A SERMON OF DELIVERANCE. Preached at the spital on Easter Monday, 1626.  
Upon Entreaty of the Lord Maior and Aldermen. Published by Authority. And Dedicated to the City of London.  
By HENRY KING D. D. One of his Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary.  
LONDON, Printed by JOHN HAVILAND, for john Marriot. 1626.   

A SERMON OF Deliverance.  PSAL. 91. 3. For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the Hunters, and from the noisome Pestilence. 
I Stay not upon unneedfull Preface, to show with what accord the Text suits this Time. The Israelites Passeover, and the Christians Easter, wherein Christ our Passeover was slain, bear record that this Festival was founded on two most memorable Deliverances, the first from Egypt, the last from Sinne. To which General Deliverance what Title you make, common Religion and Faith must teach. But the particular Interest you have in the latter part of my Text: Your Cities happy recovery from her late mortal Sickness, and your Gratitude instruct you.  
The Argument of the Text is Deliverance. 
Division.  Liberabit, Shall deliver.  
The Author. He shall deliver.  
The Subject on whom it is wrought, Thee.  
The Danger from which He delivers, which is twofold: 

1. From the Snare of the Hunters.  
2. From the Noisome Pestilence.    
I take the Text in the Method it lies.  
It is no flat or low expression to decipher God by a pronoun rather than a Name, 
1. Herald  but the most eminent form of speech that may be. He that can take the just dimensions of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He, shall find it a word of an exalted sense, capable of none but the worthiest constructions: A word fit to blazon Honour without diminution of the least title, and able to reach the highest superlative, Him that sits above the Heavens. I find no higher glory at which Pythagoras sometimes aimed but to possess himself of this poor Pronoune, nor could his Scholars who so much admired him, speak his worth in a fuller style, or make a nobler mention of him in any Attribute then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Herald That Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He said it, being of as indubitable truth as the Pythian Oracle, not to be doubted or disputed but believed. What ever claim He or his Scholars for him could lay to this word, I am sure was only usurpation, since the right belongs properly to God, who is He 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that prime Active power who made Heaven and Earth: whose Ipse dixit, was of such Authority, that it proclaimed Him not only the God of Truth but Power too: For you see the whole Creation waited on his word, Dixit & facta sunt, He said the word, and all which he said was done. We need not then search for other Attributes to speak Him. In this one syllable He, all that we can think of Him, is spoken. If the whole World be a Book penned and composed by God: If all the several sorts of Creatures be the Pages of that Book, this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He, is the Index that points and directs us unto every Leaf 'twas He that made this firm Mass on which we tread, laying the foundations so sure, it cannot be moved: 'twas He that lighted those great Tapers in the firmament, whose successive government distinguishes our Times, our Days, and our Nights. 'twas He that levied those bright Powers in Heaven, which like a ranged Battle march and move in their order: 'tis He that regulates the Influence of the Stars, restraining the Pleyades, 
job 38. 31.  or enlarging them as he thinks good. 'tis He that brings the winds out of his treasures, Arise O North, 
Cant. 4. 16.  and come O South, and blow upon this garden of the Earth. 'tis He who keeps the Snow and Hail as it were in Bank, and hath a Magazine in the Clouds, where his Munition, his Artillery, the Thunder, and the Lightning, which he darts against his Enemies, are laid up. 'tis He that shuts up the Sea with doors, bounding the Wave with a Bank. Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, 
job 38. 8. 11.  Here shall it stay thy proud wave. It was He that epitomised this large Volume of his Creation, abridging the greater World in the lesser World, which is Man, his Masterpiece, drawn from no meaner Copy than the Original, God himself, whose Image he bears. And last, It was He that when the workmanship of the Devil upon a persuasion to make him better, had blurred the Image of God which was portrayed in Man, renewed this defaced Picture, and by a gracious Deliverance freed him from that hand unto which his own Disobedience had surrendered him.  
See how just a Report this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes of him, how it tracks and follows him through the whole catalogue of his works, even to my text. All which though it be perfectly able to name, yet it is not able to name Him. In job 38. where God acquaints that servant of his with his greatest Works, yet when He comes to discover himself that did all those, He speaks out of the Whirlwind that which job no more understands, than he sees the speaker, that which rather poseth than resolves him, Quis est? Who is He that hath done all this? And certainly when the busiest search hath been made after Him, the best information is taken from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 'Tis He, that Almighty, 
Verse 1.  most high, that Cause of Causes, Primitive Essence, from whence all Being is derived: That He whom we can express in no English but God: nor can we define that sacred Style by any thing but Himself. He that is Himself, according to his own Message, I am that I am. He who from our inability to utter Him raises this Trophy to Himself, that He is too great for our expression, an Argument fitter for our Faith than our Words, with more ease believed then spoken.  
Thrice happy we, if we had still looked on Him at that holy Distance, if profanation had not trenched upon his Honour so far, as to dare invoke that Sacred Power, whom all Attributes are too narrow to contain, in an Imprecation, or an Oath, who never should be mentioned but in our prayers. And in stead of offering a devout violence to Heaven in those prayers, offered a literal violence, setting our mouths against Heaven, like Cannons planted for Battery, to discharge nothing but Blasphemies against the Lord of Heaven and Earth, from whence we purchase a luckless victory, whilst we thus besiege Heaven, we win Hell. The jews bore that reverence to their Tetragrammaton, the Name of God, that they never named it but in the Temple: But how many are there amongst us, who are more familiar with God in a Tavern than a Temple, where the intemperate heat of Wine inflames those Tongues to violate Him, which ought to be inflamed with holy zeal to confess and praise Him? How many be there whose sins are their best Catechisms, that apprehend no knowledge of God, but to swear by; that never Take that Name into their mouths, but to break a Law by taking it in vain, Inverting their Creed, in stead of Credo in Deum, I believe in God, into juro per Deum, I swear by God.  
O wretched familiarity of man with his Maker, where God is grown so cheap to be despised! Such acquaintance as it begins in an ungracious boldness, so must it end in forgetting; For as Christ told those that intruded upon his knowledge, with a Domine in nomine, 
Matth. 7. 12.  Lord in thy name we have cast out Devils, so shall he dismiss those who by their Diabolical Blasphemies have cast out God; Depart from me, I know you not. Never must they be acquainted with any other kind of Deliverance than that in the Gospel, to be delivered over to judgement. 
* Act. 25. 12.  Festus told Paul He should go that way his Appeal lay. They have Appealed unto judgement, in calling God as a Witness to their Oaths, and therefore cannot without a speedy repentance make title to his Mercy, or lay claim to that Deliverance which speaks him a loving Father, as well as a powerful God, Liberabit, He shall deliver etc.  
There needs no Comment, 
Shall Deliver.  nor doth this Dialect require an Interpreter beyond itself. At this word Deliverance, as at a Label, the Seals of God's love to Mankind are affixed. Seals so authentic, that they need no hand to sign the Instrument. This word like a loud Herald proclaims the Author. Mercy speaks God in a shriller, more audible accent, than Power. For His mercy is above all his works, or attributes. The pennons of the Cherubins that stretched their wings over the Propitiatory, 
Exod. 25. 20.  and were a covering to the Mercy-seat, would want Extension to shadow the unconfined Mercy of their Maker, which covers them, and like a cool comfortable shadow, shelters us from the scorches of the last judgement, which will break out in fire and brimstone. The Creation of Man was a large Evidence of his Power, but the Deliverance he wrought in repairing the Decays of Nature, a work beyond the Sphere of Power, 
Leo Ser. 11. de Pass.  Quia plus est reparâsse quod perierat, quam à Principio creâsse quod non erat, It was a harder task to save a sinner, than to make a Man.  
He that before might doubt what person this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoted, in the next word Liberabit, He shall deliver, takes his full resolution. God's Titles are his Works, and the best of those Titles is his best Work, Deliverance. 'tis God's fashion (saith Saint Ambrose) Non respondere nomen sed negotium, rather to declare himself by the business he Acts, than a Name; which is of little use, when the Description is Radical, and so essential as this Liberabit, He shall deliver. I find several Readins of the word, He hath delivered, so the Arabic, and Aethhiopic, which Lorinus professes to follow. Others read it in the Present, He doth deliver; but the Septuagint is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He shall, or he will deliver. From which I only note unto you, that God's favours are not circumscribed within the limits of any Time. Salvation belongs to our God in all Places at all Times, and in every Tense, wherein the Grammar can form, or Religion invoke it. We must not so interpret the word, as if his Deliverance lay yet under Promise, not wrought, nor performed amongst us; as if it were only future, expected, but not come, He shall deliver: nor yet Liberavit, He hath delivered, take it as a past act now out of Date, which he hath once done, but will no more. Though his judgements stand as single Precedents, recorded to have been once done, but disavowed for ever being done again, as doth the Deluge after which God is said to repent Him, and then contracts with Man never to destroy him again by water; yet his Mercies are Leading cases, which God is well content we should still urge: They are Patterns by which He is often pleased to work. Like fruitful Copies that multiply by Imitation, they disperse themselves through all successive generations of Time. And though men allow it not, God gives us leave to draw his favours into Example, emboldening us to prescribe upon his goodness; bidding us be assured that if He did formerly bestow his blessings on us, He is still able to pair and fellow those blessings again. That He is the God of Succession, as well as of our Forefathers; unto whom if his hand of bounty were liberally extended, it is not closed to us. His mercy is not shortened, nor the Arm of his Deliverance reservedly shut up within his Bosom: That Arm is stretched out still, 
Esay 43. 6.  ready to embrace Filios è longinquo, The Children from far, that is, the last remotest Generations of the World, as well as the first. What in the Method of his Goodness He hath Once Done, He did it to act over again, Sicut erat in Principio sempèr erit: There is no change in his Mercy no more than in Himself, who is Yesterday and to day, 
Hebr. 13. 8.  and the same for evermore. He hath, He doth still, He will deliver.  
