I.

SERM. encumber or resist, to overtop or wrestle with it: and so you have the interpretation of plough-shares here, the rending of the impenitent heart, the preparing it for grace, the humbling the proud sinner; and fitting, and softening, and emptying him for Christ.

Then for the pruning-hooks, if that be the exact rendering of the Hebrew, you have then under that colour the dressing of God's plantations, the supervenient work of pairing and cutting all excrescences, in the regenerate child of heaven, -parallel to the washing of His feet, which were cleansed [John xiii. already, in Christ's answer to St. Peter,-lopping off the 10.] suckers, the luxuriances, that will still return, as long as we have that root and fomes of flesh about us, and if they are suffered to grow too lavishly, will soon suck away all the vital fructifying juice from the branches, at least exhaust very much of that heavenly store, which would be husbanded at the best advantage, every dram more preciously employed.

30; xxi.

But if our margin have made the better conjecture, as many times it doth, and the scythes, which you meet with there, carry away the importance of the original from the pruning-hooks, you have then God's calling for His fruits in [Matt. xiii. the time of harvest, sending His mowers into the field, His 34.] strict requiring and earnest expecting the plentiful issues of all His care, the growths and fructifyings of His graces; and then put all these together, as indeed the various readings may both stand good, or the hook or sickle, which may probably be the yet fitter rendering of the word, will supply the place both of text and margin, be accommodable to either, to both uses, and then you have here the entire positive [Isa. v. 2— business of all Christianity, sometimes to break up, some6.] times to prune, sometimes to prepare the fruits for God's barn, to begin, to advance, to perfect that great work of fruitbearing, that only design of all God's methods and dispensations amongst us, the kindly vintage which He expects so passionately after all His husbandry. And, O what an exprobration will it be to us, the ecce labruscas there, our nothing but wild grapes, our sour unsavoury fruits of unrighteousness after all this dressing! And let that serve for the second particular of the absolute view, there is only the third behind, the motion or passage from one of these to the

I.

other, from the swords to the plough-shares, from the spears S ERM. to the sickles or hooks, and that by way of beating; "they shall beat," &c.

The same individual metal, which was even now a sword, having suffered some change in the fire and anvil, comes out new forged in the other shape; the same affections that were even now maliciously acted by Satan, formed and whet at the Philistine's forge, öπλa ȧdıкías, weapons of all the villainy in [Rom. vi. 13.] the world, the disquieters of the honour and peace of Christendom, the only boutefeux abroad, our passions and appetites, let them be but transformed by the spirit of Christ, let the fire and hammer pass on them, and without being destroyed in that fire, they come out new moulded, instruments of righteousness, zeal for the reforming our own lives, emulation for purity, and for fructifying; that Saul that was even now an Apostle or messenger of the Jewish consistory to Damascus, and had then such a heart full of swords and [Acts ix. 2.] spears, was so furious a blasphemer of Christ, and persecutor of Christians, may continue his metal still, his title and almost his name and office, and be the gallanter Apostle of Christ, the more abundant labourer for ever after. Christianity doth not mean such enmity to nature, such scorn and contumely to our human souls, as to throw all away as dross and refuse, to mortify any other members upon earth, but those which signify our sins, "fornication, uncleanness, [Col. iii. envyings, seditions," &c. As for the affections or faculties 5.] themselves, have they been never so profane and unhallowed, a breathing on them, or a consecrating them anew, a putting them to purer and more honourable uses for the future, will serve the turn; the censers of Corah, with a little [Numb. xvi. 39.] change, will become excellent plates for God's sanctuary. Let that love that even now was transported and lavished out on the sensual object, "be baptized with the Holy Ghost [Matt. iii. 11.] and with fire," come out a pure ethereal love, fastened on "the beauty of holiness,”—that angelical purity to be tran- [1 Chron. xvi. 29.] scribed into thine and thy brethren's hearts,--and the more flaming this love is, the more gracious and more acceptable it is like to be. Let but the hostility that is now let loose

[Johnson says this word means an incendiary; one who kindles feuds and

discontents. It is used in the works of
King Charles.]

I.

