the [Rom. vii. 23.] members, many topics of rhetoric, many strong allectives to evil in the lower carnal part of the man, as well as invitations and obligations to good in the upper and spiritual. Thus did God think fit to dispose it, even in paradise itself, the flesh tempted with carnal objects, even before the first sin had disordered that flesh; a palate for the sweetness of the apple to please, and an eye for the beauty to invite, as well as an upper masculine faculty, a reason for commands to awe, and threats to deter; yea, and it seems in heaven itself, and the angels there, where is no flesh and blood, that officina cupidinum, shop or workhouse of desires, yet even there is an inlet for ambition, though not for lust, a liableness to the filthiness of the spirit, though not of the flesh, or [2 Cor. vii. else Lucifer had still stood favourite, could never have for- 1.]

feited that state of bliss. And so it is ever since in this inferior orb of ours, "Behold, I set before thee life and death, [Deut.xxx. 19.] blessing and cursing," on one side all the joys of heaven to ravish and enwrap thee, the mercies of Christ to "draw thee [Hos.xi.4.] with the cords of a man, with the bands of love," to force and violence thy love by loving thee first, by setting thee a copy

b

[aioOnTiKwv relσewv. Antonini ad seipsum, lib. iii. cap. 6.]