A SERMON PREACHED Before the Honourable Assembly of Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, of the lower House of Parliament, February the last, 1623. BY ISAAC BARGRAVE: Doctor in Divinity; Chaplain to the Prince's Highness; and Pastor of St MARGARET'S Church in WESTMINSTER.  
LONDON: Printed by G. P. for john Bartlet, and john Spencer: and are to be sold at the Gilded Cup in Cheapside. 1624.   

TO THE HONOURABLE, MOST RELIGIOUS, And Loyal Assembly, of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the Commons House of Parliament.  
IN the opinion of the most Accurate, a Sermon once delivered, goeth afterward to the Press as to execution. And wherever there is but an equal part of Plato's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in pronunciation, Quintilians' Rule will no 
Lib. 11. cap. 3.  question prove true; Ita quisque ut audit, movetur. But my aim is always more at the heart, than at the ear; and in my present Endeavours, my chief ambition is, to serve you, while you serve the Common-Good. That, by your command, is now in a dead Letter, which lately, by your sufferance, lived in the mouth of the Speaker. Your favour calling me to the Pulpit, made me truly feel my weakness; And nothing but your Authority commanding me to the Press, is able to sustain it. The speedy execution of your command, gave me no time to perfect what in too little time I had conceived; however, with me, to speak honestly, is to speak Eloquently. My soul professeth, I could willingly have spent the whole labour of my life upon so worthy an Assembly; to express the desire whereof, (by the encouragement of many of your own Body) I shall speedily annex to this, two other Sermons, the one against Bribery, and the other against Selfe-Policy; both which, I will be bold to call, The Character of mine own heart toward the public good of our Church and Commonwealth. For this in particular, be pleased to accept what yourselves have commanded, and favour me with the liberty of this Apology;  si quid peccatum siet, fecisse 
Plaut.  me dicant de vostra sententia. We all bless ourselves in the contemplation of these times; for having such a God, such a King, such a Parliament: Quid non speremus amantes? The God of Blessing so dispose of your Counsels, that you may keep the spirit of unity in the bond of Peace.  
Your humble and ready servant in the LORD: ISAAC BARGRAVE.   

A SERMON PREACHED Before the Honourable Assembly, of the Commons House of Parliament: on Sunday, being the last of February, 1623.  PSALM. 26. 6. I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord, and so will I go to thine Altar. 
THe prime end of the Creature, is the glory of the Creator: this end cannot be attained, without the preservation of the Creature: The common good of the whole world in general, and of every part and Commonwealth in particular. Upon this ground (all actions receiving perfection from their end) all understanding men have been wont to preface all great Consultations for the common good, with some such religious Acts, as did best conduce to the glory of God. A jove Principium, was the law of Nature; the Gentiles were wont to begin from their Altars and their Oracles. It was ever the style of the Civil Law to begin, A Deo optimo maximo; and our old Saxon Laws, had the ten great Precepts of the Decalogue prefixed in their Front. But God's Children ever used especially to consult with GOD, to auspicate all their solemn Actions with Prayers, fastings, sacrifices, Sacraments; making their Creator, who is the Alpha and Omega of all Creatures, the beginning and the end of all their actions.  
We find in the old Testament, that the Israelites being to war against the Beniamites, Three several times they went up to ask counsel at the mouth of God, judg. 20. 26. And it is remarkable in the New, that though the holy Ghost himself had separated Barnabas and Saul to that great Work, the Conversion of the Gentiles; yet the Church would not dismiss them, till they were consecrated by fasting, prayer, and imposition of hands. Act. 13. 3. For Sacraments in particular, those two notable actions in the holy Story. The first, that powerful delivery of the Israelites out of the bondage of Egypt, was Ushered in with the cebelration of the holy Passeover: And the second, that memorable Redemption of mankind from the bondage of sin, by the Passion of CHRIST our Saviour, blessed for ever, He himself aggravated by the solemn Sacrament of his last Supper.  
