of men that all things done by apostolic example must needs be sacraments.

The second high point of danger is, that by "tying confirmation to the bishop alone, there is great cause of suspicion given to think that baptism is not so precious a thing as confirmation:" for will any man think that a velvet coat is of more price than a linen coif, knowing the one to be an ordinary garment, the other an ornament which only serjeants at law do wear?

Finally, to draw to an end of perils, the last and the weightiest hazard is where the book itself doth say that children by imposition of hands and prayer may receive strength against all temptation: which speech as a twoedged sword doth both ways dangerously wound; partly because it ascribeth grace to imposition of hands, whereby we are able no more to assure ourselves in the warrant of any promise from God that his heavenly grace shall be given, than the Apostle was that himself should obtain grace by the bowing of his knees to Goda; and partly because by using the very word strength in this matter, a word so apt to spread infection, we "maintain," with "popish" evangelists, an old forlorn "distinction," of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon Christ's Apostles before his ascension into heaven", and "augmented" upon them afterwards, a distinction of grace infused into Christian men by degrees, planted in them at the first by baptism, after cherished, watered, and (be it spoken without offence) strengthened, as by other virtuous offices which piety and true religion teacheth, even so by this very special benediction whereof we speak, the rite or ceremony of confirmation.

a Ephes. iii, 14.

John, xx. 22.

Acts, i. 8.

15

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS EVANGELICAL DESCRIBED.

[BISHOP TAYLOR.]

MATT. v. 20.

For I say unto you, that except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

REWARDS and punishments are the best sanction of laws; and although the guardians of laws strike sometimes with the softest part of the hand in their executions of sad sentences, yet in the sanction they make no abatements, but so proportion the duty to the reward and the punishment to the crime, that by these we can best tell what value the lawgiver puts upon the obedience. Joshua put a great rate upon the taking of Kiriath-Sepher, when the reward of the service was his daughter and a dower; but when the young men ventured to fetch David the waters of Bethlehem, they had nothing but the praise of their boldness, because their service was no more than the satisfaction of a curiosity. But as lawgivers by their rewards declare the value of the obedience, so do subjects also by the grandeur of what they expect, set a value on the law and the lawgiver, and do their services accordingly.

And therefore the law of Moses, whose endearment was nothing but temporal goods and transient evils, could never make the comers thereunto perfecta: but the ἐπεισαγωγὴ κρείττονος ἐλπίδος, “ the superinduction of a better hope," hath endeared a more perfect obedience. When Christ" brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel," and hath promised to us things greater than all our explicit desires, bigger than the thoughts of our heart, then ἐγγίζομεν τῷ Θεῷ, saith the Apostle," then we draw near to God;" and by these we are enabled to do all that God requires, and then he requires all that we can do: more love and more obedience, than he did of those who, for want of these helps, and these revelations, and these promises, which we have, but they had not, were but imperfect persons, and could do but little more than human services. hath taught us more, and given us more, and promised to us more, than ever was in the world known or believed before him; and by the strengths and confidence of these, thrusts us forward in a holy and wise economy, and plainly declares that we must serve him by the measures of a new love, do him honour by wise and material glorifications, be united to God by a new nature, and made alive by a new birth, and fulfil all righteousness; to be humble and meek as Christ, to be merciful as our heavenly Father is, to be pure as God is pure, to be partakers of the divine nature, to be wholly renewed in the frame and temper of our mind, to become people of a new heart, a direct new creation, new principles, and a new being, to do better than all the world

a Heb. vii. 19.

Christ

before us ever did; to love God more perfectly, to despise the world more generously, to contend for the faith more earnestly for all this is but a proper and a just consequent of the great promises which our blessed Lawgiver came to publish and effect for all the world of believers and disciples.

The matter which is here required is certainly very great; for it is to be more righteous than the Scribes and Pharisees; more holy than the doctors of the law, than the leaders of the synagogue, than the wise princes of the Sanhedrim; more righteous than some that were prophets and high-priests, than some that kept the ordinances of the Law without blame; men that lay in sackcloth, and fasted much, and prayed more, and made religion and the study of the Law the work of their lives. This was very much; but Christians must do more.

"Nunc te marmoreum pro tempore fecimus; at tu,

Si fœtura gregem suppleverit, aureus esto."

They did well, and we must do better; their houses were marble, but our roofs must be gilded and fuller of glory. But as the matter is very great, so the necessity of it is the greatest in the world. It must be so, or it will be much worse: unless it be thus, we shall never see the glorious face of God. Here it concerns us to be wise and fearful; for the matter is not a question of an oaken garland, or a circle of bays, and a yellow ribband: it is not a question of money or land, nor of the vainer rewards of popular noises, and the undiscerning suffrages of the people, who are contingent judges of good and evil; but it is the great stake of life eternal. We cannot be Christians, unless we be righteous

by the new measures: the righteousness of the kingdom is now the only way to enter into it; for the sentence is fixed, and the judgment is decretory, and the Judge infallible, and the decree irreversible: "For I say unto you," said Christ, "unless your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Here, then, we have two things to consider. 1. What was the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. 2. How far that is to be exceeded by the righteousness of Christians.

1. Concerning the first. I will not be so nice in the observation of these words, as to take notice that Christ does not name the Sadducees, but the Scribes and Pharisees; though there may be something in it. The Sadducees were called Caraim, from cara, to read; for they thought it religion to spend one third part of their day in reading their scriptures, whose fulness they so admired, they would admit of no suppletory traditions: but the Pharisees were called Thanaim, that is, dɛutepóraι, they added to the word of God words of their own, as the Church of Rome does at this day: they and these fell into an equal fate; while they "taught for doctrines the commandments of men," they prevaricated the righteousness of God. What the Church of Rome to evil purposes hath done in this particular may be demonstrated in due time and place; but what false and corrupt glosses, under the specious title of the tradition of their fathers, the Pharisees had introduced, our blessed Saviour reproves, and are now to be represented as the avτiπapádεryμa, that you may see that righteous