It was a speech of Seneca, being to treat of an Argument, though unlike this, Rem faciam non difficilem causam agens Dei. It was an easy task to report God's Story; We have heard with our Ears, and our Fathers have declared the Mercies he hath wrought for his people. Knowledge, Experience report, Tradition and Histories are full freighted with the Annals of his Deliverance. Deliverance of all kinds by an Inuasive Army, or single combat, as in the Duel betwixt David and Goliath. Deliverance in all Sexes, wrought by the hands of women as well as men. jaels' hammer was no less victorious than Gedeons' sword; and the Nail she drove into the Temples of Sisera, as deadly as the spear of jonathan: judith the widow of Bethulia, stands in the triumphant list of Conquerors as well as judas Maccabeus, who like a Lion, never turned his back to the pursuit of any Enemy: And the head of Holofernes by her struck off, proved as terrible to the Assyrian Host, as the head of the Gorgon worn in the shield of Perseus, which turned all that looked upon it, into amazement and stone.  
And since I am in the Catalogue of female Wonders, let it not seem a Digression, but a glory both to our Nation and our God whose Instrument she was, to say that our Elizabeth, that unpatterned Mirror of her Sex, that only Example of masculine hereoick Virtue, which the latter or indeed any times produced, hath as many Pennons, as many Streamers hung about her Hearse, as many Trophies of Conquest to adorn her precious memory, as any of those names, who whilst they lived were wedded to victory, the Edward's or the Henry's; They that ran the hazard of so many dreadful Battles, they that stood the shock of War against so many enemies, foreign and domestic, making from every place their Retreits with Honour to themselves and advantage to their Kingdom.  
But I lose myself in this vast subject of God's mercy, acted in so many shapes and by such various ways, that they require a Chronicle to give you information rather than a short discourse. Let me carry you once more back, and leave you upon the holy Story of the Scriptures, and from thence you will soon conclude, that Deliverance is God's Title, confirmed to Him, not only by the confession of those records, but by the Obedience of every Element.  
Which to serve his purposes have changed and altered their properties. The fire hath laid by his heat, and the churlish element of water grown tame, that it might be a preservative to such as God was pleased to save. 
Dan. 3.  His three servants walked in that Vault of flames as in an Arbour, the fire having no more power to hurt them, than the gentlest breath of Air that nourishes, not kills those that take it in. When He led his people out of Egypt He was not only their Leader but their Host too, both their Captain and their Army. He was their Vaunt & He was their Rearguard. Whilst they were under March He went before them in the Pillar of Smoke and Fire, 
Exod. 13. 21.  both to discover and clear their passage. But when Egypt had them in Chase He came behind them, interposing Himself betwixt the Armies as a trench or stronger Bulwark to keep them asunder. And when He brought them to the Red Sea, the obedient Flood recoiled against its own stream, flowed back against itself to give them way, making the waves a solid Wall, whilst they recovered the other Shore.  
Which Deliverance referred to an higher. For Egypt was figuratively the Captivity of Sin, and Christ our Saviour was typed by the Paschall Lamb. So that the whole story of that deliverance was not consummate till Christ's passion, whose Consummatum est concluded all the preceding types, fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, and put a Period to the great work by Him undertook for Mankind.  
To warrant which Digression of mine from the first Person of the Trinity to the Second; it is the Opinion of some, 
Petr. Galatin▪ de Arcanis Cathol. verit. l. 3. c. 14.  that this whole Psalm pointed at the Incarnation of the Son of God; taking that Habitabit in umbra etc. 
Psal. 90. 1.  to signify the womb of the blessed Virgin, where the Divinity lay veiled and shadowed in flesh. And Sadai in the Hebrew mentioned vers. 1. to be one of the Names of the Messias, denoting Him, as the sense of the word carries it. Qui solus pro humano genere satisfacere sufficit, who was the only sufficient sacrifice for the sin of Mankind.  
But my purpose is not to dispute his Title to this Psalm; I only plead his right to my Text, so far as the Title of Deliverance enforces it. Which was His by the full allowance of Faith and Scripture. It is a Rule in Divinity, that Opera Trinitatis ad extrà sunt Indivisa, in an external consideration; The works of the whole Trinity which look outward are undistinguished and common. What one Person does, all do, because all are but one and the same God. Our Creed attributes the Creation properly to God the Father, and yet you see Gen. 1. the whole Trinity exercised both in the Act and in the Consultation when Man was created. Faciamus, Let us make man. By the same latitude of speech we communicate Salvation to the whole Trinity, though the peculiar right and strict propriety of the Idiom belong to the Second Person, at whose coming Salvation arrived upon the Earth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Habac. 3. 8.  (saith the Prophet) His Chariot brought Deliverance into the World, Himself being not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Saviour, but Salvation in the Abstract; Who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. 
1 Cor. 1. 30.  He that was a Deliverer by an early promise, so soon as the first Man's ruin made him capable of Redemption, being that Seed of the woman which should bruise the Serpent's head. 
Gen. 3. 15.  He that was the Soul of every Sacrifice, all which were but Hostages of that greatest Propitiation by his blood. The Prophet Esay gave him Livery and Seizing in this Title; Ecce Saluator tuus venit: 
Esa. 62. 11.  Behold thy Saviour cometh. And Luc. 1. the Angel which proclaimed Him puts Him in the full possession, To you a Saviour is borne.  
A Title unto which He was justly fitted, in every Action of his Life declaring that He was not only the Saviour of the Soul in forgiving sins, but of the Body too, in curing the diseased, in cleansing the Leprous, in dispossessing such as were possessed of Devils; In opening the doors of every sense, Ears barred up with deafness, and Eyes that had never been acquainted with any thing but Night and Darkness. He was a Saviour Actively and Passively; a Deliverer by way of Purchase and Redemption; a Deliverer by way of Rescue, and a Deliverer by way of Conquest too: He purchased us from the wrath of God, and rescued us from the jaws of Death and Hell in his Passion; and He triumphed over those Enemies in the victorious Act of his Resurrection.  
When the first Man had sold himself to sin, & in that luckless' bargain concluded us his wretched posterity, passed us away into the power of the Devil, who bought him from all Obedience▪ He than stood forfeited to the wrath and justice of God, as having violated the conditions unto which God at first bound him: For so runs the Indenture, 
Gen. 2. 17.  Quô die comederis etc. In that day thou eatest of it thou shalt die the Death.  
Upon which trespass his Charter was canceled, and the privilege of his birth reversed, God now seizing back into his hands the possession of that happiness wherein at first he was instated. 
Gen. 3.  The Earth was cursed out of her plenty into weeds and barrenness, his wife doomed unto the sorrows of travel, and himself bound to preserve life by a perpetuity of sweat and labour. So that since his happiness and whole being was now confiscate, he had no possibility to discharge the debt, but like a miserable Debtor, must have languished in his imprisonment, had not the Son of God become his Surety; had not he undertaken to satisfy the offended Creditor. Which He did, and with no meaner Sum than the unualued drops of his blood, tendered at six several payments. The first at his Circumcision, which was the opening of that Exchequer, which never shut up till the full ransom was paid. The second in the Garden, where in his painful Agony He sweat more blood for us, than we ever wept tears for ourselves. The third at his Scourging, 
Psal. 129. 3.  when his back was ploughed up in furrows, and his whole flesh which was now Caro discontinua, indeed (as Caietan calls it) had not so much skin to fence it, as would distinguish one wound from another, the heavy chastisement of our peace now upon him, 
Esay 53. 5.  having made his whole body but one wound. The fourth was at his sad Coronation, which proclaimed Him not only virum dolorum, 
Esay 53. 3.  a man of sorrows, but a King of sorrows; when the sharp thorny Crown, not fitted, but beaten to his head, opened so many weeping issues at his Temples, that He was now unctus sanguine vulneratorum (as David spoke of Saul) anointed with his own blood in stead of Oil. The fifth was on the Cross, where upon a most unjust Statute enacted by the clamour and importunity of the jews, who still cried Crucify him, Crucify him, his whole body was extended for the Debt, his hands and feet forcibly entered by hammers and nails, which possessed themselves of his whole stock of life, and almost all the treasure of his blood, saving only so much as was reserved for the sixth and last payment, which his side pierced with the Spear poured out when he was dead. Wherein to show that he had fully perfected his bloody Audit, without collusion or reservation, that he had paid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the utmost farthing, even to the last drop, That he was not only Exinanitus, emptied and devested of his Divine Attributes, but Euacuatus, in a literal, corporeal sense Evacuated and Poured out, He sent forth that thin waterish moisture which lodgeth with the blood, in so much that his witness saw at one Wound a double current of water and blood flowing out. 
joh. 19 34.   
This was the fearful Method of his Redemption, at this bloody Rate did he repurchase God's favour which we had lost. 