Would we have yet a closer Instance, my Text suggests it: if David be to oppose a common Adversary, he inquires of the Lord for counsel, and again he inquires of the Lord. 1 Sam. 23. v. 1. et 4. And if he be to provide for the welfare of his own Kingdom (as now he was, when he composed this Hymn, even presently after his third Unction) he thinks the Altar the best Preparative to the administration of his Kingdom; and washing his hands in Innocency, the best Preparative to the Altar, I will wash my, etc. Good luck then in the Name of the Lord, to this honourable Assembly: even in this, Honourable; that with the custom of all good Christians, & Christian assemblies, Ye auspicate your worthy designs in the House, and at the Altar of God. God that made all things for his own glory, is certainly the best assistant to his own end. Hath not, think you, the devil domineered in their hearts, who have set a mark upon your two last Parliamentary Assemblies, as if your endeavours prospered not, because you received the Eucharist? as if the Sacrament impeached the Work, or the Work the Sacrament. Oh the Power of Satan! Shall we accuse God's Ordinance, from the effect of man's weakness?  
— Careat successibus opto,  
Quisquis ab eventu factanotanda putat.  
Had you not intended God's glory, certainly you would never have begun with God's Sacrament? But two cool words with these malicious obiectors. Was their Gunpowder Plot the worse for their Sacrament? or their Sacrament the worse for that plot? Indeed there is a communicative power in evil as well as in good: an Idolatrous Sacrifice was a well fitted Preface to a murderous end. But is there no difference betwixt their washing their hands in blood, & our washing our hands in innocency? Betwixt the intention of butchering of Kings and Kingdoms, and preserving of Kings and Kingdoms? But I remember we are going to the Altar: the GOD of mercy convert the hearts of these malicious furies, these wily Gibeonites, who while they dwell among us, labour to deceive us, with the pretence of Antiquity, their old shoes of S. Peter, their old garments of their own merit, their old mouldy Bread of Transubstantiation, with all which, though put on but yesterday, they endeavour to deceive joshua and his people; and we find they did it too, but it was because they asked not counsel of the Lord, Ios. 9 14. Let us therefore to prevent the like wiles, go on in the Name of the Lord, whom we come to serve, & David's resolution will infallibly produce David's blessing. So holy means cannot but produce a happy end.  
But that Truth may run on with order, the main general parts of the Text, are a Praeparation, & a Resolution; The first, a preface; the second, the Work itself. The first, a Condition propounded, I will wash my, etc. The second, a Duty performed, So will I compass, etc. In the Praeparation be pleased to observe with me these 4. things. The Subject, David; the Object, his hands; the Act, washing; the Integrity, or form of the Act, in Innocency. In the Resolution I shall pitch your attentions upon two things; the first is, Motus, I will go, or compass: The second is, Terminus, the place he aims at, The Altar. To which I can add nothing but this, that the Lord stands at the Centre in the middle of the Text, as he who alone gives power and life, both to the Praeparation, and the Action.  
Of these particulars (by His divine assistance, & the continuance of your indulgent favour, which brought me hither) briefly and plainly; and that in Circulo Theologico, leaving curiosity to her own Courtiers, assuring myself, that the plain way of truth, is the best way to the Altar.  
And first in David's, and all good men's Method, to begin with Praeparation; a part of my Text, which in this Auditory, I might happily have spared. I speak it to God's glory, the comfort of the Land, and your just encouragement, that as, many of you equal your Prophets in learning, so all of you even prevent us in zeal to God's cause: yet when I consider the Subject here, I find 'twas David, David, a man so often repeating his innocency in this Psalm, that Caietan conceives, he wrote it in the person of Christ (there being none but Christ capable of so much innocency) yet even David himself had not so much, but he had need of Washing and Praeparation. Suffer me therefore, if not to give light to your understanding, at the least to quicken your affections: that my periods may serve as so many places of memory, to revive your better meditations.  