SERM. upon the persons, the sins, the personal affronts, nay, perhaps the graces and virtues of other men, be retrenched and retired, and reflected on our own sins, and then let there be as much steel in the weapons, as much zeal in the revenges and indignations as ever; may but the ambitions and aspirings of the worldling-that, like air, pent up in too close a coop, works such σeloμoùs and tempests, such shaking palsy fits in the regions about us,-be fastened according to St. Paul's advice on a new object, transformed into the diónete [Tǹv] [1 Cor. xiv. ȧyáπηv, "pursuing of charity," as of a prize in the Olympic 1.] games, into the piλoτiμeîode ηovɣáčev, taking as much pains, [1 Thess. iv. 11.] striving as emulously to contain himself and others in quiet, to restore a battered kingdom to peace again, as contentious men use to put the world into a combustion, and then our swords may become very edifying weapons, our contentions very excellent, profitable contentions, every man striving to surpass and exceed the other in meekness, patience, contented taking up the cross of Christ,-those more than Olympic ȧy@ves, to which the incorruptible crown is assigned,―overcoming men in charity and well doing. Do but you enter into the school of Christ,-the most boisterous raw uncultivated you, that have least of this sacred temper about you,--and that will be able to infuse it: which brings me to my second general, the relative aspect of these words, as they are a character of the gospel state of the kingdom of Christ, and so the fitter for an Advent sermon. And in that we are, 1. to consider what truth there is in that prediction to justify and vindicate this prophecy against all the contrary appearances, "they shall beat," &c. One objection it is clear there is against the truth of this prophecy, and it were more for the credit of Christendom that there were an hundred others so this might be superseded, the contrary practice of the generality of Christians. [2 Pet. iii. Blessed Lord! where is this promise of Christ's coming, this 4.] consequent of His birth and kingdom among men? for since swords came once into the world, since the sweet of revenge and the advantage of spoiling others was once tasted, since that bloody issue once began to break out, what hath all our Christianity done to stop or staunch it? It is true, what historians tell us, that at the time of Christ's birth there was a

I.

Luke ii. 1.

notable cessation of arms over the whole world, and the άπо- SER M. Ypapn, not taxing but enrolling that brought Christ's parents up to Bethlehem, and so occasioned His birth there, was an effect and immediate product of that cessation, and it was a remarkable act of providence, that upon a former peace and so command for that enrolling, in the same Augustus' time, proclaimed at Tarracone in Spain, as Sepulveda tells us,which if it had succeeded Christ in any likelihood had not been born in Bethlehem,-there brake out some new broils that deferred the peace and enrolling till this very point of time, when Christ was carried up in Mary's womb to obey the prediction of His birth in Bethlehem. But sure all this would be but a very imperfect completion of this other prophecy in my text; this peace was soon at an end, and besides, was rather the midwife to bring Christ into the world, than Christ to bring this peace. And yet to see how some observers have been willing to pitch upon this one passage of story, the shutting of Janus' temple about the birth of Christ, -the catholic peace in that part of the world at that point of time, as the main thing that was pointed at in this verse.

Their reason is clear, because as for a long time before, so since that time there was never any such completion of it; Christ born in an halcyon hour, had scarce ever any one afterwards whilst He lived: and for His posterity He makes the profession, "He came not to bring peace, but a sword," that [Matt. x. is, He foresaw this would be the effect of His coming; Chris34.] tianity would breed new quarrels in the world, some men really hating one another upon that score of difference in religion, and they say no feuds are more desperately implacable, no swords more insatiably thirsty of blood than those which Christ brought into the world, but most men making this the popaats, the pretence and excuse of all their bloodiIt was Du Plessis' account to Languet, why he had not a mind to write the story of the civil wars of France, because if he had said truth, he must render new originals and causes of these wars, hound that fox to a kennel which would not willingly be acknowledged, charge that on an emulation or rivality of state, which (like the harlot, that coming fresh from her unclean embraces, had wiped the mouth) came demurely and solemnly, and superciliously out of the Church, the only

ness.

SERM. sanctuary to give impunity and reputation, apology at least, I. to the blackest enterprises; and between the póþaσis and

the airía, the true and the pretended causalities, the effect, God knows, is generally too sad. Mahomet that professed to propagate his religion by the sword hath not brought such store of these bloody weapons, so rich a full-stocked artillery into the world, hath not kept them so constantly employed, so sharp set, so riotous in their thirsts of blood, as hath been observable in Christendom. I am sure that Cæsarean section, practising upon our own mothers, our own bowels, fellow Christians, fellow Protestants, fellow professors,-shall I add fellow saints? but sure sanctity, if it were sincere, would turn these swords into plough-shares,-was never so familiar among Turks, or savages; nay, as Erasmus hath sweetly observed, among the wildest beasts in nature,-which are not beast enough to devour those of their own kind,-as it is amongst Christians of this last age almost in every part of the world. Only the bladder of snakes in Epiphanius hath been our parallel, they were there but few hours together but one of them had devoured all the rest, and when-to try the experiment how solitude and want of prey would discipline the devourer's appetite-he was shut up alone in the bladder, his vulturous stomach lets loose upon himself, and within few minutes more one half of him devours the other; so many divided and subdivided enmities, and when all others are wanting such bloody practisings upon ourselves, that if it be true which Psellus saith, that the devils feast on the vapour that is exhaled from the blood of men, sure the Christian devils, and of late the English, are the fattest of the whole herd, the richliest treated of any, since whole tables were furnished for them of the blood and flesh of their worshippers. And thus far I confess myself unable to vindicate this prophecy in this sense of it, that so it should actually prove that Christianity would really drive swords out of the world; I should be glad to be secured by the millenary, that ever there would come an age when this prophecy would thus be completed, but more glad if this nation might have the happiness within some tolerable term to enter upon its millennium, that the Pacem Domine in diebus nostris, "Peace in our time, our age, O Lord," were not such a desperate non