Col. 1. 20.  Pacificans per sanguinem suum, making our peace with God, and redeeming us to God by his blood 
Reu. 5 9  (that is) as well re-enstating God in us, as us in His Favour. Which was a true Redemption, a payment so full, that the Apostle avows the bargain, as purchased for a valuable Consideration, Pretio empti estis magno, 
1 Cor. 6. 20.  Ye are bought at an high rate.  
But yet, though by this payment the justice of God was satisfied, the malice of the Devil, more unsatiate than Hell or Death, under whose arrest's Man now lay, would not be satisfied, nor would he give consent that the Prisoner should be released, though the Ransom were paid. Therefore our blessed Saviour by way of Rescue, as well as Purchase, was fain to deliver him from his unjust jailor.  
Pharaoh held out an obstinate siege against God's Commands, and in that Rebellion stood the danger of Nine Plagues. He did not think the Destruction of his cattle, or Famine of his Land valuable Plagues to ransom such a Nation as Israel from his bondage, and therefore would not be induced to let them go, till the immediate Arm of God rescued them, and then forced to it by his sword, that had the whole Land upon an Execution 
Exod. 12. 30.  (for there was no house wherein there was not one dead.) He did not only dismiss, but urge them to a departure: Of such Rescue as this did man stand need of, Treaty or Composition would not prevail with the deaf Grave, which uses not to let out any that lie under his silent ward, but still calls for more. And therefore see how our Saviour prepares himself for this Combat, encountering the Enemy upon the evenest terms that might be, for he engaged only his Humanity in this quarrel, not bringing his Divinity in sight till the Battle was won. 
Leo Serm. 5. de Pass.  Si, pro peccatoribus sola se opponeret Deitas non tam ratio Diabolum vinceret quam potestas (saith Leo.) To let them see He did not contest with them upon apparent disadvantage, He would not fight against them with the Power of his Godhead, which must needs over-match them, and keep himself unhurt, but entered the lists for Man, as Man, not Impassable, not Invulnerable, but with a body subject to all that man is, Sin and Corruption only excepted. 
Psal. 15. 10.  This holy one could not taste corruption (saith David) though He was wounded and killed for us; 
Esay 53. 5.  as Esay and Daniel prophesied of Him. And that they might not complain of the disadvantage of ground, He invaded Death in his own Quarters. 
Matth. 27. 33.  In Golgotha was his Battle pitched, which is the Field of death. In which Field the most eminent but indifferent piece of ground was chosen out, Mount Caluary; which by the opinion of some Fathers, justin Martyr & others, was the very grave where Adam's body was interred. 
Matth. 24. 28.  Vbi Cadaver ibi Aquilae: where should Eagles congregate but where the Carcase lies? Where could Christ better combat for Adam's Liberty, than at the Prison door, upon the Tomb where Adam's Body was shut up? There did our Saviour meet Death, and in a Passive Defensive War, suffered him to prevail upon his Body, seeming to give ground at first, that so he might foil him by a greater Stratagem.  
He knew that Caluary was but the Outworks of Death, from which slight Fort, raised only with dead men's bones, if He should have beaten Him, He well understood there were other lower works, stronger Redoubts unto which Death might have retired, and therefore that He might be sure to get within him, to be admitted into the strongest of Death's fortifications, like Soldiers that sometimes surprise an Adverse Town by putting themselves into the Enemy's Colours, He disguised Himself in the wan pale Colours of Death, He died, that so getting his Access into the Grave, He might beat Death in his own Trenches.  
Which he performed, and having by this defeat rescued the Prisoners from their bondage, the third day proclaimed his Victory and Resurrection. Three days he lay in Earth, like sleeping Samson in the lap of Dalilah, 
joh. 19 40.  linteis involutus, manacled and bound with linen clothes, as you read in the Gospel. He might truly say, Cinxerant mee funes Mortis, 
Psal. 116. 3.  The snares or cords of Death compassed me, 
Act. 2. 24.  but it was impossible for him to be holden with those cords (saith another Scripture.) And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, losing the sorrows or Bands of Death 
Lorinus.  (so the Syriack reads it) he came out. His incorruptible body lay indeed like a dangerous surfeit in the Stomach of Earth, which was unable to digest it, or by assimilation to turn it into its own substance, as by that common chyle of putrefaction ordinary courses convert into Earth; and therefore it must needs cast Him up again, or perish by that distemper.  
And cast Him up it did, as Egypt ejected Israel, laden with their own spoils. In that Triumph He disarmed Death, broke off the sharp point of his dart, took out his sting. O mors ubi aculeus? He led captivity captive, and by this Ascent, gave gifts, liberty and enfranchisement, to Men.  
His glorious resurrection which most properly we now commemorate, styled his Deliverance in the loftiest key, that glory or conquest could be strained up to; A Deliverance wrought by a high hand to manifest his Godhead & clear our Faith; which though it were sorely shaken by his Death, (Before that we trusted (saith Cleopas) that it had been He who should have delivered 
Luc. 24. 21.  Israel) yet it recovered again and was established by his resurrection. A Deliverance by which he quitted Himself as well as us, 
Ephes. 5. 23.  Saluator corporis sui (that I may use S. Paul's phrase, though in another sense) by repossessing the power he put off, as well as by relieving us▪ His Passion spoke him Man, His Resurrection God; Every circumstance of his Arising, raising us by so many steps and stairs to the confession of his Divinity. How well did He interpret that Text of S. john, 
john 2. 20.  Habeo potestatem ponendi animam & reassumendi, when in a most powerful manner He reassumed that life which was not ravished from Him by the jews Tyranny, but laid down by Himself. 
Mat. 27▪ 66.  The strong guard that was set to make good his Monument, nor the Monument which was sealed up to make Him safe, being unable to resist his passage. In a Godlike disdain of the vigilant Malice of the jews, He made a dead sleep, like that which fell upon the first Man when his Rib was taken forth, 
Gen. 2. 21.  lock up the senses of his drowsy watchmen, that thought to have locked Him up, and kept his Body like a Relic cased up in Marble. And though the jaws of his Tomb were close shut upon Him, without any external help to wrench them open, or to remove that weighty stone which lay at the mouth of the Grave, 
Mat. 27. 60.  He issued out, making his Escape as subtle, as unconceivable.  
For Air to breath out at the least cranny and vent itself when it is imprisoned, is Natural; but for one body to pass through an other (I say not by Penetration of the Dimensions, but a Miraculous Session) is above the Power of Nature. For flesh and bones thus to make way through the solid Rock, is even more than Miracle, and not less than Divinity; Cui pervium est omne solidum, to which Nature, 
Leo Serm. de Quadrages.  though to her own prejudice, gives way.  
It was very much, I confess, Propriâ virtute, by his own Power to raise His Body from Death, but to raise it in this fashion by such a proud unpractised experiment, for a close Prisoner to Bail Himself, to quit the jail, yet be beholding to no Key to let Him out, save his own Power, which is the True Key of David, must needs advance the Dignity of the Deliverance, and of Him that wrought it. Thus did our blessed Saviour arise from his Grave, 
Gregor. Nazianzon.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He came forth of Himself, when the Vault was shut. For though we read that the stone was rolled away from the mouth of the Grave by the Angel; 
Mat. 28. 2.  Yet saith Hierome, Non putamus Angelum ideo venisse ut aperiret sepulchrum Christo; 
Hieron.  We must not think the Angel came to open the Sepulchre and help Christ out: That stone was not removed by the Angel till he was gone, (saith justin Martyr) and the cause why it was removed this only, ut declararetur spectantibus Resurrectio, 
justin. Mart.  to declare the truth of his Resurrection. An Action worthy of Him, and most suitable to his Birth (as Athanasius infers) 
Athanasius.  Ille qui per portam clausam Matris suae virginis Mariae in carne natus fuit, saluà virginitate Matris, Ille ex visceribus Terrae per sigilla viws & corporaliter surgit. He that through the Virgin doors of his Mother's womb came into the world without impeachment to her Virginity; He at his second Birth came from the Womb of the Earth without any violation of the Seals that closed Him in. This glorious, though scornful Triumph, did He make over His Enemies, to let them see that it was His own sentence, not their Power, which made them His Executioners; and that when He was pleased to revoke their Commission, no Fetters could bind, or Prisons immure Him, being, 
Psal. 87. 6.  as the Psalmist speaks, Solus inter mortuos liber: And also to confirm us, that He who being bound was without other help able to unloose Himself, is much more able to enlarge us when He is free.  
This Act of His Resurrection was but as a Tutor to indoctrinate our Faith, an Exemplary Act to assure our Arising; Resurrexit in exemplum spei nostrae. 
Tertullian.  And not only to be the Example of our Rising, but the Cause too. For His own dignity was He Primitiae Mortuorum, 
1 Cor. 15. 20.  the first-fruits of the Dead, the first that rose, 'twas fit His sacred Body should have the Precedence from Death to Life: and it was necessary for us, that He should be first, ut nostrae Resurrectionis causa esset, 
Tho. Aquin. part. 3. quaest. 53. art. 1.  that so He might be the cause of our Resurrection: according to that rule given us by Aristotle, 
Arist. Metaph. 2.  Illud quod est primum in quolibet genere est causa omnium quae sunt post.  