And if Greatness might have privileged this person from impurity, David was a King; if the Grace of his soul might have freed him from the soil of sin; he was a man after Gods own heart. But let not great men put too much trust in their greatness; the longer the Robe is, the more soil it contracts; Great power may prove the mother of great damnation. And as for purity, there is a Generation that say there's no sin in them, but they deceive themselves, there's no truth in them. What ever Rome's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pretend for the power of nature, and of freewill, we wretched sinners are taught to conceive more truly of our own infirmity. Christ's own Apostle, stout Thomas, failed in the faith of his Resurrection; Peter (whose Chair is now the pretended seat of Infallibility) denies his Master; David, a man after GOD'S own heart, hath need of washing; and who can say, I am pure in the sight of the LORD? Certainly, O Lord, No flesh is righteous in thy sight. No: this is the best ground of Christian felicity; if with David we fall to a sight of our own sins; if with the Publican, we strike our own breasts, and not with the Pharisee, cast our eye so much upon other men's faults: why should we like Tailors, measure all men but ourselves? As if the best of us had not sin enough of his own to think on See David here calls himself to an account for his own sins; O Lord, I know mine iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. Oh the powerful effect of Christian Devotion! when by the reflective Act of the Understanding, Science is turned into Conscience, and our knowledge is but the glass of our own imperfection, the glass wherein the sight of our sins, send us presently to God, as it did David here, who makes this account only betwixt God and his own Soul, I, O Lord. First, He takes his rise from Humility, and the sight of his own sins, and then he soars up by the wings of Faith, to the Throne of God's mercy: I, O Lord. He sees with his own eyes, and not only with the Church, or the Priest's Spectacles, he is his own Poenitentiary and Confessor; here's no intercession by Saints, no Masses, Merits, Indulgences, Trentals, Dirges: All's done betwixt God and him, I, O Lord. With the eye of Humility, he looks to himself and his own misery, then with the eye of Faith, to God and his mercy, and from both these, results a third virtue of Repentance in the Act of Praeparation, washing the soil of sin in the  of Sorrow, I will wash my hands, etc.  
This washing in religious Preparations, is a custom established even by the Law of Nature. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, was written upon the door of Diana's Temple, and therefore they ever went from Washing to Worshipping from the Laver to the Altar: Lavabo ut rem divinam faciam, was the common practice of the Romans, and even the Turks themselves, Wash before they pray. But not to authorise so divine a Rite from Infidels; In the Old Law, we find Sanctity ever accompanied with Decency; the Laver was placed before the Altar, and Cleansing was ever the preface to Offering. And in the New Law, 'tis our Saviour's Ordinance, that we begin with Baptising; and 'twas his own practice, to Wash his Apostles feet, before the LORDS SUPPER: Not that He would have us insist in the outward Act; No, the very Legal Washing, was the instruction of inward Cleansing. And our Absolution here, it sounds Regeneration, Repentance, Renovation.  
There are two eminent Lauers in the Gospel, the first, Christ's , a hot , Lavacrum Sanguinis, the Laver of CHRIST'S Blood; the second, Our , a cold , Lavacrum Lachrymarum, the Laver of Repentance. These two mixed together, will prove a sovereign Composition, wrought first by CHRIST himself, when He sweat water and blood.  
The first is as that Pool of Bathesda, into which whosoever enters with Faith, is healed; The blood of Christ is the true Laver of Regeneration; a Fountain set open for judah and jerusalem to wash in. The blood of Christ purgeth us from all sins, 1 joh. 1. 7. We account it Charity in Mothers, to feed their Children with their own Milk: How dear is the love of Christ, that both Washes and Feeds us with his own Blood? No sooner are we borne in Christ, but just as our Mothers, so Christ's blood is turned into Milk, nourishing us to everlasting Salvation. What is Calamus Beniamini, or Storax, or a thousand Rivers of Oil, to make us clean, except the Lord purge and cleanse us? No, 'tis His blood that speaks better things than the blood of Abel: Unto Him therefore that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own Blood, and hath made us KINGS and PRIESTS to GOD His Father: to Him be glory and dominion for ever, Revelation 1. 5, 6.  
But yet 'tis the second , the Laver of Repentance, that must apply and make the first Operative. This  of Mary magdalen's repentance, it is a kind of Rebaptisation, giving strength and effect to the first washing. And it implies a threefold Act: First, To bruise our hearts by Contrition; Secondly, To lay our wounds open by Confession to God; Thirdly, to wash our hands in Innocency, by Satisfaction to men.  