As therefore the fruit of this Deliverance by his Resurrection was wholly ours, so should the acknowledgement too; as it was the greatest victory, so it should have the largest Panegyric. I read that the Grecian Churches, in memory of our Saviour's Resurrection, were continually wont from Easter to Whitsuntide, to use no compliment when they met but only this, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Christ is risen from the dead. It was the salutation which passed betwixt them, in stead of a God save, or giving the good time of the day, Christ is risen. And the others were wont to make no Reply, to thank them in no other Phrase than this, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 'tis true, to his Glory, and our Comfort, Christ is risen. O that this happy Meditation might so incorporate with our thoughts, that our sleeps and our wake, our days & our nights, our studies and whole discourse might be nothing else but Resurrection.  
We cannot in any lower gratitude discharge the obligation we owe Him, then to remember and mention this his Deliverance hourly, which was performed for his Glory, but our Good. God said he would get him honour upon Pharaoh, but Israel had the spoil, the fruit, the Deliverance: so Christ's was the War, but ours the Peace settled by that War. Peace with God, & Peace within ourselves, to calm all those distractions which from the apprehension of Death might arise to trouble us. Quare tumultuaris anima? Wherefore then shouldst thou be disquieted, O my soul? trust in God, for He is thy Defender, thy Salvation. Why shouldst thou be afraid to meet with that death which thy Saviour hath so tamed and corrected for thy sake, that 
* Debemus mortem peccato primi hominis, sed per eam perveniemus ad vitam aeternam. Aug. Tom. 10.  it is not now so much a punishment, as an Entrance to a better Life. — Lex est, non paena perire. Thou canst now no sooner cry with Saint Paul, 
Rom. 7. 24.  Quis liberabit? Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death? but thy Faith will make a sweet reply from this Text, Ipse liberabit, He shall deliver thee.  
Mercy presupposes Misery, 
3. Thee.  for Mala est causa quae misericordiam requirit, 
Augustin.  and a Deliverance presumes a danger. Both which misfortunes met in this one subject, to make Man's condition wretched and hazardous at once. I stand not to repeat the privileges which Man lost. Since the ruin of our first Father, we have no Story that is memorable but our Woes, wherein as we have much to grieve, so we have somewhat to boast of even from them. For they qualified us, they gave us a capacity to exercise the mercy of our Saviour. Filium Dei de Coelo traxerunt non nostra bona merita sed mala. 
Leo ser. 3. de Pentecost.  They were our miseries, our sins which drew down Christ from Heaven to Earth. O happy Day, when such a blessing as the Son of God arrived! and (I had almost said) Happy misfortune, which occasioned that Arrival! It had been a kind of pity (pardon the speech, which not envy to our well-being, but Honour to my Redeemer urges) for Man not to have been miserable, for then the rich mines of Christ's love never had been discovered, but like hid treasures, lain buried in ignorance, whereas now their discovery hath enriched Man's Fall with that Privilege, which the Angels that fell were denied. Those collapsed Spirits, like dying Stars, vanished into sulphur and darkness. Their ruin'd condition had no help from Christ to raise them up again; Whether it were because their sin was more unexcusable than Man's, who was Passive in his Mischance, being seduced by the Serpent, whereas they had no Seducers but Ambition, and Themselves: Or whether because as Pet. Lombard out of S. Augustine gives the reason, 
Petr. Lom. lib. 2. dist. 21.  Quia Angelica Natura non tota perierat, because the whole Angelical Nature fell not; though many fell in that Apostasy, yet many stood: whereas the whole Nature of Man was lost in Adam's depravation, I will not dispute. Certain I am Christ suffered not for the Angels that fell, but only for us Men and for our Salvation. The Angels that stood had this benefit by Christ's Passion, that they were confirmed in their blessed State, so that they could not fall (as some hold.) Passio Christi hominibus redemptionem, Angelis confirmationem in suo statu dedit. Homo lapsus erigitur, Angelus stabilitur ne cadat. But those that fell away received none at all. 
Psal. 8. 6.  The Psalmist says, God in his Creation made Man a little inferior to the Angels; but Christ by his Redemption advanced Him above many that once were Angels. He suffered those that fell to convert into Devils, choosing out of Man's ruins to repair and make up their Number again. As he took not Angels, but the seed of Abraham; 
Hebr. 2. 12.  so he delivered not Them but Man. 
Hebr. 1. 13.  For unto which of the Angels did he at any time say, that which he daily speaks to the meanest soul that sues to Him, He shall deliver thee from the snare of the Hunters.  
From Snares and from Hunters? 
From the Snare of the Hunters.  Ergone nos Bestiae? 'tis Saint Bernard's Quaere, Are we turned Beasts? Bestiae prorsus, yea (saith he) undoubtedly Beasts, both by the confession of the Psalmist, who compares Man to the Beasts which perish; and by the evidence of our own Nature. The Verdict of our own Sins finds and concludes us Beasts. Our wild untamed Appetite which never yet could be empaled within the bounds of Reason or Religion, by any Laws of God or Man: Our brutish Affections, and headstrong Passions have transformed us into all the Savage shapes which the world ever produced. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. 
Isidor. Pelus. l. 2. Ep. 135.  Rebellious as the unyoaked Ox, and like the Horse (in jeremy) neighing after forbidden Beds; like the Lion in Fury, the Ape in Affection, the Wolf in rapacity, the Bear in Gluttony, and the Swine in Drunkenness. Certainly when man hath thus metamorphosed himself, when He is become a wilderness stored with such strange beasts, it is not strange, when his Vices have made him such store of game, if Toils be pitched to take, or Hunters pursue him.  
'tis Hieroms Observation that this word Hunter is ever taken in the worst sense thorough the Scripture: They were the worst Men who were reputed the best Hunters, Nemrod whose style is a Great Hunter, 
Esay 32. 2.  and Lamech, and Ishmael, and Esau. The Prophet could not find a fitter Appellation for Tyrants, then to call them Hunters, and in jeremy God threatens his disobeying people that he would submit them to many Hunters. 
jerem. 16.  The Ringleader of which Band is the Devil. He is the chief Ranger, and his circuit or walk the whole World, 
1 Pet. 5.  which he compasses, seeking whom he may devour. The Prey he hunts for is the very best and choicest the world yields, Cibus eius electus, 
Abacuc. 1. 16.  the souls of Men, whose destruction is his Sport. A Murderous sport, 
john 8. 44.  worthy of him who was a Murderer from the beginning. To which purpose his Bows are bend, and his Arrows ready upon the string to shoot at such as are upright in heart. 
Psal. 10. 2.  The Dogs accustomed to this Chase, are, the same that worryed Actaeon, our own violent passions and Sins. Saint Ambrose names the whole Pack: 
Ambros. Ser. 11. in Psal. 118.  Persequitur avaritia, persequitur Ambitio, Luxuria, Superbia, Fornicatio: Ambition, Riot, Pride, Lasciviousness, and Avarice; These are the Dogs of Chase that never suffer us to rest. To make good which Metaphor, he brings the Apostles Text, Flee Fornication, Nàm quâ causâ fugeres, si nullus te persequeretur? Saint Paul would never bid thee Flee, 
1 Cor. 6. 18.  did not these make hot pursuit after thee, being still maintained and encouraged by the Devil as their Huntsman.  
It was this same Hunter, who upon the old quarrel betwixt the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman, followed our blessed Saviour from the day of his birth, first casting off Herod's Bloudhounds, that drew all judaea for Him; to avoid whose cruel Inquisition, He was fain to fly to Egypt, and take cover there: By which avoidance, when that Cry was at fault, when that Persecution ended with Herod, upon whose death He returned from Egypt into his own Country, the Devil singled him out again in the Wilderness, where Three days he tempted him, 
Matth. 3. 1.  seeking to surprise or win Him by promises. Which failing, he attempted to circumvent Him by the wit and fallacy of the Rabbins, 
Matth. 22. 15.  Sophisters of his own instruction. But when both these, and all else he could do, was defeated, He finally unkennelled the whole multitude of the jews; 
Psal. 21. 17.  Circundedêrunt me canes multi, Many Dogs than came about Him, whose mad, unsensible malice being set on by the Priests and Scribes, never gave Him over, but like Hounds in full cry, whose mouths had learned no note but Crucifige, Crucify him, Crucify him, they ran Him from the Common Hall to Caluary, where they killed Him in view; Hanging Him upon the accursed Tree, as a sad Spectacle to God, and Angels, and Men.  
The very same Hunter who in this manner Butchered Him, seeks hourly to make his Prey of us, arming the hand of every Persecution, and suborning all the Temptations, Wit or Invention can press, to make us, who are the members of Christ, taste the same Cup of bitterness which He our Head then did. Only here is our comfort, that as the Devil in pursuing Him, foiled himself, was taken in his own malicious snare, so the Protection of God will arm us so, that all his fiery Darts, like harmless drops of dew, shall fall from us; that He, who hath sealed his servants in their foreheads, 
Reu. 7. 3.  hath imprinted also that victorious Motto on their souls, Non prevalebunt, The gates of Hell shall not prevail against you. 
Matth. 16. 18.   
Do but observe how in every Action performed upon our Saviour, the Devil wounds himself: In admitting His Body into the Earth, he contrived and let in his own ruin. As the Trojans made themselves guilty of their City's Sack, by receiving the Horse within their Walls, which poured out so many armed Bands into their streets. In wounding Him he healed us: 
Esay 53. 5.  For by his stripes are we healed. In that bargain and sale which judas made, he signed the Acquittance for Receipt of our Ransom. In the Crown of Thorns, and Robe of Purple He delcared our Triumph. In giving him the Vinegar tempered with Gall, 
Psal. 69. 21.  He fulfilled the Prophecy. And with the Spear piercing his side, let out two Sacraments, Baptism, and the Sacrament of his Blood, as sure Seals to confirm unto our souls the Truth of our Deliverance. Magna potestas, magna gratia, quae imperat Diabolo ut se ipse destruat! 
Ambros. lib. 1. de Poenit. cap. 15.  'tis Saint Ambrose his holy Ecstasy. O wonderful power, but more wonderful mercy of our Redeemer, who thus retorts the Devil's malice, making him in his own Assaults destroy himself! Well may he persist to invade our frailty by his Temptations, which we cannot decline, our whole life being nothing but a long temptation (as Saint Chrysostome calls it,) but yet he shall not captivate, or conquer us by them, God's grace having instilled this fortitude into us, that we may say Disrumpamus vincula eorum, We will break the bands in sunder, 
Psalm. 2.  wherewith he would entangle us, He shall deliver Thee from the Snare of the Hunters.  
This Snare 
Snare.  is our sins, and those sins weaved and made up by the practice of the Devil, who by suggesting the delight and opportunities of sin takes us in our own Net. 
Marc. Eremita.  One calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Net wrought with many subtle threads, made of as many cords as there are Vices. Funibus peccatorum suorum unusquisque constringitur. These are Cords (saith Solomon) Cords to bind us hand and foot, 
Prou. 5. 22.  and make us sacrifices for the pit of Darkness. It is the misery of Man that in no place is he secure from these Snares. Destruction like a warder lies at his doors, and rather than He will want danger, he lies in ambush for Himself, for Corpus ipsum laqueus, 
Bern. in Psal. 90.  His own body is like a Net cast over the soul, which entangles her, & restrains the freedom of her faculties. When Man sins, and by excuse strives to diminish or defend the sin, like a Fly caught in the Spider's web, the more he struggles to get out, the more he implicates himself; He that hopes to make good one sin by another, does ill, and seeks to mend it by a lie, draws Esayes woe upon himself, 
Esay 5.  Iniquity with Cords, and ties the knot so fast, that nothing but judgement and the Sword can cut it asunder.  
A beleaguered City is not so streitly hemmed in, as Man is environed at every Port of his Five Senses, which are attempted by several Assaults of the Devil. Ligat omni vitiorum genere, ebrietatis, consuetudine voluptatum desiderijs etc. 
Hilarius in Psal. 118. pag. 47.  He seeks to involve us, not only by habitual sins, whose long custom hath made us familiar with them, but upon all emergent Occasions brings us acquainted with new Crimes. He bribe's the Eye to wound the Heart, and by those windows of our bodies He throws in Lust like wildfire; For the cure of which Fever in the blood, he sends us to such a strange Physician, whose remedy is worse than the Disease. You may find her Character taken by the Wiseman, 
Ecclesiastes 7. 28.  Inueni amariorem morte mulierem etc. A woman whose Heart is a snare, and her Arms like chains, to captivate the sinner; Thus the bed is a snare, and the board too, Mensa laqueus, Our Table is become a snare, 
Psal. 69. 22.  to betray us to riot and excess: Our Ambition entangles us in those affairs which ofttimes ruin us. And our Abundance, our Wealth, is but a vicious Steward to take up sin at any rate. 
Tho. Aquin. in 1 Tim 6.  Tentant & inducunt in alia peccata: Riches ill employed are but like Bawds, to procure those costly Vices which meaner fortunes cannot purchase.  
It was not therefore without just cause that Solomon termed Riches a Snare. The Apostle calls them a Temptation, 
1 Tim 6. 9  and a Snare too. The desire of them bewitches and ensnares the soul in the cares of the world, and the indirect ways by which they are ofttimes compassed, are as Gives and Fetters to clog the Conscience.  
How many be there, that to compass an inheritance on Earth to bequeath to their Posterity, sell away their interest in Heaven? How many be there that live by Cozenage, and thrive by Oppression, that like Plagiaries make it their trade to hunt and catch men; building their own fortune, like a City founded in Blood, upon the ruin of others? yet are so far from recognition of their sin, that with those in the Prophet, They sacrifice unto their Net. 
Habac. 1. 15.  They glory in their Art of circumvention, taking all ways that lead to profit for safe and Legal.  
I pray God that within this City there be not too many of this sort, that there be not amongst her several Mysteries too many Nets of this making. 'tis Saint Ambrose his rule, 
Ambros. in Psal. 118. Ser. 14.  Laquei sunt ubi est usura & dolus; Wheresoever Extortion or Deceit harbour, there are Snares. (A learned Spaniard interprets the Snare here to be nothing else but Cozenage E●ganno.) And the Prophet David makes his Report, 
Psalm. 54.  Vidi laqueos iniquitatis & contradictionis in Civitate; I have seen these Snares of Iniquity and Deceit in the City. I would fain believe (as I wish) this City were no part of his Survey. For I come not to upbraid, much less to accuse you, no not so much as upon the common fame. Though some may be guilty, God forbid I should prejudicate all; I dare say many are not. The utmost of my scope is only Admonition, that they, which practise such Arts, desist. Et Resipiscant à Diaboli laqueis, 
2 Tim. 2. 26.  and by a Repentance untwist those Nets which the ancient Deceiver of Mankind hath wrought to deceive them with.  
I am glad for your sakes (as Christ told the Disciples upon the death of Lazarus,) that I may truly use that language to your City, which the Spirit did to the Church of Thiatira, Though I could say some things against Thee, Yet I can say some things for Thee too, 
Reu. 2. 20.  Novi opera, I know thy works, and thy love, and thy service, and thy deeds of piety, that they are more at the last, then at the first. Your good works daily amplified by the addition of Benefactors, stand to your Honour, not only upon Record, but public view, all eyes being able to bear you witness, that you have not been only careful to see the bounty of your Predecessors employed the right way, according to the pious meaning of the Doners, but as Heirs to their goodness, as well as to their fortunes, you have adorned their Monuments, and provoked by their happy Examples, upon their foundations you have raised more stories of Charity, enlarging your own fame no less than you have enlarged your Munificence.  
Your Bridewells for the employment of idle persons.  
Your Hospitals for the entertainment of the Aged and Nursery of Orphans.  
Your Spitals for cure of the diseased.  
Your Bethelem for the distracted.  
Your Pesthouse for the separation of the sick: as necessary a servant to your City as any; though the narrowest piece of all your Beneficence, considering the number which in an infected time throng thither.  
All these, as they have ennobled you to the whole Christian world, so, I trust, they have endeared you and your City to the care and preservation of God, who no doubt will largely repay upon your succeeding Generations the charity in these kinds expended for his sake.  
Since therefore your goodness is imprinted in so fair a letter, that men not only may see and read, but have cause to glorify Him who is the Author of all goodness, for you his Instruments, since your good deeds are grown into such a story, 'twere much pity, but more shame, that any foul notorious sin should deface or blot so fair a Catalogue; That any loud clamorous sin of Oppression, or the cries of Men undone by Extortion, should drown the prayers of those many Orphans, and distressed people, unto whom your liberal Alimony gives just cause to solicit Heaven for all blessings upon you.  
Let me then beseech you for your own sakes, as you regard your own peace and the prosperity of this City, that if any where amongst your treasures you find Pretium sanguinis, any unjust unconscionable gain, wrung from the throats, or extorted from the calamities of others; If you there find the Orphan's Patrimony, or the Widow's Dower, throw it out, as the Priests did the wages of judas, for these are also the price of blood. 
Mat. 27. 5, 6.  The living of the poor is his life. 
Ambros. lib. 2. office cap. 16.  Cave ergo ne intra loculos tuos includas vitam pauperum, & tanquam in tumulis sepelias. Take heed therefore how you make your chests Cemeteries to bury men quick, lest they become Gulfs to swallow you too; and like true Tombs, cause the golden body of that Saint which lies there enshrined to crumble into Dust, and become nothing before the next Generation comes to possess it. Upon such Tombs as these S. james hath wrote the Epitaph, Divitiae vestrae corruptae; Howle and lament ye rich, 
jac. 5. 2, 3.  for your riches are corrupt, your gold is cankered. There is a secret judgement which like an East wind blasts the Owners and dissipates ill gotten gains: like a worm at the Root, it smites both the Tree and the Branch, causing the fruit to become like the Apples of Gomorrah, which posterity shall no sooner touch but it shall fall into ashes. For to speak truth, how can that Father think the inheritance he leaves should be long lived, when together with the estate, the sin by which he got it is entailed upon his Heir?  