The Sacrifice of a broken heart, makes a happy way to the Sacrifice of the Altar. Lachrymae pondera vocis habent, our tears are the best Harbingers we can send before us, our silent Orators to GOD; Quae veniam non postulant, sed obtinent, as Saint Ambrose saith, they speed without ask, and never return from GOD without obtaining. It troubled my Soul in these times of Trial, to perceive the hearts of men filled with distracted thoughts, their mouths with discontented Obloquyes: Had they turned these Passions into sound Repentance, they would soon have found more ease to their Souls. Through this Red Sea of Sorrow, all our FATHERS were wont to pass to the Land of Promise, leaving their enemies, their sins, all swallowed up in those Waters, and by these blessed Streams they were cleansed, not only from civil and temporal, but spiritual and eternal punishments. So Abimelech, Hezekiah, Manasseh, job, the Ninivites. So the Israelites; 'tis true, twice they went up to ask Council of God, and were overthrown by the Beniamites, but the third time, when they went up to GOD'S House, and sat Weeping, and Fasting, from Morn till Even, than they overthrew Benjamin, and Slew twentyfive thousand men of those that drew the Sword, judg. 20. 35.  
This is the third time, my Worthy Auditors, that you have come up to this House of God, and if heretofore ye have failed of your good intentions, I fear 'twas for want of this virtue of Repentance. Prodigious Swearing, blasphemous Cursing, uncharitable Gluttony, swinish Drinking, grating Usury, exacting Bribery, unjust Ambition, merciless Oppression: these are the sins that have kindled a fire in the Land, and call first for your tears, then for your hands to quench it. Ye now present the whole body of the Land, and therefore now before you approach the Altar, Repent for the whole body of the Land. Certainly we have no Purgatory but true Repentance, no holy water but this, can quench the fire of Lust and Hell.  
I know there is no good soul here, which is not wounded at the Common sins of our Nation, and yet which of us all, have ever happily shed one tear, either for our own sins, or the sins of the people? Alas! that we should not yield one drop for those offences; which cost our Saviour many streams of blood to wash them away. I would fain dwell upon this sweet virtue, but your devotions must supply, what the time detracts. And if ye cannot shed a tear, give a sigh for our sins; if not that, repent that you cannot repent: our sins begat our sorrow, let our sorrow devour our sins, as the Worm the Tree that bred it: Wash and wash now, for, ad Aras consulere, it is too late, to wash at the Altar.  
Wash now and wash all, from the Crown of the Head, to the sole of the Foot, there is nothing in us but Wounds, and Sores: yet above all, there is something here in it that David washeth his hands. Indeed it is not enough to come with wet eyes, if we come with foul hands, to offer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with vnwashen hands, The Gentiles would not do it. Contrition and Confession to God make not up complete Repentance, without satisfaction to men. Non remittitur peccatum 
August. Epist. 54 Ser. Latim. before Edw. 6.  nisi restituatur ablatum, It is an true as old, and in old Father Latimers' English it is, either there must be restitution open or secret, or else Hell. Whoever repairs not the wrong, rejoiceth in the sin. Proverbs 2. 14. Where there is no satisfaction, Non agitur sed fingitur paenitentia, saith Saint Augustine: and those who restore not all, wash not their whole hands; they dip only the tipps of their finger. Extortion, Rapine, Bribery, these are the sins of the hands, (sins so proper to the jews that they may well conceive as they do, that the Devil lies all night on their hands, and that is it makes them so Diligent in washing) but as for us Christians, unless these Vipers be shaken off our hands, though ye cover the Altar of the Lord with Tears, with Weeping, and with crying out, yet if you continue in your Pollutions, God regards not your offering any more, nor will he receive it with good will at your hands. Mal. 2. 13.  
But there are some that put more 
Arist. 3. de anima.  spirit here into this Object, and tell us that David aimed at more than his hands. It is true, the hand is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the activest part, and so put here for the whole Body, and not for the body alone, but usually in Holy Writ for all the practic faculties and operations of the Soul; the Understanding, the Will, the Affections, the Mind, the Conscience, Administration, Counsel, All. This washing here, it is not only Ablutio, but Balneatio, it is not a little washing, but an entire Bathing; if any of these be unprepared, unwashed, hand off from the Altar. In the Popish Mass, they think it enough to wash the tipps of their fingers. At our Altar we must wash all, offer the whole man a living and an acceptable Sacrifice to God. Otherwise Pilate washed his hands, and at the same instant condemned Christ. We must wash, and wash thoroughly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in innocency. This is the Integrity of the Act.  