And again, Not as a Party, but merely an Adviser, let me beseech you upon no less obligations than God & your Souls; as you tender the favour of God and peace of your Souls; If when with Peter, you let slip your Nets upon those waters, where you may freely trade for profit, you chance to enwrap amongst the common Shoal of gain, Quae Dei sunt, (as Christ calls them) any thing that belongs to God, any part of his or his Churches due, let not any such gain land at your houses, enter it not into your Audit, nor account that amongst your Supers, which is your Onus, and will prove a burden to your Conscience. If by mishap any such light into your Net, throw it out again, it is Merces operarij, 
jac. 5. 4.  The hire of the Labourer, the wages of your Minister, restore it back to its own natural current. As Fishers when they have taken any Royal game present it to the King, 
Luc. 20. 25.  so Reddite Deo, redeliver it to God, for — Res fisciest ubicunque natat. The detaining of it may prove dangerous, 
juvenal.  and in the end confiscate you. Certainly, the advantage by it is not sufficient to counterbalance the damage. A little of this leaven may sour your whole lump; and but one foot of Churchland taken into your estate, like the King's Waste, may alter your Tenure in God's blessings, and bring your whole fortune into Wardship. Those that be peccants in this kind, let them not ever trust to their smooth sailing. Though their advanced Prow beat off all suits that dash against them, like water, yet let them know, the least defraudation of God is Sacrilege, and Sacrilege is a lading which in the end will sink the best and ablest Bottom. Undoubtedly as God for the just payment of his Tithes promises a plentiful Harvest and full blessings, Inferte omnem Decimam etc. 
Malac. 3. 10.  & probate; Bring ye all the Tithes and prove me etc. so the wilful detaining may exasperate Him, in stead of freeing you from Snares, 
Psal. 10. 6. Ezec. 38. 22.  to rain Snares upon you, and to plead against you with Pestilence and blood, (as he threatens by Ezekiel) bringing that danger upon you, which else he will surely deliver you from, the Snare and the Noisome Pestilence.  
The Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, literally from the terrible Word. Symmachus reads, 
And from the Noisome Pestilence.  Calumniarum sermonem, the speech of Calumny; and Euthymius, verbum perturbationum, for there is no greater perturbation to the mind then slander. Death attired in his ugliest shape appears lovely to Detraction. How many be there that with more equal temper could endure the sword of the Executioner, than the sword of the Tongue to wound and traduce their Fame? How many be there unto whom a burning Fever is not so torrid, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the scalding tongue of a Railer? 
jac. 3. 6.  The sting of the Scorpion is mercy to the black tooth of a Backbiter, whose fangs are like envenomed Arrows, and under whose lips the poison of Asps. No disease is so incurable as this, no Plague more dangerous. S. Augustine plainly calls a Detractor the Pestilence. 
Pestilentia est hamo malus detractor. Aug. Hom. 10.  The burned unwholesome Air which corrupts the blood whilst the Dogstar reigns, is not so pernicious as the rotten breath of slander, which casts a leprous scurf upon the whitest reputation, and bespeckles even Innocence itself.  
Hoc verbum asperum tu sustinuisti Domine. ('tis S. Bernard's sweet Meditation.) 
Bernard. in Psal. 90. Ser. 3.  This sharp kill word didst Thou blessed Saviour sustain for our sakes. By falsehood wast thou betrayed, and by perjurious witnesses belied to the most shameful Death, that Thou mightest deliver our souls from that which is verbum asperrimum, the most kill word, the voice of judgement pronounced upon impenitent sinners, Go ye cursed into everlasting fire.  
I fix not upon this Interpretation, though very warrantable, but follow our English Translation, which justly agrees with the Hebrew, From the noisome pestilence; which literally imports that contagion a Schooleman defines to be Morbus venenosus vel lues bominum, a sickness which usually is to all and hath lately been to us so mortal. Thus Lormus also out of Authentic Copies reads it, A peste pessima seu quâlibet pestilenti, or de peste aerumniosissimâ. The Chaldee paraphrase is, 
Chald. Paraphr.  de Morte atque Tumultu, from Death and Tumult, which I take to be a just Periphrasis of the Plague, that being of all others the most tumultuous kind of Death. Since, like a furious Torrent that bears down trees and houses, it sweeps whole Families, whole streets, nay whole Cities, insomuch that the living have not been sufficient to bury the dead. 
Tho Walsing. Hist. Angl. Ed. 2. p. ●●8. A●nal. Stow pag. 218.  Such a Mortality as this was there in the ninth year of Edward the second. Nor is it only tumultuous in regard of the Numbers that die, but in regard of their Burial too. When every Churchyard is made vallis Mortis, the valley of Death, and the bodies piled and built one upon another, 
job 5. 26.  make (in jobs phrase) a rick rather than a Grave, where, for want of earth, one coarse is covered with another.  
Which must needs beget this Epithet, Noisome, putrify the Air so much, that (as Solinus reports of the Lake Avernus and the dead Sea, whose steam kills all that draw it in) birds flying over those Cemeteries have dropped down, and Men that sucked it up, like children overlayed by their Nurses, have been empoisoned by that Air which nourished them.  
Kingdoms and States are called Bodies, because Metaphorically they are so: The King is the Heart, the Counsel the Brain, the Magistrate the Hand. And there is this true Accord betwixt those Political and the Natural Bodies, that they have distempers like us, their Agues that shake them, their sicknesses and their Deaths too. As there is an appointed Time for Man upon Earth, so for all Man is Lord of. Empire's have their Periods, and those Periods to them as Graves to us. Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, which successively buried one another, the last Suruiver, as Executor to the rest, inheriting all that the Three first had, show that Monarchies sicken, & like Men die, sometimes of Age, oftener of Wounds. It hath been observed that one whole part of the Earth hath been sick at once. For in the years 
a Walsingham Histor. Aug. Ed. 3. pag. 168.  1349. and 
b Stow Annal. pag. 664. Euagrius Histor. Eccles. lib. 4. cap. 29.  1579. an Epidemical sickness ran thorough all Europe. But Euagrius writes of a Plague that overspread the whole World. To speak more directly, some diligent Observers have delivered it as Dogmatic, that particular Cities have their Critical Days, their Climacterical Years, and that most constantly.  
Every third year (saith Boterus) is a 
Boterus de orig. Vrbium lib. 2. cap. 7▪ & 11.  climacterick, dangerous and fatal to the Grand Cairo in Egypt, in which three hundred thousand commonly die of the Plague: And the fifth or seventh to Constantinople, the Mortality costing her scarcely fewer than two hundred thousand. Our Land, and in it our Metropolis, London, our Mother City hath, like jerusalem, mourned in the Dust for the calamity of her Children, and death of her Inhabitants. We have had our Climacterical years, as well as other places. Some have noted the Twentieth or thereabouts to have been mortal to us, which though it hath held currant for these two last Visitations, I draw not into conclusion that it should still hold. I think rather the whole Land sensible of the loss of her DEBORAH, and our late most gracious SALOMON of ever blessed Memory, whose Exequys deserved a lamentation not less than that which was made for josiah in the valley of Hadadremmon, 
Zach. 12. 11.  to perform rites worthy such Funerals mourned in Death, shedding Lives in stead of Tears.  
For any other cause, certainly I am persuaded, it is not in the discretion of Nature to diet herself, to set out her sick days, no more then to appoint her well, but merely in the direction of God, who uses her but as his handmaid, to effect his purposes, when and how He pleaseth.  
It was one of Manes his fanatical 
Epiphan.  dreams amongst many others, that a certain Spirit in the air called Messor, diffuses that contagion which breeds the Pestilence. His drift was only to establish that Diabolical conclusion of his concerning his Two beginnings, 
Aug.  one whereof produces good, the other bad, and so to join an other Power in commission with God. And surely they that impute Gods judgements to Nature, and because they are able to trace an Infection to the first Body that died, or can distinguish betwixt a contagion received Per contactum, from other bodies, or occasioned by an infected Air, conclude a Pestilence to be nothing else but a Malignity of course, proceeding from an ill conjunction of Planets, or the concurrence of some other disaffected causes in Nature, derogate from God, and are in a fair way to Atheism.  
I can by the help of Philosophy and observation assign some probable reason of the Earthquake or Thunder, defining the one to be a vapour included in the body of Earth, which with struggling to get out shakes it; and the other to be but the collision of two Clouds, and in them the contestation of two repugnant qualities, whose strife begets that fearful Blow. But yet if I look not beyond Nature, if I apprehend no Power beyond these that directs and forms those fearful judgements, I might justly fear to be the next mark at which those judgements should aim, to be swallowed up, or to be Thunderstruck. Let not Sophistry or Philosophy deceive you, let them not lull you into a security to make you fearless of God's anger, by fathering his judgements upon Chance and Nature. There is no judgement, as there is no Mercy, wherein you may not discern Digitum Dei, the hand of God directing it, be it Wind, or Storm, or Hail, 
Psal. 103. 21.  or Lightning, or Infection, all are but his ministers to fulfil his will.  
The Pestilence is his Arrow. 'tis called Sagitta noctu volans; 
Vers. 6.  directed against his People either for disobedience and breach of his Laws, as Deuteron. 28. 21. or for Pride. For David's presumption to number the people, 
2. Sam. 24. 15.  God abated Seventy Thousand of his number by the Pestilence. Or for unjust Avarice, 
Ezek. 7. 15.  for Extortion or Simony. Or for Lasciviousness, by the example of Sodom drowned in Mari pestilentico, and turned into a Lake. Or for Gluttony and Excess, as Numb. 11. 33. Whilst the flesh was yet between their teeth, the wrath of the Lord kindled, and smote the people with an exceeding great Plague.  
Nay it hath yet a nearer dependence upon His will, insomuch that it is called Manus Dei, the hand of God; so Exod. 9 3. 15. and jeremy the 21. 5, 6. 
2 Sam. 24. 14.  And David making choice of the Pestilence rather than of any of the two other punishments there proposed unto him by the Prophet Gad, accepts it in this Phrase, Let us fall into the hand of the Lord. Now as none but his bow can shoot this Arrow, none but his hand manage this heavy judgement, so no hand but His can cure the Wound which it makes: He woundeth, 
job 5. 18.  and he bindeth up again: Ipse liberabit, He shall deliver Thee from the Noisome Pestilence.  
Pliny writes that Locris and Crotone were never infected with any Plague; other Historians and Travellers, 
Mr. G. Sands Relation, lib. 2. pag. 97.  that as the Plague in Egypt and Barbary rage their fixed Time, so also they decrease at their day. It commonly slakes in Egypt when Nilus overflows, at Aleppo, when the Sun is entering into Leo. 
Dier. Genial. lib. 1. cap. 6.  Alexander ab Alexandro reports, That a great Mortality was stayed in Rome by the Investing of a Dictator. And Thucydides says, 
Thucid. lib 2. Bel. Pelopones.  the greatest Contagion which ever broke out in Greece, was cured by the advice of Hypocrates the Physician, who caused them to cut down all their woods and burn them, by which Action the Air was purified, and upon that success they would have made Hypocrates a God. 
Lactant. lib. 2. de Orig. Erroris. cap. 8.  Lactantius mentions a like Cure performed by Aesculapius the Physician, upon Rome, sick of this Mortality.  
I know Physic and Industry have wrought admirable effects amongst the Heathen, and amongst us. But I shall never Deify the Physician for the Medecines sake. 'tis God's permission to the one, God's Blessing upon the other which enables all means of recovery. Salubrity of Air is His Gift; shift of Places, smells to prepossess the Senses, but for Him had been unbeneficiall. Our best Cordials and Antidotes, should His Mercy contribute nothing to their working, would invert their Nature, and become Poisons. Help I am sure they could not, nor had they helped us, we had still languished under the tyranny of this Noisome Disease, had not He made Man's industry prosperous for recovering of some, and for the general safety of all, 
2 Sam. 24. 16.  said unto his Angel, It is enough, stay now thy Hand. Just cause then have we all to praise Him in this Panegyric, Ipse liberavit, He hath delivered us from the snare of the Hunters, and from the Noisome Pestilence.  
That I may now look towards my Conclusion. 
Conclusion.   
You see how copious the Redemption of the Lord is, how his Deliverance extends itself over all dangers; there is no Buckler either to bear off the Darts of Satan, or fury of an Enemy but this: there is no Amulet to resist or cure infection but this. So that Deliverance is a title of which God hath just cause to be jealous. No Rival must share in this glory; He is the prime Actor, other Men or Means but merely his Instruments, his subordinate Ministers. Mihi vindicta, 
Hebr. 10. 30.  is God's Motto, Vengeance is mine, I will recompense, and He speaks it in as loud a phrase, Mihi misericordia, Mercy is mine, 
Rom. 9 15.  I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I can never then sufficiently wonder at that Church, who hath not only Mangled His Titles to distribute them amongst the Saints, but have done that which the barbarous Soldiers would not, Divided the seamles Coat of his Passion, and with Saints Merits Patched the entire Garment of our Salvation. Imparting the highest Deliverance that ever was wrought, that Deliverance to effect which He was delivered into the hands of sinners; That Deliverance which with many stripes and wounds He purchased; That Deliverance which He earned as Adam did his bread, by the sweat of his brow, and the labour of his hands: He sweat for it in the Garden, and He bled for it upon the Crosse. This Act of Deliverance have they maimed, some amongst them daring to affirm, that Christ hath not so satisfied for all, 
Rhem. Test. Annot. in Rom. 8. ●7.  but that each Man must suffer and satisfy for himself in particular, so the Rhemists, which must either conclude Invalidity and Insufficiency in Christ's sufferings, or injustice in God, who for one Offence will be paid twice, first by the Surety which is Christ, & then by us who are the Principal Debtors. 
jesuit. Catechis. lib. 1. cap. 10.  Others broaching it for truth that Christ died not for both Sexes, was not the Saviour of Women, but Men only. An Assertion of Postellus the jesuit, who in Paris put forth a book entitled the Victory of Women, wherein he writes that one jane was sent from God to be the Saviour of Women. Contrary to the purpose of Christ, who Died for All, gave himself for All: and directly opposite to the meaning of God, 
Levit. 14.  who at the cleansing of the Leper commanded them to offer Lambs of both kinds, 
Isych. lib. 4. in Leu. cap. 14.  Male and Female: Ex utroque genere proptereà sacrificium Offerri praecepit ut ostendat quia Christus pro nobis occisus simul Masculum Foeminamque saluabit: To show (as Isychius excellently infers) that Christ died for both Sexes, Women no less then Men. But a third sort to justify their praying unto Saints, by a learned trick Divide the Office of Christ's Mediation amongst them, and by this Distinction of Mediator, Intercessionis and Redemptionis, defeat Him of half his right. They confess that Christ only died for us, and so became our Redeemer, but every Saint is an Intercessor to solicit God on our behalf. A Position which the Apostle plainly contradicts. Our Redeemer and Intercessor are both one. 
1 joh. 2. 2.  We have but one Intercessor (saith he) one Advocate with the Father, jesus Christ the Righteous, and he is our Redeemer, the Propitiation for our Sins.  
If they have parted this great Stream of Deliverance, which concerns the salvation of our Souls, you cannot wonder if with more confidence they multiply Deliverers for the Body, if they cut that River by which Health and Temporal safety are conveyed unto us, into as many lesser Currents as the Thorns opened Rivulets of blood in our Saviour's head, certainly I think they have exceeded the comparison. Old Rome had Tutelar Gods for every Province, and Household Gods for every Family. Gods for every Office, for the Farm and for the Field, for War and Peace, for Sea and Land, for Disease and Health. And New Rome hath created as many 
a Hinc nòn minor ferè extitit Divorum famulantium turba, quam Deorum quondam apud Romanus. Rivius l. 1.ae Superf●it.  Saints to fill those Offices, as formerly they had Gods. They have a Guardian Saint for every place; for their Cellar and the oversight of their Ale, Lewis a Minorite 
b Rivius loc. cit. : for every Season, for every Trade, for Fuller's and Cobbler's. For every Creature, even for their 
c Heur. Steph. Apolog. Herocot. cap. 38.  Hogs. For every 
d Sohn. de Cultu Dei Thes. 90.  Disease, even to the Toothache, for that cure Apollonia: for the falling-sickness S. Valentine. And as if there were no Balm in Gilead, they fly to S. Roche and Sebastian for remedy from the Pestilence  
Blessed be God that neither their Saviour's, nor Saviouresses, nor the efficacy of strange Mediation is any part of our Creed. We dig no new Cisterns (like those in jeremiah) but fill our Pitchers at the Well of Life Christ jesus: Imputing our Mediation and Redemption, our Deliverances Temporal and Eternal to Him alone.  
Though by many seducements Rome like the Bramble in jothams' Parable, 
judic. 9 15.  hath invited us to repose under Her Shadow, yet by the mercy of God we have not yet betaken ourselves to any other shelter but of Him and His Christ. We yet dwell (and I beseech God we still may) sub umbrâ Altissimi, under the shadow of the most High. 
Psal. 90. vers. 1.  Blessed is that People that abide under it. Thou shalt not be afraid for any Terror by Night, 
Vers. 5.  nor for the Arrow that flieth by Day; 
Vers. 6.  for the Pestilence that walketh in Darkness, Quoniam Ipse Liberabit etc. For He shall Deliver Thee.  
Should we forsake this Shelter, of all other Nations we were the most unthankful. Never did any People, since his Elect Israel, receive such liberal Testimonies of his Love, or taste so many Deliverances as we have. Whether I understand by the Snare, Clancularias inimicorum machinas (as Marlorat 
Marlorat.  interprets it) Privy Conspiracies plotted by Domestic Traitors to supplant us; or public Invasions by foreign Enemies, the Literal Plague of Disease and Noisome Pestilence, or the Metaphorical Plague of Sin, Dangers of the Body, or of the Soul, 
Calvin.  Sive clàm occultis artibus insidietur nobis Satan, sive aperto Marte nos oppugnet paratum fore Dei auxilium. Amidst all these difficulties we have found that his Faithfulness and Truth hath been our Shield and Buckler. 
Vers. 4.   
We may justly engrave upon the Pillars of our State, the Prophet's Inscription; When thou passest thorough the waters I will be with Thee, 
Esay 43. 2.  that they do not overflow Thee, and when thou walkest thorough the very fire, Thou shalt not be burnt, nor shall the flame kindle upon thee.  
When Spain rose up like a Flood (as jeremy 
jerem. 46. 8.  speaks of Egypt) and like a Dragon in the Sea (it is Ezekiels' comparison) troubled the waters with his Fleet; 
Ezek. 32. 2.  when every ship was ballasted with destruction, and the pregnant sails swelled with fury more than wind. 
Esay 43. 14.  Thus saith the Lord your Redeemer, the holy One of Israel; for your sakes have I brought down (that Sea-built) Babel. They were all fugitives, and the Chaldaeans cried in their Ships. He smote that Multitude, whose pride was higher wrought than the Seas that bore them, and by the Breath of his rebuke made them fly like dust before the Whirlwind. 
Esay 17. 13.  Every Billow chase them, and as it were, having them upon the Execution, till at last the Rocks became their Monument, and the fierce Northern Sea, their Grave.  