The very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Crown of all our preparation, the purest Water we can wash in, is innocency, and innocency is a virtue of the heart, as well as of the hand. Cleanse your hands 
james 4. 8.  ye sinners; and purify your hearts ye double-Minded. I could wish our washing might be like Crprians Baptising adtincturam, even till we were died in Repentance, and the Blood of Christ. Let the quantity of thy sins be the measure of our Repentance. First offer thine innocency, than thy Sacrifice. It is not enough that you come this day by order, you must come with innocency. God requires the Duty of the second Table, as well as of the first: he abhors the outward Act of Piety, where he finds no conscience and practice of innocency.  
I have here (my Honourable Auditory) a large field to run in, and you to work in; but I will contract myself within David's Limitation. He in this Psalm marks us out three enemies of innocency: Dissemblers, at the fourth verse: Men of blood, at the ninth: and Bribe-takers at the tenth. David (as you this Day) goes to the Altar, that he might separate himself, and not sit with such as these are. And too many such jebusites there are in our Israel, after whom give me leave to make a short inquisition.  
First Dissemblers, such as our Church-Papists in whom Machiavelli in the head hath gotten the advantage of the Pope in the belly; half Papists, half Protestants; Like Oseas Cake, half baked, half dough: Just Saint Augustine's Amphibions: Qui dum volunt esse & judaej, & Christianj, neque sunt judaej, neque Christianj. While they would be both Papists and Protestants, they are indeed Newters and Nihils. Let all zealous souls set a brand upon such Hermophodite Christians, as these latter times have discovered to us.  
There is another sort of them yet, to whom we are more beholding though it be but for their impudence, professed Dissemblers, who willbe professed Papists, and yet professed Partakers of our Altar, and they have a reason in conscience for it too: our Sacrament is no Sacrament, they receive it only in a civil obedience, and it is no more with them, than a civil act. Oh the bold cunning of Satan, whose kingdom consists in lying, without either memory or modesty; in dissembling without shame or innocency; and if any such Foxes be crept into the Vineyard of judah, and think to lurk under our Altar: give me leave to hunt them out with their own Weapons, even such as shall challenge the best Buckler the Devil affords them, their Equivocation.  
First then tell me: thou professed Hypocrite. To deny Gods true Worship, is not this to deny God himself? and dost not thou by joining in our Sacraments, deny thine own Religion? in thy conceit the only true worship: True, but thou dost it in show only, not in heart, no more did Saint Peter, when he denied Christ, but he that denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father. Matth. 10. 13. Again, if we be such branded Heretics as you style us, our Table is as you term it, the table of Devils, and therefore to communicate with us, is to shake hands with Satan, and partake of the Table of Devils, 1. Cor. 10. verse. 18 If yet ye will not go when the Devil drives you, at the least let that which you prefer above either GOD or the Devil, the power of your Church, let that exorcise you Is it not your Trent Prescription, fetched out of Lombard, and Aquin Firmi in side non debent conversari cum Haereticis 
Sent. 4. Dist. 13. q. 10. Aquin. ibid.  in divinis. Those that are firm in the Roman faith, ought not to converse with Heretics in Divine Worship. Was it think you well done of Saint Peter, to scandalise the Gospel by eating with the Gentiles, if he do, Saint Paul will withstand him to his own face, and so do I you. In a word, if the curse of Rome or your own conscience can prevail with you, hand off from our Altar. If God be God, follow him: if Baal be God, away from this Holy place, follow him. Those that thus equivocate in God's House, what will they do in your House, and in your Counsels? There should be none but David's sons in David's assembly, but there is none of David's seed love to sit with Dissemblers. vers. 4. Much less with such Dissemblers as lie in wait for blood: Such as hear not the complaints of the wronged, but build up Zion with blood, and jerusalem with iniquity Micah. 3. 10. Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with such bloody men, verse 9 But of these more anon.  
The third Corrupter of innocency is he, whose right hand is full of Bribes, verse 10. Bribery, an ubiquitary vice, a sin as fearful as common; as in a public Auditory at Paul's Cross, I have heretofore discovered, and though I have known whole families groan under the burden of it: I have neither time, nor will to repeat any thing I then Delivered. Only spare me so much of your pious liberty, to commend to your Religious endeavours, one prodigious strain of corruption, the stain both of Religion and nature, some of the Professors whereof have fallen within the lists of mine own knowledge, and those are English Pensioners to For rain States. Such as sacrifice their King, their Country, their Parents, nay their Saviour to Mammon; such as wind into our Court, our Parliaments, our hearts; such as eat and take Council together with us, but like the Traitors in the Trojan horse, fifty of them do more hurt in one night, than five thousand open enemies in ten year. I might subioyne to these such World-wormes, as sell their consciences either for Court-favour, or popular applause, pretending the Common good, but aiming at their own.  
But I make haste to the Altar, it is your washing in innocency must prepare you for that, and the zeal of that cannot but stir you up to wash the Land from corruption. I will wind up this point with the Prophet Esay's Character of a good Parliament, as I may call it. Wash you, make you clean, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the Fatherless, plead for the widow; then come and let's reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as white as Wool. Esay 1. 16.  
Not that all this washing and innocency of ours sufficeth to salvation, without God's Altar: If it had, it is likely David would have gone no farther: Nay even when we are at the Altar; in Altari non invenit viam, qui in Christo non invenit causam: Not by the works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of Regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Tit. 3. 5. We see after all his washing, yet David goeth to the Altar.  
This is Motus, his gesture, he doth not only look on it, he goes to it: as in the old Transl. He doth not as most among us, make the Temple a thoroughfare, and pass by the Altar, but with seemly devotion he compasseth the Altar: as in the new Tran. I might here Litigate which were the fittest gesture at the holy Table; standing, Sitting, Walking, or Kneeling, which are all used in several Churches. The reason of this diversity is the generality of the Gospel's Phrase, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Matth. 26. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 22. 14. They both signify leaning, or falling down, not sitting. David's gesture was compassing with Hymns and Psalms; and the same gesture Theodofious and Charles the Great used; but I would not here make a quarrel of a Ceremony, I leave that to the Tithers of mint and cummin, who in the mean time let pass the more essential comfort of God's Table. It is enough that the Text runs with our Church, making humility and penitence the best preparative to the Altar, no gesture too low in the receit of so high a benefit, Humble yourselves in the fight of the Lord, and he shall lift ye up. james 4. 10. And as for this and the whole body of our Church-orders, I had it from the mouth of that Reverend Father Paul of Venice, the worthy Author of (that excellent discovery) the History of the Council of Trent, that he esteemed the Hyerarchy of our Church, the most excellent piece of Discipline in the whole Christian World. But however they esteem it abroad, we here at home, if we be not unworthily-unthankfull must needs confess, that for this sixty years and upwards, we have felt such a blessed effect of it, as no other Church nor Nation in the Christian World can parallel. And therefore to your care, and love I commend it. Compass you God's Altar, with your protection, and you have Gods own Word for it: he will compass you with his providence, He will open the Chatar acks of Heaven, and power out a Blessing upon you. Mal. 3. 10. Bless you God's Altar, and no question God's Altar will bless you.  
Thus at the length, though I fear with some exercise of your patience, I have brought you to the desired port of Health, the Altar.  
The Altar? why but that is the place where the Romanists would have you; if to the Altar, then to a Mass, to a sacrifice for the Living and the Dead: God forbidden. I confess that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come both from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to sacrifice, 
Lib. 1. de miss.  and with Bellarmine that an Altar properly taken, infers a sacrifice properly taken. But the words that I speak unto you, are spirit and life. john 6. 63. Our High Priest is Spiritual. Heb. 10. 22. our Priesthood, and our Sacrifice Spiritual, 1. Peter 2. 5. When we speak properly, in our Canons and Communion Book, we call it with the Apostles, (and as Bellarmine confesseth with all the Fathers to Tertullians' time, 200. years of Christ) The Table of the Lord, 1 Cor. 10. 21. Not but that in a Metaphorical sense we can allow it to be called Altar, and Sacrifice too: We are content to hear Saint Chrysostome call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Sacrifice, if he add by way of explanatiall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, rather the memorial of a sacrifice. In this we will subscribe to their own Lombard, Vocatur Sacrificium quia memoria 
Lib. 4. Dist. 12.  est veri Sacrificij. It is called a Sacrifice because it is the memorial of a true Sacrifice. We confess it both an Altar, and a Sacrifice in Signato, though not in Signo, in the thing signified, though not in the sign. We contemplate at the Altar, the Son of God himself sweeting Blood, wrestling with the wrath of his Father, torn on the Cross, pierced to the Heart, for our sins. We confess him there, as the Holy Lamb of God, really offered up a true Propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, and by the Virtue of this Sacrament really sealing up remission to our souls.  