Again, when the malice of some English jesuited pioneers sought to undermine the Kingdom, to blow up both Prince and People with Gunpowder, He snatched us like Brands from the mouth of the Furnace, and by discovering the bloody Trap, Delivered us from the snare of those Fowlers, 
Psal. 124. 7.  The Net is broken, and we are escaped.  
And now lastly, when a contagious Sickness, like a vulture, fed on many parts of the Land, but chiefly on your City, a Disease which I cannot better describe then in Cyrils' words, 
Cyrill. Alexandr. Glaphyr. lib. 3. de Leprâ.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. A Disease greedy and cruel, that devoured all ages and Sexes without pity or distinction; making a promiscuous Prey upon the Shepherd as well as the Flock; and in contempt of Cure, with the same wound striking the Physician into the grave with the Patient. In this late dreadful Time when Death held his solemn Triumphs amongst you, and the Grave even glutted with the dead, like a bad stomach, sent up unwholesome smells to annoy the Air, finding herself unable to overcome the bodies she had swallowed, so narrow was the stomach (I mean the burying Places) and so great the Multitude that daily cloyed it. When every house was endorsed with Death or Desolation, the Inhabitants either extinguished, or fled; and the Sanguine Cross set upon the door, Not like the sprinkling of the Paschall Lambs blood upon the Israelites gates, 
Exod. 14.  in Egypt, for that was a Covenant of life, but like a fatal Calendar bare witness of the sad days, which the miserable dwellers were forced to compute, shut up from the comforts and society of Men, and Lying at the Mercy of such an Enemy as would allow no Quarter; but ofttimes emptied the whole house. Who was it that Delivered you from this Enemy? Was it an Arm of Flesh, or was it any other than that Power in my Text? No. Ipse liberavit, He was the Deliverer.  
He delivered you from that Danger, and that beyond Hope; A very few weeks saw Death's Computation abated from Five Thousand Two hundred and five to One. Though the storm were very violent, yet it lasted not long. Though it took away Great Numbers, yet compared with what it had done formerly, and (unless thus happily prevented by God) might have done now; it will appear a gentle Visitation. Our Chronicles mention a Plague An. 21. of Edw. 3rd, 
Tho. Walfingham Histor. Anglic. Edw. 3. pag. 168. Annal. Stow. pag. 245.  so violent that it made the Country quite void of Inhabitants, there being scarcely any left alive: 
— Funestos reddidit agros 
Virgil. Georg. 3.   
Vastavitque vias exhausit civibus urbem.  Neither did He accompany this Visitation with those Calamities which have wasted other parts. Eusebius relates a Plague in Greece, in the Time of Maximinus, which bred such Desolation, that the impoverished Country endured a Famine more grievous than the Plague, 
Euseb. Eccles. Histor. l. 9 c. 8.  such a Famine, as constrained the Noble Matrons to go a begging for relief, and so enfeebled the woeful Inhabitants, that they lay gasping in every Angle of the Streets, Ad solam hanc vocem proferendam validi, Esurio, Having no strength, nor voice, nor spirits left, but only to profess their Hunger. 
* Histor. Angl. Edw. 2. pag. 108.  Tho. Walfingham mentions such a Famine that accompanied the Plague in this Land.  
But God was more merciful then to scourge You with Whips strung with these Two Scorpions at once, Plague and Famine. Neither did he prolong your punishment, making you Lie long under his fearful strokes, as other Places have done. Philostratus reports a Plague in his Time, which lasted Fifteen years; 
Euagrius lib 4. Histor. cap. 28.  but Euagrius trebles the Time. He writes of one that continued Two and fifty years. I may ask with the Prophet, 
* Nah. 3. 8.  Numquid melior est Alexandria? Is London better than Alexandria? or England less sinful than Greece? No, but God's Mercy was more abundant, more speedy to us, Dating his heavy judgements to as few weeks, as the least of those Contagions lasted years. He hath Delivered you, And He hath Delivered you so soon.  
Not to weary you (yet how should you grow weary at the Repetition of God's Deliverance towards you) He Delivered many of you that stayed at home. And whereas Volateran treating of the Cures of Pestilence out of Titus Livius, 
Volateran. l. 24. pag. 579.  delivers this Maxim, Nullum huic unquàm remedium adhibitum praeterquàm fugae atque secessus; That nothing could keep off the Plague but shift of Place; He controlled that Position, making your own infected houses safer to you, than others Country houses, or the clearest Air to which they could retire.  
And yet He Delivered you that fled too, by staying the hot pursuit of your Enemy. For though you went from the infected place, you could not have outgone his judgement, that could have overtaken you. I told you the Pestilence was called the hand of God, and God's hand could have reached you at any distance, had not He sanctified your flight. 
Euagrius loc. cit.  It was observed that in the great Plague at Greece, if any to avoid the Infection had removed into some City of safety and better Air, they only died that thought by flight to shun it. But God dealt not so with you, He blest your Flight, your Secession, your Removes.  
Neither hath He in them only blest you, but in your return also, bringing your Tribes back again into your City, uniting all her scattered Lines unto their proper Centre; and assembling them in this very place, from whence the growing sickness this last year frighted you, making you translate the solemnity to another Place.  
And He doth still deliver you by continuing this His Deliverance, whose fruits are Health and Safety unto us all. For though the Mortality be now happily stayed, yet let me tell you, it is rather as yet Slumbered then Extinguished. 
Seneca.  Non desunt venena sed torpent. There are bad relics enough to awake it again. In bedding or garments infected there is Contagio residua, a lurking, residuous contagion, able to cause a Relapse no less fearful than the late Disease. Though it be raked up in Ashes, yet amongst these Ashes there be some sparks, which now and then discover themselves, that may raise the Flame as high as ever. God grant that either our own Security, in adventuring too soon upon Things or Places that yet may retain Infection, or especially our foul sins, which show we have forgot God so soon as his Rod is taken off us, do not kindle His Anger freshly against us, lest we be utterly consumed.  
Last of all, that I may trace Gods merciful Deliverance even as low as the Grave, He hath delivered those that died by this contagion; some of them from their pressing wants and exigencies, more grievous than Death, A peste aerumnarum, (as junius and Tremelius read it.) Others from Toil and Servitude, but all of them from a wretched sinful life, so putting a Period to many calamities, many furrows, many discontentments, by one Death.  
And He hath yet a future Deliverance for us, later than that which was their last; not only from Disease, which is the Bailiff of the first Death, but from Sin which exposes us to the danger of the second Death. That greatest Deliverance in whose purchase He bled, and for whose Assurance He rose again. The Deliverance first of our Souls from our sinful Bodies, when Death by giving Nature a Bill of Divorce, shall sever them from each other, and they must take several Sanctuaries, one above in the Bosom of Abraham, the other in the Bosom of Earth. And then the final Deliverance of those Bodies from the Earth again, unto whose custody they were committed, when by a new indissoluble union, they shall be remarried one to another, and both together united to their Head Christ jesus, by which union they shall be married to the joys of His Kingdom, unto which in their Election they were contracted.  
On this Assurance, as on a Rock, rest all our comforts. We shall not need to fear, what can become of this Earthy stuff we bear about us in our Bodies, since our Souls like Gedeons' lamps shall burn bright when these earthen Pitchers are broken. And what ever Fate shall break these Pitchers, these Bodies of ours, whether the violent hand of an Enemy, or a fiercer Disease, an Higher hand will recollect the scattered Relics of our Frailty, and by infusing nobler qualities of Glory and Incorruption, 
1 Cor. 15. 33.  (for this corruptible must be invested with incorruption) make them in stead of Clay, vessels of Honour, fit for his Kingdom. So long as by our Faith we are allowed a recourse unto this precious Balsam, Death can look grim in no dress, nor Deaths most fearful Executioners affright us. The very name of Resurrection so sweetens the bitterness of Death, that enamoured on the joys it leads to, we have rather cause to court, then fear it. Whether we perish by the sword, a Peace softer than Rest shall close our Wounds: Or whether by the Pestilence, this thought shall abate the horror of that Noisome Disease. 
Petrarch. de Remed. utriusque fortu: lib. 2. Dialeg. 92.  Quid est quod pestis nomen exhorreas? cum potius solatij genus sit ut comitatior moriaris. It may appear a Comfort, rather than a Calamity, to fall with a Multitude. That company, that communion in Death shows us, through a sad Perspective, the joyful communion of Saints, unto which we in the next life shall be admitted. And although like a tempestuous Autumn, it shakes us by heaps into our Graves, our Extraction will be more orderly, in better Method than was our Burial. For unusquisque suo ordine, we shall Arise in Order. 
1 Cor. 15. 23.  That confused tumultuous kind of Death, shall not disguise us from the knowledge of our Maker, who will distinguish each Bone, and give it to the right Owner. Nor can the deepest dungeon of Earth, the lowest Grave detain us, since our Deliverer will be our Bail. He that hath the Keys of David, keeps also the Key of our Prison. By that Master-key He will unlock our Graves, those doors of Mortality, and with it will He open the everlasting doors, giving us our entrance into Heaven. After which happy Resurrection, we shall live, not sub umbrâ altissimi, under the shadow, but in the bright Sunshine of God's presence, and the comforts of his Spirit, and the fruition of our Redeemer, who is both our Resurrection and our Life. Amen.  
FINIS.