And if then we have no other hope nor faith, but in that real Sacrifice of Christ once offered for us, why have those men of blood, for this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this word-quarrell of the Altar, sacrificed the lives of so many Devout Confessors? while they profess they drink the blood of Christ, why have they made themselves so drunk with the blood of Christians and Christian Princes? In these men is too truly fulfilled that vision of john, Reuele. 6. 9 I saw under the Altar, the souls of them that were killed for the Word of God, and for the Testimony which they have maintained. Should these men escape your Zeal and justice, which I assure myself they shall not, yet God hath a cup in store for them, with which they shall one day be fully drenched. Because they have shed the Blood of the Saints, therefore hast thou given them blood to drink. Reu. 18. vers. 4. & 24.  
Let such as these still offer their sacrifices which cannot take away sins. Heb. 10. 11. But let us who have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat, Let us hold fast the Profession of our Faith, without wavering, Hebrews 10. 23. As all jewish sacrifices looked forward, so all ours look backward to the sacrifice of Christ. They were as the morning shadows; growing shorter and shorter till the midday, ours as the afternoon shadows, growing longer even till the second coming of our Saviour, when we shall offer the sacrifice of praise for ever.  
Let us in the mean time with David in the next verse, begin that Eucharist here; let us at the Altar of GOD, show forth the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Gods wondrous Works. The wondrous works of our Creation, Vocation, Redemption, the wondrous work of God's Blessing this Land with peace, plenty, and the liberty of the Gospel; the wondrous work of our preservation in 88 the wonder of wonders in our delivery from the Gunpowder Treason; the wondrous work of our Royal Prince's safe return to his Pious Father's House: in all these the wondrous love of God to his Dear Church, and the members thereof, his constant servants in this Land.  
And if God hath so loved us, let not us now fail to love one another: Ye have all taken oaths heretofore, ratify them now again at God's Altar, vow one vow more there, even the vow of love and constant union, and the power of Grace enable you to perform it. The Altar is the proper seat of reconciliation, Mat. 5. 24. and that Holy Sacrament, as it is the best Pledge of God's love to us, so of our Communion, one with another. Believe it Christians, the main axiom and anvil of popish Policy, the very Axle whereon they wind about the whole body of their Machiavilisme in England, is our division and dissension; themselves have bragged, that there is no way so ready to convert a Lutheran, as by the passion of a Caluinist: no means so prompt to make a Protestant a Papist, as by the opposition of a Puritan. Thus they endeavour to destroy us (as we destroyed their invincible Navy) by sending fire, even the fire of dissension in the midst of us. Oh let us bear down this policy of the world, with the wisdom of the Spirit: Away with these distracting names of Lutheran, Caluinist, Puritan, etc. We are all the children of the same father, who hath begotten us in the love of one Mediator, and Sanctified us by one and the same Spirit. Christ and his spouse, the King, and his Kingdom, Christian Brother and Brother, these are they which God hath joined together, and cursed may he be that endeavours to put them asunder.  
I will conclude with the Vote of Paul, I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together, in the same mind, and the same judgement: That so by the united power of charity, and a good cause ye may all march on Valiantly, and meet the adversary in the face, constantly fight the battle of our Elder Brother Christ jesus, who fought to the Death, for our sins.  
That jesus, who for us was made both the Priest, the Altar, and the Sacrifice, accept this your morning Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. He wash you in his blood, cloth you in his innocency, Crown you with his Glory. He this Day at his Altar convey such grace into your hearts, that ye may form all your ensuing, actions, and counsels, as if you were still at God's Altar. To that jesus with the Eternal Father, and Holy Spirit, we ascribe all Praise, Power, Glory, Dominion, in Saecula Saeculorum.  
Amen.  
FINIS.